Commons Sitting of 19 February 1895

Preamble
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr. J. W. MELLOR)took the Chair at Ten minutes past Three of the clock.
THE CRANBROOK DISTRICT WATER BILL.
Bill read 2º.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
SIR H. JAMESsaid, he should be sorry to oppose a Bill promoted by the London County Council, but he felt bound to call attention to some provisions of the Bill, and particularly to Clause 41.
MR. J. STUARThaving charge of the Bill, wished to explain that Clauses 41 and 42 were introduced into the Bill of last year, and they were struck out at the wish of the Home Office. After reconsideration, they had been re-introduced this year, in order that there might be a further opportunity of discussing them. They had again been before the Home Secretary, who said that he would oppose Clause 41, but not Clause 42, and therefore Clause 41 would be withdrawn.
SIR H. JAMESsaid, he did not quite appreciate at once what the result of that

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might be, but the effect of Clauses 41, 42, 43, and 44, was to give to the London County Council the power of altering the polling districts for the Parliamentary Elections in the Metropolis. This was a most serious power, the exercise of which might be used to affect the representation of the Metropolis in this House. If an objector wished to place his objection before the Committee, and to propose any Amendment of the Clauses, he could only do it by appearing before the Committee by Counsel. Therefore, he asked the House to consider whether a power so important, if it were to be conferred on the County Council, should not be given by public Bill, and not by private Bill, so that it might be discussed in that House like any other change in public law. He did not wish to appear to be opposing the general policy of the London County Council, but he objected to private Bills being introduced in this way. Some pledge should be given that the Clauses he had named would be withdrawn, even if the rest of the Bill passed. In the absence of that pledge, he hoped the House would not allow the Bill to proceed.
MR. J. CALDWELL: On a point of Order, may I ask whether it is competent in a private. Bill to interfere in any way with a franchise established under a public Bill, or to alter the boundaries of that franchise? I think it has been held not to be so.
*MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is a question for the House, and after the recent ruling of the Speaker, I cannot say that this is a question of order.
MR. R. G. WEBSTERsaid, he wished to endorse the remarks of the right hon. Member for Bury. It was a peculiar fact that these Bills were introduced at this early period of the Session. As a rule London County Council Bills had been introduced later in the Session, when hon. Members had had an opportunity of carefully examining them. Why was this Bill introduced so early in the Session? The Bill would have passed the Second Reading on the previous day if an hon. Member had not interposed and objected. On Saturday, when Members took up their Notice Papers, they found that the matter was to be decided on Monday. None of the sixty-two Members who represented London had had an oppor-
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tunity of considering these various Bills. The House should remember that these Bills had been drafted by a Parliamentary Committee of the present London County Council. An important Election was pending, in which the policy of the Council would be discussed, and this being the case, he thought it would be wiser to postpone the further consideration of the Bill until after the Election, when they knew the judgment of London with regard to the policy of the Council. If the House found that the views of the majority of the present Council were the views of London, undoubtedly opposition to the Bill would be diminished.
*SIR JULIAN GOLDSMIDsaid, that when he first had the honour of a seat in that House he understood that private Bills referred exclusively to private matters. But from time to time he had noticed a great tendency to alter public Acts by means of private Bills. It was a serious matter, because the result would naturally be that they would not know what the law was. He had not had time carefully to examine these London County Council Bills, but he was convinced that the principle of the particular Clauses, to which objection had been taken, was a bad one, because they altered a public Act. It was desirable that the House should lay down a stringent rule for the future, that it would not allow public Acts of Parliament to be altered by private Acts. If any safeguard were needed in a public Act it should be proposed and discussed in Committee.
*MR. J. F. MOULTON*MR. J. F. MOULTON (Hackney, S.) moved the Adjournment of the Debate so that the Clauses objected to might be looked into. The County Council only sought power to do in the case of the few districts in which Petty Sessions are the authority that which in the case of districts under the control of Quarter Sessions they can do in the same circumstances.
SIR J. BLUNDELL MAPLEsuggested, that the further consideration of the Bill should be postponed for a month. The County Council Elections would shortly take place. These Bills were the subject of platform speeches. The Elections were on Saturday week, and a postponement for a month would enable the new Council to examine, these Bills, and see

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whether they approved of the policy of those who represented the Council in that House.
MR. J. POWELL WILLIAMSreminded the House that certain Government Departments had the right to pass Provisional Orders. It had always been understood that Provisional Orders could only deal with local private Acts, and not interfere with public general Acts. He submitted that no private Bill should be allowed to interfere with a public Act of Parliament.
SIR H. JAMESremarked that there should be give and take in these matters, and to save the trouble of dividing the House he would accept the Motion for Adjournment.
Debate adjourned until 26th February.

TOWER BRIDGE (SOUTHERN APPROACH) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. H. KIMBERsaid, he had no objection to the alteration proposed in this Bill. It could have been passed two or three years ago but for the action of certain enthusiastic individuals on the County Council, and the work contemplated would have been executed. London required it, and the labour of London might be usefully employed in executing it. But Spring Gardens had intimated that they did not intend to perform their duties in the execution of these great works unless Parliament would delegate to them the powers now reserved to Parliament to exercise—the powers of special taxation. The County Council had tacked to this Bill certain Betterment Clauses. They were of the same vicious character as those of the Bill of last year and Bills of previous Sessions. He need not detail the arbitrary proceedings or the drastic character of the Bill of last year. It was a code of special taxation. People's properties were to be taken from them, prospective improvements were to be valued seven years in advance, and people were to have the capital of their property taxed accordingly. Last year the Bill went to the House of Lords; and the County Council, assisted by the Government, using the forms of the House to prevent any real discussion on the merits of the Clauses, got the Bill passed. The Bill was sent to the House of Lords,
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who took the trouble to remove from it some of its injustices, and to make the principle of Betterment applicable in a more reasonable and just way. The House of Lords dealt in precisely the same way with the Manchester Corporation Bill, and the Manchester Corporation loyally accepted the Betterment Clauses as amended by the House of Lords. But the London County Council did not accept the Amendment of the House of Lords, and the consequence was, that this improvement so seriously needed by London was postponed again. They had now re-introduced the Betterment Clauses in precisely the same form as they did last year. He asked the Representatives of the County Council either to agree to an Instruction to the Committee which should deal with the Bill to consider whether or not the Betterment Clauses should be amended in the sense of the Lords' Amendments, or else to consent to the postponement of its further discussion until the same date as had been fixed for the previous Bill?
MR. J. STUARTsaid, the Representatives of the County Council could not undertake to make any such conditions as had been proposed. The Bill passed through the House in the form in which they now brought it forward. It went to the House of Lords, and they very materially altered it in certain places, more particularly in regard to the Compulsory Purchase Clause. They had felt it was not possible to accept that Clause, and, at the time, the Session was too far advanced for any interchange of opinion upon the subject between the two Houses. He wished to remind the House that the Senior Member for Manchester, in accepting the Bill with a similiar Amendment made by the House of Lords, said that he did so with great regret on behalf of his municipality, because the Betterment Clause had been destroyed, but they accepted the Bill because its other portions were so important to them. He sincerely hoped that, before this Bill went into the Committee Stage, some way might be found of avoiding a repetition of the bootless action of last Session, and of securing some Clause which would be acceptable to all parties.
SIR J. BLUNDELL MAPLE SIR J. BLUNDELL MAPLE moved that the Bill be read that day month,

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in order that these questions should be thoroughly talked over by the new Council, which would shortly come into power. It was a crying shame that thousands of workpeople in London should be kept waiting for work because of the persistency of the present County Council in trying to insert in their Bills a Betterment Clause.
*MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The proper course is to move the Adjournment of the Debate.
SIR J. BLUNDELL MAPLE: I simply move, then, that the Debate be adjourned.
MR. R. G. WEBSTERseconded this Motion. He understood that the total sum that would accrue to the County Council was only £5,000 if this Clause were carried, and he ventured to say that an amount not very far from that, sum had already been wasted in the Committee Rooms of the House. How did they know that the present majority of the London County Council would not be changed into a very considerable minority at the next Elections? In the interest of the ratepayers of London, he hoped the Motion would, if necessary, be pressed to a Division.
*MR. J. F. MOULTONsaid, it was with unmitigated delight that he heard the Motion for Adjournment on the ground that a majority of the Moderate Party might be elected at the County Council Elections in March, and that they would give up Betterment, because the language that was being used on the platform by Moderate Candidates was very different from this, and represented that both Parties were equally eager to relieve the burden of London in this respect. He submitted that there was not the slightest reason for the Adjournment of the Debate. It was degrading to the House to suggest that it was to be a condition for the Bill being allowed to be discussed in the Commons, that they should accept the form which the Lords had approved, and which the Commons had not. It was most important thatthese Bills should be read a second time early in the Session in order that there should be time to discuss this question.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAINthought it was much to be regretted that hon. Members should bring forward in that House purely
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electioneering matter. They were really discussing a matter of very considerable importance, which might be treated upon its merits. His hon. Friend who moved the adjournment of the Debate expressed what, he believed, was the general desire—that the County Council should get to work upon this matter at the earliest possible moment, in order that employment might be found for those who were so much in want; but then, if that was his object, surely it was hardly logical that he should proceed at once to move the Adjournment of the Debate. He believed that, on the merits of the case, the House was pretty generally agreed that the advantage of the improvement should go to the public and not to private authorities. Surely if the object of both Parties was the same, this was a question for the arranging of a compromise. His suggestion was, that his hon. Friend should withdraw this Amendment and allow the Bill to go before the Committee. The best thing would be to secure a Joint Committee of both Houses, and he thought that at the present stage they might easily come to an agreement. If this were done the result would be that this important improvement might almost immediately be put in hand to the great advantage of the people of London.
SIR J. B. MAPLEsaid, he had great pleasure in accepting his suggestion. No doubt it would be a great advantage to the working classes.
Amendment withdrawn.
Bill read 2º.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (VAUXHALL BRIDGE) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."—(Mr. J. Stuart.)
Motion agreed to.
Bill read 2º.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAMWAYS) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."—(Mr. J. Stuart.)
MR. H. KIMBERsaid, the Bill proposed to take over not only the whole of the Tramways of the Metropolis, but work them without limit as to time or conditions. He did not know whether it was the intention of the County Council to exercise that power if they got it to that unlimited extent. If it was their intention only to work the Tramways temporarily he should be quite content. He thought it was only reasonable that municipalities, having been endowed with the powers, and having the Tramways on their hands, would be at liberty temporarily to work them; but beyond the temporary working there was a strong objection on principle. This Bill proposed to introduce a large innovation in their system. The effect would be to make the London County Council the patrons of thousands—he might say tens of thousands—of persons who would be voters for the County Council. It would put into their hands a patronage which might be abused and very seriously impair the fair working of their institutions. There was a Bill now before the House backed by seven Members, five of whom sat on the opposite side, all bearing very respected names. The Bill seemed to be a tolerably fair Bill. It was headed "Tramways (Local Authorities) Bill." While it gave the municipalities power to obtain the Tramways it provided for the temporary working for a certain period until lessees could be obtained for them. He was not going to oppose the Bill, for with limitations he thought the Bill should pass. Perhaps these were matters more for a Committee, and if in order he should like to Move that these two Bills be referred to the same Committee. He hoped it would be a large Committee—larger than a Private Bill Committee. If these two Bills were put together a good Bill might be made out of them.
SIR J. B MAPLEdid not observe that the County Council took any power under the Bill to buy horses with which to work the tramways. He did not know if it was proposed to run the tramways without horses. It was comparatively easy to keep the rails from rising or falling below the level of the road, but when they came to the question of buying horses it was a very large affair. It would require a good
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deal of consideration. He thought the suggestion of his hon. Friend would be a very good one to follow.
*MR. G. HOWELLsaid, it was an unusual thing to propose that a Public Bill and a Private Bill should be referred to the same Committee. It was, he believed, altogether without precedent. What was proposed was no new thing. It was only new to London; many municipalities dealt, with it. Give to London municipal power under the Municipal Corporations Act and these difficulties as regards Legislation would cease.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read 2º.

NOTICES OF MOTION.
The Ballot for Motions by private Members having taken place,—
MR. S. T. EVANS: Upon a point of Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is it permissible for one hon. Member to put down the name of any other hon. Member on the Paper for a Notice of Motion?
*MR. DEPUTY SPEAKERwas understood to say that he was not aware of any irregularity.
MR. S. T. EVANS: I want to ask whether it is a fact that hon. Members have to-day put down the names fo other Members in large numbers?
[No answer was given.]

QUESTIONS.

  FOREIGN PLATE.
  SIR S. MONTAGU: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade—(1) whether he is aware that silver plate imported from abroad is stamped (contrary to the spirit of the Merchandise Marks Act) with Hall-marks identical with those used for British plate, with the addition only of the letter F; (2) whether he is aware that such plate is largely bought by the public as British plate, and is also re-exported as such; (3) whether he is aware that British manufacturers have expressed their desire that foreign plate should after assay be stamped with marks quite distinct from those used on British

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  plate; and (4) whether he will bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend existing Acts relating to Hall-marking?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BKYCK,): All imported gold and silver plate is required by law to be assayed on importation, and, if found to be of standard quality, it is then Hall-marked in the same way as British plate, but with the addition of the letter F. The design of mark on foreign plate can hardly be said to be contrary to the spirit of the Merchandise Marks Act, as it is neither calculated to deceive, nor a false trade description, within the meaning of that Act. The Board have received no evidence that such plate is largely bought or re-exported; or that there is a general demand by manufacturers for a more distinctive marking. Any change towards a more restrictive system of marking foreign plate could not be made without consideration of our Treaty obligations with countries importing British plate. As to a Consolidation Bill, I see no prospect of bringing in such a measure at present.

  THE BOMBAY CIVIL FUND.
  SIR H. S. KING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India—(1) whether his attention has been called to the fact that, under existing Rules of the Bombay Civil Fund, while the widow of a deceased subscriber receives £400 a year, and each daughter £100, and any daughter who came on the fund after 1865, receives a further bonus of £1,000 on marriage, no provision is made to give extra benefits to daughters, who, coming on the Fund in middle life, at 40 years, or over, have practically no expectations of marriage; (2) whether a memorial has been submitted to him by a lady, who stated that her father died in 1890, at the age of 85, having paid subscriptions to the Fund for 63 years, and his wife, having predeceased him, left four daughters on the Fund, whose ages ranged from 62 to 45, whose prospective chances of obtaining £1,000 by marriage she stated to be nil, and complaining that, although her father had made exceptional sacrifices to the Fund these daughters are excluded from a part of its benefits; and (3) whether, as under Sections 2 and 4 of the Bombay
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  Civil Fund Act, 1882, discretion is given to the Secretary of State to give additional benefits, if he shall deem it reasonable, he will exercise the discretion by arranging that a lady pensioner, coming on the Fund after a certain age may, by abandoning her claim to £1,000 on marriage, receive compensation in the shape of interest on that sum, to be added to her pension of —100 per annum.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,): The facts are as given in the hon. Member's first and second questions, but he is mistaken if he supposes, as he apparently does, that the pension of £100 to a married daughter continues after marriage. The donation of £1,000 is contingent on marriage, and the pension then ceases. An unmarried daughter has her pension during her life. As regards the third question, it was proposed to the subscribers of the Fund, before the passing of the Act of 1882, that the donations to sons on attaining majority, and to daughters on marriage, should be somewhat diminished, in order that children's pensions (including, of course, those of unmarried daughters) might be increased; but the members of the Fund declined to accept this suggestion; and it is not intended to propose any variation of the settlement which was then made, and was distinctly accepted as final.

  SEAL FISHERIES IN THE NORTH PACIFIC.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government of the United States have made a Convention or Treaty with Russia as to the seal fisheries in the North Pacific Ocean; and, if so, whether he can lay upon the Table a copy of the Convention or Treaty?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): An Agreement between the United States and Russia with regard to the fur seal fisheries in Behring Sea and the North Pacific Ocean was concluded in May last, and Her Majesty's Government learn that there is no present intention of altering or modifying it. Its chief provisions are similar

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  to those contained in the Agreement between this country and Russia, relative to the seal fisheries, the text of which will be found in the correspondence laid before Parliament in June 1893. [Russia No. 1, 1893.]
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: Is the Agreement limited in point of time?
  SIR E. GREY: My impression is, that it remains in force until cither party gives notice of its intention to change or modify it.

  THE VACCINATION COMMISSION.
  MR. T. L. WHARTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board when the Vaccination Commission concluded their sittings; whether he is aware that many Boards of Guardians are delaying taking any action with regard to unvaccinated children until the Report is published; and, will he explain what is the reason of the delay?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. G. J. SHAW-LEFEVRE,): I am informed that the Vaccination Commission have, practically concluded their evidence,, and have only their Report to consider. The delay in the conclusion of their inquiry is stated to be due to the very large amount of evidence received, and the time required to complete the investigations instituted by the Commission into the circumstances of particular outbreaks of Small-pox. I am aware that there, are cases where Boards of Guardians are delaying taking action with regard to unvaccinated children pending the publication of the Report, and I have been anxiously awaiting its issue?
  MR. WHARTON: May I ask whether, in view of the fact that a great number of Boards of Guardians are awaiting the Report, a circular could be sent to these Boards calling attention to the state of the law?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: They have been informed of the state of the law very often; but it is very difficult to call upon them to enforce it pending the Report of the Commission.
  MR. C. B. STUART -WORTLEY: Is it the fact that this Royal Commission was appointed seven years ago?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: No, it is not quite so bad as that. I think it is about four years since it was appointed.
  MR. WHARTON: May 1889.

  BEHRING SEA COMPENSATION.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he can give any information as to the payment of the sum of 425,000 dollars which the United States Government have undertaken to pay as compensation to sealers under the general award of the Behring Sea Arbitration; and, whether steps have been taken for the appropriation of this sum in Congress before its rising early in the month of March?
  SIR E. GREY: The President has, in his Message to Congress, recommended that, provision be made for the prompt payment of this sum, and Her Majesty's Ambassador has reported that there is no reason to doubt that, the sum in question will be appropriated before the rising of Congress.

  RAILWAY TO VICTORIA NYANZA.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the sum necessary for the construction of a railway from some port on the East Coast of Africa to the Victoria Nyanza Lake will be placed on the Estimates for this year; whether he can lay upon the Table any further Papers in reference to this important subject; and, whether such Papers will include any correspondence on the rumoured proposal to joint action by Germany and Great Britain in the construction of such a railway?
  SIR E. GREY: The Chancellor of the Exchequer answered the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question yesterday. The answer to the last part is that there are no further Papers to lay on this subject, nor has there been any proposal for joint action with Germany.

  PARCEL, POSTAGE.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether the minimum charge for a parcel posted to Australia is 1s. 6d. for any weight not exceeding 2 lb., as against a minimum charge of 10d. for 1 lb. to Canada, and 9d. for 1 lb. to Cape Colony; and, whether the minimum

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  weight transmitted to the British Possessions generally is 1lb., at an average rate of 8d. or 9d.; whether, under the new agreement with the French Government, a parcel weighing 11 lb. can be sent from this country to France by post for 2s. 2d., and whether a parcel of the same weight sent to Australia would cost 8s. 3d.; and, whether, in view of the low rates charged for ocean freightage, he will take steps for a reduction in the minimum of both weight and postage in the case of parcels for Australia?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY,): The hon. Member's information is substantially correct. Some months ago I approached the Australian Post Offices with a view to a revision of parcel postage in the direction indicated in the question; but they find the time inopportune for the sacrifice of revenue involved. The subject, however, will not be lost sight of.

  INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether the German Postmaster General, Dr. von Stephan, has proposed the summoning of an International Postal Conference, to consider the question, of introducing a common International postage stamp; whether the proposal has been accepted; and, if so, when and where such Conference will meet; if he can state the date at which the ordinary quinquennial Conference of the Postal Union, should assemble; whether that date has been postponed; and, if so, for what reason; and, when and where the Conference will meet?
  MR. A. MORLEY: I have no reason to suppose that such a proposal has been made; with reference to certain newspaper reports on this subject, it may be opportune to mention that Dr. von Stephen strenuously opposed such a proposal at the Vienna Postal Congress of 1891; the next Postal Union Congress is to be held at Washington in 1897. It has not been postponed.

  BALLYCOTTON PIER.
  CAPTAIN A. J. C. DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether he is aware that the fissures in the pier at Ballycotton, county Cork, are rapidly widening, and
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  that the storm-wall has opened out from the pier for more than half its length; whether he is also aware that, owing to the sinking of the pier, the roadway is covered in rainy weather with large pools of water from six to eight inches deep, and that about 40 square feet of the outer end is undermined to such an extent that it will probably soon fall into the sea; and, whether, in view of the absolute necessity of this pier for the safety of the Ballycotton fishermen, steps will be taken to secure it against further dilapidation?
  *THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,): No doubt my hon. and gallant Friend is already aware that the Grand Jury of county Cork are responsible for maintaining the pier in question, but the Board of Works have power, in cases of emergency, to execute necessary repairs and charge the cost on the county. The pier was inspected by the Board's Assistant Engineer last December, and again last month by the Coast Guard Officer. The former found that practically no movement had occurred in the Sea and Wharf Walls since the pier had been vested in the Grand Jury in 1888; and the Coast Guard Officer reported that the pier had sustained no damage from recent storms. I am advised that nothing has occurred since to warrant the belief that the stability of the work has in any sense been endangered. What I would suggest to my hon. and gallant Friend is that the fishermen of Ballycotton should memorialise the Grand Jury of Cork to maintain the pier in a proper state.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I inspeted the pier on the 3rd of last month, and that I can vouch for the substantial accuracy of the statements in the questions? and will he endeavour to make some arrangement with the Grand Jury in the county of Cork, who have very properly declined to take over the pier in its present condition.
  *SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The pier is already vested in the Grand Jury, who are now responsible for its maintenance. My suggestion is that the fishermen should themselves apply to the Grand Jury on the subject.

  DISCHARGES FROM THE ARMY.
  *SIR C. W. DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the, number of men discharged on completion of service and under Section 81 of the Army Act of 1881 was in 1893 greatly inferior to the number discharged as invalids, by purchase of their discharge, by the indulgence of a free discharge, as not likely to ever become efficient, on conviction, or for misconduct?
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,&c.): The number of men discharged from the Army on completion of their service and under Section 81 of the Army Act, is about double the number of those discharged on account of the other causes referred to in the question. The right hon. Baronet has apparently overlooked the men discharged on completion of their reserve service.

  THE ATLANTIC MAIL SERVICES.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that while some of the steamships of the White Star and Cunard lines employed to convey the British Mails from Liverpool to New York are fast boats, others are comparatively slow, and that there is a difference of two, three, or even four days in the passage; for instance, the mails despatched from London viâ Liverpool on January 23 were delivered at the same time as those despatched from London viâ Southampton on January 26; whether vessels of other lines sailing from Southampton two or three days later than the slow or "tramp" boots from Liverpool have constantly reached New York before or side by side with the latter; whether the British Post Office pays for the conveyance of letters to New York 3s. per pound to the boats leaving Liverpool whether slow or fast, and 1s. 8d. per pound to those leaving Southampton; and whether he will arrange to despatch the mails by fast boats exclusively, irrespective of the port of departure or the company to which they belong?
  MR. A. MORLEY: Full information in regard to the various steamship services to New York is regularly furnished to the House in the Paper
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  known as Sir John Leng's Return. The steamers carrying the two mails mentioned in the first paragraph reached New York on the same day, but information as to the arrival of the mails at the New York Post Office has not yet been received. It is the fact that, while the sea conveyance by German arid American steamers going direct from Southampton to New York is paid for at the Postal Union rate, 1s. 9½d. (not 1s. 8d.) a pound, a special rate of 3s. a pound is paid to the contractors for the British Packet Service, who are bound to despatch their steamers on fixed days and to call at Queenstown for the mails. The senders of letters can secure by special superscription the carriage of any letter by any steamer they may prefer to the mail steamer; and it is not proposed to alter the present arrangement by which letters not so superscribed are sent by the Contract Packets.

