Commons Sitting of 14 December 1893

MR. SPEAKER'S INDISPOSITION.
The House having met, the Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker, owing to the continuance of his indisposition,—
Whereupon Mr. MELLOR, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

QUESTIONS.

  SHERIFF SUBSTITUTE OF FORT WILLIAM.
  DR. MACGREGOR (Inverness-shire): I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether Sheriff Substitute Simpson, Fort William, who is entitled to retire on the highest scale pension, and who intimated generally that he would retire in March last, following up that intimation by a sale of his dwelling house and furniture at Fort William, is now and has been since July last living in practical retirement on his property at Culrain, Ross-shire, under leave of absence; whether complaints have been made of the manner in which his duties have been discharged in his absence; and whether, in these circumstances, if leave of absence was obtained on the ground of old age and indisposition, he will be called on to resign or return to duty on the expiry of six months' absence?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR, Clackmannan, &c.): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. It is the fact that Sheriff Substitute Simpson sold his house at Fort William at Whitsunday last, and removed his furniture to Culrain, Ross-shire, where he is now residing. From about Whitsunday to about the end of July he occupied a furnished house at Fort William, and he then left Fort William and has since resided at Culrain, never having returned to Fort William. He states that he is not aware that at any time he intimated his intention to resign at any definite date to anyone having a right to act on such an intimation, but that being in an indifferent state of health about the end of the Summer Session, he put himself in communication with the Sheriffs of Inverness and Argyll, who granted him leave of absence for three months, from 1st of October, on the footing that he should provide for the expense of a Substitute to act for him during that period, and for such further period, not exceeding three
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  months, as might be necessary. He further says that his health is not at present satisfactory, and that he cannot himself give a definite answer to the question whether he intends to return to Fort William and reside and perform his judicial duties there, but that should he be advised by his medical attendant not to attempt to resume the performance of these duties on his leave, or extended leave expiring, his resignation will, of course, be placed in the hands of the proper authority. I have seen a complaint that in consequence of the state of matters existing at Fort William three Sheriff Substitutes took part in the disposal of a case.
  DR. MACGREGOR: Seeing that the resignation is imminent, will the right hon. Gentleman in filling up the office give preference to someone who has a knowledge of Gaelic?
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: We have not got to that stage yet. No doubt a knowledge of Gaelic is a material consideration in regard to all appointments in the Highlands.

  THE CROFTER COMMISSION IN SKYE.
  MR. RENSHAW: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the decision of the Crofter Commission in two townships on the MacLeod estates in Skye were issued to the Sheriff Clerk at Portree on 4th August, 1893, but remained uncommunicated to the public or to the parties concerned till 17th November; and whether the Crofter Commission is responsible for all delays until their work is finally accomplished by the publication of their decisions?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN, Glasgow, Bridgeton): I have made inquiry into the subject-matter of the hon. Member's question, but, owing to the delay which has taken place in the Postal Service consequent on the recent gales, I have as yet been unable to obtain a reply from the Crofters' Commission. If the hon. Member will renew his question on an early day next week, I shall reply to it.

  FORFAR POLICE COURT PROCEDURE.
  MR. W. WHITELAW: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been called to a case

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  recently tried in Forfar Police Court, in which the prisoner pleaded guilty to a charge of breach of the peace and rioting, in spite of which, however, the presiding Magistrate first found the charge not proven, then admonished the prisoner, and then discharged him; and whether he will cause inquiry to be made into all the circumstances of the case?
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: Two men were brought before a Magistrate charged with breach of the peace. One of them, on being asked to plead, at first explained that as he had been the worse for liquor, he had little or no recollection of what had taken place, but he afterwards pleaded guilty. The other pleaded not guilty. After evidence had been led, the Magistrate said he would find the charge not proven, but would dismiss the men with an admonition. Upon its being pointed out that this would be irregular, the Magistrate ultimately found the charge not proven against the man who had pleaded not guilty, and dismissed the man who had pleaded guilty with an admonition. No further inquiry appears to be necessary.

  TRAWLING ON THE PORTUGUESE COAST.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign affairs whether he will obtain a Report from Portugal on the law of 31st July, 1891, by which trawling is prohibited on the Portuguese coasts, containing the provisions of the law itself, the Report and summary of evidence on which the law was founded, and the means by which it is enforced?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOE FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY, Northumberland, Berwick): Yes, Sir; a Report has been asked for.

  H.M.S. "GARNET'S" CANTEEN FUND.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the statements with regard to the deficiences in H.M.S. Garnets canteen fund are correct; whether it is correct that some of the officers were in the habit of borrowing from the canteen fund on I. O. U's., the president being among the number; and whether he will order an inquiry into the whole circumstances?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Sir U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, Lancashire, Clitheroe): This case has been the subject of a Court Martial held on the Pacific Station, the minutes of which are now under the consideration of the Admiralty.

  POLICE ARRANGEMENTS AT CRIEFF.
  DR. MACGREGOR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he is aware that, as stated in the Strathearn Herald of the 2nd instant, frequent shop robberies have of late taken place in the town of Crieff owing to the police being employed in looking for poachers in the neighbouring country districts; and, if so, will he take steps to have the law so amended that the police shall not in future be employed in duties which prevent their affording equal protection to the property of all classes of the community?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR, Clackmannan, &c.): I am informed that since the beginning of August last there have been four occasions upon which premises were broken into, or attempted to be broken into, in the town of Crieff. On each of these occasions the police were immediately upon the spot,, and every exertion was used with a view to the detection and apprehension of the depredators, and with some success. The police were not on any of these occasions engaged in watching for poachers, and arrangements have since been made for the better protection of the town during the night.

  PRISON CHARGES.
  MR. W. WHITELAW: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether a Local Authority is bound to take charge of, and bear the expenses incurred by cases of smallpox which occur in Her Majesty's prisons, and the burial expenses in case of death?
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: When a prison officer or prisoner suffering from an infectious disease is removed to an hospital established under the Public Health Act at the cost of the rates, it is considered that the contribution in lieu of local rates made by the Government in respect of the prison entitles them to the benefits enjoyed by other ratepayers and consequently no additional payment is made. The funeral expenses

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  only fall on the Local Authorities in the case of the death of a prisoner who has been discharged from custody or whose sentence has expired. No case of an officer dying in an hospital has occurred.

  LESSON BOOKS IN IRISH SCHOOLS.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the National Board Readers are supplied at cost price, and carriage free, to the Irish schools under the Board; and, if not, on what terms they are supplied?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (Mr. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.) (for Mr. J. MORLEY): The books referred to are supplied at cost price and carriage free.

  FALSE TRADE DESCRIPTIONS.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether since the presentation of the last Papers relating to the conference on the protection of industrial property, there have been received any further ratifications if the first of the projects adopted at Madrid in 1890, directed specially against the use of false trade descriptions?
  SIR E. GREY: Protocol No. 1 of the Madrid Conference of 1890 is that which relates to the repression of false indications of origin. The Powers which up to the present moment have ratified this Protocol are Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland, Tunis (see Parliamentary Paper, Treaty Series, No. 13 of 1892) and Portugal (see Parliamentary Paper, Treaty Series, No. 16 of 1893).
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is any reason to hope that the German Empire will adhere to the Conventions of the International Union for the protection of industrial property and the repression of false trade descriptions, and ratify any of the subsidiary Conventions adopted at Madrid in 1890, and be represented at future Conferences?
  SIR E. GREY: So far as Her Majesty's Government are aware, no indication has been given of any such intention on the part of the German Government.

  THE KABUL CONFERENCE.
  SIR A. SCOBLE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether he is now in a position to state to the House the terms of the agreement arrived at between the Ameer of Afghanistan and Sir Mortimer Durand at their recent Conference at Kabul?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL, North Beds.): The Secretary of State can only repeat the answer given by me on 30th November. He has no further information.

  SWINE FEVER.
  MR. FELLOWES (Hunts, Ramsey): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he can state the number of outbreaks of swine fever which have occurred since the Act came into operation on 1st November; whether he is aware that large numbers of pigs are now being imported from Ireland into England, and that Ireland is rife with the disease at present; and whether the system of scheduling infected areas, and prohibiting the movement of animals therefrom, which was practised by the Board of Agriculture in the case of pleuro-pneumonia, is being also enforced by the Board in the case of swine fever; and, if not, what restrictions are imposed by the Board on the movement of pigs in Great Britain in order to prevent the distribution and spread of the disease, either from Ireland or from infected districts in Great Britain?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H.GARDNER, Essex, Saffron Walden): Up to the end of last week swine fever has been ascertained to exist on 350 sets of premises since the recent Act came into operation. With regard to the imposition of restrictions on movement, I am well aware of the value of such measures in preventing the spread and distribution of disease; but until we have obtained complete information as to the localities in which it centres, we cannot take any action in this direction without giving rise to more inconvenience and loss than we could justify. We have, however, kept on foot the various restrictions on movement imposed by the Local Authorities prior to the 1st November last; and with regard to Ireland, I may remind

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  the hon. Member that similar efforts are being made to stamp out the disease in that country as we are making here, and the facts before me do not warrant the belief that the disease is so rife there as to render it necessary for us to interfere at the present time with the large and important trade in swine between the two countries.

  THE CABLE FROM VANCOUVER TO AUSTRALIA.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what vessel was employed in the survey of the ocean from Vancouver to Australia, with a view to the laying of a cable between these ports; for what period was the vessel employed, and why was the work terminated before completion; and whether the Australian and Canadian Governments were immediately informed that the vessel had been taken off the work?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: No vessel has ever been employed for the purpose stated. The Egeria was, in 1888, sent to search for reported dangers in the Pacific, and to survey certain islands, and was instructed to obtain soundings in the course of her work, which might be useful in case of a cable being some day laid. She was so employed for two years and a half, when urgent demands led to her being sent elsewhere. Colonial Governments receive communications with regard only to those surveys of which they share the expense.

  PROSECUTIONS. FOR BOYCOTTING IN IRELAND.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the observations of Mr. Justice Murphy on the disagreement of a jury at the Connaught Assizes on Friday last, in which he states that the evidence established the case as clearly as any case which he had ever heard tried, and it only manifested that it is perfectly idle trying cases of this character in the way in which it is suggested they are to be tried now; and that it is a perfectly idle matter is known to the Constabulary, to the Crown Prosecutor, to the Crown counsel who prosecute, to the Attorney General who directs
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  the prosecution; and that for crimes of this kind there is at present a perfect immunity; and if he can state what the nature of the case was which called forth these observations from the Judge?
  MR. CARSON: At the same time, I may ask the right hon. Gentleman if his attention has been directed to the failure of justice in the case of a man named Healy, indicted for the boycotting of Patrick Dawson, at the present Winter Assizes at Sligo, and to the language of the learned Judge who tried the case and stated that the evidence established the case as clearly as any case that he had ever heard tried, and it only manifested that it is perfectly idle trying cases of this character in the way in which it is suggested they are to be tried now, and that it is a perfectly idle matter is known to the constabulary, to the Crown Prosecutor, to the Crown counsel who prosecute, to the Attorney General who directs the prosecution, and that for crimes of this kind there is at present a perfect immunity; whether he intends to take any steps to vindicate the law in this and other similar cases; and whether, if the case is tried again, he will take the necessary steps to have a trial before a special instead of a common jury?
  MR. BRYCE (for Mr. J. MORLEY): With reference to this question, and also that which stands in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin University on the same subject, the learned Judge is reported to have used the language mentioned at the trial of a man named Healy, who was tried at the Sligo Winter Assizes, under the 7th section of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act of 1875, for besetting the house of a man named Dawson, with intent to injure his trade, in which case the jury disagreed. The statement of the learned Judge as to the views entertained by the Crown officials, Crown counsel, and the Attorney General respecting trials of this kind by jurors impannelled in the ordinary way is an assumption on his part which appears to me to be entirely conjectural. As regards the second paragraph of the question of the hon. and learned Member for the University, it would appear, from the language of the learned Judge employed at the same Assizes, that no circumstances calling for exceptional measures

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  exist. I refer to the address he delivered to the Grand Jury of the County of Sligo, in which he, as reported, made use of the following observations:—
  "You are aware too well of the extent of country with respect to the crime of which you will have to inquire into at these Assizes. You have the Counties of Leitrim, Sligo, and Roscommon, and the county and town of Galway. Now, I am exceedingly happy to be able to tell you that, notwithstanding the formidable extent of some of them, still your labours will be light. From your own County of Sligo it is pleasing to note that there is only one case to go before you. From the County of Leitrim there is only one also, from Roscommon a few, from Mayo three or four, and from Galway five or six. There are none of these cases of that character which require any special observations from me to guide or aid you in any way in your investigation. The crimes are of an ordinary character, such as must, unfortunately, be expected to crop up in every county. There is nothing of the character of crime that calls for any special observations from me, or which shows evidence or indicates in any way an unsound or unhealthy state of things in the different counties."
  With regard to the last paragraph of the question of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin University, should the case be tried again, the Attorney General will, as usual, exercise his discretion as to the course to be pursued.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The point I desire information upon is this: According to the Judge's own statement a special class of crime is having a complete immunity. Is the Government willing that such a state of affairs should continue?
  MR. SEXTON: Did not the learned Judge state as a fact that there was only one case of any kind whatsoever from the County of Sligo.
  MR. BARTON: On the same matter, may I ask whether the learned Judge's statement has any bearing on the question whether the special jury provisions of the Crimes Act should be brought into operation, having regard to the failure of justice in this particular case?
  MR. BRYCE: I conceive that the observations of the learned Judge were very much in point. I believe it was true that this was the only case from Sligo; while, in answer to the hon. Member for Tyrone, I may say that the condition of the county and Connaught generally, as described by the learned Judge, appears to furnish a strong argument against taking any exceptional measures.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I ask whether it is not the case that the Court of Appeal in Paris has just decided that boycotting is no offence whatever?
  [The question was not answered.]

  WITU.
  MR. J. PEASE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government made the Indian Code applicable to the Province of Witu when it was banded over to the Imperial British East Africa Company's administration in March, 1891; and whether now, when Her Majesty's Government has itself to carry out a policy, Witu, which has by international agreement been constituted a British Protectorate, has been recently brought under the jurisdiction of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Province being thus again placed under Mahomedan law, and recognition being given to the status of slavery?
  SIR E. GREY: The judicial powers of the Company in Witu were exercised under the Africa Order in Council of 1889. The agreement of March 5, 1891, stipulated that the Indian Code should govern procedure under the Order, because the persons affected would be principally British Indian subjects. Justice to natives of Witu, in Witu, is not administered under British Orders in Council, which do not concern them, but under native law and custom. No change whatever has been made in this respect since the withdrawal of the Company's administration.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: May I ask whether the provisions of the Indian Code cannot be made applicable to natives in the British Protectorate, although they are not British subjects?
  SIR E. GREY: I understand that they are not applicable under the Order in Council under which the judicial powers of the Company were exercised.
  SIR C. W. DILKE: Might it not be made so?
  SIR E. GREY: It has not been made so in neighbouring Protectorates where Mahomedan laws are allowed to prevail.
  SIR J. GORST: Is it not possible to make the

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  British Indian law applicable to the natives of a territory over which England has assumed the sovereignty?
  SIR C. W. DILKE: I should like to ask whether such laws have not been made applicable in a virtually British region in the same way under the Colonial Office?
  SIR E. GREY: I cannot say what was done under the Colonial Office; this has not been done in any Protectorate under the Foreign Office.

  THE FERTILISER AND FEEDING STUFFS ACT, 1893.
  SIR R. PAGET: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether the Board of Agriculture have carefully considered the supreme importance, in the interest of agriculture as well as in the interests of the. manufacturers and vendors of fertilisers and feeding stuffs, of appointing, as chief agricultural analyst, under the provisions of "The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1893," a specially skilled person of wide experience and approved capacity, whose decisions on the difficult questions submitted to him would be likely to command general confidence; if he can inform the House when such an appointment will be made; and on what terms as to remuneration under Section 4, and as to payment of fees under Section 5, Sub-section 4, of the above-mentioned Act?
  The following questions on the same subject which appeared on the Paper were answered at the same time:—
  MR. A. CROSS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has yet resolved on the appointment to be made to the important office of chief analyst under the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act; and whether, considering the injustice and ruinous consequences that may arise from erroneous or even inaccurate reports by the chief analyst, and the fact that the most special experience are requisite to qualify for such a post, and to give the Reports by the chief analyst real value in the public opinion, he is resolved to make an appointment from amongst such of the leading agricultural chemists as at present are enjoying the public confidence as experienced referees in such analyses?
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether an appointment has yet been made of a chief analyst to the Board under "The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1893;" and whether, in making this appointment, regard will be had to the generally expressed opinions, both of agriculturists and of representatives of the trade, that practical experience in analysing agricultural fertilisers and feeding stuffs is an essential qualification?
  MR. H. GARDNER: In reply to the hon. Baronet and to my hon. Friends the Members for Northamptonshire and the Camlachie Division who have also placed Questions on the Paper bearing on the same subject, I would say that no appointment has as yet been made to the office of chief agricultural analyst, nor have the remuneration to be assigned to him and the fees to be paid under Section 5 of the Act been definitely settled by the Treasury. With regard to all those matters, I am in communication with my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury; and although I am not yet in a position to say what the arrangements will be, we shall certainly give the fullest consideration to the representations we have received on the subject. It would certainly be my hope that we may be able to make such arrangements as may give confidence to the various classes concerned, and ensure the success of an Act for which I am so largely responsible.
  SIR R. PAGET: What is the cause of the delay in arriving at a conclusion?
  MR. H. GARDNER: The matter requires some consideration before an appointment can be made. As I have said, I am in communication with the Treasury on the subject.
  SIR R. PAGET: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the necessity of paying such a salary that the analyst shall not be allowed to take private practice?
  MR. H. GARDNER: I pointed out in my answer that I am aware of the circumstances of the case, and I hope an arrangement will be made that will be satisfactory to all classes.
  MR. H. CHAPLIN: Are we to understand that the responsibility for the delay rests

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  with the Treasury or with the Board of Agriculture?
  MR. H. GARDNER: That is a question I am not called upon to answer.

  FALSE TRADE DESCRIPTIONS.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any steps are being taken to re-assemble in 1894 the International Conference on the Protection of Industrial Property and the Repression of False Trade Descriptions; and, if not whether there is anything in the proceedings of the Conference held at Madrid in 1890 which binds the Powers represented to await the initiative of any one of them with respect to proposing either the time or the place for a further Conference?
  SIR E. GREY: At the Madrid Conference in 1890 it was decided that the next meeting of the Union for the Protection of Industrial Property should be held at Brussels. The duty of making arrangements for the meeting, therefore, devolves upon the Belgian Government, with the co-operation of the International Office at Berne. No invitation to this meeting has yet been received by Her Majesty's Government, and it is therefore presumed that the date has not at present been definitely fixed; there is nothing that absolutely precludes any Power from proposing a date for the acceptance of the Belgian Government and the other Powers interested.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: I wish to ask the hon. Baronet whether, even if the Belgian Government were entitled to fix the day for the assembling of a new Conference, the two years in which they were bound to do so have not already expired?
  SIR E. GREY: I cannot answer that question without notice.

  TRAINING SHIPS IN THE NAVY.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the number of boys borne on Her Majesty's training ships for the Navy is 5,791; whether there is accommodation in the existing ships for 5,706 boys; and whether, if it were not for the fact that 220 boys are in hospital, the training ships would not be able to accommodate the boys voted by Parliament?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: The numbers quoted by my hon. Friend in his question are correct; and it is the case that during the winter months, when all the boys are on board the training ships, the accommodation would not be sufficient, except for the fact that there is always a proportion in hospital on shore. The number of those in hospital stands at a daily average of 175, or 3 per cent. for the last 12 months, leaving surplus accommodation on board the ships for 90 boys. The matter is closely watched, and care is taken to prevent overcrowding.

  DISTRESS AT PASSAGE WEST.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he could now state what steps the Admiralty propose taking in order to relieve the distress at Passage West by giving employment at the Haulbowline Docks?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: Prompt attention has been given to the suggestions for work at Haulbowline or Passage. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will renew his inquiry in a few days' time.

  JAMAICA.
  MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the arrangement, made at the suggestion of Sir Henry Blake (8th August, 1892). that the ' Governor of Jamaica shall cease to preside over the Legislative Council has, inasmuch as the Governor represents the Executive, been attended with inconvenience to the Legislative Council; whether, as the death of Dr. Philippo necessitates the appointment of another president, the Secretary for the Colonies will consider the advisability of reverting to the former arrangement; whether the Governor of Jamaica received special emolument as President of the Legislative Council; and whether, since Sir Henry Blake has ceased to act in this capacity, his salary has been correspondingly curtailed?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar): The Secretary of State has been informed that the working of the recent

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  change by which the Governor of Jamaica has ceased to preside over the Legislative Council has not been found satisfactory by several members of the Council. Lord Ripon is considering the question, and is in communication with the Governor on the subject. With regard to the last two questions, the answer is in each case "No."

  THE FIRST LIFE GUARDS.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if, in view of the statements that are being made in various newspapers as to the want of internal harmony and lack of discpline in the 1st Life Guards, he will state, in order to relieve the regiment from such a stigma, that such allegations are totally untrue and contrary to fact?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling, &c.): The attention of the General Officer Commanding the Home District has been drawn to these reports concerning the 1st Life Guards, and his reply is as follows;—
  "There is absolutely no foundation for the statement. I regret these unfortunate charges, which cannot but cause pain to officers, noncommissioned officers, and men of the 1st Life Guards, which regiment is to the best of my belief in a good state of discipline."

  THE "BOXER-SHRAPNEL SHELL."
  MR. NAPIER: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office what sum or sums of money, if any (whether by way of annuity or otherwise), has or have been paid as a reward or compensation in respect of an invention adopted into the Services in or about the year 1867 under the name of the "Boxer-Shrapnel Shell"; whether such sums, if any have been paid in respect of that invention by itself or along with any other invention or inventions or improvements; and whether he will give the name of any person to whom such payments, if any, have been made?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. WOODALL, Hanley): No sum was paid to any other person than Colonel Boxer as a reward for the Boxer-Shrapnel shell, and the only sum paid to him was paid in 1856–7, when he was granted a reward of £5,000 for improvements in fuses and shells. Colonel Boxer subsequently declined an increase
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  of salary which was offered to him in recognition of the improvements made in ammunition while he was Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory.

  PUBLIC WORKS AT BRIGHTON.
  MR. CREMER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Local Government Board has sanctioned the undertaking by the Brighton Corporation of various public works in that town; what was the date when such sanction was given, and why the works have not been commenced; whether he has any information as to the number of men now out of employment in Brighton; if he can state to what extent the Works Committee of the Corporation is composed of builders; whether he is aware that the the bricklayers of this town struck work last summer; and if he has any reason to believe that the prosecution of the public works during the winter months by the Works Committee has been delayed in consequence of such strike?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Sir W. FOSTER, Derby, Ilkeston): During the present year, the Local Government Board have sanctioned the raising of the following loans by the Town Council of Brighton:—In February £42,000 for a scheme under the Housing of the Working Classes Act, £1,400 for the purchase of land for the enlargement of a public library, &c, and £2,000 for the erection of public baths; in April £30,000 for purposes of electric lighting, and £1,200 for street improvements; and in July £15,231 for electric lighting. The Town Council state that the housing scheme is well advanced and many new houses built, that the baths and electric lighting works are approaching completion, and that the works of road-making, for which a loan was sanctioned in April, were purposely deferred until the winter, with a view of providing work for the unemployed, and that the work is now being started. The Town Council have no definite information as to the number of the unemployed; but they state that there is reason to believe that they are not so numerous as in the past two or three winters. Out of a population of 145,000, 346 men have applied to the borough surveyor for employment. Of

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  the 13 members of the Works Committee two are builders. There was a strike of bricklayers in Brighton last summer, but the Town Council state that the prosecution of public works by the Works Committee has not been delayed in consequence of the strike.

  TITHE DISTRICTS IN WALES.
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether is aware that there are still over 100 orders of the Newcastle Emlyn County Court, for the collection of tithe rent-charge, in the neighbourhood of Pembryn, Cardiganshire, unexecuted; and that an attempt was made last week by the bailiff, but failed owing to the inadequacy of the police protection afforded and the threatening attitude of the crowd; whether he has received and sent any reply to the following telegram from the bailiff:—
  "Started with five policemen to meet Chief Constable of Cardiganshire to execute order of Court. He had promised additional force, but provided only one more constable. Returned home as protection inadequate. Twelve anti-tithers on horseback met us at starting point;"
  and whether he intends to take any steps to compel the Local Authorities to carry out the law?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH, Fife, E.): I am aware that many orders for the collection of the tithe rent-charge referred to in the question are unexecuted, but I cannot state the actual number. The accounts which I have received as to the attempt of the bailiff to enforce one of these orders are very conflicting. The bailiff himself states that he was unable to execute the order as the protection was inadequate. On the other hand, I am informed, both by the Chief Constable and by the Chairman of the Standing Joint Committee, speaking from personal observation, that no hostility was displayed; that there was no crowd, only 11 farmers on horseback; that no threats were used, and that the police force was adequate if the bailiff had proceeded with the levy. No answer has been sent to the telegram from the bailiff, but the Local Authorities will be reminded that it is their duty to carry out the law and to afford adequate protection.

  A ROSCOMMON EVICTION.
  MR. BODKIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the eviction of Mrs. Padian, of Summerville, County Roscommon, by Miss Hague, of Cloonahee; and whether this is a case in which the Congested Districts Board might interfere to secure the land for the tenants deprived of possession?
  MR. BRYCE (for Mr. J. MORLEY): I have seen a report concerning the eviction referred to, and have been informed by the Congested Districts Board that they consider they have no power to interfere in the matter as suggested.

