Commons Sitting of 26 January 1897

NOTICES OF MOTION.
  JUDICATURE ACTS.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: To call attention to the unsatisfactory working of the Judicature Acts; and to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the Administration of Justice under the Judicature Acts, with a view to secure greater efficiency and economy.—[Tuesday 23rd February.]
  NATIONAL MUSEUM (WALES).
  MR. ALFRED THOMAS: To call attention to the desirability of establishing a National Museum in Wales and to move, That in the opinion of this House, it is necessary for the public good of the inhabitants of the Principality that a National Museum and Library should be established in Wales.—[Tuesday 23rd February.]
  PEASANT FREEHOLDERS (WALES).
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: To call attention to the serious effects of the long period of agricultural depression, so far as it affects peasant freeholders in Wales; and to move a Resolution.—[23rd February.]
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ARREARS OF GRANTS).
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: To call attention to the refusal of the Education Department to pay arrears of Grants due to School Boards under Section 97 of the Act of 1870; and to move a Resolution.—[Tuesday 23rd February.]
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ARREARS OF GRANTS).
  MR. F. A. CHANNING: To call attention to the refusal of the Education Department to pay Arrears of Grants due to School Boards under Section 97 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870; and to move a Resolution—[Tuesday 23rd February.]
QUESTIONS.

  OTTOMAN PUBLIC DEBT.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) what portion of the Ottoman Public Debt is now borne by Greece in pursuance of Article X. of the Convention of 24th May 1881, which provided that Greece should bear a part of that debt proportionate to the revenues of the ceded territories transferred to her by the Convention from Turkey; (2) what steps have been taken by Her Majesty's Government during the 15 years which have elapsed since the signature of that Convention, to procure the carrying out of the stipulation of Article X. that Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, and Russia should determine between their Representatives at Constantinople and the Sublime Porte, the portion of the debt to be borne by Greece; (3) what has been the result of those steps, if any; (4) whether Her Majesty's Government have received any representations from the Turkish Government on this subject since the signature of the Convention; and, if so, whether he can give the reference to any Blue-book in which such representations and the replies thereto may be found; and, (5) whether any recent Dispatch has been received by Her Majesty's Government on the subject?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. GEORGE CURZON,): No contribution to the Ottoman Public Debt had been made by Greece, the quota to be paid by her never having been determined by the Powers. In answer to the Questions in paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5, I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member on the 21st, which related throughout to the case of Greece as well as to those of Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro. The correspondence on the subject has not appeared in any Blue-book, and belonging as it does in the main to the year 1885, is now somewhat out of date.

  RAMS OF WARSHIPS.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) whether, since the sinking by ramming of Her Majesty's ship Victoria by Her Majesty's ship Camperdown, the Admiralty have received reports of narrow escapes of Her Majesty's ships from being rammed by others of Her Majesty's ships, in consequence of slight accidents to machinery during manœuvres in close order, and, if not, whether they have reason to believe that such narrow escapes do take place; and (2) whether, in view of danger of ships being sunk or injured by the rams of their consorts, as in the case of the Victoria risk of loss both to the rammer and the rammed, and in view also of the increased range and efficiency attained in gun-fire, causing an increased probability of Naval actions being fought at considerable distances between the contending ships, the Admiralty will take into reconsideration the desirability of continuing to fit Her Majesty's ships with rams projecting 20 feet below water, and so fitted as to be incapable of resisting any great twisting strain?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMI-RALTY (Mr. G. J. GOSCHEN,): The Admiralty have received no reports of narrow escapes of Her Majesty's ships from being rammed by others of Her Majesty's ships, in consequence of slight accidents to machinery during manœuvres in close order. As to the second Question the hon. Member is in error. None of Her Majesty's ships have "rams 20 feet below the water," and therefore the remainder of his question falls to the ground.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked if the right hon. Gentleman had any reason to believe that there had been any narrow escapes?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTYsaid he had no reason to believe there had been any narrow escapes as suggested in the question.

  ADMIRALTY CHARTS.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Admiralty will consider the possibility and the advisability of
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  engraving on the appropriate Admiralty charts a typical series of accurately drawn great circle routes from which any other great circle routes between any two points might be plotted out in accordance with the system suggested by Mr. H. M. Taylor, of Trinity College, Cambridge?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: This question has already been considered and decided in the negative. The advantages conferred would not compensate for the inconvenience of a mass of lines crossing the chart, and the required information for routes where it is of most service is already given on the Admiralty track charts.

  ALIEN IMMIGRATION.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the great increase of alien immigration for sojourn in this country in 1896, amounting to 45,875 persons at eastern ports; and, if, in view of the facts, Her Majesty's Government propose to re-introduce the measure brought forward by Lord Salisbury in the last Parliament, or deal otherwise with the matter?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,): The figures of 45,875 persons quoted by the hon. Member is not the number of aliens arriving in this country for sojourn, but the number arriving from European ports, who are not stated to be en route to America. Having regard to the amount of business to which the Government are already committed, I am afraid I cannot hold out a hope of the Bill referred to being introduced during this Session.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a large number of these aliens consist of sailors, and that the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, as president of the Shipmasters Society, has called attention to the great national danger?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, Order! that does not arise out of the question on the Paper.

  HOWELL'S CHARITY.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: I beg-to ask the Vice President of the Council what are the reasons for the delay in dealing with the scheme for the Denbighshire portion of Howell's Charity?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,): The delay is caused by its appearing doubtful whether what is called the Denbighshire portion of the Charity does not belong to all Wales outside Glamorganshire.

  TRADE SPIRITS.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the Return as to the Trade Spirits imported into the British Colonies and Protectorates in Africa in the five years ending with 1894, which was ordered on 26th August, 1895, will be presented to the House; and whether, with that Return, any later information can be furnished?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): The Return is in hand, and I hope to present it very shortly.

  VACCINATION (ROYAL COMMISSION REPORT).
  MR. THOMAS BAYLEY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if the Government propose this Session to introduce any legislation on the lines of the Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): I can only give the same answer as was given by me to the hon. Member for the Harborough Division, on Thursday last, and state that the Report of the Royal Commission on Vaccination is receiving the consideration of the Local Government Board.
  MR. BAYLEYasked whether the hon. Gentleman could inform the House what the Local Government Board were proposing to do with regard to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Vaccination as to repeated convictions?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid the policy of the Local Government Board as regarded the question of repeated convictions was duly expressed in a letter to the Evesham Guardians in 1875. The letter was a long, one and he would be happy to give the hon. Gentleman a copy.
  DR. FARQUHARSONasked whether the hon. Gentleman would lay on the Table Dr. Thoern's Report as to the methods of vaccination pursued on the Continent?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that he would be glad to consider the matter. Dr. Thorne had just hurriedly returned from the Continent, and he did not know whether the papers were yet in a fit state to be laid on the Table.

  ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (PARLIAMENTARY GEANT).
  MR. A. K. LOYD: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to the fact that the managers of Public Elementary Schools are frequently obliged, before the Annual Parliamentary Grant is paid, to have recourse to an overdraft at their bankers, and to suffer a loss of the interest charged for such accommodation; and whether the Education Department will, in order to prevent such loss, arrange for a quarterly or half-yearly payment on account to such schools, in anticipation of the Annual Parliamentary Grant, upon such terms and conditions as the, Department may in each case consider necessary?
  SIR JOHN GORST: The Committee of Council would have no objection to make to the arrangement suggested by the hon. Member; but I understand that the financial difficulties which it would involve are at present insuperable.

  FOUNDRY WORKERS.
  MR. JAMES McKILLOP: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, seeing it often occurs that young persons under 16 years of age are transferred under the Factory Acts from one foundry to another in which their employment will be identical in all material respects, whether some arrangements could be

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  made whereby the certificate of fitness already granted, and cost paid for occupation in the first factory, may equally be applicable to the like occupation elsewhere in the same district?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOE THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,): The arrangement suggested by the hon. Member is impossible without further legislation. If such legislation were proposed, I could only consider the question as affecting all industries and districts alike, and the practical difficulties involved would be such that I cannot see my way to promise any reversal of the decision arrived at by Parliament in 1878.

  SOLICITOUS' LICENCE DUTY (IRELAND).
  MR. F. A. O'KEEFFE: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, on the introduction of the Budget, having regard to the decline of legal business in Ireland and the non-necessity for the tax, he will consider the question of remitting the licence duty made annually payable by solicitors in Ireland?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,): I am sorry to learn that the legal business has declined in Ireland. I thought that that profession at any rate was flourishing. [Laughter.] I had the matter of the duty on solicitors under my consideration last year, and I made a proposal to the House with regard to it, which was not very favourably received. I am afraid I cannot promise that I shall be able to do anything in the matter.

  LEE METFORD RIFLES (BISLEY MEETING).
  MR. ROBERT WALLACE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, having regard to the fact that in the chief events at the National Rifle Meeting at Bisley this year the Lee-Metford rifle is to be used, and that there are only two or three rifle ranges in Scotland suitable for practice with this rifle, the War Office
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  will, in order that Scottish Volunteers may compete on equal terms with other Volunteers, afford facilities for Scottish Volunteers to practise with the new rifle on the Government ranges or otherwise?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): Until longer ranges can be established it is to be feared that the introduction of the Lee-Metford rifle will cause difficulty in many localities throughout Great Britain; but, after providing for the necessary shooting by the Regular Army, the Militia, and the Volunteers, the General Officers Commanding Districts will do all they can to facilitate practice by individual Volunteers and every effort will be made to minimise the inconvenience.

  COAL SHIPMENTS.
  MR. DAVID THOMAS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give for the year 1896 a Return showing the Foreign export of coal from each port in the United Kingdom to each country abroad, and also showing the quantity of coal shipped at each port, for ships' use during the same period?
  MR. RITCHIE: Yes, Sir, if the hon. Member moves for this Return, I shall be happy to grant it.

  TRADE WITH BRITISH COLONIES.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has received satisfactory replies to the Circular Dispatch issued on his assuming office to Colonial Governments as to the best means of developing trade between the Mother Country and the Colonies, and if the suggestions contained in such replies will be published as soon as practicable for the information of the producing industries of the British Empire?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: The replies to my Circular Dispatch of 28th November 1895, are not yet quite complete. As soon as they are, I hope to lay them on the Table of the House. I think the hon. Member will find that they contain a great deal of interesting and suggestive matter.

  NAVAL COLLEGE (DARTMOUTH).
  ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any plans have been prepared for the New Naval College at Dartmouth; and if so, by whom; whether the same have been or will be submitted to the Captain of H. M. S Britannia for criticism before being approved; whether any eminent architects have been or will be invited to submit plans for the building; and whether a fair premium or prize will be offered for the best design, so as to insure that Her Majesty's Naval Service shall be provided with a college worthy of its traditions and its fame?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: The merest sketch plans have only so far been put forward, and they are entirely tentative. No decision as to the choice of an architect has yet been taken, but the Board will not take action without the most able professional assistance which they can secure.

  POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS (BOURNAE, COUNTY TIPPERARY).
  MR. J. F. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether complaints have reached the Department in regard to the unsatisfactory character of the postal arrangements at Bournea, county Tipperary; whether he is aware that this is the only populous parish in the Roscrea district deprived of a Sunday post, and an afternoon collection on week days; and whether early steps will be taken to supply these defects?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. BANBURY,): Application was received by the Department some months ago for an afternoon collection of letters at Bournea on weekdays, and for a Sunday delivery of letters. The request for the afternoon collection was refused on the ground that the revenue produced by the post by which Bournea is served was insufficient to cover the additional expenditure involved. With regard to the Sunday delivery, the applicant was informed that in accordance with regulations of long standing, a Sunday post is not established or withdrawn in rural districts, except in compliance with the wishes of persons
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  receiving at least two-thirds of the correspondence. A memorial has since been received, and the matter is now under inquiry. The result shall be communicated to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  "COSTA RICA" PACKET CASE.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at what stage the international arbitration in the case of Costa Rica packet has now arrived?
  MR. CURZON: The cases on both sides have been completed and laid before the arbitrator, who is now considering his decision.

  STREET PREACHING IN SLIGO.
  MR. PATRICK M'HUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) what expense has been incurred in sending extra police from Dublin to Sligo with street preachers; (2) can he state from what source the expenses of those police are to be met; and (3), is he aware that the Sligo Corporation have resolved to resist the imposition and exaction of any tax to meet the expenses of the extra police, and that the County Sligo Grand Jury have no power since the passing of the Sligo Borough Improvement Act, 1869, to assess or levy a tax upon the borough of Sligo for such a purpose?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): The total expense entailed in dispatching police from Dublin to Sligo on occasions of open-air preaching has been £1,213 13s. 9d. The expenses have been defrayed out of the Constabulary Vote, but claims have been, or will be made, for repayment from local rates of a portion of this sum, amounting to £206 16s. 9d. I am not aware that the Sligo Corporation have resolved to resist the imposition and exaction of any tax to meet the expenses of the extra police necessary for the maintenance of public order. I am advised that the rate can be levied either by the Corporation, or, in their default, by the Grand Jury.
  MR. BERNARD COLLERY, asked if the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the police were sent to

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  Sligo in opposition to the express wish of all sections of the community?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: That is possible; but it is the absolute duty of the Government to maintain law and order, and law and order could not be maintained without the dispatch of these extra police.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Is it any part of the duty of the Government to see that psalm-singing is carried on in Sligo?
  [No answer was given.]

  RIVER STICK DRAINAGE.
  MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland whether his attention has been called to a meeting, held in last December, of tenants and owners of land at Ballygar, county Galway, to protest against the tax imposed upon them in consequence of the expenditure incurred in connection with the drainage of the River Suck, which in several cases amounts to more than the letting value of the land; and whether he will take such action as will relieve the people of that district of a tax that they are unable to pay, and thereby allow them to remain in possession of their holdings?
  MR. HANBURYsaid he answered an exactly similar question yesterday, and he should be glad to tell the hon. Member what his answer was then.

  MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE (IRELAND).
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland do the Government intend to bring in a Bill this Session to extend the municipal franchise in Ireland?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am quite prepared to admit that this is a matter that must be dealt with some time or another, but the Government cannot promise to introduce a Bill this Session for the purpose.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: In the event of a Bill being introduced in other quarters will the right hon. Gentleman give it any benevolent help?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I could not answer that question without consultation with my colleagues.
  MR. J. C. FLYNNasked the right hon. Gentleman whether any
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  such Bill was likely to be brought in by the Government before the present century expired?
  [No answer was given.]

  JURY SERVICE (YEOMANRY OFFICERS).
  MR. J. H. C. HOZIER: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether it is the case that Officers of Yeomanry Regiments are exempt from serving on juries in England, but are not exempt in Scotland; and, if so, whether the exemption can be extended to Scotland?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The reply to the first part of my hon. Friend's Question is that Yeomanry Officers on full pay in England are exempt from serving on juries, and in Scotland are not exempt. The reply to the second part of the Question is that the exemption rests on a statute applying to England only, and could not be extended to Scotland without new legislation.

  NAVAL EXAMINING BOARDS.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has given attention to the composition of the Boards who conduct the examination in seamanship on passing for the rank of Lientenant, which Boards, being composed of Captains who happen to be available on the spot, are of varying composition in regard to the ability and temperament of their members and the standard of efficiency adopted by them; whether he is aware that the examinations conducted by these Boards vary greatly in the time given by them; that they vary still more greatly in the number and severity of the questions which the candidates are required to answer: that they vary infinitely in their standards of proficiency; and that the results of these examinations are consequently unequal as between one set of candidates and another; whether, in view of the fact that upon the results of these examinations all an officer's future largely depends, he will consider whether some alteration in the system can be adopted whereby the element of chance which enters into these examinations may be eliminated from them; and whether he sees any objection to adopting a system

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  whereby the examination in seamanship should be conducted for each batch of candidates by a single Board, having fixed methods of examination and a single standard of proficiency, as is now the case with the subsequent examinations in navigation, pilotage, gunnery, and torpedo?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: I must ask my hon. Friend to allow me to give a general answer to his various questions. I propose to appoint a small Committee of officers of experience to consider the general subject of the instruction and education of young officers afloat after they have left the Britannia and have been appointed to sea-going ships. A part of the reference to the Committee will be the consideration of the subsequent examination held to ascertain the proficiency at which these young officers have arrived, and into the expediency or otherwise of any changes being introduced. I may add, however, for my hon. Friend's information, that the question of the examination in seamanship was fully considered by a Committee in 1886; and in the following year various changes were introduced. The establishment of a permanent Board of Examiners was, however, not thought to possess advantages calculated to outweigh the disadvantages.

  CONSULAR COURT AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have taken any, and if so, what steps to inquire into the charges made over a year ago against officials in connection with the Consular Court at Constantinople; whether a special judge has been appointed to go out to Constantinople to try certain matters arising in that Court in place of the ordinary judge; and it so, when he was so appointed; and, whether he has yet arrived at Constantinople, or when he will arrive?
  MR. CURZON: The charges referred to in the question are involved in certain actions now pending in the Supreme Consular Court at Constantinople. As the judge of the Supreme Consular Court is himself a defendant in one of those actions, and as his judicial proceedings
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  may be indirectly involved in the other, it was considered advisable to appoint a special judge to proceed to Constantinople to adjudicate on those matters. For this purpose it was necessary to pass a special Order in Council, under the provisions of which Sir Richard Rennie, late the Chief Justice of Her Majesty's Supreme Court for China and Japan, has been appointed. He has not yet arrived at Constantinople, as the actions in question are not ready for hearing, but he will proceed thither as soon as his services are required.

  POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS (SOUTH LEITRIM).
  MR. JASPER TULLY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that great inconvenience has been felt by the large number of people residing in the district between Johnston's Bridge and Lough Rynn, in South Leitrim, owing to there being no postal service between Johnston's Bridge and Lough Rynn sub-office to Dromod, a distance of eight or nine miles; and whether he is prepared to inquire as to the advisability of having a postal service established from Johnston's Bridge through Tooman, and returning by Cloncarn?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster-General has received no application for the establishment of a Post through the district between Johnston's Bridge and Lough Rynn. Instructions have been given, however, for a Return to be taken of the amount of correspondence which would be benefited by the establishment of such a Post, and as soon as a report has been received the result shall be communicated to the hon. Member.

  MULLINGAR UNION (MEDICINE CONTRACT).
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he explain why the Local Government Board adopted the unusual course of cancelling the medicine contract in Mullingar Union, seeing that the tenders were accepted by the Board of Guardians in the manner prescribed by them, and the accounts checked by the union officials responsible for their correctness?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: An Inquiry on oath was held in June last by the Local Government Board respecting the medicine supply of the Mullingar Union, and the Board, on a careful consideration of all the facts adduced at the Inquiry, came to the conclusion that the contractor ought not to be intrusted with the supply of medicines, and they accordingly requested the Guardians to terminate the contract. This the Guardians unanimously decided to do. It appeared from the evidence given at the Inquiry, amongst other things, that the prices in the accepted tender of articles most in use were largely in excess of those in the other tenders, and that the prices charged for extra medicines not on the authorised list, which the contractor on the terms of the bond was bound to supply at current wholesale prices, were largely in excess of what they should have been, the Guardians having accepted a list of prices furnished by the contractor purporting to be wholesale prices.

  EMIGRANTS' INFORMATION OFFICE.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the recommendations of the Committee that reported on the re-organisation of the Emigrants' Information Office have been carried into effect; have more suitable premises for the work of the office been secured; and whether more effective measures can be taken to prevent as far as possible intending young colonists being victimised by fraudulent agencies both at home and abroad.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The Treasury have agreed to ask Parliament for an increase of the annual grant for this service from £1,000 to £1,500. Some of the recommendations of the Committee are already being carried into effect, and others will be when the increased grant becomes available in the new financial year. Pending the finding of more suitable premises, the present ones have not as yet been given up; but in the meantime the Office of Works have been authorised to lend a suitable room for the holding of meetings of the Committee. The last subject referred to by the hon Member has been, and still is, occupying the attention of the Board of Trade, the High Commissioner for Canada, and the
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  Colonial Office; but it is not easy to see what can be done beyond issuing warning notices, which is constantly being done by the Emigrants' Information Office. I would also call attention to the report recently issued by the Foreign Office of Consul General Warburton's on the "Distress caused to British Emigrants to California by fraudulent Land Syndicates and Emigration Agencies."

  DISTRESS (WESTERN DONEGAL).
  MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether, in view of the distress prevailing in many districts of Western Donegal, he will say when the commencement of the works of the promised light railways in that part of the country may be expected; and (2) whether any other public works, such as the improvement of piers and landing-places on the coast, are likely to be speedily undertaken by the Government?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The condition of the small occupiers in Western Donegal has formed the subject of careful investigation by the Local Government Board, and the result of the inquiries made is that it is not considered necessary to adopt exceptional measures for their relief. With regard to light railways I am not in a position at present to make any statement on the subject. It is not correct to say that a promise has been given to undertake railway works in this part of Donegal. As to the second paragraph, I understand that the Congested Districts Board are completing the erection of a pier at Tory Island, and also the extension of a pier at Burton Port. No additional works of this character are in immediate contemplation by the Government.

