answer. After some discussion, however, in the course of which the chairman referred him to a previous statement by Dr. Jameson-which seemed to leave him free to speak without incriminating anybody-Sir J. Willoughby allowed that he had probably conveyed to his officers the impression that, if the expedition succeeded, "they would not be bothered by anybody." He felt entitled to give such an assurance from what he had heard in conversations with Dr. Jameson, which, however, he regarded as private, and the substance of which he refused to divulge. Mr. Labouchere said he must take the ruling of the committee on that point. In reply to further questions from the member for Northampton, Sir J. Willoughby said he had since his sentence communicated with the War Office about the matter, but his communication was confidential, and he could not state its contents. As the chairman declined to compel an answer, a "scene" ensued, Mr. Labouchere exclaiming that if the communication was not to be laid before them, "the committee was a farce and a humbug," having for its object "to hush up everything." Mr. Chamberlain thereupon suggested that the War Office authorities should be summoned, and the subject finally dropped, with an understanding that Mr. Labouchere might raise the point afterwards in private session.

On the next occasion (April 6) the War Office produced the letter written by Sir J. Willoughby from Holloway Prison, appealing to the department to reconsider the enforced retirement of certain officers who had joined the raid "in pursuance of orders received from the administrator of Matabeleland, and in the honest and bond fide belief that the steps taken were taken with the knowledge and assent of the imperial authorities." Sir J. Willoughby was closely crossexamined by Sir Wm. Harcourt as to whether it was on the statements made by Dr. Jameson he based his belief that the raid had the sanction of the imperial authorities. After much questioning, Sir J. Willoughby finally declined to answer any question "dealing with private conversations with Dr. Jameson. It was in vain that the chairman-who had taken the sense of the committee thereon-told Sir J. Willoughby that he ought to answer certain questions on this point. The latter, although ready to take the consequences, maintained silence "on public grounds."

At the last meeting of the committee before the Easter recess (April 9), Dr. Jameson was recalled and examined respecting the circumstances under which the letter to the Adjutant-General had been written. Its object was to prevent the officers serving under Sir J. Willoughby in the raid from losing their commissions, and was written after consultation with Dr. Jameson. The latter, however, was unaware of the phraseology used, and would have objected to the term "imperial authorities" sanctioning the raid. He (Dr. Jameson)

had never had any doubt that the expedition would succeed; he believed that after success any irregular action would be condoned by the imperial authorities, and he had said as much to Sir J. Willoughby, who had accordingly felt he could guarantee his officers their commissions. Moreover he confidently expected that as soon as the contemplated rising at Johannesburg had taken place the High Commissioner would appear on the scene and assume the control of affairs. Generally when in his conversations with Sir J. Willoughby he referred to the imperial authorities he meant the authorities at the Cape, certainly not the Home Government. Sir J. Willoughby, having been recalled, substantially confirmed the evidence of the previous witness. On one point, indeed, his own recollections differed from Dr. Jameson's, for he could swear that he never told him that he (Sir John) had guaranteed any officers' commissions" before the event," though he did afterwards. He did not wish to defend the wording of his letter, which was written under great pressure of time. His legal adviser in connection with the letter to the War Office was Mr. Hawksley (the solicitor to the British South Africa Company). In fact, that gentleman had drafted the letter and he had hastily copied it. He supposed, too, at the time, that Dr. Jameson had seen and approved it.

The next witness, Captain Maurice Heany, was one of the special messengers sent by the Reform Committee to Dr. Jameson at Pitsani. The message he carried amounted in effect to a request to Dr. Jameson to postpone his advance. He also took information about the armament of the Boers and about the arms in Johannesburg for the information of Dr. Jameson's military staff. Between eleven and twelve on Sunday morning, December 29, he delivered the message from his note-book. Dr. Jameson thereupon went outside the camp, and walked up and down for twenty minutes. Returning, he announced his determination to continue the advance. Dr. Wolff, a physician practising in the Transvaal and a member of the Reform Committee, explained why the message was sent.

"We had intended," he said, "to break out on the night of Saturday, and part of our plan was to seize the arsenal at Pretoria, and supply ourselves with a sufficiency of arms and ammunition, which we greatly lacked. About two days before that we discovered that the Boers at Pretoria were suspecting something. The Boers had gathered there two days before for the quarterly festival known as Nachtmaal. Ordinarily the day after the Nachtmaal they disperse to their homes, but we found many of them remained, and as far as we could gather the Boers were suspecting something and prepared to hold Pre

toria."

The Boers were also holding in force the roads which led to Pretoria. A coup de main had therefore become impossible for the moment, and the reform leaders considered that action

G

should be delayed for a week. Sir W. Harcourt wanted to know what the insurgents intended to do with President Krüger if he fell into their power, to which the witness replied that the matter was "not exactly in his department."

