Commons Sitting of 15 March 1901

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  STANDING ORDERS AMENDMENT. (BY ORDER.)
  Standing Order 134c read.
  *THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,): Perhaps I may be allowed
  46
  to shortly explain the object of the Amendment I have to propose in this Standing Order. It has been represented to me that in regard to the laying of trams along main roads, it is possible that the interests of the county council and of the urban district authority may clash, and that it is desirable that the county council, which at present has no locus standi, should be given the right to appear against tramway schemes proposed to be laid along main roads for which the county is responsible.
  MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.): Will this apply to Ireland also?
  *MR.J. W. LOWTHER: Yes.
  Standing Order amended, in line 3. by inserting, after the word "affected," the letter (A).
  In line 5, by inserting, after the word "county," the words "or (B) by the provisions of any Bill proposing to authorise the construction or reconstruction of any tramway along any main road, or along any other road to the maintenance and repair of which the county council contributes, within the administrative county."
  Standing Order 170A read.
  *MR. J. W. LOWTHER: This raises a somewhat different point. It applies to cases in which a corporation is going to construct or work tramways outside its own area. The Standing Order lays down certain conditions, one of which is that the Committee should insert in the Bill a clause enabling the local authority, to

  47
  purchase the tramways at the end of twenty-one years. It has been found, especially in the ease of electric trams, that twenty-one years is not a sufficient period. Engineers put the life of an electric tram at forty-two years, and we propose to amend the Standing Order accordingly of course forty-two years will be an outside limit.
  MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick): Will this also apply to Ireland?
  *ME. J. W. LOWTHER: Yes, Sir.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)asked if there was any special reason why the period should be extended from twenty-one to forty-two years? It seemed to be a tremendous difference.
  *MR. J. W. LOWTHER: I am afraid J have not made myself quite clear. The reason is this. In the year 1870, when the Tramways Act was passed, twenty-one years was taken as the life of a tram way. At that time only horse tramways existed, but at the present time many corporations ace laying down electric trams, and the expense connected with the installation of these is so large that it has been found not to be worth while to lay them down unless for an extended period. If they have to sell them at the end of twenty-one years they are losers by the transaction.
  DR. MAONAMARA (Camberwell, N.): In what sense do you mean the word "corporation"? Is it to be taken in its technical sense, or will it include a private company trading as the tramway company?
  *MR. J. W. LOWTHER: It is intended to cover the cases of municipal corporations.
  MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.): Then you are making a difference between corporations and private companies.
  MR. CAINE: Are we to understand that this extension of time would not be granted to a private company?
  *MR. J. W. LOWTHER: A private company would get whatever terms the
  48
  Committee chose to give it. This Amendment relates only to the Standing Order which deals with municipal corporations constructing tramways outside their own areas.
  Standing Order amended, in line 17, by leaving out, after the word "substitute," the words "shorter periods for the periods," and inserting the words "a period not exceeding forty-two years for the period of twenty-one years."—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)

GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY RILL.
(BY ORDER.)
MR. TULLYsaid he wished to move the Instruction standing on the Paper in his name in regard to this Bill. The words he wished to have omitted dealt with the proposal of the company to acquire certain common lands in the urban district of Tottenham. Some year ago the Tottenham Urban District Council secured the passing of an Act of Parliament which gave them the right to certain common lands to be used as a recreation ground, but the Great Eastern Railway Company now proposed to take away those rights. This was a very serious matter. This company, like other companies, seemed to wish to deal with the public in a very arbitrary manlier. Its Bill was pock-marked with proposals to interfere with public rights over footpaths and common lands. This was the first clause which suggested such an interference, and, unless the hon. Member for Lewisham, who was in charge of the Bill, could give a guarantee that a similar quantity of land in the same neighbourhood would be handed over to the Tottenham Urban District Council to be used as a recreation ground, he should feel bound to press his opposition to a division. The company were acting in an arbitrary and high-handed manner, and, if the proposals contained in the Bill were sanctioned, he submitted that there would be a most unfair interference with public rights.
MR. DOOGAN (Tyrone, E.)seconded.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee, when dealing with Clause 10, page 8, line 3, to leave out from 'In,' to

49
'thereabouts', in line 15 (inclusive).—(Mr. Tally.)
MR. PENN (Lewisham)said the history of the case might be put in a nutshell. The company required, for the widening of its lines, just over an acre of land, which, as the hon. Member had stated, was common land. The company were at present in negotiation with the Tottenham Urban District Council in regard to the terms on which they should have this land, and they were on the eve of a satisfactory settlement. The Tottenham Urban District Council had very properly lodged a petition against the Bill in order that it might have a locus standi when the Bill went before a Committee, where the whole matter could be threshed out. The suggestion that the company should give an equal amount of land was scarcely applicable to this case. Prima facie, of course, it was undesirable that the area of recreation grounds in populous localities should be diminished, but this case stood on a very different footing. The ground proposed to be taken was rough common ground, which, in the ordinary sense, could not be termed a recreation ground; and what he understood would be done was to devote the money which the company proposed to pay for this acre of land to improving and laying out the remainder of the common land. This would be a great benefit to the locality, and he trusted the House would realise, from what he had said, that so far from the company desiring to act in a highhanded manner, they were anxious to do their best in the public interest.
MR. CAINEsaid it was all very well to suggest that the matter could be threshed out upstairs, but he wished to point out that that would involve the Tottenham Urban District Council in considerable expense. This was a matter which could well be settled on the floor of the House. There was no part of London to which working people were flocking in larger numbers. There was also no part of the Metropolis so short of open spaces. Tottenham was almost entirely inhabited by working classes—by unskilled rather than by skilled labourers—and he would remind the House that between 4.45 a.m. and 5.15 a.m. each week-day something like 4,000 of these men travelled from
50
Tottenham into London for their work. It would easily be understood therefore that there was a strong feeling, on this side of the House at any rate, against the action of railway companies in taking away land already allocated for public purposes, and he hoped that the mover of the Instruction would divide upon it unless he got an ample assurance that other land would be given in exchange for it, and that, if possible, the area of this piece of common land should not be reduced.
*MR. J. W. LOWTHERsaid the point of difference was this, that it was agreed that if the railway company took this land other land would be substituted for it. That was agreed to by both the railway company and the Tottenham District Council.
MR. CHANN1NG (Northamptonshire, E.)said he understood the hon. Gentleman to say that the railway company was to pay money for the land taken to the district council, which money was to be used in improving land at present in their possession.
*MR.J. W. LOWTHERsaid that the Report of the Board of Agriculture, to which any Committee to which this Bill would be remitted would attribute the greatest importance, very distinctly stated that in their opinion the ordinary rule which required a railway company to substitute other land would not be so beneficial for the district as would be the payment of a sum of money to the district council to be applied by them in the purchase of additional land for recreation purposes or for the improvement or enlargement of existing recreation grounds in the district. As the Tottenham District Council was an elected body, surely they might be trusted to decide as to how best to meet the re quirements of their own district. He should have thought they were a much better body for that purpose than the railway company, and it would be advisable to leave to them the decision as to what additional land, if any, they were to purchase, or what improvements were to be made on existing recreation grounds.]
SIR JOHN BRUNNERsaid that the land at Totten-

51
ham was of very small value, and a very small amount of money would be given for it; but when the district council came to buy other land they would have to pay a very large sum. It seemed to him that the purchase of the necessary land ought to be imposed on the railway company and not on the council.
MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid there was another point. The House viewed with great suspicion any attempt to take away open spaces by any company, more especially a railway company. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham spoke of the necessity of taking this land to widen the lines, but Clause 10 showed that the land was required not for that purpose, but for purposes of minor moment. The railway company might take land, therefore, at some other spot, and not necessarily at this particular spot. Unless the hon. Gentleman gave the House some assurance that the same space of land would be given in place of that taken, he would vote for the Instruction.
MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)said there was in London an association known as the "Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society" to which many hon. Members belonged and subscribed, and which performed a- very useful and necessary work in preserving playgrounds and recreation grounds in and around London. The executive of that association had considered this Hill, and had passed a resolution that a clause should be inserted providing that the railway company should secure for the Totten-

AYES.

Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.

Crean, Eugene

Gilhooly, James

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Crombie, John William

Gurdon, Sir William Brampton

Allen, C. P. (Glouc., Stroud)

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

Hammond, John

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Delany, William

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil

Austin, Sir John

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Harwood, George

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Donelan, Captain A.

Hayden, John Patrick

Bell, Richard

Doogan, P. C.

Hayne, Rt-Hon. Charles Seale-

Blake, Edward

Dully, William J.

Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

Boland, John

Edwards, Frank

Holland, William Henry

Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

Hope, John Deans(Fife, West)

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Fenwick, Charles

Horniman, Frederick John

Burt, Thomas

Ffrench, Peter

Jacoby, James Alfred

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Field, William

Jameson, Major J. Eustace

Caldwell, James

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Jordan, Jeremiah

Carvill, Patrick G. Hamilton

Flynn, James Christopher

Joyce, Michael

Clancy, John Joseph

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co)

Kearley, Hudson E.

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Furness, Sir Christopher

Kennedy, Patrick James

ham District Council a similar area of land in lieu of that proposed to be taken away. He trusted the hon. Member for Lewisham would give an assurance that not only compensation would be paid to the Tottenham District Council for the land taken, but that an area of land equal to that taken would be given for playgrounds for the children.
MR. COURTENAY WARNERsaid that every airhole stopped up in London was a detriment to the surrounding districts. He had a considerable interest in a district in the neighbourhood of Tottenham, and he hoped the railway company would not be allowed to take this land without substituting a similar area of land for it.
SIR. BLUNDELL MAPLEthought the question was not thoroughly understood. The population in this district was increasing enormously, and the railway company were, for the safety of the travelling public, compelled to get land for increasing the size of the lines. The railway company were perfectly prepared to pay to the district council what was right and proper for the land, and the details could be discussed in Committee upstairs. If the time of the House was to be consumed in discussing petty details of private Bills there would be none left for the consideration of national and Imperial affairs.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 110; Noes, 133. (Division List No. 66.)

Kinloch, Sir John George Smyth

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Roche, John

Lambert, George

O'Brien, Janus F. X. (Cork)

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Langley, Batty

O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)

Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire)

Layland-Barratt, Francis

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Soares, Ernest J.

Leamy, Edmund

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

Spencer, Rt Hn C. R(Northants)

Leng, Sir John

O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Strachey, Edward

Levy, Maurice

O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

Sullivan, Donal

Lewis, John Herbert

O'Dowd, John

Tennant, Harold John

Lough, Thomas

O'Kelly, J. (Roscommon, N.)

Thompson, E. C. (Monaghan, N.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

O'Malley, William

Wallace, Robert

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

M'Kenna, Reginald

O'Shee, James John

Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

Markham, Arthur Basil

Partington, Oswald

Wason, E. (Clackmannan)

Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William

Paulton, James Mellor

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Mooney, John J.

Pirie, Duncan V.

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport)

Priestley, Arthur

Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

Murnughan, George

Reddy, M.

Newnes, Sir George

Redmond, William (Clare)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Tully and Mr. Caine.

Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.)

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. E.

Hain, Edward

Pilkington, Richard

Aird, Sir John

Halsey, Thomas Frederick

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Allsopp, Hon. George

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd.

Purvis, Robert

Anstruther, H. T.

Haslett, Sir James Horner

Bandies, John S.

Arcbdale, Edward Mervyn

Heath, James (Staffords., N. W.

Rasch, Major Frederic Came

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Hogg, Lindsay

Reid, James (Greenock)

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Hope, JF (Sheffield, Brightside

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Balfour Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

Horner, Frederick William

Rentoul, James Alexander

Balfour, Maj K. R (Christch'ch)

Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

Renwick, George

Bartley, George C. T.

Howard, Capt J (Kent, Faversh.

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Staly bridge

Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. T.

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

Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Bignold, Arthur

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter-

Boulnois, Edmund

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Round, James

Brookfield, Colonel Montagu

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W (Salop)

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Carlile, William Walter

Kimber, Henry

Russell, T. W.

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

Kitson, Sir James

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

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

Laurie, Lieut.-General

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Lawson, John Grant

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

Lee, Capt. AH,(Hants. Fareh'm

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Chamberlain, J. Austen(Worc.

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Charrington, Spencer

Leighton, Stanley

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Long, Col. Charles W (Evesham

Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

Cochrane, Hon. Thos H. A. E.

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S

Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

Coghill, Douglas Barry

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Lowther, Rt. Hn. W. (Cum. Pen

Stevenson, Francis S.

Col lings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

Stroyan, John

Colomb, Sir John C. Ready

Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth

Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Macartney, Rt Hn W. G. Ellison

Thomas, J. A. Glam., Cower

Cripps, Charles Alfred

Macdona, John Gumming

Thorburn, Sir Walter

Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton

Maconochie, A. W.

Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

Dickson, Charles Scott

M'lver, Sir Lewis (Edirb'gh, W

Valentia, Viscount

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Malcolm, Ian

Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H E(Wigt'n.

Warr, Augustus Frederick

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

Welby, Lt.-Col ACE (Taunton)

Fardell, Sir T. George

Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edwd.

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Willox, Sir John Archibald

Finch, George H.

Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute)

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

Fisher, William Hayes

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

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

Fletcher, Sir Henry

Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

Flower, Ernest

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Garfit, William

O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Penn and Mr. Banbury.

Gibbs, Hon. V. (St. Albans)

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Gordon, Maj Evans-(Tr.H'ml'ts

Parker, Gilbert

Grant, Come

Peel. Hn. Wm. Robt. Wellesley

The following Instructions also appeared on the Paper:—
(MR. FLAVIN.)—That it be an instruction to the Committee, in Clause 23, line
54
4. to leave out "twenty or more," and insert "any."
(Mr. KEIR HARDIE.)—That it be an

55
Instruction to the Committee to insert the following Clause:—
"It shall not be lawful for the Company by any rule, bye-law, or order, to in any way restrain, or punish, or dismiss any person in their service from acting or for having acted as an elected member of any public body, or for acting in the interest of any registered trade union, co-operative society, benefit society, or of any lawful organisation in which such person has an interest, during the hours in which such person is not bound by the terms of his contract of engagement with the Company to devote himself to the Company's service."
(Mr. JOYCE.)—That it be an Instruction to the Committee to insert the following Clause:—
"All works and undertakings carried out by the Company under the provisions of this Act shall he subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Fair Wages Resolution of the House of Commons in all respects as if such works and undertakings were a Government contract, and any failure to observe this condition shall subject the Company to a penalty of twenty-live pounds for each day over which the offence lasts, such penalty to be recoverable by the workmen affected or by any registered trades union whom said workmen may authorise to act in their name."
(Mr. J. P. FARRELL.)—That it be an Instruction to the Committee to insert the following Clause:—
"Where the Company propose to erect dwellings outside London under the provisions of this Act they shall issue free of cost a pass to enable tenants of such dwellings to travel to and from the station nearest the new dwellings to that nearest their former residence."
*MR. SPEAKER: The next Inst motion standing on the Paper, in the name of the hon. Member for North Kerry, is not in order. It proposes to give a mandatory direction to the Select Committee to set aside the form of clause which is prescribed by the Standing Order with regard to houses of the working classes. That is altogether an abuse of the use of Instructions. The next throe Instructions, standing in the names of the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydvil, Limerick, and North Longford, are out of order because they seek to take the occasion of a private Bill and the time of private business to discuss general questions which apply equally to all railways.
MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.)asked by what means were railway companies to be compelled to give proper housing accommodation.
*MR. SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
MR. KEIR HARDIEinquired under what circumstances and conditions would it be in order to introduce the question raised by his Instruction.
*MR. SPEAKER: It would be in order in a resolution on a Tuesday. It would be in order on a public Bill dealing with the question, but it is not in order upon a private Bill affecting a particular private company.
MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that the Instruction was intended to deal with a particular order issued by the Great Eastern Railway Company, and which, so far as he knew, had never been issued by any other company.
*MR. SPEAKER: That is altogether foreign to the purpose of the present Rill.

PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order No. 62 has been complied with, namely:—

Dorking Gas Bill.

Midland Railway Bill.

Torrington and Okehampton Railway Bill.

Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway Bill.

Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

PRIVATE RILLS (STANDING ORDER 63 COMPLIED WITH).
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills. That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof. Standing Order No. 63 has been complied with, namely:—

Long Eaton Gas Bill.

Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

PROVISIONAL. ORDER HILLS (NO STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE).
Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following; Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:—
Paisley Gas Provisional Order Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time upon Monday next.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS presented Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons—"That the General Orders not complied with in respect of the following Provisional Orders:—

Ayr County Buildings,

Paisley District Tramways,

ought, to be dispensed with and the Orders allowed to proceed."
Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (HIGHER GRADE AND EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS).
  Petition from Wakefield, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  INHABITED HOUSE DUTY AND INCOME TAX.
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from City of London; and Manchester; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.
  Petition from Cheltenham, for extension to women; to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW OFFICERS SUPERANNUATION ACT. 1896.
  Petition from Ince-in-Makerfield, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN RILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Sheffield (twenty): Norton; Widmore (two);
  58
  Tuxford; Prestonpans; Clitheroe; London (eight); Newhaven; Disley; San-ley; Cupar; Kidderminster (two); Brecon; Leith; Lower Wortley; Yorkshire; Petersfield; Bethania; Llwynypia; Holmesdale; Nottingham; Glasgow; Cardiff; Chorlton-cum-Hardy (four); Chertsey; York; Stockton-on-Tees (four); Sittingbourne; Stretford; Whiteinch; Aberdeen (four); Bromley; St. Austell; Manchester; Camberwell; Bute; Bath (two); Norwood; Rotherham; Chichester; Wigton; Manningtree; Liverpool (five); Brechin; Chryston; Perth; Perkins Beach; Gotldhurst; Leeds; Congleton; Cinderford; Thornaby-on-Tees (two); Greenock; Birmingham (four); Stone Broom; Edinburgh (two); Cupar Angus; Shettleston; Carlisle (six); Rotherham; Masbrough; Greasbrough; Driffield; Kensington; Swansea; and Zetland; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Denny and Dunipale; North Berwick; Dryfesdale; Kirmahoe; Gladsmuir; Lockerbie Ferryden; Cupar (two); Inverness; Ross-shire; Duns; Whithorn; Dunoon; Wemyss; Govan; Gartley; Huntly; Edinburgh; Blairgowrie and Rattray; Kirriemuir; Monifieth; Aberdeen; and Dollar; to lie upon the Table.
  SOVEREIGN'S OATH ON ACCESSION BILL
  Petitions against, from Dunfermline; and Alloa; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES (ELECTORS, ETC.) (UNITED KINGDOM).
  Return presented, relative thereto (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 116. of Session 1900) [Address 15th February: Sir Charles Dilke]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 85.]
  MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (INCORPORATION OF WALLSEND).
  Copy presented, of Charter of Incorporation of the borough of Wallsend, dated 12th March. 1001 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1900–1901).
  Copy presented, of a revised Estimate of the further sum required to be voted for the service of the year ending 31st March, 1901 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 84.]
  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Inquiry into Charities (County of Lancaster).—Further Return relative thereto [ordered 8th August, 1898: Mr. Grant Lawson]; to be printed. [No. 86.]
  EAST INDIA (PETITIONS OF OFFICERS OF PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT).
  Address for "Return showing the number of Petitions which have been received during the past fifteen years, either by the Government of India or by the Secretary of State for India, from the officers of the Public Works Department who entered the Royal Indian Engineering College, Coopers Hill, during the first five years of its existence, the said Petitions containing, it is believed, representations to the effect that the terms under which they had been engaged had not been adhered to, and that their careers and prospects were thereby ruined or very seriously affected; also of the number and nature and date of the replies to these officers." —(Mr. Kimber.)
  SOUTH AFRICA (NAVAL BRIGADE).
  Address for "Copies of Despatches in regard to the Naval Brigade in South Africa which were published in the London Gazette of the 12th instant."—(Sir James Fergusson.)

  CIVIL LIST.
  Leave given to the Select Committee to make a Special Report.
  Special Report brought up and read as followeth:—
  "The attention of your Committee has been called to the publication in The Times newspaper of 14th March of a statement purporting to represent proposals contained in the papers marked
  60
  Confidential referred to your Committee, and to a Report of their proceedings on 13th March.
  "They are unable to ascertain in what manner this can have been divulged.
  "They recommend that Mr. Speaker, to whom the authority of the House in such matters is delegated, do take such steps, either by the exclusion of the representative of The Times from the inner lobbies of the House, or otherwise, as may seem to him best calculated to prevent such publication in future."
  Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to he printed. [No. 87.]
  *MR. SPEAKER: The House will not expect me to say more at present than that I shall at the earliest moment take into consideration the recommendations of the Committee, with a view to doing what I think best for attaining the object they have in view.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  QUESTIONS.

    SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—RELIEF TO SUFFERERS AFTER THE WAR.
    *MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can inform the House whether there will be an organisation in South Africa with its machinery in such order that, upon peace being declared, it will be in a position to promptly give help to needy loyalists who have suffered owing to the war, and to needy Boers; and, if so, whether such help will be a charge to the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies; and whether he can state the basis upon which such help will be given.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): The organisation of a suitable machinery is under consideration, but I am not in a position to make any further statement at present beyond saying that it is intended that the assistance should be a charge upon the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies.

    PAARDEBERG—GENERAL COLVILE'S REPORT.
    MR. ALLEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War

    61
    whether he is willing to publish the I report sent by General Colvile to the Commander-in-Chief on the battle of Paardeberg, as he did the corresponding report of General Kelly-Kenny.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): No report was received by Lord Roberts from General Colvile, who held only a divisional command at Paardeberg. By the King's Regulations reports describing the action taken by their respective commands are furnished to the senior officer present by officers commanding divisions or brigades, and by such other officers as he may specially call upon: these reports do not accompany the despatch, the senior officer being alone responsible for rendering to the Secretary of State for War an account of the operations. Under these circumstances this report cannot be laid.
    MR. ALLEN: Do I understand that no such report was sent to the Com-mander-in Chief?
    MR. BRODRICK: NO, Sir; certainly no report was sent to the Commander-in-Chief. A report was sent to General Kelly-Kenny. It was not forwarded to the Commander-in-Chief.

    GENERAL COLVILE'S RECALL.
    MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Lord Roberts's despatch of the 19th July, 1900, was before Lord Lansdowne when he reinstated General Colvile in the command at Gibraltar; also if he can state why Lord Roberts's despatch was not issued before instead of after the debate on General Colvile's case; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the finding of the Court of Inquiry into the Lindley disaster, which was the reason given for the recall of General Colvile.
    *MR. BRODRICK: Lord Roberts is despatch was received at the War Office before Lord Wolseley recommended the reinstatement of General Colvile at Gibraltar. It is not customary to lay Reports upon individual officers on the
    62
    Table of the House unless they are quoted or specially moved for, and in this case I should not have thought it fair to General Colvile to depart from the rule in order to justify my action. I quoted from the Paper on Monday last and laid it at once. There is no objection to laving the finding of the Court of Inquiry which investigated the circumstances of the surrender at Lindley.
    MR. LAMBERT: When will it be laid on the Table?
    *MR. BRODRICK: In a day or two.
    MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: On what ground, if this finding is laid on the Table, are the findings of other Courts not to be laid on the Table?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That is a matter of argument.

    LADYSMLTH CORRESPONDENCE.
    MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will lay upon the Table of the House all the communications, whether by correspondence, messenger, or heliogram, that passed between Sir Redvers Buller and Sir George White relative to the siege of Ladysmith.
    *MR. BRODRICK: No, Sir; it is not the custom to publish such communications.

    YEOMANRY TRAINING CONDITIONS.
    *MR. CARLILE (Buckinghamshire, N.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state what the conditions of training for Yeomanry regiments will be this yea?, whether specially under canvas or not, and of what duration it is likely to be, so that commanding officers may make their arrangements accordingly.
    *MR. BRODRICK: As I stated yesterday, an Army Order on this subject will shortly be issued.

    IMPERIAL YEOMANRY—FIFE AND FOREAR CONTINGENTS.
    SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War

    63
    whether he is aware that the original Fife and Forfar Volunteer contingent of the Imperial Yeomanry, who went out 125 strong, have been reduced by death, disease, and physical weakness to under twenty men now in active service in South Africa; and whether there is a prospect of this remnant, who enlisted fifteen months ago, being enabled to return to their professions and occupations at an early date.
    *MR. BRODRICK: Some companies of the Yeomanry have, I know, been very much reduced, but we are not aware of the exact strength of the company referred to. It is not possible to state when the operations in South Africa will permit of the return home of these men, but Lord Kitchener is now endeavouring to spare the men whose eases are the hardest.

    GERMAN-MADE FIELD GUNS.
    *MR. RENWICK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state the nature of the defects in the German-made field guns; also how long will the repairs of the defects occupy; and if it is usual to find similar defects in guns made by British manufacturers.
    *MR. BRODRICK: I have already described to the House the nature of the defects found in the carriages of the field guns recently obtained from. Germany. The repairs are being carried out with all due, expedition. German firms are not unique in having trouble with the axles of gun carriages.
    *MR. RENWICK: Is it not the fact that before these defects are remedied the total time occupied will have exceeded that which would have been taken had the orders been given to British firms?
    [No answer was returned.]