  WATERFORD BACON TRADE DISPUTE.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether his attention has been directed to a number of pictures drawn from photographs which are published in the Irish Weekly Independent of the 23rd instant, and which represent a large armed force of Royal Irish Constabulary conducting pigs through the streets of

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  Waterford to the place of slaughter; what number of police have been so engaged since the strike in the bacon trade in Waterford began, and what is the cost of the men so engaged; (2) whether he intends to allow the police to be continued at this duty; and, (3) if so, whether the bacon merchants whom the police are serving will be charged with the cost, or any portion of it?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The hon. Member has been good enough to send me a copy of the newspaper referred to. The duty of the police in this matter is not that of conducting pigs through the streets, but of protecting the drovers from apprehended acts of violence, and of preserving the public peace. Owing to the short notice that has been given of the question, I am not in a position at the present moment to reply definitely to the second paragraph. About 150 police, however, have been drafted into Waterford in connection with the bacon trade dispute there, and their cost approximately would be about £28 per diem. It is not the desire of the Government to take sides in an industrial dispute, but it cannot stand by and permit the coercion by intimidation and other illegal means of persons engaged in the pursuit of their lawful business. The police will be employed on this duty so long as the necessity for their employment continues. There is no power to charge to any particular section of the inhabitants of Waterford the cost of the police so employed.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRTENsaid that arising out of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the Government did not wish to take sides, he desired to ask him whether he was aware that Inspector Whelan, who had charge of the police, was in the habit of dining with Messrs. Denny and Richardson and then coming into the streets and ordering baton charges—[Nationalist cries of "Hear, hear"] whether the right hon. Gentleman did not think that that that was taking sides; and whether he would see that this inspector was removed and an officer placed in charge of the police who would have the decency to act impartially? [Nationalist cheers.]
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is going beyond the limits of a question.

  EXCHANGE COMPENSATION (INDIA).
  SIR SEYMOUR KING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether any decision has yet been arrived at with regard to the various questions of Exchange Compensation, particularly in relation to officers whose salaries are regulated by statute, and questions arising from domicile; and, if so, whether he can state the decision arrived at, or will agree to present the correspondence on the subject?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): The subject of Exchange Compensation has been for some time past under the consideration of the Secretary of State in Council. We have made some progress towards settling some of the questions involved; but there are others of a very complicated and far-reaching character still to be considered. I hope that a general decision will be given before long.

  PORT PRECAUTIONS AGAINST DISEASE.
  SIR SEYMOUR KING: I bog to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the inequality of the burden imposed on the outports for the expense of measures necessitated by the Government regulations for protection of the entire area of the United Kingdom against cholera, yellow fever, and plague, the Government will consider the advisability of contributing towards such expense out of Imperial funds?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, who answered the Question, said: I have not had an opportunity of conferring with my hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board on this matter, and I am not aware whether any fresh circumstances have arisen with regard to it. But I may say that last year I received a large deputation on the subject, and after communicating with the Local Government Board, I was obliged to inform the deputation that Her Majesty's Government saw no sufficient reason for altering the decision that had been arrived at by previous Governments, or for relieving the outports from the duty that had always been incumbent on them of preventing, at an expense by no means large, the introduction of these diseases into the country.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether it is true that the Governor of Malta, after first imposing a 20 days' quarantine, has since issued a total prohibition on all vessels, however healthy they may be, arriving from India; and (2) whether, seeing that this country, which is in unceasing communication with Indian ports, finds it sufficient to rely for the purposes of plague on the systems of inspection and isolation, which were so successfully tested both during the European cholera invasion of 1892–4, and recently again in the case of the Nubia at Plymouth, he will take such steps as will secure the adoption by our Crown Colonies in the Mediterranean of those more scientific and less inconvenient methods to prevent the introduction and spread of foreign diseases?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. As to the second paragraph, my predecessors and I have continually urged the Government of Malta to adopt the more scientific and convenient methods of preventing the introduction and spread of foreign diseases instead of the stringent system of quarantine hitherto in use; but partly from the supposed necessity of conforming to the practice of Italy; and partly from the inveterate belief of the population of Malta in the necessity of the strictest quarantine, which might lead to disturbance if the rules were relaxed, we have not as yet succeeded in effecting the change. I am now in correspondence with the Governor, and have pointed out to the colonial Government the serious injury which is being inflicted, not only on commerce but on the interest of Malta by the action of the Government, and I shall be glad if my remonstrances may induce them to adopt a more reasonable course.

  INDIAN FAMINE (SALE OF SILVER.)
  MR. J. M. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, as the Indian peasantry will be compelled by the famine to sell their hoards of silver at a heavy loss through the mints being closed and the depreciation of silver bullion, it will be possible to make arrangements at the Government
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  treasuries in the famine districts for the purchase of silver ornaments at a fixed price per ounce?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: The form of relief suggested in my hon. Friend's question is not one that I am prepared to recommend to the Government of India, for, amongst other disadvantages, it is open to this practical difficulty, that, if it were once known that the Government would purchase silver ornaments at a price above their market value, those who would derive most benefit from this philanthropic venture would be well-to-do persons who could purchase silver ornaments wholesale. I may add that, although the divergence between the exchange value in gold of a coined rupee and that of an equal quantity of uncoined silver has undoubtedly increased since the mints were closed, it does not follow that the purchasing power of silver bullion in India has fallen.

  IRTSH MAILS.
  MR. W. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will afford the Irish Mails Committee an opportunity of examining the time table before the contract is finally approved of by the Postmaster General?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General will be happy to give the Irish Mails Committee an opportunity of examining in detail the time table which has now been fixed and of receiving personal explanation upon it, but it is desirable that any meeting for the purpose should take place without delay, as negotiations for the improvement of the service in Ireland are necessarily contingent on the service between London and Dublin, and have already been postponed too long.

  ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in the event of the strengthening of the. Navy, it is intended to utilise the services of the chief engine-room artificers on pension, and holding Board of Trade certificates of competency, as assistant engineers in the Naval Reserve?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. W. E. MACARTNEY,): The Admiralty already possess the necessary powers for employing all pensioners in time of war, and it is not contemplated to make any special provision for the employment of pensioned chief engine-room artificers as assistant engineers in the Naval Reserve.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that the strength of the Royal Naval Reserve, exclusive of 1,561 officers, in 1895–6, was 23,740 men, he intends at an early date to make proposals to increase that reserve to a number more nearly approaching the reserve of seamen ready in case of emergencies to man the fleets of several European Powers?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: Without going into the figures of the hon. Member, I may say that I cannot anticipate the, statement which it will be ray duty to make when introducing the Navy Estimates for the coming financial year.

  TRANSIT OF CATTLE BY SEA.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Government will appoint a Commission to inquire into and report upon the best methods of improving the breeds of cattle, sheep, and pigs in Ireland, and also of improving and cheapening the transit of live stock by land and sea?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: As at present advised, the Government do not see any necessity for appointing a Commission for the purposes stated in the hon. Member's Question. With regard to the transit of live stock, I would remind the hon. Member that the matter formed the subject of inquiry by a Departmental Committee appointed in 1894 by the Board of Agriculture, and that Orders have since been made both in this country and in Ireland, giving effect of the recommendations of the Committee.

  TREASON-FELONY PRISONERS.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state what is the mental
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  and bodily conditions of Fetherstone and Flanagan, who are still in Portland?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: The health, bodily and mental, of both these convicts, according to the reports which I received last July and again in December, is good and not likely to be injured by continued imprisonment.

  TOWN TENANTS (IRELAND).
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he considered the representations made to him by a deputation asking that the grievances of town tenants in Ireland should be remedied; and whether he will introduce a Bill to amend the existing law?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have no reason to believe that the representation made to me by the deputation in question referred to a grievance confined to Ireland. The Government cannot undertake to introduce a Bill dealing with the subject, and I thought I had already made this plain to the hon. Member.

  MAURITIUS POLICE.
  SIR SEYMOUR KING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the fact that the pay of the European police in the Mauritius is 40 rupees a month, which at the present rate of exchange is about £2 7s. 9d., while the European soldier is paid at the rate of 2s. to the rupee; and whether he will take steps in the interests of efficiency to grant the police an equally favourable rate for home remittances, for at least half their salary, as a compensation allowance?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: There are no distinct European police in Mauritius. The officers and men of the police force who are Europaans are paid in the currency of the Colony, and I am not aware of any reason for treating them more favourably in the matter of remittances to England than other Europeans in the service of the Colony.

  MADRAS INFANTRY REGIMENTS.
  SIR SEYMOUR KING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State of India whether, with reference to the under

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  officering of Madras infantry regiments, to which his attention was called last Session, he has caused inquiries to be made into the cause of the constant depletion of Madras regiments by transfer of Officers, and its effects on the efficiency and morale of the Corps, and the best way of providing a remedy; and what, if any, explanations have been offered or steps taken in the matter?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: I have been, and am still, in communication with the Government of India on the questions raised by my hon. Friend, and the Government are looking into the matter, though I have not yet received any full report on the subject from them. I may say, however, that there is no reason to suppose that the circumstances of Madras regiments in respect of officers differ in any way from those of Bengal and Bombay regiments.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing that the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in the cities of Londonderry, Cork, Waterford, and Belfast, have numbers on their uniforms, he will explain what reason there is against the wearing of numbers by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary both in the cities and the country with a view to their identification as a security against crime and outrage?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The hon. Member has raised this question on previous occasions in the House, and I have nothing to add to the explanations repeatedly given, both by myself and by my predecessors. I must, however, enter an emphatic protest against the last words of the question as conveying an imputation wholly undeserved and unwarranted against a most exemplary body of men. [Cheers.]
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to give notice that I shall bring forward this question on the Estimates, and that I shall deal with it at a generous and reasonable length. [Laughter.]

  POST OFFICE FEMALE CLERKS (DUBLIN).
  MR. J. J. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, with reference to his statement on 19th May last year, that lower salaries are paid to women clerks in the General Post Office, Dublin, than to those in the London Post Office because of the higher cost of living in London, whether it is a fact that, despite that alleged circumstance, the male clerks are paid at the same rates in both offices: and, if so, whether the Postmaster General will reconsider his decision in this matter, and place the female clerks as well as the male clerks in both offices in the same position as regards salary?
  MR. HANBURY: Male clerks of the second division in the General Post Office, Dublin, are paid at the game rates of salary as those in the General Post Office, London, because these rates are not subject to any Departmental arrangement, but are applicable to second division clerks generally by Order in Council. But other male officials are paid less in Dublin and Edinburgh on account of the lower cost of living. The female clerks are treated in this respect upon precisely the same principle as the male officials, other than the second division.

  NAVAL TENSIONS.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) will he explain why, out of the 6,028 seamen who were discharged from Her Majesty's Fleet in 1895–6, only 1,372 received pensions; (2) what was the average service of those not pensioned in that period, and their average age; and (3) what were the respective numbers of those pensioned and not pensioned, who left the Navy in 1895–6, who joined the Royal Naval Reserve?
  MR. MACARTNEY: The answer to the first paragraph of the hon. Member's Question is that only those seamen discharged from the fleet in 1895–6 received pensions who were entitled to them according to the regulations. To answer the second paragraph would involve a prolonged and laborious search through the registers, for which there would be no compensating advantage to the public service. As regards the third

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  paragraph, I am unable to say how many of the men who left the Navy in 1895–96 joined the Royal Naval Reserve, but 86 men who had at one time or other served in the Navy joined the Reserve in that year.

  BELLEVILLE BOILERS (ROYAL NAVY).
  MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what is the total amount of royalty paid for the use of Belleville boilers in H. M. S. Powerful and Terrible; to whom was the money paid; and have the contractors for these ships handed in a bill for extras due to alterations made after the contracts were signed; if so, what are the respective amounts?
  MR. MACARTNEY: The total amount of royalty due to Messrs. Delaunay, Belleville and Co., the owners of the patents, amounts to £5,250 for each ship, of which £4,383 (including £83 for drawings) has been paid to this firm for each ship to the present date. Certain extra works and alterations outside the original contracts have been undertaken by the contractors, and in accordance with the terms of the contracts and the usual practice, the cost of these items has been agreed upon and approved by the Admiralty. I am not prepared to state the amounts so paid.

  NAVAL REPAIES (H. M. S. "BLACK PRINCE.")
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the remainder of the work necessary to complete the repairs of Her Majesty's ship Black Prince will be carried out at Haulbowline?
  MR. MACARTNEY: Further alterations and repairs to the Black Prince beyond those provided for in the original contract with the Passage Dock Company, are now under consideration, and such of them as are decided upon will be carried out at Haulbowline.

  FINANCIAL RELATIONS INQUIRY (GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.)
  SIR W. DUNN: On behalf of the hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs (Sir ROBERT REID), I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Royal Commission to be appointed
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  upon Financial Relations is to be confined to the case of Ireland, or will be able to deal with the financial relations of other parts of the United Kingdom?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I have to say that the same question identically was asked me by the Member for the Stirling Burghs on January 21, and I stated then that I could make no answer on the subject until I was in a position to state to the House what the terms of reference were.
  MR. J. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking to the House that before any steps are taken towards the appointment of the new Royal Commission, the day and the opportunity promised for the discussion of the whole subject will be given?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The hon. Gentleman means before the actual appointment?
  MR. DILLON: Yes.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes, I think objection to that.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will give an opportunity for discussing the appointment of the Commission?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: There will be no opportunity of discussing the appointment of the Royal Commission.
  MR. CLANCY: I did not mean that. I meant the discussion of the general question, and when?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I cannot say that, but I shall be able to state that early next week—possibly before.
  DR. R. AMBROSE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, if we are not satisfied with the verdict of the new Royal Commission, we shall have the power to appoint another Royal Commission? ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Certainly—if the hon. Gentleman is in office at the time. [Loud Laughter and cheers.]

  BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMMITTEE.
  MR. J. M. MACLEAN: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he can now say when he proposes

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  to take the motion for the appointment of the South African Committee?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir, I cannot state definitely at the present moment when that will be taken, but I think I shall probably be in a position before the House rises to-night to make some statement with regard to public business. I confess I hope that we shall finish the Debate on the Address either to-night or to-morrow, and in that event I shall know before 12 o'clock to-night. Of course I shall make a statement with regard to Government time for the rest of the week. Of course, if the Debate concludes to-night, as I hope it will, to-morrow will be a private Members' day, and will not be under the control of the Government.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I understand the right hon. Gentleman had said previously that the Committee would be moved practically as soon as the Debate on the Address is over.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: We do not propose to have any undue delay, but I should not like to give a definite pledge as to that.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: In the event of the Debate on the Address and the South African Committee being concluded this week, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any day in his mind for taking the Debate on the financial relations question?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir. The Education Bill ought to be introduced as soon as possible, but of course, with regard to the financial relations Debate, I am aware that hon. Gentlemen in the Irish quarter of the House naturally take a special interest in it, and I shall be glad to do all I can to meet their convenience.

MOTIONS.
  GROCERS' CERTIFICATES (SCOTLAND) ABOLITION.
  Bill to abolish Dealers' or Grocers' Certificates in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Sir John Leng, Mr. John Wilson (Govan), Mr. Crombie, and Mr. Dalziel; presented, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Wednesday 14th April, and to be printed.—[Bill 85.]
  EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY (FOREIGN SHIPOWNERS) AMENDMENTS.
  Bill to amend the Law with regard to compensation due to persons injured in pursuit of their employment, or otherwise, where the action would lie against a Foreign Shipowner, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Harold Reckitt, Sir Albert Rollit, Mr. Sydney Buxton, Mr. Charles Wilson, Mr. Darling, Mr. Wolff, Mr. William Allan, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, and Mr. John Burns; presented, and Read the first time; to be Read a Second time upon Tuesday 9th February, and to be printed.—[Bill 86.]
  OLD AGE PROVIDENT PENSIONS.
  Bill to provide Pensions in Old Age to the Provident Poor, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bartley, Mr. Maclean, and Sir Frederick Seager Hunt; presented, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Wednesday 10th February, and to be printed.—[Bill 87.]
  OUTDOOR PROVIDENT RELIEF.
  Bill to amend the Law relating to Outdoor Relief in sickness and widowhood to the Provident Poor, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bartley, Mr. Maclean, and Sir Frederick Seager Hunt; presented, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Wednesday 10th February, and to be printed.—[Bill 88.]
  PARISH REGISTERS.
  Bill for the better preservation of Parish Registers in England and Wales, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Macdona, Sir Henry Howarth, Mr. Jebb, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Birrell, Mr. MacNeill, Mr. Hozier, Mr. Lloyd-George, and Mr Griffith-Boscawen; presented, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Wednesday, 17th March, and to be printed.—[Bill 89.]
  RIVERS POLLUTION PREVENTION.
  Bill to make more effectual provision for Prevention of the Pollution of Rivers and Streams, ordered to be brought in by Sir Francis Powell, Mr. Wyvill, Mr. Henry Hobhouse, Sir John Dorington, Sir Henry Howorth, Dr. Farquharson, Sir John Brunner, Mr. Kenrick, and Mr. Brigg; presented, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Thursday, and to be printed.—[Bill 90.]
  EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENT (IRELAND) ACT (1885) AMENDMENT.
  Bill to amend the Law relating to Educational Endowments in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. M. Healy, Mr. Clancy, Mr. Hammond, and Mr. Knox; presented, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Thursday, and to be printed.—[Bill 91.]
  POOR LAW OFFICERS SUPERANNUATION (IRELAXD).
  Bill to provide for the Superannuation of Poor Law Officers in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Clancy, Sir. Horace Plunkett, Mr. Harrington, Sir James Haslett, Mr. Field, Mr. Collery, Mr. Wolff, and Dr. Robert Ambrose; presented and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Thursday 11th February, and to be printed.—[Bill 92.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
  [ADJOURNED DEBATE.—SIXTH DAY.]
  Ordered,—that the Order of the Day for resuming the Adjourned Debate on the Address, in answer to Her Majesty's Speech, have precedence this day of the Notices of Motions, and to-morrow of the other Orders of the Day.—(First Lord of the, Treasury.)
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Main Question [19th January], "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Viscount Folkestone.)
  Question again proposed,—Debate resumed.

  INDIAN FAMINE.
  SIR WILLIAM WEDDERBURNproposed, at the end of the Question, to add the words:—
  "And we humbly pray that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to direct that a full and independent Inquiry shall forthwith be made into the condition of the masses of the Indian people, with a view to ascertain the causes by reason of which they are helpless to resist even the first attacks of famine and pestilence."
  He said he was sure India would feel grateful for the expressions of sympathy contained in the Queen's Speech, and for the assurances that the State would do
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  all in its power to save life. But he felt it his duty to move his Amendment because the Government did not seem fully to realise the nature and magnitude of the calamity. The methods of State relief adopted sought to mitigate the outward symptoms, but they did not tend to remove the cause of the evil, which was the extreme poverty of the masses. So far from removing this evil, the expenditure on famine relief aggravated it. He did not know how much would be spent, whether three millions, or six millions, or three times six millions. But where would this money come from? It would not come down from the clouds. It would have to be raised by the taxation of the masses; the dying would be fed at the expense of the hungry survivors, making the survivors more destitute, more heavily burdened, and less able to resist hunger and disease. Also he felt it his duty to place prominently before the House the Indian view of the calamity and its proper remedies. These remedies were not heroic ones, but they proceeded from an intimate knowledge of the condition and habits of the people. If it were asked from what sources Indian public opinion could be learnt, he would say, from his friend Mr. Naoroji, who was both a trusted representative of his Indian fellow countrymen and a true well wisher of British rule; from the Indian Press, and from the resolutions of the Indian National Congress, which gave voice to public feeling in India. The view hold in India with regard to the famine might be briefly expressed in three simple propositions. The first was, that the excessive mortality in times of famine was owing to the chronic destitution of the masses, who existed precariously on the verge of subsistence. He hoped that the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India would not deny the truth of this proposition. It was true that in the Queen's Speech the cause of the famine was declared to be the "failure of the autumn rains," but he assumed that was only stated as the immediate cause, the last straw which broke the camel's back, and that the noble Lord looked further back for the causes of the ryot's feeble powers of resistance. How, indeed, could the proposition be denied? For it stood to reason that the population must be living from hand to mouth if, on account of the

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  failure of one harvest, they died of hunger, not by hundreds and thousands, but by hundreds of thousands and millions. If, however, the extreme destitution of the people was denied, he trusted that the House would call for inquiry and insist on this issue being fairly tried, as between official optimism on the one hand and unanimous Indian public opinion on the other. His second proposition was, that mortality from famine would practically be prevented if the ryot possessed a store of food, money, or credit sufficient to tide over one failure of harvest. This proposition seemed to be self-evident. For men did not die from hunger out of mere perversity, but because they had neither food in their houses to eat, nor money to buy it, nor credit to borrow it. As a class the ryot had not only nothing, but much less than nothing, being hopelessly in debt to the village money-lender. He remembered that in the early part of his service in India every ryot, however poor, had a little store of grain put away in a store room under his house sufficient to last his family two or three years. But that was now impossible, for we had sot up Debt Courts upon the European model, and these little stores were swept away by the bailiffs in execution of decrees. The first step towards helping the ryot was to release him from this bondage to the money-lender. His third and last proposition was a more hopeful one, and it was this, that if certain simple remedies were applied in the village adminstration the ryot would not only possess a sufficient store, but might become comparatively wealthy. In approaching the question of the ryot's condition the important fact must be borne in mind that, although India was at present a very poor country, she possessed almost boundless possibilities of wealth. She had a fertile soil, an unfailing sun, and abundance of labour, skilful and cheap. All she wanted was working capital. If the ryot had that in sufficiency, at reasonable rates, to provide himself with water and manure, he would turn all India into a garden. He had seen this operation going on near Poona, where land that produced a crop of millet worth perhaps 10s. an acre was, by irrigation and manure, made to produce a crop of sugar cane worth £30 an acre as it stood on the ground. And such was the skill
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  of the ryot that whatever crop he produced, whether rice, indigo, opium, tea, wheat, or tobacco, it in the end always came to the top of the market. From these three propositions would be seen the nature of the Inquiry which he asked for by his Amendment. What he desired was a village inquiry, practical and definite, in order to ascertain in detail the condition of the ryot, to learn the causes of his poverty, and to apply remedies to the evils from which he was suffering. The inquiry he wanted was a village inquiry, because in the rural villages were included 80 per cent. of the population, and because the village community was the microcosm of all India, and if they could discover the means to make one village prosperous they held the clue to make all India prosperous. For such an inquiry no imperial Commission was necessary. The local administration might be directed to select typical villages in each province and to appoint a Committee to make a thorough diagnosis of their condition. The Committee must be representative, consisting of Europeans and Indians, officials and non-officials—such as were appointed to the Deccan Riots Commission 20 years ago. Their investigation should be of a microscopic kind, to detect the microbes which blighted the ryot's prosperity. He believed that those microbes would be found to be the usurious money-lender, who should be replaced by agricultural banks; the Civil Court, which should be replaced by popular conciliation and arbitration Courts; and the harsh and rigid collection of the revenue, which should be replaced by methods suited to the habits and wishes of the ryot. If these simple remedies were adopted he believed that famines would be rendered impossible. In making these proposals he did not desire to impute any blame to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India; but he had carefully studied the condition of the ryot for 30 or 40 years, and in this great crisis he desired to place the results of his experience at the disposal of the noble Lord and of the House. He earnestly trusted his proposals would receive sympathetic consideration. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. HENRY J. WILSONseconded the Amendment. He said that all that was asked for was

