SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES, CLASS II.

HC Deb 09 May 1878 vol 239 cc1607-49

SUPPLY—considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £141,612, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Subordinate Departments.

SIR ANDREW LUSK

said, he wished for some information with regard to the Marine Survey Department of the Board of Trade. The officers engaged in this work were, for the most part, if not entirely, officers who had been engaged in Her Majesty's Navy, and were in receipt of pensions on account of the services which they had so rendered. There were many officers engaged in the Merchant Service who would be as well, if not better, fitted for the surveying of merchant ships, by reason of the nature of their employment; but they were almost entirely ignored, and they felt this to be a grievance of which they had a just right to complain.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, the officers in question were chosen because their long experience fitted them specially for the work they were called upon to perform. The fact referred to by the hon. Baronet, that many of them were in receipt of pensions earned by lengthened service in the Navy, showed that they were men of experience.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

said, there were, to his mind, many reasons why officers from the Royal Navy should not be appointed surveyors in connection with the Mercantile Marine. One of the strongest of these was that surveyors so appointed went from a Service in which everything was done regardless of expense, to another, and a trading branch, where economy was bound to be practised, if success could be attained. Naval officers were accustomed to a different standard from that required in the Mercantile Marine, owing mainly to the fact he had referred to; and he therefore thought it clear that ex-Royal Navy officers were not, and could not be, the best-fitted persons for Board of Trade surveyors of merchant ships.

MR. WHITWELL

said, this Vote presented, in a very marked manner, the importance of the Motion which had been made by the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn), for a nominal roll of those gentlemen in the Government employ who were in receipt of pensions under Government, or were deriving their total income from two or more branches of the Government Service. There were many officers who came within this description, and he thought Parliament was bound to require that information should be af- forded on the subject. If on no other ground, it was important in order to the proper classification of the expenses of the different Government Departments under their proper heads. This was particularly the case in reference to the relations existing between the Customs Department and the Board of Trade, relations which had become so interwoven and involved that it was next to impossible so to separate them as to accurately classify and apportion the expenditure of each. One easy way of remedying this particular difficulty would be to amalgamate the two Departments, and he hoped the day was not far distant at which this would be done.

SIR HENEY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, he would carefully consider the suggestions of the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell), and in another year endeavour to have the accounts of the different Departments kept entirely separate. It was too late to make any alteration in the accounts for the current year.

SIR ANDREW LUSK

said, he did not wish to make idle complaints, or unnecessarily to occupy time; but he did not think a sufficient answer had been given to the complaints of officers in the Mercantile Marine as to their exclusion from employment in the Survey Department of the Board of Trade. They were men of ability and experience; they desired a fair share of the appointments, and they did not think it fair that they should be almost entirely shunted to make way for members of another branch of the Naval Service of the country. Another point on which he wished to make a remark was the large amount of the law charges incurred by the Department in connection with the stopping of vessels supposed to be unseaworthy. He hoped the largeness of the amount was not due to the fact that ships were stopped unnecessarily; because it would not look well for a Government to be engaged in "harassing trade" —to use a mode of expression which had become historical—by taking steps which would unnecessarily prevent a large body of men from pursuing their calling. It was a very serious matter for the owners of merchant ships, or, indeed, for traders of any kind, to find themselves in the hands of the Law Officers of the Crown.

VISCOUNT SANDON

replied, that the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 provided for the payment of a compensation to the owners of ships which might be improperly stopped from going to sea, and he could assure the hon. Baronet that the utmost care was used to avoid unnecessary interference with the Mercantile Marine of the country.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

pointed out the largeness of the amount which was paid by the Mercantile Marine of the country in the shape of survey fees. Last year it was no less than £35,633, and thus formed a heavy tax upon a single branch of commerce. The small shipowners, especially, complained of this. In many cases, the owner was himself the master; and, it sometimes happened that these charges for surveys amounted to a considerable percentage upon the total value of the small craft which he owned.

MR. BIGGAR

thought there could be no doubt that the amount of the Vote was excessive; and, in order to test the opinion of the Committee on the point, he would move to reduce it by £900, the salary paid to the Registrar General in the Register and Record Department. He found that the gentleman who held the office also received £100 a-year from the Mercantile Marine Fund, and £550 per annum as Auditor under the provisions of the Metropolis Water Act, 1871. He should have thought that the last appointment he had named would be sufficient to occupy any one man's time. Referring, in this connection, to the speech of the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell), he thought it most important that the names of all officials holding more than one appointment should be given to Parliament. There might, in this particular instance, be special reasons for the appointment of the Registrar General, whose name he did not know; but, on the first blush of the thing, it looked as if a gentleman had been appointed to a sinecure office—and, in saying this, he was bound to admit that the appointment did not seem to have been made by the present Government, which was a fact in their favour.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £140,712, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Subordinate Departments."—(Mr. Biggar.)

MR. PARNELL

also hoped that the names of gentlemen holding two offices would be furnished, and in such a form as that the whole of each gentleman's connection with Government Departments could be traced without the inconvenient cross references which were at present necessary.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, he had already stated that he would give every information in his power, both with regard to the amounts paid and the names of the holders of the different offices; but he could not hope to do so in reference to the accounts of the present year, which had been drawn up in the form which had been customarily employed in the past.

MR. BIGGAR

said, the answer of the hon. Baronet was satisfactory up to a certain point; but he should like to know, further, whether the appointment of Auditor of Waterworks, held by the Registrar General, was a Government appointment, or was held independently of the Government? If this last suggestion were the correct one, it seemed clear that the gentleman held a professional appointment, outside the Government, which ought to take up the whole of his time, and also held one or more appointments under the Government in addition.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, the appointment as Auditor was held under Statute, and independently of the Government.

MR. BIGGAR

said, as it would be useless to press his Amendment, and as the answers of the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury had been, on the whole, satisfactory, he would ask leave to withdraw his proposal to reduce the amount of the Vote.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(2.) £27,156, to complete the sum for the Charity Commission.

MR. GOLDNEY

observed, that he had every year to say something with regard to this Vote, which he hoped soon to see removed from, the Civil Service Estimates. This expense ought to be borne by the Estates themselves, and not by the nation. The Charity Commissioners had issued 2,600 orders, appointing new Trustees and making other arrangements, the cost of which should be borne by them, and would amount to a very small percentage on the value of the Charities. He hoped that the Secretary to the Treasury would look upon this as a matter which the public was fairly entitled to consider. At present, it had no control whatever, but had to bear the whole expense of the Commission. He should, therefore, unless some indications were given of an intention on the part of the Government to consider this subject, move on a future occasion that the expenses of the Charity Commission be borne by the Estates themselves.

MR. RYLANDS

said, the Committee was indebted to the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) for having called the attention of the House to this subject.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

replied that the subject was an important one; and, should he continue to hold his present appointment, he would certainly endeavour to bring about some further arrangements.

MR. GOLDNEY

would give the hon. Gentleman one fact, which was that the income of the Charities passed through the hands of the Secretary to the Commissioners. A very small percentage on the cheques signed by this officer would be sufficient to defray the expense of the Commission.

SIR ANDREW LUSK

remarked, that the Committee ought to be strong enough to say that the Charities should bear the expense of having their business managed for them, and it was but fair that the Government should act upon this suggestion. It would be a very easy way of dealing with the question to impose a small charge by way of commission.

MR. BIGGAR

thought, that if the system were in operation, that the expenses of the Commission should be borne by the funds of the Charities, the Commissioners might in time come to regard themselves as masters, and beyond the control of Parliament. He had heard that some of these Charities were not managed in accordance with the intention of their founders, and it was desirable that Parliament should not be deprived of its power to investi- gate the manner in which they were administered. There was no doubt that these Trusts all required a very careful scrutiny. He thought that if Parliament exercised the power of investigating the way in which the intentions of the founders were carried out by the Commissioners, some reform might be effected. In this case the sum asked for, which was by no means a large one, would be well spent. He, however, doubted much that this object would be attained by doing away with the Vote, and making the expense a charge upon the funds of the Charities.

MR. RAMSAY

said, he had no fear that Parliament would lose its control of the Charities. It was extremely desirable that fees or a percentage should be charged for the work that was done, and that the public should be relieved from the expense of the Commission.

