§ 1. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,221,713, be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of 1554 payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Inland Revenue Department."
§ 2. "That a sum, not exceeding £5,528,810, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the salaries and Expenses of the Post Office Services, the Expenses of Post Office Savings Banks, and Government Annuities and Insurances, and the Collection of the Post Office Revenue."
§ 3. "That a sum, not exceeding £571,085, be granted to His Majesty, to 1555 complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the Expenses of the Post Office Packet Service."
§ Resolutions read a second time.
§ First resolution:—
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said resolution."
§ MR. O'MARA (Kilkenny, S.)said it was frequently urged that the expenditure of money in Ireland compensated that country for the large revenue derived from her, but on looking through the Estimates that appeared not to be the case. The amount collected for Excise was about the same in Ireland as in Scotland, but the expenses of collection were about twice as much in Scotland as in Ireland. The salaries of assistant supervisors and first-class officers amounted to £105,000 in Scotland, but to only £46,000 in Ireland. The total cost of collecting the Excise in Scotland was £184,812, as against £93,868 in Ireland, while the numbers of officials employed in the two countries were 882 and 433 respectively. Moreover, in Scotland, the average amount of the salaries paid was much higher than in Ireland. If the officials in the latter country were as efficient as those in Scotland, why was not their pay the same? Another point to which he desired to direct attention was the amount of the rewards paid to the Royal Irish Constabulary for detecting persons engaged in illicit distillation in Ireland. While 1,800 illicit stills were discovered in Ireland, only two were discovered in Scotland. When on a previous occasion the hon. Member for East Mayo asked the amount of these rewards he was told that it was only a few pounds, but the sum taken in the Estimates was £3,000. That was a very great encouragement for the discovery of illicit stills, and he suggested that a large proportion of the discoveries in Ireland were manufactured for the sake of the reward.
§ MR. DILLONI think the figures quoted by the hon. Member for South Kilkenny require some explanation. On 1556 Friday night last I pointed out that in Scotland there were 129 distilleries at work as compared with 30 or 35 in Ireland, and yet in the course of last year only five illicit stills were discovered in Scotland as against 1,865 in Ireland. These figures are very difficult to understand. Living in Ireland as I do, and knowing that seizures for illicit distilling are very rare, I was astounded at these figures, and asked the Financial Secretary the amount of the rewards paid to the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary for effecting these seizures. He told me that it was something very trifling, and that the sums ranged from 5s. to £1 or £2, while for very large seizures the amount was higher.
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,) Worcestershire, E.May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman in order to correct a misapprehension? In the amount that I gave I spoke not of the whole sum, but of the rewards given in individual cases. I spoke of them as ranging from 5s. to some pounds in important cases. Since then I have made inquiries, and I find that the normal reward in Ireland is £2 in each case.
§ MR. DILLONI suppose that is the minimum. The amount in the Estimates is £3,000 for this year, which is an increase of £500 over last year. I do submit that some explanation and inquiry is called for in regard to the number of seizures for illicit distillation in Ireland. It is ludicrous to tell this House that there are only five cases of illicit distillation in Scotland as against 800 cases in Ireland. There must be some reason to account for this extraordinary condition of things. It is absurd to tell us at the opening of the twentieth century that the seizures for illicit distillation in Ireland are increasing, when we have in that country the most idle and the most unoccupied police in the world. The police of Ireland are kicking their heels all day with nothing to do, except when they are summoning people for illicit distillation. It is positively ludicrous to state that in Ireland, where the police are three or four times more numerous than in Scotland, you are unable to put an end to this illicit distillation, which is said to be growing to an alarming 1557 extent. I believe that the figure given is a bogus one in regard to seizures for illicit distillation.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe question raised by the hon. Member for East Mayo, which was also raised the other night, is one which requires serious consideration. Having had my attention drawn to the matter I at once communicated with the Board of Inland Revenue on the subject, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman who spoke last that the present condition of affairs is serious, and that the explanation I have to offer is not a sufficient one. I propose to go into the matter with the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and to consider in greater detail what the nature of the seizures has been, and whether the system of rewards which has been in force without change for several years is a good one—and I am inclined to think that it is not. At any rate, before the Estimates for next year are presented I will do my best, in conjunction with the Board of Inland Revenue, to inquire fully into this matter, and I hope that I shall be able to make a satisfactory statement. As I only had my attention drawn to this matter on Friday last, I am not prepared to make a full statement at the present moment, but I admit that the facts require further explanation. I hope the House will be satisfied with this statement, and allow me the necessary time to make inquiries. With regard to the other questions raised, they refer to the cost of the staff in Ireland and Scotland respectively, and I am afraid that it is not possible for me to enter into a detailed explanation of the duties of every officer mentioned, or the reason why more are employed in one place than the other. The staff is selected with a view to the duties that have to be performed, and we take care that we do not have more staff than there is work for, and the extra staff employed in Scotland is due to extra work.
§ MR. CREAN (Cork, S. E.)protested against the system established in Ireland of creating crime where no crime exists. He knew that this was the case, because he had conversed with some of the constables at the places where bogus seizures 1558 had been made. Those who were making these bogus seizures were not only swindling the Treasury but they were blackening the character of the country, where they were supposed to carry out the law impartially. The truth was that they were not honest and proper seizures at all, for those who concealed things could easily find them. He thought it would be well if the Secretary to the Treasury extended his inquiry so as to find out whether the rewards were genuine or not. He felt sure that many of the rewards were bogus ones, and he did not think they would be justified in voting this sum that night, because it was practically a premium on dishonesty. He thought the Secretary to the Treasury had made his promised inquiry in order to get the Vote through. This money was squandered in order to create crime where crime did not exist before.
§ Second resolution:—
§ MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)I again desire to enter my protest against the absence of the Postmaster General in this House, and against the absence of any direct representative of the Post Office in the House of Commons. No doubt my hon. friend who represents the Post Office in this House has shown great intelligence and courtesy, but we are face to face with this fact, that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had never been in the Post Office in his life before he took up his present position. Therefore he knows nothing about the Post Office, and upon three occasions last week he had to ask for notice of questions which a direct representative of the Department would have been able to answer at once. The great importance of the Post Office is shown by the fact that the Department employs 175,000 persons, and its revenue exceeds £17,000,000. There are hundreds of cases of complaints which it is necessary to bring before the attention of the Postmaster General, but under the present system it is impossible to reach him except by means of a long correspondence. As I have told the Committee before, during the past five years 1559 only three questions have been addressed to the Postmaster General in the House of Lords, while some thousands of questions affecting that Department have been asked in the House of Commons. I wonder what would be the position of affairs if we had no representative of the War Office or the Admiralty in this House, and I maintain that it is of equal importance that some direct representative of the Post Office should represent that great Department in this House. There is no Member of the House of Commons who does not realise the importance of having a representative in the House of Commons directly connected with the Post Office. It is perfectly well known that if this question is allowed to be considered entirely apart from party politics a resolution for the direct representation of the Post Office in this House would be carried unanimously. This is the state of affairs which exists under the present system. My hon. friend who at present represents the Treasury possesses undoubted ability, but he is quite unable to answer any ordinary point without referring to the Post Office, and that is a state of things which we ought not to tolerate in this House, considering the enormous importance of the Post Office. I wish to move that the salary of the Postmaster General or the Vote be reduced by a sum of £100 in order to test this question.
I shall now proceed to point out two or three grievances in regard to the Post Office which will, I think, illustrate the utter inability of the Postmaster General to make reforms even of the smallest description, and I will endeavour to show how necessary it is that the House of Commons should assert its authority in matters of this kind. I have so often brought these questions before the House that I am almost ashamed to repeat them. For every one of the receipts given for a 6d. telegram, which does not cost a farthing, the Post Office charge 2d. It is almost incredible that any Government department would dare to make a charge of this kind. No successful merchant or business man would do so. The late Postmaster General made an appeal to the Treasury to abolish this charge, but that appeal was made in 1560 vain. I think that an annoying and irritating charge of this character should be abolished at once, for it would only cost the Treasury about £120 a year. My next point is in regard to the question of postal orders. It is not generally known that the profit on lost postal orders amounts to considerably over £10,000 a year—I think it amounts to £15,000, but they credit the Post Office with £10,000 a year.
