COMMITTEE. [Progress, 5th January.]

HC Deb 08 January 1894 vol 20 cc1035-131

[THIRTY-THIRD NIGHT.]

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

[MR. MELLOR in the Chair.]

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (MR. H. H. FOWLER)

moved— In page 8, after Clause 9, to insert the following Clause:—

(Hiring of land for allotments.)

"(1) The Parish Council shall have power to hire land for allotments, and if they are satisfied that allotments are required, and are unable to hire by agreement on reasonable terms suitable land for allotments, they shall represent the case to the Local Government Board, and that Board may, subject to the restrictions in this section, make an Order authorising the Council to hire compulsorily for allotments, for a period not less than 14 years, such land in or near the parish as is specified in the Order, and the Order shall have full effect without confirmation by Parliament.

(2) The Local Government Board before making the Order shall require notices to be served by the Parish Council, in accordance with the prescribed Regulations, on the person having, or reputed to have, power to grant an agricultural lease of the land, on the lessee or reputed lessee, if any, of the land, and on the person in occupation of the land, and shall hold a local inquiry.

(3) A single arbitrator, who shall be appointed in accordance with the provisions of Section 3 of 'The Allotments Act, 1887,' and to whom the provisions of that Section shall apply, shall have power to determine any question—

1. (a) as to the terms and conditions of the hiring; or
2. (b) as to the amount of compensation for severance; or
3. (c) as to the compensation to any tenant for the determination of his tenancy; or
4. (d) as to the apportionment of the rent between the land taken by the Parish Council and the land retained by the tenant; or
5. (e) as to any other matter incidental to the taking of the land by the Council, or the surrender thereof at the end of their tenancy;

but the arbitrator in fixing the rent shall not make any addition in respect of compulsory hiring. The compensation shall, as far as possible, be made by increasing the rent to be paid by the Parish Council to the landlord or by reducing the apportioned rent payable in respect of land retained by the tenant.

(4) Save as hereinafter mentioned, Sections 5 to 8 of 'The Allotments Act, 1887,' shall apply to any allotment hired by a Parish Council in like manner as if that Council were the Sanitary Authority, and also the allotment managers:

Provided that the Parish Council—

1. (a) may let to one person an allotment or allotments exceeding one acre, but, if the land is hired compulsorily, not exceeding in the whole four acres of pasture or one acre of arable and three acres of pasture; and
2. (b) may permit to be erected on the allotment any stable, cowhouse, or barn; and
3. (c) shall not break up, or permit to be broken up, any permanent pasture.

(5) Sub-sections 6 and 7 of Section 3 of 'The Allotments Act. 1887,' shall apply to the hiring of land under this section in like manner as they apply to the purchase or hiring of land under that Act,

(6) On the determination of any tenancy created by compulsory hiring, the landlord shall not be required to pay compensation for improvements.

(7) The Order for compulsory hiring may apply, with the prescribed adaptations, such of the provisions of the Land Clauses Acts (50 & 51 Vic. c. 26) (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.

(8) The decision of the Local Government Board after a local inquiry shall be sufficient evidence that the requirements of this section have been duly observed.

(9) Nothing in this section shall authorise the compulsory hiring of any mines or minerals."

Clause brought up, and read the first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

* MR. CHANNING (Northampton, E.)

said, he desired before the clause was read a second time to say a few words on the changes which had been made in the clause since it was first put down on the Paper. He should do so with a deep sense of responsibility. This was a clause in which his constituents took the deepest interest, and on that ground, and also on the ground that in some sense he was entitled to speak on behalf of a section of the House who were specially interested in these proposals, and generally worked with him on this Bill, he considered he was justified in offering one or two observations to the Committee. He desired to say at the outset that he did not wish to introduce a word of controversial, embittering, or partisan matter into his remarks. He wished in anything he said to treat the grave issues raised by the compromise in a practical spirit. He, in common with most hon. Members on the Government side, recognised that the present Bill, even if including the concessions agreed to between the Front Benches, represented an enormous instalment of those great and generous democratic reforms which the Liberal Party had pledged itself to give to the people of this country. To obtain this Bill, even with these defects and blots upon it, was an achievement that would justify more than one sacrifice. But having said so much, he ventured lo think that there were many Members on his side of the House who would agree with him when he said that he deeply regretted that this clause had been selected as one of the chief grounds upon which concession should be exacted—and it must be always remembered that concessions had been exacted—from the Government by the Opposition, because they considered the clause the very best and the most efficacious in the whole Bill. Some might he disposed to urge that this was the very reason the other side showed hostility to the clause. But, in any case, it was the very reason why the Liberal Leaders should have fought for every line of the clause. The clause was the result of a promise most frankly and cordially made to the Liberal County Members by the President of the Local Government Board in reply to a deputation which he had the honour of introducing to the right hon. Gentleman before the Second Reading of the Bill, and most fully and honourably carried out. In its original form this clause was the result of a long series of conferences between the Liberal County Members and the right hon. Gentleman, in which the hon. Member for Rugby rendered good service. What those hon. Members now complained of was this: that the main essence of the clause should have been so crippled and paralysed by the arrangement which had been come to by the Front Benches. What did they want Parish Councils for? He would tell the Committee frankly what he wanted them for. He wanted Parish Councils not in order to enable a few villagers to discuss trivial matters of local administration round a green table, but as a means of raising the social and economic condition of the people in the rural districts of England, and it was from that point of view that he recognised the value of the clause as it originally stood upon the Paper. The essential principle and real value of the law lay in the power of compulsion. It might be said that the clause, even as it stood now, represented an enormous concession to the Parish Councils in the recognition of the principle of the compulsory hiring of land, and in the procedure being made cheap, rapid, and efficacious; but when you had provided the machinery to turn out the work—when you had, as it were, constructed your factory, what was the use of refusing to supply the raw material which was required to turn out good results for the people? No one could deny that the clause as it stood upon the Paper diminished the effect of compulsory hiring by three-fourths in the arable districts, while in the grass districts it reduced it practically to zero. He urged right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to look at the question in a broader and more generous spirit. Let them not look tit it merely as a question of providing a few acres of land to the agricultural labourers and the village artisans; or from the point of view of the rights of individual landlords and individual tenants. They should, in the first place, consider that agriculture was in such a state of profound depression in this country that no opportunity should be lost for benefitting it. He, for one, would go for—would make sacrifices even of some Radical views, if some substantial good could be done. He contended that just so far as the principle of allotments and small holdings was extended, they would find that more land would be cultivated, and better cultivated, and the farmers would have a better supply of labour of the best quality. But he asked the Committee to look at the question from a far wider point of view. If they cut down the compulsory power of providing land to the narrow limits proposed in the new clause, they would not create those inducements to the agricultural population to remain in the rural districts to carry out their work there, and so build up little by little the prosperity of their villages and country sides, and so keep their rural population at home, and prevent them from flooding into the great towns to take part in that industrial struggle in which so many went down. Even now, although this compromise had been arrived at, he appealed to his right hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford to look at the question in a broader and more generous spirit towards the working classes in the rural districts than was manifested in the clause as it stood upon the Paper. Why should not both sides of the House bury the hatchet of partisan recrimination, and see if they could not do a big and a generous work for the labourers and village artizans of this country? The agricultural labourers and the village artizans of England deserved that generous treatment as well as the crofters of Scotland and the agriculturists, large and small, of Ireland. The clause as it was originally drawn was far more considerate of the interests of the landlord and of the dispossessed tenant farmer than the Crofters Act. That Act gave power to the Commissioners to give land, arable or pasture, to the crofters to enlarge their holdings, and not a penny of compensation was given for severance or for the breaking up of pasture land, so long as no damage was done to the land of the farm. Therefore, he would appeal to the Committee even at that late hour to approach the question in a broad and generous spirit. He did not wish to blame the Government for their action, for they had been placed in a situation of great difficulty; but both sides of the House had now a great opportunity for dealing generously with the rural classes of the country, and he trusted that they would take full advantage of it.

* MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down complains that the clause proposed by Her Majesty's Government has been altered in its most essential particulars. I cannot help thinking that if the hon. Member had more practical experience of the country he would hold a totally different opinion. What is the alteration of which he complains? It is this—that the acquisition of arable land by compulsion is to be limited to one acre, instead of, as originally proposed in the Bill, to four acres. Sir, I would venture to point out to the hon. Gentleman a fact of which he appears to be altogether unaware: that four acres of arable laud is far too small for a man to earn a decent livelihood upon for himself and his family; and, on the other hand, it is infinitely too large for any man to do justice to if he is in receipt of regular wages and in constant employment. The hon. Gentleman should also know this—that upon the authority of the best witnesses on the subject, which are to be found in public documents, as well as that it is known to the private experience of gentlemen who are conversant with this matter, that for a man in receipt of wages and in regular employment one acre is as much as he can possibly do justice to; and if the hon. Member will take the trouble to refer to the Reports quite recently laid on the Table of the House by the Sub-Commissioners appointed by the Labour Commission, who are now prosecuting their inquiries, he will find in them page after page full of statements to the effect that for men in receipt of regular wages quarter-acre allotments, or half-acre allotments at the very outside, are sufficient. The hon. Member made an appeal to me as to the alterations which have been agreed upon by the Government. Sir, the only agreement of which I am aware is this—that, in virtue of certain Amendments which the Government have agreed to insert in the clause, we on this side of the House are perfectly willing to do nothing which would interfere with the passing of the Bill through this House by a particular date. So far as I am concerned, I never pretended that either the original clause or the amended clause is satisfactory to me, and so far as this clause is concerned, I hold myself at liberty to take whatever course I like, subject to the agreement to which I have referred. I have purposely abstained, during the whole of the long discussions on the Bill, from in any way whatever extending these Debates, being anxious, as everyone is anxious, for the passing of this measure. But we have now arrived at a clause when I am compelled to ask the permission of the Committee to grant me a portion of their time at all events, for the purpose of stating what appears to me to be the very grave objections to the method by which Her Majesty's Government propose to treat the various matters which are dealt with in this clause—objections, I am bound to say, which appear to me to be almost insuperable, if this clause is ever to be really effective or satisfactory, and especially in the interest of the very class—namely, the agricultural labourers, whom we particularly desire to benefit. I must also say this—it has been already alluded to by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down—that the matters which are contained in this clause are by no means small or trivial, or even of secondary or minor importance. On the contrary, they were described by the Minister in charge of the Bill, in one of these Debates, as being of most supreme importance, and by an authority not less than himself—namely, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as being perhaps, the most important matters which are contained in the whole Bill. That being so, I must say that it is the most unfortunate thing in the world that Her Majesty's Government, after having had months and months in which to consider their proposals, could not in the first instance make up their minds as to what they wanted and intended, instead of, in the very middle of the discussions, almost at a moment's notice, introducing changes in the clause—the most important on their own showing in the Bill—which make an entirely new departure in most material particulars from the original proposals of the Bill. When the Bill was first introduced it is quite true we had to consider two very important and novel principles in English legislation. We had to consider the compulsory acquisition of land by hire as well as by purchase, and whether that could be made effective by the machinery which has prevailed in this country for a great number of years—namely, by Provisional Orders confirmed by Act of Parliament, or whether it should be done by order of a single Government Department alone. These, I admit, wore two very large questions, involving principles of the greatest magnitude and importance. But compulsory acquisition of land by hire, in the clause as originally introduced, was limited strictly to the acquisition of allotments as defined in the Act of 1887—one acre alone—Mil, although the question raised was, as I say, of the greatest importance, it might have been fairly and fully discussed and decided upon without any appreciable loss of time. But the clause now laid on the Table makes most important changes in addition. In the first place, it entirely alters the Allotments Act of 1887. In the second place, it creates an entirely now class of holdings, held under an entirely novel form of tenure—namely, upon sub-hire from a middleman who only holds the land upon hire himself—and in doing this it touches and affects, and practically entirely alters, the Small Holdings Act of 1892. I wish the Committee to observe that this alteration is made before we have arrived at a time when it is possible we could have sufficient experience of the working of the Act of 1892, and it aims, in my humble opinion, a blow at the principle of cultivating ownership, which was unanimously recommended to Parliament three years ago by a Select Committee of this House, and which I thought every section of the Members of the House would be equally anxious to encourage and promote. That is not all. The clause as it is now before us raises a whole variety of questions, which proved to be of so much difficulty, and which led to such prolonged discussions during the passage of those two measures, with which I shall be compelled to deal more or less at length in the course of these Debates, not one of which would have been raised by the clause as originally placed on the Paper. The only objections to the clause as it was originally introduced were those: they were limited to the two great principles—namely, the hiring of land by compulsion, and compulsion without the sanction of Parliament. Here I am obliged to repeat a question I have already put to the right hon. Gentleman on that (the Treasury) Bench. What is their justification for resorting to the principle of compulsory hiring of land? The Chancellor of the Exchequer in one of the Debates the other night thought it was sufficient justification to point to a Bill which had been introduced by two or three Conservative Members, and to assume that those gentlemen represented the views of the Conservative Party. I do not remember who those gentlemen were; but, whoever they were, I dispute the idea that when they put their names to such a principle they were in any sense representative of the Conservative Party—nine out of ten Members of the Conservative Party would repudiate that altogether. I regret that that should excite the amusement of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Harcourt).

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,) Derby

I am only looking at the list to see who the Members were.

