Commons Sitting of 22 June 1888

Preamble
The House met at two of the clock.

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Longford (South Longford Division), v. Lawrence Connolly, esquire, Chiltern Hundreds.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Law Agents (Scotland)* [303].
Committee—Local Government (England and Wales) [182] [Ninth Night]—R.P.
PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS—First Reading—Elementary Education Confirmation (Birmingham)* [304].
Considered as amended—Third Reading—Local Government (No. 8)* [271], and passed.
Third Reading—Local Government (No. 10)* [275]; Local Government (No, 11)* [276], and passed.

CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRE-LAND) ACT, 1887 (IMPRISONMENT OF MR. JOHN DILLON).
MR. SPEAKERacquainted the House that he had received the following letter relating to the imprisonment of a Member of this House:—
Dundalk,
June 20, 1888.
SIR,
I have the honour to report that Mr. John Dillon, M.P. for East Mayo, duly appealed to me, as County Court Judge and Chairman of Quarter Sessions, from two Orders of Conviction made one on the 11th May, 1888, and one on the 12th May, 1888, whereby he was convicted under the first of said Orders of having with other persons unlawfully taken part in a Criminal Conspiracy, punishable by Law, to compel and induce certain persons, tenants of farms situate in divers parts of Ireland, not to fulfil their legal obligations, to wit, to refuse to pay to the owners of such farms the rents which they the said tenants were and might become lawfully bound to pay, and which the owners of said farms were and might become lawfully entitled to be paid; and, under the 2nd of said Orders, of inciting persons unlawfully to take part in a Criminal Conspiracy, stated in the same terms. Upon each of these convictions Orders were made that Mr. Dillon should be imprisoned for six months without hard labour, the sentences to run concurrently.
Mr. Dillon appeared in due course before me this day at the Quarter Sessions held at Dundalk, in the said county, when, upon hearing the evidence and what was advanced by Mr.
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Dillon in his defence, I affirmed the conviction and the sentence in each case.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
W. KISBEY,
County Court Judge of Armagh and Louth.
The Right Honourable
The Speaker of the House of Commons.

QUESTIONS.

  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (SCOTLAND) —MR. T. A. STEWART, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS.
  MR. MACDONALD CAMERON (, &c.)asked the Lord Avocate, Whether he will inform the House what is the nature of the special merit which entitled Mr. T. A. Stewart, Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, to be promoted over the heads of nine of his colleagues; what are the defects in the official career of the nine superseded inspectors which led to their being passed over; upon what grounds was the senior of the nine—namely, Mr. William Jolly, superseded; and, what are the grounds upon which promotion by seniority to the higher grade of Inspectorships has been departed from for the first time in Scotland?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): I have already stated the grounds upon which Mr. Stewart was appointed one of the Chief Inspectors; and their Lordships must decline to discuss the individual merits of the officers who were not chosen to fill that office.

  WAR OFFICE—ARMY ACCOUTREMENTS —THE 3RD BEDFORDSHIRE REGI- MENT—VALISES.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he is in a position to give further information regarding the 800 valises supplied to the 3rd Bedfordshire Regiment, and reported as unfit for use after three trainings; and, the total number of valises of the description in question supplied to the British Government, and the names of the contractors and of the officers who passed them?
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELL (A LORD of the TREASURY)(who replied)

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  said: Specimens of these were sent from the Eastern District for examination at Woolwich. They, however, only left the district the day before yesterday; and, considering the time necessary to examine them, it will be at least a week before I can answer this Question.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)— MR. W. J. GLASGOW, COOKSTOWN, CO. TYRONE.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the report in The Northern Whig of June 11, of proceedings at the Petty Sessions held at Cookstown, County Tyrone, on the previous day, in which Mr. W. J. Glasgow, proprietor of an extensive drapery establishment in that town, was charged with riotous and indecent behaviour on May 14; whether, at the trial, the solicitor for Mr. Glasgow stated he was instructed that a magistrate then on the Bench had instigated the prosecution for the purpose of injuring Mr. Glasgow in his business; whether the charge was dismissed by the magistrates; and, if he can state who was the prosecutor, and on what grounds the prosecution was initiated?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN), in reply, said, his attention had been called to the case by the Question of the hon. Member. The summons was issued by the Town Clerk. The charge was dismissed by the magistrates, there being no evidence against the defendant. The solicitor for the defence did make the statement mentioned in the second paragraph of the Question; but the Town Clerk, who prosecuted, said there was not a shadow of foundation for the assertion. From the Report before him (Mr. Madden) the case appeared to be one of mistaken identity.

  INLAND REVENUE OFFICE, LIVER-POOL—STAMPING.
  MR. W. F. LAWRENCEasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is the case that the Inland Revenue Office at Liverpool has not facilities for the stamping of plain parchment and paper as exist in Manchester, whereby some delay is caused, and the usual discount upon im-
  972
  pressed stamps cannot be obtained in Liverpool; whether there is any reason for this difference in the facilities afforded by the Revenue Authorities to the two cities; and, whether he will take steps to remedy the inconvenience arising in Liverpool therefrom?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): Facilities have recently been given, and further facilities are about to be given, at Liverpool to meet the delay referred to in the Question, and it is hoped that they will prove sufficient for their purpose. As regards the allowance of discount, I have to inform the hon. Member that the general question of discounts is now under consideration.

  RIOTS AND DISTURBANCES (IRELAND)—DISTURBANCES AT KILRUSH, COUNTY CLARE.
  MR. JORDANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been directed to a paragraph in The Freeman's Journal of the 18th instant, in which it is stated:—
  "That after the public bellman had announced through the streets of Kilrush, County Clare, the result of the Election for the Ayr Burghs, a patrol of police paraded the streets carrying revolvers and truncheons. In the market square a group, rejoicing at the result of the election, was attacked by the police, and a man named Masterson was arrested. On Masterson protesting against the arrest and refusing to go to the barracks excitement ensued, and four policemen drew their revolvers, presented them at the crowd, declaring they would fire if interfered with, one constable striking Masterson on the head with his baton," &c.
  And, whether these statements are true; and, if so, will he take steps to prevent interference by the police with people expressing their satisfaction at apolitical victory.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, the District Inspector reported there was no truth in the statements of the newspaper paragraph. The actual circumstances were these—About 8 p.m., and two and a-half hours after the bell-man had made the announcement, a patrol of three constables went out in the ordinary way armed with revolvers. Masterson, who was drunk, accosted them in the street. They told him to go home. He then attacked them, and

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  they arrested him for being drunk and disorderly. The crowd began to throw stones. One of the police struck Masterson, who had hold of another constable by the throat at the time. More stones were thrown. The police drew their revolvers, and the crowd fell back. Masterson was brought to the barrack and subsequently discharged.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON): Is it the ordinary way for patrols of police to go armed with revolvers in Ireland?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the way in which the police were attacked showed it was necessary they should be armed.

  VACCINATION ACTS—CONVICTIONS ATBATH.
  MR. HANDEL COSSHAMasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that, on the 12th of this month, 18 persons were convicted by the Bath Bench of Magistrates for offences under the Vaccination Acts; whether several of the magistrates who adjudicated on the occasion were members of the Bath Board of Guardians, and were, therefore, prosecutors in the cases on which they adjudicated; whether it is usual or legal for prosecutors to sit in judgment on cases in which they are personally interested; whether the fines inflicted in these cases have to be paid to the Treasurer of the Bath Board of Guardians; whether there were any irregularities in these prosecutions; and, whether, under the circumstances, he will revise the sentences of the Bench.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; the fact is as stated. Two out of the three magistrates who adjudicated are elected Guardians for the Bath Union. They had, however, taken no part in directing any of the prosecutions; and therefore, as I am advised, were not disqualified from sitting in judgment. The law as to the disqualification of Justices from adjudicating in cases in which they are personally interested is laid down in many well-known legal text-books, and cannot be stated within the compass of an answer. I understand that the fines in question were paid to the Treasurer of the city. I cannot ascertain that there were any irregularities in these prosecutions; and,
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  as at present advised, I see no reason to interfere in the matter.

  CRIMINAL LAW—STABBING CASE ATLIVERPOOL—CASE OF JOHN DUGGAN.
  MR. W. F. LAWRENCEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of John Duggan, who, after stabbing a girl without provocation just below the right ear, was discharged by the Recorder of Liverpool without any punishment; whether the Home Office is aware that street ruffianism in Liverpool has been for some time the subject of consideration on the part of Her Majesty's Judges; and, whether he will cause an inquiry to be made into the circumstances of the case above-mentioned?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; my attention has been called to this case, and I have obtained a Report from the Recorder upon it, who informs me that the prisoner, a youth of 18, was standing in the street, drunk, with a knife in his hand, with which he struck at a woman who was passing and inflicted a wound skin-deep. The act was without motive or provocation. He had been three weeks in prison, had a good character, and his employers were willing to receive him back if speedily released. He was also the solo support of a widowed mother and seven children. Under these circumstances, the Judge thought it right to sentence him to two days' imprisonment. In the opinion of the Judge, the case had no connection with the street ruffianism referred to in the Question.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—DISTRICT INSPECTOR TILLY.
  MR. COX (Clare, E.) (for Sir THOMAS ESMONDE)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether District Inspector Tilly, R.I.C., has yet received the promotion promised him; and, if not, whether he can state when this officer will be promoted?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The District Inspector mentioned has not yet received promotion. I am not able to say when the opportunity may arise.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE(IRELAND) ACT, 1887—EMPLOYMENT OF CONVICT PRISONERS.
  MR. W. H. JAMESasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether any Report as to the effect of the remission of hard labour to the exclusion of any other form of employment in cases of imprisonment under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act has within the last 12 months been made by any of the medical or other officials of Her Majesty's prisons in Ireland?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The General Prisons Board inform me that no convicted criminal prisoner in Ireland, whether sentenced to hard labour or not, is unemployed, except on medical grounds, the Board being required by the 47th section of 40 & 41 Vict. c. 49, to find employment for prisoners not sentenced to hard labour.
  MR. W. H. JAMES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the nature of the employment?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not very intimately acquainted with the Prison Rules; but I suppose the same Rule obtains in Ireland as in England in the matter.
  MR. COX: Is it not a fact that prisoners not sentenced to bard labour have to break stones and pick oakum, the same as ordinary prisoners?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have just called attention to the fact that the Prisons Board have to find employment for all prisoners.
  MR. CONYBEARE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, does he not think he ought to acquaint himself with the Prison Rules?
  [No reply.]
  MR. W. H. JAMES: I beg to give Notice that I will ask the right hon. Gentleman a further Question on the subject.

  INLAND REVENUE-RECEIPTS FROMLICENCES AND INHABITED HOUSE DUTY.
  MR. CAINEasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he will lay upon the Table of the House, previous to the discussion of Clause 18 of the Local Government Bill,
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  a Return showing the revenue derived from licences on the sale of intoxicating liquors, and from the Inhabited House Duty, respectively, for each county in England and Wales?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): I could give the hon. Member the Return which he asks for with regard to existing counties. But, if he wants them for the counties as they will be constituted by the Local Government Bill, it would be possible to give the Return of the revenue derived from licences, as that has already been prepared; but the Return of the Inhabited House Duty could only be obtained with much trouble, and would require some time.
  MR. CAINEsaid, the old areas would be sufficient.
  MR. GOSCHEN: Then the Return can be given.

  INLAND NAVIGATION (IRELAND)— THE LAGAN NAVIGATION COM- PANY.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Does he still intend paying £3,500 to the Lagan Navigation Company for taking over the Ulster and Tyrone Canals, which have cost the country £300,000; will he, at least, not make over to them the profit rental of £130 a-year for lands and houses; will he make inquiry, before paying the £3,500, as to the truth of Mr. J. G. V. Porter's statement in his newspaper of June 13, that he, in 1875, bought £2,000 worth of Lagan Company's Stock for £300, and that Messars. Wyat, solicitors, have a claim of £1,500 against the Lagan Company for promoting the Ulster Canal Bill; is the Lagan Company a limited or an unlimited liability Company; and will any security be taken by the Treasury that none of the £3,500 granted by the taxpayers shall go to defray Bill promotion; but shall all be laid out in works on the Ulster and Tyrone Canals?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): Sir, I think it will be the intention of the Government to propose to Parliament an Estimate for the sum of £3,500, as stated in the first Question. I do not think, with reference to the second Question, that the rental of the land and houses should be separated

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  from the general undertaking. With reference to the third paragraph, I have no information; nor with regard to Paragraph 4. With regard to the fifth Question, I will endeavour to make the best arrangement I can to secure that the £3,500 shall be spent on the works.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Might I ask the hon. Gentleman, before this Company is to get a gift of £300,000 and a second gift of £3,500, whether he would first make himself acquainted with the matter—namely, that this Company, which is alleged to be worth £70,000, sold £2,000 worth of its Stock a few years ago for £300; and also inquire whether this is a Company of limited liability or unlimited, in order to give taxpayers some guarantee that these gentlemen have some assets at all events?
  MR. JACKSON: I would remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that this Question did not appear on the Paper until this morning. I was engaged on a Committee upstairs, and had no time to make inquiry; but the hon. and learned Gentleman knows that I have already stated, when the Bill was in Committee, that I would take every precaution I could in the agreement handing over the property—if the agreement is come to—that every precaution shall be secured that the money shall be expended on the works.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I will repeat the Question. I might remind the hon. Gentleman that I sent him a copy of Mr. Porter's paper, Ireland's Gazette, which contained the statement, yesterday.
  MR. JACKSON: Yes; but I think the hon. and learned Gentleman himself would hardly have accepted the mere statement of a newspaper.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: It is right to state that Mr. Porter is a gentleman who has spent tens of thousand on such works.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  EVICTIONS (IRELAND)—EVICTION ATCLOGHER—ALLEGED CRUEL TREATMENT.
  MR. W. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the
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  following account of an eviction in Ireland, which is taken from a London paper:—
  "An eviction was carried out yesterday on the property of Mr. Montroy Gledstanes Fardross, Clogher, telegraphs our Dublin correspondent. Nearly 40 police were in attendance. The evicted family numbers six members. One, a blind boy, received the last sacrament last evening, and the father, an old man of 80 years, was so weak and ill as to appear utterly unconscious of what was going on around him. Another son besought the Sub - Sheriff (Mr. McKelvey) to delay the removal of the father from bed till the parish priest might be sent for, as the arrival of Mr. McKelvey had taken the family by surprise, but the officer was inexorable. The old man was then transferred from his bed to a cart, in which he was conveyed to the house of a son-in-law, where he received the last sacrament immediately afterwards from the parish priest;"
  whether his attention has been called to the following statement of the parish priest, which appeared in the newspapers of yesterday, in connection with the eviction in question:—Rev. John M'Kenna, parish priest of Clogher, writes to The Freeman—
  "The blind boy who received the last sacraments of the Church from the curate of this parish the day before the eviction has since made a partial though uncertain recovery. But the father, who received the last sacrament from me immediately after the eviction, continued to sink till yesterday evening, when he departed at the hour of 8 o'clock. It is absolutely certain that Hugh Bogue was in a dying state when he was carried forth from his house on a bed-tick by the Sheriff's officers, and that afterwards he had not any perfectly lucid interval up to the moment of his death;"
  whether the Government will take steps to prevent the eviction of persons who are in a dying condition; and, whether it is in the power of the Government to refuse to allow the forces of the Crown to be used in evicting persons under such painful circumstances?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The District Inspector of Constabulary reports that the family was six in number; but that the "blind boy" referred to is a man apparently between 30 and 40 years of age. It was stated he had received the last rites of the Church the evening before. He was, however, well enough to walk about the yard, using the most violent language to the agent. As regards the old man, there seems to be no ground for thinking that his death was hastened by the eviction. The sergeant at Clogher saw him on the

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  4th instant, and he appeared to be in his usual health; and it is the general opinion that he was in no worse health on the day of the eviction than he had been for 18 months previously. On the day of eviction the Assistant Sheriff (Mr. McKelvey) appealed to his family to remove him themselves, but none of them would do so; and the Sheriff's officers then carried him out most carefully on his bed to the front of the house, where he remained about a quarter of an hour, when he was removed in a cart to the residence of his son-in-law, about one mile distant. The responsibility for the eviction seems to rest, not with the landlord, whose conduct appears to have been generous, but with the son of the deceased, who was responsible for the prolonged refusal to meet the legal obligation of the tenant.
  MR. W. REDMOND: In reference to that part of the right hon. Gentleman's answer where he states that the general opinion is that the death of Bogue was not hastened by being carried out, might I ask him whether his attention has been called to the statement made by the parish priest of the district, who said that it was undoubtedly the fact that Bogue was in a dying condition when he was carried out, in spite of the protests of his friends that the unfortunate man might be allowed to remain in his house until he died, and not be cast out?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I was not aware of the opinion of the priest.
  MR. W. REDMOND: It appears on the Question.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I say I was not aware of the opinion of the priest till just now; but I cannot believe it to be accurate, in view of the fact that the man's own family refused to carry him out.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether it is not a fact that the reason why the man's own family refused to carry him out was that they could not carry out a man who they saw was in a dying condition; and, also, that they asked the Sub-Sheriff to leave him in the house for a few hours until he died, as it was apparent to everyone that he must?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no evidence at all to confirm that statement.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman, with reference to his statement that the man's death was not hastened by his being carried out when he was lying sick, in order to satisfactorily come to a conclusion on this particular point, whether he will order an inquest, so that the Sub-Sheriff, who insisted on carrying him out in spite of the protests of his friends that he was dying, may be prosecuted for manslaughter, of which he is undoubtedly guilty?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The ordering or non-ordering of an inquest does not rest with me.
  MR. W. REDMOND: I beg to give Notice that I will, on the earliest possible moment, call further attention to the death of this man, whose death undoubtedly lies at the door of the Government.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. W. REDMOND: For when he was dying they cast him out.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  DR. TANNERrose to put a further Question—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I call upon the hon. Gentleman whose name is next on the Paper to put his Question.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—THE ENNIS MEETING—REMARKS OF COUNTY COURT JUDGE KELLY.
  MR. COXasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to the following report which appeared in The Star of June 21:—
  "The sentence of three months' imprisonment passed on Mr. James Halpin for the Ennis meeting was yesterday confirmed at the Quarter Sessions by County Courty Judge Kelly. An application to make the prisoner a first-class misdemeanant was refused. Colonel Turner gave evidence of the circumstances attending the meeting at Ennis in an old corn store. Judge Kelly: How is it you did not arrest the promoters of the meeting?—The Witness; They did not give me the chance.—Judge Kelly: Oh, yes, they did. They came down here from Dublin. It is hard to punish poor people, and allow these fellows, the organisers, to go free.—The Witness: I would be only too glad to arrest them if I thought I had a chance.—The Judge: Their presence was quite enough. You had the placard and the articles in United Ireland calling on the people to go and hear Mr. Davitt;"

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  and, whether, if a prosecution is instituted, he will undertake that no part of the proceedings will be heard by Judge Kelly, in view of the fact that the prosecution was recommended by him?
  MR. JORDANalso had the following Question on the Paper:—To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been directed to the following report of a discussion between Mr. Kelly, County Court Judge, County Clare, and Colonel Turner, at Ennis Quarter Sessions, which appeared in The Daily News of the 20th instant—namely:—
  "The sentence of three months' imprisonment passed on Mr. James Halpin, a member of the National League, for attending a proclaimed meeting at Ennis, was confirmed on appeal at the Quarter Sessions by County Court Judge Kelly. An application to make the prisoner a first-class misdemeanant was refused. Prisoner was taken to Limerick Prison at night.
  Colonel Turner, the Divisional Magistrate, gave evidence of the circumstances attending the meeting at Ennis in an old corn store.
  Judge Kelly: How is it you did not arrest the promoters of the meeting?
  The Witness: They did not give me a chance.
  Judge Kelly: Oh! yes they did. They came down here from Dublin, and those inciting to take part in an unlawful assembly are liable to punishment under the section. It is hard to punish poor people and allow those fellows, the organisers, to go free.
  The Witness: I would only be too glad to arrest them if I thought I had a chance.
  The Judge said, he could not for the life of him see why the promoters of the meeting were not arrested.
  The Witness: Those who incite unlawful assemblies take very good care not to attend them. In this case we only had their presence.
  The Judge: Their presence was quite enough. You had the placards and the articles in United Ireland calling on the people to go and hear Mr. Davitt.
  The Witness: It is not too late, my Lord, to do it now.
  Judge Kelly: That may be; but, at present, I do not see why the promoters of the meeting were not prosecuted.
  The Witness (Colonel Turner): I shall know what to do next time;"
  whether it is the practice for Judges to advise prosecutions which afterwards may come before them for decision; and, whether, if a prosecution is instituted, he will undertake that no part of the proceedings will be heard by Judge Kelly, in view of the fact that the prosecution was recommended by him?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, there had not been time to make the necessary local inquiry to enable
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  him to give a full answer. But he might inform the hon. Member for East Clare, if it was any consolation to him, that it was not proposed to institute any further prosecutions in connection with the meeting in question.

  INDIA—ADEN HARBOUR TRUST.
  MR. T. SUTHERLANDasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether, seeing that three years have now elapsed since the Secretary of State wrote to India recommending the formation of a Harbour Trust for Aden, chiefly for the purpose of deepening the harbour, and that a Bill to create such Trust was passed by the Bombay Council a year ago, what reason is given by the Government of India for the delay now taking place in the accomplishment of this measure; and, what is the amount of the accumulated surplus at the credit of the Aden Port Fund from the dues levied upon vessels, for whose proper accommodation the improvement of the harbour has been shown to be absolutely necessary?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST): The reasons for delay are given by the Government of India in a telegram, thus—
  "Cause of delay, necessity that provision should be inserted in the Bill vesting Government with power to exempt munitions of war from port charges and dues."
  Pending the formation of the Port Trust, steps are being taken for deepening Aden Harbour. The balance of the Port Trust Fund is Rs.4,35,000.

  CRIMINAL LAW—UNTRIED PRISONERS AND HANDCUFFS.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, What is the practice in England with regard to placing handcuffs on untried prisoners?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): There is no hard and fast rule with regard to the use of handcuffs in this country; but the practice recommended by the Home Office has been that handcuffing should be only resorted to where there is fair ground for supposing that either violence may be used or an escape attempted.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—THE BALLINASLOE BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  MR. HARRISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Why it is that paid Guardians have been sent to Ballinasloe, at a great expense to the Union, in view of the fact that no charge of dishonesty, corruption, or extravagance can be brought against the Guardians of the Ballinasloe Union, and that on all occasions when points of difference arose between the members of the Board they have appealed in a legal manner to the Local Government Board; and, will they soon be removed?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The Local Government Board was obliged to dissolve the Ballinasloe Board of Guardians in consequence of the irregular and disorderly character of their meetings, and their neglect of the business of the Union. This step was not taken without previous warning to the Board of Guardians.

  TURKEY (ASIATIC PROVINCES)—ATTACK ON A BRITISH SUBJECT AT ALEPPO.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON (, &c.)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is the fact that no reparation has yet been made by the Turkish Authorities to Mrs. Barker, an English lady, resident at Aleppo, whose house there was attacked, and violently entered, by a mob, led by the then Dragoman of the Governor of Aleppo, in October, 1886; whether the house of this lady is still forcibly retained by this Dragoman, who is protected by the Governor of Aleppo; whether Her Majesty's Government have addressed remonstrances to the Turkish Government on the subject of this outrage, with regard to which a Question was put in this House on the 25th of August last; and, whether they will press energetically that the proper redress shall be made?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): No reparation has been made, as the respective claims of Mrs. Barker and the Dragoman are still the subject of litigation. Sir William White has, however, obtained the dismissal of the Dragoman, on account of
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  his attempt to enforce his claim by violence. Both the Ambassador and the Consul at Aleppo have repeatedly advised as to the course that Mrs. Barker should pursue; and have explained that Her Majesty's Government cannot use diplomatic pressure in a case which the Law Courts are competent to decide.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—ADMINISTRATION OF THE ACT.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a copy of the shorthand writer's notes of the Judgment of the Court of Exchequer in the Killeagh habeas corpus cases can be laid upon the Table; whether the Government will re-consider, in the light of this decision, the cases of such prisoners as the Milltown Malbay men, whose sentences for refusal to supply goods have been confirmed on appeal, and who are, therefore, deprived of further legal remedy; would it be possible, under the County Court Acts, for Rules to be framed by the County Court Judges, so that the convictions they affirm under the Criminal Law and Procedure Act should in all cases refer to the evidence on which the convictions were grounded, so that it may be possible for prisoners under sentence after appeal to test the legality of their imprisonment by habeas corpus; will any steps be taken in fulfilment of the pledge of the right hon. Gentleman last year, reported in Hansard, vol. 315, p. 284, as follows:—
  "There will be an appeal in every case to a County Court Judge, and if, on legal technicalities, the County Court Judge is objected to, the Government will be prepared to consider a plan for giving an appeal in cases in which a legal difficulty may be involved to a still higher tribunal:"
  and, if he can state how many persons are still confined under sentences confirmed on appeal for conspiracy to compel and induce others to do or abstain from doing certain acts?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN): I have been asked to answer this Question, as it is mainly of a legal character; but as it only appeared upon the Paper to-day, I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to postpone it.
  MR, T. M. HEALY: This is a matter of some little importance, and I think an answer should have been given. I gave Notice of the Question yesterday, and I do not consider that it is a matter of an entirely legal character. I ask in the Question, will any steps be taken in fulfilment of the pledge of the right hon. Gentleman, reported last year in Hansard, which was—
  "There will be an appeal in every case to a County Court Judge, and if, on legal technicalities, the County Court Judge is objected to, the Government will be prepared to consider a plan for giving an appeal in cases in which a legal difficulty may be involved to a still higher tribunal."
  Surely a Question as to the carrying out of that pledge is not a Question of a legal character.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly correct in regard to the fact that he gave Notice of this Question yesterday; and I may tell him that I telegraphed over at once to Dublin to get the necessary information. With regard to the subject itself, it has been thrashed out more than once in this House.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Can the right hon. Gentleman refer me to one instance in which the question was thrashed out?
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I have heard allusions on several occasions to this question in debate.
  DR. TANNER: You said thrashed out.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot give any date.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, that he desired an answer to the first part of the Question. Surely it was ascertainable as to whether the shorthand writer's notes of the Judge's decision would be laid upon the Table?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is one of the questions we have referred to Dublin about. I do not know that there were any shorthand writer's notes.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: There were.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE(IRELAND) ACT, 1887—CONVICTIONS AT KILLEAGH FOR CONSPIRACY.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT(for Mr. CAMPBELL BANNERMAN) (Stirling, &c.) asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the fact that in the case of the four
  986
  Killeagh shopkeepers sentenced by Resident Magistrates, three to one month's and one to a fortnight's imprisonment, under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, for refusing to supply the police on the Ponsonby Estate, an application was made to the magistrates to state a case to the Court of Exchequer as to the legality of the conviction for a "conspiracy to induce others not to deal with the police;" whether the Resident Magistrates refused the application in the following terms,—namely:—
  "In reply to your notice served on us on the 2nd instant, calling on us to state a case for the opinion thereon of the Exchequor Division of H.M.'s High Court of Justice in Ireland, we have considered your application, and now acquaint you that we refuse to state such case, and we now sign and deliver to you this certificate of our refusal.
  (Sd.) H. E. REDMOND, R.M.,
  (Sd.) J. C. GARDINER. R.M.,
  The Resident Magistrates who heard and determined the complaint.
  Dated at Cork, 4th June, 1833;"
  whether the Act allows such refusal, except on the ground that the application was "frivolous;" whether the Court of Exchequer has ordered the discharge of the prisoners on habeas corpus, on the ground that "there was absolutely no evidence to support the charge;" whether, as the prisoners by the refusal of an appeal were compelled to undergo many days of illegal custody, any compensation will be made to them; and, whether the Irish Government intend to notice in any way the action of these magistrates?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The Question is identical with one that stands in the name of the hon. Member for Elgin and Nairn (Mr. Anderson). This is one of those Questions as to which I should be glad to have Notice. As the right hon. Gentleman will see, this Question is one as to which it is absolutely necessary I should apply to Dublin for the information he desires.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I would ask this Question, if the right hon. Gentleman cannot give me any other information, whether these two Resident Magistrates are magistrates who have been, under the terms of the Crimes Act, "certified by the Lord Lieutenant as persons of the sufficiency of whose legal

  987
  knowledge he is satisfied;" whether, after the remarks of the Judges upon their conduct, the Lord Lieutenant is still satisfied as to their legal knowledge; and, whether the Irish Government intend to keep them as persons to administer the exceptional powers of the Crimes Act?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I speak under correction, and without absolute cognizance of the fact; but my belief is that these gentlemen have been certified as legally competent so long ago as the year 1883.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I wish—["Order!"]
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe they were certified by Earl Spencer.
  MR. T. E. ELLIS: Not under the Crimes Act.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. It was under the Crimes Act.
  MR. T. E. ELLIS: Ridiculous.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: With regard to the second part of the Question, the fact that a decision of an Inferior Court has been over-ruled by a Superior Court, is not, in my opinion, sufficient reason for making any complaint against the magistrates.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Arising out of my Question, and in face of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, I would ask him whether, until the Act of last Session, there was any jurisdiction given to these magistrates on questions of conspiracy; and I would also ask him whether his attention has been called to the observations of the Judges of the Court of Exchequer as to the treatment of these cases, and the refusal of the magistrates to state a case.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Sir, the Act of 1882, for which these magistrates were, as I have already stated to the House, certified as being competent in the matter of legal knowledge, was quite as difficult an Act to administer as this Act. [Cries of "Answer the Question!"] That is the answer to the Question. ["No!"] Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will repeat the Question.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I should like to know really whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman has been called to the strictures of the Court of Exchequer on the conduct of the magistrates in this particular case,
  988
  to the decision given that there was no evidence to support the charge, and that the magistrates refused to state a case for the opinion of the Court above?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have seen a report, but I do not know how far it is authentic, of the observations of one Judge making comments of the nature indicated by the right hon. Gentleman; but I would point this out—that if it had been the opinion of the prisoner's counsel that the refusal to state a case was a frivolous one, he could have applied to the Court of Queen's Bench and compelled him to state a case.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman has alluded to the prisoner's counsel. Allow me to say—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! If the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to put a Question to elucidate any point he is entitled to do so, but he cannot introduce any matter of argument.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman, Sir, has referred to me. He has stated that if the prisoner's counsel held a particular opinion he ought to have done so and so.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I said, could.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Well, could. I think I am entitled to state that on a former application made to the Court of Queen's Bench in the Brosnan case—a man whom the right hon. Gentleman was afterwards compelled to liberate unconditionally—an application was made for a mandamus to the magistrates to state a case, and it was dismissed by the Court as frivolous; and that afterwards, in the case of Sullivan, who was released by the Court of Exchequer on habeas corpus, the Queen's Bench Division refused a certiorari. No counsel for any prisoner would have any chance of getting any satisfactory decision—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Mr. Schwann.

