And it being ten minutes to Seven be proud hereafter, when, perhaps, a of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned measure of a more radical character till this day. would be introduced, to recollect that he was one of the few who joined in this final protest against a Bill which they so strongly disapproved. The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock. The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock. LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL. VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE, on rising, was greeted with loud cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Question!" After comparative silence had been restored, he said, that as hon. Members had now finished exercising their lungs, he might, perhaps, be permitted to observe that he did not intend to pursue his remarks any further. He only rose to appeal to his noble Friend below the Gangway (Lord Elcho) not to proceed to a division. It would be impossible for the noble Lord to get adequate support, and if he challenged a division he could not expect it to have any effect on the future of the Bill. SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN said, that, as the noble Lord (Viscount Folkestone) had brought them down to the House at 9 o'clock, he hoped he would give them the advantage of a division. At the same time, he was gratified to find that the idea of dividing upon this measure did not proceed from an Irish Member. The noble Lord had given them a pleasant history of the disintegration of the Conservative Party, and had incidentally alluded to a Commission of which he was not a Member. If the noble Lord had been a Member of it, he would have learnt something which would have prevented him from making his speech. As it was, the noble Lord, like the Bourbons, had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. For his own part, he had since the year 1852 pursued an even and a continuous course in regard to that subject. ["Divide!"] The House was evidently impatient to go to a division, and he would, therefore, content himself by expressing his satisfaction that the principles which he and others who had been made the objects of unmitigated vituperation had consistently advocated by vote and voice were now triumphant. SIR HENRY TYLER said, it was true there were but few Members on those (the Opposition) Benches; but he should MR. MILBANK maintained that the course taken by the noble Lord opposite the Member for Wiltshire (Viscount Folkestone) reflected the greatest discredit on the House. Instead of delivering a speech, the noble Lord made some excuse and sat down. The noble Lord had simply been put up to talk the Bill out at 7 o'clock. He saw the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) go up to the noble Lord the Member for Wiltshire—[“Question!"] MR. SPEAKER: I must call upon the hon. Member to confine his remarks to the Bill before the House. MR. MILBANK would not say a word about the Bill. He was happy to say that he had throughout recorded his vote in favour of the measure. MR. HEALY wished, before the Bill passed from that House, to make one thing clear. [Mr. O'CONNOR POWER: Divide !] He might inform the hon. Member for Mayo that he was in the habit of speaking there despite English Members, and certainly he was not to be cowed by Irish Members. He would not occupy the House more than two minutes, and what he had to say was in reference to the remarks of the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) on this Bill. The hon. Member seemed to have considerable faith in the measure, and he made certain prophecies with regard to its action in Ireland, and then went on to refer to what course the Land League would take on the measure. He (Mr. Healy) would venture to remind the hon. Member for Cork County, and those especially interested in this matter in Ireland, that the men who had brought this measure about— the men whose determination, whose resolution, and whose persistence had produced this measure-were not those who were now sitting on the Treasury Bench, but the men who were in penal servitude in Dartmoor and in the prison cells at Kilmainham. To those men they owed whatever was good in this Bill, and he begged to return them his most sincere thanks. It was to such men, and to their persistent efforts, that House without challenging the declarations of the last speaker. He did not wish to say anything irritating; but he would say this, that he did not believe the Irish people endorsed the sentiments they had just heard expressed. He had opposed the policy of coercion as strongly as the hon. Member opposite-["No!"] House; but he was convinced that had it not been for the policy pursued by certain persons, that Bill would have been the law of the land months and months ago, and the prisoners referred to by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy)-some of whom he looked upon as the victims of bad advice, and some as the bad advisers-would never have been arrested. He believed the Irish people were deeply grateful to the Prime Minister for that Bill. They knew with what sorrow of heart he had violated those principles of liberty which he had maintained at all times, not only at home, but in foreign countries, where men were imprisoned for political offences. He had been driven to that course by the conduct of those who, had they been actuated by a true spirit of patriotism, leavened by a little common sense, would have spared their country the bitter herbs with which the dish of the Land Bill had been seasoned. they owed this measure. He gave no thanks to the