HANSARD 1803–2005 - 100 years ago today

LONDON ELECTIONS BILL., Lords Sitting of 8 November 1909

1909-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

HL Deb 08 November 1909 vol 4 cc497-531

[SECOND READING.]

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

LORD DENMAN
My Lords, as this is a Bill of considerable importance, I must ask the indulgence of the House for a few minutes whilst I endeavour to outline its main provisions. The object of the Bill is a very simple one. It is to confer on the electorate of London the same right of successive occupation which the electors of other great cities, such, for instance, as Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow, already enjoy. To those members of your Lordships' House who have contested Parliamentary elections the term "successive occupation" is no doubt a very familiar one, but as the majority of the members of this House have not had that experience, I may, perhaps, be allowed to explain what the expression "successive occupation" means. It is this. Where a voter in a Parliamentary borough changes his residence to another part of the borough, even although that part is situated in a different Parliamentary constituency or division, he retains his vote; but in London when a man changes his residence from one Parliamentary division to another or from one borough to another, he loses his vote. Say, for example, that a man changes his residence from Dover-street to Jermyn-street or from Bond-street to Piccadilly; he then loses his vote for at least one year and possibly even for nearly two years, according to the time when the removal is effected. And this brings about this very curious anomaly, that a man when he changes his residence, while retaining his vote for county council elections, borough council elections, and guardians elections, yet loses it for Parliamentary elections. Surely, my Lords, it is really an absurd and wholly indefensible thing to say to a man that he shall retain his vote for borough council, county council, and other elections, while he loses his vote for Parliamentary elections, and it is this really extraordinary anomaly which this Bill seeks to rectify.
Let me take the example of what takes place in another great city. I will take the case of Liverpool with which the noble Earl opposite. Lord Derby, is much more familiar than myself. In Liverpool there are nine divisions—Kirkdale, Walton Everton, West Derby, Scotland, Exchange, Abercromby, East Toxteth, and West Toxteth. A man can change his residence as often as he pleases in any of those divisions, and he yet retains his Parliamentary vote. London is divided into twenty-eight different boroughs, and a man by changing his residence will lose his Parliamentary vote for from one to two years. The object of this Bill is to make the law practically the same in London in this respect as it is in Liverpool. Therefore, I think it will be admitted that there is really no startlingly novel proposal in the principle of this Bill, and I do not think any member of this House, however much he may dislike His Majesty's present Government, will be able to detect even a taint of Socialism or the germs of revolution within the four-corners of this very modest measure. For really what it does is to bring London into line with the other great cities of this country with regard to this matter of successive occupation.
We have been charged elsewhere with an attempt to gerrymander the London constituencies in favour of the Liberal Party. [Ironical cheers.] I am grateful to noble Lords opposite for their kindly encouragement. But I hope I may be believed by some members of this House when I say that that is not the case; that the object of this Bill is, as I have stated it, to remove disabilities with regard to this matter of occupation which the electors of London, and practically of London alone of our great cities, suffer under at the present time. There are one or two other arguments which I would like to cite as showing that a measure of this kind is really due to London. In the first place, one has to consider that a large proportion of the London population is a migratory population. I am told removals amount in some Parliamentary divisions to as much as thirty per cent. of the population. In 1908 the revision of the lists in Camberwell revealed the fact that in Camberwell in 44,000 separately assessed hereditaments there were 32,000 cases of removal. I do not say they were all cases of removal from that particular Parliamentary division, but I quote it to show that the population of many Parliamentary divisions in London is largely migratory in its character. There is also this fact to consider, that the proportion of voters in the metropolis as compared with the population is less than that in the rest of the country. On the 1907 register the proportion of voters to population in London was 144 per thousand. For the rest of the United Kingdom it was 176 per thousand. I think these figures show that very disadvantageous treatment is meted out to London under the present system of registration.
This injustice—for it really, to my mind, is an injustice—we propose to remedy under Clause 1 of this Bill by creating London a Parliamentary borough. Were that to take place it would have these two very important effects. In the first place, elections in London would take place on the same day; and, secondly, the number of plural voters in and around London would be very greatly reduced. First of all, with regard to holding elections on the same day, that is already the law with regard to municipal elections; it has been found, I understand, to work well, and I submit that holding Parliamentary elections on the same day would result in less confusion and less dislocation of trade than the practice which obtains at present of holding those elections on different or on successive days. There are somewhere about 800,000 voters on the register of the London County Council. There are some 600,000 on the register of the Parliamentary divisions of a corresponding area. The London County Council elections are all held on the same day and no inconvenience arises from it, and therefore I think it is fair to conclude that the same practice would be equally convenient for Parliamentary elections.
Now with regard to plural voting, this Bill would, of course, restrict the plural voting powers of persons residing in London. But I would ask the House to note this fact. I do not use it as an argument for the Bill, but I want to put quite frankly before the House what the effect of the operation of the Bill will be. Whilst restricting, as I say, the plural voting power of persons residing in London, the operations of this Bill will allow a considerable number of persons living outside London but having qualifying premises in London to obtain the right to vote in London which they have not hitherto possessed. That comes about in this way. In order to be registered as the occupier of an office in a Parliamentary borough it is necessary for a man to reside with in seven miles of that borough. Thus, I will take the case of the Strand. In order to vote for business premises or an office in the Strand, the voter must reside within seven miles of the Strand. If, as would be the case under this Bill, the division of the Strand were merged into the much larger Parliamentary borough of London, then the distance of seven miles would be measured from the new boundary of the Parliamentary borough of London, and therefore that would include a large area which is not included at the present time. Take the case of a person living, for example, in Richmond who has also business premises in the Strand. At present he has not a vote in respect of his business premises in the Strand, but if this Bill were to pass he would have an additional vote for the reason which I have just stated.
While I am on the subject of plural voting, I should like to quote what the late Mr. Gladstone, speaking some seventeen years ago in the city of London, said on this subject. He used these words— The case of London is a very peculiar case. No place suffers as London Buffers from the defective state of the law. It suffers more than any other place from plural voting. The constituencies of the metropolis are bloated on the one hand and starved on the other; bloated by the plural vote and starved by the fact that successive occupation does not run throughout the whole area of London. We all know that in these days many noble Lords opposite and even many noble Lords on the Cross Benches, profess a high regard for the authority of Mr. Gladstone. May I suggest that they will have an opportunity of proving it this evening. We may also be told by noble Lords opposite that what this Bill proposes to do can be done, or ought to be done, in a Redistribution Bill. I hope I have shown to the House—I have done my best to do so—what a very serious anomaly does already exist in this matter of successive occupation in London, and for my part I cannot understand the frame of mind which admits of the existence of an anomaly, but yet which refuses to remedy that particular anomaly because it is impossible for the moment to remedy other anomalies which we also know to exist elsewhere.
As the principle of this Rill is contained in Clause 1, I do not think it is necessary for me, at any rate now, to go further into details or attempt an explanation of the other clauses of the measure. And I am not encouraged to do so by observing on the Notice Paper that a Motion for the rejection of the Bill stands in the name of a noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite. I think I might be entitled to use an argument which is sometimes used against us, when it suits them, by noble Lords opposite with regard to the Division Lists of another place. I might point to the fact that only fifty-one members of the House of Commons were found to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, and only twenty-nine against the Third Reading; or I might endeavour to emulate an example that was set during the debates on the Irish Land Bill by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkinson, who in an eloquent speech on the subject of congestion pleaded for the long line of congests waiting at the door of this House for relief from their unhappy plight. I think I, too, may be entitled to plead for the long line of London electors, thousands of them, waiting at the door of this House in expectation of relief from the disability with regard to the franchise under which they suffer at present through no fault of their own.
But I fear that arguments from this side of the House will be of little avail, and that this measure, so modest in its scope and moderate in its provisions, will share the fate of many other Liberal measures, and will shortly be done to death by noble Lords opposite, and we on this side are Powerless to do more than register our protest against this proceeding. But before I sit down I must say this. I regret to notice that a Motion for the rejection of this Bill stands in the name of the noble Earl opposite, Lord Derby, a representative in this House of a family connected, if I may say so with all sincerity, by long and honourable traditions with the great city of Liverpool, for in putting an end to this Bill he will deny to the electors of the metropolis that privilege which the electors of the city of Liverpool already enjoy; and I would like to ask him just one question. I have no right to ask him a question, but perhaps during the course of his remarks he will be so courteous as to give me an answer. Would he approve of a man who changed his residence from, say, the Everton district in Liverpool to the West Derby division losing his vote for eighteen months or two years for doing so, and, if not, why does he refuse this privilege—it is not a privilege it is a right—why does he refuse this right to the electors of London? I beg to move.

Moved, That this Bill be now read 2^a.—(Lord Denman.)

THE EARL OF DERBY, who had given notice, on the Motion for the Second Reading, to move that the Bill be read 2^a this day three months, said: My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships long in moving the Amendment that stands in my name, and that for several reasons. In the first place, the noble Lord who has introduced the Bill has left it already in what I might call a dying condition, as he has evidently, perhaps rightly, forecasted its early demise. In the second place the arguments that apply as against this Bill are already well known to your Lordships, because it will probably be within your Lordships' recollection that about three years ago my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn in this House moved the rejection of the Plural Voting Bill. He did so in what was known as a reasoned Amendment, asking your Lordships to reject the Bill because it was piecemeal legislation, because it destroyed ancient landmarks, because it altered the compromise arrived at between the two great Parties in 1885 with regard to the franchise of this country, and because it at the same time was not accompanied by a redistribution of seats. I hold that every word that applied to the Plural Voting Bill applies with redoubled force to the Bill now before your Lordships' House, because while that was piecemeal legislation, this is only a fragmentary piece of piecemeal legislation.

I shall follow the noble Lord's example and not go into any of the details of the Bill. I shall deal only with the principle; and as I believe in your Lordships' House, as in another place, the principle is dealt with on the Second Reading, and only the principle, I hope I shall be in order in confining myself to that. Now what is the ostensible object of this Bill? The ostensible object of the Bill is to make it easy for a man who changes his residence to take, so to speak, his vote with him—that his vote should be part of his household furniture, and that wherever he goes that vote should go with him; and it is held that there is especially in London an injustice owing to the great number of changes that undoubtedly take place in residence during the course of a year. I dare say there is a bigger proportion of changes of residences in London than in other parts of the country, but I doubt whether it is so very large as some noble Lords may think. I therefore hold, although I quite agree that there may be a hardship in London, that it is also a hardship which applies with equal force all over the country; and if the only question was to do away with that period of disfranchisement which is said to exist for two years—I never could make out how that calculation is arrived at—if that is the ostensible reason, if that is the real reason for bringing in this Bill, it could easily be remedied by a one-clause measure applicable all over the country, and which I venture to think your Lordships would be only too willing to accept. But that is not the real reason.

The noble Lord who introduced the Bill was frank enough to tell us that the real reason was to do away with plural voting in London. It is the Plural Voting Bill which was intended for the whole of the country and which was rejected by your Lordships' House made applicable only to London. The noble Lord in introducing this Bill spoke of it all through as an enfranchising Bill, as a Bill for giving votes. He absolutely ignored the fact that while you are giving votes, while you are allowing the easy transfer of votes to men who are continually changing their residences and who may be looked upon, perhaps, as having the least interest in the constituency in which they live, the Bill at the same time disfranchises thousands of voters who, having two residences in the present area of London, are entitled to vote in both places, and can be held, I think rightly, to have more stake in the country than those of the changeable and migratory order. The noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, when he spoke against the Plural Voting Bill, referred to the cynical humour of the author of that measure, Mr. Harcourt. The author of that Rill is the author of this Bill, and the cynical humour is just as apparent in this Bill as it was in the other; and it may be a curious coincidence which rather emphasises the humour, that the Second Beading of this Bill was taken in another place immediately after the transfer of a vote in London from Mr. Harcourt's side of the House to the other, and the Second Reading in this House is taken immediately after a similar process also in London. I have no doubt whatever in my own mind that Mr. Harcourt, whose knowledge of Parliamentary organisation is of the kind that what he does not know is not worth knowing, sees in this Bill a chance of getting through, under the guise of making the transfer of votes easy, a Bill which will disfranchise many thousands of those who, perhaps rightly, he holds to belong to the opposite Party to himself.

The whole principle of this Bill is contained in the first clause, which makes London one borough. In the words of the noble Lord who introduced the Bill, and who incidentally paid a great compliment to Liverpool and Manchester, it is to bring London in line with Liverpool and Manchester. Now is there any justice in attempting to make of London one borough the same as in the case of the other larger cities of the United Kingdom? Do remember this, that none of those boroughs have ever been anything else but single boroughs. The whole of their Parliamentary existence has been as one borough, which as their population has grown has been gradually divided into more constituencies. On the contrary London has been diametrically opposite. London has always been from the very outset of its Parliamentary life a series of boroughs, and you now propose to do away with their ancient traditions. Your Lordships have of late years accentuated the fact that London is not one gigantic borough. Both Houses of Parliament have passed Bills that have divided London into boroughs and given to each of those municipalities the same organisation—mayors, aldermen, councillor—exactly the same in every single one of those boroughs as exist in the large towns in the United Kingdom You now want to abolish the whole of that and to make London one borough, and you do that only for the purpose of depriving those who have plural votes of the extra votes to which they are at present entitled. You are going, you say, to remove an anomaly, but while you remove one anomaly by this Bill so far as London itself goes, you create another by depriving the dual voter in London of a vote which, if you compare like with like, is possessed by similar persons in other parts of the country.

You cannot, it seems to me compare London with a town like Liverpool or Manchester. You must compare like with like, and if you do that, let me just show what the effect of this Bill will be. The noble Lord said that I knew Liverpool well, and asked whether I would like to deprive those who change their residences from one constituency to another of their votes. No I should not; but I should like to make it equally easy for men all over the country who change their places of residence to take their vote with them. Compare Liverpool with any area in London which contains the same population. If your Lordships will take the trouble to look at the figures you will find that there are exactly the same number of Members for Liverpool as there are, not for the whole of London, but in the one part which is known as the Tower Hamlets. Surely, if you endeavour to put both on the same footing, you must look at like with like. I will continue that still further by asking you, if it is a question of distance as from one constituency to another, to test on a map of this country the area that London as you would now create it would occupy if put down in another part of England. I will give the noble Lord two cases. Let him put down the area of London where Birmingham now is and he would find that it would comprise not only Birmingham but five Parliamentary boroughs, not to mention the county constituencies which intervene. Then let the noble Lord put down the area in London where Manchester now is. He would there find that it would cover not only Manchester but seven other boroughs. I could go on giving your Lordships instances; but Liverpool is surely an example that may be worth quoting. A man lives in Westminster and has his business, we will say, in Southwark. He has now two votes. Under this Bill he is to lose one. A man lives in Liverpool and has his business in Birkenhead. Under this Bill he is not touched, and he will still have his two votes. I do not know that there is any difference between the two. One river is a little broader than the other, and I do not think it is much dirtier; otherwise there is no difference between the man who lives in Liverpool and has his business in Birkenhead and the man who lives in Westminster and has his business in Southwark.

I know perfectly well that the answer will be, "If we had our Plural Voting Bill that we asked for three years ago that anomaly would not exist." Yes; but you did not have your Plural Voting Bill of three years ago. It was rejected by this House. We are always told when your Lordships throw out a Bill that there is going to be a conflagration; but I noticed that there was no deep commotion caused by the rejection of that Bill. That Bill was rejected on the advice of my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn. He asked your Lordships to reject for the whole country what I now ask your Lordships to reject for London in particular. I cannot pretend to speak with anything like the weight or the influence of the noble Viscount, but I hope I have been able to show to your Lordships that this Bill is not a Bill for enfranchisement, but a Bill for disfranchisement. It is a Bill for introducing into the limited area of London the principle of the Plural Voting Bill which your Lordships rejected three years ago.

Amendment moved— To leave out the word 'now' and to add at the end of the Motion the words 'this day three months.'"—(The Earl of Derby.)

LORD WELBY
My Lords, from long experience on the London County Council I have come to the conclusion that this Bill is a very desirable measure in itself. I see in it the completion of measures which have already been passed by Parliament in order to consolidate London and to make the capital of the Empire what it ought to be, one great consolidated city. I heard with very great regret the speech of the noble Earl opposite in which he moved the rejection of the Bill, and I cannot help feeling that the arguments, forcible in themselves, which he put forward with great moderation, did not really touch the root of the subject with which this Bill deals. I know it has always been said by opponents of a measure like this, and it has been repeated on the present occasion, that London is different from other cities, that it is not a consolidated city, that it is not fitted to be a consolidated city, that, in fact, it is a loose confederation of municipalities with no common interests, and, therefore, that those separate municipalities may be treated as separate units with no claim to a common government of any sort or kind.
The noble Earl called attention to the Act which was passed by the late Government creating the borough councils, but it struck me that there was a very considerable omission in his allusion to that matter, because he never mentioned a very important measure—probably the greatest measure affecting London that has been passed within the last century—the Act which created the administrative County Council of London. The County Council of London was brought into being by the Party opposite. It was, I believe, a very wise measure, for it realised the fact that these different districts of London have common interests, that it was necessary to provide for those common interests, and that that could only be effected by having one unified London. I venture to think that that Act of the Conservative Party, which I believe to have been an extremely wise one, is an effective answer to the arguments which have just been addressed to your Lordships by the noble Earl when he maintained that London did not permit of being made a unified city, and when he pleaded that the different municipalities and districts of the metropolis were absolutely independent of one another. The action of the Conservative Government in passing in the year 1888 the Act to which I have referred established the fact that all the districts of London have common interests, and that those interests can only be provided for by a common government; and the creation of the borough councils, so far from being an argument in favour of the breaking up of London is an argument entirely in a contrary directtion, inasmuch as they were created merely as subordinate authorities, entrusted, and rightly, with the management of their own local affairs, but subject to the control of the London County Council and forming part of the great central administrative county.
I cannot help feeling a little surprised at the line taken by noble Lords opposite in speaking thus disparagingly of the Capital of the Empire. I cannot understand how noble Lords who most consistently argue as to the dignity and duties of the Empire should make it their object to, if I may venture to say so, degrade the Capital of the Empire, to deny practically that there is a Capital of the Empire, and to argue that that Capital consists merely of a number of loose confederated municipal boroughs. But, further than that, I do venture to think that the policy of the Conservative Government in the Act of 1888 and in subsequent measures has been an extremely wise one. The effect of that Act has been to go a very long way in obviating a great danger which was threatening London—namely, the creation of cities of the rich and cities of the poor—and in teaching the richer districts that they have some connection with the poorer districts and impressing upon the public mind that the richer districts have not only a material but a moral interest in the welfare of the poorer districts. I would ask this question: If that policy of 1888 was a true one, if it was good policy to create a central consolidated administrative county of London, if it was desirable to give to London in that respect consolidated government, can the Party that brought in that measure bring forward any valid argument against the slight extension of the principle which is proposed in this Bill?
The noble Earl opposite has referred to the Plural Voting Bill that was rejected a few years ago by your Lordships' House. That was a Bill to put an end to plural voting generally; but in this case is it not the fact that London is put to a great disadvantage compared with cities such as those of which the noble Earl has spoken? There are very few chances of plural voting in the cities to which reference has been made, but it is the fact that a man may have thirty-six votes in London. Of course, that is an extreme case, but a man in London may have the power of qualifying under the various qualifications and so obtaining that number of votes. For a long time past it has been the general policy of Parliament to put an end to plural voting within a borough or within the same constituency. London alone, for some reason or other, has been left outside that provision, and it seems extraordinary that noble Lords opposite should contend that what is good in that respect for Liverpool and Manchester for some reason or other should not apply to London. There is no question whatever that the existence of plural voting in London is a matter which puts London to a very great extent at a disadvantage in regard to other parts of the country—perhaps I ought not to say a disadvantage, but it creates an anomaly against London which I think it is very difficult for noble Lords opposite logically to defend.
If we pass to the other important question dealt with by the Bill—successive occupation, which I think the noble Earl opposite has spoken of, I will not say contemptuously, but has rather passed by as unimportant—I venture to think that a disqualification which has been found by an analysis of the voting in five London boroughs to amount to a loss of 10,000 votes out of 160,000 is no light disqualification, and that the evil of which we complain is one that needs an early remedy. Nor can I see that there is any ground for saying that in order to remove these anomalies we must wait for a general measure. These anomalies are patent, they are very easily removed; they are anomalies which it is impossible for noble Lords opposite logically to defend; and I therefore cannot but express my great regret that noble Lords opposite should feel it necessary to perpetuate those anomalies for objects which I think at all events are quite insufficient, and for which up to the present no valid reason has been put forward.

