CLASS II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS.

HC Deb 20 July 1888 vol 329 cc107-57

(1.) £24,701, to complete the sum for the Charity Commission.

MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)

said, he desired to take the opportunity of asking two or three questions with regard to the work of the Charity Commission. In the first place, he was anxious to know what progress had been made with the work of the Parochial Charities branch, and when they might expect to have some scheme laid before the House in pursuance of the provisions of the Act of 1883? He would also like to know whether it was probable that the work of the Commission would be completed within the time originally fixed by the Act? He also wished to hear something with regard to the grants of money which the Commission had already promised to make to various institutions. He did not for a moment doubt the judgment of the Commissioners in the matter. The appointment of Mr. Anstie was most fortunate, and everyone who had had occasion to watch his work felt great confidence in the judgment and knowledge he had shown; but, at the same time, they had seen so many statements in the newspapers of applications made to the Commissioners, and of encouragement given by the Commissioners, that one became a little anxious to know how large a part of the total sum governed by the Act—and especially of that part of it which was applied to secular purposes—had been virtually promised by the Commissioners, and how much remained to meet the needs which might be expected from time to time. They had heard particulars of the various promises made to grant sums of money in aid of different institutions for promoting technical education. That was certainly an admirable object, an object which had come into particular favour during the last three or four years, but it was not an object which had primarily a particularly strong claim on charity funds. It was an object which could be met, as was proposed in the Bill the Government had withdrawn, by the general law—it was an object for which they might very properly draw from certain funds which already existed in London altogether unconnected with these charities. Therefore, those of them most interested in the parochial charities' money and its distribution felt no particular wish to see a very large proportion of that money applied to purposes like that of technical education. He felt that those objects which, perhaps, had the greatest claim on those charity funds were objects which were more specifically in the interest of the poorer classes of the community. It was especially with the view of making the lives of the poorer classes better and happier, and of affording such classes greater opportunities of recreation, that these funds ought to be applied. He felt that particularly with regard to such objects as recreative schools, recreation grounds, and open spaces. He hoped they would be told that night that the Commissioners were paying full attention to such objects, that in making promises in support of technical education they were not forgetting the numerous other objects which had an equally strong claim upon them. It ought also to be borne in mind that there were a great many objects for which it was impossible to provide at the very moment. It would be a great pity if all the money were spent at once, if there was not to be reserved such a balance as would enable the needs of future years to be properly provided for. He trusted that these considerations, all of which arose from the Act itself, would be fully borne in mind by the Commissioners, and that the Committee would be told to-night when they might hope to receive the schemes, and when they might expect the work, to which the Commissioners had devoted themselves with so much energy, would be completed.

MR. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith)

said, he was happy to be able to give the hon. Gentleman the particular information which he desired. The first of the parochial schemes—namely, that which affected the parish of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, was recently considered by the Board, and they hoped very soon to publish it. Of course, a good deal of time had been taken up in the consideration of the first scheme, because it would form, to a considerable extent, a precedent with regard to the others. That might, perhaps, account for the slight delay which had arisen. The hon. Gentleman asked him whether all the business would be concluded before the powers of the Commission under the Act expired? It was the hope of the Commission that that might be so. Of course, as the hon. Gentleman would see, a great deal would depend upon the amount of voluntary assistance which was forthcoming in connection with the Polytechnics to be established in the North, South, and South-West of London. If money were readily forthcoming, and the amounts were rapidly made up, it would, of course, assist the Commissioners very much in the preparation of the schemes, and they would be able to get them done much more quickly than if they had to wait for money and larger subscriptions to come in. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the question of technical education. The Polytechnics, which it was the intention of the Commissioners to establish in the different parts of the Metropolis, did not contemplate technical education alone. Technical education would only form a portion of the subjects which the poorer classes would be able to be brought in contact with in the Polytechnics. For instance, there would be swimming baths, gymnasiums, reading rooms, orchestras, choral societies, and a variety of amusements, to say nothing of cricket and bicycle clubs, and other clubs which, having this nucleus, would very likely come into being. Therefore, the whole of the money would certainly not be spent in technical education. In regard to the grants for the special objects as to which the hon. Gentleman asked a question, perhaps it would be most convenient if he (Mr. J. W. Lowther) stated generally the manner in which the Commission proposed at present to expend the funds which would be at their disposal. The hon. Gentleman, no doubt, remembered that by an Act of Parliament the sum of £50,000 out of the money at the disposal of the Commissioners was allotted to the purchase of Parliament Hill. That money was gone, so to speak; and in the case of the Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, £47,500 was the sum similarly taken. In addition to that, the Commissioners proposed to spend on open spaces, £10,000 on North Woolwich Gardens; a sum of £12,500 upon Carroun House, Vauxhall, which was a third of the total amount which was to be given for the estate; a similar sum of £12,500 towards the Rayleigh Park, Brixton, which was one-third of the total price of the land, making a total amount spent on open spaces of £132,500. As to the Polytechnics, of course, the decisions of the Commissioners were not absolutely final until they were embodied in the schemes which would have the force of law; but at present it was under consideration to spend £85,000 in giving subventions to the People's Palace, which would make a sum roughly of £2,500 year by year, as an endowment of that institution. It was also proposed to give a similar sum of £2,500 a-year to the Polytechnic in Regent Street, which, as the Commission knew, had been founded and sustained mainly by the energy and public spirit of Mr. Quintin Hogg. With regard to the three large parishes which were specially mentioned in the Act, it was proposed to devote a sum of about £200,000 towards the needs which arose in those parishes. As the hon. Gentleman knew, the proposal of the Charity Commissioners was to give in South London up to £150,000 a pound for every pound subscribed. In that way they hoped to get such a sum as would enable them to establish three Polytechnics in South London—he called them Polytechnics for want of a better general term. In addition to that they proposed to give a sum of £50,000 in the same way, giving a pound for every pound subscribed, towards a Polytechnic in Chelsea, which would cover the South West district of London, north of the River. He was glad to say that most of these matters had been very warmly and very generously taken up by the inhabitants of the localities, and by many generously-disposed persons. The only proposal which apparently seemed to at all hang fire was that with regard to the Polytechnics in North London. He believed that the hon. Baronet the Member for one of the Divisions of St. Pancras (Sir Julian Goldsmid) was interesting himself in the matter; in fact, he believed a Committee had been formed of Members of the House, representing various portions of North London, to consider this very important question. The Charity Commissioners had money at their disposal, and they were anxious to spread it over the whole of the Metropolis in the fairest possible manner. The Commissioners felt, as to North London, that if it had not a greater claim it certainly bad as great a claim as South London to be dealt with in this matter, and they made a similar proposal to the people of the North as to the South. He presumed, however, that the feeling in North London was not so concentrated and so localized as it was in South London, and that, therefore, the proposal of the Commission had not been so warmly taken up. He hoped, now that attention had been called to the matter by the Committee which the hon. Baronet had got together, proposals might be made by that Committee which the Commissioners would be most happy to reciprocate. There was a considerable sum left over which it was intended to hand over to the general Governing Body when that Body was established. About £5,500 per annum would be at the disposal of the general Governing Body to make just such grants as those to which the hon. Gentleman referred. They would have that sum at their disposal as soon as they were formed. But, in addition to that, he reminded the hon. Gentleman that as the pensions which were necessarily created under the Act as vested interests fell in, so more and more money would become available for such purposes as the general Governing Body might think most useful in the direction which the hon. Gentleman had indicated. He thought he had now dealt with all the points the hon. Gentleman had raised, but he should be happy to give the hon. Gentleman whatever further information he desired.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)

said, he wished to reserve his judgment respecting the statement made by the hon. Member for Penrith (Mr. J. W. Lowther) until he had had more opportunity of considering it. As far as he could gather, the hon. Member had not expressed any very definite opinion as to whether the work of the Commission would be completed by December, 1889, the date which had been fixed for the termination of its labours; and he should be glad if the hon. Gentleman could make a clearer statement on that point. He should also be glad if the hon. Member could place in the Library of the House copies of the statements prepared by the Commissioners respecting the property of the City charities. One of the duties of the Commissioners was to frame schemes for the better application of the funds of the City charities. It appeared to have been contemplated that schemes would be issued from time to time before the inquiry was completed, and he understood that one scheme was shortly to be published. But from the Annual Report of the Commissioners he did not derive very strong hopes that the work of the Commission was approaching its completion, and this appeared to be specially the case with regard to ecclesiastical property. He hoped the hon. Member for Penrith would see his way to place in the Library of the House copies of all schemes, as they were issued, as well as of the statements drawn up by the Commissioners.

MR. J. W. LOWTHER

said, he knew that Mr. Anstie, the Commissioner who was specially charged with this part of the business of the Charity Commission, was greatly impressed with the desirableness of completing his work by December of next year. Several of the schemes depended for their execution not merely on the Commission, but, to a considerable extent, upon the readiness of the public to come forward with subscriptions to assist the Charity Commission in framing schemes sufficiently wide in their scope to meet the general desire. He thought there would be no objection to placing copies of the statements in the Library of the House of Commons. The Commissioners did not yet know the exact amount that would be available under several of the schemes, because appeals in the Chancery Division were still pending, and until they were decided they could not say what was available and what was not.

MR. JAMES STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton)

said, that a short time ago Mr. Anstie, replying to the statements made by a deputation which waited upon him on the subject of establishing Polytechnics in London, said it was intended to open one in Bishopsgate Street. He wished to ask the hon. Member for Penrith (Mr. J. W. Lowther) whether it was still intended to provide such an institution in that neighbourhood; and, if so, what was to be its character? He desired to impress upon the hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues the expediency of some section of the technical work in such an institution being connected with the cabinet-making trades, which flourished greatly in that part of London, and were much in need of such assistance. Cabinet-making which found its way all over the world was done in that part of London, and the cabinet makers there were consequently brought into constant competition with foreign countries, in many of which good systems of technical education were in force. Under these circumstances, he thought it would be a great been to that part of the Metropolis if the suggestion he had made could be carried out. He, also, desired to know whether there was any reasonable prospect of a Polytechnic being set up in that part of North London which was traversed by the Kingsland Road?