§ MR. HENNIKER HEATONThat being the case, you would imagine that a great Department like the Post Office would deal liberally with the public in regard to postal orders. This, however, is not the case, and there is a rule to the effect that any postal order not presented within three months is subject to fines. The result is that in a very short time the fines amount to so much that the postal orders are not worth presenting. A gentleman from a bank in Ireland sent me a postal order for 1s. which had been mislaid since the year 1890. He had presented it in Dublin, but the Post Office officials told him that if they cashed it he would have to pay them 1s. 4d. in fines. In regard to having a greater variety of amounts in the value of postal orders, I know it is a rather complicated subject, but I do complain of the inability of the Postmaster General to issue a sufficient number of varieties of amounts, because this causes great annoyance to the public. The public often pay more for postal orders for 19s. 6d. than for postal orders for £1. I particularly regret the inability of the Postmaster General to issue a postal order for a guinea. With regard to the extension of postal orders, it is remarkable that, although you can get them at Gibraltar and Hong Kong, the Post Office will not extend postal orders to Australia and other colonies, notwithstanding the fact that frequent petitions have been presented to the Postmaster General upon this subject. My chief complaint is that the charges are considerably in excess of the charges in any other country in the world. If I send 5s. to France I have to pay 6d. for the money order, but a Frenchman can send 5s. to London for 1d. In each 1561 case we send the money orders through the respective post offices of France and England. This ought not to be tolerated. Frequent complaints have been made, and the Postmaster General has announced his inability to deal with the matter. There are scores of cases which show that the British Post Office is absolutely incapable of dealing with these matters, and the annoyance to the people is very great indeed.
There is another important matter in this connection which will appeal to hon. Members of this House. It is a fact that you cannot send a few pence to this country from any country in the world to purchase a periodical or a newspaper without the recipient being subject to a fine. A man wrote to me from Africa the other day stating that he would like to have sent 6d. as a contribution to some charitable object, and he complained that to send that 6d. from his colony to this country would cost him 9d. for the order. There are hundreds of cases daily arising where people want to send to this country for books or catalogues, and it is impossible to send a few pence for this purpose. The remedy for this is a very simple one. There should be one room at the Post Office, and at the principal post offices in this country, where stamps of the Empire and of foreign countries could be exchanged for a small commission. An arrangement of this kind would be a very great convenience to the people. I do not wish to detain the House upon this question, and it would take me till to-morrow morning to describe the whole of the details. I wish, however, to point out that in regard to the great city of London the time has arrived for an alteration of the whole office in various directions. I think the time has arrived when we should have three classes of postmen—the first-class, the second-class, and the third-class. The first-class postmen should be sent out on the first delivery with letters, the second-class postmen with newspapers, and the third-class postmen with parcels. The effect of this arrangement would be that every house within an area of seven miles would have the letters delivered earlier every morning, as they were at present in all the great cities of the kingdom. What do we see now 1562 early in the morning? About half-past eight we often see the postman heavily weighted with a huge bag of newspapers and letters and parcels all mixed up together. The whole thing is absurd. If you have first-class postmen to go out first with the letters, quickly followed by the second-class postmen with the newspapers, and the third-class with the parcels, then you would have an earlier and a more intelligent delivery by the first-class postmen, and I think a reform of this kind would work very well indeed.
I shall not to-night describe in detail the present condition of affairs and the waste of expenditure which goes on in this great Government department. I think it is, however, a great disgrace to this country that we have not at the present time in connection with the Post Office a printing department. In most countries the Government office print all their own stamps and postcards and other things, and I have been informed on good authority that a saving of from £25,000 to £30,000 a year could be effected if the Government had a printing office of their own. The arrangements in regard to the delivery of postcards and parcels require looking into, and one of the ablest men in the Post Office has told me that a saving of £280,000 a year could be effected by a rearrangement of the Post Office administration in London alone. I will not go further into details upon this occasion, and I will content myself by merely entering a protest, because it would be absurd to expect any changes or improvement while the present administration is continued. In order to test the question of the desirability of having a direct representative of the Post Office in this House, I beg to move this reduction. If the Government will not make this a party question I feel sure that the result will be that it will be found that the whole House of Commons is in favour of a change of this kind.
§
Amendment proposed—
To leave out '£5,528,810,' in order to insert '£5,528,710' instead thereof."—(Mr. Henniker Heaton)
§ Question proposed, "That '£5,528,810' stand part of the resolution."
§ MR. KEIR HARDIEI have listened with much pleasure to the most interest- 1563 ing exposition of public grievances against the Post Office contained in the speech of the hon. Member for Canterbury. Without respect to party, I think we are all thankful to the hon. Member who has just sat down for his effort in the past in connection with reforms in the postal department. I rose for the purpose of calling attention to another aspect of Post Office administration. The House of Commons must not forget that much of the success of the Post Office is due to the efficiency of the men employed in the various departments, to whose complaints the First Lord of the Treasury has turned a deaf ear. Last week, when this Vote was under discussion, the Leader of the House stated that there was no real grievance existing amongst the Post Office employees, and in the course of the debate it was stated that the outcome of the Tweedmouth Committee, which recently sat to determine into those grievances, had been practically to make the conditions of employment under the Post Office much more favourable to the employees. I will not attempt to-night to enter at any length into the many details of the numerous grievances which Post Office servants complain of. There is, however, one aspect of their demands which is entitled to the serious consideration of the House of Commons. I endorse the suggestion which my hon. friend has made as to the need for a permanent Committee to deal not only with the conditions of employment in the Post Office, but also with other matters affecting the administration of the Post Office. The employees of the Post Office request from the House of Commons the appointment of a special Committee to investigate their grievances, and to formulate such remedies as the circumstances demand. May I point out that the Tweedmouth Committee was a Departmental Committee, and the servants were not represented on it. From a Departmental Committee it is almost impossible to secure a decision of any breadth or width. It is like allowing a jury of malefactors to try their own case, and under such circumstances we can anticipate what the finding will be.
Let me give one illustration of the sort of minor grievances under which Post Office servants are still labouring. Take, for example, the case of the rural postmen. 1564 They were recommended by Lord Tweedmouth's Committee to be paid a scale of wages whereby they were able to advance to 18s. and 20s. a week and higher, but of late the Post Office has been departing, from that recommendation, and instead of appointing rural postmen under the scale it has been appointing them at fixed wages of 16s. a week. That is to say, instead of a man being encouraged to perform his duty adequately, and with the prospect of an early increment in his wages, he has no such outlook, and, instead of the wage being as the Tweedmouth Committee recommended, under the new method of treating the rural postmen the maximum is 16s. a week. A matter of small detail, but still an irritating one, is the way in which those men are paid for Sunday work and Christmas and other holidays. Formerly they were paid so much per hour for the time they were employed, in delivering letters on these particular days, but now they are paid not so much per hour, but so much per mile covered in the delivery. Well, on the face of it, these arrangements are stupid. In one mile there might be fifty or sixty houses, and in another there may be 500 or 600 houses. It is obviously impossible to cover the ground in the same time where the houses are numerous, and it is desirable, looking to the circumstances under which the rural postmen work, that the old system of payment by time instead of by mileage should be resorted to. I understand that a case was submitted to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury some time ago, and that it was proved to him clearly how this new system worked out. I have to ask to-night whether he is in a position to state what the result of his consideration of the case has been, and whether the rural postmen in this respect may anticipate any change.
These are a few illustrations of some of the minor grievances which irritate a body of useful and intelligent employees, and I would desire to point out, with all respect to the House, that, whilst the servants of the Post Office have no desire to inconvenience the community by any cessation or stoppage of work on their part, still if the House and the Government persist in turning a deaf ear to their claim for an impartial 1565 investigation of their grievances these men will not be to blame if in the end their patience and forbearance give way and the whole of our postal system is disorganised by some big labour dispute. I therefore hope that the Government, through the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, will not to-night again take up the non possumus attitude adopted by the First Lord of the Treasury of threatening these Post Office servants with disfranchisement because they are doing what every Member of this House is doing—seeking to protect his own interest in a constitutional fashion. It is an insult to these men, and I should like to see the Government that would attempt to disfranchise the civil servants of the country. This House stands in relation to these civil servants just as the board of directors of a private company do to the men they employ. These men have a right to come to us at election times or other times and state their grievances, and to ask us to assist them in securing redress. To threaten them with disfranchisement for constitutional action of that kind, as was done on Friday evening, was unworthy of the First Lord of the Treasury. These, briefly, are some of the points upon which the postmen feel keenly, and upon which they demand inquiry. I trust that to-night we shall have some encouragement given to these men to go on performing their duty by having the prospect held out to them of getting their legitimate grievances inquired into in the proper way.