LORD FARQUHAR
My Lords, it is with great diffidence that I venture to address your Lordships on this occasion, but my excuse must be that I feel strongly the injustice of this Bill, the rejection of which has been so ably moved by the noble Earl, Lord Derby, with whose arguments I entirely concur. I do not see why London should be selected and treated differently from every other part of the country, and why the Government should, by this Bill, deprive the citizens of London of their votes in the constituency in which they carry on their business. It would be turning business into a burlesque by arriving at the farcical position that the Parliamentary representatives of the city of London, the greatest banking and commercial centre of the world, would be elected, not by the great bankers, financiers, merchants, and trades people, but by their caretakers and watchmen. That would be degrading London.
I have been connected with London municipal affairs ever since the existence of the London County Council; I had the privilege of introducing the Bill for the creation of the borough councils into this House, and I know something of the feeling in regard to the present Bill. I can safely say that besides the City Corporation seven-eights at least of the banking, financial, mercantile, and tradesmen's communities in the metropolis are strongly opposed to the Bill. I would like to know what evidence there is to show that there is any demand at all for this change which would place the London elector on an inferior basis to that of an elector in all provincial boroughs. Such an act of injustice as is proposed would only go to increase the want of confidence now existing in the city of London caused by the Socialistic tendencies of the present Government, and especially those of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which so seriously threaten the credit and financial supremacy of our country.
It is this point, a some what indirect one, I admit, which has influenced me most, although I agree most cordially with every argument used by the noble Earl who has moved the rejection of the Bill. If we look at the price of Government, railway, and industrial stocks of this country, and make inquiry as to the markets in these stocks, we find that what used to be large and active markets are to-day small and lifeless ones, and that the holders of these stocks have difficulty in realizing them, even at a sacrifice, to re-invest in foreign securities, the dividends on which are payable abroad. Millions and tens of millions are being sent out of the country for this purpose which will never return in any shape. No wonder at such a moment the Government would like to confiscate the votes of the citizens of London, who are sure to record them for their destruction, and mostly for the reasons which I have ventured to lay before your Lordships. This Bill is really a Party attack on the stronghold of Unionism, and, should it pass, it would be a great injustice to, and against the will of an overwhelming majority of the people of London.

THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON
My Lords, I listened attentively to the speech which has just been delivered by the noble Lord opposite, who, I think, was under a misapprehension as to the Bill we are discussing. At the commencement of the proceedings this evening a First Reading was given to the Finance Bill, and I think the noble Lord's speech would have been more appropriate at that time than at the present moment. We are not discussing now the question of taxation, but we are discussing a question of equal importance to a very large number of our fellow-countrymen. Both noble Lords who have spoken against this Bill seem to me to have lost hold of the most important principle of the measure. Are we in favour, or are we not, of continuing the policy which was initiated by the Conservative Government in 1888 in considering London as one whole?

THE EARL OF DERBY
One county.

THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON
The other large cities in the United Kingdom are one for municipal and Parliamentary purposes. London alone differs. We have in London one municipal unit, but not one Parliamentary borough, and that is what we are asking you to grant by this Bill. It was not the Liberal party who brought about the existence of the London County Council. The London County Council possesses larger powers than any other county council in the United Kingdom; it not only has all the great municipal functions, but it has the right to collect and spend the larger part of the rates. The London County Council is practically the municipality of London; and I cannot understand why noble Lords opposite should lose sight altogether of the great importance of having this unit in the Capital of the Empire, just as much as we have it in other cities. London was made one for municipal purposes by the Unionist Government. And may I say that it has been very rare when a political Party has taken a high-sounding name for a political purpose that it has had the chance of proving its right to that name in such a short space of time as was the case when the Unionist Government passed the Act creating the London County Council?
We are referred to Birmingham, Manchester, and Salford, and it is said, Why not do the same thing for them? But the circumstances are totally different. We support this Bill coming before your Lordships for one purpose and for one purpose only—to obtain for London what every other large town has obtained. It seems to me that any one who is in favour of every qualified inhabitant of London having the power of exercising his vote at general and by-elections must be in favour of the principles of this Bill. Will any noble Lord get up and say that he is opposed to that principle? It is that which we are going to bring about by this Bill. I should like to deal with one or two of the objections that have been raised. The principal objection has reference to plural voting, and the chief reason why noble Lords have come down to this House to-day to destroy this Bill is that by it plural voting would be done away with in the area of London. I believe that is the sole reason of the objection of noble Lords opposite to this Bill; because I do not fancy for one moment that they object to the voter if he is qualified having the power to record his vote. I do not believe any single noble Lord opposite wishes to disfranchise any inhabitant of London, but they desire to preserve the plural vote, and that is the only reason for their opposition to this Bill.
Now, as regards the plural voter, we are told that the Government have introduced this measure not for the sake of carrying out the principle which I have ventured to lay before your Lordships, but for the sole purpose of gerrymandering and in some way gaining seats in London. I am aware that when that statement was made before it was met with cheers, and I am wondering whether it will ever be possible for noble Lords opposite to believe that there are some honest gentlemen in the Liberal Party. I support this Bill considering myself as responsible as any member of the Government as far as that charge is concerned, and I will say this, that I consider it would be just as fair, although I would not do it, for me to stand up in this House and accuse noble Lords opposite of dishonest conduct or gerrymandering, or whatever it may be called, because they oppose this Bill thinking it may lose them some seats. We ought not to have any idea in our minds as to whether one bit of London goes to one Party or another. That, in my opinion, is a small matter. I think that the Party opposite have a political supremacy in the constituencies in London. I have never looked upon London as a Liberal city. I have had some experience, because I contested a division and I also sat on the London County Council for some years. I believe that if you had to give some political title to London you would have to call it Tory-Democratic. London is to my mind instinctively Conservative. I have regretted that fact many a time. I do not believe there is a question of your getting one seat or losing one seat, or of our gaining or losing a seat. Londoners will settle that for themselves. I do not believe the abolition of plural voting would make much difference as regards the representation of the constituencies.
I want to get away from the Party point of view altogether. This ought not to be, and I do not believe it is, a Party Bill. It is a Bill to give justice to those who are disfranchised at present when elections take place, and it gives the possibility of holding all elections on one day, which is of supreme importance to the trade of London. As regards convenience and everything else this Bill would be a blessing to us all. I shall probably be told that, after all, nothing can do away with the point that we have introduced this Bill for some sinister Party motive. This House is rapidly gaining for itself a reputation, which it did not formerly have, of attacking subjects and measures from a purely Party point of view. There, is nothing more regrettable—and I believe noble Lords opposite will agree with me—than that the two great political Parties in the State should be so unequally divided in this House. It is because we are so unequally divided, because we who sit here are in such a small minority whilst noble Lords opposite are in such an overwhelming permanent majority that I think you ought to be a little more generous to the minority in the accusations which you bring against them. If I thought for one moment that His Majesty's Government had introduced this Bill simply in order to try and win a few seats, I for one would at once separate myself from them and would be one of the first to denounce them. But it is because I believe that the Cabinet is composed of men as honest and straightforward as any members on the opposite side of the House, because I know them as my personal friends to be perfectly honest, straightforward gentlemen, that I refuse to think for one moment that this is in any sense a Party measure and I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading as a measure of justice.

THE EARL OF DARTMOUTH
My Lords, as one who for a good many years represented one of the constituencies in London and who was returned on four separate occasions as the representative of the borough of Lewisham, which is so often quoted in this connection, containing, as it does, a population of 127,000, I desire to oppose this Bill. The noble Marquess who has just sat down suggested that the sole objection we have on this side of the House is on the question of plural voting. I will give him another objection. I refer to the manner in which your Lordships' House has been treated in this matter, of which I think we have a right to complain. If this Bill is of the importance that the noble Lord who moved its Second Reading and the noble Marquess who has just spoken appear to think and if there is this great injustice done to London as a whole, why is it that we only get the Bill on the 8th of November?
I think when we consider how the Bill has been treated in another place we have a right to complain. The First Reading was moved under the ten-minute rule, and if it had not been for the impassioned speeches to which we have listened in this House we should have thought that it was one of those elaborate jokes so dear to the family of Harcourt, carefully elaborated in their home and reproduced for the edification of the House of Commons. The First Reading took place in April, the Second Reading in June, and it is needless to remind your Lordships that the Second Reading was closured. One of the stock charges always brought against those who sit on this side and who agree with us is that we are always pressing for redistribution. I take it that until redistribution comes we shall always press for it. Mr. Harcourt in another place accused Sir Henry Kimber of being so obsessed with a desire for redistribution that if anybody had brought in a Bill for the revision of the Book of Common Prayer he would have moved for a redistribution of the Ten Commandments. There is no necessity for any redistribution of the Ten Commandments now. That has already been done. So much prominence by recent events has been given to the ninth commandment that it has assumed a position of importance which was never intended by the original framer of the Decalogue.
Then we come to the next stage of the Bill—the reference of the Committee stage to Grand Committee. The Bill was sent to Grand Committee in spite of a distinct pledge given by the late Prime Minister that no measure of that kind should be so treated. In the discussion that took place in the other House the present Prime Minister said that no measure such as this was in the mind of the late Prime Minister when he gave that promise. I wonder how he knows that. The only explanation I can suggest is that he has obtained this knowledge by adopting a system to which reference has been made and by which a good deal of support is supposed to be obtained for other Government measures—by the assistance of Mr. Stead and the Julia Bureau. I venture to say that where a pledge is given the Party to which it is given has a right to say something when it is broken. I submit that the sending of this Bill to Grand Committee was a distinct breach of a pledge. Then we come to the Third Reading and the Report stage. That took place on October 18, and it is now on November 8 that we are asked to read the Bill a second time. I object most strongly to the Second Reading for the reasons I have given, and I object equally strongly on account of the measure itself.
I do not propose to go at any length into those reasons, but we have heard that the object of the Bill is to secure successive voting. Comparisons have been made over and over again with regard to London as an entity and to other large towns in the provinces, and it has been shown, I think conclusively, that there is no comparison; and, of course, as long as we have electoral boundaries any constituent who passes over those boundaries will lose his vote. Personally I should like to see this proposal as to successive voting given to the whole country and not to only part. The same with regard to polling taking place on the same day. That I believe to be a good thing, and I should like to see it extended so that every county and every borough recorded its vote on the same day. The noble Lord opposite, Lord Welby, compared the present Bill with what was done by the Conservative Government in the formation of the London County Council. These two proposals are hardly on the same plane. There is no intention on our part to disparage London, but we do not see why a man in London should alone be deprived of the undoubted right of plural voting. Those, I believe, are the principal objects with which the Bill has been brought in. As I have said, I do not for one moment believe that the Bill is necessary. I do not believe it is a good Bill; and putting Party feeling entirely on one side, and largely on the ground of the manner in which the Bill has been presented to your Lordships' House, I shall support its rejection.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, one form of argument has been used by the noble Earl who has just sat down which I think is somewhat novel, and I am not sure that it is very expedient. He told us what had happened to this Bill in the House of Commons. He did not say that it had reached this House too late to receive adequate consideration, because that obviously is not the case. So far as I know there is very little, if anything, for your Lordships' House to do for ten days or a fortnight to come. He complained of the Bill having been sent to a Grand Committee of the House of Commons. Is the House of Commons not to be permitted in the same way as this House is permitted to manage its own business in its own way and to conduct its internal affairs in its own fashion? On one former occasion I adverted to this subject, and I cannot help thinking there is some danger and some inconvenience, not to one Party or one Government only, in constituting ourselves censors and arbiters of the manner in which the other House chooses to manage its own business. Apart from that I am afraid that there is no use in prolonging the debate, because as soon as any Amendment to a Government measure has been moved from the Front Opposition Bench—I might almost say from any Opposition Bench—its obituary notice alone remains to be written, and obituary notices are proverbially short.
What is this Bill? It is not a Bill applying to the whole country and to all constituencies. It is an exceptional Bill, applying only to London, because the conditions under which Londoners vote are exceptional, and differ from those in other parts of the country. Can any one deny that, while London has a County Council transacting the business of the county, the whole of London is a city, one corporate whole? Lord Derby admitted—I think he is the only member of the Opposition in this House who has admitted—that there is a hardship. Of course there is a great hardship, which results in the disfranchisement of thousands of people in London every year through no fault of their own. He says that the same thing exists in other towns. With great respect to him, I think he is completely wrong. In all Parliamentary boroughs except London, all boroughs, that is, which return several Members of Parliament, electors in one part of the borough can remove to another part of the borough and yet retain their votes by the rule of successive occupation. In London they cannot. In every other town an elector can vote in respect of one qualification only, though he may have six or nine qualifications, and all elections in a borough take place on the same day.
In London there are fifty-nine constituencies returning members, and there are twenty-nine boroughs, the City of London excepted, and the City is the only one of them of which the municipal and Parliamentary boundaries are coterminous. In all others the boundaries overlap—in many of them to a very large extent. The consequence is that an elector loses his vote, for example, by moving from Bond-street to Piccadilly, though both streets are in the same metropolitan borough. On the other hand, if he moves from a street in the metropolitan borough of Poplar to one in Bethnal Green he preserves it. What can be the reason for maintaining anomalies of that kind? An elector who has offices in Bond-street, Charing Cross, and Parliament-street—all within a few yards of one another—may vote for three members of Parliament, but he can only vote at one County Council election. On the other hand, in the Tower Hamlets he may vote in five different borough elections, but only for one member of Parliament. What aggravates this mischief and anomaly is that Londoners move more freely and constantly from one part to another than do the people in any other part of the kingdom. I believe it is the case that in many of the constituencies thirty per cent. of the electors move in the course of a year. It is estimated that no fewer than 40,000 electors in London lose their votes every year by reason of this. That is the state of things which we seek to remedy.
The result, I agree, is that those who have plural votes within the area of London will lose all but one vote. That is the inevitable result, but that is not the object of the Bill at all. The object is to do away with the inconvenience, mischief, and injustice which undoubtedly exist in London. It has been recalled that Viscount St. Aldwyn moved to reject the Plural Voting Bill, and that the motion was carried in this House. We make no secret of the fact that we are against plural voting. At the same time, I cannot see how any parallel can be drawn between this Bill and a Bill that dealt with plural voting all over the country. This is exceptional in its character, dealing only with anomalies which apply to London.
It has been suggested that in order to remove those anomalies we should bring in a Redistribution Bill for the whole of the United Kingdom. That is a colossal task. The noble Earl was a member of the Government which attempted it in the year 1895, and the difficulties which arose at that time were such that, after adumbrating a scheme, the Government made haste to drop the Bill and to leave the subject alone. It is impossible to tack to a Bill of this kind a redistribution scheme even for London, but to do so for the whole of the country seems to me to be almost a reductio ad absurdum. I am sorry to have taken up so much time in the fruitless task of putting what I am afraid will be a very unsuccessful argument, as I have so often had to do before. For my own part I am heartily glad that the Bill should contain provisions having the effect of ending plural voting, but the main purpose of the Bill is to remove the anomalies I have described. Merely in justice the electors of London should be able to use their franchise on the same conditions as other citizens of the country.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON
My Lords, the speech to which we have just listened was, we shall all agree, moderate and cautious; but I do not believe that the noble and learned Lord is justified in his assumption that because an amendment has been moved from this side of the House, therefore whatever be the course of the debate the Bill would be rejected. But I think that the noble and learned Lord by the admirable speech which he has delivered has done much to minimise the issue which is before us and to direct your Lordships' consideration, not to the results of the Bill, which we are bound to consider, but to the objects of the Bill which exist in the minds of His Majesty's Government. The noble Marquess opposite justified those objects and called upon us for generosity. I do not think that those who have studied the speeches of members of the Government in the country have any reason to admonish your Lordships upon the subject of generosity. I believe there has hardly been a speech at the end of a session in which prominent members of the Government have not boasted before the country of the exceptional amount of legislation—and novel legislation—they have passed into law; and I think the noble Marquess and his friends ought to have had the generosity to admit that many of the Bills, which have been faulty to the last degree and have not received the support of many noble Lords opposite, have been put in order by this side of the House, and been given to the country in a much more effective condition than when they came to this House.

THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON
When I asked for generosity it was not in connection with the passing of legislation; it was in connection with defamation of character.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON
It is a little hard to tell us that we are never to see in what is so obviously, or seems on the surface to be, a Party gain—that we are never to see anything of the dictates of Party when one single question is taken out of all others, and when one only of the many anomalies existing in our electoral laws is singled out for redress. The noble Lord who introduced the measure said this was not, unfortunately, the moment when other anomalies could be redressed. I submit that this Bill is unique; that it violates every tradition on which reform Bills which have passed through both Houses of Parliament have been founded. Past measures have been national and universal; this Bill is local and partial. Past measures have added to the electorate and have been most careful of votes which were already given. Mr. Gladstone himself, in a most pregnant sentence, said, with regard to the Franchise Bill of 1884, that it did not interfere with the right already legally acquired, however illegitimate it might seem to be. But this Bill, while it undoubtedly, as Lord Derby pointed out, might by a single registration clause have given to all parts, of the country, with probably the universal consent of your Lordships, the enfranchisement which it proposes, this Bill is a measure of disfranchisement, and an exceptional proposal for London. There is no denying, moreover, that once on the Statute Book it would be made the jumping-off place for a further extension of the same principle to other parts of the country.
Then past measures which have been introduced have also preserved communities. I do not think that either of the great Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885 would have spared the smaller boroughs but for the fact that, as the introducer of each of them pointed out, the past tradition of Great Britain had been to represent communities and not to represent classes, to avoid putting one class against another. I believe this to be the kernel of our electoral laws. An American writer the other day pointed out, in a most studied and admirable work, that the reason that all classes in this country understand each other so well as compared to America and other parts of the world is that in matters like sport they are all engaged together and learn each others difficulties and become mutually acquainted with each other. If in a matter of that kind there is this gain, I ask your Lordships what is to be the result if you adopt legislation which is going to divide constituencies into rich and poor, which is going to prevent the east from joining hands with the west, to divide men whose interests ought to be in common, and separate sympathies which ought to be mutual? No greater change could be made in our electoral laws than if you force all employers to vote in one place and all employed to vote in another. That would be the effect of this Bill so far as London is concerned. In London, in the boroughs of long standing, there is a great deal of local patriotism, and blending them into one vast whole is certainly not likely to be conducive to that local life which was set up, not by the establishment of the London County Council, but by the formation of the borough councils with separate constitutions and all the appanage of separate constitution.
Past Bills have decentralised the administration of our electoral laws, and have trusted the local authorities. This Bill proceeds on the novel practice which seems to infect every Government measure at the present time of uniting all power, patronage, and responsibility in one official sitting in the neighbourhood of Westminster. In this case the over-worked permanent head of the London County Council is to be made responsible for the lists for an electorate of 700,000 voters—the largest electorate in the world—and I am surprised at the proposal to make one revising barrister responsible for the preparation of the whole of these lists. I sincerely hope that if the Lord Chief Justice ever has to name this one unfortunate individual he will see that he has some detective experience, for I notice that on the list for London there are seventy-nine men of the name of John Smith alone and forty-nine of the name of David Jones. How is any one man to take up in the centre the work which has always been done in the locality of separating men of the same name? I have only to state these facts to show how difficult would be the labour.
The noble Lord opposite, Lord Welby, urged that we should pass this Bill on the ground that London was a borough; but he made that appeal to your Lordships after he had spent some minutes in explaining how great was London as a county. If London is a county then obviously it is to be treated like other counties and other organisations which in the same compass have a large number of independent seats. The noble Lord opposite said, Why not redress one small anomaly. But there are anomalies in electoral law infinitely worse than those which have been referred to. Is it not an anomaly that you should have 103 members to 4,400,000 inhabitants in Ireland, while there are seventy-two members for 4,500,000 inhabitants of Scotland, and fifty-nine for nearly 6,000,000 inhabitants in London? But those anomalies remain untouched by this Bill. Again, half of the present House of Commons are elected by close upon 5,000,000 electors; the other half are elected by 2,000,000 electors. Is not that an anomaly worthy of the attention of His Majesty's Government? Again, the borough of Wandsworth has 27,000 electors, whilst the borough of Kilkenny has only 1,600. Is not that, too, an anomaly? Such is the distribution of electoral power at this moment that His Majesty's Government at the General Election obtained a majority in the House of Commons of 354, but, reckoned by votes, their majority should only have been ninety-four. If that had been the majority most of the Bills with which your Lordships have had to deal would never have been sent here at all. I ask your Lordships whether the anomalies used with such skill by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack are to be compared with those which I have just described under an electoral law which was pronounced by the late Sir William Harcourt sixteen years ago to be full of glaring defects, and which he said it was the business of a Liberal Government to amend, and amend sooner than later. I cannot help wishing that that strong pronouncement had been present to the mind of the First Commissioner of Works, and that he had not allowed his political zeal to outrun his filial piety.
The noble Lord opposite said that although the Plural Voting Bill had been rejected by this House, the people who would gain their votes by this Bill were appealing to your Lordships' House for justice. Where do we find that appeal? Have any Petitions been presented? There has not been a single Petition presented to this House in favour of the Bill. I believe three have been presented against the Bill. I cannot say that even in the appearance of the Benches opposite we find an exaggerated desire on the part of supporters of this Administration to record their votes in favour of this Bill. And certainly if we are to make other glaring inconsistencies of our electoral law more grotesque by the introduction of this principle for one city, then clearly it can only be done or could only be done, in deference to a large amount of popular support, of which, I venture to say, there is not the smallest evidence in this House or outside.
The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack said that London was exceptional, and was therefore a proper subject for exceptional legislation. Now I venture to say that if your Lordships pass this Bill you will take a step which is unprecedented in the whole history of Reform Bills. Look back at any of the great Reform Bills. Were there no exceptions which might have been made to the Bill of 1831? I think those who have read the Debates of that day will bear me out when I say that in regard to that Bill a landslide which almost became a revolution could have been avoided if the Minister of the day had been willing to tinker with the matter and to make exceptions which would have spoilt perhaps the general effect, but which would have prevented the immense public feeling aroused. Look again at the Bill of 1867. I do not suppose there ever was a Bill upon which there was so much doubt or so much reason to make exceptions. It was before national education had been introduced and when communications to newspapers were comparatively scanty compared with what they are at the present day; certainly the difference between towns like London and Manchester and the more remote parts of the country in education and political fitness was enormous, but the statesmen of the day gave to those remote parts, despite many protests, the same privileges which they bestowed on the centre of the Empire.
Still more so was that the case in 1885. Many sitting round me will remember a great discussion which was aroused in the House of Commons as to the leaving of Ireland out of the Bill, and I well remember the brilliant oratorical effort made by a noble Lord, Lord Rathmore, who, unfortunately, too seldom speaks in this House, to whom great justice was done by the noble Viscount, Lord Morley, in his "Life of Gladstone." He pointed out that if you gave to Ireland the franchise which was then proposed for England, it would be given to men thirty or forty per cent. of whom were illiterate, and the Ballot Act would be defeated because they would be bound to make their declarations in public and undergo that very intimidation which it was the object of the Ballot Act to avoid. So great was the effect produced by that speech that I remember a member of the present Government telling me that it had convinced even the members of the Party opposite, and that an Amendment would have been carried except for the intervention of Mr. Gladstone. His argument was that in matters of franchise you could not make exceptions; the more remote a man was the more necessary it was that his grievance should be considered, and he convinced Parliament that without regard to political fitness or education it was necessary to give with an open hand and fully to all concerned the franchise to which all had a common claim. Will the strongest and warmest advocate of this measure say that that principle can ever be carried out if you are going to make the sort of exceptions which it is proposed to make to-night?
There are, no doubt, great reasons for a new Bill if you maintain that the workingman, because of his habit of moving by reason of the necessities of his life, is unduly deprived of political power; then I cannot see on what principle a man is not injured who removes form Manchester to Salford, Liverpool to Birkenhead, or Newcastle to Gateshead, which boroughs are one indeed in reality although not so in name, much more than St. George's in the East and St. George's, Hanover Square. The First Commissioner of Works said he objected to the property qualification. If you think that the payment of rates and taxes is a thing which you can ignore, and that a man is to be regarded as fit to vote simply because he exists, and if it is to be said that property has nothing to do with the matter, then I say the change ought to be effected by a Bill which deals with all constituencies, and ought not to be brought in by a side wind. To say to a man, You must give up your political power; to deny a man representation in the place where he works among those with whom his whole fiscal interests are bound up, is a course which Parliament ought not to adopt except after mature consideration and as a general measure.
Before I sit down I would appeal to your Lordships not to regard this question from any of those smaller standpoints to which allusion was made by the noble Marquess opposite. Measures of reform surely cannot be considered in this House from the point of view of their effect on any election or even on a succession of elections. Many of those who based themselves on these considerations have been disappointed in the past, but in any case your Lordships' House would lose, I submit, all title to legislate if we did not attempt to have regard, not to passing sentiment, but to the permanent conclusions of the people. You will not do that by dividing constituencies between rich and poor, by encouraging people to consider how they can best represent their class rather than their community. It is very easy to tell a democracy that they are infallible, that they need no steering gear, that property is no test and education no guide. Who, however, can guarantee political stability, which is vital to any progress in our home affairs and equally vital to any permanent policy in Imperial questions, if the people are left to work out everything by themselves without the help of others who are associated with them?
I ask your Lordships, Is not this a practical question for everyone? Is it not already becoming more difficult every year for a Government to maintain a continuous policy owing to the shiftings of popular opinion, and is it not a serious matter to weaken in any case the electoral stability which has given something like a reasoned popular opinion in the past? If you are going to adopt this policy I would say, let us have it as a considered policy to be adopted throughout the country and not bring it forward at almost I the last moment of the longest session on record, as the last experiment of a harassed Government to administer a narcotic to one portion of the electorate, while not touching another very large portion who have an equal claim. My Lords, I believe that this measure has been shown by my noble friends who have I already spoken to be partial and unprecedented. I think it is a retrograde measure in which the interests of a part have been preferred to the interests of the whole, in which local considerations have been allowed to outweigh Imperial prudence, and I urge your Lordships to refuse it a Second Reading.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE)
My Lords, I only propose to say a few words in concluding this debate, and I certainly shall not attempt to follow the noble Viscount over the very wide field which he traversed in his interesting speech. The noble Viscount dealt skilfully and broadly with the whole subject of Parliamentary reform, illustrated by historical instances, and he wound up with an appeal for a general policy of Parliamentary reform. But, my Lords, the noble Viscount seemed to me—I will not say to fall into an error, because I have no doubt he did it intentionally—but to take a course which is only too familiar to us on this side of the House, and it is this. When some anomaly is mentioned, and it is proposed by a Parliamentary measure to remove it, we are continually met with the argument:—"What is the use of dealing with the matter in this piecemeal fashion? If you are to remove anomalies, you must sweep them all away at once."
But the whole custom of legislation in this country has been towards piecemeal legislation. All the reform Bills to which the noble Viscount alluded were unquestionably piecemeal measures, full of exceptions, hedged round with safeguards, and conferring the trust of the franchise on one limited class at a time. My Lords, it is all very well to say that you must deal with all anomalies at once. The noble Viscount is prepared to repeal the Union between Great Britain and Ireland in order to redress what he considers to be the electoral disproportion between Ireland and Scotland; and he is prepared also apparently for something like equal electoral divisions all over the United Kingdom. That is all very well, and it may come. A great number of things may come, although these particular things may not come within the lifetime of most of us here. But that is really no argument for saying that if you have a chance of meeting a particular grievance, the existence of which is not denied, you should not take that chance, provided, of course, that you can show that in doing so you are not inflicting a worse grievance on anybody else. And I think it is not difficult to show in regard to this measure that this is the case.
The noble Viscount said, and we all appreciated his saying it, that it is as well not to impute Party motives in relation to a measure of this kind, and he alluded to the protest so well made by the noble Marquess behind me. Yes, my Lords, but we did not begin it. The charge was brought against us that this measure was introduced by reason of the fact that a certain number of plural votes would be lost, and there was an implication, and even more than an implication, that we hoped to gain some electoral advantage by the manoeuvre. My noble friend the noble Marquess behind me pointed out with great force that this is a double-edged argument—that if it were true that we were only guided by electoral considerations in desiring to deprive a certain number of voters of the plural vote, it might be equally true to say that noble Lords opposite only valued the plural vote because they believed it would be given in their interest. I do not make that charge, and I am equally desirous that the other charge should not be made against us. If there is no great moral beauty in the one attitude there is no great moral beauty in the other, and I think we can leave the matter there and cry quits, disclaiming on both sides, as I am quite sure we can, a Party motive in the matter. Anyone who is disposed to be cynical might further point out that if this Bill is an attempt to gerrymander, it is a very poor attempt, and one which, so far as I have information, would be of very small service from a Party point of view. I think it would be very difficult for anybody to I point to a London seat which would be gained to one Party or lost to another, or even endangered, by this measure if it were passed.
Now, the line of demarcation between the two Parties is a clear one. We stand for the recognition of the unity of London, whereas noble Lords opposite show, not for the first time—for indeed they have shown it, I was going to say, hundreds of times before—a mistrust of a great London and a desire to see London disintegrated into the component parts out of which it is no doubt true the great London as we know it has come together. Noble Lords opposite would like to go back, I have no doubt, to the days of the village of Kensington, the quite separate city of Westminster, and the other hamlets and villages which crowned the northern heights. The noble Viscount used what seemed to me a somewhat strange argument in relation to this question of one London or the many boroughs forming a federated London. He said that if all the workers voted in one part and all the employers in another part that would be destructive to the sense of community of interest and anything like corporate life. I should have thought that nothing could have done so much to destroy the sense of unity of corporate life as this incessant dwelling on the existence of the different cities and boroughs of London. If a man is taught to think more of himself as a resident in Westminster or St. George's Hanover-square, than as a citizen of London it must weaken his sense both of pride in London as a whole and his sense of duty towards the more remote parts of London which he has, perhaps, scarcely ever seen. Our desire is to accentuate in every way the unity of the great city in order to quicken the sense of pride in citizenship of the greatest city in the world, and also to stimulate the sense of duty of those who live in the richer quarters towards the great mass who live in the poorer quarters.
The noble Lord, Lord Farquhar, dwelt on the importance of the metropolitan boroughs. I have no desire to say a word against the organisation of the metropolitan boroughs, but it is not accurate to think or speak of them as if they were comparable to or commensurate with boroughs as we understand them in other parts of England. It is true that they are decorated with the appanage of boroughs, with the robes and chains which distinguish officers of boroughs all over the country, but none of the municipal powers which we understand as belonging to great boroughs are conferred upon them. It is necessary, therefore, to draw that distinction, because when you speak of Liverpool and Birkenhead on the one hand, and Westminster and Poplar on the other, you must remember that Westminster and Poplar are under one municipal management. Liverpool and Birkenhead are two absolutely distinct cities differently governed in every way.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON
Not in every way.

THE EARL OF CREWE
Perhaps not in everyway, but the London boroughs would be more fitly compared with the relations which exist between a county council and a district council in an ordinary county area. Now, my Lords, it really comes down to this. We frankly admit that we do not like plural voting. Plural voting is objectionable to us from two points of view. We do not think that property, as such, demands separate representation, but we say that, if it does, plural voting is not the way to give it, because one man might own the whole area of a large county constituency and have only one vote there, whereas another man having the most trivial property interests in twenty or twenty-five constituencies in different parts of England is supplied with a vote for each, and is able to exercise a great number of those votes by the fact that the elections are not held on the same day. I noticed in the strong desire of the noble Earl opposite, Lord Dartmouth, that all elections should be held on the same day, a sign of grace which I was very glad to observe on the Benches opposite. As I say, we do not like plural voting, but if it exists, as it does exist, it may be argued that it is a hardship that a particular set of plural voters who have a qualification in one London borough where they live and another qualification in another borough where their businesses are carried on should lose their vote. Admitting for the purposes of argument that that is a hardship, surely it is an infinitely smaller hardship than that of the man who loses his vote altogether because there is no successive occupation in London. I do not see, hardship for hardship, how it is possible to compare the two, and that seems to me to be a complete defence of our measure as we bring it in.
The time may come, as we hope it will from our point of view, when there will be no plural voting, and until that time does come noble Lords opposite have a right to point out what appears to them to be a hardship; but if we are to be told that we must wait until all the historical anomalies of our electoral law can be swept away in one measure, I doubt nobody's good faith, but I cannot believe that anybody who takes such a view can be seriously anxious that any kind of electoral reform should be instituted in any way. The noble Earl who moved the rejection of the measure pointed out how simple it would be to make voting easy for everybody by introducing a registration Bill. The noble Earl must know, I am sure, and noble Lords opposite know, that there is no subject more baffling and more difficult, and which has given more trouble to those who have studied the question, than the problem of how to get a really reasonable system of Parliamentary registration. The noble Earl said, amid some applause from his own friends, that everybody would be in favour of such a system. Noble Lords opposite had ten years of office, not altogether overburdened as we think with fruitful legislation, and they might have devoted some part of that ten years in considering this question of registration. If they did not do so, no doubt it was partly owing to the difficulty and the complexity of the subject.
My Lords, I need say no more. I greatly regret the conclusion at which noble Lords opposite have arrived, and I cannot help thinking that reflection might induce some of your Lordships to wonder whether you

are not making a mistake in guarding so carefully the rights, as you conceive them to be, of a few voters and thereby preventing a far larger number of voters, of a humbler class it is true, from exercising in any way the right of voting which ought to be theirs.

On Question, whether the word "now" stand part of the Motion?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 157.

CONTENTS.
Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Allendale, L.	Nunburnholme, L.
Crewe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)	Armitstead, L.	O'Hagan, L.
	Blyth, L.	Pentland, L.
Northampton, M.	Boston, L.	Pirrie, L.
	Brassey, L.	Sandhurst, L.
Beauchamp, E. (L. Steward.)	Colebrooke, L. [Teller.]	Saye and Sele, L.
Carrington, E.	Denman, L. [Teller.]	Shaw, L.
Chesterfield, E.	Eversley, L.	Shuttleworth, L.
Chichester, E.	Farrer, L.	Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)
Kimberley, E.	Hamilton of Dalzell, L.
Liverpool, E.	Haversham, L.	Swaythling, L.
Russell, E.	Hemphill, L.	Wandsworth, L.
Temple, E.	Lucas, L.	Weardale, L.
	Lyveden, L.	Welby, L.
Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.)	MacDonnell, L.
NOT-CONTENTS.
Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)	Jersey, E.	Addington, L.
Bedford, D.	Kilmorey, E.	Aldenham, L.
Newcastle, D.	Lathom, E.	Alverstone, L.
Northumberland, D.	Lauderdale, E.	Ampthill, L.
Rutland, D.	Lichfield, E.	Ardilaun, L.
Wellington, D.	Lindsey, E.	Ashbourne, L.
	Lovelace, E.	Ashcombe, L.
Ailesbury, M.	Lucan, E.	Barrymore, L.
Bath, M.	Lytton, E.	Basing, L.
Hertford, M.	Malmesbury, E.	Belper, L.
Lansdowne, M.	Mayo, E.	Blythswood, L.
Salisbury, M.	Northbrook, E.	Borthwick, L.
Winchester, M.	Onslow, E.	Braye, L.
Zetland, M.	Pembroke and Montgomery, E.	Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)
	Plymouth, E.	Brougham and Vaux, L.
Albemarle, E.	Radnor, E.	Camoys, L.
Ancaster, E.	Rosslyn, E.	Chaworth, L. (E. Meath.)
Cadogan, E.	Rothes, E.	Cheylesmore, L.
Camperdown, E.	Shaftesbury, E.	Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)
Carnwath, E.	Stanhope, E.
Cathcart, E.	Stradbroke, E.	Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)
Cawdor, E.	Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)	Clifford of Chudleigh, L.
Clarendon, E.	Verulam, E.	Clonbrock, L.
Coventry, E.	Waldegrave, E. [Teller.]	Colchester, L.
Cromer, E.	Wharncliffe, E.	Cottesloe, L.
Dartmouth, E.		Crawshaw, L.
Dartrey, E.	Churchill, V. [Teller.]	Curzon of Kedleston, L.
Derby, E.	Colville of Culross, V.	Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)
Devon, E.	Falkland, V.	Deramore, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)	Goschen, V.	Desborough, L.
	Hampden, V.	Digby, L.
Eldon, E.	Hood, V.	Dunalley, L.
Ellesmere, E.	Iveagh, V.	Dunboyne, L.
Essex, E.	Milner, V.	Dunleath, L.
Halsbury, E.	Ridley, V.	Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)
Hardwicke, E.	St. Aldwyn, V.	Ellenborough, L.
Huntingdon, E.		Elphinstone, L.
Ilchester, E.	Abinger, L.	Farnham, L.
Farquhar, L.	Llangattock, L.	St. Levan, L.
Fermanagh, L. (E. Erne.)	Lovat, L.	St. Oswald, L.
Glanusk, L.	Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)	Sanderson, L.
Gormanston, L. (V. Gormanston.)	Monk Bretton, L.	Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)
	North, L.	Sinclair, L.
Grenfell, L.	Northcote, L.	Stalbridge, L.
Harris, L.	Oranmore and Browne, L.	Stanmore, L.
Hastings, L.	Ormathwaite, L.	Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)
Hindlip, L.	Penrhyn, L.
Hothfield, L.	Playfair, L.	Sudeley, L.
Hylton, L.	Poltimore, L.	Templemore, L.
Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)	Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)	Tennyson, L.
Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)	Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)	Vivian, L.
Kinnaird, L.	Rathdonnell, L.	Waleran, L.
Knaresborough, L.	Revelstoke, L.	Walsingham, L.
Lamington, L.	Ritchie of Dundee, L.	Wolverton, L.
Leigh, L.	Rothschild, L.	Wynford, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the negative accordingly, and Bill to be read 2^a this day three months.

LORDS AMENDMENTS., Commons Sitting of 5 November 1909

1909-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

HC Deb 05 November 1909 vol 12 cc2180-241

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell) moved "That the question of agreement or disagreement with the Lords Amendments to the Irish Land Bill be put with respect to the Amendments as a whole."

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has asked me to make this Motion, and as the unfortunate Minister who seems to be responsible for both these novelties to which you. Sir, referred, is now here. I may say that the matter of the Education Bill really arose because the Government had not made up its mind at all on the Lords Amendments as to whether they would ask the House to proceed with them one by one or whether they should proceed with the discussion of the Motion that they should be taken together. I remember the occasion, there was some difficulty about it, and it was not till the last moment that the Government came reluctantly to the conclusion that they were forced to take that step, and that is the reason why we took the ordinary step first and followed it by the Motion which I now move in the first instance. I am sure of this, that I shall have no difficulty whatever in convincing anybody who cares to listen to me for a short time that by putting on the Paper this Motion, which is an unusual one, His Majesty's Government have not the faintest desire or the least intention of either picking a quarrel or pursuing a quarrel with another place on such a subject as Irish land. The very contrary, I can assure the House, is true. Nobody is more anxious than I, I frankly avow—I am anxious now, and I avow that anxiety—to come to terms with the House of Lords upon their Amendments if I possibly can, whatever other persons may feel, and whatever other persons may profess. The loss of this Bill, in my judgment, would be a thing I could not with any degree of mental composure contemplate. I think it would be one of the gravest things that could possibly happen in the immediate arena of political possibilities, therefore I am most anxious, and I express that anxiety with the utmost emphasis that whatever may come or be the result of this Debate, a settlement may be possible with another place in regard to this Bill. It has been urged against this Bill—against the Bill as it left the House of Commons and the Bill as it comes back—that it is necessarily going to make the beneficent process of land purchase in Ireland less attractive in future. I agree that is so. I cannot deny, and I do not deny, that the terms offered by the Act of 1903, which have unhappily become impossible, were more attractive than those which are to be found, so far as future transactions are concerned, in the Bill, and in the future the Irish purchaser or tenant will have to pay a little more by way of annuity, and it may very well be that the Irish landlord will have to take a little less by way of price in respect of both. I admit that, but that is for the future; and just consider, if this Bill does not pass—if this Bill fails by any cruel mischance to pass—what is the fate not of future land purchase, but the fate of pending agreements to the extent of £50,000,000? I beg the House in considering the importance of the Bill to forget mere figures, and try to translate what that means in flesh and blood. There are at this moment in Ireland over 175,000 tenant farmers, small peasant proprietors, or at least they deem themselves to be, who, after infinite haggling and enormous trouble, discussion, consultation, and I know not what else, have come to final terms, as they think, with their landlords. These men are now in possession of their holdings, no longer, so they think, as tenants, but as purchasers. They have ceased to have any relations with their former landlords. They no longer pay rent to anyone. They pay interest in lieu of rent, a smaller sum and a very different thing, and they pay it not to their old landlords or their old agents, but to the Land Commission, and the Land Commission transmits these sums to the old landlords, pending the completion of the investigation of their titles, and until the Irish Land Stock can be issued and the transaction brought to a final close by the completion of the contract. There are £52,000,000 of these transactions and 175,000 of these peasant proprietors or persons who deem themselves in that position. If this Bill passes every one of these transactions will be carried through on the old terms. They will be carried out and made good by the Treasury, who then will be able by law to assume complete liability for them all, thus relieving the Irish ratepayer from a heavy loss, amounting, it has been calculated, to a sum of something like £7,000,000 sterling, and paying the landlord the old, full bonus of 12 per cent.

