ORDER OF THE DAY. SUPPLY.-REPORT. Resolutions [19th February] reported. Resolved, That Her Majesty having directed render the exercise of the franchise an a Military expedition of Her forces charged easy thing, devoted their attention, so upon Indian revenues to be despatched against the King of Ava, this House consents that the far as it lay in their power, to make the revenues of India shall be applied to defray the exercise of the franchise by voters of expenses of the Military operations which may the under classes in Ireland as difficult be carried on beyond the external frontiers of and inconvenient as possible. Now, Sir, Iler Majesty's Indian possessions. I have made inquiries of many Members of the Irish Party as to the circumstances under which voters in their districts were compelled to exercise the franchise; and I think the House will be surprised at some of the figures which I will now lay before them. I have learned from my hon. Friends that in some cases voters had to travel a distance of eight or nine miles to exercise the franchise; I have learned that in some cases it was necessary for voters to travel as much as 14 miles for that purpose, and one extreme case has been brought under my notice in which the voters of one division of Donegal had to travel no less than 20 miles; and I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that this represents not merely a journey of 20 but 40 miles, for, having had to travel 20 miles from their home, they had afterwards to go 20 miles to get back, a process which involved the necessity of a journey the day before the poll. The House is aware that the elections in Ireland took place in the month of November. It will be in the recollection of hon. Mem Resolution 13. £159, Salaries and Expenses of the General Valuation and Boundary Survey of Ireland. MR. MAURICE HEALY: Sir, I rise to call attention to a matter connected with this Resolution, which is of much consequence to the Party to which I have the honour to belong. This Vote is for the payment to be made to the officers of the Ordnance Survey in Ireland in connection with the service of re-arranging the polling districts in Ireland under the recent Acts for the registration of voters and redistribution of seats in Ireland. I have respectfully to protest against the manner in which these officers have discharged the duties assigned to them. I think this House,bers that the weather during the greater which devoted its time and labours to this important work, did not intend that the Irish voters should be left in the hands of hostile, or, at any rate, unsympathetic officials in that country, who attach to the franchise such conditions as, under its exercise, are either difficult or inconvenient. I think, Sir, I shall succeed in showing you that that is the course which the officials have taken in this matter. I may, perhaps, briefly mention the Acts under which these charges are incurred. The services for which this charge is made were performed in connection with the Registration of Voters Act passed for Ireland in the last Session of Parliament. It became necessary, having regard to the change in the franchise law made by the Representation of the People Act, to rearrange the polling districts in Ireland so as to place the power of voting within easy reach of the humblest voter who succeeded in getting on the Register; and what I charge is that the officials to whom that duty was confided, instead of discharging it in such a manner as to part of the time during which the General Election was going forward was of a very inclement character; and I ask the House to consider the hardship involved in compelling voters, many of whom were old and decrepid, to travel this enormous distance before they could exercise the franchise which this House had given them. I say, respectfully, that the facts which I have brought under the notice of the House are facts which are eminently deserving of its attention. I say that it is not for this House to stand by and see the enactments which Parliament has, after great labour and trouble, passed, rendered practically nugatory by officials who—I will not say designedly, but through carelessness-place these obstacles and embarrassments in the path of voters who desire to exercise the franchise. Sir, I have to complain, in this connection, of two things-first, of the state of the law itself; and, in the second place, I have to complain of the mode in which that law is administered. The Registration Act, under which the polling districts in Ireland are arranged, does not itself some reasons which it is difficult to enter on any specific enactment on the understand, left out certain provisions subject of polling districts. Instead of which were in the former Act, and laying down rules which were to regu- which would have provided a remedy late the polling districts in Ireland, it for this very evil. Let me remind the proceeded simply to revive certain en- House that the original enactments actments contained in the Ballot Act-regulating this matter provided for the namely, the Act passed in the year 1873 -and those provisions incorporated in it from the Ballot Act placed the task of re-arranging the polling districts in Ireland in the hands of the county magistrates. I say that if this House were deliberately to set itself to seek for a tribunal more than any other unsatisfactory for the performance of this duty, they could not have better succeeded than in selecting the tribunal which I have mentioned. To-day, I need hardly tell the House that the magistrates of Ireland are not merely not in sympathy with the people, but are, in this very matter of the franchise, in direct enmity and conflict with