§ MR. BROADHURST (Liecester)At present, as for some years past, we have no means of communication whatever with the Post Office except by a Treasury messenger. I have no cause of complaint with the manner in which the previous and the present Secretary of the Treasury have done their work, but the House of Commons has a right to direct access to the Department, which is one of the most important, affecting as it does the welfare of the poorer classes of the community. There are with regard to the Post Office undoubted grievances. We ought to have a direct, sure, and certain means of communication between this House and the heads of this great Department. 1566 The beginning and almost the end of our difficulty in this matter is that we have no direct representative of the Department in this House. I sincerely hope that the hon. Member will divide on this question, and that the Secretary to the Treasury will make representations to the Government in connection with this matter. I know that the Post Office grievances are great, and one might almost say they are acute. We shall never have satisfaction in this matter until we have the head of the Post Office sitting in this House. I sincerely trust that immediate steps will be taken, so that we shall have the representative element which is desired. It is an absurd idea to have the Postmaster General in the House of Lords. There is no trade, no commerce, no anything represented there, except the brewing interest, which is not a large commercial interest. We are representing the industries of the country in this House, and yet we are only treated with a messenger to take occasional communications from this House to the Post Office, however well that work is done. It is no reflection on those who have been the go-betweens up to now, but it is not respectful to the country, and certainly not respectful to the House of Commons. I sincerely trust that the hon. Member for Canterbury, who has done such marvellous service to the country in postal reform, will press the question to a division.
§ MR. JOHN DEWAR (Invernessshire)said that two years ago the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston, who was Financial Secretary to the Treasury then, promised that there would be an improved delivery of letters all over the country, including the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland. On that occasion an Amendment was withdrawn when the promise was made. The Postmaster General had since then written that a bi-weekly service could not be granted on account of the expense. He thought that no part of the country should have to submit to a weekly or a fortnightly delivery of letters. In certain rural districts they did not ask a daily delivery, but a better service should be provided than at present.
§ MR. GILHOOLY (Cork County, W.)called attention to the inadequate postal 1567 service provided at Baltimore, an important fishing station in the south of Ireland. Letters from Cork were detained at Skibbereen for a day, although the trains proceeded to Baltimore. He wished to know whether this matter was going to be remedied. He also asked whether the postal service could not be improved at other important fishing stations. It had been proved by Royal Commission that Ireland was cheated of two and a quarter millions a year; and surely when they asked for an expenditure of only £6 or £7 a year it ought not to be grudged. He wished to know from the hon. Member whether he was going to remedy this grievance, and what they were going to expect from the Government in the way of killing Home Rule by kindness.
§ MR. LOUGHWhen this Vote was before the Committee the chief discussion occurred on the question whether the hon. Gentleman in charge of Post Office matters would see his way to the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the grievances of the Post Office employees. The hon. Member refused to grant that Committee; but I do not think that it will be possible to continue that refusal if the Postmaster General does not give a more sympathetic consideration to definite cases of abuses or grievances brought before him. I myself have been in correspondence with the Postmaster General for eight months on a particular subject, but have been unable to get any satisfaction from him. It is not my wish to trouble the House with petty details, for I consider that the House is the worst tribunal in the world to deal with these sort of questions. They could much better be dealt with by a Special Commission, or some other authority which could deal gently and kindly with the men and their grievances. But after four hours discussion there was a blank refusal of such a Special Commission or authority. The grievance to which I wish to allude lies in a very small compass. Everyone in the House desires to see the Sunday labour of the Post Office servants restricted as far as possible. In carrying out this very desirable reform a few old servants in the Post Office in London—not more than twenty in all—who have been carrying on Sunday duty for thirty 1568 to thirty-five years, have been deprived of that Sunday duty, and their pay has consequently been reduced from £15 to £20 a year. The men get the Sunday rest, and they do not object to the reduction of their pay; but they are entering on the last three years on the pay on which the amount of their pensions will be calculated under the ordinary rule, and the consequence will be that their pensions will be materially reduced. Now, they have asked the Department to consider their case as special. Some of them have worked for thirty-five years, and they ask that their pensions, when due, shall not be calculated on the three years in which the pay has been compulsorily reduced, but on the three years preceding. Does that not seem reasonable? They may have to lose £13 a year in pensions because the Post Office have made this change. This is a business matter, and it, could be quite easily dealt with; but the Department insists on putting a very harsh interpretation on some red-tape rule, and leaves these men under the rankling feeling that they are being hardly dealt with.
§ COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)said that the wise policy of the First Lord of the Treasury in instituting light railways to the West Coast had called for a great increase in postal facilities, and especially for a Sunday delivery at the fishing towns. It was true that in some places the postal facilities had been increased, but not sufficiently for the development of the fisheries. He hoped the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would not only take note of the places mentioned by the hon. Member for West Cork, but would take into consideration the necessity of increased postal facilities for the whole coast district generally. There was a point of more general interest to which he wished to direct the attention of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. There seemed to be a totally different system in regard to the established force of postmen and the unestablished men in England, Scotland, and Ireland. And, as usual, wherever there was a difference of system in the public service between the three countries, Ireland got the worst of it. [HON. MEMBERS: No, no.] Yes; he spoke from experience. 1569 He found that the proportion of established postmen in England to unestablished was as three to one; in Scotland as two to one; and in Ireland the postmen were chiefly unestablished. He knew that the established force always got the best of it in pension and pay. He hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would make inquiry into it and remedy this matter.
§ MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)One is very reluctant indeed to occupy the time of the House of Commons on petty matters of postal administration in the small hours of the morning. But the fact that we are driven to discuss a vast concern such as the Post Office, employing 170,000 people, and spending an enormous number of millions at such a time, is evidence that the Department is not managed in the best possible way. Although I am disinclined to keep Members out of their beds, I wish to say one or two words before the division. The fact that we have various grievances continually brought up—although there is certainly one with which I do not agree—is to me proof positive that we ought to devise some more reasonable method of disposing of the grievances of the postmen, and a better method of dealing with the complaints of the commercial public against the Post Office. The hon. Member for Canterbury has proved the necessity for the direct representation of the Post Office in this House. I venture to say that some of the grievances which we have heard of, as to the mismanagement of the Post Office, would not be heard of by way of needless questions and speeches if we could get in contact with the representative of the Post Office in this House. I have only asked six questions in ten years, and I hope I take as much interest in some departments of administration as hon. Members who speak for the Post Office officials. I am not specially concerned with the Post Office; but in other Departments I can see the Minister, and by a conversation over the tea table or in the smoke room we can save endless questions and avoid needless waste of time which are caused by the want of a direct representative of the Post Office in the House of Commons. If the First Lord of the 1570 Treasury wants to save the time of the House, let him have the Postmaster General in this House. I venture to say he could save half an hour or an hour almost every day by such a change. The hon. Member for Canterbury comes here year after year and makes up a powerful indictment against the mismanagement of the Post Office, and its flagrant inconsistencies; and the public are with the hon. Member, and against the Post Office. Why is this? It is simply because the Secretary to the Treasury, however energetic, and however willing he may be to discharge the duties of his dual post, cannot get close to the heads of the Department or be intimate with the endless detail of postal work. If the Postmaster General and the hon. Member for Canterbury were locked up in a room for five or six hours, and fought out the matters in dispute, with an impartial umpire looking through the window, nine out of ten questions put in the House would not be required, and much inconvenience to the public would be avoided. There is another matter. I am under the impression that the Secretary to the Treasury is the last-individual in the world to be selected to do the work here of the Post Office. The Treasury ought to be the watchdog of economy and finance; and it should be the duty of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to look after expenditure so as to secure greater value for the taxpayers' money. Instead of occupying his time in this important duty of economic watchdog, the Secretary to the Treasury is made the departmental drudge of the Postmaster General to the detriment and exclusion of his supervisory Treasury duties.
