Amendment proposed-
"Page 16, line 9, leave out the words 'poor

rate and.'"-(Mr. Lambert.)

MR. LAMBERT (Devonshire, S. Molton): The effect of this Amendment will be to cut off entirely the landlord's portion of this grant and leave the tenant in a far better position than that in which he is proposed to be placed by the Government in this Bill. This grant amounts to £300,000 a year, and represents the interest on a capitalised sum of something like £10,000,000. For my own part, I have never been able

to discover what the Irish landlords have which represents the interest of such an done to entitle them to receive a gratuity enormous sum of money, in addition to the fact that they have swallowed this Act of Parliament. But if this Act of Parliament is a reasonable Act and a right and proper Act. to pass, I cannot see that you want in any way to bribe the Irish landlords to accept it. We have had several admissions from the right honourable Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury that this was not a debt due to the landlord. Very well, I am quite certain it is not a demand by the Irish

MR. DILLON: He has evicted his tenants.

MR. LAMBERT: I accept my honourable Friend's explanation. Is that what we are to pay it for? Now, the English landlords, in their degree, have never been guilty of the same atrocities as have their Irish confrères. You have no starving tenantry in England as they have in Ireland, and I think that it is a scandalous shame that in this country, overflowing with wealth as it is, there should be any people who are unable to get a decent meal, when they are able and willing to work, as the Irish peasantry are. I asked, the other day, who were the chief landlords in Ireland, and I find, from Mr. Thom's Directory, an official directory, and one which can be taken as reliable

people that this money should be taken the globe he may inhabit. What, may out of the pockets of the people to endow I ask, has Lord Clanricarde done to the Irish landlords in order to buy off deserve that £500 a year should be paid their opposition to this Bill. In my into his pocket? I asked that question opinion, it is a piece of gratuitous bribery the other day of the Chief Secretary, but to the Irish landlords, and I think this the right honourable Gentleman did not any honourmoney could be made use of and disposed give me any answer, nor has of in a very much more profitable way able Member, so far as I am aware, given for the benefit of Ireland. We are told any answer to the question as to what that this country confers the same treat- this man has done to deserve that this ment upon Ireland as that which England money should be taken out of the pockets received under the Agricultural Rating of the taxpayer and put into his own. Bill, but I would venture to remind the Committee that in that case the money went first into the pockets of the occupier. If it ultimately went to the landlord it did so by a process of filtration, through the pockets of the occupier. But in this case it goes direct to the landlord. The other point is that the Irish Secretary will not accept the five years' limit, but he made it permanent, and that also makes it different. The Irish landlords, under this Bill, will be in a far better position than the landlords of England ever were, because not only will they have this grant, but they will not pay any rates. They will derive a certain income from their land, and they not only get this £300,000 a year, but other privileges as well. I do not myself see what they have done to merit this generous treatment at the hands of the taxpayers. An honourable Member said that they had driven the people mad or to America. You surely do not want to compensate them for that. I am quite certain that no one who has gone very deeply into this question can have done otherwise than have noticed that, to a very large extent, the disturbances in Ireland have been due to, and caused by, the rapacity of the Irish landlords. It was their handiwork in 1880, when they drew up Mr. Forster's Compensation Bill, and all the disturbance and violence which has taken place in Ireland has been largely due to the landlords demanding rents which it was impossible for the tenants to pay. Since the Act of 1881, which was strengthened ing by the right honourable Gentleman the cent. reduction in rent Chief Secretary in 1895-the Land Act, by which fair rents were fixed-it will be seen that, to a very large degree, the disturbances have been mitigated. That has been because the people have been able to get fair rents, and have not been driven to the extremities to which starvation will reduce a man, whatever part of treatment

MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, no!

MR. LAMBERT: The right honourable Gentleman says it cannot be taken as reliable, but I think it can.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It is not official.

MR. LAMBERT: Well, it is not official, but it may be taken as a reliable work. I find that in the west of Ireland Lord Dillon is now receiving, makallowance for the 25 per now made,

£14,323. He will get under this Bill a poor rate of 8d. in the £, amounting to £477 a year. The Marquess of Sligo I take the figures from the same authority-will get on poor This is very different rate £300 a year.

from

that which the

Government is meting out to the starv-| is very much overcome by the politician. ing tenantry in that district. They If the Government says, as they somegive them а very small amount times do, that a thing is very black, he indeed some 2s. 6d. or 3s. a week puts on the robe of mourning; but when -provided that they work very hard they say that it is bright and shining, he for it. These two landlords get sufficient, dons the wedding garment. Under those at all events, to provide them with cham- circumstances, I deprecate his coming pagne. Now, I cannot understand by down here to criticise my consistency. I what right or title men who have object to this grant upon the ground also neglected their duties in the past should that, whilst going into the pockets be endowed with this gigantic sum. The of the landlords of Ireland, it will only reason which I could obtain was perpetuate a system already wasteful that I, as a Member of this House, voted and extravagant, which, rich as we for the Second Reading of the Agricul- are, we ought not to allow. The tural Rates Bill. I supported the Govern- Imperial expenditure of this country ment in 1886, when they opposed is something like £70,000,000, the the Act which they are now advo- contribution of Ireland towards that cating, the extension of the Agricultural Rating Act to Ireland. In 1897 the Government rejected a proposal of the honourable Member for Derry City that the Agricultural Rating Act of England should be extended to Ireland. In May, 1898-this year-they advocate very strongly that this Bill should be extended to Ireland. I was very much taken to task by the honourable Member for Stroud for my inconsistency in this matter. He came down here with a great show of principle, and held up his hands in holy horror at the very suggestion that anything like bribery was in any way contemplated. The honourable Gentleman said just now, "We get, on condition that we swallow this Act, a certain amount of money." That seemed to me to sound somewhat like bribery. I would like to examine a little into the consistency of the honourable Gentleman upon this question. In 1896 he gave a silent vote on the Government side rejecting the extension of the Agricultural Rating Act to Ireland. In 1897 he came down and spoke, and voted in favour of its rejection. He said it was not fair to extend the Agricultural Rating Act to Ireland because the circumstances of the two

