HC Deb 29 March 1892 vol 3 cc199-208
(5.43.) DR. CLARK (Caithness)

I rise to call attention to the payment of officials in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Last year I called attention to the Estimates for Scotland. This year I shall confine myself to pointing out, in the Estimate dealing with Local Government and one or two other Estimates, where Scotland does not get a fair share of the Imperial grant. I may say, so far as Scotland is concerned, even in the Scotch Office here in London, the officials are paid according to the scale and rate existing in Scotland. Next door to the Scotch Office is the Home Secretary's Office; and the senior clerks in the Home Office are paid at the rate of from £700 to £800 a year. The senior clerks in the Scotch Office are paid at the rate of from £450 to £600 a year. There might be something in the argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Treasury, that people in Scotland did not pay as much as they do here for either clothing or food; but here is an officer living in exactly the same town and same street, who, in the English Office is paid £800 a year, while in the Scotch Office he is paid £450 a year. I only want to point out that the argument used last year does not apply. I want to call the attention of the House to the Local Government Vote for the three Kingdoms. The total amount of the Vote for England is £162,049; for Ireland, £133,792; and for Scotland, £9,117. What I object to is that this is contrary to the decision arrived at when we agreed that one-half of the Probate and Licence Duties should be paid for the purpose of cutting off these local elements—in fact, taking them away altogether from Supply; and still we find, not with standing the fact that England is getting half the Probate and Licence Duties, we are here still paying in England £3,626 for the inspection of Poor Law schools, and we are still paying £48,964 for district auditors. All these sums ought not to be defrayed from the Imperial taxation at all. In England you have got a medical officer who gets £1,200 a year, with two assistants at £1,000 a year each, and nine Inspectors receiving from £500 to £800 a year. In Ireland there is a medical officer receiving £1,200 a year, and four Inspectors receiving from £50O to £700 a year. In Scotland you have only got one medical officer, for whom you pay £200 a year, and there are no assistants and no Inspectors. The result is, that there is no proper inspection, and the Public Health Act is not properly carried out and enforced in Scotland. In consequence of the parsimony of Parliament in this respect as regards Scotland there are hundreds of preventible deaths occurring in Scotland, and what ought to be done in Scotland is what has been done in the case of England and Ireland—namely, to provide a sufficient number of medical officers and Inspectors. There are cases in which costs defrayed by local rates in Scotland are here defrayed partly by local rates and partly by a subsidy from Parliament. The cost of registration in Scotland is entirely defrayed by the local rates, and it ought to be so defrayed in England. "We bear the entire expense in Scotland. I think that in England and Ireland the entire expense should be defrayed by the local rates. We ought not to vote from the Imperial taxes a single penny towards it. I shall at the proper time move that this Vote be disallowed on the ground that it is not required. The subsidies in respect of England and Ireland ought to be discontinued. But there is a much more important question, and that is the subject of technical education. In England there is a Royal College of Science, and in Ireland there is a Royal College of Science, and these are subsidised, but not a single penny is given to Scotland for that purpose. Therefore, our Scotch lads who have to compete for situations in the open market are unfairly handicapped by the State paying this money for technical education in England and Ireland. I shall at the proper time move the reduction of the amount given to England and Ireland for that porpose. There is another matter to which I wish to refer. £15,000 was voted for England and Scotland three or four years ago; but the whole of that amount has been spent on England only, and any for Scotland curtly refused. As I pointed out on the last occasion, there is also a great disparity between the pay of the prison officials of the three countries. The chaplains particularly are very badly used. The salaries of the second-class officials in England begin at £400, and go up to £500. The salaries of the chaplains of that class in England begin at £350 and go up to £450; in Ireland they begin at £325 and go up to £400; whilst in Scotland the chaplains and surgeons begin at £200 and go up to £300. When I raised the question last year I was told by the then Secretary to the Treasury that the reason was that there were more prisoners in the English prisons than in the Scotch prisons; but when I looked at the Returns, I found that the very opposite was the case. Take a large one in Scotland—Barlini—there is an average attendance daily there of 740, while in Stafford there is an average of 588, and in Wakefield 591. Now, in Wakefield the chaplains and surgeons get £350 to £400; at Barlini, where there is a larger attendance, they get from £200 to £300. Therefore, they are underpaid in Barlini. I shall have again to call attention to these special Votes, and to move their reduction to the Scotch level. I think that in this, as in many other things, we are rather badly treated by the Imperial Parliament. I call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Gorst) to it, in order that he may be able to rectify our grievance, and see that a sum of money is voted to Scotland equal to that voted to England and Ireland.

