-the ground of general policy and the ground of Home Rule. About their general policy which they had no hope of carrying into law, they have been profuse in detail and lavish in promise. Many of them have gone to the extent following the lead of the right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan)-of promising the atmosphere of a new heaven and a new earth. their promises to Ireland. But, at the | been taken up by the Gladstonians in the same time, there is no use for the constituencies? They have demanded Liberal Party to be living in a fool's the suffrages of the electors on all grounds paradise. We Irish Members, Mr. Speaker, by our votes are going to place the Liberal Party in power; but unless the Liberal Party stand by their pledge that Ireland blocks the wayunless the Liberal Party stand by their pledge to propose a full and satisfactory Home Rule Bill-unless the Liberal Party stand by their pledge to take an early opportunity to deal in a spirit of broad-mindedness and generosity with the case of these prisoners, they must know that they cannot count on the continued support of Ireland. On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian devotes his genius to this Irish problem, and insists upon his Party formally adhering to their pledges to Ireland, he will be taking a course which, in my humble judgment, will not merely redound to his own eternal honour, but which will redound also to the credit of the Liberal Party, to the honour of England, to the purity of her laws, and to the stability of her Empire. (11.25.) VISCOUNT WOLMER (Edinburgh, W.): If the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down has done nothing else, Mr. Speaker, it has, to a certain extent, answered the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith). My hon. Friend the Member for East Fife, after a preliminary reference to epitaphsa study which I recommend him to keep up, as he may require some in a not far distant period-turned to the demand of the Proposer and Seconder of the Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne, and said that the information which they demanded had nothing whatever to do with the subjectmatter now before us. But, I think, no one could have listened to the speech either of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) or of the hon. Member for North Longford (Mr. Justin McCarthy) without feeling that at least those hon. Members did not see there was no occasion for information. What is the position that has But as regards Home Rule, the watchword of the Party, from their Leader downwards, has been secrecy and concealment. They have pretended to trust the people of this country. They have said "We alone trust the people," and yet not one single item has a single Gladstonian told the electors as to what the Home Rule Bill is to be. I defy anyone to say that the Leader of the Gladstonian Party has taken the country into his confidence. There are individuals here and there who acted differently, and I do not wish to misrepresent them. But judging the Party by their spokesman, I defy contradiction when I say that while crying aloud to heaven and earth as the only man who trusts the people he has carefully concealed from them the whole of his political policy. Now what position do you find yourselves in? You have the demand of the hon. Member for North Longford (Mr. Justin McCarthy) for precedence for Home Rule. He demands information about the evicted tenants, and he has made demands also with respect to the Crimes Act and Irish Administration. The hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) not only endorses what he says, but endorses it in language more powerful than has ever before been heard in this House on the same subject. What has he demanded? He says that the Imperial Parliament, which was to be supreme, is not to have the power to deal with a single act of the Irish Parliament. Irish Member, whether he be a Clerical or a Parnellite, expressed his dissent from that proposition? Not one. Has a single Gladstonian Member from England or Scotland expressed his Has any assent to that proposition? What materials for a homogeneous Party! An absolutely unanimous demand is put forward for an Irish Parliament whose acts shall not be vetoed-is there a Rule ought to be passed. Now, how was the Act of Union carried? An hon. MEMBER: By bribery. VISCOUNT WOLMER: It was carried by a great deal of bribery, which, I am sorry to say, was the common weapon in Parliamentary warfare both in England and in Ireland at that time; but it was passed with the assent of the only two bodies entitled to give their assent on behalf of Ireland and of Great single Scotch or English Home Ruler who put in his address or said to his constituents that he will vote for a Bill of that kind? Is there a single gentleman sitting near me who put in his address the statement that the acts of an Irish Parliament cannot and ought not to be vetoed by the Imperial Parlia-Britain. It was passed with the assent ment? He has endeavoured to persuade the electors to vote for him as a Home Ruler because he is in favour of you have a the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament; and here on the first day of the new Parliament he is face to face with this position that, whether he likes it or not, the day will come when all the promises he and his Party have made will have to be presented for payment, and the paymasters are those who will demand their presentation at the right moment. It is a position from which you have no escape. Either majority or you have not. If you keep your majority you can only keep it by voting for that which every one of you pledged himself not to do. ("No.") Has any hon. Member pledged himself to a Home Rule which means the granting of an Irish Parliament beyond the control of the Imperial Parliamemt in regard to its acts? Not one. And yet you have the whole of the Irish Members here unitedly demanding that as their only and sole condition. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith), in the latter portion of his speech, protested against and denounced what he called the disintegrating doctrines of those who are putting forward the English vote as against the Irish vote. I should entirely agree with his protest in so far as it affected any ordinary measure before the country. But I ask the House to consider very carefully what it is which the hon. Member for East Fife now asks and is supported in his demand by those who agree with him. He says that, although England by an overwhelming majority, and Great Britain by a less majority, has pronounced against Home Rule, yet Home VOL. VII. [FOURTH SERIES.] of the Irish Parliament and of the British Parliament. The proposal now is that Home Rule should be passed with the assent of the Irish nation only. ("Oh!") Is it denied that the English nation are against Home Rule? Not only is it proposed to undo, without the consent of one of the contracting parties, that which was done by the official representatives of the two contracting parties at the time, but, after repealing the Union and passing Home Rule against the wish of the English people, it is calmly proposed by the hon. Member for East Fife to leave here in this Parliament Irish Members to continue to outvote and to control English public opinion. I appeal to the House whether I have overstated the case? An hon. MEMBER: The Irish Members are not to control English affairs. me. any VISCOUNT WOLMER: That is not the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian or of the Members who support him. It is not the position of hon. Member near It is not the position of any of the Gladstonian Press-the Daily News, the Pall Mall Gazette, the Leeds Mercury, or of any other of the Gladstonian papers. One and all of these now say that the Irish Members are to remain here to share in the full functions of a Member of Parliament. ("No!" and Yes!") The mere fact that on one side of me I hear "No" and on the other side "Yes" is an additional and distinct proof of the perfect homogeneousness of this Party. I do not think I am wrong in saying that it I 183 Address in Answer to {COMMONS} the Queen's Speech. 181 is absolutely preposterous to give there will be no further need for its conIreland Home Rule in the sense tinuance. The Liberal Unionist Party Irish Members demand, and to leave came into existence to do certain work. Irish Members here to rule England, They have done half of it, and they inScotland, and Wales. It is a proposi- tend to do the rest. But the reason tion which I do not believe any Member why the Liberal Unionist Party are not of Parliament, whatever his politics may so very dear to some of my hon. Friends be, will dare to face his constituents around me is because they have been with as a supporter of, and it is quite very much stronger than my friends certain the Unionist Party will be false around me expected, for not only have to its first trust and duty if it did not re- they held together in this House and sist any such proposal with every Par- when threatened with extinction come liamentary form and with the whole back to the number of forty-seven, but energy in its power. I have only one they have, by their influence in the thing more to say. The hon. Member constituencies, turned a majority of 160 for East Fife was kind enough, in the into one of a bare and homogeneous forty. concluding portion of his speech, to It is thought by some ardent Home cheer himself with some scornful re- Rulers that this victory marks the end marks about the dwindling numbers of of their labours and is the triumph of the Liberal Unionist Party. He said their work. It is only the beginning -I believe with strict mathematical of the contest for us. It is the first accuracy that in 1886 we were ninety- time since 1886 we have been able to four, and that at the present moment come face to face with the men we we have been returned as forty-seven; oppose on this question with all the and he also said that it required conscientious strength of our natures. no great skill in arithmetic to pre- We are in earnest in this matter, and dict how long it would be before you will find us so. I venture to prethat forty-seven disappeared. disappeared. Now dict that not in this Parliament alone the only complaint I have to make but in future Parliaments will the against that statement is that it was Liberal Unionists be there to do the not quite full enough. I should like work they have to do until that work to add to it what the Liberal Unionist is done. The advantage we have over Party has done in the period in ques- you is this-that whereas you are not tion. Six years ago the majority that united we are united; whereas you do followed Mr. Gladstone, added to the not really know your minds we have Irish Members, was 160, at the present made up ours, and whereas you are moment the majority in Mr. Glad- prepared to compromise we never stone's favour is forty. Therefore it will. has taken the Liberal Unionist Party six years, at a loss of forty-seven seats, to reduce the right hon. Member's majority from 160 to forty. I shall be quite content if, at the end of another six years, the majority is again reduced at the same proportions. It would give a good Unionist majority of eighty. When that is done the work of the Liberal Unionist Party is done, and Viscount Wolmer Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned." (Mr. Leveson Gower.) Motion agreed to. Debate adjourned till To-morrow. House adjourned at a quarter before HOUSE OF LORDS, that similar results would follow to those which followed the passing of those Resolutions in the years I mentioned. In 1880, it will be remembered, the Dissolution occurred at Easter, and half the Sessional work remained to be done, and there was Tuesday, 9th August, 1892. The Marquess of Dufferin and Ava- abundant opportunity for discharging Took the Oath. PRIVATE AND PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILLS. Ordered, That the Orders of the 21st of June last for the suspension of Private and Provisional Order Confirmation Bills be held applicable to the next Session of Parliament. House adjourned at One o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter past Four o'clock. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Tuesday, 9th August, 1892. The House met at Three of the clock. Several other Members took and subscribed the Oath; and one other Member made and subscribed the Affirmation required by Law. PRIVATE BUSINESS. PRIVATE BILLS. (3.20.) MR. L. H. COURTNEY (Cornwall, Bodmin): It will be in the remembrance of some Members of the House who were also in the last Parlia ment that on the 20th of June I moved a series of Resolutions having the effect of enabling Private Bills which had not passed both Houses to be suspended at the stage they reached immediately before the Dissolution, and to be resumed at the same stage in the present Session. But I thought it necessary to say then that though in doing so I followed the precedents of 1880 and 1885 the circumstances of the Session were so different from those on the former occasions that I scarcely anticipated VOL. VII. [FOURTH SERIES.] the Private Bill work during the renewed Session. In 1886, though the Dissolution came later in the year, there remained a large proportion of the work of Supply to be discharged, hon. Members had to be in constant attendance, and so it was an easy matter to find Members to complete the Committee work upon Private Bills. But, as I said in June last it would be, it is difficult to take up in the present Session any of the work upon Private Bills left over from last Session, and therefore those engaged in the work did their utmost to carry Bills to their last stage. My anticipations have been realised, and it is found absolutely impossible to resume any part of the work left over. I have, therefore, now to move the Motion of which I have given notice, which will have the effect of carrying forward the Resolutions passed in June to the commencement of next Session, so that then it will be possible to take the up Bills at the stage at which they were incomplete at the close of the last Parliament. It is with great reluctance the conclusion has been arrived at, and it is a disappointment to the promoters of the suspended Bills, but examination has shown most clearly that it is practically impossible to take any stage of an opposed Bill during the present Session. It is difficult to get Members of this House or of the other House to attend to these details, the exigencies of the time and the period required preclude all hope of carrying the Bills forward. Therefore I move the Resolution which will enable the Bills to be resumed and the work completed next Session. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Standing Orders of the 20th June last for the suspension of Private Bills, or Bills to confirm any Provisional Order or be held applicable to the next Session of Certificate, be now read, and that the same Parliament." (Mr. Courtney.) K 187 {COMMONS} and Elections. Civil Servants 188 MR. TIMOTHY HEALY (Louth, | Sir Thomas Sutherland, was duly elected, N.): May I ask the late Chairman of and ought to have been returned as Member Committees whether in the House of for the said Burgh. Lords a similar Resolution will be passed? There are some Irish Bills in the other House in which we take great interest. Given under our hands at Edinburgh, the eighth day of August, Eighteen hundred and ninety-two, AND. R. CLARK, Lord Rutherfurd Clark. JAMES ADAM, Lord Adam. Ordered, That the Clerk of the Crown do attend this House forthwith with the last Return for the said Burgh of Greenock, and amend the same by striking out the name of John Bruce, esquire, and inserting the name of Sir Thomas Sutherland, K.C.M.G. The Clerk of the Crown attending, amended the Return accordingly. QUESTIONS. CIVIL SERVANTS AND ELECTIONS. MR. S. WOODS (Lancashire, S. W., “No. 7, H.M. New General Register House, Ince): I beg to ask the Postmaster Edinburgh, 8 August, 1892. To the Right Honble. the Speaker Greenock Election. Sir, As directed by the Judges for the trial of Election Petitions in Scotland, I have the honour to transmit to you the enclosed Certificate, and to remain, Your obedient Servant, C. TENNANT COUPER, Principal Clerk of Session. We, Andrew Rutherfurd Clark (Lord Rutherfurd Clark) and James Adam (Lord Adam), being two of the Judges on the rota for the trial of election Petitions, hereby Certify to the Right Honourable The Speaker of the House of Commons, That, in a Court held by us at Edinburgh, on eighth August, Eighteen hundred and ninety-two, for the trial of the election Petition of Sir Thomas Sutherland, K.C.M.G., of Bute House, Cromwell Road, London, Shipowner, and others, claiming that the said Sir Thomas Sutherland had been duly elected as Member of Parliament for the Burgh of Greenock, at he election on fourth July, Eighteen hundred and ninety-two, found and determined that the return of John Bruce, of Yonderton, Aberdeenshire, and Pump Court, Temple, London, Barrister-at-Law, as Member of Parliament for the said Burgh of Greenock, was an undue return within the meaning of the Act 31 and 32 Victoria, caput 125, Section 5, and that the Petitioner, the said General whether the Chairman and Secretary of the Post Office Servants' Trade Union, who were dismissed for circulating a series of questions to Parliamentary candidates during the recent election, were the only offenders in this respect among the Post Office officials; and, if not, why they alone were selected for punishment; and which law or regulation have the men in question violated to justify their instant dismissal? *MR. H. P. COBB (Warwick, S.E., Rugby) had notice of the following question:-To ask the Postmaster General, with regard to the case of Messieurs Clery and Cheesman, sorters in the Post Office, who were recently dismissed for having, as Chairman and Secretary of the Fawcett Association, addressed a letter to Parliamentary candidates asking whether they would support a Motion for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry into the Post Office, such as was advocated by the noble Lord the Member for the Barnsley Division (Earl Compton) and largely supported during a recent Session, and also with regard to the fact that, on the 14th of June, he publicly expressed his sense of the impropriety of Post Office servants endeavouring on the eve of a General Election to extract promises from can |