Commons Sitting of 13 December 1900

Preamble
Two Members took and subscribed the Oath.
PETITIONS.
  INHABITED HOUSE DUTY AND INCOME TAX.
  Petition from Kensington, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
Petition from Harwich, for prohibition; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  INDIAN EXPENDITURE (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Return [presented 12th December] to be printed. [No. 387.]
CHINA (No. 5, 1900).
Copy presented, of Correspondence respecting the Anglo-German Agreement of 16th October, 1900, relating to China [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented, of Manual of the Sea Fisheries (Scotland) Acts and Statutory Bye-laws in force at 31st December, 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
SEA FISHERIES (RESTRICTIVE LEGISLATION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
Address for "Return of the precise position of Foreign Law in regard to Restrictive Legislation affecting Sea Fisheries."—(Mr. Maconochie.)
QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—RHODESIAN FIELD FORCE.
  COLONEL PILKINGTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state what is the position of the Rhodesian Field Force supposed to be in South Africa under the command of Sir Frederick Carrington; and whether the 5,000 mounted men constituting this force are still under the command of Sir Frederick Carrington, and are acting together as a concentrated force or are in scattered units each under its own commanding officer.
  The SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): It has not been hitherto considered expedient to make public the locality of

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  the various forces in South Africa, and I fear that a reply to this inquiry would expose me to a great number of others.

TRANSPORT FOR RETURNING VOLUNTEERS.
SIR BARRINGTON SIMEON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Government will bring home in troopships free of cost such British or Irish Volunteers as have served in colonial regiments during the war, and who have obtained their discharge in South Africa, such Volunteers having gone out from England at their own expense in order to join some colonial regiment.
MR. BRODRICK: Yes, Sir. Instructions have been given to this effect.

CROWN APPOINTMENTS AT BLOEMFONTEIN.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Mr. John Barclay Lloyd, late of the City Imperial Volunteers, has been recently appointed Crown Prosecutor, or to some other, and what, legal office at Bloemfontein; and whether he can state what the legal qualifications of this gentleman are to the post to which he has been appointed.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The War Office has received no official information of such an appointment.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: Will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to obtain it?
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: No, Sir.

IMPERIAL YEOMANRY—BEIRA RAILWAY TRANSPORT.
MR. SETON-KARR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, in view of the sickness and loss of life suffered by the 17th and 18th Battalions of Imperial Yeomanry in May last, owing to their prolonged detention in a fever district through the breakdown of the Beira Railway Transport, whether he can now state the results of the inquiry that has been made into the said breakdown and consequent delay;
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and whether he can give the number of men from the two battalions who have died or have been invalided home in consequence of malarial fever and sickness contracted during such delay; also if he will state whether the Beira Railway was under the control of the military authorities during the time of the breakdown and delay; how such control was exercised; and to what extent and to whom he attributes the responsibility for the said breakdown.
MR. BRODRICK: I am afraid that I cannot, in a reply to a question, explain in full detail the causes of the delay which undoubtedly caused much sickness and a certain loss of life, which I need not tell my hon. friend is deeply deplored, and which can only be justified by the urgent military necessity of the expedition. I have already written my hon. friend in considerable detail on this question and will lay Sir Frederick Carrington's despatch regarding it among, the other despatches, so that the House may have the fullest information.
MR. SETON-KARR: I shall take the earliest opportunity of laying a statement before the House on this subject.

BURNING OF BOER FARMS.
MR. TREVELYAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has yet got any information from Lord Kitchener as to the burning of farmhouses in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony by our Armies; and whether he will undertake to publish as soon as possible, whether Parliament is still sitting or not, a Return stating as far as available the number of farms so burnt and the character of the instructions or rules under which it was done.
MR. BRODRICK: No reply can be expected from Lord Kitchener for some little time. I will give the House whatever information I can when it arrives.
MR. TREVELYAN: If the House is not sitting will the right hon. Gentleman publish the information?
MR. BRODRICK: I will give whatever I can in the way of information.
MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: Did the right hon. Gentleman ask for the information by cable?
MR. BRODRICK: Yes, but it has to be collected from all parts of South Africa.

SERVICE HORSES AND MULES.
Mr. THOMAS BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can inform the House as to the number of horses efficient for service that have been landed in South Africa, the number that have been captured from the enemy, and the number that are now in sound condition for active service.
MR. TREVELYAN: I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state how many horses and mules have been sent to South Africa in connection with the military operations, and how many have perished during the war.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The numbers of horses landed in South Africa amounted, according to last returns, to 117,730, and of mules 64,730; 5,689 horses were lost on the voyage, and 1,997 mules. No reports have been received showing the numbers captured from the enemy or lost in the war, or the numbers now in sound condition for active service.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman state how many asses were sent to South Africa?

LORD ROBERTS'S RETURN—THANKS GIVING SERVICE AT ST. PAUL'S.
MR. GOULDING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether seats will be reserved and admission tickets issued for Members of Parliament who desire to attend the Thanksgiving Service in St. Paul's Cathedral on 3rd January.
MR. BRODRICK: I have asked the Dean of St. Paul's to provide us with sufficient accommodation to enable us to offer a seat to each Member of the two Houses of Parliament, and I will ask Mr. Speaker's secretary to receive applications†

RETURN OF THE VOLUNTEERS AND YEOMANRY—DATE OF DISCHARGE.
MR. SEELY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War
† The Service referred to in this question and answer was not held.
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whether as the Commander-in-Chief is returning home and is reported to have said that the war is now practically over, he can state to the House what arrangements the Government are making to enable those of the Yeomanry and Volunteers who wish to do so to obtain their discharge, as promised in the terms of enlistment published on 26th December last.
MR. BRODRICK: I regret that I cannot add anything to the statement I made in the House on Tuesday last†
MR. SEELY: Is it not correctly stated in the question that these men were promised in their terms of enlistment that they should have option of discharge when the war was over?
MR. BRODRICK: Yes, the time was a year, or until the conclusion of the war. The war cannot be said to be over in the sense of allowing the troops to be sent home. We have acted on the advice of Lord Roberts in withdrawing troops.
MR. SEELY: Were they not given the option of return if the war concluded before the end of the year?
MR. BRODRICK: I cannot hold out any hope that the war will be over before the end of the year. The conditions were perfectly clear—the engagements were for a year or until the conclusion of the war. Had the war lasted less than a year then the men would have had option of return, but to many the engagements will prove to be for more than a year.
MR. SEELY: What will the right hon. Gentleman consider the end of the war?
MR. THOMAS BAYLEY: Did not Lord Roberts state that the war was practically over?
MR. T. M. HEALY: Was the war only "over" for the purposes of the election?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

IMPERIAL YEOMANRY—PAY.
SIR JOHN ROLLESTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War will he explain why the troopers
† See page 492.

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of the 7th Company Imperial Yeomanry (Leicestershire) receive 1s. 5d. per day, and those of the 65th Company Imperial Yeomanry (Leicestershire) 5s. per day; and is this difference wholly paid out of Imperial funds.
MR. BRODRICK: The 7th Company Imperial Yeomanry draw pay as Cavalry like the Imperial Yeomanry generally. The 65th Company formed part of the Rhodesian Field Force which was raised under special conditions and for an exceptional service, and was paid at the higher rate which obtained in Rhodesia. The whole charge falls on Imperial Funds.

AGE OF SOLDIERS IN SOUTH AFRICA.
MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can say how many men of the Regular Army in South Africa are under twenty-one years of age, and whether drafts have been sent there containing men under twenty years of age, and men who have not been through a musketry course.
MR. BRODRICK: I am afraid that I cannot undertake to supply my hon. and gallant friend with the figures, as their compilation would entail considerable labour and time. Until August the age qualification for cavalry and infantry drafts was maintained, except in one or two cases, at twenty years. About the middle of that month, when it was considered that the hardest part of the campaign was over, it was reduced to nineteen and a half years. The orders given were that every one of the men sent out should have gone through the necessary instruction. Some men, however, who had not completed the course were sent out to be attached to Militia battalions on the lines of communication, with distinct instructions that they were not to be sent to the front until they had completed the course. I have given instructions that no further drafts shall be sent under these conditions.

LADYSMITH DESPATCHES.
MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state when further despatches of Sir George White and others relative to the siege and relief of Ladysmith will be issued.
MR. BRODRICK: I am well aware of the anxiety to see these despatches, and I will lay them with as little delay as possible.

DEPORTATION OF FOREIGNERS FROM THE TRANSVAAL.
MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can give the numbers of Germans, Hollanders, Frenchmen, Danes, and Italians respectively removed from the Transvaal by order of the British authorities; whether complaints and claims for compensation have been made either by the individuals so removed, or by their respective Governments; and, if so, what reply has been made; and, whether, on the settlement of the country, permission will be given to those who have been thus compelled to abandon business connections or property to resume their rights and avocations.
MR. BRODRICK: The total numbers of aliens deported from South Africa amount to 4,386; it is not possible at so short notice to give the nationalities in detail. A Commission formed of British military officers and civilians will be appointed to consider and report on claims for compensation. The question of allowing the return of any individual who has been expelled will be considered on its merits when the refugees who were compelled to leave the Transvaal on the outbreak of the war have been able to return.

TREATMENT OF BRITISH PRISONERS AT PRETORIA.
GENERAL LAURIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Dr. H. P. Veale, M.B. Cambridge, and the Rev. J. Godfrey, stated to be a clergyman of the Church of England at Pretoria, whose conduct in regard to the treatment of the British prisoners at Pretoria is reported on by Field Marshal Lord Roberts in his despatch of 27th June last, are respectively British subjects; and, if so, whether their position in the Transvaal was consistent with their nationality; and if any notice can be taken of their behaviour.
MR. BRODRICK: We are not aware whether Dr. Veale and the Rev. J. Godfrey were British subjects at the time

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when they were concerned with the treatment of the British prisoners at Pretoria. I am advised that Mr. Godfrey is in colonial orders, and that we can take no notice of his behaviour. The question of Dr. Veale's position as a member of the Red Cross Society is under consideration.

MR. MERRIMAN'S LETTER.
MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, with regard to the treatment of Mr. Merriman by the Colonial Secretary and Sir Alfred Milner, in withholding from him any opportunity of passing observations on his letter published in August by Her Majesty's Government, it is now proposed to make any reparation to Mr. Merriman in the way of expression of regret, or otherwise, for such want of consideration towards one of the Ministers of the Cape Colony, and against which a protest has been made in the Cape House of Assembly.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): No, Sir.

NEW SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the number of (1) officers, (2) men enlisted at home and in South Africa for the new police for service in South Africa.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not aware how many officers have been appointed. Their appointment is in the hands of Sir A. Milner and General Baden-Powell. The number of officers proposed for a force of 6,000 men was 200. It has subsequently been decided to recruit up to 10,000. I am informed that the number of recruits actually passed in South Africa is 589, but I do not know how many applications have been sent in, and it is quite premature to form any idea of the number ultimately available. In this country there have already been over 10,000 applications, but not more than 300 are likely to be ready to leave this month.

CONSTITUTIONS OF THE NEW COLONIES.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Secretary of
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State for the Colonies whether, in constituting the proposed Crown colony government of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, the legislative council will contain, as in other Crown colonies, persons representing different races (whether white or coloured) and classes in the community.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The draft documents in which the constitutions are embodied have been forwarded to Sir A. Milner, whose observations I am awaiting. Meanwhile, I am not in a position to give a definite answer to the hon. Member's question.

LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN THE NEW COLONIES.
MR. TAYLOR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government that, during the time before the granting of self-government to the Orange River and Transvaal Colonies, the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be prohibited to coloured South African natives.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The sale of liquor is already restrained by legislation in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, which was, I believe, properly enforced in the latter, but not in the former colony. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to see that it is effectively administered in both.

TRANSVAAL CONCESSIONS COMMISSION.
MR. HOLLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the powers of the Transvaal Concessions Commission, now sitting, are limited to the consideration of concessions already granted by the late Transvaal Government; and, in the event of their being so limited, will he consider the propriety of extending their powers so as to include the consideration of such industrial concessions as were on the point of being granted by the Volksraad at the time of the outbreak of the war.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer to the first part of this question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part I do not consider that it is desirable to extend the scope of the Commission's

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inquiry beyond those concessions in respect of which the late Republic had incurred definite legal obligations.

MILITIA OFFICERS' PAY.
COL. BLUNDELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the gratuity of £100 given to all officers of the Militia on their ceasing to draw full pay on the disembodiment of their regiments has been refused to certain officers who responded to the call for volunteers for active service abroad, on the ground that they have not ceased to draw full pay in consequence of their so volunteering, notwithstanding that the expenses originally incurred by both classes of officers on joining the Militia were the same, and require equally to be defrayed within the same period of time.
MR. BRODRICK: The gratuity was not intended to cover equipment, but to provide an officer with a sum on going back in civil life on cessation of duty, and was therefore to be paid when he ceased to perform duty. Any officers who have volunteered for service abroad, and who thus serve beyond a year will receive a larger gratuity. If my hon. friend has any case in which this has caused hardship, perhaps he will communicate with me privately.

AMMUNITION RESERVES.
MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can say what was the reserve of ammunition for rifle and field gun in September, 1899; what is now laid down as the necessary reserve; and what steps have been taken to secure that this reserve shall not be reduced.
MR. BRODRICK: It is not desirable to state definitely the number of rounds of ammunition which are held in reserve in this country, but I will take care that an ample reserve is maintained.
MR. BARTLEY: Is the statement correct that in January or February last the reserve was practically exhausted?
MR. BRODRICK: No, Sir. If it had been I should not have answered this question.

THE RE-ARMING OF THE VOLUNTEERS.
MR. HOLLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state, without detriment to the public interest, what progress is being made with the better arming of our Volunteers.
MR. BRODRICK: Large orders have been placed with various firms with a view to the prompt re-armament of the Volunteer Artillery. I will ask the hon. Gentleman to excuse my giving details till I can explain the general situation in February next.

UNDER-AGE ENLISTMENTS.
MR. M'KENNA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether in the case of a youth under eighteen years of age who, having enlisted, immediately seeks his discharge, and whose enlistment is unknown to and contrary to the wishes of his parents, he can offer any hope that the discharge will be allowed, notwithstanding the refusal of the general officer commanding the district in which the recruit is stationed.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: These questions have hitherto been left to the discretion of the general officer commanding the district, and there is no intention of interfering with him.

WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS IN BELFAST.
MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called by the Belfast Trades Council to a violation of the Fair Wages Resolution by Messrs. Musgrave and Co., Limited, St. Ann's Ironworks, Belfast, in connection with a War Office contract; whether parts of the contract were given to the Cleonard Foundry, the Union Foundry, and to Messrs. Ritchie, Hart, and Co., all of them sweating firms, paying less than trade union wages; and, what steps he proposes taking to prevent a recurrence of such sub-letting to firms which do not comply with the regulations under which contracts are granted.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: A communication has been received from the Belfast Trades Council. Messrs. Musgrave sublet the preparation of some materials for a War Office contract to the

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three firms named, but on the distinct condition that the current rate of wages should be paid. The three firms on enquiry all assert that they are paying the current rate. The sub-letting in question was not contrary to the terms of the contract. Any complaints relative to reported infringements of the conditions of contract are carefully investigated.
MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called by the Belfast Trade Council to a violation of the Fair Wages Clause by Messrs. Wilson, of Belfast, in connection with a contract for the manufacture of tents for the War Office; whether workmen were dismissed for refusing to accept less than the trade union rates of pay whilst engaged on the contract; what is the penalty incurred for such violation, and whether he proposes to enforce it; and, as a warning to others, will he cause the name of Messrs. Wilson to be removed from the list of contractors to the War Office.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: A communication from the Belfast Trades Council has been received. It is considered that the Council have not made out their case that tent-making is exclusively sail-makers' work. So long as the persons employed by Messrs. Wilson are not receiving less than the current rate of wages there is no ground for the interference of the War Department.
MR. KEIR HARDIE: Was not the complaint made that the rate of wages paid was not the rate current in the district?
MR. J. POWELL WILLIAMS: The result of inquiries was that the current rate of wages in the district for this class of work was being paid.
MR. KEIR HARDIE: If I can prove that the information supplied to the Governmena is incorrect will the right hon. Gentleman impose the usual penalty in these cases?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY—CONCESSIONS TO VOLUNTEER OFFICERS' SONS.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the sons of officers of the Regular Army
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are admitted to the Royal Military Academy as gentlemen cadets at a reduced rate; and whether similar privileges are conceded to Volunteer officers with regard to their sons; and, if not, whether, in view of the valuable services given by the Volunteers in the war and the expenses entailed upon Volunteer officers in keeping up their corps, they will be put on the same footing as officers of the Line with respect to the admission of their sons to the Royal Military Academy.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The House has been informed on previous occasions that this cannot be done. The State, by diminution of fees, contributes towards the education of the sons of officers, and more especially of those in the lower ranks who have made the Army their profession. There, are not the same grounds for making the concession in the case of Volunteer officers.

ENLISTMENT STANDARDS.
MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state what number of recruits have been obtained since 1st April for the Army and Militia respectively, and what proportion of them are special enlistments; and whether the standard of height and chest measurement has been modified.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The number of recruits raised for the Army since 1st April is 26,979, and for the Militia 23,701. The number of men specially enlisted for the Regular forces in that period is 8,003. The special enlistments for the Militia are left entirely to the local authorities. The standards in force on the 1st April have not been altered, except that the minimum height of artillery drivers was raised from 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 4 inches.

CABINET COMMITTEE OF DEFENCE.
MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Cabinet Committee of Defence decides upon the measures necessary for a campaign; whether it has direct access to naval or military opinion; and whether it keeps records or minutes.
MR. BRODRICK: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply of the First Lord of the Treasury to a similar

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question in February last, which for the convenience of the House I will read—
"The Committee of Defence is a Committee of the Cabinet and does not differ essentially from other Committees of the Cabinet. It neither removes responsibility from the Cabinet as a whole, nor from any of the Ministers responsible for the Departments either of the Army or of the Navy. Of course the Committee obtains the best information it can from experts and from others. Like other Cabinet Committees it keeps no records."

DEPARTMENTAL DECENTRALISATION COMMITTEE.
MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any steps have been taken to carry out the recommendations of the Departmental Decentralisation Committee.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The recommendations of the Decentralisation Committee, which reported in 1898, were with few exceptions accepted by the Secretary of State, and have been included in regulations. I hope, however, to be able to carry the principle in question considerably further, and am taking steps to this end.

MILITIA OFFICERS' EXAMINATIONS.
MR. STRACHEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state when the next examination for Militia candidates for commissions in the Army will take place; and whether, in the next examination, they will be credited with marks for their embodied service; and, if so, to what extent.
MR. BRODRICK: The next examination will probably be about March 20th. I cannot at present make any statement on the second paragraph of the question.
MR. STRACHEY: When will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to make a statement?
MR. BRODRICK: Not this session, but within a reasonable time of the next examination.

ROYAL ARTILLERY LIEUTENANTS.
MR. NEWDIGATE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that there are at present in the Royal Artillery only 130 first lieutenants serving as against 435 second lieutenants;
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whether the second lieutenants in question often have to perform the duty of first lieutenants, but only receive second lieutenant's pay; and whether the military authorities will now be willing to alter the rule which precludes second lieutenants in the Royal Artillery and Engineers from receiving promotion till they have served for three years in the Army, whereas no such rule is in force as regards cavalry and infantry.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: In the horse, field, and garrison artillery, there are 221 first lieutenants and 808 second lieutenants. The first and second lieutenants perform the same duties. It is, however, manifestly of importance that the senior subalterns, who frequently perform captain's duties, should have higher rank. The question of the promotion of second lieutenants referred to in the third paragraph is under consideration.

SEPERATION ALLOWANCES.
MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if married men in the Royal Reserves and Militia who are on furlough get separation allowance except when they are on furlough on account of sickness or convalescence through no fault of their own, and generally contracted while doing their duty.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: Separation allowance is not granted ordinarily on furlough, nor are sick men allowed as a rule to go on furlough. Men, however, invalided home from South Africa have been allowed to go on sick furlough and their wives have been granted separation allowance. In the event of Militiamen or Royal Reservists falling sick on furlough the allowance will be granted in special cases of proved hardship.

ROYAL RESERVISTS—BOUNTIES, ETC.
MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if old soldiers who had bought their discharge and have joined the Royal Reserves are to be given back two-thirds of the money they paid for their discharge besides the £22 bounty, whereas old soldiers who after leaving the Army joined the Militia are only to get £5 bounty altogether.
MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The old soldiers who purchased their discharge

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and joined the Royal Reserve will have the usual proportion of their purchase money refunded to them, as in the case of ordinary re-enlistments. Old soldiers who have purchased their discharge and have joined the Militia are similarly entitled to a refund of purchase-money if their corps is embodied. On disembodiment they will receive a gratuity varying according to the period of embodiment, but amounting in no case to less than £5 3s. 6d.

VOLUNTEERS—DISTRICT SCHOOLS OF INSTRUCTION.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the difficulty officers of Metropolitan Volunteer Corps have in obtaining admission to the Home District School of Instruction owing to the number of applications to join it from provincial districts, he will arrange for the formation of similar schools, both day and night, in the principal garrison towns and camps, so that all Volunteer officers throughout Great Britain may have opportunity of attending.
MR. BRODRICK: I cannot give my hon. friend an answer to this question, but it is being carefully considered.

NAVAL CONSTRUCTION.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, as representing the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether, during the current financial year, the output of armour, hulls, and machinery has been entirely satisfactory as regards quantity, quality, and delivery; and whether it may be anticipated that the ship-building programme for the year will be accomplished in its entirety within the specified time.
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Captain PRETYMAN,): It is believed that the money voted for armour, hulls, and machinery for the current financial year will be wholly or almost wholly earned by 31st March. The character of the work finally received has been uniformly satisfactory. It is expected that the aggregate of work accomplished in the shipbuilding of the year will not be less than was expected when the Estimates
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were laid before the House at the commencement of last session, although in some directions less and in others more progress will have been made than was then anticipated.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, as representing the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether arrangements have been made so to develop our means of output of armour, hulls, and machinery, as to enable shipbuilding programmes of the immediate future to be determined by reference to our national requirements unrestricted by insufficiency of our power of production.
CAPTAIN PRETYMAN: Ever since the engineers' strike of 1897 the arrears in shipbuilding have been a constant source of anxiety to the Board, and they have regarded the position as most unsatisfactory. How to prevent a recurrence of these delays and how to secure that the national resources of production can be most fully utilised and developed to meet Imperial requirements is occupying the serious attention of the Admiralty.
MR. J. F. HOPE: Have inquiries been made as to the willingness of contractors already contracting with the Admiralty to increase their means of production?
CAPTAIN PRETYMAN: That is part of the question under consideration.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the English naval contractors have produced two battleships for the Japanese Government?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

H.M.S. "HIGHFLYER."
MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will state when H.M.S. "Highflyer" left Portsmouth for the East Indies; how long she took over the run to Malta, and from Malta to Bombay; and whether she is now having her machinery and boilers overhauled and repaired there.
CAPTAIN PRETYMAN: The "Highflyer" left Devonport on 28th June, and arrived at Malta on 5th July. She left Malta on 9th July, and arrived at Mauri-

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tius on 1st August. She has not been to Bombay since her arrival on the station.

CANADA AND GERMAN TARIFFS.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether in consequence of Canada's admission of British goods into the markets of the Dominion at a reduction of one-third the duty charged upon foreign goods, under the powers accorded by the denunciation in 1897 of the treaties with Germany and Belgium, Canada is excluded from most-favoured-nation treatment in German markets, notwithstanding that the Dominion treats Germany upon the same footing as all foreign nations; and, if so, will he explain why Her Majesty's Government has acquiesced in such treatment of a portion of the British Empire, while goods passing between the several States of Germany are as in the United States of America treated preferentially compared to foreign nations.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRANBORNE,): It is the case that Canada is at present excluded from most-favoured-nation treatment in German markets. We regret that this should be so, but in the absence of a Commercial Treaty between this country and Germany that Power is, of course, able to regulate her tariffs in accordance with her own views. The matter is one to which we attach much importance, and we shall constantly bear it in mind.
LIEUT.-GENERAL LAURIE: When the commercial treaty with Germany is negotiated will the matter be borne in mind, so that Canada may have fair consideration?
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Yes, Sir.

