Commons Sitting of 10 May 1897

PRIME MINISTER (DUAL OFFICES).
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLgave notice that on an early day he would call attention to the anomalous position of Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and to the severance of the office of First Lord of the Treasury from the Leadership of the Government, and should move: —
"That, in the opinion of this House, the union in one individual of the offices of Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs introduces a fundamental change in the work of the foreign policy of the United Kingdom, and is a rupture of an old-established and invariable practice of the greatest importance to the good conduct of the public affairs of this country."

QUESTIONS.

  WATER SUPPLY (RIVER NETHY).
  MR. J. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. J. G. WEIR), I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, having regard to the fact that the "water of the River Nethy, in the Badenoch district of Inverness-shire, has been rendered unfit for drinking purposes by the discharge of sewage from several lodges and large farms above the village of Causer within the last 20 years, he will state why the Local Government Board for Scotland have failed to require the local authority to take action against those who are responsible for the pollution of the water of the river; whether he is aware that the local authority has taken action to compel the villagers, who for years have been dependent on the River Nethy for drinking water, to supply the village with water from another source a mile distant; and whether the Local Government Board for Scotland will require the local authority to take steps to free the water of the River Nethy from pollution?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The Local Government Board have frequently had under consideration the question of the water supply of the village of Causer. They have urged the local authority to take steps to provide a proper supply, and the local authority have taken proceedings against the inhabitants with this object. The Local Government Board have not required the local authority to take steps to have the river freed from pollution, as the Board have no power to do so. Moreover, it is not certain that the river can be made a suitable source of supply.

  PENSIONS COMMUTATION BOARD.
  MR. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty, I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to the fact that the tables of the Pensions Commutation Board which were promulgated immediately after the passing of the Pensions Commutation Act of 1871, when 3 per cent. Consols stood at 92¾, have not been once revised, although 2¾ per cent. Consols

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  now stand over 112, he will consider the advisability of seeking powers such as will enable the Pensions Commutation Board to render the tables more in accord with the present value of money?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,): The reduction of the rate of interest on which these tables are based can only be effected by legislation, and I am not prepared to recommend such legislation, to Parliament. No public interest would be served by the grant of increased facilities for commutation.

  POSTAL FACILITIES (ISLAND OF LEWIS).
  MR. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the people of the townships of Cleasero, Achmore, and Lochganvich, Island of Lewis, suffer serious inconvenience in consequence of his Department having failed to establish a post office in the district as a place of call for correspondence; will he explain why, on the 7th January last, he renewed his suggestion that the persons affected should agree together to put up a roadside box on the route of the Stornoway and Callanish mail into which the driver could deliver letters; whether he is aware that this suggestion does not commend itself to the people of the district, inasmuch as its adoption, apart from the cost of the box, would involve the manufacture of upwards of 50 keys for the use of the various heads of families, each of whom would have access to his neighbours' correspondence; whether he will again consider the advisability of establishing a post office, such as would not only be a place of call for letters, but would also provide the inhabitants of the district with facilities for obtaining stamps, etc., and for posting letters; and whether he will state the cost of a post office of this description?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,): In giving effect to the postal reforms announced in the Budget Speech, the Postmaster General hopes to be able at an early date to bring the neighbourhood in question within the official delivery, which
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  will be a more convenient arrangement to the inhabitants than the establishment of the proposed office of call. The postman who delivers the letters will receive at the same time any letters for the post, and will also sell stamps.

  GAMBLING IN FUTURES AND OPTIONS.
  MR. J. L. CAREW: On behalf of the hon. Member for Dublin, St. Patrick (Mr. W. FIELD), I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture, the National Agricultural Union, the Farmers' Club, and other influential societies have all passed resolutions asking the Government to appoint a special Commission to inquire into and report on the effect of gambling in futures on agriculture and trade; and whether such a Commission will be appointed at an early date?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,): I have received copies of resolutions of the nature indicated by the hon. Member which have been passed by a number of societies, chiefly connected with agriculture. I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by the appointment of a Commission.

  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS ACT.
  MR. T. G. ASHTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the Education Department will sanction the appointment of teachers of schools which are attached to associations formed under the Voluntary Schools Act to be members of the governing body of such associations?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,): The Committee of Council would not refuse to sanction such an appointment.

  EDUCATION (HALF-TIME SCHOLARS).
  *MR. ERNEST GRAY: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether Her Majesty's Government propose to introduce this Session any legislation to raise the age for half-time labour

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  in accordance with the pledges given at the Berlin Conference?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I do not think there is any chance of legislation, such as that proposed by my hon. Friend, being introduced during the present Session.

  PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION (IRELAND).
  MR. CAREW: On behalf of the hon. Member for Dublin, St. Patrick, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he intends at an early date to introduce the promised Measure to amend the existing system of Private Bill legislation for Ireland?
  MR. J. J. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has yet come to any decision in reference to the introduction of a Measure to reform the system of Private Bill legislation so far as concerns Ireland?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): I can only say that the prospect of the Bill for amending the system of Private Bill legislation for Ireland being introduced during the present Session must depend on the progress of public business generally.

  TUSKAR LIGHT (TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION).
  MR. GEOFFREY DRAGE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the telephone communication with the Tuskar Light is under the control of the Post Office; whether any application has been received from the Liverpool Steam Shipowners' Association representing the advantage it would be to the shipping trade if vessels passing the Tuskar Light, and signalling, could be promptly reported; and whether arrangements could be made with the Irish Light Commissioners so that the telephone may be used for that purpose?
  *MR. HANBURY: The telephone communication with the Tuskar Lighthouse is not under the control of the Post Office. It was provided, and it is maintained, by the Post Office, but at the
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  cost of the Board of Trade. An application from the Liverpool Steam Shipowners' Association to the effect stated by the hon. Member was received by the Postmaster General, and was referred to the Board of Trade. The Postmaster General is informed by the Board of Trade that the whole question of commercial signalling from lighthouses electrically connected with the shore is under consideration.

  CYCLING IN HYDE PARK.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works (1) if he can prevail upon His Royal Highness the Ranger of Hyde Park to extend the time for bicycles from 12 noon till 1 p.m., having regard to the fact that there is but little increase in traffic in that hour; and (2) in any case, if persons using the boats on the Serpentine can be allowed to push their cycles from the boathouse to the Victoria Road within that hour?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS-DOLGLAS,): I do not see my way to adopt the suggestion made in the first part of my hon. Friend's Question; but I will instruct the police to use their discretion in interpreting the rule with reference to the cases indicated by him in the second portion of the Question.

  QUEEN'S DIAMOND JUBILEE.
  MR. E. BOULNOIS: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether space for erecting seats from which to view the Jubilee procession has been granted to the County Council and the Vestries of the county of London, but not to the Justices of the county; and whether the Justices will receive the same privilege, for the purpose of erecting at their own cost n stand to enable them to view the Jubilee procession?
  MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: Yes, Sir; I have placed a site for n stand at the disposal of the London County Council, who have undertaken to provide, as far as possible, for the Vestries; but I am sorry to say that I am not able to provide space for the county Justices or any other bodies.
  MR. J. F. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in the interests of the public safety, special precautions will be taken to guard against the hasty erection of stands along the route of the Jubilee procession; and whether it is intended to insist on all such stands being officially inspected and strictly limited to a prescribed number of occupants?
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,): This is a matter with which the County Council have power to deal, except in regard to the portion of the route that lies within the City, under the London Building Act of 1894. The Council have given notice by advertisement, placard, and in other ways, that temporary structures cannot be erected without their consent, and that balconies intended to be used on the day should be properly shored up. They have also made arrangements for the examination of plans of such structures and for proper supervision being exercised over their erection. Tools and materials will be kept in readiness at certain points for dealing promptly with any dangerous structure. Similar precautions will doubtless also be taken by the City authorities.

  PARIS FIRE (SAFETY OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS).
  MR. J. AIRD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, having regard to the terrible calamity in Paris, he will be willing to appoint a Committee or a Commission to consider the desirability of some further measures being taken for the safety of the public in this country, not only for theatres, but for public meetings and bazaars?
  *MR. T. G. FARDELL: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the Question I desire to supplement it with another, of which I have given him private notice, namely, whether he will consider during the Parliamentary Recess the advisability of introducing in the course of the next Session of Parliament a Bill to give effect to the Report of the Select Committee of the House in 1892 on Theatres and places of Entertainment, and so extend
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  the provisions of the Bill as to bring within its scope all places, whether licensed or not, which are used or intended to be used for any purpose where the public are invited to assemble?
  *SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: This very important Question has already been considered by more than one Committee, including the Select Committee of 1892, to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Paddington alludes, and I cannot say that at present it seems to me to be necessary to have a further Inquiry. I will carefully consider, however, the question of whether any or what legislation can be introduced further on with the view of securing the public, so far as may be possible, against the occurrence of any such terrible disaster as happened last week in Paris.
  MR. AIRD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that at the present time there is no control whatever as regards inspection of bazaars against fires?
  *SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: I am quite aware that there is no control except over places which happen to be licensed for other purposes, when it is possible to attach to the licence a condition which insures some security for life against fire. It is a very difficult question upon which to legislate, but looking at the information which we have, and which has been supplied by the various Committees of Inquiry, I cannot see that at present there is any necessity for further investigation. That there ought to be some legislation I think is very possible, and to that I am prepared to give my most earnest attention. ["Hear, hear !"]

  LINKED-BATTALION SYSTEM.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War to what extent the linked-battalion system is now dis-organised by both battalions of an increasing number of groups being abroad at the same time?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): At present seven regiments have both battalions abroad.

  IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. JAMES DALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that Resolutions have been passed by the Carrick-macross Board of Guardians and Carrick-macross Town Commissioners requesting the Great Northern Railway Company to run third-class passenger carriages on the mail train leaving Dublin at 6 a.m. for Belfast, and that a train for mails and passengers be run from Dundalk for Enniskillen at 7.21 a.m. on arrival of the mail train from Dublin; whether he is aware that other railway companies in Ireland are running third-class passenger carriages on their mail trains; and what course he intends to take to give effect to the Resolutions in question?
  *MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General is aware the Resolutions have been passed, and regrets he is not able to give effect to them. The train proposed between Dundalk and Enniskillen is offered by the Company for the purpose of carrying the mails on terms which the Postmaster General is obliged to decline. The Postmaster General is aware that one Company is running third-class passenger carriages and that another has undertaken to do so. He hopes the practice may become general, but he has no power to deal with passenger traffic. I am quite aware of the inconvenience to both mails and passengers of the long delay at Dundalk.
  MR. D. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, has he received a copy of a Resolution unanimously adopted by the Clones Board of Guardians requesting that the terms offered by the Great Northern Railway Company, in regard to the conveyance of mails, be accepted, so that the town of Clones and the district generally from Dundalk to Enniskillen may have the advantage of a connection with the limited mail at Dundalk, and the earlier delivery of mails which would thus be obtained; and will the Postmaster General give effect to the said Resolution?
  *MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General does not appear to have received a copy of the Resolution to which the hon. Member refers. The subject of the
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  Resolution, has, however, been fully considered, and the Postmaster General has not felt himself able to accept the terms offered by the Great Northern Railway Company for improving the Day Mail Service to Clones and Enniskillen.

  POST OFFICE (FEMALE CLERKS).
  MR. R. MCKENNA: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that in certain post offices female clerks are compelled to be on duty for considerable periods in the year at and before 5 a.m.; and whether it is possible to make such arrangements that female clerks will not be on duty at so early an hour?
  *MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General is not aware of the circumstance mentioned. It is contrary to the general practice of the Department to bring female clerks on duty at and before 5 a.m., and if the hon. Member will say which are the post offices he has in view inquiry shall be made in the matter.

  GRANARD (POLICE ARRANGEMENTS).
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that considerable dissatisfaction exists in Granard with the police arrangements there, because the district inspector, head constable, and sergeant are Protestants, whilst the great proportion of the men are Roman Catholics; and will he direct a change of officers in this case?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am not aware that dissatisfaction exists at Granard with the police arrangements there. The allocation of members of the force is made independently of religious considerations, and there is no intention at present to direct a change of officers in this case.
  MR. FARRELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman make further inquiry into the matter with the view of making a change?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I see no occasion for making such an inquiry. As I have already said, religious considerations are not taken into account in making these appointments.

  RED SEA (LIGHTING).
  SIR EDWARD HILL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has recently been called to the dangers to navigation consequent on the defective lighting of the southern part of the Red Sea; whether any special reason exists for the long neglect of this question; whether there is airy prospect of lights being placed on or in the neighbourhood of Abu Ail and Mocha Shoal; and whether Her Majesty's Government will use their best endeavours to hasten the action of the Turkish authorities?
  MR. RITCHIE: In reply to my hon. and gallant Friend, I can only repeat the answer given to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Manchester, on 25th March, by my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who said that Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople, acting under instructions from Her Majesty's Government, had addressed a circular to the representatives of the Great Powers inviting their co-operation in a joint representation to the Turkish Government for authority to reconstruct a number of fresh lights at the southern end of the Red Sea, including lights at Abu Ail and Mocha Shoal. Her Majesty's Government must await the result of these communications before considering any other possible arrangements.

  ARD WEST PIER (CARNA, CONNEMARA).
  MR. W. O'MALLEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been drawn to the condition of the Ard West Pier, in Carna, Connemara, which was partially destroyed by a storm in 1894, and the remaining portion of which is in such a dangerous condition that the people are afraid to moor their boats alongside it; and whether the Grand Jury, having neglected to authorise the necessary repairs, he will exercise his influence to urge upon the Board of Works the desirability of making those repairs at the curliest possible moment?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Communications have been received as to the state of this pier, and the Board of
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  Works have instructed their engineer to make a report, as soon as possible, in reference to its condition.

  POSTAL DELIVERY (CARNA).
  MR. O'MALLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will advise the delivery of letters on Sundays to Carna, Connemara, as at present great inconvenience is caused by the absence of a Sunday post to this populous district?
  *MR. HANBURY: Even the week-day service to Carna is carried on at a loss to the revenue, and, as a Sunday post could not be established without additional expenditure, the Postmaster General is precluded on this ground from complying with the wishes of the hon. Member.

  TURCO-GREEK WAR.
  GENERAL MCCALMONT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has noticed a recent report of the bombardment of Santa Quaranta, a defenceless village on the Albanian coast, by Greek men-of-war, and whether he proposes to make anv inquiry into the matter?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. G. CURZON,): Her Majesty's Consul at Corfu reported on the 24th of April that the Greek Squadron had destroyed Santa Quaranta. The matter is a regrettable incident of the war; and I fear that no useful purpose would be served by making inquiry with regard to it.

  ARMY REGULATIONS (ST. PATRICK'S DAY).
  MR. J. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that on St. Patrick's Day the sergeants of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons were forbidden to have their usual dance, and instead of St. Patrick's Day being observed according to the custom in this regiment as a holiday, an extra parade was ordered; also, that a junior officer of this regiment was fined for wearing a piece of shamrock in his cap on St. Patrick's Day, although not on parade; who were

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  the officers responsible for these proceedings; and, whether the Commander-in-Chief has made any investigation into these matters, or expressed to the officer responsible for the order of the regiment his views as to such proceedings?
  MR. BRODRICK: The commanding officer, in his discretion, considered it better that the sergeants should have their dance a few days later. It has not been the custom in the regiment to have a dance on St. Patrick's Day or to keep it as a holiday. No extra parade was ordered, and no officer was lined for wearing shamrock. There was nothing in the proceedings to call for any observations from the Commander-in-Chief.
  MR. MACNEILL: For what reason was the dance postponed?
  MR. BRODRICK: I believe the dance was postponed at the discretion of the commanding officer. I have no idea what was the reason, and I do not intend to ask. [Cheers.]
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War why, when by letter sent to him to the War Office by the honourable Member for South Donegal, giving what particulars were in his power of the sentence of seven days imprisonment with hard labour for wearing a shamrock, inflicted on an Irish soldier of the 4th Battalion King's Royal Rifles, who was at that time undergoing that sentence, inquiries were not immediately instituted into the case, which if instituted would have had the effect of stopping the further punishment of the prisoner?
  The HON. MEMBERalso asked the Under Secretary of State for War whether the authorities have intimated to the commanding officer who sentenced, on the complaint of Sub-Lieutenant Blundell, of the 4th Battalion Royal Rifles, a private named Grindle to seven days' imprisonment with hard labour, for refusing on St. Patrick's Day to take off a shamrock, which Sub-Lieutenant Blundell, in making the order, termed "that dirty bit of greenstuff," any opinion as to the propriety of his conduct in the infliction of a sentence of such severity; whether any explanation has been required from Sub-Lieutenant Blundell of his use of such language, which he has admitted, in reference to the Irish national emblem; and whether the authorities intend, with a view of preventing such occurrences in
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  the future, to express their sense, by reprimand or otherwise, of Sub-Lieutenant Blundell's conduct?
  MR. BRODRICK: In reply to both Questions, I stated to the House fully some weeks ago the facts of this case and the course taken by the general officer commanding at Aldershot, and I have no further statement to make upon it.
  MR. MACNEILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that I wrote him a letter and gave him private notice of my intention to put a question with reference to this matter? I gave him the name of the regiment, but could not give him that of the man, and instead of answering, the right lion. Gentleman executed, as a military man, a strategic movement behind the Speaker's chair. [Laughter.]
  MR. BRODRICK: The hon. Member addressed me an indefinite question by means of a letter as to whether certain events had happened at Aldershot with regard to individuals whoso names he did not mention. I told him if he would supply me with the mimes I would endeavour to get the information.
  MR. MACNEILLasserted that the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the second question now addressed to him.
  MR. BRODRICK: I made a full statement with regard to what has occurred, and I am not prepared t make any further statement.
  MR. MACNEILLagain rose, when,
  *MR. SPEAKER,interposing, said: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly within his right in saying that he declines to make any further answer.
  MR. MACNEILL: Very well, I will give him a bad quarter of an hour on the Estimates. [Laughter.]
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to guard against the repetition of such scandals on future St. Patrick Days?
  MR. BRODRICK: It is impossible for me to give any other answer than I have given. Every man in the Army who desires to wear any emblem which is not part of the authorised and recognised uniform can only do so by the permission of his commanding officer.
  MR. MAC'NEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Northumberland Fusiliers,

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  on the 23rd April, St. George's Day, wore on parade, in accordance with the custom of the regiment on that day, each a red and white rose as a national emblem in his regimentals; and on what principle Irish soldiers in the British Army are punished or insulted for wearing the Irish national emblem on St. Patrick's Day?
  MR. BRODRICK: The Secretary of State has no information as to the wearing of roses by the Northumberland Fusiliers on April 23; but as it has been the custom of the regiment for more than 200 years so to distinguish the day under authority from the commanding officer, it is probable they did wear them; individual soldiers in corps in which no such custom exists can only wear emblems if authorised by the commanding officer.
  MR. MACNEILLsaid the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the second part of the Question.
  MR. BRODRICK: What the hon. Gentleman, I understand, maintains is that an Irish soldier may wear anything he pleases on a particular day. [Laughter and cries of"No !"] The answer is that, for the wearing of anything beyond the authorised uniform, whatever the emblem may be, authority must be obtained from the officer commanding the regiment. [Cheers.]
  CAPTAIN DONELANasked whether the custom of wearing the shamrock was not even more ancient than that of wearing the rose?
  MR. MACNEILL: I would ask whether, as there are 20,000 Irish soldiers—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order! The hon. Member is raising an argument. The Question has been fully answered. Whether he is satisfied with the answer is another matter.
  MR. MACNEILL: I am utterly dissatisfied. [Laughter.]