MR. J. ROWLANDS (Finsbury, E.)

said, he thought the hon. Member for Penrith was rather unfair to the general public when he said that some of the schemes depended for their execution more on the public than on the Charity Commissioners. In North London people had not been negligent in making representations to the Commission, but they had not yet obtained any definite scheme from the Commission. A few weeks ago representations were made to the Commissioners as to what the centre of London was prepared to do. The Commissioners did not, in reply, recommend any scheme, but said that people in North London must be prepared to take action with regard to a larger area. Before long the Commissioners would have an opportunity of dealing with a larger area, as negotiations were now going on upon the subject. What he wanted, however, to impress on the Charity Commissioners was that they must not think they could dictate terms as to how much money could be raised in certain parts of London. During the last 12 months the public of London had responded very liberally to appeals made by some of the institutions which had already obtained their endowments. The fact that the People's Palace in the East End and the Polytechnic in Regent Street had already obtained large sums from the public showed that the resources of the public in these matters had been to some extent exhausted. There were some people who would have to fight the Commissioners very severely for the funds the latter were administering unless the Commissioners met them very generously. After all, the money was the money of the people of London, and they must do the best they could with it. Some of them were prepared to try and raise as much money as they could to supplement that which was provided by the Commissioners; but it was of no good for the Commissioners to place before them some scheme which could not be carried out. The hon. Member for Hoxton (Mr. James Stuart) bad referred to the importance of technical education to the cabinet trade. He (Mr. J. Rowlands) represented a constituency in which there were a series of industries which required a thorough system of technical education—namely, the watch and jewellery trades. These trades had languished for want of technical education; and if those who were engaged in them did not meet the schemes of the Commissioners it was not because they were indifferent to the importance of having the best possible technical and recreative institutions in their midst, but because they had not among them wealthy persons who could give sites worth £20,000 or large sums of money. They had to depend upon gentlemen who were not located in the neighbourhood, and he was afraid they would not always be able to get those gentlemen to meet them in the spirit in which they ought to meet them, considering the value they got out of the North London property. It was a mistake to suppose that the people of London did not desire to meet the Commissioners; but, at the same time, they wished to know clearly and distinctly what the schemes were.

MR. ILLINGWORTH (Bradford, W.)

said, the other day the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. C. S. Kenny) raised a question with respect to Holloway College, and showed that there had been on the part of the Charity Commissioners neglect of an obvious duty with regard to the composition of the Governing Body. It was notorious that the late Mr. Holloway had a horror of anything like sectarianism, and his resolve in setting aside a large sum of money for his grand educational institution was that no sectarian advantage of any kind should be associated with its management. He believed it was felt that his hon. Friend (Mr. C. S. Kenny) had made out his case in that respect; but the hon. Member for Penrith (Mr. J. W. Lowther) told the Com- mittee that it was not the practice of the Commissioners to inquire into the religious faith of any Governors who might be appointed. If that was the case, it was an extraordinary change in the policy of the Commissioners. Some time back nothing was more common or notorious than that the greatest regard was paid by the Commissioners, in the case of certain Church endowments, to the appointment solely of members of the Church of England to the Governing Body. In 1883 the late Lord Lyttelton, who was the Chairman of the Endowed Schools Commission, admitted that nothing was more common than for the Commissioners, in making an appointment, to have regard to the fact that the candidate was or was not a member of the Church of England.

THE CHAIRMAN

I ought to point out to the Committee that the policy of the Charity Commission in this respect was discussed at great length at a previous Sitting, and a decision was taken. It would be rather perilous to re-open precisely the same question, because the Vote itself is not concluded. I would also point out to the hon. Member that he is now quoting evidence as to the action of the Endowed Schools Commission, which ceased to exist, and had its powers transferred to the Charity Commission three years ago.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

said, he did not wish to detain the Committee long, but as the hon. Member for Penrith stated that it was the policy of the Commissioners not to inquire into the religious opinions of Governors, he desired to know whether he adhered to that statement?

MR. J. W. LOWTHER

said, in reply to the hon. Member for Hoxton (Mr. James Stuart), he had to state that he believed it was in contemplation by the Commission, at all events, to assist in setting up some institution in St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, and that this might provide the instruction which the hon. Member wished for. In reply to the hon. Member for East Finsbury (Mr. J. Rowlands), he could only say that the Commission was most anxious to help those who helped themselves. If the people of any locality should desire to have polytechnics, the Commission was very ready to assist them. In distributing the funds, however, the Commission would bear in mind that they had to distribute evenly, as far as they could, over the whole of London. With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth), it was perfectly true that the Commissioners did not inquire into the religious views of the gentlemen who were appointed Governors of Holloway College. If, however, a trust were of a denominational character, he conceived it would be the duty of the Commission in certain cases to inquire into the religious views of those whom they appointed. Where a trust was not of a denominational character, it had been the custom of the Commission not to inquire into the religious belief of those who were appointed.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

said, he wished to call attention not to the question of the income of the Commissioners, but to the relationship subsisting between them and the taxpayers of the country. The entire Vote which had to be put from the Chair for the forthcoming year was about £36,700. To that had been added the sums mentioned in a Vote in the Estimates, amounting to £5,194. This made a total of something like £41,800. The City of London parochial charities accounted for nearly £4,000 of this sum, and as this had to be repaid out of the funds of the London charities he put down the net charge at something like £37,000. This was a growing charge, and it was growing very rapidly. It had been the subject of very frequent discussions in that House. He did not wish to go into details. The great bulk of the charge, or over £31,000, went in salaries alone. These salaries were on a very liberal scale. There were a large number of very highly paid clerks, and 21 lower division clerks, whilst the sum of £1,900, representing about £40 a-week, was charged for copyists. He contented himself with merely calling the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to this matter, and expressing the opinion that strict supervision ought to be exercised. The main question, however, to which he wished to direct attention was this—Was it right or proper that this money should be voted out of the public funds at all? Why should the taxpayers be called upon to pay the expense of the Charity Commission? Charities had permanent duration; they had special protection, and were subject to special control. The Charity Commission, by a very simple procedure, afforded to charities the relief and protection which could formerly only be obtained through the Courts of Law at great cost to themselves. It appointed new trustees, settled schemes, gave advice, made vesting orders, and did various other things for charities at the public expense. Could this state of things be defended, or ought it to continue? This was a very old controversy, and he should have to trouble the Committee with a brief reference to it. Men of much greater experience than himself, and men who were much more competent to deal with the question, had been calling the attention of the House to it for several years, and successive Governments had pledged themselves to deal with it. As far back as the year 1868, the present Sir Gabriel Goldney, then a Member of the House of Commons, called the attention of the House to the great cost which the Commission was even then incurring, although the expenditure was not then half as much as it was now; and he moved a Resolution expressing the opinion that the cost of the Commission ought not to be borne by the public. That Resolution was seconded by his right hon. Friend the present Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers). The right hon. Gentleman spoke strongly in favour of it, and there was a general opinion in that House in its favour; and the late Lord Beaconsfield was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Seeing that the Committee was strongly in its favour, an Amendment was moved, the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying that he was ready to assent to the Motion if the word "entirely" were added before the word "borne," meaning that the entire cost should not be borne by the public, but that the Commissioners should bear their proportion. The right hon. Gentleman opposite the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) hoped that the word "entirely" would not be agreed to, as it would invite the inference that the charge should be borne partly by the public. Nothing came of that Resolution, which was carried by a narrow majority. In 1871 the question was brought before the House by Mr. Andrew Johnston, who proposed that the Income Tax should be levied on charity funds. Mr. Lowe, now Lord Sherbrooke, who was then Chancellor of the Exche- quer, expressed a strong opinion in favour of the Income Tax being imposed upon charities, and practically that opinion was accepted. In 1879 the matter was again brought forward by the hon. Gentleman the present Member for Gateshead (Mr. W. H. James), and an interesting debate ensued, in the course of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) spoke, as he had done in 1871, against the public being charged with this payment in respect to the charity funds. He should like to quote the figures given to the House in that debate by Sir Gabriel Goldney. He said that the property of the charities in this country yielded £4,000,000 a-year, and had increased to the extent of £750,000 during 12 years, and he added that they were so nursed by the country that they were exempt from paying Income Tax and other duties; and that the charity fund, if capitalized, would amount to something like £130,000,000. To his (Mr. Henry H. Fowler's) mind that was an excessive figure; but, at any rate, whatever the amount was, there was a strong feeling on that occasion in favour of this charge to the State ceasing. Sir Stafford Northcote, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared that it was desirable to meet the expenses of the charities out of their own funds, and said that there was no means by which they could do so without imposing a small tax for that purpose. He undertook to deal with it, and in 1879 a Bill was brought in under the auspices of the then Secretary to the Treasury, now, he believed, the Member for one of the Divisions of Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson). That right hon. Gentleman proposeda scheme to the House and to the country. Well, there was a great gathering of the clans against that Bill. Deputations waited upon Sir Stafford Northcote at Downing Street, and it seemed that the world would come to an end if the charity were deprived of this subsidy from the State in addition to the income they enjoyed. The Government happened to be in extremis at the time, and in the result they declined to fight the charity interests of the country, and the Bill was withdrawn by Lord Beaconsfield's Government. The question then slumbered until 1884, when he (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) had the honour to bring it before the attention of the House. He had drawn the attention to the fact that at that time there were £11,000,000 in Consols standing in the name of the official trustees, and in this very Vote they were called upon to agree to that night there was a sum of £150 to one of these gentlemen as being one of the official trustees of the charity funds—the country paid this sum to this gentleman for being a nominal trustee for these enormous charity funds, which were placed wholly under the control of the Commissioners. There was an interesting debate on the question that evening, and the then Secretary to the Treasury—who was, he thought he might say without disparagement to the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Jackson), the ablest Secretary who had filled that post during the present generation—(Mr. Courtney) said that— As to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) and the hon. Member for Chippenham (Sir Gabriel Goldney), there could be no doubt whatever as to the justice, and he might almost say as to the necessity, of taxing the charities to an extent which would at least cover the expenses of the Commissioners. Well, that Secretary to the Treasury, strong as he was, had the excuses that all Secretaries to the Treasury urged. He said— No one could doubt that at the fag end of a Session, or the fag end of a Parliament, it would be a very difficult thing to carry a measure upon the subject through the House."—(3 Hansard, [290] 1529–30.) Parliament was then about to deal with the question of the franchise; the Parliament was a dying Parliament, and it was not disposed to take up this question of charity funds. After the Dissolution at that time there followed several reconstructions of the Government, and during one of those reconstructions he (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) was Secretary to the Treasury, and he had intended, if he had remained in the Office, to have done his best to tackle the question. It was a question which in theory it seemed simple enough to deal with; but no one knew better than he did that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer endeavoured to deal with it would have a difficult task before him. It would be a task of enormous difficulty to proceed by means of a complete scheme; but the principle he wished to urge was this—that the cost of this great, expensive, powerful, and valuable establishment which was carried on for the control and management of our charities, the jurisdiction of which he should like to see very much extended and its powers very much increased, ought not to fall on the general public. To his mind the cost should be defrayed by the charities themselves for whose benefit the establishment was carried on. That was all he desired to say. He knew the time was valuable. He was not going to try to enforce this argument, unless he heard something stated in opposition to it, which would necessitate a reply. He wished simply to state the proposition he had laid down. It had received the sanction of, he thought, every statesman except the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) who had held the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. No financier had disputed it; the House of Commons had approved of it; and although he admitted that it involved great administrative difficulty, he held it to be one which the present Treasury had had strength and ability enough to deal with if it chose. This was the position which he wished to submit to the House, and he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was able to be in his place that evening. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would give them his views on the question, and that they would have such an expression of opinion from him as to lead them to entertain the hope that, at all events, he would, in the course of the forthcoming Recess, endeavour to deal with the matter and see if he was not able to lay down a complete scheme, or, at all events, the broad outlines of a scheme, which would apply to the charities the principle which he (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) had laid down, and which he should like to see conducted, not only in connection with charities, but in connection with every other Department—such as the Land Register Office.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)

