Commons Sitting of 24 March 1893

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  HAMPSTEAD, ST. PANCRAS, AND CHARING CROSS RAILWAY BILL.

    CONSIDERATION.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    MR. THOMAS HENRY BOLTON, in drawing attention to the following Amendment: Leave out Clause 81, to insert the following Clause:
    (Cheap Fares for Labouring Classes.)"
    "The Company at all times after the opening of the railway for public traffic shall, and they are hereby required to run at least three trains which shall call at every station each way every morning in the week and every evening in the week (Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday, and bank holidays excepted), at such hours not being later than seven in the morning or earlier than six in the evening respectively, as the Company think most convenient for artizans, mechanics, and daily labourers at fares not exceeding one penny for each journey. Provided that in case of any complaint made to the Board of Trade of the hours appointed by the Company for the running of such trains, the said Board shall have power to fix and regulate the same from time to time. Provided also, that the liability of the company under any claim to compensation for injury or otherwise in respect of each passenger travelling by such trains shall be limited to a sum not exceeding £100."
    said, it would he unnecessary to postpone this Amendment for further consideration, as he had received a communication from the promoters consenting to the proposal.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Bill to be read the third time.

QUESTIONS.

  LIVE STOCK TRANSIT
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has taken any effective measures to improve the defective system of cross channel live stock transit, as recommended long since by the Official Inspector, and already promised by the present Government?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H. GARDNER,): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to refer him to the answer which I gave in reply to a similar question which he put on the 6th ultimo. Since that time I have been in communication with the Local Authorities of both Liverpool and Glasgow, with a view, if possible, to secure the improvement of the landing accommodation at those ports. In the case of Liverpool powers are now being sought from Parliament for the erection of suitable buildings for the resting and feeding of Irish animals, and other arrangements will at the same time be made which will, it is thought, entirely remove any cause for complaint. In the case of Glasgow the position is less satisfactory, but the authorities there have undertaken. to further consider the matter. I will continue to give the subject my careful attention in accordance with my promise, and if the hon. Member can make any practical suggestions, I shall be glad to receive and consider them.

  HAULBOWLINE DOCKYARD.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the First Lord of the Admiralty has acceded" to the wishes of the deputation that waited on him last year with reference tot the Haulbowline Dock; whether the annual grant made by the present Government exceeds that of the late Government; and to what uses it is to be applied?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON,): The views of the Admiralty on this subject were fully explained in a letter addressed to Mr. Sexton, on the 7th November last, and the position was further explained on the 21st instant to a deputation of the Cork Chamber of Commerce introduced by the hon. Member for East Cork. As stated to that deputation, the sums provided for Haulbowline Yard in the Estimates of 1893–94, are:—New works, £3,875; dockyard charges (labour and materials), £.5,490; salaried staff, £1,800. The sums similarly provided in 1892–93 were:—New works, £6,221; dockyard charges (labour and materials), £3,145; salaried staff,

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  £1,777. It is hoped that all current ordinary repairs to the ships maintained on the coasts of Ireland may be in future executed at Haulbowline. Should repairs, for which no provision is made be carried out there instead of at the larger dockyards, the necessary financial adjustment will be made. Arrangements will be made to temporarily supplement the existing staff when found inadequate. In case of war, Haulbowline will be of great importance.
  MR. SEXTON: Will any part of the amount estimated for in the coming year be applied to the equipment of the dockyard?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: Yes, Sir; I think so.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Will the materials necessary for the repairs be obtained as far as possible in Ireland?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I must ask for notice of that question.

  IRISH CATTLE FOR BRITISH MARKETS.
  MR. PARKER SMITH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the great sufferings of Irish cattle on their transit from Irish fairs to British markets, and especially to Glasgow; whether any of the improvements suggested by the Irish Cattle Trade Association and by the Chief Travelling Inspector of the Privy Council, in his Report dated July 1889, have been carried into effect; and whether he will be willing, in co-operation with the Board of Agriculture, to institute inquiries into the treatment of these cattle during the whole of their journey with a view to removing the various causes of needless suffering?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,): The question of the treatment of Irish cattle in transit to British markets has frequently been brought under notice, and the Irish Veterinary Department is fully alive to the importance of securing for such cattle protection from unnecessary hardship and ill-usage. The suggestions in the Report of the chief travelling Inspector of the Board of Agriculture, dated July, 1889, as well as those made by Agricultural and Trade Associations, were prominently brought before the Railway and Shipping Com-
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  panies, who expressed themselves most anxious to give every assistance in preventing injury to cattle in transit. Special instructions were also given in 1889, renewed in 1891, to the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police, as well as to the Inspectors employed under the Veterinary Department, to take all necessary steps to prevent cruelty to cattle at fairs, markets, railway stations, and places of shipment, &c. The shipment of cattle is under the direct supervision of a staff of ship Inspectors specially appointed for the purpose, and they have strict instructions to see that cattle are not overcrowded, and that the various regulations respecting the fittings, ventilation, &c, of vessels are duly carried out. Unfortunately there exists, no doubt, much room for improvement in the matter of structural arrangements on cattle-carrying vessels, although I gladly admit that the Shipping Companies have done much in the matter of bettering the ventilation on board. The Veterinary Department, Dublin, will place itself in communication with the Board of Agriculture in England, and I hope some measures will be devised to promote the objects which the hon. Member so humanely has in view.

  KILLALOE SLATES.
  MR. W. REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether any order has been given to the Killaloe Slate Company, as it was stated at their annual meeting that the Company was prepared to supply the Government with equally good material and at the same rates as other tenders for public works in Ireland?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,): The Board of Works very seldom issue orders for building material to the manufacturers, but Killaloe slates have been entered in their new Triennial Building Contract, and have been specified for the new Phoenix Park Police Barrack shortly to be put up to tender, and some time ago they issued instructions to the Architectural Department to use these slates as far as possible, provided they were supplied of selected quality and a full ¼ inch thick.
  MR. BARTLEY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not a notorious fact that

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  these Irish slates are inferior in quality, and are not specified in building contracts; and, further, should the comfort and health of our soldiers in Her Majesty's barracks be sacrificed to the interests of the Killaloe Slate Company?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I do not admit that these slates are inferior. They have to be submitted to an inspection, and the Architect of the Department will only accept such as are of proper quality and a quarter of an inch thick.
  MR. BARTLEY: Is it not known that the building trade generally will not use them?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I cannot say what the opinion of the building trade is.
  MR. SEXTON: Has not the Engineer of the Board of Works reported that these slates are as good as any others? Is it not a fact that Dublin Castle is roofed with them?
  MR. W. REDMOND: And is it not a fact that comparisons which have been made have proved that these slates are quite as good, if not better, than others?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The quality varies. The English and Welsh slates are of a different quality to them. Some of the Killaloe slates are very good, and game are not. The Department have decided to use only such slates as are of the specified quality and a quarter of an inch thick.
  MR. W. REDMOND: I give notice that I shall call attention to the fact that these slates from County Clare are better than Welsh or any other slates.
  MR. TOMLINSON: Will care be taken to see that slates of the proper quality only are used?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The contract provides for that.

  IRISH ASSISTANT SCHOOL TEACHERS.
  MR. HARRINGTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in the scheme substituting capitation grants for school fees to national teachers in Ireland, any provision will be made for assistant teachers; and whether, at least in the case of those assistant teachers who have hitherto been in receipt of portion of the school fees, care will be taken that they are com-
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  pensated in some form for the abolition of the fees?
  MR. J. MORLEY: As already explained, the Irish Education Act of last year provides an annual school grant of £210,000 in compensation for the partial or entire abolition of school fees. About one-half of this grant is payable in the form of augmentation of class salaries of principals and of salaries of assistants. The residue of the grant is payable in the form of capitation, and the allocation of a share in this portion of the grant to assistants depends upon their having had any share, under their agreements with their managers, in the school fees prior to their abolition. The assistants who hitherto have had a share of the school fees will receive a corresponding share of the residual portion of the grant, and they, in common with all other assistants, have already received their salary augmentation.

  EMERALD GREEN AND MILAN RED.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to recent statements in The Star newspaper, alleging that a large amount of suffering is entailed upon workmen engaged in the manufacture of the colours known as emerald green and Milan red: whether he is aware that this manufacture has been scheduled under "The Factory Act, 1891," as a dangerous calling; and whether it is possible to frame such regulations as would render the operations innocuous to the workmen engaged; and, if not, whether he is prepared to follow the example of some Continental countries, and prohibit the particular process in question?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,): My attention was some time ago called to recent statements that a large amount of suffering is entailed upon workmen engaged in the manufacture of the colours known as emerald green and Milan red by my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, whose constituents are interested in the subject. I have requested two of Her Majesty's Inspectors to make an exhaustive inquiry. They are consulting medical experts on the subject, and their investigations are now approaching com-

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  pletion. I expect to have their Report in the course of next week, and I hope that I shall then be in a position to take more active measures.
  MR. FLYNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman also inquiring into the manufacture of white lead?
  MR. ASQUITH: Yes, Sir.

  ENFIELD FACTORY.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the total amount of money spent on land and buildings at the Enfield factory?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. WOODALL,): The expenditure at Enfield, commencing in the year 1854, has been for land £2,670, besides about £7,000 for a rifle range. For buildings £195,398 has been spent. Of course, during the long period involved, depreciation has greatly reduced the imputed value of the buildings, which my right hon. Friend will see in the annual balance-sheet of the factory as standing at a much smaller figure.

  BOYCOTTING IN IRELAND.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many persons were shown in the official Returns as boycotted in Ireland on 22nd August, 1892; and how many are returned as boycotted at the present date?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The Returns are only prepared on the last day of each month, and, as far as can be ascertained, without reference to the local police (which would involve several days delay) there were two cases of partial boycotting on 22nd August, 1892, the number of persons included in these two cases being 15. At the present time there are three cases of partial boycotting, comprising 13 persons.

  CANADIAN CATTLE IN SCOTLAND.
  CAPTAIN BAGOT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that Mr. Henry Bain, of the Dundee Cattle Wharf, has been making inquiries in the Dundee, Perth, Forfar, and Fife districts with regard to the Canadian cattle landed by the steamers
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  Monkseaton and Hurona, last autumn, and has discovered that a large number of cattle slaughtered as having been imported on those vessels were not proved to have been, in fact, so imported; and whether there is any reason to suppose that some of the cattle so slaughtered were Irish or home-bred beasts substituted for some of tho imported cattle?
  MR. GARDNER: I have seen various newspaper reports with regard to the statements alleged to have been made to Mr. Bain, and have made some inquiry respecting them. The conclusion at which I have arrived is that the work of tracing and identifying the cattle landed by the steamers Monkseaton and Hurona was successfully accomplished, and there is certainly no reason to suppose that any of the cattle slaughtered were either Irish or home-bred. I may add that anyone who knowingly represented that cattle formed part of either of these cargoes, which had not, in fact, done so, and obtained compensation for their slaughter by reason of such representation, would be guilty of an offence for which he would be liable to two months' imprisonment; and if any evidence is forthcoming as to the existence of any such malpractice, which I can scarcely believe is the case, it would be my duty to consider whether proceedings should not be instituted against the offender. I have received the following telegram from Messrs. Macdonald, Fraser, and Co., the Scotch salesmen, who superintended the slaughter of the cattle:—
  "We think it right to inform you that the reports appearing in the newspapers as to part of the Monkseaton and Hurona cattle not having been slaughtered are untrue, or at least grossly exaggerated. We can give our oath that the 700 cattle we superintended the killing of had all the Monkseaton and Hurona shippers' brand or mark.—MACDONALD, FRASER, and Co., Salesmen."

  POST CARDS.
  MR. SAUNDERS: I beg to ask the Postmaster General is it his intention to allow cards other than postcards to be carried for a halfpenny stamp, and, if so, when will effect be given to this arrangement; and is it his intention to arrange for the sale of post cards at a halfpenny each, and when will effect be given to this arrangement?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY,): Both points referred to in the question of the hon. Member were considered by the late Government, and decided in the negative. There appears to be no ground for reopening the questions.

  BLACKPOOL IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  MR. SAUNDERS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the Blackpool Improvement Bill, Section 39, which gives the Corporation power to make bye-laws to prohibit lecturing, preaching, or speech-making on the sands, which are 400 yards wide, and have hitherto been available for public meetings; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
  MR. ASQUITH: The Home Office reported adversely to this clause in the Bill, and I am informed that that portion of the clause which prohibits preaching and lecturing on the sea-shore has been to-day withdrawn by the promoters.

  LICENSED VICTUALLERS AND COMPENSATION.
  MR. GEORGE ALLSOPP: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has boon drawn to the case of "Hardy v. Ind, Coope, and Company," decided at the Derby Assizes last Saturday before Mr. Justice Day, when the executors of the late owner of a licensed house obtained a verdict for damages of £2,000, as being the value of a licence lost to a firm of brewers; and whether, as this verdict was held by the Judge to be in accordance with the law, he will persist with the proposed enactment in the Veto Bill that the owners of licensed properties have no just claim for compensation?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): The only report of the case I have seen is not sufficient to enable me to form an opinion on its legal bearings. Apparently it was an action by one brewer against another for allowing a public-house to be used for disreputable purposes.

  INDIAN LOAN.
  SIR HENRY MEYSEY-THOMPSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the three crores of rupees
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  which the Indian Government propose to raise by loan are to be applied entirely to capital expenditure, or whether the whole or any part of them is to be used to supplement the taxation of India for the purpose of making payments which are usually provided for out of current revenue?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. GEORGE RUSSEL,): Yes, Sir; the loan is entirely for capital expenditure.

  VACCINATION.
  MR. PICTON (Leicestor): In the absence of the hon. Member for the Middleton Division of Lancashire, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board what porportion per cent. of the children in Batley and neighbourhood were vaccinated prior to the recent epidemic; and whether vaccination had been discontinued, so as to render it fallacious to make comparison of deaths of unvaccinated with those of vaccinated children?
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether he can state how many unvaccinated children have died of small-pox during the recent epidemic at Batley, a well-known centre of the anti-vaccination movement; and whether any vaccinated children have died of that disease?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Sir W. FOSTER,): The Vaccination Returns for 1892 have not yet been received; but it appears that in 1891 the number of children born in the borough of Batley was 842, of whom 142 died unvaccinated. Of the remaining 700 the number successfully vaccinated was 553. The Local Government Board have no definite information as to the extent to which vaccination has been discontinued since 1891.
  MR. PICTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether he can state how many vaccinated children have died of smallpox in Warrington and Manchester, well-known centres of perfect vaccination; and whether he will lay on the Table the Reports which have been made by special medical officers deputed to make inquiries concerning small-pox outbreaks at Warrington Manchester,

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  and other towns with special reference to the influence of vaccination?
  SIR W. FOSTER: The Local Government Board have no definite information as to how many vaccinated children have died of small pox in Warrington and Manchester. As regards the inquiries by special Medical Inspectors, those inquiries are undertaken not by the Board, but on behalf of the Royal Commission on Vaccination. The Reports on these inquiries will, no doubt, be included in the Report of the Commission.
  MR. PIERPOINT: Is there any reason for believing that Warrington was, before the small pox epidemic, in good sanitary condition? Will the hon. Gentleman lay on the Table any Reports and statistics, supplied to him by the Officer of Health, as to vaccination and re-vaccination?
  SIR W. FOSTER: I must ask for notice of that question?

  THE BEHRING SEA ARBITRATION.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is any submission to the Behring Sea Arbitrators, now sitting in Paris, of any question affecting any alleged rights of Russia to interfere with British sealers on the high seas, to the westward of the imaginary line assumed to be drawn across the Behring Sea by the Russo-American Treaty of 1867; whether, if there be no such submission, the result of the Arbitration will not leave that part of the Behring Sea entirely unaffected and any alleged rights therein of Russia entirely untouched; whether it is intended by Her Majesty's Government to propose or to submit to another Arbitration on the matters left in question between England and Russia as to this part of the sea; and whether Her Majesty's Government will now lay before the House the information in its possession relative to the forcible seizure by Russian cruisers of British vessels on the high seas in January last?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): The questions submitted to the Arbitrators, as will be seen by the Treaty, deal only with rights claimed by the
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  United States. The Russian Government have not made any such claim of right as the hon. Member seems to suppose, and it has not been necessary to contemplate the question of another Arbitration. It is not desirable to publish the correspondence respecting the seizures of British vessels by Russian cruisers until the reply of the Russian Government and the statement of their officers on the subject is received.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Do I understand the hon. Baronet to say the Russian Government have made no claim to any right in the Behring Sea?
  SIR E. GREY: The Russian Government have made no claim.

  NAVAL SERVICE ABROAD.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether Her Majesty's Government would be prepared to sanction such an alteration in the Queen's Regulations as would enable Naval Officers to count a certain amount of extra sea time for each year of service on especially unhealthy stations abroad?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: As far as possible officers take their turn of service at all stations, and liability to serve anywhere is a well understood condition of Naval Service. No alteration of the kind suggested by the hon. Member is contemplated.

  THE BOILER COMMITTEE.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he has any objection to lay upon the Table of the House the Report of the Boiler Committee?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: Arrangements have been made to lay upon the Table of the House the conclusions and recommendations of the Boiler Committee.

  DUNDRUM CRIMINAL ASYLUM.
  MR. HORACE PLUNKETT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the refusal of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to accede to the petition of Thomas Rooney, late attendant in the Central Criminal Asylum, Dundrum, County Dublin, setting forth that after 27 years' service he

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  had retired upon a pension, and praying that on account of the severe injuries which he had received in the discharge of his duty, and which had incapacitated him from earning his livelihood, his superannuation allowance might be increased; and whether he would state the grounds upon which the decision of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury was arrived at?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The injuries referred to were received 19 years ago, and 13 years ago respectively. They have not since interfered with the man's ability to perform his duties, and the heart disease for which he is now retired is not attributable to them. He has been awarded the full rate of pension earned by his length of service, and the Treasury does not consider that there are grounds for any increase.

  IRISH BUTTER.
  MR. W. REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the proceedings at a conference of butter merchants, representing the Counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry, and Clare, when a resolution was passed to respectfully request that, as there is no legal standard fixed for the guidance of Irish butter-makers, the Government will insert a clause in the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow, and now before Parliament, fixing a maximum percentage of moisture which pure butter may contain; and whether the Government will take into consideration this matter so important to a great industry in Ireland?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have received copies of the resolutions passed at the conference referred to, and I am aware of the importance to Ireland. The Bill mentioned already contains a clause (the fifth) proposing a maximum percentage of moisture which pure butter may contain.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Does the Bill apply to Ireland?
  DR. CAMERON: Yes.

  VACCINATION.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will lay upon the
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  Table of the House the Reports which have been made by special medical officers deputed to make inquiries concerning the recent small-pox outbreaks at Leicester and Batley, with special reference to the influence of vaccination?
  SIR W. FOSTER: Dr. Sidney Coupland has made inquiry, on behalf of the Royal Commission on Vaccination, into the circumstances connected with the outbreak of small-pox in the Dews-bury Registration District which includes Batley. The Board understand that there has been a similar inquiry on behalf of the Commission with regard to Leicester. There has been no inquiry by officers of the Local Government Board in these cases, as it is not the practice of the Board to intervene by inquiry or otherwise, in cases into which the Royal Commission have proposed to inquire. It is assumed that the Reports on the outbreaks referred to will be printed in the Report of the Royal Commission.

  THE TRADE AND TREATIES COMMITTEE.
  MR. DISRAELI: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury why the Trade and Treaties Committee has not been reappointed; and whether, if it has been decided to reappoint the Committee, he will see fit to arrange the appointment as soon as possible?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA,): The Trade and Treaties Committee, having completed its inquiry and reported to the Board of Trade, was dissolved by my Predecessor. It was appointed in consequence of the approaching expiry of a group of Continental Treaties. Should occasion arise the reappointment of a like Committee will, no doubt, be carefully considered.
  MR. DISRAELI: As I understand, there is a certain amount of friction between the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade.
  MR. MUNDELLA: No, Sir; not at all.
  MR. DISRAELI: Is the President of the Board of Trade not aware that there is widespread anxiety among traders, especially in the North, that the Committee should be reappointed, and not only so, but should be reappointed as a permanent institution, and are the

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  members of the late Committee among those who are very anxious for such reappointment?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I was Chairman of the late Committee, and know something of the feeling of its members. I am bound to say, therefore, that there was not a general expression of opinion among them in favour of the reappointment of the Committee, and, for my own part, I cannot see what such a Committee would now have to do. The occasion for the sitting of the Committee has passed away; the Committee discharged its functions, and there is no further need for its services.
  MR. DISRAELI: Is there not work for such a Committee in dealing with our commercial relations with Spain, France, and Portugal?
  MR. MUNDELLA: No, Sir; the revision of the Treaties was completed in the time of the late Government, and my Predecessor dissolved the Committee on the receipt of the completed Report. There is nothing further to be done.

  THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. SWEETMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, for the purpose of increasing the time at the disposal of the House for the consideration of the important Bills now before it, the Government would approve that, when the House meets at 3 o'clock, questions be begun at a quarter past 3 in case Private Business is then over; that the time for questions shall end at 4 o'clock; that those not then asked shall have precedence on the following day; and if they do not approve of the above plan, whether they would propose some plan to effectually prevent an excessive number of questions being asked?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE,): I fully recognize the importance of the question, with which I sympathize, but I do not see my way at the present moment to approach it, and I fear the suggestions made by the hon. Member as to the alteration of time for questions would not give general satisfaction.
  MR. BARTLEY: Is it not a fact that questions in the last Parliament were more numerous than in this?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I have not summed them up.
  MR. H. HOBHOUSE: May I ask whether, in view of the suggestions that are being made for facilitating business, and mostly from private Members, the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider his decision as to granting a Select Committee to inquire into the matter?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: We should not be disposed to do that, for we do not consider the present time a convenient one for going into the question, and I am afraid that if a Motion for a Select Committee were put down it would probably be blocked by some other Member.

  THE VOTE OF CENSURE.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is in a position to give an opportunity, on Monday next, for discussing the Vote of Censure on the Irish Government, of which Notice has been given?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I am very glad to be able to meet the right hon. Gentleman, and to say that, having carefully considered the state of Public Business, we propose to accede to his desire that Monday should be appropriated for his Motion reviewing and impugning the conduct of the Irish Department of the Government. By way of guarding myself, however, I am obliged to say that I do not regard a Motion for impugning the conduct of a particular Department of a Government as of itself entitling even a large Party in the House to demand a day from the Government. That right of demand, if I may so describe it, is limited, by usage and by policy, to cases in which what is called a Vote of Want of Confidence is moved. Of course the right of reviewing and censuring the doings of a Department of the Government is a very large one, and we could not possibly apply to it the principle which is applied to direct Votes of Confidence. That raises no practical question at the present moment, however, inasmuch as, in view of the general convenience of the House, we accede to the request of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman is by far the highest authority in the House on this subject,

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  and I do not question his general statement. I can only say that I am grateful to him for the concession he has made.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: At what hour will the Motion he taken on Monday?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: We propose to take it the first thing.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can state when the the Easter Recess will commence, and how long he proposes that it shall last?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I shall make a communication to the House on that subject on Monday.
  MR. MACFARLANE: May I ask whether if the Vote on Account is not disposed of on Tuesday it will be taken on the Wednesday or the Thursday following?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It is impossible to state definitely now what may take place.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the existing unprecedented state of Public Business, he will consider the propriety and public policy of proceeding with business this year without any Recess?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: One or two mysterious hints have already been made on this subject, and I propose to clear up the matter on Monday.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.

