LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL. (Hansard, 16 February 1894)

HC Deb 16 February 1894 vol 21 cc610-92 610

§ Lords Amendments further considered.

§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER, Wolverhampton, E. ) moved to disagree with Lord Morley's Amendment, providing that in cases where it was proposed to take land compulsorily for allotments representation should be made in the first place to the County Council by the Parish Council, and that when objection was made by the owners, lessees, or occupiers of the land the procedure should be by way of a Local Government Provisional Order. The Amendment provided, further, that the Provisional Order in cases of dispute should be submitted to Parliament for confirmation.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That tins House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (Manchester, E.)
It will be in the recollection of the House that towards the close of our proceedings yesterday the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill made a speech in which he dealt not merely with the question then before the House, but with 611 a series of Amendments which, in his judgment at all events, were intimately connected with the question which you, Sir, had put from the Chair. In objecting to that series of Amendments, and in asking the House to disagree with them, the right hon. Gentleman made a speech of great ability and interest. That speech, of the tone of which none of us have reason to complain, was largely a vindication of the Office of which he is the head. The Amendment to which he objected was one which took away from the Local Government Board the position given to it by the Bill as it left this House of being the final court of appeal in cases where it was proposed to take land compulsorily for the purpose of allotments. The right hon. Gentleman found reason to complain of certain attacks which he thought had been made elsewhere upon the officers of the Department of which he is the present head, and he made something in the nature of an appeal to those of us in this House who in previous periods have occupied the Office. He asked certain gentlemen, of whom I happened to be one, whether when we were at the Local Government Board we had not ample evidence of the fairness, competence, ability, and integrity of the Inspectors who largely carry out the duties of the Board. Only one answer could be made by anybody who has held the position the right hon. Gentleman now holds. Undoubtedly, there is not in existence a body of public servants more worthy of public regard and confidence than the Local Government Board Inspectors, and if the sole question which we had to determine was whether those Inspectors, as we now know them, were or were not proper persons to conduct inquiries on which the Minister would ultimately pronounce, I should gladly say that no suspicion could be cast upon their integrity or ability. For my own part, I am prepared to give the strongest testimony to that effect which the right hon. Gentleman can possibly desire. But allow me to remind the House that these questions cannot be determined simply by a consideration of the qualities of the present Local Government Board Inspectors, or even of the constitution of the Local Government Board itself. The right hon. Gentleman appears to be of opinion that it 612 is an entirely new procedure to cast any reflection upon the absolute impartiality and fairness of a Civil servant of the Crown; but I have had painful experience showing that that is not the case, and I recollect that for many years in this House I was almost continually occupied in defending the character and impartiality of men whose only fault was that they were, like other Civil servants, the nominees of the Government, capable of being dismissed by the Government, and capable of being promoted by the Government. I have only to mention the word "removable" to remind all who have taken part in the controversies of the last 10 years that the doctrine which we now hear from the Ministerial Bench, that it is contrary to the traditions of English politics to attack Civil servants of the Crown, is not a doctrine which has been almost consistently maintained by those who now support it.? But, as I understand the matter, no attack has been made by any man upon the existing Inspectors. The only question which we have to consider is, whether the casting of this kind of duty upon the Inspectors of the future might not possibly have the effect of altering the tone which, I am glad to say, has universally prevailed in the Civil Service up to the present time, and of laying the office open to a suspicion and a stain which it would be the first to repudiate. Again, I appeal to my personal experience. I always bore in mind when attacks were made upon the administration in Ireland that, although they were entirely unjust, and although they dealt with the character of men worthy of public sympathy and support, it was impossible to deny as a matter of fact that there was this right of dismissal, this right of Ministers who were Party politicians, and who were themselves the servants of a majority, to punish and reward; and of whom it might be said possibly that under certain contingencies connected with Party politics they might be drawn from that perfectly straight and impartial course which they would otherwise take. If it be true—mind, I do not say it is true—that this question of the compulsory taking of land will impose on the Local Government Board a very weighty strain of responsibility, I think we ought not in any light spirit to throw it on that or any other public Department. For 613 that reason, I ask the Government to hesitate before they reject any alternative proposal which may in any way commend itself to them. Now, what is the objection to the particular alteration suggested by the Lords? And here I think I have some ground of complaint against the right hon. Gentleman. In dealing with the details of the Amendment of Lord Morley last night he was full and explicit, but I looked in vain for any support of the one solitary contention which he made—namely, that the proposed tribunal of the Lords is a more costly one than that proposed by the Government. I do not think there is any difference of opinion upon the principles which ought to guide us. I agree with him that what we want above all things in this matter is cheap justice, and, looking to the existing anomalies of English legal procedure, I regret to say that cheap justice is at present a very difficult commodity to obtain. The right hon. Gentleman has said truly that costs would fall heavily on even the successful litigant, but we submit patiently to that in every other branch of civil administration of the law. But what I want to know is, whether the scheme of the Government is free to any great extent from this disadvantage. The right hon. Gentleman has assumed that inquiry before the Local Government Hoard is a cheap operation, and that the procedure proposed by the Lords is an expensive one. I am prepared to traverse both of those statements. There is nothing in the proposal of the Government to prevent leading counsel from being engaged at great expense to appear before the Local Government Board inquiries. I heard of a case the other day in Devonshire in which two of the leading counsel of the Parliamentary bar were sent down to an inquiry, where the total cost of the proceeding's, considering the standing of the gentlemen engaged, could not have been less than £900. Have you provided in this machinery, which you say is so cheap, against an abuse of that kind? You say that you desire above all things that it should not be only in the power of the man with a long purse to win. But have you provided for that? Nothing of the kind. Under the Bill as if left this House it would be in the power of the man with the long purse who had some controversy with the Parish Coun- 614 cil to engage in such costly procedure, and to so heap up costs that it would be ruinous to any Parish Council to contend with him. In these circumstances, how can the Government say that they have provided a cheap tribunal when they have made no attempt whatever to limit the costs in regard to counsel? For the expense of the inquiry lies, not in the nature of the tribunal, not in the fees to be paid, but mainly in the expenses of counsel, and this is shown in the cases fought before the Parliamentary Committee through the engagement of expert counsel and witnesses. Against the abuse of expert witnesses and counsel, the Government plan provides no remedy. On the other baud, the Lords do provide a remedy for it in their plan. The Lords have laid down two principles. In the first place, they decide that no counsel shall be allowed to appear; and, secondly, they have limited the expert witnesses. My own belief is that the tribunal proposed by the Lords is cheaper than that proposed by the Government, and if the Government decline, as they seem disposed to do, to bring in the two Houses of Parliament as the ultimate tribunal, I beg them to alter their proposals on the lines suggested by Lord Morley, and prevent the monstrous abuse of counsel and expert witnesses being called before the inquiry at great expense. If it be admitted, as I think it must be, that the procedure proposed by the Lords is the less expensive, I do not think there can be any difference of opinion on other grounds as to which is the best method to adopt. I confess that I have never been an advocate for maintaining the present system of inquiry before Parliamentary Committees. I have always thought that the cost of it is an immense abuse, and I was myself the author and introducer of a Bill in 1892, shortly before the last General Election, by which I thought, in the case of distant districts, at least, that the procedure might be hugely improved. I admit that my efforts in this direction met with little favour with hon. Gentlemen opposite, but it will doubtless be admitted that it was a well-meant endeavour to remedy an undoubted evil. Whether my plan was a good or a bad plan, there was a general feeling in the House, irrespective of the evil to which I have referred, that the two Houses of Parliament had 615 proved themselves under a variety of circumstances to be a constituted tribunal of absolute impartiality, and in which the country had profound confidence. If you have this impartial tribunal enjoying the confidence of the country, and you can use it without throwing heavy costs on the suitor, is it not wise to make use of it? I repeat, then, that I believe the Government plan to be the most costly, and that it opens the door to expenses which cannot be incurred under that of the Lords. Not one word was said by the Government last night to show that the Lords' plan was the more costly. In these circumstances, I shall record my vote in favour of agreeing with the Lords Amendment.

§ *SIR C. W. DILKE (Gloucester, Forest of Dean)
said, the main difficulty in connection with the procedure which the Government originally proposed upon this allotment clause appeared to him to be not so much the question of cost—an objection which had been rightly urged by them—as the delay that might possibly be caused in regard to the applications under the hiring provision. He believed that the hiring provision and the Provisional Order Procedure would be largely resorted to by the Parish Councils, and that there would be a heavy demand upon the Local Government Hoard under the compulsory powers, and he could not but shrink from the probability of delay being caused by the applications coming in great numbers without a sufficient staff of the Department being provided to meet the pressure. It would be a disaster if there should be a long delay in connection with these applications for the next few years, and be felt this so strongly that he was inclined to agree last night with what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and to think that on the whole it would be wise to substitute the procedure of the County Council. But the Amendment which the Lords had introduced into the clause appeared to involve a misunderstanding. When it was first discussed in the House of Commons it entirely escaped notice that the clause applied to two entirely different ques-tions—that it applied to urban as well as rural districts. But now that matter had lost its importance, owing to the provisions in Clause 32. And that was the 616 answer to the difficulty raised last night by the hon. Member for East Worcestershire. That clause gave ample power to meet the particular case. The "representations" alluded to in the Amendment before the House did not allude to allotments at all, but to the acquisition of land under (he first sub-section for the general purposes of the Parish Council. The Lords had misunderstood the meaning of those words, and thought they had to do with allotments, but the words applied only to the general powers. Ho believed the House of Lords were less hampered by form than this House was; but however that might be, the practical suggestion he should make would be that the Amendments should be negatived, because they were not as workable in themselves, and that the House of Lords should try and devise a scheme under which a very simple procedure by the locality should be substituted for the very elaborate machinery of this clause. If that were done he should give it his support.

§ *SIR J. GOLDSMID (St. Pancras, S.)
said, he wanted to show what he thought the Amendment would not do under the present circumstances. He believed it was cheaper than the Government plan, and in that respect it was better, but on the other hand, it would take twice as long as the Government plan, and in that, respect it was very much worse, and for that reason he could not support it. Further, from what he knew of the proceedings on Private Bills upstairs—and he knew a good deal, for he had had 10 years' experience as Chairman—lie should say that there was no more expensive tribunal in the world than a Private Bill Committee. He had himself tried to reduce the time occupied in order to reduce the expenditure, and he was afraid that he had caused great dissatisfaction to many leading Parliamentary counsel; but, be that as it might, there was no doubt that private persons, Corporations, and Local Boards had felt it a great grievance that they should be put to such large expense in protracted London inquiries. Consequently, he was glad that any reference to a Parliamentary tribunal in that sense would 710 longer be permitted in these allotment cases. But he did not agree that the reference in every case should be to the Local Government Board. There would almost certainly be very great delay and 617 difficulty in causing the proper local inquiry to be made by the Local Government Board in all the numerous cases which would now come before them. Therefore, ho asked the Government whether they could not even now allow the County Council to be the authority to whom the reference should be made. He could not help thinking that their experience of the County Council had been on the whole extremely favourable. The County Council would not be moved by small local considerations and petty jealousies, but would desire to do what was best in the general interests of the county itself. He believed, therefore, the best solution of the question would be to negative the proposals as they had come down from the Lords, hut also to alter their own proposals, in so far as to make the appeal, not to the Local Government Board, but to the County Council. Further, he would say it was very undesirable that counsel should appear at these inquiries; it would be much better to leave the witnesses to tell their story in their own honest straightforward way under the guidance of people who knew the local needs. He made this suggestion certainly not as a. Party one. He believed it would not be favourably received by the Bar, but he made it really in the interests of the public.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,) Derby
The suggestion of my hon. Friend is one well worthy of the consideration of the House, but no question of giving this appeal to the County Council is now open. We decided last night where the District Council should stand, and whatever is done should be done by a new proposal. I beg the House to consider that, and not to waste time in discussing that which we cannot deal with. With regard to what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean, I confess I do not pronounce an opinion upon the different proposals we have now before us, but I do not think it would be satisfactory to have the refusal of the County Council to allow land to be taken. That, at all events, is my present impression. But the question we have practically to deal with at the present moment is that between the proposal of the Government and the proposal of the House of Lords. Now the right 618 hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has put the question on the matter of expense. That, was not the ground on which it was put in the House of Lords; it was the unfitness of the Local Government Board. What was said of them was that they have no real qualifications whatever and are perfectly ignorant of these matters. Why are they more ignorant of these matters than of those they have to inquire into every day? If there is a great purchase or improvement to take place in any of our great, towns they are competent to deal with it. Then it was said by Lord Salisbury— I entirely distrust the Inspector of the Local Government Board. I distrust him in the first instance, because he is incompetent and knows nothing of the subject; in the next instance, because he is appointed by a politician, and his very official existence and promotion depend upon the goodwill of that politician. Now, I am happy to think that, as far as the Leader of the Opposition in this House is concerned, these imputations are withdrawn, because they apply, not only to the Local Government Board, but to every Department of the Slate. If it is to be said that the permanent Civil Service of the country are incompetent because they are appointed by a politician, you will cast a reproach over the whole Civil Service which is undeserved; and, in the next place, it is destructive of the whole organisation of your Government. Therefore, I am happy, whatever you do with this Amendment, to think that, at all events, the question will not be decided on the ground on which it was based in the House of Lords. The Leader of the Opposition thought ho had disposed of that matter by referring to reflections made in other quarters; but it is a, very different thing when a man has been Prime Minister of England, and Leader of a great Party in this country, that he should cast reflections of that kind upon the great permanent Civil servants of this country, and it cannot be defended by what I must call a very irrelevant tu quoque on that subject. Everybody who is interested in the maintenance of the character and reputation of the Civil Service of this country is bound to repudiate in the strongest manner such language, and to condemn it utterly and entirely. I hope, therefore, that we shall have in the 619 arguments on this question, no further allegations that the Amendment rests upon the incompetence and untrust-worthiness of the permanent Civil Service. I am bound to say that the question was treated by Lord Morley upon a very different footing to that on which it was treated by Lord Salisbury. He applied himself to the question of expense. Now, upon the question of expense there is a great deal to be said. I am not here to defend Parliamentary counsel, with whom I had something to do in former days; but after all they were not the greater offenders, for if you came to see, in connection with a great Railway Bill, what proportion counsel's fees bore to the whole expense you would have found it to be not a very large percentage. There were other contributors, and I remember, especially about the time of the Derby, that there was a very great disposition on the part of local persons to enlighten the Committee on the subject. But I am quite ready to admit that in these smaller matters you do not want counsel. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a case in Devonshire where counsel were paid large fees. I do not know what was the case; but it is not the ordinary practice for counsel to appear at these inquiries of the Local Government Board, and I do not believe that anybody acquainted with the two tribunals will doubt for a single moment that the Local Governmet Board inquiries are much cheaper than Parliamentary inquiries. Then the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean anticipates that there may be delay in the Local Government Board. That is possible; but there would be much greater delay in Parliament. In 1893 Parliament was sitting continuously; but we know that, as a rule, there is only a very limited portion of the year in which it is possible for Parliament to deal with Provisional Orders, whereas the Local Government Board can always deal with them. Is it worth while to introduce a steam-hammer like the authority of both Houses of Parliament for the purpose of cracking such nuts as the hiring of 10 or a dozen acres of land in a parish? It seems absurd on the face of it. Under these circumstances, the Government must certainly oppose the proposal in Lord Morley's Amendment, and, until some better pro- 620 posal is made, we must adhere to our own.