MR. BIGGAR

admitted the feasibility of calling upon the Charities, which required schemes of re-organization to contribute towards the cost of the Commission. At the same time, he hoped that nothing would be done to interfere with the power of Parliament to criticize the conduct of the Department whenever the necessity arose.

MR. PARNELL

believed that a considerable saving could be effected in the Vote. Two sets of Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, and Secretaries were charged for—one set for Charities, and another set for Endowed Schools. He was aware that the two Departments could not be merged into one, because they were created under different Acts of Parliament, possessed different powers, and had different duties to perform. But, judging from the list of subordinate officers, the duties of the Endowed Schools Commissioners were comparatively light; and, in his opinion, it was most unreasonable that out of £9,500—the total cost of that Department—£7,300 should be absorbed by the salaries of the Commissioners. When those gentlemen came to retire, it would be well to make some attempt at economy.

MR. W. H. JAMES

would like to be informed by the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury whether the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton), who had recently been appointed fourth Charity Commissioner, would receive a salary in that capacity, in addition to his salary as Vice President of the Council?

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

replied, that the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council would be an unpaid Commissioner. In answer to the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell), he might state that the Endowed Schools Commission was first appointed in the year 1869, and was provided for by a distinct Vote until a few years ago, when its powers were transferred to the Charity Commission; so that the Endowed Schools Commission, as such, no longer existed. Although the work of the late Endowed Schools Commission was now performed by the Charity Commission, the Departmental officers of the former still remained, it having been deemed advisable not to merge the two sets of officers; inasmuch as while the one Department would altogether cease to exist in 1879, the other was intended to be permanent.

MR. M'LAREN

agreed with the suggestion that a moderate fee should be charged to the Charities to which new schemes were granted. The plan had been adopted in the Register House Department, Edinburgh. The total cost of that Department, as indicated by the Vote which would be asked for, was about £36,000 per annum; whereas the amount realized by fees was £44,000. To his mind, the fee system was as sound in principle as it was profitable in practice.

Vote agreed to.

(3.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £22,519, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

moved the reduction of the Vote by £2,000, the salary of the First Commissioner. Since the year 1875–6, the cost of the Commission had been gradually increasing. In that year the amount of the Vote was £20,483; whereas, in 1876–7, it was £22,000 odd; in 1877–8, £24,780; and this year, nearly £27,000—that was to say, during the last five years it had increased nearly 25 per cent. In the business of the Department, there was nothing whatever to justify such an extraordinary increase of expenditure; but something occurred in the year 1875, which would probably, to some extent, account for what had happened since. In that year, there was perpetrated a proceeding which was sufficient to demoralize any public Department, no matter how sound was the principle on which it was founded, or how well it was conducted. In 1875, Sir Edward Ryan, the Chief Commissioner, retired. Other Commissioners were appointed, and Lord Hampton, a statesman who had done excellent service in almost every Department of the State, except this particular one, was appointed Chief Commissioner at the age of 76 years. That was not all. It became necessary to strengthen the Department, in order to remove the element of weakness, which the appointment of Lord Hampton made apparent. A third Commissioner was appointed, but at an inferior salary, and the selection fell upon a gentleman who ought to have been chosen in the first instance; for he was perfectly competent to discharge the duties, having for a considerable period filled the post of Secretary—he alluded to Mr. Walrond. The Chief Commissioner, who had had no experience in connection with the operations of the Commission, received a salary of £2,000 a-year, and Mr. Walrond, the other Commissioner, one of £1,200. The appointment of Lord Hampton was discussed in the House, and was severely condemned, though the Government of the day gained their point—as, indeed, they could almost anything. But the proceeding had borne fruit in constantly increasing Estimates. He was sorry to have been obliged to assume his present position. He wanted to maintain a great principle, and when he saw that principle abused, he had no alternative but to defend it. It had been deemed advisable to have the Department represented in Parliament. The Representative was in the House of Lords; but, if the expenditure of public money was likely to go on increasing at such an extraordinary rate, the sooner a Representative was had in the House of Commons the better. There was another feature in connection with the Department, which, he regretted, he was compelled to refer to, and that was that while they were expending public money in the manner he had described, they were exacting enormous sums, in the shape of fees, from young men who sought to obtain employment in the Civil Service. Each young man was obliged to pay a fee, first of £1 and next of £5, for the privilege of being allowed to present himself for examination. Those fees really represented an enormous sacrifice to young men of that class, and it was hard that they should be enforced while money could be saved by the abolition of a sinecure office. He thought there was no necessity for further attempting to justify his Amendment for the reduction of the Vote by an amount equivalent to the expenditure incurred by the appointment of Lord Hampton.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £20,519, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission."—(Mr. O'Shaughnessy.)

MR. DILLWYN

supported the Amendment. He knew it would be quite useless to do so; but it was incumbent upon him to assume the position, as a protest against an expenditure for which there was not a shadow of excuse. The proceeding to which the last speaker (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) had alluded was admitted to be one of the worst political jobs perpetrated of late; and he felt shame that in an Assembly, the especial duty of which was to protect the public purse, it should be allowed. He could not understand how any person, whether Liberal or Conservative, could vote for the continuance of such a monstrous job.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

certainly could not follow the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) in his exaggerated views with regard to the Vote. It was said that the expenses connected with the Commission had jumped from £20,000 to £27,000 during the last few years; but he would call the attention of hon. Gentlemen to the fact that the increase was entirely due to the system of open competition, the adoption of which was unanimously recommended by the House. It had been found necessary to strengthen the staff, and that really accounted for the increase complained of. The remarks of the hon. Member who raised the discus- sion would induce the Committee to believe that the candidates who presented themselves for examination suffered a great hardship owing to the fees which they had to pay. It was said that they had to pay something like £6, and that that was a severe tax. But £6 was the outside limit paid by candidates under the first-class examinations. The fees payable under the different other examinations varied according to the requirements expected from the candidates, and they could not in any sense be deemed excessive. With regard to the attack which had been made upon the First Commissioner, he felt bound to say that Lord Hampton occupied an exceptional position, and that there was hardly any public servant who devoted more time and attention to the duties of his office. True, his Lordship was advanced in years; but a good many right hon. Gentlemen who had done service to the State were in the same position, and he was convinced that there were few public servants who brought so much power to bear upon the performance of the duties of his office as the noble Lord.

MR. DILLWYN

disclaimed all intention of personally attacking Lord Hampton. His charge was, that, without any justification, a Nobleman had been put into an office for which he was not especially fit, over the heads of others who were especially fitted for it; and that, in addition to this, the salary of the office had been increased for his benefit.

MR. RYLANDS

was sure that nobody entertained anything but feelings of respect for Lord Hampton, who had done public service for many years. There could be no doubt that a gentleman already in the Department might most properly have been selected as Chief Commissioner, and equally little doubt that he would have accepted the appointment at the salary previously paid, £1,500 a-year. The scandal was this—that a noble Lord of advanced years, who did not find himself in Office after the last General Election, was thrust, just to suit the convenience of the Premier, into an appointment. A salary of £2,000 was given when there was a gentleman, admirably qualified, who would have been happy to have accepted promotion at £1,500, so that £500 had been positively wasted. He had no doubt whatever that the transaction was a political job.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

quite admitted that he had been in error on the subject of the fees; but he did not consider it necessary to retract anything he had said respecting Lord Hampton, though he had not been actuated by the slightest personal hostility towards the noble Lord.

MR. BIGGAR

said, that in spite of the explanation which had been given, the fact still remained that the applicants for Civil Service appointments, who took considerable trouble to qualify themselves for examination, were obliged to pay a substantial fee before they could be examined. That was a form of taxation which he hoped would not be perpetuated. The expense of education was so great, that it was an intolerable hardship to unnecessarily impose fees upon the candidates who presented themselves for examination—indeed, it would be wise for the Government to consider, by the time the next Budget was introduced, whether the pressure on a very deserving class could not be lessened. As to the appointment of the First Commissioner, he considered the explanation of the Secretary to the Treasury most unsatisfactory. He did not see that a Chief Commissioner was wanted at all. The experience of the House was that the Assistant Commissioners did all the work; and, therefore, he did not see why they should be called upon to vote so large a sum as £2,000 a-year to pay a Nobleman now 80 years of age. It would be much better to utilize this sum in lessening the taxes laid upon young men who came up for examination, and who had undergone all the preliminary risks, labours, and anxieties, than to give the sum as a pension to a Nobleman.