If the Bill does not pass by the end of January next, I am told, the whole of the Irish Development Grant of £160,000 a year will be exhausted in making good past losses on flotation, and when that is done every £5,000,000 of new stock which may be issued in order to reduce this accumulated sum of £50,000,000 will involve a loss of £25,000 a year, which will fall, by the terms of the Act of Parliament now in existence, upon the ratepayers, not by the process of being raised from them, but by the no doubt easier process of deduction at headquarters from the large sums which they receive in aid and in reduction of their rates, and everyone who knows anything about county council finance in Ireland knows that for the first few months of every year, after they have struck the rate, before they receive it, they live entirely upon the credit of those sums which are paid into their account from the Imperial Exchequer. But it seems generally agreed on all sides of the House, and in all parts of the country, that the ratepayers are not to be called upon to make good this enormous loss on flotation. If the ratepayer does not do it, and by law he is bound to do it, who else is to do it? It is only by law that anyone else can have put upon his shoulders a burden which by law is upon someone else's. Therefore, unless something is done, I really ask what is the position? What is the state of the law with regard to these 175,000 persons who think, in their innocence, and in their good faith, that they have for ever got rid of their landlord, and are only paying interest in lieu of rent until such time as they can begin to pay their purchase annuities? Are they to be relegated back to their old positions, to begin to pay their old and larger rents? It is unthinkable that such a state of things should come about in Ireland. Then there is the Congested Districts Board, a plucky, high-spirited body of men who, for years past have been, I will not say grappling with the enormous problem which was entrusted to them, but just touching the fringe of it with a miserably inadequate income. They have been begging and borrowing all through every year, knocking at the door and imploring the Chief Secretary to knock at the door of the Treasury to get them loans and advances in order to carry on, not their work, but that miserable portion of it which they have been able to do, encouraged no doubt by the benefits which they have seen arising in that part of the country from their labour, encouraged by the popularity which they enjoy among the class for whose benefit they work.

Is anyone going to stand between that body of men and that great task, dear to the heart of all lovers of Ireland, and that enormous increase of revenue from £86,500 a year to £250,000 a year, which will be secured to them under this Bill? Everyone, in whatever part of the House he sits, whether he sits in this House or in another, ought to put aside every possible prejudice in order to secure the benefits of this Bill, and to prevent the unthinkable condition of things which must ensue if it does not become law. It may be paid there is going to be a General Election next January. We have had some reference to that ugly shadow, which demoralises us so completely, hanging over us. That is assumption number one. Let it pass. Then it is said the result of that election will be that Gentlemen opposite will, to the joy of their own hearts, I trust, take possession of these benches and become responsible for the government of the country. That is assumption number two. Then it is said when they do that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, meeting a brand new Parliament composed of I do not know whom, will be able to present to the House and to Ireland better financial terms than those which are in this measure. Assumption number three. Then it is said, even if the worst comes to the worst, and this old gang come back again, they will be able, in the new Parliament at all events, to renew the terms which are contained in this Bill. I say that is assumption number four. I beseech the House not to hand over to a new Parliament, of which they know nothing—circumstances may be entirely different, the attitude of mind may be different towards particular questions—a problem which presses for instant solution. It may be said, "If you are," as I am, "so dominated by this desire to come to terms with the House of Lords, why do you not adopt the ordinary process and proceed with the Amendments one by one?" I am a slave to ordinary precedents. I hate departing from them. I was very averse to departing from them in the case of the Education Bill of a year or two ago, and I am averse to departing from them now; but it is frankly and absolutely impossible to deal with the Bill as it has come down to us from the House of Lords under the procedure usual and customary in such cases, namely, by considering the Amendments one by one.

The Bill, as it left the Blouse of Commons, omitting the 13 financial Clauses which the House of Lords did not touch, contained 59. Of these 22 were so wholly uncontroversial as to pass without any discussion or consideration in the other place at all. I do not disparage those Clauses. They were useful Clauses, but they were, as compared with the others, of an insignificant character. They were the kind of clause which a Minister is always glad to introduce into a Bill when he has the weight of party feeling and feeling in Ireland behind him enabling him to carry useful clauses, but not of a character which can be called substantial.

2.0 P.M.

If you take 22 from 59, that leaves 37 substantial Clauses. The House of Lords has struck out 24. Struck them out of 37! I looked to those Clauses, to which we had devoted a good deal of time and attention, expecting to see them reappearing, but they were all gone. I felt like Macduff in the play when he was told that his children were all dead. He asked, "What, all my pretty ones? Did you say all? At one fell swoop?" That left 13 Clauses, and of these nine are so amended as to be, I will not say unrecog- nisable, but completely altered. Then, on the top of that, there are 16 brand new Clauses, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q. I do not say that in order to show that I know the alphabet, but because those things are there. It is a fact in regard to the alterations which you will find on the face of the Bill. Taking the 24 Clauses which were struck out and the nine which were very materially altered, I would point out that they are not capable of being classified, five or six being placed in a group. Each Clause is a complete Clause and represents new matter, and I should have been obliged to put each Clause separately to the House and ask them to agree or disagree with the Lords Amendment. I could not come to any bargain with the Opposition on a question of that kind. The House is a Free debating society on these points, and upon each Question, whether I agreed or disagreed with the Lords, there must have been prolonged Debate. Two or three all-night sittings might have been sufficient, although I doubt that, to deal with these classes, but then, when on top of these you add the new Clauses, one of which alone occupies two and a half pages of the new Bill, you will see that I could not hope to put before the House a single Amendment, dealing with so gigantic a structure. It could not be done, and I think the House will agree with me that in adopting this course, I am not in the least desiring to do anything which another place may resent, because I have the exact opposite in my mind. I am only taking that which is the only practical course open to me. The fact is that when the House of Lords rejected Lord Dunraven's Motion, "That the Bill be read on this day three months," their line of conduct was perfectly open, avowed, and straightforward. They said, "We do not want to throw out this Bill. It contains money which Ireland wants. That is the basis of the whole transaction." They were perfectly right in taking that view. They said, "The Bill helps us to a very material extent, but it does not go so far as we think the British Treasury ought to have gone. It goes a long way, and it makes the continuance of land purchase possible. Therefore we cannot contemplate the possibility of throwing it out," Then, in language of such perfect frankness that they cannot quarrel with me if I speak as frankly, they said that the Bill was a hideous, ugly, absurd, and ridiculous structure. I am quoting the language which one or other of the Noble Lords used. They therefore proceeded at once to do two things. They proceeded to demolish the Bill; they put on the job a small, active body of what are known in the building trade as "house-breakers" to remove 24 objectionable clauses, to amend nine others, and to clear the site. Having cleared the site, they proceeded to put up a structure of their own, in the shape of 13 new clauses. That was a great deal of work to do. It was the work of demolition and the work of reconstruction; but it is to the credit of the House of Lords—I speak quite seriously—that they were able to do these two things—the work of demolition and of reconstruction—in a little more than half the time taken by the House of Commons to do one-half of the job. They said, "We have got unlimited time at our disposal, and we have got great stores of knowledge, whereas the House of Commons have neither time nor knowledge, and we will set to work to do the job." The work of demolition and the work of reconstruction having been carried out, I ask anybody—I do not care what his view may be of the Government's Bill or however much he may be attached to the Bill as it comes back from the House of Lords—I ask him to look at the Lords Amendments and say if in his opinion it is possible for any Minister by the ordinary and usual procedure to deal with these Amendments otherwise than in the way I propose to do.

I do not want to go through the Bill as it has come back from the Lords too closely, because I do not want to occupy too much time, but I ask the House to recognise the reasons, which I think are sound, to adopt this particular course. I must ask the attention of the House to two matters which are of inordinate and extraordinary importance in this Bill. These are the provisions as regards the Congested Districts Board, and the provisions with regard to compulsory purchase. Some of the omitted Clauses cover all the ground, from the zones to the evicted tenants. All these required careful consideration. It might have been possible, perhaps in two or three days, to have dealt with all these struck-out and amended Clauses in the ordinary process one by one. When we come to the vital parts of the Bill relating to the Congested Districts Board and compulsory purchase, I must ask the House to consider the difference between the two measures—neither of them would recognise the other as its long-lost brother or anything else. They are different measures, the work of different minds, proceeding entirely from different points of view. The House of Lords will not be angry if I criticise them by pointing out this distinction. However weak we may be in the other House, we are the responsible Government for Ireland, and this is the Bill which we brought forward after full consideration, and, so far as the Congested Districts Board is concerned, after having had an elaborate Royal Commission and its most valuable Report on the subject. We deal with it as Governments have often dealt with things which have been made the subject-matter of public investigation—public investigation which excited the most extraordinary interest in Ireland, as to which hon. Members in this House will be grievously ill-informed if they think that it can for a single moment be put on one side and treated as immaterial, because really they cannot do it.

We proposed in our original Bill to extend the area of the Board's operations, so as to include nine administrative counties. I am not arguing that now. The Board's area, according to the Bill as it comes back from the Lords, is to remain unaltered, although there is a Clause authorising the Lord Lieutenant for the time being in certain cases to extend the area. That power is not a thing to be sneezed at if used with discretion. But it is not sufficient in any way to cover the whole area which would have been covered by the original Bill, because the county Clare would have been totally and altogether omitted from any possible operation by the Lord Lieutenant of the power conferred upon him by any Amendment of the Bill. The Board was to be constituted on the original Bill of a representative character—one member to be selected by the council of each of the nine counties and two paid members to be appointed by the Government. The House of Lords struck out altogether the nine representative members. They were not, I must point out to the House, members to be chosen by a popular election such as is likely to engage our attention next January. They were only the nominees of the county councils which, to the greatest credit of the party opposite, they established with great courage in Ireland. These nine persons disappear altogether; also do the two paid members who were insisted upon by the Treasury. Because really we must not suppose that the Treasury is going to increase from £86,000 a year to £250,000 a year the public moneys the revenues of the Board, and to allow the Board to remain in the haphazard condition in which it certainly is at the present time with regard to the management of even the small income which it at present has.

The Board's purchasing operations were by the Bill to be confined to the nine counties. That is to say they alone were to have the power to purchase within those nine counties. That is to say they were to have the right of pre-emption in every case; and enormous importance is to be attached to that by all persons concerned in connection with one of the most troublesome questions which we have ever had in Ireland, the most troublesome question which we have at the present moment, the competition between the landless men and the congests, which is largely due to the interference by the Estates Commissioners within the congested districts counties. They have bought estates of their own. They had a right of purchasing in competition with the Congested Districts Board, and they settled their estates after their own fashion, in their own way. And whereas the Congested Districts Board have always been most rigorous in their adherence to the principle that they were to benefit the congests, they have rigorously kept out the landless men from all the purchases they have made, with the exception here and there of giving allotments to the herds of the graziers of the untenanted lands, who undoubtedly did earn their living upon them. With that exception the Congested Districts Board, with great courage, and I am bound to say without any real unpopularity, without being greatly blamed, although no doubt they were criticised, as is the lot of all of us, were able to carry out that work on their own estates in such a way as to prevent this question arising into the prominence with which it now has arisen. If it has arisen into that prominence it is largely due to competition with them in their own districts by the Estates Commissioners being allowed to purchase there. We, therefore, proposed by the Bill to have two purchasing powers in Ireland, but no competition. Within the enlarged new area the Congested Districts Board were alone to have powers of purchasing, although they could give their consent to a direct sale in cases in which they felt that they could not with satisfaction purchase the lands themselves. They were masters of the situation. Outside that area the Estates Commissioners were masters of the situation. What the House of Lords have done is they have taken away the purchasing powers of the Congested Districts Board altogether. They agree with our argument, I presume, that it is undesirable to have two competing powers, but they say that the Estates Commissioners are the better persons to buy. How they could have said that I cannot understand, because it does seem to me to argue an ignorance of the mode in which the Congested Districts Board carries out its work on the estates which they buy. They do not buy them until they inspect them carefully. They make the most careful inspection. They ascertain exactly their capacity and find out how many persons there are upon them, where holdings must be increased, and what untenanted land there would be for increasing the holdings of persons outside the estate altogether, and then from the very beginning they have knowledge and seisin of the whole affair. Under the Bill as it now stands all the purchasing is to be done by the Estates Commissioners. They do all the work of inspection from the Estates Commissioners' point of view. They then buy the estate. They then hand it over to the Congested Districts Board, and then the Congested Districts Board proceeds to do what they would have done originally—that is, make their own inspection and investigation. This seems to me to be, what is a most unnecessary thing to do in Ireland, the deliberate invention of a new overlapping authority.

Then the Congested Districts Board have other powers of which the Bill, as altered, deprives them. It not only deprives them of the purchasing power, but it deprives them of the power of developing sea fisheries and industries. The distribution of the purchased land' is therefore all that is left to them. The Estates Commissioners having acquired the land, the Board is to do nothing but re-settle and re-stripe it, and to deal with it for that purpose. My object, and the object of the Government, was not to reduce the powers of the Congested Districts Board, not to make them a paler shadow than they are at present. It was, I say deliberately, to increase their powers, to extend their powers, enlarge their income, to make them a body with some degree of compulsory powers of dealing with the gigantic problem which has been assigned to them. And the notion that this House was going to give £250,000 a year to the pale shadow of a Board, the mere sign of a Board, with even less powers than it has at present, less powers of making itself felt and making its popularity known, and of aiding fisheries and aiding industries, represents the feelings of persons not familiar with the work of, or animated with feelings of dislike towards the Congested Districts Board, and towards what they have done, and done to a most remarkable extent. At all events, the view of the Government was to increase those powers and to strengthen the Board. I certainly would be no party to interfering in any way with the work of the Board, but, on the contrary, must insist on the Congested Districts Board being reconstituted in such a fashion as would enable it to spend properly and look after and control the enormously increased revenue that is going to be given to it. I, therefore, feel that those Amendments, the new Clauses of the House of Lords, represent such a difference of opinion between us upon those topics that it is quite impossible for us usefully to reconsider them by way of Amendment, and reconsider them in that shape. Our two schemes really cannot be reconciled. Although I bow to the numerical power of the House of Lords, I also cannot help recognising that we are the Government, and are in power in this House, and that we have some right to frame our own measures, and we cannot be expected to accept any reconstructed Board which is not our Board and is a Board which we do not like and cannot have anything to do with.

Now I come to the question of compulsory purchase. According to the Government Bill we dealt with compulsion both inside and outside the congested district area, but the House of Lords have rejected altogether any compulsion outside the congested district area, and confine it to within the congested district area. What we have to say about compulsion and all the safeguards which have been erected, the House will understand does not apply in their Bill to compulsory purchase outside the area, and only to compulsory purchase inside the area. They have confined compulsory purchase within the congested area to untenanted land, and they do not allow the Congested Districts Board to buy an estate as a whole. They are good enough to say, and I quite agree with them, that the purposes for which land may be compulsorily acquired are for the enlargement of small holdings up to the valuation of £10, and for the provision of a new holding for a person who has surrendered his old holding for the purpose of relieving congestion. These are two purposes incidental to the resettlement of congested estates. That is what the Board does now under its voluntary powers: When they buy an estate they accept surrenders from some of the tenants and provide new holdings for them elsewhere, and they then re-stripe the congested estate and enlarge the holdings of the remaining tenants on the estate. These two real objects of the Congested Districts Board are consequential upon the purchase by them, not of untenanted land merely, but the whole estate containing untenanted land and also containing holdings, and yet their scheme gives the Board no power to acquire compulsorily estates containing congested holdings. The effect, as I understand it—I may be wrong—of limiting the compulsory purchasing power of the Congested Districts Board to untenanted land is completely to prevent the Board using their power for the purpose of carrying out their ordinary work. I honestly think that the power conferred upon the Board by the Lords would not be worth having. It is quite out of all plan and keeping with their methods. We do not wish to strike a distinction between an estate acquired compulsorily and an estate acquired voluntarily. We have inserted compulsory powers in the Bill because we think they are absolutely necessary in order to enable the Board properly to carry out their work. But whether they acquire compulsorily or voluntarily, the modus operandi is precisely the same, and the two objects which the House of Lords, correctly stated to be the two main objects of the Congested Districts Board, could only be carried out if they had liberty to acquire either voluntarily or compulsorily so far as their narrow funds admitted.

Let us consider what they propose to do with regard to this limited form of compulsion within the area, and confined to untenanted land. The House of Lords propose that the Board might submit a scheme to the Land Commissioners, in which they would set out in detail everything they wanted. They have no power of entering on an estate themselves for the purpose of making their investigations and inquiries. Their power is to be entirely exercised for them through the agency of the Estates Commissioners. That is a very strange thing. They would have to make their scheme without the necessary information, and to submit their statement without knowing what they would do with the land when they got it, because they would not be able to investigate and map it and shape it in their minds. They make their statement, such as it is, and then it is to be considered by the Estates Commissioners, who have already enough to do. If the Commissioners are satisfied that a primâ facie case has been made out for compulsion, they may publish advertisements calling upon persons who are interested, and who may object on any ground whatever to the purchase of the land. Afterwards they may enter upon the land and make such a detailed examination and investigations as they think fit. If the transaction is carried out and the land is handed over to the Congested Districts Board, that Board has to do the work all over again. If an objection is lodged, the matter is transferred to a tribunal consisting of a judicial Commissioner and two judges of the King's Bench of the High Court, subject to appeal to a court of law on questions of law and mixed law and fact. If all the parties concerned give their assent, that tribunal is empowered to determine the price. The objection taken to a scheme might be made on any grounds. If it were on the ground that the land was not suitable, or that they were not taking enough land, or were taking "the apple of the eye" out of the estate, and leaving the rest, then all the necessary safeguards were provided in the Bill as it left the House of Commons. It seems to me that under the Bill as it has come from the House of Lords it would be a valid ground of objection to say that the people who wanted the land were well enough off already, that there was no obligation in the matter, that this was not relief of congestion, that there was a great deal of humbug about it, and that the landless man was the only one to be considered in these transactions. I daresay the right hon. Gentleman opposite already sees himself making an argument of that character.

Let us go on to see what happens. Supposing that everything was done and the parties did not agree with the tribunal, the price has then to be fixed by two arbitrators, one appointed by the vendor and the other by the Congested Districts Board. If those two arbitrators differ—and arbitrators have a knack of differing—then an umpire is to be appointed by them, and, in default, by the Chief Justice. From the umpire there is to be no appeal at all, and ultimately somebody's opinion is to toe final in the matter; it is, after all, the decision of one man. Then the House of Lords insist that the compensation is to be determined on what they call, in so many words, the principles of the Lands Clauses Act. I really think we need not have any cant about the "congests" if the sacred principles of the Lands Clauses Act are to be invoked in a matter of this sort. I say very frankly that this is altogether beyond our capacity, because the money is not forthcoming, and cannot be obtained. I was reading in the "Quarterly Review" for this quarter a very interesting article on railway nationalisation. It was written by a very competent person, who has very good reason for showing that the nationalisation of railways in England would be a very disastrous operation to the public. It was a nice Conservative article, very well reasoned in every way. This gentleman said that the Lands Clauses Act has, so far, inflated the price of land, and heaped costs upon costs, that it has added £8,000 per mile to the cost of every railway in England. England may be able to carry on its back this great burden of inflated prices and inflamed bills of costs, but the poor people of the West of Ireland cannot do it. If your obligation towards the problem of congestion is based upon the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, well, stick to your sacred principles, but give up any nonsense or talk about being able to work a remedy. In itself it is one of the most expensive processes which could well be imagined, not only expensive in giving the landlord an inflated price, but also by inflated bills of costs. Those would be added to what the Congested Districts Board have to pay when they get the land. They have the task of putting the people on it and starting them on the farms, and giving them that assistance which they require, because they are not the strongest race of men. If you only want the strong race to survive and say the devil take the hindmost then do not have anything to do with the congests of the West. For my part, I stand committed, and will never stand otherwise, to the policy of doing all we can at whatever expenditure is possible for the relief of those people, a half a million of a population, unique in Europe in their poverty, and also, I may say, in many respects in the charm of their character. But under the sacred principles of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, I say it cannot be done, and the sooner we recognise the fact the better, because it is impossible with the Treasury in a country like this, unless all our habits change very speedily, since the money will not be forthcoming, and the thing cannot be done. I, therefore, am bound to say that so far as the Lords Amendments relating to the Congested Districts Board, and the powers of compulsory purchase as they stand at the present moment upon those sheets of paper, I cannot deal with them one by one.

But I agree, although it is impossible for me, one by one, to go through all their Amendments, and say which of them I should be disposed to ask the House to agree upon, that there is a margin of possible compromise between us. It is not a very wide margin, but it is a sufficient margin for honest men anxious to bring about a solution. If they choose to fight, it is a very narrow ground to wrestle on, and one or other may topple over into the abyss. Why should we quarrel in the neighbourhood of an abyss. I see no reason for it whatever. I should be very sorry if the House of Lords did not recognise the perfect good faith of my observations, and also the perfect good faith of the situation in which the House of Commons and in which the 175,000 individuals find themselves, and that, having regard to these sheets of Amendments, we could take no other course than we have done. I think, therefore, that although I am obliged to make the Motion I now do, and which is on the Paper in the name of the Prime Minister, there is every hope that we may by arrangement come to a fair compromise upon these points, having regard to the gravity of the situation. Everybody is interested, the landlord is interested, the tenant is interested, the 175,000 persons are interested, the ratepayers gloomily interested, and anybody who allows this Bill to be sacrificed on a mere punctilio, on mere forms, or simply wanting to bag an advantage one side or the other, I say he is an enemy of his country.