  SLAVERY IN MALAGASY WATERS.
  SIR C. W. DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, with reference to statements implying that, by her recognition of a protectorate of France over Madagascar taken in connection with the Brussels Act, Great Britain has lost all power of search of Malagasy or Arab vessels suspected of being engaged in the Slave Trade in the territorial waters of Madagascar and of dealing with such vessels and their crews as though engaged in piratical undertakings, and that the instructions framed by the late Government to naval officers inform them that they have now no power to search vessels in the territorial waters of Madagascar, it is not the case that the instructions of 1892 are those referred to; whether the instructions for the guidance of the Captains and Commanding Officers of Her Majesty's ships of war employed in the suppression of the Slave Trade issued in 1892 state, in regard to the territorial waters of Madagascar, which are included in the Slave-Trade Maritime-Zone defined by the Brussels Act, that the provisions of the Brussels Act and of all pre-existing Treaties and Conventions for the suppression of the Slave Trade remain in force in spite of the Anglo-French agreement about Madagascar; whether this statement by the Admiralty is correct; whether the abstention, in practice, at the direction of the Admiralty, of British officers from acting on the provisions of the Brussels Act and of treaties in the territorial waters of

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  Madagascar, is a voluntary abstention based on a suggestion by the Foreign Office, rather than a Treaty obligation; and why, under these circumstances, Admiral Kennedy should have been allowed to pay compensation to the owners of dhows seized by Her Majesty's gunboat Redbreast before these instructions were received?
  SIR E. GREY: If the question refers to an answer given by me last February, it is the case that the instructions mentioned are those of 1892. These instructions refer to the Treaty engagements of Madagascar as still subsisting; but they also direct officers to act in conformity with the Brussels Act, Article XCVI. of which repeals all Treaty stipulations which are inconsistent with it. As regards territorial waters of Protectorates, the Act is the supreme authority in respect of the slave trade. The ground of abstention, therefore, is that, according to the Brussels Act, protecting Powers are instructed with the execution of the Act in the territories under their protection, and, consequently, in territorial waters. Admiral Kennedy, as I have previously stated, paid a small sum out of his own pocket spontaneously to men whose dhows he considered to have been irregularly boarded, and in doing so exercised a discretion with which the Government do not intend to interfere. I may add that the dhows in question were under French colours.
  MR. J. A. PEASE: May I ask whether Her Majesty's Navy has a right to search vessels carrying the French flag in case there is a suspicion that the vessel is engaged in the Slave Trade?
  SIR E. GREY: We have no right to search vessels under the French flag outside territorial waters.

  THE PACIFIC CABLE.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that a contract was entered into last year, and now completed, between a French cable construction company and the Governments of New South Wales and Queensland for the construction of the first section, from Queensland to New Caledonia, of a proposed Pacific cable to America; whether he is aware that the French Government contributed two-thirds of the subsidy (the remaining one-
  1368
  third having been contributed by the British Colonies aforesaid) on the binding condition that the cable material should be constructed in France, that only French officers and men should be employed to undertake the management and working of the cable during a period of 30 years; whether any remonstrance on the subject has been made to the Governments of New South Wales and Queensland by the Secretary of State for the Colonies; arid whether he has any objection to state the nature of the reply from the Prime Minister of Queensland to Lord Ripon's communication?
  MR. S. BUXTON: The answer to the first three questions is in the affirmative. With regard to the last question, a reply has been received from the Prime Minister of Queensland, in which he points out that the cable in question will enable the authorities to prevent much more easily the escape of French criminals from New Caledonia, this being, as the House is aware, a matter in which the Australian Colonies are greatly interested.

  THE RIDE IN REGENT'S PARK.
  MR. BOULNOIS: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he is aware of the bad state of the Ride in the Inner Circle of the Regent's Park; and, whether he will consider the desirability of constructing an additional Ride (as in Hyde Park and. Battersea Park) in the Outer Circle, which would provide work for a considerable number of the unemployed during the winter?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE, Bradford, Central): The Ride in the Inner Circle of Regent's Park is not specially constructed for equestrian traffic, and is formed merely by putting down sand on the side of the ordinary road, in the spring. It is thought best to remove most of this sand in the winter, as if left it is reduced to slush. I fear that no improvement can be effected for riders without constructing a road, such as Rotten Row, specially for them. The cost of doing this, whether in the Inner or Outer Circle, would be considerable, and I have no funds out of which to do it during the present winter.

  IRISH LOSSES IN THE RECENT GALE.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that four fishing boats, belonging to fishermen at Brandon, County Kerry, were lost with all their gear during the recent gale; if the money to build these boats was obtained by the fishermen from the Irish Fisheries Board; and whether in consideration of the poverty of these fishermen, he will authorise the remission of this loan by the Fishery Board, or their making a free grant to the fishermen to provide them with new boats and gear in time for the approaching spring fishing?
  MR. BRYCE (for Mr. J. MORLEY): There has not been sufficient time in which to obtain a Report as to the facts in this case. The question, however, has been referred to the Congested Districts Board, who will take the matter into their consideration.

  THE TRALEE AND DINGLE RAILWAY.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if the Report on the condition of the Tralee and Dingle Railway has yet been furnished; if so, what is the nature of it; and what steps the Government intend to take with reference to it?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: Yes, Sir; the Report on the Tralee and Dingle Railway has been received, and is now under the consideration of the Board of Works and the Treasury. I think it would be inconvenient to state the contents of the Report until I am at the same time able to express an opinion upon it on behalf of the Treasury.

  THE ANARCHISTS.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any men who may be expelled from France owing to their anarchist opinions will be allowed to come to England; and, if this cannot be prevented owing to the existing law, will Her Majesty's Government bring in a Bill to save this country from becoming the refuge of the avowed advocates of assassination? I should like further to ask whether his attention has been drawn to a report of a speech made at a
  1370
  meeting yesterday, when the following language was used by a man described as an organiser of the unemployed—
  "As the Government will do nothing for the unemployed they must now take the matter into their own hands; wreck shops if necessary to obtain food. A secret society is being formed, and he warned the authorities that, unless their demands were satisfied before Christmas, there would be a reign of terror in London unprecedented in the annals of history. Deeds would be done involving greater sacrifice of life than had occurred in the French Chamber of Deputies and at Barcelona?"
  I beg to ask the Home Secretary whether he will cause the immediate arrest of the scoundrel who made that speech?
  MR. ASQUITH: That is obviously a question of which I must have notice.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I shall put it down for to-morrow.
  MR. ASQUITH: So far as I am aware, the existing law does not provide any machinery for this purpose. In the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, a state of things has not arisen which calls upon them to submit to Parliament any alteration in the law.

  THE LIEUTENANCY OF GALWAY.
  MR. FOLEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the vacancy which has been created in the lieutenancy of Galway by the death of Lord Clonbrock, whether, in view of the fact that the Bench in Galway is mainly composed of landlords and Conservatives, while there are practically no men on the Bench in sympathy with the general body of the population, it is intended, in filling up the lieutenancy, to appoint some person whose views are in sympathy with the great majority of the people of Galway?
  MR. BRYCE (for Mr. J. MORLEY): There is no vacancy in the lieutenancy of the county and town of Galway. The late Lord Clonbrock resigned the lieutenancy in May, 1892, on account of advanced age and loss of sight, and his eldest son (who now by the death of his father becomes Lord Clonbrock) was. appointed in his room.
  MR. FOLEY: Is the position hereditary?
  MR. BRYCE: That question, if put at all, should obviously be addressed to those who made the appointment.

  THE RIGHTS OF KILLALOE FISHERMEN.
  MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether His Excellency has received a Petition bearing date the 10th November from a number of fishermen from Killaloe, on the banks of the Shannon, complaining that the rights which they and their forefathers have exercised from time immemorial, of fishing in a certain portion of the river at Killaloe is attempted to be interfered with by a bye-law recently made by the Board of Conservators, urging that this bye-law should not be allowed to operate, on the grounds that the action of the Board was taken on the basis of an unfounded charge of "stroke-hauling," which charge was dismissed by the Magistrates at Killaloe Petty Sessions after full investigation; and that subsequently, at an inquiry held by two Fishery Inspectors, a decision was come to on ex parte evidence in support of the bye-law, the Inspectors refused to receive any evidence tendered by petitioners; and praying finally that their rights as fishermen may not be thus so interfered with until an inquiry shall be held; and if any, or what, reply has been given to the said Petition?
  MR. BRYCE (for Mr. J. MORLEY): The Memorial in question was duly received and acknowledged. The Inspectors of Fisheries held the inquiry referred to after due notice publicly given, and the evidence was taken in open Court. I understand that when the solicitors on both sides had concluded their cases a Mr. Hurley, who is stated to have no interest in the matter, wanted to re-open the entire matter and conduct it personally, and that the Inspectors declined to agree to this. No bye-law has yet been made, however, nor will the Inspectors make one until they shall have inspected the river in its normal state. At present the channel is narrowed in consequence of certain operations that are being carried out. Should a bye-law be made it will not become valid until confirmed by the Lord Lieutenant in Council, and all parties interested will then have an opportunity of stating their objections before the Committee of the Irish Privy Council.

  THE SUEZ CANAL SHARES.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the event of any increased expenditure on building ships of war being deemed necessary during the coming year, he will consider the expediency of reducing the holding of this country in the Suez Canal Company, in order to meet the expenditure by the sale of such a number of shares as will cover it?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT, Derby): I must ask that this and other questions shall be reserved to the proper occasion, when the House resolves itself into Committee of Ways and Means.

  COMPLAINT AGAINST THE BRAMLEY RELIEVING OFFICER.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the conduct of the relieving officer of the Bramley Union in taking out a warrant for the arrest of G. E. Harrobin for the alleged neglect of his wife; whether he has seen the statement of the Mayor of Leeds—
  "That a gross misuse of the forms of law had been made in the matter by proceeding by warrant instead of summons, and by holding the warrant so long over the man's head";
  and whether he will inquire into the matter?
  SIR W. FOSTER: I have made inquiry of the Guardians of the Bramley Union respecting this case, and have been furnished with a very full statement of the facts. As I am informed, the wife had become an inmate of the workhouse in consequence of the neglect of her husband to maintain her, although he had sufficient means to provide for her support. The Statute under which the proceedings were instituted contemplates that a warrant may be issued under such circumstances; and I see no reason to doubt that the Guardians and their officers, in the course which they adopted, acted as they believed best in the interest of both the husband and wife. I shall be happy, if my hon. Friend would desire it, to give him an opportunity of seeing the statement with which I have been furnished.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: Is it a fact that the officer held the warrant without executing it? Was he justified in that?
  SIR W. FOSTER: If the hon. Member will read the statement which I will show him he will find the matter fully explained.

  THE LEE-METFORD RIFLE.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the statement in the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the disturbances at Featherstone, made after taking the evidence of Sir Redvers Buller, Adjutant General, to the effect that the rifles of the troops there employed would carry considerably over three miles; whether these rifles were Lee-Metford rifles; whether any actual experiments have been made with the Lee-Metford rifle to ascertain its extreme range; whether he can state the exact results of any such experiments; and whether it has been found from these experiments that its extreme range is considerably over three miles; and, if so, whether that circumstance will be taken into due account in arranging for the acquisition of ground for rifle ranges?
  MR. WOODALL: The Committee do make the statement referred to, but they do so under some misapprehension. The range of the Lee-Metford rifle with which the troops were armed has been found by experiments to average 3,500 yards (or less than two miles), while the extreme ranges obtained did not exceed 3,700 yards. Its range is, of course, taken into consideration in acquiring ground for rifle ranges.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: But that is not the exact range obtained by actual experiments. The figures are given in round numbers.
  MR. WOODALL: I think the answer is sufficiently accurate for the purpose.

  GOLD STANDARD FOR BRITISH HONDURAS.
  MR. BRODIE HOARE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is true that the Government have decided to establish a gold standard in British Honduras; and, if so, whether he will
  1374
  inform the House what steps they propose to take to give effect to their decision?
  MR. S. BUXTON: Her Majesty's Government have decided to establish a gold standard in British Honduras, and are now waiting for the views of the Colonial Government before formulating the details of the measures to be taken to give effect to their decision.

  PROPOSED NEW SCHOOL AT WOKING
  MR. COMBE: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Privy Council whether a Committee of the Education Department reported (11th July, 1893) that a proposed new school for Working would not relieve the Board of the expense of a second school; and that the existing premises are perfectly suitable and available for the purpose of a public elementary school, &c.; whether his letter, dated 29th July, 1893, is intended to authorise the Board to diminish the educational facilities in a scattered district by abolishing two schools and erecting one; and whether, if a new school is sanctioned, the Board will still be required to maintain one of the others?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. ACLAND, York, W.R., Rotherham): The officers of the Department who held an inquiry at Working last July reported to the effect stated in the first paragraph of the question. The Department's letter of July 29 was intended to convey that if in the case of either or both of the existing schools a renewal of the lease under specified conditions could not be obtained, it would be open to the Board to build one or two new schools as the case might be. This has subsequently been explained to the Board. The Department consider that two schools should in any case continue to be maintained.

  THE SIAMESE PAPERS.
  SIR C. W. DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the correspondence with reference to the blockade of the coasts of Siam last, promised on 14th November, will be circulated?
  SIR E. GREY: As I stated in reply to a question of the hon. Baronet the Member for Kingston on Monday, it is not

  1375
  yet possible to name a date when the Papers relating to Siam, which will contain reference to the blockade and other matters, can be presented.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Will the Papers include the documents with reference to the ordering of British vessels outside the line of blockade?
  SIR E. GREY: I have already gone into that question with the hon. Member, and I cannot make any further statement as regards Papers which are still in preparation.

  FATALITY ON BOARD THE "GWALLA."
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the fact that a man was lost overboard from the ship Gwalla in consequence of the davit tackle being unreeved at sea, and if it has been reported to him that the Board of Trade officer who surveyed the ship at Barry insisted on such tackle being reeved, and as soon as the ship left harbour the tackle was unreeved, in consequence of which the boat could not be lowered; if he can give any explanation as to why the inquiry should take place at Stonehaven instead of London, the port to which the ship belongs; if he can state whether it is the intention of the Board of Trade to call any of the A. B. 's; and if he will also take steps to see that the Board of Trade officer who surveyed the ship at Barry is at the inquiry?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA, Sheffield, Brightside): My attention has been called to the case referred to in the question. The master was yesterday prosecuted under the Life Saving Appliances Act, and I am informed that a verdict of not proven has been found. The prosecution took place at Stonehaven, as required by the Merchant Shipping Act, because the defendant was there. Only two witnesses were available, the mate and one A. B., both of whom were sent to give evidence. The Board of Trade Surveyor was, I am advised, not called because his evidence was not material.

  NORTH SHIELDS LOCAL MARINE BOARD.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of
  1376
  Trade if he is aware that there has been no meeting of the Local Marine Board at the Port of North Shields for two months, and if he will inform the House how often such Boards should meet; and if he will take steps to alter this state of affairs?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I am not aware of the fact stated by the hon. Member, but I shall make inquiries into the matter; and if I find that the existing arrangements are not such as to meet the wants of the port, I shall be prepared to make the necessary representations to the Local Marine Board.

  GRAIN SHIPS IN THE RECENT GALES.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade how many vessels are supposed to have foundered during the gales from the 18th to 21st November laden with grain from the Black Sea and Mediterranean; can he say how many are missing, and whether they were spar or well decked or single decked vessels, and whether they were fitted with permanent or temporary bulkheads, also whether any portion of the cargoes consisted of bags stowed upon the grain in bulk to prevent shifting; and what inquiry he proposes to make with regard to these and other vessels lost and not heard of during the past few weeks?
  MR. MUNDELLA: It would be altogether premature for me to attempt to state what number of grain ships from the Black Sea and Mediterranean were lost during the recent gale, or how many are missing. My attention has already been called to this subject by the Underwriters, and the hon. Member may rest assured that I shall order careful inquiry in every case in which any useful result is at all likely to be obtained, especially as grain ships are required to be loaded in accordance with stringent statutory rules.

  SHIPS' STORES.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the case of the ship County of Kinross, which is reported by The Shipping Gazette to have anchored in the Downs on the 28th November short of provisions; if he is aware of the fact that this ship only left Liverpool on the 30th

  1377
  December last for Calcutta, leaving there for home on the 21st June; if the Board of Trade have any power to compel shipowners to carry sufficient provisions for long voyages; and what steps the Board will take to prevent such occurrences in the future?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I am aware that it has been stated in the newspapers that the ship to which my hon. Friend refers required provisions when she anchored in the Downs on the 28th ultimo, but I have no reason to believe that she was insufficiently supplied either when she left this country on her outward, or Calcutta on her homeward, voyage. The Board of Trade have no power to lay down what quantity of provisions a ship shall carry for any particular voyage, but substantial penalties are provided by the Merchant Shipping Acts (221, 222, 223 of 1854) if (upon complaint by three or more of the crew of any British ship) the provisions or water are found to be of bad quality or deficient in quantity.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I should like to ask the President of the Board of Trade if that Department cannot compel shipowners to put sufficient food on board the ship to last the intended voyage? What compensation do the seamen receive in the event of not getting sufficient food?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I should be glad to have notice of the question. These four appeared on the Paper for the first time this morning, and it was only at great inconvenience and great expense —for I freely used the telegraph—that I have been enabled to get the answers. I should like a day or two's notice of these questions.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I will Inquire further on Monday.

  MEAT RATIONS FOR THE ARMY.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the medical officers of the Army are practically instructed in the examination of ration meat on entering the Service; whether medical officers are always or usually placed on Boards which Report on the quality of the meat rations in the Array at Home and in India; whether the meat supplied to military hospitals, although dearer in price, is often inferior to the barrack ration meat; and whether medical officers are prevented from at-
  1378
  tending the meat inspection classes at Edinburgh to which the other officers of the Army are sent?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There is a published guide containing much valuable information for officers who have to examine meat issued to the troops; but practical instruction on the subject is only given to the officers of the Army Service Corps. Medical officers do not sit on Boards for meat inspection; but they attend and give their opinion when required. The meat supplied to military hospitals is not inferior to barrack rations. On the contrary, I am informed that hospital rations are excellent in quality. The meat inspection classes at Edinburgh and elsewhere are only for Army Service Corps officers.

  MR. DRAGE'S REPORT ON THE FRENCH LABOUR QUESTION.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the issue of Mr. Drage's Report on the Labour Question in France has been authorised; and, if so, whether such Report should be issued without having been previously considered by the Royal Commission on Labour?
  MR. ASQUITH: The Government have no responsibility in matters of this kind. It rests entirely with the Royal Commission. I have sent a copy of the question to the Duke of Devonshire, who as Chairman of the Commission will, no doubt, be able and willing to answer.

  COUNTY JUSTICES.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will grant the Return asked for by the hon. Member for the Maldon Division of Essex, with regard to the number of County Justices appointed since May last?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE, Edinburgh, Midlothian): I doubt very much whether the present is a convenient opportunity of presenting this Return, as it relates to a matter which is in progress, and there is no particular reason for interrupting the progress in order to present the Return. I think the hon. Member had better wait till the completion of the work.

  SLOB LANDS AND THE UNEMPLOYED.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the reclamation of slob lands on tidal rivers and other places in the United Kingdom; whether he has seen Sir J. Rennie's Report, dated 1839, on the projected reclamation of 150,000 acres in the Wash; whether he is aware of the success of these reclamations on the Forth and Tay and in Holland; whether he has seen the Report on the reclamations carried out on the Forth and Tay in the Transactions of the Highland Agricultural Society; whether he is aware that these reclamations have been profitable to those who have carried out the undertakings, have added to the production of the country, and that when carried out by the Government on a large scale, as in Holland, they have benefited both the people and the Government by largely increasing the production of the country; and whether, with a view to find useful, necessary, and productive employment for the unemployed, especially the labouring classes, in this country, he will as speedily as possible consider the advisability of carrying out in the United Kingdom the reclamation of all available slob-lands for agricultural and other purposes?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: The subject of the reclamation of slob-lands on tidal rivers and other places in the United Kingdom is one of the greatest importance, but on which the Government have, I believe, no special means of information whatever. I look upon the reclamation of waste lands as a matter of the greatest interest, and one that can be best pursued by private capital and enterprise. While, however, I do not give an absolute opinion on this subject, it is plain that if the Government were thinking of approaching it they would have to approach it by the institution of some special and formal means of inquiry as to the amount of land that might possibly be made available as an addition to the surface of the country. I do not think that it is likely to be made available in connection with the temporary want of employment, because it is clear that such an undertaking would require much time to organise; and, moreover, if the unemployed could be set to work on reclamation it would require a shifting of the
  1380
  population probably as a preliminary operation.

  THE CORRUPT PRACTICES ACT.
  MR. MACFARLANE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if his attention has been called to the recently issued Return of Election Expenses in the United Kingdom during the election of last year, disclosing the fact that in a considerable number of cases the expenditure by candidates exceeded the amount allowed by the Corrupt Practices Act; and whether it is the intention of the Government to propose any amendment to that Act?
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: At the same time, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether his attention has been called to the recently-issued Return of Election Expenses in the United Kingdom during the election of last year, purporting to disclose the fact that in several cases the expenditure by candidates exceeded the amount allowed by the Corrupt Practices Act, 46 & 47 Vict, c. 51; whether he is aware that the number of registered electors for the Division of North Suffolk, represented by the hon. Member for the Division, at the time of the election in July, 1892, was 12,996, that the maximum expenditure allowed by the said Act for the Division of North Suffolk was £1,310, and that the election expenses of the hon. Member, exclusive of personal expenses and the returning officer's charges, amounted to £1,303 10s. 9d.; whether he can explain why it is stated in the said Return that the maximum scale allowed by the Corrupt Practices. Act for the Northern Division of Suffolk is £1,250 only, thereby making it appear that such maximum was exceeded; whether he will take steps to ascertain if other mistakes have been made in the said Return; and what steps he proposes to take to rectify the mistake in view of the publicity already given to the said Return?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: The Corrupt Practices Act is a most valuable measure, which has now been in operation for a considerable number of years. I do not think that the results of it have been such as to lead the Government to think that there is an immediate necessity for its amendment. On the other hand, I am far from saying that it has

  1381
  attained, or could be expected to attain, the important purpose it had in view, but I think it has been beneficial to the country in a remarkable manner. In the present state of the case it would not be an improper subject for examination by a Select Committee with a view to collecting facts and suggesting any necessary amendment.
  MR. LEGH (Lancashire, S.W., Newton): May I ask whether it is not the case that in several Irish elections the Sheriff refused to furnish any Return whatever?
  [The question was not answered.]
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: The Prime Minister does not seem to have answered my question.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It was comprised in the general answer.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman can have apprehended the question. It is in regard to a Return presented to the House, according to which I am stated to have spent a larger amount on my election than the Corrupt Practices Act allows; I put it to the Prime Minister whether the maximum amount in my constituency is not £1,310 instead of £1,250, as given in the Return. Will he give me a categorical answer to that question?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: The hon. Member will have an excellent opportunity of affording whatever explanation he may have to give when we have a Committee on the working of the Act.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: I am sorry to press the right hon. Gentleman, but I am asking him nothing with reference to any Committee. A Return was made to this House by the Government a few days ago. It was made by the Home Office, and signed by the right hon. Gentleman's son. That Return states the maximum expenditure under the Corrupt Practices Act as £1,250 for the Northern Division of Suffolk. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, as a matter of fact, it ought not to have been £1,310, and I wish further to know what steps are to be taken for the purpose of correcting the false information which has been disseminated?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: That is not a point for me. The question is one which might have been addressed to the Home Office; but even then I assume
  1382
  that the Local Authority and not the Government are responsible for the information supplied locally. It is not possible for the Government to make themselves responsible for the statements of the Local Authorities.

  THE NAVAL POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury what course the Government proposes to take with regard to the Notice of Motion on the Navy which stands in the name of the noble Lord the Member for the Baling Division of Middlesex?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I think the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly justified in putting this question. The Motion of which notice has been given by the noble Lord is one the significance of which is open to no possible question. It is a Motion for the displacement of the Government, and also for other important consequences to which I need not now advert. The first item is quite sufficient. It is our duty to meet that Motion at once, and we shall propose to assign a day for the purpose of the discussion. For that day we should incline to propose Tuesday next, which I think might be a convenient day. It is my intention to move as an Amendment to that Motion, after accepting certain preliminary words:—
  "It is a primary duty of the responsible Ministers of the Crown to make adequate provision for the naval defence of the Empire and the protection of its interests; and this House relies on Her Majesty's advisers to submit to Parliament definite proposals in due time and measure to secure that end."
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am much obliged, Sir.

  SMALL HOLDINGS.
  MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the admitted national necessity of the increase of small holdings, the Government are prepared to advance money to landowners at a low rate of interest for the purpose of subdividing farms and erecting the necessary buildings thereon?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: This is a question of great importance, but whether it can come up in a practicable form or not I cannot at the present

  1383
  moment undertake to say, but in principle it is supported by a precedent more or less available. The Government would not be justified in taking such a step except with a good deal of evidence to show that there was a desire to move in this direction and a considerable amount of disposition on the part of landed proprietors to encumber their estates for the beneficial purpose described. I cannot say I am aware that at the present time that disposition does exist to any great extent.

  THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, with a view to enable Members to make necessary arrangements, what proposal the Government intend to make to the House with respect to the Christmas holidays?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: My answer is a very succinct one. Our proposal under the present difficult circumstances cannot be more than this—that the House should adjourn on Friday, December 22, and should meet again on Wednesday, the 27th.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think it is probable, Sir, that some occasion will be given to the House to debate the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. I will at the present moment merely ask him whether he has in view the fact that, if the House is asked to meet at that time, a very large number of gentlemen must be absent whose presence here is very necessary for the proper discussion of the Bill?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I am not at all sure that the observation of the right hon. Gentleman is more applicable to the arrangement I have suggested than to any other form the right hon. Gentleman might be inclined to prefer. I am quite aware that much inconvenience is consequent upon the protracted Sittings of the House and the very slow progress of business, by which remark I do not intend to convey any blame or censure. We believe our first duty is to adhere to that business and to use our best endeavours to carry it out.
  SIR R. PAGET: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will make some arrangement by which Members of the House in the first week of the coming year will be enabled to attend to their
  1384
  duties at Quarter Sessions and County Councils? I may perhaps be allowed to say that those who are concerned in those matters conceive that their duty lay as much in the country as in the House.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: My answer is clear: I think we may entertain a reasonable hope that the business in which we are engaged will be so far disposed of as to obviate in a great degree the inconvenience to which the hon. Member refers.

  LAND PURCHASE AT LAGAN.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Bernard Reilly and other tenants holding lands at Lagan, on the Rag River, near Belturbet, agreed to purchase their lands under the Land Purchase Acts some years ago; what was the date of the agreement, who was the landlord, and who was his agent, and whether the agent was or had been a member of the Lough Erne Drainage Board; and whether the tenants or the Land Commission were made aware before the advance was sanctioned that a large charge will shortly fall on the owners of the land, under the Lough Erne Drainage Scheme, though the lands are not alleged by the Board of Works to have gained any present benefit by that scheme, and though the charge would, if the sale had not been carried out, have fallen on the landlord and not on the tenant?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The Land Commissioners state that six tenants on the townland of Lagan in the County of Cavan agreed in October, 1886, to purchase their holdings from the late Mr. John E. Vernon and Mr. Fane Vernon, who had no land agent. The existence of the Lough Erne Drainage Scheme was matter of common knowledge, and it was no part of the duty of the Board of Works to warn intending tenant-purchasers of their possible future liability, as the sale was not a matter of which they could be supposed to have cognizance.
  MR. KNOX: Had the Land Commissioners any knowledge as to these charges?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I can only say that the whole subject was inquired into

  1385
  by valuers sent down to the place by the Commissioners to hold an inquiry.

  THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON RAILWAY RATES.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, as Chairman of the Committee on Railway Rates, whether his attention had been called to the fact of the publication in a morning paper of what purports to be the Report of that Committee; whether that Report is anything but an inaccurate statement of the facts; and whether he has any information as to who is responsible for the publication?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: The document, which appears in The Times of to-day, is not the Report of the Committee on Railway Rates as agreed to, but is a copy of a Draft Report, which, as Chairman, I submitted to it. That draft was much altered by the Committee by omissions, additions, and amendments, none of which, with one exception, appear in the document in The Times. The document, therefore, must be regarded as imperfect and misleading, especially as regards its reference to the Railway Committee. I think that the Committee and The Times newspaper have equal reason to complain that some person should have forwarded to that paper this very imperfect draft. Who it was I am unable to say. I think any Member of the Committee would have warned The Times that the document was not the Report of the Committee. The real Report, I hope, will be in Members' hands in two or three days' time.

  MATABELELAND.
  MR. PICTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies a question of which I have given him private notice—namely, whether any further communication has been received from Sir Henry Loch in reference to the seizure of Matabele cattle?
  MR. S. BUXTON: Yes, Sir. It will be remembered that a few days ago we telegraphed to the effect that Her Majesty's Government could not acquiesce in the continued seizure of cattle from the Matabele, who had ceased to offer an effective or organised resistance. Sir H. Loch, as I told the House on Tuesday, stated in reply that he was informed that the cattle taken by the British South
  1386
  Africa Company were the King's and not the people's, and that their capture was the best evidence to the Matabele that the King had been beaten, as cattle are the symbol of a Chief's authority. On the receipt of this telegram we replied to Sir H. Loch that experience in former native wars shows that the distinction between King's cattle and people's cattle may be ambiguous, all cattle being in a sense King's cattle; that, as he had been already informed, Her Majesty's Government deem it essential to secure to the Matabele ample cattle for their requirements, and that it is, therefore, necessary that sufficient cattle should be held in trust, out of any that may have been seized, to secure the attainment of this object. He added that if it should be necessary, for the reason mentioned in Sir H. Loch's telegram, to continue for a time the capture of cattle, the animals so seized should be retained for disposal ultimately in accordance with the final settlement.
  MR. PICTON: While the cattle are held in trust, will they be available as food for the Matabele who may be hungry?
  MR. S. BUXTON: These particular cattle are not necessary for their immediate requirements. They are the large herds which are kept in the country, and it is with reference to these particularly that I am speaking.
  MR. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy, &c): Can the hon. Member confirm or deny the telegrams from Buluwayo in the morning papers with reference to the dangerous position of Captain Wilson's force?
  MR. S. BUXTON: The Government have received a telegram from Sir Henry Loch which practically confirms the intelligence in the morning papers. He is awaiting further information, as he is not quite certain as to the accuracy of the account.

  GRAND COMMITTEES.
  MR. R. T. REID: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the annually increasing curtailment of private Members' opportunities for proposing Bills or Motions, the great arrears of Business, and the increasing proportion of time occupied by Bills in Committee of the Whole House, the Government will consider the propriety of moving next Session that the

  1387
  Committee stage of all Bills shall be remitted to Grand Committees?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: In answer to my hon. and learned Friend, I am afraid I must admit that the difficulties to to which he refers are not diminishing, but increasing. Whether that increase at the present time is due in any degree to special causes, or whether it is an indication of what I think to be an undoubted fact—namely, the growing business of the Empire and the consequent calls on the strength and time of Members of this House—my hon. Friend will not be surprised when I say that, viewing the nature of these calls, I think it is not yet possible to give any positive answer to this question; but I think it is quite obvious that on prudential grounds we must contemplate the development, as far as possible, of the institution of Grand Committees for facilitating the Business of the House.

  THE IRISH EDUCATION ACT.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question of some urgency. I understand it is impossible to carry out the provisions of the Irish Education Act as regards compulsion without amending that Act in some small particulars. The Act is designed to come into operation on January 1, and unless a technically amending Bill passes before that date, I am informed that it cannot come into operation on January 1. The Government will see that the measure is, unlike some other measures, of urgent and pressing importance. Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the House what steps the Government mean to take?
  MR. THOMAS HEALY: May I ask whether it is in Order for the right hon. Gentleman to anticipate a question which stands on the Paper for to-morrow in the name of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I understand that an answer can be given tomorrow.

  POSTMASTERS AND REGISTRATION WORK.
  MR. HAMMOND: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he is aware that at the Revision Session, held in Tullow, County Carlow, in October, the Chairman commented strongly on the
  1388
  conduct of the local postmaster, of whom it had been proved in evidence that delivery of registered letters of objection, addressed to certain Nationalist electors in Tullow, personally known to him, had by his orders been withheld; and if the Postmaster General would cause inquiry to be made into all the circumstances of the case?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY, Nottingham, E.): I have no information at present as to the facts stated in the question. I have, however, ordered a Report to be made, and I will have very careful inquiry made into the matter.

  POLICE PROTECTION IN THE THAMES.
  MR. MACDONA: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the stretch of river from London Bridge to Surrey Dock Buildings is practically unguarded after 6 p.m., only one boat's crew being employed after that hour in; protecting the Revenue, and whether, during the repair of the hulk Harpy, the headquarters of the Customs river station, it is intended to provide accommodation for the officers elsewhere; whether the increment of 2s. 4d. per week lately conceded by the Treasury is to be regarded as a final settlement of the claims of the waterguard staff; and whether, in view of the hardships and privations to which boatmen are subjected to, the Treasury would consider the advisability of exempting officers of 30 or more years' service from 24 hours' continuous duty?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The Board of Customs are of opinion that sufficient guard is provided for the protection of the Revenue in the river from London Bridge to Surrey Dock. The officers temporarily removed from the Harpy are accommodated at the Custom House and Surrey Dock, pending a permanent arrangement. The position of the boatmen has been recently improved by the grant of a better increment, and by giving compensation for the loss to particular men by the abolition of classification, though that change had been made at the boatmen's own request. I am not aware of any circumstances of special hardship and privation, and I am afraid that I cannot recommend the re-opening of questions exhaustively dealt with personally by the late Chancellor of the

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  Exchequer, after the most careful scrutiny of evidence from all classes, in the Minute of the late Board of Treasury, dated March 24, 1891.

  THE BAST INDIA LOAN BILL.
  MR. MACFARLANE: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the earliest time he proposes to take this Bill?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: It is of very great importance to the Indian Government that the Bill should be passed at the earliest possible period, and as the Government have given up a day to the discussion of the measure I hope it will not be opposed at any further stage, but that it may be allowed to pass through Committee this evening. It must be passed before the close of the year, and it is desirable it should go to the House of Lords as soon as possible.
  MR. MACFARLANE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that of the five hours available on Wednesday three were taken up by three speakers of whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer was one, although several other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen desired to speak.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: As I had a little responsibility for the Government, I have taken the trouble to see how much time was taken up in the discussion by the various speakers. The speech of the Under Secretary was short. I regret if my own was too long, but I had a very difficult subject to deal with; I do not think the time occupied by the Government was more than l¼ hours.
  MR. COURTNEY: I should like to point out that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London has a most important Amendment which he desires to submit to the Committee. It will therefore not be possible to take that stage after midnight.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to contemplate the desirability of making some arrangement by which, either upon the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London—if it be in Order —or else upon the Third Reading, Members who have a right or desire to speak on the Bill should have an opportunity of doing so. I may point out that a Wednesday Sitting is not equal to an
  1390
  ordinary Sitting; it does not extend over more than five hours.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I am extremely sorry that any hon. Member, and more especially the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bodmin, should have been unable to speak. I did not at the time I moved the Closure know that the right hon. right Gentleman was attempting to speak. I am sorry he did not rise earlier, because we all desire to hear him on this subject. If the Bill passes through Committee to-night I will endeavour to arrange with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that an opportunity for further discussion will be given on the Third Reading.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course, I have no control over the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I should hope the right hon. Gentleman does not desire the bankruptcy of the Indian Government. I am sure he does not; but his proposal is one which would prevent the Indian Government from meeting its liabilities, and therefore, of course, the Government have only one answer to the proposal, and that is to oppose it. I hope that, under these circumstances, it will not be passed.
  MR. DARLING: As the Government have announced that, in their opinion, this Bill is all that stands between us and the bankruptcy of our Indian Empire, I wish to ask whether, in the interests of the solvency of the Empire, they will give this Loan Bill precedence over the Local Government Bill until it has passed through all its stages?
  [No answer was given.]

  ARMY AND NAVY MANUFACTURING ACCOUNTS.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the additional first-class clerk, specially authorised by the Treasury in 1889, to be employed on the establishment of the Exchequer and Audit Department in order to make a test examination of the Expense Accounts of the Navy and the manufacturing Accounts of the Army, is now employed on the work for which the appointment was authorised, or on other work unconnected with the Navy and Army; and,

  1391
  if so, whether the alteration in the arrangements has been approved of by the Treasury?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT, Oldham): The test examination of the expense accounts of the Navy and the manufacturing accounts of the Army is a continuing work added to the duties of the Exchequer and Audit Department. The Treasury having sanctioned the addition of a first-class clerk to the establishment of the Department to meet the additional work, the Comptroller and the Auditor General has under Statute absolute discretion in distributing the work as he pleases, and the Treasury has no authority to interfere in the matter.

  LABOURERS' WAGES IN GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.
  CAPTAIN NAYLOR - LEYLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War why, since the labourers of the Ordnance Store Department at Woolwich were recently given a rise of 2s. per week in their weekly wages, bringing them to 19s. in all, similar labourers in corresponding capacities at Colchester Station were only given a rise of 1s. per week, bringing their weekly wages to 17s.; is he prepared to equalise the wages of labourers of the same class employed at military stations throughout England; and, if not, will he explain for what reasons; and will he take steps, in anticipation of a general equalisation of this kind, to give the labourers employed by military departments at Colchester the same wages as those received by similar labourers at Woolwich?
  MR. WOODALL: The Secretary of State is not prepared to equalise the wages of Ordnance Store labourers at all stations in England, inasmuch as the market rate of labour varies in the several localities, and depends, among other things, on the cost of living, lodging, &c.
  CAPTAIN NAYLOR - LEYLAND: Did the right hon. Gentleman inquire into the house-rent question?
  MR. WOODALL: Yes, we have Returns for all stations in the United Kingdom.
  CAPTAIN NAYLOR - LEYLAND: Were the rents higher or lower than at Woolwich?
  MR. WOODALL: They were higher at Woolwich than at any other place.

  JURY PACKING IN IRELAND.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that on the occasion of the trial of Denis Keane at the Munster Assizes on Monday last 16 jurors were challenged by the Crown and ordered to stand by; and that as a result of the challenges an almost exclusively Protestant jury was sworn to try the case; and if the course adopted by the Crown Counsel was directed by the Attorney General for Ireland?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: May I ask whether, at the same Assizes in the trial of a case of attempted murder, out of a panel of 74 jurors 41 supposed to be Roman Catholics were challenged, and whether that step was taken in the interests of justice?
  MR. BRYCE (for Mr. J. MORLEY): I have no information as to the supplementary question. As to the question of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, the Irish Government are not aware whether 16 or any number of jurors were ordered to stand by, or of which creed the jurors empannelled to try the case were. No direction whatever was given by the Attorney General in the matter. The discretion exercised by the Crown Solicitor in directing jurors to stand aside is analogous to that exercised by solicitors to the accused in challenging jurors.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Is that not the stereotyped answer given by the late Government when the Members of the present Government were denouncing jury packing?
  MR. SEXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether, as a matter of fact, the Crown Solicitor, in directing jurors to stand aside, acts upon information or has information before him as to the religion, or the supposed religion, of the jurors, and whether it is intended to continue this practice?
  MR. BRYCE: That appears to be a general question, of which it is necessary to have notice. No such practice is known to me.
  MR. SEXTON: I will repeat the question on Monday.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is not aware that the names of the chal-

  1393
  lenged jurors have all been set out in the Irish daily payers?
  MR. BRYCE: I have no information of the kind.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Well, they have been.
  MR. FISHER: Will you make inquiries?
  [No reply was given.]

MOTION.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  STATE OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  SIR J. DORINGTON*SIR J. DORINGTON (Gloucester, Tewkesbury) rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, the reply of the Prime Minister with reference to the conduct of Public Business involving the Sitting of this House to consider the Local Government Bill at a time when the attendance of Members, and especially of county Members, will be practically impossible, and the strain imposed by the continued Sitting on the Officials of the House is becoming almost insupportable.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he rose to a point of Order. He wished to ask whether as the question raised by the hon. Baronet would be fully discussed when the Motion was made for the Adjournment of the House for the Christmas holidays, it was in Order for the hon. Baronet to anticipate the proper and necessary discussion of Public Business which would then take place? [Cries of "Order!"] Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman who interrupted him would allow him to proceed. He was quite as well acquainted with Order as the hon. and learned Gentleman. Was it permissible to anticipate a discussion which would take place on Friday under the guise of urgency?
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the Motion of the hon. Baronet is in Order. Is the hon. Baronet supported?
  Over 40 Members rose in their places.
  SIR J. DORINGTONsaid, that when he came down to the House that after-
  1394
  noon he was expecting a more satisfactory answer from the Government than they had received. He thought that more attention should be directed in the interests of the country to the strange position in which Parliament had got in variance of all the ordinary rules or precedents of Parliament, especially as regarded a matter not of immediate urgency, and which might have been dealt with in the ordinary course of Parliamentary Business. He based his Motion on the ground that several Members would be unable to attend in the House at the time indicated. Assuredly that was an important matter, if not for the House, for the country at large. Many Members had seats in the House not because they were such and such persons, but in consequence of services they had been able to render in their own counties. In Her Majesty's Gracious Speeches reference was usually made to their attending to their duties in their own counties, and Public Business ought to be so arranged that Members should be able to attend to their local affairs. Now, as to the particular measure in reference to which they were asked to suspend their usual proceedings, it was a question of local government, but it was also in the interests of local government that they were required at home at this season of the year. He would not speak of the week between Christmas and the New Year, which was also to be appropriated to this work in Parliament—a week which was usually one in which people congregated, when families were brought together, and opportunity given for cultivating the graces of social life. It was not a time when they should be brought there to wrangle over petty details of the class they had to discuss. But if that line of argument were considered unworthy of the attention of that House, surely this did not apply to the conduct of Public Business in the counties prescribed by Statute. His hon. Friend (Sir R. Paget) had already alluded to the duties which he had on his own part to discharge at Quarter Sessions, which was to be held in the first week in January, duties which were also incumbent on certain other hon. Members, but they were expected by the Government now to be in the House at that time, and, indeed, those

  1395
  who were interested, as the County Members were, in local government would naturally feel it a great hardship not to be able to discuss a measure of this kind. He (Sir J. Dorington) had his own responsible duties to his county. It was not easy to discharge them whilst kept so constantly in London. But he supposed it was not right to mention any matters of personal inconvenience. Surely they ought not to break through all rules and precedents in order to oblige Members to neglect their ordinary public duties. Not so long ago County Councils were set up. They also had their meetings about the same time of the year, and their work, which embraced the consideration of county finance, had to be dealt with down in the country and not up here. Surely it was not right to put gentlemen who were interested in these local concerns to the inconvenience of remaining here, seeing that already for six weeks they had been in constant attendance. The last part of his Resolution referred to the officials of the House. They had at the present time to deplore the absence from illness of the gentleman who usually filled the Chair. They had also to deplore the absence from a like cause of the Serjeant-at-Arms. They heard on all hands complaints of this unaccustomed practice of prolonging the Session into what was practically the whole 12 months of the year. Their presence was sometimes required in their own districts. In the interests of the con-duct of Public Business the attention of the country ought to be drawn to this matter. By this change in the practice of the House they were made Londoners, and constantly being severed more and more from those local matters which they should be free to attend to, and from their constituents who sent them to represent them. This Bill which they were asked to discuss was no doubt an important one, which some of them were very desirous to push through to a satisfactory conclusion. [Laughter] Hon. Gentlemen opposite might laugh, but that had been their desire, and the difficulties had arisen on questions of detail upon which they thought gentlemen opposite had made mistakes. Members on the Opposition side had struggled to make it a good Bill. He would, however, ask whether it was so important a measure that it should be pushed through
  1396
  out of the usual Parliamentary time. Such a way of doing business was not likely to add to their credit with the country. This constant sitting of Parliament was raising feelings of ridicule throughout the country. He did not say that these feelings were intentionally created by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but that they were created there could be no doubt. It was believed that the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite simply was that their own Party views might be carried out, and not specially that the interests of the country might be promoted. Why was not this measure brought forward last summer, and pressed through then? Simply because a Bill was debated in the House which it was well known by every gentleman on the opposite Benches would never be brought to the position which made a measure an Act of Parliament.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not think it is in accordance with the Motion to review other matters.
  SIR J. DORINGTONsaid, that he was only showing how the House was brought to its present extraordinary position. Their time was absolutely wasted. Seeing that the Government had so badly conducted business, they must take the responsibility for the inconvenience and loss of time which had resulted.
  SIR R. PAGETsaid, he rose to second the Motion. The position of things as regarded the Business of the House was indeed intolerable. The question that would be asked in the country was "Who is responsible?" There could be but one answer. The Government had undertaken a duty which could not be discharged properly in the time available, and it was this that had brought about the present extraordinary, extravagant, and abnormal state of things. It was obvious that such a measure as the Parish Councils Bill, full as it was of difficulties, intricacies, and complications, must take a long time in discussion. No fewer than 22 days were consumed by the Committee on the Local Government Bill of 1888, but they might know that that was because hon. Members opposite, who were not then in Office, thought it their duty to criticise the Bill. He did not complain of that. But remembering what occurred in 1888 how could it be expected that the present measure would not be discussed? A Bill

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  of this kind entered, as it were, into the hearths and homes of all England, and therefore required discussion. It was impossible to hope that such an intricate Bill as the present could be passed in an Autumn Session. They had duties in the country which they ought to perform. The action of the Government simply placed them in this position: that they must either neglect their duties in Parliament or neglect their duties in the country. They wished to do neither. He was Chairman of a County Council and Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and the action of the Government compelled him to neglect the duties of those positions or his Parliamentary duty. Had there been some question of peace or war, some great question of national urgency, it would have been different. But there was no urgency, and he knew of no precedent for the present state of things. He had been 28 years in the House and did not recollect there being Autumn Sittings for them, except to deal with special dangers and difficulties, as in 1854; but never before had a Sitting of Parliament been so prolonged for the carrying of a Bill, which might just as well have been introduced at the beginning of an ordinary Session. If any complaints were made of the number of Amendments that had been moved he would point out that after the Second Heading no fewer than 61 Amendments were put down by the author of the Bill himself. There was nothing approaching that in the records of Parliament. Since then constant Amendments had been put down. He did not take exception to them, for the Bill wanted amendment. Let anyone compare the clauses which had been passed with the shape they presented before the House went into Committee: it would be found that hardly a line of the clauses which had been discussed had remained in its original form, whilst the President of the Local Government Board had again and again thanked the Opposition for the assistance they had given him in putting the measure into proper form. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might say that the Bill had been obstructed. [Cheers.] It was easy to applaud—especially for the Irish Members. It was refreshing to see an hon. Member on those Benches, because, though the Irish Members had been in attendance and ready to support the Government in the Lobby when required,
  1398
  they had not been much in their places listening to Debates. The clauses of the Local Government Bill were full of debatable matter. What had the Government done? They had not merely introduced a simple Bill for local government, but had pitch-forked into it all kinds of important matters in the attempt to make it a Municipal Reform Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had had his own way, and if the Bill had been conducted all along from start to finish in the conciliatory spirit in which it was begun, the House might hope to see the end of it. But a change occurred when the Chancellor of the Exchequer put his foot into it, and then confusion reigned where all before was peace and calm. The House was kept a week debating a clause which would not have taken half a day, but that the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought fit to interpose his remarks. The Bill had received the attention which it deserved. When they went to the local government system of the country, and tore up by the roots all that existed, and endeavoured to plant an entirely new thing, it stood to reason that, in defence of that which had worked well for centuries—
  MR. PICTON: I rise to Order. On a Motion for the Adjournment, is it in Order to discuss the whole of the Bill and the Amendments to it?
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not in Order to discuss the Bill or the Amendments; but I did not understand the hon. Baronet to do that.
  SIR R. PAGETsaid, that the truths he was stating seemed to be unpleasant to hon. Gentlemen opposite. He was not attempting to discuss any of the Amendments or details of the Bill. He was endeavouring, to the best of his ability, to show that, generally speaking, this Bill was in its very essence one of detail, difficulty, and intricacy, and that a prolonged Session should have been devoted to it, so as to have enabled the. Opposition to criticise its provisions as fully as the Party now in power criticised the Bill of 1888. The Bill of 1888 was not an Opposed Bill any more than the present, and every opportunity was availed of for moving Amendments and prolonging discussion. He did not wonder at it, nor find fault with hon. Members for doing it, but he did contend

  1399
  that from day to day, from hour to hour, anxious as the work was, difficult as the work was, the Opposition were now doing their duty. Nothing should interfere to prevent them from continuing to do it. He desired strongly to support the Motion before the House. The present position of things in the House was intolerable. The health of Members was suffering; their local duties were neglected, and he asked the Government to give serious consideration to the protests now registered.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— (Sir J. Dorington.)
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I do not rise either to prolong or inflame this Debate by the use of warm language and by severe criticism upon the conduct of hon. Members opposite. I shall endeavour to avoid that course, and to confine myself specially to noticing matters of fact put forward in the speeches which we have heard, and the general intimations that have fallen from hon. Gentlemen opposite, and which are strictly relevant to the case. The hon. Baronet says that there is no precedent for the course which has been pursued by the Government. We have had an Autumn Sitting, and we are proposing to continue the Sittings of the House up to the 22nd of December, and only then to adjourn. But there was a case, though far less urgent, which was much nearer to the course that is now being taken than the hon. Baronet seems to suppose. It was in the year 1888 that on the 24th of December the Autumn Sittings were concluded. But what was the case in that year? In that year the County Government Bill had been dealt with during the Session, and Supply had been postponed to the Autumn Sitting. The hon. Baronet says that there are no Autumn Sittings except for matters of grave importance. Would he have been better pleased if we had postponed Supply from the principal part of the Session and taken it in the autumn? I believe—I do not want to censure those who have gone before—that it was the better course to take Supply in the early, the comparatively early, part of the year, a course which I have always understood to be one approaching to the character of Constitutional rule and principle. So much
  1400
  for the precedents which may be drawn from the proceedings in previous years. Now, the hon. Baronet appears to think that we are making most unreasonable demands upon the House. That depends a good deal upon the mode in which Bills are treated. I will say nothing of the manner in which Bills are treated on this occasion, except to refer simply to matters of fact. The choice before us is whether we shall go through with the Local Government Bill or whether we shall abandon it. Is it unreasonable to go forward with that Bill?
  SIR R. PAGET: Unreasonable.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: Very well, then. That is not an answer of mine, but of hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is unreasonable to go forward with the Bill. [Cries of"No, no! "] It is not unreasonable, in my opinion; but that is the answer I have received from the opposite side, so that the alternative is the abandonment of the Bill.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: No, no, no!
  MR. W.E. GLADSTONE: The right hon. Gentleman says "No"?
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: Yes.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: Very well; then he must fight it out with his friends.
  SIR R. PAGET: I want to be allowed —[ Cries of " Order!"]
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I beg pardon. The hon. Baronet did not too much curtail his observations, and I have no intention of making so large a demand on the time of the House; but what little I have to say I ask to be allowed to say. I say the alternative is the abandonment of the Bill. [Cries of"No, no! "] It is not my own argument, but one which I gathered from the ready and eager assent to the proposition which I received. [An hon. MEMBER: No!] I did not receive it from the hon. Member who contradicts me; I never said I did; but from a number of gentlemen. [Opposition cries of "No, no!"]
  MR. HANBURY: From one man, and you will not allow him to answer. [Cries of "Order, order! "]
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I say that there is nothing unreasonable in asking the House to proceed with what remains to be done in this Bill. We tonight go into Committee for the 20th time on this Bill, which contains 71