    PAY OF CIVILIAN DOCTORS AND VETERINARY SURGEONS AT HOME STATIONS.
    MR. HANDLES (Cumberland, Cocker-mouth): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, having regard to the fact that the civilian veterinary surgeons at home stations during the war emergency
    64
    are drawing pay at the rate of £250 per annum and allowances, which brings their pay to over £30 per month, and receive a gratuity of two months pay after twelve months employment, and an extra month's salary for each additional six months service, can he state what increase of salary and gratuity the Government propose paying those civilian medical practitioners who have been engaged at Home stations for the last twelve months and upwards at a salary of only £270 per annum; and, can he explain why the gratuity of £100 for the first year of service with troops at home and £50 for the succeeding years award to civilian medical practitioners holding commissions as medical officers to Volunteer corps and Militia regiments has been refused to the civilian medical practitioners who offered their services during the war, seeing that the rate of pay to the civil surgeons proceeding to South Africa has been increased from one guinea to one and a-half guineas per diem with same allowances and gratuity.
    *THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): In regard to the first paragraph the civilian surgeons and veterinary surgeons employed at home stations are paid at army rates and there is no intention of making any alteration in their pay. In regard to the second paragraph, medical officers belonging to the Militia and Volunteers are treated as officers under Army rules, while private medical practitioners are treated according to the terms on which they engage.

    ALLOWANCES TO CIVIL SURGEONS WITH THE FIELD FORCE.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that civil surgeons attached to the Field Force in South Africa do not receive Colonial allowance; and, in view of the fact that the cost of living at the seat of war entails heavy expense, will he consider the expediency of increasing the allowances of these officers.
    *LORD STANLEY: I have nothing to add to the full reply given by my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary to a ques-

    65
    tion on this subject put by my friend the Member for the Clapham Division on the 7th August, 1900.†

    MILITIA NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS AND THE AVAR.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state whether non-commissioned officers of Militia on active service in South Africa retain their Militia rank and the pay attaching to that rank; and, if not, will he state why these non-commissioned officers are degraded after volunteering to go on active service.
    *LORD STANLEY: Non-commissioned officers of Militia regiments which volunteer to proceed to South Africa or elsewhere retain their Militia rank. The Militia Reservist who is called up under the Reserve Forces Act joins the Army in the rank of private unless he held the rank of non-commissioned officer on discharge from the Regular forces.

    LONDON SCOTTISH VOLUNTEERS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state whether the detachment of London Scottish Volunteers who sailed from Liverpool for the seat of war in South Africa on the 12th instant were enrolled on the understanding that they would relieve the London Scottish Volunteer detachment which has been on service in South Africa for upwards of a year; and, will this detachment return home so soon as the men now going out reach their destination.
    *LORD STANLEY: The detachment mentioned sailed on the 12th instant. The company of Gordon Highlanders now in South Africa is intended to return when the new company arrives, but as I told the hon. Member before, it is not possible to say exactly when Lord Kitchener will be able, to spare them.
    MR WEIR: Will the noble Lord answer the latter part of the question?
    *LORD STANLEY: I am not in a position to do so.
    † See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series]. Vol. lxxxvii., p. 913.

    CHAIRS FOR MILITARY HOSPITALS
    CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the advisability of replacing the barrack forms without backs now used in the wards of military hospitals by chairs, so that each patient may have one chair.
    *LORD STANLEY: The question has been under consideration, but is not finally settled.

    PURCHASES OF MUNITIONS OF WAR ABROAD.
    MR. BATTY LANGLEY: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he can state how much has been spent during the present financial year in purchasing foreign-made guns and munitions of war.
    *LORD STANLEY: These figures can only be given when the accounts are made up.

    SWISS MILITARY SYSTEM.
    MR. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can furnish the House with such information as the War Office possesses with regard to the military system of Switzer land as is not of a confidential character
    LORD STANLEY: The handbook of the Swiss Army published by the Intelligence Division of the War Office will give my hon. friend all the information he requires. The book can be obtained through any bookseller, and the price is sixpence.
    MR. YERBUEGH: In what year was the book published?
    LORD STANLEY: I cannot say, but I will show my hon. friend a copy.
    MR. YERBURGH: Will the War Office issue it in a cheaper form, so that the general public may be able to study it?
    LORD STANLEY: No, Sir, I cannot undertake to do anything of the kind.

    SOLDIERS PENSIONS—CASE OF HENRY BEATTY, LATE 102ND FOOT.
    MR. CLANCY (Dublin Co, N.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War

    67
    whether his attention has been directed to the case of a man named Henry Beatty, of the late 102nd Foot, who, after having been in the Army and Reserve for twenty-one years and six days, was discharged from the Reserve on 7th January, 1886, with a good conduct certificate; whether he is aware that the greater part of Beatty's period of service was spent in the East Indies, where he contracted fever and ague, the effect of which has been permanently to injure his health and render him incapable of any work requiring much physical exertion; and, will he state whether Beatty is entitled to a pension, and, if so, to what pension; and, if the man has not received it, will he explain on what ground it has been withheld.
    LORD STANLEY: This man served thirteen years 193 days with the colours, which, under the terms of his engagement, did not entitle him to a pension. As he was discharged on the termination of his period of engagement, and not on account of any disability contracted while in the service, there is no regulation under which any grant can be made to him.

    MARK IV. BULLETS.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office for what reason 4,500,000 Mark IV. bullets were recently broken up.
    LORD STANLEY: As no more Mark IV. ammunition was to be made the bullets were useless, and were therefore broken up.
    MR. WEIR: By what firms were the bullets made?
    LORD STANLEY: I am afraid that does not arise from the question on the Paper.

    H.M.S. "ST. VINCENT" AND BRITANNIA"
    MR. EUGENE WASON: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that an outbreak of influenza
    68
    followed by pneumonia occurred on board H.M.S. "St. Vincent," at Portsmouth, last year owing to the contamination of the site of her moorings, and that since the moorings have been dredged there has not been any similar outbreak on board the "St. Vincent"; can he state how long she was away from her moorings; and will he cause the "Britannia" to be removed to other moorings, and not to be again moored in the same position until the site has been thoroughly dredged and the accumulation of filth for years removed.
    *THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.): There was an outbreak of influenza, accompanied by lung and other affections, on board the "St. Vincent" in 1899. The ship was specially inspected at the time by the Medical Director General; the whole question of her sanitary condition was inquired into and the ship was thoroughly overhauled. There was no evidence that the outbreak was due to contamination at the site of the moorings, but the moorings were in fact dredged because it was found that the ship touched the ground at low water. There has been no outbreak of any importance since the date named. The "St. Vincent" left her moorings on the 6th July, 1900, and returned to them on the 20th October. A committee, composed of the following gentlemen: Sir Henry Norbury (Medical Director General), Professor Caulfield, Inspector General Fisher, Fleet Surgeon May, has been engaged during the last two days in examining H. M. S. "Britannia" and making inquiry into all the circumstances likely to affect the health of the cadets. The committee has now terminated its inquiry, and its report is expected immediately. Until that report is 7'eceived I should prefer to postpone answering the last part of the hon. Member's question; but I may say there is no reason to believe that there Is any accumulation of filth under the "Britannia."

    RETURN OF FLEETS.
    *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can say

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    on what day he hopes that the Return of Fleets will be circulated to Members.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Return is very voluminous, and I fear it will not be possible to circulate it for another week or so.

    IRELAND AND NAVAL CONSTRUCTION.
    MR. M'GOYERN (Cavan, W.): I beg TO ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state how many of the twenty vessels which are in the course of construction for the Royal Navy are being built in Ireland; how many of the thirty-three new vessels that are to he built in the coming financial year will he built in Ireland; how much of the £30,875,500 which it is proposed to spend on the Navy in the coming year will be paid by the people of Ireland; and how much of this sum will be spent in Ireland; and can he say what reasons, if any, exist why the Government should not establish a dockyard at Cork or Dublin in which some of these vessels could be built, in order that some of the money raised in Ireland should be spent there.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: None of the twenty vessels which are in course of construction for the Royal Navy are being built in Ireland, nor will any of the thirty-three new vessels, referred to in the question as being in course of construction in the coming financial year, be built in that country. No tender for the construction of ships for the Royal Navy has been received from any Irish firm. A tender has been received from an Irish firm for the construction of machinery. This tender has been accepted, and the engines are now being manufactured. It is impossible at present to state how much of the funds voted for the Navy will be spent in Ireland during the forthcoming year. The Admiralty are not aware what proportion of the sum which may be voted for the Navy will be paid by the people of Ireland. The interests of the Navy do not at present require the establishment of a dockyard at Cork or Dublin; but I may remind the hon. Member that there is a Government dockyard at I Haulbowline, and that the establishment of this dockyard, and the expenditure in connection with it, have
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    both been greatly increased during the past year.
    MR. CREAN (Cork. S. E.)Is any Irish firm entitled to tender for Government work?
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Any firm which sends a requisition to be placed on the list of Government contractors has the application considered on its merits, and, if found suitable, is invited to tender.

    GAYA BAY, BRITISH NORTH BORNEO.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the First Lord of the Admiralty is aware that Gaya Bay, British North Borneo, affords excellent accommodation as a harbour and naval base; and, in view of the fact that coal is readily available, will he consider the expediency of having the district surveyed with a view to the establishment of a naval station.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Admiralty are aware that Gaya Bay is a good anchorage, but it is not considered suitable as a naval base, and it is not proposed to utilise it for that purpose.

    GREENWICH HOSPITAL AND TRAVERS' FOUNDATION.
    SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Board of Admiralty receives, in addition to the capital and -income account of Greenwich Hospital and Travers' Foundation, annual reports on the administration of the hospital and foundation; and, if so, whether these can be published along with the statements of the Finances.
    *THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): The affairs of the Greenwich Hospital and Travers' Foundation are entirely under the management and control of the Admiralty, and an annual report on their administration is received. Such information as it is considered necessary to furnish is already published with the Estimates.

    RHODESIA—NATIVE LABOUR.
    MR. THOMAS BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary

    71
    of State for the Colonies whether he has received information, through the British South Africa Company, or from other sources, as to collisions at Salisbury last December between the British South Africa Police and natives imported from Somaliland for service in Rhodesia, and as to disturbances at Beira in January with other natives imported for similar service; and, if so, whether he will inform the House as to the facts; whether he will inform the House as to any arrangements now in progress for obtaining native labour for Rhodesia from outside areas, which are within the knowledge of His Majesty's Government, and have received or may be awaiting its approval; and whether any reports have been received by the High Commissioner for South Africa from the Resident Commissioner in Rhodesia as to the condition and treatment of natives in the British South Africa Company's territory; and, if so, whether they will be communicated to the House.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: (1) I have seen an account of the collision at Salisbury on 31st December in the Rhodesia Herald, and I am expecting a reply from Sir A. Milner. As to the disturbance at Beira. I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Northampton yesterday. (2) The Administration of Southern Rhodesia have applied to His Majesty's Government to obtain a removal of the prohibition against native labour being introduced from Portuguese East Africa, and His Majesty's Government are in communication with the Portuguese Government on the subject. The question of obtaining labour from the Northern Transvaal, which is not possible for the moment in the disturbed state of the country, is under consideration. (3) Such a report has been received by Sir A. Milner, who will no doubt send it on as soon as the pressure of work leaves him time to consider and comment upon it.

    WEST COAST OF AFRICA—LABOUR LAWS.
    MR. CAINE: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will consent to a Return of the laws and regulations
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    affecting labour in those parts of the West African dominions of His Majesty in which gold reefs are being worked.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The special laws affecting labour on the Gold Coast are the Master and Servant Ordinance, 1893, the Slave Dealing Abolition and the Emancipation Ordinance of 1874. A copy of the laws of the Gold Coast will be placed in the. Library. I cannot help thinking there must be some misconception of the answer I gave the other day, when I spoke of the ordinary law of the Gold Coast as seeming to me sufficient to deal with this case. I was not referring to any special law.
    MR. CAINE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware there are a great number of miners up and down the country, specially in Cornwall, who being out of work in consequence of the war in South Africa, are looking to West Africa for a fresh sphere of employment, and are consequently anxious to know what are the conditions of labour obtaining there? Would not a fuller statement on these laws be of value to them?
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think it is possible to furnish any such statement as to the special laws on the Gold Coast.

    CHINA—ANGLO-RUSSIAN DISPUTE AT TIENTSIN.
    MR. BOLAND (Kerry, S.): I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the attention of the Government has been called to what took place in China recently when the Russians objected to the construction of a railway siding by the British; whether General Barrow, Chief of the Staff, met the Russian objection by ordering the construction of the siding to be completed, if necessary, by force of arms, and had troops placed along the line while the work was continued whether the Russian General protested against this action; and whether General Barrow acted under instructions received from His Majesty's Government.
    *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I am informed that some land

    73
    over which the North of China Administration have proprietary rights has been claimed by the Russian military authorities as belonging to them in virtue of a concession alleged to have been made to them by the Chinese Government when the disturbances commenced. I am informed that, consequently, some difficulties have arisen with regard to the construction of the sidings referred to in the question. The matter is being dealt with by the authorities on the spot, but not under any special instructions from His Majesty's Government.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.): Arising out of this matter, may I ask the noble Lord whether in cases of dispute between the allied Powers in China British officers are entitled to threaten to use force without consulting the Home Government?
    *LOED G. HAMILTON: In reply to that question, I may say that right throughout the Chinese operations British officers have shown conciliation in meeting every difficulty. I do not therefore consider it necessary to send any special instructions.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Will the noble Lord kindly answer the latter part of the question and say whether General Barrow did threaten to use force of arms, and whether in so doing he acted on his own authority or on the authority of the Home Government?
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: I do not know on what authority the hon. Member makes the statement.
    An HON. MEMBER: Reuter.
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: I think if he looks at the telegram he will see that all General Barrow has done has been to ensure the protection of people working in territory belonging to a British company.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: But—
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The question on the Paper has been fully answered.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I will call attention to this matter on an early day.

    CHINA—COST OF WARLIKE OPERATIONS.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the estimated total cost up to the present date of the recent military and naval operations in China.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH, Bristol, W.): I will do my best to answer this question, but I cannot be at all certain as to the accuracy of the answer. The estimated total cost of the military operations in China to the present date is three and a half millions in round figures. I am informed that at the present stage it is impossible to give an estimate of the total cost of the naval operations.

    EAST INDIA—PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.
    MR. KIMBER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will grant the Return entitled East India (Petitions of Officers of Public Works Department).
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: I have no objection to granting the Return, but a reference to India will be necessary to render it complete.

    INDIAN MILITARY OUTPOSTS.
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTS (Denbighshire, W.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state what military outposts were maintained at the close of 1898 beyond the frontiers of His Majesty's Indian possessions; whether he can give the aggregate strength of the garrisons by which these posts were held and the class of troops occupying them, and what was the estimated annual cost of the occupation of these positions; and whether he will state what is the present position as to the number, cost, and disposition of troops holding these military outposts.
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: There were in 1898 no military outposts maintained on the North-West Frontier outside the boundary of the Durand delimitation, and since the ratification of that Agree-

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    ment the line so defined is held to be the external frontier of British India.

    WINTER CROPS IN BOMHAY AND MADRAS.
    MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can give further information as to the condition of the winter crops in the Bombay Presidency and parts of Madras: and whether he will state what steps are being taken to deal with a renewal of the distress.
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: In Bombay the autumn harvest was poor, and the area sown below the average; the spring crop prospects are bad throughout a large portion of the Presidency. In Madras the harvest is below the average to the extent of about 20 per cent. In Burma, Bengal, and Upper India the prospects are such that these provinces will have surplus food with which to supply the wants of those localities where the crops are poor. It is only in the Bombay Presidency that the circumstances are such as to make special relief measures necessary. The Government have provided funds for this purpose, and are taking steps, according to the provisions of the Famine Codes, for carrying on and extending any relief operations which may be necessary.

    INDIAN MEMORIAL TO QUEEN VICTORIA.
    MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state what amount has been subscribed in India for a memorial to Her late Majesty Queen Victoria; and whether he can suggest to the Viceroy that this memorial should be such as to confer some permanent benefit upon the suffering masses in India.
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: I have received no information as to the amount subscribed in India to celebrate by memorials the memory of Her late Majesty. The matter is not an official one, and I could not interfere with the discretion of the subscribers as to the purpose to which their subscriptions should be put.

    INDIAN FAMINE—PROVISION FOR ORPHANS.
    MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, owing to the mortality in the Bombay Presidency from famine and disease, numbers of orphans have been left entirely dependent upon charity; and whether he will state what has been done to provide for these children, and what public funds have been allotted to the support of public and private orphanages.
    *LORD G. HAMILTON: Unhappily, orphans are left after every serious Indian famine. After the 1897 famine about six lakhs of rupees were set apart for the maintenance of orphans. Volumes I. and II. of the Charitable Relief Fund Report describe at more length what was done. Briefly, it may be said that a yearly sum was provided from Government or charitable funds for the support of every really destitute orphan, whether the child was in the keeping of co-religionists or of mission orphanages. I have no doubt similar arrangements will be made by the Government this year. But I have not received and have not asked for a special report upon the subject.

    SURAT DISTRICT LAND REVENUES.
    MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that in the Surat District, out of a total of 95 per cent. of land revenue collected last year, 85 per cent. was received from the money-lenders and only 10 per cent. from the cultivators; can he state under what authority the land revenue was received from money-lenders who are not in possession of the land, and what interest is exacted by the money-lenders from the cultivators for these advances; and whether, looking to the existing indebtedness of the cultivators, he will direct this practice to be abandoned.
    LORD G. HAMILTON: The matters to which this question refers are being investigated by the Famine Commission. Until I receive the Report of the Commission and the opinion of the Government of India, I do not propose to take any action.

    CHINA AND EARTHENWARE TRADES —NEW RILES.
    MR. COGHILL: I bug to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the proposed new rules for the china and earthenware trades were adopted on the advice of Professors Oliver and Thorpe; and whether either of these gentlemen has had any practical experience of these trades, or have ever been personally engaged in the production of china or earthenware.
    *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): The rules were based on Reports made by Doctors Oliver and Thorpe. Dr. Thorpe has been specially consulted on the chemical questions which have arisen in drafting the rules. These gentlemen are not pottery manufacturers; but they are experts in the scientific questions on which they were consulted.

    FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
    MR. TENNANT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state when he proposes to introduce the Bill to amend the Factory and Workshop Acts of which he has given notice.
    *MR. RITCHIE: I am afraid not.
    MR. TENNANT: Will it be before Easter?
    *MR. RITCHIE: Probably it will be, but I cannot say absolutely.

    NEW CODE OF RAILWAY BYE-LAWS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the New Code of Railway Bye-laws, which was submitted to the Board of Trade upwards of three years ago, and remitted to the railway companies with certain modifications and suggestions, has again been submitted to the Board for confirmation; and, if not, will he state the general tenor of the replies given by the railway companies to the Board's repeated requests for the adoption of a satisfactory code of railway bye-laws.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): As the House is aware, railway bye-laws are submitted to the Board of Trade by individual companies desiring to adopt them, and any confirmation by the Board is a confirmation of a particular system of bye-laws so submitted. It is obviously desirable, however, that the bye-laws of the railway companies should be, as far as it is possible to make them, uniform; and the Board of Trade have been using their best efforts to procure that there shall be submitted to them a system of bye-laws, which may be discussed and accepted as a model code. Up to the present the Board of Trade have not succeeded in these negotiations. I am assured that there is no indisposition on the part of the companies to bring the matter to a conclusion, and I venture to hope that they will succeed in agreeing among themselves as to a system of bye-laws submitted either by an individual company or by the Railway Association, and which may be discussed with the representatives of the companies and other persons interested, with a view to their adoption as a model code.

    IMPORTS OF GERMAN-MADE BRUSHES.
    MR. BATTY LANGLEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state what is the value of German-made brushes imported into this country during the year 1900: and whether he can say what quantity has been stopped or confiscated on the ground of being made by convict labour.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Brushes are included with brooms in the official trade accounts, and no separate particulars as to brushes are available. The total value of the imports of brooms and brushes from Germany in 1900 was £45,968. German-made brooms and brushes may reach this country via other countries, such as Holland and Belgium, and these would consequently be returned as importations from such countries. No imported German-made brushes appear to have been stopped or confiscated on the ground of being made by convict labour during the year 1900.

    ENGINE EXPLOSIONS ON THE LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY.
    MR. BELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the engine 676, which exploded on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway on the 11th instant, was reported on 28th January last as being defective, with tubes badly leaking, and that in consequence the driver had to give up the train of coal he was then working, for which he has been degraded to a fireman's place, at a reduction of 1s. per day in wages; and will he direct an inquiry to be held in this case.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir. I am not aware of any such report. If the hon. Member refers to a report made to the company by one of its officers, it would not come under my notice. I will, however, see that the inspecting officer who holds the inquiry into the accident shall have his attention directed to the allegation contained in the hon. Member's question.

    CONSTITUTION OF THE BOARD OF TRADE.
    MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state who are the members of the Board of Trade, excluding the Advisory or Consultative Committee, and irrespective of permanent officials; whether those Members of the Board attend meetings, and how many such meetings have been held since he became president; and whether he can state what functions those Members are called upon to exercise.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The "Board of Trade" means the Lords of the Committee for the time being of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of matters relating to trade and foreign plantations. Under an Order in Council of 1786 these Lords include:—The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the First Lord of the Treasury, the First Lord of the Admiralty, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and such Lords as hold the following offices, namely: the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
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    and the Paymaster General of His Majesty's Forces. It is not customary to summon a meeting of all these members.
    MR. FIELD: Does the Board of Trade ever meet? If so, how many attend?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Board of Trade does meet. The quorum consists of one—myself.*

    IRISH AND SCOTTISH LIGHTHOUSE BOARDS.
    MR. FIELD: I bog to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the annual meeting of Associated Chambers of Commerce yesterday passed a resolution unanimously resolving that the constitution of Lighthouse Boards, particularly those of Ireland and Scotland, is unsatisfactory; and whether he will support a private Bill or introduce a measure to reconstitute the Irish and Scotch Lighthouse Boards.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No copy of such a resolution has yet reached me. As I have more than once informed the hon. Member, His Majesty's Government do not, as at present advised, contemplate legislation dealing with the constitution of the Irish and Scottish Lighthouse authorities.

    VACCINATION—LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD CIRCULAR.
    MR. LEVY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, having regard to the declaration of his predecessor in this House on the 20th of July, 1898, that the administration of a compulsory vaccination law would be neither necessary nor desirable, and the tacit promise of the same Minister on the same date that the Local Government Board would not do anything to interfere
    *Reference may be made to The Parliamentary History, Vol. xxi., page 233, for the discussions on Burke's abortive "Establishment Bill" of 1780. The clause for abolishing the old Board of Trade was vigorously opposed, and passed through Committee by a majority of only eight. On page 241 one of Burke's opponents traces the institution of councils or commissions of trade to very early times.

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    with the relations between vaccination officers and the guardians who employ and pay them, he will withdraw the circular issued by the Local Government Board.
    MR. CHAPLIN: As the question of the hon. Member contains two distinct statements referring to myself, perhaps before it is answered I may be allowed to make a personal explanation. The hon. Member is new to the House, and is probably not aware that I have repeatedly explained that the first statement alluded to refers solely to the concession made by the Government at that time. As to the second statement, I have repeatedly shown that both the statement and the inferences which are drawn from it are equally erroneous.
    *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG. Bristol, S.): My right hon. friend has dealt with the allegations contained in the question, and it only remains for me to say that I must decline to withdraw the circular.

    POST OFFICE—TWINE CONTRACT.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he can say when the contract for twine supplied to the Post Office was last renewed, and the name of the present contractor; whether he is a manufacturer of twine; whether the contract is for hemp twine, and whether that article is being supplied; and when he again proposes to submit the contract for tender.
    *THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, Worcestershire, E.): There are ten kinds of twine, string, and cord used by the Post Office, and supplies are obtained partly from the Prison Commissioners and partly from two contractors, Messrs. Ullathorne and Co. and Mr. I. N. Lyons, the contracts with whom were made in 1895 and are terminable by six months notice. Both are manufacturers of twine. The materials specified for the various kinds of twine, &c., are hemp, flax, and jute, and the supplies are carefully
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    tested on delivery to see that they con form to specification. It is not con sidered desirable to invite fresh tenders at present.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE: Are the contracts of any other Department subject to similar conditions as to termination?
    *MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes' Sir, many contracts are so determined.

    VALE OF CLWYD POSTAL SLRVICE.
    MR. HERBERT EGBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware of the inconvenience long felt by the residents of Denbigh and Ruthin, and other places in the Vale of Clwyd, owing to the system by which the mail postal service is worked; whether he is aware that the town of Den big his served by a mail cart, which is drive, I all the way from Den bigh to Rhyl, carling en route at Trefnant, St. Asaph, and Rhuddlan, and travelling along a road which most of the distance runs alongside the line of the London and North. Western Kailway Company from Denbigh to Rhyl; whether he is further aware that letters from Ruthin are similarly driven in a mail cart from Ruthin over the mountain to Mold, and from Mold on to Flint, although there is a railway connection from Ruthin to Chester either via Rhyl or via Mold; whether he can state the reason why this system, in vogue previous to the opening of the railway connections between the London and North Western Railway main line and the Vale of Clwyd, is perpetuated; and whether, seeing that these railway facilities for the carrying of the mails from these towns are, and have long been, available, he will, in the public interest, take steps for securing a more expeditious transference of the mails in the district referred to.
    *MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The night mails for and from Ruthin and Denbigh are conveyed by mail cart in the manner described by the hon. Member ber. There are no trains at present running which could be used for that service, and when the railway company were last communicated with on the subject they were not willing to put on

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    trains at suitable hours except for a payment considerably greater than the service warranted. As, however, some years have elapsed since the matter was last inquired into, the Postmaster General has given instructions for renewed inquiry to be made, and he will communicate the result to the hon. Member as soon as possible.
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: Has the hon. Gentleman received information that since this question was put down there has, owing to an accident, been another delay of one and a half hours?
    *MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. But it is not merely to mail carts that accidents happen.
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: But is not the hon. Gentleman aware that these accidents and delays frequently occur?
    *MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I am not aware of that.