MR. WHITWELL

was not going to draw the attention of the House to the salary paid to the noble Lord the Chief of the Civil Service Commission; but he did ask the serious consideration of the Secretary to the Treasury to one fact, and that was that out of a certain number of persons employed 16 were receiving salaries of £200 a-year, whereas no less than 11 received salaries of something like £1,000 a-year. The proportion of highly-paid salaries exceeded that to be found in any other Department. To show that when the First Commissioner was appointed, the two Assistant Commissioners might have done all that was needed, he might mention that one of the Assistants was now engaged, for part of his time, in the work of translation; and he contended, that if one of the Assistant Commissioners could give up his time to the work of the Record Office of so abstruse a character as the translation of Hindoo and Sanscrit books, it was unnecessary to appoint a Chief Commissioner at a salary of £2,000 a-year. He did not wish to make any remarks antagonistic to the Nobleman who now held the office; but he thought the whole matter needed revision.

MR. MACDONALD

said, he objected to the appointment of the First Commissioner when it was made, and he objected now to this form of out-door relief to aged statesmen by giving them a living out of the public funds. He hoped that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) would take the sense of the House upon the question.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 50; Noes 60: Majority 10.—(Div. List, No. 113.)

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(4.) £14,141, to complete the sum for the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission.

(5.) £6,830, to complete the sum for the Inclosure and Drainage Acts, Imprest Expenses.

(6.) Motion made and, Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £43,325, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Exchequer.

MR. PARNELL

said, he noticed that one of the clerks in the office received £200 a-year as Auditor to the Duchy of Lancaster. He could not see how this gentleman could at the same time perform duties in the Exchequer Audit Office and in the Office of the Duchy of Lancaster; and, therefore, he wished to know whether any duties in respect of the latter office were performed, or whether the position was a sinecure?

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, the duties of Auditor of the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster were performed by a gentleman who was a clerk in the Exchequer Audit Office; but they did not interfere with his work in that office.

MR. WHITWELL

desired to be informed why a special sum should be voted for Chancery auditorage?

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, the audit of the Chancery accounts was a separate thing, as ordered by the 35 & 36 Vict. c. 34.

SIR ANDREW LUSK

thought the whole principle bad. Here was a clerk in the Exchequer Audit Department having £200 a-year to audit the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster. They all knew that the Exchequer Audit Department was well managed, and he had the greatest confidence in it; but, if one of the clerks were taken away to audit the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster, he could not have time to do his own work. He did not find fault with the gentleman who held the two offices; but what he found fault with was the pluralist system, by which one must suffer, and, therefore, he hoped his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) would discountenance such a system.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he had heard the explanation of the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), and the remarks of the hon. Baronet the Member for Fins-bury (Sir Andrew Lusk), and he was not at all satisfied with the explanations regarding this clerk who audited the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster. That gentleman got £200 a-year for that work, and he supposed he received £800 a-year from his office in the Exchequer Audit Department. It was, however, clear that he must neglect his work in one office during the year. If a good salary were given a man for a particular office, he should attend to it, and should not be allowed to have another Department to look after. Therefore, he moved that the Vote be reduced by £200, the sum which was paid to this chief clerk for auditing the Duchy of Lancaster accounts.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £43,125, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Exchequer." —(Mr. Biggar.)

MR. PARNELL

asked why the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster should not be audited by the Audit Department? They had a full staff of seven Inspectors or principal clerks, excluding a chief clerk, all of whom received good salaries. Then there was a large number of first and second class clerks, so that there was a sufficiently large staff to audit the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster. Instead of that, the accounts were audited at the Office of the Duchy—if there were any—or they were brought into the Audit Office and examined by this gentleman, who received £200 for the work. No one could understand why this should be done, and it seemed to him very like what was called in and outside that House a "job."

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster were kept distinct; and, therefore, they were audited in their own offices. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) seemed to think that the Auditor of those accounts received an extra salary for neglecting his work in the Exchequer Audit Office; but this was not so. The work of his Department had always to be done, and the audit of the Duchy accounts had to be performed in his own time—either in his holidays, or after his ordinary work was concluded. Therefore, the payment was for extra work, and he would remind the Committee that it was only a short time ago, at the express wish of the House, that the sum was put in the Votes. In no case could it be shown that this money was earned by doing the work in the time which ought to be devoted to the Exchequer Audit Department.

MAJOR NOLAN

thought it would be much better for the officials of the country to do the work, than to allow the Duchy of Lancaster to have its own auditors. It would be much better to have someone to audit these accounts who was paid by the Government, than to have one paid by the Duchy; because, by the latter course, they at once put a man in the pay and service of the Duchy. He did not think that was a position in which an auditor, no matter how perfectly he did his work, should be placed.

MR. MELLOR

said, the auditing the accounts of the Duchy was separate work, and should be paid for separately, the expense being borne by the office employing the Auditor.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, these were Royal Revenues, over which Parliament had no control; and, therefore, the audit was that of the Duchy itself. The Duchy had desired, in selecting its Auditor, to get someone of experience from the Audit Office, who in his spare time should do their work at a salary of £200 a-year.

MR. MACDONALD

objected to a man holding two offices. Either he had no work to do in one place, and, therefore, his services might be dispensed with, or he should be kept at work in his Department, and not be allowed to take the second position for the sake of getting an extra £200 a-year.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

wished to know why, if the work of auditing the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster Office was done in the time of the clerk, the Vote appeared in the Papers at all? It seemed to him that this system was altogether wrong. If the Duchy of Lancaster desired to have a responsible audit of its accounts by one of the clerks of the Exchequer, it was right that it should be so; but the £200 a-year ought to be paid to the Treasury. Therefore, if the hon. Member took a division on this matter, he should be happy to support him.

MR. RAMSAY

would like to ask the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) what was the course pursued with respect to the audit of Chancery accounts? Were there any fees exacted from the persons whose estates were under the Court of Chancery; and, if so, where did these funds go? Because, if the fees were applied to pay the cost of audit, in that case it was right that a similar practice should obtain here; but he did not hear that there was anything of that kind. If fees were exacted from the Estate for the audit, the country would be saved the sum of £8,000. He did not wish that the country should make any profit from those persons who were in Chancery, but he did think it reasonable that those persons should bear the expense of the audit.

MR. M'LAREN

said, that the £200 addition to salary involved a very important principle, and he should like to state in a sentence or two the view which he took. There were seven of these gentlemen whose services were paid for at £800 or £900 per annum; and one of these clerks received £200 in addition from the Duchy. It was quite plain, that if one of these clerks, whose time was worth £900 a-year, was employed for three months in doing the business of the Duchy of Lancaster, then the Audit Office lent their clerk to the Duchy of Lancaster. Who should receive payment?—not the clerk, but the Audit Office. It should be put among the fees they received, that £200 a-year was received by the Treasury from the Duchy of Lancaster. He altogether objected to a man coming in for a second salary by neglecting part of his work, as he necessarily did in this case.