said, he was very glad that the right hon. Gentleman had brought this matter before the attention of the Committee, and he regretted that there were so few Members present, as he should have been glad for the sound views of the right hon. Gentleman on this question to have been hoard by a larger number of the present Members of the House. One word with regard to the observations the right hon. Gentleman had made as to the cost of this Establishment. The right hon. Gentleman had called attention to what he had criticized as the somewhat extravagant nature of the Establishment, and the large number of highly-paid officers who were engaged in the work of superintendence of these charities. He (Mr. Goschen) would not enter into the question as to the degree to which the observations of the right hon. Gentleman were justified.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER

said, he had not used the word "extravagant," but the words "costly and expensive."

MR. GOSCHEN

Yes, yes; "costly and expensive," rather than "extravagant;" but the difference between "costly and expensive" and "extravagant" was one rather of appreciation than of fact, for that which was expensive generally deserved that description in consequence of extravagance somewhere or other. The right hon. Gentleman, at all events, suggested that the Department was not an economically managed one. Well, he (Mr. Goschen) did not wish to pursue this matter; but in this regard he only wished to point out that the Government were powerless to reduce Establishments, because the House had decided that reductions were not to be made unless employment could be found for the redundant officers who were removed from the over-manned Department. But this was not the point of the interesting speech of the right hon. Gentleman. His point was that the charities should bear the cost of the Establishment which had been formed precisely in order to administer them, and to afford them valuable help and privileges. He was entirely of the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman that the charities did possess valuable privileges. The Legislature had created a costly machinery for assisting in their administration, and the taxpayers of the country generally paid a large sum for this laudable object. Opinions differed as to the degree in which the charities should bear the expense of this control exercised over them. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that most Chancellors of the Exchequer agreed that the charities ought to contribute largely to the cost of the Commission, if they did not defray the cost entirely; but he doubted whether there were at that moment five Members present in the House who would endorse the views of the right hon. Gentleman. There was the right hon. Gentleman himself; there was his (Mr. Goschen's) hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson), there was the hon. Gentleman who occupied the Chair (Mr. Courtney), and who had some time ago so ably discharged the duties of Secretary to the Treasury, and there was himself (Mr. Goschen). But when it came to the question of sentiment versus the just economic principle of taxing charities, he doubted very much whether the principle would obtain much support from either side of the House. ["Hear, hear!"] He should be very glad to hear a louder murmur of assent from the Benches opposite; but hitherto failure, as the right hon. Gentleman had pointed out, had attended every effort made by successive Governments, by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer or Secretaries to the Treasury, to put any burden whatever upon charities. The House of Commons was favourable to the idea in the abstract; but as soon as the charities began to organize demonstrations the valour of the House of Commons disappeared. If the Government were to begin to tax charities, he was afraid he would have much longer processions waiting upon him than even those got up by persons interested in the Wheel and Carriage Tax. There was no subject that seemed to excite some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen more than did any attempt to diminish, in the slightest degree, the revenues of our great charities and charitable institutions. Whatever Chancellor of the Exchequer laid an unhallowed finger upon any of these revenues was immediately exposed to an opposition such as not even the genius of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian had hitherto been able to overcome. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman opposite had raised this question, and he (Mr. Goschen) would undertake to examine into the best modes of securing some contribution from charities towards the general taxation, and he should be glad if support could be secured in advance for such a proposal; but he was bound to say, with the expe- rience of the past, the prospect was not a very cheerful one. Hitherto all attempts had failed. The efforts to relieve the State from the cost of dealing with charities began substantially in 1844. In 1852 a general rate of 2d. in the pound on the gross annual income of every charity exceeding £10 a-year was proposed; but objections were taken by the large hospitals of the country, and they entirely overcame the resolution of the Government, and nothing was done. In 1863 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian proposed to repeal the exemption of charities from the Income Tax, and this was one of those several occasions on which the right hon. Gentleman displayed the whole of the resources of his rhetorical and economical genius, but he failed to persuade the House to tax the charities. In 1864 and 1865 it was proposed that a Stamp Duty should be imposed on all orders and certificates issued by the Commissioners, and on the annual accounts rendered to them by trustees of charities; but the proposal was negatived without a Division. In 1869 a clause was inserted in the Charitable Trusts Act of that year, in pursuance of the Resolution passed on the Motion of Sir Gabriel Goldney, empowering the Treasury to fix a scale of fees; but nothing came of that. No scale was drawn up, as the Commissioners represented that the amount leviable would be too small to trouble about. In 1871 a Resolution was passed in favour of subjecting charities to Income Tax, but no action was taken upon that; and what happened in 1874 had already been stated by the right hon. Gentleman. In face of all these failures, and of the extreme reluctance on the part of the Government as well as Members of the House to take anything from the charities, it would be too sanguine to expect any great result from an attempt to exact from charities the fall amount of taxation they should pay. But if he remained in Office he did not know that he should shrink from making the attempt, at any rate, to tax the larger Charity Corporations. The right hon. Gentleman opposite stated that the Government had a great deal of force behind them; but hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House were swayed by sentiment with regard to charities, just as much as hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in any other part of the House, and he was afraid that it would not be in the power of the Government to carry out the object the right hon. Gentleman had in view. His desire was that the charities should be made self-supporting; but there was not only a difficulty of principle in the matter—a difficulty in regard to which he was afraid they would find much opposition—but there was also much difficulty of detail, particularly in devising some system which would not weigh unduly on the smaller and on the weaker charities. Taxation would not press so much on the larger charities, which might be able to bear the expense of their management. But this would not be the case with all the smaller charities. In response to the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman, he had to say that he should be glad to further investigate the subject, and if he thought there was sufficient prospect of support on the other side, he would be glad to consider whether or not some contribution should not be made by charities in respect of the cost of their management, as the way in which this cost was at present defrayed was a burden upon the general community for the purpose of relieving charities which went to the benefit of particular classes. He disapproved of the system of taxing the community to assist specific charitable institutions, holding that they should be supported out of the pockets of people who sympathized with their objects. It was a poor form of sympathy with charities to say that the general taxpayer should contribute towards them in order to increase their funds. He trusted that the observations he had made would show the right hon. Gentleman opposite that he was in sympathy with him in regard to the task he wished to see undertaken; but, in view of the fruitless attempts which had been made in past years, he could not pledge himself to carry out any particular scheme. All he could promise was that he would take the same pains that the right hon. Gentleman himself would take if he were in his place to carry out the objects the right hon. Gentleman had in view.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL&c.) (Kirkcaldy,

said, he must honestly confess that he was not at all in sympathy with the observations of either of the right hon. Gentlemen who had just spoken. He was wholly against the taxing of charities, believing that the poor already bore too large a proportion of the burden of taxation, and that the rich did not pay a sufficiently large proportion. He did not grudge the charities the sum they cost the State, particularly as he regarded it as voluntary taxation on the part of members of the community which indirectly went very largely to the reduction of the rates.

