Commons Sitting of 22 May 1900

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS BILL (BY ORDER.)
  Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
  MR. LOUGH: I Leg to move the motion which stands on the Paper in my name. If hon. Members will examine it they will see that the new clause deals with this question in a much better manner in many respects than the old clause. It has been carefully considered by the Board of Trade, and agreed to also by the promoters.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "Pages 30 and 31, to leave out Clause 26, and insert the following clause:—(1) The Company, at all times after the opening of the tramways for public traffic, shall, and they are hereby required to run a proper and sufficient service of carriages for artisans, mechanics, and daily labourers each way every morning and every evening (Sundays, Christmas Day, and Good Friday always excepted), at such hours, not being later than eight o'clock in the morning or earlier than five o'clock in the evening respectively, as may be most convenient for such workmen going to and returning from their work, at fares not exceeding one halfpenny for every mile or fraction of that distance. On Saturdays the Company, in lieu of running such carriages after five o'clock in the evening, shall run the same at such hours between noon and two o'clock in the afternoon as may be most convenient for the said
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  purposes; (2) If complaint is made to the Board of Trade that such proper and sufficient service is not provided, the Board, after considering the circumstances of the locality, may by order direct the company to provide such service as may appear to the Board to be reasonable; (3) The company shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds for every day during which they fail to comply with any order under this section." — (Mr. Lough.)
  Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.
  Bill to be read the third time.

  BIRMINGHAM (KING EDWARD THE SIXTH) SCHOOLS BILL [Lords] (BY ORDER).
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: I think the House may congratulate itself on the fact that a considerable change has taken place with regard to this Bill since the motion which stands in my name was put on the Paper. We have now got rid of the somewhat irrelevant questions which related to the Charity Commissioners, for the House has decided that the wish of the promoter's to be released from the control of the Charity Commissioners shall be complied with. But I should like to take this opportunity of saying that I greatly regret that there should be in any part of the House a feeling that the Charity Commissioners have not conducted their educational work with the greatest liberality and with the strongest wish to further educational aims which the statute under which they act allows them to display. We are now free to discuss the more general question raised by this Bill. That question is whether there shall be any, and, if any, what control over the administration of subordinate endowments. I think we may take it for granted that the principle of State control over all subordinate bodies is accepted throughout the whole hierarchy of the Local Government; it is, in fact, accepted by the Treasury itself. The position of the Auditor-General, his independence of the bodies whose accounts he audits, the position of the Auditor of the Local Government Board—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member appears to be about to

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  enter again on a Second Reading debate. He must confine himself to the question of the propriety of referring this Bill to a Select Committee. He cannot again discuss generally the propriety of the matter being dealt with by the Charity Commissioners.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: Perhaps I have been too prolix in laying the foundation of the case I wish to make out in favour of sending this Bill before a Select Committee. What I wish to show is that the protection of the State is east round all subordinate public bodies. Now it being granted, as I think it is, that this great corporation is not to be released altogether from control in regard to the management of its property, and the selling, leasing, or mortgaging of the corporations, the question arises, in whom is the protection to be vested? The Chairman of Ways and Means threw out a suggestion—
  MR. SPEAKER: That does not arise on this motion. The sole question is, whether the Bill should go in the ordinary way before the Unopposed Bills Committee, or whether it shall be sent to a Select Committee.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: And in order that that matter may be discussed fully, I wish to point out the difficulties which the course suggested would entail. I think we are bound to have the matter thoroughly threshed out before the Select Committee. The questions of how far the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery is ousted by this Bill, how far that is likely to be modified by any amendment to the Bill, and what are likely to be the results of any such modifications, could not possibly, I venture to think, be discussed with any advantage in the House. What we want to do is to bring home to the promoters of the Bill the full responsibility for the interference which they propose with the ordinary law of the land. That can only be brought out by full and free discussion before a Select Committee thoroughly representative of the parties and of all the interests in the House, whose decision would be a precedent for any future legislation of a similar kind. There can be no doubt that if this Bill goes through successfully the House will have a series of Bills of the same kind submitted to it, and it is therefore of the
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  most vital importance that such Bills should be framed in accordance with general principles, and should not be dealt with haphazard. I bog to move, "That the Order for Committee be discharged, and that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of not less than fifteen members to be appointed by the Committee of Selection; that nine be the quorum; that the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to second. The House is now committing itself to a precedent of the greatest possible gravity. The issues are not limited by any moans by the municipal boundaries of Birmingham, and if there ever was a question that ought to be considered carefully in all its bearings, it is the one which this Bill raises. The House has absolutely nothing whatever to lose, while it has everything to gain, by sending this Bill to a Select Committee upstairs. Nobody would suggest for a single moment, except, perhaps, by way of a joke, that this Bill was being pressed through the House practically by the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham simply because Birmingham is chiefly interested in it. This is intended to be a precedent — a precedent of the greatest magnitude, and it will be so regarded I am sure in all quarters of the House. That is the reason we think it should be sent before a Select Committee. A suggestion was made when this Bill was last under discussion that the Court of Chancery should be given certain functions in connection with the control of education in Birmingham under this Bill. It seems to me that that is a question which ought to be very carefully examined. The history of the Court of Chancery with regard to educational schemes in the past has certainly not been such as to inspire confidence. There is another matter which deserves consideration at the hands of the Select Committee. It is right that individuals should have power of appeal for redress in matters of this kind. This Bill provides that an appeal may be made by three governors; but if an individual wishes to obtain redress he will have to proceed at his own expense to move the Court of Chancery, which is a costly process. Where, then, does the redress of the individual come in in such cases? What protection is the

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  House now going to give to the individual? Does not the Leader of the House think that this is a question which in the public interest should be carefully considered by a Committee upstairs? You are taking away the control of the Charity Commissioners, with its accumulated store of experience, and transferring it to a Department which, so far as I know, has not had the slightest experience in matters of this kind. Surely that question also should be inquired into by a Select Committee. The House, without having all the facts before it, is rashly setting its seal to a precedent of enormous magnitude, and I venture to submit that under the circumstances any change should be preceded by a full and careful inquiry into the case and all its bearings, for we know the precedent will hereafter be used in every direction, and that it cannot possibly be held to apply to the city of Birmingham alone.
  MR. SPEAKER: I propose to put first the question that the Order for Committal be discharged.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Order for the Committal of the Birmingham (King Edward the Sixth) Schools Bill [Lords] be discharged, and that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee." — (Mr. Humphreys-Owen.
  SIR JOHN BRUNNER: My hon. friend who moved this motion has asked me to say that he wishes it not to be regarded as hostile to the Bill. He wishes the Members for the City of Birmingham to fully understand that. [Cries of "Oh!"] There is some little incredulity as to that, but I think I shall be able to convince everybody that in this matter we are absolutely sincere. We have all heard with the very greatest interest of the constitution of the Board of Education, and those of us who are interested in education are desirous that every educational institution, whether it be managed by governors of a charity or not, should be under the control of some great central Imperial authority. It is bad that education should be coupled with a system of doles which—
  MR. SPEAKER: That is hardly the question. The point is, shall this Bill be sent to a Select Committee.
  SIR JOHN BRUNNER: Yes, Sir; and we recommend this motion to the House, first, because it is in no way hostile to the Bill, and secondly, because whether the Bill is intended to be a precedent or not, it will in fact constitute one. I heard one of my friends near me say just now, "Bradford is as good as Birmingham. Why should not the Bradford Grammar School be under the control of the Board of Education as well as Birmingham?" There is one other point I should like to make. On Friday last there was laid on the Table of the House an Order in Council transferring from the Charity Commissioners to the Board of Education a number of the powers of the former body, and I submit that before a Committee passes this Bill it should have that document before it. This Bill is doing something which I hope may be repeated, but I would rather it was not repeated piecemeal. I would rather have all the powers of the Charity Commissioners relating to education transferred en bloc to the Board of Education. I think that would be very much to the advantage of the country. It is to be hoped that many of the doles now distributed throughout the country, which are intended—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is again attempting to discuss the question which was discussed on Friday.
  MR. LOWE: I must say that I am somewhat surprised that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire should have brought forward this motion, seeing that it relates practically to the same question as that which has been discussed most fully on the two previous occasions, when this Bill was before the House. And on the last occasion the adjournment of the debate was moved on the express ground that it would give time to consider whether it was desirable that this Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. That motion, as the House will remember, was defeated by a substantial majority after the question had been discussed from all possible points of view. I should have thought that those hon. Members, who on that occasion were in favour of the adjournment, would have gracefully accepted their defeat, and that they would not have taken up the time of the

  893
  House by re-opening the whole question to-day. I know they have a perfect right to do this if they please, and it is quite within their power to compel us to go all through this wearisome process again; but it, none the less, appears to me to he wholly unnecessary for them to do so, for the question involved is undoubtedly a very small and a very simple one, and it has already been discussed almost ad nauseam. It is, shortly, this, whether a representative board of local governors, such as these schools will possess under their new constitution, are to be left free to conduct their ordinary routine business.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I must tell the hon. Member what I have said to other speakers. That is not the question. The question is, shall this Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
  MR. LOWE: I will not, of course, pursue that question. I should, however, like to say a few words upon the point which seems to have been mainly relied upon by those hon. Gentlemen who have supported this motion. They urge that we have no right to alter the general law by a Private Bill. I want to know why we should not do so. There are just the same, in fact I am disposed to think there are even greater facilities for discussing a Private Bill than there are for discussing a public one. Indeed, so far as my experience goes, it is much easier to get the former kind of Bill than it is to get the latter passed into law. When it is passed, it is no longer a Private Bill, but it becomes part of the general law of the land and has just as much force and effect as any other Act. It seems to me, then, that it is a very convenient method of bringing about a useful alteration of the law which might take years to accomplish if it could only be brought about by promoting a Public Bill.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I have already said that the question whether this matter should be dealt with in a Public or Private Bill is not now before the House.
  MR. LOWE: If I am not in order in discussing that question I will only say, in conclusion, that I am sure this subject has already been quite sufficiently dis-
  894
  cussed, and that I hope the House will be satisfied with and adhere to the decision it came to on the last occasion.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,): I wish to say a few words, and I hope I shall be able to confine myself strictly to the question. It seems to me that there are three courses that might be taken with regard to the Bill. Supposing it went on in the ordinary way, the Bill, as there are no petitions against it, would be sent to the Unopposed Bill Committee, which I may say consists chiefly of myself. I hope I may not be considered egotistic, but although I occasionally get valuable assistance, the decisions really are taken by myself, and I am responsible for them to this House. Of course after the decision of the House I should feel it impossible for me to accept the recommendations sent down by the Charity Commissioners. Its principle having been affirmed on the Second Reading, I should be limited to making such minor alterations as have been agreed upon. In practically the same form as it is now, the Bill would be returned to the House for Third Reading. As regards the second course, I cannot find any precedent for sending a Private Bill to a Select Committee of fifteen members.
  SIR JOHN BRUNNER: Was there not a precedent a short time ago in regard to the Electric Powers Bill?
  MR. J. W. LOWTHER: That was a Special Committee of a rather different kind. It was not a Special Committee of fifteen members. It was appointed by the Committee of Selection. My objection to it is on this ground. The House has already approved the principle of this Bill, and I do not think it would accept from a Committee the rejection of that principle. A Committee of fifteen might, no doubt, make alterations in the details of the Bill, but, with all due submission, it seems to me that this Bill is one of principle— namely, that an endowed charity, in the broadest sense of the term, is entitled to come to this House to propound its own scheme for its own government, and to receive the assent of this House to that scheme. The details are not, therefore, of very great importance. That is my reason for objecting to send this Bill to a

  895
  Committee. Hon. Members will remember I am opposed to this Bill and voted against it on general grounds on the Second Reading. As to the third course, by the Standing Orders of the House, I have the power to report when a Bill is technically unopposed that it should be treated as an opposed Bill. It would then be referred to a group, and would go before a Committee of four members, and in that case it would be open to the Committee to reject the Bill altogether and find that the preamble was not proved. That, I think, would be a rather dangerous precedent to set, and I am therefore driven back to the first course— namely, that the Bill should go forward in the ordinary way to the Unopposed Bill Committee, and on the Third Reading the House will again have an opportunity of giving or withholding its assent to the principles contained in the Bill.
  SIR JOSEPH PEASE: Those who have read this Bill will see how very important a measure it is. In my humble judgment the House came to a right decision in affirming the principle of the Bill. Those of us who have taken part in the management of grammar schools feel how very important this largely extended principle might become. We believe it might be usefully extended throughout the country where the local authority is strong enough to take the charge of the higher grade schools of their locality. It seems to me that by far the best thing the promoters of the Bill and the House generally can do is to refer the Bill to a Committee which can consider the policy of delegating the powers now held by the school branch of the Charity Commissioners to local authorities. I am anxious that nothing should be done to damage the work carried out under the late Lord Lyttelton in the endowed schools Commission—but surely now under revised schemes these schools can be safely trusted to those who understand their own wants better than the Charity Commission. I do not now attempt to discuss what would be the controlling power of the new educational authority. I strongly support the view that the education of the country would be best helped by sending the Bill to a Committee with a view to its being made a precedent for similar delegation
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  of local educational authority into local hands.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (MR. GRANT LAWSON, Yorkshire, N. R., Thirsk): The House may expect the guidance of the Charity Commission on the question.. My hands are tied, because the Commissioners are absolutely indifferent. They have clean consciences, and will, if the House wishes it, appear before any Committee; but it would cause delay, and, above all things, the Charity Commissioners hate and avoid delay. Throwing aside my official position, and speaking in my private capacity, I may say that my intention is to vote against the motion. I consider that in the Bill there is only one principle — namely, whether one school shall be let loose from the general law. That is a principle which the House can decide for itself without referring the matter to a Committee.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONES: I quite appreciate the desire of the promoters of this measure to escape from the jurisdiction of the Charity Commission, which is so ably represented by the hon. Member for Thirsk. But I am still not quite satisfied whether I ought, even in their interests, to vote against the motion of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, for I do not quite understand what is the principle we affirmed last week. The Chairman of Committees has told us that the House has approved the principle without committing itself in any way to the details of this particular scheme. It has affirmed the principle that it is right and proper that the jurisdiction exercised by the Charity Commissioners under the Charitable Trusts Act shall not apply in the case of this particular foundation. If the Bill is carried, and the control of the Charity Commission is removed, I want to know who is to exercise control over the powers conferred on the governors of the institution by this Bill. Is there any authority, except perhaps under the general law of the land, which can prevent the improper expenditure of the money of this foundation? I am not quite sure what would be the position of this charity with regard to the High Courts.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Gentleman is now discussing the merits of the Bill.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONES: My vote hangs upon this question, whether or not there is any authority to control this body in case the Bill becomes law—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is the misfortune of the hon. Member that his vote should hang upon an irrelevant point.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONES: After your ruling, Sir, I will not, of course, press the question further. But I must say that in all probability this Bill will pass through this House without our understanding why we are thus dealing with an Act of Parliament and substituting a new authority for the Charity Commission.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot upon this motion discuss the principle of the Bill. It will be competent for him to do so on the motion for the Third Reading.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)This Bill is gradually becoming a very old friend. This is the third afternoon on which we have been occupied in discussing it, and we are promised a fourth occasion on the motion for the Third Reading. Limiting myself to the principal point under discussion, as far as I can make out those who propose to vote for the motion are in one of three categories—those who have frankly opposed the Bill at all stages in the intention of destroying it; those who, like the hon. Member for the Northwich Division of Cheshire, declare that the motion is not directed against the Bill, and who have no prejudices or feeling one way or another; and those who, like the hon. Member for the Barnard Castle Division of Durham, are strongly in favour of the principle of the Bill, and wish to see the powers of the Charity Commissioners delegated to local authorities. I think that the course adopted by hon. Members who take the view of the Member for the Barnard Castle Division of Durham is the most extraordinary of all, because they must be perfectly well aware that nothing could so much imperil the
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  principle they favour as the passing of the motion. I confess that I would not myself show my favour towards the Bill in that way. I would vote against the motion on the grounds very clearly stated by the Chairman of Committees — namely, that it is contrary to the practice of the House and contrary to its convenience that Private Bills should be referred to such a Committee. I would also vote against it because it appears to me that the object which hon. Members desire to see accomplished has already been attained. They seem to think that this Bill is simply the creation of its promoters, unmodified by any Government Department, and they argue that some such Department should have power to appear before a Select Committee. They are under a misapprehension. The Bill has been referred to the Education Department, which, by statute, has large powers of taking to itself the authority of the Charity Commissioners. It has passed through the recognised ordeals of examination by that Department, and every suggestion which that Department has made has been accepted by the promoters. Therefore, the Bill comes before the House not as the unauthorised invention of a particular set of promoters, but as a scheme having the sanction of the new Education Department, which this House created last year. Under these circumstances, I think that the hon. Members who vote for the Bill going before a Select Committee will be doing so under a complete misapprehension. I trust, therefore, that they will not imperil the passage of the Bill, which in its general scope meets the approval of this House. To refer it to a Select Committee, whatever else it might do, would not promote its rapid passage into law. I shall vote against the Amendment with a clear conscience.
  MR. HEDDERWICK: I understand the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees to suggest that the principle of this Bill, as it has been affirmed by this House, is not a matter which can be dealt with by a Committee. On the last occasion that this Bill was before the House it was agreed to withdraw the scheme from the Charity Commission, but I think it was also understood that it was to be placed under the control of the Court of Chancery.

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  Now, a clause to secure that has never been submitted to this House, and therefore we are absolutely ignorant as to whether there will be any real control or not by the Court of Chancery. I could imagine that a clause might be so drawn as to avoid having any such real control, while, on the other hand, if the governors of the school were compelled to get an Order of the Court before they could alienate any property, there would be very real control indeed. What I desire to know is, if this Bill is sent to a Select Committee, will not the whole subject with regard to the powers of the Court of Chancery be brought before the Committee and discussed more fully and adequately than before the right hon. Gentlemen sitting as the Unopposed Bill Committee? If that is the case there is very good ground for the motion which has been moved, and I for one shall certainly support it.
  MR. J. W. LOWTHERsaid that there was no doubt that any proposals brought forward to amend the Bill would be much more largely discussed before a Committee of fifteen members than before an Unopposed Bill Committee. In the latter case he should require from the promoters a draft of the clause which they proposed
  to insert to carry out the arrangement arrived at last Friday, and if that draft clause, in his opinion, carried out that arrangement, he should insert it in the Bill, but naturally there would not be the same discussion as in a Select Committee.
  MR. J. A. PEASEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman, as representing the Unopposed Bill Committee, had power so to amend the clause if necessary in order to make the powers of the Court of Chancery not illusory but substantial, and to provide a check against the governors of the college sacrificing the corpus of the estate.
  MR. J. W. LOWTHERreplied that he should not propose to insert anything beyond the arrangement come to last Friday. If the House, when they saw that clause inserted in the Bill, were not satisfied, they could either on Consideration or on Third Reading amend the Bill, or take whatever other steps they thought right.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 122; Noes, 201. (Division List No. 132.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Dunn, Sir William

  Jones, David Brynmor (Sw'ns'a.)

  Allison, Robert Andrew

  Emmott, Alfred

  Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt. Hn Sir U.

  Ambrose, Robert

  Evans, Saml. T. (Glamorgan)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Ashton, Thomas Cair

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Lambert, George

  Baker, Sir John

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Langley, Batty

  Balcarres, Lord

  Ffrench, Peter

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Leng, Sir John

  Bethell, Commander

  Fox, Dr. Joseph Francis

  Lough, Thomas

  Blake, Edward

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Lyell, Sir Leonard

  Bond, Edward

  Gibney, James

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Gold, Charles

  MacDonnell, Dr. M. A.(Qn'sC.)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Maclean, James Mackenzie

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Gurdon, Sir William Brampton

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Burt, Thomas

  Hammond,.John (Carlow)

  M'Cartan, Michael

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Hardy, Laurence

  M'Ewan, William

  Caldwell, James

  Harrington, Timothy

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Cameron, Robert (Durham)

  Harwood, George

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

  Carew, James Laurence

  Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale-

  Mather, William

  Carmichael, Sir T. D. Gibson-

  Healy, Maurice (Cork)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Healy, Thomas J. (Wexford)

  Morris, Samuel

  Cawley, Frederick

  Healy, Timothy M. (N. Louth)

  Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport)

  Commins, Andrew

  Hedderwick, Thomas Chas. H.

  Murnaghan, George

  Crilly, Daniel

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Crombie, John William

  Hobhouse, Henry

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.)

  Holland, William Henry

  O'Connor, J.(Wicklow, W.)

  Daly, James

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

  Howell, William Tudor

  Pease, Joseph A. (Northumb.)

  Dillon, John

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Pease, Sir Joseph W. (Durham)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Pinkerton, John

  Doogan, P. C.

  Johnson-Ferguson, Jabez E.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Price, Robert John

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip J.

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Redmond, John F. (Waterford)

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Wilson, John (Govan)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

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

  Woodhouse, Sir J. T. (Hudders)

  Reid, Sir Robert Threshie

  Tennant, Harold John

  Woods, Samuel

  Roberts, John H. (Denbigh.)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.)

  Sandon, Viscount

  Wallace, Robert

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Wilson, Eugene

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

  Whitmore, C. Algernon

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire)

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts.)

  Mr. Humphreys-Owen and

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Wilson, Frederick W. (Norfolk)

  Mr. Herbert Lewis.

  Souttar, Robinson

  Wilson, H. J. (York, W. R.)

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Aird, John

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  More, Robt. J. (Shropshire)

  Allan, William (Gateshead)

  Flower, Ernest

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

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Foster, Colonel (Lancaster)

  Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford)

  Anstruther, H. T.

  Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ.)

  Munoz, Philip A.

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.)

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Arrol, Sir William

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Myers, William Henry

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Gilliat, John Saunders

  Newdigate, Fras. Alexander

  Baillie, J. E. B (Inverness)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

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

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Gourley, Sir Edw. Temperley

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Barry, Rt. Hn. A. H. S. (Hunts)

  Green, W. D. (Wednesbury)

  Pease, H. Pike (Darlington)

  Barry, Sir Francis T.(Windsor)

  Gunter, Colonel

  Penn, John

  Beaumont, Wentworth C.B.

  Halsey, Thomas Frederick

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord George

  Pilkington, Sir G. A. (Lancs SW)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert Wm.

  Plunkett, Rt. Hn. Horace Curzon

  Bonsor, Henry Cosmo Orme

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Helder, Augustus

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edw.

  Bowles, T. G. (King's Lynn)

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Purvis, Robert

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Hill, Rt. Hon. A. S. (Staffs.)

  Rankin, Sir James

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Brown, Alexander H.

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Houston, R. P.

  Richardson, Sir T. (Hartlep'l)

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Glasgow)

  Howard, Joseph

  Ridley, Rt. Hn. Sir Matthew W.

  Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin)

  Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.)

  Hutton, John (Yorks. N. R.)

  Robinson, Brooke

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)

  Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Jebb, Richard Claver house

  Russell, Gen. F. S.(Cheltenham)

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

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r)

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Rutherford, John

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Joicey, Sir James

  Samuel H. S. (Lime house)

  Coddington, Sir William

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees),

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Knowles, Lees

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Lawrence, Sir E Durning- (Corn.)

  Savory, Sir Joseph

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Cooke, C. W. R. (Hereford)

  Leighton, Stanley

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn (Swansea)

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

  Cross, Herbert S. (Bolton)

  Lock wood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Sidebotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

  Cruddas, William Donaldson

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Sidebottom, William (Derbys.)

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Long, Col. C. W. (Evesham)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)

  Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Liverp'l)

  Smith, Abel H.(Christchurch)

  Curzon, Viscount

  Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller

  Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lowther, Rt. Hn. James (Kent)

  Stanley, Edward, Jas. (Somerset)

  Denny, Colonel

  Lowther, Rt. Hn. J. W. (Cumb'land)

  Stanley, Sir Henry M. (Lambeth)

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Steadman, William Charles

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

  Doughty, George

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Maclure, Sir J. William

  Strachey, Edward

  Drage, Geoffrey

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Dyke, Rt. Hon Sir Wm. H.