  CIVIL BILL COURTS IN IRELAND.
  MR. J. MAINS: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, will he explain why the Civil Bill Court Quarter Sessions of the Peace and Licensing Sessions, which were formerly held at Buncrana, where all the County Court business of the Innishowen district was transacted, have now been abolished, with the result that suitors and others have to go either to Letterkenny or Lifford, many miles distant, in order to have their cases heard; and, if inquiry will be made with a view to re-establishing the Buncrana Sessions, under 14 and 15 Vic., c. 57, s. 31?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,): My hon. Friend appears to have been misinformed in this matter. It is true that in 1892 certain changes were made in these Courts on the recommendation of the solicitors practising in the Lifford Division of the county; but the only effect of the changes was that the sittings should be held at Buncrana in Hilary and Michaelmas, and at Carndonagh in Trinity of each year. I shall be happy to hand a copy of the Gazette giving effect to these changes to the hon. Gentleman, if he so desire.

  THE WEIGHING OF CATTLE.
  MR. M. H. SHAW-STEWART: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he is aware that since the passing of the Weighing of Cattle Act, 1891, some auctioneers are erecting within their cattle marts weighbridges with automatic dials, the smallest divisions of which show only quarters of hundredweights, so that the weight of cattle cannot be ascertained to a pound; and, if he will ascertain whether Inspectors of Weights and Measures can accurately apply the test for sensitiveness on a dial weigh-bridge of which the smallest division marks 28 lbs., whereas under No. 55 of the Model Regulations, 1890, the test is that 2 lbs. should move the finger of a 2-ton weigh-bridge?
  MR. BRYCE: I am aware that some auctioneers prefer to use dial weighbridges graduated in the manner mentioned by the hon. Member, but the testing of such machines as to sensitiveness does not rest with the Board of Trade, but with the Local Authorities who appoint the Inspectors of Weights and Measures. The test for sensitiveness could not be properly applied unless the graduations on the dial were of sufficient width to indicate the limits of sensitiveness, and the Standards Department had called the attention of some Inspectors to this test.

  THE CHANNEL MAIL SERVICE.
  MR J. P. WILLIAMS: I beg to ask the President of the Hoard of Trade whether the contract for the conveyance of a portion of the mails between London and Paris is about to be given to a French Company; whether, to enable them to fulfil the same, the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company are to transfer the most modern portion of their fleet to the French Flag; and, whether Board of Trade Inspectors will continue to certify to the seaworthiness of the vessels in question?
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company that the day service of mails between London and Paris is paid for by the French Government, and that the vessels employed have always sailed under the French Flag. It appears that the existing Contract with the French Post Office will terminate next year, and that
  1084
  the French Government have determined to give the new one to the Northern of France Railway Company, it being a condition that the vessels employed should be built in France and owned by a French Company. The Board of Trade have no power to survey foreign vessels for passenger certificates, unless it is intended to carry passengers between places in the United Kingdom.
  MR. J. P. WILLIAMS: Do I understand that the Board of Trade will have no power to examine the vessels by which these mails are to be conveyed?
  MR. BRYCE: No, being French vessels, we cannot survey French vessels.
  MR. J. P. WILLIAMS: May I ask whether the Act of Parliament does not provide for a revision of the arrangements with the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company this year?
  MR. BRYCE: I cannot answer that, question without reference to the Statute, and in any case, it is a question for the Postmaster General.

  THE LOSS OF THE "ELBE".
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he can now state what steps have been or will be taken in reference to the wreck of the steamship Elbe, and the danger it offers to navigation and to the property of the fishing industry?
  MR. M. M. BODKIN: Before the President of the Board of Trade answers that question, may I ask him whether, having regard to the statement already made that there is no public fund available for this purpose, he did not think that the object indicated in the question may be fairly left to private enterprise, and possibly a company promoted for that object?
  MR. BRYCE: The question of my hon. Friend invites an expression of opinion from me which perhaps it would be scarcely in order for me to give. With regard to the question on the Paper the Trinity House inform me that they are not aware that the wreck of the Elbe constitutes a danger to navigation, and that the Mercantile Marine Fund is not applicable for the purpose of clearing away obstructions to fishing. The Board of Trade have no power whatever in the matter.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he did not inform me last week that he had a telegram from Lowestoft stating that one of the musts of the Elbe had been seen above the water, and whether, if that were so, whether it is not a danger to navigation and to the property of the fishermen, seeing that the wreck is situated in the very heart of the fishingbeds?
  MR. BRYCE: What I said last week was that I had telegraphic information that the captain of a fishing craft made that statement. I did not say it was a fact, and subsequent inquiry entirely failed to discover the projecting mast.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: Cannot a buoy be placed at the spot?
  MR. BRYCE: I have already told the hon. Member three or four times that the Board of Trade have no more power than he has in the matter.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: Have the Board of Trade no control over the Trinity Board?
  MR. BRYCE: No, Sir; none whatever.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: Don't they spend the Trinity Boards money?
  MR. BRYCE: No.

  THE DESIGN OF STEAMSHIPS.
  MR. TANKERVILLE CHAMBERLAYNE: I beg to ask the President of the hoard of Trade if he will consider the advisability of recommending shipbuilders (or of compelling them by legislation if that course should be deemed preferable), to construct, steamers with overhanging or raking stems as formerly, inasmuch as in the event of a collision the damage sustained from a vessel so constructed is almost always confined to those parts above the water line, whereas with the present ram-shaped bows a ship run into is almost certain to sink?
  MR. BRYCE: I should be very unwilling to interfere with the discretion of shipbuilders or shipowners, or to offer them advice as to the construction of their vessels. I would remind the hon. Member that the question of a sloping as opposed to a straight stem was brought by a witness under the notice of the Royal Commission on Loss of Life at Sea, but the Report of that Commission
  1086
  did not contain any recommendation upon this point, nor in fact, any reference to it.

  INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION IN WALES.
  MR. J. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, what is the present position of the scheme for the establishment of a Central Welsh Board of Intermediate Education?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. A. H. D. ACLAND,): When this scheme was submitted to the Education Department by the Charity Commissioners last year, it was thought best, to defer its consideration until the various county schemes had all become law, as, otherwise, difficulties might have arisen with regard to the constitution of the Central hoard. These county schemes have now all become law, with the exception of that for the County of Glamorgan, against which an Appeal has been made to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In view of the fact that several County Councils are already actively prosecuting work under the county schemes, and of the further delay which must occur before the reference to the Judicial Committee in the Glamorganshire case can be disposed of, I propose to reconsider the question whether it is desirable to delay the progress of the Central Scheme any longer.

  THE POLICE FORCE IN COUNTY WEXFORD.
  MR. THOMAS J. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, what is the number of extra police at present stationed in the County Wexford, and their cost to the county?
  MR. J. MORLEY: There are at the present moment 11 men of an extra forcer on the strength of the, police establishment in Wexford, and the cost of these men in the county is at the rate of about £370 per annum. It has been decided to entirely abolish this extra force as soon as arrangements can be made, and, in any case, before April 1 next.

  HAULBOWLINE DOCKYARD.
  MR. W. H. K. REDMOND (on behalf of the Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin (Mr. W. FIELD): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether provision has been made in this year's Estimate to increase the efficiency of Haulbowline Dockyard, so that it may be utilised to give the employment originally intended; whether any more training ships have been appointed for duty on the Irish coast; and whether the Naval expenditure in Ireland has been estimated in accordance with the increase of taxation and the rates expected by Irish taxpayers?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON,): As the subject to which the question relates will be more appropriately discussed when the Estimates, which will be laid on the Table next week, are before the House, I am not prepared to anticipate this discussion in answer to a question.
  *SIR C. W. DILKE: Can the hon. Gentleman say on what day?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: That I cannot say at present.

  IRISH LIGHTHOUSES.
  Mr. THOMAS J. HEALY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, what previous experience the Inspector of Lights of the Irish Lights Board had in the working of the different kinds of machinery used in Irish Lighthouses before his appointment to his present position; whether it is the case that he was a master mariner on board one of the Irish Lights Board steamers before his present appointment, where he could have gained no experience to qualify him for such appointment; and, whether it has been brought to his notice that the lighthouse keepers have to instruct him in the working of the lighting machinery when he makes his inspections?
  MR. BRYCE: The selection of their Officers by the Commissioners of Irish Lights is in no way under the control of the Board of Trade, but I am informed by the Commissioners that all machinery in connection with lights and fog signals is in charge, not of the Inspector of Lights, but of the Engineer. The Commissioners further inform me that the
  1088
  present Inspector, like his predecessor, was in command of one of their steamers, and that he held that command for 18 years before promotion to his present post.
  MR. T. J. HEALYasked whether any particular body had any authority over the Irish Lights Board?
  MR. BRYCEsaid, the Board of Trade had some authority over the Board in question, but not in regard to this point.
  MR. W. FIELDasked whether the right hon. Gentleman or the Government would bring in a Bill, as had been promised, to revise the constitution of the Irish Lights Board?
  MR. BRYCEdid not remember having made any such promise, but thought it might have been made by some one else—perhaps by the Chief Secretary.
  MR. TIMOTHY M. HEALYasked upon what points had the Board of Trade any authority over the Irish Lights Board?
  MR. BRYCE: That is a question which I think should be put upon the Paper.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I will put one to the right hon. Gentlemen on the subject.
  MR. T. J. HEALY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he is aware that the reserve provisions which, by an order of the Board of Trade, are required to be stored in Irish rock and island lighthouse stations on or before the 1st of October in each year, were not landed on the Slyne Head Lighthouse till the 24th of November, 1894, though the Irish Lights Commissioners sent their steamer round the Irish coasts in the month of August, 1894; and that there was plenty of room on board the steamer for the carriage of provisions; who is responsible for the disregard of the orders of the Board of Trade; and, whether he will direct an inquiry into the circumstances?
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed in a letter from the Commissioners of Irish Lights that it is customary for them to supply a reserve stock of provisions to rock lighthouses, before the commencement of each winter, and that these matters are regulated by them without reference to the Board of Trade, the officers of the Lighthouse service being responsible to the Commissioners for the proper discharge of their duties, with

  1089
  which, in the matter of the supply of reserve provisions to the Slyne Head Lighthouses, the Irish Lights Commissioners had no fault to find. In this matter the Irish Lights Commissioners are not responsible to the Board of Trade, and the Board of Trade have no power to issue such order as is referred to. I see no reason whatever for any inquiry.

  DISMISSAL OF AN INDIAN ARMY SURGEON.
  MR. W. S. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, if he is aware that Surgeon Major F. Clarence Smith has been dismissed by His Excellency the Governor of Madras upon certain written charges brought against him by Mr. Robert Clegg, a member of the Indian Civil Service, stationed at Combaconum; that Surgeon Major Smith has been refused a copy of the written charges against him on which the Governor has taken action; and that in a memorial submitted to the Madras Government by Surgeon Major Smith, he complains that he has been condemned unheard, and without any knowledge of what the charges are upon which he has been dismissed; if the matter has been referred home to the Secretary of State; and, if so, what has been the result; and if he will lay upon the Table of the House, copies of all correspondence between Surgeon Major Smith and the Government of Madras, and between them and the India Office?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: On the 18th of January, Surgeon Major Smith sent to the Government of Madras a memorial to the Secretary of State appealing against the decision of Madras Government in his case. The Government of Madras forwarded that memorial by the mail which arrived yesterday; the matter is therefore sub judice, and I do not think that it would be expedient for me to make any statement.

  ENGINE-ROOM ARTIFICERS.
  *MR. G. HOWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the Engine-Room Artificers in the districts of Chatham and Sheerness have been compelled to go to a particular shop or contractor for their uniforms, although such clothing is paid for by the men themselves, in violation of the Truck Acts
  1090
  (1 and 2 Will. IV., c. 37, s. 2, and 50 and 51 Vic., c. 46, s. 6); and, whether the Engine-Room Artificers will be permitted to purchase their own uniforms where they please, with their own money, without interference by the officials at those places; or, if not, whether the Government will supply the uniforms to the men without deductions from their pay?
  MR. W. ALLANasked whether these men could not receive their uniforms free?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: That is a matter which requires much consideration. With regard to the question on the Paper, the local order in force up to the end of last year, that Engine-Room Artificers entered at Sheerness and Chatham should obtain their uniforms from a firm who supplied such clothing in exact conformity with Admiralty regulations, has been rescinded. Engine-Room Artificers are now allowed to purchase their uniforms where they please, but, of course, if such uniforms are found to be not of the proper service pattern, the cost of replacing the same falls upon the men.

  THE FROST AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether he is aware that, in consequence of the present severe state of the weather, and the state of the roads in scattered rural districts, the attendance of the children in such districts, where they are compelled to go some distance to the elementary school, is very seriously affected, as compared with urban schools; whether, notwithstanding, the register has to be marked, thereby adversely affecting the grant; and, whether he will consider the desirability of modifying the existing regulation under such special circumstances as at present exist?
  MR. ACLAND: I am aware of the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Member. Country schools at a time like this certainly need lenient treatment. I think, however, that the case will be adequately met by the measures I have already mentioned. In cases where schools have been, necessarily closed in consequence of the severity of the weather, a proportionately smaller number of school meetings than the 400 now required as a minimum will be

  1091
  accepted as qualifying for the grant; and I am issuing instructions to Her Majesty's Inspectors that, in assessing the grants, they should judge leniently schools now shortly to be inspected, whose efficiency has been temporarily impaired in consequence of irregular attendance caused by the recent inclement weather.

  THE "SPECIAL CAMPAIGN PENSION."
  MR. J. W. LOWTHER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether one of the qualifications required from a candidate for a "Special Campaign Pension" is that he must be destitute of means of support; and, whether he can see his way to abrogate this condition, which gives a preference to the thriftless, and throw the pensions open to old soldiers who comply with all the other conditions prescribed?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The conditions under which this special compassionate pension is granted are at present under my careful consideration.

  INDIAN RAILWAYS.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that in the Administration Report on the Railways of India for 1893–4 there is a schedule of railways lately surveyed, at present under survey, or recently put forward for consideration, in all amounting to a mileage of 6,167; whether, during the next three years, he has authorised the construction of 2,000 miles; and whether, in view of the serious depression in the iron, coal, and other industries, and the lack of employment in this country, and the large amount of unemployed capital, the Government proposes to authorise the whole of the above mileage to be immediately constructed.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: My answer to the hon. Member's first question is in the affirmative. The total mileage now under construction or sanctioned is about 2,600, of which about 1000 miles are included in the schedule to which the hon. Member refers. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to proceed with the construction of railways in India as rapidly as the resources of the Government of India will permit, and, at the same time, to make use of
  1092
  private agencies for that purpose whenever suitable terms can be arranged.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTERasked whether the Government could not see their way to giving an Imperial guarantee for the construction of railways in India, in the same way that an Imperial guarantee was given some years ago for the same purpose?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: That is just a point to which we do not see our way.

  RAILWAYS IN AFRICA.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government, under Treaties with the Great Powers, have agreed to promote railways in Africa to develope that country, he is in a position to inform the House what steps the Government propose to take this Session in this matter?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): I do not agree in the accuracy of the hon. Gentleman's premise in regard to the Brussels General Act. But I may state that as regards West Africa the construction of Railways in the West African Colonies is under careful consideration. Surveys have been made at Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, and are now in course of execution at Lagos. If it be finally decided that railways are practicable and expedient at these places they will probably be constructed by the Colonies concerned at their own cost; and there will, therefore, be no occasion nor necessity to come to Parliament with respect to them. As regards South Africa, the House had already been informed that Her Majesty's Government arrived last year at an agreement with the British South Africa Company and the Bechuanaland Railway Company, whereby, on the completion of sections of the line of railway through the Bechuanaland Protectorate, a subsidy would be given by the Bechuanaland Government to the line, and, within certain limits of time, it rests with those Companies to commence the work. The Natal railway is being extended to Johannesburg under agreement between the Natal Government and the South African Republic; and permission has lately been given to certain gentlemen in Natal to make a

  1093
  railway from the Natal border into zululand.

  THE BURMESE CIVIL SERVICE.
  MR. W. S. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, if his attention has been called to an official Circular recently addressed by the Chief Commissioner of Burma to the Members of the Civil Service throughout the province, remonstrating with them with regard to the practice which had become prevalent of contracting illicit alliances with Burmese women, and speaking of it as a public scandal; and, if he is able to lay a copy of the Circular upon the Table of the House?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I have heard nothing of any Circular on the subject to which my hon. Friend's question refers; but, since that question was put down, my attention has been called to a newspaper report of a speech by the Chief Commissioner with the purport of which, as there reported, I entirely agree. From this speech it would appear that he has "semi-officially" and confidentially addressed some of his officers on the subject. If it is true that such a document was issued, and that it was confidential and not official, it is not likely that it will be published either in India or in this country.

  SLAUGHTER OF KINE IN INDIA.
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURN,: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he can now state what answer has been given by the Government of India to the memorial of Sir W. Hudson, President of the Behar Planters' Association, dated 28th January 1894, on the subject of the slaughter of kine in India; whether Mr. Arthur Rogers' scheme recommended in that memorial, for restoring friendly relations between the Mahomedans and Hindus, has been considered by the Government of India and reported on as requested by the Secretary of State in his despatch of 3lst May last; whether the Viceroy in Council has approved of Mr. Rogers' scheme, and that it has been partially introduced by two Local Governments; whether he is aware that Mr. Rogers has been dismissed from his appointment as an engineer on the Bengal and North
  1094
  Western Railway; and, whether he will explain the reasons for Mr. Rogers' dismissal, and will lay upon the Table of the House a memorial from Mr. Rogers in which he sets forth the facts of his case and prays for inquiry and redress?
  *MR. H. H. FOWLER: A question similar to that of my hon. Friend was put in the Legislative Council of the Viceroy on the 25th January last. Sir Antony MacDonnell, the Member of Council in charge of the Home Department, stated in reply that Mr. Rogers' scheme, though not brought before the Government in the regular way, had been brought under their notice un-officially; that the Government of India had made no use of Mr. Rogers' remedy, and that it appeared to them to contain no proposals of a practical character which the Government of India had not adopted independently of it. I believe that Mr. Rogers was for about four years in the service of the Bengal North Western Railway Company as an Assistant Engineer and that his services have been dispensed with by that Company. In consequence of an allegation by Mr. Rogers that he had been dismissed from the service of the Railway Company through pressure alleged to have been exercised upon them by the Governments of Bengal and the North West Provinces and Oudh, I am informed by the Government of India that, so far as they are aware, the Board of the Bengal and North Western Railway Company has dispensed with Mr. Rogers' services for its own reasons, and that
  "no pressure was brought upon it either by the Government of Bengal, or that of the North Western Provinces and Oudh or by the Government of India in the matter".
  I observe that Sir Antony MacDonnell made a statement in the Legislative Council to the same effect.

  RAILWAY TO VICTORIA NYANZA.
  MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he is aware that an agreement has been signed between the German Colonial Office, the German East Africa Company, and a syndicate of banking firms, for the commencement of a railway from the German East African Coast to Central Africa, the Victoria Nyanza, and Lake Tanganyika; and, whether in view of Sir Gerald Portal's

  1095
  statement in his Report on Uganda, that there exists in that country a demand for such articles as cotton cloths of best qualities, and that if the present system of transport is continued the demand will be supplied from German sources, and by the German route, the Government will, in the interests of British trade, undertake the construction of the railway as recommended by Sir Gerald Portal?
  SIR E. GREY: The construction of a railway from Tanga by a German firm has been begun, but we are not aware of any agreement such as that referred to.
  MR. YERBURGHasked whether, in view of the great depression existing at the present time, the Government would reconsider their determination with a view to opening up a fresh market for British trade?
  SIR E. GREYsaid he could not promise to reconsider the answer which the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave yesterday.

  SAVING LIFE AT SEA.
  MR. H. S. FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is the fact that, while those who rescue property at sea are entitled to salvage money, there if no legal right for the recovery of any money payment in respect of the saving of life, even though the rescuers incur actual money loss in their successful efforts, often at the greatest personal risk?
  MR. BRYCE: Sections 544 and 545 of the Merchant Shipping Act not only provide for the payment of salvage for saving life, but lay down that such salvage, when payable, shall have priority over all other claims for salvage. But in the case of claims against owners, it has been held that a claim for life salvage can only be sustained when some portion of the property has also been salved.
  MR. FOSTERasked whether the Board of Trade, in the event of property being insufficient to cover expenses had not the power to pay such sums, as might in their discretion seem fit, out of the Mercantile Marine Fund?
  MR. BRYCEsaid that was so.
  MR. J. C. MACDONAasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that a coroner's inquest was held a short time
  1096
  since on a body drawn out of the Thames at Rotherhithe, which when taken out was quite warm, and, whether the present arrangement under which payment was only made for the recovery of a dead body did not practically amount to prohibition upon attempts to save life?
  MR. BRYCE: That seems to relate to a different matter, but I will answer a question if the hon. Member places one on the Paper.

  THE INDIAN LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been directed to the statement of His Excellency the Viceroy of India, in the Debate in Council on the Indian Tariff Bill, as published at page 53 of the Indian Tariff Act Blue Book, that members of the Indian Legislative Council are only free to speak and vote in the Council for the measure they honestly think best, when that is in accordance with the "mandate" they have received from London; whether he is aware that the late Right Honourable Sir Barnes Peacock and other Authorities on Indian Constitutional Law have denounced that doctrine as an infringement of the rights and privileges of the Council; and, whether, seeing that the Secretary of State for India, in a Despatch dated 15th October, 1874, distinctly stated that the object of the instructions given to the Government of India on this subject was not to fetter the discretion which the Law has vested in the various Legislative Authorities of India, the doctrine now laid down by the Viceroy of India was sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: The question of the hon. Member raises the important and delicate subject of the relations between the Government of India on the one hand and the Home Government and Parliament on the other. It is impossible within the limits of an answer to deal in a satisfactory manner with this matter; I will, therefore, merely say that at the proper time I shall be prepared to main tain that the course which has been taken by Her Majesty's Government and by the Viceroy upon recent occasions is in strict accordance both with the Acts of Parliament regulating the Government of India and with the constitutional and

  1097
  uniform practice under those Acts. In order that the leading precedents may be known to the House, I propose to lay upon the Table the relevant portions of a Despatch of the Duke of Argyll, dated 24th November, 1870, and three I despatches of Lord Salisbury, dated, respectively, 31st March, 1874, 15th October, 1874, and 31st May, 1876, in which the relative positions of the Secretary of State and the Government of India were clearly laid down.

  THE INDIA TARIFF ACT.
  SIR HENRY JAMES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he has received a copy of the Memorial of the Bombay Millowners presented to the Council of the Governor General of India, mentioned at page 24 of the Papers relating to the India Tariff Act; or of the letter of the Secretary to the Millowners' Association of Bombay, dated 10th September, 1894, mentioned at page 27; or of the Memorial and telegram from the Bombay Millowners' Association, mentioned at page 30; and, if he is in possession of copies of such documents, whether he has any objection to make them public?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: The references cited in the first and second clauses of my hon. Friend's question appear to refer to the same representation from the Bombay Millowners' Association. I also have seen the telegram dated the 19th December, cited in the third clause. There is no objection to laying these Papers on the Table if they are desired.
  MR. J. H. MADEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether his attention has been called to a telegram from The Times correspondent at Calcutta, in which he says that it appears that all the mills in India except one had ceased manufacturing counts above 20s.; and, whether, under these circumstances, he still expects to collect any appreciable amount as excise duties?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I have seen the telegram, which apparently refers to the Calcutta mills output only. I have no official information on the subject.
  MR. J. H. MADEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will place upon the Table copies of the Memorials sent with Sir James Westland's Despatch of 21st March, 1894?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I have no objection to placing on the Table copies of Papers received with the Government of India Despatch of the 21st March, 1894.