(6.2.) THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. GORST,) Chatham

I do not know whether hon. Members expect to have a detailed answer to the observations they have made. They have criticised the Estimates with the view of showing what is spent on England and what is spent on Scotland; but the question is, I think, whether, in the different parts of the Kingdom, a sufficient amount is spent to make the Service efficient; and if Scotland can do it efficiently for a less sum than England, so much more is it to the credit of Scotland. I do not think that the pay of the chaplains in Scotland alone should be considered, but whether the Services as a whole are adequately conducted and whether the necessities of Government are met. The hon. Member has selected several Scotch services on which the expenditure is less than on the same services in England and Ireland. It would be easy enough to pick out instances in Scotland where the expenditure is very much greater in proportion. For example, the administration of the Education Act in England costs £58,000, while in Scotland it costs £10,000. But Scotland is a country where the population is more diffused than in England, and therefore education is proportionately more expensive. It would be foolish, however, to complain of such expenditure as an injustice to England. Again, the inspection of factories, workshops, and mines in England costs £144,000, while in Scotland it costs £26,750, which is in the proportion of one to eleven, instead of, according to the population, two to fifteen. The question to be considered in each case is, whether the service is adequately performed, and not what is the relative cost. The total cost of the administration of prisons in Scotland is higher than it is in England, the proportion being two to seven, or twice as much as it should be if it were in proportion to the population of the two countries. With all respect to the hon. Member, I think that to compare the salaries in Scotland with those in England or in Ireland is not a very useful course to pursue, and that neither the House nor the Committee of Supply will derive any advantage from carrying on the discussion.

(6.8.) MR. CALDWELL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)

I wish to point out that the Post Office officials, as well as other officials in Scotland, are not paid so well as those who discharge similar duties in England. We wish to see equal salaries paid to them in both countries. In Scotland we are taxed equally with the people of England, and no allowance is made for the fact that Scotland is a poorer country than England—we are taxed up to our full population. Therefore, there is no reason why our officials should be paid less than those in England. The result was this: when you take out of the Imperial Estimates the Scotch grants and take off the English grants you have left on the Imperial Estimates a great many grants to England for which there is no corresponding grant to Scotland at all. There is on the Imperial Estimates for England £162,049, whilst opposite to that we have only £9,117 for Scotland. On the Imperial Estimates there are large sums for England for which Scotland gets no allowance whatever. For example, an item such as this: Inspection of Poor Law schools, several thousand pounds. In Scotland Poor Law schools are paid out of Scotland's share of the Probate Duty—the money allocated to Scotland as a separate nationality—and charges corresponding to that ought in England to be charged to the Local Government Account. Then, I notice some other charges, and amongst them engineering establishments of the Local Government Board Medical Department, Local Government Board Inspection of Alkali Works, &c. All these are properly chargeable against the English Local Government Account, and are not properly chargeable on the Imperial Estimates. There is another point—namely, technical schools. There are in Scotland no technical schools corresponding to those you have in England, and, consequently, there are no corresponding grants to the Scotch people. This endless confusion and endless discussion has arisen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer having divided an Imperial Account into what are now National Accounts. That is one of the defects that will confront the Government at every stage, and their difficulties will not be lessened by the result which these separate accounts show—namely, that England is dipping more deeply into the Imperial pocket than Scotland.

MR. WALLACE (Edinburgh, E.)

