ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE (EASTER.)

HC Deb 24 March 1891 vol 351 cc1801-10

(6.0.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House at the conclusion of the morning sitting do adjourn till Thursday at 12 of the clock; that on Thursday the House at its rising do adjourn till Monday, April 6; and that Mr. Speaker, as soon as he has reported the Royal Assent to the Bills agreed on by both Houses, do adjourn the House without question put."—(Mr. W. S. Smith.)

DR. CLARK

In Committee of Supply for several years I have called attention to the very inadequate grants given to Scotland for various purposes, as compared with those given to England and Ireland. Our position in Scotland is very peculiar. At the present time Scotland, partly owing to the industry of its people, and partly owing to the fact that the people drink a very highly taxed article, is paying about 2s. more per head of the population in taxation than England. We have to congratulate ourselves upon the one cause, but to deplore the other. Scotland has no Government dockyards, although we could build ships about 50 per cent. cheaper than you can build them in your dockyards, and in about half the time. We have no arsenals or military camps. The only respect in which we might be fairly tested would be in the Civil Service Estimates; we might get our fair share of the money voted by Parliament for special purposes, but, as a matter of fact, we do not. You sometimes say that Scotland is a poor country and it is not necessary to pay as high salaries there as are paid in England or Ireland. That is not correct. Scotland is richer than England, because she pays more per head in taxation, and the cost of living in large towns in Scotland is much the same as in England. Certainly it is higher than in Ireland. Let us take, first of all, the salaries paid to the principal Secretaries of State. The Home Secretary is paid £5,000 a year; the Chief Secretary for Ireland £4,425; and the Secretary for Scotland £2,000. The Under Secretaries are paid in the same fashion. In England the Under Secretary gets £2,000, and in Scotland £1,500 a year. The principal clerks in England are paid from £900 to £1,000 a year; in Ireland from £700 to £900; and in Scotland from £300 to £400. The same principle is even carried out in the Scotch Office in London; for, instead of getting £900 or £1,000 a year, which English clerks get, the clerks in the Scotch Office at Whitehall only get from £450 to £600. The English Attorney General is paid £7,000; the Irish Attorney General £5,000; while the Lord Advocate only receives £2,300. The English Solicitor General receives £6,000; the Irish Solicitor General £2,000; and the Scotch Solicitor General only £900. I want to know on what ground this great disparity can be supported. Again, the cost of Local Government in England is £166,000; in Ireland £133,000; and in Scotland only £9,806. Take one Department alone—the Medical Department, by which the Public Health Acts are carried out: the cost in England is £17,416; in Ireland £4,400; and in Scotland £500. The result is, you have not the same attention paid to public health matters as you have in England and in Ireland, and a great deal of preventible disease occurs from the parsimony of this House in reference to everything Scotch. We are badly used in other directions in this matter of salaries; where prison officials in England and in Ireland receive £2,000, in Scotland they are paid only £61,200. The same thing occurs in the Lunacy Commission. Sere Commissioners receive £1,500 a year, in Scotland, where there happen to be two very able men, they are paid £1,000. And so you may carry the comparison down through the grades of assistant officials where you find in England they are paid the salaries which in Scotland are paid to the principal officers. In the case of chaplains to prisons the same thing obtains. Although I am not specially in favour of the endowment of religion by State officials of this kind, I may point out that while you pay these clergymen in England £350 to £450 a year, in Scotland you give them from £200 to £300. Then I have a much more serious grievance to complain of. So far as officials are concerned, there might be uniformity produced by reducing all pay to the Scotch level thus saving a good deal of money, and this is probably what I will attempt to do in Committee of Supply. But in the grants in aid, I am sorry to say Scotland is treated in the same shabby manner. These are the Royal Colleges of Science for the teaching of technology applied to various industries, and you vote sums in aid for England and Ireland. You have a very valuable school in London and every year £16,000 is voted by Parliament for teachers and scholarships, under which young English lads can be educated free by the State and unfairly compete with Scotch lads. We get nothing of the kind. There is a sum in the present year on the Vote of £16,895 for teachers and scholarships in London, and £3,800 additional for museums, making over £620,000 for technical education in London. You have a similar thing in Ireland, £7,000 for technology and scholarship for Irish lads; but you refuse to vote a single penny to Scotland in this direction. The only item upon which Scotland gets a higher vote than England and Ireland is in the competition open to all in the Science and Art Department. There the figures are £16,000 for England, £20,000 for Scotland and £8,000 for Ireland; but this is not direct State aid, it is obtained by the ordinary method. Where assistance is given to Colleges of Science in England, we find that to the Watt College in Edinburgh for Engineers, there is no assistance given, and though in one year there was a grant to a college in Dundee that has now been stopped. One of the conditions of the Union between Scotland and England was that the Scotch Church and Scotch Universities should be maintained by the State. The year before last the Chancellor of the Exchequer pushed a Bill through the House, under which an obligation was undertaken by the Government to the extent of £40,000 for Scotch Universities. We voted against it, and Ave still maintain that under the Articles of Union, Great Britain is liable for the maintenance. Now, what has occurred? The Commission appointed have told you the sum is inadequate, and they cannot perform the duties they were appointed to carry out. The Treasury refuse to do anything, even though bound by the solemn Articles of Union. You refuse to carry out your obligations, and your payments you are compelled to make are at the rate of two centuries ago, when the value of money was wholly different to what it is now. In all these grants Ireland gets all she wants, and much more than she ought to get, while Scotland gets nothing. I may point out that while the Royal Society in London gets £4,000, and the Royal Institute in Ireland £2,000, the Royal Society in Edinburgh gets £300, and that £300 goes back again in the form of rent. In England and Ireland there are grants for the Royal Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Irish Academy, the Hibernian Society, and other institutions. In Scotland there is nothing of the kind. In addition to this, there is the distinction that what is in Scotland paid entirely out of local rates is in England and Ireland paid from the Imperial Exchequer; so that while you compel Scotland to pay for Scotch institutions for local purposes, you also require Scotland to share in the burden of supporting English and Irish institutions. In this same Vote there is the payment for auditors to examine Local Government accounts. That is a loss of £28,000, and a growing loss, because you are going to supply the same thing to County Councils. You have got registrars, but the cost of registration in Scotland is defrayed out of local rates, while in England the cost is partly defrayed by Imperial Grants, to which Scotland pays her share. Look at the grand total of grants in and from Imperial resources—for England about £1,000,000, for Scotland about £230,000, for Ireland over £2,000,000. These are very serious grievances. We are compelled to pay more per head of Imperial taxation in Scotland, while we have to tax ourselves for our Scotch institutions. Grants in aid are freely given in England and Ireland for public health purposes, for education, for art and science, while such grants are refused to Scotland. I frankly admit that Scotch Members are greatly to blame for this. They have always been in favour of economy and retrenchment, and now you have applied economy and retrenchment against Scotland. The Irish Members have always pursued a different policy, and have been equally successful. They have endeavoured to secure every possible benefit to their country from the relationship between the countries. When, as I hope, these relations as regards both Ireland and Scotland are modified, there will, I trust, be a more equal distribution of burdens; but, meanwhile, while Ireland gets all the financial benefit of the Union, and scarcely any of the burden, and while England gets about an equal share of the burden and the benefit, Scotland comes in for more than her share of the burden and none of the benefit. Two years ago a Committee was appointed for the examination of these questions. That Committee sat for a day last Session; and, I suppose, will meet again when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is relieved from the pressure of his Budget arrangements. When that Committee has finished its work, I trust that the result will be something more than the Treasury answer that these things are done under Acts of Parliament; that charges are met in Scotland from local rates, but elsewhere from Imperial resources. Such Acts must be repealed when they press unfairly against one member in the partnership. This is the demand we shall have to make when the Committee presents its Report. A fairly proportioned sum must be handed over to each country for local purposes, and then we shall be able to carry out long desired reforms, and the exploitation of Scotland for the benefit of England will cease. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished, and I hope that a new and fair principle will be applied equally throughout the three countries. I hope the benefits and the burdens will be shared equally by the three parties.