them. I ask, Sir, what would be thought of an Act of Parliament in England which vested the duty of arranging the machinery of the franchise in the hands of one of the political Parties? I ask what would be thought in this country if the power of fixing the polling districts, or the power of arranging any other machinery connected with the franchise, were vested solely in the hands of the Liberal Party or in those of the Conservative Party? And let me tell the House that such a condition of things by no means represents the state of things in Ireland that is created when a task of this kind is placed in the hands of the Magisterial Bench, for I need hardly say that the degree of strife between English political Parties by no means represents the corresponding relations between the tenant and landlord classes in Ireland; and for the purposes of this Election it was, practically a contest between landlords on the one side and tenants on the other. Yet in this, as in other matters in Ireland, the unfortunate tenant farmers found that the tribunal selected to sit upon and arrange their electoral rights consisted of landlords who were hostile to them from a political and religious, as well as a social, point of view. But I complain not merely of the enactments which were so introduced-I complain not merely that that tribunal was selected for this purpose; but I also complain that in re-enacting the provisions of the Ballot Act this House, for Mr. Mauriec Healy power of appeal from the magistrates to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Council. Well, when the Registration Act was passed no such provision was contained in it. The original enactment in the Ballot Act provided not that there should be one final fixing of the polling arrangements, but that if it should afterwards turn out that those arrangements were imperfect and unsatisfactory, it should be in the power of the Bench of Magistrates, from time to time, to review, alter, amend, and improve the arrangements they had originally made, so as to remove any grievance which might be found to come up in the working of the scheme formulated. I have said that, for some reason which it is difficult to understand, the enactment under which the present arrangements were made omitted these powers, and so prevented any change in the present imperfect conditions of taking the poll in Ireland until this House again interferes by enactment. There is another matter to which I should like to refer. The Registration Act under which this money was spent makes no provision for any interference by the Ordnance Surveyors who take this money and perform these dutiesit makes no provision for any functions whatsoever on the part of the Ordnance Surveyors in Ireland. The Registration Act places in the hands of the magistrates this power of fixing the limits of the polling districts, and there is no mention of any plans to be prepared by the Ordnance Survey. And what did the Government do? The Ordnance Office drew up these schemes and sent them down cut and dried to the magistrates, who were only too anxious to have them, and who, in the twinkling of an eye, passed them withont the smallest attempt at examination. In fact, the only place in which, as might be expected, the local Bench sought to improve or amend this scheme was the North of Ireland, where, of course, the magistrates were anxious that the utmost facilities should be given to voters to pursue their political persuasion or political views; and the result was that while in the North of Ireland this the House. But this is a question of scheme may, to a large extent, have paying money to subordinates for carryimproved and altered so as to meet the ing out operations in the direction of exigencies of the case, in the South it which they have no control whatever. was scamped without, as I have said, It is for purely professional and cadastral the least attempt at improving or work of the Valuation and Boundary amending it. Of course, I am aware Survey. Though the hon. and learned that the present Administration are not Member is in Order in raising the very responsible for the preparation of this great and important question that he scheme. I am aware that it was pre- has raised, I am still inclined to think pared during the period of Office of the that he would not be justified in putting late Government; but I respectfully any difficulty in the way of our obtainsubmit to this House that it devolves ing the Report of this Vote. With reupon Parliament to see that the large gard to the main question which the and beneficent enactment which created hon. and learned Member has brought such an extraordinary change in the before the House, I can assure him that political circumstances of Ireland should he meets with very great sympathy in not be rendered, to a large extent, nuga- other quarters of the House than that tory and inoperative by the works of on which he sits. Many of us are not unsympathetic officials, who, of course, at all satisfied with the manner of have no desire that the franchise should appointing polling places in England. I be placed within easy reach of the will not give my hon. and learned Friend people. I most respectfully ask some at this moment, and after what I have said, undertaking that whenever the Govern- my reasons for objecting to the present ment take in hand the work of improv-system of appointing polling places either ing the condition of the Registration in England or Ireland. I think it exLaws that this important matter will meet with their attention. I would respectfully ask that they should take this matter into their consideration, and put an end to what I think I may, without exaggeration, describe