Now, Sir, I desire to have from the House an expression of opinion on one or two points connected with the Post Office. Our mail carts are a scandal and a disgrace, and the horses are a disgrace to any Government that claims to be humane. I feel very keenly on these points. I do not wish to worry, the Secretary to the Treasury with innumerable questions about dirty mail carts or horses that ought to be in the knacker's yard, or drivers who seem to be clothed from the salvage sales of old clothes dealers in the East End of London. I 1571 do not wish to put questions to the hon. Gentleman on these subjects, but if the Postmaster General were in this House I would point out to him how the County Council horse their Fire Brigade, how they clothe their firemen, and park constables, and by direct argument, and I hope good reasoning, I could show him a more excellent way of managing the mail cart service than he now practises. I could give him many excellent reasons for an improved distribution of letters, books, and newspapers and the practical and profitable extension of the Post Office service. I am convinced that the public as well as the staff are discontented, and the time of the House of Commons will be wasted in the future even more than it now is, because the Secretary to the Treasury may make up his mind that the House of Commons is determined to improve the Post Office. In these days of foreign competition and the necessity for rapid transit, the public are looking to the Post Office as a means of meeting some of that competition by the conveyance of light articles, which the Post Office will not undertake to carry. Therefore I claim that the Postmaster General should be in this House, so as to be in touch with well informed and representative opinion. I also claim that when we have the Postmaster General in this House we shall also have a small Committee appointed from both sides, and without distinction of party, to be joined to the Postmaster General to help him to manage this vast Department. I would make the hon. Gentleman the Member for Canterbury one of that Committee. Five or six Members would be associated with the Postmaster General, and instead of the hon. Member for Canterbury or the hon. Member for Battersea delaying the House of Commons at twenty-five minutes to one in the morning over necessary but unimportant details and grievances they should be closeted with the Postmaster General once a week, or once a fortnight, or once a month, and nineteen out of twenty Post Office questions which now take up public time would be dealt with by that Committee—questions not only affecting the employees, but also matters with reference to the extension of the 1572 Post Office generally would be considered. I know what the bureaucrats will urge. I know what the ossified officials at St. Martin's le Grand will say. They will say that it would kill discipline. It would do no such thing. Discipline is impossible without confidence, and the present system breeds mistrust. I can give a parallel instance. We have in London a fire brigade consisting of 1,200 men. They are admittedly organised on a military basis; that is, that the chief of the fire brigade does what he likes with his men in the technical duties they have to discharge, and the County Council does not interfere with him. He has full discretion, not only in regard to the discipline of his men, but also with regard to their administrative management. An executive committee of the Council is joined to the chief of the fire brigade, and when any of the men have a grievance they have a right to approach that committee, either through their chief or directly, and the fact that last year only three men desired to approach the committee is an indication that discipline can be maintained by that system, which also gives the chief of the fire brigade the assistance of a committee in the technical, practical, and economical administration of the fire service to an extent which would not be possible if he alone were responsible, as the Postmaster General is, for the Post Office. I believe that one of these days such a Committee will be appointed for the Post Office, and the sooner it is appointed the better for the present condition and the future improvement of the Post Office. I shall have to reiterate that view, because I want the House of Commons to believe that it is the only solution of the problem, the only way of obtaining the confidence of the men and giving satisfaction to the general public.
My last point is this. It will be said these Standing Committees will not work. I do not believe it. Take the case of the Navy. Whenever the Navy makes a blunder over Belleville boilers, or anything else, who are the people to put it right? The House of Commons throws over the permanent officials and experts and gets three or four practical engineer Members from its own ranks to show the permanent officials how not to perpetrate similar mistakes in future. When the War Office does not manage its cam- 1573 paign with military precision in South Africa, who are appointed to show them a more excellent way? Why, a Committee of business men from both sides of the House, joined with military men, who show the War Office what should be done. What I want is that the Post Office should be shown how to avoid mistakes, just as are the Navy and the Army. If such a Committee is good enough for the War Office and the Navy in times of difficulty, blunder, and mismanagement, it ought to be good enough for the Post Office to prevent mistakes. Therefore I ask the serious consideration of the House of Commons to the view that I now express, that there should be a small Committee appointed by the House of Commons to assist the permanent officials in each of the great spending departments, which when an unreasonable claim is put forward would resist it, but when a legitimate grievance is brought forward would support it with all the weight of knowledge and deserved sympathy. Pending the appointment of that Committee, the next alternative is that the Government should see the folly of having the Postmaster General in another place, and that he should be brought as soon as possible into the House of Commons. If the Secretary to the Treasury is made Postmaster General, we shall stand up and criticise him with greater frankness and more justification, because he will then have the whole responsibility, and we will not let him off as we do now, nine times out of ten, because we know that Dr. Jekyll is in the House of Lords and Mr. Hyde in the House of Commons. The Secretary to the Treasury is not responsible, and until he is made responsible he can put us off, as he has done to-night, with great courtesy and plausibility, but with little knowledge. We want the man whose hand is on the machine, and to whom we can bring responsibility home, and if the hon. Member who moved the reduction gets to a division I shall support him.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINSeveral questions have been mentioned to-night, two of them of great scope and importance, the others being questions of detail. The majority of them have been used to illustrate the thesis 1574 which the hon. Member for Canterbury and the hon. Gentleman opposite, who desire to see a House of Commons Committee to inquire into Post Office matters, put before the House, and which was brought forward not so much to get an answer at this time as for the purpose of showing what is the effect of having the Postmaster General in another place. There are two questions of detail which I am bound in courtesy to deal with as shortly as I can. Two hon. Gentlemen from Ireland spoke about the better delivery of letters in places in that country, and in particular in connection with the fishing trade, to develop which considerable efforts have been made. The Government are naturally interested in the question, and hon. Members will find us not unfriendly in regard to what may be necessary in that connection. At the same time, I must say, as I have already said, that we must have regard to the amount of business which there is to be done, and to the amount of revenue obtainable, and the proportion which one bears to the other. We cannot, with the best goodwill in the world, agree to give all the postal facilities which may be required by every individual village or town, without having regard to the cost of that service and the revenue to be derived from it. The hon. Member for West Islington complained that he had been in correspondence with the Postmaster General for eight months without getting satisfaction. I am afraid we could not give the hon. Gentleman satisfaction except by doing everything he wished, and that would not be possible in most cases. The hon. Member referred to certain postmen in London who have to do extra duty on Sundays. The amount the men received in respect of that duty, which is in the nature of overtime pay, becomes part of their pensionable emoluments.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIt is a duty for which the men have volunteered and which they are anxious to retain. They volunteer for it every Sunday in the year, and the Postmaster 1575 General felt it necessary to interfere not only in the interests of the men, but also of the postal service, and to put restrictions on the amount of Sunday labour which any man might do. I think it is not in the interests of the individual or of the service that a man should, week in and week out, work seven days.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIf the hon. Gentleman informs me of that, I accept his statement. It is said that these men have been regularly engaged on this work. They volunteered for the work and were prepared to do it Sunday after Sunday, and the Postmaster General accordingly issued an order preventing any man from doing any more than a reasonable amount of work. That had the effect of reducing the immediate emoluments of these men in proportion to the decreased work, and to that extent will reduce their pensions. The hon. Gentleman says that that is a great hardship; but no man has a right to claim overtime without regard to its effect on himself and the service, or to the discretion invested in the Postmaster General. Then the hon. Gentleman says, Why should not these men be pensioned on the basis of another three years? They have not been doing this extra work, and therefore are not entitled to an extra pension, and we should be breaking the law if we did that. I am therefore sorry I cannot promise to do what the hon. Gentleman asks.