I do hope that the House of Lords will recognise our desire to come to fair terms with them. I do think they ought also, despite their great majority in another place, to recognise that we are responsible for the government of the country, and if proposals that we made for remedial legislation, or the preservation of the peace and prosperity of Ireland are ruthlessly disregarded by them, I do really think they declare war upon the principles of representative government. We cannot be expected to allow Tories in the other House to draft our measures for us. We are bound by our Constitution to consider their objections, we are bound by our Constitution to consider the proposals which they make to us, but the responsibility will rest, I think, far more upon them than upon us of entering upon negotiations, as I certainly am not only willing but anxious and determined to do, but I think the blame will ultimately rest upon them. I think that will be the judgment of the country if we are not able to come to some satisfactory settlement.

Mr. WALTER LONG
Nobody doubts the sincerity of the Chief Secretary or the assurances he has given us of his desire to see some arrangement arrived at by which this Bill should be placed on the Statute Book. I am bound to say, inclusive even of his previous experience in dealing with Amendments from another place, I have never known a method adopted which was less likely to attain the end in view than the one we are now asked to adopt. I admit at once that the Chief Secretary in his references, both to the Amendments and to the procedure, has been conciliatory in tone he has adopted, that is as to how he has talked of the Lords, and that he has been good enough to say they are a part of the Constitution, and that we are bound, at all events, to consider anything they do; but he has practically said to the other House: "There is your exercise; we think it is all bad, and we tear it up and leave you to take the next step." Not only is this procedure in itself, in my judgment, destructive of the very thing which the Chief Secretary and the Government have in view, namely, the arrival at some agreement upon the disputed points, but further than that it affords, from the mere point of view of practically dealing with a Bill like this, the very worst possible field for our operations. What is the answer which the Chief Secretary gives, and what are the grounds on which he makes this Motion? The grounds are that this is the first week in November; that the remainder of time at our disposal is very limited, and that consequently it would be impossible to find the time necessary to discuss these Amendments seriatim. He talked about two or three all-night sittings. I do not agree for my part, and I do not think it would take anything like that amount of time, though it probably would have taken more than the time the Government contemplated. Let me, in this connection, remind them that on the previous occasion, the only precedent there is in our Parliamentary annals for procedure of this kind, upon the Education Bill, the two Motions which we are now asked to dispose of in an hour or two occupied two full days.
I have said it affords the most inconvenient way of dealing with this question for this reason, and the Chief Secretary will appreciate its importance. He is anxious, as he told us, and I am sure with complete sincerity, to arrive at a compromise, but what is the method that by this procedure he is compelled to adopt? He is compelled to make practically a second reading speech, and, as it were, dealing with the general principles of the Bill and covering the whole ground, and in which it is inevitable, if he is to present his own case with that strength and determination which he naturally desires, that he should to some extent depreciate and attack the position of the other House. It may be good business, from a political point of view, to attack the House of Lords here. It may form an integral part of the programme and policy of right hon. Gentlemen whenever the time comes for an election, but I am not dealing with that. They may consider, and the Government may consider when they put the two into the balance, that the advantage to be gained at an election of an additional charge outweighs the other. But, at all events, by adopting this procedure the Government are making it very difficult for us to deal with these Amendments.

Mr. BIRRELL
What other course is open?

Mr. WALTER LONG
That which has always been taken in every other case. The Amendments should be taken separately, as they are on other occasions. The Chief Secretary puts the whole of his ground for this procedure on the period of the Session.

Mr. BIRRELL
No, no. I did not base my reason on that.

Mr. WALTER LONG
What I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say was that if we took these Amendments seriatim it would probably take up two or three all-night sittings.

Mr. BIRRELL
No, no. I am very sorry to interrupt. I said it would take that time to deal with the 14 struck-out Clauses and with the other Amendments.

Mr. WALTER LONG
Then I have understated and not overstated the attitude taken up by the Chief Secretary. I put it at three days——

Mr. BIRRELL
It would take two or three weeks.

Mr. WALTER LONG
If that is the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, I do not share it in the smallest degree. If that is his opinion, and that alone, the time at our disposal is the justification in the minds of the Government for this procedure—a procedure which has only been adopted once before. The Chief Secretary talks as if this was the first large and important measure, complicated in its details and in its character, which had been largely amended by the other House. But I would point out that when, on other occasions, we have had measures largely amended in the other House, we have found it possible to deal with those Amendments one by one. The general statement which we have had from the Chief Secretary makes it practically impossible to find out what is in the mind, and what is to be the future attitude, of the Government in regard to the Amendments. The Chief Secretary has passed over all the minor questions, of which I admit there are a great many, and has dealt only with the main ones—the new constitution, character, and powers of the Congested Districts Board and the powers of compulsory purchase; and in regard to two alterations made in the other House, the Chief Secretary has taken up a very definite attitude. He said it is impossible to secure the benefits which will arise from the passing of this Bill unless the questions of the Congested Districts Board and compulsory powers are adopted on lines satisfactory to the Government, and he tells us that there has been a very urgent case in regard to all the present sales, and that there was injustice which would fall upon the ratepayers if they were called upon to find the money necessary to meet the present conditions of the law. Alluding to the advantages which he held out as being so important, he said that every man who held certain views ought to be prepared without prejudice to secure the passing of the Bill. "Without prejudice!" Certainly. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean without prejudice when he calls upon his opponents to accept principles of procedure to which they are absolutely and totally opposed, and which they believe, whether rightly or wrongly, if adopted, would have the con- trary effect to that which the Chief Secretary believes they will have, either in the purchase of land or in the relief of congestion? The earlier Debates on this Bill were of an extremely limited character. But what came out during those Debates? I think I am not mistaken when I say there were not a few of the hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House who shared the view that the introduction of compulsion in the purchase of land in Ireland would strike a fatal blow at the Land Act, and was very likely to put back the hands of the clock. So far as the Congested Districts Board is concerned, the Chief Secretary paid to it a well-merited compliment. I do not know of anybody who has ever been associated with the Congested Districts Board as an Irish Minister who does not believe that from every point of view they have done their best to do their work under somewhat difficult conditions, and there is no desire to do the Congested Districts Board an injury or to offer them an insult. All the Lords Amendments do is to put certain limitations on the very wide extension of their powers proposed in the original Bill, and I believe that if hon. Members will strive to divest themselves of prejudice and take this Bill as it stands now, with its limited extension of powers, they will leave the Board in a position to do an immense amount of good work in regard to both land purchase and congestion.

Mr. J. ROCHE
Good work for the landlords. It would get them their money.

Mr. WALTER LONG
Surely one of the-principles of land purchase is that the person who sells land should be paid the price for it?

Mr. ROCHE
Yes; a just price.

Mr. WALTER LONG
We will not talk about the just price now. The justice of the price has no effect on what I am now saying. The Chief Secretary has said that the whole responsibility, if the Bill were lost, would rest upon the House of Lords. Is that true? Is it true to say that the Bill will have no value? The Chief Secretary dealt with one part of the compulsory power. He said the Lands Clauses Act has been introduced, and he referred to its operations in connection-with railways and other undertakings in this country. The hon. Member for East Marylebone (Lord Robert Cecil) pointed out last night, in the Debate on the third reading of the Finance Bill, the true position under the Lands Clauses Act, which showed that a man was properly compensated when his land was taken away from him compulsorily. I think we are entitled to ask the Government what they mean. What, after all, is the principle of the Lands Clauses Act? I am not going to enter into a discussion of the precise meaning of words, but I take it that the words of the Noble Lord the hon. Member for Marylebone (Lord Robert Cecil) last night applied. He said that all that they maintain is that where land is taken compulsorily from an individual he should be compensated for that which is taken from him. What the Chief Secretary says is that we cannot afford to compensate to the full, and therefore we must take it for something less, because there is no money to pay for it.

Mr. BIRRELL
The cost is the principle of the Lands Clauses Act.

Mr. WALTER LONG
I do not suppose that if the question is one of cost under the Lands Clauses Act that that is likely to afford the smallest bar to a settlement of the difficulty between the two places. I am dealing with the question of principle. I venture to affirm that you have no right, neither the Government nor any other section of this House, to come down and say that they are rendering a great public service by dealing with the unquestioned difficulties, evils, and miseries which arise from the congestion in various parts of Ireland with a beneficial Act of their own, if they propose deliberately to deal with this difficulty, not at their own expense, but at the expense of certain individuals whose property they are going to take by compulsion. I do not, as I said on the Committee stage, know any precedent for taking land compulsorily on the lines suggested by the Government. Where land is taken by compulsion in the interests of the community there is in every case, except with regard to the small holdings and allotments cases—which are comparatively very small—there is the protection, either of a provisional order, or of procedure which gives to the owner of the property the full right, not only to say what their property is held to be worth, but against unfair and ill-considered action. That is what the Amendment which has been inserted in another places does with regard to compulsion? When the Chief Secretary talks about the number of the clauses, and the variety of the Amendments, he will admit, of course, at once, that these do not come as the important part of our consideration. The question is: Does the Government propose to lay down, as they do, that the passing of this Bill into law is vital to the interests of Ireland, knowing as they do that a considerable portion of this Bill which deals with some of the greatest evils as referred to by the Chief Secretary, is not in dispute; do they ask that the other place shall reconsider all their action in face of the fact that not one of their Amendments has been treated on its merits; that not one has been separately considered; that they are to be told that on certain points the Government is immovable and must adhere to their original view? Nobody desires more than I do, if compromise be possible, that it should be arrived at, or that land purchase shall go on in Ireland, and that there shall be power to deal with congestion in Ireland. I have never blamed the Chief Secretary. I know the argument has been used, and with great force, that if you wanted a Bill to meet the financial difficulty in connection with land purchase you could have got it separately from the additional powers sought on other questions. There is no doubt that if that policy had been adopted you would have got the Act of Parliament necessary to remove your financial difficulties. I repeat that I cannot blame the Chief Secretary for making an effort to deal with congestion, because I know, as everybody knows who has been connected with the Government of Ireland and has visited the congested districts and studied the thing on the spot, how these things must appeal to any Minister responsible. I do not wonder that he thought it right to put some additional powers for the relief of congestion into his Bill. But if it was so urgent and so desirable that this Bill should pass in some form, then I say that the course that the Government have adopted is deplorable. It is to be profoundly regretted that the position, when we finish this Bill to-day, is one which gives no indication to the other place what is the course that they ought to adopt in order to arrive at a compromise. We are no "forrader" than we were before, and I venture to repeat that if disaster, instead of compromise, be the result, the responsibility must rest with those who have deliberately adopted a procedure which is in itself almost necessarily fatal to the very object which they profess to have.

Mr. JOHN DILLON
In asking the House to adopt this Resolution the Govern- ment have acted entirely on their own responsibility. We have not been consulted in the matter. But I am bound to say, after listening to the speech of the Chief Secretary, that I cannot conceive how any rational man can fail to be convinced that the Government have no alternative, and that the course they have adopted is a course which, if there be any real desire on the part of the other House to meet the Government, opens the gate as widely as possible to conciliation and negotiation. I rejoice to say—and I think I can speak on behalf of my colleagues—that in his speech the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has our complete and unqualified approval. The first thing that strikes me in this Debate is the extraordinary and amazing change which has come about in the attitude of the Tory party from Ireland towards this Bill. For the purposes of consideration this Bill ought really to be divided roughly into two parts which are so distinct from each other that they can be considered apart. One part contains the new financial arrangements for the purpose of enabling land purchase to be carried out without financial collapse. The other part contains all the other provisions apart from the financial. The financial part of the Bill has not been altered by the other House. From those Benches, when the Bill was originally introduced, Member after Member declared that they opposed all the new financial clauses because they would mean absolute ruin to land purchase in Ireland. Very well, but now their Leader says it will be disaster if they are not passed! That is what he said. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."] Yes, I challenge hon. Members to say otherwise.

Mr. MOORE
He did not say that.

Mr. DILLON
I say he did. He even went so far as to hint that the proper course of the Government would be to drop the rest of the Bill, and pass the financial clauses. But I shall be able to show in a few moments that even if he did not say it that was plainly the meaning of his speech. What has been said for him by the leading organs of the Tory party in Ireland, the "Irish Times" and others? They have wanted to know whether the Nationalist party to-day was so unpatriotic as to endanger this great Bill as it had now been re-modelled by the House of Lords? They forget that the financial clauses have not been remodelled, and that they are the same financial clauses as first introduced. The Lords saw money when they came to examine the Bill. I myself was there listening to them, and I was amazed at the singularly blunt and outspoken way and the frank way in which they dealt with that. They said the Bill is an exceedingly bad Bill; it professes to do a lot for the tenants injurious to the landlords; but there is English money in it and we do not like to throw it out, as there is a chance of getting the money, and, therefore, they destroyed all the clauses that promised any relief to the Irish tenants, but held on with a firm grip to the Clause granting the money to themselves. It is very remarkable that although the House of Lords has professed a great desire to make a new departure in the constitution of this country as regards the money clauses of Bills, they most scrupulously observed the privileges of this House with regard to the money clauses of this Bill. Why did they not flesh their swords in the money clauses of this Bill and see whether their action would be regarded as a breach of privilege by the Speaker and the House of Commons. No; they let the money Clauses of this Bill go by because they would bring a good deal of money to the landlords. We are now told it will be a great public calamity unless this Bill is passed. I heard it said more than once when the Bill was in this House that it would be a great public calamity if the Bill was passed. Now that it has come from the House of Lords, it is said that the Irish party would be very unpatriotic and forgetful of their duty if they put any obstacle in the way of the passage of the Bill. Sir, we desire to see this Bill passed as it left the House of Commons.
3.0 P.M.
Although we do not agree with all parts of this Bill, we objected to some of the Clauses, and we object to them still, but we say that after all the discussion, and all the examination this Bill has undergone in Ireland, where it has been canvassed and discussed at every public meeting since it was introduced, we desire to see it passed. Some people have described the Irish tenants as very ignorant and stupid men, but they are by no means so. They understand this Bill very well, and although we were told by some critics of our own that if we dared to support this Bill we would get it hot when we went back to Ireland. We went back, and the mandate we got from our people is for the Bill, the whole Bill, or else we will let the Irish landlords know why. This Bill has been subjected to great discussion, and has been examined with great care, and the Chief Secretary alluded to one remarkable fact. In the House of Lords they had ample time, they were not overburdened with work, they had not all night sittings. I heard the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords say this Bill was driven through this House by the Closure, but they in that Assembly would submit it to a critical and a careful examination and would deal with the Bill at leisure. What time did they take? Eight days were given to the Committee stage of the Bill in the House of Commons, and these eight days were deliberately wasted by hon. Members above the Gangway upon the most petty and miserable points in order to prevent discussion on important points, but in the serene atmosphere of the House of Lords, with all its great skill and knowledge, the mainstay and last resort of the British Constitution, they managed, for decency sake, to take four days to destroy the whole Bill and to construct a new Bill upon its ruins. We watched these proceedings from the Galleries of the House of Lords, and we followed the debates on public platforms and at street corners in Ireland as well, and the result has been to convince us that, with all its faults in the early financial clauses, against which we protested, the Bill was a good Bill as it left this House, and would be of enormous benefit to the Irish people if they could obtain it. What is it we are now invited to do by the Leader of the Irish Tory party and by the organs of that party in Ireland? We are asked, forsooth, in the words of Lord Dunraven, to pass a one-clause Money Bill.

Mr. J. H. CAMPBELL
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South County Dublin (Mr. Walter Long) did not say anything of that kind.

Mr. DILLON
I said Lord Dunraven. He invites us to pass a one-clause Money Bill, and let everything else stand over. Well, the Irish party are too old campaigners to be caught by that kind of thing. We want the whole Bill or no Bill, and we are not afraid, anxious as we are, and heartily as we desire to co-operate with the Chief Secretary in his endeavour by negotiation to obtain the whole Bill—— [An HON. MEMBER: "Negotiation?"] Yes, negotiations leading to reasonable modifications. The Lords struck out the whole principle and machinery of the Bill, and if the hon. Member for North Armagh (Mr. Moore) imagines that negotiations are to take the shape of allowing the whole Bill to be swept away, and all the useful and beneficial provisions are to be struck out by the House of Lords and new ones put in by them, he is greatly mistaken. We were told by the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for South County Dublin some weeks ago, when this Bill was before this House, that if it were passed into law with its existing financial provisions it would block land purchase and bring it to an end. What does the right hon. Gentleman tell us to-day? He tells us to-day that if the financial clauses were passed the block in land purchase would be removed and put an end to.
I want now to say a few words on the provisions of the Bill dealing with congestion, because that is the problem which I know best, and in relation to which I am in a certain measure commissioned to speak. The right hon. Gentleman spoke with great feeling and knowledge upon this question. The history of this problem is an extremely sad one, and I think a very discreditable one to this House. Everyone knows who has followed the history of Irish land agitation and the long and stormy, and, to some extent, bloodstained history of the land question, that all this great storm of agrarian agitation arose and had its origin in the West of Ireland, and for the very simple reason that there the condition of the people was most intolerable. Now what has been the history of these Land Acts and Land Bills, amounting to 15 or 20, during the last 25 years, and culminating in the great Act of 1903? Under all these Acts, which conferred immense benefits on the rest of Ireland, the benefits conferred upon the West were extremely trivial. The Act of 1903 was unquestionably carried through the House, and the bonus was obtained on the plea that this great problem of poverty in the West of Ireland was at last about to be put an end to. No one who remembers the Debates of 1903 will deny that. Now, what happened? By universal admission on all sides, through a variety of circumstances which I am not going to enter in detail into now, the West of Ireland has again been subjected to disappointment, and although vast sums of money, more than £70,000,000, have been advanced or pledged for the purchase of land, the last Return of the Estates Commissioners was that the amount of that money advanced in the West is simply deplorably small. Ulster, Munster, and Leinster have profited enormously, and the money has gone to the very districts where the farmers were substantial, prosperous men, and were well able to bargain with their landlords. But, on the contrary, in the West of Ireland the sales have almost come to a standstill.

Mr. MOORE
You said that land purchase was going too fast in the West of Ireland.