MR. PICTON (Leicester)

said, he must venture to disagree entirely with the view of the hon. Member who bad just spoken. The hon. Member seemed to think that these charities were a system of voluntary taxation; but a very large number of the charities of the country, especially those with which the Charity Commissioners had to deal, consisted of property handed down from the old pious founders, which, since the death of those founders, had been largely increased in value by the labour of the community. To speak of these funds, therefore, as a voluntary taxation was not fair. The hon. Member had neglected to observe that the system he recommended gave to every benevolent person the power of taxing people involuntarily. The hon. Member had stated that the rich did not pay their fair proportion of taxation; but if the cost of managing charities was defrayed out of the taxation of the country, how could the hon. Member guarantee that the necessary taxation would be imposed upon the rich? It was not imposed upon the rich; it was imposed upon the poor. He (Mr. Picton) believed that the poor paid an unfair proportion of the taxes of the country. He had been very glad indeed to hear the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman had no doubt said all that could very well be expected of him under present circumstances, and it was extremely gratifying to hear that in principle he recognized the justice of the opinions advanced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. Perhaps he (Mr. Picton) might be permitted to remind the Committee that the attempts at the taxing of charities to which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had called attention, and which had ended in failure, were all of them attempts to charge the charities with the expenses of the country at large; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton had suggested nothing of the kind. What he suggested was that the charities should defray the expenses which were incurred on their own account—that they should pay the cost of the superintendence exercised by the Charity Commissioners, which was a necessary expense entailed by the accumulation of funds of the charity. The right hon. Gentleman contended that these expenses should be defrayed out of the funds of the charities, and not by the general public. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had mentioned instances in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and others had proposed to tax charities, sometimes to the extent of 2d. in the pound, and sometimes to other amounts, and when they remembered the enormous value of charities in the country they would see that the amount proposed would be of very slight consequence indeed. He did not think they ought to confuse the two points together—the one that the charities should bear the expenses of their own management, and the other that they should take their share in the expense of the general administration of the country. He was sorry the attention of the Committee should have been distracted by the observations of the hon. Member for the Penrith Division of Cumberland (Mr. J. W. Lowther) from the criticisms made by a preceding speaker. They ought to think of the misery which existed in this country precisely for want of the assistance which might be given from funds in the hands of the Charity Commissioners. Why were the inhabitants of very poor and squalid districts in London to wait until great people subscribed large amounts of money to meet the advances of the Charity Commissioners? The money held by that Body was not given for the promotion of generosity on the part of the rich. The business of the Charity Commissioners was to look after the poor, whether the living generation of the rich did so or not. Of course, if they could succeed in persuading rich men generally to put down £1 for every £1 the Commissioners expended it would be all very well; but it was very hard on squalid and poverty- stricken neighbourhoods to withhold funds from them simply because the rich and the aristocratic could not be induced to feel an interest in the proposed benefaction. And now he came to the question of the choice of Governors. The hon. Member had told them that in the case of denominational institutions the Commissioners took pains to inquire into the denominational relations of the Governors whom they appointed, and he added that, in the case of undenominational institutions they did not think it necessary to make any such inquiry. He contended that this was an altogether false idea of their duty. How were they to guarantee that an institution should be maintained on an undenominational footing unless they adopted a similar procedure to that adopted in the case of denominational institutions? Take the case of a Church of England institution. How could they secure its management in accordance with the tenets of the Church of England except by appointing on its management gentlemen who were members of the Church of England? Did not the same principle apply to all undenominational institutions? Then, surely it was the duty of the Commissioners to see that undenominational institutions were placed on the same footing, and that was to be secured obviously by taking industrious care that the members of the Governing Body should not be of one denomination, and for this purpose they were bound to inquire into the denominational views of the gentlemen it was proposed to appoint as Governors. How had the Commission sought to secure undenominational management in a notorious case? The Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops, the Chancellor of a Diocese, and prominent members of the Church of England, famous for their donations to that institution, had been appointed on the Governing Body! "But," said the Charity Commissioners, "we have not inquired into their denomination views." Surely inquiry was not necessary; their views were known to all the world; they were known as prominent members of the Establishment of the Church of England? Now, in that matter, the Charity Commissioners had taken an entirely false view of their duties. They were bound to be as careful to preserve the undenominational character of an institution as of a de- nominational one, and he hoped that in future they would bear that fact in mind.

MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

said, he wished to call the attention of the hon. Member opposite to the case of the Huguenot Charity in London, in connection with which there were separate funds for a school and for a church. In 1867, the charity was administered under a scheme approved by the Court of Chancery, and the scheme was revised by the Charity Commissioners in 1876. It was now sought to re-organize the scheme so far as the schools were concerned. The schools were not simply Huguenot schools, for English persons sent their children there in order to learn French. He believed that the present object was to have exhibitions. Well, he was not particularly opposed to that. But in this case the scheme was prepared by the hon. and learned Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) and not by the Charity Commissioners. There was a sum distributed between the Consistory Trustees and the pastor of the Church, and consequently the hon. and learned Attorney General was now formulating a scheme, which, so far as he could make it out, was not to be submitted to the Charity Commissioners or to the House of Commons. There was a considerable sum of money involved. The church had an income of £730 per annum. Well, the church, which was situated at St. Martin's-le-Grand, was required for some extensions of the Post Office, and it was consequently bought for a sum of £25,000. The accumulated funds brought the total up to £27,000, in addition to the income of £730 yearly from other sources. What was to be done with the money? Was a new church to be built with it? He did not believe one was required. There were, of course, Huguenot descendents in London; he was one himself, but he had never been to the church, and he believed most of the Huguenot descendants were in a similar position. It was a matter of fact that the poor fund was used in order to induce persons to go there and receive doles. The pastor had a salary of £500 a-year, and he was appointed by the Consistory, who, in turn, were appointed by him. It did seem that when the new scheme was propounded, it would be most undesirable that the £27,000 in hand should be devoted to building a new church, which was not wanted. The money was invested in Consols, and produced £800 yearly, the house property brought in about £750 more, and he believed that the cash might be better and more usefully employed than in building a church. Speaking as a Huguenot, he hoped that the hon. and learned Attorney General would propound a scheme which would make this money available for the temporal use of poor French people in London. If that could not be done without an Act of Parliament, then let him bring one in——

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! That is not within the scope of the Charity Commission, and the hon. Member's remarks are, therefore, irrelevant.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, he thought it was a very peculiar case. The Charity Commission referred the matter to the Attorney General, but they could not attack the right hon. Gentleman on the matter when the Vote for his salary was discussed. He had, however, laid his views before the Committee.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)

said, it was true there was a school and a French Protestant Church involved in the charity, but his own duties in the matter were of a very formal character. The church had been pulled down to allow of the extension of the Post Office, but the valuable library of books had been preserved and was being taken care of. The question raised by the hon. Member was as to whether the church should be rebuilt? Well, he had no power to decide that. All he had to do was to prepare a scheme under the direction of the Court of Chancery. It was a very important question whether the money should not be devoted to purposes which came within the scope of the charity; but the whole matter was being carefully considered, and inquiries were being made of those who had a right to be heard. It was quite possible that the field of the charity would be enlarged so as to use the money for better purposes. He had been assured that the practice of giving doles had come to an end, and, at any rate, he would do his best to reduce it to a minimum.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

said, he had to thank the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) for the response he made earlier in the debate to an appeal which had been made to him. He wished, however, to make an observation with a view to preventing a misconstruction of his meaning. He had never intended to suggest that the Charity Commission was extravagantly managed. The men at the head of it were distinguished and able, and all he had wished to do was, to point out that there was a tendency to increase the establishment charges on very extensive lines. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had confused the two questions as to the taxation of charities, and then being compelled to contribute to legal expenses, or, so to speak, for the business done for them by the Charity Commissioners. He did not intend to raise the question of the taxation of charities, but he did not see why the general public should subsidize all the charities in the Kingdom by exempting them from taxation which they were so well able to bear; and he would urge that those charities which came to the Court of Chancery for expensive and costly legal proceedings in order to secure and protect their funds, should contribute to the cost of the proceedings, and not make them a burden on the public. He fully appreciated all that had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he was very much inclined to the idea that charities might pay for legal work done by the Charity Commissioners by fees, in the shape of stamps, at each successive stage. That was a matter, however, which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury would have to decide.

MR. HALLEY STEWART (Lincolnshire, Spalding)

said, he had had on several occasions to bring questions regarding Lincolnshire trusts before the Charity Commissioners, and he had always met with extreme courtesy. It was, therefore, with some reluctance that he took advantage of his position in that House to press a particular matter upon them. In the matter of the Swineshead Charities, which were under the direction of the Commissioners, there was a new scheme under which two trustees were to be elected by the ratepayers. Now, the Vicar of Swines- head had set at nought and defied the opinion of the trustees, that the election should be by ballot if the ratepayers so resolved. He (Mr. Halley Stewart) was glad to say that the Charity Commissioners had refused to endorse the high handed proceedings of the vicar, who, after first refusing to hold a meeting in conformity with the terms of the trust, had now fixed it at the hour of 10 in the morning, so that the labourers could not, without great difficulty, be present. The labourers had remonstrated with the reverend gentleman, but he refused to alter the hour. They then sent a letter to him (Mr. Halley Stewart), and he waited on the Charity Commissioners, who wrote down to the vicar, pointing out that the Commissioners always fixed an hour in the evening for inquiries on village charities, and expressing a hope that he would follow suit. But the Vicar of Swineshead refused to follow that advice; he defied the wishes both of the Charity Commissioners and the parishioners, and refused to hold the meeting in the evening. The result was that the labourers were altogether outnumbered, the resolution carried at the previous meeting was reversed, the trustees then elected were not again chosen, and a great state of turmoil was caused in the village. He would not ask the Charity Commissioners to re-open the question, but he would ask them to bear in mind in the future that the labourers felt that they were only safe in the hands of the Commissioners, and not to place vicars and other trustees in a position to disregard the feelings of those most interested in a charity and the directions of the Commissioners.