MR. PARNELL

would certainly vote with the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), unless he received some assurance from the Government that the time the clerk spent for the Duchy of Lancaster was his own time. Of course, when he gave his own time, it was an entirely different question. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) knew the hours the Departments were employed—or, he presumed the hon. Baronet knew—and what were the duties the clerks had to perform. He received the considerable sum of £200, and it was reasonable to suppose that the duty must take up some time; and, of course, if any portion of the time the clerk ought to spend at the office was employed in auditing these accounts, he was not entitled to receive salary from an outside body. It ought to go to the Audit Department. They were told that the auditing of the accounts of Greenwich Hospital would be recovered from that body, and paid into the Exchequer. That was a business-like way to go to work. If the Duchy of Lancaster wanted its accounts audited by the Audit Office, let the Audit Office undertake it, and be paid for it as they were paid by the Church Temporalities Commission in Ireland and by the Board of Trade. They ought to have some assurance from the hon. Baronet on this question.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

knew it was a rule in the Public Service that clerks should give to the Public Service a certain number of hours; and that for any extra work they did, they were entitled to receive such emolument as was shown in the foot-note was given in this case. Such work was done in the clerk's own private capacity. The auditing of the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster did not require the time the hon. Baronet had suggested. If a clerk devoted a certain number of hours to the Public Service, his time after that was at his own disposal; and if he was auditing the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster, as private work, there was no regulation against his doing it. There was one thing which was brought into view by this discussion, and that was that the Departments gave as much information as could possibly be obtained with respect to extra remuneration obtained by public servants. They had means of knowing when public servants received extra remuneration, and they put that information in the Estimates. But they had no control over a man's private time. When he had given his time at the office, that was all that the office could exact from him. It was when he received extra pay from a public office that the public were made aware of it. That would have to be multiplied enormously if they could put down the money gained by clerks from other sources. All the Department had done was to put down the amounts the clerks received from other public offices during the time they were not in their own offices.

MR. H. SAMUELSON

had no doubt the hon. Baronet had spoken to the best of his knowledge; but he must remember that there were private secretaries who were at the same time clerks in public offices, and who did not give their time at their offices at all; such as the Private Secretary of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others about whom there had already been discussion. He did not mean to draw the inference that the hon. Baronet knew the case of this particular clerk to be of that kind. If the House objected to all the extra emoluments these clerks earned in their spare time, they would have a great task before them. They would have to look to the great trading establishments which were carried on in London—and he thought rightly carried on—by public clerks at a time when they were not employed in public offices. But that did not apply to the case of private secretaries who did not give their time at their office at all.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, that in the case of private secretaries the work done was equally official work, and was different from the work done by one office for another.

MR. H. SAMUELSON

said, he saw the distinction the hon. Baronet made.

MR. BIGGAR

was unwilling to give the Committee the trouble of dividing; but, at the same time, he was not satisfied with this explanation. The hon. Baronet had stated what was the general rule in a public office, but he went no further. He must say he had no fault to find with the statements the hon. Baronet had made, so far as the general principle was concerned; but he had not stated what was done in this particular case. He thought the point raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) really met the case. That was, that if the Duchy of Lancaster required that its accounts should be audited by a Public Department, it should be done by the Department and not by a private member. This Duchy of Lancaster property was of a peculiar nature. It was partially private Crown property, and was partly of a public nature. One Member of the Government, who had a seat in that House, and was, he believed, paid by a Vote of Parliament, was in charge of the Duchy of Lancaster property. The Chancellor was a Member of the Government, and had a seat in that House, and if he did not sit in that House he could not hold Office. It was only right that these auditors who divided their time should give all their time to the duties of their office, and should charge a reasonable sum for doing so. If this gentleman worked all night on the Duchy of Lancaster accounts, he would be less qualified next day to perform his duties to the Government. If he were in his own office a certain number of hours, and then gave a certain number of hours to other work, he would be more or less embarrassed, and would give less to the Public Service.

MR. WHITWELL

hoped the hon. Member (Mr. Biggar) would not divide on a sum which was not covered by these accounts at all. He hoped the hon. Member would be satisfied with what the hon. Baronet had stated.

MR. PARNELL

trusted the hon. Member for Cavan would not take the trouble to divide the Committee on this question. He hoped the hon. Baronet would take the trouble to see how the duties of this office were performed. One part of it was an office held under the Crown, and another part of it an office held under Parliament. He did not believe the hon. Baronet wished to make inquiry as to the extra work that the clerks performed, but he had told them to the best of his belief that these were extra duties; and he, therefore, hoped the hon. Member would not put the Committee to a division. He trusted the hon. Baronet would inquire into the matter so as to give fuller explanation on the next occasion.

MR. O'DONNELL

wished to say a word as to what was said by the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell). As the Vote stood at present, it came to this—it was a sort of injustice to other clerks who were presumably earning, and fully earning, the salaries appointed to them. Unless next year, the hon. Baronet who had charge of the Department, could assure the House that the office hours for the Duchy of Lancaster only began when the office hours of the other Department ended, it would be open to the suspicion that one of the principal clerks obtained a salary of £900 a-year, and had £200 a-year from another office, and earned this during the public time, while the other clerks only got £900. One of their colleagues got £1,100 for neglecting his business to the tune of £200 per annum. Unless some investigation was made next year, this was likely to continue.

MR. BIGGAR

was very unwilling to differ from his Colleagues, and was disposed for that reason to ask the Committee for leave to withdraw this Motion. At the same time, he must say he was not at all convinced that he was right in doing so. He believed his duty was to take the opinion of the Committee on the question. Hon. Friends of his were disposed to differ from that opinion, and he was willing to take their opinion, and to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(7.) £5,085, to complete the sum for Friendly Societies.

MR. PARNELL

noticed that there was considerable difference between the salaries of the Assistant Registrars in England and those in Scotland and Ireland. The salary of the Assistant Registrar in England amounted to £900, including a personal allowance of £800. The paragraph did not state what the personal allowance was for. He should be glad to have some explanation on that point. The salary of the Assistant Registrar in Scotland and Ireland only amounted to £300 a-year. He was aware that the duties of this office were more numerous in England than in Ireland. He could not speak of Scotland. In Ireland he knew that the Assistant Registrar had as much as he could do, and had only one assistant at £100 a-year. This was part of a system, which he was sorry to see was very much practised in the preparation of these accounts, of starving the Civil servants in Ireland. In no cases were they given equivalent salaries to those in England. In former times it was much worse; but attention had been called from time to time, and the salaries had been raised in some Departments. They had an example in the National School Teachers, for whom they agitated five or six years before they obtained the same salaries that were paid to English and Scotch National School Teachers. He did not know whether the Government intended to starve them out in Ireland. If they had those intentions, they would not succeed, because they had tried it two or three times before and had not succeeded. It did seem strange that there should be this difference. It might be said that living was cheaper in Ireland than in England. He knew he could live cheaper in London than in Dublin. Therefore, that was no reason for giving less in Ireland than in England. The duties in Ireland were very great, though, of course, not so great as in England. But in England, the Assistant Registrar had two clerks, four copying clerks, and an actuary; so that it was evident the office in England was not undermanned, whereas the office in Ireland was very much undermanned, and there was only £400 for clerk and assistants.

SIR ANDREW LUSK

, before the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury answered, wished to ask him how the Friendly Societies Act was working? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer took great pains to frame that Act, and they in the House of Commons took pains to get it to work well, and it would be interesting to know how it worked. If the hon. Baronet would tell them that, they would be glad to hear that they had been instrumental in promoting the well-being of these societies throughout the country.

MR. MACDONALD

differed very much from the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) in his estimate of work done by the Assistant Registrars in Ireland and in England. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) asked how the work had been done. He would recommend him strongly to examine the Reports prepared by the Chief Registrar. He ventured to say that no more interesting Reports were ever issued by the Government. The Chief Registrar had brought such knowledge and skill to bear on the subject as had rarely been exercised by any one Department in this country. As one who took an interest in the matter, he felt bound to say that the money spent on this Department was exceedingly well spent. The Registrar had shown an amount of vigour and industry which was highly creditable to him.