  NATIVE RISING IN NIGER PROTECTORATE.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information as to the reported rising of Natives in the Niger Protectorate; whether the Natives who made the attack on Akassa have since then threatened to attack Brass; and what preparations have been made to support the authority of Her Majesty's Commissioner, Sir Claude MacDonald?
  SIR E. GREY: An attack has been made on the establishment of the Royal Niger Company at Akassa by a large number of natives of Brass and other neighbouring tribes. Some of the native employés of the Company were killed. No European lives were lost, but two officers of the Company's police have been severely wounded. We have no corroboration of the reports of intended attacks on Brass, which is well garrisoned. Her Majesty's Commissioner, who has under his command an efficient police force, is supported by the presence of the Admiral commanding the West African Station with a portion of his squadron and by the forces and armed vessels of the Niger Company.

  THE NEW ZEALAND LOAN AND MERCANTILE AGENCY.
  *MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade—(1) whether his attention has been given to the statement made by Mr. Justice Vaughan Williams, on 19th March 1894, in dealing with the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, that the report of the Official Receiver suggested two distinct frauds; that the Official Receiver had delayed his report too long, the Winding-up Order having been made on 21st July 1893, and the report not having been delivered till 15th February 1894; and that the Board of Trade has expressly claimed to control the discretion of the Official Receivers, both in respect of the expression of their opinion as to fraud having been

  1099
  committed and in respect of the presentation of their reports to the Court; and (2) whether the Board of Trade does now claim or does now exercise any control, and, if so, what control, over the Official Receivers in these two respects?
  MR. BRYCE: In reply to the last paragraph of the question, I have to state that the Board of Trade do not claim or exercise any control over Official Receivers in reference either to the contents of their reports to the Court, under Section 8, or the time of their presentation, beyond that of calling the attention of Official Receivers to any delays which may take place in presenting such reports, and communicating to them any observations or suggestions which may occur to the Department, with a view to ensuring that the Court is placed in possession of all the material facts and circumstances of the case. I may add, with reference to the alleged delay in presenting the report in the case referred to, that the Official Receiver states:—
  "that he was unable to lodge his report at an earlier date in consequence of the complicated nature of the facts and the extent of the preliminary investigations which he had to conduct in order to elicit all the facts which were necessary for framing his report; but that the report was presented in accordance with his usual practice shortly after the first meeting of creditors, and as soon as he was in a position to do so."
  *MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: Is it not a fact that the Judge stated that there had been delay, and that he threatened to commit the Official Receiver, if he did not present a report?
  MR. BRYCE: These matters engaged the attention of the Board of Trade before I took Office; and I have not had an opportunity of examining all the records. I have given all the information asked for in the question.
  *MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: But the right hon. Gentleman is the representative of the Board of Trade, and I claim the right of asking what the Department is doing in the matter.
  MR. BRYCE: I have told the hon. Member what the position of the Board of Trade is. He cannot expect me to answer off-hand questions relating to what happened before I took Office. If he desires further information he must ask for it in the usual way.

  BOARD OF TRADE STEAMERS.
  SIR T. SUTHERLAND: I
  1100
  beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, what is the total cost at the present time for all purposes of the establishment, in connection with the Board of Trade steamer Gadfly, on the Clyde, and The Midge, on the Thames; and, whether the whole of such cost, or, if not, what part thereof, is charged to the Mercantile Marine Fund?
  MR. BRYCE: The total cost for the year ending 31st March last, of the establishment in connection with the Board if Trade steamer Gadfly on the Clyde, was £1,264; and that of the two launches Mantis and Midge, on the Thames, was £2,716. The whole of the cost is charged to the Mercantile Marine Fund.

  THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEY: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education what special duties Mr. Sadler has been appointed to carry out in the Education Department; whether he is the same gentleman who succeeded the right hon. Gentleman as Bursar of Christ College, Oxford; whether the appointment was open to competition or examination by the Civil Service Commissioners; and, under what sub-head the salary for the office was voted by Parliament?
  MR. ACLAND: The work of the Director of Special Inquiries and Reports, to which post Mr. Sadler has been appointed, will be to collect and record much information on educational matters at home and abroad of which the Department is constantly in need. Reports based on his inquiries will be published from time to time under the direction of the Department. The appointment, like other similar appointments in the Education Department and elsewhere, was direct and not by competition. The salary will be in the Estimates of this year under a special sub-head in the Education Vote. There is no Christ College at Oxford: the name is Christ Church, and the office mentioned is that of Steward, not Bursar. Mr. Sadler was appointed by the governing body to succeed me in that office when I left Oxford ten years ago. What this has to do with the subject I do not know. Mr. Sadler, as secretary of the University Extension Delegacy of the University, and in other ways, has rendered most distinguished services to education in this

  1101
  country, which are so well known that I need not add anything on this subject myself.
  SIR H. ROSCOE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the appointment of Mr. Sadler has not received general approval from those interested in educational questions.
  MR. ACLAND: So far as I have the means of knowing, I believe the appointment has received the assent and cordial approval of persons interested in Education.
  MR. BARTLEY: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman claims the right to appoint somebody to an office the creation of which has not been approved by Parliament, and for which no salary has been voted, and that without going through the ordinary routine of reference to the Civil Service Commissioners?
  MR. TIMOTHY M. HEALY: Can the right hon. Gentleman give this House the assurance that Mr. Sadler can spell a word of two syllables?
  MR. ACLAND: The appointment has been made in the same way as many similar appointments.

  POOR LAW AND DISTRESS FUNDS.
  *MR. J. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, under what section of the Poor Law Acts the officials of the Local Government Board based their refusal of the application recently made by the Clerk to the Portsea Union Guardians for leave to vote £500 from the rates to the Mayor's Fund for the relief of distress in Portsmouth?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: The powers of Boards of Guardians in regard to their expenditure are defined by statute; and I was advised that there is no statutory enactment which authorises such an expenditure as was proposed by the Portsmouth Guardians, and that consequently it would be illegal.
  *MR. KEIR HARDIE: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that under the Act 15 Vic., c. 105, Section 4, it is provided that the Poor Law Guardians may pay out of the common fund any sum of money, as an annual subscription towards the support and maintenance of any institution, which appears to the, Guardians to be calculated
  1102
  to render useful aid in their administration of relief to the poor, and whether the Mayor's Fund would not be covered by this section of the Act?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: I have not in my mind the clause referred to; but in the opinion of the Local Government Board, a Board of Guardians would not be justified in handing over money raised by rate to be distributed by another body in on way responsible to the Guardians?
  *MR. KEIR HARDIE: May I ask whether, in view of the present exceptional circumstances, the Local Government Board would be prepared to look with a lenient eye on an application of this kind?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: I am simply bound by the law, and I cannot authorise a payment outside the limits allowed by law.

  ARMY RESERVISTS.
  MR. C. E. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the Army Reservists will be entitled on 1st April next to the sum of £1. 10s. 8d., a quarter's pay, and also to £3 deferred pay (from 1st April 1894 to 1st April 1895); and whether he could make arrangements for them to receive at once, say, half their pay, in view of the privations they are suffering from the inclemency of the season?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The money payable on the 1st April to men of the Army Reserve, is included in the Estimate for the next financial year, and there are no funds now available for such a service.

  LOTTERY CIRCULARS.
  MR. C. E. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, whether he has been able to formulate a plan to prevent the transmission through the Post Office of lottery circulars from other countries which periodically flood this country, whilst similar lottery adventures are illegal in Great Britain and Ireland?
  MR. A. MORLEY: The question of preventing the transmission of lottery advertisements through the Post is receiving very careful attention from my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and myself, But I am not at the present moment in a position to announce the decision of the Government on the subject.

  THE ENGLISH AND IRISH PHARMA- CEUTICAL SOCIETIES.
  MR. TIMOTHY M. HEALY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether members of the Irish Pharmaceutical Society are as eligible for appointments for Dispenserships under the Local Government Board as members of the English Pharmaceutical Society; and, if not, will they be placed on the same footing?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: I am advised that it is open to doubt whether members of the Irish Pharmaceutical Society are eligible for appointment to the Dispenserships referred to. I shall be happy to consider whether the regulations affecting the appointment of these officers should be altered in this respect.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Who has started a doubt in this case affecting the status of the Irish Society's members?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: That I cannot say; but I know there is a doubt upon the subject, and I shall be happy to remove it.

  EXTRA POLICE IN COUNTY LIMERICK.
  MR. M. AUSTIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if steps are being taken to relieve the County Limerick from the tax for extra police, as, according to resolution passed at last Presentment Sessions, such extra force is wholly unnecessary, and which is borne out by the remarks of the County Court Judge.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The extra force charged to the County Limerick has been reduced by l5 men, dating from the 1st inst. A further reduction of five men has been decided on, and will shortly be carried out. The total reduction (20) is equivalent to a relief to county rates to the extent of about £650 per annum. No further reduction is practicable at present.

  DISTRESS IN COUNTY LIMERICK.
  MR. M. AUSTIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he has received resolutions from the Newcastle West and Rathkeale Boards of Guardians, and the Fairs and Markets Association of Newcastle West, as well as a memorial from the residents of Glin, County Limerick, directing attention to the great distress prevailing
  1104
  among the labourers and small farmers in the western parts of the county, and urging the opening of relief works to meet the present deplorable condition of the working classes in these districts; and what steps, having regard to the critical condition of the people, the Government are taking in the matter.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The resolutions referred to have been received by the Local Government Board. There is no doubt that, owing to the exceptionally severe weather during the past few weeks, the poorer class, and especially those living in towns, have been reduced to great straits and have suffered much. The relieving officer of the Newcastle West Union has relieved provisionally those requiring assistance, and this officer may be relied upon to see that no persons suffer from actual want of food. The Local Government Board will instruct their inspector to attend the next meeting of the Guardians and consult with them as to the advisability of applying for authority to relax the restrictions on outdoor relief for a short period.

  THE BOROUGH OF CHARD.
  MR. E. STRACHEY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board why there has been so much delay in granting the application of the Town Council of Chard for an Order conferring on that Council the powers under Section 33 of the Local Government Act, 1894; and, whether this delay has been caused by any action of the Charity Commissioners?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: The Local Government Board had under consideration the application made in the case of the Borough of Chard for vesting in the Town Council powers under Section 33 of the Local Government Act, 1894. But they have been advised that the resolution which was passed is insufficient, and that it is requisite that an application by a further resolution should be made. The Town Council were informed of this on the 6th inst.

  VALUERS AND COUNTY COUNCILS.
  MR. W. H. LONG: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he is aware that the Executive Committee of the County Councils Association has ex-

  1105
  pressed the opinion that the office of Valuer is a place of profit under the County Council, and that persons accepting the appointment will be disqualified from acting as County Councillors on the County Council appointing them; if so, has the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown been taken on this point; and, if that opinion accords with that of the Executive Committee above named, will the Government take steps to remove the disqualification?
  MR. SHAW-LEFEVRE: I was not aware of the opinion stated to have been given by the Executive Committee of the County Councils Association; and the Local Government Board have not taken the opinion of the Law Officers on the point. Assuming that a Valuer is disqualified, I could not undertake to propose legislation for the purpose of removing the disqualification.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION.
  MR.L. P. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has taken any, and what, steps to change the present constitution of the Land Commission; and whether, if he does not at present possess the necessary power to make such changes, lie will insert provisions in the forthcoming Land Dill to enable him to do so.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The Judicial Commissioner has the status and tenure of office of a Judge of the Supreme Court. The other Land Commissioners have the status and tenure of office of County Court Judges, subject to this qualification, however—that they are removable by the Lord Chancellor for inability or misbehaviour. The Assistant Commissioners have the status of permanent Civil Servants. The constitution of the Land Commission was so fixed by the Land Acts of 1881 and 1891. It probably will become necessary to appoint additional Assistant Commissioners.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: When do you expect to be able to introduce the Land Purchase Bill?
  MR. J. MORLEY: We have already announced the introduction of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill for Thursday, and, as soon as that is disposed of, subject to general changes, we shall follow it up immediately with the Irish Land Bill.

  DUBLIN MAIN DRAINAGE.
  MR. W. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is in a position to state if the details of the Main Drainage Question are near a settlement; and whether there is any prospect of the work being commenced early this season?
  *MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I assume that the hon. Member refers to Dublin. There is not, at present, any question outstanding as to the Dublin drainage between the, War Department and the Corporation. Arrangements as to the work and its commencement rest entirely with the Corporation.

  BOERS AND SWAZIS.
  *SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether the Swazi Queen Regent and Council have refused to issue the Organic Proclamation handing their country over to Boer rule, and have thrown themselves upon the protection of the British Government; (2) whether the Boers have the right, under the Convention of December 1894, to use force to compel the submission of the Swazis; and (3) whether Her Majesty's Government will permit our Swazi allies, whose independence Great Britain has affirmed in three solemn Conventions, to be forcibly subjugated by the Boers.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The Swazi Queen Regent and Council on the 15th inst., at their meeting, declined to sign the draft Organic Proclamation recommended for their acceptance. They asserted that they belonged to the Queen, a statement which is entirely incorrect; as Her Majesty's Government are precluded by Treaty engagements from declaring a Protectorate over Swaziland. Under the Convention of 1894 the South African Republic will be responsible for peace and order in Swaziland. Her Majesty's Government trust that the Swazis will be wisely and prudently guided by the white men who have assumed the responsibility of advising them, and that they will peacefully accept a settlement in which Her Majesty's Government have been careful to safeguard all Native interests. As regards the third question I do not admit the assumption on which it is based; I endeavoured to explain to the House

  1107
  the other day, that the allegation that the Independence of Swaziland was guaranteed to the Swazis is unfounded. Under the Convention in question the two Powers interested each pledged itself to the other not to interfere in Swaziland without the assent of the other. As a matter of fact the independence of the Swazis has practically ceased to exist since 1888. I would point out that under the new Convention, Swaziland is not incorporated in the South African Republic; and that the King of Swaziland will remain Paramount Chief of the Swazis in Swaziland with the usual powers of such Paramount Chief. The management of the internal affairs of the Natives shall be in accordance with their own laws and customs, and the Native laws and customs will be administered by the Native Chiefs entitled to administer the same, in so far as the said laws and customs are not inconsistent with civilised laws and customs; and the Natives are guaranteed in their continued use and occupation of land now in their possession, and of all grazing or agricultural rights to which they are at present entitled. Further, a special officer will be appointed by the South African Republic to administer Swaziland who will be selected in communication with the High Commissioner. Finally, a British Consul will be appointed to reside in Swaziland.
  *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERasked—(1) whether, in the event of the Boers using force to subjugate our former allies, Her Majesty's Government would permit British subjects or persons of English birth to be forcibly trepanned and compelled to take part in the military operations against their will, as was the case on a recent occasion; and (2) whether, in the event of British subjects offering armed assistance to the Swazis in the protection of their liberties, they would be violating any Act of Parliament.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The last paragraph of the question involves a legal matter which I could not deal with without notice. The rest of the question is purely hypothetical, and the hon. Member would hardly expect me to answer the points raised seriatim. As to whether British subjects will be commandeered for any expedition against the Swazis or anyone else, the hon. Member must be fully aware that under
  1108
  the terms of the Convention which we have negotiated with the South African Republic British subjects are practically exempt from compulsory commandeering.
  *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Do I understand, then, that prior to the Convention it would have been within the power of the Boers legally to commandeer British subjects.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I do not think this arises out of the original question. If the hon. Member wants information, I may say that, until the new Convention, which we negotiated the other day, British subjects were liable to be commandeered, but by the Convention they are now exempted.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELLasked whether the Convention required any ratification, and, if so, whether it had been ratified by the Volksraad?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It will ultimately require ratification by the Volksraad, but we have the assurances not only of President Kruger, but of the Volksraad, that the Convention, which has been signed, will come into force and remain in force until ratified by the Volksraad, which ratification we expect will take place in a month or so.
  *SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked whether the hon. Gentleman was understood to say that the Government of Great Britain was precluded by Treaty from protecting the Swazis or assuming a Protectorate over them?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: That is so. In March 1890, the late Mr. W. H. Smith, then Leader of the House, was questioned on the subject, and he said it would be a breach of Article 12 of the Convention of 1884 to establish a British Protectorate over Swaziland without the consent of the South African Republic.
  *SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked whether the Boers were not equally bound by the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 not to interfere with the independence of the Swazis?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Certainly. They are bound not to interfere without the assent of Her Majesty's Government.
  *SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked whether in view of the statement just made, and the fact that the freedom of some 70,000 people was now at stake, the British Government would allow the Boers to subjugate Swaziland by force.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It is a hypothetical question, which, as I have already said, I cannot answer.
  *SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I must press for an answer. The question is not hypothetical.

  WORK IN THE TELEGRAPH FACTORIES.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, if he will state the percentage reduction in the hours to be worked by the men employed in the Telegraph Factories of Holloway and Mount Pleasant from 1st March next over those worked now; whether the hours under the new system will be the same each day throughout the year; what will be the maximum hours (including meal times) in any one day from the commencement to the leaving off of work; and, whether overtime will be allowed under any circumstances?
  MR. A. MORLEY: Speaking generally, the reduction in the hours to be worked by the men employed in the Telegraph Factories at Holloway and Mount Pleasant is from 54 to 48 hours per week, being about 11 per cent. As far as I can at present say, the hours will be the same each day from Monday to Friday throughout the year, with a short day on Saturday. The maximum hours, excluding overtime, but including an hour for dinner, will not exceed 9¾ at either factory; but I cannot bind myself to any precise details at present. The hon. Member will see that I could not undertake that overtime will not in any circumstances be worked, but it is intended to avoid it as far as possible.

  THE CROFTERS' ACT.
  SIR D. H. MACFARLANE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, if he proposes to postpone the introduction of the Bill to amend the Crofters' Act until after the publication of the Report of the Deer Forest Commission; and, if so, will he explain on what grounds?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. O. TREVELYAN,): I do not propose to introduce the Bill to amend the Crofters' Act until after the publication of the Report.
  1110
  The Commission has, with great expenditure of time and labour, made a complete survey of the seven counties, and have obtained in the course of so doing a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the Highlands. Their Report, and the maps which accompany it, will be of great value, and fresh legislation on the Crofter question should not be laid before the House until the Report is in the hands of Members.

  INSPECTION OF MINES.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the extent of the districts over which the present inspectors of coal mines in South Wales and Monmouthshire exercise supervision, the especially dangerous character of the collieries in those districts, and the very large number of persons employed, he will consider the advisability of appointing sub-assistant inspectors of mines from amongst the workmen to assist the inspectors in their duties?
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. G. W. E. RUSSELL,): My hon. Friend asked a similar question to this last August, when the Secretary of State told him that he had appointed two men of practical experience as workmen to be assistant inspectors of quarries and metalliferous mines; that he could not then go further; but, although he could not give any pledge as to the future, he would give full consideration to his and other representations on the subject. I am sorry that I cannot at present add anything to what was then said by the Secretary of State.

  THE LIGHT RAILWAY ACT 1889.
  MR. R. A. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether three routes for a proposed Light Railway from Belmullet to Ballina have been surveyed, only one of which has been condemned, and that on the ground of expense; and, whether, seeing that such a Light Railway would open up the harbours of Broadhaven and Blacksod, either of the said harbours being capable of accommodating a large fleet of first-class battleships, he will, in view of the

  1111
  advantages, local and Imperial, which such railway offers, recommend its being constructed?
  *MR. D. CRILLYasked, whether the Bill to be introduced on the 21st inst., by the President of the Board of Trade, giving facilities for the formation of Light Railways in Great Britain, would be applicable to Ireland; and, if so, when was there a likelihood of Light Railways being constructed under its provisions?
  *SIR JOHN HIBBERT: I am not acquainted with the circumstances stated in the first paragraph, and as the notice has been so short, I have not had time to make inquiries; but I may say that, so far as the Government is concerned, the funds under the Light Railways Act 1889 are exhausted, and I could not hold out hope of assistance to such a line as is mentioned. I am informed that the Bill about to be introduced by the Government will not apply to Ireland.
  MR. CRILLYasked whether, before the introduction of the Bill, in view of the distress in Ireland, and the great demand for the construction of Light Railways, the facilities offered for their construction in Great Britain would be extended to Ireland?
  MR. J. MORLEY,replied that the conditions of Ireland were so entirely different from those of other parts of the Kingdom, that he was afraid it was quite impossible.

  FLOODS IN THE THAMES VALLEY.
  VISCOUNT CURZON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether the Government propose to institute any inquiry into the recent disastrous floods in the Thames Valley, with a view to ascertaining what steps can be taken for their prevention or diminution in future; and, whether they are aware that the powers at present invested in the Thames Conservancy are inadequate for the purpose?
  MR. BRYCE: I understand that the Thames Conservancy Board have the whole matter under consideration. They held a public meeting last week at Maidenhead, and are holding another tomorrow at Windsor; but it is a fact, as the noble Viscount suggests, that they
  1112
  are not a Flood Authority. In these circumstances no Government Inquiry as is suggested is proposed?

  FISHERY ACCOMMODATION AT INVER, COUNTY DONEGAL.
  MR. J. G. SWIFT MAcNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether he is aware that, in response to a memorial sent to the Fishery Board by the fishermen of Inver, County Donegal, setting forth the benefit that would accrue to the locality by the erection of a pier and the deepening of the river mouth at the landing-place at Inver, the Inspectors of Fisheries held a Court of Inquiry at Inver in 1884 to investigate the merits of this application; (2) whether he is aware that, later in the same year, an eminent engineer from Edinburgh visited Inver at the request of the Government, and that an announcement was made in the Press in the Autumn of 1885 that the recommendations of the Inspectors of Fisheries and the Government Engineer were favourable, and that Inver had been placed on the list of localities which were specially recommended for piers to be constructed by the Government; and (3) whether, having regard to the distress prevalent in Inver from the failure of the potato crop, the Government will be able, with a view to the giving employment on works of public utility, to make arrangements for the construction of the pier which was recommended ten years ago.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The memorial referred to was forwarded to the Fishery Piers and Harbour Commission appointed under the Act 46 and 47 Vict., cap. 26, and was duly inquired into. That body had a certain sum of money only at its disposal, and in making out a list of works in order of importance, to which the money should be allotted, the case of Inver was excluded. With regard to the last paragraph I am informed by the Local Government Board, that it is not anticipated that it will become necessary to supplement the machinery of the ordinary Poor Law by the opening of Relief Works at Inver; but I may point out to my hon. and learned friend that the Congested Districts Board have undertaken the construction of a Pier at Port, a couple of miles from Inver, and

  1113
  that this work is now in the hands of the Contractor.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY TRANSFERS.
  MR. TIMOTHY M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he is aware that dissatisfaction exists in the Royal Irish Constabulary at the system of transfer which prevails in the Minister counties: and, could he give the total cost to the country of such transfers since this Government took Office?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The Inspector General of Constabulary informs me he is not aware that any dissatisfaction exists in the force respecting transfers in the counties of Munster, or elsewhere. Removals may become necessary by the exigencies of the service, such as filling up of vacancies caused by retirement or discharge, and such cannot be avoided; or they may be carried out upon the application of individual member's seeking transfer. But the orders of the force require that men shall not be removed unnecessarily, as their "local knowledge" becomes lost by frequent changes. If my hon. and learned Friend would specify the class of transfer to which he refers, it would be possible to obtain the cost of them during the period mentioned; but to do so would entail an amount of clerical labour upon the force that would not be commensurate with results?
  MR.T.M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether a man who, it is proposed, shall be removed for the good of the Service, has any means of making an appeal or representation to the Inspector General?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I take it he would, under those circumstances, press his claims on the District Inspector, and possibly on the County Inspector. I will not answer positively, but I will inquire whether there is a direct appeal from the Constable concerned to the Inspector General.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman also inquire whether there is any case on record in which the Inspector General has over-ruled the desire of the County or District Inspector for transfer?
  MR. MORLEY: I think I could find a case in my own experience, but I will inquire.