MR. J. W. LOWTHER

said, he fully appreciated the spirit in which the hon. Member had made his remarks. It was the custom of the Charity Commissioners to try and arrange for meetings of the character described to be held in the evening. He did not think they had any absolute power to compel it to be done.

SIR JOHN SWINBURNE (Staffordshire, Lichfield)

said, they had been given to understand it was the desire of the Charity Commissioners that labourers should be enabled to attend charity meetings, and that elections of trustees should be by ballot. He held in his hand a scheme for certain charities in the County of Staffordshire. The scheme was promulgated a month since, and it provided that the trustees should be elected in one case—that of Colwich—in vestry assembled. Now it was quite impossible for labourers to attend those vestry meetings, and in such cases the elections were not made by ballot.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said, the Vote had occupied a long time, and he was unwilling to start a debate which might occupy a still longer period. But he did not like to pass by one part of the Vote without a protest. He alluded to the expenses of the Endowed Schools Commission, which sometimes through actual mismanagement did a great deal of harm. They had an instance of that brought before the House on the preceding Monday, when the majority in favour of the Endowed Schools Commission, although backed up by the Government, was not large. In the system of open competition it meant expensive preparation and cramming the rich at a great advantage over the poor, and endowments which were originally intended for the poor in this way got into the hands of people whom it was never intended should enjoy them. He would not move an Amendment to reduce the salaries of the Endowed Schools Commissioners as he had intended to, if the Vote had come on earlier, but he must say he believed the Commissioners, in the line of conduct they were adopting, were doing what was contrary to the wishes of the founders of the endowments by diverting them from objects beneficial to the poorest members of the community.

Vote agreed to.

(2.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £26,477, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission.

MR. CRAIG-SELLAR (Lanarkshire, Partick)

said, that in moving the reduction of the salaries of the Civil Service Commissioners by £400, he had no wish to occupy the time of the House by going into a discussion as to the general policy of the Civil Service Commissioners, nor would suggest any reflection on the manner in which their business was conducted generally. He believed the right hon Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks) had some interesting observations to make in regard to the examinations conducted by Examiners under the Commissioners; but he (Mr. Craig-Sellar) intended on this occasion to confine himself to a single point, which he had already brought before the notice of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) by a Question which he had put from his place. He had now brought it before the Committee, because it was a real grievance, and because he thought that before they granted this Supply they ought to have an assurance from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that some steps would be taken to redress the grievance. The case arose in this way. At the recent examination for the Sandhurst Military College, conducted at the beginning of this month, there were a number of candidates who came up for examination, and on the last day of that examination a mathematical paper was set which contained a large number of questions, one of which was simply insoluble. He did not propose to mystify the House or himself by entering into details with regard to this question which was insoluble, but if the Committee would allow him he would read it, as it happened to be a very short one, and as it would make the point he wished to put more clear. It read thus— A number consists of three digits in geometrical progression. The sum of the right hand and left hand digits exceeds the middle digit by unity, and the sum of the left hand and middle digits is two-thirds of the sum of the middle and right hand digits. Find the number. Well, it was impossible, as he understood it, to "find the number," because the number did not exist. Instead of "exceeds the middle digit by unity," it should have been "exceeds twice the middle digit by unity." This makes the question reasonable, and the answer then becomes 469. It was obvious that the mistake in the question was an accident, and he was informed that it occurred in this way—and if he saw that he was right in this, he thought it as well to mention it in this public manner, so that Examiners who set questions in the future would be more careful in these matters—he believed it arose in this way, that the gentleman who set the examination paper worked out the question accurately in the draft, but in copying the question from the rough paper to the paper to be sent to the printer he omitted the word "twice." If he (Mr. Craig-Sellar) were wrong, he would, no doubt, be corrected by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. But it certainly seemed to him very hard that such a question should have been submitted to 400 students brought up for examination. Examiners were appointed to find out the mistakes of the candidates, and not candidates to find out the mistakes of the Examiners. The paper was a three hours' paper, and he was informed that some of the candidates occupied as much, variously, as an hour, half-an-hour, and a quarter of an hour in the attempt to solve this veritable task of Sisyphus, for the task of Sisyphus was an insoluble problem. They all knew how exhausting the process of answering these examination papers was, and how to some lads the prospect before the examination and the anxiety afterwards affected seriously the nervous system; athough, of course, now-a-days there were some young men—and some young women, too—who became accustomed to examinations, like the eel, in the hands of the skilful, which got used to being skinned. But there were always some boys of a nervous temperament, who might become excellent Civil servants if their examination were conducted properly, to whom it was almost impossible to pass an examination if anything went wrong. When such questions as that to which he had referred were put in the papers such boys were likely to lose their heads, and become incapable of good work, and the result might be that they would lose their chance of appointment. What did the Commissioners do under the circumstances he had now narrated? There were many things they might have done, but, in his opinion, they did everything they ought not to have done. The examination concluded on Tuesday at 1 o'clock, and it was well known at that time that this insoluble problem had been set. The natural thing to do would have been to inform the candidates that the paper was a wrong one, that it would be cancelled, and that they should return again on the following day to another paper. Nothing of the kind was done, however, and these 408 boys went away—some to Scotland, some to Ireland, some to far-off parts of Eng land, some even to the Continent—but on the Saturday they were called back again with not one word of regret or apology from those responsible for the mistake, and set down in the ordinary way to do another paper. There were 408 of the lads present at the first examination, and 397 of them returned. Thus it would be seen that 11 did not return; and what happened to them, and what marks they got for their papers, no one could tell. It seemed to him (Mr. Craig Sellar) that something should be done for these candidates. The Treasury, he thought, should find some means by which some alleviation might be made to the parents of these lads, who must have been put to considerable expense in taking them home and sending them up once more for examination. He might be told that what had occurred was an accident, and that accidents would happen in the best regulated examinations. That might be so, but this was not a solitary instance. On three previous occasions there had been faulty papers, and different things had been done to put matters right. To his mind, when a Body like the Civil Service Commissioners were vested with great powers as those they possessed, they ought to be above all suspicion of inaccuracy. All confidence in the Civil Service Commissioners and in the examinations was lost when it was found that faulty examination papers were presented. Of course, the Treasury could not make good any hypothetical loss that might have fallen on the lads; but there was something the Treasury could do—something practicable—and that was simply to pay the expenses of the lads, whatever it might be, who had come up from distant parts of the country and from the Continent to pass through the second examination. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had told them, the day before yesterday, that this would be an evil precedent, and that awkward questions might arise if the Treasury were to take that step. That might be very true from the Treasury point of view, but the hon. Member should recollect that the parents of many of these lads were not well off, and that it was not for them to consider whether or not an evil precedent had been set. The question to them was, how were they to be recouped for the expense to which they had been put through the fault of the Examiners? He trusted the hon Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to give him an assurance that something of the kind that he suggested would be done. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £400.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, £15,757, for Salaries, be reduced by the sum of £400."—(Mr. Craig-Sellar.)

MR. MARJORIBANKS (Berwickshire)

