landlord had looked after his people, | The course which he ought to take built them houses, and perhaps often seemed to him to be very clear-namely, pinched himself to keep them in employment and keep them off the rates. Now, was it fair that the latter should be taxed for the shortcemings of the former? The effect of this Act, so far as rural divisions were concerned, would be to make proprietors careless about the condition of their poor, inasmuch as they would cease to be individually responsible for their support. The opinion of the Duke of Wellington had been already quoted, and it was useless to repeat it. But of this he was convinced that a union rating Act would tend to increase the indiscriminate granting of out-door relief, which was a very dangerous principle when carelessly administered. When the taxation ceased to be local, and was therefore only indirectly felt, a feeling of mistaken charity, or a desire of obtaining popularity, might oftener influence a guardian in obtaining out-door relief for those very little poorer than some ratepayers who might be taxed for their support. It would also tend to make many guardians careless about attending. What was everybody's business was nobody's business, and it would end by putting increased expense upon the union by necessitating the appointment of paid guardians to carry on the business. He had great pleasure in supporting the Amendment of his hon. Friend. MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE said, he agreed in much which had fallen from the hon. Member who had just spoken, and who had shown so much knowledge of this question, and so much power of dealing with it; but he did not agree with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that the House ought to set aside the whole question of union rating, or any other means of mitigating the acknowledged evils which union rating was expected to remedy, until they were prepared to go into the whole question of the national taxation of the three kingdoms. The time had come when they should make up their minds as to whether the system of union rating should or should not be extended to Ireland, or whether any other means should be devised to meet those evils which this Bill was meant to remedy. His object in rising was not to go into the merits of this question, but to state the views of the Government on this Motion. to support the Amendment of which no- gerated, but the examination of a Re-In 1865 the valuation of the town disturn, obtained three years ago by Mr. tricts was £696,414, and the number in Sergeant Barry the present Solicitor receipt of relief from them was 6,484; General for Ireland, would show that the while the valuation of the other districts inequalities in Irish rating were very was £2,700,000, and the number in reserious indeed, and imperatively called ceipt of relief from them only 6,381. for inquiry. From that Return he found That state of things ought not to be althat in 1865 the 165 town electoral divi- lowed to continue. The Select Comsions had 19,000 paupers charged upon mittee would do nothing this Session, them, while the whole of the remaining and it would not be until next Session, electoral divisions of the country had or the Session after that, that any legisonly 21,000 paupers charged upon them. lation would be attempted. A great And what was the difference in valua- deal had been said as to the increase of tion? The town electoral divisions were local taxation in England; but it was not valued at £2,700,000, while the other pecular to this country, for in Ireland divisions were valued at £10,200,000. the local taxation had increased year He believed that thorough inquiry, by a after year. Last year the poundage rate carefully selected Committee, would clear was 38. 103d. in England, while it was up many difficulties and uncertain points, 3s. 114d. in Ireland. In the Dungarvan and would put both the Government and district, with eighteen electoral divisions, the House in a fair way to devise a and with a valuation of £53,000, there remedy. were 353 paupers, and 226 of them were MR. DOWNING said, that as the re- charged to that division which contained presentative of a large agricultural the town of Dungarvan, that division county (Cork), and having been for having a number of paupers in excess of twenty-six years vice chairman of a Poor the whole of the seventeen other diviLaw Union, he felt justified in offering sions. The Union of Skibbereen, with an opinion on this Bill. He had always which he was specially connected, preheld that the rating of electoral divisions sented a similar inequality, and the town was a mistake, and experience had con- of Skibbereen was much more heavily firmed this opinion. It was unfortunate taxed than the other divisions of the that this question of rating had been union. The annual average amount of made a question of town against country. the rate in Skibbereen during the last If he were to vote according to his in- ten years had been 3s. 7d., while its terest he should vote against this Bill; average amount in the adjoining division but he should vote according to his con- of Freelands had been only 1s. 3d. in the victions and against his personal in- pound. In one division the rates were terests. He must say he was disap-is. 4d. in the pound, while in another, pointed at the way in which the Chief Secretary for Ireland had met the question, because he thought that when a grievance was admitted a remedy ought to be supplied as speedily as possible. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the Return obtained by Mr. Sergeant Barry. From that Return it appeared that the population of the rural districts of the Province of Munster in 1841 was 2,435,297, while, in 1861, it was reduced to 1,528,877. The town electoral districts of that province in 1841 contained 499,000 people, and in 1857 their population had increased to 560,000. So that while the rural population had declined nearly 1,000,000, the town population had increased by 61,000. What had become of these persons who had crowded into the towns? Only a few had found their way to America, because they were too poverty-stricken to find the means. only three-quarters of a mile distant, they were 48. He begged to remind the House that numerous Petitions, emanating from some of the most influential Boards of Guardians in Ireland had been presented in favour of the Bill under consideration, and that he had presented one from the Fermoy Union, which might be called a model union. He did not believe that if union rating were adopted there would be less active supervision over the rates. In very many cases at present the tendency was not so much to inquire whether the applicant was deserving of relief as to prevent his being charged to particular electoral divisions. With that object the applicant was cross-examined like a witness at Nisi Prius by every guardian who was present, with the object of