Government. He had none to give to those Gentlemen who sat on the Treasury Bench. They in Ireland had been accustomed to see every measure that they desired refused them by that House until they were able, in despite of the House or in despite of its opinions, to wring a measure out of strongly as any hon. Member in that the Government of England. They had found the same with regard to this Land Law (Ireland) Bill. They had compelled the Prime Minister of England, who brought about the rejection of much more mild measures 10 years ago and six years ago, which might then have satisfied the people of Ireland-and he, in those days, got up and refused the principle of the measure-they had compelled the Prime Minister of England to swallow his declaration, and to pass in the measure which was now before the House practically the same principles which four or five years ago he had no language strong enough to condemn. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I never said a word upon them.] There was in existence a pamphlet by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), giving extracts and quotations from speeches and writings of the Prime Minister, and it was to his speeches and votes he referred. However, be that as it might, all he had to say on the mea- MR. M'COAN said, that but for the sure to-night was that they thanked, remarks of the hon. Member for Wexnot the present Government, but they ford (Mr. Healy) he would have been thanked the men whose persistency and content to give a silent vote; but he resolution had driven the Government should be sorry if it went forth that the into bringing the measure before the words of the hon. Gentleman represented House. They were told by the hon. the opinion of the Irish Representatives Member for Cork County that that Bill on that side of the House, or the feelwould do a great deal of good in Ire-ings of the Irish people, on the Bill now land. Well, there were many sore hearts in Ireland that night, because there were now lying in the prison cells of the Chief Secretary for Ireland 200 of the best and most honest men of the country; and he would say that while those men lay in prison there would be no peace in Ireland. He would say, furthermore, that until that policy of the Chief Secretary for Ireland was discontinued until they were prepared to pluck from the memory of the Irish people "that rooted sorrow -no peace or prosperity would return to Ireland, let them pass what measures they pleased. MR. MITCHELL HENRY said, he could not allow the Bill to leave the Mr. Healy about to be read a third time. He at once confessed what he had always felt - But, that the measure was largely owing to the agitation which had been initiated and carried on by the Land League, and, so far, much of the credit for it was due to that organization. at the same time, neither his conscience nor his sense of fair play would permit him to ignore the fact that its magnificent comprehensiveness was mainly owing to the generosity and justice of Her Majesty's present Government. He acknowledged the concessions which the Prime Minister, step by step, had made; and he believed that the general sentiment of the Irish people would similarly recognize its claims on their grateful ac ceptance. He sympathized with the men | and prejudice, passion and patriotism, imprisoned in Ireland; but he was not rebellion and remedial measures had all, then called upon to express an opinion in their turn, been tried; but they had as to the wisdom or unwisdom of the failed to find a cure for the chronic disaction that led to their arrest. But he order. It had been the occasion of more would express an earnest hope that Her inquiries and more legislative failures Majesty's Government would be able, than any Parliamentary question of the concurrently with the passing of this time. Bill, to make some large concession of mercy to these men. If this were done, his conviction was strong that, accompanied by such a measure of mercy, the Bill, when passed, would strike an effectual blow at the root of agitation in Ireland, as all just excuse for it would be removed. At the risk of some unpopularity among his Colleagues, he had voted for the second reading of the Bill; and, as his opinion of it was unchanged, he should vote for its final stage to-night. MR. J. ČOWEN said, he was reluctant to interpose in that long drawn out discussion, to which it was difficult for imagination to contribute a new thought, or ingenuity to suggest a fresh proposal. But he pleaded, in extenuation of his intrusion at that stage of the Bill, the fact that he had been one of the Members of the Commission whose Report the Prime Minister had more than once declared was the basis of the measure-a Commission which had been inquiring into the causes and extent of agricultural depression, and how far these could be remedied by legislation. He might further say that at no stage of the Bill had he delayed its progress by a single remark or a solitary Amendment. He was told that the first duty of a patriot was silence, and in the wordy warfare of the last few weeks he had the negative merit of having held his tongue. The Prime Minister, in introducing the Bill, indulged the hope that it would close a painful chapter of Irish grievances, and transform a poor and disaffected into a prosperous and contented population. That wish had been re-echoed by nearly every succeeding speaker; but it was more a wish than an expectation. The problem dealt with by the Bill was the oldest, most complete, and far-reaching that came within the range of British politics. It embraced