said, it would save the time of the Committee if, instead of moving the Motion he had put on the Paper, he took this opportunity of saying what he had to say, and one Division would answer very well for the two questions which were raised—if, indeed, a Division became necessary at all. The statement they had heard from the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down on this case was really a portion of the case which he (Mr. Marjoribanks) desired to bring before the notice of the Committee. It was what he might call a culminating error, which seemed to show that dementia had fallen on the Civil Service Commissioners which preceded their ultimate destruction. He did not quite agree with his hon. Friend as to the step which should be taken by the Civil Service Commissioners. It seemed to him to have been a monstrous thing to bring these boys back again at all. The very least that might have been expected was that full marks should have been given according to the answers to the other questions on the paper, omitting altogether answers to the wrongfully set question. He did not say that would altogether meet the grievance, because, no doubt, a great many of the boys would have wasted a lot of time over the wrongly set question. But this instance the hon. Gentleman had adduced was by no means a single one of the mistakes that occurred in the examination papers. If this were only a single instance it might be passed over; but it was not an unusual occurrence, for mathematical papers were often found to be faulty, and the subject of remark against those entrusted with the preparation of them. The Committee would hardly believe that in the month of June just passed there had been no less than three separate cases of mistakes in examination papers—important mathematical mistakes in the examinations under the Civil Service Commissioners. There was the mistake in the Sandhurst paper, to which reference had been made by his hon. Friend. Then there was a case in connection with the Indian Civil Service Examination of a paper set by Mr. Besant—Question No. 6. It was a misprint, but still it was a misprint most awkward for the unfortunate students. It was a case in which s (½ the sum of sides) was printed for "A"—that is, "Angle A." The misprint made the question simply nonsense, and was like asking the boy to add apples and oranges together and express the result in figs. No doubt, the error was not Mr. Besant's fault; but someone ought to be responsible—it should have been someone's duty to look over the proof of the paper. But a still worse error had occurred in the paper set at the same examination by the Rev. E. Ledger. The last half of Question 14 was simply nonsense, and he (Mr. Marjoribanks) had the opinion of three different gentlemen with regard to it. First, there was the opinion of the Examiner of Cambridge for 1887, who said—"The question contains an undoubted fallacy." Then there was the opinion of a Senior Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman, who said—"The question is absurdly and flagrantly wrong." And, thirdly, he had the opinion of a Second Wrangler, and Tutor of his College, who said—"The question is certainly wrong—the examiner made the imperfectly illogical conclusion that "S 2n = Sn." Here they had three cases of errors in Mathematical papers occurring within a single month, and there were other cases of a similar kind, not only in Mathematical papers, but in other papers. He was also prepared to bring forward other instances, if necessary, to show gross incompetency on the part of the Examiners. He knew of a case in which Bacon's Essays were set as a subject for examination, and the Examiner instead of examining on the essays generally, put questions relating to matter which was only to be found in the appendix of one particular edition—Whateley's. Then there was the case of an Examiner in Italian who asked the boys to reply to him in French or some other language, when before him for vivâ voce examination. In the Indian Civil Service for 1884, the following was set for an essay:—Il tremuoto del 22nd Aprili nel comitato di Essex. It was intended that the essay to be written in Italian should be on the earthquake which took place in Essex a few years ago. Well, "tremuoto" was not modern Italian for an earthquake, which was "terremoto" but an archaic word which had not been in use for the past 100 years; and comitato was a word which never meant county, the Italian for "county" being contea, or provincia. The literal translation of the Examiner's Italian would be—"An essay on a turbulent fellow or rowdy in the Committee of Essex." Then, as illustrating the errors into which the Examiners fell, there was a case with which he was acquainted in which a boy named Fraser was credited with marks in a subject which he did not take up at all; and another case of a boy named Van Renen, who was stated to have disqualified in geometrical drawing. This was known to have been impossible from what he had done; and after considerable correspondence, the Commissioners admitted themselves wrong and passed him. This was some proof of the gross carelessness of the manner in which Civil Service Examinations were conducted. He could go into a great many more of these cases, but he would not waste the time of the Committee. He must say that in many cases he did not think the Civil Service Commissioners took sufficient pains to satisfy themselves as to the qualification of their Examiners. He knew a case in which a man was appointed as Examiner when he had been turned away from a public school, a fact which the Civil Service Commissioners would have been informed of if they had applied to the school the person had been connected with. He knew of a case, again, in which the Examiner put to each candidate the question—"Who was your coach?" Meaning who had been engaged to cram him for the examination, and it was to be feared that the marks had been arranged according to the answers received to this question. Then the rooms used for the examination were often badly situated. In one case in June of the present year, the room in which an Army Preliminary Examination took place was in the City, close to a line where railway trains were passing every two or three minutes. On another occasion the examination was carried on in a building in which a concert was carried on overhead during part of the time. The applause of the listeners was, of course, a pleasing variety, but it added to the difficulty of the examination. In another case the roof of the building was being repaired, a circumstance which could not be held to contribute to the quiet consideration of the papers. But he did not wish to rest on one particular case. He only wished to say that there was a mass of evidence easily to be got at by anyone who cared to take the trouble, to show that the examinations were not carried on in a way to secure the confidence of those who went to be examined. This was a question which came home to all of them, for most of them had undergone examinations themselves, and some of them had sons or brothers who had yet to be examined. These examinations were a necessary part of our present system, and it was only fair that they should require that the examinations should be carried on under the most strict superintendence by the very best examiners, and on the very best system, in order that real justice might be meted out to the examinees. What he claimed was, that they should have an inquiry into the subject. He would urge upon the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to grant an inquiry into the manner in which the Civil Service Commissioners carried on the examinations under their charge, and he thought that such inquiry should either be conducted by a Select Committee of the House, or by a Royal Commission. The subject was one which they had a right to demand should be inquired into, and he trusted that the answer the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would give would be such as would obviate the necessity of their voting in favour of the Motion to reduce the vote, which they certainly should do if the answer were not satisfactory.

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

said, that one of the most startling cases as showing the faulty character of the present system of examination, was one which had not been mentioned, although it had been brought under his observation. It was the case of a boy who had undergone an examination and been refused, and had afterwards gone to a public tutor, who examined him and said he was convinced that there must have been some mistake. The tutor had gone to the Civil Service Commissioners and remonstrated, but they had refused to listen to him. The father of the boy made a similar application to the Commissioners, but again they refused to listen. But the tutor, who was a man of some renown, again went before them, declaring "There must be some mistake, and it is only fair that you should examine into the papers and have them scrutinized." The Commissioners did so, and what was the result? Why, under the pressure brought to bear upon them, after three months' trouble and worry, the papers were searched, and it was found that a simple sum of addition necessary to add up the number of marks given to this candidate had been done wrongly—a mistake of 200 had been made, and the boy, instead of having failed, had passed more than half way up the list. He would not go into other cases; but he thought this gave a very serious estimate of the way in which their work was carried out by the Examiners. This was a serious matter inasmuch as the work of the Civil Service Commissioners had, at the present time, a much greater effect upon the education of this country than any scholastic Body, if he might so call them, in the three Kingdoms. A very large number of candidates passed through their hands every year when they came up for examination. Tutors and masters were obliged to conform to the demands of the Commissioners, and the system was a system of cram, pure and simple. The fault did not lie with those who carried out, but on those who constituted, the policy which regulated the examinations. There was no grouping of subjects, no method by which the candidates were examined for the kind of work they had to do. Take, for example, the candidates for the Civil Service in India. Now, in India, of all other places, a knowledge of history was most important, and ought to receive the largest number of marks for the Civil Service, but all that was given to it was 300. Now, a candidate coming up had to obtain a certain number of marks before he could pass, but he could make up those marks by bringing in outside subjects, which, for the purpose of the work he was going to do, were absolutely use- less subjects. A candidate for the Civil Service of India who read up history could get 300 marks. He might have studied thoroughly, or simply so as to enable him to answer questions, but under any circumstances he could only get 300 marks, and under the system of official crams, of fixing certain dates and broad facts in history, in a student's mind, he could get just the same number of marks as the best historian, while he could make up any deficiency in historical knowledge by bringing up Italian. Well, for a man going out to the Indian Civil Service, Italian was about the most useless subject he could take up. Yet a candidate who made up for his want of historical knowledge with a little Italian could get as many marks as a candidate who had studied, not only the history of the world at large, but more especially the interesting history of India. Then, let them see how examinations were conducted. A single Examiner sat for a single subject. There was no intercommunication between the Examiners. It was a rule-of-three sum. A certain number of questions were given. If they were correctly answered the candidate was held to be qualified for the Civil Service, no matter what he knew of other subjects. A rule was set before the Examiner by which he gave so many marks. When the papers came in from the candidates there was no intercommunication between the Examiners, and the estimate of the Examiner depended to a large extent upon his own particular fads on historical subjects. Take, for instance, questions as to Queen Elizabeth. Some historians held exactly the reverse views as to the character of that Sovereign. A candidate, perhaps, gave answers in opposition to the particular view accepted by his Examiner, and although he might support it by historical research, it would be held that he had answered wrongly in accordance with mathematic rules, and he would lose marks accordingly. [An hon. MEMBER: No!] An hon. Member says "No!" but he (Mr. Molloy) could give an instance in which a candidate had absolutely lost marks by taking that course. Now, the system of examination either was correct or it was not. If it were correct, then the system which obtained at every one of the Universities was wrong. At every University the questions were set by a Body of Examiners—two, three, or four, and when the papers came in, the Examiners sat separately first; they each looked through every paper, each placed his estimate upon it, and these estimates sometimes differed as much as from 50 to 300 marks. That showed what a difficulty there was for a single Examiner to carry out the work. After that the examiners sat together and discussed the paper, so that each paper got the benefit of the opinion of the full Board of Examiners. Thus the two systems of examination were exactly reversed, and either the University system was absolutely wrong from beginning to end, or else the Civil Service system was wrong. He ventured to think that the University system produced the best class of Civil servants, and it certainly produced the best class of men, because the system, as they had it now under the Civil Service, was purely and simply a system of cram, and nothing else. He knew from personal experience that that was the case. Let them take the question of literature, which formed part of the examination for Civil Service candidates. That was a subject which ought to be thoroughly understood, especially by candidates going in for the higher grades, yet the examination was conducted on a system of rule in answering certain questions which had been laid down by the crammers. It was merely a system of learning answers to a certain set of questions. As a matter of fact, many of those who passed in literature had never read the books with which they were supposed to be acquainted, and had certainly obtained the knowledge they possessed from books published by crammers. He had pointed out that either the University system or the Civil Service system was wrong. He had pointed out further that the Civil Service had now, and would have in an increasing degree in the future, a greater effect on the general education of this country than either the Universities or schools. The question was one of very great importance. The suggestions on minor points made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks) he (Mr. Molloy) thought deserved support, and he hoped the whole question would have the attention of the Government, in whose hands rested the decision of the matter.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)

said, he had already stated in the House, in answer to Questions, he was extremely sorry that mistakes should have occurred in the examination papers. The hon. Member for the Partick Division of Lanarkshire (Mr. Craig-Sellar) had pointed out that, in his opinion, the Government ought to pay the expenses of candidates who suffered by the mistakes. As he (Mr. Jackson) had pointed out, that would be a very bad precedent to set. It was all very well to expect perfection, and no doubt it was desirable to have it; but it was not so easy to get it. He thought, however, he could go to the length of saying that every precaution should be taken against errors in future, every possible check should be applied so as to make impossible a repetition of these mistakes, and he was sure the Examiners themselves desired to secure that end. He thought he might venture to say with the general concurrence of the Members of the House that the Civil Service Examiners had always shown impartiality in their discharge of the duties attaching to their high position, and he believed he was justified in claiming for them—and he thought it would be in the interests of the candidates, of the Civil Service, and of the country generally—that as far as possible they should occupy, not only an impartial, but also an independent position. He was not in any sense attempting to excuse what had happened. He believed that if the Examiners were there to speak for themselves they would express their regret just as he was expressing it for them, but every precaution would be taken in the future, and he believed that the precautions to be taken would make it practically impossible for the mistakes to occur again. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks) had mentioned several cases, and had adduced an amount of evidence which deserved to be carefully inquired into, and if the right hon. Gentleman would be good enough to furnish him with particulars of his statement, he would take care that they were most carefully and most thoroughly inquired into, and that the most complete answer possible should be given to all the charges. The right hon. Gentleman complained about the room in which some of the examinations were held; but he would point out, in the first place, that the Civil Service Commissioners were not responsible for that. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Plunket) was more or less responsible for finding the rooms for the examination, and he knew from conversation with the right hon. Gentleman how difficult it was at the particular time when the rooms were wanted to get them desirably situated. Only last year £4,000 was spent in providing examination rooms. Another complaint which had been made was that the Examiners asked the boys who had been their tutors. Well, he was informed that that practice had been stopped, and orders had been given absolutely preventing such a question being put. The right hon. Gentleman had further asked for an assurance that the expenses would be paid of the boys who suffered from the mistakes in the examination papers. Well, he thought it would be extremely unwise on the part of the House to adopt such a precedent, and he did not like to hold out any false hopes; but from figures which had been supplied he found that the proportion of boys brought from out districts was comparatively small, and he believed that they were really put to no expense. He would, however, promise to make inquiries and see what it was possible to do in the matter. He could only again express his regret that the mistake had occurred.

