§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)I rise to move the Amendment which stands in my name on the Paper. During the last seven years attention has repeatedly been called in this House to the question of Ministers holding appointments and engaging in occupations which bring their private interests into conflict with their public duty. Some of those cases were cases of directors of public companies which were contracting with the Government. There were one or two other cases in which directors held shares in public companies, some of them coming in contact with their own departments. I do not propose to-night to refer to any of those cases in support of this Amendment. I simply wish to refer to them generally in order to remind the House of the facts, and remind them also that this is simply part and parcel of the policy of objecting to operations of this kind, and that we are not singling out a single case or a single Minister. Wherever any Minister or servant of the public has placed himself in a similar position there has been no hesitation on either side of the House in raising a protest. Therefore, I do not propose to refer individually to any of those cases, although they would be perfectly relevant and germane to this Amendment. I wish simply to confine myself to the facts, most of them fresh, most of them discovered within the last few weeks, and none of which have been brought to the attention of the House at all. I therefore deem it to be the duty of some Member of the House, were it only for the purpose of eliciting an explanation, to state the facts in presence of Ministers arraigned, so as to give them full opportunity for explanation. If that be unfair, it would be worse than unfair if we missed the first opportunity that has offered of bringing all these circumstances to the knowledge of the House. They have been canvassed and discussed in the country. We have discussed them at our election meetings, and I think it is due to the Ministers whose names have been mentioned, to the House of Commons, and to the country, that all these facts should be brought to the attention of 398 the House, in the place where there will be an opportunity of canvassing them thoroughly. There are two or three Ministers whose names have been associated with companies, concerning which there has been so much discussion of late. Before I come to the facts, I should like to say one or two words with regard I to general principles. It is very difficult to lay down, I fully appreciate, a rule for the conduct of public men or Ministers of the Crown in matters of this character The only Act of Parliament that deals with it at all is an Act passed in the reign of George III. At that time most of the industry and commerce of this country was in the hands of private firms, and it was rather the exception than otherwise for an incorporated company to be carrying on trade. Therefore rules which were framed under conditions of that character are neither adequate nor even applicable to the circumstances of the present day, when most of the industries of this country are carried on by joint stock enterprise. I might give an illustration of the unfairness of the present state of the law. A Member of this House may also be a member of a firm which has a small contract with a Government department; it does not matter how small the contract, it does not matter how insignificant in the firm his interest may be, still he is disqualified and liable to a penalty. On the other hand, he may hold nine-tenths of the shares of a public company which has an enormous trade Math the I Government, and that disqualification does not apply. That at once proves that there is an anomaly in the present state of the law which calls for some sort of redress or remedy. With regard to the principles which ought to be laid down I wish to deal with the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, and the rules which he himself has laid down. I venture to say there is no better judge. He has had great experience in business and in municipal affairs. He has had a wide range of experience, and consequently he will be able to detect the dangers and provide against them very much better than any other Member of this House. Therefore, I quote with confidence any rules or principles he may lay down as certain to be more or less applicable to cases of this character. I venture to say that no one has been more ruthless than the right hon. Gentleman himself in criticising transactions of the kind we 399 complain of. I believe that he signalised his first entry into public life in Birmingham by the exposure of a councillor who had been guilty of contracting for the Corporation, and it will be within the memory of several Members of the House that he made a severe attack upon Lord Salisbury in the year 1885, because Lord Salisbury and his agents and friends in the Upper House had insisted upon the insertion of a clause in an Act of Parliament, the effect of which would be to give an enormously enhanced value to Lord Salisbury's own property in London. The right hon. Gentleman exposed that transaction in very scathing terms and laid it bare—that is, he stated the facts in the way he alone can state them. Therefore I am sure he will not complain if we state the facts with regard to the other circumstances which require explanation. I will, therefore, quote two or three rules which he has laid down—one at the beginning of the first part of his career and the other at the end of the same portion of his career—referring to the same kind of transactions. Since then I have not seen any cases in which he has taken the same interest, except possibly in the Transvaal. He has laid down some very important rules. One is the case of Sir Hercules Robinson. He was appointed High Commissioner by the late Government, and the right hon. Gentleman objected to the appointment, because he had held some shares in Rhodesian companies. Sir Hercules Robinson had parted with these shares before his appointment, and the right hon. Gentleman was aware of the fact, and that is rather important. Notwithstanding that fact he persisted in his criticism of the appointment, and declared that a person appointed to represent the Queen should be not only pure, but, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. I am quite prepared to admit these words with regard to the right hon. Gentleman himself. Allow me to say at the outset that I am not going to attempt to make or suggest any charge of personal corruption against the right hon. Gentleman, or any of the other hon. Gentlemen who are members of some public company. That is not my case at all. I shall simply state the facts, and I shall state clearly the inferences I propose to draw from them, but corruption is not one of them. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that something more than that was necessary. 400 It was not merely enough, in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, that an officer of the State should be incorruptible, but he must have no association with companies, either past or present association, which would make him open to suspicion. That is the rule which I call the rule of Cæsar's wife. I am simply stating the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman himself. That is what he lays down, and I accept it fully. The second regulation the right hon. Gentleman has laid down is for the conduct of his own officers in Ceylon. This is the rule—
No officer shall be allowed to engage in commercial pursuits or purchase shares in any local land company, nor shall any officer make or continue an investment which may interest him privately in any private or public undertaking with which his public duty is connected. All officers shall confidentially consult the Government as regards any investment which may be reasonably open to doubt. The foregoing regulation applies to the holding of laud by an officer in the name or names of members of an officer's family.That is practically what is wanted in the Amendment, and if Her Majesty says that there is no objection, then the blame is not upon the Minister. But the second part of this regulation is a still more pertinent one. The foregoing regulation applies to the holding of land by an officer in the name or names of an officer's, family. May I suggest, then, that there is a necessary and inevitable corollary of these two rules, and it is this, that unless these rules are observed by, and enforced against, officers of State in high places you cannot possibly enforce them against, subordinate officials. That is one of the principal points I propose to make. When once these rules are broken by any person in high position it leads to the complete demoralisation of the whole Civil Service. It is setting a dangerous precedent. I am sorry to say that the right hon. Gentleman, if my facts are correct, is the first to break his own commandments. He has stated in the House that he has no interest, direct or indirect, in any company which supplies to the Government munitions or war materials. What are the facts? The Colonial Secretary has since admitted that that statement is not strictly accurate.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBRELAIN,) Birmingham, W.No.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI understood him in the letter to the hon. Member for 401 Bradford to say with regard to one company—Tubes, Limited—that that was not strictly accurate.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI do not admit it.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEVery well, I will come to that later on, when I come to deal with the Tubes. I will give a list of the companies in which I say the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for East Worcestershire, the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, are interested. The first company is called Hoskins and Sons, Limited. I believe they were incorporated in December, 1897, and I take it on the authority of the Financial Secretary of the Treasury that at the time of their incorporation they had some dealings with the Admiralty. They have since been Admiralty contractors. I find that this company now is practically a private company owned by the right hon. Gentleman's family. I do not wish to road out the names—I think it would be invidious; but I can state generally that they are related to the right hon. Gentleman; they reside under his rooftree, and they are related to him in such a way that I venture to say the right hon. Gentleman's interest is direct, or certainly indirect. The only person who holds any shares in this company except the right hon. Gentleman's family is a gentleman of the name of Hall, who is manager, I believe. It has got the usual permissions in the articles of association providing that it may be made a family company. I shall say a word later on with regard to the names added to this company, but for the present, having stated that all the shares are owned by the right hon. Gentleman's family, I will show what this company is, and I will take it from its own bill-heads. The bill-head is "Hoskins and Sons, Limited, contractors to the Admiralty." I think I am bound to mention that the Civil Lord of the Admiralty holds 600 shares of £5 each. [An HON. MEMBER: Secretary to the Treasury.] He was Civil Lord of the Admiralty until quite recently, and he held £3,000 worth of shares in that company. There is also on the bill-heads "Shot and shell racks, and all similar fittings for Her Majesty's Navy." That is their own description of their business. They have got other things described as materials for ships' 402 use. By the way, the telegraphic address is, "Berths, Birmingham." I recommend this to the hon. Member for North Islington. The directors, I believe, are members of the right hon. Gentleman's family and relatives of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. There is a point with regard to this company which I think demands explanation, partly from the fact that the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty holds shares in the company which is described as "Contractors to the Admiralty." The point is that there are only five bona fide shareholders in this company. You must have seven in order to have a limited company. That is done by giving a share to some nominal holder, and another share to another nominal holder. Then the company is registered. The extraordinary thing about this company is that the numbers are made up not to seven but to ten. Why? It is not for me to suggest a reason, but I think I am entitled to quote the Act of Parliament dealing with contractors to the Admiralty. It provides that—
No Member of the House of Commons may share in any contract with the Government, or derive any benefit from an order, but this disability does not apply in the ease of contracts with companies or corporations which consist of at least ten persons.Will the House bear this in mind? The usual practice when you register a private company, and the number of real shareholders will not make up the requisite seven, is to give two or three shares to others just to make up the number. In this case the practice has been departed from, and nominal shares have been given to clerks to bring up the number to ten. In view of that Act of Parliament I think the House will infer what is the object. So much for the case of Hoskins and Sons, "Berths, Birmingham." Now I come to the case of the Birmingham Trust. The Birmingham Trust was formed to invest in selected stocks and shares and to average investments. As to this company, it is not very clear what the number of shares is. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has a very considerable holding. He holds about 500 ordinary shares of £10. With regard to the preference shares, there seems to be some doubt as to the number, but the holding is a considerable one, so that between the ordinary and the preference the right hon. Gentleman has 403 a very considerable and substantial share in this company. Thou the right hon. Gentleman's family hold shares to the value of about £67,000 at par. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is down with two others as the holders of shares to the nominal value of about £3,500. I infer that he probably holds those shares as a trustee; but that makes no difference as far as my point is concerned, because a trustee is bound to exercise the same diligence; towards the interests of the beneficiary as he would do towards his own. This company holds a considerable number of shares in a concern known as Tubes, Limited, but it has another considerable interest in a company known as Elliot's Metal Company. Its interest in Tubes is about £12,500, taking the nominal value of the shares. I do not believe they arc quite at par, but they have gone up considerably since the Chamberlain influence was introduced into the matter. I will give the actual figures later on to prove that statement. I simply make the point now to show that although the nominal value may be £12,500 the real value is not quite so much; but still it is very considerable, because the shares have gone up in value within the last eighteen months. The history of Tubes is a very interesting and significant one when you take into account what happened in the case of Kynochs. I find that in Tubes the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley Division has a small interest—I think 300 shares. Mr. Arthur Chamberlain has about 74,800 shares, and other members of the family also have a holding. This company was formed to acquire certain cycle manufacturing companies in the Midlands; it made tubes for cycles. After a year or eighteen months trading it seems to have made a loss, and then in the beginning of 1899 Mr. Arthur Chamberlain was brought in to save the company. It is stated in the report of the directors that Air. Arthur Chamberlain, who had acquired a large interest in the company, both in ordinary and preference shares, had consented to take a seat at the board and to accept the position of chairman. In the speech which he made at the meeting when he took over the chairmanship he made the following remark—That owing to the collapse of the cycle tube trade the directors had to go into what was to them practically a new business, that 404 of making boiler-tubes. Personally, in regard to the future he was hopeful: the question was whether they could make a profit. He reminded the company of what was done in Kynochs, and suggested that what had happened in the past might happen again.That has a certain significance, not merely in view of what really did happen in the case of Kynochs, but to what actually happened to this company after Mr. Arthur Chamberlain took over the chairmanship. The very first report after that event, presented on the 8th December, 1899, says—The business of the company has been practically confined to making the weldless tubes required for water-tube boilers by the British Admiralty.
§ MR. WILLIAM ALLAN (Gateshead)And they all burst.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEOh yes, but what is far more to the point here is that they saved this company from bursting. The company goes on for another twelve months, and what is the result in the last report? It is that still the bulk of the business of the company is the provision of these tubes for water-tube boilers for Her Majesty's Navy. That is from the report, issued within the last few weeks, of a company which was losing £4,000 a year as a cycle company, but which is now, in the hands of Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, making a profit of £10,000 a year as contractors to Her Majesty's Government. I said something about the rise in these shares, and that is not immaterial, for two reasons.
§ COLONEL MILWARD (Warwickshire, Stratford-on-Avon)The £1 shares are at 2s.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI will come to that point in a moment or two. What happened in regard to these shares? When it was known that Mr. Arthur Chamberlain had taken over the chairmanship, and that the directors had decided to give up their legitimate trade and to go into the business of contracting for the Government, the shares instantly went up. Mr. Arthur Chamberlain is my authority for that statement. He says that—
He would like to warn them that the shares he bought were bought at the price of the day, which was very much less than the price people were paying for them then.405 Another circumstance is that immediately after this speech in regard to Kynochs the shares still go up. It is true that in the matter of profits the company has not realised the expectations that might well have been formed from the Kynoch reference, and therefore the shares have recently gone down; but at the same time Mr. Arthur Chamberlain's prophecy that what had been done with Kynochs might be done with Tubes has been justified. Another point in regard to the rise in the shares is that the Birmingham Trust, in which the right hon. Gentleman had a very considerable holding, acquired over 5,000 shares in Tubes" in 1899, apart from their present holding, so that their entire holding amounted to something like 15,000 shares. But those 5,000 shares they disposed of, not when they were at 2s., but after the impression I created by the Kynoch speech and the better prospect. Now I come to Elliot's Metal Company. The right hon. Gentleman, in reply to the statement about the Birmingham Trust and the other companies set forth in the Morning Leader, stated that he was not aware that he had any interest at all in Tubes. I observe that he did not make any reference at all to his interest in Elliot's, and I think there is a very good reason. This is a company which has large contracts with the Government and supplies large quantities of materials to the naval dockyards. The directors are the right hon. Gentleman's own son, who resides with, him, and three of the right hon. Gentleman's brothers. The shareholders are members of the right hon. Gentleman's family residing with him, and they hold about £5,250 worth of shares, taking the company at its nominal value. The right hon. Gentleman's brothers and other relations, in preference and ordinary shares, hold about £121,000 worth; in fact, they own practically half the company, and most of their interest has been acquired since 1898, that is since the administration of which the light hon. Gentleman is the most potent factor came into power. There is another fact about these shares. The light hon. Gentleman himself held 405 £10 shares until 1897. Some time between April, 1897, and April, 1898, he transferred these identical shares to his son, and they are still held by him. I maintain that that is an indirect interest in a company dealing with the Government, the 406 bulk of whose business is done with the Government, and whose profits are made out of the Government. I make the same point with regard to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He holds—I presume as trustee, although there is nothing to indicate it, but I make the assumption—£4,170 worth of shares in this company dealing with his own department. Most of these companies to which I have referred describe themselves its contractors to the Admiralty. Of course it is not merely the quantity of material supplied by them to the Admiralty; it is the fact that to all their customers and to all whom they solicit for orders this statement is made, and they are able to advertise themselves as firms which have the confidence of Her Majesty's Government. In regard to municipal corporations a £50 contract disqualifies a member; why should Ministers of the Crown be excepted? In referring to the Birmingham Trust the light hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary says—I hold a very small portion of the capital of this company.Then he says—I do not know whether it is invested in Tubes or not.And he says—I did not know Tubes were interested in Government business.Then he says—It comes to this: I have a small portion of Trust shares; they in turn have a small portion of their funds invested in Tubes; Tubes does some business with the Government.Supposing the real facts were put, would not this be the correct way of stating them? The right hon. Gentleman has a-considerable holding in the Birmingham Trust; the Birmingham Trust have a substantial holding in Tubes and Elliot's; Elliot's do most of their business with the Government; Tubes do, not some, but the whole of their business with the Government. Does the right hon. Gentleman now mean to say that his is a correct version of the case? I am simply contrasting the defence which he made in the answer published as an authorised version by the hon. Member for Central Bradford, and in so doing I am overlooking the very important fact that members of the right hon. Gentleman's own household own over £5,000 407 worth of shares in Elliot's, let alone the interest held by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I presume as trustee. I now pass to the Colombo Commercial Company. The importance of this company lies in the fact that the right hon. Gentleman laid down rules to be observed by his officials in this colony, under which they were not to hold any interest in land or in any company which dealt with the Government; and so rigid and searching were these rules that if they had any such interest they were to part with it at once. The right hon. Gentleman has 400 £5 preference shares in this company and 500 £10 ordinary shares, acquired, I believe, before he came into office. The character of the company was changed owing to the failure of the coffee trade in Ceylon, and from being a coffee planting company it was converted into a company speculating at largo in Ceylon. It was simply a general trading company, but the memorandum and articles of association took power to deal in land, and notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman's own prohibition of dealings of that character he still retains his interest. One of the things done by this company has recently come to the observation of people in this country. Accommodation in St. Helena for Boer prisoners being rather limited it was decided for some reason which has never been explained to send them to Ceylon. The first thing that had to be done there was to provide accommodation—to build huts and sheds, and generally to prepare the place to receive them, and a Ceylon newspaper, the Ceylon Observer, on the 17th May says—Mr. Menzies, of the Colombo Commercial Company, has arrived and they hope to start immediately to put the buildings together"—that is, the buildings for the prisoners. On the 20th May—The iron framework of the first prison for the Boers is up under Mr. Menzies' supervision and tin Colombo Commercial Company's contract, and the materials for other prisons being re-erected by the same company arc scattered over the sites. The hundreds working are gradually coming up to thousands, and already the Commercial Company have four of the iron buildings up.It gives a specification of the buildings, which are rather commodious, and I should say somewhat expensive. The bulk of the contracts let out by the Government have been given to the Colombo Commercial Company, Limited, 408 in which the right hon. Gentleman holds £7,000 worth of shares. There was a second contract there, and on the 18th August we read—The work at the camp has recommenced. Eighteen more huts are to be erected for the military and thirty more huts for the prisoners. Building operations for the new camp have already commenced, the Colombo Commercial Company being to the fore, and their representative is kept busy pushing on the work. The materials for several of the large huts that the company have to build have been received already.I do not say that the right hon. Gentleman knew all about this company in which he had invested his money, but it is a considerable investment. I do not say he knew anything at all about this contract; I take his statement explicitly—that he is too busily engaged in public affairs to be able to look after his own investments, and that he did not give the same supervision to his investments, that an ordinary careful business man would. But I do say that it illustrates the danger of investments of this character in the hands of Ministers of the Crown. I cannot conceive a more unfortunate investment at the present moment than an investment in making prisons for the Boers. Last Friday the right hon. Gentleman delivered a very remarkable speech in this House—a. speech conciliatory in its tone, and evidently intended so to be as far as the right hon. Gentleman's general attitude was concerned. He proposed certain terms, but I think I shall have the assent of the House when I say that in a dispute of this character it is not so much a matter of the terms you propose as of the confidence you have in the men who are to carry them out. I ask the House, what terms can you offer to the Boers which they are prepared to. accept if they knew, as know they will—[Ministerial laughter. Can you imprison thousands of Boers there without their knowing something about this company? Again I say, what terms can you offer to the Boers which they will accept when they come to know that the gentleman, who will be the supreme factor in interpreting those terms and in carrying them out is one who has a large interest in a company which is profiting out of making, prisons for the Boers? I simply point that out in order to show what an unfortunate investment it is from that point of view. The other company I now come to 409 is Kynoch and Co. The case of this company is important for two reasons. I apologise to the House for detaining it so long, but I am bound to place all these facts before the House, and if the companies are so numerous it is no fault of mine. When we come to Kynoch and Co. I find that there are two points to make about them. My first point is that it is the only company whose affairs have been investigated by a Committee of the House of Commons; Hoskins, Elliot's, and the other companies have not been investigated. My second point is that Kynochs, when investigated by the House of Commons, were very much worse than anything which had previously been said about them. In this company the shares of the right hon. Gentleman's relations are of the value—taking the present value—of something between £230,000 and £250,000, which is the amount they hold in Kynoch and Co., Limited. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has an interest—again, I assume, as trustee—amounting at their present value to £15,000. They manufacture cordite and munitions of war. With regard to this company, it has a kind of bearing upon all the other companies, because there has been undoubted favouritism, and it shows the danger of men holding high and influential positions an the Government having an interest in this company, because, for some reason or other, unmistakable favouritism has been shown towards this company. I will take two or three instances of this favouritism. In the year 1898 the Government asked for tenders for a very large quantity of cordite, and several tenders were sent in. The National Explosives Company's price was Is. 10½d. per lb. and Kynoch and Co.'s price was 2s. 4½d., or 6d. per lb. more. There were several other tenders which were lower than Kynochs'. What happened? Did the Admiralty and the War Office give the contract to the firm with the lowest tender? On the contrary, what they did was this—they gave Kynoch and Co. an opportunity of revising their tender. They sent another tender form to them, and asked them to tender for Is. 10½d., and all the other companies who had tendered were ignored, and no opportunity to tender again was offered to them. I say that that is a thing which is perfectly unprecedented in the history of this country.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS (Birmingham, S.)No, no.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe right hon. Gentleman says "No, no," but will he give me an instance?