countries were not at all similar. Now, if

it was not fair to extend this Act to Ire

land in 1897, because of the dissimilarity of the circumstances, how does the honourable Gentleman reconcile it to his mind that it is fair in 1898? I should like to have an answer to that question. It appears to me that the honourable and learned Gentleman supports the Govern ment through thick and thin. He is a very accomplished lawyer, we know, but I am very much afraid that the advocate Mr. Lambert.

expenditure is something like £2,000,000 When this Bill is passed it will only be £1,200,000, and I think, as an English Member of this House, I have a right to speak and vote on this matter, which is one in which the English constituencies are so vitally interested. I contend that although such a measure as the Agricul tural Rates Bill was given to England, there is no reason for a similar Bill being given to Ireland. The circumstances are not the same in the two countries. Eng land is a rich country, and if she likes to give a certain amount of money to the landlords of the country it is a matter which only concerns herself; but Ireland, on the other hand, is a poor country, and she cannot afford to put this money into her landlords' pockets. There is no getting away from the fact that this grant will be taken into account when the next discussion upon the financial relations of Ireland and England comes before this House. I am perfectly certair that honourable Gentlemen will rise in their places then and say there is £300,000 going to the landlords of Ireland, and that must be taken into

account when the contribution she is to

pay comes to be considered. I candidly

admit that I do not believe in this countries. I voted for Home Rule, and similarity of treatment for the two I hope I am consistent in opposing the Rating Act as applied to Ireland. It is that this amount of £300,000 a year not necessary for Ireland; and I contend could be more advantageously applied in other

ways.

The honourable Member for

Derry City said, the other day, that if nothing were done for the landlords of

COLONEL WARING: Compiled 13 or 14

COLONEL WARING: In some respects.

MR. LAMBERT: The honourable

Gentleman has anticipated what I was

about to

say.

When it suits honourable

Ireland everybody knew the fate which this Bill might expect to meet with in years ago. another place. I object to pay £300,000 a MR. LAMBERT: I am quoting from year in order to pass this Bill into law. It is not the habit or the tradition of the Thom's Official Directory, 1898, and Liberal Party to bribe the House of honourable Gentlemen opposite have Lords in order that they may obtain already admitted that it is a reliable their consent to proper and good legisla- authority. tion. This is an act of political corruption of the deepest dye. Let me give one instance of this policy. Suppose that the London County Council had made up its mind to effect a desirable improvement in the city of London, and suppose that council had decided to pay two of the Gentlemen they will quote it, but when members of the county council for it does not, then it is not reliable. Now the purpose of buying their con- I observe that Lord Londonderry wrote a sent to the improvement being made, honourable Gentleman opposite would go about the country and denounce the London County Council in the most unmeasured terms as guilty of bribery and corruption; but what is happening here? Two of the Members of the Cabinet are going under this Bill to receive a very large sum of money. They will get under this Bill £1,646 a year.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.): What will Lord Londonderry get?

MR. LAMBERT: According to Thom's Directory he will get half the poor rate of 13. 4d. in the £-that is to say, 8d. in the £. So that he will receive £932 poor rate; and, if we take into account what he will receive out of the county cess, he will get £1,395.

COLONEL WARING (Down, N.): 1 would like to correct the honourable Gentleman upon this point. Lord Londonderry has sold the greater part of his Irish property, and will, therefore, not receive any such amount. All that which the honourable Gentleman has given us is ancient history.

MR. LAMBERT: I can only say that in my speech I am quoting from the official directory.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, not

letter-which has only reached my hands
since I have been in the House, to the
Times-but if Lord Londonderry will
only do me the honour to read my speech,
he will see that I quoted the figures from
the directory. It was the 1873 valuation
from which I deducted 25 per cent. for
agricultural depression.
I gave those
figures when I commenced my speech,
and also the authority upon which I
gave them; therefore, I cannot for the
life of me see why he should question my
If there is any
accuracy in the matter.

inaccuracy at all, then it is on the part
of the directory, which is reliable when
it suits the honourable Gentlemen oppo-
site, and untrustworthy when it does not.
Here is a splendid opportunity for doing
something for Ireland, in the way of
education, for instance. The very first part
of this Bill proposes to disfranchise the
illiterate voters. Now, this money might
be used to educate them; but if you give
it to the Irish landlords it will not do so.
Lord Londonderry admits that he will
receive £180 a year under this Bill. Will

any

of the money which he receives educate a single one of the peasants in Ireland, or, in the way of education, give any assistance to one out of five of these illiterate people in Ireland, who are un able to read or write? Not one. Thero

is again a good opportunity of spending this £300,000 a year in another way. You may give it to the county councils of Ireland, following the precedent of the English county councils. £3,000,000 COLONEL WARING: What official was given to the English county councils directory?

official.

MR. LAMBERT: Thom's.

for the purpose of effecting any desir able improvement. All the county councils of Ireland have to depend upon, and