POOR IN LARGE TOWNS.

HC Deb 02 April 1889 vol 334 cc1439-80

*MR. BROADHURST (Nottingham, W.)

Mr. Speaker, in moving the Resolution which stands in my name, I confess I have an exceedingly difficult task before me. I claim no more power of solving this problem than others possess, and my desire is to submit this Resolution to the House rather in the hope of eliciting from all parts of the House contributions to the discussion of the subject than with the intention of making a speech which shall contain antidotes for the evils to which I shall allude. Now, as to the number of poor in the country at the present time in proportion to the number in the past, it is difficult for anyone to make anything like an approximate estimate that will be of material importance or very reliable, simply from the fact that there are no means of obtaining the information. The Poor Law Returns, to which one would naturally turn for information of this kind, seem to prove, if they prove anything, a diminution in the number of persons falling upon the rates for assistance. I find that in 1873 the number of persons receiving Poor Law relief was 1,083,101, or about 3¼ per cent of the population; and the latest Return gives the number at 1,035,992, or about 2½ per cent of the population. I do not think, however, that the Poor Law Returns are to be relied upon absolutely as giving a true indication of the amount of poverty which exists in the country, or as indicating an increase or decrease in the number of poor. There is a growing dislike to the stigma of Poor Law relief, and many of the poorest people would rather suffer the greatest privation than allow themselves to be brought under this stigma. Then there is now a tendency to make the existence of poverty more widely known; and a determination on the part of those who suffer not to suffer in silence in the future as they have done in the past. This may induce a belief that the number of the very poor is on the increase. Another fact which may make it appear that poverty is on the increase, is that the poor are now more concentrated than they used to be. People scattered in a thousand different parishes in various parts of the United Kingdom cannot possibly give such effect to their complaints as people gathered together in large centres such as London, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow. This may account, to a great extent, for the persistency with which the existence of poverty is brought under our notice. Certainly it proves that, whether the proportion of the very poor be larger or smaller, it is not as safe in these days as in the past, to say nothing of the right and wrong of the matter, to ignore the existence of the suffering of the people. If there is a great wrong which requires redress, if there is great and widespread poverty which requires relief, it is right and proper, and better for the country, that we should know of it, and, if possible, attempt some relief of it, rather than it should go on indefinitely accumulating till it becomes a great national danger. I shall mainly refer to the class that suffers probably more than any other—namely, the unskilled labour part of the community. Mechanics and artizans possess the means, if they choose to avail themselves of them, of assisting themselves in times of trouble and in times of scarcity of employment. There are few skilled industries but what has a trades' union, and a trades' union provides for its members in case of want of employment. Taking 26 trades' unions, I find that, in periods varying from 10 to 50 years, they have distributed relief in various forms to the extent of more than eight millions sterling. No one can tell the amount of poverty that this expenditure has prevented, and no one can tell the calamity to the country it has warded off. But the unskilled labourers are the greatest sufferers. They suffer more because of the uncertainty of employment and the difficulty of combining in order to provide against want of occupation. It is to the unskilled class that we ought to have special regard when we deal with such a question as this. It would be quite safe to say there is scarcely a branch of employment of unskilled labour that is not terribly overcrowded. I refer particularly to the warehouse labourers, the general labourers, the men who assist mechanics in the unskilled portion of their work, and the seamstresses among the female portion of the community, who are all engaged in branches of industry so overcrowded as to make it almost impossible to gain anything like a living. Then there is the chain and nail industry. The condition of the people engaged in this industry is deplorable beyond description. The hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare) and the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Mr. Cuninghame Graham) discussed the condition of these people the other day as though it had never previously been before the House. I remember bringing the question under the notice of the House four or five years ago.

*MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM

I specially referred to the fact that the condition of the nail and chain makers had been repeatedly under the attention of Parliament in past years.

*MR. BROADHURST

I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction with much pleasure. What I wanted to point out was that I had brought the question before the House, although I am bound to say the miserable support I obtained on the occasion was not very encouraging to me to pursue other efforts in the same direction. Then some fearful revelations were made in the Report of Mr. Burnett, of the Labour Department of the Board of Trade; and it was that Report, I have no doubt, which mainly led to the appointment of what is called the Sweating Committee. The House will remember the description of the condition of the workers in the tailoring trades of the East End—they will remember that it was shown that men, women, and young persons were employed in the most unhealthy rooms for wages not sufficient to keep body and soul together. We hope that the inquiry now proceeding will have some effect in bringing redress to these wretched people. Now, Sir, I have no doubt the introduction of machinery accounts, to a great extent, for the existence of a vast amount of suffering among the unskilled labourers. As an illustration of this, let me say that I witnessed at Sheffield a few weeks ago the forging of a piece of steel weighing about 35 tons. The metal was being forged with the aid of eight or ten men, who were simply employed in certain subordinate duties connected with the movement of the forging; and it struck, me at the time that this enormous mass of steel, which was to form the driving shaft of a ship, was being treated by the almost human machinery as if it were a penholder in the hand of a strong man. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds (Sir L. Playfair), in an article in the March number of the Contemporary Review," stated that he had witnessed a machine which displaced the labour of 999 workers by hand. In the cotton and wool trades, also, machines have been invented which will accomplish more in a given time than 500 pairs of human hands did previously. Inventions are improving upon inventions every day we live, motive power is increasing in force and in efficiency, and unless the labourers can secure a share of the increased productive power by a decrease in the hours of labour, I do not see what is to be the end, so far as the labourers are concerned, in this enormous ever daily and hourly increase of machinery. The prospect is one which we must look upon with some anxiety, if not alarm. I do not think it is possible to ask the House to give the displaced hands compensation from the State by way of finding them employment at the cost of the State, though I am not sure that some of my hon. Friends are not prepared to ask the House to do so. But what I think we may reasonably do is, to ask the House to see that the children of the victims to the increase of machinery, to the inventive genius of the nation, shall not, at any rate, suffer either in food requirements or educational necessities. The children are our future men and women, and much of our prosperity or otherwise will depend upon the amount of succour we give them in their childhood; and I ask the House to declare, in the first place, that so grave is the condition of large numbers of the poor of our great centres of population, that we should, without undue delay, press such measures as shall secure to their children a national education tree from direct contribution by the parents. This is a definite proposal; it is germane to the Motion, and I believe its adoption would be fraught with the happiest and best results to the children themselves, and certainly to the country of which they are to be citizens. Then, I ask that it should be the duty of the country to see that such children as are of school age should not be required to receive their elementary education on empty stomachs. A more hopeless, heartless, cruel task than to endeavour to drive grammar and arithmetic into the brains of a child that is almost starving for the necessaries of life it is impossible to imagine. This may appear an extreme proposal. I make it entirely on my own responsibility, and it pledges the adherence of no other Member. It was once my sad lot to visit a Board School in the poorest part of Southwark, and I think I shall be within the truth when I say that of the 200 or 300 scholars in the school scarcely a dozen had sufficient garments on them to cover their nakedness, scarcely any of them had shoes, and each had want stamped upon his features. No more pitiful, heartbreaking sight could be contemplated by human being than to see the teachers doing their best to prepare these poor young brains for their future contest in life, knowing at the same time that they had not sufficient food for the physical and mental effort necessary to receive the instruction. This may be called Socialism or any other ism. I am not prepared to contest the point, but I do contend that it is unwise, that it is neglectful, that it is cruel for the nation to allow thousands of its children to grow up under such conditions, their mental and physical growth dwarfed, and their capacity for being of service to their country in afterlife lessened by such a commencement in their career. I have no hesitation in saying that we should provide free education for the poor children of the community; and that it should be so free, that there should be no pauper taint attaching to it as there is to those educated free under the present conditions, and it should be the duty of the country to see that these children have one solid, wholesome, healthy hot meal on each of their school days. This is not an extreme proposal, and I think many hon. Members will be inclined to support it. I believe that the supply of food could be so arranged that a vast number of the children whose parents are not of the very poor, yet who have a keen struggle for existence with the difficulty of finding employment—could have meals composed of good wholesome food supplied to them at the lowest possible price; and I feel sure vast numbers would appreciate the blessing of such an arrangement. There would be an addition to the present school work. You could not provide 300 or 400 children with a daily meal without arrangements for buying and cooking, but that could be easily done. Many works in this country at the present time do, on co-operative principles, provide meals for the workpeople engaged on the premises. I know one instance where any adult employed can have a good hot meal for fivepence, and any young person can have a dinner in the middle of the day for twopence halfpenny. And this plan pays its way—there is no charity about it, not the least in the world. Now, if this can be done on a liberal scale of diet, as it is in a comparatively small way, there can be little doubt that, if adopted on a large scale, the cost might be reduced one-half. In cases where it is necessary these meals should be absolutely free I do not think there is anything unreasonable in the proposition, and I feel convinced that the work of education would be easier if the children were not in a half-starved condition. Make these arrangements for the supply of food in districts where the necessity may reasonably be expected to exist, and you may utilize them further by the supply of cheap food to adults in the evening. Such establishments would, no doubt, attract a great amount of charitable assistance and voluntary labour. Such a plan would, in my opinion, bring untold blessings upon those we all desire to assist, and render a great service to the nation. There are many features of the suggestion I am compelled to pass over for time presses, and I now come to the question of the housing of the poor, a still more difficult question. Those who have paid any attention to the Report of the Committee on the subject will know the difficulties. I will not detain the House by going over all the references I had intended to make. The Report will show the desperate condition existing in the Metropolis and throughout the country among our fellow-countrymen in regard to this question. In some districts there is scarcely a house but what has each room occupied by a separate family, and in many cases there are two families in one room, persons of all ages and both sexes, and in rooms, too, not affording sufficient space for healthy occupation by two persons. The death-rate in these districts is 60 or 70 per thousand. A back cellar, in some instances, as you will see by reference to the evidence on page 8, fetches from 3s. to 4s. 6d. a week. We have a long account from Mr. Marchant Williams, an Officer of the London School Board, and it will be seen he shows that from a fifth to a fourth of the weekly earnings of the poor is consumed in their rent-charge. It is certain that people so crowded and huddled together cannot grow up into healthy, desirable citizens. But my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries will deal at greater length with these evils and the proposed remedy. In regard to the lodgings of the very poor, there are no places in England provided but the common lodging-houses and the casual ward, neither of them very desirable places. The common lodging-house is, of course, better than the street, but it is under no effective supervision. There are provisions in an Act of Parliament about area and cubic spaces, and so on; but there is no visiting authority to see that the entire space is not occupied by twice the number of persons that should occupy it. They are under police supervision, which is periodical and effective so far as whitewashing is concerned, but for no other practical purposes. They are not the places to tend to the improvement of the health or nature of those who are forced to avail themselves of this shelter. The casual ward is an addition to the workhouse even more repulsive than the workhouse itself; it is often difficult to find; there is much uncertainty as to admission; and the most degrading conditions are imposed on those who are compelled to take refuge in the ward. With regard to shelter for the very poor, let me mention what has been done in Glasgow. The municipal authorities have provided six large lodging houses, five for males and one for females. These houses are under municipal control, and the person seeking shelter there does so under the best condition possible at the price paid. He has a bunk to himself, privacy, and more comfort than at first sight would seem possible. There are arrangements by which he may cook his own food, or he may buy it on the premises. Strict discipline and a good moral tone is maintained throughout, and habits of cleanliness are insisted upon, unaccompanied, however, with any of the degrading conditions of the casual ward. The average number of persons housed is 2,000 each night; and what is surprising and satisfactory to the ratepayers of Glasgow, 4½ per cent is paid on the capital invested. This is, perhaps, the most pleasing feature of the whole proceeding, and I do not see why the example of Glasgow should not be followed by every municipal or county authority in the United Kingdom. I would certainly suggest to the Local Government Board that they should encourage the County Councils to follow this example.

MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

Can the hon. Member say what rent is paid?

*MR. BROADHURST

Unfortunately, I did not provide myself with the figures. I went over one of these houses from top to bottom, and I can speak of the wonderful efficiency and cleanliness of everything. If I remember rightly, three pence per night was the charge for lodging. I cannot go into the whole question of housing the very poor—it involves heavy questions of the first importance; the leaseholders' question, the question of ground rents, and the whole question of Land Law Reform is connected with it. [A laugh.] The question does affect the housing of the poor, and cannot be laughed away. You have a great and distinguished man in England at the present moment who takes an extreme view of the Land Question as it affects towns and rural districts, and whose doctrines are making enormous progress. [Several hon. MEMBERS: Who?] Mr. Henry George. [Laughter.] Yes; you laugh, and that is the fallacy that afflicted people in times gone by; but, depend upon it, this matter will not be laughed out of existence—it is too serious, too great, it has taken too deep root in the country to be lightly disposed of. Whether you consent to consider it or not, the question remains that your population is growing in extent most alarming, and politically dangerous. If you do not take this question in hand, and consider how you should limit the monopoly of land in our great centres, then the question will force itself to the front, and solve itself in a manner none of us now desire and some of us cannot imagine. The increase of population in London since 1831 has been 2,500,000, and in the same period Glasgow has increased by 500,000 souls. You cannot ignore these facts and the growing danger with them. I am not proposing the removal of people from the congested populations of towns and agricultural districts. I do not see much value in that. The habits of the people in the towns and their enfeebled constitutions unfit them for agricultural pursuits. But something should be done to lessen the tendency of population to draw towards the great towns. It is difficult to speak exactly about the increase or decrease of population in our rural districts. Some people say there is no decrease, whilst others say that a large decrease is constantly going on. A paper read at the Statistical Society a year or two ago showed that from 1851 to 1881 the population living by agricultural pursuits had decreased by 418,000, and that from 1871 to 1881 it had decreased by 162,000. I believe these figures rather under-estimate than over-estimate the decrease. Our Census Returns are not made up in the manner best calculated to afford information on these points. I understand the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) to assent to that proposition, and I hope he will do something to rectify it in the next Census Return. I say that the facts are very alarming. While the rural population is decreasing our imports of food are increasing very rapidly.

An hon. MEMBER: Free Trade.

*MR. BROADHURST

I do not think we should argue the question of Free Trade now, and the temptation to take a line of that sort is so great that I hope I shall not be further invited to it. We are importing food to the value of £100,000,000 a year which we could equally well produce in this country if the land were free for the people to cultivate. Nearly the whole of these imports might be produced in our own country if the land were free to cultivate. It is perfectly well known that your large holding system has nearly ruined many people. I have some figures here which I will read to the House. They have been supplied by a former Member of this House. In the parish of Lavington, which is situate in a county with which the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Long) is associated, there is a farm of 2,344 acres rented at under 10s. 3d. per acre, whose occupier failed in 1887 with liabilities amounting to £36,000, including £14,000 for rent. There are 500 acres in the same parish rented at from 15s. to 16s. per acre in the hands of 64 small occupiers who punctually pay their rent. These figures speak volumes in favour of a direct reform in our system of land owning and land hiring. A holding of 250 acres would probably employ only two men and a couple of boys, except at harvest time, but if the 250 acres were divided into 50 portions they would employ 60 men. It is perfectly well known that the smaller a holding the larger amount of labour employed per acre. If these are facts, and no one can deny their substantial truthfulness, how necessary is it that the House should bring its mind to the solution of the Land Question, and see whether it cannot prevent the continual increase of population in big centres by encouraging our rural population to stay at home by offering them opportunities of bettering themselves? Had it not been for the cheap food which we have imported from abroad, we should have had a revolution in this country before today. Nothing has saved this country from disaster during the last ten years so much as the cheap and plentiful supply of food which we have been compelled to obtain from foreign countries instead of growing it at our own doors. It is a scandal, a disgrace, and a danger to this or any other country to have such a large accumulation of wealth on the one hand, and such widespread and deep-seated poverty on the other, without some efforts being made to equalize the two conditions of life thus set forth. The House of Commons is overburdened and overworked, and we hope to relieve it before long of some of its functions. After the House has been relieved of those functions which my hon. Friends have specially in their minds, there are other directions in which it may be relieved of some of its labours in order that it may devote part of its time to the improvement of the condition of the people whom it is supposed to represent. Civilized government fails unless it attends to the wants of the least influential of our fellow-creatures. I hope there will be some practical outcome from the proceedings of to-night. If nothing is done to remedy the evils which I have described, the fault will lie at the door of those who, having been warned, have refused to listen to the warning. It is nine years to-day since I was first elected a Member of this honourable House, and I can truly say that I have never occupied the attention of the House on a subject in which I take so deep an interest, and the solution of which I so heartily desire. I apologize to the House for having taken up so much of its time, and I thank hon. Members for the patience with which they have listened to me. I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, in the opinion of this House, the chronic poverty of great numbers of the people living in the large cities and towns of Great Britain is a danger to the well-being of the State, and calls for the instant attention of the Government to remedial measures by which the depopulation of the agricultural districts may be checked, and the congestion of the great centres of population relieved."—(Mr. Broadhurst.)

MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries, &c.)

I rise, Sir, to second the Motion. My hon. Friend has, in opening the discussion, traversed a very large area, and it is impossible for me to cover all the ground which he has travelled over. I will endeavour to condense my remarks as much as possible. The Motion is one of supreme importance; it deals with the condition of the poor in town and country, not with that poverty which is the result of misconduct—the retribution which follows upon imtemperance or indolence—but with that preventible poverty which I and those who agree with me say bad laws have made and good laws can repair. The position, as I understand it, is this—there is a constant flow from the country districts into the towns of persons unable to find occupation in the country. The agricultural labourer works for scanty wages, and when he can work no longer, unless his children support him, he must go into the workhouse. He cannot get a cottage or a piece of land, and there is no career open to him unless he moves into a town or emigrates. Accordingly he comes into a town, where he finds himself at the tender mercies of the employer of labour, and falls under the sweating system. Hon. Gentlemen know that the evidence before the Royal Commission revealed as horrible a state of things as could be conceived. You have these described to you—the one-room system, the one-bed system, the extreme infantile mortality, the exhaustion of men in full maturity. All I can say is that, if that Report does not convince hon. Gentlemen of the horrors of the system, nothing I can say has any chance of convincing them. I do not, however, desire to describe the situation, but to suggest remedies. In the first place, however, I will say a word or two in regard to remedies I do not recommend. I think I never saw so many Fair Traders together as I see sitting opposite to me now. It is gratifying; but I am not going to treat Fair Trade as a serious question, because hon. Gentlemen opposite do not treat it as a serious question. If they were in earnest, they could put pressure on the Treasury Bench, and raise the question by discussions and divisions in the House. When I see a body of Gentlemen using a question as an election cry, but not prepared to press it in the House, or to submit to the test of a General Election, I say to myself, "Those Gentlemen are not in earnest." I will pass to what has been said by my hon. Friend about restricting the hours of labour. I know that is a very difficult question. I am somewhat sympathetic with the argument, because I think that women especially are exceedingly overworked and unable to protect themselves; and I would rather err on the side of over-protection than on the other side with regard to them. With regard to men, the case is different, though there may be some employments in which it may be necessary to interfere. To interfere by restricting the hours of labour, however, would not work a solution of the difficulty. One word as to emigration. If there is no better method of dealing with the very poor than to send them out of their own country—the richest in the world—at a time when there are millions of acres uncultivated, we had better renounce the attempt of improving the condition of the population. My hon. Friend did not refer to the question of co-operation, and I must say a word on the subject. Co-operation may hereafter play a very great part in benefiting the poor, but it cannot possibly have any practical success until we deal with the one thing which is at the root of the mischief, and which goes down to the very bottom of our social evils—namely, the land system. What is the land system? What do the Land Laws allow the landlord to do? They allow him to use or to abuse the land at his caprice, to let it lie waste and uncultivated, and to convert it into deer forests. In my own country out of 19,000,000 acres there are 2,000,000 acres of deer forests, a great part of which might be available for maintaining the people. Landlords can prevent the growth and expansion of villages and small towns, they can prevent cottages from being built, and thereby cause poor people to leave the country. They can prevent any factory from being erected in the country. [A laugh.] The hon. Gentleman opposite need not smile. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester (Mr. Winterbotham) has decided the question satisfactorily, for he has a large factory in a purely rural district. In my own constituency quite recently a great attempt was made to have a factory erected, the capital was forthcoming, and it would, have been a great boon, but the landlord refused the land on any possible terms. Landlords cannot be compelled to sell except by Act of Parliament, or to allow any other person to use the land. Acts of Parliament are passed only for public undertakings, and private enterprizes are absolutely at the mercy of the landlords. Will hon. Gentlemen realize what it is to leave the prosperity of rural England to the caprices of a comparatively small and rather short-sighted body of men? Who can doubt that small shopkeepers and labourers would, by the practice of self-denial and thrift, obtain some small portion of the land if it were possible to do so on fair terms? There is no one who loves a piece of land on which to found a home more than an Englishman. If what I suggest were possible, villages would expand, agricultural labourers would gain their independence, and would gradually rise in the social scale, from cottage to allotment, from allotment to small holding, and, perhaps, from small holding to small farm. I do not say they would all rise, but there would be a career open to all of them. That is all perfectly impossible now. I would ask those landlords who are present how many agricultural labourers they know who have raised themselves to the position of small farmers? If any hon. Member can quote many, his experience is very exceptional. I am perfectly satisfied that if it happens in even a small degree it must be through the kindness and wisdom of landlords in different parts of the country; but it is common knowledge that landlords who encourage that kind of thing are comparatively few. ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen deny that proposition, but they had better do so in debate. I speak from experience when I say that only in a very few instances does it happen. I know of 80 holdings of three acres and upwards which were started in 1848 by that most admirable landlord in Dumfriesshire, Mr. Hope Johnstone. The holdings were taken by hedgemen, ploughmen, small shopkeepers, foresters, and men of that stamp. They were only granted on leases of 21 years; but the leases have been renewed by the landlord. What has been the result? Anyone who was able to get one of these pendicles—as the holdings are called—was only too glad to get it; and now the pendicles stand as monuments of the success which attends such efforts. But, in the whole county of Dumfries, that is a unique instance. I will now ask the House to allow me to suggest what I think the remedies must be. If this state is to be changed, it is of no use dealing with the old Whig reforms of primogeniture, the simplification of title and registration things which any competent lawyer, if he had his heart in his work, could put into an Act of Parliament to-morrow and pass with the greatest ease. It is necessary to do more; and I maintain that, in order to prevent the involuntary depopulation of the rural districts, it is necessary to give public bodies in the country full powers not merely to take land for public purposes strictly so-called, but on honest terms—that is, a fair price—to take land, subject, if you will, to the supervision of the Local Government Board, for the legitimate use of all persons who toil in the particular district in order to establish allotments or small holdings. If such a form were adopted for the rural parts, in my opinion the towns would cease to be so congested: but that is not at all sufficient. We have to deal with the condition of things in London and other large towns which is a disgrace to the country itself. The London landlords have neglected every duty of their position. They have let their land to middlemen, who sub-let it at enormous rent. The London landlords do not even take the trouble to enforce the covenants of their leases. They omit every sanitary precaution, and they rack-rent the poor people of London to a degree that is even unknown to the peasantry of some of the worst rack-rented parts of Ireland. The Report of the Royal Commission, which, by the way, I regard as a rather halting document, states, in referring to the generally lamentable condition of the homes of the labouring classes, that the first thing which demands attention is the poverty of the inhabitants of the poorest quarters of the towns, or, in other words, the relation borne by the wages the people receive to the rents they have to pay. To such an extent has the evil of excessive rents gone that even in the parishes which have large charities in London the charities are appropriated for the purpose of raising rent. It was proved before the Royal Commission that in the rich London parishes the very fact that there are large charities for distribution raised the rents of the wretched people who live there. I remember a clergyman of the Church of England, who worked hard in one of the parishes of London, at one time telling me that, after all the labour and money which he and his charitable friends expended, the result was enough to break his heart, because their poor were so looked after that even the charity bestowed upon them was the means of raising their rents. I maintain that the London landlords have neglected every duty, and that they stand condemned on the face of the Report of the Royal Commission. If that is so, a public effort ought to be made to remedy the state of things. Private efforts will be of no use, and I am well aware that the public efforts of the Metropolitan Board of Works have been very costly. If there were a better system of legal expenditure in regard to ascertaining the cost of property, and if the American system were, under equitable conditions, introduced, it would be easy to make it cheaper than it is. But, whatever the cost, we cannot allow the work to remain undone. The present state of things is a source of danger to us; it is a source of disgrace to us, and I should be very sorry to believe there was anyone who did not desire to see this hideous evil removed. Now we have the County Council, we ought to give the County Council power to buy and to let buildings, and deal with the question subject to two principles—first, that every honest and industrious man is entitled, as an inhabitant of London, to have a decent dwelling at a fair rent; and, secondly, that the expense of making towns habitable for the toilers must be thrown on the land which their toil makes valuable, and that without any effort on the part of the owner. If the House will deal thoroughly with this question, I am persuaded we shall hear less of the unemployed and of agricultural depression; and, above all, we shall not have those miserable dens which are responsible for half the crime of the country. Hon. Members live in the midst of a city of immeasurable wealth, filled with splendid houses and overflowing with luxury, and yet within a few hundred yards of this House there is a degree of misery which is hardly to be paralleled in the Queen's Dominions. I wonder at the patience with which men endure this misery. It cannot be supposed they will continue indefinitely to submit to a system which condemns them, their wives, and families, to a precarious existence in a wretched lodging, without much of decency or hope of improvement. I appeal to the sense of justice and generosity of the House. It may be that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen now in power may not be prepared to deal with this matter in the spirit which I think necessary—I am afraid the drift of their policy lies in a different direction; but I trust the Liberal Leaders, at all events, will recognize that attention to these social questions in the most important and pressing of their duties, for, if they decline so to deal with them, they will not retain, and in my opinion will not deserve to retain, the confidence of the country.