  LAW AND POLICE (IRELAND)—INSTRUCTIONS TO PREVENT ASSEMBLIES IN THE STREETS AT TRIALS.
  MR. SCHWANNasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether any new instructions have been issued during the last nine months to the Royal Irish Constabulary Forces, as to the prevention of any assembly of persons in the streets after the holding of trials

  989
  in the various Court-houses in Ireland?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): This is one of the Questions put down without Notice. I can assure the hon. Gentleman there has been no new departure; but I cannot give him a more specific answer without further Notice. I have inquired whether a Circular was issued—it is possible it may have been; but there has been no new departure. If the hon. Gentleman will repeat the Question on Monday, I will give him an answer.

  H.R.H. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF— THE PATENT.
  MR. E. ROBERTSONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will lay upon the Table a Copy of the Patent recently issued to the Duke of Cambridge as Commander-in-Chief?
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELL (A LORD of the TREASURY)(who replied) said: Yes, Sir; if the hon. Member will move for a Copy of the Patent, it will be granted.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—CHANCERY DIVISION (LAND JUDGES) COURT—MR. P. McDERMOTT, J.P.
  MR. CHANCEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Mr. Peter McDermott, of Ashfield House, Kilkenny, J.P. for the City of Kilkenny, was receiver under the Chancery Division (Land Judges) in "Reade v. Reade," failed to account for moneys received by him, and, in November, 1885, filed a sworn account stating as due by the tenants arrears of rent actually received by him; whether some of the moneys thus omitted to be accounted for have since been paid into Court; whether Mr. Justice Boyd, on February 23, 1888, directed proceedings to be taken against Mr. McDermott for the balance; and, what steps the Government intend to take in the matter?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, that the case of "Reade v. Reade" had long since closed, and the Question, therefore, related to another case in which there was some £5 14 s. 4d. outstanding, and the Judge directed an application to be made to Mr. McDermott for an explanation in regard to it.
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  The Government did not propose to take any action in the matter.
  MR. CHANCE: I wish to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the Question, and to point out that he has not answered a particular item of it. I have asked him whether this Mr. McDermott failed to account for money received by him? I ask an answer to that paragraph of the Question.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, that the hon. Member must be inaccurate in his Question, because the suit of "Reade v. Reade" had been disposed of for some time.
  MR. CHANCE: What I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman is, whether in November, 1885, Peter McDermott filed a sworn account containing a statement which was untrue?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman will, I think, see that it is not my business to interfere with the action of a Court of Justice, over which I have no control whatever?
  MR. CHANCE: I am sorry to trouble the House, but I must point out that I have asked the right hon. Gentleman whether this gentleman is a Justice of the Peace, and whether the Government intend to take any steps in the matter?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Government propose to take no step in the matter. I am sorry my voice did not reach the hon. Gentleman, but I said so in the first instance.
  MR. CHANCE: Will the right hon. Gentleman state that the Government will not enter a nolle prosequi if this gentleman is prosecuted for embezzlement?
  [No reply.]

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—BALLINASLOE POOR LAW BOARD.
  MR. HARRISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he is aware that in the Ballinasloe Poor Law Board the elected Guardians and the ex officio Guardians are nearly equal as regards numbers; that, owing to this fact, close and bitter contests have arisen from time to time at the election of Chairman and Deputy Chairman to the Board; why, having regard to this state of things, did the Local Government Board delay a fortnight before they replied to the objet-

  991
  tions sent to them against the election of Mr. John Gardiner as Chairman of the Ballinasloe Board of Guardians; whether they have pronounced the action of the gentleman who presided at the election of Mr. John Gardiner, on the 4th of April last, as illegal, and have issued an order for a new election; whether he is aware that the gentleman who acted in this illegal manner had the sanction of the Local Government Board to act as presiding officer, and that he was voted into that position by the ex officio Guardians, and against the will of the elected Guardians, and that this course was at variance with the usage of the Board, which up to that time always got the Clerk of the Union to act as presiding officer at the election of Chairman; whether the Local Government Board have received a formal communication signed by six of the elected Guardians claiming the Chairmanship for Mr. Thomas Byrne, who got 18 votes, Mr. Gardiner getting 19 at the election of the 4th of April, on the ground that some of the ex officio Guardians who voted for Mr. Gardiner had no legal right to vote; whether, at the election held on May 16, a formal protest was handed to the Chairman objecting to a new election on the ground that Mr. Byrne was the legally elected Chairman of the Board, and formal objections lodged against Major Thornhill, Mr. Orme Handy, and Mr. J. W. Potts, as having no right to vote at the election of Chairman; whether it is true that in the interval between the 14th of May, the day on which these objections were lodged with the Local Government Board, and the 23rd of May, the day on which the new Board first met, no answer to these objections had been received from the Local Government Board; that in consequence of such delay the Board had to adjourn, being powerless to go on with business while in a state of uncertainty as to their right to act as a legally-constituted body; and, is it on account of this failure on the part of the Ballinasloe Poor Law Board to fulfil duties which, owing to the inaction of the Local Government Board they were powerless to perform, that paid Guardians have been sent down to transact the business of the Union?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply,
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  said, that the Local Government Board had taken the course referred to in the case of the Ballinasloe Board of Guardians in consequence of the irregular and disorderly character of the meeting, and their neglect of the business of the Union. This step was not taken without previous warning to the Guardians.
  MR. HARRISsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had not given any answer to the part of the Question in reference to the absence of any charge of dishonesty or corruption against the Board in question.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he did not know that any such charge was made; but, however that might be, the complaint constantly made by the Local Government Board was that they were incapable of doing their business, and were engaged in riotous proceedings, which on more than one occasion called for the intervention of the police.
  MR. CHANCE: May I ask whether or not this Board was dissolved because they took proceedings to set aside the riotous, disorderly, and illegal election of a Conservative Chairman?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware, Sir, that riotous and disorderly applies to but one section of the Guardians to whom the hon. Gentleman refers.
  MR. CHANCE: That is not an answer to my Question. What I asked was, whether this Board was not superseded immediately after they had instituted proceedings to set aside the riotous, disorderly, and grossly illegal election of their Conservative Chairman?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Member is not satisfied with my answer, perhaps he will put a Notice on the Paper.

  POST OFFICE (SAVINGS BANK DEPARTMENT).
  MR. MACDONALD CAMERON (, &c.)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is aware that, since the 1st of December last, it has been necessary to constantly employ in the Savings Bank Department of the General Post Office a large number of officers for considerably longer than six hours a day; and, whether any application has been made for an increase of staff; and, if so, whether the Treasury will now take steps to insure the im-

  993
  mediate introduction of the seven hours' scale into this Department?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH), in reply, said, the question of the establishment of the Savings Bank Department was receiving the consideration of the Treasury in concurrence with the Postmaster General, and he hoped they would be able to make such arrangements as would tend to the efficiency and economy of the Public Service.

  THE INDIAN BUDGET.
  MR. KINGasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he can fix an early day for the Indian Budget Statement, or about when it may be expected?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH), in reply, said, it was impossible for him to name a day when it would be introduced; but the Papers were in the hands of hon. Members, and they could fully inform themselves on the subject of Indian finances.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked, if the Government would undertake that the debate should take place before the last days of the Session, when it would be discussed to empty Benches?
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, the hon. Member must be aware that it was utterly impossible to enter into any engagement with regard to the Indian Budget, looking at the present state of Business.
  MR. CONYBEAREdesired to know whether the Indian Budget was not of equal importance with the Local Government Bill.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—MR. CECIL ROCHE, R.M.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that, notwithstanding the decision of the Court of Exchequer, the Resident Magistrate has refused to state a case of a priest of the County Clare, who was charged with illegal assembly in addressing a meeting from a boat on the Shannon, and who was sentenced to one month's imprisonment without bail
  994
  by Mr. Cecil Roche; and, whether the Government will draw the attention of the Resident Magistrates in Ireland to the rights of the subject in these cases?
  MR. CONYBEARE: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether it is the fact that in making an application for a mandamus to the Court of Queen's Bench to compel the magistrate to state a case, the application has to be made to a Court of which Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Gibson, who carried the Coercion Act, are members?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I cannot answer the Question without Notice. With regard to the Question put by the hon. and learned Member for Longford, I have to remind him that the statement made by the Judge had reference not to stating cases generally, but to the action of the magistrates with regard to the one particular subject that came before them. There can be no applicability to the case of Mr. Roche. If the hon. and learned Member thinks Mr. Roche ought to have stated a case, he has ample power to go to the Queen's Bench.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: As there is a controversy in regard to the observations of the Judges, will the right hon. Gentleman be able to tell us whether the exact observations which were recorded by a shorthand writer will be laid upon the Table?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he did not think there was any controversy in the matter. That only arose with reference to some of the Questions that had been put upon the Paper on the subject.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: My Question is, whether, on Monday, the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us whether we shall be able to have an exact copy of the Judge's observations?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I certainly shall be able to answer the Question on Monday.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE(IRELAND) ACT, 1887.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY:Mr. Speaker,—At the opening of our proceedings to-day you road from the Chair a letter announcing to the House that Mr. John Dillon, a Member of this House, had been sent to prison for six months. I wish, Sir, to give

  995
  Notice that I shall submit the following Resolution:—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the operation of 'The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887,' and the manner of its administration, undermine respect for Law, estrange the minds of the people of Ireland, and are deeply injurious to the interests of the United Kingdom."
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I wish, Sir, to give Notice, in general terms, that on Monday I will request the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to appoint a day for the discussion of the Motion of which my right hon. Friend has given Notice.
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I have listened with attention to the Notice which the right hon. Gentleman gave; and feeling that it is one which challenges the conduct of the Government in every respect, I think it only right to respond at once, and to say that the Government will place Monday at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ENGLAND ANDWALES) BILL.
  MR. CLANCY: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the rumour is true that the Government intend to drop five more clauses of the Local Government Bill, and, if that question be answered in the affirmative, whether it would not be for the convenience of the House to announce at once the entire number of clauses which will be abandoned, instead of giving the information by instalments?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I am not aware of the rumours to which the hon. Member has referred, and, therefore, I am quite unable to answer the Question he has put to me. The Government have given Notice of their intention to drop certain clauses of the Bill, and to that Notice they will adhere. It will be quite time, if it becomes necessary to drop any other clauses of the Bill, in consequence of prolonged discussion, it will be quite time enough for us, when that necessity arises, if it arises in consequence of that discussion, to make a statement to the House upon the question.

  ORDER OF THE DAY.

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.— [BILL 182.]
    (Mr. Ritchie, Mr. William Henry Smith, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Matthews, Mr. Long)
    COMMITTEE. [Progress 19th June.]
    [NINTH NIGHT.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)

  PART I.

    COUNCILS.
    Powers of County Council.
    Clause 8 (Transfer to County Council of powers of certain Government Departments and other Authorities).
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 5, line 24, after the word "day," to insert the words, "it shall be lawful for the Local Government Board to make from time to time a Provisional Order for transferring.—(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Question again proposed," That those words be there inserted."
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, that when the Committee adjourned on Tuesday, some misunderstanding had arisen with reference to the Amendment. In the course of the discussion some words were addressed to him which, in justice to himself, he thought he should refer to. He must frankly admit that he was somewhat irritated by what had occurred on Tuesday afternoon. He had moved an Amendment in as few words as he could, being desirous to save the time of the Committee, which Amendment was supported by the hon. Member for the Blackpool Division of Lancashire (Sir Matthew White Ridley), the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrew's (Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald), followed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) and other hon. Members, including the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), who gave a qualified support to the Amendment, as he desired that the transfer should be effected by means of a Provisional Order, instead of an Order in Council. The Government had

    997
    intimated their intention of accepting his Amendment, and had agreed generally to the proposal made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax, and it looked as if something in the nature of the Amendment was to be adopted. Whereupon occurred almost unusual incident—an hon. Member sitting on the Front Opposition Bench (Mr. T. Dyke Arland), who had not heard a word of the Debate, interposed with a speech which led to a prolonged wrangle, which terminated in a Motion to report Progress being carried. Now he (Mr. Chaplin) had said as little as possible on the former occasion in support of his Amendment, as he was anxious to save the time of the Committee; but the Amendment was now in a different form upon the Paper, and perhaps the Committee would allow him to explain more fully the object he had in view in moving it. In the first place, he was most anxious to dispel the idea that there was the slightest desire or intention on his part, or on the part of hon. Members on that side of the House, to do what had been called by Gentlemen opposite, revolutionize the principle of the Bill. However that might be, he pointed out that a blind trust in the people was not of itself sufficient to make a Bill of this complicated character into a working measure. They wanted to make it a thoroughly workable and business-like enactment, and he protested that the clause as it was now drawn was not likely to attain that object, and it was in order to ensure the end he had in view that he moved the Amendment now standing in his name. The clause as it stood proposed to transfer by Statute certain powers, duties, and liabilities of Secretaries of State, Board of Trade, and Local Government Board to the County Councils. It further proposed to transfer certain other powers which were at present vested in the Privy Council and the Education Department and other Departments, as well as certain powers at the present time enjoyed by certain of the counties themselves, some of which were exceedingly important, and involved the expenditure of enormous sums of money. Now, the clause proposed to do all this, subject only to the Proviso contained in the 3rd sub-section of the clause. He wanted the Committee to consider how the clause would work, and he must point out, in
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    the first place, that the powers which it proposed to transfer under the 1st subsection were very considerable. There were powers vested in the Local Govern-Board, some of them comparatively unimportant; others again were of great importance, and then there were the powers of the Board of Trade, which in his judgment, were of supreme importance, and which it was most undesirable should be transferred by Statute. The powers of the Board of Trade differed considerably from the other powers to which he had referred, and would be found by reference to the second part of the Schedule. They were as follows—The General Pier and Harbour Acts, The Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, The Tramways Act, 1870, and the Electric Lighting Act, 1882. Those powers were now carried into effect under the admirable Staff now possessed by the Board of Trade, a Staff of great experience, and one under which what was called political continuity, so desirable in matters of this kind, was very successfully insured. As an illustration of the admirable way in which the duties of the Department had been performed, he would like to call attention to the fact that, out of 256 Provisional Orders moved by the Board of Trade with regard to tramways, 242 had been actually carried; out of 279 Provisional Orders in the matter of Gas and Water, 276 had been carried—that was to say, out of a total of 535 Provisional Orders, 518 had been carried. That was very strong testimony to the admirable way in which these matters had been dealt with by the Department up to the present time. Now, on the supposition that the clause were carried in its present form, and that the Bill, as he hoped would be the case, passed into law during the present Session, all these powers of the Board of Trade would cease, and would be transferred to the new County Councils. But, further, before the County Councils could be in a position to act, various promoters in different parts of the country might, and very probably would, want powers for Harbours, Piers, Gas, Water, and Tramways, and he would ask who was going to do the work, because it must be borne in mind that the Councils would have been only just elected; and they would not, therefore, have the necessary machinery at their disposal. He could conceive of no-

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    thing more likely to bring things to a deadlock than that the clause should come into operation in its present form. In saying that he had no desire to eviscerate or emasculate the Bill. He was anxious that, as soon as the Bill was passed, there should be machinery in existence which would enable these powers to be carried out as before; at the same time that the Government of the day should have the power to proceed in certain respects by Provisional Order, of course subject to the consent of Parliament. What he contemplated in the case of the clause passing without his Amendment, which he hoped would be accepted, he believed would happen; and probably his right hon. Friend would be able to give his view of the subject. There were a great number of the powers to be transferred and specified in the Schedules which were not of very great importance, and which might be transferred en bloc by a Provisional Order to the new authorities; there were others in connection with the public health, and similar matters, the transfer of which from the Local Government Board, he thought, would be a matter for consideration; but with regard to those vested in the Board of Trade he was satisfied, for the reasons already stated, that it would be unwise and injudicious that they should be transferred as a whole to the County Council, and the Board of Trade altogether deprived of them. For these reasons, he ventured to submit the Amendment on the Paper to the Committee.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (, &c.)said, as the Amendment of the right hon. Gentlemen went to the very essence of the principle of transferring those powers to the County Council. He thought they had better deal with it on the Schedules of the Bill. It seemed to him that the way to defeat the object of the Bill would be to carry it in such a form that these important matters should be left to the discretion of the Government for the time being. He thought the Government should make their views upon this subject more clear, or else consent to the postponement of the clause. They were now entering upon a totally different part of the Bill—namely, that which delegated to the local Bodies the powers now exercised by the Central Authorities at Westminster. It seemed to him, in view
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    of the serious import of this portion of the Bill, that the Government should have determined what powers they really intended to transfer to the local Councils before this, and that it was altogether inconsistent and indecorous that they should be, as they appeared to be, ready to surrender the whole of their scheme of delegation, and reserve the powers in question to Her Majesty's Executive Government. He could quite understand that some comparatively small towns did not like to be transferred from the dominion of the Board of Trade to the Councils; but if Her Majesty's Government really wished to give practical and substantial effect to the measure, they must with regard to powers now vested in the central authority, give before long something in the nature of modified Home Rule to the great Provinces of the Kingdom. Such a principle, he thought, might be applied with good effect to London, and such great counties as Yorkshire and Lancashire. On the whole, as it seemed to him Her Majesty's Government were prepared to accept the Amendment, it would perhaps be better to drop the clause for the present.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he wished to make an appeal to the Government to know what course they intended to take in the matter. It was understood the other night that they would put down Amendments for which they were to be responsible, and he wished to point out that, practically speaking, the right hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, by this and subsequent Amendments, wished to withdraw the 8th clause, and he should like to know whether the Government were prepared to withdraw any more clauses without Notice. The Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman, if adopted by the Committee, would in reality destroy the object and intention of the clause.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he hoped that he might be allowed to explain. The Amendment, as it stood now, was moved at the request and instigation of the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), who had led the Opposition in this matter.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was not quite accurate in his assertion, and he was sorry that his right hon. Friend the

    1001
    Member for Halifax was, in consequence of illness, prevented from being in his place. If the Government would state in the Schedule of the Bill what powers they proposed to delegate to the County Councils, then the County Councils, when they were elected, would know what they had to do. The matter as it stood was left to a Provisional Order, and a Provisional Order meant nothing more nor less than this—another Act of Parliament under another name. What he complained of in the course of the progress of the Bill was the crumbling away, day by day, of all the main provisions of the measure. The Committee were aware that there were other clauses to be omitted besides this, and the section they were now discussing was one of the most vital and important clauses in the Bill in reference to the transfer of powers to the County Council. Nevertheless, at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, the Government were about to strike it out of the Bill.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he wished to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Amendment assumed its present form at the request of his own Party.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he was not arguing the matter from a Party point of view. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to be incapable of dealing with it from any other point. There were many other clauses which were to share the same fate. So far as he was concerned, he intended to support the clause, even in opposition to the Government. He desired to see the clause kept as it was. If there were any powers improperly proposed to be transferred under it, let them be omitted in the Schedule. He should like the Committee to consider fairly how they stood. If they dabbled with this and other clauses, what were they going to leave to the County Councils? What they had given to the County Councils in Clause 3 was, broadly speaking, nothing, and they had been relying upon Clause 8 to find the Council something to do. Now, however, it was proposed to get rid of Clause 8. The object of Clause 8 was to place very important powers in the hands of the County Councils, and he very much feared that if they took away those powers which were to be transferred by
    1002
    the clause as it stood, the usefulness and the authority of the County Councils would be greatly impaired. Unless the clause were allowed to remain in the Bill as it stood, what would be its effect? It would be impossible to get competent men to remain on the County Councils for the purpose of doing nothing. That was the great fear that was entertained. With certain exceptions, he approved of the constitution of the County Councils, and he approved of many of the functions which it was proposed to confer upon them; but he would like to see them with really operative functions. Would that be so if this clause were removed from the Bill? What would the City Councils then have to do? As far as he could make out, they would have to deal with the main roads. But, surely, that was not a very important power to confer upon the Councils. Then, again, they would have to appoint a Visiting Committee for the lunatic asylums, and would have to attend to the registration and the rules of scientific societies. In point of fact, they would merely have such jurisdiction as could be readily carried out by a committee. So far as their powers and duties were embodied in the Bill, that is all they would have to do. The Government were now cutting away all the more important functions it was originally intended the County Councils should exercise. He was of opinion that it would be far better to give them something and not be so very disappointing. He hoped the Government would not encourage this proceeding. He knew that the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire looked with no particular friendly eye on these Councils, and he knew that not only were there Members of that House, but others who were not Members of it, who regarded the Bill unfavourably. They would rather not have the County Councils created, and they desired that when they were created they should have as nearly as possible nothing to do, and no power and no authority. He was certain that that was not the intention of the Government; but he believed they were absolutely sincere in their desire to create a useful and powerful body. Nevertheless, step by step, they were taking away the powers originally given by the Bill. He entreated them to stand by that clause, and if they did so, he could assure them

    1003
    of the general support of that side of the House.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE)said, he did not know whether the right hon. Momber for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) included his right hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) among those who desired to eviscerate that clause. It was necessary in consequence of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, that he should call the attention of the Committee to the arrangement which was entered into on Tuesday last, when the clause was under discussion. It was perfectly true that the clause, as it stood in the Bill, first of all transferred by way of Schedule certain powers to the County Councils, and that it, secondly, proposed in reference to other powers, that they should be subsequently transferred by means of an Order in Council. When the clause came on for discussion, his right hon. Friend the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) rose and moved an Amendment by which all the powers were not to be transferred at once, but by Order in Council. That proposal was supported by at least half-a-dozen Members, who spoke on both sides of the House, and among others by the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, who, during the discussion of the Bill, had given great attention to the details of the measure, and whose knowledge of the subject would not be denied or gainsaid by any Member of the House. He even thought that the right hon. Member for Derby would be willing to acknowledge that the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, from his experience, was bettor able to express an opinion than he was himself. Then again, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax had been regarded, whether rightly or not he did not know, as having charge of the Bill from the Front Bench opposite. In the course of the discussion, that right hon. Gentleman rose and gave a qualified approval of the proposal of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire to transfer the powers by an Order in Council, but suggested that it would be more convenient if the change were made by a Provisional Order Bill, instead of an Order in Council. The Govern-
    1004
    ment, recognizing as they did in reference to many of the details of the Bill, that they were quite open to learn by the experience of Gentlemen who had long been connected with the question of Local Government in that House—the Government recognized that there was great force both in the remarks of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire, and also in the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Halifax. Looking at the fact that the County Councils were not likely to come into active operation until April next year, it was quite a debatable point whether it was not desirable instead of at once saddling them with a considerable number of duties requiring great experience, to take some steps by which all the powers, or any part of them, might be made the subject of investigation at the hands of a Select Committee of the House of Commons. Such a Committee would be able to go into one and all of the various powers proposed to be conferred with a view to see whether all or some of them might be transferred, or whether some alterations ought to be made in the proposals of the Bill. That was a proposition which the Government considered reasonable, and they accordingly assented to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Halifax, stating that, so far as they were concerned, they saw no objection to the course of procedure he proposed. But no sooner had they made that concession, than hon. Members opposite rose and protested against it, not one single voice having previously been heard in opposition to the view expressed by the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division and by the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite. Now, what were the real facts of the case? As he had said, those County Councils did not really come into power until April, 1889. There was, therefore, plenty of time between now and the commencement of next Session of Parliament for the Government to prepare and introduce a Provisional Order Bill, specifying the powers that were to be handed over to the County Councils.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTasked, if that Bill would be brought in during the present Session?
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, no; not during that Session. The right hon. Gentle-

    1005
    man knew perfectly well that it would be quite impossible to pass a Provisional Order Bill that year; but if it were presented early next Session it might be proceeded with at once, and passed rapidly into law. The right hon. Gentleman assumed that the Government had a desire to create County Councils, and then give them nothing to do.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: No.
    MR. RITCHIE: That was the whole gist of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, who said—"Are we to trust the Government to do anything of the kind, if we do not do it now in the Bill."
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTbegged the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He did not say that; but he had pointed out that by a Provisional Order they would not have the powers transferred in time for the election of the new Councils, and the men elected would not know what they had to do. All he desired to point out was that the first election would take place without the County Councils knowing what the powers were they would have to discharge.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman wanted to know what the County Councils were to do. It had been stated again and again that this new Body was being created in the hope of placing in the Schedule of the Bill the powers conferred by the measure. It was, however, recognized on all hands, that it would be unwise and impolitic for the House to saddle these new Bodies with the powers they would have to perform until the Councils themselves had bad some experience of the nature of the work and were ready to settle themselves down into working order. How could the right hon. Gentleman say that the County Councils would be elected in ignorance of what they would have to do, when the Government in the Bill made proposals in reference to all the questions that were scheduled in the measure, and only refrained from carrying them into an Act in consequence of representations made to them that it would be better early next Session to make provision for it. The right hon. Member said that the most important of those powers were the powers connectedwith Provisional Orders, and he thought the right hon. Member for Derby would acknowledge the truth of that remark. Therefore, it would not be at all satisfactory to say that
    1006
    they proposed to transfer at once certain powers which the Home Secretary now had, and then to refrain from doing more. There was not the smallest justification for supposing that the County Councils would be prejudiced in their election by the position which the Government had taken up in response to the appeal from the other side of the House. He could only say that the Government had shown their desire to secure that the powers of the County Councils should be ample, but they acknowledged that there was great force in the objections which had been made, that many of these powers would be transferred without sufficient examination by a Select Committee of the House. They would undertake to have a Provisional Order Bill drawn up and presented to Parliament at the earliest moment, with a view of showing that they had no desire to create a great and important machine like this, and then to give it nothing to do. That was the reason why he supported the Amendment of his right hon. Friend the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire, and he was certain that the proposal would meet the approval of the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton.
    SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, he had waited with anxiety to ascertain what position the President of the Local Government Board intended to take with regard to the subsequent Amendments which appeared on the Paper in the name of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire, because those subsequent Amendments altered the whole position as it was discussed tho other day.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he was sorry if he had not made that matter clear. This Amendment was only preliminary. He was not prepared to say that he would accept all the Amendments upon the Paper; but what he did accept now was to transfer these powers by means of a Provisional Order.
    SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, he wished to point out that the whole position would be altered if these Amendments were accepted by the Government, and he desired to point out the way in which the matter stood when it was last under discussion. Many Members were opposed to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division