MR. WHEELHOUSE

believed the system now in vogue had given the greatest possible satisfaction. Probably few people knew more of the work in the large towns of the North of England than he did; and, having given much consideration to the subject, he was prepared to say that, probably with certain modifications, which he hoped to see, there was no Act of Parliament at any time, or under any circumstances, which had been of greater service to the wage classes of the country than this Act had been. Most assuredly, that which the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald)—from whose views he often felt bound to differ very widely—had said as to the industry and care which had been shown in the working of the Act, he could emphatically endorse. In fact, the whole of the arrangements, so far as they had been carried out up to the present time, afforded strong evidence of the strenuous exertions used to make the Act work well. There must necessarily, under all circumstances, be particular sections of an Act of Parliament which would be found not to work—especially, perhaps, at first—satisfactorily in the case of those for whose benefit they were passed; but, so far as the actual machinery of this Act was concerned, he apprehended that there never had been a greater example of fidelity to the intentions of the Government than had been shown in the working of it. Knowing the immense care which had been taken by every one of the officers of the Friendly Societies—whether they were the United Order of Oddfellows, or smaller Burial Societies—to make the Act do its work as well as possible, he did not think it would have been right on his part had he not added his testimony to that of the hon. Member of Stafford, with whom on this question he was in complete accord.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

remarked, that the point raised by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) was the difference which existed in the salaries given in the three countries to a similar class of officers; and he hoped the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) would be able to inform the Committee upon what principle these salaries were settled. Leaving out of account the salary of the Chief Registrar in England, he observed that the Assistant Registrar had a salary of £700 a-year, his maximum income being fixed at £800, and that the Chief Clerk had £500, while the Assistant Registrar for Scotland had only a maximum salary of £300. Surely, the latter might have before him the prospect of attaining to as good a position as the Chief Clerk in England, with a maximum salary of £500 a-year. He had himself no doubt that the duties in Scotland and Ireland were quite as onerous and responsible as those which were discharged by the Assistant Registrar in England.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

explained, that it was not until the passing of the 18 & 19 Vict. that any salaries were fixed with reference to Scotch and Irish Registrars, and the maximum then decided upon was £150 per annum. The Act passed in 1876, to which reference had been made, raised the salaries all round. It raised the salaries of the Assistant Registrars in England to the point at which they at present stood in the Estimates, and those of the Assistant Registrars in Scotland and Ireland from £150 to £300 a-year. The relative proportion which the salaries paid in England bore to those paid in Scotland and Ireland seemed to have been carried out in the different Acts which had been passed from time to time. The amount of work performed in this particular Department in England was very much larger than in the sister countries, and that really accounted for the difference in the salaries.

MR. BRISTOWE

observed, that the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell)— whose industry in all these matters everybody must recognize—had referred to one matter which the hon. Baronet had omitted to notice. The hon. Member had referred to the actuarial charges, and suggested that they were considerable. Now, his (Mr. Bristowe's) notion was—and he should be happy to be corrected if he was wrong—that the actuarial charges, although put under the head of England, applied to the three Kingdoms.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

I believe that is so.

MR. BIGGAR

said, that speaking generally of these charges, he thought there was no Department of the Public Service in which it was more desirable that the work should be efficiently done. They knew, from the evidence given before the Commission which made inquiry into these Friendly Societies, that their affairs were carried on in such a manner that parties who had insured ran very great risk of losing their money. He thought, therefore, that the Committee should not be too severe in its scrutiny of the expense of examining the affairs of those different Societies, with a view, as far as possible, of keeping them in a solvent and honest state.

Vote agreed to.

(8) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £320,193, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1879, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board, including various Grants in aid of Local Taxation.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that on looking over the details of the Vote, he saw that there were three junior legal as- sistants with salaries ranging from £300 to £450 a-year. He should like to know who were these gentlemen, and what was the character of their duties?

MR. MELLOR

remarked, that there was another item respecting which he should like to have some explanation. He observed that there was an architect with a salary of £600 a-year, and two assistants with salaries of £400 and £280 respectively. He could not see what they had to do with the relief of the poor. It might be that they were called in to advise the Board occasionally; but, if that be so, all he had to say was that, speaking from practical knowledge of his own Union, whenever these gentlemen had been called in they had led the Guardians grievously astray.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, that before the hon. Baronet rose to answer the Questions that had been put, he would express his regret, in the first place, that the right hon. Gentleman who presided over this Department was not in his place. [Mr. SOLATER-BOOTH was here seen to take his seat on the Treasury Bench.] He was very glad the right hon. Gentleman had put in an appearance while somebody was asking on his behalf for the modest sum of £384,000. He did think it strange that the President of the Local Government Board had not favoured them with his presence until then; because, of course, it was a very large sum, and naturally Questions would arise upon the Vote, which only the right hon. Gentleman himself would be competent to deal with. Now, he (Mr. O'Connor Power) noticed that under the head of "Travelling Expenses" there was a sum required of £6,300. That was a very large sum, and what he would like to know was whether that included the expenses which were involved in the deportation of Irish paupers from England to Ireland? That was the subject to which he would just for a moment wish respectfully to invite the attention of the Committee; for the state of the law was such in this respect that young Irishmen who came to England and laboured there for a lifetime were in their old age, when unfit for further work, sent back to be supported by a country to which they had rendered no service. Visiting one of the workhouses in the county which he represented, some time ago, he was brought to see an old man, a man of about 80 years of age, who had spent 40 years of his life in England, and who had married an English wife and brought up an English family. Many members of his family, although not in a position to support him were, nevertheless, contributing in their own humble, but very successful, way towards the wealth of this great country. Well, when this poor man had been reduced, by the effects of a life of toil in England, to such a position as to be utterly unable to gain a livelihood, he was sent back to Ireland to be supported by Irish rates. He failed to see that such a system could be considered just. To him it appeared a gross injustice, and he would like to know whether this sum of £6,300 was intended to cover travelling expenses of that kind. If so, he was decidedly of opinion that Ireland ought not to be called upon to pay them, and certainly Irish ratepayers ought not to be called upon to support paupers of that class. He might be asked, what was the remedy? Well, he would not alter the law so that any number of Irish people might be sent from Ireland indiscriminately and placed upon the rates in England; but what he would do was this—he would fix a term of years which would give a man all the rights of naturalization in England, if he might colloquially use that word. They could fix it at five or 10 years; but really, as he understood the law at present, it was in the power of English Guardians, or Scotch Guardians for the matter of that, to send Irish paupers back to Ireland under the circumstances which he had described. He thought it was a matter that they should protest against, and that they should invite the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board to give some explanation in regard to it before they consented to pass this Vote.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

was sorry that he was absent at the moment when this Vote was called on, but he had been in his place since 5 o'clock. He could scarcely think the hon Gentleman could have been serious in the Question he had put. He had asked whether the travelling expenses which appeared in the Vote had anything to do with the removal of Irish paupers back to Ireland? He (Mr. Sclater-Booth) need hardly tell the Committee that the item referred exclusively to the travelling expenses of the Inspectors of the Local Government Board in connection with the duties which they discharged for the Department; whereas the travelling expenses incurred in the removal of paupers were defrayed by the localities removing them in accordance with the provisions of the law in that respect. The hon. Gentleman would do him the justice to remember that it was not two years since he made a proposal that there should be a certain term of years after which an Irish pauper should not be removed to Ireland; and he might add that when objection was offered to the details of the plan he then propounded, the Irish Members made common cause with English Members in opposing them. The result was that they were considerably modified by the House.