  THE EXTRA POLICE IN COUNTY CLARE.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what steps are being taken to relieve County Clare from the tax for extra police, and what is the total amount of the impost for extra police in Clare since 1881?
  MR. W. H. K. REDMOND: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers this question I would ask him if it is not the same question which I put, and which the right hon. Gentleman answered last Thursday?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I do not see any substantial difference between the answer I have to give to-day and the answer I gave on the last occasion. A proposed reduction of 25 men of the extra force in County Clare has been approved by Government. Of this number a reduction of 10 men takes effect from 1st instant, and the remaining 15 will be reduced by 3lst March 1895. This reduction of 25 men is equivalent to a relief of about £800 per annum to the County. The total amount charged to County Clare for extra police from Spring Assizes 1891 to Spring Assizes 1895, both inclusive, is about £73,000.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I apologise to the hon. Member for County Clare, who thinks I have been taking his question. I may say that I have been asking this question for the last ten years.

  RESULT FEES.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, in cases where Irish teachers are required to refund (1) over-payments of results fees owing to clerical errors in the Education Office, they are obliged to pay commission on their money orders, and if this commission could be allowed them as in the case of payment for requisites; (2) is he aware that under present regulations the total amount of results fees earned in a school is not always paid, deductions being forfeited for causes such as absence of teachers from duties owing to prolonged illness; and would he consider whether the amount earned by the pupils might be given to some of the teachers employed in any school so concerned; (3) and, have any arrangements yet been made whereby marks for

  1115
  efficient school keeping will count in the case of candidates for promotion under the Irish National Board of Education?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The Commissioners do not insist on charging the teachers the commission on their money orders in such cases. They will see that in future no teacher shall be charged with the commission on his money order where the refund is called for in consequence of any clerical error in the Office, and not in consequence of errors on the part of the teachers themselves. As regards the second paragraph, the practice is to allow the results fees in full to those members of the school staff who carry on the school business during intervals of absence of other members exceeding a month without a substitute, except for special subjects where instruction was not given by duly certificated teachers during illness of the absent teacher. The reply to the concluding paragraph is in the negative.

  THE ASSESSMENT OF GRANTS FOR SCHOOLS.
  MR. E. F.VESEY KNOX: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the announcement of the Vice-President of the Council, promising to instruct the Inspectors that in assessing the grants they should judge leniently schools now shortly to be inspected whose efficiency had been temporarily impaired owing to irregular attendance caused by the recent inclement weather, he will advise the National Board to issue similar instructions to Inspectors in Ireland?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have communicated with the National Board in reference to the point urged by my hon. Friend, but have not heard from them. I understand, however, that the Commissioners have always made it an invariable rule to consider exceptional circumstances of a temporary nature, such as the severity of the weather, in applying the regulation as to prescribed average school attendance.

  DUBLIN BOTANIC GARDENS.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Council if he has arranged during the Recess, as promised last Session, for the extension of the hours during which the Dublin
  1116
  Botanic Gardens will be open to the public, so that they may be the same on Sundays and other days as in the case of Kew Gardens; and, if the wages of the Garden employés will consequently be increased to the English scale?
  MR. ACLAND: I have arranged that from the 1st April next the Dublin Botanic Gardens shall be open till 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. A small addition to the staff will be made; the hours of the gardeners and labourers will not be increased. The wages of those employed in the gardens have, however, been increased by sums varying from 1s. to 2s. a week.

  THE COURSE OF BUSINESS.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It might, perhaps, be for the convenience of the House if the right hon. Gentleman would tell us what business the Government propose to take on Thursday?
  Mr. J. MORLEY: I understand that, unless there should be any exceptional interposition of any other subject, we shall take the First Reading of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill.

MOTIONS.

  MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. S. Woods, Bill to restrict the Hours of Labour in Mines to Eight Hours per day.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday 6th March, and to be printed. [Bill 123.]

  INTOXICATING LIQUORS (LICENCES) BILL.
  On Motion of Sir Henry E. Roscoe, Bill to amend the Law relating to Licences for the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday 19th March, and to be printed. [Bill 124.]

  WATERFORD INFIRMARY BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. John E. Redmond, Bill for the Establishment of a Public Infirmary in the City of Waterford.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Monday 4th March, and to be printed. [Bill 125.]

  INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES (PURCHASE OF FEE SIMPLE) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. James Rowlands, Bill to give Facilities to Industrial and Provident

  1117
  Societies for the Purchase of the Fee Simple of their Holdings.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Wednesday 27th February, and to be printed. [Bill 126.]

  COUNTY COUNCILLORS (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. A. Spicer, Bill to enable Women to be elected or to act as County Councillors.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 127.]

  FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT (1891) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. C. E. Schwann, Bill to amend the factory and Workshop Act, 1891.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Monday 4th March, and to be printed. [Bill 128.]

  GRAND JURIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. L. P. Hayden, Bill to amend the Grand Jury (Ireland) Laws.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 129.]

  POOR LAW GUARDIANS QUALIFICATION (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Maurice Healy, Bill to amend the Law relating to the Qualification of Poor Law Guardians in Ireland.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday 2nd April, and to be printed. [Bill 130.]

  CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACT (1886) AMENDMENT (No. l2) BILL.
  On Motion of Dr. G. B. Clark, Bill to amend the Crofters' Holding's (Scotland) Act, 1886.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 131.]

  ARCHITECTS'REGISTRATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. L. Atherley-Jones, Bill to provide for the Registration of Architects.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Monday 25th March, and to be printed. [Bill 132.]

  ACCOUNTANTS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. L. Atherley-Jones, Bill to amend the Law relating to Accountants.
  Bill presented, and read first time; to be read a second time upon Monday 25th March, and to be printed. [Bill 133.]

  EAST INDIA (MILITARY EXPENDITURE BEYOND THE FRONTIER).
  Address for Return, prepared for the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen, showing Expenditure incurred out of the Revenues of India on the Construction
  1118
  of Railways and Roads, and on Military Expeditions and Explorations, and Subsidies to Native Chiefs beyond the West and North-west Frontier of India, from April 1882 to March 1891.—(Sir W. Wedderburn.)

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  POST OFFICE NOMINATIONS.
  MR. LUTTRELL MR. LUTTRELL (Devon, Tavistock) moved—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that Post Office nominations, which are now made by the Treasury on the recommendation of Members of Parliament and others, should in future be made to the Postmaster General by local representative bodies."
  In moving this Resolution he had no Party object in view, indeed, he was anxious to get rid of the Party patronage which at present existed. Post Office nomination was almost the last remnant of political patronage, and though political patronage was bad he considered that Party patronage was worse. Under the present system, if there be a Post Office under the value of £120 a year in England, and £100 in Scotland, vacant, it was for the Postmaster General to ask the Treasury for a nomination; and he believed it was the almost universal custom for the Treasury to send to a Member of Parliament in the Division in which the vacant Post Office was situated, and ask him to nominate, provided only that he be upon the same side as the Government. If there were no Member of Parliament in the Division on the same side as the Government, then they generally sent to a candidate or to some other supporter of the Government of the day. It was almost impossible, therefore, for the nomination to be otherwise than a piece of Party patronage, for while, no doubt, the nominator would be most careful to nominated a capable man he would take care that that man was a supporter of the cause he himself espoused. He (Mr. Luttrell) had not had much experience in making nominations, but what experience he had had taught him it was impossible to get rid of Party influences and considerations; where there were two men it was absolutely impossible not to name the Liberal in preference to the Conservative. The custom did not in any way rest upon law, arid if one

  1119
  looked at history he found the custom was not one of great antiquity. Previous to 1784 the Post Office was in a disorganised state. Letters were then carried by boys on horseback called postboys. The boys rode from public house to public house, and in those days the Post Offices were really public-houses, and the patrons were the brewers or the landlords; in fact, there was then no patronage in the possession of the State. In 1784, a great improvement was made in our Post Office system. In that year John Palmer, of Bath, started the running of mail coaches, and they were able to carry much more than the postboys. The public-houses gave way to Post Offices, and the Postmasters General—for there were then two—had the patronage pure and simple. In 1821, a certain Lord Chichester, who was one of the Postmasters General, allowed his power of appointing to Post Offices to lapse to the Treasury, and having got hold of the patronage, the Treasury held it with a firm hand. In 1854, a Committee reported against allowing the Treasury to have the power of appointment, and in favour of that power being vested in the Postmaster General. The outcome of that Committee was, that a change was made and certain Post Offices were handed back to the Postmaster General; the appointment to Post Offices over the value of £175 a year was then given to the Postmaster General, while the Treasury retained the appointment to Post Offices under £175 a year. In 1859, another change was made, inasmuch as the value of the Post Offices to which the Treasury could appoint was reduced to £120, and at that figure it now stood. In 1878, there were still further powers of veto upon nominations given to the Postmaster General. At the time when Lord John Manners was Postmaster General a Treasury minute was framed as follows:
  "These nominations will be submitted to the approval of the Postmaster General, who has a right of cancelling any nomination if the character of the nominee is not satisfactory, or if his residence is inconveniently situated, and if such appointment will not lead to the interest of the public service."
  Only last year, when the Local Government Act was under discussion, he asked the Postmaster General Patronage Secretary to the Treasury whether,
  1120
  in view of the extension of Local Government, they would agree to hand over the powers they possessed in this matter to local representative bodies. The answers he received were very encouraging to those who desired to see political patronage taken away from Members of Parliament. Both hon. Gentlemen very rightly said they must be guided by the opinion of the House. It was on account of those answers that he now proposed his Resolution. His proposal was, that in all cases of vacancy in sub-offices and post offices the Postmaster General should ask for a nomination from a Local Representative Body. He did not actually prescribe what local representative body the right hon. Gentleman should refer to, but he took it that in the case of a parish the Postmaster General would refer to the Parish Council, in the case of a larger district to the District Council, and in the case of a town to the Town Council. Some persons suggested that the power of appointment should be handed over to the Post Office, but the difficulties in the way were, in his opinion, almost insurmountable. One difficulty was pointed out in a Treasury Minute founded upon the Report of the Committee of 1854. It was there shown that it would be inapplicable in all cases where post offices were held in connection with private businesses. There were also administrative difficulties. One Surveyor was responsible for the whole of the Western Counties, That gentleman had his headquarters at Bath, but his district stretched from Bath down to the Scilly Isles, a distance of 180 miles. It would be absolutely impossible for such a man to make a good appointment, and by that he meant an appointment which the people would make if they had the opportunity of making one. It would be impossible for that man to find out what the feelings of the people in the locality were. Therefore, it was far better that nominations should be had from some local representative body who would know the wants and the wishes of the people. He had not brought forward this Motion animated by Party motives. He was glad to know that there were some questions in regard to which Members of Parliament were not too closely bound by Party ties, nor too rigidly divided by Party distinctions. This was one of those questions. It was a question

  1121
  which should link them all closely together, for its object was to serve the interests of the public service of the country. He begged to move his Motion.
  MR. RANKINsaid, he seconded the Motion because he thought it was anomalous that the servants of one of the great Departments of the State should be appointed by another Department of the State. He thought, also, that the Post Office was a Department that should be as much as possible in touch with all its servants, many of whom lived remote from the Central Authority; and he believed that closer union would be obtained if the Motion were adopted. Those nominations by Members of Parliament were open to the charge of being Party nominations, and, undoubtedly, they were generally regarded in that light. That was not the best kind of method for appointing the servants of a great State Department; and he would be glad to see it done away with. But it would not be altogether a good thing to take away from the districts all interest in the persons appointed to those offices. The Post Office was becoming more and more important to the social welfare of the people. There were not only such matters as letters, telegrams, telephones, savings-bank business, and money orders attended to by that Institution—he hoped before long that a system of Old Age Pensions would also be established, and that the Post Office would be the agency through which it would be worked—but it also was the means of transmitting to the people much useful information, as, for example, information to intending emigrants about the Colonies and other countries abroad. It was, therefore, desirable that the local authorities should have some say in those appointments, and he knew no better bodies for the purpose than the Parish Councils and the District Councils. As every parish had a post office, he would place the appointments of sub-postmasters in the Parish Council, and those of letter-carriers—who, as a rule, had each two or more parishes in this sphere of work—in the District Councils. He thought it would be a very good thing, if it were possible to do so, to increase the pay of sub-postmasters, for at present the remuneration was so
  1122
  small that it was exceedingly difficult to get good men for the posts. He also threw out a suggestion that a Parish Council or a District Council should be allowed to become guarantors where a telegraph office was sought to be set up. There was a parish in his electoral district for the County Council, so remote and with so few persons of any wealth in it, that it was found impossible to find the required personal guarantee, and of course the telegraph office was not established, though it was most desirable that the parish should have one, being so far remote from any railway station. There would be no difficulty in that case in raising the guarantee if the Parish Council were allowed to give it, and he therefore suggested to the Postmaster General that some Amendment to bring about that result should be made in the Parish Councils Act.
  CAPTAIN J. SINCLAIRagreed with the hon. Members who had urged the acceptance of the Motion on the House, that the present system of nomination to those minor positions in the Postal Service had many objections, but he was not convinced that the remedy they proposed was the best. It was open to doubt whether any advantage would be gained by putting the appointments in the hands of local representative bodies. In the first place, he was inclined to doubt whether local representative bodies would like to have this duty thrown upon them. It was like, bringing a steam-hammer into play to crack a nut. In the second place, if local representative bodies had the making of the appointments he doubted whether the change would do away with the influence of Party spirit which at present controlled the appointments. It seemed to him that the true solution of the difficulty was, to place the appointments in the hands of the Postmaster General; and he therefore moved as an Amendment to the Motion to leave out after the word "may" to the end of the sentence, in order to insert "by the Postmaster General in the same way as other appointments in his Department."
  *SIR C. CAMERONin seconding the Amendment, said that, as far back as 1878 he brought this subject before the House, and moved a Resolution that the appointments should be transferred to the Postmaster General.

  1123
  At that time a striking illustration of the unpleasant working of this system of patronage had been made public. A correspondence, in which a Member of the House figured, was published in relation to one of those Post Office appointments. It appeared from the explanation of the hon. Gentleman concerned that a tradesman approached him with a view to getting a nomination for the appointment, and said to him: "If you will do this I will promise to vote for you at your election." For some reason or another the hon. Gentleman did not nominate that person, but nominated some other person, who was one of his supporters. As the hon. Baronet the Member for Cockermouth said at the time—
  "The hon. Gentleman had a satisfactory explanation. He nominated an honest Tory who had voted for him, instead of a humbug who promised to vote for him if appointed."
  He would hand over all these posts to the Postmaster General; the nominations were nothing but a nuisance to Members of Parliament. It was bad enough for them when their party was in power; but when it was out of power, and they could do nothing for the applicants, it was still more unpleasant. There was no reason for this exceptional treatment of certain Postmasterships, and for the infliction on Members of Parliament of a system of persecution by the retention of an obsolete piece of patronage. The power of appointment by the Postmaster General was found to work admirably in respect to all other posts. He begged to second the Amendment.
  MR. M. BIDDULPHsaid that the original Motion would be so disastrous to the public service, if carried, that he was bound to protest against it. The present system of appointments was very bad, but to hand the power over to a number of public bodies would make bad infinitely worse. The Postmaster General, who was responsible for the postal service, was the proper person to make the appointments. He should support the Amendment.
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (MR. A. MORLEY,)said that there seemed, from the Debate, to be a general disapproval of the existing system; and therefore he would only deal with that system so far as to correct
  1124
  a few inaccuracies made by the hon. Member for Herefordshire. The hon. Member spoke of the appointments to a great Department of the State being made by another Department. As a matter of fact the appointment rested with the Postmaster General, and must rest with him whatever system was adopted. It was only the nomination or recommendation which could come from the Treasury or the Local Authority or a Member of Parliament. The hon. Member also mentioned the question of letter carriers. That question did not come into the discussion at all; because some time ago that matter was removed from the Treasury altogether, and the appointments were now made by the Postmaster General, and quite apart from all political considerations. In respect to letter carriers, priority was given to Army and Navy men over all other subjects, except those who had departmental claims arising from previous service. The veto of the Postmaster General on the nominations from the Treasury was frequently exercised. There were certain exceptions to the people qualified to act as sub-postmasters; and, whatever system was ultimately adopted, these exceptions must, in the main, continue to exist. Minors, keepers of inns and publichouses, rate-collectors, vaccination officers, school-attendance officers, licensed grocers in Scotland, and agents for parcels delivery, banking businesses, or anything which would bring the private business into competition with the Post Office were excepted. So far as he was concerned, his action in this matter had been consistent. As a private Member in the Parliament of 1880, whenever he received an application for nomination he sent it to the Local Authority of the Borough, and asked the Officials to recommend the fittest person for the appointment which had to be made. When he was at the Treasury in 1886 he did his best to bring about, with the approval of the right hon. Member for Midlothian, an arrangement which would have been something on the lines of the proposal now before the House; and now, as head of the Post Office, he was willing to fall in with a new arrangement which would meet the approval of the House of Commons. It was essentially a question which affected the members of the House of Commons themselves, and the Govern-

  1125
  ment would concur in carrying out the general feeling of the House. The considerations which had always influenced him in exercising the veto, had been for the interest of the Post Office. It was necessary that the situation selected should be the most suitable for the district, and that the man appointed should have the confidence of the people whom he had to serve, and among whom he worked. He himself believed that these conditions would be better observed by the Local Authority than under the present system or by the Post Office. The suggestion that the appointments should be transferred to the Postmaster General was complimentary to the Department; and if there was a general feeling in the House in favour of that suggestion, the Postmaster General would have to undertake the burden. But he could assure the House that the position of the Postmaster General at the present time was by no means easy. He was at the head of an enormous Department, which was rapidly growing. The number of sub-postmaster-ships in England and Wales (exclusive of London) was 13,407, and in Scotland it was 1,864, making a total of over 15,200; and he looked with apprehension on the transfer of all these appointments to an already overburdened Minister.
  MR. W. JOHNSTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the figures for Ireland?
  MR. A. MORLEYsaid that the number of these posts in Ireland was 2,603; but under the present system the appointments in Ireland were made by the Postmaster General. Therefore the adoption of the Amendment would assimilate the system in Great Britain to that which obtained in Ireland; but it would seriously increase the duties and responsibilities of the Department, and he doubted very much whether it would be wise to add such a burden. The proposal, whether adopted in its original or in its amended form, should be confined in its operation to Great Britain. The Government wished to leave the question to be decided by the House without any Party pressure being exercised. He had expressed his own personal wish for the original Motion; but the Government would accept the decision of the House of Commons in either case.
  *MR. W. L. JACKSONthought that, after what had fallen from
  1126
  the right hon. Gentleman, the House might properly give him some guidance. Speaking from his experience at the Treasury, he was strongly of opinion that there was only one course which ought to be adopted, and that was that those who paid should appoint. The Postmaster General ought to have the responsibility; and even if he were already greatly shirking burdened, it was no reason for this responsibility. The transfer would hardly increase the work of the Postmaster General so greatly as the right hon. Gentleman had suggested, because he already had the duty of approving of every one of these appointments and must satisfy himself as to the fitness of the persons recommended. This could not occupy more time when the recommendations came from his own Officers in the districts, who could not possibly have any other object than to serve the public to the best advantage. He was sure that every Member of the House would agree that our Postmasters, whether in large or small offices, ought to be absolutely free from all Party bias on one side or the other. He had heard in some cases that there had, for instance, been suspicions at election times that the circulars of one political Party were delivered more promptly than the circulars of another Party. He was quite sure that this ought not to occur in any public Department of the State. The numbers which the Postmaster General had given showing that this question applied to more than 15,000 offices, was in itself a sufficient answer to the suggestion that it should be left to any authority except that of the responsible Department with which they were connected. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the letter-carriers. They were not included, however, in this Motion. An alteration had been made with reference to the letter-carriers by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in Office, who had done much to benefit the men connected with the Army Reserve Forces. He was sure that the system had given great satisfaction, and that it was working very satisfactorily. He hoped that the House would place the responsibility where it ought to rest—namely, with the Department responsible for carrying it out.
  *SIR A. K. ROLLITsaid, it was eminently desirable, both in the

  1127
  interest of the State and of Members of Parliament, that this remnant of political patronage should be got rid of. He hoped that when the reform was made a similar form of patronage in connection with Customs boatmen would be abolished according to the present precedent. The only question now was whether the transfer should be made to the Postmaster General or whether the appointments should be conferred on the Local Authorities. He had great respect for the experience of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, but he was opposed to the view he had taken of this matter. Though the Postmaster General would be the paymaster, and as such might be expected to appoint, the right hon. Gentleman would still make the appointments, though the Local Authorities might enjoy the nominations. He thought, on the whole, that the Local Authority was to be preferred. He felt no distrust whatever as to the exercise of their powers. This was a distinctly local question, a question of which the immediate interests of the locality ought be consulted, and with reference to which the locality itself must know what is likely to be the best appointment. The local postmastership was a combination of official duty with a business or a trade; and it was almost impossible for the Postmaster General to be as well informed as the Local Authority of the varying requirements and needs of its own district. The more the Post Office added to its duties the more must this become a question of local and personal knowledge as to the applicants for such a position. The reason of the present patronage of Members of Parliament was to secure such local knowledge, and the effect of the transfer to the Postmaster General would not decrease their solicitation, but only change the quarter from the Treasury to the Post Office. He pointed out a precedent which applied in the case of much more important duties—namely, the reference which the Lord Chancellor always made to Town Councils in respect of Borough Justices. But there were two considerations more important than all. There was a growing difficulty in connection with the large public Departments of the State and the employment of labour. The right hon. Gentleman would feel that one of the
  1128
  great objections to the inclusion by the State of this duty must be that it would largely add to State employment. There was already a good deal of discontent even in the best Civil Service in the world, which was sometimes disadvantageous to the public service. This was another reason for intrusting these duties to those on the spot, and thus dividing responsibility instead of concentrating it on one Department. The question was one of centralisation or decentralisation; and on all grounds he was for the latter. The object of arrangements in connection with local postmasterships should be to satisfy the requirements and to suit the convenience of the localities, and it was in a locality that the best knowledge would be found to exist of how the duties should be performed.
  MR. J. CHAMBEBLAJNsaid he had also full confidence in local administration, but he differed entirely from the view of the last speaker. The hon. Gentleman was under some misapprehension when he sought a parallel in the appointment of magistrates. As far as he knew, no Lord Chancellor had ever consented to ask Town Councils or Local Authorities for nominations to the bench of magistrates.
  SIR A. K. ROLLIT: I did not say nominations; but I say that names are submitted.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINsaid that was a different state of things. What some Lord Chancellors had done was to settle and send a list of persons whom they thought fit to be appointed, and before making the appointment, they had allowed the Town Council to make any objection as to fitness which might be known to the Local Authority and not previously known to the Lord Chancellor. It was only to that extent the Local Authority had been consulted. His point, however, was this. Here was a political nomination which hon. Members were all, for sufficient reasons, very anxious to get rid of. The House ought not to put that political nomination on the Local Authority. He agreed with hon. Members opposite that, hitherto, the nominations made by Local Authorities had been made almost without a suspicion of political corruption, but that was surely because, in all these cases,

