SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS.

HC Deb 24 May 1886 vol 305 cc1842-971

SUPPLY—considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a further sum, not exceeding £2,266,400, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charge for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1887, viz:—

CIVIL SERVICES.
CLASS I.—PUBLIC WORKS AND BUILDINGS.
Great Britain:—	£
New Admiralty and War Office	—
Dover Harbour	—
Ireland:—
Royal University Buildings	2,000
Science and Art Buildings, Dublin	2,000

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR (Kincardine)

said, there was an item in blank in Class I. for Dover Harbour. He wished to have an explanation. He believed that it was distinctly understood from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that no further sum in connection with Dover Harbour would be brought forward until the plans and estimates for the proposed works were submitted to the House.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

said, it was not proposed to take any further sum for Dover Harbour, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman would see that the item was left in blank.

MR. RYLANDS (Burnley)

I desire, Mr. Courtney, to ask your direction in reference to this Vote on Account. The total sum of £2,266,400 contains a very large number of items, and I want to know what course must be taken by any Member who wishes to move the reduction of the Vote in reference to one particular item only?

THE CHAIRMAN

As far as possible it would be advisable to restrict the discussion to the items in the order in which they appear upon the Paper. If an Amendment is moved in reference to one item it would be out of Order to go back to previous items.

DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)

For the convenience of the Committee, may I ask how you propose to put the Question—whether on the whole sum, or on the different items taken in the order in which they appear upon the Paper, so that an opportunity may be afforded of moving a reduction on every item? I take it that if the whole sum is put to the Committee only one Amendment can be moved.

THE CHAIRMAN

If a Motion is made to reduce the whole sum that would not include subsequent Amendments for the reduction of particular items. But if the Motion is made to omit a particular item, or to reduce it, then it will be irregular to go back to any previous item.

MR. RYLANDS (Burnley)

I wish to move the reduction of a special item—namely, Vote 28, in Class II. The amount of the item is £5,000 for Secret Service. I propose to move the omission of that item altogether, and I presume that I shall be quite in Order in doing so. I put a Question with regard to this Secret Service money the other day, having some knowledge of what goes on before the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee, and I am bound to say that although my hon. Friend gave me information which was no doubt correct, at the same time it was not complete, and it left hon. Members without full information as to the exact circumstances in which we are placed in regard to Secret Service money. My hon. Friend did not tell the House that any sum had been surrendered out of the £10,000 charged on the Consolidated Fund. The Vote we are now asked to pass is for Secret Services of a similar nature to those provided for out of the Consolidated Fund. Under the present arrangement it is quite possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury to receive £10,000 a-year for five years for Secret Service, and allow the money to accumulate until it amounts to £50,000. Hon. Members have aright to know that Secret Service money is not prostituted for purposes which would be repugnant to the feeling of the House of Commons. We know that in other years Secret Service money has been applied to purposes which the House of Commons would condemn at the present time, and it has been pointed out that this money has been made use of for purposes to which a large portion of the people would object. What I desire to call the attention of the Committee to is the fact that the House of Commons has no guarantee whatever that the employment of Secret Service money is restricted to such objects as, to use the words of the Treasury Minute, are justified under the conditions on which Secret Service exists. The Comptroller and Auditor General is an officer appointed not by the Government, but by Parliament under an Act of Parliament, and the object of his appointment is to secure that the money we vote in Committee of Supply shall be carefully and strictly appropriated to the purposes for which the House of Commons votes it. We are here as the trustees of the public taxpayer. We are asked to vote a sum of money for a certain purpose, and with regard to every other purpose except the Vote for Secret Service, the House of Commons has in its hands the power of checking any maladministration in the expenditure of the country by any Member of Her Majesty's Government. But, with regard to Secret Service, the House of Commons has no such control. The Government are practically omnipotent, and they can devote £10,000 or £50,000 to purposes about which we know nothing, and some of them may exercise a corrupt influence in controlling public opinion. I know what has always been said in reply to any opposition that has been raised to this Vote. Secret Service money has been voted for many years, and every objection has been met by an answer which I presume I shall receive from my hon. Friend to-day—that it is an official matter, and that being for Secret Service, the House of Commons has no right to inquire about it. All we have a right to ask is whether the money has been expended. Some years ago I was able to ascertain, by dint of persistent inquiry and examination, that out of Secret Service money unknown to Parliament, very considerable sums were paid as salaries to certain public officials, which salaries ought to have been paid from the Estimates. I put Question after Question to the Government, and received evasive answers, until at last I succeeded in getting such information that the Government were compelled to avow they had used Secret Service money for purposes entirely contrary to the understanding with which it was voted. I have referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General. He is a perfectly confidential officer of this House, and what we have a right to insist upon is this—that there shall be such evidence given to the Comptroller and Auditor General as will enable him to report to the House that the expenditure in Secret Service is of a character that is justified by the conditions under which Secret Service is voted. The Government and the Treasury refuse to do that. They say—"We will give the Comptroller and Auditor General no such information as will enable him to satisfy the House of Commons as to the bona fides of this expenditure." It is no answer to my contention to say that Secret Service money is for Secret Services, and that the way in which it is expended is only to be within the knowledge of the Minister in charge of it, because we do not desire to make the purposes for which Secret Service money is expended public; but we say that we have a public official—a perfectly confidential officer—by whom information given by the different Departments of the State would be treated with the greatest possible confidence. All we ask is, that by means of this confidential official of the House of Commons, we should have a certificate before we vote the money, not only that it has been properly applied, but that any portion of it which has not been expended has been surrendered to the Exchequer. That course is taken in regard to every other sum of money voted by the House of Commons, and the Comptroller and Auditor General believes that he is bound by law to give such a certificate. In his opinion, the Act of Parliament gives him this authority by which Parliament reserves to itself the important duty of checking through its own official the proper appropriation of money expended out of the taxes of the country. The Comptroller and Auditor General, representing this House, says that he is bound and entitled, under the terms of the Act of Parliament, to have submitted to him such vouchers in regard to this Secret Service money as will satisfy him, and he asks that the information should be given to him, confidentially, of course. He makes that request as the mouthpiece of the House of Commons; but my Lords of the Treasury object. "My Lords." Who are my Lords that they should refuse the demands of the House of Commons? Surely we have a right to ascertain through our own officials whether the money we vote is properly applied or not. We suspect that it is not properly applied. We challenge the Government, and say that we believe the Secret Service money is not applied at all times, and under all circumstances, to the objects to which alone it can be legally applied. The present state of things is altogether unsatisfactory. Therefore, I challenge this £5,000, and I trust the Committee will join me in voting for the rejection of the Vote. There are other Members of the House who, like myself, are Members of the Public Accounts Committee, and they well know that I have only expressed in this matter the feeling of that Committee. I beg to move that the item of £5,000 for Secret Service be omitted from the Vote.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £5,000, for Secret Service, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Rylands.)

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT) (Derby)

I do not rise to speak upon this question in virtue of the Office I now hold, because, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I have no knowledge whatever of the way in which the Secret Service money is disposed of. Neither do I speak at all in reference to the £10,000 charged upon the Consolidated Fund, which is a separate head of Secret Service altogether, and stands under Mr. Burke's Act of 1782. By that great Act, as it has been described, of economical reform, that sum is thrown upon the Consolidated Fund, and is on a totally different footing. In neither of the Offices which I have held have I known anything of the disposal of that money; but having previously held the Office of Secretary to the Home Department, I have some knowledge of the disposal of the Secret Service money, which is the matter now under consideration. All I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) is this—There are only two courses really open to Members—they must either do away with Secret Service money altogether, or vote it as it has hitherto been voted. To vote Secret Service money, and then to declare that you must be told how it is spent, is simply an absurdity, whether the information is to be supplied to the Committee on Public Accounts, or to any other body. I must say in respect of the Office I previously held, that I have refused to give any authority whatever to make any statement with reference to the disposal of this money. It was voted by Parliament as Secret Service money; it was voted to be spent by the Secretary of State on his Parliamentary responsibility, and if the House of Commons does not trust the Secretary of State as to the disposal of the money, the best course is not to vote it. It would be absurd to vote it on conditions which would make its application useless and impossible. That is really the situation. The proper course for my hon. Friend to take is to declare that the House will not in future vote Secret Service money. That is a logical course to take. All I can tell the House is that I do not think it would be wise or a safe course; if, however, I were to attempt to give any reason for that opinion, I should be violating the rule which I have laid down. All that I can say is that during the time I had the responsibility of the Home Office, I considered it absolutely essential that there should be placed at the disposal of the Secretary of State a sum—not a large sum—of Secret Service money for the purposes stated in the Act of 1782, and I have no hesitation in making a conscientious declaration that I spent that money for the public safety. Not only was that so, but it was my duty to come to the House and ask for a much larger sum of money than had been voted in previous years. In my opinion there were reasons why a larger sum of money should be voted, and the House cheerfully granted it without the slightest opposition. I believe this year that the same sum of money is asked for which was asked for two or three years ago. That is all I think I can safely or properly say to the Committee upon the subject. You must, in my opinion, in this country, place at the disposal of your responsible Ministers sums of money of this description, and you must leave to them the absolute and unquestioned responsibility of dealing with that money. You must not attempt to treat it like any other expenditure which is subjected to statements showing the exact way in which it is disposed of. If you were to adopt that course in regard to Secret Service money, you would entirely defeat the object for which it is to be employed. There is one point in reference to this matter upon which I should like to say a word. I know that great objection is raised, and properly raised, to a practice which prevailed in former times of using Secret Service money in aid of and for the increase of ordinary salaries. I think that is a course which is entirely wrong, and ought not to be pursued. On the other hand, it is impossible to lay down a rule that Secret Service money shall not be employed or paid into the hands of persons who receive salaries for employment under the Crown. Anybody will see at once that agents of the Crown abroad, and even in this country, are proper persons to have Secret Service money in their hands for the objects for which Secret Service money is employed. I ask my hon. Friend to consider that there are only two courses open to Members—either to do away with Secret Service money altogether, or to vote it as it has hitherto been voted.

MR. RYLANDS

All I ask is that it should be submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General, who is a confidential officer of this House.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

My contention is that the Secretary of State must tell no one how the money is employed, and if the Home Secretary refuses to go before the Committee of Public Accounts, and prove to them that the money has been properly employed, how could you ask him to take a subordinate into his confidence? Certainly if such a condition were imposed, if ever I were Secretary of State again, I should decline to have anything to do with Secret Service money. I would not accept the heavy responsibility which is placed upon the Minister if it were subjected to conditions of that kind. The very essence of the employment of Secret Service money is that it shall be applied on the sole unquestioned and undivided responsibility of the Secretary of State. If the House will not grant it at all on those conditions, it is open to hon. Members to refuse to do so; but to ask the Secretary of State to go to the Comptroller and Auditor General upon some grave matter of public danger, and to say—"Do you think the Secret Service money would be properly applied?"—if such a course were taken the purpose for which Secret Service money has hitherto been granted would be altogether defeated. The Secretary of State employs Secret Service money for the safety of the State; and in what a position would he be placed by having it disallowed by the Comptroller and Auditor General? Do you suppose that any Secretary of State would consent to act on such a principle of responsibility in this matter? On this question I am not raising at all the question which has been raised by my hon. Friend behind me the Member for the Tyneside Division of Northumberland (Mr. A. Grey) as to the sum of £10,000 charged for Secret Services upon the Consolidated Fund. I never heard, and know nothing whatever of, the disposal of that money. So far as I know, the Secret Service money has never been used for political purposes. I say that with the greatest confidence, and I am certain that there is no Secretary of State who ever held the Office who will not say the same thing in reference to the employment of Secret Service money. [Sir R. ASSHETON CROSS: Hear, hear!] What I am speaking of is the sum over which the Secretary of State has had absolute control, and which has been placed at his disposal by Parliament for Secret Service. I have told the House frankly and clearly how the matter stands, as far as I know anything in reference to it, and the advice I would give to the Committee is either to refuse this Vote of Secret Service money which goes to the Secretary of State, or grant it in the usual manner. To subject it to conditions such as those which have been laid down by my hon. Friend would render a Vote of this kind totally useless.

MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

The moral indignation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is merely an attempt to draw a red herring across the scent. The point is an exceedingly simple one—£10,000 are taken from the Consolidated Fund every year for Secret Service money. It is assumed that when that money is taken that it is spent for the service of the country, and not for the service of Party. I presume that the only reason why more is asked for is that £10,000 is supposed to be not sufficient for the Secret Service of the country. What we want to have is a clear answer to the question which was put to the Government by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Tyneside Division of Northumberland (Mr. A. Grey)—namely, how is the sum of £10,000 spent? We want to be assured that the money is properly spent. It ought not to be necessary to call upon the House for more. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) will be able to explain. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer when this sum was last appropriated, and will probably be able to explain what took place when he filled that Office. The allegation is that £2,500 each quarter is given into the hands of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury; that it may be the Patronage Secretary expends this sum per quarter in electioneering or other such purposes during that quarter; that if he does not he passes the surplus into what is generally called the Party Fund, and then he has had a right to say that it has been expended during the quarter. Now, we want to know whether such is or is not the fact? [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT dissented.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer shakes his head.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that this is a sum paid every year out of the Consolidated Fund, and that it does not come under the discussion of this Vote at all.

MR. LABOUCHERE

NO, Mr. Courtney, I did not think it did; but I am protesting against the payment of this £5,000, because I am pointing out that the money from the Consolidated Fund would be sufficient if it were properly spent. That really is the practical point. I think it will be admitted that when £10,000 are given out of the Consolidated Fund, and we are then asked to vote £5,000 in addition, we have a right to consider whether the sum of £10,000 per annum is sufficient. What we say is that the Secret Service money might be reduced by the sum granted out of the Consolidated Fund. Money voted for Secret Service ought not to be expended for Party purposes. We know that it has been done for years, and we are not making charges against the present Ministry which are not equally applicable to previous Ministries. But in a Reformed Parliament like this it is peculiarly fitting that the question should be raised in order that the objectionable practice complained of should be stopped. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not prepared to make a clean breast of it, I would appeal to the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) to say whether what I assert is not absolutely correct?

MR. ALBERT GREY (Northumberland, Tyneside)

I hope the Committee will not allow the question to be settled without going to a division. The right hon. Gentleman described Mr. Burke's celebrated Act of 1782 as a great work of economical reform. Why was that Act a great work of economical reform? It was for this reason—that whereas between 1700 and 1782 large sums were annually intrusted to the Government of the day for Secret Service, no account wag ever given of the way in which those moneys were spent. So great did the abuse become that in 1782 Parliament, being jealous as to the way in which a sum of £2,000,000, of which no account had been given, had been spent, passed the Civil List Act, which required that vouchers should be produced showing the way in which the moneys of all the Services had been spent. On the accession of Her Majesty to the Throne all the moneys granted for the Secret Service were transferred from the Civil List to Votes of this House, with the exception of £10,000, which was left as a permanent charge on the Consolidated Fund. We want to know the reason why an exception was made in favour of this £10,000? No one has yet been able to discover anything about the reason why the application of this sum of £10,000 should be kept concealed from the House of Commons, and why the attention of Members is not to be turned to investigations as to how and for what purposes the money is employed. I did not quite understand, from the Treasury Minute which my hon. Friend read to the Committee at Question time, what are exactly the declarations made when the Head of a Department uses Secret Service money. In regard to all of the money granted by Votes of this House, and received by every Minister, and which may be properly termed Secret Service money, he has to make some declaration to the Comptroller and Auditor General that he has used such and such a sum for such and such a purpose. The Comptroller and Auditor General has also a right to call for vouchers, and if there is a balance at the end of the year, that balance is restored to the Exchequer. With regard to the sum of £10,000 taken from the Consolidated Fund, none of these conditions are ever fulfilled. Although £10,000 is taken annually and paid over to the Patronage Secretary, not a single 1s. has ever been surrendered. It is a very striking thing, that although the other Departments of the State—the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and the Irish Office—have to surrender their respective balances at the end of the year if they have not used the whole of the money, yet the Political Secretary has never been known since the accession of the Queen to surrender a single 1s., but has been known to pocket year after year £10,000 of the public funds. In this way over £450,000 has been spent by successive Political Secretaries without a word of account being given to the Comptroller and Auditor General, as in the case of the other branches of the Public Service. We maintain that it is essential that the same rules which secure other grants of Secret Service money being employed in the legitimate service of the State should also be observed in the disposal of this sum of £10,000.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

That is the effect of the Treasury Minute.

MR. ALBERT GREY

I did not quite understand that that was so, and I shall be glad if my right hon. Friend will give some further explanation and assurance to the Committee.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

If my hon. Friend asks me what the effect of the Treasury Minute is, I have only to say that it amounts to this—that whatever rules are applied to the voting of Secret Service shall in future be applied to the granting of this sum of £10,000 from the Consolidated Fund. That is the spirit of the Minute agreed to by the late Government.

MR. ALBERT GREY

I am glad that the Question I put on the Notice Paper has been instrumental in bringing about that alteration.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

No, it has not; it was made months ago.

MR. ALBERT GREY

Then I cannot claim any credit for helping to spur on the energy of the right hon. Gentleman. We now know that it was a spontaneous act on his part.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

No; the late Government did it.

MR. ALBERT GREY

I should be glad to learn what was the old form of declaration which the Head of the Department had to make to the Comptroller and Auditor General, and what is the new form of declaration, so that we may say whether we prefer the words of the declaration which the Government propose to substitute for that which previously existed? I am sorry that I have not by me the exact words of the old declaration.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

They will be found in the Act of 1782.

MR. ALBERT GREY

I hope my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury will elucidate the point. There is a further question which I desire to put. Why is it that this Secret Service money should be divided into two classes? It appears that the greater portion of the sum of £60,000 granted this year—namely £50,000—is granted by Votes of this House, but that the remaining sum of £10,000 is drawn from the Consolidated Fund. Why should you not perfect the reform instituted in 1837, on Her Majesty's accession to the Throne, and require that every single 1d. granted for the Secret Service of the State every year should be voted directly by this House, and not be a permanent and a secret charge upon the Consolidated Fund? My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that not 1d. of this fund has ever been applied for Party or electioneering purposes.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

What I said with regard to this sum of £10,000 was that I cannot tell how it is applied, because I know nothing whatever about it.

MR. ALBERT GREY

But I think the Committee wants to know something about it, and I shall certainly support the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands). I would ask the Government how it is that my hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury is not in his place? Is he engaged on some Secret Service? I think he ought to have been informed by one of the junior Whips that this debate was going on, so that he might have been in his place to answer any question that might be put to him. I think that a very strong case has been made out for getting rid altogether of the charge upon the Consolidated Fund. No explanation has as yet been given to show that the £10,000 now charged upon the Consolidated Fund is necessary for the annual requirements of Secret Service. Therefore, let it be thrown upon the Votes of the House; and if no further explanation can be given, I shall certainly support the Motion of my hon. Friend for the rejection of the present Vote.

MR. BUCHANAN (Edinburgh, W.)

There are one or two points to which I should like to call the attention of the Committee before we go to a division. As I understand what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said just now, the Treasury Minute which has lately been issued does apply to the assimilation of the various branches of Secret Service money, so that in future any unexpended balance of the £10,000 is to be surrendered to the Treasury. As I did not catch perfectly what the right hon. Gentleman said, I should be glad to know if that is so? At present it forms one great point of distinction between the £10,000 granted out of the Consolidated Fund and the money ordinarily voted for Secret Service. The unexpected balances of the £10,000 are not paid back into the Exchequer; but the Committee upon Public Accounts, in their Report last year, recommended that those unexpended balances should be annually surrendered. We want to know whether, in the new Treasury Minute, that recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee is going to be carried out? From the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer it may be that the recommendation is not going to be carried out after all. The Committee of Public Accounts made a further recommendation—namely, that an account of the actual expenditure should be furnished to the Comptroller and Auditor General, and I gather from what fell earlier in the evening from the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) that this is provided for by the Treasury Minute, so that as far as we can find out these two recommendations are going to be carried out in regard to the Secret Service money thrown on the Consolidated Fund. Then there is another point of distinction, if I may be permitted to trouble the Committee a little longer, between the sum for Secret Service which is granted out of the Consolidated Fund and the sum voted in connection with the Estimates of the year. It is this. There is a specific instruction in the Act of 1782 in regard to the purposes for which Secret Service money is to be devoted.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

That is only as to the actual sum voted.

MR. BUCHANAN

I know that it only applies to the sum voted, and that there is no specific instruction as to the purposes for which the sums voted are to be applied. Nor are there any specific instructions to the Comptroller and Auditor General as to the purposes for which this sum of £10,000 shall be applied. It is a distinguishing feature of the money granted from the Consolidated Fund, as compared with that voted in Committee of Supply, that there are no directions existing in any public document as to the purposes to which it shall be applied. It appears to me that it would be of great advantage if there were some such instructions. There is one other point. If I understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer rightly, he disclaims in every way any connection with the Comptroller and Auditor General. He can repose no confidence in that officer as to the disposal of Secret Service money. The Comptroller and Auditor General, in the evidence which he gave to the Committee on Public Accounts this year, was asked what course he would take if the application of Secret Service money was made known to him, and he replied at once that he should feel bound by his sense of honour, and that he should consider himself as much bound as the Secretary of State, to keep the matter perfectly confidential. He was asked— The danger, then, of undermining the principle of Secret Service is therefore not so great as the right hon. Member seems to anticipate? And his reply was— The Head of the Department ought to be a trustworthy man, holding, as he does, an office invested with a larger amount of trust than any other office I know of in the Public Service. Now, it appears to me a perfectly futile objection on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that a man in the position of the Comptroller and Auditor General cannot be trusted. The right hon. Gentleman took some credit to himself, and some glory to the Government, for having largely increased the amount of Secret Service money. It is certainly a singular thing that a Liberal Government should take credit for having increased the Secret Service money, and I am perfectly certain of this—that whatever the right hon. Gentleman may think, the Prime Minister cannot agree with him, or he must very considerably have changed his mind about the employment of Secret Service money within the last 30 years. Some years ago the Prime Minister expressed a desire that this Secret Service Vote should be limited as much as possible; but the ambition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to extend it as much as possible. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman told us how much it has been extended. In 1880 the total was £15,891; in 1881–2 it was £14,000; in 1882–3, £18,000; in 1883–4, £31,000; in 1884–5 it was £31,000 again, and for the last two years it was £50,000. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Hear, hear!] As the Vote increases the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to be the more gratified. We have, therefore, at this moment this sum of money expended without any control whatever, and the money has been increased four times within the last four years. I think the Committee is entitled to make as strong a protest as it can against this constant increase of this Vote, and of the way in which these sums are disposed of without control, and without any attempt at economy having been carried out by the Government.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

I must take exception to the statement that this money is spent without control or without responsibility, and it is absurd to say that the money cannot be so spent unless it is subjected to the legitimate responsibility of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The hon. Member wishes to interpose behind the Cabinet as a sort of Court of Appeal the control of the Auditor General. The hon. Member is quite content that the House should not know, but he wishes to place this Court of Appeal behind the Cabinet. [Mr. BUCHANAN: It is so now.] There is a wide distinction between the two sums of money, although the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) endeavoured ingeniously to bring them together. The £10,000 has been upon the Consolidated Fund since 1782, and it can only be dealt with by the repeal of the Act of Parliament. I am not concerned to defend the expenditure in any shape or form. We simply find that £10,000 is spent for Secret Service, and the Treasury Minute proposes to extend to the patronage of the Secretary to the Treasury precisely the same conditions as are applied to the money placed at the disposal of the Secretary of State. He will have to certify how much has been paid to him, and how much has been spent during the year; thirdly, what the balance is which has been unspent; and, lastly, that the money expended has been spent in the manner contemplated by the Act of Parliament. I understand my hon. Friend the Member for the Tyneside Division of Northumberland (Mr. A. Grey) to say that he preferred the old form of certificate, which was to this effect—"I hereby certify that the actual sum of money spent by myself, or under my direction for Secret Service, was so much." The new form is to make it an actually binding statement on the part of the Secretary of State that he has spent the money in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Parliament, and that he has spent it for purposes for which a Vote of Parliament can be properly given. There is another point to which I should like to call the attention of the Committee. It is a mistake to suppose that the money is spent altogether without control. It is handed over either to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, for Home Affairs, for Colonial Affairs, to the First Lord of the Admiralty, or the Secretary of the Irish Government. But the Secretary of State to whom it is handed over is obliged to take an oath before one of the Judges, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a declaration that it has been applied to Secret Services in detecting, defeating, and preventing conspiracies against the State. I want to know whether, if we are to adopt the principle of having Secret Service money at all, we can have any better check than the voucher of a Cabinet Minister in a declaration made on oath before one of Her Majesty's Judges? Surely that is a better check than the opinion of the Comptroller and Auditor General, who may differ from the Secretary of State as to the mode of expenditure. If you are to have Secret Service money at all—and I will not pronounce any opinion upon that question—I do not think you can have any better system of check than those which now exist, and for which the Government take no credit whatever. So far as the recent Treasury Minute is concerned, it was drawn up by the right hon. Gentleman opposite before he left Office.