    THIRD READING.
    Order for Third reading road.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid he thought that this would be a convenient opportunity for drawing the attention of the House to certain very grave irregularities in relation to the Supplementary Estimates which were contained in the Bill. He referred to the manner in which the Estimates had been prepared. It was most important that attention should be called to such a matter at the earliest possible moment, because precedents were very easily established, however mischievous they might be. They had already had their attention drawn to the fact that there had been irregularities of a grave character in the preparation of
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    the Estimates, and he now wished briefly to direct the attention of the House to the manner in which many of the Estimates in the Bill had been prepared. The rule under which Supplementary Estimates were prepared was of a strict and binding character. It was laid down in the most solemn manner that no excess over the expenditure provided for in the current year could take place unless included in a Supplementary Estimate, and in this connection he now proposed to draw the attention of the Government, and especially of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the Estimates prepared for Temporary Commissions. He was not proposing to re-open that very unsavoury subject, nor did he intend to refer to the highly discreditable proceedings brought under review in connection with the Evicted Tenants Commission. It was to the financial aspect of the question only that he desired to call attention. In that Estimate there appeared an intimation that the excess under a certain head was accounted for by the cost of the Royal Commission on the Metropolitan Water Supply, which had amounted to £3,000, or rather more than the total excess of £2,700. When attention was called to the subject, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that no provision was made in the Supplementary Estimates for the so-called Evicted Tenants Commission.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: No.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, the fact had, no doubt, passed out of the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman, who, however, in reply to a question put across the floor of the House, said that there was no provision in the Estimates for the Evicted Tenants Commission. If the right hon. Gentleman would consult the Financial Secretary to the Treasury he would find that it was so. The Financial Secretary would recollect that he made a definite statement in reply to repeated questions that the Evicted Tenants Commission was provided for out of the original Estimate, and that the excess in the Supplementary Estimate was wholly caused by the cost of the Metropolitan Water Commission. If it were otherwise how did this Estimate come to be framed?
    MR. SEXTON: I rise to Order. The right hon. Gentleman, the main part of whose speech is unintelligible to

    1047
    Members in this part of the House, is now discussing the form of a particular Estimate. I beg to ask whether, on the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill, it is competent for the right hon. Gentleman to discuss such details as the form of the Estimates?
    MR. SPEAKER: I think it is a very unusual course to take. If the right hon. Gentleman objects to the form of the Estimates he ought to have called attention to the matter before; but I cannot say that the right hon. Gentleman is technically out of Order in reviewing the form of the Estimates which constitute the subject of the Consolidation Bill.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid he was sorry his observations had not reached the hon. Member, otherwise he would have found their strict relevancy. He was obeying the Speaker's ruling and did not propose to go into details. He had availed himself of the first opportunity which had presented itself to challenge the manner in which the Estimate was framed. He drew the attention of the Government to the fact that several other Estimates had been framed with an entire disregard, not only of practice, but of law. He was, however, told that he could not raise the question in Committee of Supply unless he adopted the course of moving to report Progress. This was obviously a matter which should be dealt with by the House in its full capacity, and what was more, the various stages of this Bill had been taken at hours which did not admit of the House being made fully aware of the circumstances in which it was placed in respect of the points to which he was referring. How did the Chancellor of the Exchequer account for the conflicting views which prevailed even in his own mind? He had evidently buried in oblivion the reply he gave to a distinct question. It was stated both by him and by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whether they recollected it or not, that this Estimate was framed according to regular precedent and to Rule, and the Financial Secretary said that, framed as it was, it did not include any sum for the Evicted Tenants Commission. Upon a future occasion, when an attempt might be made to withdraw some important subject from the cognisance of Parliament, and when the Government might not have a wise adviser
    1048
    at hand in the person of the Prime Minister, who promptly disavowed the unconstitutional action of his Colleagues, and, therefore, contradicted the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, this proceeding might be quoted as a precedent. In future years they might be told that the Supplementary Estimates for the financial year 1892-93 distinctly established a precedent which had been scrupulously observed. There were other Estimates which were framed with a similar disregard to precedent—he referred to the Post Office and Telegraph Votes, which came under the head of the Revenue Department. He some days previously drew attention to certain items of expenditure and to the promise made by the late Postmaster General on behalf of the late Government. But he was told that there was no provision made in one Vote, and that the discussion should be raised on another, and therefore the discussion was cut into several pieces and proceeded in a somewhat disjointed manner, so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he had heard him make the same remark more than once. The true answer to that criticism was that he had been compelled to address practically the same question to the Heads of different Departments of the Government. He was compelled to address the same question first to the Postmaster General, and then to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and they said that it was not in their Department. The Postmaster General said, first of all, that he had expended money on the objects in question, and then corrected himself and said he had not. He was not making any charge against the right hon. Gentleman—he, probably in the absence of notice of the question, had not made himself fully acquainted with the facts—but it was the case that there was expenditure of considerable dimensions which was not distinctly covered by any items in the Supplementary Estimates. He felt it his duty to call attention to the matter, because the issue involved was the loss of life at sea. He drew attention to the Report of the Royal Commission to the fact that money had been promised to be expended in that direction, and that no adequate amount had been provided in the Estimates for

    1049
    the current year. As the Postmaster General stated that the work was being actually done, it ought to be included in the Supplementary Estimates before the House. He did not wish to refer in detail to the question, important as it was, but surely hon. Gentlemen would admit that the unanimous Report of a Royal Commission deserved some attention.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I rise to Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not now discussing a Vote, but the absence of money which he thinks ought to be in the Vote.
    MR. SPEAKER: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say the money was in the Vote.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHER: I will make my meaning clear.
    MR. SPEAKER: If it is not in the Vote, then the right hon. Gentleman would be out of Order in raising the question now.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, he apologised to the House for having failed to make his meaning clear. When he raised the matter on the Telegraphs Vote he was told he ought to have raised it on the Post Office Vote. His object in referring to it was to ascertain under what head this expenditure was incurred. The duty of the House of Commons was to keep a jealous guard over the public purse, and he for one intended to discharge that duty, notwithstanding any taunts that might emanate from any quarter of the House. Parliament was bound to insist on the formalities prescribed by law being duly observed by the Government. He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give the House a distinct explanation as to what was his view and that of his Colleagues with regard to the mode in which the Estimate for the Temporary Commissions was prepared, and whether he considered it was prepared in a strictly regular manner.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): When I listened to the right hon. Gentleman my mind carried back about a quarter of a century to when I first entered this House, when we were both a good deal younger, and when I found below the Gangway my right hon. Friend practising those arts of Parliamentary procrastination which he has carried to such perfection since. He has disappeared
    1050
    lately from the scene, but the reappearance of a favourite actor is always acknowledged and welcomed by the public, and our eyes are idly bent upon those behind, who are to follow next. He has become, if possible, a more accomplished proficient in those arts since the year 1868, when, in a state of comparative innocence, I watched his proceedings. Now, Sir, we perfectly understand the meaning of his proceedings upon this occasion—those dissertations upon finance and the Estimates. You have pointed out to him, Sir, what is the effect of the very unusual course of discussions of this kind on the Third Reading of the Ways and Means Bill. There are particular reasons why this year there should be no delay at this stage of the Bill. We have absolutely reached the eleventh, if not the twelfth hour. The House of Lords has suspended all its Standing Orders in order that this Bill may be passed this afternoon, and a telegram may be sent to the Queen at Florence stating that the Bill has received the assent of both Houses of Parliament, so that the law of the land may not be broken. And this is the occasion (pointing to Mr. Lowther)——[Cheers drowned the concluding words of the sentence.] I acquit the other gentlemen who sit on the Front Opposition Bench of complicity in a proceeding which, I venture to say, is not creditable to Parliament. I am not going to assist the right hon. Gentleman in his proceedings. There is not one single point to which he has referred which has not been discussed over and over again. This recrudescence of objections which have no foundation in fact at all, we know very well what it was for. It was for the purpose of doing that which he has accomplished—wasting half an hour of the time of the House of Commons which is intended to be devoted to a subject in which the great mass of the people of this country take a deep interest. For that purpose, and for that purpose alone, have these miserable and unfounded technicalities been raised. It is all of a piece with the endeavour to obstruct the Mutiny Bill last night, and of Motions from the Opposition Benches which you, Sir, refused to put from the Chair, and with the conduct of an hon. Member opposite when you put the Motion.
    SIR J. GORST: I rise to Order. I wish to know whether the right hon. Gentleman is in Order in referring to a Debate which took place last night?
    MR. SPEAKER: I am not quite certain that the circumstances of the case do not justify the line of remark of the right hon. Gentleman.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I think the right hon. Gentleman has not gained much by his intervention, or the hon. Gentlemen who sit behind him by the rebuke which they drew down upon themselves last night—a rebuke which I think, in the opinion of the country, will be held to be thoroughly deserved. The right hon. Gentleman asks me if these Estimates have been properly framed. I have never been asked the question before, but my right hon. Friend has on previous occasions dealt very ably and very properly with this point. Still, I am prepared to say now that I take the responsibility of the way in which these Estimates were framed. As to excluding the Evicted Tenants Commission, I was always of opinion that the proceedings of that Commission could properly be discussed under the Estimate, and they have been discussed. That is a sufficient answer to the question of the right hon. Gentleman. What his other question was I was unable to understand. He got muddled up upon subjects not upon the Estimates at all, and that helped to waste 10 minutes more, and that, I suppose, was a sufficient justification. We perfectly understand what the meaning of these transactions is, and, for my part, I decline to be any party to them, and if the Party opposite are determined now to adjourn, to delay, and to postpone the Ways and Means Bill, let them do it and let them lake the responsibility.
    Mr. Sexton rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    MR. SPEAKER: I will put that Question to the House. I am bound to say that such proceedings as have taken place on the Third Reading of the Ways and Means Bill are not in unison with the ordinary Parliamentary procedure.
    Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question, "That the Bill be now read the third time," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Bill read the third time, and passed.
    MR. HANBURY: On a point of Order, Sir, I wish to ask what is the meaning of the rule you have just laid down? Am I to understand that I had no right to discuss the Army Bill after 12 o'clock last night? The Bill was brought forward under totally exceptional circumstances, and there is no Judge Advocate General responsible to this House to act as soldiers' friend, and to see that proper justice was done to our troops. In addition to that, one-half of the Army Bill this year is entirely new. Therefore I do not want, under these circumstances, to stand under any imputation in the matter.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member was not speaking when I declined to put the Question of the Adjournment of the Debate last night. The hon. Member had exhausted his right of speaking, and another hon. Member rose and moved the Adjournment. What I said was that this Bill, under the Standing Order, could be taken after 12 o'clock. Only 10 minutes past 12 had been reached when a Motion for Adjournment was made, and I thought it was not a proper proceeding to move the Adjournment of the Debate on a question which, under a special Standing Order, was reserved for discussion after 12 o'clock, and I declined to put that Question to the House. That was the sole motive with which I was actuated. The hon. Member seems to question my discretion.
    MR. HANBURY: No, Sir; I had no such intention.
    MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member does question my discretion, I must say I hope discussions on the Army Bill will be conducted in a manner more in consonance with the ordinary Parliamentary practice than the Debate to-day on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

  EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY BILL. (No. 118.)

    SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [20th February], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    Question again proposed.
    Debate resumed.
    MR. BOUSFIELDin rising to second the Amendment of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham as follows:—
    "That no amendment of the Law relating to Employers' Liability will be final or satisfactory which does not provide compensation to workmen for all injuries sustained in the ordinary course of their employment, and not caused by their own acts or default,"
    said that the broad principle advocated in the Amendment was one which had really been admitted by the Home Secretary in moving the Second Reading of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said the Bill contained three vital principles, the first being the abolition of the doctrine of common employment, the second the prohibition of contracts by workmen renouncing their statutory rights, and the third the simplification of the procedure by means of which workmen could secure their statutory rights. This statement of the vital principles of the Bill was very defective. The third point was one rather of practice than of principle, and the second—the prohibition of contracts—was altogether inconsistent with the major principle of the Bill. That principle, as described by the Home Secretary, was that "where a person on his own responsibility sets in motion agencies which create risk for others he ought to be civilly responsible for the consequences." If this were the underlying principle of the Bill it was also the underlying principle of the Amendment. His complaint was that the principle was in the Bill applied in a halting and hesitating fashion. There was an alternative principle which led to the same conclusion, that principle being that the price of every product ought to include the elements of the cost of production, and that the pecuniary results of accidents which were incident to an employment were nothing more or Jess than a part of the cost of production and ought to be borne by the product. The employer who had to pay wages and to provide materials ought to pay for the pecuniary results of accidents incident to the employment. In order to illustrate this principle he would first of all deal with the case of seamen. Shipowners were at the present moment resisting even the partial application of the prin-
    1054
    ciple adopted in the present Bill. He wished to know why under the system this Bill would perpetuate one element in the cost of production instead of being regarded as part of the cost of production should be given as it were in the form of a bounty to the employer, so as to enable him to send his goods to market at a less price or at a greater profit than he otherwise could do. The Shipping Federation had issued a Circular to Members of the House in which they said it might be good policy for the State to encourage sea service by paying death and accident allowances; but the incidence of such payment should fall on the whole country, and not on the shipowners, thus subjecting them to the competition of foreigners who paid less wages and were not subject to such disabilities. This statement of the shipowners showed that in their view the present state of the law really afforded a bounty to them. Another illustration was to be found in the case of railway servants. He had seen a Circular issued by the Railway Benevolent Institution for the Belief of Railway Officers and Servants, their Orphans, Widows and Children. That Circular, which bore on its front a whole list of honourable names, invited contributions towards the support of the orphans and widows of railway servants. He ventured to ask why the benevolent public should furnish a bounty to the travelling public or to the Railway Companies? The payment of those who were disabled, and the support of those who were dependent upon persons who were disabled or killed, was obviously a necessary element in the cost of transit. The present system by which the benevolent public made this payment was at the bottom a wholly false system. Then there was the case of mines. By far the larger number of the accidents which happened in mines were due to causes which could not be prevented or foreseen. The cost of these accidents, however, was not thrown upon the coal, but sometimes upon the benevolent public or upon the rates, and frequently on the disabled workmen themselves or their widows and children, who had to contribute half their sustenance and to live in a state of semi-starvation in order that coals might be produced at a lower price. The present system had only to be exhibited in its nakedness in order to be condemned, and he should be

    1055
    very much surprised if any gentleman on the other side of the House attempted to defend the perpetuation of such a system. If the House was unable to carry fully into practice the system he advocated he hoped it would at all events not refrain from affirming that principle—namely, that the cost of all accidents should be placed primarily on the employer. At the present moment there existed very easy and ready means of meeting such liability if thrown on employers. There were various large Insurance Societies which were perfectly ready to deal with these risks. These societies would be able within a month to get out fresh tables covering any new risks which were placed upon the employer. The reform could be carried out by means of a simple Bill of one clause providing that for all accidents occurring in the course of an employment, and incident to that employment, the employers should be responsible in the first instance to the workman, or in case of death to his representative. Under the present state of things an absolute uncertainty existed as to whether there was or was not a right to compensation. That uncertainty would still continue if the Bill before the House became law. Shipowners had recently been asking what they could do more than select a first-rate captain, put under him a good crew, and send them to sea in a ship well found and containing every provision requisite for the voyage, and what ground there was for saddling them with accidents that might happen perhaps 10,000 miles away and about the causes of which nobody could learn anything definite. He thought that under the scheme of the Bill that argument was unanswerable, but under a scheme where the compensation would follow the accident as a matter of course such a contention could not for a moment be sustained. Under such a system the risk of pecuniary loss would be insured against in the same way as the risk of the loss of a ship was insured against now. One great defect of the Bill was that it would actually put a stop to the development of the principle of universal compensation which had been apparent during the last few years. This was a matter of the most vital importance. The Home Secretary to a certain extent gave away his case on this point when he admitted how very beneficial the system of contracting out of the Act had
    1056
    frequently proved to be. A word or two had, however, dropped from the right hon. Gentleman, which would rather lead to the conclusion that the contributions of employers had not been as large as they ought to have been in proportion to the contribution of the workmen. He ventured to challenge the right hon. Gentleman on that point. The figures showed that in the bulk of cases the contributions of employers had been very much larger than represented by the risk. He had been in communication with one of the largest of the offices which insured these risks, and he found that on an average the risk which the workmen ran for which the employer was not responsible was five times as great as the risk for which the employer was responsible. In a case in which the employer's risk was represented by 2s. 6d. for each £100 of wages, the workmen's risk for accidents for which the employer was not responsible was represented by 15s. per £100 of wages. Therefore, upon any fair contract under the present system, the employer ought not on an average to contribute more than one-fifth of the total amount of the premiums.
    MR. ASQUITH: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to explain. I did say that, as far as my information went, the employers very often contributed 20 or 25 per cent., which appears to represent the employer's legal liability, and no more.
    MR. BOUSFIELDsaid, he wished the House to understand that in abolishing the present system they would do away with a great many of the beneficial arrangements which were now made under that system. He had received a Circular giving particulars of the fund established at the works of Messrs. Pearson, Knowles, and Co., of Warrington, and pointing out that that fund would be absolutely destroyed if the Bill passed. Of course, the primary object of an employer in contributing to such a fund, apart from his good-will to his employés, was that he himself might obtain a certain and secure position, and know what his liabilities were. If the old system of uncertainty was to be re-introduced the employer would naturally ask why he should contribute to an insurance fund when, after all, he himself would be liable for an accident

    1057
    in any event. It appeared from the evidence given by a member of the firm of Pearson, Knowles, and Co. before the Select Committee of 1886 that the employers contributed £ 50 for every £100 provided by a workman, that the workmen had the option either of forming themselves into a society, or of remaining outside and taking the consequences, and that they preferred to form a society. The fund had been thoroughly solvent. At the present moment the total contributions made by workmen and employers were £4,493, while there was a balance in hand of over £1,000. The ground on which the Home Secretary proposed practically to abolish these arrangements were ludicrously unsatisfactory. As a matter of fact, every point the right hon. Gentleman had made on this subject led to precisely the opposite conclusion from that which he himself drew. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed to the beneficial effects of these contracts, and yet his conclusion had been that workmen ought in the future to be prevented from entering into such contracts. He would make a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman. If the right hon. Gentleman would not make so large a concession to the principle which underlay the Amendment as he (Mr. Bousfield) desired, he would suggest that he should allow the present system to have a fair chance of expanding itself still further. Why should not the right hon. Gentleman alter the provision of the Bill so as to provide that contracting out of the Act should be prohibited only in cases in which there was no arrangement by which sums were paid to an Insurance Fund? An alternative method was to provide that all such contracts should be void unless they were registered by the Board of Trade? Why should not a register be kept by the Board of Trade, and a Registrar, if necessary, appointed? Such a provision would go a long way towards diminishing that which would otherwise be a fatal blow at the present beneficial system. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) wanted to postpone the benefits of the Bill for 5 or 10 years, until some one had ingenuity enough to devise a system of insurance. Such a system needed no devising, as it was already in vogue, and all that was needed
    1058
    was a revision of rates to cover the new risks which would be put upon employers. Another argument used by the right hon. Gentleman was that the system advocated by the Amendment, would lead to serious carelessness on the part of the employers. Such a contention was wholly unfounded. It was already the practice for employers to get Insurance Companies to take the whole risk off their shoulders, and the same practice would prevail under the Bill if carried into law in its present form. There could not be a worse system than that which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to perpetuate in this particular. He would not keep the House much longer. [Ironical Ministerial cheers.] He was quite aware that gentlemen opposite had got to such a point that they regarded all argument as obstruction. They ought, however, to recognise that many Members of the House regarded the present Bill as not the least important if it was not the most important of all the measures introduced by the Government. Another suggestion he ventured to submit was that a clause should be inserted in the Bill making absolutely void any contract indemnifying an employer against his own negligence. Such a contract was contrary to public policy, and he believed would be void even under the present law; but it should be made clear in the Bill that no such contract should be allowed. As a justification for taking up the time of the House on this scheme he would point out that it was one which he had been engaged for years in advocating. He had spoken in its favour on many platforms, and had always found that both employers and workmen were in favour of the scheme. He was sorry to see that certain Labour Representatives in the House, and certain Trades Union Representatives had held a meeting at which they adopted a resolution of a curious character, to the effect that as the Trades Union Congress had not made a demand that all accidents should be met by a common insurance fund they could not approve of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. He did not think the Home Secretary would find his hands very much strengthened by that resolution. He strongly supported the Trades Unions in some things, but he was sorry to notice

    1059
    that the more modern tendency of Trades Unionism was to support arrangements which tended to keep employers and workmen at arms length, rather than to encourage arrangements such as that proposed in the Amendment which had the effect of bringing them amicably together. There was one other matter to which he wished to direct the attention of the House. There were a number of employments which were more dangerous to the health than to the limbs of the workmen—such, for instance, as the manufacture of white lead—and he suggested to the Home Secretary to introduce a clause into the Bill bringing the employers in such callings, who neglected to take reasonable precautions to preserve the health of their workmen, under its operations. He begged to second the Amendment before the House.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, "That no amendment of the Law relating to Employers' Liability will be final or satisfactory which does not provide compensation to workmen for all injuries sustained in the ordinary course of their employment, and not caused by their own acts or default,"—(Mr. J. Chamberlain,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. WOODSsaid, he supported the Bill on two grounds—first, because he had had considerable experience of the working classes of this country, and was therefore likely to know their views on this great question, and secondly because he had also had a long experience of the operations of the Employers' Liability Act of 1880. He looked upon the present debate as the most vital and most important that had taken place in the present Session of Parliament. He was pleased to notice that it was not a Party question, and that hon. Members, no matter on what side of the House they sat, were giving it their best consideration. It was more perhaps in the nature of a class question, though in saying that he hoped he would not come under the censure of the hon. Member who preceded him, and be charged with advocating any principle, doctrine, and the movement that would
    1060
    have the effect of driving further asunder the employers of labour and the working classes of this country. He had read the Bill carefully through—clause by clause and line by line—and he should say that, though he was not quite certain as to some of its details, in the Bill the Home Secretary had tried honestly and impartially to settle a long-standing and contentious question. A looker-on listening to the Debate would have imagined that the question involved was simply and solely a question of money. It was nothing of the kind. The workers did not want money; what they wanted was greater safety to life and limb, greater precautions taken to protect them in their hazardous and dangerous employments, and speaking for 500,000 workers he could honestly tell the House that that was what they wanted, and not a penny of the money of their employers. He honestly believed that as a consequence of the operations of the Act of 1880 hundreds of lives had been saved, but at the same time he believed that through the objectionable contracting-out clause of that Act hundreds of lives had been lost. In the present Bill there were three clauses that would command the hearty approval of the working-classes. The first was that there should be no contracting-out. There were in Lancashire 50,000 men who, for the past 13 years, had been deprived of the benefits of that Act. After a strife lasting seven weeks throughout the whole country, during which there was great destruction of life and property, these men were forced, through sheer starvation and against their wishes, to accept certain conditions of employment which were as objectionable as they were unjust. The hon. Gentleman who preceded him had pointed out that the contract signed by these men was a perfectly voluntary contract. He would read some of the terms of the contract under which 50,000 of the 60,000 of the miners of Lancashire were obliged to work, and appeal to the Home Secretary to say whether it was a fair or a just contract. The document he held in his hands set forth the conditions of employment at the collieries of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company, which employed 6,000 workmen, but the same conditions applied to all the collieries in West Lancashire except that of Colonel Bladdell at