*MR. SETON-KARR (St. Helen's)

Mr. Speaker, I think we, on this side of the House, may fairly congratulate the Mover and Seconder of the Motion on the moderate tone they have displayed in their speeches so far as Party feeling is concerned. But I am not so sure we can go as far as to do that in regard to the remedies they propose. Before referring to the Amendment which I have placed on the Paper. I should like to notice one or two remarks which fell from the hon. Gentlemen who have preceded me. It is not possible in the four hours' debate to consider all the remedies mentioned by the hon. Gentlemen; it is not possible to discuss the question of free education, free food, and free lodging for the people, neither is it possible to discuss the question of the wholesale revision of the land tenure in this country; but some of the remarks of the hon. Gentlemen very well deserve a passing notice. It seems to me that the objection which will be raised against free food and free lodging is that they would demoralize the working classes of the country. The hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. E. T. Reid) indulged freely in the abuse of landlords, and he has proposed as a remedy a system of compulsory purchase. I know many hon. Members opposite look upon landlords as a demoralized and degraded set of men. Granting that they are, I take it we must imagine they are in the possession of ordinary faculties, and therefore is it possible to conceive that landlords as a general class would allow land to remain in pasture if it would pay them better to cultivate it? The hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) said that the population of the great cities and towns of this country is congested to a dangerous degree; and in that I heartily agree with him. The hon. Gentleman also pointed out that the agricultural districts are becoming gradually depopulated, because the people are migrating to the towns. In that I also agree with him, but I wish the House to remember what it is that gives rise to this state of things. I ask the House to bear in mind how dense the population is, and to reflect upon the alarming manner in which the population is increasing. The remedies suggested by the Mover and Seconder of the resolution, will do nothing to reduce the density of the population. The population now numbers 37,000,000. Let hon. Gentlemen put all their remedies into operation, and the population will still be 37,000,000. [Hon. MEMBERS: More.] Yes; it seems to me that if we indulge the people with free food and free education we shall put a premium upon an increase of the population. The population is now increasing at the rate of about 1,000 a day, or about 370,000 a year. In another 20 years 8,000,000 will have been added to the population of the United Kingdom, and any remedy for this state of things must take this increase into consideration. If there is no doubt as to the industrial and agricultural industries not being able to support the existing population, can there be any doubt as to their not being able to support the population 20 years hence? We have no Yellow River in this country like the Chinese have in their country, to carry off millions of people at a time, and, therefore, we must look upon it as an absolute certainty that the population in future will constitute a tremendous change to the social condition of the country unless something is done. The hon. Member for Nottingham has attributed a certain amount of the depopulation of the rural districts to the present land system; and my remedy will touch the agricultural labourers before they arrive at the towns. Let me direct attention to the state of things in Ireland. Since the great famine Ireland has gradually been turned from an arable into a pastoral country, because the cultivation of the land was not found to pay. The population has been reduced from 9,000,000 to 4,500,000, and that fact alone is a strong argument in support of colonization. This reduction of the population is exactly founded on the principle of my Motion. I desire the House to distinguish between colonization and emigration. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. E. T. Reid) sneered somewhat at emigration; but there is a great misconception about emigration and colonization. Emigration is simply the transportation of the labourers of this country to the Colonies, often without the approval of our Colonial Governments; but, on the other hand, colonization is not only transportation across the sea, but it is the placing our unemployed labourers and artizans in groups of families on the unoccupied and fertile lands of our Colonies, at a cost probably of £120 a family. Colonization does not mean the pauperizing of the working classes, but a good and sound profitable investment. In 12 or 20 years, too, the people so transferred will very probably become the owners of the land they till. Sir, the State Colonization which we advocate would be more or less based on the lines of the Crofter Emigration Scheme which has been started by the Government. Perhaps the House will allow me for one moment to place before it the scheme which the Colonization Committee spent two Sessions in elaborating, but which we have never yet had an opportunity of debating in this House. The first point in our scheme is that there shall be a Board composed of Colonial Representatives, as the controlling authority; secondly, that a fund shall be raised under Imperial guarantee, unless, indeed, the House suggests a better scheme by way of grants from the Exchequer; and, thirdly, that the Colonization Board shall have a veto on the families selected. Finally, the system under which colonists would become freeholders would be that the property would be mortgaged to the Government at a rent-charge of 4 per cent. extending over a number of years, at the end of which the colonist would become the freeholder of his plot of about 160 acres. I omitted to mention that the Colony which we should advoate as the field for colonization would, in the first place, be Canada, because the Government of the Dominion is favourably disposed and would give free grants of land. The sum required for an average family of five persons for transportation, settlement, and maintenance is from £120 to £150. There are no reasons on the face of that scheme why it should not succeed. It is said colonization would do too much because it would remove the backbone of the country. Now I take it that the backbone of the country are working men in honest employment earning wages. But those are men we do not want to colonize and who do not want to be colonized. On the other band, there are thousands of unemployed crofters and artizans who at the present moment constitute a source of weakness rather than of strength to this country, and they therefore cannot be described as the back bone of the country. But they would be a source of strength to the empire if they and their families were transferred to the Colonies, where they would have elbow room, and where on fertile, virgin soil, in a healthy climate, they would have opened up to them a career of prosperity. Again, we are told that colonization would do too little, and that even if the mere bagatelle of one or two thousand families a-year were transported beyond the seas, it would make no sensible impression on the population at home. But does any other scheme which has been mooted give an opening for anything like one or two thousand families a year? Sir, this is a work which can only be done by the State. It has been asked, why not leave it to private enterprize? Four well managed colonization experiments have been tried since 1883, but in the last five years they have only succeeded in transporting 100 families. I believe the emigration of children has been conducted on a large scale, and I am glad that that has been the case, but of what use are these comparatively miserable results when thousands have to be dealt with? We have to deal with thousands of starving crofters and thousands of working men in the large centres of population who are unable to obtain employment. We have also to deal, on the other hand, with a vast stretch of Colonial property of something like 1000 million acres available for colonization; and how in such conditions can private enterprize do more than touch the fringe of the subject? Sir, it is not for me to go into the wider advantages which I claim for this scheme of colonization; but I should like for one moment to compare it with the scheme of migration or compulsory purchase. I know that the hon. Gentlemen who represent crofter interests have preferred migration to emigration to the Colonies; but where, I ask, are you going to get the land to which you can migrate the congested population of the Highlands? Why, before a generation has passed, every acre will be occupied. I can assure you that for every acre you have at home you can find hundreds of acres of fresh virgin soil in Canada and British Columbia and North Western Australia, which offer far greater advantages to the settler. It seems to me that the quantity of land which can be obtained, and the terms on which it may be secured, offer advantages far above any system of compulsory purchase at home. The two cannot be mentioned in the same breath. Moreover, where are you going to get the money for your migration scheme? Why, you will be taking the ratepayers' money, and using it in a most unprofitable experiment. By sending families to the Colonies you will be increasing the market for home-manufactured goods. Let me call the attention of the House to a few figures. The Germans buy English goods to the extent of about 8s. worth per head, the French 9s. worth, and Americans 10s. But the Canadian colonist buys £2 worth, South African £3, and Australian £8. In other words the successful colonist is worth from four to 16 times as much to the home producer as the foreigner. Therefore, the scheme of colonization which I advocate will be to the advantage of our home trade. From 1882 to 1885 a sum of £44,000 was spent in emigrating 9,500 persons from Ireland; but, unfortunately, 75 per cent of those have been sent to the United States, where they are lost to the Mother Country. As an instance of the value of colonization, I may mention hat one family, sent out many years since, now numbers in its descendants over 500 people, and spends £1,500 or £1,600 annually on the purchase of British goods; thus, by sending people to our own Colonies, we increase our powers of employment at home. I think, Sir, I have shown that colonization is a direct practical remedy, and one worthy the consideration of the House. It will not only relieve density of population, but it will find an outlet for the unemployed labourers on the land who would otherwise migrate to the large centres of population. I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite as to the deplorable contrasts of our social condition at present. On the one hand, we have a small minority who have more money than they know what to do with; on the other, we have a large majority engaged in a struggle for bare existence. If this state of things is allowed to continue, there may be a very rude awakening ere another generation has passed away. Colonization affords a direct and practical remedy for the overcrowded population; but time is of very great importance. We have in Canada a magnificent stretch of country, opened up by railway. If Great Britain does not utilize the vast tracts in her Colonies, alien nations will utilize them, and their place can never be supplied. Even now we find that Germans, Swedes, and Russians are settling on these lands, and we know from the fact that they send home more money than is sent out, that they are prosperous, and are inducing their friends to join them. At one time it was said that our Colonies were an in cumbrance, and some political wise acres committed themselves to a policy of disintegration. But the sound policy is to people our Colonies with our own flesh and blood. I am glad, therefore, that the Government have set on foot, in a small way, a scheme of colonization for the crofters. I do not say this is the only remedy, but it is certainly one of the principal remedies for the great social evils to which the hon. Member who moved the resolution alluded. I should be glad to hear what the Government have to say on a subject which is well worthy of their serious consideration, and how far they purpose to extend their present scheme of Crofter Colonization. I believe we have here a really solid remedy, which will do a great deal to meet the difficulties with which we have to deal in this country, and one which I believe the Colonies will co-operate with us in bringing out; and, therefore, I urge the Government to give it their most careful consideration. I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House fully recognizes the danger to the well-being of the State caused by the chronic poverty and overcrowding of great numbers of the people living in London and the larger cities and towns of Great Britain, and is of opinion that, in the consideration and development by the Government of some well-devised scheme of State Colonization, an effective and practical remedy for this state of things can be found, whereby an outlet for our unemployed agricultural class now migrating annually to our large cities and towns, and increasing the want and poverty there, will be provided, the large tracts of fertile and unoccupied lands in our Colonies will be profitably utilized, and the evils arising from over-population and agricultural depression at home will be relieved."—(Mr. Seton-Karr.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