  RAIATEA (DISTURBANCES).
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any official report of recent disturbances at Raiatea has reached the Foreign Office; what understanding has prevailed for some years past between the British and French Governments with respect to this island; and whether
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  Raiatea is now practically a French possession?
  MR. CURZON: Reports have been received from Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris and Her Majesty's Consul at Tahiti of measures which have been taken by a French naval force against the natives of Raiatea. The French Government have a protectorate over Raiatea.

  ARMY HORSES.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Colony of Victoria has offered to supply a recent requisition for 1,500 horses from his Department; and whether, when his choice is limited to colonial or foreign horses, he will in future give the preference to the former?
  MR. BRODRICK: No requisition for 1,500 horses was made, a much smaller quantity being required. The Colony of Victoria offered to land 1,500 horses in South Africa, but at nearly double the price at which suitable horses could be obtained. Preference is always given to home and colonial stock when a suitable supply can be obtained at a reasonable price.
  CAPTAIN DONELANasked whether preference would be given to Irish horses?
  MR. BRODRICKsaid the expense of taking horses from Ireland to South Africa made it prohibitive in this case.

  POST OFFICE ANNUITIES.
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether complaints have from time to time been made in reference to the scale of Post Office annuities, which requires that a person of 85 years of age should pay as large a sum for an annuity as a person of 80; and whether he will consider the question of so amending the table of annuities as to give to persons over 80 the advantage of a corresponding reduction in the scale of payment?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Very few complaints have reached cither the Post Office or the National Debt Commissioners with regard to the point to which attention is called in the Question. I will consider

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  the matter, but I cannot undertake to amend the table of annuities in the manner desired. There is a difficulty about securing proof as to the age of very old people, and I am told that the chances of life are not diminished in proportion to the difference between the ages of 80 and 85. I understand that insurance companies find similar precautions necessary to prevent loss on annuities at these great ages.

  ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY.
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether a letter, written on the 1st of this month by the Director of the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, to the President of the Royal Irish Academy, suggesting that six or eight cases containing the best objects in the collection of the Academy, such as the Cross of Cong, etc., should be, during alterations to the room in which the collection of the Royal Irish Academy is now displayed, transported in one of Her Majesty's ships, to be obtained through His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, to Woolwich, and from thence to a good position in the South Kensington Museum, when, after remaining there for four or six weeks, they would be brought again to Dublin with the same precautions as on their outward journey, has had the sanction of the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education; whether the agreement between the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education and the Royal Irish Academy, sealed and signed in November, 1890, whereby it was expressly conditioned and declared that the said Lords of the Committee of Council on Education shall, by acceptance hereof, be bound and obliged to retain the said collection in Ireland, is still binding on both parties; or, if abrogated, for what reasons and from what date; and, if this communication from an official of the Department of Science and Art be unauthorised, will the Department assure the Royal Irish Academy that no further attempts to remove their museum from Dublin will be made?
  SIR J. GORST: I understand that the letter in question was a private one. The President of the Royal Irish Academy replied that there were objections to the
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  arrangement suggested, and the matter has dropped.
  MR. MACNEILL: Is the right Hon. Gentleman aware that this private letter emanated from the official office, written on official paper, and signed by this gentleman as director?
  SIR J. GORST: Private letters are sometimes written by official persons.

  CANALS AND NAVIGABLE RIVERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether representations have been made to him by the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland to the effect that statutes passed in the reigns of George III. and William IV. would be infringed by the passage of the Canals and Navigable Rivers (Ireland) Bill; and will he lay the correspondence with the railway company upon the Table of the House?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. ATKINSON,): Representations have been made to me by the railway company that, under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, and 58 Geo. III., cap 35, they are bound to do whatever may be required by the Board of Control or Board of Trade to render the canal as little dangerous to the public as is consistent with its use, that they have carried out the directions and requirements of these bodies and are willing to continue to do so, and that the Bill of the hon. Member is entirely unnecessary. It is not intended to lay the correspondence on the Table.

  PRISON SYSTEM (SCOTLAND).
  MR. T. C. H. HEDDERWICK: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, under the present Scots prison system, prisoners on the sick list are dependent for nursing solely upon the offices of any two fellow criminals (without test of knowledge or capacity) who may happen to be placed in the same cell; and, if so, whether, having regard to the fact that this system has been condemned and abolished both in England and Ireland, he will take steps to secure its abolition in Scotland also, and the substitution in lieu thereof of adequate provision for the proper nursing of sick prisoners by trained infirmary warders or otherwise?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE: The hon. Member has been misinformed. Special "Nurse" warders are appointed where necessary. In other cases nursing duties are performed either by the ordinary warder staff or by specially selected prisoners. When prisoners are very ill there is power to send them to a hospital, with the assent of the sheriff. The existing system works satisfactorily, and I see no reason for altering it.

  WORKMEN (COMPENSATION FOR ACCIDENTS) BILL.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when it is intended to take any Committee stage which may be necessary on the expenses involved by the Workmen (Compensation for Accidents) Bill, on which the question of costs may be raised?
  *SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: I have consulted the officers of the House, and learn that it would not be usual to take any Committee stage that may be necessary in regard to the expenses of arbitrators or compensation to Crown workmen until the Bill has been read a Second time.

  TELEGRAPH OFFICES (PUBLIC GUARANTEE).
  MR. W. T. HOWELL: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the contemplated reduction in the amount of guarantee required for small telegraph offices is to apply to existing guarantees or only to future guarantees?
  MR. HANBURY: The concession recently announced with regard to guarantees for small telegraph offices will apply to existing as well as future guarantees. But the concession is not rightly described as a reduction in the amount of guarantee required. It is an undertaking by the Exchequer to share equally with the guarantor any loss which may arise upon the guaranteed office.

  LOAN FUND SOCIETIES (IRELAND).
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant if Ireland when the new rules suggested by the recent Commission of Inquiry into
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  the working of the Irish Loan Fund Board system will come into operation; what steps, if any, have been taken to carry out the recommendations of the Commission; and whether the Government intend, by legislation or otherwise, to remedy the abuses of the Irish Loan Fund system disclosed by the Report of the Commission?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The new rules approved by the Loan Fund Board have been issued to Loan Fund societies for adoption within 28 days. These rules substantially embody most of the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry. The Government are considering the question of the necessity of further legislation with a view to strengthen the administration and supervision of the Central Board.
  MR. MACNEILL: I bog to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland why the Irish Loan Fund Board, which is obliged, under provisions of the 6 and 7 Vic. c. 91, s. 7, to furnish an annual Report to Parliament on or before the 31st March in each year, has failed in this duty; when will this Report be presented; and whether, having regard to the numerous instances of abuse disclosed in the working of the Irish Loan Fund system, and admitted by the right lion. Gentleman, the Government will take immediate steps in the interests of the public for the reform of this system?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The delay in furnishing the annual Report at the usual time has been caused by the additional labour falling upon the Loan Fund Board in connection with the late Committee of Inquiry. The Report, I am informed, will not be ready for presentation for some weeks to come. It will include statements concerning the new Rules, and steps taken, or decided upon, by the Board for the improved management of Loan Fund Societies.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: Is it proposed to publish the evidence taken at the Inquiry?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No; I do not think it will be necessary, in view of the fact that the Report is a very full Report.
  MR. RICHARD M. DANE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) if lie can now state what steps the Irish Government propose taking in respect of the

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  Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the administration of the Irish Loan Funds; and (2) what means will be adopted to protect the debenture holders in the Loan Fund Societies from the serious threatened losses by reason of this maladministration?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The first paragraph has already been answered by me in replying to the Questions of the lion. Member for South Donegal. With regard to the second paragraph, I am informed that a case raising the liability of borrowers of Loan Fund Societies, which affects, of course, the security of debenture holders, has recently been argued in the Queen's Bench Division and now awaits the decision of that Court.

  MARYBOROUGH PRISON (IRELAND).
  MR. M. J. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he has received a statement of evidence and also a petition praying for the release of Thomas Collins, at present confined in the invalid prison of Maryborough; whether inquiries have been made in reference thereto; and whether the prisoner's release will be granted?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The statement of evidence and the petition referred to praying for the release of Convict Thomas Collins were duly received and acknowledged. After full consideration of all the circumstances of the case, the Lords Justices decided, on Friday last, that there was no ground to interfere with the sentence.

  BROOKEBOROUGH PETTY SESSIONS.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to a ease heard at the last petty sessions at Brooke-borough before Mr. Jones, H.M., Sir Victor Brooke and Mr. James Beatty, in which a. man named Kirkpatrick was prosecuted by the first cousin of Mr. James Beatty, J.P., for trespass in pursuit of game and was fined £3; if he is aware that Sir Victor Brooke and Mr. Jones, R.M., declined to adjudicate in the case, on the ground that it would be unseemly or illegal in them to take part in the hearing as they were members of the Hunt Club, thus leaving Mr. James
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  Beatty to decide the case in favour of his own near relative, and to inflict the pecuniary penalty of £3; and what action will the Lord Chancellor take in the case?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND: I have obtained further reports in reference to this case, from which it would appear that the trespass for which a fine of £3; was inflicted on Kirkpatrick was committed on the lands of the Rev. Mr. Clinton and prosecuted by him, and that no fine was inflicted on Kirkpatrick in respect of the trespass alleged to have been, committed on the lands of Mr. Beatty, the cousin of one of the presiding Magistrates. Mr. Jones, R.M., adjudicated in the first case, and I believe Sir V. Brooke retired for the reasons stated. If Kirkpatrick is in a position to show that Mr. Beatty had such an interest in the matter as in law disqualifies a Magistrate from acting judicially, he can take proceedings to have the conviction quashed, it does not seem to be a case calling for action by the Lord Chancellor.

  ARTILLERY PRACTICE (SOLENT).
  SIR, GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the near approach of the season when the waters around the Isle of Wight are much frequented by yachts and passenger vessels, he can now state whether any decision has been come to in reference to the proposed bye-laws for Artillery practice over the waters of Spithead and the Solent?
  MR. BRODRICK: I fear that these bye-laws will not be issued for some little time, possibly not till after the present summer. There are difficulties in the interpretation of the Acts governing ranges, and legislation may be necessary.

  RADHANPUR (STATE PROPERTY).
  MR. E. H. PTCKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the indignities alleged to have been inflicted on the widow of the Nawab of Radhanpur through the Political Agent, Major Lyde, under whose orders the guards were removed from the zenana, the Begum's allowances stopped,

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  her jewels and wardrobe seized, and property assigned to her by the will of the Nawab taken away; whether he is aware that, under the pretext of securing hidden treasures, the palace had been rudely rifled two or three times, the last occasion being so recently as the 15th April; if treasure has been found at the palace, is he satisfied that it belongs to the State, and not to the estate of the late Nawab, to be applied for purposes designated in his will; and can copies of the reports of the Political Agent, and of the memorial presented by the Begum to the Bombay Government, be laid upon the Table, together with such replies as Lord Sandhurst's Government may have recorded in reference to these transactions?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): I am aware of the circumstances to which the hon. Member's Question relates. The object of the measures which have been taken was to prevent the misappropriation of property which belonged to the State of Radhanpur, and I am advised that the Government of Bombay is satisfied that the property thus recovered is State property, with the exception of certain articles which, as soon as they were proved to belong to the Hindu widow of the late Nawab, were at once restored to her. I have no reason to believe that any harsh or offensive measures were employed. When the corespondence relating to this matter is complete I will consider whether it can be laid on the Table of the House.

  EXCISE PROSECUTION (MARYLEBONE).
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to a Revenue prosecution for exercising the business of a compounder of cordials without a licence, heard at the Marylebone Police Court on Thursday last, when it was proved that the cordials had been manufactured for years with the knowledge of the Revenue officers, and the magistrate, in dismissing the summons with costs, observed that in the circumstances the defendant should have been warned before proceedings were taken; whether he is aware that, in many other instances, the Revenue authorities have acted in the same way in instituting prosecutions;
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  and whether he will direct them to exercise a little more care and consideration for the future?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: My attention has been called to the case mentioned by the hon Member. I understand that the facts reported to the Board of Inland Revenue as to the operations carried on by the defendant were such as to convince them that it was a proper case for a prosecution. Had they been aware that the defendant had been carrying on the same business for some years with the knowledge of any of their officers, they would certainly have dealt with the case in a different way. But, until evidence to that effect was given in Court by one of their officers, they had no ground for thinking that this was so, and an inquiry is now being made into the matter. I am not aware of any other cases in which this has occurred, and I quite agree with the hon. Member that care should be taken to prevent its recurrence.

  QUEENSLAND.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there is on record at the Colonial Office a Dispatch from one of his predecessors, the Duke of Newcastle, dated 14th December 1861, asserting, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, the right to deal with the then unsettled Central and Northern Districts of Queensland as the wishes and convenience of future settlers might require, and to erect those districts into distinct colonies when found to be sufficiently advanced and populous to justify such a concession; and whether he is aware that there is a general consensus of local opinion that the time has now arrived when the conditions of progress and settlement, foreshadowed by the Duke of Newcastle at the creation of the present colony of Queensland, have been fully accomplished, and that the promise made by him on behalf of Her Majesty's Government ought to be promptly redeemed?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): The Dispatch referred to by the hon. Member had reference only to the area to the north of the 26th parallel of latitude and between the 141st and 138th meridians of east longitude

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  which Queensland then wished to take over, and which was, by the Letters Patent of 13th March 1862, annexed to Queensland. The Dispatch had no reference to any question of sub-dividing Queensland, as defined by (he Letters Patent of 1859.

  ROMFORD RAILWAY STATION (FATAL ACCIDENT).
  MR. LOUIS SINCLAIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether the Inquiry, as promised, has been held relating to the accident at Romford railway station on 31st March, at which a man met his death; and, if so, with what result; (2) whether the Board of Trade have decided to recommend that in all cases where shunting operations are carried on by horses on any main line there should be two men with each pair of horses, whereas in this case there was only one; and (3) whether, seeing that the man after meeting with such a serious accident, had to be carried away on an ordinary wooden hurdle, he will endeavour to press upon the railway companies the necessity of providing a proper ambulance at all shunting stations on main lines, so that in case of accident the sufferer may be carried away without aggravated suffering?
  MR. RITCHIE: Yes, Sir; the Board of Trade have just received the report. It recommends that consideration should be given to the necessity for providing a second man in such cases, and the recommendation will be communicated to the company. I will direct the attention of the Railway Association to the third paragraph of the hon. Member's Question.

  COLLECTION OF RATES (DUBLIN).
  MR. CAREW: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether his attention has been drawn to the resolutions adopted by the North Dublin and South Dublin Board of Guardians, asking that Measures should be passed to enable those bodies to provide for the collection of their own rates; and (2) whether, if the Government will not itself introduce such a Measure, it will support it if introduced by a private Member?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Resolutions to the effect stated have been adopted by the local bodies referred to in the first paragraph. I have already explained that the matter is not one with which the Government can undertake to deal, and I cannot give any pledge that the Government would support such a Measure if introduced by a private Member.

  LABOURERS' COTTAGES (CO. MEATH).
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, what progress has been made towards carrying out the scheme for the erection of labourers' cottages in Kells, County of Meath?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Loans for the erection of 75 cottages in this Union were sanctioned by the Local Government Board in July 1896, and there are already built in the Union, under previous schemes, 231 cottages. The Board are informed by the Clerk of the Union that possession has been obtained of 41 out of the 75 sites included in the last scheme, and that contracts have been entered into by the Guardians for the erection of 20 of the cottages. Steps are also being taken by them to obtain possession of the remaining sites to enable the erection of the cottages to be proceeded with.