I now come to the larger question brought forward by the hon. Member for Canterbury and the hon. Member opposite. The hon. Member for Canterbury is well known for the interest he takes in Post Office questions, and he is honourably associated with Post Office reform. There are many improvements which he still thinks might be effected in the service, and he seems to think that it would be a specific for every grievance if the Postmaster General sat in this House. I am afraid that that would not satisfy my hon. friend or remove all cause of complaint. The fact of the matter is that the Post Office business is very difficult and complex. 1576 It consists to a very large extent of details which require a great deal of attention to master, and I am not by any means certain that from the administrative point of view, as my right hon. friend who is now President of the Board of Agriculture stated on the previous occasion, it is not a positive advantage for the Postmaster General to have the greater freedom and the larger leisure which a Member of the other House has. In any case, I venture to put it to the House that the process of forming a Government and selecting the persons most fitted for each office is already a sufficiently difficult task, and that the House will be making that task infinitely more difficult if it lays it down that this or that particular office must necessarily be held by a Member of this House. I hope the House will not add any such restriction. Then the hon. Member for Battersea said that if the Postmaster General was to be represented in this House the worst person to choose for that purpose was the Financial Secretary. I confess I do not agree with him. [An HON. MEMBER: It is not a personal matter.] Of course, if it had been a personal charge, I would not have made this remark; but I am treating the matter differently, and am not speaking of it as a personal matter at all. The Post Office and the Treasury are necessarily brought into very close contact. It is one of the complaints of the hon. Member for Canterbury and other hon. Gentlemen interested in Post Office reform, or perhaps I might say change in post Office methods of management, that the control of the Treasury is too direct and too far reaching, and that above all, as we were told the other night, it is ignorant and unsympathetic. What better cure could anyone devise for that state of affairs than making the representative of the Treasury responsible for the Post Office in this House? If it be the case that the Treasury has delayed and thwarted Post Office reform—which I do not admit—I say there could be no better remedy or no better means of putting a strong check on the Treasury than by making the representative of the Treasury also the representative of the Post Office, and therefore the scapegoat for its misdeeds. I think it must be obvious to hon. Gentlemen that the 1577 fact that the Financial Secretary has to answer for the Post Office in this House forces upon him an interest in Post Office work, and brings him into contact with the complaints and demands of the public, which under other circumstances he would not be likely to possess. Under our present system the Treasury has to exercise some control over the spending and revenue departments, and it is not altogether a misfortune that the Financial Secretary should have to answer for these matters in the House of Commons. My hon. friend says he objects to Treasury control, but if the Treasury did not occasionally, so to speak, focus different demands and compare the urgency of one with another, if there were not some department to exercise this control over the spending departments, I think that the complaints of hon. Gentlemen as to the increase of taxation would be even louder than their present complaints of the Treasury.
The other large question was that raised by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. He desired to see a Committee of this House appointed to examine into alleged Post Office grievances. The hon. Member said that it was true that a Committee had sat on the matter, but he called it a Departmental Committee, and he said it was similar to a jury of malefactors trying their own case. Just let me remind the House that the Chairman of that Committee was Lord Tweedmouth. There was nothing peculiarly official about him—I say it, of course, with all respect. Another Member was Mr. Llewellyn Smith, Labour Commissioner of the Board of Trade, and there were three other officials. I do not think it would be possible to select a stronger or more impartial Committee, or a Committee more competent to carry out the very far-reaching investigation entrusted to It. The hon. Gentleman talked as if this Committee were mainly composed of officials, and that, therefore, it had some peculiar interest in keeping down expenditure, and so on. But a civil servant at the head of a great department has no personal interest, such as a manufacturer would have, in cutting down wages. His inclination rather would be to give way for the sake of peace and quietness. What I wish to call the attention of the 1578 House to is that no grievance has been brought before the House either to-night or on Friday night which was not carefully examined by the Tweedmouth Committee, and which was not remedied if that Committee recommended that it should be remedied. All the recommendations of that Committee have been carried into effect.
§ MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that the point of his statement was that rural postmen were not being appointed in accordance with the recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee and were only being paid 16s. per week.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI think the hon. Member does not understand the recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee. If he will give me a specific instance I think I will be able to show him the bearing of the Report of the Committee on the matter. I say no fresh grievance has been brought under our notice. It is therefore not a new case which a Commission, if appointed, would have to try. It would be the old issue, which has been already decided. We are now asked to constitute a new court of inquiry and if the House consents to that there will be no end, as long as a single request is not granted, to these demands. There will still be complaints as to the character of the tribunal, still requests for further inquiries, and there will still be the same kind of pressure placed on Members of the House of Commons. I beg the House to remember after all what is the position of the Post Office employee. He is in many respects a very favourable specimen of the working man, and what he gets he gets at the expense of the whole body of the taxpayers, including the working men, many of them less favourably situated. He gets good wages for the work he has to do, he gets a stripe allowance which amounts to 6s. after twenty-five or thirty years service, he has a right to a pension at the age of sixty or if incapacitated in work earlier, and he has holidays and sick leave on full pay extending to a maximum of six months. Is it to be wondered at that with these terms of employment offered there is no difficulty whatever in filling any of these places? On the contrary, there is great demand for them. Every 1579 hon. Member knows from his own experience how many applicants there are who desire to enter the Post Office service. I do not think postmen would be so ill-advised as ever to act upon the threat held out by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil to the effect that if the House of Commons could not see eye to eye with the men and did not obey their behests they would cause a stoppage of the whole postal system of the country. If they ever did that, I think they would find that there was a public opinion roused against them stronger than anything of which they have any conception. It is only if they are moderate and reasonable that they can expect to have public opinion on their side. If they were to adopt measures of that kind, regardless of the cost or inconvenience they would inflict upon their countrymen, I think it is not the business of the country or the general public, but the ill-advised men themselves who would be the greatest sufferers.
In conclusion, I have only two words to say, and they apply both to Members of this House and to postal servants. A great deal has been said about the inaccessibility of the Postmaster General. One hon. Member after the discussion on Friday came to me and said, "Why do you not do as we do in the business firm with which I am connected? If any man has a grievance, all he has to do is to go to the general manager and put it before him. Why can you not do that in the G. P. O.?" I said, "That is exactly what the postal employees can do." The Postmaster General has expressed his readiness to receive representatives drawn from any class of men to state their case in regard to the work in which they are employed and the conditions of their service. In the same way I venture to say to hon. Members of this House that they will always find the Postmaster General most ready to meet them and to hear any point they may wish to put before him if they prefer a personal interview. I have only to add that the Postmaster General himself would do his utmost if, instead of asking questions in this House, hon. Members wrote to him, to see that they got their answers at the earliest possible moment. We have now discussed this Vote at considerable length, both on Friday last and 1580 again to-night, and I hope the House will consent to an early division.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)The hon. Gentleman has made an, appeal to the House to come to an early division upon this Vote. He said that on Friday last these matters were discussed at some length, and that they had been again, discussed at some length to-night. That is quite true, but I rise for the purpose of emphasising the complaint of the hon. Member for Battersea of the action of the Government in insisting that important matters in connection with a great public spending Department should be brought on at this hour of the night. I am very reluctant, to prolong this debate unduly, but I do say that when, we have 670 Members of this House, each of whom represents a district largely interested, as it must be, in the whole administration of the Post Office Department, it is rather a large order to ask us to dismiss the entire subject in the course of a few hours on Friday, and a few hours at this time in the morning. The practice of bringing matters of this kind before the attention of Parliament at this hour is a bad one, and if it is necessary to have these late sittings I say that the late sittings should be devoted to the discussion of matters other than the great spending departments of the country, such as the Post Office. Upon this point I will only say that the time given us for the discussion is quite inadequate. Unfortunately, I was not able to be here on Friday last. If I had been present I should have taken the opportunity of bringing forward a great many matters connected with the administration of the Post Office in Ireland However, I had not that opportunity, and certainly at this hour of the night I should not receive either the attention of the Financial Secretary or the consideration of the House if I attempted, to go into details in regard to those matters. It is not fair on the part of the Government to put Members into the position, if they want to discuss what they consider to be faults, drawbacks, and flaws in Post Office administration, of having to sit up the whole night in order to do so. The hon. Member for one of the divisions of Cork put a question to the Financial Secretary with regard to the locality which he represents, 1581 but the hon. Gentleman did not condescend to give any reply or explanation on the point brought forward. There are many Irish Members on these benches who could, if they had the time, bring forward what they rightly consider to be shortcomings in reference to this Department. But if they rose to do so now they would be greeted with cries of "Divide," and they would receive no better treatment than was accorded to the hon. Member for West Cork. We cannot discuss these matters in the form of question and answer, and if we attempt to do so we are at once told that the Irish Members are asking too many questions. I say you should give us a few hours at a reasonable time. We shall have no further opportunity whatever of asking, in the form of a speech, a single question with regard to the administration of the Post Office. I deliberately characterise t as a perfectly monstrous piece of mismanagement on the part of the Government that the House of Commons should be asked at nearly half-past one in the morning to pass, with practically no discussion, this enormous sum, which covers, one might almost say, the whole cost of the Post Office administration of the country. If there are complaints outside in the ranks of postal officials the reason is largely to be found in the fact that those who are acquainted with the grievances, and would like to state them to the House, are not given a proper opportunity for doing so. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury spoke of the Post Office officials as if they were a body of men anxious to bully the House of Commons, to dictate to the Government, and to insist upon every single thing which they demanded being at once granted. He seemed to imply that if those demands were not granted the men would take measures of the most extreme description, and measures calculated to upset the convenience of the whole country. I do not think the hon. Gentleman is justified for one moment in speaking of the Post Office officials in that way.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINPerhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that what I said was the exact opposite of that.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDI beg your pardon.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI said I did not believe the Post Office officials would take that course. I referred to the suggestions made in the speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, and I said that I did not believe the Post Office officials would do that.