  1129
  the Local Authorities had the responsibility for the work of the officer they had appointed. It was suggested, however, that the House should give to the Local Authorities the nomination for postmasterships, which would be practically the appointment of officers for whose subsequent work they would have no responsibility whatever. The House ought to guard, to the best of its power, the character of Local Authorities, and it ought not to put in their way what undoubtedly might, in some cases, be a temptation. He, therefore, supported the Amendment.
  *MR. H. E. KEARLEYsaid, he had enjoyed some experience of these appointments during the past few years. It was with some surprise that, early in his political career, he received a communication from the Treasury, asking for a nomination to a local postmastership. He had no idea then that such a practice was prevalent; and, seeing that he possessed no local knowledge suitable to guide him in making a selection, he sent the Treasury request to the local people, and asked the chairman of the Liberal Association to select the most suitable person quite apart from any political bias. The wife of the Secretary of the Association was nominated, against which he protested, as he did not wish to be associated with anything which might be considered political jobbery; but he was assured that the nominee was thoroughly suited to the duties of the office, and he felt bound to say that the appointment had proved satisfactory in every respect. When he mentioned to the Post Office officials his objections, he was told in affect "to cheer up, and be easy in his mind," and that it was hardly worth while to raise objections to a good old custom. The next case was in reference to a new Post Office which was to be opened in a particular street. The inhabitants asked the Postmaster General to sanction the proposal, and he believed that an inquiry was held. It was ultimately agreed that a Post Office should be opened, and he had the privilege of the nomination. Here again he sought local aid. He was surprised, however, to find out a few weeks afterwards that a person had been appointed who did not live in the street for which the office had been demanded. The
  1130
  third case was that of an outlying district, where a vacancy had occurred, with a large salary attached to the appointment. He had become wiser by this time, and had arrived at the conclusion that those appointments were political in their nature; therefore "he took the bull by the horns" and handed the affair over to the Liberal Association. There were 40 applicants for the vacancy, including the chairman, secretary, treasurer, and two members of the executive of the local Association. But his colleague inadvertently made a direct nomination to the Treasury which they accepted, and he had to bear the protests and complaints of the 40 disappointed ones. This patronage was objectionable in every way. It made more enemies than friends, and he hoped it would be swept away. He had set before the House these examples of the evil effects of the system, because these actual cases were worth a ton of theory.
  MR. C. DIAMONDsaid, that in Ireland they had to some extent been relieved of the responsibilities of making appointments of this character. He thought they required to have it made illegal for any Member of Parliament to make any nomination or recommendation whatever; nothing short of that he thought would meet the case. Under the present state of things Members of Parliament were besieged with applications for appointments.
  *SIR W. HART DYKEsaid, that he happened to be presiding over the patronage and destinies of the Treasury when the hon. Member for Glasgow brought forward a motion on the subject in 1878. The question then debated was a very difficult and intricate one, and he did not think its difficulties had diminished since that date. There was no doubt that there was some truth in what had been urged by the Postmaster General—that were this patronage entirely thrown upon his hands it would grealy add to his responsibilities. This Debate would emphasise the necessity for an immediate change in the present scheme of patronage. There was not a single hon. Member in the House who had a good word to say for it. When this question was mooted before, Lord John Manners made a very good offer to

  1131
  the House; he stated that if it were clearly shown that this transfer to himself and his Department would be to the public benefit, he would cheerfully agree to be sacrificed and undertake the additional work. He hoped that sufficient pressure could be brought to bear upon the Postmaster General in induce him to adopt that course and take over this work. He pressed him the more to do so on account of the mistaken alternative which had been proposed of handing this patronage over to local bodies. In the case of the new Parish Councils, for example, could there be anything more miserable than that, in some obscure village, because there happened to be a post office vacancy the whole of the elections should turn sometimes, perhaps, upon who should be appointed to it? There was another reason why the appointments should not be handed over to these bodies, and that was the difficulty that would arise if a vacancy occurred when they were not meeting; were special meetings to be summoned for the appointment of postmasters? The best thing that the Postmaster General and the Department—with whom, after all, the ultimate appointments restedmcould do was to take the whole matter into their hands.
  MR. A. MORLEYsaid, the question was essentially one for the House of Commons to determine, but whatever decision the House of Commons came to, he should loyally abide by it. The question before the House in 1878, when Lord John Manners was Postmaster General, was identical with that which they were now discussing, but, although the noble Lord was willing to accept the decision of the House, he opposed it on the grounds that he considered the existing system was the best in the interests of the Public Service.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, they must all feel very glad that the Postmaster General took such a high-minded view of his duty in the matter, but he was sorry that he had not made the alteration of his own motion two years ago, when he came into office. It was most discreditable that this remnant of official jobbery should still exist. He cited a case in which an appointment had been made, not by the Postmaster General, not by the Secretary to the Treasury, not by a Member of Parliament, but by a Radical candidate. That was
  1132
  constantly happening. He ventured to say that if any Member sitting on the same side of the House as himself, were to write to the Secretary for the Treasury for a postmastership, he would be told that the applications from Liberal Members were so numerous that this particular application from a Tory Member could not be entertained. These appointments were really part of the work of the Postmaster General, and if it was too much for one Postmaster General let there be two, and let them divide the salary.
  MR. C. B. STUART-WORTLEY,said, there was a suspicion in his mind that, while the Postmaster General was going tentatively to accept the transfer, he had the intention by administrative practice of surrendering it practically to the local bodies by consulting them in every case. He respectfully asked him to set the minds of hon. Members at rest upon that point. He did not bind himself to consent to any such practice as that. He had very grave doubts whether by any system they could entirely eliminate politics from these appointments. He hoped that it would be made perfectly clear that those who voted for the Amendment did not make themselves responsible for its being nullified afterwards by administrative practice.
  SIR D. H. MACFARLANEsaid he did not think the motion went far enough. The appointments should be placed wholly and entirely in the hands of the Postmaster General, and Members of Parliament should be prohibited altogether from taking any part whatever in the nominations or even from supporting them. If they were placed in the hands of the local authorities the local Member of Parliament would be in no better position in regard to the matter than at present, for in that case he would be solicited by floods of letters, and personally, if possible, to support the nomination of the County or Parish Council. The present system was rather a trouble and a nuisance to Members of Parliament than otherwise; it was the means of making for them more enemies than friends, and he, for one, should be glad if the power of nomination were taken out of their hands altogether.
  *MR. H. L. W. LAWSONagreed that the duty of recommendation by hon. Members was an

  1133
  unpleasant and invidious one, and made them more enemies than friends. He would urge on the Postmaster General in opposite course to that suggested by the hon. Member for Sheffield. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would decide in future to consult the local authorities in cases of appointment, and that Members of Parliament would no longer be troubled in the matter. But, unless the recommendation or information given by the local authorities were relied upon by the Postmaster General, the result of the new system, so far as Members of Parliament were concerned, would be no better than the old. The form would be changed, the substance would be the same. As in the case of the appointment of magistrates the local authorities were consulted, so in the case of those appointments regard should be paid according to the Treasury Minute of 1854 to the convenience and interests of the local population. The best way to secure that result was through the local authorities. But, whatever was done, he hoped hon. Member and candidates for Parliament would be rid of this last remnant of political patronage—the obligation of making recommendations to those offices on political grounds.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEYsaid, it was amusing to note how virtuous hon. Members had suddenly become in relation to this matter, and for the curious reason, too, that they had discovered that the exercise of the patronage brought them more enemies than friends. Political bribery, of course, was a thing of the past, yet they all knew perfectly well that the whole system of the present Government was a system of political bribery in the biggest sense. He protested against the display of Pecksniffian virtue of certain hon. Members, who had themselves implied that there would be no objection to the patronage on their part if it brought more political friends than enemies.
  SIR W. WEDDERBURNthought the Amendment was altogether of a retrograde character; it would have a contralising effect and deprive the people of a voice in matters which largely affected their interests. He should, therefore, support the Motion.
  MR. H. T. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENsaid, it was
  1134
  probable he was the only Member in the House who was of opinion that no adequate cause had been shown to interfere with the present system, and he was, therefore, unable to support either the Motion or the Amendment. In fact, he saw very little difference between them, for even if the Amendment were carried and the duty placed entirely in the hands of the Postmaster General, he would have to seek for information from some one as to the persons to be appointed, and to whom else could he go for it than the local authorities? The present system had not worked badly, and he did not think the patronage so much objected to by certain Members had been abused.
  MR. J. W. CROMBTEsaid, the efficiency of the Post Office should be the real point in view, and, therefore, the responsibility of the appointments should rest with the Department.
  MR. W. THORBURNsupported the Motion.
  MR. LUTTRELLintimated that he was prepared to accept the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion, as Amended, put.
  MR. W. L. JACKSONasked whether the word "nominations" was the right word.
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEYsaid, the proper word would be "appointments," and suggested that the Motion should be amended.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKERsaid, the Motion could not now be amended. The only course was to withdraw the Resolution, as amended, and move it in the altered form.
  Motion, as amended, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. A. MORLEY MR. A. MORLEY moved—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that Post Office appointments to which nominations sire now made by the Treasury on the recommendation of Members of Parliament should, in future, be made by the Postmaster General in the same way us other appointments in the Department."
  Motion agreed to.

  IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN PRISON- MADE GOODS.
  *COLONEL C. E. HOWARD VINCENT*COLONEL C. E. HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield, Central) moved—
  "That, in the opinion of this Honse, it is incumbent upon Her Majesty's Government, in the interests of the industrial classes of the United Kingdom, at once to take steps to restrict the importation of goods made in Foreign Prisons by the forced labour of convicts and felons."
  Hon. Members, he said, would not be unacquainted with the subject, and more especially those representing industrial constituencies. They would recollect that early last year a considerable sensation was caused by the revelations of a trade journal, The Hardwareman, published at Birmingham, on the matter. This paper sent a Commissioner to Germany, Mr. James Lancaster Pollit, and at his (the hon. Member's) instance his report had been embodied in a sworn affidavit. This document he had with him, and, if the House would allow him, he would read its more important paragraphs.
  "I, James Lancaster Pollitt, of 5, Gloucester Road, Kew, in the county of Surrey, do solemnly and sincerely declare— (1) That I was delegated by The Hardware man, journal as a special commissioner to inquire into the manufacture of goods in German Prisons, and that I proceeded to Germany with such intent in January 1894. (2) That upon January 25th I visited the Provincial Short Term Prison of Brauweiler (Cologne), and on January 31st the State Long Term Prison of Plotzen See (Berlin), and I learned that in those establishments the labour of the prisoners is hired out to manufacturers, called concessionaires, who supply their own raw material and the plant necessary for production, and who hire the prisoners' labour upon two systems:—(a) Whereunder they hire the prisoners from the authorities at rates varying from 3d. to Is. per man per diem, according to the man's adaptability to the class of work he is required for; and (b) where-under they take the finished article from the authorities and pay at an equivalent rate for the labour it has absorbed. (4) That I saw prisoners working upon English models, and learned from the officials and representatives of the concessionaires that they were turning out large numbers of brushes, whips, lamps and lanterns, candlesticks, cash boxes, spice boxes, birdcages, carpet sweepers, socks and stockings, wine bins, chair bedsteads, cots, garden chairs, jackets and mantles, sewing-machine tables and covers, slippers, &c., for the English market. All of these, except jackets and mantles and sewing machine covers, I saw in course of process of manufacture, either in parts or the whole, (5) That I was informed by prison officials that the labour at more than twenty prisons in various parts of Germany is farmed out upon one of the two
  1136
  methods indicated as 'A' and ' B.' (6) That goods made in these prisons find their way into England (firstly) through the concessionaire's English agent; (secondly) from that agent to a wholesale buyer, who is not informed that the goods are made in prison; and (thirdly) from the wholesale buyer to the shopkeeper, who is certainly kept in ignorance of their origin even if the wholesale buyer has learned accidentally how they are made."
  The proprietors of The Manchester Examiner had been at the same time informed, from a reliable source, that in German State prisons—
  "The spinning and weaving of cotton goods was extensively carried on, and the bales were actually fraudulently stamped with the names of Manchester firms."
  It would be readily believed that the publication of this aggravated form of foreign competition had created considerable sensation among the industrial masses, who had begun seriously to feel the depression which had been prevalent since 1892. Questions had been addressed to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, not only by himself, but by other hon. Members, and by his right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham. He, the Mover, had taken infinite pains on the subject. He had written to the Member for Brightside, when President of the Board of Trade, and had sent him the card of one of the prison travellers bearing the legend, "R. & H., Manufacturers at the Convict Prison, Graudenz. Sole agent, S. A. R., St. E. C." He had shown him across the floor of the House samples of the brushes made in German prisons and being sold in Great Britain at less than half of the cost of British labour alone, while English, Scotch, and Irish brush-makers had been starving. It had been impossible to arouse the right hon. Gentleman. He declared he had nothing to do with International commodities. But wiser counsels prevailed, and the Foreign Office had communicated with Her Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin. Indeed, to give credit where credit was due, Lord Rosebery had done so, it now appeared, as early as February, without the Board of Trade knowing anything about it. But they had waited in vain all through last Session for the Report from Berlin. He had pressed the present President of the Board of Trade repeatedly, but without result, and he would not even send for Mr. Pollitt, the Commissioner of The Hardware man, and learn the facts from

  1137
  him. He had said last Session that the Report had arrived from Berlin, and had charged the right hon. Gentleman with having had the Report put into a pigeonhole, labelled "Not to be presented till Parliament rises." They had the Report now, and the date showed that he had been perfectly right. Sir Edward Malet's despatch, inclosing the very able Report of Mr. Tower, Second Secretary in Her Majesty's Embassy, had been received in London on June 24. Parliament did not rise for nearly two months afterwards, and the Report had only been issued to Members in December or January. If the President of the Board of Trade thought this trifling with the subject was approved by those whose industry was being ruined, he would undeceive him. The other Reports were entirely of a secondary character, and had not been asked for. The only important des patch received after June had been from Her Majesty's Ambassador in the United States. It narrated that the Laws of America ordained—
  "That the goods, wares, articles, and merchandise manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country by convict labour, shall not be entitled to entry at any of the ports of the United States, and the importation thereof is prohibited; and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorised to prescribe such regulations as may be necessary for the enforcement of this provision."
  He had called the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to this fact so long ago as the 29th of June, and, would it be believed, that the Minister responsible for the trade of this country with other countries, and the leading English authority on the American Constitution, declared—
  "that he had no information as to the practice of the Customs Authorities of the United States or Canada on the point referred to?"
  He was wholly unable to induce Her Majesty's Government to move in the matter last year. He had therefore brought in a Bill of three lines excluding prison-made goods from importation, with the support of 12 Members from all parts of the House. It had been repeatedly blocked and mainly by the Member for Shipley, whose constituents, he knew, viewed his action with great disfavour. But, after all, it was the business of the Government to introduce and press forward Legislation of this character. It was
  1138
  useless having Committees to inquire into the distress through want of employment if these causes of industrial distress were left unremedied. The Reports from Her Majesty's Representatives in certain foreign countries on Prison Labour showed that there was strong ground for taking action apart from the emphatic resolution on the subject of the Trades Union Congress and the numerous petitions which had been presented to this House since the opening of Parliament. They were from Glasgow, Huddersfield, Dublin, Halifax, Bradford, Oldham, Preston, Worcester, Sheffield, and many other places—indeed, nearly every important town. Would the House permit him to call its attention to the startling character of the Report from Berlin? A recent answer of the President of the Board of Trade induced the conviction that he had not read the Reports. If he had not time to go through them in their entirety, it would be quite sufficient if he condescended to run his eye, as he could do in five minutes, through the very able summary published in the current number of the official Labour Gazette—a journal on the impartial compilation of which he heartily congratulated the Labour Department of the Board of Trade. It showed that there were three systems of prison labour in force abroad:—

  (A)—The Contract System, under Which the prison Authorities farmed out the labour of the prisoners to contractors who supplied materials, machinery, and foremen."

  (B) The Régie System, under which the State supplied materials, tools, and machinery, the work being supervised by the prison officials.

  (C)—The Accord System, under which the control of the work was retained by the State, but the contractor supplied materials."

  The average number of foreign prisoners employed under these three systems in reproductive work which eventually reached outside trade was—
  "In Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, and the Hungarian States, 29,200; in Saxony, 3,673; in Wurtemberg, 1,269; in Hamburg, 886; in France, 22,228,—a total on the European Continent, without counting Belgium, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, of 57,256."
  To this enormous figure the United States of America added 45,277 prisoners, bringing up the official total of foreign felons competing with British labour to 102,533. The value of the

  1139
  work done by these prisoners in wages alone was estimated at nearly £6,000,000. In Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemberg, and Hamburg over £200,000 were paid in wages to prisoners, who received from ½d. to 2d. a day for themselves. In France £177,000, while the American estimate of the value of prison labour was £5,492,434. Now, the important thing was, how much of the products of this foreign prison labour came to the United Kingdom? The President of the Board of Trade applauded that. But at all events he, the Mover, knew as much, or more, on this subject than he did. The President of the Board of Trade had repeatedly assured the House last year that he had not been in communication with the Customs Authorities on the subject, and had seen no reason for so communicating. He had also averred that he could not tell which of the £68,000,000 worth of foreign manufactured goods annually imported were prison made and which were not. He, himself, had had the advantage of communication with manufacturers and workmen all over the country. They assured him that they were being much injured by this unfair competition, arid, he thought, they knew their own business. Of course, the official informants of Her Majesty's diplomatic officers had not been so foolish as to give away the only market for their prison-made goods, The reports said—
  "To what extent the output of German prison labour is imported into the United Kingdom cannot be stated. The small merchants who buy may or may not export. To what extent any of the French prison manufactures are imported into the United Kingdom cannot be stated. What proportion of the American prison output reaches the United Kingdom does not appear."
  This was all very well, and might have been expected. But when the German Minister of the Interior admitted that goods had been ordered in German prisons to have foreign marks put on them, when we had the testimony of our own countrymen whose interests were so vitally affected corroborating the Commissioner of The Hardware man, our suspicions that Great Britain was their destination were more than aroused. It was confirmed by the difficulty of selling prison goods elsewhere. Mr. Tower said the prison work included cigar manufacture, machine knitting basket
  1140
  weaving, cane-furniture making, brush making—863 in Prussia alone—cardboard work, portfolio making, fancy paper making, the manufacture of hemp sacks, cocoa matting, making felt and wooden shoes, button making, the manufacture of metal fittings, lamps, and copperware; in wood carving, in netting; in making toys, quincaillerie and tin soldiers; in wood, horn, and ivory turning; in making combs, umbrellas, sticks, picture frames, gold beading, iron screws, nails, and in miscellaneous fancy work. Where were the goods sold? The German Government had no means of knowing. Of course not, or rather it would not tell. But they knew how much opposition was being made in Germany against prison labour being applied to reproductive work as being an unfair competition with trades and industries. Mr. Tower wrote—
  "German carpenters, wood carvers, lock and tin smiths, fitters, plumbers, tailors, shoemakers, paper-makers, bookbinders, button-makers, lithographers, printers, and weavers make complaints."
  When it was proved that the whole trade of artificial flowers was ruined by prison competition, the prison manufacture had been discontinued. The State required that the contractor should not sell within a ten kilometre radius (say between six and seven miles) of the prison of origin. Her Majesty's Representative in Saxony reported that there the prison work had been distributed into 35 trades, and that, in 1892, £27,500 had been paid in wages to prisoners. He added—
  "The entire system of prison labour is the object of chronic denunciation in the Saxon Legislature, in the Chambers of Commerce, in the Press, and otherwise, as, constituting an illegitimate interference with private industrial enterprise; and as a concession to free industry it has been laid down that no prison shall employ labour on commodities specially produced in its own immediate neighbourhood."
  The prison-made goods, being unsaleable near the prisons, were despatched elsewhere. Whither? Would the President of the Board of Trade tell them? The present British Government alone welcomed them. The competition of British prison labour with free labour had been, almost entirely stopped by the action of Trades Unions, although it undeniably taught the prisoners useful trades, was a social good, and reduced the cost of their maintenance. But if

  1141
  this competition were coming in on an extensive scale from Germany and Belgium, the injury to British free labour was infinitely greater. It was idle for the President of the Board of Trade to try and minimise the amount of the competition or to minimise the injury done. If he went to Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen they would tell him that it was very real. Working men and manufacturers knew where the shoe pinched, and were entitled to relief from the Government. He had reason to believe that the great trade journal, The Ironmonger, estimated the importation of prison goods at £1,500 a week. It was idle for the right hon. Gentleman to aver that the injury in any particular trade was comparatively small. If there were any injury whatever to any trade it was the duty of the Government to endeavour to remove it, and most especially in this day of depression and distress. Lastly, it was idle for the right hon. Gentleman to pretend that the officers of Her Majesty's Customs were not able to tell what goods were prison-made or what were not. If he were not able, as well as the Secretary to the American Treasury, to prescribe regulations on the subject he must give place to some one who could. There was no difficulty whatever in the matter. On the ground, then, that 100,000 foreign prisoners were competing unfairly with British industry, and driving honest free men out of work—on the ground that it was the duty of the Government to move in this matter promptly and effectively—he begged to move the Resolution which stood in his name, and hoped the House would support it to a Division, quite irrespective of Party politics, which had nothing to do, as had this Motion, with the bread and butter of the people.
  COLONEL F. BRIDGEMANin seconding the Amendment, said he had had many communications from his constituents on this subject, which they regarded as a burning question. The House was anxious to hear the reply the President of the Board of Trade would make to what had bean said by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the Amendment, and although the right hon. Gentleman would probably not approve the presence of foreign-made goods in this country, yet he would no doubt fall back upon the artificial laws
  1142
  of Free Trade. Were they not putting themselves too much under the yoke of those artificial laws which prevented them doing the best for the people of their own country? A good many people posed as the advocates of Free Trade, but they struck at its fundamental principles. For instance, there were the supporters of the Eight Hours Bill, which was totally opposed to Free-trade principles, and many other cases of a similar nature could be mentioned. He submitted that there were many cases where it was better that the working classes of the country should have to pay fractionally more for certain goods, and at the same time to be fully employed, than to be displaced by foreign competition for the privilege of securing cheaper goods. The working classes, however, were beginning to see that; and he hoped the Committee which had just been appointed to inquire into the question of the unemployed would turn its attention to the interesting facts and particulars that had been submitted by his hon. and gallant Friend.
  MR. C. J. S. DODDthought that the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield had been a little hard on the President of the Board of Trade in expecting the right hon. Gentleman to have the whole of the commerce of this country at his fingers' ends. That was too much to expect from any President of the Board of Trade, but they were entitled to say, on behalf of that Department, that it had inquired into, and had furished the Home Department with, some valuable information respecting this matter. In view of that information it would not be too much to expect the right hon. Gentleman to agree that it had become a duty to put a stop to the importation into this country of goods manufactured in Prussian prisons. As had been pointed out, foreign prisoners were let out for hire for small sums. They could make useful but common articles of almost all kinds, and their labour being so very cheat, the system had a disastrous effect upon the market. Prussia appeared from the Consular Reports to have a very large number of prisoners, something like 16,899, who were, engaged in this work, a large portion of which no doubt came to our own markets. In the brush-making work some 862 prisoners were employed,

