NOTICE OF QUESTION. PARLIAMENT-ORDER-ARGUMENTATIVE QUESTIONS. COLONEL WARING: I beg to give Notice that on Monday next I will ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, with reference to his statement as to dispensing with certain powers claimed by the Executive in Ireland, Whether he is aware that the National League arrogates to itself the power directly and indirectly to proRev. Mr. O'Connor, parish priest, of hibit the payment of rent; whether the Firies, is not reported in The Kerry Sentinel of November 10 to have stated at a meeting of the National League Sir LYON PLAYFAIR discharged from attendance on the Committee: -Dr. CAMERON added to the Committee.-(Sira John R. Mowbray.) BELFAST MAIN DRAINAGE BILL. RESOLUTION. MR. SEXTON: I beg to move"That the Petition against the Belfast Main Drainage Bill, deposited in the Private Bill Office on the 19th instant, be printed and cir culated with the Votes." The Petition referred to here is one which was adopted at a public meeting of the occupiers and inhabitants of Belfast in opposition to a local Private Bill which is about to come before a Committee of this House. But in consequence of the depressed condition of trade in Belfast and the enormous cost which attends the opposition to a Private Bill in Parliament the ratepayers are unable to send witnesses here, and appear in opposition to the Bill in the ordinary way. I have given Notice of my intention on Tuesday next to move an Instruction on an important matter relating to this Bill; and I think it would be for the convenience of the House, and would also tend to an economy of its time, if the facts relating to the case were placed at once in the hands of the general body of Members. I, therefore, make this Motion. Motion agreed to. Ordered, That the Petition against the Belfast Main Drainage Bill, deposited in the Private Bill Office on the 19th instant, be printed and circulated with the Votes, "That any tenant who went behind the back of the other tenants and paid his rent was traitor to the cause. [A Voice: Shoot them.] Father O'Connor: Don't." Whether Mr. Curtin was not shot on the Friday following, having paid his rent; and, whether as this and similar circumstances have occurred constantly in Ireland the Chief Secretary will take steps to bring the laws of conspiracy to bear upon illegal combinations of this character? MR. SEXTON: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of Order. I would ask whether the statement of the hon. and gallant Member that the National League arrogates to itself certain powers is not a matter of opinion and argument, and is, therefore, by the Standing Orders of the House, excluded from the Journals of the House? MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: At the same time I would ask, as a matter of Order, whether it is within the spirit of the Rules of this House that hon. Members, at Notice time, should inflict upon the House long extracts from letters in newspapers, containing expressions such as those to which my hon. Friend has called attention, which will not and cannot afterwards appear on the Journals of the House, being contrary to the Orders and spirit of the Rules of the House? MR. SPEAKER: In reply to the two hon. Members, I have to say that I wish the House would sanction me in restraining Questions of the nature referred to, and also in enforcing the practice that when Questions are to be put they may be placed on the Notice | law; and, whether he will cause inquiry Paper without previous Notice, or being to be made, with a view to putting a required to read them. With reference to stop to such alleged irregular action of the special Question asked, I shall, of the Constabulary? course, before it appears on the Paper, carefully revise it; and if I find introduced in it any argumentative matter or any disputed statement of fact I shall not allow it to appear. MR. T. C. HARRINGTON: When the Question is put I will ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, whether the meeting referred to was not a meeting of the tenantry of a certain estate; whether it is not the fact that the landlord, in consequence of the action of the tenants since, has made a reduction of rent to the extent of 20 per cent; and, whether the landlord in question is not a Member of Her Majesty's Government ? MR. MARUM asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to alleged action of the Constabulary force at Bennetsbridge, in the county of Kilkenny, in flinging stones and grappling irons during night-time from the summits of bridges spanning the River Nore, and from other places into such river, to the danger and bodily injury of boatmen and others of the public plying on the same, instead of ascertaining the names of offenders, if any, against the police regulations of the river, and proceeding by summons according to due course of Mr. Speaker THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY): I am assured that the police have never acted as alleged in this Question. The River Nore at Bennetsbridge is not navigable, and consequently neither boatmen nor the public ply on it. RAILWAYS-RAILWAY COUPLINGS. MR. CHANNING asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the Inspecting Officers of Railways have reported upon the various Railway coupling appliances that were exhibited at the Inventions Exhibition last year; and, if so, when will the Report be laid upon the Table; whether he is aware of the fact that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants have voted the sum of five hundred pounds to assist in testing improved modes of Railway couplings; and, whether, having regard to the great loss of life and limb consequent upon the present system of doing this dangerous part of Railway work, the Government will supplement this sum by a grant from the Treasury for the purpose of a thorough and practical investigation into this important question? THE PRESIDENT (Mr. MUNDELLA): The Railway Inspecting Officers have not reported to the Board of Trade upon the various railway coupling appliances that were exhibited at the Inventions Exhibition last year. Some of those officers were on the jury to whom those appliances were referred; and I believe the jury expressed an opinion with regard to the various inventions that were submitted to them. I am not aware that