§ *MR. W. LONG (Liverpool, West Derby)
said, he must congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the House upon the change in the right hon. Gentleman's tone in regard to this question. He had gathered from what the right hon. Gentleman said outside that ho believed the action of the Lords was not based on a desire for reduced expenditure, but on a desire to prevent allotments. He had not beard anything of that kind from the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon. He was very glad that that was so; if they were to come to an agreement it was very desirable that there should be a change of tone. They were all agreed that where compulsion was to be exercised it should be exercised with the least possible expense and delay. He desired to say a word with regard to the alternative proposal. He should certainly pronounce in favour of these powers being left to the Local Government Board rather than to the County Council. If they conferred the powers upon the County Council they would be compelled to confer them upon the county boroughs, with the result that a county borough desiring land for allotments would have power to go outside its own area, to take land compulsorily, and to use it for the benefit of the inhabitants in the county borough. Of course, no such proposal could be for a moment entertained. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had revived a reference made by the President of the Local Government Board last night to certain remarks made in another place with regard to the officials of the Local Government Board. This House contained so many ex-Presidents of the Local Government Board that it was unnecessary for him to say anything on the question. He wished, however, to entirely dissociate himself from those remarks, his own opinion being that there was no body of men in the country to whom the public owed more than to those officials, who discharged their functions with a complete absence of personal bias or political feeling, and with no other desire than that of honestly doing their duty to the country. He did not believe that the remarks to which the right hon. Gen- 621 tleman had referred were intended to convey the impression which had been gathered from them, and he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer was wrong when he attributed the opposition to the Government proposal solely upon the view that those gentlemen could not be trusted. He did not cast the slightest imputation upon the officials of the Local Government Board; but he could conceive circumstances existing, such, for instance, as an inquiry being held in a place when an election was proceeding, where pressure might be put upon the head of the Department to prevent a decision being arrived at in the inquiry, which, though harmful in the long run to the district, might benefit the candidature of a supporter of the Government. For that reason he objected to the Government proposal. Ho could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean that the procedure of the House of Lords was as cumbrous as the existing system of Provisional Orders. On the whole, the proposal of the Lords was a practical proposal, and he did not believe it would cause greater delay or expense than the plan of the Government. He could assure the House that there was a very widespread feeling of alarm among small owners and farmers that the plan of the Government contained elements of danger to existing agricultural interests. He had the honour of sitting on a Royal Commission appointed by the Government for inquiring into agricultural depression, and he thought the present moment was very unwise to select for doing any injury to agricultural interests. He would read a letter which he had received from one farmer on this subject— The allotment holders of the village at a, recent meeting publicly announced their intention of applying for the whole amount of grass land which the Bill allows per head, and as my turf lies around the homestead and is close to the village it has already been selected by them for this particular purpose. The number of labourers is about 150, which is much more than sufficient to take the whole of my grass land and render the remainder of my farm utterly useless. Well, he believed such fears were exaggerated, because he was confident that, whatever tribunal was chosen, it would not allow so great an injustice to be inflicted on an individual. But undoubtedly the impression had been 622 created in the minds of the labourers that the passage of the Bill would be followed by the acquisition of large quantities of laud of the character they particularly required, and the House ought to consider very carefully whether it would place upon a Public Department a duty involving, on the one hand, the risk of disappointing men whoso hopes had been raised, or, on the other hand, the risk of inflicting grave loss and injury on individuals. One word more. He was gratified to hear the President of the Local Government Board say that he had never underrated the Act of 1887. He hoped that example would be followed by gentlemen opposite, and that they would in future refrain from attacking the legislation of their opponents. He was, indeed, surprised and gratified at these observations of the right hon. Gentleman. He supported the Lords' proposal not because of any unwillingness to diminish the desire for allotments, but because he believed that upon the whole it would be found a more beneficial proposal than that of the Government.

§ *SIR A. ROLLIT (Islington, S.)
said, he wished to draw attention to the comparative expensiveness of the two proposals that had been submitted. He thought the Lords' Amendment was not based on the proper principle. The cardinal idea of inexpensiveness, it seemed to him, in dealing with local matters was that as far as possible they should be conducted locally. That principle was the very foundation of Assizes and of the great increase of County Court jurisdiction. If the inquiry was conducted locally the expense of taking witnesses to London would be avoided, and the tribunal would be acquainted with the locality and would require little explanation of local circumstances. When there was no contest the Provisional Order system was, perhaps, among the cheapest that could be found; but when there was a contest—which was the case they had to pro ride for—t he procedure was very expensive. They owed to the Lords the suggestion of the solution of the question on proper principles. The Lords' Amendments contemplated throughout the substitution of the County Council for the Local Government Board, and he hoped that the County Council would yet be made the final tribunal. But, as he had said, he did not think the present 623 Amendment was based on a proper principle.

§ MR. JESSE COLLINGS (Birmingham, Bordesley)
said, the President of the Local Government Board had admitted that the Act of 1887 had done great good. They knew that before; but, after the right hon. Gentleman's admission, he hoped hon. Members would no longer denounce it in the country as a sham. It was no exaggeration to say that that Act had, by direct or indirect operation, put 100,000 or 200,000 people in possession of allotments. Thus they were not now dealing with the great question of the supply of allotments. They were only dealing with a matter that would affect, perhaps, one case in 100. All that was wanted was some cheap method of dealing with the question of compulsory acquisition. It was acknowledged that, if it was proposed to take a man's property from him, he should have every opportunity of making his objections. The President of the Local Government Board, in dealing with this question, said he was not wedded to the Local Government Board; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer immediately got up and put the right hon. Gentleman down. If they had only the President of the Local Government Board to deal with, who was sincerely desirous of seeing the matter settled, some means might be found. But two views were held upon the Treasury Bench—one, that of the President of the Local Government Board, and, again, the general view of the Government, which was to make no alteration or concession whatever in the Bill, their object being to foster a fight with the other House. He would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be a little more considerate for the wants of the rural labourers. He might get up a fight with the House of Lords, and the labourers might get what they wanted after the House of Lords was abolished, but he (Mr. Jesse Collings) wished them to get it sooner than that. Last night the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when a serious and practical proposal was brought before him, addressed the House as if it were an overflow meeting at Portsmouth. Instead of discussing the matter as one would have expected, the right hon. Gentleman performed a sort of political 624 skirt dance. They had a right to better treatment than that. The decision of the Government on this matter would oblige them to reveal their hand. He would be glad if the Opposition, and especially the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour), would agree to the County Council arrangement, safeguarded, if it was desired, by a. Memorial to the Local Government Board. According to the speeches made in another place, that would satisfy almost all the speakers. If that plan could be agreed upon they would oblige the Government to show their hand. They could not be above accepting this solution at the hands of the Unionist Party, a solution which would fulfil the condition of cheapness as well as safeguard the owners. If, however, they refused, it would mean that they did not want the Bill to pass, and that they wanted to drop it to suit the desperate political position in which they found themselves. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that the Government would stand by their own proposal until something better was brought forward; but he thought they should be willing to agree to the proposal which he (Mr. Jesse Collings) now suggested.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
said, he could only repeat that, as between the two plans before the House, the Government adhered to their own. If any other plan was proposed hereafter the Government would consider it. They could offer no further opinion.

MR. J. LOWTHER (Kent, Thanet)
said, he thought the impression should not go abroad that they were in general agreement, or that there was a concurrence of opinion among the different sections of the House, with regard to the suggestion that County Councils should be accepted. He agreed with the views of the hon. Member for the West Derby Division in preferring action by the Local Government Board to action by a Local Body like the County Council, for whose impartiality in all places he should not care to stand sponsor. He did not, however, go to the length of saying that an Inspector of the Local Government Board should act as a final court of appeal. He was not speaking in any sense personally; but a tinge of political feeling had been introduced. Inquiries in London, he believed, 625 would be less expensive than local inquiries. At any rate, that was the conclusion to which his own experience of inquiries led him. He did not wish to detain the House, but he would mention that only yesterday he was personally interested in an inquiry before the Local Government Board. It was a proposal with reference to acquiring nine acres of land. He received a telegram in the course of the day as to the termination of the inquiry after two of their witnesses had been examined. The costs would be a considerable item in that case. The hon. Member for South Islington spoke of the expense of inquiries in London. His (Mr. Lowther's) experience was the other way. He was not now dealing with the inquiry which was held only yesterday, and the bill of costs in connection with which he had not seen; but in another inquiry in which he was involved they had great expense—taking witnesses down, for example, and employing counsel at high fees. Those who had a larger experience than he would bear him out with regard to inquiries held in that way. The local inquiries appeared to him to be more expensive and less satisfactory. The Duke of Devonshire in the other House threw out a suggestion as an alternative which might be considered. That was that the Privy Council might be used for this purpose. This suggestion might remove some of the difficulties. It was, at all events, worthy of some consideration whether some Judicial Body or authority wholly removed from political or local prejudices would not suit for the purpose of solving the difficulties in the matter. The Government were better able to form a judgment than he was; and they knew best, he supposed, what should be done to remove such questions from a Government Department, which might be influenced by political considerations, and from County Councils, which were certain to be so influenced.

§ MR.WHARTON (York, W. R., Ripon)
said, he would like to suggest, as a moans of limiting expenditure, that it should be resolved that the costs of inquiry should not exceed 5 or 6 per cent. of the total amount involved. That, he thought, would be looked upon as a reasonable suggestion.

§ *MR. T. H. BOLTON (St. Pancras, N.)
said, he was much inclined 626 to think there was a very general feeling in the House that, consistently with the proper safeguarding of interests, some speedy and inexpensive mode of giving compulsory power was desirable. He would like to call attention to one of the provisions of Section 3 of the Act of 1887 with regard to the taking of land compulsorily. It provided that the authority in making a Provisional Order for purchasing land Shall have regard to the extent of the land held in the neighbourhood by any owner and to the convenience of other property belonging to the same owner and shall as far as practicable avoid taking an undue or inconvenient quantity of land from any one owner. Therefore, it was only "as far as practicable" that an inconvenient or undue quantity of land was not to be taken from any owner. The object of this Bill was to give allotments. That would be the object for which the compulsory power would be required, and that would be the object the Local Government Board Inspector would feel it his duty to carry out; and if, in order to carry out that object, he found it necessary to take an undue or inconvenient quantity of land, they might depend upon it that he would do it: therefore, by the mere incorporation of this Act of 1887 the Government were not sufficiently safeguarding the interests of men in the position of the writer of the letter read by the hon. Member for West Derby. There they had a case where a man had pasture land close to a village, and that land was the very laud the man said had been marked out to he taken. It was an inconvenience to him to have that laud taken. It was an undue quantity to take from any one man; but if the Parish Council asked for that land, and if the Local Government Hoard Inspector found that in order to provide allotments it was desirable to take that land, there were no safeguarding provisions in this Bill which would prevent the Local Government Board sanctioning the Order. He would suggest, for the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, that some provision might be put in which would prevent cases of injustice such as those referred to by the hon. Member for West Derby. It was, he presumed, idle to discuss now whether a Parliamentary Committee should be retained as the ultimate authority, because 627 there seemed to be a general feeling that some less expensive and more accessible tribunal should be provided. He hoped the Government would substitute the County Council for the District Council to act in the matter as a better, and more competent, and more responsible and acceptable authority. If the power of the Local Government Board was retained, he should hope that there would be some special Inspectors appointed who were well acquainted with agricultural matters and commanded the confidence of the whole agricultural community. He did not know that they could usefully support the specific Amendment made by the Lords in its entirety, because there seemed to be a general feeling that some different arrangement should be made and some different ultimate control should be given to that in the Lords' Amendments. The practical course was to dissent from the action of the Lords, but he hoped that in dissenting the Government would realise that there was a disposition on the part of men on all sides of the House to see some satisfactory and acceptable solution arrived at. He knew that it might suit the policy of some hon. Gentlemen to have an opportunity of going to the country and representing the action of the Lords in this matter as of a detrimental and damaging character. They might desire to get up a cry against the Lords in this House as in other places, but he hoped that would not prevail, and that they would deal with the matter in a practical spirit, with a desire to arrive at a reasonable solution of what everyone would admit was a difficult subject.

§ *MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)
said, that if the proposal could be limited to the acquisition of laud for the purpose of allotments, although he owned he disliked extremely departing from the universal practice which had prevailed in the past, he should not view it with that grave apprehension he might otherwise do, nor would he think it necessary to offer a very determined opposition to the proposal. But he thought the House treated much too lightly the fact that if they adopted the principle in this case it could not rest there. And he confessed that when he considered that in the course of time it would be inevitable that they would have to apply the same principle, or, at all events, they would be called upon to 628 apply it in cases where property might have to be disposed of to the value of millions of money; it was a very grave principle indeed which the House was sanctioning without, as far as he could see, any sufficient reason or necessity for doing so. The objections raised by the Government to the Amendments of the Lords were altogether illusory. The Government's great objection was the expense involved in going to Parliament. He disputed that proposition altogether, and he maintained that the Government had advanced nothing to justify their assertion. The President of the Local Government Board had said last night there were only three cases which had come before Parliament under this category; two were unopposed, and he complained of the great expense in the third case, but that incident—namely, the St. Faith's case—had been answered over and over again, and knocked into a cocked hat for the fiftieth time only a few moments ago by the hon. Member sitting at his side (Mr. W. Long). There was no doubt that a large majority of parishes in the country at the present time were already supplied with allotments—no matter how. It was a fact that they were supplied. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham stated last night that whole counties were already in possession of allotments. On the other hand, they heard there remained some thousands of parishes where there wore no allotments at all. Granted that was so; but the reason was not that people had been unable to obtain them, but because in the great majority of cases there had been no application for them. He wished, if it was not too late, that he could persuade the House to consider this question a little further, and to avail itself of the information that was at its disposal at the present moment on this question. They had before them all the Reports of the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners of the Labour Commission full of information on this subject, and they bore out to the letter what he had been endeavouring to put before the House on this part of the subject. He would make an appeal to the Government but for the fact he remembered that on Thursday night the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in a most uncompromising humour, 629 and roundly declared in the discussion on the first Amendment that the Government would refuse all the Amendments of the Lords on this point. Nothing could have looked more unpromising than his attitude at that time. But he (Mr. Chaplin) was glad to think, from the few observations made earlier this evening, some change had come over the feelings and intentions of the right hon. Gentleman, and that ho was now more conciliatory. He understood him to say that, although the Government objected to Lord Morley's proposal, they did not desire to obstinately adhere to the proposal as it stood in the Bill, but were prepared to consider suggestions. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was much more bellicose last night. The President of the Local Government Board was disposed to be conciliatory, but they (the Opposition) had come to the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman was overridden by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He (Mr. Chaplin) was glad to see the present disposition of the Government, and he hoped that under the circumstances it would be unnecessary to divide.

§ MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)
said, ho did not think this was a large question in itself, or would have been, if it had not been for the attitude taken up by the Government on the previous subsection. He believed that if a proper court of appeal had been provided in the first instance there would have been no desire on the part of landowners to prevent labourers getting allotments under the Bill; on the contrary, they would have considered this the best mode they could have of letting land, the rent being certain. But what he wanted to point out was that the real difficulty lay in the fact that the Government had set up in the first instance a court of appeal in the District Council which would not have the confidence of the public, and had helped as far as possible to make it necessary to set up another court of appeal. For his own part, he preferred the Local Government Hoard to any Parliamentary tribunal. Hut he felt certain that if the Lords would take notice of what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, and would put their brains to work to find some tribunal that would be satisfactory to all parties, they 630 would have no difficulty in finding it. If he might give them a word of advice it would be to put back into the Bill the County Council in the first instance, adopting the Local Government Board Inspector as the final court of appeal.

§ Question put, and agreed to.

§ Amendment in page 11, line 3, after the words "tenancy; or," to insert the words— (d) as to compensation for any injury or inconvenience in respect to the management of the farm or the occupation of the dwelling-house belonging to it; or, —the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
said, the Government objected to the Amendment, on the ground that this item of compensation was already provided for in a clause of the Allotments Act which was incorporated in this Bill, and which provided that no part of laud which would interfere with a residence should be taken. The word "inconvenience" in the Lords' Amendment was too wide.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)

§ *MR. CHAPLIN
said, that if the contention of the right hon. Gentleman held good, and the sub-section of the Allotments Act to which he referred would adequately provide against the consequences which might possibly occur from the Bill, and which were intended to be met by the Amendment, the explanation would be satisfactory; but he (Mr. Chaplin) could not say that that was his opinion. The sub-section of the Allotments Act of 1887 dealt with the amenities of a dwelling-house, which no doubt were safeguarded, but it did not apply, as far as ho could see, to inconvenience caused in the management of a farm. He did not know whether the taking of 50 acres off the corner of a 1,000 acre farm far away from the house would be held to interfere with the amenities of the farm as a dwelling-house. He was not a lawyer. What was certainly desired was to provide compensation for injury or inconvenience in respect to the management of a farm. There were cases in which the taking of land for the purposes of the Bill 631 would inflict a very grout injury on the occupier of a farm, and sometimes to such an extent as to interfere in the conduct of business altogether. There should be absolute and complete safeguards against objections of that kind. This was certainly not provided in the present clause of the Allotments Act. Unless the Government were able to show it was provided for in some clause of the Bill, then it was proper they should consider the proposal which had been proposed by the Lords. If the Government made it clear that under the Bill as it stood now there should be compensation for any injury or inconvenience in respect to the management of a farm the Opposition would be satisfied. It had not boon made clear yet. He assumed the Government admitted there should be compensation in such cases. He failed, indeed, to see how anyone could contend the opposite. SIR W. HARCOURT said, ho quite agreed that any injury caused to a man in his farm by any severance of the land ought to be compensated. That was only fair. It was quite conceivable that to take two acres of a farm in one place would do more injury to the farm than to take 10 acres in another place. It would be the duty of the arbitrator to give compensation in such a case; but the Government thought it was sufficiently provided for under the Allotments Act and the 63rd section of the Lands Clauses Act, upon which the arbitration would be founded.