  BLACKROCK TOWNSHIP COMMISSIONERS.
  *MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury (1) if it has come to his knowledge that the Blackrock Township Commissioners are engaged in consolidating their township loans by the issue of debenture stock for the purpose of paying off £12,084 due to the Board of Works; that the Board of Works refuse to accept repayment unless on condition that for every £100 due the Blackrock Commissioners shall pay £114: 10s.; (2) whether he is aware that when the loans were obtained no intimation was given that such a condition would be imposed, and that no such condition was inserted in the mortgages to the Board of Works; and (3) whether this is a legal demand by the Board of Works upon the ratepayers of Blackrock in view of the conditions of the

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  mortgages agreed to by the Board of Works when the loans were granted?
  *MR. HANBURY: I am aware of the facts mentioned in the first paragraph, though they are stated in a somewhat misleading form, and the amount outstanding is £11,598, and not as stated in the Question. This sum represents the outstanding balances of 19 recent loans advanced by the Board of Works at different dates between 1888 and 1896, for specified periods varying from 15 to 50 years. The mortgages distinctly state that the repayments are to be spread over these periods, and there is no condition enabling the borrowers to pay them off earlier to suit their own convenience, and at the loss of nearly 15 per cent, of capital to the lenders, the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. The rule is the same for all loans, whether in England, Scotland or Ireland. So long as the market price of local loans stock is considerably above par, as at present, the solvency of the Local Loans Fund might be seriously affected by premature repayments of the loans at par only, and it is therefore the practice of the Treasury to safeguard the taxpayer by refusing to allow premature repayment at a price far below the current market price of the stock. The demand is, of course, perfectly legal.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON, who congratulated the First Lord of the Treasury on his recovery from indisposition—[cheers]—asked whether, considering the number of times the House has recently been counted out, and the difficulty of finding work for it, he will consider the propriety of arranging business so that Parliament may be prorogued on Jubileee Day, the 22nd June?
  MR. SYDNEY GEDGE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the fact that supporters of the Government have brought in several Bills of an uncontentious character, and that last week the House was counted out twice on Government nights, there not being sufficient Government business to occupy the time, the Government will take into consideration the propriety of giving up part of their time to private Members, or at least arrange to keep a House when Bills
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  or resolutions introduced by their supporters are under discussion?
  MR. B. L. COHEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in view of the fact that under the Resolution of 29th January, Fridays are allotted to the Business of Supply, whether the Government will for the future move the Adjournment of the House so soon as the business of Supply is disposed of?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for South Belfast and other hon. Members also take a much too sanguine view with regard to the business we have still to get through before the end of the Session. The House knows, roughly speaking, what that business is, and if hon. Members will take the trouble to forecast the amount of time which may be occupied over it, they will see that to prophesy the termination of the Session on June 22, or possibly even on July 22, would be to take too sanguine a view of the circumstances. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall asks whether the Government will give up some of their time, having—not as they think—so much of it to spare, for the purpose of allowing more progress to be made with private Members' Bills. I gather that he and the hon. Member for East Islington are of opinion that on Friday nights the time not taken up by Supply might be appropriately filled up for this particular purpose. But I may remind the House that Friday night has never been given up to private Members' legislation. It has always been a Government night, subject, of course, to the claims of private Members to move resolutions on the Motion for getting the Speaker out of the Chair in order to go into Committee. When the new Friday rule was passed, the night remained a Government night, on which, after Supply was finished, Government business had precedence. An appeal was made to the Government that, in consideration of the fact that the first claim on the evening had been given to them for Supply, they would not use any portion of the night, after the disposal of Supply, for the purpose of passing their own legislation. That appeal was acceded to by the Government, and the result is that private Members have tried to fill up the vacuum after Supply has been finished, and have asked the House to

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  consider their Bills. Now I am not sure that that is a convenient plan. ["Hear, hear !"] It forces private Members to watch for legislation on Friday, and to come down to the House in case any private Members' Bills should be reached. I think we should carry out the spirit of the sessional order much better by keeping Friday night for Supply only. ["Hear, hear!"] Then the question may be asked, why the Government do not put down enough Supply on Friday so as to prevent the possibility of a count-out; and of course they could, if they liked, put down as effective Supply all the Supply still left for consideration. I have deliberately abstained from that course for this reason: I feel that if we were to put down too much Supply, we should probably get not more, but fewer Votes, for Members would probably be under the impression that the Government intended to take advantage of them, and Members interested in remote Votes would feel bound to come to the House on the chance that those Votes might be reached. Therefore, I have aimed at putting down only a reasonable amount of Supply on Fridays, and I still think that that is the more convenient course. ["Hear, hear !"] Although, it may, perhaps, seem to the public outside that a count on Friday night at 10 or 11 o'clock is a waste of public time, I think it really is not so, and that we get through the business more quickly by the arrangement which I have endeavoured to carry out than we should by any other. ["Hear, hear!"] Therefore, I shall continue, subject to what I may hear, with the plan I have adopted with regard to the amount of Supply to be put down on Fridays. But I think it would be an improvement if, henceforth, when the Votes have been disposed of, we were to move the adjournment of the House. [Cheers.]
  SIR HARRINGTON SIMEON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether an opportunity of concluding the Debate on Vote 10, Class 1, Civil Service Estimates (Ordnance Survey), which Debate was not concluded when the House rose on the morning of Saturday 10th April, will be given; and, if so, whether he can say when that date will be?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I cannot promise my hon. Friend
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  that any further opportunity will be given for the discussion of this Vote. A certain amount of discussion upon it has already been taken, and until I can better foresee the course of business I cannot give any undertaking on the subject.

  WAR RISKS (NATIONAL INSURANCE).
  MR. H. O. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Defence Committee has yet framed any scheme for the national insurance of British ships and cargoes against war risks in time of war; and, if so, whether the arrangements made will be communicated to the public, so as to avoid panic and maintain confidence in the event of an outbreak of war?
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Defence Committee has power to enact any such scheme, and whether it is not necessary to obtain Parliamentary sanction for a financial scheme of such importance?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The Defence Committee have no legislative powers, of course, and I imagine that all they could do if public funds were required for any purpose such as that suggested by my hon. Friend would be to come to Parliament for the necessary powers. We have prepared no plan for the purpose referred to in the Question on the Paper, but I think the matter is one of great interest, and does deserve the attention of the Defence Committee. ["Hear, hear!"]

  ELEMENTARY TEACHERS (PENSIONS FUND).
  MR. D. H. COGHILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the advanced state of the Government business, he will be able, this Session, to bring in a Bill to provide a pension fund for teachers?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: In view of the large amount of time which has already been occupied during the present Session by subjects connected with elementary education, I cannot hold out any very sanguine hope to my hon. Friend that this question,

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  the great importance of which the Government fully recognise, can be adequately dealt with this year.

  TURCO-GREEK WAR.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I should like to be allowed to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is in a position to make any statement to the House as to any communications that may have passed between the Greek Government and the Powers?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir. As, I think, the right hon. Gentleman will readily be in a position to conjecture, it would not be expedient while negotiations are pending to make any statement.
  MR. MORLEY: May we suppose from that that negotiations are pending?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes, Sir that is so.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. J. MORLEYasked what business it was proposed to take on Thursday?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I cannot really say what business will be taken on Thursday until I know what progress we shall make tonight. I should hope that we shall finish the Budget Resolutions to-night, and in that case the morning sitting to-morrow will be devoted to the next stage of the Elementary Education Act (1870) Amendment Bill, with the Metropolitan Police-courts Bill as second Order, and the Post Office Consolidation Bill third. If we do not succeed in passing the Budget Resolutions to-night, some of that business will have to be postponed till Thursday.
  MR. J. P. FARRELLasked whether it was intended to proceed that night with the fourth Order of the Day, the Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill?
  MR. T. LOUGHasked whether, in view of the action of the Government with regard to the money allocated to Ireland in 1896, the right hon. Gentleman would state what were the intentions of the Government as to proceeding with the Bill just mentioned and the Agriculture and Industries (Ireland) Bill?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: If both hon. Members will be kind enough to defer their Questions till Thursday I will then try to answer them.
  MR. LOUGH: I understand that no progress will be attempted to be made with the Bills until the Government have made up their minds on the financial question?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE. (MORNING SITTINGS ON TUESDAY).
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYmoved: "That, unless the House otherwise order, the House do meet on Tuesdays at two of the clock." He said: I think on all sides of the House it will be felt that Tuesdays ought to be more utilised than they are at present for getting through the necessary business of the Session. Some of my critics might say that I ought to take the whole of Tuesdays, and it is not impossible that at a later date I may have to come to this House and ask for such facilities; but I am reluctant to do so. I therefore content myself now with proposing this Resolution, which is moved this year at a later period than in the previous Session. There have been several Tuesdays of late during the earlier part of which we have had some interesting discussions, and during the remainder of which the House enjoyed a greater amount of leisure than usual. I hope the House will feel that we are making no undue call on the time of private Members when we come on May 12 to ask them to give up some part of their privileges.
  MR. SYDNEY GEDGEsaid he would much rather that the Government should ask the House to give up the whole of Tuesday than that they should inflict upon hon. Members the burden of morning sittings. These morning sittings were all very well for Members from Ireland who came over here and left their businesses behind them, and also for Members from Scotland; but for commercial and professional men in London they were very objectionable. They found it almost impossible to attend them, and he was afraid his right hon. Friend must make up his mind to see the Government ma-

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  jority somewhat reduced on these occasions. He would far rather see private Members killed than compelled to commit suicide. What hon. Members having been in the House from two o'clock to seven would take the trouble to come down again at nine o'clock for private Members' business? He thought private Members might have a little more consideration shown to them in those matters. What the constituencies really wanted was the Bills introduced by private Members, and yet the Bill promoted by his hon. Friend the Member for East Somerset was counted out the other night when there were enough Members of the Government behind the Speaker's chair to make a House. ["Hear, hear!"] For these reasons he certainly hoped the Government would very soon take the whole of Tuesdays.
  Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.
  The following notices stood upon the Paper: —
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: On Order for Committee on Elementary Education Act (1870) Amendment Bill being read, to move: —
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions enabling the Education Department to check, if they think fit, the increase of the sum expended per scholar for maintenance under any School Board receiving a contribution under this Bill."
  MR. SAMUEL EVANS: On Order for Committee on Elementary Education Act (1870) Amendment Bill being read, to move: —
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert clauses in the Bill with a view to provide that payment may be made to School Boards of all arrears which may remain unpaid of the sums to which such School Boards would have been entitled to receive under Section 97 of the Elementary Education Act 1870, if the said Boards had made application therefor to the Education Department from year to year as such sums became due and payable."
  *MR. SPEAKERsaid that the Instruction to the Committee which the noble Lord the Member for Rochester had given notice to enable the Education Department to check the increase of the sum expended per scholar for maintenance under any School Board receiving a contribution under the Bill was out of order, because its object might be obtained by an Amendment. The other Instruction standing on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Glamorganshire, providing for the payment of arrears under Section 97 of the Act of 1870, was also out of order, because its object was to increase the grant which was voted in Committee, and it would be quite out of order as an Instruction.
  [While Mr. Speaker was delivering the above ruling, several Members passed down the floor of the House amid cries of "Order !"]
  SIR HENRY FOWLER: I wish to ask you, Sir, whether it is not one of the Standing Orders of the House that when you rise in the Chair every Member should remain sealed? [" Hear, hear!"]
  *MR. SPEAKER: That is the Rule, and it is important in the interests of the order and decency of the proceedings of the House that it should be observed.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  [The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS, Mr. J. W. LOWTHER, in the Chair.]
  Clause 1,—

  TOWER TO INCREASE GRANT UNDER 33& 34 VICT. C. 75. S. 97.
  (1.) Section ninety-seven of the Elementary Education Act 1870, shall have effect as if the sum of seven shillings and sixpence therein mentioned were increased by the sum of four pence for every complete penny by which the School Board rate for the year therein mentioned exceeded threepence. Provided that the said sum of seven shillings and sixpence shall not be thereby increased beyond a maximum of sixteen shillings and sixpence.
  (2.) "School Board rate" means the rate in the pound on the rateable value of the district which would have produced the sum required in the said year for the purpose of the annual expenses of the Board, and actually paid in that year to the treasurer by the rating authority.
  MR. J. H. YOXALLmoved in Sub-section (2), after the word "required," to insert the words, "and actually paid to the Treasurer." He said he desired by the Amendment to make the meaning of the clause quite clear. Sub-section (2) stated that the School Board rate meant the rate which would have produced the sum required in the said year; but, as a rule, the rate was 1–12th more than was actually paid to the Treasurer. Therefore he wished to transpose the words, "and actually paid to the Treasurer." He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would recognise that this Amendment was necessary.
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,)said he was informed by his professional adviser that the form in which the Clause was drawn was now clear.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR J. GORSTsaid the Government proposed the following Amendment to meet the question of balance: —
  "In calculating for the purpose of Section 97 of the Act the annual expenses of the School Board, the Education Act shall include such sum as is necessary for maintaining such working balance as the Education Department determine to be necessary."
  The effect of the Amendment would be that a Board would be able to carry a reasonable balance over to the next year as part of its necessary expenses. He suggested that the Amendment should be discussed on Report.
  MR. A. H. DYKE ACLANDsaid that this showed that the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. Channing) was a genuine one. He had no doubt that the words of the Government Amendment, when they came to be read, would prove satisfactory to the School Boards throughout the country.
  MR. F. A. CHANNINGsaid he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he had dealt with this matter.
  *MR. ERNEST GRAYexpressed the hope that before the Report stage the Vice President would reconsider the terms of his Amendment so that the amount by which any balance in the hands of a School Board at the
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  beginning of a year exceeded the amount of the balance at the close of the year might be regarded as equivalent to an amount contributed out of the rates during the year, and to that extent influence the grant under the Bill.
  MR. A. J. MUNDELLAthought the Vice President of the Council had met the case very fairly, but that at the same time he might have converted the first "may" into "shall."
  SIR J. GORSTtook it that this was one of the cases in which "may" should mean "shall," but in order to put all doubt at an end he would move the Amendment in the suggested amended form. ["Hear, hear !"] He was afraid the present Amendment would not meet such a case as that the hon. Member for West Ham had put.
  *SIR C. DILKEsaid that, personally, he should have been content if the right hon. Gentleman had, without putting an Amendment in the Bill, given them a promise as regarded the practice of the Department, because he could not but think that the practice of the Department in the particular case which had been brought to the knowledge of hon. Members by means of a circular was wrong and illegal. He thought it would have satisfied the authorities concerned if the Vice President had told the Committee that the practice in this matter would be made straight. He did not think the practice had been uniformly wrong; indeed, his impression was that in other cases the matter had been fairly dealt with.
  *MR. GRAYsaid that he must press his right hon. Friend. In many districts the matter he had drawn attention to had given much trouble. The School Board year closed on September 29th, and very probably on the 30th the School Board had to meet very large claims. If the rating authority could not pay the School Board on the morning of the 30th sums sufficient to meet those claims, the School Board must carry over from the 29th, a sufficient sum to meet the claims, hence the necessity for an actual working balance. He feared that in many places the School Boards might be put on the 30th of September in the position of defaulters unless they kept fairly large balances.
  MR. CHAININGsaid the junior Member for Halifax had handed him a statement respecting the Halifax School Board which raised the question of the interpretation the Education Department would put upon the words "reasonable balance." The clerk to the Hoard wrote: —
  "Taking, for instance, the ease of our own Board (our financial year ends March 25), on September 29, 1896, the balance in hand happened to be £2,663, the amount of rate levied £20,975; but, according to the proposal of the Government, as our Board understands it, the amount of aid under the new Bill would be calculated only upon £18,312. In the previous year, at the same date, it happened that the Board had at its bankers the very large balance of £11,630, and if the aid to be given had been calculated upon the difference between the rate levied and this chance balance no grant at all would have been due under tie provisions of this Bill."
  It was quite evident they required a litle more enlightenment as to what would be the standard or the principle upon which the Education Department would attempt to determine this very difficult question.
  SIR J. GORSTcould not help thinking that with a little more care the balances might be made rather more uniform than the hon. Member had shown those at Halifax to have been. What the Department would do would be to seek to prevent a School Board from keeping such a balance as would really defeat the intention of the Act. There would be no desire to restrain the necessary variations in the amounts, or, in other words, to interfere with local finance; but the Department would, of course, enable a School Hoard to keep such balances as were necessary.
  *SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid it would, perhaps, be better to defer the discussion of the Amendment until they had seen the actual words; but he would ask the Vice President to consider the point raised by the hon. Member for West Ham. He did not quite gather the reason which induced the right hon. Gentleman to prefer his own Amendment to that proposed by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire. Personally, he should have thought it would have been more convenient to leave out both balances and deal with the actual expenditure. It stood to reason that there might be cases connected with
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  the erection of new schools and other matters which might make a balance reasonable one year, while it would be unreasonable another year. This and other points deserved careful consideration, but, sit the same time, they could I not discuss them with advantage without having seen the actual words of the Amendment proposed by his right hon. Friend.
  Amendment, as amended, put and agreed to.
  On the Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill,"
  MR. ACLANDsaid it did not follow that if he and others had not put down Amendments, they were in any sense satisfied with the clause as one calculated to assist School Boards. In a money Bill of this sort, the House of Commons was not able to settle the amount of money which it thought fit should be granted to the ratepayers for their schools. They had to accept from the Chancellor of the Exchequer the sum he thought fit to name, and they must take it or leave it, although they might disapprove of the general relief which it gave. Therefore, as it was perfectly obvious that £110,000 was better than nothing, they must not vote against the clause—[ironical Ministerial cheers]—but it was only from that point of view that the clause could be accepted by many of those who were interested in School Boards. Speaking broadly, he should say that nobody supposed that the School Boards themselves were satisfied with the amount which was supposed to relieve their necessities, and which only gave them 1s. per child as compared with the 5s. per child which the House had already granted to the Voluntary or non-Board Schools. If they took the School Boards numerically, they saw how very few of them, though bearing a large burden of rates, got any advantage whatever under this clause. There were 2,500 Boards in the country, and it was said that nearly 800 Boards got relief under the clause. That was true in a, nominal sense, but 25 per cent, of them got less than £10, so that they might be eliminated as getting practically no relief. Then another 25 per cent, got more than £10, but less than £50, and, except in the case of a few country