*(6.20.) MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)

I desire to say a word or two in regard to an Indian grievance, and I avail myself of the opportunity at this late hour, because if the matter is delayed until the Easter holidays are over, it will be too late to remedy the evil complained of. The matter was dealt with in a question I put down on the Paper for today, but it was not possible to ask that question. I desire to call the attention of the hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite who represents the Government of India at this moment, to an Indian grievance. It springs out of what is called the Abkari system. Two years ago we passed a Resolution against that system, and the result of that Resolution was that the Government of India adopted certain improvements in the administration of the law in this regard. The improvements were given effect to in a Minute the Government issued about a year ago, and one of the points in that Minute was this: it was set forth that the sites of the liquor shops should, as far as possible, be at a distance from market places, schools, hospitals, places of worship, factories, and places of public resort. The reason of this decision was that great complaints were made all over India of the Government planting liquor shops close to factories, churches, and schools with the view of inducing people to enter them. Great demoralisation was caused by this practice of placing inducements in the way of people to indulge in liquor. In consequence of the representations made to them, the Government issued the Minute of which I have spoken, requiring the collectors to ascertain the public opinion as much as possible before planting the liquor shops. It required them to exercise a kind of local option in the matter. A great grievance has just been caused in the town of Madura, which is situated a short distance from Madras. Seventeen liquor shops were advertised to be opened in most objectionable localities—close to temples, schools, and so on. They were to be opened in the spring of this year. A Petition was got up, and signed by all the most respectable residents in the locality, with a view to inducing the collector to remove the shops. What do you suppose was the answer given to the Petition? First it was said that it could not be attended to because it was not stamped; and, secondly, because there was not time to refer the matter to the highest authorities before the sale of the liquor shops was completed. And yet two months had to elapse before the liquor shops were sold, and Madura was only a day's post from Madras which centre, as a matter of fact, could have been communicated with by telegraph immediately. This was done, as a matter of fact, to choke off opposition and nullify the effect of the Government Minute. I think this attempt to nullify a decision of the Government is a thing at which the House should express the utmost indignation. A point to which I would call special attention is this: I wish the Government to send out to India an inquiry to ascertain why it was that this Petition was so contemptuously dismissed, and why it is that the wish of the people of the locality has not been given effect to according to provisions in the Minute of the Government of India issued last year. I can supply the Representative of the Government of India with full information on this subject. I do not expect to get a detailed reply, as it is impossible in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Government of India in this House; but I ask that what is considered a great grievance in India shall be promptly stopped. All that is required is that the Madras Government should be communicated with, and that it should be pointed out that due attention should be paid to the wishes of the people, and that liquor shops should not be forced upon them against their wish.