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  some inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining whether something could not be done to prevent a recurrence of the present terrible state of affairs in India. He should be out of order were he to refer at any length to the subject of famine itself, but he might be permitted to say that they all recognised with satisfaction and pride the remedial efforts made in this country, and that they had no doubt that the Government were doing all they could to alleviate the immense mass of suffering which must ensue. They imputed no blame whatever to the present Government or any other, and, far from wishing to complain of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India, they desired to diminish the responsibility at present resting upon him, and all Indian Secretaries. In the case of famine prevention was better than cure, and if anything could be done to prevent it it ought to be clone. The poverty of India was, he supposed, recognised by everyone, but he did not know whether it was as generally recognised how extreme that poverty was. Poverty was a comparative term. He remembered the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton saying on one occasion that India was lightly taxed, the taxation being only half a crown per head of the population. But it should be borne in mind that in India half a crown meant something very different from what it meant in this country. The wages of ordinary labourers in many parts of India were only about a shilling a week, whereas here £1 a week was not considered high wages. He remembered having a conversation with the late Mr. Haridas Veharidas, who was a very loyal subject, and a Member of the Royal Commission on Opium, as to the condition of the people in the native States and under British rule respectively. That gentleman told him that the native Princes screwed more out of the people than we did, but that their methods were more elastic, and that they did not press for taxes in hard times. Our methods, on the other hand, were inelastic, and pressed very hardly upon the ryots in times of scarcity. If something could be done to prevent these recurrent disasters in India, the sooner that preventive was known the better. If, on the other hand, there was really
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  no remedy, if it was in the natural order of things that these famines must occur, it would be well that the fact should be publicly known once for all. We should then realise that all we could do was to strengthen the Famine Fund and improve the Famine Code. He thought that the result of his hon. Friend's drawing attention to this subject and initiating that Debate would be to strengthen the hands of the noble Lord opposite.
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONsaid that he knew the hon. Baronet opposite in India, and was familiar with his habits of thought. He could not agree with the hon. Baronet in his wholesale condemnation of the methods of administration in India. When he knew him in India the hon. Member used to propose very much the same remedies as he proposed now, and in his general views of administration was not in harmony with the great majority of the service to which he belonged. The hon. Baronet had made some very strong statements, but they were quite unsupported by evidence. He had begun by saying that the Government had not realised the magnitude of the disaster that had befallen India. Well, the papers that had been presented and the statements that had been made on behalf of the Government must have shown, he thought, that the Government of this country and the Government of India did realise to the full the enormous magnitude of the disaster. If they had not recognised for many years the necessity of making preparations for meeting disasters of this kind, the present famine would have attained such a magnitude and been so far-reaching in its consequences, that the mortality would have exceeded any known in similar times in the present century, if not in our history. But the Government had been preparing for such an event for a great many years. When he left India more than ten years ago, preparations had already been made for a long time, founded on the Famine Commission of 1878. So full and thorough had those preparations been I that the moment it was known that over a wide extent of country a great number of people would be exposed to destitution, the most ample remedial machinery was ready to be set in motion by an order of the Government. The hon. Member said that the excessive mortality that

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  occurred in native famines was due to the poverty of the people. They might thank God, however, that up to the present time there had been no excessive mortality in consequence of the scarcity. A correspondent of the Times, writing a few days ago, said that he had been passing through some of the districts visited by the famine, but that he had not come across one single case of death from destitution. That was a most gratifying statement, even if it did not apply to every district. It was certain that up to the present time the deaths had been extremely few, and that happy state of things, as compared with the incidents of former famines, was the result of the preparations made by the Government. The hon. Member declared that a single year of scarcity caused deaths by millions. In the present case, however, it had not caused deaths by even thousands or hundreds. The hon. Member also said that starvation would be prevented if the cultivators could have stores of food, and of course if they possessed such stores they would be able to withstand for a considerable time the results of the failure of their ordinary crops. But it was manifestly impossible for the poor cultivators to have the necessary stores, for they lived from hand to month. But was their poverty greater than in past times? The assertions of the hon. Member on that point were unsupported, and as a matter of fact the ryots were better off now than formerly. The hon. Member affirmed that a great part of their destitution was duo to their indebtedness to moneylenders, and that that indebtedness was caused by their taxation. It was true that the cultivators were indebted to the money-lenders, but the extent of that indebtedness was not as great as it was half a century ago, or at the time when the British Government undertook the administration of the Peishwa's territories. From an analysis prepared at that time it appeared that two-thirds of the population were at one time indebted to moneylenders, but when he left India, not more than one-fifth were so indebted. The Government of India and the local Governments had directed their attention to this evil for many years. As a result of the inquiry made by the Deccan Agricultural Ryots' Commission
  524
  legislation was promoted to relieve the people from the consequences of their indebtedness. Courts of conciliation were founded on Eastern ideas, and they to a great extent had prevented the impoverishment of the ryot owing to his incautious indebtedness, and had made the money-lender more careful. The Government of India had extended that system, and by irresistible evidence it had been shown that it had improved the material condition of the people. He said without fear of disproof that the system of land assessment which had for many years been pursued in India was more fair than the old system. The ryot only paid according to the capacity of the land, and until the last severe famine in Southern India, the amount of revenue not collected was altogether unimportant. He was surprised to hear it said that the native system of collecting in kind was preferable and more fair. That system had been abandoned, because it was found to be so oppressive and so troublesome to the people. Native chiefs had told him that they were most glad the old system had been abolished, because it was so full of abuses and so oppressive to the people. He had himself seen the grain brought into fenced enclosures so that the people could not touch it until the agent of the State came round, took his proportion, and carried it away. If the agent was not honest he exacted bribes from the people to measure their grain in such a way as to let them off more easily, and under that system the number of petty exactions were infinite. To restore the system of payment in kind would therefore be to restore a crop of abuses from which most happily they had rescued the people. [Cheers.] Something had been said as to India's immense capabilities. We had been developing those capabilities by carefully selected public works, and if the present terrible disaster did not result in India's great impoverishment, it was because by carefully selected measures and public works we had for many years past been setting up the surest and most effective system of famine relief. Since he went to Bombay in 1880 the railways of India had been doubled. It might now be truly said that there was no place in the tracts of country now threatened with the famine which was more than 50 miles from a

  525
  railway station. In former times of famine it was impossible to throw grain into the country because the water springs had dried up, and the other possible means of transport was not available because pack animals could not travel through the country. But now the grain, through the natural operation of commerce, flowed to the threatened districts like water running down a hill. We had besides constructed enormous irrigation works. When he was in Bombay they constructed three enormous systems of irrigation, each system irrigating a hundred miles of country. In those parts of the country where in 1877 no green blade was seen, now enormous tracts of crops were to be found independent of a rainfall. It could not be said, therefore, that nothing had been done to develop the resources and capabilities of India and to give reasonable help to the ryots. The House also knew that the assessments were not harsh. They were carefully regulated according to the capabilities of the soil, and in such a time of scarcity as the present the assessments due to the State were suspended with no sparing hand. The Government of India and the Secretary of State were in possession of the most exhaustive reports, and the library of the House was full of the results of previous inquiries into the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Baronet. In addition to that there was abundant proof that the inquiries had not been undertaken in vain. Every possible means had been taken to relieve the necessities of the people of India, and to enable the Government of India to meet this great crisis without damage to the people. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTScommented on the divergence of views entertained by men of large experience in Indian affairs as in itself a proof that some further inquiry was needed. The right hon. Baronet referred to the inquiry asked for as a wide and far-reaching inquiry; but his hon. Friend made it clear that the inquiry he asked for was to be a limited one in extent and scope. Neither the Government nor hon. Gentlemen opposite would deem it to be unfitting at this time to bring the question before the House of Commons. It would be of some value to know that the attention of Parliament
  526
  had been drawn to the condition of India at present. These famines formed a terrible incident in Indian history, and to whatever extent the Indian Government was able to improve these matters by taking precautionary measures and in spending money to prevent the recurrence of these scourges, he thought it was well for the House to show its keen sympathy with the Government of India in the efforts they were making. They should keep themselves closely in touch with the condition of the Indian people and their special relation to the recurrence of these famines. In the famine of 20 years ago he found that £11,000,000 were spent in relief works and that there were on one occasion at that time no fewer than 2,590,000 persons in India obtaining relief from the Famine Fund. Five and a half millions of the Indian people died from famine on that occasion, and £700,000 had been generously given by Great Britain towards the famine. He feared from the reports in the newspapers and the information given by the Secretary of State that the state of matters in India at present was approaching the seriousness of the famine of 1877–8. At present, according to the noble Lord, 136,000 square miles, with a population of 37,000,000, were affected—quite as large a number as were affected in 1877–8—while the number of Indian people receiving relief was on January 22nd, 1,750,000. Those facts proved that although we had not arrived at the pitch of disaster reached in India 20 years ago, there were undoubted elements of seriousness in the present position. In order to provide against such scourges in future they must ask themselves what had been done in the past. Now, 16 years ago, after the great famine, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of India. That Commission recommended that a Famine Fund should be started of £1,500,000 a year and extra taxation was imposed on the Indian people for the purpose of raising the money. The idea was that the money should be stored up for the specific purpose of providing for future famines. In 10 years this would amount to £15,000,000, and so this might be borrowed on its security without placing the country in a worse position financially than 10 years

  527
  ago. Were they in a position to-day to say that that had been done? No one knew how in the main the money had been expended. Part of it had gone in the Afghan War. He held a strong opinion that, whether war occurred or not, that Famine Fund should be left untouched. It was also clear, from the accounts, that the money had not been allocated as intended. Of the total sum which had been raised only 2 per cent. had been devoted to the special purpose of famine relief. On irrigation works—which he at once admitted was an essentian object—10 per cent. of the funds had been expended; on railways, 60 per cent., while 18 per cent. had been devoted to the reduction of debt. He could not help regretting that on the occasion for a desire being expressed to found a Mansion House Relief Fund, the Secretary of State found it impossible at once to concur in the suggestion. In the Report of the Commission, which was directly referred to in the Dispatch of the noble Lord, it was pointed out that the people of India had a profound sense of their duty to help their friends and relations in times of distress, and that this profound sense of duty made it unnecessary to provide any State aid for poor relief. But that very fact made it all the more necessary that in times of extraordinary distress we should come to the rescue of our Indian fellow-subjects generously and without delay. For the reasons he had stated, he contended that it was desirable to have the inquiry asked for, in order to obtain further and fuller information as to whether the steps recommended by the Commission which eat in 1880 had been carried out, and whether those recommendations were adequate to the changed condition of India, and also whether the administration of the Famine Fund which issued out of that inquiry had proved satisfactory or otherwise.
  MR. M. M. BHOWNAGGREEsaid the views expounded by the hon. Baronet in his speech had been so fully answered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for N. E. Manchester that there was nothing left for him on that score to say except to express his concurrence with every word the right hon. Gentleman had uttered, and also emphatically to bear out his statement that the payment in cash from
  528
  the ryots had proved a success as compared with the old system of payment in kind. The object, however, with which he had undertaken to trouble the House was to point out the mischievous effect that would be produced in India by the acceptance of the Amendment. He did not pretend to represent the whole of India, as, perhaps, the hon. Baronet the Member for Banff wished the House to believe that he did—[cheers and laughter]—and he was not an influential member of that microscopic body the British Indian Committee. [Laughter.] But he would say that the mischievous effect of the hon. Baronet's Amendment would be more far-reaching than was supposed by the hon. Baronet. ["Hear, hear!"] At the present time the Government in India—whether it was the Supreme or the Provincial Government—were doing their best to meet and cope with difficulties which were not due to human deficiencies, but which represented the visitation of Providence. To take advantage of such an occasion, and indirectly to cast a slur on Governments which were valiantly and actively coping with the difficulty, was, to say the least of it, not to show gratitude for services which were undoubtedly entitled to recognition by the House of Commons and the British nation. [Cheers.]
  SIR W. WEDDERBURN: I must point out that I cast no slur on the Government. I even said that India would be grateful for the exertions which were being made.
  MR. BHOWNAGGREEsaid that he had heard of three cheers being given for the Queen at meetings full of disloyal sentiment. [Laughter and cheers.] The hon. Baronet's Amendment was practically a vote of censure, not only on the Government of India but upon the India Office and all the provincial Governments. The hon. Baronet said that the people of India would be grateful for what had been done, while in the same breath he charged the authorities with neglecting a most elementary duty. [Cheers.] The hon. Baronet said that his Amendment contained self-evident propositions; but the whole tenour of the Amendment, and the manner it which it was proposed, were simply calculated to advertise a certain class of agitators, who were never tired of impressing upon the people of India the inadequacy of

  529
  British rule and the want of sympathy between the rulers and the ruled. [Cheers.] The hon. Baronet said that he was uttering the sentiments expressed by Indian public opinion. Where had Indian public opinion called for this inquiry? [Cheers.] Had not that opinion been manufactured in a small room, not far from the House of Commons; sent out thence to India; brought back in the form of newspaper articles; and passed off on the House of Commons as the public opinion of three hundred millions of people? [Cheers and laughter.] These proceedings were not worthy of one who had been a Member of the Government of India, and who was now a Member of the House of Commons. [Cheers.] To show how the innocent-looking Amendment of the hon. Baronet had a bearing on proceedings afar off, he would read a sentence from an Indian newspaper which had arrived by the last mail. The Chairman of the National Congress, of which the hon. Baronet was so fond, and which he was always trotting before the House—[laughter]—said—
  "that the famine was a reason not for holding no Session this year, but rather for persisting in and holding it and making it as grand as possible, for these miseries of India were due to the grievances of which the Congress had been agitating the redress."
  That was to say, that the want of rain on India was due to the grievances of which the agitators had complained. [Cheers and, laughter.] By the next mail news of this Amendment would go to the people of India, who were not, as a rule, acquainted with the procedure of Parliament. The story told to them would be that the great and only friend of India in this House, the hon. Member for Banff—[laughter]—had proposed something by which plague and famine were to be avoided; the Secretary of State, from hardness of heart and want of sympathy, had refused the proposal; and therefore that the right hon. Gentleman and the authority which he represented were the enemies of the people. Knowing this—as the hon. Baronet must know it—and if he did not he was sorry for him—[laughter]—was he right in bringing forward the Amendment at all? The hon. Baronet could not exist without bringing forward some Amendment at the beginning of the Session and again at the end, with a Motion
  530
  for the Adjournment of the House in between—and all without the sympathy of his own leaders—for the purpose of using poor India as a handle for obstruction of the Government which he did not support. ["Hear, hear!" and cries of "Oh!"] Last year, he remembered, when the opportunity occurred for submitting a Motion with regard to the Cotton Duties, the hon. Baronet told him that he could not undertake it, as he had not studied the question. But at a later day, when every five minutes were valuable, the hon. Baronet chose to bring forward a sickly, paltry Motion—[laughter, and cheers]—on the subject which was quite beside the main issue. And the story that went to India, of course, was that the hon. Baronet had been trying to do some great service to the down-trodden three hundred millions, and that the Secretary of State and the Conservative Party would not hear of it. There was another reason why this Amendment had been brought forth. This great body, the National Congress, with the pure and simple objects of which he was in perfect agreement—[Opposition cries of "Oh!"]—but with the motives and methods of which he certainly quarrelled, was mixed up with it. The Congress was represented by a microscopic body called the British India Committee, which gathered up a few schoolboys studying for the Bar—[laughter]—and the great lights of which were the hon. Member for Banff and the other hon. Gentleman whom his constituents would not again return. [Laughter.] This Committee, in confidential letters which somehow became public, applied to the Congress to be supplied with the hard cash without which it could not carry on its great work in, Parliament. And when this appeal for hard cash was not responded to, the Committee, by measures such as this Amendment, tried to impress its importance and its existence on the people of India. The complaint of this Committee was, "We have piped unto you, and ye will not dance; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented." [Laughter.] He hoped it was the last time that he should have the painful duty of protesting against these manœuvres, which did no good to India, and promoted dissatisfaction in the place of the gratitude for which the British Government had

  531
  established a claim on the Indian people. [Cheers.] He wished to express the great satisfaction and contentment which prevailed in India in relation to the measures which had been adopted to arrest the great disaster and famine. Through the length and breadth of India there was gratitude to the British nation for coming forward so liberally to meet the needs of India. He was expressing the sincere and heartfelt satisfaction which he had heard and witnessed throughout the country to the British nation at large. [Cheers.]
  MR. C. E. SCHWANNsaid it was not difficult to find the cause for the splenetic utterance of the hon. Member who had just sat down. The hon. Gentleman had recently returned from India, where he had gone with the expectation that he would be received with the same outburst of popular enthusiasm that had greeted Mr. Naoroji, but his mission had been a complete fiasco.
  MR. BHOWNAGGREE: That is a perfect fiction. [Laughter.]
  MR. SCHWANINrepeated that all the popular demonstrations the hon. Gentleman expected in India had failed to come off. A people, whether they were four millions or three hundred millions, knew their friends, and it was absurd to contend that a small body of men could have engineered the receptions which had been given to Mr. Naoroji. ["Hear, hear!"] It must be admitted that in the administration of a country with 300,000,000 of people many questions arose which ought to be brought to the ear of the House of Commons, and as the opportunities for discussing Indian matters were few and far between, he thought his hon. Friend the Member for Banffshire was well advised in moving his Amendment to the Address. He was glad that, so far as the objects of the Indian Congress were concerned, they had the full sympathy of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green. Those Members of the House who were members of the Congress were in some respects but the mouthpiece of the facts and details and figures sent to them from India. [Ministerial ironical cheers] He did not see how anyone could find fault with the Amendment. Of course no supporter of the Amendment expected that the
  532
  Government could regulate the weather, which was the great cause of famine in India; but an inquiry might lead to the devising of means for ameliorating the sad condition of millions of the people of that country.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,): The speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Banffshire was a great surprise to me. It is impossible to reconcile the hon. Member's speech with the Amendment he asks the House to accept. The Amendment asks
  "that a free and independent Inquiry shall forthwith be made into the condition of the masses of the Indian people."
  At the present moment the Government of India are engaged in what is universally admitted to be one of the most enormous and difficult tasks that has ever been imposed upon the Indian Administration on behalf of suffering humanity, and one which imposes a strain upon the whole administrative machinery of the country that it can scarcely stand. And yet the hon. Baronet comes down to the House and proposes that a certain portion of the forces of the Indian Government which are now warring against the advances of famine and plague shall be removed from the region of action to the region of speculation, and required to devote their attention not to the consequences of famine but to the causes of famine. [Ministerial cheers.] A more inopportune moment for such a proposal could not be imagined. Let the hon. Baronet reflect on the meaning of his Amendment. It asks for a full inquiry into the condition of the masses of the people of India. The masses of the Indian people constitute one-fifth the total population of the globe. This inquiry would enable every single act of the whole administration of India—judicial, administrative, and financial—to be brought under the survey of the persons conducting the investigation. They would be enabled to go also into every custom, tradition, or habit of these 300,000,000 of people, and to discuss even every variety of their married life from polygamy to polyandry. [Laughter.] A more vital and far-reaching, inquiry could not be conceived. ["Hear, hear!"] I am glad to be able

  533
  to say that the hon. Baronet made a more sensible speech than I thought would have been possible on such an Amendment, and he advanced some practical suggestions. But what the House has to consider is the Amendment before it. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green—who made a very effective and proper speech on the Amendment—that this Amendment emanates from the National Indian Congress. That body never loses an opportunity of attacking the Indian Administration and of endeavouring to diminish the influence of that Administration over the people of India. They passed a resolution in reference to the action taken by the Indian Government to mitigate the Indian Famine. Every-one knows that the Government of India are leaving nothing undone to cope with that calamity. I say the forces of civilisation were never better organised than they are now to fight against pestilence and famine—["Hear, hear!"]—and those gentlemen who meet in the Indian Congress know that no native rulers ever attempted to oppose the advance of famine on so large and so successful a scale as the English rulers of India are doing now. [Ministerial cheers.] Yet those gentlemen find fault with all that has been done; and they insist upon a national appeal to the country, which, however, they do not seem inclined to initiate themselves. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green, who has just come back from India, vigorously attacks the policy of the Indian Congress. I am glad he makes a strong protest against the absurd assumption of a number of gentlemen, who, as has just been admitted, take all their facts and figures from India without analysing them, and arrogate to themselves the representation of millions of the people of India. [Ministerial cheers.] There never was a more preposterous claim; the hon. Member for Bethnal Green, who has the confidence of many sections of the Indian community—I do not suppose he claims to represent them all [laughter]—has effectively ridiculed it. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR W. WEDDERBURN: Will the right hon. Gentleman read the resolution of the Indian Congress to which he objects?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Yes; it is the following resolution:
  "Resolved,—This congress deplores the outbreak of famine in a more or less acute form throughout India, and holds that this and other famines which have occurred in recent years are due to the great poverty of the people, brought on by the drain of the wealth of the country, which has been going on for years together, and by the excessive taxation and over assessment consequent on a policy of extravagance followed by the Government, both in the civil and the military Departments, which has so far impoverished the people, that at the first touch of scarcity they are rendered helpless and must perish unless fed by the State or helped by private charity. In the opinion of this congress the true remedy against the recurrence of famine lies in the adoption of a policy which would enforce economy, husband the resources of the State, and foster the development of indigenous and local arts and industries, which have practically been extinguished, and help the introduction of modern arts and industries. In the meantime the congress would remind the Government of its solemn duty to save human life and mitigate human suffering (the provisions of the existing famine code being in the opinion of the congress inadequate as regards wages, rations, and oppressive as regards task work), and would appeal to the Government to redeem its pledges by restoring the famine insurance fund (keeping a separate account of it) to its original footing, and to apply it more largely to its original purpose—viz., the immediate relief of the famine-stricken people."
  Everyone that was at the Congress must know that that resolution is both ungracious and ungrateful. [Ministeriel cheers.] The next resolution calls
  "the attention of the Government to the deplorable condition of the poorer classes in India, full 40 millions of whom, according to high official authority, drag; out a miserable existence on the verge of starvation even in normal years,"
  and suggests that they should be exempted from the payment of income taxes. I do not, therefore, wonder that the hon. Member for Bethnal Green should enter a vigorous protest against this preposterous assumption on the part of a committee sitting in England, and I am certain that when his speech is read in India, it will be acceptable to very large masses of the people of that country. ["Hear, hear!"] Now, Sir, the hon. Baronet seemed to indicate that if the inquiry was made and effect given to the recommendations of such a body, it would be possible to stop famine in India. I contest that altogether. It is much better to look facts