The committee then adjourned until after the Easter recess. The progress of the Voluntary Schools Bill in the House of Lords was unchecked by any substantial opposition, and the only feature of the debates was the formal announcement of a grant to necessitous board schools, to be introduced forthwith. The Duke of Devonshire moved its second reading in a speech which made it evident that he would have much preferred the more complete measure of last session, but the Government were not prepared to fight through any proposal to ask for the support of the rates and all that an application to the ratepayers would have involved. Still less were the Government prepared to let the voluntary schools be wrecked by their poverty. He further announced that as the bill had been passed by the Commons without amendment, the Government were not prepared to accept any amendments from the Lords. The second reading (March 30) was formally opposed by Earl Spencer, but the most effective speech was that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that the plan of voluntary associations had been tried in his old diocese (Exeter), and had worked with admirable effect ever since the Free Education Act passed, and that none of the evils attributed to them by the Opposition were at all likely to occur. So far from the clergy desiring to oust the laity from management, the clergy expressly sought for the help of the laity; but the Church managers objected altogether to being deprived of the right of appointing teachers who really believed the religion they taught, and did not coach the children as to the best mode of answering successfully questions in which they felt, and taught the children to feel, little or no interest except the interest excited by competition at an examination. The Duke of Argyll expressed the most cordial sympathy with the bill, which Lord Herschell and Lord Kimberley treated with contemptuous forbearance, and the Bishop of London maintained that the well-being of the voluntary schools was useful to the board schools, acting as a check on the board schools, safeguarding the religious education they provided, and maintaining the rights of parents to choose the religious teaching for their children. The second reading was then carried by 109 to 15 votes, the latter representing only one-half of the Gladstonian peers.

Three days later (April 2) the Lords went into committee on the bill, and notwithstanding the announcement that the Government were not prepared to accept any amendment at all, seven appeared on the notice paper, five by the Earl of Kimberley, one by Earl Spencer and one by Lord Herschell. Before, however, the first of them could be moved the Lord

Chancellor (Lord Halsbury) astonished the Opposition leaders by pointing out that as the bill was a money bill, their lordships, under the rule which had been acted upon for the last three centuries, were powerless to amend it. He admitted that, unlike the Speaker in "another place," he had no authority to decide points of order, but certainly if he had such authority he should decide all the amendments to be out of order and it would be hardly respectful to the House itself to insert amendments which would afterwards have to be struck out on the ground of privilege. Lord Herschell confessed that he was not quite clear upon the point, but if the facts were as the Lord Chancellor had stated he blamed the Government for so dealing with a great educational question as to make their lordships absolutely impotent upon it, and the Duke of Argyll bantered the leaders of the Opposition on the position in which they found themselves. They and their late chief, Lord Rosebery, had been doing their best to destroy the power of the Upper Chamber, and yet they were now seeking to enlarge its privileges by proposing amendments to what was undoubtedly a money bill. Considerable discussion followed, but it ended by a general acceptance of the rule stated by the Lord Chancellor, that their lordships could not amend the bill on any point which involved expenditure, and the only amendment which was moved was one proposed by the Earl of Kimberley, to provide that the Education Department should every year lay a report of its proceedings under the bill before Parliament. But the Duke of Devonshire hardly thought it necessary to send the bill back to the Commons on account of so trifling a change, especially as the department would do all that was suggested of its own motion without any statutory obligation, and in the end the amendment was rejected by 65 votes against 19, and the bill passed through committee without amendment after some further Opposition protests against the way in which the measure had been framed and conducted by the Government through Parliament. There was also some little talk about the constitution of the associations of voluntary schools, in the course of which the Duke of Devonshire emphatically repudiated the idea that there was the least desire that the associations should be so constituted as to give rise to any distrust or want of confidence on the part of the school managers. The associations would be constituted on the initiative of the schools themselves, and it would be the desire of the department not to impose conditions that they were unwilling to accept. The bill then passed through committee and was ultimately read a third time (April 5) without further debate.

The Lords having devoted an evening to the discussion of the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, it was only in the order of things that the Commons should give three nights to the subject. The question was brought forward by Mr. Blake (Longford, S.), who, after a successful parliamen

tary career in the colonies, had returned to represent in the House of Commons an Irish county as an ardent Nationalist. His reputation for eloquence had scarcely been put to the test since his appearance at Westminster, and on this occasion (March 30) it was considerably marred by the length of his speech, which occupied more than two hours. The resolution he moved was to the effect that the report and the proceedings of the commission established the existence of an undue burden of taxation on Ireland, which constituted a great grievance to all classes of the Irish community, and made it the duty of the Government to propose remedial legislation at an early day. The report of the commissioners showed that while, as compared with Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of Ireland was about onetwentieth, the country was being taxed at one-eleventh, and its contribution reached a minimum excess of 2,750,000l. a year. It had been conclusively shown that in this matter Ireland had a substantial grievance which called for immediate relief on the ground of fair play. He maintained that Ireland ought to be taxed in accordance with her actual taxable capacity, as was the case with Great Britain, and he trusted that Parliament, having all the facts before it, would grant to the Irish people the relief they sought. All the data were to be found in the proceedings of the royal commission, which had already reported on the subject. The proposed new inquiry would, if it ever ended, fail to give satisfaction, and the only safe way in which they could deal with the question was by taking their stand on the provisions of the Act of Union. As for the precise form of the remedy, that was obviously a question for Parliament to consider on the initiative of the Government.

He was followed by Mr. J. Redmond (Tipperary, S.), who was anxious to show the sympathy of the Parnellite members in any scheme to relieve Ireland of taxation at the expense of the other partners in the Union. At the same time he expressed regret that the terms had not been so modified as to enable all Irish members to vote in favour of it. With regard, however, to the main issues involved in this controversy, the people of Ireland were united as they never had been united before on a great public question during the last hundred years. The proposal to appoint a new commission was a dishonest evasion of the question. It was simply a dilatory motion, and its one object was to manufacture, if possible, an excuse for refusing justice to Ireland.

It was perhaps somewhat displeasing to the Irish members to find that out of the several amendments placed on the paper the Speaker selected that of Mr. Whittaker (Spen Valley, Yorkshire), a strong Radical and a Home Ruler, as being the most nearly a direct negative. Mr. Whittaker's amendment affirmed that as long as the Exchequers of Great Britain and Ireland remained consolidated all portions of the United Kingdom must be regarded as forming one country for fiscal pur