  1143
  and this state of things was not confined to Prussia, but was found also in Dresden, although the Saxony Legislature was reported to be continually denouncing the prison labour as interfering with outside trade. The rate paid for prison work greatly undercut the market rate, with the inevitable result of producing goods which the trade could not produce at the same price. It seemed to him that when they had Legislation, which was intended to promote the making of goods, it should be used to prevent prison-made articles coming into the country until they were honestly marked. He did not think that Englishmen would care to brush their hats and clothes with brushes with the prison stamp upon them, or to use any other article of the same origin. Although there were all sorts of men in the prisons, who did all sorts of work, yet none of them appeared to have anything to do with the law, and he attributed that to to the fact that lawyers were not in the habit of getting into gaol. He cordially joined, however, in asking the right hon. Gentleman to do something to put a stop to the present state of things as speedily as possible.
  *MR. W. C. QUILTERdesired to confine his remarks to those subjects about which his own constituents entertained rather deep feelings, and which affected them rather severely at the present time. In 1885, when he began to represent the Sudbury Division, the mat-weaving industry was in fairly satisfactory condition there. It had been taken up on the decline of the silk and woollen industry in that part of Suffolk, and was fairly prosperous. Just about that time, however, the people began to feel the pressure of the competition of prison labour, and, as many Members of the House would know, he had made many demands upon successive Home Secretaries in regard to this matter. Many of the holders of that Office had not met his representations unfavourably, and in 1891 the then Home Secretary said, in answer to a remonstrance against this prison competition, that the policy of the Prison Department would be to take care that no trade was seriously interfered with by prison labour. The intention then expressed was not carried out at once, but subsequently it
  1144
  was decided that this unfair competition with free labour should cease in England. That decision had been loyally carried out by the officials of the Department concerned, and he thanked them for the invariable courtesy and patience with which they had received his representations. But he was sorry to say that, although this kind of competition had been done away with in England, it still lingered in Scotland. There this iniquitous system was still allowed to prevail, but he trusted that its disappearance was only a matter of time. He could not believe that a Ministry like the present, who had such very good reasons for taking care of the working classes of this country, would permit a continuance of the system in any part of the country; but, turning to the question of foreign competition, he had to say that in the district which he represented the people had now to face competition with prison labour in Belgium. There were in Belgium so-called agricultural colonies. In 1888, at the instance of the Belgian Government, a working mat manufacturer went to Belgium in order to teach the mat-making industry to the prisoners in those colonies. Shortly afterwards, the right was given to a concessionaire to hire all the labour on those penal colonies. He was now paying a penny a day for the labour of these mat-makers, taught by an English manufacturer, and he had nothing to pay for fuel, light, and other necessaries. In 1890, when the manufacture of these mats began, the Belgian Labour Representatives in Parliament were in their places, and on the alert—the same could not be said, by the way, of the English Labour Representatives on that occasion—and they insisted that these mats should not be sold in Belgium itself, and so the mats came to this country of Free Trade and unrestricted competition. In 1890, the value of the mats so imported was about, £20 a month, but in 1894 the figure had risen to £1,500 a month. Five hundred persons, at a place near Malines, were engaged in making these mats, the rate of payment being a penny a day. The mats could be sold in this country for 3s., yielding a profit of 50 per cent, to the importers. The same price would not cover the cost of mere labour in this country. These mats were purchased

  1145
  largely by the Co-operative Societies and for Asylums for the Blind, where they were exhibited as the work of the inmates. It was impossible for any district to contend against this prison competition. The case he had put before the House was surely serious enough to command the sympathetic attention of the President of the Board of Trade. But it was not only foreign competition and prison competition that threatened to strangle the industries of this country: there was the question of rates for carriage. The mats made in Belgium could be brought from Antwerp to London for very little more than the price that was charged for bringing mats from his constituency. He asked whether the time had not come when there should be some alteration in the law. Means ought to be devised to enable purchasers to ascertain whether the goods proffered to them had been manufactured by their own; countrymen by free labour abroad or in foreign prisons. When in ignorance they bought goods manufactured in prisons abroad, they were unwittingly assisting the foreign prison-labour concessionaire to the detriment of starving fellow-countrymen.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, that the case put before the House by the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield was undoubtedly a very strong one. Were the Chancellor of the Exchequer present he would no doubt tell the House that German prisons, in sending goods to this country, were conferring an inestimable boon upon us. In the right hon. Gentleman's view, a lowering of prices was always an advantage, and he would probably say that it was highly desirable that a man should not have to pay the full price of brushes made in this country, because the less he had to pay for such goods the more he would have to spend in other ways. But where was the line to be drawn? No doubt the President of the Board of Trade would say obligingly whether the interests of the home producer were always to be sacrificed to the interests of the foreigner; whether the interests of the native Briton were always to be sacrificed to those of the alien felon? The right hon. Gentleman would, he hoped, inform them whether competition of that kind was fair and reasonable to this country. These were points with
  1146
  regard to which they had a right to ask and expect some guidance on the part of the Government. He hoped this issue would be clearly recognised by the Government. He hoped that the Government would not seek shelter under one of those endless inquiries which they already had ad nauseam. The facts were fully placed before the Government by the Official Reports of the representatives of Her Majesty abroad, and the Government would now be in a position to state whether they intended to stick to the principle of buying in the cheapest market under all conditions, or whether they thought that at last the line should be somewhere drawn.
  *MR. W. E. M. TOMLINSONsaid, that, as representing a constituency which, to some extent, felt the grievance of this competition with foreign-made prison goods, he desired to add a word or two to what had been said by previous speakers.
  Attention being called to the fact that 40 Members were not present, the House was counted, and, there being 40 Members present,
  *MR. TOMLINSONsaid, he understood that interest was taken in this subject by the constituents of the President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Gentlemen himself, he was told, having presented a Petition from a portion of his constituents in support of this Motion. With reference to the observations of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Maldon Division he had to say that those who supported the Motion now before the House, did not agree with him that it would be sufficient if foreign prison-made goods were marked "prison-made," and allowed to be sold as before. There were two questions which affected their attitude in this matter. First of all, they observed that the sale of goods made in the prisons in this country was prohibited as being an unfair interference with free labour; and with regard to goods made in foreign prisons, they contended that they were not only objectionable on this ground, but that the conditions under which they were produced enabled them to be sold here at such a price as to put competition by free labour entirely out of the question. To stamp goods as prison-made would not have much effect, and would be wholly insufficient as a means of

  1147
  preventing their sale in this country. For instance the smoker of a good cigar would not care very much if it was wrapped round with a piece of paper intimating that it was prison-made. If a sufficient remedy for the grievance was to be found in marking the goods as prison-made, why was that remedy not adopted in the case of home-made prison goods? The question of price did not, in the case of the home-made goods, enter into the consideration, for it would have been perfectly easy to make such regulations that there need not be unfair competition between goods of that description and goods which were produced by free labour. But the labouring classes of this country were not satisfied to accept any such arrangement as that as a settlement of the question. They said it was not fair that honest labour should be displaced by the labour of prisons, and, therefore, they insisted on the system of complete prohibition, which was the law at the present time. What the supporters of this Motion desired was that the prohibition which existed as to the prison-made goods of this country should be extended, in some form or other, to the goods made in the prisons of foreign countries. If it was fair and right to prohibit altogether the manufacture and sale of goods made in prisons in this country, a for tiori it ought to be our object to prohibit the importation of goods made in foreign prisons which were sold at prices ruinous to honest trade. The Board of Trade have been supplied with all the necessary information, and the demand now made was that they should adopt in this country the same restrictions to the sale of prison-made goods which obtained in foreign countries.
  MR. S. HOAREsaid, this subject was one of the deepest interest to the constituents of many hon. Members, and he thought those constituents would be somewhat surprised when they read the report of the proceedings tonight. They would be surprised that, on a subject that touched them so deeply, there should have been any attempt to "count out" the House. Members of the Opposition had endeavoured to show the Government what the distress all over the country was, and Her Majesty's Ministers, while they had professed sympathy with the sad circumstances under which the working population
  1148
  were now labouring, had to-night shown that they cared nothing for this important question. Indeed, had it not been that a sufficient number of the Opposition were present when the "count" was moved, the discussion would have come to on untimely end. He had presented a Petition from persons engaged in the brush manufacturing business. If the Government could only understand how the trade of the poor men and women who signed that Petition was depressed, they would feel that this subject was worthy of the fullest consideration. The hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield called attention to the Resolution passed by the members of the Trades Union Congress which met in his (Mr. S. Hoare' s) constituency in September last. The Resolution was condemnatory of the importation of goods made in foreign prisons, gaols, houses of correction, and penitentiaries, and the wonder was that no member of the Congress who happened to have a seat in the House of Commons had attended tonight to speak in its support. He hoped they would hear from the Government that they had more sympathy in this matter than up to the present they had shown. The evil of which complaint was now made was increasing year by year. There were poor people in many constituencies longing and ready to work but were cut out by the productions of foreign prisons. Surely they would, before the evening closed, receive some clear and distinct declaration from the Government that, whatever views might be held as to this or that form of relieving distress, they would prevent the continuance of the grievance to which his hon. and gallant Friend had called attention.
  MR. G. WYNDHAMsaid, that after a Debate lasting for two hours, it was not well they should be left in the dark as to whether Her Majesty's Ministers were in sympathy with the Motion. What was the nature of the Motion? Was it one of importance, but restricted to a small area? On the contrary, it touched materially a large number of the labouring population of the country, and sentimentally it affected every single artisan within the four seas. This Motion, which was moved without eliciting assent or dissent from the occupants of the Treasury

  1149
  Bench, could not be put before a public meeting in any town in England without eliciting vociferous assent as soon as it was adumbrated. Up to now such interest as had been displayed in the House in the Motion had been displayed by the Conservative and Unionist Members. The majority of hon. Members would anticipate that on a question of this kind the Government would have replied, and of course would have replied favourably, about eight o'clock, after the matter had been put ably before the House, and they would naturally suppose they could then go away and dine with a clear conscience, having discharged their duty to their constituents. It was the astonishing silence on the Treasury Bench which had upset their calculations for their own domestic enjoyment and which had obliged them, at immense sacrifice to themselves, to remain at the House and maintain that a question of interest to every public meeting in England was not to be treated with indifference and contempt in the Parliament of this country.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,)regretted that the hon. Member for Dover had not been able to get away to dinner, but there was a reason why he should put the hon. Gentleman to the sacrifice of remaining in the House. He had not intervened in the Debate before this in order that he might obtain a certain amount of light from the various hon. Members interested in the Question, light not only as to the amount of the evil which prevailed, but as to the extent to which the evil prevailed in any particular industry, and also as to the remedial steps which in the opinion of those hon. Members, might be taken. He owned in the fullest mariner that it was very natural there should be complaint on this subject. It was only natural and reasonable that the working classes should feel aggrieved that their free labour was subjected to the competition of the labour of foreign convicts. He had never said anything which would indicate he was out of sympathy with that complaint, coming as it did from the working classes who thought themselves affected, and the complaint was, of course, all the more reasonable at such a time as the present, when many British industries were
  1150
  suffering serious depression. But he did not think it had been at all shown that the competition of foreign prison labour was the cause of the depression. Of course, when trades were suffering, it was only natural that persons engaged in those trades should look around, and should alight upon any cause for the depression that was at all probable; but he did not believe that many of the persons who signed the petitions on the subject which had been presented to the Government were, any more than the Government, in a position to show that this particular competition was one of the causes of the depression from which they suffered. He did not think it necessary to bring any doctrines of political economy into the matter as the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet had invited him to do. He did not consider that the question of Free Trade arose in the matter at all. He attached more importance to the Reports obtained by Her Majesty's representatives abroad, which were contained in the Blue Book issued on the subject, and it was upon that evidence he proposed to deal with the matter. The hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield regretted that those Reports were not published sooner. But it would be seen that two of the Reports were dated August 12 and August 22, and it was the view of the Government that those Reports should be presented to the House all together, rather than one by one, as they were received by the Government. Well, he had gone through the Blue Book, and he could not find in the Reports from Germany any evidence whatever that any British industry suffered from prison labour. It did not appear that there was so large a manufacture of any particular article in prison as to make it probable that it interfered with the trade outside. In fact, they were told in the Blue Book that the policy of the German Government had been to spread prison labour over as many trades as possible, in order that it might have no injurious effect on any particular trade. There was a certain amount of popular feeling on the subject in Germany which found expression in agitation. The Government came to the conclusion that they ought not to throw the burden of prison competition on any particular trade; and, therefore, while they refused

  1151
  to abandon the system of prison labour, which was maintained in the interests of the prisoners themselves, they endeavoured to distribute the work over as many trades as possible, so that the production should not be so great in any particular trade as to affect that trade outside. The brush trade had been particularly referred to in the Debate. According to the Blue Book, no one appeared to be employed at brush-making in the prisons of Saxony; and the total number employed at the industry in all the prisons of Prussia was only 863.
  *COLONEL H. VINCENT: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; but he will find that at cocoa-matting, &c., £1,010 was spent on prisoners employed in Saxony. The "&c." includes brush-making.
  MR. BRYCE: But does it?
  *COLONEL H. VINCENT: It is well known it does.
  MR. BRYCE: I do not admit that brush-making is included in "cocoa-matting, &c." It covers a great deal besides brush-making. Therefore, I do not think there is anything to show that any prisoners in Saxony are employed in brush-making. Again, it should be remembered that the number of prisoners employed in a trade was not the same index as to the quantity of production as it would be in the case of free labour. Everyone knew that forced labour was proverbially unproductive. Moreover, prisoners were often committed only for a short term, and they were released before they had sufficiently learned a trade to make their labour productive. Many of them also were rogues and vagabonds, whom it was extremely difficult to train to efficiency. But the matter did not rest there. There was not a tittle of evidence that any of those prison-manufactured goods came into this country at all. He thought it very possible or probable that some did; but there was no evidence to show how many, and he did not think they were in the least justified in arguing from anything contained in the Blue Book, that anything like a considerable quantity of the goods was imported into England. He was confirmed in that opinion by the difficulty found by those interested in the matter in endeavouring to prove that those prison-made
  1152
  goods competed with English industries. Some time ago, representatives of those industries came to the Office of the Board of Trade as a Deputation, and they were asked to furnish to the Board some data as to the quantity of those goods that were imported. But they were unable to furnish those data; and the Board of Trade, likewise, had no evidence whatever, though he had caused very careful inquiries to be made in the matter. They had, therefore, two facts clearly before them—first, that the total production of Foreign prison-made goods was small; and, secondly, that there was no evidence of any kind as to the proportion of that small production which found its way into English markets. There was, undoubtedly, considerable depression in the brush trade. One branch of it had largely passed out of the hands of men into the hands of women, who took lower wages than the men, and that was one of perhaps many causes that had limited the employment for men in that particular trade. There were many trades, as the House knew, that were not alleged to have suffered from foreign prison-competition, but which had, undoubtedly, suffered from general foreign competition. Hon. Members opposite had got a remedy for that competition, but it was a remedy which the House would not adopt. But with regard to the question of the effect of foreign prison labour on British industries, the Debate had not carried them any further than the Blue Book. They were entirely in the dark on that subject; and it was not a little significant that, notwithstanding the amount of time the question had been on the carpet, and the amount of consideration given to it, no light whatever had been thrown upon it. But, assuming that there was such an importation of foreign prison-made goods which entered into competition with British industries, what could be done to stop it? That was really a very difficult question. He could understand people saying:
  "It may be that it has not been proved that any serious injury is done to any particular trade; but nevertheless, if the thing is wrong in principle, if foreign goods made in foreign prisons ought not to compete with British goods made by free labour, stop it."
  He did not quarrel with that position. Unfortunately, no one could devise a

  1153
  means for distinguishing prison-made goods from others. [An hon. MEMBER: "The Americans."] The hon. Member for Sheffield in his Bill last year did not attempt it. From him, if from any one, might have been expected some practical light on the question—some indication of how the distinction between prison-made and other goods could be drawn, and of what kind of regulations should be adopted to prevent the importation of prison-made goods. But he looked in the hon. Member's Bill in vain for such guidance.
  *COLONEL H. VINCENT: Distinguish by regulations.
  MR. J. BRYCE: What regulations?
  *COLONEL H. VINCENT: Regulations made by the Board of Trade.
  MR. J. BRYCEsaid that he should like to hear what regulations would enable a Customs Officer, when he saw a brush, to say—"This brush was made in a foreign prison." He should only be too glad if the hon. Member, or anyone else, would show a Customs Officer how to distinguish such a brush from one made in England. It was not enough to know that it was foreign; the Officer must know that it was made in a foreign prison. He would not say that the task was impossible, because the ingenuity of hon. Members might be greater than that of the Customs; but no one had yet pointed out the way in which the difficulty could be overcome. The hon. Member for Sheffield referred to a United States statute on the subject. That was a statute prohibiting the importation of goods made by prison-labour, and authorising the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe such regulations as might be necessary for the enforcement of the statute. He had taken steps to ascertain what regulations the Secretary of the Treasury had made, and he was informed that he had made none. The same difficulty, no doubt, presented itself to him.
  *COLONEL, H. VINCENT: Will a Dispatch upon that subject be laid upon the Table, saying that the regulations have been made by the Secretary of the American Treasury?
  MR. J. BRYCEsaid that he must find out first how the information came to him. He believed that it was in a Dispatch, but he had also written to the United States for confirmation of the
  1154
  information. It was all very well to say that what Congress had done we could do. But there were many things which Congress had done and which he hoped we should never do. One of the things Congress was most fond of doing was passing statutes which it knew could have no possible effect. It contained a great many Members who, like the hon. Member for Sheffield, were extremely anxious to take up any grievance which excited public attention. But they found it easier to discover a grievance than to discover a remedy. He was quite ready to consider the whole question with a perfectly open mind, and he hoped that he had not argued the case with any preconceived views. Of course, the hon. Member would probably like to mark all foreign goods as foreign goods. But that was not the policy which the House had adopted, or which the Committee who recommended the Merchandise Marks Act, adopted. Indeed, they expressly refused it. Therefore, that was not the question, but merely the making of prison-made goods. Of course, one thing could be done. In any trade particularly threatened the manufacturers might mark their goods "home made," and then those who desired to promote home industries could prefer their goods. The Merchandise Marks Act would then apply to imported goods which were so marked. He was perfectly willing to consider any suggestion on this subject. When there existed among our industrial classes a feeling that they were exposed to unfair competition, and that this might be one of the causes of the depression from which their trades had suffered, there ought to be some effort made to discover what the evil was, and whether it would admit of a remedy. The hon. Member in his Motion suggested that some steps should be taken; he must admit that he did not know what steps to take. He had not been able to discover how great was the evil or what remedy could be applied. The best suggestion he could make was that the wisdom of the House of Commons should be elicited on the subject by means of a Committee. At the same time, he should be glad if any hon. Member would himself bring in a Bill to relieve the difficulty. The Government were willing to take any steps to have this matter and

  1155
  the possible remedies thoroughly sifted and examined.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I confess that I have with some reluctance stayed in the House during the discussion on this question, because I thought it was a matter upon which opinion was so universally agreed, that discussion would end in a concession on the part of the Government. But although I was reluctant to stay, I admit that I have been amply rewarded by the interesting and instructive speech to which we have just listened from the President of the Department, who is appointed and paid to look after the interests of trade, who says that he must beg from the Opposition a policy. But before I deal with that speech, I will say a word or two as to the question before us. On the merits there is absolutely no contention. The right hon. Gentleman has flung to the winds all the political economy of his chief, the Leader of the House. He says he does not come to the consideration of this question biassed in any way by those eternal principles which were laid down the other night by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and which teach us that the lower the price of commodities the better it is for the nation. He has flung aside those proposals as though they were the proposals of belated philosophers; and he has granted the whole contention of my hon. Friend who introduced the subject. But as to the political importance of the subject. Hitherto it has not been a political question. From to-night it will be. I say that there is no question upon which the working classes of this country have more generally made up their mind than upon this. I do not believe that there is any single hon. Member who sits for an industrial constituency, or who has village industries in an agricultural constituency, who could hold an open meeting and carry a resolution against the principle for which my hon. Friend contends. I believe that is admitted on all sides. The other night we were discussing a question of no doubt great Imperial and national importance; but I am afraid I must confess that the working classes of this country care more for this question of the admission of prison-made goods into this country, in competition with their own industries, than they do for those great Imperial questions which have been the subject
  1156
  of absolute contest between the two Parties. This is a question, therefore, of supreme political importance. I am not exaggerating its real economic importance, but its political importance cannot be denied. I am afraid it would be out of order to "Kodak" the House of Commons at any time; but I wish we could have a photograph of the House of Commons during this discussion and send it by the million throughout the constituences that they might have seen the interest which some of the people's Representatives take in questions on which they speak very loudly on platforms. Allusion has already been made to the fact that the Labour Members have been conspicuous by their absence. Were they absent on the Votes of Want of Confidence, three or four of which have taken place in the last fortnight? No; every single Member was present. But on an occasion which specially concerns the interests of the working classes, and with regard to a subject on which those who are invariably put forward as the only legitimate Representatives of the working classes, have spoken with a unanimous voice, they are conspicuous by their absence. Only four of them have put in an appearance during any time of the Debate, and during the greater part of the Debate not a single one of them has been present. I say we take note of these things, and we give you warning that we take note of them.
  MR. J. WILSON: I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman that I have been present the whole time.
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Then my hon. Friend has been a conspicuous exception to conspicuous absentees. It is true, however, because I have watched the debate, and I know exactly who has been present and who has not. I except, of course, my hon. Friend on the Treasury Bench (Mr. Burt); but I regard him at the present moment as an official member of the Government, and not an especial representative of the Labour classes. But is it not a most extraordinary fact that those hon. Members who claim to represent the working classes should be present at a Party vote and should not be present on an occasion when a question not necessarily Party in complexion was being discussed and when their interests were under discussion? Now, I

  1157
  ask, what is the position of the Government with regard to this important question, as to which I have said that I do not believe there is a single Member on either side of the House who can entertain a doubt as to the opinions of his constituency on the subject! The first thing I have to say about the Government is, that they assisted an attempted "count." I charge against the Government, who by the necessities of their situation are bound to be present in the House on an occasion like this, that when a "count" was called on an essentially Labour question, there were only two Members of the Government present on the Front Bench. If it had not been for the Opposition there would have been no House to discuss this matter, and the Government would have avoided what is, no doubt, an extremely awkward question for them. But we have waited, and at last we have obtained a very official reply; it was a model of an official reply. I do not blame the President of the Board of Trade; he is merely the tube for conveying this information to the House. It is not a matter in which the right hon. Gentleman has taken any interest himself; it is merely one upon which he has officially informed himself; and he has accepted the information handed to him by gentlemen who naturally do not care to have further important and delicate duties imposed upon them; and he has given all this information to the House as the official reply of the Government. No one wonders that the officers of the Board of Trade should desire to have all the difficulties of the question pointed out; but I think it is the business of the head of the Board of Trade and the Representative of the Government, when face to face with what is practically a national and almost unanimous demand, to find some means of satisfying it. What has the right hon. Gentleman done? The country, I hope, will take notice of his reply. First of all, the right hon. Gentleman seeks to mimimise the facts, to declare that the whole business is of no importance, to say that, after all, we are making a great fuss about nothing and that it is not necessary to do anything. In the second place, he says that the Government are going to do as little as possible, Take the first point, that this is an unimportant matter. The case has been given up on its merits by the right
  1158
  hon. Gentleman. He does not pretend to defend so ridiculous and so abnormal a system as that which prevents us from employing our prisoners in useful and valuable labour—a matter which might be justified on many important social and political grounds—but which allows the Germans to employ their prisoners, not at the expense of their workpeople, but to take good care that the goods made by their prisoners should be specially ear-marked for British consumption. I will do my right hon. Friend the justice to say that he did not defend such an absurdity as that; but he says:—
  "Granted that it is very improper the system should go on, it is only a little one; it is so small that you need not take any notice of it; I do not believe as yet that any British industry has been ruined."
  What a satisfaction to British industry, in process of being ruined, to know that the President of the Board of Trade is fairly confident from statistics supplied to him by German sources—statistics "made in Germany"—that up to the present time no important British industry has been ruined! I do know that he can even take that satisfaction to himself. Suppose I accepted every one of his figures—and I do not accept any one of them—that only 863 alien felons are employed in making brushes sent into England, does anyone suppose that the introduction of goods by 863 persons in a limited trade like the brush trade has not an enormous effect? I suppose that the House understands what is the cause of high and low prices—high prices to-day and low prices to-morrow? It is the introduction in a trade already fully supplied of a fractional increase. I do not care how fractional it is. Suppose that you are making 100 brushes; if you increase the output to 101 brushes you reduce the price of the brushes not by 1 per cent., but by 50 per cent. Everyone will be trying to sell the additional brush, and the result is the enormous reduction which we see. If anyone doubts that for a moment let him look at the state of the greatest of our industries. What is the reason for the reduction in the price of corn? Do you not suppose that the reduction in the price of wheat has been enormous? I believe, as a matter of fact, that in the last year the total