    1007
    of Lincolnshire altogether. He had not been one of those. He had thought that it would be wise to give instructions to the County Councils in cases where experience was required by means of a Provisional Order or an Order in Council. The powers which it was proposed to transfer to the County Councils had never been given to the municipalities, and the County Councils not having had the experience of the municipalities would certainly not be prepared at the first moment to exercise the powers proposed to be conferred upon them. But what was the position to-day, if the Government accepted the subsequent Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. It simply meant the destruction of Clause 8. Everything up to line 48 was cancelled by the Amendment. If the Amendment were passed, the whole of the Schedules would go, because the effect would be to cause their disappearance from the Bill, and the whole purpose and object of Clause 8 would have vanished. Under such circumstances, he could not vote for the Amendment. If the Government would give an assurance that they would oppose this process of the evisceration of Clause 8 and would retain the Schedule, he would hold himself to his promise and would support them, because he thought it better that the Government should give instructions as to what powers the County Councils were to exercise. By assenting to the course now proposed, that would give to the Government the power of decentralizing the whole matter.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman could have heard the whole of the discussion upon this subject. One of the arguments of the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton was that if the clause were allowed to stand as it was in the Bill it would lead to a long and endless discussion on these very Schedules, and that was one of the chief arguments the right hon. Gentleman used in favour of his proposal. It was certainly an argument which he (Mr. Ritchie) had regarded as a very powerful one. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Lyon Playfair) did not seem to have heard the discussion which took place in reference to the Schedule, and he now said that the Government were going to omit a large portion of the clause. That was per-
    1008
    fectly true; but it was necessary to do so because the clause was divided into two parts. It, therefore, became necessary that much of what was contained in the 1st sub-section should be applied to the 2nd sub-section, and the proposal of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin) was to deal with both sub-sections in the same way. The Government, therefore, allowed an amalgamation of the two sub-sections, and that was the sole reason why the words referred to by the right hon. Gentleman were proposed to be struck out.
    SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, he had heard the whole of the discussion, and his interpretation of it was, and he thought it a good explanation, that if they were to give these complex powers, it was not desirable to transfer them at once to the County Councils, but to give the power of doing so by means of a Provisional Order. That would render it unnecessary to discuss tho Schedules in such detail as would otherwise be essential. He thought that that was a proper suggestion; but he had not dreamt that the right hon. Gentleman was going to strike out the Schedules altogether.
    MR. LLEWELLYNsaid, he thought that after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board the opposition of hon. Members opposite was unreasonable. He thought it was necessary to examine carefully the powers which the Bill proposed to transfer. He had been somewhat alarmed in the first instance at the restrictive powers of the Amendment, but it had been clear altogether that the Government had no intention whatever of restricting the power it was proposed to confer upon the County Councils, and, in regard to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin) there was nothing more reasonable than that a full opportunity should be afforded for considering what powers were to be transferred. He was inclined to think that many hon. Members who had taken part in the discussion of the clause had lost sight of the importance of not handing over these powers at once by wholesale. He was of opinion that the County Councils would not be perfectly capable of carrying them out, and he should vote against the Amendment if he did

    1009
    not see that the practical effect would be to give them experience and knowledge of the work they were to perform. Take, for instance, the power with regard to the issue of Provisional Orders as to the carrying out of works. If this power were handed over at once to the Local Authority, what means would the Local Authority have of carrying out and giving consent to the issue of Provisional Orders in connection with such works as drainage? The money which would have to be borrowed would be a difficulty in itself; it would be necessary to apply to the Public Works Loan Commissioners, and the Public Works Loan Commissioners were not likely to grant a considerable sum without some evidence of an engineering character as to the value of the work proposed to be done. So, in regard to other works, a scheme would have to be properly prepared and submitted before the money could be borrowed. It would, therefore, be necessary to have an inquiry on the spot at which objections could be raised, and the whole matter would be fairly threshed out. It was ridiculous to suppose that any County Council would at once embark in any measure of this kind without such a preliminary inquiry; therefore, it was a wise precaution on behalf of the Government to see that the machinery was in working order before they handed over these powers to the County Councils. He hoped there would be no delay in granting the powers which he regarded as so important. It was of the highest importance to remove the power of decentralization, and get rid of the clog of Business that occurred upstairs. It was also desirable to relieve those who at present took part in projects of this kind, from the dreadful responsibility of bringing a local Bill before Parliament. He entertained the hope that, large as the powers were that were to be conferred by the Bill, there would be some further powers in regard to Private Bill legislation. The issue of Provisional Orders was another matter. No doubt, when they handed over this power to the County Councils, care would be taken to see that they were in a position to carry it out. They had had a clear statement from the President of the Local Government Board that it was not the intention of the Government to delay the transfer of these powers, and, there-
    1010
    fore, he considered that hon. Members opposite were unreasonable in objecting to the Amendment. He was sure that there was no intention on the part of the Government to restrict the powers of the County Councils. As to the evisceration of the Bill, if the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) would look at the Amendments on the Paper, and the powers to be granted to the County Councils, he could have no fear that the Councils would not have ample work to do. It was not, however, desirable that all the work they would have to do should be put at once upon their shoulders.
    MR. LAWSONsaid, that after the two speeches which had been delivered by the President of the Local Government Board, they seemed really to have got at the bottom of the meaning of the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire. It was simply a timesaving Amendment to shorten the debate on the Bill. The Government had done a good deal in that direction in throwing over extra weight, and from the ambiguous and unsatisfactory reply that had been given that afternoon by the First Lord of the Treasury, it was clear that it was at least possible that the London clauses of the Bill might follow the Licensing Clauses.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that not a single word had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman who asked the question, or his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury, which could possibly justify the assertion which the hon. Member had made.
    MR. LAWSONsaid, the silence of the right hon. Gentleman was just as significant as his speech. When the proposition was raised in the Committee, he protested against treating the County of London in the same way as other localities. He had heard nothing that day as to what was to be done for London. [Cries of "Order!" and "Question!"] He submitted that this was the Question. This clause conferred certain powers on the County Council for London, and it was impossible at a later period to insert in the Schedule the duties and liabilities of the County Council of London unless they were prepared to confer some powers upon other County Councils. He doubted very much whether the right hon. Gentleman had improved the

    1011
    Bill by substituting a Provisional Order for an Order in Council. No doubt they would have all the influence of the permanent officials against them, who had been accustomed to use these powers, as all must admit, with great efficiency. It was unlikely that they would be willing to surrender them, and to ask popular Bodies to take over the powers they now possessed. He was, therefore, afraid that the process of devolution would be much slower than was contemplated, and the proposition now made might prove more insidious than the one which was contained in the Amendment as it stood. He was of opinion that the whole of the arguments they had heard that afternoon related to one part of the Schedule, and one part only. The hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. Llewellyn) and the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) had referred to the powers now exercised by the Board of Trade, and they maintained that it would be improper to call upon the County Councils, who would be without experience and knowledge, to exercise such powers. The three parts of the 1st Schedule defined the powers that were to be transferred now exercised by the Home Office, the Board of Trade, and the Local Government Board; and the right hon. Member for the Sleaford Division, in endeavouring to prevent the second part from appearing in the Schedule, showed what the governing idea in his mind was. Personally, he (Mr. Lawson) did not see why some compromise should not be arrived at in connection with this subject. Why should not the Government at once admit that it was the powers of the Board of Trade that were objected to, on the ground that they required expert knowledge and practice which did not apply to other Departments of the State? The whole of the objections, as a matter of fact, applied to one part of the Schedule, and to save time the Government were going to cut out the whole Schedule and to diminish the dignity of the County Councils, simply with the object of lightening the load the Government had to carry. The Government would be prepared to say that at the present time there was no opportunity to discuss the Schedule. He thought some arrangement might be made by which it might be agreed to except the powers now exercised by the
    1012
    Board of Trade, and to take a moderate amount of discussion on the Schedule as a whole, because on most points in regard to them they would all be agreed. He trusted that hon. Members on that side of the House would resist the Amendment as it stood.
    MR. A. E. GATHORNE-HARDYsaid, that as one who was present during the whole of the discussion the other day, he felt bound to express surprise at the course taken by the Front Opposition Bench. He was second to none in desiring that the powers given to the County Councils should be both large and important; but when he came into the House the other day to hear the discussion of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), he did so with a perfectly open mind, and after the right hon. Gentleman had spoken, a very weighty speech was delivered by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Blackpool Division of Lancashire (Sir Matthew White Ridley). He thought it would have been greatly to the advantage of hon. Members to have heard that speech. They had had speeches from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Leeds (Sir Lyon Playfair), the last of whom spoke with great authority upon matters connected with the health of the community. Both of those right hon. Gentlemen supported the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) waited to see whether any other hon. Members would address the House; and, finding that there was a universal consensus of opinion in favour of the Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman rose in his place and said that, as he did not wish to resist the universal opinion of the House, he would accept the Amendment, against which not one word had been spoken by any hon. Member. Under these circumstances, he protested against the use in that discussion of such phrases as "evisceration of the Bill" and "time-serving Amendments."
    MR. LAWSONsaid, the phrase he used was "time-saving Amendments."
    MR. A. E. GATHORNE-HARDYsaid, he felt bound to protest against

    1013
    the imputation of motives which had been made in the course of the discussion. The phrases which had unfortunately been used, he ventured to think, had much more to do with the Licensing Clauses, which were in a state of suspended animation, than with the question before the House. Those phrases were intended, not as consumption in that House, but for consumption off tho premises; they were intended to give the constituents the false idea that a measure which showed more trust in the people than had ever been evinced by any Government before was a sham. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] He understood the meaning of that cheer. He had seen the same phrase used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) when he gave the benefit of his assistance to the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) by addressing his constituents. He could only say that it was with the greatest surprise he had heard, on the last occasion, the Motion made to report Progress by the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secreatry for Ireland (Mr. John Morley), who had not been present during the whole of the discussion, and had heard very little of the comments of right hon. Gentlemen who sat on the same Benches themselves, but who, on the faith of representations of hon. Members who had casually dropped into the House, without having heard the discussion, moved to report Progress, and had thus occasioned a considerable waste of time.
    VISCOUNT EBRINGTONsaid, he sincerely hoped the Government would not accept the compromise suggested by the hon. Member for West St. Pancras (Mr. Lawson). Nothing could be more fallacious than the argument that delay was advisable, so that the County Councils might have time to furnish themselves with experts like those who now advised the Board of Trade in regard to Tramways and matters of that kind. It was said that the County Councils had not the experience they ought to have, and that, therefore, they ought not to be entrusted with these new powers; but they never would have experience and were not likely to take experts into their service until they had full powers given to them. He sincerely hoped that all the
    1014
    powers would be given together and would stand or fall together.
    MR. RATHBONE (Carnarvonshire,)said, he thought that the House generally was pretty much agreed as to what they wanted to accomplish; but the difficulty was how they were to accomplish it. He believed that most of them were anxious that the new County Councils should have large powers transferred to them; but there were some of those powers which hon. Members sitting on both sides of the House believed that it would be imprudent to transfer at the present moment. The difficulty was how they were to accomplish the transference of powers without involving too great a waste of the time of the House. Let them look for a moment at the matters it was proposed to transfer. The powers of the Secretary of State contained in the first Schedule ought, no doubt, to be transferred at once. The second part proposed to transfer to the County Councils the powers, duties, and liabilities of the Board of Trade, and he thought there was a general agreement that it would not be wise, before the County Councils got settled down to their work, to confer those duties upon them. When they came to the third part it was more difficult to come to a decision. He referred to the transference of the powers, duties, and liabilities of the Local Government Board. He believed that a greater part of those duties should be transferred at once, but there was some part of them which it might be desirable to transfer somewhat later. He thought there was a groat objection to the Amendment before the Committee which required these things to be done by Provisional Order. They always knew that Provisional Orders were very slow and difficult things to get through. What he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) was that ho should agree to transfer the powers by Order in Council instead of by Provisional Order, and then the right hon. Gentleman should state to the Committee what were the powers which ought to be at once transferred by such Order in Council. By that means he (Mr. Rath-bone) thought they would obtain the object they all desired to accomplish—that was to say, that all necessary

    1015
    powers would be at once transferred to the County Councils, and they would be able to get into working order for the rest.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN)said, he desired to point out that it was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) who had suggested a Provisional Order instead of an Order in Council. The hon. Member for West St. Pancras (Mr. Lawson) had suggested a compromise, and proposed that by way of giving the Council something to do they should have at once transferred to them the duties performed by the Home Office. Those duties were "power to represent to Her Majesty in Council that burials should be discontinued in any place of burial in the Metropolitan area; approval of new burial ground or cemetery in the Metropolitan area, or within two miles of it; powers to make report to Her Majesty in Council for the discontinuance of burial in any place of burial; approval of new burial ground; power to order the abolition of a fair, and power to order an alteration of the day for holding a fair and the duration of a fair." Those were the powers of the Home Secretary which the hon. Member for West St. Pancras was kindly willing to say might be transferred to the County Councils.
    MR. LAWSONsaid, he had also pointed out that the powers of the Local Government Board might be transferred at once.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, if it was proposed that the whole of those powers should at once be transferred to the County Councils, he was afraid that it would lead to a long discussion, considering that a good many of them were of an extremely controversial character. The hon. Member seemed to think that the London Council would not have enough to do when it was proposed to transfer to it the whole of the powers of the Metropolitan Board of Works. He (Mr. Groschen) thought that would start the London Council with a fair amount of business. In point of fact it would devolve upon them a somewhat herculean task. It would be better to have the powers for which they were adapted given to the Councils, than to have their minds disturbed by a mass of business
    1016
    with which they would not be able to deal. His views were well known on this subject. He was strongly in favour of decentralization. The whole object of the Government was to decentralize as soon as they could, and he could assure the hon. Member that when he occupied the position of Chairman of the New County Council to which he might aspire, he would have plenty of business to attend to and ample scope for his talents. They were all unanimous, he trusted, on this point, that ample powers should be given to the County Councils, and the only difference was as to the lines upon which they should proceed. He was not going to repeat the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to why these powers should not be included in the Bill at the present moment. What he was dealing with now was the argument that in leaving out certain powers for the present the Government were influenced by some sinister design. The case would have to be considered by a Select Committee, and, of course, the Government would resist any endeavour on the part of the Department to retain powers in their hands which it was desirable to hand over to the County Council.
    MR. LAWSONsaid, that with respect to the remarks which had fallon from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was quite true that the London County Council were to have all the powers which were now exercised by the Metropolitan Board of Works, but he did not understand that the Government wanted another Metropolitan Board of Works, nor did the public want one. He understood that they wanted a different class of men altogether. He looked forward to the London Council having very different powers, and to a time when it might hope to secure the services of men of position and ability, with such a man as the right hon. Gentleman himself at their head. If they believed in all they had said about the necessity of decentralization, they should give their words effect.
    MR. ARTHUR WILLIAMSasked, why the clause and the powers to which it related had been deliberately put into the measure? What was the object? He thought that a great deal of time, a great deal of trouble, a

    1017
    good deal of friction, and a certain amount of misunderstanding would have been avoided if the Committee had thoroughly realized what powers were proposed to be granted to the County Councils. He would ask the Committee to consider what those powers really were. He represented a county constituency, and he would ask what powers were proposed to be transferred, after the remarkable admission which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that the powers now exercised by the Home Secretary were very trumpery powers indeed. What were they? They would give the County Councils power to alter the day on which a fair was to be held without warrant, and without the necessity of going to the Home Office in order to obtain permission. They also gave the County Councils certain small licensing powers. Then came the second part of the Schedule, which related to the powers now exercised by the Board of Trade, and that was the part to which he wished most strongly, in the interests of the new governing Bodies, to direct the attention of the Committee. They had been told, over and over again, that the Government and the Conservative Party were most anxious to grant large powers to the County Councils, but he would venture, without hesitation, to say that the powers to be granted under the 8th clause and the second and third parts of the Schedules were, so far from being too large, nothing like the powers that a democratic Body like the County Councils would immediately insist upon having. He would invite the attention of the Committee to what those powers were. What was the first? The County Councils were to have the powers of the Board of Trade, with certain exceptions, under the General Pier and Harbours Act. Surely the Committee ought to have been told, before proceeding with the discussion, whether it was really intended to withdraw the concession of those powers. At the present moment, when a Local Authority wanted to have a pier or harbour made, it was necessary to go to the Local Government Board or to the Board of Trade.
    MR. STAVELEY HILLrose in his place
    1018
    and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."
    THE CHAIRMANdeclined to put the Question.
    MR. ARTHUR WILLIAMSsaid, he was not in the habit of trespassing upon the patience of the House. He was only claiming for the County Council of his own county that the powers to be given should be given to them directly, and he wished to show that those powers, so far from involving great responsibility, involved scarcely any responsibility whatever. If a Local Authority wanted to make a pier or harbour, what would be the change introduced if they passed this Schedule? They would simply make it necessary that the Local Authority, or the promoters, as they were called, should go the County Council, instead of being required to come up to London, in order to lay their case before the Representatives of the people. Was that an unreasonable change to make in creating a great governing Body of this sort? It certainly did not amount to very much, for the County Council would only allow the application to be made. There were a number of serious restrictions imposed by Statute. For instance, it was necessary that notice should be given, and all the formalities of a Provisional Order gone through, and then the application would have to be submitted to the County Council. The powers under which a Provisional Order was to be given were expressly provided in all of the Acts—such as the General Pier and Harbour Act, the Tramway Act, and the Electric Lighting Act. The Local Authority would not be able to buy a foot of land without having practically to go to London. It was perfectly idle to tell him that these powers were too large to be confided to the discretion of the County Council, seeing that they were subjected to the provisions of an Act of Parliament, because a Provisional Order must always be assented to by Parliament. The Committee ought not to deceive themselves by supposing that the people were going to be satisfied with the process of issuing Provisional Orders when public works were required to be done, or that they would be content to come to Parliament for its assent. The powers they required were very much larger than those, and he would seriously ask the Committee to consider—especially those on the other

    1019
    side of the House, who had drafted these clauses—why on earth they should stultify the Bill by introducing certain provisions into it, unless they intended to stand by them. The Government said, "We have drawn up these Schedules and we consider that these powers are necessary powers." Then, why delay their insertion in the Bill? The Bill and the machinery would be ready next year. There were powers exercised by the Local Government Board in reference to baths and washhouses. At present those provisions applied to the whole country, but they could not be applied to a single parish except upon an application made to the Local Government Board. By the second part of the Schedule, instead of its being necessary to apply to the Local Government Board, the application would in future be made to the County Council. That was a very small power indeed, and if the Committee would take the trouble, as he had done, to go through every one of these Acts, they would find that it was only similar trumpery powers which were to be transferred. He, therefore, trusted that the Committee would at once proceed to invest the Local Authorities with the powers contained in the Schedule.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, that this debate would be a lesson to him in the future as to how he accepted an Amendment, or an alteration to an Amendment, on the invitation of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Complaint had been made of the substitution of a Provisional Order for an Order in Council. That alteration had been accepted on the direct invitation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld). For his (Mr. Chaplin's) own part he greatly preferred his own Amendment; but, for the sake of making progress with the Bill, he had accepted the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. He thought that it was somewhat hard and unreasonable to complain of the Government for the course they had followed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) had expressed his opinion on the previous night that half-an-hour's discussion would finish the question; as they had now been discussing it for two hours and a-half he claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question put, "That the Question be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 298; Noes 216: Majority 82.—(Div. List, No. 174.)
    Question put accordingly, "That the words it shall be lawful for the Local Government Board to make from time to time a Provisional Order for transferring' be there inserted."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 306; Noes 224: Majority 82.

    AYES.

    Addison, J. E. W.

    Campbell, J. A.

    Agg-Gardner, J. T.

    Carmarthen, Marq. of

    Ainslie, W. G.

    Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.

    Allsopp, hon. G.

    Chamberlain, R.

    Allsopp, hon. P.

    Charrington, S.

    Ambrose, W.

    Clarke, Sir E. G.

    Amherst, W. A. T.

    Coddington, W.

    Anstruther, Colonel R. H. L.

    Coghill, D. H.

    Colomb, Sir J. C. R.

    Anstruther, H. T.

    Compton, F.

    Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

    Cooke, C. W. R.

    Bailey, Sir J. R.

    Corbett, A. C.

    Baird, J. G. A.

    Corbett, J.

    Balfour, rt. hon. A. J.

    Corry, Sir J. P.

    Baring, T. C.

    Cotton, Capt. E. T. D.

    Barnes, A.

    Cranborne, Viscount

    Barry, A. H. S.

    Cross, H. S.

    Bartley, G. C. T.

    Crossley, Sir S. B.

    Barttelot, Sir W. B.

    Crossman, Gen. Sir W.

    Bates, Sir E.

    Cubitt, right hon. G.

    Baumann, A. A.

    Curzon, Viscount

    Bazley-White, J.

    Curzon, hon. G. N.

    Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-

    Dalrymple, Sir C.

    Darling, C. J.

    Beach, W. W. B.

    Davenport, H. T.

    Beadel, W. J.

    Dawnay, Colonel hon. L. P.

    Beaumont, H. F.

    Beckett, E. W.

    De Cobain, E. S. W.

    Beckett, W.

    De Lisle, E. J. L. M. P.

    Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C.

    De Worms, Baron H.

    Bentinck, Lord H. C.

    Dimsdale, Baron R.

    Bentinck, W. G. C.

    Dixon, G.

    Beresford, Lord C. W. De la Poer

    Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

    Dorington, Sir J. E.

    Bethell, Commander G. R.

    Douglas, A. Akers-

    Dugdale, J. S.

    Bickford-Smith, W.

    Duncan, Colonel F.

    Birkbeck, Sir E.

    Duncombe, A.

    Blundell, Col. H. B. H.

    Dyke, right hon. Sir W. H.

    Bonsor, H. C. O.

    Boord, T. W.

    Ebrington, Viscount

    Borthwick, Sir A.

    Edwards-Moss, T. C.

    Bridgeman, Col. hon. F. C.

    Egerton, hon. A. J. F.

    Egerton, hon. A. de T.

    Bristowe, T. L.

    Elcho, Lord

    Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.

    Elliot, Sir G.

    Elliot, hon. A. R. D.

    Brown, A. H.

    Elliot, hon. H. F. H.

    Bruce, Lord H.

    Elliot, G. W.

    Burdett-Coutts, W. L. Ash.-B.

    Elton, C. I.

    Ewart, Sir W.

    Caine, W. S.

    Ewing, Sir A. O.

    Caldwell, J.

    Farquharson, H. R.

    Campbell, Sir A.

    Feilden, Lt -Gen. R. J.

    1021

    Fellowes, A. E

    Hunter, Sir W. G.

    Fergusson, right hon. Sir J.

    Isaacs, L. H.

    Jackson, W. L.

    Field, Admiral E.

    James, rt. hon. Sir H.

    Fielden, T.

    Jeffreys, A. F.

    Finch, G. H.

    Jennings, L. J.

    Finlay, R. B.

    Johnston, W.

    Fitz - Wygram, Gen. Sir F. W.

    Kelly, J. R.

    Kennaway, Sir J. H.

    Folkestone, right hon. Viscount

    Kenrick, W.

    Kenyon, hon. G. T.

    Forwood, A. B.

    Kenyon - Slancy, Col. W.

    Fowler, Sir R. N.

    Fry, L.

    Kerans, F. H.

    Gathorne-Hardy, hon. A. E.

    Kimber, H.

    King, H. S.

    Gent-Davis, R.

    Knatchbull-Hugessen, H. T.

    Giles, A.

    Gilliat, J. S.

    Knightley, Sir R.

    Godson, A. F.

    Knowles, L.

    Goldsmid, Sir J.

    Kynoch, G.

    Goldsworthy, Major-General W. T.

    Lafone, A.

    Lambert, C.

    Gorst, Sir J. E.

    Laurie, Colonel R. P.

    Goschen, rt. hn. G. J.

    Lawrance, J. C.

    Granby, Marquess of

    Lawrence, W. F.

    Gray, C. W.

    Lea, T.

    Green, Sir E.

    Lees, E.

    Greenall, Sir G.

    Legh, T. W.

    Greene, E.

    Leighton, S.

    Grimston, Viscount

    Lennox, Lord W. C. Gordon-

    Grotrian, F. B.

    Gunter, Colonel R.

    Lewis, Sir C. E.

    Gurdon, R. T.

    Lewisham, right hon. Viscount

    Hall, C.

    Halsey, T. F.

    Long, W. H.

    Hambro, Col. C. J. T.

    Lowther, hon. W.

    Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.

    Lowther, J. W.

    Lubbock, Sir J.

    Hamilton, Col. C. E.

    Macartney, W. G. E.

    Hamley, Gen. Sir E. B.

    Macdonald, right hon. J. H. A.

    Hanbury, R. W.

    Hankey, F. A.

    Mackintosh, C. F.

    Hardcastle, F.

    Maclean, F. W.

    Hartington, Marq. of

    Maclean, J. M.

    Heath, A. R.

    Maclure, J. W.

    Heathcote, Capt. J. H. Edwards-

    M'Calmont, Captain J.

    Madden, D. H.

    Heaton, J. H.

    Makins, Colonel W. T.

    Heneage, right hon. E.

    Malcolm, Col. J. W.

    Mallock, R.

    Herbert, hon. S.

    Maple, J. B.

    Hermon-Hodge, R. T.

    Marriott, right hon. Sir W. T.

    Hervey, Lord F.

    Hill, right hon. Lord A. W.

    Maskelyne, M. H. N. Story-

    Hill, Colonel E. S.

    Matthews, right hon. H.

    Hill, A. S.

    Hoare, E. B.

    Mattinson, M. W.

    Hobhouse, H.

    Maxwell, Sir H. E.

    Holloway, G.

    Mildmay, F. B.

    Hornby, W. H.

    Mills, hon. C. W.

    Houldsworth, Sir W. H.

    Milvain, T.

    More, R. J.

    Howard, J.

    Morgan, hon. F.

    Howorth, H. H.

    Moss, R.

    Hozier, H. C.

    Mount, W. G.

    Hubbard, hon. E.

    Mowbray, right hon. Sir J. R.

    Hughes, Colonel E.

    Hughes - Hallett, Col. F. C.

    Mowbray, R. G. C.

    Mulholland, H. L.

    Hulse, E. H

    Muncaster, Lord

    Hunt, F. S.

    Muntz, P. A.

    1022

    Murdoch, C. T.

    Smith, rt. hon. W. H.

    Newark, Viscount

    Smith, A.

    Noble, W.

    Spencer, J. E.

    Norris, E. S.

    Stanhope, rt. hon. E.

    Northcote, hon. Sir H. S.

    Stanley, E. J.

    Stephens, H. C.

    Norton, R.

    Stewart, M. J.

    O'Neill, hon. R. T.

    Sutherland, T.

    Paget, Sir R. H.

    Swetenham, E.

    Parker, hon. F.

    Sykes, C.

    Pearce, Sir W.

    Talbot, J. G.

    Pelly, Sir L.

    Tapling, T. K.

    Penton, Captain F. T.

    Taylor, F.

    Plunket, right hon. D. R.

    Temple, Sir R.

    Theobald, J.

    Plunkett, hon. J. W.

    Thorburn, W.

    Powell, F. S.

    Tollemache, H. J.

    Price, Captain G. E.

    Tomlinson, W. E. M

    Puleston, Sir J. H.

    Townsend, F.

    Quilter, W. C.

    Trotter, Col. H. J.

    Raikes, rt. hon. H. C.

    Tyler, Sir H. W.

    Rankin, J.

    Walrond, Col. W. H.

    Rasch, Major F. C.

    Walsh, hon. A. H. J.

    Reed, H. B.

    Watkin, Sir E. W.

    Richardson, T.

    Webster, Sir R. E.

    Ridley, Sir M. W.

    Webster, R. G.

    Ritchie, right hon. C. T.

    West, Colonel W. C.

    Weymouth, Viscount

    Robertson, Sir W. T.

    Wharton, J. L.

    Robertson, J. P. B.

    Whitley, E.

    Robinson, B.

    Whitmore, C. A

    Ross, A. H.

    Wilson, Sir S.