MR. LLOYH-GEORGEBut in that case Kynochs were l½d. higher then the lowest, and there was another firm which was 2s. or 3s. dearer. The previous Government took the lowest tender and said, "We will give you a share of this contract, but you must do it at the same price as the lowest." That was a very different transaction from this. What the right hon. Gentleman did here was to cut out all the intermediate tenders—they cut out all the companies that had tendered at a lower figure, and they went to the highest, and they said, "We will give you an opportunity of revising your tender," and never communicated to the others, and the right hon. Gentleman must know that is a very different transaction. The right hon. Gentleman says he has taken the responsibility for this himself. What happens? In the case of this company they had given them this opportunity of revising their price, and what followed? Instead of giving the bulk of the work to the National Explosives Company—which, by general consent, is the best company of the whole lot, which did the best work, had fewer objections, and did its work with greater promptitude—instead of giving the bulk of the work to the company that tendered the lowest, they proposed to give 470 tons to Kynoch and Co. and only 210 tons to the National Explosives Company. The Director of Army Contracts would not stand that, for ho thought one piece of favouritism was quite enough in the course of a single month, and, finally, the allocation he insisted upon was 380 tons to Kynochs and 300 tons to the National Explosive Company, whose tender was the lowest. Therefore, there were two acts of favouritism—the first was giving them an opportunity to revise their tender; and the second was giving them a larger share of the order than the company which tendered lowest. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Birmingham himself admitted, 411 in his evidence before the Committee, that no other company had ever had an opportunity of revising its tender.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI bog the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He did say that it was an opportunity which had never been given to any other company. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that?
* MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMSYes, I do deny it. If I had made such a statement it would have been manifestly wrong. I do not remember that I made any such statement, and I do not believe that I did. But if I did I made it unconscious of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman opposite, when Secretary of State for War, did himself precisely the same thing as I did.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon, but he is not correct in his explanation. If it was done it was done by the same company, and my point is that no opportunity was given to any other company to revise its price but Kynochs. His statement does not challenge my previous proposition, for what the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition did was a totally different transaction. Now what happened in 1899? In that year Kynochs again got half the contracts. I do not want to dwell too much upon that, because I do not want to go into too many details. I will come at once to what happened in the year 1900. In that year there was a very large contract, and a very large quantity of cordite was asked for by the Admiralty—the quantity was 1,400,000 lbs. They invited tenders for that, and seven firms tendered. Out of those seven companies Kynochs tendered for the highest price. Kynochs' price was 2s. 6d., and there wore other companies who tendered at about 2s. What happened? The whole tender for 1,400,000 lbs. was divided between Kynochs and the National Explosives Company. Not only this, but Kynochs got the easiest part of the job, which is twenties, because, as I understand from the evidence, as you go up in size you increase the difficulty of production, and 412 more skill is required. Now Kynochs got the twenties at a big price, and the National Explosives Company got the rest at a lower price. All the other companies who had tendered, and who had previously done good work—as I shall point out later on—were completely ignored. [Ministerial cries of "Oh, oh."] If those facts are unpleasant to Members opposite I really cannot help it. The next thing that happened was this. The Director of Army Contracts complained of the favouritism, and he said "This won't do," and he presented a report, which I will read to the House, which shows how very groundless this favouritism was towards Kynochs as compared with the other companies. There was an objection made, and after a good deal of discussion between the Financial Secretary to the War Office and the Secretary to the Admiralty, the following division and allocation of the order was arranged. It was divided into four parts, and given to Kynochs, the National Explosives Company, Nobel's, and the Cotton Powder Company. These facts are taken out of the evidence and are not challenged. The National Explosives Company got 2s. Id. for size 50, which is the most difficult size to make up. Nobel's got 2s. 3d. or 2s. 4d. for size 50, the Cotton Powder Company got 2s. Id. for 350,000 lbs., but Kynochs got size 20—the easiest size of all—at 2s. 6d. for 300,000 lbs. weight of cordite. Was there any reason for showing this favouritism to Kynochs, because this is really very material in its bearing upon the whole of the contracts? Some of the witnesses for the War Office and the Admiralty stated that it was a better firm. Some witnesses said that the other firms were found plenty of other work to do by the War Office, but the fact remains that Kynochs got more orders out of the War Office than any other company, and one witness stated in the course of his evidence that he thought it was the policy of the War Office to prefer Kynochs. Will the House now kindly listen to the Report made by the Inspector upon the quality of the goods provided? The Inspector says—
The National Explosives Company have by far the best record, and the Cotton Powder Company are good seconds. Kynochs have been unsuccessful as regards the large sizes required for the Naval service, and their rejections on present contracts have been very heavy.413 That is to say that of all the companies reported upon by the Inspector, Kynochs was the worst, and yet what is the proposed allocation? The National Explosives Company, which is the best, gets 2s., and Kynochs, which is the very worst, gets 2s. 6d. That is to say, that upon 300,0001bs. of cordite Kynochs, which is the worst company of the lot, gets a bonus of £75,000. Who will say after that that there is no favouritism? The late Financial Secretary to the War Office said, with regard to one of these instances, and one of the most glaring instances, "I am responsible for it; the responsibility is mine." And Lord Salisbury said, "Very well, if the responsibility is yours, then out you go." Then the Secretary to the Admiralty jumps lip, and ho says, "The responsibility is also mine." And Lord Salisbury practically said, "Then off you go as well." And so they both disappeared, and have been dismissed into the Privy Council, which is now made a kind of laager for the undesirables of the Ministry. That is the case as far as Kynochs is concerned. The only other point is this, that afterwards, in spite of the report of the Inspector that Kynochs provided the worst cordite, in spite of the fact that they were more in arrear than all the other companies put together, they received 6d. per lb. more than their competitors. All the other companies put together were 50,000 in arrear with their orders, but Kynochs alone had arrears amounting to 240,0001bs. Even their orders for 1898 were in arrear, and they were the only company whose orders for that year were in arrear. Kynochs' orders for 1900 were also in arrear. Kynochs produce worse cordite, according to the testimony of the Inspector, and still they are paid 6d. per lb. more; they get opportunities of revising their tenders, and they also get large orders; in fact, this was a company which was so much favoured by the Government that the Storekeeper to the Navy said, "Kynochs is one of the companies built up by the Navy." There is one other fact with regard to Kynochs which I wish to mention before I dismiss it, and it is full of significance. When the present Government came into office it was very interesting to observe the change which took place in the value of Kynochs' shares. There were no fresh orders, and nothing special had happened, 414 and there was nothing in the way of legitimate trade to account for this. And yet, comparing the value of Kynochs' shares the month before the election which put the present Government in power—I do not mean the last election, but the 1895 election—with the month after the General Election, what do we find is the state of things? The shares stood at £15 in the month of May, 1895, but in the following month of August they went up to £20. There was no corresponding rise in the value of other Explosive Companies' shares. The right hon. Gentleman complains that we have made insinuations, and that we have suggested corruption. [Ministerial cries of "Hear, hear."] Well, if hon. Gentlemen opposite insist upon that, then I cannot help it. All I can say is that I have simply stated the facts, and if hon. Members opposite insist upon reading into them corruption, they are doing so upon a bare statement of facts. What I do ask is this—What interpretation does I the Birmingham Stock Exchange place I upon the business? Four-fifths of them arc the right hon. Gentleman's friends, and yet their view of the matter was that the change of Government was worth an addition of thirty-three per cent, to the value of the shares of the company in which the right hon. Gentleman's family held the largest interest. And now comes the significance of the statement made by Mr. Arthur Chamberlain in relation to Tubes. At a meeting the other day he said, 'What was done in Kynochs could be clone in Tubes." Let the House not forget that this is the only case which has been investigated, and the result of the investigation has been to display and expose the most disgraceful condition of favouritism towards one company which, has been manifested, I venture to say, in the present century by any Government Department. I might have referred to other companies, but I will only refer very shortly to the Birmingham Small Arms Company, of which the right hon. Gentleman's brother is the chairman. The only point I make in connection with that is this—that the War Office, in inviting tenders for cycles, have insisted that most of the parts which compose those cycles—I believe the proportion is about nine-tenths—should be manufactured by the Birmingham Small Arms Company, which is not the best company by any means in the cycle trade. There 415 was no reason, as far as quality was concerned, why the parts should have been the manufacture of that company, and Coventry cycle firms could have done all this. There has been an agitation in the trade about this question, and it is only within the last few days that that company has been withdrawn from the Government contracts with regard to cycles. I say that all those are cases which demand the same searching investigation as was given to the case of Kynochs. The right hon. Gentleman has said that we are attacking his private character, but that is not what we are doing at all. Nobody has ever suggested it. All these are published facts, and they are not merely published facts, but they are facts which are necessarily public, for it is information which the law insists upon being open to the public for the information of the public, and for the protection of the public against transactions of this character and others. But although we have discussed his public affairs we have not, in order to defame his political reputation or to destroy his political career, intercepted and published his private correspondence. If we had, then I venture to say that the right hon. Gentleman would have been justified in flinging at us some of the epithets which he so freely hurls at his political opponents. But we have done nothing of the kind. We have searched the registers at Somerset House. We have inquired into the evidence published in Blue-books in this House. Those are the facts which we have brought before the House, and those alone, and I do say that they demand an explanation. I say that not merely have we a right to bring these facts before the House, but it is the duty of some Member to do it. They invite explanation, nay, they demand it. It is not that charges of corruption are brought against any Minister of the Crown, for that is not insinuated, but I do say, to use a phrase uttered by the right hon. Gentle man, "it is not treasonable but it is improper." That is exactly the description that can be given to some of these investments. The investments in the Kynochs, Hoskins, some of the Tubes, and Elliots arc not corrupt, but they are certainly improper. My second point is this—that although there is no charge or suggestion of corruption, still things have been done which would set up a precedent which 416 could legitimately be used later on to justify corruption itself. Corruption is a question of intention and of motive, but the House of Commons, in framing regulations of this kind, cannot inquire into motives. You cannot say that because A has a small interest, infinitesimal it is true, he is exactly the sort of man who would not do a thing corruptly. B has a large interest. His family have huge influence, but B is a high-minded man, and who shall profess that he is disinterested? You cannot say that. You are bound to examine the facts, and to judge upon them. These rules are laid down not altogether to prevent corruption or to hit corruption, but to prevent circumstances that might justify corruption in others. They are rigidly, sternly enforced against the officials of the Civil Service. Supposing one of these unfortunate Civil Service clerks in Ceylon had put money into a land speculation, or had had a hundred shares in the Colombo Commercial Company, which was building huts for the poor Boer prisoners, he would have invited, and would have received, the censure of the Government. Nobody, however, would have said that it was an attack upon his private character, but purely an attack, and a very just attack, upon him in his official capacity. Nobody would have suggested corruption. All that would have been said was that it was highly improper, and ought to be stopped. I know of nothing in regard to which those rules ought to be enforced with greater rigidity than in war contracts. In regard to the influence which is exercised in these there is this to be said, that although no pressure is brought to bear on officials to give contracts to favoured firms, there is a knowledge in the minds of those gentlemen who deal with the contracts, when they are distinguishing between two or three different firms, that there is one firm which has at its back most powerful influence in the Government of the day; and who will suggest that that is not an influence which has to be combated with? Anyone who reads the evidence given before the Select Committee will see that officials at the Admiralty are at a loss to explain why Kynochs are preferred. They used all sorts of reasons, which are false, I do not mean to say intentionally false, but which are entirely incorrect. It was not because Kynochs' goods were better worth; for 417 you find that they were worse. These officials were constantly floundering to find some sort of reason. The real reason they do not know themselves. It was this unconscious influence which they themselves were unable to appreciate—the constant influence of a powerful personality at the back of the company. The right hon. Gentleman himself manifested this in the House of Commons in regard to Kynochs. In 1895 he got up in the House and said—What orders have you given to Kynochs? I have an interest in Kynochs through my constituents.He never explained that he had any other interest—It is true that Kynochs is not in my constituency; it is outside it; but still my constituents are interested, and I want to know what orders have been given to that company.The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War got up and said that an order for five millions of cartridges had been given. "Grotesque," said the right hon. Gentleman; the idea that they should only get an order for five millions of cartridges was grotesque, and they have made up for it ever since. Now there is this danger in regard to these contracts. I do not say it exists with regard to the right hon. Gentleman, but if Ministers of the Crown are allowed to have large interests, direct, or indirect, in firms providing munitions of war to the Government, I know of no greater danger to the peace of the country or to its security. It is not that any Minister you can imagine sitting in this House would ever deliberately, for the sake of promoting his own private interest, engage in war. That is too horrible a suggestion even to think of, and I do not suggest it. But there is again the subtle influence of the constant action of a man's permanent interest upon his judgment. It does give him a bias without his knowing it. Take the case of Kynochs. A very remarkable speech was delivered by the chairman of that company two years ago. If he did it deliberately, I know nothing more horrible; but he arrived at his conclusions by the unconscious operation of that personal bias. I take this instance as an illustration of what may happen in the case of a private individual in this com- 418 pany, and I hold that it may also happen to a Minister of the Crown. I take from The Times report. He said—The trade with Persia was taken away from us because Mr. [now Baron] Curzon was of opinion that the Birmingham goods supplied to Persia went to the Afridis to shoot down our own soldiers.Mr. Arthur Chamberlain said that that was not true. If anyone said to Mr. Arthur Chamberlain that he was supplying ammunition to commit the Armenian atrocities or the massacres in Crete he would repudiate it with anger, and yet, unconsciously, that was the point he was putting in his speech. If anyone were to say to him, "Don't send your cartridges to Persia, because they are used to shoot down our own troops," I believe that he would have said, "Certainly, I would not send a single cartridge, even if Kynochs go without a dividend." I say that this illustrates the great danger of Ministers having an interest in these contracts in this country. I have stated the whole of the facts, and I am exceedingly obliged to the House for their kindness in listening to me so long. I put it again, that I brought the subject forward on the ground of the importance of ensuring that regulations of this character, as laid down by the right hon. Gentleman himself, should be rigidly enforced. We have a proud pre-eminence as a country in this matter. One of the first things anyone hears after crossing the Atlantic is charges of corruption brought against public men in connection with public municipalities, and even the State. It is suggested that contracts are given purely from influence, and if anyone draws a contrast between that country and this his heart is filled with British pride at the purity of our statesmanship. I do not say that the Secretary for the Colonies or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has done anything to lower the standard of proud pre-eminence which we enjoy as a country in this matter. What I do say is that they have given legitimate ground for uneasiness, and, above all, they have established precedents, which, if they are followed, would lead to something infinitely worse than anything I have spoken of to-day. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
§ * MR. SOAMES (Norfolk, S.)in seconding the Amendment, said that the hon- 419 Member for Carnarvon had brought forward certain specific charges which, no doubt, were deserving of explanation, but he did not propose to follow the hon. Member in that line for two reasons. In the first place, the hon. Members referred to had not yet had an opportunity of offering any explanation of the matters in question; and in the second place he desired to keep any observations he made free, from any personalities. The subject was far more important than the personality or position of any member of this or any other Government, be he never so conspicuous. It was the purity, dignity, and honour of public life in this country. The principle the Amendment endeavoured to enforce was that under no circumstances should a Minister of the Crown, or any member of the Government, be involved or interested in any commercial undertaking in such a manner that his private interests might conflict, or even appear to conflict, with his duty as a trustee for the interests of the nation. This principle had been recognised many times and in many ways. As was well known, there was an Act of Parliament dealing with the position of M.P.'s and the contracts of the Government passed in the 22nd of the reign of George III., which prohibited any private Member from being interested in any Government contract. That Act, as was pointed out by Sir Erskine May in his "Parliamentary Practice," did not affect incorporated trading companies, but it imposed a penalty of £500 on any Member for sitting or voting if he was interested directly or indirectly in any Government contract. This Amendment asked the House to go one step further as regarded Ministers than the Act of 1782, and to say that they should have no interest in any Government contract even as shareholders in an incorporated trading company. He thought there was very good reason for asking the House to take that step, because since 1782 the growth of incorporated trading companies had been such that we had now to deal with a state of things which was never contemplated by the framers of the Act of that year. The growth of companies had been extensive, and sometimes peculiar. There was the one-man company and the practice of giving a small share to clerks and others in order to form a company, which was an evasion of the spirit of the law. The whole capital of 420 a company with the exception of one £10 note might be held by two gentlemen, one of whom might be the head of a Government Department, giving contracts to that company, and yet he would be within his legal rights in so doing. He did not suggest that there was any probability of such a scandal occurring, but at the same time it ought not to be possible for it to occur. He agreed with the Secretary for the Colonies, when speaking of the case of Sir Hercules Robinson, that the principle of Cæsar's wife was the only true principle which should govern the action of Ministers where any suspicion of possible conflict between public duty and private interest might arise in the mind of even the most censorious of critics The connection of members of the Government with an undertaking of a private description had been a subject of strict scrutiny in the past. The late Mr. Gladstone made it a rule that no members of his Cabinet should be directors of companies. The House rejoiced that the new President of the Board of Trade had resigned a directorship which he held, and that Lord Hardwicke, on being appointed Under Secretary for India, had relinquished his active connection with the Stock Exchange. The late Mr. Mundella, a man of the highest integrity, resigned the president ship of the Board of Trade under circumstances which would be remembered. In 1876 the late Lord Henry Lennox, Commissioner of Works in Mr. Disraeli's Government, was director of the Lisbon Tramways Company, promoted by the late Albert Grant. An action was brought in the High Court and it was disclosed that there had been fraud on the part of the promoters and want of proper care on that of the directors. The matter was commented on by the then Lord Chief Justice. The attention of Mr. Disraeli was called to the matter, as it did not appear that either he or Lord Henry Lennox would take any action, and Lord Henry Lennox immediately resigned his office. The Times, commenting on the resignation of Lord Henry Lennox and upholding a standard of political purity, said—
It was clear something would have to be done. It was the duty of someone to open an inquiry, but who would do it? It appeared yesterday that Mr. Trevelyan undertook the necessary, if ungrateful, duty of showing that the House of Commons was not careless of the character of its Members, especially when also Ministers of the Crown.421 And it was this necessary, if ungrateful, duty which they had undertaken that day. He regretted that there should have been any necessity to restate the principle which should govern the action of the House and members of the Government—the principle of Caesar's wife—and he had presumed to restate it because it was of vital importance to the welfare of public life in this country.