    1061
    Pemberton. One of the clauses of the contract was—
    "The persons employed at the Colliery, directly or indirectly, must be and continue to be during such employment ordinary members of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners Permanent Relief Society, under its present or any future name."
    The employer was an honorary member of this society, and subscribed to its funds not less than 25 per cent., while the workmen subscribed the remaining 75 per cent. But the most unjust and objectionable clause of the contract was—
    "In consideration of such payment by the employer, and of being employed at the works; and as part of the term of employment, every person so employed undertakes for himself and his representatives, and any person entitled in case of his death, to look to the funds of the said society alone, under the rules and constitution thereof, for compensation in case of injury sustained in the course of such employment, whether resulting in death or not; and that neither the employer nor any other person in his employment, whether a fellow servant or not, shall be liable in respect of any defect, negligence, act, or omission, under the 'Employers' Liability Act, 1880,' or otherwise in respect of any negligence occasioning such injury."
    Would any hon. Member deny that that contract coerced the workers out of the legitimate and honest rights to which they were entitled as citizens of this country? As showing the mischievous results of this contracting on that system he would read an extract from the Report of Mr. Henry Hall, Inspector of Mines for West Lancashire, for the year ending 31st December, 1891—
    "As regards the general liability of owners, it is clear that there may be occasions on the part of the officials about which they have no knowledge and hence little responsibility; but so long as the owners as directors of the Works visit the mines as often as once a week, and overhaul the accounts, objecting to outlay in this direction and in that, thus limiting the authority and control of the certified manager, very considerable responsibility must be incurred, and properly rests with them. In this district employers, as a rule, are not liable under the Employers' Liability Act, their workpeople having contracted out."
    Mr. Hall stated also that some amendment in that Act was necessary. He writes—
    "Because whatever pains you may take to have the managers properly trained and examined, the power of the person holding the purse still remains."
    The Inspector of Mines, in that district, struck a blow at the present system of contracting-out. But far beyond all the
    1062
    considerations mentioned by Mr. Hall, he (Mr. Woods) held that there should be no contracting-out of any Act of Parliament, especially where the lives and limbs of the people were at stake, and he held also that no workman should be allowed to contract away the rights of his wife and children in the case of accident or death coming to him.
    MR. BOUSFIELDsaid, the hon. Member was apparently following the arguments he had put before the House. He, therefore, wished to say that he never suggested or intended to suggest in any way that contracting-out of the Act should be allowed except where a quid pro quo or some absolute consideration was given; and further, that it should in no case be allowed to touch the liability of an employer for any personal negligence of his own.
    MR. WOODSsaid, he was not at all dealing with the arguments of the hon. Member, but was speaking generally to the question; but, speaking on behalf of 500,000 miners and a large proportion of the railway men of the country, he could say that the workers did not want any insurance or contracting-out. They preferred to have employers legitimately and honestly held responsible for accidents that might be avoided. The working classes of the country also heartily appreciated the clause of the Bill which abolished the doctrine of common employment. A case had occurred in West Lancashire within the last three months in which 16 valuable lives had be en lost through the negligence of a boy of 13 years. If the doctrine of common employment had not been in operation, no employer would have entrusted the responsibility of the lives of his workers into the hands of a boy of that age. As far as mines were concerned, it was really a reflection on our civilisation that employers of labour should be allowed to jeopardise the lives and limbs of their workers by placing in responsible positions men and boys who had knowledge of the dangers and conditions of mines, and then if a disaster ensued to be able to escape responsibility by this doctrine of common employment. The working classes were also glad that the system of mutual assurance was to be abolished. They admitted that much good had been done

    1063
    by the Permanent Relief Societies created by the Act of 1880, but they objected altogether to the scheme of assurance which allowed the employer to escape his proper responsibility; and they objected to money value being placed against the sacredness of human life. There were certain clauses of the Bill to which he objected, but he felt sure that the Home Secretary would favourably consider the Amendments which would be moved to these clauses in Committee in the interest of the working classes. He did not see why any class of workers, men and women, should be excluded from the operations of the Act, and, therefore, he objected to the exemption of menial and domestic servants, whose lives and limbs were often endangered in the course of their employment. There was also a clause providing that a workman should be precluded from obtaining damages if he knew of a danger and failed to report it within a reasonable time. That was an objectionable clause, for a workman would run the risk of losing his place by reporting a danger. He also found that the question of subcontract was not provided for in the Bill. A large amount of work, especially in mines, was done by sub-contract, and he thought that employers should be held liable also for accidents to men engaged by their sub-contractors. At a meeting of representatives of the Trades Unions of the country, of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, and of the Executive Committee of the Miners' Federation, Clauses 3 and 4 had been gone through carefully. They came to the conclusion that these clauses had nothing whatever to do with the employer's liability, and decided to urge on the Home Secretary to strike them out of the Bill. He also objected to the provision that claims for damages over £100 should be tried in the higher Courts if the defendant pleased, for that would mean in many cases the mulcting of poor plaintiffs in law expenses, and perhaps the swallowing up of the damages obtained. With regard to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham—who he regretted to see was not in his place—he had heard that it had not been moved at all.
    MR. SPEAKER: I understand the Amendment has been moved. It cer-
    1064
    tainly has been seconded, and it must have been moved.
    MR. WOODSsaid, he was under the impression that it had been moved, but he had heard that day that it had not been moved. The gist of the Amendment was that all accidents should be provided for by assurance. He did not like to charge the right hon. Gentleman with unfair conduct, but he had come to the conclusion that the object of the Amendment was to strangle the Bill.
    MR. TOMLINSON: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to say that I understood the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham to state that he moved the Amendment in order that he might put his statement before the House, but that he did not intend to press it to a Division.
    MR. FENWICK: I have read very carefully the report of the right hon. Gentleman's speech in The Times, and he distinctly stated and repeated that he would not move his Amendment.
    MR. WOODSsaid, he was reinforced in his opinion that the object of the Amendment was to defeat the Bill by an incident that occurred during the Debate on the Act of 1880. Mr. Thomas Knowles, who was at the time Member for Wigan, suggested this very same scheme of assurance for all accidents, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), the co-worker of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, who was at the time Attorney General, said—
    "If the difficulty of assurance was to be so dealt with that all accidents should be compensated, it was useless to talk of the admission of that principle in the Bill. ID fact, the suggestion was only made for the purpose of defeating the Bill."
    He understood that the Home Secretary had recently been waited on by a deputation on behalf of the railway servants, which asked that the system of contracting-out should be provided for in the Bill. He could assure the House that that was a bogus deputation, and did not in the slightest degree represent the railway servants of the country. So far as he had been able to ascertain—and he had addressed numbers of meetings composed of railway servants, miners, ironworkers, and factory operatives—not a

    1065
    single worker was in favour of contracting out.
    MR. TOMLINSONasked, had the hon. Member addressed meetings of the London and North-Western Railway?
    MR. WOODSsaid he had, and he had records of what had taken place at those meetings. That very morning he had received a letter from the Secretary of the Wigan Branch of the Railway Servants' Union, which stated—
    "The deputation of railway men which waited on the Home Secretary did not represent the railway men at all on this question,"
    and he could supply the House with dozens of resolutions adopted at meetings of railway men protesting in the strongest language against any contracting-out clause being inserted in the Bill. He would say, in conclusion, that the Bill was an honest attempt to settle a long-standing difficulty, though there might be differences of opinion as to some of its details, to which he was sure the Home Secretary would give his best attention when the Bill got into Committee. Then there was a great deal said about the amount of litigation that would be caused, but those who had anything to do with the Act of 1880 were exceedingly surprised at the small amount of litigation arising under that Act. He held that litigation was right if there was a cause for litigation, and he would ask hon. Members to point to an Act of that description in regard to which there had been less litigation. He submitted that the experience of the last 30 years had not shown that unreasonable litigation had arisen. Universal insurance would weaken the responsibilities that ought to rest with the employers of labour; and in the last place he held that the working classes of this country were entitled to the fullest protection for life and limb at the hands of the House of Commons. In conclusion, he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for his Bill, which did him great credit, and which he (Mr. Woods) believed would meet with the universal support both of the employers and the employed of this country.
    MR.STUART WORTLEYsaid, that of the many Bills introduced by the present Government there was not one that was less likely to threaten their existence as a Government than the one now before the House. At the same time he thought
    1066
    it was high time somebody got up to defend the Bill against the arguments that had been put forward by its own supporters. There was no disputing the fact that this was the biggest Insurance Bill the House had yet seen. He did not see the slightest desire to delay the progress of the Bill, but he confessed that he thought the principle of the Amendment preferable to that of the Bill. The Amendment no doubt raised the questions of fundamental principle, but undoubtedly its principles could with perfect facility be engrafted upon the Bill in Committee. The Amendment gave to the workmen greater benefits than those given by the Bill, and it gave, moreover, not only the greater benefits, but also a greater certainty of realising them. The object of the Bill was to make the workman for the first time as well off as a stranger; but the stranger had to prove negligence, and take on himself all the other burdens and risks involved in litigation. He doubted whether the workmen would any longer be content to be left, as regards their chance of indemnifying themselves, in a position so precarious as that. On the other hand, the principle of the Amendment was to put the workmen in a better position than the stranger, a thing both just and practicable, seeing that in the case of the workmen the class to be indemnified were of ascertainable numbers, and had special claims. Moreover, the Amendment proceeded on the sound principle that considerations of negligence were and ought to be regarded as being wholly immaterial to the question of the desirability of indemnity for injuries. If a workman's leg was broken, the damage to him in suffering and loss of wages was just the same, whether the cause of his broken leg was some one's grossest negligence or the purest accident. What was wanted was that he should somehow be effectively indemnified in all cases, and so long as they based their proposed indemnity on the existence of negligence they were in a large number of cases, probably in the largest—namely, in all cases of accidents against which the workman had not insured himself—leaving the workman to seek, and the community to provide, the necessary indemnity by the casual and humiliating operation of the Poor Law. The Amendment was in

    1067
    harmony with the existing German law. The French Legislature had also been invited by the French Government to legislate on similar lines. Did insurance promote negligence? It might be said that if all liability was to be laid on the employer he might insure himself against the risk, and become less careful; that his workmen feeling themselves similarly insured would become similarly less careful, and that there would be a general increase in the dangers of employments and the number of accidents. If that argument was good against the Amendment it was good also against the Bill, which left the employer free to insure himself against the consequence of all negligence and liable for nothing not caused by negligence. Those who deprecated insurance on that ground ought to go further, and prohibit insurance. But, in fact, insurance, whether it tended to promote carelessness or not—and he was not aware that in Germany or Austria it had—could not be prevented by prohibitions. Nothing could prevent the private collection of data for the ascertainment of risks, nor could anything prevent the making provision, either by mutual agreements between employers or by individual employers making a reserve fund by a regular appropriation out of profits. The true cure for negligence was not to be found in its civil consequences, but in the criminal liabilities which already could be, and were, used as deterrents. There was already a criminal liability in the case of any breach of nearly all of the multifarious provisions of Factory Acts, Mines Acts, and Shipping Acts, which were directed to the ensuring of the personal safety of the employed. In many of these cases there was a vicarious criminal liability on the employer, as well as the direct liability of the person actually breaking the law. Then there was the law of manslaughter in all cases of death produced by culpable negligence. Why should they not declare by law that culpable negligence which merely resulted in personal injuries should also be criminal. Mr. Justice Stephen had in an earlier edition of his Digest actually so stated the English law. The French law was to this effect, and in all the statutory offences he had referred to breach or omission was made ipso facto criminal, though neither death nor personal in-
    1068
    juries might have resulted from it. Those were the truest securities against negligence, and not these nominal civil consequences, which were very difficult for the workman to realise, and which under any circumstances, and notwithstanding any prohibition, could be discounted by insurance. The Amendment would not deprive workmen of any of these securities, but would greatly increase the confidence with which the workmen could count upon indemnity. On the other hand, the Bill left the workman still under the necessity of proving negligence by litigation, while it placed him in a position singularly unfavourable for initiating litigation by putting him in the artificial and illogical position of being a workman, yet suing as an outsider. The late Home Secretary's (Mr. Matthews) Bill went very nearly as far as this one, and in many respects certainly farther than any Bill that had preceded it. It left little standing of the doctrine of common employment, and practically nothing of any liberty to contract out. It had the support in that House of the late Mr. Bradlaugh and the hon. Member who had just rejoiced the hearts of the Ministerialists by being returned for the Hexham Division of Northumberland (Mr. Miles Maclnnes.) In the Select Committee of 1886 its main principles were also supported by Mr. Bradlaugh, and by the hon. Member for Cardiff (Sir E. Reed), the hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Sir J. Pease), and the hon. Member for North Worcestershire (Mr. Hingley), all supporters of the present Government, and it proceeded upon that at least intelligible principle that the employer's liability should be limited to the negligence of those who had, at all events, some semblance of power to control. The Bill of the late Government did not, it was true, go so far as the Amendment, but it went quite as far as they could logically and equitably go on the basis of negligence. If they based the right of action upon negligence they must show or pretend some semblance of delegation from the employer to the neglected workman. Conversely, if they had a right of action, or a supposed delegated authority in the workman, they could do so only where that workman was negligent. There was a great deal of artificiality and fiction in the doctrine that the work-

    1069
    man's negligence was the master's negligence, even in cases where the workman enjoyed some delegated authority. But this Bill took them still further into the region of fiction. Beyond the point to which the late Government took the doctrine of vicarious negligence in their Bills of 1888 and 1890 he said that negligence ceased to avail them as the basis of the workman's right to indemnity. That right must then be based on something else—such, for instance, as considerations of public policy arising in the interests of enterprise out of his mere status as a workman. They had practically abandoned the basis of negligence when they proposed to enact that the workman should sue as if he were a stranger to the enterprise. What was this but a new fiction superimposed upon, but conflicting with, the old fiction that the negligence of the servant was the negligence of the master? In one and the same clause they proposed to say that the servant who was injured was so little connected with the master that he must be permitted to sue as a stranger to the enterprise who had accepted none of its risks, while of his fellow-servant who injured him they said that he was so much connected with the master, and so closely identified with him, that his negligence must be treated as if it were the negligence of the master. Having stepped forward to adopt one fiction, they found themselves obliged to avoid the consequences of that fiction by inventing another to contradict it. What would be the result to the workman? He would be the sport of the classes who lived by litigation. It was bad enough that he was left to prove negligence without having to do so from the standpoint of an artificial and contradictory status. He confessed that if they were to go further than they proposed to go in 1888, he preferred that they should face the logical consequences of abandoning the doctrine of common employment. He preferred to place the workman's claim to indemnity rather upon his own services to industrial enterprise than upon the delinquencies of others. He did not believe that the policy of the Amendment was prejudicial to the exercise of care and skill in the avoidance of accidents. He did believe it provided the only logical and satisfactory basis on which the risks incurred, and the services rendered, by
    1070
    the privates in the army of industry, could be recognised by the society which owed so much to their energy, their courage, and their skill.
    MR. HALDANEsaid, it was not possible to find fault with the tone of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Stuart-Wortley); nevertheless, it was equally impossible not to express surprise at some of the arguments put forward. Many of the arguments consisted, in reality, in an attack upon a principle of the Common Law which had formed part of the law of this country for more than two centuries. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of the principle of the Bill as if it involved, for the first time, making the employer liable for the negligence of those in his employment. That was the principle of law that had not only been a principle of this country for two centuries, but also of America and of most parts of the Continent, a principle founded upon considerations that were absolutely necessary for the well-being of society. Take the case of a man who possessed a carriage and sent his coachman to drive along a road. He instructed the coachman to be careful, but instead of being careful he was negligent, and ran over some person. To whom was the injured person to look?—to the coachman, who was a man of straw, or his employer, without whose action there would be no carriage driving? Take, again, the case of a great Railway Corporation, was it to be supposed that because an engine driver failed to obey his instructions and caused an accident that those injured were not entitled to compensation? He ventured to say that such a proposition would be most disastrous. His complaint of the last speech and of that of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) was that they treated the Bill as if it enacted something for the first time, whereas it only sought to get rid of a bad and unjustifiable exception, introduced a little more than 30 years ago, by a Judge with a faculty, as Lord Esher expressed it, for devising analogies. Lord Abinger, who was the author of the decision in "Priestly v. Flower," settled for the first time that the follow workman should not have the same remedy as a stranger; Lord Esher condemned the doctrine, and the Scotch Courts repudiated and struggled against

    1071
    it, until it was forced upon them by a subsequent decision by the House of Lords. They wanted to know why fellow workmen were put in a worse position than strangers? He knew that many legal fictions were involved, that they entered into some kind of implied contract, but they knew as a fact that workmen when they took service did not think of those things, or if they did, they thought they had the same advantages as an ordinary member of the outside public, and when they came to consider the Act and ask that the law should be placed on an ordinary basis, they asked that this exception should be repealed, and the same remedies applied to these workmen as to every one else. That being so, he thought those who sat on that side of the House had a good deal to complain of the way in which the Amendment had been proposed. The Amendment which had been moved was not the ordinary one that the Bill should be read that day six months, but it contained in germ, and in an undeveloped form, not only a Bill, but a Bill of greater magnitude and complexity than the measure brought forward. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) said he might not press it to a Division, but certainly would move it as an Instruction on going into Committee, and he (Mr. Haldane) ventured to say that in order to carry it out it would require the introduction of clauses four or five times the size of the Bill itself. [" Oh, oh! "] He would tell the House why he thought so. The right hon. Gentleman in the course of his speech took the line that it had been pointed out the principle of the Bill went further and meant more than the Amendment. The Amendment provided simply for compensation or injuries, and they held it was not merely compensation but prevention they wanted; they held they represented the views of the workmen when they said a man was not sufficiently protected when he got £100 or £150 compensation, that it was a necessary, an integral, and vital part of the Bill to put on the employer such a motive as should make him careful in taking every step he possibly could as precautions against negligence, therefore, the principle of the Bill was two-fold, but the principle of the Amendment was compensation simply. Whether careful or not, the workmen
    1072
    should be compensated all the same. That that was so was shown by the way in which the Amendment was dealt with by the other hon. Members, because they had a series of Amendments on the Paper. The first was that of the right hon. Gentleman, which said the employer was to make compensation in all cases in which the workman himself was not directly in fault. Then came the more logical Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Hunter), who sought to strike out the words "and not caused by their own acts or default." Then came the still more logical Amendment of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Provand). The effect of the Amendment would be to substitute for the present principle, under which there was some motive to employers to be careful, a system under which there would be no motive at all. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said he would be willing to penalise employers guilty of negligence, but then they would have a Bill of the dimensions of the Factory Acts, setting forth the offences, and the penalties, and the machinery for recovering them before the proper tribunal. They had no objection to the insurance proposal, but they wanted a good deal more information on that subject. They wanted to know how the laws worked in Germany, and to what extent employers were willing to subject themselves to the consequences of a new penal law. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, if successful, would lead to the complete demolition of the Bill itself, as it would be impossible for the Government to go on with it with any hope of its leaving the Committee stage; and because he thought this was not the proper time and place to bring it forward, and because the principle of the Bill was good, he for one felt bound to oppose the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. G. BALFOURsaid to those who, like the hon. Member who opened the Debate to-day, were prepared to support on its merits the Amendment moved by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), and those who, like his hon. and learned Friend who had just spoken, considered the Bill a good and a

    1073
    logical Bill, the issues raised in this Debate were comparatively small. His own position was somewhat more complicated. On the one hand, he was not prepared to accept the scheme of insurance such as that pointed to by the Amendment, nor, on the other hand, was he satisfied with the Bill introduced by the Home Secretary (Mr. Asquith), at all event in its present shape; indeed, unless this Bill was amended in certain important and vital parts, he was by no means prepared to say that the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) was not preferable to the proposal of the Home Secretary. In his opinion the Bill, if passed in its present form, would lead to the more thorough-going plan advocated in the Amendment, and it might be at least plausible to argue that it would be better to submit to a certain amount of delay than to accept a halfhearted measure, and one which had absolutely no elements of finality in it. But that was on the supposition that the Bill introduced by the Homo Secretary would issue from the Committee substantially in its present form. He hoped, however, for better things, that it might be altered, and altered in several very important points, in Committee, and entertaining that hope he should be prepared to support the Amendment if the right hon. Gentleman brought it to the vote, which he understood he was not going to do. The great advantage of the plan proposed in the Amendment was that it made provision for all accidents, and not merely for those that were caused by somebody's negligence. He agreed that that was desirable, and he was not without hope that that might be done by voluntary arrangement between employers and employed, or by means of a fund supported by the workmen themselves. The right hon. Gentleman objected to his scheme being considered as a scheme of industrial assurance; he told the House he preferred the term "industrial compensation;" he was apparently anxious to minimise, as far as possible, the share that the State would be obliged to take in such a scheme, and so far he was in agreement with his plan. If the State was to lay down as a general rule that all accidents were to be insured against, sooner or later the State would be bound to see that there was no failure in the
    1074
    payments. In other words, sooner or later the State would have to either start an insurance fund itself or undertake to guarantee payments made by the employer. That had been the experience both of Austria and Germany, who had adopted schemes of this kind, and he believed that France had in contemplation and preparation an elaborate plan by which something similar might be carried into effect. He was confident if they wore to take such a step as that indicated by the Amendment it would be necessary to create a much more complicated piece of machinery than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham seemed to imagine. He was not prepared to take such a step at present, and as foreign countries had been obliging enough to make this enormous experiment he thought they had better wait and see what success attended it. Now he passed from the Amendment to the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Asquith) was a master of clear and lucid statements, and the speech he made in introducing this Bill would not in that respect detract from the reputation he had now firmly established in this House. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would pardon him for saying that the impression left on his mind, after carefully listening to the right hon. Gentleman's speech, was that he was not so much the author of the Bill as its expositor. For the authors it would probably be necessary to go outside the I walls of the Home Office—to go to the loaders of the Trades Unions and to the Trades Union Congress. It had been his (Mr. G. Balfour's) good fortune during the last year and a half to see a great deal of the leaders of Workmen's Organisations in this country, and he had been able thoroughly to appreciate the ability and straightforwardness they displayed. But even Trades Unions were not infallible, and he thought that, like other Organisations, they had their prejudices, and sometimes very unreasonable prejudices. If the Homo Secretary, instead of taking this Bill from the Trades Union leaders, had exercised some of that independence of mind which the House knew he possessed, and which he sometimes showed, he would have been able to produce a better Bill, and to have made a more convincing speech in

    1075
    support of it. The Home Secretary said the Bill would place the law on a logical and satisfactory footing. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham had pointed out that whereas the meaning of "workman" was confined under Sub-section (a) of Clause 6 to persons employed in manual labour, the term was, under Sub-section (b), made to include every railway servant presumably from the manager downward, and under Subsection (d) every seaman on board a British ship, presumably from the captain to the cabin boys. If the doctrine of common employment was really what the right hon. Gentleman in his recent speech at Liverpool described it as being—a grotesque doctrine—the employer ought to be held liable for compensation for an injury caused by the negligence of an ordinary workman to the manager of the establishment, as much as for an injury caused by the negligence of a manager to an ordinary workman. Could it be that after sweeping away the doctrine of common employment in the first clause, the right hon. Gentleman had been forced by a kind of unconscious common sense to bring one part of it to light again later in the Bill? The right hon. Gentleman carried the change far enough to destroy the principle on which the Act of 1886 and the two Bills brought in by the late Government alike rested. That principle was that some correspondence should be maintained between the legal and the moral responsibility of the employer. In no legislation since the Report of the Select Committee in 1876 had that principle been lost sight of. What was the principle underlying the present Bill? The Home Secretary had been frank enough to tell the House, but he had not always been consistent in his account. In his speech in introducing the Bill he said the principle on which it was based was that where a person on his own responsibility set in motion agencies which created risk for others he ought to be civilly responsible for the consequences.
    MR. ASQUITH: I beg pardon for interrupting, but what I did say was not merely on his own responsibility but for his own profit.
    MR. G. BALFOURsaid, he quite understood that the right hon. Gentleman would like to make that addition now, but it did not appear in the report of his
    1076
    speech, nor was it to be found in the account which he (Mr. G. Balfour) took down of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks at the time. But even with the limiting words which the right hon. Gentleman said he intended to introduce, the principle carried him very considerably beyond the limits of the Bill. Under the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman it was impossible to exclude those accidents which were incidental to an employment without being actually caused by the negligence of anybody. For instance, the fall of a roof in a miner's working place might occur without negligence on anybody's part; but it would be impossible to deny that the accident resulted from the setting in motion by the miner of an agency creating risk. If that was the principle of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill he ought not to have limited the measure as he had done, because that principle carried him into the full ambit of the scheme suggested by the Member for Birmingham. The right hon. Gentleman seemed himself to have felt the difficulty in which the recognition of the principle underlying the Bill placed him, for in the course of the reply he made to a deputation from the shipowners he gave another definition. On that occasion he said the principle of the measure was that any employer ought to be under the same measure of liability to his servants for any negligence committed by those he employed as he was under to third persons. This was clearly different from the principle laid down in the speech he delivered in introducing the Bill. The Bill was not consistent, however, with the principle advocated in his speech, because while Clause 1 professed to sweep away the doctrine of common employment altogether, the provision was afterwards modified in the case of all interests except that of shipping and the railway industry. If the right hon. Gentleman had really meant to place the workman in exactly the same position as the outside public, all it would have been necessary to do was to sweep away the special defences of common employment and acceptance of known risks. The right hon. Gentleman did not propose to sweep away those defences. He proposed only partly to abolish the defence of common employment, and he positively proposed to give the defence