  M'Killop, James

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Faber, George Denison

  Maddison, Fred.

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

  Maple, Sir John Blundell

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Fenwick, Charles

  Mellor, Rt. Hn. J. W. (Yorks)

  Tollemache, Henry James

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

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Tomlinson, W. E. Murray

  Finch, George H.

  Middlemore, J. Throgmorton

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Monk, Charles James

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Moore, Arthur (Londonderry)

  Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

  902

  903

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Williams, J. Powell- (Birm.)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Wills, Sir William Henry

  Wyndham, George

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)

  Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy

  Welby, Lt. -Col. A. C. E. (Taun'n)

  Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks)

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Welby, Sir C. G. E. (Notts.)

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)

  Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Wolff, Gastav Wilhelm

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Colonel Milward and Mr.

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton-under-L.)

  Wrightson, Thomas

  Lowe.

  MR. YOXALLcomplained that the promoters of the Bill had petitioned Members of the House in a most misleading and unauthorised Whip to vote against the proposal he was about to move. The Whip bore the names of several hon. Members who had given no authority for their names to be appended, and an injury had been done to the motion which no explanation or apology could possibly remove. The motion was coupled in a most unjustifiable manner in the Whip with the proposal just negatived by the House, seeing that the two wore entirely separate and distinct. The motion he desired to move was not inimical to the Bill, nor did it go to the principle of the measure. It dealt with a very important detail which ought to be considered by the House as an Instruction to the Unopposed Bill Committee. The Birmingham educational system consisted of public elementary schools, endowed secondary schools, a university college, and now a university. The public elementary schools were controlled as to school attendance and largely as to education by the School Board of Birmingham, which body was by Act of Parliament represented by two of its members upon the governing body of the Birmingham University College of Science, and by Royal Charter was to be represented upon the Court of Governors by two members. In three out of the four links, therefore, the School Board had influence on the educational system of Birmingham, but the fourth and most important link, so far as public elementary education was concerned, was missing. By the terms of the trust, 50 per cent. of the children who entered the endowed grammar schools had to be children from the public elementary schools as foundation scholars, but as a matter of fact no less than 68 per cent. were from that source, of whom 53 per cent. came from the Birmingham Board schools. Up to the present, however, the governors of this charity had refused absolutely to admit to their counsels a single representative of the School Board. That was an inconsistent and unintelligent tyranny, for
  904
  which there was no reason but a woman's reason — they would not do it, and if they would not do it they would not; and there was an end of it. It was sought to perpetuate by an Act of Parliament this injustice, which so far had existed by means of a scheme under the Charity Commission. If the new governing body was now to be constituted under a scheme, it was almost certain that the Charity Commissioners would insist upon the representation of the great, important, and well-managed School Board for Birmingham. All that he asked was that in these days, when it was universally admitted to be essential that there should be a proper progress from one class of school to another, and that the governors of the various classes of school should be in touch with each other, there should be upon this governing body of twenty-two members more than one representative of the Birmingham School Board. There was no reason except ancient prejudice and prescription why members of the School Board, as such, should be excluded from that body. The Board was one of the most able, important, and successful in the country, and was recognised by institutions giving the highest type of education. If the School Board was worthy of being represented upon the University College and the Birmingham University itself, surely it was good enough to be represented upon the governing body of this foundation. The custom was now universal in all schemes with regard to secondary schools of placing representatives of the school boards upon the governing bodies. The London School Board appointed ninety-nine representatives upon governing bodies of secondary schools, the Bradford School Board had seven such representatives, Bristol six, Coventry one, Exeter one, Hull two, Leeds two, Leicester three, Manchester one, Newcastle four, Northampton two, Nottingham one, Portsmouth two, Sheffield two, Southampton two, Wolverhampton three, Worcester two, and Yarmouth one; in fact, eighteen school boards sent to the govern-

  905
  ing bodies of secondary schools in their localities 141 representatives. It was therefore a perfectly reasonable and moderate request that the Birmingham School Board should of right and ex officio send to this governing body of twenty-two members two representatives —a request justified by educational reasons and upon general grounds, especially in these schools where the public elementary schools supplied more than half the scholars. The Birmingham School Board had by resolution and deputation made this request, but without success. Probably the House would be told that it was proposed to admit one member—namely, the vice-chairman of the School Board—to their counsels, but that gentleman had decided to refuse the post in his personal capacity. The members of the School Board claimed, by virtue of their office, to have representation upon this governing body, and he did not believe the promoters of the Bill could bring forward any sound argument against the Instruction which he now had the honour to move.
  MR. ALFRED HUTTONformally seconded.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Birmingham (King Edward the Sixth) Schools Bill [Lords] to make provision in Clause 9 for the appointment of Governors representative of the School Board for Birmingham." —(Mr. Yoxall.)
  COLONEL MILWARD (Warwickshire, Stratford-upon-Avon)said he wished to apologise most sincerely and express his regret that the names of certain hon. Members in favour of the motion had appeared on the Whip issued against it by the promoters of the Bill. It was entirely due to inadvertence upon his part, and he had already apologised to those hon. Members personally. He thought, however, that the accident had strengthened rather than prejudiced the motion. On behalf of the promoters he regretted to say that it was impossible to accede to the request of the hon. Member. There was not only one school board in Birmingham, but also several other important school boards, such as the Aston, Smethwick, and King's Norton school boards, and others. A deputation from
  906
  these school boards, and also from the Voluntary schools, had waited upon the governors of King Edward's School, and it was decided that it was impossible to comply with the wishes of those Gentlemen, because it was not a question of adding one or two, but they would have had to add eight governors. Under those circumstances what had the School Board done? He did not think his hon. friend opposite was fully posted as to what had happened quite recently in this matter. He said that the governors of King Edward's School had offered a place to the vice-chairman of the School Board upon the governing body, and that the School Board claimed this as a right. He had evidence in his possession to show that they did not claim this as a right, but asked it as a favour. Who was the hon. Member opposite speaking for? Was he speaking for the School Board? He would read to them a passage from the Agenda Paper which was to be considered on Friday next. On that Agenda Paper the Education Committee reported and recommended that a reply be sent to the letter received from the governors of King Edward's School expressing regret that the governors were unable to make any alteration in the representation of governing bodies in the Bill before Parliament. That meant that on Friday next the School Board would adopt that resolution, and that would virtually dispose of the question. If the claim of the Birmingham School Board to representation were admitted, a similar claim would be advanced by the school boards of the various districts touching upon Birmingham, and by the Voluntary Schools Association, so that it was not a question of adding one or two, but eight new members to a body already numerous.
  MR. MADDISONsaid he desired to say a word or two because his name was on the Whip. The hon. and gallant Member opposite had apologised to him, and he quite accepted it. Why he rose was this: He did want to make an appeal to the promoters of this Bill. Speaking for himself, he was very pleased to have his name on that Whip on the ground that the promoters of the Bill, as he understood it, desired a more democratic method of Government for this old and great foundation. The hon. Member who moved this

  907
  Instruction had put a proposal before the House in the same direction as that which induced them to support the Colonial Secretary and his friends, who were now supporting this Bill. Therefore he did think that they would only strengthen their case and confirm the ground upon which they had obtained support on his side of the House by appointing two members of the Birmingham School Board as governors. He would say very frankly, although to him Birmingham was not a very pleasant name in most things, that upon education he would trust Birmingham with anything he possessed. He had absolute confidence in the educational policy of the city of Birmingham generally, and that confidence had been largely evoked by the splendid work done by the Birmingham School Board. Anyone who took an interest in education could not fail to see that there was probably not a school board in the kingdom, speaking from a Radical standpoint, which had advanced so much in educational matters. Then why should the promoters hesitate about strengthening this great foundation? With regard to the Aston and King's Norton School Boards he did not think that the hon. Gentleman contended that there was any very serious difficulty. Those School Boards were perfectly aware of the almost unique position of the Birmingham School Board, and he was quite sure that they would be content with the admission of the principle advocated by the hon. Member for Nottingham, that two or more members of the Birmingham School Board should be elected as governors. He did very urgently appeal to the promoters of this Bill not to detach some of them on that side of the House who were strongly in favour of the measure, and who intended to support it through its Third Reading. His hon. friend's proposal was a democratic one, and it was because the measure was of a democratic character that the promoters got their support. He would make this last almost despairing appeal to the Colonial Secretary to complete his scheme by giving them this representation of the Birmingham School Board.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): The hon. Member opposite makes a despairing appeal; but he makes it under a misapprehension.
  908
  He says he makes it because he wishes to secure the democratic character of this institution. As a matter of fact, for twenty years back the institution has been managed by the representatives of the Town Council of Birmingham, and the representatives of this Council are as democratic a body as possible. They are elected by an electorate of the whole people of Birmingham, in which there is an enormous constituency in proportion to the population. If I argued the question on democratic grounds I should at once have to say that the School Board is nothing like as democratic an assembly as the Town Council of Birmingham, because the Birmingham School Board is elected under the cumulative vote, to which the vast majority of the people of Birmingham are opposed, with the result that the minority is represented out of all proportion. I think the hon. Member opposite also takes that view, and I think he will agree with me that from the point of view of making this institution a more democratic body, it is not desirable to have a member of the School Board upon the governing body. I have answered the hon. Member's argument, but that is not the line I propose to take. There is no objection whatever on principle to the representation of the School Board, or any educational authority like it, on the governing body of the schools. The hon. Member who moved the Instruction used very strong language, which was very unnecessary, and he talked about inconsistency and unintelligent tyranny, and he used other adjectives which are always used by hon. Gentlemen opposite in reference to such questions; and they have now been used in reference to what I have truly described as one of the most democratic bodies in the kingdom. And this criticism comes from a democrat! There is no prejudice whatever against the representatives of the School Board. So far from that being the case, the governors did, as a matter of fact, invite a distinguished member of the School Board, who is the vice-chairman of that body, to join their Board. The Instruction which the hon. Member proposes is really a very serious one. It is perfectly true that if you put on the governing body with their consent members of the School Board, it. adds to their strength; but if as a matter of right you put on members of the

  909
  School Board, undoubtedly you lay the foundation for a similar claim and right from all those other school boards outside Birmingham which are quite as important as the School Board for Birmingham; and, moreover, you also lay a foundation for a claim of right from those who represent Voluntary schools. At the present time there are in the Voluntary schools nearly as many children as there are in the Board schools, and to say that the interests of one class of schools should be represented by two members of the School Board, and that the other children should have no representation whatever, would be an extremely unfair proposition. We claim that the appointments by the Town Council under this system of popular election represent all the people of Birmingham, and represent them quite as well, and even better, than the School Board themselves. Of course, you may, as a matter of convenience, and with advantage, from time to time take either from the Birmingham School Board or from any other body a gentleman whose qualifications are such that he will greatly assist the deliberations of the governors. I do not think the hon. Member opposite knows very much of the details of the educational system in Birmingham, or he would not have given us the illustration which he has put before the House. The governors we are dealing with now are twenty-two in number, and if you put on two additional members you are adding one-eleventh of the number, and you are altering the constitution of that body. But on the governing body of the new University I should think there are at least 100, and we can afford to put two additional member's on such a body. There is no rule either in regard to Mason's College or the new University which requires members of the School Board to be placed in what is, after all, an executive position. A very large proportion of the work which this body of governors has to do is that of dealing with a property, and for this work, of course, the members of the School Board have no special qualification. I am not in the least opposed to the principle of the Instruction. I am only anxious that the House should not, under a mistaken view, make the governing body so cumbersome as to render it unworkable. The only result would be a new committee or sub-committee, to whom the whole work would be remitted. It is
  910
  quite impossible for a body much larger than twenty-two to deal satisfactorily with the business. That is the only point I wish to press. On principle, I see no-objection to the views of the hon. Member, and I will go so far as to accept the Instruction, provided it be confined to-one member of the Birmingham School Board being appointed a representative of that body. I think the governors would have no objection to that.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I only want to intervene in the debate for a few minutes, and I do so because I took a deep interest in the school long before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was connected with it. I was secretary of the association which obtained the existing scheme for the working of the school, and that scheme was obtained, after long agitation, under the Endowed Schools Commission. The great defect of that scheme, which burdened it for years, was that it was not sufficiently democratic in character or sufficiently representative. There were really two defects. First of all, it gave the Birmingham City Council only a comparatively small number of members on the governing body; and, secondly, the scheme allowed the larger number of the members to be co-opted by the governing body. Since co-optation has always, been objectionable to the citizens of Birmingham, I am very sorry that when a new scheme was promulgated in this Bill the promoters did not endeavour to alter the governing body, and make it more representative than they have done. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has made a concession to the hon. Member for Nottingham in consenting to the principle of his instruction, though I think he might have agreed to the admission of two members of the School Board. I have supported the Bill ever since it made its appearance in this House until now, and I believe that the school will be worked more satisfactorily by the people of Birmingham acting through their Councillors than under the control of the Charity Commission. I think the instruction a wise one, and that it ought to have been accepted in its entirety. Reference was made to the representation of other school boards in the district, but they contribute a very small moiety of

  911
  scholars, and these bodies are comparatively insignificant compared with the Birmingham School Board. I believe that this scheme will complete what we have been struggling for since 1864, namely, the coordination of the education in the Birmingham Board schools with that in this great educational endowment. The great defect of this school has been that it has not taken the chief educational power in Birmingham into its councils. If the education of Birmingham is to be made as complete and as thorough as we hoped, it must be by linking all the educational institutions in Birmingham together in the management of this great charity. The greatest educational institution is the School Board which belongs to the city of Birmingham. This charity belongs also to the city, and the School Board, therefore, ought to have an effective voice in its management, in order to give complete co-ordination to the education of the city. I beg to support the Instruction moved by my hon. friend.
  MR. YOXALL: Although the concession has been made somewhat ungraciously, I beg to accept the right hon. Gentleman's proposal.
  LORD HUGH CECIL: I confess that the whole of this discussion has been most surprising. As I understand the right hon. Gentleman, he proposes to put into this Bill a representative of the Birmingham School Board, and to leave out a representative of the Voluntary Schools Association, although he admits that the interests of the latter are at least as large as those of the School Board. In the course of his speech my right hon. friend appeared to show that if any representatives of educational authorities were to be granted on the governing body they ought to be granted all round. I was surprised, therefore, to learn at the conclusion of his speech that he seemed to contemplate, after all, that one member should be put on the governing body to represent the School Board, without any corresponding representative of the Voluntary Schools Association. That, in my opinion, would be unreasonable, and I should take strong objection to it. I understood that this Bill was one which the people of Birmingham, through their representatives, had framed consistently with the local needs of the city, and I have as such consistently supported
  912
  it. And then comes in the hon. Member for West Nottingham, who has no concern whatever with Birmingham, except only that he has very pronounced opinions on the education question, and makes a proposal, which, I presume, he thinks will be for the benefit of the governing body, to introduce two members of the Birmingham School Board on that governing body, which already was perfectly satisfactory to the people of Birmingham. Are we to have this apple of discord cast down and a question introduced which divides the people interested in the Voluntary and Board schools? I earnestly hope that the promoters of the Bill will not accept the Instruction of the hon. Member; but in order to give myself the opportunity of moving a fresh Instruction on a subsequent day to include a representative of the Voluntary Schools Association, I beg-to move the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the debate be now adjourned."— (Lord Hugh Cecil.)
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I trust my noble friend will not press that motion. I should be very happy to give him such information as I can on the point which he has raised. I do not think the claim on the part of the School Board is on the same plane as any claim for representation that might be made by the Voluntary Schools Association; for, of course, the former is a representative body and is recognised as such by the governing body of a school of this kind. My noble friend is perhaps not aware that under the scheme there are nine co-opted members, and that it is perfectly open— it would not be an unnatural thing— for one or more of the co-opted members to be chosen as representatives of other bodies who interest themselves in educational matters. But it would be to reduce the thing to an absurdity if everybody who has any interest whatever in education in the town is to be forcibly represented on the governing body of this school. I only yielded in the case of the School Board, because it is a representative body.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker this is a motion for adjournment.
  MR. SPEAKER: I am quite aware of that. The motion for the adjournment was made expressly with a view to asking a question as to how that particular course suggested by the right hon. Gentleman was justifiable, and the right hon. Gentleman is answering that.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I trust I have so satisfied my noble friend that he will not think it necessary to press his motion for delay.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: Having listened to the whole of the discussion to-day, I must say that my right hon. friend himself gave conclusive reasons against the adoption of the suggestion with which he concluded his speech. He told us that the educational authorities in Birmingham were divided on this question—that there were an equal number representing the Board schools and the Voluntary schools, but he now tells us that he is going to give a representation of one on the governing body to one-half of the educational authorities of the city, and that the other half is to be unrepresented altogether.
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: NO. It is not put in the Bill as a statutory claim of right that the Voluntary schools should be represented; but there is nothing to prevent them being represented by the method of co-optation provided in the Bill.
  MR. JAMESLOWTHER: Does the right hon. Gentlemen guarantee to the House that the Voluntary Schools Association Mill have always the same privilege which Parliament is now asked to grant to the School Board? It seems to me a one-sided proposal which has been deservedly condemned by the right hon. Gentleman himself, and I hope he will stand by his original resolution and not ask the House to stultify itself by giving a one-sided representation to the School Board.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: The motion for the adjournment of the debate seems to me unanswerable. This is the second importation into the Bill since it came down from Birmingham. First of all the Court of Chancery was imported into it, and suddenly now a
  914
  School Board representative has been imported into it; and in both cases we cannot gauge the meaning of the new importation. For instance, the right hon. Gentleman has just stated that the representative of the School Board is not to be put into the Bill, but is left to be co-opted by the other members of the governing body. [HON. MEMBERS: No, no!] That is the suggestion; the right hon. Gentleman himself will correct me if I am wrong. I understood him to say that under the co-optive power a School Board member would be taken in. But if the School Board member is to be put into the Bill,, so should the representative of the Voluntary Schools Association. I think when these sudden acceptances of revolutionary changes are made, we who attach importance to the Voluntary schools should have a little more time to consider them.
  LORD HUGH CECIL: I think the most convenient course would be for me to withdraw my motion for adjournment and allow the division as to the Instruction to be taken.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: On a point of order, Sir, it is not on the Instruction that the point arises. I understood the hon. Member was willing to withdraw the instruction; but, of course, if it remains, it will have to be altered to meet my suggestion.
  MR. YOXALL: I may have spoken rather inaudibly, but my intention was to withdraw the Instruction.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member could not withdraw it without the consent of the House.
  MR. COURTNEY: Would not the object of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham be effected by amending the Instruction by substituting one governor for two? The Instruction can, I understand, be reduced but not enlarged.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is it not necessary that notice must be given of an Instruction before it can be moved, and

  915
  does not that rule apply when an Instruction is fundamentally altered?
  MR. SPEAKER: A relevant Amendment may be raised to an Instruction.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Would it not be more logical, instead of inserting the words "a governor," to insert "representatives of the school board and voluntary associations"?
  MR. LOWE: In my opinion it would be better to negative the Instruction as it now stands, the hon. Member for West Nottingham being content with the
  undertaking which was given to him by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham.
  MR. WALLACE: I beg to move to amend the Instruction by omitting the words "in Clause 9," and substituting the words "a governor" for "governors."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Main Question, as amended, put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 144; Noes, 201. (Division List No. 133.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Gold, Charles

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Allan, William (Gateshead)

  Gourley, Sir Edward T.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Asher, Alexander

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Green, W. D. (Wednesbury)

  Pease, Joseph A. (Northumb.)

  Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)

  Gurdon, Sir William B.

  Pickard, Benjamin

  Bainbridge, Emerson

  Harrington, Timothy

  Pilkington, Sir G. A. (LancsS. W.)

  Baker, Sir John

  Harwood, George

  Pinkerton, John

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. C. Seale-

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Hedderwick, Thomas C. H.

  Price, Robert John

  Blake, Edward

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Chas. H.

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Holland, William Henry

  Robinson, Brooke

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Royds, Clement (Molyneux)

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  Russell, T. W. (Tyrone)

  Burt, Thomas

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Caldwell, James

  Jebb, Richard Claverhouse

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

  Cameron, Robert (Durham)

  Jessel, Captain Herbert M.

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Johnson-Ferguson, Jabez E.

  Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfar.)

  Carew, James Laurence

  Joicey, Sir James

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Jones, David B. (Swansea)

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Cawley, Frederick

  Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt. Hn. Sir U

  Sonttar, Robinson

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

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Chamberlain, J. A. (Worc'r)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Strachey, Edward

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Langley, Batty

  Strauss, Arthur

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Lawrence, Sir E. Durning-(Corn)

  Tanner, Charles Kearns

  Commins, Andrew

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington)

  Tennant, Harold John

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

  Leng, Sir John

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Courtney, Rt. Hon. Leonard H.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Wallace, Robert

  Crombie, John William

  Lloyd-George, David

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Curzon, Viscount

  Lowe, Francis William

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

  Lyell, Sir Leonard

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Denny, Colonel

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Wason, Eugene

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Whiteley, George (Stockport)

  Dillon, John

  M'Cartan, Michael

  Williams, John Carvell (Notts.)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  M'Dermott, Patrick

  Wills, Sir William Henry

  Doxford, Wm. Theodore

  M'Ewan, William

  Wilson, Frederick W.(Norfolk)

  Dunn, Sir William

  M'Ghee, Richard

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

  Emmott, Alfred

  Maddison, Fred.

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

  Wilson, John (Govan)

  Evans, Sir Francis H (South'ton)

  Mendl, Sigismund Ferdinand

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton

  Woodhouse, Sir J. T (Hudders'd)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Milner, Sir Frederick George

  Woods, Samuel

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund

  Milward, Colonel Victor

  Wylie, Alexander

  Foster, Sir M. (Lond. Univ.)

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Fry, Lewis

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Gibbons, J. Lloyd

  0'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  Mr. Yoxall and Sir Walter

  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. H. J.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Foster.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Oldroyd, Mark

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fred.

  Palmer, George Win. (Reading)

  NOES.

  Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.)

  Foster, Colonel (Lancaster)

  Morrison, Walter

  Acland-Hood, Cant. Sir Alex. F.

  Muntz, Philip A.

  Aird, John

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Murnaghan, George

  Ambrose, Robert

  Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Gibney, James

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Anstruther, H. T.

  Gilliat, John Saunders

  Myers, William Henry

  Archdale, Edward Mervyn

  Goldsworthy, Major-General

  Arrol, Sir William

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Newdigate, Francis Alexander

  Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)

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

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  O'Malley, William

  Baillie, James E. B. (Inverness)

  Gunter, Colonel

  Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington)

  Balcarres, Lord

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

  Halsey, Thomas Frederick

  Phillpotts, Captain Arthur

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord Geo.

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Barnes, Frederic Gorell

  Hammond, John (Carlow)

  Plunkett, Rt. Hn Horace Curzon

  Barry, Rt. Hn A. H. Smith-(Hunts)

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn. R. W.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)

  Hardy, Laurence

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Bartley, George C. T.

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

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

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Purvis, Robert

  Beckett, Ernest William

  Healy, Maurice (Cork)

  Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Healy, Timothy M. (N. Louth)

  Rankin, Sir James

  Biddulph, Michael

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Rasch, Major Frederic Carne

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Helder, Augustus

  Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

  Bolitho, Thomas Bedford

  Henderson, Alexander

  Renshaw, Charles Bine

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Hickman Sir Alfred

  Richardson, Sir T. (Hartlep'l)

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Hill, Rt. Hon. A. S. (Staffs.)

  Ridley, Rt. Hn. Sir Matthew W.

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn)

  Hoare, E. B. (Hampstead)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. C. Thomson

  Brassey, Albert

  Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)

  Russell, Gen. F. S. (Cheltenham)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Rutherford, John

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Houldsworth, Sir W. Henry

  Houston, R. P.