§
Amendment proposed—
At the end of the Question to add the words, 'And we humbly beg to represent to Your Majesty that Ministers of the Crown and Members of either House of Parliament holding subordinate office in any public Department ought to have no interest direct or indirect in any firm or company competing for contracts with the Crown, unless the nature and extent of such interest being first declared, Your Majesty shall have sanctioned the countenance thereof and when necessary shall have directed such precautions to be taken as may effectually prevent any suspicion of influence or favouritism in the allocation of such contracts.'"—(Mr. Lloyd-George)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ * Colonel MILWARD (Warwickshire, Stratford-on-Avon)I should not have intervened in this debate but for the fact that represent a Midland constituency, in addition to which I take a very deep interest in the honour and welfare of my right hon. friend the Colonial Secretary and my hon. friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The honour of all public men is the property of the nation, but those who live in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colonial Secretary and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and have taken so great an interest in their political career, have a peculiar interest in defending them. The House must not hide from itself the fact that under the somewhat specious garb of an Amendment, there might be a desire, and the result of this Amendment if carried will be, to hurl the Colonial Secretary from public life. The inference to be drawn from the Amendment is that the influence of the Colonial Secretary has been used to obtain Government contracts for firms in which members of his family were interested, and, of course, if such a charge could be maintained it would be impossible for a man to maintain his position in public life. For years accusations have been made with that object, and last year 422 letters were purchased from a discharged clerk in the hope of terminating his career. They could not wonder under the circumstances that hon. Members on that side of the House, and many on the other side, should desire that these matters which had been mentioned in the press of this country, and also in foreign countries, should be cleared up, or at all events that the House should be put in possession of the facts. He was not entirely in accord with what fell from a previous speaker in regard to directorships. There were directorships and directorships, and so long as the House of Commons and public life in this country was constituted as it was, and so long as men engaged in business pursuits were expected to take part in the Government there would be Ministers connected with trading companies, for it was impossible for a man to give up his whole career in life for a year or two in office. He presumed that many Members of the House were shareholders in the Army and Navy Stores or the Civil Service Co-operative Stores. Was it possible to go and ask whether they were contractors-to the Government or not? That was exactly the case with regard to the major part of the accusations against the Colonial Secretary. There were many Members in the House who could not say whether the companies in which they were interested were benefited by Government contracts. Mr. Arthur Chamberlain was well known in the Midlands as a man with splendid business qualities; his connection with Kynochs had raised that firm from a very low ebb to a position of prosperity, and it was ridiculous to susgest that he should sever his connection with the business because his brother became Colonial Secretary. If there was any special preference shown to Kynochs it was shown first of all by the late Administration. He entirely approved of their having an order for ammunition. We must maintain every ammunition company in order that we might have the supplies we wanted in time of war. He did not know anything about the question whether one company got more orders than another. He had no doubt that when Mr. Arthur Chamberlain presented himself at the War Office, either during the last Administration or this, the fact that he bore the name of Chamberlain must have been a point in his favour. If anyone called there bear- 423 ing the name of Campbell-Bannerman or Harcourt it would undoubtedly create a feeling in his favour. The Colonial Secretary did not hold a share in the company, and, though naturally connection with the family of a well-known public man was a point in his favour, Mr. Arthur Chamberlain was strong business man enough to obtain orders for cordite or any other ammunition without that connection. The firm of Hoskins was mainly the business of Mr. Neville Chamberlain, and in it the Financial Secretary held a twelfth of the capital, and it had been stated that the firm enjoyed a small Admiralty contract bringing in about £600 a year. He could not see that in this the Financial Secretary was the least to blame. Of the Birmingham Trust Company he had some knowledge, and undoubtedly the reputation of the Chamberlain family as men of business led business men to invest in the company. Among other businesses the Trust Company invested in Tubes (Limited), and the Colonial Secretary had made the statement that he held no shares in the company. One of the grossest insults he had ever heard in the House was levelled against the Colonial Secretary by the hon. Member for Carnarvon, but upon the question whether the right hon. Gentleman made a truthful statement in this instance there was the balance-sheet of the company. There was not a single word in the balance-sheet to indicate to the Colonial Secretary, or to anybody, that the Birmingham Trust held any shares whatever in Tubes. Limited; and the secretary to the Trust, to whom he had telegraphed on Saturday for the balance-sheet, wrote stating that it was not the custom of that company to publish a statement of its investments in any more detailed form than they had given. With regard to Elliot's Metal Company, the Colonial Secretary did not hold a single farthing in it, nor did his son, except as a trustee. As to the only remaining company—the Ceylon Commercial Company—he believed the Colonial Secretary was one of the original holders in that company twenty-five years ago. It was true that last year they obtained some contract, he did not know what, to build huts in Ceylon; but was it possible to imagine that the Colonial Secretary could have been aware of a contract given away in Ceylon in the middle of last year? Was 424 there anything whatever to bring it to his notice? Even if there were, was ever a charge of corruption founded upon such a slender basis? He knew something about small Government contracts, and, as far as he knew, no house in the Midlands sought them. The Government did not do its business on the same lines as private enterprises; there was none of that long association, and it was often simply a question of a fraction of one per cent. He hoped the House saw that the case for the prosecution was exceedingly slender. He believed so greatly in the honour and honesty of the Colonial Secretary he was perfectly certain that years after his critics and traducers had ceased to be remembered he would be remembered as one of the great Empire builders of this century, and that he would leave to his sons, and to the nation at large, a name that would be remembered for honour and for probity.
§ MR. ROBSON (South Shields)I hope that the Colonial Secretary and the Secretary to the Treasury will not leave the point so entirely untouched as the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I think if my hon. friend the Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs has made one thing clearer than another it is that he does not desire to mix up with this purely public question of administrative purity and propriety any charge of personal corruption. Nobody can deny the facts put forward by the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs, and it is a very serious and significant circumstance that hon. Members opposite should think that that is the natural inference from these facts. The country will be as careful as ourselves to exonerate the Colonial Secretary and the Financial Secretary from charges of personal corruption. I desire to make clear my own personal opinion that it would be in the highest degree unfair to suggest that the Colonial Secretary or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury have directly or consciously sought to influence any contract whatever. I shall be very sorry indeed if in the course of the few observations I propose to make on the subject I should say anything inconsistent with that declaration. It is really a question of public interest and importance that the House has now to consider. It is a question affecting administrative 425 propriety as well as purity, and there cannot be a question of more importance put before the House. The later traditions of the English public service have been all in the direction of preventing public officials from taking up any private interest that might conflict with their public duty. That, certainly, has been the tendency and rule of the Civil Service, and it is also the tendency in municipal corporations. Once let it be thought that this House is disposed to relax the severity of the general understanding, depend upon it, you will very easily have a relapse in administrative purity on the part both of Civil servants and municipal corporations throughout the country. I think I may fairly say this, that the Colonial Secretary, or if not he, at all events the Secretary to the Treasury, has without being conscious of it, without appreciating what was being done, fallen below the municipal standard. They have certainly fallen below the high standard set up by the Colonial Secretary himself, which has been succinctly described as the principle of Caesar's wife. I have always thought that standard was unreasonably high. It resulted in many grave injustices to the lady to whom it was first applied, and I should not like to judge the Colonial Secretary by the standard he has himself set up, but that well-known reference to Cæsar's wife indicates the essential principle on which the statutes on this subject have been based. It would be perfectly idle to make a rule that public officials should not be corrupt or act unfairly in the distribution of contracts. Of course, the object which everybody aims at is to prevent corruption and unfairness, but in order to achieve that you must go a great deal further than that object simpliciter. Your rule must be not only that officers must not be corrupt. That is a matter of opinion as to which people may differ. A rule, if it is to be of any service at all, must prevent public officials from putting themselves in circumstances where there is likely to arise any temptation to a conflict between private interests and public duty. It must seek to put them above suspicion. I am sure that no English Minister occupying a position so much attacked as that of Colonial Secretary is likely to do it. Nobody, indeed, can put himself above suspicion, but you can avoid putting yourself in circumstances to which suspicion would natur- 426 ally attach. That is the utmost, I think, that Caesar would have the right to ask of his wife; it is the utmost we have the right to ask of any public official, high or low. But we have the right to ask chat much. If we merely make a general regulation against corruption or unfairness the result would be that a Minister or official might easily enough take up some private interest which it might become his public duty to check or to oppose. Everybody would naturally suspect that ho would not very adequately fulfil that duty of checking or opposing that private interest. They would suspect; he would deny, and he would have a perfectly clear field for denial, because, of course, no record, no documents were made. If they were made they would not be preserved, and so a kind of gentle pressure might be exercised by one Minister upon his colleagues in order to influence contracts. Any suspicion which might arise would absolutely never be proved in any way whatever, and it would have to remain matter of suspicion. Suspicion would be met on the one hand by the Minister in question with abusive epithets, and, on the other, with charges of corruption. The Minister would be believed by his friends, disbelieved by his enemies, and suspected by a large number of persons who belonged to neither category. That is not by any means a satisfactory position with regard to a public servant in a country like this. It is in order to prevent that condition of things that this sensible rule of the Civil Service has been laid down, and by no one in stronger terms than the right hon. Gentleman himself, that no public servant should take up a private interest which in his public capacity he may be called upon to check. Has the Colonial Secretary or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury broken that rule? That is the point. We do not need to enter into questions of motive, for questions of motive in the strict sense are not really relevant to this inquiry at all. In discussing a question of this importance we ought as far as possible to keep the question of motive out of account altogether. We have to ask, first of all, what is the rule to be observed, and next, has that rule in any serious or substantial sense been infringed? Are these questions decided by the very extraordinary defence put forward by the hon. Member for 427 Central Bradford on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman? I can scarcely think that the Colonial Secretary would authorise such a case as that, for what does it amount to? It ignores the questions I have just stated, and says that it ought to be generally known that in entering public life the Colonial Secretary has lost opportunities by which he might have been many times a millionaire. In other words, he has lost money by the public service. What Members of this House are not in exactly the same position? We have all lost money by the public service, and we are proud of it. It is the special pride and glory of this House that its Members, one and all, are prepared to sacrifice for other, and I hope higher motives, pecuniary gain. I cannot imagine a defence which puts a more unmerited slur on the House at large than the defence put forward by the Colonial Secretary's friend. The rule to which I have referred is not merely to preserve the public official himself from temptation or suspicion. There is another and certainly not less important reason, and, that is that if once it is known that a public official of importance is a shareholder or is pecuniarily interested in some company contracting with the Government it greatly facilitates the task of other persons belonging to the company—entirely without the knowledge of the Minister or official—going to the public departments, and seeking to get a contract on the strength of his name. That appears to be the true inference to be drawn from many of the charges put forward by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. I do not for a moment suppose the Colonial Secretary knew anything about the investment in Tubes or Elliot's Metal Company, but when a public official gives his name as a shareholder in a company, and that company is competing for public contracts, it would be a very remarkable man of business indeed—and certainly it would not be the brother of the Colonial Secretary—who did not, if he could fairly from his point of view, take advantage of the circumstance. We have been told that Mr. Arthur Chamberlain is one of the Best men of business in Birmingham. I certainly am not in a position to make any charges; I only draw the inference from the facts as stated, and it certainly would not be a matter for which the Colonial Secretary should be held responsible, but 428 it is not unlikely that Mr. Arthur Chamberlain has used the name of the Colonial Secretary in connection with this company.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThat is a charge against an absent man. On his behalf I may say that he has never done anything of the kind.
§ MR. ROBSONOf course, I unhesitatingly accept the statement of the Colonial Secretary, and I have ill-phrased my observations if it was not made apparent that really what I was seeking to do was to illustrate the mischief of the name of any public official appearing on the share list of any company seeking for Government contracts. I entirely accept the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and I am sorry I made any reference of the kind. Still, it does not at all deprive my observations of their force as general observations. Look at the inference which is not unnaturally drawn. When one hears of companies in a very unsatisfactory financial position being taken up and put into a most satisfactory financial position in some instances, and into a better financial position in others, it is by no means unnatural that such an inference should be drawn. Has there been any infringement of this rule? It seems to me upon the facts as stated that there has been a substantial and, in one case, a deliberate infringement of that rule. In the case of the Hoskins Company there has been an infringement which may be great or small. The hon. Member who has just spoken made some references to the amount of turnover which may properly be attributed to Government contracts. I do not care whether the amount be great or small. If we were making charges of personal culpability against the Colonial Secretary it would be most material to inquire whether the amount were great or small, but when the charge is one of a breach of a regulation the mere amount is of no importance. What are the circumstances as laid before us of the Hoskins Company? The company is formed among other object to take Admiralty contracts, and in order that it may take such contracts without bringing the promoters within the scope of the statute the number of shareholders is increased to ten or twelve, five of whom are clerks and other persons holding only one share each. It is certainly somewhat curious that the gentlemen promoting this 429 company instead of making the number of shareholders seven, as in the formation of an ordinary company, should have increased it to ten—obviously in order that it might come within the exceptions, and to enable the company to carry out its object of obtaining Admiralty contracts, although its members were members of the Government. It certainly seems that there there is a deliberate intention of forming a company which can take Admiralty contracts and yet not render members of the Government who are also members of the company liable to any penalty.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAM BERLAIN,) Worcestershire, E.There is only one member.
§ MR. ROBSONOnly one? Well, one is quite enough. I am dealing with a question of principle, and whether there is one or half a dozen does not matter. Is there, or is there not, in this instance a breach of this admirable rule? If there has been a breach, what action does the Government propose to take in the matter? There have been other breaches of the ordinary understanding with regard to contracts. My hon. friend has referred to Kynochs, and he says that the official responsible for the contract being given to Kynochs has been in a somewhat rude way dismissed. That official has not been dismissed; he has been made a Privy Councillor; he has received one of the most distinguished honours the Crown can confer, and I do not for a moment suggest that he is not worthy of the honour. But I ask whether that is not to be taken rather as an approval than otherwise of his conduct. Are the Government going to approve or disapprove of the conduct of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in relation to contracts? If they are going to justify it they will approve it. If they do not justify it let this House not allow them to escape upon any assumed charges of personal corruption. Such charges are not made. I gather that the Colonial Secretary and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury are going to treat this question as involving a charge of personal corruption. Very well. If they do so, let them not forget the other charge, which we say is the only charge that we advance. Let them not forget that, if the facts are as stated, there has been a 430 deliberate breach of a rule which is absolutely essential to the purity and good administration of the English civil service, and we have a right to ask the Government whether they mean to approve of this irregularity. If they do, then what might be a very trivial breach, becomes a very serious constitutional matter. The dilemma before the Government is this: either there has or there has not been an irregularity. If there has been they must take some action in regard to it. They must, if it be only by way of a definite expression of opinion, take care that this irregularity is not to be construed as a precedent, and is not to be enlarged into a principle. We are entitled to have either an explicit defence or an explicit disapproval. I pass now to the Colonial Secretary's conduct in regard to Kynochs. The right lion. Gentleman will probably point out that in regard to the bulk of these companies he is not personally concerned in any way whatever, that he knew nothing about the character either of their business or of their profits, and perhaps that he did not know how many companies gather round his own table and under his own roof. Whatever he says I am prepared to accept. But while a public man cannot prevent his family forming themselves into companies to any extent they like, there is one thing he may and must do: he must be careful that he, at all events, does not aid their business purposes without disclosing exactly the relation in which he may stand towards them. Has the Colonial Secretary always done that? The famous cordite debate has boon referred to, in which the then Opposition reproached the Government with not having enough ammunition. The Colonial Secretary was quite entitled to get up as he did and say they ought to get more; he was entitled to say they should get more from Kynochs. But what he said was that he proposed to address the House because of the quite legitimate interest he had in Kynochs. His words wore that—
He believed he was the first Member who had risen who had any kind of connection through his constituency with the manufacture of cordite. He did not think the cordite was actually manufactured in Birmingham, but the firm of Kynoch and Company, whose headquarters were at Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, were cordite manufacturers, and therefore he had the legitimate interest in the matter which, as representing 431 his constituents, he might be expected to have.What would be the meaning which any listener to that declaration would naturally attach to it? He would, of course, take "legitimate interest" to mean that the right hon. Gentleman's interest was purely political, that it was legitimate, as being the interest of his constituents.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINSo it was.