    1077
    of acceptance of known risk a statutory form. The fact was that the whole question was far more complicated and difficult than the House would naturally infer from listening to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The right hon. Gentleman was laudably anxious to simplify the law, but the simplification which was secured by shutting one's eyes to the facts was not a simplification which would commend itself to the House. He believed that the doctrine of common employment had come into existence as a natural result of the excessive harshness and injustice which made the master liable for the acts of his servants. The right hon. Gentleman thought that the general rule of law which made the master liable for acts of omission on the part of his servants was a good rule, and one which might on grounds of justice and expediency be applied to the case of the workman as well as to that of the stranger. The right hon. Gentleman's opinion as to the justice of the Common Law was not shared by the Select Committee appointed in 1876, as that Committee reported that eminent lawyers regarded it as essentially unjust that a man should be made liable for injuries caused by acts for which he was not responsible, and which he might have forbidden. The fact was that the operation of the Common Law was often harsh and inequitable even in the case of the outside public, and still more so when it was applied to the relation of employer and employed, unless some such doctrine as that of common employment was admitted. He (Mr. G. Balfour) was not so enamoured of the law as to resist all amendment of it, provided that some method could be found by which the harsh and inequitable results of its application to the relation between employer and employed could be averted or mitigated. He had come to the conclusion that it was possible to abolish the defence of common employment, and at the same time to improve the present law without doing substantial injustice to anybody. No doubt a complete solution of the difficulty would deal not merely with employers' liability, but with the Common Law respecting negligence generally. All that could be aimed at was the amendment of the law as far as possible within the scope of the
    1078
    Bill. The existing law suffered grievously from want of elasticity. At present the injured person must be entitled to full compensation or to none at all, and the amount of compensation was quite irrespective of the degree of negligence, or of any other modifying circumstance whatever. It was the absence of elasticity which had created the innumerable exceptions and qualifications which now overloaded the law. Let the doctrine of common employment be abolished by all means, but let it be provided that in assessing damages regard must be had, among other things, to the degree of authority delegated to the person whose negligence had caused the accident. He should be prepared to sweep away not only the defence of common employment, but the defences of contributory negligence and acquiescence in known risks. He would be prepared to regard acquiescence in known risk, where the negligence of the employer had been established, as contributory negligence, and to enact that the degree of authority delegated to the person whose negligence had caused the injury, and also the degree of contributory negligence, should be taken into account. If this was done the law would be immensely simplified, no substantial injustice would be caused to either employers or employed, and the correspondence between moral liability and legal liability would be rendered far more close than it was at present. He came now to the second great subject of controversy which had been raised by the Bill—the freedom of workmen to contract themselves out of the Act. Two questions had to be considered on this point. The first was whether there was any evidence to show that the liberty to contract out of the Act had led to abuse, and the second, whether that liberty had been exercised with beneficial results to the employed. The Home Secretary had admitted that the cases in which the employer had insisted upon the abandonment of their statutory right by men entering their service were comparatively rare, and, further that he did not attach great importance to the language used about men being coerced into making contracts against their will. The right hon. Gentleman had said, however, that he had not the slightest doubt that there were cases in which the men were practically

    1079
    not free agents in the matter. It would have been only fair for the right hon. Gentleman to have told the House that, since the passing of the Act of 1880, there had been no authentic and authoritative case in which the employer had compelled the workmen to contract out of the Act without consideration.
    MR. ASQUITHwas understood to say that such a contract would be absolutely unenforceable.
    MR. G. BALFOURsaid, that might be so, but it had been a matter of complaint among Trades Unions that the employers endeavoured to coerce the men into contracting themselves out of the Act without any consideration beyond that of obtaining employment. There was no case on record in which men had been induced to contract themselves out of the Act without consideration. Surely under these circumstances it would be absurd to contend that the liberty to contract out of the Act had been abused. In the few cases in which men had attempted to contract out without consideration, the Trades Unions had stepped in, and the attempt had been prevented. If the Trades Unions had not been able in some cases to prevent the men entering into contracts, it showed that the men were perfectly ready to have matters left as they were. As to the benefits which had been conferred on workmen by the establishment of Insurance Funds to which the employers contributed, that benefit had been admitted by the Home Secretary himself. In 1885 the London and North Western Railway Company paid between £13,000 and £14,000 to their Accident Fund, whereas, if it had been necessary for them to insure against their risks under the Act, they would not have had to pay more than between £4,000 or £5,000. In the case of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company, although the men were not compelled to contract out of the Act, nearly all of them did so. The "widespread objection" which the Home Secretary said workmen entertained against contracting out of of the Act was, therefore, certainly not to be found amongst the men employed by that company, nor was it to be found amongst the London and North Western men. He had himself received two petitions from the London and North Western men living in Leeds,
    1080
    asking that they should not be prevented from contracting out of the Act. Presumably, the "widespread objection" to contracting out was to be found amongst those who had not themselves contracted out. Why those who refused to contract out and who, therefore, ex hypothesi, did not need to be protected by the law, should clamour for a change which was not desired by those who had contracted out, he could not understand. Surely the tyranny which was said to be exercised by employers was as nothing compared with the legalised tyranny which majorities of working men seemed to be desirous of exercising over their fellows. The right hon. Gentleman had said that only a small minority of the miners had contracted out of the Act. As a matter of fact, something like 120,000 miners out of a total of between 500,000 and 600,000 had contracted out of the Act. This was certainly not a small figure, and it was a growing figure. In the Lancashire and North Wales district in 1885 44,000 miners had contracted out of the Act, and in 1891 the number had risen to 61,000, the number of those who had not contracted being 29,000 in 1885 and 29,800 in 1891. In Monmouthshire and South Wales the number who had contracted was 37,000 in 1885 and 57,000 in 1891, whilst the number who had not contracted was 59,000 in the first-named year and 72,000 in 1891. A special interest attached to the case of South Wales, because it was agreed on all hands that no sort of pressure had been put on the men to induce them to enter into contracts.
    MR. WOODS: I am sorry to interrupt, but I would like to point out to the House that the reason why the number of men who contract out of the Act is growing in Lancashire is because of the larger importation of men during the last few years, and not by any means because the men like the conditions.
    MR. G. BALFOURsaid, even if that were so, it did not account for the state of things in South Wales. It was not in the true interests of the men that the Trade Union traders in other districts had succeeded in inducing them to refuse to contract out of the Act. Some 90,000 miners were employed in Northumberland and Durham. Prior to the passing of the Act of 1880 the employers subscribed to the Miners' Per-

    1081
    manent Relief Society. When that Act was passed, the masters offered to increase their subscription to 25 per cent. on condition that the men contracted out of the Act. The men declined, and the result was that in 1891 there was a deficiency in the fund amounting to £90,000. Had the offer of the employers been accepted, instead of a deficiency of £90,000, there would have been a surplus of £30,000. Between 1880 and 1885 the cases brought into Court in North Cumberland and Durham, under the Employers' Liability Act, had not reached double figures. He should now like to sum up the effect of the evidence upon this point. In the first place, he contended that it was proved that there had been no case of contracting out except for consideration given. He would sum up in this way: There was, in the first place, no authentic case of "contracting out" except for consideration given; secondly, the consideration given had generally been in excess—and mostly greatly in excess—of what the employers would have been called upon to pay had there been no contracting out; thirdly, the institution of contracting out had been of great benefit to the men, and was valued by employers, producing as it did cordial relations between the men and themselves; and, fourthly, where contracting out had been made a condition of employment, a large majority of the men were opposed to any change in the law by which contracting out would be abolished. What was the natural conclusion to be drawn from the facts? Was it not that, far from forbidding contracting out, it should be permitted? All the facts had been before the right hon. Gentleman, however, and the conclusion he had arrived at was that contracting out should be forbidden by law. What justification could the Home Secretary possibly urge in favour of the proposal to take away from a workman his right to make an advantageous bargain with his employer? He had listened very carefully to the speech of the Home Secretary, and had read it very carefully since. The right hon. Gentleman had put forward one defence, and one only; and that was, that the Legislature had conferred this right of compensation on the workman not merely in his own interest, but in the interest of the community generally. The right hon. Gentleman had also said that
    1082
    the rights of the outside public at Common Law were given to them by a law which was at once just and expedient and in the public interest. Now, why was the right hon. Gentleman prepared to take away the freedom of the working man to contract out of the right he possessed under the Act when he was not prepared to interfere with the right of the outside public to contract with the employer to settle any claim which might be made against him? The right hon. Gentleman was prepared to maintain that there was a distinction between Statute Law and Common Law; but the right to compensation had its counterpart in the liability to pay compensation. If the working man, not in his own interest, but in the interest of the public generally, was to be prevented from bargaining away his right to receive compensation, the employer by the same rule ought to be prohibited from bargaining away his liability to pay compensation. That would only be consistent. It was worth while to go a little deeper into the matter. [Cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Divide!"] The Home Secretary's argument implied that which the working men had constantly contended for—namely, that the real object of this legislation was not so much compensation as increased safety. Now, when the proposal to take away the right of the working man to contract out was defended on that ground, the right hon. Gentleman, he thought, ought at least to have produced some proof that contracting out had had the effect of increasing negligence. The right hon. Gentleman had simply assumed the point. He had taken it for granted. He had not produced a tittle of proof for his contention. [Cries of "Divide!"] He was doing his best to argue this point. The question was one to which he had given a great deal of attention. No doubt his powers of expression were deficient, and he could not make his views interesting to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway; but the Bill was one of extreme importance, and he really did think that when anyone tried to go thoroughly into a subject and argue it out without bias, one way or the other, he ought to get a hearing in the House. Personally, he very much doubted whether the Act of 1880 itself had had very much effect in increasing the carefulness of employers. There was very

    1083
    little to show, except, perhaps, in one or two industries, that such had been the case. The employers had a great many difficulties to face, and there were many reasons, apart from the compensation they might be called upon to pay, why they should be careful of the lives and limbs of those in their employ. There were few cases, as compared with the total number of accidents, in which the employer could be made liable at all, and, moreover, those employers who did not make arrangements with their workpeople usually insured out of their liability. So long as they were allowed to insure out of their liability was it possible that the prohibition to contract out of the law would produce any effect in making them more careful? Surely it was the height of absurdity to contend that the London and North Western Company, which paid over £13,000 annually to the Accident Fund, would be induced to take greater precautions if they had to pay £4,000 to an Insurance Company instead? In Northumberland and Durham the premiums paid by the masters from 1880 to 1885 amounted only to £2,000, and yet during the same time they had contributed 25 per cent. of the men's contribution, amounting to no less than £50,000. Surely it was ridiculous to imagine that the mine owners of Northumberland, who had paid no less than £50,000 in the shape of contributions, would have been made more careful by an arrangement under which they would only have to pay £2,000. He was really understating the case. Mr. Patterson, one of the representatives of the Durham Miners, in evidence before the Select Committee of 1886, had stated the chief ground for the objection to contracting out—[Cries of "Divide!" and interruption]—was that officials would be much more careful through dread of actions and exposure in Court. But there had only been eight cases in the Northumberland and Durham district from 1880 to 1885, and it was, therefore, difficult to attach much weight to that particular argument even if the liability of the masters continued to be limited to injuries resulting from the negligence of those charged with superintendence. But if employers' liability was to be extended, as proposed under the Bill, to injuries caused by the negligence of fellow working men in the
    1084
    same trade, surely it was impossible to imagine that accidents that the master could be in no way really responsible for, and which no additional care on his part could prevent, would be less likely to take place through the fear of exposure in Court. If there was to be any fear of accidents they would not be accidents caused by the negligence of the employer but rather accidents due to the negligence of the fellow working man. It appeared to him the right hon. Gentleman had left one very important element out of consideration entirely in his anxiety to throw responsibility on the shoulders of the employers. He appeared to have quite forgotten that care on the part of the workmen themselves was at least as important as care on the part of the employer if accidents were to be prevented. Therefore, it would be wise, if possible, to make them take their fair share of responsibility. Hon. Members were, perhaps, not aware that the Select Committee of 1886 distinctly stated that the extinction of liability for injuries caused by the carelessness of workmen in the same trades was against public policy on the very ground that it would take away from the workmen themselves an inducement to be careful. If the House came to the conclusion, for one reason or another, that the doctrine of common employment should be swept away, there was no ground for encouraging rather than discouraging the establishment of funds to which employers and workmen should make joint contributions, because the tendency would be to make the workman take additional care to prevent an injury the pecuniary compensation for which would come out of a fund in which that workman had a personal interest. How potent such a notice was likely to be he did not venture to forecast. He thought it would have some effect, if not a very powerful one. But there was one consideration that he thought might be urged in favour of allowing working men to contract out of their rights. The Home Secretary seemed aware of the weakness of his case when he made the funds liable in the case of actions, and there was a certain amount of ingenuity in that. The proposal, however, was not original. There was already something of the kind in one of the Bills introduced by the hon. Member for Morpeth, and some-

    1085
    thing of the kind was already in force on the Great Eastern Railway. He was afraid that in no ease would it be likely to be effectual. [Cries of "Divide!"] Why was it that employers were willing and anxious to induce their men to contract out? Simply in order to avoid litigation—simply in order that more friendly relations might be established between the parties than if litigation were resorted to. It was quite clear that so long as the workman was allowed to choose, as he would under the Bill, whether he would resort to the Court or to the fund, there would be no sort of security that the employer would not be involved in litigation. He felt that the operation of the Bill, even with this provision introduced, which some of the Representatives of the working men objected to, would be to bring to an end many of those funds which already existed, and effectually prevent the establishment of new ones. [Cries of "Divide!" and interruption.] He would not detain the House any longer. He could only say that he had done his best—[cries of "Divide!" and "Time!"]—he had done his best to deal with the question without bias either as between employer and employed or as between different proposals that had emanated from one side of the House or the other. He was sorry hon. Gentlemen had not thought fit to give him such a hearing as he thought he was entitled to. He had no wish to prevent the Second Heading of the Bill being taken to-day. He should do his best to amend the Bill in Committee. His only desire was that both in this legislation and any other legislation dealing with the labour question their united efforts might tend to promote that industrial peace which was desirable in the interest of employer and employed.
    Sir A. ROLLITand Mr. H. WILSON (Middlesbrough) both rose to move the Adjournment of the Debate; but it being ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

  ARMY ANNUAL BILL.—(No. 206.)
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again this day.

  EVENING SITTING.
    ORDERS OF THE DAY.

      SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
      Order for Committee read.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

      PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

        RESOLUTION.
        MR. W. ALLENrose to call attention to the desirability of the payment of Members of Parliament, and to move—
        "That, as the principle of gratuitous public service upon which the representation of this House is at present based limits the freedom of constituencies in the selection of their Representatives, this House is of opinion that a reasonable allowance should forthwith be granted to all Members of Parliament."
        Since this Resolution was brought forward a year ago there had, he said, been an increase of opinion in its favour among all classes. In asking the House to accept the Resolution for the Payment of Members, he was asking it to revert to an old custom which existed down to the end of the 17th century. Several times during the present century Resolutions or Bills had been brought forward to endeavour to reestablish the old principle. In 1830 a Bill was brought forward to restore the system of payment of Members; in 1845 a Resolution was moved on the same question. In 1870 it was again brought forward, when only 24 votes was given in its favour, but last year it was supported by 162 votes, giving a gain of 138. In 1870 some hon. Members who had since become prominent in that House took part in the Division, among the minority who were in favour of the Resolution being the present Secretary for War and the right hon. Baronet who represented the Forest of Dean. Before dealing with the arguments for or against the payment of Members, he should just like to notice one Amendment which he took to be a direct negative to the Resolution. This Amendment was that some Members should be paid and some not paid. He believed that the Radicals in that House were strongly of opinion that if any Members were to be paid all

        1087
        should be paid. The Labour Representatives were perfectly unanimous in their opinion that all Members should be paid. They had the opinion of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour), who, in the Debate last year, said he agreed with the view that if there was to be payment of Members they should all be paid. Again, they had the statement of the Prime Minister that he believed in the absolute equality of all Members in that House, and that it would be most detrimental and most damaging if they were to alter that equality and place men on a different footing. It seemed to him, therefore, that practically the unanimous opinion of the House was against any scheme by which some Members should be paid and some Members should not be paid. As to the argument that the dignity of Members would be lowered by payment, he never heard it argued that the dignity of a Cabinet Minister was lowered by his receiving £5,000 a year. He had never heard it argued that a Junior Lord of the Treasury had his dignity lowered by receiving £1,000 a year; and he believed some offices carried with them a lower pay than that. They thus saw that the question of degree was recognised. The services of a Cabinet Minister were considered to be worth £5,000 a year; of a Junior Lord of the Treasury £1,000 a year, and they had only to push this a little further, and they would get the certain value of the services of all Members of that House, and this was what he wished to see done. He wanted to see this principle extended. It was no new idea that remuneration should be given for public services; it already existed, and he wanted to see this idea and principle extended to all the Members of that House, because he did not believe it would lower the dignity or the standard of honour, or the standard of Members, if such a thing were done. As to the argument of cost, he could hardly regard that as a very serious objection when he saw that the House could vote thousands upon thousands to take over some tract of uncivilised country in Central Africa, or to send some expedition through miles of trackless deserts. In face of these facts, he did not see how it could be urged that the State would suffer in doing what many of the poorer States of the world did—namely, paying those who
        1088
        devoted their lives to the service of the State. He believed that in every other civilised country in the world Members of Parliament were paid. It was argued that if English Members were paid the door would be opened to the same frauds and practices that prevailed on the Continent and in other places. He did not think this would really be the effect. The effect would be that they would no longer hear those taunts, jeers, and jibes which had been thrown out against some hon. Members of that House on account of their poverty, and on account of their receiving money to help them to retain their seats. It was said that if Members were paid men who were adventurers—men of straw—would get into the House. No doubt there would be a certain number of these men, but they would be a small minority, and unfortunately they saw that such men could get in under the present system. They had been rare in the past, and he could not see that by paying Members they would get in more of them in the future. He maintained that candidates should be chosen from the largest possible constituency; the greatest number of men who had the ability should be able to offer themselves as Representatives for that House; but they were not able to do so under the present system. Many men were kept out on account of the cost of living. They had enough money to live on when in the country, but not enough to pay the extra cost of being a Representative of the people. The door should be open to as many men as possible to enter that House. The adoption of the Resolution he proposed would open the door to a great many more labour candidates. No one would deny that the present Labour Representatives in the House were among its brightest ornaments. At present, if a labour candidate desired to enter Parliament, he had first to get some strong Union to support him and subscribe sufficient money to keep him here. A man kept in this way was not half so free and independent as he would be if kept by the State. If he were paid by the State, at the end of a Parliament he would be able to appeal not to a Trade Union, but to the general body of his constituents, and would be judged not by one unpopular vote which he might have given, but by all his votes. He believed,

        1089
        too, a great many more Local Representatives would be returned. At present a great many local men, eminently fitted to represent the wants and needs of their constituents, were unable to bear the expense of keeping up the position of a Member of Parliament in London, and so were debarred from entering. The consequence was, that frequently what was known as a "carpet-bagger" came down whom the constituency never heard of, and he got returned, having no knowledge whatever of local needs and requirements; and he submitted that it would be for the vast good of the community and the great benefit of Parliament that a great many more local men should be returned. The principle of the payment of Members was recognised and in force in all our Colonies. They had the opinion of Mr. Munro, who said that in Australia payment of Members had been a success, and, speaking from personal experience of New Zealand politics, he was able to say that in that island it had been a most unqualified success, and had tended to keep thoroughly good men in the House of Representatives. A great deal of cant bad been talked on this subject. Let them clear their minds of this, and consider exactly under the present system who was supported and who was not supported. Nearly every younger son in that House was supported. There was a legend of a great nobleman who, before Home Rule became prominent, thought the Liberal Party was going a little too fast—this, he might remark, was not an altogether uncommon feeling with great noblemen—and the result of his decision was to affect throe seats in this House. Could the younger sons of the great noblemen and brewers vote really as they pleased on such subjects, for example, as bimetallism and local option? No; most assuredly they could not. They were all passed sound before they entered that House, and he maintained they could not give a free and independent vote upon any of these questions. He might, be asked what rate of remuneration would he fix for a Member of Parliament? That seemed to him to be a matter for subsequent consideration if that Resolution was accepted. He would not be a believer in a large rate of remuneration, which would make it worth a man's while to become a Member of
        1090
        that House simply for the sake of getting his pay, but he would advocate such a rate of remuneration as would enable a labouring man to keep a proper appearance in that House. He would give the amounts that were paid in one or two of our Colonies and elsewhere. In New Zealand £100 a year was paid and a free pass over the railways; in Canada and Queensland £2 2s. a day; in South Australia, £200; in Victoria, £300; and in the United States—where they did everything on a large scale—they paid the exorbitant rate of £1,000 a year. He should be disposed to recommend something nearer the pay in the Colonies than that which existed in the United States. Then there was the question how should this be got? He maintained it could be put on the Budget. The Chancellor of the Exchequer might differ with him, and say that it would be necessary to have a Bill. The difference between passing a Bill and putting it on the Budget seemed to him to be this: If it was done by a Bill "another place" would have a say in it; if by the Budget "another place" would not. He could see no possible reason why "another place" should have a voice in what remuneration should be given to Members who represented the people. He wanted to explain one word in his Resolution with which he believed a good deal of fault had been found. It was the word "forthwith." Well, he need not say that "forthwith" might not mean absolutely at once. For instance, it did not mean that night; it did not mean before Easter; it did not necessarily mean this Session; but it did mean as soon as the Government could possibly find time to introduce a Bill respecting this question or to place a charge on the Budget. It meant the very soonest possible time. His idea was that the present time was the best, and he would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether the charge could not be placed on the Budget this year. He begged to move the Resolution.
        MR. DALZIELin seconding the Resolution, said he thought that Members of the House who, in season and out of season, had attached supreme importance to this reform might feel eminently gratified at the very favourable position which it now occupied. In past years when the sub-

        1091
        ject was brought under the attention of the House by the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division (Mr. Fenwick), to whose devotion to the subject the great progress that had been made was largely due, his voice was as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. But it would seem that every reform, political or social, had to undergo various vicissitudes of fortune. First, it was the fad of the faddist; then it became a subject deserving of public inquiry, and, finally, it became a subject for legislative treatment. He thought they could claim for this question that it had reached the final stage; and in bringing forward the subject that night, they demanded and claimed that it should be removed out of the region of Abstract Resolutions, and forthwith be a subject of legislative treatment. They might urge this Resolution on the acceptance of the House simply because it was the reversion to an ancient constitutional practice, but it was not necessary for them to invite history to supply reasons for this Resolution. They were content it should stand or fall upon considerations of justice and expediency. They rested their Resolution upon two propositions: The first was, that under the system of non-payment, representative Government in its true sense was impossible; and the second was, that the public service was deserving of public pay. What was the mode by which candidates were elected at the present time? What was the first question that was thought of when the candidate was going to be elected? Did it concern his knowledge of political questions? Did it concern his fitness to serve in a public capacity? The House knew that it did not. The extent of his social power was infinitely of more importance than his capacity to serve the State. He said without hesitation that in his opinion, with the average Political Associations throughout the country, when a candidate was to be selected, the size of his bank balance was of infinitely more importance, than the size of his brain. Therefore, they said in so many words to the constituencies at the present time, "We acknowledge the supremacy of your political power. By your Totes you may make or unmake Parliaments; you may determine the fate of nations; but in the exercise of your power we make one condition with you and upon that condition we insist, and it is this:
        1092
        that in the exercise of your power you shall choose Representatives only from the professional, from the leisured, and from the wealthy classes." And what was the result? The result was, although he did not overlook the fact, that at the present time they had men in that House who were outside the classes he had named, yet he said those men were there at the cost of pecuniary sacrifice on the part of a section only of their constituents, and that they were there as Representatives of a Trade Organisation, and so unfair was the present system that they condemned those Organisations to a perpetual fine in order that the interests of labour might be even slightly represented in that House. The principle of payment for the public service was one that stood apart entirely from what was done, or might be done, by different Trade Organisations. They said that, there was no absolute defence of gratuitous public service in Parliament. He knew a great deal of respect existed for it, and, he thought, rightly so, because in one respect it was an indication of public spirit that they might well be proud of. When this question was last before the House of Commons, the present Leader of the Opposition contended that if Members of Parliament were remunerated even to a small extent it would strike a blow at this whole system of unremunerative service. Well, he admired the right hon. Gentleman's teaching; but he was sorry he limited it so in its application. Why was it so reprehensible for a private Member to receive a salary, and so admissible on the part of hon. Gentlemen who might sit on the Front Bench? If this system of unremunerative service was such an excellent thing, why were hon. Gentlemen who sat on the Front Bench opposite so anxious to get down from the lofty pinnacle of unremunerative service to the dirty ditch of paid representation? He invited hon. Gentlemen who opposed the Motion to show by what law of consistency this principle was right for Front Benchmen and wrong for private Members sitting on that (the Liberal) side of the House. There were on the Paper Amendments numerous and interesting to this Resolution. The second Amendment on the Paper was by the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones). He saw, with considerable