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  parishes, a sum of less than £50 was practically no relief at all. So that half of them got practically what was no relief at all, and out of the 2,500 only 300 or 400 got any effective relief, and in the large districts, whether they got sums of £50 or £200, the amount of relief was entirely inadequate. They had heard again and again that this was a Bill to relieve the necessities of poor School Boards. Did it do that from the point of view of those who bore the burden of the-rates? He thought everybody who watched the working of Section 97 must come to the conclusion that that Section was a very inadequate machine for the purpose of meeting necessities, and unfortunately it had been taken as the basis for further relief rather than that the subject should have been grappled in some now form, and by a completely new Act of Parliament. This left an enormous number of inequalities, which would be seen more and more as years went on, and which must arise from this clause when it became part of an Act of Parliament. They knew from the Return the Vice President had given that, while there were schools with only a 4d., 5d., or 6d. rate which would get grants, schools paying a 10d., 11d., and 1s. rate would get nothing whatever. No explanation based on the difference of rateable value, or the difference between what was called a rich town and a poor town, could possibly adequately get rid of the extreme inequalities which arose under the clause. He did not think anybody could be surprised that even large towns which were deeply attached to the present Government through their representatives in that House were extremely dissatisfied with the clause as it stood. The Birmingham School Board had, with only one dissentient, resolved that the clause was thoroughly unsatisfactory to them. Nobody could be surprised at this when a place had devoted itself to education as Birmingham had, and when, though it was paying a Is. rate, it got nothing whatever, whereas, if it had been, paid 5s. per head as well as the Voluntary Schools, it would have received no less than £12,000 a year. That was a very heavy penalty to place on Birmingham, which had stood in the van in many respects among English towns. Bradford, too, was in very much the same position. It simply remained for them to say that the provision now
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  made was full of inequalities from the point of view of relieving the necessities of ratepayers and, on its own principle, that there was no kind of permanence in it.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that he entirely agreed with his right hon. Friend that the relief afforded by this Bill was absolutely inadequate and almost insulting to the School Boards of the country. But he wanted to ask the Government whether they could not go a step further and bring in an Amendment to the clause on the Report stage which would enable the Education Department to give to School Boards the arrears that were already due to them under Section 97, but which they neglected to apply for when the money was due to them? The amount of unclaimed grants due to these small and poorer School Boards was something like £14,000, of which £4,000 were due to the poorest School Boards in Wales. The Vice President stated in the House a few weeks ago that he was advised by the Law Officers that he could not give more than one year's arrears, but a very simple addition to this clause would enable the Government to take to themselves power to give the whole of the arrears to those School Boards to which they were due. He would ask the Vice President whether the Government would take that most reasonable course?
  *MR. ERNEST GRAYsaid that there was one point he would like to raise, though the Vice President might think he was unduly anxious. He would remind his right hon. Friend and the Committee that there would be no payments made under this Act until October next, and if they could, by a word or two from the Vice President, clear away the anxiety which would exist between now and then, perhaps the Committee would not think the few moments wasted. He referred to this question of the rate in the pound and the rateable value. He would admit that his own anxiety had been removed by the answers the Vice President had given him on various occasions, but the words of the Bill were not clear. The words "rateable value" were used outside by rating authorities and by School Boards in some four or five different senses, and considerable anxiety had been experienced as to what the Department understood the term rateable value to mean. If the grants under the

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  Act were to be paid in accordance with the rate in the pound on the gross rateable value of the district, then there would be a very material difference between the sums so paid, and the amounts which would be paid if the net rateable value of the district were meant. ["Hear, hear!"] He understood the operation under the Act would be this, that after a closed rate was formed, the rating authority would know exactly what one penny in the pound would produce. That was excluding from the gross rateable value the cost of collecting, loss by compounding, empties, and various other items of that nature. In the poorer districts, this meant a very material difference indeed. In West Ham it meant a difference of nearly 1s. per child between the rate on the net rateable value and the rate on the gross rateable, value. He understood the Vice President to say that it was the intention of the Department that it should be the net rateable value, and if he would state that in his place it would remove a very large amount of uneasiness which otherwise would undoubtedly prevail between the passing of the Act and its first application in October next. He was not alone amongst those who desired to have a clear, definite and explicit interpretation given to the words of a very abstruse clause. This difficulty did exist outside, and he hoped the Vice President would by a word or two clear that misapprehension away and relieve the anxiety of those who were looking forward with some pleasure to the operation of this Act.
  *SIR C. DILKEsaid his final grumble at this clause concerned the maximum which had been placed in the Bill. He had been unable to understand why that maximum, had been placed in the Bill. A sliding scale which became a more operative scale as poverty increased, ought logically, and in the nature of things, to have no maximum. The case of the Government for the maximum in this clause was that the particular point fixed was not likely to be reached. He was not so sure of that. There was a particular parish which he had in his view, in which the fall of the rateable value had been very rapid, and the rates had increased in three successive half years—7s., 8s., and from 8s. to 9s. That was entirely caused by the fall in
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  the rateable value, and therefore he was bound to say that the maximum which the Government, though they had put it in the Bill, believed would never be reached, would really be reached in some cases.
  MR. JAMES STUARTsaid he agreed with the hon. Member for West Ham as to the extreme necessity for making it clear whether (he calculation as to the threepenny rate was on the gross rateable value or on the nett rateable value. In almost all public offices the calculation as to what a threepenny rate would produce was based on the nett rateable value, and that, of course, was a different thing from what a threepenny rate would produce in collection, especially in the poorer districts, where it varied from time to time. Therefore when they spoke of a threepenny rate it should be made clear whether it meant a rate calculated by the method adopted by the Local Government Board and other public offices, or meant the actual produce of a threepenny rate.
  *SIR W. HART DYKEsaid he rose to challenge the statement made by his right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham in regard to the educational position that had brought about the introduction of the Bill. His right hon. Friend seemed to have forgotten what the position of affairs was at the last general election in regard to the Voluntary Schools and the Board Schools of the country. At that election it was pointed out by Unionist candidates in all constituencies, town and country, that there was such a difference between the monetary aid given by the rates to the Board Schools and to the Voluntary Schools that unless something was done to reduce the inequality by means of a Government grant, the almost immediate extinction of the voluntary system would result, and it was in pursuance of the pledges then given that the Voluntary Schools Act had been passed and that this Bill was also introduced. The constituencies were appealed to on behalf of the Voluntary Schools, and they replied that something should be done for those schools. Therefore it was not fair for hon. Members opposite to try to establish a grievance because of the difference between the sum given to the Voluntary Schools and the sum given to

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  the Board Schools, as no question had been presented to the constituencies in regard to the Board Schools at the general election. But he thought that hon. Members opposite had a right to demand that where a district was so poor that a good Board School could not be maintained, that a sufficient sum should be found by the State to secure adequate education for the children of that district, and if the Bill did not bring about that object, the Government would be wise even at that stage to listen to an Amendment moved in that direction. But the Bill was never intended to be a ratepayers' relief Bill. If the School Board rate was oppressive, the ratepayers had the relief in their own hands. So long as they returned to the School Board educational enthusiasts who spent the rates lavishly, they had no ground to come to Parliament and ask for relief.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid he desired to enter a mild protest against the historic account given by his right hon. Friend both as to the general election and the intentions of this Bill. He had read many articles and speeches dealing with the reasons which had given the other side their majority at the last general election. He had always supposed that it was high Imperial considerations that had placed the Government in power—such as the profound dissatisfaction with the administrative and the legislative programmes of the late Liberal Government; the determination to uphold the integrity of the Empire, and to protect certain interests—some secular and some spiritual—which were supposed to be gravely menaced. But he had never before heard the victory of the Government attributed to an invincible desire on the part of the constituencies of the country to remedy the grievances—the undoubted grievances, he admitted—of the Voluntary Schools. His right hon. Friend had also said the Bill was never intended to be a ratepayers' relief Bill. If a true biography of the Bill could be written, or if some future correspondence disclosed its genesis, its production, modification and final settlement, they should have an extraordinary history indeed. He believed the taxpayers of the country were quite as much alive to the relief of the ratepayers as to the relief of the subscribers to Voluntary Schools;
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  that they would regard a Bill as unjust, and he believed they would take an early opportunity of rectifying the mistake of the Government in treating the Voluntary Schools and the Board Schools differently—not to the disadvantage of the Voluntary Schools, but in order to do justice to the ratepayers. He should not have revived those controversies if his right hon. Friend had not entered a protest against the statements on that side of the House in reference to the injustice of the Bill, for if they were to remain silent it might be assumed that they accepted the protest of his right hon. Friend. When the time came —it would not be in the House—he would be prepared to justify up to the hilt all that had been said, not only against the injustice, but against the impolicy of this Bill. Coming to details, he thought it was right that they should have some definition as to what the Government meant in reference to the vexed question of rateable value. He would point out to his hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch that there was no such thing as gross rateable value and nett rateable value; but there was gross rental and nett rateable value. Take a rateable value of.£240,000 a year. A rate of 3d. in the pound would not produce in that case £3,000. It would require a much larger rate to produce that sum, because there were a large number of properties in this country, both urban and rural, in regard to which rates were compounded for, and where, of course, a largo reduction had to be made. There was also a considerable leakage from houses empty and from bad debts, and these made a very appreciable difference in the produce of a rate. What they wanted to understand was, did the Government mean that the rate, if everybody paid up to the full, with no bad debts, and no compounding, would be a rate of 3d. in the pound, or did they mean such a rate as would produce the sum mentioned in this Bill? He thought the right hon. Gentleman should make it perfectly clear what was the intention of the Government, lest some future critic, or rather obstructive, in the Education Department, should put a construction upon the Act which was not intended.
  SIR J. GORSTsaid he did not complain at all of the right hon. Member for

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  Rotherham making a protest which he unfortunately was not able to make on the Second Reading, but he did not think it would be very proper for them to indulge in another Second Reading Debate at this stage. He rose to answer some of the questions put to him; the most important question was that winch had just been put by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He thought he had some right to complain of this question, as it had been put formerly by notice and answered in the most ample and clear manner, which not only he himself but the Committee of Council of Education had been able to suggest. There was no doubt whatever that the rate mentioned in the 97th section of the Act of 1870, and the rate mentioned in this Hill, was not, as the hon. Member for Shoreditch suggested, any imaginary or conventional rate; it was the rate which would actually produce the sum which was required. He hoped he had stated that clearly—["hear, hear !"]—but if there was any doubt about it, and anybody wanted to have a further or clearer statement, the best way would be to put a Question on the Paper. The Question would then be carefully considered, and the answer could be framed in legal language. That, he thought, was the only question of real importance which had been put in the course of this short discussion. Several other questions had been put, notably by the lion, and learned Member for Glamorganshire, with a view of trying to persuade the Government at a later stage to increase the relief which was given in this Bill. He heard all these sort of appeals without any emotion whatever—[Laughter] —because he was in the position of the traveller with empty pockets who sang in the presence of a robber. [Laughter] The House knew very well that he could not make grants of money, and that there was an authority higher than he. He had no power to propose Amendments which would enlarge the scope of this Bill. That was his answer to the proposal for including arrears. And so, with regard to the maximum, he could only say, "There it is." [Laughter.] He still thought it was a maximum which would not be reached, but if in time to come the maximum should ever be reached, he had no doubt that the wisdom of Parliament would devise some
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  other means. He thought, on the whole, the Committee must admit that, as far as the money at the disposal of the Education Department had gone, it had been as wisely and successfully distributed as was possible. A great many oases of course were always brought up of hardship; some of them had been brought up more than once—the case of Aston, for instance. He had already dealt with this matter, however, on the Second Reading. He hoped the House would now allow the clause to pass.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 2,—

  COMMENCEMENT, CONSTRUCTION, AND SHORT TITLE.
  This Act shall, from and after the twenty-ninth day of September, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, be construed as part of section ninety-seven of the Elementary Education Act 1870, and shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland, and may be cited as the Elementary Education Act 1897.
  Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  *VISCOUNT CRANBORNErose to move the following new clause: —

  CONTROL OF EDUCATION OVER RATE OF EXPENDITURE.
  "The standard of rate expenditure in any school year at any school provided by a School Hoard receiving a contribution under this Act shall not, without the consent of the Education Department, exceed the standard of rate expenditure at such school during the school year last concluded; and no School Hoard shall, without; such consent, receive from the rating authority for maintenance a larger sum than is sufficient, together with the contribution under this Act, to meet a rate expenditure according to such standard. The expression standard of rate expenditure' means the sum arrived at by dividing the amount received in any school from the rates and from any contribution under this Act and expended for the purposes of annual maintenance in any school year by the number of scholars in average attendance at such school during that year."
  He said most people were under the impression that this Bill was intended for the relief of poverty-stricken districts, and the terms of the Bill had taken them rather by surprise. As a matter

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  of fact, a very much larger number of School Boards were included in the scope of the Bill than could in any way be described as being in poverty-stricken districts. He did not object to the Bill on that ground. The Bill was introduced for the relief of the rates. ["Hear, hear!"] That was the reason put forward, he thought, by the Government, and certainly by numbers of Gentlemen supporting the Government. The question was, did many of the School Boards about to be relieved show in any sense that they felt the pressure of the rates? If so, they would have expected them to keep down the cost of education to a reasonable limit, and not to run into unnecessary luxury and extravagance as many of them had done. The Forest of Dean did not give cheap education, it was £2 6s. a head there; in Walthamstow it was as much as £2 8s. a head. These districts were going to be very heavily assisted under the Bill. In Leicester it was £2 7s. a head; in Gateshead £2 9s. This cost, moreover, was rising every day. Since 1891 the cost of education in the Borough of Nottingham had risen from £2 5s. to £2 11s. a head; in Leeds from £2 6s. to £2 11s. 6d.; and in West Ham from £2 9s. 6d. to £3 0s. 1d. He took his figures from the return which the Government had presented. It was very strange that School Boards which came for assistance to the Exchequer, should have a very expensive education, the cost of which was increasing 37ear by year in this manner. Many of the School Boards in the large towns were not content to give merely a good education. If the West Ham School Board would limit its expenditure to £2 5s. per head, the School Board rate in West Ham would be reduced by 6½d. in the pound. Let the West Ham School Board give as good an education as they pleased, but when they voted money for School Boards who thought fit to spend money in this way, there was no assurance that the money would go to the relief of the ratepayers. Why should not any of these School Boards raise the expenditure still further? The West Ham School Board had not reached the London School Board figure of £3 7s. It might establish a higher grade school—or go in for specific subjects after the fashion of the London School Board. It might teach "the nature of hydrogen,
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  its preparation, properties, and combustion; coal gas, its explosive powers; atmospheric air, carbonic gas in air, its use in plants; water ebullition, air pressure, boiling point, water apparently boiled by cooling, effect of sodium upon it." The teacher of these subjects was a sanguine man. He was of opinion that this instruction was not altogether thrown away, and said that girls who remaned two or three years in the classes always showed improvement, and in, some cases they remembered well what they had learnt—perhaps 18 months afterwards. [Laughter.] If the House was going to vote this large sum of money because some girls remembered the nature of boiling point 18 months after they left school, the ratepayers would not be relieved and the money would be entirely wasted. Was there anything in the terms and conditions of the Bill which would lead School Boards to be economical? The conditions which determined whether a School Board was to receive assistance under the Bill or not were threefold. They did not depend merely on the number of the children or the wealth of the district —those were the principles upon which the old clause of 1897 was constructed—but they also depended on the height of the rates. The Nottingham School Board received substantial assistance, while the Sunderland Board received hardly anything at all. One of the reasons was that Nottingham gave a more expensive education. So, in order to get money from Parliament, there was a direct incentive to spend money. West Ham received 7s. and East Ham 4s., the reason that West Ham got most being that there 7s. per child was spent more than in East Ham. Every penny that the Leeds School Board added to the School Board rate would produce more than it had hitherto produced, because it would receive corresponding assistance from Parliament. So West Ham would receive 14 per cent, more and the Forest of Dean 25 per cent. more The School Board of the Forest of Dean would be more than human if it did not raise its rates after the passing of this Bill. The Bill would offer a direct incentive to School Boards to raise their rates, because it would be remunerative to them to do so. He moved the