MR. PARNELL

said, he was sorry there was no item in the Vote under consideration upon which he could raise an important objection. As he understood the President of the Local Government Board, they were now asked to pass a Vote which applied to purposes of removal of Irish paupers from England and Scotland to Ireland, but not specially so in any one item. He understood that to be the fact, and he was sorry for it; because he was compelled by it to take a step which he felt exceedingly unwilling to take, and which, under different circumstances, he certainly should not have taken. If they had a special item in the Vote, they could object to its being employed for purposes incident to the removal of Irish paupers from England and Scotland, and would have something to lay hold of in connection with the question at issue. Unfortunately, however, they had to look to a higher quarter. The President of the Local Government Board had detailed the exertions he made some years ago to pass a Bill through the House of Commons to remove the objections which Irish Members had always felt to the removal of these paupers, and which would remove the hardships now felt under the law as it existed. But the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken in supposing that the Irish Members in any way made common cause in that House to oppose the passing of that Bill. He remembered when it was introduced, and that their attention was directed by the late lamented Member for the city of Cork (Mr. Ronayne), and other hon. Members, to the cruelty of the Bill as it stood. They pointed out that the clauses as they stood, though they went, to a certain extent, in the direction they desired, did not at all fulfil the wishes of the Irish Members, or meet the necessities of the case. The Irish Members assisted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board on that occasion as far as they could. They made no common cause with anybody inside that House with respect to the question; but it was the selfishness of the English and Scotch Members that prevented him from carrying out his intentions. So far from his giving effect to them, he went back from them, and allowed the Bill to be modified by the selfishness of the English and Scotch Members: and he (Mr. Parnell) said that, so far from the Irish Members being responsible for the defection of the right hon. Gentleman, they would have supported him if he had not yielded to a pressure brought on him, not in that House, but outside it, to modify the clauses in Committee. When the Bill came before the House in Committee, they found that the clauses, which were passed in the usual way—about 1 o'clock in the morning—did not satisfy their expectations, nor fulfil the conditions which the Irish Members thought necessary or desirable to meet the requirements of the case. The right hon. Gentleman had modified them, and, against his own sense of right and justice, they were made practically inoperative. Now, whom had they to look to, to see that a grievance of that kind should be remedied? The one they should look to was the responsible originator of legislation on the subject, who was responsible to the greatest and highest extent for imperfections in the legislation, and for the removal of hardships in carrying it out. It was the President of the Local Government Board, and it was useless for him to mislead himself or the House by the assertion that the Irish Members, or any portion of them, connived at the changes made in the Bill by the English and Scotch Members. The law was as bad as it ever was. Horrible and heartrending cases of hardship occurred, and no one could have any sympathy with, such an iniquity, for it was nothing else. Children came over—very little children—their parents died; they grew up, and worked for many years; their services were of the greatest benefit to the community; they were hewers of wood and drawers of water; they made their railways and built their cities; and then, when they were worn with age or infirmity, they gave them a third-class ticket and sent them home again, giving them a kick at the same time, and saying to them—"Get back to your dirty country, and die there." That was practically what they said. It was a scandal which he wondered should have continued as long as it had; but he held the President of the Local Government Board responsible for it, and as he could not take any other step to mark his sense of this injustice, he should now move to reduce the Vote by the amount of his salary—by £2,000.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £2,000, for the Salary of the President of the Local Government Board, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Parnell.)

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, that while he endorsed every word that had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member for Meath, with respect to the iniquity of the present law, he rose to remove from the mind of the right hon. Gentleman that he meant to show him any discourtesy. He frankly acknowledged that he did not see the right hon. Gentleman in the House; and not being there, as he conceived, he could only deal with the question as it rose at the time. He was glad they had the right hon. Gentleman with them to discuss that important subject as it should be discussed. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman had given his practical explanation of the causes that had operated to preserve this odious law in its present form; but probably he might be able to say, for the satisfaction of the Irish Members of the Committee, whether there was any chance of initiating a Bill that would lead to more satisfactory results. The hon. Member for Meath had given some fair reasons for fixing the responsibility on his shoulders. He did not himself say he was responsible; but there was no doubt that Irish Members were under a distinct moral obligation to denounce this system, and to express censure on those whom they conceived to be responsible for it. The grievance was a great one, and it fell on a class of Irish people not represented in that House. They spoke on the subject for the very reason, and with the most perfect disinterestedness. He did trust the right hon. Gentleman would make some statement that would satisfy the just and reasonable expectations of the Irish Members on that question.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

explained that he had only spoken briefly just now, as he did not consider it necessary to enter into the subject of removal on that Vote; but the responsibility for the law as it stood could not be said to rest with him, but with Parliament, as he had not had the sole charge of the question. He must correct the hon. Member who spoke last but one, when he assumed that the measure to which he alluded was passed at 1 o'clock in the morning, and that the arrangement then come to was effected by means of pressure from outside the House. The real fact was that the measure came on at a Morning Sitting, and the particular proposal he made, and which he thought was a fair and reasonable proposal, to annul the grievance to which the Irish Members drew attention, was a proposal which attracted a great deal of interest in the House, and was the subject of discussion for several hours. The Irish Members objected to a provision which had reference to Ireland only. He would not go into the matter now; but the effect of the representations then made to him was to change that provision from one having a special application with regard to one part of the Kingdom to a provision of an entirely different character, applying generally to removals from one part of the Kingdom to another. The Amendment was a reasonable one, and it worked extremely well; but it was not what he had intended. The hon. Member for Cork had taken great interest in the subject, and he might observe that that hon. Member had given Notice that he meant to call attention to it during the present Session; and he would further submit that it was not usual or expedient, on a Vote to provide for the expenses of a public Department, to raise questions of administration which the Government was not competent to vary, and which the Com- mittee could not enter into with advantage. He only referred to what he proposed at the time to show that he had been anxious to prevent cases of hardship arising under removal. They did not occur, however, so often as was supposed; and when they did occur, whatever could be done to mitigate them was done. It was impossible, however, by means of general enactments, to modify the law of removal, without introducing difficulties and injustice on the other side, which could not be obviated. He could assure hon. Members that he had every desire that these removals should be as few as possible; and, as far as he could, he had endeavoured to accomplish that object in the way best calculated to mitigate the evil. The law was, however, a weapon in the hands of local authorities to guard against abuse, and in that way afforded a great security to the public. He should be very glad, some of these days, to endeavour to make further improvement in the matter when it was before them.

MR. PARNELL

observed, that his attention had been most attracted by the right hon. Gentleman saying that the Irish Members had agreed to, or connived at, a perversion of the Bill introduced some three years ago, and more especially a clause he introduced with a view to prevent the hardships of the removal of Irish paupers. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the hon. Member for Cork County agreed to an alteration of the clause he introduced originally, and that the effect of that alteration, urged on him by the English and Scotch Members, was to render nugatory the intentions he had formed with regard to the removal of Irish paupers. He was sorry the hon. Member for Cork was not in his place, as he thought he would at once repudiate the statement that he had in any way sanctioned the alteration of the clause in question in the direction he had said. That was, in fact, evident from the Motion which stood in his name on the Paper. The right hon. Gentleman had shown, however, that he was actuated by a great desire to improve the condition of affairs; and as the Motion of the hon. Member for Cork County was to come before them shortly, when they would have an opportunity of hearing the views of the President of the Local Government Board at greater length with respect to this question, he did not desire any further to forestall the discussion that must take place on that occasion, and he should ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

next called attention to a foot-note at page 110 of the Estimates, to the effect that the Poor Law Auditors derived additional remuneration from the local rates for auditing the accounts of school boards and other local authorities. The hon. Member said, he did not object to those officers doing that work in their own time; but he thought it was another thing for the House to recognize, that those officers were doing that work. They were travelling over the country, and he did not think there could be any adequate supervision of their work. He could not but think that their doing this other work must be some hindrance to the proper control which the Department should exercise over the Inspectors. He wished to draw the attention of the Committee to the undesirability of recognizing the fact that these public officials were doing private work in their own time; because he did not see where it was to stop. This doing private work, in addition to their official duties, and the House recognizing that they did so, must, as it seemed to him, be some hindrance to discipline.

MR. WHEELHOUSE

said, that as he understood this particular arrangement, it was made some years ago at the request of the House itself; and he thought that, if they would only consider the great advantage which would arise out of it, and had undoubtedly arisen out of it, they would see no reason to find fault with the way in which those accounts were presented to them. He must not be told that the time of these officials was fully occupied by their auditing of the Poor Law accounts; and he could say, from his own experience, in West Yorkshire, in Lancashire, and in Cheshire, where the time of the Poor Law officials was as fully occupied as it was anywhere, they still had time at their disposal for other work. And, if there was one class of men more fitted for this work than another, it was that class who for years had been engaged in auditing the Poor Law accounts. The same kind of calculations necessarily occurred in each district; and when they found that Parliament, in its wisdom, made this arrangement, that the Government acceded to it, that it was an arrangement that was wished for, and that those who did the work were those best fitted for it, he really did not see what more was to be desired.

MR. MELLOR

thought that, looking at the growing expenses of the Audit Deartment ever since these gentlemen were engaged in auditing the accounts of Poor Law Unions and other local bodies, no consideration should be paid them for auditing the accounts of school boards, or in computing their pensions on retirement.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

explained that the salaries paid to the Poor Law auditors were according to their duties. The arrangement had been found convenient; but he agreed that it was very desirable—and he hoped in another Session to be able to accomplish it—to place the system of audit on a more satisfactory basis. It was not satisfactory that officers of the Government should supplement their salaries by means of fees.