    ASSISTANTS OF CUSTOMS.
    MR. JOHN GORDON (Londonderry, S.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the promise made by his predecessor on 31st July last, that the outdoor officers promoted to the grade of Assistants of Customs, who did practically the same work in their former posts, would have that fact recognised by being placed at a higher point in the scale of salary assigned to Assistants of Customs, has not been fulfilled, and that these officers have been informed that no further recognition must be looked for; and if he will state why this promise has not been fulfilled, and whether he will take measures to see that it is carried out.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir, I am aware of the promise made by my right hon. friend that the men who, before they were appointed to the new class of Assistants of Customs, had as outdoor officers been doing work equal to that of the new class, should count the time during which they had done such work and take their position in future in the scale of the new class accordingly. Steps were at once taken
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    to carry out this promise. After careful consideration it was decided to allow them to count all time in excess of three years served as outdoor officers as if it were time spent on duties equal to that of the new class, and that to give effect to the promise made each of the officers affected should be placed at the point which he would have reached if he had become an assistant on the completion of three years service as outdoor officer. On applying this rule to the individual-cases it was found that owing to a special concession made to this class of officer in March, 1897, the benefit of the concession promised by my right hon. friend' was already enjoyed in practice by the whole of the staff concerned with some few very slight and temporary exceptions, not amounting in most cases to more than a few shillings. I have directed that in all these cases the difference, whatever it is, shall be paid to the officers concerned; and when this has been done the promise of my right hon. friend will, have been completely fulfilled.

    DISMTSSALS—CASE OF MR. CARELESS.
    MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that Mr. Careless, a post office sorter, has recently been dismissed, after sixteen years good conduct service, on a charge of stealing and cashing a postal order value 8s. 6d.; that Mr. Careless denies the charge and demands to be prosecuted so that he may prove his innocence; that the post office, though they have deducted the 8s. 6d. from his pay, refuse to prosecute him; and whether it is in accordance with the rules of the public service to dismiss an old official for stealing, deduct the loss from his wages, and yet refuse to prosecute him when he demands to be tried to prove his innocence.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: In reply to the hon. Member I have to state that Mr. Alfred Charles Careless, late a sorter attached to the Circulation Branch at the chief office was recently dismissed by the Postmaster General, as he was of opinion that Mr. Careless was not a fit person to be retained in the service. The Postmaster General is unable to admit the principle that he is

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    bound to prosecute a post office servant for an alleged irregularity before dismissing him. The Postmaster General must in the interest of the public service exercise a discretion in such matters.
    MR. HARTLEY: May I ask whether this sorter was dismissed not for irregularity and unsuitability, but for absolute stealing? Was not the money said to have been stolen deducted from his wages, and has he not asked to be prosecuted for stealing in order to be may have an opportunity of proving his innocence?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: There was a deduction made as stated in the question. The reply given to me by the Postmaster General is that which I have read. It says that Mr. Careless was dismissed because the Postmaster General did not think him a fit person to be retained in the service. If Mr. Careless considers himself aggrieved he has his remedy against the Postmaster General, who cannot undertake to order a prosecution in every case in which he feels it necessary to dispense with anyone's service.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis): Will the Postmaster General defend the action if one is brought?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I must ask for notice of that.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: In view of precedents recently set by another Department, cannot this man, who is unfit for service at home, be sent to Gibraltar?
    [No answer was returned.]

    COMPULSORY RETIREMENT FROM THE CIVIL SERVICE.
    SIR GEORGE NEWNES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state the objections, if any, to assimilating the age fixed for the compulsory retirement of officials from the Post Office, and Inland Revenue, and Customs Departments respectively; and will he take steps for the assimilation in future of the practice of these Departments.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Orders in Council while making retire-
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    ment compulsory at the age of sixty-five, leave it to the discretion of heads of departments to call upon their officers to retire at sixty if they see fit. The Treasury think it important to maintain the discretion and responsibility thus vested in the heads of Departments, and they are not prepared to interfere with the existing practice.

    AVOCH HARBOUR.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland is aware that one side of the harbour of Avoch, Ross-shire, has been entirely swept away, and that apart from this the harbour is in a bad state of repair; is he aware that during a storm a year ago several boats inside the harbour belonging to fishermen of the district were completely wrecked; and will he state who is responsible for the maintenance of the harbour, and what steps he proposes to take in order to secure the repair of the harbour.
    *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire): I am informed by the Fishery Board that the answer to the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question is in the negative, and to the second in the affirmative, and in reply to the third I may point out that the Secretary for Scotland has no source of information not equally open to the hon. Member himself, and no means of securing the repair of the harbour as seems to be suggested by the hon. Member.

    HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION IN THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, in view of the difficulty experienced in securing suitable hospital accommodation in the poorer districts of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, he will consider the expediency of introducing legislation such as will provide for the establishment and maintenance of hospitals in congested areas.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The Secretary for Scotland would not be disinclined, should a favourable opportunity present itself, to amend the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897,

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    in one or two respects, and in this event he will consider whether the point mentioned in the hon. Member's question can be provided for.

    CONGESTION IN THE ISLAND OF LEWIS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland has received a petition from the Landward Committee of the Stornoway Parish Council calling attention to the congested condition of the Island of Lewis and the consequent evils arising therefrom; and will he state whether the Congested Districts Board have made any efforts to secure land in Lewis, at places other than in the Point District, suitable for new holdings; and if so, will he give particulars.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The answer to the first portion of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. The answer to the second portion is also in the affirmative, namely at Aignish, Cress and Croir.
    MR. WEIR: What is the acreage of land sought to be secured?
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: I cannot answer that without notice.

    IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT RULES AND ORDERS.
    MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can explain why the further Return of rides or orders made or issued under or in consequence of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, which was promised on the 20th July last year by his predecessor, has not since been laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say when the rules and orders of the Local Government Board (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 360, of Session 1899), promised last year, will be issued.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The
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    Return was laid on the Table and ordered to be printed in August last. The rules and orders are ready for press, but there has been unavoidable delay in the preparation of the index. This has now been completed, and the Return will be distributed at an early date.

    IRISH DAIRY INDUSTRIES.
    MR. O'MARA (Kilkenny, S.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Department of Agriculture is aware that all dairies must be registered, and that all preservatives except common salt are prohibited for butter in Denmark; and further that in the same country pasteurisation of milk has recently been made compulsory in all dairies with the objects of preventing the spread of contagious disease, of improving the flavour of butter, and of increasing keeping qualities of same; and whether he contemplates introducing legislation dealing with any of these matters in Ireland.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The facts are as stated in the question. In Ireland all dailies from which milk is sold to the public, as well as all co-operative dairies in which butter is manufactured, are registered. With regard to preservatives, the Department of Agriculture thinks it advisable to await the report of the Committee appointed by the English Local Government Board to inquire into the use of preservatives in food, before expressing an opinion on the question of special legislation on the subject. As regards the pasteurisation, the Department is prepared to make advances upon favourable terms to enable owners of dairies to erect pasteurising plant, but it does not, at present, consider that legislation making pasteurisation compulsory is required.

    LABOURERS' COTTAGES AT BIRR.
    MR. REDDY (King's County, Birr): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that out of forty-five applications for labourers' cottages in the Birr No. 1 Rural District, and approved of by that District Council, only seven were passed by the Local Government Board; and whether, when the next inquiry for the

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    erection of labourers' cottages in that union is held, some inspector other than that who has recently reported will be sent to take the evidence and report upon it.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The facts are correctly stated in the first paragraph. The rejection of so many applications was duo to the careless manner in which the scheme was prepared, the provisions of the Act in some respects having been wholly disregarded. The inspector who held the inquiry is one of the most experienced officers of the Board, and I cannot give the undertaking asked in the second paragraph.

    IRISH CONGESTED DISTRICTS RETURN.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant the Return respecting Congested Districts (Ireland) which stands on to-day's Paper.*
    MR. WYNDHAM: It is not possible to give the information indicated under all the headings of this Return. But I have collected together as much as is procurable, and will forward it to the hon. Member privately, as soon as it has been tabulated.

    BELFAST PAUPER GRAVEYARDS.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether complaints have been
    *The following is the Return alluded to:—Congested Districts (Ireland).—Return showing (1) total rateable value of the Congested District portion of county Kerry; (2) total area and population of same; (3) total amount of money expended in Kerry by the Congested Districts Hoard since the passing of the Act of 1801; (4) how and when has such money been expended; (5) has the money available for the purposes of the Act been distributed in accordance with Section 36, subsection 3 of the Purchase of Land Act, 1891, which says that the money be apportioned between the Congested Districts Counties in proportion to their population; (6) total amount which under this section should since the passing of the Act be paid to Kerry; (7) how many estates in Kerry have been listed for sale under the 40th section of the Land Act of 1896; (8) how many of such estates have the Congested Districts Hoard endeavoured to purchase: (9) what is the cause of the delay in the sale of such estates to the tenants.
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    made to the Local Government Board as to the overcrowded condition of the pauper graveyard, Belfast; can he say what is its area; and has any record been kept of the number interred; is he aware that the medical officer of health condemns it as insanitary and that there are a number of working men's houses in close proximity to the graveyard, and, will he cause inquiry to be made into this matter.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The area of the workhouse cemetery is about two and a half acres, and a record is kept. The medical officer of health has not condemned the cemetery as insanitary; dwelling houses have been erected in the neighbourhood. The Local Government Board has been in correspondence with the guardians on the subject of providing additional accommodation, and the Board understands that the guardians are now taking steps to this end.

    PHŒNIX PARK, DUBLIN—USE FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord I Lieutenant of Ireland whether the military authorities in Dublin have made any request that an extended area of Phoenix Park should be placed at their service for military training operations: if so, what further portions of the park were asked for and what further portions, if any, have been given for military purposes; and will he take care that no further encroachments are made upon the areas of the park used by the public for amusements.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The correspondence referred to dealt mainly with access by a shorter route to the fifteen acres, and to certain facilities for practising extended formations over wider areas. No encroachment will be made on areas used for games.

    OMAGH DISTRICT CEMETERY.
    MR. MUENAGHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a loan for the purpose of providing a cemetery for the district of Omagh was sanctioned in the year 1899, and an instalment of £1,000 for

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    warded in September, 1899, to the Omagh Rural District Council, and that the amount expended by the council to the 1st April, 1900, was £2,077, on which date the control of the cemetery was transferred to the Omagh Urban Council, thus leaving a balance due to the rural district council of £1,077; and, having regard to the fact that the several applications to the Local Government Board for the payment of this £1,077 remain unanswered to the detriment of the rural council, which is responsible to the Ulster Bank for this sum with interest at the rate of four per cent., will he state the cause of delay, and when the money will be; forwarded.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The figures are correctly stated in the first paragraph. No applications to the Local Government Board for payment of the sum of £1,077 remain unanswered. The Board approved of the issue of a further instalment of £800 to the Urban Council in October last. The question of the adjustment of the liabilities of the Urban and Rural District Council is still unsettled. The authorities have agreed to refer the matters in dispute for settlement by an adjusting officer of the Local Government Board, and until the formal agreement to this effect is before the Board it cannot take any action in the matter.
    MR. MURNAGHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing that although the extended time allowed by the Local Government Board Order for closing the old burial ground at Omagh expired on 1st March, the new cemetery is not ready to receive interments nor is it likely to be ready for several months, ho will advise the Local Government Board to still further extend the time of closing the Drumragh burial ground.
    MR. WYNDHAM: If such an application be made to the Board by the local authority, the period will be extended.

    ROXBORO ROAD SCHOOL.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieuten-
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    ant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Roxboro Road School premises are let to Rev. Canon Greg as tenant from year to year, in contravention of the terms of the Act, vesting them in the trustees, in the several schemes drawn up by the Educational Endowment Commission and agreed to on the part of Roman Catholics and Protestants, that the value of these premises when realized should be devoted to the interests of education in Limerick; and does he intend to take any steps to secure this endowment for the people of Limerick.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The justices acted within their powers in letting these premises to Dean Greg, not in contravention of the statute, as stated in the question. The several schemes having fallen through, owing to the objection raised to them, nothing can now be done without legislation, as the powers of the Commissioners are spent.
    MR. JOYCE: So there is no law to prevent such trust funds being diverted from the purposes for which they were created? Are we in Ireland to be governed by no law founded on fair play and justice?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    SHILLELAGH UNION TROUBLES.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR (Wicklow, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can give the names of the witnesses summoned by Dr. Flinn on behalf of Nurse Joyce in connection with the recent Local Government Board inquiry at Shillelagh; also the names of those witnesses who gave evidence for Nurse Joyce, and of those who did not give evidence.
    MR. WTNDHAM: I am communicating the information desired in the question to the hon. Member privately.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I do not want the information privately. This is a matter of great importance, concerning as it does a medical officer of the Local Government Board, so I will put the question on Monday.
    MR. WYNDHAM: A long list of names can convey nothing to the House.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: It is not a long list. There are only eight names. I want them published.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I do not object to reading the names.

    THOMASTOWN PETTY SESSIONAL BENCH.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what is the number of Protestant and the number of Roman Catholic magistrates in Thomastown petty sessions district; whether he is aware that for twenty years no Roman Catholic magistrate was appointed in this district, and that 95 per cent. of the population are Roman Catholics; and whether any steps will he taken to remedy this grievance.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The numbers are eight and none respectively. There is no information which would enable me to reply to the second and third paragraphs of the question. The Lieutenant of the county and the Lord Chancellor will be prepared to consider the names of any gentlemen recommended to them by the hon. Member.

    THOMASTOWN SANITATION.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if a resolution has been received from Thomastown Rural District Council, by the Local Government Board, asking them to send their medical and engineering inspectors to visit Thomastown and report on sanitation of same; whether he is aware that the medical officer of health reported twelve months ago some portions of Thomastown as dangerous to the public health; and whether he can give any assurance that Local Government Board inspectors will visit and report in the near future.
    MR. WYNDHAM: It forms no part of the duty of the Local Government Board's engineers to advise local authorities in the manner suggested; the Rural Council should employ a competent engineer. The medical officer of health reported some time ago in favour of an improved scheme of drainage. The Board will communicate with the
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    Council shortly on the subject, and will I instruct one of their medical inspectors to attend and give the Council any assistance in his power.

    POISONING SALMON SPAWNING GROUNDS.
    MR. CARVILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware of a practice in some parts of the west coast of Ireland of poisoning the spawning resorts with pounded makkinbwee, to the injury of the salmon industry; and that the fishermen and their families, some 300 souls, resident on the island of Rossmore in the Kenmare river, complain that by reason of this poisoning their chief soruce of living is reduced and imperiled; and whether, seeing that at petty sessions detected persons have been frequently fined without bringing redress, he will consider what other step can be taken to put a stop to the practice complained of.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Considerable damage is done to the salmon fisheries in some parts of Ireland by the poisoning of livers with the plant indicated in the question (Euphorbia Hibernica). The plant grows in great profusion, and it is very difficult to detect persons actually putting it in the water. The Irish Inland Fisheries Commissioners in their recent Report recommended some amendments in the law with a, view to dealing with this offence, and these recommendations are now engaging the attention of the Department of Agriculture.

    IRISH BOARD OF WORKS CHAIRMANSHIP.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Chairman of the Board of Works, Ireland, has resigned and whether his resignation has been accepted; whether any appointment has yet been made to the office; and, if so, whether he can say who has been appointed, and what are his qualifications for the office.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Perhaps the hon. Member will repeat this question on Monday, and address it to my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury.

    STEWARTSTOWN—ST. PATRICK'S DAY MEETING.
    MR. DOOGAN (Tyrone, E.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it has come to his knowledge that arrangements have been made to hold a public meeting on the 18th instant in the vicinity of Stewarts-town, County Tyrone, to commemorate the national festival of Ireland; is he aware that, notwithstanding the fact that a number of people would require to pass into and through the town to attend the meeting, the local magistrates have issued a proclamation forbidding excursionists to pass through Stewartstown on Monday next; and whether this action of the magistrates will be reviewed and cancelled.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The promoters of the meeting have been warned that it cannot be allowed in the town, because it would undoubtedly lead to a riot; but if it is held outside the town no interference with it will be permitted; nor will persons be prevented from passing through the town to take part in it, so long as nothing in the nature of a procession is formed within the town. The magistrates' action will be supported.
    MR. DOOGAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the local magistrates have issued a proclamation (I have it here) absolutely forbidding the meeting?
    MR. WYNDHAM: The meeting cannot be allowed in the town, but it may take place outside.
    MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.): Why should the meeting be allowed immemediately outside the town but not in it?
    MR. WYNDHAM: It is a matter of police precautions. Meetings of this kind sometimes lead to trouble.
    MR. FLYNN (Cork. N.): lf the meeting is held outside the town will the proclamation be withdrawn?
    MR. WYNDHAM: The proclamation only refers to the town.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Will the Orangemen in the town be confined to barracks on the day?
    [No answer was given.]

    THE WEXFORD LOCAL GOVERNMENT APPEAL.
    MR. JORDAN (Fermanagh, S.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the decision of the Court of Appeal in the county Wexford case, in reference to the action of the Local Government Board, in increasing the salaries of certain county officials, he will instruct the Local Government Board to hold an inquiry in the county Fermanagh on the matter of such increases in said county.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The orders made in the case of the secretary and one assistant surveyor were brought into the Court of King's Bench. In the case of the secretary an agreement was arrived at with the county council. In the case of the assistant surveyor the conditional order was discharged, and that decision was not appealed against; consequently all the orders remain in force, and there appears to be no power to withdraw the orders or to re-open the question.

    GREYSTONES PIER AND HARBOUR.
    MR. COGAN (Wicklow, E.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a sum of over £20,000 was expended on the erection of a pier and harbour at Greystones, county Wicklow; that the county surveyor inspected the works in January, 1896, and reported several defects in the works; that the Board of Works issued a warrant in July, 1896, transferring the pier and harbour in an incomplete condition to the grand jury of the county Wicklow, and that the county surveyor reported to the grand jury again in March, 1897. that nothing had been done to the works since his report in January, 1896, and that he found them in a state of partial ruin and positively dangerous; and whether, seeing that the grand jury in the same year passed a resolution that owing to the condition of the Greystones Harbour they declined to accept any responsibility in connection with it or to appoint a harbour master, and that the ratepayers of the barony of Rathdown are charged with an annual payment of £68 for this work, and having regard to the expenditure of public money in this case, the Board of Works will take the

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    necessary steps to put the pier and harbour into proper condition, and enable the county council to take charge of the harbour for the benefit of the locality.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The statements in the first paragraph are generally correct, except that I am unable to say whether the county surveyor in January, 1896, made a report to the late grand jury on the subject. With reference to the inquiry at the conclusion of the question, I can only say at present that the Irish Government is in communication with the Treasury in this and other similar matters.

    SALE OF THE DILLON ESTATE.
    MR. HAYDEN (Roscommon. S.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the legal proceedings in connection with the sale of the Dillon estate by the Congested Districts Board to the tenants, in which a hitch has arisen in consequence of the reservation of sporting rights; in whose interest has this reservation been proposed; is he aware that one of the members of the Land Commission has refused to sanction the advance of public money on account of this reservation, and that further proceedings have been initiated by the Congested Districts Board for the purpose of insisting on the reservation against the wishes of the tenants; and whether it is intended by the Board to insist on the insertion of the reservation clause in the agreements, and so jeopardise the proposed sale.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The matters referred to in this question are down for hearing before the Land Commission Court. I am, therefore, Precluded from commenting on them.

    LESLIE v. JUSTICES OK MONAGHAN.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, at the October Sessions of last year, at Monaghan. Henry K. Leslie, agent for the Earl of Dartrey, applied for a transfer of a licence to sell spirituous liquors by retail, which was

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    opposed by a parishioner and refused on the grounds of unfitness and inconvenience of the premises, unfitness of the applicant, and of his not being in bona fide occupation of the premises, and that the Queen's Bench Division upheld this decision; can he explain why the police did not officially object to the application, as the sergeant of the district, when called by the objector, swore that the premises were incapable of proper police supervision, and deposed to the unfitness and inconvenience of the premises; and in view of the fact that Mr. Leslie is again applying for a licence on 26th March, will instructions be given to the police to officially oppose the granting of the licence.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone. S.): Before my right hon. friend answers the question will he let me ask if this Mr. Leslie is carrying on business as a publican although he was refused a licence by the licensing authorities? If so, will he tell the House under what authority he is doing so.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry. N.): At the request of my right hon. friend I will reply to this question. The facts stated in the first paragraph are substantially correct. The house referred to has been licensed and managed for many years by a tenant of Lord Dartrey. On the death of this tenant Mr. Leslie, on behalf of his principal, paid the executors of the deceased tenant a sum of £400 for their interest in the premises and applied for a transfer of the licence to himself until he could procure another tenant. The alleged unfitness in the premises consisted in its distance from the police barrack, though that was the same as it had been for many years during the lifetime of the deceased publican. And the alleged unfitness of the applicant, who was a most respectable gentleman, consisted in the fact that he would not reside on the premises and could not personally superintend the business. These were technical legal questions not justifying police intervention. The reply to the last paragraph is in the negative. With regard to the supplementary question, Mr. Leslie would have been required to serve notice of twenty-one

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    days before 12th January, and as the decision of the Court of the Queen's Bench was not given until the 21st December, time did not permit of the notice being given for hearing in January. Application for the new licence will be made on 26th March, and pending that the Excise authorities have granted a permit to Mr. Leslie to carry on the business.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I have in my hand a letter from the Excise authorities, in which they say they are acting on the recommendation of the Irish Government. Am I to understand that the Irish Government claim a right in licensing matters to override the decisions of the licensing authority confirmed by the Court of the Queen's Bench in cases in which the applicant is the agent of the Irish landlord?
    MR. ATKINSON: No, Sir. The Irish Government claim no such authority, and it was hardly necessary for the hon. Gentleman to ask the question or for me answer it. The hon. Member is entirely in error in supposing that the Irish Executive have given any directions in the matter.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I have the authority of the Excise people for saying that they have.
    MR. CAINE: Is or is not Mr. Leslie keeping a shebeen?
    MR. ATKINSON: If the hon. Member takes any pleasure in calling it that, he is.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Is there any statute enabling the Excise authorities to grant licences which have been refused both by the local Bench and the Court of Appeal?
    MR. ATKINSON: It is not my duty to answer that.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: For the information of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I give notice that on the Inland Revenue Vote I shall call attention to this illegal action of the Excise authorities.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: IS it not the duty of the Attorney General to prosecute in these cases of illegality?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT—ROAD LENGTH LIMITS.
    MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN (Tipperary, Mid): I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, or any of the Orders in Council made in connection therewith limit the length of a road which may be formulated in one proposal by a district council and accepted by a county council; and, if so, can he state the provisions of the Act, or the Order which so limits the length of the road.
    MR. ATKINSON: I am not aware of any provision in the Act or Orders providing specifically for the length of a road, in reference to which a proposal may be formulated.

    IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT RULES AND ORDERS.
    MR. KENNEDY (Westmeath, N.): I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that, under the Local Government Board Order of 9th May, 1899, a petition to the judge of assize, pursuant to Section 10 (3) of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, to be heard at the spring assizes cannot be lodged sooner than the 15th February, while under the rules of court, dated 13th May, 1899, the clerk of the Crown and peace cannot enter a petition for hearing at spring assizes held on 1st March unless lodged by 13th February; and whether he can state who is responsible for this blunder in drafting, and what steps will be taken to give effect to the Act of Parliament dealing with this matter.
    MR. ATKINSON: There is a possibility of the hitch pointed out in the question in cases where the spring assizes open on the 1st March, but I am not aware that any inconvenience has as yet been experienced. The orders were made by the Local Government Board, the rules by the judges of the Superior Court. I have already taken steps to have the matter reconsidered by the authorities.
    MR. KENNEDY: Did not a case of the kind actually occur at the recent assizes at Trim?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The question on the Paper has been fully answered.
    MR. KENNEDY: Then I give notice that I will put another down.

    OCCUPIERS OF LABOURERS' COTTAGES AND MEMBERSHIP OF PUBLIC BOARDS.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether, considering the decision of the King's Bench with reference to occupiers of labourers' cottages being entitled to sit on public boards, steps will be taken to reinstate Johnson Magee, an occupier of a labourer's cottage, who was returned by a majority for Jerpoint electoral division, Thomas-town Union, and who was compelled to resign in consequence of a letter from the Local Government Board.
    MR. ATKINSON: The person mentioned has resigned. His resignation has, I believe, been accepted. There is no power to reinstate him in his office.

    IRISH RAILWAY RATES— KILLARNEY'S COMPLAINT.
    MR. MURPHY (Kerry, E.): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the inequality in railway charges on goods on the Great Southern and Western (of Ireland) Railway as far as the town of Killarney is concerned; whether he is aware that goods are conveyed by the said company from Dublin and Cork and intermediate stations to Tralee at a lower rate than to Killarney, though Tralee is twenty miles further from the points indicated; and whether, seeing that there is a through cross-channel rate to most other towns with which the said railway is connected, entitling traders to a free delivery of goods at their business premises, while a charge is made for cartage from the railway station to the place of business of the consignee at Killarney; and, having regard to the injury done to trade in Killarney by these arrangements, he will make inquiries into the matter, and take steps
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    to have such railway charges arranged on an equitable basis.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR.I understand the hon. Member is not correct in his facts, and I refer him to Section 38 of the Great Southern and Western, &c, Act, 1900. I am also informed that none of the company's goods rates with Killarney include the service of delivery, and that it is not performed by the company who have no carting agent there.

    VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE IRISH AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.
    MR. COGHILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Vice-President of the Irish Agricultural Department is to continue without a seat in this House?
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): I hope not.

    CIVIL LIST COMMITTEE—PUBLICATION OF CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General, with reference to the publication of the confidential draft of the Civil List in a, newspaper, if he will institute an inquiry into the circumstances with the view of determining whether the persons concerned have brought themselves within the penal provisions of Sections 2 and 3 of the Official Secrets Act, 1889, relating to the improper disclosure of official documents or information.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FlNLAY,): Any inquiry into the circumstances of the publication referred to in the question could be much more effectively conducted by the Committee itself. If any facts should be brought to my notice bearing on the question of prosecution they will be carefully considered, but it hardly falls within the province of the Director of Public Prosecutions in the first instance to initiate an inquiry into the circumstances attending the publication of a confidential document submitted to a Committee of this House.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I should like, arising out of this, to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question.
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The I hon. Member cannot ask a question of another Minister arising out of that question.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Then I will ask you, Sir, a question on the point of order. In reference to the Report which the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented, I beg to ask whether you will take into consideration the fact that this confidential document of the Civil List Committee was published not only in The Times, but, simultaneously, in the Birmingham Daily Post; and whether in any action that may be taken on the matter you, Sir, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take into consideration the fact that if The Times is to blame, the Birmingham Daily Post is equally to blame.
    *MR. SPEAKER: That is not a question of order. The hon. Member well knows that questions are not to be addressed to the Chair except on questions of order or procedure as they arise.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Has not an unusual course been taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this case, in referring the matter to the Chair and not to the House? On the point of order may I ask, you, Sir, whether we are not entitled at some stage to put the question why only one paper has been referred to, and why the Birmingham Daily Post has not been referred to?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Not to me.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Then put the question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    *SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The only paper to which our attention was called, or of which I had any knowledge at all, was The Times.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask whether, now the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been called to the fact that this confidential document was simultaneously published in the Birmingham Daily Post as well as The Times, he will also include the Birmingham Daily Post in his Report?
    *SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The Report is out of my hands; it is the Report of the Committee of the House.
    MR. KENNEDY: Will the right hon. Gentleman issue a Supplementary Report?
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I must ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, under these circumstances, the Report having passed out of his hands, he will be good enough to call the attention of his Committee to the fact that the Birmingham Daily Post is in exactly the-same position as The Times in this matter?
    *SIR M. HICKS BEACH: If I may express my own opinion, it is that I am sure that if the Committee had known this they would have named the Birmingham Daily Post in their Report.
    MR. TENNANT: Will the right hon. Gentleman bring it before the Committee?
    *SIR M. HICKS BEACH: It is practically covered.
    MR. FLAVIN: Are they aware that the Birmingham Daily Post is equally guilty with The Times?
    MR. TATTON EGERTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, after the improper publication of private and secret Papers, made in a certain daily journal on Thursday, 14th March, he will bring-in any Standing, Order to forbid the entrance into the precincts of the House of any official or reporter of any journal who publishes such private or secret Papers.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My hon. friend is probably aware of what took place in the Committee, and, of the Report which the Committee made, which has been laid before the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope that that will give him the answer he seeks.

    PARLIAMENTARY RETURNS.
    MR. KIMBER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will grant the Return, entitled Parliamentary Constituencies (Elec-

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    tions, etc.) (No. 2), which stands on today's Paper,† or consent to the addition of the particulars asked for to the Return under this title already ordered.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think my hon. friend will get the information he wants from a Return about to be presented by the Home Office, on the motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean.

  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
  MR. MARKHAM: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, to expedite public business, he will consider the advisability of having all replies to questions addressed to Ministers by hon. Members printed and circulated among Members at the commencement of business.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Gentleman means that any part of the questions answered across the floor of the House and their replies should be published first, I think it would only increase instead of diminishing the congestion of business. If, on the other hand, he means that the House is to be content with printed answers to the questions, it appears to me that, however desirable that might be from some points of view, it would deprive the House of the indulgence in a practice which it appears to enjoy.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon Gentleman take any steps to prevent the same question being asked over and over again, season after season, as has been the case this session?
  [No answer was returned.]
  † The following is the Return referred to:—"Parliamentary Constituencies, Electors, etc. (No. 2).—Return of (1) the average number of Electors and of population respectively represented by the 670 Members of this House, and the highest and lowest represented by one Member; (2) the number and names of the Constituencies having more than double that average number, and of those having less than half of that average number: (3) the number of Members in this House represented by Constituencies having less than the average number; (4) the number of Members returned by the one-half of the total of the Electors of the United Kingdom whose electorates are lower than the rest, and the number of Members returned by the other half; and (5) the same particulars as regards each of the four parts of the United Kingdom, viz., England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland."

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.): I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can state on what date it is proposed to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair for the purpose of discussing the Navy Estimates.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I hope, on Monday next.
*SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in the event of financial exigencies necessitating Votes A and 1, Army Estimates, being obtained before the close of next Tuesday's sitting, he can give, an assurance that before any other Votes are submitted in Committeean opportunity will be afforded to the House of discussing the nature of the work to be done by the British Army under the conditions of maritime supremacy.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The question of my hon. and gallant friend brings up in a very clear way the condition in which we are in regard to getting Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Army Estimates. I perfectly understand that the House is not satisfied with the amount of discussion which has taken place, either on the question of Mr. Speaker leaving the Chair or on Votes A and 1. But it is really necessary in the general interests that all those questions should be decided to-day, and if that is not possible I am afraid we ought to sit to-morrow. [Nationalist cries of "Certainly, and on Sunday too."] I think we should avoid that alternative if we can. [Nationalist cries of "No."] Even to oblige hon. Gentlemen opposite, we should, I think, avoid if we can the general inconvenience to other hon. Gentlemen of a Saturday sitting.
MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Surely they can sit in the interests of their own country!
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There is a stronger argument. I do not think that even with a Saturday sitting there could be adequate discussion of the very important military questions raised by these Votes. More than one suggestion! has been made for getting over the difficulty. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark

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suggests the ingenious plan of withdrawing Votes A and I and getting the necessary amount of money by a Vote on Account for the Army. No doubt something might be said for that, but it is a plan, I remember, that Mr. Gladstone strongly objected to in 1883 or 1884, and it has the disadvantage that the continuation of the discussion on my right hon. friend's Army scheme would go on on the question of Mr. Speaker leaving the Chair. I do not think that is a convenient method, because my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition and the light hon. Member for West Monmouthshire have spoken on that. So, too, have I. No power to reply is left to any of those Gentlemen. I think the whole question should be raised again in a substantive form, and in a manner which would neither trench on the twenty-three days of Supply, nor exclude so important a contributor to the debate as my right hon. friend who is responsible for the scheme, and who is necessarily and naturally its chief defender. I would therefore ask my right hon. friends who are properly anxious to speak upon the question to defer dealing with it until a substantive resolution is brought before the House after Easter embodying the main outlines of the proposals, and therefore giving the House a full opportunity of raising any question they like upon it. That would. I think, be far more convenient, and at the same time meet the wishes of everybody. It would enable the necessary business of Supply to be concluded and it would not involve any sacrifice of the ordinanry discussion in Supply, which, limited as it is by the twenty-three days rule is rather intended for the ordinary criticism of Government administration than for the discussion of any great constructive scheme. Having tried to meet the wishes of the House, I trust the House will meet the Government by allowing the Speaker to leave the Chair, and giving them Votes A and I in the course of this evening.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Will the Government agree that no steps shall be taken to put into effect any of the proposals of the War Secretary until the House has had the opportunity of debating them?
SIR JOHN BRUXNER: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that in order to afford an opportunity of discussing this subject private Members shall not be deprived of their rights after Easter?
CAPTAIN NORTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that the debate shall come on early after Easter, and not be delayed until July or
August?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I shall bring on the resolution as soon as I can after Easter, but I cannot give any pledge until I have consulted the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the demand he is likely to make on the House with regard to financial business. I hope the House will meet me in a reasonable spirit. We must have the men for the South African War, quite apart from the general Army scheme. No progress of any material kind can or will be made in carrying out that part of the scheme which is concerned with the organisation of army corps before the resolution is brought forward.
SIR JOHN BRUXNER: And you will not take Wednesdays?
[No answer was returned.]
MR. CHAPLIN: We understand that it is the intention of the Government to afford this opportunity as early as possible after Easter, consistently with other necessary business.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is my object, but I must not be too closely bound down.
MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen. S.): Am I right in understanding that although the right hon. Gentleman does not bind himself not to take steps in regard to military exigencies under the Vote, yet ho will not do anything to bring the new scheme into execution beyond what is required by military exigencies? Will his resolution be of such a nature, too, as to enable the whole scheme to be amply discussed' and no part kept back on the ground that it has already been before the House?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My desire will be that the resolution shall cover the whole ground. With regard to the organisation of the army corps, no progress of a material kind can or will, be made in carrying out that part of the scheme.
*SIR JOHN COLOMB: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman that his resolution will bear in mind the influence of our sea-power in determining the work to be done by the Army; Shall we be able to discuss that?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That, I imagine, will be for the Speaker to determine. I do not propose to mention maritime power in my resolution, but still it seems to me that the organisation of the land Army cannot be wholly separated from the question of maritime power.
*SIR JOHN COLOMB: But will the resolution be so framed as to enable us to discuss these broader features?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know if, on the motion that Mr. Speaker leave the Chair, the hon. and gallant Member could discuss Naval details, but he might raise the debate perhaps on an Amendment to my resolution.
COLONEL WELBY: Will it be permissible to put down an Amendment to the resolution so as to raise a definite issue—the same as is done on Vote A?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should think so.
MR. BRYCE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can make any statement with regard to the order in which he proposes to take financial business next week.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My present intention is to take the Navy Estimates first on Monday and probably to proceed with them; I do not know what the House feels about that. Then we shall take the Civil Service Supplementary Estimates.
*MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.): Are we to understand that the motion that the
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Speaker do leave the Chair on the Civil Service Estimates will not be taken until after Easter?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Perhaps the hon. Member will put a question to mo upon that point next week. I take it there will be no difficulty in getting through. Votes A and 1 and the motion that the Speaker leave the Chair to-night, in which case I will not put the House to the trouble of discussing whether we shall sit to-morrow.
MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: The Irish Members are quite prepared to sit on Saturday, but if they assent to the arrangement suggested will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to give special facilities for the discussion of Irish subjects?
MR. WEIR: If it should be necessary to sit to-morrow will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a continuous sitting from now till 11 p.m. on Saturday, so as to avoid having to be here on Sunday?
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: As the Navy Estimates have only very recently been laid before the House, cannot the discussion of them be taken later than Monday?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I shall be quite ready to adjourn the discussion after the statement of my hon. friend in moving the Navy Estimates, and then take the Civil Service Supplementary Estimates. As I am afraid I am not fortunate enough to carry hon. Gentlemen opposite with me I shall have to make a motion before the commencement of public business.
*MR. BLAKE: If the right hon. Gentleman will give us some solid assurance that the motion that the Speaker leave the Chair on the Civil Service Estimates will not be proceeded with before Easter, I think we might reasonably assent to the arrangement proposed.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am most anxious not to burke the discussion in which the hon. Gentleman is interested. I assume he does not want it to come on immediately after Easter?
*MR. BLAKE: Not the first day or two.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then on the understanding that we get Mr. Speaker out of the Chair to-night, and also Votes A and 1, I will undertake not to move that the Speaker leave the Chair on the Civil Service Estimates until after Easter.

LESLIE v. THE JUSTICES OF MONAGHAN.
[ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.]
Mr. T. W. RUSSELLrose in his place and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the over-riding of the law as declared by the Irish King's Bench by the authorities of Dublin Castle in the case of Leslie v. The Justices of Monaghan"; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the motion to rise in their places, and not less than forty Members having accordingly risen—
*MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid the facts in this case were so simple and so plain as to appeal to the judgment of the House against the action of the authorities of Dublin Castle. According to law, the annual licensing sessions were held at Monaghan in the month of October last. Those sessions were the only sessions at which new licences could be legally granted, and Mr. Leslie, the agent to Lord Dartrey, applied for the transfer of a licence previously held by a Mr. Gardiner. The application, which was heard by the lawfully constituted licensing authority, the justices of Monaghan, was opposed, not by the police, but by the clergy and residents of the neighbourhood. The magistrates came to the conclusion that the premises were unsuitable and the applicant unfit, and those were two out of the three legal objections which could be urged in such cases. The transfer was accordingly refused. The applicant appealed to the Court of King's Bench, when, before a full court of four judges, the decision of the magistrates was upheld. In the ordinary course, Mr. Leslie would have had to close his premises, as the licence expired on the 11th
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October. But Ireland is an extraordinary country. Things occurred there which could take place in no other country. Notwithstanding the legal decisions, Mr. Leslie had been selling liquor every day since, and the police refused to prosecute. The Attorney General for Ireland had stated that Leslie paid the heirs of the previous holder £400 for the licence, that the place had always been conducted as a publichouse, and that no objection on the ground of unfitness had been taken. But the heirs of the previous holder were offered £600, and the Earl of Dartrey's agent stopped the sale by means that everyone from Ireland understood, namely, by the right of pre-emption. So the heirs were first done out of £200, and then this man applied for a licence himself. Who authorised this man to break the law? As the transfer had been refused, a new licence would have to be applied for, and that could not be done until next October, although possibly exceptional circumstances might be pleaded. The people of the neighbourhood had tried to find out who was responsible for the evasion of the law. The police knew nothing; they were ordered not to prosecute—not to give Lord Dartrey's agent any annoyance. The magistrates knew nothing, except that their decision had been over-ruled by some authority which had no legal warrant for its action. Dublin Castle referred the inquirers to the Excise authorities, from whom the following letter, dated 6th February, was received—
"I have laid before the Board of Inland Revenue your letter of the 31st ult., respecting the permission granted to Mr. H. T. Leslie to carry on business pending his application to the quarter sessions, to be held on 26th March next. In reply thereto, the Hoard direct me to state that in allowing Mr. Leslie to sell they are acting upon a recommendation of the Irish Government at Dublin Castle, to whom they must respectfully refer you for any information you may require on the subject."
He (the speaker) had applied to the representatives of Dublin Castle in the House of Commons, and had been sent back to the Excise. It was a short story, but it illustrated how things were done in Ireland. What he wanted to know from the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General was, even supposing Dublin Castle had the power to over-ride the

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licensing authorities, why was that power exercised in this case? Why was that done for Lord Dartrey's agent which would not be done for any humble applicant in County Dublin or anywhere else? This was a most unwarranted interference on the part of Dublin Castle with the law of the land, and he hoped that the Attorney General, if he could not explain this case, would at all events take great care that the action was not repeated during his time at Dublin Castle.
MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, X.),in seconding the motion for adjournment, said that in all the long history of scandal connected with Irish administration—although it was seldom concerned with licensing matters—he had never known so gross, so illegal, so shocking a case. What was the offence tolerated and winked at by Dublin Castle? In a county where the magistrates were practically chosen by Lord Rossmore, the head of the Orange Lodge in Ireland, they were not likely to be a bench favourable to the people, but, in this case. Lord Rossmore's Orange magistrates had actually refused to permit the transfer on the ground of the unfitness not only of the premises but also of the applicant. The case was decided practically on the authority of the decision in Sharpe v. Wakefield, the case upon which the whole of the English licensing law depended. The Attorney General smiled, but he laughed best who laughed last. The magistrates were entitled to take into account the distance of the house from the police barracks. He did not know who the magistrates were, but apparently they had the concurrence of the religious bodies of all denominations—a very unusual state of things in Ireland. The Earl of Dartrey's agent appealed last October or November, but for the four months that had elapsed since then, although the place had been as much without a licence as any shebeen or brothel, he had been allowed day after day to commit this breach of the law. For selling a single glass of whisky without a licence, a man was liable to a penalty of £50 or imprisonment, and the penalty was increased for subsequent offences. Why was not this man prosecuted? Why was Lord Dartrey's agent allowed to do these things? In
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a case of hardship it could be understood if the Government said they would not prosecute, but here there had been a legal decision. By what authority had Dublin Castle overruled the decision of the judges? In the times of James II. the suspensory power was considered to be revolutionary, and was formally condemned by the House of Commons. The reason this had happened was that a new sessions met on the 25th of this month, and this man had, he supposed, been allowed to remain unprosecuted because Lord Rossmore's friends would pack the bench for him in a fortnight's time and the Attorney General, being accustomed to the act of jury-packing, wanted to encourage the transaction. Who was Mr. Leslie? He was a member of one of the Carlton Clubs, he was a gentleman from Somersetshire, was formerly agent to King-Harman, and had been promoted to be agent to the Karl of Dartrey. If an ordinary publican sold a tent of liquor after licensed hours, he was prosecuted. Why was the law not enforced in the case of a man in the position of Lord Dartrey's agent who had broken the law for four months? If any Irish Nationalist, getting up a ball on St. Patrick's night, applied for an extension of time, he would be hooted by the police and the authorities. If any Nationalist had been found committing the smallest illegality the authorities would be only too ready to pounce upon him. Was it the law of the country that if you were Lord Dartrey's agent you could do as you liked, while if you were a poor man the law would be immediately enforced against you? The House might say this case was unworthy of their attention, but it gave them an admirable picture of what was going on in every town in Ireland. There was no law for the Nationalists and any amount of license for the Conservatives. What were the circumstances of the case under which Mr. Leslie was granted this unusual indulgence? There was a law by which the landlords under the Land Act could pre-empt and obtain possession of their neighbours goods without paying for them. In this case the price of the house in the open market was £600, and the landlord grabbed it for £400, and the Government, which professed to be

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so anxious to uphold the rights of property, wanted to enable this man illegally to remain in possession of his ill-gotten gains. He did not know why the Government poked their noses into these cases. Why should the Government go out of their way to assist this agent? Had they not enough agents and landlords on hand, for the whole work of Dublin Castle was simply carrying on the business of landlordism? Why should the Government bring down upon themselves this additional hornet's nest? After the Government had taken up this case simply because the man concerned was the agent of a noble Earl, and allowed it to go forth that they would tolerate illegality of this kind, he believed that even the Protestants in Ireland would now come to the conclusion which the Nationalists had long ago arrived at that there was in Ireland one law for the rich and another for the poor.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn"—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOE IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.): I do not think that the real facts of the case leave any room for the indignation shown by the two hon. Members who have spoken. These are shortly the facts in regard to the action of the Government, so far as they have taken any action at all in the matter. I do not intend to enter into the merits of this dispute between the agent to Lord Dartrey and the former tenant of his house. I may say that the facts in possession of the Government do not tally with those mentioned by my hon. friend upon this question. According to the facts in possession of the Government I understand that for some years the tenant carried on business as a publican in this house, the tenant himself having got an assignment from the preceding tenant, who had also carried on business for several years, and who died leaving a direction to his executors to sell and dispose of his interest in the house. The landlord—Lord Dart-rey—exercised the right of preemption when the tenant died. According to his right of preemption he was entitled to go into possession, but although Lord Dartrey was absolutely entitled to walk
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in for £120 he voluntarily increased the purchase money to £400. As far as I can find out there is no evidence that the sum of £600 is a fair valuation, but the fact remains that Lord Dartrey voluntarily increased the sum from £120 to £400. Of course the licence was the thing of real value, for the house was worth nothing without it.
AN HON. MEMBER: What about the farm?
MR. ATKINSON: There was only a small bit of land attached, and its value was comparatively nothing, for the real value was in the licensed house. The question decided by the Court was that in fixing the right of preemption they could not take into consideration the value of the licence, and Lord Dartrey thought it such a very unfair thing to the executors to deprive them of what was really the only thing of value that he refused to take advantage of the preemption price, and he increased it by the sum of £280.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Yes, in order to get the transfer.
MR. ATKINSON: I do not mean at all to decide or attempt to decide who was right or wrong upon that contract. Lord Dartrey's agent applied to the October Licensing Sessions for a transfer of the licence to himself. The case came before the magistrates, and they decided by a majority of eighteen votes to fifteen that the premises were unfit and that the applicant was an unfit tenant. My hon. and learned friend entirely mistook my smile just now. I did not at all intend to suggest that it was not perfectly competent for the magistrates to take those facts into consideration. They decided that the premises were unfit and' it was decided also that the applicant was unfit, although no objection was taken to his character. The objection taken to him was that he did not intend to carry on the business himself, and therefore the magistrates decided—rightly enough in my opinion—that he was an unfit person to hold the licence. That occurred at the October Sessions. I understand that the only objector to the transfer was one of Lord Dartrey's tenants who was under notice to quit, and who shortly afterwards surrendered his farm.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Is it not customary to take an inhabitant of the parish as a legal objector?
MR. ATKINSON: That is the custom, but what I have stated about this man I am informed is correct. Under these circumstances, the magistrates having decided that they would not transfer the licence, Mr. Leslie determined upon having that decision brought up by a writ of certiorari. I understand that it is quite a common thing for the Excise authorities to grant licences pending litigation of that character, in order to preserve the rights which would be lost otherwise. He applied to the Excise to be permitted to sell during the interval, and I understand that such a thing is rightly done almost every day, because it would be a most monstrous thing in an application for the transfer of the licence in which the magistrates decided wrongly that permission to sell in the interval should be refused because by the non-sale in the interval the valuable interest in the licence would be forfeited. The hon. Member admits that there may be circumstances which justify the Excise authorities granting a licence to sell pending the decision of another Court. The application was made at the October Sessions, and forthwith made to remove the case to the Queen's Bench, and the decision of the Queen's Bench was not given until the 21st of December. On the 31st of December the Court of Queen's Bench delivered judgment, upholding the decision of the magistrates. I understand that neither of my hon. friends objects to the procedure of the Excise authority in granting a licence up to the time that the Queen's Bench delivered judgment and the application for a writ of certiorari because that must be on the principle that the civil rights must be protected while the case is sub judice.
MR. T. M. HEALY: There is no instrument called a licence, for it is a mere indulgence.
MR. ATKINSON: But this thing is constantly done and rightly done, and that being so Mr. Leslie determined to apply for a new licence. The ordinary time to apply for a new licence would be the 21st of Januarys.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: No, no.
MR. ATKINSON: He could have applied at the January Sessions for a licence to trade on, and he was advised that he had a right to do it.
MR. T. M. HEALY: There is no such law, and this only applies in the case of a transfer.
MR. ATKINSON: I am not pledging myself to the propriety or impropriety of these proceedings, but I am telling the House what he was advised, and he was told that this was the proper course for him to take. As three weeks notice of his application was necessary, he was too late for the January sessions, because he did not know that he had been unsuccessful in the Queen's Bench until the 21st of December, and the interval between that date and the January sessions did not allow an interval of twenty-one days to elapse. By that misadventure owing to the delay in the Court of Queen's Bench delivering judgment on the writ of certiorari Mr. Leslie was deprived of making his application at the January sessions.
MR. T. M. HEALY: What fool advised him?
*MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member must not use such language.
MR. ATKINSON: Inasmuch as he could not proceed at the January sessions owing to the fact that he could not give three weeks notice, the first sessions that he could apply for the granting of an interim certificate for a new licence was the March sessions. That was entirely due to the fact that the Court of Queen's Bench delayed the delivering of their judgment until late in December. Under these circumstances Mr. Leslie applied to the Excise authorities to permit him to continue to sell until the March sessions so that his rights might not be prejudiced and for granting this permission the Irish Government is accused of exercising the prerogatives of James II. That is all the share which the Irish Government took in this matter. They received a communication from the Excise authorities setting out these facts and asking

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the Government if they had any objection to granting this permission to sell, inasmuch as Mr. Leslie had already paid for the licence. The reply given was that the Government had no objection to permitting him to continue to trade up to the 25th of March.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: But is that usual?
MR. ATKINSON: Yes, I understand that it is usual. This permission was granted because otherwise valuable rights would have been destroyed, and the licence was granted to sell until the owner had an opportunity of finally deciding the matter. We have done nothing except giving this man permission to sell up to the 25th of March, when his application at the licensing sessions will be finally adjudicated upon either one way or the other. That is the ordinary practice. It was not done by the authority or direction of the Executive at all.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. the learned Gentleman say how Mr. Leslie would have been prejudiced if he had not obtained protection when he made application for the new licence? Is it not the fact that he was allowed to carry on the public-house business for four months without a licence?
MR. ATKINSON: The decision was given by the Queen's Bench on the 21st December, and it was only then that the licence was really lost. Whether Mr. Leslie took the right course or not I cannot say; but at all events he made application to the Excise authorities, who asked the Executive Government if they might grant permission, and the Executive said they had no objection.
*MR. HEMPHILL: I have had some experience of the licensing system in Ireland, but I confess I have never heard of anything like the present state of affairs arising before. From the statement of the Attorney General, of course he was in no way responsible in this matter. Had it come before him originally, I am quite sure the present state of affairs would never have come into existence. I am not going into
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the merits or the motives of Mr. Leslie the agent of Lord Dartrey, but there is the undoubted fact stated by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, not controverted by the Attorney General, that the personal representative of the deceased publican was offered £600 for the interest in the public-house, and it is admitted that the value of the farm, apart from the licence, had been fixed under the Land Act at £120. Of course, the real value of this farm, therefore, lay in the licence; the other was merely illusory. It is said Mr. Leslie was very generous in offering £400, but an outsider offered £600, so that Mr. Leslie got a very considerable bargain. The matter came before the quarter sessions which were the licensing authorities in Ireland, in October. There was a large attendance of magistrates, and the matter was fully discussed. There are three legal grounds on which a licence can be transferred or can be granted in Ireland. The first is the fitness of the applicant; the second, the fitness of the house; and the third, the number of public-houses in the neighbourhood. The majority of the magistrates, by a majority of eighteen to fifteen, decided that the applicant was unfit, and why? Because he was a gentleman living in a very handsome place, the agent of Lord Dartrey, one of the great magnates of the county, who in fact. could not from his position carry on the business on his own account and live on the premises. On that ground he was held to be unfit. But in addition to that the magistrates held that the premises were unfit, being such a distance from the police barracks, on which account the police could not exercise proper supervision over it. For years in Ireland that has been one of the grounds on which licences have been refused, because roadside public-houses, unless within reasonable reach of the police barracks, cannot be supervised, and the police cannot see that a house is properly conducted. At all events, in October the magistrates refused the licence. The house was then an unlicensed house. Nobody had a right to sell liquor until a new licence was granted by the adequate authority. A certiorari was moved for, and the case brought before the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin, which