MR. CHAPLIN

Well, Sir, it has hitherto been regarded as an elementary and cardinal principle of justice that if for some great public object you take the property of an individual compulsorily, you are bound to give him pecuniary compensation—to pay him in full for the property you take. That is not denied. Does any Member of the Government dispute that proposition? No; they admit it. It is a cardinal and elementary principle of justice. But what are you going to do in this case? You cast aside that principle of justice altogether, and what you propose is to give him not the value of his property, which you are going to take away, but only so much interest, in the shape of rent and interest, as to the rate of which he is not to be allowed to say a single word. This is a very strong order, for which the Government have not offered, or tried to offer, the smallest justification, and for which they should be able to submit to Parliament some imperative necessity; and the extraordinary thing is this: that throughout the whole of the discussion on this Bill not one single Minister has ever attempted for a moment to do the first—namely, to offer the smallest justification for this proposal; and when they have tried to do the second—namely, to show the necessity for it—they have failed altogether. I do not think—I do not believe any other Government in the civilised world at the present moment but that of the Prime Minister (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) would ever dream of making such a proposal to Parliament without, at all events, attempting to justify it. When I complained of this before I was told that the Secretary to the Local Government Board (Sir W. Foster) dealt at length with this question on the Second Reading of the Bill. I disputed that at the time: and on referring to the speech, I find that my statement is absolutely entirely correct. It is true that the Secretary to the Local Government Board, when challenged at a later period, did give a reason for the policy of the Government. He said they had adopted this policy because they would be able under it to get land so much cheaper than it could otherwise be obtained. That is very desirable; but surely it is no defence for a course of action which, primâ facie, is contrary to justice and to all accepted principles to say that by the adoption of such a course you get what you require cheaper than yon would do otherwise; and surely if that is a reason at all, it is a still better reason for taking the land without paying anything at all; and I fancy the hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Foster), progressive—I think that is the word—as he is in his ideas with regard to other people's property, is not prepared to go that length at present. I want to ask the Committee what this is likely to lead to. This principle of compulsion which you are asked for practically the first time to sanction cannot possibly stop with the question of allotments. In all probability it would have to be applied over much larger areas than are now contemplated. Suppose the case of a considerable property which it is thought necessary to take under this system of compulsory hiring. The property may be encumbered with family charges—the owner might be called upon to pay them off; it might be necessary for him to realise and sell. The Local Authority would say "No; we want your property. We cannot afford to buy and enable you to pay off your charges, it is true; but Parliament allows us, and therefore we are going to hire it instead." In my opinion that is a strong order which requires some justification on the part of the Government. Now I come to the necessity for this principle. The Secretary to the Local Government Board quoted half-a-dozen isolated cases, in which he said difficulty had arisen in procuring allotments under the existing law. He referred to cases in Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Dorsetshire, and then he trotted out the St. Faith's case again. As I do not think the hon. Gentleman put that case at all fairly before the House, I will trot it out—and I hope for the last time—once more. In the St. Faith's case the acquisition of 14 acres of land cost the Local Authority £345 in law costs alone, and the hon. Member said that was a monstrous scandal, and denoted a state of things which ought no longer to be allowed. [Ministerial cheers.] Yes, I understand those cheers; but why did it cost £345? Because, with regard to four acres of the laud, a Committee upstairs, and Parliament afterwards, decided that the claim was totally unreasonable and unjust. It was in respect of these four acres alone that the law costs had to be paid, and if the claim had not been unreasonable and unjust the Local Authority would not have had to pay a penny. Will the hon. Gentleman say that it is either right or just, or fair, that the Local Authority ought to get off scot-free in such a case? If not, what becomes of the St. Faith's case as an instance of the scandal of the present state of things? As to the other isolated cases, I am content to put against them the enormous increase in the number of allotments, which we know has taken place—in the first place, from the official Returns; and, secondly, from the latest information which we have on the subject. What is that latest information? I have not been able to examine all the isolated cases he brought before the House; but I strongly suspect that if they were examined, they would be capable of as much explanation its the St. Faith's case. I refer now, Sir, to the Reports of the Labour Commission Sub-Committees, and I desire, with the permission of the Committee, to quote two or three sentences from these Reports. I do think it is of great importance that Parliament should be in possession of the facts. I have not been able to examine all these Reports; but I have this morning examined some of them, and this is what I find. Mr. Wilkinson reports on five counties—Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, and Yorkshire (Two Ridings)— Allotments are generally plentiful, or rather the supply is generally equal to the demand. In some parts there is no demand for them, and where they have existed for many years they have often gradually been given up. Mr. Spencer reports on seven counties—Dorset, Essex, Kent, Somerset, Surrey, Wilts, and Worcester— In all the counties that I visited allotments are common, and in many eases have been in existence for a great number of years, though they have certainly increased in number since the passing of the Allotments Act, 1887. There is a good deal of difference in different counties with regard to the demand, supply, and size of allotments. In some districts they do not appear to be much sought after; in others the demand and competition for allotments is keen. MR. Cecil Chapman reports on eight counties—Berkshire, Bucks, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Devonshire, Herts, Oxfordshire, and Shropshire— Of allotments it is satisfactory to be able to report that in most places the supply is equal to the demand. Mr. Fox reports on five counties—Cumberland, Lancashire, Norfolk, Northumberland, and Suffolk— In Cumberland and Lancashire it may be said that, on the whole, the people are fairly supplied with them, and that they are satisfied with what they have got. And, again— On the whole, the Suffolk and Norfolk labourers are better off than the Northumberland, Lancashire, and Cumberland men. I am bound to say that is not saying very much. I recollect. Sir, that in the course of his speech the hon. Member (Sir W. Foster) said there wore 4,000 parishes in which there were no allotments at all. That, he said, was it monstrous state of things. Hero is the answer— As regards the Northern Counties the reason given for there being no demand for gardens apply equally to the case of allotments. Generally speaking, in Northumberland and Cumberland they are almost unknown. I believe in all the three Northern Unions a great many labourers would not have them at a gift. That is the answer to the hon. Member. The reason he deduced was an entirely fallacious one. The real reason is that in those districts many of the people do not desire to have allotments. Then, again, the hon. Member said that there were 2,000 parishes in which the allotments were only about a quarter of an acre. Mr. Fox says, and this is the answer again— It is generally stated that a garden of about a quarter of an acre (certainly not more than an acre) is sufficient to occupy all a man's spare time. I come to one other piece of official information which the Committee should have before it. It is contained in a Return which was moved for by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Channing), and it throws a great deal of light upon the question as to the necessity for this proposal. I quote from the Return—310—relating to the acquisition of land by Local Authorities under the Allotments Act of 1887 and 1889. It appears that, at the date of the Return, 56 Rural Sanitary Authorities and four County Councils had acquired land for allotments. In 14 parishes acquisition bad been made by purchase, and in 88 by hire under agreement. The total extent of land acquired by these authorities was 1,207 acres, and allotments had been let to 2,891 tenants. The Return further shows that 518 Rural Sanitary Authorities had not acquired land, the reason, in the majority of cases, being that allotments were already provided voluntarily by the landlord, or that no representations or applications under the Act had been received. I have quoted from the official figures, and I think the Committee will agree that I have made out a strong case showing that there is no necessity for the extreme proposal we are asked to introduce at the present time. That being the case, I object to the introduction of the principle into English legislation. I object to it, in the first place, because it is a new and a complete departure from recognised principles of justice; in the second place, if you introduce the principle with regard to allotments, it is impossible that it can stop there; and, thirdly, it is quite conceivable that it may inflict great injury and injustice upon individuals, and that it may lead to political and Party pressure being brought to bear on a Department in dealing with questions of this kind. If the Committee will allow me a few moments more, I want to direct attention to another part of the subject. A great alteration is proposed to be made in the present Allotments Act. I am referring to the extension of allotments from one acre to four acres, and the permission to holders of these to erect buildings upon them. Here I foresee very great difficulties, because you are trying by the same machinery to deal with two things which are totally distinct—allotments on the one hand, and small holdings on the other. The parish is perfectly competent to deal with allotments as defined in the Act of 1887—"field gardens of one acre"—extremely well adapted, I think; and I regret the alteration in the clause. The right hon. Gentleman would have been well advised in limiting the clause as it was originally introduced; and if he had adhered to it, I do not hesitate to say he would have carried a perfectly workable scheme, and carried it in a workable manner. I admit that compulsory hiring would be good for the landlord, because he would have the rates as security for his rent; but it would be better for the tenant to hire direct from the landlord, because he would be easier to deal with and more indulgent, especially in bad times, than the parish. The property is his own, and the Parish Council will deal with it as if it belonged to someone else. But when you come to the provision of something more than allotments—namely, small holdings, then I am quite satisfied, as your scheme gets to work, you will find yourselves confronted with all kinds of difficulties which the Government have not sufficiently considered. If a man is to have four acres, he will require some outlay on buildings. Who is to erect them? If the tenant, where are his means? Is the landlord—that is, the Parish Council—to do it, or is the tenant to do it on a comparatively short lease, and, if so, what is to happen at the end of the lease? You ask the tenant to erect buildings for a holding of which he holds only a short lease; he is to go out at, the end of that lease—he may have to leave for some reason—and you make no provision for giving compensation to this unfortunate tenant for the outlay he has made. What do hon. Gentlemen on the Government side of I the House think of the case I have put? Hon. Gentlemen are perpetually making propositions in regard to agricultural holdings for the purpose of giving greater security to the tenant farmers than they enjoy at the present time; but when you come to these small holders, I search through your Bill in vain, and I fail to find that the Parish Council is to give compensation to any one of their tenants in the event of their leaving their holding. You may say that buildings such as those which I have described are none of them likely to be required. I cannot agree with you. I do not see how small holdings are to be conducted without buildings of some kind, and I think it is most unsatisfactory to leave the matter in this way. There is another aspect of the case which I desire to point out: If your Bill is to be carried out at all, and have any considerable effect—about which I have considerable doubt—this is what probably will happen: Take the case of an estate which has always been well managed, of which the landlord is proud, on which he has spent a great deal of money, and upon which every building and cottage is in admirable order. You are going to take 100 or 200 acres upon compulsory hire; you are going to let it out again to tenants, and leave it to the tenants to provide their buildings. You are going to turn them into these 200 acres in the middle of an admirably-managed estate, on which they will place wretched little hovels and buildings of every sort and kind, and that, I suppose, you consider progress in an age of progression! Looked at in this way, I do think we ought to hear something more from the Government as to how they expect these provisions in their Bill are going to work than we have heard up to this moment. The buildings are not the only question. We have heard a great deal about the acquisition of grass land. Even if buildings are not necessary, there is something else I may point out which may be not only necessary, but of the first importance if this land is to be made as profitable as it can be made. There is nothing more advantageous to grass land than an effective system of drainage. It may often happen that unless a tenant lays out capital in drainage he can do no good. But supposing one of your tenants lays out necessary money in drainage, and comes to the end of his tenancy, what are the Parish Council going to do? They are going to turn him away, as I read the Bill, without any provision for drainage at all, or any compensation whatever on these points. I should he glad if I am in error to have it pointed out to me where I am mistaken. It is extremely difficult to follow, because it depends upon three different Acts of Parliament—upon the Allotments Act of 1887; upon the Cottage Gardens Act passed afterwards, and upon the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1887 too; but from a close and careful study of these three Acts I believe the case I have submitted to the Committee to be absolutely correct. These were all questions which had to be thrashed out and considered during the passage of the Small Holdings Act, and the more you thrash them out, study, and consider them, the more you will find the system of hiring land upon short leases is not adapted to small holdings under a Local Authority when you come to consider the necessary outlay of capital on buildings that has to be made, and it is only an illustration of what I have said from the very first—that the machinery of the Parish Council is not adequate and the system of hiring is not adapted to a system of small holdings under a Local Authority. I hope the Committee will not understand or think for a moment, from anything I have said on this subject, that I have changed my view in any way as to the desirability of extending small holdings if possible throughout the country, I think the action for which I was responsible myself in the last Parliament, and the Act which we carried, ought to be sufficient vindication of my attitude on that, point. But I am opposed to your proposals, because I think that, instead of aiding, they will absolutely retard the provision of allotments and small holdings in a manner which can be really effectual or beneficial to the people you desire to help. It seems to me, on that side of the House, that in connection with all these matters you are always for compulsion. I am opposed to compulsion wherever it can be avoided, because I care not what Government is in power, or what Acts of Parliament you pass, or what machinery you employ, compulsion inevitably means additional expenses, and additional expenses mean dear allotments. Well, but what I want to see is cheap allotments; as cheap, at all events, as they can be provided with justice lo the people who own the land and from whom land must be taken for their provision. There it is that we differ. I know this, and perhaps it may be of interest to the Committee. I was talking only last week to one of the very best landlords, I think, in the whole of this country. He owns a very considerable estate in Yorkshire, and I was discussing with him this Bill, and all the questions which arose out of it. What he told me was this. He said, "I am thankful to say I own an estate upon which, owing to what has been done, partly by myself, and partly by my predecessor, there is no occupier of a cottage who has not three acres of grass land to himself. And how has it been done? I have not done it by compulsion or by taking land forcibly from one tenant to give it to another, but gradually and by degrees seizing an opportunity whenever it presented itself, until at last I have succeeded; and nothing could be more advantageous and more desirable and conducive to the prosperity of the estate." But that is a very different course from what you are going to adopt. Wherever this has been done he has provided the buildings; he has found the necessary capital, and there you have a state of things which you ought, I think, to try and imitate, and promote and encourage by every means in your power. You seem to think that compulsion is the means to which you ought to resort. It may be a good electioneering cry; I will not enter into that. I doubt it myself very much; but whether it be a good electioneering cry or not, I am perfectly confident it will not be to the permanent advantage cither of the people themselves or of the system which you desire to encourage and promote throughout the country; and as to the two great principles which you have needlessly introduced, as I think, into your Bill on this occasion, as you have neither offered the slightest justification, nor been able to show the slightest necessity for them, up to the present, so far as I am concerned, I am wholly opposed to your propositions.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,) Derby

The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by an allusion to a compromise; but there was not much compromise in the tone of his speech, for a more uncompromising declaration against the principle of extending allotments by the process of hiring it would be impossible to conceive. [Mr. CHAPLIN: By compulsion.] Then we understand where we are exactly; gentlemen opposite are uncompromisingly opposed to the compulsory hiring of land. I may be pardoned, then, for referring to more than one Bill brought in during the last Parliament for the compulsory hiring of land. I am very sorry that. I should expose gentlemen on the opposite side of the House to the greater excommunication from the late Minister of Agriculture, more especially a gentleman who, I think, has been almost as long as I have in Parliament, and whom I have regarded as one of the most distinguished—I should even have said authoritative—representative of agriculture in this House. I find on the backs of these Bills the names of Mr. Round, Major Rasch, and Sir Edward Birkbeck. These gentlemen wore not entirely out of harmony with the Conservative Party. There is another name honoured, I am sure, by the Conservative Party, the name of Mr. Jesse Collings, and then there is the name of Mr. H. Hobhouse, who has taken an active part in the discussion of the Bill, and Mr. Story-Maskelyne, who, I regret to say, is no longer a Member of this House. After all, these are not names which deserve severe criticism at the hands of the right hon. Gentleman. With regard to what was said by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire about our disappointing the expectations, and just expectations, of himself and his friends, I think the speech which has just been delivered will show him some of the difficulties the Government have in doing anything at all; they will recognise at least the conflict between those who say that compulsory hiring is proper, and the right hon. Gentleman, who says that he, and he alone, expresses the sentiments of the legitimate Opposition—

MR. CHAPLIN

I did not say that. I said they were not to be considered as representing the views of the Conservative Party.

MR. W. HARCOURT

That being so, I only say to my hon. Friend who, I think, has spoken with great consideration for the Government in the course they have thought it their duty to take, that he and his friends will be able to measure and understand what it was the Government had to deal with. My hon. Friend must remember that this is the history of all great reforms. You always find a great Party in the State, in this House and out of it, entertaining great alarms at the possible consequences of any reform. On that account reforms commence by all sorts of limitations. We remember well the contest in this House upon the question of compensating for their improvements the tenant farmers of England. It was thought that that was terrible, and such a confiscation of property was apprehended that the great landowners gave notices to take themselves out of the operation of the measure; and the head of what was then the Department of Agriculture "noticed" himself out of his own Bill.

An hon. MEMBER: That was 20 years ago.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I am only sketching the history of the progress of reform. I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman himself will think differently 20 years hence from what he does now. By the tone of his speech I was reminded of a speech he made from this box in 1886 on the celebrated Debate upon an Amendment to the Address moved by the right hon. Member for Bordesley when he delivered an emphatic "no."

MR. CHAPLIN

That "no" was to a Vote of Censure.

SIR W. HARCOURT

Well, Sir, I thought there was a "no" on this occasion scarcely less emphatic than that which we Board in 1886. I ask those gentlemen who are naturally disappointed upon this side of the House to remember that a little experience shows that, while persons entertain those alarms, the alarms are not well founded. In point of fact, reforms which people tell you are going to do a great deal of harm often, as it turns out, do a great deal of good; and even the persons who entertain these alarms become converts to the new views and generally imagine themselves to have been the authors of that which they opposed. But what is the head and front of our offending? The right hon. Gentleman says no Government in the civilised world except ourselves would have made such a proposal.

MR. CHAPLIN

No, I beg pardon. I said without attempting to justify or give some reason for it.

SIR W. HARCOURT

Well, we are going to take our place in the civilised world by attempting, at all events, to justify them. And our justification is this. The right hon. Gentleman thinks it is a great evil that we should in this Bill attempt to extend the principle of the Allotments Clauses of the Small Holdings Act. That is exactly what we desire and intend to do, though not, perhaps, to so great an extent as if we had our own way. The right hon. Gentleman holds up his hand in horror at four acres, but is there anything so dreadful about four acres upon this matter? In the Committee upon Small Holdings, the Chairman, another gentleman who carries a good deal of weight with the Party opposite, drew up the draft Report, of which the 7th section was this— That, in order to meet the case of ordinary agricultural labourers, and to provide a ladder by which they may gradually raise themselves to the position of small owners, it is desirable that the principle of the Allotments Act should be extended to five acres instead of being limited to one acre as at present. That is the revolutionary proposal of the right hon Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. Apparently, it was too strong meat for the babies of that Committee, and it was modified; at all events, there is this statement in the Report of the Committee, which I think is worthy of consideration:— Even in England and Wales the desire of the rural population is rather in the direction of small tenancies than of cultivating ownerships. That is a very important statement. They do not want cultivating ownerships; they want small tenancies. It is the object of this Bill to give effect to that which this Committee, certainly not a revolutionary Committee, stated was the wish of the rural population. Accordingly, when the right hon. Gentleman asks the Government to justify their proposition, our justification is this—that this clause is intended and does, in fact, carry out that which is the desire of the rural population of this country. That is our justification, and we are prepared to take our stand upon it. We are at this stage upon the Second Reading of the clause; we are not upon the details upon which the right hon. Gentleman, in the latter part of his speech, entered, as to conversations, and so on. Details may be discussed after the clause is read a second time; at this moment we are asking—Shall the rural population of England have the opportunity of these tenancies being secured to them, not as a matter of favour, but as a matter which can be granted to them by a body of which they are the electors? That is the principle upon which this clause was founded. Let there be no doubt as to the issue we have before us. It is not a question of this detail or that; it is whether or not that desire, so expressed in the Report from which I have quoted, shall be fulfilled or refused. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a speech I made at an earlier stage, in which I said I regarded this part of the Bill as, perhaps, the most important of the whole. It has been the object of this Bill in all its frame- work, and especially in this part of it concerning the land, to improve the position and status of the labourer, of the peasant, of the rural population generally. There wore times in England, and I venture to think better times, when the condition of the rural population, and particularly of the labourers, was very different from what it is now. It was not the object of the State in those days that the peasant should be a man dependent only upon wages, who could be employed to-day and dismissed to-morrow; the object was that he should have a standing in the community among whom he lived very different from that which lie now possesses. I do not know whether the House is familiar with the Statute of Elizabeth with reference to cottages, but it represents the view of the Government and the State in those days upon that subject. To my mind it represents a far sounder and better social condition of the rural population. Allow me to read the first clause of that Statute—the 31st Elizabeth, c. 7. I read from Lord's Coke's comment:— After the end of this Session of Parliament no person shall, within this realme of England, make, build, or erect, or cause to be made, builded, or erected, any manner of cottage for habitation or dwelling, nor convert or ordaine any building or housing made, or hereafter to be made, to be used as a cottage for habitation or dwelling, unlesse the same person doe assigne and lay to the same cottage or building foure acres of ground at the least, to be accounted according to the statute or ordinance de terris mensurandis, being his or her owne freehold and inheritance, lying neere to the said cottage, to be continually occupied and manured therewith so long as the same cottage shall be inhabited. That was the conception presented in England in the time of Elizabeth. That Statute remained in force for about 200 years. It was repealed about the middle of the last century. From that time dates the beginning of a totally different condition of your rural population, when, instead of the peasantry being people who lived in the condition there described, they became mere tenants at will, who could be sent about their business whenever it suited their social superiors to do so. The Party opposite say it is not a good thing that the condition of these people should depend upon some Public Body in which they themselves have a voice. I entirely differ from that view. I never go to Switzerland without looking with asto- nishment and admiration at the crowds of populous and prosperous villages. If you stand on the top of the Rigi you will see them by the hundred, in a climate far less favourable than our own, with a soil less fertile. [An hon. MEMBER: The Swiss tourist.] What does the hon. Member know about Switzerland, I should like to know? I know he is conversant with the high seas, but if he imagines that these villages have only been created since the cheap tourist discovered Switzerland he is greatly mistaken. In these villages the land is held from the communes, and the inhabitants have the credit and the advantage of the communal authority, and that, I believe, is the great secret of their prosperity. These are the grounds upon which we desire to raise the social status of the agricultural labourer. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Oh, let them buy the land," and yet at the end of his speech he said that what he wished for was cheap allotments. Well, the buying of land means dear allotments, and the hiring of land means cheap allotments.

MR. CHAPLIN

Why?

SIR W. HARCOURT

Why? Because with the limit you have put upon the rating power the difficulty of purchase may be great while the facilities of hiring may be ample. Anybody who understands these matters practically knows perfectly well that people may be in a position to hire who cannot afford to buy, and with only a limited income many of these Parish Councils will be better able to acquire by hire than by purchase the land which is desirable for the purpose in view. It is for that reason we have made the proposals we have in this clause. The right hon. Gentleman may think our plan a good one or a bad one, but at all events I have endeavoured to state what is the justification on which the Government desire to press this clause. I will not at this moment enter into the details which the right hon. Gentleman discussed at the end of his speech. We would draw a fair issue—Is there to be a power given to the Parish Councils to hire land by compulsion, and in regard to land hired by compulsion is the allotment to be limited to one acre or to be extended to four? There are limitations which the Government have accepted, but in the Division we are about to take upon the Second Reading of this clause let us understand that we are voting whether we shall give power to the Parish Councils to hire land in order that they may let it out in convenient plots in a manner desired by the rural population of this country. That is a clear statement of the view of the Government on the subject. Gentlemen opposite, by the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman, declare their opposition, and upon the issue thus raised we are ready to stand or fall.

MR. GOSCHEN (St. George's, Hanover Square)

; The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has dealt with this question in what I think is his most characteristic style. My right hon. Friend dealt not only with the general principle of the proposal, but he asked the Committee to consider whether it was possible even to carry out the general principle upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has dilated. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not attempted to show by one single sentence that if this clause is read a second time it will have any effect whatever except upon the Division. That is the point upon which the right hon. Gentleman always insists; the Division means this, and it is to be interpreted by the country as meaning—"We wish to enable the Parish Council to hire land, and gentlemen opposite do not." ["Hear, hear!"] But that is not the issue; that is the issue put by the right hon. Gentleman, who always escapes under generalities and platitudes. Platitudes and generalities, generalities and platitudes—these are the substance of the right hon. Gentleman's speeches. I would ask the Committee, Is it enough to lay on the Table a clause containing a declaration of principle without showing how that principle is to be carried out? My right hon. Friend endeavoured to show the difficulties in the way of carrying it out; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not profess to attempt to meet anyone of those difficulties. All the right hon. Gentleman said was, "Let us put the declaration on the Statute Book. That is what we care for, because it will be interpreted in a manner satisfactory to our Party." Let me remind him of the difficulties of the case. My right hon. Friend touched upon the question of buildings, and showed how difficult it would be to manage four acres of land without buildings. That was a point entirely passed over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thou there was the question of drainage, which was also passed over by the right hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend is fully justified in asking, "If you carry this clause, will it have the effect which the right hon. Gentleman wishes it to have, and which we on this side also wish it to have?" But we see some of the great difficulties in the way. And here let me expose one of the shallow answers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He says he prefers the cheapness of hiring rather than the dearness of purchase. But everyone knows that to hire, in almost every case, is the dearer operation. ["No, no!"] If von hire you will find that you have before long paid as much as you might have purchased the thing for. That is the general experience. Perhaps the light hon. Gentleman thinks it is cheaper to job a horse than to buy.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I think so; very often.