MR. BRADLAUGH (Northampton)

If the Motion for the reduction of the Vote goes to a division I shall certainly vote in favour of it, but not for any of the reasons which have been given by hon. Gentlemen who support the omission of the Vote. I shall vote for its rejection because I am opposed to Secret Service money altogether, and that is the principle on which I shall record my vote. I quite agree that when you call this money Secret Service money, by the terms of that description you preclude yourselves from any right of inquiring how it is applied. But I do not think that a great country like this ought to require the expenditure of money in regard to which it cannot take Parliament into its confidence.

SIR HENRY JAMES (Bury, Lancashire)

I differ altogether from the view of the hon. Gentleman. I am as unwilling as he is to vote for the expenditure of money in Secret Services; but I am quite aware that it is necessary in order that the Public Business of the country may be carried on with efficiency. I have every confidence that the Ministers who now ask for this money have proper and sufficient grounds for making the demand; but I am certainly opposed to the application of the £10,000 to Parliamentary elections. I shall bear in mind your ruling, Mr. Courtney, that we are simply discussing the Vote of £5,000; but I think my hon. Friend is logically correct in showing that there is another sum of £10,000 used for the purposes of the Government in addition, and that, as a matter of fact, £60,000 are applied to Secret Services. I think, therefore, that the £10,000, although not actually before the Committee, ought not to be forgotten. The allegation has been made in the House that a large portion of this Secret Service money is expended in aid of elections. I hope that this is not the case, because it is desirable to obtain a free expression of opinion at every election without the expenditure of public money. It may be a democratic view, but, to my mind, it is a sound view, that in an election money should play as little a part as possible. The average expenditure at borough elections in these days is £500. If £10,000 of the Secret Service money were devoted at bye-elections to assist the Government candidates at 20 elections, such aid would obviously place the Government candidate in a position of superiority as against the democratic candidate. This is not a question as to the amount of money which passes through the hands of the Secretary of State, but as to the money which passes through the hands of a Gentleman who ought to be aware whether the allegation is or is not true, that it is devoted to election purposes. I would suggest that, public attention having been called to the matter, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer should take the question into consideration. It is not a question of Party advantage to one side or the other. It applies to both Parties alike, and, seeing the changed opinion which now exists with respect to the conduct of elections, it should be determined whether this old custom should be allowed any longer to exist. I think we ought to have full confidence in the Government in the matter of Secret Service money, and I cannot support the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands); but I hope the Prime Minister will say that the matter will be brought under the attention of the Government, because I am sure it may be considered with advantage to the Public Service.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

I desire to say a few words in order to explain why I do not feel inclined to vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands). It is a new experience to Irish Members on these Benches to witness this new born zeal on the part of certain hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to Secret Service money. If I thought this was an honest attack on Secret Service money I would be among the first men in the House to support it. I must confess that the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down filled me with astonishment. I marvel at the audacity of a right hon. and learned Member who can stand up and declare that he is shocked at the use to which this £10,000 is devoted—the use, apparently, having been only discovered by him yesterday, although the Committee know that he has been an influential and prominent Member of several Governments. This is a large draft on the credulity of hon. Members, and, to my mind, is nothing short of a farce. We have the Committee engaged in solemnly debating the abuse of public money which, if it is an abuse, has gone on unchallenged for many years. The practice of voting Secret Service money may be a bad practice, and if it were honestly attacked I should be glad to vote against it. I cannot believe, however, that the present attack is an honest one, and therefore I shall not vote. I know of no more sublime sight than to see the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) denouncing the maladministration of public money, and advocating public economy; and I trust that he will not forget the attitude he has taken up when, as we all fully expect, the finances of the country will be shortly placed under his control. In the new Government which is said to be coming this is the post which has already been assigned to him; and if his first step is to do away with the grant of this £10,000 for Secret Services he will have my humble support.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

The traditional practice for a good many years of those who have had the good or evil fortune, as the case may have been, to occupy the Front Opposition Bench has been on all occasions in Supply to support the views which may be taken by the Government of the day. It is a practice against which I often protested when I occupied a seat below the Gangway. It is a practice which, of course, is capable of being abused; but, at the same time, it appears to me that there is no possibility, on the present occasion, of departing from it. But, as far as this Vote is concerned, I think it is necessary to know the views of the Government on this point before I and my Friends can support them with regard to this Secret Service money. There have been some very strange transformations of character within a very short space of time. For example, we have now a Member of the Nationalist Party in Ireland, if I understand the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) rightly, supporting this Secret Service Fund.

MR. DILLON

I distinctly stated at the commencement of my remarks that I believed this was not an honest attack on the Secret Service money. If it were I would support it.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Then, as far as I can make out the contention of the hon. Member, it is certainly a strange, if not an arrogant, one, because he seems to maintain that the only honest attack that has ever been made on Secret Service money has been made by the Irish Members. I am disposed to concede a great deal, but not that the Irish Members have a monopoly of honesty, as compared with other portions of the House, in regard to these Votes in Committee of Supply. The fact remains that a Member of the Irish Party is going to support the Vote.

MR. DILLON

I beg the noble Lord's pardon; I said that I should not vote upon it.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I beg the hon. Member's pardon. At any rate, he is not going to oppose Secret Service money. Then we have the strange fact of the Representatives of the hereditary Whig Party getting up and denouncing Secret Service money in a manner which, I venture to say, would make Lord Russell and Lord Melbourne turn in their graves. We have also had an ex-Attorney General (Sir Henry James) making a statement in the House which I never heard before, although I have often heard discussions upon Secret Service money, that a vast sum of Secret Service money is applied to electioneering purposes.

SIR HENRY JAMES

I stated distinctly that I knew nothing officially; and I never heard anything in connection with my Office to this effect. I know nothing but what has been said openly in this House to-night. If the noble Lord wishes to quote me, it is desirable that he should quote me accurately.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Any statement coming from the right hon. and learned Gentleman comes with great weight and authority, because, undoubtedly, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has been intimately associated with electioneering matters. But, to put all these things aside, there is one person in the House who is capable of informing it and giving guidance in this matter with overwhelming authority. Obviously that person is the First Lord of the Treasury. [Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] We are not so fortunate as to have an ex-First Lord of the Treasury on the Opposition Bench, and there is no other Member in this House who has occupied that position except the right hon. Gentleman. But the Prime Minister has had 50 years' experience of the Public Service, and he has filled the Office of First Lord of the Treasury for 11 or 12 years out of that period. If, therefore, the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) is correct, the Parliamentary Secretary of the right hon. Gentleman must have absorbed during his administration of public affairs something like £140,000.

MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

That is a very wide estimate.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Well, let the sum be put down at £110,000. Obviously the Treasury must be to some degree responsible for the expenditure of this sum; and a First Lord of the Treasury must have some degree of cognizance of the amount which from time to time has been paid to the Parliamentary Secretary under the orders of the Prime Minister. Therefore, anxious as we are on this Bench to give to Her Majesty's Government all the support which by traditional practice they have a right to claim, from the state of feeling in the House, our position may be made extremely difficult unless we, as well as the House in general, are favoured with a larger amount of information upon the matter by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, who, after all, is the person who must be held responsible to the public for the disposal of this money.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE) (Edinburgh, Mid Lothian)

The noble Lord has made a direct appeal to me. I do not wonder at his making it, because the supposition entertained by the noble Lord is a very natural one. It is now 51 years since I first had the honour of holding Office under the Crown. I have had the honour of holding Office not, perhaps, so long as other persons in the history of this country, but still for a very considerable period. I have held the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister for about 20 years; and it is, therefore, natural that the noble Lord should think that I know something about Secret Service money. Now, in these circumstances, I will tell the noble Lord exactly what I know. As Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury I know absolutely nothing whatever, and I never did. I do not mean to say that I have never had the administration of any Secret Service money; but it was not in the capacity either of First Lord of the Treasury or Chancellor of the Exchequer, in both of which capacities I am as perfectly pure and free from guilt as a babe unborn. But I was Secretary of State for the Colonies 40 years ago, and then a very few hundreds of pounds—perhaps £200 or £300—passed through my hands. I can state now, without any serious departure from my oath as a public servant, how that money was applied. To make a full disclosure, I may say that it was applied to giving pensions to loyalists who had suffered either in the original or in the second American War. That is all I know of the application of Secret Service money. What I have said is not merely the general truth, but the literal and absolute truth. As far as my hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary of the Treasury is concerned, and his title is a lucus non lucendo, for he is called Patronage Secretary, although he has no patronage at all—and although the absence of my hon. Friend has been commented upon, I rather think there ought to be a corresponding figure on the other side of the House—he is absolutely precluded from stating, either positively or negatively, anything that he has done with respect to the disposal of this money. In regard to myself, I had no idea when I entered the House that the question of Secret Service money was about to be discussed, and I must say that I never heard a more ingenious argument during the whole time I have been in Parliament than the argument of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), by which he sought to demonstrate that the use of the £10,000 paid out of the Consolidated Fund could, with perfect regularity, be discussed when we are dealing with a Vote on Account for a month of Secret Service money, which comes within a different category. I will not undertake to look into one portion of that question without taking into consideration the other portions of it. I do not think I could do so with propriety; but if my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) asks me a question I will frankly give him an answer, because I do not require this discussion to bring me to the opinion I am about to give. First of all, I differ from the hon Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), because I believe that in the vast machinery the Government have at their disposal there are, and always must be, certain purposes for which it is proper to provide by means of Secret Service money. At the same time, holding that opinion, I think that the regulation of those purposes and the administration of those funds is a matter of extreme difficulty, and requires a very greal deal of care and attention. And I am not by any means sure, while I cordially recognize the intention and effect of the Treasury Minute, for which I believe we are indebted in substance to the late Government, that the change made by that Minute might not go further. My belief is that much might, and ought to be, done in respect to Secret Service money. I am not prepared at this moment to say that negatively it ought not to be applied to such and such a purpose, because if I did some ingenious Member would immediately get up and find out some other purpose, not exactly the same, but akin to it, and would ask me whether I thought it ought to be applied to that purpose. I have a great jealousy of a process of exhaustion like that, and I would rather not be drawn into it. I admit that there is much desire that the question should be considered. I may, perhaps, say for myself that when I first became Chancellor of the Exchequer I was of opinion that the £10,000 ought to be placed on the Votes; but I could not get one of my Colleagues, all of whom were distinguished men, and some of whom had been Prime Minister, to agree with me. In the political straits in which we are now, and with the present demands on my time, I cannot say that I can apply myself to this question to-morrow, or the next day; but I make the frank admission, whether a division is taken on the Vote now or not, that there ought to be a reconsideration of the subject. I hope the Committee will believe that, in making this statement, I am indicating clearly my own opinion on the subject.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH (Bristol, W.)

There are two points on which I can entirely agree with the statement which has just been made by the right hon. Gentleman. The first is that no one holding the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer can, by reason of his Office, know anything whatever of the disposal of Secret Service money; and the second is that the intention and desire of the Treasury Minute, for which the late Government are responsible, was to assimilate, as far as we could, the position of the Secret Service money on the Consolidated Fund to that of the Secret Service money which is subject to discussion in this House. I do not wish to pursue this discussion. It is perfectly obvious that it is impossible for the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, even if he were disposed, consistently with the due performance of his duty, to give the House any information as to the disposal of the Secret Service money put into his hands. But I hope that I may gather from the right hon. Gentleman that he, at any rate, does not view with favour what is alleged to be the very ancient custom of disposing of part of that Secret Service money for the purpose of Parliamentary elections; and that, in the consideration which he has undertaken to give to the whole subject at as early a date as possible, he will by no means let that opinion, which has been expressed from many quarters, and which I think is entertained very generally in the House, escape his notice. That being so, all I will say is that, in accordance with what has fallen from my noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) on this matter, we shall feel it our duty to support Her Majesty's Government in the Vote now before the Committee; that Vote, as the Committee have been already reminded, not being any part of the £10,000, but being Secret Service money which it is not alleged, as far as I know, has been, or is to be, expended for the purpose of elections.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY (Glasgow, Blackfriars)

I want to point out to the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) that it does not at all follow that the Secret Service money we are now asked to vote is used for political purposes. It was not known to a vast number of Members, until a very short time ago, that the sum of £10,000 was charged on the Consolidated Fund, and not voted by Parliament; and if that is used for electioneering purposes, it is a revelation to the country as well as to many hon. Members of this House. It certainly opens up a vista of possible corruption in this country, of which Radical Members ought to be ready to take notice. The Irish Members have always opposed the Vote for Secret Service money, and they are quite consistent in doing so. On the contrary, I have always supported the Vote for Secret Service money, because I believe that the Government of the country could not safely be carried on without it. Any hon. Member may imagine that there may be crimes threatened over the country, such as the use of explosives, which have to be detected by the Home Secretary; and, in order to enable him to do so, money must be paid for Secret Services. That is one of the disadvantages of the condition of things under which we live, and undoubtedly it has been of late years one of the principal reasons for the great increase in the amount of Secret Service money. I have always supported the Vote for Secret Service, and I shall be satisfied to do so again. I should, however, be very glad to see the amount diminished, and I should be perfectly satisfied with the certificate from the Head of the Department that the money has been expended by him for the purposes for which it was contemplated by Parliament. But the charge which is placed upon the Consolidated Fund is in a totally different position. That charge was placed upon the Consolidated Fund at the beginning of the Reign of Her Majesty, and it was intended to be applicable, first of all, to the Home Secretary; but it appears to have been transferred to the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, and we are now told how the money has been used. It has been saved up from quarter to quarter, and paid over by those who happen to be in Office to political organizations for the main purpose of influencing elections. No such thing has ever come to my knowledge; and, therefore, I am not open to the imputation of having known anything about the direction in which this money was being applied; and although we ought not to inquire for what purposes Secret Service money is used, the House of Commons ought to declare for what purposes it shall not be used; and one purpose of all others, after the passing of the Corrupt Practices Act and the Representation of the People Act, for which it ought not to be employed, is electioneering. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government has given an undertaking on this subject which we all perfectly trust; and, under these circumstances, I would suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) that he should withdraw his opposition to the Vote, because I feel sure that, after the discussion which has taken place, this money will never again, as long as the right hon. Gentleman is at the head of affairs, be applied to election purposes, or to any interference with the opinion of the people.

MR. RYLANDS (Burnley)

I wish now, if I can, to save the time of the Committee. I think that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister must have been extremely satisfactory. The undertaking which the Prime Minister has been good enough to give amounts, at all events, to this—that there will be a change in the application of this Fund in the future. It will, I hope, be placed on the Estimates; and it will be understood that the general feeling which has been expressed in this discussion will have its effect. I gather from the Prime Minister that he gives an undertaking that this sum of money shall in future be appropriated to proper purposes. I have, therefore, very little reluctance in withdrawing the Motion; and I have no doubt that on any further Vote for Secret Service the Prime Minister will state to the House what course he proposes to take. Under these circumstances, I beg to withdraw the Motion. ["No!"] I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that he will look into the matter as soon as the opportunity occurs, with a view of seeing how far a change might be made in the direction indicated by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I did not understand him to name a day; but I gathered that the matter will be under the attention of the Government before the next Vote for Secret Service is taken.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA (Monaghan, S.)

This will be the first occasion on which I have ever voted for the payment of Secret Service money; but on this occasion I shall vote against the Amendment, because I look upon it as an attempt to make a point against the Government on allegations made without one particle of evidence to sustain them. I was positively shocked to hear the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Mitchell Henry) remark, as if it were a proved and admitted fact, that this sum of £10,000 for Secret Service money, granted originally under the Act of 1782, and continued from that day to this, has been largely used by the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury for electioneering purposes. I think that any hon. Member who makes such a statement as that ought to be prepared to quote his authority, which the hon. Member for Glasgow has certainly not done. I therefore hold that no attention whatever ought to be paid to the allegation. I am opposed altogether to the withdrawal of the Motion the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) has made, and I trust he will be prepared to take a division upon it. We shall then have an opportunity of seeing who are disposed to take advantage of such a Motion as this for pointing a moral at the expense of the Government.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

I must say that if I do not follow exactly the course of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, I shall, nevertheless, decline to be a party to the withdrawal of the Motion; and I must express my surprise at the action which has been taken by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands). Secret Service money has proved very useful to Members of various Administrations. The hon. Member may probably be a Member of the next new Administration; and I am certain that the country and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) will have come to the conclusion that no Government could be complete without the services of the hon. Gentleman. My reason for objecting to the withdrawal of the Amendment is this—that I do not believe in the honesty of the Amendment, and I wish to mark my sense of its dishonesty by voting against it. The question of Secret Service money is, unfortunately, not a new question to hon. Gentlemen on these Benches. All through the last Parliament we were constantly objecting to this Vote for Secret Service money; and although we had no certainty, we were undoubtedly suspicious that, so far as its employment in Ireland was concerned, it was used for purposes that were not legitimate. All through the debates which took place we were persistently opposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Mitchell Henry). A Predecessor of mine, upon a newspaper with which I was once associated—a man of great ability, and with considerable powers of sarcasm—took a strong dislike to a particular barrister, and he used to say "that the prisoner was defended by so and so," naming this gentleman, "and was accordingly convicted." I may add that, whenever our proposals were opposed by the hon. Member, we were perfectly satisfied that they would receive the approval of the House. What is the meaning of this proposal? Its meaning is to throw dirt upon the Government in connection with the new constituencies? [Mr. MITCHELL HENRY dissented.] The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow shakes his head, and we know that his impartiality is always shown by the fact that he invariably turns against the Party he was elected to support. Then we have also had the right hon. and learned Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), who admits now, although for a considerable number of years he was a Member of the Government, that this money may have been employed in corrupting the constituencies. I look upon the whole thing as cant and humbug, and I shall mark my sense of it by voting against the withdrawal of the Amendment.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 44; Noes 319: Majority 275.—(Div. List, No. 104.)

Original Question again proposed.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY (Forfarshire)

I desire to take this opportunity of calling the attention of the Committee to the composition and to the acts of the Fishery Board, Scotland. I can assure hon. Members that there exists among the fishermen in Scotland great dissatisfaction that there is no one practically acquainted with fishing who is a member of that Board. I may say that, so far as the business capacity of the Board is concerned, I have no fault to find, nor with the scientific department of the Board generally. I ought to explain that this Board consists of nine members, three of whom are Sheriffs of counties in Scotland, and members of the Board, ex officio. The Sheriff of Aberdeenshire has done much service in calling attention to the insecurity of the tenure of the fishermen in their houses; and the Sheriff of Orkney has devoted a great deal of his attention to the interests of fishermen in the counties in which he acts as Sheriff. Then we have the Chairman, Sir Thomas Boyd, a good business man, and one who attends very closely and well to the business of the Board. But the other six members of the Board have no direct acquaintance with sea fishing, and do not seem to possess, so far as an outsider can perceive, any great qualifications for the position which they occupy. A Return was granted to me of the attendances of the various members of the Board, and I am willing to admit that many, if not all, the members attended the Committee with great regularity; but it is complained that there is no one on the Board who has practically any knowledge or experience of the sea fishing business; and I wish to point out to the Committee how, on one or two occasions, the action of the Board would have been more in the interest of the fisheries if there had been someone upon it conversant with the subject. We have had, Sir, a great agitation on the Coast of Scotland against trawling.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

Sir, I rise to Order. The hon. Member for Forfarshire is dealing with a Scotch Vote, and the question I have to ask is, whether it would be competent to any hon. Member afterwards to raise a question on a previous Vote to that on which the hon. Member is now speaking?

THE CHAIRMAN

If the hon. Member moves to reduce the Vote, it would not be competent to go back in the Estimates.

SIR ROBERT PEEL (Blackburn)

Sir, I also rise to Order. Your ruling is quite clear; but as we are voting now a large sum in a very unusual way, and as the Secretary to the Treasury gave me personally the assurance, and also assured the Committee on a former occasion, that the Vote on account of Dover Harbour should not be taken without due and full Notice being given to the House, and as that Vote is second on the Paper——

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

I am not asking for any money for Dover Harbour in this Vote.

SIR ROBERT PEEL

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. There is in Vote 2 the sum of £200 to complete £800.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

If the right hon. Gentleman will look to the first column he will see that the "further sum required on account" is left blank.

SIR ROBERT PEEL

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his explanation.

MR. MOLLOY (King's Co., Birr)

Sir, I do not quite understand our position. If an hon. Member rises and you call on him, and if he takes up a subsequent question on the Paper, how is it possible for us to take up previous matter?

THE CHAIRMAN

The matter is very simple. It happens frequently that an hon. Member rises to speak on a particular Vote; if any other hon. Member wishes to speak on a previous Vote he rises and says so, and is at once heard. If any hon. Member wishes to speak on a Vote previous to that of the Fishery Board of Scotland he will rise and say so.

SIR ROBERT PEEL

Am I to understand, Sir, that any hon. Member can be heard on any previous Vote?

THE CHAIRMAN

If a Motion is made to reduce a Vote, it would be irregular to discuss a previous Vote.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY

When the hon. Member opposite rose to Order, I was calling the attention of the Committee to the action of the Fishery Board of Scotland. Well, Sir, last year an Act was passed for the purpose of giving the Fishery Board power to regulate trawling on the Coasts of Scotland, and after considerable delay the Board proceeded to deal with that question by experiment; but they did so in such a way that the experiment which was made is not, whatever its result, sufficient to decide the question which it was intended to decide. One of the most extensive trawlers on the North-East Coast of Scotland—Messrs. Johnston, of Montrose—wrote me a letter saying that they had no objection to the prohibited area being extended. These gentlemen are principally interested in trawling on the North-East Coast; but they did not think that the extension of the limit requested by the fishermen would be any injury to the trawlers, while the restricted district prohibited by the Fishery Board would be insufficient for the purposes of the experiment. If there had been a competent fisherman on the Board, such as Mr. Johnston, of Montrose, or anyone practically acquainted with trawling, this matter would have been settled in a different manner, and without prejudice to the trawlers. That is one instance of the advantage which would arise to the fishermen of Scotland if there were some practical men on the Board. But I think we have reason to complain of the Fishery Board on other grounds. Complaints were made, and representations forwarded to the Fishery Board in Edinburgh; and, as the Secretary for Scotland has to approve of the bye-laws of the Fishery Board, the limits of the area of prohibition came under his notice. The Fishery Board recommended the fishermen to submit their case to him in London. A good many fishermen came up to London, and placed the case before the Secretary very ably and very fully. It is complained that there is great reason to believe that this question was finally settled before they left Scotland. It was, I think, hard on the part of the Fishery Board to ask these men to come up to London at a serious expense, in order to lay their case before the Secretary for Scotland, if the matter was a foregone conclusion at the time. That is a point which I think the Secretary for Scotland ought to consider; and if there be any Secret Service money voted for Scotland, I think it might be very well applied to pay the expenses of the poor fishermen who came up to London under the circumstances I have described. Then the Fishery Board have control of certain sums of money for the purpose of improving the harbours of Scotland, and I must say that they have been exceedingly unfortunate in the expenditure of this money for many years past. They have spent a considerable sum of money in many cases; but they have left the harbours in the same state as they found them. A large amount has been spent on the West Coast at Ness, and I am informed on good authority that the harbour there is practically useless. It is completely, or almost completely, silted up, and the money has been thrown away. I am also informed that the Engineer of the Board was warned beforehand that the operation would be attended with this result. I will not now refer to other harbours; but, with regard to the other cases, I believe that past experience has shown that the money expended in this way by the Fishery Board has been attended with no beneficial result. The Fishery Board give us a very valuable Report; I am glad to see in it a quantity of useful information, which is the first step to knowledge in dealing with this subject; but I think that they ought to state in their accounts the amount of money contributed by local proprietors to the harbours on which the public money has been spent. We see it stated that a certain person contributes a sum of money, but we do not know how much it is; and I think it would be an advantage if we were informed of the amount which the proprietors of adjacent lands have contributed to the improvement of the harbours. For my part, I am inclined to think that the money has been spent in too large sums, and that it would be much better if the Board distributed, rather than concentrated, the benefits they have to confer, and attended more to the smaller harbours on the Coasts. For instance, I am aware that the expenditure of a small sum of money would be of great advantage to a fishing village on the Forfarshire Coast; but I am informed that the Board contemplates spending all their money for some years to come on another harbour. Well, Sir, I do not want to go into all the cases; but I ask whether some general principle ought not to be laid down to govern this matter—whether it would not be better to spend smaller sums on small harbours, and whether the improvements of larger harbours ought not to be left more to local effort? Again, with reference to the constitution of the Fishery Board, I wish to point out that it would be a very great advantage if some practical men were upon the Board for the purpose of providing some check on the engineer's plans. I believe the engineer is a competent man; but I think it must be admitted that he has been very unsuccessful. I should like next year to have a Return showing the sums of money which, during the last 10 years, have been expended on harbours around the Coasts of Scotland. This would give us an opportunity of knowing how far the Fishery Board has succeeded in its endeavours to improve the fishing harbours. There is another question which I have no doubt would have been brought under the consideration of the Board had there been appointed some gentleman practically acquainted with fishing. I have urged on the Lord Advocate for some time the expediency of amending the Merchant Shipping Act with respect to fishing boats, so that these boats might be capable of being registered with a view to obtaining money upon them on mortgage. If that were done, the fishermen would be able to borrow money on much more advantageous terms than they can at present. Under the present system, if a fisherman has not sufficient money to purchase a boat, which in some cases costs £300 or £400, and if he cannot raise the money, he goes as a rule to the fish-curer and asks him to advance it, giving the fish-curer the fish he catches until the money is paid. The latter, of course, runs a very considerable risk in transactions of this kind; he has no complete lien on the boat; and, apart from other risks, there is this further difficulty—that he has no preferential claim to the boat. The system of fish-curers advancing money to fishermen to buy boats has prevailed extensively on the East Coast, and much of the prosperity of the fishermen of Scotland has been due to the liberal and judicious advances made in this way to them. But during the last two years there has been, as there has been in almost every other business, a very great depression in the fishing business. Many of the fish-curers on the East Coast of Scotland have, I am sorry to say, lost so much money that they are unable now to provide the advances which they were formerly able to make. The consequence will be that all along the Coast there will be considerable distress amongst the fishermen during the coming fishing season. It is well that the fishermen should be able to obtain advances from the fish-curers; but, at the same time, the Committee will recognize that the fishermen would be in a much more independent position if they could go about these advances in a more businesslike way; if they could, in the first place—and I am happy to say that now, by means of Insurance Companies, they can—insure their boats, and if, by means of registering their boats at the Custom House, they could give a mortgage on the boats, they would be able to borrow money at a much lower rate of interest than they have hitherto been able to do. This has been talked of for a considerable time amongst practical fishermen as a desirable thing; but I fail to see any recommendation of such a proposal in the Fishery Board's Report of last year. My contention is that if there were practical men on the Board such a matter would have been attended to; the recommendation would have come up from the Board, and very probably the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour) would have seen his way before this time to have brought in a Bill carrying out this small amendment of the Merchant Shipping Act—an amendment which would prove of great value to the fishermen on the East Coast of Scotland. I think I have shown that the Fishery Board might be of very great practical use by putting upon it men practically acquainted with the needs of the fishermen. I admit there is plenty of business qualification on the Board. I recognize the attainments of, and the great amount of work done by, the gentleman who takes charge of the Scientific Department. I also recognize that the Sheriffs of Aberdeenshire and Perthshire have done much good, one in calling attention to the housing of the fishermen, and the other by advocating improvements in the fishing facilities in the Western Islands; but neither gentleman—I say it without meaning the slightest disrespect—can be said to have any practical knowledge of the sea fisheries. What I should like the Secretary for Scotland to undertake to do, seeing that the tenure of the present Board expires next year, is this—to ascertain by some means or other what gentlemen are practically acquainted with the fisheries along the East Coast of Scotland and the Coast of Scotland generally—gentlemen who have the confidence of the fishermen, who know practically all about fishing — and place them upon the Board. I have no doubt that several country gentlemen who are now on the Board will be quite willing to resign their appointments. With the exception of that of the Chairman and of the scientific representative, the appointments are merely honorary; but, in any case, I should expect that some of the members would be quite willing to resign the position they hold now in order to make way for practical men. I hope the noble Earl the Secretary for Scotland (the Earl of Dalhousie) will turn his attention to the subject. I have not the slightest doubt that if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour) indicates an opinion in the direction I have mentioned the noble Earl will be willing to take action in the matter. The fishermen of Scotland have the highest confidence in the noble Earl who now holds the position of Secretary for Scotland; they recognize the great services he did them upon the Commission which was appointed to inquire as to the condition of the fisheries; and I do not know anyone—I do not believe we could get a Secretary for Scotland who would be better able to select for the Board men possessing practical knowledge of fishing than the Earl of Dalhousie. I do not intend to move the reduction of the Vote. I think the sum of money voted for the purpose is small enough. If the Board were differently constituted, I think a little more money might, with very great advantage, be committed to their care. The large amount of benefit which would indirectly accrue to Scotland by a popular reconstruction of the Fishery Board would warrant a larger expenditure than at present is intrusted to the Board. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate—who, I understand, represents the Secretary for Scotland in this House—will be able to give us some assurance that he himself will direct the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to this subject, and that he will endeavour to have some change made in the composition of the Fishery Board as soon as it possibly can be made; and that, if any of the members resign their seats on the Board in the meantime, he will take care that the next appointments shall be made more in conformity with the wishes of the fishermen of Scotland than is now the case.