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Court decided on 10th December that the magistrates were perfectly right. What then occurred? The Excise Office, in the teeth of the announcement of the magistrates in October, confirmed by the Queen's Bench, approached the Dublin Castle authorities, and Dublin Castle authorised that Office to do what the statute gave it no authority to do—namely, to give a temporary licence to Mr. Leslie until his application was made before the magistrates in the following March. Surely never has there been a more unwarrantable act countenanced by the Executive Government, even in Ireland. There is no authority for it in the statute. There is a power, in the interval between two quarter sessions, for a magistrate to give a certificate of character, so that an Excise officer may then give a permit to sell until the following quarter sessions; but here there was no licence. This house was no more licensed than any other farmhouse in the whole country. The Excise Office evidently felt that themselves, because they would not act on their own authority and consulted the authorities at Dublin Castle who said in effect, "Why should we be stiff about this?" and told the Excise Office to do what they liked. That, of course, placed the magistrates in a very false position, and the whole of the licensing authorities throughout Ireland in a very false position. It is the more to be regretted, that at a time when public attention is so much excited in regard to this question of licensing. Dublin Castle should have given their high imprimatur to such an abuse of the law.
*MR. BLAKE (Longford. S.): This seems to me to be very a serious question not to be set aside by the very lame explanation of the right hon. the Attorney General. It is one thing to deal under a recognised custom or practice with the case of a licence that has been issued, and which is still current and subject to an arrangement for transfer. In that case the applicant asks for permission for a continuance of the right to sell until an appeal is made against the decision of the magistrate adverse to the transfer to a higher jurisdiction. But it does not at all follow that when a final adjudication has taken place and the
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question is once and for all and irrevocably settled, and when the licence is thus practically at an end, that a new man should be allowed to sell liquor without a licence because ho intends to make application for a new licence at a future quarter sessions. What is going to be the result of the action of the authorities? Any person favoured by Dublin Castle who professes his intention of applying for a new licence may be put in possession of a house and be allowed to sell liquor on the ground that he means afterwards to apply to the magistrates for a licence, and that the magistrates are practically constrained to confirm what had been done by the Dublin. Castle authorities. The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot escape, and Dublin Castle cannot escape by saying that all that they did was to say that they had no objection. Was this transaction lawful? And if it was not lawful what right had Dublin Castle to interfere? The right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has carefully abstained from staking his reputation upon the legality of this matter. He has not said it was lawful. He said that Mr. Leslie's advisers alleged it was so. But he has acknowledged that the facts were laid before Dublin Castle and that Dublin Castle authorised these transactions. So far as I understand the law, even as explained by the Attorney General, Dublin Castle had no right to authorise the Excise authorities to do what was an absolutely illegal act. And yet that was done by the Executive Government which is constantly putting itself forward as engaged constitutionally in upholding the sanctity of the law. That seems to me to be a most objectionable transaction, calculated to create much confusion unless it meets with the general reprobation of the House.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: There is one matter of fact about which the House ought to have more clear information than it at present possesses, and that is by what authority the Inland Revenue Board acted in this case.
MR. ATKINSON: Mr. Leslie applied on the 11th January to the Inland Revenue for permission to sell, and the

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Inland Revenue wrote to the Under Secretary at the Castle, who replied that the Executive had no objections.
MR. T. M. HEALY: To the breaking of the law!
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: But that is not what the Board of Inland Revenue say. They say in reply to a communication addressed to them by Mr. Leslie's solicitor:—"The Board direct me to state that in allowing Mr. Leslie to sell they are acting upon the recommendation of the Irish Government" (not merely that they had no objections) "to whom they most respectfully refer you for any information you require." That seems to me to be absolutely inconsistent with the theory that Dublin Castle merely said that they had no objections, because that reply indicated that the Board of Inland Revenue refused to proceed on their own authority. Now, the Board of Inland Revenue is represented in this House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has been an interested spectator of this debate. I daresay the right hon. Gentleman has informed himself on the point, and he may be able to tell us what the Board of Inland Revenue did, and whether the responsibility lies with Dublin Castle, or whether the Board of Inland Revenue acted on its own responsibility because Dublin Castle did not object. There is another point. We ought to know something about the value of this permission given by the Excise authorities, and possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer may be able to tell us that. Again, what right have the Excise authorities to give this permission? Have they acted under a statute, and if so under what statute? When we know the Act we can refer to it and determine, to some extent, the nature of their responsibility. This case is full of scandals, but there is one scandal not mentioned at all in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is more interested than any one else. What is the root of all this mischief? We have been told that the farm without a licence was worth £120, and with the licence £600. The difference between the two values is the property of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if he received the duty at the proper
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date he must have the money. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer has informed himself on the question I am sure the House would be delighted to hear from him what would not be an ex parte statement—what part the Inland Revenue Board took in this matter, and whether they acted at the instigation of Dublin Castle.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOE IRE LAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I will attempt to answer the specific question that has been put. As I understand it, the solicitor for Mr. Leslie wrote to the officer of the Excise on the 11th January stating that his client had intended to make application for a licence at the January session, but was entirely precluded from doing so owing to the decision of the Queen's Bench being so late. His client, however, intended to make the application for a new licence on the 26th March, and in view of that fact his client wished to know whether there was any objection to his carrying on the business till the 26th March. I appeal to hon. Members not to make too much of a technical point which I do not think is material to the ethics of the case. It is admitted that Mr. Leslie was legally entitled to conduct his business until the decision of the Supreme Court of Law-, and that if that decision had been against him he could make application for a new licence. [An HON. MEMBER That is not so.] At any rate, he thought so, and wrote to the Excise that it was no longer in his power to make application for the licence in January, but that he proposed to make application in March, and in the meantime asked the Excise to allow him to exercise the privilege of selling liquor until 26th March. The question has been asked whether the suggestion came from Dublin Castle or from the Inland Revenue to grant the permission. Now, the officer of Inland Revenue wrote to the Under Secretary at the Castle saying that he had been directed by the Board of Inland Revenue to forward a letter from the solicitor of Mr. Leslie craving an extension of the period of indulgence under the circumstances. Before taking any steps the Board would be glad to know whether his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant Would have any objection to the proposal being acceded to; but in the meantime

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the local officer of Excise had been instructed not to interfere with Mr. Leslie.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Read the answer.
MR. WYNDHAM: The answer was that there was no objection under the circumstances.
MR. T. M. HEALY: What circumstances?
MR. WYNDHAM: The circumstances set forth by Mr. Leslie's solicitor. The correspondence showed that the suggestion had not come from Dublin Castle.
MR. CLANCY (Dublin County. N.): This is a case which in a small way presents a perfect picture of the manner in which Ireland is governed. Both in and outside the House we have been asked to regard the government of Ireland as based upon lawand order, and everything is supposed to be carried on in the purest manner; and if any attempt is made from the Irish benches at any time to cast disrespect on the judges of the land we are solemnly rebuked. But what has been the answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to the charge made by the hon. Member who raised the debate? The substance of the answer, particularly when he wanted to point out the futility of the ground that this man Leslie was refused a transfer of a licence, was this: "I disagree with the judges of the Queen's Bench; they were not right in withholding, as they did, a licence for this man on the ground they did."
MR. ATKINSON: I said nothing of the sort. The only question decided by the Queen'S Bench was whether the magistrates had acted within their powers in refusing the licence.
MR. CLANCY: Then why did the right hon. and learned Gentleman enter into this matter at all? What business was it of his whether this man should have been refused the licence at all? I assume that the law has been rightly decided, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman assumes in his answer that the law was not rightly decided. Imagine such a thing occurring in England! Supposing
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a bench of magistrates in England had decided that a man should not have a licence, imagine after such a decision the man daring to keep a public-house open! But in Ireland such a thing has happened, and the man has kept the public-house open in defiance of the law. Then he appealed to the Queen's Bench Court and was beaten there but he still kept the public-house open. He allowed the time to elapse in which he could have applied for a new licence to the quarter sessions in January, but he still kept the public-house open, trusting to the influence of his friends in Dublin Castle, and of the Orange Lodge of which he was a member, to keep him safe from the consequences. The right hon. and learned Member entered into the merits of the question, and told of the generous treatment of Lord Dartrey to this man. But what business was it of the Attorney General to inquire into Lord Dartrey S conduct? The only question is, Was the law broken? I admit at once that the benevolent doctrine of the right hon. and learned Gentleman might commend itself to some people in certain circumstances. If they Mere to take into account special circumstances of great hardship, they might, if they possibly could, wink at some violation of the law. But what if they applied that doctrine all round? Every man who belongs to Ireland knows that it has been applied to Orangemen. Conservatives, Unionists, landlords, and people of the upper classes, but it has never been applied to any man, of the National faith or who occupy a humble position in life. This case gives another illustration of how Ireland is governed. The application for leave to keep the public-house open after the magistrates had refused the licence was made to the Board of Inland Revenue and to the authorities of the Castle. Would that be tolerated in England? What connection is there between the Board of Inland Revenue and the Castle? What business has the Board of Inland Revenue to communicate with the Castle? Have they not the law before them to carry out? Does the Inland Revenue Board ask the Castle what they would do in similar circumstances in the case of a Nationalist? Not at all. The very fact that the Inland Revenue Board wrote a

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private letter to the Castle—which would have never seen the light but for this debate—was a condemnation of the system of government carried on in Ireland, and must carry conviction to the mind of any honest man that that system of government is absolutely indefensible. At the same time the English could not govern Ireland in any other way by upholding the law impartially. By-and-bye, when they have conquered the Transvaal, they will be obliged to govern it. too, against the will of the people. At all events, Irishmen are entitled, meanwhile, to protest that the law, while it is the law, should be impartially administered, and I think the hon. Member for South Tyrone is to be congratulated in having brought this glaring case before the attention of Parliament.
*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH. Bristol. W.)said as this was a matter having a great deal to do with the Inland Revenue, it might not be out of place for him to say a few words. He had never heard of the case until he came into the House, and he did not profess to be so intimately acquainted with the law or its administration in cases of this kind as to he able to give a definite opinion. He thought all would admit that the mere continuance of non-interference with selling, pending the hearing of the appeal by the Queen's Bench, was proper. The Chief Secretary had shown that there might be a case of hardship even beyond that, on which it would be right that a similar non-interference should continue to be exercised on the part of the Inland Revenue. Whether this was one of those cases or not he could not say offhand, but he would certainly inquire. But bethought non-interference after a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench against the applicant should be very rarely used. If non-interference had been exercised not in accordance with the ordinary custom, which should apply equally to all, but in favour of Mr. Leslie, because he held a certain position, he most distinctly condemned the proceeding, and should certainly interfere to prevent its continuance.
*MR. WHITTAKER (Yorkshire. W.R., Spen Valley)said the point which he
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wished to emphasise was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland in all he had said had studiously avoided giving his own opinion upon the case. He did not venture to assert that Mr. Leslie had a right to any such permission as had been exercised. He had no such right. There was no justification for any such application, and therefore it was erroneous for the right hon. Gentleman to say that the case would be finally adjudicated upon at the March sessions. The application to be made, then, was a new application altogether.
MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that, after the extremely satisfactory statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he desired, with the leave of the House, to-withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW BILLS.
  SCHOOL BOARD ELECTORATE (SCOTLAND).
  Bill to admit to the School Board electorate in Scotland all persons entitled to vote for the county council election, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Weir. Mr. Leveson-Gower, Mr. Nicol, Mr. Cathcart Wason, Mr. John Dewar. Mr. Bignold. Mr. Harmsworth, and Mr. Caldwell.
  SCHOOL BOARD ELECTORATE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To admit to the School Board electorate in Scotland all persons entitled to vote for the county council election," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 97.]
  LIBEL.
  Bill to amend the Law of Libel, ordered to be brought in by Sir John Willox, Sir Albert Rollit, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, and Mr. Frederick Wilson.

  LIBEL BILL.
  "To amend the Law of Libel," presented, and read the first time; to be

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  read a second time upon Wednesday, 5th June, and to be printed. [Bill 98.]

  CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACT (1886) AMENDMENT.
  Bill to amend the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886. ordered to he brought in by Mr. Weir, Mr. John Dewar, Mr. Leveson-Gower, Mr. Cathcart Wason, Mr. Bignold, Mr. Harms worth, and Mr. Caldwell.
  CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACT (1886) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the, Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 99.]
  BURIAL GROUNDS (LOANS) (SCOTLAND).
  Bill to extend the period of repayment of Loans for Burial Grounds in Scotland, ordered to he brought in by Captain Sinclair and Mr. John Morley.
  BURIAL GROUNDS (LOANS) (SCOTLAND) BILL
  "To extend the period of repayment of Loans for Burial Grounds in Scotland." presented and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday, 22nd April, and to be printed. [Bill 100.]

SUPPLY (ARMY ESTIMATES).
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Main Question [14th March], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Brodrick.)
Question again proposed.
*SIR CHARLES DILKE: During the many years that I have been in the service of this House it has so happened that I have never, to use our ordinary slang, talked out a debate until that unfortunate event happened to me last night. And I can assure the House I should never have dreamed of intruding; on them again on this occasion if it had
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not been for the admitted importance of the subject—admitted by the Government in their declarations on the particular matter before us at the present time. The debate which has just occurred has filled the minds of Members of the House more no doubt with the licensing laws of Ireland and of this country than with the great questions of Army reform which are presented to the House by the Government on this occasion. But I will do my best, even after that disturbing topic has been introduced and the able speeches to which we have listened, to recall the House to the consideration of that topic which we were discussing last night, of the greatest importance to the country. Last night I was attempting, as the hands of the clock reached twelve, to discuss the composition of the somewhat mythical army corps it was the main function of the scheme of the Secretary of State for War to create. It was whispered just now in this House that in another place the Government have expressed the surprise with which they have always heard the distinguished soldiers of this country push the claims of the Regular service as against the Volunteers. There is, of course, a little tendency upon the other side —there is a little tendency on the part of the Government, finding that Volunteers cost per head so very much less than the Regulars of this country do, finding that the Volunteers raise none of the recruiting difficulties which are raised by the peculiar position of this country as regards foreign service armies—there is a little tendency on the part of the Government, perhaps, to prefer to count heads of army corps which are composed of those forces than army corps composed of Regular forces. And I was trying to point out last night how far that was the case. Of the six army corps which the Government present to us three are mainly composed of Regular forces, the third having a certain number of Militia battalions in it; but the other three are almost entirely composed of Militia battalions and Volunteers, and we have not yet heard of the method by which the Volunteers are to be trained and brought up to the mark and placed in these army corps to make them other than mythical and imaginary.

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There is a new development in connection with this matter which we shall watch, all of us who have been reformers in this House in the past, with the deepest interest, and that is the new pro vision of field guns for these army corps, guns for the Militia and also for the Volunteer organisations. The House may remember that in the past many of us have frequently brought before the House the fact that the Swiss are able to create a very formidable artillery upon a Militia basis, and we, many of us, have often expressed our opinion, and asked whether it was not possible for us here to do what the Swiss have done on a Militia system—create, at all events, a decent field artillery; but the Government go beyond this, but they do not tell us, however, how they intend to secure the training of the officers of the Volunteers. The money spent on the Volunteers especially, I think Volunteer officers of this House will admit, was lost and wasted last year in the special camps, I want to know how the Government are going to provide that this Volunteer field artillery is going to be a reality in these army corps which so largely depend upon it. When this matter has been previously debated in this House, while it has always been assumed that it might be possible to create a Militia field artillery, with regard to the Volunteer field artillery the most skilled officers have always said you must adopt a mixed system, a partially paid system, and you could not rely on mere Volunteers for skilled drivers of artillery.
All this leads one to ask once more, Are the Government, with regard to these three army corps they form, face to face with the facts; have they really thought out their scheme sufficiently to give anything like reality to the scheme they have presented to the House? The First Lord of the Treasury, speaking last night, said the matter of the training of these men was one of the most important things which we should have to consider in connection with this scheme, and I am glad to see upon the Papers which have been circulated this morning that the training of the Army, and, I imagine, the training of the Militia and Volunteers, will be more closely under the Commander-in-Chief in the future than it has been in the recent past. The
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House will remember that great attention has been called very recently by debates in another place to this subject of the Command-in-Chief, and many Members who are interested in the subject will remember the discussion we had here with regard to it in 1895 and 1896. At that time all of us pointed out that, while there might be ground for relieving the Commander-in-Chief of excessive centralisation, ground for relieving him notably of supply duties outside the proper duties of a Commander-in-Chief, everything which had to do with the preparation and training of the Army for war ought to be under his control. There has recently been a difference of opinion on this question, but I am inclined to think, judging from the words of a Memorandum of the Secretary of State for War, which is the last Paper laid before the House this morning, that that difficulty is likely to be solved in the immediate future. I believe that the Order, the unfortunate Order of 1895, will be modified in accordance with the words of the Secretary of State. The words to which I attach very great importance, and which, if anything can, will tend to make these army corps a reality, and to prevent in the future the existence of that disgraceful lack of training which has admittedly existed in the past are these: "I am disposed to think the Adjutant General should come directly under his control." We all know that the Commander-in-Chief has had the general control of the Intelligence Department and of mobilisation, but he has not had the control in the same degree of the training or discipline of the Army which has been directly under the control of the Adjutant General, himself directly under the control of the Secretary of State. I read these words of the Secretary of State as being a change of front upon this question, and as meaning that Lord Roberts will have in the future control not only over the Intelligence Department and mobilisation, but also over that portion of Headquarters which carries out the preparation and training of our Army for war.
Of course, this army corps system raises the whole question of what it is that the British Army is needed for—what it has to do. The

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Secretary of State tells us that his two great objects are the provision of 115,000 men—I take his figure for foreign peace garrisons—for our normal peace garrisons abroad. I confess I think that the South African situation makes it highly probable that that figure of 115,000 will have to be increased in our future calculations. 115,000, taking his figure for the peace garrisons abroad, mainly in hot, unhealthy, and distant places, and the provision of a short-service Army to fill the Reserves for war. Now, on this subject of a short-service Army to fill the Reserves for war the Secretary of State appeal's to have tried to make out that the Army reformers are in some sense opposed to the short-service system. I should like to ask those Members of the House who have been misled by such suggestions thrown out from time to time to hear what was the unanimous agreement of the Service Members upon that subject last year. It was in these words, which were in the original Memorandum presented to them and which were unaltered by repeated discussion by the Board of some sixty or seventy experienced Members of the House—
"The terms of service for those wishing to serve at home may be shortened to the minimum that will make efficient soldiers, in order to increase the Reserves to the utmost."
Those words have this further importance, that they are almost identical with the words which were used by the present Commander-in-Chief in 1884 and 1892. In 1884 and 1892 Lord Roberts used these words in regard to the present terms of service in the Army—
"Eight years is too long for a man who proposes to return to civil life."
He also said—
"Those who do not desire to make the Army a profession should have a short term of service and return to civil life and the Reserve."
Therefore, I think we might take it that the Service Members of the House and the present Commander-in-Chief are in agreement as to short terms of service for the troops that are to swell the ranks of the Reserves.
I want to ask the Secretary of State for War how he thought him-
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self justified the other night in attacking, in connection with that subject, those who desired the existence of what he called a separate Army for India, which he attributed to myself. Surely he knows from all the debates that what we have advocated is shorter service here at home for the purpose of swelling the Reserves, and a somewhat lengthened service or term of enlistment for India. Not a separate Army for India, but that double system of enlistment that gives a man a chance of two forms of Army service, upon which all military reformers are now agreed, and upon which the present Commander-in-Chief expressed himself more strongly than any other man. The right hon. Gentleman went on to discuss this subject. He used these words—
"We should have a less effective Army at home, and a more costly Army in India."
What right has he to make that statement? "A less effective Army at home" he is within his right in saying, because that is a matter within his own knowledge. He is bound by such authorities as Lord Haliburton and Sir Richard Knox. At all events, the matter is arguable, and it is within the discretion of the Secretary of State to make that statement; but as to the other objection in the statement—as to our having a more costly Army in India—I confess that I believe the House will agree with me that that matter is more within the knowledge of the Government of India than within the knowledge of the Secretary of State for War. What is the official opinion of the Government of India upon this subject? It has never varied for a, day. The officially expressed opinion of the Government of India upon that subject is diametrically opposed to the opinion of the Secretary of State for War, and it is so recorded by the Royal Commission on Indian expenditure. That Commission reported that the witnesses of the Indian Government state that the short-service system imposes a heavy charge on the Indian revenue, "without compensating advantage"; that the "soldier sent out is too young, is more subject to illness, and not so efficient as an older man." That was recorded by the Commission as the opinion of the Government of

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India, and I confess that I attach more I importance to the official opinion of the Government of India than I do to that of the Secretary of State for War upon this matter. Lord Roberts was called as a witness upon the subject, and was somewhat, severely cross-examined by members representing the War Office view upon the point. He was asked how he made out that it would be cheaper for India to have a somewhat longer system, as it would be cheaper for us at home to have a shorter system, and Lord Roberts could not be got beyond this point—he said it appeared to him that the of ton or you sent people backwards and forwards the morn expensive it would be. Lord Roberts would not budge from that position. The Secretary of State puts his view above that of Lord Roberts and the Indian authorities. He said in this House on the 8th February, 1897, that the opinion of Lord Roberts on that point is important, but that there are statistics which are more important still. Those statistics are the exact statistics which were put before the Commission, and which the Commission has shown India does not admit. The Secretary of State says it is useless to raise the soldiers' pay—anyhow with this system. It is useless to try and get these 115,000 or more men for foreign service by increased pay, because he says although the country would be "willing to pay heavily" it would be useless to raise the rate of pay unless we doubled it. We should not bring in any more men.
The right hon. Gentleman goes on to suggest that, if recruiting fails, the difficulty may be overcome by adopting compulsory service, as I understand, for home defence—compulsion for the Militia. But would that overcome the difficulty? He objects to what he calls a separate arm}' for India, for foreign service, and he explained to the House why such an Army would be less effective than the present one. Rut upon this question of compulsion, how does he face the question that, ipso facto, the ballot for home service would create that separate army for foreign service which he so greatly deprecates? It appears to me that no man has ever contemplated as he has or breathed a word of applying the principle of compulsion to our foreign service, which is our heavier service, with its
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requirement of the 115,000 men that we have permanently to keep abroad. And so the difficulties of recruiting—instead of bringing elasticity into the conditions of service—remain. They are not affected in any way by this suggestion of compulsion for home service, which the Secretary for War has thrown out. Rut has he the authority of the Government in any way- even putting aside all other difficulties—has he the authority of the Cabinet, of which the right hon. Gentleman is a member, to make any suggestion with regard to compulsion at Inline? It is an unusual question, but it is a question which we are forced to ask when we have to consider it in connection with this subject. I listened to what the Leader of the House said last night. It was a sort of sigh. It appeared to me to indicate an opinion on his part altogether hostile to the argument of the Secretary for War.
*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,)was understood to ask the right hon. Gentleman for the passage in the speech of the Leader of the House.
*SIR CHARLES DILKE: The sentence is not reported, but I will drop it. I will leave it, and will fall back on what is reported. That is the opinion of the Prime Minister, expressed on behalf of the Government last year in the House of Lords, in a debate which was followed by a division in which every single member of the Government in the House of Lords, following the Prime Minister's speech, voted against any form of compulsion for the Militia even here at home.
I have talked with some of my hon. and gallant friends opposite who think that the deficiencies of this scheme may some day be remedied by the adoption of compulsion here. [An HON. MEMBER: No, no.] I said some of them. They think that the deficiencies of this scheme may some day be remedied by the adoption of compulsion here—which I do not admit, because it appears to me that compulsion for home service does not meet our needs or give us what we want, and that it does not in the least remove all the difficulties of which I have been