§ *MR. W. LONG
said, it was clear from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was the intention of the Government that where injury was done to a farm compensation should be paid. It was a question for lawyers whether or not the Bill would carry out that intention. What was strongly felt by many agriculturists was that it would be difficult, when the arbitrator was considering his award, for the tenant of the farm or the owner of the land to represent in any definite or clearly-expressed form the contingent loss to his farm by the abstraction of a certain quantity of land. It was believed the Amendment would direct the attention of the arbitrator not only to the loss by the actual severance, but to an injury to the occupation of the farm which, perhaps, might hardly be 632 apparent to the occupier at the time. As far as he could understand from the answers of the Government, they meant to make full provision for injury of this kind that would result from the Act. Would the insertion of these words lead to danger or real inconvenience? Did they carry the provision a bit further than the Government wished to carry it? The Government wished that there should be complete compensation where injury was done. Would Sub-section (c) include more than that where a case had been made out compensation should be paid? He did not contend that the section of the Lands Clauses Act which the President of the Local Government Board had referred to would not cover the point; but, on the other hand, he put it that this Amendment had been put in after careful consideration by practical and experienced men, and that unless the Government thought it would be injurious to the Bill they should reconsider their objection. According to the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Amendment could be no more than surplusage.

§ *SIR A. ROLLIT (Islington, S.)
said, he thought the words of the Lands Clauses Act did not by any moans cover the particular case, the injury contemplated by the Amendment being not to the house or to the land, but to the management of the general business of the farm. It had been decided that the word "severance" in the Lands Clauses Act referred only to direct and immediate injury to the land adjoining that taken, and not to such consequential injury as that pointed to in the Amendment. The case to be covered was one of those mentioned in the letter addressed to the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool—such as the abstraction from a farm of adequate facilities for conducting a dairy business. The Lands Clauses Act would not help such a case as that.

MR. J. LOWTHER
said, there was one point which ought to be cleared up, because it was very difficult for a layman to follow the verbiage in the Statutes which had been read out. In Clause 9 of the Bill it was provided that— For the purpose of the acquisition of land by the Parish Council the Lands Clauses Act shall be incorporated with this Act except the provisions of those Acts with respect to the 633 purchase and taking of land otherwise than by agreement. He thought this was capable of explanation, and he mentioned it in order that there should be no misconception left on the minds of hon. Members. To the ordinary lay mind the words he had quoted looked as if the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts which dealt with this point were distinctly excepted by the Bill. It had been his painful duty so often to criticise the drafting of this Bill that he did not wish to repeat the process. But did the Lands Clauses Acts cover the objection which had been raised, and would farmers who had part of their land taken be compensated? The doubt ought to be cleared up, and he was justified in asking some Minister of the Crown to assure; the House that these safeguards, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had mentioned, wore really in the Bill.

§ CoLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)
said, he would call attention to a consequence of severance of land which might have escaped the attention of hon. Gentlemen opposite—a point on which would hang, to a certain degree, the question of compensation. Suppose a piece of land were taken which rendered the rest of the farm loss valuable for occupation than it was before, as in the case mentioned in the letter read by the hon. Member for West Derby, whore certain pieces of pasture land were demanded for allotment purposes and withdrawn from the holding, the remainder of the holding thereby becoming valueless. There would be one thing resulting from that which had not been contemplated. The arable land would bo thrown up, and could no longer be let as of tenantable value, and yet it was by the cultivation of that arable land that the labourers who wanted these allotments would depend for their weekly wages. It was all very well to say that they would benefit the labourer by giving him a little land, but they would ruin him if they withdrew from cultivation the arable laud by which they earned their daily and weekly wages. It was, therefore, of importance that in this matter of severance they should recollect that it was possible to sever in the interest of the allotment-holders those portions of the land which would neces- 634 sitate the throwing up of the arable portions that remained, and on which the villagers and labourers depended for their occupation. He thought that this question of severance had hardly been within the contemplation of some of those persons who talked so glibly on these subjects, and he hoped that when they talked of compensation for severance it would be recollected that severance might mean the ruin or, at all events, the throwing out of employment of many of those persons who were hoping to benefit by the measure.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir J. RIGBY,) Forfar
said, that as to the question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet, the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts applied only where laud was taken under the Bill by agreement. That action was not what the Bill contemplated where land was taken otherwise than by agreement. The commencement of Clause 9 had to do with taking land by agreement; therefore it would be wrong to incorporate any part of that Act which had not reference to the taking of land by agreement. It was provided in the clause they were now dealing with—Clause 10, Subsection 7—that The Order for compulsory hiring may apply, with the prescribed adaptations, such of the provisions of the bands Clauses Acts (including those relating to the acquisition of land otherwise than by agreement) as appear to the Local Government Board sufficient for carrying into effect the Order, and for the protection of the persons interested in the land and of the Parish Council. It was clear that when they wore dealing with the question of the amount of compensation to be paid for severance, it was the duty of the Local Government Board to apply the provisions of the Lauds Clauses Acts which had to do with severance. It was said that those provisions would include the provisions of the Allotments Act. The tenant would be compensated for any loss which he might sustain as tenant of the land, but he did not suppose that anyone who considered the matter wanted to go beyond that, and it did not follow that in regard to compensation for every inconvenience which he might sustain in any other capacity, the Lands Clauses Acts would apply at all. Whatever loss he sustained as tenant of the land would be carefully included. If a man's house was injuriously affected, it 635 did not follow that he was to be paid for every inconvenience ho might suffer in any capacity. It was, he thought, plain that ho was only to be compensated for inconvenience in relation to the management of his farm. "Inconvenience" was a very doubtful word to include in an Act of Parliament. "Injury" one could understand, and "injuriously affected" could be understood, but "inconvenience" was a novelty, and it would not be wise for the Government in this Bill to introduce a form of compensation which had not hitherto been recognised as proper in such cases. The Government relied on the words "amount of compensation for severance," and it was because these now words would have to mean something different from that, if there was any reason for their introduction at all, that they thought them objectionable. What difference was there between the case of a Railway Company taking land compulsorily for its undertaking and a Parish Council taking land for allotment purposes? The amount of injury done would be identical in both cases. The Legislature had laid down what compensation was to be given by the Railway Company, and he could not see what ground there was for advancing beyond that, and so penalising the Parish Council in taking allotments when the very object of the Bill was to facilitate the taking of allotments for the public benefit.

§ SIR J. GORST (Cambridge University)
said, it was very evident after the speech of the learned Solicitor General that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, no doubt in perfectly good faith, misled the House. The right hon. Gentleman said that the doctrine he laid down was carried out by certain sections of the Lands Clauses Act which he read to the House, and which he induced the House to believe were by the Bill applied to the case of the acquisition of part of a farm for allotments. The question had been asked by his right hon. Friend (Mr. J. Lowther) how it was made out that the Lands Clauses Act applied, and it appeared from the Solicitor General's reply that the Act was not made by the Bill to apply to the case at all. The Bill, no doubt, gave power to the Local Government Board to apply any of the sections of the Lands Clauses Act which related to the com- 636 pulsory acquisition of land; but, on the other hand, the Local Government Board might think fit not to apply them, and therefore the House had no security in the Bill that the sections would be applied. The hon. Member for Islington (Sir A. Rollit) had shown that even the Lands Clauses Act would not meet the whole of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said justice required. Some further provision was necessary in order to protect the tenant-farmer in such cases as that which had been stated by the hon. Member for the West Derby Division (Mr. W. Long). He hoped that, under those circumstances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would favourably consider part, at least, of the Lords Amendment.

§ SIR. W. HARCOURT
All I stated was that I believed that the Lands Clauses Act does give an entire protection in regard to severance. But there is no more reason that we should give any different compensation in the case of land taken by a Parish Council than in the case of land taken by a railway. If you take land for a railway you have to pay compensation under the Land Clauses Act; but because land is going to be taken by the Parish Council it is said there must be a different and a larger compensation We say that the general law applicable to all taking of land and houses for public purposes is laid down in the Lands Clauses Act. [Sir J. GORST: It does not apply.] Put it is sufficient, because it settles the rules applying wherever land is taken compulsorily for public purposes. This is a public purpose, and the same rule and the same law and the same compensation ought to be applied when land is taken by a County Council as when it is taken by any other body. Take the case of a dairy-farmer. Supposing a Railway Company takes a field occupied by a dairy-farmer, they must compensate him under the Land Clauses Act. If the Parish Council takes identically the same field, the compensation will be given in the same way. If you apply any other principle you will be putting a differential duty upon the acquisition of laud by a Parish Council as distinguished from any other body.

MR. J. LOWTHER
The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my point. I drew the right hon. Gentleman's atten- 637 tion to Clause 9 of the Bill, which distinctly exempts the Land Clauses Acts—

§ *MR. SPEAKER (interposing)
As both the right hon. Gentlemen have spoken twice, I would suggest that some oilier gentleman should continue the discussion.

§ *SIR J. LUBBOCK
said, the clause did not incorporate the Lands Clauses Act, but only enabled the Local Government Board to do so. Surely that should be imperative. Moreover, why, if the Lauds Clauses Act covered the case, were certain specified conditions put into the clause? The fact that that was done would exclude others. But the conditions mentioned did not cover the whole case. In parts of the country the farms were all in narrow strips, the-reason being that part of the farm was the upland, which was used for certain purposes, whilst the lowland at the foot of the hill was used for different purposes, if the lowland were taken away, the Farm would be rendered practically valueless for agricultural purposes. Such cases were not covered by the clause of the Bill, but he understood that it would be covered by the Lords Amendment. He had not very clearly heard the Solicitor General, although he had done his best to catch the argument he addressed to the House, but the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer clearly did not deal with such a class of cases at all. It was not a case of compensating a farmer for the loss of his best field. Very fair compensation might be given as far as that particular held was concerned, but such compensation would not cover (he reduction or entire extinction which its loss involved of the value of the rest of the farm. He hoped that the Government, who, he was sure, wished to do justice in this matter, would take the case he had put into consideration.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (Manchester, E.)
I understand that there is no question of principle at issue on this Amendment. It has been laid down by the Government and accepted by us that when injury has been done to a farm by reason of compulsory hiring compensation should be given to the tenant. The question we have to discuss is whether the Bill as it originally left this House carries out that object. That necessitates the investiga- 638 tion of two simple points. One is whether the Lands Clauses Act really applies in this case, and the other is whether that Act is sufficient to meet the case. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that the Lands Clauses Act does apply to the ease, and he relies for the bearing out of that statement upon the lauguage of Clause 7 of the Bill as it originally left our House. In the first place, I have to remark upon that that the language of the sub-section is permissive. The whole argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was based upon the allegation that the Lands Clauses Act was embodied in the Bill for the purpose of compulsory hiring. That appears to me, from the language of his own sub-section, not to be the case. It is for the Local Government Board to determine what portion of the Lands Clauses Act shall or shall not be included in this Bill. What assistance does this Bill give to the Local Government Board in coining to a determination on that question? I would ask attention to the language of Clause 9. It provides that for the purpose of the acquiring of land by Parish Councils the Lauds Clauses Act shall be incorporated except those provisions that relate to the compulsory purchase of laud. When the Local Government Board come to interpret Clause 10 they will see that it rests with them entirely to determine what portion of the Lands Clauses Act shall be applied to the compulsory hiring of land, and that by the very Bill they have to interpret the whole of the pro visions of the Lands Clauses Act are swept entirely away when it is a case of the compulsory acquisition and not of the compulsory hiring of laud. It appears to me that under these circumstances the Local Government Board will have a distinct inducement to diminish the number of clauses of the Lands Clauses Act which they will incorporate in this Bill. That, I think, will be regarded as a very strong objection to the Government proposal. I object to its being left to the Local Government Board to determine what provisions shall be inserted, and I object to the guidance which is given to the Local Government Board on the subject in Clause 9. The second question is whether the Lauds Clauses Act is sufficient to meet the case which the Government themselves admit we ought to meet? I admit that I am at a great dis- 639 advantage on this question, owing to my total want of legal knowledge and legal training. But I have had put into my hands by a legal friend a book entitled Brown and Theobald's Law of Railways, and there I find this comment, based upon the decisions of the Courts with reference to the Lands Clauses Act:— If the injury is not to the property as such, but merely to the property as used for a particular purpose such as a business, or, in other words, to the business carried on on the property, no compensation can be recovered. I do not know how far that statement really represents the opinion of legal authorities, but, taking the sentence in its plain meaning, it would seem to indicate that if a farmer were carrying on the business of a dairy-farmer and the result of the operation of this Bill were to take away from his farm certain fields which were necessary to be farmed for the purpose of carrying on the dairy business the injury would be "not to the property as such," but chiefly to the property as used for the purpose of carrying on the business. I learn from this book that under such circumstances the occupier would not be entitled to compensation. Therefore, it follows that the Bill would not carry out the intentions which the Government themselves say they desire. The Government will see that it is a matter of very great importance to the farmers of the country. We all feel that it is our business to protect the tenant-farmer in the enjoyment of what are really his rights. There should be no ambiguity, and it should not be left to any Department to determine whether part of the Lands Clauses Act should or should not be enforced when the maintenance of private right was in question. I do not ask the Government to accept the exact words of the Lords, but to insert some words which will effect the purpose desired by everybody.

§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN (Birmingham, W)
I think my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has been dealing entirely with the question of severance in the case of hiring land. Of course, the question of severance arises also in the case of compulsory purchase, because you may compulsorily purchase portion of an estate or farm for the purpose of allotments. As in the case suggested by my right hon. Friend the 640 Member for the London University, if you take the lower land and leave the upper land you entirely destroy the value of the upper land; and in that case, as well as in the case of compulsory hiring, it is absolutely necessary that compensation should be provided for the severance. How have the Government provided for this necessary result? The further I go into the Bill the more I admire the ingenuity of its drafting; and in this matter, whoever was the distinguished lawyer responsible for the drafting, he may be said to have exceeded himself. Clause 9 of the Bill provides that, for the purposes of the acquisition of laud by a Parish Council, the Lands Clauses Act shall be incorporated, except the provision of that Act with respect to the purchase and taking of land otherwise than by agreement. That, therefore, excludes the part of the Lauds Clauses Act providing compensation for severance. But Sub-section 3 of Clause 9 of the Bill deals with the case of taking land otherwise than by voluntary agreement. It provides that in such cases an Order shall be proceeded for under Section 3 of the Allotments Act, 1887. Therefore, having first excluded the clauses of the Lands Clauses Act, which deals with the compulsory acquisition of land, they refer us for the conditions under which land may be compulsorily taken to Section 3 of the Allotments Act. Now that section provides that— For the purpose of purchasing land otherwise than by agreement, Sections 176, 296, and 297 of the Public Health Act of 1875 shall be incorporated in this Act. Having thus got rid of the Lauds Clauses Act and the Allotments Act, we are referred to the Public Health Act. Very good. Here is Section 176 of the Public Health Act— With respect to the purchase of land by Local Authorities for the purposes of the Act the following Regulations shall be observed—i.e., the Lands Clauses Consolidation Acts 1845, 1860, and 1869, shall be incorporated with this Act, except Section 127 of the 1845 Act. It is like The House that Jack Built: "This is the clause which refers to the clause which refers to the clause which includes the clause which excludes the clause which we wish to deal with." That is drafting carried to its perfection. I believe I understand the intention of the Government. It is that whenever land is taken compulsorily the sections of 641 the Lands Clauses Act shall apply. But to carry that out the Government actually, in the first place, excluded those sections from the Bill, and then proceeded to bring them back by a series of references which it is almost impossible for a layman to understand, but the meaning of which I believe I have disinterred.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
The right hon. Gentleman's speech is very amusing, and he has satirised the draftsmanship of the Bill very cleverly. But, at the same time, the right hon. Gentleman has indirectly managed to answer the first question of the Leader of the Opposition, as to whether the Bill, with all its imperfections, docs include the compensatory powers of the Lands Clauses Act. The right hon. Gentleman, however, should have remembered that the present Bill is, in its drafting, following the precedent of a Bill which he supported strongly—the Allotments Act of 1887. The matter is dealt with in precisely the same manner in that Act as in the Bill against which the right hon. Gentleman has directed the powerful artillery of sarcasm. I can give a reason for every one of the references alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman. Of Clause 9 of the Bill the first sub-section deals with the acquisition of land by agreement.