  1401
  clauses. The County Government Bill, which has been quoted as analogous to this, was got through in 22 nights, and that contained 129 clauses. It is not unreasonable that, after the labour we have spent upon it, we should encourage and exhort the House, so far as depends upon us, to accomplish what yet remains to be done in order to complete that labour and to get through with this important measure. A Bill of nearly twice the length was disposed of by the late Government in nearly about the length of time which we have already occupied on this Bill. We have not exhausted our time. The hon. Baronet—and do not let him suppose that I complain or that I deprecate the importance of the reference—speaks of the importance of the approaching meetings of Quarter Sessions and County Councils, which latter, however, are not tied as to the period of their meetings in the same manner as Quarter Sessions. With regard to Quarter Sessions, I will endeavour to show that there is plenty of time for closing our proceedings on this Bill before the time when Quarter Sessions shall begin. There is as yet between a fortnight and three weeks before Quarter Sessions need meet at all. Their duties have been very much tightened by the transfer of business that formerly belonged to them. I contend that the time available ought to be much more than is necessary for closing the proceedings on this Bill. We have available five or six days before Christmas, and we have available after Christmas several more days—five or six — before the time when Quarter Sessions shall arrive. My answer, therefore, is that there is abundant time upon every fair, equitable, and reasonable estimate of the demands of this Bill. If the same fair play is given as has been given by Oppositions on former occasions we ought to be able, with comparative ease, to dispose of the subject. I must distinctly state as my own opinion that the issue—the real, the substantial issue —now raised is the abandonment of this Bill.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: No. no!
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: The right hon. Gentleman is very intolerant of an expression of opinion which does not happen to be his. I did not ascribe it to hon. Gentlemen who remain silent
  1402
  on the opposite side; but I give it as my own opinion, my own conclusion, derived from a survey of the present state of our proceedings in Parliament. My opinion is that the real issue before us is a proposal for the abandonment of the Bill. [Cries of"No, no!"] That is a conclusion which, in my view, it is right that the country should understand. We think the country holds the House responsible for making all the efforts— although they may be unusual—that are necessary for accomplishing this piece of beneficent legislation. I have not used a single hard word. I do not think I have used one single epithet from the beginning to the end of my speech except one, and that was that it was "intolerant" to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley (Mr. Collings) not to allow me to express my own personal opinion. But I withdraw that. The right hon. Gentleman is the most tolerant of men, and will allow us to submit our conclusion, which is that the real issue of this discussion, and of the Motion which is now made, so far as it gives an imperfect expression to the views of gentlemen opposite, is that this Bill should be surrendered after all the labour that has been bestowed upon it. The House is the ultimate judge of its own duty, and, of course, will decide according to its judgment and conscience, but we believe that it is our duty to persevere in prosecuting this great measure to its accomplishment, and we shall take this opportunity of clearly showing that opinion by distinctly and decidedly opposing the Motion now before us.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman, the most distinguished part of whose long career has been spent as Leader of this House, should have lent himself to a proceeding which, perhaps more than any other proceeding in the history of this Assembly, is likely to destroy its utility and to shatter its prestige. Sir, when the right hon. Gentleman got up to defend a course which, whether it be right or wrong, is unquestionably without precedent, I certainly thought he had some better case to put before the House of Commons than to utter so transparent a fallacy as that the issue before us was whether this Bill should be abandoned or not. It is not a question, as I shall show

  1403
  directly, whether this Bill should be dropped or not. The question is whether the Government should, in order to trample upon the Opposition, in order to do what has never yet been done with success—namely, to coerce a body of men differing from you in numbers but by very few, and differing from you in resolution not at all—the question is, whether these men are going to transfer into your hands all the rights which we think belong to us? What says the right hon. Gentleman? He takes the Bill of 1888 and compares it with this Bill, and says that that Bill occupied as many nights in Committee, and that this Bill might very easily have been got through in the same number of nights, or a very few more. Well, Sir, I am quite ready to take the Bill of 1888. I am not afraid of the parallel. In the first place, let us consider what actually passed in 1888. If you will take the number of days spent over that Bill up to the end of the 12th clause and compare it with the number of days spent upon this Bill also up to the end of the 12th clause, you will find that this Bill was half a day in front of the Bill of 1888. I acknowledge that since Clause 12 was disposed of the progress has not been so rapid. I think, however, I have had occasion to point out to the House already that, if there be a difference in this respect between the treatment met with by the Bill of 1888 and the treatment met with by the Bill of 1893, the reason is that the Government of 1888 kept their word to the House, and that the Government of 1893 have not kept their word. That is one distinction in the management of the Bill; but there are other points to be borne in mind connected with the substance of the Bill. The Bill of 1888, though it was a longer Bill than the present Bill, was unquestionably of a character which made it a far easier Bill to get through this House. I will remind the House of the reasons for this. The Bill of 1888 was a Bill that created no new powers whatever. It took certain powers already in existence and transferred them from a nominated body to an elected body. It reconstructed but did not alter county government. Your Bill—and I cannot complain of it in the least—does not merely transfer powers which now exist; it creates powers which now do not exist. It not
  1404
  merely alters the form of parochial government; it creates parochial government. In creating parochial government it is absolutely necessary and absolutely inevitable that you should touch interests which are bound to get a hearing in this House. The measure touches the Church, and touches other interests which must have a hearing in this House. Our Bill was far removed from all these difficult and questionable topics, and for that reason you must expect that if this Bill is to receive fair discussion in this House it must be discussed at greater length than the Bill of 1888. Even that is not all. Our Bill of 1888 altered the system of county government by transferring existing powers. Your Bill creates parochial government, but it does much more: it remodels the Poor Law; it remodels the Allotments Acts; it remodels the Small Holdings Act.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERwas understood to say that it did not touch the Small Holdings Act.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am unwilling to argue such a matter with a right hon. Gentleman who is such an authority on the contents of the present Bill; but I must differ with him as to whether it does touch the Small Holdings Act. However, we will put the Small Holdings Act out and take merely the Allotments Acts and the Poor Law. Those measures are of the utmost importance, and are measures which might well occupy the time of this House for many weeks. You touch upon these after having passed in the first part of your Bill a scheme for remodelling parochial government. How can yon in common decency expect that a Bill like this is to slip through this House? It is impossible that it should slip through the House. The Poor Law Act, which this Bill profoundly touches, to the very root of which this Bill goes, was the greatest measure passed by the first Liberal Administration after the Reform Bill. That measure, without preliminary inquiry, you propose to alter and transform from top to bottom by a fundamental change of machinery which this Bill is to carry out. That you mean to do incidentally in one clause in one part of the Bill, and then you have the hardihood to compare the Bill of 1893 with the Bill of 1888. But, Sir, let us come a little closer to the main contention of the right hon. Gentleman

  1405
  the Leader of the House (Mr. W. E. Gladstone). He said the issue before us is whether the Bill should be passed or whether it should be dropped. The right hon. Gentleman has not cast his mind back over the precedents and examples which surely are frequent enough in the Parliamentary history of the last 10 years. In how many cases has the Government, after bringing forward a complete scheme, found that it could not be passed in its entirety in one Session, and consented to split it into two portions, passing the first portion in one Session and deferring the other portion till a subsequent Session? I recollect a case in which I myself was primarily concerned—the Irish Land Purchase Act of 1890. I brought in that Bill in a form, as I thought then and as I think now, far more complete and far more calculated to meet all the necessities of the case, but I found that it was impossible to get through a Bill of that magnitude in one Session. I sacrificed, as others have had to sacrifice, my love of completeness and symmetry to the necessities of modern Parliamentary discussion, and cut out of the Bill a great deal of controversial matter and a great deal of matter which, though not controversial, would have taken time, and I contented myself with passing a measure substantial, and I hope useful, but certainty far less complete than that which I originally designed. Take even a closer parallel to the present case—the example cited by the right hon. Gentleman himself—the Local Government Bill of 1888. That Bill, as I have pointed out, had many differences from this Bill, but it had some resemblances as originally introduced, and one was that it attempted to deal not merely with local government for the counties, but also with District Councils, just as this Bill desires to deal not only with parochial government, but with District Councils. Well, what did we find? Hon. Gentlemen who then sat on this side of the House professed no opposition in principle to District Councils, but they made it clear to the Government of the day that if we were to pass a Local Government Bill at all it must be a Bill designed on less ambitious lines than the measure we had introduced, and we consented with many pangs to drop a portion of it in order that we might safeguard the
  1406
  remainder and safely pilot it into its place on the Statute Book.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: You never went on with the dropped portion.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is just what I am saying. I do not understand the point of the right hon. Gentleman's interruption. My own advice to the Government is that they should do what we did—namely, pass the part of their Bill which corresponds to the County Council Bill in the Session of 1893–4 and bring in the second portion of the Bill in the second Session of 1894, and carry it on, I suppose, till 1895. I base that advice upon our example, and upon the example of every Government which has ever existed. I do not believe that you will find in Parliamentary history any set of gentlemen responsible for the government of the country who have been so stupidly obstinate as to insist not merely that the House of Commons should consider their measures, but that those measures, however big, however complicated, however vast the legislative area they touch, should be passed in their entirety at any time of the Session, and by a House of Commons, however weary. Let it be distinctly understood that the policy we suggest is not the policy of abandoning the Bill. We desire as much as they do that the agricultural labourer should be able to manage his own affairs in his own parish, and we say, with the whole experience of Parliament behind us, that the way to attain that object is to do what we did in 1888—that is say, pass the Parish Councils part of the Bill this Session and bring in the other part of the Bill next Session, if you think it more important than Local Veto, or Disestablishment of the Welsh Church, or any other measure you may have in contemplation. I hope we shall hear no more, then, of abandonment of the Bill, or at all events of the bare assertion without argument that we wish for the abandonment of the Bill. We desire nothing of the kind. We suggest a method by which the Bill could be passed without overburdening the House or the Government or making Parliament ridiculous; and whether you accede to our request or not, we absolutely deny your right to charge us on account of our policy with any desire to destroy and defeat the measure, or indeed any part of it. I used some very strong language at the

  1407
  beginning of my speech with regard to the character of the duty which the Prime Minister and his colleagues are throwing upon the House, and in order to support that language I should like to quote the right hon. Gentleman himself. No man has been more consistent and persistent in deploring the amount of labour thrown upon this House, and in telling us that, in his opinion, the amount of labour imposed upon the House diminished its utility and its power for good. That is assented to, and I do not therefore propose to trouble the House with very many quotations, but I should like to use one or two. The right hon. Gentleman especially quoted the case of 1888; when we met in the autumn to discuss the Estimates I find that the beginning of that Session the right hon. Gentleman talked of
  "the enormous, extraordinary, and exhausting calls now made not only on the time, but on the health and constitution, of hon. Members, as well as on the Government."
  In the middle of the Session, on July 10, he talked of "an overcharged and overworked House of Commons," and in the autumn said—
  "As regards Autumn Sessions in particular. I defy any gentlemen holding office as Ministers of the Crown to perform their duties adequately to the country in the preparation of legislative business for the House, unless they have vacations of very considerable length undisturbed by Parliamentary proceedings, and quite apart from the time which is absolutely necessary for actual physical recreation."
  In surveying the whole of the Session in a speech made to his constituents in the following year, the right hon. Gentleman said—
  "Parliament was not strong enough for its work. There was too much to be done, and they could not get through it, but in one thing they were perfectly unapproachable…. no assembly in the world had ever done the amount of personal labour such as was now done by the British House of Commons."
  There is another quotation. He says that
  "Parliament has been made to work to a great extent in chains;"
  (and I specially commend these words to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman himself and his followers in particular)
  "and the consequence has been that just as when the negro had to work with the slave-driver at his back, although you might flog him well from time to time, you got very little out of him."
  1408
  Now, Sir, under what circumstances were these statements made—statements which cannot be strengthened by any powers of language which I can command? They were made at a time when the amount of work expected from the House was nothing compared with the amount of work you are expecting from us now, when the slave-driver attempted to get very little relatively out of his men, and when the lash was but very imperfectly applied. Why, what was this Session of 1888 which drew all those loud complaints from the right hon. Gentleman? The Session of 1888 began on the 7th of February and ended on the 13th of August, a add it re-commenced for Supply on the 6th of November and went on till the Christmas Eve. Now I have three observations to make upon that. The first is that this Session, instead of ending on the 13th of August, did not end till the 22nd of September. My second observation is that Supply, though a very important part of the work of this House, never has, according to modern practice, required that degree of attendance which is absolutely necessary if you are to properly and adequately debate a measure of this kind. And my third observation is that, instead of this House being up by the 24th of December, it appears to be much more likely that it will not be up till the 24th of February. Do what I will, I cannot understand the forecasts of the Government. With all respect I ventured to point out on the Second Heading of this Bill that I did not see how, in addition to the Parish Councils part of the measure, it was possible to pass the Poor Law part. Well, my previsions have come true; but they have had no effect in converting the Government, because the right. hon. Gentleman still cherishes the astonishing illusion that before the end of this month—so to speak, in the nine Parliamentary days that still remain—one of which is pledged to the Navy, and out of which a good deal will be taken by the East India Loan Bill and the Employers' Liability Bill Amendments—he is going to get from Clause 16 to Clause 71, and to get rid by a mere gesture of the hand of the whole existing Poor Law system. Why, it appears to me to be absolutely absurd; and let me point out to the House what the consequences will be. No doubt, if

  1409
  you regard this House as a mere voting machine, as a mere mechanism for putting on record the carrying of a certain Resolution by a certain majority, it does not matter how many gentlemen "pair." They may all "pair" until we are left with one gentleman on this side of the House and 36 or 37 gentlemen—or whatever their normal majority is—on the other side; for the Government would have their normal majority and business would pass through, carried by the majorities which the Government think themselves entitled to. But would that be the House of Commons; would that be a deliberative Assembly representing the people? Of course it would not. I took up a Division List by random the other day, and made some kind of calculation as to the Members absent—no doubt forced to be absent—among the Government's own supporters, whose presence, of all others, we should expect upon a Bill dealing with the rural population of England. It was a Division which took place on Saturday last, and among the supporters of the Government there were absent three Members from Cambridgeshire, one from Devonshire, one from Cornwall, two from Leicestershire, three from Lincolnshire, one from Norfolk, two from Oxfordshire, one from Somersetshire, one from Staffordshire, one from Suffolk, two from Wiltshire, and one from Yorkshire. Those are the men who, above all others, are bound by their duties to the constituencies and the House to be present during our discussions. They are County Members par excellence, and it is absurd to say that the House of Commons is really a deliberative Assembly if by the way you conduct your business you exclude from your deliberations the men who, of all others, ought to be here. There is another point of view more delicate and difficult, but which I think I cannot wholly avoid mentioning, especially as it has been referred to in the Motion of my hon. Friend. I refer to the officials of this House. I do not believe there are a set of men in the world more willing to do what is asked of them than the officials of the House, from the highest to the lowest, on whom we depend not only for our comfort, but for the very possibility of carrying on our work. Think of the strain you are putting upon them! Think of the absolutely unexampled addi-
  1410
  tion to their labours that you are requiring of them! It appears to me to be positively outrageous! You cannot expect either that the work will be done without necessarily carrying in its train much sickness, and many of the evils consequent on sickness. The Prime Minister—whom we are delighted to see back fully restored to health—was obliged by an unfortunate illness to be absent from us during a most critical point of last week's Debate. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, who, if he had been here, would have been able to do some important and necessary work with regard to Irish Education, is also absent. I do not wish to imply for a moment that any Members of the Opposition can be as important as Members of the Government in these matters; but my right hon. Friend, one of the Members for Lincolnshire, who has a title to be heard upon this question, and who has attended very closely to our Debates in Committee, is now compelled by indisposition to absent himself; and if I may, without egotism, mention my own case, I may say that during the clauses of this Bill on which, above all others, I should have liked to express my opinion in detail—those mainly dealing with the problems of taxation in the Parish Councils—I was, very much against my will, obliged to absent myself. When I think of all these accumulated evils which the Government are bringing upon themselves, upon us, and upon the officers of the House, I ask myself what on earth it is that they suppose they are trying to do? They could pass the Parish Councils part of the Bill, but they propose to take the other part, and they know the result of that will be that we shall be discussing the Bill through the whole of next month. I do not believe that under any circumstances you could do it in a less time, but whether I am right or wrong in that, I am certain that you cannot now do it in less time. Let the slave-drivers flog as they like, they cannot get more than a certain amount of work out of the persons whom they so treat; or, if I may change the metaphor to a mechanical one, I would say that no engine of which the bearings are hot ever did any work yet. The bearings will be hot enough before this Bill is passed. It is as inconvenient to me as to any other Member of this House to alter all the plans that I had

  1411
  for what I had trusted was to be an agreeable and prolonged recess; but, Sir, I will be back here on the Wednesday after Christmas, and I believe that enough gentlemen will be back on that day to make it perfectly certain that no provision of this Bill shall pass the Committee stage without being thoroughly and adequately debated. The right hon. Gentleman apparently desires us to neglect our duties. But we have to do what we are sent here to do—to discuss the Bill; and however grateful the right hon. Gentleman might be for our absence, and however anxious we may be to please him in every other particular, I can assure him that there are duties which we rate at a higher value even than his approval. However, Sir, after all, the chief sufferers are the Government themselves. Personally they will have to neglect—must neglect, as the Prime Minister has said—the duties of administration and the duty of preparing measures for this House which can only be properly dealt with in the leisure of a Recess. In addition to that, they will, of course, have to bear a great deal of private and personal inconvenience; and, above all, it seems to me, if I can read the future aright, that they will get the legislative business of the Government into a hopeless and helpless imbroglio. How the Government can think it is their interest to be dealing towards the end of February next with the Lords Amendments to this Bill—how they can possibly regard that as a convenient way of commencing the labours of the next Session —I am utterly unable to understand. What purpose of public policy they think they can serve, what Party interest, what interest of the lowest description they can gain, I cannot understand, and it is not my business too closely to inquire; but of this I am certain—that no policy ever was initiated or sustained by a responsible Government which must react more fatally upon the healthy life of Parliament, or which will for a long time do more both to discredit us in the eyes of the country, and render us incapable of carrying out that work with which the country has entrusted us.
  MR. HALDANEdid not very often take part in the general Debates of this House, but he did not think it would be desirable that they should come to the conclusion of this
  1412
  Debate without, at all events, one word from somebody representing the rank and file of this (the Liberal) Party. At the beginning of this Parliament, it was said that they on that side of the House were a collection of isolated units without cohesion and the power of holding together. He should have thought that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had learned by this time that there was something more of cohesion in the Party now supporting the Government than they took to be the case. There were words which fell from the right hon. Gentleman at the close of his speech which no one could interpret in any other light than a challenge, and he and his friends sitting on that side of the House felt themselves bound to respond. The right hon. Gentleman had used some arguments which he thought ought to receive a word or two of attention. He said that the situation was a situation of strain not only upon Members, but upon the officials of this House. It was a situation of strain, but he should be sorry to think it was a permanent one. He did not believe it was. He believed the situation to be one altogether exceptional, the remedy for which lay not in their power, but in the power of hon. Members who sat opposite. How had it been brought about? They (the Liberals) were sent to this House to do certain work; Ministers came there, supported by a majority, to pass certain measures to which their Party were pledged. It was the duty of Ministers to propose these measures, and of their Party to support them, and they would be failing in duty if they did not bring such measures forward. But there was arising a spirit in that House which was quite different from the old one of give-and-take, and it appeared, as the result of that change of spirit, that no measure was to be brought forward without being debated and discussed in a protracted fashion which was totally new in the history of the House, and a mode of discussion which, he ventured to say, if persisted in would be fatal to the utility of the House of Commons. He was not saying where the origin of that was to be traced. He had always thought that during the last Parliament there was discussion on some matters brought forward by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen then in power in excess of what

  1413
  was desirable or expedient. But the excess of discussion which took place then was as nothing compared to the excess of discussion now. The right hon. Gentleman opposite read a number of extracts from speeches the Prime Minister made as to the position of the House at that time. Those speeches were made in a wholly different state of things. There was not then that serious evil which had grown up now, nor that necessity for drastically coping or dealing with it in some effective fashion. The right hon. Gentleman charged the Government with having brought forward this Bill in an unreasonable fashion, and with seeking to trample on an Opposition almost the equal in votes and certainly equal in resolution to the Party in power, and he suggested that the Government were trying to slip the Bill through the House. What were they there to do? They were there to bring in a Bill which was discussed before the country and which was of a certain character. The right hon. Gentleman had suggested an alternative. What was that alternative? That they should drop the other part of the Bill—only pass that part which related to the Parish Councils, and bring in the other part at some future time. That illustration was not a very happy one, when memory went back to the dropped parts of schemes of the right hon. Gentleman. What became of his licensing proposals? What became of the District Councils Bill? When were these brought back? One knew that, with the pressure there was upon the time of the House, it was not possible to bring forward great subjects twice. They had got to deal with their proposal once for all, and to deal with it as a whole. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that the Government should bring forward their Bill in the same spirit as the Bill of the Party opposite was brought forward. He also told them that the Local Government Bill of 1888 did not create local government in this country, but only altered its form. So they thought, but they never knew it before on first authority. Their position was that they did not mean to bring forward a Bill which only altered the form of local government; they were sent there to bring forward a measure of a thorough-going nature.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I never suggested that. I think the hon. and learned Member has misunderstood what I said. What I said was that by the very nature of the case our Local Government Bill took powers already in existence and transferred them to popular authorities. I said that the corresponding part of this Bill not only created the Local Authority, but created the powers for it. I make no complaint of that, but I urged the Government to pass their Bill without the new powers.
  MR. HALDANEsaid, they were there for the purpose of creating a new system of parish government, and nothing short of it. They were bound to bring the matter forward, and they had got to deal not only with the form, but with the functions of the Parish Council. How could they say they had done that, and dealt with the matter, if they excluded everything that was controversial?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I never suggested that.
  MR. HALDANE: The right hon. Gentleman proposed that we should drop the Poor Law part of the Bill.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That has nothing to do with the Parish Councils.
  MR. HALDANEsaid, it was a vital part of the measure. He could only say it seemed to him that on the Government of Ireland Bill they had discussions of enormous length, and on the present Bill they had had discussions of enormous length. The result was that hon. Gentlemen opposite had left the Government no other resource but to pursue the course that had been suggested; and he thought he was expressing not only his own opinion, but the opinion of his friends around him, when he said that Ministers would be betraying their trust if they flinched one hair's breadth from the position they had taken up.
  GENERAL GOLDSWORTHYwas quite willing himself to attend the House whenever it sat, and if it was for the good of the country he was quite willing to bear any strain that might be necessary. But the Leader of the Opposition had suggested a modus vivendi by which they might get through the Parish Councils Bill by a much easier process. The fact was, that the Government had overloaded the Parliamentary coach, and were now trying to drive the horses at a rate which they

  1415
  could not bear. He had attended the Sittings of the House regularly, but he had felt the strain, as also had many others, and the number of Members now present was small as compared with the whole number of the House. No matter which Party was in power, he was desirous of seeing the country properly governed, but he was quite certain if they had Ministers thoroughly worn out they could not have that good government which they would otherwise have. They had had the Leader of the House indisposed, and several Ministers and ex-Ministers were just now suffering from the effects of the prolongation of the Session. He would appeal to the Prime Minister and ask him whether something could not be done to obviate the necessity for this continued sitting. All the amenities of life had to be sacrificed; hon. Members had simply to give themselves up entirely to attendance in the House, and discussion was rendered necessary by a breach of faith. If a breach of faith had been committed by the late Government, he would have gone into the Lobby and voted against them. His personal honour would have compelled him to do so. He would remind hon. Members that the officials of the House could not pair and go away. It was not only the officials they had to consider, but there were also messengers, doorkeepers, and others whose hours, with the House and Committees sitting, were unbearable, and who could only recuperate themselves by having some time for relaxation in other parts of the year. Many Members of the House, including their attendance on Committees, had to put in from 14 to 15 hours a day. A great strain was put upon everybody, and, not least, upon the reporters, several of whom, he believed, were ill. It was impossible for Members who were jaded and fatigued to give that attention to business which was necessary. He urged the Government to adopt the course suggested by the Leader of the Opposition, and drop the Poor Law part of the Bill, reminding the House that he (General Goldsworthy) had himself recently presented a Petition from the Fulham Union begging the House not to deal with the Poor Law.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he should not have intervened even for a few moments in this
  1416
  Debate had it not been for the allusion made by the hon. Baronet who seconded the Motion for the Adjournment. The hon. Baronet spoke with something like a sneer of the fact that the Irish Members were to be found only in the Lobbies voting for this Bill. All he (Mr. O'Connor) could say was that he was unable to follow this the latest Unionist idea. The Party to which the hon. Baronet belonged was in favour of the United Kingdom being governed by this Parliament, and measures relating to different parts of the country being subjected to the votes of Representatives from all parts of the United Kingdom. The latest interpretation which the hon. Baronet gave was that the presence of the Irish Members in the Division Lobbies in reference to an English Bill was a matter for just resentment on the part of English Tory Members. That was a very strange idea of the principle of Unionism which hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway were always preaching. The hon. Baronet had said that, while the Irish Members put in an appearance in the Division Lobbies, they did not take part in the Debates. It was perfectly true that they had taken little or no part in the Debates, but that was for the very good reason that they believed that their silence was useful to the Bill, and that speeches made in other parts of the House were intended to destroy it. The Leader of the Opposition had claimed the right to discuss the Bill. No one contested his right to discuss it, but what they did contest was the right to kill the Bill by discussion. As to the allusion to the attendance of the Irish Members, he ventured to say on their behalf that it was highly creditable to them and to the Bill. They had come to the House of Commons to vote on a Bill which did not concern them nearly from long distances at considerable expense, and at the neglect of their private affairs. But they had come there because they were anxious to show the masses of the English people that they were ready and willing to repay the obligation that they were under to them, by helping them to obtain Home Rule for the English villages as some return for the help which the masses of these English villages had given towards securing Home Rule for Ireland. He thought the hon. Baronet was perfectly correct, and that he had