        1093
        regret and surprise, that an hon. Member, rejoicing in such a good democratic name, should have given notice of such an anti-democratic Amendment. When he saw that Amendment, he wondered whether the hon. Member had entirely forgotten the life and work of Ernest Jones, and he wondered if he had ever heard of such a document as the Charter? There were six points in the Charter. They had got two of them, and the payment of Members was the third, which they hoped they would soon obtain. When the hon. Member led the attack, so to speak, against the proposal, they were entitled to have less respect than ever for the law of heredity. The hon. Member was concerned about the efficiency of Parliament, but was he quite sure that the efficiency of Parliament was now in an ideal state? Did he think the present state of the efficiency of Parliament was incapable of improvement? The case for the Motion rested, to a very largo extent, on improved efficiency, and one result of the Resolution would be that the efficiency of Parliament would be improved. Under a system of payment of Members, Parliament would be less of a rhetorical forum, and a little more of a legislative machine. There was another Amendment to which he would briefly refer, and that was one which had been given notice of by the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Roby). The hon. Member seemed to believe in a system of payment of Members, but would strangle it in its application. He would tell the hon. Member that, so far as he was concerned—and he thought on this point he could speak on behalf of some hon. Friends who sat round him—that they would rather 20 times over have no payment at all than have a miserable, petty system which would allow a certain sum annually for Members of Parliament not, forsooth, because of services to the State, but because they had the misfortune to be poor. They wanted no distinction, so far as social position was concerned, in that House, and the hon. Member had better ponder a little longer before he acted up to this high spirit of political morality. He was concerned as to the attitude the Ministerial Bench were going to adopt towards this question. It had been suggested they were going to "shy" at the word "forthwith." He
        1094
        did not know whether there was any truthin that rumour or not. Personally, he could not believe it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, if he might, use the term, had been a consistent stalwart on this question, and had recognised the importance of it. For himself, he felt considerable surprise that no allusion whatever was made to this important question in the Queen's Speech; and some friends of his, who thought they were more in the secrets of the Cabinet than he was, suggested that perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made such plans as would make mention of the subject in the Queen's Speech altogether unnecessary. During the last few days their anticipations in this respect had been blotted out and their hopes destroyed. They had it on the highest constitutional authority in that House that a question of this character could not be dealt with in the Budget. He thought they might fairly say that while they regretted this reform could not come probably for some time, yet they were prepared to say they were not anxious that this question should be smuggled through the House. They wanted the House to discuss the question and to have a fair opportunity of giving its verdict with regard to it. He thought they were entitled to ask from the Front Bench for a declaration that they recognised the importance of the question, and that at the earliest possible moment, consistent with their public declarations, they would deal with this question. He had never denied that the reception this question would receive from the House must be very largely determined by the attitude which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen took of the functions and capabilities of that House. If the House of Commons was to be behind the age instead of abreast of the age, the case for that Motion was not of such a pressing character as he and his colleagues had been endeavouring to urge; but if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen recognised that, so far as political situation was concerned, the extension of political power had completely altered the duties of that House, he thought they would be prepared to admit that the case for the payment of Members was of a pressing character. As soon as they were able to throw off the Hibernian incubus which was upon them, they would have to face

        1095
        the several questions which were being discussed throughout the country to-day, and in facing these problems it was of the utmost importance that they should open the door of Parliament wide and make it possible for the best minds of the nation to enter the House, so that they might arrive at a just and proper solution of these problems. He hoped there would be no misunderstanding of the issue. Those who voted against the Motion would be denying the right of the constituencies to select their Representatives from any and every class. They would be upholding and supporting a system of class representation, of sectional representation, and of misrepresentation. Those, on the other hand, who would vote in support of the Motion would favour giving to the constituencies the widest possible field for the selection of their Members. They would declare that capacity to serve the State was not the monopoly of any section of the community, and they would say to any man, however poor in pocket, however humble in station, and provided he was equipped with the confidence of his constituency, that he should not be debarred by any artificial or unnatural restriction from realising what was the just and legitimate ambition of citizenship—the right to sit in that House and to contribute, however imperfectly, to its deliberations and its decisions.
        Amendment proposed,
        To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "as the principle of gratuitous public service upon which the representation of this House is at present based limits the freedom of constituencies in the selection of their Representatives, this House is of opinion that a reasonable allowance should forthwith be granted to all Members of Parliament,"—(Mr. William Allen,)
        —instead thereof.
        Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
        ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, they had listened with interest to the two admirable speeches—so far as any speech could be admirable—on this question from hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. They were all very glad to have hon. Gentlemen professing strong Radical views come and express their opinions on the floor of the House, where they could be answered, instead of airing them on public platforms outside.
        1096
        The last speaker said he and his hon. Friends did not want sympathy; the Opposition could assure him that he would not get sympathy on that side of the House, at any rate. The hon. Member said, in dealing with the question, that the Government had already too much cargo on board. He (Admiral Field) entirely agreed with him. They could well understand that the Government smiled on the efforts of the hon. Gentleman who took charge of this Resolution, for he had relieved them of the considerable duty of having to bring out this new item in the Newcastle Programme. They were getting the Newcastle Programme unfolded to them by slow degrees. The other night they had the Parish Councils—a piece of legislation of the prickly pear description. There was no doubt a very nice piece of fruit inside so long as they first could got through the pricks. Now to-night they had another prickly pear out of the Newcastle Programme. He had listened with much attention to the arguments advanced by the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Motion, and he was bound to say he delivered a most excellent speech; but as regarded argument or reason in favour of his proposal, they were entirely absent. The hon. Member said that if some Members were to be paid, then all must be paid. He understood, in saving that, the hon. Member was doing violence to the opinion of the Leader of the House, if they might judge from what they road in the papers. The Leader of the House proposed that only that amount should be paid to bring up the income of a person to £400 a year. [Cries of" No, no!"] He (Admiral Field) had no moans of knowing other than what he had read in the papers. He understood the hon. Gentleman and those who sat by his side and keenly supported the Motion had taken exception to the proposal. [Cries of: He never made it!] He (Admiral Field) was stating what he read in the newspapers. He understood that hon. Gentlemen, dissatisfied with that proposal, make a counter proposal that every person should receive £280 a year and a free railway pass. He took it from the hon. Gentleman, on his own showing, that if some Members were paid, then all should be paid. If the Members of that House were paid, then the Members of the other House must be paid. The hon. Gentleman had taken the

        1097
        Colonies as an example, but in the Colonies those who sat in the Council were also paid. [A VOICE: They are elected.] He had been to all those Colonies, and he knew them as well as the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member had stated that they now paid their Members, but it was only recently that New South Wales had brought in a measure for that to be done. Ten years ago that was not done, but it was now. The reason was not far to seek. In young communities, which were self-governing, men could not leave their business to undertake Slate duties unless they were compensated for the absence from their work. In an old country the case was entirely different. ["No!"] He emphasised the remark, and said that in an old country the case was entirely different. [Cries of"No!"] The hon. Gentleman alluded to the early stages of our history, when Members of Parliament were paid. No doubt there were sufficient reasons for payment of Members in those days. In those days, as in all young communities, we had no accumulated wealth. In America Members were paid, and would continue to be paid, until, by lapse of time, men had accumulated sufficient wealth. It was only the few people who accumulated wealth in America. As soon as wealth was greater the constituences, would have larger choice, and then payment of Members would be a thing of the past. The proposal which had been made to-night was a stop backward and not forward. The hon. Gentleman said there was a great deal of cant talked on this question. He (Admiral Field) thoroughly agreed with that observation. There was a great deal of cant talked about it. Whether he offended anyone or not he cared not, but he spoke his mind on this question. He had as much respect for the working man as for any other man in this country, and no more. He was neither better nor worse than other people. He (Admiral Field) objected to the idea that working men, because they were poor, were the best form of representative for a great country like England, and therefore we ought to change our customs and laws because the working men, who earned their wages, ought to be introduced into the House. Members were not chosen to this House because they were rich or poor. A man ought to be chosen as the Representative
        1098
        of a constituency because he was a wise man, and because he had something better than wisdom—because he was a man of character, because he was a man of probity and honesty, and also because he was a man of culture and a man of education. In dealing with the interests of a great Empire, it was not ignorance they wanted, although it might be coupled with honesty and integrity; what they wanted in this great Chamber was men of culture and education, as well as men of wisdom, and character and honesty. He was sick of the idea, as the hon. Gentleman said, that the doors of the House ought to be thrown open. God knows they were thrown wide open enough! There was a great mixture of all classes in that House already. There were a great many in it he would like to see out of it. There was no hindrance at the present time to a wise man, a man of character, a man of education, entering the House if a constituency had the mind to return him. Take the case of Professor Fawcett. That hon. and most distinguished man was returned to the House, and his election expenses were always paid. That distinguished man introduced a Bill to cast election expenses on the rates, but he was never rash enough to propose that Members of Parliament should be paid salaries for being Members of the House. The two hon. Gentlemen who had spoken on the Motion were very desirous of having representatives of labour in the House. To judge from the speeches of hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House no one was fit to sit in the House unless he was as poor as a rat and as ignorant as a mouse. The hon. Member said it was a misfortune to be poor. Yes, and he (Admiral Field) was beginning to think it was a misfortune to be rich, judging by the taunts that were levelled at men who had wealth, acquired or inherited, and who are trying to use their wealth for good purposes. The hon. Gentleman laid great stress on New Zealand as an example. As he (Admiral Field) had already pointed out, it was a necessity that Members of Parliament out there should be paid, because they could not leave their business to serve their country. New Zealand was an exceptional case. The distances were so great from point to point that they had to change the capital from Aukland to Wellington, so that the Members might better attend to their

        1099
        duties. New Zealand was a bad illustration for the hon. Gentleman to quote in support of this argument. There were geographical reasons why Members there should be paid. He would be quite willing that those Members of this House who had to come a long distance—several had to cross the Channel—should receive something for their expenses. Now, the hon. Gentleman asked that the expense of paying Members should be put on the Budget by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The hon. Member would rather have it on the Budget, because, if the matter were introduced by way of a Bill, the other House would have a voice, but he (Admiral Field) did not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer was very likely to do that. If the proposal were to be brought forward by the Government no doubt it would be in the shape of a Bill. He did not think, however, a Bill would be brought forward this Session. They had already too much work. What with revolutionary changes of one kind and another, they had enough work to last them this Session without taking up this thorny question of the payment of Members. If the Resolution of the hon. Gentleman was adopted, where were they going to draw the line? If they paid Members of Parliament, they must pay Members of the House of Lords; they must go further, and all members of the County Council must be paid, members of Boards of Guardians must be paid, and also members of School Boards, and the members of their new District and Parish Councils. Here would be a chance for the poor working man. The meetings were to be held at night-time, and, of course, they could not allow the poor man to lose his overtime when harvest was on by sitting on Parish Councils; so they were to be paid all round. [A VOICE: "Why not?"] The thing had only to be examined to see that the proposal bordered on the ridiculous. There was an abundance of men with first-class education, men of culture, men of accumulation of wealth, who were proud to serve the country for nothing. As long as the nation had men of that kind it seemed to him a startling proposition that they should insult them by offering to pay them. Oh! it was a lovely Radical idea. He always found his Radical friends most lofty economists except when it was a case of dealing with
        1100
        the payment of themselves. Then the hon. Member referred to the Members of the Government. He said that because Ministers were paid Members ought to be paid. But the Members of the Executive Government devoted their whole time to their work. [A VOICE: "Question."] Well, they do, or ought to do, and it was a different thing, therefore, to pay Members of the Executive Government for their services and paying ordinary Members. They had selected the highest talent from amongst their Body. He hoped they were satisfied with what they had got. If they were satisfied, the Opposition had no right to complain. They had some clever men in their Executive Government, but the Opposition would have cleverer men when they got into power. His side, then, did not grudge Ministers their salaries; but they did not argue that because Ministers were paid that Members who came there partly for the sake of the honour of coming there and partly for the desire to be useful in their way and generation—men who go about like butterflies or bees from flower to flower, with a delight in being of service—should be paid also. They said that there was no analogy between paying Members of the Government and paying Members of the House generally. If this Resolution should be carried by an accidental majority, as it might possibly be, it will not lead to a Bill being passed this Session or for many Sessions to come. He had, as he had said already, as much respect for working men as any Members of this House. He said that they were neither better nor worse than other people. He should be pleased to see them in the House whenever constituencies chose to return them. But the hon. Member spoke also about the existence of class representation. I should like on that point to quote an extract from a letter by the late Mr. John Bright. The letter was written in 1875. Mr. Bright was appealed to in a case in which there was a workman candidate who divided the Liberal vote. The Liberals were angry; they always were angry in such cases. Mr. Bright wrote—
        "I object to a candidate being chosen only or mainly because he is a working man—"
        [Ministerial cheers.] Hon. Members profess to agree with that statement, but those who advocated this policy of pay-

        1101
        ment of Members did it to get Labour Members into this House. Mr. Bright said—
        "I object to a candidate being chosen only or mainly because he is a working man, and that I should I be expected to vote for him for the same reason. I do not vote for a candidate because he is of the middle class or of high family connections, and I refuse to be under an obligation to vote for a man because he belongs to some one class or section of the community."
        [Cheers and counter cheers.] If the hon. Gentlemen opposite cheered those views, it was a pity that their spokesmen did not emphasise the opinion that class representation should not be aimed at. The doors of Parliament were open now; and if a man could not enter without assistance, it was for the locality he represented to provide that assistance. If they wanted the law changed, why should it not be in the direction of giving localities the power to tax themselves for the purposes of their Parliamentary representation if they choosed? But to tell 670 Members of Parliament that they were all to receive £300 or £400 a year, whether they needed it or not, or whether they desired it or not, was absurd. But would they stop at £300? The practice of the United States had been referred to. He presumed they would not be less generous than the Americans. They would wish to offer £1,000 a year. Then they would propose to pay 670 Members £1,000 a year simply because there were about 10 representatives of labour constituencies, 10 Labour Members, who did not come there without assistance. The proposition had only to be described for its absurdity to be apparent, and it was a proposition which he was sure Parliament and the country would never endorse.
        MR. RATHBONEsaid, he need not detain the House long. It would take very few words to make clear his contention, that there was no necessity for departing from the general practice and noble principle of English public life, whether in Parliament, in the Municipal Council, in the Vestry, or on the Bench—that it was at once the privilege and the duty of those who were possessed of means and leisure, whether great or small, to use them, as far as they could afford it, in the public service, without fee or reward; and, further, to show that neither in principle or in fact was it, or
        1102
        had it been felt to be a disgrace to those who could not serve their country without earning a maintenance in such service, and that such payment had not created, and would not create, any division in the House and in public opinion between those who received such payment and those who did not. He held that payment should be made to those Members who required it to enable them to servo their country in Parliament; but it appeared to him monstrous that the taxpayers of this country should be called upon to pay men like himself for public service, when they owed to their fellow-countrymen and to their country far more than they could ever hope to repay, and when they were not only willing but anxious to work out a part of that debt by public service in Parliament or anywhere else. Did any man contend that wealth and leisure and cultivation and ability were a moral freehold which he was at liberty to use solely for the selfish interest of himself and his family, and not a trust which he was bound, as far as he could, to use in the public service as well? Did not the higher tone and the purity of public life in this country as compared with most others, even with that enlightened Republic, the United States of America, largely arise from this recognition of public duty, and the feeling that a man, whatever his rank was, could not claim the highest title to respect, until he could demand it, through having rendered some gratuitous service to his fellow-countrymen. Look around on both sides of the Atlantic! Do they wish to see such scandals here as had become notorious—even among our own race—both in our Colonies and in the United States? As far as his observation entitled him to judge, it did not seem to him that this general payment of Members had been conducive to purity and public spirit elsewhere. He did hope that this unpaid devotion of time and labour and thought to the public service would continue to be largely the rule in English affairs. He maintained, and he thought he could prove, that this was quite consistent with their providing (and he thought they were bound to provide) means that the choice of the constituencies, and of the working classes especially, should not be limited to those who could afford gratuitous services, and that this can be accomplished without dividing the House into

        1103
        two classes, or throwing any discredit (except in the minds of mere worshippers of wealth) on those who accepted such an allowance. Did the hon. Member for Morpeth, or the hon. Member for Bethnal Green, or the hon. Member for Wansbeck, or other Labour Members of the House, or Mr. Broadhurst, feel themselves in any way humiliated by receiving some such payment, or had they been less respected by the House, or by any Member of it, on account of such payment? Had not the Labour Members of the House been felt to be among its most respected Members, and listened to with most careful attention? Certainly, no set of men had shown themselves less anxious 1o profit by their position as Members, in obtaining social distinction or collateral gain of any sort by it. No one thought or asked about these men, whether they received such payment or not. And now he would quote a precedent which, though not precisely the same, was in principle strictly applicable to this case. He believed a Cabinet Minister, after he had served a certain time, if he ceased to receive public money as a Cabinet Minister, had a right to demand an allowance—he believed it was some £2,500 yearly—if such an allowance was necessary to maintain his position in Parliament while out of office. Did anyone ever cast it up against Mr. Disraeli—perhaps the most honoured Loader of the Conservative Party of recent years—that he had accepted that allowance? And did anybody care to inquire which Ministers had thought it right to accept it, as long as it was necessary for the maintenance of their position? It did not divide ex-Ministers into two classes, and it would not divide Parliament into two classes. He ventured to assert that if there were any men seeking the suffrages of their fellow-countrymen as Members of Parliament, who were so weak and foolish as to care for the opinion of anyone—if such existed in the House—so mean and contemptible as to think the worse of a man for not having wealth enough to serve the public without reasonable payment for his time and maintenance, then he hoped the working classes of this country, guided in the future as they had been in the past by a wise instinct in the choice of men to represent them, would say that such weaklings were not safe or worthy to represent the manly, self-respecting classes of this country in Par-
        1104
        liament. They would be the very men most open to the influence of social position or office or other allurements. A fatal objection to the proposed Resolution was that it postponed indefinitely what he thought ought to be carried at once. He believed that a provision, limited to the payment of those Members who required it, might be carried at once, as they all admitted that the strength and character of the House would be not only maintained but improved if they could see a larger infusion into it of men similar to those working-men Representatives whom they had hitherto seen in the House, and who, with very few exceptions, had, he repeated, tended to raise and strengthen the position and character of the House. Therefore, if the Forms of the House would permit him, he begged to move as an Amendment to the Motion—
        To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and add "while otherwise maintaining the principle of gratuitous public service in Parliament by those able and willing to render it, arrangements should be adopted similar in principle to those existing for ex-Ministers of the Crown, in order to meet the case of those who cannot without reasonable allowance serve their country in Parliament."
        MR. C. FENWICKsaid that, as he had taken some interest in this question ever since he had obtained a seat in the House, he wished to offer a few observations upon it. He was exceedingly glad that the subject in which he had taken so much interest for several years had now found so many more able supporters than himself that he could afford to quietly listen. He should like, however, to say a few words with reference to some observations which fell from the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Admiral Field) opposite, whose speeches were always exhilarating, but who had never delivered one more exhilarating than his speech that evening. The hon. and gallant Member said, "You want no sympathy, and you will get none from us." He was sure that the hon. and gallant Member, at all events, would be the last man in the House to deny them a simple act of justice. They did not ask for sympathy—they asked simply for justice in the matter. Again, the hon. and gallant Member said that there was a lot of cant talked about Working-men Representatives, and that they had no more right to enter the House than any other men. But the hon. and gallant

        1105
        Member would surely not deny that they had, at least, as much right as any other men to enter the House of Commons. If as much were admitted, then his contention was, that if they made arrangements whereby a certain class of Representatives could sit in the House and discharge their duties to their constituencies and receive remuneration for their services oven in the capacity of private Members, other private Members were equally entitled to an extension of that principle. That principle had already been acknowledged by the House, and was now acted upon in the case of many hon. Members who were serving in the House in the capacity of private Members. He might be told that the hon. and gallant Members to whom he referred received their remuneration for services rendered in one or other branch of the country's defence, but they would not deny that while they were in the House they were exempted from duties they would otherwise have to discharge, and his contention was that while ostensibly these hon. and gallant Members were paid for services in either the Army or the Navy, yet, as they were, when in the House, exempt from the discharge of public duties, they were in reality paid for representing their constituencies. The hon. and gallant Member said that if private Members were paid in one House, they must be paid in both Houses. He should not object to that if the Members of the other House would submit themselves to the verdict of the constituencies. But there was one very strong reason in favour of the payment of Members which in the many Debates on the subject bad never been courageously faced or effectively or logically answered by the opponents of the principle, and that was, that the working-men were the only class in the country who, in order to secure Parliamentary representation, were compelled to directly tax themselves for that privilege. He considered that Members were there to discharge a duty to their constituents and collectively to the country, and that their right to sit in the House and legislate was in no sense whatever a privilege that was conferred upon them as individuals. That being so, he maintained that the country had a right to pay for that service. When they remembered that Members were drawn from various parts of the United Kingdom, some at very considerable
        1106
        expenses for travelling, coming 500 or 600 miles for the discharge of their duties, it must be admitted that great inequalities existed between Member and Member such as did not exist—and he challenged contradiction on the point—in any other legislative country in the world. Then, again, no logical argument could be urged why a distinction should be drawn between private and official Members of the House. He was glad to have as an authority on that point the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, who, he was sorry to see, was not then in his place. The right hon. Gentleman, in an article on the labour question in the Nineteenth Century of November last year, said, dealing with this subject—
        "There is no conclusive reason why Members of Parliament should not be paid like Members of the Government, and we know that this is the practice in almost every other representative Legislature."
        He was sorry that in the able and conclusive argument set forth by the right hon. Gentleman in favour of payment of Members, the right hon. Gentleman should have thought fit to insinuate with regard to certain hon. Gentlemen who, like himself, claimed to be direct representatives of labour, that their interest in this question arose largely from personal motives, and because of the difficulties which he said their eagerness to serve the State had brought them into. Their eagerness to serve their constituents had brought them into no difficulties for which they needed to blush or to hang their heads. For himself he would say—and he trusted he was saying what was true of his colleagues—that their readiness to serve the constituencies which they had the honour to represent in the House was not born of any selfish motive. They had been called by men whose confidence they possessed, and they could not refuse to obey the call. It could not be gainsaid that the present practice of gratuitous representation did restrict the constituencies in their choice of candidates, and he hoped that whatever might be the position taken up by the Government to-night they would not lend their sympathy to any proposal for the partial payment of Members. It would at once set up an invidious distinction between Member and Member which could not be tolerated. He did not