    Rothschild, Baron F. J. de

    Winn, hon. R.

    Wodehouse, E. R.

    Round, J.

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Russell, Sir G.

    Wood, N.

    Russell, T. W.

    Wortley, C. B. Stuart-

    Saunderson, Col. E. J.

    Wright, H. S.

    Selwyn, Captain C. W.

    Wroughton, P.

    Seton-Karr, H.

    Yerburgh, R. A.

    Shaw-Stewart, M. H.

    Sidebotham, J. W.

    TELLERS.

    Sidebottom, T. H.

    Chaplin, right hon. H.

    Sidebottom, W.

    Llewellyn, E. H.

    Sinclair, W. P.

    NOES.

    Abraham, W. (Glam.)

    Byrne, G. M.

    Abraham, W. (Limerick, W.)

    Cameron, C.

    Cameron, J. M.

    Acland, A. H. D.

    Campbell, Sir G.

    Acland, C. T. D.

    Campbell-Bannerman, right hon. H.

    Allison, R. A.

    Anderson, C. H.

    Carew, J. L.

    Asher, A.

    Causton, R. K.

    Asquith, H. H.

    Chance, P. A.

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Channing, F. A.

    Austin, J.

    Childers, rt. hon. H. C. E.

    Balfour, Sir G

    Balfour, rt. hon. J. B.

    Clancy, J. J.

    Ballantine, W. H. W.

    Cobb, H. P.

    Barbour, W. B.

    Coleridge, hon. B.

    Barran, J.

    Commins, A.

    Biggar, J. G.

    Conway, M.

    Bradlaugh, C.

    Conybeare, C. A. V.

    Bright, Jacob

    Corbet, W. J.

    Broadhurst, H.

    Cossham, H.

    Brown, A. L.

    Cox, J. R.

    Bruce, hon. R. P.

    Cozens-Hardy, H. H.

    Brunner, J. T.

    Craig, J.

    Bryce, J.

    Craven, J.

    Buchanan, T. R.

    Crawford, D.

    Burt, T.

    Cremer, W. R.

    1023

    Crilly, D.

    M'Carthy, J

    Crossley, E.

    M'Carthy, J. H.

    Davies, W.

    M'Donald, P.

    Deasy, J.

    M'Ewan, W.

    Dickson, T. A.

    M'Lagan, P.

    Dillwyn, L. L.

    Mahony, P

    Dodds, J.

    Maitland, W. F.

    Duff, R. W.

    Mappin, Sir F. T.

    Ellis, J.

    Marum, E. M.

    Ellis, T. E.

    Mayne, T.

    Esmonde, Sir T. H. G.

    Menzies, R. S.

    Esslemont, P.

    Molloy, B. C.

    Evans, F. H.

    Morgan, right hon. G. O.

    Evershed, S.

    Fenwick, C.

    Morgan, O. V.

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro-

    Morley, rt. hon. J.

    Finucane, J.

    Mundella, right hon. A. J.

    Firth, J. F. B.

    Flower, C.

    Murphy, W. M.

    Flynn, J. C.

    Neville, R.

    Foljambe, C. G. S.

    Nolan, Colonel J. P.

    Forster, Sir C.

    O'Brien, J. F. X.

    Foster, Sir W. B.

    O'Brien, P. J.

    Fox, Dr. J. F.

    O'Brien, W.

    Fry, T.

    O'Connor, A.

    Fuller, G. P.

    O'Connor, J.

    Gardner, H.

    O'Connor, T. P.

    Gaskell, C. G. Milnes-

    O'Hanlon, T.

    Gilhooly, J.

    O'Hea, P.

    Gill, T. P.

    Palmer, Sir C. M.

    Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

    Parnell, C. S.

    Gladstone, H. J.

    Paulton, J. M.

    Gourley, E. T.

    Pease, A. E.

    Grey, Sir E.

    Pease, H. F.

    Grove, Sir T. F.

    Pickard, B.

    Hanbury-Tracy, hon. F. S. A.

    Pickersgill, E. H.

    Pinkerton, J.

    Harcourt, rt. hon. Sir W. G. V. V.

    Plowden, Sir W. C.

    Portman, hon. E. B.

    Harrington, E.

    Potter, T. B.

    Harrington, T. C.

    Powell, W. R. H.

    Harris, M.

    Power, P. J.

    Hayden, L. P.

    Power, R.

    Hayne, C. Seale-

    Price, T. P.

    Healy, M.

    Priestley, B.

    Healy, T. M.

    Pugh, D.

    Holden, I.

    Pyne, J. D.

    Hooper, J.

    Quinn, T.

    Howell, G.

    Randell, D.

    Hoyle, I.

    Rathbone, W.

    Hunter, W. A.

    Redmond, W. H K.

    Illingworth, A.

    Reed, Sir E. J.

    Jacoby, J. A.

    Reid, R. T.

    James, hon. W. H.

    Rendel, S.

    Joicey, J.

    Reynolds, W. J.

    Jordan, J.

    Richard, H.

    Kay-Shuttleworth, rt. hon. Sir U. J.

    Roberts, J.

    Roberts, J. B.

    Kenny, C. S.

    Robertson, E.

    Kenny, M. J.

    Robinson, T.

    Kilbride, D.

    Roe, T.

    Labouchere, H.

    Roscoe, Sir H. E.

    Lalor, R.

    Rowlands, W. B.

    Lane, W. J.

    Rowntree, J.

    Lawson, Sir W.

    Samuelson, Sir B.

    Lawson, H. L. W.

    Samuelson, G.B.

    Leahy, J.

    Schwann, C. E.

    Leake, R.

    Sexton, T.

    Lyell, L.

    Shaw, T.

    Macdonald, W. A.

    Sheehan, J. D.

    MacInnes, M.

    Sheehy, D.

    Mac Neill, J. G. S.

    Sheil, E.

    M'Arthur, W. A.

    Simon, Sir J.

    1024

    Sinclair, J.

    Vivian, Sir H. H.

    Slagg, J.

    Wardle, H.

    Smith, S.

    Warmington, C. M.

    Spencer, hon. C. R.

    Wayman, T.

    Stack, J.

    Whitbread, S.

    Stevenson, F. S.

    Will, J. S.

    Stevenson, J. C.

    Williams, A. J.

    Stuart, J.

    Williamson, J.

    Sullivan, D.

    Williamson, S.

    Sullivan, T. D.

    Wilson, C. H.

    Summers, W.

    Wilson, I.

    Sutherland, A.

    Winterbotham, A. B.

    Swinburne, Sir J.

    Woodall, W.

    Talbot, C. R. M.

    Woodhead, J.

    Tanner, C. K.

    Wright, C.

    Thomas, A.

    Thomas, D. A.

    TELLERS.

    Trevelyan, right hon. Sir G. O.

    Marjoribanks, rt. hon. E.

    Tuite, J.

    Morley, A.

    Amendment proposed, in page 5, line 24, leave out the second "the" and insert "such."—(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'the' stand part of the Clause."
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he ventured to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that it would be a shorter way to reach the object they had in view to strike out Clause 8. He saw no reason why the Committee should waste so much time on a number of verbal Amendments. The brains were out of the Bill, and it was said that, "when the brains were out the man must die."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was evidently unfamiliar with Parliamentary procedure, or he would know that if the clause were struck out it would not be in the power of the Government to transfer by Provisional Order at all. He had undertaken that they would proceed next Session to transfer these powers by Provisional Order.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had been good enough to instruct him by means of his longer experience. He did not think it necessary to dispute the right hon. Gentleman's proposition, and would humbly bow to it. At the same time, the right hon. Gentleman would allow him to say that if all this work was to be done next Session, it might be better to discard the form of a Provisional Order, and introduce "A Bill to provide the County Councils with something to do."
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he ventured to propose that, instead of listening to any more of the frothy sentiments of the

    1025
    right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, they should proceed, if possible, in a business-like manner with the Amendments on the Paper, and in that way make progress with the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman was always complaining of the evisceration of the Bill by hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House; but he hoped it would be observed by those outside the House that the real and practical evisceration of the measure, by the omission of Clause 8, came from the right hon. Gentleman himself. The Amendment he (Mr. Chaplin) had moved was simply consequential, and, therefore, it was not necessary to dwell upon it. In conjunction with the Amendments which followed, it was intended to carry out the decision at which the Committee had arrived after considerable discussion—namely, to transfer the powers under this clause by Provisional Order instead of by Statute.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment proposed, in page 5, line 25, leave out from "of" to "other," in line 41.—(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had stated that if the Bill were eviscerated at all it would be by adopting the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, that Clause 8 should be struck out. He would point out, however, that the adoption of the Amendment just moved would make the clause a shadow and a sham.
    MR. CHANNINGsaid, he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin) that the Committee ought to discuss these Amendments in a business-like way, and make progress with the Bill; but he thought that far greater progress would be made if the Government did not change their mind every five minutes on the Bill. A suggestion had been made with regard to the time when the powers under the Bill should be transferred, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken of a reference to a Select Committee. Were
    1026
    the Committee to understand that a Select Committee was to be appointed at once to go into the question, so that the country might know what powers the Government were going to bring in legislation to transfer to the County Councils? Or were they to understand that the Government proposed that a Select Committee should be appointed at the beginning of next Session to consider what powers should be handed over to the County Council, that the Committee would sit all through the Session, and at the end of the Session make a Report, and then that in the Session following, if the present Government were then still in existence, some proposal might be laid before the House? He ventured to say that the Business of the House would be facilitated if the Government stated definitely what they intended.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said nothing about a Select Committee. But the ordinary course with reference to a Provisional Order Bill was that it should be read a second time, and if there was any opposition to the proposals in the Bill, it would be referred to a Select Committee in the ordinary course. What the Government hoped and believed was that in all propability the Committee stage of such a Bill as was contemplated would be an extremely short one; probably it would not exceed a week in duration.
    MR. CHANNINGasked whether they were, then, to understand that no answer was to be given to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby?
    Question put, and agreed to.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had stated that the administration of the Poor Law should not be transferred to the County Councils, and he had also said that he had no intention of transferring the powers of the London School Board to the County Council for London. It was not difficult to understand why the Government did not propose to transfer those powers; because the County Council for London, if it had, in addition to the business of the Metropolitan Board of Works and Quarter Sessions, to conduct that of the London School

    1027
    Board, would be completely overloaded. But the effect of the Amendment which he was about to move would not apply merely to the Metropolis; it would apply to the whole of the school boards of the country. It would be possible if the Bill were to come into operation in its present form, to lay upon the Table of the House for 30 days a scheme for the transfer of the whole of the school board administration throughout the country to the County Councils, which after that time, without any expression of opinion on the part of those interested in the school boards, would take place. He would like to give some reasons why he thought it impossible, at the present juncture, so to transfer the work of the school boards. There were in England and Wales more than 2,000 school boards, which had educational control in respect of 17,000,000 of the population; they were in the administration of funds amounting to £5,000,000 a-year, and they had, on the whole, done their work with great advantage and to the entire satisfaction of the country. They had increased the school attendance since they came into existence by more than 250 per cent; they had raised the standard of education in all the schools of the country, including the voluntary schools, which had been benefited thereby.
    MR. RITCHEsaid, he might save the right hon. Gentleman some trouble by saying that the Government were willing to accept words to exclude the school boards. The Government had never intended to transfer to the Councils the powers of the school boards, which had been set up by Act of Parliament.
    MR. MUNDELLA, asked what where the powers of the Educational Department which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to transfer to the County Councils?
    MR. RITCHEsaid, the Government were desirous of making the clause as comprehensive as possible, and they thought it simpler to put in the words "Education Department," because there might be some smaller matters that it would be useful to include.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that the revision of the schemes of the Charity Commissioners relating to Endowed Schools was work which would be taken out of the hands of the Education Department,
    1028
    and given to the County Councils. He begged to move the omission of the words.
    Amendment proposed, in page 6,1ine 2, to leave out the words "or the Education Department."—(Mr. Mundella.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAINsaid he could not conceive anything which it would be more desirable to entrust to the County Councils than the duties connected with local charitable schemes. The whole object of the Party to which his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) belonged had been for some time past to secure some local control over the Charities, and yet they had the right hon. Gentleman getting up and disclaiming against the provision of the Bill which might by possibitity give much power.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he had no objection to the Councils having some control over secondary education, but he thought some power ought to be left to the Education Department.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he entirely agreed with what his right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) had said. It was of the highest importance that powers like those referred to should be transferred to the County Councils. He could only understand the view taken by his right hon. Friend the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman's own able administration of the Education Department had convinced him of the infallibility and perfection of that particular Department. Now, that was a great danger they had got to guard against—the belief in the Departments that nobody could do anything but them. If they really wanted to decentralize, they must resist that opinion. What he was afraid of was the pressure of the Departments, and that was why he wanted Parliament to take the matter into its own hands. In respect to all these Provisional Orders, they had the Departments fighting for every scrap of power they could get. That was really the decentralizing clause in the Bill, and if they wanted to make it effective, they ought to extend

    1029
    the powers as far as they could. They always found an enemy in a Department. He had been in Departments, and therefore he knew what the feelings existing there were; they would regard it as a point of honour to resist anything being taken away from them which they could possibly retain. He would point out to his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) that, if his Amendment were accepted, they could not transfer any powers, because they would not have the authority under the Bill. After what had been passed in reference to Provisional Orders, they would be perfectly safe; the House would have control over what it transferred, and if any power was to be transferred improperly or which ought to be reserved, they could upon the Provisional Order discuss the transfer; but if they adopted, the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment they could not transfer anything, however desirable. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that there were some powers which might very well be transferred, but they could not be so transferred under the Amendment. He (Sir William Harcourt) hoped that these words would be left in the clause; because if so, the Government would have discretion and the House would have the power to deal with the different matters.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, he was glad he was able on that occasion to concur most heartily and entirely with everything which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), with, perhaps, a slight reservation. He did not think that the Heads of Departments deserved the censure implied in the right hon. Gentleman's observations. No doubt, they were exceedingly able and exceedingly well-informed public servants, and it was very natural that they should from time to time desire that the work in which they were interested should be conducted in the best possible manner. But there was a public interest involved in this question which the House ought to consider, and that was the great necessity of decentralization. The Public Departments were overwhelmed by caring for matters which ought to be cared for by the people themselves. It might happen that, under the new system,
    1030
    the work might not be done in all respects so perfectly as, he believed, it was done in the Public Departments; but there would be great gain to the public interest in this work being done locally, and in accordance with the local feelings and sentiments of the people. Under those circumstances, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) would not press his Amendment. He was obliged to refer to one observation which had been made in the course of the discussion. He thought it was extremely inconvenient to refer to past debates in that House. He possibly did give, on behalf of the Government, an undertaking to endeavour to accomplish certain purposes and objects; but he would prefer that the question of what interpretation was to be put upon his words should be deferred until his observations appeared in print. Certainly, he did not think that it was advisable at the present time to engage in a conversation upon the subject with the right hon. Gentleman across the Table of the House. He trusted the Committee would allow the words proposed to be left out to remain in the Bill, as he personally attached great importance to them.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that all he had asked the right hon. Gentleman was that he would fulfil the pledge he gave to the House in the debate they had a few weeks ago on secondary education. He, however, wished to make no further reference to that, because certainly they would hold the right hon. Gentleman to his engagement. As the powers were to be transferred by Provisional Order, and as it would be possible to deal with every case as it arose, he was quite willing to withdraw his Amendment upon the distinct understanding that no elective Bodies, school boards or others, would be in any way influenced by the Bill.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he thought it was well to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Government proposed to accept the words suggested by the right bon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) with reference to school boards and Boards of Guardians.
    MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, the assurance given by the right hon. Gentleman that there was to be no interference with the school board

    1031
    system was very good as far as it went; but, unfortunately, in 10,000 out of 13,000 parishes in the country, there was no such body as a school board, and yet there was an educational system in which they were all interested. He would like the right hon. Gentleman to give them some further assurance—namely, that in no provision of the Bill would there be any power conferred upon the new Bodies to give any local grants out of local funds, or to give any support in any shape or form to what were called the denominational schools of the country.
    THE CHAIRMAN: That is quite outside the scope of the Amendment.
    MR. ILLINGWORTH: But it is cognate to the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman.
    THE CHAIRMAN: But I stopped the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. CHANNINGsaid, that he had an Amendment lower down on the Paper dealing with this subject; and perhaps this would be a convenient opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman to make his undertaking a little more definite. He agreed largely in the remarks made with regard to the transfer of many duties of the Education Department to the new County Councils. As to the transfer of the powers relating to industrial schools, and to the development of agricultural and technical education, he had not a word to say. The point that he specially wished to secure, was that the school boards should not be included in the Clause. But there was a second point in his Amendment to which the right hon. Gentleman had not referred. That point had reference to the Governing Bodies of endowed schools which had an elective element. He did not know whether it would be out of Order to ask, as an undertaking in regard to that special point, that the local centres—
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman is clearly out of Order.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. T. E. ELLISsaid, he begged to move to insert, after the words "Education Department," "Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue Commissioners." There was no public Body which required greater re-organization than that of the Woods and Forests Commissioners. There was no
    1032
    Body which could so well give up some of its duties, such as the control and improvement of waste land, to the Local Authorities as could that Body. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board might reply that that Body was included in the words "or any other Government Department," but he, (Mr. T. E. Ellis) desired the insertion of these words, to show the urgent necessity of the powers vested in this Body being transferred to the County Councils.
    Amendment proposed, in page 6, line 2, after the words "Education Department," to insert the words, "Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue Commissioners."—(Mr. T. E. Ellis.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that the proposal of the hon. Gentleman stood on an entirely different footing to anything which had been suggested or was contained in the Bill. The hon. Gentleman was no doubt aware that the Body to which he alluded was the Body which had the management of Crown property, and, therefore, it was clear it would not be within the scope of the Bill to transfer to the management of local elective Bodies the powers vested in the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue Commissioners for dealing with Crown property. He was afraid it would be impossible for the Government to accept this Amendment.
    MR. RATHBONEsaid, he was sorry to hear the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman, because, in his opinion, there was no administrative Department in the State which was more grossly obstructive to the interests of the public than the Department of the Woods and Forests. He was quite satisfied that the present Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) would bear him out that there was no Department in the State which ought to be brought more under the control of some elective Body than the Department of Woods and Forests.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he must support the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board in his opposition to this Amendment. If the Amendment meant anything, it meant that the management of Crown property should be transferred to County Councils. [Cries

    1033
    of "No, no!"] He did not know what else it could mean but that. Though he was not qualified to say that the Woods and Forests was by any means a faultless Department, and might not require reform, that was not the way in which to bring about an amendment. What happened with reference to the Woods and Forests was this. Before the Woods and Forests were made a separate Department, the whole of the Crown property was practically wasted, owing to the fact that it was administered by a Minister under the control of Parliament, who insisted in one way or another in making away with the funds it yielded. The Crown lands now yielded something like £350,000 a-year, the revenue had largely increased under the management of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and that was a reason for not doing away with the Department, still less for giving them as a gift to Authorities who, he was afraid, might be quite as bad as the original management.
    MR. CHAPLINsuggested to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis) that instead of putting the Woods and Forests under the County Councils, it would be better to put them under the new Agricultural Department, of which they had heard a good deal lately, but which did not seem to be very much nearer being established.
    MR. T. E. ELLISsaid, he could not assent to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, because he had not any great faith in the Agricultural Department. He would like to point out, in answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), that if reforms had been already effected in the management of Crown lands, there was no reason why they should not carry the process of reform a little further. There was no doubt that much of the old maladministration remained, and that the revenue from the Crown lands could be much increased. He ventured to say that in regard to thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres of Crown lands in various parts of the country, especially in Wales, the revenue could be doubled and trebled, and quadrupled, if they were managed with anything like intelligence and local knowledge. Crown property was, after all, only national, and the people's
    1034
    property. He was certain that, with regard to allotments of land for building in industrial districts in Wales, an immense amount of good could be done by conferring control of this property on a representative popular Body. Although he had very much respect for the opinions usually put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), he felt bound to press this Amendment to a Division.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he had only one word to say, and that was, that if the hon. Gentleman had any information which would result in anything additional being secured by way of revenue to the country from the Crown property, he trusted the hon. Gentleman would put himself at once in communication with the Government. The Government were bound to protect the revenue, and he did not think the hon. Gentleman had made any suggestion which would afford security in that direction.
    MR. ASQUITHsaid, he could not help suggesting a point that he thought was raised by the discussion, and that was, what was the meaning of the words in the Bill "or any other Government Department." His hon. Friend (Mr. T. E. Ellis) moved to insert the words "Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue Commissioners;" he (Mr. Asquith) would like to ask one of the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench to give them information as to whether the Woods and Forests was a Government Department. If it was, its powers were already, under the proposal of the Government, transferred, or capable of being transferred, to the County Councils. If it was not a Government Department, then it would be interesting to the Committee to learn what was a Government Department, and it would be desirable, with a view to the proper construction of this Act, when it became an Act, that some definition of a Government Department should, either in this clause or in some other part of the Bill, be inserted.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he imagined the Woods and Forests was a Government Department.
    MR. ASQUITH: Are they?
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, of course it was. Hon. Gentlemen would see they specifically named certain Government De-

    1035
    partments, and that it was clear the Government could bring in, under the clause, a Provisional Order dealing with any Government Department. It was one thing to have general words of this kind dealing with every Government Department, and another thing to mention Government Departments specifically by name.
    MR. ASQUITHsaid, that in that case the Amendment was entirely unnecessary. It would clearly be within the power of the House, by a Provisional Order, to transfer, if it saw fit, these very powers to the County Councils.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, if these words were inserted in the Bill, it would amount to an expression of opinion that the Woods and Forests should be included among those Departments whose powers were to be transferred.
    MR. A. L. BROWN (, &c.)said, that the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) had asked for information as to anything likely to increase the revenue derived from Crown property. If the right hon. Gentleman would turn his attention to the Scotch fisheries, he would see that a larger revenue might be derived.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) had emancipated himself from many Conservative prejudices, but he seemed still to labour under some such prejudices in regard to the question of the Crown lands. There could be no greater fallacy than the contention that Crown lands were not national property. They were national property, and it was a mere fiction to call them Crown lands. It was a fiction which had a very deleterious effect, because there were many instances in which Crown lands wore not administered for the benefit of the people. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT assented.] He was delighted to see the right hon. Gentleman assented to that view. If it was possible to improve such a condition of things so that the Crown lands could be managed for national and local benefit, great public advantage would result from the change.
    MR. RATHBONEsaid, that the Woods and Forests Department had possession of a considerable part of the
    1036
    foreshores, and, instead of considering they were the Trustees for the national benefit, they were often obstructive in their action.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the foreshores were under the Board of Trade. [Cries of "No, no!"] He was sure they were in Scotland, and he thought they were so in England.
    MR. RATHBONEsaid, that a case had come under his notice within the last year in which the Woods and Forests Commissioners prevented a Company getting at the sea as a means of transit for a very long time, and thereby considerably impeded the trade of a district.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he might add that there were cases in Scotland in which the foreshore had been made away with by the Department of the Woods and Forests at a very nominal price. No greater abuses had been perpetrated in recent years than those connected with the Scotch foreshores.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid, that the way in which this Amendment had been supported put many of them in a difficulty. It had been said there was a great deal of obstruction, and even some corruption in the Department of Woods and Forests, and with that opinion many hon. Members cordially agreed. But what he desired to put forward was, whether it was expedient to mix up the question of obstruction by the Woods and Forests Department with the question of the transfer of powers to the local Bodies? Would matters be improved if the powers were transferred to local Bodies? Let them have another inquiry like the Metropolitan Board of Works inquiry, to see whether the charges of obstruction and corruption were true, and whether a larger national revenue could not be derived from the property. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) that this was national revenue which ought to remain in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he should be very sorry to see the Woods and Forests transferred to Local Councils. Certainly, he did not, by voting against the Amendment, desire to say that the Woods and Forests were anything but very grossly mismanaged.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, that the word "corruption" had been used in regard to an official Department. [Hon. GENTLEMEN: Possible corruption.] No; it was rather more than that. He asked if it was fair, unless there was real evidence to that effect, to use such a term? They could not brand a great Department of State on evidence that had not been examined with vices from which, he thought, our Civil Service had been conspicuously free.
    MR. BUXTONsaid, he would withdraw the word "corruption," and express regret for having used it. The word he ought to have used was "obstruction."
    MR. A. J. WILLIAMSsaid, that all that was wanted was that there should be some control over the administration of the Woods and Forests which would be to the benefit of the different localities. That was only common sense, and he trusted his hon. Friend would go to a Division.
    MR. PICKERSGILLtrusted his hon. Friend would not press the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman had stated very strongly that Crown property was national property; but it seemed to him (Mr. Pickersgill) that the distinct effect of his Amendment, if it were carried, would be not to make the Crown property national property, but to convert national property into local property. In that sense the Amendment did not seem reasonable, and he, for one, could not support it.
    Question put, and negatived.
    MR. CHANNINGsaid, that the feeling which animated him and other hon. Members in wishing to have some such Amendment as that which stood in his name was, that the clause, as drawn, undoubtedly gave power to school boards and other elected educational authorities to wipe themselves out of existence by an Order in Council, and to apply for the transference of their powers to the County Councils. It was well known that strong representations had been made in this House by the Birmingham and the London and other School Boards in the country that that would be thoroughly undesirable. It was notorious to every Member in the House who had paid attention to the recent history of the education question, and who had read the
    1038
    important memorandum which appeared in The Times newspaper yesterday, and who had considered the important evidence given by a former Secretary to the Education Department and by the present Secretary of that Department, that many distinguished public officials and men who had taken a prominent part in educational matters, wished to carry out the definitely formulated scheme which was very fully put before the country in the letter of Sir Francis Sandford. That certainly was a matter which should not be dealt with by a side wind, should not be brought in as a mere permissive portion of a Bill of this kind, but should be dealt with on its merits. There was no doubt that the scheme brought before the Education Commissioners, and the scheme formulated yesterday by Sir Francis Sandford, contemplated the removal of the principle of the compromise of the Act of 1870, and the introduction of the principle of paying denominational schools out of the rates. He thought the Committee was entitled to ask why Her Majesty's Government had inserted words in this permissive clause which, without the slightest doubt, gave power to the school boards to apply for their own extinction? Hon. Members who had followed the matter must perfectly well remember the discussion on the clause introduced by Mr. Pell in 1876. The permissive power given in that clause, however, was of a much more limited character, and there was under that clause power to restore the school boards if desirable. When Mr. Pell's clause was discussed, no hon. Member of the House expressed himself more strongly against the power to bring the school board system to an end than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Birmingham (Mr. Bright), whose temporary absence they all so much deplored. He (Mr. Channing) had reason to press for an answer from the Government as to how these words appeared in the Bill. Had not the country some right to challenge the Government, and say they had been attempting, in this Bill, to introduce by a side wind one portion of the first step in the scheme for placing denominational schools on the same footing as board schools, and for handing over the control of education from the elected representatives of small local