*MR. S. GEDGE (Stockport)

I rise to second the Amendment. Of course, all of us will thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman who moved the original Resolution and with the hon. Member who seconded it, so far as they confined themselves to dilating upon evils which we all desire to alleviate. But it is an old oratorical trick to talk very much about the evils, and then assume that all who deplore those evils must agree in the value of the remedy which is proposed for them. It seems to me, after listening carefully to the speech made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, that the remedies which he proposed would tend to aggravate the evils rather than to prevent or diminish them. The particular evils which he pointed out in his Resolution were the depletion of the agricultural population and the congestion of our large towns, and his desire is to check the first and to relieve the second. But I find the remedies which are suggested in the Resolution are not such as might have been expected from the hon. Member. We find he suggests that because of the depopulation of the agricultural districts and of the congestion of the town populations, we ought to begin by giving free education and free meals. But we have seen that this can only be done economically when the meals are given in large quantities, and I think the hon. Member who seconded the Resolution has pretty well answered the suggestions of the hon. Member who proposed it, for he showed us most distinctly that wherever you give much charity there rents increase. Rents, like the prices of goods, depend upon the laws of supply and demand, and they can only be increased by the landlord, because a larger number of people go into the towns where the houses are situated. This increase is likely to occur in towns where, as has been suggested, charity is more freely distributed. These are the causes which lead to the rise of rents, and I maintain that if in any place you give charity, either in the form of free education and free dinners for the children or money gifts, there will come an increase of population in that place which will enable the landlords to raise rents. Therefore, the result of giving free education and free meals will be not to diminish or to relieve, but to gradually increase the congestion of the town populations. Well, we are told that a great deal of this evil has resulted from the introduction of machinery. I remember that many years ago I stood on the same platform as a fine old Tory of the good old school, who told us all the evils of the present day resulted from the introduction of machinery and the employment of capital. I have never heard that argument since until to-night I heard it from the lips of the hon. Member for Nottingham, and I did not expect to hear such an argument from him. He certainly is the last man I should have expected to attribute these evils to the introduction of machinery. He seems to have forgotten that at least as much labour must have been employed in the manufacture of machinery as is employed in the growth of corn. He told us it was a very bad thing that the agricultural labourers should leave their farms and go to the towns, because they might have grown corn which now had to be imported from abroad. But I should like to ask him, as a Free Trader, with what he supposes we pay for the corn which we obtain from abroad. Surely we pay for it with the things manufactured by these men. I should have supposed that the reason why these men came to the towns to work there instead of staying in their country villages producing corn was simply this—that they find they can earn more money by working in the towns than they are able to earn by growing corn, and therefore they can in this way obtain for the same labour more of the corn more cheaply in foreign countries. How, then, such a contention could have come from the lips of a Free Trader passes my comprehension. It seems to me that so long as we can make more cheaply machines, and buy more cheaply corn which is produced elsewhere, that is the most economical use we can make of our labour. Then we are told that the large landed estates must be got rid of in order to secure a more equable distribution of wealth. But as we were told last year by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the present time there is a general tendency to diminish large accumulations of property and wealth, and to more equally distribute them; and, therefore, what is going on under the operation of natural laws should not be interfered with; it is better to allow it to proceed, rather than to interfere with it by artificial laws. The evidence before the Committee on Town Holdings shows clearly that the large estates are by far the best managed. The houses are the best on the large estates; there is less poverty on those estates, and if you want to find broken-down, wretched, ruinous, and disgraceful houses, you must look, not at the property of the large landlord, but at property belonging to very small holders. Another suggestion is that we should enfranchise the leaseholds. But if you do this, and houses are thereby made cheaper, which the hon. Member expects, but I do not, to be the result, you will gradually increase the populations in the large towns and you will intensify the evils which you now complain of. The only desirable way of removing the population of agricultural districts is to give them better places to go to. Why are the agricultural districts depopulated? Because it is found that you can raise the products of the country by machinery with far less labour than before. Therefore, the people of the agricultural districts, wanting employment, will come to the towns unless you provide them better places to go to. It is said that if you lave small holdings you will have larger crops, and more labour will be employed. I venture to submit that almost universal experience is against that. True, a small holding which comes as an addition to the man's wages is a desirable thing to have. But the hon. Member opposite seems altogether to ignore that last year we passed an Allotments Act. [Laughter.] You laugh, but it is the experience of landlords all over the country that there are more sellers of land in the market than there are purchasers; it is the unwilling purchasers who are scarce, not the unwilling sellers. Landowners are only too ready to sell. But on this question of small holdings, I would point out that large capital produces large returns, and small holdings, comparatively, do not pay. Common sense and experience are against them. The system has been tried in France, where the women become prematurely old from hard work in the fields; and I hope it will to long before we come to that state of things. It is said—"Why should we expatriate these poor people?" If the Irish Channel were filled up and became fertile land, should we not gladly send people to occupy it? Why not, then, send them across the water? How small is the world now, through the introduction of steam and electricity! A man may leave his home and go to the most distant parts with more ease and comfort than in former days he could perform the journey to the North of Scotland or to Ireland. And a man is not expatriated who goes to any of our Colonies and continues to live there as a subject of Her Majesty.

