now so

of the kind as that any single Irishman | for the habitation and cultivation of cr Irishwoman will be compelled to leave some of them. So I trust that those their country and cross the Atlantic. families who will go and are going, notThere is no such intention as that. In withstanding the violent passion which point of fact, one would say there is has been created in America by many hardly any occasion for any inducement statements that are not true, and many of that kind, seeing what is going on at that are exaggerated-notwithstanding this moment. Last year, 95,000 persons that, I trust that there are now persons went from Ireland; and, if the reports in going to the United States who will the newspapers are correct, emigration hear from their own country that much is going on now even at a greater rate of its misery has departed, that a feeling than it was going on last year. I will of justice is entertained, and that the put it to the hon. Member for Cork-but disloyalty and discontent we it is no credit to England that he should deeply regret have been, for the most have to answer it, as I think he will part, removed. With regard to the lahave to answer it-I put it to the hon. bourer, to whom the hon. Gentleman the Member, if all the great mercantile Member for Cork refers, there is nothing steamers of England-such fleets as the that can do so much good to him as that world cannot produce-were to anchor at which will induce the farmer of Ireland Cork or at Galway, and to offer a free pas- to cultivate his land better than he does. sage to all the families of the population The Bill does nothing for the houses of of Connaught, how many does he think the labourer. The wages of labour in would remain behind? Probably the Ireland are much higher than they were; whole population of Connaught-I have they have been, in the last 10 years, not the least doubt that one-half of them much higher than they have ever been -would find their way to the United at any former period; and I believe that States. It is a country which opens its the demand for labour has increased. doors to everybody. The Minister of the But the houses are, as the hon. Member United States in this country (Mr. Rus- for Carlow (Mr. Dawson) has stated, sell Lowell), a man who has put as much miserable; and it is not a very easy wisdom as wit in his description of that thing to put clauses in an Act of Parliacountry, saysment with a view of enforcing the building of many thousands of houses all over Ireland. They must be built by somebody, either with the consent of the landlord or by raising the rent. There are, therefore, other interests to be consulted; and if it be possible to do anything by any more means that would be likely to be practicable, I hope there will be no diffiulty in doing it by some other measure, or by adding a clause to this Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman and others have said that this Bill is an intricate and complicated one. The question is admitted, he has admitted it himself, to be a very difficult one, so difficult that he not only did not understand the clauses of the Bill, but I maintain that he did not in the least understand the question. The Bill, I may say, without any-what may I call it?-without any special praise to the Government, is a child of very much anxiety, of very much consideration, and of very many discussions, and very many amendments. I believe that it would have been difficult to give to any measure a more perfect and fuller consideration than this measure has had on the, [Fifth Night.]

"Whose free latch-string never was drawn in Against the poorest child of Adam's kin." And there is room there for the whole population of Connaught. I should be very sorry to see them all go. I should not like it to be said that it was possible in this age, or in our time-that it was necessary to expatriate from Ireland so many scores and thousands of its population. But in every family emigrating, although there is hardship, from the parents to the children, it is a deliverance from a future of poverty and suffering, if they remain where they now are. Therefore, while the Bill does not propose to offer any inducement, except such inducements as the people now have, to any single Irish family to emigrate, yet I am bound to say I believe it would be far better for a great number of those families to be settled in the better parts of Canada and the United States than to remain where they are, or to be removed from where they are to any of those tracts of land which, at a certain expense I dare not say the exact amount, for it is not easily to be ascertained-might, in Ireland, be made fit