    1039
    areas, men who were acquainted with the local feelings of the people, to a central body at some distance from the localities. He thought the principle of local control was the keynote of the success of education in England. It was the secret of the magnificent results obtained by such a school board as that of Birmingham, and it was equally true of the Managing Committees of voluntary schools. His amendment applied also to the endowed schools of the country, where there was an elective element in the body of governors. He quite agreed with much that had been said in regard to transferring to the County Councils some control over the endowments of the country. But he held that it was vitally important to maintain some form of local administration, so that the special wants and interests of the locality might be secured. He had reason to believe that the first part of his Amendment would be accepted by Her Majesty's Government; but he trusted that on consideration they would be disposed to accept the whole of it.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 6, line 9, after the words "authority" to insert the words "or a school board, or other board, committee, or authority elected directly or indirectly to deal with educational matters, or any body of trustees or governors, wholly elected, or partly elected and partly nominated, for the management of an endowed school."—(Mr. Channing.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he was sure the Committee would hardly expect him to enter into a discussion of the merits of the Act of 1870, or of the manner in which the school boards of the country had fulfilled the duties cast upon them. He would only say that no one valued more than he did the provisions of the Act of 1870, and none were stronger in their admiration of the manner in which that Act had been carried out, and of the enormous benefit conferred upon the country by the school boards elected under the Act than himself. But it was unnecessary for them to enter into a discussion of that, because they had said explicitly, that they did not intend that the question of school boards should be included in the provisions of the Bill, and they had said they proposed to ac-
    1040
    cept the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin), which specifically excluded school boards from transfer under the Bill. With reference to the latter part of the Amendment he had to point out that, in his opinion, all the hon. Gentleman desired to safeguard was amply safeguarded, now that they had accepted the proposal that no transfer should be made without Parliament being consulted and having an opportunity of expressing its opinion in the matter. That, he thought, would be accepted by the Committe as sufficient to safeguard all the hon. Gentleman had dwelt upon, and therefore he thought that, under the circumstances he had named, it would not be advisable to insert in the Bill the words the hon. Gentleman had suggested.
    MR. MOLLOYunderstood the right hon. Gentleman to say that school boards were to be excluded from the action of the Bill.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that they were not included; but, in order to make it perfectly plain that they had no intention of superseding boards elected in that way under a specific Act of Parliament, by bringing in a Provisional Order, they would assent to them being excluded. They thought, looking to the nature of the powers, and the manner in which school boards were constituted, and the way they were elected, that if any alteration were made, it ought to be made by a public Act of Parliament.
    MR. MOLLOYasked if the Government meant to prevent the possibility of school boards being brought by Provisional Order, or otherwise, under the authority of the County Councils?
    MR. RITCHIE: Certainly.
    MR. MOLLOYsaid, that in that case he could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman had given no reasons. Education was a question for the people, and the people themselves were better able than anyone else to judge what kind of education they required. Yet the right hon. Gentleman had now announced, for the first time, he believed—[Mr. RITCHIE: No, no!]—that he intended to take away from the people powers given under the Bill in that respect. The hon. Member (Mr. Channing) speaking in favour of his Amendment, which he (Mr. Molloy) hoped would be withdrawn for some

    1041
    other, had contended that the system of education given under the school boards was satisfactory. He (Mr. Molloy) could not agree with the hon. Gentleman. He did not think that the system of education, so far as it related to the fitness of boys, when they left school to take up occupations in the world, was as good as seemed by many to be imagined.
    MR. F. S. POWELLsaid, it seemed to him that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Molloy) did not fully appreciate the meaning of the Amendment. The Bill as it now stood preserved from interference certain Bodies elected by the ratepayers, such as Corporations, as well as urban and rural authorities. This Amendment was to preserve other Bodies likewise elected by ratepayers from interference. He was surprised there was any objection raised to the Amendment on the other side of the House; certainly he must deprecate any attempt to enter upon a wide discussion of educational subjects upon that clause.
    MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would satisfy the Committee upon one point. As he understood the matter, there was no intention, and it had been made clear by the acceptance of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), that there should not be any interference with, or absorption of, the school boards by the County Councils. What he was anxious to know was whether any of the functions now exercised by the Education Department in connection with voluntary schools would be in any way transferred to the County Councils?
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, the Government had not the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind.
    MR. ILLINGWORTHbelieved that that statement would tend to shorten the discussion, because there was great anxiety, and, he must say, considerable jealousy upon the Education Question, considering the position in which it now stood. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had given an assurance to the Committee that there was no intention whatever of transferring any powers or altering the relationship between voluntary schools and the Department, except by
    1042
    an express Act of Parliament in the form of a Provisional Order. If that were the case, perhaps his hon. Friend would not find it necessary to press his Amendment.
    SIR LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, that under the Bill, no alteration could take place as to the endowed schools.
    MR. CHANNINGsaid, that after the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Leeds (Sir Lyon Playfair) he would not trouble the Committee by pressing that part of his Amendment which dealt with endowed schools. With the permission of the Committee, he would withdraw his Amendment, and simply move the insertion of the words "or a school board."
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment proposed, in page 6, line 9, after the word "authority," insert the words "or a school board."—(Mr. Channing.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. RITCHIEthought it would be more convenient, the hon. Gentleman's former Amendment having been withdrawn, that his right hon. Friend's (Mr. Chaplin's) Amendment should be put, which included Boards of Guardians as well as school boards.
    MR. CHANNINGpointed out that there was no objection to the words of his Amendment, whereas the additional words in the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) might lead to controversy.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Amendment proposed, in page 6, line 9, after the words last inserted, to add "and not being a Board of Guardians."—(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. CONYBEAREsaid, that as it appeared that the Amendment was about to be passed nemine contradicente, it was as well he should express a view, which he knew was held heartily on the Opposition side of the House, that Boards of Guardians ought to be disestablished and their powers transferred to the County Coun-

    1043
    cils. He knew that in that statement he was largely supported by the popular Party in the House. [Laughter.] Well, they would be able to know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite formed the popular Party when they had the courage to go to the country. Anyhow, he and his hon. Friend's had all along held that one of the greatest defects in this measure was that the Government had left altogether in an unreformed condition the Boards of Guardians in the country. He did not desire to say much upon the question; but as the right hon. Gentleman had proposed to purposely exclude Boards of Guardians from being transferred to the County Councils, it was their duty, at any rate, to utter a protest against that view, because they considered that the duties of Boards of Guardians were among the most important duties which County Councils ought to have to perform, being as they were so intimately connected with the welfare of the people of the country. It was perfectly well known that Boards of Guardians did not give satisfaction to the people. The qualification for membership was a high one; there were ex officio members, and if the Government were really sincere in their constant profession of trusting the people, they would have no difficulty whatever in handing over to the County Councils the duties at present inadequately performed by Boards of Guardians.
    MR. RITCHIEthought he should be able, in a very few words, to show how impossible it would be to transfer the power of Boards of Guardians to County Councils. Guardians were Guardians for Unions, while County Councils would be composed of the representatives of several Unions, and without an entire re-arrangement of the whole system it would be quite impossible to transfer the power of Boards of Guardians to County Councils. What the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Conybeare) suggested could only be done by a complete scheme and not by any method of transfer.
    Mr. F. S. STEVENSONsaid, that if the contention of the right hon. Gentleman was correct, the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin) was really unnecessary. If, on the other hand, the effect of the
    1044
    Amendment would be to prevent the transfer of powers from the existing Boards of Guardians to some other authority, the Amendment was in the highest degree mischievous. If there was one thing which was brought out more clearly than another in the debate on the second reading, it was that the existing system which the Bill proposed to continue, by which they were to have the constitution and qualification and mode of election of Boards of Guardians continued on the same basis as now, was one of the most anomalous features of the Bill. Surely an Amendment which provided that at no future time should it be possible to do away with Boards of Guardians, except by a special Bill brought in the House, was one which ought to be strenuously resisted.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that the Amendment only prevented the transfer of these powers by a Provisional Order—the transfer of the powers of a Body composed of representatives of one small area to a Body composed of the representatives of a very much larger area by a Provisional Order. He thought that whatever might be the opinion as to the expediency of the transfer in the future, hon. Members would agree with him that the transfer ought to be done by means of a Bill which would deal with the entire re-arrangement which would have to take place if the transfer were to be made.
    MR. H. GARDNERsaid, he had understood from the Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Long), that it was extremely probable that it would be left to the County Councils to determine whether the powers of the Boards of Guardians should be altered or reformed under the new conditions of the Local Government Bill.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. LONG)said, he never made any statement of the kind.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    On the Motion of Mr. CHAPLIN, the following Amendments made:—In page 6, line 11, after "suit," insert "exceptions and modifications as appeared to be expedient and also such;" and in line 15, after "thereof," insert "shall be."
    MR. T. E. ELLISsaid, that the Amendment which stood in his name was to leave out the words—
    "By the Secretary of State or Department concerned, or approved by the Commissioners, Conservators, or body corporate or unincorporate, whose powers, duties and liabilities are affected thereby.
    He wished to ask the Government whether it was really necessary to include these words? Their object appeared to him to be that if any power was to be diverted from a Department to the County Councils, the approval of the Department must be had beforehand. He imagined that the Government of the day would bring forward a Provisional Order, whether they had the consent of the permanent officials or not. If that was the case, he thought it would be better to leave these words out of the Bill.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, it was not a question of the permanent officials at all. The Local Government Board would be under the Bill charged with the preparation of the Provisional Orders, and clearly it was essential that the words should be inserted to show that before the Local Government Board acted in that way, the draft orders should be submitted to the Departments concerned for their approval.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, the Amendment which he had now to propose provided that before the Order in Council was made, the draft thereof should be approved by the County Council to whom the power was to be transferred.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 6, line 15, after "approved," insert "by the County Council to which the transfer is proposed to be made, &c."—(Mr. Firth.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he was sure the Committee would see at once the enormous amount of inconvenience which might possibly follow the acceptance of such an Amendment as that. For instance, it might be desirable that certain powers should be transferred to a County Council, and it would be excessively inconvenient if the County Council said, "We do not want these powers." It was quite clear that they must deal with this question as a whole, and, under the circumstances, he trusted the hon. Gen-
    1046
    tleman would not press his Amendment.
    MR. BAUMANNtrusted the right hon. Gentleman would consider whether he could not insert some words, either now or on Report, which would give the County Council of London an opportunity of saying whether it would or would not take over powers which it might be sought to transfer by Provisional Order. He thought it was not at all unlikely that an attempt might be made to overload the new County Council of London with powers and duties which it would have no desire to take, and which, considering its numbers, it might have no power to discharge. He thought that it was only reasonable that this Body should be asked whether it was prepared to take over powers contemplated to be transferred to it.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, that this was not a case of Provisional Order, but of Order in Council.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that was so; and that was really the answer to his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Baumann).
    M R. FIRTHsaid, he should be willing to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. FELLOWESsaid, he now begged to move the Amendment, No. 17a, standing in his name—namely, to leave out, in line 15, from "approved," to "shall," in line 18, in order to insert—
    "If it relates to the powers, duties, or liabilities of a Secretary of State, or the Board of Trade, or any other Government department, by such Secretary of State, Board, or department, or approved, if it affects the powers, duties, or liabilities of any commissioners, conservators, or body, corporate or unincorporate, by such commissioners, conservators, or body."
    The object of the Amendment was very simple; it was only more clearly to define the powers of the Commissioners. At the present time something like 300,000 acres of fen land in Lincoln, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and the Isle of Ely were under Drainage Boards, and it was considered that it would be very disastrous if the powers now exercised by those Drainage Boards should be handed over to those who were inexperienced in and knew nothing about fen land drainage. He therefore hoped the Committee would accept the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 6, line 15, leave out from "approved" to "shall," in line 18, and insert "if it relates to the powers, duties, or liabilities of a Secretary of State, or the Board of Trade, or any other Government department, by such Secretary of State, Board, or department, or approved, if it affects the powers, duties, or liabilities of any commissioners, conservators, or, body corporate or unincorporate, by such commissioners, conservators, or bo0dy."—(Mr. Fellowes.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, in framing the Bill it had been intended that words should be inserted to carry out exactly the intentions of the hon. Member. He was bound to acknowledge, however, that the point was much more clearly put by the words proposed. The words of the Amendment were very explicit, and therefore he should be happy to accept them.
    MR. BRUNNERsaid, he should like to ask whether the word "commissioners" did not leave the clause too wide?
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he did not think so, as the clause already contained the word, and the Amendment simply referred in that respect to what was already adopted.
    MR. BRUNNERsaid, he would ask, would not this word be held to include Improvement Commissioners?
    MR. RITCHIE: No, the Amendment simply follows the clause which refers to Commissioners of Sewers.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he now moved to omit the words—
    "Shall be laid before each House of Parliament for not less than thirty days on which such House is sitting, and if the House before the expiration of such thirty days presents an address to Her Majesty against the draft or any part thereof, no further proceeding shall be taken thereon, without prejudice to the making of any new draft order, but otherwise the draft or such part as is not the subject of any such address shall be deemed to be approved by Parliament."
    His object was, afterwards, to insert the words—
    "And every such Provisional Order shall be of no effect until it is confirmed by Parliament."
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 6, line 18, leave out from "thereby," to end of line 25, and insert "and every such Provisional Order shall be of no effect until it is confirmed by Parliament."—(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be loft out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that this Amendment the Government, of course, accepted, as it had been the understanding throughout that the Provisional Orders they were speaking of were Provisional Orders which should be laid before Parliament.
    MR. CONYBEAREasked whether any Provisional Order ever came into effect without being laid before Parliament?
    MR. RITCHIE: Yes; some of our Provisional Orders have come into effect without being laid before Parliament.
    MR. CONYBEARE: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean simply by remaining on the Paper without notice being taken of them?
    MR. RITCHIE: There are Board of Trade Provisional Orders, I know, which come into force without being submitted to Parliament at all.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
    MR. WOODALLsaid, he rose to move Amendment No. 24, after line 25, to insert—
    "Provided further that nothing in this section, nor in any order made under this section, shall extend to transfer to a county council, or to render exercisable by a county council, any power, duty, or liability within or with respect to any borough not by this Act constituted a county of itself."
    He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would see the propriety of accepting this Amendment. They had now arrived at a fair understanding of the constitution of the County Council, and the position in which it would be placed by the Amendments which had been adopted by the Committee. It would be remembered, with regard to the powers which were to be transferred from the different Government Offices to the new County Authorities, that they had learned from the right hon. Gentleman himself that the provision would not apply in the case of any measures promoted by the Authorities themselves. The provision for transferring these

    1049
    powers would not apply in the case of any of the scheduled boroughs; therefore it was clear that, much as they had desired decentralization and devolution, the Home Office, Board of Trade, and Local Government Board would be under the necessity of continuing the staff of competent men they had hitherto employed, in order to deal with those matters which would be referred to them under the same conditions as heretofore, and all this Amendment asked was, that corporate boroughs which were of less population than those exempted, that was, under the 50,000 population limit, would be left as heretofore, rather to the Government Authorities than to the newly constituted County Councils. He trusted it would not be necessary for him to occupy the time of the Committee at any length in arguing considerations which must be obvious to all hon. Members present. He was glad to see in his place the hon. Baronet the Member for the Blackpool Division of Lancashire (Sir Matthew White Ridley), whose very weighty illustrations in support of this Amendment had, unfortunately, been heard by such a small number of Members. There must, however, have been many Members in the House who had been urged by their constituents to support this Amendment, and he, therefore, ventured to submit it to the Committee.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 6, after line 25, insert—"Provided further that nothing in this section, nor in any order made under this section, shall extend to transfer to a county council, or to render exercisable by a county council, any power, duty, or liability within or with respect to any borough not by this Act constituted a county of itself."—(Mr. Woodall.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he could understand the hon. Gentleman placing this Amendment on the Paper, and desiring to have it inserted as the clause was originally drawn, because, when the clause stood in its original form, certain powers were at once transferred to the County Councils, many of those powers being powers connected with the issue of Provisional Orders, and many of them dealing with matters affecting the arrangements of the Imperial Government with the boroughs. But it must be pointed out to the hon. Gentleman
    1050
    that the face of things had very materially altered by the changes which had taken place in the clause.
    MR. WOODALLsaid, those changes had strengthened his point.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he did not think that could be the case, because, as the clause now stood, no transfer could be made except by means of a Provisional Order. It would be a matter for consideration, when a Provisional Order was made, whether it did or did not unduly and in an objectionable manner interfere with a borough. He thought it would be highly inexpedient to add a provision of this kind to a clause which would entirely prevent in future any power being given to a County Council which must be exercisable with reference to every borough within the county. He honestly believed that when this Bill came into operation boroughs which were contained within the counties would see, in reference to the position they would occupy on the County Councils, that in many matters for which they had now to come to the Government Departments, it would be more convenient and more desirable for them to go to the great Administrative Institution it was proposed to set up in every county. If this Amendment were accepted, it would prevent these powers being exercisable, and they would, for a time, until a fresh Act was passed, impose the duty on a borough of coming to the Central Department rather than going to the local Representative Institution on which they themselves were fully and adequately represented. He hoped, therefore, that, looking at the fact that there was a desire to carry out, as far as possible, a system of decentralization, and place in the hands of the Local Body those powers which had hitherto been discharged by the Central Authority, when the transfer was made from the Central Department, he hoped the hon. Member would see that the Government did not desire to infringe on the privileges of anyone in the county, but rather to increase them. All boroughs, by means of Provisional Orders, would be able to express their opinion upon any matter they thought desirable.
    SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid, he had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would have viewed this

    1051
    Amendment with more favour. The right hon. Gentleman forgot that the County Councils, as now constituted, would be very different Bodies to those foreshadowed in the Bill, and, he might say, as some of them would have preferred to see them. The right hon. Gentleman forgot that there were very few counties in England in which the County Councils would represent any boroughs at all. Take the large county of Lancaster. He could very well conceive that, if all the great boroughs in that county had found representation on a large Council formed for the representation of the County Palatine, it would have been possible to give them very many of the powers they had been discussing, and he presumed that no such Amendment as that now proposed would have been necessary. But what was the position they found themselves in now? There were many boroughs in Lancashire, part of which county he represented, which would not be treated as separate counties, and he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that these places had no desire to go to the new County Authority, as it would be constituted under this Bill, to get its sanction for Provisional Orders, or any other powers which might have to be given. These boroughs had already represented to the right hon. Gentleman that they would rather go to a Government Department. He had two or three boroughs in his mind in the county of Lancashire—health resorts, say. With what confidence could one of these go to a County Council such as they would be likely to have in Lancashire, where rival interests would, in all probability, be very largely concerned? Would they be able to go with the same confidence to such a Council as they would be able to go to a Central Department in London? The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board said that a Provisional Order would meet the whole case, and that boroughs which did not desire to come under the control of the County Council were to have the advantage of obtaining such Orders. He (Sir Matthew White Ridley) could quite understand that there was something in that view of the right hon. Gentleman; but his contention was, that the municipal boroughs were not adequately represented on the County Councils. The right hon. Gentleman the President of
    1052
    the Local Government Board said they were adequately represented, but that position he (Sir Matthew White Ridley) disputed. Why should those municipal boroughs be put in the position of having to oppose Provisional Orders promoted by the County Councils? They now asked that they might have a separate existence in the county, which was perfectly well understood; that all boroughs, whatever their population, should, with reference to these Orders, be excluded from the action of the County Council. Surely the case needed only to be stated to find some support, and he sincerely trusted the right hon. Gentleman would take a favourable view of the matter.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he agreed rather with the Government than with the hon. Baronet who had just spoken, or the hon. Member who had moved the Amendment. He would ask the question once more, were they or were they not engaged in decentralization? If they were, what was the object of the argument of the hon. Member that they ought to have centralization with regard to boroughs. ["No, no!"] Yes; that really was his argument, because all these authorities were to be reserved to the Government Departments. Now, he (Sir William Harcourt) wished to get this authority out of the hands of the Government Department as far as possible. He had been a party to getting the great boroughs out of the Bill, although, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, in the interests of his measure, would rather have kept them in. He (Sir William Harcourt) fully admitted that, if the great boroughs had been kept in the Bill, it would have strengthened the right hon. Gentleman's County Councils; but then there were rival interests in connection with the great boroughs, which the right hon. Gentleman had thought it necessary to respect. But if they were going to lay it down that all the small boroughs were also to be absolutely and entirely outside the purview of the County Councils as regarded these powers, practically speaking they would reduce their County Councils to a condition of comparative insignificance. Therefore, it was clearly in the interest of the Bill, as he was constantly contending, not to weaken the County Councils. He observed that

    1053
    the hon. Baronet (Sir Matthew White Ridley) had used these words—"Could these rival towns have confidence in the County Councils?" Why, that surely was a spirit of want of confidence which would weaken these Bodies very much. If they held the Councils up as Bodies to which towns in Lancashire could not safely trust their interests, they were disparaging the County Councils, not intentionally, perhaps, but they were expressing with regard to them a want of confidence that would very much diminish their authority. He objected very much to the exercise of many of these powers possessed by the Central Department. When he was responsible for the administration of the Home Office, he observed that Inspectors of Constabulary, for instance, were constantly going to towns and telling the Local Authorities that they ought to have more police than the Local Authorities thought they wanted. He absolutely prohibited any interference on the part of the Home Office with the Municipalities or the Local Councils in these matters. If these Councils knew anything at all, they knew much better than any Central Authority all about such matters as local police. The Inspectors of Constabulary, to his mind, were absolutely useless for the purposes for which they at present existed; and he referred to them as an illustration of what he considered a bad form of centralization. He should be very sorry to exclude from the Bill the power and means of getting rid of more of this Central Department authority. As the right hon. Gentleman had said, they did not commit themselves finally on the subject of what powers were to be given or not given, but, by keeping these words out of the Bill, they would be keeping open to themselves the means of transferring such of the powers as might be thought desirable.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he concurred with the views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. In his opinion, the County Councils would be in an extremely anomalous position if the Amendment were accepted. All these boroughs would be represented on the County Councils—and he did not know whether he had misunderstood the hon. Baronet in saying that they might not all be represented.
    SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid, that rival towns would be represented on the same Council, and it would not be a pleasant thing for a health resort, for instance, to apply to such Council for a Provisional Order, it might be, against the desire of other towns.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, that with all respect to the hon. Baronet he had more confidence in what the position of these County Councils would be than to imagine that there would be such rivalries and jealousies between one town and another, which would prevent a town getting what it desired. It would be a matter for consideration, when a Provisional Order was brought in, what way the borough should be dealt with. Though he thought there was a great deal to be said for the view of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hanley (Mr. Woodall), in regard to the transference of many of the powers which were of a debatable character—questions involving Provisional Orders—yet he thought that the concession the Government had made as to Provisional Orders really removed the main ground for this Amendment.
    SIR JOHN SWINBURNEsaid, he hoped the Government would give this matter further consideration. The small boroughs, one of which he had the honour to represent, were strongly opposed to these rights being taken away from them. They were prepared to manage their own affairs through the Central Department, and they asked that they should not be disturbed. As the hon. Baronet the Member for the Blackpool Division of Lancashire (Sir Matthew White Ridley) had said, they would be represented upon the County Councils, but they would have only one member, perhaps, on a Body consisting of 70 or 80, and their voice would be almost unheard amongst such a large number. The whole sense of the Bill, as proclaimed by the Government, was that vested interests would not be disturbed—that nothing would be taken away from any vested interest, so far as any local affairs were concerned.
    MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, he also desired to support the Amendment. He was certain that the municipal boroughs of the country were most anxious to be exempted from the authority of the

    1055
    County Council, and not to be interfered with by it. The old Municipalities, almost one and all of them, begged to be exempted. He, therefore, agreed very much with what had fallen from the hon. Baronet the Member for Blackpool, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman who was in charge of the Bill would look favourably upon the proposal.
    MR. BRUNNERsaid, he regretted he could not support the Amendment of his hon. Friend, though it was impossible for him to follow the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill. It seemed to him that the County Councils, as constituted by the Bill, would be somewhat less worthy of respect than they would have been if all the boroughs of 50,000 and upwards had been represented upon them; but, on the other hand, he thought it would be a sad thing on the part of the House to keep up two Authorities to which appeal could be made on matters such as were dealt with in the Schedules. Although ho had always had a very great respect for the action of the officials under the Local Government Board, he thought it would be well that the County Council should be the Authority of the future, not only because he had every confidence they would do their work well, but also on account of the educating influence which would thus be brought to bear upon them. He wished to point out, that if the proposal for selective Councillors were dropped the County Council would be more respected by the boroughs the hon. Baronet had spoken of than they would be in the future. This question of selective Councillors, however, had been thrashed out, and he did not wish to say more about it. He had endeavoured, in the consideration of this Bill, to put aside all Party matters, and he desired that those County Councils should be as greatly respected and as dignified as they could possibly be made, and he believed that if, by-and-bye, those selected Councillors no longer existed, the County Councils would be more respected.
    MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) in his desire for decentralization, and, at the same time, he agreed with those who supported the Amendment; but he thought that another alternative
    1056
    might be suggested which did not appear to have been brought before the Committee. It appeared to him that what they wanted to do was to carry out decentralization as far as possible, but, at the same time, to safeguard the individual urban life of the different municipalities, on behalf of which the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Woodall) and the hon. Baronet the Member for the Blackpool Division (Sir Matthew White Ridley) had spoken. Ho would ask if these two conflicting views could not be brought together by providing that, when a measure of decentralization should have taken place, authorities which differed very much in themselves should be transferred, some to one party and some to another? When the measure for decentralization was adopted and a Provisional Order Bill was brought forward, some of these powers might be transferred to the District Council. These District Councils would, he understood, in many cases be the municipalities which they were speaking of. He felt very strongly that the County Councils should have ample powers and should be made as dignified as possible, so as to command the confidence of the people generally; but at the same time they did not want altogether to stifle the individual municipal life of the old established boroughs which were now in question. He would, therefore, venture to suggest whether the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would not consider the possibility of making some arrangement in the direction proposed. He did not say that the right hon. Gentleman should accept the Amendment as it stood upon the Paper, but he would ask whether the right hon. Gentleman could not frame some suggestion, at a later stage, to provide that when such transfers of powers took place as was proposed, some of the powers should be transferred to the District Authorities instead of the whole of them being transferred to the County Councils. It struck him that this proposal might meet with the approval of the hon. Member for Hanley, and at the same time bring into harmony the conflicting views of hon. Members.
    SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid, he wished to add a few words in favour of the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for

    1057
    Hanley. He believed that if the Bill was carried without the Amendment it would do harm to the municipal life of the small boroughs. Many of these boroughs were very ancient, and they would be placed in a secondary position—as compared with the position they had held in the past—under the Bill as it at present stood, and he did not think that would be good for their municipal life. Moreover, the adoption of the clause without this Amendment would be a slur upon those boroughs which during the past few years had been created municipal boroughs, as they would be placed in a secondary in place of an independent position as regarded the County Authority. The clause, unless amended, would afford an obstacle to the creation of new municipalities in the future, as they would have to maintain their claim through the County Councils instead of through a Government Department. It was in the interests of independent local life, which he thought ought to be encouraged and fostered by every means in their power, that he strongly supported the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hanley. One of the best things in our local life from one end of England to the other had been the growing up of communities into independent centres of local self-government. He wanted that state of things to continue. He did not wish to see these boroughs interfered with, whether they were old or new, as he did not wish to see these places put in an inferior position to a Body which would very often be out of sympathy with them.
    MR. WOODALLsaid, he should be very sorry to put the Committee to the trouble of a Division if he could avoid it; but he certainly, under the circumstances, felt bound to divide. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board could suggest anything to give effect to what he had understood him to imply—namely, that there might be the possibility of devising some method by which the municipal boroughs might have an option in the matter of going either to the County authority or to the Government authority.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he was afraid it would be very inconvenient to have a dual control, but he had always said that when they came to consider the
    1058
    question of the transference of powers by means of Provisional Orders, he should be very glad to give full consideration to the suggestion made.
    MR. WOODALLsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman would see that his Amendment proposed that whatever might be the powers given under the Provisional Orders to county authorities, the municipal boroughs should be exempted.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he could not possibly accept that.
    MR. HALLEY STEWARTasked, would the right hon. Gentleman consider the proposal of the hon. Member for the Camborne Division of Cornwall (Mr. Conybeare)?
    MR. RITCHIE: We give large powers of delegation from the County Council to the District Council?
    MR. CONYBEAREasked whether it would not be possible, without putting the Committee to the trouble of a Division, to leave the matter so far open that when they came to discuss the matter of delegating these powers, they would still be in a position to discuss the question they were now discussing?
    SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Hanley would not think it necessary to divide the Committee upon this Amendment. It had not received much support, and there seemed to be a great deal in what was said of the changed position effected by the Amendments in the clause.
    MR. WOODALL: Perhaps the Government would prefer that we should report Progress?
    MR. RITCHIE: Certainly not.
    Question put, and negatived.
    It being ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  QUESTIONS.

    CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—ADMINISTRATION OF THE ACT.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: I suppose I am right in assuming that as Monday was fixed for the debate on the Motion of which I

    1059
    have given Notice, by that time the Returns for which I asked before the Whitsuntide Recess and the other on the 1st of June will be produced by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland?
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): With regard to the first, I am not sure whether I can give all the particulars for which the right hon. Gentleman has asked with regard to the sentences; but as to the other and more important Return, I have communicated to the authorities in Dublin, and I am glad to find it will be possible, without doubt, to have the Return in question in manuscript in the House on Monday, with the exception of the portion of it which relates to the county of Kerry. It may be possible, also, to include the county of Kerry, but I am not certain. I have telegraphed to Dublin and asked that, if possible, this Return should be put into print in Dublin, so that it may be brought before the House without delay. I may point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that is quite an unprecedented course to take, as all such Returns are invariably presented to the House in the first instance, and then ordered by the House to be printed; but I have taken the course I have indicated with the object of placing the information before the House as soon as possible.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY: But Kerry is one of the most important scenes of the operation of the Act. Can the right hon. Gentleman not give me any particulars with reference to that county?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, I think I can give the right hon. Gentleman a very large number of particulars, but I cannot pledge myself to have the formal Return with regard to Kerry by Monday.

    CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE(IRELAND) ACT, 1887—JUDGMENTS IN THE KILLEAGH CASE—NOTES OF THE JUDGES' DECISION.
    MR. T. M. HEALYinquired whether the notes of the Judges' decision in the Exchequer Division with reference to the alleged conspiracy at Killeagh would be ready by Monday?
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, that he could not undertake without longer Notice to comply with the hon. and learned Gentleman's request, as it was unusual and would be inconvenient.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: We have put constant Questions on this subject for a week past. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman had full Notice. We want materials upon which to ask the opinion of the House with regard to these Resident Magistrates.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that the inquiry to which the question refers has only just finished. Therefore, the Question could not have been asked before.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLrose to put a further Question, but
    It being Seven of the clock, the House suspended it Sitting.
    The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

  ORDERS OF THE DAY.

    SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

    CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.—RESOLUTION.
    DR. CAMERON, in rising to move—
    "That in the opinion of this House the Church of Scotland ought to be disestablished and disendowed,"
    said, the question of Church Disestablishment differed in Scotland and in England in this material respect, that while the Church of England was in fact the Episcopal Church in England, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was by no means synonymous with the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. It was, in fact, a mere fraction of it, and the connection between Church and State in Scotland had been the cause of every secession that had taken place within its ranks. Wholesale secessions had occurred, and a Presbyterian community had sprung up outside the walls of the Established Church essentially the same in doctrine, equal or greater in point of numbers, which was not

    1061
    behind the Established Church in material wealth and energy, which was perfectly efficient for the work of the country, and which, as a matter of fact, was carrying on the religious work of the country in the poorest districts in Scotland. So far from the present privileges and position of the Established Church having a tendency to bring about union in the different religious Bodies, it was admitted by the most far-seeing supporters of the Church—it was admitted, for example, by the Duke of Argyll—that nothing was so likely to bring about the union of the Presbyterian Bodies as Disestablishment. That opinion was held by the opponents of the Establishment. It was admitted on both sides that the present state of things could not last long in Scotland. Either Parliament itself must soon wake up to the inexpediency and injustice of the Establishment, the retention of whose privileges afforded a motive for a constant struggle against the sister institutions, or the Established Church would, by means of the State aid which it received, gradually weaken and undermine the great ecclesiastical edifice which had grown up by its aid. Among the Presbyterian communities the question of Disestablishment resolved itself into the question of whether the resources of the State, to which non-Churchmen as well as Churchmen had to contribute, should continually be applied to fostering the dependence of Presbyterianism on State aid; or whether, the connection between Church and State being severed, the principle of religious equality being practically recognized, and the property of the nation being applied to really national purposes, the Churches should be left to work out their own destiny in accordance with the spirit of the times. The statistics were disputed. On the one side the Established Church claimed a majority of the Presbyterian community—he did not think justly—and on the other side the Free and United Presbyterian Bodies claimed that they embraced a majority of the Presbyterian worshippers; but about this there was not the slightest doubt, that the Established Church did not embrace a majority or half of the population of Scotland. The highest claim advanced on behalf of the Established Church was only 46 per cent of the population. The number of places of worship maintained
    1062
    by the Established Church was over 100 less than those of other Presbyterian Churches, and about 1,000 less than those of the Nonconforming Bodies of Scotland. Now, he asked, why should this sect or section of the old creed continue not only this monopoly, but also be allowed to interfere in purely civil affairs at the present day? Why should it be allowed to control the Theological Chairs in the Universities; and why should its ministers enjoy any special immunity from taxation, or interfere through its Kirk Sessions with the constitution of Parochial Boards, to which were entrusted the incidence of the most important items of local taxation? It was in accordance with the spirit of the old times, when there was religious unanimity, that certain privileges should be conferred upon the Established Church. In those days it was held responsible for the poor, and for the morals of the people; but now a new state of matters had arisen. The Established Church had ceased to represent the community; it had ceased even to represent the Presbyterian community. Among a certain portion of the religious Bodies the connection between the Church and State was regarded as sinful and unscriptural, and conscientious objections were entertained to being compelled to contribute towards the maintenance of a State Church. A vast majority of the Free Churchmen considered that under existing circumstances the maintenance of the Established Church was unjust and inexpedient. The fact of the Free Church, which was favourable to the general principle of Establishments, having been compelled by force of circumstances to declare that the maintenance of an Established Church in Scotland was inexpedient and unjust, should be considered a testimony of enormous weight by the Members of this House. The indignation with which the Free Church had again and again resisted the pecuniary bribe of participation in the endowments to go over to the Establishment might be taken as a proof of the earnestness of conviction on the part of members of that Church. Of the two great Presbyterian Nonconforming Bodies in Scotland, one was dead against all connection between Church and State, and the other declared that in existing circumstances the maintenance of the

    1063
    connection was inexpedient and unjust, and besides those two Bodies there were a number of others who held precisely the same opinion—Baptists, Evangelicial Unionists, Methodists, Congregationalists, and others—all of whom protested against the maintenance of the Establishment as unjust. Again, it was not a Church question only, but Disestablishment was becoming a great political question. With hardly an exception, resolutions in favour of Disestablishment had been adopted by every Liberal association throughout the country, and wherever there was a conference of delegates of those Liberal associations resolutions in favour of Disestablishment and Disendowment were adopted now as a matter of course. Coming to the question of endowments, it was not easy to give exact figures, because most of them had to be dug up from a whole mass of documents. The endowments of the Church of Scotland amounted to between £330,000 and £350,000 a-year, exclusive of a sum averaging £40,000 a-year which the Church received in the shape of an assessment for the maintenance and repair of Ecclesiastical buildings. The total amount received by the Established Church of Scotland in the shape of endowments was therefore less than £400,000 per annum, and that was a mere fraction of the revenues of the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, which amounted to about £1,750,000 sterling yearly. The endowments which the Church received from the State were from various sources. There was a sum of £17,000 got under Act of Parliament from the Consolidated Fund for the payment of stipends in the Highlands, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate (Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald) himself a few nights before had admitted to be wasted. There was another portion of about £20,000 derived from local and burgh assessments, and he did not think the right of Parliament to deal with a Parliamentary grant which was being wasted could be questioned, or that its right to deal with local assessments would be contested, As to the sum received by the Church in the shape of assessments for the repair and maintenance of Ecclesiastical buildings, their hon. Friends opposite admitted the right of Parliament to deal with it, inasmuch as Bills had con-
    1064
    stantly been brought in relating to the subject. But the greater portion of the endowments of the Church was derived from tiends or tithes. Those, his opponents said, were the patrimony of the Church, and they stigmatized any proposal to divert those tiends to secular purposes as spoliation and robbery. He denied that in toto. These endowments from the tiends or tithes were national property, and Parliament had a perfect right, having regard to life interests, to direct them to whatever purpose it pleased. Indeed, he considered Parliament had infinitely more right to deal with those tiends than with Corporation funds, and with the private and recent endowments for educational and charitable purposes on which in the public interest it so constantly laid violent hands. But if his opponents would assert that there was any spoliation in the question, he would reply that the right of the Church of Scotland to these tiends was based entirely on spoliation. Tiends were not instituted by the Presbyterian Church, but by the Roman Catholic Church or the ancient Caledonian Church, and if there was any spoliation, it was practised on the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. The Scottish Parliament treated those tiends or tithes as public funds, and for several years after Presbyterianism had superseded Roman Catholicism as the Church of Scotland, no provision for the maintenance of Presbyterian clergy out of tithes existed. Again and again, in the course of various Ecclesiastical revolutions in Scotland, those revenues had been diverted from the Presbyterian Church as the national Church of the country and oscillated between Presbyterianism and Episcopacy. He contended that these tithes were purely national property, that the application of them to a single sect was unjust and inexpedient, because it afforded a lever for the injury of other Bodies who taught the same religion, and who were equally able to provide for the spiritual wants of the people. He maintained, also, that these endowments were unnecessary in the interests of Presbyterianism, because they constituted so small a fraction of the revenues of the Presbyterian religion that their withdrawal would not seriously affect it. He believed one effect of their withdrawal would be to bring about a

    1065
    re-union in the Churches, and effect a saving in the working expenses that would compensate for any immediate inconvenience. It was the principle of Disestablishment and Disendowment that he and those who supported him wished to vote in favour of. They had no wish to interfere with life interests, or to imitate the policy which the Church of Scotland itself, controlled by the State, was obliged to adopt in dealing with the people who seceded from it, and whom it sent forth to the world stripped of all their ecclesiastical property. He considered the present system unjust and inexpedient, and proposed another system which was just and expedient. He proposed that the application of the money shall be to some national object. It was calculated that the money would be more than sufficient to meet local charges for education throughout the country, and sufficient in many Highland parishes to provide a satisfactory solution for the crofter question. As to the destination of the funds, however, that was matter for subsequent deliberation. Meanwhile, he wished the House to affirm the principle that the endowments of the Church of Scotland should be put an end to. The position of the Church of Scotland had ceased to be what it was 20 years ago. Its members had adopted an aggressive attitude, and that was the reason why Disestablishment was demanded. The Patronage Act was the first step in this policy of aggression. [Cries of "No!"] Was it not the passing of the Patronage Act that preceded the action of the Free Church in regard to Disestablishment? Since then the aggressive policy of the Church and its friends had been steadily continued. Only two Sessions ago a measure was introduced by the hon. and learned Member for the Inverness Burghs (Mr. Finlay) which was intended to withdraw from the Free Church community into the Establishment a number of Highland congregations. Then his hon. Friend (Mr. J. A. Campbell) had on the Paper a Bill which all the Nonconformists of Scotland regarded as a measure to strengthen the Established Church of Scotland at the expense of the Free Church. Moreover, there had that very day been brought forward by a noble Lord in "another place" a resolution to make the Established Church a really National Church, by allowing all Protestant ratepayers to
    1066
    vote in the election of her ministers. There were four Amendments on the Paper against the Motion. The first was by the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Baird), the second by the hon. Member for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Mr. J. A. Campbell), and the third by the hon. Member for St. Andrew's (Mr. Anstruther). The hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow (Mr. Caldwell), in his Amendment, introduced the Treaty of Union, but, so far as regarded the Church of Scotland, the Treaty of Union was irreparably broken—almost before the ink on it was dry—by the passing of the Act of Queen Anne which re-imposed lay patronage on the Church of Scotland. The Free Church, which now proclaimed the maintenance of an Establishment to be inexpedient and unjust, could advance the very best title to being the real heir of the pre-Union Church of Scotland. He (Dr. Cameron) did not propose any measure for the Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland, but simply proposed a Resolution which would afford means for the Representatives of the people of Scotland in the most authoritative and Constitutional manner to declare their wishes upon the subject. He had moved the same Resolution in the last Parliament, and had been defeated by a large majority, but in the minority were a considerable majority of the Scotch Members, and a very large majority of the Scotch Liberal Members. Including those who afterwards became Unionists, they were three to one in favour of the Motion, and exclusive of those Gentlemen they were seven to one. In 1877 it was evident that in consequence of the Patronage Act the question of Disestablishment and Disendowment in Scotland would become an active and burning question. That was prophesied by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), who said that the attempt that had been made to buy out piecemeal what had been driven out wholesale would produce that effect. When the official Leader of the Liberal Party—the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington)—made a speech at Glasgow embodying the policy of the Liberal Party on the subject of Disestablishment, he declared that whenever Scottish opinion,

    1067
    or even Scottish Liberal opinion, was fully formed on this question, he would venture to say that the Liberal Party as a whole would be prepared to deal with the question on its merits without reference to any other consideration. To that declaration the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian had repeatedly expressed his adhesion. The subject had been kept back for years,—first, because the county franchise question took the lead; and, secondly, at the Elections since another important question had been paramount. There were no longer any reasons which made it expedient to suppress this question, and the time had now come when he called upon the Leaders of the Liberal Party to give effect to the promises that for 10 years had been dangled before the eyes of the Scottish people, their most zealous supporters. He believed that on this occasion he should not appeal to them in vain to redeem their pledges. In October the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian made a speech at Nottingham, in which he referred at considerable length to the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church in Wales and Scotland. He declared that the question stood in the first rank of legislative urgency, and repeated his declaration that it ought to be dealt with in accordance with the views of the Scottish people. He further said that if Scotland sent as good a body of Home Rulers to Parliament as Wales, the question of Disestablishment in Scotland would take priority, because Scotland would be able to hold her own. [Laughter.] The right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had great power of laughter; but he did not laugh when he heard the news of the Ayr Burghs Election, and he knew the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian would recognize that every seat that has been won by his Supporters in Scotland since the split in the Liberal Party had been won in every single case by men favourable to Disestablishment. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman and the Leaders of the Liberal Party of the Scottish proverb, "Giff-gaff maks guid friends; "and that the obvious corollary of the proposition laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was, that if he would strengthen the Liberal ranks from Scotland and the Party he led, he must
    1068
    give a proof of the practical nature of the belief which he had expressed on behalf of himself and his Friends that this question was now ripe for decision. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
    MR. ESSLEMONTin seconding the Resolution, said, it might not be inappropriate, as the Motion had been proposed by the Representative of a largo city constituency, that he, as representing one of the large county constituencies in the North-East of Scotland, should second it. His hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron), he thought, had made out his case for Disestablishment, and they would look to the other side to make out a case for the continuance of religious inequality in Scotland. The hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Baird) had put an Amendment on the Paper which in plain language said that the Motion tended to irreligion and immorality. He (Mr. Esslemont) need not say that, as a Presbyterian and a loyal adherent of the same Confession of Faith as the hon. Gentleman, if he thought the Motion had a tendency to irreligion and immorality, he should be the last person in the world to preach the doctrine of Disestablishment. The hon. Member for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Mr. J. A. Campbell), who also had an Amendment on the Paper, objected to the Motion, because the position of the Church of Scotland did not warrant them in interfering. He (Mr. Esslemont) had never, in the discussion of the subject, made comparisons with Churchmen, and he was willing to admit, having been connected with the Presbyterian Church for nearly 40 years, that during the most of that time the Church of Scotland had been growing in activity and in vigour in the great work of religion throughout Scotland. But why should they not interfere with that temporal question of Disestablishment and Disendowment? The Church of Scotland was established for three purposes. Its first duty, he admitted, was to look after the religion of the people; but there were two other duties reposed in it under the old parochial system. The first of these was the charge of the poor; but that duty had long ago been consigned to the tender mercies of the ratepayers. The second was the education of the

    1069
    young; but that also had been removed from the hands of the Church; and he challenged any of the champions of the Church to say that the Education Act had not been, in the main, a great benefit to Scotland. Therefore, two of the elementary functions of the Church of Scotland had been disposed of, and the question they had to consider was, whether the time was not come when the endowments of the Church should be distributed over an area which would be useful to the whole community, instead of confining them any longer to the upholding of what was merely a section of the Church. It had been said that the people of Scotland did not wish their Established Church to be interfered with; but how could the minds of the people of Scotland upon this point be ascertained? The question had been brought prominently before the minds of the Scotch electors during recent elections, and the people had declared themselves either in favour of or against Disestablishment and Disendowment, and it was notorious that the largest portion of those returned were in favour of religious equality. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the St. Andrew's Burghs (Mr. Anstruther) had said in his Amendment that they ought not to apply this money for secular purposes. It was a new doctrine that money which belonged to the public might not be applied for any purpose which the country thought best deserving of support. Many people argued, and it was a favourite assertion of those who were opposed to him upon the question, that the supporters of Disestablishment were in favour of taking away a certain patrimony from the people of Scotland. He thought it only required a very elementary consideration of the question to lead one to the conclusion that neither he nor anyone else proposed to do anything of the kind. Not one farthing of this money would be lost to the people of Scotland. He asked merely whether the time had not come when they might apply it for a universal purpose, in which every parishioner would have an equal share. The proposition of the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow (Mr. Caldwell) was somewhat contradictory. The hon. Member first said that the Imperial Parliament could not interfere, and then he said that the Imperial Par-
    1070
    liament ought to interfere as soon as the people of Scotland told it do so. He left the hon. Member on the horns of the dilemma. There either ought to be home rule on this question, or there ought not. He would make the friends of the Established Church a present of the fact which they put forward, that they were in a large majority in Scotland. In that case, on account of their power and their numbers, they ought to be the more ashamed to take from their Roman Catholic brethren, their Episcopalian brethren, and those who differed from them, the money to support their religion. In the county he represented, there were in many of the parishes one endowed Church and two other Churches belonging to the same denomination, which were neither endowed nor established. These were chapels of ease. Did this great Established Church of Scotland hold to its principles? No; it did not. In not one of those parishes did the old Church seek to divide its loaves and fishes with the others. The whole endowment was kept to the one Church, while the others were allowed to find the means of grace in voluntary subscriptions. Yet this Church, which they were told existed on endowments, really raised as much by voluntary subscriptions as it did from endowments. He did not wish to raise the sectarian question. He was content to rest himself on the political aspects of this question, and he was obliged, in accordance with principles which he had always held, to say that they should no longer withhold from the people in the country a share in the administration of funds to which they had an equal right. He had much pleasure in seconding the Amendment of his hon. Friend.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the Church of Scotland ought to be disestablished and disendowed,"—(Dr Cameron,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. BAIRD, who had given Notice of the following Amendment—
    "That, in the opinion of this House, the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church

    1071
    of Scotland would be contrary to the interests of religion and the moral welfare of the people, and this House therefore declines to entertain the proposal,"
    said, since he had given the Notice he had been given to understand that the Rules of the House precluded him from moving the Amendment, and that nothing remained for him but to meet the original Resolution with a direct negative, seeing that the Division would take place on the Question that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair. He was perfectly satisfied with that. His only wish was that the question should be properly and adequately debated, and that a Division should be taken upon it. The hon. Member for the College Division (Dr. Cameron) asked the House to agree that the Church of Scotland should be Disestablished and Disendowed. It was the desire of the hon. Gentleman that his proposition should be carried out to its logical conclusion at as early a date as possible. The idea was evidently intended to be conveyed to the electors, that if they would only return a sufficient majority to Parliament they might look forward to the Disestablishment of their national Church. He (Mr. Baird) did not think such a great question as the Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland ought to stand on such a footing. It ought to stand by itself and be judged on its own merits, and its fate should be decided apart from any other consideration whatever. It had been suggested on high authority, expressed in many quarters, that the matter should be left entirely to the people of Scotland—that if they decided that Disestablishment should take place, then there was nothing more to be said. He agreed with that opinion to a certain extent. He believed that when the people of Scotland had fully made up their minds that the Church should be Disestablished and Disendowed, it would then take place. But what he wanted to know was, how were they going to gauge the opinion of the people of Scotland? They might endeavour to make it a test question at the General Election; but he thought every Member of the House would admit that it would be utterly impossible to separate such a question as Disestablishment from the thousand and one questions which agitated the minds of the electors at such a time. They could not avoid mixing it up with
    1072
    the Land Question or the Drink Question, and say they had a decision on Disestablishment. A plebiscite is sometimes mentioned in this connection, a sort of glorified local option, in fact; and possibly the machinery provided by the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan) would be brought into operation for the purpose. They would then see, not whether the people would abolish public-houses, but whether they would abolish what was one of the greatest enemies to drunkenness. It was often said that the people of Scotland were Radical; but upon some questions he claimed they were the most Conservative people on the face of the earth, and, if this question were put to them fairly and unobscured by other questions, he believed they would display a Conservatism which would be absolutely shocking to many hon. Members opposite. The fact was, the Scotch people had not been consulted on the matter at all. It was said the other night that Scotch opinion was overborne in that House; but as for this being the voice of the country, he would only like hon. Members to go down to their constituencies and take their stand on the single platform of the Disestablishment of the Church, and they would soon see whether the statement that the voice of Scotland, which hon. Members said was to be overborne to-night, was a true one or not. That question of Disestablishment, involving as it did separation from the State, was one on which the English Members were perfectly entitled to give their opinion. He should be glad if the hon. Member for the College Division would bring in a Bill formulating in plain language his proposals, and he should like to appear on the back of it some names he could mention. A few years ago a Bill was brought in by Mr. Dick Peddie, which was one of the wildest ever brought from the Bar to the Table of the House, and it contained proposals so revolting to the people of Scotland, that he was absolutely inundated with Petitions against it. That Bill was dead and buried, and he did not think it would ever be resuscitated. On the back of that Bill appeared the name of the hon. Member for the College Division, but that was no reason why the hon. Gentleman should not introduce a Bill on his own behalf. Many of the hon. Members who sup-

    1073
    ported the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) upon general questions of policy, he believed, would be very much inclined to withdraw their support, and no one knew that better than the right hon. Gentleman himself. In 1885, when the question of Disestablishment was brought forward, a great agitation was raised against it by the Liberals, and at the last moment the right hon. Gentleman withdrew the subject, finding he had made a mistake, and the election proceeded on other questions. He (Mr. Baird) deprecated the idea that the support of the Church devolved entirely on the Conservative Party. There was no one who was acquainted with the history of Scotland who did not know that since the secession of the Free Church in 1843, the Church had made up much of her lost ground, and had greatly recovered from the severe blow then dealt her; but that was no argument, although often used, why she should be dealt another blow in the shape of Disestablishment and Disendowment. Although much of the lost ground had been made up, there was still a large field for her exertions, and any measure that might arrest the development of the Church, such as Disestablishment, was contrary to the religious and moral welfare of the people of Scotland. He was not going into the question whether these endowments were national property or not, but in this connection he would like to point out that the Church itself was the property of the nation, and was free to all. There was nothing to prevent any man—whether United Presbyterian, Free Church, Roman Catholic, or Atheist—from going into the Church and partaking in its services. He maintained that the Church of Scotland outnumbered, by a large majority, the communities of the Free Church and United Presbyterian Church, and it outnumbered all the other Churches, including the Episcopalian and the Roman Catholic Churches, by over 60,000, and he believed it would be shown that the accommodation provided by the Nonconformist Bodies was very small in comparison with that provided by the Established Church. The argument as to the voluntary offerings of the Established Church being smaller than those of the Free, was a purely commercial one. It was treating the Churches
    1074
    as if they were great Railway Companies competing, against one another. In order to obtain a true comparison as to the liberality of the two Churches, the amount of private income of the individual members had to be taken into consideration. The true test of the value of a Church was not the amount of money it gave, but the amount of good it did. It had been said that Disestablishment would lead to a union of the Churches; but he scouted the idea, and wanted to know whether, if the Church was Disestablished, it was at all likely to rush into the arms of the Nonconformists? Suppose one brother fell out with another, was it likely that union would be promoted by one brother giving the other a blow in the face? The Church of Scotland was a progressive Church. Parliamentary Returns in 1874 showed that the number of communicants in the Church of Scotland was 460,000, in 1878 they numbered 515,000, and by the Parliamentary Return for 1884 the number had still further increased to 555,622. Since 1843, the year of the Disruption, 352 new parish churches had been erected, and nearly £2,000,000 had been spent in building churches and manses and in endowing churches. In conclusion, he said that the Established Church had made enormous strides of late years, and was still growing. It had great influence amongst the people of Scotland, and no one who loved his country could look unconcernedly at a blow directed against the Church, which, if effectual, they believed would do serious damage to the best interests of the people of Scotland.
    MR. HOZIERsaid, he desired to congratulate the hon. Gentlemen the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution on the direct character of the Motion they supported. He, for one, greatly preferred an honest, upright, straightforward opponent to one who shilly-shallied and beat about the bush; and to those who pursued such tactics, he would say that even on the lowest ground, the ground of expediency, it was madly a paying policy to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He did not think the hounds cared much for those who hunted along with them and yet were continually trying to throw them off the scent, while, on the other hand, the hare did not care very much

    1075
    for even the sweetest scent of those who ran along with it, because in that sweetness was always a nasty taint of red currant jelly. Those who were conscientiously in favour of the maintenance of the connection between Religion and the State had good reason to congratulate themselves upon the progress their cause was making, and the way in which Disestablishment was more and more going into the background of late years. In proof of this he would call a witness who could hardly be said to be favourably inclined towards the Church—namely, the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) himself. That hon. Member, in 1885, before the General Election, gave Notice of a Motion which stood in the Order Book of the House of Commons for the next Session, as follows:—
    "Dr. Cameron—Church of Scotland Disestabment—That in the opinion of this House the Church of Scotland ought forthwith to be disestablished and disendowed."
    Now the hon. Member brought forward a Motion upon the same subject, but omitted from it the word "forthwith." That was to say, that the General Election of 1885 killed the word "forthwith." [Laughter.] Surely the omission of that important word showed that between 1885 and the present time popular opinion in Scotland on the subject of Disestablishment had undergone a marked change. To prove that the cause of Disestablishment was losing ground he would call another hostile witness—the evidence of friendly witnesses not being nearly as telling—to testify that in 1884 it was nothing like so ripe as it was in 1874. Mr. Anderson, then Member for Glasgow—no relation, he believed, of the hon. Gentleman who at present represented the counties of Elgin and Nairn—Mr. Anderson speaking in that House, on 11th June, 1884, said—
    "He had always voted for Church Disestablishment as a matter of justice.…. He looked on that question from that point of view, and yet he was bound to say that in Scotland the question of Disestablishment was less ripe for solution now than it was 10 years ago. It was, he believed, a riper question in England, and certainly in Wales, than in Scotland. For one thing, Dissent had been uuder no social ban in Scotland.….There were other reasons which his hon. Friend very fairly pointed out—grievances in England and Wales—which did not apply to Scotland. A proof that the question was less ripe now than 10 years ago he
    1076
    gathered from his own constituency. His constituency was, to a large extent, for Disestablishment, and had always been so. Ten years ago he or his Colleague, or any Member of Parliament, could have got a bumper meeting in the largest hall in Glasgow in support of a Disestablishment Resolution. But about two years ago several prominent Liberationist M. P.'s went down to Glasgow and convened a meeting, and though they had the assistance of his hon. Friend and Colleague (Dr. Cameron) they could get nothing more than a half-filled hall. That was a very significant fact indeed."—(3 Hansard, [289] 41–2.)
    The Motion before the House was a mere abstract Resolution; but four years ago the advocates of Disestablishment went the length of introducing a definite proposal in a Bill. The Bill of Mr. Dick Peddie, he would remind his hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow, was a Bill bristling with Compensation Clauses. The landlord, the heritor, the minister, and the clerk were to be compensated; in fact, everybody was to be compensated except the poor man who was to be deprived of the Church which was his birthright. It had been said that the Scottish people were enthusiastically in favour of such a measure; but, if so, that enthusiasm was shown in a somewhat strange and curious manner On the back of that Bill appeared five names. The first was that of Mr. Dick Peddle. They all knew what happened to him. He was defeated for the Kilmarnock Burghs, in spite of a speech delivered for him by his hon. Friend the Member for the College Division, and he retired into private life. The next name was that of Mr. Webster, then Member for Aberdeen; he also had retired into private life. The middle name was that of his hon. Friend the Member for the College Division. The fourth name was that of Mr. Henderson, then Member for Dundee, who had retired into private life; and the fifth name was that of Mr. C. B. Bright M'Laren, who was recently defeated for the Borough of Stafford. He might, therefore, apply to his hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow the words—
    "'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone;
    All its lovely companions are faded and gone."
    Now, to what was the miraculous escape of the hon. Member for the College Division due? It might have been due