getting him charged to any district other than his own; whereas, if union rating were adopted, there would be a more impartial investigation, having for its object to discuss whether the application was one which ought to be entertained. In this matter Ireland should be treated as England had been, and he hoped that this measure would receive the support of English Members, and that his hon. Friend who had charge of the Bill (Mr. M'Mahon) would press it to a division, and lose it, if need be, placing the responsibility upon the quarter where it ought to rest, rather than disappoint the just expectations of the people in Ireland. For his own part, although the constituency which he represented might be divided in opinion, the matter was one upon which he felt bound to state his convictions, and he should therefore vote for the Bill. The hon. Member having read extracts from the report of a discussion by the Killarney Board of Guardians on the subject of the Bill, referred to a case where people "had been driven off the land;" and, with a view to render it compulsory upon them to seek refuge in the towns, the tenantry upon the estate of one nobleman were warned that if they gave even a night's shelter to any of the dispossessed persons they would themselves receive notice to quit. In these circumstances a young lad applied for shelter to his uncle on one inclement night, but was told that if he entered the house the uncle and his six children would themselves become wanderers, "as there were parties watching for his land." The young lad slept that night in a ditch, and the following morning he was dead. This was a case resting upon sworn testimony. The parties were tried before Chief Baron Pigott; it was proved that the agent to the nobleman on whose estate this occurred had served the notices; and Chief Baron Pigott declared it to be a disgrace to the country that such a circumstance should have occurred. The fault was not that of the nobleman, who was no other than the amiable Marquess of Lansdowne, grandfather of the present possessor of the title. The agent, however, was Mr. Stewart Trench, author of the work called "The Realities of Irish Life," which might with much more truth be called "The Romance of Irish Life." MR. W. H. GREGORY said, he had been treated in the course of the debate by the hon. Member for Cork very much as the Judge was said to have "You treated a particular counsel need not trouble yourself to say anything, Mr. So-and-so. I know exactly what you are going to say and I will show you where you are wrong." He had not opened his lips in the present discussion, and as to anticipations based upon arguments he had formerly used, with the rapid changes of opinion which were going on all round him, it was rather hard that he should be held responsible for opinions uttered two years or even two months ago. Upon the present occasion he wished to act as a peacemaker and to take a middle course. Strong animadversions had been passed already upon the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) who wished to act in a similar spirit, and he felt that he could not expect to escape; but he was comforted by the knowledge that peace-makers, if they did not attain their reward in one place were sure to do so in another. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said he would accept the proposal to send the Bill to a Select Committee. But by referring it to a Select Committee the House would be, to a certain extent, affirming the principle of the Bill, a principle with which the proposer of that reference declared that he did not himself agree. In his (Mr. Gregory's) opinion the Government were inverting the proper course. They took for granted that the grievance had been proved. Let the grievance first be made out, and when that had been done, let a Select Committee decide on the remedy. At the present moment, when what the First Lord of the Treasury himself had described, as "the tremendous question" of the Irish Church was before the House, it was hopeless to expect that the merits or demerits of the system of rating in Ireland could be calmly investigated. The grievance, however, if there were a grievance, was one which had long existed, and its existence was as strongly denied as it was forcibly asserted. All parties, therefore, would really be in a much better position if it were understood that the question, as a whole, would be taken up and thoroughly investigated by a Select Committee at the beginning of next Session. He thought it possible that, in some of the comparisons which had been instituted, the disproportionate rates might be accounted for by the extent of the super vision given by landlords in the different namely, the great depression of trade districts; the poor in one electoral that had existed during the last two division were really cared for, and in years. He (Mr W. H. Gregory) denied another had been comparatively neg- that in Ireland of late years there had lected. Sir James Graham expreseed been a gravitation of the labourers to his approval of small unions and elec- the towns. No doubt that was so twenty toral divisions in Ireland as securing years ago, but such was not the case close supervision and diminished expen- now. If union rating were established diture; and the Boundary Commissioners in Ireland, it would give power to bad, had reported in the same sense. Mr. improvident, and cruel landlords to evict Gulston, Poor Law Commissioner, showed their poorer tenants at once and make that the eastern unions and electoral others pay the penalty for their miscondivisions of Ireland were, as a rule, su- duct, while the present system of electoral perior in management to the western divi- division acted as a check upon landlords sions, inasmuch as the latter were of much of that character. A landlord would greater size. In Scotland, also, not only hesitate now ere he ejected a family, were the areas smaller than in Ireland, knowing they would probably be for but there was much greater care of the many years, if not for all time, a charge poor. Remarks had been made as to the on his electoral division. If they were composition of the Committee of 1861, thrown on the union his liability would and it had been suggested that its Report be infinitesimal. Hon. Members might should be thrown aside as valueless. point to the disproportion between elecBut the fact was that that Committee toral districts, but it was not greater comprised no less than three men who than that between adjoining unions. had filled the Office of Chief Secretary This disproportion between unions had for Ireland, and others who were well led to the advocacy of a national rate. He acquainted with the country. The de- deprecated their being led in the direccision of a body so composed was entitled tion of a national rate, which in Ireland to the greatest weight. The hon. and would produce the most serious mislearned Mover seemed by his language