VOTE OFFICE OF WORKS. (Hansard, 26 February 1890)

§ (5.36.) MR. CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)
Before this Vote is passed I should like to ask if the Government have taken into consideration the desirability of appointing a Committee to inquire into the supply of labour in this building and other Government premises by means of contractors who deduct part of the workmen's wages. I have raised the question in previous years, and I hope the Government have now made up their minds.

§ (5.37.) MR. JACKSON
The subject is under consideration. Her Majesty's Government are most anxious to find a remedy for the present unsatisfactory system, and are in hopes of being able to do so shortly.

§ MR. CREMER
Nearly eight months ago we were told the matter was receiving the serious consideration of the Government. It takes them a long time to make up their minds. Will the Government appoint the Committee of Inquiry which they had promised me last year? The question is of great importance to the working classes, as all this time serious deductions are being made from the workpeople's wages.

§ MR. JACKSON
I can only repeat the Government are endeavouring to find a solution of the difficulty.

§ MR. CREMER
If a new arrangement is effected will the House have an opportunity of discussing it?

§ (5.38.) THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET, Dublin University)
The negotiations which have been going on have not reached such a stage as enables me to make any definite statement regarding them. Of course the hon. Member will have an opportunity of discussing the matter when the Estimates for the year are brought on.

§ (5.40.) MR. BAUMANN (Camberwell, Peckham)
I desire again to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, and I do so on account of the extraordinary attitude adopted by the Under Secretary and the First Lord of the Treasury towards the House on this Vote yesterday. The House was asked to grant a sum of £2,700 for the expenses of the Swaziland Commission, but Her Majesty's Government declined to enter into any discussion of this Vote, on the ground that Sir Francis de Winton's Report had not been considered and they had not made up their minds as to the policy to be pursued. Nevertheless we were asked to vote the money. I asked Her Majesty's Government to undertake that Sir Francis de Winton's Report would be laid on the Table before the Motion of the hon. Member for Liverpool, came on for discussion, and that no final decision should be arrived at by Her Majesty's Government as to the policy to be pursued until after the discussion on this Motion had taken place. But both these requests were refused, somewhat curtly, and the Under Secretary and the First Lord of the Treasury laid down the doctrine that this House could not discuss this matter until it had been settled by the Colonial Office. The First Lord said that then, if the action of the Colonial Office was not approved by the House, Her Majesty's Government might be censured. Yes, we might censure the Government, but we could not undo the policy after it had been settled upon, and after despatches had been sent out ordering its execution. I want to know what becomes of the control of the House over the administration of the Colonies. I insist upon the constitutional and indefeasible right not only to control and criticise, but to guide and shape the Colonial policy of the country. I maintain that the doctrine laid down by the Colonial Under Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury is not a sound one, nor in accordance with the best traditions of the Colonial Office. Every important step in colonial policy; such, for instance, as the suppression of the slave trade in the West Indies and the granting of a Constitution to Canada, has been the result of animated and 1314 protracted debates in this House, and if we accept the proposition laid down by the right hon. Gentlemen, the control of this House over the colonial policy of the Empire will be a delusion, a sham, and a, farce. Why should the Government refuse to give the undertaking asked of them? After all, they are only an Executive Committee of this House. I maintain that the Government is simply the organ of the majority of this House. That is the sound Constitutional doctrine, and in my opinion the Government ought to be very glad to learn the wishes of hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House on this most important question. I cannot but think that I am asking nothing unreasonable when I do most earnestly press upon the Government again to say they will not arrive at a decision regarding Swaziland until after the Motion of the hon. Member for Liverpool has been thoroughly debated.

§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS, Liverpool, East Toxteth)
I must say I am astonished at the definition of Government given by the hon. Member. It is one of the strangest ever enunciated in this House or out of it. The hon. Member must be aware that in any Government, and especially in Party Government, the Ministry of the day are alone responsible not only for colonial, but for Imperial Policy, and if that policy, after being decided on, does not meet with the views of the Parliamentary majority, then it is open to that majority to express its disapproval. But to lay down the doctrine that the responsibility of deciding upon a great colonial or other policy is to be removed from the shoulders of Her Majesty's advisers to the House of Commons, is to lay down a principle which no Government ever has or ever can adopt. I can only repeat the answer I gave last night—that it is impossible for the Government to consent to postpone the consideration of their policy in Swaziland until the subject has been fully considered by the House of Commons. When the Government have arrived at their decision then it will be for the House of Commons to express approval or disapproval of it.