    1077
    to good luck or it might have been due to good management. To good luck, inasmuch as his was the middle name of the five, and there was an old Latin saying which ran—"In medio tutissimus ibis." But more probably it was owing to good management. Yes; good management, which consisted in the hon. Member repudiating every line of the very Bill on the back of which his name appeared. He would remind his hon. Friend that he was quite an old enough "Parliamentary hand" to know that it was just as dangerous a matter to put one's name on the back of a Bill in a political sense as it was to put one's name on the back of a bill in private life. There were responsibilities which one incurred in these circumstances which one could not shirk. The only way in which his hon. Friend could escape from the difficulty of the responsibility which faced him in connection with Mr. Dick Peddie's Bill was by saying that it was a Disestablishment Bill, and he did not like it to go forward without having a finger in it.
    DR. CAMERONsaid, he never repudiated any responsibility which he had ever incurred for the Bill. He approved of the principle of the Bill; but as for the details, he did not either suggest or draft them.
    MR. HOZIERsaid, exactly so; his hon. Friend backed a blank Bill as a matter of form, which entailed unpleasant responsibilities in political just as in private life. Whatever they might say with regard to this question, there was no doubt Mr. Dick Poddie's Bill held the field as far as any regular measure was concerned. It had never been superseded by any other scheme; and he would put it to any candid Scotsman whether it was not still more unpopular than any other measure ever presented to a country? They would be told that the votes of the majority of the Scotch Members would show the feeling of the majority of the Scotch people on the subject of Disestablishment. He emphatically denied that, whichever way the majority went. [Cheers and laughter.] He observed that the jeers came only from the Irish Members, who could hardly be expected to know much about the subject. The question of Disestablishment was by no means a test question either in 1885 or in 1886. What was Lord Rosebery's opinion? Whatever
    1078
    might be said for or against Lord Rosebery, no one would deny that he was the most admirable electioneering agent any candidate could wish, and one to whom the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was deeply indebted. In a letter to Dr. Hutton, dated Mentmore, September 3, 1885, he said—
    "I do not agree with you that the moment has come for making the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland an indispensable part of the Liberal programme. I do not believe that the country is ripe for it, while I suspect the main result of raising it would be to further Conservative prospects in the coming election. If the people of Scotland wish for disestablishment, nothing can prevent its becoming a test question; if the people of Scotland do not wish for it, nothing can make it one. To my mind, the main issue to be fought at those elections is whether the country is to be ruled for the next six years by Liberal or Conservative methods, to which all other controversies are subordinate."
    That was to say, Disestablishment was subordinate to the question of who was to sit on the Government Bench or on the other side. Moreover, a very important statement had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) on the subject which he (Mr. Hazier) did not think had been quoted at all. In the authorized edition of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, delivered on November 11, 1885, in the Free Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, the right hon. Gentleman said, with regard to Dr. Cameron's Resolution—
    "Gentlemen, I think the second question put to me is whether I should accept Dr. Cameron's resolution as conclusively conveying the opinion of the people of Scotland. In my opinion, gentlemen, we are not now speaking of the next Parliament. It is agreed we are now speaking, not of the next Parliament, but of the Parliament after it. Would that resolution be a binding resolution, accepted as conclusive with regard to the possible opinion of the people of Scotland on the question by the Parliament after the next? I tell you fairly no such resolution could be accepted as conclusive of the opinion of Scotland. It would require a long series of such resolutions, probably for a considerable time, to give that solidity to a declaration of that sort that would justify Parliament in so regarding it. We will take the supposition either way. Let us suppose that in this election the Church question is made a test question, and that Dr. Cameron's resolution was carried by a majority of Scottish Members. Well, people would very naturally say this. They would say an election carried upon this question as a test question is not a fair indication of the opinion of the people of Scotland on the subject, because the candidate who has voted

    1079
    for it has done so in consequence of the pressure brought to bear upon him at the election, and from the particular position of parties in his constituency it would be more in his interest to go in that direction than in the other direction. That is very unsafe ground to stand upon, and Parliament would be very slow to recognize it. But let us suppose, on the other side, that it is not made a test question. Well, then, if our view were to prevail, and if I am right in saying that every Liberal voter ought to support a competent Liberal candidate at this election, whatever be his opinion on the Church question, then, of course, no such resolution could be accepted as conclusive, because, as I have said, men were elected on general grounds of Liberalism, and were not elected on the Church question."
    He defied anyone to say that the Church Question was a test question in 1886 any more than in 1885. He himself spoke with a free hand, because he was for the Church both in 1885 and in 1886. His opponent, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, shilly-shallied in 1885, and said he would not vote either way. Lord Hamilton defeated him by shilly-shallying. But the electors found him out, and in 1886 he (Mr. Hozier) beat him, although Lord Hamilton then threw in the extra bait of Disestablishment. Coming now to the Church of Scotland itself, he would emphatically affirm, without fear of contradiction, that it was universally respected and beloved even by those outside it. He would quote the testimony of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) who was strongly opposed to an Established Church. Speaking in the House of Commons, on March 30, 1886, the hon. Member said—
    "In Scotland the Established Church is in doctrinal unity with the leading non-Established Churches. It was not an alien Church representing a hostile creed. It is the old Church, which at one time embraced within its fold the entire Presbyterian community in Scotland. It is a Church that was regarded, even by those who did not belong to it, without the smallest particle of anything like animosity. Its clergy are a hardworking and learned body of men, whose emoluments did not err on the side of excess, and it was not encumbered with overpaid and under-worked dignitaries. All its clergy meet on a footing of democratic equality, and its laity, equally with its clergy, shared in the government of the Church. Its history every Scotchman can read with pride.
    This was strong evidence in favour of the Establishment. He could not do better, in conclusion, than give the testimony of the late Mr. Forster, the son of a Nonconformist and brought up in the strictest tenets of Nonconformity.
    1080
    On January 5, 1878, at Bradford, Mr. Forster used these remarkable words—
    "Not only at present is it the business of the clergy of the Established Church to care for their parishioners, but these parishioners know that it is their business. There is not a man or woman among them, no matter how poor or degraded, who, when sick or sorrowful, or sore beset by the troubles of this life, has not a right to go to their parish clergyman and to ask him, 'What have you to tell me about that better life which is to come.' Now, I am not prepared to take this right from these men and women, and I am all the less prepared to do so because I know that vast numbers of the dwellers in these cottage hovels and in these city cellars go neither to the parish church nor to any church or chapel; but they know, and I wish them to continue to know, that they may ask for the religious help of their minister of religion—not because they are members of this or that congregation, but simply because they are Britons."
    He entirely concurred in those words. Therefore, he cordially supported the Auld Kirk of Scotland. He firmly believed in the infinite wisdom of the text which said—"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." It was because the Church of Scotland had been proved, because it had been proved and not found wanting, that he had so much pleasure in supporting it. It was a Church which, in his opinion, secured that in the very poorest districts, quite as much as in the richest, and in times of apathy no less than in times of enthusiasm, there should be that constant maintenance of religious ministration which was so necessary to the welfare of the people. In these circumstances, he for one would not venture, and he earnestly trusted that the House would not venture, to do anything towards depreciating or minimizing an influence which, whatever its opponents might say—and, goodness knows, opponents would say almost anything—had done and was doing an enormous amount of good.
    MR. SHIRESS WILL (, &c.)said, he was unable to come to the same conclusion as his hon. Friend (Mr. Hozier). The question had been agitated in Scotland for a considerable time, and he believed it was now ripe for a settlement. It never would be any riper, for the time had come when the conditions that ought to precede the settlement of that or any question had occurred, and every condition precedent to a settlement was now realized. He freely admitted that the discussion had,

    1081
    on all hands, been conducted with good temper and good feeling. He was unable to agree with his hon. Friend's (Mr. Baird's) Amendment, or with the reasons by which he supported it. At the same time, he agreed with the hon. Member that this question ought not to be mixed up with any other question. He (Mr. Shiress Will) believed no section of the House desired to mix the question up with any other question in the political programme. It should be judged upon its merits, and if it had any demerits, it ought to be condemned for them, and not for the demerits of any other question. His hon. Friend (Mr. Baird) said the proper time for dealing with the question would be when the people of Scotland had fully made up their minds upon it. But how were they to know that, except through the voice of the Representatives of the people in that House? Statistics had been widely circulated on both sides of the question, and had been fully dealt with by his hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron); but he did not care whether the number of communicants was slightly larger on one side or the other. The time had gone by for counting heads. The question had been so well considered and so thoroughly argued, and was so well understood in Scotland, that it made no difference whatever, whether they had a few figures more on one side of the question than on the other. Then the Mover of the Amendment and his hon. Friend who had just sat down had treated the question as if the Resolution committed those who supported it to an approval of Mr. Dick Peddie's Bill. But he thought a very large number of those in favour of solving the question before the House in the way proposed in the Resolution disagreed with the details of Mr. Dick Peddie's Bill. He (Mr. Shiress Will) disagreed with the details of it. If such a Bill were again put before the constituencies of Scotland, while the great bulk of the people would approve of the general principle of the measure, yet they would be distinctly in favour of dealing in a more generous and gentle way with the great interests concerned in the matter. It was further said that they ought not to make this a Party question; but it was impossible to treat this great and important matter otherwise than as a Party question, although he admitted it was one that
    1082
    should be dealt with with extreme care and caution. Hon. Gentlemen opposite did not hold out any hope that they would join in settling the question, and if it was not to be treated as a Party question, he was at a loss to know how they could deal with the subject. His hon. Friend had said that there was not much enthusiasm on the subject, and that it had not been made a test subject at the last Election. That was correct up to a certain point, because, while in some constituencies it was not a test question, in others it distinctly was. Then his hon. Friend went on to show how he had defeated his Liberal opponent by being firm and consistent in the expression of his views on the Church. The Member for the Central Division of Glasgow had threatened the right hon. Member for Mid Lothan with the loss of many votes if he took up this question. The answer to that was, that at the end of 1885 the delegates from the Liberal Associations throughout the whole of Scotland met at Perth and came to the conclusion—
    "That the time had now come for making Disestablishment a plank in the Liberal platform, and that the question should be dealt with in a fair and generous spirit at the earliest opportunity."
    But, he would remind the Gentlemen who had spoken on the other side of the House that the claim of other Churches in Scotland to the endowments now enjoyed by the Established Church could not be lightly passed over. What was the claim of the other two great Presbyterian Bodies in Scotland in regard to endowments? When the bodies now united under the name of the United Presbyterians left the Church of Scotland, they did so because they conscientiously believed that it was wrong to depend upon State connection and control. And when the Free Church in 1843 went out, it was also on the question of State control and the question of patronage. But when those Bodies went out, they still left behind them their claims on the national funds, which were being administered by the Body to which they had previously belonged. These funds contemplated the helping of the poor and the promotion of education, as well as the ministrations of religion. Therefore, it was but just and right that they should be allowed to urge the claim that those

    1083
    national funds should now be utilized for the benefit of the whole community at large. That matter could only be settled in one way, and the sooner it was settled the better it would be for the peace and harmony of those different Bodies which were, after all, brethren, and the better also for the best interests of the country.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON)said, that the observations of the last speaker had accentuated the statement made in the early part of the debate that the proposition before the House related to the present time and not to any remote or indefinite period. But there had been a remarkable abstention on the part of hon. Gentlemen who had spoken on the opposite side from the discussion of the practical question raised by such a proposal, whether it was in the interests of popular utility in Scotland now that such a change as that should be carried out. The speech of the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) almost compelled comparison with some previous statements that had been made on the same subject and from the same quarter; and he thought that those who had heard that hon. Member that evening, and also those who had heard or read his former speeches, would agree with him that his speech that night was a more attenuated exposition of the subject than the House had ever yet listened to. The range of argument, and even illustration, had been greatly narrowed; and, positively, the question of Disestablishment had been treated merely on the footing of certain excrescences upon the existing Establishment, such as that of members of the Established Church having seats on Parochial Boards for the administration of the Poor Law. The hon. Gentleman had not discussed that subject at great length, perhaps, because he thought the House was so familiar with it; but if he deemed it right to propound so momentous a change as his Resolution contemplated, the House were entitled to measure the degree of urgency and the expediency of his proposals by the scale of the reasons he had assigned for them. One view of the question of Church Establishments was that the establishment of religion in any country was abnormal, and that it was not the
    1084
    province of the State to provide religious endowments, but that they should be left entirely to voluntary effort. If that were the proposition on which the hon. Gentleman invited the judgment of the House now, the debate would not range over more than one or two subjects of discussion. The hon. Gentleman had only to formulate his conscientious scruple and to find out how many Members in the House there were who shared it. But the matter in discussion was not and could not be limited to so very abstract and meagre a thesis. The subject necessarily led up to the question of whether the popular welfare and general good of Scotland were promoted by the Establishment which now existed; and it was impossible to disregard the various circumstances, historical and otherwise, which distinguished Scotland from other countries as far as that matter was concerned. The hon. Member had mentioned rather than argued the invidious position in which Establishment placed a Church. He could only say, if the hon. Gentleman took the instances he had given as mere illustrations of his arguments, that they might do away with the position of ministers of the Established Church at Parochial Boards, because the essence of the question of establishment did not lie in any accidental arrangement of that kind. It was, therefore, a mere ad captandum argument to introduce such a reference to the precedence of ministers of the Establishment in such a debate. When the hon. Member passed to the question of disendowment, there was not observable a much increased scale of liberality in his method of discussion. But he would glance at the arguments which the hon. Member had used, which were three in number. In the first place, the hon. Member said that the possession of endowments by the Church of Scotland was an injustice to the other Churches. Now, he could not himself understand or at all fathom what was meant by that. The endowments were held for the ministrations of religion in Scotland to as many people as they would enable the ministers to reach. Was it an injustice to other religious bodies that this Church should have money ready in hand while the other Churches had to go and search for it? ["Hear, hear!"] Yes; if it was merely a question of envy or personal jealousy.

    1085
    But there was no injustice if the fact of there being those endowments meant merely an increment of spiritual means for the general welfare of the country; and it was because hon. Gentlemen persistently separated the question of personal prestige and jealousy of ministers from the question of the whole welfare of the people that the House had heard those unfortunate references to ignoble subjects of mere ecclesiastical and sectarian rivalry. The hon. Gentleman also objected to the endowments because they were unnecessary. Did he mean that the endowments were unnecessary in order to enable the aggregate body of ministers in the country to overtake the spiritual necessities of the people? If he did, the hon. Member would find the opposite asserted by all his clients in the Nonconformist Body. Then the hon. Gentleman asserted that disendowment would promote reunion. He confessed he was unable to see how the question of reunion entered into the question of disendowment. Did the hon. Gentleman believe that it would promote reunion to have less money as a basis for their common operations, or did it mean anything else than that they should make a sacrifice of the endowments to the envy of those who had not? The hon. Gentleman had made no substantive proposals as to the application of the funds set free by disendowment. He did not understand an argument on that subject which did not consider the relative advantages and disadvantages of the old use of that money and the new. They had a right to know, before they assented to the negative side of this proposition, what was the positive proposal. They were there to do their best for the people of Scotland. He asserted that the vast majority of the people of Scotland believed that the best use of the endowments which could be made was that which was made of them at present. But if anyone gainsaid that assertion he ought to be able to show where was the other object of popular utility of competing importance and necessity which was to absorb the endowments. Abstract discussions about Disestablishment and Disendowment revealed the fact that the main interest, which was that of the people, was being lost sight of in order that they might pursue the interests of ecclesiastical rivalry to the verge of caricature. In a question of this kind he
    1086
    did not defend the existence of Establishment and endowment in Scotland on any dilatory pleas, upon mere prescription, upon mere grounds of Conservatism. He took the positive and firmer position, and said that it would be an injustice to the Church to rest her claim to the continuance of present rights and endowments upon anything short of this. He asserted that the answer to the question, what is the mind of the people of Scotland upon this subject, was to be found in the history of the last 40 years. The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), and those who acted with him in politics, had always been seeking for a sign. The right hon. Gentleman and his supporters were extremely anxious that the mind of the Scottish people should be made clear on the subject. Let them find the deliberate, growing, and emphatic preference of the people of Scotland during the last 40 years in the growing strength of the Established Church. It was in the historical development of national convictions during the last 40 years, and not in snap majorities, or in managed elections—it was there hon. Members would find the deliberate, permanent, and reliable voice of the people. Hon. Gentleman opposite had said nothing more about statistics on this question, except that they would not weary the patience of the House. There had been times when questions of Disestablishment had been raised, and when statistics were considered to be highly relative and germane to the subject. When they found that the statistics now proved the increasing strength of the Church in membership and in contributions, in its energy and aggressiveness against evil, then he thought that the Church of Scotland had a right to point to the voice of the people as distinguishing its claim to continue in the position assigned to her by the historical decision of the people, and also by the increasing loyalty of all classes. He would not dwell on the figures, because they were not controverted. Let them take any period they chose—10, 20, 30, or 40 years—the progress had been all one way. The Church of Scotland had been growing—that was the increasing testimony of history; and he said it, but not invidiously, that the relative strength of the denominations had been lessened. But another point had been raised. The

    1087
    hon. Gentleman said that the Church of Scotland had brought this attack upon herself because she had adopted a policy of aggression. Yes; a policy of aggression, because every ecclesiastical Body which existed was aggressive. The Church of Scotland was aggressive if by that was meant that she sought to do away with limitations and asked for the relaxation of privileges and rights which might trench upon the scope of her activity. And here he found a proof that the objection of hon. Gentlemen to the Established Church of Scotland was that the tide was rising on her side, and that they must make haste or they would be too late. If the policy of the Church of Scotland had been directed to an increase of privileges, or if it had been a policy of inertness, then he could understand this attack. But her policy had been the exact reverse. She did not ask for an increase of privileges. She asked for power to do away with abuses, and for means to set forth her own claims as tested by the voice of her own people. Therefore, he could not assent to the view that the measures proposed from the other side were proper methods of retaliation upon the aggressiveness of the dominant Church. The Church of Scotland had endeavoured to fulfil the duties which a State Church had necessarily to discharge. The hon. Member referred to the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Inverness (Mr. Finlay). That Bill was a testimony to the desire of the Church to do away with all causes of division, and to bring within her borders those who historically belonged to her. It was impossible to discuss this subject without referring to the speeches of the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Esslemont) and the hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs (Mr. Shiress Will), and what they called the political side of this question. That was a side with which the right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) was not completely unacquainted. He could not have desired a greater piece of political good fortune than to have seen enacted on the floor of that House the little comedy at the close of the speech of the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow. The hon. Member closed his speech by saying that the right hon. Member for Mid
    1088
    Lothian had at Nottingham made certain statements which encouraged the belief that there was an open offer for certain support, and the hon. Member proceeded to address his Leader or those who represented him in this debate, and to ask for some practical proof of his Leader's sincerity. A wicked world said that such things were generally done; but they were not generally done on the floor of the House of Commons. It was the height of cynicism, even in an ecclesiastical discussion, for the hon. Gentleman to hold up the Church of Scotland in view of the people of Scotland, and propose to make terms with the right hon. Gentleman as to political support. The right hon. Member for Bridgeton was going to speak, perhaps to reply, to the offer of political support. He should like to know if the right hon. Gentleman was going to close with it. Might he put it otherwise, and ask, could the right hon. Gentleman repudiate it; and was it not eminently suggestive that the hon. Member for the College Division, and others who had spoken on the opposite side, had most deliberately objected to the fusion and identification of this question with some other questions which had recently been in somewhat labouring circumstances. He hoped the people of Scotland would take notes of the tone of this discussion as taken by its promoters—that they would notice that on the other side of the House this question had never been discussed in their interest, but that it had been discussed in the interest, on the one hand, of rival sects, and, on the other, of aspiring and enterprising politicians.
    SIR GEORGE TREVELYANsaid that the Solicitor General for Scotland had concluded with some remarks on what he called the political side of the question. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the sentences in which the hon. Member for the College Division closed a speech which, down to these sentences, was a truly admirable one, and very glad he was that these sentences, in which, perhaps, he might find something to take exception, were addressed to a Bench upon which the first man who was going to rise was himself. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of some of them as looking for a sign. The hon. and learned Gentleman could

    1089
    know very little about his political history. Some 18 years ago, when he was a young and poor man, the Government brought in a measure which he conceived to be inconsistent with the principles of religious equality. He resigned Office, and, as he thought, sacrificed his political prospects. In 1885—he might appeal on this matter to his hon. Friend the Member for Roxburghshire (Mr. A. R. D. Elliot), who a moment ago was sitting behind him—before the Election, the Presbytery of Jedburgh addressed a menacing letter to both of them, requiring them not to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church if the question was raised next Session. He told the Presbytery that he was always in favour of Disestablishment and Disendowment, and would vote for it if the question was brought forward. Coming to later times, but times still anterior to those to which reference had been made, the hon. and learned Member for the Inverness Burghs (Mr. Finlay) had brought in a Bill which went to the root of the question of Disestablishment; and, as a Member of the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, he had himself made a strong Disestablishment and Disendowment speech in answer to that Bill; and not only that, but he and his right hon. Friend beside him had voted for the exact Motion which had been brought forward that evening, before any of the events to which the hon. and learned Member had referred. He agreed with that part of the speech of the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Baird)—which had not descended to these topics—in which he had hoped that that debate would not be obscured by any side question, as was the case in the constituencies. As far as he himself was concerned, it would not be so obscured; he would go straight to the point. The hon. Member for South Lanarkshire (Mr. Hozier) had told them that they must prove all things. He did not know that the hon. Member had proved much; but, for his own part, he would undertake to say nothing of which he would not give proof; he would go to the centre of the question, and every word he would say should bear on the question of Disestablishment and Disendowment from the point of view of the highest interests and duty of Scotland.
    1090
    He must congratulate his hon. Friend on having come first that evening. It was very important that they should have a debate, and still more that they should have a Division. He was very anxious to bring this question to the test, both as a Liberal and as a Scotch Member. The Solicitor General for Scotland asked them to say why they were in favour of Disestablishment. As Liberals, they held that State connection was a bad thing; they considered that it fettered and narrowed the Church which was within its influence, and that it depressed and was unfair to the Churches outside of it. They held that it had the deleterious effect of all privilege, ecclesiastical and political; and they held, above all, that the public religious endowments of a nation should not be given for the benefit of one religious body within that nation, but should be applied to uses which should benefit and meet the conscientious wishes of the whole community. He was not ashamed, as a Scotchman, to say that he was very anxious to have this debate. He thought that there was a good deal of sense in what had been said by the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, that this question of the existence of an Established Church should largely be governed by the preponderating opinions of the people in the district and in the country in which that Established Church existed; and he understood that that was the opinion of some of the opponents of the hon. Member. The hon. Member for the St. Andrew's Burghs (Mr. Anstruther) had brought forward an Amendment, in which he said that there was no demand on the part of the people of Scotland for the severance of the relations between their Church and the State. The hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow (Mr. Caldwell) also brought forward an Amendment, in which he declined to adopt the Resolution until the people of Scotland should first, in some constitutional or authoritative manner, have distinctly signified their desire for such Disestablishment or Disendowment. Now, he was utterly unable to conceive in what constitutional and authoritative manner the people of Scotland could signify such desire except through

    1091
    the mouth of their Parliamentary Representatives; and if the majority of the Representatives for Scotland decided against them to-night, he should be none the less glad that they had brought this matter to the test. It showed that they were not afraid of their views, and it led the country to look upon the question as a practical one. It was a question which the House could not leave alone, and which it never did leave alone. From both sides of the House Resolutions and Bills relating to the Church of Scotland were constantly being brought forward, and he ventured to say that in the course of the next 20 or 30 years the time of Parliament—if that were the only consideration—would be saved if this Resolution were adopted and the proposals contained in it carried into law. The reason of that was that the abuses of the Church of Scotland were so palpable and so great that Bills were constantly being brought forward to deal with them. These Bills were brought forward by the friends of the Church for the purpose of diminishing the invidiousness of its privileges. In 1874 they had had from the defenders of the Established Church an Act for abolishing patronage. Taken by itself there was nothing objectionable in that Act; but when they took it in connection with the fact that there were other large Presbyterian Bodies in that country, he ventured to say that the Church had no right—as long as it insisted upon keeping up State connection and keeping all its endowments—to continue to enjoy those material advantages, and at the same time to ask for the spiritual advantages which the other Churches had gained by sacrificing everything. Then the hon. and learned Member for Inverness had, two years ago, brought forward a Bill for declaring the constitution of the Church of Scotland. In that Bill he had asked them to set the Church free from State control. Now, this freedom from State control was the only thing that the other Churches had which compensated them for being without endowment and State connection, and it was this purpose and this spirit which had brought this question to the present stage. They could not expect these great voluntary Churches to sit quietly by while Bills were brought in for the purpose of taking away their adherents
    1092
    one by one—[Ministerial cries of "Oh!"]—certainly that was the object of them; what other object was there?—and leaving the ministers of the Churches high and dry, isolated and deserted, with all the immense material and educational and religious interest which were in their hands. It had been because they were threatened in such a manner with gradual extinction that these great voluntary Bodies had come forward. Since then all the denominations outside the Established Church had distinctly declared that if it wanted to have the same advantages as they possessed it must seek them in the same manner by giving up its connection with the State. He had already stated that it was important to get the votes of the Scotch Members on this question. But it was also important to get the votes of English Members. He should like to say a few words to English Members from the point of view of an Englishman, who had been a Scotch Member for a number of years, and who, as an Englishman, brought originally to the consideration of the question a certain freshness of view. English Members were, perhaps, not aware of the fact that the privileges of the Established Church in Scotland were much greater than those of the Established Church in England. In England the income of poor benefices was increased out of Church funds, but in Scotland the income was made up out of Imperial taxes. ["No, no!"] That fact, at any rate, could not be denied. There was annually paid out of the Exchequer to make up Scotch livings as much as £17,000. He had before him some figures with regard to a number of parishes all in one county, Ross and Cromarty, which threw a remarkable light on the statement of the Solicitor General for Scotland as to the increase of membership in the Established Church. In Kinlochlaidart there were 632 people and 15 communicants of the Church of Scotland; in Knock, 2,990 people and four communicants; in Poolewe, 2,317 people and 25 communicants; in Uttapool, 2,573 people and 17 communicants; and in Cross, which had 2,795 people, and Barvas, which had 2,600 people, there were five communicants between them. And the Solicitor General for Scotland told them that the Church of Scotland was making a great

    1093
    advance all over the country, and embracing within its fold the great mass of the people! To each of these parishes there was paid out of the Exchequer £120 a-year. Both Parties in the House were at the present time looking in every direction to see where economies could be made. Here was a case in which a large number of ministers were being paid out of State funds who were doing nothing and for whom there was nothing to do. It was a great abuse. In Ireland it was a serious thing when there were parishes in which the clergyman only had a congregation of three or four persons; but in that case the clergyman was not paid out of the taxpayers' money as in Scotland now. Such payments out of the Exchequer for sectarian purposes, and under the circumstances he had mentioned, would, in the case of lay services, be regarded as an indefensible job. But this was not the only privilege enjoyed by the Church of Scotland which the Church of England was without. Church rates had been abolished in England; but in Scotland £50,000 a-year was raised from persons of all denominations for the repair and rebuilding of churches and manses of the Established Church. The smaller heritors were exempted; but this was really a great injustice to the larger heritors. If this was an inalienable obligation, then the poor should pay it as well as the rich. If it was not, it ought to be swept away altogether. Besides these grants from the Exchequer and these payments towards the repair and maintenance of churches and manses, which were in the nature of Church rates, large payments were also made out of the pockets of the ratepayers. In many large towns in Scotland it was the ratepayers, who were generally voluntaries, who had to bear the expense of the worship of the Established Church. In Glasgow, £5,000 a-year was paid out of the Corporation funds—funds which, if not paid for this purpose, would go to the relief of the ratepayer—for the services of the Established Church. As a set-off against that, there were the pew rents; but it was a most remarkable comment on the Solicitor General's observation that, while they were embracing large numbers into the fold, those pew rents were steadily diminishing. In Edinburgh the payments could not fall short of £6,000
    1094
    or £7,000 a-year; but he did not, of course, maintain that those payments were made at present out of taxes levied—though they were so paid in a certain part, but in another large part they were the produce of taxes previously levied and capitalized. In Aberdeen £1,100 or £1,200 a-year was paid out of the Corporation fund, and, in proportion, a like sum in the case of Dundee, Perth, and Stirling. He was certain it was in the interest of the Church, owing to the dissatisfaction such a charge created, that it ought to be abolished. Then there was the anomaly of Established Church ministers sitting ex officio along with members of their Kirk Session upon Parochial Boards which had the power of levying taxes. If there was ever a Body which ought to be elective and neutral, surely it was the Parochial Boards; and while ministers of the Established Church had this privilege, they were themselves exempt from taxation. Again, what could be more indefensible and offensive than the tests applied to University Professors? Eighty per cent of Scotland was Presbyterian; but still, in the great Presbyterian Bodies, the Professors were taken exclusively from the Established Church. But that was not all. All the Professors of Greek, Latin, and Natural Science were obliged to swear that they would not exercise their functions to the prejudice or subversion of the Established Church. Now, there they had disabilities which long ago had been abolished by Parliament in the English Universities. This system led to this anomaly—that eminent men from Oxford and Cambridge who crossed the Border had to take this theological test, which was worthy of the Middle Ages. The only defence that he had heard of such a system was that the Church was the Church of the nation; that it was all but the universal Church. But it was not a universal Church. It was far from it. The Presbyterians were 80 per cent; but the Established Church was considerably less than 50 per cent of the Presbyterian Body. ["No!"] The only way in which they would arrive at this was to take a count of the Representatives who voted in Parliament. Now, the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church between them had 100 places of worship more than the Established Church; and it must be re-