agricultural, political, legal, and economic changes, which would go far to re-model the basis of social life in Ireland. It had exercised the ingenuity of successive statesmen. Interest During the last 40 years five Royal Commissions and 15 Select Committees had investigated the subject. In the same space of time there had been 13 Bills proposed by different Governments, and three times 13 by independent Members. Out of this long list of abortive projects only two had passed into law; and, of those two, one had been an entire and one a partial failure. It was too much to expect that in a field which was so thickly strewn with the wrecks of carefully-devised projects that this measure should be completely successful. It was not within the compass of human wisdom to devise a scheme of constructive statesmanship that would change the organic relations of classes without exciting some prejudices and disappointing many hopes. No settlement, however comprehensive, could at once undo the demoralizing and disintegrating effects of ages of injustice and misrule. The inherited tendencies of generations could not be cured off-hand. All they could anticipate from the Bill was that it would help forward the long deferred work of reconciliation and regeneration, and hasten the end of Ireland's long agony. Some had spoken of the Bill as original. He did not think it could be so described. The question had been dealt with so often-by such different persons, in such different interests, under such conflicting conditions that strict originality of treatment was impossible. Every single proposal in the Bill had, in one form or other, been made before. But its chief merit consisted in the skill and the dexterity with which old suggestions had been woven into a concrete whole. The materials were not original; but the product evolved by these discussions might be so described. The Prime Minister had exhibited, in conducting it, the very highest faculties of statesmanship. He had been both philosophical and practical-comprehensive enough to grasp great principles, and close enough to apply them. By his patience under delay-inevitable, perhaps necessary, but still troublesome delay-his persever He LORD ELCHO rose to Order. wished to know whether, if the hon. Member was in Order in his remarks, the interruptions of hon. Members sitting immediately behind the Treasury Bench were not disorderly? ance in the face of difficulties-some of them unexpected, some of them unnecessary-and by his steady energy and ever ready resource throughout, he had revived the highest and happiest memories of Parliamentary Leadership. However men might differ with the MR. J. COWEN, continuing, said, principles of the Bill, however they some of those Gentlemen in their admight question the results it produced, dresses denounced Irish obstruction; it would be ungenerous and ungra- others coquetted with Irish Home Rule; cious in the last degree not to ac- some of them promised that they would knowledge these powers ungrudgingly. oppose Irish coercion, which promise But, while according to the Government they had not fulfilled. None of them the merit of having introduced the Bill, spoke of Irish tenant right. They dithe credit of having initiated it belonged lated on the insanity of the Turkish to another. That man was not a Mem- Convention, on the insincerity of the ber of the House, but was, unhappily, war in Afghanistan, on the immorality an inmate of a convict prison. The of the struggle in South Africa; but agitation-which originated in the West they said nothing of the "three F's." of Ireland two years ago, and which in Indeed, he questioned if many of the a short time embraced in its ranks the constituents, or even the candidates, whole of the peasantry of the country- knew the meaning at the time of these had compelled the Government to sub-cabalistic letters. Yet, notwithstanding mit the Bill, and would compel Parliament to pass it. ["Oh, oh!" and "No, no!"] Hon. Members might object as they liked, but that was the fact; and in politics the first condition of success was to recognize facts, however unpleasant they might be. The Legislature was the machine, the Ministers were the drivers and the engine-men, but the fuel was supplied, and the steam that moved it was generated, by the derided and denounced land agitators. [“Oh, oh!" and "No, no!"] The unwillingness of hon. Gentlemen to listen to these statements would not alter the facts. Agrarian reform in Ireland was not a portion of the programme of the Liberal Party when they took Office 16 months ago. It was added subsequently. During the prolonged and active agitation that preceded the General Election, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Ministry published a list of questions that he deemed pressing. He censured the last Government for supineness, and the last Parliament for its indifference in not grappling with them. In these 22 questions there was a reference to the Irish suffrage and Irish University Education, but nothing about Irish land. ["No, no!"] Cries of No, no!" did not interfere with facts, and it was a fact he was stating. Out of 300 addresses issued by Liberal candidates in England and Scotland, not an allusion was made to the subject. [Cries of "Question!"] 