part of the Government, as far as it was | virtue-I take the ancient meaning of possible to give it. We have endeavoured the term virtue. These men who can go to make it worthy of the Government, so far, can live on so little and save so and of the Parliament to which it was much, who come back with such devooffered, and we hope that it will do good tion and such eagerness to their homes to the people whose interests it is in- and families, depend upon it, under tended to advance and to secure. As to better and more favourable circumthose people, if I had 10 minutes more, stances, they might become a very admithere is one thing I should like to say. rable portion of the population of any [Cries of "Go on!"] We have heard country. And if you will follow the to-night a reference to their virtues and evidence of what takes place in America, their vices. I shall say nothing of you will find what they do there. They their vices-all people, I think, almost have sent back to this country large have a sufficient number of critics, and funds to assist their friends here in Ireit would not be of any advantage that I land-multitudes of them-in crossing should add myself to the number; but the Atlantic. They have sent back with regard to their virtues, there are two many-I do not know how many, but things that have struck me very much. many millions during the last 30 years, The poor people who live in Connaught, since the Famine-it is impossible to say and about whom the hon. Gentleman what, but an enormous and an inspoke so feelingly at the beginning of his credible sum. Shall we think nothing speech, what are they? They may live of that people who regard their families in hovels scarcely better than wigwams; with such affection, and their country, they may have three or four acres of too, with so much affection-listening land, and land so poor that it seems to every wail of sorrow which sometimes almost impossible for them to live on it, comes from Ireland; and listening, perand concerning which Mr. Tuke says in haps, also, to some of the unfair and his pamphlet, quoting a Yorkshire far- exaggerated statements made by cermer who visited Connaught, that he saw tain speakers. But, still, they find their in one particular district what seemed to affections are aroused and their sympabe farms that had on them three or four thies are excited. The Irish domestic times the original value of the land, put servants, the farmers, and the Irishmen on them entirely by those small tenants. who build their railways, have subBut what are those tenants? They come scribed millions and millions to help over to this country during the harvest, their countrymen at home, or to bring travelling there and back at least a them across the Atlantic to the United thousand miles; they come to Dublin, States. I say, then, of that people, they cross the Channel, they make that they are a people we ought to have their way to some remote farms in some regard for; that we ought to feel England and Scotland, they work that of this people something ought to be with a zeal and energy not surpassed made better than a discontented, a sufferby any English or Scotch labourer. ing, and a disloyal people, as, to a great There is one great farmer in Northum- extent, they have been, and now are. And berland who last autumn told me-and now, what shall we say about this Bill? he was one of your Commissioners-that If that portion of it which deals with he believed that these labourers, work- that class of cases which the hon. and ing as hard as they did for many days, learned Gentleman thinks is so little, contrived to live on very little. I said that portion of the Bill which deals with that they would live on sixpence a-day, landlords and tenants is worked with and he told me that he thought that fairness-if the purchase clauses and they lived upon less than that. Every powers are worked with energy-I dare shilling, every penny that they earned, hope and believe that it will be found they saved. Having in a very good to be a measure of healing and of blessharvest made, perhaps, £10 or £12, ing to the Irish people. I ask hon. they make their way back to Glasgow or Gentlemen on every side of the House Liverpool, cross the Channel again, cross not to imagine that the Bill has not Ireland, and arrive at their own cabins been framed with a great intention and with this little bit of treasure that they honesty for a great purpose. Let them, have worked so hard for. The men as far as they can, support the Bill and who did that were not men without the Government who have introduced it

Mr. John Bright

to the House. This very night, and the money borrowed in the manner deevery night, the House prays to the scribed-would the State evict him as Highest-and for what? The language recklessly and ruthlessly as the landalways strikes me as touching and lords are, by some, supposed to have beautiful. We here, representing the done? Before the end of the discussion, whole nation, pray to the Highest for I hope the Prime Minister will inform the peace and tranquillity of the Realm. the House in what way it is intended It is for the peace and tranquillity of the that the owner who is unable to pay his Realm that this Bill has been drawn up rent, owing to the interest which he has and introduced to the House; and it is incurred, is to be protected. I think we in the hope that if it passes it will tend ought to approach this part of the questo the great end that we, not with fear tion in a manner somewhat different from but with confidence, ask for it the accept- that of the right hon. Gentleman the ance and the sanction of Parliament. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The right hon. Gentleman has said a great deal about the landlords; but what we have been told by the Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and in the Reports of Committees, is that, so far as inquiries have extended, the landlords as a body stand acquitted. I have no doubt that those who have studied carefully the evidence produced before the Commissioners will see that almost all the cases of hardship that have occurred where the landlords were not the first to apply a remedy were on those estates which were bought under the Encumbered Estates Act, in the way of commercial speculation, by persons who had been forgetful of the good understanding which has existed so long between the Irish landlords and tenants. It seems to me that the Government, in the course of the long and anxious discussions that have taken place upon this Bill, must have tried to frame in their minds a distinction between the estates held in tenure of the old Irish landlords, and those bought recently in the Encumbered Estates Court. It is, I think, too severe upon those landlords who have not been hard upon their tenants to charge them with the shortcomings of a totally different class. The right hon. Gentleman has said that this Bill has received great attention from the Government, and no one can doubt it. It has been a Bill of great discussion. No one will attempt to deny that it has also been a Bill of great disunion amongst the Members of the Government.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, at this period of the evening I shall detain the House but a very short time. I join in the last words that fell from the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, in which he expressed the hope that the peace and tranquillity of the Realm may endure, and I sincerely trust that no words of mine will tend to disturb it. I cordially agree with him in rendering a just tribute to the generosity, high feeling, and temperament of the people of Ireland, and, for my own part, would not hesitate to adopt any measure for their benefit, provided it was consistent with the laws of justice and right. I also believe that his remarks upon the subject of emigration, with which I concur, will receive the approval of my Colleagues. Further, I go heartily with him in almost every word that has fallen from him with regard to the provisions of the Bill which are directed to making the occupying classes owners, and not tenants, of their farms. I feel, however, that we can hardly call that man an owner who has borrowed three-fourths of the purchase money of his land from the State, and the remaining fourth from the money lender. And, while I believe it would be right to pass that portion of the Bill in an improved form, I think care should be taken that we do not put the occupier in a worse position than he is in already that is to say, that, having borrowed three-fourths of his money from the State and the remainder at enormous interest from the money lender, the State should not cause him to suffer more than he would have done at the hands of the landlord. I should like to hear, before the debate closes, what would be the position of an owner who had bought under this Bill, and who in bad seasons-recurring bad seasons--was unable to pay the interest on