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has improved the feeling between the different sections of the Empire by the speech which he made a few minutes ago. I do not like to use the expression, but I really think he was adding insult to injury. During the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman walked down the length of the floor to the Bar. I knew his object; he was in quest of facts, but found no person able to give him the information he desired. That being so, on taking up the Paper, he commenced to live, in a sense, on his wits. But we know in Scotland that people are proverbially insensible in a matter of this kind to the effects of the highest line of jocularity. We want something that is practical, and the right hon. Gentleman, to my mind, did not afford us very much satisfaction of that description. He affected to say that the reason why the number of public servants in Scotland was so low, as compared with England, was that the work could be done there more economically. But, Sir, there is a certain justice to be observed. I admit that the public servants in Scotland are more economical to the Exchequer. What we complain of is that that is an oppression and an injustice, and we say that the persons who do the work in Scotland do it on starvation lines. Why should that be—why should starvation lines be the Scotch standard, and liberal lines the English standard? These are the grievances we complain of. The right hon. Gentleman thinks he satisfied us by placing the grievances in a way that was more favourable, but we are not so insensible to the way of putting things as the right hon. Gentleman is pleased to consider. We know the reason why there is this disparity of remuneration in one country as compared with the other is simply this: that England is a supremely powerful nationality in comparison with ourselves, and that they have unjustly used the power they possess. It is simply the weakness of our Scotch representation that prevents us from having a fair recognition in the distribution of public servants, and the remuneration necessary for the maintenance of those servants. The right hon. Gentleman will not put off the Scotch people with this explanation: that it is an honour to us that we can do the public work that is wanted in a more cheap, and I presume in a proportionately more perfunctory form. We know that is not true. Sir, sufferance is the badge of all our race. I say that with a non-Hebrew application. We do not want to maintain that badge, and the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness is that, as far as possible, that badge of not only of sufferance, but of dishonour and disgrace, should be done away with. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, in casting his eagle eye over the Papers, fell upon one or two facts. What is the explanation of the fortuitous advantages he descried in looking over that Paper for the first time? It is simply this: that we have not been totally unsuccessful in pursuing our claims even against the English public. Sir, the voice of remonstrance and the claims of justice, although not perfectly responded to, are sometimes listened to in a diminished degree, and I think it was clinching the disadvantage he brought against us when he used the imperfect facts that came to his knowledge in attempting to corroborate his sophistical and fallacious—and I would use another word if I had it at my command—arguments in connection with a portion of the Empire that deserves very much more respect, not only in general but in financial aspects, than it is getting at the present time. The Scotch public understand perfectly well how the matter stands, and, taking it all over, it was well put by my hon. Friend and new ally the Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Caldwell). They perfectly well understand that the financial disparity is, on the whole, a true index of the political disparity and of the absence of the respect properly due to the Northern part of the Island. The right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary gave up the case as regards the frightful cost of administration in Ireland; but as regards the weaker part of the Empire (weaker, I mean, in point of representation), with regard to the Scotch portion of the Empire, it is simply sat upon and neglected, because it has not the amount of representative power that the other portions of the Empire enjoy. It does not occur to me to press the matter any further. I desire, with my colleagues, simply to emphasise the feeling that we are not fairly treated; that we are treated with a contempt that ought not to be extended by the more powerful to the less powerful part of the Empire; and I trust that the small success that we have achieved in connection with certain parts of our administration in regard to their financial value will, by the persevering pressure of the Representatives of Scotland, extend so that bye-and-bye the right hon. Gentleman will not have it in his power to attempt to evade an honest and proper and statesmanlike explanation of the clear facts which he contradicted by resiling from practical truths and falling back, I will not say on flippancies, but on cleverness and on an adroit manipulation of arguments which he knows how to use, but which will not deceive those to whom they are addressed.

MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)

I think we have a right to complain that when a notice of this kind comes forward for discussion no Representative of the Treasury Bench acquainted with the facts is here to deal with it. That is all the more to be regretted, because the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, although he possesses great natural acuteness, exhibited to this House this afternoon a total and complete ignorance of the facts of the situation. It was only a gentleman completely ignorant of the state of the facts in Scotland as well as in England, who would, for one moment, have compared the office of Secretary for Scotland with the Home Office. Sir, the Office of the Secretary for Scotland is not only the Home Office, but a Local Government Office, and an Education Office and a Home Office all rolled into one. If the right hon. Gentleman had known that elementary fact he would not have made the comparison in which he indulged. Nor do I think the right hon. Gentleman was fortunate in his defence of the low salaries of the present officials in Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Do not look to the money, but look to the efficiency." If he is aware of the fact that you could go into the market and obtain as efficient a doctor for £200 as the gentleman to whom you are now paying £400 there would be some force in his observations; but the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that that is not the case, and that the result of the extremely low salaries paid in Scotland is this: that you get a less efficient class of public servants, and must do so. You cannot get any properly educated or qualified medical man to serve in a prison in Scotland at £200 a year. No Scotch doctor, unless at the very bottom of his class, would take such a position at such remuneration. Sir, what we complain of is the inevitable inefficiency that results from the employment of inferior workmen. You have only to look to Irish salaries. I am quite prepared to admit that in Scotland you will get men of equal efficiency at somewhat smaller salaries to do the same work that is performed in England. England is a richer country than Scotland, but Scotland is twice richer than Ireland; therefore, the salaries in Ireland, if the contention of the right hon. Gentleman is to have force, should be lower than they are in Scotland. But in point of fact they are on a much higher scale, and that is a complete answer to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman. If Scotland is to get the benefit of these economies one might appreciate them, but the monies go into the Imperial Exchequer. I do not desire to say anything in favour of exorbitant salaries, and for this reason—that I look forward to the time when Scotland will manage her own affairs and get the advantage of her own economies. Instead of paying per head of the population in Customs and Excise an equal amount to that paid in England, Scotland paid last year more than a million in excess of her proper share. Therefore, Sir, Scotland's contribution to the Imperial Exchequer is far in excess of the fair proportion which she ought to pay, having regard to her population and her wealth; and yet, on the other hand, we have all the Departments of State in Scotland treated in a mean and scurvy and unhandsome fashion, the salaries being insufficient to attract a proper class of men.