MR. JAMES STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton)

said, he did not disapprove of the action of the Civil Service Commissioners, nor did he agree that great fault should be found with the character of their examinations as compared with the University examinations. There were, no doubt, faults in the system of examination, but they would always find persons who were not able in examinations to realize the whole advantage to be gained from a large knowledge of any particular subject. He had to say with respect to Civil Service Examinations, of which he had had experience, that he did not believe they gave rise to indiscriminate cramming; and he further believed that the most successful candidate in these examinations was the man who had been best taught. The crammers recognized that fact. He did not share in the general attack which had been made on the Civil Service Commission. He gathered from what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire said, that there had recently been a considerable number of cases in which one could find a good deal to amuse himself with; but in all examinations they would find a number of cases of individual absurdity. He therefore wished to urge upon the House, and upon those who had taken part in the debate, that they should not allow themselves to judge of the merits of Civil Service examinations by isolated and selected cases, and he could bear personal testimony to the general efficiency of those examinations. He gathered that a considerable amount of dissatisfaction had been expressed at the Civil Service Examination because only one Examiner looked over one set of papers; but in the days when he was acquainted with the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos Examinations, every paper was only looked over by one Examiner. He mentioned that to say that whatever might be the practice of the Civil Service Examiners, it was not necessarily a bad or an erroneous practice. But he wished to find fault with the constitution of the Civil Service Commission, which had suffered since the death of Mr. Theodore Walrond—a gentleman of large experience and wide capabilities. There was at present no Commissioner who had any real and adequate knowledge of the mathematical and scientific branches of the examination. Attention was called to that at the time of the vacancy occurring, and the First Lord of the Treasury, who was naturally not particularly acquainted with the characteristics of the examination, replied that it was not necessary that the Commissioners themselves should be able to examine in every subject to be examined in. He remembered that that reply which was given with a certain amount of good humour, was received with many cheers on the opposite side of the House. Now, they did not insist, nor did they desire, that the Commissioners should be able to examine in all classes of subjects that might come before them; but he did say, that they were in great danger of a repetition of errors in the examination papers—such as had been described by his hon. Friend the Member for the Partick Division of Lanarkshire (Mr. Craig-Sellar), if they did not have among the Commissioners who were ultimately responsible for the matter some one who was acquainted with the mathematical and scientific branches of education. That portion of knowledge was absent from among the present Commissioners. He would find no fault with those gentlemen or with the selection of them; but he would urge strongly on the Government to take into consideration the point he had urged in any new appointment, or in any reconstruction of the Commission, and on their appointment to pay more attention to the necessity of selecting men with some amount of technical knowledge on the matter.

CAPTAIN SELWYN (Cambridge, Wisbeach)

said, that as one who had recently passed an examination, he might perhaps be allowed to say that he noted with pleasure the promise of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) that every precaution should in the future be taken to avoid mistakes in the examination papers. He would like to point out one way in which the mistakes might be avoided. Somebody competent to do the paper should be in the room while the examination was proceeding. When an officer in the Army went through his examination, the Garrison Instructor worked out the papers, and he was present and able at once to say whether or not the questions were accurately set. If a similar course were adopted in the examinations for the Civil Service, he believed a great many mistakes would be avoided.

MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, W.)

said, he wished to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury for some information as to the present composition of the Board of Commissioners. He believed there were two paid and one honorary Commissioners; but the honorary Commissioner—Lord Strafford, it was said, in consequence of some evidence given before the Royal Commission, had resigned. Was it the intention of the Government to fill up the vacancy or not? If so, when was it likely to be done? At present, of course, there were only two Commissioners, although it might be the number was quite sufficient for the work that had to be done.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

said, it was the intention of the Government to fill up the appointment if a suitable person could be found; but it was purely honorary, and involved considerable responsibility and labour. The hon. and gallant Member would understand, therefore, that it was a matter of some difficulty to find a person qualified to hold the position. He heard with great interest the observations of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hoxton Division of Shoreditch (Mr. James Stuart), and he could assure him they would receive careful attention from the Government. He had also listened with considerable interest to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks), and if he would furnish the Government with the details which he had stated to the House, they should be carefully inquired into, and steps taken to prevent a repetition of the matters complained of. The Commissioners discharged their duties under an Act of Parliament, and, although mistakes were sometimes made, and singular questions asked by the Examiners, he could tell the hon. Member for the Hoxton Division of Shoreditch every matter was carefully sifted. They felt that that was a question which deserved consideration and examination; but, at the same time, he would ask the House of Commons not to interfere too strongly with a Committee which had hitherto discharged its duty with great sense of responsibility to the public, which was established by Act of Parliament, and with which it would not be desirable that the Executive Government of the country should interfere. If the Executive Government did interfere too frequently with a Body which ought to be, as nearly as possible, independent, it would do a great deal of harm.

SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGE (Kensington, N.)

said, he desired to say one word with reference to the criticism of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Shoreditch Division of Hoxton as to the appointment of Gentlemen upon the Civil Service Commission. The hon. Gentleman complained that the last appointment to the Civil Service Commission was of a Gentleman who had not been distinguished in any way as a mathematician, and that there was no mathematician at present amongst the Members of the Commission. The hon. Member had gone on to imply some- how that to that fact was to be attributed those remarkable and deplorable mistakes which had taken place in the mathematical papers to which the attention of the Committee had been drawn that night. How on earth could the constitution of the Commission bear upon a mistake made in the papers of the Mathematical Examiner at Sandhurst? He (Sir Roper Lethbridge) himself had been a University Examiner for many years. He had also examined for the Army and for the Civil Service, and was, therefore, thoroughly acquainted with the details of the subject, and he could say, without fear of contradiction, that the mistakes to which attention had been drawn were simply the fault of the Examiners, and were in no way due to the system of examination or the method of control exercised over the Examiners. It was most unfortunate that such errors should creep into the questions, and, for his own part, he could not understand how papers containing such errors were ever allowed to be distributed to the candidates. It had always been his endeavour, wherever he had been examining, most carefully to look through the printed papers of questions before any copy was given forth. That precaution evidently had not been taken by the Examiners in the cases referred to, and he thought that those persons deserved severe censure for their neglect. The painful result of the error had been clearly described by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Craig-Sellar), who first spoke on this question; but he (Sir Roper Lethbridge) would add another point for the consideration of the Committee. It would be in the power of any one of the candidates who failed in these papers, to say that his failure was due to the fault not of himself, but of the Examiner, and of the system of examination. Now, that was a very serious matter when they considered how entirely our system of appointment to the Army and the Civil Service and other Public Departments depended on the examination. He would, therefore, venture to repeat that it was on the Examiners that the fault lay, and that they should be visited with censure; and that it was not the fault of the Commissioners. Therefore, he would pass the Vote, and would appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite not to cast blame on the Commissioners, with whom it obviously did not lie.

MR. CRAIG-SELLAR

said, that with reference to the observations of the hon. Gentleman who had preceded him, it should be stated that the Committee could not hold the Examiners responsible. It could only hold the Commission responsible, and it was for that reason that he had moved the reduction of the Vote. He could not help feeling regret that the assurances of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury were not of a more substantial character, and that there had been no reference made by him, or by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, to the suggestion of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Majoribanks) that the Commission should be inquired into by a Committee of the House. The Commission had now been in existence some years, and it could not but be beneficial to have an inquiry into its operations, say next year. The Committee at least got a promise from the Government, that the different points raised in the discussion—the specific complaints made—would be carefully investigated; and the Secretary to the Treasury had promised them that, in future, the examinations would be more carefully conducted than they had been hitherto. In view of these promises, and, finally, as he had received an assurance that the cases of the candidates who had gone up to the Sandhurst Examination from a distance, and who, through an error in the examination paper, had been obliged, after their return home, to go back for a new examination, would be especially inquired into with a view to the expenses to which their parents had been put being refunded, he thought he might ask the Committee to allow him to withdraw the Amendment. He hoped he should be allowed, later in the Session, to put a Question to the Secretary to the Treasury as to the manner in which the undertakings of the Government had been, or were being, fulfilled.

MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, W.)

said, he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury whether, when this question was inquired into, the Government would not consider the propriety of laying down some conditions as to regularity of attendance at the Offices of the Commission to be required of future Commissioners? Clearly, it was undesirable to have mere figureheads on such a Commission as this.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, when it became necessary to make any new appointment, they sought to obtain the services of Gentlemen, both competent to perform the duties and capable of giving attention to the duties. The hon. Gentleman might rest assured that no one would be appointed to the Commission who was not thoroughly prepared to perform the duties.