  1417
  won the enthusiastic assent of the House when he said that the present state of affairs had become intolerable. So it had, and so the country had found it too. But what the country was asking was, who was responsible for this condition of things? When the country knew, as it did know, that hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway had thought it necessary to spend no less than six days in discussing one clause of this Bill, the country could judge who was to blame. He was a little surprised by the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman ventured to remark that the Prime Minister, who had been Leader of the House of Commons through a great part of his career, had allied himself to a policy which would destroy the utility of the House of Commons, and also destroy its credit. He had to make this retort on the right hon. Gentleman, who had also been Leader of the House. He ventured to say that no Leader of the House ever did more to destroy its utility and its credit than he did when he gave his assent to the present tactics of his Party. He was aware that the right hon. Gentleman did not initiate these tactics. They came from another and a more reckless source. The Bill during a certain portion of its progress through the House was discussed with a certain amount of good temper, with due brevity, and in a manner with which nobody could find fault. That was during the period when the right hon. Gentleman was free from dual control as the Leader of the Opposition. But another person stepped in, a gentleman who adds to ordinary Party rancour the additional venom of what he would call, in the presence of the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division, who was acting as his representative, political perversion, and had completely changed the whole spirit in which the Bill was being discussed. The right hon. Gentleman, he was sorry to say, had allowed himself to be carried away by his more irresponsible and reckless companion-in-arms, and was lending the authority of his high character to proceedings which were highly destructive of the dignity of Parliament. What was the position in which the H6use found itself now? If every Bill was discussed in the spirit in which this Bill was discussed, no measure could pass through
  1418
  the House of Commons in an adequate portion of time. The Leader of the Opposition proposed that the Government should abandon a portion of their Bill, and he backed up that proposal by a reminiscence of his own Ministerial career which was not very felicitous, for the right hon. Gentleman never took up again that portion of the Local Government Bill which he dropped in 1888. He spoke of the pangs with which they parted from that portion of their Bill. He would admit the sincerity of the pangs, and he condoled with the depth of the bereavement, but he could not say that the right hon. Gentleman showed any profound bereavement over the fate of the Bill, for he was years in Office afterwards, and he never made any attempt to revive it. Now he wanted the Government to bury out of sight the Poor Law portion of their Bill, in the hope that they might never bring it up again. He hoped the Government would not assent to that proposal. Considering the provocative character of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, and the direct challenge which he gave the Government, he could not but describe the demand made on the Government only as a demand for the payment of blackmail to obstruction by abandoning a fundamental part of their Bill. So far as the Government was concerned they knew their duty. They knew what their duty was to the country, and he was sure that they would stand by the Poor Law portion of the Bill as being one of the fundamental points in the new charter for the enfranchisement of the rural labourers of the country; and instead of being dismayed by the threats and challenges of the Opposition, he hoped those threats would have the effect of confirming and strengthening and stimulating them. He could tell the Government and the Leader of the Opposition that if they were present at the reassembling of the House on Wednesday, the 27th December, so also would be a very large section of the Irish Members, prepared to stand by the Government and the masses of the English people, and to oppose the most unscrupulous and dishonest attempt ever made to smother a Bill, while at the same time professing friendship for its principles.
  SIR H. JAMES: I think the House will be disposed to

  1419
  allow that if an hon. Member felt it necessary to make a violent personal attack on another Member he generally selects one who is present, and does not seize the opportunity of a Member's absence, when no reply can be made, to make an attack which, I think, would not have been made if my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham was in his place. The hon. Member, who sits for an English constituency, says the country will judge as to the course which is being taken in the conduct of Public Business in this House. Statements as to what the opinion of the country will be on either side, according to our political opinions, are perhaps of very little value; but I would suggest to the hon. Member that if he is sincere the best way to display that sincerity is to aid in efforts to obtain the judgment of the country at the earliest possible moment, and on the issue we are now endeavouring to raise. Without repeating what I said on a minor Motion on this subject on Saturday, I wish to explain why it is believed that the course now taken and proposed to be taken by the Government is one which will produce no beneficial public result, and will certainly produce great evil in the destruction of the character of the House. I admit that great sacrifices must be made by the House when they are required by necessity and urgency. But in this case the necessity and the urgency do not exist, and the object of the Government is not directly to secure the passing of this Bill in order to benefit a portion of the community, but to secure a Party success. The motive for the action of the Government was revealed in a declaration of a Member of the Government, whose absence is probably due to the overwork pressed upon the House, the Secretary for War. Speaking on the 31st of October, at Selkirk, my right hon. Friend said—
  "Bear this in mind, whatever move Her Majesty's Government makes, it has but one object—to carry Home Rule."
  We therefore know that, for every hour we spend upon an English measure, the object is to secure two hours for the benefit of Home Rule. We know from letters that have been written that in order to secure Home Rule it is necessary that English measures should be passed. Therefore this "move," admittedly unprecedented in the history of Parliament,
  1420
  is a move taken, according to the Secretary for War, for the purpose of carrying Home Rule. That naturally commends itself to the Irish Members and to the supporters of the Government, who believe in the wisdom of a Home Rule policy. But let them throw aside the mask, and tell the truth. Let it be known that these prolonged Sittings are not held for the purpose of giving local government to the villages, but that they are a "move" made with the object of carrying Home Rule. If that be so, you cannot appeal to us, who do not agree with you in your policy of Home Rule, to aid you in these "moves." If we were told that this measure was desired by the country, and that it must be passed at this exceptional period because of its urgency, we would listen to such an appeal; but when we know what the real motive is, we must express our dissent from the course the Government is taking. Comparison has been made between this Bill and the Bill of 1888. The Amendments made in the Bill of 1888 were mainly from one side of the House only, but this Bill, which we are told is a thorough-going Bill, was met on the first night of going into Committee with 300 Amendments from supporters of the Government. That was an unprecedented state of things. The object of these Amendments was to make the Bill, I suppose, still more democratic. Of course, there are others who take a different view. What now is the result? We see what is happening to many of the Amendments. The Members who submitted them have other engagements. Some stay away from necessity owing to the demands upon their time elsewhere. Surely, under these circumstances, we might ask for adequate discussion, but can that be carried on in the absence of Members who have given notice of these 300 Amendments, to which many have been added since? In the absence of these Members, can there be an adequate discussion? We are told that there is a feeling in the country in favour of the policy of the Government. The best thing is to appeal to the country's sympathy. There is one great movement in the country—a democratic movement— to lessen the hours of labour. We are told that the fewer hours men work was to increase their efficiency. But the Government are increasing the hours of

  1421
  labour both physical and mental of Members of Parliament. The work of legislation must, therefore, be ill done. That is not the way to fulfil the duty of Parliament. It is taking advantage of the failings of men. It is reducing it to a question—I do not use the words in the ordinary sense—of brute force—a question of physical supremacy. We see, with regret, men falling out of the ranks on one side, and then on the other. What is the meaning of it? It is degrading the high character of Parliament. Nothing could be more objectionable than to bring into the House more representatives of one class than of another class. The more we introduce representatives of every class the better for the House; but I say that the best representatives are those who are called upon to discharge duties elsewhere. If we are to sit here during the 12 months of the year, the local duties of hon. Members, especially of those country Members on whom the burden of local administration falls, must go unfulfilled. There will have to be a decrease of Parliamentary work, and you must call two sets of representative men into existence — one to represent the locality in Parliament and the other to look after local affairs.
  MR. J. A. PEASEsaid, either the Members opposite were in favour of the Local Government Bill, or they were not. And it was interesting to compare the views of those hon. Members opposite, who had expressed their disapproval of the Bill, with the utterances of the right hon. Member the Leader of the Opposition and other Members opposite, who had now stated they were favourable to the Bill. The hon. Member for Lynn Regis said the Bill if passed would be one of the most abiding curses on the village life of England.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I said unless the Amendments were carried.
  MR. J. A. PEASEsaid, they knew only two well the character of the Amendments suggested on the other side of the House. Another hon. Member opposite said the Bill would lead to jobbery, corruption, and maladministration, and that the result of it would be confusion, bad government, and financial extravagance; while a right hon. Gentleman opposite declared in July last that Mr. Gladstone might have his Autumn Session, but he
  1422
  would have only 10 or 12 weeks to accomplish anything, and care would be taken that he accomplished nothing. Under the circumstances, it was their duty to reduce the Amendments to a minimum. He had several on the Paper which he thought important, but he would not move them, as he should prefer the Bill passing in its present form to sacrificing it altogether. It was a pure waste of the time of the country to debate at protracted length the written Amendments of the Opposition which were not placed on the Paper, but were handed up to the Chair on the spur of the moment. If hon. Gentlemen on the other side were really in favour of the Bill, as they pretended to be, and as stated by the Leader of the Opposition, their wisest course was to show their sincerity by at once withdrawing this frivolous Motion and proceed with the business of the House.
  MR. BUCKNILLsaid, it had been stated that the Opposition had indulged in too much criticism of the Bill, and that they had altogether been too troublesome. In that connection he would remind the House that when the Bill was introduced in March last the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board said—
  "It is introduced in fulfilment of the pledges given by the late Government."
  The Government then posed as fulfilling a pledge given by the late Government; but if that were so, how could the Government blame the supporters of the late Government for criticising the Bill, which proposed to carry out their pledges? The hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire, repeating an observation used by the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries the other night, said in effect—"If we don't carry out our programme, what shall we say when we go to the country?" Was it to be expected that the Opposition would assist the Government in carrying out their programme, of which they disapproved and in which they did not believe? They had been invited by the President of the Local Government Board to assist him with their advice in improving this Bill. They had assisted honestly and to the best of their ability in trying to amend the Bill, but now they were told that their conduct was all dishonest

  1423
  The hon. Member for Haddingtonshire had told them that they (the Opposition) were there for the purpose of obstruction, but the Opposition replied that they were there for their own proper purpose, and that was to see that every Bill introduced was fully discussed and criticised before it became law. It was said that six Sittings had been spent in discussing Clause 13: not one Sitting too many. He thought the Government would do wisely if they accepted the suggestion of the Leader of the Opposition, which was that they should be satisfied at this time of the year, when they were all nearly tired to death, to take half a loaf instead of getting no bread. It was unreasonable that they should be kept there all the year, from early morning to late at night; but if they were asked to do that let them do it for the good of the country by producing a Bill which would confer benefit on the people. The Opposition would not be driven or threatened. They would not submit to the lash of the slave-driver, and they would not countenance proceedings which tended to make the House ridiculous in the eyes of the country.
  MR. P. STANHOPEsaid, that he and his hon. Friends below the Gangway on the Government Benches had been accused by the Leader of the Opposition as being subject to the lash of the slave-driver.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I was quoting from the Prime Minister.
  MR. P. STANHOPEsaid, he was aware that the right hon. Gentleman had quoted from a former speech of the Prime Minister; but the right hon. Gentleman had applied the words to the present circumstances, and therefore he was justified in saying there were some Members on the Government side of the House who were not afraid of the lash of the slave-driver; but, acting in this matter as independent Members, they would support the Government when they thought that the Government were doing well. What was the course the Government had marked out for their supporters? The Government had asked the House to reassemble in the autumn in order to pass two measures of great public importance. The first was the Employers' Liability Bill, which he hoped would, in spite of the unfortunate incident in another place, pass into law in a satisfactory shape,
  1424
  and the second was the Parish Councils Bill. He would not express any opinion as to the wisdom of the action of the Government in introducing such a contentious Bill so late in the Session. He admitted that it was possible the Government had shown a too guileless confidence in relying upon receiving the co-operation of the Tory Party. The Opposition existed to oppose and he should certainly be much surprised if the Tory Opposition did not oppose when they thought they had some Party advantage to gain. A remarkable speech had been delivered by the right hon. Member for Bury, who said that the Government were endeavouring to pass this Bill for Party purposes and with the view of hastening the re-consideration of Home Rule. Did the right hon. Gentleman regard it as a Party reason that the Government should desire to pass the programme they had placed before the electors at the last election? Was it an improper thing that the Government should carry out the business for which it was called into power? If Home Rule was advanced thereby that was no reason why the House should waste time in discussing the Party reasons which influenced them in this matter. He impressed on the Government that if they made these great demands on the time, health, and patience of their supporters, the latter had also a right to make a demand on the Government, and this was that the Government should go into this business with courage and resolution. If the House was to sit, the Government should employ every weapon in their power to closure by department or by clause.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The gag.
  MR. P. STANHOPEsaid, he did not think the country would consider that the gag had been inopportunely used after 21 days had been already wasted, in a great measure, in Committee, and when the Government were threatened with 20 more days, which were to be passed in a similar fashion. He thought that the Government would be amply justified in the existing condition of affairs if they brought into existence every known weapon in their power to hasten the progress of business. He was sure, at all events, that they would be supported by their followers if they even asked

  1425
  Parliament to grant further powers in order to carry into law a Bill which both sides believed to be an important Bill, and which the Conservative Party said they desired to pass rapidly into law. The Leader of the Opposition had been so good as to repeat the judgment of Solomon. The Bill was to be divided into two parts—one part was to be allocated to this Session and the other to next Session. The Government must accept the responsibility of their own programme. It was not the business of the Leader of the Opposition to direct the Government or their supporters in what both conceived to be their duty. He trusted that the Government would proceed in the discharge of their duties with courage and resolution, and the more courageous and more active they were the more securely might they rely on the support of their followers.
  MR. COHENsaid, that there was a great division of opinion amongst the supporters of the Government themselves on the Parish Councils Bill. Progress on that measure had been, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, expeditious, businesslike and active, so long as it was left to the undivided control of the Minister in charge of it. But the control of the Bill was now divided amongst right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench and their supporters behind them. For the first time in the history of Parliamentary procedure the Government was found adopting the policy devised by their followers, and the followers rejecting the policy devised by their leaders. Indeed, the position of Government and supporters seemed to be reversed. If he might tender a word of advice to the Government with regard to the imputation of motives which the Prime Minister had levelled at the Opposition, he should say that they might judge, by the experience of the past three weeks, that it would have been better if they had adhered to the proposals on which they could rely to conciliate the Opposition against the measure, instead of yielding to suggestions made behind them, which were calculated to generate opposition to the Bill—to delay the passing of the Bill, and which did violence to the pledges and principles on which the measure was introduced. If ever a Bill
  1426
  was introduced the principle of which was not in the least objected to by the Opposition, it was the Parish Councils Bill. It was practically the same with the Employers' Liability Bill. So long as the Government confined themselves to those two measures the principles of which were accepted by hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Opposition side, progress had been rapid; and if the same course had been persevered in, the Autumn Session might have been ended before now, and it certainly would have led to the passing of these two measures. But the harmony which prevailed was brought to an end and controversies were generated by the suggestion of hon. Members who sat behind the Government—suggestions which were opposed to the Bill as originally introduced, and even did violence to the pledges of the right hon. Gentleman the author of the Bill—and from that moment the Government found themselves in an embarrassing position, which seemed likely now to end in a fiasco. The Prime Minister with all his experience, would have done well to have weighed his words when he said that, in all, seven or eight days would suffice for the remaining clauses of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman supported that extraordinary view by a contrast between the Bill of 1888 and the present Bill. There was an important principle, and if they liked a new principle in the Bill of 1888—a principle which the Conservative Party did not hesitate to pass into law—namely, the principle of local self-government based on popular representation. But when that principle was adopted all the other matters in the Bill of 1888 were mere details. In the present Bill, however, there was not a clause which did not embody a principle that was not fairly opposed by various sections of the House, and into these controversies further controversies were imported by the change of front from day to day, and certainly from week to week, on the Treasury Bench. All the bad feeling was undoubtedly caused by the action of the Government in following the advice of a section of their followers. The measure was over-weighted and over-charged with controversial points, and if the Government were so unwise and so blind to the experience of the past as to retain the Poor Law provisions the result would

  1427
  possibly be the abandonment of the Bill altogether.
  MR. H. HOBHOUSEsaid, that during the eight years he had been in the House he had never yet made a speech on a Motion for Adjournment, and it was only from a sense of duty that he desired on the present occasion to make a most emphatic protest against the course which the Government proposed to take. He was returned to the House not because of any personal merits of his own, but chiefly because he was a local man and lived among his constituents, and was supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, to understand their wishes and their interests. But he ventured to suggest if the Government kept Parliament sitting 11 months out of the year and six days in the week it would be impossible for Members of the class to which he belonged to be returned to Parliament unless they were wealthy enough to have a house in London as well as in the country. He was sure the Government did not desire that the Local Government Bill should be passed entirely by Members who lived in large towns, and if it was to be a workable Bill county Members should have proper opportunities of criticising and endeavouring to improve it. The Bill was full of details. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had admitted that it required the most calm and careful consideration. It was not a Party measure, and most of those who had discussed it had not discussed it from a Party point of view. He certainly had discussed the Bill not from any Party point of view, but in exactly the same spirit as he had discussed the Bill of 1888. He had endeavoured to amend it as he had endeavoured to amend the Bill of 1888. They in the country who would have to live under these local institutions in the future, who did not look at them from the outside, but who would have to live under them and have to take a part in the administration of them, were anxious before everything else that these local institutions of the future should work smoothly and be satisfactory in their results. But such a course as the Government now proposed was not' fair to those country Members who, as they presided over the administration of local affairs, were most qualified to take part in the discussions; nor was it fair to the
  1428
  older Members, the officials of the House, or even to the administration of the government of this great country. A false issue had been raised in this Debate. The Opposition did not desire the abandonment of the Bill. No one could charge him, for instance, with being opposed to local government reform. He had done his best for years past to push on reforms in local government, and he hailed with delight legislation on this subject so long as it was passed in a well-considered and satisfactory shape. The real issue was whether an attempt should be made to push through all the numberless reforms in local administration which were contained in the Bill, or whether certain portions connected with the Poor Law should be dropped—whether, in fact, this huge Bill should be passed at once or by piecemeal? The Government, instead of cutting down their Bill, had done much to add to it. They had introduced new allotments clauses, new charity clauses, and new clauses for the reform of London Vestries into a Bill that was primarily intended to reform parish government, and a Bill, too, that was being proceeded with at a time of the year at which it was not customary to proceed with such measures. If they could not drop a portion of their Bill, the reasonable course would have been to suspend the Bill by Resolution, and he thought the Government would have ventured to take that course had it not been for the former utterances of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench. The only reforms of procedure the Government seemed inclined to adopt were either the guillotine or a system of forced labour which the Prime Minister had described some years ago as working in chains under the lash of the slave driver. They would continue to discuss the Bill in the future as in the past, and if the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the measure repeated his constant appeal to them to shorten discussion and to drop their Amendments, he should remember that they would not be encouraged to do so by the step the Government had now taken. When the Government put such pressure on them even the poorest spirited amongst them would desire to assert his rights. He would without the slightest hesitation go into the Lobby in support of the Motion as a protest against the

  1429
  action of the Government, which he considered injurious at once to our future local government and the proper working of our Parliamentary institutions.
  MR. LEES KNOWLESsaid, that it seemed that when hon. Gentlemen and tight hon. Gentlemen opposite changed from one side of the House to the other, they changed their opinions at the same time. When in 1890 a somewhat similar Motion was made by the late Conservative Government, the present Secretary for Scotland made some extremely instructive remarks. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking on the 14th of March of that year, said—
  " Every one knows that at the fag end of the Session the work is scamped; Bills are hurried through without proper discussion. There is no time at which the tempers of Members are so tried, or at which there is so much friction. The opinion of those who have been Chairmen of Committees would be worth hearing on that point. It is a mistake to suppose that good work is done in a thin House. It is when the force of the collective public opinion of the full House is brought to bear on it that the work is best done."
  Those were the opinions now entertained by the Opposition. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool alluded to the fact that in 1888 Mr. Ritchie had dropped a portion of his Local Government Bill for England, and that he did not take that dropped portion up again in a subsequent Session. Mr. Ritchie had been desirous to carry that portion of the Bill, and he would have carried it if he had done what the present Government were now doing—that was, if he had summoned an Autumn Session to carry it. The hon. Member also asked why Mr. Ritchie did not take it up in a subsequent Session. Simply because it was considered that legislation was also necessary for other portions of the Kingdom. He could not understand why the Government should not adopt the policy pursued by Mr. Ritchie in 1888 and drop a portion of their Bill. All that the Government wanted to do now was to pass a Bill which would give them a cry to go to the country with and the title of which they might put forward in pamphlets and placards and explain on public platforms. He did not understand, therefore, why the Government did not drop the other portion of the Bill, having passed the first portion which contained the title. Even if the remainder were dropped the Bill would still retain its title, and
  1430
  the Government would get what they wanted, which was, to be able to say that they had passed the Parish Councils Bill. The Leader of the Opposition had referred to the length of Sessions in years gone by. The right hon. Gentleman had brought them down to the year 1888. He could bring them down to date, and he could not conceive why they should sit longer than Parliament did in 1889, 1890, 1891, or 1892. The latest Adjournment in those years was August 30. Allusion had already been made to the strain on the health and strength of hon. Members and officers of the House. He thought one of the most obvious comments which might be made was the fact that the Deputy Speaker was in the Speaker's Chair and the Deputy Serjeant in the Chair of the Serjeant-at-Arms, both the Speaker and the Serjeant - at - Arms being absent through sickness. There was also a heavy strain put upon the reporters, the attendants, and the police. As had been pointed out, hon. Members, far from thinking of sport, were not able to think of their domestic duties, or even the business of their private life. Surely they ought to be able to do their legislative business in six or seven months of the year. The supporters of the Government were in favour of an Eight Hours Bill. Charity began at home, and he thought they might commence by adopting an eight hours day at Westminster. What were the hours during which they were engaged? On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday they were engaged nine hours; on Wednesday five and a-half hours; and on Saturday eight and a-half hours, a total of 50 hours a week. This Parliament would be unprecedented for the fact that, with the exception of one month (October), the House had worked during every month of the year, and was carrying forward its work into the next year. When he said that the work ought to be done in six or seven months he was borne out by the Secretary for Scotland, who, in his speech on the 14th of March, 1890, said—
  "We know very well that a certain quantity of time is absolutely demanded by the business of the House. I put it at seven full months from year to year, not counting the Easter and Whitsuntide Holidays."
  The right hon. Gentleman, when in Opposition, thought that seven months

  1431
  were quite sufficient for completing the work of the Government; but apparently, now that his own Party were in Office, he thought that they should take 11 or more months to complete the work of the Government He thought they ought to consider those out of the House as well as those in it, and these prolonged Sittings threw enormous work on the officials of particular Departments, such as that of the Local Government Board. He certainly protested as strongly as he could against the continuation of the labours of Parliament through the Autumn, over Christmas, and into the next year.
  MR. J. STUARTsaid, the hon. Member who had last spoken seemed to have missed the whole point of the matter. They were all sorry to sit there for a long time in order to do the business of this House, but who was the cause of it? That was the whole point. The present situation was caused by a continued opposition to every measure that the Government had brought in—a continued close opposition to it—Amendment after Amendment being dexterously proposed to every provision, with the result, at any rate, of hindering the Bill. They, on that side of the House, entirely supported the proposal of the Government to sit on until they had carried this Bill. It was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury that in trying to carry this Bill they were merely playing a Party dodge and doing something to make their Party, as against the other Party, triumphant, Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen might say what they liked, but they (the Liberals) were determined to carry a measure which went home to the great masses of the people throughout the country. It was a measure to which they were pledged long ago; to which they had been pledged for a great number of years, and which they had taken the first opportunity of endeavouring to carry through. The Bill was a good one— every part of the Bill was good, and he sincerely trusted, notwithstanding the continued opposition—he might say obstruction, threatened by the Leader of the Opposition that the Government would not be deterred from their purpose for a moment.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman has accused me of a menace
  1432
  almost approaching to a threat of obstruction. I used no language capable of that interpretation.
  MR. J. STUART(who was met with Opposition cries of "Withdraw!") said he would certainly withdraw anything which he had said wrongly, and the intention of the words used by the right hon. Gentleman would show which interpretation was the real one. As to dropping the second part of the Bill which referred to the Poor Law he trusted the Government would in no sense be deterred by anything that had occurred from pushing forward that part of the Bill which was of equal importance to the country and to which the Government were equally pledged. This was an important Bill, and it had been tackled in a spirit of opposition with which no Bill of which he had any experience had been received, and he hoped the Government would remain firm and sit until the Bill was carried.
  MR. W. LONGwas glad that the last speaker had put the charge of obstruction in a more definite, though no less offensive, form than it had been put before, and he must say that such a charge came badly from the hon. Member, because he remembered another Local Government Bill, in the course of the discussions upon which the hon. Member made long speeches and occupied a great deal of the time of the House, and yet not once did the Government of the day charge him in any shape or form with obstruction.
  MR. J.STUARTsaid that so far from there being anything like obstruction on his part, the right hon. Gentleman's colleague, who had charge of the Bill, thanked hon. Members sitting on the Opposition side of the House for the assistance they had given him.
  MR. W. LONGdid not think it necessary for the hon. Gentleman to interrupt him, and if he (Mr. Long) had followed the example set on the opposite side he should have declined to give way. The hon. Member had reminded him that the right hon. Gentleman who was in charge of the Bill of the late Government had thanked the hon. Member and his friends for the assistance they had given him. He was glad to see that the President of the Local Government Board, who was in charge of the Bill, was in his place, and he was anxious to know whether