§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN
It does not say so.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
That subsection is precisely the same as the words of the Allotments' Act of 1887.

§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN
My right hon. Friend does not see my point. In the earlier Act it distinctly confines the exclusion of the clauses to the purchase of land by agreement. But in this clause it says, "For the purchase of the acquisition of land." There is not a word about agreement.

§ *MR. H. H. FOWLER
I differ with the right hon. Gentleman in that. It is perfectly clear to my mind that Subsection 1 of Clause 9 exclusively applies to voluntary arrangements. In the third sub-section of Clause 9 there is the provision enabling the Local Authority which is seeking compulsory powers to proceed under Section 3 of the Allotments Act, 1887. Seeing that this part of 642 the Bill is a development and continuation of the Allotments Act, 1887, I say, with all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman's criticism of the Bill, that it is much simpler, shorter, and clearer to say that the compulsory powers shall be the same as under that Act. By the Public Health Act are incorporated the whole of the compulsory clauses of the Lands Clauses Acts. Therefore, as far as Clause 9 stands, there is no question as to the compulsory powers being incorporated therein. As to Clause 10, which is now under discussion, the Leader of the Opposition says that the compulsory powers in that clause are subject to the will and pleasure of the Local Government Board, and that the Order for compulsory hiring may apply such of the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts as they deem fit. The right hon. Gentleman forgot that Section 3 of the Allotments Act, 1887, is to apply, and under that an arbitrator is to be appointed to assess the lands. The arbitrator is there defined as one who shall be deemed to be an arbitrator within the meaning of the Lands Clauses Acts. [Laughter.] It seems to be very easy to make hon. Gentlemen laugh. This is a question for experts, and the drafting has been done by men who are at the head of their profession. Though hon. Members may not; think that the drafting is clear, it is not, at any rate, a thing to be laughed at. The whole of the compulsory clauses of the Lauds Clauses Consolidation Acts are included there.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
What does Clause 10, Sub-section 7, mean?

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
That subsection is meant entirely to refer to matters of procedure, so that the Local Government Board may, in order to avoid delay and expense in these small cases of compulsory hiring, direct such provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts to apply as may in the opinion of the Board be necessary or sufficient for carrying into effect their Order and for the protection of the persons interested in the land. The powers and duties of the arbitrator and the extent of the compensation are dealt with in Section 63 of the Lands Clauses Act, and the arbitrator appointed under that Act must 643 give compensation where land is injuriously affected. Although hon. Members may think that this is a somewhat complicated mode of dealing with the matter, the only alternative would be to enormously extend the length of the Bill and insert all these complicated provisions of other Acts. Therefore, all the powers which an arbitrator or a jury would have under the Lands Clauses Act in a case in which land is compulsorily acquired by a Railway Company will apply to land compulsorily taken for allotments under this Bill. We contend that the compensation which a Railway Company would have to pay for compulsory acquisition is sufficient for a Parish Council to pay under similar circumstances, and we see no reason for the Amendment of the Lords.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER (Isle of Wight)
said, it was quite impossible for him to acquiesce in the view of the law so positively laid down by the light hon. Gentleman.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
The Solicitor General laid down the law. I did not do so.

§ SIR R, WEBSTER
I understood the right hon. Gentleman endorsed the view of the Solicitor General.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
I was venturing humbly to follow the opinion of the Solicitor General.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said, he did not see much sign of humility in the right hon. Gentleman. I now understand that if one wishes to be bumble he must assert his opinion in the most positive manner. He had had some 25 years' practical experience of the Lands Clauses Act, and he submitted that no one could road that Act without perceiving that the sections of that Act referring to arbitration were procedure clauses only. According to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, Sub-section 3 of Clause 10 was absolutely unnecessary. That subsection gave the arbitrator power to determine any question as to the terms and conditions of the hiring and as to the amount of compensation for severance. He submitted that it could not be contended, in the face of the express language of the sub-section, that the use of the words "compensation for severance" would bring in all the other clauses of the 644 Lands Clauses Act dealing with compensation. Compensation paid for severance had nothing whatever to do with the question that was now raised. "Severance" was a technical word, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who once understood these matters, would not, in the days when the right hon. Gentleman was a giant and he himself a dwarf, have understood that the word included the claims to which the hon Member for West Derby referred.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
I wish to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman under what words a Railway Company who takes land pays for the injury he wants to Cover?

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said, under words which gave damage for injurious defection, and they are not in the clause at all. He submitted that the Government had deliberately inserted in the section every word that would by implication exclude the claims which the hon. Member for West Derby thought ought to be included.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
The subject is really a very technical one, but what we want is that the Parish Council should Pay compensation in the same way as other Public Bodies for taking land. To make this clear is what we want—that there should be no difference between the Parish Councils acquiring land and the taking of similar lands by other Public Bodies. The hon. and learned Gentleman should not cast imputations on the gentlemen who have drafted this Bill.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
I have cast imputations on no one. I have frequently spoken in the discussions on this Bill, and have paid a tribute many times to the ability of the gentlemen who have assisted the President of the Local Government Board in drafting it. The Minister in charge of the Bill takes the responsibility, and to criticise the drafting in respectful language is not to cast imputation on anyone.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that we deliberately intended to exclude certain cases of compensation.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
I said include.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
If it was intended, it was a most improper observation to say that we deliberately intended to include"—[Crien of "Order!"]

§ *MR. SPEAKER
An unusual indulgence has been granted to the right hon. 645 Gentleman, and, if the point is not clear, I observe that there are some legal gentlemen who have not yet spoken.

§ SIR H. JAMES (Bury, Lancashire)
said that, in accepting the invitation of Mr. Speaker, ho desired to say a word in defence of the draftsmen. If censure had to be allotted it was to the system and not to the individuals it should be given. The system had been the result of a desire to conduct Parliamentary business as quickly as possible by the incorporation of many Acts of Parliament. He asked why they particularly designated an arbitrator and gave him power to award compensation for severance, which was a very narrow compensation, while no mention was made of the power to give compensation for "injuriously affecting"? There was one view of "injuriously affecting" which ought to be dealt with. Compensation for severance went to the landlord; compensation for injuriously affecting went to the occupier as well as the owner. Put the occupier was hit very hard, because being a yearly tenant he could only obtain compensation for one year, though he might have been 20 years in occupation.

§ Question put.

§ The House divided:—Ayes 232; Noes 180.—(Division List, No. 44l.) (e) As to any compensation due to the occupier for improvements under the Agricultural Holdings (England) Act. 1883, or under any local custom; or —the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
I think that anybody who has read the Bill will see that this section is covered by Subsection (c,) which precedes it. We do not want to overload the Pill with unnecessary matter, and therefore we must ask the House to disagree with this Amendment.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Sir W. Harcourt.)

§ MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)
I am sorry, indeed, to hear that statement from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it is impossible for anyone who has studied this question to agree 646 with him. The right hon. Gentleman says that the compensation is provided for under a different sub-section. But how is the compensation in this case to be paid? Under the Agricultural Holdings Act, or under any local custom, it must be paid in a lump sum. This Amendment of the Lords has been moved in order to meet a difficulty I raised myself in Committee on the Bill in this House. It was pointed out then that in the case of a tenant who was dispossessed by the taking of land by purchase, he would be entitled to compensation for the tenant-right in respect to the land which was taken from him. But who would be responsible for the payment of the tenant-right? The landlord is the person to whom the tenant would look, and from whom he would be able to recover the tenant-right in the event of his failing to get it from anybody else. Now, what is tenant-right? Tenant-right includes the repayment of sums of money for outlays, for which at the determination of the tenancy the tenant is entitled to be paid down. But how do the Government propose to pay the tenant in this case? In the following sub-section the right hon. Gentleman will find that the tenant is to be paid by some apportionment of the rent in regard to the land which he retains. In Committee, where we discussed the matter, it was agreed by both sides of the House that it was impossible that the landlord could be held or made to be responsible for the payment of this tenant-right, because he was not going to succeed himself in the occupation of the land.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that point does not now arise.

§ MR. CHAPLIN
The right hon. Gentleman contends that the compensation for improvements due to the occupier on disturbance is covered by the words in Section (c). I do not think it is. I admit that the second point I have raised —the point as to the mode in which this compensation is to be paid—does not now arise; but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will permit me to conclude my argument. I was saying that it is impossible to ask the landlord to pay this compensation, because the crops in respect to which it is paid will be reaped by someone else. The right hon, Gentle- 647 man the President of the Local Government Board acknowledged the justice of the case which I submitted to the House in Committee on the Bill, and he gave a distinct pledge that upon Report words would he introduced to meet the case. The right hon. Gentleman on that occasion said that all parties were agreed on this point, and that the only difference was whether the words of the clause really carried out the general intention. He suggested that the words of the clause under discussion should be omitted, and that he would undertake on Report to bring up words making clear the meaning of the Government. When we came to the Report stage the words were brought up, hut they were practically a repetition of the words which the Government agreed to leave out in Committee. That being the case, I want to press on the Government that it is impossible to leave the matter in its present position—namely, the apportionment of the rent in respect of compensation for improvements which will have to he paid in a lump sum. The amount of the tenant-right in these cases is very considerable. Sometimes it amounts to a year, or a year and a-half, and sometimes to three years of the rent. How, then, can compensation be made in justice to the tenant in the manner prescribed by the Government? The apportionment of the rent will have to be spread over a number of years. I have always tried to impress this on the Government. The tenant is entitled to have the compensation paid down in a lump sum, and failing anyone else he can come down on the landlord, which would be a great injustice.

§ Question put, and agreed to.

§ The following Lords Amendments were agreed to:— Line 5, leave out ("retained by") and insert ("not taken from"). Line 6, leave out ("taking") and insert ("hiring").

§ Amendment,

§ Line 8, leave out from the word ("tenancy") to the end of Sub-section (3) and insert— (4.) The arbitrator shall, if requested so to do by the owner, fix the selling value of the property; and the rent awarded shall in that case be interest upon the said value at the rate of three per centum. (5.) The award of the arbitrator or a copy thereof, together with a Report signed by him 648 as to the condition of the land taken by the Parish Council, shall be deposited and preserved with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish, and the owner for the time being of the land shall at all reasonable times be at liberty to inspect the same and to take copies thereof. Where any compensation is payable under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, or otherwise, by the landlord to the tenant of any land on the determination of his tenancy, and such determination has arisen by reason of the land being taken compulsorily by a Parish Council under this section, the amount of such compensation shall be taken into account in determining the amount of compensation to be paid to the tenant [by the Parish Council,] and the landlord shall not be liable for payment of any such compensation as aforesaid"), the next Amendment, road a second time.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
As to the first part of this Amendment, which is to omit the words but the arbitrator in fixing the rent shall not make any addition in respect of compulsory hiring, that is a matter on which we have already expressed an opinion. I think there is a, universal opinion upon that, and the only form I know of carrying out what we desire is to move to disagree with the first three lines of the Lords Amendment, and afterwards to proceed with the discussion of the question.

§ *MR. W. LONG (Liverpool, West Derby)
said, the right hon. Gentleman, as he understood, proposed to omit the preliminary words.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
The Amendment is to omit those words.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER (Isle of Wight),
on a point of Order, said that lines 9 and 10 were those to which that Chancellor of the Exchequer referred, and the right hon. Gentleman's intention would be met by moving to amend the Lords Amendment by striking out lines 9 and 10.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
Of course, we intend later on to reject the whole Amendment; therefore, it must not he put in any form that commits us to any part of the Amendment. It is really for the purposes of discussion rather than anything else, and I understand the hon. Member agrees we shall withdraw those words in lines 9 and 10. I hope we shall agree to that.

§ *MR. W. LONG
said, he desired to say one word before the matter was disposed of. They did not propose to offer any opposition to the Government restoring 649 the original words, nor did they propose to enter again into a discussion of the whole matter of dealing with compulsory purchase, which had been fully discussed before, and about which no new arguments could be produced now to what were produced on the former occasion. But he wished to say that the striking out of these words made it the more necessary that the fullest possible pro-vision should he made for compensation in all cases where injury was done either to the owner or occupier.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The proper form would be to restore the words the Lords struck out—namely, In determining the true compensation the arbitrator shall make an allowance in regard to compulsory hiring.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
Those are not the words; they are— But the arbitrator in fixing the rent shall not make any addition in respect of compulsory hiring.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER,
on a point of Order, said he thought it was in the wrong section; it was page 11, lines 9 and 10.

§ Question proposed, to restore the words struck out—namely, But the arbitrator in fixing the rent shall not make any addition in respect of compulsory hiring").—(Sir W. Harcourt.)

§ Question, "That those words stand part of the Lords Amendment," put, and agreed to.

§ MR. W. LONG
said, he understood they had got to the words "compulsory hiring," and now came to the words "any compensation awarded," &c., which ran down to "Council."

§ The Clerk at the Table then read the words which had been struck out by the Lords, its follows:— Any compensation awarded to a tenant in respect of any depreciation of the value to him of the residue of his holding caused by the withdrawal from the holding of the land hired by the Parish Council or in respect of improvements within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, shall as far as possible be provided for by taking such compensation into account in fixing, as the case may require, the rent to be paid by the Parish Council for the land hired by them, and the apportioned rent, if any, to be paid by the tenant for that portion of the holding which is not hired by the Parish Council.

§ Question proposed, "That those words be restored."

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, the House would perhaps allow him to mention the history 650 of this clause so as to make it, as far as possible, intelligible. The Act of 1883 provided that in a case in which a land-lord resumed the possession of land and had to make compensation for diminution in the value of a holding, the compensation might be made by reduction of rent. Following on from that came the Bill that was introduced into the House by gentlemen whose names he might be allowed to read—namely, Major Rasch, Mr. Jesse Collings, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Edward Birkbeck, Captain Selwyn, and Mr. Story-Maskelyne. Those names included Members from different parts of the House, and gentlemen who held the opinions of the Opposition, and those who acted with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain). In dealing with the same subject of allotments they proposed that the loss or damage—he was not reading the whole of the words—the total loss, injury, or damage sustained by any owner or occupier of laud taken for a term of years should, as far as possible, be compensated for by the rent awarded to be paid to the owner, or the apportionment of the rent payable by the occupier, that was all loss or injury of every kind, as far as possible, to be paid to the owner, be compensated for by the rent paid to the owner or the apportionment of the rent payable by the occupier.

§ MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)
May I ask from what the hon. and learned Gentleman is quoting?

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he was reading from the Bill he had referred to, and he was treating it as a precedent that received general acceptance from different parts of the House, and led to a special clause being included in the present Bill. It was a great extension, no doubt, of the actual statutory provisions of the Act of 1883, but it covered all loss and damage.

§ MR. W. LONG
Was the Bill ever read a second time?

§ SIR J. RIGBY
believed it was not, and be only read it its an expression of opinion proceeding from those gentlemen who introduced the Bill, and which led them to bring in some such clause, in extension of the Act of 1883, in the Bill now before the House.

§ *MR. W. LONG
said, the reason he asked the question was because the hon. 651 and learned Gentleman said that the Bill and its proposals had been generally accepted by the House.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he stated it received very general acceptance, but it did not pass the Second Reading so far as he knew.