Mr. DILLON
No, I did not, and I am glad that the hon. and learned Member has given me an opportunity of denying that assertion. In my own Constituency that lie has been again and again repeated. What I said was that in my Constituency, before the passing of the Act of 1903, the normal price of land was 12 years' purchase. The landlords were now demanding from 20 to 24 years' purchase for the same class of land, and all I did was to protest against such exorbitant demands. What I said was that purchase at that price was going on a great deal too fast for me. That is what I said, and I still stand by it. Upon the passage of the Act of 1903 the landlords, stimulated by the rise, doubled their prices and demanded from the people prices which would undoubtedly have ruined the West of Ireland, and would have caused the loss of the money voted by this House. I have always maintained that the Irish peasantry would pay the last penny of these advances as far as they could, but if the price is extravagant and out of all proportion to the value of the land it would be impossible for this House to levy the instalments upon a population reduced absolutely to insolvency by the price given for the land. That is not a wild or fanciful idea, because the same thing happened in Russia, where the land was sold to the peasants and the State was obliged to make large reductions in the rent afterwards. I have always been an advocate of purchase in the West of Ireland. Years have passed over, and the hopes of the people in the West of Ireland have been shamefully and cruelly treated, and the great problem of poverty in the West of Ireland, which this House voted large sums of money to solve, has been left unsolved. But although the problem has been left unsolved, the Congested Districts Board started by the Leader of the Opposition—although it has been hampered in its work, to an extent which nobody can understand who does not live in Ireland, by insufficient powers, insufficient area, and by interference with other boards—has in certain districts shown, to a degree that is perfectly amazing what can be done to solve this question of poverty in the West. What I wish to say, for the information of those hon. Members who take an interest in this question is that although it has been truly laid down by the Dudley Commission that every single acre of land in the Province of Connaught is absolutely required for the solution of this problem, and will be insufficient, I know that in many districts in the West, where there is no untenanted land, the Congested Districts Board have been using the waste lands and the bogs in such a way that they have done a great deal to solve this problem. The way the people have responded to these efforts should encourage the operations of the Congested Districts Board. The improvements have been seized upon eagerly by the people, and the housing of the people, and the other recommendations they have made have in some districts altered the whole face of the country. The Board have proved practically the lines along which the problem can be solved, and this Government—for the first time in the history of Great Britain—has made a real, serious, and a generous effort to solve this problem.
How have they been met? By the most extraordinary proceedings on the part of the Tory Opposition in this House and the House of Lords. We were told in Debate that these Gentlemen were burning with eagerness to deal with the congested districts and the congests. When this Bill went up to the House of Lords, how did they show their zeal for the congests and the landless men? What did they do? They made the Clause dealing with the landless men, from the point of view of giving power to give them land, much worse than when it left this House. How has this problem arisen? When there was no such problem as this included in the work of the Congested Districts Board, the Commissioners were encouraged to go across the Shannon and enter into competition in the purchasing of estates with the Congested Districts Board, and they started this system of dividing the land among the landless men. Who are these landless men? They are the sons of farmers, and if the only problem we had to deal with was the repopulation of Ireland you could not do a better thing for the country than to take all these grass lands and divide them among the landless men. These men are nearly all the sons of farmers, and know all about farming. It would be a very estimable and magnificent work to divide these great grass lands among the landless men. That policy, however, would destroy, in the Western Province, the chance of those small holders in the congested districts. How did this problem arise? Because, false to all the promises given when the Bill of 1903 was before this House the Estates Commissioners were encouraged by Lord Macdonnell to go across the Shannon and institute this system of slicing up the farms amongst the young men with capital. Until that was done by the Estates Commissioners, in competition with the Congested Districts Board, these young men did not know whether they could get land, but naturally, with the land hunger which exists in Ireland, once you put into their heads the idea that land was to be got by the sons of farmers you created the whole of this trouble, and now you talk as if we had created the problem, and as if it was not the Administration in Dublin. What did the House of Lords do? So far as the problem of landless men is concerned, they have left it infinitely worse. They then attacked with really diabolical fury the only body in Ireland which has ever attempted to solve the problem of congestion in the West. They deprived it of its extended area, of its elective members, or even its paid members, and they made it absolutely incapable of doing the task they put upon it; a task most difficult at best, but which the provisions of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would have made possible. Those provisions had been most carefully constructed after full consultation with men who had the fullest knowledge, and, by-the-bye, it was held out in this House as infamous that the Chief Secretary should ever have consulted any Nationalist at all upon the Bill—no doubt a great crime. He also took into consideration the recommendation of his own Royal Commission. His provisions would have made this a possible task, a task which at best was a difficult task, and one which it would have taken years to carry out. What does the House of Lords propose to do? In the first place they restricted the area to the old area. No man who has not lived in the West of Ireland can understand the situation, and the cynical audacity of that proposal. In other words, the House of Lords continues the old system which made the relief of congestion impossible by giving over to the Congested Districts Board those portions of Connaught which are over-crowded, and taking away from the Board those very parts Which are required to relieve congestion. Secondly, they leave the Board in its present condition, a condition in which it is absolutely incapable of carrying out the proper administration of the business of the Board.
Everyone knows that for the last 10 or 15 years, since the land business of the Board has increased, it has been absolutely incapable of carrying out the work properly, not through its own fault, but through the utterly inefficient machinery this House has given to it. The Lords propose deliberately and cynically to continue and stereotype that state of affairs, whereas the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give the Board a good working constitution, and to strengthen its administrative side in a way which would have made the public money absolutely safe from what they are so very much afraid of here—popular control. At the same time it would have enabled the Board to keep in touch with local sentiment, which has become doubly and trebly necessary since this problem of landless men was forced upon them. The House of Lords propose to leave the task of settling this problem to this miserably dwarfed and hopeless Board, having deliberately taken away from them all possibility of discharging the task. The meaning of that is that in a year or two we shall be told that this wretched Board is doing, and can do, nothing; and, of course, it will be swept away altogether out of the path of Lord Macdonnell and the landlords. Let me point to a striking and instructive case showing the absolute necessity of that provision, swept away by the Lords—that is to say, the exclusive right given to the Board to buy in Connaught and in the other congested areas, and also the right of pre-emption. It has been said that the right of pre-emption ought to be confined to congested corners of estates where people are crowded, and to untenanted land. The Lords have been careful to put in a new definition of untenanted land. How will this work out? It will cut out nearly all the land available.
Let me give the House a recent instance. An estate was bought in Mayo the other day, not in a congested district, and, as far as I know, there are very few congested holdings on the estate. It was clearly an estate which would have been removed under the present suggested system of the House of Lords from the operations of the Congested Districts Board. There was, practically speaking, under the new definition of the House of Lords, no untenanted land, but there were large tracts of grass land held on yearly lettings by shopkeepers and others without any judicial tenancies. What have the Board been compelled to do? They have been compelled to compulsorily acquire these grass lands to the extent of about 2,000 acres, which they will use immensely for the relief of congestion on neighbouring estates where there are crowded holdings. Under the new system all that land would have been sold to big holders, and would have passed away from the Board. It has been available, and the Board has been compelled to get it. A curious and most interesting case was reported in the Irish newspapers yesterday. One of these farms was neither more nor less than the farm of Captain Boycott. That farm was adjudicated the day before yesterday as being obtainable by the Congested Districts Board, and is now actually in the possession of the Board, and is to be struck out. That is a striking instance of what this destruction of the congested district clauses means. The Lords propose to leave the Board so crippled, so edged in with restrictions, that it is utterly impossible to carry out the task charged upon it. The money would be there, and in a few years the landlords would come to this House and say, "Here is a Board doing no good. It has a large endowment. We want to float some stock and carry on some other operations. Why not take this money and abolish the Board and apply the money to reducing the annuity from 3½ to 3¼ per cent.?" That is the game being played. We are prepared to meet these gentlemen fairly, but we are not prepared to be their dupes, and the Irish people will not allow us to be their dupes. If they want £20,000,000, which I believe this Bill stands to cost the British Exchequer, applied to Irish land purchase, then they must meet the people fairly, and give us something in the Bill as well as the landlords.
In conclusion, let me say one word about a document which I think is really one of the most audacious I have seen published on this question, and that is a letter which appeared in the Irish papers two or three days ago from Lord Macdonnell. Lord Macdonnell in this letter feels called upon, strange and marvellous to relate, to denounce the House of Lords in unmeasured language for their treatment of the problem of congestion. It is a most extraordinary case, and cynical audacity I have ever known. Personally, I have great friendship for Lord Macdonnell, but I am bound to say no worse enemy ever came to Ireland. For motives I cannot pretend to fathom he has pursued the Congested Districts Board with an undying hatred, and he has exhausted every means to destroy that board. What does he say about the conduct of the House of Lords. He writes:— The House of Lords, by rejecting the clause of the original Bill which gave the Congested Districts Board priority of claim to purchase congested estates and un-tenanted land, have left open the way for the sale of congested holdings to their occupiers, whereby improvement of such holdings is barred for ever, and for the sale of untenanted land to landless men. He goes on to say he feels bound to express the opinion that the House of Lords has treated the problem of congestion most shamefully. He is quite right. They propose to leave open the way for the sale of congested estates without improvement, and so stereotype all the existing very wretched conditions. That is a process which has been going on too long. I know many estates in the West of Ireland where landlords have succeeded in compelling the wretched tenants to sign monstrous agreements to give 20, 21, and even 22 years' purchase for holdings not worth eight years' purchase, and has thus stereotyped the misery of poverty of these unfortunate people, and robbed them of the benefits which this House has voted millions to give. That process will be continually going on if the right hon. Gentleman is defeated in his beneficent and necessary proposal to give the Congested Districts Board the right and power to stop such proceedings. Is it not a cruel mockery for this House to pass Bill after Bill, and to set aside large sums of money to bring relief to-these people if such proceedings as these are to be allowed to go on? It is to be left in the power of the Irish landlord to stereotype this misery in the lives of these people on the conditions which I have described. Lord Macdonnell says:— From my point of view, the great merits of the Bill, as it now stands, lie in its treatment of the Congested Districts Board and of Finance (the latter being, of course, common to both Bills). The original Bill had converted the Congested Districts Board into a political organisation, richly endowed with public funds, and with jurisdiction over vast areas which were not congested. The Bill, as it stands, reduces the Board within the limitations of a strictly business body, and, while restricting its operation within congested areas, confers on the Lord Lieutenant in Council the power of enlarging and contracting such areas as necessity required. And, again, Lord Macdonnell says:— Nothing worse could happen to Connanght, even the Nrobe of Irish provinces, than to be played with and cajoled by local wirepullers at this crisis of her fortunes. I do not know what may be the future of Connaught. I hope and trust it will never be played with, and cajoled by an Indian ex-official. I would rather see it under a Connaught man. This Bill, for the first time after long and weary years of struggling, opens the window of hope to these struggling people in Connaught, and I say to the men who close that window, and tell these people once more to despair that on their heads will be all the resultant suffering, disturbance, and crime.

Mr. S. H. BUTCHER
If the spirit which permeates the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo is also the spirit of the party, I fear that this Bill is doomed. The hon. Gentleman at the beginning of his remarks, and I was sorry they were greeted with loud cheers by his party, demanded the whole Bill as it left this House. If it is their intention to insist upon them, then our words here are absolutely wasted, and we might as well leave the House. I cannot myself take so gloomy a view of the prospects of the Bill. In the first place, I own I never have thought, and I do not now think, that the Bill will do anything to promote future purchase. I do not think it can, but, on the other hand, it does help to carry through existing agreements which, if they are not carried out, will produce not only grievous disappointment, but a state of very serious apprehension in Ireland. The Chief Secretary in very impressive tones reminded the House that if the cost of the flotation of stock could no longer fall on the Development Grant a very serious prospect would ensue for the Irish ratepayers. Is the House aware that from January on till April Irish local bodies have no funds whatever with which to finance and carry on local undertakings? They cannot borrow money on the security of the rates, and the only way in which they do conduct their finance is by the help of Imperial subsidies towards the rates. This means that for four months from January next there will be no money for lunatic asylums, infirmaries, and poor- houses, no money with which to pay the doctors. I cannot imagine that anyone responsible for the administration of Ireland would not feel that that was a most grave condition of affairs, and that would in itself apart from the general question of financing land purchase be a very strong motive for straining a point in coming to an agreement; between the two countries. I will only deal with two or three of the main points alluded to by the Chief Secretary—the question of compulsion, the constitution of the Congested Districts Board and the Appeal Tribunal. I cannot help thinking that the Chief Secretary in enumerating the number of Clauses struck out, and the number of new Clauses added must have created a somewhat exaggerated impression in the minds of those who have not actually studied the Lords Amendments, but only knew them by the bare statistical facts. I cannot but think that although the Lords Amendments are very serious, they are not of the destructive and wrecking order which certainly the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) thinks they are, and such as they seem to be in the eyes of the Chief Secretary, and I would really ask the House dispassionately to take two or three questions and consider what the Lords have done. First of all, take the case of compulsion. May I remind the House what was the ground of compulsion as it was set before the House by the Government in repeated Debates. The case was this. They told us that over most of Ireland land purchase had gone on successfully—only too successfully—the tenants had been eager to buy and the landlords had been eager to sell—but they said there is an exception, and in the poorest part of the West, in Connaught in patricular, land purchase has been a failure, and it has not been possible to bring about voluntary sales, and they said for that reason, and that reason mainly, we demand compulsory purchase. We do not believe we shall have to exercise it on a large scale, but we must have it because we cannot get by voluntary agreement the land which we want. That statement of the case impressed me, and I should have liked, and I said so before in this House, to know much more specifically of the instances in the mind of the Government. However, they did not give us any evidence as to the difficulty of voluntary purchase. That only was given in the House of Lords, and it was to this effect, that a certain circular had been sent out by the Congested Districts Board to a large number of owners asking if they would sell, and on what terms. It was a general circular couched in general terms, and it met with the response which such circulars very often do. It was not in any sense an attempt at negotiation; it did not seem to me any evidence showing that any individual was approached and would not offer any terms. It was very disappointing, but I put that aside, because if the Government did not afford us the evidence which we desired, yet there were men who were practically acquainted with the work of the congested districts who were able to give us personal assurances that they believed that land purchase had been brought to a standstill within these regions on the voluntary basis.
I think the House of Lords were wise in accepting that assurance and trying to meet the case. In the Bill the power was not given in a limited district, but all over Ireland to take any land that was desired from any man and give it to any man, and what the Lords have done has been this. They say, "We accept your own statement as regards compulsion, we understand that you need compulsion within a limited area, and you need it for a specific purpose, namely, for the relief of the congestion, and we give that guarded compulsion which on your own showing is the only compulsion required." I put it to the House, can that be looked upon as a wrecking Amendment to the principle of compulsion? Therefore I have this general remark to make about compulsion. In all other countries, and certainly in England, special safeguards have been always recognised as necessary in the case of compulsory provisions—special safeguards of the principle have been created wholesale in order to avoid misuse and injurious treatment of individuals. Is that so in England? And if it is recognised in Act after Act, I submit to the House that in applying the principle of compulsion to Ireland these safeguards are far more necessary, and for this reason, that Ireland is a country where the one object and desire is land, the sole origin of disturbance and lawlessness is land, and where at this moment we have barely come to the close of a long and bitter agrarian warfare the remains of the embers of which are still smouldering, and where finally, in addition to that, after a long and severe war about land, there has in the last few years sprung up a new agitation for dis- possessing owners of land by open violence, that is to say, you are here applying the principle of compulsion in a country where political passions centre around the ownership of land and where land is, as it were, the danger point in all political matters. Is it not, therefore, reasonable that you should establish efficient safeguards when you apply the principle of compulsion? That being so, I say that it is unanswerable. I see no answer to that, especially now that the predatory instincts have been naturally stimulated by what has occurred in the last few years.
What are the two main safeguards which ought to apply to the principle of compulsion? The two main safeguards of compulsion as the Bill comes back from the Lords are, first, that you should have an impartial purchasing authority. Nobody will deny that. You are brought at once to the constitution of the Congested Districts Board. Assuming that that Board is to be in the future, as the Government insist, the purchasing authority within that area, then I say its constitution becomes all-important, and I must observe myself, that although I do not approve of the plan of having two competing purchasing authorities in Ireland, I cannot, although I hold that personal opinion, say that it may not be right to accept within the congested districts the Congested Districts Board as the purchasing authority in that area. Here we come to the contrast between the constitution of that body as it was under the Bill and as it is now under the Lords Amendments. According to the Bill, that body consisted largely, for all practical purposes, of a majority of nominees of a great political organisation who were to be endowed with a quarter of a million of money and a jurisdiction over one-third of Ireland. According to the Lords Amendments, the Congested Districts Board in the future is to be practically the Congested Districts Board of the present day; that body, on which we have had lavish praises bestowed by the Chief Secretary himself, and by the hon. Member (Mr. Dillon), who, however, at one moment lapsed into calling it, quite contrary to the gist of his speech, a miserable and helpless Board. That was the Board which did the wonders that he de-tailed. The Lords gave you again that Congested Districts Board which has done all this work, and the Government proposes to abolish that Congested Districts Board, and to substitute a wholly different Board from that which they themselves praised. Because it is to have the same name they speak of it as the same body. It is another body. It is the abolition of the Congested Districts Board and not the retention of it. I feel the force of the suggestion of the Chief Secretary that there should be a paid member, or paid members, on the Board. I think that is one of the things which might be granted. The local element is not entirely put aside even in the Lords Amendments, because it is provided that there should be powers to form consultative committees appointed by county councils, which will lay their views before the Congested Districts Board. In Committee the elected element was defended largely on the analogy of the Boards, which now advice the Board of Agriculture. That is provided for in the Lords Amendments, so that the localities shall have direct access to the Congested Districts Board in laying their case before it.
The other safeguard of the principle of compulsion is an impartial tribunal to which you can appeal. I understand from the Chief Secretary that he rejects altogether, but he has not made it quite plain, the idea of such an impartial court of appeal. I do not think he explicitly and definitely said he would not listen to it, but he rather laughed at the machinery which has been erected in the Bill. I am not defending the particular machinery of the Bill. Personally I think that machinery might be simplified. I would even go further. As regards the court of appeal, the Lords Amendments provide that there shall be an appeal on two points, and both of them are of real importance. One is on the question whether there is a necessity for compulsory purchase and the other question is on the price. If the necessity has arisen, what is the price to be paid for the land? As regards the appeal on the question of necessity, I believe the main words of the Clause are really taken from the Small Holdings Act, or as near it as possible. Anyhow, the words are these, that the Congested Districts Board, or whatever the purchasing authority is, would have to show two things as regards this necessity. First, they would have to show that there was no other land available to suit their purpose, and secondly, that they had tried to get the land they wanted and failed to get it by voluntary agreement. Surely there is nothing unreasonable in establishing these two points before a court of appeal. The other point is the appeal on the question of price, an appeal from the Congested Districts Board itself to a perfectly impartial judicial tribunal. I do not care what the tribunal is, so long as it is impartial. My own belief is that if you give an impartial tribunal the question of compulsory purchase will very easily solve itself. Indeed, if landlords are given what they deem a fair price I rather think there will be a rush for compulsion. There are certain advantages attaching to compulsion. You get cash, which is a great advantage, and I cannot help thinking that the main objections of landlords to compulsion would be removed if they could feel sure that they had an impartial tribunal to settle these two points—firstly, that the necessity of acquiring this particular land has arisen; and, secondly, that they are to get a fair price for it.
Why is it that landlords are rather apprehensive as to not getting a fair price for their land? One reason is that in the evidence before the Dudley Commission two Commissioners gave evidence as to the principles of settling prices in these congested districts, which were certainly enough to create very considerable misgiving; and in particular they raised this large question. They said the price of grazing land must be fixed on a wholly different principle from that on which it would be fixed in the case of other agricultural land, because they looked forward to the future. They asked themselves what they had to do if Canadian cattle were introduced. They had their own view as to the future of agriculture. I do not believe any man can forecast 10 or 15 years hence the future of agriculture, and the whole purchase of Irish land has been based on the assumption that no great revolution is going to take place. If it does, very large questions will arise. Anyhow, that speculative forecast as to a fall in the value of agricultural land which will, as it was suggested, halve the value of the land so that men ought to be bought out, not on anything like the price they are getting for their grazing land, but at half the price, has naturally given rise to great alarm. Therefore, for that reason also, the question of an impartial tribunal seems to me one of immense importance, and I would submit that it is not unreasonable.
Those who read the Debates in the Lords must have been impressed with one thing which was wanting in the Debates in the Commons. The whole question of congestion in the West of Ireland was there debated, not only with knowledge but fully, thoroughly, and by men who seemed to think it worth while to debate it. Here we had one day given to the whole question of the Congested Districts Board, and we discussed one clause or half a clause, I forget which. In the Lords for the first time we got not a political, but an economic discussion on those questions, and the impression I got, both from the Debates in the Lords and also from their Amendments—I do not personally adhere to every one of the Amendments, but some are, on the whole, eminently reasonable—the impression I got was that the Lords are genuinely anxious, if not to solve, at least to help in solving the problem of congestion, and next that they are prepared to go a long way in granting compulsion in order to solve that question. On the other hand, it is equally clear that they are not prepared to give that compulsion in a form which will inflict serious injury and gross injustice on individuals. Nor are they prepared to sacrifice the interests of the congests to the interests of the landless men. My own belief is that the Amendments of the Lords converted a scheme for the political redistribution of land in Ireland into a workable measure of land purchase to relieve congestion.