        1107
        for a moment deny that hon. Gentlemen of wealth who represented constituencies in the House would welcome a large number of Labour Representatives. That was an opinion which was generally held on both sides of the House. But at the time of a General Election, what would be the position of the working man? Men of wealth would, of course, be anxious to secure the plum. There would be men of wealth and labour candidates running side by side, and great capital would be made out of the fact that if one man were returned, he would require remuneration from the State, and if the other were returned he would be able to support himself. He sincerely hoped, therefore, that the Government would not favour any system of partial payment. If they could not see their way to adopt the principle of the Motion, he hoped they would reject all the Amendments.
        MR. ATHERLEY-JOXESsaid, he would not be guilty of the impertinence of intruding his own individuality on the House by replying to the somewhat personal observations of the hon. Member the Seconder of the Resolution, but he could assure that hon. Member, as he could assure his brother Liberals, that it was not from any disloyalty to the principles of Democracy that he occupied the position in relation to the Amendment that he occupied tonight. He frankly admitted that it was with reluctance he opposed the Resolution. Payment of Members had long been a cardinal article of the Liberal Creed, and his hon. Friend was quite right in reminding him—though he did not require reminding—that it was one of the points in the People's Charter. But conditions had changed since the Chartist Programme was formulated. In those days the House of Commons was composed almost exclusively of members of the landed aristocracy. In those days it was almost impossible for a man to get access to the House of Commons unless he was possessed of fabulous wealth. But now they need only look at the Benches on either side of the House to see that the condition of things had completely changed, and that there was now no real bar to the entry to the House of any honest, though humble, man. Even on the Front Benches—at any rate, on the Ministerial Front Bench—there were marked illustrations of how men had
        1108
        risen, and deservedly risen, to the highest position in the State who owed nothing to birth, rank, or wealth. But his hon. Friend had adverted to the historical view of this question, and he had said that in ancient times in England there was payment of Members But the circumstances under which payment of Members existed then were totally different to what obtained now. The cost of attending Parliament was great, and there was no wealthy class outside the nobility and the higher clergy, and the honour of a seat in the House was practically nil, as the House had nothing to do but register the decrees of the Sovereign and vote subsidies at his command. As soon as the position of Member of Parliament became one of honour and dignity, the payment of Members disappeared, the last instance being, he thought, at Hull in 1681. Reference had been made to what obtained in the Colonies and in foreign countries. In foreign countries the payment of Members did not by any means generally obtain. Where it did obtain it was a survival of mediaeval times. ["No, no!"] Yes, with the solitary exception of France it was so. In the German Parliament, in the Hungarian, in the most democratic Parliament of Europe—namely, the Parliament of Italy, there was no payment of Members whatever. In regard to those Parliaments in which Members were paid, he would give a few figures. In Denmark the payment was 7s. 6d. a day for three months of the year; in Norway it was 13s. 4d. for three months in the year; in Portugal it was £80 a year; and in the Netherlands £150. In no country except France did the payment of Members, so far as he had been able to ascertain, amount to anything more than a nominal sum, which could not in the slightest degree operate upon persons as an inducement to become Members. What was the position with regard to America and our Colonies? They found that in the American House of Representatives men were paid the prodigious sum of £1,000 a year, but the reason of that payment was the distance which men had to travel and the absence of a leisure class, which made it absolutely necessary that men should receive payment. Without payment it would be absolutely impossible to get Members to attend. They would not leave their businesses—it might be thousands of miles away—unless they

        1109
        received a handsome remuneration. The same thing applied in the Colonies with more or less force, and, of course, as the House was aware, in the Colonies the payment of Members only dated back from the year 1869. Therefore, he submitted to the House that no inference in favour of the Resolution could be drawn from historical precedents. He did not suppose hon. Members contended that there ought to be payment of Members for the sake of getting good men in the House. It was argued that the constituencies should have a freer hand and to enable them to elect working men, who at present were excluded. Was that not really at the bottom of the whole matter—namely, the contention that the working classes were at present excluded from representation? But if they gave a man £300 a year, the area of choice would be left as limited as ever. ["No, no!"] Yes; they would not get a middle-class man to neglect his business—a man who was bent on making a fortune—and come up to serve in the House of Commons for the sake of a paltry £300 or £400 or £500 a year. Therefore, the area of choice would still be limited; and, again, he submitted that the root of this argument was to be found in the contention that the working classes were excluded from the House of Commons. He gladly recognised the admirable character of the speech to which they had just listened, and he frankly admitted to the hon. Member and the House that if he thought the payment of Members would load to working men being brought into the House of Commons in larger numbers, instead of walking into the Lobby against the Resolution, he would support it. But he did not think there was any warranty for the belief either in the experience of foreign countries or from what obtained in England at the present time. Curiously enough, there was only one man sitting in the House at the present moment—the hon. Member for Middlesbrough—who sat there in the capacity of a Labour Representative in the strict sense of the term. He was the only man who had stood on the labour platform solely without combination with any other. ["No, no!"] Well, he should like to have an illustration afforded him to the contrary.
        An hon. MEMBER: You will have it.
        MR. ATHERLEY-JONESsaid, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough was the only Member returned as a labour candidate who was not accepted by the local Liberal Association.
        MR. JOHN BURNS: The hon. Member is misinformed.
        MR. ATIIEULEY - JONESwould ask whether any Liberal candidate had gone to the poll against the hon. Member for Battersea? All the labour candidates who stood on their own bottom, as it were, were rejected with the single exception of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough. What was the inference that was to be drawn from that? It was a melancholy inference—one which, to his mind, was one of the most unhappy signs in the country—namely, that there was no desire for anything like a free election of Labour Representatives in the proper sense of the term. But the same thing was observable in foreign countries and in the Colonies. He believed he was right in saying that there was not a single Labour Representative in the House at Washington.
        An hon. MEMBER: Wrong again.
        MR. ATIIERLEY-JONESsaid, the hon. Member would have an opportunity of contradicting him. He would not pledge himself that there was not a single Labour Representative in the House of Assembly at Washington, but, at any rate, one could count the Labour Representatives in that House on one's fingers. They did not find Labour Members in France, where Members were paid, but they found them in Germany, where there was no payment of Members; and it was effected there through the foundation of institutions for the maintenance and support of such Representatives. If we adopted the system of payment of Members in this country the result would be that we should get the same class in Parliament as they got in France and in our Colonies—briefless barristers, peripatetic lecturers, the secretaries of the thousand-and-one Societies, and journalists. These men would seek election not for the honour of serving their country, but in answer to the advertisement that £300 a year would be paid for their services. It was for that reason that he opposed the Resolution. But it was said that the constituencies would be able to differentiate between the good men and the bad men; but what means had the consti-

        1111
        tuencies to differentiate? They could do so if the candidates were local men; but when there were a multiplicity of candidates, and where in many constituencies they did not get local men and could not get local men, the result would be that, the only means of differentiating would be by the guinea stamp of the caucus bearing the effigy of Mr. Schnadhorst or Mr. Middleton. He did not say that hon. Members came into the House without personal motives of aggrandisement. They had all got their axes to grind, more or less. If a man were a rich landowner or a brewer, he looked for a peerage; if he were a successful merchant, he expected a baronetcy; if he were an energetic and enterprising shopkeeper, he might be contented with a knighthood. Those who were barristers looked forward to Judgeships. But though these motives might have a strong influence, they had not the same overpowering influence as the difference between penury and comparative affluence. If a man came from a condition of comparative squalor and found himself suddenly transported by means of this £300 a year to a neat little villa out in the country with a neat little maidservant, he would hesitate long before he sacrificed that comfort at the promptings of conscience. In 1886 some Members must have known that in voting against Home Rule they were risking their seats, and that the probability was that if once rejected they would never return to the House again. Would men who were dependent on the amount they received as Members of Parliament be likely to act as independently? He sincerely trusted that some means would be found to meet the case of the working men. Organised labour could, if it chose, secure adequate representation in the House, and it would not baffle the wit of man to devise some means by which the great Trade Organisations of the country might be assisted in securing that result. He would not suggest what that assistance should be. In conclusion, he wished to say that it had been the glory and the pride of this country that its citizens in municipal life, or in the wider fields of Imperial politics, freely and ungrudgingly, without fee or reward, gave their services to the State. If the Resolution were embodied in a Bill, and that Bill were passed, all that glory would be gone. To rich
        1112
        Members it might matter little; it would not injure his self-respect, but with the poor man it was different. He would no longer be able to go and look the constituency in the face and say he was actuated by no sordid interests. While with the one hand he received from his constituents the sacred trust of a free and independent Representative, with the other he would take from a State official a purse of gold for which he would sell that freedom.
        MR. JOHN BURNSsaid that occupying, as it was well known he did, practically a unique position with regard to the question of the payment of Members, he ventured to offer a few practical reasons why the House should adopt the Resolution, and not listen to the most reactionary speech of the Member for North West Durham—a most cynical and derogatory speech against the incorruptibility of Parliament, and one which brought Parliamentary representation down to the lowest level it was possible for a public speaker to bring it. When the hon. Member suggested that the House might possibly adopt some scheme for subsidising the Trade Unions he recognised one of the most insidious forms of political corruption it was possible for the House to adopt. If the payment of Members was a bad thing, if it was immoral and pandered to selfish and the lowest personal feeling of men with axes to grind, why did not the Mover of the Amendment take up the logical and consistent attitude of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Admiral Field)—who, however, did not practise what he preached—and be against the payment of Members altogether. He denied altogether that the payment of Members was a survival of mediaeval times. He was inclined to think that as Society progressed, as the time demanded of Members of Parliament increased, so did the necessity for the remuneration of Members of Parliament become more urgent. Honest Andrew Marvell, Hampden, and others, in the most glorious period of the history of that House, received remuneration for their services, and it was not thought dishonourable that they should do so. The references of the hon. Member (Mr. Jones) to America were singularly inappropriate. He ought to have known

        1113
        that in new countries the race for wealth had taken the men who, in this and other countries, had gone into politics and law, and because in America, at the earliest stages of its history, the best men, unfortunately, went in for money-making, and not law-making, was no argument against the Motion, for, as America grew older, these men who had left Parliament and politics for the purpose of making money had returned buck to Parliament and politics and had not renounced the principle of the payment of Members, as the speech of the hon. Member would imply. The hon. and gallant Member for Eastbourne said that this House wanted men of standing, education, and culture. He agreed with the hon, and gallant Gentleman to a great extent, and he hoped and trusted men of standing and culture would always be returned to Parliament, not only in this, but in every other country. The hon. and gallant Gentleman must also admit that "Honour and rank from no condition rise;" but why did he not go a bit farther and say, "Slow rises worth by poverty depressed." They asked for the adoption of this Motion because the poor were deprived of their right, and not their privilege, to get represented on the floor of the House of Commons; because they were too poor to subscribe, in the overwhelming majority of instances, to secure such representation; and even if they were able to subscribe from their limited incomes and paltry earnings, he said, as a matter of duty and principle, they had no right to throw upon one section of the community that burden and that financial pressure that ought to be discharged by the whole community, for whom the Member of Parliament worked in the multifarious duties that he discharged in that House. They were told they required men in that House of accumulated wealth. On the contrary, property had had a monopoly of representation in that House too long. The House of landlords was powerful for evil and was mischievous for good, not by virtue of the character, culture, and standing of the average Member of that House, but because of the fact that that House was composed of men who drew their incomes, and who had accumulated wealth, and who simply were powerful because they had that possession of property that poor men were
        1114
        determined they should not accumulate in the future as they had done in the past. It had been said by many outside that poor men had no right to quarter themselves on the State, and that the payment of Members in other countries had demoralised and corrupted many Legislatures. He altogether denied this. If they traced the history of that House, what did they find? They found that for centuries that House was governed by a number of rich men who derived their incomes from land, and, what was worse, by a number of gentlemen who derived their incomes from what was perhaps the least honourable profession—namely, the law. After them came the manufacturers and capitalists, who, brimming over with patriotism and disinterestedness, sought to sacrifice themselves on the altar of their country, and incidentally had earned an honest penny. This may be denied. But, in spite of this disinterestedness, he saw with regret the other day, when they were discussing a Railway Bill, an hon. Member get up and speak distinctly in the interests of Railway Companies. He found also Directors of Water Companies getting up and defending their particular interests, and he found no disposition on the part of lawyers to simplify legal procedure in a way that was likely to diminish the numbers of the army of the unemployed. But when Labour Members asked for the payment of Members it was implied that they had an "axe to grind." He thought they were justified in asking not only that Labour Members, but that every Member of that House should be paid, and for the reasons he would give. He was prepared to traverse the statement that payment of Members would not lead to honesty, and to prove to that House that attempts had been made even in that young Parliament to corrupt and demoralise Members of the present House simply because they happened to be poor. He had in his hand a letter, copy of which he sent to the Patronage Secretary, and this was the kind of thing which a poor man had to put up with, but to which a rich man was never subjected. This was a request from a commission agent of Belfast, whose name he would not give, and who was seeking the position of collector of Income Tax. He wound up a letter by saying—

        1115
        "Dear Mr. Burns, trusting you will give my most urgent claim your most careful consideration and support, and privately, if you can, secure me the position I seek, I shall be happy to hand you a £50 note for your trouble in pressing my claim on the Government."
        He believed he received the letter because there was a suspicion that his wages fund was depleted, and that he was probably the poorest man in the House. His representative position was insulted, and this attempt was made to corrupt the honour and dignity of that House simply because he would not shelter himself behind that amount, however small it might be, that would stand between a poor man if he was inclined to yield, and this temptation that was put on poor Members. It was needless to say he sent this reply—
        "Dear Sir,—You are an unscrupulous scoundrel. Your villainy is only accentuated, by your contemptible Presbyterian hypocrisy. You can consider yourself fortunate that you are not within reach of my boot."
        If that had been the only letter he had received he should treat it as a somewhat humorous incident, but it was not so. He had with him two out of some 50 or 60 letters that in the past four years, since he had been in receipt of wages from the wages fund, he had received from different men, and which showed they believed that a poor man could be corrupted and demoralised. He had in his hand another letter from an Insurance Company, which offered him £300 a year to lend his name to the Company, to give it ten minutes of his time four days a week, with an office and two clerks placed at his disposal; and the reason assigned for the offer was that the title of "M.P." would induce men of his own class to take up policies in the Company. It was because there were some men who were determined not to betray their representative position, even though payment of Members should not take place, that he said they ran a risk that the House certainly ought to protect them against. Beyond these strong reasons they had another reason for asking for the payment of Members of Parliament. A Member of Parliament to-day had practically to give eight or ten hours a day to his Parliamentary work. He had been in the House for nearly 10 weeks, and his average time of service had been 7¾ hours per day for every day that the House had sat. That
        1116
        meant that Members had hundreds of letters, to answer all of which a poor man like himself could not afford even the postage. Again, they were compelled to neglect many of the interests of their constituents, for the simple reason that they could not afford the secretarial help which payment for their services in the House would enable them to procure. He did not intend to be at all modest on this question. He believed that modesty was only made for those who had no beauty. Four and a-half years ago he was taken from the workshop by his constituents. The bargain they made was that he was to have, for representing them on the Council and subsequently in Parliament, his working wages as an engineer, plus those out-of-pocket expenses, such as postage, telegrams, and travelling necessarily incurred. What did he find now? He found that the wages fund was continually rising and falling, and if anyone thought that an agitator's life was a happy one he should be glad to change positions with him. A man who started to give eight hours' work a day for other people ended by working 18 hours himself. But there might be times when, through trade depression, or through a difference between him and the constituency, or the men who paid him, his wages might be stopped, and he would find his Parliamentary career cut short. Personally, he should go back to the workshop with the greatest pleasure rather than submit to temptations of the character which he had referred to; but they had no right to subject the average poor man who was a Member of that House, or to permit him to be subject, to the probable temptations that unscrupulous men might impose upon him, temptations that would be all the stronger to a lazy man, or a man who was indisposed to go back to the poverty and discomfort of the class to which he belonged. And what was the alternative? He had the alternative of doing what? Of neglecting his duty to his constituency, and becoming, perhaps, what was known as a blackleg journalist, betraying the secrets of his Party for £6 or £10 a week, which he probably would not do if we had that payment of Members that would save him from this dishonourable occupation. Worse than that, he would run the risk of becoming what too frequently some

        1117
        Labour Members bad shown a disposition to do, that was, become a guinea pig, the instrument, the plastic material in the hands of company promoters, and thus offend against the character and dignity of that House. He would further say that such a man might become a Resident director of jerry-built property not 100 miles from a seaport town, and thus prostitute his own position as a leader of the working classes, and bring that House into disrepute by his indirect connection with bogus companies. During the past four years a poor man like himself had been inundated on every side by offers and appeals from Insurance Companies, Melodeon and Concertina Companies, lozenge purveyors, and Building Societies. Insurance Companies were continually trying their best to sap and break down the honour of a poor man who stood in the public position of a Representative of that House. He would give another and a more directly personal reason in favour of the proposal. What right had every rich man to get into his brougham and ride homo at night after sitting till 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning in that House, or the middle-class man to hire a cab, while the poor men, like him, who were determined to crawl through a common sewer on behalf of the working classes who sent them to that House rather than that this class should go unrepresented, had to wade home for miles on foot in the rain, snow, or sleet, because their incomes were insufficient to enable them to ride? It had been said by someone that every officer of the Government was respected just in proportion as his salary happened to be high. He did not altogether believe in that theory; but he did say that the honour of that House demanded a minimum payment for every one of its Members—a payment sufficient for his out-of-pocket expenses, and perhaps for some of his secretarial work. It was nonsense to say that the people were against it. The people were becoming more censorious of the conduct of that House and the action of their Representatives. They knew when their Members were present and when they were absent, and there was no excuse a constituency was inclined to take for the neglect by a Member of Parliament of the business of the affairs of the country. It was
        1118
        because that House was inclined to break down the barriers which kept poor men outside, it was because payment of Members was the political complement of an extended suffrage, that he cordially supported the Resolution moved by the hon. Member, and in the interests of the honour, the dignity, and the incorruptibility of that House, it was its duty to revert to the ancient practice of paying its Members, and he trusted it would say so that night by an almost unanimous vote.
        SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have listened to this most interesting and important Debate with the greatest attention. Everybody in this House has welcomed the speech of, I believe, one of the youngest of its Members, who moved the Resolution, and also the able speech in which it was seconded by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy. I could not hear these speeches without being struck with what has struck me more than once, and that is that, in all the Parliaments I have sat in, and I have sat in many, I have never known a House of Commons which has shown so much ability and capacity in its new Members. I shall not occupy the time of the House at any length, and for this reason, I do not know what I have to answer. What are the speeches made against the Motion? We have had that charming style of quarter-deck argument which we are accustomed to hear always with satisfaction, always with amusement, and sometimes with instruction. I hardly know how to deal with that argument. The hon. and gallant Admiral said that the objects of this Motion would find no sympathy with him or his friends. I am not in the position of the hon. and gallant Admiral on this subject. We have heard one other speech from the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Mr. Atherley-Jones), and I must say, if the character of this House is such as he estimates it, the sooner we introduce some change into its constitution the better. If the Members of the House of Commons are influenced by the motives of so low a character as have been attributed to them, the sooner we try to introduce some other class into it the better. Then, what is said against the Motion? What is to be said in favour of the Motion is so obvious, and has been said so well and so often to-night, that it is unnecessary that

        1119
        I should repeat it. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that practices of this kind were very well for new countries, but that old countries did not require them. I differ altogether from that view of the hon. and gallant Admiral. A country that is worth anything is always renewing its youth, and if an old country is falling into decadence and has not the power nor the inclination to renew its Constitution that country is doomed to decay. Again, I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite, gentlemen who are always declaring their sympathy with democratic principles—I refer especially to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington; he has always declared, and I have no doubt sincerely, his sympathy with the democratic principle—I ask you, do you believe you can adopt democratic principles and admit a democratic suffrage, and then refuse to accept the consequences which naturally follow? This House of Commons has gone through various changes. The unreformed House of Commons represented the wealthy classes of whom it was composed. It was natural, it was inevitable, and you can hardly condemn these men for selfish-Bess, because it belongs to human nature that men should consult the interests of the class to which they belong. But after the Reform Bill the balance of power began to incline towards the middle class in the community, and from that period for half-a-century, no doubt, the interests of the middle classes of the country became, I do not say predominant, but extremely powerful, and properly powerful, in the House of Commons. Do you believe that when abandoning that limited suffrage, that when you gave household suffrage to the people, you would not have a demand from another class to enter the walls of the House of Commons to represent the interests of the class to which they belonged? Those causes are slow in their operation. After the Reform Bill of 1832, it took a good many years for the middle class to become predominant in the House of Commons. It seems to me to be absolutely impossible in the circumstances that you can resist a demand of that character, a demand which seems to be founded, not only in justice, but in the natural and inevitable consequences of your present political constitution. It is one besides which has been adopted in other parts of
        1120
        the world, and, as far as I know, adopted without injury and even with great advantage. [Opposition cries of "Oh, oh! "and "France."] France? I am not at all prepared to say that the unfortunate circumstances that have occurred in France are due to the payment of Members. You may have gigantic bribes equally well in an assembly where there is no payment of members. Before I sit down there is one thing I desire to say. A question has been asked as to whether in this matter there is to be equality of treatment of all. I have no hesitation in saying that that is my opinion. How is it possible, with respect to the dignity of the individuals who are disposed to receive a salary, you can make a distinction, which I believe would be invidious in its character, and which would make their position more difficult in this House. I desire to express that opinion very strongly. I myself see great advantages on the grounds stated by an hon. Member opposite, that there are great social questions coming to the front, that they must be discussed in this House; and I have never believed in the theory which I know is entertained by some people, that you should take the wise and the good in order to administer the affairs of other people. That is the principle of a patronising aristocracy or of a beneficent monarchy; that is not the basis of Representative Government. The principle that lies at the foundation of Representative Government is that you should not have Government for the people, but Government by the people, that each class should be represented. That appears to be an intelligible principle. I know that it is said that because you give men honest wages for honourable work they are likely to become corrupt. That is an opinion I do not entertain. I believe there is nothing in this proposal which is likely to diminish the honour or corrupt the character of this great and famous Assembly, and, therefore, I for one shall heartily vote for this Resolution. Something has been said by the Mover of the Resolution upon the subject of the word "forthwith;" and the reasonable explanation was given that that word meant that this Resolution should take effect as soon as practicable. That is what I understood by the word "forthwith." [Laughter.] I suppose that the hon. Gentlemen who

        1121
        laugh think that measures should be taken to carry it out when it is not practicable. I do not join in that opinion. I feel bound to state, in consequence of what has been said in this Debate and elsewhere, that we are of opinion that tin's is a measure which ought to be carried out by Act of Parliament. We perfectly admit that the proposal is one of serious constitutional change in this country, and it ought to be regarded and dealt with as such. It is not a thing which is to be hurried through by any side-wind or by any bye-stroke. We take the responsibility of accepting the principle on that ground. In respect to the word "forthwith," my hon. Friend must remember that there are two considerations involved in this Motion—one is time and the other is money. I vote for the Motion in the sense given to it by the Mover—that it should be carried out as soon as practicable, when we have at our disposal the time and the money which is necessary. [Opposition laughter.] I really do not understand the hilarity of hon. Gentlemen. Do they expect that this is to be done without time and without money?
        MR. HANBURY: "Forthwith."
        SIR W. HARCOURT: What does the hon. Member imagine "forthwith" means?
        MR. HANBURY: This Session.
        SIR W. HARCOURT: That is not the legal interpretation of the word. "Forthwith" means this instant. However much the hon. Member may deride, I am sure hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House will believe that that assurance is given in good faith. They believe that in accepting this Motion we accept it with the honest intention of carrying it out as soon as we are able to do so. It is in that sense I support the Motion, and I, for my own part, will dc my best in the future to give effect to it.
        MR. G. N. CURZON: Hon. Members who art specially interested in the passing of this Motion and in carrying out the suggestions which it contains will have derived I hope, some consolation from the conclusion of the speech to which we have
        1122
        just listened. We now know that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to carry out this change—to which, for the first time I believe in our history, has been given the assent of the Front Ministerial Bench—as soon as he is in command of the requisite time and money. But are those commodities in which Her Majesty's Government are very rich, and do hon. Members below the Gangway expect an early fruition of their desires? [An hon. MEMBER: Yes!] An hon. Member says "yes," but I recollect that the hon. Member who introduced this Motion had much more accommodating and elastic ideas than the legal interpretation which has been put upon the word "forthwith" by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he was so anxious to get anything from the Government that he is prepared to interpret the word as either this year, or next year, or the year after. The hon. Gentleman appears to me to be not only accommodating but sanguine; but it appears to me there are a good many Members in the House who anticipate that, whatever may happen this year or next year, the year after there will be other occupants of the Front Bench. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he had nothing whatever to answer, but hon. Members on his side of the House have occupied so much time that only one speaker on these Benches has been able to rise. Within the short space of time that I am compelled to compress my remarks, I will endeavour to put before the House the reasons why I cannot vote for the Motion. The right hon. Gentleman based his main support of the proposal upon the ground that it was the logical corollary of the democratic franchise. But when was the democratic franchise first given to this country? In 1867; and yet I find, on referring to Hansard, that the right hon. Gentleman four years afterwards was of an entirely opposite opinion. The right hon. Gentleman told us that if you give payment to Members, the last thing that would be likely to arise was that a charge of corruption could be levelled against any Member of the House. The House will not be surprised to hear that the right horn Gentleman was of an entirely different opinion in 1871. Upon that occasion he said—