§ MR. KEIR HARDIEI made no suggestion of the sort. What I said was that if the House of Commons did not pay attention to the claims of these men their patience might give way.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDI do not at all attribute to the Financial Secretary any statement to the effect that the Post Office officials contemplated a general strike, but I beg respectfully to be allowed to adhere to my description of the references made by him to those officials as references which seemed to imply that the men were a sort of dictators, that they desired to bully Parliament, and that unless what they demanded was granted at once they would take extreme steps. My view is—and every fair minded man must admit it—that the exact opposite is the case. Post Office officials consider that in certain respects they have not been properly treated. After all, there is no body of public servants in any branch of State administration the members of which do not from time to time seek to better their position or to have remedied grievances from which they consider they are made to suffer illegitimately and unnecessarily. Why, therefore, should not the Post Office officials be allowed to do so in a reasonable way if they consider it necessary and proper? The hon. Gentleman says they are paid good wages. I do not deny it. I do not deny that they have some advantages in the public service, but the hon. Gentleman must admit that that is no reason whatever why they should be deprived of the right of putting forward in a legitimate way the grievances and drawbacks from which they consider they are unnecessarily suffering. As far as I know the Post Office officials in Ireland, that is all they have ever done and they have done it at all times in a reasonable and moderate way.
1583 The hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary says that the case of the employees was tried by the Tweedmouth Committee not long ago, and cannot now be reopened. I say that their case was not tried fairly. I do not question the strict impartiality of the Tweedmouth Committee, but from the description given by the Secretary to the Treasury I do say that it was not a Committee capable of fairly considering the claims of the men on account of the manner in which it was constituted. The hon. Gentleman said that there was only one Post Office official on the Committee, and that was quite true. The rest of the Committee, however, were Government officials, and everybody knows perfectly well that when a Committee composed exclusively of Government officials sits down at a table to consider the grievances put forward by the rank and file of any branch of the public service there is sure to be, consciously or unconsciously, an official bias against the employees. The tendency of those officials will be to uphold the views of the heads of the Department, and they would rather incline against the views of those who were putting forward the grievances of the employees. That is what took place before the Tweedmouth Committee which did not have a member upon it who could be described as directly or indirectly representing the men. That is what the Post Office employees complain of, and I think it is a most reasonable request that the whole matter of their grievances should be submitted to a Commission in which they will have the most implicit confidence by reason of the fact that they will have upon that Commission one or two gentlemen who will represent their views. That is the kind of Commission asked for, and undoubtedly the Tweedmouth Committee was not one of that kind. I think this demand is perfectly justified by the circumstances.
I wish to make one reference to the Postmaster General. I am not going to say whether it would be to the benefit of the public service that the Postmaster General ought to be in the House of Commons, or in what has been described as "another place." I do say, however, that it is a remarkable thing that, as far as my memory carries me back, I believe I am right in saying that a great majority 1584 of the Postmasters General have always been in the House of Commons. I can say without fear of contradiction that the very best Postmasters General we ever had, including the late Mr. Fawcett, did sit in the House of Commons, and they were in a position to answer the questions put forward by hon. Members in regard to the Post Office Department. Those are facts which the hon. Gentleman opposite may set off against the advantages he has put forth in regard to the Postmaster having a seat in another place, wherever that may be. If it is necessary to have a peer as Postmaster General, there is one thing which I think it is his bounden duty to do as the representative of a great Department, and that is that upon occasions like this, when the Vote for his Department is being discussed, and when the views of all sections and parties are being put forward, the very least he can do is to come and take his seat in the gallery here and listen to what is said in the way of complaint. If he was not in a position to rise in this House and answer straight off the questions put to him, as they are now put to the Secretary of the Treasury, then, at least, on hearing the debate his Lordship—[Ministerial laughter]—hon. Gentlemen opposite are evidently not too sleepy to be able to laugh, and I do not know exactly what class of constituencies they represent. I do not suppose that they represent any great section of the democracy, but if they do, and if they will go to their constituency and put the views I am expressing before them, they will find that a great number of their constituents will agree with what I have said.
After all, a Peer who is at the head of one of the greatest Government Departments in this country, and who is paid by the taxpayers of this country the sum of £5,000 a year.—[An HON. MEMBER: No, no! His salary is £2,500.] I should have thought that any Peer would have turned up his nose as such a small salary as that. At any rate, a member of "another place," who is the head of one of the greatest Departments in this country, and who is not above taking pay from the people of this country for looking after that Department, might at least, for the time being, have the humbleness to come, once in a way, 1585 down to this House, and listen to the complaints of the representatives of the people whose money he is taking and putting into his own pocket. [Ministerial cries of "Divide, divide!"] Hon. Members opposite always cry "Divide" when they hear anything particularly true. When we have a discussion such as this, and such as that which took place last Friday on the Post Office Vote; when we have the Member for Canterbury getting up in this House and urging those reforms which everybody must thank him for urging—even then the Postmaster General will not come to the gallery and listen to the debate. But if the hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland got up to make a speech about Irish landlordism, they would always see the Postmaster General there, more especially if there was anything being dealt with in connection with the Irish land question, and if the hon. Member for South Tyrone was about. Sometimes I forget that he is a member of the House of Lords, and I refrain from looking upon him with the proper amount of respect with which I always ought to look upon a member of the House of Lords. At any rate, I put it forward with all the earnestness I can that, while I do not wish to disparage the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, who is most anxious to do the best he can in the position in which he finds himself, I say we have a right to demand that the head of this great Department should at least attend in the House of Commons, and listen to what we have got to say.
It is always a bad thing to turn out the heads of any great Department at the same time. We have got a Secretary to the Treasury who is new to the Post Office. I have no doubt that he will acquit himself creditably when he has been there some time, but he is new to the work. The two principal heads responsible for the working of this great Department are practically new to the work, and I would like to know why the Government did not leave the present President of the Board of Agriculture in the Post Office Department? Why did they not leave him there, or, better still, why did they not make him Postmaster General, when everybody knew that he knew far more about it than any 1586 other member of the Government, because he had administered that Department for five years in this House as Secretary to the Treasury? We have got a brand new Secretary to the Treasury, and we have got an Irish landlord for Postmaster General, who sits in the House of Lords. The Post Office Department is not administered as it should be, and if the time of this House is taken up upon questions in reference to the Post Office hon. Members who ask questions should not be blamed, but the Government ought to be blamed, because they do not give to hon. Members a proper opportunity of discussing this great question at a reasonable time.
§ MR. O'MARAsaid he joined in the protest made by his hon. and learned friend against the scant attention which had been paid to the grievances which had been brought forward. [Ministerial cries of "Divide, divide!"] He desired to call attention to the fact that Irish officials in the Post Office were very much underpaid as compared with the same class of officials in Scotland. [Ministerial interruptions and Nationalist cries of "Police, police!"]
§ MR. SPEAKEROrder, order!