PRESERVATION OF BIG GAME IN AFRICA.
MR. SETON-KARR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state what steps have been taken in British East and Central Africa, in Uganda, and other game districts in Africa, for the preservation of big game on the lines recommended and agreed to by the recent International Conference held in London on this sub-
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ject, and, in particular, what game reserves now exist in British South Africa, and what steps are being taken to guard and enforce the sanctity of these reserves, and also to maintain and enforce the other regulations for game preservation; whether he has any information showing that public officers such as railway officials and others are allowed to kill game in the Kenia Reserve in British East Africa, and have in fact killed game there in considerable quantity; whether the Kenia Reserve contains sufficient grazing lands and area for the purpose of an adequate game reserve; and, whether he is aware that an Englishman recently sold in Mombasa as the produce of his hunting trip ivory to the amount of £8,000; and whether an inquiry can be made into the circumstances of the sale of this ivory, and how and where it was obtained.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Carefully drawn regulations for the preservation of wild animals have been in force for some time in the several African Protectorates administered by the Foreign Office as well as in the Soudan. The obligations imposed by the recent London Convention upon the signatory Powers will not become operative until after the exchange of ratifications, which has not yet taken place. In anticipation, however, steps have been taken to revise the existing regulations in the British Protectorates so as to bring them into strict harmony with the terms of the Convention. The game reserves now existing in the several Protectorates are—In (a) British Central Africa—the elephant marsh reserve and the Shirwa reserve; in (b) the East Africa Protectorate—the Kenia district; in (c) Uganda—the Sugota game reserve in the north-east of the Protectorate; in (d) Somaliland—a large district defined by an elaborate boundary line described in the regulations. The regulations have the force of law in the Protectorates. Protectorates and offenders are dealt with in the Protectorate courts. It is in contemplation to charge special officers of the Administrations with the duty of watching over the proper observance of the regulations. Under the East African Game Regulations only the officers permanently stationed at or near the Kenia Reserve may be specially authorised to kill game in the reserve. There is no reason to believe that this privilege has

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been abused. The question of extending the Kenia Reserve will be considered. The circumstances connected with the alleged sale at Mombasa have not been reported to the Foreign Office.

UGANDA RAILWAYߞBRITISH AND AMERICAN BRIDGE TENDERS.
MR. CREMER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the names of the British and American firms who tendered for the erection of bridges for the Uganda; Railway; the amounts of the various tenders; and if the British firms, whose quotations were higher than the American, were invited to or afforded an opportunity of revising their tenders.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I shall be glad to give the information to the hon. Gentleman privately, or to grant it as an unopposed Return if he will move for it, but it would hardly be comprehensible in an answer to a question. It has not been considered fair to the party making the lowest tender to invite other tenderers to revise their offers.
MR. CREMER: May I ask the noble Lord whether there is any rule in his Department which precludes the possibility of inviting contractors to revise their tenders?
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: The hon. Gentleman will perhaps give notice.
MR. THOMAS BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether an American company has contracted with the Foreign Office to erect thirty-four bridges on the Uganda Railway, requiring something like 8,000 tons of structural steel, and if so, whether he will state the amount of the contract, and whether any tenders for those bridges were invited from well-known British firms.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Yes. The American Bridge Company have contracted for the erection in situ of thirty bridges on the Uganda Railway containing approximately 7,000 tons of structural steel. The amount of the contract is for £135,000. As the hon. Member will have learnt from an answer given on the subject on the 11th inst. to the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton, tenders were invited for the contract in
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the United Kingdom. They were invited by means of advertisement.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Were the British tenderers given an opportunity of revising their tenders so as to tender at the lowest price?
[No answer was given.]

CHINAߞREPORTED MASSACRES BY RUSSIANS.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any protest has been addressed by Her Majesty's Government or by other European Governments to the Government of Russia regarding the massacre of many thousands of the Chinese non-combatant inhabitants of towns and villages along the river Amur.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: No, Sir.

THE NEW HEBRIDESߞLAND DISPUTES BETWEEN BRITISH AND FRENCH SUBJECTS.
MR. PARKER SMITH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that claims to land in the occupation of natives and of British subjects are being made by French subjects in the islands of Epi and Efate, in the New Hebrides, and that disturbance has resulted; and, in particular, that the Rev. R. M. Fraser, a British subject, has been dispossessed from land bought by him in the Island of Epi, and his schoolhouse burned by M. Beaulieu, a French subject; whether the dispute was investigated by a French warship without the presence of an English officer; whether the proper tribunal for investigating such a question is the Joint Naval Commission; and whether he will take steps to secure the impartial investigation of the matter.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Complaints of the nature indicated in the first and second paragraphs of the hon. Member's question have been brought to the notice of Her Majesty's Government, and steps have already been taken for their due investigation by one of Her Majesty's ships on the Australian station. I should, however, state in reply to Paragraph 3 that the Joint Naval Commission has no

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power to interfere in disputes concerning the title to land.

EAST AFRICA—ANGLO-GERMAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will say when the Report of the Anglo-German Boundary Commission, appointed for the purpose of defining the International boundary in the districts lying between Lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa, will be issued.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: The terms of the Convention confirming the work of the Commission are now under discussion between the British and the German Governments. The Report cannot be issued until the Convention has been concluded.
MR. WEIR: Can the noble Lord say precisely when the Report will be issued? I got the same answer a year ago.
[No answer was given.]

TURKISH ARMENIA—CONSULAR REPORTS.
MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the reports of the British Consuls or Vice-Consuls, or other agents in the districts of Turkish Armenia during the past year, or such portions of them as relate to massacres, expropriations, or other outrages upon the Armenian population, can be presented to Parliament.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: With the exception of the reports of a massacre at Spaghank, which were, on inquiry, found to be exaggerated, there have been no reports lately of serious outrages upon the Armenians. The more recent despatches from Consular officers indicate some improvement in the administration of the country, at any rate in the Vilayets of Trebizond and Van. It is not considered desirable in the interests of the Armenians themselves to publish the reports.

INDIA—COLLECTION OF REVENUE IN THE HIMALAYAS.
MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State
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for India if his attention has been called to the conduct of the Deputy Commissioner of Dharmsala, who, with his revenue officer, interviewed the head men of Spiti and Bara Bangahal districts, and urged them to loyally support and increase the revenue in every possible way, but particularly in the excise department; and whether, seeing that this action on the part of a revenue officer is in distinct contradiction of the declared policy of the Government of India as formulated in their despatch to the Secretary of State, No. 29, 4th February, 1890, the Government of India propose to take any action in the matter.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I have received no report concerning the circumstances described in the hon. Member's question. But I can quite conceive that the Deputy Commissioner of Kangra may have urged the headmen of those remote Himalayan, tracts to support the Government in putting down illicit stills and illicit drinking. If he did this the Deputy Commissioner would not, in my judgment, be contravening the principles and policy of the Government of India, as declared in the despatch quoted in the question.

INDIAN AGRICULTURAL BANKS.
MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can say when the Conference on Agricultural Banks, promised by Sir Edward Law, will meet in Calcutta; whether independent Indian gentlemen will be invited to join the conference; and whether the views in favour of an experimental bank set forth in the Government of India despatch of May, 1884, will be taken into careful consideration.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I cannot state the time when the Committee which the Government of India have appointed to consider the question of agricultural banks will meet; but I know that the Government are most desirous to bring the question to a practical issue; and I am satisfied that, in the matter of selecting members and advisers of the Committee, and in the matter of furnishing the Committee with all available information, the Government will take all; possible means to secure the end in view.

SOMALI EXPEDITION—EMPLOYMENT OF INDIAN TROOPS.
MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can state what number of Indian troops are to be employed on the Somali Expedition; and if their expenses will be borne by the British Exchequer?
LORD G. HAMILTON: The Foreign Office has asked for the services of half a battalion native infantry, fifty camel sowars, two mountain guns, and four maxims, with the necessary equipment, transport, and supplies. The expenses will be borne by the British Exchequer.

COST OF INDIAN WARS.
MR. CLAUDE LOWTHER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will agree to a Return showing the cost of each one of the different wars undertaken in India or on behalf of our Indian possessions from the year 1800 to the date of the abolition of the East India Company, and showing also the proportion of expenditure borne respectively by the United Kingdom and the East India Company in each case.
LORD G. HAMILTON: An ancient Return, No. 261 of 1808, shows that it was impossible even then to give the information now asked for as to the earlier years of the century. And it will be seen from Return 13 of 1900, which shows the wars on or beyond the borders of British India since 1849, that it is not till the last thirty years that the cost of the several military operations has been shown separately in the accounts of the Government of India. This latter Return took more than two years to compile, and caused great pressure on the departments concerned in India. I do not think I would be justified in ordering further investigations to be made in the accounts of the years from 1808 to 1849 for the purposes of the Return now asked for.

ASHANTI—ORIGIN OF THE RISING— CASUALTIES, COST, ETC.
MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there has been any cause for the recent rising in Ashanti except the attempt of the Governor to seize the golden stool, and why it was necessary to take that step; and whether he can state what
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has been the total loss of life to our forces in and the cost of the expedition up to the present, and whether any estimate has been formed of the numbers of natives killed.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: (1) It is impossible to ascribe the war with certainty to any definite act, but I am convinced that the cause lay far deeper than, the trivial incident to which the hon. Member refers. (2) The total loss of life in our forces is nine Europeans and 103 natives killed, and five Europeans and thirty-one natives died of disease. The cost of the operations has not yet been ascertained, but, so far, £132,300 has been expended out of the £200,000 voted by Parliament as a loan to the Gold Coast. It has not been possible to form an estimate of the number of Ashantis killed.
MR. LOUGH: Has the golden stool been obtained, and is there any reason to insist on the natives giving it up?
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: It has not been obtained, and I am not aware of any insistence of the kind.

DEFENDERS OF COOMASSIE— GRATUITIES.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether gratuities granted to the Army, Navy, and Marines for war service in South Africa will also be granted to the officers and men of the Army who served in West Africa, and who took part in the defence of Coomassie, and in the operations for its relief.
MR. BRODRICK: I cannot at present answer this question. The conditions of the two campaigns are not identical, and the majority of the soldiers concerned in the defence and relief of Coomassie were natives, who would not in any case be remunerated on the same scale as British soldiers.
SIR JOHN COLOMB: My question related to the officers and men of British regiments.

SIERRA LEONE—TRADE, FINANCES, ETC.
MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the Report on Sierra Leone for the

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year 1899, which shows a reduction in the exports of palm oil, rice, and rubber, and to the fact that Sir Frederick Cardew sums up the position of the country by stating that since 1895 a gradual decrease in the export trade is apparent; and whether, seeing that the cost of the frontier police for 1899 amounted to £25,672, whereas the total revenue obtained from the hut tax was only £19,364, and that an additional expenditure was required to recoup the Imperial Government for the cost of military expeditions, he would consider the desirability of abolishing the hut tax and adopting a more conciliatory attitude towards the native population.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: (1) I have examined the Report in question. It shows a reduction in the exports mentioned, but in the total of exports it shows a marked increase in 1899 over 1898, and if the words cited by the hon. Member be read with the rest of the paragraph in which they stand it will be seen that they are not intended to summarise the result of the tables as a gradual decrease since 1895. (2) The figures given as to the cost of frontier police and the revenue from the house tax for 1899 are correct; but the Governor has recently reported that the tax for 1900 has already realised more than the estimate of £25,000, and that it has been collected without trouble or any feeling of soreness. I have no reason to think that anything but a conciliatory attitude has been adopted towards the native population.

METROPOLITAN POLICE.
MAJOR EVANS-GORDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Metropolitan Police Force is at present considerably under strength; whether the standard height and chest measurement for admission to the force have been reduced; and whether the present rates of pay and terms of service are such as to attract the best men in sufficient numbers.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): The force is at present below its establishment, chiefly owing to the Reservists being called out for service with the colours. A sufficient
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number of properly qualified recruits is forthcoming to rather more than meet the normal needs of the force, but not sufficient to replace the absent Reservists or to make good augmentations. The answer to the second paragraph is in the negative. I must refer the hon. and gallant Member to an answer which I gave on Friday to the effect that the subject of the emoluments of the police has been and is under consideration.

TREATMENT OF INEBRIATES.
MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he intends to establish any State inebriate reformatories, as contemplated by Section 3 of the Inebriates Act, 1898.
MR. RITCHIE: The question is now under my consideration.

FREEDOM OF PUBLIC MEETING— LIVERPOOL ALBERT HALL AND THE CELTIC LITERARY SOCIETY.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a letter addressed by the head constable of Liverpool to the licensees of the Albert Hall to the effect that if they allowed their hall to be used for a meeting under the auspices of the Celtic Literary Society on Monday last, they would incur serious responsibility, and advising them to cancel the letting, of the hall for that purpose; and whether there was any illegality in the proposed meeting.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state on what grounds and under what authority the police broke up the Irish meeting at Liverpool held in reference to the Boer war.
MR. RITCHIE: The answer is that the police took action in order to prevent serious disturbance, and that the steps, which were taken appear to have been absolutely necessary and entirely justifiable.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Why was a portion of the meeting allowed to proceed? Why was a reverend clergyman allowed to speak, whereas, when a lady rose to do so, the police interfered?
MR. RITCHIE: I am not aware of that. The police considered that if the meeting were allowed to go on there might be serious disturbances, and I think they acted quite properly.

LEAD POISONING—SPECIAL RULES.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state when the Home Office proposals with regard to lead poisoning in the manufacture of china and earthenware, which were contained in a circular to manufacturers issued on 14th December, 1899, and again submitted to them as proposed special rules in August, 1900, are to be formally issued as special rules.
MR. RITCHIE: Much progress has been made towards a settlement of the special rules for the china and earthenware trade, but there are certain points still outstanding, and one of them involves a chemical question on which I am now waiting for a report from Dr. Thorpe, principal chemist to the Government. I hope to be able formally to issue the new rules early next year.

CRICCIETH DOG LICENCES.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the excise officer at Criccieth attends once a year at Garn Dolbenmaen for the purpose of issuing dog licences, and uses a public-house in the village for the purpose, although there are plenty of rooms available unconnected with public-houses; and whether he will give instructions to the officer in question to use a room in a private house, so as to obviate the necessity of requiring the public to attend at a public-house.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (SIR M. HICKS BEACH,): For the convenience of the farmers and shepherds in the neighbourhood, the officer at Criccieth attends at Garn on an appointed day in January to receive and examine into declarations of exemption from dog licence duty. For this purpose he engages a room at the "Cross Pipes Inn," which is the most convenient place in the village, both for him and for the public. I am
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not prepared to prohibit the use of the local hotel or inn for such purposes.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Inspector of Weights and Measures attends at a private house, and no inconvenience is experienced?
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I am not aware of it.

EDINBURGH SORTING OFFICE REVISION.
SIR LEWIS MACIVER: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he is now in a position to say when the scheme of revision for the sorting branch of the Edinburgh Post Office, which has been under consideration for more than, two years, is likely to be sanctioned.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): A portion of the scheme for the revision of the Edinburgh Sorting Office was sanctioned by the Treasury and carried into effect in August last. The remainder is held in suspense pending the settlement of certain questions of principle, with regard to higher appointments, which affect the service generally, but which it is hoped will be disposed of before long.

CUSTOMS OFFICERS' GRIEVANCES.
MR. M'CRAE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state when the result of the inquiry conducted by the late Secretary to the Treasury into the grievances of the Second Class Examining Officers of Customs will be made known to the officers concerned.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: My predecessor did not recommend any alteration regarding these men as a result of the inquiry held last summer. Certain proposals affecting them are now before the Treasury, but I have not yet had time to examine them.

POSTAGE RATES TO THE UNITED STATES.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL LEE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether

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he is aware that letters can now be sent to all parts of Canada, via New York, at the rate of 1d. per half-ounce, whereas letters addressed to New York or other parts of the United States are charged at the rate of 2½d. per half-ounce; and whether, in the interests of-closer relations between England and the United States and for the convenience of the general public, negotiations might be entered into with the Government of the United States for the mutual establishment of a rate of 1d. per half-ounce for all letters passing between the two countries.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Postmaster General is aware that the rates of postage are as stated by the hon. Member. The question of establishing a lower rate than 2½d. per half-ounce for letters exchanged between this country and the United States has already formed the subject of proposals on the part of Her Majesty's Government. The Government of the United States, however, was not prepared to entertain the suggestion.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON LOCAL TAXATION—DISTRIBUTION OF EVIDENCE, ETC., IN IRELAND.
COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, would he direct that the reports and evidence of the Commission on Local Taxation should be forwarded to the county councils of Ireland.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The course proposed by the hon. Member would be unusual, and I am not aware of any special reasons for it in this case. The volumes in question (which are not principally concerned with Ireland) can be purchased at a low price through any bookseller.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON LOCAL TAXATION—DATE OF REPORT.
MR. DOUGLAS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can inform the House when the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation will be presented.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I cannot state any date on which
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the Report will be published. It is being considered.

DELETERIOUS MATTERS IN BEER.
MR. FREDERICK WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that it is stated in the Report of the Committee on Beer Materials, 1899, that the Treasury is empowered to prohibit the use in the manufacture of beer of any substance or liquor of a noxious or detrimental nature, he will state upon how many occasions within the last five years has the Treasury exercised such power, and how many specimens of cheap sulphuric acid such as is apparently used in the manufacture of sugar for brewing purposes have been examined during the current year.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The power referred to was conferred on the Treasury by Section 5 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1888, but the duty of providing proper securities for the wholesomeness of beer like other articles of food is placed by law on the local authorities subject, if necessary, to the Local Government Board or Board of Agriculture. The Treasury, therefore, has not exercised this power. Sulphuric acid would only come under the cognisance of the Government Laboratory in the event of samples being submitted for analysis under a magistrate's order, and no instances of such submission have occurred. It ought not to exist in any sugar found in a brewery.
COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Official Analysts to the Department, Doctors Stevenson and Luff, who are members of the Expert Committee appointed by the Manchester Brewers' Association, are acting on behalf of the Department, or are being remunerated by the Brewers' Association; and if the latter is the case whether, in view of the great public interests involved, he would consider the advisability of causing a Report to be made by some expert analysts entirely unconnected with the trades concerned.
MR. RITCHIE: Doctors Stevenson and Luff are not acting on behalf of the Home Department. I think that the

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suggestion in the last paragraph of the question is scarcely within my jurisdiction, but I have consulted my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board, and understand that that Department has the whole matter under their active consideration.

SCHOOL BOARD QUESTION IN WIMBLEDON.
MR. TREVELYAN: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether it has been brought to his notice that the ratepayers of Wimbledon, at a statutory meeting on 9th July last, passed a resolution that a School Board should be formed; and why no action has been taken by the Board of Education.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST,): The Board of Education was not satisfied of the result the validity of the alleged resolution, and has therefore refrained from using it.
MR. TREVELYAN: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by validity?
SIR JOHN GORST: It was contended by some of the ratepayers that proper notice was not given of the resolution, and the Board concur in that view.

INTER-DEPARTMENTAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE.
MR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the Inter-Departmental Committee, consisting of representatives of the Home Office and of the Education Department, the calling together of which was suggested by the late Home Secretary and supported by the Vice-President of the Council in the Standing Committee on Law on 20th July, 1900, has been convened to consider the question of the out of school labour of school children; and, if so, when that Committee is likely to be in a position to report.
SIR JOHN GORST: The appointment of the Committee was delayed by changes in the Government, but the Home Secretary is now making arrangements with the Board of Education for its immediate appointment, and it is hoped that its Report will be made before next session.

GOVERNMENT DESPATCHES—DISTRIBUTION TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether copies of despatches relating to foreign and colonial affairs were sent to the county councils in England and Wales on the eve of the last General Election; and, if so, whether there is any precedent for sending such papers to county councils.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have made inquiries, and can learn nothing about this from either the Foreign Office or the Local Government Board. The hon. Member must, I think, be labouring under a misapprehension.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: Will the right hon. Gentleman further inquire?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have inquired, and have given the hon. Member the result.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I shall put a further question.

IRISH LUNACY REGULATIONS.
COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the fact that admission to Irish lunatic asylums is regulated wholly by magistrates; also, seeing that regulations for the administration of those asylums are framed by the Local Government Board to such an extent as to transfer the real control of administration and expenses to the Irish Government, would the Irish Government simplify the existing rules as to the care of lunatics by taking over in name as well as in fact the whole administration and undertaking to maintain the asylums from the Exchequer.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): It is true that the majority of committals to Irish District lunatic asylums are made by magistrates, but provision is also made in the statutory rules for admission under other forms, and in some districts these forms are largely used. The regulations for the administration of the asylums are not framed by the Local Government Board, but by the local committees of management, subject to the approval of the Lord Lieutenant. Where such regulations have not been framed by local

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committees the older regulations issued by the Lord Lieutenant in Council continue in force. The suggestion as to State control of the asylums raises an issue of such magnitude as to require more time for its consideration than I have been able to give to it in the brief interval of a few hours since this question was placed on the Paper.

DUTIES ON SPIRITS AND BEER.
COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the duty paid upon Irish and Scotch spirits, and the duty upon the same amount of alcohol in English beer contributed to the revenue; and whether, seeing that it has lately been proved that some of the compounds sold under the name of beer are of a poisonous character, would he therefore allow the consumers of intoxicants to have some choice in the nature of their beverages by somewhat reducing the duty now levied on an article of Irish and Scotch manufacture.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The rate of duty on spirits, whether English, Scotch, or Irish, is 11s. per proof gallon. The duty on beer, whether English, Scotch or Irish, depends, not upon the spirit that it contains, but upon the specific gravity of the works. As a matter of fact the present tax on beer works out to a rate of duty per proof gallon of the alcohol contained in beer of from 2s. to 2s. 3d. The duty on beer has been raised in recent years considerably more than the duty on spirits.
COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that in England the licence and other local Excise duties are paid over directly by the Excise authorities to the local bodies who raise or administer the English local rates,1¼ per cent, being charged for collection, he would consider the advisability of extending this advantage to Ireland.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: No charge for collection is made in either country, and Ireland would gain nothing by the suggested change. Under present arrangements the local bodies receive the full equivalent of the proceeds of the licence duties in Ireland corresponding to those licences which are handed over to the local authorities in Great Britain.

IRISH TAXATION.
COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer in what manner are the moneys collected in Ireland for excise, customs, taxes, and other imposts remitted to London; whether a portion of such moneys is retained in Ireland to meet Irish expenditure, and, if so, in what manner is the balance remitted to London; and, when a portion of the money payable for customs, excise, taxes, and other imposts, from Irish sources is discharged by cheques on British banks, how are these cheques credited so as to show the total sum collected for excise, customs, taxes, and other imposts collected or collectable in Ireland.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The revenue collected in Ireland is paid in by the various collectors to the account of the Exchequer at the Bank of Ireland. Most, of the money is retained to meet Irish expenditure other than that on account of the Army and Navy incurred in Ireland, which for reasons of convenience is paid by the Paymaster General in London. The balance is remitted by the Bank of Ireland to the Bank of England on the requisitions of the Treasury. People paying in revenue to the collectors sometimes do so by cheques payable in, England, but all cheques, etc., are collected by the Bank of Ireland and credited to the various revenue accounts kept by that bank.

IRISH COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will inquire whether at the Irish county council elections of 1899 more than twice the number of polling places were provided for the convenience of voters than at the late Parliamentary elections; is he aware that in constituencies like North Louth voters have had to walk in many cases five or six miles to the poll, contrary to law; and if the Government will do anything to ensure that no voter in Ireland will have to proceed a greater distance than three miles to the poll.
MR. WYNDHAM: There has not been sufficient time to collect the information needed in order to verify the suggestion, made in the first paragraph, but I have no reason to doubt its accuracy. I understand there are places in North Louth

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distant some five or six miles from a polling place. This is not necessarily contrary to the law, which admits of some latitude. The fixing of polling places does not rest with the Government. In the case of Local Government elections it rests with the Returning Officer, while in the case of Parliamentary elections it is primarily determined by the Chairman and Justices at Quarter Sessions subject to confirmation by the Privy Council. If representations are made to the Government from electors in any locality I will see that they are brought to the notice of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions.

MANUAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state whether the Education Board supply the materials (or their cost) for carrying on the manual education programme, and whether the teachers must provide them.
MR. WYNDHAM: This matter is now under consideration in connection with next year's Estimate. I am unable to make any definite promise at present.
MR. T. M. HEALY: If the teachers in the meantime provide the materials out of their own pockets, will the money be refunded to them?
MR. WYNDHAM: I am considering the question.

IRISH CONSTABULARY—EXAMINATIONS.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether 119 constables presented themselves for examination under the P. and other systems last month; and is he aware that although candidates are entirely satisfied with the fairness of the Civil Service portion of the examination, there is an apprehension that the examination in professional subjects by a board of selected officers leaves room for personal bias; could the methods of the Civil Service Commissioners be introduced to govern the entire examination; how long do the board of officers take to make up their judgments; and is each district inspector allowed 15s. extra per night while the work goes on, and how often is the county inspector, who presides, changed; and would the Government consider the desirability of having an entirely fresh board for each examina-
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tion, so that candidates might feel confident that the individual view of any officer should not be a permanent bar to his promotion, or that the board would not reflect the views of those who selected them as to any particular candidate.
MR. WYNDHAM: The number of constables who underwent examination last month was 114. No representations have been made to me of the nature mentioned in the second part of the first paragraph. In reply to the second paragraph, the examination of candidates in professional subjects must necessarily be conducted by police experts, and could not be entrusted to the Civil Service Commissioners. The last Promotion Board met on the 9th ult., and made its Report on the 26th ult. District inspectors appointed to this Board receive an allowance at the rate stated. The Board, consisting of five officers, is differently constituted, so far as possible, from year to year. On the occasion of the last two examinations the same county inspector presided, and one other member served twice in succession.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that the same officers shall not be appointed to the Board year after year?
MR. WYNDHAM: I think my answers show that the Board is freshly constituted yearly as far as reasonably can be done.