§ MR. ROBSONI daresay it was, but it was also the interest of other than his constituents. I do not say that the right hon. Gentleman, as Member for West Birmingham, in the debate, was not acting upon a legitimate public interest, but when he puts forward the legitimate interest as being that of his constituents in a way which leads the House to suppose that there is no personal or family interest, but purely the interest of his constituents and the interest of the public, does not the right hon. Gentleman then refrain from informing the House, perhaps quite unintentionally, of a very important and material circumstance, namely, that the company he is recommending is a company in which his family is overwhelmingly interested? If the right hon. Gentleman does not think it necessary to inform the House of Commons of the real character of his interest in Kynochs, why should he think it necessary to inform his colleagues; and if he does not think it necessary to inform his colleagues, we have the Colonial Secretary putting up a standard of propriety which involves very grave danger indeed to the public service. He ought, on that occasion, to have been more candid with the House, and he has himself to thank if, after that declaration, when it is discovered that Kynochs now get these large contracts, and this "most favoured nation" treatment, people will suspect him of doing with his colleagues what he did with the House of Commons. Therefore, although I am certain that if the right hon. Gentleman's attention had been called to the circumstances he would have made the declaration which I suggest he ought, yet he cannot very seriously or fairly assume an attitude of indignation at the inferences which he says are being so cruelly and unkindly drawn from his conduct. It is himself who has given the strongest ground for suspicion. I have put the question which lies before the House, and I have put it in order to 432 invite the House to keep the Colonial Secretary and his friends to the real point—namely, what is the rule to be observed, and has it been infringed. What concerns the House is the maintenance of that high standard of administrative purity of which the House and the country has always been so proud.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI approach the subject which has been under discussion in the House with a repugnance which, I think, the House will feel to be natural. I do not think I am unusually thin-skinned. I believe I am ready to take blows in a fair contest with a smiling face. I have often been hard hit with reference to my public actions, and I have never complained, but I have endeavoured I to give as good as I got. I have never complained of any attack made upon me in a fair field and in regard to my public I action; but this is not fair fighting, and I do think it hard that, after twenty five years of Parliamentary service, I should, in the full light of day, have to stand up here and explain to my colleagues on both sides of the House that I am not a thief or a scoundrel. It is all: very well to make unctuous repudiations, such as the hon. and learned Gentleman has just done, of any intention to attack my personal honour—but it is my personal honour that is in question. I hold this feeling so strongly that at one time I decided that when this matter came on; I would make no reply at all, that I would throw myself on the judgment and good feeling of the House. I have thought, however, that that course was not open to me, for reasons with which I need not trouble the House. I shall endeavour to be as brief as possible, and I shall confine myself to the facts and to the general aspect of the Amendment which has been put upon the Paper, about which not a word has been said by any speaker, but upon which the House is to be called upon to vote. Of course, the I Amendment is only a peg on which to hang this personal attack; but it has been S very badly drawn. It is a perfectly monstrous and absurd Amendment, and before hon. Gentlemen on either side of the House vote for it—and again I appeal to both sides—I hope they will allow me to point out to what they will be committed. First of all, I would explain the facts of the case. Now what has happened? Two or three 433 days before the election a certain attack was made upon me, it was continued throughout the election, and pressed even down to the present time. It took the form of a series of statements, alleged facts, many of which I absolutely deny to be true, and which have been repeated tonight—it took the form of a number of alleged facts as to certain companies with which my name was connected by the comments of the writers who dealt with the subject. At the time, I took no notice whatever of them—I had other work to do; and I must admit that they do not appear to have had much influence with my countrymen. Now, what was the general effect of these statements? The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down was careful to repeat again and again that he made no imputation upon my personal honour. That is what these papers said at intervals in the course of the conspiracy of slander to which they lent themselves; and it is true that nobody has made an accusation. It has been a conspiracy of insinuation—which is infinitely worse. Sir, I think that no one has the right to insinuate, as the hon. and learned Gentleman has just done, anything against the honour of a fellow-member, or, indeed, against the honour of any man, unless he is prepared to support it by a direct accusation. What is the result of the form in which these statements have appeared? Why, I do not suppose there are many Members of the House who took the trouble to read them; but let those who have read any of them say whether the suggestion which they were intended to convey was not that I had made an improper and corrupt use of my political and official position in order to benefit either myself or some members of my family. It is all very well for those who made these insinuations to deny the effect which they produced; but I could bring to the House, if I thought it desirable to mix myself up with all this mud, speech after speech made by hon. Members of this House, and by their supporters, in which I was directly charged, in consequence of these insinuations, with fattening upon the profits which I had made out of a war which I had provoked. After all, these, gentlemen may be relieved by the care that they have taken from legal responsibility, but they are not relieved from moral responsibility. The suggestions were intended to be equivalent to 434 charges. There was no accusation! When I had time to give to the matter, I had these papers—the worst of them, the-gutter press—submitted to the highest legal authorities from whom I could obtain any opinion. They have advised. I me that there is no passage which they can find—so carefully has all this business been conducted—that there is no passage which they can find which contains a definite charge upon which I can proceed. But the fact, however, remains that, although there is no charge which I am able to bring to the test of a judicial tribunal, there has yet been produced, not to any great extent in this country, but abroad, an impression that I have been guilty of conduct which would be disgraceful in any man, not to say in any Minister. Now that is the state of facts with which we have to deal. We have heard to-night a réchauffé—an imperfect and incomplete réchauffé—of those: attacks which appeared in certain journals, which must have been carefully prepared beforehand and been obtained with great-trouble and at considerable expense. For months past two gentlemen at least have been employed at Somerset House endeavouring to ferret out everything concerning my private affairs and those of my relations. As far as I myself am concerned they are welcome to all the knowledge they have obtained, and, indeed, if the hon and learned Gentleman had come to me beforehand I would have given him the particulars myself. But they chose to employ these people, and I say it is evident this work must have been done with a particular purpose. It was done in preparation for the General Election, for the time which was selected for the use of the information was about a couple of days before the General Election. In the réchauffé of the facts which has been presented to the House—again I beg the House to understand I do not admit the facts; some of them were facts, many of them were entirely untrue—in this réchauffé of the companies you have an account, more or less imaginative, of a number of companies. You would suppose that the transactions of these companies had something to do with the Amendment which is on the Paper, that if they had not anything to do with the Amendment at least they had something, to do with the Colonial Secretary or with my hon. friend and relative, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who it appears 435 I learn to my great regret, is as bad as his father. But will it not surprise hon. Gentlemen opposite to know that of all the companies that have been mentioned to-night—well, I do not know; I admit I have not read these papers myself—but, as far as I know, of all the companies that have been mentioned in these papers there are only two in which I am a shareholder. Is that not something in the matter? What is the charge? To this I call the attention of the hon. Gentlemen, especially to those whom I see on the Bench opposite, because they have been in the Government, and they may expect to be in a Government again. The attempt in this charge is to make a pubic man responsible, not for his own acts, but for the acts of his relations. I am interested as a shareholder in two of the companies which have been mentioned, and I will deal with them directly. My relations are interested, I have no doubt, although I know nothing about the alleged amount of their interest and details of that kind, but my relations are no doubt interested in the other companies which have been mentioned. And it so happens—fortunately, perhaps, as I think—that those attacks, those scandalous insinuations, have taken a form even more offensive and definite in the case of my relations than they have done in the case of myself, and it also happens that my relations, not being public men, the slander in their case is not protected by that rule of law which gives a great privilege to comments upon public men; and, accordingly, as those who have spoken well know, my relations and those who have been attacked either have taken or intend to take legal proceedings. So far as they are concerned, therefore, we shall see whether the abominable imputations, which may be protected by the privilege of this House, which are protected to a certain extent when they are merely spoken matter, will lie protected when they are in written form, and can be brought in that form before the Courts of law. I have always understood that, when a matter was sub judice and the subject of legal proceedings, it was the ordinary course of this House to refrain from comment. I, at any rate, am not going into the details of companies in which I myself am not a shareholder and in which the only connection I can be alleged to have is that I have got relations who are shareholders. My relations stand for them- 436 selves. I am perfectly certain none of them have done anything to forfeit the character I which they have won in their own districts among those who know them for honourable conduct. It is not my business and I am not going to defend them at the present moment. But now, what I is the motive? The House has listened, as I have said, to what I consider to be a fair second-hand abstract of statements which have appeared in those journals of which I can only speak with the greatest contempt, but what was the impression produced on the House by that long tirade, that dreary flow of potty malignity? Surely everybody must have felt, if the words mean anything at all, that those companies were all companies in which I was directly concerned. What is the motive for bringing in the investments of my relatives, over which I have no control, in which I really have no interest? The motive is to bring me into it, to make me responsible for a thing; over which in no conceivable circumstances can I be responsible. I ask the House, I ask, again, hon. Gentlemen opposite, do they know what are the investments of all their relations? I am not in that position. They do not tell me what they do. I know nothing whatever about it in the vast majority of cases; I do not meddle with their private affairs, and my own public affairs occupy I the whole of my time. Well, Sir, the motive is, and this is the effect of the Amendment—it is a serious business to vote for an Amendment without understanding what it means—the meaning of the Amendment, as explained by those who have supported it, is that a public man is to be held responsible not only for his own, but also for the investments of his relations. ["No, no"] Yes, it is so. It says "any interest, direct or indirect," and "indirect interest" has been explained to be a sort of interest which a. man has in the investments of his family and his friends. Now, Sir, I say that if that view is accepted there is no man who is not a pauper, and all of whose relations are not paupers, who can safely accept public office in this, country. I am not going to retaliate upon attacks which have been made upon me by introducing the names of other people. I think that the facts which have been stated, in so far as they are facts with regard to myself, do not constitute any charge, and accordingly if 437 similar facts can be stated against anybody else, they also do not constitute a charge—the attack is a personal one due to special circumstances—and I do not want to bring anyone else to share my burden. It is not a pleasant thing to be brought into an attack of this kind. But I can speak in general language, and say that if this Amendment and this rule which the House is now asked to sanction had been in operation only a few years ago some of the most distinguished, the most prominent, the most honoured names in our public life, are the names of public men who could never have accepted the the high public offices which they filled with so much distinction. I beg hon. Members on the other side of the House not to be led away by prejudice in this matter. Lot them consider what they arc doing. If they are now going to lay down that rule I bog them to consider that by so doing they will be casting blame on people who I am perfectly certain they would not wish to blame, and they will be putting difficulties in the way of public servants in the future which are really incalculable. Let me ask men of business on both sides of the House—how could it be otherwise? Why, according to this resolution no Minister, and no relation of a Minister, no near relation, and, I suppose, no near friend—beeause some people care more for their friends than for their relations—no one who is near and dear to a Minister must hold investments which involve any possible conflict between his personal interest and the interest and work of the Government to which he belongs.
§ MR. McKENNA (Monmouth, N.)That is not the Amendment.
§ MR. McKENNAThe right hon. Gentleman is wrong. It is "declared."
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Member did not draw the Amendment, and I do not think he is entitled to explain it. Now let us see. I say that is the principle of the Amendment, which is very badly drawn. There are distinctions which it is absolutely impossible to observe. For instance, the only persons who are proscribed are "firms and companies competing for contracts with the Crown." Hoes the hon. Member who drew- this Amendment, whoever ho may be, moan to say that a man who competes 438 for a contract is to be proscribed, and a man who gets a contract without competition is to be allowed to go free?["Oh, oh!"] It is absurd. [Opposition cheers.] Then, I understand it is agreed ["No."]
§ MR. WILLIAM ALLANI bog the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. [Ministerial cries of "Order, order!"] Have patience for a minute. I only want to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question, and you will surely allow me to do that. If an officer of the Crown holds a Governmont appointment, has he aright to enter into any contract to supply a Government with stores?
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe question is a very proper one, but it is absolutely irrelevant. I think there must be some misunderstanding as to what the argument is. My argument is that this principle, that the private interests of no Member in the position of a Minister shall conflict with his public interest as a Minister, must go much further than the I resolution provides. If the resolution I were passed to-night we should have to amend it to-morrow in the direction of extending it; and in the first place we should have to say that a man who deals with the Government without a contract is, of course, more properly put under supervision than the man who deals with the Government by open tender with some of his competitors. Surely that follows as a matter of course. But there is something much more important than this. For some reason unknown to me, the mover of the Amendment has omitted investments in land, in Consols, in foreign and colonial securities. Now surely it is a matter of common sense: that you could not exclude them on this principle. It is perfectly clear and conceivable that a person who has invested in land or in Consols or in foreign or colonial securities may have a greater personal interest in a direction opposed to the public interest than the man who happens: to have taken an insignificant contract with the Government. That is all I am pointing out. If you are to deal with; this thing you must deal with it widely and broadly, and you must exclude every; probable conflict of interest between the I pecuniary interest of the Minister and the public interest of the Crown. No one will deny that. Will hon. Members consider in these circumstances who in future 439 should be a Minister of the Grown? I have been trying to find out. I have gone through, the list of securities. You cannot invest in railways: railways come under the Amendment, because they may have a contract with the Crown. You cannot invest in shipping companies; you cannot invest in mines or in trust companies, because they have an investment in some other security which does contract with the Government. You cannot invest in a trading or manufacturing company, because there is nothing which is made in this country which is not an article required by the Crown in connection with one or other of its departments, and which may not, therefore, be a subject of contracts with them. Therefore, I wish again to call attention to the fact that by accepting the principle of this Amendment you will be practically prohibiting any one in future from being a member of a Government who has any money whatever outside the salary of his position.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI think this is an occasion when at least the man who is making a defence against an attack of this kind might be allowed to proceed without interruption. The hon. Member, I understood, stated that I should not give out contracts. I have not given out any contracts—certainly no contracts connected with any one of the companies to which reference has been made. Now, I press on the House the fact that a regulation of this kind, very strictly limited as it is, is enough to prevent, I confidently believe, every single member of both front benches from again taking office. Remember, it goes further. You have not only to answer for yourselves. If it were possible, which I do not think it is, for anyone who has any investment whatever to answer for himself, it is not possible for him to answer for his relations. It is perfectly absurd and ridiculous; and yet if his relations, even without his knowledge, have an interest in any of these companies specified which come within the principle of the Amendment, he is to be held indirectly responsible. That is so, and I beg hon. Members who have any responsibility, who are dealing with this question on grounds of public interest and not on grounds of personal feeling, to consider what they are doing 440 what they will bring on themselves. If they commit themselves to this principle they cannot complain hereafter if their private affairs and those of their relations are examined in order to see whether they have any interest, however small, in contracts. What is the case with regard to these companies in which my relations are interested? My relations are all men of business. They are all men who have to make their own fortunes or obtain their own subsistence. I come of a family which boasts nothing of distinguished birth, or of inherited wealth; but who have a record—an unbroken record of nearly two centuries—of unstained commercial integrity and honour. It may be weakness, but I admit that an attack upon that affects me more than any other attack that could be made. Sir, my relations, as I say, have this character where they live. They arc largely engaged in business on their own account. They are sought for as directors and as the chairmen of companies because they are known not to be, to use a proverbial expression, "guinea-pigs"; never to go into a company without having a large proportionate interest of their own, and without giving the best of their time and labour to the work of the company. Really, Sir, I do not whether I ought to reply; and yet, when the honour of an absent man is in question, it hardly seems fair to let these abominable insinuations pass. It is insinuated that my brother, who has" a very high reputation for business capacity, raised the shares of a company, to the chairmanship of which he was invited, by some statement intended to convey to the shareholders that he had an influence, an improper influence—for it would have been improper if he had had it—which he would exercise on their behalf. The statement is absolutely false. Nothing of the kind was said; nothing of the kind was believed by any person present. The shares of that company, which was in a bad way, went up, in spite of the depressing account of the circumstances of the company by my brother, because people believed, whether rightly or wrongly, that when a man of my brother's capacity took the reins matters would improve. And they have improved. But not for the reasons which were given to this House—reasons purely imaginary, imputations of motives all imaginary, suggestions all dictated by a malice which really seems to me phenomenal. 441 About the companies in which my relations are engaged, I leave them to defend in themselves in the law courts from the special slanders directed against their name; and I say, with regard to them, that I cannot prevent, whatever anyone else may do, my relations from investing in anything they please. They never consult me I cannot control them; I should not have the slightest influence j upon them if I interfered; and I cannot prevent them from taking Government contracts, if they can get them in the j ordinary course of their business. But I this I can and do say, and I think it is all I that the House, in its fairness, will ask of any Minister—that whether as a private Member or as a Minister, never have I been asked to interfere, nor ever have I interfered, never have I been asked to use my influence, nor have I ever used it, in order to secure any pecuniary gain for myself or for my relatives in any improper way whatsoever. It may be said, "Why do you make that qualification?" Because it might be said that I sought office for myself, and that that was a pecuniary gain. I am obliged to be careful, because comment upon my language has become so severe. I mean, what I think the House understands, that I have never assisted anyone who has any connection, either as friend or relative, to obtain a contract or to gain any kind of advantage. Now, as to two cases—for there are only two cases—in which I am admittedly interested. I am a shareholder in two companies—the Colombo Commercial Company and the Birmingham Trust Company. Sir, I used to think that the extreme of virtue to which the Opposition desired to bring us was that rule which they themselves adopted, and by which they precluded any members of their Government—
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURNo, their Cabinet.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINOh, I thought it was their Government—or their Cabinet, then—from holding any private directorship. Well, I think it is a great mistake to make any rule of that kind, as the circumstances under which directorships are held are so different that you might prevent the country from having the advantage of the services of the most desirable men by making a general rule. Of course I can see, however, that there are arguments with 442 regard to many directorships which would lead to such a result with any practical, right-thinking man. But if that were all that were asked for, I, at any rate, am free from reproach. Almost immediately after I entered Parliament, I gave up my directorships, and I have never accepted the many offers of directorships which have been made to me since. Not at all because I think that there was any necessity for such a self-denying ordinance, but because I have preferred to have my time entirely at my own disposal, to be able to give it without reserve to my public work. But this Amendment goes a great deal further than the late Government. Are right hon. Gentlemen opposite prepared to accept it and say that in future, if they are called upon to form a Government, they will not allow any of their colleagues or their relations to hold shares? I am content to take it merely that they will themselves hold no shares which can possibly bring them into conflict with the work of the Government. Even in that respect—if this resolution is aimed at me, as I believe it to be—it does not touch me. Under the circumstances in which I stand I should not have to make any such declaration as is suggested in the Amendment before the House. Why, Sir, I admit that I am almost ashamed to have to talk about matters which most people like to keep private; but I am bound to do it, and I hope that the House will boar with me. When I went into public life I gave up private business altogether. I withdrew my capital, such as it was. I had to invest it somehow, but I have endeavoured in the whole course of my public life to be in the position in which Caesar's wife should have been—to give no cause even of suspicion to the most malicious of my opponents. I have done what I could, I defy anyone to do more, I to keep out of investments that seemed likely to bring me into relationship with the Government or public works. I will I take one wise. I was a considerable share holder in the Small Arms Company and in another company, Kynochs. Now, what I did I do? I sold out of both companies, and I sold out of them at a loss; not that I held or hold that there was any moral obligation on me to do so, or that anyone should follow my example—not at all—but because, knowing the kind of criticism to which I have been so frequently subjected during my public life, 443 I thought it desirable in the work which I had to do that I should not be hampered in the discharge of that work by having to reply to charges such as these. That was my reason. I am merely now stating the facts, and I can assure the House that I am not taking any credit for what I did. But what has been the result of my action? The result I will give to the House in a very few words. The result was that, when some charges of the kind I refer to were brought against me in the last session of the last Parliament, I was able to say that I had no interest, direct or indirect, in the supplies of ammunition or of warlike stores to the Government. Sir, that is perfectly true, so true at any rate that no possible exception can be taken to it when I repeat it. But, of course, when I spoke of "indirect interest" I did not mean the interest of my relations. Because, and it is part of my statement, my brother, as is well known, is chairman of Kynochs. That is a great company, carrying on a great business, employing thousands of hands, and doing, as I have said, an enormous trade, and the fact that my brother was chairman was one that could not be hid under a bushel. But by "direct or indirect'' I mean direct or indirect pecuniary interest. I have troubled the House with this statement because the accusation has been made, and it has been repeated to-day, that I was in connection with the two public companies to which I have referred. Sir, those statements as to my connection with the companies and us to I my interest in them are untrue. Now I come to another matter, which has reference to another company—the Colombo Commercial Company. I think somewhere about thirty years ago I obtained an interest in some tea and coffee concerns in Ceylon. I have long since ceased to have that interest. Both companies advised their shareholders that it would be in their interest that another company should be formed in order to act as commission agents for them, to pack their goods, deal with matters of exchange, and things of that kind. On these recommendations I joined the company on its formation twenty-three years ago. As it happens, the company has never had a quotation on the Stock Exchange, and accordingly if I wanted to get rid of my shares I had no means of doing it, but I did not want to get rid of them. I mean to keen them. 444 So far as I know, and as the report shows, the business of commission agents has been conducted by them ever since. I know nothing whatever of any change in the business of the company—nothing whatever—which, as I have said, I joined twenty-three years ago. When I saw this statement in the papers I telegraphed to Colombo, and I find that in an emergency, having to provide for Boer prisoners, without communicating with the Colonial Office, the authorities in Ceylon on their own responsibility gave an order to this company as well as to others to build a certain number of huts for the use of the Boer prisoners. As far as I understand about the business, the contract was not a large one. I can only speak from my understanding of the telegram which was sent to me. I imagine that this contract amounts to about £5,000. Now no accusation is, we are told, made against the Colonial Secretary, yet twice in this House already, and last by the hon. and learned Member, who is the very last person from whom I should expect such a blow, it has actually been suggested that the Colonial Minister sent the Boer prisoners to Ceylon in order that the company in which he was interested might reap a profit.