MR. GOSCHEN

Well, that is because if you lose a horse during your hiring that horse has to be replaced. But where there is a simple act of hiring the cost will soon amount to more than the purchase money. ["No!"] Well, that is a matter of opinion. I meet the statement of the right hon. Gentleman and say that hiring is generally dearer than purchase. As regards the general principle, the right hon. Gentleman seems to think that the peasantry generally would rather hire than buy, but he gives no evidence with regard to that.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I quoted from the Report of the Commission. I do not wish to waste the time of the Committee, but, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to state that the marginal note says that the witnesses upon whose evidence that statement was founded were Mr. Pell, a gentleman well-known to hon. Members; Lord Wantage, another name well-known and which carries great weight; Mr. Squarey, Mr. Owen, Mr. Bedwell, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Rigby—not the Solicitor General—Mr. Carey, and others. They are quoted as authorities for this—that in England and Wales the ambition of the rural population is rather in the direction of small tenancies than cultivating owners.

MR. GOSCHEN

And yet I find the Committee said— Your Committee has carefully considered the alternative proposals for the creation of small holdings, and in our opinion a system of small ownership is preferable to any system of tenancy. It is apparent, therefore, that the Committee did not come to the same conclusion as the right hon. Gentleman. But, however that may be, the question comes to this: Is the system of hiring, as proposed by the Government, likely to lead to the results aimed at, and what are the moans of meeting the difficulties in the way? That is the point upon which we ought to have some information. I am not sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is sufficiently acquainted with the tenure of land in Switzerland to say that it includes compulsory hiring. As I have already said, the right hon. Gentleman has never attempted to meet any of the practical difficulties in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman, though he criticised the speech of my right hon. Friend, did not dwell for a moment upon the strong points which my right hon. Friend made from the success of the Small Holdings Act. That Act does a great deal of what we desire and what gentlemen opposite desire. It has had very considerable effects, and those effects have not been touched in the least by the criticism of the Secretary to the Local Government Board. The Special Commissioners appointed by the right hon. Gentleman have shown the great progress which has been made under the law as it at present exists, and no attempt has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to controvert that fact in any single particular. The objections to this system of compulsory hiring wore stated by my right hon. Friend, and those objections the Chancellor of the Exchequer left entirely aside. The right hon. Gentleman was simply concerned in endeavouring to throw odium on the Conservative Party for trying to resist a proposition placed with very short notice on the Table by Her Majesty's Government. We believe that in practice it will remain very much a dead letter, and that it will throw dust in the eyes of the agricultural population rather than realise the promises of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

MR. ARCH (Norfolk, N.W.)

said, the Committee had listened to a very important speech from a landlord, and he would ask the Committee to listen for a few moments to the experiences of a labourer. He had listened with no small amount of interest to the speeches that had been delivered on this question, and especially to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. lie stated, as an agricultural labourer, knowing the wants and wishes of the labourer in nearly every county in the Kingdom, the one great desire of the labourers was to biro and not to purchase, and he stated that fearless of contradiction by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin). What did this purchase mean? It simply meant that they did not want the agricultural labourer to have the land. When he sat on the County Council he negotiated with the steward of the Earl of Warwick for land for allotments, and what was it that the labourers wanted? They wanted to hire and not to purchase. The negotiations with this gentleman ended in his allowing the labourers to have 35 acres of laud. And what had these men done with it? They had made it pay, and this last Michaelmas they had taken 35 acres more; and they would save up, and in another year or two would take another 35 acres. In this Parliament they were doing some most important work, and work which would have a most beneficial effect upon the rural communities of the future. If, however, the Government gave way on the question of purchase, they would keep the labourers landless. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division said something about compensation, but how much had they got in the last 30 years? The allotment holder had to pay the compensation and not the farmer, for the allotment holder, he thought, paid very good compensation in the increased rent that he had to pay. Then, with regard to the quality of the land, no one knew better than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division that if they wanted poor land got into condition they must not let it to a farmer, as a rule, but let it out for allotments to the working man, who would soon bring it round and make it productive. He, as a labourer, had worked on half-a-dozen fields to improve them, and when he and others had improved them the farmer would take them without paying any compensation. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the agricultural labourer would want something to put up buildings, but his experience had been that on nearly every allotment the labourers had put up good sheds and piggeries, but they had put them up because they knew that if they left the land they were to be compensated for them.

MR. CHAPLIN

They are not to be under this clause.

MR. ARCH

asked if the right hon. Gentleman meant to say the Bill would not allow him to make a contract with a landlord or the County Council, under which he would get compensation if he put up certain buildings?

MR. CHAPLIN

Allow me to explain. I do not think the hon. Gentleman understands what I said at all. I said I had carefully examined the Bill and could find no provision whatever for giving the labourer any compensation for any improvements he made. I called the personal attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this, and he answered by saying, "Oh, I am not going into any details," and I had no answer at all.

MR. ARCH

said, he found in this very clause the following sub-section:— The Order for compulsory hiring may apply, with the prescribed adaptations, such of the provisions of the Lands 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. When the men in their villages got their allotment of an acre or two acres they set to work and began to put up their buildings at once, and never asked whether they might or might not, and it would be the same all over the country after the passing of this Bill. An hon. Member said that in Norfolk they would be better off than in Northumberland; but he failed to see how that could be, because in Northumberland the labourer got his £11s. a week as against 11s. a week in Norfolk. If landlords 40 years ago had been willing to have met the labourers and have let them the land on the hiring system as between landlord and tenant, there would have been no necessity for this Bill to-day. So far as his experience had gone, and he had lived nearly 70 years, the landlords, backed up to a certain extent by the tenant farmers, had refused to let land to the labourers, and it was not until the agricultural labourers got the vote that any land in the villages came under their cultivation. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would stick to the position he had taken up, and if he did he believed that in a quarter of a century from the Bill becoming law they would be able to pull down their workhouses, as having no further use for them.

MR. JEFFREYS (Hants, Basingstoke)

said, that with regard to the improvement of their rural villages and the conditions of agriculture, no one could wish that more than he did, but the question was how they were to improve them. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was in favour of small holdings. So was he (Mr. Jeffreys). He should like to see small holdings, but how were they to get the buildings for them? If they were to erect these buildings they must have the money to do it with, and in his part of the country he did not think the agricultural labourers had any money at all. What the hon. Gentleman and his friends should do was to bring pressure on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to advance the money, as there was no provision enabling the Parish Council to borrow money for the purpose. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so much in favour of small holdings, perhaps a little pressure might induce him to find the means whereby the necessary buildings might be erected. If that could be done, no one would object to the land being let for these small holdings, and he believed it would do a great deal to create prosperity in the rural villages. But he wished to make a few remarks upon the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to the great prosperity of Switzerland, and said that the land was owned by the great cantons.

SIR W. HARCOURT

By the communes.

MR. JEFFREYS

By the great communes; that the land was let out to the agricultural combination, and that great prosperity was the result. There was a Report just issued by the Royal Commission on Labour which was most interesting. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman had not seen it, and he would, therefore, read one or two short extracts from it to show that the state of agriculture in Switzerland was riot so prosperous as the right hon. Gentleman supposed. In the first place, on page 32, with regard to agriculture, the Report said— Though these occupations form the chief support of the agricultural population, it is a rare thing to find a peasant family which subsists solely on the produce of the land. Therefore, any prosperity they had was not from the land, but from other occupations. Then, a little lower down, the Report went on to say— The subdivision of property is in many districts carried to excess. This system is the foe to agricultural enterprise, and one of the causes of the constant emigration from the pastoral districts. That did not look like prosperity. Then, a little lower down, the Report said— The question of rent is an unimportant one in Switzerland, as it is rare to find a farm which is not worked by the owners, but, owing to the continual subdivision of property, the land is in many cases heavily mortgaged. That would not help the small holders. A little lower down the Report said— The depressed state of agriculture has already caused considerable emigration from the rural districts; in 1860 the agricultural population of Zurich was estimated at 107,000 persons, including women and children; in 1870 this number had sunk to 104,000, and in 1880 further emigration had reduced it to 94,000. So the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought he would make a political lead, but owing to these emigrations the country was not flourishing to the extent the right hon. Gentleman would have them believe; the Report showed the reverse of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer supposed. He only desired to quote one other extract in regard to what had been said by an hon. Member as to the prosperity being due to the number of British tourists, a statement which the Chancellor of the Exchequer ignored and laughed at. The Report said— The opening of the Simplon and St. Gothard Passes, and the creation of the railways, gave a great impetus to farming operations. That proved that the tourists going to Switzerland had given a great impetus to the farming operations, and bore out the statement of his hon. Friend.

SIR W. HARCOURT

That was several years ago.

MR. JEFFREYS

said, he was reading from the Report, which he would hand to the right hon. Gentleman, who could look at it for himself, and he would see that the proposal of the Government was not such a great panacea for agricultural depression as he would have them believe. But with regard to the clause under discussion, he thought it narrowed itself into a very small compass. He thought everyone acquainted with agriculture would agree with him it was no use to give small holdings without buildings, and the difficulty was that the agricultural labourer would have no money to put up these buildings, and, so far as he knew, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not advance the money. There was another part of the clause which was important, and which he thought ought to be struck out—namely, the last part of Sub-section (E), which said— The compensation shall, as far as possible, be made by increasing the rent to be paid by the Parish Council to the landlord, or by reducing the apportioned rent payable in respect of land retained by the tenant. That was to say, in this clause which was stuck into the Bill at the last moment there was going to be a sort of Land Court, not only to assess the rent to be paid by the Parish Council, but also to interfere between the landlord and tenant, from whose farm the land was taken. That was an astounding proposal to introduce into a Bill of this kind at the last moment. Whatever might be done with regard to the severance of the land and the amount of rent to be paid for it by the Parish Council, the original lease between a tenant and his landlord ought not to be interfered with. He maintained that it would be a hardship in many cases to compulsorily take away the best piece of a man's farm. Anyone who had a farm, including within it a good piece of grass land, would know what a detriment it would be to the farm to take that land away. But that could be done under the clause. If they were to come to any conclusion he hoped it would be in the direction of giving encouragement to the granting of allotments as they had given it under the Act of 1887, and as many hon. Gentlemen who lived in the country voluntarily gave it, and if they were to encourage small holdings, by all means let them be provided, but let the Chancellor of the Exchequer find the money for the buildings, and do not let them take away from a farmer the best piece of his farm without giving adequate compensation.

MR. QUILTER (Suffolk, Sudbury)

said, that as one who had hitherto refrained from saying a word during the passage of the Bill from a desire not to hinder the adoption of principles to which he was fervently attached, he could not allow the occasion to go by without giving his views on the matter before the House. The question was whether the rural population were to have cheap and easy access to the land. He had no hesitation in saying that in the County of Suffolk a quarter of an acre of land situated at the back of a man's house was the greatest blessing that could be given to a man in regular employment, but there might be cases where a man, who had otherwise partial employment, or had members of his family qualified to assist him, would like to obtain a larger plot. Still he could not help thinking that the limit placed in the Bill was wise and reasonable. In Suffolk, since the passing of the Allotments Act, the increase in the number of allotments had been very large indeed. He had no hesitation in saying that in the constituency he represented, covering 60 miles, there were only two villages that were not amply and adequately supplied with allotments. But there were cases—too many, he regretted to say—where the rents charged for these allotments were unduly and exorbitantly high. He had consistently voted in the House in favour of some principle of compulsory purchase and hiring. He did not suppose the Committee would go to a Division, but if it did he would most unhesitatingly support the Government. So far as a hasty examination of the clause went, it seemed to him framed on a fair basis to enable rural districts to acquire land by as the Allotments Act, the Small Holdings Act, and now the Parish Councils Bill, but he believed they hail begun at the wrong end. The Liberal Party gave a pledge at the election of 1885 to do something to remove the encumbrance which now attended the sale of land. Nothing had been done, and he could only express his regret that a Liberal Government, being now in power, had not made the slightest attempt to deal with what he understood was one of the main planks in their platform.

* MR. J. LOWTHER (Kent, Isle of Thanet)

The hon. Member who has just sat down, in his concluding remarks, dealt with a subject which, while it cannot be pursued in connection with the clause now before the House, is one which is an omission and a sin of omission, and which one is perfectly justified in pressing on the attention of the Government. In my humble judgment, nothing is more urgently needed than a comprehensive treatment of the question which the hon. Member has alluded to in the interests of all the agricultural people who are anxious to acquire land. The right hon. Gentleman opposite says that a Bill dealing with the subject was thrown out by the House of Lords. He tempts me into an irregularity. He knows that I cannot accept his challenge, but I must remind him that the Bill he refers to contained most mischievous provisions, winch ensured its defeat. I venture to say that if it had been confined to the subject to which the hon. Member opposite referred, it would have been passed by the House of Lords almost with acclamation. With regard to the Amendment before the Committee, the hon. Member for Norfolk appeared wholly to misapprehend the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford. The hon. Member for Norfolk proceeded to demolish an imaginary advocacy of a system under which all labouring men who desire to hold laud shall be compelled to purchase it. The hon. Member lo his own evident satisfaction demolished that monster of his own creation. No one had ever said anything of the kind. When my right hon. Friend dealt with the relative merits of purchase and hire, he was obviously dealing with the acquisition of land by the Local Authorities. Neither my right hon. Friend, nor, so far as I know, anybody else, has advocated a system under which those who desire small allotments shall be driven into the open market to purchase them. That is an absurd proposition, which I can only suppose entered the mind of the hon. Gentleman through having failed to appreciate the arguments laid before the Committee by my right hon. Friend. We all approach this new clause under great disadvantage, and we must agree that the complaint of Mr. Mellor, the Chairman, of Amendments being suddenly sprung upon the Committee was well founded. Members are unable to consider these proposals, and find it impossible to put down Amendments to them. The clause itself is one which I venture to think needs considerable Amendment. What have they done? They have practically drawn a new clause. They have omitted some of the provisions in the old clause which, I venture to think, were less mischievous than most of the others contained in their Bill. They have omitted Sub-section 2 of their original clause, which provided that before the Parish Council applied the machinery of the Bill reference should be made to the District Council, that it should conduct an inquiry, after which the authority of the Local Government Board was to be called in. That was a salutary provision, but it has entirely vanished from the Bill, and I think we are entitled to some explanation of its disappearance. True, it was not worth much, but it made the clause less bad than the provision the Government now substitute. With regard to the relative merits of a system of hiring and purchase, my own opinion has perhaps never coincided strictly with the views expressed by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen upon this side of the House. For my own part, I object to the exercise of compulsory powers at all. My personal opinion is that, if land is to be taken compulsorily at all, the shorter the time the land is taken away from the owner against his will the better, and, therefore, I object to a long period of years, more strongly, if possible, than I do to a shorter. I do not view purchase any more favourably than I do hiring. I have always taken a very strong interest in the allotment question, and it has not been of that Platonic character, which constitutes the interest many hon. Gentlemen have of recent years suddenly professed in the subject. For a generation past, long before it became a popular fad, and many years before the occupying farmers were placed at a discount in the electoral system, I strongly advocated placing within the reach of the labouring population a reasonable plot of ground which they could cultivate for themselves. I am not going to blow my own trumpet or going into any local or personal details, but I can only say that I have found the personal action of those responsible for the ownership of the land, in conjunction with their labourers, who constitute the rural population, far better for the bonâ, fide development, of the allotment system than any number of compulsory provisions and any number of Acts of Parliament. As to the extraordinary compensation provision in this clause, if it applies beyond the currency of the tenancy existing at the time the transfer takes place it is the first time any principle of this kind has been embodied in an Act of Parliament applying to England. I am aware that, under the Land Clauses Act, when for the purpose of a railway there is interference with cultivation and the occupation of a holding during the existing current tenancy, provision is made for compensation to the tenant, but I should like to know how far the Government are going to carry the principle. It is a very novel principle, and one tending in a very dangerous direction. There is nothing said in the Bill as to the amount of notice which a Local Authority is to give to an owner. The whole clause is hacked and messed about in such a random fashion that I have not been able to ascertain what remains in the Bill, what has been taken out, and what it is proposed to put in, but I can see no provision determining the precise form in which notice is to be served by the Local Authority on the owner of land.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

The 2nd subsection of the clause covers the point.

MR. J. LOWTHER

That is the old plan of proceeding by reference. As to the interference of an arbitrator, I see in that the cloven hoof of a Land Court. The clause as it now stands is, if possible, worse than the one for which it has been substituted. I have not a sufficiently large magnifying glass to see any concession which has been made by the Government. It is too late to recall public interest seriously to the details of the Bill, but I, for one, will not hold myself responsible for what I consider a mischievous proposition.

MR. WARNER (Somerset, N.)

said, he was one of those who greatly regretted that the Government had thought it to be desirable to recede from the position they had assumed with reference to this clause for the assistance of agricultural labourers. But after the speeches which had been delivered from the Front Bench opposite, it was quite clear the clause was to be fought tooth and nail; he believed, however, it would now be wise to adopt some portion of the principle, so that in future years they might be enabled to give a more profitable and extended sanction to the hiring of land for the agricultural labourers of the country. Strong objection had been taken to the clause by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division, and it had been complained that his objections had not been answered. The first objection was that a quarter of an acre was quite large enough for any labourer who was in permanent employment. But did any one think that all the inhabitants of the rural districts were in permanent employment? There was no doubt about it that there were many people in the rural districts who would gladly take the chance of cultivating five or more acres if they could only get it. He hoped the clause would do some good to those who were not employed every moment of their time, and could cultivate a little more than a quarter of an acre. Another objection was that the hiring of land would interfere with the selling of it by the owner. But he believed that at this moment land which was well let throughout the country sold better than land which was not occupied at all. He did not think any landowner in the future would look on the Village Council as a bad tenant. It would be one that would be pretty sure to pay its rent, and not require large reductions. As to buildings, every one would agree that it would be better to allow the tenants to erect them than to prohibit them from doing so. There was an objection made that compensation was not to be given in respect of buildings, but Sub-section 6 seemed very like the concession the right hon. Gentleman opposite was unable to find, even with the aid of a magnifying glass. It had been said that the Chairman of the Select Committee, to which reference had been made, objected to compulsory hiring for anything but small holdings. Well, for his own part he desired to see provision made in the clause for larger holdings, and the granting of greater facilities for the Village Councils to acquire land even than was conferred by the clause. He hoped that before long even the Conservative Party would see their way to give support to this principle.

MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN (Kent, Faversham)

said, that some time ago he had respectfully suggested to the Government that they should endeavour as much as possible to prevent the interposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the discussions on the Bill as not calculated to facilitate its progress. If that remark was justified when it was made, it was more than justified now. The right hon. Gentleman had entirely misunderstood the charge brought against the Government by the right hon. Member for Sleaford. The charge was not against the Government. The right hon. Gentleman did not call on the Government to justify themselves for introducing the Bill nor for advocating through it the extension of the principle of allotments and small holdings, for that was a principle which Members on the Opposition side of the House had advocated as strongly as any hon. Gentleman opposite. But what the right hon. Gentleman had called upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to justify—and upon this the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not said a word—was the application of the tyrannical and new doctrine of compulsion to the hiring of the land. With regard to the question of allotments, his right hon. Friend had clearly proved that they largely existed now, and did largely exist before the recent Allotments Act was passed. He need hardly condemn the preposterous assertion of the hon. Member for Norfolk that it was not until the agricultural labourers had a vote that the landlords were at all eager or willing to give them allotments. It was a notorious fact that the allotment system bad existed for years and was largely in operation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford had shown this, and he had also proved that in regard to those parishes—and there were many—where allotments did not exist the reason for their non-existence was that the people did not want them. He (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) did not want to take up the time of the Committee by expressing his views on this Bill or clause. He had said what he wanted to say on the Second Beading, but he wished to thank the right hon. Member for Sleaford for having delivered one of the most honest and straightforward speeches heard on this Bill. He wished there had been more such speeches made on that side, for it had seemed to him a defence of the good old Tory doctrine of freedom of contract, and a condemnation of the doctrine of confiscation which appeared to have been adopted by hon. Members opposite, and which, he regretted to say, also appeared not to be altogether repudiated by some hon. Members on the Opposition side. He (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) shared the views of his right hon. Friend as to the dangers to be apprehended from the operation of the clause. He did not, however, think those dangers existed to the extent the right hon. Gentleman supposed, for he believed the labourers, who were not so foolish as they were supposed to be, would hesitate a long time before they applied to take up one, two, three, four, or five acres of land. He did not think they would desire to identify themselves with an industry which Liberal legislation had utterly ruined.

* MR. T. H. BOLTON (St. Pancras, N.)

said, he did not suppose there would be a Division on the Second Reading of the clause, because there was a general feeling that it was desirable to enable agricultural labourers to hire land. There were difficulties in the way of Parish Councils becoming the owners of allotments and letting them. These Councils were restricted to a rate of something like 6d. in the £1; and as there were other things to provide for, they would not have the means to speculate in land; and, therefore, unless hiring provisions were inserted, the Bill would, to a great extent, so far as assisting the labourers to become possessed of allotments, be a dead letter. Under these circumstances, it was perfectly clear that some provisions were necessary to assist in the hiring of land. How far it was desirable that these provisions should take the form of the proposal of the Government was open to a good deal of discussion. He should have preferred a statesmanlike policy, under which the labourer would have become the owner rather than the hirer of land. He believed that would have been a sounder policy altogether. There was one tiling which this Bill would certainly do, and that was, give the death-blow to anything like the creation of small holdings and allotments by purchase, because, when laud could be hired on the conditions proposed, it was very unlikely that the authority entrusted with the carrying out of the Small Holdings Act would go into the speculation of purchasing in order to re-sell. There could be no doubt that the Government proposal would practically repeal the Small Holdings Act recently passed. This was one of its disadvantages, but it was a disadvantage which probably, under the circumstances, would have to be endured. There seemed to be a general indisposition to encourage Local Authorities, whether County or District Authorities, to embark on the purchase of land, and an indisposition to vote public money to encourage the increase of small landowners; and, while there was that general feeling, it was hopeless to expect the planting of the labourer on the soil by the process of occupying ownership. They were, then, of necessity forced on the principle embodied in the Bill—the hiring of land by the Local Authority by agreement, if possible, but if not by agreement, by compulsion, for the purpose of re-letting. He was afraid this was inevitable, and they had to look the inevitable in the face, and make such conditions and arrangements with regard to the hiring of land as would safeguard the Local Authority and the locality from undue expense, and safeguard the landowner, and the other persons at present in connection with the land, from being unfairly dealt with. These were points to which the attention of the Committee would have to be directed. There was one great omission from the clause, and that was any provision to ensure that this hiring and re-letting of land should be so conducted as not to involve the parish in practical bankruptcy. He asserted that if the most careful and judicious arrangements were not made very serious responsibility would rest on the parish. It was no use to say that the parish could not raise more than 6d. in the £1 under the Act. When a parish had absolutely incurred liability, and was in financial difficulties, it would be necessary that in some way or other it should be extracted from those difficulties. The provision as to the expenditure of 64. in the £1 was only a protection in the event of its being supplemented by means by which it could be practically applied. He would suggest that the Local Government Board Commissioner who went down to hold the inquiry should ascertain that the parish would not be involved in liabilities exceeding the income available to cover any risk or probable loss consequent upon the compulsory hiring and re-letting of land. He know it would be said that the rents which would come in would cover the rents to be paid. That was all very well as a theory. It ought to be so. But suppose the parish made a mistake and hired land which was not taken up by the labourer. Supposing, after it had hired land for 14 years, the desire for allotments fell off, or tenants who began well enough ceased to manure the land, and allowed it to "run out," and then gave it up, leaving it on the hands of the parish. Many considerations of that kind would have to be borne in mind. It was not reasonable to say that by this hiring and sub-letting there would not be a risk of loss. There was the question of the probable payment of compensation to the landowner if in occupation, or to his tenant at the commencement of the hiring for what is commonly called "tenant right," and the settlement of this tenant right, and a possible claim for depreciation at the end of the 14 years. The Local Government Board Commissioner, therefore, before making an Order, should satisfy himself that the parish was able to bear the risk in connection with this experiment. The Commissioner should look at the application in its financial aspect, and see that the circumstances were such that the scheme could be carried out without loss, Regard should be had to these matters as well as to the mere question of whether there were a number of men who came forward, and said, "We want land," and there was land which could be supplied to them. No doubt some men would always be ready to come forward and say, "We want land, and will take it at a fair rent." Some of them would work honestly and industriously on the laud when let to them, but some would very probably be men who were always prepared to go in or a new thing, and who would be as likely to throw up the land after a brief experience as to remain on it. The Committee had to consider this aspect of the case, and he maintained that it was of the greatest possible consequence that they should put into the clause such a provision as he suggested. Then, as to rent, if they were to give compensation for severance they would necessarily raise the rent of the hired land above the rent paid by the farmer in adjoining holdings. In giving compensation for severance they gave it for a special thing that did not exist as a thing of value. The amount that might be claimed in compensation for severance was a sum which was not of present value in the land, but it was a compensation for damage done. The rent to be paid by the labourers would necessarily be much more than they expected to pay for it. He was much inclined to think that the men would be dissatisfied with the rent. Let them read the 3rd sub-section of the clause— The compensation shall, as far as possible, be made by increasing the rent to be paid by the Parish Council to the landlord or by reducing the apportioned rent payable in respect of land retained by the tenant. That was nonsense. They might give the compensation in the two ways combined, but they could not very well give it in the alternative. Where land was severed they might adjust compensation by combining the two processes. He did not mean to say it would be fair to the new tenant. It was putting on him, in the shape of increased rent, a charge from which he did not get any benefit. Severance did not mean an advantage to the land severed. It would put on the tenants an additional rent beyond that justified by the agricultural value of the land, and to that extent they would pay an excessive rent. How could the section be applied where the whole of a holding was taken? The landlord might be compensated for any rights he might have, but how the tenant who was turned out could be compensated for the tenant-right he lost he could not understand. Was it proposed that the landlord should pay the outgoing tenant the value of his tenant-right and charge an increased rent from the new tenant? This was the only way in which the thing could be done, but in that case the landlord would have to put his hand in his pocket compulsorily to pay the tenant-right, and would have to charge tenant-right to the Parish Council by way of rent. The tenant-right might he of no value to the Parish Council as incoming occupier, or it might be absolutely destroyed, so that the incoming allotment tenant would be charged an unnecessary rent. The truth was, that if there was to be any compensation paid, the only honest and straightforward way was to pay it in money. The Parish Council might raise the necessary money to pay it in cash, and the amount must be in some form spread over the allotment-holders either by charging a lump sum to each of them, or by spreading it over a number of years. Then arose the difficulty that the Parish Council had to deal with a number of men who, many of them, were here to-day, and gone to-morrow, and who, having acquired a well-manured piece of land, would work it out, and then leave it. There was a provision that no compensation was to be paid by the landlord for improvements. That being so, the parish would not pay any compensation to the allotment holders, and therefore good work would go for nothing. The labourer would not be encouraged to put his labour into his land, because if half the allotment-holders failed to pay their rents and went away, the men who stayed and worked their portions of the land would have their rents raised, so that the parish might be recouped, or otherwise the rest of the parishioners would have to put their hands into their pockets. The allotment-holder was to have no interest in the land; he was to have no encouragement to manure it and put labour into it, and he was to have no compensation for the barns, cowsheds, and pigstyes and other buildings, which he was told he might erect. The permission to the labourer to erect a barn, only showed the amount of practical knowledge possessed by some of those who sat on the Treasury Bench. He supposed that, taking the whole of England, at the present time not more than one or two barns a year were erected in any county. Landlords did not erect barns now, because farmers did not want them. If, however, an allotment-holder erected a barn or a stable, or a cowshed he might be turned out without receiving any compensation whatever at 12 months' notice at the will or caprice of his neighbours. If any of the allotments became very fertile and desirable, envious eyes would undoubtedly be turned towards them by people in the parish, with the result that the allotment rent might be raised or the tenant turned out; whilst if some of them were well farmed, and others badly farmed, and the experiment got into difficulties, the unfortunate individual labourer who put up barns and other buildings, and did his duty to the land, would find himself in a very awkward and uncertain position. The clause had evidently been hastily prepared, and, like a speech which had been delivered to-night from the Treasury Bench, it was addressed not to the House of Commons, but to the people outside. Supporters of the Government had been going about the country telling the electors that they were not going to make the labourers pay the rent they had hitherto been paying for land, but to let them hire it at a rent to be fixed by Parish Authorities. Those gentlemen never seemed to think of other persons having any interest in the land. The question was now not whether the labourers were to have allotments, but whether they were to have them on fair terms. If unfair terms were insisted upon as against the landowner, such terms might be to the labourers' own disadvantage by-and-bye, because the same law he was now going to mete out to others might be meted out, later on, to him. Fair dealing was necessary on this question. He doubted very much whether the parish was financially strong enough to grapple with this great question, and thought it would have been much better if it had been handed over to the District Councils, who would have both poor and rich parishes under their control, and would exercise a more unbiased judgment and would hold the scales more fairly between the labourers and the land-lords and the farmers who were in continual contact day by day than would the Parish Councils. He should have Amendments to propose to the new clause. [An hon. MEMBER: Time!] He did not know why the right hon. Gentleman who called "time" should be so very impatient. The Government were making a very large departure. For the first time a new principle of compulsion was being applied, and a deadly blow was being aimed at the creation of small peasant ownership throughout the country. This part of the Bill had not been discussed before, and yet now after some two or three hours' Debate an hon. Member called "time." As the hon. Member represented a country constituency he ought really to be much obliged to any Member who criticised the clause and endeavoured to make it practicable. The hon. Gentleman and others who had promised so much to their constituents which they could not perform ought to remember that a day of reckoning would come to all who made wild statements, and ought to be thankful if owing to the criticisms of those who were not entirely in accord with the Government this proposal were made to some extent workable, so that if the labourers could not get all that hail been promised them they might at all events get something. It was because he (Mr. T. H. Bolton) desired to see allotments multiplied that he made these few observations in the hope that some advantage might result from them in an improvement of the Bill.

MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)

said, if the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. H. H. Fowler) were present he should congratulate him both on what he had left out and what he had re-inserted in the clause. It was quite true, as had been mentioned, that last Session lie (Major Rasch) introduced an Allotments Bill which had some rather advanced provisions, amongst them being a clause embodying the principle of compulsory hiring. That Bill, he regretted to say, was not a brilliant success. He moved its Second Beading 17 times, but whenever it was not blocked by the hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare) or the hon Member for Cork (Dr. Tanner) it was impartially blocked by other Members on both sides of the House. He was glad to see that some Members had now mollified their views on this subject. He was bound to say that his Bill had not received the slightest assistance or consideration from the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir W. Harcourt). Apparently the right hon. Gentleman had found salvation with reference to compulsory hiring since the last Parliament. Although he (Major Rasch) had always been very much in favour of allotments and desired to facilitate their acquisition he did not consider, as some Members did, that the putting of agricultural labourers, carpenters, paviours, and tradesmen, upon the land would be a cure for all the ills that flesh was heir to. An experiment was being carried out on the Salvation Army farm at Hadleigh in Essex, and though he did not wish to say anything against the promoters of the scheme, he thought it would be rather premature to state that the experiment as a whole was a great success. He knew his views on this subject were not shared by Members on the Front Benches on both sides of the House. The Secretary to the Local Government Board (Sir W. Foster) and the right hon. Member for Oxford both believed that by putting men on the land they would naturally make their fortunes, or, at all events, be able to earn their livelihood. He should very much like to take the Secretary to the Local Government Board and the right hon. Gentleman down to Essex and put them on a 10 acre field, place spades in their hands, as was being done on the Salvation Army farm, and teach them double trenching, in order that they might be able to send fruit to the London market. He did not think that if he went down to them in a couple of months and inspected their work he would find them quite as satisfied as they were at present with the advantages to he gained by putting men upon the land. He thought, however, that the clause introduced by the Government would be a great success, and would materially improve the Allotment Acts.

* SIR A. ROLLIT (Islington, S.)

said, that the practical difficulty of dealing with this question had been amply demonstrated by the hon. Member for St. Pancras (Mr. T. H. Bolton), but he hoped and believed that there was a much more general assent on both sides of the House to the principle of allotments than bad been indicated by some speakers. If was certainly to the interest of the landed classes themselves to associate with themselves the labouring class in the cultivation of the land. Reference had been made to the state of things in Switzerland, and he need only mention that in France the most stable element in the community had been furnished by the small cultivators. It was also distinctly to the interest of the labourer that be should be able to obtain an allotment, as it would furnish him with a stimulus to exertion, and at the same time provide him with relaxation. The extension of the allotment system was also to the interest of the community. One of the great difficulties to be contended with in dealing with land in any country was what was known as the law of diminishing return, and he was satisfied that this difficulty was best overcome by an extension in suitable districts of the number of small cultivators. The suitability of a district was a matter on which the Parish Councils would be best able to express an opinion. For those reasons he was glad of some omissions from the clause as it stood originally on the Bill. He did not himself see that the substitution of the District for the Parish Council would at all improve matters. He did not want to see an administrative middleman introduced into the allotments question, and he thought that the great majority even on the Opposition side of the House would approve of the principle of affording an opportunity to the Parish Council of hiring allotments. He wished, however, to draw attention to what seemed to him to be a great practical difficulty in the way of the application of these general principles under this clause. As the question of parish resources had been referred to, he should have to deal for a moment with an additional charge upon them which had not been contemplated by the framers of the Bill. He would take first the question whether the clause would effect the object which was in view. To test it he would mention the provision of buildings. It was admitted that in many instances, and especially for rearing and fattening stock, not only buildings, but good buildings, would be necessary, for warmth was all-important. The Parish Council was to have authority to permit buildings to be erected by the allottees. But who could contemplate the case of a man of limited capital expending that capital on such a fruitless enterprise as that of erecting buildings for which he was expressly and entirely deprived of compensation? For his part, he wholly objected to the principle of encouraging men to make improvements and at the same time depriving them of the right to compensation for such improvements, as he thought that the adoption of such a principle was likely to lead to very great pecuniary disaster. There was one charge on the parish funds which he thought had not been contemplated at all. The clause contemplated two landlords. No compensation was to be paid by the superior landlord, but the Parish Council would be the inferior landlords, and it was by no means clear that compensation would not have to be paid by them. It might be a bold statement to make, but he believed that those who had prepared the clause had overlooked the Allotments Compensation Act of 1887. That measure provided that where buildings, amongst other things, were erected by the tenants with the consent of the landlord, compensation should be payable. The present permissive clause, if it were exercised at; all, involved the consent of the superior landlord—the Parish Council—and it seemed to him perfectly capable of being argued that the compensation Act applied to the inferior landlord, who would be liable to pay compensation to the tenant. If this were the true interpretation of the clause, he wished to know whether funds would be available to the Parish Council for the purpose of compensation? There were grave objections to be taken to the clause on this ground as a practical proposal. The question was not whether allotments should be provided, but whether the clause enabled the allotment principle to be put into practical operation. He believed it would not do so if his argument was well-founded. He thought the Committee would expect some indication of the apparent forgetfulness of the Allotments Compensation Act of 1887, and would desire that the clause should be supported in such a way that it would be shown to exhibit not only the principle, but the way in which that principle could be carried into practical effect. Then there was the matter of encumbrances. Under the law as it at present stood a lease was invalid unless it had the assent of the mortgagee, but there was no such requirement involved in the present clause, and, further, there was not even any provision that notice should be given to those who had a substantial interest in the land in consequence of encumbrances. The result would be that if a sub-tenant were disturbed by reason of a mortgagee exercising his powers he might be deprived of all interest in the improvements he had effected. Then, again, there was no clause relating to rehiring, and that would operate against a tenant incurring the responsibilities contemplated in the permissive clauses of the Bill. Speaking as he did for many of those who heartily approved the principle of allotments, he earnestly appealed to the Government to make this clause practical and workable. He should vote for the Second Reading, but he did so with the knowledge that it required explanation and substantial amendment.

COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)

said, practical attention was demanded for (he details of the Bill, but what had been the attitude of the Government and of those who had the Bill in charge, what had been the character of their speeches, and what had been the composition of the Front Bench during the greater part of the Debate? Why, there had not been a single acre of land represented upon the Ministerial Bench. He did not wish to suggest that those who had been present wore not anxious to do their best, but their opinion was not very valuable on matters which concerned the management of land, and it would have been a source of strength of the Government if someone immediately connected with the land had been on the Front Bench during the Debate. He declined to take the hon. Member for Bedfordshire as one who knew much of rural life. The hon. Member's speeches on this subject had more of the matter of electioneering addresses than of practical advice. Then he came to the speeches delivered from the Front Bench. What had they heard as defining the practical opinion of the Government on that most practical question? Nothing. They had an ornamental speech from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had spoken as if he viewed allotments from the summit of the Rigi, but really he seemed to have had his eye on the Horncastle election and to be more directly concerned with the possibility of catching votes than with the merits of the clause. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the days of Queen Elizabeth, but he forgot to tell them that under that wise Monarchy the Prime Minister was a Cecil, or he would perhaps have reminded them also that under a successor of the Cecils the best work had in these days been done for the agricultural community. They might part from that speech in the absolute certainty that it had contributed nothing practical to the Debate. The speech of the hon. Member who specially claimed to represent the agricultural labourers—and everybody always listened with attention and interest to what the hon. Member might have to say—was only notable for the instances it contained of land acquired for allotments by voluntary agreement. The hon. Member told them of a case in which a certain amount of land had been acquired from a large landlord for allotment purposes; he explained how every acre of that land had been acquired by voluntary agreement, and he expressed an opinion that when more land was wanted—as it assuredly would be—it would be acquired in the same way. An argument more clearing upsetting the views of the Government as to the value of the clause could not have been put forward. It triumphantly proved what the Opposition had all along contended—that the provision of ample land for allotments was proceeding quite satisfactorily under the terms of the present Acts. He did not propose to take up the time of the Committee by discussing that evening the principle involved in that measure. Whatever their qualms of conscience might be in accepting it they realised that the time had gone by for a discussion on that particular issue; but now that the principle was being brought into operation, they must see that it was practically applied. The question was, What would be the effect of enforcing the principle? Hon. Members talked airily about the resulting prosperity to agriculture, and they talked lightly about taking land from the fanners in order to supply what they thought to be the needs of the labourers; but in the matter of compulsion, it should never be forgotten that agricultural prosperity was not bound up with the prosperity of any single class of those interested in agriculture, even though it were the most numerous. By injuring the farmers' prospects the labourers' interests also would be injured. This was not a subject to be talked of from an electioneering point of view; it was rather a practical one for the con- sideration of statesmen. What would be the effect of the clause if passed into law? The first question that arose was, out of what fund was to come the cost of hiring land for the purpose of sub-letting it? The Parish Councils were limited to a 6d. rate, which could only be reached by yearly increases of 1d. What financial security was the Parish Council prepared to give for the punctual payment of the rent of the land proposed to be hired? It might be urged that if more money was wanted the Council would only have to raise the rate on the landowners from whom the land was hired. He hoped that such a flagrant act of absolute dishonesty would not be contemplated. Then, who would be charged with the selection of the land to be hired? A Parish Council composed of agricultural labourers might, through some temporary feeling of jealousy, seek to do an ill-turn to some unpopular farmer by selecting his land for the purposes of allotments directly distrust and suspicion were set up by the Parish Council. Directly that feeling of ill-will was introduced, more harm would be done than ever the Bill could do good. What were to be the terms of tenure on which the land was to be held? In agricultural matters this was a most important question; and unless one could tell more thoroughly than was possible at present what would be the nature of the tenure, it would not be possible to judge beforehand of the effect of the clause. As to rights of way, again, who was to decide the necessity for these in giving access to hired land, and who was to assess the compensation due to the sitting tenant? Such practical matters as these, small and minor though they might be deemed to be, were the test by which the provision must stand or fall. What would be the position of the Parish Council as a landlord? Would their tenants have a right to appeal to the Agricultural Holdings Act? As soon as the Council embarked on this compulsory system of hiring they would be obliged to employ some practical man as agent to deal with their agricultural tenants, in these matters of detail, in the same way as they would require a practical clerk to do their financial and office business. Unless those who were framing the clause had practical cognisance of these questions, or unless they obtained practical advice, they would be very apt, through ignorance and without bad intention, to introduce unworkable provisions fraught with all sorts of evil consequences. He earnestly hoped that the Bill would be conducted to a safe issue, and, by reason of practical work, would become a useful piece of legislation, and would not simply bring ridicule upon itself by being unpractical and unworkable in all those very points where the people to be benefited were most eager for legislation. But the difficulties hedging round this compulsory hiring of land would have one good effect—they would turn the minds of all classes more and more directly towards the development of the principle of voluntary agreement; and, as far as it did that, the clause would do unmixed good.

* MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

said that hon. Members opposite had invented an ideal squire for the purposes of their argument who was as much like the real squire as "Guy Fawkes" was like a human being. They supposed the squire to be a person armed to the teeth, who went down to browbeat Vestries, or sat in his robber castle, and before whom poor peasants, with chains round their necks, came to beg for a bit of land to cultivate. But the real squire was a totally different person. The difficulty of the Vestries was to get the squire there at all; the difficulty of the squire was to induce his people to take allotments. Wherever there was a demand for allotments, there was no difficulty about getting land from the squire, and if allotments had not extended—a matter which he did not admit—it was because the people did not feel the want of them. He objected to this artificial extension of allotments, in the first place because it would discourage the true solution of rural problems, which was, in his opinion, a system of small freeholds, and, secondly, because it proposed to set up the entirely new principle of taking a, man's property, whether he liked it or not, by compulsion without giving him compensation. Compulsion and compensation had always gone together, should go together, and must always go together, if they intended to be just, and it was only because they did not intend to be just that they proposed compulsion without compensation. As he was not an authority on agriculture, he would not detain the Committee by any long discussion on the virtue of allotments, but he wished to say something on the historical argument which had been brought forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to an Act passed in the time of Elizabeth—the 31st of Elizabeth—in which he said it was stipulated that no man should build a cottage without adding four acres of laud, and the right hon. Gentleman described the happy state of things which resulted for the peasantry. He did not wonder at the right hon. Gentleman's admiration for the methods of the Tudor Sovereigns, for the right hon. Gentleman had always evinced a delight in the arbitrary ways which the Tudor Sovereigns had first brought into this country. Rut instead of any prosperity resulting from this Act, the reverse was the case, for 12 years after the Act to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred was passed, the Poor Law was for the first time established in England, and, for the first time, a general tax was laid upon England to keep the people from starvation. But that was not all. He had a habit of verifying quotations, which he was sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be sorry he had not contracted himself. He had read the Act, and he found that the Statute to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded, instead of being a great charter to the Tudor peasant, and instead of being intended to give him more land, was entitled "An Act to prevent the erection of cottages." That was the very title of the Act, and the next three lines, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had accidentally omitted, set forth the great inconvenience which had occurred by the building of great numbers of labourers' cottages in all parts of the realm, and enjoined that no more should be built under this penalty of four acres. He thought that if this Stature had been a Naval Lord of the Admiralty the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to come down to the House to-morrow to eat his own words, to apologise for them, and to regret he had ever used them.

MR. CHAPLIN

Perhaps the Committee will allow me for a few moments to refer to some of the statements that have been made in the course of this Debate. I think there is one outcome of this; Debate on which we may all congratulate ourselves; that is, that there is no difference of opinion in the Committee as to the fact of its being very desirable to promote the acquisition of allotments in any part of the country where they are required. Opinion on that point is unanimous, and the only point on which we differ is as to the method by which that desirable object is to be accomplished. Again, I think there appears to be a very general impression in the minds of the Committee that the more we discuss the proposals of the Government the more do we make it abundantly clear, by speeches from both sides of the House, that these proposals have not been by any means properly or systematically thought out. The more we discuss the clause, the more we hear the opinion of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House on it, the more abundantly clear is it that the plan of the Government is an impracticable scheme in the extreme. Now, Sir, I wish to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer attributed to me a statement which I never used. He said I thought it a crime on the part of the Government that they had endeavoured to extend the size of allotments. I never said anything of the kind. I believe I was the first Member of the House who ever introduced a compulsory Bill upon the subject of allotments, and I was also the Minister who had the good fortune to carry a Small Holdings Act, which practically extended allotments from one acre to fifty acres. Therefore, I think that was a statement which the right hon. Gentleman had no right or business to make. I complained, not of the fact that you propose to extend the size of allotments, but of the unpractical way in which you are trying to do it, and that has been pointed out in speeches from both sides of the House since then. The hon. Member for Norfolk has also mistaken something he thought I had said. He attributed to me the statement that what the labourers wanted was to purchase their land and not to hire it. I never said and I never thought anything of the kind. So far as allotments are concerned what the labourers desire is to hire them, and I think they ought to be hired. What I object to is that land should be taken from the owner by com- pulsory hiring when he wishes to sell it, and when it may be that the money which represents the value of the land is a matter of great importance to him. Then there has been another misapprehension. I agree with a great deal that fell from the hon. Member for Islington just now. I understood him to say that he prefers the parish machinery to the district machinery, because he docs not want to have an administrative middleman in between the cultivator of the land and the landlord. But that is exactly what we have got at the present moment. We have got the Parish Council in the position of a middleman, and that is one of the things I pointed out in my earlier observations as one of my objections to the Bill. I confess I was rather struck by what has fallen from the hon. Member for North St. Pancras. The hon. Member said that all we have got to do is to place safeguards in the Bill; that it was hopeless to oppose the Government, that we must make the best of a bad job, and try to make the clause as perfect as possible. I agree that it is better we should get into Committee as soon as we can, and with that view I will not put the Committee to the trouble of a Division now; but I propose to take a. Division on an Amendment standing in my name, which practically raises the same question in a different form.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. COBB (Warwick, S.E., Rugby)

moved, at the beginning of the clause, to insert the following sub-section:— (1) it shall be the duty of every Parish Council forthwith after their election, and afterwards from time to time, to inquire whether there is an unsatisfied demand for allotments in their parish at a reasonable rent and I on reasonable conditions, and, if there is, to forthwith take steps for satisfying such demand. He said, that under the Allotments Act, 1887, the Sanitary Authorities were obliged to take some steps to ascertain if there was a demand for allotments, and under the present Bill that obligation was transferred to the District Council, but there was no corresponding obligation thrown upon the Parish Councils with regard to the hiring of land. They all hoped and believed that in by far the larger number of cases the laud would be taken by agreement rather than by compulsory hiring, and therefore he thought it was of extreme importance that the Amendment should be added to the clause.

Amendment proposed, In line 1, at beginning, to insert the following sub-section:—"(1) It shall be the duty of every Parish Council forthwith after their election, and afterwards from time to time, to inquire whether there is an unsatisfied demand for allotments in their parish at a reasonable rent and on reasonable conditions, and, if there is, to forthwith take steps for satisfying such demand."—(Mr. Cobb.)

Question proposed, "That the Subsection be there inserted."

* SIR M. HICKS-BEACH (Bristol, W.)

said, he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed, because there was a very material difference between the Bill and the Act of 1887. In the Act of 1887 the District Council was the body charged with the carrying out of the law, and as there was a suspicion felt by many persons that the District Council would not be in sympathy with the desire to obtain allotments, it was thought necessary by Parliament to lay down specially that it should be the duty of the District Council to take certain action with regard to the carrying out of the Act. Put in this case the Parish Councils would be elected by the very persons who would desire allotments, and it would be most invidious to mention this particular duty, when it had not been thought necessary to mention any of the other duties imposed upon the Parish Councils.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I hope my hon. Friend will not think it necessary to press this Amendment. I think we may take it for granted that the Parish Council will do what is necessary if the parish desires allotments.

* SIR C. W. DILKE (Gloucester, Forest of Dean)

said, he hoped his hon. Friend would press the Amendment. He thought it would be a most valuable provision. It would enable them to ask in each parish whether there was an unsatisfied demand for allotments, and, if the Local Authority declared that there was no demand, to ask the people if they agreed with that statement, and what course they intended to take at the next local election.

COLONEL LOCKWOOD (Essex, Epping)

said, he thought this was a most unfair provision to insert in the Bill. Surely, if there was a demand for allotments in any parish, the men who were anxious to obtain them would find not the smallest difficulty in approaching the Parish Council whom they elected for the purpose. The provision would make the Parish Council into a sort of inquiring busybody. Was the clerk of the Parish Council to go about inquiring whether a man required an allotment, and if he did not want it, whether he would not want it the day after? Surely, those for whom the Bill was created, and who were said to have a great thirst for allotments, might be trusted to ask the Parish Councils to give them allotments in the usual manner without compelling the parish to hold an inquiry to ascertain whether there was a demand for allotments.

COMMANDER BETHELL (York, E.R., Holderness)

said, he could not understand who were the "we" whom the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean said would go about to find out whether the Local Authorities, if the Amendment were accepted, made these inquiries. He did not see any object in the Amendment at all. The constituencies were so very small that it would not make much matter.

SIR C. W. DILKE

said, the matter was not so small as his hon. and gallant Friend seemed to think. Some of these constituencies numbered 30,000 people. He had two rural parishes in his own constituency which had a population of 24,000 between them.

MR. CHANNING

said, he did not know whether his hon. Friend intended to take a Division on the Amendment; but be ventured to say that there was not a shadow of argument to distinguish the District Council under the Act of 1887 from the Parish Council under this Bill. The two bodies were on exactly the same footing, and the proposal contained in the Amendment was similar in principle to that passed with the consent of a Conservative Ministry in 1887. But in any case, he would point out that his hon. Friend in his conferences with the head of the Local Government Board had succeeded in introducing into the first section of this clause one word of the greatest possible value. It was that the Parish Council "shall" represent the case to the Local Government Board. That made it imperative on the Parish Council, if they were satisfied that there was an unsatisfied demand, to set the machinery of the Bill in motion. However, he attached great importance to this provision being made as to Parish Councils, as in the case of District Councils in the Act of 1887.

MR. DODD (Essex, Maldon)

said, he should like to know whether it was part of the arrangement made between the Government and the Opposition that this Amendment should not be accepted. If it were part of that arrangement he should feel bound by that arrangement, and would be unable to vote for the Amendment of his hon. Friend, although he thought it preferable to the proposal of the Government, because it would make it absolutely certain that the duty was cast on the Parish Council to provide allotments where there was a demand for them.

SIR W. HARCOURT

In answer to the question put by my hon. Friend I will say this: that while it is not desirable that the particular terms of the agreement should be discussed, the Government have very carefully drawn this clause, and that therefore they think it their duty to adhere to the clause as it stands. Practically speaking, the Government think it their duty to stand by the clause as it has been put on the Paper.

SIR A. ROLLIT

said, the question of the arrangement was one thing, and the question of whether the arrangement was right or wrong was another and more important thing. A very serious change would be made in the clause by the Amendment. The original clause proposed that the Parish Council might take a certain course of action. The Amendment, if passed, would compel them to take such action, and that without regard to any circumstances whatever. If the Parish Council was satisfied that a demand existed, and that the land could be had on reasonable conditions, then, whether they had the means to carry out the bargain or not, or whether they thought it would be on the whole advantageous or not, the Amendment was mandatory on the Parish Council to take that course of action. Whether it would be practicable to get a mandamus to carry out the mandatory clause was another question. It was said that this direction was given to the District Councils under the Act of 1887. But the District council was in a different situation from the Parish Council. It was much more difficult to obtain in a composite body like a district the opinion of the constituents as to whether there should be purchase or hire of laud than in a parish which was a locality in itself. He could understand compulsion applied to a composite body like the representatives of a district; but in the case of a parish which elected its own representatives and could replace them at the end of the year, if they did not do what was demanded by the parish, he could not understand compulsion being applied. To apply compulsion to the Parish Council, in addition to the compulsion applied to the landlords, would be a piling up of compulsion that was not at all desirable.

* MR. COBB

said, the object of his Amendment was not so much to enforce the powers of the clause as to secure that something should be done immediately. One of the reasons for the great failure of the Act of 1887 had been the difficulty in getting anything done. If his Amendment was adopted it would be the duty of every Parish Council, immediately after election, to hold an inquiry. If there was no result from that inquiry he could not help it. What he wanted was that the Parish Councils should do something promptly; but as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that this was part of the compromise with the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and as there would be opportunities for discussing and dividing on the terms of that compromise, he would withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

COMMANDER BETHELL

rose to move the following Amendment to the Clause:— In line 3, to leave out from the word "allotments" to the word "and," in line 4, and insert the words "they shall petition the District Council and the District Council shall inquire into the representation. If on any such representation a District Council are satisfied after inquiry that suitable land for the purpose of allotments cannot be hired on reasonable terms by voluntary agreement, and that the circum-stances are such as to justify the demand of the Parish Council they shall apply to the Local Government Board for an order. The Amendment invited the Government to have the same authority and the same machinery for the taking of land by compulsory hiring as for the taking of land by compulsory purchase. That machinery was that the Parish Council should apply to the District Council, and that the District Council should make inquiry and obtain the Order. There were two good reasons, at any rate, in favour of that course of action. The first was that in small villages, where the whole of the constituency was animated by the same desire, the authority elected by that constituency was not really a fair authority to decide upon a question of such importance. He thought there ought to be au outside authority for the purpose. The officer who would be sent down by the Local Government Board would not necessarily be a person familiar with agricultural persons, and would not be a person familiar with the peculiarities of the district. In his judgment the inquiry should be made by some authority familiar with the district, familiar with the people, and yet so immediately outside the circle concerned as to be impartial. That was the judgment of the Government with regard to compulsory purchase; it was a sound judgment, and he could not see any difference between taking land by compulsory hiring and taking laud by compulsory purchase. There was another reason why his Amendment should commend itself to the Government. When speaking on the financial clause he invited the right hon. Gentleman to say whether in the word "liabilities" would be included the contingent liability which every Parish Council must incur when they took lands by compulsory hiring. If a Parish Council choosed to get the necessary authority to hire 50 acres of laud at 30s. per acre—that would be £75—and as the Parish Council would be responsible for the money to the landlord, he took it that it was a liability in the sense of the financial clause of the Bill. But after a considerable sum of money like that there would be very little of the rate of 6d. in the £1 left in the small parishes. That was a real and substantial difficulty, and ought to be met. As a further argument in support of his Amendment, he would point out that all the small villages with a population under 200 would be outside the scope of this clause. Under the Allotments Act there was no compulsory hiring. If he remembered correctly the figures the right hon. Gentleman had quoted, there were some 3,000 villages under a population of 200, so that all these villages would be ex-eluded from the operation of this clause unless the County Council thought proper to confer these particular powers upon them. In his opinion, the machinery which he had described for the first purposes of this Bill—the compulsory acquisition of land by purchase—was a better machinery than that now proposed. He had not that profound faith in the Local Government Board and their officers which the right hon. Gentleman had, but he had great faith in the large Local Authorities, and he would much rather see the power to make the primary order placed in the District or County Council, and to leave the Local Government Board as the referee, arbitrator, or umpire. He begged leave to move the Amendment which stood in his name.

Amendment proposed, In line 3, to leave out from the word "allotments," to the word "and," in line 4, and insert the words "they shall petition the District Council and the District Council shall inquire into the representation. If on any such representation a District Council are satisfied after inquiry that suitable land for the purpose of allotments cannot be hired on reasonable terms by voluntary agreement, and that the circumstances are such as to justify the demand of the Parish Council they shall apply to the Local Government Board for an Order."—(Commander Bethell.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, the proposal struck at the very root of this clause. He was surprised that it should have been made by the hon. Member, as throughout this Bill nobody had been a more resolute opponent of District Councils than the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

COMMANDER BETHELL

said, that when they were discussing this before he moved to put in the District Council.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, it had been the proposal of the Government from the first that the intervening power of the District Council should be done away with, and that the Parish Council should go direct to the Local Government Board. With regard to the contingent liabilities, whether liabilities were ascertained or contingent, they were the liabilities of the Parish Council. The Parish Council would take care that there was no liability: they would let, the land upon such terms as would cover any expenditure incurred. He could not accept the Amendment.

COMMANDER BETHELL

believed that the liability would still exist in the Parish Council for the debt to the landlord.

MR. T. H. BOLTON (St. Pancras, N.)

said, he was entitled to go further than the hon. Member and to say that there would be liability. It would be impossible to take land wholesale and let it retail without a certain percentage of loss; and he maintained that if the parish recouped itself and covered itself against till the loss, it would result in this: that a considerably increased rent would have to be charged to the allotment holders in order to cover the expense and liability. There would be a certain number of allotment holders who would throw up their allotments; there would be changes of tenancy, and the solvent allotment holders would have to pay an increased rent as against the insolvent.