§ MR. O'MARAThe population and the postal business of Ireland were nearly the same as in Scotland, and some explanation was required as to why half as much again was paid to postal officials in Scotland as was paid in Ireland. In Ireland there were 3,000 postmasters and sub-postmasters, and altogether they were paid a less total sum than 2,300 postmasters and sub-masters employed in Scotland. That was a point which required some explanation. Ireland was treated unfairly in regard to salaries and promotions.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 139; Noes, 77. (Division List No. 239.)
1553| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Digby, John K. D. Wingfield- | Keswick, William |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Dorington, Sir John Edward | Langley, Batty |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Doughty, George | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) |
| Allan, William (Gateshead) | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lawson, John Grant |
| Allhusen, Augustus Henry E. | Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Layland-Barratt, Francis |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Duncan, J. Hastings | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareh'm |
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Emmott, Alfred | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Fellowes, Hn. Ailwyn Edward | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Lockwood, Lt-Col. A. R. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert H. | Finch, George H. | Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon John | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Bristol, S |
| Austin, Sir John | Firbank, Joseph Thomas | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Fisher, William Hayes | Lowe, Francis William |
| Balfour, Rt Hon. A J. (Manch'r) | FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth |
| Balfour, Rt Hon. G. W. (Leeds) | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred |
| Balfour, Maj. K R (Christchurch | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Fletcher, Sir Henry | Maconochie, A. W. |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol) | Forster, Henry William | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Garfit, William | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall |
| Bigwood, James | Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City of Lond. | M'Calmont, H. L. B. (Cambs.), |
| Bill, Charles | Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John | M'Crae, George |
| Black, Alexander William | Goddard, Daniel Ford | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn | M'Laren, Charles Benjamin |
| Bond, Edward | Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Martin, Richard Biddulph |
| Brassey, Albert | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.) |
| Brigg, John | Graham, Henry Robert | Melville, Beresford Valentine |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G. |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury | Milton, Viscount |
| Burns, John | Greene, Sir E W (B'ry S. Edm'nds | Molesworth, Sir Lewis |
| Butcher, John George | Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) |
| Caldwell, James | Gretton, John | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Morgan, David J (Walthamstow |
| Carlile, William Walter | Griffith, Ellis J. | Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'thsh. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Groves, James Grimble | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Guthrie, Walter Murray | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire | Hain, Edward | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Cawley, Frederick | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x | Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry | Morton, Edw. J. C. (Davonport) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm. | Moss, Samuel |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm. | Hardy, Laurence, (Kent, Ashf'd | Moulton, John Fletcher |
| Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Mount, William Arthur |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Chapman, Edward | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Murray Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute |
| Charrington, Spencer | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Churchill, Winston Spencer | Heath, James Staffords, N. W.) | Myers, William Henry |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Heaton, John Henniker | Newdigate, Francis Alexander |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Helder, Augustus | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Herman-Hodge, Robert Trotter | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Higginbottom, S. W. | Norman, Henry- |
| Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready | Hogg, Lindsay | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Holland, William Henry | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Parker, Gilbert |
| Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge | Horniman, Frederick John | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Craig, Robert Hunter | Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | Partington, Oswald |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) |
| Crossley, Sir Savile | Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.) | Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Penn, John |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick | Percy, Earl |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham | Kearley, Hudson E. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop) | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Price, Robert John | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Priestley, Arthur | Simeon, Sir Barrington | Warr, Augustus Frederick |
| Purvis, Robert | Sinclair, Capt John (Forfarshire | Wason, John C. (Orkney) |
| Pym, C. Guy | Skewes-Cox, Thomas | Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taunton |
| Randles, John S. | Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.) | Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.) |
| Rankin, Sir James | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) | Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon- |
| Rasch, Major Frederic Carrie | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Rea, Russell | Spear, John Ward | Whiteley, George (York, W. R.) |
| Reid, James (Greenock) | Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Richards, Henry Charles | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge) | Stevenson, Francis S. | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green) | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas Thomson | Strachey, Edward | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) | Stroyan, John | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Robson, William Snowdon | Taylor, Theodore Cooke | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Ropner, Colonel Robert | Thomas, David A. (Merthyr) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.) |
| Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter | Thomas, F. Freeman- (Hastings) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hon. E. R. (Bath) |
| Round, James | Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gow'r | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Royds, Clement Molyneux | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) | Young, Commander (Berks, E.) |
| Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- | Thornton, Percy M. | |
| Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander | Tollemache, Henry James | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Seely, Chalres Hilton (Lincoln) | Ure, Alexander | |
| Seton-Karr, Henry | Valentia, Viscount | |
| Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | Vincent, Col. Sir C. E H (Sheffield | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Hayden, John Patrick | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) |
| Ambrose, Robert | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.) | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.) |
| Bell, Richard | Kennedy, Patrick James | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Boland, John | Lambert, George | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Leamy, Edmund | O'Malley, William |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Levy, Maurice | O'Mara, James |
| Caine, William Sproston | Lloyd-George, David | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Cogan, Denis J. | Lundon, W. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Crean, Eugene | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Reckitt, Harold James |
| Cremer, William Randal | MacDermott, Patrick | Reddy, M. |
| Cullinan, J. | M'Govern, T. | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Delany, William | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Mooney, John J. | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Doogan, P. C. | Murnaghan, George | Sullivan, Donal |
| Duffy, William J. | Murphy, John | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.) | |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Dillon and Mr. Weir. |
| Gilhooly, James | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid | |
| Hammond, John | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
Question put and agreed to.
| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. | Fisher, William Hayes | Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | FitzGerald, Sir R. Penrose- | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | Mount, William Arthur |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Forster, Henry William | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) |
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Garfit, William | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry). |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn | Newdigate, Francis Alexander |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Goschen, Hon. George J. | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Arrol, Sir William | Graham, Henry Robert | Nichol, Donald Ninian |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Greene, Sir E W (B'ry S Edm'nds | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r) | Greene, Hy. D. (Shrewsbury) | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Purvis, Robert |
| Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W (Leeds | Groves, James Grimble | Pym, C. Gay |
| Balfour, Maj. K R (Christchurch | Guthrie, Walter Murray | Randles, John S. |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Hain, Edward | Rankin, Sir James |
| Beach, Rt Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol) | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Midd. | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Bond, Edward | Hamilton, Marq. of (L'donderry | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robt. W. | Ridley, Hon M. W. (Staleybr'ge |
| Brassey, Albert | Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford) | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Carlile, William Walter | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Robertson, Herb. (Hackney) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Higginbottom, S. W. | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Hope, J. F. (Sh'ffield, Brightside | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton) | Seeley, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln). |
| Cavendish, V C W (Derbyshire) | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop. | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Keswick, William | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks). |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm) | Lawrence, J. (Monmouth) | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand). |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Lawson, John Grant | Spear, John Ward |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham) | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Chapman, Edward | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Charrington, Spencer | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie | Stroyan, John |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Lowe, Francis William | Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon- |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Lucas, Col. F. (Lowestoft) | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset) |
| Crossley, Savile | Lucas, R. J. (Portsmouth) | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Macdona, John Cumming | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | M'Arthur, Chas. (Liverpool) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | M'Calmont, Col. H. L. B. (Cams. | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham) | Majendie, James A. H. | Wodehouse, Rt Hn. E. R. (Bath) |
| Dorington, Sir John Edward | Malcom, Ian | Wortley, Rt Hn. C. B. Stuart |
| Doughty, George | Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfries.) | Wyndham, Rt. Hn. George |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn E. | Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow | |
| Finch, George H. | Morgan, Hon. F. (Monm'thsh.) | |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Morrell, George Herbert |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham Wm. (Cork, N. E.) | Hammond, John | Murphy, John |
| Ambrose, Robert | Hardie, J. K. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Hayden, John Patrick | Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N |
| Boland, John | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, S.) |
| Caldwell, James | Hope, John D. (Fife, West) | Norman, Henry |
| Campbell, John (Armagh S.) | Horniman, Frederick John | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire) | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) |
| Cawley, Frederick | Kennedy, Patrick James | O'Connor, Jas. (Wicklow, W.) |
| Cogan, Denis J. | Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Crean, Eugene | Leamy, Edmund | O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.) |
| Cullinan, J. | Levy, Maurice | O'Malley, William |
| Delany, William | Lough, Thomas | O'Mara, James |
| Dewar, J. A. (Inverness-sh.) | Lundon, W. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Dillon, John | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Partington, Oswald |
| Doogan, P. C. | M'Arthur, Wm. (Cornwall) | Pearson, Sir Weetman D. |
| Duffy, William J. | M'Crae, George | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) |
| Emmott, Alfred | M'Dermott, Patrick | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | M'Govern, T. | Price, Robert John |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Mooney, John J. | Priestley, Arthur |
| Gilhooly, James | Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport) | Reddy, M. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert J. | Moss, Samuel | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Murnaghan, George | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Robson, William Snowdon | Sullivan, Donal | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gow'r | |
| Sheehan, Daniel Daniel | Weir, James Galloway | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Captain Donelan and Mr. Patrick O'Brien. |
| Spencer, Rt Hn C R. (Northants) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) | |
| Stevenson, Francis S. | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
§ Question put accordingly, "That '£5,528,810' stand part of the resolution."