§ MR. ROBSONI hope I may be allowed to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. It is quite a mistake. I made no reference whatever to the Boer prisoners. The right hon. Gentleman is evidently confusing the remarks of some other speaker with mine. I certainly made no allusion whatever to the sending of Boer prisoners to Ceylon.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI accept that statement of the hon. and learned Member with the greatest pleasure; I accept the repudiation; but there are others, perhaps not himself, who have made that insinuation against me. Now I ask the House to consider this case. Here am I solemnly arraigned before the High Court of Parliament and before the whole nation because twenty-three years ago I invested in a company of my interest in which I have been unable since to divest myself even if I had wished to do so. If I wanted, on principle, to protect myself, to choose a company which would not implicate me, or which would have no part whatever in any Government contract, I think I could not fairly have chosen a better company than this in 445 Ceylon. And it is on this flimsy foundation that these insinuations are based. Sir, then there is a company called the Birmingham Trust Company. It is one of the many companies of that description which exist in all our largo towns. It is formed to invest money chiefly in local concerns and securities generally. People like myself who have no time whatever to deal with their own private affairs find such a company a convenient means of investment. The chairman of the company is a highly respected Birmingham Alderman, who has a reputation for shrewdness and business capacity, in whom great confidence is felt. I was very glad to entrust a small sum to his care in the hope that he might invest it for me; but it never entered into my head that under any conceivable circumstances that could bring me any responsibility for the investments which that company might make without my knowledge. Part of the business of this company is that it should not disclose its investments, for to disclose its affairs would destroy the chances of profits. These trust companies are truly trust companies, because those who put their money into them have to trust the directors. I knew absolutely nothing as to the nature of a single investment that this company had made until I was told that they held an investment in "Tubes." If I had known that, I should have thought nothing about it. All I know about Tubes is that it was one of the companies established during the cycle boom to make tubes and cycles, and that it had come to great disaster. Well, since these imputations hare been put about I have made inquiries. I am told that the Birmingham Trust Company has £400,000 invested, and that the value of its investments a short time ago in Tubes was £1,500. It was put higher to-night. I do not know where the information comes from, but that is the information which I have received, and the explanation of the difference may be that, as in other cases that were quoted to-night, the nominal value of the shares may have been taken instead of their actual value. As an hon. friend of mine pointed out, these shares, which are nominally £1 shares, were some time ago quoted on the Birmingham Stock Exchange at 2s.! Now, will the House please follow this out 1 I hold, roughly, I do not know exactly, one- 446 twenty-fifth part of the capital of the-Birmingham Trust Company. It is a very small capital—£120,000 or something like that. Therefore my investment in Tubes is £60! Then let us-follow it a little further. Tubes, we are told, is a company which depends absolutely upon the Admiralty—a company the whole of whose business is done with the Admiralty. I am afraid to say what, but only a very small, percentage of its business is done with the Admiralty. "Tubes" still make, I believe, cycle tubes, but when the boom ceased it had to find some other way of getting rid of its manufactures, and it does make boiler tubes. But a large proportion of its-trade is with private contractors and not with the Government, and since my brother has taken over the business; the direct business with the Admiralty has. very considerably decreased. So that if, as was kindly suggested, my brother indicated to his shareholders that they might rely on his influence with the Government to get good orders, to raise Tubes to a position of prosperity, it appears that he has not carried out his beneficent intention, but that, on the contrary, he is so little satisfied with the transactions with the Government that he prefers to deal with private individuals. Again, let me ask the House, is it not hard to deal with such rubbish as this? Here, without my knowledge, involuntarily, by a casual accident which I could not possibly fore-I see, it appears that I, in investing in a neutral company, become interested to-the extent of £60 in a company which does perhaps 5 per cent.—I do not know what it is, but let us say 5 per cent.—of its business with a Government Department. Work it out arithmetically, and it will be found that my interest in Government contracts in this matter is-confined to a few pounds or a few shillings. And for that the House of Commons is called upon to pass a solemn resolution, which will no strike me, but which will be a self-denying ordinance for many members who do not, however, anticipate that result. It would not strike. I me. If it had been in operation, how could I have "declared" that, holding shares-in the Colombo Commercial Company, a company which acted as commission agent, for tea companies—how could I possibly-have known that that company would, have competed for contracts, or would 447 have been given a contract by a Government which acts for itself, and over which I have no control? How could I have "declared" the Birmingham Trust Company, about whose investments I knew nothing and could know nothing? No, Sir, I think that my opponents in this matter have gone altogether beyond what was necessary in the endeavour to injure me, and they have proceeded in a way which is calculated to lower the character of the House of Commons. I have said, I think, all that I consider necessary. If the object of those who entered into this conspiracy was to give pain, I must admit that they have succeeded. They have given pain to a great number of people, private individuals, who are not politicians, who are not public men, who have seen their private affairs, with comments of the most malicious character, dragged into the fierce light of public criticism, for no crime except that they happen to be related to the Colonial Secretary. They have not injured me. They have not injured my cause. I have never received so many kindly letters and assurances of support and sympathy as I have done during the last few weeks. But they have introduced into our public life methods of controversy which are unworthy, and have made it more difficult for honourable, sensitive men to serve the State.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI am reluctant to trespass further upon the time of the House with personal matters, following closely upon a relative of my own. But I have been joined in these attacks, my name has been frequently mentioned in the course of the debate, and I think it is due to the House that I should make a statement—I hope a very brief statement—of my position as far as I am concerned in these matters. I have been attacked in two capacities. I am attacked because I hold shares in a company called Hoskins and Sons (Limited), and because I hold shares in other companies, not on my own account, but as a trustee for others. I may say, as regards all the other companies with which my name has been connected, that I have no personal interest of my own in them, and the shares which stand in my name are not my shares, but shares which I hold with other people as a trustee, and I hardly think that the House will expect 448 me to say much more about them. I do not think they will wish to lay it down—although the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs put both classes of shareholders on the same basis, and submitted to the House that it was as incompatible with the duty of a Minister of the Crown to hold shares as a trustee for others in one of these companies as to hold shares for himself—that a man is to be incapacitated from discharging the duties which he has promised to undertake as trustee because the major portion of his time is given up to the public service. I now come to the Hoskins Company The charge in regard to that company is twofold. I have been attacked for holding shares in that company at all, and, not content with that, the mover: seconder of this Amendment proceeded to allege that on the formation of that company I had deliberately taken steps evade the law on the subject of the. I interest of Members of Parliament in public companies doing business with the Government—that I had departed from the ordinary practice in the promotion of companies with the deliberate intention of being able to trade with the Government. In stating that charge against me. it was said by the hon. Member for Carnarvon that it was the almost universal practice to have seven people named in the formation of a company, and that for the purpose of evasion I had used tea names in connection with Hoskins Company. I might content myself with replying that I had nothing whatever to do with the formation of the company. But I go further, and, having inquired into the matter, I am informed that what the hon. Member stated as facts—as he stated every insinuation, every allegation, and every invention in the course of his speech was a fait—are not facts at all. I am told that the company was formed with seven shareholders—the vendor- of the company, the manager of the vendor, who is now the managing, director of the company, and five clerks in the office of the solicitor who dealt with the legal matters connected with the formation of the company, these clerks, being put in, as I believe is usual in such cases, for the convenience of dealing with documents which have to be signed and holding the necessary meetings which are preliminary to the formation of the company. Therefore the company was formed in the ordinary way with the number of. 449 seven, and the other shareholders came in later. That is my answer to the insinuation that I went out of my way to defeat the law, or to evade the intentions of Parliament. Now, about my holding shares in the company. I held these shares whilst I was at the Admiralty. A very small portion of the company's business was done with the Board of Admiralty, and it was no part of my duty as a member of the Admiralty Board to deal with this class of contracts. I never knew when ^tenders were invited. I never knew what firms were invited to tender. I never saw the tenders, and never knew when the contracts were given out, or to whom they were given out. Did the Leader of the Opposition make an?
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)I did not speak openly. But what I said was that probably, being a Civil Lord, you had nothing to do with them. It was not in your Department.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThat is perfectly right. Being a Civil Lord, I had nothing whatever to do with these contracts. In the words of the right hon. Gentleman, it was not in my Department. I wish he had pointed out that fact to the hon. Members behind him who have made these accusations. These are the facts, as far as I am concerned. I have only one word more to say. The hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment accused me—I am dealing with what concerns myself—of having set a bad precedent. The hon. Gentleman opposite said—he made no charge—he only said that we had committed a deliberate breach of a rule essential to the purity of the Civil Service. What does he mean by that? What is the rule, hitherto maintained, which I have broken? I held a directorship while I was at the Admiralty. I have not been accused on that account to-night. Does the hon. Gentleman mean that there was a rule against directorships? He knows or ought to know—although it appears to be forgotten—that the late Government never laid down a rule that its members should not hold directorships, and I myself sat, until I joined this Government, on the board of a company with a member of the Front Bench opposite. I make no charge against him. But I say that at least hon. Members 450 opposite, before they accuse us of having broken down that high standard of public honour which they say they set, should know what their own standard really was. Do they mean that it was a deliberate breach of this essential rule that I should hold shares in a company which did business with the Admiralty as I myself was a member of the Board? If they mean that, this rule, which has not existed in the past, if it had existed would have excluded from Boards of Admiralty chosen from their own side of the House some of the most distinguished and most honoured naval administrators. I have made no new departure in the action which I have I taken; I have set no precedent; I have trodden on ground where the footsteps of my predecessors were before me; and, as I bring no charge against them, and I hold that no charge can be brought, so I feel that I have nothing to be ashamed of, and that nothing that I have done has brought discredit upon the position which I have had the honour to hold in this | House or in the Government.
§ * MR. HALDANE (Haddingtonshire)I have listened with close attention to this debate. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary said at the outset of his speech that it was with deep repugnance he entered upon the consideration of this matter, but I can assure him that it is at least with as deep a feeling of repugnance that I feel it my duty to take a part in this debate. I accept unreservedly—I have never had any doubt about it—the assurance of the absolute purity of motive which has actuated both the right hon. Gentleman and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I have known but little of this discussion. I never referred to contracts during the elections, nor were they discussed in my constituency. Neither did I ever make any charge against the Colonial Secretary, for whose ability, in many respects, I have high admiration. But when I listened to all that he said, and to all the hon. Member who has just spoken has said, I remain with the feeling that there is something yet which remains unsatisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman said that the motion of my hon. friend was not fair fighting. He also said that he was not a thief nor a scoundrel, and ho spoke of personal attacks and investigations at 451 Somerset House. The right hon. Gentle man seems to me to misapprehend altogether the position of the attack—if he likes to call it so—made on him by hundreds and thousands of reasonable people in various parts of the country who have, no dislike to him. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that this matter can be disposed of by being reduced to a personal attack. I would reply in the language of the Spectator, which the other day in a leading article on this very topic said—
But, in spite of these high qualities, he would lie very much better for a little more discretion and more prudence, and a little more ability to see that the world cannot be run on the dilemma: Either I am trustworthy or I am not. If I am worthy of trust, then it is shameful and malignant not to trust me all in all.' He forgets that we must think of other people besides himself, and of other generations besides the present.As far as I am concerned, my case is just the case which has been put by the Spectator newspaper. I feel that these things produce a sense of unrest and uneasiness in the public mind. Remember how the man in the street looks upon the Government. He regards the Government as a national institution of which he is proud, and he looks upon it in the same light as he looks upon the judges of the land. Let us remember the case of other people besides those holding high office in the Government. If any judge of the land were to give judgment in a case in which he was interested to the extent to which the right hon. Gentleman is interested in these matters, his judgment, not from any implication of personal motive, but on high grounds of public policy, would be void. That has occurred over and over again. Take the case of civil servants. I am reluctant to quote once more the rule which the right hon. Gentleman himself laid with regard to civil servants and which was as follows—No officer shall be allowed to engage in commercial pursuits or purchase shares in any local land company, nor shall any officer make or continue an investment which may interest him privately in any private or public undertaking with which his public duty is connected. All officers shall confidentially consult the Government as regards the investment which may be reasonably open to doubt.That may be an extremely difficult thing, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, for any Minister to carry out. I know how difficult it is to find investments, and I know how careful Ministers have to be, 452 but yet Ministers are under special obligations. I am perfectly certain—I accept his word most implicitly—that the right hon. Gentleman has neither the time nor the inclination to give attention to these matters. I recollect the debate which took place in this House on the holding of directorships, and I remember a plain speech delivered by an hon. Member on the Government side, the Member for the Whitby Division, an hon. Member of large business experience, in which he told the Government that the difficulty about these things was not what Ministers did, not the purity of their motive, but the misconstruction to which their action gave rise in the public mind. I, for one, feel that it is desirable in the highest degree that there should be no misconception. How does the matter stand? I do not for a moment attribute any sinister motive to the right hon. Gentleman or to anyone connected with him. But these are bad things to happen. I think the Government in the beginning of its career in 1895 had not been careful to maintain the high standard to which we are accustomed, and I trust the time will come when this House will go back on the standard which was laid down long ago. [An Hon. Member: What standard?] First of all the standard I have referred to in the case of judges and civil servants, and now I refer to the spirit of the Act of Parliament.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINWhy do you not refer to the standard set by the previous Government?
§ * MR. HALDANEThe standard of I the previous Government was a very different standard from that of this I Government. I know a case in which a Minister on accepting office sold out investments at great sacrifice, which were as nothing in connection with his position in the Government, compared with those which have been spoken of to-night.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINIt is relations you want to sell out.
§ * MR. HALDANEThe right hon. Gentleman is giving the go-by to the real point.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINNo, it is you.
§ * MR. HALDANEI am replying to the case put by the right hon. Gentleman, 453 and I am pointing out that these high standards were insisted on and acted up to.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINNo, they were not.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINNot in all cases.
§ * MR. HALDANEI suppose the right lion. Gentleman knows exactly the course adopted by all the members of the late Cabinet.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINBy some of them.
§ * MR. HALDANEThe right hon. Gentleman admits that some members of the late Cabinet set a high example.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINNo, I do not. I believe they all set a high standard, but what I say is that some of them—as to the others I know nothing—were in the same position that the hon. and learned Gentleman is now stigmatising.
§ * MR. HALDANEI am in this different position from the right hon. Gentleman: that I know one case where a Minister sold out investments far exceeding in value anything we are discussing to-night. What we have got to consider is the spirit of the rule which Parliament has laid down, It was in the last century that the Act regulating these things was passed, and it declared that no person occupying a public position should have an interest in Government contracts, and the exception to that was the case of incorporated companies. In those days incorporated companies were comparatively rare things. The companies such as we know to-day had not come into existence, and when we consider that incorporated companies in those days were rare, and when we consider what the principle of j the Act was, the rule is clearly laid down that it is undesirable that persons in j public positions should be materially concerned in transactions with the Government. We are to day face to face with things that have caused unrest and uneasiness in the country, and, further, I say we have not got to the end of them. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman, but if these things are allowed to go further, and if the example he sots is followed by others, we shall open a floodgate which we will never be able to close. The right hon. Gentleman asks, what is the charge 454 which we bring and what is the criticism we make? I say the criticism we make is that these things produce unrest and uneasiness in the public mind, and that they afford a bad example. [An Hon. Member: What things?] The things are the holding of shares, or being indirectly interested in lithe shares of companies which contract: With the Government. Take the case of Hoskins. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury says that he is a considerable shareholder in Hoskins; so are other members of his family. I say that these things show a want of attention. What is the real interest of the public in the matter? It is that the Ministry should, by their conduct, be free from all misconception or suspicion in the public I mind. I accept implicitly the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that no motive of a sinister kind entered his mind. But I feel certain—and those who think as I do will agree—that I would be wanting in a sense of duty if I did not in this House have the courage to put the facts in the course of this debate.
