which my right hon. Friend has just made to me, I should not be justified in persevering in the Motion which stands lu my name. I beg, therefore, to announce that it is not my intention to proceed with it, and beg leave to withdraw it. MR. WHALLEY also begged leave to express his regret that the subject was not to be brought forward. ["Order!"] MR. SPEAKER: There is no Question before the House. MR. WHALLEY: I will put myself in Order by moving the Adjournment of the House. MR. SPEAKER: A Question has been put and answered. If any hon. Member has any Question to ask, this is the proper time for putting Questions. MR. FAWCETT: I should like to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he has made an appeal to the hon. Member for West Norfolk not to raise a discussion on Foreign Affairs, Whether there is any truth in the rumour which has been widely circulated and has appeared in the public journals, that there is going to be a discussion on Foreign Affairs this evening in "another place;" because, if there is any truth in that rumour, it is obvious that if it is right to have a discussion in another place" it cannot be inconvenient to discuss the matter here? THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I believe I may say that an intimation was given of the intention of a noble Lord to raise this question in the other House, but that an appeal had been made to the noble Lord on the part of the Government very much in the same terms as those which I have addressed to my hon. Friend, and it is not I understand the intention of the noble Lord to proceed with the Motion, and so far as I am aware there will be no discussion upon the subject in the other House. MR. WHALLEY, amid cries of "Oh, oh!" said: Sir, I desire to put a question to Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, which I think is justified by the appeal he has just made. [Cries of "Order!"] If necessary, I will put myself in Order by moving the Adjournment of the House. ["Oh, oh!"] It will be in the recollection of this House that on frequent occasions I have addressed Questions to the right hon. Gentleman with reference to this Circular of Lord Derby's, and generally with reference to the conduct of the Government in connection with the war. The Emperor of Russia has been distinctly charged with various things, and there seems to be relations of hostility between Her Majesty's Government and the Emperor of Russia. The Question I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman is, whether there is any other Power except that of the Papacy that has directly or indirectly expressed concurrence with Her Majesty's Government in their sentiments, I may say, of personal hostility to the Emperor of Russia? [Loud cries of "Order!"] MR. SPEAKER: The question which the hon. Member has now raised relates to a matter upon which he has twice put similar Questions in this House, and has received Answers. Upon a third occasion, when he desired to put a Question to the same effect, I ruled that the hon. Member was out of Order in so doing. He is now repeating his breach of Order by endeavouring to raise that question before the House. MR. WHALLEY: Then I will not put the Question; but I will, if I am permitted to do so, take this opportunity of making a statement with regard to this hostility-a kind of personal hostility-on the part of the Government towards the Emperor of Russia. [Cries of "Order! "] MR. SPEAKER: I am very unwilling but am compelled to exercise my duty as the guardian of the Rules and Orders of this House, by calling the hon. Member to Order a second time, and to pronounce him as having again disregarded the authority of the Chair. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Do I understand, Sir, that you pronounce the hon. Member as disregarding the authority of the Chair. MR. SPEAKER: Yes. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I apprehend, Sir, that under the new Rule, that when a Member has been pronounced by you to be disregarding the authority of the Chair, it is necessary that the debate should be at once suspended, and that Motion should be made in the House that the Member be not heard during the remainder of the debate. The debate is now suspended, I presume, and in that case I beg to make that Motion. Motion made, and Question proposed, | ject, because it appeared to him that "That Mr. Whalley be not further hon. Gentlemen had not shown a due ."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exche heard.". quer.) MR. SPEAKER: The Question is, that Mr. Whalley be not now heard. Question put, and agreed to. MR. WHALLEY: Mr. Speaker [Cries of "Order!"], I rise to make a personal explanation.["Order!"] MR. SPEAKER: The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day. ORDERS OF THE DAY. EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE (Mr. William Henry Smith, Mr. Attorney General) SECOND READING. ADJOURNED DEBATE. Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [8th August], "That the Bill be now read a second time." Question again proposed. sense of their responsibility in the matter, and because considerable dissatisfaction was felt with respect to it by the large class in the North of Ireland whose interests were affected by these antiquated enactments, with their unequal provisions, and he contended they ought not to be continued without mature consideration. With reference to the Act 23 & 24 Vict., which dealt with the dwellings of the labouring classes in Ireland, he maintained that it was entirely inadequate for the purpose for which it was designed, and that the question of securing adequate accommodation for these classes was one which deserved the serious consideration of the Government. Another Act which it was sought to renew by the measure before the House was the Act 17 & 18 Vict., dealing with the question of corrupt practices at elections. The occasions when elections were appealed against in Ireland were few, but the Judges were very numerous, and did not always give the decisions which might have been expected from them. The hon. Member was proceeding to refer to particular clauses of the Act when MR. SPEAKER called the hon. Member to Order. The ordinary practice of the House on the proposal that a Bill should be read a second time was merely to discuss the principle of the measure, and in referring to the decisions of Judges and to particular clauses of certain existing Acts of Parliament the hon. Member for Meath was taking a course which was irregular. MR. PARNELL, in moving that the Bill be read a second time upon that day three months, said, he remembered that the Bill affected many Acts which the Government had admitted required amendment, and that they applied it to Irish Acts when they dare not renew the same Acts in England. The practice of continuing expiring laws in this manner was both inconvenient and unconstitutional. He complained of the MR. PARNELL said, he submitted operation of various provisions in the to the ruling of the Chair, and would Act 5 & 6 Will. IV., relating to manu- not have acted as he had done, had he factures, which, he contended, required not understood that, according to the considerable modification, inasmuch as Forms of the House, he would not be the power given to a single magistrate entitled in Committee to propose Amendand to chief constables was far too strin-ments of those clauses in the Acts to gent, so far as regarded the treatment which he objected. of operatives. The imposition of penal- MR. SPEAKER said, it would be ties on a workman taking the yarn to quite open to the hon. Member to move weave at his own home and not return-in Committee that a certain Act specified ing the cloth before 14 days was a mat- in the Schedule should be excepted from ter which should not be the subject of the operation of the Bill. exceptional legislation, but left to the operation of the ordinary law. The Act 3 & 4 Vict. was equally oppressive, and afforded little or no protection to workHe called attention to this sub men. MR. PARNELL said, he did not so much object to the whole of the Acts which it was desired to renew as to certain clauses in them, which appeared to him to be either unnecessary, oppres liament. sive, or unsuitable. That the Forms of converted into permanent Acts of Parthe House should prevent hon. Members from having an opportunity of moving Amendments to such clauses was a strong illustration of the unconstitutionalism of the practice of bringing forward Bills for the purpose of continuing Acts of Parliament to which exception was in part taken. He would admit there were portions of these Acts which were highly beneficial, and through that he was placed in this dilemma-that, according to the ruling of the Chair, he was precluded from discussing clauses to which he objected, and he could only move the omission of the Acts from the continuing Bill. He would move the rejection of the Bill. MR. O'CONNOR POWER seconded the Motion. Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."-(Mr. Parnell.) Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question." SIR MICHAEL HICKS BEACH said, he did not propose to go into the details upon which the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) had entered, and which did not appear to him to bear directly upon the immediate question before the House. The hon. Gentleman had stated that there were no important Acts included in the Schedule of this Bill, except Acts which related to Ireland; but it had been brought under the notice of the House, on a previous occasion, that two very important measures, which were applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom-those referring to Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices-were included in the Bill. He must, therefore, entirely demur to the assertion made by the hon. Gentleman. It had also been said that the Irish Acts which it was proposed to renew were all bad, or something to that effect; but it was not necessary to deal seriously with such a description of these statutes. A Continuance Bill was required for two kinds of legislation: for Acts of a tentative character, and for those passed only for a certain number of years. He quite admitted that there were Acts in the Schedule which he should wish, quite as much as the hon. Gentleman, to see removed from it, and The Election Petitions Act and the Corrupt Practices Act had already been dealt with by the Attorney General, who hoped, next Session, to bring in a Bill on the subject. With regard to the County Cess (Ireland) Act, only a small portion of the law on this subject was continued by this Bill, and so long as the Grand Jury system remained, that portion of it must be continued. Amongst the Acts to be continued was the statute which enabled loans to be made for the erection of dwellings for the labouring classes