IRISH WORKHOUSES.—CLASSIFICATION OF AGED AND DESERVING POOR.
MR. GOULDING: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a circular or instruction has been issued by the Local Government Board to the guardians of the poor in Ireland, urging the adoption of regulations affecting the classification of inmates in workhouses, with a view of securing separate accommodation for the aged and deserving poor; and, if so, whether such classification and separation is being carried out.
MR. WYNDHAM: The Board issued a circular relating to the better classification of workhouse inmates in November, 1893, especially with regard to deserving aged married couples. They have also frequently brought the whole question under the notice of guardians through the medium of their inspectors. The

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structural arrangements of Irish workhouses present great difficulties, and a thorough sub-classification of workhouse inmates throughout the country would involve an expenditure which the guardians would be reluctant to incur. Special inquiries were made by the Board in 1896, the outcome of which is the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act of last session, and the question of the amalgamation of workhouses, from which further desirable results in this connection may follow, is now under consideration.

CHILDREN IN IRISH WORKHOUSES.
MR. GOULDING: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any circular or instruction has been issued by the Local Government Board in Ireland to the guardians of the poor urging that provision should be made for entirely removing all pauper children who are above the age of nurture from workhouses; and, if not, whether he will consider the desirability of issuing such an order, seeing that this change was unanimously recommended by a Committee of the House of Commons.
MR. WYNDHAM: The Local Government Board issued a circular relating to the relief of pauper children out of the workhouse in May last. I have forwarded a copy of this circular to my hon. friend. The Board have not urged the guardians to send all pauper children out of the workhouse, as until the passing of the Poor Relief Act of last session this would not have been a practicable suggestion. The matter is now under consideration in connection with the amalgamation of unions, and the Board hope to be able to indicate to boards of guardians shortly a manner in which a considerable advance can be made in this direction.
MR. GOULDING: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the propriety of reducing the age? My question aims at the case of children of the age of five years.
MR. WYNDHAM: I am looking into the whole question, which I think demands attention.

IRISH LAND PURCHASE—GOVERNMENT CLAIMS.
COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if, when property in Ireland is sold to tenants
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under the Purchase Acts, the Crown institutes inquiries to find if it can revive old claims for quit rents, tithes, or rent charges against such properties; if the sums so recovered are small and productive of expense and delay; and if he could, by expediting or dispensing with such inquiries, facilitate purchases and tempt more landowners to sell.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): As the sale to tenants frees the land sold from liability to quit rent, it is necessary that inquiries should be made and claims put forward for the redemption of the quit rent out of the purchase money. The certificates for the amount of the redemption money are generally lodged in ample time. In a small number of cases old claims for small sums have been made, but in very few of these has complaint of delay been received. All departments are only too anxious to facilitate the purchase by tenants of their holdings now proceeding at a very rapid rate, and if my attention be drawn to any specific instance of delay I shall have the matter inquired into.

SCOTTISH SHERIFFS' SALARIES.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state when the Report of the Committee appointed to consider the question of increasing the salaries of sheriffs in Scotland will be laid upon the Table of the House.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Committee in question was a departmental one, which reported only for the information of the Scottish Office and the Treasury, and it is not proposed to lay the Report upon the Table of the House.
MR. WEIR: Does the Report recommend an increase of these miserably small salaries?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

THE ULLAPOOL SCHOOLMASTER.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, in view of the fact that the rates payable by Mr. Cameron, schoolmaster, of Ullapool, Ross-shire, were paid on the 13th May, 1899, will he explain why Mr. Cameron was returned as a defaulter and his name removed by Mr. Morrin, the County Assessor, from the Register of Electors for the recent Parliamentary election.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): Mr. Cameron's name was contained in the statutory list of defaulters furnished by the collector of poor rates to the assessor. By that list the assessor is guided in virtue of the statutory enactment to that effect. The usual opportunities of inspecting and appealing against the list of voters drawn up by the assessor were given, but presumably Mr. Cameron failed to observe the omission of his name from the list.

SCOTTISH CONGESTED DISTRICTS.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state whether the Congested Districts Board have yet secured any land suitable for the migration of crofters and cottars; and have any crofters and cottars yet been migrated from the Congested Districts of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland; if so, will he state what sum has been so expended.
MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the hon. Member on Tuesday last in reply to his question of that date†
MR. WEIR: What was the answer?
MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: That full details would appear in the Congested Districts Board's Report.
MR. WEIR: Will you take care that next year the Report is in the hands of Members before the Vote is taken?
[No answer was given.]

FISHERY REGULATIONS IN ROSS-SHIRE.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state under what circumstances a net belonging to Robert Hosack, of Cromarty, was taken by Mr. James Nisbet, Water Bailiff Superintendent, Maryburgh, Ross-shire, last spring; and will ho state under what circumstances the net subsequently fell into the hands of J. W. F. Junor, tailor, of Cromarty, and by what authority he retains it.
MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The hon. Member's question is based on information which is somewhat less accurate than usual. In reply to the first paragraph the net did not belong to Robert Hosack, but to George Skinner.
† See page 508.
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It was not taken by Mr. James Nisbet, but by Mr. David Cramb, Inspector for the Alness District Fishery Board. The case was reported to Crown Counsel, who ordered no proceedings. In reply to the second paragraph Mr. Cramb thereafter transferred the net to Mr. Junor, who had been acting on this occasion not as tailor but as agent to the fishermen concerned. Mr. Junor does not retain the net upon any authority; he transferred it to its owner, by whom it has been sold to the Robert Hosack named in the question.

TRACTION ENGINE TRAFFIC IN ROSS-SHIRE.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that on the 1st November last a complaint was lodged with Captain Munro, Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, to the effect that on the morning of the 15th October a traction engine, bearing the name John Campbell, timber merchant, Inverness, No.2, was driven along the road at Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, without the usual precaution warning the public of its approach; and will he explain why no remonstrance has been addressed to the owner of the engine on the subject.
MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed that the complaint lodged with Captain Munro was duly communicated to the Chief Constable of the county, who obtained a report on the matter which he laid before the clerk of the road authority, who acts as prosecutor under the Locomotives Acts. The facts, however, were not considered such as to justify a prosecution. I am to add that it is no part of the duties of Captain Munro, Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, to deal with complaints.

DEER FORESTS—DESTRUCTION OF CROFTERS' CROPS.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, in view of the inadequate provision made by owners of deer forests for preventing deer destroying the crops of crofters, will the Secretary for Scotland consider the expediency of introducing legislation such as will enable crofters residing in the vicinity of deer forests to obtain certificates of exemption from gun licence in order that they may be enabled to protect their crops from the ravages of deer.
MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The answer is in the negative.
MR. WEIR: Are the crofters not entitled to attack these brutes which destroy their crops?
[No answer was given.]

MUNICIPAL TAXATION—DISTRAINTS ON CHARITY PROPERTIES.
MR. DAVID MACIVER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the action of the Liverpool Corporation in distraining upon the property of a certain well-known and widely-imitated charity for payment of municipal rates; whether he is aware that such demands are now being made in full for the first time, and upon the alleged ground that corporations, since 1899, have had no option in the matter, and that this increase is being resented by charities throughout the country; and whether, if the state of the law is as herein suggested, he can see his way to bring in a Bill with a view to its alteration in such a manner as to give a reasonable discretion to municipal corporations in the matter of exemption, so that charities considered desirable in the public interest, and which relieve the rates, may not themselves of necessity be subjected to rating.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. LONG,): I understand that the circumstances are as stated in the question, except that I am informed that the full rates on the property referred to were paid for the years 1893 to 1896, and that it was only for the years 1897 and 1898 that the rates were not paid in full, the Corporation being under a misconception of their powers in the matter. The contributions which ought equitably to be made by different kinds of property to local rates is one of the subjects which has been referred to the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, and, pending the Report of the Commission, I could not promise to bring in any such Bill as that desired by my hon. friend.
MR. DAVID MACIVER: What is the position of charities such as the Kirkdale Industrial School, which are registered as places of worship?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Gentleman must give notice of that.

ENGLISH WORKHOUSES—CLASSIFICATION OF PAUPERS—TREATMENT OF PAUPER CHILDREN.
MR. GOULDING: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether classification in the workhouses in England and Wales, and the separation from the other inmates of the aged deserving poor, which was urged on the guardians this year in a circular from the Local Government Board, have been carried out; and if not, whether, seeing that this change was also unanimously recommended by a Committee of the House of Commons, he will consider the advisability of making such classification and separation obligatory. I beg also to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can state the number of boards of guardians who have made provision for entirely removing all pauper children who are above the age of nurture from workhouses, the number of boards now making such provision, and the number of boards who are taking no definite action in the matter.
MR. LONG: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these two questions together. I am not at present in a position to say to what extent boards of guardians have taken action with regard to the matters referred to in these questions. Guardians are now considering the recommendations made in the circular which was issued by the Local Government Board, and I have already given instructions that inquiries shall be made in order to ascertain the result of such consideration. Meanwhile, I cannot undertake to say what course I may ultimately adopt in relation to this subject.

ALLOTMENTS—COMPULSORY HIRING OF LAND.
SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the number of Orders for the compulsory hire of land for allotments deposited with the Local Government Board by county councils during the last year, and whether there were any that the Local Government Board did not confirm.
MR. LONG: Six Orders of the kind referred to in the question were deposited with the Local Government Board during the year ended March last. Of these throw have been confirmed by the Board;

711
in one case the application has been withdrawn, and the two remaining cases have not yet been settled.

SALES OF CORPORATE LANDS.
SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether ho can state the area of corporate land sold during the last year under instruments issued by the Local Government Board, and the amount received from such sales and invested in funded property as required by the Local Government Board.
MR. LONG: The Local Government Board have during the year 1900 approved of the sale of about forty acres of corporate land, the value being about £66,000. The Board are not in possession of information showing the extent to which these lands have been actually sold and the proceeds invested.

FOOD PRESERVATIVES COMMITTEE—REPORT.
MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can state when the Departmental Committee appointed to consider the use of preservatives and colouring matter in articles of food is likely to present its Report.
MR. LONG: I am informed that it is not expected that the Report will be ready till March next. The Committee have deemed it desirable to institute inquiries as to dairies in Denmark and Ireland, and they are deferring their Report until they have before them the result of these inquiries, and of certain physiological experiments which they have directed to be made.

FOOD ADULTERATION—PROPOSED NEW COMMITTEE.
SIR MARK STEWART: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if it is the intention of the Government next session to appoint a Departmental Committee to inquire and report as to what regulations, if any, may with advantage be made by the Board of Agriculture under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, for determining what deficiency in any of the usual constituents of genuine butter or what addition of extraneous matter shall, for the purposes of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875 to 1899,
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raise a presumption, until the contrary is proved, that the butter is not genuine.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY,): I will not lose sight of the matter to which my hon. friend refers, but neither my predecessor nor I have yet taken any steps with respect to the setting up of presumptive standards for butter, because it has been thought better to wait and see whether any action can in the first place be taken in the case of milk and cream. The Report of the Committee appointed to consider the course to be taken with regard to the last-named articles has not yet been received.

CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY.
SIR GEORGE FARDELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been drawn to the inconvenience experienced day and night by the occupiers and owners of houses in Bayswater in consequence of the vibration caused by the running of trains on the Central London Railway; and, if so, whether the Department will at once institute an inquiry into the cause of the vibration, so that, if possible, some means may be devised for remedying the evil.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): Yes, Sir, I have received several communications from Members of this House and others on the subject referred to by my hon. friend. The matter is receiving my most careful consideration, but there are many difficulties, and I am not prepared at the present moment to make any announcement with regard to it.

TRAINING OF BOYS FOR THE MERCANTILE MARINE.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the recent Government scheme, in connection with the light dues, for inducing British shipowners to carry British boys has failed; how many boys are carried under the Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act of 1898; whether the total number of boys entered in 1899 was the smallest on record and the proportion of foreigners the highest; and what remedy he proposes to adopt in place of the scheme in question for the state of things described by his predecessor.
MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir, I cannot admit that the scheme referred to in the question, for inducing British shipowners to carry British boys on their ships, has failed. The scheme has been adopted by many shipping firms of the highest standing. It came into operation in April, 1899, and up to the 30th of last month 615 enrolments have taken place. There has, from the first, been a steady tendency to increase, which has become more marked during the last eight months. The proportion of foreigners employed in our mercantile marine in 1899 was slightly in access of that shown in any previous year, but this is probably due to causes outside the operation of the scheme. I hope that the measure of success that has attended this scheme will go on increasing as its advantages become more widely known. I have no proposal at present to submit to the House.

SLOUGH RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
MR. KEARLEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the expert advisers of the Department have any reason to believe that the disastrous railway accident at Slough on 16th June might have been entirely avoided had the train been fitted with the most modern high-speed brakes; whether from the moment the brakes were applied until the collision occurred the distance covered was about 600 yards, and the speed was diminished from 55 to 20 miles per hour; whether he is aware that in other countries trains running at similar speed can be brought to a standstill in less than 350 yards; and whether, under the circumstances, he proposes to take any stops to inquire into the efficiency of brakes on all English railways.
MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I understand that the inspecting officer who inquired into the accident at Slough is of opinion that the disaster would not have been entirely avoided had the train been fitted with "modern high speed brakes." He also points out that the evidence is not clear as to the point at which the brakes were applied; in fact, it is unlikely that the men who were not watching the signals would be exact as to where the train was when the brakes were applied. The inspecting officer himself thinks that at the moment of application the train was little more than 200 yards from the
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point of collision. I am, also informed that while the reply to paragraph 3 is in the affirmative there is no doubt that brakes in use in this country can be made equally effective over a similar distance. The Board of Trade are not in a position to press railway companies to adopt any particular brake, but I venture to express the hope that the companies will carefully watch the improvements which are-being made and by experiments and otherwise ascertain the advantages of such improvements. On this point I am glad to be able to say that the Department has received a letter from the Great Western Railway Company in which the general manager informs me that "the directors have already ordered that a new and exhaustive series of experiments-as to the efficiency of the brake power upon their trains shall be arranged in the coming spring."

SUPPLEMENTAL WAR LOAN (No. 2) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I need hardly say that I do not rise to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. Bills of this kind have now become a matter of course. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave us very little information. We assume that from time to time, at intervals of a few weeks or months, there will be a Supplementary Estimate and that money will be borrowed. We cannot help ourselves in this situation. If I may borrow an old saying,—needs must when war drives. There is no option when you cry havock and let loose the dogs of war; we have no control. When blood continues to flow, treasure continues to be poured out, and therefore whatever money is asked for the House have to give. I am bound to say that the announcement that has been made in this session has, in spite of the contradiction that has been given to that statement, caused great discouragement and a good deal of disappointment in the public mind as well as in the House of Commons. I see the Member for the Ecclesall Division

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of Sheffield shaking his head. Well, he is never discouraged and he is never disappointed. If the proposal had been for £100,000,000 he would have given it with equal cheerfulness. An Estimate generally is supposed to be a thing which is adequate to the purpose for which it is proposed, but the proper title of this Vote would be a Vote on Account—a Vote on account of a war which has not been brought to a conclusion. It is a war not only which is not concluded, but of which the Secretary of State says that he has no idea when it will be concluded. There is a supplementary guerilla war. I say that this state of things has caused discouragement and caused disappointment. There is no doubt that in this country there are thousands of families which were expecting this Christmas that at least the Imperial Yeomanry, the Militia, and the Volunteers would return. But we are told that they certainly will not, as far as the Government know, return before March, and it is very uncertain whether they will return even then. Therefore we have ceased to have any estimate given us with reference to the cost of the war. Last July I complained of the difficulty in understanding the Treasury document. I have found the same difficulty again. We have had a document laid upon the Table with reference to this Supplementary Estimate. It has no relation to the cost of the war at all. It only relates to the money that has been voted or is to be voted for this financial year, without any application to the cost of the war. I requested the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year to give us an intelligible document on the subject, which he was kind enough to do, and then on August 3 last we did have a paper which professed to give the cost of the war, which then amounted to £69,000,000. We have no paper to show what is the cost of the war now. The war in China and other items which do not appertain to the war in Africa are included. I hope we shall have a paper which will let us know what the idea of the Government is as to the cost up to the end of the present financial year, of the war in South Africa alone. Under the circumstances I wish to point out that this Estimate differs in principle altogether from that given to us in July last. This is in fact what may be called a carrying-over Estimate, and not
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a winding up Estimate, like the Estimate of last July. At last we have got a pretty frank declaration of the present condition of things. We had a frank declaration in this House from the Secretary of State for War, who, in a manner not too cheerful, has described the present condition of things and the future prospects. We also have had a frank declaration from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not in this House, but at one of those banquets which annually recur at Bristol, where he informed his constituents that they were not to expect any diminution of taxation, but probably higher taxation. Those are very striking statements, and, as has already been observed, the Government are to be congratulated that these statements were made after and not before the elections. It was fortunate for them that they found themselves in the condition—under the necessity, as they said—of hurrying on the elections before it was necessary to make admissions of that character, and we have nothing to complain of as regards the frankness of their present declarations. Now we are going to vote £16,000,000.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): This is a Bill to borrow £11,000,000.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The Estimates are for £16,000,000, and we are going to borrow £11,000,000! I remember the time when a demand on the House of Commons to borrow £11,000,000 was considered a matter of some importance, but now we think nothing of it at all. We borrow £11,000,000 one month and a month or two afterwards we borrow another £11,000,000, and nobody thinks anything about it at all. I presume it will not be many weeks or months before we borrow I another odd sum of £11,000,000, for eleven million pounds seems to be a favourite sum of the Government; they asked for £11,000,000 in July and August, and they ask for £11,000,000 now. I confess I possessed my soul in patience—moderate patience—because I relied upon the assurance that was given us last July by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man of firm character and of very direct and reliable mind. I would just like to read in order that I

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may again put on record what that assurance was, because it was a very important one, and I am very glad, if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, that he is in his place to fulfil it. I had not regarded him as a sanguine man, and, therefore, I was surprised when he said he expected the war to be over in September. I do not know whether he expects the war will be over in March next, or whether he has completed his studies in guerilla warfare, and is now competent to give the period when the war will be absolutely over. The fact is that the Government in this matter are like favourite actors—they want the beneficence of the House of Commons. They advertise a benefit "positively for the last time," but the last time does not arrive, and they appear again for another benefit. However, the assurance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave me great satisfaction. The right hon. Gentleman said—
"I do not propose to ask for any permanent borrowing powers. We should, as far as possible, earmark our borrowing for the war as temporary borrowing, and it should, automatically almost, point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether I occupy the post or anybody else, that it is his duty at the earliest possible time to make provision for the redemption of the loan. The mode in which that provision is made must form part of the financial statement after the war is over, and when we can see how much we can secure from the Transvaal."
Therefore the right hon. Gentleman has undertaken that the next Budget shall provide for the redemption of the loan.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Unless, in accordance with the supposition of the right hon. Gentleman, the war goes on longer.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I was making no supposition at all, and it will be interesting to hear what your estimate will be as to the war being over. The Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that if the war was over by September the next Budget would provide for the redemption of the debt. That is a very important statement, and I desire to recall it, and I ask the indulgence of the House to call attention to it. Last night he repeated the statement as to getting a part of the cost of the war from the Transvaal in equally emphatic terms. He said that he himself, and the Colonial Secretary, and all his colleagues would
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redeem the expectation he had held out to the House of Commons and the country that a considerable portion of the cost of the war should be obtained from the wealth of the Transvaal. That is a most important statement which we, as the representatives of the taxpayers of England, ought to examine. I can confidently say that the right hon. Gentleman and the Colonial Secretary, and all his colleagues will have the strenuous support of both sides of the House of Commons in their endeavours. The Colonial Secretary misinterpreted me when I cheered him the other night, for he thought I was differing from him; but on the contrary I was applauding him. Now I should like to see what are the resources of the Transvaal from which the burden laid on the English taxpayer is to be relieved There is a notion that there is going to be, under the British administration of the new colonies, a surplus available for payment of part of the cost of the war. That is to say, the revenue will be more or the expenditure will be less; or that at all events there will be moneys in hand from that administration which will be available for the payment of part of the cost of the war. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have always been sceptical on this subject, not because I did not wish the thing should be done, but because I did not see how it could be done; and I should like very much to invite the right hon. Gentleman to-night to give us a little more light upon the point. I will endeavour to lay before the House the reasons why I think such an explanation is necessary, and why I think the accomplishment of that pledge will not be easy. You have to consider first of all the revenue, and then the expenditure. Where is your revenue to come from in the new English colonies? What is the present condition of the colonies which you have added to your Empire? The land is devastated and the people are ruined; you cannot get revenue out of them. When the Boers return from St. Helena you will not be able to raise revenue from them, because they possess nothing. What you will have to do then is not to collect money from them, but to support them. The other night the Colonial Secretary uttered the terrible word famine. This war is to be succeeded by famine. That is not a favourable condition for the collection of revenue.

719
The hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division said, "Oh, as soon as you have got the railways you can get as much food j as you like into the country." Who is going to pay for it? It is quite obvious that in the first instance you will have to pay for it. You cannot get your revenue at once, and you must either feed these people or exterminate them. That is the situation in which you stand in relation to the country which you have conquered. Then there remain only the capitalists and the Uitlanders. They, I suppose, are to return to Johannesburg and the Rand; they are the gold-mining population, and are the sole taxable source of wealth in that district. What else is there? I will ask the indulgence of the House while I call attention to a proposal made by Mr. Rhodes and his allies that the natives should be taxed. That is so serious a matter that it ought to receive the attention of the House, because if we are going to add to famine an insurrection of the natives that will not be an additional encouragement in the situation in which we find ourselves. But I ask the attention of the House to the expectation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he is going to derive a considerable revenue towards the cost of the war from the wealth of the Transvaal. They are the only resources from which you can expect revenue; and let us now examine what is the probability of obtaining a revenue from them. How will I you get it, and how much will you get? What is the assistance the Chancellor of the Exchequer is likely to receive from the proprietors of that wealth? Of course, I need not say that these men, who have I amassed incredible fortunes under the tyranny of President Kruger, are loyalists of the first water, that their patriotism is beyond suspicion, that they pre Imperialists of the highest class, and you would suppose that they were ready to pour their gifts of gold and diamonds into the public exchequer. I have endeavoured to ascertain what is their disposition in this respect. I desire to assist in this matter the Chancellor of the Exchequer as much as I can. He expressed, and properly expressed, his gratitude to my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean for the valuable information he gave to the House on the subject of the assets of the Transvaal. What I would ask him to inquire into now is not the capital assets, which may be difficult
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or easy to realise—I do not know—but into the annual income for the administration of our new colonies. Now what is the attitude taken up with reference to these matters by the persons who have the control of this wealth of the Transvaal? There is a gentleman, I believe of very high authority in this matter—Mr. Robinson—who is chairman of the South African Banking Company, who have an interest in the control of a great number of these gold properties in the Transvaal. I believe no one is better informed of the condition of things than Mr. Robinson. I remember that in that admirable poem of Mr. Lowell's in the "Biglow Papers" there was a gentleman of the same name, and when somebody propounded to him the example of the Apostles as worthy to be followed, the verse goes on—
"J. B.
Robinson, he
Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee."
Our Mr. Robinson, I am certain, knows everything about the "Judee" in the Rand, and no man is more competent to express an opinion on this subject. Now, the other day ho made a speech to his company on the subject of their dividends which they did not get. He made a long speech, which was called by an enthusiastic admirer a State paper. He began, of course, by assuring them of their great wealth, their great resources, their accumulated funds, etc. He said the profits of the company and the dividends of the shareholders would enormously increase, and he said that he had always stated that the Transvaal Boers would not destroy the mines. That is quite true. You have destroyed their farms, but they have not destroyed your mines. Therefore, although the wealth of the agriculturists is to a great degree destroyed—their farms gone, their stock taken—at all events, the wealth of the Transvaal remains in the hands of those gentlemen with undamaged mines. Now I come to what Mr. Robinson says as to their disposition to contribute towards the cost of the war. He says—
"It has been argued that the Government will put a tax upon gold, or that it will tax the mines. I do not believe it. We know that under the regime of the late Transvaal Government very many mines were shut down because they could not be made to pay under the taxation that then existed. It is argued in the press that it is the intention of the British Government"—