MR. PICTON (Leicester)

said, he was astonished to hear the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Partick Division of Lanarkshire express the satisfaction he did at the promises of the Government. As to what had fallen from the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson), it could not be denied that these young men had not only suffered mental torture, but had been put to a certain amount of pecuniary loss, through the negligence of certain officials in the employment of the Commission. Whether the fault lay with the Examiners or the Civil Service Commissioners, he did not think mattered very much. Even if the fault lay with the Examiners, they were in the employment of the Commissioners, and the Commissioners must be held responsible for the faults of their servants, just as masters were held responsible for the faults of their employés in the ordinary businesses of the country. But the question which arose in this case was a much larger one than that of mere pecuniary loss. The circumstances which had been brought to light that evening were simply the culminating absurdity of a very stupid and faulty system. It was ridiculous to suppose that a person's capacity for performing clerical work in a Public Department could be properly tested by requiring him to give satisfactory answers to certain abstruse mathematical questions, or by his capacity for turning English into French, or his knowledge of history. A more rational system of examination was required. And the Examiners too frequently made bad worse by adopting the system of endeavouring to find out not so much what young men knew as what they did not know, and by setting traps and tricks which required some acuteness and knowledge to penetrate. He only hoped that what had taken place that night would induce the Go- vernment to give an undertaking to investigate the whole system of Civil Service Examinations.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

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

said, he desired, before the Vote was taken, to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to kindly explain the last item in it—"Bonuses and Gratuities to Copyists." The item had increased since last year from £6,000 to £10,000. These bonuses were given under a Treasury Minute to certain copyists throughout the Civil Service. The amount of the gratuities was very small, representing only something like 6d. a-week for men who had served over 12 years. The addition which was involved to the salaries of the men did not give them anything like a reasonable amount of pay for the work they were set to do. Many hon. Members would be considerably startled if they knew what were the class of men who had to do with many of the papers which they themselves filled up. In Somerset House, where the declarations with regard to the Income Tax of the largest firms in the country were sent, men very low down in the Civil Service became familiar with the Returns made by Members of that House—Returns displaying the whole of their private pecuniary affairs. Men who were paid at the rate of 10d. an hour possessed information and dealt with papers which persons unacquainted with these matters would very properly expect only those having immediate relations with Secretaries of State were in possession of. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman on Civil Service Establishments was not in the House, because he had accompanied him (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) to one of the large Departments where a number of copyists were employed. This was what they found. In one Department, where many men had, apparently, very little work to do, though they were receiving many hundreds of pounds a-year, they found one copyist in receipt of 10d. an hour who had for eight successive years been in possession of a confidential register, in which he had, with his own hand, noted down a précis of all the correspondence and information in the possession of the Secretary of State with regard to the advance of the Russians in Central Asia. There were important secret administrative and military papers all handed to this unfortunate copyist, who, slave as he might, had absolutely no title to pension, and only a miserable allowance of leave—who was only one of the waifs and strays of the Office, except for his ability and integrity, which singled him out for speedy recognition in the Office. There were men not worth one-half so much as this man, who were receiving many hundreds of pounds a-year. In another room men were at work, and of these one only was a clerk upon the Establishment; all were engaged upon absolutely the same work, but the Establishment clerk received more pay for himself than the four others received altogether; he also had two months' leave of absence, the others had that period of holidays altogether; he was entitled to a handsome pension, they could claim no pension at all. Copyists were set to do work the value of which, when performed by others, was recognized and fairly paid for. Because a man was trustworthy, and had shown himself capable, he was compelled to do this work from fear of being turned out from his means of livelihood. Such men dared not refuse work, although they knew that in others payment for the same work was reckoned by hundreds of pounds. If they refused they must go. It was held out to them, when they undertook work at the lower rate of payment, that their work was of merely a mechanical nature; but faith was broken with them, and they were set to work which, in others, was paid for at the rate of ten times the remuneration they received. The amount of bonuses had been raised from £6,000 to £10,000, and he would be glad if the Secretary to the Treasury would say what that increase meant. Was it due to alterations by the scheme proposed two years ago, when the hon. Gentleman admitted the matter required looking into, and promised to inform him of the result, though he had never heard of it? He would now ask what the policy of the Treasury was as regarded these copyists generally, how many were in the Service, and what would be their future terms of employment?

MR. JACKSON

said, he thought the hon. Member in his speech, as on a former occasion, had misapprehended altogether what had been done. The hon. Member had spoken again of the bonus given to copyists as equivalent to 6d. a-week, and for that bonus they were required to do important work. If he (Mr. Jackson) rightly gathered the drift of the hon. Member's remarks, he was under the impression the bonus to copyists was 6d. a-week. If that was so, he (Mr. Jackson) was glad to be able to clear away the misapprehention.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

No; I said at the rate of 6d. a-week.

MR. JACKSON

said, that was very nearly saying the same thing. But he could explain in a moment the reason why the sum had been increased for bonuses and gratuities. It was due to two causes. Under the system by which bonuses were given to copyists who had served 12 years, the bonuses were cumulative, so that a man who was entitled to 6d. a-week in the first year, got 1s. a-week in the second year, 1s. 6d. in the third year, and so he went on. That accounted for part of the increase. The other portion was due to gratuities, though, on the whole, he believed these were showing rather a tendency to diminish than to increase. The amount paid, he believed, in gratuities since the date of the Treasury Minute, since March 31st last, was £6,638, and the total extra charge since December, 1886, to March 31 was £12,335. On the whole, he believed that the case of the copyists had been fairly met. He did not, for a moment, desire to say anything to create an impression that it had been liberally met; but he would point out that there was a little misconception as to the amount that copyists earned. It was frequently said in the House that they worked for 10d. an hour; but the Committee should understand that although it might be true to say that their rate of pay was at 10d. an hour, it must not be supposed that that sum was the whole of the money they received, because a considerable number of these copyists were engaged upon piecework, and some of them were receiving, he was glad to say, considerably more than what 10d. an hour for an ordinary working day of eight hours would represent. He had had an investigation made, and he found, when he came to inquire into the facts, that really their position was not quite so bad as it was sometimes said to be. He found the amounts they had been receiving ranged from £80 to £200 a-year, and one curious fact was brought to notice, that when a copyist was on one occasion selected for promotion from that class—that of a Lower Division clerk—he declined the promotion, because it would involve a loss in his earnings.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

Because he would be placed at the very bottom of the class.

MR. JACKSON

Because, naturally, he would be required to comply with the rules of the Service, and must begin at the bottom of the class. Obviously, it would be unfair to sanction the transfer of a man who had not passed an examination, and put him over the heads of those who had, and who had worked for a number of years in the lower grades. But he hoped the Committee would now allow the Vote to be taken. He thought he was justified in saying he was not putting it too strongly when he said he believed the copyists contained among them a great number of men who did very good work, who made excellent public servants, and of whom he wished to speak in the highest terms, and though they were not too highly paid, he believed their case had been fairly met.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

asked, how many were in the Service?

MR. JACKSON

said, about 1,200.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

£10,000 among 1,200?

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £6,210, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Land Commissioners for England, and for defraying the repayable Expenses to be incurred in matters of Inclosure and Land Improvement, and under 'The Extraordinary Tithe Redemption Act, 1886.'

MR. HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

said, he did not quite understand the accounts given which went to show the general expenses of the Commission, and the estimated amounts received back again; but he thought there would be no difference of opinion that this Land Commission ought not to cost the general taxpayer of the country a penny. The Commis- sioners carried on a business which was practically for the benefit of landowners only; they conducted exchanges principally, and a variety of other conveyancing work; and he maintained that they should charge fees on such a scale as would make the Office self-supporting. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Jackson) could say how the figures worked out; it seemed to him that the cost to the country was £10,000 a-year?

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)

said, he thought the calculation of the right hon. Gentleman was correct. The expenses repayable were rather larger last year and this year, in consequence of the larger amount of work done in connection with the Act passed in 1886 with regard to the Extraordinary Tithe redemption. Of course the Commissioners were very anxious that the work should be done as promptly as possible, and, therefore, the amount expected to come in course of payment this year was larger than the amount usually expended, and included a portion of the expenditure for last year. It might be said that the net cost was about £11,000. He did not consider that his right hon. Friend held similar views in regard to this Commission to those he had expressed in reference to the Charity Commission. He had not neglected inquiring as to whether, by increase of fees or additional charges, this Land Commission might be made entirely self-supporting; and was not without hope that something might be done in that direction.

MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

said, it was obvious that the Commission could be made self-supporting by its fees; it was merely a business arrangement to make the fees cover the whole expenditure. It was a Department conducted for the benefit of the landowners; and why were those who were not landowners to pay a share of the expenses? Let those pay the expenses who derived benefit from the Department, and if nobody derived any benefit, let the Department be done away with; but in the name of goodness do not put upon the general public a charge for the benefit of one particular class who were supposed to be richer than others. There was not even so much ground for consenting to the charge as there was in the case of the Charity Commission.

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

asked, what amount of these expenses described as repayable had actually been repaid? because for the first year, at any rate, no repayments whatsoever were secured, and this fact came out before the Public Accounts Committee. Whether any had been paid since, he did not know; but possibly the Secretary to the Treasury could say what was the total expenditure under this head, and what amount had been paid.

MR. JACKSON

said, he had not got the figures; but he would furnish the hon. Member with the information. He explained that the matter had been rather delayed in consequence of the necessity of taking what was known as a "test" case which should govern the whole of the cases.

DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)

rose to speak; but——

It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.