  1159
  production of wheat in the world actually decreased; but in any case the increased production of wheat in the world during ten years has been only a fraction of the total production, and yet that has been sufficient to send down wheat to 20s. a quarter. What happens here happens a fortiori in those small trades concerned. In the brush trade no one has been able to make a profit; the workmen are not able to get decent wages; and this system of competition has ruined everything in the trade worth fighting for. The right hon. Gentleman has dealt with the question as if it was only a question affecting the brush trade. English prison work, as we know, is confined to two or three trades; but the Germans have actually sent over to this country for models of English manufactures, and they are making them in their prisons. At the present time they are making about 20 different articles in various branches of industry; so that, after they have contrived to ruin the brush trade, they will go into many other trades; and, meanwhile, the President of the Board of Trade will continue to be distinguished by the cheerful optimism he has displayed tonight. The right hon. Gentleman made an admission. He said that the Germans had spread these prison industries over as many manufactures as possible. What a satisfactory state of things! How admirable it will read in the newspapers to-morrow! The right hon. Gentleman will be enabled to go to Aberdeen and say to his fellow-citizens there—
  "At the present time the Germans in their prisons have not dealt with the jute manufactures,"
  but a member of the audience will say—
  "Oh, but you say that the Germans have spread their prison work over as many industries as possible, and how do yon know that the German prison system may not spread even to our industry?"
  The fact is that there is no industry which is safe as long as this state of things is allowed to continue. The gravity of the case has been admitted by the Government, though, at the same time they have sought to minimise it; the moral right of the demand made has been admitted by the Government, although the actual amount of the injury done has been minimised. In presence
  1160
  of the universal demand from the constituencies, and an admission by the official head of the Department, we are asked to take a Committee. No, Sir; in that respect we are not the comrades of the hon. Member for West Ham. The right hon. Gentleman said that while he did not wish to ignore altogether this public feeling and the necessity for doing something, he modestly confessed that he could not do anything. He actually made it a complaint against Members of the Opposition that they had not found a policy for him. He is a Member of a Government that has forgotten how to govern and that has not learnt how to resign. Let the right hon. Gentleman resign; we will find him a policy. But we are not going to lend him our prescriptions while he takes the fees. What is he on the Front Bench for? What has the right hon. Gentleman been appointed President of the Board of Trade for if not to find a policy? But now he actually comes and sues the Opposition to find a policy for him which he cannot find. I do not think there would be much difficulty in finding him a policy, but as I have said, I do not see why we should prescribe until we are called in. If we decline to find him a policy which he cannot find for himself, the light hon. Gentleman actually says to the House that he has an open mind, and that his open mind will take a Committee. Whatever the House does, I hope it will not take a Committee. We know perfectly well what that means. I think an hon. Member belonging to the Ministerial side said the other day, with reference to the Committee promised to the hon. Member for West Ham, that, so far as a Royal Commission was concerned, that was acknowledged on all sides to be a means of securing delay and in putting off a question; but as regards a Committee, he thought that something might be quickly expected from it. One experiment with a Committee is enough; and I shall believe in the result of the Committee of the hon. Member for West Ham when I see it. That Committee is dealing with a subject which involves the interests of hundreds of thousands of people; it is urgent in a sense which no other question before the House is; it has, therefore, a better chance than any other Committee could have of coming to a useful conclusion. But

  1161
  the question now before us is a question the dealing with which has been already postponed owing to the action of successive Presidents of the Board of Trade during the last three years. If it were submitted to a Committee of this House we know that that Committee would not sit de, die in diem, it would not make any interim reports, and it might report at the end of the Session, when the Government would find it impossible, even if they were willing, to find time to carry any effective legislation. This is a matter for the Government to take into their own hands. It is no new matter; it has been brought before the House again and again, by resolutions passed by their own supporters, by resolutions passed by individual Trade Unions as well as by the Congress at Norwich. It is not dignified, right, or proper that the Government should sit there and say they have no remedy. If that is their position they should make way for persons who can find a remedy. The proposal of the Government has shown to the House what we have contended, that, however great the interest they may take in those large constitutional questions involving the destruction of the Empire or the destruction, of a trade, they have no interest whatever in those social questions which have the greatest interest for the vast majority of the people.
  MR. J. MORLEY: My right hon. Friend has enlivened an hour which is not usually distinguished by animation. He charges us with indifference to Labour questions because some of us were absent during the speech of the hon. Member for Sheffield; but while my right hon. Friend was speaking I looked at the front Opposition Bench, where sat two gentlemen, though now there are three. One of them is a predecessor of mine in the office I now hold (Mr. J. Lowther), who advocates doctrines which I am sure my right hon. Friend would be the first person to repudiate. But where is the former President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Bristol (Sir M. Hicks-Beach)? The right hon. Member for West Birmingham fell foul of the President of the Board of Trade for not submitting some proposal of his own instead of suggesting a Select Committee. But I remember that, six
  1162
  years ago, when I stood, and was proud to stand, by the side of my right hon. Friend at this table, he brought forward a humane and beneficent scheme relating to merchant shipping, and, finding he could not have his own way, what did he do? He referred the whole of that large and momentous question, not to a Select Committee, but to a Royal Commission.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The parallel is not quite accurate. At that time I had my remedy, which I submitted to the House, and it was only in consequence of the lack of time that I did not carry it to a final conclusion. Finding it was impossible to obtain sufficient time, I accepted a Commission as the only alternative.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I am not in the least finding fault with my right hon. Friend; I only cite what happened there when he was President of the Board of Trade.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: And nothing has been done since.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I do not want to labour the point, but my right hon. Friend seems to suppose that there is some fundamental antagonism between the free trade position taken up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the views of the President of the Board of Trade with respect to the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. Now, if there is an ardent free trader in the House, it is the humble individual who is addressing it; but can I for one moment think I am bound, in the interests of free trade, or in order to be a consistent free trader, to admit into the markets of this country convict-made goods made in this country or convict goods made elsewhere? That is not free trade. Would the late Mr. Bright have allowed the products of slave industry to come into competition with the products of free industry? ["He did."] But the moment it came to be a question of slavery his free trade theory vanished. ["Never"and "Sugar."] At all events, there is no inconsistency between the most orthodox doctrine of free trade and the refusal to allow goods manufactured in prisons, by men who are not self-supporting but who are supported by taxpayers, to come into

  1163
  competition with the products of free industry. My right hon. Friend will admit there is no inconsistency in extreme free traders insisting that prison-made goods shall not come into competition with free labour.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Let me say I entirely concur in what my right hon. Friend has said. So far as he and his friends are professed free traders, I do not find any inconsistency in their present position; but there is inconsistency between the statement of the President of the Board of Trade and the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the cheaper goods were the better it was for this country.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I suppose that as an abstract proposition thrown upon the floor of the House that is absolutely undeniable. In my own constituency I have often been challenged on this question; and I have never said that upon economic grounds, and with the strictest regard to economic principles, allow prison-made goods to come into competition with the products of free labour. I will go a step further. If I would not allow the products of prison industry in our own country to come into competition with free labour, still less should I be able to sacrifice that sensible maximum in deference to the convenience of any other country. The issue now is, What is practicable? If either my right hon. Friend or the Member for Sheffield will show me an expedient or device, a method or a system by which I can always identify a convict-made brush or mat, I certainly would do the best I could to carry it out. [Colonel HOWARD VINCENT: It is quite easy.] Then let the hon. Member go before a Committee and show them that it is easy. It is all very well, but what is the device or scheme which you say is so easy? My right hon. Friend challenged you to produce it, and it has never been produced in any form or way. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham says that no industry is safe, and he says that English models are sent for to be copied in Germany; but there is no evidence of that before us, or that German prison-made goods are embarked for British consumption. I defy my right hon.
  1164
  Friend to prove that one of these brushes comes to England. [Colonel HOWARD VINCENT produced a brush, and held it up amid great, laughter.] Yes, that is a brush; but what is the history of it? Where did he get it? If he will go before a Committee he can be examined as to the identity of that particular brush. I represent an industrial constituency in which no cheerful view is taken of present prospects, but I know that there are great economic causes at work; there are great economical forces at work which we may or may not be able to resist by Legislation. But do not let a man come down to this House and say that the safety of British industry depends in any degree whatever on the importation of a few articles made in German prisons. If it can be shown that there are practical methods of keeping these articles out of the country, I, for one, would fall in with any such methods as have been suggested, if it can be shown that the evils which may accrue would not be greater than the evils which it is sought to remedy. I cannot go further in that direction than the President of the Board of Trade, and if the Mover of the Resolution and those who support him are sincere in their desire to attain the object they have in view they will accept the proposal of the Government.
  MR. C. B. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, those who remembered the previous answers of the President of the Board of Trade to previous questions on the subject, and who were witnesses of the hurried consultation of what appeared to be a Committee of the Cabinet on the Treasury Bench, shortly after the "count out" was unsuccessfully moved, would not be surprised at the markedly improved tone of the right hon. Gentleman towards the Motion of his hon. Friend; and that improvement had been carried a great deal further by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the practicability of attaining the object of the Resolution; but the last Administration, while they held power, reduced practically to vanishing point the manufacture of articles competing

  1165
  with British industries in British prisons. Permission was also refused to the officer of a foreign Government to study in our prisons the manufacture of articles which it was desired to produce in foreign prisons. With regard to the argument of impracticability, the late Government passed the Merchandise Marks Act, under which the importation of certain goods into this country was prohibited. Could Custom House Officials without the help of Regulations distinguish these from goods not the subject of prohibition? Could Custom House Officials detect goods falsely marked as to mode of manufacture and the materials of which they were composed? He believed the prohibitions of that Act were operative and effectual, and he believed that if a similar statute were passed prohibiting the importation of prison-made foreign goods it would be found that the capital embarked in the trades would be too timid to risk the possibilities of detection. If the British importer were not ready to import, what would become of the trade of the foreign exporte? The fundamental principle was—Why should we give in this country greater assistance to the penal system of foreign countries than we gave to our own at home? A Committee was offered, but the offer was not accepted by any considerable portion of the House. Why was not a Committee valuable or useful for the purpose? There was only one source to go to for evidence. Let them ask Custom House Officials whether they could distinguish goods in the way he had mentioned. They would tell them they could not: and having asked that question and received that answer they would do the only advantageous work open to any Committee. The answer to the offer of a Committee was that the matter was too small for a Committee, and too small for the Government to have made this ridiculous fuss about it.
  *SIR A. K. ROLLITsaid, the one redeeming feature of the Debate had been the late but very acceptable disavowal by the Chief Secretary for Ireland of doctrines of laissez faire which apparently had previously been silently acquiesced in, but which were a great
  1166
  injustice to our workpeople and to the trades of the country. The question was whether the Government had done all that they could to protect our trade interests against these practices, which were not based on principles of free trade at all. He ventured to say that the Government had not done what they might have done to put an end to such a system. The President of the Board of Trade had even made a reflection upon the United States for having done at least their best to prevent the introduction of such goods into their country; but, at any rate, the Customs Officers of the United States were at the present time in a very different position to the Customs Officers of our own country. Any attempt upon the part of our own Officers to stop or even to investigate the origin of these goods would be an illegality. This was not a question for a private Member's Bill, but for the Government, since the abuse struck vitally at all classes of industry in the country, and was one of the causes of the present distress. If it was admitted that a measure of reform would be welcome, why did not the Government initiate proceedings for a Bill which would give powers which were at present wholly wanting? The old doctrine of laissez fairs was persistent in certain quarters, but they hoped that the present Debate would do much to demolish it. He could see no great objection to a Committee, though he doubted if it would do any good, but what they desired was some action on the part of the Government.
  *MR. W. R. CREMERsaid, that the constituency which he represented was almost the centre of the brushmaking industry, and he had therefore, from time to time, had a great deal of evidence brought before him as to the importation of foreign articles into this country. There might not be any direct or positive evidence of the importation of prison-made brushes, but he had been told on good authority that a well-known firm in the West End of London, which had four large establishments in which brushes were sold, had no factory in this country for the manufacture of these brushes, and it was fair to conclude that their brushes

  1167
  were manufactured abroad, and largely by prison labour. What the workmen desired was that all articles which came into this country should bear the brand of the firm which manufactured them, and if they were made in German prisons it should be clearly stated upon the articles themselves. He could state on excellent authority, in order to show how the law was dodged, that at the present time large cases of merchandise were imported into the country with an outside label signifying that they came from Germany, but not one of the articles of which they were full bore the label, and some English firms were dishonest enough to afterwards brand them with their own names, and sell them as English-made goods at prices much above their value. That was what the English workmen complained of. The great majority of them were Free Traders, but they contended that the public ought to have the means of knowing the character of the goods they bought and where they came from, and that British traders should not be permitted to sell German prison-made articles as of their own manufacture. He knew well that it was the method of Governments to propose, or grant, an inquiry when they were in a difficulty about a question. The practice was not confined to one Party. The proposal tonight was by no means a new one, and probably it would be again resorted to by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they again occupied the Treasury Bench, to which they were now looking with a longing eye. But there could be no doubt that more information was wanted on the question; and he therefore thought it very desirable that a Committee of Inquiry should be appointed. He therefore, rejoiced that the Government had decided upon this course, although not until the last moment, but whether the Committee was granted at the first hour or the eleventh hour he was glad to accept the offer they had made. He hoped, however, that the scope of the Inquiry would not be limited to prison-made goods, but would be extended to other goods imported into this country, and to the comparative failure of the Merchandise Marks Act.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLdesired to point out that the policy of the Government on this question was of a twofold character. The first part of the policy of the Government was to procure a "count out" of the House. He would describe what took place. An Irish Member suddenly appeared in the House and drew the attention of the Deputy Speaker to the fact that 40 Members were not present, and then, silently folding his tent like the Arab, quietly slid away. The bells rang for a count, and how many Members of the Government came in to prevent a count? There were about 25 paid officials Members of the Government in that House, and two of them only came in to respond to the summons. How many unofficial Members of the Party appeared? Why, some of them who were in the House at once cleared out, and but for Members of the Opposition the intention of the Government would have succeeded, the House been counted out, and the question burked. He wished the constituencies to know that this was the primary policy of the Ministry on this subject. After the count was prevented, what took place? The hon. Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis), came up the Floor of the House and took a seat on the Treasury Bench. Immediately hurried consultation took place between Ministers, and then the President of the Board of Trade rose and made a long speech, and finally threw the offer of a Committee at the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield Central. The right hon. Gentleman confessed that he had no policy of his own, and asked the hon. Member what he had to propose. In a day or two the Welsh question would be brought before them; a day or two later the Irish Land question would be introduced, and a few days after that the House would be deep in the discussion of the Local Veto proposal. Now, he put it to the House, even supposing the proposed Committee sat and prepared and brought up its Report, what chance was there that in such a crowded Session as this was certain to be, any of its recommendations would be considered and carried into law? The first plan

  1169
  having failed, the Government tried this second plan of appointing a Committee, whose Report, even if arrived at, could not be acted upon this Session. The constituencies would know the facts tomorrow, and the people would have no difficulty in understanding the primary policy of the Government on this interesting and important question.
  Mr. J. PINKERTONsaid, he represented a constituency in which there were a large number of brushmakers, and on that account he was disposed at first to support the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield. But when the right hon. Member for West Birmingham stated that instead of being a social question, this was a political question, he had to reconsider his position. He was anxious to benefit the brushmakers of Galway, and he thought he could best serve their interests by supporting the Government who had the interest of the working men at heart. He believed it was not by any measure introduced by the hon. Member for Sheffield that they could benefit the working men in this matter, but by investigating the matter by means of a Select Committee; and instead of trying to make policital capital out of this subject, he thought every honest friend of Labour must vote for the Government, and by that means, show that they were not political quacks and humbugs.
  MR. P. A. MUNTZsaid, that having heard the remarks of the hon. Member for Haggerston and of the hon. Member for Galway, he could not help feeling that they would get into some little trouble with their brushmaking constituents. The question now stood in a totally different position from that which it occupied at the begining of the evening. He was anxious that the working classes should have their special attention drawn to the course that was pursued. A "count" was attempted in the most marked manner, upon a non-political subject. It was, he thought, very discreditable, in the present condition of trade and industry that the Government
  1170
  should have attempted a "count" on a matter of this importance. The attempt failed in the most signal manner, and they had a Debate which ended in the rising of the President of the Board of Trade. The right hon. Gentleman gave the case away as regards Free Trade—"foul trade" would be a more accurate expression; he said, firstly, that the manufacture was of no importance; and, secondly, that there was no proof that foreign prison-made goods were introduced into this country. But the hon. Member for Haggerston told the House that he had the most conclusive proof on the subject—["No No!"]; at any rate, he gave presumptive evidence. This trade was undoubtedly doing serious injury to the manufacturing industry of this country at a time when the manufacturing population in every branch of industry was suffering in the most lamentable manner, when starvation reigned around, and when there was nothing but the efforts of the charitable to maintain many thousands of the poor in every great centre in the country. Was that a time when Members should try to shuffle out of a question, of this kind? The people in the great centres would form their own conclusions, as to which Party in the House was endeavouring to serve their interests, and which Party had signally failed in their duty. All the questions in which the Government appeared to take an interest, might be trotted out, but the question in which the great mass of the people took an interest at the present time was, how they should get their living.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERthought it a somewhat unusual proceeding that a second Minister should be put up to enforce the case for the Government. But he did not wonder at it, for a precious mess the President of the Board of Trade made of the case. As far as they could judge, the right hon. Gentleman, made common cause with the "alien felon," and it appears to have been thought that the partisanship should be repudiated by the Government. Therefore an absolutely different case was stated by the Chief

  1171
  Secretary. It was admitted by the Government that there was a great grievance existing, and it was proved that the offence against our commercial interest was a deliberate one. The evidence was absolutely clear on that head, that this operation of the German Prison Authorities was intended to operate to the detriment of foreign countries. It was clear that the grievance existed, and that the offence was a deliberate one. It had also been proved that there was no other possible avenue through which these goods could escape except the British Market. On that they had the concurrent testimony of the hon. Member for Haggerston that, to the best of his belief, these goods had come into the country. It was sought to minimise the difficulty by saying that it affected only a small industry; but that did not take away in any possible degree from the danger of allowing this principle to be admitted. The Resolution referred to no question of Free Trade or Protection. It referred to something quite outside any matter of Free Trade. He could not recollect any expression of any views by the late Mr. John Bright with regard to the exclusion of American goods produced by slaves; but this had nothing whatever to do with the question of Free Trade. The Resolution said—
  "That it is incumbent upon Her Majesty's Government, in the interests of the industrial classes of the United Kingdom, at once to take steps to restrict the importation of goods made in foreign prisons by the forced labour of convicts and felons."
  There was not a single Member in the House who would dare to go down to his constituents and contest any single syllable of that proposition; and yet they had it from the Government, although they admitted that the danger existed, that they proposed to do absolutely nothing to remedy the evil. They could not be put off by the statement that there was no practical remedy. He should say that there were many, for there were now classes of goods prohibited from entering into this country except in strict regulations, as, for instance, copyright books; and it certainly ought not to pass the ingenuity of the
  1172
  Board of Trade, if they were seriously in earnest, to find some method of remedying the evil.
  MR. J. CUMMING MACDONAsaid, he rose to enter his protest against the action of the Government. Whilst thousands of our people in London were out of work—he went through his constituency the other day, and everywhere the cry was "Out of work! Out of work!"—was it right to encourage the importation of foreign prison-made goods to compete with the goods, produced by the honest toil of our fellow-citizens?
  MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMSsaid, that last night the Government moved the closure on a very important Labour question. That night they had adopted a different policy with a similar view. They had endeavoured to have a "count" on another Labour question, in which workmen all through the country were deeply interested, and he trusted that the Labour Members might be induced to take some notice of the matter, and to adjust their support of the Government according to the treatment the Government gave to these Labour questions. This was not altogether a question which related to the brush industry alone. Many other industries were deeply touched by the system. Something had been said about the lack of evidence of the evil. If the Government would make inquiries of their own representative on the Labour Gazette in Birmingham, they would learn from him that this importation of German goods affected several trades there. It did not quite do, perhaps, to judge of evidence from the number of telegrams a Member of the House might have sent to him on a particular question. He had himself before now had to wade through telegrams to the House, and he had that day received no less than 11 telegrams from manufacturers in Birmingham expressing their hope that he would be able to support the action of the hon. Member for Sheffield that night. One of those manufacturers told him the other day that such was the competition in a particular branch of the trade he carried on that he was absolutely driven out of it, and was compelled to dismiss the workmen employed in it. He also told him that he had absolutely followed the course of the goods formerly manufac-