  535
  in the face. An hon. Member who supported him described famines as terrible and inevitable incidents in India. I thought that was a happy expression. Famines are terrible and inevitable incidents. I think it is a mistake, and is wrong for any Member of this House to hold out the hope that any remedies which he can suggest can prevent famines from desolating India. What is the problem we have to face? There are 300 millions of people in India, and over 80 per cent. of these are entirely dependent on agriculture. The one industry upon which they subsist is agriculture, and wherever a great community is entirely dependent on one industry, and whenever the raw material of that industry fails, you cannot avoid great distress and famine itself. Rain is the raw material which is essential to agriculture in the East, and whenever rain fails, not only is there great scarcity of food, but there is a total cessation of employment. In this country there are many diverse trades and industries, but wherever you have a community which is entirely dependent on one industry, and if the raw material of that industry fails, there must be intense distress. Take the cotton famine in Lancashire, that affected probably the richest community in the United Kingdom; but because everybody there was deprived of the raw material great distress ensued. Therefore so long as India remains a purely agricultural country, and so long as agriculture depends on rain falling within certain periods, when rain does not fall then distress must be widespread and great. And on the present occasion the difficulty with which we are dealing is one of a very exceptional character. It is not, as the Amendment indicates, the first attack of famine with which we are now dealing. The hon. Baronet's Amendment suggests that the masses of the Indian people are helpless to resist even the first attacks of famine and pestilence. I repeat that the hon. Baronet knows that this famine now occurs owing to a total failure of rain on the top of a number of bad seasons, and that is what makes the position so serious. I do not believe that any famine has occurred of which we have any record in which there has been so wide an area of scarcity over a district so large, and where very high
  536
  prices now prevail. I am glad to say that there is an enormous improvement in the machinery of the Government by which they can conquer famine. I happened to be Under Secretary for India, and spokesman for India in this House in 1874, 1877 and 1878, and it is most gratifying to notice how the Indian Government and people have developed and improved all their machinery for dealing with these evils. I do not know if any Member of this House has looked at the Famine Code which is at the end of the Return which I have laid on the Table of the House. It is well worth studying; it is a masterly document, which has been in the course of preparation for many years, and certainly shows with extraordinary clearness and detail how the forces available to cope with famine are mobilised. I am glad to say it shows that we are much better able to combat the effects of famine now than ever before. I go so far as to say that if we had had to deal with the present difficulty 20 years ago, the mortality that is already reported would have been enormously increased. Whilst on this subject I should just like to notice one or two observations which the hon. Member for Denbigh made in reference to the Famine Fund. It happened that I was Under Secretary at the time the Famine Fund was established, and all the papers relating to the subject presented to the House at that time bear my name, and I cannot understand how any body of gentlemen can go on repeating that there has been any infraction of the promise made by the Indian Government in regard to that fund. The hon. Member for Manchester has explained how these charges are made; they are founded on statements coming from India, the accuracy of which is not tested by the gentlemen who make use of them here. Sir John Strachey never established a Famine Insurance Fund in the sense which the hon. Gentleman described. The position of affairs at that time was financially somewhat difficult. Since India had been transferred to the Crown there was always difficulty in establishing an equilibrium between income and expenditure; and then occurred a series of famines which entailed upon the Government a net outlay exceeding 15 millions. It is quite clear that if the Government had every ten years to spend 15 millions

  537
  on famines, as was estimated to be necessary, financially they were in a very unsound position. And therefore Sir John Strachey endeavoured to increase the resources at the disposal of the Government by imposing a certain amount of taxation, and he proposed by an ingenious contrivance to raise an insurance fund which in the first year he estimated would amount to £1,500,000, or a crore and a half of rupees. But he never undertook in any way that this should be a statutory Famine Fund, and that the money should be placed in a, box and allowed to accumulate; on the contrary, right throughout his speech he combated that view. He went further. He was a man of exceptional ability and of rare administrative experience, and he knew perfectly well, what any man in this House knows, that if in a particular year you Try to appropriate a certain sum annually to a specific purpose, emergencies may; afterwards occur which will prevent the money being so appropriated. It has happened over and over again in this House. I recollect a Bill brought in by which 28 millions sterling was annually voted in payment of debt and as provision for a sinking fund. Circumstances occurred under which it was necessary to reduce that provision, but nobody-contended that there was any gross breach of faith. Sir John Strachey, to make it clear that under certain conditions this money might not go to the specific purpose, used very plain language, I which has never been quoted in full. He described how he proposed to give effect to this intention. "It is," he said, "the firm intention of the present Government to apply the funds now to be provided for this special purpose strictly to the exclusive objects which they were designed to secure." Those words are always quoted and circulated, and the last sentence, which I shall presently read, is also quoted, but the intervening part is always omitted:—
  "In such matters, no doubt, Governments cannot fetter their successors, and nothing that we could now say or do would prevent the application of this fund to other purposes. Without thinking of a future far removed from us, events might, of course, happen which would render it impracticable even for us, who have designed these measures, to maintain our present resolutions."
  538
  He, of course, had in contemplation the emergency of a war or a similar difficulty.
  "So far, however, as we can new speak for the future, the Government of India intends to keep this million and a half as an insurance against famine alone. In saying this I should explain that we do not contemplate the constitution of any separate statutory fund, as such a course would be attended with many useless and inconvenient complications, without giving any real security. Unless, then, it should be proved hereafter by experience that the annual appropriation of a smaller sum from our revenues will give to the country the protection which it requires, we consider that the estimates of every year ought to make provision for religiously applying the sum I have mentioned to this sole purpose, and I hope that no desire to carry out any administrative improvement, however urgent, or any fiscal reform, however wise, will tempt the Government to neglect this sacred trust."'
  ["Hear, hear!"] Not a farthing of this money has ever been appropriated to carry out any administrative improvement or fiscal reform. ["Hear, hear!"] Since that fund was established a very large sum has gone to the prevention of famine throughout the country. Of course, it would have been useless to put so much in one box by itself and to add to the debt by borrowing an equivalent amount. In the same way, during the time when the exchange value of the rupee fell very heavily, the Government were compelled to make a reduction in the amount which applied to the famine insurance, but the outcome of the arrangement is that after 20 years the Government are able to say that they have realised two-thirds of Sir John Strachey's most sanguine expectations. Two-thirds of the maximum amount which he proposed to devote to famine insurance has been so applied. I will undertake to say that any statesman or financier who is able to frame a scheme which is liable to be affected by nearly all emergencies and yet who at the end of 20 years has realised two-thirds of his most sanguine expectations is a most successful administrator, and no allegation ought to be made either against him or against his successors for breach of faith. I do think it is desirable that this matter should be made clear once for all. No famine fund in the sense suggested by the hon. Gentleman was ever established. Sir John Strachey from first to last maintained

  539
  that the object of this fund was, if possible, to reduce the debt, and he concluded his last speech in words which exactly describe the present position of the Indian Government:—
  "I think, my lord," he said, "that I have now made it sufficiently clear how we propose to apply the £1,500,000 which we hope to provide as an insurance against famine. We shall apply it virtually to the reduction of debt; and when the calamity of famine actually arrives we hope not only to he able to meet it without throwing fresh burdens upon the country, but to find that our means of giving efficient relief have been immensely increased by the useful works which we have carried out in the preceding years of prosperity."
  That is exactly the position of the Indian Government at this moment. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman asked me how the necessary funds were to be provided for the cost of the famine. I am glad to say that the Indian Government are in no want of funds. If it had not been for the catastrophe of the present famine we had hoped that there would have been a large surplus this year, and we should have hoped that we might have then been able to remit certain portions of the existing taxation of India, but in view of the expenditure which will be caused by the exceptional difficulties of the present situation, there will, no doubt, be a deficit at the close of this year. The position of the Indian Government to meet emergencies is immeasurably stronger than it was 20 years ago. The hon. Baronet states that the great mass of the people of India have deteriorated, and are now less able than they were to meet pestilence and famine. I say there is not one iota of evidence in support of that. All the facts point the other way. If the hon. Baronet will look at the reports of independent witnesses on the various relief works, notably those in the Punjab, he will see that, by universal concurrence, it is admitted that the people are now able to meet emergencies in a way they could not years ago. From the papers laid before Parliament it will be found that in the North-West Provinces the people are fighting against the exigencies of the present situation with a courage and confidence never before shown. [Cheers.] Whatever test you apply to India as a whole you will find that the community have prospered, and that the mass of
  540
  people are better off than was the case 20 years ago. But I admit that there is one side of the problem which requires attention—namely, the enormous increase that has taken place in the population of India. The House is, perhaps, not aware that during the last 20 years the population of British India has increased by 50 millions. A certain proportion of the increase is due to annexation, but the greater portion consists of an ordinary and legitimate addition to the normal population. Scarcity of food, to a certain extent, always prevails in certain parts of India, and also a considerable amount of pestilence and disease which affects mortality in other parts. Yet the Government of India have so managed affairs during the last 20 years that the population in that country has been able to increase more than in any other part of the world. Of course, there is always in India an enormous class of people which exists entirely upon charity and which has done so from time immemorial. But contrasting the present condition of affairs with that of 20 years ago, I say the people are better able to withstand emergencies of the present kind than they were then. Twenty years ago a Commission was appointed to inquire into the methods which had been adopted to avert famine, and it made reports and suggestions which formed the basis of the present Famine Code. Therefore, the Government are in a better position, as protectors of the people against famine, than they have ever been before. I agree with the hon. Baronet that the opportunity this famine affords ought not to be allowed to pass without our taking every opportunity to inquire into and ascertaining the best methods of protecting the people of India from the recurrence of similar calamities. No doubt the reports which will be made by the Local Governments and received by the Viceroy will contain suggestions in, various directions and suggest improvements. If the Government do their part, may I suggest that the hon. Baronet might do his? He informed us that one of the great evils of the present day in India was the manner in which moneylenders made use of Civil Courts. But they are represented in the Indian National Congress. [Laughter.] If the hon. Baronet will be good enough to

  541
  exercise his influence to try and induce them to make humane exercise of the Courts of Law it may add to the effect of his appeal. I think I have shown that there is no need for the House to accept the Amendment. All the hon. Baronet proposes will be done by the Government itself, and I think if the House were to accept the Amendment it would cause great surprise in India and be interpreted there as a censure not only on the Indian Government but upon the Government at home. [Cheers.]
  SIR HENRY FOWLER: I am sure the House and the country will agree that the first duty of Parliament in this crisis is to support to the utmost of its power, morally and in other modes, the Government of India in fighting this gigantic contest against two great calamities which are almost overpowering that country at the present time. The Government of India is confronted by a terrible famine and a terrible plague, and I think certainly there is no period in modern Indian history when the Government was confronted by two foes of such magnitude at the same time. Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to minor points, our first duty is to strengthen the Administration in carrying out, as I believe they are carrying out with the greatest ability, the work now before them. [Cheers.] I should not have intervened in this Debate except on one ground, and that is that there has been an amount of misconception and misunderstanding with reference to the Famine Insurance Fund, which cannot be too soon or completely explained away. We see and hear ugly words—and if they are ugly words in England they will be still more ugly words when translated into the vernacular in India—to the effect that the Government of India—not merely the Viceroy and his Council or the Secretary of State and his Council, but the British Parliament—have all been guilty of what has been called a breach of trust—an abandonment of a sacred trust—that something has been done with public money that ought not to have been done. That I know to be an absolutely groundless impression—[cheers]—which ought to be removed. My hon. Friend the Member for Denbigh indicated what I may call the prevailing impression by apportioning in various percentages the
  542
  appropriation which had been made of the fund. He stated that two per cent. had gone in relief of famine; 60 per cent. in the construction of railways (which he thought a large proportion); and the remainder in the reduction of debt, to which he took exception. As the noble Lord has explained to the House, the Famine Insurance Fund is the surplus revenue. It is nothing more nor less than a sinking fund. An assumed surplus of Rx.1,500,000 was to be applied in four distinct ways—first, in the relief of any existing famine in the year in which the money was raised; secondly, in the construction of irrigation works for the prevention of famine; thirdly, and principally, in the construction of those protective railway works (to which the right hon. Baronet, who was formerly Governor of Bombay, has alluded) which were intended to alter the state of things which caused such a calamity in 1877—namely, the impossibility of conveying food actually in existence to the parts of the country that needed it; and, fourthly, it was to be applied to the reduction of the Indian Debt. Why? Upon the very principle—to which the former and present Chancellors of the Exchequer have called attention—of the Sinking Fund of this country. By paying six millions a year towards the reduction of the National Debt the Chancellor of the Exchequer put into the hands of the Executive Government of the day a power of borrowing in case of emergency equivalent to the capital value of that fund. Therefore, the paying off five or six millions of debt means that, supposing the present calamity required it, the Indian Government would be in a position to borrow nearly six millions, practically without adding to the debt of India. The noble Lord told us what Sir John Strachey said when the scheme was propounded. I will read what he has written within the last two years on this question, after having seen the working of the scheme:—
  "This policy of insurance against famine was simple in its nature, but it has been constantly misunderstood. It has often been supposed that a separate fund was constituted, into which certain revenues were to be paid, and which could only be drawn upon for a specified purpose. No such impracticable notion was ever entertained, and every idea of the kind was from the first repudiated by the Government and by myself who was responsible for the original scheme.

  543
  The 'Famine Insurance Fund' of which people have often talked never existed. The intention was nothing more than the annual application of surplus revenue to the extent of Rx. 1,500,000 to the purposes that I have described. Financial pressure has sometimes made it impossible to make the full annual grant under the famine insurance scheme, but substantially the system has been successfully maintained."
  That is the story of the "Famine Insurance Fund," and if Sir James Westland's financial statement of a year ago is referred to, it will be seen how much revenue has been set aside for this purpose. During the 15 years the fund has been in existence Rx.17,614,185 has been appropriated to it, and only in a small number of years has there been any reduction in the surplus. In the years 1881–2–3–4–5 the whole amount was appropriated; in 1887–8 the amount was suspended. In 1889 it was reduced to one million; in 1890 it was one million; in 1891 it came back to one and a-half million; in 1892–93 it was one and a-half million; in 1894 it was £1,489,000, and last year, by the Act of the Legislature—the wise Act, I think—the amount was reduced from one and a-half million to one million. I do not wish to weary the House, but I should like to give hon. Members the facts of the fund. There has been applied in actual famine relief, £312,000; in the construction of irrigation works, £800,000; in the construction of protective railways, about ten millions; and in the payment of debt, over five millions. And Sir Charles Elliott, the late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who was the secretary of this Famine Insurance Fund, and knew all about it, after expressing, in words even stronger than those I have quoted from Sir John Strachey, the utter delusion as to there being any separate fund in existence, and that the Government had no other object in view than the construction of these protective works and paying off the debt, calls attention to the magnificent irrigation works to which the hon. Baronet has already alluded, and which have been constructed between 1870 and to-day. I venture to say that there is no parallel for it in the history of the world. [Cheers.] No Government has ever constructed such magnificent works as have been constructed in India for the protection of that country against
  544
  famine. [Cheers.] Then as to the railway system of India. There have been something like 10,000 miles of railway constructed over the period which I have mentioned, and Sir Charles Elliott says, with reference to 5,000 of those miles, that they were demanded exclusively almost for the purpose of protection against famine, and he shows how every one of those railways which were mentioned in the Famine Insurance Fund Commission has been constructed and completed, with the solitary exception of the East Coast Railway, which, I believe, is now in hand under the noble Lord's administration and rapidly approaching to an end. Of course we are entitled to have our differences of opinion. I have strong opinion of the goodness of the Government of India. Some of my hon. Friends do not think it so good as I do. I think it a wise, a strong, and an economical Government—[Ministerial cheers]—a Government which has conferred upon India untold blessings. [Ministerial cheers.] I do not believe in what is called "the economic drain" from India. That is rather a favourite phrase in the present day, and I do not perhaps accurately understand its meaning. No money is sent from India to this country which does not either repay the interest upon capital which has been sent from this country to India, and which has been employed in the construction of the works which have been such a great boon to the people, or in payment of services amply and richly deserved by the English Government in carrying on the government of India. [Cheers.] I fully appreciate—the House knows that perfectly well—the very heavy drain upon India by the depreciation in the value of the rupee, but Sir John Strachey, in the book from which I have already quoted, says that the cash advantage to the people for whose use these railways have been constructed is something between 50 and 60 millions sterling per annum. I think the entire loss to India upon these railways, which entirely arises from the depreciation in the value of silver—because if we were still at the old rate of ten rupees to the sovereign there is a large profit—is something like two and a-half millions of tens of rupees. That represents "the economic drain" from India in respect of these large works. ["Hear,

  545
  hear!"] Whatever our differences of opinion may be, I think we shall all concur in thinking that the Government of India, supported by the Government at home, are doing the very utmost to grapple with this calamity. I have myself gathered, from what the noble Lord has said, that he is perfectly satisfied with the effect of these protective works in preventing loss of life. It does seem to me very gratifying that no loss of life has yet occurred, and I think it is the duty of the Government to prevent any human being, any subject of the Queen in India, losing his life from starvation. ["Hear, hear!"] Then, I think, when you have passed the starvation limit and come to compassionate relief, that is the sphere for private charity. I take this opportunity of saying that I hope the Government of India have not closed their minds finally as to the question of an Imperial contribution—[cheers]—not to the national relief fund, but to the Indian Exchequer. I understood the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to say that the time has not yet arrived to consider that question. I quite agree with him, but if it should prove to be the fact, notwithstanding the surplus of which the noble Lord has spoken, that this famine will entail, as I am afraid it will, a very considerable charge upon the revenues of India, for the loss from the land revenue will be considerable, I think that is the time for this House, and I am sure this House will be really representing the people of the country, in the same spirit in which it made a contribution in the case of the Afghan war to the Indian Exchequer, to make an Imperial contribution to the Exchequer of India in aid of the taxation of India. ["Hear, hear!"] It would be in relief of the whole people of India, and it would be a sum given by the whole people of Great Britain. [Cheers.] It would not, in my opinion, in any way interfere with private charity. I am only throwing that out as a suggestion, as a hope that the Government have not I finally made up their minds as to this matter. There is one other suggestion I would make to the noble Lord. It is in reference to the question whether the money paid at the relief works is entirely in cash. I would suggest whether it would not be desirable—perhaps this is an economic heresy—to consider, though
  546
  it was an unfortunate word to use, the introduction of something in the nature of the Truck Act there, so that you could pay these poor people on these relief works in grain instead of money. The object of that would be to prevent grain being forced up to an extreme price by competition. I believe the noble Lord is perfectly sound in the view that he took that it, is not the duty of the country to buy and sell grain; but I would suggest whether, as in this country, under our administration of the Poor Law, a certain amount of relief is given in kind, a certain amount could not be given in India in these cases. It is quite certain the Government could buy at a much lower rate than the poor people themselves could buy, and perhaps of a better quality too. I apologise to the House for having detained it so long. [Cheers.] I hope my hon. Friend will not put the House to the trouble of dividing upon this question, and will withdraw his Amendment, which can have no practical value at the present time, and which would be very much misunderstood in India if it were pased. ["Hear, hear!"] It will be much better to send forth a united message to the people of India that this House, representing the people of Great Britain, will do all it can in order to mitigate those two terrible calamities which are now devastating the country. [General cheers.]
  MR. J. M. MACLEANsaid he had heard with very great pleasure the expression of opinion of the right hon. Gentleman that this country should in case of need give a national contribution to the Indian Exchequer. His noble Friend in his speech referred to the way in which the Indian Government was at present enabled to meet the expenses of the famine, and he said that there was no need of money, but at the same time he pointed out the very great pressure that would be brought to bear upon the finances of India. He (Mr. Maclean) thought they ought not to underrate the immense amount of pressure that was going to be brought to bear upon those finances. The famine would cost the country a good many millions of money. There would be a very heavy loss in land revenue alone, and they knew that in the last year or two the