MR. JACKS&c.) (Leith,

I do not desire to take up the time of the Committee unduly; but I do wish to emphasize what my hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) has said with respect to the feeling of the fishermen of Scotland regarding the composition of the Fishery Board. I have spoken to the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour) upon this very question; and, with that fairness and practical turn of mind with which he looks at all these things, the right hon. and learned Gentleman put the matter in this way—"It is all very well that we should have a practical fisherman and a practical fish-curer on the Board; but we cannot find any men in such positions who will undertake the duty, because none of these men are in a position to do the work required of them without being paid." It is perfectly true that the members of the Fishery Board are un- paid, and it is equally true that if we put practical men upon the Board they would require to be paid. But what I suggest is this—whether, seeing there are so many high-salaried officials connected with the Board, it would not be possible so to revise the scale of remuneration of some of the employés in order to find sufficient money to pay the members of the Board in precisely the same way as the members of Boards of large manufacturing concerns are paid—namely, at the rate of so much per attendance per man. I very respectfully suggest this plan to the consideration of the Lord Advocate.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR (Kincardine)

I very gladly support the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) with regard to the sites for fishermen's houses, registration of boats, and trawling. As regards the composition of the Fishery Board, I am quite willing to admit that the President, Sir Thomas Boyd, and the gentlemen who now form the Board, are able men, well skilled in the law, and particularly well qualified to judge of the inland salmon fisheries; they are, however, wanting in regard to the sea fisheries. It is very necessary, indeed, that the Board should have some additional aid in respect to the sea fisheries. During the last Election one of the points most forcibly impressed upon me was the need that the fishermen should have better representation upon the Fishery Board. This could be secured by the Board calling up to the Board one or two of the most representative fishermen along the Coast. All the expenditure necessary would be a small sum for travelling expenses. I also think it advisable that the Board should consult, as assistant members, some of the Inspectors of Fisheries. These Inspectors are generally men of great intelligence and ability; they perform their duties on moderate salaries with skill and judgment; and some of them might with advantage be summoned to the Board to take part in the deliberations. Then, with regard to the question of harbours, I have given some attention to the subject, in the belief that properly-made harbours could readily bear dues on fishing boats to pay for interest and sinking fund on the capital rightly laid out, and have several times placed my views before the Fishery Board. I hold that good harbours are essential for largely extending the sea fisheries. But I have no hesitation in saying that about 30 harbours erected since 1828, when the grant of £3,000 was first given, are by no means creditable to any Board. I measure the usefulness of a fishing harbour by the test of its fitness to allow boats to enter and leave when drawing 10 feet of water, and in all weather, even at low spring-water tides. The point I have urged upon the Fishery Board is that until such time as we have an examination of the harbours of the Kingdom and abroad, it is impossible to lay down regulations for the guidance of engineers in designing and constructing harbours. The two engineers of the Scotch Fishery Board have been singularly unfortunate with all the harbours they have had to do with; at all events, the £250,000, including public and private funds, spent since 1828 in the erection of fishery harbours in Scotland, has not been well spent. Even the harbour of Anstruther, which has cost about £80,000, and which is the best, needs further expenditure. My suggestion is that the Government should employ young skilled engineers to go about from harbour to harbour at home and abroad, and see what defects there are which require remedying; and, furthermore, report on the successful works, and on what system the designs have been drawn, and materials used. In this way, by waiting a short time for the Report, we should not rush with inexperienced haste into the expenditure of money on harbours, but wait a short time till we can see our way to the work being done properly. I strongly recommend the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour) to take into consideration the remarks of my hon. Friend (Mr. J. W. Barclay) with regard to the fishermen's boats. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is well aware that I also recommended that the clause which has been introduced into the Crofters Bill providing that loans should be granted for crofters' boats by the Government should be made applicable to the boats of the whole of Scotland. An improved boat is now being used, and public funds might be usefully employed in extending its use. I have also appealed to the Lord Advocate and Fishery Board on behalf of the fishermen's rights to the foreshores. In 1755 those rights for use of boats, nets, lines, and curing fish were recognized by Act of Parliament; but in 1770 another Act partially withdrew those rights. In 1868 another Act took away the remaining rights. No record is known to exist of why these rights have been usurped. Now that the fishermen have the power to vote for Members, I was called on, at the last Election, to protect the ancient rights to foreshores. They are rights of the people; and as in the case of the Crown rights lately put forward by the Lord Advocate time is not allowed to be pleaded in bar of these Crown rights, so lapse of time cannot be urged against the people's rights. I have also appealed against the wrong done to fishermen of the seas by being liable to be accused as poachers for casually hooking sea salmon whilst employed in their lawful business at sea. They may be summoned before two ordinary justices, who may be owners of sea coast salmon fishings, and punished. The Act is a modern one, passed in 1844, and is not an ancient Crown right, as the Act of 1844 tries to make it. Even the trial of game poachers by game owners and game preservers has been taken away. I earnestly advocate more means being given to the Fishery Board to enable the expectations of Scotland being realized in the extension of Scotch fisheries. The brand fees have aided; but there are arrears of fees still in the Treasury. Then the use of brand fees to secure the Post Office from loss on telegraph messages ought not to be. The Post Office should bear the risk of loss, as well as of gain, on all wires.

MR. BOYD-KINNEAR (Fife, E.)

I only rise to say a few words in support of the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay), that there should be some representatives of practical men on the Fishery Board, and by practical men I mean fishermen. If the representatives are not actually fishermen, they ought to be chosen by fishermen. As we have found in this House the immense advantage of having amongst us the Representatives of those who are immediately interested in questions which come under consideration, I am perfectly certain that the Fishery Board would benefit enormously if some of their number had practical knowledge of fishing. As the Representative of a constituency which includes a considerable number of fishermen, I support the suggestion that they should have better representation on the Board.

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)&c.) (Clackmannan,

It is certainly satisfactory to find that while hon. Members have indicated certain points on which they think the constitution and working of the Fishery Board may be improved, they feel that, on the whole, the Board, which was established in 1882, has done good work. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) laid great stress upon the necessity of a reconstitution of the Board. There is no doubt that it is very desirable—essential indeed—to the right administration of such a Board that in some way or another it should have the opinion of practical men, either by having practical men sitting at the Board, or by communication with them. I recollect very well that the matter was very fully and very anxiously considered when the Board was constituted; and it is only right to say that one great difficulty experienced at the time was to find any gentleman, having a practical knowledge, and able and willing to serve upon the Board, who was not involved on one side or the other in the very hot controversy which then raged in regard to the question of branding. I hope that difficulty may be felt less now. Certainly suggestions have been made this evening as to how it might be possible to get representatives not involved in the way I have indicated. Whether it is possible to act upon the suggestions I cannot now say; but I shall have great pleasure in conveying to my noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland (the Earl of Dalhousie) the suggestions which have been made as to the future constitution of the Fishery Board. I only thought it right to mention that the point was considered in 1882. I dare say that when the time arrives—and it is not very long off now—when certain of the members of the Board go out, it may be found possible to meet the views of hon. Members. The limits which were fixed for experimental protection against trawling have been referred to, I do not know whether this is the time or the place to go into that matter; but perhaps I may be allowed to say that the point was very fully considered by the Board, and the decision to define certain limits was arrived at, not only after the fullest information from their own scientific advisers, whose attainments and capacities have been recognized to-night, but also after hearing the views of the fishermen themselves. I may just say I think that on the part of some of the fishermen there was a slight misunderstanding as to the precise scope and object of fixing those limits. The limits were not fixed to protect in any sense one industry against another; that would not have been in accordance with the clause in the Act of last year. They were fixed for the purpose of making experiments to determine whether the stock of fish was really injured by trawling or not. That was the main object in view, and it was thought that to secure that object the limits fixed were ample. Something has been said with regard to the duties of the Secretary for Scotland. Upon this point there is evidently some misapprehension. The duty of the Secretary for Scotland with reference to bye-laws is to affirm or reject; he cannot make a new bye-law; that must necessarily originate with the Fishery Board. Now, with regard to harbours. It is certainly to be regretted that there is not more money available for the fishery harbours of Scotland. Reference has been made to the amount of money which has been applied to the erection and improvement of harbours. I am sorry to say the fund at the disposal of the Fishery Board is exceedingly small. I believe the fixed grant is somewhere about £3,000, and that the brand fees produce something over £3,000. I do not think the Board have ever had the power of administering more than £6,000 or £7,000. That is very little; but since the present Board was constituted the money available has been administered on the best information they could get. Hon. Members who have taken an interest in the Crofter Question know that one great want of the Western Highlands and Islands is harbour accommodation. It was felt there was great room for developing the fishing industry, and it was with the intention of giving practical effect to this feeling that the harbour at Ness was improved. With regard to the distribution of the money, I am sure my hon. Friends will say there was not much room for a large division. Only small sums can be granted, and the Fishery Board must make a selection of the case that seems the most clamant, and in which aid is most needed. Now, I entirely sympathize with what has been said in reference to the propriety of making legislative provision for enabling the fine fishing boats to be mortgaged for advances. I think I have mentioned more than once that we intend to introduce a Bill; indeed, I have at present in a forward state of preparation a Bill, making it competent for fishermen who require advances to mortgage their boats. The Bill will not involve any very violent extension of the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, because these boats are just as fine as any of the old sloops and other craft that come under that Act. In regard to some other matters—notably the foreshores. That is a point to which I will direct my attention. I have answered various questions with regard to it. I do not think the law on the subject is in either a clear or a satisfactory state at present. There have been Acts of Parliament passed from time to time dealing with the matter, and giving rights to use waste and open lands for various purposes. Some of these measures have been repealed. The last repeal of one of two Acts was made in 1868, and I have never been able to find out whether that repeal was intentional or not. I am disposed to think it was not, because I cannot ascertain that there was any discussion on the matter, and I have failed to find any reason for it. I had not the honour of a seat in this House at the time; but I am disposed to think that the repeal of the provision to which I refer, in 1868, was unintentional. I say that all the more, because it is in my knowledge that in 1868 there came before the Courts several cases in which that repeal was overlooked or unknown. I propose at once to communicate with the authorities, particularly in the Department of Woods and Forests, and, if necessary, also with the Board of Trade, to see if they will sanction the introduction of a Bill which I shall be quite ready to bring forward to restore these rights, and place the whole law on the subject on a proper footing, instead of leaving it to be spelt out in many obscure Acts, that even many skilled lawyers are not able to deal with. As to the question relating to salmon, I shall have it considered in connection with the measure dealing with salmon that we have in an advanced state of preparation.

CAPTAIN VERNEY (Bucks, N., Buckingham)

I beg to move a reduction of the Vote in Class VI.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order! The hon. Member for Forfarshire desires to refer to an earlier item.

MR. J. W. BARCLAY (Forfarshire)

So far as branding is concerned the duty of the Board is administrative, and I could wish that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate would state more explicitly that before next year a practical plan would be prepared for the re-organization of the Board, so that it may command the confidence of the Scotch fishermen. I wish to press this matter on the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I would suggest that the noble Earl the Secretary for Scotland (the Earl of Dalhousie) should make some inquiries in order to ascertain whether some gentleman or gentlemen, now members of the Fishery Board, would not be disposed to resign to give place to men practically acquainted with fishing. I am quite sure that my friend Mr. Williamson, formerly Member for the St. Andrew's Burghs, would not object to resign to permit of some practical man being put on the Board. I recollect that Mr. Williamson used to take a great deal of interest in this subject, and I am sure he would recognize the fact that the relations between the Board and the fishermen would be far more satisfactory if there were a practical man on the Board really acquainted with fishing. As to trawling, the right hon. and learned Gentleman told us quite truly that the restrictions upon trawling were imposed, not for the purpose of giving one set of fishermen an advantage over another, but as an experiment. The contention of practical fishermen who know a great deal about the matter and have fully and fairly considered it, I have reason to believe, is that the area contained within the restricted limit is not sufficient to determine the question which the Fishery Board asked by the experiment. The prohibited area might have been extended without injuring the trawling interests. Because, as I have said, the Montrose trawlers, who are the largest on the North-East Coast of Scotland, and most directly interested in the prohibited area, stated that, so far as they were concerned, they thought it would be advantageous to all interests if the limits were extended. If one of the Messrs. Johnston had a seat on the Board, and could keep the fishermen informed on these matters, it would be of great advantage to this class of the community on the East Coast of Scotland. I am glad the right hon. and learned Gentleman is going to proceed with the Bill for the registration of fishing boats and the Bill to restore the rights of the fishermen to the foreshore, of which they were—unjustly, as I believe—deprived by the Act of 1868. I trust the right hon. and learned Gentleman will very soon redeem his promise on these two points. I can assure him that he will meet with no opposition here; but certainly if the subject escapes his memory, and he forgets to redeem his pledge, within a very short period the Scotch Members will remind him of it. I hope he will not delay in bringing in the measures.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

I must say, after hearing the statement of the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay), that it is a perfect burlesque to appoint as a Fishery Board gentlemen who know nothing whatever about fishing, and yet the hon. Member says that is what happens at this moment in Scotland. I am a Member representing a seaside county, and I have some little acquaintance with fishery matters—though, no doubt, if I were apprenticed to a fisherman for a certain number of years, I should know more about these things. My opinion is, that the best course to take would be to dismiss the present members of the Fishery Board—not one but all of them, and appoint in their places men who know something about their business. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate has pointed out that there are two factions—the branding faction, and the non-branding faction. If you put a man belonging to one faction on the Board, and do not allow the other side to be represented, the result would be a certain amount of dissatisfaction. Why not put on the Board a certain number of both factions, and leave them to fight it out; or, if you prefer it, do not put on any of either faction. But let your Board, at any rate, be composed of people who understand something about fishing. As to the money which it is proposed to devote to these purposes, it should be held over, it seems to me, until the Government have had an opportunity of consulting together, and can see their way to proposing something to ask us to vote for. If the Lord Advocate wanted to appoint a Judge in one of the Sheriffs' Courts in Scotland he would not select a doctor for the post, however eminent he might be in his Profession; and, in the same way, if he wanted a competent person to take charge of an infirmary in Scotland he would not choose a lawyer to do it. But it seems to me quite as absurd to put a lawyer on a Fishery Board—so absurd, in fact, that the House of Commons ought to mark its sense of the absurdity by refusing the Vote altogether. I have another objection to the Vote. So far as I can see the list does not contain an item for the Fishery Board in Ireland. I have no doubt there are fish on the Irish Coast, though I do not happen to have seen any taken. There is a fishing industry in Ireland, and I think it should be cultivated; and though it is rather an awkward thing here to attempt to get a sum of money granted for one object by voting against the granting of a sum for another object, both objects having very great merits, it is, at the same time, the only direct way we have of drawing attention to the subject. I remember some years ago a very long discussion taking place in this House on the subject of the Scotch fisheries, and great pressure being brought to bear on the Government in the matter. During the discussion there was a great deal said about branding; and I remember the Irish Members drew attention to the advantage which the Scotch fishermen enjoyed over the Irish in these matters. So far as I could form an opinion, the House generally was in favour of the branding system. It seemed to me that that system was of great advantage to the Scotch herring fishery, and for the simple reason that the people who buy the article that is sold by reputation can depend upon having an article of a genuine nature if it is branded by an official who thoroughly understands his business; and I believe that if we were to do away with the system of branding the result would be that the parties who would do the branding would be less careful as to the kind of fish they brand, and the consequence would be that the reputation of Scotch herrings would go down. The persons who buy would not have an opportunity of satisfying themselves of the exact quality of the fish they are obtaining. The system of official branding gives protection against those practices which have been so much complained of in connection with Sheffield cutlery and other articles whereby fictitious brands are put upon goods. If you have a fish-curer in Scotland with an established brand which has secured a great reputation, the careful buyer, placing dependence upon the brand, will give a preference to the article sold by that curer. But if you allow the brand of this curer to be imitated, an inferior article, most likely at a smaller price, would get into the market, the buyers would be deceived, a prejudice would be created against the immense quantities of fish cured in that particular place, and indirectly, in a very short time, the general reputation of the article would be lessened. A person who wanted to sell herrings on the Continent would say to customers—"I can give you herrings of such and such a brand at a less price than another packer can give them to you." In this way would be brought about depreciation in the quality and reputation of Scotch herrings. So far as I have heard the discussion which has taken place on this question, I think the only way in which we can bring about a satisfactory settlement of it is by eliciting from the Government an adequate explanation, with a promise to make very great reforms in this Fishery Board. If that is not done, the total Vote should be reduced by the amount of the item of £2,500 for the Scotch Fishery Board. I beg to move that this item be omitted.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £2,500 (Scotch Fishery Board), be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Biggar.)

MR. ESSLEMONT (Aberdeen, E.)

I do not think that any specific or good purpose will be served by disallowing this Vote, or by voting on the question. I am prepared to say, in support of what has fallen from the hon. Member opposite, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate has put us off very much in regard to this fishery ques- tion. We have, however, now made some progress. We have obtained the promise that the question of the boats will be attended to without further delay. At the same time, we have failed to elicit—at least, I failed to do so the other day—any specific promise with regard to fishermen's houses. The Lord Advocate is perfectly aware that this matter came up in connection with the subject of harbours, and that the one question was played off against the other. Conditions are made as to harbours, and if the fishermen do not comply with them the thing is worked out in the conditions of tenure on which they hold their houses. But with the assurances given by the Lord Advocate, and if the Secretary for Scotland will give the subject his attention, I hope we may have a satisfactory settlement. I represent, I think, as large a number of fishermen as any other Representative in the House; and I say, with great confidence, that nothing has produced so much irritation amongst the fishing population as a belief that their interests are not represented by practical men. I am quite sure that if practical men were on the Scotch Fishery Board it would give a confidence beyond what might be expected, because practical men would have an opportunity of stating the views of the fishermen on the Board, and of hearing the objections to them. This would satisfy the fishermen; but so long as they believe they are represented by gentlemen incapable in many ways—who do not understand the fishing industry and what they want—they will not be satisfied, and I do not think they ought to be. In the meantime, I would thank the Lord Advocate with gratitude for his promise; and we may now leave the matter in his hands with the assurances he has given. I would also say, in confirmation of what was said by the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay), that proposals for dealing with these subjects will not be opposed in the House. The measures he has promised for the benefit of fishermen would be passed without much trouble.

MR. MOLLOY (King's Co., Birr)

This question of Scotch fisheries is very old history in this House. Year after year the Government have said — "Leave it to us;" and hon. Members, like the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, re-echo the request and say— "Leave it to the Government." But I should like to ask Scotch Members what they have got in the past by leaving it to the Government? Two years ago I took part in a discussion on this very question, and pressed the Government to inform me as to what were the qualifications of the gentlemen forming the Scotch Fishery Board. I commenced, I think, with the Chairman. I asked the Representative for Scotland on that occasion for what reason the gentleman holding the difficult and important position of Chairman had been elected—what, in fact, were his qualifications? The Scotch Representative in this House glared at me across the Chamber, and said—"What are his qualifications? Why, they are of the very best. He has been twice Provost of some place, and he is a bookseller." This was a little too strong for the House, and I must confess I proceeded to make a joke. I asked whether this gentleman had ever written a book on fishing? and I was answered solemnly across the House—"I do not know." I then inquired—"Will you undertake that he shall write a book on fishing?" and the grave and solemn reply I received to that was—"I will see." I do not attack this Chairman of the Scotch Fishery Board as a publisher or bookseller; but I do say that the fact of his being such is not an essential qualification for the post he holds. This gentleman was put on the Board because he is a supporter of the Government. When the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Esslemont) gets a little older he will not be so ready to leave everything to the Government. That is what the Government want. They get up in this House and make facile speeches, and give promises that mean nothing, and say—"Leave it to us; the matter is under our consideration." The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate has used this latter phrase three times to-night—"It is under my consideration." Yes; it is under the right hon. and learned Gentleman's consideration, no doubt, and so it will be next year, and the year after, and the year after that. But what is the outcome of all this consideration? Why, that your Chief Commissioner is a bookseller, and that a bookseller will continue to be your Chief Commissioner. It is not for me to fight the battle of the Scotch Members; but if they want to impress the Government and the right hon. and learned Gentleman who has this question under his consideration, and want to make his "consideration" a little sharper, I would advise them to take a vote on this question.

MR. ESSLEMONT (Aberdeen, E.)

I wish the Committee to trust the Lord Advocate, because I am told that the present arrangement comes to an end in the course of next year. The appointment was only made for five years; and I desire to remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman of the fact, and to impress upon him the desirability of amending the present arrangement when the time comes.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

I do not want to put the Committee to the trouble of a division; still, unless the promise of the right hon. and learned Gentleman is stronger and more circumstantial than promises usually are, I think we shall be bound to divide. This Fishery Board seems to be of such a preposterous nature that we should not countenance it at all. The Government ought to withdraw or postpone the Vote, and then, when it is brought forward again, we shall have an opportunity of hearing, indirectly, from the Secretary for Scotland whether or not he has made up his mind to entirely reform this Fishery Board. I did not know that the President of the Board was a bookseller. Surely it is a practical joke to put a bookseller at the head of a Fishery Board. It is said that Scotchmen are incapable of joking, or of appreciating a joke; and it may not have been a Scotchman who did this. But, whoever did it, it seems to me that he wanted to try a practical joke on the Scotch people. I think the Vote should be withdrawn, and that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate should hold a consultation with the Secretary for Scotland. If we do not get a promise that that course will be adopted I think we should divide.