  Samuel, H. S. (Limehouse)

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A (Glasg'w)

  Howard, Joseph

  Sandon, Viscount

  Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin)

  Howell, William Tudor

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

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

  Hozier, Hon. James H. Cecil

  Savory, Sir Joseph

  Cavendish, V. C. W.(Derbysh.)

  Hutton, John (Yorks. N. R.)

  Scoble, Sir Andrew Richard

  Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, E.)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

  Coddington, Sir William

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Sidebotham, J. W. (Cheshire)

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Sidebottom, T. H. (Stalybr.)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

  Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbysh.)

  Colston, C. Edw. H. Athole

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Cook, Fred. Lucas (Lambeth)

  Keswick, William

  Stanley, Edw. J. (Somerset)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasg'w)

  Kimber, Henry

  Stanley, Sir H. M. (Lambeth)

  Crilly, Daniel

  Knowles, Lees

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M Taggart

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Lafone, Alfred

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Cruddas, William Donaldson

  Lawson, J. Grant (Yorks.)

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry N.

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Llewellyn, Sir Dillwyn-(Swans.)

  Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)

  Curran, Thos. B. (Donegal)

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

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

  Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.)

  Loder Gerald W. Erskine

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Ox. Univ.)

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham)

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Long, Rt. Hon. W (Liverpool)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Daly, James

  Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Doogan, P. C.

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Lucas-Shadwell, William

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H (Sheffi'd)

  Doughty, George

  Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

  Drage, Geoffrey

  Macaleese, Daniel

  Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E (Tauntin)

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William H.

  Macartney, W. G. Ellison

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.)

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Faber, George Denison

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Maclean, James Mackenzie

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton-under-L.)

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

  Maclure, Sir John William

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset)

  Ffrench, Peter

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

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

  Field, Admiral (Eastbourne)

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn E. R. (Bath)

  Finch, George H.

  M'Killop, James

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Malcolm, Ian

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Firbank, Joseph Thomas

  Maple, Sir John Blundell

  Wrightson, Thomas

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Wyndham, George

  Fitz Wygram, General Sir F.

  Monk, Charles James

  Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Flower, Ernest

  Morgan, Hon. F. (Monm'thsh.)

  Mr. James Lowther and

  Forster, Henry William

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Lord Hugh Cecil.

  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.:—
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time to-morrow.

  WETHERBY DISTRICT WATER BILL
  Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
ARMY AND NAVY INVESTMENT TRUST BILL [Lords].
  BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY BILL [Lords].
  Read the third time, and passed, without amendment.
  CORK, BANDON, AND SOUTH COAST RAILWAY BILL [Lords].
  Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  LATIMER ROAD AND ACTON RAILWAY BILL.
  Read the third time, and pressed.
  NEW RUSSIA COMPANY BILL [Lords].
  Read the third time, and passed, without amendment.
  OTLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL WATER BILL [Lords].
  Read the third time, and passed, with an Amendment.
CITY OF LONDON ELECTRIC LIGHTING BILL.
  EAST LONDON WATER BILL.
    LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
      LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY (WALES) BILL.
      As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
      LONDON SEA WATER SUPPLY BILL [Lords].
      Read a second time, and committed.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL, ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
      METROPOLITAN COMMON SCHEME (PETERSHAM) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
      Read the third time, and passed.

      ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL, ORDERS (No. 9) BILL.
      LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 6) BILL.
      Read a second time, and committed.

      LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 15) BILL.
      Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the Birmingham, Tame, and Rea Main Sewerage District, and to Leeds and Wolverhampton, ordered to be brought in by Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Chaplin.
      LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 15) BILL.
      "To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating, to the Birmingham, Tame, and Rea Main Sewerage District, and to Leeds and Wolverhampton," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be referred to, the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 229.]
      MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL ELECTRIC EXPRESS RAILWAY BILL.
      Reported [Preamble not proved]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  RICKMANSWORTH AND UXBRIDGE VALLEY WATER BILL.
    COWES PIER BILL [Lords].
      HUDDERSFIELD CORPORATION TRAMWAYS (RE-COMMITTED) BILL.
      Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
      POST OFFICE SITES BILL.
      Ordered, That the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills do examine the Post Office Sites Bill, with respect to compliance with the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills.—(Mr. Hanbury.)

      MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
      That they have agreed to the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill, without amendment.
      That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to empower the Urban District Council for the district of Aston Manor, in the County of Warwick, to construct tramways, and to confer various powers relating to tramways upon that District Council." Aston Manor Tramways Bill [Lords].
      Also a Bill intituled, "An Act for the abandonment of the Muirkirk, Mauchline, and Dalmellington Railways. "Muirkirk, Mauchline, and Dalmellington Railways (Abandonment) Bill [Lords].
      Also a Bill intituled, "An Act to authorise the Company of Proprietors of the Margate Pier and Harbour to construct works; to raise additional capital; and for other purposes relating to the undertaking of the Company." Margate Pier and Harbour Bill [Lords].
      Also a Bill intituled, "An Act for conferring further powers on the South East Railway Company in reference to their own undertaking and the undertakings of other companies in which they are interested; and for other purposes." South Eastern Railway Bill [Lords].
      And also a Bill intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the Whitechapel and Bow Railway Company; and for other purposes." Whitechapel and Bow Railway Bill [Lords].

      ASTON MANOR TRAMWAYS BILL [Lords]. MUIRKIRK, MAUCHLINE, AND DALMELLINGTON RAILWAYS (ABANDONMENT) BILL [Lords]. MARGATE PIER AND HARBOUR BILL [Lords]. SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL [Lords]. WHITECHAPEL AND BOW RAILWAY BILL [Lords].
      Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
    PETITIONS.
      ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) KILL.
      Petition from Caithness, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
      FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS BILL.
      Petitions against, from master bakers of South St. Pancras; Poplar; Southwark; Peckham; North Lambeth; Dept-ford; Norwood; and Tottenham; to lie upon the Table.
      LICENSED PREMISES (HOURS OF SALE) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
      Petition of the Scottish Temperance Federation; in favour; to lie upon the Table.
      LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
      Petition from Gloucester, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
      LUNACY BILL.
      Petitions for alteration, from Wem and Northwich; to lie upon the Table.
      MERCHANT SHIPPING (LIABILITY' OF SHIPOWNERS AND OTHERS) BILL.
      Petition from Montrose, against; to lie upon the Table.
      PUBLIC HEALTH BILL.
      Petition from Paddington, against; to lie upon the Table.
      PUBLIC-HOUSES (SCOTLAND) LATER OPENING BILL.
      Petitions in favour, from Greenock; and Scottish Temperance Federation; to lie upon the Table.
      REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL.
      Petition of the Incorporated Society of Law Agents in Scotland, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
      SALE OK INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
      Petition from Woodbridge, against; to lie upon the Table.
      SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
      Petitions in favour, from White-chapel; and Brighton; to lie upon the Table.
      SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS.TO CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
      Petitions against, from Paisley and Renfrew; Dundee; and Cupar; to lie upon the Table.
      SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) HILL.
      Petitions in favour, from Crail; Cupar; Lochgelly; Charlestown; Paisley; Inverness; Sandwick; Noltland; Forfar; Brechin; Montrose; Arbroath; Ardris-haig; Kilmalcolm; Uphall; Bath gate; Conon Bridge; Dundee (six); and Perth; to lie upon the Table.
      SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (No. 2) BILL.
      Petitions in favour, from Gosport; New Brancepeth (two); Seaford; Sheffield (four); Scarborough; Willington; Mid Durham; Newcastle-on-Tyne; Lower Clapton; Midland Temperance League; Hurst Brook; Shrewsbury; Now Mills (four); Birch Vale; Compstall; Chapel-en-le-Frith (two); Thornsett; Bugs-worth; Brook Bottom; Preston (two); Sussex United Temperance Council; Southport; Yorkshire; Manchester; High Wycomb; Guuney Valley; Ferndale; Pontypool; Liverpool; Gloucestershire; Guiseley; Victoria Park; City Road; Lowestoft; Leith; Barry; Ton-gwynlais; Bridgend; Llantrissant; and Hulme; to lie upon the Table.
      SOLDIERS AND SAILORS ON ACTIVE SERVICE.
      Petitions for legislation, from New Winchester; Dimbleby; and Kendal; to lie upon the Table.
      SUNDAY CLOSING (MONMOUTHSHIRE) BILL.
      Petitions in favour, from Sheffield; Mid Durham; Shrewsbury; Wolverhampton; Newcastle; York; Sussex United Temperance Council; Ferndale; Hulme; and Lowestoft; to lie upon the Table.
      YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS BILL.
      Petitions against, from Hulme; and Manchester and Salford; to lie upon the Table.
    RETURNS, REP0RTS, &c.
      SOUTH AFRICA (TRANSPORTS).
      Return [presented 21st May] to be printed, [No. 184.]
      LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND).
      Copy presented, of Fifth Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Scotland [by Command]: to lie upon the Table.
      WELLINGTON COLLEGE.
      Copy presented, of Report of the Governors of Wellington College for the year ending 31st December, 1899, with Accounts [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
      PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS WARNED.
      Quarterly returns ordered, "by counties, of the Public Elementary Schools (1) which have been warned by the Board of Education under Article 86 of the Code, including schools from which the grant has been withheld under that article; (2) which have been warned by the Board of Education that the annual grant will, in future, be withheld unless defects in the school premises are remedied; (3) the annual grants to which have been suspended for three months or more from the date of the receipt by the Board of Education of the inspector's report on account of defects in school premises (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 177, of Session 1899)."—(Sir Francis Powell.)
      METROPOLITAN WATER COMPANIES (ACCOUNTS).
      Return ordered, "of the Accounts, as they are respectively made up, of the Metropolitan Water Companies and of the Staines Reservoirs Joint Committee to the 30th day of September and the 31st day of December, 1899 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 340, of Session 1899)."—(Mr. T. W. Rassell.)

      BURIAL GROUNDS BILL.
      Reported from the Standing Committee on Law, etc., with Amendments.
      Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 185.]
      Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 185.]
      Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon

      925
      Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 230.]

      SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
      Mr. HALSEY reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure:—Lord Hugh Cecil and Mr. Griffith-Boscawen; and had appointed in substitution: Viscount Cranborne and Mr. Bromley-Davenport.
      Mr. HALSEY further reported from the Committee; That they had added to the Standing Committee on Law and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure the following Fifteen Members in respect of the County and Borough Franchise Assimilation (London) Bill: — Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Bond, Mr. Boulnois, Mr. John Burns, Mr. Causton, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Alban Gibbs, Captain Jessel, Mr. Lough, Sir Samuel Montagu, Mr. Reckitt, Mr. W. F. I). Smith, Mr. Steadman, Mr. James Stuart, and Mr. Whitmore.
      Reports to lie upon the Table.

QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—SPION KOP PAARDEBERG, AND KOORN SPRUIT DESPATCHES.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Spion Kop despatches were published with the sanction and on the advice of the Cabinet in its collective capacity, and the despatches with reference to the first day's fighting at Paardeberg and the capture of the convoy at Koorn Spruit were withheld from publication at the discretion of the Cabinet in its collective capacity; and can he offer any explanation of the publication of the Spion Kop despatches, and the non-publication of the Paardeberg and Koorn Spruit despatches.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): The first part of the question deals with a matter I am not in the habit of answering questions about, and in reply to the second paragraph I have no ex-
  926
  planation to offer as to the publication or non-publication of any despatch.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that two members of the Cabinet have stated that the Spion Kop despatches would be published—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  APPOINTMENT OF ENGLISH OFFICERS TO IRISH REGIMENTS.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he would consent to the granting of a Return of the names of officers from English regiments who, without experience of active service in this war, have been appointed by the War Office to fill the places of officers of the Irish regiments who have fallen or become incapacitated by wounds or illness from military service, such appointments being made over the heads of the Irish officers who have fought in the campaign.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe all the information that could be included in the Return is published in the London Gazette.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: In the right hon. Gentleman aware that officers of the Inniskillings have been deprived of promotion on account of the appointment of English officers?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  FORFEITURES OF PROPERTY IN THE TRANSVAAL.
  MR. LEES KNOWLES: On behalf of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson), I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, although Her Majesty's Government raise no objection to the payment to the Government of the South African Republic of the ordinary rents and licences reserved under contracts made prior to the commencement of the war, Her Majesty's High Commissioner has refused to allow such payments to be made; and whether the Government can give any assurance that Her Majesty's subjects shall not suffer from the prohibition by the High Commissioner of the making of such payments.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): In answer to the first paragraph, I have to say that I understand that Sir Alfred Milner, whilst raising no objection to the action of persons making payment out of funds in the Transvaal, has refused to approve colonial banks sending forward to Transvaal branches authorisation to make such payments on the ground that this would be trading with the enemy and a breach of the regulations accepted by the banks. As to the second paragraph, Her Majesty's Government have announced by the High Commissioner's notice of 19th January that they will not recognise any forfeiture of immovable property declared since the commencement of the war.

  RED CROSS DISTINGUISHING MARKS.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the red cross, as now used for ambulances and hospitals, is too small to be distinguished with certainty at a distance from which rifle fire is now effective, and to the fact that the flag cannot be distinguished even at a much shorter distance when there is no wind; and whether he will take steps to provide that the red cross shall be made larger on wagons, marquees, and bell tents, and that it shall be displayed over hospitals by means of a light canvas in a wire frame.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (MR. WYNDHAM,): These questions are under consideration, and the experience gained in the present war will no doubt be valuable in enabling us to arrive at a conclusion.

  ARMY PAY DEPARTMENT— RESERVISTS' SEPARATION ALLOWANCES.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he can state whether the Army Pay Department has been able to cope with the extra labour imposed upon it in connection with the wives and families of Reservists; and, if not, whether it is proposed to take steps to deal with the pressure of work.
  MR. WYNDHAM: As I have already explained to the House, considerable diffi-
  928
  culty was experienced in October and November in dealing with the great quantity of extra work which was then thrown upon the Pay Department, and some regrettable delay took place. I am informed that the difficulty has been overcome, and that the work is proceeding satisfactorily. If any hon. Member knows of any recent instance of delay and will furnish me with the particulars I shall be, glad to make inquiries.

  COMFORTS FOR WOUNDED SOLDIERS,
  SIR ALFRED HICKMAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, having regard to the appeals which are being made to the public for shirts, socks, invalids" slippers, underclothing, and handkerchiefs; to distribute among wounded soldiers arriving at Southampton from South Africa, whether he will state what arrangements have been made by the authorities for providing these men with necessary clothing on reaching this, country.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Instructions were sent to the general officer commanding at Cape Town on 8th January that invalids sent home were to be supplied on embarkation with clothing suitable for wear in this country as well as for the voyage.

  AVAR OFFICE CONTRACTS—HAY.
  COLONEL LONG: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office how many tons of hay were offered in fulfilment of Government contracts at the Victoria and Albeit Docks during the month of April, and how many tons were rejected as unfit; and what was the greatest number of tons offered during April by any one contractor at the said docks and rejected.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS,): 471 tons of hay were offered and 402 tons were rejected: they all came from one firm.
  COLONEL LONG: May I ask the name of the firm?
  MR. J. POWELL-WILLIAMS: I must request notice of that.
  MAJOR RASCH: Was 80 per cent. of the hay rejected in one case?
  [No answer was given.]

  THE VOLUNTEER RESERVE.
  MR. F. W. WILSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, to prevent the limitation of numbers, Volunteers who have served less than six years, but have been returned efficient every year of their service, will be accepted for the Volunteer Reserve.
  MR. WYNDHAM: As I have already explained to the hon. Member, the conditions of eligibility for the Volunteer Reserve were fixed after consultation with Volunteer commanding officers. The question of introducing certain modifications is now under consideration.

  MILITIA—CANDIDATES FOR LINE COMMISSIONS.
  MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he will state how he proposes that Militia candidates for the Line should compete for commissions in September when, as they are doing permanent duty with their embodied battalions, they have no means whatever of studying for a competitive examination.
  MR. WYNDHAM: As all Militia battalions are embodied, all Militia candidates will compete under the same conditions, but it is not possible as yet to say what these conditions will be.

  RESERVE OFFICERS' OUTFIT ALLOWANCE.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he can now state what decision has been arrived at with reference to the granting of outfit allowances to officers from half pay who are serving with Reserve regiments.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Officers recalled to duty from the half-pay list are not under the regulations entitled to outfit allowance; but, in view of the temporary nature of the employment given to the officers referred to, the question of relaxing the rule in their favour will be considered.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Will this also apply to medical officers?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I must ask for notice.

  MEDITERRANEAN FLEET AND CHANNEL SQUADRON CRUISERS.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the number of cruisers at present attached to the Mediterranean Fleet and the Channel Squadron respectively, and what is the normal number supposed to be required in each case.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. GOSCHEN, St. George's, Hanover Square): The normal number of cruisers attached to the Mediterranean Fleet is ten and to the Channel Squadron six. The present number is eight and three respectively, the others having been temporarily detached for service on the Cape station. I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that, on the other hand, we have in commission beyond the usual number of cruiser's four other fighting ships composing the training squadron, fully manned and fit for service.

  WATER-TUBE BOILERS.
  MR. ALLAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the nature of the repairs being carried out at Devonport Dockyard to the water-tube boilers of Her Majesty's cruiser "Highflyer," recently returned from the Mediterranean; what is being done to the water-tube boilers of Her Majesty's ships "Gipsy," "Fairy," and "Osprey," what report has he received as to the latter vessel, and what is the reason Her Majesty's cruiser "Argonaut" is still detained at Chatham; whether, on having only a basin trial of her machinery on Thursday last, the doors of her water-tube boilers leaked so badly that fully 100 tons of water which had been distilled by Her Majesty's ship "Champion" for the "Argonaut's" use was lost in the few hours' basin trial; and how many of the water-tube boilers of Her Majesty's ship "Diadem" were fit to be used on her return to Portsmouth, and what is the extent of the necessary repairs.
  MR. GOSCHEN: The "Highflyer" is having her machinery overhauled as a

  931
  preliminary to proceeding on foreign service. Only very trifling work has has been done on her boilers. The "Gipsy," "Fairy," and "Osprey" have water-till its boilers of the Thorneycroft type. The boilers of the "Gipsy" are being re-tubed. The boilers of the other two vessels are undergoing examination, but no report has been received as to their condition being other than serviceable. The leakage in the "Argonaut" was not from the doors of her water-tube boilers but from joints of steam and drain pipes. The "Diadem's" boilers wore all in working order on her arrival at Portsmouth.
  MR. ALLAN: Were the boilers of the "Diadem " in working order?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I have said so in reply to the hon. Member's double-barrelled gun.
  MR. ALLAN: Were any repairs to them necessary?
  MR. GOSCHEN: If they were in working order I presume they would require no repairs.

  INDIAN FAMINE AND CHOLERA—SUPPLY OF DOCTORS AND NURSES.
  MR. C. P. SCOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the spread of cholera in the famine districts of India he can state what is the present supply of trained nurses and doctors; and whether he will take stops, in view of the conditions which have arisen, to assist the Government of India to obtain an increased supply.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON, Middlesex, Haling): I cannot state the precise number of doctors and nurses in the famine districts. During the past three years many doctors and nurses have been sent out for temporary work in India in addition to the large permanent medical and hospital establishments of the Indian Government. The Government of India are aware that any demand for additional help of this kind is promptly complied with.

  ASHANTI— THE DISTURBANCES AT COOMASSIE.
  DR. TANNER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the
  932
  Colonies if it has been found necessary to send out large war stores to Cape Coast Castle for the Ashanti war, and if there is any doubt as to whether Sir Frederick Hodgson will be able to hold out at Coomassie.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Sir Frederick Hodgson has asked for certain additional supplies of ammunition and provisions, and they are being sent to Cape Coast. There is reason to hope that he will very shortly be relieved by the forces now on the way to Coomassie.

  CHINA—TARIFF REVISION.
  MR. JOSEPH WALTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether an opportunity will be given the House for considering any proposals which may be made by the Chinese Government for a revision of the tariff before any settlement is arrived at; and whether the negotiations will be conducted in Peking or in London.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. BRODRICK,): I cannot give an undertaking of the nature referred to by the hon. Member. Such a course would be quite contrary to the usual practice in negotiations with a foreign Power. Experts will be consulted, and every care will be taken to protect the commercial interests of this country. The negotiations will be conducted at Peking.

  TURKEY—PROPOSED INCREASED DUTIES ON BRITISH GOODS.
  MR. JOSEPH WALTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any general increase of duty on British goods entering Turkey has been agreed to by Her Majesty's Government.
  MR. BRODRICK: Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople is. at present engaged, in concert with his foreign, colleagues, in negotiations upon this subject which are not yet completed.

  THE WALMA ARBITRATION.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign. Affairs whether, besides the question of

  933
  indemnity for a ship detained on the Niger, in respect of which the principle of arbitration on the amount of indemnity had already been accepted by Her Majesty's Government, any other questions were brought forward by Her Majesty's Government, in connection with the Waima Arbitration, in their note of March, to which no answer has been received.
  MR. BRODRICK: Certain claims pending on either side were put forward. The questions are, however, still the subject of negotiation and cannot properly be discussed.

  RUSSIA AND KOREA—THE MASAMPHO COALING STATION.
  MR. JOSEPH WALTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information to the effect that an agreement has been concluded by Russia with the Korean Government giving Russia an exclusive settlement for her naval needs at Masampho Harbour; and if so, what steps Her Majesty's Government propose to take in view of this violation of the assurance given by Russia in 1886, that in event of the English occupation of Port Hamilton ceasing, Russia would undertake not to interfere with Korean territory under any circumstances. As the right hon. Gentleman answered questions relative to this matter yesterday, will he now say whether he has any further information to give the House?
  MR. BRODRICK: I have nothing to; add to the statement which I made yesterday on the subject.†

  EASTERN TELEGRAPH COMPANY'S CABLE EXTENSIONS.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether landing rights in Cornwall have now been conceded in respect of the direct cable to St. Vincent, and whether the laying of the strategic cable from Ascension to Sierra Leone has now been arranged; whether steps are being taken to lay a cable from Durban to Mauritius; whether landing rights have been conceded in respect of the extension of the Ascension, St. Helena, Cape Town, Durban, Mauritius, and England, Gib-
  † See page 730 of this volume.
  934
  raltar, Malta, Alexandria, Suez, Perim, Aden, Zanzibar, Seychelles, Mauritius; cables at Rodrigues, Cocos, and near Perth; and what prospect there now is of the construction of the Mauritius, Rodriguos, Cocos, Australia line.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EX-CHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH, Bristol, W.): Arrangements have been made with the Eastern Telegraph Company by which landing rights will be given for the cable to St. Vincent, one of the conditions of which is the laying of a cable from Ascension to Sierra Leone. The Eastern Telegraph Company has entered into an agreement with the Colonies of West and South Australia and Tasmania to construct with all convenient speed the line from Durban to Mauritius, Rodrigues, Cocos, and Fremantle in West Australia, and thence to Glenelgin, South Australia, as soon as landing rights have been granted. Landing rights have been granted in Natal and in West and South Australia, and the company has been informed that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to approve the granting of landing rights at Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Cocos, and will issue licences as soon as the general form of licence now under consideration has been settled.

  AZORES CABLE OFFICE.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Portuguese law of this year, granting to a British company landing rights for the new cables, continues to stipulate that all those employed at the office in the Azores shall be Portuguese.
  MR. BRODRICK: No copy of the law has yet been received, but Her Majesty's Minister at Lisbon will be asked to send one.

  ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS AND THE HORNING SCHOOL BOARD.
  MR. PRICE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for West Salford, as representing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, whether in view of the fact that a meeting of the ratepayers of Horning has by a large majority resolved that the School Board shall continue in office, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners will, as hitherto, allow that Board the use of the school and house.
  MR. LEES KNOWLES: The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, so far as they are concerned, are, as stated in answer to a question asked by the hon. Member on the 10th May,✶ prepared to allow the building to continue to be used for the purposes of a school either by the present authority or by any other duly constituted board of managers under the control of the Education Department.

  GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY—PONTYPOOL ROAD TIMEKEEPER'S OFFICE.
  MR. WOODS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the death of a workman near the timekeeper's office at Pontypool Road, on the Great Western Railway, on 16th instant; and whether, in view of previous complaints as to the danger consequent on the site of this office, he will use the powers which he possesses to compel the company to remove it to another position, and so prevent further accidents.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon): Yes, Sir, I have received notice of a fatal accident to a goods guard at Pontypool Road on the 16th inst., and I have ordered an inquiry into the circumstances attending the accident. The Board of Trade have, however, no power to order the removal of the timekeeper's office, though I have no doubt that the railway company will do their best to give effect to the recommendation, if any, which the inspector may think it necessary to make as the result of the inquiry.

  DEVONPORT CORPORATION BILL.
  SIR J. W. MACLURE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to Sections 81 and 86 of the Devonport Corporation Bill, which propose to transfer the appointment of the assessment committee from the Board of Guardians to the Town Council, the town clerk being the clerk to such committee, and to empower the Corporation to appoint a valuer for the purpose of valuing all classes of property in the parish for assessment purposes, and
  ✶ See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxii., page 1254.
  936
  whether, as assessment committees throughout the country (excepting in London) are appointed by boards of guardians, he will recommend that no such alteration of the law should be made by a private Act of Parliament applicable to a particular local authority only, but only by a general Public Bill.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. CHAPLIN, Lincolnshire, Sleaford): The Local Government Board reported to both Houses of Parliament on the Bill referred to in the question. As regards Clause 81, by which it is proposed to transfer to the town council the appointment of the assessment committee, the Board stated in their report that it appeared to them that any alteration of the general law in regard to the subject matter of the clause should not be made by a Private Bill applicable to a particular local authority only. Clause 86 would only apply to buildings newly erected after the making of the valuation list and before the making of the next rate; but the Board in their report submitted that the Committee should be informed why the clause was considered necessary, having regard to the provisions of the general law which enable overseers to include new properties in the valuation list and poor rate. I adhere to the views which were expressed in the report of the Board on these points.

  PRINCE CONSORT MEMORIAL IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.
  COLONEL FOSTER: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works if his attention has been called to the condition of the iron railings which enclose the National Memorial to the late Prince Consort in Kensington Gardens; and, if he will take steps to have them put in proper order.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. LONG, Liverpool, West Derby) (for Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS): My right hon. friend is aware of the condition of the railings, and the question of their repair will not be lost sight of.

  WATFORD POSTMEN'S PARCELS ALLOWANCES.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the

  937
  Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will explain why instead of restoring full parcels allowances to men engaged at the Watford Post Office, as promised, only reduced allowances have been granted.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY, Preston): The postmen referred to at Watford have received compensation calculated on their previous private earnings from carrying parcels at the same rate as was authorised for rural postmen generally in 1883 when the Parcels Post was introduced. Precisely the same compensation was paid to these men as to all other rural postmen.

  THE ARMS ACT AND IRISH RIFLE CLUBS.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the Government will undertake that the provisions of the Arms Act shall not be used to prevent or discourge the formation of rifle clubs in Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is for the Lord Lieutenant, with the advice of the Privy Council, to determine the conditions and regulations under which the carrying or having of arms or ammunition may be authorised in districts proclaimed under the Peace Preservation Act of 1881. It is not proposed to interfere with the Lord Lieutenant in the exercise of his discretion.

  POPULAR OUTBURSTS IN BELFAST.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he can see his way to increase the strength of the military force in the Victoria and other barracks in Belfast, in view of the excited state of the population in that town, and the inability of the constabulary to cope with any sudden outburst of popular feeling.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: Is not the excitement caused by the relief of Mafeking, and shared by the population in all parts of the United Kingdom?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The necessity for such an increase is a question for the civil and military authorities on the spot.

  BLACKHEAD LIUHTHOUSE, COUNTY ANTRIM.
  COLONEL M'CALMONT: I beg to ask the President of the Board Trade what amount of progress has been made in regard to the erection of the new lighthouse at Blackhead, county Antrim, and what class of light it is proposed to place there.
  MR. RITCHIE: I am informed by the Commissioners of Irish Lights that the Blackhead lighthouse tower and keepers' dwellings are now some four feet above ground, and that the works are being proceeded with as rapidly as possible. The light is to be a first-class flashing light, with the following characteristics: two flashes of 1½ seconds duration every 30 seconds, separated by an interval of 1½ seconds.

  LISDOONYAHNA—PROSECUTIONS UNDER THE LICENSING ACT.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if he can state the number of prosecutions unde the Licensing Act that have taken place in Lisdoonvarna for the past twelve months, and also the number of times the police failed to obtain a conviction, and a Return for the same period of the number of convictions for drunkenness.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.): During the twelve months ended 30th ultimo, there were twenty-seven prosecutions in Lisdoonvarna under the Licensing Acts other than prosecutions for drunkenness. In eleven of these cases the police failed to obtain convictions. During the same period there were ninety-three prosecutions for drunkenness, in all of which convictions were obtained.

  PROTECTION OF IRISH FISHERIES.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Clare, I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture for Ireland whether any portion of the grant to develop Irish fisheries is to be spent in providing a ship to protect fishing boats from steam trawlers; and, if so, whether arrangements could be made to have a Government ship belonging to the Navy to do this work, in view of the limited

  939
  amount of the grant at the disposal of the Agriculture Department.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKETT, Dublin Co, S.): The cost of protecting the Irish fisheries from the depredations of trawlers must be defrayed out of the funds at the disposal of the Department for fishery purposes. The Admiralty have decided not to undertake this work.

  CAHERRUSH AND QU1LTY FISHERIES.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for East Clare, I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture for Ireland whether he has been approached by residents in the County Clare on behalf of the fishermen of Caherrush and Quilty, who, it is alleged, are unable to pursue their calling because the occupier of the only land over which their fish can be carried to a high road refuses to allow them to cross his field unless they sell their fish to him; and whether the Department intends to take any action in the matter with a view to remedying this state of affairs.
  MR. PLUNKETT: Representations have been made to me to the effect stated in the first paragraph of the question, and have received my personal attention. The occupier of the land has recently been compelled to establish in a court of law his rights which were forcibly invaded by the fishermen, and under the circumstances I am afraid the Department could not at present intervene with advantage; but if the mediation of the Department were invited by both parties I would gladly do what I could to promote a settlement.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the name of the person by whom the land is held?
  MR. PLUNKETT: I will give it privately.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Is it the notorious Mr. Morrony?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is an extremely irregular question, as the hon. Member must know.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I apologise. I will give notice of a question.

  KILLEDYSERT CREEK.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the hon. Member for county Clare I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture for Ireland whether he has received from the Rural District Council of Killedysert, county Clare, an application for the widening and deepening of Killedysert Creek; and what steps, if any, the Department proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. PLUNKETT: The application referred to has been received, and will be fully considered.

  IRISH LAND PURCHASE—CLARE v. REID.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the case of Clare v. Reid, in which decree was given for sale of a farm to a tenant at the auction price; whether he is aware that this farm was subsequently purchased by the landlord at a price fixed by the Land Commission below the auction price, and whether, seeing that such cases are of frequent occurrence, he can see his way to recommend such amendment of the Irish Land Laws as will prevent such sales at less than the auction prices.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR, Leeds,. Central): The Laud Law (Ireland) Act,, 1881, which conferred the power of free sale of tenancies, specially provided that the landlord may purchase the tenancy for such sum as the Land Commission should fix as the true value thereof. My attention has not been drawn to the case specially referred to, which appears to be a case in point. I do not propose to introduce legislation on the subject.

  NEWRY BOARD OF GUARDLANS —CASE OF JOHN HOGAN.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he consent to have laid upon the Table of the House a report of the minutes of the Newry Board of Guardians of 27th March,

  941
  1900, relating to the case of John Hogan, and of all correspondence between the Local Government Board for Ireland and the clerk of the Newry Union, or the Board of Guardians of the Newry Union relating thereto.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: The matter to which the hon. Member refers is not of sufficient public importance to justify the documents in question being laid on the Table of the House as a Parliamentary Paper.

  DEATH OF CONSTABLE MURPHY AT LURGAN.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Constable F. Murphy, of the Moira Police Station, died within the brief space of throe hours after his admission on the 10th of the same mouth to the Lurgan Hospital; will he explain on what grounds the deceased officer, who had been ill with bronchitis in the Moira Barracks for a period of three weeks, was removed to the hospital, which was five Irish miles off, on a cold evening; and will he explain why no inquest was held, and will an investigation be ordered into the case.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: My right hon. friend the Attorney General replied very fully on the 20th March to a similar question put by the hon. Member for East Cavan.✶

  CROOM UNION DISPENSARY DOCTOR.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Local Government Board has been drawn to the fact that the wife of Dr. Hartigan, the medical officer to the Croom Union Dispensary, is a member of the Croom District Council and Board of Guardians, and whether that fact disqualifies her as a district councillor according to the disqualifying provisions of the Local Government Application of Enactments Order, 1898.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: A person named Mrs. Hartigan appears on the
  ✶ See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxi., page 327.
  942
  list of members of the Croom Rural District Council, but I am unable to say whether she is the wife of the medical officer of the dispensary district. The question as to alleged disqualification of Mrs. Hartigan is a matter of law, depending on the construction of the Local Government Act, which any of the parties interested can have determined for themselves in a proper manner, namely, in a court of law. Any legal opinion I might give Mould not be binding on any person.

  BELFAST LUNATIC ASYLUM —CASE OF ELIZA CLINGAN.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with reference to the death of Eliza Clingan, an inmate of Belfast Lunatic Asylum, who in her lifetime was removed to the asylam from the Belfast workhouse, whether he is aware that the verdict of the coroner's jury found that she had died from phthisis, and deplored the curtailment of the open-air space at Purdysburn Asylum; whether, in view of the fact that the cases of death in England from phthisis have been reduced owing to the open-air treatment, and considering the finding of the jury, he will take into consideration the question as to the curtailment of the open-air space at Purdyshurn Asylum, near Belfast.
  MR. G. W. BALFOUR: It appears that the woman referred to was transferred on the 5th January, 1892, from the Belfast workhouse to the lunatic asylum at Purdysburn. The verdict of the coroner's jury is correctly stated. I understand that a small portion of the grounds of this asylum has been set aside for the purpose of an infectious disease hospital, but the matter has not come before me officially.

  CHARITY COMMISSION—SUGGESTED COMMITTEE.
  MR. ALFRED HUTTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will consent to appoint a Committee to inquire into the work of the Charity Commission, and also to suggest such principles as should be applied to local authorities seeking to have control of local charities.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that there was a Departmental Committee.

  943
  which sat on the Charity Commission in 1893 and a Select Committee to inquire into its constitution in 1894. I do not think that under these circumstances any further inquiry is called for.

  NEW BILL.
    EDUCATION OF THE BLIND (SCOTLAND).
    Bill to amend the Law in regard to the Education of the Blind in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, Mr. James Campbell, Mr. Baird, Lord Balcarres, and Mr. Tennant.
    EDUCATION OF THE BLIND (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    "To amend the Law in regard to the Education of the Blind in Scotland," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 231.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (ORDERS OF THE DAY).
Ordered, That the proceedings on the Charitable Loans (Ireland) Bill have precedence this day of the Notices of Motions and the other Orders of the Day. —(Mr. Balfour.)

CHARITABLE LOANS (IRELAND) BILL.
Order for Committee read.
MR. SPEAKER: The Instruction on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for East Mayo—namely, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to insert provisions in the Bill securing the interests of the debenture-holdersand depositors "—is out of order, because in so far as it proposes to insert provisions in the Bill securing the interests of the debenture-holders and depositors that may be affected by the operation of the Bill as it stands, Amendments doing that will be in order; but any Amendment going beyond that, and altering the general position of the debenture-holders and depositors, under the principal Act, would not be in order.
MR. DILLON: Am I to understand I shall be at liberty to move in Committee, by way of new clauses or Amendments, provisions securing the interests of debenture-holders and depositors?
MR. SPEAKER: Yes, in so far as they are affected by the scheme of the Bill itself.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
Clause 1:—
MR. DILLONsaid the first Amendment on the Paper was merely a drafting Amendment. It seemed to him doubtful what were the societies which came under the provisions of the Act of 1843, but he would not press the Amendment if the Attorney General did not think it necessary.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.): I have no doubt that it is unnecessary.
MR. DILLON: I do not move it, then.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid it appeared to him that the object of this Bill was to legalise an illegality. It would make legal certain transactions and enable certain persons to be sued in petty sessions. He did not object to that. What he did want to secure was that the societies should not be able to pursue the proceedings in the Superior Courts. He himself, as the right hon. Gentleman knew, would like another Court to be substituted under this Act.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, lines 10 and 11, to leave out the words 'in any court.' "—(Mr. Swift MacNeill.)
Question proposed: "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
MR. ATKINSONsaid the hon. Gentleman was entirely mistaken in saying that this was an Act for legalising illegal action. A promissory note without a stamp on it might be enforced in any

945
court of law under the 24th section of the statute, and the decision of the Superior Court was that in any case where all the requirements regulating the proceedings of these societies were not observed, they were not entitled to enjoy one of the privileges, so that they should not be required to put a stamp on the note. The Bill said that these notes "shall not be invalid or incapable of being enforced in any court, or liable to stamp duty, by reason of any of the matters following." To insert in the Bill that societies could not sue in any other court would bring about most absurd results. He did not think it had been proved that it was desirable to leave out the words the hon. Gentleman objected to.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid he accepted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, and would withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. DILLONmoved to leave out sub-section (b) of Clause 1, which provides
"The said note having been given as a renewal, in whole or in part, of, or in substitution for, any promissory note theretofore made by the borrower, or any person on his behalf, to the treasurer or secretary of such society."
He said this was a very peculiar clause. It was really the most important clause of the whole Bill. The purpose of the Clause might be described in very few words. The officers of the societies who were under the control, or nominally under the control, of a central board in Dublin, had for a long series of years — indeed, ever since the passing of the Act of 1843, and the Report of the Committee of 1855—persisted, in spite of repeated warnings, in defying all the provisions of the law, and the provisions laid down for their guidance by the Dublin board. This was not a course adopted by the officers in ignorance, and it was not a novel course. The influential Committee which reported in 1855 pointed out the irregularity of the course now complained of, and all the troubles which had induced the Government to produce the present Bill had arisen through the misconduct of these officers. The sub-section which he proposed to omit raised the whole question of re-
946
newals, and what they had to inquire into was the justice of such a provision as this—whether by the system of renewals, admittedly illegal and irregular, injustice was done to borrowers. He held that a great injustice had been done to borrowers, and if this subsection was passed without safeguards it might be the means of increasing that injustice, and also the means of protecting the officers from the consequences of their own misconduct. The question of renewals was a very important one, and it was dealt with very forcibly in the Report of the Committee of 1896. That Committee, which was appointed at the request of the Loans Fund Board itself by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, found in the course of its investigations that there had been the most appalling abuse and corruption and injustice to the unfortunate borrowers of these so-called charity loan funds, and the Committee unanimously submitted a set of recommendations which had been absolutely ignored in this measure. The hon. Gentleman directed attention to paragraph 4, on page 20, of the Report of the Committee of 1896, which he said went to show that Section 24 of the Act of 1843—an important clause, which was put in for the protection of borrowers— had been set at defiance for fifty years. The purpose of the Act was that the borrowers should pay as a maximum £8 per annum, but by this renewal system the wretched unfortunate borrowers had been compelled, by a flagrant breach of the law, to pay in many cases £25 16s. 5d. per annum on their loans. What was it the Government proposed to do? These officials carried this system on, knowing they were acting illegally, and defied the Board of Control in Dublin, who had no proper and adequate powers to enforce the law. The Government now came forward to legislate not for the purpose of carrying out the recommendations of this Committee, or of giving the Board of Control the powers for which they had again and again asked in order that they might regularise the proceedings and make the charitable loans a benefit instead of a curse to the people, but they came forward for the purpose of releasing and relieving these officials and societies from the effect of their own irregularities. This Report pointed out that this system also had the effect of bringing the unfortunate borrower with his sureties into the Loan Fund office frequently, when he had

947
to lose a whole day, and generally a considerable sum of money also. Paragraph 240 referred to a system which was found to prevail in some of the Loans Fund offices, where the clerks themselves or their friends stood in the office and handed men who were coming in to get renewal bills a £10 note or whatever was necessary to pay off the loan, whereupon the borrower went to the desk, got a fresh loan, and paid the money back to this person in the office. It was, of course, a cloak for an evasion of the law, in order to carry on the system of renewal. This Report was made in 1896, and one would have thought that by now the Government would have come forward with a comprehensive scheme which would give powers somewhat similar to those contained in this sub-section for the recovery of what was equitably due on these bills or promissory notes, and at the same time introduce provisions protecting the public from depredations of this kind in future, and as far as possible protect the property of the unfortunate depositors and debenture-holders from the loss which must occur even if this Bill passed exactly as it stood. A question was put in this House in the spring of 1897, in which the Attorney General was asked whether his attention had been directed to the abuses disclosed by the Report of this Committee, and whether the Government intended to introduce any legislation on the subject. The reply was that the Report was receiving the careful consideration of the Government, and that they hoped soon to introduced a Bill for regulating the proceedings of the Loans Fund societies and providing a more effective control. Two Bills had been introduced since then in addition to the present measure, but not a single proposal had come from the Government in fulfilment of that answer of the Attorney General. The Government had deliberately abstained from making any proposal having for its object the protection of the public in the future against these abuses. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the other day when the Government intended to bring in such a Bill, and was told that the subject was so difficult and complicated that he could not be given even so much as a hint when it would be possible to legislate for the better management of these societies. He would now refer to the next step in the history of this ques-
948
tion of renewals—the allusions to the system in the extraordinary letter published in the Dublin daily papers on the 19th June, 1899, and written by Mr. Young when he resigned his post as inspector under the Loans Funds of Ireland. Mr. Young had been inspector for seven or eight years, and it was on his urgent and repeated reports that the Committee of 1896 was appointed. That Committee more than confirmed all that had been alleged by Mr. Young in regard to the abuses prevalent in the system, and Mr. Young proceeded to endeavour to get the views of the Committee carried into effect. These renewals had been denounced as illegal; it had been shown that they had been the means of increasing by 50, 60 or 80 per cent. the legal interest chargeable to the borrower; they had been remonstrated against, and this inspector, after years of unavailing effort to check these abuses, resigned his position after, he had been censured and treated as a nuisance in consequence of his endeavours to bring about reform. The Government now came forward with this proposal to relieve the officers from the results of their own misconduct. He urged that the House ought to be very cautious to see that no injustice was done and that ample safeguards were afforded to the unfortunate borrowers who required and deserved consideration as well as the depositors and debenture-holders. When he asked the other day what the Government proposed to do he was told that a body of rules had been issued embodying most of the recommendations of the Committee of 1896. But nothing would be more absurd than to suppose that that was going to remedy the evil, as the Board themselves had again and again stated that they had no adequate statutory powers to enforce their rules on the societies. It had also been stated that more than half the societies refuse to accept the rules, and therefore they might just as well be so much waste paper. He had received a deluge of letters from unfortunate investors, and borrowers who had been overcharged in the most monstrous way. He was therefore as much interested for the one class as for the other. He pitied the unfortunate investors, who, believing they had Government security for their money—
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I do not think this is relevant to the

949
Amendment the hon. Member desires to move.
MR. DILLON: I was only going to say that in the action I am taking I do not appear as the advocate of either the borrower or the debenture-holder specially. I think both have suffered dreadfully by these irregularities, and my object in debating the Bill is to show its insufficiency for the purpose which the Government profess to have in view, and to show that the interests both of the borrower and of the debenture-holder are being sacrificed by these provisions. I beg to move.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out Sub-section (b) of Clause 1." —(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, "That Sub-section (b) stand part of the clause."
MR. ATKINSON: I shall not follow the hon. Gentleman in all the topics he has referred to. I have on more than one occasion endeavoured, but without success, to explain to him what this Bill is, and that it does not affect many of the questions to which he has referred, and that it does not prejudice in any way the prospects of any measure being introduced to reform the Loans Fund system in Ireland or to secure the debenture-holders' rights. This Bill is introduced simply to validate certain existing securities, and to secure that they shall be recovered on against the borrowers to the extent of such sum as is equitably due and nothing more.
MR. DILLON: Then put it in the Bill.
MR. ATKINSON: Therefore all the observations the hon. Gentleman has made in reference to the excessive rates of interest and the amounts demanded upon the occasions to which he alludes are really beside the point. The clause he has criticised is really a clause later on in the Bill, which provides that if these securities are validated so that it is possible to sue upon them, the amount recoverable should not be more than the amount equitably due. That clause provides that the borrowers should pay the original sum advanced, plus legal interest, and that deductions should be made for
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any excess demands which have been paid. Whether ultimately the debenture holders are compensated or not, it is desirable to make these existing securities available. I suppose the hon. Member does not contend against that?
MR. DILLON: Certainly not, so far as they are equitably due.
MR. ATKINSON: But that is not the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. The Amendment is to strike out the subsection, thus enabling every man who has borrowed money upon the renewal note to refuse to pay a farthing of it. The hon. Member can scarcely contend that it lies in the mouth of the borrower to say, "Oh! because you have given money on a renewal note I will pay nothing." According to the Report which he himself has quoted I can confidently say that 90 per cent. of the existing notes are renewals. How does the matter stand? The capital of these societies is £141,539, and of that sum there is at the present moment £125,869 outstanding on notes. The average loan is only about £5. In that set of circumstances, when that money has been raised from the debenture-holders —a class for whom the hon. Gentleman professes an extreme sympathy—are you by adopting this Amendment practically to say that 90 per cent. of these debtors may keep all that money in their pockets for ever? Or are you to say to them as the Bill says, "You must repay what you have borrowed, plus legal interest, and if you have been charged any excessive amount for interest or fines that amount will be credited to you"? If the section validating the notes which have been given as renewals be struck out, the Bill might as well be torn up, as it would be perfectly useless. I resist this Amendment. It is misconceived; it ignores the real point of the matter. The Bill affects only notes current on the 1st March, 1899, and it does nothing what- ever to validate any future renewals. If these people persist in taking renewal notes hereafter, they will do it with their eyes open.
MR. DILLON: They will expect another Bill.
MR. ATKINSON: Then they will be disappointed in that expectation. The hon. Member stated that the Board in