  547
  Indian Government had had to impose fresh taxation in order to make both ends meet. Now if there was a deficit of several millions of money owing to the famine, how was the Indian Government going to find the money except by fresh taxation? He did not in any way join with those who always talked about British rule having impoverished India, but he did maintain that of late years England had pressed too hardly upon the finances of India; that to a certain extent India had been impoverished, and unfairly so, by the very great burden cast upon the taxpayers of India, in maintaining such an extensive scheme of frontier defence as they were called upon to support. That frontier had been extended for many thousands of miles, and millions of money had been taken from the taxpayers in the plains in order to pay the cost of that vast scheme of frontier defences, and so when misfortune fell upon the country at large, those taxpayers were not so well able to pay their way as they would otherwise have been able to do. He had always maintained that this enormous frontier defence scheme of India, which Lord Roberts told them would not be complete until they had extended the railways to Cabul and Candahar, ought to have had some support from the Imperial Government, and in that way the people of India had some real claim upon the people of this country for assistance. He hoped the Government would listen, when the time came, to an application from the Indian Government for a national grant from the Imperial Treasury. The First Lord of the Treasury said he believed there was no precedent for anything of the kind, but there was a famous phrase of Burke's, "that the opportunity for a real statesman is when the file affords no precedent." That was his opportunity for showing what a wise and magnanimous statesman could do. He believed if this occasion were seized upon to impress upon the people of India the readiness of this country to come to the help of the poor taxpayers of that country when they were sorely pressed, it would have a most widespread and lasting effect, and gain them the hearts of the Indian people more than any other act of theirs could do. We must remember that however
  548
  much they collected by the way of private charity, it was very small in comparison with the enormous expenditure that had now become necessary not only on account of the famine, but also on account of the plague. He joined in the encomiums passed on the servants of the Government of India for the efforts they were now making to save life in that country, but while he accorded the highest praise to the district officers, he must say he had seen a certain holding back on the part of the Central Government which he very much regretted, and an attempt to minimise the awful sufferings of the people of India at the present moment. The Governor of the North West Provinces of India, in his admirable despatch of November 23, had said that he was anxious to hold a public meeting for the purpose of obtaining subscriptions from charitable persons in order to meet the distress among the poorer classes which was likely to be caused by the famine and the plague. The Central Government, however, after taking a whole month to consider the subject, came to the conclusion that the time had not yet come when it was necssary to take that course.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Gentleman is now discussing the conduct of the Government with reference to the existing famine and plague in India. That is not raised in the Amendment. The Amendment only deals with the predisposing causes of the famine and plague.
  MR. MACLEANsaid that he thought that as a certain latitude had been allowed to other hon. Members he might be permitted to refer to those subjects which, in his view, were of real moment to the Indian people. He could only deprecate the action of the Government of India in endeavouring to minimise the effects of the famine and plague in that country. It was impossible to exaggerate the horrors which were affecting the people of India as a result of that famine and plague; while he did not hesitate to give credit to the Government for what they were now doing to relieve the distress in India, they ought to look at what was going on with the view of giving India our assistance as a nation. ["Hear, hear!"]
  DR. CLARKsaid that he was in India during the famine of 1877–1878. The Indian Government had then created a special famine fund from the proceeds of two new taxes—namely, the income tax and the assessed taxes. At that time Sir John Strachey, the then Finance Minister, had pledged himself that those taxes should only he imposed for a year, and that their proceeds should he applied only to the relief of the distress caused by the famine. It was pointed out at the time that these new taxes must necessarily cause great pressure upon the people of India, and the only excuse for imposing them was (hat they were to he used for the purpose of creating an insurance fund against the effects of famine. It was urged that it would he most unfair to impose these new taxes upon an impoverished people who had been suffering under a two years' famine. Of course, the assurance that was given by Sir John Strachey at the time that the proceeds of these new taxes should be used for the purpose of a famine insurance fund disarmed opposition to the proposal. The pledge of Sir John Strachey had been followed up by declarations on the part of the Indian Government that the arrangement should be faithfully carried out. The Indian Government were, therefore, fully pledged not to apply the proceeds of these taxes to any other purpose than for the relief of famine. It was, however, now clear that that pledge had been broken, and that the proceeds of these taxes had been used for the purpose of the Afghan and Burmese wars. He recollected that some dozen or 15 years ago he had been Chairman of the British Indian Committee, of which the hon. Member for Bethnal Green had been a member, and had expressed some strong views—
  MR. BHOWNAGGREEsaid that there was no such Committee sitting 15 years ago, and that he certainly had never served upon it.
  DR. CLARKsaid that the hon. Member must recollect that they were both on the Committee to which he referred.
  MR. BHOWNAGGIREEsaid that he denied that such was the case.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! These personal questions are a long way from the, Amendment before us. ["Hear, hear!"]
  DR. CLARKsaid that he had only referred to the matter as the hon. Member had made statements which had reflected upon the motives of the hon. Baronet the Member for Banffshire. The noble Lord had practically admitted all that the hon. Baronet had contended for. The noble Lord had asserted that there had been a vast improvement in the condition of the agricultural classes in India during the last 30 years, but that he denied, because, in his opinion the improved condition of India was to be attributed not to agriculture, but to manufactures and commerce. They had now got their own cotton mills in Bombay, and it was by their means that India was becoming prosperous. However successful Indian agriculture might have been some years ago, when the prices of agricultural produce were high, it had suffered greatly in recent years owing to low prices. Another cause of the present prosperity of India was to be found in the development of her coal fields, which enabled Indian manufactures to be carried on with success. He was rather afraid they were poorer to-day, because they were probably much more in debt. He believed the ryots, in some places in the protected States, were more favourably situated than the ryots in places under the British Government—that they had really a higher standard of comfort. The reason of that was that the native Governors considered matter's more carefully than the British Government. The British Government might reasonably be compared to a rack-renting landlord. The people of India and Bombay were practically tenants of the State, and they had been racked by the State, with the result that there was poverty. He did not desire to suggest that the Government would not do all that they possibly could—common humanity demanded that they should; and perhaps

  551
  the noble Lord was justified in preventing private charity acting earlier. He hoped, however, that if they erred at all they would err by spending too much instead of too little in the endeavour to keep the people alive.
  Question put, "That those words be there added."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 90; Noes, 217.—(Division List—No. 5—appended.)

  AYES.

  Allison, Robert Andrew

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  Provand, Andrew Dryburgh

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Healy, Maurice (Cork)

  Reid, Sir Robert T.

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

  Healy, Thomas J, (Wexford)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbigh)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Healy, Timothy M. (N. Louth)

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Roche, Hon. James (East Kerry)

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Hogan, James Francis

  Roche, John (East Galway)

  Brigg, John

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Burl, Thomas

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Caldwell, James

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Sheehy, David

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Kilbride, Denis

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip J.

  Clark, Dr. G. B. (Caithness-sh.)

  Knox, Edmund Francis Vesey

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Collery, Bernard

  Lambert, George

  Sullivan, T. D. (Donegal, W.)

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Langley, Batty

  Tanner, Charles Kearns

  Crean, Eugene

  Leng, Sir John

  Tennant, Harold John

  Crilly, Daniel

  Lloyd-George, David

  Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.)

  Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)

  Logan, John William

  Tuite, James

  Daly, James

  Lough, Thomas

  Tully, Jasper

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Wallace, Robert (Perth)

  Davies, W. Rees-(Pembrokesh.)

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Walton, John Lawson

  Davitt, Michael

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts.)

  Dillon, John

  McKenna, Reginald

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  McLeod, John

  Wilson, John (Govan)

  Doogan, P. C.

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Wilson, Jos. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Dunn, Sir William

  Murnaghan, George

  Woodall, William

  Farrell, James P. (Cavan, W.)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Young, Samuel

  Flynn, James Christopher

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Gibney, James

  O'Connor, Arthur (Donegal)

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Keeffe, Francis Arthur

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES, Sir William Wedderburn and Mr. Henry J. Wilson.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  O'Kelly, James

  Gourley, Sir Edward Temperley

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Hammond, John (Carlow)

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn)

  Darling, Charles John

  Allen, Wm. (Newc. under Lyme)

  Brassey, Albert

  Davenport, W. Bromley

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Arrol, Sir William

  Brookfield, A. Montagu

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

  Brown, Alexander H.

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

  Butcher, John George

  Dixon, George

  Atkinson, Et. Hon. John

  Carson, Edward

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred. Dixon

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Donkin, Richard Sim

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Cecil, Lord Hugh

  Doughty, George

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Baker, Sir John

  Charrington, Spencer

  Drage, Geoffrey

  Balcarres, Lord

  Clarke, Sir Edward (Plymouth)

  Duncombe, Hon. Hubert V.

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r)

  Clough, Walter Owen

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

  Balfour, Gerald William (Leeds)

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Ellis, Thos. Edw. (Merionethsh.)

  Barnes, Frederic Gorell

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Engledow, Charles John

  Barry, Francis Tress (Windsor)

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Evans, Sir Francis H. (South'ton)

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Fardell, Thomas George

  Beach, Rt. Hon. Sir M. H.(Bristol)

  Compton, Lord Alwyne (Beds)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Begg, Ferdinand Faithfull

  Cook, Fred Lucas (Lambeth)

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r)

  Bemrose, Henry Howe

  Cooke, C. W. Radcliffe (Heref'd)

  Field, Admiral (Eastbourne)

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Fielden, Thomas

  Bethell, Commander

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Finch, George H.

  Bhownaggree, M. M.

  Curzon, Rt. Hn. G. N. (Lanc. S. W)

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Bigham, John Charles

  Curzon, Viscount (Bucks)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Bigwood, James

  Dalbiac, Major Philip Hugh

  Fison, Frederick William

  Birrell, Augustine

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  FitzGerald, Sir. R. U. Penrose

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Dane, Richard M.

  Fitz Wygram, General Sir F.

  Flannery, Fortescue

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Richardson, Thomas

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  Lawrence, Edwin (Cornwall)

  Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir Matthew W.

  Forster, Henry William

  Lawrence, Wm. E. (Liverpool)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Forwood, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur B.

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks)

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Foster, Colonel (Lancaster)

  Lecky, William Edward H.

  Russell, T. AV. (Tyrone)

  Fowler, RtHn Sir Henry (Wol'tn)

  Lees, Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Fry, Lewis

  Llewellyn, Evan H. (Somerset)

  Seely, Charles Hilton

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Llewelyn, Sir Dillywn-(Sw'ns'a)

  Sidebotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

  Garfit, William

  Lockwood, Sir Frank (York)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Gedge, (Sydney

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Gibbs, Hon. Vieary (St. Albans)

  Lowles, John

  Smith, Abel H. (Christchurch)

  Giles, Charles Tyrrell

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Gilliat, John Saunders

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

  Godson, Augustus Frederick

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Stanley, Henry M. (Lambeth)

  Golds worthy, Major-General

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stewart, Sir Mart J. M'Taggart

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Maclean, James Mackenzie

  Stone, Sir John Benjamin

  Goschen, Rt. Hn. G. J. (St. G'rg's)

  McArthur, William

  Strachey, Edward

  Goschen, George J. (Sussex)

  McCalmont, Maj-Gen. (Ant'm N)

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Mclver, Sir Lewis

  Sutherland, Sir Thomas

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  McKillop, James

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Malcolm, Ian

  Taylor, Francis

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Maple, Sir John Blundell

  Thorburn, Walter

  Gull, Sir Cameron

  Massey-Main waring, Hon. W. F.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord Geo.

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Verney, Hon. Richard Greville

  Heath, James

  Milward, Colonel Victor

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Monekton, Edward Philip

  Webster, R. G. (St. Pancras)

  Helder, Augustus

  Monk, Charles James

  Webster, Sir R. E. (Isle of Wight)

  Hill Rt. Hn. Lord Arthur (Down)

  Moon, Edward Robert Racy

  Welby, Lieut.-Col. A. C. E.

  Hoare, Edw. Brodie (Hampstead)

  More, Robert Jasper

  Wharton, John Lloyd

  Hobhouse, Henry

  Morgan, Hn. Fred.(Monm'thsh.)

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Williams, Joseph Powell-(Birm.)

  Howard, Joseph

  Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Graham (Bute)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Hubbard, Hon. Evelyn

  Myers, William Henry

  Willox, John Archibald

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Wilson, Frederick W. (Norfolk)

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Wilson, J. W. (Worc'sh. N.)

  Jebb, Richard Claverhouse

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Wodehouse, Edmund R. (Bath)

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Johnstone, John (Sussex)

  Plunkett, Hon. Horace Curzon

  Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

  Kemp, George

  Pollock, Harry Frederick

  Kenny, William

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  TELLFRS FOR THE NOES, Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther

  Kenyon, James

  Pretyman, Capt. Ernest George

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Pryce-Jones, Edward

  Lafone, Alfred

  Purvis, Robert

  SECRET SERVICE FUND.
  The next proposed Amendment stood in the name of Mr. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.), in the following terms:—
  "And we humbly represent to your Majesty that, in the opinion of this House, events have occurred to require that the administration of that portion of the Secret Service Fund which is spent by the Homo Office should be subject to the examination of the Public Accounts Committee of the House."
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he had consulted with his hon. Friend the Member for South Mayo, who had undertaken to second the Amendment, and they had come to the conclusion that they would have a wider scope for discussion of the subject upon the Home Office Vote or some other vote in Committee of Supply
  554
  on the Estimates than under this Amendment. Therefore they had determined not to proceed with the Amendment which stood in his name.

  REGISTRATION LAWS.
  MR. EDWARD STRACIIEYmoved the following Amendment, to add at the end of the Question the words:—
  "And we humbly express our regret that no Measure is announced by your Majesty for a simplification of the registration laws for Parliamentary and local government elections."
  The hon. Member said that, in moving the Amendment, he wished to confine his remarks to the anomalies which prevailed in the working of the Registration

  555
  Laws as they at present existed, and he had no intention or desire to introduce the larger question of enfranchisement. His object was to induce the Government, if possible, to undertake the work of simplifying the laws of registration in regard to both Local Government and Parliamentary elections. At present there was great confusion and difficulty in dealing with them. For Parliamentary and Local Government Board elections there were no fewer than eight kinds of qualifications, and 22 different ways of becoming qualified. He thought that a mere statement of the anomalies and inconsistencies of the present system would justify the course he had taken in moving the Amendment. The existing Registration Laws, in fact, were so complicated that many persons did not at all understand them, and in consequence neglected or declined to place themselves on the register. In other cases fully-qualified men could not get on the register unless they were looked after by skilled Party agents on either side. And even if a man got on the register he might not be safe, for a change of overseers under present conditions might lead to his removal from it. Indeed, in the absence of any paid official who should be held responsible for seeing that a proper and complete register was kept in every town, no man was safe from being removed from the list at one time or another. A glaring anomaly was that while in a county it was necessary for freeholders to have only a six months' qualification, in a borough twelve months were necessary. Then as regarded succession to freehold property in counties, at the present time a man who succeeded to such property before the appointed day might, if the list was open, be put on the register immediately, although his qualification as to residence was only that of two or three days. This had happened over and over again in the case of beneficed clergymen in the Church of England, though his occupation of the benefice or incumbency had been only a few days. He thought it very unfair that those special facilities should be given to a certain class of freeholders; but he should not complain if similar facilities were given to the ordinary man, provided that he was qualified to vote. Then, in the case of leaseholds in counties and leasehold
  556
  boroughs, there was great anomaly as to the respective times required for qualification. Again, a man possessing a freehold in a county might live in America if he liked and still retain his vote, but if his property was in a borough he would have to live within seven miles in order to do so. Then as to the ordinary electors, most of whom were householders, in many cases they were unable to get on the register under two years and five months. This state of things could not be defended, and he hoped the Government would be inclined to deal with the question generally, with the view of putting the Registration Laws in an intelligible and reasonable condition. ["Hear, hear!"] Speaking in a Debate on a Registration Bill introduced in March 1893, the first Lord of the Treasury spoke on the matter, and said he sympathised with the effort to reform the Registration Laws, particularly in relation to the two points of transfers from constituency to constituency and of the right of successive occupation, the right hon. Gentleman said:—
  "The next two points connected with the reform part of this plan to which I wish to allude relate to transfers from constituency to constituency and to the right of successive occupation. Let me say at once that with regard to both of those I sympathise absolutely with the wishes of the Government. My objection is not to the object, but to the machinery by which the object is to be carried out."
  The right hon. Gentleman had now an opportunity of carrying out his views on the subject and of providing machinery of his own, and if he would take advantage of it he would get rid of a state of things under which at the present moment a man might be kept off the register for two and a half years. Another anomaly in the present state of the law was that there was no succession from one borough to another, or from one county to another. That might perhaps, prove a somewhat complicated matter to remedy, but certainly there could be no difficulty as to succession in the case of a man moving from one constituency to another in the same county or borough. With regard to succession from the lodger point of view, great difficulty and hardship arose. Directly a lodger became a householder he lost his vote. If a young man who

  557
  was a lodger married and became a householder he was disfranchised and kept off the register for two and a half years. That was not only an anomaly, but a great injustice and hardship. He hoped the Government would deal before long with the lodger franchise. At the present time the law with regard to it was in a most unsatisfactory state. There was nominally a £10 qualification, but it was time after time evaded. The declaration made by the lodger was regarded by the revising barristers as primâ facie evidence of qualification, and it had also been held to be primâ facie of value. In some cases the barristers had said: "If you have any grievance, lay the matter before the Treasury." That was not a satisfactory state of things, and he could see no reason why the lodger should be in a, better position than the occupier or freeholder who had to prove his claim. He ventured to think that the onus of proof should be put on the lodger, and not on those opposing his claim, to prove that he was not qualified. Then he thought it was very desirable that the powers of revising barristers should be increased, and that they should have power to inflict fines in cases in which it was proved that the case presented to them was of a fraudulent nature. At present they were powerless to check fraud. He now turned to the question of the dates for making claims and objections. At present claims and objections had to be made on the same day. That was very undesirable in the interests of a good register. In boroughs it might be easy to make objections on the day on which claims were sent in, but in the case of counties it was very different, and it was very desirable that claims should be sent in a few days earlier than the last day for making objections. Then, with regard to the register, there was now a register for Parliamentary elections, for County Councils, District Councils, Parish Councils—in fact, four or five divisions. It would be much better if, instead of having all those separate lists, there were one register only. Of course, it would be necessary to star those electors who were entitled to vote for all, but there would be no difficulty in that. It was done at the present time. He had already quoted one expression of opinion by the First Lord of the Treasury showing that when
  558
  a Liberal Government was in office he had no objection to registration reform. He now had the opportunity of bringing in a Bill embodying machinery he could himself approve. He would now quote another expression of opinion by the right hon. Gentleman. Speaking on the Second Reading of the Registration Bill in 1893, he said:
  "The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Storey) and I both appear to have approached this Bill, certainly with no desire to find fault with it, but to recognise, as I believe every man, in whatever part of the House he sits, recognise, that the existing law with regard to registration prevents certain classes of people, whos under a better law would be voters, from being voters."
  It was quite clear from that and the previous quotation that the right hon. Gentleman had no objection to the principle of the Amendment. He (Mr. Strachey) approached this question and moved this Amendment in exactly the same spirit and with exactly the same object. He did not want to raise a party controversy on the matter. All he desired to do was to ask the Government to find time to introduce a Bill to carry out the views the First Lord of the Treasury had expressed, so that a larger number of electors who were now kept off the register by the unsatisfactory state of the law, should be no longer kept off. It was quite clear the right hon. Gentleman viewed the question as not one of party controversy, and if so, what difficulty was there in the way of his undertaking to legislate upon it? He ventured to express the hope, therefore, that the Government, even at this late hour, would recognise the necessity for reform, and would attempt to deal with the question in order that men who were now kept off the register should be put upon it.
  MR. JOHN BRIGG, in seconding the Amendment, said that the Amendments hitherto brought before the House on the Queen's Speech had been very much of a local character. This Amendment was national in its character and bearings, and he believed, was the only one on the list which was indeed truly national, and so interested the whole nation. There were thousands of people to whom Reform Acts had been of no practical value, because, though the spirit of Reform had been granted the machinery

  559
  for carrying out Reform was imperfect. The work had been undertaken, but there were not the tools for the purpose. Recent circumstances had brought to his mind the fact that popular feeling on this subject was strong and widespread. Even in Manchester, where it might be assumed people were well able to take care of themselves, they were obliged to employ costly agents to obtain for themselves the opportunity of voting. He would not pursue the various anomalies of the registration system, for Members must have knowledge and experience gained in the endeavour to comply with some 118 Acts of Parliament supposed to regulate their conduct; but he asked how many Members in the House could at once tell the nature of the qualification for the vote they were entitled to exercise? Very few, he thought, could do so. There was one particular qualification readily remembered, and that was the "property qualification," and it was interesting, in looking through the many curious anomalies, to find the property qualification occupying a very singular position. Though the owner might be away from home in Spitzbergen or Somaliland, studying an eclipse or hunting lions, no matter where he travelled the qualification still attached, and he could be placed in offices of trust and responsibility in the neighbourhood, the envy of those around. The simple possession of the forty shilling freehold gave the franchise, and nothing could deprive him of it. He would not carry the matter further, and spared the House the attempt to show the great need of a change. A long list of well-known names from either side of the House was the record of attempts made to reform the registration system. It should be as easy for a man to exercise his vote as it was difficult for him to escape the payment of his rates, and he hoped that a promise would be forthcoming from the Government that they would endeavour to do something on this subject. He believed it was the universal opinion of those who had fairly considered the matter that it would not be expedient to refer the subject to an ordinary Committee, but he suggested that a small expert Committee might consider the subject, and report to the House from time to time, and in that way endeavour to make clear to every man his qualifica-
  560
  tion for a vote. The trouble, expense, and time, now so often necessary, had disgusted many working men, and on their account he pressed this matter on the attention of the Government.
  MR. R. G. WEBSTERacknowledged there were grave and great anomalies in our system of registration, but with the long list of measures to which they were already pledged it was impossible that the Government could be expected to give any promise on this subject for the present Session. The suggestion of the hon. Gentleman that consideration should be relegated to a small Committee was one the House would surely not entertain. Constitutional changes such as would be involved must be considered in the House, and Debates would probably be long and contentious. He would venture to say that an alteration of our system of registration would probably require a whole Session. When the Liberal Party were in power they never did more than bring in Rills on the subject of registration. Those Rills never became law, because Members who represented county divisions and Members who represented boroughs could not agree. Now the law should be changed. There were grave anomalies in our registration system, but the Rills introduced by the late Government were practically Reform Rills dealing with many things outside registration and with matters not germane to registration. There was, for instance, a proposal to so reduce the period of qualification that the door would have been opened to any amount of "jerrymandering" of constituencies. To some extent he agreed with the principle that a man who paid his rates should have a vote, but the Rill of the late Government did not introduce that rating qualification. The lodger franchise did not make a man pay his rates, and the tenement franchise only did so indirectly. It was an anomaly that when a man ceased to be a lodger and became a householder he did not at once get on the register, and there were anomalies in relation to the Service Franchise whereby in the constituency adjoining his the action of the Liberal agent had disqualified the votes of 300 or 400 employés in a large industrial establishment.
  MR. REGINALD. McKENNAclaimed for the Liberal Party