DR. CLARK (Caithness)

I desire to support the suggestion of the hon. Member opposite. We find here a Chairman receiving £700 or £800 a-year who is best known in Scotland as the publisher of a certain almanack, and we find associated with him on the Board three Sheriffs who may know a great deal about law, but certainly are not likely to know much about fish. Besides these, there are upon the Board a Liver- pool merchant, then a Perthshire laird, and a timber merchant from Greenwich. Most of these are gentlemen who have important work of their own to perform, and I do not think they are fit to sit upon this Board, particularly at the present time, when we know that one or two important points are coming up for discussion with regard to trawling and fishing generally. The questions that are about to be raised are very important, as affecting the unfortunate crofter drift-net fishermen, who are being driven away from their fishing grounds by the trawlers, just as they were driven away from the land by the large farmers. The action of the Fishery Board is not at all satisfactory to the drift-net fishermen, and I contend that we ought to have a different class of men on the Board to those which at present compose it. I agree with the hon. Member opposite that to leave this matter altogether in the hands of the Government would not be wise. We know that the Departments have in many respects quite enough to do, and will permit things to drift on as long as we will allow them. If we bring this matter energetically before them, and point out the absurdity of the present system, and the necessity of appointing men who understand what they are doing, we shall be doing a great deal for the benefit of these fishermen. Men who have Town Council and other work to do should not be appointed to this Board. You should have as Chairman a man who is prepared to devote his entire time to the work, and who knows something about these scientific questions underlying it. The Government should withdraw the Vote for the present, and when it comes up again we should consider what would be the best course to take.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR (Kincardine)

I hope the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) will not press this Motion. He has referred to what he declares to be the unsatisfactory position of the Irish Fishery Board, as compared with the Scotch; but I would remind him that the net amount contributed by the State in the case of the fisheries of Ireland is more than that contributed in the case of Scotland. We, in Scotland, are content with our method of managing these matters, and the Irish people are content with their method. No doubt, the gross cost for the Scotch Vote appears large; but the income derived from the fees levied on herrings exported is about £11,000, of which nearly £6,000 is taken by Government, and the balance is appropriated for harbours, and for guaranteeing the Post Office from loss by insufficient messages by telegraph wires laid along the Coast. Then, with regard to the Chairman of the Scotch Board, to whom derogatory allusions have been made, I am bound to say that I have every reason to be pleased with the manner in which he has carried on his duties. The Report of the Scotch Fishery Board seems to be satisfactory. It contains a great deal of information, the like of which I should like to see given in the case of Ireland. No doubt, the state of our harbours is far from being satisfactory, and in this respect our Board needs stirring up. Then we require to have larger boats than we have now, and these defects apply to both Scotland and Ireland; and I trust the necessities of the case in these two respects will not be lost sight of.

MR. MOLLOY (King's Co., Birr)

We Irish Members were under the impression that, in objecting to the character of the Scotch Fishery Board, we were assisting Scotch Representatives. Now, however, we understand that, although they have raised so many complaints against their Fishery Board, the Scotch Members seem to be perfectly satisfied with it. Surely this is another practical joke.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

I do not understand that the Scotch Members, as a body, are satisfied with the Board. This Board, I find, has a Chairman, Secretary, first clerk, second clerk, and third clerk. It generally happens that the gentlemen who receive the largest salaries are the gentlemen who do the least work, and have the smallest qualification; and, judging from what has been said, I think this rule is observed in the case of the Scotch Fishery Board. It has, however, been said by some Members of the House that the Government are fond of making promises, but not fond of keeping them. I do not find that at all. The Government usually keep the promises they make; but what we complain of is, that they do not make any promises at all. The customary form of answer is, "the thing is under consideration," or "we will look into it," and that, of course, means nothing. In this case we have been told that the Board has been appointed for five years, and that the fifth year will be up next year. Evidently the Scotch Members are very dissatisfied with the present constitution of the Board; and it would be very easy for the Government, if they intended to conform to the wishes generally expressed, to say they do not intend to appoint this bookseller, or the three Sheriffs, or the timber merchant next year. That is the only pledge which will satisfy the Committee in this matter; and if that pledge is not given I trust the Motion for the reduction of the sum will be persevered with.

MR. P. J. POWER (Waterford, E.)

It is quite true, as an hon. Gentleman has said, that the cases of Ireland and Scotland in regard to fisheries are by no means parallel. The Irish Members have no objection to this money being paid, if the Scotch people wish it should be paid. We thought, when we interfered in this discussion, that the Scotch Members were by no means satisfied with the constitution of the Board, or the manner in which the Board did its work. I think it is the duty of all Members of the House, no matter whence they come, to see that the money of the nation is laid out to the best advantage; and certainly we are anxious to assist the Radical Members from Scotland in their endeavour to reform their Fishery Board. We have proved by our conduct that we do take an interest in the Scotch fisheries; indeed we in Ireland, who have a great deal to complain of as to the way our fisheries are managed, have a sympathetic feeling for the people of Scotland in fishery matters. But the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), with that consideration which is his characteristic, does not wish to divide unnecessarily upon this question, and he has made a most reasonable proposition to the hon. Gentlemen in charge of the Vote. I hope they will see their way to accept his proposal, which is that they should defer the taking of this item pending the decision which we understand is being arrived at.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

I should like to hear from the Government whether or not they intend to reform the Scotch Fishery Board? I know that the question of trawling is one which has given rise to a very great deal of controversy, and I must confess that I am not very favourable to the lending of money on movable property; as a general rule, I should be very slow to recommend such a system. Besides, I question very much whether it is within the legitimate province of the Government to make advances upon such property as vessels of large or small size. This is only a Vote on Account; and, therefore, I trust the Government will give us a pledge that we shall have an opportunity, at no very distant date, of reconsidering this question. If the Government would only undertake that they will reconstitute this Board, and get rid of the timber merchant, who may be a very respectable and worthy gentleman in his own line, and select as members of the Board gentlemen who are qualified to attend to fishery matters, I think the Committee might fairly rest satisfied. The Chairman of the Board may be a very estimable man as a publisher; but he can hardly be considered a suitable person to hold the position of Chairman of a Fishery Board. What the Government ought really to do is to express the opinion that the present system is perfectly indefensible, and that they hope to be able to entirely remodel the Board, so that it shall in future be composed of gentlemen who thoroughly understand all questions connected with fisheries.

THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. R. W. DUFF) (Banffshire)

I hope the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Biggar) will now allow us to take the Vote. He has reminded the Committee that this is only a Vote on Account, and that there will be another opportunity of discussing the question of the constitution of the Scotch Fishery Board when the Fishery Vote comes on. This new Board was appointed on the recommendation of the Committee over which I had the honour to preside; and I think that, on the whole, the Board has worked well. It is quite true, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour) has stated, that at the end of the five years it is quite possible to reconstitute the Board. Originally there was a great desire to obtain practical men to serve on the Board; but, for the reason stated by my right hon. and learned Friend, we were not able to obtain them. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) referred to the branding of herrings, and said they would like the brand in Ireland. That question was considered by the Irish Commissioners, and by a gentleman very well known to hon. Gentlemen sitting below the Gangway opposite—Dr. Brady—and the decision they arrived at was that Ireland did not want the brand. If the Irish people do not want the brand, we do not want to force it upon them. I have no doubt my noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland (the Earl of Dalhousie) will consider attentively what has been said in the House to-night, and that if an opportunity should occur at the end of the five years, every endeavour will be made to meet the wishes of the House by obtaining the services of some men more practically acquainted with fisheries than those who at present constitute the Fishery Board. Having myself given considerable attention to this question, and the Board having been appointed, as I have said, on the recommendation of the Committee I presided over, I am bound to say, in justice to the Board, that they have hitherto done very useful work indeed. I do not say the Board is perfect. It has only been in existence since 1882, and I am thoroughly convinced that during its short existence it has done very good and useful work. The Secretary for Scotland will, I am sure, bear in mind what has taken place to-night; and, that being so, I hope we may now be able to get the Vote.

MR. O'HEA (Donegal, W.)

I quite agree with hon. Gentlemen that the constitution of the Scotch Fishery Board is such as to be entirely condemned. The fishermen of Scotland have made repeated complaints that their representations do not receive the attention they are entitled to receive at the hands of those who ought to have their best interests at heart. If there is anything more than another which would conduce to the advancement of the men who pursue the fishing trade, it is that they should have a Board as a sort of tribunal before whom they could lay their just and legitimate grievances. The hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. R. W. Duff) referred to the question of trawling. There is nothing which tends so largely to augment the revenues of the poor people than this trawling, when it is carried on accord- ing to certain recognized rules and conditions. I remember that some time ago the fishermen of Bantry Bay had their drift nets interfered with by trawlers. The result was that upon one occasion there was an amount of disorder, and such breaches of the peace, that between 20 and 30 people were put to considerable expense in standing their trial at the Assizes. It is in consequence of the defective condition of Boards like the Scotch Fishery Board that the grievances of the fishermen so frequently come to the surface as at present. The people of the United Kingdom were rather amused a few years ago at the caricature of the ruler of the "Queen's Navee." I suppose the gentlemen who constitute this Board know about as much of fishing as the gentleman who, in the opera of H.M.S. Pinafore, held the position of ruler of the "Queen's Navee" knew about navigation. The question which has been raised to-night is an important one, not only for the interests of the fishermen of Scotland, but for those of the fishermen all along the Coast of Great Britain. I expected from the hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty some assurance that the Board will be reconstituted and reformed. I am sorry that such an assurance has not come from him, as I quite agree with everything my hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) has said in regard to this subject. I trust that, when the tenure of office of the present Board is up, the Board will be composed of men who understand everything appertaining to fishing, and that they should give their whole time to the duties of their office. Upon the face of it, the present Board is an absurdity. The business of Boards such as this cannot be efficiently discharged unless the gentlemen comprising the Boards understand the business, and devote their undivided time to the work.

MR. J. A. BLAKE (Carlow)

I do not altogether agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) in the suggestion he has made as to the branding for the Irish herrings. I happen to hold an official position in connection with fisheries, and therefore I have given considerable attention to this question. Most of the Irish herrings are caught at an early period, and they are, consequently, sold at higher prices than could be obtained subse- quently. I agree with my hon. Friend (Mr. Biggar) that a great deal of injustice has been done towards the Irish fisheries in contradistinction to the great favour extended towards the Scotch fisheries. I shall not commit any breach of official secrecy if I mention one remarkable fact in connection with the Irish fisheries. A large quantity of herrings are caught on the Irish Coasts in the winter season; they might be sent abroad and be useful for the brand. We applied to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury for the small sum of £50 for the purpose of making experiments in the winter cure of herrings; but while thousands of pounds a-year were lavished on the Scotch fisheries, the Department to which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) belongs refused us £50 for making experiments which might have resulted in a benefit to the Irish fisheries of thousands of pounds a-year. Another fact I wish to mention. For the 20 years of my life I have spent in this House, I have sought to obtain a grant from the Treasury for the purpose of promoting Irish fisheries by way of loans. I have been obstinately refused. It may be said we have loans now. We have loans from a fund which belongs to Ireland, which we succeeded in discovering and applying to the object I had in view. The most decided enemies we had — and generally they have been the bitterest enemies of Irish grants—were the Scotch Members. Only very recently a proposal was made in this House to devote thousands of pounds in the giving of loans to the Scotch fishermen. The proposal was unanimously passed by the House. For years, however, the House of Commons has refused to grant loans to the Irish fishermen. I am very happy to say that had the question come to a division there is not a single Member of the Party to which I have the honour to belong who would not have voted in favour of the granting of loans to the Scotch fishermen. While the utmost favour has been extended to the Scotch fisheries, the Irish people have received nothing from the British funds in aid of their fisheries. Now, with regard to the constitution of the Scotch Fishery Board. I happened to be appointed as an expert on the Fishery Committee for Scotland over which the hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. R. W. Duff) so very ably presided, and I must say that the recommendations which I had some hand in drawing up have been admirably carried out, and that they have in Scotland an advantage that I very much wish we had in Ireland. In addition to the salaried officials, they have upon the Board a number of independent intelligent gentlemen. I confess I disagree with one of my hon. Friends, who said it was objectionable to have members of the Board who do not devote all their time to the work of the Board. The Scotch Board enjoys a great advantage which I wish we enjoyed in Ireland. I sincerely wish we had in Ireland in connection with fishery matters that independent intelligent action which is most advantageously carried out in Scotland, owing to the presence upon the Fishery Board of independent intelligent gentlemen acquainted with the subject with which they are called upon to deal.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

One word in regard to what my hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Blake) has said. What was said as regards the salaried officials was, that the salaried members of the Board—such, for instance, as the Chairman—should give their whole time to the work of the Board. Of course, it is not so necessary in Ireland to have herring brands as it is in Scotland. As has been very properly pointed out, the two systems are different; but what I recommend—and I speak from a trader's point of view—is that where an official brand can be had, it should be had. I do think that the people of Scotland who possess an official brand, and who sell their fish on the faith of the value which the brand gives, should be very slow to do away with it. If they did away with the brand the character of the article would deteriorate very much, and the result would be exceedingly injurious to the interests of the business in which they were engaged. Now, the explanation of the hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. R. W. Duff) is a very fair one. He calls our attention to the fact that this is only a Vote on Account, and that before the Vote for the Scotch Fisheries is finally disposed of there will be another opportunity of discussion. I have no doubt that after what has taken place to-night the hon. Gentleman, after consultation with the Chief of the Department, will be able to see his way to pursue in the future in regard to the Scotch fisheries a much more reasonable course than has been pursued in the past; and, under these circumstances, I beg to withdraw my opposition to the Vote.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. MOLLOY (King's Co., Birr)

Mr. Courtney, in this Vote there is an item of an extraordinary character—it has reference to the chaplain attached to the Household of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Now, Sir, it is well known that the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a gentleman whom we all esteem and who, I hope, will remain in Ireland for very many years to come, is a Presbyterian, and I find that in the Estimates a considerable sum of money is asked for the payment of a clergyman of the Church of England. Then the chaplain to His Excellency receives as salary £184 12s. 8d. a-year, and over and above that he receives an allowance of £150 a-year in lieu of a furnished house—that makes £334 per annum. I do not object to the Lord Lieutenant having a chaplain attached to his Household in Dublin; but what I do object to is this—that whereas the religious ministrations which the present Lord Lieutenant prefers are those performed by a Presbyterian minister, and the Presbyterian minister, who in reality is attached to the Household of His Excellency, does not get a single farthing from the State, a clergyman of the Church of England, who has nothing to do with the religious functions to the Lord Lieutenant, is paid the sum of £334 a-year. The matter is of no importance to me personally—I neither belong to the Church of England nor the Presbyterian persuasion—but I think, in the interest of fair play, if the State gives money to be paid to a chaplain for the Lord Lieutenant, or for any Viceroy representing Royalty in any part of the world, the clergyman who receives the grant ought to be a clergyman of the religion to which the Viceroy belongs. The appointment of chaplain to the Household of the Lord Lieutenant is not a permanent one; it is like that of the chaplain to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin. The Lord Mayors appoint their own chaplains. If the appointment were a permanent one there would be some reason for saying that as nine out of every ten Viceroys are members of the Church of England we do not like to disturb the clergyman in the position he held. But the Government appointed as chaplain to the late Viceroy a Church of England minister; the present Lord Lieutenant is a Presbyterian, a Presbyterian minister performs all the religious functions of the Household, but gets not a single farthing by way of payment, while the Church of England minister receives £350 from the State. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. John Morley) is present, because I am sure he will take very much the same view of the matter as I do. The question is whether the real chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant should receive the money allowed by the State, or whether we shall give our sanction to a sinecure?

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JOHN MORLEY) (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

The subject which the hon. Member has raised has already been dealt with by me in answer to a Question put to me by some hon. Gentleman in the quarter of the House in which he sits. I communicated to the House the opinion of His Excellency upon the present arrangements, and the effect of that opinion was that His Excellency was entirely satisfied with the ministrations of the chaplain. His Excellency attends, as he informs me, and as I on the previous occasion informed the House, both the Presbyterian services and the services of the Church of England; and, under these circumstances, I cannot think it would be worth while to alter the existing arrangements.

MR. MOLLOY (King's Co., Birr)

Under these circumstances I withdraw my opposition to the Vote. I only drew attention to the matter because the statement appears weekly in the Irish papers that the Lord Lieutenant attended the Presbyterian services. Of course, the Lord Lieutenant would not be likely to raise the question himself.

SIR ROBERT FOWLER (London)

The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Molloy) has referred to the practice of the Lord Mayors of Dublin and London in respect to the appointment of chaplains. I know nothing about Dublin; but as regards London, I may inform the Com- mittee that many gentlemen who are not members of the Church of England, including several Members well known in the last Parliament, have, upon their appointment as Lord Mayor, appointed clergymen of the Church of England as their chaplains.

MR. E. HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

Seeing that the Lord Lieutenant avails himself of the services of both a Church of England minister and a Presbyterian minister, there is a very simple way out of the difficulty, and that is to divide the salary equally between the two clergymen.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

The hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir Robert Fowler) has spoken of the custom observed by the Lord Mayors of London in the matter of the appointment of chaplains. Our custom in Dublin is very different. The present Lord Mayor of Dublin, who is a Roman Catholic, has as his chaplain a clergyman of the Church to which he belongs; but if next year the Lord Mayor should happen to be a member of the Church of England he will appoint a clergyman of the Church of England his chaplain.

MR. TUITE (Westmeath, N.)

I rise to make some comments on the manner in which the Circuits of the Chief Commissioners of the Land Commission Court are held in Ireland. In the county of Westmeath I know of several tenants who, from want of means, were unable to go to Dublin to attend the appeals brought forward in their cases by the landlords. The result was that those tenants were obliged to settle out of Court on disadvantageous terms. That is a great injustice, and I express a hope that the Government will call the attention of the Chief Commissioners to the fact. I am aware that the reason assigned for the Commissioners not going to Mullingar, the capital of Westmeath, is that they cannot get in the town private lodgings sufficiently grand, although there is a good hotel there. I suggest that the Courts of the Land Commission should be held in centres which would embrace three or four counties, choosing the centre where, of course, the railway communication is good. Now, the railway communication is good at Mullingar, and I should say it would be a very convenient centre at which the Land Commissioners might hold their Courts. I raised this question in the House some time ago, but received no satisfaction at all with regard to it; and, therefore, I again take the opportunity of asking the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he will give some assurance that the Courts of the Land Commission shall be held at places where the tenants can be heard with convenience to themselves?

MR. JOHN MORLEY

I should have been better able to deal with the subject brought forward by the hon. Member who has just sat down, if I had known that it would have been raised on a Vote on Account. I am unable to say more than that the Land Commissioners, with whom I have had tolerably frequent communication, have assured me that they do the best they can with the resources in their hands to make their Circuits as convenient as possible. I am afraid the arrangement is sometimes attended with inconvenience, and even hardship; but the Commissioners assure me that they regret the inconvenience, and endeavour to reduce the hardship as much as lies in their power. I can assure the hon. Member that the desire of the Government is that every opportunity should be given for hearing these cases with the utmost speed, and in the manner most convenient for all the parties.

MR. P. J. POWER (Waterford, E.)

I wish to call the attention of the authorities to the irregularity of payments in some cases by the Charity Commissioners. I have a case in view in my own neighbourhood, which will illustrate the point to which I desire to call the attention of the Committee and the Government. Certain payments are made about Midsummer, and, as a rule, we receive the money for these payments with regularity; but sometimes it occurs that the gentleman in charge of the funds is absent, and there is great inconvenience in consequence to the poor people who are anxiously expecting what is due to them. Lately some 30 or 40 people receiving pensions from this office came to me and pointed out that payment was overdue seven days. I need hardly say that these are poor people, and that, as a rule, they owe their money, and have to pay it directly they receive it to shopkeepers who give them credit. On the occasion I refer to the people in question were in the greatest straits, and we wrote to Dublin, and in reply to our letter we were informed that the Commissioners were on vacation, and that no payment could be made until their return. I think, Sir, that is a most singular state of things. These poor people would have been in the most dire distress were it not that the parish priest and others in the neighbourhood discounted a bill, and by this means paid the poor people their small allowances pending the arrival of a remittance from the Charity Commissioners. I think that a little forethought would do away with the gross inconvenience that arises under such circumstances; if the Commissioners, for instance, had taken the precaution of sending us the money some few days before they went away on vacation these people could have been paid. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will draw the attention of those in charge of this important service to the very great inconvenience which arises from their action, and point out that the persons who suffer most are the poorest in the locality; and it is hardly fair that persons in the locality should be obliged to discount bills for the purpose of providing money which was overdue.

MR. W. J. CORBET (Wicklow, E.)

My hon. Friend the Member for East Waterford (Mr. P. J. Power) has complained of the irregularity of payments under this Vote, and I have a complaint to make with regard to a case in which no payment has been made at all. I have frequently brought under the notice of the Government the case of the Eaton bequest, made to the town of Wicklow as far back as 1796, for the purpose of establishing a woollen factory, and which now amounts to the sum of £4,000. Not 1s. of that bequest has been received. I understand that this sum is locked up somewhere. Now, the labouring classes of Wicklow have been for a long time in need, and it would be a great advantage to them if this sum of money could in any way be made available for their benefit. I trust that the Chief Secretary, who has had this matter before under his notice, as it has been under the notice of several of his Predecessors, will endeavour to take some steps to bring the question of this bequest, which has now been nearly 100 years in abeyance, to a satisfactory termination.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

With reference to this matter, I have to say that I recollect bringing the whole thing under the notice of the Commissioners more than a year ago, and furnishing them with a copy of the will. At that time I received a promise from the Board that the matter would be brought under the notice of the Attorney General for Ireland, and that something would be done. But nothing has been done; and I am told that there are legal difficulties in the way. But surely the mind of the Law Officers could be made up in less than a year. It is a real scandal that this should be allowed to continue; and, therefore, I trust that it will be terminated for good or for evil, in one way or the other, without delay.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

I think that the hon. Members who have just spoken with regard to this bequest have left out of sight, in the complaint they are making, the fact that the decision of a Court of Justice has to be obtained. That is, of course, a consideration which cannot be left out of the account. I am not aware of the grievance of the hon. Member for East Waterford (Mr. P. J. Power); but if it can be shown that there is any such grievance, or any dereliction on the part of the Board, I will certainly do my best to put it right.

MR. CHANCE

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman intends to state to the Committee that the case of the bequest to the town of Wicklow has been before any Court of Justice; but, if so, I shall be glad to hear it. My request, however, dates from a year ago, and I have been hearing ever since that the matter has been under the attention of the Attorney General for Ireland. I shall be glad then to hear if the Commissioners have been prevented from acting by the decision of a legal tribunal. I ask—Why was not the case brought into the Court of Chancery a year ago? I think that it has been admitted that a considerable grievance exists. The income has been lost, and we want to know whether we can recover any portion of it? Under the circumstances, I ask whether any steps can be taken to expedite the action of the Commissioners in dealing with this bequest?

MR. T. M. HEALY (Londonderry, S.)

I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant is overwhelmed with business; and I, therefore, will only remind him of his promise in the matter of the Fishery Board. I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, with regard to the answer he gave the other night, what he intends to do in the matter of the River Bann drainage? This question has been before the House for a considerable time, and as long ago as 1880 a Royal Commission, on which were the hon. Members for Galway, Tyrone, and Winchester, sat and reported on this question generally. Ever since that time the Board of Works have been shilly-shallying with the question. When the hon. Gentleman says that it is possible for five or more individuals to move the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to do certain things, he seems to have overlooked the fact that we have been moving the Lord Lieutenant for some time without effect. The River Bann flows down Lough Neagh into the sea, and divides two counties, Antrim and Londonderry. Great difficulty has been caused to the farmers along the river by the system of navigation in operation on the river, which is the same as has been the curse of the farmers on the banks of the Shannon. These navigation works, which cost £40,000, have to be maintained at an annual charge of £14,000, most of which, I believe, will ultimately fall on the ratepayers. The navigation works in Ireland have been a sham; they have been a sham on the Shannon, where the farmers have been flooded, and the Royal Commissioners have reported against the expenditure on the works. You have in these two counties ample railway facilities. I would not, however, complain of the navigation works if there was anything to navigate, but there is not; and I must protest, therefore, against this system of damming up the river in view of the navigation which never comes, while the farmers are seriously injured every year. It is a perfectly monstrous state of things. Let the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury tell me that there is some navigation, and show the Committee that it is worth more than the amount of injury which is done to the farmers, by not being able to cultivate the land which is periodically flooded, and I will say no more. That is not so, however; and, therefore, I feel it necessary to urge the hon. Gentle- man to take some steps to put a stop to the present state of things. What could be simpler than for the hon. Gentleman to introduce a Bill to amalgamate the Drainage and the Navigation Boards, and to constitute a franchise which will enable the farmers to be adequately represented upon it? What you must have, in my judgment, is this. You must have a Board so constituted that it will be thoroughly representative of all interests. If you have a Board simply representing the people of Coleraine, and not the farmers along the banks of the river, it will be of no use at all. Representing as I do the farmers along the banks of this river, I am bound to say that it is a farce to tell them—"Live horse until you get grass," or rather until the water subsides. Over and over again promises have been made to them that the matter will be attended to; but nothing has been done. When Earl Spencer travelled through the country some time ago he received a deputation on this very subject, and the grievances of the farmers were put before him; but beyond the fact that he gave them a few civil words, nothing, so far as I am aware, have yet been done in the matter. I must say that to have spent £40,000 or £50,000 on navigation works in this way, without any object or good result, seems to me to be as good a plan for throwing money into the sea as can possibly be devised. As far as the County Antrim side of the river is concerned, I am entirely impartial as to what is done. There is not a single Member for Antrim sitting on these Benches along with my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell); and I am, therefore, entirely impartial as far as Antrim is concerned; but, as far as the farmers on the Derry side are concerned, I must urge their case upon the Government, because it is a shame that they should be put off in this way from year to year without having their grievances redressed. I must ask the Chief Secretary to give us some assurance that he will introduce a measure to give the farmers on the banks of the river an adequate representation on the Board, and, at the same time, that he will see that this £1,400 a-year which is being paid for the maintenance of the navigation works will be stopped, and that the obstructions to the river will be done away with. I would point out one very remarkable fact in connection with these works. The farmers along the banks of the River Bann are, perhaps, the most loyal and Protestant of the farmers of any part of Ireland; but so bitterly do they feel about this annual flooding of their land, that not so long ago they took dynamite and attempted to blow away the navigation works. If that had taken place in the South of Ireland I should have been prepared to have deprecated such a course; but as it occurred in loyal Antrim I shall be very chary in saying anything at all in regard to it. I do trust, however, that the hon. Gentleman will see his way to take some steps which will do away with the cause of this constant flooding.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

The hon. and learned Member who has just sat down said that nothing could be simpler than to bring in a Bill to deal with this question. It might be very simple to introduce a Bill; but from my short experience in matters of this sort I think it will be no very simple thing to carry such a Bill.