chiefs. In the evidence given before to lament that the Law of Settlement the Committee in 1861 it was shown did not exist in Ireland. A considerable advance had been made in Ireland. and in England in that respect. There was chargeability but no settlement. And God forbid they should ever revert to a barbarous and retrograde system, which even in England was being gradually shaken off. It must not be forgotten that the area of rating in England was totally different from that of Ireland. The average extent of the English unions was 56,000 acres, while that of Irish unions was 124,000 acres, and the average English parish contains 2,500 acres, while the average Irish parish contained 6,000 acres. Under these circumstances, the great objection that applied to the English parochial system of rating did not apply in the same manner to Ireland. There were no close parishes and no Law of Settlement, nor could there be such a thing as a close electoral division. The hon. Member for Worcestershire (Mr. Knight) contended that the existing system in England had failed, inasmuch as the rates in this country had largely increased. But that increase in the rates was due to an exceptional cause that there had been a great increase of pauperism in the large towns, as compared with rural districts, which accounted for the increase of rates. Thus in the city of Cork in 1861 out of 1,058 paupers in the workhouse, only 207 came from the rural districts; and out of 996 in the town of Limerick, only eighteen came from the rural districts. That was the evidence given before the Committee of 1861. If this Bill passed, the management of many unions would fall into the hands of a small town clique, and the administration of the law would suffer. He opposed the principle of the Bill upon the ground-first, that it would afford a direct premium upon eviction; secondly because he believed that it would do away with the excellent supervision which was exercised by the farmers who were guardians; and thirdly, because it would occasion the children, who in the electoral districts were now taken out of the poorhouses and brought up by the farmers, being left in the workhouse of the town, where they would grow up confirmed paupers, and remain a permanent burden upon the rates. All these reasons led him to hope that some more satisfactory means than that proposed by the Bill would be found to alleviate the condition of the towns. He had no objection whatever to the system of a rate-in-aid, and if the hon. Member would next Session move for a Committee to inquire generally into the subject of rating, he should not be unwilling to support the Motion. SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH said, he desired to make one remark on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The question before the House must be decided by the peculiar circumstances of Ireland, and not by the rules that applied to England. The subject was one which demanded an expression of opinion from Her Majesty's Government. There was considerable difference between the mode in which the question of union rating had been treated in England and in Ireland. In this country the question had been fully considered by a Select Committee in 1861, and it was not until 1865 that a Bill upon the subject was carried after very formidable opposition; but, with respect to Ireland, not only had the subject not been inquired into by a Committee, but the Government had declined to express any opinion on the matter further than that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland appeared to show a preference in favour of the system of union rating as against that of a rate-in-aid, by giving his support to the second reading of the Bill. MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE said, he had not stated that he was in favour of the system of union rating. He had most distinctly stated that he should support the second reading of the Bill with a view to its being referred to a Select Committee, so that the subject should be inquired into with regard to Ireland, as had been the case with regard to this country. SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH said, he had always understood that a vote in favour of the second reading of a Bill was equivalent to a vote in favour of the principle of the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman was anxious that the subject should be inquired into, why had he not moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the whole subject, instead of taking up one side of the question without inquiry by supporting a Bill which had been introduced by those who were desirous of relieving their constituents of a burden which pressed peculiarly upon them? It was put forward by those supporting the Bill that it was intended to be a step in the direction of assimilating the laws of Ireland on this subject with those of England. That argument was a very weak one. Had the system of union rating been so successful in England as to render it desirable to extend its operations to the sister country? In 1865 he was one of those who strongly opposed union rating. Since the introduction of that system into this country there had doubtless been an increase in the rates, and the amount of chronic pauperism. How far this increase was owing to that system it was difficult to say; but it had certainly operated as a hardship upon the smaller agricultural parishes whose rates had been increased without any corresponding advantage accruing to the towns or their unions. He hoped that the question of local taxation in all the three kingdoms would shortly be considered, and meanwhile he trusted that before the debate closed the House would have a definite opinion upon the present question from Her Majesty's Government. He should certainly oppose the second reading of the Bill, although willing to assent to the whole subject being inquired into. MR. MAGUIRE said, he hoped his hon. Friend the Member for New Ross (Mr. M Mahon) would accept the proposal of the Government as made, and not as qualified by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory). If the whole question were referred to a Select Committee, the responsibility of bringing in a Bill dealing with the subject would be thrown upon the Government. It was unfair to charge the Government with committing the House to a division upon the principle of the Bill, when their object in supporting its second reading was merely to institute an inquiry into the matter. If the Bill were referred to a Select Committee within a week or ten days, the Report would be laid upon the table before the end of the present Session, and the matter would be ripe for the introduction of a Government measure early next Session. LORD CLAUD HAMILTON said, he had no objection to a fair inquiry, but he did object to commence that inquiry pledged to the principle of union rating. He should feel it his duty to oppose in |