MR. A. ACLAND (Rotherham)

Mr. Speaker, I shall occupy the time of the House very shortly, and I would only say that if the Irish Channel were filled up, and people wanted to occupy it, they would go without any State loan to help them. Now, the question before us is based really on the relations between town and country, and I want to say one word or two on that subject—what is the influence upon our great towns of an influx from the country to the towns, and what is the influence upon the country districts of what is called depopulation? There have been some very interesting figures upon this question, and some are going to be published in a series of essays or articles upon the life of the poor, especially in the East of London. I believe the President of the Local Government Board has already seen, or has had an opportunity of seeing on this subject, the work of Mr. Henry Smith; and I have also seen published an interesting collection of statistics by Mr. Charles Booth, a most able statistician, who has done valuable work in connection with this subject. There are one or two points I should like to draw attention to in connection with this matter. If we take London, we find that there is a larger proportion of country-born people in London than there is of London-born people in the country. There are 37 per cent of country-born people in London, and only 28 per cent of London-born people in the country. But we have a constant movement to and fro. People talk much—too much—as if there was merely a flow from the country into the towns, and as if there was no back current. That is not the case. On the other hand some people imagine that the influx is much larger than it really is. If you take London as a whole, and look at the Census of 1871 and the Census of 1881, and if you simply take the births and deaths in London, and the natural increase of population which will come from that, and if you ask how large is the population in addition—namely, the men coming from the country, you will find that it is only about 100,000 in 10 years, or about 10,000 a year. I fancy many people thought the surplusage was very much larger than that. If you take East London, it will be found, if you calculate the births and deaths, that even a less number of people have come to it from the country in that interval of ten years. It is very important that we should have the facts of the case before us. It is perfectly clear that there has been a large influx from the country districts into various town districts, but not necessarily into London, and still less necessarily into East London. There has been great crowding into places like East Ham and districts of that sort. No doubt, enormous numbers of people have gone from villages to towns, but not necessarily to London, or even East London. They have been filling up all sorts of new, populous, quasi town districts; but, so far as we know, the agricultural population which has left during that 10 years is not large; at any rate, there has not been an actual decrease of the agricultural population of more than 1 per cent. Now I want to go to what the result of this has been upon London; and I take it that this is very much misconceived; in fact there are words in the Amendment just moved which I believe to be entirely incorrect, stating that the agricultural class now emigrating into the large cities and towns are increasing the want and poverty. I believe that is an entire mistake. I believe that if the country people did not come into the towns it would be a very serious and grave disaster to the towns and to the whole country itself. Now, there have been some very interesting figures on this matter. I will just take one or two of them. It has been shown that if you take the criminal class, the working class, and the poor dockyard labourers, you will find among them a larger number of people born in London, or of people who have been 10 or 20 years in London, than of country born people. And if you take the stronger people, those who make the better wages, policemen, men employed in the building trade, or by contractors, or engaged on heavy jobs for big contractors, statistics show, and a very great deal of probable calculation shows also, that there is a very much larger proportion of country-bred people in those employments than of town-bred people. What Mr. Ogle said in his interesting Paper on this subject the other day is probably true. He says— There is a constant migration into the towns of the pick of the agricultural populations, and there must result from this—as there is a higher mortality in the towns than there is in the country—a general deterioration of the whole, inasmuch as the more energetic and vigorous members of the community are consumed more rapidly than the rest of the population. The system is one that leads to the survival of the unfittest. The best of our country people leave the country districts, leaving the weaker ones behind. They go into the town and they become London-bred people in time; and they bear children, who in their turn bear children, and become London-bred people, and they begin gradually, more or less, to sink lower down. Well, if that is true, it is a very serious state of things; and it is from that point of view, the quality of the people in our towns, that I wish to treat the question. Now, Mr. Charles Booth has made a most interesting analysis of the condition of the people in the East End of London. Basing his inquiry on the work of the School Board visitors and other careful calculations, he has come to this conclusion. He divides the population into three portions, and he finds in the centre, about 40 per cent of fairly to do working men, with regular standard earnings, and, above that 40 per cent. 25 per cent of a higher class of labour—an upper and lower middle-class. We have nothing to do with that 25 per cent. nor have we anything to do with the 40 per cent middle-class standard, wage-earning labourers. But we are concerned with the 35 per cent which are below the 40 per cent. These are the poor, some very poor—all of them more or less poor. Mr. Ogle takes these 35 per cent. and he subdivides them. He takes the lowest class, which is called the dangerous class, and he says about them that their proportion is very small indeed—not more than 1 or 2 per cent. Above that there come the shiftless people—people who are very often not fit to work if they could get it to do, and who have got into the habit of leaving work even when they get it. This class is about 12 per cent. Then there comes the intermittent earning people, who suffer from every kind of depression. These are 8 per cent. Then comes the small wage-earning people, whose wages are very small. Well, Sir, I think it is a serious thing, although, for my part, I take no pessimist view of the matter, although we are making such slow progress, that there should be 35 per cent of the population of East London who may be called poor, or very poor. There are at least 100,000 of that class who are constantly verging on want and deep distress, and probably the number is something like 300,000 in London, taking them as a whole. What we have to consider is the best way in which we can lessen the number of these people. First of all, we have to bear in mind that they are not the lowest in the scale, but that there is a drift which works down from the other classes in all sorts of ways. It is the popular idea that a great many of the country people who come into large towns, and are in a miserable and wretched condition, at once join the lowest class. I believe that that notion is untrue, although there is no doubt that some of them get into the lowest class at once; but the bulk of them have this advantage, that however poor may have been their food, they have lived in the fresh air and are men of stronger build, with more power and muscle than the town men with whom they come to compete. It is sad to think that many of the modern inventions and rapid developments of industry on which we pride ourselves have only tended to add to the class which goes drifting downwards. One of the rising American economists, General Walker, has said— If we consider the population of the most squalid section of any city we can only conclude that, contrary to the assumption of the economists, the more miserable men are, the less, and not the more, likely they are to seek and find a better place in society. The rapid changes of fashion and the innovations made in modern improvements, have a tendency to weaken the industrial worker through no fault of his own. I have nothing in the shape of a complete remedy to offer for these things. Our society is so complex, and its evils are so difficult to deal with, that I always suspect the man who has a panacea to offer. But I think that in our country districts more might be done than has yet been done to retain some of those men whom we do not want to go into the towns, and to improve the quality of some of those who stay. With regard to the reform of the system of land tenure, I am glad to hear the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries say it is so simple a matter. Some years ago the present Premier, speaking of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that Mr. Goschen wished to make the transfer of land as easy as the transfer of Consols, which showed that Mr. Goschen knew more about Consols than he knew about land. Even, however, if we had free land we should not have got to the bottom of this question. I hope that more will be done in the villages to encourage the people to live there. There is a Committee now sitting on the question of small holdings. Any artificial attempt to create them would be an attempt that is not very likely to succeed, but if that same Committee could encourage tenants to purchase where it is desirable to purchase, and encouraged a few independent artizans and labourers living in the villages to buy cottages for themselves if opportunity were offered, I think they would be doing a better thing. Having had considerable practical experience myself, I would say that many of our model villages, though they bear evidence of the philanthropy and good-will of many of our landlords, are by no means the villages which are producing the vigour and the force and the independence in our country people that is wanted, and I do not hesitate to say that I prefer to the model village the open village which is not under the kindly and benevolent despotism of one big man. I look to the time when local authorities will have power to see whether there are men who wish to buy and own their cottages, and that is the reason why I urge the question of village government. On the subject of State loans, I think we had much better try all we can to help the poor people by private moneys before we attempt to run the risk of failure from the State. State workshops have not yet succeeded anywhere. It is of no use to invite the chainmakers to form a large local Industrial Board and then fancy they are going to succeed. They must begin on a small scale. Some hon. Members and others are making an effort in that direction, and I have enough faith in hon. Members and others to believe that they will find the few thousand pounds necessary to make a small co-operative beginning. If a co-operative factory can succeed on good business lines, I have no fear of more money not being forthcoming. On the question of the hours of labour we must be sure that we have the working men on our side, and I should like to see an inquiry into what the great mass of actively employed working men think on the subject. In this House we may do much not so much by legislation as by showing the people that the eyes of the House of Commons are open to many evils that can be removed. On that point I confess I am cordially, heartily, with those who are working with the hon. Member. But should not the House have done something during the last few years to lift these people who have sunk up to the level again; to encourage those more capable workmen who are banded together in unions; and encourage and make their lives more hopeful, more helpful, to those below? Closely connected with these evils, the source of much of the evil is the question of drink. I say, without hesitation, that for this Government to go out of power without having attempted to deal with this question of drink will be to commit a very serious breach of duty. You had an opportunity last year; and if you thought your proposal right, and that it was approved by the country, why did you not put it through? For some reason the Government ascertained that the country did not think it right, and so they dropped their proposal. But they lost a great opportunity; they might have settled the question of compensation and everything else. I know that some extreme temperance men think we can get rid of that altogether, but I am not one of those. Sooner or later there must be compromise; and the time having been settled over which compensation should extend might have been running out; but now the question that lies at the root of this difficulty may remain untouched for four, five, or six years. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech at Edinburgh in 1885, said that if Sir Wilfrid Lawson's scheme was capable of being carried to an end it would do more to empty our workhouses than all the schemes of Mr. Jesse Collings. Upon that precise point I will not express any opinion, but I do agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the great importance of temperance and education in regard to this social problem. In proportion as we strengthen the fibre and increase the intelligence of our population, we shall certainly increase the wealth of the country. Doing that, we do the best thing we can to remedy one great source of evil. I think we are all agreed. I do not think the Government need fear the country, but what is their position? The new Code does not, so far as we can see, alter the curriculum, there is no proposition for evening schools, and the Technical Education Bill twice mentioned in the Queen's Speech is now dropped. It is disappointing to find so little has been done, but I only hope something will be done before the Government go out of power. It is our duty, with our advantages derived from the rapid industrial development of the last 50 years, to lessen the grievances of the poor who have suffered so much. That is the duty lying before us. To remedy the evils of drink and to increase the means of education may seem but small remedies to apply to all these troubles, but at least these things are something tangible we can do, and, I say, let us put our hands to the work as quickly as possible.

THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. W. LONG,) Wilts, Devizes

The hon. Member for Nottingham at the commencement of his remarks introducing this Resolution, expressed a hope that he had not called the attention of the House to matters unworthy its careful consideration. I will venture to say, apart altogether from the value and the importance of the question raised, the hon. Member's Motion would have been more than justified if it had produced nothing besides the speech to which we have just listened. The hon. Member who has just spoken has succeeded in raising this discussion to a higher level, and has brought to the consideration of this question an amount of practical knowledge, combined with careful, intelligent research, couched in such language that the House has listened with interest, and our thanks are due to him. In that speech the hon. Member made more than one useful suggestion; and, if I do not refer to them in detail, I hope he will understand it is not because I do not give them the importance they deserve, but because the time at our disposal does not allow me to do so. With regard to his references to the Land Question and to the conditions existing in rural districts, I do not feel called upon to defend those conditions, but I do feel bound to express my belief that the great majority of landlords are most desirous so to alter the conditions of rural cottage tenants as to give them a feeling of greater security and independence, and that they have the same rights, and privileges with other citizens of this great country. The hon. and learned Member for Dumfries, who seconded the Resolution, did not, I think, approach the subject with the same amount of knowledge as the hon. Member for Rotherham, and he introduced in his references to landlords as a class an amount of acrimony hardly necessary in a debate of this kind. I can hardly think my hon. Friend was really serious in some of his statements. First of all, my hon. Friend said there was a constant flow of labourers from the country to the towns, and he followed that by a statement that the labourers could not get cottages. If, however, agricultural labourers were constantly going to the towns, and if fresh labourers were not taking their places, there must be vacant cottages, or else the cottages in which labourers formerly lived must have been pulled down. The statement that labourers could not procure cottages is not, I believe, borne out by evidence, and, in my opinion, the hon. Member for Nottingham's contention that there is a constant flow of agricultural labourers going to the towns cannot be maintained. No doubt some few years ago, when the depression in the agricultural interest was heavily felt, there was a considerable flow of agricultural labourers into our towns, and that did for a certain time affect the rate of wages in those towns. But I have been unable to discover that there is going on at this moment anything that can be accurately described as a flow of labour from the agricultural districts into the towns. Having this debate in view, I addressed questions to the general inspectors of the Local Government Board whose business it is to make themselves acquainted with the circumstances of the people in their respective districts, and from all parts of the country the same answers have come to the questions addressed to them. The contention that there is at this moment a large flow of labour going into the towns is not one that can be altogether maintained. Now, let me turn to the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst). The hon. Member expressed the hope that this great subject would be considered in no Party spirit, and that there would be a general desire to discuss it so as to arrive at a remedy. I hope the desire of the hon. Member has been fulfilled. I think it has, and that everybody has tried to avoid partizan spirit. But I confess that, though I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham, I did not find during the whole hour and a quarter he was speaking—and I am amazed when I consider this—that he advanced a single argument in support of the main part of his proposal, or made any suggestion as to remedy. The only suggestions he made had reference to free education and free breakfasts, and that the other towns of England, Scotland, and Wales should follow the example of Glasgow in providing adequate accommodation for the housing of the working classes. So far as his observations upon free education go, I do not propose to reply to them, for they do not come within my purview, nor do I think they can reasonably be considered a cure for the evils he referred to. But in regard to the housing of the working classes, and the praise bestowed upon Glasgow for what has been done in this respect, coupled with a recommendation to other towns to do likewise, I may say that in a great number of our cities and towns there has been going on for a considerable time a continuous effort to increase and improve the accommodation for the working classes. Then the hon. Member told us that the introduction of machinery had caused much suffering; and if there is any argument or deduction in his statement, it means that he regards the introduction of machinery as a great misfortune; but I suppose he is not prepared to advocate a return to the hand loom and hand labour. When I turn to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries, I find that he devoted a considerable part of his speech to the power of landlords to deal with the land in their possession. The hon. Member stated that there was a large amount of land going out of cultivation in consequence of the caprice of owners. It would be extremely foolish on the part of the landowners if that were the case with land for which they could get any rent. I am aware of the fact that large tracts of land are out of cultivation, for small parts of which offers have been made, but not accepted, But it would be impossible in such cases, if the small lots were let, to let the remainder. If an owner had 1,000 acres, he could hardly be expected to let 50 acres of the best land, and thereby make it impossible to obtain a Return for the remaining 950. The hon. Member challenged me to say how many labourers had grown into small farmers. Well, I cannot give him the number, but this I will undertake to do, if he or any other hon. Member will accompany me to that part of the West of England with which I am best acquainted. I will undertake to introduce him to a considerable number of farmers who have been labourers, and who occupy buildings, some small, some larger. I could give him many names that occur to me at the moment, but of course that would convey no information to him. I can assure him, from absolute personal knowledge, that the movement has been steadily going on, converting labourers into small occupiers. The hon. Member for Nottingham has stated that he cannot accept the statistics of pauperism as an adequate test. I admit that the House is not invited to consider the question of actual pauperism, but rather the state of those who are struggling on the verge of pauperism. I would not have it imagined that I and those who sit on these Benches are wanting in sympathy for this large class of per sons. At the same time, in speaking of this subject, it is desirable to avoid exaggeration, and I cannot agree that the statistics of pauperism are without value in considering this question. The careful study of these statistics, when the growth of population is borne in mind, will furnish abundant sources of satisfaction. Take the case of some of our large towns. In Manchester, for example, in 1870–71 the proportion of paupers to the population was 56.2 per 1,000; in Bristol it was 70.1. Now, in 1889, in Manchester the proportion has fallen to 27.2, and in Bristol to 53.7. In Liverpool, in the same period, there has been a decrease from 57.3 to 30, and in Birmingham from 36 to 20.3. In Hull the fall has been from 30 to 26, and in Plymouth from 60 to 36. No doubt part of this improvement is attributable to the administration of the relief laws, but this is not the only cause, and it is extremely satisfactory to note that this diminution has gone on side by side with a large increase of population. If the condition of other countries is examined, it will be found that the same process which has gone on in this country with respect to our urban and our rural population is also to be found in action there. It certainly is so with respect to France and Germany. I do not believe that there is any cause at work in this country tending to the increase of pauperism. Then the hon. Member urges that the Government should take some action, though he did not precisely indicate what the Government could do. If it could be shown that any temporary cause is at work, such as existed during the Cotton Famine in Lancashire, when for a time large masses of the population were on the verge of starvation, there might be cause for Governmental intervention to avert the distress that threatened the population of that part of the Kingdom. The causes which lead to this depletion and the causes which lead to this overcrowding of our cities are parallel. Every argument addressed to me to-night goes to show that where the agricultural labourer goes into the town, it is because he can get a better livelihood there than in the country. Does anyone conversant with the land contend that the holding out the hope of a small allotment or a small farm in the country will induce the agricultural labourer to stay at his own village if he has ambition, and feels that he is fit for something better? [Cries of "Yes."] I am perfectly certain that anyone acquainted with our agricultural labourers must know that neither the promise of land nor anything else will keep the strong and active young fellow in his village when he is sensible that he has in him the capacity of doing better. Young men go into towns because they know that in the towns there will be wider scope for their energies. This so-called depletion of the agricultural districts is talked of as something new; but the fact is that it has been going on ever since railways have afforded young men the means of going into the towns, and since the spread of civilization has opened up to them the prospect of doing better than they can in country districts, and we have no right to stop them. I hope the House will not think that I desire to see agricultural wages run down, or the country deprived of its bone and sinew. Not at all. I desire to keep a sufficient number of the young men in the agricultural districts. The hon. Member opposite has not endeavoured to establish the truth of the proposition that the influx of agriculturists is driving labour out of the towns. The Resolution refers to the depletion of the agricultural districts, and the contention I have endeavoured to establish is, that while there is undoubtedly a steady flow of a certain number of young men from the country into the towns, where they get better wages, there is nothing which can be regarded as depletion in the agricultural districts, or which calls for the interference of Parliament. No doubt, in the towns, we are confronted with a great difficulty, and some cure, if possible, ought to be found for it. But the House has not had recommended to it to-night any cure which it can wisely adopt. The hon. Member for St. Helen's (Mr. Seton-Karr) has represented that there ought to be a scheme of emigration undertaken. Well, I had an opportunity of seeing in the course of last year some of the Scotch crofters who were sent out to Manitoba, and nobody can visit those men in their homes without being struck by the fact that emigration or colonization, if properly carried out—if the people are properly selected and properly placed—must commend itself to those who wish to see the condition of part of the community improved. But the House is aware that a Committee has been sanctioned to inquire into a scheme of emigration. At first, it was intended that the Committee should inquire only into the question of emigration of the crofters, but a great deal has been said as to the emigration of others, and the Government see no reason why the scope of the inquiry should not be extended so as to embrace other parts of the country. It is the intention of the Government to appoint a Select Committee at once for this purpose, and then abundant opportunities will be afforded to my hon. Friends to bring forward all the arguments they can in favour of colonization. But whether it is colonization or any other cure for the sufferings of those who are crowded out and unable to get employment, the Government wish well to those who will aid them in sifting to the bottom any proposals which may afford hope of a satisfactory result. I regret that I have been obliged, following the example of others who have addressed the House to-night, to omit reference to many points in the wide area of subjects travelled over. I should have been glad to have touched on many of the points referred to to-night by hon. Members, for the purpose of emphasizing some and controverting others, but I am conscious of the fact that the period allowed for this debate is rapidly coming to a conclusion, and I do not desire much longer to trespass upon the time of the House. I venture to express an earnest hope that the House will not, by the adoption of a Resolution or by any other means, either give an opinion or offer advice which, instead of assisting the classes whose interest has been under discussion, will have a different result altogether. The working classes of this country are justified in looking to this House for advice, guidance, and help when they want it. Those who suffer, whatever the cause may be, are justified in demanding that this House shall pay attention to their sufferings, and, if possible, alleviate them. The responsibility resting on the House is a great one, and I entreat the House to be cautious before they embark in a policy which instead of doing permanent good to the working classes might do them harm, by raising in their breasts hopes which would probably never be realized, and by creating anticipations which would only prove to be false. I believe that if this Resolution in its present form were adopted it would do much more harm than good for the classes in whose interest it is proposed; and, therefore—while having the deepest smpathy with the sufferings of the people whose case has been brought under review—because, in the first place, the hon. Member has failed to establish his proposition, and because, in the second place, while calling on the Government to do something he has failed to tell them what they ought to do, I ask the House to reject it.