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speaking. And when I have told them that their Prime Minister and their Government are pledged against it they suggest—I dare hardly use the phrases they have used with regard to the antiquity of the Prime Minister's opinions on the subject—but they suggest that they are a survival of a very distant past. But the Prime Minister's words are very strong, and it is necessary that they should be brought before the House in this connection, as showing that this question of compulsion for home service, even if it would solve our home difficulties, which I do not think it would, must be treated as a real and grave difficulty. It was on February 20th last year that the Prime Minister spoke of the Militia Ballot Bill as a "Bill for effecting a purpose which no one has proved to be possible." He asked, "if anyone could be found to draw and to introduce" such a Bill, would it have "the slightest chance of passing without the most angry and acrimonious debate?" That is unimportant. But what is important is this. He argued that it "would add to the dangers of the country," and that it would be absolutely impossible "to remain at the Militia ballot." I believe that what was in his mind is what is in my mind, and what I have just been trying to impress on the House —that a Militia ballot would not meet our difficulties, and that it would be useless to have compulsory service unless you were prepared to apply it—and that was the conclusion of the Prime Minister's speech—to your Regular Army. And he said it must come to conscription for the Regular Army. That was the Prime Minister's opinion. I say if we are to have any suggestion of the question of compulsion as likely in the long run to overcome the emptiness of the present scheme, you are bound. I think, to put before the House a little more of what your meaning is, because mere compulsion for the Militia, the mere piling up of the Militia by the ballot, although it might do something for war, it does not seem to me that it would in the least diminish—I believe that in some senses it would increase—your difficulties as regards your foreign service and your normal drain of 120,000 or 150,000 men for unhealthy garrisons and India. You must remember that
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the way the matter would be put before the working classes of the country by their chosen leaders would be this. They would say this was a dangerous and unhealthy trade. This service in India in time of peace and this service in tropical garrisons is a thing which the country needs and for which it will have to pay. And the introduction of compulsion with the view of getting over that difficulty would be represented to them, and I think naturally, as the country being unwilling to pay the market price for the article it desires to obtain. And though that difficulty is great, and has, I believe, always been great, surely it has been enormously increased by what has recently occurred and the very high price you have had to pay in the recent war for recruits for service in distant places.
I do not know whether the Secretary of State has seen the speech which was made by the officer commanding the Imperial force which went out for the Australian Commonwealth celebrations. At every place where that force was landed this question of their pay as compared with that of the Colonials was very prominently brought forward. The character of the contrast was so greatly impressed on the minds of those on both sides—both on the Imperial force sent out and on the people among whom they were—that the commandant of that force thought it necessary to go out of his way to make his final speech on that question. He spoke of this great difference, indicating, not obscurely, his own opinion that the pay of the British Army would have to be raised. I am not attaching any importance to the opinion of the individual, but my point is that you have increased your difficulties by the high rate of pay which you have been forced recently to give and that it is impossible to suppose that you will be able to supply by compulsion, directly or indirectly, this heavier part of our responsibility—the most difficult of all of them—to satisfy permanently in time of peace this drain of 120,000 or 150,000 men for places like India or South Africa. Therefore it is that I regret that we should have a somewhat vacant scheme, not providing in I any way for the great drain which will

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come upon you at the conclusion of this war, but indicating the possibility of failure, without any increase of pay or any change in the conditions of recruiting, but suggesting that in two or three years time these difficulties might be met by compulsion, which, I believe, would never meet them in any way at all. The Reserves themselves have been counted by the right hon. Gentleman in his list of figures at 90,000 men. But the 90,000 men will not be there at the conclusion of this war. The number of the Reserves will have been greatly diminished by this war. Actuarial calculation will no doubt show what the number is expected to be, but it will not be 90,000, and you will also have the difficulties I alluded to just now in regard to the recruiting of the Indian Army and as to the Indian drafts. There is no suggestion in the scheme as to how the recruiting is to be met, how these difficulties are to be, met, and surely before a suggestion was thrown out into the air that compulsion would some day meet these difficulties, which, I believe, it cannot solve, an attempt ought to have been made—an attempt which was fully expected by the country would have been made—to increase the pay of the soldiers, and to make those changes in recruiting which many of us believe would greatly affect the matter. The Government, however, go, I think, on the opposite tack. The Regulars are costly and the Volunteers are cheap. The Leader of the House boasted last night that there was no attempt to increase the number of the Regular forces of the country. He claimed credit last night for the Estimate on this ground. He said that the only increase in the present numbers is the 10,000 garrison veterans and the increased number of Yeomanry. I am very doubtful whether the 10,000 garrison veterans will be obtained. If they are obtained, of course they are a long-service force, and it will alter the whole balance of your system in connection with long service and make no contribution, but, on the contrary, make a detraction from the strength and value of your Reserves. The Government point to the same intention by the manner in which they bring the Volunteers into their Army corps, and I confess that
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their proceedings have led me to think that they attach undue importance to mere numbers as contrasted with the value of the men and their training.
I shall not dwell on this matter. We have debated it in the past, but I must mention in this connection the reinforcements which have been sent out to South Africa. The 30,000 men supplied to Lord Kitchener are untrained men. They remind me of nothing so much—I see some Scotch Members present—as the 30,000 untrained men by whom Scotland lost Dunbar. I believe that was the number, and the quality of their training was somewhat similar. The supply of these untrained men and the counting of Volunteers as Army corps simply because they give you so many numbers at a cheap rate, goes to show to my mind that the Government do not attach sufficient importance to the quality of the training and the value of the men, but merely to the importance of counting heads. You are sending out as rough-riders men who have never seen a horse, and paying them a high rate of pay as mounted men. You are paying men who have never seen a horse at a rate of pay almost double the pay of the sergeant-majors who have had the training of the Regular cavalry at Aldershot, and this appears to me to have greatly added to the difficulties of the Government in regard to this question of pay in the future. I confess that, by an earlier preparation of the reinforcements needed, I believe the scandal which occurred with regard to the pay of the Rhodesian field force would have been avoided. It has enormously added to the difficulties in the future. The Leader of the Opposition asked last night what those of us who attack the War Office on these questions exactly mean. He asked us to say whether it is the military heads of the Army, or the civilian clerks, or the politicians that we mean. I confess that I have never been a great believer in the value of the opinion with regard to the Army of Lord Haliburton and Sir E. Knox, but of the value of their services as regards work and of their ability there is no man in this House who has a higher opinion than myself, but, after all, they have been and the soldiers in the

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War Office are, very largely the servants of the politicians. I think it is upon ourselves that we must take this blame. We must say that it is we here who have never given our minds sufficiently to the consideration of these questions, and that it is not the soldiers and not the civilian clerks, but we, all of us, who ought to bear the blame for this absence of preparation for war.
*MR. ARTHUR LEE: My only reason for intervening in this debate is that I have had a certain amount of special experience which may possibly be of use in discussing some of the aspects of this great question. I may say, by way of preface, that I have served some thirteen years in the Army, during the last two and a half of which I was Military Attaché to the British Embassy in the United States. Consequently I have had a unique opportunity of studying the military problems and reorganisation proposals of the only army in the world which resembles ours in the slightest degree. In the United States they have the same national insistence on a, voluntary system, the same Anglo-Saxon man in the street to reckon with, and the same inestimable blessing of a halfpenny press to remind Ministers that they are mortal and to instruct them in their duties. The United States have, moreover, also just emerged from a great war which has left behind it a legacy of guerilla operations, which are still in progress and which have so shown up the defects of their old military system that army reform has become one of the pressing political questions of the day. I have had the opportunity of studying the American army both in the field and subsequently under the process of reform; whilst I do not contend that they have by any means solved this question satisfactorily, at the same time I think we can learn something from their mistakes. In certain directions even we have a great deal to learn from their experience.

Before going on to these special points I may perhaps be permitted to make a few general remarks on the scheme unfolded by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. I hope he will not think me guilty of presumption if I venture to express the opinion
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that his speech was the most momentous statement ever made in the history of the British Army. We may not approve of his scheme in every detail, but I think we must all agree that it shows a grasp of broad principles, and that, therefore, he has earned our goodwill. We shall do what is possible to assist him in the path on which he has set out. I listened last night with great attention to the strictures on his scheme passed by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. I hoped that from his wide experience in connection with the War Office he would have thrown out some useful hints in connection with that scheme. I must say from my own experience of the regime of the Leader of the Opposition at the War Office that he has left behind him there nothing but tender memories on account of the courteous and suave manner in which he presided over that Department. But when I come to consider his present proposals it seems to me that his only contribution to practical statesmanship in this matter was, in the first place, to suggest a deer-ease in the Army; secondly, to recommend that we should abolish the idea of an expeditionary force, as it might provoke our neighbours; thirdly, that we should increase the civilian element at the War Office; and lastly, by way of arming the country against possible dangers, he advised us to adopt the policy of the conciliatory smile in dealing with our neighbours. I think we all remember the sad fate of the young lady of Riga, and I am afraid if we adopt this policy of the smile, the smile will again be on the face of the tiger. The Leader of the Opposition then said he feared that the Secretary of State for War had some great military purpose. I venture to hope that he has. I think it is time that in putting forward a scheme of Army reform in this House the Government should have some great military purpose behind it, and I venture to express the opinion that this great military purpose is to try to bring the military forces of this great Empire up to the level of its responsibilities. Perhaps I may be permitted without presumption to offer my congratulations to the Army reformers in this House, because while they have borne the burden and heat of the day, and for many

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years have been sowing the good seed, it is only lately that it has fallen on good ground—ground, too, which has often been condemned in the past as barren and unproductive. Still, it has now brought forward a harvest which, though perhaps not entirely satisfactory to everyone, is, I hope, only an earnest of more good things to come. I think the Army reformers in this House for a long time have naturally felt that their proposals were not always met in the spirit in which they were made, but I do not think they should on that account abuse the right hon. Gentleman because he has now come round to their opinions. I think they should rather congratulate themselves on having converted him in some respects, and that they should combine together to help him in every way, and to give his scheme a chance instead of merely assailing it with destructive criticism.
In considering this scheme one of the first things that suggests itself to my mind as striking is that two such high military authorities as the late Commander-in-Chief and the present Secretary of State for War have agreed in their characterisation of the old system. The late Commander-in-Chief called it a Chinese system, and the present Secretary of State for War has called it a Boxer system. These are practically synonymous terms, or at any rate both are equally applicable, and it occurs to one to ask at this point whether the more highly placed Boxer leaders are to be invited to commit suicide, according to the latest diplomatic precedent. Personally, I hope not, but I feel that until this point is settled the Prime Minister must be awaiting results with a certain amount of anxiety. I am glad that the policy of arming the "man in the street" with a rifle is no longer to be relied upon. I may perhaps be permitted to remind the House what the Duke of Wellington once said in connection with this view of national defence. When there was some talk of the possible invasion of this country by France it was suggested to the Duke that in such an event all the young men would flock to the coast and hurl the presumptuous invader back into the sea. The Duke of Wellington smiled grimly and said, "If the young men of England cannot enlist in
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the Army I should advise them to stay at home and not make fools of themselves." I hope we shall hear no more of entrusting the defence of this country to "young men with rifles."
There is one point which I think would strike everyone who heard the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and that is that some of the more important lessons of the war in South Africa have been well taken; and, in my opinion, if the war did nothing else but show up the defects of our military system, and teach us how to remedy them, it would be well worth while. He struck at the root of the whole matter when he said that the voluntary system is nothing to be proud of unless it produces efficient defenders. That statement has caused a good deal of comment on the other side of the House, and the suggestion has been made that the Government is going to introduce, a system of conscription. I do not think that this inference need necessarily be drawn. We require a large number of recruits each year—I do not know exactly how many—and the question is, shall we be able to get these recruits? If not, the whole scheme falls to the ground. Therefore, we must either force them into the service by compulsion, or make it worth their while to come in. I think the country will be willing to try the latter alternative first. In connection with my American experience I had special facilities for studying the problem of recruiting there, and I did so in great detail during the last two years.
I may say that I have examined thousands of American recruits, and I have talked to hundreds of them, and when J say that they are probably superior in physique and intelligence to any troops in the world, I think it is desirable that we should get the same material here if possible. The experience I learned there may possibly be useful to the House, and I may perhaps be allowed to quote a few figures. First of all, the term of military service is entirely different from our own. It is only three years, with the option of re-engagement. A very large proportion re-engage, because it is made worth while to do so. The pay of the private on joining is 1s. 9½d. per day, after two years service it is raised to 1s. 10½d., after three years to 2s. 0½d.; after four years to 2s. 2d.;

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and after five years to 2s. 6d. There are no "stoppages" out of this pay, and the figures I have quoted represent what the soldier has to spend as he likes. All these rates are increased by 20 per cent, in time of war, or if the soldier has to serve beyond the seas. Of course, it may be said that the cost of living in America is very much greater, but this counts for little in the case of the private soldier, as everything is found for him. At these rates they succeed in getting men of a high physical and intellectual standard. 'The average height of recruits is 5 feet 7 inches, the average age is twenty-two, and all the men must be at least able to read and write. Only from 15 to 20 per cent. of the applicants are enlisted. From these figures I deduce that if we could offer a rate of pay for really mature men—I don't mean for boys—of 1s. 9d. per day, it is quite possible that we might get as good a class of men as are to be got in America. I believe we could secure really mature men at these rates, which would mean an extra cost of something like £3,000,000 a year. From that amount, however, could be deducted what is now wasted on mere boys, who are quite unable to take their place in the field. I think that by adding to these terms some such scheme of old age pensions as was suggested in the case of the garrison regiments, it would be a sufficient inducement to tempt men to leave the labour market and come into the Army. I rejoice very much that the right hon. Gentleman suggests that cubicles should be tried in barracks. One of the greatest drawbacks to decent men enlisting are the conditions of barrack-room life, especially at night. Of course, these proposals all mean money, but the right hon. Gentleman stated that he never came down to this House without running the gauntlet of spendthrift Members who wanted him to spend more money. I think that fact alone should encourage him to risk the expense, and if he does I will do everything in my power to save him from that lamp-post in Palace-yard.
We now come to a very much debated point and that is the proposal to form these army corps. The army corps has been attacked in no measured terms in the course of the debate, and I must say my-
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self that I am not at all enamoured of that form of unit. At the same time, we must give the right, hon. Gentleman's scheme a chance. If he can produce six army corps ready in all respects to take the field, I do not think we have any right to condemn his proposals offhand. He does not put them forward merely on his own initiative, but on the advice of Lord Roberts. The Leaders of the Opposition contended last night that Lord Roberts really could not know much about the matter, because he had been only two months at the War Office. I am not sure that that fact in itself may not be of great advantage to him. But his study of the military requirements of this country has extended not over two months, but over more than fifty years, from a time before the present Secretary of State for War was even born. We must give Lord Roberts and the Secretary of State a chance to produce these army corps before we condemn their proposals as absurd or ridiculous.
In some respects, perhaps, the most important part of the right hon. Gentleman's statement was that in which expressed his determination to appoint none but competent generals and commanding officers to posts of high command. He has not underrated the difficulties of this task, and the debate which took place on last Monday and Tuesday nights has afforded conclusive proof of the obstacles he will have to face in this House as well as outside. But the House and the country must support the right hon. Gentleman against the paralysing influences of good nature and aristocratic connections, and I prefer to believe that they will. It is difficult to imagine a more vicious or demoralising influence than that of the appointment to the command and instruction of young troops at home of generals or commanding officers who, being proved inefficient in the field, have been sent home as failures. The enforcement of such a rule must, of course, bring a certain amount of hardship upon individuals, but the interests of the public service are infinitely above the interests of individuals, and all I would add on this point is that it would be a wise policy to give these officers who have committed no crime, beyond incom-

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petence, the opportunity of resigning, without public scandal. It might also be better to allow them, if possible, to retire without any loss of pension. If the Secretary of State really succeeds in appointing none but the best men to positions of high command, he will at one stroke have done one of the first things needful to reform both the War Office and the Army.
I should like to enter my rigorous protest against the vicious practice of emasculating the War Office at the commencement of a war, when the co-operation of the trained staff is most needed, by releasing a large portion of the staff officers for service in the field. In the case of the intelligence Department, which is only a small body, I believe that at the beginning of the present war no less than seventeen officers, who had been trained to the duties of the Department, were allowed to go to the front. Such a practice would destroy the efficiency of any office, and it is also hard upon officers who have to take up the appointments temporarily, Such officers merely keep the places warm, doing all the dirty work when the strain is greatest, and are unceremoniously bundled out when the warriors return from the front. Any officer appointed to a highly paid post in the War Office should be appointed only on the clear understanding that he serves in that office, subject to his efficiency, for a full fixed term, and that no volunteering for active service can be permitted. Another practice to be avoided is the sending of our trained non-commissioned staff' to the front, as under such circumstances the young recruits who pour in during the time of war have no proper instruction. Instead of the training staff being weakened at such a time, it should rather be increased. In regard to the raising of the Imperial Yeomanry, I must express deep regret that the question of the co-operative defence of the Empire has not been brought forward in some shape in this connection. It may be said that the time is not ripe. I think the time is peculiarly ripe. I have lived for some years in the Colonies and am still in touch with Colonial opinion, and my belief is, whatever the Governments of the Colonies may be saying, that the people are only too ready to
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take part in any scheme of co-operative defence of the Empire if you will give them the opportunity. The Governments are waiting to see which Way the cat will jump, and I believe that any well-considered proposal would meet with a most enthusiastic response. Failing such a proposal, I wish the right hon. Gentleman had been able to suggest a scheme by which each of the Colonies concerned would have accepted a fixed share, however small, in the Imperial offensive Army. We ought to know just how many men we can count upon and of what arms, and they ought to, have their fixed place in the mobilisation tables. If anything of that sort is done, I hope the men we get will be mounted infantry or artillery, and that we shall hear no more about "dismounted men preferred." With regard to the great question of the training of the Army, I hope that in any future arrangement the training will be extended continuously as far as possible all the year round. We are the only country in the world, except China, which expects to fight only in fair weather. As to the question of the proposed Volunteer artillery, I do not think it would be possible to train Volunteer batteries by giving them only thirty days in camp. Whatever may be given to the infantry Volunteers, I hope more training will be given to the artillery. Another most important point is the provision of a larger supply of small-arm ammunition for the use of our infantry. The shooting of the American infantry soldier is infinitely superior to that of our own; the reason being that he is allowed practically as much ammunition as he pleases; and is given a range to use as well. At the same time, of course, there is more room for ranges in America. One other point in connection with mounted troops is the weight of the equipment our horses have to carry. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take advantage of the American experience in lightening the load. The American saddle is much lighter than ours, and the equipment the horses have to carry on service when chasing bands of Indians—which work may be said to resemble somewhat our present operations—is also much lighter. I should be very pleased to give the right hon.

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Gentleman privately certain information which I have on this subject. The United States cavalry are very much better trained than are our cavalry in scouting, dismounted duties, and especially horse-mastership. I was glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman is to ask for more money to be spent on manœuvre grounds.
MR. BRODRICK: More power.
*MR. ARTHUR LEE: As long as the right hon. Gentleman gets the manœuvring grounds I care very little whether it is by powers or by money, as the amount involved is so small. The Germans are spending only about £300,000 annually on their whole system of camps, while they have spent only £6,000,000 in all. With regard to the training of officers, I am very glad there is to be a Committee to examine into the courses of instruction, at the Royal Military Academy and Royal Military Colleges. Personally, I think the course of training at these schools is at present unreal and unpractical With the exception of, perhaps, a certain amount of drill, one learns nothing whatever that is of the slightest use in after service. I hope the Committee will investigate the courses of study and the experience gained at that excellent institution the Royal Military College at Kingston, Canada. Having had the honour of being instructor there for five years. I can testify that the course is infinitely more practical than at either of our military colleges, and this has been proved by results, The hon. Member who referred to the question of officers' expenses greatly over-estimated the figures. He quoted only his experience of certain crack regiments, and took the expenses of the whole Army to be in like proportion. There is no objection, I think, to having one or two crack regiments, but there are an enormous number of regiments, notably the Artillery, Engineers, and Infantry, in which young officers with only small allowances of £100 a year, or even less, are able to get on perfectly well. I must say I do not think the right hon. Gentleman's proposal to have officers' uniforms made by Government tailors will meet with any
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very enthusiastic response in the Army. From what I have seen of Government tailors and regimental fitters, I am sure the results would not be very satis factory. It would, however, be an excellent thing if uniforms were simplified and the cost reduced to the lowest possible figure.
As to the "engrossing topic" of the Order in Council, I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has stated that Lord Roberts, who has not served in the War Office previously, wishes to see the full horrors of the system before expressing any opinion upon it. If this is so, I think we are bound to respect that wish, and therefore I do not propose to enter now into the question which has recently been ventilated in another place with such unsatisfactory results. I must, however, warn the right hon, Gentleman that if this matter is not dealt with it will become even more engrossing in the future than it is at present. I will only add now that the usefulness of the Committee at present sitting on the War Office has been much impaired by the fact that they are not allowed to go behind that Order in Council, and therefore are unable to examine the real crux of the whole matter. I heartily endorse the tribute of the right hon. Gentleman to the labours of the War Office staff during the war. We hear so much of "war as made in Germany" that it is refreshing to learn that the German expedition to China was so badly organised and equipped that it was quite unable to take the field until we had fitted out and assisted it from our own stores. In this connection I may read to the House an extract from a letter which I received a few days ago from General Chaffee, who commands the American Army in China. He says—
"I really have had much pleasure in meeting with officers of the British Service who are here in China. A very splendid lot of men they are too, from the general commanding, down through all with whom I have had intercourse. I say to you very frankly that I admire the straightforward way the British have of doing things, and they have the test staff organisation in China. The equipment of the force is also good for service in China. I read the order for their mobilisation in India. It is a marvellous exhibition of foresight, and yet is nothing more than experience setting in motion the staff for a

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division, with everything necessary to the perfect working of the machine mentioned by name."
That is, I think, very satisfactory testimony. I am glad, also, to hear that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to appoint retired military officers to some of the clerkships in the War Office. Little enough is at present done for such officers, and they would have, at any rate, some knowledge of the needs of the Service. Furthermore, a little additional encouragement might be given to young officers. It does not stimulate officers to study their profession or to give their best energies to it if they are continually snubbed and repressed. It may seem a small matter to the House, but I fail to see why when an officer is ordered to take a journey on the public service, and has to pay his expenses out of his own pocket beforehand, his accounts should always be scrutinised in a spirit as though he was suspected of embezzlement; or why in matters of a halfpenny he should have to enter into a lengthy and acrimonious correspondence with the Paymaster. This may be a small point, but it means a good deal to officers, and, after all, courtesy costs nothing. Moreover, it is a serious error of policy to postpone the rewards for distinguished services until the ambitious blood has become chilled, and hope deferred has made the heart sick.
I thank the House for having listened so patiently to my remarks. They are not in any way intended to traverse the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but J felt that I must touch upon certain points in regard to which I had special experience. I have no desire to examine the Secretary of State's scheme in a hypercritical spirit, and in any criticism I have made, or may in future make, I wish to assure the right hon. Gentleman that I am actuated solely by a desire to strengthen his hands, and to give him every possible assistance in his courageous and statesmanlike attempt to bring the military forces of this great Empire to a level with its responsibilities.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): May I venture to appeal to the House to allow the Speaker now to leave
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the Chair. We have still two Votes to get, and on those two Votes exactly the same discussion can be continued; while if we are driven late there may be some difficulty in finishing the two Votes.
MR. COURTENAY WARNER: suggested that the general discussion should be continued on the present motion, and the division taken on the Votes afterwards, as on a previous occasion the debate on the War Office had been checked when the House went into Committee.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid it was really a, matter of indifference which course was taken, but possibly there might be a hitch at the end, and some difficulty experienced in getting the Votes through. He thought the better course would be for the Speaker to leave the Chair at this stage.
MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)concurred in the view of the Leader of the House, and said he had no doubt a certain latitude of discussion would be allowed.
Main Question put, and agreed to.

(SUPPLY.)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]

(SUPPLY.)

  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1901–2.
  A. 450,000, Number of Land Forces.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I listened to the able speech of the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean and the hon. Member for Fareham Division, and was much much struck by the ability and technical knowledge displayed, and its usefulness in a debate of this kind. No doubt they compared very favourably with the eloquent speeches of the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. the Member for West Monmouth, and the Leader of the House. They were businesslike. What is wanted is that hon. Members who have gained expe-

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  rience should put their views before the House, so that the Secretary of State for War may get some idea of what is thought in the country as well as at the War Office.
  Anyone who heard the Secretary of State for War could not help realising the enormous amount of work lie has done in the War Office in limes gone by, and the large technical knowledge he has acquired of the subject. No doubt his scheme is, on paper, very good. If it could be carried out, it would be one of the best schemes ever submitted to the House for re-modelling the Army. But there are several things which raise doubts as to whether it can be carried out. I have never met a single officer who has not spoken of the difficulty of getting recruits for the Regular Army. I believe even the War Office is not ignorant of these difficulties, because from a conversation I had with him nine months ago, the late Under-Secretary for War looked forward to the difficulty of getting recruits to keep up the strength of the Regular Army. Another difficulty is that of organisation. It is a magnificent organisation on paper. We have been before offered schemes of organisation on paper which were quite beautiful, and I question whether that unfolded by the Secretary for War will be very much, if at all, better than that we had at the beginning of the war in South Africa. I trust that the present Secretary for War will do more for his predecessors in transforming visionary schemes into realities, and in getting his proposals transferred from paper into action at once.
  We are all grateful to the Secretary for War for having increased the artillery. There is not a single Service Member in the blouse who has not for years past begged the War Office to increase our artillery and raise the proportion of guns to the same figure as in foreign armies. Year after year there were debates in the House questioning whether the guns were up to modern pattern, and year after year we were told that they were quite perfect. Only the other day the Secretary for War quoted a military expert, who stated that our field guns were as good as any in Europe. That has hardly been proved in the South African War, because the
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  Boer guns were better than ours. And why is it, if they were as good as any in Europe, that the, War Office bought the other day seventy-two guns in Germany of a new pattern, for which special ammunition must he made? If our guns are quite perfect, why buy guns in Germany, not to send out to South Africa but to arm our artillery at home? No doubt the guns in South Africa were bad weapons, and I hope the Secretary for War will concentrate his attention on this question until we obtain better guns than at present.
  I come to the cavalry proposals. We heard something about the re-arming of the Yeomanry, but nothing about the training and re-arming of the cavalry. The hon. Member for Fareham Division mentioned the superior training and equipment of the American cavalry, and one of the most important points in any Army reform will be to make our cavalry more efficient in scouting, more useful in feeling for the enemy, and in fighting on foot, and to make them Jess fond of the shock of the sabre and the lance. It was only a few years ago that the lance was introduced in our cavalry, and I think that experience has proved that the lance is the one thing to make our cavalry useless, as it attracts the attention of the enemy from a long distance. Cavalry should be the eyes and ears of the Army, and not like Yeomanry, fit only to charge a mob in bread riots. I sincerely hope we shall never have mobs rising to demand bread, and need to have to suppress them by cavalry charges. We want our cavalry to be the eyes and the feelers of our Army, and they have not been trained at all in that way. Besides the Regular cavalry, as we have got it, there is none at present, and will not be for some time to come, until the Imperial Yeomanry is raised, with the Reserve forces. In the memorandum made by the Service Members last year it was pressed on the Government that we should have in England a force thoroughly equipped with artillery, cavalry, and a supply train, as well as infantry. That is what we have never had. We have had plenty of infantry, but have been deficient in cavalry and artillery, and there, is no proposal to produce the reserve cavalry for a long to time come.