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  new clause, because precaution should be taken that the money voted by the House did not go in unnecessary expenditure, but in relief of the taxpayer. Then the interests of the Voluntary Schools had to be considered. This Bill and the Voluntary Schools Bill should be considered together as forming one scheme on the part of the Government. He regretted that they had to discuss the sum devoted, to the Board Schools from the point of view of Voluntary Schools. But this was because of the method which the Government had adopted through no fault of their own. They had said, "Let the Voluntary Schools look to the Imperial taxes as compensation for the advantage the Board Schools have from the rates." The friends of Voluntary Schools, therefore, looked with the greatest jealousy upon any special sum of money to be devoted to School Boards out of Imperial taxes, because it would clearly diminish the competitive power of the Voluntary Schools. For example, Yorkshire had a large number of School Boards which would be assisted under the Bill and receive a larger sum of money for education than they otherwise would, and this would enable them to compete much more successfully with the Voluntary Schools, and the competitive power of the latter schools would be correspondingly diminished. Parliament intended the money voted under this Bill to be for the relief of the rates, and he proposed by the clause to give the Education Department power to see that the money went as Parliament directed. He should have been better pleased if the power could be given to the county and District Councils, which were representative of the ratepayers. He suggested that course, but for obvious reasons it was ruled out of order. Under the circumstances there was a good logical reason why the Education Department should be the controlling authority, and he was supported by a precedent set by the Vice President of the Council, who had inserted an Amendment in the Bill giving the Department control, to some extent, over the expenditure of the boards. The clause was an extension of the same principle, and was intended to give Parliament the control over School Board expenditure which it ought to have. ["Hear, hear !"] Unless some clause of this kind were accepted, he was
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  confident the only result of the Bill would be in an enormous number of cases to raise still further expenditure which had already run to extreme limits in a large number of School Boards, and the ratepayers would be no better off than they were at the present moment. He begged to move that the clause be Head a Second time.
  SIR J. GORST,in resisting the Amendment, pointed out that, even if the clause were passed, the Education Department would not exercise control over all School Board expenditure, but only over the expenditure of those which were subject to the operations of the Bill, and which composed a fraction only of the School Boards of the country. It was quite clear that the proper people" to exercise control over the expenditure of the School Boards were the ratepayers.["Hear, hear!"] They had the most complete power of electing persons on the School Board to represent them, in whom they had confidence, and he could not say he felt any strong sympathy with them if, having the power to protect themselves, they did not exorcise it["Hear, hear!"] He did not think the particular class of school to which the Amendment applied was that which required control from the central Department, nor did he think the central Department would undertake to exercise it. What was practically suggested was that the Education Department should fix for I every School Board district in the country the proper amount per scholar to expend. [Viscount CRANBORNE dissented] It was the expenditure per scholar that was controlled, and which was not to be increased without the consent of the Department. That would involve in the case of each School Board that came under the clause the consideration of what was the proper rate to be expended. That was a matter which it was quite impossible for the Education Department or a central office in London to decide As he had often tried to explain The rate of expenditure, quite irrespective of the efficiency of the school, varied enormously in different places and the greatest expenditure per scholar was not where they had the great schools, but in the small, scattered, poor parishes where, perhaps, only 20 children had to be provided for by one master or mistress, and where, consequently, the rate

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  of expenditure per child ran up to an amount far in excess of what it did in West Ham, London, or in great cities. ["Hear, hear !"] Another thing to be remembered was that the rate of expenditure really did not depend upon any determination made either by the School Board or the Education Department. They could not fix their rate of expenditure—because it depended upon economic considerations—upon the laws of supply and demand. The great cause of the increase of expenditure was the increase of teachers' salaries. Teachers' salaries depended upon the economic law of supply and demand, and all the regulations of the Education Department and School Hoards throughout the country would not prevent the alteration of these economic laws. If the demand for teachers was great and the supply was small, the salaries must necessarily increase. The noble lord was mistaken in supposing that the cost of education depended upon the kind of education given in their great schools. Leeds was a town which received assistance under this Bill, and the noble Lord had alluded to the fact that Leeds had a higher grade school. Yes, it had; but that higher grade school was no burden to the ratepayers. Indeed, so far from, being a burden to the ratepayers, it was a profit. They had an immense demand in great towns for secondary education. They had nobody here to supply it except the School Board, which had undoubtedly the means of investing the capital of the ratepayers in secondary education; fees were charged, the people were glad to pay, and actually a profit was made for the ratepayers of Leeds by the fact that the School Board discharged the function of providing secondary education. ["Hear, hear!"] No mistake could be greater than to imagine that because a place gave a high education and efficient instruction to the children, that therefore the expenditure was extravagant, or that a reduction of that education would lessen the expense. ["Hear, hear!"] He agreed with the noble Lord in the statement that children left school too early. They were now turned out of school in many cases at 11 years of age. He admitted the force of that objection,
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  which he should remedy, not by reducing the quality of the education, but by 'keeping" the children longer at school.[Cheers.]
  MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENregretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen his way to accept this Amendment, which carried out what was intended by the Bill, and gave an absolute guarantee that the money voted under it should go to the relief of the ratepayers. He could not understand the ground upon which the right hon. Gentleman refused to accept the Amendment. He had told them the Government could not accept the new clause because it would be giving the Department control only over a small fraction of the School Boards' expenditure. But the reason why such control should be given over that small fraction was that in these limited cases an extra grant was to be made, and for a special purpose. For his part he should certainly be glad to see some limit put to the expenses of School Boards, either by the control of the Department, or, if that was impossible, by local bodies. Surely when an extra grunt was being given for a special purpose it was not seeking too much to ask that the Department should have the right to control the expenditure if they thought proper, and to see that the money was devoted to the purpose for which Parliament intended it. The right hon. Gentleman told them that the Department could not do it. Why were they incompetent? They were not-incompetent to see that a large number of conditions were fulfilled in the case of the Voluntary Schools which got relief under the Voluntary Schools Act, and if they interposed those conditions in that Act as a guarantee for its doing what Parliament intended, why wag it not right and proper, and why were the Education Department incompetent to see that conditions were fulfilled in this Bill to carry out the intentions of Parliament? The Duke of Devonshire, replying to a deputation at the Foreign Office on the 26th February, said that the matter with which the present Bill dealt was almost entirely a ratepayers' question. That being so, he asked the Committee to regard it as a ratepayers' question, and see that the money went to the relief of the ratepayers. Neither he nor the noble Lord desired to bar the

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  progress of education; nothing was further from their wishes. They had the authority of the Duke of Devonshire himself, and of everybody who had discussed the Bill, for saying that it was not a Measure for the furtherance or efficiency of education, but merely for the relief of ratepayers. That being so he asked why should they not try to see that that object was carried out. If the clause were adopted it would not in any way impede the progress of education. It was really permissive. It said that the Education Department might limit the rate of expenditure if it thought fit, and saw sufficient reasons for it. They had to look at this Bill from the point of view of the Voluntary Schools Bill. In the latter Bill they tried to make up the enormous disparities which existed between the cost of each child in the Voluntary and the Board Schools, by giving the Voluntary Schools 5s. per head. Parliament had endeavoured to make up the disparity of 11s. between the cost of education in Board and in Voluntary Schools by giving 5s. per scholar to the latter. But if they allowed the money granted by this Bill, which averaged 1s. per scholar in attendance in Board Schools, to be used in creating fresh competition with Voluntary Schools, the result would be that the advantage which Voluntary Schools would receive would only represent 4s. per scholar. There were cases where School Boards had determined to try and drive Voluntary Schools out of existence by unfair competition. ["Oh !"] Having tried to stop that by giving a small grant to Voluntary Schools, were they now going to put money into the pockets of certain School Boards in order that they might use it to renew that competition? ["Hear, hear!"] He would support the Amendment because it carried out the policy of the Government—the maintenance of the dual system of education in this country.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid the amount involved in the Bill was equal only to about the average annual increase in the School Board rate. Therefore the additional competition which it would create was practically infinitesimal.
  *VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: In particular cases it is by no means infinitesimal.
  MR. BUXTONsaid it would be found that the grant under the Bill would go chiefly to places where competition was least felt. With the exception of one or two places like West Ham and Tottenham, where they might take it for granted that a large amount of the money would go in relief of rates, very few of the great School Boards would be able by means of this grant to burst out into wild and overwhelming extravagance. In this opinion, the way to improve national education in this country was not by curtailing the powers of expenditure upon that education. They must in this matter trust the ratepayers. If in some cases the ratepayers were apathetic that was their affair; and it was for the noble Lord and his friends to stir them up, and to induce them to protest against the burden of the rate. Taking the system of education throughout, he denied that the School Boards were extravagant. The bulk of the expenditure was forced upon them. In many cases the ratepayers were unwilling to spend these large sums, and only sanctioned them because of the necessity for improving education. It must be obvious that they could not deal with the matter in this small way. They must deal with it on a general basis, not in regard to this £110,000, but in regard to the £3,500,000 spent by the ratepayers under the system of national education.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid he thought hon. Gentlemen opposite had failed to appreciate the point of the new clause. The object of the Bill, he understood, was to redress some inequalities which were supposed to exist between the Voluntary Schools which had been assisted and certain Board Schools. But, if in doing that they undid the work they had already done, they would stultify the work of Parliament. The intolerable strain from which the Voluntary Schools had sought relief arose in great measure from the fact that the School Board expenditure in many districts was so high that the Voluntary Schools had to raise large sums from voluntary sources to meet the competition. Parliament had relieved that strain, but if they raised the School Board expenditure again in districts where they had just assisted the Voluntary Schools, they would be undoing with one hand what

  143
  they had done with the other. This proposal had been described as an attempt to limit the rate of School Board expenditure. Nothing could be less consistent with the facts. A correspondent had called his attention to the case of Leeds. He should never have thought of calling Leeds School Board necessitous, but under this Bill it received £6,000, whereas the Voluntary Schools of Leeds only received £5,000. At the present moment the School Board of Leeds was favourable to Voluntary Schools, and no doubt, in the existing circumstances, the £6,000 would go in reduction of rates. But it was quite possible that at the election next November the tables would be turned, and the majority now on the side of the Voluntary Schools would become a majority on the other side. What was to prevent the new School Board from using this £6,000 in producing excessive competition with the Voluntary Schools of Leeds?
  *MR. CARVELL WILLIAMSobserved that it was reported that the noble Lord the Member for Rochester had said at a recent public meeting that the Voluntary Schools Act had "smashed up" the Education Act of 1870; but apparently he now thought that the work of destruction was incomplete, and therefore he had proposed this clause. It was practically a reproduction of one of the worst provisions of the Bill of last year, and one which had largely helped to bring about its defeat. Let the Committee consider the irony of the situation. The Government had been appealed to for pecuniary aid by the supporters of Voluntary Schools, and had given them substantial relief; but they had originally no intention of doing anything for the Board Schools. They were, however, shamed by public opinion into the production of the wretchedly inadequate Bill now before the House. Thereupon the noble Lord sought to convert it into a disabling Measure—to turn what was meant to be an olive branch into a rod for chastising luxurious School Boards. Why was it wished to intervene between the School Boards and the ratepayers? The noble Lord had said that County and District Councils represented the ratepayers better than School Boards; but why? All three were equally elected by the ratepayers, and those who disapproved of
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  the expenditure of School Boards could dismiss the members at the next election and put others in their place. The ratepayers might safely be entrusted with the duty of seeing that there was no unnecessary expenditure on education. They were indeed too prone to limit it, and that was the great weapon of the opponents of School Boards, who appealed to the niggardliness and small-mindedness of ratepayers to prevent their coming into existence. He thought that that part of the noble Lord's speech which objected to the higher education of School Boards came with an ill grace from one who had had all the advantages of high culture, and yet seemed to grudge similar opportunities to the working classes. He (the speaker) regarded the clause as an anti-educational clause—a proposal which would stereotype education and stunt the growth of our educational system, and as such he hoped it would be decisively rejected. He was amused with the fact that both the noble Lord and the hon. Member for the Tunbridge Division had kept back till the end of their speeches what was probably the motive of their action—it was a dread of the competition between the Voluntary and the Board Schools. Their objections were, in fact, directed against the entire Bill. They wished the Voluntary Schools to have everything and the Board Schools nothing; but that was a policy which would have very little sympathy in that House, and still less in the country.
  *SIR JOHN LUBBOCKdid not believe that this money would, as a rule, be extravagantly spent. He hoped it would go to improve education. He might remind the noble Lord the Member for Rochester that elementary science was the subject which children found to be most interesting. In one district where lectures on this subject were delivered, mothers found it necessary to change their washing-day so that it should not clash with the teaching, so great was the daughters' interest in it. The clause would deprive the ratepayers of that right of self-government which was so dear to the Anglo-Saxon race. He believed that the clause would either be inoperative or harmful, and he therefore hoped that it would not be pressed to a division.
  *MR. J. H. YOXALL: observed that the noble Lord the Member for Rochester wished the Committee to believe that much of this money would be spent in teaching girls specific subjects, including the properties of hydrogen and the gymnastics of the boiling point. But that would not be the case. Last year there were only 3,850 who were taught science at all; 23,000 were taught mechanics, and 162,000 were taught specific subjects. Only one child in 300 in public elementary schools received that kind of advanced instruction to which the noble Lord contended that this money would be wastefully applied. It might be found convenient in some Board Schools to add to a class of boys some few girls who wished to have the advantage of instruction in chemistry and mechanics, but as a rule the instruction given to girls under the head of extra subjects was instruction in domestic economy, physiology, hygiene, cookery, laundry, dairy, and needlework. Those were the subjects which were taught, and not the properties of hydrogen or the gymnastics of the boiling point. He was sure the noble Lord had no intention to mislead the Committee, and he hoped he would accept his correction. The interests of the Voluntary Schools had been cared for to some extent, and he would beg the noble Lord to allow the interests of the Board Schools to be cared for to some extent under this Bill. ["Hear, hear!"]
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid he believed that in many respects the energy of the Board Schools as well as their money was frittered away on things which really had no educational value, but which happened to be the fancy of this or that educational expert. The peculiarity of a School Board was that it must be composed of educational experts, who only wished to spend as much money as possible on education, and could not look at the matter from an economical point of view. His right hon. Friend the Vice President complained that the Amendment would only give the Department control over a certain number of schools; but the case of his own Bill was that a certain number of School Boards were in a peculiar position. If so, it was quite fair to treat them in a peculiar way. ["Hear, hear!"] If his right hon. Friend objected to deal with certain
  146
  schools in a peculiar way, why did he not include all Board Schools in this Bill? [Opposition cheers.] If this Bill had not been introduced for the relief of the rates, but for the general value of education, then his right hon. Friend ought to have included London, arid Hull, and Manchester, as well as Leeds and Nottingham. ["Hear, hear!"] The only defence of the Bill was that relief was to be given to poor ratepayers. If so, was it not right to secure that the money voted for that purpose should go where it was intended to go? His right hon. Friend further said that the Department would be incapable of carrying out the work which the Amendment proposed to put upon it. "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" [Laughter.] How have the Department changed! They had now become merely ignoramuses; they did not understand political economy, they did not understand the law of supply and demand, they could not contemplate the possibility of a successful argument with bodies less superior in knowledge and intention. [Laughter.] Surely, if the Education Department was equal to the elaborate control which was to be exercised over Voluntary Schools under the Act just passed, and the task of accurately forming a judgment on the question of what constituted a "necessitous" School Board—[laughter]—and he would like his right hon. Friend, by-the-bye, to explain how they were going to find out what constituted a "necessitous" School Board—[Opposition cheers]—they were capable of deciding what was a proper rate of expenditure. It appeared to him that the one was preliminary to the other. He was quite unable to understand why their intellects should have suddenly shrunk like a magic wallet—[laughter]—and why they should have become incapable of carrying out the functions assigned to them by the Amendment. He believed that in some of the large towns, particularly in Leeds, this Bill would make a very important difference to the value of the grant given under the Voluntary Schools Act, and would thus create great discontent among the supporters of Voluntary Schools. They would find, he believed, that the grant under the Voluntary Schools Act was too small, or in any case that it was an inadequate substitute

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  for the rates, and, therefore, Board Schools would still have an immense advantage in the case of competition. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. STUARTthought that everyone on his side of the House would have listened with great satisfaction to the speech which emanated from the Vice President. The right hon. Gentleman, in the course of his occupation of that office had made a number of very good speeches on education, and had produced some educational gems. The only thing he regretted was that the setting in which they were placed was sometimes so inadequate. It had been argued that this money was to go to the relief of the ratepayers, but he wished the House to observe that there was as much need of money for the improvement of education in the areas that would be benefited by the Bill as for the relief of the ratepayers. If it was laid down that this money was not to be spent in improving education, much of the benefit of the Bill would be taken away. If hon. Members on the other side of the House were so anxious to prevent Board Schools competing with Voluntary Schools, he was surprised that they did not side with the Opposition when the Voluntary Schools Act was before the House in trying to secure the maintenance of Voluntary subscriptions. ["Hear, hear!"] He maintained that education in all directions was always a necessity, and would always remain so, and the desire for increasing the excellence of education arose not from the requirements of the Department, but from the wish of the people of the country generally. ["Hear, hear!"] He believed there was a great deal of mistaken energy in education, but that was the result of the Code; but, if the House was desirous of making education what it ought to be, they would not do so by cutting off money that might be improperly spent, but by seeing that the money was spent properly. He believed the whole of this Debate might have been concluded by the speech of the Vice President, because it accurately gauged the situation, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be able to keep his Friends on the
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  Front Bench up to the spirit of the speech he had delivered. ["Hear, hear!"]
  *SIR FRANCIS POWELLsaid that he could not support the Amendment. The Bill had been introduced by the Government as an act of justice to the Board Schools, and he was sure that the Debates which took place on the last Bill as well as on this showed that the School Boards enjoyed a larger amount of confidence, even of affection, among Members on that side of the House than there had been reason to suppose. He greatly regretted that any proposal had been made from that side of the House to limit the generosity of the Government towards School Boards, or to minimise the expression of confidence in them. As to the administration of the grant, the Voluntary Schools Act was framed on the hypothesis that the Government was not able to administer each association of schools, and the Government had only to distribute the money in accordance with the recommendations of the associations. There was another argument worthy of consideration. Could the Government carry out the provisions of the Bill, supposing they had the administrative capacity? He believed that no Government, however anxious to do so, could perform such a task. It was beyond the power of any Government. No administration could be strong enough to say to a School Board representing a great constituency that their expenditure was excessive. The work would have to be accomplished through the inspectors, whose duty it was to keep up the standard of education. If this Bill passed the inspectors would say that the standard was too high, and the expenditure too great; and he did not think it was possible to obtain such services from the inspectors. Something had been said about Leeds; but why was the claim of Leeds so great? Because the children were so many. There were 42,872 children there, and, therefore, it was clear that the sum assigned must be large. The sum for West Ham was also large because the children there were numerous. There were, however, a comparatively small number of great towns which would have the benefit of the Bill. Personally he had some anxiety as to Lancashire, because it was there that the competition was strongly felt. In the county of Lancaster there were only four