1590§ The House divided:—Ayes, 136; Noes, 81. (Division List No. 240.)
1591| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt Sir A. F. | Fisher, William Hayes | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- | Mount, William Arthur |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | Murray, Rt. Hn. A. G. (Bute) |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Forster, Henry William | Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry) |
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Garfit, William | Newdigate, Francis Alex. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn) | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Arrol, Sir William | Graham, Henry Robert | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Green, Walford D (Wednesbury) | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Bain, Col. James Robert | Greene, Sir E W (B'ry. S Edm'nds | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r | Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Purvis, Robert |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Pym, C. Guy |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds | Guthrie, Walter Murray | Randles, John S. |
| Balfour, Maj K R (Christchurch | Hain, Edward | Rankin, Sir James |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol) | Hamilton, Marq. of (L'donderry | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Bond, Edward | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm. | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge) |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashfo'd | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Brassey, Albert | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John | Higginbottom, S. W. | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney |
| Carlile, William Walter | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H. | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.) | Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln) |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Keswick, William | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire) | Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth) | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Lawson, John Grant | Smith, Hn. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm) | Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Fareham | Spear, John Ward |
| Chamberlain, J. Austen (Wor'c | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Chapman, Edward | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Charrington, Spencer | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Stroyan, John |
| Cochrane, Hn. Thos. H. A. E. | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. Jesse | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Valentia, Viscount |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Lowe, Francis William | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon- |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset) |
| Crossley, Sir Savile | Macdona, John Cumming | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E. R. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | M'Calmont, Col. H. L. B. (Cambs. | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Majendie, James A. H. | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham | Malcolm, Ian | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath) |
| Dorington, Sir John Edward | Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire) | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Doughty, George | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Morgan, David J. (Walthamst'w | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'thsh. | |
| Finch, George H. | Morrell, George Herbert | |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Morris, Hn. Martin Henry F. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Crean, Eugene | Flynn, James Christopher |
| Ambrose, Robert | Cullinan, J. | Gilhooly, James |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Delany, William | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John |
| Boland, John | Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Goddard, Daniel Ford |
| Caldwell, James | Dillon, John | Groves, James Grimble |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Donelan, Captain A. | Hammond, John |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Doogan, P. C. | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Cawley, Frederick | Duffy, William J. | Hay, Hon. Claude George |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Emmott, Alfred | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Cogan, Denis J. | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- |
| Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Priestley, Arthur |
| Horniman, Frederick John | Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.) | Reddy, M. |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Kennedy, Patrick James | Norman, Henry | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid | Robson, William Snowdon |
| Leamy, Edmund | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.) |
| Levy, Maurice | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Lundon, W. | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.) | Spencer, Rt Hn C. R. (Northants |
| MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Stevenson, Francis S. |
| M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N | Sullivan, Donal |
| M'Crae, George | O'Malley, William | Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gow'r |
| M'Dermott, Patrick | O'Mara, James | Weir, James Galloway |
| M'Govern, T. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Mooney, John J. | Partington, Oswald | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport) | Pearson, Sir Weetman D. | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth). |
| Moss, Samuel | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Henniker Heaton and Mr. Lough. |
| Murnaghan, George | Power, Patrick Joseph | |
| Murphy, John | Price, Robert John |
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURclaimed, "That the main Question be now put."
§ Main Question put accordingly, "That
1592§ this House doth agree with the Committee in the said resolution."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 140; Noes, 70. (Division List No. 241.)
1593| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex F. | Fisher, William Hayes | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose | Morris, Hn. Martin Henry F. |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A. | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Forster, Henry William | Mount, William Arthur |
| Archdale, Edward Mervyn | Garfit, William | Murray, Rt Hn A Graham (Bute |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Newdigate, Francis Alex. |
| Arrol, Sir William | Graham, Henry Robert | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hn. John | Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | Nicol, Donald Ninian |
| Bain, Col. James Robert | Greene, Sir E W (B'ry S Edm'nds | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r | Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds | Groves, James Grimble | Purvis, Robert |
| Balfour, Maj. K. R. (Christchch | Guthrie, Walter Murray | Pym, C. Guy |
| Banbury, Frederick George | Hain, Edward | Randles, John S. |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Mid'x) | Rankin, Sir James |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Hamilton, Marq of (L'donderry | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Bond, Edward | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robt. Wm. | Rentoul, James Alexander |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashfd. | Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge |
| Brassey, Albert | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Ritchie, Hn. Chas. Thomson |
| Carlile, William Walter | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H. | Higginbottom, S. W. | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln |
| Cavendish V. C. W. (Derbyshire | Kenon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop) | Simeon, Sir Barrington |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Keswick, William | Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm. | Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth) | Smith, Hn. W. F. D. (Strand). |
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Lawson, John Grant | Spear, John Ward |
| Chapman, Edward | Lee, Arthur H (Hanfs., Fareh'm | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset |
| Charrington, Spencer | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Stanley, Lord (Lancs.) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie | Stroyan, John |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. Jesse | Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Compton, Lord Alwyne | Long, Rt Hn Walter (Bristol, S.) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Lowe, Francis William | Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon- |
| Crossley, Sir Saville | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset) |
| Cubitt, Hon. Henry | Lucas, Reginald J (Portsmouth | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Macdona, John Cumming | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R. |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham | M'Calmont, Col. H. L. B (Cambs | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Dorington, Sir John Edward | Majendie, James A. H. | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E R. (Bath |
| Doughty, George | Malcolm, Jan | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Douglas, Rt. Hn. A. Akers- | Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire | Wyndham, Rt. Hn. George |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Molesworth, Sir Lewis. | |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Finch, George H. | Morgan, David J (Walthamstw | |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Morgan, Hn Fred. (Monm'thsh. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, Win. (Cork, N. E.) | Kennedy, Patrick James | O'Mara, James |
| Ambrose, Robert | Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. |
| Boland, John | Leamy, Edmund | Partington, Oswald |
| Caldwell, James | Levy, Maurice | Pearson, Sir Weetman D. |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Lough, Thomas | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) |
| Cawley, Frederick | Lundon, W. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Channing, Francis Allston | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. | Price, Robert John |
| Cogan, Denis J. | M'Crae, George | Priestley, Arthur |
| Crean, Eugene | M'Dermott, Patrick | Reddy, M. |
| Cullinan, J. | M'Govern, T. | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Delany, William | Mooney, John J. | Redmond, Wm. (Clare) |
| Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.) | Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport) | Robson, Wm. Snowdon |
| Dillon, John | Moss, Samuel | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.) |
| Doogan, P. C. | Murnaghan, George | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Duffy, William J. | Murphy, John | Sullivan, Donal |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gow'r |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Nolan, Col. John P (Galway, N.) | Weir, James Galloway |
| Gilhooly, James | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Norman, Henry | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Hammond, John | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Md | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Hardie, J Keir (Merthyr Tydvil | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | |
| Hayden, John Patrick | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Captain Donelan and Mr. Patrick O'Brien. |
| Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | |
| Horniman, Frederick John | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N | |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonsh'e | O'Malley, William |
§ Further consideration of third resolution deferred till Thursday.
§ Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Sir William Walrond.)
1594§ Put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Two of the clock.