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well, it is not argued in the press, it is stated here by the Government—
"to impose taxation in the Transvaal for the purpose of reimbursing the Exchequer for the outlay and expenditure which has been incurred in connection with the war. I do not for one moment believe that the Imperial Government will commit so suicidal an action. If they were to do so they would find that, instead of obtaining from the country the expense incurred in connection with the war, they would simply plunge the whole country into misery, retard its development, and at the same time stir up a feeling of resentment and animosity which would prove a great danger to Imperial interests."
That is the menace addressed to the Government by these Imperialist patriots, who represent the wealth of the Transvaal—
"In fact, I may say that a policy of this kind would exercise a most baneful influence not only in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, but in every other South African colony."
These gold gentleman are not confined to the Transvaal. They exist in Cape Colony and Natal, and this is what you are to expect if you attempt to collect revenue from them. It appears there are some gentlemen in the gold interest who have suggested that they might contribute something—not what might be asked of them, but what they thought fit—but Mr. Robinson will not have it at all. Ho says—
'You would create a discontented population who would be a menace to the whole position of affairs in the country, who would endanger Imperial interests and paralyse the state of things throughout the whole of South Africa and force the British Government into a very false position."
That is the account that he gives of their views of what their conduct in the Rand should be towards the new Government you are going to set up. I beg pardon for occupying the time of the House with these extracts, but it is very necessary for the country to know what is the attitude of the future wealth of the Transvaal towards this expectation, which was held out before the election, that the taxpayer of this country was not to bear the whole of this burden, and that there were means for his relief. I am quite sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer held out that expectation in good faith. I do not doubt that for a moment, but it is one of those miscalculations, one of those delusions, with which the country has been amused. Well, why does Mr.
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Robinson state they ought not to pay? He says—
"Great Britain cannot expect to acquire a property so enormous in size, possessing such rich lands, &c, as well as the future developments that will follow, for a paltry sum of £60,000,000, and then turn round and tell the inhabitants of these countries that they will have to pay the £60,000,000 or a portion of it to enable her to acquire these valuable possessions. They are of very great value. To tax the mines or impose any burden of debt on the newly-acquired States for the purpose of paying a portion of that £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 would, in my opinion, be perpetrating a very great injustice upon the whole population of South Africa.…The taxation that was in existence up to the time of the war will have to he reduced, and reduced very considerably."
Their view is that you have acquired, these countries in order to get a very good, thing for yourselves, and, having got a very good thing for yourselves, they say that £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 is a trifle which nobody ought to be expected to consider, and to which they ought not to be expected to contribute. They are to pay no portion of it, and no burden of taxation is to be placed on them for the cost of the war. He adds—
"I need scarcely say, as you are all, no doubt, aware of it, that there are indications that matters are trending in that direction."
Yes, Sir. What are those indications? The declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the declaration of the Secretary for the Colonies. Mr. Robinson goes on—
"And unless the Imperial Government uses that discretion which is so essentially necessary in the government of a country like South Africa it will indeed shake to its very foundations the Imperial dream which all lovers of freedom, justice, and progress so-much admire."
There are some people who are to "Pay, pay, pay," and there are others who are not to "Pay, pay, pay" out of the wealth of the Transvaal. Mr. Robinson proceeds—
"I must frankly admit that there are scintillations in the air at the present time which indicate further manœuvring in that direction."
Scintillations in the air! The declarations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the Colonial Secretary. Those are the scintillations in the air which he expresses his determination to defeat. Well, Sir, he goes on to declare that what they desire and have a right to expect is not that they should go on paying for their

723
privileges, for their gold, what they have hitherto been paying, and under which they had done so well and accumulated their fabulous wealth, but that their payments should be greatly diminished. Everybody knows that the taxation under President Kruger and the old Government in the Transvaal was incomparably lighter than that imposed by MR. Rhodes and the Chartered Company in Rhodesia. If anybody doubts that I would ask him to refer to the report of the meeting of the United Rhodesian Goldfields (Limited). The chairman at that meeting said that—
"It was disconcerting to find that the vast majority of experienced miners and mining men who had been expelled from the Rand had preferred to waste their time in Cape Town and the ports rather than to try their luck in Rhodesia. This was due, he believed, to the severity of the conditions imposed by the Chartered Company on prospectors being one of the largest companies in Rhodesia, they were vitally interested in securing some relief from the intolerable conditions under which all exploring undertakings worked.…If the country was to be worked on its merits fresh capital must be attracted by fair conditions being offered."
Then he expresses the hope that one day he will get an alteration from Mr. Rhodes, and declares that unless an amendment is speedily made all hope of attracting fresh capital into Rhodesia will disappear. That is not very promising for your revenue if that is to be the policy pursued. That is Mr. Robinson's view of the contribution by the wealth of the Transvaal to the revenue. But there is another, and probably the greatest, gold combination or trust in South Africa—that is the Consolidated Goldfields Company. They say they have a balance in hand of £1,750,000, a reserve of £1,000,000, and they boast of their enormous wealth and great resources. They have, of course, an ornamental lord as chairman. That is necessary in this country, but the significant point is that they have as directors Mr. Cecil Rhodes and Mr. Rochfort Maguire. Therefore we may suppose that when the chairman speaks he speaks with more authority than his own. They dictate the policy and pull the strings. Now let us see what this "golden diamond" policy is. Lord Harris, as chairman, on the 27th October refers in his speech to a report by Mr. Hays Hammond, the engineer of the company, and, I believe, the greatest expert in South Africa, who in a previous report had stated that if by good
724
government 6s. a ton could be saved it would mean a profit to the Rand of £4,000,000 a year. That statement attracted the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he thought that perhaps the English taxpayer might have a fraction of that £4,000,000 a year which the Rand estimated would be their profit by this war. Yes; but those gentlemen saw that that was rather a roseate and dangerous statement on the part of their engineer, and as soon as it was known that any money might be diverted for the relief of the English taxpayer the chairman said it was necessary to correct that statement. He said it was a "clerical error"; that "it was an estimate"—there is something charming in this—"made not by a politician, but by a mining engineer." We know that estimates made by politicians and not mining engineers are estimates made to suit the period of elections, but the estimate I am now dealing with was made to suit the purposes of shareholders. But the remarkable thing is that the statement which it was thought necessary to correct in this case was made by a mining engineer of great eminence, and not by a politician. So it is necessary for politicians to correct this error, and they at once bring the estimate down to £2,000,000, so that there should be less to attack. Then the chairman goes on to say—
"As to the burdens to be laid on the Rand, it was comforting to remember that they would not be settled by the officials in the Transvaal or even by the Colonial Office."
So that, according to this, the Secretary to the Colonies and the High Commissioner are to have nothing to do in a Crown Colony with the taxation that is to be put on the wealth of the Transvaal. He supposes that the final settlement will be Parliamentary, and he goes on to say—
"The line that divided politics from economics in the affairs of the company was so thin that it was scarcely distinguishable."
Yes, Sir, we know that very well. We know well the line that divides the politicians and the gold men at the Cape, and their economics. The latter control the politics of the Cape. The Consolidated Goldfields Company, however, represent the high-grade ore, and they are denounced by Mr. Robinson in his speech for having intimated the possibility of contribution having to be made. These weak-kneed men, he says, are actuated by

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the most selfish motives; they want to shut up the low-grade ores and so secure all the labour, which may be scarce, for themselves. That is the charitable view these gentlemen entertain of one another. What they want is cheap labour. One of the great complaints that they made against President Kruger was that he would not give them cheap labour by coercing the natives. That was one of the great complaints these men made, and the principal foundation, as far as they were concerned, of the agitation which was got up and which led to the war. What they think is that the British Government will do that for them when they establish their government in these colonies. There is a Mr. Rudd, who does not object to some payment by the mines, but he denied that the war was originated by the capitalists or on behalf of the mines, and afterwards remarked that, if the allegation were true, the nation owed them, or whoever caused the war, a deep debt of gratitude. But he said, the main thing is that we—
"must get something out of the 10,000,000 able-bodied natives in South Africa."
The chairman said—
"the Government must take the lead in the collection, importation, and distribution of labour."
That is the great aim of the greatest gold combination in South Africa—to insist upon the British Government providing them with cheap labour, It is a great difficulty unquestionably, the question of labour. How are they going to procure it? As politicians, not as mining engineers, they have a scheme of their own. The Boers cannot pay, because they have nothing to pay with; the wealth of the Transvaal will not pay, but there remains another population, and the people that are to pay are the black natives. That is the "golden diamond" policy. It was anticipated, according to the directors' report of the Consolidated Goldfields Company—
"that the conditions of life amongst the native labourers under a British administration will he immensely improved in various ways, amongst others by the prohibition of drink"
—we have not succeeded in getting that prohibition in this country yet, but it will be observed that the object of these Rhodesian gentlemen is not the improvement of the moral and social condition of the natives, but it is to cheapen their labour—
"by their protection on the route to and from
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Johannesburg, by regulations as to the duration of the service, and by other means. It may lie expected that the mine labourer will, owing to these and other reforms, become a better and, therefore—apart from the rate of wage, which will no doubt settle itself as the various ordinary forces which affect supply and demand come into play—a cheaper workman."
Just let us see what is going to be done with these natives. Their wages are to be run down by the importation of foreign labourers, which is to be undertaken and carried through by the British Government, and then, when you have run down their wages, the British Government is to determine the period of their service. I know what the miners of Monmouth would say if it was proposed to improve their position and cheapen their labour by methods of this character. But these gentlemen are sanguine—
"It is to be hoped that, in return for the many advantages which the native races of British South Africa will now secure, the Government will take care that in some form or other those who have not hitherto been directly taxed shall now contribute to the expenses of the war."
The gold miners will not contribute, the Boers cannot contribute, but the natives shall "contribute to the expenses of the war," and also "become an industrious and useful portion of the population." These are the people who are to contribute to the expenses of the war. If there is anything certain in the world it is that a policy of that kind, if the British Government were so insane as to adopt it, would produce a native insurrection as it did in Matabeleland under the Rhodesian regime. It may be asked, Who are these men that we should attend to what they say? I will tell you who these men are. They are the masters of South Africa. It is recorded that Philip of Macedon said that wherever you could drive a mule laden with gold into a city you could capture it. There are golden convoys of this kind going all over South Africa, and I am not sure there are not convoys of that description in London; and therefore we know perfectly well that these are the men who control the politics, who control the Government, of the Cape. They are the men who will be supreme in your Government and in your new colonies. These are the men on whom you are going to rely in your new colonies. Who else is there in the population on whom you can rely? These are the men who have tarnished your reputation all over the world, who

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have destroyed the reputation to a great degree of South Africa, and if you allow them to prevail they will ruin your now colonies. It is, therefore, of the last importance that you should know what are their intentions and what is their policy. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that if you want to obtain anything, as you have pledged yourselves to obtain it, for the British taxpayer out of the enormous expenditure of this war, you must be prepared to face the "Kaffir Circus." If you face them in South Africa you will have to face them here, and it will require all the courage which I know is possessed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Colonial Secretary, and it will require all the integrity of Parliament to deal with this matter. You will receive the most obstinate resistance and you will receive a refusal to grant a single farthing. The demand is made that the taxation of South Africa shall not be greater, but less; and, therefore, what is the hope for your revenue? The hope for your revenue, I must say, seems to me extremely ambiguous, and that it will be equal to the revenue which has been hitherto levied in South Africa I believe to be impossible, owing to the country being so impoverished that the means would not be available. I will speak very briefly on the subject of expenditure. Is your expenditure going to be less? You have been told that when the British Government comes the expenditure would not be half what it was before. The British Government is a very good Government, but it has never been a cheap Government, and it will never be. There are charges coming upon you that never came on the late Government in the Transvaal. We have heard a great deal of the moneys spent by President Kruger on armaments and other things, but they do not amount to a great sum, certainly not a million a year. The annual expenditure of the Transvaal was four millions at the highest estimate it reached, and the expenditure of the Free State was about a million, or five millions in all. Yes, Sir, but you are going to enter on a hostile country. You are going to have what was unnecessary before, a permanent army of occupation—an army of occupation, I am sorry to say, which has to be contemplated not only with reference to the Transvaal and the Free State, but with reference to the disaffected in Cape
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Colony. I have asked questions about this new police force that is to be raised, a very proper force, but a most expensive force never raised before. I remember in the old days we always thought that for the British Army you took £100 a man. We were told yesterday that the estimate for these men is £250 each. That, I believe, is without any consideration for the barracks, and so on, that will have to be made for them. These are to be mounted men. I was rather curious to know how many men had applied in South Africa and how many men in England. In England, where the men do not know what South Africa is, 10,000 men applied, but in South Africa, where the conditions are known, there were 500 applications. It was expected to raise, with the aid of the Imperial Yeomanry and the Volunteers, a force of 15,000 men, but I think that any hopes of getting the Imperial Yeomanry and the Volunteers to undertake this job are dispelled. The Imperial Yeomanry and the Volunteers want to come home and not to remain there. That seems to be a very general sentiment. I am glad to see my hon. and learned friend opposite (Mr. A. Lyttelton), who has just been out, has not enlisted in this force. But it is-all nonsense to talk about policing this, country with 10,000 men: These men cannot be quartered alone in the condition in which the country will be when the war is over. You must have them in groups, and in a country as big as Spain, Cuba, and the Philippines, as the Secretary for War told us the other day, 10,000 men would not be visible at all. In the midst of a hostile population mounted men are needed, and the conditions require that there should be a certain number of them grouped together to protect one another. Thus, the 15,000 men originally contemplated was none too great, but what will they cost? They will cost four millions,, and the 10,000 spoken of will cost, at £250 each, two and a half millions. This single item alone will amount to the whole cost of President Kruger's Government. What becomes of your surplus? We have been told that the wealth of the Transvaal is going to pay for them. They are also, I take for granted, going to pay, as the Indian people pay, for the 30,000 men we propose to have as an army of occupation. Besides that you have all the civil administration, which, it was said, in the time of President Kruger was much below the mark. They did

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not do much for education or public works, and there are demands made here for the Government to do a great deal for the water supply, which is so deficient in that country, and for other things. With your army of occupation, and when you have paid three or four millions for this police, where is your surplus? I have not any elements to make even such estimates as the Government make, but I have made a guess, and so far from their being a less cost of administration it will not be far from double that of the late Government in the Transvaal. If that is so, where is the money to come from? The right hon. Gentleman had indicated his wish to relieve the British taxpayer. I have no doubt the light hon. Gentleman is very anxious and willing to relieve him, but I am sceptical the more I hear about it as to the existence of any fund from which he can do it. We hope that the Government have entered upon a new policy of conciliation. We hope that you are going to instal a Government in the Transvaal which shall be a Government of reconciliation—felix faustumque sit. All I can say is that the appearances before the country are not encouraging, but it will depend altogether on the character of the Government you so establish—I mean the character of the Government as it relates to the Dutch population in that country. Upon the character of that Government will depend the future disposition of the Dutch race, not in the colonies alone, but in the whole of South Africa, in the Cape Colony as well as in these new territories. I was reading the other day a book of great knowledge written by another Robinson—Sir John Robinson, the first Premier of Natal—who knows the whole subject as well as any man in this House knows it, and I commend his views to the consideration of those have not read the book. Sir John Robinson says first of all—and it is the material fact we have to deal with—
"If the whole European population of South Africa he counted together the Dutch race is numerically preponderant."
Therefore your policy is going to affect the preponderant white race of South Africa; and this is the advice which he gives you:—
"We must give the Afrikander a Government which he not only fears and obeys, hut loves, trusts, cherishes, and is proud of; a Government which represents to him no
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sense of grievance or deprivation; a Government which is large enough and free enough to satisfy his national and patriotic aspirations and yet strong enough to make its authority felt."
Even the other Robinson saw the necessity for this, because in the speech to which I have referred he recommended that Generals De Wet and Botha should be put on the Executive Council. I do not know that the Colonial Secretary got quite so far as that. But are you going to establish in these new colonies an administration of reconciliation? Are you going to establish a Government which the Afrikander may trust and love and cherish? Are you going to have a Government which represents to him no sense of grievance or deprivation; which is bound up with none of the bitter associations of this horrible war? If so, you may have a peace which deserves the name. But if your administration, in its personality and character, represents to the Afrikanders nothing but the right of conquest and the hateful memories of the past, the insatiate greed of the gamblers for gold, and the poisonous spirit of race ascendency, then the war may be over, but you will have achieved a victory without honour, and, though you will have conquered these colonies, you will have a peace which is no peace.
MR. MARKHAM: If with all humility I rise to address the House, I do so for the reason that during the last ten years I have travelled through all the countries in South Africa from the Zambesi to the Cape. I have been clown many of the mines on the western, eastern, and central Rand, and I have also inspected several of the goldfields of South Africa. I claim, therefore, to know something of the character and the conditions of gold-mining in South Africa. I must ask the indulgence of the House for three reasons: first, as a new Member speaking in this assembly for the first time; secondly, for the reason that I feel my utter incompetency to do justice to the cause on which I am speaking; and thirdly, because I wish to say at once that I have been a shareholder for the last ten years in the Witwatersrand mines. As soon, however, as I was adopted by the central council of Mansfield, I wired to my broker instructing him to sell every Transvaal share that I had. I am sorry to say

731
that as I held a very considerable interest I in one or two mines, I have not been able to get that instruction entirely carried through. I think I owe this explanation to the House. I have never been connected with the flotation or promotion of any gold mines, or associated with any group of capitalists. What I have done is merely to have invested my money after going down the mines and making an inspection of them. It is with deep respect and humility that I venture to criticise the remarks just made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire. In many ways I entirely dissent from the views he has put before the House, but I do not dissent from one word that ho has said with reference to the conduct of the men in South Africa connected with the Raid. I am one who for the last ten years has recognised that either President Kruger would have to grant reforms, or war or revolution would occur. The Raid rendered war inevitable, because you could not expect that the distrust engendered by that capitalist attempt to seize the Transvaal would be removed, at any rate for generations. But the Raid having taken place you had to face a most difficult condition of affairs. I believe that the honesty of purpose and the integrity of Sir Alfred Milner are above suspicion, but he was brought face to face with one of the most difficult tasks it has ever been the lot of man to face. I agree with every word of the right hon. Gentleman as to the way in which the capitalists have worked up this agitation in South Africa, but it is only on the question of the riches of the Transvaal that I venture to speak to the House to-night, and on that point I differ from the right hon. Gentleman. It will probably be said that I am a young man, an enthusiast, who is going to tell the House that the future prospects of the Transvaal are over-estimated.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: That is not my opinion; I only said that its wealth was difficult to get at.
MR. MARKHAM: With the indulgence of the House I will deal with some of the points put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. For the first time in the history of the world, gold-mining has passed from a speculative to a manufacturing industry. The House must recollect that Rand mining is abso-
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lutely distinct from all other mining that has ever been known in the world. The right hon. Gentleman stated that gold was the only source from which taxation could be obtained, but I will venture to show the House that there are many other resources, without touching the gold question at all, which are valuable assets in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman said that the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean had shown no annual income. It is true the right hon. Baronet was unable to do that at present, but although, I believe, he has not been in the country, he knows where the taxation and the riches of the Transvaal come from even better than I do. It would not be right for me as a new Member, I should be presuming on the time of the House, to show whence this income could be obtained. [Cries of "Go on."] If the House wishes it I will deal with that point, but I rise in a very difficult position. I should have liked to, and if I were not a new Member I would, tell the House a good many things that have gone on in South Africa, and which have come under my own knowledge, but they are questions of a highly controversial character. I will deal in the first place with a few remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire. The right hon. Gentleman was very hard on Mr. Robinson. Mr. Robinson is a Boer who has lived in that country all his life; he has never been associated with the De Beers group; he was not associated with the Raid; he was a man who in South Africa always kept himself to himself. Both sides of the House, I think, will agree that where a man makes money honestly, whether it be one million or ten millions, he ought not to be attacked merely on that account, and it is very hard that Mr. Robinson should be singled out for a special attack when he above all others is the only man that I know of who has not mixed himself up with the Raid or the large De Beers elements in South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman said that taxation in Rhodesia was much higher than in the Transvaal. The mining licence is higher, but, as a matter of fact, mining in Mashonaland, even on a small scale, can be carried out much more cheaply than in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman is somewhat sceptical as to the

733
statement of MR. Hammond. On referring to my notebook I find that the tonnage, according to the State Mining Engineer's returns, was 7,861,089 tons. If I multiply that by 6s.—the saving per ton which Mr. Hammond estimated would be made by good government—it comes out approximately at £2,300,000. The statement made by Mr. Hammond was, therefore, correct. In 1897 what is known as the Industrial Commission was appointed by the Boer Government. A great mass of figures was put before that body to prove that the mines could not be worked at a profit. I have taken the liberty of summarising and having tabulated these remarkable figures. Before the outbreak of war there were 5,910 stamps dropping on the Rand, and 68 companies0 producing. I have divided those companies into three schedules: "A," those that were paying dividends; "B," those that were working and would have paid dividends if war had not broken out; and "C," those that were working at a loss or at a very small profit. The summary of these figures is somewhat remarkable. The 42 mines which were paying dividends had a nominal capital of £19,463,740, the average for each company being £463,423. The market value of these shares represents to each company an average value of £1,313,773, and the amount of dividend distributed was £4,925,793. The average yield per stamp in July, 1899, was 79 ozs., and the dividend on the nominal capital was equal to 25 per cent., equal on the present market value to a dividend of nearly 9 per cent., the present market value of the £1 shares being £2 17 s. These are the mines I have scheduled as Class A. In Class B, the average nominal value of the companies which have never paid a dividend was £482,736, and the average market capital—that is, watered capital, most of which was never put into the mines, and which in some cases consisted of shares issued at a high premium and brought into the capital account—is £1,515,649 in these depressed times. That is to say, every £1 of capital is worth on the market an average of £3 8s. 5d. In Class C, mines working at a loss or a very small profit, the nominal capital of the nine companies was £2,162,625, and the market value is £1,405,750. They are represented by 460 stamps, and every £1 of nominal capital is worth on an average on the market 13s. The names of these com-
734
panies are—Aurora West, Crœsus, Gel-denhuis Main, Langlaagte Star, New Niufied, Paarl Central, Roodepoort Gold, West Rand Mines, and York Gold. There were only 6,000 stamps before the war, but there is no reason why in a few years, if taxation is placed on a proper basis, there should not be at least 15,000 stamps "dropping" on the Central Rand alone. There are, in addition, districts which are all highly mineralised, and if taxation is placed on a direct and not on an indirect basis so as to enable the lower grade mines to be worked at a profit, you will see a production of gold in the Transvaal that will astonish the civilised world. The wealth in that country—I do not wish to exaggerate—is untold. There is in Rand-fontein 150 miles of reefs, the property of one gold mining company alone, but the mines have not been able to be worked at a profit where seven pennyweights to the ton could not be obtained. There are also immense deposits of coal in this country. I have been down some of these coal mines, and within five miles of the Rand there are immense seams of good steam coal, sixty feet thick. The output in 1898 was 1,907,808 tons. But we have in addition to coal, ironstone copper and diamonds. The ironstone contains a large percentage of metallic iron and the copper has not been able to be worked up to the present owing to the absence of railway facilities. Diamonds have been discovered in various districts, and their estimated value has been put at fifty millions. In addition, it was stated before the Industrial Commission, and also in the report of the Boer Government, that at least £750,000 worth of amalgam was stolen yearly in the Rand. That surely can be saved to the mines. A duty of 2½per cent, on the total gold produced, held under mynpachts, was payable to the Government, but that law has never been enforced. I have asked myself why, and I leave it to the sense of the House to ascertain. Mr. Hays Hammond stated at a meeting of the Consolidated Goldfields at Johannesburg in December, 1897—
"We confidently believe that we shall lie able to mine at depths of from 3,000 to 4,000 feet, at an expense not to exceed that at present obtaining upon the outcrop companies."
That was to be accomplished not by cheap labour, but by reduced indirect taxation. At an extraordinary meeting of the Con-

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solidated Gold Fields in May, 1897, Mr. C. D. Rudd stated that Johannesburg as the centre of the Transvaal would yet see the production of a thousand millions sterling, and that with moderate reforms the saving would be 7s. 6d. a ton. The House will therefore remember that there is a fair margin of profit to pay something towards the cost of this war. Mr. Eckstein at a meeting of the Rand Mines in Johannesburg in 1897 stated that the cost of production would be reduced 10s. a ton by moderate reforms. That, Sir, I think, is an undoubted fact, or again according to the Mine Managers' Return in 1897 30 per cent, of the labour was incapacitated owing to drunkenness, and for the past five or six years the greater proportion of the natives have been in a perpetual state of drunkenness. Let us look at Rhodesia and give Mr. Rhodes the credit that is due to him. I have never seen, even in the most remote parts of Rhodesia, any liquor sold to natives. I know it is not a very popular statement to make, but it is only just to say that the natives, not only in the Transvaal, but in Cape Colony, are a very secondary consideration, the profits of the Boer farmers being the first. I would wish also to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that where large blocks of shares are dealt with in London they are sent out to Johannesburg, where they can be registered for sixpence, thereby evading the duty that would be payable in this country. That is very largely done, and the revenue may lose as much as £1,000 in a single transaction. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take means to prevent that in future. Now I come to what is, after all, the most serious matter I wish to mention. I wish to prove to the House that every appointment of any value in the Transvaal has been given to men who were directly connected with the Raid.
MR. SPEAKER: I think a discussion of that sort would not be in order. The hon. Member has been speaking of the assets of the Transvaal; he is now going into the question as to the manner in which certain appointments have been distributed, and that would not be relevant.
MR. MARKHAM: I do not know whether I have made myself clear to you, Mr. Speaker, but what I wish to show, if I am in order, is that financial appoint-
736
ments have been made in South Africa which must react on the taxation which this House will be able to obtain from the Transvaal, and which we will lose if these appointments are persisted in.
MR. SPEAKER: Any observations of the hon. Member showing that a certain class of appointments would increase or decrease the revenue of the country would be in order. I interrupted the hon. Member to prevent him going into the political aspects of the question.
MR. MARKHAM: That is entirely my view, Mr. Speaker. I wish to show that these appointments have been made in the capitalist interest, and not for the benefit of South Africa. Mr. Samuel Evans, the gentleman appointed Civil Commissioner of Johannesburg, is a member of the firm of Eckstein, a director of the Liquor Concession Company, a director of the company owning the South African Mining Journal, and a director of the Star. Mr. Van Hulsteyn, who has been appointed legal adviser to the Field Marshal, is solicitor to Ecksteins. Mr. Emery Evans, who has been appointed Controller of the Treasury, that is Minister of Finance, is a director of several mining companies, and has an appointment in the East Rand Debenture, with which Mr. Eckstein and Mr. Farrar were connected. Mr. J. A. Hamilton, who has been appointed financial adviser to the military governor, is interested in concessions granted by the Transvaal Government. He has the right of inspecting the books of all the banks in the Transvaal, regarding which, I believe, a protest has been sent to the Government by the Standard Bank and the Bank of South Africa. Mr. Wyberg, who has been appointed Minister of Mines, was an employee of Beit, Rhodes, and Co., in the Consolidated Gold Fields, and he was president in 1898 of the Johannesburg branch of the South African League. Mr. George Farrar, with his attorney, Mr. Solomon, solicitor to the Consolidated Gold Fields, in which, again, the Beit interest prevailed, had been sent to investigate alleged rebel cases—a man who has been convicted of high treason. Mr. E. Fraser, the late British Agent in Pretoria, who has been appointed to Goertz, as their Johannesburg representative, has no knowledge of the industry. Mr. Monypenny has an appointment in Johannesburg, and he is, as the House knows, the representative of