SIR W. HARCOURT

, who was indistinctly heard, said, he was surprised that the hon. Member for St. Pancras had thought it necessary to state these truisms. Of course, the Parish Councils, like other landlords, would cover bad debts.

SIR M. HICKS-BEACH

said, that at any rate the Government would be responsible for the results of this clause, and not the Opposition. He would suggest that similar words should be inserted in this clause with regard to the procedure of the Local Government Board to those to be found in Clause 9—the compulsory purchase clause—in reference to the District Council.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, that unless the Local Government Board was satisfied that a ease had been made out they would not make the Order. There were no words in Clause 9 in any way affecting the Local Government Board; it was only the District Council. But if there was any doubt he would look the matter up again.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

asked whether the Local Government Board would inquire into the financial position of the parish and its ability to bear the burden?

MR. H. H. FOWLER

The Local Government Board will inquire into sill the facts of the case before they make the Order, for which they will be responsible.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. CHAPLIN

said, he proposed to move a very small Amendment in line 7 of the new clause, which the Government would probably accept, and that was to omit the words "or near." The clause ran at present— That they may hire land in or near the parish specified in the Order. He should like to know, in the first place, what "near" meant? He was not aware of any definition of the word "near," which could be imparted into an Act of Parliament. Was it confined to an adjoining parish? Some parishes he knew wore very narrow indeed, and it was quite possible that land might be in a second parish, and within some definition of the word might be called "near." In any case, considering the very exceptional treatment to which the Pill was going to subject the landlord, the depredations of the Parish Council—he did not use the word in any offensive sense—might at least be confined to their own parish. Then, again, a difficulty might arise in this way: two Parish Councils might raise a claim to the same land, and who was to decide as between them? Under all the circumstances, and in view of the reasons he had submitted, he thought the Government might agree to the Amendment which he now proposed.

Amendment proposed, in line 7, to leave out the words "or near."—(Mr. Chaplin.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

MR. H. H. FOWLER

considered this was a matter which might very safely be left in the hands of the Local Government Board.

MR. CHAPLIN

said, the right hon. Gentleman was not in the House when he gave his reasons for moving this Amendment, and which he might be, therefore, pardoned for briefly repeating. He pointed out the difficulty that might arise supposing two Parish Councils raised a claim to the same land. Who was to decide between them? The Local Government Board? [Mr. H.H. FOWLER: Yes.] He did think that under all the circumstances, and considering the very harsh and exceptional treatment to winch they were going to subject the landlord, that the action of the Parish Councils ought to be confined to their own parish. As he had already pointed out, some parishes were very narrow indeed, and it was quite possible the land might be in a second, but not in an adjoining parish. He hoped the Government would accede to this small Amendment which he thought the circumstances warranted.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

pointed out that there might be land within the parish which the Parish Council could not acquire except at great cost, whilst there might be available land just outside the parish which they could obtain at small cost. This was a matter which ought to be left to the Local Government Board, and his experience was that the Local Government Board erred rather on the side of excess of caution.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

proposed the following Amendment at the end of line 8:— Provided always that before making such Order the Local Government Board shall be satisfied that the parish will not be involved in liability exceeding the income available to cover any risk and possible loss consequent on the compulsory hiring and re-letting of land. The sub-section in the clause as it stood provided that the Parish Councils should have power to hire land for allotments if they were satisfied that allotments were required, and if they wore unable to hire by agreement on reasonable terms suitable land they could get compulsory powers from the Local Government Board. That Board may, subject to the restrictions in this section, make an Order authorising the Council to hire compulsorily for allotments. The Committee would see that the Local Government Board might make an Order subject to the restrictions of this section. He put it to the Solicitor General whether the word "may" taken in conjunction with the rest of the sub-section, and with the rest of the clause and with the purport of the Act, would not be read to a certain extent as "shall." The Solicitor General would see that the Local Government Board were directed to con- sider only the restrictions specified in the the section, and if they were complied with Local Government Board seemed bound to give effect to the section. That was to say, the discretion of considering whether allotments were required, and whether they could be obtained by agreement on reasonable terms, was a discretion given to the Parish Council. If the Parish Council were of opinion that allotments were required, and could not be acquired on reasonable terms by agreement, and there was available laud for allotments which could be acquired by compulsory powers, then the Parish Council would call upon the Local Government Board to hold an inquiry, lie suggested to the Solicitor General whether the only duly imposed on the officer going down from the Local Government Board was to consider whether there was a demand for allotments; whether they were unable to satisfy that demand by voluntary agreement, and if so whether there was land available which could be obtained by compulsory powers? Then, he contended, an Order followed as a matter of course. There was nothing in this section to throw on the Local Government Board the investigation of financial circumstances. In n poor parish land might be wanted for allotments. It might not be possible to get it by voluntary arrangement: and yet the circumstances might be of a special character, so that it would be undesirable to resort to compulsion. They could conceive special circumstances, special considerations, which might affect particular parishes. Supposing they had got to the limit of taxation; supposing a parish wanted to take an inordinate quantity of land, the labourers would be anxious to obtain the land at the lowest possible terms, and they would be very unwilling to submit to any provision which would work for the ensurance of the parish against loss. They would not care to pay rents in advance. There was no wish that they should do so. This, of course, made it necessary that they should be all the more careful that these powers should be properly considered. As he said, the labourers would be anxious to have the lowest possible terms, and would not submit to any proposals for the purpose of insurance. It was, therefore, necessary, in his opinion, that when the compulsory powers were to be taken, the financial condition of the parish should be considered. He (Mr. Bolton) said the hands of the Local Government Board should be strengthened by empowering them to consider whether the parish was financially able to bear the burden it sought to take upon itself. The right hon. Gentleman might toll him this would be duly considered; but he would like to have it set down in the Act. Besides this, he would point out that a great many political considerations might be brought to bear in the working of this Bill when it became an Act, and, therefore, it was the more necessary that they should be allowed to lay down the conditions upon which it was to be enforced. He had, therefore, to move this provision— In line 8, to insert the words—"Provided always, before making such Older, the Local Government board shall be satisfied that the parish will not be involved in liabilities exceeding the income available to cover any risk and possible loss consequent on the compulsory hiring and re-letting of the hind.

Question proposed, "That those words be I here inserted."

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, the hon. Member had referred to the provisions of the Bill as an experiment; but the Local Government Board was not an experiment. The Local Government Board had been in operation for a, long time, and bad carried out its duties to the satisfaction of Parliament and the country. He strongly objected to the insertion of the words proposed by the hon. Member. It was not necessary, as, of course, the Local Government Board would make any inquiries that might be necessary in such cases as the hon. Member had indicated. He resented very strongly the hon. Member's suspicion that the Local Government Board would be influenced by political reasons in these matters. It was a great administrative Department—one of the greatest in the Civil Service; and it was unjust to suppose that such a Department would resort to anything of the character to which the hon. Member referred for purposes of politicial organisation. The hon. Member might rest assured that the Department would be most scrupulous in its oversight. He hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.

MR. CHAPLIN

was understood to ask a question as to the position of the County Council on the one hand and the Parish Council on the other.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, the Local Government Board could not, of course, be subject to the County Council.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

said, after the assurance of the President of the Local Government Board, he would not press his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. CHAPLIN

said, he begged to move— In line 8, at the end, to insert the following words:—"Provided always that where the owner of land proposed to be hired by a Parish Council under this section is willing to sell the land on the terms of payment by instalments spread over not less than 15 years, he shall be entitled to require the Parish Council to purchase instead of hiring the land; and the amount of the consideration and the period and mode of payment shall, in default of agreement, be settled by arbitration. He was inclined to think this was an Amendment the Government would see their way to accept. He had already stated the reasons for which he disapproved the compulsory system of hire; but no reply bad been made to them by the Government. The only reason they alleged in favour of the compulsory system was that, in their opinion, it would enable the labourers to get allotments more cheaply than by any other means; but the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen), who was an authority on the subject, bad declared that this was altogether a mistaken view, and that the compulsory system would prove to be the most expensive process in the end. He wished to minimise the difficulties in the case, and he therefore submitted the alternative embodied in the Amendment. By the terms of that Amendment the great difficulties of the Government with respect to the cost of the acquisition of land by the Parish Councils would be avoided. It must be clear to the Committee that there were very obvious objections to the Parish Council remaining for all time as the tenants of the land, and it was equally clear that many difficulties would be obviated if the Council became once for all the absolute owners of land. The only point in which his proposal was in conflict with those of the Government was as to how far it would add to the yearly payments that had to be made by the parish; but that would depend on the period in which the repayments would have to be made. He bad laid down 15 years in the Amendment. The question was, however, open to consideration. He contended for the principle of purchase by instalments, which would go some way in removing many of the difficulties which would stand in the way of the execution of the Act in the future, and would, at the same time, be only doing what was fair and just to the men who were to be deprived compulsorily of their property.

Amendment proposed, In line 8, at the end, to insert the words:—"Provided always that where the owner of land proposed to be hired by a Parish Council under this section is willing to sell the land on the terms of payment by instalments spread over not less than 15 years, he shall be entitled to require the Parish Council to purchase instead of hiring the land; and the amount of the consideration and the period and mode of payment shall, in default of agreement, be settled by arbitration.—(Mr. Chaplin.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, his first answer to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was this—that the clause did not propose to contemplate the purchase of laud for allotments. That power already existed and was vested in the District Councils. The power given to the Parish Council was to hire. He would point out one or two difficulties in the way of the Amendment. The proposed purchase involved a loan. The Parish Council would have to borrow the money. If the payments of principal in respect of the loan were made out of the rates this would entail a burden on the ratepayers during the whole period fixed for the repayment of the loan. At the end of that time they would have the land for the benefit of the parish, but in the intervening years the ratepayers would have had no benefit whatever. Then, the other alternative, if the Sinking Fund were charged in the rent, would be that the allotment holders would be purchasing laud not for their own benefit, but for the future benefit of the parish, so that a great injustice would be entailed either way—either on the ratepayers or on the allotment holders. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman would appreciate the full force of those objections, and would see that this was not an Amendment that ought to be introduced into the clause.

MR. GOSCHEN (St. George's, Hanover Square)

said, it appeared to him that his right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board did not appreciate the possibilities. He had put two alternatives before the Committee. He seemed to assume that the Parish Council must borrow exactly on the same terms as it would have to pay the landlords, and that it would, therefore, have to repay the capital in 15 years. That was not at all necessary. Any arrangement could be made by which the Parish Council could extend the repayment to such a period as to make it equitable to the ratepayers of the day; and it would certainly be a great advantage to the ratepayers of the day to enter into possession of the land at the end of 15 years, instead of, after paying 14 years, either having to renew the lease or to part with the land altogether. A man would naturally prefer the freehold if he could get it on equal terms. It was very undesirable that there should be three persons interested in the ownership of the laud—the landlord, the Local Authority, who would be the middleman, and the tenant occupier. It was undesirable that there should be uncertainly as to what would happen at the end of 14 years. There was no desire whatever on that (the Opposition) side to restrict the number of persons interested in land in this country, but hon. Members opposite did not wish now to have peasant proprietors. No Conservative could wish to object to the multiplication of small owners. Every Conservative must feel that the larger the number of owners the better it would be for all. Peasant proprietorship in France had been the security for lauded property, and the more owners of land there were the better it would be for the existing owners. It used to be one of the most prominent points of the Radical creed that there should be a large number of peasant proprietors, and he was now surprised to learn that the agricultural labourer cared for hiring rather than purchase. He was not disposed to believe that the agricultural labourers were more anxious to hire than to purchase; and why, therefore, should the Government endeavour to encourage a triple ownership? If the matter wore put before the labourers, that they could as easily buy and retain the soil and transmit it to their sons, he thought the majority of them would prefer if. Looking at the matter in a practical and sensible manner, it seemed to him that the arguments in favour of his right hon. Friend's argument were far stronger than those which had been urged against it by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board.

SIR W. HARCOURT

The whole argument of the right hon. Gentleman was that hiring was a bad thing and purchase a good one; but this is a clause for hiring, and the Amendment would have the effect of defeating Luring, and substituting purchase. The right hon. Gentleman knows—we all know—perfectly well that the option would be exercised to prevent hiring. [Mr. GOSCHEN: Why?] No doubt the right hon. Gentleman would think purchase better than hiring if he had the means. If the Parish Council wished to hire, the landlord was to come in and say—"You shall not hire; you shall purchase." No doubt the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is a freeholder in the country and in London. I am a more humble personage. I have always been a leaseholder both in the country and in London. And why? Because I cannot afford to be a freeholder. And that will be the cast' both with the Parish Council and with the peasant. It will be more convenient for them to hire, and they will prefer it. The right hon. Member does not deny that they prefer it.

MR. GOSCHEN

I said I had difficulty in accepting what had been stated by others, that they did prefer it. I said that if the alternative were placed before them I doubted whether they would not prefer to buy and keep their holding rather than part with it at the end of a certain number of years.

SIR W. HARCOURT

It is perfectly reasonable and natural that a body like a Parish Council should find it easier for their clients, the agricultural labourers, to deal with the question of renting than with the question of purchase. I wonder what the tenant farmers of England would reply if you were to say to them—"It would he better for you to purchase your farms; you shall not hire." Is there a farmer in the country who would not say—"I am not in a position to purchase, and therefore am compelled to hire"? Why should you turn on the agricultural labourer and the Parish Council and apply to them a rule you do not apply to tenant farmers? You say in this Amendment—"You shall not hire; you must purchase." ["No, no!"] That is what it means. ["No, no!"] Then explain to me how I am wrong. You say— Where the owner of land proposed to be hired by a Parish Council under this section is willing to sell the land on the terms of payment by instalments spread over not less than 15 years, he shall be entitled to require the Parish Council to purchase instead of hiring the land. You say that when land is "proposed to he hired," if the owner is "willing to sell," he shall he entitled "to require the Parish Council to purchase." It is as clear as possible that when a Parish Council wants to hire and proposes to do so the landowner is to he entitled to come in and say—"You shall not hire: I am willing to sell, and you shall purchase." In my opinion the Amendment would place a veto in the hands of the landlords, and he an absolute bar to the hiring of land. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, are against hiring—they wish it to be vetoed. That is contrary to the policy of the clause and to the whole intention in giving power to the Parish Councils to hire land compulsorily. I, therefore, hope the Committee will not accept the Amendment.

MR. GOSCHEN

Hon. Members will have observed that the right hon. Gentleman most skilfully got out of the question which we put to him on this side of the House. He said the Parish Council is to be compelled to buy for the purpose of selling to the labourer. But there is nothing in the Amendment to that effect. The right hon. Gentleman—I hope not wilfully—misunderstands the whole point. The Local Authority will buy, but they need not sell to the labourer; they remain in possession of the laud, and can let to the labourer. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer most skilfully mixed up the two things.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I did not mean to say that. I said the Local Authority wants to hire and not to purchase, because they cannot afford to purchase; and I said that this Amendment will prevent the Local Authority from hiring and compel them to purchase. I say that in that way the land will not be available for the labourers.

MR. GOSCHEN

What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by his reference to the tenant farmers? He said that they prefer to take their farms on lease, and that, like them, the labourers would prefer to hire. He conveyed the impression that it was the agricultural labourer who ought, to be allowed the privilege of hiring. That privilege is not denied by the Amendment. The Local Authority will still have the power to let land for 14 years, or otherwise, to the labourer. The bargain between the landlord and the Local Authority will not determine the terms between the agricultural labourer and the Local Authority. That is our point. We are now dealing with a transaction between the Local Authority and the landlord, and in that yon need not mix up the question of the terms made by the Local Authority with the agricultural labourer. The right hon. Gentleman did mix up these two points, and seemed to assume that because we are prepared to insist upon the Local Authority buying from the landlord, therefore they will not be able to let to the tenant. The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of the poverty which would prevent the Parish Councils from buying, but I have already endeavoured to remove that difficulty. I pointed out that they can borrow by longer instalments, and there is no financial difficulty such as has been conjured up by the right hon. Gentleman. They will not be impeded by deficiency of capital. They will be able to buy on easy terms from the landlord, and, if 15 years is not enough, my right hon. Friend is prepared to substitute a longer period. But the point does not affect the agricultural labourer at all, and it is undesirable to have these triple arrangements. Quite apart from the desire of the agricultural labourer, it is desirable that the Local Authorities should buy on easy terms rather than that they should hire. That is our contention, and I trust hon. Gentlemen opposite will be just and equitable enough to see that the Amendment is certainly not intended to render hiring impossible.

MR. ARCH

said, it appeared to him that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches did not wish agricultural labourers to have any hind at all. ["Oh!"] They did not. ["Oh!"] They might cry "Oh!" but he asked the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's what would happen if he had 40 acres of land, and there were 20 labourers to take two acres each on the hiring principle, and he said—"No, I shan't let it to you: I will sell it"? What applied to 20 men applied directly to Parish Councils. Did hon. Members think Parish Councils would borrow money with which to buy land to let to labourers? The thing was preposterous. The Bill before the House was what the labourers wanted and expected, for when once they could demand their acre of arable laud and their three acres of pasture land they would be independent. They would not cringe to parson, squire, or farmer. [Cries of "Question!" and "Oh!"] Yes: that was so. [Mr. POWELL WILLIAMS: Oh!] I know as much about the agricultural labourers as you do, Sir. You never ploughed an acre of land in your life. [Cries of "Order!" I wish to keep in Order, but I am not going to be put down. ["Order!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

MR. ARCH

said, he hoped the Government would stick to the hiring principle, and he was perfectly certain that if they did they would win the respect and confidence of the agricultural labourers, a state of things the Opposition dreaded. To show that he knew what he was talking about he would say that in his village the labourers began, as soon as they got the land, to put up suitable buildings at their own expense, and why? Because they had got the laud on the condition that so long as they paid their rent and cultivated the land properly the rent was never to be raised, and they were not to be turned out. They thus got security of tenure. The Bill said that the Parish Councils could take laud for 14 years. Well, he had no hesitation in saying that with that tenure some of the labourers would put up sheds and conveniences at their own expense. Some of the labourers, no doubt, would be out at elbows like many Members of the House of Lords—[Cries of "Order!"]—but others would put up buildings as they had done in his own village. When he sat upon the County Council he had been challenged by two noble Lords to say how the rents hail been paid.

MR. CHAPLIN

(interrupting) said, he wished to know whether the hon. Member was in Order?

THE CHAIRMAN

I cannot say that the hon. Member is altogether out of Order, but I am afraid that just now he is not very near the Amendment.

MR. ARCH

said, he was trying to show the Committee that the agricultural labourers on the question of hiring were honest men. In answer to the challenge of the two noble Lords, he had been able to say that every penny of rent had been paid, a thing which probably the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford could not say of all his tenants. Let the labourers have the land, and when they had got it and staked it out leave them to look after it for themselves, and not coddle them, and teach them to believe that they are kept in leadings strings.

MR. LEES KNOWLES (Salford, W.)

said, that the last speaker seemed to have forgotten the Act passed in 1887 granting allotments to labourers, and that the Party who introduced that Act—[Cries of "Order!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must speak to the proposition on the Paper.