MR. BRISTOWE

said, he observed that £1,170 was allowed for clerks to assist the auditors. In his opinion, it was much better that the responsibility should rest with the auditors. A large sum was paid for clerical assistance, and that assistance was not responsible. If the money were applied in getting an increased number of auditors, they would have, also, responsible officers for the money. There might be some technical reasons with which he was not acquainted for the plan at present adopted; but, otherwise, he thought it better that the Government should obtain a larger number of responsible officers.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

reminded the hon. Member that £1,170 was not a large sum to pay for those clerks, and many of the auditors did not require them.

MR. WHITWELL

said, he desired to ask three Questions of the right hon. Gentleman. The first had reference to experimental investigations in Medical Science—£3,000 was voted for that purpose last year—and he wished to ask whether the Report of the gentlemen who spent the money would be laid before Parliament? His second Ques- tion was this—great attention was now given to vaccination. It seemed that £3,000 was voted for it last year, and £3,000 more was to be voted under the Vote now before the Committee, for lymph, ivory points, &c. He wished to ask whether care was taken to obtain the lymph from the best sources, whether from England or from abroad, and whether the Government had any difficulty in procuring it? He thought it would be satisfactory to the country to be informed on those points. His third Question was of a very different character, having reference to the Inspectors of Roads in South Wales, for which they were still paying £300 a-year. He hoped the people of South Wales were now able to inspect their own roads, and he thought they could do so very well; and, as Rebecca had been long ago forgotten, he thought they should have the pleasure and gratification of inspecting them.

MR. BIGGAR

thoroughly agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sclater-Booth), that it was of the utmost importance that school boards and local boards generally should have their accounts checked by the best auditors; and he would be disposed to agree that those who performed the duty in connection with the Poor Law were the best men available for the purpose. At the same time, the point raised in connection with the present Vote was this—that the gentlemen who now occupied the position of auditors for the Poor Law Board, who travelled from place to place in that capacity, and who were in receipt of a fixed salary, also received payments from local authorities for services performed during the time they ought to be working for that Board. [Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH: No.] He begged the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; but he maintained that he had been speaking correctly. In the case of those who were employed in the Government Offices, the Public Service did not suffer if they were engaged in other work after official hours; but the case of the Poor Law auditors was entirely different. Those gentlemen had no specified time during which they were bound to work, and all that they really did was to see that certain things were done strictly in accordance with law. But if a Poor Law auditor were occupying his time in connection, for instance, with the school boards of the Corporation of Birmingham, it was obvious that he could not at the same time be engaged upon that for which he received a salary from Government. If the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) had not moved to reduce the Vote, he hoped he would do so; and, if he did so, he would follow him into the same Lobby. There could be no more immoral principle than for officials who received fixed salaries—and not only fixed salaries, but liberal salaries—to occupy a great part of their time with other duties for which they were paid in fees.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman whether the Poor Law auditors were Civil servants or outside professional gentlemen, who undertook to audit a certain number of Poor Law accounts for a certain sum annually.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

said, the Poor Law auditors were Civil servants, who were required to devote their time, as far as was necessary, to the Public Service. The practice was that each auditor had a district assigned to him, and went on circuit twice a year—at Michaelmas and Lady Day—when the accounts were made up. The time required for the discharge of an auditor's duty under the Poor Law would, as a rule, be from four to five months. Parliament itself had imposed on the auditors certain further obligations; and, in virtue of these obligations, the officers referred to also audited the school board and local board accounts in the districts to which they belonged. No salary had been fixed in the latter case; and for the present the auditors were allowed to accept fees, which, of course, could not be paid into the Exchequer unless corresponding sums were allowed in the shape of salaries. He hoped that by-and-bye the whole of the remuneration would be paid by way of salary; and no persons would be better pleased with that than the auditors themselves; because they experienced at present, in many cases, great difficulty in recovering fees from school boards. With regard to the supply of lymph for the purposes of vaccination, it was essential to satisfy the public mind that the lymph furnished to the vaccinators was of the best possible quality; and he had to state that the whole of the public vaccinators came to the Local Government Board for the lymph which they needed for the purpose of the primary vaccination which the law required, but not for re-vaccination, or for the vaccination of the general public. The whole of the lymph sent out from the Office for the purpose of primary vaccination was subjected to a most minute microscopical examination; and, wherever the slightest impurity was discovered, the matter was at once rejected. Complaints had sometimes been made by private practitioners that there was a difficulty in obtaining supplies of lymph; but it ought to be recollected that it was not the duty of the Establishment to furnish lymph for all classes of the community. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Whitwell) had referred to experimental investigations in Medical Science, for which £2,000 had been voted last year, and had asked whether the Report made by the gentlemen who expended that money was to be laid before Parliament? There would, in due course, be presented to the House a Report of the transactions which had taken place, under that Vote.

MR. GRAY

complained, that while a sum of £13,000 was expended for Medical Inspectors in England, no such sum was expended in Ireland. In England, if any infectious disease broke out, one of those gentlemen was immediately sent down to make inquiry on the subject. The result was made public, and general attention was at once directed to the matter; but in Ireland there was no such Department of Medical Inquiry. The result was that sanitary matters were very much worse in Ireland than they were in England.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

said, he had accidentally omitted to answer the third Question which had been put to him by the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell). He referred to the inspection and management of the roads in South Wales. He believed that the existing system in South Wales answered very well; and he should only propose a repeal of the existing Act when a better Road Measure could be proposed for the country generally.

MR. DODSON

asked, whether, in the event of the existing South Wales Act being repealed, the Inspector appointed under it would be entitled to compensation for the loss of his office?

MR. MACDONALD

said, there were two items of the accounts on which he should like an explanation. In the one case there had been an addition of £4,000, and in the other an addition of £5,000. No one was more desirous than he was that energetic sanitary efforts should be made to preserve the health of the people; but he thought the Committee was entitled to know whether the increase which had taken place in the expenditure was an increase in the salaries of those who were last year acting as Inspectors, or whether it was owing to the number of the officers having been increased? He also thought that some explanation ought to be given as to the large amount of travelling expenses which appeared in the Estimates.

MR. BRISTOWE

said, he observed that in the Engineers' Department there had been an Assistant Inspector appointed at a salary of £400 a-year. He should like to know why this additional expense had been incurred under that head?

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he should like to be informed as to what were the duties of the junior Legal Assistants. He thought that the salaries paid to those gentlemen were rather too high for persons who were not barristers.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH,

replying to the Questions which had just been addressed to him, said, that with regard to the point as to whether there would be any claim for compensation if the office of Inspector under the South Wales Act were abolished, he did not think there could be any such claim; but, if there were, it must be a small one. As to the salaries of the Medical Officers of Health, and the question of travelling expenses, it was quite obvious that these salaries and expenses must vary from time to time. Last year an Estimate had been taken for the former service, which had been found to be rather short. The whole of the travelling expenses were most carefully watched, and a separate account was rendered by every Inspecter on his return from his different journeys. An effort had been made to commute these travelling expenses for a fixed amount; but this had never been found to work satisfactorily. The expenses, no doubt, amounted to a large sum; but what would be the use of an Inspector, if he was not to be travelling in discharge of the duties which were assigned to him? As to the Question of the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Bristowe), the appointment of an Assistant Inspector to Mr. Rawlinson had been found to be absolutely necessary on the Rivers Pollution Act coming into operation; and, with regard to the junior Legal Assistants, the appointment of these gentlemen had been made by the late Government, and was found to be necessary in consequence of the enormous mass of legal business which had to be dealt with. So far from the legal strength of the Local Government Office being in excess of what was required, he sometimes thought that further strength was needed. Hon. Gentlemen who were acquainted with the administration of that Office must be aware of what an immense mass of legal subject-matter there was to be disposed of, and how important it was that accurate information should be at the disposal not only of the Office itself, but of the numberless persons who came from various quarters seeking advice and assistance. He believed that there were no salaries better earned, or smaller in proportion to the services rendered, than the salaries of the Legal Assistants.

MR. H. SAMUELSON

said, the total amount for travelling expenses in connection with the Department was £16,344. That was a very large sum, and a great deal of travelling must have been done with it.