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Dublin had no power of enforcing their rules on the societies; but surely he must know that the way in which the Board can enforce their rules is to dissolve the society which will not accept them. The affairs of that society would then be wound up, and that is the only way to deal with it.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he did not see why these people should be called unfortunate borrowers, for he thought they were very fortunate in being able to borrow at all. Having got the money he did not see why they should not be made to pay it back. His mind went back to the year 1877, when there was a proposal made by the Government in this matter, although they would give no promise upon the arrears question. At that time they all opposed the Bill because it would ruin shopkeepers all over the country. Supposing those men, instead of getting their £10 from a bank, got £10 worth of goods from a shopkeeper, was there any reason why they should not pay for them? He thought these societies were an anachronism. Instead of making a man pay off his £10 by suing the man on the spot, or his sureties, they said they would not sell him out of house and home, but they would lend him a bogus loan of £10 by way of paying off the original loan. He thought that was a bad system, and it was illegal. It was, of course, done in kindness, and with the idea that they would not sell those people out of house and home. These societies were started when banking was hardly known, and he knew the bankers had to go round to different people assuring them that their money would be all right if they put it into the banks. He agreed that some of the officers were too officious. He did not want the idea to get abroad that because a man had borrowed money which he wanted at the time, and was very glad to get, what was practically a successful fraud on these loan societies should be permitted. It was argued that, because this form of loan had been gone through, the people should not be made to pay. If these people did not mean to pay they should not have borrowed. He thought this Bill had some element of risk in it, and it was to that extent an encouragement to illegality. The question was, should the third parties be made to suffer? He confessed that he regarded the Bill with some anxiety, for it was simply
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an experiment. What they ought to do was to endeavour, later on in the clauses, to prevent excessive interest and fines from, being charged. If the Government would put 3 per cent. interest in the Bill, and not allow any fines to be recovered, he thought they would have done very fairly.
MR. DILLON: The reason why I alluded to these people as the unfortunate borrowers was that, owing to this renewal system, they have been compelled in some cases to pay 20 per cent. for their money. If the hon. Member for North Louth went to a bank to-morrow, and had to pay 20 per cent. interest, I should say that he was an unfortunate borrower. I have no. desire to aid any man in avoiding the payment of a just debt, but what I do. want to make clear is that in the anxiety of the Government to look after the interests of the debenture-holders and depositors it would be most unfair to. forget altogether the case of the borrowers. The Attorney General refuses this, on the ground that it will encourage dishonesty and enable these men to make-away with their goods. I desire to inform the Attorney General that I have been urging upon the Government for the last two years the necessity of passing a Bill of this description, but it should not be a Bill to aid men who have permitted this evil which it is now proposed to remove. The hon. Member for North Louth cannot have read the Report on this subject, because Paragraph 59 says that, whatever may have been the case in the early days of the loan, at the present time, in the majority of cases, the management, so far from being under local committees, has passed into the hands of men who are merely money-lenders, and who have taken advantage of this to open private offices. The system in vogue is practically the worst form of usury, and they have taken the very skin off the bones of some of the people in the constituencies of hon. Members whom I see opposite. The Report states that these loans have been issued with a recklessness. which would soon have reduced any private money-lender to beggary. You are now going to increase these facilities. I am disposed to agree with the hon. Member for North Louth that my Amendment goes too far, but I find a difficulty in raising the point in any other shape. I do not want to let off any man from the

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necessity and obligation of paying what is due when he has borrowed it. By the very wording of their own Bill the Government prove clearly that they realise the fact that gross injustice may be done. I wish to direct the attention of the Attorney General to Sub-section 5, Clause 2. The case made out against me is that in all cases where I object to these increased facilities I am conniving at men who have had this money refusing to pay it back. The sub-section I allude to—
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! This matter will arise later in the debate. The only question now is that of renewals.
MR. DILLON: Then I will confine myself to that point. The Attorney General gave as a reason for opposing my Amendment that no injustice would be done by this sub-section. I contend that a great injustice may be done owing to this very illegality of excessive interest, and it may be found that instead of owing money to the society a man may have paid all his debt and may have paid more than was due. That is the reason why I object to this provision. However, I am not disposed to divide the Committee on this particular Amendment, because I agree that it would be better to endeavour to amend the Bill by getting rid of the consideration for the borrower. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. DILLON: I now move to leave out Sub-section (c); but I wish to postpone what I desired to say on this subject until the whole clause comes up. It is a subject of enormous importance, because I think I shall be able to show that owing to the system of excessive interest, the borrowers have more than repaid the loans.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 20, to leave out Sub-section (c) of Clause I"—(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, "That Sub-section (c) stand part of the clause."
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. DILLON: In moving the omission of Sub-section (f), I desire to say that it has been calculated that the discount would amount to a rate of over £8 pet-cent. What do the loan societies do? At an early period of their history they proceeded to charge not £4, as provided by the Act, but £7 discount, and in spite of the warnings of the Committee which sat in 1855, they persisted in charging a series of illegal fines. The result of their conduct was that for a long period, instead of 8 percent., quite 20 per cent. has been charged. Observe what we are asked to do. Here is an unfortunate borrower in Ireland who borrowed some ten, fifteen, twenty, and, in some cases, forty years ago, and, owing to excessive interest, illegally charged at a rate nearly double what the Act allowed, and excessive fines illegally imposed, the borrower may have paid back the full legal interest and the principal of his loan, and now we are asked to authorise the society to come down upon him for the principal and interest.
Amendment proposed —
"In page 2, line 1, to leave out Sub-section (f)of Clause 1."—(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, "That Sub-section (f) stand part of the clause."
MR. ATKINSONsaid that if this proposal were agreed to there would scarcely be a single case in which the borrower would not be able to show that excessive interest had been charged. If the loans were invalidated by reason of excessive interest then they would simply be making a present to the borrowers of about £120,000.
SERJEANT HEMPHILL: My constituents in North Tyrone have been the principal sufferers from the bursting up of these loan societies, and I have a sheaf of letters which I am not going to trouble the Committee with, written by labourers and small farmers, and by people who had scraped together a few pounds and invested them in these loan societies in debentures at 5 per cent. The writers of these letters appeal to me to do anything I can to rescue them from

955
the ruin which is staring them in the face. Bearing that in mind, of course, I approach the consideration of this Bill with every anxiety not to obstruct but to promote the objects of the Government, and I think, in dealing with the Bill, we ought to bear in mind what the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General has said, that it is really only a provisional measure, and that the passing of this Bill will not prevent legislation being afterwards initiated either by this or some other Government, in order to repair the mischief which has been done to the depositors and to the debenture holders in what I cannot help saying was very gross neglect in some quarter or another.
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to; discuss the Bill as a whole, and he must confine himself to the particular Amendment now before the Committee.
SERJEANT HEMPHILL: I was endeavouring to do so. I regard this as a provisional measure only applying to existing circumstances, and not dealing with future transactions or countenancing the irregularities which have been attended with such calamities. I think it is quite right to retain this Sub-section (f), because the effect of having exceeded the statutable limit of interest would be just like the effect of its being renewed, and would be a ground for defeating any proceedings that might be taken against the holders of these promissory notes. This sub- section stands in the same position as Subsections (b) and (c), which Amendments the hon. Member has withdrawn. I hope the hon. Member for East Mayo will withdraw this Amendment, for it is only right that these borrowers should be chargeable with the legal rate of interest, and I think the proviso at the end of this clause meets the objections that have been put forward by the hon. Member. As I read this section, you could recover notwithstanding those legal defects and the departure from the statute, and having sureties who were borrowers themselves. Notwithstanding having charged an excessive interest, I think you can recover, but you can only charge the debtor with what he got in hard cash and with legal interest. It occurs to me that we might very well add another section, because there are cases in which more than £10 was
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originally lent, and if more than £10 was borrowed that would be in contravention of the Loans Act, and I would suggest that to meet such a case an Amendment should be drafted in the following terms—
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! We have not disposed of Sub-section (f) yet.
MR. ARCHDALEsaid that although he agreed with a good deal of what the hon. Member for East Mayo had said, still he thought that the Amendment might do harm to the people who ought most to be protected—namely, the debenture-holders. They were men in a low class of life, such as railway guards, and they had saved up their money and invested it in these loans, which they thought were under Government security. They now found, however, that they could not recover all the money they had saved for their old age. If the Amendment were accepted it would do harm to the Bill, which he regarded as an honest endeavour on the part of the Attorney General to obtain some redress for the debenture-holders.
MR. MURNAGHANsaid that all the Amendment proposed to do was to safeguard the unfortunate borrowers from the excessive interest from which they had suffered in the past. He, himself, had known cases where 33 per cent. was charged. They desired that the debenture-holders should get their money, but they desired also that the interest to be charged to the borrowers should be at a small rate. The Government ought to be generous in the matter. They gave their imprimatur to those societies, and money was deposited on the understanding that the Government had an inspector over the fund and was responsible for its stability. He thought the Government ought to step forward now and reduce the interest to the very lowest figure.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid that in , order to show the terrible injustice that had been inflicted not only on debenture holders but also on borrowers, he would quote paragraph 147 of the Report issued in 1897. That paragraph stated—
"From the statements of borrowers who have appeared before us, from the replies we have re-

957
ceived from the circulars we issued, from the admissions of the officials we have examined, and from the evidence of borrowers we can come to no other conclusion than that thousands of poor persons have been victims of a system which has kept them permanently in debt owing to the high rate of the charges over a long period of years."
The debenture-holders were a most deserving class, who had invested the savings of a lifetime in an investment which; they believed was secured by the Government, and as for the borrowers their debt in many cases has been paid several times over. If the Attorney General would only bring in a Bill to the effect—
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not discussing the Amendment before the Committee. He is now discussing some future possible Bill.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid his hon. friend had no idea of pressing the Amendment. It was framed in order that the question might be discussed in its general aspect, and he thought that provision should be made that every illegal fine charged should be deducted from the original debt.
MR. DILLONsaid that the condition of things which the Attorney General confessed prevailed in Ireland was perfectly astounding. The particular provision under discussion would legalise that state of affairs, because it would cure the informality and would not prevent the recovery of a loan, although owing to the illegal interest and fines which had been charged it had been twice repaid. He would, however, withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
SERJEANT HEMPHILLsaid he proposed to insert another sub-section —" The loan being in the first instance for a sum exceeding £10 in contravention of Section 24 of the principal Act." That section provided that it should not be lawful for any society to make any loan exceeding £10. The subsection would meet cases where borrowers obtained more than £10, and who would otherwise escape.
Amendment proposed —
"To insert as a new sub-section—' (g) the loan having been in the first instance for a
958
sum exceeding £10 in contravention of Section "24 of the principal Act.' "—(serjeant Hemphill.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. WILLIAM MOOREsaid it might be well if the Attorney General would see his way to put in a sub-section covering all breaches of the provisions, of the principal Act. That would strengthen his hands, because a combination of circumstances might arise to which neither of the existing sub-sections would apply. A drag-net clause such as he suggested would cover any possible state of affairs.
MR. ATKINSONsaid he could not possibly accept a general clause of that kind. He would be prepared to accept the Amendment of the right hon. (Gentle- man, but would suggest that it should precede Sub-section (f).
MR. DILLONsaid that the hon. Member for North Antrim in his zeal thought the Bill did not extend far enough. The Government started a system of charitable loans in Ireland. An elaborate Act was passed through the House to guide and direct the operations of the societies; a body was set up in Dublin to supervise the officials; and now, after a period of forty years, the hon. Member for North Antrim thought that the proper course was to provide a dragnet clause to cover all breaches of the law, in order that the officials who had robbed and plundered the unfortunate people might be set free from the consequences of their irregularities. His com- plaint was that there was nothing in the Bill to reform the system. If the Bill would save the debenture-holders who had deposited their money, criticism would be disarmed, but it would not save them, because they would lose half their investments if the Government did not come to the rescue, and they would lose entirely through the misconduct of clerks who were now to be whitewashed by the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 8, after ' charged,' to insert, ' and illegal lines and charges exacted, including sums charged for petty sessions, stamps, or

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summonses that were not issued."—(Mr. Swift MacNeill.)
Question proposed: "That those words be there inserted."
MR. ATKINSONsaid he would meet the hon. Gentleman by providing in the Bill that the expression "fines" should include any sum charged for stamps, or fees in connection with summonses.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid he was much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but. the words would hardly cover money paid under bogus summonses—namely, documents which appeared to be but were not summonses.
MR. ATKINSONsaid he would meet that by adding after summonses " or documents purporting to be summonses."
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE CHAIRMAN: The latter part of the next Amendment, standing in the name of the hon. Member for East Mayo, ought to be taken as a separate clause. As to the first part, I do not quite follow what the words " such an account " refer to. No account is mentioned in the first clause.
MR. DILLONsaid the clause was drafted on the supposition that, in order to arrive at the proper sum, an account should be taken. In moving the first part of the Amendment, he understood the position to be as follows. After the Rill was passed into law, the officials of the society would furnish a man who had signed a. note with an account, but that account only went back six years. That he contended would inflict very grievous injustice. Take the case of a man who had borrowed ,£10 twenty years ago, and was charged from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. for his loan, although the law only gave power to the society to charge 8 per cent. If that man had paid 20 per cent. on that loan for ten or fifteen years it was manifest that he had paid full legal interest as well as the loan itself. Were they to be told that these unfortunate borrowers who, as could be shown by the books of the society if they had not been
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fraudulently destroyed, had paid back the whole of their loan and the full legal interest, and very often a great deal more, were now to be charged the whole amount of the loan again, merely because the transaction went back more than six years? What argument was there in favour of going back six years and no more, when a transaction extending over-twenty years could be traced if the books of the society were honestly and fairly kept? Why should a borrower be deprived of the advantage of his payments?. The object of his Amendment was, that if the Court found, on the one hand, that there wore suspicious circumstances connected with the operations of the society,. they might order an inquiry to extend, back ten or twenty years, and if they found that the books had been falsified or destroyed, then a grave case of suspicion would arise, and he maintained that it should be left to the discretion of the Court to act equitably in the matter. If some provision of that character were not inserted there would be a likelihood of the most grievous injustice being, done. When he referred to the falsification of the books he was not speaking without authority, because it had been for many years a widely prevalent custom for these societies to make false entries. Interesting evidence on that point was given by Dr. Richard Hart, who was one of the best inspectors under the Act, and a man of high literary culture, who. effected very considerable reforms in the whole system of charitable loans. Speaking of the state of the books of the societies, he said that the books had been, fraudently kept by clerks in the interests, of themselves and their friends. Then he was asked whether in the year after the famine a great deal of money was not lost, and he said " Yes." Asked whether that was not due to the inability of the people to meet their engagements, he said: " It was; but I think also advantage was taken by fraudulent clerks who embezzled the money and endeavoured to get out of the charge of embezzlement by falsifying the accounts of the borrowers." That was a very serious position, and yet there was nothing in the Bill to protect unfortunate borrowers. The Amendment would allow an account to be taken if the books were honestly kept, and if the books had been fraudulently kept or destroyed it would give the Court discretion to act equitably.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Amendment must be altered by the insertion of the words " as hereinafter provided.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 11, after the word ' excess ' to add the words, ' or in the event of its being found impossible to obtain such an account, as hereinafter provided, such sums as may under all the circumstances appear to the Court equitable.' "—(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, " That those words be there inserted."
MR. ATKINSONsaid that he had endeavoured to arrive at an equitable solution of the difficulty. It should be remembered that everything that was done in favour of the borrower was against the debenture-holder, and everything that was done in favour of the debenture - holder was against the borrower, and under such circumstances they had been obliged to strike on the best and fairest mode of preserving the rights of both parties and doing justice to them. The hon. Member for East Mayo again and again talked as if it were the easiest thing in the world to obtain the materials for taking an account back thirty or forty years, and that the Government, in a spirit of perversity, had fixed a period of six years. He had taken the utmost trouble to ascertain the position of the societies, and he was assured by persons in a position to know that materials did not exist for carrying the accounts back more than six years, in the vast majority of cases. He would assume for a moment that the Castle Board behaved not only neglectfully but iniquitously; but how would that justify a borrower in refusing to pay a loan? He should have been glad if the material existed to carry the accounts back for twenty years; but that did not exist, and for that reason six years was suggested as a fair and reasonable time. The hon. Member for East Mayo appeared to consider that to go back in these cases for twenty years would be a simple matter. The loans were, as a rule, for £5, and he ventured to say that no accountant in Ireland would undertake to prepare such an account going back for twenty year's, calculating interest charges, deductions, etc, for loss than a £20 fee. Nothing could be more difficult. If the society had to pay the cost of such an investigation they would
962
probably forego the account altogether, allowing the borrower to walk away with the money in his pocket. The complication increased almost in geometrical proportion for every year the account went back, and it would be found quite impossible to go back more than six years. The hon. Member for East Mayo suggested that in the event of its being impossible to take an account because the books were not forthcoming the tribunal should have the power to fix any sum they thought equitable. But the tribunal had no material on which to base a calculation; and how could they possibly arrive at a conclusion that would not be an absurd and wild conjecture? If they were to endeavour to recover these sums and prevent the debenture - holders from losing their money they should fix a practical limit.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that what he hoped was that after the passage of the Bill very few cases would come into court at all, and that therefore the number of eases to be provided for by litigation would be very few. There was, however, something in the contention of the hon. Gentleman for East Mayo, but he thought the proposal was too wide. Would it be possible to provide that where an exorbitant demand was made on the debtor a substantial sum for costs should be granted to the defendant? It should be remembered that they were dealing with a very humble and ignorant class of men, who were naturally afraid of the cost of legal process. There might be some little spirit of triumph and some little spirit of vengeance on the part of the societies in bringing these wretched borrowers up to the scratch and compelling them to pay. He was quite in favour of the Bill, but it should be remembered that human nature was human nature, and that the Bill dealt with the poor ignorant class on the one hand, and with societies on the other, who might regard the Bill as a triumph. He would ask the Government, therefore, whether they would not provide that where a demand of an unreasonable kind was made upon a borrower the whole cost of taking the account should, as a matter of law, be borne by the complainant.
MR. ATKINSONsaid he would endeavour to introduce a clause to meet that point.
MR. DILLONsaid he would put a point to the Attorney General, who, after careful inquiry and examination, had by some curious process arrived at a six years limit. Suppose a case arose in which the books had been so badly kept that it was quite impossible to take the account back for six years.
MR. ATKINSONsaid that the Bill provided that the treasurer of the society should prepare and provide an account, and if he did not do that an action could be taken.
MR. DILLONasked what was the remedy if it was found that there wore not materials for the account.
MR. ATKINSONsaid that the treasurer would prepare and provide an account from the particulars available.
SERJEANT HEMPHILLsaid it was a matter of evidence. The plaintiff suing on the note would have to establish he amount due. The defendant would come forward to show what he had paid, and if the books were not there, so much the better for the defendant. He did not himself see that any advantage would be derived from giving a general roaming authority to whatever tribunals the case would come before.
MR. ATKINSONsaid it was provided that the note should not be the security for its nominal face value, but only for that sum which was due to the society. The danger which the hon. Member for East Mayo saw was entirely imaginary.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:—
MR. DILLON: With regard to the Amendment standing in my name as to particulars of the account, do I understand the Attorney General to say that this account setting forth the particulars will be furnished to the defendant in time to be examined?
MR. ATKINSON: Of course. It will be furnished with the writ of summons.
MR. DILLON: Then I will not move my Amendment.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid that the foundation of the Act of 1843, by which these loan societies were established, was that every note should be an original transaction, and that no renewals were to count. But there was a whole series of renewals, amounting to £122,000 or £123,000. The Departmental Committee in 1896 showed in their Report that, notwithstanding the express prohibition of renewals, the majority of the cases investigated were renewal loans, and that not more than 10 per cent. were first loans. He thought his Amendment was a reasonable one, because the Government were directly responsible for the condition into which this question had fallen.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 17, to leave out from the word ' note ' to the end of line 23, and insert the words ' in cases wherein the note sued on is the last of a series of notes which have been given as renewals in whole or in part, or in substitution for any promissary note theretofore made by the borrower, or any person on his behalf, the account shall be taken from the first transaction between the parties.' "—(Mr. Swift Mac Neill.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
MR. ATKINSONsaid the Amendment was entirely unnecessary, and might lead to enormous cost. It would be far better for the Government to pay the debtor three times the money he owed than to incur the cost of such a long research.
MR. DILLONthought the Government would have to make a present to some of the debenture-holders in the long run because they had allowed the system of irregularity to go on for forty years unchecked. He held that the Government were bound to bear the cost of the investigation, and if the investigation cost more than the amount due, that was because the Government were entirely responsible for the delay.
MR. ATKINSONsaid that the Government had no power whatever to interfere between the loan societies and the Board. The only power they had was to dissolve

965
the society, and to sue immediately for what was due. The result of that would have been most disastrous.
SERJEANT HEMPHILLsaid there was considerable difficulty about this Amendment, because he was very much afraid that if the account was carried back twenty or thirty years, the Bill, instead of being a boon to the debenture-holders, would be a curse to them. He did not think his right hon. friend the Attorney General was altogether right in saying that the Government were absolved from responsibility in this case, because, by the Charitable Loans Act of 1843, the Lord Lieutenant had the power to remove the Board if it did not do its duty; and Section 4 of the same Act made it the duty of the Board to inquire into the proceedings of all the loan societies in order to ascertain whether their rules had been observed, and the funds applied to the purposes for which they were advanced.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. DILLONsaid the object of his next Amendment was to get an independent officer appointed to take the account: and he wanted the Attorney General to give some explanation on the question of costs.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 32, after the word 'defendant,' to add the words, ' (6) If the Court is not satisfied as to the correctness of the account, it may order an account to be taken by an independent office, and the costs of such account shall he charged against the society or its officers, as to the Court may appear just."'—(Mr. Dillon.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. ATKINSONsaid that under Clause 3 the costs would be petty sessions costs, which were very small indeed, and did not exceed 2s. for clerk's fee, 3d. for summons, and 6d. for warrant, or 2s 9d. altogether.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. DILLONsaid he wished to ask a word of explanation in regard to the taking of the account. The first step was that the treasurer should prepare and
966
provide an account, and that was to be the document on which the account was to lie proved. Was the court to order a separate account in every case?
MR. ATKINSONsaid that the court did not take the account itself; it appointed someone to go through all the papers and vouchers, and make the best account he could.
MR. DILLONsaid that that was a, novel and somewhat dangerous procedure. Were these poor people to be sued simply on a calculation of what they owed?
MR. ATKINSONsaid that if the debtor asked for particulars he generally could get them, and then he could either admit or dispute them.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked the Attorney General to say whether, if a petty sessions clerk was the treasurer of a society, he would be able to take the account of that society.
MR. ATKINSONsaid he could not conceive that a man would be appointed to look into his own accounts.
MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid that not only petty sessions clerks but magistrates had sat on the bench deciding on questions in which they were personally interested.
MR. ATKINSONsaid that there was no principle more rigidly enforced than that a judge could not decide in a case in which he himself was interested.
MR. DILLONsaid that this was an extremely important point, The Government did not seem to be aware that in the 118th paragraph of the Departmental Committee's Report it was stated that cases had come before them in which justices and clerks of petty sessions had adjudicated in cases in which they were interested. How on earth were these small borrowers to know the law? If a, magistrate persisted in sitting on the bench in a ease in which he was personally interested, how were these poor people to get rid of him? The Bill should indicate that neither a member of the bench of magistrates nor a clerk of petty

967
sessions should take part in the adjudication of a case in which they were interested in the society or its accounts.
MR. ATKINSONsaid he was glad that there was one subject on which the hon. Member for East Mayo had found it possible to speak in favour of a removable magistrate. No Act of Parliament that could be possibly passed would make it more binding that a magistrate could not sit and adjudicate on a case in which he was personally interested. There was no rule of law which was more rigidly enforced. If the hon. Gentleman or any litigant found a magistrate adjudicating in a case in which he was personally interested, he had only to go to an enterprising solicitor, and in a day or two he would find that that judgment was set aside with costs against the magistrate. In regard to the petty sessions clerk, if they had a pure bench it was wiser to leave it to the magistrate to select either the petty sessions clerk, or some other person, to take the account, than to prevent the magistrate by statute from employing the petty sessions clerk to do that work. He had no objection to the appointment of any qualified person to take the account other than the petty sessions clerk.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 3 amended, and agreed to.
Clause 4:—
MR. DILLONsaid this was a most dangerous clause. It was a clause which, in his judgment, would be precisely similar in operation to the clause allowing voluntary settlements under the Land Act. The societies' clerks would go round and call upon borrowers, and they would say, " An Act has been passed through Parliament, and the new law will make you pay with costs. Now, I am a humane man, and if you drop this Bill and give new security on your holding I will give you 20 per cent. reduction." He was sure that in innumerable cases poor people who could not study an Act of Parliament would comply with the proposal. Borrowers very often jumped at the offer of a reduction of 10, 15, or 20 per cent., and a new instrument might be entered into by them which, as he understood Clause 4, would
968
be binding on them even if they afterwards found out that they had been swindled. Through ignorance of the new law they would sign the new instrument undertaking to pay. He should like to hear a word or two from the Attorney General as to whether he could see any plan by which that danger could be avoided.
MR. ATKINSONsaid this clause was for the very purpose of getting over the difficulty trustees always had in coming to an arrangement. The clause was inserted in mercy to the people concerned.
MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Attorney General whether, in dealing with the question of costs, if a fair compromise was offered on one side or the other, there would be power to take that into consideration. The question of allowing a compromise seemed to be entirely in the hands of the loan society. He thought it would be fair to allow the bench some little power of the kind he had indicated.
MR. DILLONsaid that what he complained of was that the clause was rather vague. Where were these fresh instruments to be executed, and where was the compromise to take place? He would respectfully suggest to the Attorney General that a clause should be introduced providing that the matter should be brought under the cognisance of the Court, so as to prevent borrowers from being trapped or intimidated.
MR. ATKINSONsaid he had already provided in Clause 2 power to extend the payment of instalments over a period of three years. He intended to introduce on the Report stage a provision with reference to costs.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he was in favour of this Bill, as it was a very great departure from ordinary practice. It was practically ex post facto legislation. He was disposed to say that the courts should have been more in the nature of equitable tribunals, and not strictly bound by the ordinary law. He felt quite confident that both the Attorney General and the Chief Secretary were anxious to do absolute justice in this matter.
Clause agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