§ MR. CHAPLIN
I certainly, myself, took special pains to point out that that Bill and the views of its promoters in no way represented the opinions on this side of the House.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he accepted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, but he still believed there were some gentlemen who sat on the other side of House who very strongly approved of it, because their names were upon the back of the Bill and had not been withdrawn from it. [Mr. CHAPLIN: No] no, Either he must be allowed to proceed or not. He said that was a clause introduced into a Bill of this House, and received support not of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford (Mr. Chaplin)—he did not moan him—but of certain persons on the same side of the House with the right hon. Gentleman—independent Members of the Party to which the right hon. Gentleman belonged—Major Rasch, Captain Selwyn, and others. That Bill furnished a precedent for this part of the clause in the original Hill, which went to the full extent of saying that you might in this way give compensation by reducing the rent of the tenant or by increasing that payable to the landlord. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford (Mr. Chaplin) was correct in saying, when the clause was reached on the Committee stage, objection was taken to the extent of the clause, and it was pointed out then that in regard to what were called the customary payments to the incoming tenant, he ought to get them paid in cash. On behalf of the Government he acceded to that view, and therefore he proposed to provide for that case by confining the clause to the damage by the severance of land and those special statutory amounts given by the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883. The new clause was drawn to exclude the customary payments, and when it came forward on Report in that House he gave a similar explanation to that he was now giving, and hon. Gentlemen from the opposite Bench, the right hon. 652 Baronet the Member for Bristol (Sir M. Hicks-Beach) and the hon. Member for West Derby (Mr. W. Long) spoke upon it. He was quite ready to treat it as he did then in plain language, and to admit there had been very little time for considering the matter. An appeal was made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Bristol, in which he said they could not at that moment see whether the clause operated exactly as it was intended to, or whether something was wanting, or whether it did not go further than the case required. And the hon. Member for West Derby (Mr. W. Long) said that, so far as they could see at the time, it did carry out what he (Sir J. Rigby) pledged himself to attempt to carry out. He only said this to justify his own position in the matter; it was a bona fide attempt, and he was bound to say, in answer to the appeal made to him, that they were rather in a different atmosphere then; they had not arrived at that construction of the compromise that was afterwards arrived at, and he was appealed to whether it would not be a good thing for another place. But it did not get that distance in another place, because it was struck out altogether. Now it was not possible for thorn at this stage to amend their own clause in any way, and on consideration of the case it appeared to him that if they had the opportunity to amend it it might not be unreasonable to do so. This was not an essential part of the scheme. It might not be unreasonable to confine the operation of the clause to the subject-matter dealt with in the Act of 1883—that was to say, to the amount of the diminution in value to the tenant of that land which he retained. There was a statutory precedent, and it would relieve the question of a great deal of difficulty; but at present, though he was representing the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, of course they could not amend their own clause. They were not in a position to do that, yet they were not willing to give up all the value in the proposal which had already been looked on as fit for legislation, and which clearly and entirely met the case. Take one field, or half-a-dozen, from the particular farm, the farmer who claimed the rest of the farm, suffered injury, but he suffered that from year to year. Each year the injury was the same, or approximately 653 so, and the Legislature had considered in such case the compensation should be by a reduction of the rent that he paid for that portion which remained in his hands.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
asked to what section the hon. and learned Gentleman referred?

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he referred to Section 41 of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, under which the landlord could resume a portion of the holding without its being necessary to resume the whole, and there they would find compensation was to be allowed to the tenant in respect of the loss and value of the part of the farm retained, which was to be taken into consideration in fixing the rent. They were, however, unable to assent to that portion of the Lords Amendment which struck out these words. The only course open to them was to move the restoration of them. The clause could then be amended in another place by striking out the words— Or in respect of improvements within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings Act. 1883.

§ MAJOR RASCH
said, the Bill alluded to by the Solicitor General, though not a brilliant success, had been a good deal before the House recently. But he only rose for the purpose of saying the opinions quoted by the Solicitor General were his opinions then, and were still; he had supported them by his vote, and should continue to do so. Hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House said there was no discussion—that the I5ill did not reach the Second Reading. That was true, but the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Mr. W. Long) was one of those who blocked the Bill. He was glad to see that hon. Gentlemen opposite had found salvation, and were willing to accept the Bill he introduced four years ago.

§ MR. CHAPLIN
said, that in spite of what had just fallen from his hon. Friend, he must say he thought it was rather an unusual course on the part of the Government to firing forward in support of their own proposals a clause taken from the Bill of a private Member that had never reached a Second Reading in this House, and upon which this House had never had an opportunity of expressing any opinion whatever; and it seemed to him, be confessed, when that was their 654 course, they must be in some difficulty to find arguments in support of their own proposal. But the learned Solicitor General made one or two other statements which he confessed surprised him greatly. The hon. and learned Gentleman admitted there bad been some difficulties in connection with this question when they were discussing it, and said he had very little time for considering the matter. His impression was that the Government had something like six months as the time at their disposal to mature and fully consider all the proposals contained in the Bill. And then the hon. and learned Gentleman made another statement, in regard to which he (Mr. Chaplin) ventured to say he was entirely inaccurate. The hon. and learned Gentleman also admitted that he had conceded to those on that side of the House that probably this particular question would have to be amended in another place; but this took place, he said—

§ SIR J. RIGBY
I said I thought it would not have to be amended in another place, but that it was a fair question to re-open there, if, on further consideration, it was thought necessary.

§ *MR. CHAPLIN
said, he would give the hon. and learned Gentleman his own words. He said that he had made an honest attempt to deal with this matter according to his undertaking, but it was one of great complexity, and if it was found that it did not carry out the impressions of the Government it might be further considered. He (Mr. Chaplin) did not see any expression of opinion at all. But the hon. and learned Gentleman was inaccurate in another respect. He said that during what he described as the compromise going on it was not on the Report stage of the Bill. [Sir J. RIGHT: No.] Ho had the Debate on the Report stage in his hand, and it was on that Report stage that the hon. and learned Gentleman expressed the opinion that it might probably have to be considered in another place. [Sir J. RIGBY: I meant the arrangement.] There was no arrangement of any sort or kind whatever; the only compromise entered into on that side of the House—and the hon. and learned gentleman ought to know that—was as to the time at which they would not attempt to interfere with the passing of the Bill in that House; there was no compromise as to what were the contents 655 of the Bill; on the contrary, it was perfectly well known by those who entered into the compromise they disapproved of the Bill. It was distinctly stated on behalf of the Opposition, when the Solicitor General indicated his proposal, that they could not regard this as in any way a satisfactory settlement of the difficulties raised by the Bill; therefore, the short speech the Solicitor General had made contained half-a-dozen statements which were absolutely contrary to the facts, and which he felt it his duty to contradict. They were dealing at the present moment with the question of compensation for improvements effected by the outgoing tenant, and for which he was entitled to levy compensation when he left the farm, and that raised two points which he must ask the House to consider separately. The first was how was this compensation to be paid, and the second who was the compensation to be paid by? The proposal was, as he understood the Solicitor General, that this compensation was to be paid by a reduction of the rent of the land of which the tenant still remained in possession. He said, in the first place, that that was absolutely impossible. Take the case of a farm of 100 acres of land of which half was taken by the Parish Council for the purpose of their allotments. The tenant-right to which the tenant would be entitled for compensation might very likely amount to two and a-half to three years' rental, i.e. £100 to £150, and it was not denied by the Solicitor General or anyone else that the tenant was legally entitled by law to that compensation to be paid at once in a lump sum. How could it, be paid out of the rent? Suppose they reduced all the rent for the remaining 50 acres, that would not provide them with the means to give him compensation in the lump sum to which he was entitled. The Government were attempting, therefore, in the first place, a thing which was impossible, and which if it were not impossible would be grossly unfair to the landlord. That raised the question as to whom this compensation was to be paid by? It must be paid by the person who was going to receive the benefits of the tenant-right; that person was going to be the Parish Council, and yet the Government said they were going to call upon the land-lord to pay compensation for things the benefit of which ho could not by any pos- 656 sibility receive. A more monstrous and astounding proposition was never made, and he was quite sure never would have been made, if the Solicitor General had understood the question with which he had to deal. There was a third objection. The Government were, by the course they now proposed, going by a side-wind to establish a Land Court for dealing with rents between tenants and landlords all over the country. Was that so or not? He should like to know, if it was not so, by what other power could they alter the rent between landlord and tenant with regard to land of which the tenant remained in possession? Was the Solicitor General prepared to dispute the fact that under his proposal an outside authority was to be enabled for the future to settle what the rent should be between landlord and tenant in the case he had described, for the remainder of the laud that was not taken?

§ SIR J. RIGBY
It is already provided for in that part of the Bill, which has been passed, both by the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

§ MR. CHAPLIN
had one further observation to make. He said, and repeated, that the course now taken by Her Majesty's Government—unwittingly it might be—was a distinct breach of the arrangement entered into across the Table of the House with himself and other gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side. He pointed out the objections, which he had again urged this afternoon to the Solicitor General, during the passage of the Bill through Committee, and the force and justice of his objections were admitted by the Government and by more than one Member opposite. Here, again, he submitted to the Solicitor General and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who he was sure would not wish to do anything unfair, or anything amounting to a breach of faith—that what occurred was to this effect: The President of the Local Government Board said that all parties were agreed as to what ought to be done, and the only point was whether the words of the clause carried out the general intention. Then the right hon. Gentleman made his own suggestion; he suggested that the words which provided for compensation by apportionment of rent should be struck out of the clause altogether, and said he would bring up words to give effect to 657 his (Mr. Chaplin's) contention on the Report stage of the Bill. Then they came to the Report stage, and they had the advantage or the disadvantage of a further Amendment prepared, he supposed, by the Solicitor General, which was nothing but a repetition of the very words which the President of the Local Government Board himself had suggested should be struck out, which he had agreed to strike out, and in place of which to insert words to give effect to his (Mr. Chaplin's) contention. That was the truth of the whole position in which they stood on this question at the present time. His object could be fully and effectually carried out according to the distinct pledge given to him if the Government were to agree to the Amendment which was on the Paper at the time in this House, which the President of the Local Government Board read and considered, and with regard to which he said he would introduce words to give effect to his (Mr. Chaplin's) proposal. A clearer case of a distinct engagement between two sides of the House was never made; and upon these grounds, if on no others—and apart from the expediency and justice of the case, and the impossibility of giving compensation in the mode suggested by the Government—in view of the pledge and distinct understanding given him, he did think the Government ought to consider very seriously indeed again whether they would not accept the last paragraph of this Amendment of the Lords, and which read to this effect— Where any compensation is payable under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, or otherwise, by the landlord to the tenant of any land on the determination of his tenancy, and such termination has arisen by reason of the land being taken compulsorily by a Parish Council, the amount of such compensation shall be taken into account in determining the amount of compensation to be paid to the tenant, and the landlord shall not be liable for payment of any such compensation.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
remarked that in regard to what the right hon. Gentleman had said as to a pledge to him in reference to an Amendment of his own, he thought it was deeply to be regretted that when the subject was dealt with on Report the right hon. Gentleman was not present.

§ MR. CHAPLIN
Pardon me; allow me to explain. It was quite impossible 658 for me to know at what stage of the Report this matter would be taken, and I relied on the assurance given to me by the President of the Local Government Board.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
said, what the Government did was this: They agreed to try and meet the objections raised as well as they could, and the Solicitor General drew up a clause with this object in view. The right hon. Gentleman was not here when this matter, to which he said he attached so much importance, came on, and it was discussed in his absence. However, the colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman expressed the opinion that the proposal made by the Government at the Report stage would meet adequately the requirements of the case. If the matter was not sufficiently discussed on that occasion it was not the fault of the Government but the fault of the right hon. Gentleman, who was not present to support his Amendment. He would not say anything more upon that point except that the right hon. Gentleman seemed to consider he had got some vested right in an Amendment which he was not in the House to support when it came on during the progress of the Bill. Upon the proposal now before the House he thought the principle of the Amendment was very clear. The Government, he would remind the House, had not invented the plan of providing compensation in the form of rent. The plan had been taken from the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1883, which said that where a landlord took from his tenant a particular piece of laud, the tenant should be entitled to a reduction of rent in respect of any diminution in the value of the holding caused by the withdrawal of that land from the building. The feasibility of apportioning rent between the parties was admitted generally in a sub-section to which they had already agreed only a few minutes ago. There might, no doubt, be cases where compensation could not be given in the form of a diminution of rent, and in such cases it must be given in cash, and the arbitrator would decide what would be a fair sum to pay. He believed the principle as to compensation laid down in the section as introduced by the Government was a fair one, and he must ask the House to restore the section, undertaking to carry out the promise of the Solicitor General to omit 659 certain of the words of the section in another place.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
desired to say that while it appeared to him that an arrangement such as that provided for in this proposal might be just and proper as between landlord and tenant, it might not be just and proper as between the Parish Council and the other parties concerned. The two cases were not parallel at all. He was surprised that the Government adhered to their proposal after what had passed on the Report stage, and they ought to express their opinion on the matter in the Division Lobby.

§ MR. CHANNING (Northampton, E.)
said, that the position of the Government would be made perfectly clear if the provisions of the sub-section moved by the Solicitor General were confined to the points covered by Section 41 of the Agricultural Holdings Act. He wished to point out that in that section the words on which the Solicitor General based his proposal were— The tenant shall be entitled to a proportional reduction of rent in respect of the land comprised in the notice to quit, and in respect of any depreciation of the value to hirer of the residue of the holdings, or by the use to he made thereof. This it was quite just, therefore, to pay for by a reduction of rent. But he must call attention to the words in the section immediately preceding them—namely— In every case the provisions of this Act respecting compensation shall apply as on determination of a tenancy in respect of an entire holding. By those words it was provided that the whole of the agricultural improvements under the Act should be paid for in cash down, which ho agreed with the right hon. Member for Sleaford (Mr. Chaplin) was the only just procedure. But then it was necessary that the words in the Solicitor General's sub-section— Or in respect of improvements within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883 should be struck out, as that compensation could not be paid in reduction of rent. He had understood that the Solicitor General was willing to have those words struck out in another place, and if that point was made perfectly clear, the proposal was consistent with the Agricultural Holdings Act. As to the final paragraph of the Lords Amendment providing that the whole of the 660 compensation for the tenants' improvements should be paid by the Parish Council and the landlord completely relieved from his statutory obligation, it would be absolutely necessary, if any such Amendment was adopted, that words should be added to instruct the arbitrator in fixing the rent of the land taken to allow for the value of the improvements. Otherwise, the Parish Council might be called upon both to pay the full commercial rent, including the improvements, and also to pay cash down for the value of the improvements. As to the sub-section, it was plainly just; and with the omission of the words as to agricultural improvements, the proposal really rested on the existing Agricultural Holdings Act, and there was no need to base it on the Bill of the hon. and gallant Member for Essex (Major Rasch).

§ MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)
said, he would like to know if the Government were prepared to alter this arrangement for compensation so as to avoid costs? They seemed to regard the matter as affecting only the large landowners. But the people who would be most hit under this clause would be the very small freeholders who let their holdings. The holding might be damaged or destroyed almost by the land which might be taken, and the person under the Agricultural Holdings Act to pay the compensation to the tenant in respect of this injury was the owner of the land.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
said, the Member for Northampton had suggested they should leave out the words— Or in respect of improvements within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883. The Government intended to omit these words.

§ MR. EVERETT (Suffolk, Woodbridge)
said, it appeared to him that the paragraph it professed to retain was mere surplusage. Sub-sections (6) (c) and (d) empowered the arbitrator to award compensation for severance; to award compensation to the outgoing tenant for tillage, manure, &c, which he left behind on the laud taken from him; and it empowered the arbitrator to apportion the rent as between the portion of the holding retained by the tenant and the portion taken by the Parish Council. This covered the whole ground. So far 661 as he could see, the paragraph which we were fighting over added nothing not already provided for, and its only use, if retained, would be to puzzle the brains of readers of the Act just as it had for the last half-hour been puzzling theirs.

§ Motion made, and Question, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
observed, that it was competent for the House, in restoring the section which had been omitted by the Lords, to leave out the words which the Solicitor General had undertaken should be struck out.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
then moved, in line 14 of the Bill, to leave out the words "or in respect of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883."

§ Question put, and agreed to.

§ *MR. H. H. FOWLER
said, he would move to disagree with the Lords Amendment which struck out the provision requiring that the arbitrator in fixing the rent should not make any addition in respect of compulsory hiring, and insetted in its place the following sub-section:— (4) The arbitrator shall, if requested so to do by the owner, fix the selling value of the property; and the rent: awarded shall in that case be interest upon the said value at the rate of three per centum.

§ Amendment proposed to the Amendment, to leave out Sub-section (4).—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)

§ Question proposed, "That Sub-section (4) stand part of the Amendment."