as the great public scandal involved in the condition of things which makes it necessary for a man to travel, as in one case, 50 miles for the purpose of exercising the important political vote conferred on him by the Franchise Act. THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. TREVELYAN): The question which the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised, with considerable clearness, is one worthy of being brought forward at a more timely hour of the evening, and, if the hon. and learned Member will allow me to say so, in some respects on a text which is more strictly appropriate. This Vote is for the purpose of increased field work which was done by the subordinate officers of the Valuation and Boundary Survey in Ireland in surveying the polling districts. In view of the extreme difficulty, in the present state of Parliament, of calling attention to any subject, however important, I am sure I am not inclined to quarrel with any hon. Member for bringing forward a question on any opportunity which may present itself, no matter how slight the connection it may have with the matter before VOL, COCII. [THIRD SERIES.] tremely defective, and not in any sense in the right hands; but, having said that, I will ask the hon. and learned Member not to press his opposition to the Report on the present occasion. The work for which this money has been voted has been done. I have every reason to believe that it was well done by the men whose services are in question at this moment; and to reject this Report would, I think, in no way further the cause which the hon. and learned Gentleman has urged. It would be doing serious injustice to public servants, or to the men who have been engaged in this duty; and I, therefore, earnestly trust that the hon. and learned Member will be satisfied with the protest that he has made. When the registration comes again before the House, I am inclined to think he will find that there are a great many of his Colleagues and a great many other Members in this House extremely anxious to act in the direction in which he desires to go. I think I may say he will find amongst those most anxious to have this matter examined and set right not a few sitting on this Bench. Resolution agreed to. Resolutions 14 to 16 agreed to. Resolution 17. £7,400, Constabulary Force in Ireland. 2 K MR. T. M. HEALY: In regard to this Vote there is an item I intended to raise a question upon the other night, but was not able to do so in consequence of the prolonged discussion which took place upon another matter. I refer to the item for car hire and extra services, occasioned by the visit of the Prince of Wales to Ireland, and the events which occurred at Mallow when His Royal Highness passed through that place-I refer to the encounter between Inspector Carr and a Member of this House. The then hon. Member for Mallow, now the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. W. O'Brien); the then hon. Member for Westmeath, now Member for Dublin (Mr. T. Harrington), and the hon. Member for North Cork (Mr. Flynn), were present on this occasion. Well, I wish to remind the House of what occurred. An action was brought by the hon. Gentleman, at that time Member for Westmeath, against Inspector Carr for the part he had taken in the proceedings. The jury disagreed; but the Government did not pay the Inspector's costs. However, within two or three months this gentleman - District Inspector, County Inspector, or whatever he may have been-was transferred, by way of compensation, to a more lucrative post-that is to say, he was put in charge of the police in Belfast, and in possession of a salary larger than he had previously received by about £200 a-year. Now, if anyone asks in this House whether Inspector Carr's costs were paid on that occasion by the Government, the Government will indignantly reply that such was not the case. But what did they do?-and this is the lesson the Irish people have to draw. They repeated their action in the case of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, who, after being snubbed by the Earl of Carnarvon, was sent out to the Mauritius or the Bahamas, where his salary was doubled. In the case of Inspector Carr, as I have said, he was instantly transferred to Belfast, where he received a salary of £200 more than he had been previously receiving. That is the way the Government, instead of leaving the law to do justice between man and man, deals with its police officials. They will not pay a man's costs, but give him a salary of £200 a-year more. I wish to ask the Government whether they can give any information as to why Inspector Carr was promoted to Belfast? Was it done by the late Government? I believe it was. We have to-night the advantage of the presence of the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Sir William Hart Dyke); and we shall, I hope, have some explanation from him of this promotion by bludgeon work. THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-Bannerman): I have some acquaintance with the circumstances which led to the action to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has referred. I am cognizant of what took place at Mallow; but I am not aware of what subsequently transpired; therefore I am not in a position to afford the hon. and learned Member the information he seeks. SIR WILLIAM HART DYKE: This is a case in which the head of the Police Force in Ireland is responsible for the action taken. What was done in regard to the transference of Inspector Carr was done under his direction. I say frankly that I am not aware of the cir cumstances of this special case of the removal of a Police Inspector from one place to another. Should it be the pleasure of the hon. and learned Member to put a Question to me on this subject on some future day, I shall be happy to answer it to the best of my ability. Resolution agreed to. LAND REGISTRY BILL [Lords].