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  districts which obtained any advantage under the Bill; the total amount of aid given to the Lancashire School Boards was £291. He thought that a figure like that ought to console his friends in Lancashire. The majority of places deriving advantage under the Bill were small, and the sums were so insignificant that they could not disturb the balance of competition between the School Boards and the Voluntary Schools. He hoped that the Committee would accept the advice of his right lion. Friend, and would not accept the Amendment.
  *SIR C. DILKEinvited the noble Lord (Viscount Cranborne) to visit some of the schools in the poorer districts. The schools in the poorest districts were of different types, one represented by the schools in West Ham and in the neighbourhood of the Metropolis, and the other by the schools in Cornwall and the district which he represented. But those poor districts had one point in common. They were districts where generally the rate was so high that anything like extravagance was utterly out of the question. They were districts also which would educate children who worked elsewhere either at the time, or who would go elsewhere to work as soon as they were educated. The pressure of the rates in those districts was so extreme that there was no risk of extravagance at all; a rigid, parsimonious, penurious economy was much more to be feared. In the poorest districts, moreover, all the local authorities took the same view, and they would be equally fair about the relief to the rates. In the Forest of Dean School Boards the advantage would amount to 7d. in the rate, and this was a district where the ordinary rates were 8s. in the pound, and in the next half-year would be 9s. He believed it would be found that in West Ham, also the representative authorities, however elected, all took the same view, and it was a delusion to believe in the existence of extravagance in those districts.
  *SIR W. HART DYKEsaid that he was opposed to the proposed clause being added to the Bill. Although the Government had done much to reduce the inequality between the School Boards and the Voluntary Schools, it was yet suggested that they took back with one hand what they gave with the other. He did
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  not think that his noble Friend ought to be afraid of this when they looked at the figures and compared the sum allocated in each case. If his noble Friend wished to apply his principle he must apply it to all the Board Schools of the country. That would be Intelligible, but he pointed out that in this case the Bill would be a grievous educational failure in many of the poor districts of the country. One word as to the inequality under this Bill. No doubt it was true. The case of Leeds had been quoted over and over again, but he did not think it necessary to detain the Committee on that point.
  *MR. ERNEST GRAYsaid he should be1 sorry to allow this Amendment to pass without saying a word upon it. He admired the courage with which the Amendment was brought forward, but regretted that such an Amendment had been moved from those Benches. He condemned the Amendment, as not only impracticable, but an unnecessary interference with the rights of the ratepayers. He thought the Amendment would give some colour to the allegations which were sometimes made against the Unionist Party to the effect that they were opposed to the progress of national education. The Amendment was in his view totally unnecessary, and would not accomplish the object which the noble Lord had in view. It was ridiculous to talk of extravagance in these heavily-rated districts, for the persons who would be returned to these School Boards would be those who gave an unlimited number of promises to keep down the rate. He feared if the Amendment were carried it would either be inoperative and useless or effective, and, therefore, objectionable. Whatever schools they were in, whether Board or Voluntary, they wanted the children educated. ["Hear, hear!"]
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNEsaid, before the Committee went to a division, he desired to say that he had no wish to bring any charge against poor Board Schools; but it did seem to him that, when those Boards came to ask for money, Parliament had a right to see how the money was spent. Let it be understood that everyone who voted against this Amendment set himself against any reduction which, he believed, the ratepayers were demanding on every hand. [Cries of "No, no!"] He believed

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  this Amendment was popular with the ratepayers.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 20; Noes, 294.—(Division List, No. 199.)
  The announcement of the numbers was received with derisive Opposition cheers.
  On the Question, "That this be the preamble,"
  MR. J. SAMUELasked whether average attendance would be calculated in, the same way as under the principal grant, or as under the fee grant?
  SIR J. GORSTsaid that, as he understood it, "average attendance" in all but one of the Education Acts meant average attendance according to the minutes of the Committee of Council in existence at the time. The single exception was the Fee Grant Act, where "average attendance" was calculated according to the rules existing when the Act was passed.
  MR. J. SAMUELsaid that he had a letter from the Education Department in respect of a particular School Board, the terms of which were at variance with the right hon. Gentleman's statement.
  SIR J. GORSTsaid that he should have had notice of such a matter; but if a Question were put on the Paper, he would give an answer on which the hon. Member could rely.
  MR. ACLANDpointed out that, the grant under the Free Education Act being governed permanently by the Code for the year preceding the passage of that Act, great hardship was sometimes involved, both to Board Schools and Voluntary Schools. He would suggest a little Bill enabling the Department to alter the rules in regard to average attendance under the Free Education Act.
  SIR J. GORSTsaid that in the Bill of last year such an amendment was proposed, and might now have become law, had the Bill not been refused by right hon. Gentlemen opposite. [Laughter.]
  Preamble agreed to.
  Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, to be considered To-morrow,
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  at Two of the clock, and to be printed.—[Bill 237.]
  MR. ACLAND: Will the Bill be the first Order?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes. I hope that will not be inconvenient.

WAYS AND MEANS (BUDGET RESOLUTIONS).
Considered in Committee.
[The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS, Mr. J. W. LOWTHER, in the Chair.]
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,)moved: —

TEA.
"That the Duty of Customs now payable on Tea shall continue to be charged, levied, and paid on and after the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, until the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, on the importation thereof into Great Britain or Ireland (that is to say): Tea‥ the pound · Four Pence."
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORproposed to leave out the words "Four Pence," and to insert instead thereof the words "Two Pence." He said the Chancellor of the Exchequer commenced his Budget statement the other day by a reference to the record of prosperity which he had to explain to the Committee last: year. The revenue of the country, he said, speaking of 1895–96, had never been so large, the expenditure had been immense, and yet never before had so much been devoted to the reduction of the National Debt. Financially, the right hon. Gentleman said, we seemed then, to be on the crest of the wave, and it would have been rash to anticipate that we should rise any higher; and yet, he added, we had done so. He told them that, in spite of political circumstances in the United States, which for a time had paralysed trade, in spite of distress in India, in spite of anxieties in the East of Europe, the revival of trade which had begun in the summer of 1895 had been, maintained. The foreign trade of 1896 had exceeded that of 1895 by 5 per cent., and the increase in volume had been even.

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greater than the increase in price. The home trade was not loss flourishing; the diminished number of failures, the improved banking and railway returns, better employment in the skilled labour market, and, lastly but not least, a good wheat crop and better prices for it, all indicated the prosperity of the country. Surely such halcyon days as the right hon. Gentleman described furnished the occasion for some measure of relief to the taxpayer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer considered himself bound to be cautious in 1896, and he said he was bound to be cautious now. Of course, anyone in the position of a Chancellor of the Exchequer was bound to be cautious, not only this year and last year, but every year; but, he submitted, that caution was not altogether incompatible with occasional reductions of taxation. He also told them the other day that after this exercise of caution on his part the receipts from the income tax had largely increased, so that they had yielded more than they had ever yielded before, and had more than made up the remissions granted by his predecessor in 1894. Moreover, the Exchequer receipts from the Death Duties had very considerably exceeded his estimates, and the right hon. Gentleman very frankly admitted that he had underestimated the Death Duties. So, alike, from the living and the dead, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gathered in more than ever he anticipated. But this year again he told them he had to be cautious, and why? Because, although tobacco exceeded his estimate, it only produced £265,000 more than in the year 1895–96; because, where in the case of wine he had looked for a reduction of receipts he had actually obtained £40,000 more than last year, and then, as he said, it was only £75,000 above his estimate; and, thirdly, because tea, which did not disappoint him by one single penny, only brought to the revenue £54,000 more than in the previous year, from all of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer deduced the conclusion that it looked as if the times were slackening, and as if in the matter of Customs revenue we had reached high-water mark. The conclusion appeared to him to be a little startling when they considered it side by side with the fact that in this very Budget the right hon. Gentleman had estimated for no less than £700,000 of income tax alone in
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excess of his previous estimate, and for £250,000 beyond his inflated receipts of last year. If a redaction of taxation was not to come now when we had reached a level higher than was ever anticipated, when we had reached high-water mark, when was it to come? Were we, in times of peace, to await the outbreak of war? were we in days of admitted prosperity to await the advent of evil days, before we began to look for a reduction of taxation? This, in his opinion, was a proper occasion for a reduction, and he should venture to propose a reduction, moderate in amount, calculated to afford relief to the greatest possible number of those most in need of relief, and a reduction which, while it applied to all divisions of the United Kingdom in common, might be expected to afford some larger relief to Ireland than to Great Britain, and he hoped to show some ground why an Irish Member might be excused if he regarded that as a not unimportant aspect of the question. The figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed that a very much larger proportion of revenue was derived from indirect taxation than from direct taxation, the ratio being about 49¼ to 36. The burden of indirect taxation bore heavily upon the comparatively poorer classes, and therefore Ireland, by reason of the fact that she had a larger proportion of poorer classes than Great Britain, felt more keenly than Great Britain the inequity of the incidence as between direct and indirect taxation. He sought, therefore, a reduction, of indirect taxation which should afford relief where it was most wanted, but should also go at least some little way towards redressing the inequity or incapacity to bear taxation and the actual burden of Great Britain and Ireland respectively. Naturally the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not allow the great opportunity which the Budget statement of this year afforded him to pass by without casting a glance over the last 60 years. The retrospect afforded him grounds to refer with pardonable pride to many subjects of congratulation. At the beginning of the period the export trade of the United Kingdom amounted to £42,000,000; it was now £240,000,000. The imports had risen meanwhile from £67,000,000 to £442,000,000. Where there were five-depositors in the savings banks then there were now 43, and the population of

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the United Kingdom had increased enormously. The right hon. Gentleman was able to sing a kind of financial paean upon the prospect between now and then. The felicitations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to that part of the United Kingdom called Great Britain were amply justified, but were they equally justified with regard to Ireland? Within the first decade of the 60 years the population of Ireland was some 8,300,000; for more than 50 years, without one single period of recovery or halt, the population had dwindled year by year until some four millions out of her former population of 8¼ millions had disappeared. Whilst they had been increasing in Great Britain the effectiveness of the wealth-producing classes, it was precisely those classes that Ireland had been losing. And yet what had they recently seen? The Government gathering in the repayments of the money grudgingly advanced for seed potatoes to the impoverished people of the West. In different parts of the country the very workhouses were being seized for debt, and the Board of Works, as mortgagees in possession, were foreclosing on the Lismore, Dungarvan and Waterford Railway. In 1837 Ireland contributed £4,496,000 to a total revenue of £50,000,000, or less than 9 per cent. Now, with all this extraordinary increase of population and wealth on the one hand, and of deterioration and exhaustion on the other, Ireland was pay £50,000,000, or less than 9 per cent. to a total revenue now more than doubled. By reason of the financial treatment and the position forced upon Ireland by the Government and Legislature of this country, Ireland had been suffering from a sort of financial hæmorrhage which had always kept her poor. The Act of Union, apart from, its provisions with regard to fiscal affairs, had most injurious results for Ireland in a totally different way. It was the first of a series of great measures of disestablishment, each and every one of which had wrought and was working results disastrous to Ireland. The first necessary and natural sequel of that Measure was the removal from Ireland of large numbers of her propertied classes, whose incomes had before then been spent and circulated in Ireland, to the maintenance and development of industries there.
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Ever since the Union the finances of Ireland had been administered from Westminster, and from the first days to the present decade they had been messed and muddled. Many persons required to be cautioned upon the readiness with which they received some official statements with reference to the accounts between the two countries. He gave two illustrations, one drawn from the first decade and the other from the present decade. In the year 1806 that House appointed a Committee to examine and report "on the joint charges of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from the 1st January, 1801, to the 1st January, 1806, the proportions defrayed, and the balance remaining due from either party." The Committee reported, and they were unable to report the joint charge on Great Britain and Ireland, or to ascertain the relative situation of the two countries as to their expenditure, because the accounts furnished to them from Ireland, or on account of Ireland, they could not make head or tail of. They were faulty in construction and formation, and the Committee had to content itself with examining witnesses as to the keeping and auditing of the accounts for Ireland, and asking its Chairman to move for certain accounts during the following Session. The following Session never came. There was a Dissolution in October of that year, and he could not ascertain that the accounts in question were ever actually moved for. In the present decade there was a Home Rule Bill introduced at a time when Mr. Gladstone, the experienced financier, was the Prime Minister, and when the great Death Duties Chancellor of the Exchequer was in office. The Budget for Ireland framed in connection with the Bill only came to a few millions, and yet in one single item on one side of the account the Government was out no less than a sum exceeding a third of a million! Many English gentlemen seemed to think that poor Ireland had been somehow or other a continuous charge upon rich Great Britain. There was never, he thought, a more unfounded notion. In 1833 the first of the returns which really illustrated the situation well showed a balance of £11,389,179, which had been sent from Ireland to the English Exchequer, and how many tens of

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millions they had been drawing since he was not at the moment prepared to say; but it must very considerably exceed 100 millions sterling. The English Exchequer always had had a large balance of Irish money in their hands. All the money that had been spent in Ireland had been Irish money, and he defied anybody to prove that one single penny of English money had ever been spent in Ireland since the Union.
*THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AMI MEANS: I must remind the hon. Member that the general financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland cannot be discussed on this Resolution. The only question now before the Committee is in regard to the imposition of the duty on tea.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid his notion was to lead up to the conclusion that in dealing with indirect taxation, including the duty on tea, the special circumstances of Ireland must needs be taken account of, and that it was impossible to appreciate the situation without having regard to that which had led up to them. However, he would content himself by drawing attention to the fact that from Ireland there had been continually flowing into this country a double stream—rental on the one hand and fiscal on the other. The second process of depletion from which Ireland was suffering at this moment, which reduced her tax-bearing capacity, and which had to be borne in mind when tiny were considering whether they would impose a duty of 4d. in the pound on the consumers of tea in Ireland, was the Disestablishment of the Church. The Established Church was endowed out of Irish property, and its income was spent in Ireland. They disestablished it and its officials, from sextons to archbishops, took their money, and in large numbers they removed from Ireland, generally to this country, leaving Ireland charged, as it was now, with the repayment of the amount to the National Debt Commissioners here. Now they had seen started a third of these processes of depletion in the disestablishment of the existing class of landlords. For the purpose of what was pleasantly called "settling the land question," they had devised a system of land purchase under which the
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former owner received the price of his property obtained by loan from the National Debt Commissioners. He had now lost his status as landlord, and in a largo number of cases he went away, taking his money with him. But his former property, now in the hands of his old tenants, remained a charge for the repayment of the capital money so advanced. That charge constituted a further drain upon the resources of Ireland which would run for the next 49 or 50 years. He thought he had said enough to show that in any suggested modification, however slight, of the existing system of taxation, its effect upon Ireland was a matter deserving of the first consideration. He came next to the question of the principle upon which, and the mode in which, relief should be given. In reference to this point, he had read very carefully the speeches and writings of several English Members of that House, and especially of the hon. Member for Bodmin. The hon. Member told his constituents at Liskeard that the true principle of taxation was the principle of equal sacrifice—a principle, which required that the richer a man was the bigger should be his proportionate payment. This was a true and a good principle if they started fair, if their initial situation was just all round, but in the present case the condition precedent necessary for the fair application of such a principle did not exist. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bodmin did not answer his own question, "Is proportionate payment obtained now?" for he went on to say: —
"If so, then there is no injustice, because the poor man, be he English, Irish, or Scotch, pays out of his poverty, and the rich man out of his riches."
The right hon. Gentleman said "if." The French had a saying that. "With an 'if' you could put Paris in a bottle." But in truth and in fact the rich man did not pay according to his riches, while the poor man out of his poverty paid a most disproportionate amount to the revenue; and as the people of Ireland were, taken all round, poorer than the people of England, they naturally felt the pressure more. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to argue that if Irishmen were overtaxed, that circumstance was due to their larger consumption of

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whisky. But this was not a question between Irishmen, Scotchmen and Englishmen who drank spirits. No one suggested that the Irishman who drank whisky in Ireland should be treated differently from the Irishman who drank whisky in England; or, indeed, that there should be any reduction in the spirit duty at all. But the principle of taxing intoxicating liquors was not equally applied. He could not understand why so many Members were so solicitous about the sobriety of whisky drinkers, or why they conceived that Irishmen or Scotchmen were more amenable to fiscal repressive measures in the interests of sobriety when they did not extend the same measures to Englishmen. There were hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people in this country, who consumed intoxicating drinks in the form of beer at one-sixth of the duty which was collected from those who took alcohol in the shape of spirits. But this was not a question of alcohol only. When it was shown that in the matter of alcohol there was differential treatment according to the mode of consumption, only part of the case was stated. Was tobacco taxed in order to reduce consumption, or to promote a right way of living? Was it deemed to be in the fitness of things that smokers should be taxed in order that non-smokers might be benefited? What was to be said about tea, of which the people in Ireland consumed more per head, though they consumed less alcohol per head, than the people of Great Britain? He asked whether anybody maintained that the hard-working washerwoman was fairly taxed by means of tea according to her resources when compared with the rich man or the poor man, who did not drink tea, and possibly regarded it as something fit for Orientals and old women? Again, were coffee and chicory and dried fruits taxed with the object of either promoting a right way of living or diminished consumption? No; one and all of these taxes were open to a common objection.
*THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS: Order, order! The hon. Member is not entitled to take a general survey of the taxation of this country on the Resolution before the Committee. That Resolution relates only to the tea
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duty, and the hon. Gentleman must confine himself to that question.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid he understood it had been the custom that a general discussion on taxation should take place on the first question put from the Chair.
*TIHE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS: No; the general custom which has been followed this year is that the general discussion is taken until a Resolution is passed. The first Resolution, the income tax Resolution, has been passed by the House.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid he would observe the ruling of the Chair. Tea was the luxury of the poor, and it was not the luxury of the poor, but the luxuries of the rich that should be taxed. It would be less unjust to increase the taxation on man-servants than it would be to maintain the present tea duty. He thought he had already shown that any reduction in taxation that could be made should take place in the indirect rather than in the direct taxation division of the revenue. There was some ground for relieving the numerous consumers throughout the country who at present contributed beyond their means as compared with the more affluent members of the community, and he had good reason for urging that any alteration in the duty should be such as would afford equal relief to Ireland to that which was afforded to Great Britain, and even more. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer might say that if a man proposed a reduction of taxation, he must be prepared to show that there is room for the reduction. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that last year he had calculated a balance for contingencies of a little over £100,000, with the result that he had a balance considerably exceeding two millions. This year the right hon. Gentleman estimated for a balance for contingencies of £500,000. There was no reason whatever to suppose that the present year would be less prosperous than the past. Very opportunely there had been issued a small Parliamentary Paper giving the figures of the trade and navigation of the United Kingdom during the first four months of the current year. What had been the Treasury experience of the prospects of this year? He found