* MR. LEES KNOWLES

said, he wished to draw attention to the large number of allotments, to which the hon. Member had alluded indirectly, which had been granted under the Allotments Act of 1887, passed by the late Government; passed by hon. Gentlemen now on the Opposition side of the House. He would refer to the Return which was published a year ago, and to which reference had been made in the last Report of the Local Government Board.

THE CHAIRMAN

The number of allotments has nothing to do with the Amendment.

MR. CHAPLIN

I rise to Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, merely in order to refresh the memory of the Committee and for my own information, whether, in reply to my question, you ruled just now that the speech of the hon. Member for Norfolk was in Order? [Cries of "Order!"] I further wish to ask you if it is not in Order to reply to a speech which was in Order?

* THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is entitled to reply to a speech that was itself in Order, but not in so doing to be out of Order. All I ask the hon. Member to do is to keep in Order. I do not think that the question of the number of allotments, or of the Party who passed the Allotments Act, has anything to do with the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. GOSCHEN

May I recall to your recollection that the hon. Member opposite distinctly charged gentlemen on this side of the House with desiring that no agricultural labourer should be connected with the land? [Cries of "Order!"] I do not presume to say whether that was in Order or not; but if the hon. Member opposite makes a charge of that kind I am sure that you, Sir, and the Committee will give some license and allow a reply to be made.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I rise, Sir, in the interest of Order. May I ask you to give a ruling about the subject before the Committee? And I am sure that when you have given your ruling gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite will not proceed to argue with you.

THE CHAIRMAN

If all that the hon. and learned Gentleman had done was to answer the speech of the hon. Member opposite who made the charge that Members that were opposite to him were not in favour of allotments I should not have thought it right to interfere; but when it came to be a question as to which Party had passed the Allotments Act, and the number of allotments taken under that Act, I did not think it germane to the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. LEES KNOWLES

said, he wished to show, by reference to the Act of 1887, that hon. Members on the Opposition side had taken as much interest in the labourers and in the granting to them of allotments as hon. Members on the other side. He also wished briefly to refer to the large number of allotments already granted, and to the last Report of the Local Government Board, in order to show that it was possibly unnecessary to go further and grant this power of hiring allotments. From the Report it appeared that the total acreage of land acquired by County Councils and Rural Sanitary Authorities under the Act was, at the date of the Return, 1,207 acres, and the total number of tenants was 2,891, and it was also stated by the majority of the Rural Sanitary Authorities who had not acquired land that allotments had been provided voluntarily by the landlords under private arrangements, and that no applications or representations under the Act had been made. That was all he wished to say in reply to the hon. Member for Norfolk. He wished to point out the advantage which had accrued to labourers under the Act of 1887. He could not understand why hon. Members opposite were so much interested in this matter of the hiring of land. He had served upon the Select Committee which had considered the question of leasehold enfranchisement, and what the Committee were given to understand was that the supporters of the Government—such Members as the Member for Cirencester, the Member for Camborne, and the Member for Merionethshire—were distinctly in favour not of leasehold tenure, but of freehold tenure. But now these gentlemen took quite an opposite view of the ease. They wished to give all the advantage to the tenant and all the disadvantage to the landlord. Personally, he should not very much object to these powers being given if there was an appeal to this House by the Provisional Order system, which he had always looked upon as a system which provided a security against injustice. It had been said that opposition in the case of compulsion caused expense, but it was very rare. There had only been three cases in the last three years, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford had exposed the fallacies of the St. Faith's case. If they had an appeal to the House under the Provisional Order system, he should not object so much to the carrying of the present proposal, hut, so long as there was no such appeal, he should be opposed to the clause as it stood.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

said, the question was whether, under certain circumstances, landowners should have the right to require the Parish Council to purchase their land in place of hiring it. Under certain circumstances it would be only fair and reasonable that the landlord should have that right. The land stir-rounding villages was not always held by one large owner. There were many moderate and comparatively small owners near villages to whom the abstraction of any of their land would be of special consequence. A man might be farming 50 or 60 or 100 acres of his own land most eligible for allotments. It might lie desirable that the man should be expropriated in order to put 15 or 20 men in his place; but it would be most unreasonable to deprive such a man of his land, and consequently of his business, in return for a rent-charge, and compulsorily convert him into a, mere receiver of rent. Take the case of accommodation land—land, say, held by a veterinary surgeon. It might he most essential for such a, man to have a few acres for the conduct of his business. Again, take the case of a, butcher who wanted laud to grow hay for his horses, and for the purpose of grazing cattle and sheep until they were ready to be killed. This land might be most suitable for allotments, but it would be monstrous to turn out such owners in order to put in agricultural labourers. He was told that the owners would be compensated, but how was that to be done? There was no provision to consider special claims, and it would be only fair that provision should be inserted to the effect that where a man was in possession of his own land or in cases such as he had referred to a man should be able to say—"If you want this land you must buy it." It might he that the effect would be to prevent the taking of that particular land. In that case the parish must look out for other land. There was no reason why they should do injustice to one man in order to extend a certain favour to another. Even if this particular Amendment were not accepted, some other Amendment to a similar effect ought to be put in the Bill.

MR. JEFFREYS

said, he thought the hon. Member for Norfolk had rather mistaken the scope of this Amendment, because he thought the labourers would be forced to buy such land instead of hiring it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford did not propose that, nor did anyone. What was proposed was, that the landowner who was willing to sell should be able to require the Parish Council to purchase.

MR. ARCH

(interrupting) said, that he had made it very clear to the Committee that the Parish Councils would not lay out money to buy laud for labourers. [Hon. MEMBERS: Why?] Because they would not. [Hon. MEMBERS: Why not?] Because they would not; that was why not.

MR. JEFEREYS

said, why should the hon. Gentleman speak for the Parish Council an)' more than he (Mr. Jeffreys) did? The hon. Member bad no right to speak for the whole of the labourers of England any more than any of them had. More than that, he maintained that the Party which sat on the Opposition side bad done more for the labouring class than those who sat on the other. The hon. Member twitted them by saying that the labourers could not obtain land: hut, they bad hired thousands of acres of land. At the present moment there was no want of land in England. If the labouring population wished to hire land they could do so to-morrow.

MR. ARCH

At what rent?

MR. JEFFREYS

They can do so, and have done so.

MR. ARCH

At what rent?

MR. JEFFREYS

At a very reasonable rent indeed.

MR. ARCH

At what rent?

Mr. JEFFREYS

said, the hon. Member asked him "at what rent?" In his (Mr. Jeffreys's) own parish they hired land at 12s. an acre. He came back to the Amendment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was very much against it, because he said this was a case of selling and not hiring land, but that it was not so of necessity. Laud could be hired under the Amendment, but there was an alternative that if an owner was not willing, and desired the Parish Council to buy out-and-out, he could require it to do so. With regard to the Amendment, it was fair, but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman in charge of it would be willing to extend the number of years over which repayment could be made—say to20or 25 years. If in that way the instalments were made easy it would in these days, when laud was so cheap, be more economical for the Parish Council to buy than to hire land. He would move to amend the Amendment by substituting 20 for 15 years.

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, to leave out "15," and insert "20."—(Mr. Jeffreys.)

Question proposed, "That '15'stand part of the proposed Amendment."

MR. CHAPLIN

I can only say to my hon. Friend that I willingly accept the extension from 15 to 20 years. I must express my great regret at the spirit in which this Amendment has been met by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer on behalf of the Government. I have pointed out on more than one occasion the great injustice that may possibly be inflicted on the landlord by this system of compulsory hiring. I have also pointed out—and no one has attempted to dispute or deny them—the great ob- jections there are to that system and the great difficulties that may arise, all of which would be altogether removed if we could possibly provide a means to purchase which would injure no one, and be an advantage to the parish itself. The right hon. Gentleman says—"This is a Bill for hire; your Amendment is an Amendment for purchase. We won't change the Bill. Your Amendment would be a veto on hiring." Sir, it would be nothing of the kind. I grant to the right hon. Gentleman it would put it in the power of the landlord to veto hiring if he wore so minded; but the Committee may be quite sure of this—and I am speaking not without experience—that there are hundreds of cases in which it would suit the landlord far better to lease his land than to sell it. There are some cases where he would desire to have it back again; but even supposing the Amendment would have the effect suggested—if at the same time that you veto hire, as the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer has shown, the Parish Council can obtain the laud on better and more economical terms—what possible objection can there be to vetoing hiring in that case? No attempt has been made to dispute the argument that by borrowing and extending the period of repayment the Parish Council would be placed actually in a better position by purchase than by hire. No one has attempted to dispute that; and unless it is answered, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be left in the position of refusing an Amendment which possesses advantages that he cannot deny without giving a reason for his refusal. As to the tenants being compelled to purchase, no one has ever proposed any such thing. I have stated over and over again that for letting purposes it is far better that the tenant should have the opportunity of hiring if they desire it instead of purchasing. I am not going to answer the speech of the hon. Member for Norfolk. It was not addressed to this Amendment, and I do not think it was deserving of notice—["Oh!"]—but when he says that hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House want to prevent the agricultural labourers of the country from getting land—

THE CHAIRMAN

I must call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that the question before the Committee is the Amendment to the Amendment.

MR. CHAPLIN

I beg pardon, Sir, and thank you for reminding me that I was straying from the question. I was, I admit, being carried away for the moment by what I thought a most unjust attack upon us.

Question put, and negatived.

MR. HARRY FOSTER (Suffolk, Lowestoft)

remarked that under the Amendment the ratepayers would be put into a better economic position than under the clause without it, and the Parish Council would be able to acquire the land on much better terms economically than if they bad to pay rent for it. The Amendment would also enable the agricultural labourer directly to acquire his own holding if he so pleased. If the Parish Councils were not to become the owners of the land, obviously they could not put it in the power of their tenants, the labourers, to acquire the ownership. [Cries of "Divide!"] This question might not he worth the attention of gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House except at election time, but he thought it was worth the attention of the Committee. It ought to be distinctly understood that gentlemen who voted against the Amendment would be voting against putting it in the power of the labourers to acquire their own land. He himself should heartily support the Amendment.

SIR J. GORST (Cambridge University)

I wish to say in a few words why I should vote in favour of the Amendment. It is because I am very strongly in favour of empowering villages in this country to acquire village lands. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir W. Harcourt) has spoken of the admirable effect of the possession In the villages of Switzerland of communal land. Exactly the same thing prevails in some parts of France. In most parts of France the communal lands are disappearing, but there are still villages which possess communal lands which are let out to householders, much as we propose to let allotments under this Rill. The testimony of Mr. Simon, who has been sent during the last few years by the French Government to report on the position of French agriculture, is that it is in those villages which possess communal lands that the position of the agricultural industry is the most advanced, and in every way the best. Under this Bill as it stands there is no wav whatever for the Parish Councils to become the possessors of parish lands for the purpose of parcelling them out to the people of the parish, and enabling them to rise from the position of gardeners to that of allotment-holders, and then to that of small peasant-proprietors. This Amendment would at least give us the beginning of such a system, because in some villages it would put a certain amount of land in I he possession of the Parish Councils. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it would put a stop to hiring, but the Bill as it stands puts an entire stop to possession for that purpose.

An hon. MEMBER

There are the District Councils.

SIR J. GORST

Oh, the District Councils are very different things from the Parish Councils. Communal land is not land held by a District Council, which may meet 10 or 20 miles away from the peasant proprietor. What I want to see is land held by the authorities of the village in which the man lives, and capable of being portioned out amongst the householders and labourers of the district. It is because this Amendment, if accepted by the Committee, would make a beginning, and be the first step in the direction I refer to, that I shall certainly support it.

Question put, That the words 'Provided always that where the owner of land proposed to be hired by a Parish Council under this section is willing to sell the land on the terms of payments by instalments spread over not less than 20 years, he shall be entitled to require the Parish Council to purchase instead of hiring the land; and the amount of the consideration and the period and mode of payment shall in default of agreement he settled by arbitration' be there inserted.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 78; Noes 129.—(Division List, No. 415.)

MR. T. H. BOLTON

moved— After the word "require," in line 10, to insert the words "advertisements in two newspapers circulating in the county in which the land is situate giving public notice of the application for the aforesaid Order, and shall also require. He said, his object was to ensure that all the people in the parish should know when the Local Government Board Commissioner was going down to hold an inquiry into the application for an Order, as the question would be one in which all the people would be interested.

Amendment proposed to the Clause, In line 10, after the word "require," to insert the words "advertisements in two newspapers circulating in the county in winch the land is situate giving public notice of the application for the aforesaid Order, and shall also require."—(Mr. T. H. Bolton.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

* MR. H. H. FOWLER

My hon. Friend speaks of leading strings, but I may assure him that the Local Government Board have certain fixed Rules with reference to the giving of notice of inquiries, and in my judgment they are sufficient, especially as in these cases every person interested will have notice, irrespective of what steps the Local Government Board may take to ensure that proper notice is given.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

said, that that was not what the clause said. If it had laid it down that before an inquiry was held such notice should be given as they considered necessary, that would have been in accordance with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. But it simply provided that certain specified notice should be given. Were they the only notices required?

MR. H. H. FOWLER

Read Subsection (7) and the last lines of it.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

If the right hon. Gentleman assures me the notices I want will be given, I accept that assurance, and ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

said, he had to move the addition, at the end of line 14, of words providing that any inquiry should not he concluded if it appeared that persons other than those who had notice wore interested in the land until such persons had had an opportunity of appearing and stating their objections, if any. He had not the slightest doubt, he said, that the Local Government Board desired to have everybody fully informed, but it sometimes happened that while an inquiry was in progress persons interested appeared and stated that they had received no notice, and he thought, therefore, his Amendment was necessary. The present practice was to tell such persons to send their representations to the Board in London; but unless they could make out a very strong case, there was not much chance of securing a resumption of the inquiry.

Amendment proposed, In line 14, at end, to insert the words,—"If, in the course of the local inquiry, it shall appear that any person other than those who have had notice as aforesaid is interested in the land proposed to be hired, the said inquiry shall not be concluded until such person has had an opportunity of appearing at the inquiry and stating his objections (if any) to the proposed hiring."—(Mr. T. H Bolton.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. H. H. FOWLER

The notices issued by the Local Government Board contain a statement that all persons interested are entitled to be heard; and if they tire not heard at the inquiry, an opportunity is given them of stating their case. In a case of grievous injustice the Local Government Board would send the Inspector down again. If the hon. Member will read line 56 he will find the words— And for the protection of persons interested in the land. These are the governing words of the section.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. JASPER MORE (Shropshire, Ludlow)

moved the insertion of the words at the end of Sub-section 2— If compulsory hiring of land shall cause a mortgage on the land dealt with to be called in or transferred, the mortgagor shall be indemnified, and such indemnity shall be part of the costs of carrying the Allotment Act into effect, He said, that usually when landowners were spoken of, especially by hon. Members for Ireland, it seemed to be assumed that the ostensible owner was the only person interested in the property. But that was not the case. When the Agricultural Holdings Act was passed the point, was overlooked, with the result that an instance had since occurred in Yorkshire that when compensation was claimed the mortgagee entered into possession and declined to pay the compensation, so that the unfortunate tenant was unable to recoup himself for his expenditure. Farmers expected the House to redress that grievance. He moved this Amendment in the interest of that class who had been encouraged by Parliament to borrow money to invest in land. That class of investors were most numerous in populous places; their laud was the most likely to be coveted, and it was desirable that I hey should be indemnified.

Amendment proposed, In line 14, at end to insert the words "If compulsory hiring of land shall cause a mortgage on the land dealt with to be called in or transferred, the mortgagor shall be indemnified, and such indemnity shall be part of the costs of carrying the Allotment Act into effect."—(Mr. Jasper More.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

SIR J. RIGBY

said, he thought the Amendment of his hon. Friend would be a dangerous one to accept. When it was proposed that one portion of a farm should be taken for allotment purposes if was only the substitution of one tenant for another, and the amount of rent payable would not be less than it was before, but in general it would be greater. Though there might be persons in the country of so arbitrary a nature as to call in money in such circumstances as were indicated by the Amendment, be could not admit it would be a bonâ fide reason for doing so. On the contrary, it would be a bad reason. Again, he was not quite clear what the hon. Member meant by "indemnified." Were these people to be indemnified against the cost of obtaining another security? If so, he was afraid that cases would frequently occur in which solicitors, for the purpose of making costs, might call in the mortgage when it would not otherwise be done. He thought it might institute a very bad example.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. CHANNING (Northampton)

said, he had on the Paper an Amendment to re-insert the words "or the breaking-up of pasture." Later on in the Paper appeared another Amendment to strike out the words by which the clause would in all cases prohibit the breaking-up of pasture laud, and if was obvious that if they succeeded in inducing the House to accept that Amendment, it would only be just to the landlords tore-insert at this point the provision that they should have full compensation for the breaking-up of pasture land. He wished to point out how thoroughly just the whole procedure of the clause its it originally stood was. The arbitrator sent down by the Local Government Board would assess the capital value of the loss caused by the breaking-up of the pasture, and would be instructed later on to consider the practicability of distributing the loss in the form of additional rent for the whole period of the hiring of the land. That seemed to him absolutely and strictly fair. But be hardly thought it advisable to move his Amendment at that stage, and lie preferred that the whole question should be discussed on the third proviso.

THE CHAIRMAN

Then the hon. Member should not have made his speech.

MR. CHAPLIN

I beg to move, in line 21, after the insertion, after the first "the," of the words "amount of." The line would then read— As to the amount of compensation to any tenant for the determination of his tenancy.

SIR W. HARCOURT

What is the object of this Amendment?

MR. CHAPLIN

To make the subsection clear. We shall, by a, later Amendment, propose that the Parish Council, and not the landlord, shall pay the compensation to the outgoing tenant who may be dispossessed of any part of a farm under this clause.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I do not think that that question can be raised on these words. We cannot accept this Amendment.

MR. CHAPLIN

I submit that it does arise. As it reads at present the arbitrator will have power to determine any question of compensation, and that might possibly raise the question as to the persons by whom compensation should be paid; I certainly think we should limit the power now by inserting the words "the amount of."

SIR W. HARCOURT

The desire of the Government is to leave the whole question to the arbitrator, and not the amount of compensation only.

MR. CHAPLIN

I want to quite clearly understand the view of the Government. Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer propose to leave it to the arbitrator to decide as to whether the compensation to an outgoing tenant who is dispossessed by compulsory hire shall be paid by the landlord or the Parish Council.

SIR W. HARCOURT

If any adjustment should he necessary, that is dealt with in lines 28 and 29, and the question of how the compensation shall be divided must be raised on those lines.