  1433
  that right hon. Gentleman endorsed the language of his friends around him as to obstruction? The President of the Local Government Board of to-day had acted as the President of the Local Government Board of 1888 did. The right hon. Gentleman had been fair in his conduct of the Bill and had thanked Members of the Opposition for their treatment of his proposals.
  MR. CONYBEARE: Ironically.
  MR. W. LONG: The hon. Gentleman below the Gangway credited his own friend and Leader with conduct he (Mr. Long) would not venture to charge any Leader of his with. The hon. Member suggested that the right hon. Gentleman did not mean what he said, and that if he used the language he did so "ironically." He left the hon. Member to settle this matter with the President of the Local Government Board, but he thought they were entitled to know upon the question raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite what was the view and opinion of the Minister in charge of this Bill, who was the best judge as to whether there had been obstruction or not. Charges of obstruction were easily made, but they could not be so easily substantiated. The hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire, who had first made that charge, and who egged on the Government to that which he seemed to think they were not often in the habit of doing—of taking up a firm and determined attitude—had, after making that speech, not only removed himself from the Chamber, but had, he was informed, made one of those private arrangements which were known to Members of Parliament and which would render his presence in the House from the 21st of December to the 10th of January unnecessary. He was reminded by an hon. and learned Friend that the law term began about the latter date when the hon. and learned Gentleman would no doubt have a good reason for returning. If that was a specimen of the independent support the Government had to rely upon he could not congratulate them upon the position in which they found themselves. Another hon. Gentleman, who represented one of the divisions of Northumberland, had told them that the Amendments moved from that (the Opposition) side of the House were not worthy of his attention, because he knew the class of Amendments they were.
  1434
  They might take some comfort from the fact that though these Amendments had not been worthy of the hon. Gentleman's attention and consideration they had been worthy the attention, and had received the consideration, of the Minister in charge of the Bill, and many of them had been incorporated in the measure. On what did the charge of obstruction rest? It could only be substantiated by proving, in the first place, that the Opposition had occupied too long a time; and, secondly, that their recommendations bad been opposed to the Bill. Of that portion of the Bill which had been passed something like 200 lines were new; many of these had been pressed on the President of the Local Government Board and had been accepted by him, and he submitted it was idle to bring charges of obstruction against them based upon such a flimsy foundation as that. He did not wish to protract the controversy by going back on Clause 13, but Members of the Government knew perfectly well that if in 1888 the late Government had gone back on their assurances with reference to the system of representation, the control of the police, or any other main feature of their Bill, gentlemen opposite would have denounced and opposed the Bill with more vigour and determination than had characterised the action of the present Opposition in regard to the change of front of the Government on Clause 13. He submitted that the resolution the Government had arrived at was a futile one. It was ridiculous to suggest to the House that they were to consider the whole of this Bill in a few days. In addition to the original 72 clauses there were no fewer than 26 new clauses on the Paper. Two of those were in the name of the Minister in charge of the Bill, and 14 in the names of supporters of his. Was it not preposterous, in face of facts like these, to charge the Opposition with obstruction? They did not, like the Member for Northumberland, put down Amendments and then not move them, but they put down Amendments to secure changes which they thought necessary to the successful working of the Bill when it became an Act of Parliament. If anyone compared the action of the Opposition now with the action of the Opposition to the Local Government Bill of 1888, it would be found that they had not unfairly occupied the time of the

  1435
  House or interfered with the progress of the measure. Some hon. Members, including the hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire, did not seem to realise the difference between the two Bills. The Leader of the Opposition had pointed out the difference between the Bill of 1888 and that of 1893. One was a transfer, the other a creation. If the Government had been content to adopt the line which had been indicated from that side of the House—formed their Parish Councils, and had given them that amount of power they required for sanitary purposes and other matters—then they would have had no difficulty in passing their measure. As for himself, he had not missed one night of the discussion on this Bill, and as long as it was under discussion he would be in the House. Many of his hon. Friends would be there, and he ventured to say, as the Leader of the Opposition had said already, that by taking action of the character now proposed to be taken by the Government they were not doing a good turn to the Bill, and they were not doing a good turn to the Minister who had so laboriously so far conducted this Bill. Before the Bill had passed through this House, and long before it had reached another place, the Government would find they had by their arbitrary and tyrannical action done more harm than any Opposition could do to make this Bill a failure.
  MR. MACFARLANEsaid, he did not intend to charge the Opposition with obstruction. That was out of date. Another method of destroying Bills more scientific had recently been introduced—namely, the multiplication of Amendments by hundreds and by thousands if necessary. [Cries of "Who by?" and " From your own side."] He was prepared to divide the blame justly. It had been shown that a very large number of Amendments had come from the Liberal side. That was true, and he regretted it. The truth was that this parish infant was being smothered by the attention of monthly nurses. No sooner did Mrs. Gamp move one Amendment from one side than Mrs. Betsy Prigg rose to move one from the other, and so the time of the House and the country was wasted. If they could believe that the honest desire of all these Amendments was to amend the Bill they would endure with patience. But it was impossible to believe that. Many of them
  1436
  were dangerous, useless, and thoroughly injurious to the principle of the Bill. It was evident to everyone in the House and out of the House that the intention was to prevent the Government passing the Bill. ["No, no!"] If that was not the intention it was expected to be the effect. He wanted to tell the Government that he was prepared to sit till the Bill was passed, and neither influenza nor—something much worse—the weari-someness of listening to the long speeches made by gentlemen opposite on the same subject would deter him from that purpose. He, however, in return asked the Government to use whatever powers they possessed to put down not obstruction, but ruin by Amendment. The country would require it. Let them go to the country. [Opposition cheers.] Yes but when the Government went to the country the Opposition would also go, and the country would give its verdict. It would be no excuse for the majority when asked why they did not pass the Bill to say—" Oh, please the minority would not let us." The country would call upon the majority and not the minority to rule the House in legislation.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, he had given almost constant attendance to this Bill, and he was much interested in it. He could assure the Prime Minister that he never knew a Bill which he wished to pass more earnestly. The hon. Member who had last spoken had advised the Government to go to the country. The discussion had shown them what the policy of the Government was. They wanted to load the Bill up with every conceivable question, so as to make it impossible that it should pass, and then to represent to the country that it was a question between the Government wishing to pass the Bill and the Opposition opposing its passing. He thought there would be two sides to a representation of that kind. He had said he was anxious to pass the Bill, but he thought they had all seen that although it was possible and easy to pass a Local Government Bill, yet this Bill, being loaded as it was with so many collateral questions, made it impossible to be passed in anything like the time appointed to it. It was a District Council Bill and a Parish Council Bill. There were two Charitable Trusts Acts in it; there was Poor Law reform in it, and an Amend-

  1437
  ment of the Government proposed to include two old Acts of Parliament in it. The President of the Local Government Board had put down something like 60 Amendments, and supporters of the Government about 300. In these circumstances it was absurd to attempt to foist on the country any idea that there was undue opposition to the Bill on the part of the Opposition. The country would remember this fact: that nearly the whole of last week was taken up with an Amendment moved by a supporter of the Government. That was only a sample of what had been done. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had himself admitted that the Bill had been improved by the discussions. The Bill had been placed in such a position that it was almost impossible for it to be passed in anything like the time given to it, and, as the country had been referred to so often, he would just remark that the country must also be told that this position was due to the fact that eight months of Parliamentary time had been wasted—as some of them thought—by the Government on a question that the country did not want at all. They should not have this coercion forced upon them but for the fact that the Government were sheltering themselves under the Irish vote; and they must remember that this Bill dealt only with England, not with Scotland or Ireland; and yet they were to be forced into all kinds of coercion simply because the Government were obliged to rely on the votes of the Irish. It was through the mismanagement of the Government of their Public Business that they were in this position. The hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. J. Stuart) spoke of the Government sitting until they had fulfilled their pledges. If they sat until they did that, they would sit for the next ten years. The manner in which this Bill had been treated showed that the Government were anxious to have some Bill before the House which could not be passed, and for the non-passing of which they would like to throw the blame upon them (the Unionist Party) in the country. He said there was a desire on the part of this Party (the Unionist) to pass the Bill, and they asked the Government to put it in some form in which it could be passed in the time they had allotted to them, or to take some more time to enable them to
  1438
  pass it in its completeness. When he took objection to an observation of the Prime Minister's he did not do so in any spirit of intolerance. He wished to explain. The Prime Minister said it was only a question between abandoning the Bill or passing it. He (Mr. Jesse Collings) thought the proper way of expressing Parliamentary dissent to that was to say "No." He was not by doing that expressing any objection to the Prime Minister's opinion. He was merely asserting disagreement from that opinion. The country must understand that their proceedings on this Bill were being taken to rehabilitate the Government—a Government which had wasted valuable time and had kept them there for ten or eleven months to do work which the Government themselves were aware—or at least the President of the Local Government Board knew—was impossible in the circumstances. He would impress it upon the country that they (the Unionists) were as anxious as the Government that the Bill should be passed, and passed in either of two ways —divided in such proportion as might pass in the time allotted to them now, or the whole Bill in a longer period. That was the view that they would place before the country.
  Mr. W. E. Gladstone rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided:—Ayes 165; Noes 116.—(Division List, No. 382.)
  Question put accordingly, "That this House do now adjourn."
  The House divided:—Ayes 115; Noes 165.—(Division List, No. 383.)

ORDER OF THE DAY.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.—(No. 274.)
  COMMITTEE. [Progress, 12th December.]
  [TWENTIETH NIGHT.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Sir J. Goldsmid) in the Chair.]
  Clause 16 (Officers of the Parish Council).
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 35, at the end of the clause, to add the words—" (7) All parish books and documents, other than those relating exclusively to the affairs of the Church or to ecclesiastical charities, but inclusive of any documents directed by law to be kept with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish, shall either remain in their existing custody, or be deposited in such custody as the Parish Council may direct; and the Incumbent and Churchwardens on the one part, and the Parish Council on the other, shall have reasonable access to the documents in the custody of the other of them, and any difference as to custody or access shall be determined by the County Council."—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)
  Question proposed, " That those words be there added."
  Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment,
  In line l, to leave oat from the words " documents," to the word " remain," in line 4, in order to insert the word " shall."—(Mr. Griffith-Boscawen.)
  Question again proposed, " That the words ' other than' stand part of the proposed Amendment."
  MR. GRIFFITH - BOSCAWENsaid, in the absence of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir R. Webster), he begged to move the Amendment standing in his name. It was—
  In line 1, leave out from beginning, to "shall," in line 4, and insert " The custody of the registers of baptisms, marriages, and births, and of all other books and documents containing entries wholly or partly relating to the affairs of the Church or to ecclesiastical charities, except documents directed by law to be kept with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish, shall remain, as provided by the existing law, unaffected by this Act. All other public books, writings, and papers of the parish."
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member withdraw the Amendment in his own name?
  MR. GRIFFITH - BOSCAWEN: Yes, Sir.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENsaid, he desired to move the Amendment standing in the name of the Member for the Isle of Wight, which had been resolved upon as a compromise. ' It kept in the custody of the registrars of baptisms, marriages, and births, all documents of a purely ecclesiastical character and those that were partly ecclesiastical, except such documents as were directed to be kept elsewhere
  1440
  according to the provisions of existing law. He hoped this would be regarded as a fair and reasonable compromise. He begged to move the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  In line 1, to leave out from beginning, to "shall," in line 4, and insert—" The custody of the registers of baptisms, marriages, and births, and of all other books and documents containing entries wholly or partly relating to the affairs of the Church or to ecclesiastical charities, except documents directed by law to be kept with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish, shall remain, as provided by the existing law, unaffected by this Act. All other public books, writings, and papers of the parish."
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER, Wolverhampton, E.)said, the purely secular books of the parish would be put into the custody of the new authorities; and documents of the character of minute books and books containing ecclesiastical references or entries would remain as they were, and both parties in the parish would have reference to them if required. In his judgment an amicable arrangement would be come to on that point. It was purely or largely, at any rate, an archæological question in which all were interested, and he was advised by his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General (Sir J. Rigby)—whose absence this evening, and more especially the cause of it, they all deplored—that the Amendment might be accepted.
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONwas understood to say there were other matters which ought to be included in this Amendment.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, those other matters had no practical application in this Amendment.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONasked, what was to be done about tithe maps? They formed the evidence of the rector to his tithes; and, if they were taken away, how was the rector to prove his title? It could not be said that a tithe map was a secular document. It belonged to the affairs of the Church much more than to any one else. If they took the case of a parish where disturbance had arisen regarding tithes, he thought if the map were given over to secular control, it would be destroyed. He would appeal to the right

  1441
  hon. Gentleman whether it was just to take away such evidence of title.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, he would call attention to the words at the end of the sub-section as it stood—
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN:That will come up by-and-bye.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he could not accept the proposal of the Member for Thirsk. He had already laid it down plainly that the Government would take their stand on secular books and papers.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he understood from the right hon. Gentleman that he had come to an arrangement in this matter with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight. He (Mr. Balfour) had not been cognizant of that, but if that were the case—and no doubt it was—the Opposition would adhere to the arrangement.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Amendment (Sir R. Webster) agreed to.
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONsaid, he desired to move the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Wick-ham). It appeared to him that the Parish Council would be a name that would not have a local habitation. There would be no place in which to put the books and documents, and he thought that until such place was provided the books and documents ought to remain with their present custodians.
  Amendment proposed,
  In line 4, to leave out from the word " custody," to the word " and," in line 5, and insert the words " until such time as the Parish Council shall have provided a fit and proper place for their safe custody."—(Mr. J. Grant Lawson.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he thought the hon. Member had overlooked one part of the clause which provided that the books should either remain in their existing custody
  "or be deposited in such custody as the Parish Council may direct."
  Well, if the Parish Council had no local habitation the books and papers would remain where they were. The Parish Council would be vested with the power to procure a parish chest, and would
  1442
  either have to take charge of the documents or be deprived of them altogether.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he did not understand the clause. The documents would
  "either remain in their existing custody or be deposited in such custody as the Parish Council might direct."
  As he understood it, that was a direct alternative, and if the existing custodians chose to retain the documents they would be at liberty to do so. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean that, or that the documents should be removed at the will of the Parish Council?
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the matter was one of draftsmanship. The documents would remain in the charge of their existing custodians or not, as the Parish Council directed.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, it was not a question of draftsmanship, but a question of English. There was a direct alternative in the Amendment; therefore, it appeared to him that the documents would in all likelihood remain where they were. If that was the intention of the clause he had no objection to it. He would rather stand by the clause than have it altered; but if the intention of the right hon. Gentleman and the Government was to cast on the Parish Council the obligation of deciding whether or not the documents were to remain in the hands of the present custodians he thought there was a practical difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman did not quite appreciate. It was hard for hon. Members to be accused of obstructive tactics when they desired to have an explanation of a clause of this kind, which was so obscure that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill did not understand it himself, and in the course of a couple of minutes or so had put two different constructions on it. Surely the right hon. Gentleman had no right to complain of the Opposition if they were unable to understand the Amendment. He (Mr. Long) should be content if the proposal contained two direct alternatives, but if the power of directing that the documents should either remain where they were or should be removed to some other place were to be left to the will of the Parish Council he ventured to submit that they were laying on the Council a task that it would be difficult to perform. A Parish Council would not be like a Local Board or a Municipal Corporation. It would not have a safe or

  1443
  any other place where documents of this kind could be properly taken care of.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, that what he understood the clause to mean, and what he was advised that it did mean, was that the parish books should remain in the existing custody if no one interfered or took action in the matter. If the Council was dissatisfied with their remaining where they were it would direct them to be deposited somewhere else. That was his meaning, and he deemed that it was not inconsistent with anything he had said.
  MR. T. H. BOLTON (St. Pancras, N.)wished to call attention to the subsequent words—
  "And any difference as to custody or access shall be determined by the County Council."
  The documents were to remain in their existing custody or be deposited where the Parish Council directed. He apprehended that the persons who at present held the documents would desire to continue to hold them, and would be allowed to do so for the present, and that if there was any dispute it would be referred to the County Council, and that then, if the County Council decided in favour of any change, they would
  "be deposited in such custody as the Parish Council may direct."
  That appeared to him to be the way the clause would work out in practice.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, they were very nearly in accord with the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board. He wished to know, however, whether the Parish Council could commit the care of the document to a person residing outside the parish. He was anxious that they should be kept within the parish, and would, therefore, suggest that after the words "in such custody" the words "in the parish" should be added.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, they must give the Parish Councillors credit for acting in these matters in a businesslike way. They might send the papers to New Zealand, but he did not think such a thing was within the range of probability—hardly of possibility.
  MR. H. HOBHOUSEsaid it was desirable to avoid ambiguity. The words " as the Parish Council may direct " might have two meanings. They might mean that the Council might
  1444
  direct whether the documents might remain in the existing custody, or be deposited in the custody of other persons, or the word "as" might simply refer to "such custody," and in that case the direction to the Parish Council went to this extent—namely, that if the papers did not remain in their existing custody, then the Parish Council might say where they were to go to. If he understood the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board aright, he meant to put the first construction on the words. He (Mr. Hobhouse) would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, if he wished to carry out his own intention without ambiguity, he should put in "according as the Parish Council may direct." The Deputy Chairman had put the Amendment before the Committee in such a way as to exclude an Amendment which he (Mr. Hobhouse) had intend to move.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: That is out of Order after the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, they were not told what circumstances would direct the adoption of the second alternative. It seemed to him that the words should read " unless the Parish Council otherwise direct."
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, they had heard a good deal to-night about urging this Bill forward, but it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had taken up a great deal of time with an Amendment which ought not to have occupied more than a couple of minutes. He wished to say a word as to the importance of these documents, not from a Church or a local point of view, but from a national point of view. They were talking about the most valuable documents which the country possess. These records of parish meetings which, to ordinary people, would seem like a lot of musty old documents, useful to nobody, were of the highest national value. Those who bad read them found that they contained records of everything connected with the life of centuries ago. They referred to the prices of labour, of corn, of land, and so on, and were the main source of our knowledge of the life of old England—
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I submit that all this has already been disposed of by

  1445
  the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight. We have decided that these documents are to remain as they are.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: The ecclesiastical documents?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: No; all of them.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, that there was something else dealt with on the Amendment besides Vestry minutes. All the parish documents would be affected, but the Parish Council would begin with brand new books, and might look upon the ancient records as a nuisance. They would not know what to do with them, though they were documents which, from a national point of view, ought to be most carefully looked after. They referred to a variety of matters non-ecclesiastical. They referred to all the revels of the olden times, to pounds, stocks, ducking stools for scolding women, and a number of things which the historian and writer in the olden times, when he wished to paint a vivid picture of old English life, was obliged to have recourse to.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman will see that the point in dispute is—
  "Shall either remain in their existing custody or be deposited in such custody as the Parish Council may direct."
  The point is not as to what the papers are, but what shall be the custody of them.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, he quite understood the position, but he wished to base on the value of these records an argument for their safe custody. At present these documents were kept in a suitable place. If they were placed in the hands of the Parish Council they would not be so safe. That body was to be changed every year. The Chairman this year might not be the Chairman next year. It had been suggested that each parish should have an iron safe, but it must be borne in mind that they were dealing with small and poor parishes. There were nearly 8,000 out of the 13,000 parishes of below 400 population. Between 4,000 and 5,000 of these parishes were of below 200 population with a correspondingly small income, and yet, very often in these parishes the documents were of the greatest value. To ask one of these Councils to spend £20 or £25 on an iron safe would be to ask it for the whole of
  1446
  its income. He was urging the right hon. Gentleman to have regard to the question of security. At any rate, if the right hon. Gentleman carried his point, and insisted upon the Parish Council taking charge of these documents, there ought to be a grant from the National Exchequer to provide security for them. The Parish Council could not provide a safe, seeing that it was limited to a 6d. rate.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman must speak to the Question before the Committee.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, this was an important question. [Cries of "Order!"] Ask Mr. Lecky or any historian in the country, and he would tell them that it would be the greatest loss to the country if these papers were destroyed. Under the Parish Council they might be entrusted to a man who would keep them in a cupboard, and anyone acquainted with a cupboard in a four-roomed house would know that that was a receptacle for a great many things. To put these documents in such a place would practically be to destroy them. Why should they not remain where they were? They should be kept in a place of security, and there should be access to them at all reasonable times. Why did not the Government provide for this, and dispose of the subject under discussion in a couple of minutes. ["Hear, hear!"] Yes, by letting them remain where they were.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the right hon. Gentleman insisted that this was a question of great importance, and he (Mr. Fowler) was as fully alive to the fact as anyone. Probably the right hon. Gentleman was not present when the Bill was last in Committee and when he (Mr. Fowler) had arranged to accept an Amendment by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight, who had pointed out the importance of the question and the dangers adverted to by the right hon. Gentleman. He (Mr. Fowler) had spent a great part of last night and of to-day in arriving at an agreement with the hon. and learned Member. He had come to the decision that the documents should remain in their existing custody, and the hon. and learned Gentleman with whom he had been in conference was satisfied with that result. He did not intend to depart from that understanding.
  SIR E. TEMPLEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to allow the Parish Council to send these documents out of the parish?
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, it would be inconvenient to leave these papers in the hands of parish clerks, many of whom might live outside the parishes. He knew the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board was with them in this matter, but did not think he appreciated this point as strongly as they did. He (Mr. Stanley Leighton) had known a case where a Churchwarden had placed the parish papers in a public-house, where they had remained until rescued by an antiquarian.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he largely but not entirely agreed with the views expressed by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Jesse Collings), and he largely shared some of the fears expressed by gentlemen on this (the Opposition) side of the House that what was proposed in the clause would be found somewhat difficult to carry out. In view of the position taken up by the President of the Local Government Board he would suggest to his hon. Friends that it would not be fair or desirable or profitable to press on the Government any change of view.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSdesired to ask the President of the Local Government Board to consider one point before the Report. There were heaps of papers, some of them single sheets of paper—he had seen them himself—
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman has said that several times before.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  MR. MALLOCKsaid, he desired to move the Amendment standing in his name, which was—
  In line 5, after the word "direct," insert "and where, after the passing of this Act, one portion of an ancient parish is a rural parish with a Parish Council, and another portion is an urban district with a District Council, all such books and documents shall either remain in their existing custody or be deposited in such custody as the County Council may direct."
  There were many parishes, one part of each of which was situated in a rural sanitary district and the other part in an
  1448
  urban sanitary district, and in those cases the rural part of the parish would have a Parish Council and the urban part a District Council. His point was that a question might arise as to the custody of documents. Both parts of the parish would be equally interested, as in the case of tithe maps; and his suggestion was that the County Council should have charge of all such documents. He could give two cases of parishes thus situated. In one the parish church and the Vestry meeting place were in the urban part of the parish, and of course, it would be absurd to suppose that these documents could be taken from that part of the parish and handed over to the Parish Council. In the second ease, the parish church and the place where the Vestry meeting was held were situated in the rural part of the parish, and he thought the rural part of the parish would be unwilling to give up these documents to the Council controlling the other part— especially as in the case of tithe maps, the rural part of the parish would have more interest in the documents than the urban. He had placed the Amendment on the Paper with a view to calling attention to the matter so that the necessary alterations might be carried out, and he hoped the President of the Local Government Board would give his attention to the matter.
  Amendment proposed,
  In line 5, after "direct," insert "and where, after the passing of this Act, one portion of an ancient parish is a rural parish with a Parish Council, and another portion is an urban district with a District Council, all such books and documents shall either remain in their existing-custody or be deposited in such custody as the County Council may direct."
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he quite appreciated the intention of the hon. Member, and agreed with him that it was necessary to make such a provision. The matter would not be lost sight of; and, if they found that the point raised was not covered, words dealing with it would be inserted, when they came to a, later stage, at which the question could be properly raised.
  SIR F. S. POWELLsaid, it was quite clear from the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight that there were two classes of document—
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Order! That does not refer to this question.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. TOMLINSONbegged to move the Amendment standing in the name of his hon. Friend the Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Macdona)—
  In line 7, after the word "documents," to insert the words "upon payment of the customary fees."
  There were eases in which this provision would be necessary.
  Question proposed, " That those words be there inserted."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he quite appreciated the idea of the hon. Member who put down the Amendment, but he must point out that there was a division of jurisdiction. His Amendment dealt with inspection by the Incumbent and Churchwardens on the one hand and the Parish Council on the other, and in either case the inspection would be free. Fees would be charged only when strangers came in.
  SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, there were statutory fees in many cases for the inspection of documents. The official inspection, to which the right hon. Gentle-referred, would be free; but that would not apply to cases that were not official. He thought some words ought to be inserted, otherwise difficulties would arise.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir C. RUSSELL, Hackney, S.)said, what the learned Gentleman said was quite true; but the clause excluded outsiders from the privileges he mentioned.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER MR. H. H. FOWLER moved to add at the end of the clause—
  " (8) Every County Council shall from time to time inquire into the manner in which the parish books and documents are kept with a view to the proper preservation thereof and shall make such orders as they think necessary for such preservation, and those orders shall be complied with by the Parish Council or parish meeting."
  Question proposed, "That the Subsection be there added."
  MR. TOMLINSONsaid, he wished to move, in line 1, to leave out "shall" and insert "may." The question of "shall" and "may" had been raised before; but it was well to raise it in this case,
  1450
  because they had here the words "from time to time." What did those words mean? They imposed a duty upon the County Council, and left no discretion to that Council as to when they would carry out the duty. He submitted that the word should be "may" rather than "shall." By "shall" they compelled the County Council to carry out the duty. The Bill, however, gave no power to anyone to compel them to act.
  SIR C. RUSSELLsaid, he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley (Mr. Jesse Collings) was not in his place. If he were he would give an angry reply, he thought, to the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken. This was, in fact, a proposal of the Government favoured by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley for the safeguarding of documents. It was the duty of the Council to inquire into this matter; and why should they not? And if it was necessary they should do so, why should it not be provided for in the clause?
  MR. TOMLINSONsaid, he wanted to know how often they were to inspect the documents—once a year, or every six months, or how often? The words from "time to time" were vague.
  Question, "That the word 'shall,' stand part of the Sub-section," put, and agreed to.
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENsaid, he begged to move to amend the Amendment by providing that the documents in question should be documents "in the custody of the Parish Council." The result would be to limit the right of inquiry to those documents which were given over to the Parish Council to keep. There might be cases in which the Vestry had not kept their documents as well as they should have done; but, granting that, the proper authority to inquire into the matter should be some ecclesiastical authority, and not any secular authority. He thought he was only carrying out the intention of the Government by moving this Amendment.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be inserted in the proposed Amendment be there inserted."
  SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment as being in the spirit of the compromise already arrived at, that