§ MR. McKENNAMay I correct the right hon. Gentleman on two matters of fact, before I proceed to say what I have got to say on the Amendment. One is that Tubes, Limited, was chiefly concerned with private contracts, and not with making water tubes for the Admiralty. The fact is that the business of the company is practically confined to making weldless tubes required for water tube boilers by the British Admiralty. That was stated by Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, the chairman of the company, in December, 1899. The second correction which I have to make is with reference to the right hon. Gentleman's statement, in an interruption to my hon. friend, as regards Kynochs' advertising the fact of their connection with the Colonial Secretary. I hold a copy of the letter of introduction used by travellers acting for Kynochs, which states—
You will be interested to know that the chairman of' the company is Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, brother of the present Colonial Secretary.I quite agree that that has not very much to do with the matter, but I only desire to correct two matters of fact which have erroneously been put before the House by the Colonial Secretary. The point which the right hon. Gentle- 455 men the Colonial Secretary and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury have persistently evaded is the effect on the official mind of any known or partially known connection between members of the Government and firms contracting with public departments. I should like to inform the House as to what the official mind is concerning companies in which Members of Parliament or members of the Government may be connected. In the course of the inquiry before the War Office Contracts Committee one of the subjects we had to discuss was a certain contract held by an hon. Member of this House acting on behalf of a shipping company. It appeals that this shipping company had for the first time taken from the War Office a contract for hay, and I think for coal. However, the hay contract is the one to which I am about to refer. This shipping company had never before had any other contract for dealing with hay, and its sole connection with hay was in supplying it to the War Office. The Director of Army Contracts was questioned as to how he gave a contract for hay to a shipping company, and the reply of Mr. Major was that in view of Mr. Houston's position in the country, and he being a Member of the House of Commons, they had a very strong guarantee in these circumstances that they would get only first-class quality hay. I quite agree. I believe that any hon. Member connected with the Government would do his work quite as well as any contractor outside the House, but the point to remember is that officials are inclined to give preference to companies which have behind them the support of Members of this House, and if officials are inclined to that view à fortiori it would be strengthened when a company has the support of a member of the Government. I would wish for one moment that this subject were treated as if there were no question of the Colonial Secretary concerned. I wish the House would look at what happened before the War Office Contracts Committee, and draw with me the moral which we must draw from that inquiry what did we find on that Committee? We found that a particular firm had received a larger share of the orders for cordite than any other firm: the officials were examined as to why they had shown this preference to Kynoch and Co. It was not a small matter The House must remember that 456 the cordite contract given to Kynoch and Co. averaged £100,000 a year for five and a half years, and when we look at the prices charged by them and compare them with the prices charged by other firms, it will be seen that the profits could not have, been less than many thousands a year on those contracts. The question arises, why did the officials select Kynochs' and Co. for this preferential treatment? The Committee in the end found, and I think very properly found, that in all the officials had done they had only been actuated by good motives in the public interest. There was not a shadow of a suggestion cast on the officials, and, therefore, we also exonerated those who served this company from any suggestion of corrupting' the officials. There was no suggestion. But what were the facts? The official witnesses gave their explanation of tin's preference. They stated as reasons, the superiority of Kynochs' deliveries, and that they were a capable and efficient firm. They gave every conceivable ground for the superiority of Kynochs as against other firms. I believe the officials gave that evidence absolutely honestly, and that they believed it to be true. But what were the facts disclosed in subsequent cross-examination? It was shown that the officials were wrong on every point: that Kynochs had not been quicker, but had been slower in their delivery, and that they had a greater proportion of rejections. How are we to reconcile the official statements with the facts ultimately proved, and how are we to believe in the incorruptibility of the officials in the face of the difficulty of reconciling their explanation with the facts? The fact is that when officials have to deal with companies which have the guarantee of great names behind them their judgment and independence arc paralysed. I know one example in which I can assure the House the officials could not have being taken the trouble to make the most elementary inquiry into the facts concerning a particular company. I have details that were elicited as the truth about Kynochs was elicited, as the result of returns made by the Admiralty and the war office we have Had fats disclosed to us which ought to have been known to the officials if they had taken the trouble to inquire. But it is idle to dispute the fact—it is within the knowledge of everyone—that officials, like other persons, are human beings, they do not exercise the same 457 caution, and they allow their judgment to be paralysed when they are dealing with persons who are their official superiors, or who are intimately associated with their official superiors, What has been the connection of the Colonial Secretary with Kynoch and Co? His connection, as he has stated, is, as far as holding shares is concerned, nil.In the whole course of the inquiry before the Contracts Committee there was no shadow of a suggestion of corruption made against the Colonial Secretary, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, or any other member of his family. That was never suggested, and any hon. Member can read the evidence and satisfy himself on that point. What was his connection with Kynochs? His public connection was that unfortunate speech of his in 1895. That speech has been already twice referred to, but I wish to call the attention of the House to one point in connection with it, and to emphasise the disastrous effect it must have had. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had a legitimate interest in the matter—that is in the cordite contract—which, as representing his constituents, he might be expected to have. The interest of his constituents in relation to cordite was absolutely nil, because Kynochs never manufactured one ounce of cordite either in Birmingham or in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. One factory was in Arklow, in Ireland, and the other was on the Thames. The only interest that Kynochs had for the constituents of the right hon. Gentleman was the interest of the shareholders of Kynochs. It was known to the officials of the War Office that Kynochs were not manufacturing any cordite in Birmingham, and that the legitimate interest of the right hon. Gentleman was none other than his interest in the shareholders of that company. I have seen a list of the shareholders of that company, and I am well within the mark when I say that of all the shareholders in Birmingham and its neighbourhood by far the largest were the right hon. Gentleman's own relatives. Outside Birmingham the shareholders were drawn from all over the country. The effect of that speech on the official mind must have boon to create the impression that the right hon. Gentleman wished to see the company prospering. It was a most unfortunate speech, and although it was referred to twice before the right hon. 458 Gentleman spoke, he did not mention it in his reply, and so far as that is concerned I think his reply as regards Kynochs is altogether unsatisfactory. When the right hon. Gentleman sanctioned the Minute forbidding officials in Ceylon to invest in land or other companies which might conflict with their public duties, he did not charge them with corruption or improper conduct. It was the duty of the Colonial Office to see that they did not use their power improperly. Now it is the duty of the House of Commons, to exorcise very similar control over Ministers of the Crown, and to say that they must not do anything which might interfere with their public duties. It is in that spirit and that spirit alone that I will support the Amendment, which to my mind caries out fully the object we desire. As to the right hon. Gentleman's, mere verbal criticism of the Amendment., he can only have been induced to make it by the fact that he had not read the Amendment. All that the Amendment does is to declare that every member of the Government should on taking office publicly declare to Her Majesty what investments he has, and if any of the investments, are in companies on the contractors list of any public department. As to the question of the right hon. Gentleman's family being concerned, when it pleases him he understands "indirect" not to include his relations What the House is asked to do is to establish a principle which nobody will deny would be advantageous to the service of the country. Forgetting these unfortunate incidents, and the supposed, attack on the Colonial Secretary, I hope the House will accept the Amendment.
§ MAJOR RASCH (Essex, Chelmsford)As a member of the Contracts Committee, and as being in a humble way responsible for its appointment, will the House permit mo to briefly state my personal experience with reference to it, in opposition to the Amendment. I attended, I think, nearly every meeting of the Contracts Committee, and endeavoured, as far as my limited intelligence would permit, to get a full hold of the matter. I heard the evidence of Mr. Arthur Chamberlain and his examination and cross-examination, and the impression left upon my mind was that the relations between the War- 459 Office and Kynoch and Co. resembled a contest between a swordfish and a whale. The officials of the War Office, who had not much business experience, were set against some of the sharpest business heads in the Midland Counties, and the result was undoubtedly that Kynochs got the lion's share, or a very large share of those contracts, although they were late in their deliveries, sometimes turned out indifferent stuff, and had a larger percentage of rejections than any other of the explosives companies. Who was to blame for that? Certainly not Mr. Arthur Chamberlain. He did the best he could for his company, and he was perfectly right in doing so. Still less the Colonial Secretary or his family, regarding whom we had not a shred or a shadow of evidence to implicate them directly or indirectly in any conceivable way. You must look elsewhere if you want to find who are responsible. I think it is not very difficult. I think if we go to Pall Mall we will find what we are looking for pretty easily. From my own personal experience in the matter I believe it is solely due to the stupidity, fatuity, and want of business training at the War Office that these contracts were made. So long as the country allows the War Office to continue as it is, so long will contracts be made which will be of no use to the country, and which will enable contractors to take money out of the pockets of the taxpayers.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThe right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies treated this matter as if were starting some new idea, imposing some new principle, and as if this resolution was making a new departure altogether in the great question—the great and delicate and difficult question—of the proper relations that ought to subsist between the public duties and the private interests of public officials. But I think I shall be able to show before I sit down that, on the contrary, the Amendment now before the House merely puts in a more explicit and precise form that which has always been the ideal and conception of those relations in our public service. I must disown any intention whatever to bring those wild accusations against the Colonial Secretary which he so naturally repelled. If anyone was seeking to make out, as he said, that the right hon. Gentleman was a scoundrel and a thief, I can 460 well understand that he showed indignation, which I think has now carried him out of this Chamber altogether. [Mr. Chamberlain re-entered the House.] I was saying that there was nothing in this Amendment which imputes to the right hon. Gentleman those charges which he naturally repelled with so much indignation. But in supporting this Amendment those who act with me on this side of the House are merely repeating to-night a similar line of action to that they took in 1899 and again last session. On those two occasions we called attention to the largo number of directorships held by members of the Government, and of proposed certain words for the acceptance of the House condemning the holding of directorships by members of the Cabinet. We were received then with exactly the same display of indignation we have met with to-night. We were assured they were all men of high honour, and that our action was an imputation on their honour. We disowned any such intention, but we argued to the best of our ability that the holding of directorships was an indication that the public officials who held them were subject to certain influences which might in some cases lead them away from the straight path of public duty, and that if they were subject to that suspicion, if they did not remove the appearance of evil by divesting themselves of their directorships, harm would be done to the public interest. I remember that an hon. Member on that side of the House brought forward a notable instance of a great man and a very strong man, quite as strong a man, I think, as the Colonial Secretary himself—I mean Prince Bismarck—who not only held a very strong opinion as to any official occupying the position of director of a public company, but also as to his haying any investment of his private money which would lead to his having an interest in any way different to that which the public welfare suggested. That is the line we took, and we were received with indignation. But if we were wrong last year in objecting to members of the Government holding directorships, why has Lord Selborne given up his directorship of the P. and O. Company? Why has the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade declared, with a little appearance of self-satisfaction, as if he thought—and he was right in think 461 ing—that it was right that he has given up, all the directorships he held? If that was a right thing to do why did he not do it last year when attention was called to it?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. Gerald Balfour,) Leeds, CentralI did not do it last year because I held a different office. The office I hold now is specially connected with companies, and it was as holding that office that I was attacked by Lord Rosebery in the House of Lords.
§ SIR. H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI am only sorry that the right hon. Gentleman's action was taken on narrower grounds than I have been given to understand. Now, Sir, coming down to this question of an interest in a contracting firm. Is that any new doctrine? There is nothing more hallowed in this House than the principle that no Member of the House is to vote if he has become a contractor to any Government Department for the supply of anything required for the public service. I remember two applications of that rule which occur to mo, the very insignificance of which shows how fastidious the House has been in this matter. I remember one case was that of Mr. Bisley, one of the most honoured men in Manchester, who was elected as Member for Manchester. After he was elected it was discovered by himself, as well as by others, to his great surprise, that be was interested and had a share in some pottery works which supplied some kind of article to the Navy. Another case was that of a Scotch Member who was a large landowner in the island of Islay, and was elected for a constituency in Scotland. He could not take his seat because, not for pecuniary gain, but for the public advantage of Islay he had a small share in a small steamer which contracted with the Post Office to take the mails to Islay. I quote these cases to show how particular and fastidious the House of Commons and the law have always been in this matter, When it became known at the War Office that the right hon. Gentleman, either through himself or through his family, was so widely connected with such a large number of firms, all coming under the category of trading firms, I think it was very natural that great attention should be attached to it. The right hon. Gentleman complains of his relatives being 462 brought into the matter, and especially that his brothers should be held up as. guilty persons because they hold interests, in firms which contract with departments-of the Government. The Colonial Secretary is himself largely to blame in that respect, because he made that strong, declaration in the House that he was "neither directly nor indirectly" concerned in any firms supplying materials for the public service. The word "indirectly" is obviously capable of different interpretations——
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe statement to which the right hon. Gentleman refers was accompanied immediately afterwards with an admission that my brother was chairman of Kynochs, which was an open secret. Accordingly no one who heard me then could possibly have mistaken "indirectly interested" to mean that none of my relatives were interested.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThat precisely accords with my view of it, because I do think it would be carrying, matters to the pitch of absurdity to say that a man is to be responsible for the investments and conduct of his brother. But, where you have members of your own household directly benefiting, I think the case may reasonably be brought under the word "indirectly" The right hon. Gentleman was somewhat inconsistent in two parts of his speech, because he claimed that application of the word "indirectly" when he was criticising our Amendment, but repudiated it when he was speaking of his own statement. The object of the Amendment, and what the object of all right-minded men who have the public interest in view ought to be, could not be better expressed than it is by a passage in the Economist of Saturday last. It is there said—
If a Minister happens to be connected directly or indirectly with any company whose dividends arise mainly or largely from Government contracts which lie can in any way influence, the country expects him to sever his connection with such companies before taking office.That is a very exact and correct statement.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThat does-not affect either of us.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThen the right hon. Gentleman has at least the satisfaction of knowing that he has been the occasion of this question. 463 being raised. If he can make out with greater clearness than he has yet been able to do that he is neither directly nor indirectly concerned in any company whose dividend mainly or largely arises from Government contracts, I congratulate him.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI said so.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANBut the country expects any man in this position to sever his connection with those companies. The Amendment, however, is not that he should sever his connection, but that he should declare his interest on taking office. That contains clearly the gist of what it is sought to enforce, and I think that the excitement that has existed in the public mind at the discovery that certain persons engaged in the public offices are so closely connected with supplying firms shows how deeply the country feels on this matter, and how necessary it is for us to maintain the old rules of perfect impartiality and freedom from suspicion. I will not say from corruption, but from the undue influence that might arise. Why, the right hon. Gentleman himself was indignant against strong rules of this sort being applied in cases where the holding was small or that some other qualifying fact existed, but what did he say to Sir Hercules Robinson? He held that the fact that he had once held shares was a disqualification for office in a region of the world where connection with a company might affect his impartiality.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINI believe the right hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting what I said. I have not referred to the matter since it occurred, but my belief is that my reference to Sir Hercules Robinson related solely to his chairmanship of one great public company and to his directorship of another.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI looked at the right hon. Gentleman's words not long ago, and I think I have not inaccurately represented him. The right hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity of explaining his connection with all these companies.
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINWith two.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI give him the benefit of that. He has had the opportunity of meeting those who have made violent attacks upon him—none of whom, I think, are in this 464 House—and I think we may be left to record our strong opinion that the dangers we see in this matter ought to be strictly avoided in future.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman has thought it judicious to minimise as far as in his power lay the attacks which have been made upon my right hon. friend. Why? Because my right hon. friend, with the sympathy, I believe, of the other side of the House, with the absolute approval of this side of the House, and with the approval, I believe, of the whole country when they read the debate tomorrow, will have conclusive proved that this debate, so far as it was an. attack upon himself, is an attack without the shadow of a foundation, animated by motives on which it is not now necessary to dwell. How vain is the attempt of the right hon. Gentleman to persuade us at this time of day—or night—that he and his friends are fighting for some abstract principle of purity which shall henceforth regulate the conduct of Governments and of Ministries I suppose it was in support of this abstract doctrine that for months past there have been paid gentlemen searching the records of Somerset House, searching out all the private investments of my right hon. friend and of my hon. friend near me (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), and of all their relations—their uncles, sisters, cousins, and aunts. It was in the interest, I suppose, of this abstract principle of purity that the constituencies have been flooded with literature, whose malignity was only equalled by the ingenuity with, which it was so contrived as to avoid the direct consequences of an action for libel. It was in the interests of this great cause he would have us believe that the hon. Gentleman has brought forward this motion to-night and that his embattled forces have been arrayed for the Division. Nothing of the sort. We all know how flimsy is the pretext. It is not in the interests of purity, but it is an attack upon one man who has made his power felt through the country, and whom hon. Gentlemen opposite honour with their special aversion. Surely labour might have been better bestowed than in these underground burrowings. Why, Sir, if half the trouble and expenditure had been devoted to elucidating in the Record Office some obscure point 465 of history, we should have had some result at all events. The cause of history would have gained. But the sole purpose to which these gentlemen devoted their time was to get a case against one man to whom they object. They have failed in the country. Their humiliation has been as great to-night, when they are brought face to face with the man whom they have so pitilessly traduced. The right hon. Gentleman quoted as an exponent of his view a sentence from the Economist, in which the writer lays down that no Minister ought to hold investments of which the interest is mainly or largely produced by the results of Government contracts. That may be a very good principle. It is not a principle which has been traversed by my right hon. friend; it is not a principle which the right hon. Gentleman can pretend has been traversed by my right hon. friend. Two companies, and two companies only, of those which have been mentioned tonight has he got shares in. One of them is the Ceylon Company, in which he invested twenty-three years ago. Is it pretended that the dividend of that company has, during these twenty-three years, or during the last year, been "mainly or largely produced by Government contracts"? The other company is a trust company. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the investors in trust companies are bound to investigate the circumstances, if they can discover them, of the subsidiary companies in which the trust company invests? They could not if they wished, considering that the whole object of a trust company is that every investor should escape the labour which he may not have time or opportunity to carry out. Is it reasonable to pretend that a Member of the Government, or of the House, or anyone else is impelled to make himself sponsor, not merely for the general conduct of that trust company, but the conduct of over subsidiary company in which that trust money is invested? There remains the case of my hon. friend near me. Is the company in which he has been charged with having improperly invested one in which the dividends are "mainly or largely drawn from Government contracts?" He informs me that the business done with the Government amounts to 2 per cent, only of the whole business of the company. Is that a case of "mainly or largely"? On 466 the right hon. Gentleman's own principles I think he ought to have made a fuller amende to my right hon. friend for the attacks which to-night, on many previous nights, through many weeks, almost through months, he has been made the object of. What is the pretended motive of all these attacks? It is that an English Minister should be above suspicion; that no suggestion should ever occur to foreigners in general, and to the Boer prisoners in particular, that a member of the Government can directly or indirectly be connected with a Government contract. What Boer prisoner in Ceylon would ever have heard of the investment in the Ceylon Company if it had not been for the strenuous, persistent, and the costly efforts of the hon. Member opposite and his friends? To what foreign Government or nation would it have occurred that a British Minister had invested his money otherwise than he should have done, if this stream of calumny had not been poured upon him? These are the gentlemen who foul their own nests in the interest of domestic cleanliness. I confess, Sir, that it is with deep regret that I find the House of Commons engaged in these personalities. I say nothing of the Amendment which we had earlier in the evening directed against throe or four members of Her Majesty's Government. That is a small matter which need not be considered. In any case, it does not attack personal character-. It does not attack private character. It was reserved for the Amendment which we are now discussing to give occasion—in faint colours indeed, and in relatively doubtful and waving outline—to repeat in this House that lurid picture. which has been presented to half the constituences of the kingdom. I do not know, on the principles of the hon. Member, whom he regards as eligible as a Member of the Government. No Member of the house of Cecil, of course; but, putting them aside, I suppose that nobody who has any relations, and nobody who has any money himself to invest, and nobody who has any relations who have any money to invest, and nobody who inspires sufficient confidence to be made a trustee, is eligible. Wanted, a man to serve her Majesty, with no money, no relations, and inspiring no general confidence I do not think, Sir, that by that means the great traditions of 467 the purity of English public life have been built up. I so dislike all this kind of recrimination that refrain from giving, as I could give, cases of men of the highest honour who have served Her Majesty recently—gentlemen sitting opposite—who are as open to the attack on this matter as is my right lion, friend. [Cheers, and cries of "Name."] If lam challenged I will give the names now; if not, I am prepared to give them in private to the right hon. Gentlemen opposite. But I would rather not. I think we have had enough of dragging these perfectly innocent particulars of private life into public notice; of holding them up as if they were worthy of public reprobation. Sir, they arc not worthy of public reprobation. Although every one who heard my right hon. friend must feel, as I feel, from his speech how great is the pain necessarily inflicted by this kind of attack, even upon those most hardened to the wounds of public conflict, yet I can assure him that I believe the general result has been to excite in his behalf an amount of sympathetic appreciation which, perhaps, even his great services would hardly have elicited had he not been made the subject of those malevolent and venomous attacks. And, though I do not suppose for one moment that that will otter a complete compensation for all that he has gone through, yet it cannot be wholly indifferent to him that, as I believe, he has never stood higher in the general opinion of his countrymen than he does at this moment.
§ * MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)History records of the Spanish nobility that when they were arguing amongst themselves as to the antiquity of their patents of nobility, the Moors—[Interruption]—I repeat it, because the younger scions of the aristocracy do not know history. Mr. Speaker, history records that when the Spanish nobility were discussing the antiquity of their patents of nobility, the Moors, their enemies, were breaking down towns, entering citadels, and subjugating the Spanish Army. There is a parallel to what happened to Spain in her decadence in the proceedings of the British House of Commons this evening. When this old country is at war with a foreign enemy, when perhaps we should have been engaged in re-organising our Army, 468 seeing to the Navy, and raising taxes to meet our external foes, for eight hours the British House of Commons has been discussing what proportion of one family should dominate unduly the Government of the country; and for the last six hours we have been discussing whether or not what is good for the Civil Service of the country shall or shall not be good for a Minister of the State. Now I regret that this discussion should be necessary. [Interruption and cries of "Divide!"] There is one thing the House of Commons will do, through its Speaker, and that is to get order for a Member to speak. I regret that this debate should have been necessary, but as long as the public take a genuine interest in the honour of this House, as they do—[Interruption]—do you deny it?—such debate is necessary. What differentiates the British Parliament from any other parliaments in the opinion of hon. Members opposite 'I It is because it does not "Panama" as the French Parliament has occasionally done. It does not do what "Tammany" has done in America, and it has not yet been under the influence of "the chosen people," of capitalist rings and other monopolists that are accustomed to reign in the representative institutions in other parts of the world. It is because you think this House is superior to many other Parliaments that you have listened for eight hours to questions which must be discussed, and which the people of this country arc demanding shall be settled on a permanent and just and fair basis. Such a basis demands that no Member shall hold shares in a firm that contracts for the Government. I am not going to be switched off the path by the speech of the Colonial Secretary. I am not going to be diverted from my duty as a Member of Parliament by the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury, dictated less by an appreciation of the facts than by a desire for political reasons to shield a colleague who has not shown the discretion in his high office which he should. The first Lord of the Treasury, who is esteemed in the humblest street of my own parish, in every workshop in Great Britain and Ireland, and in every pit, mine, and factory, who has endeared himself to the House, and to all of us—has found it possible to serve the State and yet not to make ammunition. He has shown the world that it is 469 possible for a Scottish gentleman and an Englishman of honour to "scorn delights and live laborious days," and yet have no commercial entanglements. And if that can he done by him and his distinguished uncle, that is precedent enough for me. Now what does the Colonial Secretary say after "twenty-rive years of faithful services"—although other men can say the same? He says he is asked to defend himself. I have to defend myself every hour of the day from similar suggestions, and I do not regard it as repugnant to my nature, or hostile to my disposition. Why? None of my relations are Government contractors, and my answer is ready and to the point. Unlike the Colonial Secretary, I have not two centuries of commercial integrity at the back of my family. I have better than that. All my relations avoid any charges of this kind by remaining poor, and I am not to be diverted from my duty by spuriously indignant statements of that sort. It is no good for Ministers in these days when Manchester is dismissing Mayors, when Salford is dismissing councillors, and when London vestries are excluding men because they give one of their visiting cards to a sanitary inspector—for a man to come down to this House, with a tear in his throat, and simply as an answer to charges of fact talk about his integrity. What are the facts? The Colonial Secretary says that this Amendment is only a peg on which to hang a personal attack upon himself. I do not believe the Colonial Secretary is justified in making that statement. I put aside any suggestion that I am going to make a personal attack upon the Colonial Secretary. When I do that he will remember it. But I will come to the facts. Who is this high toned, sensitive, delicate organism that complains of criticism? What was he engaged in doing before the election? He said he took no notice of these charges because he was otherwise engaged. How engaged? I leave that to him and to the candidates against whom accusations of treason and dishonourable motives and acts, and so forth, were directed. His stilted suggestion about a conspiracy of slander and insinuation does not influence me, and will not prevail with the British public, and will not appeal to thorn to-morrow morning. What will appeal to them 470 is the simple fact that a Colonial Secretary has owned up to having shares in two companies. One is enough, for, like Mercutio, we can say, "Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, twill serve. "For his son, personally, there is no one for whom I have a greater regard I have always expressed it, and I think we all like him. His son owns up to having at least one interest in one share. [Laughter.] I am not used to Throgmorton Street, so you will pardon me if I use a wrong expression. I could have sold the honour of this House by taking a place in Throgmorton Street, but I prefer to be a Member of Parliament and not a guinea-pig. But the hon. Gentleman does own up to be in some company that contracts for the Government. It is enough that the public should know that between the right hon. the Colonial Secretary, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and their family there is a substantial sum at stake, between £300,000 and £400,000. My answer to the Colonial. Secretary is this: We only ask him to do what he asked the London County Council to do years ago, and you can judge the Colonial Secretary by his own utterances. Five years ago, in order to prevent corruption, the London County Council was driven to follow the example of Birmingham, and commenced a Works Department. But when that was done, and a slight irregularity occurred in which no. member was implicated, what did the Colonial Secretary say to the London County Council? He said that the result of a policy of that kind was certain in time to lead to jobbery, and that gigantic-works would not be removed from the personal supervision of responsible contractors without jobbery resulting. And he wound up by saying that the County Council was approaching to Tammany, and making baseless insinuations of that sort. Now what was good enough for the County Council is good enough for Birmingham. If the Colonial Minister and his family put themselves in the position they have done they cannot escape criticism, but must expect it. [Cries of "Divide."] I am not going to divide until I have concluded my pertinent observations. The Colonial Secretary says that this Amendment would exclude the best men from public life. What happened with his own colleague, Lord Lansdowne, when he became Minister of 471 War? Like the gentleman he is, he I said—
As Minister of War I shall be brought into; contact with Government contracts. I am a big shareholder in the Elswick Works at Newcastle, which have large, contracts with the Government.He not only resigned his position as director, hut, to his credit, he sold out every single share he had in the Elswick Company. That transaction did not deprive the country of his services. But let us go a bit further. [Cries of "Divide."] If the hon. Member who cries "Divide" wishes to go home, the Serjeant-at-Arms will clear a passage for him at once. Lord Selborne, who is now the First Lord of the Admiralty, I was a director of the P. and 0. Company, which takes £300,000 to £400,000 in mail subsidies and for transport of troops per annum. Immediately he became First Lord of the Admiralty he could see that his interest as a shareholder and director would conflict with the just discharge of his duties as First Lord of the Admiralty, and he resigned. But, better than all, the new President of the Board of Trade on assuming office sold out all interest in the companies with which he was connected, because his office at the Board of Trade brought him in contact with those companies.
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI have sold out no shares of a company with which I was connected. I resigned a directorship on the ground that the Board of Trade is directly connected with the company.
§ MR. JOHN BURNSThe right hon. Gentleman does not diminish the force of my point; it is only one of degree. He has resigned his directorship, and the very motive that induced him to do so is the motive which should induce the new-Secretary to the Treasury to sell his shares in his company. The Colonial Secretary said that if the Amendment were adopted it would exclude men from public life who hold Consols. If he read the Standing Orders he would find that they do not. What do the Standing Orders say? An hon. Member is not entitled to vote on a question in which he has a direct pecuniary interest, not held in common with the rest of the subjects of the Crown. Consols can be held in common, as they are sold and bought in the open market, as can 472 also shares in railway, steamship, and other companies. And when I am told that this would apply to a number of distinguished men, my answer is that we need not fear, because the Colonial Secretary informed us with portentous significance that the British Empire would go on after he died. I want it to go on well and cleanly and honourably, and it can only go on on these lines as long as you prevent Ministers from dabbling in companies. I will show the House how this matter affects the public life of this country. The Colonial Secretary does not know it, but seventeen years ago I was a servant of his on the banks of the Niger. He had a very substantial interest in the Royal Niger Company. I did not happen to be in the House when the Bill compensating the Niger Company went through in about half an hour, but had I been in the House I probably would not have criticised what I still think, and what every Liverpool merchant thinks, was the extravagant compensation given. But if the relations of employer and. employee, between the right hon. Gentleman and myself, had been different, then I would have criticised the Bill, and would have shown that even in that case he got more than his interest was worth. In these matters I care not whether the interest lie £60 or £500 or £50,000. The fact is that the Colonial Secretary has shares in two companies-one having indirect, the other direct relations with the Government—is, to my mind, a reason why this Amendment should be supported [Interruption.] You will not accept my view because I am only a layman, but I will give the Lord Advocate's view, which he stated on the 8th May as follows—
There may he certain directorships which would involve a conflict of interest, and if there were such directorships I am certain nobody on this Government Bench would continue to hold them. Of course no Minister would continue to hold a directorship which brought him into contact with departments of the Crown dealing with Government contracts.These two companies have brought the Colonial Secretary and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury into contact with Government departments, and on the showing of the Lord Advocate he ought either to abandon his shares or resign his office. I wish now to refer to the speech made by the hon. and. gallant Gentleman the Member for the 473 Chelmsford Division of Essex. He put I the case in a nutshell with regard to Kynochs. He said that they were late in their deliveries, that they had many rejections, that their prices were high and their ammunition was bad; and instead of turning his criticism to the Colonial Secretary and asking this House to safeguard the taxpayers of the country, he poured it forth on Pall Mall. Pall Mall is responsible for much, but not for the delinquencies of the Colonial Secretary. I think you will never get clerks of works, Government inspectors, and engineers who superintend Government work to do their duty fairly and impartially when firms who do work for the Government have Ministers of the Crown as directors. Why do I say that? The contracts Committee states that the law should be strengthened against officials who do not do their duty. But it also says that it is undesirable for Members of Parliament; to negotiate with departmental officials, and what is more—and it is a sinister suggestion—that when firms are asked to revise their tenders all the firms tendering should be given an equal opportunity. All these safeguards were urged against a firm in which the Colonial Secretary's family have largo holdings of shares. It is perfectly true that in former days the House appears to have been more strict than it is now, when directors and shareholders vote for private Bills affecting their companies. What is the effect of this laxity? I will tell the first Lord of the Treasury. He spoke to the Primrose League the other night, and he said that the League had to fight against the growing apathy and increasing indifference of the people of this country. What is the reason of that apathy and indifference? He who runs may read. A belief is growing up amongst the people of this country that Parliament is not so rigid in these personal matters as it ought to be, and that it is susceptible to outside financial influences. The Birmingham Post the organ of the Colonial Secretary, said that it had been the proud boast of the mother of Parliaments that the amosphere of the Palais Bourbon in Paris had never found a footing in Westminster, but it added that one had grave doubts whether that boast could over be repeated owing to the influences exercised in connection with the Petroleum Bill and the Telephones Bill. The man in the street who reads the Bir 474 mingham Post is beginning to think that our Parliament is also being "Panama-ed," and that our public life has not that high standard of honour it formerly had. What is the charge of the right honour Gentleman the Colonial Secretary against President Kruger? It is that his administration was inefficient, and his Government corrupt. If that be true, and' it has not been proved to the extent it has been stated, we ought to put ourselves in a position which would make it impossible under our Standing Orders for such a charge to be made against our Parliament or any of our Ministers. Anyone hearing the Colonial Secretary speak would think that the hub of the Universe came up through his doorstep in Birmingham; that he should be a law unto himself. We must apply the same standard of public conduct as the right hon. Gentleman himself would apply to the London County Council, when it suited his purpose. Supposing my brother had been supplying the Works Department with drain pipes or machinery, would not the Colonial Secretary deliver an eloquent homily about the inherent corruptibility of Labour Members? Suppose I sneaked behind the skirts of my good wife, and unloaded my shares on her shoulders, I should be accused—and properly accused—of ungentlemanly and unmanly conduct. But that is what he and his relations are doing. The right hon. Gentleman can say what he likes, but he has got to unload the Kynoch shares, he has got to divest himself of the Colombo Commercial Company's shares; he has got to get rid of Birmingham Trusts, and he must not look down Birmingham Tubes for Government work. He must not act under the supposition that ho can do what other men do not undertake. I say, as one of the poorest Members of this House, that I rejoice that J have this opportunity of expressing the views of the common people on this subject—[Interruption]—and that when our country is in a tight place in fighting a "corrupt oligarchy" we ourselves should be above suspicion. But I tell you that you will regret voting against this Amendment when our Civil Service takes this example and traffics in companies and commercial interests as they have a perfect right to do if you allow a Minister of State to do this. When corruption creeps in and when the evil example of the Colonial Secretary 475 brings discredit to the State, dishonour to our country, and degradation to our Parliament, you will regret the day that you voted against this Amendment. I had hoped that the House of Commons would have upheld to-night its reputation of being fair and gentlemanly. I appeal to it to remember its traditions. I beg of it not to damage this instrument of representative Government which can only exist by fair play and toleration all round. [Interruption.] But whether its Members are fair or unfair, they will not deprive me of my right which I now exercise of telling the House of Commons that if the British Parliament is to remain unsullied, and the great assembly we would all wish it to be, if it is to be the embodiment of honour and the
§ centre to which all other countries can look for example, inspiration, and guidance, it can only do so by passing this Amendment, making everyone declare his interests and declare to the world all the shares he holds in public companies, and until they do that the common people will say that the House of Commons is not doing its duty, but is sheltering favourites, giving privileges to a few, opening the floor to corruption, swindling the taxpayer, and becoming a disgrace to the country of which I have the honour of being a representative.
§ Question put—
§ The House divided: Ayes, 127; Noes, 269. (Division List, No. 5.)