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that on coffee, currants, raisins, tea, spirits, wine, and tobacco, there was a substantial increase—not of rive per cent, as last year showed upon the previous year—but of something nearer eight per cent. There was abundant reason, therefore, for concluding that the balance for contingencies of half-a-million, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer anticipated on his present Budget, would considerably exceed two and a-half millions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would assuredly obtain a sum of more than two millions in excess of his balance for contingencies, and, therefore, he was well able to reduce the tax on tea by one-half.
On the return of the CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS, after the usual interval,
MR. G. C. T. BAUTLEYobserved that the hon. Member for East Donegal, in moving to reduce the duty on tea from fourpence to twopence per pound, had raised the great question of the relative incidence of direct and indirect taxation. This was a subject in which he had himself, for a long time, taken great interest, and in 1889 he ventured to bring the matter before the House. He then argued that, owing to the system of direct and indirect taxation, the poor man paid more out of his one pound than did the rich man out of his many pounds. Since then, however, it was only right to say that a good deal had been done in the direction of reducing indirect taxation, so that it should fall less upon the poor. The question was whether they had gone far enough in this direction? He said that the inequalities of taxation still existed, and that, to a certain extent, the poor man still paid more out his small income, relatively per pound, than the rich man. But when they came to consider how the taxation was to be adjusted and put right they encountered many difficulties, and he thought he should be able to show that, by the Amendment before the Committee, the anomalies that would be produced would be as great as those which existed now. It, was impossible by any system of indirect taxation to get a theoretical and absolutely accurate arrangement by which the incidence of
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taxation was proportioned exactly to the income of each individual. Take the-question of tea. Say there was a teetotal and poor family of five persons, who use! half-a-pound a tea per week. Under the present rate that family paid 2d. per week to the revenue, or 1s. 8d. per year each person to the State. If the family were to pay anything at all, was it an. unreasonable thing that they should pay 1s. 8d. each for the security, peace, and protection of the State, and all the advantages of belonging to a highly-civilised State? As long as they maintained a system of indirect taxation, which included alcohol and various adjustments in tea and tobacco, they could not do away with the anomalies which must exist under that system. No one would suggest that, for the sake of an absolutely theoretically perfect system of taxation, the duty on alcohol should be taken off, because the evil which would ensue from that would be greater than the evil which now existed. Supposing they could get over all the anomalies by doing away with indirect taxation, which produced something like £47,000,000 of their revenue, and could raise the whole by some more direct system, let them consider how the balance sheet would possibly be made out. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment, suggested that other subjects should be taxed, instancing the two of man servants and persons who had large gardens. But, from many practical standpoints, such a proposition was, on the face of it, quite impossible. If only half a farthing per head per day was paid on an article consumed by the mass of the people, it would produce a revenue of £7,000,000 per annum. To place an exorbitant tax on men servants would have the effect of rendering the man servant a thing of the past; and the result of taxing large gardens would be that they would be broken up and built upon, creating greater evils to the community than that which they sought to cure. If they did away with indirect taxation, the only possible sources of income were the death duties or the income tax. Obviously they could not take a large sum from both these subjects, because if they enormously increased the death duties they would reduce the amount payable as income tax; and if they enormously increased the

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income tax, they must ultimately reduce the death duties. The whole corpus of the death duties was roughly about 165 millions a year, and it would take 30 per cent, of that amount to raise the sum now raised by indirect taxation. If they excluded the smaller estates, it would take 30 per cent, on all estates between.£10,000 and £100,000; 50 per cent, between £100,000 and £1,000,000; and the whole of those over £1,000,000 to raise the amount now raised in a simple and easy way by the present system of indirect taxation. As regards the income tax, it would require to produce the amount now raised by indirect taxation a 3s. tax on incomes between £1,000 and £2,000; 4s. on incomes between £2,000 and £5,000; 6s. between £5,000 and £10,000, and 10s. over £10,000. There was a common idea that it was easy to raise an unlimited amount upon income tax and death duties, but if they attempted to enormously increase these sources of revenue, they would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. It was impossible to adjust with strict theoretic accuracy the individual burden of taxation upon rich and poor so long as the indirect taxation on alcohol was maintained. The only plan of relieving the burden on the poorer classes was by making up to them in other ways. Education in all its branches had become an enormous means of readjusting taxation between rich and poor. The expenses of sanitation and the facilities for obtaining better dwellings were advantages enjoyed directly by the poor, and only indirectly by the rich. It was by these means, rather than through any attempt to make the system theoretically accurate, by removing indirect taxation, that justice would be done and benefit conferred all round.
MR, J. A. PEASEagreed that it was desirable to continue the taxation on alcohol, and said so long as that was done there must be some anomalies in our system of taxation. But the present seemed to him an opportune moment to relieve the taxation on the necessaries of life. [Cheers.] The present Amendment only proposed to reduce the tea duty from 4d. to 2d. He would like to see it abolished altogether. During the past two years, owing to the increase of the revenue, the
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incidence of taxation had rather proved that the indirect had increased at the expense of the direct taxation. Therefore, there had been really a reversal of the policy of successive Governments in the past. Another reason for the abolition of the tea duty was that the cost of collecting indirect taxation was greater than in the case of direct taxation. Some reference had been made to the substituting of other subjects of taxation. He believed there was no necessity for the Government relieving the landlords last year, or giving money to the Voluntary Schools this year in the way they had done. But apart from that, there were subjects which might receive the favourable consideration of the Government. Mining royalties and ground rents might very well be taxed, and would yield an enormous revenue, Then the Government might consider the question of how far it was practicable to prevent the evasions of the death duties which at the present time was going on in this country. It was well known that many rich men were making in their own lifetime bequests to their heirs, simply with a view to evading the death duties. It was most desirable that the Government should prevent the evasion of what was a proper contribution to the Imperial Exchequer. With regard to the tea duty, it had in recent times been levied not so much on China as on Indian tea. Last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer told them that 87 per cent, of the tea imported came from India. That being so they ought to urge the undesirability of taxing for the benefit of our own revenue an article produced by our fellow-subjects in India. A year or two ago we declined to allow the Indian Government to raise a revenue on cotton goods manufactured in this country, and equally we ought to hesitate before we taxed tea produced by our Indian fellow-subjects, especially at a time when India was passing through a very severe famine. The tax was oppressive on the poor of this country. The duty was not an ad valorem, duty, the more expensive teas paying just as much as the cheaper qualities.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERobserved that, as he had shown last year, the great bulk of the tea was of medium value. Only a very small proportion was of first-class value,

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and there was no doubt that poor people were more disposed to buy the dearer tea than the cheaper.
MR. J. A. PEASEurged that it was desirable to get rid of taxes upon the necessaries of life, and said that he should certainly vote for the Amendment.
MR. J. P. FARRELLasserted that in proportion to the population more tea was consumed in Ireland than in England. It was remarkable how the use of tea had grown. In 1845 the consumption in the United Kingdom was only 85,000,0001b.; in 1895 it had gone up; to 240,000,0001b. Ireland's consumption was 25,000,0001b., and the Exchequer was taking from Ireland at least.£500,000 in duty, and he calculated that out of this sum £300,000 came out of the pockets of the poor. He trusted that the demand made by the Irish representatives would not be met by the usual reply, non possumus. The comments made last week by the organs of the Press—including the highest, The Times itself—ought to have convinced the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was not a wise policy always to refuse the demands of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman could well afford to grant this concession, as the estimated revenue for the current year would yield an ample margin. Tea was absolutely free from duty in some of the colonies. [Mr. BARTLEY: "What is the retail price in those colonies?"] He did not admit that that affected the argument. Then in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Newfoundland the tax on tea was only 3d. Surely the wealthy mother country could afford to follow the example of her colonies in this matter.
MR. HUDSON KEARLEYsaid that the hon. Member for East Donegal, who moved the Amendment, approached the question from the Irish standpoint, namely, that all taxes at the present juncture should be resisted, because Ireland was bearing an unfair share of the burden. With that view he, of course, sympathised, but the reason why he intervened in the debate was that he held a strong opinion that the tea duty ought to be totally abolished. He had had some considerable experience in the matter, and he knew that, every time the duty was reduced, an extraordinary amount of annoyance, trouble, and expense was entailed on those interested in
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the business; and, although he had pledged himself over and again to what was called the free breakfast table, he would sooner that the duty should remain at 4d. than it should be reduced. Still he would not pledge himself not to vote for the reduction, because from one point of view reduction was better than nothing at all, as it would confer a benefit on the consumer; but the reduction of the duty to 2d. would be of no advantage to the duty payer. He would still be a duty payer, whereas if the duty were abolished, he would get rid of all that trouble. But this Amendment gave him an opportunity of putting another point to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that was as to the justification of charging those who paid the duty ¼ per cent, in addition. That was an exaction which could not be justified, and it was only fair that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should give the duty payer a quittance of it. They were told that it was charged in order to defray the expenses of collection; but surely, with an imposition of as much as 4d. a lb., this additional charge should not be made. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to concede the 2d. a lb. asked for he would beg and implore him to get rid of the duty altogether.
MR. J. DILLONsaid that he would also be glad to see the tax on tea abolished, but its reduction by twopence per pound would at least be n good beginning. It seemed to him that one aspect of the question had not been sufficiently emphasised by previous speakers, and that was the question of economy. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to take off a tax which would make a hole in the revenue to the extent of £2,000,000 he must, of course, make it up by putting on another tax, or by curtailing expenditure. Never before in the history of the country had so favourable an opportunity presented itself to a Chancellor of the Exchequer to lighten the burden of taxation as during this tide of prosperity in the past two years. The Exchequer had been overflowing with receipts, and the surpluses had been large and unexpected. Those surpluses would have enabled the right lion. Gentleman not only to waste money on the Army mid the Navy, which appeared to be a mania at the present day, but also to

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take off taxes. The reduction in. the tea duty would reduce the revenue by about two millions. But in the present year there had been a million squandered in a grant to Egypt, and now there was to be a squandering of £200,000 in fresh armaments for South Africa, an expenditure which would probably lead to the waste of many millions. There was a special reason why the Irish Members desired this reduction of the tea duty. The tax on tea took from the people of Ireland, because they were poor, about three times what would be a fair proportion for Ireland to pay on this or any ether tax. In 1895 the tax on tea realised from England £2,850,000; from Ireland £524,000, and from Scotland £370,000. Thus Ireland paid about one-sixth of the amount paid by Great Britain in the tax on tea. According to the Report of the Financial Commission the highest proportion Ireland ought to pay in taxes was l-20th, as compared with Great Britain. Ireland paid £363,000 more than her fair proportion at the lowest point fixed by the Financial Commission. If the tax on tea was repealed, and the deficiency made up by, say, an addition to the income tax, or the tax on ground rents, the injustice of the present financial system as it affected Ireland would be lessoned to the extent of £363,000. This was a strong ground for causing the Irish Members to feel strongly on this matter. When they raised the question of taxes on drink, they were always met by the sneer that the Irish should drink less whisky; if they would drink less whisky they would pay less taxes. Well, that taunt would not apply on this occasion. Temperance advocates were all in favour of the consumption of tea. The poorer Irish people were all great tea drinkers. It was a remarkable thing to go into a country cottage and find better tea served up than they could get in a London hotel. He thought it showed the good taste of the Irish people. They could find no argument, no sneer, to use against the people because they were fond of tea, and they had no right to penalise the tea drinkers. The revision of this tax would be an act of justice not only to Ireland, but all over the country.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF TUB EXCHEQUER: I have no intention of going into the general question of
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direct as against indirect taxation. There are some hon. Members of this House who would desire to see no indirect taxation at all. I gather that that is the view of the hon. Member opposite, but it is not my view. I think we have been wise in reducing the proportion which indirect taxation bears to the whole of our revenue, and perhaps the process will be extended; but at the present moment I do not think that it would be wise to extend it. I do not think that it would be wise that, in place of the duty on tea, we should now put another penny on the income tax. I do not gather that anyone except the hon. Member opposite has suggested this, and, therefore, I do not think it necessary to trouble the Committee with an argument on such a proposal. But I should like to say a few words as to the amount of the burthen which the duty on tea inflicts on the poorer classes. The hon. Member for Devonport gave us an interesting speech, but I felt that his natural prejudices were straggling with his sense of public duty. [Laughter.] He said that he should prefer that the tea duty should be abolished, and objected to its being reduced. In that he was pleading for his own trade and not for the public advantage. ["Oh!" and laughter.] I think, on public grounds, the abolition of this duty would be a very doubtful policy. It must be remembered that the tea duty is the only way by which we make large numbers of the population contribute in any way to the Revenue, and I do not think that its remission would tend to that economy which the hon. Member for Mayo advocated in the speech he has just delivered. But does this tea duty press unduly on the people? There is no doubt that the price of tea has very largely diminished in recent years. I have figures here which show that, as compared with 20 years ago, the price of tea has largely decreased. I am speaking of the wholesale price rather than of the retail price; for there is no article which pays the country grocer so well as tea. It is an article out of which he makes his profits as largely and as certainly as the innkeeper makes his profits out of alcohol. That fact diminishes the comparative incidence of the tax upon the consumer, because the consumer, if lie be a poor man in a country village,

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will probably pay something; like 2s. per pound for the small quantities he buys; and therefore the duty is one thing to the wholesale dealer, but in proportion to the cost of the article a very much less thing to the consumer if he be a poor man. I have compared the decrease in the price of tea and sugar, and although undoubtedly there has been a greater decrease in the price of sugar since 1875, the duty having been abolished the year before, yet tea runs it hard. Then, has the duty stopped consumption? In 1875–76 the consumption of tea was 4·51 1b. per head of the population; in 1895–6 it was 5·77 lb., so that I do not think it can be said that the duty on tea has injuriously affected the price to the consumer, or has decreased the consumption. But I admit that it would give me great pleasure to reduce the duty on tea; and that for the reason which has been urged by lion. Members from Ireland —that tea is largely consumed in that country. But what am I asked to do? I am asked to deprive myself of half the duty on tea, amounting to nearly £1,900,000, in order to benefit Ireland to the extent of something like £250,000 or.£260,000. That is rather like killing a sheep in order to get a mutton chop. [Laughter.]
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: The right hon. Gentleman is scarcely doing me justice. I declined to move anything which would not affect the poorer taxpayers in all parts of the kingdom.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Perfectly. I do not deny that, but he will not deny that three-fourths of his speech were concerned with the grievances of Ireland in the matter of taxation; he put it mainly as an Irish case. The fact is that if, when this matter has been fully inquired into, it is necessary to do something which will re-establish an equilibrium between Great Britain and Ireland in the sense hon. Members from Ireland desire, a very much larger adjustment of taxation in one way or another, either by some great change in our system of taxation, or by large grants for local purposes in Ireland, will be required than could possibly be effected by the change now proposed. I come to my real objection to the Motion. I cannot spare the money. [Cheers.] I have placed before the Committee the expenditure for which I have to provide. Parliament has
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sanctioned the expenditure. The House must provide for it. Parliament, I think, will sanction the expenditure upon the Navy which the hon. Member for East Mayo talks of as money squandered. Parliament, I think, will sanction the expenditure in strengthening the garrison, in South Africa—["hear, hear!"]—which to my mind is a pledge for peace. [Cheers.] And Parliament, I think, will sanction the other demands which we have made upon the taxpayers, and which we believe are necessary for the advantage of the country. If the money is not to be found by the tea duty, where is it to come from? As has already been pointed out, to suggest that nearly two millions a year could be found by an additional duty upon man-servants or large gardens is simply absurd. Those are the two suggestions of the hon. Member for Donegal.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: No, Sir. I suggested that, without any addition whatever to taxation, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has an assured surplus which would still enable him to remit the tea. duty.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am discussing the matter on the supposition that my Estimates of Revenue are accurate. I have given those Estimates to the best of my ability, on the best possible advice, and it is impossible for me to present to the Committee anything more than that which I believe is likely to be realised. And when the hon. Member for Donegal quotes the. Returns for April of our imports as a. sufficient reason for saying that there will be a larger revenue from Customs and Excise in the year than I have ventured to anticipate, I can only say, with all deference to him—for I know the study which he gives to these subjects—that his statement shows he has not mastered the details of the matter at all. These Returns relate to only one month, to begin with. They relate, too, to all kinds of imports besides those which pay duty. I can assure the hon. Member that the duty paid on tea in April is less than the duty paid in the corresponding month of last year.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: If the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough t o look at the figures he will see that they relate to the four months from January to April.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: But three of the four months have nothing to do with the matter. I am concerned with, the year from the 31st of March onward, and it does not follow that, because the last quarter of the last financial year has been a profitable one, the coming year should be more prosperous. I have provided in my Estimates for a reasonable increase both of the Customs and Excise. I have very carefully gone into the details of that increase, and I should not have been justified in giving any higher figures. The only other suggestion that has been made, so far as I know, is that made by the hon. Member for Northumberland—namely, that I should in some way or other stop what he characterised as an evasion of the Death Duties. I take it he means that people are making gifts in their lives instead of leaving their property to their heirs. In my opinion that is a very proper practice—["hear, hear!"]—and certainly, as long as I am Chancellor of the Exchequer, I will do nothing that would be so tyrannical and so unjust as to interfere with the liberty of a healthy man to dispose of his property to whomsoever he will. [Cheers.] I have no suggestion before me which would in any way compensate for the source of revenue with which I am asked to dispense, being, as I have said, nearly £2,000,000 a year. Whatever the future may have in store, I can only say that for the present it is impossible for me to accede to the Motion that has been made, and, although lion. Members opposite may not approve of the expenditure which we have incurred, and therefore may not feel themselves bound to provide the resources to meet it, I think I may fairly appeal to the majority of the Committee, who do approve of that expenditure and who are, therefore, bound to provide the revenue to meet it, to support me in the course I have taken. [Cheers.]
MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid the Chancellor of the Exchequer had received the proposal in such a very amiable way that they might hope that, if the chances of fortune were with him and trade improved, he might be able to meet their views on a future
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occasion. He did not intend to go at length into the question of the merits of direct and indirect taxation, but he desired to say that he did not wish to see all indirect taxation abolished. He did not believe that any Member of the House desired that indirect taxation on intoxicating liquor, for instance, should be abolished or reduced, and he thought that while many Members might think that the duty on tobacco might with advantage be altered, no one desired that a less duty should be levied. But it was indirect taxation on articles of household consumption to which they attached considerable importance. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said he did not see his way to reduce the duty on tea, though it was quite evident that during the present year the proposed remission would not amount to a loss to the revenue of more than a million and a-half sterling. The supporters of the present Motion felt that, as the right hon. Gentleman had now been in office two years and had had surpluses of £7,000,000 in the aggregate, it was his duty not to bungle away the money as he had done—["Oh, oh!"]—either in expenditure or in giving grants and doles to different interests, classes, and localities, but to reduce the tea duties, which would have done far more to conduce to the personal comfort and convenience of the masses of the people. He was glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted two things, which were very strong arguments in favour of the present proposal. The right hon. Gentleman said that the actual pressure on the consumers of tea at the present moment was not so great as it was some 10, 15 or 20 years ago, because the price of tea had considerably fallen; but, as his hon. Friend pointed out, the fact that the price had fallen had increased the weight of the tax.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Not on the consumer.
MR. BUXTONdid not say on the consumer; but, after all, it came to the same thing. ["0h!"| The Chancellor of the Exchequer had admitted that the consumption of tea had very largely and quickly increased since the last reduction in the duty; and that was one of the strongest arguments in favour of a further reduction. Another reason for urgency was that, while 20 years ago, the proportions of Chinese and