  561
  that they had endeavoured to carry out registration reforms in the period between the years 1868 and 1874, when no less than five Bills on the subject were introduced, and would be law now but for the action taken in the other House. In 1878 a Bill was introduced by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, but, it was so mutilated in the other House as to be vitally impaired. The hon. Member opposite had said it would be impossible to tarry through in the present Session such a wide reform as registration. But if he had considered the matter in the proper light he would have realised that it could be dealt with quite simply. Their Registration Laws were a mass of absurdities and anomalies, but they could be very adequately dealt with by introducing a simple system of franchise. If they once did away with the different varieties of franchise which now existed they would have no difficulty in dealing with the Registration Law. The obvious solution was to adopt adult suffrage with a certain period of occupation solely fur the purpose of identification. By taking occupation as necessary for identification they would satisfy the requirements of local elections that every voter should have some interest in the locality where he voted. An immediate and very simple reform in registration law might be effected by striking out column four in division one of the Register. The fourth column might be of some use in the ownership part of the list, and possibly also in the service franchise, but in division one and three it was unnecessary and misleading. That was an immediate reform which he believed the hon. Gentleman would not find it impossible to promise on behalf of the Government, and if he could not give any further promise to the House he trusted he would at any rate go as far as that.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL, GOVERNMENT BOARD (MR. T. W. RUSSELL,)hoped the hon. Member for Somerset would not expect on an occasion like this that he should go into the question of the imperfections and anomalies of the Registration Laws. Everyone who had considered the question at all was quite ready to admit there were anomalies and imperfections, and a
  562
  great deal could be said, on the question of the period of residence, about the lodger franchise, and about succession claims. All those questions were fair matters for consideration; yet, surely, it did not follow that because of these imperfections and anomalies the Government were to be censured for not bringing in a Bill at once in their second Session to deal with them. The hon. Member proposed to censure the Government for not bringing in such a Bill, but the hon. Member for Keighley had frankly declared that this would not be at all a small question, that, on the contrary, it would be most contentious, and he had advised that the whole law should be swept away and an entirely new Code produced. Whilst admitting these anomalies and imperfections existed, he would like to point out that the Session did not last for an indefinite time, and he thought the Government had acted wisely by, instead of throwing a large number of Bills on the Table, making a selection of those measures they intended to pass rather than including a number which every Member knew could not possibly be passed within the limits of a Session. ["Hear, hear!"] The question, as he had said, was full of contentious points; it was one which would occupy a great deal of time, and, after all, the Government must have the discretion as to what they should name in the Queen's Speech and press forward during the Session. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR ALBERT ROLLITobserved that whether there might be Divisions or not on this subject he thought no one could fail to see the value of taking some opportunity of entering a protest against the present state of the Registration Law. He thought the working classes especially had a real grievance in this matter, and he knew the great waste of time which they incurred, the trouble they were put to, and the disgust with which they were filled by necessary attendances at the Courts, the adjournment of their cases, and the ultimate omission from the register of people who might have lived and had an interest in the district for a very long time, constituted a great political evil. It might be that the Government were not, able to deal with this matter at once—and he, for one, should hesitate to take part in what might technically be

  563
  regarded as a vote of want of confidence—but he did urge upon them that they should take the first opportunity of remedying what was at present a most abusive system and most unjust to many classes of the people. What should be the principle of dealing with the matter? The franchise was a great right which belonged to anyone who sought to maintain his political position. It ought, therefore, to be an easy duty to get upon the register, and when once a man's name was upon it, it ought to be difficult to be removed. He ventured to say the reverse was the case under their existing system. The only remedy for the present anomalous condition of things was one franchise, and a reform of the registration was an easy corollary of that. Again, the want of adequate powers of amendment on the part of the revising barrister gave rise to technicalities and injustices often of a gross character. That power ought to be extended. A wide registration measure giving a short term of residence would, in his opinion, be a Conservative measure, because the more they widened the existing household franchise, the more facilities they gave for the admission to the register; and the more obstacles they placed in the way of removals from the register, the more they made a barrier against mere manhood suffrage, which was the demand of one political party in the State. He regretted nothing more than the waste of time to political parties which was involved in the work of registration. That work ought to be done for them automatically by some responsible officer, so that instead of their energies being devoted to the drudgery of registration they might be devoted to political teaching. He hoped the Government would realise what he believed to be the firm
  determination of a very large class of voters, that these iniquities should no longer remain on the Statute Book.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEbelieved the difficulties which had been pointed out would never be grasped by the House so long as they were treated as registration difficulties, and one reason why he could not vote for the Amendment of his hon. Friend was because he was convinced the hon. Member was wrong in believing it was possible to obtain the single register of which he had spoken until the country had made up its mind to have a simple franchise. The anomalies of the present system were enormous. He was convinced that it was not worth keeping up all the extraordinary divisions in the present franchise, which ought to be replaced by a single franchise which must not be narrower than the present. He hoped the country would sooner or later come to the conclusion that it was desirable to establish a simple franchise—either manhood or universal—but until it came to that view they would never be able to get rid of the existing anomalies. He agreed with, his hon. Friend next him (Mr. McKenna), as to the simplification of the franchise being the root of the whole question. The Amendment, however, was a registration Amendment, and not believing that that simplification was possible under the present franchise conditions, he found himself unable to vote with his hon. Friend the Member for Somerset.
  Question put, "That these words be there added."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 59; Noes, 141.—(Division, List—No. 6—Appended).

  AYES.

  Allen, Wm.(Newc. under Lyme)

  Davitt, Michael

  Hogan, James Francis

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

  Dillon, John

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Baker, Sir John

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Doogan, P. C.

  Knox, Edmund Francis Vesey

  Caldwell, James

  Ellis, Thos. Edw. (Merionethsh.)

  Lloyd-George, David

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Farrell, James P. (Cavan, W.)

  Logan, John William

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Clark, Dr. G. B. (Caithness-sh.)

  Gibney, James

  M'Dermott, Patrick

  Clough, Walter Owen

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Collery, Bernard

  Gourley, Sir Edward Temperley

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Crean, Eugene

  Hammond, John (Carlow)

  M' Leod, John

  Crilly, Daniel

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  Murnaghan, George

  Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)

  Healy, Maurice (Cork)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Daly, James

  Healy, Timothy M. (N. Louth)

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary)

  O'Connor, Arthur (Donegal)

  Sheehy, David

  Wilson, Frederick W. (Norfolk)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Sullivan, T. D. (Donegal, W.)

  Wilson, Joh. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Provand, Andrew Dryburgh

  Tanner, Charles Kearns

  Roberts, John H.

  Tuite, James

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES, Mr. Strachey and Mr. Brigg.

  Roche, John (East Galway)

  Tully, Jasper

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

  Finch, George H.

  McKillop, James

  Arrol, Sir William

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Maxwell, Sir Herbert E.

  Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Fitz Wygram, General Sir F.

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Flanncry, Forteseue

  Milward, Colonel Victor

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Forwood, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur B.

  Mouckton, Edward Philip

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Foster, Colonel (Lancaster)

  Monk, Charles James

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r)

  Fry, Lewis

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Balfour, Gerald William (Leeds)

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Murray, Rt. Hn. A. Graham (Bute)

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

  Garfit, William

  Myers, William Henry

  Beach Rt. Hon. Sir M. H. (Bristol)

  Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Bemrose, Henry Howe

  Giles, Charles Tyrrell

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Bethell, Commander

  Gilliat, John Saunders

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Bhownaggree, M. M.

  Godson, Augustus Frederick

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp.

  Bigham, John Charles

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Pretyman, Capt. Ernest, George

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Pryce-Jones, Edward

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn)

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Purvis, Robert

  Brassey, Albert

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Richardson, Thomas

  Brookfield, A. Montagu

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir Matthew W.

  Butcher, John George

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Cavendish, B. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Hamilton, Rt. Hon Lord George

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Cecil, Lord Hugh

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

  Sidehotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

  Charrington, Spencer

  Heath, James

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Holder, Augustus

  Smith, Abel H. (Christehurch)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Hill, Lord Arthur

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Howard, Joseph

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Howorth, Sir Henry Hoyle

  Stephens, Henry Charles

  Combe, Charles Harvey

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Stewart, Sir Shirk J. McTaggart

  Compton, Lord Alwyne (Beds.)

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

  Stone, Sir John Benjamin

  Cook, Fred, Lucas (Lambeth)

  Jebb, Richard Calverhouse

  Sutherland, Sir Thomas

  Cooke, C. W. Radcliffe (Heref'd)

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Thorburn, Walter

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Curzon, Rt. Hn. G. N. (Lanc. S W.)

  Johnstone, John H. (Sussex)

  Usborne, Thomas

  Curzon, Viscount (Bucks.)

  Kenny, William

  Valentia, Viscount

  Dalryraple, Sir Charles

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Verney, Hon. Richard Greville

  Dane, Richard M.

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Davenport, W. Bromley-

  Lawrence, Edwin (Cornwall)

  Webster, R. G. (St. Pancras)

  Dilke, Lit. Hon. Sir Charles

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks)

  Webster, Sir R. E. (Isle of Wight)

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Lees, Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Welby, Lieut.-Col. A. C. E.

  Donkin, Richard Sim

  Llewellyn, Evan H. (Somerset)

  Wharton, John Lloyd

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Doxford, William Theodore

  Long Rt. Hon Walter (L'pool)

  Williams, Joseph Powell-(Birm.)

  Dnneonibe, Hon. Hubert V.

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Willox, John Archibald

  Fardell, Thomas George

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Wilson, J. W. (Worc'sh., N.)

  Eurquhur, Sir Horace

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Wyndham, George

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Mecdona, John Clumning

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES, Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Field, Admiral (Eastbourne)

  McCalmont, Maj.-Gen (Anr'm N)

  Fielden, Thomas

  McIver, Sir Lewis

  On the return of Mr. SPEAKER after the usual interval,

  DEPORTATION OF PAUPERS.
  MR. GEORGE MURNAGIIANproposed, at the end of the Question, to add the words,—
  "And that we humbly represent to Your Majesty the great regret of this House that no reference has been made in Your Majesty's Speech regarding a Bill to discontinue the
  566
  deportation of paupers from England and Scot-land to Ireland."
  He said that so long ago as 1854 the attention of the House of Commons had been called to this grievance; but, though the injustice was admitted, to this day no Government had yet under taken to apply a remedy. Speaking in the House in 1854, Mr. Maguire said that
  "the object which he had in view was to provide that a person should have relief in any

  567
  Parish or Union in which he was resident; that he should have the right to it; and that there should be no fear that he would be removed to the, locality on which he might be chargeable."
  The Home Secretary of that day admitted that it was a question which the Government ought to inquire into; and he thought that the law should he altered. That was 50 years ago, and yet the same demand was still being made. On that occasion Lord Claud Hamilton, member for a division of Tyrone, joined in the demand made by Mr. Maguire. In the House of Lords, later, Lord Donoughmore made the same demand, and Lord Aberdeen admitted that the law ought to be altered, and expressed the hope that the Government would find time to attend to it. Complaint was frequently made that so much of the time of the House was occupied by Irish matters, but was this surprising when admitted grievances remained so long unredressed? He hoped that the present Government would end the anomaly of Irishmen, who had spent their whole working lives in Great Britain, being deported to Ireland as soon as they became chargeable on the rates. The taxes in Ireland were twice and thrice as heavy as those in England. Where agriculturists in England were paying in rates 2s. 6d. in the pound, the fellows in Donegal and Tyrone were paying 5s. and 4s. 6d. in the pound.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is travelling away from the Amendment.
  MR. MURNAGHANsaid that this question was larger than it looked. In the union of Carrickmacross there were no less than seven paupers who had been sent over from Great Britain after having worked the greater part of their lives in that country. There were 169 unions in Ireland, and, at the same rate for all, the cost of these deported paupers would be £15,000 to £20,000 a year. In 50 years, therefore, the amount involved was to be reckoned at a million. Again, though population dwindled in Ireland, the number of paupers increased. In 1866 the population was five and a-half millions, while the paupers numbered 65,000. In 1896 the population was only four and a-half millions, while the paupers numbered 98,000. If an Englishman in Ireland applied to the parish for relief, the Irish union had no power to deport him to his native country.
  568
  Was this a fair arrangement as between the two countries? He hoped that such a big-hearted man as the present Chief Secretary would not allow this anomaly to continue any longer. He begged to move.
  MR. J. P. FARRELLseconded the Amendment. He said that the case rested on equalisation of treatment as between Great Britain and Ireland. On Thursday next he should ask the Lord Advocate a question about an Irish pauper deported from Dumfriesshire to Cavan. The question was one of the greatest importance to the Irish ratepayer, and he thought there would be no difficulty in passing a short Bill to redress the grievance, seeing how unanimous was the feeling in the matter.
  MR. JAMES DALYsaid that the grievances complained of in the Amendment might seem a small matter to Englishmen and Scotchmen, but at he could assure the House that the people of Ireland had taken it much to heart. Surely it was an intolerable state of things under which it constantly happened that a youth left Ireland for England, Scotland, or Wales, and having resided there for 40 or 50 years by the fruits of his industry—helping to build up the great country of Great Britain—became infirm and destitute, and applied for relief at a workhouse, was sent lack to Ireland—on the order of two Justices of the Peace—to be a disgrace to his relatives and a burden on the rates to which he had never contributed a farthing. The very unfair law under which those things were done was passed in 1854 by a Liberal Government, despite the opposition of the Irishmen and the friends of Ireland then in the House. It had, therefore, been in operation—a disgrace to the Statute Book—for 45 years, and it was high time to abolish it. Previous to 1854 the law was precisely the same in regard to Englishmen, Scotchmen, Welshmen and Irishmen; but the removal of paupers from a parish in England to a parish in Wales, or vice versa, had caused so much discontent that the Liberal Party, at the General Election before 1854, made the bringing in of a Bill to abolish the grievance one of the planks of their platform. Accordingly, in 1854, the then President of the Local Government Board in the Liberal Administration brought in a Bill

  569
  abolishing the practice of the removal of paupers from one parish to another in Great Britain, but leaving Ireland outside its operation, though the inclusion of Ireland in the Act was urged by the President of the Local Government Board in the preceding Derby Administration and by Viscount Palmerston. The 45 years during which the Act had been in operation was long enough to leave Irishmen under such a law. He considered it an insult to Irishmen that they were not treated to the same laws as Englishmen, Scotchmen and Welshmen, and he hoped there would be no delay on the part of the Government in introducing the Bill or in adopting some other means for putting an end to the disgrace. He was sure the Amendment would receive the support of all sections of Irish Members. The ratepayer's of every part of Ireland suffered from this injustice, and resolutions condemning it had been passed by Unionist and Nationalist Boards of Guardians alike. In the Carickmacross Union—which was in his constituency—there were no fewer than seven deported paupers, whose cost came to a halfpenny in the £ upon the rating. If these men had done any service in Ireland he would not complain. But one of them had spent 50 years in Scotland, and another 40 years in Scotland, and it was only when they had become worn out and useless that they had been sent back to Ireland. The average cost of the keep of each of these men was £10 per annum; or, if they were in hospital—as probably they would be—from £12 to £14 per annum. He had put several questions to the late Lord Advocate of Scotland in regard to those men, and had got such little satisfaction that he had put down a Motion to reduce the salary of the right hon. Gentleman, but before the Vote was reached the right hon. Gentleman had disappeared to some more profitable quarters. [Laughter.] Up to the present he had not had an opportunity of putting a question to the present Lord Advocate, but if the Government did not put an end to the grievance he would have to come to close quarters with the right hon. Gentleman. [Laughter.] Such men as these, after spending the best part of their lives in Scotland, were at present costing the ratepayers a considerable sum. In regard to the case of
  570
  one man, who was sent back to Ireland after spending 20 years in the south and west of Scotland, the Lord Advocate stated, in reply to a question, that the man was sent home by the local authorities in accordance with his own desire. He was afraid that that was not an accurate reply. He had taken the trouble to make further inquiries into the case, with the result that this man made a declaration before a magistrate to the effect that he was compelled either to leave the Glasgow workhouse to go to Ireland. He had to consent to go against his will, as he was totally unfitted for work. This man was feeble and old, with one foot in the grave, when he made that declaration, and under those circumstances it was very unlikely that he had made a false declaration. He brought forward this case in order to show the difficulty he and his hon. Friends had to meet when, in reply to their questions, they received replies made up by officials. The rates of this country were not raised by pauper Englishmen or Scotchmen being sent back here, and it was the unfortunate Irishmen who helped to make this country what it was. There was another case, even worse, of a man of about 65 years old, who made a declaration that after about 50 years spent in Scotland he and his family were separated, and he was made to go to Ireland against his will. He told the authorities that if they sent him to Ireland he would jump overboard; but, of course, the result was that he was sent with keepers, and he had had to purchase a burial-place in order that he might be laid to rest in the same place as his family. This unfortunate man was, in the most unnatural manner separated from his wife and children. These Acts were radically unjust, and were passed only to meet a pressing emergency which was temporary. They were renewed from time to time, and a general permanent Act was subsequently passed which gave to magistrates the power of removing natives of Ireland to their own country when they had become chargeable on the poor rates of England or Scotland. The prediction made 43 years ago by the Earl of Donoughmore had turned out to be true, and the ratepayers suffered an injustice from the present state of the law. This was not a political subject, and therefore he expected to have some support

  571
  from all sides of the House; and if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, as well as the Lord Advocate for Scotland, took up the matter, it would be supported by every lover of fair play in that House. He hoped they would have a satisfactory reply from the right hon. Gentleman, and that this would be the last occasion on which any Member from Ireland would be able to complain of this great grievance. His own constituents in the Castleblaney, Carickmacross and Dundalk Unions had told him that nothing had been done in regard to this question; and yet question after question had been put upon the subject. For the last 43 years the population of Ireland had gone down, and although they might not be exactly starving in Ireland, they had not a lot of money. He believed Her Majesty's Government need have no fear that there would be any such thing as Irishmen coming to their shores for the purpose of entering the workhouses. He hoped the Chief Secretary would try and undo the mischief which had been done in the past towards Ireland.
  MR. P. J. POWERthought that an absolutely unanswerable case had been made out in regard to this subject. He did not think that the way in which the question had been treated was very encouraging to Irish Members. It had been acknowledged that for the last 40 years there had been a grievance, and yet no step had ever been taken to remove that grievance. He happened to be the Chairman of one of the Boards of Guardians which, week after week, had these warrants before them from all parts of England, Scotland and Wales, sending to them men who had left Ireland and had contributed to the wealth of Great Britain. Every Board of Guardians in Ireland was unanimously of opinion that the present practice ought to be discontinued. He hoped the Chief Secretary would be able to hold out not merely hopes but the certainty that the grievance would be removed.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. GERALD BALFOUR,)said he had on several occasions expressed the opinion that in this matter Ireland had a real grievance. ["Hear, hear!"] It was a grievance of a twofold character—the sentimental and practical. With regard to the first, Irish
  572
  paupers could be deported from Scotland and England into Ireland, while English and Scotch paupers could not be removed from Ireland to Scotland or England. The grievance could, it was clear, be removed by assimilating the law in Ireland to the law in England and Scotland; but this, in his opinion, would not constitute a real settlement of the question. While a considerable number of Irish paupers were annually removed from England and Scotland, in practice it would be found that if the law in Ireland were assimilated to that of England and Scotland few Englishmen or Scotchmen who became paupers in Ireland could be deported to the country of their birth. Personally he would rather see the law in England and Scotland assimilated to that in Ireland. The practical grievance was that an Irishman might have spent 30 or 40 years working in England or Scotland, but when past work he was liable to be sent back to the union in which he was born in Ireland, to become a burden on the Irish ratepayer. That was a very practical grievance, but it would only be redressed by a change in the poor law of England and Scotland. On that ground it had been impossible for the Irish Government as such to introduce a Bill dealing with the question. The Law of Settlement in Scotland was much severer in its effect upon Ireland than the English law was. Therefore the House would not be surprised to find that the number of paupers who had been deported from Scotland to Ireland within recent years, as compared with the number who had been removed from England to Ireland, was considerably greater, notwithstanding that England had a larger area than Scotland. The figures were remarkable, in 1889 the number of paupers removed to Ireland from England was 173; from Scotland, 117; 1890, from England, 154; Scotland, 132; 1891, England, 123; Scotland, 230; 1892, from England, 153; Scotland, 224; 1893, from England, 153; Scotland, 259. The yearly average was—from England, 151; but from Scotland, 192. So the House would see that, if the grievance were to be removed in an effectual and statesmanlike manner, it must be by an alteration of the laws of Scotland and England. He had proposed a Conference on the subject between the Local Govern-