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said, the case which seemed to him contemplated in this Amendment and which ought to be met was this: Some land was taken near a town or village which was considered convenient for the purpose of allotments: it was most desirable for temporary occupation, but its position was such that its present rental did not represent the interest on its real value. It was a very common case for land to be let for occupation purposes at 50s. or £3 or £4 an acre near a town, and yet that land if bought up would fetch £150, £175, or £200 an acre. The proposition of the Government was that the Local Authority might take that laud for the purpose of hiring for 14 years or, it 662 might be, for longer. During the whole of the period for which it was taken the owner would be prevented from disposing of the land. What were the alternatives? One view might be that there should be put on the land a growing and increasing rent from time to time, a thing which would be difficult of adjustment. The other position, which he submitted was a reasonable one, was that the owner of the land should be entitled to say—"If I go into the market I can sell this land for £150 an acre. It is growing in value, and in three or four years it, will be worth £180 or £200. You desire to take it out of my control for 14 years—that it shall be for that period hired. Well, it cannot be an unreasonable view to take that the value of the land should be ascertained, and I shall receive 8 per cent. on that amount." The rate of interest which it was proposed to charge upon the capital value of the land at the selling price was extremely moderate. What injustice could be done by this arrangement? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he last addressed them, said that his wish was that compensation should be paid under this section in the same way as though the Local Authority or Public Body were taking the land at the present time.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
said, the hon. and learned Gentleman stated that in respect of land growing in value they should always take the selling value and not judge by the annual rental. Well, the hon. and learned Gentleman had laid down a principle that would be of the greatest value when they came to deal with land in connection with the Death Duties—namely, that the prospective and not the present value or rental should be considered in estimating the value of a property.

§ SIR M. HICKS-BEACH
Then apply the principle both ways.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
said, he was glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman was willing that the prospective value of building land should be taken into consideration in estimating its value. He would not go into that point, but the whole of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument was addressed to the particular case of land now let at a small annual rent which might become more valuable. It might he that some land would require to be dealt with in 663 an exceptional way. Ho imagined that an arbitrator, in determining the value of land taken compulsorily in the neighbourhood of a town, would put upon it a much higher rent than that which it yielded ordinarily, and the consequence would be that such land would not bo taken for the purpose of allotments. The case would, he believed, be fully met in the process of arbitration, but the proposal of the Amendment was that the land should be valued at 33 years' purchase. The Government asserted that the present selling value of land was 33 years' purchase, and they could not accept the principle that all land taken must be paid for on the basis of 33 years' purchase.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
said, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the close of his remarks had repeated an observation he incidentally dropped a short time back to the effect that he could not permit to be introduced into the Bill a provision which would stereotype the view that the land of England was worth 33 years' purchase. He regretted that there was no possibility of a landowner in this country obtaining in the market 33 years' purchase, but such a condition was not an essential part of the Amendment. If the Government would say that landlords should get 5 per cent. interest, instead of 3 per cent., they would offer no objection. That would mean that the land was valued at 20 years' purchase. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that that would be an improvement in the Amendment. The landlords would be quite willing to assent to the increase by two-fifths of the amount of rent they would get under the proposal of the Amendment. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) would, therefore, point out to the right hon. Gentleman that there was nothing to gain from his point of view in quarrelling with the rate of interest fixed under the Amendment. The result would be to make the Parish Council pay more and the landlord receive more, which was a result he did not suppose the right hon. Gentleman desired to attain. But leaving out of account the rate of interest, what were the real equities of the case, and how were these equities to be proposed to be met by the Amendment of the Lords? The case in support of that Amendment was that 664 in the neigh bourhood of a large number of growing villages and small towns there was land, suitable no doubt for allotments, but also likely to be suitable at no distant period for building purposes. If the compulsory hiring power were used to compel the landlord to Jet such land for 14 years, and the land became, as the phrase was, "matured" for building four or five years afterwards, the result would be that during 10 of the 14 years the land would be held at an agricultural rent, against the wish of the owner, although it was fit at that time to be held for building purposes at a much increased rent. He did not see on what principle of justice or equity such an arrangement could be defended. He did not say that the particular expedient suggested by the House of Lords was the only expedient for mooting out justice, nor that it was the best method; but it was a method, and unless there was a better proposed it was one which they ought to uphold. What was the answer made to this case, a plain and simple and, as ho thought, an unanswerable case? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the valuer, in fixing the rent of the land, would take into account the fact that it was building land, and would put on it a rent that would correspond to the capital value if it were building land; a rent which would be proportionately higher than what would be asked for agricultural or market-garden purposes. Would that be the case? He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) greatly doubted it. To his mind the valuer would say, "Here is land I have got to value. At the present moment it is not worth for building or any other purpose £2 per acre. It is possible that in five years' time it may be worth more, but I am not asked to say what the value will be five years hence. I am asked to say what the value is now, now that it is agricultural land, and when it is not suggested that buildings could be profitably erected on it. I should be travelling beyond my duties if I were to look forward through the whole period of 14 years and ask myself what the increase in value is likely to be." If the valuer took that course a gross inequity would be committed. That was admitted by the Government. It should be noticed that they were not now dealing with a well-established procedure based upon decisions of the Court, based upon well- 665 established precedents, as they were when they were dealing with the compulsory purchase of the land. Compulsory hiring of land WHS an entirely new procedure, unknown to our law and unknown to our practice. Ought they not, therefore, to surround this new procedure with safeguards which would prevent any injustice following such a transaction? He was in no sense wedded to that particular expedient suggested by the Lords, but what they had done was to bring into this matter of compulsory hiring all the practices and safeguards which a long series of precedents had placed round compulsory purchase; but if the Government could hold out any hope that they would themselves introduce, or would not discourage the introduction of, any other scheme by which the equities of the case might be fairly met, he would offer no unduly obstinate support to the proposal of the Lords. But the Government must feel that there was a case behind the Lords' Amendment. If they did not like the particular form of Amendment the Lords had proposed to meet the case they should themselves make a proposal. The object in view might, he thought, be attained if the Government would insert a clause directing the valuer in fixing the rent to take into account the increase likely to occur in the letting value of the laud during the 14 years. The proposal of the Lords was a simple and direct method of meeting the ease, and unless the Government could suggest, a better one he hoped they would adopt it. He thought the Government would admit that ho had argued the question fairly, and had put forward a contention that deserved some kind of reply from those responsible for the conduct of the Bill.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
was understood to say that this clause was not one that could be applied by the purchaser or hirer. It was only to be applied by the owner.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
He is the person concerned.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, the proposal now made was (hat the valuer was to take into account the prospective value of the laud, and that the landlord was to receive 3 per cent. upon that valuation, so that he would get an immediate increase to that extent in the rent beyond that which he could possibly get for it if it were let as agricultural land. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer 666 rather understated the case. It was not that they were to pay the actual value of the land, as it was 33 years' purchase, but that they were to estimate the prospective value, and on that they were to charge 3 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman opposite said this was a totally new scheme of compensation, inasmuch as it was applicable to the case of hiring, and not to the case of sale; but Railway Companies had to do with the taking of lauds let on lease, and they had two parsons to deal with, the owner of the land and the owner of the term of the tenant. Did the right hon. Gentleman suppose any arbitrator, if he saw there was a prospective increase of value in 21 years, would throw the tenant out of account?

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
said, the tenant could not build on the land, and therefore was not interested in the prospective value of the land. But the landlord had an interest in the building value of the land, and the Government would preclude him from enjoying for seven years any increased value that might attach to the land as building land.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, that although the tenant could not build he could enjoy or let the land. The land might be rented at, say, £2 per acre, but before the end of the term it might become much more valuable, and the tenant might let it for £3, £4, or £5.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
For building?

§ SIR J. RIGBY
Not for building, He wished to point out that it was the present practice for the arbitrator to take into account prospective value in cases in which they were dealing with terminable interest. He could as well value what the land would he worth per annum at a future date as he could estimate what the land would be worth in fee at a future date.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
He has no power to fix the rent now.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he had to give compensation, which was not to be measured by the immediate annual value of the land to the tenant, for ho was bound to take into account the prospective value during the rest of the term. A landlord could not build on improving land so long as there was a tenant's interest in it.

§ SIR J. GORST
said, the House seemed to be falling into a highly technical legal 667 argument, and be was afraid that, not being any longer a "learned" Member, he was scarcely qualified to follow such an accomplished lawyer as the Solicitor General. But be should like to point out bow entirely wrong the view of the Solicitor General was to the practical mind. There was no analogy whatever between the two cases. The case the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight had endeavoured to put was that of an owner whose land was improving, and who through having it taken from him compulsorily for 14 years lost seven, eight, or nine years' prospective value. The Solicitor General had admitted that the owner ought to be compensated for this, but ho said that the arbitrator was accustomed to value a prospective increase in value in the interest of a leaseholder. Nothing of the kind. A tenant could not enjoy a prospective value. A tenant who hired land to make a cabbage garden did not find it any the more valuable to him because at the end of 14 years it could be let on building lease. The laud was of a certain value to him for growing cabbages or keeping a cow. Therefore, the case the Solicitor General bad put before them had nothing to do with the case the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight bad tried to impress on Her Majesty's Government. It seemed to him that the Government were playing with the House in this matter, for when a bonâ fide attempt was made to point out a defect in the Bill in respect of the compensation which the Government themselves deemed to be equitable, instead of either accepting the Amendment proposed or suggesting some other which would carry out their own honourable intentions, the Government put up the Solicitor General to obfuscate the House by stating a case which had nothing whatever to do with the question.

§ MR. HOWELL (Bethnal Green, N.E.)
said, he could not allow the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman to pass unanswered. It seemed to him that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen wanted to compensate the owners two or three times over. What occurred to him as a common-sense man and not a lawyer was that prospective value of the land would be given to it mainly by the fact that it was taken compulsorily by the Parish Council, just as often was the case where land 668 was now taken compulsorily by a Railway Company. At the end of 14 years the land, which had acquired an additional value, would go, not to the person who hired it, but to the owner, and the proposal was to tax the hirer prospectively on that value, and then to give the whole value to the owner afterwards.

§ *MR. W. LONG
said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had failed, just as much as the Solicitor General bad done, to appreciate the position which the Opposition had taken up. The hon. Gentleman's experience was different from that of many, if be thought that the devotion of a particular piece of land to a certain purpose for a certain number of years would leave it at the end of the term in a more valuable condition than at its beginning. How the hon. Gentleman could suppose that the landowner was going to get a greater value for his land because it was taken by the Parish Council he (Mr. W. Long) could not understand. Both the hon, Gentleman and the Solicitor General seemed to think that the object of the Amendment was to give the owner of the laud a greater value for it than he was entitled to receive. The object was really exactly the opposite. Unless the House introduced into the Bill some provision of the kind, they would find that in the neighbourhood of growing towns and small villages it would be practically impossible to bring the measure into effect. The Amendment would provide the means of securing laud without incurring the opposition of the landowner on the ground that be was not going to receive the value of his land. In the neighbourhood of growing towns and the larger villages land bad a value which might be described as a prospective value. It was impossible to describe it as building land at the moment, though it would become building land in five or 10 years. This land was to be taken from the owner against his will, and to be devoted to a purpose which the owner possibly thought some other land ought to be used for. The owner was thus to be deprived of the right of standing by his laud and awaiting the prospective value. He did not say that the Amendment was in the very best possible form, but he affirmed that unless some provision were adopted which would enable Parish Councils and arbitrators to deal with such laud as he 669 had described it would be found that an insuperable obstacle would have been placed in the way of the Parish Councils. Gentlemen opposite seemed to think that it was absolutely impossible for the House of Lords or for Members of the Opposition to make any proposal with regard to the acquisition of laud without desiring to add to the value of their own property. They would not like it if the Opposition were constantly accusing them of endeavouring by their voles to serve their own private ends, and to till their own pockets. Instead of supporting this Amendment with the object of adding to the value of land, the Opposition spoke in favour of it because they believed it to be just, and because they believed it would provide a practical way of dealing with the difficulties that would arise.

§ MR. JOHNSTONE (Sussex, N.W.)
said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had remarked that he would be extremely glad if he could deal with the Death Duties on the same lines as were laid down in the Amendment with reference to the value of land. As a matter of fact, the Death Duties were charged upon the same principle as was adopted in the Amendment. In that very year he (Mr. Johnstone) had paid Succession Duty upon land which had at the present time no value and no rental, and which, to his certain knowledge, had paid nothing for 12 years and more. The Death Duties had been assessed by taking the present value—and no doubt considering the prospective value too, as there was no present return—and charging 8 per cent. on the amount. That was a solid argument for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he had been overcharged he should be extremely glad to have the right hon. Gentleman's cheque by to-morrow's post, and he should be prepared to hand to the right hon. Gentleman the letter from the Inland Revenue Department in which it was stated that he had been charged in accordance with the practice invariably adopted. If this were the practice, why should not Parliament adopt it now when there was a good and sound reason for it?

§ MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)
said, the discussion had proved that, as ho had said all along, this clause would be absolutely useless. He did not believe that the labourers in rural parishes would ever pay to Parish Councils the rent they would have to pay 670 under the circumstances of this clause when they could get land very much cheaper from the landowners themselves. The House was now dealing with a particular kind of land—land which had a prospective value—and which it would be an injustice alike to the labourers and to the landlord to use for allotment purposes. It was utterly impossible, with justice to the landlord, that such laud could he obtained at a price which the allotment-holder could afford to pay. Therefore, he said this sort of land was entirely and absolutely out of the market, and ought not to be taken for the purpose. He thought it would be the best course to leave it to the arbitrator to decide what percentage should be paid. Thirty-three years' purchase was too much for agricultural land, whilst 33 years' purchase of the present value of prospective building land was a great deal too little. Laud might be let now for 24s. an acre which, after a certain amount had been spent upon the making of roads, might be worth in a short time £30 an acre. He would much prefer to omit the sub-section and to leave it to the arbitrator to decide the question.

§ COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)
remarked, that besides the land, which had an acknowledged building value, there was land which was on the debate able line—land which was not yet generally recognised as having the value of future building land, but which was: regarded by its owner as having that value. Supposing there was a real need for allotments upon laud of this character round a town in a popular hunting-country, which people were in the habit of visiting for the purpose of enjoying that sport, which ho hoped was going to last for many a hundred years yet in this country. For the purpose of reconciling the view of the owner of the land on the one side and the assertion of the would-be allotment-holder on the other, some fail' and square method of arriving at a decision was necessary. The Lords' Amendment would, he thought, enable laud to be provided under such circumstances as these on reasonably fair terms. He did not think that any Member on the Opposition side of the House pledged himself to the Amendment as being the best means of achieving the result aimed at, but the contention was that something; of the kind was needed. The Opposition 671 were anxious that this kind of land should be available for allotments, and, at the same time, they were particularly desirous of avoiding litigation and the exercise of compulsion. If some such provision as that contained in the Amendment were adopted, recourse to compulsory legislation would be unnecessary. He hoped that the question would be left to the impartial consideration of the House, and that common sense would be allowed to have fair play.

§ *MR. H. H. FOWLER
I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) has given the proper answer to this proposal—namely, that land of this description will not be taken, ought not to be taken, and cannot be taken. I wish to ask the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour), who, I am bound to say, has shown remarkable fairness in dealing with this question, to test this provision by reference to the clause for the compulsory purchase of laud. If it were proposed to purchase for allotments a piece of land which has this prospective value—land which is expected sooner or later to have a building value—would not the arbitrator in fixing the price take into account the prospective value and say, "This land, although it lets to-day for £1 an acre, will in four or five years have a building value of, say, £100 an acre"? [Opposition cheers.] That is admitted. I say, then, that the same machinery and the same power by which the arbitrator would add the prospective to the actual value for the purpose of purchase he would be bound to use for the purpose of letting. That was the argument of the Solicitor General (Sir J. Rigby) in reply to the point put by the Leader of the Opposition. If I understood the argument of the Leader of the Opposition it was that the equity was admitted in cases of purchase, but that we wore not familiar with a method of dealing with the question in cases of letting. The Solicitor General's answer was that we were familiar with a way of dealing with it in cases of letting. He did not put a case on all fours with this, but dealt with the principle. Everybody has given up this Amendment as it stands. [Opposition cries of "No!"] Well, just observe what the Amendment is. The arbitrator is to fix the selling value, and there is not a word in the Amendment about 672 the prospective value. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has talked about debateable land respecting which the owner thinks one thing and the general public thinks another. I think the Amendment would open the door to an endless system of litigation, and would complicate matters to a great extent. The landlord would say, "My price for this land is practically 3 per cent. upon its prospective selling value, and that is the rent which I expect the Council to pay for 14 years." You would, therefore, be practically creating a ground-rent of a number of years' duration. I do not think it is putting the Government in a fair position for gentlemen opposite to say, "This is an Amendment which we do not like, but we think you ought to provide for what the Amendment aims at and introduce a fresh Amendment in another place." We can only deal with that which the other place sends down to us, and we say that the Amendment would not do what yon want it to do, because it would complicate the present proceedings and add to the cost. The real and true answer to the supporters of the principle of the Amendment is that no Parish Council would take land of this character. [An hon. MEMBER: It is taken.] They could not afford to take it if they paid a rent based upon its full value. If they do take it they pay only a nominal rent for it. I admit the full equity of the case. I admit that we are not entitled to put the owner of such laud at any disadvantage. The Council must not pay one penny more than they ought to pay, or the landlord receive one penny less than he ought to receive. I do not think a Parish Council can afford to take building land for the purpose of allotments.