the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants have voted the sum of £500 to assist in testing improved methods of railway couplings; but I do know that some experiments have recently taken place under the auspices of that society in regard to those matters upon the London and South-Western Railway. With regard to the last paragraph of the hon. Member's Question, I am not prepared to recommend the Treasury to supplement the sum referred to for the purpose of further investigations in this important matter, for I do not think it would be desirable that the Board of Trade should assume | which the lessees of the Foyle and Bann the responsibility of deciding upon the Fisheries send out at night without lights respective merits of various inventions among their boats; whether complaints -a responsibility which must properly have been made by the fishermen with rerest upon those who have the control spect to the uncertain boundary between and management of railways. the several fisheries in the Foyle and the sea beyond; and, whether he will ask for a report on these matters, and lay it upon the Table of the House? THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. MR. BIGGAR asked the Chief Secre- JOHN MORLEY): Yes, Sir; the Inspectary for Ireland, Will he lay upon the tors of Fisheries have reported on these Table of the House, Copies of all Cor-matters, and there is no objection to the respondence, had from 4th December production of the Report, if the hon. 1884 to 25th January 1886, between Member will move for it. IRELAND-COMMISSIONERS OF CHA- "BELFAST WHITE LINEN HALL." John Suffern, of Windsor, Belfast, and the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland, relative to the management of the lands and property of the "Belfast White Linen Hall," a charity founded and established in the year 1783, at a great cost, for the encouragement and extension of the linen trade; also Copies of all Correspondence and Protests and Statements had between the Chamberlain, Chairman, or Committee of the said "Belfast White Linen Hall" and the said Commissioners, and the said John Suffern, relative to the management of the said charity from the 1st day of November 1882 till the 25th day of January 1886 ? THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY): A correspondence on this subject has taken place between Mr. Suffern and the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests; and if the hon. Member will move for it in due form there is no objection to its production. There has been no correspondence between the Commissioners and the Linen Hall; and if any has taken place between the Linen Hall and Mr. Suffern the Government have no control over it, and are not in a position to produce it. The hon. Member should, therefore, confine his Motion to the Correspondence I have first men tioned. MR. JASPER MORE asked Mr. Chanconsider the inequality of the farmer cellor of the Exchequer, If he would with a large house and small farm having to pay the Private Brewer's Duty, whilst the farmer with a small house but a large farm pays the licence only; and, whether, considering the small sums produced to the Exchequer by Private Brewer's Licences, he would consider the utility of abolishing them altogether? THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT): In answer to the hon. Member for Suffolk (Mr. Everett), I made some inquiry about be done; but I do not wish to pledge this matter, and I hope something may be done; but I do not wish to pledge the hon. Member for Shropshire (Mr. J. myself. In reference to the Question of More), there is considerable difficulty about the first part. This matter was SEA AND COAST FISHERIES (IRELAND) very carefully considered at the time the -GRIEVANCE OF THE FOYLE FISHERMEN. MR. JAMES O'DOHERTY asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries have reported, on the complaints of the Foyle fishermen, with respect to a steamer alteration was made in the Malt Tax, and I fear I cannot propose any change in that direction. As to the second part of the Question, it is quite true that the sum derived from these licences is very small; but then we have to consider the unfair operation which this would have upon small brewers. At | otherwise unmixed disaster of disestabpresent I do not see my way to abolish-lishment and disendowment? ["Order!"] ing these licences. CHURCH OF ENGLAND-CONVOCATION -"THE HOUSE OF LAYMEN." MR. PICTON asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whe ther he is aware that His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury did, on the 16th instant, while the two Houses of Convocation were sitting, open a third House in the Broad Sanctuary, giving it the title of the "House of Laymen; whether, in his opening address to that House, His Grace used the following words, as reported in The Times: "The Convocation of Canterbury has now, after much careful discussion, requested the Bishops in each diocese of the Province to call upon the lay members of their several conferences, who are themselves all elected by the laity of the parishes, to elect a House of Lay men; MR. SEXTON: As a Question of Order, I wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether the Question of the hon. and gallant Member, like the former Notice given by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, is not entirely irregular ? MR. SPEAKER: The last part of the Question of the hon. and gallant Member is entirely out of Order. THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. CHILDERS): When I have answered the Question on the Paper, I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not find it necessary to put his Question. In reply to my hon. Friend, I beg to say that I have ascertained that the Archbishop did, at the time and place named, open a meeting called the House of Laymen; but the Archbishop did not open a third House of Convocation. The House of Laymen is a voluntary body, and in no sense a third House. The Archbishop did use the words which my hon. Friend quotes; but the request was an informal ceedings of Convocation. It was not proposed to promulgate or execute any ordinances by any name whatsoever, so no question arose as to their legality. and, whether the request, mentioned by the Archbishop as adopted after careful discussion, was recorded in the proceed-one, and was not recorded