  573
  ment Boards of the three portions of the Kingdom. But that proposal did not bear fruit, and ultimately he entered into negotiations with the Local Government Board for Scotland, thinking any concession he got from them would not be difficult to obtain from the Local Government Board in England. The Local Government Board for Scotland had met him in a conciliatory spirit, and he was authorised to say that they were now engaged in drafting a Bill which, even if it did not meet the case completely, or go as far as he could wish, he hoped it would meet the grievances of Ireland to a considerable extent. Under the circumstances, he suggested that the discussion might now come to a conclusion pending the introduction of the Bill, and that Irish Members might bring their powerful influence to bear on the Scotch Members on their own side of the House to help them to get the best terms which, under the circumstances, it might be possible to obtain. [Cheers.]
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILLagreed that it would not be desirable for the poor law system in Ireland to be assimilated to that of England and Scotland. The English and Scotch systems were of very ancient date, but the Irish system was comparatively of modern creation, dating, as it did, from the first year of Her Majesty's reign. The Law of Settlement did not exist in Ireland, and the cause of the evil of which Ireland justly complained was the stringency of the Law of Settlement in England and Scotland. The greatest hardship had been occasioned by the operation of this law, by which an Irish labourer might not acquire a settlement in a Scotch parish or an English union. If he had not acquired a settlement in the particular union on which he had become chargeable he would be sent to the parish from which he came, provided he had acquired a settlement there. The Irish population in England and Scotland was more or less a fluctuating population, and the consequence was, an unfortunate Irishman might toil for 40 or 50 of the best years of his life in England or Scotland and not acquire a status to get poor law relief from either country. He was then deported back to Ireland; all his relatives and friends there had probably disappeared, and he dropped, as it
  574
  were, from the sky, to be a charge and burden upon some already impoverished poor law union in Ireland. It was quite true that successive Governments had received complaints in reference to this matter, but notwithstanding these complaints there had been no change in the law. But he thought a means had now been suggested for remedying this evil, namely, by a change in the law of England and Scotland, which if applied to the case of Irish labourers would prevent a man from being sent back in his later days to a place which knew him no more, where he had no friends to help to sustain him, after he had given the best years of his life to the service of the Sister Island. He thought that the assurance of the Chief Secretary that the Scotch and English Local Government Boards were considering this question in conference with the Irish Local Government Board was satisfactory, and he trusted that a Measure might be produced in the course of the present Session which would meet the hardship without making any great change in the Law of Settlement in England and Scotland, and without the necessity of assimilating the law in Ireland with that in England and Scotland.
  MR. J. J. CLANCYthought that after the statement of the Chief Secretary the mover of the Amendment ought not to press it to a division. The right hon. Gentleman's speech made it perfectly clear that the change which ought to be effected was a change in the law of England and Scotland. He would publicly appeal to Scotch and English Members present to assist the right hon. Gentleman in carrying out what he had stated to be his own wishes. He was rather astonished that some Scotch or English Member had not spoken in the Debate. Although the right hon. Gentleman might be anxious to terminate this Debate as soon as possible—and he did not see any reason to prolong it—he thought the right hon. Gentleman would himself be strengthened in his meritorious intentions if he had the voice of English and Scotch Members at his back. He had been thinking since the right hon. Gentleman sat down, that some hon. Member like himself might in the last resort take the initiative in

  575
  this matter, and if he did not hear some satisfactory statement from at least one English and one Scotch Member, he should take upon himself to promote a memorial to the English and Scotch authorities which he hoped would he signed both by Englishmen and Scotchmen as well as Irishmen, asking that some change should be made. He ventured, however, to express the hope that before the Debate closed at least one English and one Scotch Member would take part in it and give the House some assurance that no niggardly spirit would be manifested in this matter.
  SIR MARK STEWARTsaid he would gratify the wishes of the hon. Member who had just sat down. Knowing something of this question, and having taken a great interest in it, and having had a large amount of experience in the administration of the Poor Law, he could not see his way to support the foreshadowing of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Although it might sometimes appear that there was considerable hardship entailed in deporting Irishmen before they obtained a settlement in Scotland, there was practically very little hardship at all. Where there was any hardship, the case had been generally left undisturbed. What they objected to in Scotland was that at certain seasons of the year, when there was a want of labour in Ireland, large numbers of Irish labourers came across. They did not want them to become their habitual paupers and to have to support them for the rest of their lives. Surely it was very reasonable to say that having a Law of Settlement in Scotland, that law should be observed. In large centres, in cities like Glasgow, where a large number of Irishmen were continually coming on to the rates, the only thing that kept down the rates was the fear those Irishmen had of being deported to Ireland, which induced them to make themselves scarce when the district officer went round. He therefore hoped that Her Majesty's Government either this or any other Session would not attempt to alter the present law upon this subject.
  MR. J. CALDWELLsaid that he must express his regret at hearing the observations of the hon.
  576
  Gentleman opposite. As a Scotch representative he should certainly support any Measure that the Government might bring in that would remedy an acknowledged injustice. ["Hear, hear!"] If an Irishman resident in a Scotch town happened to move over the line that divided one parish from another within five years, if he became a pauper he lost his parish settlement and was liable to be deported to his parish of origin in Ireland.
  SIR MARK STEWARTsaid that that law applied equally to Scotchmen and Irishmen.
  MR. CALDWELLsaid that might be so, but it must be recollected that the Scotchman was in his native country whereas the Irishman was liable to be deported back to Ireland. If an Irishman had resided in Scotland for five years, in whatever parishes he might have lived he ought to acquire a Scotch domicile, that would prevent his deportation to Ireland. He thought that was a very reasonable proposition, and if the Government would bring in, a Bill to make such an alteration in the law he for one would heartily support it. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. W. FIELDsaid that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down appeared to think that five years' residence by an Irishman in Scotland ought to entitle him to a Scotch settlement. But what would the hon. Gentleman think when he told him that he knew of cases in which Irishmen had been deported to Ireland after 43 years' residence in Scotland? It was absurd for the hon. Baronet the Member for Kirkcudbright to say that this constituted no hardship upon the Irish people.
  SIR MARK STEWARTsaid that what he had said was that there were no cases of hardship that were not duly considered.
  MR. FIELDasked whether the fact that an Irishman had lived 40 or 50 years in Scotland was not a hardship? [Laughter.]
  MR. P. C. DOOGANremarked that it was a great hardship upon the poorer districts in Ireland that those who had left them so many years ago should be sent back as paupers to be a burden upon the rates. In conclusion he mentioned that the adoption of the reciprocity principle

  577
  would not be at all fair to Ireland, because it must be admitted that there were very few inducements to English and Scotch people to settle in Ireland, He and his Friends had every confidence after the speech of the Chief Secretary that there would soon be an end to the unfair and unjust deportation of paupers from Scotland and England to Ireland.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  OTTOMAN EMPIRE REFORMS.
  MR. DISRAELIproposed, at the end of the Question, to add the words,—
  "And humbly to represent to your Majesty, as the Sovereign of many millions of Mussulman subjects, the urgent desirability of sending a special envoy to Constantinople, in order to guard not only British Imperial interests but to promote the carrying through of appropriate reforms for all the inhabitants, irrespective of race or religion, of the Ottoman Empire."
  He said he need not, he was sure, apologise for moving this Amendment, as it was a worthy and fitting Amendment to move to the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. Our diplomatic arrangements at Constantinople had been watched with peculiar interest by the 50 million Mussulman subjects of the Queen. The strong leadings which the authorities at Constantinople had received from Her Majesty's Government and the other Powers of Europe had struck considerable consternation amongst those same Mussulmans. Hon. Members had read lately that the coercion of the Sultan of Turkey had been received by the Indian Mahomedans in a very different spirit to that in which it had been received by the English people, a fact, which demanded the most serious consideration. ["Hear, hear!"] Hostile coercion was one thing, and friendly pressure was another. The Sultan was the head of a friendly Power, and the Mussulman population of our Empire could not understand the change of policy on our part during the last few years. That change of policy had largely lost us that prestige which England used to have in the East. He could not gather what the policy of the future was to be, but it might be said that now the Powers were in line and determined upon one definite foreign policy.
  578
  The state of affairs in Turkey had now become a matter of almost European concern, almost a matter of European conference, and the successful diplomacy of our Foreign Minister—["Hear, hear!"]—diplomacy which had brought Russia into line with the rest of Europe—showed the great importance of the subject. It was well, under these circumstances, to let Turkey see that, at all events, our power and prestige was not going to lose anything by its representation in Constantinople itself, that the Sultan might expect to receive from England that courtesy which he had always received in the past. A special British Envoy at Constantinople at the present time might conclude what had been a dreadful chapter in the history of the East, and might fulfil the expectations of future permanent security and peace. At the present moment a strong man was needed, one who could go to the Sultan accredited by Her Majesty with the Sultan's knowledge that he came to Constantinople with an open mind to review matters as they stood. The British Ambassador now at Constantinople was hardly the man to conduct negotiations, which had become of a very delicate character. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] It was a matter of open notoriety that the Sultan was not, and had hardly been, on speaking terms with the Ambassador of England. Whether the Sultan had done right or wrong it was not proper that the accredited Ambassador of this country should stand in an inferior position to the messenger of any other country in Europe at Constantinople. ["Hear, hear!"] It was an open fact that, while the Ambassadors of France, Russia and Germany had had open audiences of the Sultan on any occasion they liked—in fact, the proceedings had been described by a distinguished Anglo-Turk—[laughter, and cries of "Name"]—as "running in and out of the Palace"—[renewed laughter]—the British Ambassador had isolated himself by his language and his actions from the credit and confidence of the Sultan. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] However evil the man, however monstrous the deeds of which the Sultan was, rightly or wrongly, indicted, he ventured to think that the British diplomatist who was accredited to the Porte, whether the Sultan liked

  579
  or disliked him, should be in the position of a prsona grata at the Turkish Court, and should at all times and in all places be able to uphold the interests intrusted to him. He did not know whether this was part of a new policy to give up English prestige and influence at Constantinople, nor did he know whether it was the wish of English Ministers at the present day to allow Russia to obtain the ascendency which England had always held, and which she ought always to hold. ["Hear, hear!"] It was the Russian diplomatists who were at present in high favour with the Porte, and who were able to obtain measures of reform and redress for their own countrymen which the English Ambassador could not secure. All this went far to weaken the British position. The Turks could not understand why England did not see the game Russia was playing. Russian prestige at Constantinople would mean, perhaps, command of the Dardanelles, and then England would see her naval power in the Mediterranean weakened, and her hold on Egypt and the Suez Canal and her path to India threatened. ["Hear, hear!"] As he believed that the solution of the Eastern Question was to be sought and found at Constantinople now, as it had always been, and not in the offices of the Anglo-Armenian Committee, or any other place, and as the solution of the question was now of a graver character than ever, he thought the adoption of his Amendment would be a wise and a strong step in the right direction. After all those years of failure of British diplomacy he thought there must be some weakness, not only in our administration in the East, but also in our administration at home, weakening our diplomatic relations with the Porte and destroying that Power which used to be the strongest Power at Constantinople. ["Hear, hear!"] He begged to move the Amendment.
  MR. F. G. BANBURYformally seconded the Amendment.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid he had listened with interest to the speech just addressed to the House by the hon. Member for Altrincham, and he thought it would be admitted that the hon. Member had dealt with an exceedingly difficult and delicate question with much moderation.
  580
  He did not think the gravity of the crisis in the East was fully realised at the present time. He believed that unless the greatest caution, tact, and moderation were now displayed both by Her Majesty's Government and by their representative at Constantinople, a very terrible crisis might result—one which all lovers of humanity would deplore. If once against that terrible race the religious antagonism or fanaticism were aroused in the Ottoman Empire, it would not be a few hundreds or thousands of victims who would suffer, but a very large portion of the whole Christian population of the Ottoman Empire might become the victims of another outrage. It had always been the object of persons in this country who had had to deal with the Eastern Question in a responsible position, above all things to avoid raising that terrible religious fanaticism which underlay all movements in the East. For the past two years that danger had been forgotten in this country. Language of the most reckless and unjustifiable kind had been used not only towards the Sultan but towards his Ministers, the Turkish people and the Mussulman religion, and he held that that language and the injustice with which the Turkish Government had been treated were largely responsible for the terrible events which had taken place in Asia Minor during the last few months of 1895. He did not believe it possible to find a case in history in which language so reckless had been used in regard to the Sovereign of a friendly Power as had been used towards the Sultan and his Government during the last two years. That language was absolutely unjustifiable. A very bitter feeling had in consequence sprung up towards this country in Turkey, and that feeling was deliberately increased by the various provocations on the part of the Armenian Secret Societies. They had now had for a period of twelve months, with two exceptions, comparative tranquillity throughout the Ottoman Empire. Hon. Members opposite laughed, but he was simply stating what was the fact. They seemed to forget that upon the maintenance of that tranquillity depended the lives of thousands of their fellow-beings. When in Constantinople he had the opportunity of speaking to the heads of all the great Christian communities there, and everyone said that the first

  581
  object of statesmanship and diplomacy was to maintain that tranquillity. That tranquillity was due to the fact that the Sultan and the Government of Turkey had issued the most stringent orders that any person who attempted to break the peace should be immediately dealt with in the sternest way. That was a fact which ought to be recognised in this country instead of the most unmitigated abuse being lavished on the Turkish Government for thing's which they had actually not been guilty of. In addition to those orders it was well known that the Sultan had promulgated a number of valuable reforms which had been asked for by their Ambassador, and which had been actually made into law. Those reforms consist of the appointment of Christian sub-Governors, of Christian members of the gendarmerie, of the release of all the Armenian prisoners except those who had been convicted of acts of extreme violence, and of considerable grants of money to the relief of the Armenians themselves. The Blue-book just published for the first time showed this country in the light of a leader of a policy of coercion towards Turkey, and undoubtedly that constituted a very grave fact. His hon. Friend in his interesting speech reminded the House that Her Majesty was the Sovereign of seventy millions of Mussulman subjects, and was in fact the first Sovereign of Mussulmans in the world. It was a grave fact that the Government of this country should appear for the first time in what appeared a spirit of hostile coercion towards Turkey. The great achievement which this Blue-book had apparently been published to prove was that the Government had brought into line the Government of that Power which had always been most hostile towards Turkey, and which in recent years had thwarted every effort for the improvement of Turkey, whether the effort had been made by a Conservative or a Liberal Government in this country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth (Sir W. Harcourt) knew that his efforts, as were the efforts of the Government which succeeded him, were deliberately thwarted by the Government of Russia. When we were trying to coerce Turkey in a hostile way in conjunction with the Government of Russia, and more or less with other Governments, what was the danger? As
  582
  had been pointed out, the danger on the one side was that of irritating Moslem feeling, and on the other side was a more threatening danger. With every step we took in this direction we were driving the Sultan and the Turkish Government nearer and nearer to Russia, and more and more would the Turkish Government be inclined to submit to the terms under which the Government of Russia were prepared to render any support to the Government of Turkey. It was no use shutting our eyes to this fact. If the Turkish Government consented to put the Dardanelles into the hands of Russia to-morrow that Government might have a Russian fleet and a Russian army in alliance and support. This was a great fact to which no British Government should shut its eyes. If once the Russian power was at Constantinople, then we must be prepared for the loss of our naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, and our occupation of Egypt and the Suez Canal would be absolutely useless. There would be placed under the control of Russia half a million of the finest fighting force in the world, rendering an attack on our Indian Empire certain and almost certain to be successful. That must be the consequence of placing Russia in control of Constantinople with supreme influence in the Ottoman Empire. And so he came to the Amendment of his noble Friend, and what he had said was leading up to that. He had tried to point out the gravity of the crisis, the danger that accompanied a policy of hostile coercion, not only in irritating Moslem feeling throughout the world, not only as regarded the fate of Constantinople and the existence of the Christians in Turkey. Before we could intervene for the protection of even the coast-line, these Christians might become the victims of an outburst of Moslem fanaticism. Every turn of the hostile screw would force the Sultan against his will more and more under the control of the Russian Government. He did not believe that the Sultan or any considerable portion of his subjects were anxious to fall under the power of Russia. He believed, and certainly he could speak of the majority of Turks with whom he had conversed, they dreaded and detested the power of Russia, and yet the British Government, by this policy of hostile coercion, were forcing Turkey from us

  583
  and towards our great rival. His hon. Friend's Amendment referred to a Special Envoy to Constantinople, and his hon. Friend had dealt with the subject with much care and moderation of language, which he hoped to imitate. He felt it was a most delicate matter to say anything about the representatives of the Crown at the present crisis, but it was a fact well known throughout Europe that the relations between the British Ambassador and the Sovereign of Turkey were, and had been for the last two years, exceedingly strained, and the position had become almost impossible. Some people might say this was creditable to the Ambassador, and discreditable to the Sultan, but anyone who knew any thing about the ways of diplomacy would know that an Ambassador in that position was deprived of influence. Whatever he might think of the Government, it was his duty to maintain courteous diplomatic relations until he was withdrawn. It was a notorious fact that these relations were strained until the position was well nigh intolerable. This was notorious in Constantinople and known in every Chancellery in Europe. Owing to this fact the policy of this country would fail. The policy foreshadowed in the Blue-book might be good and might be necessary, but it would fail for this reason. His hon. Friend was justified in the suggestion he had made, and the Government would do well to consider it. One remark as to the way in which British policy might best become successful. A great deal had been said about the concert of Europe, but the concert of Europe up to the present had been a sad failure, and had achieved very little, and though there now seemed to be some prospect of its succeeding, he thought that was very shadowy. He would urge upon the Government a recurrence to the policy with regard to their European support and European alliances which was pursued by Lord Beaconsfield in 1878. On that occasion the Prime Minister was confronted by a crisis as difficult as at present, perhaps more pressing, and he secured strong support in Europe. He secured the support of those great Powers of Central Europe whose political interests were identical with ours, and was thus enabled in that great crisis to avoid a European war. He knew that Sir William Har-
  584
  court was very fond of indulging in attacks upon Lord Beaconsfield's policy, and trying to persuade himself that it had failed. It was not Lord Beacons-field's policy that had failed; it was the reverse of his policy. The policy of Lord Beaconsfield was one of friendly pressure, and not of hostile coercion. The policy of Lord Beaconsfield was based on the support of the German monarchies and of Italy, but the policy of the last three years was based on the supposed but impracticable support of France and Russia.
  MR. SPEAKER: The policy of Lord Beaconsfield in the East is not raised on this Motion, and has nothing to do with the sending of a special envoy to the Turkish Government.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTwas sorry he had digressed from the exact point of the Amendment. In his opinion the best way of carrying through reforms now would be by getting the support of those Powers whose support we had before, and which was effective. He would further point out that it would be wise to institute practical supervision over the work of reform and over the administration, rather than by fantastic schemes of which they had heard so much of late. The appointment of military consuls was a, practical measure of great value, and the Government would do well to adopt some such measure on the present occasion. If the Government intended their policy in the East to be successful, they must obtain the support of those Powers whose general political interests were identical with ours, and on whom we could rely in case of need. So long as this country attempted to rely on the support of Russia and France in this matter, they were bound to fail. If they once put before the Sultan a clear and definite scheme, in a friendly way, as England used to do in the past, by an Ambassador who would address himself in a diplomatic and friendly way to the Sovereign of the great Mussulman, State, and if that scheme of reform got the support of Austria, which was interested as much as we were in the East, of Germany, and of Italy, with whom we could cordially co-operate, then, and then alone, in his opinion, Her Majesty's Government could hope for success in their policy with regard to Turkey and the Mussulmans and Christians of that country.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (MR. G. CURZON,): There was one statement in the speech of the hon. Member who has just concluded in which I quite concur—namely, in the admission that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, and whose hereditary and legitimate interest in this question we all allow—["Hear, hear!"]—made a most temperate and moderate speech. I own I feel some difficulty in understanding his position, because I gather, on the one hand, that he approved the policy of Her Majesty's Government—an admission which we were grateful to receive—but, on the other hand, he deprecated what he described as a policy of coercion of the Sultan, mainly on the ground of the consternation that it was producing or would produce among the Mahomedan inhabitants of the Indian Empire of Her Majesty. I do not believe for one moment in this consternation. ["Hear, hear!"] I have had, perhaps, as many opportunities as the hon. Member of studying the question, and I have had no evidence before me that any such consternation either already exists or is likely to be called into existence. ["Hear, heat!"] Anyhow, whether that be so or not, I would submit to the House that, our policy in Europe in discharge of the responsibilities which, by treaty and otherwise, we have on many occasions assumed, ought not primarily to be dictated by considerations of the effect that policy may produce upon the inhabitants of Her Majesty's Empire in India. ["Hear, hear!"] I go further than that. Both hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have described our policy as one of hostile coercion against the Sultan, and have objected to it on those grounds. Sir, it is not our policy alone. The policy we are pursuing is not the policy of one Power, it is the policy of the combined Powers of Europe, and whether it be, in the last resort, a policy of hostile coercion or not depends, not upon us, but upon the Sultan himself. ["Hear, hear!"] It rests entirely at this moment with the Sovereign of Turkey whether that policy, which is not in its inception or design one of coercion, but which is a policy of reform in the interests of every section of the Ottoman Empire—of Turks, as well as of Christians—it rests, I say, with the Sultan himself
  586
  to decide whether that policy, in the objects of which I believe there is not a man in this House who is not agreed, is successfully carried out, or whether, in consequence of obstruction, it develops and is translated into that hostile coercion to which the hon. Members so much object. ["Hear, hear!"] An Amendment has been moved by the hon. Member, the terms of which have been read and which are on record on the order paper of this House; but I cannot help calling attention to the fact that the words of the Amendment, although some attention was paid to them in the speech delivered by the Mover, were studiously ignored by the hon. Member who seconded it. The hon. Member said nothing whatever about the Amendment.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg pardon. I distinctly said that I thought it was very unfortunate that the relations between the present Ambassador and the Porte were so strained.
  MR. CURZON: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for the correction, because it enables me to bring before the House that which lies directly before it. We are not here to discuss the general question of the Ottoman Empire or the general policy of the Government. What we are discussing is an Amendment which is a Motion of want of confidence in the present representative of the Queen at Constantinople. [Cheers.] That is the true point and germ of this Amendment, to which I purpose to address myself. I am not going to take the line of deprecating such an attack. If the spirit which I suppose underlay the two speeches to which we have listened exists either in this House or outside—which I do not for one moment believe—I think it would be far better that that spirit of distrust should be expressed and debated on the floor of this House than that it should simmer in the Lobbies or that it should find anonymous and irresponsible expression in the Press, although I feel bound to say that I have seen no countenance in the Press on either side, and I expect to find in the Press no echo of the spirit of protest and complaint to which utterance was given in the speeches of my hon. Friends. ["Hear, hear!"] In speaking of the Ambassador at Constantinople, upon whom no one can deny that a slur is

