this Bill? I say this Bill does affect them, because it alters the incidence of the rates in their locality, and while it affects them injuriously for rating purposes, it affects them for other purposes too. As this is, after all, not a very large matter, I should hope the Govern ment will be better advised even at the eleventh hour, and that they will accept the Amendment. Amendment agreed to. A further Amendment made. CLAUSE 50. the townships of Dublin; does it touch | wholly changed? Why is the payment in the Corporation of Dublin; does it touch respect of rates to be made different by the corporation of any of these places, which, nevertheless, are places where the franchise will be extended under this Bill? And, moreover, although over the extended area you have granted an extended franchise, yet in these towns which do not become urban sanitary authorities you leave the £4 franchise. Now where is the logic of that? And, furthermore, as I understand it, to make the matter more iniquitous, the body which may adopt this Towns CommisMR. GERALD BALFOUR: As sioners Act may be the Parliamentary the honourable and learned Member electors themselves; but once the Par- says, this is not, after all, a liamentary electors have performed very large matter, and although I still the function of adopting the Act and think my view of the effect of the clause creating the town commissioners, the is right, I do not object to the Amendtown commissioners alone are to have ment. the power. Where is the sense of it? And these little bodies are not to have the benefit of the preparation of the Parliamentary Register. They must go to the expense, forsooth, in addition to preparing the Parliamentary Register and the Local Government Register, of preparing a Ballyhooley Register-a register for these little towns themselves. On a £4 suffrage there must be a special register. And again, as to peers and women. Peers, I suppose, are excluded, but women are certainly excluded under the Act of 1854. Now where are all the champions of women's rightswhere is the Member for Liskeard, who once went to the length of moving a suspension of the Twelve o'clock Rule in order to contend for the rights of women and peers? Women and peers are to have the right to come in, all the peers in the country can flock into these towns, and all the women on the Local Government Register can come in and force this register on the towns, but after that their rights disappear, and it is only the sacred persons who enjoy that franchise who can become town councillors of Ballyhooley. Anything more absurd cannot be conceived. I say if the Bill is to be left with this section in it, it entirely falsifies the pledges given by the right honourable Gentleman as to equality between England and Ireland. What makes the matter worse is this the right honourable Gentleman, while refusing these people the franchise, has changed the incidence of the rates. Why is the system of rating to be Mr. T. M. Healy. Amendment proposed Page 28, line 8, at end, insert "Provided that where it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Lord Lieutenant that the guardians of a union wholly or partly within a county have allocated and fully equipped a department of their workhouse for the reception of chronic lunatics, certified as aforesaid by the medical officer of the workhouse, and that such department of the workLieutenant may direct that such department house is suitable for the purpose, the Lord of the workhouse shall be utilised as an auxiliary lunatic asylum within the meaning of this section.”—(Sir J. Haslett.) SIR J. HASLETT (Belfast, N.): The Amendment which stands in my name I may explain in a word or two. Already some of the workhouses have provided ample accommodation for carrying out the Act relating to chronic lunatics. In Belfast the guardians have expended a sum of something like £14,000 in building a completely separate wing with a separate entrance. I think the section, although it is very excellent in its way, does not go sufficiently far. It would MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am not prepared to accept that, but if it is put down I will consider it before the Report stage. necessitate the council taking possession of this wing and administering it, whereas my Amendment would enable the guardians to retain possession of it and to carry it on, receiving the capitation grant provided by this Act. MR. GERALD question is whether MR. J. H. M. CAMPBELL: I do not think the Chief Secretary has exactly met the difficulty pointed out by the honouraable Member for North Belfast. The fact is that in the case of one of these work BALFOUR: The workhouse should be taken away from the control of the guardians and handed houses-namely, at Belfast-a distinct over to the control of the committee of SIR J. HASLETT: All I want to ensure is that the city of Belfast shall not be obliged to spend another £14,000 in providing another building for exactly the purposes already satisfactorily fulfilled by the present asylum. Every Report sent in by the inspectors to the Government will show that that asylum will compare favourably with any asylum in the north of Ireland; the imbeciles portion of the existing workhouse has been earmarked for pauper lunatics, and an expenditure of £14,000 has been incurred by the ratepayers of Belfast for the purpose of fully equipping a portion of the workhouse for these harmless pauper lunatics. It has been most favourably reported on by the inspectors, and it in every respect fulfils the requirements of the case. But the difficulty is this and I do not think the right honourable Gentleman has met it-that, notwithstanding this provision, in Belfast power is given to the new county council to entirely ignore that provision, and, notwithstanding the existence of it, to establish at the expense of the ratepayers all over again an independent new building for the purpose of maintaining these new lunatics. Now, I venture to suggest (and I think there can be no conflict on this question) that in the interests of the ratepayers themselves, who have put their hands into their pockets to the tune of £14,000, there