MR. T. M. HEALY

It would be a non-contentious Bill.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

I would point out to the hon. and learned Member, also, that the reception which has been given to the Ulster Canal and Tyrone Navigation Bill is not altogether such as to encourage the Government to believe that the passage of a Bill in regard to the Bann Navigation would be so simple a matter. With regard to the question itself, I can only endorse what has been already said in answer to Questions which have been put. I do not think, however, that the hon. and learned Member is quite correct in regard to the position of the Lord Lieutenant and the Board of Works and the ratepayers. I think that the ratepayers should make a representation to the Board of Works.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I can show the hon. Gentleman a Memorial 10 fathoms long which was presented to the Lord Lieutenant on the subject.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

I do not dispute that Memorials have been presented on the subject, and I am aware that they have been under consideration. It appears to me that the idea of consolidating the Boards is a very good one; but I may say that I received a length- ened communication this morning from Ireland on the subject, going thoroughly into the whole question, and I can assure hon. Members that I will give it my best consideration. This, however, is but another proof of the present anomalous system of government in Ireland, for while I occupy the position of Financial Secretary to the Treasury I am also called upon to deal with questions concerning the Board of Works, and the longer I hold the position I have the honour to hold the more I see the utter absurdity of our Irish administration in connection with public works. I candidly confess my utter incompetency to perform my duties in relation to these matters. I feel that I am quite unable to stand the criticisms of those who are on the spot, and whose intimate knowledge of local wants and circumstances enables them to come to a right conclusion. I will, however, do my best to promote the interests of all those concerned. It is desirable, of course, that a Drainage Board shall be formed, which shall represent all classes fairly, for the construction of a Board on any other principle would be entirely unsatisfactory. I can only say that the whole matter shall receive my best attention.

COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)

I really think that there is now some chance for an improvement being effected in the Office of Works in Ireland, and for this reason. We have had a great many Secretaries to the Treasury in the House; but I believe the hon. Gentleman who at present holds that Office is the first who has publicly recognized the actual situation. The declaration which the right hon. Gentleman has just made is, perhaps, the most important which we have heard for some time. Former Secretaries to the Treasury whom we have heard in this House have talked as if they could speak of Irish affairs by inspiration, for they professed to know more about Ireland than the Irish Members themselves. It is perfectly plain that the Secretary to the Treasury can have no knowledge on these matters, except what he gets from the Irish Board of Works, unless he goes over to Ireland himself. Unless he gives up his control over the £80,000,000 annually required for the service of this country, he cannot perform the duties required of him in connection with Irish public works. That is perfectly clear, because we have a most competent Secretary to the Treasury now, and he acknowledges his inability. There is one thing which I wish to point out, and it is this. Some time ago a Royal Commission was appointed by the Government, composed of myself, the then Member for Tyrone (Mr. Thomas Dickson), then a leading Liberal in the North of Ireland, and the present Member for Mid Armagh (Sir James Corry), and we all reported in opposition to the Government in introducing this Ulster Canal Bill. In reference to this question of the drainage of the Lower Bann, I wish to point out that no Drainage Board can be of the slightest use, unless the farmers along the banks of the river are properly represented. It is not to the interest of the landlord to drain the land, because he cannot get any further profit out of it, and the tenant is not allowed to go upon the Board. Such is the law, and the drainage of the country is in a most deplorable state at present. For three years you have brought in a Drainage Bill, but you have not made the slightest effort to pass it, and the consequence is that there is an enormous amount of water on the land which might be taken off if the tenant were only allowed to form Drainage Boards. This water causes the farmers such an enormous amount of inconvenience, that I am sure they would be ready and willing to form such Boards. This is one of those cases in which a considerable change in the law of Ireland is absolutely necessary. The Board of Works should issue very different Regulations. I am glad, however, that we are in a better position now than we were ever in before with regard to this question. We have had moderately clever Secretaries to the Treasury, and we have had Secretaries to the Treasury who thought they were clever; but now we have a very clever and distinguished one, and he acknowledges that he has not the power to deal with these things. I hope sincerely, therefore, that something will now be done. The drainage of the country is in a most deplorable state, and we see that, wherever drainage works have been carried out, they have proved of the greatest benefit to the country, and the money which has been obtained in respect of them has always been repaid. Unless something can be done to improve the condition of the country at once, then all that is left is for the Secretary to the Treasury to give up the control of these matters, and to send over a Secretary to Ireland, or he should send over a Member of Parliament—an English Member—to look thoroughly into the whole matter. It really requires the presence of a man in Dublin, and a man having power to effect the changes which are necessary. It is one of the greatest physical grievances we have to see the country in this state, when we know that England is willing to advance the money to carry out the necessary works. All that is wanted is a man with power in Dublin—a Minister in Dublin—who would go properly into the whole question, and put it right in a very short time. That is all we want. The whole country in the neighbourhood of a stream is in a state of saturation, and this is allowed to remain so simply because the Secretary to the Treasury cannot attend to the matter. I do hope that something will be done at once in this matter.

MR. W. J. CORBET (Wicklow, E.)

I wish to ask the hon. Member what is going to be done in regard to Arklow Harbour? This is really a most important question. I repeatedly brought this matter under the notice of the Government before; but, beyond encouraging answers to my Questions, I am sorry to say that I was unable to get anything satisfactory. The facts of the case are these. The people of the district guaranteed £20,000 towards the cost of improving this harbour; but, owing to the defective plans of the Board of Works, the breakwater was seriously damaged by the first storm that came. It was built upon sand, and went to smash the first time anything in the nature of a storm broke upon it. Well, I brought the matter under the notice of the then Secretary to the Treasury, and the reply I received was that the matter was a very trivial one, and that the damage had already been remedied at a very trifling cost. But what are the real facts? After a great deal of agitation, and a great many Questions in this House, we got a special engineer sent down to inquire into the matter, and with him came another engineer from Dublin, and they made the Report which I hold in my hand. From that Report it appears that another sum of £10,500 will be required to complete the harbour, and from a further Report of the Board of Works it seems that the people will be called upon to guarantee that amount, although the plans that have turned out so great a failure were proceeded with by the Board of Works in the teeth of their opposition. There have been three Papers laid upon the Table of this House—one the Report of the engineer of the Board of Works, whose work was called in question; another from Messrs. Stephenson and Stoney, who were sent to inquire into the matter, and who, I must say, let the Board of Works down very softly; and there was a further Report on Stephenson and Stoney's Report from the Board of Works, which showed a very small amount of gratitude indeed for the mild way in which Messrs. Stephenson and Stoney reported on their blunders. However, there are some other Reports made on the other side of the question. There are the Reports made by the engineer who was employed by the Harbour Authorities, Mr. W. G. Strype, C.E., which are before the Treasury; and I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman if he will have any objection to lay those Reports on the Table, because they throw considerable light on the subject, and they will enable the House to judge accurately of the merits of the question, of which only one side has yet been shown. I do trust, moreover, the hon. Gentleman will give us some assurance that he will not allow the people of Arklow to be mulcted through the blundering of the Board of Works.

MR. BYRNE (Wicklow, W.)

I beg to emphasize the observations which have been made by the hon. Member for East Wicklow, who has for a long series of years taken a very special interest in the question of Arklow Harbour, and done good and valuable work in regard to it; and I hope, therefore, that his appeal will be attended to. I would remind the Committee that the prosperity of the population of Arklow depends upon Arklow Harbour; and, therefore, it is essential that the work of repairing the pier should be done as soon as possible. No doubt, the question of site and direction of the pier was one of some difficulty; but what we complain of is that the Board of Works declined to employ the engineer who so successfully carried out the work at Wicklow Harbour, and who knew the peculiarities of the coast exceedingly well, but employed one who designed and carried out the works in a very shameful way; and, therefore, it is a gross injustice to the population of Arklow to call upon them to repay money which has been wasted, or to guarantee any new loan. They have sufficient burdens already, without being called upon to pay this money, which has been wantonly thrown into the sea. There is not a Member of this Committee who knows the slightest thing about marine engineering who could not have seen at once that these plans were bad. The pier and harbour were so constructed that the pressure of the sea was certain to crush them; but although the pressure is very extreme indeed at Arklow, it was not the pressure which damaged and injured the pier, but it was because the plans did not provide for a proper foundation, and the consequence was that the first small storm—a very small storm—undermined it and washed it away. It is a fact, moreover, that the works were not carried out in full accordance with the plans. The Board of Works Engineer sent in a Report which was so disgraceful that, if it had been sent in by a person in private employ, it would have at once caused him to be sent about his business. It was a misrepresentation altogether. I contend that engineers employed on works in tidal waters should be persons of local experience. It is more necessary that this should be the case in regard to tidal than in regard to smooth waters, for in tidal waters it is necessary to make provision for enabling boats to get to sea in a safe and effective manner. The Board of Works official stated that it would cost £2,000 to carry out the necessary alterations and reparations of the works; but Messrs. Stevenson and Stoney fix the cost at £10,500. The repairs were effected by throwing rubble stones over the side, which will, of course, be washed away by the scour of the first heavy tide that happens at that place. The special Report of Messrs. Stevenson and Stoney admitted that the pier had not been properly extended, and recommended that the work should be done in situ or solid block, instead of blocks, which could be washed away. The engineer Mr. Manning, agrees that that would be an improvement; but the recommendation also is that stones of about 35 cwt. each, such as you have at Kingstown and Holyhead, should be put over the side. However, the stones that have been used have not been of that class. They have only weighed some 10 or 12 cwt. each. There is a quarry accessible to those who direct the works, where the large stones can be got if they so desire. I do not know what the Board of Works contemplates by this operation of putting stones over the side, as so staying or shoring up the work can only serve as a temporary purpose. If they were to drive down piles first and then put down stones of great weight they would obtain the necessary protection for the piers. Then they actually contemplate putting down stones inside the harbour. Should this be done, boats coming in in rough weather will be in danger of getting wrecked. I would point out to the Committee that the livelihood of 3,000 people depends upon this harbour. There are using the harbour a number of large boats which are managed by as able and as hardy a set of men as are to be found in the United Kingdom; and if the harbour gets silted up through bad designing and mismanagement of the works and repairs thereof, these boats will be unable to come in or leave the harbour, and the result will be not only that the livelihood of these people will be affected, but the neighbourhood, the City of Dublin and other places, will be deprived of the fish these boats would bring in. The bad design, execution, and management of this harbour and pier is not only a public grievance, but a public scandal. The Board of Works seem to have no shame on account of their own mistake and the inefficiency of their own officer. They support him, and are going to spend a further sum of £10,500. On what condition are they going to spend it? On condition that the people of Arklow guarantee repayment. First they misapply a large sum, and then come and ask the people of Arklow for more money to give this Mr. Manning a further power of mismanagement. I think the Secretary to the Treasury should give us an assurance that this matter will be looked into carefully, and that the Irish officials will not be permitted to patch up the harbour. I hope he will tell us that some practical engineer will be employed from Hull, or any other place, so long as he is able to deal with tidal waters. Further, I trust he will visit the harbour himself, and not permit himself to be coached by the officers of the Board of Works in Ireland. I am sorry I have had to detain the Committee with this matter; but it is one of great importance to the people of Ireland, and, as is the case in regard to all other affairs affecting that country, the people have waited so long to have their wishes carried out that they have grown tired of waiting. It is really too bad, after all the attention that has been given to this matter in the House, and the amount of money that has been voted upon it, and the way in which the Board of Trade have met this case—and I know what has happened in the past in that respect—that this grievance should continue. The Treasury have done their part by giving this money as freely as they have given it in other cases. It is too bad that this money should be wasted before the eyes of the people of Arklow against their earnest protest. It is well known that a captain who is able to take his ship across the Atlantic is bound to take a pilot before entering a port, not because the captain is not an able seaman, but because the pilot has local experience. In the same way, in regard to these Arklow Harbour works, I maintain that the works being local require to be carried out by someone possessing local knowledge. The Government should send away the men at present employed—the Commissioners of the Board of Works themselves, if necessary—and get better ones in their place.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)

Some days ago the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister intimated to the House the decided opinion that the Constabulary of Ireland and the Civil Service of Ireland were singular illustrations of the room for that improvement which is to be effected by handing over to the Irish people themselves the administration of their own affairs. Well, I do not know any Department in Ireland which requires more radical reform than that of the Board of Works. It is unquestionable that the action of the Board of Works in the matter of Arklow Harbour has ended in the squandering of public money in a most shameful manner, and that the people of the district are laden with a burden altogether unnecessary, by reason, first of all, of the bad administration of the Board itself; and, secondly, of the incompetence or carelessness of their officers. And not only is this the state of things in regard to the Arklow Harbour, but a similar statement might be made with regard to the other end of the Island. The fishery piers of Donegal are monuments of mismanagement and incompetence. They cost a great deal of money, and a great amount of fuss is made about their erection, and when erected they prove in many cases defective, and in many cases absolutely useless. If we had in Ireland an administration on these matters such as they have in France, if we had a Board of Works as useful, as complete, and as creditable to the country as the French have, judging from some of their drainage works, there would be no reason to complain. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the drainage of the Bann, about which representations have been made to him. But there is also another drainage scheme the Board of Works have been playing with for some time, utterly unable to make up their minds about. It was not until year after year of constant pressure upon them that I myself succeeded in getting them to appoint a Commission in the matter. That Commission has at length reported, and I should be glad to learn from the Secretary to the Treasury what the Government propose to do with regard to the recommendations of that Commission. Hundreds and thousands of pounds have been voted away for public works in England, and enormous sums are given for harbour works on the East Coast of Scotland. These drainage works of the Bann and the Shannon valleys are as important, from an Irish point of view, as these harbour and drainage works in England and Scotland; but we have to sit here and see these large amounts voted away to other communities, without a modicum for ourselves to carry out improvements which are urgently needed in Ireland. I hope the Secretary to the Treasury will give us some assurance that the Government are prepared to jog the activity of the Board of Works in Ireland in regard to these matters. As a matter of minor importance, I would desire to address a question to the Government as to the Civil Service in Ireland generally. We are encouraged to think that, when we are allowed the administration of our own affairs, a considerable reduction may be effected for the good of the country in the expenditure connected with the Civil Service. If that is so, and we are to effect a considerable reduction, and if, at the same time, the existing members of the Civil Service are to have all their vested interests safeguarded, it becomes of importance, from a national point of view, to consider whether any additions which are not absolutely necessary are now being made in the Irish Civil Service. I trust the Government are not filling up any vacancies that it is possible to leave unfilled, because there are an enormous number of posts in Ireland; and the filling up of these, where it can be prevented, would be simply throwing on the Irish Exchequer a burden that it ought not, in any case, to bear. Then, connected with the prospective interests of Irish administration, arises the question of the position of writers and Second Division clerks in Ireland. I presume that if this question is dealt with by the Treasury within any small number of months—and we have been assured over and over again that it is receiving the careful attention of the Treasury Authorities — the resolutions arrived at, whatever they may be, will be extended to Ireland, as well as to England and Scotland. It is, therefore, of importance that we should know what extra charge will be thrown on the Irish resources by reason of any alteration in the status or vested interests of these gentlemen. Another point I will urge on the Secretary to the Treasury is this. Over and over again great inconvenience and great loss of public money has been experienced in this country by reason of the non-interchangeability of the Civil Service. Wherever there has been a block of promotion in any important Department re-organization has had to be started, in order to get rid of unnecessary servants, and to cause a good flow of promotion. If, however, a reasonable system of Civil administration had obtained, men unnecessary in one Department would have been transferred to other Departments where there were vacancies, instead of taking new men in those Departments. If any scheme of interchangeability is in contemplation, I hope it will be extended to Ireland as soon as possible, for that will be one of the first measures necessary for us to adopt, in order to effect that reduction which the Treasury itself admits is so reasonable, and ought to have been carried out long ago. I should like to speak of the Vote for the Registrar General's Office, in regard to which I have placed on the Paper a Notice to move a reduction; but it will, perhaps, be fairer to the Chief Secretary if I defer my observations on that until the Vote is taken in the ordinary manner. I hope that in the meantime nothing will be done with the sanction of the Treasury to render any vested interests of a more serious magnitude in that Office than they are at present. But there are two matters that I think ought to receive the attention of the Government at once in connection with the Civil administration in Ireland. One is as to the lunatic asylums. The scandalous overcrowding that takes place in the lunatic asylums in Ireland is a positive disgrace to the Government. Year after year the facts of the case have been pointed out; year after year officials on the Government Bench have admitted the justice of the complaints; and the absurd excuse has been urged that, if in 11 out of 22 lunatic asylums in Ireland there is gross overcrowding, in the other 11 there are a great many vacant places, as if vacancies in one lunatic asylum can be any palliative for the mismanagement which allows overcrowding in others. In the Belfast Lunatic Asylum, according to the last Report, where they have accommodation for 208 lunatics, they have 306; in the Ennis Asylum, whilst the accommodation is only for 130, they have 179 patients; in the Letterkenny Asylum they have 231 male lunatics, with accommodation for only 175; and in the Mullingar Asylum 270 patients are occupying the accommodation intended for 215. This is a positive scandal, and, as I say, it has been pointed out over and over again, and admitted by the Government. I see the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary now in his place. Perhaps he will tell us that something will be done at once to remedy this state of things. Another—and the last point I would touch upon, as the Chief Secretary is in his place—is the condition of the poor at Gweedore. I have received most heartrending accounts of the distress prevailing there. As has been mentioned in this House several times, the Board of Guardians there are practically under the thumb of the local magistrate, who is their chairman, and they have obstinately and systematically refused to give outdoor relief. I have a list of 76 families in one comparatively small portion of the district, none of whom have proper food or the means to obtain it. The Local Government Board Inspector was down there a few days ago. He was taken in tow by the bailiff, who is particularly obnoxious to the people of the neighbourhood, and the houses he visited were those in which he was least likely to find scenes of distress. Every effort has been made by the excellent parish priest of the district to draw the attention of the Government to the terrible state of things that obtains there, and I know for a fact that he has embarrassed himself, parted with all his own means, and burdened himself with debt, in order to relieve his unfortunate parishioners, who are in a state of starvation. So far the Government have not manifested any immediate intention of causing the issue of outdoor relief to these people. I trust that on this subject we shall also receive a satisfactory statement from the Chief Secretary.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Fermanagh, N.)

I will not detain the Committee for more than one moment; but I should like to refer back, in a word or two, to the case of Arklow Harbour that the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Donegal (Mr. A. O'Connor) alluded to. I must say that I entirely concur with the hon. Member in his expression of opinion that when the Prime Minister's Local Government Bill became law in no way would it give greater satisfaction to the Irish people, or confer greater advantages upon Ireland, than in its destruction of the Board of Works as it at present exists in that country. Sir, the case of Arklow Harbour is a case of which English and Scotch Members ought to be pretty well tired. Arklow is only a small town, possessing a population, most of whom live by fishing. Some time ago a grant of money was received from the Treasury for the purpose of erecting a harbour to give pro- tection to the fishing part of the population. It may seem to the Committee a very easy thing to build a harbour when the money is forthcoming for it; but such is the blundering and stupidity of the Board of Works in Ireland, that when they got the money they did not spend it properly, according to the view of the people of the district for whose benefit the grant was made. They went on in an erratic course of their own in defiance of the people, and the result has been a demand for a further sum of money for the completion of the harbour. It was at first estimated that it would take £20,000 to fix the harbour up in a satisfactory manner. In commencing the work the Board of Works altogether ignored local opinion. The fishermen who were concerned and were to be most benefited by the harbour gave their opinion as to the particular way in which the pier should be constructed. The Board of Works, however, with systematic persistency, refused to pay the slightest attention to the representation of the officials in Arklow. An attempt was made to induce the Board of Works to engage upon this work a local engineer, who had a thorough knowledge of the coast and of the practical requirements of the place, and who knew what steps were necessary for the satisfactory completion of the harbour; but again the Board of Works, with a persistency which is certainly very hard to understand, because one cannot see the particular reason for it, refused to employ on the work any engineer who had local knowledge or any engineer who had the confidence of the people. What was the result? Why, the harbour was built in a manner contrary to the idea of the people for whom it was intended, the £20,000 originally devoted to the purpose was spent, and after a little time a storm came—by no means a severe one or one that put an unusual strain on the solidity and substantiality of the structure—and the harbour or pier was actually swept away. I myself visited the place in company with the hon. Gentleman who brought the matter before the House, and I can bear testimony to the fact that the work of the engineer of the Board of Works was actually demolished as completely as one could break a matchbox in one's hand. The people of the district, disappointed and disgusted as they were, pointed to the fact that this pier was systematically built in opposition to their wishes, and they said that it was because of that that the failure was so lamentably great. Well, when the Board of Works had blundered once at the commencement by the employment of the wrong engineer, one would have imagined that a set of men who were not altogether steeped up to the eyes in obstinacy and pig-headedness would have given in and would have avoided making another mistake. But no; they desired to repair the damage that their own particular engineer had brought about, and they employed exactly the same person to carry out the repair, and refused to allow a man to be employed who would have the confidence of the people of the district, and would have in his head a knowledge of the locality and what it practically required. As I understand it, the object of bringing this case before the Committee is to get the Secretary to the Treasury to make a statement on what, goodness knows, is not very much to ask—that he will give instructions to the Board of Works to compel them to appoint, along with their own engineer, or in place of their own engineer, if they do not want two, an engineer who will meet with the approbation and the confidence of the people of the town. That is the first thing we ask the Secretary to the Treasury to do, and surely it is not much to ask of him. The next thing we ask is that the people of Arklow shall not be made to pay for the blundering of the Board of Works. Goodness only knows that it is an infliction enough on the people of Ireland to have such an institution as the Board of Works, always blundering and doing things the wrong way, without being called upon to pay for its blunders. It is a great disappointment, and, from a pecuniary point of view, it is a great loss to the people of Arklow that the harbour there was not built properly in the beginning; but they are not only asked to put up with the inconvenience of waiting for the harbour and pier, but they are actually expected to pay the additional sum of money necessary to enable the fishing population to continue their avocation. The original sum was £20,000. The people guaranteed that amount under the impression it would be properly expended. But it was wasted by the Board of Works; it was frittered away, with the result that another £10,500 is required. I ask any English or Scotch Member, is it not monstrous that the people of this district should have to pay £10,500 additional, simply because the engineer in charge of the work was a man who did not know his business? If a proper engineer had been employed from the commencement, in compliance with the desire of the people, the probability is that the £20,000 would have been quite sufficient, that a harbour would have been built so as to suit the fishermen, and the country would have been saved a further expenditure of £10,500. The work is done, and it is no use crying over spilt milk; but it is hard the people should be asked to bear this additional expense which is absolutely caused by the blundering of the engineer of the Board of Works. We ask that the Secretary to the Treasury will give us some assurance that the people shall not be called upon to bear this additional expense which has not been necessitated by any fault of their own.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

I assure the hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. Redmond) that the Treasury will not embark on any further expenditure without the most clear, convincing, independent, and impartial evidence that such expenditure is absolutely necessary. The question is now under consideration. I am not aware of all the facts of the case as stated in the debate this evening, but hon. Gentlemen will not disagree with me when I say there are two sides to this question. There are some local people who object to a double batch of engineers, and this objection we are considering. I am already, as I have intimated to the hon. Member, preparing and selecting Papers which I think should be laid on the Table of the House, and from these Papers hon. Members will be able to see what has been done in this matter from the beginning to the end of the business. I am not competent to say who is right and who is wrong; but I have sufficient authority to say that no more public money will be expended upon the harbour until we are perfectly satisfied that the expenditure is absolutely necessary.

MR. O'HEA (Donegal, W.)