66 Mr. J. Cowen this, the half of last Session and the whole of the present one had been occupied in discussing this Irish Question. He was not blaming the Government. They were simply acting according to precedent. It was the usual course under such circumstances. They legislated for Ireland under threats and from fear; and all Parties did it-both those opposite and those on that side of the House. Catholic Emancipation was granted as a result of the agitation by the Catholic Association. The Queen's Colleges and the endowment of Maynooth came as a means of buying off the Repeal agitation. The Church was disestablished, according to the declaration of the Prime Minister himself, in consequence of the determination and desperation of the Fenians. And the Land Bill, in like manner, was a consequence of the agitation that had moved Ireland during the last two years. The lesson he drew from these facts was that the general English public were ill informed of, and indifferent to, what was proceeding in Ireland; for, while they never referred to the question of land reform at the last Election, the same subject was the chief topic on every Irish hustings. The practice that oth Parties in the State followed was, in his judgment, cowardly and politically immoral. They refused to deal with the question on its merits, or from a sense of justice or right; but they dealt with it when an agitation made the denial of the demand dangerous to the public | a question of 200 men being incarcepeace. If land reform in Ireland was rated in the prisons of Ireland. They necessary, it was necessary years ago. could not refer him to a single instance But the demand made by Mr. Butt and where a Liberal Government had on a others was treated with indifference, previous occasion imprisoned 200 British and voted down by the very Party and subjects in Ireland; and the Government the very men who were now applauding dare not bring them to trial in Ireland. the passages of the Bill. They did not The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. judge it upon its merits. They judged J. Cowen) had stated truly enough that it from Party exigencies. The agitation the Bill was the result of agitation. It had forced it to be a practical measure. was really the Land League and not For his part, he held that land legisla- the Government which passed the Land lation in Ireland was necessary years Bill of 1881. He would remind the since. What he complained of was the House of the statement made by the delay. But he could not see either the Prime Minister at the explosion at consistency or the wisdom of men sup- Clerkenwell-an explosion which he porting projects that they disapproved (Mr. R. Power) condemned in the strongof, and whose efficacy they denied, merely est terms, but which brought about the from compulsion. If a measure was disestablishment of the Irish Church. right and just, it ought to be conceded. Would the right hon. Gentleman venIf it was not right and just, it ought ture to deny that? Those agitations to be resisted, and the men who resisted taught the Irish people that they need should courageously face the conse- no longer supplicate, but might dequences of their resistance. He did mand as of right the redress of their not wish to detain the House or to pro- grievances. For many years Irish Memlong his observations; but he thought, bers had in that House asked for the in justice to the much-denounced Mem- redress of grievances. But until the bers on the Opposition side, that their most powerful organization that had ever share in passing the measure ought been known in the world was formed, it fairly to be recognized. He cheerfully was all in vain. In consequence of that and cordially accorded to the Prime Mi- agitation, the present Bill came into exnister and the Government all honour istence. Why had not the right hon. for what they had done; but he repeated Gentleman supported the Land Bill that the initiative and the popular force which had been brought in by the late requisite to carry the Bill into law had Mr. Butt-a Land Bill much milder sprung from the agitation. than the one upon which the House was about to divide? Mr. Butt had no organization. He had eloquence and determination, but of what use were they? It was not until his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) started the organization in Ireland, until he showed to the people the real strength which organization gave them, that the Liberal Government thought it would be a very wise thing to take up the Land Question in Ireland. The First Lord of the Treasury had often taunted the Irish Party for not supporting him in connection with many of the Amendments to the Bill. Well, he did not know that they owed much gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman. He had yet to learn that a people owed gratitude for justice, and this Bill was one of mere justice. If there were any faults in it, the right hon. Gentleman must be blamed for them. When certain Irish Members organized a deputation to wait upon the right hon. Gentleman for the MR. R. POWER said, that he should not have wished to interfere in the discussion which had arisen had it not been for some remarks made by the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan). The hon. Member had appealed to the Government to show mercy to the men now imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol. He fearlessly stated that not one of those men now in prison would come out to-morrow on the terms proposed by the hon. Member for Wicklow. If the Government doubted his word, they could easily afford them the opportunity, and he ventured to say that they had courage and manhood enough to refuse to march out of the prisons into which they had been cast by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Those men had gone to prison believing that they had conducted themselves aright. "Question!"] Hon. Members cried" Question!" because he was a little too close to the question. It was |