    1095
    membered that these churches were built because they were wanted. Well, but it was said the Established Church was kept up for the sake of the poor. But was that correct? The poorest of the poor were to be found in Lewis; and what were the statistics of the Established Church in that island? The population of the parish of Barvas was 2,700, the Established Church had 5 communicants; Stornoway had 7,399 people and 11 communicants; Uig, 3,490 people and 49 communicants; Harris, 4,360 people and 26 communicants; Lochs, 6,284 people and 7 communicants; so that out of 23,500 inhabitants in Lewis, 23,000 were adherents of the Free Church, and what it was in Lewis, though in somewhat less proportion, it was all over the Highlands. It was said that there were 356 rural parishes in which there were neither United Presbyterian nor Free Church places of worship; but many of them were very small parishes, and their populations attended Free and United churches in adjoining parishes, just as in a parish he was familiar with in Northumberland the majority of the people were Methodists or Presbyterians and went to buildings outside the parish. And, no doubt, there were in Scotland parishes in which there were no members of voluntary Churches, just as in other parishes there were no members of the Established Church. When it was asked how the Established Church was to meet the needs of the poor parishes, he replied, in the same way that the Free Church had met the spiritual needs of Lewis. No Scotchman would fail to find the means to worship in the church to which his inclination and his conscience led him; and it was a libel on the members of the Established Church to suggest that they would be less generous than the members of the voluntary Churches. The United and the Free Churches had raised between them in the course of the year nearly £1,000,000. That proved that either their adherents were more numerous than they were admitted to be, or else that having to pay for their own worship made them exceptionally generous and public-spirited. But he would never argue this question as one of privilege or of money if Disestablishment were opposed to the highest interests of the Established Church; but to set it free from State
    1096
    control, to throw it on its own resources like its Sister Churches, and, above all, to relieve it from the task of fighting for privileges, were the truest services you could render it. When he was a very young man he came to the conclusion that there was no nobler training for the great mass of working people than the exercise of the public spirit and self-denial which were required for the maintenance of their religion. It was no wrong to demand from the Established Church the same efforts, labours, and sacrifices which had been spontaneously made by the voluntary Churches; but it was a great wrong to allow the public endowments of a great country to be monopolized for the benefit of one religious body, instead of being applied to the general, public unsectarian needs of the entire community.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON)said, that the right hon. Gentleman had indulged in some interesting personal reminiscences; but it was not apparent why he had done so.
    SIR GEORGE TREVELYANsaid, it was because he was charged with taking up this question on political ground.
    SIR JAMES FERGUSSONsaid, it was not certainly his business to question the right hon. Gentleman's consistency; but the hon. Member for the College Division had referred to the unholy connection that had been established between political and ecclesiastical questions in a sense which must touch the right hon. Gentleman rather nearly. He was quite content to accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that he had been a consistent advocate of Disestablishment, and that he repudiated the bargain of supporting it for the sake of gaining adhesions to Home Rule, and he was glad that the question had been placed on the broad grounds of the maintenance or abolition of the Established Church, because it would lead the House to understand what was the ultimate tendency of the Motion now before it. The right hon. Baronet said he was anxious to bring this question to the test. They on the Government side had not raised it; but they should not shrink from the test. This question of Disestablishment had been dragged into a prominence for which there was no

    1097
    occasion. The Church of Scotland was doing its work steadily and carefully, and was annually making large additions to the number of its members, and consequently there had been no reason, on account of its failure in efficiency, to bring this question before the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman had shown a certain amount of inaccuracy in his allegations. He said that in England, for example, the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the grant of £17,000 a-year in aid of the poorer parishes in the Highlands was taken out of the taxes of the people was absolutely without foundation. It was a historical fact that since the Reformation a certain portion of the teinds, the patrimony of the Church, had formed part of the hereditary revenues of the Crown; and it was but a small portion of these that was annually granted in aid of those poor parishes in which there were no unexhausted teinds to call up in supplement of the inadequate stipends. Was it possible that the right hon. Gentleman was ignorant of that? For a long period the Established Church of Scotland had made great efforts to meet the wants of the growing population. Within the last 40 years it had established 350 new parishes in order to meet the religious requirements of an increasing population. Since 1834 the numbers of the members of the Church in Scotland had largely increased, and in no sense had that Church fallen back. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the connection with the State imposed fetters on the Church. In that year, by a wise measure, Parliament had removed from the Church the fetters, and made amends for the injuries of former legislation. It was owing to the enactment of lay patronage, alien to the feelings of the people of Scotland, at the beginning of the last century, and to the failure of the Government of the day to appreciate the gravity of the crisis, that the Church had lost so many of its people. Was the Church to be debarred from renewing its attempts to be freed from the burdens which had so long oppressed it, and against which it had so long struggled? And how was it an offence against those who had left the Church on account of those burdens that its efforts were at last successful? The abolition or, lay patronage and the attempts which had since been made to
    1098
    obtain for the emancipated Church the declaration by law of an ancient principle, cannot justly be called aggression; they are symptoms of true liberality in throwing wide the doors for the re-entry of those who never, but for the mistakes of statesmen, would have been separated. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to-night to the recent debate upon ecclesiastical assessments, with regard to which it seemed to him (Sir James Fergusson) the other night that he was rather hazy; and he alleged the inconsistency of their maintenance as a legal obligation when compulsory Church rates had been abolished in England. But he forgot, or he was strangely ignorant, that the landed proprietors of Scotland still retained the enjoyment of an income from the unexhausted teinds, much larger than the annual charge of about £40,000 or £50,000, for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical fabrics. And if the ecclesiastical assessments fell upon them alone, as it was maintained they should, it would be impossible to allege in that a well-founded grievance. Again, he called it an injustice that the City of Glasgow should be obliged, out of its common good, to supplement a deficiency in the income from seat rents. Was it possible, he (Sir James Fergusson) asked again, that he did not know that a portion of the teinds were assigned to the city on condition of its maintaining certain churches, and the same obligation existed in certain other towns? He was, indeed, unable to accept the falling-off in the seat rents of certain churches as a proof of the defects of the ministrations. It was the effect of a change in the character of the resident population, the wealthy having, in some cases, moved elsewhere and erected new churches for their own accommodation. Nor, he trusted, would they admit the exaction of seat rents as a wholesome feature in Church management. He wondered to hear the right hon. Gentleman rake up again the buried controversy of Church Endowments in Edinburgh. Some of them were old enough to remember the long contest about the Annuity Tax there, and the settlement of the matter by a legislative compromise not too liberal to the Church. As to what the right hon. Gentleman called the unfair representation on the Parochial Board, and the presence of the parish minister as its Chair-

    1099
    man, he (Sir James Fergusson) would remind the House that before the institution of the new Poor Law the Kirk Session was the only authority by which the poor was relieved; it was not, therefore, surprising that in the newly constituted Body the Chairman of the Kirk Session, who by his office was brought so much into contact with the poor, should have a place. A small matter, indeed, to call for Disestablishment! The true defence of the Church as a National Institution was that it was the religious embodiment of the nation; and in the National Church of Scotland was found an organization altogether in harmony in its confession and in its character with the genius and instincts of the Scottish people. That Church had never used its privileges for selfish purposes. Had it done so, there might have been some reason for the House passing a Vote of Censure upon it. But as it had always done its best for the spiritual welfare of the community, he saw no reason for condemning it in the way indicated by the Resolution moved by the hon. Member. In those circumstances, was it reasonable to withdraw from it the means of meeting the wants of the poor and of giving free ministration to all the people of the country, and of accomplishing the purpose for which it existed? The right hon. Gentleman made much of the fact that in the Highlands and Islands the people largely belonged to the Free Church. That was true, because there they had strongly resented the intrusion of unacceptable ministers; but in the Highlands this proposal for Disestablishment had met with no support, while in Mid Lothian itself, a county which had given such pledges to Liberation, when the question was put to the test, 69 per cent of the electors had voted in favour of the retention of the Establishment. He ventured to think that no case had been made out for Disestablishment, and he trusted that the result of the Division would show such an advance on that of 1886 as would utterly frustrate the views of the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow.
    MR. H. ANSTRUTHER (, &c.)said, he wished particularly to avoid bringing the question down to the level of political controversy. He could not congratulate the right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow on the spirit which he had brought to bear on this discussion of a
    1100
    question which deeply concerned the people of Scotland, and which they were prepared to consider on its merits. If that was the spirit that Englishmen who sat for Scottish constituencies, as the right hon. Baronet described himself, were prepared to bring to bear on this question, then he would rather the discussion were confined to Scotchmen sitting for Scotch seats. He would rather treat the question they were dealing with upon its merits, and the Church as an institution doing good in the country to which he belonged. It had not, he submitted, been proved by the hon. Member, in bringing forward this Motion, either that the Church of Scotland was in the minority, or that she had failed to fulfil the sacred trust imposed upon her by the people of Scotland. Nor had it been proved that the connection of the Church with the State was detrimental either to one or the other; and, lastly, he took this point—that it had not been proved that there was any large demand upon the part of the people of Scotland for the change advocated by the hon. Member for the College Division. Hon. Members from Scottish constituencies who had followed closely the course of events in Scotland in 1885 would bear him out in the assertion that every expression of opinion of the people from every part of the country had been against the proposal for Disestablishment and Disendowment. [Opposition cries of "No!"] A vast majority had indicated that as their opinion, and in Mid Lothian nearly two-thirds of the registered electors of that constituency petitioned against Disestablishment. Consequently, they were told by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothiaan that Disestablishment was not to be made a test question at the General Election, and he did not believe it was a test question except in a very few instances. He wished specially to draw the attention of the House to the point which he had given expression to in the Amendment which, by the Rules of the House, he was precluded from moving—it was that there was no substantial demand on the part of the people of Scotland for this change. This was proved by the statistics which the supporters of the National Church had placed before the House, and he trusted the House would reject the Motion by as substantial a majority as it had done on previous occasions. The Church of Scotland had

    1101
    nothing to apologize for in the past, and nothing to be ashamed of. The members of the Church of Scotland only wanted to live in peace and go on with their good work; but if attacks of this kind were to be made on the Establishment and Endowment, there were many Members on his side of the House, and also, no doubt, a large number of Members on the other side, who were prepared to resist them; and, moreover, they would be able to prove to their opponents that they would be able to rally to their side a large number of the people of Scotland.
    MR. MARJORIBANKSsaid, he rose to explain the vote he was going to give. The last two speakers had endeavoured rather to prove that the Church of Scotland was doing a good work than to show that it was doing that good work in such a peculiar and exclusive manner that to it alone should be granted State endowment and support. That was the point on which the House would divide that night. No one denied the good work the Church of Scotland was doing. On the contrary, many held that it had a great future before it, and that that future would be enhanced by the withdrawal of State support. It seemed to him that when there were three Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, all having the same form of Church government, all holding exactly the same creed and using the same Service, it was an anomaly that to one alone State support should be granted. The hon. Baronet opposite said that two years ago he (Mr. Marjoribanks) voted in exactly the opposite sense to that in which he was going to vote that night. He admitted that, and he would tell the House the reason. At the Election of 1885 he especially and particularly reserved this subject when he asked his constituents to return him again as their Member. He then distinctly stated that he would not, during the Parliament elected in 1885, vote in support of a Motion for the Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland without putting the question to his constituents; but with the Parliament of 1885 that pledge fell to the ground. [A laugh.] Hon. Members opposite seemed to insinuate by their laughter that when they made pledges they kept them for over. How about coercion in Ireland? He repeated that with the Parliament of 1885 that pledge fell to the ground,
    1102
    and he was elected to the present Parliament without any pledge on the question. The reason he gave the pledge at all was that he had hoped that there might be one great Presbyterian Church, endowed and supported by the State, which would combine all the Churches in Scotland. He believed, however, that was a foolish dream, and it was because he believed that the only chance for the union of the three Churches was the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church of Scotland that he intended to support the Motion.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down need not have taken up the time of the House by accounting for his giving a different vote now from that which he gave in 1885. It is not such an exceptional case on that side as to make it worth his while. The question of Disestablishment is not the only question on which pledges have been given and broken. When the right hon. Gentleman twits hon. Members on this side of the House on the course which they have taken in reference to Ireland he forgets altogether that the circumstances surrounding the question may have changed; but he cannot point to any circumstances which have arisen in connection with the Church of Scotland between 1885 and the present day to justify his change of opinion upon that subject. I presume that when he voted for the Establishment in 1886 he did so because his constituents desired that he should do so. What has happened since to make him and his constituents alter their mind? I presume that the hon. Member for the College Division thinks that this question is ripe for a decision, and the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian said that it was at Nottingham. Surely if that is so, this is a question upon which the House ought to have the best advice that can be given by the Leaders on both sides. Now, I want to know where are the Leaders of the Party opposite? Why has the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) taken a back seat? Where is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), who is a Scotch Member and the Leader of the

    1103
    thought on the other side; surely he was the proper person to guide the Liberal Party, and, if he could, the House to a proper decision on this question. The hon. Member for the College Division professes to believe that the storm is rising. I think, however, he must have been disappointed with the tone of this debate. Surely if the storm was rising the stormy petrel would be here. The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, when in Office in 1886, was able to speak some kindly and hopeful words in regard to the hon. Member's Motion; but now that he is in Opposition, in a position "of greater freedom and less responsibility," he does not think it worth while to come here to support the hon. Member, or even to say that he stands in the same position towards this question as he did in 1886. He can fly those kites at Nottingham, but we want him to come here to tell us whether it is the policy of the Liberal Party that there ought to be no connection between Church and State anywhere in the United Kingdom. The right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division is the only Member who has had the honesty in this debate to put this issue clearly before the House. Everybody knows that there are Gentlemen sitting on the opposite side of the House who care nothing about the Church of Scotland and know nothing about it, who take no interest either in its success or failure, but whose sole object is to use this question as a stalking-horse in their endeavours for the destruction of the Established Church in England. There is no enthusiasm save the enthusiasm which is worked up outside Scotland by the Liberation Society, who do not care one rap about the Church of Scotland. I shall not enter into the general question after the very able speech of my hon. and learned Friend near me, who put the matter upon a sound and intelligible basis. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division has referred to paltry sums, amounting in all to £25,000 at the most out of £500,000, and which, he says, are paid to the Established Church of Scotland out of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman is not accurate in his facts, and he affords another instance of English Gentlemen who come to represent Scotch constituencies, but who take very little
    1104
    trouble to inform themselves on matters on which they speak, and indulge in denunciations not based on facts but on their own imagination.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 260; Noes 208: Majority 52.

    AYES.

    Addison, J. E. W.

    Curzon, hon. G. N.

    Agg-Gardner, J. T.

    Dalrymple, Sir C.

    Ainslie, W. G.

    Darling, C. J.

    Allsopp, hon. G.

    Davenport, H. T.

    Ambrose, W.

    Dawnay, Colonel hon. L. P.

    Amherst, W. A. T.

    Anstruther, Colonel R. H. L.

    De Cobain, E. S. W.

    De Worms, Baron H.

    Anstruther, H. T.

    Dimsdale, Baron R.

    Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

    Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

    Bailey, Sir J. R.

    Donkin, R. S.

    Balfour, rt. hon. A. J.

    Dorington, Sir J. E.

    Barclay, J. W.

    Douglas, A. Akers-

    Baring, T. C.

    Dugdale, J. S.

    Barry, A. H. S.

    Duncan, Colonel F.

    Barttelot, Sir W. B.

    Duncombe, A.

    Bates, Sir E.

    Dyke, right hon. Sir W. H.

    Bazley-White, J.

    Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-

    Ebrington, Viscount

    Edwards-Moss, T. C.

    Beach, W. W. B.

    Egerton, hon. A. J. F.

    Beadel, W. J.

    Egerton, hon. A. de T.

    Beckett, E. W.

    Elcho, Lord

    Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C.

    Elliot, Sir G.

    Bentinck, Lord H. C.

    Ewart, Sir W.

    Bentinck, W. G. C.

    Ewing, Sir A. O.

    Beresford, Lord C. W. de la Poer

    Farquharson, H. R.

    Feilden, Lt.-Gen. R. J.

    Bethell, Commander G. R.

    Fellowes, A. E.

    Fergusson, right hon. Sir J.

    Birkbeck, Sir E.

    Blundell, Col. H. B. H.

    Field, Admiral E.

    Boord, T. W.

    Fielden, T.

    Borthwick, Sir A.

    Finch, G. H.

    Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.

    Finlay, R. B.

    Fisher, W. H.

    Bruce, Lord. H.

    Fitzwilliam, hon. W. H. W.

    Caldwell, J.

    Campbell, Sir A.

    Fitzwilliam, hon. W. J. W.

    Campbell, J. A.

    Carmarthen, Marq. of

    Fitz-Wygram, General Sir F. W.

    Cavendish, Lord E.

    Chaplin, right hon. H.

    Folkestone, right hon. Viscount

    Charrington, S.

    Churchill, rt. hn. Lord R. H. S.

    Forwood, A. B.

    Fowler, Sir R. N.

    Clarke, Sir E. G.

    Fraser, General C. C.

    Cochrane-Baillie, hon. C. W. A. N.

    Fulton, J. F.

    Gardner, R. Richardson-

    Coddington, W.

    Coghill, D. H.

    Gathorne-Hardy, hon. A. E.

    Compton, F.

    Cooke, C. W. R.

    Giles, A.

    Corbett, J.

    Gilliat, J. S.

    Corry, Sir J. P.

    Godson, A. F.

    Cotton, Capt. E. T. D.

    Goldsworthy, Major General W. T.

    Cranborne, Viscount

    Cross, H. S.

    Gorst, Sir J. E.

    Cubitt, right hon. G.

    Goschen rt. hon. G. J.

    Currie, Sir D.

    Granby, Marquess of

    Curzon, Viscount

    Gray, C.W.

    1105

    Green, Sir E.

    M'Calmont, Captain J.

    Grimston, Viscount

    Madden, D. H.

    Grotrian, F. B.

    Makins, Colonel W. T.

    Gunter, Colonel R.

    Malcolm, Col. J. W.

    Hall, C.

    Mallock, R.

    Halsey, T. F.

    Maple, J. B.

    Hambro, Col. C. J. T.

    Marriott, rt. hon. Sir W. T.

    Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.

    Matthews, rt. hon. H.

    Hamilton, Lord C.

    Mattinson, M. W.

    Hamilton, Col. C. E.

    Maxwell, Sir H. E.

    Hamley, Gen. Sir E. B.

    Mildmay, F. B.

    Hanbury, R. W.

    Mills, hon. C. W.

    Hankey, F. A.

    Milvain, T.

    Hardcastle, E.

    More, R. J.

    Havelock - Allan, Sir H. M.

    Morgan, hon. F.

    Moss, R.

    Heathcote, Capt. J. H. Edwards-

    Mount, W. G.

    Mowbray, rt. hon. Sir J. R.

    Heaton, J. H.

    Herbert, hon. S.

    Mowbray, R. G. C.

    Hermon-Hodge, R. T.

    Mulholland, H. L.

    Hervey, Lord F.

    Muncaster, Lord

    Hill, right hon. Lord A. W.

    Murdoch, C. T.

    Newark, Viscount

    Hill, Colonel E. S.

    Noble, W.

    Hill, A. S.

    Northcote, hon. Sir H. S.

    Hoare, E. B.

    Holloway, G.

    Norton, R.

    Hornby, W. H.

    O'Neill, hon. R. T.

    Houldsworth, Sir W. H.

    Paget, Sir R. H.

    Howard, J.

    Parker, hon. F.

    Howorth, H. H.

    Pearce, Sir W.

    Hughes-Hallett, Col. F. C.

    Pelly, Sir L.

    Penton, Captain F. T.

    Hulse, E. H

    Plunket, rt. hon. D. R.

    Hunt, F. S.

    Plunkett, hon. J. W.

    Hunter, Sir W. G.

    Powell, F. S.

    Isaacson, F. W.

    Puleston, Sir J. H.

    Jackson, W. L.

    Raikes, rt. hon. H. C.

    Jardine, Sir R.

    Rankin, J.

    Jeffreys, A. F.

    Rasch, Major F. C.

    Jennings, L. J.

    Reed, H. B.

    Johnston, W.

    Richardson, T.

    Kelly, J. R.

    Ridley, Sir M. W.

    Kennaway, Sir J. H.

    Ritchie, rt. hn. C. T.

    Kenyon, hon. G. T.

    Robertson, Sir W. T.

    Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.

    Robertson, J. P. B.

    Robinson, B.

    Kerans, F. H

    Ross, A. H.

    King, H. S.

    Round, J.

    Knightley, Sir R.

    Russell, Sir G.

    Knowles, L.

    Russell, T. W.

    Lafone, A.

    Saunderson, Col. E. J.

    Lambert, C.

    Shaw-Stewart, M. H.

    Laurie, Colonel R. P.

    Sidebotham, J. W.

    Lawrance, J. C.

    Sidebottom, T. H.

    Lawrence, W. F.

    Sidebottom, W.

    Lechmere, Sir E. A. H.

    Smith, right hon. W. H.

    Lees, E.

    Legh, T. W.

    Smith, A.

    Leighton, S.

    Spencer, J. E.

    Lennox, Lord W. C. Gordon-

    Stanhope, rt. hon. E.

    Stanley, E. J.

    Llewellyn, E. H.

    Stephens, H. C.

    Long, W. H.

    Stewart, M. J.

    Lowther, hon. W.

    Stokes, G. G.

    Lowther, J. W.

    Swetenham, E.

    Macdonald, rt. hon. J. H. A.

    Talbot, J. G.

    Tapling, T. K

    Mackintosh, C. F.

    Temple, Sir R.

    Maclean, J. M.

    Theobald, J.

    Maclure, J. W.

    Thorburn, W.

    1106

    Tollemache, H. J.

    Winn, hon. R.

    Tomlinson, W. E. M.

    Wodehouse, E. R.

    Townsend, F.

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Trotter, Colonel H. J.

    Wood, N.

    Vincent, C. E. H.

    Wortley, C. B. Stuart-

    Walrond, Col. W. H.

    Wright, H. S.

    Walsh, hon. A. H. J.

    Wroughton, P.

    Webster, Sir R. E.

    Young, C. E. B.

    Webster, R. G.

    Weymouth, Viscount

    TELLERS.

    Whitley, E.

    Baird, J. G. A.

    Whitmore, C. A.

    Hozier, J. H. C.

    Wilson, Sir S.

    NOES.

    Abraham, W. (Glam.)

    Dillwyn, L. L.

    Abraham, W. (Limerick, W.)

    Ellis, T. E.

    Esmonde, Sir T. H. G.

    Acland, A. H. D.

    Evans, F. H.

    Allison, R. A.

    Evershed, S.

    Anderson, C. H.

    Farquharson, Dr. R.

    Asher, A.

    Fenwick, C.

    Asquith, H. H.

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro-

    Atherley-Jones, L.

    Finucane, J.

    Austin, J.

    Firth, J. F. B.

    Balfour, rt. hon. J. B.

    Flower, C.

    Barbour, W. B.

    Flynn, J. C.

    Barran, T.

    Foley, P. J.

    Barry, J.

    Foster, Sir W. B.

    Bass, H.

    Fox, Dr. J. F.

    Beaumont, H. F.

    Fry, T.

    Bickford-Smith, W.

    Fuller, G. P.

    Biggar, J. G.

    Gaskell, C. G. Milnes-

    Bolton, J. C.

    Gilhooly, J.

    Bradlaugh, C.

    Gill, T. P.

    Bright, W. L.

    Gladstone, H. J.

    Brown, A. L.

    Gourley, E. T.

    Bruce, hon. R. P.

    Graham, R. C.

    Brunner, J. T.

    Grey, Sir E.

    Bryce, J.

    Gully, W. C.

    Buchanan, T. R.

    Haldane, R. B.

    Burt, T.

    Hanbury-Tracy, hon. F. S. A.

    Buxton, S. C.

    Byrne, G. M.

    Harcourt, rt. hon. Sir W. G. V. V.

    Caine, W. S.

    Cameron, J. M

    Harrington, E.

    Campbell, Sir G.

    Harrington, T. C.

    Campbell-Bannerman, right hon. H.

    Harris, M.

    Hayden, L. P.

    Carew, J. L.

    Hayne, G. Seale-

    Causton, R. K.

    Healy, H.

    Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.

    Healy, T. M.

    Chance, P. A.

    Holden, I.

    Clancy, J. J.

    Hooper, J.

    Clark, Dr. G. B.

    Howell, G.

    Cobb, H. P.

    Hunter, W. A.

    Commins, A.

    Illingworth, A.

    Conway, H.

    Jacoby, J. A.

    Conybeare, C. A. V

    James, hon. W. H.

    Corbet, W. J.

    Joicey, J.

    Corbett, A. C.

    Jordan, J.

    Cossham, H.

    Kenny, M J.

    Cox, J. R.

    Kilbride, D.

    Cozens-Hardy, H. H.

    Lane, W. J.

    Craig, J.

    Lawson, Sir W.

    Craven, J.

    Lawson, H. L. W.

    Crawford, D.

    Leake, R.

    Cremer, W. R.

    Lewis, T. P.

    Crilly, D.

    Lyell, L.

    Crossley, E.

    Macdonald, W. A.

    Davies, W.

    Mac Neill, J. G. S.

    Deasy, J.

    M'Arthur, A.

    Dickson, T. A.

    M'Arthur, W. A.

    1107

    M'Carthy, J.

    Richard, H.

    M'Carthy, J. H.

    Roberts, J.

    M'Donald, P.

    Roberts, J. B.

    M'Ewan, W.

    Roe, T.

    Mahony, P.

    Roscoe, Sir H. E.

    Maitland, W. F.

    Rowlands, W. B.

    Marjoribanks, rt. hn. E.

    Rowntree, J.

    Marum, E. M.

    Russell, Sir C.

    Mayne, T.

    Samuelson, Sir B.

    Menzies, R. S.

    Samuelson, G. B.

    Molloy, B. C.

    Schwann, C. E.

    Morgan, rt. hon. G. O.

    Sexton, T.

    Morgan, O. V.

    Shaw, T.

    Morley, A.

    Sheehan, J. D.

    Mundella, rt. hn. A. J.

    Sheehy, D.

    Nolan, Colonel J. P.

    Sheil, E.

    Nolan, J.

    Sinclair, J.

    O'Brien, J. F. X.

    Stack, J.

    O'Brien, P. J.

    Stevenson, F. S.

    O'Brien, W.

    Stevenson. J. C.

    O'Connor, A.

    Stewart, H.

    O'Connor, J.

    Stuart, J.

    O'Connor, T. P.

    Sullivan, D.

    O'Hanlon, T.

    Sullivan, T. D.

    O'Hea, P.

    Summers, W.

    Parker, C. S.

    Sutherland, A.

    Parnell, C. S.

    Talbot, C. R. M.

    Paulton, J. M.

    Tanner, C. K.

    Pease, H. F.

    Thomas, D. A.

    Pickard, B.

    Trevelyan, right hon. Sir G. O.

    Pickersgill, E. H.

    Pinkerton, J.

    Tuite, J.

    Plowden, Sir W. C.

    Vivian, Sir H. H.

    Portman, hon. E. B.

    Wallace, R.

    Potter, T. B.

    Wardle, H.

    Powell, W. R. H.

    Warmington, C. M.

    Power, P. J.

    Watt, H.

    Power, R.

    Wayman, T.

    Priestley, B.

    Will, J. S.

    Provand, A. D.

    Williams, A. J.

    Pugh, D.

    Williamson, S.

    Pyne, J. D.

    Wilson, C. H.

    Quinn, T.

    Wilson, I.

    Randell, D.

    Winterbotham, A. B.

    Rathbone, W.

    Woodall, W.

    Redmond, W. H. K.

    Woodhead, J.

    Reed, Sir E. J.

    Wright, C.

    Reid, R. T.

    TELLERS,

    Rendel, S.

    Cameron, C.

    Reynolds, W. J.

    Esslemont, P.

    Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair,"withdrawn.
    SUPPLY—Committee upon Monday next.
    It being One of the clock a.m., Mr. Speaker adjourned the House, without Question put, till Monday next.