I think the hon. Gentleman has fully justified the question which has been put to him. It is well known that there has been a most prodigal expenditure of public money on works in Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for North Fermanagh (Mr. W. Redmond) referred to the Board of Works and to the useless enterprizes in which they embark. It has been very properly pointed out that the Board of Works have made public roads in parts of the country where they are utterly unnecessary; some roads have commenced on the sea shore and ended on the top of a mountain, and some have commenced in a bog and ended nowhere. This is evidence of the way public money has been expended in Ireland. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury spoke of there being an objection to a double batch of engineers. As a matter of fact, works of utility remain undone from the simplest causes, while the people are suffering from the want of the works. Twenty-five years ago it was decided to erect a pier in the North of Ireland. The work was commenced, but never brought to a completion. The effect is, that the stone and other materials laid down are at present merely an impediment in Donegal Bay. The case of the Arklow Harbour is one which seriously engages the attention of the Irish Members, and we have a right to have every single item in respect of the expenditure properly and fully explained to us. It is satisfactory that the Secretary to the Treasury has given the assurance that no more money will be spent upon this particular project, unless the expenditure is proved to be really necessary. I am sorry, for the sake of many works that have been commenced in Ireland, that such an assurance, and the necessity for giving it, did not occur to the Government long ago. It is satisfactory to receive the assurance which the hon. Gentleman has given us, an assurance which in itself justifies the action taken for some time past by Irish Members in respect to this matter.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR (Kincardine)

I was very glad to hear the statement of the Secretary to the Treasury in respect to the intention of the Treasury to lay before Parliament a selection of the Papers relating to the Arklow Harbour, because I do not think the people of the locality ought to be called upon to pay any more money towards the carrying out of the harbour works than that already fixed on.

MR. HARRIS (Galway, E.)

I do not think there is any district in Ireland in which the Board of Works have displayed grosser mismanagement than the district I represent. For very many years they have been engaged in works on the River Shannon; but now we find that the river is in a very much worse state than when the Board commenced operations. There has been more money spent in sending Commissioners and engineers down, and in various preliminaries, than would have done the work itself if it had been under the management of an intelligent or an efficient Department. The Board of Works have not confined their operations to the Shannon; they have included its largest tributary, that is, the River Suck. The Division I represent is bounded by the River Shannon and the River Suck. What has been their course of action? They commenced operations 40 or 50 years ago, and at that time the Shannon was simply teeming with fish. The Board set about excavations, destroying the spawning places for the fish, and they erected weirs, with the result that the floods are more frequent and numerous now than ever they were before, and that now it is almost impossible for a man with a day's fishing to get as much as will serve for a dinner. On the banks of the tributaries, and on the banks of the Shannon itself, there were many mills. In the town of Athlone there were, within my memory, three mills. Upon the pretence of doing good, the Board removed these mills, as, indeed, they are gradually removing the mills on the various rivers throughout Ireland, until in the end, I suppose, there will not be a mill left. The system they have pursued is a dual one. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Derry (Mr. T. M. Healy) has remarked, there are the navigation gentlemen advocating one course of action, and there are the drainage gentlemen advocating another course of action, with this result—that between them they are destroying all our fine rivers. This is a great pity, for no country of the same size has finer rivers than Ireland. It is an admitted fact that the Shannon is unequalled by any river in the three countries. As my hon. and learned Friend asked, could not these two de- partments or agencies be combined? There is nothing in the world to prevent the drainage being carried on in the most effective way by the sluice system; and at the same time it is quite possible also, through the instrumentality of the sluice system, to keep up the navigation. Hon. Gentlemen do not see the point. You have your sluices for drainage purposes, and by their means you can keep up the water until such time as its release will do no injury to the banks or to the various interests on the banks of the rivers. By the present system of excavation, you are doing much more harm to the lower reaches of the river than you do good to the upper parts. Some attempts have been made to reservoir the water. Now, if a system of reservoirs were opened, or the lake system properly improvized, you could utilize your water power, and, by adopting a proper course of irrigation, produce a very good crop of fallow hay—most of the hay in Ireland is fallow hay. Another fact, which may not be known to the Committee and to gentlemen unacquainted with Ireland, is that, owing to the present drainage system, bog gradually steals down to the river's edge; there is a vast increase of waste land in Ireland owing to the simple circumstance that you have adopted an inefficient system of drainage. It is impossible for statistics to show the waste in land which is caused by the circumstance I have described, and by other circumstances, such, for instance, as the removal of our people from mountain and bog lands which formerly they were in the habit of cultivating. If we had in Ireland a proper irrigation and navigation system, if the spawning beds were preserved instead of removed, we should find all the various interests connected with the rivers improving day by day. [A laugh.] Hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway laugh. I hear them, night after night, talking about their sporting rights upon land and upon water. If, instead of laughing, they made an endeavour to improve the industries of the country, and to ameliorate the condition of the poor tenants who occupied the land, something might be said in their favour. Unfortunately, however, they only laugh and make long speeches in the effort to sustain themselves and their interests against the right of the people and the rights of justice. I was contending, Mr. Courtney, that the gross mismanagement by the Board of Works, the monstrous way in which they have acted in regard to the rivers in Ireland, is in itself sufficient to condemn the government of Ireland, or as to the government of any one country being carried out by another country. The Board of Works have the House of Commons and the English people behind them, and those who complain of this mismanagement are hopelessly trying to get redress from this House. The House of Commons are too far away, and they have too much to do; they are like Atlas—they have the world on their shoulders. They are too immovable; and when our poor people want to get some especial benefit for their country they are flooded with officials, and it is utterly impossible to get redress from the House of Commons. Our applications are always neglected. There is so much red-tapeism and roundaboutism, if I may use the expression, that the people are hopeless and in despair. As civilization advances, the tendency is to give greater power to local departments, and, above all, to put those local departments under the popular will of the people, without which no good results will follow. The landlords of Ireland are simply destroying the industries of the country. There is a Western part in Ireland which is teeming with fish. They come in day after day on the shore, and the boats and the nets which should catch them have been swallowed up in rent by the landlords. The charity which comes from America is swallowed up by the rent to the landlords. The profits which are made out of sea-weed are swallowed up in rent.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must ask the hon. Gentleman to confine his remarks to the Vote before the Committee, which refers to the Civil Service in Ireland.

MR. HARRIS

I am sorry I have trespassed from the subject. I would not have done so had it not been for the interruptions above the Gangway. I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to the want of piers on the Western Coast of Ireland. There is one circumstance connected with piers which has not been put before the Committee. It is connected with the very high tides we have on the Western Coast. At low tide the fish in shoals come in the numerous bays by which the Western Coast is indented. The people are perhaps up in the fields engaged in agricultural work. They hear that the fish have come in; they rush down to the shore to put out their boats; but while they are dragging the boats along the strand, the fish go away. [A laugh.] Hon. Gentlemen laugh, but I am stating what I know to be an absolute fact. It is a fact which I myself have witnessed. If there had been a pier, and the people had had nothing to do but to step into the boats, they could, no doubt, have made large hauls. There is another very important matter connected with the want of piers on the Western Coast. The deep sea fisheries of Ireland are just as valuable as the shore fisheries, but there are no means of communication for the larger class of boats. The want of piers along the Western Coast is very detrimental to the interests of the people who live in that region. There are very many other points connected with the mistakes and blunders of the Board of Works, and of the English Government, which I would like to touch upon, but I do not like to delay the Committee. I know very well there are other Gentlemen who wish to speak, and, therefore, it is not for me to detain the Committee; but there is one point I must mention. It is this, that the works the Board of Works have done are badly done. Many works have been allowed to decay and to become entirely useless for the want of proper supervision. It seems to be nobody's business to look after works in a continuous and intelligent way; the result is, that where a small effort is made one day it is entirely nullified by neglect the next day. Things are going from bad to worse every day in Ireland. While prices were high, while rents were high, while everything seemed to be moving onwards, nothing was done to improve the country. Now a change has taken place; rents are going down, everything is declining, and, of course, when the authorities did nothing in the good times, it is hard to say they will anything it in the bad times. The want of continuous supervision on the part of the Board of Works is very injurious even to what they have done, which is very little; but I hope that when we get a Government of our own, when Irishmen are able to exert their own intelligence, and to remedy whatever evils affect their country, when we can do that without being incumbered by officialism from this country, or anywhere else, I hope to see a great improvement.

MR. P. MCDONALD (Sligo, N.)

It is well known to all my hon. Friends around me that Ireland is the most Board-governed country in the world. We are not governed directly by the English Government, but by a number of Boards, some of which do not even admit responsibility. We have, amongst others, the Board of Education, the Board of Works, the Local Government Board, the Irish Lights Board, and the Fishery Board. Each and all of them are bad in their own way; but the worst of all, I am sorry to say, is the Board of Works. One would imagine that these Boards would try to perform the duty assigned to them by the English Government, or to do the work which Ireland has a right to expect from them; but their sole effort seems to be how not to do the work required of them. The worst of all, in the non-fulfilment of their duties, are the Board of Works; of all the Irish Boards, the Board of Works, in my opinion, are the most incompetent. Sir, I am old enough to remember a good many works which have been begun, but not finished, by the Board of Works. My hon. Friend the Member for West Donegal (Mr. O'Hea) has drawn a picture of the unfinished works which have not been completed, and I can bear my testimony that this incompleteness is owing to the want of competence on the part of the Board of Works, or their determination "not to do it." I know a road which was struck out in my native county 30 years ago; it was to pass through a district where a road was particularly needed, inasmuch as, if it had been, constructed, it would have shortened the way by four miles out of nine. That road was opened at both ends, but the middle of it has remained up to the present time incomplete. Who is accountable for that? Why, the Board of Works, as they are accountable for many shortcomings in Ireland that are now afflicting the people. Again, in a locality in which I lived for 15 years, there was another road which I remember to have seen during seven years of that time—half the roadway being cut to a depth of six or seven feet, and the other half left in its original condition, dangerous to the passengers, an impediment to the traffic, and generally, I may say, a public nuisance. The cases, Sir, which I have cited are only typical of the state of things existing in Ireland. Wherever the Board of Works have laid their hands, they seem to have got hold of the work for the purpose of not carrying it to completion. One of my hon. Friends has referred to the flooding of rivers in Ireland in consequence of the navigation system and the manner in which the Board of Works have carried out the drainage works intrusted to them. I have seen the Shannon flooded winter after winter; and I witnessed a most remarkable instance of that flooding on one occasion. It was on a roadway near Drumshambo, and the Shannon had flooded the adjacent land to a distance of three-quarters of a mile on either side; a number of poor people were coming home from market and found the way impassable; they had to wait until they were taken up by some kind-hearted carriers, whose horses were obliged to wade through the water; darkness was coming on, and the drivers were unable to find their way; and, had it not been that some of the passengers whom they had taken up pulled out a box of matches, they would not have been able to pilot themselves through the flooded highways. That, Sir, is a clear and remarkable instance of incapacity and do-nothingness of the Board of Works; and, as I have already said, it is only one case out of many. There is a system of red-tapeism prevailing, not merely in the Office of the Board of Works, and all the appendages thereto, but that is a system which prevails in every Public Department in Dublin at the present day. I know an instance in another county—the county of Cavan—where an Inspector was sent down to visit a church and to report on some work for the Vestry. A report had been sent by the Rector as to the state of the church, and what was necessary to be done to put it in repair, and a workman was sent to do the small job necessary for that purpose. But that would not suit the Board of Works, who insisted on sending down an Inspector at great expense; and by the time he came back and made his report, it must have cost 20 times as much, probably, as it would have cost had the recommendation of the Rector been acted upon. In connection with every petty work that has to be done this kind of do-nothingness prevails; and I am aware, or, rather, I have been informed, that there is a large staff of officials connected with the Office of the Board of Works who are exceedingly well paid for the little they have to do, which consists of reading the newspapers during one part of the day and spending the rest of it in paring their nails—that is the work in which the greater number of officials in Dublin seem to be engaged in—while the work of the country is left undone, and the taxpayers of the country have to bear their share of the expense. One of my hon. Friends has made use of an expression which will bear repetition—namely, that the Board of Works seems to be nothing more than a buffer between the Treasury and the Irish people. The Irish people have been day by day complaining of the delays and the annoyances caused by the shortcomings of the Board of Works. When a work of necessity and pressing importance has to be done in Ireland, there must be a roundabout application to the Board of Works; they will send down an Inspector to report; his report will be taken into consideration, and then the Board will, very probably, reject the application which calls for the most pressing attention, and in their wisdom they may perhaps carry into execution a piece of work which is not at all necessary, because I believe their mode of action may be described mainly as not doing that which is necessary and doing what is not necessary. In these circumstances, I trust that the Office of the Board of Works in Dublin may undergo a complete and entire reform and reorganization; and until you effect that reform and reorganization you will not get that Department, slow and inactive as it is, even to bestir themselves in the smallest degree, but they will jog on at the old rate, and leave the country still calling out for the improvements of which it stands in need. I say that complete reorganization is necessary, or what perhaps is best of all, that they should be cleared out bag and baggage, and replaced by other officials with a thoroughly competent man at their head. You have had, I believe, a Colonel at the head of the Board, and I am not quite sure that an Admiral has not occupied that position—at any rate, you have placed at its head anybody and everybody who ought not to have been there. My friends in Sligo have been calling out for years for the improvement of their harbour, and I hesitate to help them in drawing attention to it as long as the matter is likely to be referred to the Board of Works, because I know that if they have anything to do with the matter, that it will be left undone. For these reasons, I consider that the Board of Works calls for the entire disapproval of every one of my hon. Friends sitting on these Benches, and I trust the reorganization which is necessary will be speedily effected.

MR. BARRY (Wexford, S.)

Everyone who has sat in this House for any length of time must have heard continually statements as to the incompetency of the Irish Board of Works. It is a striking fact that, in spite of the specific cases brought forward showing gross mismanagement, great waste of time and public money, no attempt has been made, and nothing has been done, to improve the system. I am not going to refer to any past mismanagement or past expenditure of public money now; but I rise especially with the view of directing the attention of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to some present and future expenditure. In the county of Wexford a grant was obtained to extend the pier at Kilmore under the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. J. A. Blake) which was passed in 1884. In order to secure the grant it was necessary that a quota of one-fourth should be raised locally. There was considerable difficulty in raising that quota, because the people in the district had no confidence whatever in the engineer of the Board of Works carrying out the undertaking, and an intolerable waste of time has taken place. But a new work is about to be started, and—if I may ask the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury for one minute—I ask that he will undertake that some better and more competent authority than the engineer of the Board of Works will be consulted before the work is carried out; otherwise, I am very much afraid that when the work is completed we shall have a similar state of things as that which occurred at Arklow, where the pier has been rendered absolutely useless, in consequence of the way in which the engineer carried out the work. There was a small pier built in the county of Wexford, some time ago, under the direction of the Board of Works; it was pointed out that the work would not endure the storms that were frequent there. I know the district well, and I am sorry to say all my anticipations were realized with regard to it, because when the first storm came the pier was washed away, and the work became absolutely useless. Now, in view of the fact that a sum of £125,000 has yet to be expended under the Act, and is in course of being expended, I think it highly desirable that the Secretary to the Treasury should see that some competent engineering authority undertakes that the work shall be of a character likely to last. By a great many instances on the North and South Coast of Ireland which have occurred during the last few years, it can be proved that the piers built under the direction of the Board of Works' engineers are not likely to endure. The action of the Board in this matter has led already to a considerable expenditure, and, I am sorry to say, considerable waste of public money; and as the hon. Gentleman has been good enough to promise that no further expenditure will take place on the Arklow works without the attention of competent authorities being directed to the work, I shall be greatly relieved, not only with regard to the works to be carried on in my county, but also with regard to those in Ireland generally, if he will extend that principle and see that proper professional advice is given in all cases before the works are carried out. There is another point in connection with the Civil Service Estimates to which I should like for a few moments to call the attention of the Committee and the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. It has reference to the Board of National Education. I wish to point to a proceeding on the part of the Commissioners of National Education, Ireland, which, in my opinion, forms a grave scandal, and has resulted in serious educational loss in the district interested. Some years ago, in the parish of Ballyminty, Wexford, it was resolved to carry out a school under the management of a mistress and several experienced masters; for a long time the masters and mistress were engaged in the work of education, and for a period matters went on well enough; the mistress, however, got married and still retained her office; in course of time there was a family, and frequent interruptions took place in the course of teaching, and it is hardly necessary to point out that the interests of education became neglected, and a great deal of dissatisfaction arose in consequence. That dissatisfaction found expression about two years ago; a Memorial was sent to the Educational Commissioners in Dublin, requesting that a schoolmaster should be appointed, and setting forth the reasons in clear and strong language. The Commissioners did not send any reply; a second Memorial was sent with a similar result. At that time the attendance at the school had dwindled down to a very small number—that is to say, from 110 to 25—and the people, who were anxious to secure the education of their children, themselves engaged a schoolmaster and established him in the old school. Within a month of the establishment of this school the average attendance reached 54, and a third attempt was made under the direction of a local priest—a third Memorial was sent to Dublin. To this Memorial an answer was received from the Education Commissioners to the effect that no grant would be made to the master because the school was "Boycotted." Well, Sir, that was a remarkable conclusion, and the people were at a loss to understand how it could have been arrived at. At last it was evident that the husband of the schoolmistress had taken an unpopular part in the election of a Guardian, and, in consequence, the Commissioners came to the conclusion that the school had been "Boycotted" for political reasons. They ignored the reasons laid down by the people of the place in the Memorial as to the unfitness of the schoolmistress to carry on the business of the school, and their whole action, and the justification of their action, was based on the alleged fact that the school was "Boycotted;" and, therefore, they would not make a grant to pay the master. I am not going to discuss the action of the Board; but I may be permitted to say that I hold it to be no part of the duties of the Commissioners of National Education to undertake police work in Ireland; it is no part of their work to enter into political discussion or to assign political reasons for their action in dealing with a matter of a purely educational character. The facts which I have stated were brought before me last year, and I am certain that they represent the truth of the case. I waited on the Commissioners in Dublin, and they promised to go again into the question. After some time I received an answer that they still held to the opinion that the school was "Boycotted," and that, therefore, they refused to make the grant. I then brought the circumstances before the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who ordered an inquiry into the whole matter; that inquiry was held two or three weeks ago by the Chief Inspector of Schools, and the result of the inquiry is to the effect that the application for the grant was ordered by the Commissioners not to be entertained. It will be understood by the Committee that the Commissioners of Education have entirely abandoned their original ground as to the school being "Boycotted," and that they now submit the reason that the legal number of attendances would not be reached. I am entirely at a loss to understand how the Commissioners and their Head Inspector arrived at this conclusion; and since the receipt of the letter I took the trouble to get a Return showing the number of children eligible for school, and I found there were 79 boys and 54 girls, in all 133. For the last two years the National school has been in receipt of State aid, although the attendance has been lower than that required by law in direct contravention of which the National Education Commissioners have been acting. The attendance at the temporary school is averaging now, and has done for the last 18 months, 54, and that under considerable disadvantages, because they have none of the books, maps, or other school accessories which the other schools possess. In directing the attention of the Committee and the right hon. Gentleman to this subject, I wish to point out the serious educational loss which the action of the Commissioners is causing. In the first place, parents have no strong inducement to send their children to school in the absence of the ordinary facilities; the school attended by 54 children is badly equipped, and not in a position to give the amount of education to be had at primary schools in England. The position taken up by the Commissioners appears to me utterly untenable; and I trust that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland will not allow the matter to remain where they have left it. It is a scandal that the Board of National Education, which ought to be moved by educational instincts, should deliberately stand in the way of the district in the matter of the education of 123 children. At the same time, this is but a fair example of the manner of action adopted by Public Boards in Ireland. I shall not on this occasion make any general attack on the Public Boards in Ireland; but I beg the right hon. Gentleman to give this matter his attention, and not permit the vital interests of a number of children to be sacrificed owing to the extraordinary conclusion arrived at by the Commissioners of Education in Ireland.

MR. MURPHY (Dublin, St. Patrick's)

Before the Committee leaves the subject of the Board of Works I wish to make a few remarks. It is well known that the Irish Board of Works have under their control a variety of subjects of great interest, and of the utmost importance to the people of Ireland. They have under their administration the works connected with drainage and piers and harbours, as well as tenants' improvements, artizans' dwellings, and many other matters; and, that being so, it will be evident that the way in which the Board administers its functions must result either in great advantage or disadvantage to the people of Ireland. After what we have heard to-night I think the Committee will be satisfied that the verdict in Ireland is that disadvantage has resulted. Parliament passes Acts for the purpose of improving the condition of the people, and the administration of these Acts of Parliament is intrusted to the Irish Public Works Department. When those Acts are first passed they are put away on a shelf and nothing is done to make the public acquainted with them; but when someone has the temerity to apply to have them put in operation, they are turned upside down and inside out to see in what manner they can be obstructed. I think that when the Statute Book is examined into we shall find that there are a great many of these Acts, which took this House a good deal of time and trouble to pass, which have been rendered wholly inoperative, owing to the fact that they have not been carried out by this Department in the way in which Parlia- ment intended that they should be carried out. A great deal has been said about the manner in which the Board carries out works in Ireland. While I do not entirely agree with the sweeping condemnations of my Colleagues on these Benches, I must say that, on the whole, they have been fairly justified by the facts. It is a well-known maxim in Ireland that if a man sees a road that leads from nowhere to nowhere, the explanation is that it is "a Board of Works' road." For a very long period we had a Chairman of the Board of Works in Ireland, a gentleman named Colonel M'Kerlie, whose name was often before this House, but never with any approval. Well, that gentleman was known to be an obstructionist to the work of the Board to an extent which came to be a public scandal, and for that he received an unusually large pension, and was made a K.C.B. The present Chairman took office, I believe, with the very best intentions; but the traditions of the Office were too strong for him—the atmosphere of the place and its influence were too strong for him—and he has been unable to struggle against those influences, and things go on there as they ever did before. I have had some experience of being before the Board of Works in its legal capacity, and I believe that there is more red-tapeism and obstruction taking place there than in any other Department. In reference to another matter which has been brought before the Committee I wish to ask one question. It is with regard to the contracts which are given away by the Board of Works for furniture and floor-cloths. This matter has been raised in this House by Questions on several occasions, but the answers of the Government have never been satisfactory. The facts are these, that although these contracts are supposed to be given away upon tenders, a great many of the largest items are not included in the contract at all. The furniture for all the Public Offices in Ireland, and for the Castle, the Vice Regal Lodge, and the Chief Secretary's Lodge, is provided through the Board of Works, and this furniture, although presumably obtained under contract, is purchased by one of the clerks without any contract at all. The greatest favouritism is shown in the purchase of it, and the favourites are not found amongst those holding National opinions; but, on the contrary, orders are given to men who are notorious for their public offensiveness to the Catholic religion. There is one other question to which I wish to refer—namely, to the Registration of Deeds Office in Ireland; and I would take this opportunity of calling the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the Notice which I have put upon the Paper, relating to the Report of the Committee which was appointed to inquire into the Registry of Deeds in Ireland. The Financial Secretary has intimated to me that the Report is confidential, and could not be given; but I hope he will reconsider the matter. The result of the Report of that Committee was that the Treasury issued a Minute, dated 29th January last, dealing with one part of the subject. But, Sir, the Report also contains various suggestions as to the classification of the records, and I should like to know if these suggestions have been acted upon? The Report also refers to the registration of land; and seeing that that is a very important question in the Land Purchase Bill which the Prime Minister has introduced, I think that it would not be unimportant if the information contained in the Report I have referred to were supplied to the House.

MR. GILHOOLY (Cork, W.)

I rise, Sir, for the purpose of giving another illustration of the incompetency of the Board of Works in Ireland. I wish to direct the attention of the Committee to the pier which was erected some years ago at Cape Clear, at a cost of £4,000, which was partly paid for by the people of the district, but which is altogether useless to the people of Cape Clear. I would point out that, that work having been erected, it is a great hardship to the poor fishermen about the district to have to take their mackerel boats several miles to Baltimore, to find a place of safety where they can haul them up on the beach, owing to the incompetency of the engineers who erected the pier. What I would ask is, that the Secretary to the Treasury should give some assurance that some small expenditure will be authorized on this work, so as to enable these poor people to avoid the necessity of taking their boats miles away in order to haul them up on the beach in safety. There is another question to which I should like to call attention—namely, the way in which stipendiary magistrates perform their duties in Ireland, and I wish particularly to draw attention to the case of Mr. Morgan, the Resident Magistrate at Bantry. I put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as to the granting of licences to carry arms in this place, and the answer which I received, and which, I suppose, came from Mr. Morgan himself, was totally adverse to the truth. The facts of the case were these. Tim Murphy and Dennis Murphy were charged with shooting at a man named Cottill—Dennis with shooting, and Tim with inciting his brother to shoot. They were returned for trial, and while they were awaiting the Assizes I had an assurance from Mr. Morgan that the arms taken away from the Murphys would not be returned to them; but what do I find? I find that Mr. Warburton and Mr. Cronin, two local magistrates, have signed a certificate enabling the Murphys to get licences to possess themselves with arms, and the two guns which I was assured would not be returned—at any rate, until after the trial—have been returned. Then, again, Sir, these Murphys, on another recent occasion, have fired at other people in the neighbourhood; and when the right hon. Gentleman was questioned upon the subject, his answer—which, I presume, was supplied to him by the Local Authorities—was that the police had no such information. Well, what are the facts of that matter? A man named Lynch went to Mr. Frizell, one of the magistrates, and complained that Dennis Murphy had pointed a revolver at him, and told him that he would shoot him only he did not wish to get his name in the papers. Mr. Frizell asked Mr. Lynch if he would make an information on the subject, and he said that he would; but the Chief Secretary now states that the Government have no information on the matter. What I complain of is, that the Resident Magistrate is completely in the hands of the local magistrates, and after he had promised me that the two guns would not be given up, he was overridden by the local magistrates. What I ask is that, whenever a case of this kind arises, the Government should send down another stipendiary magistrate to hear the case with Mr. Warburton, and to assist Mr. Warburton, who is a weak man, to perform his duties in a judicial and proper manner. In another case, a Mr. Ryan was brought before the local magistrate for firing at a man named John Connolly; and although two witnesses positively swore that they saw him shoot at Connolly, the case was dismissed against him, because he happened to belong to the same Party as the magistrates.