§ SIR M. HICKS-BEACH
I think that this discussion has had at all events one valuable result, in having produced a complete admission from the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that in considering this question of the amount of rent to be paid for hired land an arbitrator is bound to take into consideration not only the actual but also the prospective value of the laud. If that be so, why, in this clause, when the arbitrator is directed to take into consideration various points, is he not directed to take into consideration the prospective value of the land? 673 I believe that the origin of this hiring clause has been solely this: that in the minds of those who advocated it there was a fear that the prospective value of the land was not to he considered in any way. It is perfectly obvious, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby has pointed out, and as the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has himself admitted, that if you once allow the arbitrator to enter upon considerations of this kind, this clause, will become absolutely valueless in all the growing small towns and larger villages of the country. You might just as well in places of that kind exercise the compulsory purchase powers at once; you will not save a single penny to the Parish Council by allowing it to attempt to put in force the hiring powers. The land has now to be taken at a price almost prohibitive. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted that if must be so. Then what is the use of a hiring clause at all? It may be of use in some of the rural villages where it is difficult to obtain land under the present law, but in the growing towns and villages where a great demand for allotments now exists, if it exists at all, it will prove just as difficult to obtain allotments in the future as it is difficult at present. If the arbitrator is bound to take the equities into consideration the result will be that the allotment holders will have to be charged a rent which it will be impossible for them to pay.

§ SIR J. JOICEY (Durham, Chester-le-Street)
said, he had the honour to represent a district in which there were many large villages and in which land was of great value for building purposes, and he was satisfied that if they were only to have allotments by means of purchase the price would be fixed at such a figure as to render it quite impossible to acquire the land. He had in his mind's eye at the moment a village in which land could only be purchased at the rate of £600 per acre. There was abundance of land to be hired for agricultural purposes at about t'2 per acre: but if the Amendment of the House of Lords were accepted, and the actual value of the land was to be fixed at its value for allotment purposes, then the rent instead of being £2 per acre would rise to £18 per acre—that representing 3 per cent. on the purchase value. He could not see why the allotment holders should 674 be placed in a less advantageous position than ordinary farmers. Sub-section (e), after recounting what the arbitrator should do, provided that he should take into consideration any other matters incidental to the taking of the land by the Parish Council, and in his view that comprised the prospective value of the laud. Under the circumstances, he thought the House would commit a great injustice if it did not protest against this Amendment of the Lords.

§ *MR. T. H. BOLTON (St. Pancras, N.)
said, the Amendment seemed to him to place the agricultural labourer at a disadvantage without conferring any commensurate benefit on the landlord. It would, in fact, put an almost prohibitive price upon the land for allotments, and at the same time it would stereotype the value of the land as building laud for 14 or 21 years, thereby preventing the landlord reaping the benefit of any increase in value during the lease, and prejudicially affect the speculative value of the reversion. He could not see the object of the Amendment for any practical purpose, and therefore, so far as he was concerned, he hoped that the House would disagree with it.

§ Question put.

§ The House divided:—Ayes 118; Noes 212.—(Division List, No. 442.)

§ Sub-section 5 of the Lords Amendment was as follows:— The award of the arbitrator or a copy thereof, together with a Report signed by him as to the condition of the land taken by the Parish Council, shall be deposited and preserved with the public books, writings, and papers of the parish, and the owner for the time being of the land shall at all reasonable times be at liberty to inspect the same and to take copies thereof. Where any compensation is payable under The Agricultural Holdings Act,' 1883, or otherwise, by the landlord to the tenant of any land on the determination of his tenancy, and such determination has arisen by reason of the land being taken compnlsorily by a Parish Council under this section, the amount of such compensation shall be taken into account in determining the amount of compensation to be paid to the tenant by the Parish Council, and the landlord shall not be liable for payment of any such compensation as aforesaid.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
As to this Amendment, the Government agree with that part which refers to (he custody of documents: but disagree with that part which refers to compensation. The right hon. Member for Sleaford, who is 675 the author of the Amendment, has, I believe, placed it OH the Paper under a misconception. The right hon. Gentleman thinks that whore compensation to the tenant under the Agricultural Holdings Act is payable by the landlord in the ordinary course, that compensation will be still payable even though the land has been taken compulsorily. Such is not the case, I am advised. If a Public Body takes land upon which compensation is duo, either to the tenant or to the landowner, that compensation must be paid by the body taking the land. Therefore, the words inserted by the Lords are unnecessary.

§ Amendment proposed to the Amendment, To leave out from the words "copies thereof, to the end of the Amendment.—(Sir W. Harcourt.)

§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand pa of the Amendment."

§ SIR E. WEBSTER
said, he was rather surprised at the view to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given expression. The right hon. Gentleman stated he was assured that the clause was unnecessary, but he thought he could satisfy him that there was reasonable doubt as to the necessity for the words. Let them take the case of a farm held on a 21 years' lease, with 10 or 11 years still to run. Under the Agricultural Holdings Act the tenant was entitled at the termination of his tenancy to compensation for unexhausted improvements. That was as much part of the contract as if it had been written out in the agreement. Then this Act came into force, not by reason of any action of the landlord, and a part of the farm was taken by the Parish Council for allotment purposes. In the Bill there was the direction that the compensation to be paid for land taken was to be adjusted, as far as possible, by the rent of the remainder of the land left in the tenant's hands. With all deference to the opinion quoted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it seemed to him to be open to very great question whether the tenant would not have a claim against the landlord in respect of the alterations which were made in the contract by the Act of Parliament. The words of the Lords' Amendment merely made (dear that which the Government wished to be 676 effected—namely, that the Parish Council should become the debtor, and the landlord should go free. Then, why not let them stand? There was another case which was very likely to occur. Supposing the tenant of a farm of 40 acres had all his meadow land taken and had only arable land left, so that ho felt obliged to terminate his tenancy, because he could not longer carry it on with profit. The landlord would then have to meet a claim for compensation under the Agricultural Holdings Act in regard to the portion of the farm not taken by the Council. Hon. Members who had had any experience in connection with small holdings would know that such cases were likely to arise. The matter should be made plain in the Bill, and unless some satisfactory answer was given they should ask that this Amendment should be upheld.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
Similar oases to that put by my hon. and learned Friend arise day by day and year by year, and yet I am certain it is impossible to point to one case whore even a doubt has been suggested about the matter. This Bill when it became an Act said that the landlord and the tenant must both give up a portion of land, with no choice in the matter at all, and the suggestion made for the first time is that on the determination of the tenancy, not by the terms of the agreement between landlord and tenant, but by the over-riding force of an Act of Parliament, the landlord will be placed in a worse position because of the Act of Parliament. The duty of the arbitrator under this Bill is to arrange matters between the three parties—the landlord, the tenant, and the Parish Council—wishing to hire land. He has to place them all in a proper equitable position, and if he introduced clauses of the kind suggested I am confident Ave would be doing harm to interests we intend to serve. The Bill docs not specifically mention every case in which compensation ought to be paid. A great deal—the main part—is left to the existing law, and nothing can be more dangerous than to introduce a clause pointing to a particular class of compensation, because the result will be to raise difficulties and doubts much greater than can be suggested now. Who ever heard of a landlord being obliged, because a railway came and took his tenant's land, to pay a much larger 677 sum to the tenant than he would have had to pay at a subsequent time if the railway had never come there, by reason of a transaction forced upon him by an Act of Parliament. The word "determination" was used in two meanings—the end of the contractual relationship, and the overriding Act of the Legislature. I venture to submit that the Bill as it stands, independently of the Lords' Amendment, provided for all the cases that can arise. The idea that the landlord is to pay in the circumstances suggested is grotesque. It is not the landlord who has brought about this state of things; it is the Parish Council, and that is to he taken into account between them and the landlord.

§ *MR. CHAPLIN
I do not know how if is, but I must confess that I have never been able fully to understand the legal arguments of the Solicitor General from the first occasion on which he addressed his arguments to us and during the passage of the Hill through Committee up to the period when he informed the House that it was a most difficult matter to deal with, and must be altered and amended in another place. We are now told that this Amendment is unnecessary altogether. If that had been clearly established I should not press the point further. We are all agreed, I understand, that it is not fair to call on the landlord, or to subject the landlord to any liability whatever for compensation for improvements in respect of land which has been taken compulsorily by the Parish Council. If that point were perfectly clear there would be an end to the matter; but we have one legal luminary on one side of the House who took one view, while another eminent lawyer on the other side of the House took an exactly opposite view; and, therefore, there was, at all events, room for doubt upon the subject. Under the circumstances, I do not think if is too much for the Government to clear the doubt up once for all by accepting; the Amendment which stands on the Paper, and in regard to which there can be no possibility of dispute. That Amendment lays down very distinctly that where the compensation becomes payable to a tenant who is dispossessed in virtue of the action of the Parish Council for improvements under the Agricultural Holdings Act, it shall be paid by the Parish Council, and shall not be paid by the landlord. That is the whole point at issue between us.

678

§ Question put.

§ The House divided:—Ayes 150;

§ Noes 207.—(Division List, No. 443.)

§ Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

§ Amendment, in line 37, after the word ("landlord,") to insert ("and (d) shall not permit sub-letting or sub-division"), the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
I am afraid we must ask the House to disagree with the Lords' proposal, the addition being, in our view, either superfluous or wrong. I do not believe that under this Bill there would be any substantial or important difference in regard to the tenure in allotments, the condition of the tenure having been already settled by Parliament in the Act of 1887. Sub-letting is already provided for by Sub-section 4 of the clause under discussion, and if there was any substantial difference between sub-letting and subdivision it would be in regard to a particular class of allotments, where the tenant would hold his land under the Act of 1887. We have, no doubt, altered the law in some respects, but that has been done in order to adapt the provisions for compulsory purchase of land to cases of compulsory hiring. There can, however, be no reason why allotments under the one Act should be sub-divided, and allotments under the other measure should not be sub-divided. You cannot sub-let, because you create a tenancy to yourself, and you who ought to be a tenant of the Parish Council would really be a go-between, though yon are the responsible man for the cultivation of the land. But if a plot of four acres were sub-divided into two lots of two acres each and made over by downright assignment, the person to whom the land was made over would become the immediate tenant of the Parish Council, just as if there had originally been two lots instead of one.

§ Motion made, and Question, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

§ Amendment, in page 12, line 2, to leave out from the word "hiring," to end of sub-section, and insert "a single arbitrator who shall," the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
We propose to agree to this Amendment. I think it is 679 a decided improvement upon the clause as it stood in the Bill. That clause was introduced at the instance of gentlemen opposite, who contended that in the determination of any tenancy created by compulsory hiring the landlord should not be required to pay compensation for improvements. That was entirely a onesided arrangement. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Channing) consequently proposed an Amendment corresponding with that which is now before us, and which was introduced on the Motion of Lord Jersey in the House of Lords. I did not think it right in consequence of what was called the "compromise" to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northamptonshire, but as it has been put into the Bill I am now at liberty to say that I think it is a perfectly fair arrangement as between the parties. I have consulted many of my friends who represent agricultural constituencies, and I know that they regard it as a much more equitable arrangement than that which was in the Bill when it went up to the House of Lords. The Amendment provides that if the land has improved when it is returned to the landlord he will pay for the improvement, whilst, if it has decreased in value, the Parish Council will pay him compensation.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Sir W. Harcourt.)

§ *MR. CHAPLIN
I do not rise to oppose the Amendment for a moment, but I think I am entitled to point out, especially after the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, that the Amendment which is now on the Paper is not by any means the Amendment which he tells us he desired on a former occasion to accept. This Amendment provides that the compensation shall be paid by the landlord in accordance with the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that one of the most important provisions of that Act is that the land must have been improved with the assent of the landlord. We hold that it would be most unfair that land should be compulsorily hired from a landlord, that improvements of every sort or kind should be made upon it with regard to which he would have 680 no voice, and that then, when the laud is returned to him, he should be called upon to pay compensation for such improvements. The Amendment is different in this respect, and I think I am entitled to point this out to the right hon. Gentleman. I must also observe upon the extraordinary difference between the readiness of the Government to lay down in black and white that compensation should be paid by the landlord and their attitude on the last Amendment, when they absolutely declined to make it clear in black and white that compensation should be paid by the Parish Council.

§ Question put, and agreed to.

§ Amendment, in line 12, leave out from "nothing" to "or" in line 15, and insert— No hiring of land compulsorily under this Act shall be deemed to include any minerals under such laud or any surface minerals or any rights with respect thereto, or the right to take or carry away any gravel, sand, or clay, the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he thought this Amendment had been inserted under a misapprehension, as there was already in the clause a provision respecting mines and minerals. A hiring must be for a term of years, and no hiring of land for a term of years included minerals. If an ordinary tenant of a piece of land were to dig down below the surface for minerals he would be committing waste. The term "surface minerals" might have been used before, but it was not a generally accepted term, and it might lead to some misapprehension. "Minerals" was a very wide term indeed, including a great number of clays, and such like substances, which, if found on the surface, would be surface minerals, whilst "rights with respect thereto" would prevent the digging up of the land. If a man had no-right to the surface minerals he would have no right to the surface at all. [Laughter.] No doubt it appeared rather ridiculous. A great deal had been said about the drafting of the clauses of this Bill, but he thought that, whatever just criticism might have been applied to the Bill as it left the Commons, in the other House they wore not much more successful. The words— the right to take or carry away any gravel sand, or clay, might perhaps with a little modification be useful. No one suggested that an 681 ordinary agricultural tenant had a right to dig for gravel, sand or clay. In law-lie had simply got possession of the land with the right to cultivate it, but in that cultivation he would have certain rights with regard to the gravel, and certainly with regard to the sand or clay. Although he could not carry away clay he ought to he able to dig it and to spread it over the surface of the ground. The Amendment, however, as a whole, seemed to have been inserted at random. It was absolutely unnecessary to provide that the tenant must not dig for minerals, or to provide that he had no right to the surface minerals. No one supposed that a tenant for a term of years could carry away brick earth from his holding and make bricks of it, but as regarded agricultural purposes it was clear that he had a right to dig it.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Sir J. Rigby.)

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said, the learned Solicitor General had lashed himself into fury over this Amendment, which he said the Lords had inserted at random. It was astonishing to find that part of the Amendment was at one time in the Bill, and ought to be in the Bill, although the Government had not moved to reinsert it. As the clause was sent up to the other House it contained the words— Nothing in this section shall authorise the compulsory hiring of any mines and minerals.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
I understood that those words were to be restored. I pointed out that there might be a need for these words, because "land" might include mines and minerals.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said he, of course, accepted the learned Gentleman's statement, but he was afraid that this observation had been driven from his memory in consequence of the very remarkable utterances which had followed it. Did the learned Solicitor General forget that the land was not going to be let by the landlord directly to the allotment tenants, but was to be let to the Local Authority, who would sub-let? The Solicitor General said that an agricultural tenant never got rights over minerals, or clay, or gravel, or things of that kind. But how many thousands of agricultural agreements there were which were signed every year in which there was an express reservation of clay, gravel and minerals. So far from no one think- 682 ing of an agricultural tenant having a right to minerals, it was the ordinary practice of skilled agents and solicitors to insert in agreements between landlords and tenants a reservation of the minerals. To say that such a reservation was utterly unnecessary, and to endeavour to pour contempt on people who had inserted a clause without having the Government draftsman behind them, was not to treat the Amendment fairly. The Solicitor General seemed to have forgotten that there were such things as surface gravel and china clay, which might lie on the surface. These were "land" in every sense of the word. It had been decided that they passed to the persons who bought the surface for such purposes as the making of railways. Accordingly, if there was to be any protection of the landlord's right it was absolutely necessary that some such Amendment should be inserted. As to the Solicitor General's observations about gravel, sand or clay, it had never been supposed by lawyer or layman that ploughing up a field was carrying away sand or clay.

§ SIR J. RIGBY
said, he had not stated that it wits. He had referred to the words "any rights with respect thereto."