        1123
        "Once pay a Member for his votes collectively and he will very soon find a market for his individual votes."
        The House of Commons, which the right hon. Gentleman told us is improving at a great speed, must indeed have rapidly advanced in its moral qualifications, if the fears which the right hon. Gentleman entertained as to its corruptibility 20 years ago are now looked upon as so ridiculous. I must say I waited with consuming interest to hear the really interesting part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech in which he stated the line of policy which he, as the spokesman of the Government, was going to adopt in regard to this proposal. It came, as so many things do, in the postscript of his speech, and, I imagine, speaking for the Government of which he is one of the principal Members, he declared that he was in favour of equality of treatment for all all round. I agree entirely with him, but from communications we have had in the Press, I imagine that that was not the opinion entertained by the illustrious statesman the Prime Minister. I understood that there had been communications in the Press in which the right hon. Gentleman had clearly expressed an opinion in favour of differential treatment. ["No; not true."] At any rate, that was my impression. It is quite possible I may have been misinformed. I can, then, only take the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the spokesman of the Government on this occasion. I hope to be able to answer some of the speeches which have been made this evening, and to lay before the House also the reasons why we ourselves object to this scheme. But I think I shall be consulting the convenience of the House if I pass over subsidiary matters and state what is the main ground upon which we are prepared to meet the Motion with an emphatic negative. We are told that the choice of a constituency is limited by the present system, and that the Public Service is deprived of competent men who might be willing to enter Joe House, but who do not possess the requisite means. I am glad to see the Home Secretary present. I had the honour of following him four years ago in this very discussion, and he then said it was as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for a working man
        1124
        to enter this House, and the Secretary for Scotland said that candidates for this House were drawn from one class alone. Now, is it true that working men do not and cannot enter this House? Why, we have had in this House this evening conspicuous instances to the contrary. We have had a most frank and manly speech from an hon. Member opposite (Mr. Fenwick), our admiration of which was as much stirred for its straightforward simplicity as for its literary style. We know that labour, as labour, has even planted itself upon the Front Ministerial Bench, and I am glad to see there the hon. Member for Morpeth, who is associated with that labouring class from which, I believe, he himself is drawn, and there are other Representatives in various parts of the House. Can it be said that labour is inadequately represented here? I do not blame the Labour Party for a moment for announcing their intention of adding to their strength; it is a perfectly proper and human desire on their part. The Labour Members in this House remember the history of the late Mr. Parnell, and they know pretty well the squeezability of the Front Ministerial Bench. They know that if they want anything they must have a sufficient number of men in this House to put the Government in a minority if they choose. I doubt whether the contention that this House is based upon wealth, birth, and privilege can be fairly sustained. I doubt whether there is a man on these Benches who is not prepared to open the door as wide as possible to any Member who comes into the House with the stamp of the constituencies upon him, and if we reject the idea of payment it is because we believe it will not have the good effect that is claimed for it, but that it will have a disastrous effect. [Cries of "Divide!"] Considering that the speeches made from this side of the House have scarcely occupied 20 minutes, hon. Members might, at least, restrain their impatience for a modest five minutes. Most of us on this side of the House have, I believe, no fear whatever that Members would be demoralised or degraded by the receipt of a gift or a wage, nor do I shelter myself behind the plea that it would have the effect of introducing professional politicians or

        1125
        unworthy and self-seeking men into this House. I know that that view has been expressed with regard to the American Chamber by a Member sitting upon that Bench; but I do not think we need have any fear of that here. But what we do say is that the chief credit of this House is that service here is, and always has been, voluntarily rendered. ["No, no!"] Allow me to explain myself. I do not say rendered with no arrière pensée at all, for there are." certain advantages resulting from Membership of the House; but service here is rendered for nothing, and rendered very often at considerable cost both of time and money. I do not believe that a system of payment of Members would detract from the dignity of the House, or that the Debates would be lowered in quality, but that it would detract somewhat from the character which has been gradually built by the system of gratuitous service. Foreign countries have been alluded to, but I say, from some experience of foreign countries, that in no one foreign country that I have visited have I found that the position in which Members of Parliament stand, can be compared with that enjoyed by Members of Parliament in this country. That is a great advantage, and I hope that neither by assenting to this proposal nor by carrying a Bill will this House ever take the line of impairing or sacrificing the advantages which the present system affords to their country.
        Question put.
        The House divided:—Ayes 229; Noes 276.—(Division List, No. 36.)
        Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
        MR. ROBY: Can I move an Amendment? [Cries of "I object."]
        MR. SPEAKER: That would be Opposed Business, and objection is taken.
        MR. SEXTON: On a point of Order, Sir, I wish to ask whether the further question arising after the Division is not to be regarded as part of the matter under discussion?
        MR. SPEAKER: Objection has been taken to further progress. No hon.
        1126
        Member moved the closure, and, therefore, the Debate must stand adjourned.
        It being after Midnight, and Objection being taken to Further Proceeding, the Debate stood adjourned.

  ARMY ANNUAL BILL.—(No. 266.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1 agreed to.
    MR. HANBURY: What clause are we on, Sir?
    THE CHAIRMAN: Clause 2.
    MR. HANBURY: I did not hear Clause 1 put. It was utterly impossible for anyone to hoar. I must appeal to your fairness as Chairman, Sir.
    THE CHAIRMAN: Clause 1 is passed, and I now call Clause 2.
    MR. HANBURY: On Clause 2, I must appeal to the Secretary of State for War not to bring on the Committee stage of this Bill at this late hour of the evening. The soldier has no vote. [Interruption.] When you had the Dockyard Vote under consideration you spent the whole evening on it, but because the unfortunate soldier has no vote you press on this Bill which vitally concerns his interests at this late hour of the evening. On that ground alone I protest. I have already stated my objection—I stated it last night. You are passing this Mutiny Bill, which the right hon. Gentleman himself opposed some years ago, and yet we had him last night pirouetting and prancing. [Cries of "Order!"] This Bill need not be passed before 80th April, and I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, in common fairness to the 154,000 men affected by the Vote—for it affects also the Marine Service—in his own interest I would appeal to him not to press his technical right to proceed with the Bill at this hour. I would remind him that hitherto whenever there has been an Amendment to this Bill it has always been printed in italics, so that all could see it.
    MR. FLYNN: I rise to Order. The hon. Member is discussing the Bill. We are in Committee considering a clause.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I cannot say that at the present moment the hon. Member

    1127
    is out of Order, but he must speak to the clause.
    MR. HANBURY: I ask the Secretary for War whether it has not been the universal practice in regard to this Army Annual Bill—which is one of the most important Bills which can be brought, before Parliament—from which for the first time he has departed this Session, that all important alterations to this Bill should be printed in italics? Notwithstanding the importance of the Bill, I was told last night I was obstructing because I -wanted to get it discussed——
    THE CHAIRMAN: I have allowed the hon. Member some latitude. He is not now speaking to the clause.
    MR. CONYBEARE: The hot.. Member for Preston, who is magnificent in his wrath——[Cries of "Order!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I have already called the hon. Member to Order.
    MR. HANBURY: Am I not entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there are any Amendments to this clause?—because under the old procedure every Amendment had to be printed in italics.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I would call the hon. Member's attention to the Bill itself, which shows where the Amendments begin. They begin at Clause 4.
    MR. HANBURY: I am not quite sure that that is a correct statement of the facts. [Cries of "Order!" "Withdraw!" and "Name!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: I do not suppose that the hon. Member means anything so disorderly as to impute to me a misstatement of the facts.
    MR. HANBURYrose. [Cries of "Order!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: If the hon. Member looks at the Bill, he will see that what I say is correct.
    MR. HANBURY: I bow to your ruling, Sir. [Cries of "Withdraw!" "Apologise!" "Chair!"] May I ask the Secretary for War, as a matter of fact——[Cries of "Withdraw!" and interruption.]
    MR. E. STANHOPE: I wish, Sir, to call your attention to most disorderly interruptions.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I really hope that this scene will not continue; but I think the hon. Member must feel before he continues his observations that he owes an apology to the Chairman.
    MR. HANBURY: I want to ask the Secretary of State——[Continued cries of "Apologise!" and interruption.]
    THE CHAIRMAN: I must appeal to the Committee to assist me in keeping Order. I have already expressed my view that I certainly did Dot understand the hon. Member to impute to me that I was mis-stating the facts. Had he done so I should have taken a very different course.
    MB. HASBURY: [Cries of "Apologise!"] The only two questions I have to put to the Secretary for War are these in the first place, as a matter of fact, are there any Amendments made in the first three clauses; secondly, is the right hon. Gentleman not departing from that which has been the undoubted rule up to the present in not printing the Amendments to the Army Annual Bill in italics?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not know what the hon. Member means by Amendments. ["Oh, oh!"] Has the hon. Member who interrupts read the Bill? The hon. Member evidently confuses the Army Annual Bill with the old Mutiny Bill. The old Mutiny Bill required to have the Amendments in italics, in order that the attention of the House might be called to them, but this is the Army Annual Bill, and the first three clauses, so far as I am aware, contains nothing different from what was contained in the Bill of last year unless the number of men constitutes a difference.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESwished to move an Amendment to Clause 3—and trusted he would not be interrupted by hon. Gentlemen who contended that the Bill was being used as an engine of obstruction. Such interruptions he could not but regard as impertinent as applied to a Bill which he ventured to think as the most important Bill passed in any Session of Parliament. To show the importance of the measure he would read its Preamble.
    MR. T. M. HEALYrose to Order. He asked if the Chairman had not put the Question that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill?
    THE CHAIRMAN: Clause 2 is before the Committee.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I propose to move an Amendment.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Did not you, Sir, put the Question that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill?
    THE CHAIRMAN: We have approached Clause 2, but I have not yet put the Question that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid the Bill subjected men to Martial Law, and it was monstrous that they should not have a full opportunity of discussing it in this free Parliament of England. The matter was important because 150,000 of their fellow-subjects were to be deprived of their ordinary rights and liberties. The Bill outside the United Kingdom would operate for a year and three mouths instead of for a year.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member to come to his Amendment. He is trifling with the Committee.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he wished to ask whether he was to be allowed to give reasons for his Amendment. He wished in Sub-section B, Clause 2, to substitute the date 13th June for the 31st July, and his reasons were——
    MR. D.CRAWFORD: I move that the Question be now put.
    THE CHAIRMANtook no notice.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES, continuing, said that this was a question involving the liberty of the subject, and yet he was scarcely allowed to move an Amendment.
    MR. HANBURY: Soldiers have no votes.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, the reason for Sub-section B was that in the olden times people at Malta were a longdistance from this country, and communication with it was much slower than now.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I move "That the Question be now put."
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Question is that the Question be now put.
    MR. J. COLLINGS: What Question?
    MR. HENEAGE: There is no Question.
    THE CHAIRMANthen put the Question, and declared that the Ayes had it. This was challenged, and orders were given to clear the House for a Division.
    MR. BRODRICK: Mr. Mellor, I desire to ask you what the Question is?
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Question is that the Question that the Clause stand part of the Bill be now put.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I have another Amendment to move.
    MR. BRODRICK: May I inform you, Sir, that just now, on a point of Order, you told the Committee you had not put the Question.
    MR. HANBURY: Have you put the Question, Sir.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I also wish to ask—
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order. The Question is that the Question that the Clause stand part of the Bill be now put.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 238; Noes 127.—(Division List, No. 37.)
    Question put accordingly, "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 335; Noes 24.—(Division List, No. 38.)
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 3.
    MR. E. STANHOPE: I rise with great regret to move to report Progress, and I do so solely on the ground of the intolerable interruptions to which speakers on this side of the House have been subjected with few exceptions. I am here solely to support Her Majesty's Government in trying to pass through certain clauses of this Bill to which I think no legitimate objection can be raised. I wish to offer every assistance to the Government in trying, not only to shorten discussion, but to get the Bill passed. But what

    1131
    happened? We were discussing a clause which embodied Amendments to the Mutiny Act, and which naturally gave rise to other Amendments. Upon that Clause an Amendment was proposed by my hon. Friend behind me. Whether that Amendment was wrong or right it does not matter for present purposes. I should not have supported it, but it was a perfectly legitimate Amendment.
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to refer to the Amendment which has been disposed of by the late Division.
    MR. E. STANHOPE: I think I am entitled to give some reason in support of my Motion for Progress. With all submission to the Chair, I think Public Business will make progress if I am allowed to finish the statement I wish to make.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Keep to the Rules of the House.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I have already pointed out that it is impossible to reopen a matter already considered and decided by the House.
    MR. E. STANHOPE: With great respect I am not re-opening the question.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is at the present moment proceeding to discuss Clause 2.
    MR. E. STANHOPE: Then I will say this, the speakers on this side have met with intolerable interruptions. They have not been allowed to utter a single sentence. An hon. Member below the Gangway (pointing to Dr. Tanner) has in the noisiest possible way tried to prevent my hon. Friend behind me from uttering a single sentence of his speech. [Interruption and cries of" Question! "] That is not a fair way to treat hon. Members on this side of the House, nor is it the way business should be conducted. Then you, Mr. Mellor, were good enough to say from the Chair that no Question had been put by you on Clause 2. [Cries of " Order! "and" Question! "] That decision was loyally accepted by us, but within a moment from that ruling—[Interruption,.]
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman is in possession of the Committee. I must appeal to
    1132
    hon. Gentlemen to assist me in keeping order.
    MR. E. STANHOPE: I was saying that a moment after you said there was no Question you thought fit to put the Closure on Clause 2. I am not going to question that ruling for a single moment, but I rise to appeal to hon. Gentlemen whether they think it reasonable or possible that discussion can be carried on in this fashion at this hour. I appeal on that point to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am as anxious as the Government that this Bill should be pushed on, but I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, and I appeal to all hon. Members to whom such an appeal might reasonably be addressed, to at any rate allow hon. Members who have Amendments to move to state to the Committee their reasons for moving these Amendments. I beg to move that you report Progress.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. E. Stanhope.)
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I am quite sure that nobody can be more averse than I am to any scenes of disturbance in this House, but the House must bear in mind what is the character of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman who has held the responsible position of Secretary of State for War knows that it ought to be proceeded with, and that to these clauses, which apply to the discipline of the Army, no reasonable exception can be taken by himself. Therefore, the Government had reason to expect that Members on both sides would take steps to forward the measure which is intended for the public advantage and for the maintenance of the discipline of the Army. But what happened? The hon. Member for Preston objected to proceeding at all with the Bill.
    MR. HANBURY: I did not object to proceeding with the Bill, but I objected to discussing the Bill in the small hours of the morning when there is a month before us in which it might be discussed.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Last night the Speaker refused to put the Amendment of the hon. Member asking for the

    1133
    adjournment of the Bill; and the hon. Member who had that ruling from the Speaker last night comes down to-night also and objects to proceed with the Bill. When he did not succeed the hon. Member who sits next him (Mr. T. G. Bowles) makes a protracted speech which nobody could make out, and when the Chairman called on him to state what Amendment he was proposing to move, the hon. Gentleman proposed what, in my opinion, was a perfectly frivolous Amendment.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I desire to ask you, Mr. Mellor, whether oven a person who sits on that Bench has a right to make such an observation?
    THE CHAIRMAN: I have already explained that this matter having been closed by the vote of the House it is impossible to re-open it.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I wish to ask is the phrase—[Cries of "Name, name! "and" Sit down, Tommy!"] What I wish to ask is whether it is in Order for the right hon. Gentleman to characterise an Amendment regularly moved as frivolous?
    THE CHAIRMAN: There is no objection even in this House to an Amendment being characterized as frivolous.
    DR. TANNER: Mr. Chairman—[Loud cries of "Order!"] during which the hon. Member sat down.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I will say nothing about the Amendment that is offensive, and, if the hon. Member opposite objects to the use of the adjective "frivolous," I beg to withdraw it. But the right hon. Gentleman proposes that we should report Progress, and says that these are intolerable interruptions. Well, there are other intolerable things. In my opinion there is, and has been, intolerable obstruction, and it is our duty to meet that obstruction, and we will meet it. As you have chosen the Mutiny Bill as your field of battle for obstruction, we will fight you upon it to the end.
    MR. E. STANHOPE: When I rose it was for the purpose of trying to push this Bill.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 110; Noes 234.—(Division List, No. 39.)
    MR. HANBURYsaid, this was not one of the contentious clauses, therefore he only wished to ask one or two questions, and he should not divide upon it. Though the contentious clauses did not begin until the fourth clause, this clause was important for some reasons. He supposed he should not be entitled to refer to the Schedule, as he should be able to discuss that when they reached it.
    THE CHAIRMAN: No, the hon. Member would not be in Order in discussing the Schedule upon this clause.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, in that case he would only ask one or two questions. In the first place, he wished to know whether the prices in regard to the billetting of soldiers were the same all over the country, because it must be quite manifest that what would be fair in one part of the country, in the North for instance, would be unfair in other parts where labour, provisions, &c, were cheaper? He was not quite sure they ought not to have different prices for different parts of the country, just as they had different regulations in respect to fuel for the troops. The right hon. Gentleman would see there was something in this contention, because there was no doubt they ought to treat the licensed victualler, in regard to billetting, on the same principle as the troops themselves were treated, and the right hon. Gentleman knew that the system on which he treated the soldiers with regard to firing and things of that kind differed entirely in different parts. He would like to ask whether these prices had varied within the last 20 years, or whether in all the 20 Bills they had passed in that time the prices had been the same. The other question he wished to ask also bore on the question of billetting soldiers upon licensed victuallers, and was whether, in future, the troops would be marched more frequently through the country than in the past from quarters to quarters? He believed that would be a great advantage both to the Army and to the country, as it would enable the people in the out of the way places in which the soldiers would be billletted to see more of the Army than they did at the present time. This system of marching the troops through the country was adopted by his right hon. Friend the late Secretary for War (Mr.

    1135
    E. Stanhope) when he sent a regiment marching through Wales, and he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman would adopt that system and march the troops through various parts of the country?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN&c.): The hon. Member asks me whether the prices are the same as they have always been. I cannot answer that.
    MR. BRODRICK: For the last 20 years.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The prices are the same as they have been for many years past.
    MR. BRODRICK: They were altered last year.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Then they are the same, at all events, as they were last year; there is no alteration in this Bill with regard to them. With regard to marching the troops through the country, I do not know whether that would be feasible or not. Then the hon. Member says there are different prices with regard to fuel, but that, of course, depends pretty much on the climate and the amount of fuel required. The hon. Member asks whether we will march the troops about the country in order to show the Army to the inhabitants, and in this way, to some extent, benefit the licensed victualler. This class of experiment has been tried by a march through Wales, and another small attempt, to save expense, in a part of Scotland, and good results followed from them, and I shall be glad to extend the practice.
    MR. BRODRICKmerely rose to correct a misapprehension. The right hon. Gentleman stated there had been no change in the prices paid to licensed victuallers for more than 20 years, so far as he knew. The fact was that as the prices formerly paid did not allow anything for wear or tear, only the actual cost to which a publican must be put in housing soldiers, they decided to make an amendment in the Schedule. That amendment was made to a moderate extent in the Army Act of last year, and was continued in the Bill of the present year.
    MR. BARTLEYthought the discussion had shown that the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) was absolutely ignorant of the regulations contained in his own Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, he did not know the regulations concerning prices or that they had been altered recently, and he thought that showed the great importance of their considering this most serious matter. They were kept up to this time of night by an issue which concerned the interest of a great number of persons, the soldiers of this great country, and he must say it seemed to him to be a question that should be more discussed than it could be at the present time. Another reference the right hon. Gentleman made was that they were interested in benefitting the licensed victualler. He rather took it that the whole class of licensed victuallers would be obliged if they excluded them from the operation of the clause, for they did not desire to have the soldiers billetted upon thorn. When they found that the price for a breakfast was 1½sd.—[Laughter]—hon. Members might laugh, but that was the fact, and he did not think the bulk of the licensed victuallers would be extremely overjoyed at the Bill. But he rose mainly to point out that the great questions in the Bill, and which would come forward in the next clauses, required that they should be properly and fully discussed.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 4.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid, he rose on this clause to make an appeal to the Secretary of State for War. He thought a great deal of the difficulty that had arisen, and had been experienced by his hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury), was due to the fact that the Army Bill this year contained a large number of Amendments upon the previous Act. In previous years it had been the custom of the Secretary of State for War to make a statement to the House which might enable them to understand what changes were made. It was obvious that in regard to this particular clause the change was so small that they might not require to discuss it at any length; but there were changes of very serious importance in the Bill, and as his hon. Friend the

    1137
    Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) said, there was no one to look after the soldier in the House of Commons, and it would be quite possible, through an inadvertence or some other reason, to affect the interests of the soldier. For instance, in regard to Courts Martial, it was proposed to reduce the number of officers necessary from five to three, and that was a subject of great importance to the soldier, and, therefore, he thought that if the right hon. Gentleman would give them a complete account of the changes it would greatly aid the passage of the Bill.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The hon. Member knows very well that upon Clause 4 I cannot give an explanation of the changes proposed in the other clauses. I am prepared to state what the change is that is effected by Clause 4, and to give similar explanations upon the other clauses as we reach them. This is a very simple matter. What is called "making away with equipments" is dealt with under Section 4 of the Army Act, hut there has been some doubt expressed as to what is included in the word "equipments"; and it has been decided, therefore, to define the word as including any article supplied to a soldier. One of the most ordinary cases to come under this section is that of a blanket, which would be issued to soldiers as an equipment if this Amendment is made. When, therefore, a man makes away with his blanket, he is to be tried under the general section, No. 40, for conduct against good order and military discipline.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman was no explanation at all, and he should have to ask the right hon. Gentleman to explain a good deal more fully to the Committee than he had yet done, especially after the recent amount of ignorance he had exhibited. ["Oh, oh!"] He must press for a fuller explanation; but perhaps he had better put his question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir W. Harcourt), who said "Oh, oh!" and who seemed to know a great deal about this Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] Oh, yes; the right hon. Gentleman was a lawyer, and knew all about the subject. There were at least two points he wished to raise in connection with this clause. It was their
    1138
    bounden duty, when there was no Judge Advocate General to look after the interests of the private soldier, to examine every Amendment to this important Bill. With regard to the now words to be inserted, he wanted to know exactly what those words meant, because most of the objections he had to raise had reference to an injustice to the private soldier. Take this point: "Any article issued to the soldier for his use." As he understood that, it would clearly cover the case of articles issued to the soldier that were purchased with his own money, and he asked if it referred to cases of that sort.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I say it is not, so presented.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, they had been issued to him all the same. Would the right hon. Gentleman agree to insert these words "not being his property?"
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The property is not issued in the technical sense of the word.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, he would move to insert after the words "issued to a soldier for his use" these words "not being his property."
    Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 19, after the word "use," to insert the words "not being his property."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    SIR JAMES FERGUSSON: At the present time what occurs is this: If a man is ordered by his commanding officer to replace a tunic with a new one he is obliged to return it at the expiration of the period for its use, or he has to pay for it with his own money.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 70; Noes 244.—(Division List, No. 40.)
    MR. HANBURYsaid, they had now got the clause into the somewhat ridiculous position that a soldier could not, give a crumb out of his rations without being subjected to certain penalties. By what court martial would the soldier be tried for what was constituted an offence under the clause, and what was the extreme term of imprisonment

    1139
    he could be subjected to under the clause?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the section to which this clause was an amendment stated that a soldier who committed this offence should, on conviction by court martial, be liable to suffer imprisonment, or such less punishment as was mentioned in the Act.
    MR. HANBURYconsidered it was perfectly monstrous they should be asked to pass a clause like this sub silentio, without the Secretary for War knowing what penalties they were imposing. He begged therefore to move the omission of the clause altogether.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The proper course is to negative the clause when it is put.
    Mr. Paul rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question 'That Clause 4 stand part of the Bill' be now put"; but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
    Question proposed, "That Clause 4 stand part of the Bill."
    MR. BARTLEYsaid the clause in the Army Act of 1881 stated that—
    "Any soldier who committed any of the following offences, that is to say, makes away with or is concerned in making away with arms, ammunition, equipment," &c.
    Those were all definite articles, but under this amending Bill the word "equipment" was meant to mean any article issued to a soldier for his use, and if a soldier made away with any such article he came under the penalty in the clause. Rations were issued to a soldier for his use, and were they going to enact such an absurdity as that if a soldier made away with his rations he should be liable to this penalty?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have only one word to say in answer to the hon. Member, and that is—Does the hon. Member think that rations is equipment?
    MR. BARTLEYsaid, he certainly did. The expression "equipment" for the purposes of that section, it was expressly stated, included any article issued to a soldier for his use and he contended that rations were issued to a soldier for his use. Such loose and careless wording ought not to be submitted to the House,
    1140
    and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would revise the Bill and make it intelligible.
    MR. HALDANE: I wish to ask what Question we are now discussing?
    THE CHAIRMAN: I waited to see if the hon. Member moved an Amendment. The Question is that the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. HANBURYrose, when——
    Mr. Haldane rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question put, "That the Question be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 238; Noes 66.—(Division List, No. 41.)
    Question, "That Clause 4 stand part of the Bill," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Clause 5.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANexplained that this clause had been inserted so as to make it an offence where any person knowingly and with intent to defraud obtained any valuable document, &c. Hitherto there had been some difficulty in dealing with such offences because of there being ambiguity or uncertainty as to particular persons against whom the fraud was intended, and these words had been printed to make it clear that a fraud committed against Her Majesty was a fraud against an individual.
    Amendment proposed, in line 27, after the word "defraud," to insert the words "Her Majesty."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    Amendment negatived.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 6.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the clause had been introduced for the purpose of preventing bad characters re-entering the Army. It provided that where a man who had been discharged from the Army with ignominy, or as incorrigible, or who had been convicted of felony or sentenced to penal servitude, and on re-enlistment concealed these circumstances, he was liable to punishment.