MR. JOHNSTON (Belfast, S.)

I wish to ask you, Mr. Chairman, if this is in Order?

THE CHAIRMAN

called upon Mr. Gilhooly to continue his address.

MR. GILHOOLY

As I was saying, although a primâ facie case had been made out against Ryan, he was dismissed; but if he had been a poor peasant, he would most assuredly have been sent to the Assizes. In conclusion, I should like to warn the right hon. Gentleman against the Reports which he receives upon these cases from the local officials of Ireland, and I trust the matters I have mentioned will receive his earnest consideration.

MR. CRILLY (Mayo, N.)

I desire to make an appeal to the Secretary to the Treasury and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who, during the present Administration, have shown such a striking interest in Irish affairs. The nature of my remarks will be rather in the form of an appeal, although the matter which I have to refer to comes within this item with reference to the Board of Works. There is at present existing a very large degree of distress in the West of Ireland, and two of the Unions scheduled under the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act are the Belmullet and the Swineford Unions. Well, Sir, as the Representative of the Unions lying between those Unions, I desire to call attention to the condition of the River Moy, which runs between the two scheduled Unions. The question which I desire to call attention to is the deepening of the River Moy. Quite recently, the Commissioners of Ballina endeavoured to have an interview with the Lord Lieutenant (the Earl of Aberdeen); but he refused to receive them, on the ground that his Predecessor (the Earl of Carnarvon) had refused to accede to the request of a similar deputation, and he found that there was no fresh ground which would warrant this present demand. Well, Sir, I wish to point out that the Committee which sat in 1884 reported that the question of deepening the River Moy was a very important one, and everyone who is familiar with the West of Ireland knows that the River Moy is the chief water highway to Sligo and Ballina, which are two of the most important towns in the West of Ireland. Now, a loan of £3,000 was made to the town of Ballina by the Board of Works in Ireland some time ago; but, unfortunately, owing to the distress which has prevailed, they have not been able to pay back a large portion of it, and the desire of the Commissioners and the people of Ballina is that the Treasury should be as merciful as they can possibly be under the circumstances, and, notwithstanding the amount still unpaid, should lend them sufficient money to carry out this work of deepening the Moy. The result of that would be this—that besides greatly improving the town of Ballina itself, by making the river navigable, you would give a large amount of employment to the people in the surrounding neighbourhood, who are in an almost starving condition. I would, therefore, ask the Secretary to the Treasury if it would not be possible, on the security which can be afforded by the income of the Commissioners, which I understand is something like £300 or £400 a-year, and on their property, to advance them a loan on easy terms to enable them to complete these works and to give employment to these poor people, who, unfortunately, are not scheduled in the Relief Act which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was good enough and humane enough to introduce into this House? I would only ask him to consider any application which may come from this quarter to save the people from the starvation which at present threatens them.

MR. BRODRICK (Surrey, Guildford)

The hon. Member who has just sat down has made an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and I will make another to him in reference to the Arms Bill; and, to put myself in Order, I will conclude with a Motion. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman what steps he proposes to take to bring that measure before the House? The discussion which we have just been listening to——

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member will not be in Order in discussing that question.

MR. BRODRICK

I move to report Progress.

THE CHAIRMAN

Quite so; but the hon. Member will not be in Order in pursuing the line he indicates.

MR. BRODRICK

I wish to report Progress; and my reason is that an important Order stands on the Paper as the second Order of the Day. I wish to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland what steps he proposes to take to give the House an opportunity of discussing the Committee stage of the Arms Bill? And, seeing that the Bill has been put down for to-night in order that it may pass before the present Act expires on the 1st of June, and that unless he can bring the matter before the House at the present Sitting this is the last day before Thursday on which it can be placed first on the Paper as a Government Order, I think I am justified in the course I am taking. I should also like to ask what steps the right hon. Gentleman intends to take to induce the House to believe that all the talking which has wasted so much of the time of the House to-night has not gone on with the connivance of Her Majesty's Government?

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is strictly speaking in Order in showing the necessity of bringing on another Order of the Day on a Motion to report Progress; but he is not in Order in entering into the line of argugument which he is now pursuing.

MR. BRODRICK

I wish to urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as my reason for moving to report Progress that the Business of the Government has not progressed this evening as might have been expected. I do not think I shall be out of Order or very far wrong in expressing my opinion that the speeches recently made have rather overstepped the limits of discussion. If the same order of speaking that has been going on for so many hours is continued, I do not see, and I do not believe, that any other hon. Member can see any chance of bringing this debate to a close to-night—unless there is some arrangement for doing so with the Government, and of which we have no knowledge—and of bringing on the next Order. Under these circumstances, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is in earnest in desiring to pass the Arms Bill? And, if he is, I would urge upon him the necessity of reporting Progress in order to bring on that important matter, which, upon his own confession, cannot be allowed to slide, but must be dealt with within the next three days or the Act cannot be renewed before it expires. Hon. Members below the Gangway seem desirous of bringing a great number of subjects to the notice of the House at this particular moment, with what object I cannot tell unless it is to fill up the evening in order to preclude any other discussion, and I trust they have not the sanction of the Chief Secretary in so doing. [Cries of "Order!"] If I am not in Order I shall stand corrected by the Chair; but I shall not stand corrected because hon. Gentlemen who have had their innings this evening object to my remarks. I sincerely trust that the right hon. Gentleman will explain to the Committee under what circumstances he proposes to redeem the pledge he has given to the House in regard to the Arms Bill.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Brodrick.)

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JOHN MORLEY) (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

I think the hon. Gentleman has very considerably overstepped the limits of debate, and has almost put himself out of his right to ask for an explanation by the exceedingly gratuitous insinuation that what has taken place to-night, which, as far as I know, has been in Order, has been done with the connivance of Her Majesty's Government. I beg most emphatically to repudiate any imputation of that kind. Why should the Government be a party to the postponement of the Arms Bill? I would remind the hon. Member that I put down the Bill for the first Monday when the House reassembled after the Easter Recess, and the delay in the progress of it is wholly and absolutely due to the action of two hon. Members sitting on the Benches opposite, who put down a block against it. But for that circumstance the Arms Bill would have been in the House of Lords four or five days ago. [Ironical cheers.] What I say, in spite of the cheers of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett), is perfectly and unanswerably true. During the whole of that week there was no opposition to the Arms Bill, except the block of the two hon. Members who sit on the opposite Benches.

An hon. MEMBER

Someone else might have blocked it if those blocks had been removed.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

It was not for me to provide against all imaginable contingencies. All I know is that the opposition of those two hon. Members prevented the Bill from being in the House of Lords three or four days ago. The hon. Member opposite asks me a question which it is practically impossible for me to answer. He asks me to explain how the Bill is to be sent up to the House of Lords so that it may receive Her Majesty's assent before the 1st of June. I declare I do not know. It is taken out of my power. All I know is that I have left no stone unturned in order to get the Bill advanced. It is no fault of mine that it has not been advanced, and as to the delay to-night, it is quite as disagreeable to me as it is to any Gentleman sitting opposite.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH (Bristol, W.)

I will not dwell on the question whether the scene to-night, which I think we can perfectly well understand, is or is not due to the connivance of Her Majesty's Government; but of this I am sure, that if Her Majesty's Government had not found it necessary to put down this Vote on Account to-night, we should have been spared the waste of time that has taken place. [Cries of "No!" from the Irish Nationalist Members.] And of this also I feel pretty certain, that if Her Majesty's Government had but done their best to keep a House on a certain Friday night when effective Supply was on the Paper, and would have been reached within a very few minutes, instead of themselves encouraging a "count out," there would have been no need to take this Vote on Account to-night. Whether that was connivance or not, I do not trouble to inquire. With regard to the Arms Bill, I should just like to say that although it is true that hon. Gentlemen behind me, as I think not very wisely, blocked that measure, yet I do not know why Her Majesty's Government, when they might have had the time of the House, if they had chosen to ask for it, did not place the Bill early on the Paper, as they have endeavoured to do now, so that it might be considered in spite of the block placed against it. It is very strange, Sir, that no sooner did the block of the hon. Members behind me disappear, than blocks came from the opposite quarter of the House. If any hon. Member of this House is to blame for the Bill being so delayed, it is the right hon. Gentleman himself, because, when it was blocked before, he did not attempt to press it on for consideration, but delayed it night after night, until we have now arrived at a time when it cannot become law, so far as he knows, before the end of the month. I hope my hon. Friend will not press his Motion to report Progress, because, as far as I can see, it would not lead to a satisfactory result. I hope also that after the extraordinary discussion that has taken place, which is in remarkable contrast with the few words that were spoken on the last Vote on Account, about six weeks ago, we may be permitted to take these Votes to-night, and thus do some Business on an evening which, so far, has been very much wasted.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT) (Derby)

I entirely concur in the desire of the right hon. Gentleman to do some Business to-night; but I do not think the tone of recrimination he has adopted is likely to conduce to that result. As far as the right hon. Gentleman charges the Government with "connivance," I have only to repudiate altogether a word which is not particularly complimentary in its character. I do not wish to speak offensively; but when you charge a man with "connivance," you charge him with something which you consider to be a reproach. No doubt, the hon. Member for Surrey (Mr. Brodrick) intended to be offensive. The hon. Gentleman generally does desire to be so, and as a rule he succeeds in that object. What has been the course taken with regard to this Vote on Account? It is not denied that a Vote on Account is necessary. How did the proceedings this evening begin? With whom did the waste of time commence? It came from a distinguished ally of the right hon. Gentleman—the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands)—and was supported by another ally—my hon. Friend the Member for Northumberland (Mr. A. Grey). If there has been connivance and a deliberate plan for wasting the time of the Committee, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley on his success in putting off the discussion on the Irish Bill. I do not remember a more deliberate waste of time than the discussion which took place early in the evening. No doubt, when you have a subject upon which you can get an adverse vote against the Government, and when you can damage them by discussion, such a discussion is no waste of time. The Committee has been engaged three hours—from half-past 4 o'clock till dinner time—on a Motion which the hon. Member who proposed it has tried to escape from carrying to a division, being prevented only by the merriment of hon. Members from walking out of the House. And that was not a waste of time! When anyone discusses a subject that does not serve any useful purpose, that is not connivance of this kind! If there has been any connivance at all, I should say that the principal connivers were the hon. Members for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), Northumberland (Mr. A. Grey), and Bury (Sir Henry James). We got from them various interesting disquisitions on several subjects that were singularly unfruitful in their character. I do not complain of it; but I wish to point out that if the right hon. Gentleman chooses to enter on the game of recrimination, he will find it is one at which two people can play; and I hope the right hon. Gentleman, if he wishes some further Business to be done, will abstain from comments of that kind.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

In reply to the extremely offensive remarks on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, directed at the Party with whom I have the honour to act, I wish to say one or two words. He not only attributes obstruction to the Government, but he accuses us of entering into a combination with the Government to obstruct. He says there has been "connivance." To show how far that accusation is warranted by the facts, and how little we anticipated that there would be a prolonged discussion upon these Votes, I may say that, earlier in the evening, I was asked how long the discussion would last, and made answer that we should be on the Arms Bill by half-past 9 o'clock. Nothing can be more untrue than that there has been between the Irish Members and the Government any such accommodation as that alleged by the right hon. Gentleman. The Committee must not forget that, at the beginning of the Sitting, three hours of our time were consumed by hon. Gentlemen who have no connection with Ireland whatever, and that the discussion they originated was a thoroughly dishonest one, not meant for the purpose of forwarding Business, but to serve a very discreditable Party object. I defy any hon. Member to say that any of the remarks which have been made by hon. Members from Ireland—however much it may be thought that too much time was taken up by them—were not addressed to thoroughly practical subjects. It may be that some hon. Members may think that time is so pressing that these subjects ought to have been held over; but no one can say that they were not perfectly pertinent to the Votes in Supply, and had not reference to subjects which, in ordinary years, would have been discussed at much greater length. Therefore, I consider the charges which have been made against the Irish Members as entirely and grossly unfounded and extremely offensive. I have been here for a long time waiting to speak upon a subject in which I take great interest, which I had an opportunity of addressing the House upon five years ago, but which I have not been able to raise since.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS (Lancashire, S.W., Newton)

The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir William Harcourt) does not often throw oil upon troubled waters, and he certainly has not done so to-night. But I am surprised at his stating that the debate which took place at an earlier period of the evening was unfruitful. I was very much of the opinion that the subject should be postponed rather than that we should come to a division upon it; but I was surprised to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that the debate brought forth no fruit. As a matter of fact, it had the effect of eliciting from the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister a positive assurance that the subject in debate should be carefully inquired into by him. It was entirely owing to what came from the Prime Minister that the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) was content to withdraw his Motion. I do not, therefore, think that his withdrawal should now be thrown in his teeth. It is clear to me that we have got some fruit out of the debate. I agree, however, that it is now time we began to do real Business, and I trust hon. Members will not continue discursive observations on the items of the Votes.

SIR ROBERT FOWLER (London)

I had not the advantage of being in the House at an early period of the evening. I only arrived at half-past 7 o'clock, when I was told there had been a division nearly half-an-hour before; therefore, it cannot be right for the right hon. Gentleman to say that the debate initiated by the hon. Member for Burnley occupied three hours. I understand that of the time the Sitting has occupied the Prime Minister took up half-an-hour before the debate I have referred to began by abusing my humble self. My only object in rising is to point out that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, that the debate on the Motion of the hon. Member for Burnley occupied three hours, was inaccurate.

SIR JULIAN GOLDSMID (St. Pancras, S.)

I think it is not quite fair to attack the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) in his absence. The hon. Member brought forward a Motion on the subject of the Secret Service money. The Prime Minister made a statement which to many of us was satisfactory, and I, with others, urged the hon. Member, in consequence of that statement, to withdraw his Motion. Therefore, the hon. Member for Burnley is not to blame, and those who thought that the statement and the promise of the right hon. Gentleman were satisfactory were to blame, if anyone was. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members may cry "Oh!" but, in any case, the matter was one of considerable importance; and the hon. Gentleman who last spoke in the debate said that if it were not for this special occasion he should be one of the first to vote against Secret Service money. I think the hon. Member for Burnley did right in withdrawing his Motion.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

With regard to the statement which has come from the opposite Bench, that we should have availed ourselves of a previous opportunity of taking a debate on these Votes, and that in that way we should have made progress and would have rendered it unnecessary to take these discussions to-night, I can only say that greater progress has been made with Supply this year than has been made for a great many years past. Irrespective of the Votes we shall obtain to-night, we have already obtained 47 Votes in Supply on the Civil Service Estimates. There is no precedent for such a number of Votes being obtained, I will not say before the 31st of May, but before the 31st of June, for the past seven years. Greater progress has been made this year than was made in an equal period during the whole of the last Parliament; therefore, I do not think than any blame attaches to the Government in the matter of slowness of obtaining Supply.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH (Bristol, W.)

I can only attribute the fact referred to by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down to the patriotic and forbearing character of the Opposition. But my charge against Her Majesty's Government is that they not only did not prevent the "count out" on that Friday, but deliberately encouraged it—on that Friday when they were within a few minutes of reaching that effective Supply which they had on the Paper, and when they might, as we who know the customs of the House are well aware, have got a very large sum in Supply if they had gone on with it. That was a dereliction of duty which I warned the hon. Gentleman at the time I should remind him of. If it had not been for that dereliction of duty, this Vote on Account would have been obtained.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT) (Derby)

Will the right hon. Gentleman state how many Members of that "forbearing and patriotic Opposition" contributed towards keeping the House on that Friday night?

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

Yes, I will. There were no Members present below the Gangway on this side, so far as I can recollect. ["Oh!" from the Irish Nationalists.] There were 39 Members altogether in the House. There were four Members on the Front Ministerial Bench, though several Members of the Government were in the Lobbies. There were 10 Members in all on the Government side of the House, and the remaining 29 were on this side.

COLONEL WALROND (Devon, N.E., Tiverton)

I can corroborate the right hon. Baronet's statement, and would bear witness to the fact that on the occasion referred to the Government were trying to "count out" the House.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

We are accustomed to bold statements from Leaders of the Tory Party. I was not present on the memorable occasion referred to, therefore am not able either to corroborate or deny the statement just made. But there was another statement made a short time before, on the subject-matter of which I have some knowledge, and that was the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in reply to the observations of the Secretary to the Treasury as to the speed with which the Votes in Supply had been got through this Session. I understood him to hint at a remarkable cessation of opposition on the part of Irish Members to the Votes in Supply. Well, I think the reason of the rapid advance which has been made with the Business of Supply is to be found in another direction altogether. I think obstruction has served its purpose by the promotion of the Members of the Fourth Party.

MR. BRODRICK (Surrey, Guildford)

As the hour (12.30 A.M.) has passed at which the object I aimed at could have been attained, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

THE CHAIRMAN

The Question is, "That the Motion be, by leave, withdrawn." [Cries of "No, no!"]

COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)

The hon Member who last spoke says he has not achieved his object. I say he has achieved it. What was going on when he interposed was this. We were having a comfortable practical discussion on Irish affairs, which is a thing we very rarely have. We were discussing such subjects as harbours, drainage, and railroads—subjects which may not very much interest the British public, but which we Irish Members take a deep interest in—and were doing it in our own humble way. We were satisfied to bring our complaints before the Secretary to the Treasury, and were directing his attention to the subjects to which I have referred, when a great number of ex-Ministers, including five ex-Cabinet Ministers, came down. They wanted to talk about something; so the hon. Member for Surrey (Mr. Brodrick) gets up and moves to report Progress—a Motion upon which hon. Members can talk about anything. They begin to abuse the Government—they always do that, of course. They mention "counts out," and no doubt they are justified in doing so, for when they were in Office they were continually accused of bringing on "counts out;" so now, naturally enough, they endeavour to turn the tables. I congratulate the hon. Member for Surrey, and assure him that he has achieved his object.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)

I wish to allude briefly to the question of the violation of telegrams which took place on a wholesale scale in the Isle of Skye. ["Order!"]

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

I have some remarks to make with regard to the Irish Registrar General's Office, which stands before the item upon which the hon. Member for Glasgow wishes to speak.

THE CHAIRMAN

called upon Mr. Chance.

MR. CHANCE

I cannot allow this item of £2,000 to pass without saying something upon it. I see that the Registrar General's Office is constituted of the Registrar General and clerks of three classes. These clerks take priority according to their seniority. Class 1 has seniority over Class 2, and Class 2 has seniority over Class 3. I see that they paid Stamp Duty on their appointments, as appointments which in the ordinary course of promotion became worth £500 a-year, but which will not be the case under the re-organization. But some months ago, without public inquiry or any notice whatsoever, the Registrar General proceeded to reorganize the staff, which reorganization received the consent of the Treasury. The effect of this reorganization was to promote a number of the Registrar General's especial favourites, giving them increased salaries and increased rights, and taking away the priority that Class 2 possessed over Class 3. A portion of the Minute authorized the establishment of a fresh class, including members of both the previous classes, ranged alphabetically instead of according to seniority. A Question was asked about this some months ago, and the answer which was returned was that nothing would be done until the House had had an opportunity of discussing the matter. Unfortunately, something has been done. Some of the gentlemen who have been benefited by this scheme have already received their salaries under it. I think that is an unfortunate circumstance. I think no possible justification exists for this alteration. I do not expect to hear the slightest justification for it; but there is one objection which may be raised to any interference with the scheme, which is that it has been authorized by the Lord Lieutenant. But it seems to me that that is the very worst answer which could possibly be given. I do not suppose the Lord Lieutenant is infallible. I know both the noble Earl and his Chief Secretary are actuated by the best motives; but I do not suppose they desire to elevate a a Minute of the Treasury, passed without the slightest public inquiry at the request of a single Government official, into one of those immutable laws impossible to alter. I shall move a reduction in this Vote, or to strike out the whole amount, unless I can get some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that this matter will be looked into, and that further proceedings in the scheme authorized by this Minute will be stopped until we have had an opportunity of discussing the subject.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JOHN MORLEY) (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Member any further assurance than that which I have already given. I must say it is in the highest degree inconvenient to discuss a question of this kind on a Vote on Account instead of on the specific Vote. When the proper time comes for discussing this matter, I think we shall be able to give a very good account of what has been done. It is useless now to ask us to prevent anything more being done, because action under the scheme of reorganization has already, to a considerable extent, taken place. I believe that when the time comes, and the Vote is taken and discussed, we shall be able to make such a statement as will satisfy even the hon. Member.

MR. CHANCE

I do not quite gather the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman's reply. If there is no possibility of interfering with the arrangements which are now being carried out in this Office on some future day, when we come to consider the matter we shall find that vested rights have been created, and that the power of doing anything has slipped out of the hands of the Committee. I do ask the Committee to put its foot down on this occasion, and to show that it is stronger than a single official. There was no possible necessity for this re-organization, unless it was to deprive a number of lower clerks of the rights for which they bargained and entered the Service, and to provide a number of upper clerks, pets of the Registrar General, with increased salaries and rights with a view to the future prospects of the Government of Ireland Bill. Some gentlemen under this scheme get an increase to their salaries of as much as £100 a-year with increased rights; and that will be, when the Irish Government Bill passes, at the expense of the Irish public. I now move that the total Vote be reduced by £2,000, the amount of this item for the Registrar General's Office.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £2,000 (Registrar General, Ireland), be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Chance.)

MR. T. C. HARRINGTON (Dublin, Harbour)

I think we have some reason to complain that the engagement entered into by the right hon. Gentleman some time since in regard to these matters was not carried out. When a Question was addressed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary on this question some time ago, he undertook that the scheme of re-organization should not proceed until some opportunity had been given for further inquiry. What my hon. Friend complains of is that, though that assurance was given to the House, this scheme of re-organization did proceed behind the back of the House, as it were, and behind the backs of those who were interested in the Lower Division clerks. I have before me a list of changes that have been made by this new scheme. The Secretary, who received a salary of £600 a-year under the old scheme, still retains the position of Secretary, but at present at a salary of £800 a-year. There was a Superintendent in the Office with a salary of £450 a-year; but under the scheme of re-organization he now receives a salary of £500. Parsing to the first-class clerks we find that their salaries are the same now as they were before the scheme of re-organization. The second-class clerks are altogether abolished. A few of them who were in the Service have been compulsorily retired; but, practically, the second class has been abolished, and by the abolition of the second-class clerks you practically bar the way to the promotion of the third-class clerks. In this way men are done out of what they hoped to obtain when they entered the Service—namely, the chance of rising to the best positions that the Service offered. By this scheme of re-organization all the higher officials, who already have what would be considered very good salaries, are to have those salaries increased. The third-class clerks, who are now shut out from promotion, have the same salaries as they had before. In addition to having no improvement conferred upon them by this scheme, they find themselves altogether shut out of rising to higher positions in the Service because of the power which is given to the Department of taking on new men over their heads. I think we have a right to complain that while an engagement was given to us that this scheme of re-organization should not proceed, behind the back of the Chief Secretary himself, in all probability, the Irish officials have followed the system they have been accustomed for so long to follow, the Registrar General having taken the matter into his own hands.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

I should be sorry if there were a misunderstanding in this matter, or any appearance of the Government wishing to depart from the undertaking they entered into. I gave a pledge that this scheme of re-organization should not be finally approved and put into practice until the House had had an opportunity of discussing it, and to that pledge I still adhere. The real difficulty is the unwisdom of discussing the items of Votes on one general Vote on Account. All these questions will have to come up again, and that means a second opportunity for discussion during the Session. What my right hon. Friend has said for himself I also say. I have received no information from Ireland to enable me to discuss this question to the satisfaction of the Committee. But I know enough to dispute the accuracy of some of the statements which have just been made. I do not think the changes which have been made involve increased expenditure, and I do not think the chances of promotion have been interfered with. But I am not in a position to prove this. No doubt, when the full Vote for this Service comes before us, and we are not on a merely temporary Vote to enable the Government to carry on Business for a month, then either my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland or myself, if we are in Office at that time, will be able to justify the action of the Treasury with regard to this scheme. We literally adhere to the old scheme. The new scheme of re-organization remains unsanctioned until the House has had an opportunity of discussing it.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)

As I was really the first to raise this question, I think I am justified in expressing gratification at the distinct pledge which the Secretary to the Treasury has now given. It was in reply to a Question of mine that he gave a somewhat hesitating answer on a previous occasion. While the hon. Member was giving it the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary entered the House and conveyed to the Secretary to the Treasury something or other that induced him to give an answer that I understood to be the same answer that we have just heard; and after that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was good enough to communicate with me, and give me to understand that he had been altogether acting under a misapprehension. Well, the circumstances were unfortunate; but I wish it to be clearly understood that I am perfectly satisfied that the Chief Secretary acted throughout with unquestionable bona fides. I am perfectly sure that he said exactly what he intended, and if he found afterwards that the circumstances were not as he imagined them to be he was not to blame in the matter. But the Secretary to the Treasury has said that when the full Vote comes up for discussion he will be prepared to show that there has been no increase in this Vote. I am quite prepared to admit that he will be able to show that. The figures of the total are the same as they were before; but under this simple appearance one of the grossest jobs ever perpetrated in the Civil Service lies hidden. The fact is that the juniors in the Office have been swindled in the interests of certain higher-placed officials. The Vote is not distributed as it was before. The position, status, and interests of the juniors are all sacrificed, whilst the status and pay of those in higher positions have been considerably enhanced. The whole thing was a job, and I say so all the more because it was said in the House that the salary of the Secretary would not be increased; but that is precisely what has been increased. I have two or three other points to raise. I agree that this is not a convenient opportunity for the discussion of this Vote. I do not think it could be conveniently discussed and threshed out now. I would ask my hon. Friend not to press his Motion on this occasion, because I think that while it might not do good it might prejudice useful discussion when next the Vote is brought before us. We shall have, I think, on the next occasion to proceed to a division.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Londonderry, S.)