in Ireland. It had been complaind that the Act was inadequate for the purpose for which it was intended; but he would remind the hon. Gentleman that a considerable sum had been lent to proprietors in Ireland under its powers, that the expenditure of that money had undoubtedly been attended with good results, and that this was a privilege which neither English nor Scotch landowners had, at present, accorded to them. With respect to the Act of which the hon. Gentleman had spoken as affecting manufacturing interests in the North of Ireland, last Session he had prepared a Bill consolidating the law on that subject; but no sooner was it introduced than exception was taken to it by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), on the ground that a good deal of the law was obsolete; and he objected to simple consolidation without amendment. The Bill was withdrawn. Meetings of employers and employed afterwards were held, and resolutions were passed of a very contradictory character. At the commencement of this Session he had prepared a Bill, making permanent so much of the law as it appeared necessary to retain, and he should certainly have introduced it, but for the circumstances which had delayed the progress of Business, to which he need not further allude. He purposed, next Session, to renew this attempt again; and, if he were aided by the hon. Members for Meath and Cavan, he hoped it would be possible to bring in a Continuance Bill free, as regarded Ireland, from the principal objections that had been taken to this. He was desirous, so far as Ireland as well as England was concerned, that there should be nothing included in this Bill except what was absolutely necessary. "forward " MR. O'DONNELL complained that | pressed by the active or the fact of these measures being of a school of Indian Frontier politicians, transitory character should be made a who, believing that Russia would one reason for not affording an opportunity day make an attack upon India, desired for having them thoroughly discussed, as to anticipate her in an attempt upon he thought that fact ought rather to Herat, by advancing our military posts operate in the opposite direction. far beyond our present Frontier. The subject was again brought before the House by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Robertson), who, on the 15th of March, asked the Under Secretary of State for India MR. PARNELL intimated his readiness, in consequence of what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to withdraw his Amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and mitted for To-morrow. CONSOLIDATED FUND TION) BILL. com (APPROPRIA "If his attention has been called to the following paragraph in the 'Times' of the 5th March instant:-A Treaty has been concluded with Khelat whereby the British Government agrees to support the Khan against internal and foreign foes, and to pay an annual subsidy of £10,000, besides a further sum of £2,200 for the purpose of effecting such improvements in the country as the Government may approve. In return the Government will have the right to occupy the chief towns with troops, to construct railways and telegraphs, and to erect forts. The British Agent's head-quarters will be at Khelat, and an officer will also be stationed at Quetta;' and, if he will inform the House if such a Treaty has been concluded; and, if the Government approves of the policy indicated of thus occupying places in Beloochistan far beyond the British territory ?" MR. GRANT DUFF rose to call attention to the apparent change of policy The noble Lord the Under Secretary of of the Government of India in the States State replied, among other things, that to the West of the Indus; and to ask the revision and adaptation of an old explanations from Her Majesty's Go-Treaty to existing circumstances did not vernment with reference to the occupation of Quetta, the negotiations at Peshawur, and the proposed change of administration in the Frontier districts. He said that before the Session commenced there were rumours of a great increase of activity along the Western Frontier of India beyond the Indus, and on the second day of the Session he put a Question to the noble Lord opposite (Lord George Hamilton), and gathered from his reply that the troops sent into the Khelat territory were intended merely to serve as an escort to Major Sandeman, who had been commissioned to settle the disputes between the Khan and his Sirdars, and to arrange for the undisturbed passage of caravans through the Bolan Pass, that Major Sandeman remained at Khelat at the request of the Khan, and that his troops were likely to move about the country as occasion required. When he asked the Question, he feared that the troops were going to be stationed at Quetta, a point some 257 miles in advance of our existing Frontier, the occupation of which had repeatedly been in any way indicate, on the part of the Indian Government, any intention of pursuing in any sense an aggressive policy towards the countries beyond their borders. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury had not asked whether the Government meant to pursue an aggressive policy, but whether they approved the policy of occupying places in Beloochistan, far beyond the British territory; and he (Mr. Grant Duff) supposed it to be a fair inference from that reply, that the Government then at least considered that the permanent occupation of a place at a very great distance from our Frontier did constitute a move of an aggressive character. If that was not a fair inference, then his noble Friend would lay himself open to the charge that he had given no reply whatever to the most material part of the Question of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury. In the month of April, he (Mr. Grant Duff) again called attention to the subject, and asked whether certain Khelat Papers would be laid on the Table. The noble Lord replied, that he would lay the Papers on the Table | pire (interests no longer local, but Imperial) immediately; but as they were very rendered it necessary to place our relations with voluminous, they would not be in the Khelat on a much firmer, more durable, and more intimate footing than before. Whatever hands of hon. Members for a consimay have been the personal disinclination of derable time. Some months elapsed this Government in times past to exercise active during which the rumours from India interference in Khanates beyond our border, it were not less disquieting than they had must now be acknowledged that, having regard been before; but people were very much to possible contingencies in Central Asia, to the profound and increasing interest with which they comforted by the pacific assurances of are already anticipated and discussed by the the noble Lord at the head of the India most warlike populations within as well as withOffice (the Marquess of Salisbury), and out our Frontier, and to the evidence that has by the extremely pacific and consolatory reached us of foreign intrigue in Khelat itself language which the noble Lord used in (intrigue at present innocuous, but sure to become active in proportion to the anarchy or a speech he made at the Merchant weakness of that State and its alienation from Taylors' banquet. He found some diffi- British influence), we can no longer avoid the culty in reconciling Lord Salisbury's conclusion that the relations between the British tone with the things which were going must henceforth be regulated with a view to Government and this neighbouring Khanate on under his auspices; but he waited more important objects than the temporary pretill the Papers were issued, which was vention of plunder on the British border." on Saturday, the 21st of July. He (Mr. Grant Duff) was extremely sorry to say that when he came to examine those Papers he found that the very worst fears which he and others had formed on the subject were confirmed. A despatch of the 23rd of March from the Government of India to the India Office contained statements of a very re-tary of State (before the former left for markable character, which appeared to him to be as nearly as possible a declaration of absolute disagreement with the policy enforced on the Frontier ever since the later days of Lord Lawrence, and he did not know how to reconcile its statements with the replies given earlier in the Session in that House, or with the tone of Lord Salisbury's statements elsewhere. These were the words of the Government of India in the despatch of March 23, Paragraph 17 Unless otherwise explained, he drew several conclusions from that despatch. The first conclusion which he thought might be drawn from it was, that the policy of active interference indicated was the result of a personal communication between the Viceroy and the Secre India); that, as the Viceroy was subordinate to the Secretary of State, this policy of active interference was the policy of Lord Salisbury; and that, Lord Salisbury being a Member of the Cabinet, it was the policy of Her Majesty's present Advisers. The second inference he drew from the despatch, in spite of the disclaimer of the Government, was, this policy of active interference was that thoroughly approved by Her Majesty's Government that they had departed "The present Viceroy, having had the advan- from the old policy, and now went for a tage before leaving England of personal com- policy of active interference beyond our munication with your Lordship on the general Frontiers very hard to distinguish from subject of our Frontier relations, was strongly that aggressive policy. The third inimpressed by the importance of endeavouring to ference he drew from the same despatch deal with them simultaneously, as indivisible parts of a single Imperial question, mainly de- was, that the Government had been led pendent for its solution on the foreign policy of to that policy of active interference beHer Majesty's Government, which is the ulti-yond our own Frontiers, on account of mate guardian of the whole British Empire, rather than as isolated local matters. From this point of view, and bearing in mind the ambiguous and unsatisfactory character of our relations with Affghanistan, it had been his Excellency's intention to depute a confidential envoy to the Court of Cabul, via Candahar, and in and about which locality the Affghan population is most friendly to the Government." the fear of certain contingencies in Central Asia, and with a view to checkmate foreign, or, in other words, Russian, intrigue in Khelat. If so, that policy of active interference, pursued under the influence of the fear of possible contingencies in Central Asia, stimulated by uneasiness about the intrigues of Russia in Khelat, and emanating from the personal intervention of Lord Salisbury, he ventured to think was an unwise and dangerous policy. The more that all |