479| AYES. | ||
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Grant, Corrie | Pickard, Benjamin |
| Allen, C. P. (Glouc, Stroud) | Griffith, Ellis J. | Pirie, Duncan Y. |
| Asher, Alexander | Gurdon, Sir William Brampton | Rea, Russell |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Haldane, Richard Burdon | Reckitt, Harold James |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert H. | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. Sir William | Rickett, J. Compton |
| Barker, John | Hardie, J. K. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Rigg, Richard |
| Harlow, John Emmott | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Harwood, George | Robson, William Snowdon |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale- | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Bell, Richard | Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir A. D. | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Black, Alexander William | Healy, Timothy Michael | Shaw, Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Helme, Norval Watson | Shipman, Dr John |
| Brand, Hon. Arthur G. | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) |
| Brigg, John | Holland, William Henry | Smith, Samuel (Flint) |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Hope, John Deans (Fife, W.) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Brown, G. M. (Edinburgh) | Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | Spencer, Rt Hn C. R.(Northants. |
| Burt, Thomas | Joicey, Sir James | Strachey, Edward |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire) | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
| Caldwell, James | Kinloch, Sir John G. Smyth | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E. |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Labouchere, Henry | Thomas, A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Langley, Batty | Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings |
| Cawley, Frederick | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Thomas, J. A. (Glam., Gower |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Leng, Sir John | Thomson, Frederick W. |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Levy, Maurice | Tomkinson, James |
| Cremer, William Randal | Lewis, John Herbert | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Lough, Thomas | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Wason, Eugene (Clackm'nn'n). |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | Weir, James Galloway |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | M'Kenna, Reginald | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Duncan, James H. | M'Laren, Charles Benjamin | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Dunn, Sir William | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Whiteley, George (York, W. R.) |
| Edwards, Frank | Markham, Arthur Basil | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Elibank, Master of | Mather, William | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Ellis, John Edward | Morgan, J. L. (Carmarthen) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Emmott, Alfred | Morley, Chas. (Breconshire) | Wilson. Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid). |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Moss, Samuel | Wilson, H. J. (York, W. R.) |
| Fenwick, Charles | Moulton, John Fletcher | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith | Norman, Henry | Wodehouse, Hn Armine (Essex |
| Fitzmauriee, Lord Edmond | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Palmer, Geo. Wm. (Reading) | Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. John Burns. |
| Gladstone Rt Hn Herbert John | Partington, Oswald | |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Paulton, James Mellor | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Allhusen, Augustus H. Eden | Archdale, Edward Mervyn |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Allsopp, Hon. George | Arkwright, John Stanhope |
| Aird, John | Anson, Sir William Reynell | Arrol, Sir William |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Gordon, Hon. JE (Elgin & Nairn | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Manners, Lord Cecil |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Gordon, Maj W (Tower Hamlets | Maple Sir John Blundell |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F |
| Baird, John Geo. Alexander | Goschen, George Joachim | Maxwell, W.J. (Dumfriesshire |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Melville, Beresford Valentine |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G.W. (Leeds) | Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | Middlemore, J. Throgmorton |
| Balfour, Maj. K.R. (Christoh'ch | Greene, Sir E. W. B'ry S Edmnds | Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Fredk. G. |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Grenfell, William Henry | Milward, Colonel Victor |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Mitchell, William |
| Beckett, Ernest William | Groves, James Grimble | Molesworth, Sir Lewis |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Hain, Edward | Montagu, Hon. J. S. (Hants.) |
| Bignold, A. | Halsey, Thomas Frederick | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) |
| Bigwood, James | Hambro, Charles Eric | More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Hamilton. Rt. Hn. Lord G. M'dx | Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow) |
| Bond, Edward | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm. | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex) | Harris, F. Leverton (Tyne'mth | Morton, Arthur H.A(Deptford) |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn | Harris, Dr. F. R. (Monmouth) | Mount, William Arthur |
| Brassey, Albeit | Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hay, Claude | Muntz, Philip A. |
| Brookfield, A. Montagu | Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley) | Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute |
| Brown, Alex. H. (Shropshire) | Helder, Augustus | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Bull, William James | Hermon-Hodge, Robert T. | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) |
| Ballard, Sir Harry | Hickman,>Sir Alfred | Newdigate, Francis Alexander |
| Butcher, John George | Higginbottom, S. W. | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Garble, William Walter | Hoare, Edw. B. (Hampstead) | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich) | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Hobhouse, H. (Somerset, E.) | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Hogg, Lindsay | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn J. (Birm. | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield Brightside | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r) | Horner, Frederic William | Peel, Hn. Wm Robert Wellesley |
| Chapman, Edward | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | Pemberton, John S. G. |
| Charrington, Spencer | Hoult, Joseph | Percy, Earl |
| Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Howard, Capt J (Kent, Faversh. | Pilkington, Richard |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hozier, Hon Jas. Henry Cecil | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Colomb, Sir J. Charles Ready | Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. L. | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Colston, Chas. E. H. Athole | Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Cook, Frederick Lucas | Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton | Pryce-Jones, Lu.-Col. Edward |
| Corbett, A. Cameron(Glasgow) | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. | Purvis, Robert |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh) | Pym, C. Guy |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Kenyon, James (Lanes., Bury) | Radcliffe, R. F. |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | Kenyon-Slaney. Col. W. (Salop) | Randles, John S. |
| Gust, Henry John C. | Keswick, William | Rankin, Sir James |
| Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Rasch, Major Frederic Carne |
| Dewar, T.R. (T'r H'mlets, St. G | Knowles, Lees | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Lambton, Hon. Fred. Wm. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Laurie, Lieut.-General | Renshaw, Charles Bine |
| Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield | Law, Andrew Bonar | Renwick, George |
| Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph | Lawson, John Grant | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Lecky, Rt. Hn. Wm. Ed. H. | Ridley, M. W. (Stalybridge) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lee, Capt. A. H. (Hants, Fareh. | Ridley, Samuel F. (Bethnal Gr.) |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Legge, Col. Heneage | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Duke, Edward Henry | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon Sir William Hart | Leighton. Stanley | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Leveson-Gower, Fred. N. S. | Ropner, Colonel Robert |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Rothschild, Hon Lionel Walter |
| Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J.(Manc'r | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine | Saddler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Long, Col. C. W. (Evesham) | Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) |
| Finch, George H. | Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Firbank, Joseph Thomas | Lowe, Francis William | Saunderson, Rt Hn. Col. Edw. J. |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale) | Seeley, Charles Hilton (Lincoln |
| Fison, Frederick William | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Sharpe, William Ed ward T. |
| FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | Lucas, Col. F. (Lowestoft) | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) |
| Fitzroy, Hon. Ed ward Algernon | Lucas, R. J. (Portsmouth) | Simeon, Sir Harrington |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Macartney, Rt Hn W. G. Ellison | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Fletcher, Sir Henry | Macdona, John Cumming | Skewes-Cox, Thomas |
| Forster, Henry William | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Maclure, Sir John William | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks) |
| Garfit, William | Maconochie, A. W. | Spear, John Ward |
| Gibbs, Hn. A.G.H (City of Lond. | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Spencer, Ernest (W. Bromwich |
| Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans | M'Iver, Sir L. (Edinburgh, W.) | Stewart, Sir Mark J.M. Taggart |
| Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Stock, James Henry | Wanklyn, James Leslie | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Stone, Sir Benjamin | Warde, Lieut. -Col. C. E. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.) |
| Stroyan, John | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H.(Yorks.) |
| Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Webb, Col. William George | Wodehouse, Rt. Hon. E.R (Bath |
| Talbot. Rt. Hn J. G. (Oxfd Univ. | Welby, Lt. Col. A.C.E (Taunt'n | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Thorburn, Sir Walter | Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts. | Wylie, Alexander |
| Thornton, Percy M. | Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Tollemache, Henry James | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-under-L. | Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong |
| Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray | Whitmore, Charles Algernon | Young, Commander (Berks, E.) |
| Tufnell, Col. Edward | Williams, Rt Hn J. Powell (Birm | |
| Tuke, Sir John Batty | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Valentia, Viscount | Wills, Sir Frederick | Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Walker, Col. William Hall | Wilson, Arthur S. (York, E.R.) |
§ Main Question again proposed—
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question he now put."
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The House divided; Ayes, 253; Noes, 106. (Division List, No.6.)
485| AYES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham) | Hickman, Sir Alfred |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Dewar, T.R. (T'rH'mlets, S Geo. | Higginbottom, S. W. |
| Allhusen, Augustus Henry E. | Dickson, Charles Scott | Hoare, Edward B. (Hampst'd) |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield | Hobhouse, H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph | Hogg, Lindsay |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Dixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Hope, J. F. (Sheff., Brightside) |
| Arrol, Sir William | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Horner, Frederic William |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry |
| Atkinson, lit. Hon. John | Duke, Edward Henry | Hoult, Joseph |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Dyke. Rt. Hn. Sir W. Hart | Houston, Robert Paterson |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Howard, Capt. J. (Kent, F'versh |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A.J. (Manch'r) | Fardell, Sir T. George | Hozier, Hon. J. Henry Cecil |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W (Leeds | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edwd. | Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies |
| Balfour. Maj K R (Christchurch | Furgusson, Rt Hn. Sir J (Manc'r | Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Finch, George H. | Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh) |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir. M. H. (Bristol | Firbank, Joseph Thomas | Kenyon, J. (Lanes., Bury) |
| Beckett, Ernest William | Fisher, William Hayes | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Fison, Frederick William | Keswick, William |
| Bignold, A. | FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | King, Sir Henry Seymour |
| Bigwood, James | Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon | Knowles, Lees |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Fletcher, Sir Henry | Lambton, Hn. Frederick Wm. |
| Bond, Edward | Forster, Henry William | Laurie, Lieut.-General |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Galloway, William Johnson | Law, Andrew Bonar |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middle'x | Garfit, William | Lawson, John Grant |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's L. | Gibbs, Hn. A.G H. (City of Ld. | Lee, Capt AH (Hants. Fareham |
| Brassey, Albert | Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | Legge, Col. Heneage |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie |
| Brown, Alexander H. (Shrops. | Gordon, Hn. J.E. (Elgin & N'n. | Leighton, Stanley |
| Bull, William James | Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Leveson-Gower. Frederick N.S. |
| Billiard, Sir Harry | Gordon, Maj. W.(Tower H'ml't | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine |
| Butcher, John George | Goschen, George J. (Sussex) | Long, Col Charles W.(Evesham |
| Carlile, William Walter | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Green, Walford D. (Wednesb'y | Lowe, Francis William |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Greene. Sir E. W. (B. St. Edm'ds | Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Grenfell, William Henry | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm) | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) |
| Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r | Groves, James Grimble | Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth |
| Chapman, Edward | Hain, Edward | Macartney, Rt Hon W G Ellison |
| Charrington, Spencer | Halsey, Thomas Frederick | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H.A.E. | Hambro, Charles Eric | MacIver, David (Liverpool) |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Ld. G. (Mid'x | Maclure, Sir John William |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert W. | Maconochie, A. W. |
| Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready | Hare, Thomas Leigh | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) |
| Colston, Chas. Ed. H. Athole | Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W |
| Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth) | Harris, Dr. Fred. R. (Monm'th | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Hay, Claude | Manners, Lord Cecil |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Heath, A. Howard (Hanley | Maple, Sir John Blundell |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | Helder, Augustus | Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F. |
| Cust, Henry John C. | Hermon-Hodge, R. Trotter | Maxwell, W. J. (Dumfriesshire |
| Melville, Beresford Valentine | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxford U.) |
| Middlemore, John T. | Purvis, Robert | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G. | Radcliffe, R. F. | Tollemache, Henry James |
| Milward, Colonel Victor | Randles, John S. | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| Mitchell, William | Rankin, Sir James | Tufnell, Col. Edward |
| Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Rasch, Major Frederic Carne | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Reid, James (Greenock) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants. | Remnant, James Farquharson | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Moore, William (Antrim, N.) | Renshaw, Charles Bine | Wanklyn, James Leslie |
| More, Robert J. (Shropshire) | Renwick, George | Warded Lieut.-Col. C. E. |
| Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow) | Richards, Henry Charles | Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Morrell, George Herbert | Ridley, Mat. W. (Stalybridge | Webb, Col. William George |
| Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. | Ridley, Sam. F. (Bethnal Gr'n | Welby, Lt.-Col A.C.E.(Taunt. |
| Morton, Arthur H.A. (Deptford | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson | Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts) |
| Mount, William Arthur | Robertson, H. (Hackney) | Wharton, Rt. Hon. J. Lloyd |
| Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. | Whiteley, H.(Ashton-under-L. |
| Muntz, Philip A. | Ropner, Colonel Robert | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alex. | Williams, Rt Hn J. Powell-(Bir. |
| Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) | Saunderson, Rt Hn.Col. E. J. | Wills, Sir Frederick |
| Newdigate, Francis Alexander | Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln | Wilson, A. S. (York, E. R.) |
| Nicholson. William Graham | Sharpe, William Edward T. | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Nicol, Donald Ninian | Shaw-Stewart. M. H. (Renfrew) | Wilson, J. W.(Worcestersh, N. |
| O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | Simeon, Sir Barrington | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.) |
| Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) | Skewes-Cox, Thomas | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Parkes, Ebenezer | Smith, Abel H. (Hert. East) | Wylie, Alexander |
| Peel, Hon. Wm. Robert W. | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Pemberton, John S. G. | Spencer, E. (W. Bromwich) | Young, Commander (Berks, E.) |
| Pierpoint, Robert | Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart | |
| Pilkington, Richard | Stock, James Henry | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Platt-Higgins, Frederick | Stone, Sir Benjamin | Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Plummer, Walter R. | Stroyan, John | |
| Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Allen, C. P. (Glouc, Stroud) | Grant, Corrie | Reckitt, Harold James |
| Asher, Alexander | Griffith, Ellis J. | Rigg, Richard |
| Barker, John | Gurdon, Sir William B. | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) |
| Barlow, John Emmott | Haldane, Richard Burdon | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Hardie, J. K. (Merthyr Tydvil | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford,) |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfarsh |
| Bell, Richard | Hayne, Rt. Hn. C. Seale- | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Black, Alexander William | Hayter. Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Healy, Timothy Michael | Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R. (N Hants. |
| Brand, Hon. Arthur G. | Helme, Norval Watson | Strachey, Edward |
| Brigg, John | Holland, William Henry | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Hope, J. D. (Fife, West) | Thomas, A. (Carmarthen, E.) |
| Brown, Geo. M. (Edinburgh) | Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. | Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E. |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Button, Alfred E. (Morley) | Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings |
| Burns, John | Joicey, Sir James | Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gow'r |
| Burt, Thomas | Jones, David B. (Swansea) | Thomson, Frederick W. |
| Caldwell, James | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Tomkinson, James |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Langley, Batty | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Warner, Thos. Courtenay T. |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Levy, Maurice | Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan |
| Cremer, William Randal | Lewis, John Herbert | Weir, James Galloway |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Lough, Thomas | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Dewar, J. A. (Inverness-shire) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | M'Laren, Charles Benjamin | Whiteley, George (York, W.R.). |
| Duncan, James H. | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Dunn, Sir William | Markham. Arthur Basil | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Edwards, Frank | Mather, William | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Elibank, Master of | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid |
| Ellis, John Edward | Morley, Charles (Breconshire) | Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R. |
| Emmott, Alfred | Moss, Samuel | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Norman, Henry | Wodehouse, Hn Armine (Essex) |
| Fenwick, Charles | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.) | Palmer, George Wm. (Read'g | Mr. Samuel Smith and Mr. Channing. |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Partington, Oswald | |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. H. J. | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Main Question again proposed— | ||
| The House divided; Ayes, 265; Noes, 23. (Division List. No 7.) | ||
| AYES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Fardell, Sir T. George | Lawson, John Grant |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Farquharson, Dr. Robert | Lee, Capt AH (Hants. Fareham) |
| Allhusen, Augustus H. Eden | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Legge, Col. Heneage |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J (Manc'r | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S. |
| Anson, Sir Wm. Reynell | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine |
| Archdale, Edward Mervon | Finch, George H. | Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Firbank, Joseph Thomas | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol S. |
| Arrol, Sir William | Fisher, William Hayes | Lowe, Francis William |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Fison, Frederick William | Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale) |
| Atkinson, Right Hon. John | FitzGerald, Sir R. Penrose- | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Fitzroy. Hn. Edward Algernon | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) |
| Main, Colonel James Robert | Fletcher, Sir Henry | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth |
| Baird, John George A. | Forster, Henry William | Macartney, Rt Hn W. G. Ellison |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A.J. (Mnclir.) | Furness, Sir Christopher | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds) | Galloway, William Johnson | MacIver, David (Liverpool) |
| Balfour, Maj. K. R. (Christ'ch.) | Gibbs, Hn. A.G.H.(City of Lou. | Maclure, Sir John William |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans) | Maconochie, A. W. |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Brstl.) | Godson, Sir Augustus Fred. | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) |
| Beckett, Ernest William | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn | M'Iver, Sir L. (Edinburgh W.) |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Gordon, J, (Londonderry, S.) | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire |
| Bignold, A. | Gordon, Maj. W,(T'wer H'mlts | M'Laren, Charles Benjamin |
| Bigwood, James | Goschen, George Joachim | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Manners, Lord Cecil |
| Bond, Edward | Greene, Sir E.W. (B'ry S Edm'ds | Maple, Sir John Blundell |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Grenfell, William Henry | Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W.F. |
| Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Maxwell, W.J.(Dumfriesshire |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn | Griffith, Ellis J. | Melville, Beresford Valentine |
| Brassey, Albert | Groves, James Grimble | Middlemore, J. Throgmorton |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hain, Edward | Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Fk. G. |
| Bull, William James | Halsey, Thomas Frederick | Milward, Colonel Victor |
| Bullard, Sir Harry | Hambro, Charles Eric | Mitchell, William |
| Butcher, John George | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G.(M'dx) | Molesworth, Sir Lewis |
| Caldwell, James | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert W. | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) |
| Carlile, William Walter | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th. | Moore, William (Antrim, N.) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Harris, Dr. Fred. R. (Monm'th. | More, R. Jasper (Shropshire) |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Hay, Claude | Morley, Charles (Breconshire |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Bum. | Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale- | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry E. |
| Chapman, Edward | Helder, Augustus | Moss, Samuel |
| Charrington, Spencer | Helme, Norval Watson | Mount, William Arthur |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Hermon-Hodge, R. Trotter | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Hickman, Sir Alfred | Muntz, Philip A. |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Higginbottom, S. W. | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) |
| Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready | Hoare, Ed. Brodie (Hampstead | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Colston, Charles Ed. H. Athole | Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich) | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) |
| Cook, Frederick Lucas | Hogg, Lindsay | Newdigate, Francis Alexander |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Hope, J F (Sheffield, Brightside | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Horner, Frederic William | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Gust, Henry John C. | Hoult, Joseph | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) | Houston, Robert Paterson | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) |
| Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham) | Howard, Capt J (Kent, Faversh. | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Dewar. John A. (Inverness-sh. | Hozier, Hon James Henry Cecil | Peel, Hon. William Robert W. |
| Dewar, T.R. (T'rH'ml'ts, S. Geo. | Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick | Pemberton, John S G. |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield | Jones, David B. (Swansea) | Pilkington, Richard |
| Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph | Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) | Platt- Higgins, Frederick |
| Hixon-Hartland, Sir F. Dixon | Kenyon, James (Lanes., Bury) | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Keswick, William | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Purvis, Robert |
| Duke, Edward Henry | Knowles, Lees | Radcliffe, R. F. |
| Dunn, Sir William | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Randles, John S. |
| Edwards, Frank | Laurie, Lieut.-General | Rankin, Sir James |
| Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Law, Andrew Bonar | Rasch, Major Frederic Carne |
| Reid, James (Greenock) | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.) | Welby, Lt-Col A.C.E. (Taunt'n |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) | Welby, Sir Charles G.E. (Notts. |
| Renshaw, Charles Bine | Spencer, Ernest (W. Bromwich | Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd |
| Renwick, George | Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-under-L. |
| Richards, Henry Charles | Stock, James Henry | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Ridley, M. W. (Stalybridge) | Stone, Sir Benjamin | Williams, Joseph Powell-(Birm |
| Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green) | Stroyan, John | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Rigg, Richard | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Wills, Sir Frederick |
| Ritchie. Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson | Talbot, Rt Hn. J.G. (Oxf'd Univ. | Wilson, Arthur S. (York, E. R. |
| Robertson, Herbert (Hackney | Thornton, Percy M. | Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid |
| Rolleston, Sir John F. L. | Tollemache, Henry James | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Ropner, Colonel Robert | Tomlinson, William Edw. M. | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N. |
| Sadler, Col. Sam. Alexander | Tufnell, Col. Edward | Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks) |
| Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Valentia, Viscount | Wodehouse, Rt Hn. E.R.(Bath) |
| Sharpe, William Edward T. | Walker Col. William Hall | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Shaw, Charles Ed. (Stafford) | Wanklyn, James Leslie | Wylie, Alexander |
| Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew | Warde, Lieut.-Col. C. E. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Shipman, Dr. John | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. | Young, Commander (Berks, E.) |
| Simeon, Sir Barrington | Wason, Eugene(Clackmannan | |
| Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) | Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Sinclair, Louis (Romford) | Webb, Col. William George | Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Skewes-Cox, Thomas | Weir, James Galloway | |
| NOES. | ||
| Bell, Richard | Goddard, Daniel Ford | Thomas, J. A.(Glam'n, Gower) |
| Black, Alexander William | Grant, Corrie | Thomson, Frederick W. |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Harmsworth, R. Leicester | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Brigg, John | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W R.) |
| Burns, John | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Markham, Arthur Basil | |
| Cremer, William Randal | Partington, Oswald | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Duncan, James H. | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) | Mr. T. M. Healy and Mr. Keir Hardie. |
| Fenwick, Charles | Taylor, Theodore Cooke |
§ Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth—
§ "Most Gracious sovereign,
§ "We, your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to your Majesty for the Gracious speech which your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of parliament."
§ To be presented by privy councillors and Members of Her Majesty's House-hold.