  1451
  documents partaking of an ecclesiastical character should remain in ecclesiastical custody. This was no right why they should go under any secular authority.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he thought it was evident that the sub-section referred entirely to Parish Council or parish meeting documents. They could not go into the question of the custody of documents not under the control of these bodies—documents that were outside the purview of the Bill. Personally, he very much wished they could, but they could not. He rather thought, from the letter of Mr. Sidney Lee in The Times and other sources of information, that there were a great many of these valuable documents which were not so well kept as they should be; but he saw no feasible way of dealing with the matter. He would suggest that, instead of "custody," the word "control" should be substituted. "Under the control of the Parish Council" would meet the case, he thought.
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENsaid, he was prepared to accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, and he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER MR. H. H. FOWLER moved to insert the words, "Under the control of the Parish Council."
  Question proposed, "That those words be inserted."
  MR. TOMLINSONasked why they should not add "parish meeting?"
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Oh, no.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  SIR F. S. POWELLsaid, he would move at the end of the sub-section to omit the words "parish meeting." He did not see why the parish meeting should be included; and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would consider the matter before Report, in which event he would not press the Amendment. He could not understand what power the parish meeting had with regard to custody of documents.
  Amendment proposed,
  At the end of the Sub-section to leave out the words " parish meeting."—(Sir F. S. Powell.)
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the Government had endeavoured to carry out the views of the right hon. Gentle-
  1452
  man the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), and that was the reason for the inclusion of the parish meeting. There would be an opportunity on a later clause for dealing with this matter, and if the Committee then thought fit, they could say whether the words should be retained.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, he would like to know the precise effect of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. What power would the County Council have to make orders for the preservation of these documents? Supposing it made an order that precautions should be taken; who was to compel the Parish Council to carry it out?
  SIR C. RUSSELLsaid, ample power was given to the County Council to act in the matter.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid it seemed to him that the County Council had no sufficient power in the matter.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment was very cumbersome. The County Council was to see that the books and documents were to kept in proper preservation. If a mandate were issued by the County Council, what if the Parish Council had no money with which to carry that mandate out? Were they to have actions brought and costs given against the Parish Council, or were the members of the Parish Council to be imprisoned for non-compliance—for not doing that which they were unable to do?
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, the Amendment applied not only to the exercise of the powers of the County Council in respect of the Parish Council, but also of the parish meeting. As he read the Amendment, the County Council was to look after the preservation of books and documents—
  SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, he would venture to point out to his hon. Friend (Mr. Gibson Bowles) that the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman was quite satisfactory. The parish meeting would have the same power as the Parish Council.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, as a member of a County Council, it would be well they should know whether, where there were, say, 400 parishes in a country, the Council was to send Commissioners to inquire how the parish documents in each in-

  1453
  stance were kept, or were they to content themselves with issuing Circulars on the subject?
  SIR C. RUSSELL: A reasonable mode by which these inquiries of the County Council as to the condition of parish documents shall from time to time be made would be by Circular, which, I am sure, the Parish Authorities will deem it their duty to courteously answer. A still easier way would be to get the representatives of the different parishes on the County Council to say what was the condition of the documents.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he thought that mode impracticable. If he, as a member of the County Council, were asked on the spur of the moment, what was the state of the documents of the parishes in his division he would not be able to answer. Members of the County Council did not carry such information in their minds, and they could only arrive at it by an elaborate perambulation of the parishes they represented. The Government proposed to place an additional burden on the County Council which it might not be able to bear. He did not say that it was not a proper thing for the Council to do, but it was quite a new function, and it ought to be made clear how the County Council was to discharge it.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Immense duties will be devolved on the County Councils by the Bill, but we do not tell the County Councils how they are to discharge those duties. The County County Councils are composed of capable and responsible men, and we cannot say to them—"You are to do a certain thing in a certain way." A small County Council may do it in one way, and a large County Council in another way. The hon. Gentleman complains of this as a burden imposed on the County Council. An appeal was made to the Government to do something in this direction on account of the negligent manner in which documents have been kept, and the Government put in this clause, made it a statutory duty of the County Council, in such manner as they think best to inquire into the condition of parish documents, and make it the duty of the Parish Councils to act on their directions in that regard. I am satisfied with the clause as it stands, and I think our proposal is the proper thing to do.
  MR. BONSORsaid, he objected to these new duties being cast on the County Council. A short time ago the Councils had had the Shop Hours Act placed upon them, and they were asked to appoint Inspectors to go over the country to see that the provisions of the Act were carried out. The result was that the Act was a dead letter. He believed that if the Government placed on the County Councils the duty of seeing after the various parish documents, they would arrive at no practical effect. If the Government wanted those documents kept in order, the proper authority to go to was the Parish Council, which should be given power to take charge of the documents.
  MR. STOREYsaid, that the County Council had now got to revise all the sanitary affairs of all the parishes in the county. But that did not mean that the County Council were to send men to perambulate through the country to see that there was nothing wrong. It meant that if anyone saw anything wrong in his parish, he could appeal to the County Council. He took it that it would be the same with the parish documents.
  SIR F. S. POWELLsaid, that he had personal experience of the great inconvenience caused by the loss of parish documents in the case of enclosure rewards, and as some provision was necessary to preserve these documents in the future, he hoped the Government would press this Amendment.
  Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.
  Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.
  Clause 17 (Provision as to large parishes.)
  MR. FORWOOD MR. FORWOOD (Lancashire, Ormskirk) moved to amend the clause in line 36, after the words "by the," by the insertion of "parish meeting, or." The effect of the Amendment would be to give the parish meeting power of reporting their wishes in regard to this matter before the formation of the Parish Council. The large parishes existed perhaps in a greater degree in the North of England than in other parts of the country, and he might mention that in his own constituency there was a parish

  1455
  containing 5,000 or 6,000 people, and in a parish of that kind it would be very difficult to have a representative meeting for the election of the Parish Council. His wish was to have this question of dividing the parish into wards or districts brought before the parish meeting at the outset, and not after the formation of the Parish Council. This was the precedent set in municipal boroughs. When a municipal borough was going to be incorporated and divided into wards, the first process was to divide the wards, and then arrange for the representation afterwards.
  Amendment proposed, in line 36, after the words "by the," to insert the words " parish meeting, or."—(Mr. Forwood.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I think the right hon. Gentleman has not quite grasped the framework of the Bill. By the clauses we have already enacted there is no question of the parish meeting having any jurisdiction whatever in the matter. The Parish Council will be formed immediately on the Bill receiving the Royal Assent. There is no analogy between the present case and a municipal borough being incorporated. The Amendment is inconsistent with the framework of the Bill, which, as I have said, provides that there must be a Parish Council for every parish with a certain population. I prefer the clause as it stands.
  MR. FORWOODsaid, his desire was to secure that before the election took place in a large parish, that parish should be divided into districts or wards, and that each district or ward should have the opportunity of electing its own representative to form part of the Parish Council. In the parish of Lydiate, in his constituency, there were four or five large townships, and unless some suggestion like his was adopted these places would be very inadequately represented in the Parish Council elected by the parish meeting. If the Amendment were adopted he should proceed further, by moving to insert after "parish," in line 38, the words—
  "Or any township forming part of such parish, containing not less than 300 inhabitants.'
  SIR J. DORINGTONsaid, he thought that what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Ormskirk Division would
  1456
  not be accomplished by the words proposed, because the parish meeting did not come into effect at once, and the ward arrangements were wanted before anything was done. He suggested the addition of words giving the County Council power to move in toe matter before "the appointed day."
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I do not think that would meet the difficulty. It would introduce a new authority in conflict with the other one. I should prefer the clause as it stands. Suppose the Parish Council does not be elected, you have a provision by which one sixth of the parochial electors may make an application to the County Council, if necessary. If one-sixth be considered too large, I will consider a proposal to reduce it.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he did not think the Amendment suggested by the right hon. Gentleman would meet the difficulty. The parish meeting would assemble to elect the Parish Council, and as under the Bill the wards would not be brought into existence previous to that election, they would have in those large populous parishes in the North of England, each comprising two or more townships of varying population, the Parish Council elected by the majority of those who could conveniently attend the parish meeting, and consequently there would be no protection for minorities. The difficulty lay in the fact that the members of the Parish Council would be elected for the whole of the parish, as the wards would not be brought into existence previous to the election. The evil might afterwards be remedied, but undoubtedly in the first election the minority of the parish would not have a fair share of the representation. If the Amendment of his-right hon. Friend were accepted, it would bring a new authority into the field, but, at the same time, it would deal with this difficulty.
  SIR C. RUSSELLsaid, that care was taken of the interests of the minority by the provision giving one-sixth of the parochial electors powers to move in the matter, and the President of the Local Government Board was prepared to consider a proposal for a reduction of that number.
  MR. FORWOODsaid, he should insist that the proper course to take would be to divide the parish into wards before there was any parish election.
  MR. H. HOBHOUSEsuggested that the application for the division of a parish into wards should be made by one-tenth of the parochial electors, instead of one-sixth as provided by the Bill. He thought that would best secure the object of the Member for Ormskirk.
  MR. FORWOODsaid, that if his point were met in that way by the President of the Local Government Board he would withdraw his Amendment.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I am quite willing to assent to the alteration.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 27, to leave out " one-sixth," in order to insert "one-tenth."—(Mr. H. Hobhouse.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. FORWOODsaid that, after the word "parish,"
  In page 11, line 38, he proposed to insert the words " or one-sixth of the parochial electors in any township forming part of such parish, and containing not less than 300 inhabitants."
  His object was to give to every parish, or section of a large parish, an opportunity of being heard on this question of a division of the parish into wards.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 38, after the word " parish," insert, " or one-sixth of the parochial electorate in any township forming part of such parish, and not containing less than 300 inhabitants.'— (Mr. Forwood.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERremarked that the right hon. Gentleman said that if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Somerset were accepted he would withdraw his Amendment, and now he proposed it in another guise, which he (Mr. Fowler) was not prepared to accept.
  Question put, and negatived.
  On Motion of Mr. H. H. FOWLER the following Amendment was agreed to:—
  In page 11, line 39, after the word " large," to insert the words " or different parts of the population so situated."
  MAJOR DARWINsaid that, before proceeding to his Amendment, he wished to point out there were five Amendments standing in his name, but he did not father the last two. These were as follows:—
  1458
  Page 12, line 1, after " that," leave out to end of line 2, and insert " these divisions shall have for the purposes of this Act the same powers, duties, and responsibilities as rural parishes."
  In page 12, line 3, leave out " County Council," and insert " Local Government Board."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he might save time if he said at once he proposed to accept the first three and not the last two.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 40, after the word " inconvenient," to insert the words " or that it is desirable for any reason that certain parts of the parish should be separately represented on the Council."—(Major Darwin.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 41, to leave out the words "that purpose," and insert the words "the purpose of electing Councillors."—(Major Darwin.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 41, after the word " wards," to insert the words " to be called parish wards."— (Major Darwin.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, he wished to move, in page 12, line 2, after the word " ward," to insert—
  "The County Councils shall fix the number of Councillors in each ward according to the population of each ward."
  If that was the intention of the Government, it would be better to introduce those words but if the Government preferred any other form of words he was agreeable.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 2, after the word " ward," to insert the words " the County Council shall fix the number of Councillors in each ward according to the population of each ward.—(Sir C. W. Dilke.)
  Question proposed, " That those words be there inserted."
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACHthought these words unduly limited the discretion of the County Council. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would not accept these words. It would, he thought, be better for the County Council to divide them into wards as they thought desirable.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the Act of 1888 provided that in the arrangement of the electoral divisions population should be taken as the guiding principle

  1459
  upon which those divisions should be defined. He remembered in the discussion on the clause the point raised by the hon. Gentleman was the question of rateable value. They, then sitting on that side of the House, said they must be guided by population entirely. He was somewhat taken by surprise by the present Amendment, and he had not had time to look into the question.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman as to their view on that occasion. The words of the 51st section of the Act of 1888 were—
  "The division shall be arranged with a view to the population of each division being as nearly as conveniently may be equal, regard being had to the distribution and pursuits of such population."
  It was evident on the face of that clause the meaning of it at that time was that they should have the idea of equality and uniformity subject to the conditions of the pursuits and distribution of the population. The leading idea should be to sub-divide a district into electoral districts according to population, but they should modify that according to other conditions such as the pursuits and distribution of the population. As he understood, his right hon. Friend left it to the President of the Local Government Board to meet it in some way that might be practicable and sufficient. Perhaps his right hon. Friend who moved the Amendment would be prepared to adopt and accept the words of the Act of 1888.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, the interpretation the right hon. Gentleman placed upon their Act was not accurate; it was, he thought, that rateable value should be taken into account, and also the pursuits of the people and the characteristics of the neighbourhood.
  SIR C. W. DILKEfelt quite sure that what his right hon. Friend had said, and what had been said from the Front Bench opposite, had weight. The words of his Amendment might be too strict, and might be held to be an absolute direction to have regard to population alone, and he was, therefore, quite willing to ask leave to withdraw his Amendment in order to substitute—
  "in fixing the number of Councillors in each ward the County Council shall have regard to population."
  That left it open to them to show that population should be a matter mainly
  1460
  borne in view, and allowed the earrying into effect of the other considerations to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite had called attention. If that was not accepted, and he was forced to a Division, he would rather divide on the stronger form of words.
  MR. STANSFELDasked if the right hon. Gentleman would not be content with the very words of the 51st section of the Act of 1888?
  SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, the actual words of the section would not apply to this clause as this was not a question of single Member constituencies. The clause was a slight clause, and would hardly bear so elaborate a form of. words as those of the Act of 1888. In the Act of 1888 they were dealing with the matter on a large scale, whereas in this case they were only dealing with comparatively small rural parishes, and he should have thought the words he suggested better than the elaborate form of words in the section.
  SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, he might perhaps point out that if the form of words suggested were adopted it would be taken as a direction that population alone would be regarded. Some general words, he thought, must be added.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he saw the difficulty, but he could not pretend that he had had time to consider the matter. He had no doubt that the recollection of his right hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) and hon. Gentlemen opposite was more correct than his own; but he would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should not press the matter to a Division, but should bring up words on the Report stage, when they could consider the best course to be adopted.
  SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, there was another difficulty about adopting the words of the section of 1888; there existed no last Census. As regarded those wards, the Census was parish by parish, and there was no Census in which the population of these wards could be ascertained by the last Census. They could ascertain the number of houses in the ward and the number of electors, but there was no Census. He would accept the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade if he would make it in the altered form that he would himself put down words on the Report stage.
  SIR R. PAGETsaid, the words suggested would not apply to this clause, because the clause already stated—
  "A County Council may, on application by the Parish Council, or not less than one-sixth of the parochial electors of a parish, and on being satisfied that the area or population of the parish is so large as to make a single parish meeting for the election of Councillors impracticable or inconvenient, order that a parish be divided for that purpose into wards."
  The right hon. Gentleman's Amendment would deal with population alone.
  SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, the area was not the guiding principle as to representation.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, he would suggest that they leave out all reference to Census and be content with these words of the 51st section—
  "The wards shall be arranged with a view to the population of each ward being as nearly as conveniently may be equal."
  SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, the words should be
  "proportionate to the number of electors,"
  because they did not always contain the same numbers.
  MR. STANSFELD MR. STANSFELD, continuing—
  "Regard being had to the distribution and pursuits of such population."
  It seemed to him that would cover the whole ground, and give an elasticity to the division that would meet the occasion.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he would accept the suggestion of his right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir C. Dilke), and confer with him before Report in order to see what could be done.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would alter the Amendment so that regard should be had to area.
  SIR F. S. POWELLsaid, he wished to draw the attention of the Government to Section 9, Sub-section 3 of the Public Health Act, 1875, where the Statute said—
  "Where a rural Union is made part of an urban district the Local Government Board may by order divide such parish into separate wards, and determine the number of Councillors to be elected by such wards respectively, in such a manner as to provide for the due representation of such part of the parish situate in the rural district."
  Those were better words than the limiting words suggested.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. H. HOBHOUSE MR. H. HOBHOUSE moved to omit the words "one-sixth," in order to insert the words "one-tenth."
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 4, to leave out the words "one-sixth," and insert the words "one-tenth." —(Mr. H. Hobhouse.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  MAJOR DARWINsaid, in moving the consequential Amendment standing in his name, his object was to make it clear that where a parish was divided into wards for the election of Guardians that in such a ward there need be no parish meeting.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 7, after the word "into," to insert the word " parish."—(Major Darwin.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONsaid, that to carry out the intentions of the words "a separate parish meeting," it would be necessary to insert "for the purpose of electing Councillors," and he, therefore, begged to propose the insertion of those words.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line. 8, after the word "meeting," to insert the words "for the purpose of electing Councillors."— (Mr. J. Grant Lawson.)
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONsaid, it had just been pointed out to him that the Amendment was unnecessary, and, therefore, he would ask leave to withdraw it.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, before the Amendment was withdrawn he wished to ask if it was intended to confer any other power than that of electing Councillors?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Not under this clause, certainly.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR J. DORINGTONsaid, the Amendment he had placed on the Paper referred to a matter he mentioned when they were discussing the first clause, and it was to provide a bit of machinery to guard against a difficulty which he knew would arise. The best instance he could give was in his own district, where there was an urban district of about 12,000 inhabitants which divided the remainder of the parish into two parts, one portion containing 1,500, the other about 2,000 inhabitants, and at the nearest point there was about two miles between the two.

  1463
  They really ought to be two separate parishes. In carrying out this Bill they desired to make all their arrangements as perfect as they could at the first start, and he suggested that the division created by Clause 1 should be carried further, to parishes in the condition described above—namely, that they ought to be divided into separate parishes, and his Amendment provided that these separate districts should become separate parishes as was provided for in Section 1 when they were excluded from the urban part.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 8, at end to add the following sub-section:—" (4.) Provided also, that when an existing parish is about to be divided under the provisions of Section 1, Sub-section 3 of this Act, and where the portion which is within the rural sanitary district is, in the opinion of the Rural Sanitary Authority, so separated and divided by the intervening urban district as to render it inconvenient for administration as a single parish, the Rural Sanitary Authority may before the appointed day, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, divide such portion into two or more parts, and declare each part to be a separate parish in like manner as if they had been constituted separate parishes under ' The Divided Parishes Act, 1876,' and other Acts amending the same, but no such part so divided shall have a less population than 200." (Sir J. Dorington.)
  Question proposed, "That the Subsection be there added."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he quite appreciated the object his hon. Friend Lad in view; but what the hon. Baronet was dealing with was Sub-section 3, Clause 1, which provided—
  "The part of the parish which is within the district, and the part which is without, shall as from the appointed day "
  become separate parishes. The County Council were empowered by the Local Government Act of 1888 to divide parishes, and it was contemplated that where parts of parishes which under the Bill became a new parish that it was improper to retain them as one parish were so situated, they were to be dealt with in another way. The County Council had power to do that under the Local Government Act. This Bill, by Clause 30, Sub-section 1, expressly required that—
  "Every County Council shall forthwith take into consideration every such case within their county."
  The hon. Baronet's proposal was that
  1464
  when the Rural Sanitary Authority were of opinion that the parish was
  "so separated and divided by the intervening urban district as to render it inconvenient for administration as a single parish, the Rural Sanitary Authority may before the appointed day, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, divide such portion into two or more parts."
  In the next place, it would require the sanction of the Local Government Board, and the granting of that sanction would involve a local inquiry, which would throw an immense amount of labour upon the Local Government Board, and cause considerable delay. The matter had been most carefully considered by the authorities, and they advised him it would not simplify and accelerate matters if the hon. Baronet's Amendment were accepted, but would, on the contrary, create both delay and confusion. They further thought that the work would be more rapidly done by the County Council under Clause 30 of the Bill, and he therefore hoped the hon. Baronet would not press the Amendment.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, his hon. Friend who moved this Amendment was Chairman of a County Council which had been called upon, since the Act of 1888, to administer that Act, and had done so with signal success, and he ventured to say this Amendment dealt with what had been found a practical difficulty under the Act of 1888. No one could explain so well as his hon. Friend could what were the difficulties that had arisen, and it was proposed by the Amendment to meet one of those difficulties. It seemed to him the main objection of the President of the Local Government Board was that the Rural Sanitary Authority was called upon to act in a certain manner by the Amendment. He did not know what the views of the Government might be as to "the appointed day," or when, after the Debate that took place earlier, they anticipated this Bill would come into effect; but when they found it their duty to consider Amendments they believed "the appointed day" would be the day indicated by the President of the Local Government Board a short time ago, and now it was open to conjecture what would be "the appointed day." This disaster, if it be a disaster, or this delay, he thought, afforded a new opportunity for considering some of these practical difficulties. He hoped the Committee would

  1465
  not regard the Rural Sanitary Authority as one that could not be trusted. He had great respect for the Local Government Board and the officials connected with it; but having had the advantage of being at the Board for some years, he knew perfectly well that what appeared to be simple and easy to the Department was found to be difficult in the locality when it was called upon to administer the powers conferred by Parliament. If the right hon. Gentleman did not see his way to accept the Amendment as it stood he hoped he would make some provision which would enable these practical difficulties, which might arise, to be dealt with.
  SIR J. DORINGTONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had suggested that this method would be a very slow one, but if the right hon. Gentleman would point to anything more rapid he would assent to it. He objected to two separate and totally dissimilar parishes, which had nothing in common, being placed under the same Parish Council. The provisions in the Act of 1888 as regarded the formation of parishes were extremely good, but necessarily long, although not too long, when they purposed to deal with conflicting interests; but in this case there would be no conflicting interests. If the County Council were to be the power to act in this matter under the Act of 1888 it would take a long time—many months—before they could deal with it and dispose of it.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he sympathised with the case which had been presented by the hon. Baronet, but he could not admit that the County Councils ought to take so much time, and he did not think that they would. He did not, however, wish to reject the suggestion at once. Clause 30 was the proper place for bringing it up, and perhaps at that point some machinery could be devised which would achieve the object of the hon. Baronet, without impairing the efficiency of the County Council. He thought the best course would be to expedite the action of the County Council instead of setting up another authority which could not unite parishes or deal with urban parishes.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, there was an inconvenience in the present arrangement which would be remedied by his hon. Friend's Amendment. His
  1466
  point dealt with two portions of the same parish cut in two by an intervening Urban Authority which belonged to the old civil parish. Under the Bill as it stood they would create a Parish Council in each of these portions, and the object of the Amendment was to prevent that being necessary, and to enable the matter to be dealt with by a quick and easy process. They created one Parish Council for these two parishes, and the object of the Amendment was to place them both in the position of an independent authority. The Government proposed to place two portions of one parish which were absolutely separate under the same Parochial Council. Surely that was a roundabout way of creating a Parochial Council. He hoped the Government would accept the Amendment, which, among other advantages, would enable an operation which now took almost a year to carry out to be carried out in a fortnight or a month.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, that the hon. Baronet proposed that where an existing rural parish was about to be divided in consequence of a portion which was urban cutting it in two, that measures should be taken to constitute them as separate parishes. But the general idea was not to multiply but to unite small parishes and make them larger, and he wanted to know why the hon. Baronet excluded from his Amendment the faculty of uniting these parts with some other parish or part of a parish. Under existing conditions they could not only be divided into several parishes, but they might be united. Each of them might be united with some other parish by the County Council. The real question seemed to him to be, as the President of the Local Government Board had stated, whether it was not advisable and possible to expedite and facilitate the process by which the County Council could effect that operation. He would suggest that practically the best course would be to accept the view of his right hon. Friend and leave him to settle the matter.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had entirely mistaken the spirit of his hon. Friend's Amendment. It' the right hon. Member for Halifax had rightly interpreted the intentions of the Government, and his reply was in conformity to their wishes, then they