MR. RAMSAY,

with reference to an item of £35,000 for the salaries of teachers in workhouse schools, said, he thought there should be a corresponding grant in favour of the education of the poor in Scotland, where there was much difficulty in providing for the education of the children of parents who might not be thought by the Parochial Board so poor as to render it necessary that the education of their children should be paid for from the rates. He hoped that when the Education (Scotland) Bill was before the House, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be prepared to insert a provision making a corresponding grant in aid of education in Scotland. The Boards of Guardians in Scotland were in the habit of refusing to pay the children's fees from the rates, although the law said they might do so. If £7,000 or £8,000 were distributed for that purpose in Scotland, it would be most beneficial; and, so long as money was so given in all other parts of the United Kingdom, he thought Scotland was entitled to claim the same consideration from the House. It would be a step in the right direction. He agreed with a remark which had been made—that, instead of providing for the perpetuation of workhouse schools, it would be better to educate the children in the schools most convenient for them, the Guardians, of course, retaining their guardianship over the children. He felt sure that if this amount of assistance were given to education in Scotland from Imperial Funds, the State would, in the long run, be the gainer.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

pointed out to the hon. Member who had last spoken, that the only amount granted, or proposed to be granted, under the Vote now being considered, was to apply to children in workhouse schools, who were necessarily inmates of the workhouses, and who had to be maintained, as well as educated, out of the rates and under the management of the Poor Law Guardians. It had been found convenient to have a certain number of Inspectors appointed in view of this state of things.

MR. RAMSAY

thought there could be no mistake on the point. In the Estimate a certain sum was set apart for the payment of Poor Law School Teachers, and there was no corresponding grant for Scotland; which was the very thing of which he complained on behalf of the Scottish poor. In Scotland, the Poor Law Guardians refused to make any grants in aid of the children of the poor, unless the parents were so poor as to be virtually paupers. In England, grants in aid were made from the Imperial Funds. All he asked was that Scotland might receive grants similar to those given to England and Ireland. The amount asked for was small; but, if granted, it would remove a sense of wrong which was strongly felt.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

wished to say a few words in reference to workhouse schools, the education given in which could not be compared with that given in other elementary schools set apart for the children of the poor. He had, on former occasions, called the attention of his right hon. Friend to this point; because he thought it monstrous that if the State educated the children of the poorer classes, an infe- rior education should be given to those who had the misfortune to be the occupants of workhouse schools. In most of the workhouse schools the class of education given was inferior, owing mainly to the inferiority of the teachers, to that afforded in public elementary schools; and, in other respects, with which he would not then detain the Committee, the system pursued was far inferior. He commended this matter to the further consideration of his right hon. Friend, who, he believed, had already some intention of dealing with it, if they might judge from a provision which he had inserted in the County Boards Bill with reference to schools in workhouses. It would be well, in the case of workhouses where the number of children was small, to educate them in schools outside the workhouses, so as during a short, but highly important, part of their lives, to remove them from direct contact with workhouse life and its influences. Pauper children were necessarily poor helpless creatures, and those who had charge of them were bound to see that the best possible course should be taken to arm them for the battle of life when they left the workhouses. At present, he feared it was too much the custom of the Guardians to get the education of pauper, children seen to at the lowest possible rate, with results which no one of right feeling could possibly approve.

MR. SCLATER-BOOTH

said, he understood that in Scotland no obligation was laid on the workhouse or parochial authorities to provide schools for the children; and it was in face of that fact that the grants were made in England and Ireland where demands of the kind were made. With regard to what had fallen from his hon. and gallant Friend behind him (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), he was bound to admit that in many workhouses the education of the children was, of necessity, inferior to that given in the public elementary schools; but he could not admit that the observation or the admission were of universal application. On the contrary, it was not unfrequently complained that children in workhouse schools were over educated as compared with those in the public elementary schools. In those workhouses where the number of children was small, it was difficult, almost to impossibility, to keep up a thoroughly efficient school system; and, in those cases, there was a growing disposition on the part of the Poor Law Guardians to send the children to the parish schools, though it must be remembered that the Guardians were not only responsible for the education of the children, but also for the care and maintenance of them out of school hours. This made the subject one not very easy to be dealt with; but, at the same time, he was free to admit the importance of encouraging the creation of district schools, and it was with regard to that fact that he introduced into the County Boards Bill a clause to enable the county authorities to provide such schools for workhouse children.

MR. RAMSAY

said, there was no obligation in Scotland upon the parish authorities to provide schools within the workhouses for the education of the children; but they had to educate such children as came under their care, and this they did by sending them to the common public schools. He quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), that this was a plan preferable to that of educating the children within the walls of the workhouses, in that it could not fail to exercise an elevating effect upon them. The fact that this step was in contemplation was an argument in favour of his contention that Scotland was as well entitled to receive grants in aid of the education of pauper children as either England or Ireland. He hoped the Government would insist upon the parochial authorities seeing carefully to the education of the children.

MR. MACDONALD

thought the confession contained in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board was the most satisfactory, and, at the same time, the most painful, explanation that could have been offered of a state of things which everyone must deplore. He knew, from personal inquiry and observations, that certain occupations were at the present moment being flooded with children from workhouse schools who were almost useless, from the poor education they had received, as compared with children who had passed through the public elementary schools. He sincerely hoped the right hon. Gentleman would proceed in the direction he had indicated, and raise the standard of the education given to children who had the misfortune to belong to the pauper class.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, he should be glad to know the ages at which boys and girls in workhouses were taken out of the schools and put to work? There were farms attached to many workhouses, and it often happened that the boys were sent out to work in the fields at a very tender age. The results mentioned by the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) and the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald) might arise from the fact that the children in workhouses were not allowed to be at school for so long a time as the children in public elementary schools, and were not due to the inferiority of the education given.

MR. PARNELL

wished, before the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury replied, to say a word or two on the question of vaccination—a question with regard to which it appeared to him that neither the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board nor the Medical Profession had, as yet, realized their position. He had often thought that much of the agitation got up against vaccination was due to the neglect, on the part of the Government authorities and the Medical Profession, to procure pure lymph for use in vaccination; and he was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had given no indication that he had as yet come to view the question in its proper light. Last Session the right hon. Gentleman said he was directing his attention to the question of vaccinating with lymph taken direct from the calf; but, on the present occasion, he had said no single word as to the progress he had made in his examination of the subject. He had told the Committee something about microscopical examinations of lymph, having probably, although he did not say so, given up the question of the calf as unsatisfactory; but he feared that any microscopical examination would be equally useless with the inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman set himself to make a few years ago, and the result of his investigations generally into the question of vaccination. He (Mr. Parnell) knew but little on the sub- ject; but he believed that small-pox was propagated from the human subject, and that neither microscopical examination nor chemical analysis could prove clearly whether lymph contained, or did not contain, any of the germs of disease which anti-vaccinators ascribed to it. The only way of getting a pure lymph, was by seeing that its original source had not been contaminated in any way during the progress of the lymph through its various stages and changes, and through the bodies of the persons upon whom it had been used. He did not know whether this could be done; but, if it could not, vaccination, to his mind, stood condemned, notwithstanding the number of benefits that might be said to have been derived from it.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he had no doubt that, under the present system of compulsory vaccination, an immense amount of disease might be propagated by means of lymph that was apparently pure. Only a few weeks ago, the Allgermeine Zeitung, a newspaper published in Augsburg, published an account of a very remarkable case, which was tried in the Law Courts, as a result of the use of diseased lymph. The facts were, that about a year and a-half ago, some 18 school children were vaccinated by a public vaccinator in the ordinary manner, with lymph taken from an apparently healthy child. The result was, that every one of the children was attacked by a most deplorable disease, and were left in most wretched case. Various attempts were made to have the matter thoroughly investigated, but without success, and the parents at length brought an action against the public vaccinator. The trial took place, and resulted in an acquittal, on the ground that the lymph might be diseased without the public vaccinator being able to detect the fact. He, therefore, hoped the Government would pay more attention to this question than they appeared to have given up to the present; and, if possible, to see that only lymph taken direct from the cow or the calf should be used.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;

Committee to sit again To-morrow.