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Messrs. Beit and Barnato, who hold a majority of the shares not only in the Star, but in every other financial paper except one in South Africa. I do not know what the appointment of Mr. Monypenny is, but what I do know is that he is acting in a position of trust on behalf of the Government in Johannesburg, Mr. Goldman, a director of forty-three companies, and, I believe, the representative of The Times—though I am not sure on this point—has also, I think, an appointment. Mr. Loveday, who is one of the members of the Transvaal Concessions Committee, is a director of companies holding concessions, and is co-director with Mr. Eckstein.
MR. LYTTELTON: I think I ought to intervene here. I do not know from whom the hon. Member obtained his information, but my own information comes from Mr. Loveday himself. I had the honour to have Mr. Loveday colleague on the Concessions Committee, and my information is to the effect that he is a director of the Electric Lighting Company only, and that company is not a monopoly.
MR. MARKHAM: I have not the honour of knowing the hon. Member who has just spoken, but he will, perhaps, excuse me if I say that Mr. FitzPatrick, the author of "The Transvaal from Within," is a director of four companies holding direct concessions from the Transvaal.
MR. LYTTELTON: I was referring simply to Mr. Loveday.
MR. MARKHAM: I will come to Mr. Loveday presently. Mr. FitzPatrick was a director of the Cement Concession, which the Chamber of Commerce, in their protest to the Government in 1897, said was "a parasite on the industry." This is the gentleman who wrote "The Transvaal from Within." He was also a director of the Pretoria Lighting Company, which holds a concession from the Government, and Mr. Loveday was associated with him then—I do not say now, since these gentlemen had got Government appointments. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman opposite knows that the greatest number of concessions in South Africa is held by Mr. Eckstein in Swaziland.
MR. LYTTELTON: I was not making any statement with reference to the hon.
738
Member's general argument. I simply ventured to say, on behalf of a colleague for whom I have the greatest possible respect, Mr. Loveday, that the statement that he was interested—
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask whether it is in order for an hon. Gentleman to interrupt in order to make an explanation of a matter which does not affect him personally, and I wish to know whether the rule which applies to this side of the House does not apply to all of it?
MR. SPEAKER: There is no rule that an interruption should only be made in regard to an observation which affects an hon. Member personally. As I understand, the hon. Member for Warwick is making an explanation which the hon. Member in possession of the House has given him the opportunity of making.
MR. LYTTELTON: I hope I was not treating the hon. Member with discourtesy. What I was saying was that I should blame myself, as being a colleague of Mr. Loveday for four months, and having the greatest respect for him, if I allowed this statement of the hon. Member, no doubt made in good faith, that he was a director of companies which had concessions from the Transvaal Government, to pass unchallenged, when I believe that statement to be incorrect. My information—I may be wrong—is that Mr. Loveday was a director of, I think it was, the Pretoria Electric Lighting Company, that he resigned long before I was associated with him or before he undertook this investigation. Therefore, I must confess that any charge against him of this character seems to be wholly unfounded.
MR. SPEAKER: These very minute details of the history of particular directors of companies seem to me to begetting rather far away from the subject of debate.
MR. MARKHAM: The hon. Member opposite admits that Mr. Loveday was a member of a concessions company.
MR. LYTTELTON: No. I did not admit it.
MR. MARKHAM: You admitted that he was a director of the Electric Lighting Company.
MR. LYTTELTON: That was not a concessionaire company.
MR. MARKHAM: I, too, have a very high opinion of Mr. Loveday, whom I believe to be a thoroughly honourable gentleman in every respect. But what I say is that the Government have no right to appoint men who have been connected with concessions in any way or shape. I presume that in the Estimates laid on the Table of the House there is a charge made for the conveyance of railway material. I do not know whether it is in the knowledge of the House that during the past few months a railway, which will be paid for out of the Estimates laid on this Table, has been made chiefly for the benefit of Wernher, Beit, and Co.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member's observations do not relate to the Finance Bill. If there is in the Estimates an item that relates to the railway material, the remarks of the hon. Member will be more in order on the Appropriation Bill.
MR. MARKHAM: I take it, Sir, that the money the House is now voting is for the railway in question?
MR. SPEAKER: The House is not now voting money. It has voted the money, and that Vote will come before the House again upon the Appropriation Bill, on which the remarks of the hon. Member may be in order. At present they are not.
MR. T. M. HEALY: May I submit, Sir, that this loan must include some sum of money on account of the railway, and that, therefore, it is in order for the hon. Member to refer to the subject? I submit that if we are raising a loan which includes this railway being made for the benefit of Wernher, Beit and Co., it is in order to discuss this question.
MR. SPEAKER: I have already given my ruling on that point.
MR. MARKHAM: I do not wish to trespass further upon the time of the House. The Government have sanctioned these appointments, and although a protest was lodged at the Colonial Office against them by a responsible gentleman holding a high financial position in London, those appointments were persisted in. Was it in the interests of South Africa and of this country, which had to find the money, that gentlemen who had been connected directly with concessions, and with what has been the most unfortunate and un-
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happy incident in South Africa, should be appointed to such responsible positions? Could such appointments possibly be in the public interest? I must now thank the House for the generous and kind way in which they have listened to me. When I rose to speak I had no intention of raising highly controversial disputes in the few words which I have had the honour of saying upon the first occasion I have had of addressing the House, but I have been placed by my friends sitting near me in the position of making a somewhat antagonistic speech. I trust, however, that hon. Members will believe that it was not with any wish to thrust myself forward that I ventured to bring these matters before the House.
MR. T. M. HEALY: The House has just listened to probably the most remarkable and interesting speech we have had this session, and delivered as it has been by a new Member, we are all the more grateful. What is also remarkable is that it was delivered in the absence of the Colonial Secretary, and I think the House must wonder at the absence during such a speech of the right hon. Gentleman when this important question of concessions and shareholders is being discussed, and why ho does not come into the House to aid the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his arduous duty. I rise for the purpose of congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the firm attitude he has taken recently, in determining that the gold mines shall be saddled with the cost of the war. He is, of course, not popular in Ireland as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it can hardly be expected, and indeed, since the new appointment of the Financial Secretary to aid him, they have been called "the twin screws" of the Government. I think the right hon. Gentleman's courage deserves recognition. His decision in regard to the taxation of the Transvaal has been a gradually advancing one, for when we pressed him last session he absolutely declined to say that he would tax the mines.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I think the hon. Member does me an injustice.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Towards the end of last session I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman on the subject, and got what I consider a very unsatisfactory answer. Perhaps most questioners are of that opinion. Since then the Bill for British and Irish taxpayers has gradually

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mounted up. The difficulty of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the taxing of the mines seems to be that Mr. Hawksley holds a number of letters from a particular member of the Cabinet which he frequently threatens to publish.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Gentleman will not be in order in referring to the Hawksley letters.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: They have nothing whatever to do with the matter.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Not with the right hon. Gentleman, of course, and that is my point.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Nor with the matter at all.
MR. T. M. HEALY: We know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been keeping up what De Wet would call a rearguard fight with the Colonial Secretary on this question. I desire in every sense to respect the ruling of the Chair, but I desire also to pay a due compliment to the firmness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I will only say that I think this promise which the right hon. Gentleman has made—I am sure against the wish of many of his colleagues—that this burden should be thrown upon the mines, has been received with a sense of gratitude in every part of the three kingdoms. It would have been monstrous had it been otherwise, because if we do not hesitate to throw burdens upon the ryots of India, why should we hesitate to tax the gold bugs of the Transvaal? The right hon. Gentleman has had great assistance from the Member for Mansfield to-night. He has not told us by what machinery and to what extent he is going to inflict this fleabite upon them. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to make a clean breast of it so that those persons who are contemplating investing in concerns in the Transvaal will know exactly what they have to face, and the sooner this is done the better. I think it would be better if the right hon. Gentleman would state at once that England, Ireland, and Scotland will be totally relieved of the cost of this war. You have given them the blood of 50,000 men, and that should be considered sufficient, without £100,000,000 expenses, and this should be placed upon the mines; whose patriotic owners will, of course, cheerfully bear it. Indeed, since you have changed
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the name of the Orange Free State to that of the Orange River Colony, I would suggest that the name of the Transvaal should be changed to "the New Jerusalem." I must complain in reference to this question of their tax able capacity that we have entered upon this debate without that report which the hon. and learned Member for Leamington was sent out to make. I think that report would greatly have assisted us to a conclusion, because we must remember that when the Transvaal Government tried some years ago to get some idea of the wealth of the country these magnates then all declared that they were blind, like the mendicants in the street, and that they were all starving. The right hon. Gentleman sent out Sir David Barbour to investigate those assets, but I wish he had had associated with him the hon. Member for Mansfield. If the cost of this war be laid upon the mine owners, at least there will be some £15,000,000 which will be returnable to Ireland. We must get that money back, although I am aware that we cannot get back the Dublin Fusiliers, for their bones will be lying about Ladysmith. I believe that Sir David Barbour was on the Irish Financial Relations Commission, and he did not agree with his colleagues. He is now sitting to investigate the assets of the Transvaal, and I think the Irish people have reason to complain that somebody from their country has not been associated with him. What will happen? I do not know what Sir David Barbour's African experience is, but we do know that every man he will examine will be an interested party, whose business it will be to throw dust into the eyes of the hon. Baronet. I do not think you can hardly expect anyone to make a fair estimate of the assets of the Transvaal amid the crash of sabres and the explosion of bombs. I would like to make one other remark with regard to this Bill. In the case of the former Bill the right hon. Gentleman floated a great portion of the loan in America. That gave rise to a considerable number of complaints amongst that interesting body of gentlemen who form the Stock Exchange fraternity in London. It was only after the last Bill became an Act that the right hon. Gentleman, for the first time, made this new departure of floating these British bonds in America. For my part I altogether object to this

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association of Wall Street with what I may call British international interests. It is bad enough to have the politics of this country dominated by the British Stock Exchange, but when in addition to that we have Wall Street unscrupulosity on top of it, I think we are paying very dearly for the small sum that would be saved to this country in the matter of discount by floating the loan in the United States. I think, from your English point of view, this country's boast being that it is the richest country in the world, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to think it beneath his position to have to go to a number of Yankee brokers to float British Consols. If this country has all the vast stores of wealth and enormous patriotism about which we hear so much, these gentlemen of the Stock Exchange in England ought to be able to absorb the £11,000,000 of the right hon. Gentleman. It is said the De Beers Company has made a demand for half a million or a million for compensation for injuries at Kimberley during the siege. I suggest that as we want to find the taxable assets and taxable capacity we ought to remember that Kimberley was filched from the Free State on mere pretence, and the Free Staters got only £90,000 for what was worth about £500,000,000. I would suggest a delimitation commission be sent out, and that you should re-include Kimberley in the Orange River Colony, so that they should have one good thumping asset to go to pay for this war. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire in thinking the Chancellor of the Exchequer would require unusual courage to face the Kaffir Circus. But all the gentlemen connected with the Rhodesian promotions can be satisfied by an easy process. Last year we learned how the Niger Company was bought up. Of course the Colonial Secretary was an entirely disinterested person, and he allowed that matter to be managed entirely by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. British finance is very elastic—very elastic, indeed—and why would it not be possible to square these Rhodesian gentlemen by the Government offering to buy up the Chartered Company at, say, £10 apiece? The Imperial Government bought up the East India Company, the Niger Company, and a good many other companies, and now you are embracing in your fraternal arms the whole of South Africa it would be a pity to leave
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Rhodesia out. It would only mean a few more beggarly millions, and thus the financial souls of the promoters of this war would be completely salved. The Chancellor of the Exchequer could add the purchase money to the Transvaal debt, and I think the suggestions I have made he will find very useful later on. Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire stated that the natives were going to be taxed. I do not think that he could have been reading Lord Salisbury's speeches. The Prime Minister said when the war commenced that the keynote of the policy of the British Government would be greater kindness to the natives. Now the natives could not be taxed after such a pledge as that, nor could the Boers, for they were in the position of the Highlander who was devoid of a certain garment. And therefore there only remains as the single asset which the Transvaal possesses, its great mineral wealth; and we who are without any mineral wealth whatever, and have had to bear our share of the cost of this unhappy and unjust war, have to congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the insistence he has shown in facing his colleagues, and in determining that the people supposed to be benefited by the war shall bear the cost of it. I assure him that if he does this he will have the united support of every member of the Opposition.
MR. JOHN WILSONsaid he had listened with great interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Mansfield, but he should not like it to go out to the country that that Member was alone in adopting the position that the whole cost of the war should be borne by the Transvaal. He had had the honour to be the first to express that opinion as far back as at the special session in the autumn of 1899. He had visited the Transvaal; he was a practical mine owner, and had been down the mines there. He had a profound idea of the prodigious wealth of the Transvaal, which would last for a great many years on account of the particularly permanent nature of the gold deposits. Already the output of gold exceeded that of any other country in the world, but under the security of British rule it would soon be doubled. He should like to give a warning to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They had heard a great

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deal, some years ago, before the war broke out, as to the large savings that would be made if the country were under British rule instead of under the corruption of the Boers. But all this was now being minimised. It was formerly said that the saving to the gold mines, alone, would amount to four and a half millions per annum, but the mine owners on the Band were now attempting to minimise that to two and a half millions. He begged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to note that, because he was perfectly certain that the mines were perfectly capable of bearing the whole cost of the war. They heard of the immense fortunes that were being made on the Rand, and he had never any doubt whatever of the richness of the gold mines. The sole doubt he had ever had was as to the methods of floating those gold mines. The hon. Member for Mansfield had told the House that he had sold out his shares in the Rand. He had not sold out his shares, but still held them, and that was all the more reason why his words should be listened to, because it showed he was prepared to be taxed for the cost of the war, which could be borne to a much greater extent under British rule when all the Boer corruption had been done away with. He did not see why hon. Gentlemen opposite should object to native labour being got cheaper. The unjust liquor laws should be abolished, and strict native liquor laws enforced as has been done in Rhodesia. He had visited the compound at Kimberley where no drink was sold to the natives, and where everything was in a most excellent state, and the natives thoroughly happy. When the dynamite monopoly was abolished, and good liquor laws enforced on the Rand there would be plenty of native labour and a vast increase in the gold mining profits. He expected the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take very good care that the whole cost of the war would be put on the Transvaal, and he congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on standing to his guns in this respect. He remembered the Chancellor of the Exchequer making a speech at the beginning of the war in which he expressed his intention of putting a large proportion of the war expenditure on the Transvaal. He interrupted the right hon. Gentleman, and asked if he
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meant the whole cost. The Chancellor turned round to him and said, "Perhaps the whole cost of the war," and that would be found recorded in Hansard.† As to the kind of officials appointed in the Transvaal, he confessed he was very much astonished to hear that many of those interested in the gold mines had been appointed to places of responsibility on the Rand. When Sir David Barbour went to these officials to get their opinion he hoped he would remember the discussion in the House that night, and take very good care not to accept their opinion I in its entirety without full investigation.
MR. CHANNINGsaid he did not intend to prolong the debate, but he wished to emphasise that the resources of the Transvaal should be drawn upon to the fullest amount which could be reasonably paid for the relief of the British taxpayers. He wanted to raise a specific point in connection with the assets of the Transvaal which he presumed had been transferred to the present Government. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his reply would state what his views were as to one of the assets of the late Transvaal Government—he meant the admitted liability of the British South Africa Company for damages for the Jameson Raid. Her Majesty's Government, in despatches of the Colonial Secretary, and the directors of the British South Africa Company themselves had admitted this liability, and the Colonial Secretary had been prepared to enforce it. The only question was as to the amount. The amount claimed by the late Transvaal Government was considered by Her Majesty's Government to be excessive. There was a million claimed for "moral and intellectual damage," the validity of which was naturally questioned by the Colonial Secretary; but with regard to the actual damages caused there was undoubtedly an irresistible and admitted claim against the British South Africa Company. He thought that a reasonable amount towards the cost of the war ought to be paid by the British South Africa Company. In fact it might be argued that a much larger proportion of the cost of the war should fall on the British South Africa Company than on the mine owners,
† See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxx., page 140.

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because that company had indirectly been the cause of the whole war.
MR. BECKETTexpressed the satisfaction which he was sure they all felt that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was still prepared to deal with the very awkward and delicate financial situation brought about by this unduly protracted war. Various suggestions had been made as to the means by which the revenue was to be made. He thought that the financial position in England was somewhat serious, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer next year would be face to face with the probability of having to increase the burden of taxation, which was already so heavy. He had no doubt that when the right lion. Gentleman framed his Budget he would consider the advisability of drawing revenue from some new sources. He could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman must now regret that two years ago he had laid hands upon the Sinking Fund. A loan might have been raised of £80,000 upon the security of the amount by which he reduced the sinking fund, and that would have relieved the taxpayers to a considerable extent. He had pointed out a year ago that the sinking fund constituted a great war fund, and ho was sure they wished now that it had been left intact. That, however, he ventured to say, was the solitary lapse of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his financial career. It was probable that the extra taxation which would be laid upon this country in consequence of the war would amount to ten millions a year; we would have to meet the interests on various loans and the increased expenditure on the Army. It therefore stood to reason that the taxpayers of the country ought not to be called upon to bear any burden which could be legitimately laid upon the Transvaal. As regards the assets of the two countries we had taken over, it would be extremely interesting if the Chancellor of the Exchequer could present next year a balance-sheet, for we ail knew that the debt account amounted to a very considerable sum, and we wanted to know what the assets were. It would have been interesting if the hon. Member for Mansfield had in his most admirable speech indicated what were the assets on which he thought we could lay our hands if we wanted more money, and he hoped that the hon. Member would give this information on another occasion. Mr. Kruger
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raised about four and a half millions in the Transvaal. The right hon. Gentleman had shown to some extent the nature of the expenditure imposed on the Transvaal. The cost of the police, the army of occupation and administration, would amount to six and a quarter millions. In addition to that there was the interest on the loans raised in the Transvaal. It was perfectly possible to raise a loan of a hundred millions, but he did not believe the Transvaal could bear a burden of more than fifty millions, the interest on which would be one and three-quarter millions. Therefore the total amount required to be raised in the Transvaal would be eight and a half millions, or double the amount raised by the Kruger Government. He did not see how these figures could be modified in any respect. The revenue of the Orange River Colony was about a million, but the cost of the police alone would amount to more than the entire revenue, and there were no means of taxing the Orange River Colony further, although the hon. Member for Mansfield I talked of the great prospects of that colony, and dazzled us with visions of gold and diamonds. The difficulty was a very serious one. A representation had been sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer from the foreign shareholders in the Transvaal mines. The references in that memorial were undoubtedly of a kind that deserved the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. The memorial purported to come from 300,000 shareholders, and it stated that they wished to submit respectfully that the mines of the Transvaal belonged to a great extent to French, German, Belgian, and Dutch persons, who were not subjects of Great Britain. It was said that the shareholders had held themselves neutral during the war, and had done nothing to provoke the war. They were the victims of the war, because in the course of it the mines had paid no dividends to the proprietors. There was considerable depression, they suffered from the additional burdens being laid upon them, and they were entitled to compensation. Furthermore, they pointed out that according to statements made by Ministers this war had been entirely undertaken in the interests of the British Empire, and that therefore the British Empire ought to pay for it. It seemed to him that this representation ought to have some attention paid to it—he did not say too much attention, for he could quote

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some reassuring figures. A German computation made out that 70 per cent. of the shareholders in the mines were English, 14 per cent. German, and the remainder belonging to various other countries, so that it might be fairly said that it was the English who would be the chief sufferers if the mines were taxed. He had ventured to make these observations to the House because he felt that this question of taxation was going to be a very serious one in the coming year. The Secretary of State for War had made a speech described as pessimistic, but it seemed to him that it was the most hopeful speech which had yet been made, because for the first time a Minister had fairly looked the facts in the face. If we continued to look the facts in the face, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to make a wise and just provision for carrying the burden of the war, all difficulties would disappear.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: We have had a debate which has had only an indirect reference to the Bill before the House, but which, all the same, has been full of interest to myself at any rate, and I think to the House at large. Practically the debate has wholly turned on the amount of the contribution towards the cost of the war which it may be possible to derive from the Transvaal, and the sources from which that contribution might come. This matter was brought before the House by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean yesterday, and I then ventured to say that I was not in a position to enter into any details at present, but that we had taken steps for a full and careful examination of the financial position of the Transvaal, of the possibilities of taxation, of the assets of the Government, and of the condition of the mining interest, with a view to framing such proposals as we might think would be fair, and of submitting them to the House after the termination of the war, which I hope may be—although the right hon. Gentleman opposite is not so sanguine—before the next Budget. I cannot do more than that to-night, but I would first call the attention of the House to the remarkable difference which has been exhibited during this debate in the views held by hon. Members as to the possibility of any contribution being derived from the Transvaal. The hon. Member for North Louth tells us that we may
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expect 100 millions for the total cost of the war, and also whatever sums may be sufficient to buy up the Chartered Company at a price which, in his opinion, should be such as would induce them to acquiesce in annexation. I never held out to the House or the country any such suggestions as that. I never said that I anticipated that the whole 'cost of the war would be borne by the Transvaal. I think any such idea would be an absolute delusion. I do not think it possible, and I hope nothing I shall say to-night will give countenance to it. What I have said is that I think a considerable contribution towards the cost of the war should be made by the Transvaal. Now, the right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire has appeared to-night in his favourite character of a prophet of evil. He was rather disappointed, I think, the other night when my right hon. friend the Secretary for War anticipated him in painting in somewhat unfavourable colours the probable future of the war; and all he could do was to put the colours on with a stronger brush and suggest that, even so, the whole of the future had not been exposed to the House. But while expressing that which I am sure we all feel, his earnest desire that the war should be rapidly brought to a close, I do not think his prophecies or speech were exactly calculated to have that effect. But the right hon. Gentleman has told us to-night that it is his earnest desire that the Transvaal should make a considerable contribution towards the cost of the war. Now, was his speech to-night calculated to make that an easier task? I venture to say that it has added not a little to my difficulties. He has painted the financial position of the Transvaal in the darkest possible colours. He has said that the country is devastated, that famine is probable, that other expenditure—the cost of administration and the cost of police—will more than consume any possible revenue, and he went on to say that the mine-owners and capitalists who are the favourite objects of his detestation and abuse [Sir W. HARCOURT: Hear, hear], but who do not always deserve all he says of them, I have absolutely declined to assume any such liability. I am not over fond of capitalists, except when I have death duties to collect, but I think the right hon. Gentleman did some injustice, at any