IMPERIAL TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION.
[RESOLUTION.]
SIR EDWARD SASSOON: In rising to call attention to our system of cable telegraphs and to move that it is desirable that an inquiry should be hold into the commercial and strategic defects of our Imperial telegraphic communication, I trust it may not be necessary for mo to make any appreciable demand upon the time and patience of the House. At any rate, I beg to assure hon. Members that the observations which it may be my duty to make will be condensed to the greatest possible degree consistently with placing the House in full possession of the broad outline of all those circumstances which, in the opinion of hon. Members on both sides of the House, representing practically the whole of the mercantile, shipping, manufacturing, and industrial enterprises of the Empire, justify us in the course we are pursuing to-night. These facts, to which I shall presently refer, have had a lurid light thrown them by the recent repeated failures that have occurred in the transmission of messages to and from South Africa, just at the very juncture when the efficiency of the cables and complete freedom from interruption were matters of such vital importance to the nation. I think we may take it that the importance of this question to our scattered Imperial fabric cannot be gainsaid. The right of this House to criticise and overhaul the administration of the cable service, nominally exists, but in practice it has always proved illusory, because for some unexplained reason the particular vote appertaining to this telegraph service has been year after year relegated to the extreme end of the session, when it has been either smuggled through or closured. The grievances under which we sutler are twofold in their nature. One is from the aspect of Imperial defence and strategic considerations. To that aspect I shall but very
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briefly allude, because my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean will, with his great knowledge of the subject, review the patent defects, and doubtless suggest right and proper remedies. The breakdown of the cables to the Cape has been a very frequent occurrence. I gather from the official Berne records that from the 31st October last to the 31st of January of this year —a period of ninety-two days—-either one or the other of the cables has been interrupted for no less than a period of sixty-two days, or something like 74 per cent. of the whole time. I think the associated companies have thus laid themselves open to the charge of neglect, to the charge of a dereliction of public requirements at the most critical hour of the country's need. Moreover, there is a question of a breach, if not of the spirit, certainly of the letter; of the very essential clause in the Convention under which subsidies are granted to these companies. That clause is Clause 5, which runs as follows
"Payment of such subsidy should be conditional on telegraphic communication being in good working order and condition, so that messages may be transmitted by either route."
How has that condition been fulfilled? In consequence of the interruption of the cable we were within an ace on one occasion—within forty hours--of having a breakdown of both these cables. The House will remember the interruption which took place after the Jameson raid for days and days together. I do not know that I am propagating an idle fable, but I believe it is on record that no less a personage than the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary himself drove over to Winchester House in order to find out what was up. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury whether any remonstrances have been addressed to the company, and if he will undertake to state the nature of the reply. I fear it will be of only platonic interest because the wisdom of the Treasury has decreed that the cables may go being interrupted, either continuously or spasmodically, for five months and twenty-nine days and no penalty is to attach. I am aware that the associated companies have started a third cable from the Cape to England, but that cable rather sins against the

971
fundamental principle of an all-British cable. Most hon. Members are aware that the East African cable was started during the Zulu war, now some twenty years ago, and although subsidies and subventions granted to the companies during those twenty years have amounted to no less a sum than £3,700,000, the shares of one company alone coming to £1,368,000, yet not one single section except the least difficult—that from Mozambique to Zanzibar—has been duplicated in order to ensure rapidity and regularity of communication in time of military stress and the pressure of work resulting there from. The next grievance is of a commercial character. For some time back the earnings of the South African Company have very considerably exceeded the amount that the late Sir John Pender himself declared would constitute a remunerative revenue. In 1896 that amount was exceeded by no less a sum than £120,000, and it has more or less maintained that figure. I think, therefore, I might contend that, if not spontaneously, if not automatically, if not upon grounds of general equity or policy, if not out of consideration for the long-suffering and patience of their clients, then by all but absolutely nisi prius obligations they are bound to reduce their tariffs. I may be told that they have announced a slight reduction on the Cape cable, but that was owing very much to the salutary fear of outside competition, and the firm and uncompromising attitude assumed by the Cape Government. In 1896 the Postmaster General at the Cape, in reply to applications for further subsidies in connection with the laying of this third cable, stated to Her Majesty's Government that the gross annual receipt of £180,000 in respect of the traffic circulated by the Eastern and Western routes was considered by the late Sir John Pender to be a fairly paying revenue. And then again, Sir Gordon Sprig, who I believe was Prime Minister at the time, also in reply to a demand for further subsidies, telegraphs to the Agent General that the present traffic warranted a third cable on basis of revenue as laid down by Sir John Pender, and that the South African contributories would not entertain question of increase without satisfactory guarantee in regard to reduced rates, and that the monopolist company must make concessions to meet legitimate public require-
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ments. What is the position of these companies in regard to the taxpayers of this country? The position I take it to be this. Different sums of money have been voted annually to them in which the Eastern Telegraph Company is financially very largely interested, in return for the companies executing their part of the contract. That is to say, the companies were to receive messages, transmit them with rapidity and despatch, and, above all, to see that their agencies and their means of transmission were kept in perfect working order. These moneys were thus voted for a definite and specific object. I ask whether it ever occurred to the officials who negotiated this instrument that the companies taking advantage of their position, of the material assistance and the moral protection vouchsafed to them by Her Majesty's Government, would set about expropriating owners of land lines throughout Europe and Asia, absorbing competing companies, and generally employing all their position and influence thus given to them in order to strangle and thwart competition and to maintain exorbitantly high tariffs? I maintain that if those officials did foresee this eventuality and did not guard against it as these contingencies are guarded, against and provided for in almost every railway contract in this country, they were singularly neglectful of the public weal. If they did not foresee it, it only shows how necessary it is that in all transactions of that kind in future Parliament, and Parliament alone, should be the arbiter in the last resort. My hon. friends and myself have been subjected to a great deal of odium and obloquy in championing this cause. It has been freely stated that we are spoliators, that we desire to invade the sanctity of private right enjoyed under the aegis of the law. I repudiate with all the vehemence I can command that imputation. It is superfluous to suggest that we could not even if we would. Not even Parliament, with all its supreme power and influence, could so much as touch those rights unless the binding effect of the statute were abrogated, or the judges of the land suppressed. But the doctrine that where the conduct of a private enterprise subserving large public interests is concerned public considerations must prevail, and even vested interests, where their setting aside does not involve a breach of public faith,

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should give way to imperative considerations of public utility7 and Imperial concern. That doctrine has never been more strongly enunciated or more admirably illustrated than in the excellent despatch issued from the Colonial Office in July of last year, and by that doctrine we are perfectly prepared to abide. But it may not be irrelevant to inquire whether the public have no light or claim, whether they should have their heads (Liven through a noose with the rope in the hands of private companies for them to tighten or slacken at their own sweet will. I may be told that the obvious remedy for the inconvenience would be that of the State purchasing the cables. I should be perfectly prepared to argue for the advantages of that step when the time is ripe for it, but I do not think it is opportune now. In the meantime what is going to be done? These companies have by degrees impregnably entrenched themselves behind mountains of conventions and kopjes of joint-purse arrangements. As a shareholder and a business man I admire their astuteness, but as one of the telegraphic public, well, I reserve my opinion. At any rate, these barbed wire entanglements have to be severed in one way or another. Where are the Parliamentary nippers which will effect the purpose? That is just what this inquiry for which we earnestly plead will give the clue to. The situation to which all the great business communities of the country have been reduced is fast assuming the dimensions of an egregious scandal. It seems surprising that when Her Majesty's Government decided to break new ground and to enter into competition with private companies, as in the case of the Pacific cable, no new policy should have been formulated, that some kind of continuity of agreement might be maintained and preserved. But the most extraordinary part of the whole matter is that the greatest delinquent of all appears to be the Indian Government, because, while their own delegate at the Buda Pesth Conference in 189G made strenuous efforts to obtain a reduction of what was universally considered to be a prohibitory rate, and while those efforts were signally defeated by the Eastern Telegraph Company, by the admission of the Indian Government themselves, their own cable which runs from Kurachi to Bushire and Fao, and their land lines from Bushire
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to Teheran were themselves the stumbling block to this reduction of rates which their delegate recommended. So that in this year of grace we have this spectacle —and, to say the least of it, it is hardly respectable—of the Indian Government charging twelve times as much per word on their cable as is charged on identically the same length of cable between England and Gibraltar. How does the House think these important issues are decided at the conference? According to the cable mileage of each State represented? Not a bit of it. Each State that goes to the conference has equal voting power, with the result that we who possess seven-eighths of the cables of the world — 102,000 out of 136,000 miles of cable, and no less than 308,000 miles of land lines—have no greater authority in the conference than States of the calibre of Roumania, Venezuela, and Luxemburg, possessing no cables at all and an insignificant proportion of land lines. Not a very brilliant sort of arrangement where the predominant partner is ludicrously outvoted, and whose influence is not greater than that of the pettiest of States. I ask what kind of joint-purse arrangement it is that exists. To my uninitiated mind it seems about the most uncanny combination that ever germinated in the brain of man, because the effect of that joint purse arrangement is that it pours money into the coffers of the Russian Government through the Indo-European line (which is really pledged to Russia), while it helps to reduce Australian rates by helping the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company, while it brings grist to the mill of the associated companies, and while it makes pay over £12,000 or £13,000 a year to the joint purse, more than it takes out of it, the very people for the benefit of whom ostensibly this arrangement has been entered into—that is, the Indian people and the people having relations with India—are really left out in the cold. I have made several inquiries in connection with this privately, but I have no authority as showing why this is the case. I do not see the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India in his place, but no doubt the Secretary of the Treasury is fully armed and will be able to inform us when that arrangement is determinable. I do not in the least attribute any blame to the noble Lord; I

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think this arrangement, this damnosa hereditas, has been handed on to him by former moulders of Indian telegraphic policy. But what we require and have a right to know is whether it is going to be immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It is important to have an answer to that, so that the House may formulate a judgment upon this particular issue. I have alluded to the fact of the prosperous earnings of the Indian Telegraph Department, but despite that and the fact that the Viceroy immediately on his arrival made the question of a reduction of the telegraph rates one of the most conspicuous planks of his platform, and despite the further fact that the Eastern Telegraph Company had had proposals submitted to the Indian Council for not less than a whole year, yet there appears to be no balm in Gilead. I ask the House whether there is not something rotten in the State of Denmark. The proposals to reduce the Indian rates appear for some reason to be hanging fire. Why, I do not know; but what I do say is this—and I speak with the mandate of every Chamber of Commerce in this country—that no reduction would be at all satisfactory unless the rate was reduced to 1s. per word. I believe myself that the extension of business that that reduction would bring about would be so enormous, wide-spread and far-reaching, that it would recoup the company for any loss they might incur. I have always thought in a matter of this kind, where a man is hazarding an opinion which might be looked upon as somewhat visionary, one ought to have the courage of one's opinions. Therefore, in order that we may not abnormally disturb the earning power of the associated companies, I would strongly urge upon Her Majesty's Government that they should assume a guarantee of one-third of any loss that might accrue to the companies from their action in reducing the rate to 1s. Let the Indian and the Home Governments jointly assume that guarantee. Although this is a matter which principally concerns the Indian Government it does not exclusively concern them. Then again, the plethoric condition of the Indian revenue might certainly justify them in undertaking the more or less problematical risk. Assuming the worst should happen, assuming there was absolutely no expansion of business —a perfectly impossible assumption—the utmost the Treasury would be called
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upon to pay would be something like £44,000 for its half share, and curiously enough a windfall will come to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1905 in the shape of Red Sea annuities amounting to £28,000. I remember the other night the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton rather took exception to the fact that we treated the Post Office as much as an administrative department as a revenue-earning department. My right hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury asked him in what direction he wished the surplus profits of the Post Office to be applied. Well, I make this infinitesimal demand upon the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope that both he and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will for once disregard the very sound advice tendered by my hon. friend the Member for Exeter, and abate some of their "natural ferocity" in acceding to this request. I hope I shall not weary the House if I refer to the West African and the North African tariffs. They are really matters of the very greatest importance in connection with the prospective development of those territories. A message to Sierra Leone, to the Gold Coast, to Lagos, and other places in West Africa costs no less than seven shillings per word, whereas the charge to the Cape, much beyond that, is only four shillings. But the most striking feature of the whole thing is that a Frenchman can send a word to his West African possessions for one shilling and fivepence, or about one-fourth. I may be told that this remarkable disparity is attributable to the want of business to and from West Africa. But I have yet to learn that the volume of French business is so much greater than our own in that region as to account for the difference, or that a reduction of rate does not in its train bring its own increase of traffic. There are a whole host of conventions with Turkey, Persia, and Egypt —the position is simply honeycombed with them. I asked my right hon. friend the Under Secretary of State last year if he would make public those documents, but he refused to do so on the ground that he was not able to divulge them for diplomatic reasons. But I do not see that any harm could be done by divulging these documents. These invisible and intangible documents cannot be directed against foreign powers, and I will tell you why. Anyone who is ac-

977
quainted with the working and the conduct of Oriental bureaucracies is aware that every single Chancellory in Europe must have a copy of those documents. Therefore I ask, against whom is this secrecy directed? Who are the dupes and the victims? I know I should be trenching on somewhat delicate ground if I pursue this subject much further, but it is a matter to which I earnestly direct the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury, so that, in deciding whether any inquiry shall or shall not be granted, he may take this point into his careful consideration. With regard to Egypt I do not think there is much secrecy to be maintained there. I have been able to lift a corner of the veil as regards Egypt. I have here in my hand a copy of the Egyptian agreement. I beg the House to believe that I did not resort to the potent influence of baksheesh or to any surreptitious methods in obtaining it, but I got it in a very natural way. There is nothing very startling in this document. It simply enumerates the advantages which the Eastern Telegraph Company possess, and that on the payment by the Eastern Telegraph Company of something like £7,000 a year the Egyptian Government would respect their landing and shore rights there. So far so good. But on reading a little further on I light upon these somewhat ominous and oracular words, "Divers good considerations." I do not pretend to fathom the significance of those words. All I know is this, that whereas the French merchant can send a word to the further confines of Tunis and Algiers, across the Mediterranean, for one son, or a halfpenny a word, we have to pay for telegraphing to Egypt, only 200 miles further on, no less than 1s. 9d. per word, or forty times as much. Considering that the Government knew this determined agitation was going on in this country against excessive cable tariff's, holding Egypt in the hollow of their hands, having the whole of their departments manned by their own nominees, I say that Her Majesty's Government were bound to see that this convention, which did not expire this year or next year, but two years hence, was not renewed upon the old retrogressive lines last November. I should like to refer to a matter which I consider to be one of utmost importance. I have already alluded to the desirability of a system of all-British cables, and that
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brings me to the Pacific Cable scheme. That scheme I look upon as constituting the keystone of the position, lying as it does between Great Britain on the one hand and Australia and the Far East on the other. Though some of the signatories to that project appear to have been seduced from their allegience thereto, and to have somewhat cooled in the ardour of their affection for that scheme, I hope the Secretary to the Colonies will yet persevere with the matter and prevent it collapsing. The proposal has worked a truly chastening influence on the associated companies and has wrought a most miraculous metamorphosis in their attitude. While for the establishment of the Cape to Australia route they were asking for an annual subsidy of something like £75,000, on the birth of this scheme they altogether waived that subsidy, and accompanied that renunciation by a substantial reduction and a still more substantial prospective reduction of the tariff. I think the deadlock which exists could easily be bridged over by the establishment of some pooling-arrangement or some rational—not the Indian—joint-purse arrangement. Were that arrangement to take place, were the House to give recognition to. the ultimate acquisition by the State of that cable from the Cape to Australia, should the interests of the Empire require such a course to be taken, I have reason to know that Canada would altogether waive her objections with regard to those rights of the private company in Australia. I do not think Her Majesty's Government—I do not speak of the present Government particularly, but of successive Administrations—have had so much as an idea of a policy with regard to the cables; it has been a sort of hand to mouth proceeding—going in for competition against private companies one day and encouraging private enterprise against their own people another day. I earnestly plead for some State policy on comprehensive lines embracing the very wide interests of the constituent portions of our Empire. I would humbly suggest that that policy should, among other things, provide for the establishment of a scale of charges in all future agreements with private contractors, that scale to be based upon the average earnings, and worked on a sliding scale, and that no concessions, either material or geographical, should be granted to any system

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that diverged from or conflicted with the all-British route. It should also provide that there should be no absorption of any new line by the older companies, by which competition is strangled, without the express sanction and concurrence of the State; that where breakdowns occur from avoidable causes for more than three months the subsidy should be stopped; and, above all, the policy should provide a system by which the State could acquire the cables if it should think right so to do. There is only one other matter to which I wish to call the attention of the House before I sit down, and that is in connection with the terminal tax which is leviable by the British Government in accordance with the regulations of the International Telegraphic Convention. In answer to a question which I put to the Secretary of the Treasury a little while back I was informed that that rate of twenty centimes per word was not charged, and the reason given was that the special and exclusive privileges of the Postmaster General under Clause 5 of the Telegraphs Act of 1869 were specially excluded in regard to cables owned by the company concerned, and that therefore a sum of something like £90,000 a year was surrendered. But the convention of 1896 is twenty-seven years later than the Act upon which the Treasury relies, and at this conference at Buda Pesth our own delegates were present. I therefore desire to ask, if this ½d. a word was an empty right or a farce, why was it inserted? I do not rely merely upon the construction of the provision for believing this right was intended to be enforced, but upon the further fact that where the enjoyment of this right is debarred, the name of the State so treated was categorically mentioned. Egypt was thus categorically named, and with regard to messages to and from Tripoli, Turkey was precluded from enjoying this right. I feel sure that this haphazard system of doing business must offend the symmetrical notions of my right hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury, and I should like to ask him whether he has taken high legal advice as to the validity of the position occupied by the Treasury in connection with this matter. I have now placed before the House, I fear most inadequately, but I certainly hope in no captious spirit, the vices and the deficiencies of our system of cable telegraphs. We have had innumerable promises
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from the all - powerful cable companies, but they have all been kept to the ear and broken to the hope, until the public patience is perfectly exhausted. I venture to think that recently the companies have somewhat unwisely and tyrannously used the giant powers with which they have been entrusted. I do not forgot—I think nobody can forget—the very eminent services rendered in the early days of cable enterprise by the late Sir John Pender, and by his worthy successor, Lord Tweeddale; but we hold that those services of the parent company have been requited either in meal or in malt, and it is now time the public had their innings. I think it is only fair to say that the country appreciates the very graceful concession made by the Eastern and other companies during the war in reducing the rates for messages sent on behalf of our soldiers and sailors. I may say that if that large-hearted spirit had pervaded their policy in past years much of the edge would have been taken off our grievances. Last night the House passed at its Second Reading a measure which we all hope will bring more closely together the constituent parts of this Empire. May we not hope that as a result of this discussion some germs will be thrown out which may have the effect of bringing about in the fulness of time such a system of federated cables between all branches of this Empire as will make the pulse of every component part beat as the pulse of one man? Now that we have mobilised the forces of public opinion, now that public claims are marshalled in clear and unmistakable form, I venture to say a very serious and grave responsibility will rest upon Her Majesty's Government if they refuse to rise to the height of the situation and to give us this Select Committee of Inquiry, and this Empire, this association of 400,000,000 of people, will want to know the reason why. I beg to move the resolution standing in my name.
SIR CHARLES DILKE: The House is never so usefully engaged as when it is listening to a man who has made a subject his own, and the hon. Baronet opposite has for some years past worked on this question of telegraphic communication, especially across the seas, in different portions of the British Empire. He has mastered the subject; he has got the

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enthusiastic support of a very large number of Members of this House, and I speak from personal knowledge when I say that the Chambers of Commerce throughout the country and the commercial classes generally are very warmly interested in the subject. The hon. Baronet has done me the honour of asking me to second this motion, and I do so, but from a slightly different point of view than that which he himself has taken. I agree absolutely in the terms of the motion, and think it one the, House and the Government should accept, but I shall support it on slightly different grounds—although in no sense opposing his view—from those which my hon. friend has placed before the House. The hon. Baronet has absolutely mastered the commercial side of this question; the strategic side he has not dealt with except so far as to point out the haphazard nature of our present arrangements with regard to the making and laying of cables. We have notoriously in past years adopted in different cases very different policies, and we appear never thoroughly to have thought out the principles which ought to underlie the laying of a cable for the British Empire for use in time of war. Let me say I am not interested in any particular cable. My main object is to get the largest number possible laid in different parts of the world between different portions of the British Empire, because I am so firmly persuaded that our naval supremacy, our superiority at sea, will be the more powerful in time of war the greater number of cables we possess. Let me at once admit that considerable progress has been made. My hon. friend pointed out in the concluding part of his speech that the mere menace of the Pacific Cable has had great effect in other portions of the world. It has compelled rival companies and systems to offer terms, or to consent to terms which they would never have offered or consented to if it had not been for the probability of this route being established. My object is to get different and alternative routes for use in time of war. I firmly believe with the mover of the resolution that that important national object can be attained without heavy cost to the country, because it has been shown by the history of the past that by a very small capital expenditure on the part of the country—
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in some cases by no capital expenditure at all, but simply by wise provisions— fresh routes can be obtained, which would be of extreme value in time of war, and which nevertheless manage to pay their way in time of peace when once made. My hon. friend has spoken of the importance of all-British cables in the world. I suppose at this time of day there is hardly anyone who will deny the importance to us in time of war of an all-British route. It is quite true that cables will be very largely cut in time of war, but still the experience of war shows that while cables will be very largely cut there is a high probability that they will not be all cut, and if you have a considerable number of alternative routes you will have that enormous advantage which conies in time of war from having some cables still in working order for your use. We have received to-day the information that there has been a fresh laying of cable arranged by the Government within the last few weeks. We hear that the cable which already exists in short steps, from this country to Gibraltar, with a cable from this country to Lisbon, on to Gibraltar, thence to St. Vincent, which connects with the cable to Ascension, St. Helena, and the Cape, branches of which have recently been laid, is now to be strengthened by a direct line to St. Vincent. Avoiding Lisbon is undoubtedly an important point; it is a gain, because Lisbon is peculiarly open to foreign influences in time of war, even as compared with St. Vincent. But, still, it is not an all-British route. At St. Vincent Ave are still on Portuguese soil, although being on Portuguese soil only at that point gives us conditions which I admit are less unfavourable than those which exist at Lisbon, for reasons which I need not go into, but which can be guessed. The cable is still in foreign hands, because I understand that the Portuguese law forces us to have none but Portuguese employees on the central staff at St. Vincent, so that all the messages by that route pass through the hands of employees of a foreign State. We have also known within the last four or five days that we are to have an alternative route by the other coast. Members of the House who are interested in the question may know that a route was laid during the Zulu War; it was a strategic route, by Aden and Zanzibar to Durban. That is now to be supplemented by a

