336 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



gian, 513,119 Russian, 456,180 Italian, and 325,610 

 American. The tonnage of vessels that were en- 

 tered with cargoes in 1889 was 28,517,000, and 

 the tonnage cleared with cargoes was 33,048,000. 

 The number of vessels entered coastwise was 319,- 

 031, of 47,524.354 tons, and the number cleared 

 was 286,407, of 42,031,729 tons. 



Railroads. The length of the British rail- 

 roads in the beginning of 1890 was 19,943 miles, 

 of which 14,034 miles were in England and Wales, 

 3,118 miles in Scotland, and 2,791 miles in Ire- 

 land. The capital in paid-up shares and loans 

 was 876,595,166. The number of passengers 

 carried in 1889 was 775,183,073. The receipts 

 from passengers were 32,630,724 ; from freight, 

 41,086,333; the total receipts, including mis- 

 cellaneous, 77,025,017; and the working ex- 

 penses were 40,094,116, which was 52 per cent, 

 of the gross receipts and 4-21 per cent, on the 

 paid-up capital, which was 43,955 per rnile. 



The Post-office and Telegraphs. The num- 

 ber of letters delivered in the fiscal year 1890 

 was 1,650,000,000, the proportion in the several 

 divisions of the United Kingdom being 48 per 

 head of the population in England and Wales, 

 34 in Scotland, and 21 in Ireland, and the aver- 

 age for the whole kingdom 43 to each individual. 

 The number of post cards delivered was 217,- 

 000,000, an increase of 7 8 per cent. ; the number 

 of book packets was 441,900,000, an increase of 

 7 - 3 per cent ; the number of parcels was 42,800,- 

 000, an increase of 8'2 per cent. ; the number of 

 newspapers was 159,300,000, an increase of 4-9 

 per cent. There were 10,374,144 money orders 

 issued, including foreign and colonial, transmit- 

 ting 27,165,905 ; of postal orders, the number 

 was 44,712,548, of the aggregate amount of 17,- 

 737,802. Of the inland money orders, 9,027,750 

 in number, having a total value of 23,333,417, 

 the share of England was 7,395,352, of the value 

 of 19,548,374 ; that of Scotland was 1,068,457, 

 issued for 2,501,572 ; and that of Ireland was 

 563,941, representing 1,283,471. The gross rev- 

 enue of the post-office for the year ending March 

 31, 1890, was 9,847,778, and the working ex- 

 penses 6,603,217, exclusive of the telegraph 

 service, which yielded a gross revenue of 2,- 

 363,836 and a net revenue, after deducting work- 

 ing expenses, of 101,526. The number of mes- 

 sages in 1890 was 52,436,779 in England and 

 Wales, 6,545,654 in Scotland, and 3,420,966 in 

 Ireland, or 62,403,399 for the whole United King- 

 dom. On March 31, 1890, the telegraph lines 

 had a total length of 31,440 miles, with 190,027 

 miles of wires, excluding the wires of railroad 

 companies, but including 17,211 miles of private 

 wires. The post-office has 28 telephone exchanges 

 in various towns, and 46 miles of pneumatic tubes 

 in London. 



The Parliamentary Session. The sixth 

 session of the twelfth Parliament of Queen Vic- 

 toria and the twenty-fourth of the United King- 

 dom was opened on Nov. 25, 1890. In the speech 

 from the throne the failure of the potato crop in 

 the western counties of Ireland was mentioned 

 as requiring Government measures to mitigate 

 the immediate evil and diminish the probability 

 of its return. It was ascribed to the economic, 

 and industrial conditions under which the peo- 

 ple live ; and to increase contentment and dimin- 

 ish political disturbance in Ireland, a bill for 



augmenting the number of owners engaged in 

 the actual cultivation of the land was placed at 

 the head of the measures to be laid before Par- 

 liament. The next was a proposal to remedy 

 the difficulties arising from the indirect inci- 

 dence of the tithe rent-charge in Wales and Eng- 

 land. A measure to facilitate the transaction in 

 Scotland and Ireland of the more important 

 stages of private legislation was placed next, 

 and after that the attention of Parliament would 

 be called to the expediency of alleviating the 

 burden which the law of compulsory education 

 imposes on the poorer classes. If time remained 

 for the consideration of other measures, bills 

 would be introduced to reform the system of 

 county government in Ireland, assimilating it to 

 the recent acts for Great Britain ; to establish 

 district councils ; to extend the facilities for pur- 

 chasing small parcels of land in Great Britain ; 

 to amend the law with respect to the compensa- 

 tion payable by employers for injuries to persons 

 in their employment ; to amend the laws relating 

 to public health ; for the appointment of a public 

 trustee ; and for increasing the security of friend- 

 ly societies and savings banks. 



Parliament was called together in November, 

 nearly three months before the usual time, on an 

 understanding that the session should not be 

 prolonged beyond the end of July. Irish ob- 

 struction, which has hitherto borne the blame 

 for the barrenness of Parliament and the pro- 

 traction of its sessions till late autumn, had noth- 

 ing to do with the shortcomings of the session 

 of 1891. The rupture of the Irish party enabled 

 the ministers to carry the address in a single 

 evening and to have the tithe bill and the Irish 

 land-purchase bill read a second time and their 

 discussion in committee begun, as well as to pass 

 two minor measures for Irish relief, before the 

 House adjourned for the Christmas holidays. 

 The Irish party was so engrossed with its inter- 

 nal feuds that it took little part in the business 

 of Parliament. The section that adhered to Mr. 

 Gladstone did not oppose the land-purchase bill, 

 because it offered real benefits to the peasantry, 

 and its affiliations with the Catholic priesthood 

 deterred it from joining the English Radicals in 

 their opposition to the temporizing free-educa- 

 tion bill. After reassembling on Jan. 22 and 

 making a good start by passing the tithe bill at 

 the third reading, and sending it up to the House 

 of Lords, the House dallied over the supplement- 

 ary estimates and over the factories bill and one 

 or two minor measures. The speech from the 

 throne had given precedence to the tithe bill, 

 the land purchase bill, the Scotch private bill, 

 procedure bill, and the free-education bill. Of 

 these, the tithes bill was disposed of, the land-pur- 

 chase bill was in committee from Dec. 5, and the 

 Scotch private bills act was referred to a select 

 committee before the adjournment for the Easter 

 holidays on March 26. This committee was not 

 appointed till after the House reassembled, and 

 no details of the education bill were made known 

 till the introduction of the budget on April 23. 

 Several secondary measures mentioned in the 

 Queen's speech, dealing with Irish local govern- 

 ment, district councils, small holdings, the ap- 

 pointment of a public trustee, and the liability 

 of employers were dropped, and nothing was 

 heard of them, while others were introduced, and 