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rate, to Mr. Robinson in his quotations from his speech. I have read a report of that speech, and what I understood Mr. Robinson to fear was that there would be some attempt, so to speak, to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs—to impose such an extravagant burden upon the mining industry in the Transvaal that it would, if not kill that industry, at any rate materially interfere with its future development. I do not think Mr. Robinson himself would contend that there should be no contribution from the Transvaal towards the cost of the war. But the right hon. Gentleman, in the whole of his speech as far as I could see, took no account whatever of what was laid before the House in the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Mansfield—namely, the vast wealth of the Transvaal in the future, the possibilities of the country when that wealth is developed, and, therefore, the possibility of the country bearing a burden in the future which we could not exact from it now. It may be for a year or two after the close of the war impossible to obtain from the Transvaal any contribution towards the cost of the war. But I would point out that in the part of my financial policy which has been fortunate enough to meet with the assent of the right hon. Gentleman opposite I have carefully borne that in mind. I have said throughout that I would not make the borrowing for the war a permanent burden on the country. I have obtained—and this is the third occasion—power from Parliament to borrow for the cost of the war. I have borrowed partly on Treasury bills, partly on Exchequer Bonds for three years, partly on Exchequer Bonds for five years, and partly on the War Loan for ten years, and therefore I have made the falling in, so to speak, of these loans at such periods as would enable Parliament to have before it the condition of the Transvaal from time to time with a view to seeing what we could impose, as these loans fall in, upon that country. I hope Parliament will not for a moment consider that if the Transvaal at the close of the war should be in the devastated and poverty-stricken condition to which the right hon. Gentleman points that, therefore, in the future it should be free from all charge. I do not think that is a policy he would suggest for a moment. I can go no further than that to-night. But I should like to allude to one point of the right
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hon. Gentleman's speech which, I think, he can hardly have sufficiently considered. He alluded to some utterances of directors of companies in regard to the provision by the Government of cheap native labour for the mines. But there is a way whereby the cheapening of labour in the mines can be effected without anything of that kind. The hon. Member for Mansfield, or an hon. Member on this side of the House, pointed out that in certain districts half the natives in the mines were drunk. Now, what has been suggested? That the sale of liquor to natives should be prohibited. Is that a policy which the right hon. Gentleman the author of the Local Veto Bill objects to?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I approved of it, and I hope you will follow it up, but I said the object of a great many directors of companies was not to improve the condition of the natives, but to cheapen labour.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Does not the right hon. Gentleman see that if in the future natives are sober who are now drunk, their labour will be better and therefore cheaper for the mines? [A Voice: A sober man wants better wages.] Further than that, the municipal government of Johannesburg and the local government of the Rand have notoriously been incapable of preserving order, preventing abuses, and giving security to life and property, and may we not reasonably hope, that under the government which will in the future be in the Transvaal there will be rather more fairness, rather more equity, shown to the native races than has been shown to them in the past? All these reforms may tend to cheapen native labour without the introduction of anything like a system of forced labour, the idea which the right hon. Gentleman attributed to the directors of companies. I have referred to the speech of the hon. Member for Mansfield, and he made one suggestion which, I think, eminently deserves the consideration of those who will have to settle the taxation of the Transvaal. He said that, in his opinion, the fault had been that taxation had been indirect rather than direct in regard to the mines. I express no final opinion, but it does seem to me a matter that deserves most careful consideration whether direct taxation on the profits of the mines should be imposed. If, as the

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hon. Member has suggested, such taxation was intended by the late Transvaal Government, but has not been levied owing to corruption, because those who ought to have levied it were practically bribed not to do so, all I can say is that we shall take care nothing of the sort shall go on in the future. The hon. Member has alluded to appointments made at Pretoria and elsewhere by Lord Roberts. Now, I know nothing of them, but I will venture to say I do not think the hon. Member considers fairly the position occupied by Lord Roberts. The country was in a state of war, appointments had to be made, and the choice of men was very limited indeed, so that it was practically impossible to obtain anyone for the appointments but local residents, and I dare say these were connected with the companies or undertakings to which the hon. Member has referred. But I am sure that directly Sir A. Milner establishes civil government all these appointments will be considered afresh, and probably entirely new appointments will be made in many cases to which the hon. Member has referred. We shall take very good care—we should not do our duty if we did not take care—that the action of local government shall not be biassed by any undue influence of the great companies in the Transvaal. The hon. Member for Northampton has asked a question; the assets of the Transvaal having been referred to, he wanted to know whether those assets included the claim of the late Government on the Chartered Company. Well, I think any question on that matter should be addressed to the Colonial Secretary.
MR. LABOUCHERE: He is not here.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: But I will tell the House frankly what occurs to my mind. The claim may have considerable justice, but what has happened since? For every pound fairly due in consequence of the Jameson Raid from the Chartered Company to the late Transvaal Government at least £5 is probably due to the company from the late Transvaal Government in consequence of the war entered into by that Government against this country. Thereupon I think on fair investigation it will be found that against the claim on one side there is a considerable set-off on the other. I do not know
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that there is any other point to which I need refer, but this much, I trust, the House will believe. I am grateful to more than one hon. Member who has alluded to my position in these matters and will do my best to carry out the policy which I have indicated. If I do not say more than I have been able to say it is really because I cannot bind myself by any expression of opinion as to details. It would be unwise, it would be dangerous to do so; but I can assure the House that I have at heart as much as any hon. Member the desire that the Transvaal, and of course, if possible, the Orange River Colony, shall make some contribution towards the cost of this war, that the whole cost shall not be thrown on the taxpayers of this country. How this may be best carried out must be matter for careful consideration; it is a difficult and delicate subject, as I said yesterday, but in dealing with it we shall have regard to the necessity for doing nothing that will fetter the industry of the Transvaal and prevent the development of the country; and we shall take care that we are not biassed in dealing with the subject by any unreasonable demands or unfair suggestions from those who are interested in mines that they ought not to be called upon to bear such burthens as the interests of the country require.
MR. LABOUCHEREthought that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (whom everybody on the Liberal side of the House was most anxious to see in his present position so long as the present Government was in power, considering his unfortunate surroundings) had acted very squarely in the matter. He had only one or two points to urge upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the first was that the right hon. Gentleman should add to the gentleman who was to be sent out as Financial Commissioner to the Transvaal some capable geologist who should examine the country. This was all the more necessary as owing to the provisional appointments made by Lord Roberts it was not at all unlikely that those gentlemen who had been provisionally appointed, and whose interest was on the side of the capitalist, had mining engineers at their side, and that they were entirely in the hands of the millionaires. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen fit to issue a Transvaal loan

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guaranted by this country, because he believed that the Transvaal would not be able to pay its expenses. It could not pay for the army which we must keep there for some time, or for its police, or civil administration, and that being so we should have undertaken the repayment of it, and when the Transvaal got rich we should have come in and called upon it to pay its share of the loan. Another point to which he desired to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, although he did not know that it concerned him especially, was the question of black labour. It was desirable, as soon as possible, to have some sort of labour bureau in the Transvaal. He did not dream for a moment that the Government would accept the view of the millionaires, that the Government should find labour for the Transvaal, but there was a sort of trades union among the mine owners themselves, and the men were employed at very inadequate wages. The actual Kaffir does not work in the mines, he follows agricultural pursuits. These men go into the back part of Africa, where they make arrangements with the chief to supply them with so many hundreds of men. The chief then orders the men to go down and work for a certain time in the Transvaal. There was an absolute trade in these men. Some one got them and sold them for a consideration to anybody who wanted them. The unfortunate men were obliged to work, because if one went back to his own country the chief would immediately have him slain in order to prevent others doing the same. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that the men would work better if they did not get liquor; he, on the other hand, was of opinion that the labour was forced labour, and if the men kept sober they would not work at all. It was only by keeping them half drunk that the mining engineers had succeeded in forcing them to work at a most inadequate wage. A labour bureau such as he suggested should see that there was no attempt to force anyone to do labour unless he liked himself to do it, and secure the natives against what really amounted to slavery.
MR. LOUGHsaid the right hon. Gentleman could not have made a more popular statement than that which he had made, that the influence of the British Government would be exercised against any form of forced labour.
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He did not, however, quite follow the argument adduced from that statement, which appeared to be that, as the natives became more sober, virtuous, and industrious they would work for a less wage.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: No, I did not say that, but that they would do more work.
MR. LOUGH: Even if they did more work they would require more money. The argument was, he believed, that they would then do more work for the same wage. But their wage would not necessarily get lower; the tendency would be in the direction of exacting a fairer compensation for their work. The right hon. Gentleman had not been so candid in dealing with this matter as the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, and he had not given them much ground for the hopeful view he took. With regard to the economic view of the situation he would point out that at present there was no revenue whatever from the Transvaal. The year 1900 would be a blank year, and probably 1901 would be so too. If these terrible operations were brought to a conclusion, and if the revenue were as it was before, they must remember that the best revenue ever seen before the war was some four millions. The expenditure, it could be clearly seen, would be on a larger scale than ever before. They would have to provide for civil government, for the police, and for the troops kept there, to say nothing of all the repairs and reconstruction of destroyed property that would be necessitated. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing about that, and apparently had not taken it into account. But, setting the latter necessity on one side, it seemed that seven or eight millions a year would be required immediately, for Transvaal purposes alone, before a single penny could come towards war contribution. Where were they to get such a revenue as this? All that they could get from these gold mines, he thought, should be secured as a contribution towards the expenditure in connection with the war, but taking the practical view, he thought the country ought to receive the fullest information and be told the truth. They were not accustomed to a Chancellor of the Exchequer basing his requirements on such a shadowy foundation. The right hon. Gentleman had disclaimed making any definite statements, which was perhaps the wisest thing he said, for

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he did not see where they would get any revenue at all to meet such an expenditure as would arise. To obtain the war contribution the best step would be to restore peace.
MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that having stolen Naboth's vineyard they were now bent on discovering what share of the spoil they were to secure. He frankly confessed that finance was not his strong point. He desired, however, to offer a suggestion to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which he ventured to think would be useful to him. There seemed to be some difficulty in determining what amount of taxation the gold mines of the Transvaal should bear when they resumed full working order. In South Africa it happened that they had something to guide the Chancellor of the Exchequer in making up his mind on this point. In addition to the gold mines of the Transvaal there were the gold mines of Rhodesia, worked under the administration of the Chartered Company. Reference had been made that night by one speaker at least to the fact that in Rhodesia the taxes imposed on mining—the licence payments—were less than those paid in the Transvaal. That was part of the truth, but only part of it. The mining licences cost a few shillings per month less than in the Transvaal, but the Chartered Company took it out of the mine owners in another way. When a claim had been prospected and gold discovered, and when the prospector proceeded to develop his claim and form a company he was under obligation by his charter to issue double the amount of shares required to capitalise the concern and hand over half the number to the Chartered Company. Thus it happened when gold began to be produced from the mines in Rhodesia 50 per cent, of the profit belonged to the Chartered Company. If the poor mines in Rhodesia, struggling to pay, were able to bear this load of 50 per cent, to the Chartered Company, it would not, in his opinion, be going too far to ask, if necessary, that a like proportion of the profits in the Transvaal should be claimed to meet the cost of the war. There was another point to which the attention of the right hon. Gentleman might profitably be directed in this connection. The diamond mines of Kimberley paid no taxes. These mines were in Free State
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territory. By some sharp practice, after diamonds were discovered, the land on which they were discovered was held to be the property of one Waterboer, a half-bred chief, but subsequent legal proceedings showed that such was not the case. The diamond mines of Kimberley were in Orange Free State territory, and now that the Orange Free State was under British dominion what was to hinder the Government from including the diamond mines of Kimberley in Free State territory and taxing them also to help to bear the cost of the war? He rose to refer more particularly to a subject in which naturally he had a more direct interest. He referred to the native labour question. He had listened with some interest to what had been said with regard to this subject. He had read the reports of the mining companies to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire referred. He desired to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that the gold mining companies of the Transvaal had come to a joint agreement whereby—he was speaking on the authority of Mr. Rudd—the British Government would be asked to collect native labour for them, and part of the contract was that no native was to be allowed to sign on for less than three months. If that was not forced labour then language had lost its meaning. They also favoured the compound system in the Transvaal. The compound system as it existed in Kimberley was slavery in the most absolute sense of the term. The natives were brought there chiefly by force, and when they arrived at Kimberley they were housed in compounds, so well described by the Member for South Aberdeen in his interesting book on South Africa. They were housed in great compounds there, and they were not allowed to escape during the whole period of the engagement. A subterranean passage led from the compound to the mines. The natives were supplied with groceries from truck stores established within the compounds, and white people were not allowed to get inside. The whole system was one of forced labour and slavery in the worst degree. In regard to the sobriety of the natives, the Government would remember that the question had two sides. In Kimberley the natives were made sober. He remembered reading many years ago in a temperance news-

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paper that one reason for the prohibition of the liquor traffic was that whereas a drunken native required a dollar a day to live upon, a sober native would live as well on half a dollar, and wages were reduced actually from 4s. to 2s. per day. He desired to see the natives sober both at home and abroad, but he did not desire, and he hoped the Government did not desire, to see the sobriety of the natives used as an instrument for compelling them to work for half the ordinary rate of wages. There were two other matters on which ho trusted the Government would insist strongly. He was advised that under the Transvaal Government native labour was restricted by law to eight hours per day in the mines. He trusted that the Government would see to it that that law at least was not abrogated. The Transvaal Government prohibited Sunday labour in connection with the gold mines. So far as he knew the Transvaal was the only mining camp in the world in which Sunday labour was prohibited. He did not say that the prohibition was always obeyed, but the law was there, and mine owners were fined for breaches of it. Under British rule the prohibition would, he trusted, be maintained. He looked forward with serious doubt to the future of labour, black and white, in the Transvaal. If the mine owners who paid to bring about this war, who paid for the Jameson Raid, who dictated the policy of the Government with regard to the war, were to be allowed to govern the Transvaal in the future, then for a certainty labour would be worse off than under the Transvaal Government rule. He would like to say one word with regard to the liquor laws of the Transvaal. The laws were good, but they were not well administered.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The discussion of the liquor laws is not in order.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division had made an attack upon certain persons who, he alleged, had been improperly appointed to certain offices in the Transvaal, and he gave as his reason for the attack that they were connected with various well-known firms in the Transvaal. He did not know these gentlemen, with one exception. They had been referred to with a great deal of unnecessary odium. It was almost
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impossible to find anyone capable of holding office, legal or otherwise, in the Transvaal, who had not been connected in some way or another with some of the great mining companies. He was sorry to hear the cheers with which the attacks were received. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had pointed out that these appointments were really only temporary, and that the whole arrangements would have to be very carefully looked over. It seemed to him that regard must be had to the personal fitness, knowledge, and integrity of the persons employed, and the mere fact that they had been previously engaged with one of the great gold mining firms in the Transvaal was not a sufficient reason to allege against their appointment. There were two names mentioned, and he thought the references to them were very unfortunate. He did not think they were fair references, and he was sorry the hon. Member who made them was not present. He had attacked Mr. Loveday, and perhaps the public did not know who that gentleman was. He was an old member of the Transvaal Volksraad; and he had always upheld the legitimate lights of the Uitlanders. He was a burgher of the Transvaal, and was greatly respected by everyone. He could not conceive of a man more suitable to be appointed to such a commission than Mr. Loveday. The hon. Member did not state any of these facts, but simply tried to prove that he was connected with some electric company in Pretoria, as if that should prevent him holding the position he now held. Mr. Loveday was by character and antecedents qualified to hold the position he now filled, and he challenged the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division to dispute what he was now saying. With regard to Mr. George Farrar, the hon. Member accused him of being convicted of high treason, but he was careful not to tell the House that Mr. Farrar was one of the principal leaders of the great movement in the Transvaal in favour of reform. Everyone admitted the necessity of these reforms. The hon. Member, himself, spoke again and again of the terrible corruption of the Boer Government. Mr. George Farrar was one of the men who faced the music. He put himself at the head of the movement, was tried, and sentenced to death. That gentleman deserved to be praised. He felt bound to make these observations, because these were subjects on which he

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had reliable information. He did not like to hear persons attacked in that House, where they could not defend themselves, and lose the opportunity of saying what he had to say from real knowledge.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
[SECOND HEADING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
MR. BRYN ROBERTSsaid that the House must be aware that he had throughout consistently voted in every division against the war, and now he was against the continuance of the war. He believed that a majority of his colleagues and friends on that side of the House were as strongly opposed to the war as he was at the origin, but still they were of opinion that after hostilities commenced, and especially after the ultimatum delivered by the Transvaal Government, this country had no option except to support the war. He had never been able to adopt that view. He did not propose to argue the question of the original injustice of the war, even if he should be in order, but he would defend the course he had taken by pointing out that the First Lord of the Treasury and the Colonial Secretary had on different occasions stated that the duty of any person who believed that this was an absolutely unjust and iniquitous war was to vote against it on every possible opportunity. The Colonial Secretary said he could not restrain the expression of his contempt for hon. Gentlemen who, admitting the injustice of the war, yet voted for its continuance. These remarks expressed entirely and exactly the reasons why since the commencement he had voted against the supplies for the war. The difference between him and his hon. friends really started with the ultimatum. They said, "Oh, the ultimatum makes a difference," and they thought, therefore, that they were bound to support the Government in prosecuting the war through all its stages. He would admit that, if the
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ultimatum had been spontaneous on the part of the Transvaal Government and not forced by our action. The ultimatum was not delivered until speeches had been made in this country which were equivalent to an ultimatum. It was stated that having put our hand to the plough we could not go back—
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has already suggested that he would not be in order in referring to the origin of the war.
MR. BRYN ROBERTSsaid he would not pursue that point. He was not referring to the question whether the grievances were such as to justify the war. The ultimatum did not make a difference, and that was the only point on which he and his political friends had differed in the matter of voting supplies.
MR. SPEAKER: It is out of order to discuss how the ultimatum came to be delivered.
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: I will keep myself as closely as I can to your ruling. I only wished in passing to make the observation that these declarations had been made and that this country had announced its intention of sending an army to South Africa for the purpose of the invasion, and my hon. friends who justified their conduct in supporting the Government in Supply throughout these proceedings have persistently ignored, and very improperly ignored, those controlling acts of the situation with respect to that point. Continuing, the hon. Member said the position of his friends who still continued to support the Government was really more inconsistent at present than at the time when they first embarked on their support of the Government. At that time they said they were only actuated by a desire to repel the invasion of our territory, and that after this had been done their voices would be raised in favour of a fair, just, and equitable settlement so far as the Transvaal Government was concerned. He felt at the time that that was a ridiculous, if not a puerile, proposition for any gentleman to make. They talked then as if the withdrawal of their support would cause some very great change in the policy of the Government. He knew very well that the Government would sneer at any attempt to control them by withdrawing their support. After the evacuation of Natal and Cape Colony,

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after General Cronje and a number of troops had been captured, the Presidents of the two Republics made overtures for peace on conditions which would have abundantly satisfied the necessities of the case, but, so far as he remembered, not a single voice was raised by his hon. friends on that side of the House in favour of pressing those terms on the Government. They had followed the course which experience showed was always taken in such a case. If they started on a wrong road they were forced by circumstances to go further and further. Not only his hon. friends, but hon. Members opposite and members of the Government, were now openly advocating a position with respect to the Transvaal that they themselves shrank from with horror before the commencement of the war at all. Why were we continuing this war? Nobody could suggest that there was any other cause than the fact that the Government, in breach of its promises, had insisted upon the total extinction of the internal independence of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and the annexation of these territories to Her Majesty's dominions. That was completely at variance with the repeated declarations and assurances of the most prominent members of the Government. It was clearly necessary to remind the House that Lord Salisbury stated that we sought no territory. That assurance was given a month after the war commenced. The very day after the decision had been arrived at to send a force of 48,000 men to South Africa to invade the Transvaal, the Duke of Devonshire referred to the rooted conviction the South African Republics appeared to have that England was cherishing some design against their independence and self-government, and he declared that such apprehensions were absolutely unfounded. Three weeks after the war had broken out the Secretary of State for India, referring to the taunts that British talk about reform and the desire to improve the internal government of the Transvaal were mere hypocrisy, said that when success was achieved and the terms this country proposed, as victors, to the vanquished were known, foreign nations would change their opinion, and would see that the main cause for embarking on the conflict was not a desire for pecuniary profit or territorial aggrandisement. There were other declarations of leading and responsible politicians to the same effect, and it
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was deplorable and humiliating for every honest subject of the Queen to have to confess that all those assurances had been openly broken. As soon as the Government found they could break those assurances with impunity they did not hesitate to do so. It was actions such as that that brought disgrace and discredit on the name of England, and had made the name of England a by-word for perfidy among the nations of the Continent. A reason given for the adoption of the policy of annexation was that a recurrence of such a war must be rendered impossible. That was an utterly unfounded argument. If it were a sound argument it might be some, although not a sufficient, excuse for breaking faith, but he contended strongly that so far from annexation securing the country against disturbance, it was certain to lead to a repetition of the unhappy events now occurring. The question should be asked, What caused these events before, and would those causes be removed by annexation? It was believed that the campaign would be a short and victorious one of four or six weeks duration, that the Transvaalers were absolutely weak, and that 50,000 men would be more than sufficient to finish the business. It was that mistaken belief that had led to the false step. By annexation the British Government would be lulled into a false sense of security in the future as in the past. It would be impossible to deprive the Transvaalers of rifles, as they were absolutely necessary for their protection against wild beasts, and when a suitable opportunity for rising occurred this country would be astonished to find the fighting capacity of the Boers only very little less than at present. Although it was assumed that annexation would have the result he had mentioned, the conduct of the Government showed that they did not believe it. They themselves admitted that it would be necessary to have a permanent military garrison of from 30,000 to 50,000 men to guard against the danger of future disturbances. He contended that annexation was the worst possible solution of the problem, even from the purely selfish and opportunist point of view, and setting aside all questions of international obligations and good faith. The best plan would be to retain the internal independence of the two Republics. Annexation would be regarded by the whole of the Dutch of South Africa as a gross and fraudulent breach of faith, and

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would cause undying hatred in the breast of every Dutchman in South Africa. No human passion was more permanent than the resentment occasioned by a sense of gross injustice, and the iniquities committed during this war would be related around the hearths of the Transvaal families for generations, giving to every lad a strong desire to avenge the wrongs done to his nation and his forefathers. It was admitted that eventually representative government would have to be established, and it was certain that in the future the Dutch population would be preponderant. When the time came there would be a majority absolutely irreconcilable against Great Britain, and how would it be possible then to retain South Africa? Then, it was suggested that the result of annexation would be the ultimate federation of all the States in South Africa under British suzerainty, but that federation instead of being a protection to England's supremacy would be its greatest danger. Government from Downing Street would be absolutely impossible, and the result would necessarily be the total loss of these colonies. All these prophecies would doubtless be derided, but he felt confident they would be fulfilled. The reason annexation was insisted upon was that it was only by annexation that the absolute falsity of the main ground upon which the Government went to war could be concealed. That main ground was to enforce the right of the Uitlanders to the franchise, but the Government had discovered that the English Uitlander would never accept the franchise at the cost of his British nationality, and the claim was therefore a false one. President Kruger never made a greater mistake from his own point of view than when he refused to grant the franchise at once, because it was perfectly certain that not ten per cent, of the British Uitlanders would have accepted it, and Sir Alfred Milner and the Colonial Secretary would have been deeply humiliated by having threatened war for such a fictitious cause. It was in order to avoid the humiliation of that exposure that this war was being continued week after week and month after month, and thousands of lives sacrificed, and millions of treasure wasted.
MR. BARTLEY: I only desire to ask two or three questions, and I do not wish in any way to continue the long discussion we have had. There are,
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however, one or two points which I think should be brought up on this occasion, because we are very anxious to see what are the first steps in the direction of reforming the War Office. We hear a great deal still of men being sent out to South Africa, and if experience has taught this House anything, it is that it is wrong and extravagant, and a practice which we all deplore, to send to the front young men with no experience. I asked a question the other day concerning some troops sent from Omagh to join the Inniskilling Fusiliers. I think I was right in saying—and the right hon. Gentleman did not contradict it—that none of these men were over eighteen years of age, that they had practically never fired a shot, had received no battalion drill, and had only been four months enlisted. With our experience during this last year in South Africa, I think to send men of that sort out to the front is certainly an indication that we are not learning the elementary principles of warfare. The idea of sending men of this sort out is very extravagant, and although the reply given to me was that they were only going to serve on the lines of communication, still, while there are De Wets about, the lines of communication seem to be as important a part as any in the campaign. We know what has happened in different parts of the Orange River Colony and tie Transvaal, and it is obvious that in sending, out troops we should stop the practice of sending these young lads, who ought to be kept at home until they have learned to use a rifle and how to ride as well. I wish to get an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that in future troops will not be sent out of this tender age, and certainly not until they have learned the very first principles which are wanted when they get to South Africa. My second point is concerning those officers who have been sent back to England from the front. I do not wish to say anything unpleasant or mention any names, but it is common knowledge that a certain number of men have been sent back who have not been invalided home, who had either made mistakes or who were not considered competent to lead the men. There are several of these cases. We are very sorry for it, because no doubt many of them are gallant men, and personally everything that could be desired. I brought this matter forward in the summer, and I want to know whether it