ought to be some provision that where accommodation is already already provided which has fulfilled every want up to the present day, that accommodation should be maintained in the future. MR. GERALD BALFOUR: If the It is not maintained if this clause are carrying on this work is passed in its present form, because it are better treated there than in any other asylum, and I earnestly ask the Chief Secretary whether he is going to place on the citizens of Belfast the necessity of spending another £14,000 while there is abundant room already for carrying on the work that is required. in a satisfactory manner, there is gives power to the new county councils, nothing in the clause which will prevent things going on as heretofore. SIR J. HASLETT: That is exactly what I want to make certain about. MR. WOLFF (Belfast, E.): Would it not meet the case pointed out by the honourable Gentleman if, in line 51, after the word 66 workhouse" inserted the words " were or portion of a workhouse"? wholly independent of any action of the board of guardians, to ignore the existing accommodation altogether. The only object of the Amendment of my honourable Friend, as I understand it, is over again for the same purpose, and I to prevent this expenditure being made submit there ought to be some provision of that kind. The right honourable Gentleman, I think, has not met the difficulty by saying that you can go on as heretofore, because under the clause MR. at present the county council of Belfast | law, as I understand, at present provides may ignore the existing provision if they that you may keep in workhouses harmlike, and erect a new asylum for them- less lunatics who are certified to be harmselves at the expense of the ratepayers. less, and I presume that this clause provides for this same class of lunatics being transferred to what are described as auxiliary asylums. Now, I think that lunatics who are harmless lose their chance of proper treatment by being transferred from lunatic asylums into work houses. The clause provides GERALD BALFOUR: I will consider the matter between this and the Report stage. SIR J. HASLETT: The Amendment I shall put down on the Report stage will be that the control and management may still be left with the guardians so long as these imbeciles are retained there, and that the capitation grant shall be given to the guardians. Amendment negatived. Question proposed "That clause 51 stand part of the Bill." 66 Amendment proposed― 66 That the sum payable out of the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account in respect of the net charge for any lunatic therein may be paid when the net charge equals or exceeds three shillings and sixpence a week, but that sum shall not exceed two shillings a week." That appears to contemplate that the fair average of the charge for a harmless lunatic may be taken at 2s. a week. I think that is preposterous. The average cost of maintaining a lunatic at present is nearly 9s. a week, and from all I can gather from the reports of the inspectors Page 28, line 12, leave out 'two' and the charge will before long be increased insert four.""Mr. Dillon.) *MR. DILLON: I would suggest that some additional expense may be thrown on the ratepayers by this clause as it stands at present. I confess I am not very clear about it, but I think we should have a statement from the Government as to the exact effect of the clause. At present, as I understand by the Act of 1875, it is possible to transfer a harmless lunatic from the district asylum to a workhouse, and those lunatics have to be kept on the books of the lunatic asylum. I do not know what amount of grant they draw when transferred to the workhouse, whether it is the whole capitation grant of 4s. a head. A great body of the lunatics in workhouses at present have not been transferred, and I suppose no capitation grant is drawn. Now, I assume, or at least I hope, that one of the objects of this clause is to provide for the improved treatment of the 4,000 lunatics who are now in workhouses in Ireland. It appears to me, as far as I understand lunacy administration, that the only proper thing to do is to put all lunatics in asylums. I do not think it is possible properly to treat lunatics in wards or portions of workhouses set aside for their treatment. The Mr. J. H. M. Campbell. to 10s. a week. I think it ought to be. I think probably 10s. is the very lowest on which you can treat these people with humanity. I want to know on what principle are we to set aside a large body of these lunatics, and because they are harmless they are to cost 3s. a week, while dangerous lunatics are to cost 98. I say that that is a most drastic and monstrous provision. I cannot understand why a harmless lunatic should cost much less than an ordinary lunatic in the district asylums. I can quite understand why there should be a slight additional charge, say perhaps 1s. a week, in a large asylum-conceivably 28.-for the extra warders who are required to take charge of dangerous lunatics. There may be a slight increase in the propor tion of warders necessary to look after these people, but I hold that the only rational and humane system would be that all lunatics should be dealt with by the same administration, and practically in the same asylums; those who are easily managed, and comparatively harm less, to be looked after by their relatives at a reasonable sum. But for any lunatics who are in such a condition as to require constant and laborious attention I say that to provide 3s. 6d. per week as the normal cost of their maintenance is a perfect absurdity and an outrage on our MR. M. HEALY: I put a question some lunacy administration. to the right honourable Gentleman as to whether he had made MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I may point out that the part of the clause to which the honourable Member objects fixes 2s. a week as the minimum. *MR. DILLON : No; 2s. is the maximum. MR. GERALD BALFOUR: honourable Member is The correct, but that the luna weeks ago any inquiries which justified him in the I would point out tics in Ireland for whom this grant of 2s. per head is to be given are at present entirely