4.0 P.M.

Mr. M. KEATING
I must confess that in rising to address the House I do not feel entirely free from that alarm and diffidence which a new Member must naturally feel when he finds himself trying to impart information to a House of experts. But I seize this opportunity of addressing the House because I am most anxious that my first effort should be on a subject which I am sure is one that not only the Irish people are deeply interested in, but that Nationalists all over the world are watching very keenly. They are filled with indignation and resentment at the conduct of the House of Lords for having destroyed by this measure. When the Bill left this House it left in the shape which was the result of consultation, tact, skill, and ability. It was regarded as the irreducible minimum which could be put into operation to deal with the subjects of congestion in the West and compulsory purchase throughout Ireland, and it came back from the House of Lords in a condition in which, assuming that such were possible for a political measure of this kind, its own mother would not recognise it. All the principal features of the Bill have been destroyed, and the Chief Secretary used a very good expression when he referred to them as having acted the part of housebreakers in their efforts to reshape the Bill. I was very much struck with the remark of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Butcher), in which he questioned whether it was a fact that the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) represented the spirit of the Irish people and of the Irish party in their attitude towards this Bill. I have no hesitation, at all events, in asserting my opinion that he does represent that spirit, that they are determined that this Bill shall not be ruined by irresponsible partisans in another place, and that this effort on the part of this House to remedy an admitted injustice shall not be passed by without our making a desperate effort to do justice to the poor people in the West of Ireland. It is considered a crime, as my hon. Friend truly said, if the Government consult Nationalists and the representatives of the tenants when endeavouring to grapple with this problem, but it is not considered a crime when the Bill goes up to another place for Irish landlords to practically decide the fate of the measure. They do not even do the Government the poor compliment of consulting them when they are determined to ruin a Bill. If the effort at compromise which has been outlined on both sides of the House is not carried into effect, the Bill will be ruined. I believe it is the practice of this House to extract a declaration from a Member of the House that he has no financial interest in any particular Bill which he is appointed to consider. What is the position with respect to this particular Bill? It has been destroyed by a Committee who have enormous financial interest in the Bill. That is their only interest in discussing the matter as is well known by the history of the relations of Irish landlords and tenants. In the majority of cases Irish landlords show very little sympathy indeed with the tenants. It is well known that their only interest in these matters is the financial interest, and therefore it comes very poorly from hon. Gentlemen in this House and Noble Lords in the other House to pose before the country as detached, disinterested, impartial, and judicial influences in preventing people from taking wild and unconsidered steps. The governing motive for their action in regard to this Bill has been to protect their own selfish interests, and never to mind the interests of the tenants at all. We have good reason to regard—and I believe the opinion is generally held by Nationalists all over the world—the other Chamber as the gilded sepulchre of Irish hopes. I have heard a great deal in the Debates on other subjects during the week about the cruelty and injustice of raising apprehensions in the minds of the poor and humble people of this country. What about the poor people of the West of Ireland, who are looking to this Bill to enable them to have homes of decency and comfort? If it is an injustice to raise apprehensions in the poor people of this country, I suppose the same remark will apply in the case of the Irish people. In my judgment the best type of Britisher is very anxious to work on good terms with the best type of Irishman. The only influence to prevent them coming to an understanding is an influence, such as that with which we are now dealing, exercised when measures are brought forward, and receive the assent of the representatives of the people in this country and in Ireland, and when all hopes of an amicable settlement are destroyed entirely by people in another place, who are financially interested. The attitude of the Irish people on this question reminds me very much of the attitude of the people who lived in another generation, when the King wanted moneys supplied without remedying certain grievances. The cry at that time was, "Grievances before supplies," and that is the spirit which dominates the Irish people at the present time. And if the Irish landlords and their representatives in this House desire to come to a compromise of a satisfactory nature upon this question, then let them agree to the remedy for the grievances of the Irish people and they will get their supplies.

Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND
I would not have intervened except for the fact that, together with my hon. Friend below (Mr. A. Lynch), I represent a county in Ireland which is quite as vitally interested with the passage of this Bill into law as any other part of Ireland. Scarcely a day has passed on which hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway have not found fault one way or another with the condition of the county Clare. Questions are continually being asked as to alleged disturbances there, and even the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Butcher), who spoke so recently, has often referred to the condition of the county Clare. I say here deliberately and openly that any disturbance, any departure from peace and order that there may have been in the county Clare within recent years is entirely due to the want of this Bill, which the House of Lords are now refusing to pass into law. And I say here what I suppose I should be denounced for saying in Ireland, and I shall say it on every occasion in every place, that if this Bill does not become law it will not be possible for all the extra police that the Chief Secretary can pour into the county Clare to maintain peace and order in that county, because the excitement caused among the people by the action of the House of Lords is such that they will say to themselves, and I can hardly blame them for saying it, "If we are treated this way by the Legislature, we have nothing to look to except our own action, and we must take steps ourselves to protect ourselves in our homes." Although I may not be believed by hon. Members above the Gangway, I tell the Member for Cambridge University, and all his Friends, that as the representative of the county Clare which was so frequently denounced, I am as anxious as, if possible more anxious than, any other Member of this House that peace and good order should prevail there, and that there should be an absolute freedom from disorder and agitation, and that the people should be enabled to live on fair and reasonable terms in their own homes, which is all they desire.
May I remind hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway, who are so constantly denouncing county Clare, of what has taken place? Under the Land Act of 1903 comparatively little land has changed hands in that county. I can say with confidence that in proportion to the amount of land which has been sold under the Act of 1903 the amount in county Clare is considerably less than in any other county of Ireland. Land purchase has not proceeded there at all, and the natural result is that irritation and discontent exist among the people. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, who is well acquainted with the process of land purchase in Ireland, will agree with me that no one can expect that farmers in county Clare and in other districts, when they see land in other places passing from the landlords to the tenants, when they see sales of small farms carried out, should be contented in fact of the fact that no opportunity is offered to them to buy land, and that they are condemned to continue under the old system of paying rent, which they believe, and rightly believe, to be altogether unjust. Who can for a moment expect peace, content, and order in the country if you allow a large portion of it to rest under the inability to acquire land. Under the Land Act as it stands land purchase in county Clare has undoubtedly broken down, and if this Bill does not pass into law you will condemn the people of that county to an intolerable condition of things; while, at the same time, they see people in other parts of the country acquiring land. Of course, if the House of Lords want that they can have it. But do not let any man in this House or in the House of Lords attempt to discredit the people of the constituency which I represent if discontent and disorder break out there.
I remember that two or three years before I came into this House in 1880 what took place. At that time there were discontent and disorder in Ireland. Thousands of people were under notice of eviction; the country was seething with unrest and disorder. A Bill was brought in by Mr. Gladstone of a moderate character—the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, which merely aimed at compensating the tenants who were unjustly evicted. That Bill passed through this House triumphantly in 1881. It was sent to the House of Lords, who threw the Bill back in the face of the House of Commons. What was the result? The Land League agitation sprang into existence in its full force immediately, and in 1881 and 1882 there was an agitation such as Ireland had never seen. The people rose as one man. The Land League spread all over the country, with the result that the Government were compelled in 1881 to introduce, not merely a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, such as the House of Lords rejected, but the great Act of 1881, which may be said to have been the commencement of the emancipation of the tenant farmers of Ireland. I say deliberately, without any desire to threaten or menace, or use language which I should be afraid to use outside, that if the House of Lords persist in the attitude they have taken up, if they persist in saying that the people of Clare and other counties are not to have this relief, or to be dealt with by the Congested Districts Board under the provisions of this Bill, then there will be a revival of discontent and agitation, and it will not be possible for the Chief Secretary or for the representative of any Government to keep the people at rest or in a state of order.
I was glad of the tone of the speech of the hon. Member for Cambridge. I may be wrong entirely in my interpretation of the tone of his speech, and I could not agree with many of the statements he made, but I seemed to gather by the tone of that speech, and somewhat also by the tone of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin (Mr. Walter Long), that hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway were alive to the necessities of the case, and that they were anxious, if possible, that this Bill should become law on terms acceptable to the vast majority of all parties concerned. I do not know whether that is going to take place or not. I hope it is, but I think it is only honest and straightforward for somebody to say here what I have said, without any desire to menace whatever, that if this winter in Ireland we are to tell the people, who have been anxiously, eagerly looking for this measure of relief, that they are not to get it, that there is to be no improvement in their prospects of acquiring land, then I say that any man who knows Ireland must know perfectly well that there will be discontent and the consequent disorder throughout the country. It is a cruel way to treat the people. After all, what are the people in districts like my own to say. They will say "that, while the British House of Commons has recognised the necessities of our case, and have passed a Bill which would enable us to obtain the benefits intended for us by Parliament in the Act of 1903, which would enable us to buy on fair terms our homes and settle down, when by a great majority and practically unanimously that measure was passed by the British House of Commons, the House of Lords which are unrepresentative and represent only themselves and their own interests have thrown that back." Whatever you might say to the people, if the House of Commons refused to give them redress, you can say nothing at all to them when they see that the redress offered them by the British House of Commons is refused to them by the British House of Lords. I do most sincerely and earnestly, as a man who has been in this agitation all his life, hope that before it is too late representatives of the landlords in this House will take the lessons of the past to heart, and will agree to allow this Bill to pass into law in a shape which will make it of some use to the people of Ireland.
In conclusion let me say one word why particularly as a representative of the county Clare I am anxious about this matter along with my colleague the hon. Member for West Clare (Mr. A. Lynch). Clare, under the Bill of the Government, was one of the counties proposed to be in the new congested area, and to be handed over to the administration of the Congested Districts Board. That proposal was hailed with the greatest satisfaction by the people in Clare. They were most anxious that they should be placed under the administration of the Congested Districts Board. The House of Lords at one stroke have deprived the people of that hope, and they say that the county of Clare, with other counties, is not to be considered as a congested area. All I can say is that the county of Clare and the other counties mentioned ought to have been considered congested areas from the very beginning by the Congested Districts Board. There are different definitions of what congestion really means. With some knowledge of the whole of the West of Ireland, particularly of the county which I have represented for the last 17 years, I can say that the county of Clare fulfils in every respect every definition I have ever heard of a congested area. The holdings are extremely small, the people in many districts are crowded together; in a great part it is extremely poor. And by every test which you can apply the county ought to be treated as a congested area, and ought to have all the advantages which can be given to it by the Congested Districts Board. I can only say that if now, having had their hopes raised in this matter, the people are doomed to disappointment, that it is not in my power, or the power of any man to say what the consequences will be. In regard to the proposed powers of compulsion which the House of Lords finds so much fault with, I must say I am surprised. I have had some actual experience in other countries. I have seen the principle of compulsion work with success in some of the most prosperous Colonies in the Empire. Compulsion not more far-reaching than was proposed in this Bill is in full work, and it works well. The landlords are paid a fair price for their land; the people are placed on small holdings, and the general prosperity of the State is greatly increased and secured. So far as the county which I represent is concerned, unless there is some sort of compulsion there will be no sale. I do not believe that compulsion will be necessary in every case, but the Commissioners should have that power to resort to. Unless they have that power in the last resort many of the landlords will not sell. Let them see the power there. Let them be told that they will have fair and reasonable but not extravagant terms; that they can have their land transferred, and I believe they will require no compulsion to compel them to do what is right. At any rate, as one of the representatives of this best denounced and condemned county in Ireland, I say that I sincerely hope that better counsels will prevail. I sincerely hope that I shall not have to go back to Ireland this winter and tell the people that they have to consent to be trampled upon by the House of Lords. I would appeal to hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway. I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, who knows very well the seriousness of the situation. I would also appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition as well. He has knowledge of this matter, and I would appeal to him to exert every effort, to use every influence he can with his friends in the other Chamber to make them alive to the absolute necessity from every point of view, from the point of view of the landlord as well as the tenant, from the point of view of the ratepayers, and even the citizen, and inhabitant in Ireland, to have this Bill passed in a shape which can be accepted by the representatives of the tenant farmers in Ireland, and if that is not done, all I can say, and sorrowfully, is that history will repeat itself, and, once more, the House of Lords will have struck a deadly blow, not only at the prosperity and the progress and the peace of Ireland, but they will have struck a deadly blow at the best interests of this House and this country, because, if this Bill is rejected at this moment by the House of Lords, I say many and many a weary day and many and many a weary night, this House will be called upon to pass in the near future in considering afresh the old question of land purchase in Ireland.

Mr. GEORGE WYNDHAM
The speech to which we have just listened is an excellent argument for voting against the Motion before the House. The hon. Member for East Clare has appealed to me to express an opinion upon one matter which occupies the greater portion of his speech, namely, whether I did or did not think that Clare ought to be a congested district. I am absolutely precluded from entering upon that matter by the terms of the Motion which the Government ask us to vote for. It may be that this Motion is only intended to be contemptuous towards another place. I feel it is contemptuous towards this House. We have had few opportunities of discussing the important matters involved in this Irish Land Bill, and the consideration of the Lords Amendments would have given us that opportunity, and the opportunity of selecting the material which we though it right to discuss. The Motion of the Prime Minister is one which the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Dublin disposed of, if it had not already been disposed of, by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. That speech (of the Chief Secretary) was the speech of a man sincerely moved and almost passionately careful for the fate of this Bill. The Motion that that speech was supposed to support is a Motion which I believe to be hostile to the Bill, and it is certainly careless of it to a degree that may be described as absolutely reckless. I cannot believe that the statesman who made the speech that we have listened to this afternoon really drafted the Motion which he has asked us to adopt. He is the last man I should think to wish to recur to the precedent of 1906. We are asked to take this afternoon that precedent in a more violent form than in 1906. Will anybody looking back to what has happened since 1906, and putting political feeling to one side, really declare, as a matter of fact and constitutional experience, that a Motion of this character is the best way by which Amendments from another place can be treated? We have bad three or four attempts to amend the consequences of that act of violence. Why, if we do care for the Amendment of the Irish Land Acts, should we adopt procedure in connection with Irish land purchase which has proved so fatal from every point of view to the interests of education? I do not know why we have been asked to pass this Motion. I do not know whether the Government feel that they must earn the encomiums that the "Daily News" denies to the Minister in charge of the Housing and Town Planning Bill? That may be the explanation.

Mr. BIRRELL
I think not.

Mr. WYNDHAM
The hon. Member for East Mayo said that he had had no hand in the Motion. I accept his assurance. But it seems to me to be the kind of assistance towards land purchase which the hon. Member for East Mayo has lavished upon land purchase during the last six years. Making all allowance for the anticipation of events, intelligent or not, we are not concerned with electioneering in this House so long as this Parliament is sitting. This Motion is a piece of electioneering.

Mr. BIRRELL
No, no.

Mr. WYNDHAM
So long as this Parliament is in existence it ought to be allowed to attend to the business before Parliament, and we are precluded from doing so by this Motion, which expects us to make ourselves parties to what is nothing more than a bit of electioneering. No one will deny that whatever the intention of this Motion may be, its tendency is to prejudice the chances of this or any other Land Purchase Bill passing into law. It is really ungenerous to assume as I do assume, and say in a perfectly frank way, there are in this country and in Ireland many persons who do not wish this Land Purchase Bill to be passed. This Bill is largely unpopular in Ireland.

Mr. M. REDDY
With the landlords.

Mr. WYNDHAM
I am stating the case. May I ask why the Leader of the Nationalist party took the whole of his party into the Lobby against the earlier financial clauses, with which the House of Lords did not deal at all? It is unpopular because, as the Chief Secretary had to agree, it does diminish the chances of future agreements. I do not think I put it too high when I say in respect of future agreements you will only have isolated purchase here and there, and not the general system of purchase that prevailed in the last six years.
And this Bill is unpopular in England—and in some degree I am sorry for that—because it largely increases the demand upon the credit of the National Exchequer. But in the event of a General Election, if that Bill does not satisfy, as I think the legitimate financial expectations of Ireland, and does arouse prejudice in England then I am astonished to find a Motion put upon the Paper which makes for the killing of the Bill and not for its saving. The speech of the Chief Secretary was of a different order. It was the speech of a man who believed two great losses would be inflicted upon Ireland if this Bill is not carried into law. The loss falling upon the ratepayers I agree will be a serious loss. The Congested Districts Board will for a longer period have to go without additional resources which they could wisely expend. I agree the postponement of the good work which could be done by the Board is a serious loss. That is the amount of the loss. I should be sorry that that loss should be brought about, but if it is it will be brought about by the Motion and not by the Minister to whose speech we listened this afternoon.
So far as Ireland is concerned our position from the start is clear. We say we offer no opposition to dealing with land purchase in Ireland; that it will be our duty to see that the block in the carrying out of agreements is removed without prejudice to future buyers and sellers. It will be our duty to protect the ratepayers, and to deal generously and drastically with the question of congestion wherever it occurs. But we have all along protested that when we have discharged what we consider our duty first in the matter of the abolition of dual ownership in Ireland, and in the second place, dealt with congestion in Ireland, then we ought not to increase the obligations of the Exchequer in order to meet in Ireland matters which are not special to Ireland, namely, the desire of those who are not the victims of dual ownership or congestion to acquire land by aid of the credit of the State. I said that last November; I have repeated it since, and I could not allow this Motion to pass without reasserting that the future use of national credit, where no particular case can be made for Ireland, ought to be generally available for the whole of the United Kingdom, and not ear-marked for Ireland alone. That enlargement of the financial size of the problem turns upon parts of the Bill which were never discussed in this House, and deals with most vital matters in the whole of this part. The only occasion upon which it could be discussed was on the Lords Amendments. They have so dealt with the problem of congestion and of compulsory powers as to give an opportunity of saying whether we did or did not intend to open the door to any persons who wished for farms in Ireland, and to give such persons free use of British credit.
That vital point we have never had an opportunity of discussing. We might have discussed it on the Lords Amendments, but we are now asked to deal with the whole of these Amendments as if they were one. Under these circumstances our proceedings are reduced to a farce. The Chief Secretary said there are other means of approaching this question, but his manner and efforts in the House of Commons have not been very happy, and the least happy is the effort he has made this afternoon in supporting a Motion to kill the Bill by a speech imploring us to keep it alive. There is much in the Bill that is well worth saving, and it would be a cruel wrong that the ratepayers should be penalised in obedience to party tactics. I trust that that loss will not be inflicted upon them. We ought to have been allowed on these Amendments to discuss the vital problem of whether you are going to have a policy for these landless men or not, and we have never been allowed to discuss that question. Upon the few occasions when we did discuss it the Chief Secretary replied, "Oh! that is not what we mean." We are asked to deal with all these Amendments en bloc, and this huge matter, affecting not only Ireland but England and Scotland and Wales, is one which we have never been allowed to discuss only by means of interjections. This Motion is inimical to the Bill, contemptuous to another place, and contemptuous to our right in this House of Commons. For these reasons I think every hon. Member ought to vote against this Motion.

Mr. T. M. HEALY
I think the right hon. Gentleman has done an injustice to Ireland in regard to what he has said about our responsibility for this Motion. The hon. Member for East Mayo was well advised in the statement he made that we were not responsible for this Motion. If the right hon. Gentleman's inquiries had extended back to 1906 he would find that (he Leader of our party then expressed hostility to a Motion of this kind in regard to an English measure in which we were greatly affected, namely, the question of religious education. He said on that occasion:— He must express his personal regret that the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Government, promised to lake the course which the stated would be pursued next day. That was in reference to a Motion similar to this which was then before the House. As far as this party is concerned, I think the hon. Member for East Mayo was quite justified in stating that the responsibility for this Motion rested not with us but with the Government. In the case of the English Education Bill the Government first proposed "That the Lords Amendments be now considered," then the Amendments were read a second time, and afterwards rejected en bloc. To-day an entirely different course has been pursued, because the Prime Minister has put down a Motion to reject the Lords Amendments as a whole. The Chief Secretary says that in 1906 they had not then made up their minds what to do, but in the very speech in which he made the Motion "that the Lords Amendments be now considered" he announced "that to-night he proposed to put down a Resolution to be moved to-morrow by the Prime Minister. It would be something to this effect: 'That the question of agreement or disagreement with the Lords Amendments to the Education Bill shall be discussed as a whole.'" So the right hon. Gentleman, when he got up to speak and make the Motion, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered," had in his hands the very terms of the Motion, "That the Lords Amendments be considered en bloc." We have therefore now to consider, from our point of view, the effect of the Government's action. I said the moment the Bill was introduced that land purchase was dead. Having heard' the speeches of those upon both sides of the House, of those upon the Government Bench, and those who represent the Opposition, I remain firmly convinced that my original forecast was right. The Chief Secretary has stated, as a reason for the acceptance of this Motion, that there are £50,000,000 of pending agreements, involving 175,000 tenant farmers. How does this Bill in any way improve the condition of these 175,000 tenant farmers? If this Bill perishes, as apparently it is intended it should perish, the agreements between these tenants and landlords will remain valid, and will be carried out on the old rate. Joining, as I do heartily, in the expressions of condemnation of the action of the House of Lords in this business, I am not prepared to excuse the action of the House of Commons, because what does the Government do? I verily believe, and am fully persuaded, that if the financial terms of the Wyndham Act as to bonus and annuity had been adhered to we would have got the Congested Districts Board Section through the House of Lords with a whisk. The Government say that if this Bill is not passed you put an obligation on the ratepayers of the counties of £125,000 a year. How much are you putting upon them by your Budget? It is not £125,000 a year, but £1,125,000 a year that the Budget will cast upon the ratepayers of Ireland. One would think, therefore, that, when you have a Budget which will hit Ireland by this extraordinary amount, destroying its manufactures, we might well come to the Ministry, and say, the least you can do is to pay your debt of £50,000,000 which you owe, and which you guaranteed to pay off in some other spirit than that of a bankrupt South American Republic. You pledged the honour and credit of Britain to pay this money off in sovereigns, and under this Bill it is going to be paid off in paper. This £50,000,000 is coming to Ireland as £50,000,000 of depreciated stock instead of £50,000,000 of golden sovereigns which was the original bargain.

Mr. BIRRELL
The hon. and learned Member is perfectly inaccurate. Regarding the pending agreements, all the Treasury are doing is to relieve the ratepayers of the liability. They will be paid exactly in the same way as everybody else will be paid, and just as quickly as ever it was contemplated they would be paid.