MR. H. H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton)

If we wanted an illustration of the extraordinary way in which this House wastes its time, it could be found in our proceedings this afternoon. Something like five hours were frittered away at the commencement of the Sitting on a discussion as to the stairs in Westminster Hall, and we have been limited to only four hours for the discussion of this, one of the most important questions that ever engaged he attention of the House of Commons, I answer to the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, who says the hon. Member for Nottingham has failed to make out his ease, I challenge anyone to dispute that there is chronic poverty and congested and overcrowded population in the towns, and that this state of things constitutes a grave danger. The hon. Gentleman has submitted an array of figures to the House, but there are a few figures which he will find it hard to get over. For instance, the population of England and Wales has increased luring Her Majesty's reign 42 per cent; the population of London has increased 108 per cent; Liverpool, 105 per cent; Birmingham, 138 per cent; and Sheffield, 180 per cent. Where has that population come from? It came from the rural districts into the towns. I should not, however, like the House to take a pessimistic view on this question. While there has been a great Increase in the extreme poverty in our large towns, there has been a great improvement in the position and well- being of the working classes as a whole. I attach great importance to the statistics which have been given with regard to pauperism; and I am within the mark when I say that during the past 50 years pauperism has decreased 50 per cent. I will not go into the question of the decrease of crime; but I say this—that, as a rule, the wages of the artizan class have increased, the hours of labour have decreased, and the purchasing power of wages has increased; and the artizan class, as a whole, are in a better position to-day than they were 50 years ago. I think that we are bound to admit that. Well, side by side with that—owing, perhaps, to our prosperity and the enormous development in manufactures of all branches—there are collected in our large towns a large number of people who are almost worst than paupers, living in a condition in which human beings ought not to live. It is, I admit, impossible for legislation to regulate wages or create a demand for labour; but legislation can deal with the conditions under which these people earn their wretched living and the conditions under which they live. In the first place, legislation can alleviate the conditions under which they earn their living by a wise and firm and liberal extension of the principles of the Factory and Workshops Acts, bringing not only factories, but private houses in which industry is carried on, under its operation. We may also deal with the question of the labour of children and women. I am prepared for drastic measures in reference to the labour of children. By depriving the house of the labour of a child we should, no doubt, be inflicting a temporary evil, but we should at the same time be producing a future great good. A man and his wife have no right to live on the earnings of little children. Then, I should like to know whether the President of the Local Government Board believes that the existing sanitary legislation with reference to the houses of the people, even in London, is being carried out? Why should we allow large landlords and others to draw gigantic rents from miserable hovels? I do not say that Parliament should fix a rent, but it has a right to say that a landlord shall not put a human being into a house which is not fit for human habitation. It is a public nuisance as well as a private wrong, especially in London, where exorbitant rents are demanded. There is no legislation strong and wide enough at present to deal with poverty, but much may be done in the direction of improving the dwellings of the poor, and I am sure that the House, without distinction of Party, will support the Government in bringing such legislation forward. Many of the evils complained of to-night may be removed by legislation, and I deplore the fact that the Government have decided to negative the Resolution, which merely states undoubted truths. I appeal to the House and the Government to avail themselves of this opportunity of publicly endorsing a fact as to which there is no dispute, and of recognizing a duty which devolves on us, and also of averting what I believe to be a national danger as well as a national disgrace.

*THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,) Tower Hamlets, St. George's

Because the Government are not prepared to accept all the language of the Resolution, it must not be supposed that they are not in sympathy with the object which the hon. Member has in view. I agree with much which has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not believe it is so much a want of legislation in connection with the housing of the poor which is felt as it is a defect of administration, connected with the melancholy condition under which the poorer classes dwell in our large cities. So far as London is concerned, I am satisfied that there lie in the hands of the County Council powers of a very large character, which, if properly exercised, will do much to diminish the evils of which the poor have so much reason to complain. The Government are anxious as hon. Gentlemen can be to see the condition of the poor in our larger towns elevated, and to add to their happiness and comfort; but they believe that by accepting the Resolution on the Paper they would be assenting to a proposition recognizing that the depopulation of the agricultural districts is going on at a large and rapid pace, which they do not admit. It is proposed to appoint a Select Committee to inquire into the subject of emigration.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

What are the terms of the reference?

*MR. RITCHIE

It will be in the following terms:— That a Select Committee he appointed to inquire into various Schemes which have been proposed to Her Majesty's Government to facilitate Emigration from the congested districts of the United Kingdom to the British Colonies or elsewhere; to examine into the results of any Schemes which have received practical trial in recent years, and to report generally whether in their opinion it is desirable that further facilities should be given to promote Emigration; and, if so, upon the means by and the conditions under which such Emigration can best be carried out, and the quarters to which it can most advantageously be directed.

MR. J. MORLEY

Are we to understand from the reference that this Committee is to inquire, for example, into the congested districts in Ireland?

*MR. RITCHIE

The United Kingdom.

It being One of the clock a.m., the Debate stood adjourned, and Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.