I would point out that in my judgment the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury is misled if he imagines that because there is no increase in this particular Estimate therefore no job has been perpetrated. We are standing up for the rights of the lower class clerks who have been deprived of seniority and promotion by a trick—or perhaps I should say by the device which enables a reduction to be effected in the general Estimate, which gives increased salaries to the gentlemen in the higher positions in the Office, and reduces the chance of promotion of the unfortunate lower class clerks. For my own part, I do not know an atom about the politics or anything else concerning these clerks, higher or lower. I simply stand by the representations that have been made to us by the clerks, who are deprived of their standing and seniority, whilst gentlemen high in office get increased salaries, and the Department gets credit for reducing the entire Estimate. I think my hon. Friend has acted wisely in bringing the matter forward, and that the Secretary to the Treasury will not be misled by an apparent decrease in the Vote.

MR. DWYER GRAY (Dublin, St. Stephen's Green)

I think this is not a convenient opportunity for this discussion. If I understand the pledge of the right hon. Gentleman, it is not only that the scheme shall not be confirmed until an opportunity is given for discussion, but that the position of the officials shall not be prejudiced. It has been the custom to superannuate two or three—at least two of them. We have been told that the scheme is to be subject to consideration and discussion, and, of course, decision, in this House; and when we find that a portion of it has been actually carried out, and some of these clerks have been driven from office, we are in a difficulty. Are we to understand that if the scheme is not confirmed these gentlemen who have been dismissed will be reinstated? If not, it appears to me to be a species of Jedburgh justice—first we execute them, and then put them on their trial. The clerks who are prejudiced by the scheme have not been heard with regard to it; they were not asked for an opinion; they were not told what was going to be done. When they appealed they had certain papers submitted to them. They have been driven from their appointments without its being suggested that they were not competent to do their work; they have been driven out under a scheme which they are told is to be considered two or three months hence. That is a most extraordinary position of affairs. It is a very hard thing for these unfortunate men, who find their prospects in life completely blasted, to be told that the scheme will be considered by-and-bye. And, in the end, oven if it is condemned, we shall be told, I suppose, that, because they have been superannuated, it is impossible to afford them any relief.

MR. T. C. HARRINGTON (Dublin, Harbour)

I too, on the whole, must express satisfaction with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. I know perfectly well that it is the feeling of these clerks that if their case had been properly represented this injustice would not have been allowed to proceed. We all have so much confidence in the right hon. Gentleman, and so firm a faith in his fairness, that we are confident he would not have permitted this scheme to proceed if the case had been properly represented to him. The position of the clerks in the meantime, however, is most disagreeable. The second class seems to have been abolished; the senior division of the third class seems to have been compulsorily retired. It is a singular thing that in re-organizing this Office the Government have proceeded upon a different principle to that adopted in connection with other Offices where re-organization has taken place. When the Office of Registrar of Deeds was re-organized—and that was the last Office of this kind that was re-organized in Ireland—all the third-class clerks were raised to the status of second-class clerks. In the present instance, however, the second-class clerks have been abolished, and though some of the clerks in that class may have been retained their salaries remain the same. And there is this additional grievance imposed upon them—that the Registrar General has power to fill the higher appointments over their heads by appointments of his own. These are the facts that are represented to us by the officials who are interested; and they themselves say that if the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Department had known the circumstances of their case, and if they had had an opportunity of properly approaching him, he would never have allowed the injustice of which they complain to occur.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

If I understand the Financial Secretary to the Treasury aright he has given a distinct pledge that no future steps will be taken in connection with this scheme until the House has had an opportunity of discussing the matter and coming to a decision. If I understand that to be his pledge, then I shall be happy to withdraw my Motion.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

That is not the pledge I gave. It was that the scheme of re-organization should not be finally binding until the House has had an opportunity of discussing it. So far as the Treasury is concerned, it will not be approved until then.

MR. CHANCE

I think that is a satisfactory pledge, and I have no doubt it will be carried out in the spirit in which it is given.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

On the Vote for the Post Office, I desire to call the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to a grievance under which the Post Office officials have been labouring for some time past. In Cork, I am informed, the Post Office is classed as a first-class Office, similar in every respect to the Offices in the cities of Dublin and Belfast. The sorters and other clerks are paid on exactly the same scale as they are in Dublin and Belfast. But though the clerks and sorters are in that position, the humbler employés in the Cork Office are put in the position of postmen at a second-class office. The salary of a postman in Dublin is 28s. per week, in Belfast it is 26s., and in Cork it is only 22s. Although the Cork men only receive 22s., there is not the smallest reduction in the amount of work they have to do. In fact, they have this disadvantage to face—that in addition to having to perform all the work of postmen in Dublin and Belfast they have a Sunday delivery every Sunday in the year. In Belfast there is no Sunday delivery, and in Dublin the postmen have some arrangement by which they are called upon to deliver on Sundays only once every four weeks. In addition to that these officers complain that, whereas in Dublin and Belfast postmen are eligible for promotion to higher positions on vacancies arising, in Cork there is no such arrangement. In Dublin and Belfast, when a vacancy arises in the position of sorter, or in a superior division in the Office, I understand an examination is held; and if any postmen present themselves at that examination and prove themselves qualified they are perfectly eligible to get the higher position, and I need not say that an arrangement of that kind is a direct incentive to good conduct, and to a better discharge of their duties as postmen. In Cork, however, no such arrangement exists. I am not informed that there is any special reason why an exception should be made in the case of Cork—why the Office in Cork should not in that respect be put on the footing of the other Offices. They have a third grievance, and it is that, whilst postmen in other Offices when sick receive three-fourths of their pay if single, and their full pay if married, in Cork they only receive half-pay. I do not know why an anomaly of that kind should be permitted to exist. I am informed that there are no special circumstances which should justify an anomaly of the kind; and I would respectfully ask, if the hon. Gentleman satisfies himself that it exists, that he should do whatever in him lies to remove it. I understand that the hon. Gentleman, in reply to the hon. Member for North Cork (Mr. Flynn), has justified the deficiency in the scale of pay by saying that it is the duty of Post Office Authorities, in fixing the rate of wages in the localities, to consider the ordinary rate at which labour is paid in those localities. I do not complain of such inquiries being made; but I think, at the same time, it is the duty of the Post Office not to grind down men to the lowest possible penny, and put them on what may be called starvation wages, but to see that a fair day's pay is awarded for a fair day's work. I respectfully ask the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the points I have indicated, and I would press upon him the necessity and the common justice of redressing the grievances of that class of officers, that hardworking and industrious class of officers, to whom I have referred.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

Not having the details of this matter before me, I am not prepared to meet the case which the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M. Healy) has stated. Of course, a great deal can be said in favour of the view which the hon. Member has taken, and I can assure him that there is no desire on the part of the Post Office Authorities to grind any man down; indeed, I am quite satisfied that the usual practice is to give fair wages for the work done. When the Post Office Vote is before the Committee we shall be in a position to discuss the matter fully; but at present, as I have already pointed out, we have simply a Vote on Account before us which it is necessary we should take to meet the requirements of the Civil Service.

MR. MAURICE HEALY

I beg to inform the hon. Gentleman that I shall call attention to this subject when the Vote comes on in the usual course.

MR. LANE (Cork Co., E.)

I wish to point out to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that the question which my hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. M. Healy) has raised is not one of detail, and therefore I do not regard the answer of the hon. Gentleman as quite satisfactory. My hon. Friend has pointed out that the Cork Post Office has hitherto been recognized as a first-class Office, and he has asked the hon. Gentleman whether he will recognize that principle? I am quite sure my hon. Friend does not want the Secretary to the Treasury to make any special pledges; but, as I have said, he asks him to recognize the fact that the Cork Post Office is a first-class Office, and that all in the Office shall receive remuneration on the scale which obtains in offices of that class. That is all that my hon. Friend has asked; and I think that the Secretary to the Treasury might say that the matter shall receive attention.

DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)

I wish to call attention to a question, which this afternoon was the subject of inquiry on my part, addressed to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. When the Government took over the telegraphs of the country, the House was very jealous to make provision for guarding the secrecy of telegrams. The Electric Telegraph Act, 1868, Section 20, provided that any person having official duties connected with the Post Office who should, contrary to certain conditions contained in the Act, disclose, or in any way make known the contents, or any part of the contents, of any message or messages intrusted to the Postmaster General for transmission, should be guilty of a mis-demeanour, and should be subject to very heavy penalties. Now, I complain that the provisions of that Act appear to have been disregarded in the most wholesale manner by the Postal Authorities, and other authorities in the Highlands of Scotland.

CAPTAIN VERNEY (Bucks, N., Buckingham)

I rise to Order. Do the observations of the hon. Gentleman take precedence of Votes in Class VI.?

THE CHAIRMAN

Yes; unless the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to move a reduction on Class VI.

CAPTAIN VERNEY

We have been over almost every conceivable subject in reference to Ireland this evening, and I think it is not too much to ask the attention of the Committee to the outrageous job perpetrated in Wales on the part of the Board of Works. There is in Wales the Shrewsbury and Holyhead road, a Government road, made for the purpose of facilitating the march of troops, with the most estimable and desirable object of keeping down the Irish rebels; it was maintained at the Government expense——

MR. BUCHANAN (Edinburgh, W)

Mr. Courtney, I rise to Order. I wish to ask on which item of Class VI. it is competent to the hon. and gallant Member to discuss the Menai Bridge?

CAPTAIN VERNEY

On the Superannuation and Allowance Vote to Engineers of the Bridge.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and gallant Gentleman will not be in Order in discussing the road. He must confine his observations to the discussion of the item for superannuation of the engineer.

CAPTAIN VERNEY

Then, Sir, I will point out to the Committee that the engineer in charge of the road has been awarded a pension for life of £160 a-year. He was awarded that pension because when the road, which, as I have said, was a Government road, was handed over to the counties, his office ceased, and he was superannuated by the Board of Works. I have no objection at all to any deserving officer serving the country receiving a good pension. I received a pension myself. As I have said, the award to this officer was £160 a-year; he was 54 years of age, and had 22 years' Service. This officer, who had had charge of the road during 22 year, kept it in a state so bad and so deplorable, and, on the whole, manifested such utter incompetence for the work he had performed, that his conduct was the subject of animadversion throughout the counties through which the road passes. Now, the County Surveyor of Carnarvonshire, reporting on this road, said that when the road was placed under the charge of the officer I am referring to it was a convex road; and that, when it was handed over to the counties, he found by actual measurement that the centre of the road was 5, 6, and 9 inches below the level of the gutters; and it is for this that the engineer has been pensioned. I find in the evidence given before the Select Committee that Colonel West stated that the condition of the road was so scandalous that it was impossible to drive along it. I find, also, that one surveyor stated that it was in such a bad condition that it would cost £152 a-mile to put it in order. I find, also, these words in a Report now before the House of Commons— That the road will be irretrievably ruined, owing to the carelessness, the ignorance, or the incompetence of those whose duty it has been to see the road duly maintained. ["Question, Question!"] I do not think anyone can say I am not speaking to the point. The Committee is asked to pay the engineer a pension on account of work which he did not do. The Report also says— We urgently recommend that not a moment should be lost in representing strongly to those in authority that the management of the road should no longer be left in the hopelessly incompetent hands to which it is at present intrusted, whose culpable negligence is a disgrace to the Department which employs them, and would not be tolerated for a day in any servant of this county (Anglesey). And yet we are asked to vote for this incompetent officer a pension for life of £160 a-year. But that is not all—the duties of this officer extended all the way from Shrewsbury to Holyhead; and, therefore, part of his duty lay in maintaining a portion of the Menai Bridge itself, concerning which I have asked the Secretary to the Treasury several questions, the answers which he returned to them being received with the greatest dissatisfaction in the counties interested. This road was handed over to the counties; but that is not the case with the bridge. The bridge remains in the hands of the Government; and, therefore, the work of this officer, so far as the bridge is concerned, was not superseded. He has been pensioned as if his work had been abolished; but it was not abolished, because part of it remains in the hands of the Government; and the Government have voted £50 to another engineer to look after the bridge. In order to prove what I have said, I hold in my hand the Chairman's Report; and I point out that the bridge is being repaired with stones and macadam, instead of asphalte, which was originally put on the roadway.

An hon. MEMBER

Mr. Courtney, I submit that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is no longer confining himself to the subject of the superannuation allowance of the engineer, but is going into other matters contrary to your ruling.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is travelling over a rather wider area than he is entitled to.

CAPTAIN VERNEY

Then, Sir, I will conclude by moving the reduction of this Vote by the sum of £160, for superannuation allowance to an incompetent man, which I regard as one of those jobs which ought to be brought before the House of Commons.

Motion made, and Question, That the Item of £20,000, for Superannuation and Retired Allowances, be reduced by the sum of £160."—(Captain Verney,) —put, and negatived.

Original Question again proposed.

DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)

I was saying, when the hon. and gallant Gentleman rose to move the Amendment which has just been negatived, that it was extremely necessary to insure the secrecy of telegrams, and I was quoting the Act bearing on that subject, which is most explicit and most stringent. During the disturbed state of things in the Island of Skye, the authorities thought it necessary to make certain inquiries into what took place there. Now, I do not intend to make a charge on account of inquiries that were considered necessary in the interests of law and order; but I protest against those inquiries being made by officials in violation of the law. The law has provided that although the secrecy of telegrams shall, under ordinary circumstances, be maintained, if a case comes before the Home Secretary which satisfies him of the necessity of so doing, he may make an order for the production of a telegram, or, if he refuse to do so, the question may be brought before a Court, who can require the telegram to be produced. That surely affords sufficient facilities for getting at any telegrams that it may be necessary, in the interests of law and order, to make public; but I complain that the officials, without any of these formalities having been gone through, have violated the secrecy of telegrams in the most flagrant manner. On a former occasion I brought a complaint before the House as to the sworn information brought against Sheriff Ivory, of having gone into the Post Office and threatened the man in charge, in order to get information as to the telegrams received there. Sheriff Ivory denied the truth of the charges brought against him, and the Lord Advocate accepted his statement. That matter has already been before the House, and I did not propose to go into it again; but within the last few days Sheriff Ivory has thought fit to violate all the traditions of the position which he holds, and published a Report of the information taken at the secret inquiry, as well as correspondence which the Lord Advocate tells us he should have considered confidential. In this Report Sheriff Ivory gives the details of information sworn before him, which, among other things, shows the systematic violation of the secrecy of telegrams of which I complain. I quote from the Question which I put to-day to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. One of the witnesses examined by Sheriff Ivory, Deputy Chief Constable Aitchison, said that when Mr. Mahon, a Post Office official, came he sent for the Inspector and himself, and they met him then and on several occasions afterwards; that on those occasions he showed them various telegrams, for some of which he had applied to Sheriff Spens for authority to show, but that he had also shown them several telegrams before he got that authority; that a day or two afterwards he came with a bundle of telegrams; that he (Aitchison) asked Mr. Mahon for a copy of the telegrams. Another witness said that Mr. Mahon produced a batch of 20 or 30 telegrams and showed the contents to him. Not only were copies taken, but a whole series of telegrams are given to the world. To show the mischief of this, a constituent of mine, a reporter in Glasgow, had one of the telegrams addressed to him; and Sheriff Ivory, taking him for someone else, denounced him as "one of the leaders in the revolution in Skye." He denounced, also, the postmaster as one of the leaders of rebellion. Sir, there is here a double violation of secrecy; first by the Post Office officials, and then by the official into whose hands these telegrams were given. The telegrams were, by Sheriff Ivory, laid before the Commissioners of Supply of Inverness-shire, in the first instance, and then, through the Press, became public property. In concluding my remarks upon this subject, I say that if you are going to administer law in a disturbed district it is necessary that it should be administered in an orderly fashion, with an even hand; and, above all things, it is necessary that it should be done with due regard to the provisions of Acts of Parliament. I refuse to be content with the answer I have received to-day, and in order that the Committee may pronounce an opinion on the importance of preserving the secrecy of telegrams for which this House has made provision, I beg to move the reduction of this Vote by the sum of £100.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Item of £120,000, for the Post Office Telegraph, be reduced by the sum of £100."—(Dr. Cameron.)

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)&c.) (Clackmannan,

I do not suppose that anyone will differ in opinion as to the impropriety of violating the secrecy of telegrams. This is a subject with respect to which an answer was given to-day by the Secretary to the Treasury. The circumstances arose out of the unhappy condition of affairs in Skye. It appears that there was reason to believe that two postmasters in Skye had been mingling themselves with practices which were illegal, if not criminal, and that with a view of pursuing inquiry the Post Office Authorities sent down a gentleman to investigate the circumstances, and in his intercourse with the police who gave him information it seems that he showed certain telegrams. Now, whether this was a breach of the Electric Telegraphs Act is a question which I do not go into; but I think, when it is considered that the gentleman in question was pursuing this delicate inquiry, everyone will feel that if he committed any error at all it was of the most venial character, and that there was not on his part the slightest intention to violate the secrecy of telegrams. That seems to me to be the whole of the matter, and my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury has stated that technically what had been done by Mr. Mahon was not within the rule, but that officially his superiors were satisfied that he had no evil intention. It is difficult to see how he could have carried out the kind of inquiry he was directed to conduct without showing the telegrams to the police who could assist him. In that lies the explanation of the whole affair which seems to imply a slur upon Mr. Mahon, but of whose intention, as I have said, his superiors are perfectly satisfied.

DR. CLARK (Caithness)

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman studies the case he will see that Sheriff Ivory has not stated it accurately. According to Sheriff Ivory the account is that permission was telegraphed for to Edinburgh, but refused. These are the circumstances. A man was sent down to do certain work; he broke the law; he was told by his superior officers not to do it; but he did it notwithstanding. Well, Sir, I think that the thanks of the Committee are due to the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) for referring to this matter. We have here the case of a Post Office official sent down to do certain work, and contrary to his instructions breaking the law; we have the unique case of a man breaking the law who ought to have set the example of preserving it, and we have an account of the affair given by the Lord Advocate, who seems to be the advocate of all these law-breakers. It is clear that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite prepared to support the breaking of these Acts by the Sheriffs. How does this matter stand? We say that this official who was sent down to Skye disobeyed his instructions, and that he has committed criminal acts for which he ought to be sent to prison for two years, and ought to forfeit his salary. It seems to me that the Sheriffs of Scotland do not know much of the law which they have to administer, and Sheriff Ivory tells the Commissioners that upon grounds of ignorance these persons broke the law. A question of fact arises, and we have on one hand the statement of the Sheriff, and on the other statements of the postmaster, telegraph clerk, and two gentlemen who were present at the time. The Sheriff comes into the office to bully the postmaster's clerk, in order to compel him to aid and abet him in breaking the law; two gentlemen are present; they see the illegal action of the Sheriff, and make affidavits relating to the crime which the Sheriff has committed; but the Lord Advocate passes over all this. I ask the Lord Advocate if he will institute a full inquiry into the conduct of Sheriff Ivory, or bring a charge of perjury against the postmaster and the clerk? I trust that, at any rate, the matter will not be allowed to remain in its present position. I think the explanation given by the Lord Advocate is eminently unsatisfactory, inasmuch as it is quite contrary to the statement made by the Sheriff, and I trust my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow will divide the Committee on his Motion.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HENRY H. FOWLER) (Wolverhampton, E.)

Perhaps the Committee will allow me to repeat what I have said several times this evening, that the Vote before us is a Vote on Account. I may also point out that even the salary which is the subject of the reduction moved by the hon. Member for Glasgow is not included in this Vote, and that the proper time to raise the question of the conduct of the officials would be when the Post Office Vote is taken. But if that be objected to on the ground of technicality, I say that on the ground of fairness the matter ought not to have been brought up this evening. Although Mr. Mahon has acted unadvisedly he has not, it seems to me, acted with a bad intention; and I think that if anyone intends to challenge his intention, Notice should be given in order that the House, having all the facts before it, may judge for itself and act fairly. No one regards more than I the importance of the sanctity of telegrams; but I submit that this is not the time to raise the question, and I hope that when the Post Office Vote comes forward the hon. Member for Glasgow will put down a Notice with reference to this matter, and the House will then have an opportunity of exercising its judgment upon it. It would seem that the authorities at Skye put pressure on Mr. Mahon which they ought not to have done. I do not want to shield Mr. Mahon, who may have done an act for which he ought to be visited with a large reduction of salary; but, on the other hand, I do not want to condemn him unheard.

DR. CAMERON

The telegrams are published in Sheriff Ivory's Report, and thus you have a double violation of the law.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

We are not responsible for that.

DR. CAMERON

I do not say you are responsible, but the servants of the Post Office have violated the secrecy of telegrams in one direction, and another official has violated it in another, with the result that the telegrams have been made public. I put down a detailed Question on this subject a fortnight ago. I postponed it for a week, and there has been ample time to answer it. If my hon. Friend is not in a position to answer it I regret it much; and, at the same time, I point out that the same sort of thing will always occur so long as the Postmaster General is not a Member of this House. It is thought unnecessary to have the Postmaster General in the House of Commons, and the consequence is we are debarred from obtaining information about a Department which the House of Commons is, perhaps, more intimately connected with than any other. I did not understand the Secretary to the Treasury to say that Mr. Mahon had been even reprimanded.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

There was an expression of disapproval on the part of his superiors.

DR. CAMERON

Well, Sir, I am not satisfied, and with all deference to the opinion of my hon. Friend I feel it my duty to divide the Committee on this question.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 54; Noes 116: Majority 62.—(Div. List, No. 105.)

Original Question again proposed.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)

Some time ago I asked a very simple Question of the Government; but I am sorry to say I failed to get an answer to it. It was in regard to the policy of the Government in relation to the Civil Service in Ireland. It is perfectly notorious that there has been a scandalous extravagance in connection with the Irish Civil Service, and it is also notorious that a great number of officials are feathering their nests as quickly as possible, or, in other words, vested interests are being established at once. They are filling whatever vacancies there may happen to exist at present, and where they do not exist they are creating vested interests which will eventually be thrown upon the Irish Exchequer. I would therefore ask the Government if they are preparing to abstain from filling up vacancies in the Civil Service, because otherwise they will be throwing on the Irish Exchequer burdens which, in addition to being unnecessary, are exceedingly grievous, by establishing vested interests which we shall never be able to disregard, and which will hang like a millstone round our necks.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT) (Derby)

If the hon. Member will allow me to say so, it appears to me that the question is a little premature, and I think we bad better wait until we can see our way a little further ahead in this matter. It is quite impossible to answer a question of this sort at the present stage of the discussion.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

It appears to me that now is the time to take steps to prevent the filling up of vacancies, so I cannot see how the question can be said to be premature. There are many places which may be vacant at this moment; and if we are not to speak now upon the subject, when are we to speak? If these appointments are filled up, vested interests will be created, and we shall then have no opportunity of objecting.

MR. H. J. GILL (Limerick)

I should like to ask a question as to the subject of the unfair treatment of the postal officials in Cork which was brought before the Committee to-night. Exactly the same state of things happens in Limerick, which is also a first-class town. In Limerick the officials only get 22s. a-week, while in Belfast they get 26s., and in Dublin 28s. a-week. I would be very much obliged, therefore, if the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would look into the matter.

MR. DWYER GRAY (Dublin, St. Stephen's Green)

While I am in favour of seeing all employés fairly paid, I do not think that this is quite the proper time to raise questions as to increasing the salaries of Civil Servants in Ireland. On the contrary, I think that we should rather endeavour to obtain an undertaking that until the important questions which are now before the country are decided there should be no increases of salaries amongst any class of officials in Ireland.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

I wish to press the question, Sir, which has been put by my hon. Friend the Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor)—namely, that there shall be no increase in the cost of the Civil Service. It is well known that all the officials are now making snug berths for their relatives and friends, and we shall one of these days have to commute their pensions. The extent to which this is being done is now becoming a public scandal. I would point out, also, that these people have always been opposed to the interests of Ireland; and while one portion of them are at present engaged making nice little berths for their friends and obtaining increases of salary, another portion of them are engaged in organizing the opposition to the Government of Ireland Bill. I earnestly hope that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury will inquire into this matter, and put a stop to what is now going on.

Original Question put, and agreed to.