  1467
  would have introduced a new matter, which would lead to considerable discussion. They had already dealt with the proposal that small parishes should be grouped, and hon. Gentlemen opposite were as determined as they were on that side of the House that there should be no grouping of parishes. The proposal of his hon. Friend was not that small detached parts of parishes which had no, so to speak, location in their own civil parish, and which, therefore, could properly be joined to other parishes, which the clauses in the Act of 1888 proposed to deal with, but that places which were themselves capable of administering their own affairs and large enough should be entitled to do so, and that they should be entitled to become separate parishes instead of being forced to be called upon to elect one Parish Council. The Member for Halifax said if they adopted the Amendment they would be going back upon the proposal already made, and that, instead of facilitating local government, they would be increasing the local government areas. He quite agreed that they did not want to increase the areas of local government of an urban character. But they had decided that the population for which a Parish Council should be compulsory should be reduced from 300 to 200. Surely the right hon. Gentleman was not going now to suggest — and he hoped the Government were not going to entertain the suggestion—that having decided they would not force a Parish Council upon places unless they had a population of more than 200, that they should force upon existing areas a union with some other parish, which would be the last thing they would desire. What was the reason which led to the new proposal of the Government? It was because these parishes had an individuality of their own and a separate existence, and did not want to be merged into one another. The proposal of the Member for Halifax was even worse. It was not that two adjoining places should be joined to one Parish Council, but that part of a parish should be taken from that parish and joined to another. He ventured to say that if that proposal was to be accepted it would not only throw an entirely new light on this Bill, but would produce an enormous amount of food for fresh discussion, and land the Bill into greater difficulty than it was in
  1468
  at present. He hoped the views of the hon. Member for Halifax would find no response from the Government.
  MR. STANSFELDwas surprised at the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, who ought to have known him better. He had no object in this matter that was not, so far as he could judge, a reasonable object. He did not want at all to say that where there was an individuality the parish should not be continued. He approved of that principle, but what he asked was, why make it impossible, if the circumstances required it, that these parishes should be united with others? Here was a parish divided by an urban district, but each of these parts was not an individual parish in its history or traditions, and it was not at all a thing which might not be questioned to imagine and suppose that each of these divided parts wished to be a separate parish in itself. He thought hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House trusted the County Council. Why should they not trust the County Council to consider this question, and if there was sufficient reason for taking into account the wish of the inhabitants of the divided parts, to give the County Council the opportunity and the power to unite them to other neighbouring parishes, or, if they liked, to constitute themselves parishes by themselves. He was in favour of elasticity, and of giving the County Councils power of dealing with these questions, more from a practical point of view, without laying down absolute rules.
  SIR R. PAGETthought his hon. Friend had made out a case which required to be dealt with. He desired to make this suggestion. The first clause of this Bill, Sub-section 3, practically gave rise to his hon. Friend's Amendment. That clause was a compulsory clause, and divided a parish under certain circumstances into two parishes. He would, therefore suggest that his hon. Friend should withdraw his Amendment now and bring it up on Report by way of an Amendment to Clause 1, Subsection 3, which related to this matter.
  MR. A. H. SMITHput a case where in the rural part of an old parish very large suburbs had sprung up, containing something like 4,000 or 5,000 people. Under the Bill as it stood this large suburb and the small rural

  1469
  parish containing about 300 people would have one Parish Council in common, and the small rural parish would be entirely swamped by this large new suburb which had sprung up. He thought, therefore, it was most desirable that some cheap and easy way should be found of creating this large suburb, and other similar places, into a new parish for the purposes of this Act and of allowing the small parish to have its own Parish Council. They had absolutely no interest in common, and he hoped that if the right hon. Gentleman could not accept the exact terms of the present Amendment he would accept one which went at any rate in the same direction.
  MR. H. HOBHOUSEsuggested that his hon. Friend should withdraw his Amendment with a view to the matter being dealt with in Clause 30.
  SIR J. DORINGTONasked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Question proposed "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he did not think there was any provision in the Bill under which an ecclesiastical parish would be constituted a separate parish in a separate district. He proposed, therefore, to amend the clause by adding at the end the following words:—
  "And that the County Council shall have power, on the application of such parochial electors, to constitute a separate parish for the purposes of this Bill of any ecclesiastical parish."
  There was in the neighbourhood where he lived a village which belonged to three separate parishes. But their ecclesiastical parish had got a separate social life, if he might say so. The result of the situation, if no Amendment were made, would be that their parochial life would be entirely broken up, and they should be divided among three other parishes with which they had really no connection at all. They were really a separate parish, and he would ask his right hon. Friend whether he could not accept some such Amendment as this. If not, very great hardship would be caused in many parts of the country. Their ecclesiastical parish numbered about 700 persons; it was larger than many parishes which were civil parishes, and which would be allowed their own
  1470
  government, and what he should be disposed to claim as the only equitable solution of the difficulty was, that they should be allowed to continue their parish life and have their Parish Council, and be constituted as other parishes with all necessary formalities.
  Amendment proposed,
  To add, at the end of the clause, the following words:—"And that the County Council shall have power, on the application of such parochial-electors, to constitute a separate parish for the purposes of this Bill of any ecclesiastical parish" —(Mr. Goschen.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the case which the right hon. Gentleman had put was really a case which ought to be considered. The Amendment was not on the Paper, and, of course, he could not speak with that certainty which he would otherwise have done had it been in print; but at present he was under the impression that Clause 30 dealt with the question. Clause 30 dealt with the whole of these questions, but the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Dorington) put his clause down at this stage, and out of respect to him he (Mr. Fowler) dealt with it, and they had had this Debate, which really was not germane to this clause, but to Clause 30. If the right hon. Gentleman would not press his Amendment now, but on Clause 30, he would take care that the case was investigated before they reached the clause, and see whether it was really met by the clause. If not, the Government would consider it.
  SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, he had a case in his own constituency, and he placed an Amendment on the Paper, but he had taken it off again on carefully considering the existing law, which, he thought, was sufficient to meet it. He had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman would carefully consider the question before they came to Clause 30.
  MR. PAULTON (Durham, Bishops Auckland)said, there was a case in the district in which he lived which was precisely parallel to the case which the right hon. Member for St. George's had produced, and he hoped the President of the Local Government Board would favourably consider an Amendment in the direction suggested. The matter was one of considerable importance.
  SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, that this matter had been mentioned to him by the hon. Member for Petersfield in connection with an important parish of Hampshire. His own impression was that it would not be safe to leave this matter to the existing law.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, this was rather a question of interpretation, and of the meaning in the Bill of the word "parish." Clause 30 did deal with every conceivable difficulty which might arise in a rural parish. But an ecclesiastical was not a rural parish, and that was where the whole difficulty arose. In many cases the civil parish was now the smaller part, and two ecclesiastical parishes had grown out of it; they were the larger part, and had all the ecclesiastical arrangements. He did not think that Clause 30 met the case, nor that the existing law was sufficient for the purpose. He hoped the Government would assist them in arriving at a conclusion before they came to Clause 30.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he would for the present withdraw the Amendment. He gathered that the right hon. Gentleman and other Members were entirely favourable to measures being taken to carry out the object aimed at by the Amendment.
  SIR C. W. DILKE: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will not confine it to ecclesiastical parishes, because it frequently arises with hamlets.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERintimated that the matter should receive careful consideration.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  Clause 18 (Temporary provisions as to small parishes).
  MR. H. H. FOWLER MR. H. H. FOWLER moved—
  In page 12, line 9, to leave out the words "which has a population less than 300," and insert the words "not having a separate Parish Council."
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of objecting to the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman had proposed; quite the contrary. The Amendment was in conformity with
  1472
  the views entertained on both sides of the House, and fully in accordance with the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld). He (Mr. Long) intruded upon the Committee for the purpose of calling attention to the way in which the clause stood. At the earlier stages of their Debates charges were thrown across the Table at the Opposition with regard to Amendments. Anyone who looked at this clause as it originally stood and as now brought up would find that of the original proposals of the Government, covering 14 or 15 lines, the only words that remained were:—
  "In a rural parish … the following provisions shall, as from the appointed day."
  This was one of the most important clauses in the Bill, dealing with the parishes which were below the population of 200, and where there was to be no Parish Council. The change that had been made by the Government was a sufficient commentary on the treatment to which the Bill was subjected by the Government themselves. It had been suggested that they on the Opposition side had brought in Amendments which were unworthy of consideration; but here they had the Government bringing up what was a new clause in the room of that originally proposed. He thought he was entitled to call attention to the fact that the Opposition had been placed in a position of considerable difficulty by this action of the Government. They had not merely to consider clause 18 as it stood formerly and their own proposals with regard to it, but they had to wipe out from their memories the clause as it formerly stood, to take up an absolutely new clause and consider it, and prepare Amendments to it. He ventured to say that it was most unfair, under these circumstances, that the charge he had referred to should be made across the Table. The action of the Government revolutionised the Bill. The present Amendment was one upon which the others were consequential, and he really thought the right hon. Gentleman, in moving it, would have made some explanation. The clause was completely charged—
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Not at all.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, there were several other Amendments on the Paper, and

  1473
  these, he supposed, they were expected to ignore.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: No.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, perhaps his phrase was at fault; but the Amendment on the Paper was part of the Government's new proposal—the present Amendment—
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: It is not.
  MR. W. LONGasked were they, then, to understand that the Amendment was not part of the new proposals, and that it was moved for some reason which they were subsequently to learn? He was under the impression, and so were many of his friends on the Opposition Benches, that this Amendment was part of the reconstruction of Clause 18, and that they could discuss the question at this point; but, if the right hon. Gentleman preferred, he was ready to discuss the Amendments as they came up.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the hon. Gentleman was slightly incorrect. This was not a new Amendment. It merely dealt with a provision already in the Bill. The Committee had seen fit to alter the limit as to population; and they were simply dealing with those parishes which were not to have a Parish Council. He (Mr. Fowler) did not think the time had come for him to make any statement; but as the hon. Gentleman had thought it right to say that the only words remaining of the original clause were—
  "In a rural parish … shall, as from the appointed day "—
  MR. W. LONG: Nothing of the kind.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he understood the hon. Gentleman to complain that only four or five words remained. He challenged him directly on that point, and said that every word and line of Clause 18 would be found as before, except those dealt with in this Amendment.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he proposed to deal with the comment which had just been passed by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had challenged him—
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Order! I think it would be better I should put the Amendment before going into discussion on the whole question.
  MR. W. LONG MR. W. LONG rose to Order. He wished to be perfectly clear; and he would ask whether it would be compe-
  1474
  tent for him to reply to the right hon. Gentleman's remarks on the subsequent Amendments if the first were passed?
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: That must depend upon the way in which the hon. Gentleman looks upon those remarks.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he made a certain statement regarding this Amendment, and the right hon. Gentleman had accused him of making a false statement.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: No, no.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he did not mean to use the word "false" offensively; the right hon. Gentleman had accused him of making a misstatement.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: No.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, well, perhaps, he should call it an incorrect statement. He did not mean anything offensive—
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I do not think it is worth while pursuing this matter further. The question is very simple, and I find that the words are exactly the same as in the clause before. I will put the Question, and if there is anything to discuss it can be raised subsequently.
  Question put, and negatived.
  SIR R. PAGET: Are we discussing the Amendments together, Sir, or separately?
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: The practice is that the Minister in charge of the Bill should make a statement at this stage of the general plan of the clause, and it would be convenient, I think, if the right hon. Gentleman were to do that now.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he would do so. He begged to move—
  In page 12, line 10, to leave out from the word "day" to the end of the Clause, and to insert "but subject to provisions made by a grouping order, if the parish is grouped with some other parish or parishes, have effect:—(1) The annual assembly of the parish meeting shall be either in March or in April, and at the annual assembly the parish meeting shall choose a chairman for the year. (2) The parish meeting shall assemble not less than four times in each year. (3) The parish meeting may appoint a committee of their own number, and delegate to that committee any powers and duties of the parish meeting other than any power of raising money, and all the acts of the committee shall be submitted to the parish meeting for their approval. (4) All powers exercisable by the Vestry shall, except so far as they relate to the affairs of the Church or to ecclesiastical charities, or are transferred by this Act to any other authority, be exercisable by the parish meeting. (5) The power and the duty

  1475
  of appointing the Overseers, and the power of appointing and revoking the appointment of an Assistant Overseer, and the power given by this Act to a Parish Council of appointing trustees of a charity in the place of Overseers or Churchwardens, shall vest in the parish meet-ting. (6) The provisions of this Act with respect to the stopping or diversion of a public right of way, or the declaring of a highway to be unnecessary and not repairable at the public expense, and with respect to a complaint to a County Council of a default by the District Council, shall apply, with the substitution of the parish meeting for the Parish Council. (7) On the application of the parish meeting the County Council may confer on that meeting any of the additional powers conferred on a Parish Council by this Act. (8) Any Act of the parish meeting may be signified by an instrument executed at the meeting under the hands, or, if an instrument under seal is required, under the hands and seals of the chairman presiding at the meeting and two other parochial electors present at the meeting."
  He merely wanted to explain how the clause came to require amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) suggested a new scheme incorporating and expanding the provisions of Clause 18 in relation to the question of grouping and the small parishes generally. He made no complaint of that; it was, in his opinion, an improvement to the Bill, and that improvement had been made under the guidance of his right hon. Friend to whom he gave all the credit. The clause as it was now proposed to amend it would embody his right hon. Friend's scheme, founded as it was upon his long experience and ripe judgment, and he hoped it would give these parishes a simple and inexpensive mode of self-government. He did not see the necessity for his saying anything further. If his right hon. Friend wished to make any further suggestion, he was sure the Committee would be glad to listen to him, and for his part he should be prepared to consider any additional view he might wish to place before them.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 10, to leave out from the word "day" to the end of the Clause, and add the words "but subject to provisions made by a grouping order, if the parish is grouped with some other parish or parishes, have effect:— (1) The annual assembly of the parish meeting shall be either in March or in April, and at the annual assembly the parish meeting shall choose a chairman for the year."—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, he did not know whether that was the proper time to raise the question, but he would like
  1476
  to ascertain the precise meaning of the first words of the Amendment—
  "But subject to provisions made by a grouping order, if the parish is grouped with some other parish or parishes."
  If the words had any meaning at all, they interfered with the provision in the first clause as to parish meetings. In order to have the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman he desired to move the omission of those words.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I understand that several hon. Members wish to discuss the general principle of this new clause, and if the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman is moved now it will shut out such general discussion.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: Very well, Sir.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Members can now discuss the general principle.
  MR. BOUSFIELDsaid, he wished to raise an alternative scheme to that of the right hon. Gentleman; and he thought it might be desirable if he were to raise it as an Amendment to Clause 2 of the Amendment.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I have just explained that, in accordance with the desire of some hon. Members, the question may now be discussed generally. I think the hon. and learned Member would do well to postpone his Amendment until the real discussion has taken place.
  MR. BOUSFIELDsaid, that was the matter he desired to discuss—the matter of the general principle. The question he was referring to might have been discussed on the Amendment which he had put down; but, on a point of Order, he would ask whether he could not discuss the alternative now on the general principle?
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I have asked the hon. and learned Gentleman to discuss the Bill in that way.
  MR. BOUSFIELDsaid, he was in doubt whether he was at liberty to enter upon the discussion of this scheme now or at a later stage. He misunderstood the ruling of the Deputy Chairman. He had given notice of the alternative scheme, which was for the purpose of incorporating small parishes and giving them the functions of a Parish Council. There were between 4,000 and 5,000 parishes

  1477
  where the population was less than 200, and where the present machinery of local government would be practically unaltered under the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman. The original plan of the Government was in a sense complete, and would have covered the country with a network of Parish Councils; but this was an incomplete scheme, because some 5,000 parishes would hardly be touched. In his opinion the best course to take would be to give to the parishioners in these parishes, not mean, paltry, mutilated powers, but the same powers as in larger areas would be given to the Parish Councils. If the parish should grow and the parish meeting become an unwieldy body for transacting business, a Parish Council could be established on an order of the County Council. The business of the parish would then be carried on without any break. He would not go into details; but, in regard to the general principle, he thought it would be seen that his proposal was one that was deserving of consideration.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: I think it would be more convenient if I put the question now as it stands.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. STANSFELDobserved the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken proposed to confer identical powers on every parish, large or small, but he had overlooked the fact that a great many of the powers conferred by the Bill upon Parish Councils could not be fittingly given to very small parishes. There were a great many of these powers that were not suited and that it would not be wise to confer upon these parishes. There was all the difference in the world between a parish of 5,000 inhabitants and a parish of 50 inhabitants. For his own part, he wished the population limit was higher. The right hon. Gentleman was practically correct in what he had said; and he thought the clause had been received with favour on both sides of the House. There were no additional powers conferred upon the Parish Council by this clause. It appeared to him that the Amendment -would arise naturally and fittingly on that sub-section. Going back to the general scheme of the right hon. Gentle-
  1478
  man, he wished distinctly to acknowledge the great readiness which the right hon. Gentleman had invariably shown to accept suggestions and Amendments from whatever quarter of the House they came. The right hon. Gentleman had accepted the Amendments he (Mr. Stansfeld) had proposed, and had amplified them in a way that met with his entire concurrence. The Deputy Chairman had said that upon this first Motion the Committee might enter upon a general view of the whole scheme; but, so far as he was concerned, he had propounded the few notions he had on the subject, and he did not think it would he wise or right to take up further time until they came, subsection by sub-section, to settle the scheme. He would content himself, therefore, with saying that the right hon. Gentleman had accepted in a liberal and generous spirit the Amendments he (Mr. Stansfeld) had put down, and had added proposals of his own more or less consequential, which were no doubt improvements. He had not a very strong objection to the view of the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, but, looking at the question from a practical point of view, he thought they should not confer on small communities powers which they were not fit to exercise, and which they probably would not want to exercise; and that it would be better to give the County Councils power to confer these rights and privileges when occasion called for it.
  MR. W. LONGsaid, he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax. He might say that he did not propose to re-open the controversy on the clause as it originally stood. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman in what he had said in support, generally, of the new proposals of the Government, and in his general agreement with the alternative proposal on the Paper. But he thought many on that (the Opposition) side of the House would like to go a little further even than the right hon. Gentleman, and would have entirely agreed with the proposals of the Government if the limit had been fixed at a higher figure. The proposals in this direction which they pressed on the Government during the earlier stages of the Committee, and which found support from the right hon. Gentleman himself, had been dealt with by the House, and they could

  1479
  not go back on them. On the other hand, he confessed that he shared the opinion that a parish meeting was quite competent as a Parish Council to decide this question. The difficulty they were under was not one as between the parish meeting and the Parish Council. A small difficulty—though he thought it would be found greater than hon. Gentlemen realised—arose here in a conflict between the names of the different authorities. They were dealing now with the parish meeting, which was in itself an administrative authority—or rather would become an administrative authority when the Bill passed, for it would be called on to govern the parish in certain cases. It would be at the same time the appellate authority from the Parish Council—the authority which would keep the Parish Council in existence. He could not help thinking that confusion would arise from the existence of the same name for the parish meeting in a parish where the population was below 200, for that would be a parish meeting plus the administrative authority, and the parish meeting in a parish where the population was above 200, which would be an assembly of householders competent to elect representatives to form a Parish Council. He could not help thinking that it would be well if they had a different name for the body which was to administer the parish affairs from that of the body which was to act as a Court of Appeal as against the Parish Council. Although he had called this a small matter, hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House who were conversant with the small affairs of country districts would know how desirable it was that in any enactment they passed they should be as simple and clear and distinct as they could. Confusion would arise when it was least expected, and they would not have that kind of advice ready at hand for these Councils that they had for existing authorities, whether Local Boards or Municipal Corporations or County Councils. It was, therefore, desirable that the language of the Act should be as plain as possible. He would trust the parish meeting just as much as he would trust the Parish Council. It was impossible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule as ,to what powers were desirable for one parish and another. They all knew instances where parishes would be under
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  the 200 limit, and therefore would have to have a parish meeting, and he knew that the local circumstances and requirements of each parish would make it desirable that it should have the additional powers. He admitted that the President of the Local Government Board had to a large extent met the difficulty by giving power to the County Council to confer powers upon the administrative parish meeting. He was inclined to think that it would have been better to have avoided the distinction at once; but if the Government and the House decided that it was desirable to make a distinction between the Parish Council and the administrative parish meeting in the matter of powers, the Government had made the best proposal they could in Sub-section 7. He thought that was a fair way of dealing with the difficulty. The County Councils might be trusted to extend these powers if they thought it to be desirable. He was glad the County Councils had been selected, and not any Government Department. He had frequently had to speak in support of the Local Government Board being selected in place of the County Council, but this was a matter to deal with which the County Councils were better qualified than the Local Government Board. If it were desirable to make a distinction between the Parish Council and the administrative parish meeting, he thought the Government had made the best proposal they could to meet the difficulty; and subject to certain considerations and Amendments which might eventually be proposed, he should support the Amendment as it now stood as being as satisfactory and workable as it could be.
  SIR E. PAGETsaid, the object in view was to provide the best system of parochial administration for 5,000 or 6,000 of the smaller parishes of the Kingdom. It was, he believed, the view of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down that the same privileges and arrangements should be extended to parishes whether great or small, and this was one of the points on which the hon. Member was of opinion that Amendment was required. In the scheme of the Government there was no distinction between the parishes. A parish of 199 people was "small" and a parish of 201 people was great, in the sense that it would have

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  a Parish Council whilst the other would only have a parish meeting. He had referred to Clauses 5 and 6—which set out all the powers to be transferred to the Parish Council—with Clause 18 and did not find anything like a set principle in them. For instance, all the powers of the Vestries were transferred to the Parish Councils and were originally transferred to the parish meetings. But the powers of the Churchwardens and Overseers were not transferred, nor were the valuation, the poor rate, the assessment of the county rate, the parochial and vestry rooms, and parish offices. Furthermore, there was no provision made for the incorporation of the parish meeting so as to enable it to hold property. The County Council might confer the additional powers on the meetings—the power of dealing with buildings and recreation grounds, and of providing water and making sanitary arrangements, and of accepting and holding real and personal property. But there was no provision made for incorporation so as to enable it to hold property legally. He pointed that out as a difficulty which would have to be met. Then, on the general ground, they had to consider whether the parish meeting should be entrusted with the powers which were to be transferred to the Parish Councils. Why should they not? To his mind it was impossible to draw a distinction. It would conduce to simplicity to invest the parish meeting with the same amount of authority as the Parish Council. If the Government did not do this they would have to defend their scheme in every case where power was given to the parish meeting and withheld from the parish meeting except with the intervention of the County Council. They would have to give reasons why the allotments question was handed over to one body and not to the other; they would have to say why one body was entrusted with the valuation list and not the other, and many inconsistencies of the same kind which would not be understanded of the people would require to be explained. He did not desire to adversely criticise the Government scheme, but wished to aid the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board in making it acceptable. It would tend to the easy understanding of a difficult clause if the right hon. Gentleman could see his way
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  so to simplify it that everything that was given to the Parish Council would be transferred to the parish meeting.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment,
  To leave out the words, "but subject to provisions made by a grouping order, if the parish is grouped with some other parish or parishes."
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."—(Sir M. Hicks-Beach.)
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the right hon. Baronet evidently assumed that these words formed part of the original scheme, but that was not the case. They were put in as part of the new Amendment, to provide for cases of future grouping. Under Clause 3 parishes by their own consent could be grouped, and under the grouping order the grouped Parish Council would have certain powers. Each parish of a grouped Council could not have these powers separately as well as under the grouped Council; therefore, it was necessary to put these powers in the clause.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid, that if he rightly understood what the right hon. Gentleman proposed it would be most objectionable. They were proposing in this clause to lay down what were to be the powers of the parish meeting, and that should apply whether the parish was grouped with other parishes for the purpose of the election of Parish Councillors or not. The object of the Committee in insisting in the first clause of the Bill that every parish, however small, should have a separate parish meeting, was that the separate parish interests of these parishes should be dealt with by the parish meetings, and that only matters that were necessarily common to the parishes when grouped should be dealt with by the Parish Councils. Now, all these powers which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to confer on the parish meetings by this clause were powers which he should contend ought to be exercised by every parish, whether grouped for the election of Councillors or not. He did not understand why the right hon. Gentleman should deprive the parish meetings of

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  these powers. The first two sub-sections of the Amendment really related to parish meetings and had nothing to do with the Councils. The third related solely to parish meetings. The fourth related solely to parish meetings. It certainly ought to. If the powers were confined the Councils of several grouped parishes the Councillors of a small parish might be outvoted by the Councillors of a larger parish. The greatest injury might, in this way, be inflicted on a small parish. The fifth sub-section dealt with the power of appointing Overseers and Trustees in place of Churchwardens. Surely those powers ought to be vested in the parish meeting and not in the Parish Council. A Council of grouped parishes would have no right to interfere with the charities of a small parish. The sixth sub-section related to the stopping or diversion of a public right of way or the declaration of a highway to be unnecessary and not repairable at the public expense. Those, again, were matters for a small parish to deal with rather than a Parish Council of grouped parishes. The seventh and eighth sub-sections only related to the parish meetings. After the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, he must ask him to strictly define what were among the powers he thought the Parish Council in the case of grouped parishes ought to exercise, and not the separate meetings of the small parishes. To his (Sir M. Hicks-Beach) mind, the whole clause as it stood was intended to retain the separate identity of small parishes.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he would put a concrete case. Parish A had a Parish Council and a parish meeting. Certain duties devolved on the parish meeting, and certain powers. Certain duties and larger powers devolved on the Parish Council. B and C had parish meetings. If they chose, they could be left alone, and have separate parish meetings. But suppose B and C said—"We do not want that; we prefer to be grouped—to make, for the purposes of this Act, one parish with one Parish Council." Then that Parish Council would have for the two parishes the same power that the Parish Council would have for parish A. B and C would be relegated back again to the position of
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  parish meetings for purposes other than those covered by the Parish Council. As the hon. Member for Liverpool had pointed out, there would be two descriptions of parishes—one with the ordinary parish meeting and the other with the administrative parish meeting. If a parish chose to surrender it individual power of administration, and to be grouped with another parish, so be it.
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONthought that small parishes were entitled to govern themselves in spite of grouping orders.
  It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
  Twenty-sixth Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES.
  Second Report from the Select Committee brought up, and read.
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 462.]

  SAVINGS BANKS BILL.
  Lords Amendment to be considered forthwith; considered, and agreed to.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  Amendments to—Isolation Hospitals Bill.
  That they have agreed to,—
  Amendments to Amendments to— Shop Hours Act (1892) Amendment (No. 2), without Amendment.
  Employers' Liability Bill, with Amendments.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn,"—(Mr. Marjoribanks,)—put, and agreed to.
  House adjourned accordingly at one minute after Twelve o'clock.