MR. GLADSTONE: A Bill of great disunion amongst the Government, has it?

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: If the right hon. Gentleman is not aware of that fact, he had better ask the Duke of Argyll. It has, moreover, not been framed Fifth Night.]

owner

without some disunion amongst other a grievous wrong. But the right hon. Members of the Government, although Gentleman had forgotten the main printhis has not reached the same pitch as in ciple, that two wrongs do not make a the case of the Duke of Argyll. The right right. I should like to refer to one or hon. Gentleman who has just sat down two clauses of the Bill which seem to has accused the late Attorney General for me to have practically escaped his attenEngland of being too mindful of English tion; but, before I do so, I should like usages. But I venture to assert, if the right to know what is the main object of the hon. Gentleman will favour me with his Bill? Is it to transfer the ownership of attention, that what my hon. and learned the land from the owner to the tenant? Friend said was that he was perfectly It is, so far as the fifth part of the Bill ready to adopt all usages, whether in Ire- is concerned; and if that is what the land or in England, provided they were Government have at heart, I am prelegal usages; but that he was not will-pared to go with them a long way proing to consent that those things which vided they mean that the new were matters of sentiment or feeling shall be the actual owner of his holding, should be included in the Bill without and not simply a borrower of money. I rhyme or reason, and the landlord de- ask again, is the main object of the Bill prived of his property for the purpose of really to transfer the ownership of land handing it over to the tenant. The right from the present owners to the occupiers; hon. Gentleman says that the whole and are the early portions of the Bill land system in Ireland has broken down, simply modus vivendi to gain time, or are and that some remedy must be applied. they the substance, the cardinal points But we did not hear any such words of it, the fifth part being only an appenfrom the Prime Minister in all those dage about which the Government do speeches which he made in Mid Lothian not very much care whether it be enacted and elsewhere; nor in any of his writ- or not? I will undertake to say that ings in the reviews is this question re- the 1st clause, which says— ferred to as one which rendered an immediate change necessary, except so far as those clauses, commonly known as the "Bright Clauses," of the Act of 1870 are concerned, and to which I should is the most dangerous part of the Bill like more attention to be directed than I want to know what this tenancy is? they have yet received. The right hon. We all understand what it is in those Gentleman has delivered a lecture to parts of Ireland in which the custom of my hon. and learned Friend, saying Ulster prevails; but we have, in the Inthat he had forgotten that land was interpretation Clause at the end of the Bill, Ireland the only source of industry and an explanation of the word "tenancy" wealth. Why, that was the ground of the as follows:argument which the late Attorney General for England pressed at length upon Her Majesty's Government in the course of his speech. I do not think I could have listened to a more unjust accusation, seeing that what the right hon. Gentleman opposite said was forgotten was the very foundation of the argument of my hon. and learned Friend. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the whole state of Ireland was due to the confiscation which took place years ago. He went into the history of Ireland, stating that about six-sevenths of the owners of the land were of a different religion to that of the occupiers, and touched upon the Law of Primogeniture, with the object of leading us to the conclusion that in consequence of this confiscation the tenants had suffered

Sir R. Assheton Cross

"The tenant for the time being of every tenancy to which this Act applies may sell his tenancy for the best price that can be got for the same,"

of a tenant and his successors in title during "Tenancy' means the interest in a holding the continuance of a tenancy."

The Government believe it to mean that the tenant has something-they do not say what-that is saleable. Upon this point we have had different interpretations, one coming from the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and another from an hon. and learned Member below the Gangway. But what is it that the tenant may sell? Leaving that question for a moment, I ask with regard to this right of the tenant to sell this something-this undefined thing said to be created by the Act of 1870, but which, at the time of its passing, that Act was never supposed to create-what will be its effect?