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Colonial tea consumed in this country were 84 and 16 per cent, respectively, they were last year 16 and 84 per cent, respectively. That was a most satisfactory fact from the Imperial and commercial point of view. ["Hear, hear!"] The argument that the abolition of the Tea Duty would give a certain part of the population immunity from taxation was only true in one sense. Employment, rent, and wages were all affected by the fact that so many millions had to lie raised from the community in taxation. Besides, the amount raised from the Tea duty was comparatively so small—amounting to about 2s. a year on the individual—that its abolition was hardly to be considered from that point of view. It might be said that we ought not to tamper with the basis of taxation; but with its enormous reserves this country would never depend nowadays on the Tea Duty in time of war. He hoped, from the tone of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that next year or the year after he would see his way to continue this beneficent policy of reducing the indirect taxation. ["Hear, hear!"]
SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid that he had advocated the reduction or abolition of the Tea Duty in the House and in the country, and he felt bound to support the Amendment. He was sure that any reduction in the Tea Duty would be very well received. As to recouping the loss to the Exchequer which would follow from the abolition of the Tea Duty, he had no sympathy with the proposal to increase the tax on man-servants; for that would make employment harder to get, though, if the suggestion had been for a tax on the employment of foreigners and German waiters, there might have been something in it. Neither could he sympathise with the suggestion for an increased Income Tax, which was far higher now than it ought to be in time of peace. There was much in what had been said by the hon. Member for Poplar as to the increased consumption of colonial tea. When they j found that the course of trade was tending so much in favour of articles produced in the British Empire as the tea trade was at the present time, they had this additional reason for the Chancellor of the Exchequer taking this matter into his most serious consideration. He had another reason for urging the reduction
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or the abolition of the duty, and that was that it was paid entirely by the consumer in this country, and did not in any degree benefit any producer in this country. If this tax were transferred from tea to articles which competed with British trade he thought it would be infinitely better for the whole of the community. Two per cent, on the importation of foreign manufactured goods would find the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the £2,000,000 he would require if this Resolution were accepted by the Committee. It might not be possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do so in the present year, but he did venture to assure him that what many supporters of the Unionist Party desired was a transference of this indirect taxation to taxes which would benefit the trade and labour of this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would readily find a new source of revenue in the large and increasing importation of goods which competed with the trade and labour of this country, and he hoped that his right hon. Friend would at some future time be able to reduce, if not to abolish this duty upon an article produced largely within the British Empire, and one which was paid entirely by the consumer.
MR. J. W. LOGANsaid he heartily supported the Amendment, and regretted that it had not received warmer and more strenuous support from the Front Opposition Bench. The Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested that, if the duty were removed, it would have the effect of taking off the shoulders of large portions of the community the only remaining contribution which they made towards the maintenance of the country. Who were those people? The very poorest of the poor—the people who could afford to drink nothing but tea. This duty was a heavy tax on the poorest people of the country. He could not for the life of him understand how well-to-do people could be comfortable while they knew that large portions of the population of this country had to pay what was a heavy impost upon their slender means. In a rich country like England they ought to take off the shoulders of people this miserable tax of 4d. a pound upon tea. On the other side of the House there were many Members who had been sent to the House by the agricultural

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labourers, and lie sometimes asked himself what the agricultural labourers were thinking of when they voted for those hon. Gentlemen. But on behalf of those poor men who, to the eternal disgrace of England, only receive 9s. or 10s. a week wages, he claimed support for the Motion from their representatives on the other side of the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked how the loss to the revenue was to be made up if the duty on tea were repealed. For his part he would a thousand times rather have a penny in the pound added to the income tax than that poor old women and agricultural labourers should be taxed to the extent of 4d. in the lb. on tea. The Government had done a great deal for the wealthy people of the country. They had given two millions a year to the rich landlords, and £600,000 a year to the parsons. Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer now commemorate the 60th year of the glorious reign of Her Majesty by knocking off the tax on tea.
MR. LOUGHhoped that hon. Members opposite who represented the masses of the people in large centres of population would join in the excellent example set by the hon. Member for the Central Division of Sheffield—[Sir HOWARD VINCENT: "Hear, hoar!" (Laughter.)]—in saying that he would vote for the Motion. He thought the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was extremely interesting. It was probably the best speech in support of the Irish case that had been delivered in the course of the Debate. He hoped the Irish Members would take to heart the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out that in order that Ireland might get £650,000 he was asked to give up two millions. The right hon. Gentleman had said in effect, "Don't be so solicitous about Great Britain; ask what you want for your own country." He would do it if his hon. Friends from Ireland did not, and he would move at a later stage that the tea tax should be taken off Ireland without being disturbed in. Great Britain. The right hon. Gentleman said that no suggestion was made as to where the two millions might come from. Why should not a tax be put upon silk rather than on tea? In that way two millions might easily be obtained. There would be just as much
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free trade in the one tax as in the other. It was not true to say that if the tax on tea were taken off some people in this country would pay no tax at all. If the poor did not pay in tea they paid in depreciated wages and increase of rent. He pointed out that when a little tax of £50,000 was put on a trade, the trade was always glad to pay it; they were not taxing the trade, for they levied, not £50,000, but £200,000. [Cries of "Oh!"] The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the proportion of the duty to the price of tea was less now than formerly. He was entirely wrong about that. [Ministerial cries of "Oh!"] He knew something about it. It was no disadvantage in that House for a man to talk of what he understood. Those Members very often talked the most who knew the least. [Cheers.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the average price of tea was 2s. per lb. Throughout the country it did not exceed 1s. 6d. or 1s. 4d., as the retail price to the consumer. So if the duty was 4d. in the lb., that was no less than 25 per cent, on the retail price. The Chancellor of the Exchequer created a great deal of discontent in the trade by his statement of the high price at which tea was sold. But if they left out the expensive qualities, the average price of tea sold in England was 6½d. or 7d. in the public sales, and on this a duty of 4d. in the lb. was levied. He supported the Motion of the hon. Member for East Donegal.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORcontended that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in no way answered the case he put forward. His contention was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could afford this remission of duty without disturbing any portion of his Budget. He said he had to meet certain expenditure which the House had sanctioned for the Navy, for war purposes, and other matters. But his own point was that, without disturbing any of this sanctioned expenditure, there were abundant funds at the disposal of the Treasury. Last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer reckoned for a balance of £433,000, and this year for a balance of £503,000. But instead of £433,000, he realised £2,442,000. There was every indication that this year they would have a repetition of the experience of last year, but on a larger scale. The right hon. Gentleman did

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not deal with this, nor did he explain why he anticipated that we had reached high-water mark. From the figures the right hon. Gentleman had given, he must anticipate that this year would be more prosperous than last- year. If we were still on the rising tide, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had £2,442,000 where he expected £433,000, might it not be expected that he would receive.£2,500,000 where he expected £50:5,000? He himself had taken the official figures from the 1st January, 1897, and had compared them with the figures of the first four months of 189(5, and they showed conclusively that the progress and development and increased duty on articles was greater now than it was last year. The contention that he would have £2,500,000 surplus at the end of the financial year had not been touched by the right hon. Gentleman. If the unofficial Estimates proved to be true against the Treasury Estimates, would the Chancellor of the Exchequer next year, if he found he had £2,000,000 beyond what he estimated, agree to a reduction of 2d. in the 1b. on the tea duty?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am afraid I can make no promise with regard to next year's Budget.
Question put, "That the words 'four pence' stand part of the Question."
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 209; Noes, 95.—(Division List, No. 200.)
Main Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
"That the Duty of Customs now payable on Tea shall continue to be charged, levied, and paid on and after the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, until the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, on the importation thereof into Great Britain or Ireland (that is to say):—Tea the pound Four Pence."
Resolution to be reported To-morrow at Two of the clock; Committee report progress; to sit again upon Wednesday.

METROPOLITAN AND OTHER POLICE COURTS BILL.
Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [3rd May] further adjourned till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) BILL.
Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

METROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS (HOLIDAYS) BILL.
On the Motion for the Second Reading of this Bill,
MR. T. LOUGHasked for some explanation of the Measure.
*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,)said that he had explained the purpose of the Bill on a former occasion. At present, when a Bank Holiday was ordered, as on the occasion of the approaching Jubilee, the Secretary of State for the Home Department had no power to close the police courts. lie thought it would be admitted that they ought to be closed, and the power which the Bill would confer of doing so by order was desirable, in order that commercial inconvenience might be obviated in connection with Bills of Exchange falling due on the day.
MR. D. CRILLYasked what was to become of prisoners locked up before a Bank Holiday. Were they not to get a holiday as well as the Magistrates? [Laughter.]
Read a Second Time, and committed for To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

SUPPLY [7TH MAY].
Resolutions reported.
CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES, 1897–8.

  CLASS II.
  1."That a sum, not exceeding £8,485, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1898, for the salaries and expenses of the Offices of the House of Lords."
  2."That a sum, not exceeding £7,074, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment (hiring the year ending on the 31st day of March 1898, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council."
  Resolutions agreed to.

  VOLUNTEERS BILL.
  Committee (Progress, 10th May).
  Clause 1,—

  EXPLANATION OF 26 AND 27 N.C. C. 65, SS. 24, 27.
  For removing doubts, it is hereby declared that the power under section twenty-four of the Volunteer Act 1863, to make rules with respect to a Volunteer Corps shall extend, and be deemed to have always extended, to rules for securing the efficiency of the members of the corps, and that a fine for the breach of any rule made under that power shall not be deemed to be a civil debt.
  MR. E. H. PICKERSGILLmoved after the word "power" to insert the words "and approved by Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department." He said that the Bill proposed to amend the Volunteers Act of 1863, under which the Courts had decided that if a Volunteer regiment made a rule and provided that for its violation a penalty should be incurred, that penalty was only a civil debt, which could not be enforced by imprisonment. The object of this Bill was to convert what at present was a matter of civil debt into a criminal offence, and the debt was in the last resort to be enforcible by imprisonment. The Act of 1863 provided by Section 24 that the rules which a corps made should be approved by the Secretary of State for War, but he held that the War Office was not the proper Department to have the power of revising and approving these rules. He was not speaking without book, because in the case of the Queen v. Lewis, decided by the Queen's Bench Division in May last year, the Court held that the rule which the Volunteer corps had made in that case was ultra vires. But the War Office had passed and approved the rule in that case, and, therefore, the check exercised by the War Office could not be regarded as any check at all. It was obvious that at the War Office they had not the machinery to check these rules, and, therefore, he proposed to sub-
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  stitute the Home Office for the War Office.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,)said that when the purport of these rules was understood by the House, he thought hon. Members would be of opinion that the War Office was the proper authority. He contended that the hon. Member was taking advantage of a technical point to discuss matters which were not germane to the present Bill. He hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.
  MR. PICKERSGILLsaid the hon. and learned Gentleman had made no reply to his arguments. A few weeks ago the Lord Chief Justice held that the corps in the case to which he had referred actually made a rule which it had no power to make. He cited that case to show that the check of the War Office was no safeguard at all, as was shown by their having sanctioned that rule. He moved the Amendment simply in order that these rules might be checked in the way which he thought the Legislature intended when the principal Act was passed.
  And, it being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee to report progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  WORKMEN (COMPENSATION FOR ACCIDENTS) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  LAW OF EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL CASES) BILL.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.
  EXTRAORDINARY TITHE BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  APPEAL IN CERTAIN CIVIL MATTERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Committee deferred till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  BERRIEW SCHOOL BILL.
  Third Reading deferred till To-morrow-at Two of the clock.
  POST OFFICE CONSOLIDATION BILL [H.L.]
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  BICYCLES (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  FOREIGN PRISON MADE GOODS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ALDERSHOT AND FARNBOROUGH) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [1st April] further adjourned till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  BURIAL GROUNDS LOANS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow at Two of the clock.
  SUPPLY.
  Committee deferred till Wednesday.
  MARRIED PERSONS' SMALL INDUSTRIAL INCOMES (TAX RELIEF) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday 24th May.
  HIGHWAYS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (SCOTLAND) LOANS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Wednesday.
  SALE OF DISTRESS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday.
  CHAFF-CUTTING MACHINES ACCIDENTS BILL.
  Committee deferred till Wednesday.
  TITHE REDEMPTION BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  STEAM ENGINES AND BOILERS (PERSONS IN CHARGE) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Motion for Committal to Standing Committee on Trade, Etc. [17th February] further adjourned till Thursday.
  ARCHDEACONRY OF LONDON (ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [24th February] further adjourned till Thursday.
  CANALS PROTECTION (LONDON) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday.

  MERSEY CHANNELS BILL.
  On the Order for the Third Reading of this Bill,
  MR. CRILLYobjected to the Bill being taken at that hour (Twelve o'clock).
  MR. W. F. LAWRENCEhoped that the hon. Member would not persist in his objection. There was no opposition to the Bill locally. It was of great importance locally, because the channel into the Mersey would be lighted by two different authorities unless the Bill became law.
  MR. CRILLYsaid he had received communications from Liverpool on the subject which induced him to oppose the Third Reading of the Measure.
  Third Reading deferred till Thursday,

  COUNTY GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
  CANALS AND NAVIGABLE RIVERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.—Bill withdrawn.
  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Motion for Committal to Select Committee [24th March] further adjourned till To-morrow.
  LICENSING EXEMPTION (HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.

  MONEY LENDING.
  The Select Committee on Monday Lending was nominated of—Mr. Ascroft, Mr. Thomas Bayley, Mr. Caldwell,
  184
  Captain Chaloner, Mr. Garfit, Mr. Hazell, Mr. Jeffreys, Dr. McDonnell, Mr. Price, Mr. T. W. Russell, Mr. Warr, Mr. George Whiteley, and Mr. Yerburgh.
  Ordered, That five be the quorum.—(Sir William Walrond.)

MOTION.
  POLLING ARRANGEMENTS (LONDON).
  Bill to make further provision with respect to the arrangement of Polling Districts in the Administrative County of London, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bond, Mr. Harrison, and Colonel Hughes; presented accordingly, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed.—[Bill 238.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
In answer to Sir J. BRUNNER (Cheshire, Northwich),
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY said: The first business to-morrow will be the Report stage of the Elementary Education Act (1870) Amendment Bill; the second Order will be the Report of the Budget Resolution; and the third Order will be the Metropolitan Police Courts Bill.
MR. EDWARD MORTONasked what Supply would be taken on Friday?
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that Irish Supply would be taken, but as to the particular Votes he was largely in the hands of the Irish Members.
MR. KILBRIDE: Will the Irish Public Works be taken?
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir.
House Adjourned at Ten Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.