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cable from Durban to Mauritius, and landing rights have been granted for the cable to which allusion has been made. That, of course, will be a most valuable alternative route. At the same time it is not strategically an altogether satisfactory route. It passes through the Gibraltar Straits in a very strong running tide, from which it is taken out and laid in shallower water close by, and there is a danger in shallow water in time of war; it is a route through the Mediterranean; it is a very old line down the Red Sea, and it is from these points of view not an altogether satisfactory route. While I, for one, welcome the obtaining of these two routes, while they seem to me to constitute an improvement in the state of things which has hitherto existed, I personally should be very glad to see also another alternative route. To show how important it is to have a number of alternative routes may I put a very plain case to the House? It appears to me the Spanish-American War is an illustration. What happened during that war? What would occur in war is likely to be very much what occurs in a great snowstorm; your lines will be broken here and there; they are not likely to be all broken at the same time; and you will find yourselves forced to rely—and what an enormous advantage it is if you can rely—on what may appear at first sight to be most indirect routes. In the case of the great snowstorm this spring communication was carried on between London and Cornwall by way of Malta, and that is an example of what I mean when I say that the existence of three or four alternative routes to a spot such as Mauritius, for instance, and to other important strategic positions between India, Australia, and Africa, would be of overwhelming importance in time of war. Of course, we have had different morals drawn from what occurred with regard to the cables during the Cuban War. Some have drawn the moral that all cables would be cut; others have drawn the exactly opposite moral that no cables would be cut; but those of us who have carefully read the documents on the subject have come to the intermediate conclusion that, while cable cutting under certain circumstances is easy enough, under other circumstances it is very difficult indeed, and that if you have three or four alternative routes of cables to your most important strategic points the
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great probability is that with our command of the sea we should be able to maintain one or two of those lines in existence during the war and get the enormous-advantage over our opponent which that circumstance would give us in time of war. In the ease of the war between the United States and Spain—I put it very shortly and very plainly—I think it will be found that the United States, with their naval superiority were able to cut the cables that they wished to cut; they at all events cut some of the cables they wished to cut with great effect. I know there are some Members of this House who believe it is impossible from the point of view of international law to cut cables outside the three-mile limit on the high seas in time of war. All we can do in reply to that is to point to the fact that the Americans did it both outside and inside the three-mile limit. They paid compensation in the cases where they cut the cables outside the three-mile limit; they compensated the French for cutting the French cable in the West Indies, and in any other case where they cut the cable outside the three-mile limit. From the point of view of our success in war the question of compensation is a very small one. It might be life and death that might be at stake in cases of this kind, and the fact that cables will be cut is, T think, conclusively demonstrated by the Cuban War. I know letters have been written by Professor Holland and papers by the late Admiral Philip Colomb in which those gentlemen laid it down that no Power could cut cables on the high seas outside the three-mile limit. It is useless to go into this question of whether Powers can or cannot cut cables; we point to the fact that in the war to which I have referred the cables were actually cut by the Americans. We know that on board the warships of foreign countries charts are carried showing the landing, spots of the shore ends of all our cables. We know the instructions that are given to try and cut those cables in time of war. The cutting of these cables is, I think it will be admitted, a much more difficult matter in deep water in than shallow water. The shallow water ends constitute a formidable danger, and while you can most efficiently protect the shallow water ends when they do not run a great number of miles, it is very difficult at all times of day and night to protect them when they

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run in shallow water for a very large number of miles. The moral seems to mo to be that the Government ought to try to get all the cables which are likely to be of use in time of war —which is practically every cable; they ought to try to provide for the landing of those cables on shores where the water is deep near shore, where the shallow water end of the cable to be protected in time of war would be but a short piece. From that point of view, the Cornish coast, to which all the strategic cables are being brought, is not a satisfactory coast. I have gone carefully through the charts of all our principal cables and of the Cornish lauding place of all these new strategic cables and the cable to Gibraltar, which means the West Coast of Africa and the Australian cable—the all-British cable as it is called—with the new St. Vincent cable leading to Ascension, St. Helena, and the Cape, and I find that all these shore ends, coming in as they do to Cornwall, run through about 130 nautical miles in less than 100 fathoms of water. Compare that with the deep water you get off the coast of Ireland. The Atlantic chart will show you that off Dingle Bay and certain points in Ireland you have deep water very near the shore, and the shallow water end would be a very short end indeed. One of the most important points, I think, that the Government have to bear in mind in connection with the matter which is occupying their attention, and in which they have made considerable and rapid progress during the last two or three years, is this question of bringing in their shore ends from shallow water to deeper water. But the main ground upon which I support the motion of my hon. friend to-day is that we ought to consider, both commercially and strategically, what ought to be the plans which should preside over the laying of our new cables in the future. Personally I am one of those who are favourable to the purchase of the cables by the State. The whole question is whether you have to pay too dearly for them. As regards the principle, there can be no doubt. As my hon. friend has said, the Government are sometimes pursuing the plan of subsidies, and sometimes they are constructing competing cables; but there has been an absence of a general view on the subject as to whether it would be wisest to attempt to construct cables for themselves, whether it would be wisest to
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use the plan of subsidies, or whether it might not be wisest to consider some plan of general purchase of cables by the State. If I could see my way to obtaining the cables at anything like their real value, not paying too dearly for them, not being made to pay as though they were new cables for cables which were virtually worn out, I should unhesitatingly support State purchase. The difficulty of the question is the price. With regard to that, we should have a hard battle to fight, and I am not certain that we could fight it successfully. It, is, however, a matter worthy of inquiry, and it is on these grounds that I second the resolution of my hon. friend.
Motion made, and Question proposed "That it is desirable that inquiry should be held into the commercial and strategic defects of Imperial telegraphic communication."—(Sir Edward Sassoon.)
MR. VICAEY GIBBS: The hon. Baronet who moved this Resolution and the right hon. Baronet who seconded Waving received such enthusiastic support from the House, that it is somewhat difficult for me to advocate a view which differs from those which have been advanced; but I will venture to put before the House some reasons for thinking that the hon. Member who moved the Resolution has been led into some errors of fact in the course of his long and interesting speech, and I shall also endeavour to show that in some respects an inquiry would, perhaps, not be so desirable as seems to be thought. I do not think I shall be misrepresenting the hon. Baronet if I say that the charges he brought against the Associated Cable Companies with regard to their service— At this stage of his speech the hon. Member turned to some hon. Members behind him and said: I must request the hon. Member behind me not to make extremely offensive speeches in my hearing while I am addressing the House.] I was saying that, as far as I could follow the hon. Baronet's speech, he complained that the companies did their work badly, that they had been shown to be inefficient during time of war, that their charges were excessive in various particulars, and I believe he agreed also with the right hon. Baronet who seconded the resolution that it was desirable that the companies should be taken over by

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the State. I will turn first to the question whether their work has been done inefficiently during the last fourteen years. Where the companies formerly had only two cables running they have three now. Both cables were interrupted for only a very few hours during those fourteen years. As to the question of delay in messages during the war, I think the House will recognise at once that obviously the Government wore entitled to a preference over any other messages the companies had to send. The House will hear when the Member who is to speak for the Government addresses the House whether the Government have had any cause to complain of the way in which their work was done. I believe the right hon. Gentleman will have no such complaint to make. No doubt messages of the general public were delayed considerably and materially, but they were delayed in the interests of the Empire itself.
SIR EDWARD SASSOON: That is not wholly the case. The fault was that the cable was not duplicated.
MR. VICARY GIBBS: I do not know how a cable could be duplicated instantaneously. If we had more cables, and it paid to have more cables, no doubt there would be more efficient lines for telegraphic communication, but obviously unless they would pay no company could be expected to lay them. If it is necessary that there should be more cables they can be laid, but they must be laid on a basis upon which it will pay a company to do it. Now, as to the question of exorbitant tariffs. It is quite impossible, and the House must understand that it is quite impossible, that there can be any uniform mileage rates in a cable company. The rate must depend upon the amount of business done on a particular line. Therefore, to take such a case as the hon. Baronet gives of the 7s. a word to the West Coast of Africa, the answer is that the charge is so high because the amount of business done on that cable is so small. Another complaint the hon. Baronet made was with regard to the charge of 1s. 9d. to Alexandria. The company, I believe, would be prepared to reduce that rate, but the Egyptian Government itself will not
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agree. Another statement made was that the land rate across India ought to be reduced to a shilling. Well, as a matter of fact the Indian Government, in agreement with the companies, have reduced the land rate from four shillings to two shillings and sixpence, and that new rate will, it is believed, show a substantial loss. Of that loss the Indian Government are to bear one-third and the companies two-thirds. I do not think that it is reasonable to ask the Indian Government to reduce charges far below those which would provide a fair profit on capital expenditure. As to what these companies have done, let us see how far they have already met the demand which the right hon. Baronet make in the public interest for reductions in tariff. They have already made large reductions in the tariff both to South Africa and to Australia, and these are to be followed by further reductions. About twelve months ago the companies wrote a letter to the Post Office in which they offered to reduce their rates to Australia to half-a-crown, provided they could earn a certain minimum return on their undertaking. The expression used was that they were to come down to a standard basis as the traffic developed. Well, that proposal is being considered now by the Post Office, and it seems to me that it is a fair one; and the other negotiations are actually concluded for reducing the Indian rate from 4s. to 2s. 6d. [An HON. MEMBER: May I ask if there is a reduction to South Africa?] Yes; the exact reduction is from 4s. 9d. to 4s. to South Africa; and from 5s. to 4s. to Australia since September last. Besides reducing the tariff, these associated companies have arranged to provide alternative routes between Europe and Australia. by extending to Australia the recently laid cable from St. Helena to the Cape. They ask for no subsidies; and this is an important matter to the public. What they ask is that they should have a right of communicating direct with the public through that cable, and not through the medium of the Australian Governments. I should like to explain how important that is. At present, supposing a cablegram is sent to Sydney via Port Darwin, it goes by one of the Associated Companies' lines to India, then passes into the hands of the Indian Government, then into the hands of the Eastern Extension Company, then into the hands of the South Australian

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Government at Port Darwin, next into the hands of the Victorian Government, and finally into the hands of the New South Wales Government, from which it passes to the hands of the public in Sydney. Now, if this new line of route were completed the cablegram could be delivered straight to Adelaide. But if these Governments have their own Pacific cable, and if they still retain their control over the company's cablegrams, they would be in the position, obviously, to have the interests of their trade rivals in their own hands. They would have no inducement to lower the rates; they would have a monopoly; and clearly no one would send cable messages by the company's cable when they could send them by the Pacific route. Therefore it is most important, in the interest of the public, that the demand of the companies should be conceded— namely, the principle that the companies should have the delivery of their own cablegrams in their own hands. That demand has been conceded by the Governments of South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania, but not at present by the other Australian Governments. As to the strategic cables, I should like to point out that the companies have done a great deal for the Empire in that respect. A question was asked the other day as to whether the rates had been reduced by the companies to Sierra Leone, and as to the desire of the Government to have a cable laid from Ascension to Sierra Leone. Now, it seems that the cost of a cable from Ascension to Sierra Leone would be £150,000, and it was estimated that the return on such an outlay would be £11,000; that is, an amortisation would be required for thirty years, while the maintenance curing that time would be expensive for repairs, and the cost of clerks living in such a place as Sierra Leone, where they have to be changed frequently. It was considered by the companies, therefore, that £11,000 would be a fair return. After long negotiations they have agreed to lay that cable for a subsidy of £4,500 a year by the Government. That is less than half of the traffic, and the return on the use of the cable will be otherwise practically worthless. There are many other cases, as for instance at Port Hampton, in which the companies have rendered service to the Government of
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this country, and which constitute a fair claim for considerate treatment from the Government. As to the question as to whether it is desirable that the State should buy out the companies or not, it really comes to whether this is a matter for private enterprise or for the State. I do not wish to dogmatise on this question at all; but I have no reason to suppose that the companies would object to being bought out by the Government if they were paid what they considered to be a fair price. They would act as any sensible man in the House would act. It is not reasonable to suppose that they would act otherwise than as business men. I should like the House to consider whether it is desirable that an inquiry should be made into the relations of our Government with these cable companies, and whether it is not possible, if such an inquiry were embarked upon, that it would be really detrimental to the interests of this country in regard to foreign countries. I think there are many reasons why it would be very wise indeed to decline such an inquiry. I apologise to the House for taking up so much of its time, but the subject is a very difficult one, and I thought it was only reasonable that something should be said in behalf of the companies. I may say that the remark, of which I had so much reason to complain at the commencement of my speech, namely, that I had a brief for these companies, was altogether unwarranted. I have not one farthing interest in these companies, and no personal acquaintance with them in any way whatever. What I want is that the House should have an opportunity of considering both sides of the question, and I have no sort of interest except to see that justice is done on all hands.
MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I do not desire to detain the House for more than a short time. I want, however, to deal with one aspect of the question which has not been discussed by my hon. friend who moved this resolution, or my right hon. friend who seconded it. I think my hon. friend the Member for Hythe is to be congratulated on having had the opportunity of having this question discussed at a proper period of the session, and on the very temperate

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and able speech which he has made. He dealt so fully with the commercial aspect of the question, and the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean likewise dealt so fully with the strategic points, that it is unnecessary for me to detain the House in detail in connection with these matters. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken stated the case on behalf of the companies without any personal feeling or prejudice. We all agree and appreciate that the Eastern Telegraph Company and Subsidiary Companies have really done a great deal for submarine communication, and for practically placing the whole of the submarine companies in English, instead of in foreign hands. But it ought to be remembered that they have made a good thing out of it. They have conducted their business on business principles, like business men; and they have naturally endeavoured to buy out their rivals to obtain a monopoly, and, like a submarine octopus, to spread their tentacles all over the world. I am not blaming them for that; but we, as representing the public interest, have to consider whether the time has not come when something should be done to allow the public to benefit by those submarine cables. After all, we, the representatives of the taxpayers of this country and of the colonies, have paid very large subsidies to these companies. I am not complaining of the payment of these subsidies; but my hon. friend the Member for St. Albans did not seem to appreciate the point that we paid these subsidies on the understanding that the cables should be kept in proper repair, and ought to be duplicated and triplicated. But we find, in spite of the payment of these large sums, that these companies, in cases of difficulty or of war like the present, are not able to carry out to the full the obligations which they undertook in obtaining these subsidies. My hon. friend who moved this motion touched on the question of the agreement between the Russian Government and the Indo-European Company. I am bound to say that we do require some information in regard to this matter, and that is a very good argument in favour of the inquiry asked for by my hon. friend. He has omitted to mention one fact in regard to this cable which is very material. These companies have a joint-purse arrangement with the Indo-European Company, which has entered into an agreement with the
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Russian Government to give them under certain circumstances sole control of their lines; so that we have been practically subsidising a line which might be used by the Russian Government to our disadvantage. There is another conclusive argument in favour of the proposed inquiry— namely, that the Government of the day do not seem to have any fixed policy or settled principle in regard to this important question. I daresay it is very natural that they should not have some such policy without first having some inquiry by a Committee or Commission, which would lay down the principles on which such a policy should be based. I was much struck by the reply given by the right hon. Gentleman opposite to a question asked by my right hon. friend the Member for Forest of Dean in regard to submarine cables. He said that in regard to one part of the question he was able to give an answer; in regard to the second part, he was only able to give an answer after communication with the Colonial Office; and to the third part only after communication with some other Department of the Government. There are on that bench representatives of the Treasury, the Post Office, the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, and the India Office, and every one of them is interested in this question. Now, what we want to know is, if they have between themselves some settled policy in regard to this matter. Their interests in almost every case are quite antagonistic. If the matter is dealt with in one case by one Department, and in another case by another Department, we shall never arrive at some system or policy in connection with this question of submarine cables. We have not, so far as we know, an inter-Departmental Department of the Government which could decide on a settled policy as to whether we shall have State cables, or commercial cables, or whether the commercial cables should be bought up by the Government. Those are questions which ought to be decided once for all; but as far as we know they have not yet been considered by the Government. Then there is the most important principle on which the Government have not yet arrived at an agreement, as to whether new lines shall be all British lines, or with some land extensions on foreign shores. Apart from this question of principle and policy,

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there are many minor matters in dealing with submarine cable companies which ought to be considered; and the only way we can arrive at a policy in regard to these is by way of inquiry by a Royal Commission or Select Committee. There is, for instance, the question of the right of the Executive Government at a particular moment to acquire some particular cable. There is also the important question of rates. Surely that ought to be a matter on which there should be a developed policy on the part of those who represent the taxpayers, and on which some definite conclusion ought to be arrived at. The hon. Gentleman who spoke in behalf of the companies just now said that they have reduced their rates here and there; but it is significant that these reductions have only been made, or have mainly been made, when there was danger of competition. There was the instance when the cable was proposed from the Cape to Australia nearly two years ago. The companies then demanded a subsidy of £40,000 a year, and pretty high rates; but when the question of competition arose they offered to lay the cable for nothing, and to reduce the rates which they had hitherto charged. I am not saying whether that is a good or a bad thing, and I am not bringing it up either in favour or against the companies; but that is a matter which must be considered by some strong Committee or Commission. I am bound to say also that we ought to have some inquiry into the nature of the agreements and the amalgamations which have taken place between these different companies. I do not believe it was ever intended, when these companies wore subsidised and charters granted to them, that they should combine as monopolists against the public and the public interest. I trust that after one speech of my hon. friend, and that of the right hon. the Member for Forest of Dean, the Government will see their way to grant this proposed inquiry. We do not want an inter-Departmental Committee in regard to this matter—it would not give sufficient confidence to the public—but a strong Select Committee or Royal Commission, which would settle once for all the great lines of policy and principle which the Government ought to follow on his important question to the advantage of the country at large, and
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not to the advantage of these profit-earning companies.
MR. BOSCAWEN: I want to say a very few words in reference to the subject brought forward by the hon. Member for Hythe. I think we must thank him for having brought before the House this question, which is of very great interest. It affects us commercially, for there are many trades in different parts of the Empire in which the margin of profit is so very small that excessive cable rates make all the difference between profit and loss. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean has shown that this is a very important question strategically; but I would point out that it is also important socially. There are hundreds and thousands of Englishmen who, owing to their position, have to live out of England, and there are many colonists who have relations with the mother country and the other colonies, and it is most important that they should be able to communicate with their relations and friends at a, cheap rate. But what is the position at the present day? We find that, owing to the enterprise of certain great British companies, the world has been covered by a network of cables, and the various parts of the world have therefore been brought closely together. We must admit fully the great work which has been done by the enterprise, energy, and capital of these companies. But having said that, and having made up our minds to deal with these companies in a perfectly fair spirit, we say that they have grown strong and rich, and that they have entrenched themselves behind subsidies, and have stood in the way of the progress of cheap communication. We ought to try, therefore, whether we cannot induce them to modify their policy and substitute something else for it. We have been fighting a very small question, comparatively, in regard to the internal telephonic communication in this country. We have had to fight a great monopoly which had been allowed to grow up in regard to the telephones. The Telephone Company pretended that they had an absolute right to that monopoly, and that there should be no competition with them. In the result it was shown that they had no such right, and I am glad to say that their monopoly has been broken down. The cable companies did exactly the same,

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and laid down principles that could not stand criticism for a moment. They actually sot up the claim that the State had no right to interfere with their monopoly. Lord Tweeddale wrote to the Prime Minister as follows—
"I do not of course question the right of Her Majesty's Government to make any arrangements required in the interests of the Empire, whatever effect such arrangements may have upon private enterprise—always assuming that due compensation will he made for interference to private rights —but I venture to point out that the grounds upon which the proposals contained in the letter are based appear to be a departure from the principles hitherto acted upon by Her Majesty's Government, and that the reasons by which that departure has been sought to be justified are wholly inadequate "
I am glad to think that the Colonial Office refused absolutely to admit that claim. They laid down distinctly that we had a perfect right to compete with existing companies in the public interest, and Lord Selborne used these words—
"The Colonial Secretary cannot admit that there is any rule or formula of universal and permanent application such as you suppose limiting the functions of the State in regard to services of public utility."
I say again that we have to fight the same sort of battle against these cable companies that we had to fight against the telephone companies; but the difference is that the monoply of the telephones only affected inland communication, whereas this cable monoply affects our telegraphic communication with the whole world, and further affects the great strategic question as to whether the cables should be so laid as to be entirely in British territory. In defence of their monopoly these companies have offered most vigorous opposition to the scheme of a Pacific cable or all-British cable. The result is we are handicapped at the present moment by a system which is detrimental to the growth of the Empire. Let me give one or two examples. A French officer, quartered, we will say, in Tunis or Algiers, can communicate with his friends in Paris at the rate of a halfpenny per word. What does the British officer at, say, Malta pay? Sixpence; in other words, twelve times as much to communicate with England as the French officer pays to communicate with France. Another example is the Russian officer at Vladivostok, who can communicate with his friends in St.
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Petersburg for fourpence a word. An English officer quartered in India pays four shillings a word, again twelve times as much. Even though these foreign lines may be subsidised by their respective Governments, even though there may be a loss, I am perfectly certain that the rate to India is absolutely excessive, and it is detrimental not merely to our commercial interests and to our strategic interests, but it is detrimental to that growth of community of feeling between the various portions of the Empire, that these exorbitant rates should continue. When we see the growth of the Empire, when we see Australia federating and desiring to have a larger share in the interests of the Empire, do we not feel that Australia is very severely handicapped when we know that she has to pay 6s. 3d. per word to communicate with Canada; do we not think it is most desirable that a cheap and more direct system should be sot up than that which exists at present, when a Canadian, living we will say at Vancouver, has to communicate with an Australian living at Sydney by a ridiculously roundabout route via Jamaica, England, Lisbon, and various other stations? Should we not lay an all-British cable which would give a direct route at about one-third the cost, and be a strategic line capable of defence in time of war? I do not wish to weary the House on this question, but I do feel most strongly that the Government ought to make every possible effort to break down this monoply. I feel also that these; companies have been supported in the past very largely by a misunderstanding of what their position is. Their great services in covering the world with British cables has been misunderstood, and it has been supposed that those cables were all-British cables. As a matter of fact, those cables touch at Lisbon, at Madeira, at Java, and at a great variety of points which are absolutely vulnerable in time of war. It was stated years ago that the Russian Government have a complete plan for cutting our cables in time of war in the Far East, and no doubt that would be done, just as the Americans showed how easily it could be done in the American-Spanish war, wherever they could approach the landing place of a cable. What position are we in now? We find companies only. We find rates which, in my humble judgment, are far too dear. We find, for

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example, this 4s. rate to India, we find a rate of 4s. 9d. from Australia, and we find a rate of 6s. 3d. from Canada to Australia. Why are we to maintain these exhorbitant rates and at the same time not have cables which are essentially all-British? Why are we, who are supported by our own colonists, to refuse to go on with the Pacific cable scheme which would probably give a 2s. rate from Canada to Australia on a line which would not be cut in time of war, in order that we may benefit these companies and preserve the 6s. 9d. rate? I earnestly hope the Government will persist in this Pacific cable scheme which has the support not only of this country, but of Canada and all the greatest of the Australian colonies. I hope also that the question will not rest there, but that the full and fair inquiry into this great question which has been requested by my hon. friend will be agreed to by the Government, so that we may put our whole cable system on a sounder, more sensible, and more Imperial basis than it has been on in the past.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY, Preston): The hon. Member for Hythe, who moved this resolution in what all the House will agree was a very able speech, was chiefly interested in the subject of cheap telegraphs. The right hon. Gentleman opposite who seconded was, on the contrary, more interested in the question of the strategic cables. There is therefore prima, facie a little inconsistency between the mover and the seconder of the resolution, because while commercial cables, to which we must principally look for cheaper telegrams, depend upon tapping every available source of traffic, the chief strategic cables, of course, avoid to a very great extent all wholly foreign countries, which to an ordinary cable provide a very large source of traffic, and at the same time avoid all English stations which are not of considerable importance and which are not easy of defence. That being so, I think there is a little inconsistency in the resolution itself. As a matter of fact, this great system of submarine cables, like most other things worth anything in this country, has grown up quite haphazard, and the result is we have a system which is partly strategic and partly commercial, and some people
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say has therefore got the merits of neither. I hope I shall be able to show that only a very little is wanting to give us not only good strategic cables, but also cheap commercial cables. Still I admit that at the present time we have not got either completely. I think the hon. Member opposite did a good service in calling attention to the really great work which those companies have done, because, after all, here are great private companies which have built up a great system with which the system of no other country can for one moment compare. They have given us great links between ourselves and the colonies, between ourselves and our coaling stations they have put us into a position that we are able to get the first news from all over the world, and surely for a great nation like ourselves, in time of war and in time of peace, in diplomacy and in commerce alike, to get as we invariably do the first news is a matter of the very greatest importance possible. These companies have given us such an effective service all over the world that it is now exciting the jealousy of foreign nations, and complaints are now arising both in France and in Germany that so completely British is this system that we are excluding all foreign nations from participation in its benefits, and, of course, great complaints have been raised as to the way in which, in time of war at any rate, we are able to censor their telegrams. Take the case of France. These companies have put us practically in communication with every one of our colonies. But what is the position of the country which ranks second as far as colonial possessions are concerned? It is the fact that with the exception of her West Indian colonies and Tunis and Algeria France everywhere depends for communication with her own colonies upon British cables alone. I say that a company which will put this country in a position of that kind is a company to which the country is very much indebted. I will go further, and say that to a great extent these companies have given us advantages which we could not have possessed, oven if these cables had been in our own hands, because, owing to the fact that these are private companies, at nearly all their foreign stations at which their cables land they are allowed to have all their employees British subjects. Everybody can