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said, those words referred to the minerals and not to the gravel, sand, or clay. The enthusiasm of an attack upon the Upper House had carried the hon. and learned Gentleman completely away. If the hon. and learned Gentleman and he were to walk out into the Lobby, it would not take them two seconds to agree upon the form of words which should be adopted. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to forget altogether that the Government had power to amend the Lords' Amendments. He would with great respect suggest to the Solicitor General that, instead of lashing himself into that fury which did not do him justice or show him in his best light to the House of Commons, he should consider whether a little alteration of the words of the Amendment would not make a distinct improvement in the clause. If the hon. and learned Gentleman thought that the Amendment as it stood would prevent ploughing and digging, there was no reason why the words "or any rights with respect thereto" should not be omitted. The substance of the Amendment ought most certainly to be adopted.

683

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
I think the House must be edified by the zeal which eminent lawyers on both sides bring to the consideration of the questions of law arising on this Bill. The two hon. and learned Gentlemen who have just been in conflict were like two theologians engaged in the discussion of questions of dogmatic theology. I must entirely agree with the Solicitor General, and disagree with the hon. and learned Member opposite, in thinking that in an ordinary tenancy from year to year the tenant has no right, even if you have no special clause, to take the minerals away.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would kindly not put into my mouth an observation I never made. The observation I made was that it was the common and ordinary, nay, the universal practice, to insert such protective clauses in tenants' agreements.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
Well, solicitors have a very ordinary practice of putting into their deeds a great deal which is superfluous. Everyone knows that an ordinary agricultural tenancy carries with it no claim to the minerals. No lawyer can dispute the proposition that no right to minerals is given by an agricultural tenancy. The only question is, which is the best form of words to adopt. We think that the words "or any surface minerals" would be too strong. If the hon. and learned Member opposite thinks it worth while to put into the clause a provision that no gravel, sand, or clay shall be carried away, I have no objection to that. If, like some country solicitor, he thinks it necessary to make the ordinary Common Law of England more clear than it is already on that point, I shall not object, although I think such a provision totally unnecessary. In that case we will disagree with the Lords' Amendment, but add at the end of the clause but no tenant shall have a right to carry away gravel, sand, or clay.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
As a point of Order, I would suggest that that is a procedure which we ought not to take. We must amend the Lords' Amendment, and then assent to it. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought to insert the word "sell" as well as the words "carry away."

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
The Clerks at the Table state that the proper form 684 would be to agree to the Lords' Amendment, and afterwards move to amend.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
thought a convenient way would be—while he understood the right hon. Gentleman agreed to restore the two first lines—for the Amendment then to read— Nothing in this section shall authorise the compulsory hiving of any mines or minerals, or confer any right to sell, take or carry away any gravel, sand, or clay.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
We had better stick to the original words—[Sir R. WEBSTER: I read them]—and add these words.

§ MR. HENEAGE
said, he really thought if they were to put in words they should have some that were sensible, and the words of the Amendment were those put into every agreement that existed where reservations were made, therefore they wanted more than the words "carried away." They wanted the words "sell or take," or "take and carry away," but clearly the word "take" must be in.

§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR
It is not worth while spending too much time over this, but I would remind the House, and above all the learned Solicitor General, that the real author of these words against which the Government are making this protest was their own Lord Chancellor, who suggested them in the House of Lords as an Amendment to Lord Denbigh's, whoso only desire was to make clear the policy which he supposed the Government had already laid down, and the suggested Amendment by the Lord Chancellor was accepted by his own colleagues as a distinct improvement of the Bill.

§ Question put, and negatived.

§ Lords Amendment disagreed with.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
The right hon. Gentleman moves to insert at the end of Sub-section 9?

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
After the word "minerals."

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, After the word "minerals," to insert the words, "or confer any right to take, sell, or carry away any gravel, sand, or clay.

§ Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

685

§ Amendment, in line 17, after ("1892") insert— If the land hired under this section shall at any time (hiring the tenancy thereof by the Parish Council be shown to the satisfaction of the County Council to be required by the landlord for the purpose of working and getting the mines, minerals, or surface minerals thereunder, or for any road or work to be used in connection with such working or getting, it shall be lawful for the landlord of such land to resume possession thereof upon giving to the Parish Council 12 calendar months' previous notice in writing of his intention so to do and upon such resumption the landlord shall pay to the Parish Council and to the allotment holders of the land for the time being such stun by way of compensation for the loss of such land for the purposes of allotments as may be agreed upon by the landlord and the Parish Council, or in default of such agreement, as may be awarded by a single arbitrator, to be appointed in accordance with the provisions of Section 3 of the Allotments Act, 1887 and the provisions of that section shall apply to such arbitrator. The word 'landlord' in this sub-section means the person for the time being entitled to receive the rent of the land hired by the Parish Council, the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ SIR W. HARCOURT
This is the last Amendment on this clause, and I am glad to say I am able to agree, as it seems to me a reasonable Amendment. The object is, that if the County Council is satisfied that if it was necessary in respect of land taken, land which may possess the value of a coal mine, and be to the benefit of the district that the minerals should be worked, there should be a power of resuming the land for such a purpose, the Parish Council being indemnified for the loss of the land—and, of course, the Parish Council taking other land for allotments. I propose, therefore, that we agree to the Amendment.

§ Motion made, and Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

§ The following Lords' Amendments were agreed to:— Line 19, after ("this") insert ("and the preceding"). Line 21, leave out ("expense or liability") and insert ("expenses or liabilities").

§ Amendment, in line 34, leave out from ("Act") to the end of the sub-section, and insert— ("Where there is a Parish Council that Council shall pay the said expenses of the parish meeting of the parish, and for the purpose of obtaining payment of such expenses the 686 Parish Council, and where there is no Parish Council the chairman of the parish meeting, shall have the same powers as a Board of Guardians have for the purpose of obtaining contributions to their common fund, and any order made for that purpose shall be in the prescribed form. the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ *MR. H. H. FOWLER
Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious Amendment that has been made in the House of Lords, on which I would like to ask your judgment with reference to the privileges of this House. As this clause left this House, the House made provision that the expenses of the parish meeting and the Parish Council should be defrayed out of the poor rate. The House of Lords has altered that, and if this clause were proceeded with, I should have some difficulty in ascertaining in what manner the rate proposed in it was to be raised and levied; but I venture to submit to you, as the guardian of the privileges of this House, that by the practice and usage of this House, I might almost say for centuries, but certainly in recent years, the Lords are excluded not only from the power of initiating or amending Bills dealing with public expenditure or revenue, but also from initiating enactments which would create a charge upon the people by the imposition of local and other rates, or which deal with the administration or employment of those charges. Therefore, it has been laid down by Sir Erskine May in his work on Parliamentary Practice, and in the last edition, edited by Sir Reginald Palgrave, that— The Lords may not amend the provisions in the Bill which they receive from the Commons dealing with the above-mentioned subjects, so as to alter, whether by increase or reduction, the amount of a rate or charge, its duration, mode of assessment, levy, collection, appropriation, or management; or the persons who pay, receive, manage, or control it; or the limits within which it is leviable. The present Amendment, I venture to submit, violates that principle. It raises a new tax: it deals with the way in which it will be levied; and it also deals with the question of compounding local rates. With all three questions, I submit, it is a, breach of the Privileges of this House for the House of Lords to interfere in any way.

§ *MR. SPEAKER
As the right hon. Gentleman has appealed to mo it is my 687 duty to say that I think in this case there is an infringement of the Privileges of this House. This and the subsequent Amendments, the three taken together, create a new rate, alter the levy and collection of the rate, and interfere with the question of distribution of the rate between the owner and occupier. On all of those grounds I think an infringement of the Privileges of this House has been committed. Had the right hon. Gentleman not risen, I should, being as he has said the guardian of the Privileges of this House, have asked the House to pass them over as an infringement of the Privileges of this House.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
Do I move to disagree or merely to pass it over?

§ MR. SPEAKER
Move to disagree.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
Then I move, Sir.

§ Motion made, and Question, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

§ The following Lords Amendments were disagreed to:— Line 8, after ("Acts") insert:"(6) The said rate shall be paid directly by the occupier, and in respect to it the provisions of the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, Sections 3 and 4 shall not apply. After ("Clause 12") insert ("Clause A"): "(A.) No Order under Section 4 of the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, shall be made by a Parish Council or parish meeting after the passing of this Act.

§ The following Lords Amendments were agreed to:— Line 23, after ("Allotments,") insert ("whether under Inclosure Acts or otherwise.") Line 25, leave out ("whether under Inclosure Acts or otherwise.")

§ Amendment, in page 14, line 37, to leave out from the word ("place") to the end of Sub-section (3) and insert— (3.) In the case of any particular charity (save as hereinafter provided) the benefits of which are confined solely to the inhabitants of the parish, and which is not an ecclesiastical charity, the Parish Council or parish meeting may, if it think fit, notwithstanding that the number of trustees may have been fixed by the instrument creating the charity, or by any scheme for its administration. or otherwise, appoint so many additional trustees, not exceeding the proportion hereinafter mentioned, as the Charity Commissioners shall approve: but the whole number of trustees who are either elected by ratepayers or parochial electors or inhabitants of the parish, or appointed by the Parish Council or parish meeting, shall not, by reason of such addition, ex- 688 ceed one-third of the whole body, including those so added; and if the management of any such charity is vested under the provisions of any such instrument or scheme, or otherwise, in a sole trustee, the number of trustees may, with the approval of the Charity Commissioners, be increased to three, one of whom may be nominated by such sole trustee, and the other by the Parish Council or parish meeting. The Charity Commissioners may, by General Order or Minute, regulate the mode of carrying this sub-section into effect, the next Amendment, read a second time.

§ *MR. H. H. FOWLER
I move that the House disagree with this, which is a serious Amendment.

§ SIR R. WEBSTER
said, before the right hon. Gentleman referred to the important sub-section, might he ask him to deal with the words struck out at the end of Clause 14? because they were quite separate.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
The Amendment is first to leave out before we deal with what is to come in, and the Amendment put from the Chair is to leave out from "place to the end of Sub-section 3." As the hon. and learned Gentleman has pointed out, the first clause which is left out proposes to omit the words— And when the charity is not an ecclesiastical charity this enactment shall apply as if the Churchwardens, as such, were specified therein as well as the Overseers. That raises the question that was discussed at great length in this House when this Bill was in Committee, and I am not going to make a long speech about it to-night. The position the Government take with respect to charities, and which they have taken all the way through without qualification or variation, has been that charities which were ecclesiastical, which relate to the affairs of the Church—and the definition of ecclesiastical charities has been made a very wide one—should carefully be excluded from the operation of this Bill, and where the trustees of ecclesiastical charities were Churchwardens, and were discharging ecclesiastical duties, they should be left alone. But the Government maintain that Churchwardens are, outside their ecclesiastical duties, secular officers; that they are the lay representatives of the parish, and that in such cases it should be the right of the Parish Council to substitute other elected trustees in their place. What the House of Lords has done has been this: it has 689 accepted our proposal that where Overseer Trustees are nominated and exist, the Parish Council may appoint new trustees in their place, but they have declined to accept our proposition that when the charity is not ecclesiastical this enactment shall apply to Churchwardens. It would be convenient that we should not mix up three or four discussions that may arise on these things, and I venture to submit that we should confine the present Debate to the question as to the: restoration of these words which the House of Lords have left out. I have contended, and will contend again, if necessary, that, a large mass of the eleemosynary charities, charities for the benefit of the poor, are not in any sense of the word ecclesiastical charities. Ecclesiastical charities are very fully defined in a later part of the Bill, and we are now dealing with charities that are properly secular charities, charities for providing marriage portions, for parochial uses, for hospital almshouses, and for distribution in money or kind among the poor of the parish—these items to which I have referred represent something above £1,250,000 per annum—and these are secular charities which belong to the parishes, and the parishes themselves have the right to appoint a number of trustees of these charities. The Churchwardens are there, not in an ecclesiastical capacity, but rather in a lay capacity, as representing the parish in its lay aspect. We do not propose to exclude Churchwardens from ecclesiastical charities, and we see no reason why you should make an officer who has ceased to be an elective officer of a parish an ex officio trustee of a charity; therefore we ask the House to restore the words, so that when the charity is not an ecclesiastical charity this enactment shall apply as if the Churchwardens were specified therein as well as the Overseers.

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth disagree with as much of the Lords Amendment as proposes to leave out the words from the word 'place,' in line 37, to the end of Sub-section (2) of Clause 14."—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)

§ *SIR C. W. DILKE (Gloucester, Forest of Dean)
said, that upon this he should like to call attention to a matter he mentioned last night in order to raise it here, and it was that there was a most extraordinary contradiction in two different 690 parts of this Bill on this subject. In Clause 6, Sub-section I, it would be found if words were to be taken as meaning what they were supposed to mean, that the whole powers of Churchwardens were transferred to the Parish Council, and exactly that was done, which the Government said they would not be parties to doing, when Radicals below the Gangway tried to get this in connection with parish charities. The position taken up by the hon. Member for Somersetshire on that occasion was, that if they were creating new authorities, they ought to hand over to them bodily the control of lay parochial charities, that if they were to be trusted in any matter this was one on which they might be trusted. So far as the great majority of the charities were concerned, they had the Churchwardens either for trustees or managers; that was the case in nine out of ten of the ordinary parochial charities, and the managers or trustees were equivalent to the trustees by the Bill. All the time there was in Clause 6, if the words meant what they appeared to mean, exactly this principle as far as Churchwardens were concerned, because, although the powers of the Churchwarden by Clause 6 might have been held not to include charities, if no word about charities had been there used, there was a saving of ecclesiastical charities, and unless it covered lay charities why insert that saving of ecclesiastical charities? It appeared to him those words in Clause 6 must cover the duties of Churchwardens as managers of lay charities. If that was the case, as the words had passed, if those words transferred the powers of Churchwardens bodily to the Parish Council, then it was clear not only that they had broken through in this Bill the principle the Government laid down they should not break through, not only had they broken through that; but there was a contradiction between the clause now before the House and Clause 6, because hero they were to substitute nominees for the Churchwardens, whereas in Clause 6 they had handed over bodily the duties of Churchwardens to the Parish Council. He had asked some eminent lawyers what their view of this matter was, and he was told that the original enactment of Clause 6 was entirely to hand over the ordinary duties of Churchwardens, whatever they might be, and they were 691 very few as contrasted with those of Overseers; that the words "other than those relating to ecclesiastical charities" must have been put in somewhat hurriedly, and really were a mistake, and ought not to be there. But they could not now take them out, and there was this great fact: that those words standing in Clause 6 it seemed impossible that any Court of Law, before which this matter might come, should take any view but that the duties of Churchwardens in connection with lay charities were covered by Clause 6, and were bodily transferred. That was the view he should like to see prevail, as he strongly desired that all the charities should be handed over, except ecclesiastical charities, if they liked, to the Parish Council. His view was that by the words of Clause 6 they had done so as regarded nine-tenths; therefore the importance of the Charities Clause was not very great. But he did not think it was wise for the House of Commons to part with a great measure of this kind, with a clause in it such as Clause 6, without having some clear expression as to what, in the opinion of the authors of the Bill, the two clauses really meant. Therefore it was that last night he called attention to this matter, and called attention to it again to-night. He was bound to say that every Parish Council, when it came to work this Bill, would find a great contradiction, as it seemed to him, in the apparent sense of these two clauses.

*MR. GRJFFITH-ROSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge)
said, that in discussing this clause he had himself noticed the contradiction between it and Clause 6. In his opinion, procedure under Clause 6 would be impossible, because they would be handing over the work now performed by two persons to an indefinite number—namely, to the whole Parish Council, and, though not a lawyer, he could not imagine that a Public Body, the number of which varied and was not known, like the Parish Council, could step in and take the place of two distinct persons like the Churchwardens, especially where the Churchwardens were not the sole trustees of a charity, but were trustees with the Vicar and Overseers of the parish. Putting aside that for the present, he could not 692 pretend to say in what way the two clauses would act together; but coming to the Amendment before the House, he would ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman while he pointed out the effect of the words which the Lords moved to omit. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think if these words were omitted the non-ecclesiastical charities now belonging to the Churchwardens would not be handed over to the Parish Council. He would point out that they would be, because by Sub-section 3 of this clause all parochial charities were dealt with; and though the Parish Council would not have the right of taking away the Churchwardens from the trust, it could add an additional number which, according to the Bill, would give it a majority.

§ It being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.

§ Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.