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is desirable in an Army which we are about to reorganise that the men who have been sent home in this way should be placed in high positions here at home when, in the very act of war, they have been sent back as not fit to carry out the duties of their position. Although it may be very painful to these individuals, still the only object for which a soldier exists is that when war comes he should be competent to perform his duties. If a man is sent home at a time when we are sending out more men—and when every available man is wanted to assist in the campaign—because he is not suitable, it is a very extraordinary thing that such men should be given high positions, and should be allowed, in some cases, to go about criticising the conduct of the war, in which they were not fit to take part. I wish to know whether there are any rules dealing with officers who have been sent back, and who are not considered suitable to carry on a campaign, to the effect that they shall be given commands in England which are so much coveted by the men who have done good service for their country. The third question I wish to ask is what regulations are there in regard to officers returning home whose regiments are still at the front. This is a matter which astonishes a good many people. We were told in the right hon. Gentleman's speech the other day that the Yeomanry and the Volunteers could not return, and that they had been called upon to servo a longer time. Of course I know that as loyal and patriotic men they will do their duty, and I do not think there will be much grumbling among them. They are quite willing to give their services, and they are acquitting themselves in a most heroic manner. It seems very strange to us how easy it is for some officers in high positions to leave their regiments and come home, and I should like to know whether this is a usual thing, and what are the rules under which they are allowed to return. I was always given to understand that an ordinary officer at the front never dreamt of leaving his regiment unless ho was invalided or promoted. It is common knowledge that a considerable number of these officers have come home. I will not mention names, but I think it is only right that the country should know for what special reasons they have come back, and what are the general rules which regulate these
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matters. Many of them are very competent men, and should be at the front under ordinary circumstances. We have a right to know what special reasons there are for picking out certain individuals to come home leaving their regiments behind. Those are my three main points, and they are questions which we are all interested in. We are all extremely anxious that the war should be brought to a conclusion as soon as possible, and we desire also to see the War Office system completely reformed and made efficient, and I think that the three points which I have raised demand some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman.
MR. BRYNMOR JONES: I do not rise to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, and I am quite as ready as I was in the last Parliament to vote for any reasonable supplies for the vigorous prosecution of the war in South Africa. I believe that we are, substantially, in the right in this quarrel, and I believe that the demands made by the Government upon the South African Republic were fair and reasonable, and that there was no justification, either technically or really, for the invasion of our territory by the two Dutch Republics. I am simply stating the conviction I have formed from studying the literature connected with the subject, and taking into account what has happened since the outbreak of the war. I simply make that statement in order that my point of view may be understood. I have one or two points to put to the Government. I believe that there has never been a demand of this kind for so large a sum of money as £11,000,000, or rather £16,000,000, with which we are now dealing. The House is being asked to vote this money in complete darkness. I have done my best to follow the events of the war, and, from the accounts furnished by the generals and the correspondents, I confess that I really am not in a position to say whether the money which has been previously voted by this House has been well spent. I am not in a position to form any judgment as to whether the war has been conducted with efficiency or with economy. There are many arguments which I might raise indicating that there has not been an efficient conducting of the war in South Africa in many parts of the theatre of the fight, but I am not now going to go into the details. I am only leading up to this

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point—Why is it that no full despatches from Lord Roberts have been published since April 17th? Since the commencement of the war ten full despatches by generals commanding have been published. During the Crimean War, in 1854, I find that the sending of despatches by Lord Raglan was pursued with the utmost care and promptitude, and immediately upon their receipt by the War Office they were published in the London Gazette. It is very remarkable, considering the difficulties of transport in those days, with what speed Lord Raglan's despatches were published, and that course was pursued throughout the whole war. Therefore, when the Members of the House of Commons were called upon to vote the money, they were in a position to form some judgment not only as to the efficiency of the War Office, but also as to the way in which the war was being carried on. Many Members of the House will remember that there was a debate about the Spion Kop despatches in the month of May last, and I suppose it is in consequence of what took place then that there has been this cessation in the publication of despatches. I should like to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a passage from a regulation bearing upon this matter, which I think was referred to by the ex-Under Secretary of State for War, and which was read by Lord Lansdowne in another place. It reads—
"It will rest with the Secretary of State for War, acting upon the advice of the Commander-in-Chief, to determine what despatches shall be made public, and the manner in which they shall be made generally known."
The question I wish to ask is whether it was upon the advice of Lord Wolseley, who until a few days ago was Commander-in-Chief, that no further despatches from Lord Roberts have been published. We have been told that the publication of these despatches rests with the Secretary of State for War, acting upon the advice of the Commander-in-Chief, and it appears to me that the Government are not treating the House fairly in coming again for another Vote without giving us the best information in their power to enable us to judge whether the money we have already voted has been well spent. Many hon. Members will remember the immediate occasion of the cessation, for it occurred at the close of a debate upon Spion Kop, when the right hon. Gentle-
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man told us that the House should not complain if the Minister for War declined to publish despatches or answer questions about despatches. And so, because the Government acted indiscreetly in publishing one despatch, the House is to be deprived of all the despatches in future. That is all I have to say upon that point. Then there is the question of the promise of an inquiry into the organisation of the War Office and our whole system of national defence. I do not think that that point has been touched upon this session.
MR. SPEAKER: The only vote appropriated by this Bill is that for carrying on the war in South Africa and China.
MR. BRYNMOR JONES: Perhaps my particular form of words did not properly explain my argument. Before I vote for this money I should like to know how far the Government are going to redeem their promise made last session in order to induce us to vote sums of money in regard to Army reform. I do not think that this money will be well spent unless we have some immediate changes in regard to the War Office and our Army. It is evidently the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman that this war is going to be prolonged. We are now face to face with sporadic encounters here and there. We are going to keep some 200,000 men still in South Africa, and if this inquiry is held quickly perhaps some good will result from it. A definite promise was made by Lord Salisbury on the 9th November, when he said that we must scrutinise every department connected with our national defence, and this is all the more necessary in view of the extraordinary miscalculation made by the Government in South Africa.
MR. SETON-KARR: I need hardly say that, as far as I am concerned, I am entirely in favour of the principle of this Bill, and if the amount was for £160,000,000, and it was required in order to bring this war to a final and satisfactory conclusion, I should cheerfully support it. I desire, however, to call the attention of the House to a certain specific matter affecting two battalions of the Imperial Yeomanry. I pass over the general principle of this Bill to the question of how some of this money is going to be spent, and to how some of it has been spent. I want to call the attention of the House to the detention

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of two battalions of the Imperial Yeomanry—the 17th and 18th battalions—who formed part of the Rhodesian force, and who were sent out in April last and landed at Beira about May, and passed over the Beira Railway in order to take their part in the operations in Rhodesia. But before I call the attention of the House very shortly to this subject, I wish to make one or two preliminary observations. My statement deals with the detention of these two battalions in a very bad fever district through which the Beira Railway goes, and the result of that delay and the loss of life which occurred in consequence was due to some very serious mismanagement. Before I come to that fact I should like to say that I am making this statement entirely on my own initiative. I have not been requested by any officer or any man in that force to make any complaint about it. I think we ought to recognise that when men volunteer for the defence of their country and respond to the call of arms they take their chance of the hardships and suffering which they may meet with in the field of battle or in the field operations. The men I am talking about do not wish to complain of what they have suffered. The second preliminary point which I should like to mention is to answer the natural query—What business have I in this matter beyond the fact that I am a Member of this House? Well, I wish to say that I happen to be the individual who obtained authority from the War Office to recruit the corps. I only mention this fact in order to ask the House to grant me their indulgence in the matter. The third point I wish to make is that I have no complaint to make of any want of courtesy on the part of the War Office or of the way in which they have answered my correspondence in this matter. I have received long letters upon this subject, and I sent copies of them to the Secretary of State for War and to my right hon. friend's predecessor in this House, the present Chief Secretary for Ireland, and both these Ministers wrote me very sympathetic letters, and promised me an inquiry into the facts of the case. I wrote to my hon. friend the present Secretary of State for War asking for the result of that inquiry, and he sent me in reply a summary of the report of Sir Frederick Carrington, Commander of the Rhodesian Field Force, who had inquired into the matter. I have not seen the complete report, but I have read
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the summary, and I should like to say that, in my humble opinion, that report is very unsatisfactory. It states that the delay of these two battalions on the Beira Railway was unavoidable, and that it was one of those inevitable accidents connected with operations in the field. I have to submit that this might have been avoided, and I make this assertion upon the facts represented to me. I have letters from some of the officers and men of the two battalions, and I have seen some of the men who were out there, and I think that the responsibility for this occurrence ought to be pressed home on somebody. This House should understand that the first sixty miles of the Beira Railway is the narrow gauge and the dangerous portion of the railway extends for about 200 miles. Now Beira is one of the worst fever districts on the coast of that continent. I am told that the principal means of subsistence at Beira is whisky and soda, which is necessitated by the climate. Unless your temperature is over 104 you are not considered to be ill, but if it goes over that you are justified in going home and lying down. Otherwise you are expected to go about and do your business. That will show you what kind of a place Beira is. For about 150 miles inland it is still worse. The country is full of game but it is reeking with fever. It was obviously, therefore, in any military operations, of the utmost importance to take your men over that railway with the utmost speed, and any commander with any foresight at all would be anxious to get his troops over the railway with as little delay as possible. Well, I believe that the colonials were I not delayed, and I am very happy to think that they were conveyed over the line without any delay. But the two battalions of Imperial Yeomanry were delayed twenty-three miles inland for sixteen days, and were then taken to Bamboo Creek, the narrow gauge terminus, where they were kept for fourteen days more. One company of the 18th battalion Sharpshooters were camped for three weeks at the Horse Paddocks at Beira—a bad fever spot, where the land crabs cover the ground with slime—in charge of 1,400 horses. The general result was that in the two battalions twenty-two men died, 200 were invalided home, and the remainder of that fine battalion of 1,100 men were so saturated with malaria that they were completely incapacitated for a time; for, however

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strong a man may be, once having got the malaria into his system it takes months to get rid of it. In the words of one of them, when these battalions landed at Beira they were 1,100 of the finest young fellows that had ever left England, and when they reached Pretoria they were only a miserable remnant. I should like to say as an illustration of what stuff they were made of, that in spite of their weak condition, they shot a rifle match with the Umtali Rifle Club, who hold the championship of Rhodesia, and thoroughly beat them. The local newspapers said that no such shooting had ever been seen in South Africa. Now these men were worth looking after. Let me deal for a moment with the summary of Sir F. Carrington's Report. He says that this delay was inevitable, that it was owing to the break of gauge at Bamboo Creek, and to the misrepresentations made to the military authorities by the railway manager in regard to the carrying capacities of the railway. It is not my business to impute blame to anyone in particular. I do not stand here to blame a distinguished soldier like Sir F. Carrington, but I do say that there must have been some mismanagement somewhere. As to the delay being inevitable, I challenge that conclusion and submit that ordinary business foresight on the part of the military authorities would have obviated this sad blunder. There were several ways to avoid delay. In the first place there was no reason why all the transports should have arrived at Beira at the same time. Some of them might have been detained for a time at Durban and been successively brought up to Beira, and so have enabled the troops to go through, one detachment after another, without causing a block. Then having brought them to Beira at the same time there was no reason why they should not have been kept on board the ship instead of being landed in such numbers and sent to camp on fever swamps. I am quite unable to understand why that was not done. I believe that after the steamers reached Beira there was a demurrage of £150 a day, but I do not suppose that that consideration entered into the minds of the military authorities. Then it is said in the Report that there was not sufficient rolling stock on the broad gauge section, but there was no reason why the troops, instead of being planted down on fever swamps, should
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not have been taken through at once to Umtali, and no further for the time. This was a healthy spot, and free from fever. This could, I believe, have well been done had the rolling stock been used more judiciously, and not used unnecessarily on the longer section to Marandallas, beyond Umtali, until all the troops were through the dangerous fever belt. I want to ask my right hon. friend if he will give us more explanation than is found in the report in regard to the control of this railway. He will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that at the time the Rhodesian field force arrived at Beira the railway was under the control of the military authorities. The Report states that these did not exercise any actual control, but left it in the hands of the railway contractors and their manager, Mr. Lawley. Now, I cannot imagine a better arrangement to enable all parties concerned to escape responsibility. If you blame the military authorities they may say, "We are not responsible, because we have not the actual control." If you blame the actual managers they will say, "We are not responsible, because the military authorities had the control of the line." Responsibility must be brought home somewhere. We cannot alter the facts of the case now; they are part of history. But our object is to see that the War Office system, and the system of national defence are properly reformed, and if that is to be done we are bound to find out who is responsible and so bring responsibility home in order to guard against a repetition of such blunders in future. I submit that, in the first place, if the rolling stock on this line was not sufficient to take, these battalions of Imperial Yeomanry through the fever belt, then the military authorities ought to have ascertained that with absolute certainty. In the second place, if, as appears in the Report, the military authorities were misled by the railway contractors as to the facilities for carrying troops on the line, the responsibility ought to be fixed on the railway contractors and their managers. If the military authorities had the formal control of the line they ought to have taken steps to enforce that control. Let me give an instance as to the absurd way in which the control was exercised. The Report speaks of the break of gauge causing delay. To my knowledge five non-commissioned officers and men of the Sharp-

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shooters Corps at Bamboo Creek, where the break occurs, untrucked 215 horses in an hour and a quarter, and trucked, them again. If sufficient rolling stock had been provided at this point, a delay of two or three weeks would not have occurred. Again after the Sharpshooters battalion had been kept for three weeks at Bamboo Creek they themselves commandeered some trucks, and fitted them with sides to protect the troops, in spite of the assurances of the railway officials that there was no rolling stock available. Unless they had thus taken the matter into their own hands they would not have got away as soon as they did. That shows that the management of the railway transport and the arrangement of the different sections was most inefficient; and I most humbly resent the taking: away the responsibility from the War I Office by the statement that this was an inevitable state of things. I am perfectly well aware that you cannot carry on warlike operations 6,000 miles from this country without some inevitable mistakes and mishaps, but here you have a fine force, some of them the finest men and the finest shots in the country, and all of whom had left their businesses at the cost of a good deal of money to themselves and friends—absolutely squandered by the delay of three weeks in what is known to be one of the worst fever districts in the whole of South Africa. I do not want to blame anyone unnecessarily, but I want to see the responsibility placed on the quarter where it properly belongs. My right hon. friend has said that he is going to lay the Report of Sir F. Carrington on the Table of the House. I have taken the trouble to collect the facts from the men who were there—I hope it will not be thought presumptious on my part—and I have placed these facts in a statement I have sent to my right hon. friend. I should like him, if he would, to place that statement on the Table along with the other documents. I hope that whatever we do in the future in carrying on our wars, we shall make our arrangements on a better footing than we have apparently hitherto done. In a daily paper this morning I saw a form of words which exactly expresses my meaning. I do not know who the writer is; he writes anonymously; but he says—
"I appeal to business men. Given a large technical business, employing a great number of workpeople and containing many different departments. Put in absolute control a man
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who has made such a business his life's study, and who understands every detail. The result will be success. Make such a man subservient to a gentleman who is entirely ignorant of the business, and the result will be failure. Surely this rule applies also to matters of State."
I hope the matter will be pressed home, and this want of business capability will disappear from the management of our national defences.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I sympathise most warmly with the woes of the Sharpshooters, but the hon. Member has only confirmed what we have said on this side of the House, that when in this South African business there is an opportunity to muddle, muddling takes place. I have not risen, however, to discuss that point. I think that although this session has been a short one, we may congratulate ourselves on this side of the House as to what has taken place. We are in a small minority. We have not the advantage of a large and dominant majority; but, on the whole, although we, of course, have not been able to beat; the Government by our votes, yet we have thoroughly singed their wings. I think if the country at large were consulted now on this South African business it would return a somewhat different verdict to what it did at the General Election. For my pare I consider that the session has been a session of inquiry and investigation, and I regard the Government as being much in the position of a person who has been brought before a magistrate and has been committed to the February Assizes. When the February Assizes come on and the issues are in we shall have a very great deal more to say to the Government than we have had the opportunity of doing on the present occasion. There is a minor point I would again press on the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War. It is a question in regard to the Reservists and their families. You give a Reservist's wife 1s. a day and his children 1s. 3d. I say it is quite impossible that they can live in the same decent comfort as when the husband was earning large wages, on that small pittance. The consequence is that in almost every town in the country public subscriptions have flowed in to supplement the Government allowance. But these subscriptions cannot last for ever, and I do think if you cannot allow these Reservists to come back to England, the very least you can do is to keep their

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families here in decent comfort. I have been attacked for not having a sufficient sentiment of vicarious patriotism in thinking how these soldiers have conducted themselves in the field. I say they have conducted themselves very well; but there are many in this House who blow their own trumpets. For my part I take more interest in their wives and children than in the soldiers themselves. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to see that the allowances to their families are increased, and that they should not have to depend upon public charity, which, to a certain extent, is dried up. I wish to call the attention of the House to a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman last night—the most extraordinary statement that has yet been made in connection with affairs in South Africa by the Government. The right hon. Gentleman said that Sir A. Milner—I will quote from The Times—
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is not a question that can now be raised. Sir A. Milner's position does not arise on this Bill.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I am raising the question in this way because I have doubts and hesitations in my own mind whether I ought to vote for this Bill.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member's mind may be swayed by the most irrelevant considerations.
MR. LABOUCHERE: Why I have doubts is this, that I conceive that if this statement is not contradicted it is vain and useless for us to vote money in the way we are doing, because the war will be perpetuated for ever and there no peace or harmony in South Perhaps I may allude to the will be Africa, fact—
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member must not pursue the subject further.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I will mend my ways, Mr. Speaker. I will not even go so far as to hope that before the debate is over the right hon. Gentleman will tell us that all those who distrust Sir A. Milner—
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must ask the hon. Member to observe my ruling. He is now persisting in discussing a topic which I have told him is not in order.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I did it in the interests of the country. Perhaps it is right that the statement should go to South Africa as it stands. I am not very clear in my own mind, and if I were to ask hon. Members opposite I am sure they would also say that they were not clear in their minds, as to what is going to be done in South Africa. We have had statements here and in the other House in regards to how the war is going to be conducted; but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, before this House breaks up, to more clearly tell us something in regard to this burning and devastating of the country in South Africa. So far as I have been able to gather, the proclamations of Lord Roberts are to be in some way modified. I believe myself that if you want to crush out a national resistance in any country it is impossible to do so without the means taken in the present war. As I understand, some sort of change is going to be made, but I do not believe that if you really intend to carry out what you say is your object, you will ever be able to do so without practically and to all intents and purposes using the means you have already employed. I suggest an alternative to that. I do not believe the Boers are likely to surrender. My belief is that, although probably a considerable number of adventurous spirits are fighting for fighting's sake, there are also in these commandoes numerous Boers who are exceedingly desirous that their country should not cease to exist as a separate country, and that they are fighting, as we ourselves would fight, for what they consider is the noblest of all causes. I admit fully that we cannot go back to the status quo ante, and that there must be an annexation of these two Republics to the political area of the Empire. But it seems to me that it would be desirable that some proposal should be made to the Boers that, subject to every precaution that can suggest itself to the mind of man to prevent a second war breaking out, they should be put in a position in which they would have some kind of autonomy. Take the case of the Native States in India. The subjects of one of these States are not subjects of the British Empire, but of the ruler of the State. I cannot help thinking that the Government might very easily, if it would give its mind to the question, make some sort of proposal that would be perfectly safe

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to us, and at the same time would give to the Boers what may be termed a special reserve, where they might live under their own laws, and according to their own habits, and call themselves Boers if they preferred that. We go on telling them that it is a great and glorious thing to be a British citizen. In the same way a German thinks it a great and glorious thing to be a German citizen; but if the Germans were to invade this country there would be a national resistance, and we would say that we prefer to be British rather than German citizens. Take the case of Scotland. History does not regard Wallace as a mercenary or a robber. He did his duty to his country by fighting against the English to the death, and I am not prepared to blame the Boers resisting to the bitter end. I tell the Government they may depend upon it that if the Boer resistance goes on, and if, as a necessary consequence, they have to fall back on these burnings and devastations now going on, the British public will not much longer stand it. There is a strong feeling already growing up against it. We know perfectly well that there have been other cases before in which we have expressed our opinion in regard to such transactions. We know what happened in Bulgaria. The Turks wanted to crush out the Bulgarian nationality, and they were obliged to do so in the same way in which we are carrying on this war. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.] I say that the Turks were obliged to devastate the country in Bulgaria and to burn down the houses. It is a necessary consequence of policy, and I am not blaming the Government or the military authorities. Those who are old enough to remember will recall the feeling that was excited by the occupation of Italy by Austria, and I say, looking at the past history of England and the feeling that has been elicited in England under somewhat similar circumstances, I certainly believe that the Boers have only to continue to resist for a certain time, and we to combat that resistance by military measures in the only way we can, to excite the sentiment of this country to a pitch that it will be impossible for the Government to control, and they would be compelled to give more advantageous terms. What we want to do is to establish peace and prosperity in South Africa. I want the South African Colonies to be united to us in the bonds of friendship, and that is why I urge that
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every effort should be made to arrive at the end of the war.
MR. YERBURGHsaid the question he desired to raise was the position of the Imperial Yeomanry at the present time. The position taken up by the right hon. Gentleman was that the Yeomanry had enlisted for the period of the war, and that so long as the war lasted the Government had a right to the services of the Yeomanry in South Africa. That might be the letter of the agreement, but it certainly was not the spirit of it. The Yeomanry came forward at a time of national peril to assist the Government at a time when the military force was at its lowest. It was composed of men of all classes and occupations, and only enlisted to assist so long as the war continued on a large scale. The war was now practically over, and police duty was not the sort of work for which the Yeomanry were required. He felt most strongly upon the matter, and considered that if the Government insisted upon the Yeomanry remaining in South Africa until all military operations were corm-completed they were violating the spirit of the agreement into which they had entered with that body. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would see his way to relieve them from further service. He had seen it stated that the Chinese regiment at Wei-hai-wei had been engaged in operations for the relief of Peking. He would like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman in what capacity the regiment had acted, and whether that regiment had distinguished itself or not.
SIR J. FERGUSSONdissociated himself entirely from the position taken up by the hon. Member for Chester. Everybody admired the way in which these Volunteer forces came forward at a time when there was a check to British arms in South Africa, at the risk not only of their lives, but the loss of their prospects in their various professions and occupations, in order to assist the Government so far as they could in maintaining the honour and integrity of the Empire. It was a gallant and praiseworthy act, which had a great moral effect not only on this country, but on the world at large; but it was hardly fitting that the Government should allow any claim that these men should judge for themselves as to the proper time for them to come home. They

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undertook to serve during the war, and it was not for them to say when the war had come to an end or when their services were no longer required. Many of the Yeomanry who when they joined were perfectly raw and had only a most rudimentary knowledge of military service had become some of the finest soldiers in the Army. Some had become most efficient scouts and light cavalry only second—for indeed they were second—to our colonial troops, and they had gained immortal honour. It might be that in the Army broken up into detachments to put down this guerilla warfare they were doing as efficient service as any done when our forces were fighting in large detachments. They had been engaged for the war, and were now occupied in bringing the war to an end and pacifying the country, audit was not for the House to protest at their being kept in South Africa, and he hoped there would be no attempt to interfere with the military authorities in this matter.
MR. JOHN BURNSsaid he desired to support the very sensible and experienced view that had just been expressed. If there had been a mistake in this matter it was that the Government originally allowed the Yeomanry, as Yeomanry, to enlist at all. Undue preference had been given to certain sections of men in this war, and if ever Great Britain was placed in a similar position he hoped the Government would be influenced by the lessons taught by the experience of these particular regiments, the Yeomanry, Lovat's Scouts, and other sections of Volunteers, and that they would see how unjust it was to the Regulars and Militia that these Volunteers should be split up into regiments—class regiments—as against the Regulars, who, after all, would have to see the thing through. Six hundred Cavalry enlisted, and should have been attached to some regiment, instead of which they were formed into one regiment, described by Tommy Atkins as the "Dandy Regiment" We had regiments under noble lords and distinguished gentlemen whose idea was that the war was to be a picnic and medal-hunting expedition. Every man who volunteered for this war and wished to join a Cavalry regiment should have been attached to an additional squadron of regular cavalry; every man who desired to join a foot regiment should have been at-
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tached to the territorial regiment which he wished to join; if a Volunteer Artilleryman he should have been attached to a regular battery. He made these observations because this preferential treatment had created a profound feeling of dissatisfaction, amounting in some cases to positive jealousy, among the men who would have to see the war through. This sort of thing ought to be avoided in the future. We ought not to have a Brigade of Guards which had done its work extremely well receiving 1s. 2d. a day, while a special corps was getting 5s. a day. While Bundle's half-starved regulars were pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the Colonial Secretary, these special corps were sheltering behind zarebas of Fortnum and Mason's delicacies and tinned food. If this was a just war there ought not to be any distinction in treatment of the men. If patriotism was the inspiring motive to make men fight, then a man ought to be as glad to fight with the Tower Hamlets workman as with the Yeomanry, which is now crying out to be sent home. If we were to maintain a Volunteer Army it could only be done on one footing, which should be that the whole force should have a co-equal share in the burden and hardships of the campaign, and that every soldier, whether a gas-stoker, an aristocrat, or a farmer, should be equal in war with his fellows. It was a disgrace to the honour and best traditions of the British Army that, when the war broke out, any man with a title had only to land at Cape Town to be immediately attached to the general staff, to the exclusion of fine soldiers, company officers, who by distinguished work in other campaigns had a right to a position on the general staff—a right to the prizes which war offers to all. But in this campaign Lord Roberts had been surrounded by a ring fence of younger sons, many of whom had not earned their spurs in any quarter of the globe. This was causing great dissatisfaction among the officers of the Army. If we were to have an Army and give encouragement to our officers, many of whom had done admirable work, it should not be possible, when there was staff promotion, for men with only political influence or back-stairs power to secure a position which only fighting ability and patriotic zeal should entitle them to have. He hoped that this war