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see what a great advantage that is to this country, but it is an advantage which certainly would not be allowed to us if those cables were owned by the Government or the State. The hon. Member opposite said a great deal about the taxpayer—that it was unfair that the taxpayer should not have some voice in settling the rates demanded by these companies. But, after all, the taxpayers have had very little whatever to do with building up the companies or with building up the system. No doubt we have to give subsidies for strategic cables, but beyond that we have done nothing at all. Take the great route to India. Did the taxpayer contribute a single farthing? Take the cable to China; he has not contributed to that. Take the route to Australia. The Australian colonies, no doubt, contributed something, but the Imperial taxpayer has not given one halfpenny. Therefore, after all, the connection between the taxpayer and the companies is not a very close one. Then there was the complaint raised as to these companies not duplicating their lines. That was raised by the hon. Member for Hythe. What is the position in regard to that? I think if the hon. Member will consult the War Office or the Admiralty he will find that they do not encourage the duplicating of cables, at any rate cables running side by side; in the first place, because it is much easier to destroy communication, and, in the second place, because it is much more advantageous to the War Office that the cables should run in different directions, connecting different places, rather than that the two should run side by side. My hon. friend complained of certain rates. I noticed that he made no general complaint as to rates, but he singled out particular portions of the cables. He omitted to mention what I think is an important fact, that everywhere—I believe without exception— wherever these cables run, the British Government not only has priority, but also send messages at half-rates. That, of course, is a considerable advantage. We talk of high rates, but, after all, high rates are a matter of comparison. If you compare them with land cables, it is very unfair to expect anything like the same rates. In the first place, a submarine cable, I have been told, costs between five and ten times as much per mile as a land cable. Not only does it cost a
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great deal more, but the number of words you can transmit per minute are very much fewer. I am told that you can transmit practically ten times as many words per minute on a land cable as on a submarine cable. That constitutes a very great advantage on the side of the land cable. It also has to be remembered that the submarine messages are nearly all long distance messages, and further, that you very often have great difficulty from the interruptions of the cables, as have happened on both the coasts of Africa. My hon. friend complained of the constant interruption of those two cables, and to a certain extent he was quite right. I believe, as a matter of fact, that on one side of Africa the cables are interrupted on an average for sixty days in the year, and on the other side for forty days. It is simply due to the very uneven formation of the bottom, and also to certain upheavals which are constantly taking place and injuring the cables. In regard to submarine cables themselves it is interesting to see what is the actual force of these rates when worked out to the number of miles a message can be sent for a penny. I have been supplied with the following information. Taking the Atlantic cables, where, of course, I admit there is a great deal more competition than exists in the case of the eastern cables and the Associated Companies, between London and New York you can send a message 268 miles for a penny at the current 4s. rate. You are able to send messages to Australia at exactly the same rate; that is to say, taking Sydney, you are able to send 259 miles for a penny at the rate of 4s. To Singapore at the present rate you can send 157 miles for a penny; Hong Kong, 150; the Cape, 140; and Bombay, 135; and it really points to the fact that the proper rate to India, judging by the rates of the Atlantic cables, is 2s. What are the remedies suggested by my hon. friend for what he calls the high rates? He complains in the first instance about a fact with regard to which I am just as much inclined to complain as he is, though i do not quite know how the difficulty is to be obviated; he complained that at the International Telegraph Conference small States with practically no cables at all have as much voice as our own country. That really is no doubt an anomaly; but the remedy, I think, is rather one for the Foreign Office than one which I can discuss at the present time.

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I was surprised to hear my hon. friend to-night ask the Imperial Government to subsidise or to guarantee the cables. I understood that the hon. Member had taken part in a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which repudiated any idea of the sort. What is the position? No doubt we have subsidised the Indian cables, but I utterly deny that it is our duty to provide low rates at the public cost for the companies to pay high dividends. That is certainly not our duty. I am told, "Oh! but you have I the analogy of the penny post." Well, you can get the telegraphs so cheap that they will be of use to every household, and be as popular and as low in price as the penny post, and when they apply not to particular portions of the Empire, but extend over the whole Empire, then the argument will be a very different one. But at present it would be perfectly and entirely wrong for the Imperial Government to supply public funds in order to benefit one particular class and one particular section of the community.
MR. IAN MALCOLM: What was the result of the sixpenny telegraphs?
MR. HANBURY: Then there is another suggestion of my hon. friend; he wanted us to reserve the right to buy up these companies. With regard to strategic cables, in certain instances we have reserved that right already. My hon. friend knows that in the case of the cable going to Singapore by Borneo to Hong Kong we have reserved that right, and I think we can buy it up at £300,000. There is a similar stipulation with regard to the cable running in Egypt between Suez and Suakin; that, I think, the Egyptian Government, with the consent of our own Government, can purchase at any time for £200,000. But what is the good of a right to buy purely commercial cables unless the Government is going to buy up cables generally and run those cables as a commercial system? That, at any rate, is a step the Government have not taken yet, and I sincerely hope it will be a long time before they think of doing so. But even if the Government were to do that, I hardly think it is a fair thing to do to the companies, because
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the companies lay these cables with the intention of making them commercial successes. Are we to say to these companies, "Oh, if the cables are a failure you can keep them on your hands, but if they are a success we have a right to purchase them "?
SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I suggested that some fair scale of charges be fixed, and the purchase price based upon that.
MR. HANBURY: That is a totally different suggestion from buying up the cables; that is a totally different system. That is a question of rates, not of purchase. As I have said, two things would infallibly happen if the Government did buy the cables. In the first place, we should lose the advantages on foreign territory which the private companies at present possess; and, when we hear of competition and so on—that competition should be encouraged, I can imagine nothing that would more stifle competition and prevent cables being spread all over the world than the fact of the Government buying up the existing commercial cables. As to the question of competition itself; competition, it seems to me, is the remedy for this evil as it is for many others. The hon. Member who was sitting behind me compared the existing cables with a company, with regard to which he and I have both had something to do, where a monopoly was claimed. But in this case there is no monopoly whatever claimed; the cable companies do not for a moment contend that the Government is under any obligation whatever with regard to them or has given them anything in the shape of a monopoly.
MR. BOSCAWEN: The company contend that the Government has no right to compete with them without paying compensation.
MR. HANBURY: Oh! the companies contend that; that is a very common thing indeed. My hon. friend went so far as to imply that there was some idea that their monopoly extended so far that it was hardly fair for us even to construct a cable between Canada and Australia. That idea is perfectly absurd. No

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monopoly of that kind, or anything approaching it, can be claimed by the companies. I was glad that my hon. friend opposite and one or two Members below the gangway did show the immensely good results which have followed the very friendly competition of the Pacific Cable scheme. That is really a very remarkable illustration. We are under great obligations to these companies, and if they treat us fairly we are bound to treat 'them fairly in return; and it is only when they try to create artificial monopolies or charge unduly high rates that we could at all fairly enter into competition with them. That was a remarkable illustration, no doubt, which followed the suggestion of the Pacific Cable, in the fact which has been more than once alluded to, that whereas in 1897 a company asked the Imperial Government to guarantee a subsidy of £25,000 a year for twenty years, and' the Colonial Governments to continue to pay £34,000 a year for ten or twenty years, and promised no reduced rates, and imposed some other stringent conditions, now we have practically the same cables to the Cape and to Australia with no conditions, no subsidy, and reduced rates. I want to deal perfectly frankly with these companies, and I am sure the House does too, and therefore I should like to say that, apart from competition of this kind, the companies have recently reduced their rates, and reduced them very considerably, within the last nine years. In 1891, the rate to Hong Kong and Shanghai was 7s.; in 1897 it was reduced to 5s. 6d.; in 1891, the rate to Penang was 5s., it is now reduced to 4s. 6d.; the rate to Singapore has been reduced from 5s. 9d. to 4s. 6d.; to Japan, from 10s. 8d. to 7s. 9d.; to the Cape from 8s. 9d. in 1890 to 4s. at present. These are substantial reductions. It is quite possible to say they might be still further reduced, but at any rate it is fair to remember that during the last nine years the companies have made these very large reductions. My hon. friend complained of particular rates; he complained especially of the rate to Egypt, the rate to West Africa, and the rate to India, and it is with those three rates I propose to deal. We have had some curious illustrations afforded—some by the hon. Baronet and some by other Members of the House—of the kind of rates which they expect these companies should agree
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to. I think my hon. friend mentioned the-case of a halfpenny rate between France and Tunis and Algeria. I do not suppose that he himself expects that the companies are going to give us a halfpenny rate for distances of that sort. What is the fact? France deliberately treats Tunis and Algeria as being a part of France itself, and all these rates are treated as interior rates. Moreover, these are Government cables, and the whole traffic between France and Tunis and Algeria is carried on at an enormous loss to the French Government. My hon. friend does not expect either the British Government or these commercial companies to do their business at a loss like that, I am sure. Then we have the case quoted by my hon. friend behind me of the line to St. Petersburg from Vladivostok, with a fourpenny rate. That again is an interior rate, and to a great extent is a Government line. It is also the fact that all messages over that line have to be sent in open language, and that no code messages are allowed [An HON. MEMBER: And it is a land telegraph.] Then there is the case my hon. friend has laid most stress upon, the Is. 5d. rate to St. Louis. He said, "It is. perfectly monstrous that these cable companies should charge 6s. or 7s. to British colonies in West Africa when it is possible for a Frenchman to send to his colonies at a cost of Is. 5d. per word." I think it is only fair that we should recollect that, in the first place and especially, the continuation of the line to St. Louis is a very different line for the cables. That for our colonial service along the West African coast has a great number of stations, and at those stations it is very expensive to get European workmen; whereas there is only one set of European workmen at St. Louis. But what are the facts connected with the cable running between France and St. Louis? The French rate is a very low one, and when you get below a certain place, two-thirds of the line belongs to the French Government and one-third to the French National Company, which, I believe, is really an English company. It is admitted that the service from. Cadiz is carried on at a loss to the Government concerned, and it is further a fact that it is carried on at a great loss to the company which owns a third interest in the cable. It is a fact that in 1898 that company lost no less than £6,000.

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Now I come to the case of India. There is first the case of Egypt, and I am not going For one moment to defend the monopoly these companies tried to acquire there. I do not know whether it was justifiable or not, but I do know it is quite possible for the British and Egyptian Governments to put an end to that. It is not a monopoly; it is a privilege; that is to say, when a concession is asked for for a now line the company has the right to say to the Egyptian Government, " Give us the first chance of making it." That privilege would entirely disappear if at any moment the line between Suez and Suakin was bought up by either Government at a cost of £200,000. Although he has not mentioned it to-night, my hon. friend is under some idea that the high rates to Egypt are maintained by the fact that in some way or other this company exercises control over the cable running between Constantinople and Tripoli. That is not the case. The company assure me that they have absolutely no control whatever over the line; they have never desired to buy it; they have never desired to lease it; and at the present moment they have no more influence over that line than has my hon. friend himself. Now I come to the case of India, and I admit at once that the Indian case is a wholly exceptional one. I do think that there the company have tried to create an artificial monopoly which was not in the public interest. That I frankly admit. I think the way in which they, in the first place, gained practical possession in 1877 of the Indo-European line, and then by a manœuvre, which was certainly ingenious, forced the Indian Government to come into the pool with them—I say, it was very ingenious and crafty, but at any rate it does not put that company, so far as the rate to India is concerned, in a position to claim any very great consideration from the Government. What is the case with regard to India? I am quite clear in my own mind that India has a strong case. In the first place, there has been no reduction in the Indian rate for the last fourteen years. It was fixed at 4s. in 1886, and at 4s. it has remained ever since. Meanwhile all the trans-Indian rates have been very largely reduced, and the result has been no doubt to block the cables on this side of India. Therefore the question arises, even if the rates were reduced to India, would the carrying capacity of the existing cables be
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such as would be able to meet the increased traffic which would presumably follow? I believe that at the present moment the position is this: that the Indo-European line could carry a great deal more, and I think it is very doubtful, at any rate, until we get the two-new routes—the line from Durban to Australia and the line from the Cape— whether the Eastern line itself would be able to carry very much more Indian traffic. It will be able to carry a great deal more when it has to carry less African and Australian traffic, owing to the fact of the two new lines being constructed. One hon. Member said that if the companies could afford to charge cheap-rates for a section of the line, you have only to add the rates together and you would get a fair rate for the whole distance. But you cannot arrive at what is-a fair through rate by merely adding interior rates together. The interior rates of a country are based on a system both of short and long distances; that is to say, a claim is made that we can afford to send a message for a halfpenny a word in England because a large number of those messages are short messages, but we could not undertake to send messages on a line from the south of England to the north of Scotland for the same price, because our calculations are not made on that basis. Exactly the some argument applies to the line to India. It is not fair to add the interior rates together and say that they would amount to a fair through rate. However, the result of the negotiations which have taken place with the Indian Government—which I think has made a very good fight with the Cable Company—has been already given by my hon. friend who spoke, I will not say on behalf of the company, but who, at any rate, put a more favourable view of them forward than some Members have taken. I cannot, say anything definitely or finally, because the agreement has not yet been signed, but, so far as I understand, it is practically arranged that there should be at. once a reduction to 2s. 6d., and if the 2s. fid. rate brings in a certain number of messages, the rate will shortly be reduced to 2s. That is a considerable reduction, and it will go a long way to test the validity of the argument of those who say that just as the reduction of the rates, has enormously increased the traffic between Australia and this country, so a

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reduction of rates will also largely increase the traffic between India and this country. Just one other word, if I have not already detained the House too long, with regard to the question of strategical cables. There again I think we owe a great debt to these companies. No doubt all-British cables are to a great extent a new and recent idea, but very much has already been done by the companies to meet the demands for strategic cables. It is interesting to note that nearly all their existing cables run along the main routes of trade, and therefore are more easily defended by our fleet. Of course we have got a British staff in nearly every foreign station, and even where those lines do touch at foreign stations in time of war they could be easily cut, and give us a complete all-British cable, even in those cases where cables are not at present all-British. "What has been done recently, and within the last few year's? We have got a new line complete from the Cape to St. Helena and Ascension, all-British; we have had a new line from Porthcurno to Gibraltar, instead of touching at Lisbon; we have got a new line to Singapore and Hong Kong; we have got a new line from Bermuda to Jamaica; and we have in fact got all-British lines to Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, Aden, India, Ceylon, the Straits, Hong Kong, Zanzibar, British South Africa, Canada, Bermuda, and Jamaica. We have not got them at the present moment to the Cape; but we shall get them by this new line passing from Durban to Mauritius, and so up to the north. We have not got them to West Africa at present, but we shall get them when that line is completed; we have not got them to Australia at the present moment, but we shall get them when the new line is completed. And though, undoubtedly, we have not got them to the West Indies, with the exception of Jamaica, there is only one important point there, St. Lucia, which is not in connection with England by an all-British cable, and that is being considered by the Government. Not only is it the case that we should get these all-British communications, but instead of depending upon single cables— certainly if we get this Pacific cable and this line from Durban to Australia—we should not only get these all-British cables duplicated, but probably triplicated and quadrupled. That is a very im-
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portant consideration indeed. I hen of course the last step which has been taken is the line running to St. Vincent and on to Ascension, St. Helena, and the Cape. I know the light hon. Baronet raised some difficulties, and said it was not are all-British cable, because of course it touches at St. Vincent—
SIR CHARLKS DILKE: I admitted it was an improvement.
MR. HANBURY: Oh, certainly; but I rather think the right hon. Baronet was wrong in saying that the Portuguese do not allow us to have our own British subjects operating there. I think these considerations show that generally, both from the commercial and from the strategic point of view, we really have not very much to complain of in the existing state of these cables. Rates have been reduced in a great many instances, and steps are being taken to give us strategical cables practically all over the world. Under these circumstances my hon. friend has a motion asking for an inquiry. That motion is framed in very general terms, and I hope the inquiry by the Government will continue to satisfy the hon. Member. I can assure him that the Government is making, and has been making for some time, inquiries and going into the subject of cable communication very thoroughly indeed. The hon. Member opposite is entirely mistaken in thinking that all the Departments are not working heartily together in this matter. There have been constant Departmental Committees, and all the Departments of the Government are working in entire harmony with regard to the matter. I would ask my hon. friend not to press for a public inquiry for several reasons. In the first place, these cables are largely strategic. Is it wise that a Committee should go publicly into all these questions of strategic cables? There is also another consideration. I have stated the enormous advantages which this country possesses over other nations in the extent of our- cables, and shown the great degree to which foreign nations depend upon British communications. Is it wise to parade this position before foreign nations? Is it not better, if we can, to continue to enjoy the opportunities which we still have, and not by parading our present advantages induce

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other nations to greater jealousy? I can assure the hon. Member that if he leaves this matter in the hands of the Government he leaves it in the hands of men who take the greatest interest in the subject, and who are determined to meet not only his views in the direction of cheap telegrams, but also the views of the right hon. Baronet with regard to strategic cables. These lines of communication are of the greatest possible importance to us they are necessary for our trade; they are necessary for our arms; and in my opinion they are of more importance than even that, because, after all, these sub- marine lines are the true nerves of the Empire; they are the nerves by which all these colonies are brought into simultaneous action with ourselves; they transmit to them almost in a moment of time those innumerable and unnumbered sympathies, those common joys and common sorrows which are shared between the mother country, the mother land, and her many and distant daughters.
MR. COGHILL: We have listened to a very long apology from the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not think his statement has been altogether satisfactory. The hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe has shown conclusively that in a great many respects the cable communications of this country are in a very unsatisfactory condition, both for time of war and for time of peace. We are all accustomed to the complaints that are constantly made by the chambers of commerce with regard to the high rates. The hon. Member has made a most reasonable request that this matter should be inquired into by a Select Committee. The Government have been willing to appoint Commissions on almost everything, and it is only reasonable when such a just case is brought forward as has been done to-night the Government should accede to the request. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman's explanation has been satisfactory, and I hope the hon. baronet will show he is in earnest by pressing his motion to a division.
SIR EDWARD SASSOON: With the indulgence of the House I should like to say that the House ought to be congratulated upon the fact that this is the first time in its history since the invention of
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telegraphy that any full discussion has taken place on the subject. I should also like to compliment my right hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury on the ease and rapidity with which he has mastered the complicated issues connected with this subject, and the versatility with which he has presented the difficult matters connected with it. But I think he made rather too much of the apparent inconsistencies which he seemed to think existed between my arguments and those of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean in support of the resolution. The right hon. Gentleman said that I vent in for cheap tariffs and those cables which presented commercial advantages, while the right hon. Baronet went in for strategic cables. I think the right hon. Gentleman will find it difficult to discover any strategic lines, the advantages of which do not equally apply to commercial cables. My right hon. friend intimated that we should have an inquiry by the Government. I think he was rather oblivious of the fact that the conduct of the inquiry into the Indian tariff by the Government concerned has not been at all encouraging, and if we are to consider that an inquiry into this all-important matter is to be conducted on the same lines, and to report with the same leisurely dignity, I do not think we shall be very much in favour of it. On the other hand, at this juncture, and considering the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer shows a very considerable appreciation of contingencies before they occur in dealing with the associated companies, I am very loth to place any strain on the allegiance of the supporters of the Government—["Oh! oh!]—more especially in view of the fact that a Committee appointed at this stage of the session would not have the advantage of going very fully into the question. Therefore I must relu3tantly accept the proposal of my right hon. friend. Did I understand him to offer a Select Committee?
MR. HANBURY: Oh, no. I said the resolution asked for an inquiry, that we were perfectly willing to make that inquiry, that that inquiry could not be by a Committee of the House, but by the Government in the different Departments.
SIR EDWARD SASSOON: Under those conditions no Member of this House would have a right to ask for Papers or information, or to go into any matters connected with the inquiry. That would be highly unsatisfactory, and therefore I think I must go to a division.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): My hon. friend who has just sat down appeared to be dissatisfied with the suggestion of the Secretary to the Treasury that the inquiry should be by Departmental Committee, or some other machinery than that provided by the ordinary Parliamentary Committee. He says that an inquiry from which Members of this House are excluded would be highly unsatisfactory. But my hon. friend must recollect that we have not merely to consider commercial interests in this matter, but also strategic interests. I cannot imagine anying which would be loss expedient from a public point; of view than an inquiry by a Committee of this House into strategic considerations. All the evidence would have to be taken, all the witnesses would have to be called, all the publicity which inevitably and most properly attends Parliamentary Committees would have to be gone through. Under these circumstances I hope my hon. friend will not think we are running counter to his wishes unnecessarily if we adhere to our view that the inquiry must be of a kind which would not give publicity to matters on which publicity is most inexpedient. Everything which he asks for in his resolution we are prepared to grant, but we cannot agree to a public inquiry, nor is that contained in the terms of his resolution.
SIR EDWARD SASSOON: On patriotic grounds, relying on the assurance of my right hon. friend, I beg leave to withdraw the resolution.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HOSPITALS (EXEMPTION FROM RATES).
Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the operation of the Law by which hospitals and other institu-
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tions for the care and treatment of the sick, or of those afflicted in mind or body, are liable to local rates, and to report whether under any and what conditions it is for the public interest that such hospitals and institutions, or any of them, should be exempted wholly or in part from such liability in future.
Ordered, That five be the quorum.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
The Committee was accordingly nominated of:—Mr. Bonsor, Dr. Farquharson Mr. Hayes Fisher, Sir Cameron Gull, Sir John Maclure, Mr. M'Crae, Mr. Pickers-gill, Mr. Round, Mr. T. W. Russell, Mr. Tomlinson, Mr. Lawson Walton, Mr. Warr, and Sir James Woodhouse.—(Sir WilliamWalrond.)

REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL.
The Select Committee on Registration of Firms Bill was nominated of:—Mr Michael Austin, Mr. Emmott, Sir Robert Finlay, Mr. Vicary Gibbs, Mr. H. D. Greene, Mr. Hazell, Mr. Holland, Sir Seymour King, Mr. Monk, Mr. Palmer, Sir James Rankin, Sir Albert Rollit, and Sir John Stirling-Maxwell.
Ordered, That five be the quorum.— (Sir William Walrond.)

ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACT (1882) AMENDMENT BILL.
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
Bill withdrawn.

BEER RETAILERS' AND SPIRIT GROCERS' LICENCES (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL.
Considered in Committee, and reported; as amended, to be considered upon Thursday.

COLONIAL SOLICITORS BILL.
As amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.
Adjourned at five minutes after Twelve of the clock.