    1141
    It was to make a man, discharged for misconduct, who re-enlisted and concealed the fact, punishable in some way.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, the word "misconduct" had never before appeared in any of these Acts; it was a word entirely unknown in military phraseology, and if this Bill became law a soldier, for an offence totally new in military phraseology, would be liable to a long term of penal servitude. He wished to know what kind of offences came under this word, and what were the penalties?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANthought the word was perfectly well understood. He pointed out that the man was not punishable for misconduct, but if he had been discharged from the Army for misconduct, and afterwards enlisted and concealed this fact, he would be punished for fraudulent enlistment.
    COMMANDER BETHELL: Does it only apply to the case of men who have fraudulently enlisted?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Yes.
    COMMANDER BETHELL: That does not make it so serious as it otherwise would be.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, this offence of enlistment under the circumstances mentioned rendered a man liable to suffer penal servitude. Was there any limit to that penal servitude, or was such a man liable to be sent to penal servitude for life, and not likely to be released by the Irish Secretary?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I can relieve the mind of the hon. Gentleman. In Clause 32 of the Army Act it says that anyone who has been discharged under these circumstances, and afterwards enlisted without declaring the circumstances, shall, on conviction by court martial, be liable to suffer imprisonment or such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: The right hon. Gentleman has quoted from the Manual, not from the Act.
    MR. ASQUITHthought, to put it mildly, it was wanting in respect to the House of Commons that hon. Gentlemen should rise in their places, criticise and ask questions about clauses of a Bill
    1142
    which referred to an Act of Parliament which was part of the Statutes of the Realm, and at the same time avow they had never read the Act. No intelligent criticism of any kind could be made of the clauses of that Bill by anyone who had not studied the Army Act or had not the Army Act in front of him. If the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn would take the trouble to study it instead of wasting time, he would know that the section of the Army Act to which reference was made was one which limited the power of courts martial as to imprisonment. The sole object of the new clause was to prevent a man already discharged from the Army from fraudulently re-enlisting.
    MR. BRODRICKdid not wish to follow the right hon. Gentleman into his statement as to how far a Member was justified in criticising the Bill without having the Act in his hand. He read the Act differently to the right hon. Gentleman. It said that a man who was found guilty on conviction by a court martial might be liable to penal servitude.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the hon. Member did not do himself justice. In the Manual of Military Law published in 1887, when the hon. Gentleman was at the War Office, it was stated that a man re-enlisting, after having been discharged for misconduct, was liable to imprisonment, or such less punishment as a court martial might inflict.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was quite right in correcting a misapprehension which might have arisen. He was glad that his right hon. Friend, during his period of Office, had been able to extend the clemency of the Crown to these men.
    Mr. Haldane rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question 'That Clause 6 stand part of the Bill 'be now put."
    Question put, "That the Question 'That Clause 6 stand part of the Bill' be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 231; Noes 57.—(Division List, No. 42.)
    Question, "That Clause 6 stand part of the Bill," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Clause 7.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, that this and the next clause would embody somewhat larger changes than the preceding clauses. It was found in experience that regimental courts martial were not regarded by all authorities as satisfactory tribunals. There was an objection to them on the ground that, as they were composed of officers of the regiment, those gentlemen were influenced by regimental views. Therefore, it was proposed to extend the powers of the commanding officer to deal summarily with military offences. Instead of his having the power only to sentence a man to seven days' imprisonment, as now, he was to be able to award 21 days' imprisonment. The soldier, however, had the option of claiming to be tried by district court martial. This was not an appeal from the commanding officer's decision, but an option whether a man would be tried by the summary jurisdiction of his colonel, or by a district court martial. The whole tendency of the change was distinctly in the interest of the soldier.
    MR. E. STANHOPEsaid this was really a substantial change in the law, the only change of great importance. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had stated ample grounds for it. It was in the interest of the soldier, and he had no doubt hon. Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side would agree with him.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he could not agree with the Secretary for War or the late Secretary for War on this matter. Very often the commanding officer was a captain, or a major, or the third or fourth man in the regiment, and he would not always be a good man to administer justice. At present this officer heard the cases that came before him on unsworn evidence. His power of sending a man to imprisonment was limited to seven days, and the Secretary for War was bringing about a revolution when he extended the power to 21 days. He did not think it was so much a bad commanding officer they had to be afraid of as a weak one. As to the option which would be given to the soldier of going before a district court martial, it was not likely to be very much availed of, because it would almost be considered a
    1144
    second crime to give the district court martial the trouble of assembling unless the soldier had a good case. At present the district court martial gave as a practical working minimum 56 days' imprisonment. The clause would have the effect of making a colonel of a regiment too much like the captain of a ship, and there was nothing worse than trying to manage soldiers as they did sailors. The experiment was a bold and dangerous one. He did not anticipate much evil from it for a couple of years or so, but in course of time they would find that the tendency of the change was to make colonels tyrants.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid he ought to have explained that, recognising that this was an experiment, an Order would be issued limiting the imprisonment at first to 14 days to see how the change worked.
    MR. HANBURYthought that they were making the soldier pay a great deal too dearly for the boon of the abolition of the regimental court martial. He thought that 14 days' imprisonment should be the maximum the commanding officer should be allowed to award, as he could impose two sets of fines as well. He also thought the evidence should be given against the men on oath. [Cries of "Divide!"] It was all very well for hon. Gentlemen, but the interests of the soldiers were more important than their time. He would move that the maximum punishment be 14 days instead of 21.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 4, to leave out the word "twenty-one" in order to insert the word "fourteen."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'twenty-one' stand part of the Clause."
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I cannot accept that Amendment. I have already stated that, in order to see how the plan works, and to prevent any rash use being made of the extended powers, we propose to issue instructions that 14 days shall be the limit. With regard to what the hon. Member said as to taking evidence on oath, if he will look at the terms of Section 46, Subsection 6, of the Army Act he will find it provided that where the power of summary punishment exceeds seven days'

    1145
    imprisonment the accused person may demand that the evidence shall be given on oath. That will equally apply in this case.
    MR. JEFFREYSsaid, it seemed rather hard, considering that during the last few years crime in the Army had considerably decreased, the alteration in the mode of trying the soldier—although perhaps acceptable in itself—should involve an increase of the maximum punishment allowed. He would be glad to see 14 days substituted for 21 days.
    MR. BARTLEYsaid, they intended to thoroughly thresh this matter out. He wished to point out to the Secretary for War that this was an annual Bill, and if he intended sending out to Commanding Officers a statement to the effect that the term 21 days really meant 14 days, it was surely unreasonable to insert 21 days in the Act of Parliament. He might as well now insert 14 days, and if necessary a year hence alter the term to 21 days. He hoped this concession would be made, seeing that crime in the Army was decreasing.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Army Act is a permanent enactment, and the clauses we are now dealing with sanction certain alterations in that permanent Act. I say that the operation of these clauses is not limited to one year; but the Army Annual Act brings into life the permanent Army Act.
    GENERAL GOLDSWORTHYsaid, he concurred in the proposed alteration, but still he wished the Secretary for War would consent to substitute 14 days for 21 days. He regretted, too, that the right hon. Gentleman refused to consent to make compulsory the taking of evidence on oath.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The soldier can claim to have it taken on oath.
    GENERAL GOLDSWORTHYsaid, he held that that was not sufficient. He would like to see it compulsory, as in the case of Courts of Law, where the onus was not thrown on the accused person.
    MR. TOMLLNSONasked what was the dispensing power which enabled the Secretary for War to go behind an Act of Parliament and direct
    1146
    Commanding Officers not to exceed 14 days, although the Act gave them authority up to 21 days?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Adjutant General of the Army, who is responsible for the discipline of the Army, can direct Commanding Officers not to go within a certain distance of the limits laid down in the Act.
    MR. BARTLEYsaid, the words of the Bill were: "Whereas the Army Act will expire in the year 1893." That showed the Act was not permanent, and the right hon. Gentleman knew very well that it was not.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid, that in regard to the period of 14 days they might consider it in connection with observations already made by the Commander-in-Chief. Not long ago a Circular was issued to Commanding Officers requesting them to be more moderate in their punishments. A large number of Commanding Officers felt that that was unduly limiting their discretion, and, in view of that fact, would it not be wise for the right hon. Gentleman to accept the Amendment of 14 days, and leave it open to himself to increase the period to 21 days next year, if necessary?
    COMMANDER BETHELLasked the Secretary of State if he could not arrange in future to have the original Army Act printed side by side with the Bill, so as to show the character of the proposed Amendments? Had that been done hon. Members would have been saved from the stern rebuke of the right hon. Gentleman—a copy of the best style of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—for not having known the terms of the original Act.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that, seeing the Bill would only last for a year, the concession might well be made. The right hon. Gentleman must know well he was in the wrong in supposing that the Army Act was a permanent Act. He had not sufficiently studied that Act.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 203; Noes 67.—(Division List, No. 43.)
    MR. HANBURY,MR. HANBURY, in moving another Amendment, said that he thought all

    1147
    evidence taken at these Courts Martial should be taken on oath.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 4, line 21, at the end of the Clause, to add the words 'That, in the case of all soldiers tried under this section, the evidence shall be taken upon oath."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have already pointed out that there is a provision for this matter within the terms of the Army Act, and if we are to insert the words the hon. Gentleman has proposed to this particular clause it would be inconsistent with other provisions of the Army Act.
    MR. HANBURY: May I explain exactly why I make this proposal? At present this right to have the evidence taken on oath is only permissive, but it is a right which is not frequently availed of by the soldiers for fear of giving offence. I, therefore, want to provide that the evidence shall be taken on oath.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid he did not know of any case in which the evidence was taken on oath.
    MR. CONYBEAREsaid, that some of the hon. Members who sat round him thought that this was a very reasonable proposal, and unless a better answer was given to it than had been given by the Secretary of State for War he would vote with the hon. Gentleman opposite. He thought it was a matter of extreme importance in cases where the liberty of a fellow-subject—whether a soldier or a civilian—was at stake, that every precaution should be taken that the evidence on which he was tried, and perhaps condemned, should as far as possible be above suspicion; and he thought that could only be secured by having it taken on oath.
    GENERAL GOLDSWORTHYconsidered this was a matter of very great importance to the soldier. It seemed to be the general sense of the House that the evidence should be taken on oath, and he, therefore, hoped that the Government would accede to the proposal of his hon. Friend.
    MR. PARKER SMITHsaid, he thought they had now come
    1148
    to the discussion of questions of real importance. Hitherto in every Division—until the last Division—he had supported the Government, and, therefore, he could speak without a suspicion of obstruction. There was now raised a question which affected the liberty of the subject, and he did not think it was a point that could be properly discussed at half-past. 3 in the morning, when Amendments wore being hurriedly written down without proper time for consideration, and when Ministers were studying the Army Act during the interval in which they walked through the Lobbies. If the soldiers had votes, their claims would be considered at a more early hour, and he therefore begged leave to move to report Progress.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Parker Smith.)
    SIR W. HARCOURT: The hon. Member who has just sat down has stated that we have at last come to the important part of the Bill. I would like, then, to know what we have been doing for the last 3½ hours? It comes to this: that we have spent 3½ hours on the unimportant part of the Bill. Under these circumstances, I think the natural thing we should do is to go on.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 59; Noes 209.—(Division List, No. 44.)
    GENERAL GOLDS WORTHYthought it should be compulsory for this evidence to be taken on oath.
    Original Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 70; Noes 197.—(Division List, No. 45.)
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 8.
    Question proposed, "That Clause 8 stand part of the Bill."
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the object of this clause was to reduce the number of the District Court Martials to three members. At present the minimum number was five, but two of them were generally subalterns, and justice would be just as well administered if the number was reduced to three.

    1149
    There were certain stations where the number of officers was so small that much inconvenience was experienced in obtaining the requisite number to constitute a District Court Martial.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid, it was now 4 o'clock in the morning, and he rose to make an appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They had reached the most important clause in the Bill, and also the most important Amendment. [Cries of "Go on!"] Hon. Members said "go on" without having considered this fact. This Bill was only ordered to be printed on the 20th March, and they had now reached the morning of the 25th. The time had been so limited that it was quite impossible the clause could have been considered by anybody outside the House, because the Bill could not have been sent to them for that purpose. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had complained that time had been unduly occupied in discussing other points in the Bill. He was not going to enter into that contention, because they had a good deal to say as to the manner in which they were met in the first instance. He would venture to point out that if these discussions were not to be carried on until 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning—[Cries of "Go on!"] He had sat in that House for 30 years; he had had experience of a good many all-night Sittings, but he had never known an all-night Sitting devoted to questions of this sort. As there was no desire to discuss the clause at undue length, he suggested to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Progress should be reported, and the Bill taken again on Monday.
    SIR W. HARCOURTsaid, he understood that Monday was to be devoted by hon. Gentlemen opposite to a very different purpose—namely, to turning out Her Majesty's Government. He was quite sure, if matters were in the hands of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Brodrick), there would only be a fair and reasonable discussion; but he was sorry the hon. Gentleman could not stand as godfather for the hon. Gentlemen behind him, as he could not promise and vow in their name. Therefore, he thought they must go on.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, there was no time to discuss this clause, which was an important one. There was no hurry for this Bill, and he suggested that its discussion should be renewed on Tuesday. There was no reason why there should be fewer officers on District Courts Martial.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he thought the number of officers on the Court Martial should not be reduced to three. It must be remembered that the officers sitting on a Court Martial were both judge and jury, and three would be much more likely to be under the control of the Commanding Officer than one would be.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: In Ireland a Member of Parliament gets six months from two Removables.
    MR. KENYONsaid, he wished to deny that there had been any delay caused by Members on the Opposition Benches.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the clause before the Committee.
    MR. KENYONsaid, he was directing his attention to the clause, but the explanation of the Secretary for War was not sufficient to satisfy his crass ignorance, and that of hon. Friends near him.
    Mr. Logan rose, in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question 'That Clause 8 stand part of the Bill' be now put."
    Question put, "That the Question 'That Clause 8 stand part of the Bill" be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 200; Noes 61.—(Division List, No. 46.)
    Question, "That Clause 8 stand part of the Bill," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    MR. P. SMITH: I rise to a point of Order. You, Sir, did not put the Question inviting opposition to the vote.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I put the Question distinctly.
    DR. TANNER: Order among the rats.
    Clause 9.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid this clause dealt with the powers of Summary Courts Martial. It sought to transfer the powers of the old drum-head Court Martial to a General Field Court Martial, so that there might not be any over-lapping of powers in the case of war or in the case of an Army in the field.
    MR. TOMLINSONasked for information as to the powers of these Summary Courts Martial in the case of war or of an army in the field.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he did not follow the hon. Member. The clause did not create new powers, but transferred powers from the old Summary Court Martial to the General Field Court Martial.
    MR. TOMLINSONasked how a case of murder would be dealt with?
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that if the person guilty of the offence came under the Summary Court Martial at present, in the future he would come under the General Field Court Martial. If the person came under some other authority he would be left to that authority.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, these powers were limited to forces serving beyond the seas in case of war. Now it was proposed to introduce the powers to forces serving in these Islands. He would suggest the insertion of the words, "Serving beyond the seas."
    SIR A. HAYTERsaid, the clause would apply in case of war in this country.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, he did not see anything about active service mentioned.
    SIR A. HAYTER: Yes, in Subsection 1——
    MR. HANBURYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman clearly had not seen the point he (Mr. Hanbury) had raised. If the effect he had pointed out had been foreseen by the right hon. Gentleman, he would have told the Committee so, but he had never alluded to the circumstances.
    1152
    To meet the difficulty, he (Mr. Hanbury) would move to insert after the words "active service" the words "beyond the seas."
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 36, after the word "service," to insert the words "beyond the seas."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    COMMANDER BETHELLsaid, the new clause would bring about a great change, and the Secretary of State ought to give the hon. Member for Preston some reply. He must express his surprise at the right hon. Gentleman sitting quietly there. [Cries of "Order!"] He did not know why hon. Gentlemen called out "Order!" Was it possible that hon. Members desired to see the powers in this clause brought into play in this island without discussion.
    MR. HANBURY: I think we are entitled to a reply from somebody. [Cries of "Divide!"] I sec the Chancellor of the Exchequer sitting opposite. [Cries of "Divide!" and counter cries of "Progress!"] As the Secretary of State for War is not able to answer a most pertinent question addressed to him, I would put it to the present Leader of the House, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Dr. Tanner rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
    Debate resumed.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, the statement of the Secretary for War did not cover the point he had raised. [Cries of "Divide!"] The right hon. Gentleman seemed unable to answer it, therefore he would address the query to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was a most important matter, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was possessed of vast knowledge.
    SIR A. HAYTERsaid, that if the hon. Member would look at Clause 55 he would see that limited the term "Court Martial."
    MR. MACARTNEYsaid he thought that this was a perfectly reasonable Amendment, and it was a pity it could not be discussed without the closure being applied and without interruptions of a disorderly character. He did not think the hon. Baronet who had just intervened on behalf of the Government understood the Bill. Most Members of the Committee were aware of the purport of the information he had just given, but that did not touch the point raised by his hon. Friend. It was now proposed to introduce an entirely new state of affairs, and they wished to know the grounds upon which that was being done. Probably the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had now refreshed his mind on the subject and was prepared to vouchsafe the information they asked for.
    MR. T. HARRINGTONremarked, that the confusion, if any existed, had been introduced by the hon. Member for Preston, for he had taken it for granted that this tribunal only applied to cases beyond the sea. He had quoted to the House no authority for that statement.
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 40; Noes 216.—(Division List, No. 47.)
    Clause 9 agreed to.
    Clause 10.
    MR. HANBURYasked for an explanation of the clause.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: This clause is a mere re-casting of the Amendments which have been made from time to time by the House in the Army Act of 1881.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, it was not clear to what the clause referred, and he pressed the Secretary of State for War for a further explanation.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have just given the information to the hon. Member for Preston, and if the hon. Member will apply to his friend he will get it.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, the clause wan misleading, and it was difficult to understand to what it applied.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War has given an assurance to the House that this clause is the mere consolidation of the Amendments to the existing laws. It is a waste of time to discuss the matter further, and I beg to move that the clause be now put.
    Moved, "That the Question 'That Clause 10 stand part of the Bill' be now put."—(The Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
    Question, "That the Question 'That Clause 10 stand part of the Bill' be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question, "That Clause 10 stand part of the Bill," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Schedule.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, that the Secretary for War did not know very much about the Schedule, because he had stated at the beginning of this somewhat protracted Debate that the Schedule had not been altered for years. It was only when the right hon. Gentleman had been corrected by the late Secretary for War that he had found out his mistake, and that a change had been made in the Schedule last year. He did not think the changes made last year went entirely in the right direction, and anybody looking at the prices allowed would see that they were ridiculous. For instance, for lodging and attendance 4d. only was allowed. Then he thought the soldiers could not get a good breakfast for 1½d., the sum allowed. He thought the soldiers should be allowed 3d. for breakfast, and he moved the insertion in the Schedule of 3d. instead of 1½d.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I wish to ask you, Mr. Chairman, whether an addition could be made in this way to the charges in the Schedule? I do not think it can.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I think that is so.
    MR. BARTLEY: Of course, we take it that we cannot move to increase the charge, but there is no doubt that we can move to strike it out.

    1155
    Mr. Conybeare rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question 'That this be the Schedule of the Bill' be now put."
    Question put, "That the Question 'That this be the Schedule of the Bill' be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 199; Noes 45.—(Division List, No. 48.)
    Question, "That this be the Schedule of the Bill," put accordingly, and agreed to.
    Preamble agreed to.
    Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.

  PLACES OF WORSHIP ENFRANCHISEMENT BILL—(No. 277.)

    CONSIDERATION.
    Bill, as amended (by the Standing Committee), considered.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid this measure had been before the Standing Committee.
    DR. TANNER: I object.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid the Committee had ordered the Bill to be reported, and he merely desired to put it off to the 14th April.
    DR. TANNER: I merely desired, Sir, to have it put off to the shortest possible period.
    MR. T. M. HEALYwished to protest against the action of the Front Opposition Bench in endeavouring to put off a Bill for nearly two months which the hon. Member (Mr. Brodrick) objected to against the wishes of those who supported the Bill, and without the authority of those who had charge of it.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLpointed out that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the 14th, and not two months.
    Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next.

    SHERIFF CLERKS DEPUTE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Philipps, Bill to improve the position of Sheriff Clerks Depute in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Philipps, Sir James Carmichael, Mr. Haldane, Mr. Harry Smith, and Mr. M'Ewan.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 278.]

    CHURCH BUILDING ACT (COMPULSORT POWERS REPEAL) BILL.
    On Motion of Sir Francis Powell, Bill to repeal provisions of the Church Building Acts relating to the compulsory purchase of sites for Churches and Burial Grounds, ordered to be brought in by Sir Francis Powell, Mr. Talbo, and Mr. Addison.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 279.]

  NORTH SEA FISHERIES BILL. (No. 249.)
  Read a second time, and committed for Monday next.
  BILLS OF SALE BILL [Lords.]
  Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 280.]

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have come to the following Resolution, namely—
  "That it is desirable that the Trustee (Consolidation) Bill and the Administration of Estates (Consolidation) Bill be referred to the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament on Statute Law Revision Bills."

  STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL.
  So much of The Lords Message as relates to the Joint Committee on Statute Law Revision Bills read, and considered.
  Resolved, That this House doth concur with The Lords in the said Resolution.—(Mr. Marjoribanks.)
  Message to The Lords to acquaint them therewith.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Five o'clock in the morning till Monday next.