in the proings of Convocation and acted upon without licence from Her Majesty the Queen; and, if so, whether any authoritative legal opinion was previously obtained as to the consistency of any such resolution, or order or ordinance, with the 25th Henry VIII., c. 19, where it is enacted that the clergy shall not "Enact, promulge, or execute any canons, constitutions, or ordinances provincial, by whatsoever name or names they may be called, in their convocations in time coming (which always shall be assembled by authority of the King's writ), unless the same clergy may have the King's Most Royal Assent and licence to make, promulge, and execute such canons, constitutions, and ordinances provincial or synodal, on pain of every one of the clergy doing contrary to this Act, and being thereof convict, to suffer imprisonment and make fine at the King's will ?" COLONEL WARING: I wish also to ask the right hon. Gentleman another Question-namely, whether, in the event of the Law Officers of the Crown advising Her Majesty's Government that the action of the Archbishop was illegal, the Government will be prepared to bring in a Bill to legalize such an alteration in the constitution of Convocation as the Archbishop sought to make, thereby facilitating in the Church of England that reform from within which constitutes the sole advantage derived by the Irish Church from the The Chancellor of the Exchequer LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND)— CO. GALWAY. MR. T. M. HEALY asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Is it the fact that the Recorder of Galway last month granted to Mr. Marcus Lynch a decree of ejectment against Michael Carter, of Barna, from his holding of six acres, although the rent was fully paid up; that the cause of the proposed eviction is the fact that the tenant, who holds from a middleman, got his rent reduced in the Land Court from £8 28. 2d. to £5, this being less than the middleman paid the head landlord; that though the tenant has always paid the fair rent fixed by the Land Commissioners, the county court now holds that to escape eviction he is bound to pay the higher rent due by the middleman, in spite of the operation of the Land Act; are the Government aware that analogous cases have previously occurred in county Waterford and elsewhere; do they propose to take any steps to prevent the nullification of the Land Act by such proceedings; and, is it intended to lend the forces of the | in which the revision of the Dublin Port Crown to the landlord to evict Carter, and Docks Board list of claims to vote whose "fair rent" is fully paid, and who has complied with all the conditions of his judicial tenancy under the Land Act? has been made, such revision having been begun on the 23rd, instead of, as the Act directs, as soon as possible after the first day of November," the result of which was that, before it was half gone through, the revising bar THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY): The Question of the hon. and learned Member has reference to a sub-rister closed the list, stating it should be ject which, no doubt, as an abstract one, is of importance to tenants holding under middlemen; but in this particular instance I am informed that the tenant has appealed, and the legal rights of the parties depend upon the result of the appeal, which will be disposed of next month. signed on the 30th; and, if the present Irish authorities purpose taking steps to remedy the wrong so done to the traders and manufacturers of Dublin, by ordering a new revision and election? MR. MACARTNEY: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question, I would like to ask whether it is a fact that 900 claims put forward by the COURT OF BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND) - Nationalist Party were disallowed; whe THE LATE OFFICIAL ASSIGNEE (MR. C. H. JAMES). MR. PETER M'DONALD asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, If the Irish Chief Remembrancer has completed his investigations into the accounts of the late official assignee of the Irish Court of Bankruptcy, Mr. Charles Henry James; and, if he has reported thereon; and, if so, will the report be printed and circulated in the usual manner? THE SECRETARY TO THE TREA ther many of the so-called claimants had left without leaving their addresses; whether the persons advocating such claims were not liable under the 64th section of the Act of 1867 to fine; and, whether the term "traders and manufacturers of Dublin" could not at all be said to apply to these persons? THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY): The hon. Member opposite must be aware that his Question is one which could not be answered without Notice. No representation whatever SURY (Mr. H. H. FOWLER): The Trea- has been made to the Irish Government sury have been informed by the Trea- as to the manner in which the revision any such represury Remembrancer of Dublin that the was carried out. Should investigation of the accounts of the late sentation be made, it will, of course, reofficial assignee of the Court of Bank-ceive careful attention; but the hon. ruptcy would be completed during the Member is no doubt aware that the Renext week. Until my Lords have revising Barrister is appointed by the ceived and considered the information Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and thus obtained they cannot state what is not under the control of Government. course they will adopt with respect to it. As I have not yet seen the Report, I cannot say whether it can be laid on the Table of the House. MR. PETER M'DONALD: Might I ask the hon. Gentleman whether this examination has not been going on for the last eight months? MR. H. H. FOWLER: I have no means of answering that Question. MERCHANT SHIPPING-THE MARK." "MARY MR. W. F. LAWRENCE asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is the case that the British barque Mary Mark, when lying at anchor at British Honduras, was on 9th July 1883 run down by a Spanish man-of-war, owing to the sole negligence of the latter, as certified by a Court of Inquiry held at Belize 7th August 1883; that the claim of the owners, in respect of the loss thereby sustained, was submitted to the Spanish Government by Her Majesty's Foreign Office in March 1884, but that up to the present no com pensation has been awarded; and, what |