-[BILL 91.] (Mr. H. H. Fowler.) SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. H. H. FOWLER): Perhaps the House will allow me to explain, in a sentence or two, why this Bill has been brought in, and why it is necessary to pass it without delay. The House is aware-or those Members who were in the last Parliament will be aware— that during the past four or five years there have been discussions in this House with reference to the cost of working the Land Registry Act in England. Year after year Members have expressed the strongest disapprobation of the large amount of expenditure the working of the Registry has entailed, although they have not been able to protest successfully against the position of affairs. Last summer, when the Estimates were being passed through the House, the question was raised again, strong objection being taken to the costs of the Office. I may tell the House that at that time there were in the Office a Registrar receiving a salary of £2,500, and an Assistant Registrar receiving £1,500, and various subordinate officials, the total cost being nearly £6,000. It was explained to the Committee by the then Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Holland) that it was a very difficult thing to deal with an official who had been taken out of the practice of his Profession, and who had filled the Office of Registrar for the long period that Mr. Follett had filled. A pledge was given by the then Secretary to the Treasury, which was supported by the then Home Secretary, that, in the event of the Office of Registrar becoming vacant, the Government would not fill it up without affording the House a previous opportunity of expressing an opinion as to the desirability of continuing the expenditure. I was then sitting on the opposite side of the House. We accepted that pledge; and when a vacancy occurred I believe the right hon. Gentleman, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the present Leader of the Opposition (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), stated, in reply to an inquiry addressed to him, that the Government would not fill up the vacancy. But while the pledge was being thus honourably fulfilled a legal difficulty arose with reference to carrying on the business of the Office. The then Lord Chancellor (Lord Halsbury) found it absolutely necessary that someone should be authorized by Parliament to discharge the duties of Registrar. He then introduced the Bill I am now asking the House to read a second time in the House of Commons, by which it was provided that the Lord Chancellor should empower the Assistant Registrar during the vacancy in the Office to perform all the acts, and discharge all the duties, of the Registrar. That Bill was passed rapidly through all its stages in the other House, and then the change in the Government occurred. The present Lord Chancellor has taken the matter up, and has communicated with me in regard to it. I will read to the House what he says. He says "Matters are at a dead-lock, and it is of absolute importance that this Bill should be passed without delay." The House will see there are certain duties-duties of an almost perfunctory character, or, at all events, of a Minis terial character-the very essence of which are the signature or authorization of the Registrar for the time being; and what the Government propose is that the Assistant Registrar should be empowered, without increased remuneration, to discharge those duties until the House has had an opportunity of considering what shall be the future constitution and expenditure of the Office. I have a paper before me which I will not trouble the House with; but I can assure the House, from its contents, that there are a great many matters of great concern which are now at a standstill, and which, if they are not dealt with in some such way as that proposed by the Bill, will lead to a great deal of public as well as private inconvenience. The longer the passing of this Bill is delayed the greater will be the inconvenience. I hope the House will give the measure a second reading. I now beg to move the second reading. "That the Bill be now read a second Motion made, and Question proposed, time."-(Mr. H. H. Fowler.) SIR HENRY HOLLAND: As the hon. Gentleman has referred to me, I may, perhaps, say that I heartily join in what he has said as to the importance of agreeing to the second reading of the Bill. After the pledge the hon. Member has referred to was given by me to the Committee, we, of course, set to work at the Treasury to deal with the matter. Sir Henry Thring, Mr. Mowatt and I had a meeting at the Land Registry Office, and made an inquiry into the work of the Department. We went through the books, and I am justified in saying that we thought that a considerable saving might be effected. I desire here to say that Mr. Follett did all the work he was required to do by the Act; but now that a vacancy has occurred the pledge which I gave that the Office should not be filled up has been fulfilled. It is necessary that some of the work Mr. Follett used to do should be performed at once-work such as the signing of certain securities, which can only be done by the Chief Registrar. Cases have been brought under my notice in which business has been entirely suspended owing to there being no one to sign these securities. In these circumstances I trust the House will not object to the second reading of the Bill. MR. INCE: I am sorry to appear here to say that I cannot concur in the |