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,) Manchester, N.E.

I am very sorry that through having been detained at the Foreign Office I was not able to be in my place this afternoon to answer the question of the hon. Member on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India. But, as I wrote, the hon. Member the Secretary of State for India has no official knowledge of the circumstances, as to which he wishes for official information. The Secretary of State, however, undertakes to write to Madras as to the nature of the orders given and as to the facts to which the hon. Member alludes. That, I apprehend, is all the hon. Member asks for.

(6.29.) SIR J. COLOMB (Tower Hamlets, Bow, &c.)

I wish to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether there is any truth in the current report that it is in contemplation to abolish the training squadron, and whether he can give the House an assurance that before any such step is taken the opinion of naval officers on the subject will be ascertained, and due weight will be given to their views?

*(6.30.) THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,) Middlesex, Ealing

It is in contemplation to abolish the training squadron, but the opinion of naval officers on the subject will be taken.

(6.31.) MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN (Mayo, S.)

I am sorry I do not at this moment see the Chief Secretary for Ireland in his place, as I am anxious to know what he proposes to do in regard to an urgent matter to which I called his attention by letter yesterday. Perhaps the Secretary to the Treasury will be good enough to call his attention to the matter. I refer to the supply of potato seed to agricultural labourers in certain places in Ireland, and certainly in the Union of Phillipstown, County Mayo. The Guardians there are anxious to supply potato seed to their labourers, but according to the Act it cannot be supplied sooner than the month of May, when it will be too late to be of use. I should like this matter to be brought under the notice of the Chief Secretary so that some means may be adopted for enabling the Guardians to supply seed potatoes to a very deserving class of people. No doubt this necessity is not limited to the Phillipstown Union but extends also to other Unions. The seed time is drawing to an end and the matter is becoming urgent.

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

The Committee dealing with the financial relations of the three countries will have before it not only all the questions which the hon. Member for Caithness has mentioned, but many others besides. The hon. Member may rely upon the Representatives of Scotland oh that Committee seeing that full justice is done to Scotland in eliciting all the information necessary and clearing up any doubts. As I have said before, I do not think it is possible to compare like with like, but I have had taken out for me a few figures with a view of testing, at any rate in a general way, the proportions as between Scotland and England, referred to by the hon. Member. Comparing the cost with the population, I find that the population of Scotland is about one-seventh that of England, and that as regards education and the salaries of the administrative staff the ratio of expenditure of Scotland to England is about 1 to 5½. The expenditure connected with inspection work is about 1 to 4——

DR. CLARK

I frankly admit that so far as education in Scotland is concerned, where she gains—her results being higher—she gets more money. If we get more money in that respect we earn it.

MR. JACKSON

That is not the point at all. I am dealing with the salaries of the administrative Staff, and I admit the point the hon. Member now makes. The proportion of expense in connection with lunacy boards is as 1 to 3; paupers and Local Government Board, 1 to 9; prisons, 1 to 4; and registration, 1 to 5. Taking the special expenditure in the two countries on the work of registration the figures work out remarkably alike: In England the cost per head of the population is .3475 of a penny, and in Scotland it is .3484. The figure is slightly higher in the case of Scotland. As to the other Departments to which I have referred it will be seen that, except as regards paupers and local government on which the expenditure for England is rather higher, relatively, than in Scotland, the expenditure for Scotland is higher than that for England. But I am quite sure the question will be most thoroughly threshed out in the Committee. The figures I have given go to confirm previous Estimates which I have submitted to the House; very important Papers will be submitted to the Committee on its first meeting after the holidays, and I think it will be able to renew its labours with a prospect of doing very good work. As to the seed supply in Ireland, I promise to call the attention of the Chief Secretary to the point which has been raised by the hon. Member for South Mayo.

Question put, and agreed to. Resolved, That this House at the conclusion of the Morning Sitting this day do adjourn till Thursday at Twelve of the clock; that upon Thursday the House at its rising do adjourn till Monday, 6th April, and that Mr. Speaker, as soon as he has reported the Royal Assent to the Bills agreed on by both Houses, do adjourn the House without Question put.