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would put an end to this sort of thing. Let all men come under one discipline in the battlefield. If that was done we should get patriotic soldiers. If it was not done, the rank and file of our Army would be dissatisfied, and we should not get recruits, because no one would enter the Army when it was proved that you had to be a gamekeeper to Lord So-and-So before you could become a sergeant-major and get a commission. With regard to the money which had been asked for, the House had been asked for £16,000,000 to bring this war to a conclusion; and a great deal of that money would be spent upon stores of various kinds which were very badly needed, and upon food which was not there in the quantity that it should be. He had received a letter from the father of one of the Volunteers, enclosing a cutting which had come from his son who had cut it out of a Rhodesian paper, which stated how at Salisbury there were sold, for ridiculously low prices, great quantities of overcoats, provisions, saddles, and other necessaries at a time when our soldiers were suffering from exposure to the cold and were short of food. That savoured rather of what happened in the Crimean War. Apparently we were sending stores, saddles, overcoats, and food out in sufficient quantities, if it were only properly distributed and reached the men at the right place at the right time. It appeared to him, in the face of the paragraph which he had just read, that the Secretary of State for War ought to inquire how it was that in many portions of South Africa men were contracting rheumatism owing to improper clothing, while these things were being sold at these low prices in other parts of the country. It was the duty of the Secretary of State for War to inquire into this matter, and to ascertain whether the facts that he had brought to the attention of the House were true. If they were true it was a reflection upon the War Office, and was a reason for some officer, whoever he might be, being brought home and immediately cashiered for allowing stores to accumulate where they were not required. As a great portion of the £16,000,000 the House was then voting would be expended on these things, he had thought it was his duty to bring that paragraph to the attention of the House, and to state from his place what was the general view of the British Army. Out of the 24,000 men on
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the register in the constituency he represented nearly 800 were out at the front, and, being near the Guards' barracks as he was, he knew an enormous number of Reserve men in London, and he knew the view of the average soldier. These men did not complain about short rations, or of having to march with boots half off their feet, or of dying as the brave fellows had done, but what they did feel keenly was the differential treatment in pay, status, and social condition. If the class distinctions made in this campaign were to prevail, we should be driven to conscription to get our Army. The only thing which bound the Army together was comradeship. It was a mistake, a blunder, and might be some day a crime, and it was in order to save the military authorities from a more serious mistake in the future that he now ventured to express the views of every Reserve man, every Militiaman, and every man in the Regular Army.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): When the hon. Member and I rose together I gave way to him, and I am glad that I gave way. If I had not done so I should not have had the opportunity of repudiating on behalf of the Army one of the most regrettable speeches I have ever heard in my life. I have listened to a good many Army debates, but a more inaccurate and a more unjustifiable speech, a speech worse in tone and in temper, I never listened to. It contained innuendoes which the hon. Member could not support by a single instance. It was a speech of accusation for which ho had no authority whatever to quote to the House, a speech of pretension to speak on behalf of the rank and file of the Army.
MR. JOHN BURNS: Mr. Speaker, I did not pretend to speak on behalf of the rank and file of the Army. What I did say and what I adhere to is that that portion of the rank and file of the Army who have been invalided home, with whom I have had conversation, endorse my view, and it is only that section whose opinion I voice.
MR. BRODRICK: The hon. Member made an allusion to the 24,000 electors of Battersea. I venture to say that out of the electors in my division there are more who are serving in the Army than out of the hon. Member's division. I have come in contact with a good many of

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them, and I undertake to say that they will repudiate the view which has been put forward by the hon. Member. What is the meaning of these statements about the preferential treatment of the Imperial Yeomanry or Volunteers?
MR. JOHN BURNS: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the Australians are getting 5s. and our men only Is. 2d?
MR. BRODRICK: I deny that the Imperial Yeomanry or Volunteers have not shared alike with the Regular Army in every one of the fatigues and privations of the campaign. What the hon. Member complained of is that any allusion should be made to their services, because he urges they are Volunteers and ought to have been proud to go. What meant that allusion—an allusion, which, I think, was one of the most ungenerous ever made in the House of Commons—about Volunteers hiding behind Fortnum and Mason's provisions? The hon. Member cannot support that. It was unworthy of the hon. Member and the House. I should like to see him go to any regiment of the Line and make that insinuation about the Volunteers who have served in the ranks. Coming to my own county, the regiment of West Surrey have had I do not know how many Volunteers from my own neighbourhood serving with them for nine months of this campaign. Ask them whether the Volunteer company of that regiment has not shared every fatigue and privation without a single grumble. The hon. Member has no authority, no proof, no vestige of justification for the attacks on these Volunteers, who have given up everything to serve the Queen, as hiding behind Fortnum and Mason's provisions. I could say a good deal more. To-morrow it will be known that the man who has represented so long so large a body of working men has so detracted from the reputation he has deservedly gained in this House, and so presumed on the position which he occupies. I am only sorry that there should have been a debate of this character. As regards the Yeomanry, the Volunteers, and the Militia, who are as much Volunteers in this business as the others, they have probably in their ranks a larger proportion of married men and men who have left their business than any other class in the Army. I would say on behalf of all the men that to them we
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will give the utmost consideration we can when circumstances which, I hope, will not be far distant will enable us to recall troops, but at the present moment, as I pointed out to the House two nights ago, we have got to consider first of all the exigencies of the campaign. As soon as circumstances admit of it, we will release those whom we can spare. I hope that will not be, as I said, at any great distance of time. Several other points of great importance have been raised to-night before the House was as full as it is at this moment, and I will very briefly deal with the indictment brought by my hon. friend the Member for St. Helens. I am perfectly willing to take for the War Office any blame that it can possibly bear, but in regard to Beira it would be an abuse of the term to ask the War Office to bear any share of that blame. The expedition from Beira to Rhodesia was not organised by the War Office. Lord Roberts, commanding at the front, made up his mind to do something towards the relief of Mafeking through Rhodesia. The circumstances were very peculiar. Beira is Portuguese territory. It is not British territory. The railway the troops had to operate by was not an English railway, and it happened at this moment to be in process of conversion from the narrow gauge to the broad gauge. In the month of March we were assured that the total conversion of the railway had taken place. In the month of April, when we began to land troops there, 220 miles had been converted to broad gauge, and 60 were still narrow gauge. I believe the British officers did everything they could to push forward the troops, but it was impossible to keep them for a prolonged period on foreign territory; it was equally impossible without the railway to get them forward, and undoubtedly, as my hon. friend says, at Bamboo Creek some of the men were encamped for more than a fortnight, and a large number caught fever. This is due to one of the exigencies of war. I am not prepared, even if it were possible, in a case like that to make any officer accountable for circumstances as regards a railway over which we had no control.
MR. SETON-KARR: May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman for a moment? Is it not a fact that the military authorities had nominal control of the railway at the time?
MR BRODRICK: Nominal control! The question is simply, Had you got materials on the spot? There was no time to make an exhaustive examination of everything. The rolling stock turned out to be defective. None of these things were under the control of the War Office. The effort of every officer and man in that place was directed to getting through to the relief of Mafeking. As it happened, one of the most important items in that relief was the arrival of the Canadian battery. I am far from saying that, when you have got a very serious difficulty of that kind to deal with, and when you consider what a blow it would have been to this Empire if Mafeking had had to surrender, we should censure officers who ran the risk of keeping troops there in order that they might get forward as soon as those defective engines would take them over the ground. The troops underwent severe experiences, and I would not be behindhand in taking up the matter from that point of view; but in those matters it is not our business simply to find out whether there is anybody we can hang, The question is whether what occurred was due to the exigencies of war. The hon. Member for North Islington has put a very pertinent question to me; he has asked whether troops were sent out without any experience in musketry. Up to about a month ago some very young drafts had been sent out with a view of attaching them to Militia battalions on the line of communications. I had considerable doubts as to the desirability of the procedure, and about three weeks ago I gave orders that no more drafts should be sent out under those conditions. My hon. friend touched a delicate question when he spoke of officers being sent home because they had failed during the war. The hon. Gentleman asked whether those who were not considered fit to hold commands during a campaign would be considered suitable to hold commands at home. Each ease must be decided on its own merits, but I can, perhaps, go as far as to say that I have been in telegraphic communication with Lord Roberts as to some individual cases. So far as I am concerned, unless in some very exceptional cases, I certainly should not be prepared to recommend for a command at home an officer who has been sent home because he has failed to fulfil a command to the satisfac-
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tion of the Commander in-Chief in South Africa. I hope I shall not be pressed further on the subject. I can assure the House that the general spirit in which the matter will be approached will be one that will be by no means inclined to that spirit of leniency which every man of good nature would like to adopt, but which, I think, is altogether unsuitable when it comes to dealing with the training of troops and to giving commands to men who may in future be expected to exercise them in the field. My hon. friend also asked me in regard to officers who have returned home while their regiments are still at the front. He said that distinguished officers were coming back from the seat of war, and yet the mass of the troops still remained there.
MR. BARTLEY: Their own regiments.
MR. BRODRICK: I would just correct a misapprehension. It is obvious, now that the war is broken up into small operations, it is unnecessary to keep the large number of generals commanding divisions, and, indeed, commanding brigades, who were employed when the war was taking place upon a larger scale. I am not aware of any officers having left except those who have returned with the direct leave of Lord Roberts and those who have been invalided home. I believe some few exceptions have possibly been made in the case of Members of Parliament, and, really, I do not think the House of Commons and the House of Lords have any reason to be ashamed of the part their Members have taken in this campaign. Of course, it must be understood that when a man has Parliamentary duties to fulfil some little latitude must be allowed to a general in deciding whether such men are to be precluded altogether from serving with the forces or whether they are to be allowed some consideration owing to their Parliamentary duties. Generally speaking, the position is perfectly clear; officers, whoever they may be and whatever their social condition, will remain with their regiments so long as their regiments have to stay abroad. I think my hon. friend will find, if he goes into details, that that rule has been carefully observed. So far as I am concerned, those questions which have been brought before the House, even though I have not been able to answer all of them, will not go without notice.
MR. CAWLEY: So far as the rank and file of the Army are concerned, and so far as the experience of practical men is concerned, I would rather take the opinion of the hon. Member for Battersea than that of the right hon. Gentleman. I am one of those men who fought at the General Election under somewhat difficult circumstances. I am one of those who were called traitors to their country. I do not think that I was a traitor then, or that I am a traitor now. I was called a traitor because I did not believe in the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies. I believe when the right hon. Gentleman said this would be a long and bitter war, and that it would leave the seeds of disaffection for generations, he was speaking the truth. I believe when he said that we should not carry the Dutchmen with us that he was speaking what was true statesmanship. We have not carried the Dutchmen of Cape Colony with us in our policy. The Dutchmen of Cape Colony and the Orange Free State were against President Kruger. I do not think that the loyal Dutchman of Cape Colony likes to be called a traitor, but when he comes to read the debate in this House he will know that that is what is said of him because he disapproves of the action of Sir Alfred-Milner.
MR. SPEAKERsaid it was not in order to refer to that matter now.
MR. CAWLEY: With reference to the Yeomanry and the Volunteers, it should be remembered that they went out to remain until the war was over. Now we are told that the war is over, and that it has degenerated into a guerilla war. I think the war is not over. The war is going on, and the Yeomanry are wanted and will have to stay there. I agree with the right hon. Baronet the Member for North-east Manchester that they must learn that one of their first duties is to be obedient to those above them. I only wish that this war may soon come to a close, but I do not think that the speeches which we have heard on the other side are quite likely to bring it to a close.
MR. MILDMAY: Having personally had the honour of serving in the Yeomanry with what has
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been called Rundle's half-starved division, I feel bound to rise if only to assure the hon. Member for Battersea that the existence of jealousy between the Regular forces and the Yeomanry and Volunteers is entirely a fiction of his imagination. The Yeomanry are proud of having been treated absolutely in the same way as every other man in the division. I may tell you that they suffered the same hardships and experienced the same want of food, and so on. We were on the very best of terms with the Guardsmen in the division, who were kind enough to help us in difficult circumstances, and we were only too glad to return those kindnesses whenever we were able, and I am sure that every Guardsman in General Rundle's force will bear out what I say. The Yeomanry certainly suffered, as did every man in the division, but they recognised that they could not take part in a war without undergoing hardship, and therefore they endured their hardships as good soldiers should. The hon. Member has alluded to Lindley. I should advise hon. Members in this House and any of those who have been at home during the operations to refrain from criticising men who for five days and five nights fought in circumstances which any man at home would have looked upon as a frightful experience. I thank hon. Gentlemen for listening to me. I thought I must intervene in the interest of men with whom I have lived so long, and to whom I have become so deeply attached.
MR. KEIR HARDIE: I would not have intervened in this debate but for two causes. The first is the after dinner display of manners which we have had while my hon. friend the Member for Battersea was speaking, and the second is the ebullition of temper shown by the Secretary of State for War in replying to the hon. Member. Anyone who took the trouble to listen to the remarks of the hon. Member for Battersea would understand that they were meant to apply exclusively to the regiment known as the Duke of Cambridge's Own. The hon. and gallant Member for Totnes has given us the officer's view of what the Army feels, which is about as valuable as what the employer thinks of what the workman feels. Last night I travelled from London to Crewe with three soldiers, home on sick leave, belonging to the South

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Lancashire Fusiliers. If hon. Members could have heard the conversation which those three men carried on amongst themselves they would have altered their opinions as to the feelings prevailing in the army in South Africa. If one tithe of what they said were true we are on the eve of a mutiny among the rank and file in South Africa, largely the outcome of the favouritism shown to certain regiments. I do not know that it would be in order to inform the House of one remark of one of the three men. When they learned that Michael Davitt was going out to South Africa a thrill of relief went through the Army because of the impression that he had come to organise the revolt for which they were prepared. In conversation one of them; declared that should he return again to South Africa it would be to enlist under De Wet as a protest against the treatment to which the men had been subjected. I want to call the attention of the Secretary of State for War to statements occurring in letters from the front. One is as to the punishment meted out to men who fall out on the line of march, even to obtain a drink of water when thirsty. I cannot vouch for the statement, but it has been made, and has to be answered. Eight men came home in the ship with the three South Lancashire Fusiliers to whom I have referred. ["Names."] I will give the names to the Secretary of State for War if he desires them. These men had been sentenced to terms of imprisonment of from three to five years, some of them for having fallen out on the line of march to take a drink of water by the roadside, In the case of others the charge was one; of so-called malingering. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will produce the list of punishments imposed upon men in South Africa for the offences I have mentioned. The result of this treatment is likely to be the impossibility of getting Volunteers to enlist at any cost. The truth about the war is now becoming known. The men in the field understand what they are there for. They have seen the Boers; they have; fought with them; they have chummed with them; and nine out of ten of the soldiers in South Africa if they had their choice would be fighting to-day under De Wet and helping the Boers to recover their independence. There are three classes in the country who still favour the war. There are those who
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make something out of it, either as contractors or as shareholders in companies; there are the people who know nothing about the facts, the "men in the street," as they are called; and there are those who are lost beyond redemption to all sense of honour and truth. These classes continue to support the war, but there is rising up in every constituency a feeling of protest against the further continuance of these operations. The more the truth becomes known the less defensible the war seems to be. I trust the hon. Member who opened this discussion will go to a division, because as a newly-returned Member I desire to have every opportunity in the division lobby of recording my protest against the blood-guiltiness of the nation. The men in the field against us are not being treated in a manner worthy of their courage, their humanity, and their devotion to their freedom. If the Government could but realise how much this country would gain and the Empire benefit by meeting the heads of the Boer army and of the two Republics in consultation in order to agree upon a peaceful future course in South Africa, I feel certain they would not hesitate to take that step. A gentleman not unknown in this House, and whose name was on all lips on a certain morning in December some five years ago, and who is in London at this moment on a visit from South Africa, has, in conversation, been justifying the war. Here is a summary of what he says—
"But for the war, in a few years from now, when President Kruger had either died or given up office, there would have been a rapprochement between the progressive forces of the Transvaal and the progressive forces throughout South Africa, and they would have offered to this country a federated South Africa under the Union Jack and such a subsidy towards Imperial defence as is undreamt of by any other colony."
Had that come to pass the loyal Dutch subjects at the Cape would have ruled South Africa, and Rhodes and Beit and Eckstein, and others of that unholy gang would have occupied their rightful places. It is to prevent this that we are spending our blood and treasure, and every day that passes is bringing fresh light to the minds of the people, and making them feel that capitalism in South Africa as at home is becoming a menace to the progress and peace of the nation and must be held in strong check. I rose in the first place because of the unmannerly interruptions

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from the opposite benches, and because, although in the streets the myrmidons of the war party may smash our heads and sometimes close our lips, yet in this House we should insist upon freedom of speech for even the smallest minority.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Because I rose a moment ago to ask a question the hon. Member for the Totnes Division seems to suppose there was some reflection of cowardice against those who took part in the transaction. The very reverse is the fact. In July last I protested against the manner in which a number of Irish troops at Lindley were led into a trap by the folly of an officer, and I rose to-night only to ask for further information on the subject, not to cast the slightest suspicion on the gallantry of my countrymen. It is a peculiarly English characteristic to charge men with cowardice according to the side they are on. When the Irish are with the Boers they are drunkards and scoundrels, ravishers and assassins, but the moment they put on the scarlet coat they become brilliant Irish soldiers at once. It is exactly the same thing with the Irish Members of this House—the side upon which they sit makes all the difference. Is it a crime to ask for an explanation of the Lindley disaster? That this Irish regiment was driven to surrender because of the mismanagement of certain English commanders I greatly deplore, because it is a humiliation I very much dislike to see upon a gallant body of my own countrymen, although I entirely differ with them in political views. They were ordered to Lindley by Colonel Colville, I understand—I go only by the newspapers, and cannot vouch for the fact—and the moment they got near Lindley the colonel said "Good evening," and turned his back and took off all his forces without sending word to these men, with the result that the Boers at once marched into the town. Then this Irish regiment is said to have held out for five days awaiting succour which never came, with nothing to eat except a spoonful of jam per man. I don't vouch for these details, but I asked last July for an explanation of this matter, but received none. As far as I can understand, after this surrender the men were sent home, and the whole business is hushed up, with disgrace thrown on Irishmen, while those really responsible are screened. Why have we no consecutive military narrative
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of this war from authorised sources? When the Government so easily get Supply it is very unusual that hon. Members should be howled down. I do not say that generals who are fairly busily engaged should sit down and write this narrative; but, for instance, Lord Stanley is out there; he is only censor; and there are other gentlemen of great competency who might fulfil this duty. We are fairly entitled to have a consecutive account of the operations of this war before we vote all this money. The Germans in the war of 1870 did not minimise the checks or reverses they received, but rather set them out with great frankness and austerity as warnings to future generations. Another point I wish to raise is as to the great inconsiderateness with which inquirers as to casualties have been treated by the War Office. The Protestant sexton of my parish had three sons at the war, one of whom was badly wounded. He is a poor man, but in order to get information concerning his son he came over to London; he sent a cable and prepaid the reply, but after waiting for six weeks he could get no answer as to whether his son was dead or alive, notwithstanding the fact that all the time messages were passing as to the sons of big people. Yet we are told there is no distinction made between officers and soldiers! I wrote to the War Office asking whether they could not relieve this poor father's mind, and instead of getting any kind of courteous or reasonable reply, the only answer I got was that owing to the crush of work the War Office was wholly unable to pay any attention to the matter. I say that the humble people in the Army do not receive the same consideration as the rich. Of course, that is not a state of things peculiar to the British Army; it is true of every walk of life; but when it is a matter of wounds and deaths I think there ought really not to be any such distinction.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: The hon. and learned Member for North Louth has referred to the surrender or misfortune at Lindley. I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the proceedings of the courts of inquiry into the various surrenders of considerable bodies of troops will be made public. I quite see that in some cases it might be undesirable to publish the proceedings, but I think at all events we ought to have the results.

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In most cases eight months have elapsed since the deplorable events took place. The feeling in the country and in the Army on this subject is very strong; there is a very great desire that the truth should be known and the action of the Government in regard to these matters stated.
MR. BRODRICK: By the indulgence of the House I may be allowed to deal with the two or three points addressed to me. With regard to the general question which my hon. friend raises, I think there is great force in what he suggested—namely, that there may be considerable inconvenience in publishing the proceedings of all these courts of inquiry, they being exceedingly voluminous. With regard to the results of these inquiries, Lord Roberts is on his way home, and before absolutely committing myself I should like to refer to him to ascertain what he has to say before giving a definite pledge to the House. I will only say that as far as the Government are concerned, we have not the smallest desire to conceal or minimise the facts laid before these courts of inquiry, and my own view certainly is in favour of giving the House of Commons and the country as frankly as possible all the facts. With regard to the particular case referred to by the hon. Member, I might perhaps explain that it was not possible to come to a conclusion earlier. The difficulty of holding these courts of inquiry is great, for although the inquiry has been ordered the moment after the event has occurred it may be that the troops have moved off in different directions and the necessary witnesses may be hundreds of miles off and very difficult to bring together. As to the Lindley case, I only received the proceedings of the court of inquiry by the last mail. I have carefully studied the proceedings and I can say that, generally speaking, they entirely exonerate from blame Colonel Spragge and his regiment.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I did not refer to Colonel Spragge.
MR. BRODRICK: There are persons whose names are mentioned in the inquiry who certainly require censure, and, in my opinion, more than censure, and after telegraphing to Lord Roberts I have taken further steps—namely, I have taken steps to dismiss two of them from the Army,
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and I am taking some further steps as to a third person.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Am I to have no answer about the wounded man whose father could get no answer for six weeks to his telegram, although the reply was prepaid?
MR. BRODRICK: I am sorry if that is the case; I have never seen it. If the hon. Member will give me the facts I most certainly will see who is responsible. The difficulties have been very great in these communications, and they are much more serious in the case of the private soldier than in the case of an officer, because an officer is more easily traced, and there have been cases in which the very best attempts of the authorities have not been successful. May I just allude to one point referred to by the Member for Battersea? He read an extract from a Rhodesian paper professing to show that a large quantity of stores had been sold at Salisbury. I saw that extract about ten days ago, and I at once ordered an investigation to be made.
MR. COURTENAY WARNER: The Secretary of State said the results of the courts of inquiry would be published. Does that mean the recommendations of the courts?
MR. BRODRICK: It means the verdict, so to speak.
COLONEL WEBB: I have heard the speech of the hon. Member for Battersea with so much pain and regret that as a Volunteer officer I thought I could not allow it to pass without saying that as I have two sons at the front I can in a measure contradict what the hon. Member said. One of my sons has just returned, and I can assure the House from what he has told me that there is no favouritism at the front. As to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth, I can assure him that the fact of the men to whom ho referred being poor men makes not the slightest difference; the same consideration is shown to the poor as to the rich; there is no distinction whatever. I am speaking only in the interests of the Yeomanry and the Volunteers, for whom I have so much respect, and I am quite satisfied that if it be necessary and if this country asks them to remain in South Africa longer they will do so with the greatest pride and pleasure.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

POST OFFICE (WEST INDIA MAIL CONTRACT).
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Contract, dated the 1st day of September, 1900, entered into with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for the conveyance of the West India mails for the period from the 1st day of July, 1900, to the 30th day of June, 1905, be approved."—(Mr. Austen Chamberlain.)
MR. CALDWELLsaid he hoped the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would give some information with regard to the contract.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,)said that the contract for the conveyance of the West India mails had expired. Tenders were called for, and after consideration it was decided to accept a tender which was in exactly the same terms as the contract which had expired. A subsidy of £80,000 per annum was payable under the contract, part of which was repaid by the Colonial Governments who shared the advantages of the contract. The contract had to be laid before Parliament under Standing Orders a few days after the meeting of Parliament, and that was the reason why it was presented. He hoped the House would pass the resolution approving the contract, because the bargain could not be clinched until the sanction of Parliament was given. It was open to the company to withdraw from the contract in the meantime, and as it was the only tender it would be in the public interest that approval should be given to it at once, and the bargain affirmed.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he applied at the Vote Office some hours ago for a copy of the contract, but was unable to obtain it.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: It is only a repetition of the old contract.
MR.EDMUND ROBERTSON: Surely it is in the interest of the House that a copy of the contract should be in the hands of hon. Members.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: If I had been asked for a copy I should have given it at once. A copy was placed in the Library.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I went to the Vote Office for a copy, but could not obtain it. The hon. Member says that the contract should be presented to the House a few days after its meeting, but we have boon in session nine or ten days now, and it seems strange that the members of the Government who are responsible for the conduct of the business of the House should not have had copies printed.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The contract is printed.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I would suggest that the matter be left over until to-morrow, when the discussion can be taken after we have seen the contract.
MR. ALEXANDER CROSSsaid it was singularly unfortunate that there should have been only one tender for such an important contract. A subsidy of £80,000 was involved, and, bringing the experience of private life into public affairs, he was strongly of opinion that when a contract was entered into without competition, it was not to the public interest. He stood strongly for competition in matters of that kind. As the contract was not before the House, he begged to move the adjournment of the debate.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Government have no intention of pressing this matter if there is to be any discussion. We recognise that we met for one purpose and one purpose only, but we thought that this matter, which is broadly speaking a formal matter, being only a repetition of a former contract, might be carried through instead of being deferred until February. If it is to be discussed to-morrow we will defer it, but I hope the House will allow it to pass without discussion. I gladly assent to the motion of my hon. friend.
MR. CALDWELL: I knew where to find the contract, and did find it in the Llibrary.
Debate adjourned till To-morrow.
Whereupon, in pursuance of the Order of the House of the 7th day of this instant December, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes before Twelve of the clock.