  587
  intended to be cast when a proposal is laid before us that a Special Envoy shall be sent to Constantinople to take his place—in speaking of that distinguished representative of Her Majesty, I will not shelter the Government or shield him behind the plea that he is an absent man and cannot answer for himself. Though it may be a general rule of popular acceptance that representatives of the Queen in foreign parts ought to be exempted from the criticism and the censure of this House where they cannot speak for themselves, yet I can well understand that there may be cases in which a Viceroy, or Ambassador, or Minister, even though he be absent, and even though he be subjected to compulsory silence, may yet be open to the legitimate criticism and even the animadversion of this House. But my point is that this is not one of those cases—["Hear, hear "]—and that in the few vague phrases of my hon. Friends there is no foundation whatever for the charges which, by implication more than by direct expression, they have advanced. Now I proceed to consider those charges. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment said that we required at Constantinople a strong man with an open mind. What was the imputation that he desired to convey? It was that Sir Philip Currie was not a man of open mind and not a strong man. Well, I should imagine that if any man ever went to Constantinople with prepossessions which were likely to lead him in the direction which the hon. Members have described as the old traditional policy of this country, that man was Sir Philip Currie. He first went to Constantinople in 187G as secretary to the mission of Lord Salisbury, and then he was secretary to the special English mission at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. If any prepossession or prejudice—which I do not admit—had existed in his mind it would have been a prepossession and prejudice of a Turcophile character, and if in the passage of events Sir Philip Currie has had to change his views—which I do not for a moment say—it is because he has since then acquired an experience which too many of us in this House lack. [Laughter and "Hear, hear."] The hon. Member went on to say that under the guidance of our Ambassador we had adopted a new policy,
  588
  and he appeared to make Sir Philip Currie responsible for the change, as he appeared to regard it, in the direction of our policy. But if—I will not say the policy—but if the feeling upon which the policy of this country towards Turkey is founded has in any respect changed in recent years, it has not been due to any Ambassador or to any Foreign Minister, but to the action of the Turkish authorities themselves, and to the remorseless and irresistible logic of events. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member made it a matter of complaint that the Sultan was not on speaking terms with the British Ambassador, and that the relations between the two were strained. I do not know from what personal experience my hon. Friend the Mover speaks.
  MR. DISRAELI: Perhaps I should say that the Ambassador was not on speaking terms with the Sultan.
  MR. CURZON: I do not object to the correction, but I do not know whether he speaks from personal experience or whether he has culled his information from more authoritative sources. [Laughter.] In either case the allegation of the hon. Member is not borne out by the reports received.
  MR. DISRAELI: Because they are received from the Ambassador.
  MR. CURZON: We have constant reports from the Ambassador of interviews with the Sultan in which views are expressed on both sides. We have had no difficulty in receiving from our Ambassador the opinions which the Sultan has desired to place before us, and I have no reason to suppose that the suggestions of the hon. Member are in any sense true. [Cheers.] He has tried to convey to us that the Ambassador of this country stands in an inferior position at Constantinople to the representatives of the other Powers. I believe that to be an unfounded and grotesque insinuation. The hon. Member has said that he cannot secure for British interests and British trade that legitimate protection which other Ambassadors secure for the subjects of their various nationalities. If British trade be the question at issue I may be allowed to say a word, because as representing the Commercial Department of the Foreign Office, I have charge of a good deal of the work, and I am bound to say that in the hands of

  589
  Sir Philip Currie, so far from detecting any inability to secure due regard for our interests, I find, on the contrary, that we have as vigilant and successful an influence applied to our concerns as we could possibly desire. [Cheers.] I do not desire to argue with my hon. Friends on these small points. Not having myself lately been at Constantinople—[laughter]—I am not in a position to argue the matter with the various emulous pilgrims—[laughter]—who have recently been sojourning there. But what is the moment which my hon. Friend has selected to bring this implied vote of censure on Sir Philip Currie before the House? A more inopportune moment he could not possibly have chosen. [Cheers.] We have just laid before the House of Commons a Blue-book, which, I venture to say, has elicited greater unanimity and satisfaction on both sides of the House than any Blue-book which in my short recollection of Parliament I can remember. For that common recognition on both sides of the House Her Majesty's Government are profoundly grateful. In speaking of the Eastern Question it does not do to he over sanguine, but I venture to say that the result of a perusal of the Blue-book is to enable us to obtain an outlook at the present moment more favourable than it has been for some time past. In these discussions, which have been taking place at Constantinople, which are now taking place, and which this Blue-book records, Sir Philip Currie has represented the Government to its entire satisfaction. [Cheers.] With the experience of three years behind him, with his knowledge of the Eastern Question, and with his ability and resource, he has in every respect completely and satisfactorily carried out the views of Her Majesty's Government. [Cheers.] This is the moment which my hon. Friends choose—
  MR. DISRAELI: It is the only moment.
  MR. CURZON: That makes the case worse than it was before. The hon. Gentleman suggests that this is the only moment which they can choose. The very moment when we are within, as we hope, a near distance of reaching a satisfactory conclusion, is the only moment when the thing can be stopped, and when the concert of Europe may be
  590
  broken down. This is the moment when they intervene to secure the supersession of the British representative at Constantinople. The Government see no necessity for any supersession at all. [Cheers.] If they were at the present moment to send out a Special Envoy to Constantinople, as has been done in entirely different circumstances on previous occasions—
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BAKTLETT: It was done in 1876.
  MR. CUKZON: In 1876 Lord Salisbury went out as Special Plenipotentiary and representative of this country to Constantinople. ["Hear, hear!"] For what purpose did he go out? He went out to take part as an Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in a European Conference which was summoned to take action at Constantinople subsequent to the Bulgarian atrocities and the Servian war, and previous to the Russian invasion. The difference between the two situations is obvious. In one case you have a European Conference in which representatives and plenipotentiaries of the Great Powers are sent out to Constantinople—["No"]—to conduct an international European Conference. In the other case you have a conference of Ambassadors at Constantinople, of persons necessarily best acquainted with the situation, possessing no initiative, charged with no powers of their own, but instructed to refer the result of their deliberations to the Powers, who will deliberate upon them and take action. A greater distinction between the two situations cannot be imagined. But the point I desired to put before the House before I was interrupted was this—that if we were at the present moment to adopt the advice of my hon. Friend, to supersede Sir Philip Currie and to send out a special envoy to Constantinople, we should not only be inflicting a most gratuitous public slur upon a distinguished representative of the Crown—[Opposition, cheers], but we should be doing more than that; we should be taking a step that would have a very wide and unfortunate effect upon the action and the possibilities for good of Her Majesty's Government. [Cheers.] I venture to say that if we now adopted his advice, and if any special envoy, either in supersession of or in supplement to the British Ambassador, were sent out to Constanti-

  591
  nople, there is no step that can be imagined which would be more calculated to weaken and to cripple the authority of Her Majesty's Government in the councils of Europe. [Cheers.] At the very moment when the concert of Europe has been re-established, when it is proceeding harmoniously, when the suspicions that appeared to divide its members have been removed, and when practical unanimity has been secured, we are invited to remove or to supersede or to supplement the representative of this country at the Council Board, and to acknowledge by so doing that our policy up to this point has been a mistake or a failure. On behalf of the Government I must decline for one moment to entertain any such suggestion. [Cheers.] The Government intend to pursue their policy, and they are satisfied with the agent who has hitherto assisted to carry it out, and we hope the House will with practical unanimity reject a proposal which, if it were accepted as part of the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech of Her Majesty, would convey both an injurious and an uncalled-for imputation upon one of our most eminent representatives in foreign parts, and would at the same time be generally interpreted as an abnegation of the responsibilities which we have assumed in the face of Europe and as a repudiation of the policy which we intend to follow and, if it be possible, to prosecute to a successful issue. [Cheers.]
  SIR WILLIAM HAPCOURT: We on this Bench find ourselves in a situation unusual, but not disagreeable. It becomes our duty to support Her Majesty against the attacks of the irregular janissaries below the gangway. [Laughter.] I am not suggesting to Her Majesty's Government that they should resort to the measure which the Sultans of Turkey at an earlier period of the century took with regard to those troops, and I should not have risen at all to make any remarks, agreeing as I do with what has been said by the Under Secretary upon this occasion, except that I thought, having been myself with my colleagues acting with Sir Philip Currie at Constantinople, I ought not to be silent in repudiating this attack made upon him by the hon. Member in the motion he has submitted to the
  592
  House. [Ministerial cheers.] For a more able, a more faithful representative than Sir Philip Currie Her Majesty has never had in her service. [Cheers.] What the Under Secretary has said is perfectly true. I should not describe Sir Philip Currie exactly, perhaps, as a Turcophile, in the words of the Under Secretary, but I can say of Sir Philip Curiae—and I know it from my official knowledge—that he went to Constantinople full of hope and belief that by friendly representations to the Sultan of Turkey something might be done to advance reforms in that empire. He has found by experience, as every man who has gone through that experience has found, that all these hopes were disappointed. Mention has been made of a special envoy to Constantinople, as represented by Lord Salisbury in December, 1876. In the representations that were then made, the hopes then experienced, were they not entirely disappointed, and did not the whole objects of the conference fail? That the hon. Member who has moved this Amendment should not approve of the present policy of Her Majesty's Government I am not surprised, because it is and is allowed to be, a reversal of the policy which was adopted 20 years ago by Lord Beaconsfield. The object of the hon. Member for Sheffield and the hon. Member who moved this Motion must have been that some now Commissioner should be sent to Constantinople to put more "money on the wrong horse." [Laughter.] I should imagine that that is to be the mission of the Special Envoy, on the ground that Sir Philip Currie has not been sufficiently lavish of the money so expended in the last 20, I might say in the last 40, years ["Hear, hear!"] No, Sir; it has become apparent to everybody now that other measures and another policy must be adopted, in hopelessness of representations of the character which have been made over and over again, and always in vain. [Cheers.] The hon. Member for Sheffield said, "Why do not you make an alliance with Austria? Has he read the Blue-book which has just been presented? Has he perceived that when the British Government applied themselves—and properly—to Austria, the answer of Austria was—"We will make no more representations to Turkey

  593
  until we have settled the methods of coercion which shall be employed to enforce those representations." Is it in that spirit that the hon. Member desires that a Special Envoy should be sent to Constantinople? That is, I am glad to know, the policy of Her Majesty's Government to-day; and if—and it is perfectly true, as the Under Secretary has said—that the recent correspondence has been received with favour, it is because it indicates that the Government of Great Britain has been labouring to induce the Powers of Europe to act on the conviction that paper remonstrances with Turkey are in vain, and always will be; and that if you intend really, in the cause of civilisation and humanity, to accomplish anything at all, you must settle among yourselves beforehand—and that, I think. Lord Salisbury has rightly laid down as the policy to be pursued—those measures of material pressure which can alone give your remonstrances any force or effect. [Cheers.] I agree with the Under Secretary that this is a moment, not to weaken the hands of the Government of Great Britain—[general cheers]—but to strengthen them in the course which we desire them to pursue. And we will be no parties on this side of the House to any attempt to cast a slur upon the agent of the Crown who is pursuing an object in which the honour of this country is involved, and by which, I believe, the cause of civilisation will be served. [Cheers].
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I do not rise to continue the Debate, which has, I think, gone on for a sufficient length of time. If the right hon. Gentleman and I were to discuss at length our views of the history of the Eastern Question for the last 30 years, no doubt we should find plenty of points of difference. But on the particular point nominally before the House, a point which has been left out of sight a good deal by some of the speakers, we are absolutely at one; and I believe that there is, on the whole, hardly any difference of opinion between the two sides of the House with regard to the necessity from the public point of view, of supporting the distinguished diplomatist who is so ably representing Her Majesty at this
  594
  moment at Constantinople. ["Hear, hear!"] If I am right in saying that on that point we are agreed—and after all, all other points tire irrelevant to the Amendment before the House—I am not going beyond my duty in asking the House to bring this discussion to a close as soon as possible. ["Hear, hear!"] Any appearance of divergence among us to-night would, even from my hon. Friend's point of view, have a disastrous effect upon Turkey. The great point is that Turkey should understand now that all sections of opinion in England are united and in accordance with the general policy of the Powers of Europe. Against that unanimity I am convinced that there are no powers of obstruction in Turkey which could struggle successfully; and I should deprecate in the interests of Turkey itself any appearance of want of unanimity at the present time. ["Hear, hear!"] My hon. Friend seems to think that we are acting in this matter in a spirit hostile to Turkey. That is not the case. Our firm conviction is that the salvation of Turkey depends absolutely upon the acceptance of reforms by Turkey, [Cheers.] Turkey reformed is Turkey invulnerable. Turkey unreformed is Turkey foredoomed to speedy dissolution. [Cheers.] Holding that view, we separate ourselves from the people who think that in this policy we are putting ourselves in antagonism to the interests of the Turkish Empire as a whole, or to those of the Mussulman population. That being admitted—as it is on all sides of the House—surely we shall be doing the best for the general foreign policy of this country in connection with the Eastern Question and for the interests of Europe as a whole, if we bring this particular Debate to a conclusion. If I may travel beyond the Amendment, and make an appeal to the House on the suject of the Address itself, I would suggest that I am justified in asking the House to bring the discussion on the Address to a close to-night. [Cheers.] I quite agree that if the question of the financial relations of Ireland had been brought on, hon. Gentlemen might justly have asked for more time. But as by general consent the Debate on that question has been deferred to a future day, I am not trespassing on the privileges of Members in asking them to bring this

  595
  Debate to a conclusion to-night, so that to-morrow we may begin the ordinary work of the Session. [Cheers.]
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he regretted that the Debate had not been carried on in the tone adopted by the Leader of the House at the end, and by his hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham at the beginning. He rose merely to remove a few misapprehensions from the mind of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who had not shown in his speech that holy calm which should characterise the utterances of Under Secretaries. The right hon Gentleman went beyond the usual confession of ignorance, which was common to all of them, for he rejoiced in his own ignorance. He stated that he had not been to Constantinople, and had no recent information, and then like the great Apollyon he went forth to slay the poor pilgrim who had gone about to get information that would be useful to the House. For his part, he held it was a virtue for an hon. Member to employ his leisure not in shooting game or other amusements, but in endeavouring to obtain information in regard to a question about to be debated in the House. He would not follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Monmouthshire through his speech, in answer to Lord Rosebery. He would only say that the right hon. Gentleman ought to feel indebted to his hon. Friend for having afforded him the opportunity for making that answer. The right hon. Gentleman said that the great thing in dealing with Turkish matters was to state beforehand what they were going to do. The right hon. Gentleman left the country to imply that that was what was going to be done in the present case. He was afraid the right hon. Gentleman had not read the Blue-book, or did not understand it, for otherwise he would see that so far from settling anything the last communications that had passed between the Powers had absolutely and completely unsettled everthing that had been settled before. The right hon. Gentleman would see on referring to the Blue-book that Lord Salisbury had written that before the Ambassadors had come to discuss the plan, and before the plan had been presented to the Sultan, the Powesr must in the first instance be agreed that
  596
  in case their proposals were rejected they must use coercion. Not a single Power had agreed to that. [Cries of "No, no!"] He regarded non-compliance in this case to mean refusal. If hon. Members would refer to the Blue-book—
  MR. SPEAKER: The details of the Blue-book are outside the present discussion.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he bowed to that ruling. He had been tempted into that line of discussion by the irregularities of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. He now came to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who was always interesting. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Motion amounted to a vote of want of confidence in Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople, Under-Secretaries really never studied history. When Lord Salisbury was sent as a Special Envoy to Constantinople, while Sir Henry Elliott was Ambassador there, the same ridiculous idea seemed to have occurred to foolish people, that it was meant as a slight upon the Ambassador. Lord Derby then wrote to Sir Henry Elliott, pointing out that the appointing did not indicate in the slightest degree any want of confidence on the part of the Government in Her Majesty's representative at Constantinople. If then it was no slight on Sir Henry Elliott to send a Special Envoy to Constantinople in 1876, it was no slight on Sir Philip Currie to send a Special Envoy to Constantinople in 1897. [Cries of "There was a Conference then!"] There was not in 1876 a general sending out of Ambassadors to Constantinople by the Powers, it was done especially by England. There was no slur intended to be cast on Sir Henry Layard, our Ambassador at Constantinople when the First Lord of the Admiralty was sent out, nor was any slur intended to be cast upon Sir William White when Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was sent out. He thought these precedents showed that no slur whatever was cast upon the Ambassador by the Amendment. A very grave and serious crisis had been reached in the affairs of Turkey. The consultations now taking place between the Ambassadors were in effect a very serious European Conference. Surely if there was an occasion for a Special Envoy being sent out it was

  597
  this. It was said that our Ambassador was not on speaking terms with the Sultan; he should prefer to say that he was on speaking terms, but that he spoke in a way not perhaps highly to be desired on the part of an Ambassador. He had presented four schemes of reform, the first of which was a failure, the second was contemptuously rejected by Russia, the third was rejected with nothing less than contempt by Austria, and the fourth had provoked a strange and unwarranted rebuff from the Russian Ambassador. Those were instances in which Sir Philip Currie had exercised what he was sure were great abilities, but had exercised them without success. It would be well, therefore, in such a crisis as this, when the moral welfare, not only of the Turks and Turkey, but of England, as well as the most important interests of Europe were involved, if we sent out to strengthen the hands of our Ambassador a Special Envoy to assist him. He joined with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, in expressing his conviction that it was necessary to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Dominions, and to introduce the necessary reforms. But he was firmly convinced that so long as they approached the only man from whom those reforms could be obtained in a spirit of insolence and arrogance, they would not succeed. A change was required in the manner rather than in the matter of the address to the Sultan. His belief was that there was every desire on the part of the Sultan to reconcile himself to Europe, and especially to England, by introducing these reforms, and he thought that whether Her Majesty's Government accepted this or any other step which might facilitate the granting of these reforms, they should take every possible means not to let the present opportunity slip.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put and agreed to amid cheers.
  Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as followeth: —
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,"
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament
  598
  assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
  To be presented by Privy Councillors.

SUPPLY.
Resolved, that this House will, To-morrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.—(Mr. Hanbury.)
Ordered, That the several Estimates presented to this House during the present Session be referred to the Committee of Supply.—(Mr. Hanbury.)

WAYS AND MEANS.
Resolved, That this House will, To morrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.—(Mr. Hanbury.)

UNLAWFUL POSSESSION BULL
SIR BENJAMIN STONE: In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said the object of the Measure was to make general, enactments which were already in force in London, Manchester, Liverpool, and other large towns.
MR. T. M. HEALYopposed the Bill. He was surprised that a Bill of the kind should be left in the hands of a private Member, however experienced. The Bill reversed the entire policy of the Criminal Law, throwing on a man arrested the duty of proving his innocence instead of throwing on the prosecutor the duty of proving the guilt of the accused. Was it because England and Wales were a separate entity that this Bill was to be confined to those parts of the Kingdom? If it was good for them, why was it not good for Ireland? The Bill did not seem to have the support of the Attorney General for England, for he flitted from the House when the hon. Member rose. The hon. and learned Gentleman had charge of the Amendment Bill, allowing prisoners to give evidence in their own

599
defence. Why were they not provided for in this Bill? It was not proposed to apply the Bill to Ireland, yet the phrase "reasonably suspected" was stolen from the Irish Coercion Act. [Nationalist laughter and cheers.] It was quite foreign to the British Constitution, as far as his acquaintance with that instrument went. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.]
The hon. Member was still speaking at midnight, when the Debate was adjourned.
Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS (AID GRANT).
Committee thereupon deferred till Thursday.
LAW OF EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL CASES).
Abjourned Debate on Motion for leave to bring in a Bill [21st January] further adjourned till Thursday.
MILITARY WORKS (MONEY).
Committee thereupon deferred till tomorrow.
SHOPS (EARLY CLOSING) BILE.
Second Beading deferred till tomorrow.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
On the Motion for the adjournment of the House.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid: I promised at question time that I would, at the adjournment of the House, state the views of the Government with regard to the main business of the week. Tomorrow, of course, is sacred to private Members.
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Thursday is a Government day, and, leaving license to introduce under the special Standing Order secondary Government Bills at the beginning of business, I propose to make the first Order of the Day the renewal of the Supply Rule which was in operation, and I hope successfully in operation, last Session.
DR. CLARK: As a Sessional or a Standing Order?
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I do not mean to press it as a Standing Order if the House objects. The second Order of the Day will be the appointment of the South African Committee, and the third Order of the Day the Supplementary Army Estimates. Of course, if the rule is carried, Supply will be taken on Friday—the Civil Service Estimates. On Monday I should propose to take the Committee on the Education Bill. A further forecast than that I cannot venture to make.
Motion agreed to.
Adjourned at Five minutes after Twelve o'clock.

EXTRACTS FROM "VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS."
In pursuance of Standing Order No. 1, "Sittings of the House,"
I hereby nominate—
Mr. Arthur O'Connor,
Mr. John Ellis,
The Right Hon. Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley,
Mr. John Grant Lawson, and
Mr. Edmond Robert Wodehouse,
to act during this Session as temporary Chairmen of Committees when requested by the Chairman of Ways and Means.
WILLIAM COURT GULLY,
Speaker.
26th January, 1897.