MR. CHAPLIN

That would not settle the question at all. Lines 28 and 29, I frankly admit, are quite unintelligible. I must, therefore, press this point a little further, although I do not want to delay the proceedings. I wish to point out to the Committee that in some tenancies it will be absolutely essential that the Parish Council, who is the incoming tenant, should pay the compensation to the man who is dispossessed. Let us take a Lady Day tenancy, for instance. Compensation is then given to the outgoing tenant for the proportion of crops in the ground that will be reaped by the incoming tenant. It is impossible to call on the landlord to pay in such cases for them, because he is not going to be the tenant or to reap the crops. Therefore, in these circumstances, the incoming tenant should pay the compensation. If you call on the landlord to pay it you must keep him as the tenant, otherwise you would be doing him a manifest injustice. I hope the Government will be good enough to accept this Amendment, or at least give us an assurance that the object I have indicated will be secured in some other way.

Amendment proposed, In line 21, after the word "the," to insert the words "amount of."—(Mr. Chaplin.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

SIR J. RIGBY

said, he did not think the danger indicated by the right hon. Gentleman was likely to arise. Compensation would, no doubt, be payable partly to the landlord and partly to the tenant.

MR. CHAPLIN

Who by?

SIR J. RIGBY

Of course, by the Parish Council. It might be that the landlord would agree with the tenant, so that the landlord could deal independently with the Parish Council, as though he were in possession of the laud. It was a very common thing for a, landlord and tenant to agree to put one of them forward as the representative of the fee-simple. In the case of a tenancy, which would almost immediately be determined under existing agreements, the landlord on the determination would be bound to pay the tenant for his improvements, which had been effected long before t he Parish Council came on to the scone; and if they provided that all sums payable on the determination of the tenancy should be paid to the tenant and precluded the arbitrator from charging the landlord with a penny, they would be doing in some cases a very gross injustice indeed, and would be relieving the estate of a large sum which would otherwise be payable at the end of a few months for improvements that had been going on for years—improvements for which the tenant, under the Agricultural Holdings Act, had a perfect right to receive compensation from the landlord. The hands of the arbitrator ought certainly not to be tied in that way. He certainly ought to be allowed to take all such matters into consideration, otherwise the Parish Council might not only have to pay a large compensation to the tenant, but it might for the same improvements have also to pay an increased rent to the landlord. There was no danger in leaving the whole question to an arbitrator who thoroughly understood it. In respect to the words of which the right hon. Gentleman complained that he did not grasp the meaning, they were intended to have this effect: The Go- vernment wished to avoid the payment of capital sums by way of compensation when they could properly do so, and, therefore, they sought to provide that, instead of paying cash down to the landlord, the compensation should be paid to him in the form of an increased rent; and the increase in the rent should depend upon the number of years for which the land was hired. Again, in the case of the tenant it would he possible to compensate him by reducing the rent on the remainder of the land left on his hands. Let them take the case of a holding of 200 acres. Forty acres of that was taken by the parish. The tenant would not, of course, go on paying as much rent for his reduced holding as he did for the 200 acres. It would he for the arbitrator to say how in the future the rent was to be paid. He was directed, instead of awarding a lump sum in cash, to make up the compensation to the tenant in the form of a reduced rent for the residue of his term: and, of course, if the landlord got a, reduced rent for that tenant, the Parish Council, by way of compensation, would pay him a higher rent for the land acquired from the tenant. Suppose a sum of £500 was awarded as compensation, and was divisible between landlord and tenant. The proposal of the Government was that, instead of paying that compensation in cash, the landlord should get his share in the form of an increase of rent—the amount of which would, of course, depend on the number of years the tenancy had to run, and the tenant would have his share in the form of a diminished rent.

MR. CHAPLIN

The sub-section contains the word "or," not "and." It is, therefore, an alternative.

SIR J. RIGBY

said, he believed the word "and" was the one which ought to be inserted, and it would be necessary to make that Amendment. But the words of the sub-section that— The compensation shall, as Ear as possible, be made by increasing the rent to be paid by the Parish Council to the landlord and by reducing the apportioned rent payable in respect of land retained by the tenant. clearly indicated the intentions of the Government.

MR. CHAPLIN

I have followed the speech of the hon. and learned Gentle- man to the best of my ability, but I must confess that I think nobody could understand very clearly from his statement what the precise proposal of the Government is. So far as I have been able to follow it, I am bound to say, with all respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that it appears to me to be as involved and as unsatisfactory an arrangement for the payment of compensation to the outgoing tenant as it is possible to imagine. The hon. and learned Gentleman says there is to be some compensation given either by an increase or by a reduction of rent on one side or the other which is to extend over a period of years. But what is the compensation to the outgoing tenant? The compensation to which the outgoing tenant is entitled is this: He is entitled to a lump sum down for the payment of what is commonly known as his tenant-right, and, in default of that lump sum being paid by anyone else, he has a right to claim it of the landlord. It is quite true, as the hon. and learned Gentleman says, that there is a distinction between improvements described as permanent improvements and improvements which are summed up by the expression tenant-right—such as compensation for tillages, manures, crops, and matters of that kind. I should be prepared to come to a settlement on that basis; but what I want to secure is that when a tenant is dispossessed by the action of a Parish Council the landlord shall not be called upon to pay compensation for tillages and things of that kind, the benefit of which he cannot possibly reap. I cannot see how it is to be done by a rent-charge, extended over a term of years; compensation for this tenant-right frequently means now from one and a-half to two years' rent; and it would be a monstrous thing to dispossess the landlord of his land, to let someone else reap the crops, and then to call upon him to pay two years' rent as compensation to the tenant dispossessed. That, so far as I have been able to follow the hon. and learned Gentleman is the position in which the Government are going to place the unfortunate landlord that I cannot imagine that is their intention, and I asked the Government to make it perfectly distinct. I am willing to waive the question of permanent improvements; but I wish to make it perfectly clear that for tillages, manures, and things of that kind the landlord shall not he called upon to pay any compensation whatever to the tenant. That compensation may he paid in full by either the Parish Council, or by anybody else who pleases, so long as the landlord is relieved of any liability in the matter.

MR. CHANNING

said, he agreed largely with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford in this matter. Obviously the Parish Council must stand in the position of the incoming tenant, and, therefore, as it got the benefit of the outgoing tenant's tillages and crops, it should pay the compensation. He hoped the Government would make it perfectly clear that no wrong should be done to the outgoing tenant in this matter. He would point out further, that it might save the Parish Councils from some considerable expense, in case they would have to deal with a farmer, whoso land they had taken, who was hostile to the policy of allotments, and who might refuse to recognise the arbitrator from the Local Government Board and insist on having recourse to the Agricultural Holdings Act, if words were introduced into the clause to make it clear that the whole of these compensation questions were to be settled in one award by the same arbitrator. He did not think the matter had been disposed of by the speech of the Solicitor General, and it should be further cleared up.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

said, the clause would only apply to the case of severance. If the whole of a farm, or even the bulk of a farm, were taken, how could the matter be adjusted between the laud-lord and Parish Council by reducing the tenant's rent, and increasing the rent paid by the Parish Council? In that ease the landlord would have to pay full compensation to the outgoing tenant out of his own pocket, and that, surely, could not be what was intended by the Government. The rule was that, although the tenant-right was payable by the landlord, it was paid by the incoming tenant, who got the benefit of it; but the outgoing tenant had a legal right to deal with the landlord, and the landlord was liable, and if the right hon. Gentleman broke a tenancy in this way the outgoing tenant would look to the landlord for compensation.

SIR M. HICKS-BEACH

said, he thought the Government were making a mistake in attempting to spread over a period of years what was known as tenant-right, for the compensation of the outgoing tenant. In any other case it would he paid in a lump sum by the incoming tenant to the outgoing tenant. Why should it not be so in this ease? The money would be paid by the people who took the allotments, and, therefore, there was no reason why the Parish Council should he called upon to find any capital sum for the purpose. It would be grossly unfair on a landlord to compel him to pay a lump sum for the tenant-right to which the outgoing tenant was entitled under the law, and to compensate him for that sum by additional rent spread over 14 years. Practically it would be compelling him to advance a sum to the Parish Council in order that they might be saved the expense and trouble of getting it in some other way, without receiving any interest for that sum. He thought it was reasonable enough that the landlord's compensation for severance should he spend over a term of years; but the tenant-right ought to be paid down in a lump sum by the incoming tenant, as it had always been.

MR. HANBURY (Preston)

asked whether he was right in understanding that where a farmer had part of his farm taken by the Parish Council the rent was to be settled by an arbitrator, and not subject to an agreement between the landlord and tenant?

SIR J. RIGBY

The arbitrator must have power to adjust the relations of all three parties concerned—the landlord, the incoming tenant, and the outgoing tenant.

COLONEL MURRAY

Then I understand that for the future the rent will be settled virtually in a Land Court, as in Ireland?

SIR J. RIGBY

The arbitrator must have power to deal with it. No one can suggest a way of carrying out an arbitration of this kind unless you allow the arbitrator to settle the financial position of the three parties concerned. With regard to the question of severance, of course we only intend this mode of compensation to apply where, there is a severance. With regard to the compensation which at Common Law is paid to the outgoing tenant for acts of husbandry, tillages, manures, &e., I see no injustice in asking the Parish Council to pay that sum in cash. If the arbitrator knows his duty he will fix that class of payment, and fix it separately. I am authorised to say that the Government are prepared to make provision for the payment in cash of that form of recompense which is payable at Common Law in consideration of a tenant not being allowed to take his crops after his tenancy expires. We will consider what words are necessary for bringing that into effect on Report.

MR. CHAPLIN

I am quite prepared to agree to that. The important point you have to consider and provide for is that the landlord is liable at law for the payment of the sum down to the dispossessed tenant. I shall be quite satisfied if the Government will state explicitly that the recompense of which the Solicitor General speaks will be limited to improvements named in Part III. of the first Schedule of the Agricultural Holdings Act. There would then be no mistake whatever in the matter, for it is for these improvements that in ordinary cases the landlord is liable. Anything short of that will be a gross injustice to the landlord, who will be liable to the tenant on his dispossession for the payment of a sum down in respect of these improvements for which you propose to recoup him by an increase rent spread over a number of years. If I have a distinct agreement from the Government that the proposed arrangement will include everything for which the landlord would have to pay down in full I would be satisfied.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

It is evident that all parties are agreed as to what ought to be done, and the only point is whether the words of the clause carry out the general intention. I would suggest that the words, The compensation shall, as tar as possible, be made by increasing the rent to be paid by the Parish Council to the landlord or by reducing the apportioned rent payable in respect of land retained by the tenant, in paragraph (e) be omitted, and I will undertake on Report to bring up words making clearer the meaning of the Government.

MR. CHANNING

said, if his right hon. Friend proposed to retain in the substituted words the principle of the old words, so far as it was justly applicable to the circumstances of the case, he would agree to the postponement. He would remind his right hon. Friend that, in the interest of all parties, it was desirable that the whole of these compensations should be settled by the arbitrator. If his right hon. Friend introduced words into the new proposal that would cover that point, and prevent the farmer from bringing up the Agricultural Holdings Act, he would greatly simplify the procedure. He would point out to his right hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford that Part III. of the First Schedule of the Agricultural Holdings Act was not sufficient for the purpose with regard to improvements. It did not cover the custom of the country. He thought that tillages and crops should also be included.

MR. T. H. BOLTON

thought the words should secure the landlord (if an occupier), or his tenant, whatever an occupier was entitled to pay under the Agricultural Holdings Act or according to the custom of the country.

MR. EVERETT (Suffolk, Woodbridge)

said, he understood the proposal to be that where a Parish Council became an incoming tenant by taking laud for allotments it should honestly discharge all the obligations of an incoming tenant-at-law. If that provision was made, justice would be thoroughly satisfied.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. CHAPLIN

moved— In line 21, to leave out the word "for," in order to insert the word "upon, so that the words should read— Compensation to any tenant upon the determination of his tenancy. He said, it ought to be clear that the compensation to a tenant was for crops and improvements.

Amendment proposed, In line 21, to leave out the word "for," and insert the word "upon."—(Mr. Chaplin.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'for' stand part of the Clause."

* SIR J. GOLDSMID

said, that in the part of the country in which he lived the tenant-right was very high, e.g., in a case where the tenant paid £500 a year it might he worth £1,500. Therefore, there should be compensation, not only according to the Agricultural Holdings Act, but according to the custom of the country, which was different in different parts of England. The custom of the country in Suffolk, for instance, was not the same as the custom of the country in Kent.

SIR W. HARCOURT

This Amendment will cover what the hon. Baronet desires. Compensation to any tenant may arise either from the custom of the country or under the Agricultural Holdings Act.

COMMANDER BETHELL

said, that as he read the clause the sub-section seemed to apply more especially to cases where the lease was broken and the tenant was entitled to compensation for disturbance, apart altogether from compensation for crops. He was not at all clear that the Amendment included both subjects.

MR. GODSON (Kidderminster)

said, that suppose a, case arose in which notice had been served on a farmer to give up 20 acres of his laud, and he said they were the best land he had, and that he could not manage the farm if they were taken, who would settle such a point?

SIR W. HARCOURT

That will come up after.

SIR M. HICKS-BEACH

said, that he understood that by the insertion of the word "upon" they would make the subsection relate to tenant-right, and that would be denned by the words promised by the Solicitor General.

Question put, and negatived.

Word "upon" inserted.

On Motion of Mr. H. H. FOWLEK, the following Amendment was agreed to:— To leave out all the words from "hiring" in line 28, to "tenant," in line 31.

MR. CHAPLIN

moved the insertion of the following, after Sub-section (3):— (4) The arbitrator shall, together with a copy of his award, deposit at the office of the Board of Agriculture a Report signed by him as to the condition of the land taken by the Parish Council, and such copy and Report shall be preserved by the Board, and shall at all times be open to the inspection of the owner for the time being of the land. The object of this Amendment is to take care there is some record of the state of the land that may be held by the Parish Council. The Parish Council are to hire the laud for not less than 14 years, when, if they wish, they may return it to the landlord, and it is only just it should be provided the landlord should receive compensation for any deterioration that had taken place, either in regard to the laud or the buildings. For that purpose it is necessary some record should be kept of the condition of the property at the time it was taken over by the Parish Council. If the Government can see some other way of meeting the case more effectually, I am not enamoured of my Amendment, but I wish to secure some record of the condition of the laud at the time of hiring.

Amendment proposed, In line 28, after Sub-section (3), to insert the following sub-section:—"(4) The arbitrator shall, together with a copy of his award, deposit at the office of the Board of Agriculture a Report signed by him as to the condition of the land taken by the Parish Council, and such copy and Report shall be preserved by the Board, and shall at all times be open to the inspection of the owner for the time being of the land."—(Mr. Chaplin.)

Question proposed, "That the Subsection be there inserted."

SIR W. HARCOURT

I think it is not unreasonable, but I do not think it is necessary to put it into the clause. The record of every acre of laud would really be the lease, and it would not be necessary to have a record deposited with the Board of Agriculture. It might be advisable to direct that a copy should be given to the landlord, but it seems to me that would be sufficient.

SIR R. WEBSTER (Isle of Wight)

considered it was necessary, first, that the record should be prescribed by Statute; and, secondly, that there should be a proper place for its custody where the document could be easily accessible to the parties. It was obvious there should be a record, which should be an authentic document to which reference could be made as to the condition of the land at the date of the lease, and it was necessary it should he a statutory requirement, and, therefore, introduced into the Bill.

SIR W. HARCOURT

said, he thought the matter could he met by saving that the landlord should have a copy of the award, and there would he no objection to putting that into the Bill.

MR. CHANNING

said, they should insist that the Parish Council should be considered equally with the landowner in this connection. The principle of setting out the condition of the land at the date of the lease was, he thought, one of the most important principles introduced into a lease, and it should he made clear that the Parish Council, as well as the landlord, should have access to the document.

SIR J. GOLDSMID (St. Pancras, S.)

also thought that it was most important that each party should have a copy of the award, and that it should lie attached to that document.

SIR W. HARCOURT

said, that the question should be put right on Re-port.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. JASPER MORE (Shropshire, Ludlow)

moved to insert at the end of Sub-section (3) the following:— The arbitrator shall be a surveyor practising within the comity, unattached to any Local Authority, and on settling the compensation lie shall have regard to the provisions of 'The Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883' (46 & 47 Vict., c. 61), which Act shall be read as incorporated herein. The object of his Amendment was to provide that the arbitrator should be a local man and should have regard to the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883.

Amendment proposed, In line 31, at end, to insert "The arbitrator shall be a surveyor practising within the county, unattached to any Local Authority, and on settling the compensation he shall have regard to the provisions of 'The Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883' (46 & 47 Vict., c. 61), which Act shall be read as incorporated herein."—(Mr. Jasper More.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. H. H. FOWLER

said, the clause proposed that the arbitrator should be appointed in accordance with the provi- sions of Section 3 of the Allotments Act, 1887, and it was very undesirable to say that he should be required to be a surveyor practising within the county.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. CHANNING

said, the Amendment he now proposed was in proviso (a) of Sub-section (4), and was to strike out the words "of pasture, or one acre of arable and three acres of pasture." He did not wish to detain the Committee at any length upon the question, because it was in the main the question on which he ventured to address a few words to the Committee at the beginning of their proceedings to-day. They contended that it was of vital importance that these allotment tenants should be enabled to obtain larger arable allotments than one acre. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin) in his first speech seemed to urge the argument that his experience was not so great as that of the right hon. Gentleman. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that he had the honour to represent a county that had the largest number of allotments of any county in the whole of England, and the Division he represented contained far and away the largest number of allotments in proportion to the population in any pail of the United Kingdom. The first Allotment Association in England had been formed at Wellingborough. He had as large an experience as any Member of the House in forming and working these Associations; he had drawn the rules of several of these Associations, and taken a practical part in their system of working and farming of the land, which was precisely the same that would prevail under Parish Councils. His experience was that whilst the majority of the allotments ranged from a quarter of an acre to an acre, there were in every allotment field or estate three, four, or five tenants who had been able to obtain from three to four and five acres of arable laud, which, with the aid of their families, they were well able to work and manage in addition to their ordinary day's work, and he maintained that the Parish Council should be able to provide such tenants with more than one acre of arable land. To take that provision out of the Bill was a great wrong to this most deserving class. It was a shame to say the Parish Council should have no power to reward its best and most promising men by letting them take additional allotments, and so rise little by little. He wished the country to understand that those who were taking upon themselves the responsibility for forcing upon the Government this surrender, reducing the amount of arable land from four acres to one, were doing a gross injustice to the agricultural labourer, which at the next Election would tell against them.

Amendment proposed, In line 39, to leave out the words "of pasture, or one acre of arable and three acres of pasture."—(Mr. Channing)

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 136; Noes 47.—(Division List, No. 416.)

MR. CHAPLIN

The Amendment in my name was intended to limit the erection of buildings to those holdings which exceed one acre, and I think it is very desirable that should be done. It is quite obvious, I think, that upon a holding of one acre barns and stables are not likely to be required. Buildings for one acre are provided for in the Allotments Act of 1887. On the question of allotments, I have always thought myself that the greatest difficulty you have to contend with is the question of buildings when extending the size of your allotments from one acre to four. This Amendment would obviate that difficulty, and it is with that object I move it.

Amendment proposed, In line 41, before the word "may," to insert the words "where the allotment exceeds one acre."—(Mr. Chaplin.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

It being Midnight, the Chairman loft the Chair to make his report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.