  1173
  tured by him from Germany. This was a matter which the Government ought to deal with resolutely and quickly; and when he said resolutely and quickly he did not mean by a Select Committee. He had been long enough in the House to know what that sort of thing led to, and was reminded that only a few nights ago, the Westminster Gazette, an organ which supported the Government, said that no doubt the Select Committee which had been appointed to consider the question of distress would report upon the matter as soon as the frost had gone and when no distress existed. The same thing, no doubt, would happen in this case, and he hoped his hon, and gallant Friend would absolutely decline to accept the suggestion which had been made by the Government; and he hoped, further, that, if the Government persisted in carrying their suggestion out that every Member of the Unionist Party would abstain from sitting on the Committee, as their labour would only result in a farce.
  *MR. J. KEIR HARDIEsaid he intended to support the Amendment, and the declarations he had heard from the Treasury Bench had confirmed him in that determination. The hon. Member for Haggerston assumed that the Committee was to be appointed to inquire into the question, of prison-made goods. But that was not the contention of the President of the Board of Trade. His words were—
  "Show me a method by which I can identify prison-made goods, and I will adopt it."
  The Committee was to be appointed for the purpose of finding out that method.
  *MR. CREMER: I am sure the hon. Member would not willingly misrepresent me. What I said was that I hoped the scope of the inquiry would be considerably extended beyond the terms referred to by the President of the Board of Trade.
  *MR. J. KEIR HARDIE: Quite so. And I am certain the Government will be only too willing to adopt the suggestion.
  MR. BRYCE: I may save the hon. Member some trouble if I tell him that I do not limit the Committee to that particular point. I said nothing of the kind.
  *MR. J. KEIR HARDIEsaid, he had noted the words, and thought they would be verified by other hon. Members or by the reports of the Debates in the morning. The Chief Secretary and one or two others had gone into heroics about their professions of Free Trade, but they could not shut their eyes to the fact that Free Trade in the abstract was all but an impossibility. No one who supported Trade Unionism could claim to be a consistent Free Trader. Free Trade was a good thing as long as there were equal conditions; but the Trade Unionists of this country had no intention of allowing the sweater or the under paid labourer of continental nations to enter into competition with them. There should be no mistake upon that point; and the present question was the thin end of the wedge to secure that object. Marking the imported articles with the name of the manufacturer had been suggested, and surely that method would succeed in preventing them coming into the country without their origin being known, unless, of course, there was dishonesty on the part of our officials. As there had been such unanimity on this question, he suggested that the best thing the Government could do would be to introduce a short, non-contentious Bill to settle the matter—such a one as would easily pass through the House, and put a stop to the importation of these prison-made goods, which were believed to be doing a certain amount of injury to British industries. For these reasons he intended to support the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield.
  MR. A. CROSSsaid his constituents were deeply interested in this subject; but was he to have to tell them that the Government, who for the time being were in charge of the trade and industries of the country, were practically turning a deaf ear to the entreaties that were being made? The Government had used their power to prevent the Debate coming to a conclusion, and certainly had not met this matter in the spirit which hon. Members representing industrial centres had a right to expect. He hoped the Labour Members would take full note of the stand which the Government had assumed

  1175
  in relation to this pressing question. The real question before them was, whether they should restrict the importation of goods which it was admitted ought not to be imported. They had the example of the American Government to guide them, for that Government prohibited the importation of goods of this description. Let the President of the Board of Trade consent to introduce a measure of prohibition, and then let him institute an inquiry if he wished to do so. He joined in the appeal which had been made by the hon. Member for South West Ham.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Government, in the course of the discussion which has taken place on my hon. Friend's Amendment, have made two attempts to "burke" it. Their first attempt was a "count," and that failed. Then they attempted to "burke" it by a method more decorous, above all longer, but not less effectual. They proposed to refer the matter to a Committee, which in itself is a serious proceeding, but which is made more serious by the fact that the reference to the Committee is apparently to be overloaded, at the suggestion of the hon. Member for Haggerston, by such a large number of questions as will make it absolutely impossible that the Committee should come to any conclusion in a reasonable time. I listened with astonishment to two speeches delivered in the course of the last half-hour, one of them being the speech of the hon. Member for Haggerston. Both the hon. Gentlemen who delivered these speeches announced that they were going to vote with the Government, and both gave extraordinary reasons for the course which they intended to take. The hon. Member for Haggerston told us that he had a large number of brush-makers in his constituency, and that they were deeply injured by the trade in prison-made goods imported from Germany. He said that, notwithstanding, that he meant to support the Government and to vote for the Committee, and that the course proposed by the Government was always the course adopted by a Government in a difficulty. The hon. Member for Haggerston is a sufficiently old and experienced Member of this House to see through and
  1176
  through the dodges of the Government, and when he votes for them on this occasion he will not do so as a naive supporter of the Ministerial Bench, but as one who knows that this proposal for inquiry can have no other effect than to delay indefinitely the settlement of this question.
  MR. CREMERexplained, that what he had said was, that many of his constituents complained that they suffered severely in consequence of the importation of goods manufactured abroad, and that there was strong presumptive evidence that these goods were manufactured in German prisons or elsewhere in Germany. But he had also said that the evidence was not conclusive, and that it was desirable that evidence should be given before a Committee, because statements made before a tribunal of that kind were made under a sense of greater responsibility than was felt by those who made general statements outside that House.
  MR. BALFOUR: The hon. Member is right in saying that I am one of the last persons who would desire to misrepresent him. What I ventured to point out to the House was that the hon. Gentleman knows that this particular plan of submitting an awkward question to a Committee is one that has been adopted so frequently that nothing can be made out of it. Then he was followed by another hon. Member. What said he? He told us that he also had a large number of brushmakers in his constituency, but that though he loved them much he hated still more the Member for Birmingham, and that the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham had so rubbed him up that he was prepared to sacrifice the interests of the brushmakers for the purpose of supporting the Government in the course they propose with regard to an interest in which they are so vitally concerned. Let us, in the light of these two speeches of Members who have brushmakers in their constituencies, consider the position of the Government. They do not really deny that there is a grievance. They have not ventured to meet any specific allegations which have been made. They admit that the brushes are manufactured in German prisons. They do not allege that these brushes are not imported

  1177
  into this country. Still less do they deny that when they are imported the brushes are used to undersell the produce of British workmen. Now, when all these facts are known, I wish to ask the House whether it thinks that a Committee of this House would be of much advantage. What doubtful point is there to clear up before the Government takes action? There is no such thing. If this Committee is proposed it is for one of two reasons—for one of two purposes. It is either in order to smother the question absolutely so that it may be no longer heard of, or it is that the Committee may do for us what the Government are bound to do for us—namely, to exercise their ingenuity to obtain means with which to deal with the question. What should we appoint a Committee for? What do we appoint Committees for? We appoint them to examine evidence on large questions on which the Government have not themselves the machinery to arrive at the truth. We appoint Committees either to collect evidence on doubtful questions, or for the purpose of discussing before those tribunals questions of great controversial Party interest. What we do not appoint Committees for, and I hope never shall, is for the purpose of doing that which we look to the Executive Government to do, however big or however small their majority may be. We look to them for that ingenuity and that resource which, after all, are required in great national affairs. The suggestion of the Government is not one which, in my opinion, should be adopted by the House. They have avoided, or temporarily avoided, one difficult question already in the course of the Session by appointing a Committee. The whole House is not to be divided up into Committee, for the purpose of relieving the Government of that responsibility which ought to lie on them and them alone. Here is a question, the material facts of which are not in doubt. [An hon. MEMBER: "They are."] No; the material facts are not in doubt. There are facts, no doubt, which are not material, but there is no doubt whatever that these goods are made in Germany, that they are not allowed to be sold in Germany in the neighbourhood of the prisons, and there is no doubt that they are imported from Ger-
  1178
  many. Then, why have a Committee? If we have a Committee for ten years it could not add to that statement. What, then, is a Committee wanted for? You want a Committee to relieve the Government of their responsibility, and I hope my hon. Friend—who is, I know, from a deputation which recently waited on me in Manchester, dealing with a class who naturally feel the grievances of which they are victims,—will not be misled by the offer of the Government. I hope he will not accept the proposal of the Government, which is perfectly illusory and which cannot by any possibility end in giving relief.
  MR. J. C. FLYNNobserved that the right hon. Gentleman had not thought it beneath his dignity to speak about the dodge of the Government, but the truth was the Motion before the House was a dodge of the Unionist Party, who were parading for the moment as the working man's friend. The sponsor of the Motion was a well-known and incorrigible Protectionist. The whole course of the Debate had been interesting and instructive. The House was asked to adopt the peculiar course of putting the cart before the horse. Without one scintilla of clear proof that these prison goods were being used in the manner stated, they were asked to legislate upon the subject. The Government made the fair and sensible proposition that if a grievance existed at all to any appreciable extent, a Committee should be appointed to take evidence, and that, if a case was made out, legislation should follow afterwards. According to the allegations made on the other side, a large portion of Germany, instead of being encamped in a military condition, must be composed of the criminal classes, and the prisons must be full to suffocation. If, as was assured, German prison-made goods were flooding the markets of this country and thereby seriously threatening the great industries of this country, there should be no difficulty in getting evidence of the fact. That evidence could be given in a week, and then the House could, with some show of reason, proceed to legislate in a sensible and satisfactory manner. The hon. Member for West Ham said that free trade was good so long as equal conditions existed; but if the doctrine was sound, why should we stand by and

  1179
  allow the sugar industry, for example, of this country to be crushed out by the bounty-fed sugar of France? They could not stop at the sugar industry, but would be bound to go on from step to step. The truth was, in this matter, the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and the hon. Member for Sheffield were gathered together in one fold under the red flag of Protection. He denied the statement of the Leader of the Opposition that Committees were only appointed in connection with questions of an acutely controversial or political character. The experience of most Members would bear him out that there were a very large number of Committees which sat for the sole purpose of taking evidence on subjects entirely unconnected with acute controversial or political questions, and that, the Committee suggested, was the best way of meeting a difficulty like the present.
  Motion agreed to.

  SHOPS EARLY CLOSING BILL.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read 2º."—(Sir J. Lubbock.)
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2º, and referred to a Select Committee.

  CHEAP TRAINS (LONDON) BILL.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read 2º."(Sir J. Blundell Maple.)
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not in order. I understand he intimated to the Clerks at the Table that he wished the Bill to be put off until to-morrow.
  SIR J. B. MAPLE: I rise to a point of Order. That is quite a misunderstanding. I said that if the Bill came on after 12 o'clock, it was to be deferred until to-morrow. I am sorry if I have been misunderstood, but I am here especially with reference to this Bill, and with the permission of the Government I should like to have it read a Second time. I have received a letter to-day——
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order. The hon. Member, I understand, gave instructions for this Bill to be deferred.
  SIR J. B. MAPLE: If it came no after 12 o'clock; but not if it came on before 12.
  Consideration of the Bill deferred till 20th February.

  LANDS VALUATION (SCOTLAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  SIR. J. CARMICHAELmoved the Second Reading of this Bill, which, he explained, was entirely of a non-Party character, and absolutely of no interest whatever except to those subject to its provisions. There were only two provisions of any importance in the Bill. The main provision was to assimilate the system of assessment with regard to land in the case of minerals, under leases of 31 years and 21 years, to the system at present existing in regard to leases beyond those periods. The result of that would be to bring within the net of taxation a very large amount of property which at the present time escaped taxation altogether, and, by extending the area, it would tend to lessen the burden and make the Valuation Roll more accurate than it was now. The Bill was based upon the Report of a Select Committee of the House, appointed in the year 1890, of which the present Lord Advocate was Chairman, and it largely embodied the recommendations laid down by that Select Committee. There was no new principle involved, and lessees would, of course, have the right to all relief given, under the Valuation (Scotland) Act, 1854. The only other provision was to extend to Magistrates and Councillors of burghs the same rights as were given to Commissioners of Supply, to deal with the Valuation question by Committee, instead of by the whole corporate body. He begged to move that the, Bill be now read a Second time.
  SIR CHARLES J. PEARSONsaid, he wished the hon. Member had explained a little more fully the provisions of the Bill. It did appear to him that more should be said than had been said by the hon. Gentleman, to satisfy the House as to the necessity or expediency of such a change in the method of taxation as that proposed by the Bill. For himself, he

  1181
  should like to hear more as to the grounds upon which the change was desired, and to have a free hand as to the second or third clause of the Bill. With regard to the more important part of the Bill, he believed that was in conformity with the recommendations of the Select Committee which sat some few years ago. That was a recommendation arrived at unanimously by the Committee.
  SIR J. CARMICHAELsaid, the Committee were unanimously of opinion that the law required alteration, and the Amendments embodied in this Bill were the Amendments suggested by the Committee.
  SIR C. J. PEARSONsaid, that according to his recollection the Committee did not commit themselves to the Amendments which were embodied in the Bill. He was under the impression the Committee reported alternative Amendments. One of the two alternatives had been chosen, and it seemed to him there would be some difficulty in working that alternative out, and that in practice it would introduce into the Valuation Roll some unreality. The improvements on the land which was under lease, although they belonged to the tenant, were to be entered in the ownership part, so that they would introduce in the ownership part a class of persons who were not really owners in the ordinary sense at all. That, in his opinion, would be a course which would tend to disturb the uniformity of the Valuation Roll. He therefore thought they were entitled to a little more explanation than they had as yet received.
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR,)said, that, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knew, the difficulty in dealing with cases of this kind had arisen, from the fact that it would not be just to put this tax upon the owner who received the rent apart from the improvement. Yet in comparison with the rest of the territory of the country this property was escaping taxation. He therefore thought they would all be agreed that whatever division took place between the landlord and tenant, the different parts of the territory of the country should pay proportionately. The object of the Bill was to bring that result about. As between landlord and tenant it would not be just to make the landlord, who was
  1182
  receiving the rent of the unimproved subject, pay as the landlord of the whole during the currency of the lease. Whatever might happen when the lease came to an end was another affair. In the meantime, inasmuch as the improvement had been made by the tenant for his own purposes, it seemed only right he should be the person to pay. Even in the Act of 1854 there were already cases in which the ownership and occupancy were artificially re-arranged. But any points of that sort were rather for Committee than for this stage. The Bill was intended to carry out a very useful reform, and might very well be read a second time.
  MR. J. CALDWELLdid not altogether agree with the Lord Advocate. There would be no injustice in the landlord paying the taxes and keeping up the uniformity of the valuation roll, when on the expiry of the lease he would become the owner of all the improvements. He thought the introduction of this new principle in the valuation roll in Scotland would be fraught with a good deal of difficulty. He did not intend to resist the Second Reading of the Bill, though the measure involved a good many changes, which would require to be very carefully considered when they got into Committee.
  Motion put, and agreed to.

  SPORT REGULATION BILL.
  MR. A. C. MORTONin moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said its object was to put a stop to the cruelty of hunting and shooting animals kept in confinement; and that it received the support of sportsmen, particularly Tory sportsmen, all over the country. He hoped it would be allowed to pass its Second Reading and go into Committee, when he would be ready to accept any reasonable Amendments.
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNEsaid, that though every one should sympathise with the motive of the hon. Gentleman, it would be rather rash to agree to his Bill straight off. Besides, it was a Bill of a more extensive character than the hon. Gentleman had given the House to understand. It would stop, not alone pigeon shooting and rabbit coursing, but also stag hunting and pheasant shooting. He was a sportsman himself in an humble way, and he had

  1183
  no great sympathy with rabbit coursing or pigeon shooting, but because those sports did not come up to his ethics of sport was no reason why he should try to prevent any of his fellow-countrymen who liked them from indulging in them. If it were accepted that human beings should not inflict sufferings on animals, then let all such sports be stopped, for they were all exactly on the same basis. The amount of intense suffering caused by a day's pheasant shooting could hardly be exaggerated; but that did not prevent him from participating in the sport, because, personally, he did not hold the extreme view that the suffering of animals was to be the limit of human enjoyment in sport. But, on the other hand, if he were to be allowed to shoot pheasants he could not in reason say that other people should not be allowed to shoot pigeons. Legislation must rely on a stronger basis of logical consistency than the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had put forward. The Bill would also stop stag hunting, a sport in which an enormous number of persons were interested, not only as a means of recreation, but as a means of livelihood. The hon. Gentleman said it made a difference if the stag was kept in confinement. But why—what difference did it make? He certainly was not prepared to stop his fellow-countrymen from stag hunting on such feeble arguments as the hon. Gentleman had put forward. If the opinion was held that the sufferings of the animals were terrible, that sporting ought to be prohibited, then put a stop to sporting altogether; but until they resolved to take such an extreme course, the Bill rested on a totally illogical basis, and ought not to be passed into law.
  MR. H. C. F. LUTTRELLsupported the Bill. He said the question was, what was sport? There were different kinds of sport, some of them noble, and some of them far from noble. But the idea most people had of sport was to pursue the wild animal with some purpose, generally that of obtaining food. [Cries of "The fox!" and Laughter.] The fox, at any rate, was not kept in confinement—[An hon. MEMBER: "The hounds are"]—except in certain cases; and where, the fox was kept in confinement few people would defend the sport. The noble
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  Lord said that there was wanton cruelty in all sport. There might be cruelty in sport, but it was not always wanton, like hunting a rabbit turned out of a sack or a deer loosed from a box. His experience of stag hunting was the chase of the wild stag, which was killed to be eaten. He should support the Bill.
  MR. E. LEESsaid, that a vast field was opened by the consideration of this Bill. It was delightful to one's feelings as a sportsman to find a Gentleman on the Radical Benches denouncing the practice of hunting bagged foxes; but there was a great deal in the Bill which could not be passed without careful discussion. He yielded to no man in his endeavours to conduct sport without cruelty; and he differed from his noble Friend's opinion that there was a vast amount of cruelty in pheasant shooting, though he admitted that it was the highest form of skill with the gun and the lowest form of sport. He could well appreciate the sentiments of the hon. Member who had just sat down, and who came from a country where the wild stag was hunted. Beside that sport, no doubt, the hunting of the tame stag was an insignificant affair. Even a good run with the fox-hounds hardly surpassed the hunting of the wild stag with the Devon and Somerset hounds. But if the hunting of the tame stag was not a high class of sport, there was no cruelty associated with it; and why should it be done away with? Had the hon. Member who introduced the Bill ever hunted the stag himself? He did not say that the stag preferred to be hunted rather than to be at liberty, but every precaution was taken to prevent cruelty. The stag was well kept, and he was hunted many times. He did not defend the practice as a sport, but if there was no cruelty in the system, and many persons found pleasure in the pursuit, why did hon. Members wish to put a stop to it? After referring to his own experience of the hunting of animals kept in captivity while following the late Lord Wolverton's hounds, the hon. Member called attention to Her Majesty's buckhounds, which were kept, he said, for the purpose mainly of hunting a tame stag. This Royal pack of hounds had been kept up for many years at the expense of the country in order to provide sport through the hunting

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  of a tame stag. Though many persons were interested in, and found pleasure in, the pursuit, he did not go so far as to say that it was real sport; and if the hon. Member in charge of the Bill could show that there was any cruelty connected with it he would be prepared to support him in putting an end to the practice. No real sportsman wished to perpetuate cruelty; the maintenance of cruelty was alien to the instincts of all sportsmen. Was any hon. Member, however, prepared to say that there was any cruelty connected with the establishment of the buckhounds? [An hon. MEMBER: "Yes."] If any hon. Members were prepared to maintain this, he wished then to ask how it was that in a thin House, and without adequate notice, the hon. Member should be so bold as to ask that the House should abolish a practice which for many years past had been carried on under the sanction of a Department and of an official of the Government, who had in his gift a considerable amount of patronage?
  MR. A. C. MORTON MR. A. C. MORTON rose in his place, and claimed to move: "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Deputy Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put the Question.
  Debate resumed.
  MR. ELLIOT LEESthought that the hon. Member not only wished to destroy the amusement of the people, but to destroy them without debate. Before such a Bill as this was passed the question of the existence of the buckhounds must be faced. Why did not the hon. Member give the House some instances of the cruelty which attended the pursuit of these animals?
  MR. MORTON: I could have given you hundreds of instances if I had had time.
  MR. LEES: Yes; but the hon. Member, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, has not done so; and if he can give us those instances I shall be prepared to give them my consideration.
  It being 12 of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

SEED POTATOES SUPPLY (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 117.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. G. C. T. BARTLEY 1186
  said, he did not wish in any way to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but he desired to call attention to the very different treatment Ireland received from that which England received. This was a measure of which they all approved, and it placed public money at the disposal of the small farmers of Ireland. Although public money was freely lent to small farmers, because they had a compact body of supporters in this House, it treated with scant courtesy the grievances of the English farmers, although the English farmer was financially in a worse position than the Irish farmer. This difference of treatment was a matter which was worth some consideration.
  MR. J. MORLEYwould remind the hon. Member that this Bill did not propose to make a present to the Irish farmers, but only advanced them money by way of loan. Such a loan was made in 1890 and 1891, when the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. A. Balfour) was Chief Secretary, and of that loan only about £2,000 was outstanding.
  MR. BARTLEY: But money is not lent to the English farmer.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I am not concerned with that; it is not in my Department.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLwished to ask whether the Local Government Board retained any control over the selection of the seed potatoes, or whether the matter was left entirely to the Boards of Guardians. Those bodies had a prejudice in favour of "Champions," and there was a general feeling among experts in the north of Ireland that that variety was rather worn out. He had received several letters on that point, and he therefore inquired in whom the discretion would be vested as to the selection of the seed potatoes, and whether any control would be exercised.
  DR. TANNER? said, that in many cases the "Champion" potato was found to have fallen away from the standard which had made it popular, but the facts were well-known, and the Boards of Guardians in the south of Ireland were perfectly capable of dealing with the matter.
  MR. T. SEXTONsaid, he was assured by Guardians and others capable of forming an accurate opinion, that the time allowed by the Bill for

  1187
  repayment was too short. As soon as distress was felt from a short potato crop, there was a great increase in the price of potatoes, and when the Guardians began to buy there was a further increase, until the price of potatoes became double what it was a year ago. The result was that the prices charged by Guardians was so high that farmer's would be unable to meet the loan out of the next year's potato crop. He thought two years in a season of distress with the poorest people in the poorest part of Ireland was an exacting term, and he urged that it should be extended.
  *MR. D. CRILLYsaid, these poor people had shown their willingness to repay the money advanced by the Government, but it was clear from the reports of the Local Government Board that they could not meet their liabilities within two years. He asked the Chief Secretary to comply with the reasonable and humane request of the hon. Member for North Kerry and extend the time for repayment. Some of the Irish Boards of Guardians were not disposed to supply seed potatoes unless easier terms were given.
  MR. J. MORLEYsaid, they had appointed a number of temporary Inspectors—he believed 18 or 20—whose special object it was to examine the purchases of potatoes made by the Boards of Guardians, and without whose authority no purchases under this Act could be made. In regard to the desire for an extension of time, it was a remarkable thing that of the loan made in 1891 only £2,000 remained outstanding, and that was entirely in three extremely poor unions. The contention was that if a longer time was given they would have no security that those who had the payment of the advances would be called upon to repay them, as they might die. If a number of years were taken, then the burden would devolve upon the ratepayers. He would remind the hon. Member for North Kerry that they took power in this Bill for the Local Government Board to extend the period of time in case there should be some good reason. The Local Government Board would not be sorry to do without this power, but after the circumstances which had been brought to the attention of the House by the hon. Member for North Kerry on that and on previous occasions, he thought
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  it would not be safe to deprive them of the power of giving a longer time for paying than under the ordinary conditions. If that hon. Gentleman would place his reliance on the wide and extended experience of the Local Government Board officials, he would find that the Government, in framing the Bill, had not gone far wide of the mark.
  MR. M. M. BODKINsaid, he had not risen before because he had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have assented to the request of the hon. Member for Kerry. The right hon. Gentleman had not done so, and yet he had given the House additional arguments in favour of the view of that hon. Member. The Chief Secretary had said, that the Local Government Board were reluctant to accept this dispensing power; but the fact was, they were reluctant to accept it because they did not want to use it. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the prompt payment of the money which had been previously advanced, but did not know the amount of pressure, and poverty, and suffering which was entailed by the enforcement of that prompt payment. The Exchequer was absolutely secure in this matter. The rates were also amply secured, but if the ratepayers and Guardians were pressed for payment, the people in their turn would be pressed also. The people were already in a condition of want, and the large price charged for the seed would nearly cover the entire price of the crop they would raise from it. Some remark had been made about the change of tenancies making repayment insecure, but Irish tenants did not change their places like English labourers; they stuck to their holdings, unless the landlords turned them out. He wished the right hon. Gentleman, who was responsible as the guardian of the Exchequer, had considered more the position of the poor Irish agriculturist under existing circumstances, bearing in mind that the British Exchequer would have no risk whatever, and that the Irish Party voiced the unanimous opinion of their constituents, that a little longer time for paying the money would be a substantial benefit to the destitute tenants.
  Bill read 2º.
  House adjourned at Twenty minutes past Twelve of the clock.