Mr. T. M. HEALY
I take Section (3), and I heartily share the regret of the hon. Member for East Mayo that it was not on the financial sections of the Act that the Lords fell. These are the sections that they should have attacked, and it is to be deplored that they did not do so, instead of attacking the sections which give relief to the unfortunate people of the West of Ireland. You say there is a sum of 5o millions of money due! When is it going to be paid? Here is your proposal: Notwithstanding anything ill Section (27) of the Act of 1903, advances for the purposes of the Land Purchase Acts may, subject to provisions of this Section, be made in whole or in part by means of stock, in the manner and under the circumstances for which provision is made by this Section. What is the provision made by this Section? "That for the purpose of carrying into effect pending purchase agreements advances may, if the vendor agrees, be made."
I am not saying that this is compulsory. But the bargain was to pay this amount when the money was due, and you say now, "We will not pay 50 millions; you must take paper." I say if the Government had the smallest doubt—if as they say the gates are open for compromise—for the right hon. Gentleman told us there was every hope that by arrangement we might make fair terms—I say it is a very simple thing to get this Bill through. You have only to give the landlords a little money and it will go through. The whole question is this: Is the peace of Ireland, and especially of the West of Ireland, worth paying the price? Are you prepared to give the terms unanimously agreed to by this House, by the Irish Members, by every section on both sides, by every section in the country—North, South, East and West—terms endorsed by your own leader, and endorsed by your own Conference in 1903? Are you prepared to give those terms, or are you going back on them? I was not a member of the Land Conference. [An HON. MEMBER: "Thank God."] I am very thankful also. But the result of the Land Conference at all events won the approval of every Member of this House. What you have to do in order to get your Bill through is to go back to the original terms of 1903. And you are asked to do that in a Session in which you are extracting a sum of two millions. ["No, no."] Well, I will take the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He puts it at £600,000. Complaint is made of the infliction by this Bill of a loss of £125,000 on the ratepayers, but, according to the confession of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, his Budget places a burden of £600,000 on their shoulders. If the door is to be open for negotiation—as I heartily hope it will be—I trust the Government will bear in mind that the effect of the Bill, as it now stands, is to interpose a chasm of five years' purchase by its terms between landlord and tenant. That is the question for the Government to consider. Sometimes you see a stone thrown at a dog, and you see the dog snarling at the stone instead of at the hand that threw it, but I say it was a bad day for Ireland when the terms of the Wyndham Act were gone back upon. I say we were entitled to have it carried out. I am told there would be a loss to the ratepayers, as no doubt there would be, but I cannot forget that in the very first Session of this Government the present Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, came down to this House and stated that the ratepayers would not be subjected to that loss. That promise, I presume, holds good still.
I share to the full the indignation expressed at the action of the House of Lords in reference to these unfortunate people in the West of Ireland. I think, of all the cruel things that have been done it was to fall upon those sections affecting the poorest of the poor and the most distressful of the distressed, and all in reference to a matter that could be bridged over by a payment of this £100,000. The extraordinary thing to me is this. Hon. Members sometimes seem to have very short memories. I said that it was a question of more money, and that excited great laughter from hon. Gentlemen around me, but Gentlemen who laughed, everyone of them, trooped into the Lobby at the whip of the hon. Gentleman above the Gangway the hon. Member for Antrim. They knew that that imperilled the Bill, but memories are so short that that is only so recently as the 30th of July. We voted in divisions, and who were the Whips behind whom we voted? "Tellers for the Noes, Sir A. Acland Hood and Viscount Valentia," and the Gentlemen who laughed themselves followed the Tory Whip to do what they could to get more money for land purchase. The numbers were, on "Clause 8: Ayes, 194; Noes, 125," and all through, whenever the Irish landlords moved an Amendment to improve the financial position of this Bill, I am glad to think that the good sense of the Leaders of this party supported the Conservatives in their insistence. For the information of the Gentlemen who laughed, I will give another instance: On 9th of July, "Tellers for the Noes, Captain Craig and Mr. Hugh Barrie," and the numbers, when we voted with the Conservatives, were "Ayes, 177; Noes, 143;" and on the same day in another Division on the financial clauses the figures were "Ayes, 184; Noes, 149," the whole Opposition being solid. It is absurd to say that in this matter the interest of the tenant and the interest of the landlord are not practically identical. You have proved it by your votes in the Division Lobbies, and accordingly nothing is required in my opinion to make this Bill go through and to pass into law except to get over the penury of the Treasury, and I join heartily in the protest that has been made against the excission of the clauses bringing relief to the West of Ireland. These unfortunate people, above all others, are entitled to relief because hitherto the benefits of the Land Act have gone to the richer parts of the country and they are paying taxation en tobacco, whisky and beer entirely out of proportion to the same sort of tax which would fall upon persons with larger purses. Accordingly, we are entitled to say in the interests of the West of Ireland that these financial Clauses should be reconsidered. If the landlords are wise, instead of having any quarrel with us in this House they will join with us in insisting upon better financial terms being extracted from the Government. This Session at all events the Government have no answer, having passed the Budget, to that demand, and I deeply regret also that when they say the doors are open for negotiation with the landlords, they did not think of that six months ago. I think we should be in a different position to-day if the Government had not rejected every overture to try and make this a consent Bill. Now, when the fat is in the fire, when the milk is spilt, they declare that they are willing to negotiate, but without giving the smallest rag of hope as to the subject matters of the negotiation. What are we to negotiate about?
5.0 P.M.
I agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Dillon) that we can expect, as far as the West of Ireland is concerned, no lesser terms than this Bill affords. I would rather see the entire Bill perish than accept the Lords Amendments, and I think he is right in saying that gentlemen of small experience connected with the West of Ireland are not men to thrust their views forward as against the great bulk of opinion in this House. The remedy is in the hands of the British Treasury. It is there that the mischief is seated. I observe the Attorney-General laughing. He can laugh. He has £4,000 a year in Ireland. I do not see the Solicitor-General laughing. He will soon have to face his Constituents in North Tyrone. For my part, while condemning to the fullest the action of the House of Lords in this matter, I believe the whole trouble has been brought about by the spirit in which the British Treasury has acted. I hope these are unpalatable sentiments, but I never remember anything being got out of the Treasury except by plain speaking. No doubt agitation is very useful, but I saw the other day a long petition from one end of Galway protesting how peaceable it was, and how unfair it was that £5,000 or £6,000 a year extra for police should be thrown upon Connemara. I agree in the injustice of it. I do not want the tax-payers, in addition to paying £100,000 a year for extra rates, to pay also extra money for police taxes. I notice that whenever any man's cattle are driven there are county court judges ready to give twice the value off the ratepayers, and, accord- ingly, I say that the root of this mischief is not altogether across the floor of this House. The root of the mischief lies in Downing Street, and if this talk of negotiation goes forward, I think we shall be upon strong ground in saying that we want all these Amendments which the Lords have rejected, but also the Amendments which the Government have rejected, namely, the financial terms of the Wyndham Act.

Mr. STEPHEN GWYNN
I do not mean to follow the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy) in his attack on the Treasury. As to the money part of this measure I have no hope of getting concessions by appealing to the Treasury for they have nothing to gain by this Bill. I mean to address myself to the Members of the House of Lords, many of whom have a great deal to gain by the passing of the Bill. It is quite true that we did not get in Committee the concessions which we asked for financially, but it is equally true that the Bill, as it left the House of Commons, is eagerly and earnestly desired by the people of Ireland. That is what I stand here to say for my Constituents. I wish to illustrate by a concrete instance what the people in my Constituency in Galway think of the Lords Amendments as affecting them. In that constituency there are two country parishes where there is as bad congestion as anywhere in Ireland. It is often said that the people of the congested districts are not good farmers. I think the hon. Member for Mayo said, and I agree with him, that they are not the best human material in Ireland. With regard to the people I have in my mind, I have spoken to agents of the estate and members of the Land Commission and others, and from all quarters-there has been the same report that these people are farmers of the best class you can get in Ireland, industrious, capable, strong men. Where they have got farms they can live on they are living well. A few miles off the people of the same class are becoming rich actually by tillage, but here in this particular place they are crowded out of the grazing land. In the three years that I have been Member for that Constituency, while there has been a sharp agitation through the rest of Ireland, while I myself have in certain places encouraged agitation, I have said persistently to these men "There is no reason for you to agitate; your case is covered exactly by the Report of the Dudley Commission. If legislation is introduced, and we have reason to believe that legislation will be introduced on the lines of the Dudley Commission, you will be brought under the Congested Districts Board, there will be compulsory powers which are absolutely necessary for you, because some of you are Clanricarde tenants." During all that time there were no disturbances among these people with grazing land at their door. But when they have seen this Bill pass through the House of Commons by a majority of seven to one, and have seen it sent to the House of Lords, and seen every provision that affected them struck out by this assembly of landlords, these men have simply taken the law into their own hands, gone out in the daylight, and has driven the cattle for the first time. That is their answer to the landlords' amendments. They have driven the cattle from these lands in the open day into the town of Galway. They have defied the law, and they have done it as a protest. That is their answer to the House of Lords. When I spoke to them I told them in my opinion they ought to wait until the negotiations were finished between the two Houses. Very well. They have waited, and I cannot blame them for what they have done.
Let me point out one fact that emerges. Who are the people who have got the land? In one case that came into the police court the present tenant said that if he had realised that there was any objection he would not have taken the land. He was a publican. In another case the tenant of the land was a butcher. What we want is to see the lands of Ireland in the hands of farmers and not of publicans or butchers. I notice in the Unionist Press frequent references to the shopkeepers in the West of Ireland, and they are invariably termed gombeen men. I do not deny that here

and there the gombeen man is a reality, but, broadly speaking, I say that the shopkeepers in the West of Ireland help their poor neighbours, instead of hindering them. But from the point of view of the English Press, in so far as they are shopkeepers, they are gombeen men; they are a corrupt class; they are the people who subsidise us. But those very men are the graziers. When the shopkeeper becomes a grazier he is a pillar of the community; he is a supporter of the greatest industry in Ireland; he is the man who is indispensable. What the people in my Constituency say is that the farmers should get the land and the shopkeepers should busy themselves with their shopkeeping. Under the Bill as it left this House—setting aside all financial questions—men in my own Constituency were ready and willing to work the land which was at their doors to be divided among them. Those men would have got the land. Though the Motion before the House does not seem a logical form of procedure, I construe it to mean that we are prepared to consider Amendments from the House of Lords to the Land Bill, but we are not prepared to consider a bad Bill substituted for a good one. If bonâ fide Amendments are sent down here I believe they will be considered, but unless fair Amendments are proposed, and unless a fair compromise is arrived at upon them, I say that my constituents at least will take the law into their own hands. They will make it very hard to let the grazing land, and I, for my part, would advise them to make it hard.

Question put, "That the question of agreement or disagreement with the Lords Amendments to the Irish Land Bill be put with respect to the Amendments as a whole."

The House divided: Ayes, 222; Noes, 56.

Division No. 894.]	AYES.	[5.12 p.m.
Abraham, W. (Cork, N. E.)	Branch, James	Compton-Rickett, Sir J.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Brodie, H. C	Condon, Thomas Joseph
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Brooke, Stopford	Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)
Ambrose, Robert	Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.
Astbury, John Meir	Bryce, J. Annan	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Crean, Eugene
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles	Crossley, William
Barnard, E. B.	Byles, William Pollard	Cullinan, J.
Barnes, G. N.	Cameron, Robert	Curran, Peter Francis
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Cheetham, John Frederick	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.	Delany, William
Beale, W. P.	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)
Beauchamp, E.	Clancy, John Joseph	Dillon, John
Beck, A. Cecil	Cleland, J. W.	Donelan, Captain A.
Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St Geo.)	Clough, William	Duffy, William J.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Duncan, C. (Barrow-In-Furness)
Boland, John	Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)
Bowerman, C. W.	Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.)	Elibank, Master of
Erskine, David C.	Lamont, Norman	Philips, John (Longford, S.)
Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Lardner, James Carrige Rushe	Pickersgill, Edward Hare
Essex, R. W.	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Evans, Sir S. T.	Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Power, Patrick Joseph
Everett, R. Lacey	Lehmann, R. C.	Radford, G. H.
Faber, G. H. (Boston)	Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)	Reddy, M.
Falconer, J.	Lundon, T.	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Farrell, James Patrick	Lupton, Arnold	Redmond, William (Clare)
Ferens, T. R.	Luttrell, Hugh Fownes	Rees, J. D.
Flrench, Peter	Lynch, A. (Clare, W.)	Richards, T. F (Wolverhampton, W.)
Field, William	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Flavin, Michael Joseph	Maclean, Donald	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)
Flynn, James Christopher	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Robson, Sir William Snowden
Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter	Macpherson, J. T.	Roche, Augustine (Cork)
Fuller, John Michael F.	MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)	Roche, John (Galway, East)
Ginb, James (Harrow)	MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)	Rowlands, J.
Gibson, J. B.	M'Kean, John	Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W.
Ginnell, L.	Mallet, Charles E.	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)
Glendinning, R. G.	Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)	Scanlan, Thomas
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Marnham, F. J.	Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)
Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Massie, J.	Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Masterman, C. F. G.	Sears, J. E.
Gulland, John W.	Meagher, Michael	Seddon, J.
Gwynn, Stephen Lucius	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)	Seely, Colonel
Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	Menzies, Sir Walter	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)
Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvll)	Micklem, Nathaniel	Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)	Molteno, Percy Alport	Stanger, H. Y.
Harwood, George	Mond, A.	Stanley, Hon. A Lyulph (Cheshire)
Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Mooney, J. J.	Steadman, W. C.
Haworth, Arthur A.	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Stewart, Haliey (Greenock)
Hayden, John Patrick	Morrell, Philip	Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)
Healy, Maurice (Cork)	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
Healy, Timothy Michael	Murnaghan, George	Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)
Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Henry, Charles S.	Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)
Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)	Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)	Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.)
Higham, John Sharp	Nannetti, Joseph	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Hodge, John	Napier, T. B.	Vivian, Henry
Hogan, Michael	Nolan, Joseph	Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)
Holland, Sir William Henry	Norman, Sir Henry	Walton, Joseph
Horniman, Emslie John	O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Hudson, Walter	O'Connur, John (Kildare, N.)	Wardle, George J.
Hyde, Clarendon G.	O'Doherty, Philip	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Jackson, R. S.	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)	Waterlow, D. S.
Jardine, Sir J.	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)	White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)
Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)	O'Dowd, John	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)	Whitehead, Rowland
Jordan, Jeremiah	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Joyce, Michael	O'Malley, William	Wilkie, Alexander
Kavanagh, Walter M.	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Williamson, Sir A.
Keating, M.	O'Shee, James John	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Kekewich, Sir George	Parker, James (Halifax)	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Kelley, George D.	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)
Kettle, Thomas Michael	Pearce, William (Limehouse)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Captain Norton.
King, Alfred John (Knutsford)	Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye)
Laidlaw, Robert	Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)
NOES.
Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F.	Craik, Sir Henry	Moore, William
Balcarres, Lord	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers	Morpeth, Viscount
Baldwin, Stanley	Fell, Arthur	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City Lond.)	Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Fletcher, J. S.	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Gordon, J.	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Bowles, G. Stewart	Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Bridgeman, W. Clive	Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edmunds)	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Hamilton, Marquess of	Starkey, John R.
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.	Helmsley, Viscount	Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.)
Carlile, E. Hlldred	Hills, J. W.	Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Kerry, Earl of	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)
Cecil, Lord John P. Jolcey-	Lambton, Hon. Frederick William	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.)	Wortley. Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Clive, Percy Archer	MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	M'Arthur, Charles	TELLERS FOR THE NOES. —Viscount Valentia and Mr. H. W. Forster.
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)	M'Calmont, Colonel James
Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)	Mildmay, Francis Bingham
Motion put, and agreed to. Lords Amendments considered.

Mr. BIRRELL moved, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendments."

Mr. T. M. HEALY
On a point of Order. I want to save our rights. In the case of the Education Bill was there not a Motion for the second reading of the Amendments before a Motion of this kind?

Mr. SPEAKER
There is no Motion for second reading. There is really only an entry.

Mr. T. M. HEALY
It was entered as having been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington (Mr. T.

Lough). I do not wish to keep the House if you give me an assurance that the rights of Members are preserved.

Mr. SPEAKER
I can assure the hon. Member that there is really no Motion made that the Amendments should be read a second time, though it is actually in the Journal as though they had been read a second time.

Question put, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendments."

The House divided: Ayes, 219; Noes, 54.

Division No. 895.]	AYES.	[5.25 p.m.
Abraham, W. (Cork, N. E.)	Falconer, J.	Luttrell, Hugh Fownes
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Farrell, James Patrick	Lynch, A. (Clare, W.)
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Ferens, T. R.	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Ambrose, Robert	Ffrench, Peter	Maclean, Donald
Astbury, John Meir	Field, William	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Macpherson, J. T.
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Flynn, James Christopher	MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)
Barnard, E. B.	Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter	MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)
Barnes, G. N.	Filler, John Michael F.	M'Kean, John
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Gibb, James (Harrow)	Mallet, Charles E.
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Gibson, J. P.	Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)
Beale, W. P.	Ginnell, L.	Marnham, F. J.
Beck, A. Cecil	Glendinning, R. G.	Massie, J.
Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Masterman, C. F. G.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Meagher, Michael
Boland, John	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Bowerman, C. W.	Gulland, John W.	Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)
Branch, James	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius	Menzies, Sir Walter
Brodie, H. C.	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	Micklem, Nathaniel
Brooke, Stopford	Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)	Molteno, Percy Alport
Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)	Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)	Mond, A.
Bryce, J. Annan	Harwood, George	Mooney, J. J.
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles	Haworth, Arthur A.	Morrell, Philip
Byles, William Pollard	Hayden, John Patrick	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Cameron, Robert	Healy, Maurice (Cork)	Murnaghan, George
Cheetham, John Frederick	Healy, Timothy Michael	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)
Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.	Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)	Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Henry, Charles S.	Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)
Clancy, John Joseph	Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)	Nannetti, Joseph P.
Cleland, J. W.	Higham, John Sharp	Napier, T. B.
Clough, William	Hodge, John	Nolan, Joseph
Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Hogan, Michael	Norman, Sir Henry
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Holland, Sir William Henry	O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)
Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.)	Horniman, Emslie John	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Condon, T. J.	Hudson, Walter	O'Doherty, Philip
Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)	Hyde, Clarendon G.	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)
Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Jackson, R. S.	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Jardine, Sir J.	O'Dowd, John
Crean, Eugene	Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)	O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)
Crossley, William J.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)
Cullinan, J.	Jordan, Jeremiah	O'Malley, William
Curran, Peter Francis	Joyce, Michael	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	Kavanagh, Walter M.	O'Shee, James John
Delany, William	Keating, M.	Parker, James (Halifax)
Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)	Kekewich, Sir George	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)
Dillon, John	Kelley, George D.	Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Donelan, Captain A.	Kettle, Thomas Michael	Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye)
Duffy, William J.	King, Alfred John (Knutsford)	Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)
Duncan, C. (Barrow-In-Furness)	Laidlaw, Robert	Philips, John (Longford, S.)
Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	Lamont, Norman	Pickersgill, Edward Hare
Elibank, Master of	Lardner, James Carrige Rushe	Power, Patrick Joseph
Erskine, David C.	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)	Radford, G. H.
Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis	Reddy, M.
Essex, R. W.	Lehmann, R. C.	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Evans, Sir S. T.	Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)	Redmond, William (Clare)
Everett, R. Lacey	Lundon, T.	Rees, J. D.
Faber, G. H. (Boston)	Lupton, Arnold	Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)	Walton, Joseph
Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Soames, Arthur Wellesley	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Robson, Sir William Snowdon	Stanger, H. Y.	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Roche, Augustine (Cork)	Stanley, Hon. A. Lyulph (Cheshire)	Wardle, George J.
Roche, John (Galway, East)	Steadman, W. C.	Waterlow, D. S.
Rowlands, J.	Stewart, Halley (Greenock)	White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)
Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W.	Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)	Whitehead, Rowland
Scanlan, Thomas	Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)	Wilkie, Alexander
Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Sears, J. E.	Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.)	Yoxall, Sir James Henry
Seddon, J.	Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Seely, Colonel	Vivian, Henry	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Captain Norton.
Shipman, Dr. John G.	Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)
NOES.
Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F.	Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)	Moore, William
Balcarres, Lord	Craik, Sir Henry	Morpeth, Viscount
Baldwin, Stanley	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.)	Fell, Arthur	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Gordon, J.	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Bowles, G. Stewart	Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Bridgeman, W. Clive	Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edmunds)	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Hamilton, Marquess of	Starkey, John R.
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Helmsley, Viscount	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.	Hills, J. W.	Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Unlv.)
Carlile, E. Hildred	Kerry, Earl of	Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Lambton, Hon. Frederick William	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)
Cecil, Lord John P. Jolcey-	Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.)	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)	MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Clive, Percy Archer	M'Arthur, Charles
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	M'Calmont, Col. James	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Viscount Valentia and Mr. H. W. Forster.
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)	Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Committee appointed to draw up reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to certain of their Amendments to the Bill.

Committee nominated of—The Chief Secretary for Ireland, the Attorney-General for Ireland, the Solicitor-General for Ireland, Mr. Walter Long, and Sir Joseph Leese.

Three to be the quorum.

To withdraw immediately.—[The Chief Secretary for Ireland.]