supported out of the local rates throughout the kingdom. This grant is only to be given after the comthe notion that a lunatic can be mainmittee of the county council establishes tained in auxiliary asylums at 4s. a week institutions of this kind, and therefore is absolutely absurd. His view is that a it will actually benefit the ratepayers person can be so maintained at somegenerally. This grant will come thing under the ordinary figure, but that out of the local taxation account; 4s. is absurd. that is to say, out of the MR. GERALD BALFOUR: All we sugproceeds of local licences; and as those gest is that the subvention from the moneys are devoted to the benefit of the State should be 2s. ratepayers in any case, it will be obvious that it is not so much a question of gain to the ratepayers, though it might possibly be a gain to a particular section of the ratepayers. Now, I will just mention to the House that I have had ment. MR. M. HEALY: But the subvention was based on the supposition that the total cost of maintenance was 4s. If you go back to the report of Mr. O'Brien and others in 1879, you will find that at that date the Government subsidy in some cases-I think even in the majority of cases-considerably exceeded the amount levied under the county cess. MR. GERALD BALFOUR: As а matter of fact the expense has gone down since that date. MR. M. HEALY: I am aware that, if you compare the figures of 1879 with the present figures, that is so. The position at present is that, in addition to expense of maintenance, nearly all the counties of Ireland now have to contribute annually large sums to pay for the maintenance of lunatics-I mean maintenance apart from lodgings as we may call it, and perhaps apart from the cost of superintendence. The maintenance of a luna tic in that sense is about 9s. 94d., but that does not affect my argument. In 1879, in nearly half the counties of Ireland, the amount contributed by the State in the form of the 4s. grant exceeded the amount spent on the lunatics. MR. GERALD BALFOUR: That cannot possibly be so, because the amount of the grant is regulated by the amount of the expenditure. MR. M. HEALY: So far as my knowledge of the matter goes this is the first time it has been proposed that the amount granted by the State should have anv relation to the amount expended, and, as a matter of fact, it was made a matter of complaint in 1880 that the amount contributed by the State was more than the amount expended upon the lunatics. Even when the present lunatic inspectors came into office in 1880 they made it a matter of complaint, and I think in some lunatic asylums even in their day—that is to say, in 1880-the amount contributed by the State was in excess of the amount actually spent. However, that is somewhat apart from the point on which I am now addressing the House. I was only pointing out that the Report upon which the right honourable Gentleman fixed his figure of 2s. a week is a very old Report, and for that purpose I think he would have done well before he fixed that figure to have consulted with the medical superintendents and managers with the object of ascertaining what, in their opinion, would be the expense of maintaining these lunatics when they were transferred from the workhouses. If he will look to the exhaustive Report made in 1880 by the present Commissioners of Lunacy, he will see those gentlemen enter into elaborate calculations, and that in no case did they calculate that the cost would be any less than the present cost in lunatic asylums. In fact, they rather throw discredit on the proposals to adapt workhouses for the purpose of lunatic asylums at all, on the ground that, in the long run, it would be cheaper to build a special building than to adapt an old workhouse for the purpose. I do not pretend to have mastered the Report of 1879, because it was a very long document, but my impression of it is this, that even the calculation of 2s. a week does not relate Mr. M. Healy. was to the cost of maintaining a lunatic in a lunatic asylum. In the Report of 1879 there were three categories of lunatics dealt with; one the lunatics maintained in lunatic asylums, then the lunatics maintained in the auxiliary asylums, and then, thirdly, lunatics maintained in inferior some asylum, and it is in relation to the third class that this figure is given. The right honourable Gentleman speaks of auxiliary asylums, but certainly the suggestion of 28. a week had no relation to the cost of maintenance in an auxiliary asylum as it was recommended by that Report. Of course, the right honourable Gentleman justified in saying that this grant will come out of the ratepayers' money, and that we should not get any more money if they increased that 28. a week; but it does occur to me that the suggestion of 2s. a week, which would be generally construed to mean a total expenditure of 4s. a week, greatly minimises the cost which will have to be incurred when these lunatics are ultimately transferred. It is for that reason that I take such a strong view of this clause, because my view is that, if not 8s. a week, certainly not much less than 6s. is required. that reason the grant which this clause proposes will, in a few years' time, mean a large deficit for the Irish counties, and they will not be getting even 4s. a week. For MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am far from dogmatising as to what the result think that the superintendents of asywould be, but I am rather inclined to think that the superintendents of asylums judge from the asylums of which they have had experience, and I cannot help thinking that it is necessary to bear that in mind in reading their reports. The honourable Gentleman complains of the amount of the grant, but I should remind him that the lunatics that he will find in lunatic asylums, and who will be transferred to the workhouses under this clause, are really lunatics who ought to be transferred. I am convinced that the effect of the clause must be a saving to the ratepayers. *MR. DILLON: The right honourable Gentleman has entirely failed to answer my question, which has a very important bearing on the subject. He has stated |