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  When the Imperial Yeomanry are raised I hope it will not be the scamped article we have sent out to South Africa. We want something better trained, and I should like much to know whether it is going to differ from mounted Militia. They are to get something like a month's training, and to be treated exactly as Militia, being taught to fight on foot. The only difference will be that they are to be paid 5s. a day instead of 1s. given to the Militia, and they are to be mounted. I do not understand how the Government are to supply the mounts. If the 5s. a day went for supplying the horses and the keep of the horses, nobody could complain; but if the pay is to be 5s. free, then it will draw away recruiting from the regular cavalry and the ordinary Militia. Last year and the year before the Guards were increased so that some of them might be sent to Gibraltar or Malta, in order to relieve the line battalions there; but that increase is to be maintained, and the Guards are, to be withdrawn from Mediterranean duty. The great difficulty at the present moment is that of the foreign garrisons. Of course we have been told about the veteran garrison regiments, but we have not had the latest information as to the recruiting of these garrison regiments. It was expected that they would be recruited from the Royal Reserves, but these were for a long time unarmed and untrained, until the need for them had gone by, and moreover there was no place to put them in if the other troops had come home. I have been told on fairly good authority that the recruiting of the garrison regiments from the Royal Reserves has been a dead failure. The hon. Member for the Chelmsford Division of Essex told us that in one district only 24 out of 1,500 had volunteered, and 12 of these had been rejected by the doctor. In another garrison town where there were 4,000 Royal Reserves the magnificent number of 50 had been collected from the garrison regiments. Even if these figures were doubled what prospect is there of getting eight battalions? I quite agree, however, that there will be many more than now at the close of the war, but not the number necessary, for the men who come home will expect to get civil employment. Reservists may be very willing to go to
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  the front for a year, but it is not very likely that they will desire to spend the rest of their lives in Malta or Gibraltar, and I am quite sure it is altogether hopeless to expect to get eight battalions for garrison duty. If three are got it may, however, be some relief, and set two battalions of Guards and one line regiment free.
  On the subject of the difficulty of getting recruits, I would point out the utter fallacy of that being solved by the ballot for the Militia. No country in the world has compulsory service for foreign service. Moreover, no country would stand it. However many troops we could get in England by compulsory service for home defence, we could not got the troops in that way to go abroad. The ballot for the Militia if carried out in the old way would result simply in buying substitutes, and we could not keep up foreign garrisons to be perpetually stationed abroad. I am pleased to find that having a Militiaman as an Cinder Secretary for War has done much for the Militia, and I congratulate the War Office upon it. The £3 bounty and 3d. a day for messing will be a great incentive to recruiting, but there are still two or three things lacking. The embodied Militia have been dealt with more liberally in regard to clothing than in times gone by, but there is room for improvement in the quality of the clothes. If you are going to embody the Militia you ought to give them a swagger kit, and improve the quality of the clothing in many ways, and also make it fit for foreign service, so as to avoid the necessity for re-clothing them before they go abroad. I think an immense deal might be gained for the Army if the Militia were enlisted both for home and foreign service. It is true that many Militia regiments have been got to volunteer for foreign service; but the manner in which they have been asked to volunteer has caused all sorts of jealousies. I know of one instance where a colonel never thought of volunteering, and, when reminded that he might do so, he volunteered and the regiment was not taken, while another regiment which volunteered at first was taken. Another point is that very often the regiment which volunteers is very weak, whereas strong regiments are wanted for foreign service. Or there

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  may be very few officers, especially young officers, and that is a very serious matter. Practically all the young officers have been swept out of the Militia into the Regular Army, and there are very few regiments with senior subalterns of more than one year's training. In many regiments there is at present not a single subaltern of more than three months standing. This is a very serious matter, because it is a fact that it is very much harder to work a Militia than a Regular regiment, partly because they have not had the same training, and partly because they have civilian ideas. Another point is that the old system should be reverted to of putting a good non-commissioned officer, when he is found, on to the permanent staff. At the present moment the permanent Militia non-commissioned officers are taken from the Regular Army, and the result is that when the best non-commissioned officers in the Regular Army are abroad, there are none worth anything to send to the Militia. There is still another point. When a, Militia regiment is embodied and short of men, it should be allowed in certain circumstances to recruit beyond its own district. I myself do not believe in voluntary field artillery. No doubt it is better than none at all, but I do not believe that it will ever be efficient. I would like to know whether it is intended to have any Militia artillery as well.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,)said it was intended to raise batteries of Militia artillery.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I am gratified at that answer. A very important point has been brought forward with regard to the Volunteers in respect to the training of officers. It has been suggested by the Secretary of State that the Militia and Volunteers would have opportunity of training; but that is not the point. It is not a question of men taking an opportunity of learning their duty—those who are keen upon that will always take every opportunity, but there are others who are not keen about their work—what is required is some further training for the ordinary
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  Volunteer office, who should he better trained, to make the battalion efficient. There is one point with regard to the Volunteers and Yeomanry sent to South Africa in which they were deficient: there was a very great luck of discipline.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: No, no; not at all. The hon. Gentleman has no business to bring charges of this sort.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I do not suggest there is any refusal to march or anything of that kind, but there are very irksome details, on fatigue duty, for instance, which Volunteers and Yeomanry are never efficient in, and I hope some extra training will be given to them so as to bring them into closer touch with military matters. With regard to organisation, people in this world do not believe much in army corps as army corps, but they believe in artillery, cavalry, and infantry in proper proportions, if creating an army corps means providing these things in their proper proportion then it will be a very good thing. With regard to decentralisation, if it is intended to decentralise by giving much of the work done at Pall Mall to local commanders, the work must be done thoroughly, and the staff at Pall Mall; thoroughly reorganised so as to do away with any unnecessary clerks. With regard to decentralisation, complaint is made that one of the difficulties in that process is that local officers are quite as dilatory in their work as the War Office itself. That is due to their having been trained on War Office principles. One of the most necessary things is to do away with all the unnecessary letter writing. If it be true, as is suggested by the Secretary of State, that there are 3,500 letters to be answered daily, the reform ought to have taken place years ago. The most important part of the scheme, so far as I can see, is with regard to the promotion of general officers, and I hope that the House will receive more than a mere statement that the War Office will only turn competent men into generals. Having regard to the size of our Army we have more generals than any army in the

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  world. At Gibraltar there are no less than five to command 5,000 men, when one general to do the Governor's work and two colonels are amply sufficient. Then at Halifax and Esquimault, with an establishment of 2,110 men, we have a full general drawing £2,000 a year, with a house, coals, table allowance, and forage allowance, which is a somewhat large amount, taking it altogether, to pay for the command of 2,110 men. We seem to be increasing the number of generals although we do not increase the number of our troops. The policy of the War Office has resulted in the production of the most expensive article in the Army, the general. One suggestion that has been made is a very good one, which is that a man should not be promoted higher than a brigadier except for distinguished service. A scheme of this kind is not a good one unless it reduces expenditure and extravagance. Extravagance should be cut off. In our case we could do with at least half the staff officers and generals that we have at present. No doubt the ability of some of the officers in the field will have to be provided for, but there ought to be a corresponding decrease in generals by seniority. The statement as to efficient garrisons is fictitious. There is no provision for getting recruits for the Regular Army, and we should only have skeleton battalions, very pretty to look at upon paper but of no use in the field. There is no real scheme for decentralisation, because the light hon. Gentleman cannot yet trust the generals to be less dilatory in their methods than the War Office, and there can be no decentralisation until the generals are properly trained to the work. Pall Mall is the only place as to which the Committee has no definite statement, though they know from, the late Commander-in-Chief that the system existing there does not work, and that some reform is urgently required in order that the War Office should work properly. So far as reforms go there are a few small reforms in the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, and with regard to those the right hon. Gentleman can depend upon the support of every Service Member in the House, but when it comes to great reforms we think the scheme is a mythical one and will prove a failure.
  *SIR JOHN COLOMBsaid that in his opinion the most important feature of the whole scheme was that it transposed the order in which the country had regarded for the last forty years our military obligations in the respect that an effective army for over sea service was put first and everything else afterwards. That was where the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman was a great reform. What he liked about the new departure was that it came down from the nebulous atmosphere of army corps, which meant anything or nothing, and gave plain figures. The right hon. Gentleman came down to the House and said that, after providing for India and foreign garrisons, the necessities of Empire demanded a force of 120,000 men organised, trained, and equipped as a field army for service abroad.
  With that preface, he desired to ask if those, 120,000 men were to be ready to start on oversea service at any moment, and, if so, he desired to know when, under the scheme, those 120,000 men had sailed what remained to maintain that force for an indefinite period in the field? The second question he desired to put was what was the proportion of cavalry, of field artillery, and of infantry that would remain as a reserve ready to follow them when required for reinforcements in the field. He had never been one of those who condemned Mr. Cardwell's scheme; he always urged that it did not contemplate the exigencies of actual war, and it did not contemplate greater expense oversea in times of international peace. This scheme was based on the foundation of the necessity of meeting a state of international war. With regard to the employment of the Yeomanry, there was no indication in the minds of the Government that this time was opportune for bringing together all the army forces required, but the forces proposed to be raised under the head of Yeomanry could not possibly be so called; they were mounted men for military purposes, but certainly not Yeomanry. And why were they called Imperial? He protested at a time like this against conferring the name of "Imperial" upon a force which was not "Imperial," and which originally was only organised for the purposes of meeting invasion.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Glare, E.)called attention to the inequalities of pay as between the Colonial troops and the Yeomanry and the men of the Regular Army. He was not interested very much in urging upon the Government the advisability of increasing the pay of the men of the Regular Army, and he must be understood as opposing the war in every possible way. The point which he raised was not merely with reference to the war but the principle which had recently been set up of paying one class of men a certain rate of pay and paying the vast bulk of the men of the Army another rate, me asked the Under Secretary of State for War to tell him the number of men under arms in South Africa at the present time who were receiving not less than 5s. a day. There were thousands of Colonial troops in South Africa who had been all through the war receiving 5s. a day. They might be worth it, for he was not competent to pass an opinion on this matter, though one might come to the conclusion from the length of time the war had taken and from the unsatisfactory position the war was in at present, that those men were not worth three farthings a day. Why should the Regular Army—the men of the Highland Brigade who fought so bravely and lost so heavily in South Africa, the men of the Connaught Rangers, the Dublin Fusiliers, and the Inniskilling Fusiliers, who had gone through the greatest possible hardship and toil—receive 1s. a day while the gaudily dressed troopers from Australia received 5s. a day? He had received representations from many men in the Regular Army pointing out that the utmost discontent and dissatisfaction existed in many corps because, although they had gone through all the hardships of the campaign in a greater degree than many of the Colonial troops, they only received 1s. per day. They were told with pride from time to time that this war, though disastrous in many respects, had in one respect been a glorious success, inasmuch as it had shown that this worldwide Empire was one and that at sound of the drum and the first appearance of danger thousands of stalwart colonists, from Australia and elsewhere, joined the colours. What did it amount to? If they offered the Australian and other troops the beggarly 1s. a day which they
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  gave to the Gordon Highlanders and to the Dublin Fusiliers they would not get 1,000 men to come from the whole of Australia. Why was it that men were flocking still in thousands to South Africa? It was because they were offering these young men the extraordinary and unprecedented pay of 5s. a day. Before they boasted of the devotion of the colonies to the mother country, and before they said that they were in any way enthusiastic over this war, they must sec whether at the ordinary rate of pay these men would come to serve. They sometimes heard a talk of conscription. The hon. Member said they would never want conscription as long as they gave 5s. a day. At that rate, they would get all the men they needed. If the right hon. Gentleman would give some reason for paying these men 5s. a day he would be satisfied, but if not he was afraid that on the next Vote he would have to move a reduction.
  COLONEL WELBYsaid he most heartily welcomed the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, and congratulated him upon his courage and devotion to duty in submitting it. He was only sorry that the plans of reform had not been adopted sooner. If the foundation of this great reorganisation had been laid in time of peace it would have been much more easy to carry out the work. To carry out a scheme like this they needed the public opinion that had been generated by the war. He thought he might fairly claim that there was an amount of public opinion in this country tending towards Army reorganisation, which was very much greater than had been acknowledged by either Front Bench in that House. Had the foundation of this scheme been laid in time of peace hundreds of lives would have been saved in South Africa, and millions of money would have been saved. One of the great features of the scheme was the adoption of the army corps system. Personally he had advocated that system over and over again in the House; but in criticising the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman he feared that he must differ from him as to the number of army corps, or military districts, into which the United Kingdom was to be divided. He believed that one of the lessons of the war was that the

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  army corps system was unfitted for our needs either for defence or for offence. The true unit of organisation for the Army was the division, and, after all, the army corps was merely the grouping together of two or three divisions. It would be far better, instead of trying to create these army corps, that we should divide the United Kingdom into three great military commands—South Britain. North Britain, and Ireland, into those important military districts we could put as many divisions as the organisation required. He believed that the organisation of military commands and divisions would overcome the many difficulties which were foreshadowed in the present scheme, and he would most earnestly press the right hon. Gentleman to carefully consider the scheme before he finally decided upon the shape of the permanent organisation of the Army.
  One of the great features of the army Corps organisation was decentralisation. The result of that decentralisation seemed to be that the organisation of the War Office became a secondary consideration, He believed that as long as the power was centred there it was absolutely necessary that there should be responsibility clearly defined; but the moment they appointed great executive officers commanding large districts in this country, who would advise with the Secretary of State for War, he thought the organisation of the War Office might well be left to the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief to arrange between themselves. A part of the scheme, also, was that which arranged for peace commands to be the same as those in war. He looked upon this as being fraught with one of the greatest advantages to the Army. Not only would it be the means of training our generals and staff, but it would be the means of overcoming that difficulty which had become apparent in the present war—the want of professional zeal in our officers.
  He believed that zeal and the desire for efficiency were equally distributed among all classes of officers in the Army. If that was the case, we must look deeper for the want of professional zeal which had been displayed in the present war. He ventured to say that that must be traced to the Army system under which the
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  officers had been living. Officers who were known to the great officials of the Army had a far better chance of promotion than regimental officers and minor staff officers scattered throughout the country. A man knew that, however devoted he might be to his duty, and however he might render himself efficient, unless he came under notice or made himself prominent in some way he had little or no chance of getting on. Some one had said that promotion in the Army was seniority tempered by interest. No one had ever said that it was seniority tempered by zeal. Under the new system generals would try to pick up and select the very best men. He was perfectly certain that the duties of the Board of Selection at the War Office would be infinitely lighter and more satisfactory. The real difficulty with regard to the reduction of expenses' was the comparison between different regiments. One aspect of the question could be dealt with by the central authorities at the War Office, and that was that when a sumptuary regulation was published it should be enforced upon all regiments alike with absolute impartiality. This was not entirely a military question. Civilians could greatly help. If a regiment did not give an entertainment costing each officer perhaps £40 it was considered mean: so that civilians could assist in lowering the expenses of officer by not requiring more than a reasonable amount of hospitality. In conclusion, he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the splendid prospect of organisation he had put before the House. He did not believe that reorganisation was militarism, but organisation and preparation were the best means of overcoming any possible approach to the military spirit in this country. As a practical soldier, he knew how deeply rooted were many of the abuses in the Army, and he could only say that in the good cause to which the Secretary of State had set his hand it would be his prime duty and proud pleasure to afford him his utmost support.
  COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)thought there was no harm in having one or two costly regiments, but great care should be taken by the colonel to protect the poorer officers from being compelled by undue pressure to incur unnecessary expenses. As to the corpss

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  organisation, it was simply a question of whether it was intended to have in the field armies of under or over 100,000 men. The best organisation for an army of under 100,000 men was that of divisions, but for above that number the corps organisation was absolutely necessary. He should like the Secretary of State, however, to explain what the cost of that organisation would really be, as it did not appear to be fully stated in the Estimate. A great mistake had been made by the practical abolition of the Quartermasters' Department, as there was now no staff to look specially after the movements of the troops and matters of that kind. The weak point in the present proposals was, no doubt, that the Secretary of State had not sufficiently increased the attractions held out to the private soldier. Before the system of cubicles was adopted on any large scale it should be tried tentatively in order to see what the private soldier's opinion was in regard to it, but in any case such alterations were not enough to draw men into the Army. The pay was the great drawback. That should be increased by at least 6d. per day, and even then it would not be up to the American standard. He believed that most of the recruiting difficulties would disappear if such an alteration were made. The present system was the most abominable in the world. The rate of pay was all very well for a boy of seventeen, but when he reached the age of twenty-five or twenty-six he was worth a great deal more. Boy regiments might be a very good thing if they were treated as boys and not as men, but to have such a large proportion of boys as was now the case was a. very expensive matter, as they had not the stamina to undergo the hardships of a campaign. With a better rate of pay better men would be obtained. He thought such a change would not cost more than £900,000. The Secretary of State might not like to add so large a sum to his Estimates, but he would not get a proper voluntary Army without it. With regard to the Reserve, the right hon. Gentleman's proposal was too modest. The Reserve should number at least 200,000. The great secret on the Continent was to have about one fourth of the army with the colours
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  and the remaining three - fourths engaged in civilian pursuits. As to shooting, volley firing was really a waste of ammunition. To have good shooting individual firing must be insisted upon and much more ammunition allowed. In these matters the Secretary of State should not get his advice so much from generals who had distinguished themselves in the field or on the staff. The House of Commons knew far more about recruiting and many other matters concerning the Army, and the right hon. Gentlemen would do well to take their advice and to use his own common sense rather than to rely too much upon so-called experts.
  *COLONEL BROOKFIELDsaid that, judging from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, the zeal for Army reform was on the Government side of the House; but he felt sure that in every quarter there would be a disposition to give a fair trial to any experiment brought forward by the Secretary of State for War at the present time. With regard to six, army corps which were supposed to be complete, the should like to ask which of them would furnish the drafts for the Army in India, because in the event of mobilisation it would not be fair to call an army corps really fit if it had just gone through the process of finding drafts for the linked battalions in India. He hoped it would be laid down in the future that if, owing to any circumstances, both battalions of one regiment were abroad at the same time, the Militia battalion at home should be embodied as a matter of course. He looked with the greatest hopefulness to the establishment of an army corps system as providing a reasonable probability of great decentralisation, but he urged that no attempt should be made to take a "trained civilian staff" into each of the army corps districts. That work should be trusted to military hands and heads entirely. In connection with the territorial regiments, the home battalion should as far as possible be kept in its own county. It was merely a matter of custom which led the authorities to send county regiments out of their counties when they might be in them. If the practice he suggested was adopted it would be a great economy to the tax-

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  payer, extremely popular with the officers, and have an excellent effect in solving the difficulty of civil employment for the men. Reference had been made to the desirability of generals knowing those under their command, and that object would be achieved if the units were kept in their respective districts.
  The hon. Member for Lichfield had passed some strictures upon the discipline of the Volunteers and Yeomanry in South Africa. No one could advocate more strongly than he (the speaker) the strictest possible discipline, but as far as his experience went the discipline of the Volunteers and Yeomanry was neither better nor worse than that of the Regular troops. Once they were in the field all the troops behaved very much the same. As to the artillery, he had the honour of having under his command the field battery of the C.I. V., one of the drivers of which was a clerk in that House, and a more useful or smarter lot of gunners and drivers it would be difficult to find. By universal consent the weak point in his right hon. friend's proposals was the difficulty of getting the men. There was a prevalent idea that all difficulties could be solved by voting more money, or by offering fancy rates of pay, but that he believed to be a mistaken notion, and that the necessities of the case would ultimately bring them face to face with the possibility of having to adopt some other than their present system of voluntary enlistment. He could not say that he at all admired the ingenuousness of those who attacked the Secretary for War upon this matter. He thought his right hon. friend spoke upon this question of voluntary enlistment in a very statesman-like manner, and he did not think that he went out of his way to grate against the susceptibilities of anyone. Some people said that it was the "proud boast" of this country that its system was a voluntary one, but who was supposed to be the boaster—the people looking on or the men who did the work? There were several practical objections to the present system, and he thought that one of the most serious objections would ultimately prove to be that it was ruinously expensive; and, the tendency being to take recruiting more and more into open
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  competition with the labour market, that competition must end in further disastrous expenditure, and they must finally come again face to face with the same difficulty. The question was were they going to pay other people to do their work or would they insist upon everybody taking a small share of it? He believed that there was a half-way house. There was the Swiss system and the further development of our Militia and Volunteer systems, and the lessons we had learned by the employment of the Yeomanry in the present war would also suggest solutions of the difficulty. When recourse to partial compulsion was hinted at, it was most unfair to represent the Government as advocating conscription in the full Continental sense of the term, or anything like it. He believed it would be found, however, that by the light of the present war the people were in a much more advanced frame of mind than Ministers, certainly than the Prime Minister, and that they would be prepared to go a great deal further than he seemed inclined to do when he suggested the establishment of rifle clubs all over the country. Then there was the question of altering the status of officers—making them more professional and, where necessary, diminishing their expenses. Now he thought he detected in the remarks of his right hon. friend a certain tendency to sneer at the Staff College.
  *MR. BRODRICK: No, no.
  *COLONEL BROOKFIELDsaid that the Staff College was not at all popular, but they should not forget how extremely useful it had been. What was the matter with the system there was that they did not encourage the right sort of regimental officers to go to the Staff College. This encouragement ought to be given, and it should be made easier for the average regimental officer to go there. The Staff College had greatly raised the standard of military knowledge during the last few years. The maps and the correspondence were now done twice as well as they were twenty years ago. He believed that the discipline of the officers stood in need of very great improvement, and one very necessary step in the direction

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  of raising their general sense of discipline would be to make them feel more respect for the source from which all their orders came. Many of the orders that came from the old unreformed War Office only excited derision on, the part of the officers who received them. He believed, also, that the system of confidential reports stood much in need of improvement; that the regulation which provided that officers should he informed of any adverse reports made about them should be strictly adhered to and that no man should be injured for life by something said behind his back and without his knowledge, He thought officers should be given less leave than they received at present; that the work at headquarters might at the same time be made more interesting. He hoped too that before long they would see them not ashamed of wearing their uniforms on ordinary occasions. With regard to officers' expenses, he had served for some years in a cavalry regiment and knew something of the difficulty. He thought most of it arose from some obsolete, snobbish traditions which were allowed to linger in regiments because the commanding officer, or other officers, had not the good sense or the moral courage to combat them. Some very absurd customs existed in, regard to wine. He remembered that upon one occasion, when his regiment was serving in India, they were in the habit of carrying all over the country old vintage port. That was a trivial item; but in this matter of wine he thought they had a good deal to learn from the Royal Artillery. He observed that their batteries on foreign service used to take over each other's wine, and the result was that they had smaller bills and much better wine. Officers might learn something on this subject if they would put to themselves two simple questions—firstly, which, without prejudice, was the smartest arm in our service? He thought that most unprejudiced people would say the Royal Field Artillery. Secondly, which arm of the service had the least wealthy officers? He thought that the answer again would be the Royal Field Artillery. They had a great deal to learn from them, and he thought that was the direction
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  in which many of their economies should go. When orders were given or suggestions made with the object of promoting economy in the regiment, it would be better if they were sent in the form of definite orders and not simply as pious precepts. More than twenty years ago precepts of this kind were issued about young officers and their expenses, but they were never taken the least notice of, and certainly never enforced. Such instructions ought to be sent down as definite orders, and a reply insisted upon stating that they had been obeyed. He was glad that he had been in the House when those reforms in the Army were instituted by his right hon. friend, and he trusted that before a very long period of time they would see many of them carried into effect with advantage to the country.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: For some time past this debate has been in the hands of the hon. and gallant Members of this House. I confess that I have no desire and no ability to follow them through all the technical questions which they have raised and discussed. I have intervened now only because I have on the Paper an Amendment to reduce this Vote by 1,000 men. That Amendment was placed on the Paper with the assent of those who sit on this bench, and with the intention of raising the whole question of the new programme of the War Office with respect to the permanent forces of the country. That was the intention with which this Amendment was put on the Paper last night. But the situation has now been entirely changed by what has taken place this afternoon. This afternoon the First Lord of the Treasury, by an arrangement, which I think met with general acceptance, proposed that instead of the continuation of the discussion on this particular Vote we should, at a later period—some time after Easter—discuss these new proposals of the Government on a motion to be submitted by the Government formulating their proposals in express terms, and leaving it to the House to say "Yea" or "Nay" to the I principle of those proposals. The hon. and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth

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  seemed to have some doubt whether that motion would contain a due recognition of the essential importance of naval co-operation in any question relating to the efficiency of the Army.
  *SIR JOHN COLOMB: My point was whether the motion would be so framed as to permit a discussion on the Army under the conditions of maritime supremacy.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I confess that I do not understand the casual expression which fell from the Secretary of State for War on this point. I believe that you cannot consider the work of the Army at all in relation to Imperial defence without beginning by accepting not only the co-operation of the Navy, but also the fact that the Navy must be the predominant element in our scheme. That arrangement having been made it is not, of course, necessary to move the Amendment which I was prepared to move, and still more unnecessary for me to make a long speech. I shall, therefore, content myself with addressing to the right hon. Gentleman two or three questions, in elucidation of his proposals, which he, perhaps, will be able to answer before the debate closes.
  The first point to which I would venture to direct the attention of the Committee and the right hon. Gentleman is the financial effect of his programme—I mean the ultimate financial effect, which is not apparent on the face of the Estimate. The immediate financial effect is apparent and it is serious enough in all conscience, and I miss with regret and great apprehension any allusion to the difficulties of the financial problem. I will not repeat what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, but I ask the Committee to consider this one fact, which has not been alluded to before. Let us compare these Estimates not with the Estimates of 1897 or 1898, over which they show a large increase, but with the Estimates of ten or eleven years ago. At that period the Army and Navy Estimates taken together came to £31,000,000. There was then about £14,000,000 for the Navy and £17,000,000 for the Army, and that was about the normal state of things before 1891. What is it this year? The
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  Army and the Navy have each of them cost as much as both of those Services cost ten years ago. [An HON. MEMBER: Of necessity.] In two years the normal Estimates—the War expenditure of this country in time of peace—have doubled, and they are now £60,000,000 or £62,000,000, whereas ten years ago they were only £30,000,000. "Of necessity," says the hon. Member opposite, and so says the Daily Mail and organs of that kind, which cry out for this expenditure, apparently knowing little, or caring little, how that expenditure is to be raised. This sort of progress in our military expenditure cannot go on. It has doubled in ten years. Does any hon. and gallant Member suppose we can go on doing that? Why, if it did go on, in another ten years we should be expending £100,000,000. We have to halt somewhere, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is to be the ultimate financial effect of these new proposals, which is not at present apparent.
  Every increase of the numbers of the Army implies an increase in the cost, and we want to know the ultimate financial effect in respect of the non-effective charges. I will explain what I mean. I pass now to the question of numbers. After the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury last night, the Committee stand in need of some further explanation, because it appears to me that the First Lord did not state correctly the increase in numbers in the Regular forces demanded by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. I could not reconcile what I understood the First Lord to say with what the Secretary for War set forth in his statement to the House. I understood that the Secretary of State for War said on Friday last that the increases he required were these:—Regulars, 11,500; Militia, 50,000; Yeomanry, 25,000; Volunteers, 40,000: total, 120,000 increase in numbers. That is the statement I understood him to make, and which I cannot reconcile with what the First Lord of the Treasury said. I have looked at the Estimates and I am not at all clear that the financial charges for the whole of these increases is apparent on the face of this year's Estimates. There is money taken for 50,000 Reserves in addition to those already on the Paper. As to the Yeo-

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  manry and the Volunteers I am not at all clear, and it is not apparent to me that in the Estimates for this year the total charge for the Yeomanry and extra Volunteers is taken. It is apparent to me that he is mot taking this year the full financial charges for the increase of 11,500 Regulars. I have looked at the comparative statement of differences and this is what I find. The increase of Regular forces taken by this year's Estimate, as shown by the statement of differences, amounts to 7,351 men. If the right hon. Gentleman will look on page 11 of the Estimates he will find that the net increase is 7,351 and not 11,500 men. That is the total increase in the Regulars charged upon this year's Estimates. The numbers called for by the right hon. Gentleman's scheme amount to 11,500 men, whereas you are only going to raise 7,351 this year, and to that extent the Estimates this year do not show the ultimate, financial effect of the new proposals. Having regard to the automatic increase which must follow any increase in numbers, and the fact that the entire charge is not provided for in the present year, we ought to have a full explanation of the ultimate effect financially and of the actual increases that have taken place. That is all I want to say about that point.
  With regard to these increases, I am not going now to deal with the question as to how far they are satisfactory. The hon. Member for Taunton, who rose to bless the scheme, appeared to me to condemn it in its most essential points. I should like to have some further explanation of the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury. In his original speech the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War alluded to the commitments of this country in two continents besides South Africa, and in explaining and defending that last night the First Lord of the Treasury assumed that, at all events, our responsibility for the colonies must be admitted. I want to ask the Secretary for War for how much in his new scheme does our responsibility for the colonies count? Can he tell us how much responsibility for the colonies enters into this new expenditure which we are now being called upon to provide for the Army? I put that question to him for this reason—the colonies are
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  either self-governing or they are Crown colonies. If they are Crown colonies then we have the power and the right to make them pay for a portion of the burden of Imperial defence. If the self-governing colonies count for anything in this additional expenditure proposed by His Majesty's Government, then I say those colonies ought to contribute to that expenditure. I could go further than that, but possibly I should not be in order now in doing so; but when the time comes for the settlement of the debt for the war in South Africa—which is an Imperial war for colonial defence—are you going to ride off on the claptrap that certain colonies who have gone to the front indulge in? Is that to be the answer in regard to what ought to be demanded from the colonists for their share of this Imperial war? If the colonists pay their share of the burden of this war they ought to pay at least one-third of the whole cost which has fallen upon this country. That is why I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us if he is charging us with any expenditure for the defence of the colonies. Are you going to suggest to the colonies that they are to pay their share? It is high time that the question was looked into, for this money has been spent for the defence of people who are as rich or richer than we are.
  There is one other point as to which I should like some further explanation, and that is the question of the training and selection of men for the rank of officers in the Army. I listened with great interest the other night to a speech made by an hon. Gentleman who has just joined the House—I allude to the hon. Member for Oldham—and I was much impressed by his observations upon the system of selection of officers in the Army. I do not know whether to call it an artificial or a natural selection, but whichever it is, I can assure the Secretary for War and the Government that there is no lesson of the South African War which the country has taken more to heart. There is nothing that the country is more in deadly earnest about than that there should be a system of fair play and free competition both in the entrance to the rank of Army officers and also in subsequent promotion. A year ago about

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  this time I called the attention of the then representative of the War Office to this subject. We have had the admission that this is a scandal, especially in the case of the cavalry, and that was admitted at the beginning of last session. On the the last occasion when the Army Estimates came before the House I expected to find from the representative of the War Office some statement as to what they propose to do in this matter. The answer I got was a most unsatisfactory piece of procedure. The right hon. Gentleman said that Supplementary Estimates were not an occasion on which proposals should be made to alter the law. But I do not know what he meant. At all events, nothing was done last year, and now when I come to the right hon. Gentleman's own proposals. I find that they do not in the least meet the gravity of the case.
  What is the true principle to be applied in this case? It is the right of the nation, as a mere matter of public safety, to have at its call the whole available talent of the community for service in the rank of officer in the Army. The nation is entitled to insist that no capable youth whose services could be possibly obtained should be excluded. On the other hand, take the point of view of the parent. Every parent, whatever his social position may be, should have the right to say that his son should have every opportunity of access to the rank of officer in the Army. These I believe to be the only principles capable of solving this question. How far has the right hon. Gentleman gone in that direction? Has he taken anything that can be called a step at all He tells us that trousers and tunics can be got direct from the Army headquarters instead of from the stores or the military tailors. That does not seem to me to meet the difficulty at all. I do not see how you can meet it unless you lay down the rule that the pay of an officer from the moment he enters the service shall be such as to enable him to live in the Army without any call on private expenditure, and no social pressure should be permitted which would make his life uncomfortable if he does not choose to incur large expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of sumptuary laws, but there is a sumptuary law existing in the Army at the present moment. Officer after officer has
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  has told us of the scandalous amount of expenditure incurred at present, and, which is enforced by social sumptuary laws. Surely the right hon. Gentleman will have no hesitation in putting down anything like boycotting in the Army It is easy enough to invent a system which will give the young officer —and the old officer for that matter—the pay to which his services entitle him, and thereby protect him from being driven into expenditure beyond it. This is a question which a civilian is as capable of gauging as a soldier, and which the civilian is as anxious about as the soldier. We do not want the Army made cheaper for rich men. That has been done in the case of similar reforms, including admission to this House, which has been made cheaper for rich men. We want a reform which will enable the country to have full command of all available resources for the Army, and to give to persons in all stations the opportunity of a free career in the Army, to which they are entitled, and which it is for the good of the Army they should possess.
  LORD STANLEY: I know a number of hon. Gentlemen desire to speak on this question, but I hope they will excuse me if I reply now as briefly as possible to the various questions which have been brought before the Committee.
  The general view seems to be that the Secretary of State for War has come round to the view of Army reformers in this House. It is a peculiar delight to some people to be able to say, "I told you so." If in this case the Secretary of State and the Army reformers are in, the right way for effecting real progress and reform in the Army, both the Secretary of State and the Army reformers are to be congratulated. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said in his speech the other night that we must not depend entirely for our reforms on the lessons learned in the war. I quite agree that we must not depend entirely on the lessons learned in the war, but I cannot help thinking that the state the country found itself in after the troops went to South Africa should be considered, and it is that which my right hon. friend is trying to remedy in the scheme he has put before the House

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  The right hon. Gentleman and hon. Gentlemen ask us how recruits are to be obtained, and they say that in two years time or so we shall not have got them. Well, it will be another chance for them in that ease to say. "I told you so." But, at all events, we have no right to assume that we shall not get recruits. My right hon. friend has put forward a scheme which he believes will attract recruits, and until it is proved to be a failure we are justified in hoping that it will be a success. The question of getting new recruits is not a very large one, because the number of recruits to be added to the Army at present is roughly, some 10,000 men. But the object of the whole of this scheme is not so much to attract new recruits as to endeavour, with the forces at our hand at the present moment, to secure increased efficiency. The right hon. Gentleman said he had heard of army corps before. We have all heard of army corps before, but I would put it to the Committee that this is a genuine attempt to have army corps not only on paper, but in reality, to bring troops together in time of peace who would be employed together in time of war; to put at the head of those troops men who would be with them in war and who would have stall's whom they knew they could trust, and who would be known to all with whom they came in contact in time of war. It is our endeavour at the same time to bring up these various army corps to their proper strength in artillery and mounted men.
  Some remarks have been made on the subject of Volunteer and Militia artillery, and some doubts have been expressed as to whether they will be effective. I am bound to say that if the question had been asked two years ago it would have been said that they would not be very efficient, but after one had seen and, still more, heard of the excellent work done by the Elswick and City Imperial Volunteer batteries in South Africa, one could not help giving every Possible facility for training to these batteries.
  With regard to the Militia. Yeomanry, and Volunteers, whatever may be the feeling of hon. Members for or against conscription, there can be no doubt whatever that these three forces stand between us and conscription at the present time, and
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  our object ought to be to make them to the best of our power as efficient as possible, and to rely on that loyal devotion to the service of the country they have shown in the past, to stand the extra work which, in the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, is necessary for their real efficiency.
  I will now deal with a few of the other questions brought forward. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean asked particularly Whether we were going to have mounted infantry regiments. That is a question not mentioned in the Estimates, but it is a question which must be and is being taken up. Whether it is better to have mounted infantry or not is a debatable question. My own opinion is that the more men we can get in a regiment to pass the mounted infantry course the better for the Army; but that is only my private opinion, and it is probably wrong. With regard to the question of an Imperial mounted infantry, I quite agree with the hon. Members who urged that we should attempt to get an amalgamation for joint defence of the mounted corps of the Empire, whether they be at home or abroad. Schemes to this end have been and are being put forward, but it is a question that can hardly be rushed into. It must be carefully thought out and must be done, not with one colony, hut with all the colonies on a common basis. I do not think that the time when men are actually serving in the field is the time to put forward a definite plan. It is time to consider what plan we can put forward when the war is over. That will be the time to ask these men whether they and their Governments will consent to form an Imperial Yeomanry—a title which will be very suitable.
  The hon. Member for Mid Kent asked several questions about the Yeomanry. He wanted to know if the Yeomanry would be brigaded, and the answer to that is, Yes He then asked if every Imperial Yeomanry regiment would have its own adjutant. He spoke about equipment, and showed great distress at some prospect of the Yeomanry losing their swords. He mentioned that the chief use for swords would be in quelling bread riots should they occur, but, in my opinion, an implement

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  that is supposed to add zest to Irish affairs would be more suitable for that purpose. He next referred to the training of the Yeomanry, but that is a matter that will be put forward as soon as possible in the form of an Army Order. I may, however, state that I do not think it is for my right hon. friend or myself to stand up in this House and express views on the training of these various forces. The one thing that the country is saying is that there should be no civilian interference in military training. Surely the Commander-in-Chief, who knows these men, who knows what training to give them to make them fit for the duties they will have to perform, is the right man to lay down the details of the training of these forces.
  The hon. Member for Lichfield asked about Volunteer artillery and the time allowed them for training. That is not yet definitely settled, and will be settled in consultation with the commanding officers of these batteries; but we will try to get them out for as long as they possibly can remain. He then asked if a militia battalion short of men would be allowed to raise men out of its own county. I do not know what the military objection to that might be, but personally I cannot help thinking it might be possible to fall in with the hon. Member's views. He then spoke of the want of discipline in the Yeomanry and Militia.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: General want of discipline.
  LORD STANLEY: Yes, general want of discipline; and the hon. Member referred particularly to South Africa, Is it to be supposed that those men going out to South Africa have exactly the same idea of discipline the troops have who have been drilled at home? Nor is it expected or required of them. They did their duty. I never heard of any want of discipline among them, and I think it is rather a pity that they should have been selected as having shown a want of discipline.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNER: I did not say want of discipline, but a want of training caused by a want of discipline at home.
  LORD STANLEY: I accept the hon Gentleman's explanation. I took his statement the other way.
  The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Yarmouth asked three questions. The first question, was what Reserves would be left to fill up gaps in the ranks of the 120,000 men. Exactly the same Reserves as at present, as they would not be taken away for other regiments. He then said we must be prepared to meet an international war.
  *SIR JOHN COLOMB: My question was the numerical proportion of cavalry, infantry, and artillery in the 120,000 men to be ready at any moment to embark.
  LORD STANLEY: We should send abroad about sixty-three batteries and fourteen cavalry regiments, the remainder being infantry. The hon. and gallant Gentleman also asked what would be done in the case of a small war. There will be a system by which men going into the Reserve receive for the first year a small extra sum, for which they will hold themselves in readiness to be called on at any time to fill up regiments going a broad, without rendering it necessary to call up the whole Reserve. It is computed that about 5,000 men will be obtainable in this way.
  With reference to the criticisms of the hon. and gallant Member for Fareham, I think the House will feel that, if in all our schemes we could get criticisms such as his, army schemes would be vastly improved. I agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman on the question of the expenses of officers. He said that the whole question was very much exaggerated, and I am bound to say from my own experience that that is so. I believe myself that infinitely more trouble arises from the initial expenses of men going into the Army than arises from the expense of living with a regiment. The difficulty is not so much the yearly allowance as the large sum which has to be put down for an outfit in the first year. I believe a great deal can be done to limit the expenses of officers.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Is there any provision for that in the Estimates?
  LORD STANLEY: I do not see how there can be. Suppose we are able to meet officers in some way in regard to clothing, that could hardly come into the Estimates; but we are going to try and get them what they want cheaper than at present. That whole question is being gone into. Then the hon. Gentleman asked what was the extra charge for the Imperial Yeomanry. We have taken £300,000 this year for the Imperial Yeomanry, which is exactly half what we will take yearly in future. The amount of the pensions for widows and orphans of the soldiers killed in the present war has only been roughly calculated, and probably there will be an increase in that direction. The amount taken this year for reserve of stores is only for a limited period of four or five years and will then cease. I hope I have now replied briefly to all the questions which have been asked.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I would appeal to the House to pass this Vote now, as otherwise we may get embarrassed. Exactly the same discussion can continue on the next Vote.
  MR. SAMUEL SMITHasked if he would have, an opportunity of referring on the next Vote to the question of Army chaplains.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes, Sir.
  Resolution agreed to.
  1. £21,657,500, Pay, etc., of the Army (General Staff, Regiments, Reserve, and Departments).
  MR. F. W. WILSONsaid he desired to draw attention to a matter which was very much in the shade—namely, rifle shooting and the provision of rifle ranges. Unless men were sent into the field properly trained to the use of the rifle they would be practically useless. But how could men be properly acquainted with the rifle unless facilities were offered them? They all knew the exceedingly great difficulty of providing rifle ranges, but he did not think that a rifle range was necessary in every case. He was connected with two rifle clubs—one with a long range,
  182
  the other with a miniature range—and, in his opinion, experience could be gained by practising with a Morris tube at a miniature range. The army in South Africa was confronted with 50,000 men whose one merit as soldiers was that they could ride and shoot, whereas many men were sent out who could neither ride nor shoot. Army reforms were always admirable on paper, but difficult of execution. There was a distinguished occupant of the Government Benches who was within one shot of winning a prize at Wimbledon, but he was afraid that the present distinguished Secretary of State for War was not himself a rifle shot or he would have paid more attention to the extreme desirability of making Englishmen accustomed to the use of the rifle. He hoped no disparagement would be shown towards the Volunteers who were giving their time to train themselves as soldiers, or to the men who, in a fine national spirit, were forming themselves into rifle clubs throughout England in order to qualify themselves for the defence of their country.
  *MR. SAMUEL SMITHsaid he wished to move the reduction of the Vote by £100 in order to call attention to the large extent to which Army chaplains belonging to lawless ritualistic societies had been appointed. These societies were chiefly the English Church Union and the C.B.S., or the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, two distinctly Romanising societies. Two years ago the House of Commons passed a resolution deploring the lawlessness shown by certain members of the Church of England, and lie would remind hon. Members that members of the societies he had mentioned were going in the teeth of the Lambeth decision given by the two Archbishops. The First Lord of the Treasury himself declared with reference to the policy of Lord Halifax and his followers, that they made no secret of the fact that they regarded the history of the Church of England for the last three centuries as unprofitable, and yet Army chaplains were appointed from the men whose aim was to bring the ritual of the Church of England into the closest possible agreement with the Church of Rome. More than half the

  183
  House of Commons was returned at the last General Election on distinct Protestant pledges—
  *THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not entitled to enter into the whole question of ritualism in the Church. He must confine himself strictly to the case of Army chaplains.
  *MR. SAMUEL SMITHsaid he would conclude his remarks by saying that he had a list of twenty Army chaplains belonging to the two extremely ritualistic societies he had mentioned, some of whom had been appointed by the Government within the last few months.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIRsaid he desired to call the attention of the Committee to the fact that they were asked to vote 21½ millions of money in twenty minutes. The position in which the financial business of the country was now placed was due to the fact that Parliament had been summoned at so late a date. The scheme they were discussing seemed to him to have one characteristic, and one only, and that was that it was placing a very severe burden on the country. It was impossible at that hour to go into details as to the lessons to be learned from the war, but he thought it would be rash to base the organisation of the military forces of the country on those lessons. It would be rash and dangerous, not only from the point of view of the efficiency of the Army, but also from the point of view of educating public opinion in the right direction, to base the organisation of the Army on the necessities disclosed by the war in South Africa. The scheme which had been submitted by the Secretary of State for War laid an additional burden on the country at a time when it was very little able to bear it. The country had made great efforts in regard to money, and now when trade was taking a turn the Government proposed to lay a fresh burden upon it. Ten years ago military expenditure was seventeen or eighteen millions a year; now it was twenty-nine millions, and as his hon. friend the Member for Dundee had pointed out the scheme of the Government could not be fully carried out without an increased demand for money.
  184
  Then there was a large demand for men to enter the Army. He held that the grave necessity which would justify such a demand for men and money had not been proved. He welcomed the fact that there would be a full discussion of the scheme later, but pending that discussion he would say that he thought that the call on the country to maintain three army corps of Regular troops ready at a moment's notice to embark was a most monstrous demand. No country in Europe maintained its first line of defence in that position. They would only have to go a step further and provide transports with steam up, to see the ridiculous absurdity of the demand. If the Government meant to have three army corps of Regular troops the would not only be departing from the present system, but they would be laying on the country a burden the extent of which could hardly be realised. He regretted extremely that the First Lord of the Treasury should have treated the matter as a party question. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imagine that hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House had no interest whatever in Army reform. If there was to be continuity in the foreign policy of the country there should also be continuity in naval and military administration, but that could not be unless there was a certain amount of give and take between the different political parties. The Government seemed to think that they must take everything, and that the Opposition must give everything; but there should be a recognition of the fact that there were two sides to the question. None were more ready than his hon. friends to-do what they thought ought to be done., but no sufficient reason had been shown for the additional burden which it was now proposed to put on the country. He would make the strongest and most emphatic protest in his power against the unwisdom of the policy which was proposed.
  MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.)said he heartily sympathised with the opening statements of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken. It was a shocking thing that the House should be called on to vote twenty millions in twenty minutes. He

  185
  should never for his part have assented to the suggestion of the First Lord of the Treasury, were it not that he believed that there could not have been full, ample, and deliberate, discussion of such a gigantic scheme, if the debate went over to Saturday, and was, as proposed, closured on Saturday night. It was because he believed that the House and the country would have a, better opportunity of considering the scheme in all its details of policy and finance that the First Lord of the Treasury would keep the understanding arrived at in its spirit as well as in its letter, that the subsequent discussion would be free and exhaustive, and that it would not be taken out of the twenty-three days for Supply, that he assented to the right hon. Gentleman's proposition.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON (Manchester, N.E.)said that the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Forfar stated that the Government proposed to have three army corps ready to go abroad at a moments notice, but as a matter of fact they would he no more ready to go abroad than the French army corps, which would have to wait until their reserves were called up.
  CAPTAIN SINCLAIRsaid the right hon. Gentleman was quite right. He wished also to be permitted o say, as his previous remarks might have appeared ungracious, that he, quite recognised that the First Lord of the Treasury had done everything in his power to secure a full discussion of the scheme.
  MR. ASQUITH (Fifeshire, E.): I only want to have it made clear that if, in accordance with the understanding arrived at, we pass this Vote, we, do not in the least degree prejudice our right to discuss the whole scheme and subsidiary matters after Easter.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)said he did not intend at all to break the arrangement which had been entered into, but there was one point which he should like made clear. They were asked to vote money at the rate of a million a minute, and of course it was impossible that the House of Com-
  186
  mons should be able to consider the Vote in that time. The Leader of the House, however, stated that he was prepared to afford an opportunity for a full and free discussion of the whole question, not merely, he took it, of the general effect of the scheme, but such questions as the payment of 5s. a day to the Colonial forces and to the Yeomanry, while only Is.3d. per day was paid to the Regular troops. He would like to know whether the discussion would be in Government time, or in private Members' time. Private Members would not have gained anything if the Government took Tuesdays after Easter. Hon. Members were therefore entitled to know whether the discussion would be a full and free discussion, and whether it would be taken in Government time, and not in private Members' time.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no wish to trespass on private Members' time more than I must. The matter will be treated like the Second Reading of a Bill, and if the discussion be extended I may, of course, have to take private Members' time. With regard to subsidiary questions, there will be ample opportunity for discussing them.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again on Monday next.

SUPPLY [8TH MARCH],
Resolutions reported:—
SUPPLY [8TH MARCH],

  ARMY (SUPPLEMENTARY) ESTIMATES, 1900–1901.
  1. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £3,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1901, for Additional Expenditure, due to the war in South Africa, in respect of the following Army Services, viz.:—

  £

  Vote 6. Transport and Remounts

  2,000,000

  Vote 7. Provisions, Forage, and other Supplies

  1,000,000

  Total

  £3,000,000

  ORDNANCE FACTORIES.
  2. "That a Supplementary Sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Ordnance Factories (the cost of the Productions of which will be charged to the Army, Navy, and Indian and Colonial Governments), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1901."
  Resolutions read a second time.
  First Resolution:—
  Motion made, and Question put, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.)said he objected to this Report being rushed through without some explanation from the noble. Lord who represented the War Office. Looking through the figures during the last three or four years he saw that £8,000,000 had been wasted on horses in South Africa. When the Vote was under discussion in Committee it was indicated that stud farms were to be established in Canada and in Australia. He came from a horse-breeding county in Ireland, and they should have some explanation as to what would be done in regard to Irish horses. The Government, he believed, required 6,000 horses every year. The present system was to buy the horses from dealers at £40 apiece, and the dealers went to the farmers and bought them for £18 apiece. The Government should deal direct with the farmers. At present only horses five years old were bought, but if they wanted to encourage horse-breeding for cavalry purposes the horses should be bought from the farmers at three years old, when they were just fit to be trained to carry a man.
  MR. O'MARA (Kilkenny, S.)said that one reason for the great wear and tear of the horses in South Africa, was that the horses in the gun-teams were too few in number. The Boers used a great many more horses in their gun-teams. The present method of buying horses was bad. The Government employed dealers, and there were often two or three middlemen between the Government and the
  188
  horse breeder. He knew of a case where a dealer who had an order from the War Office came to a town in Ireland and bought old, weedy, and broken-down animals at £18 each, and sent them over to the War Office, who accepted them at £35 each. He was told of one dealer who, had bought 250 horses in one day, and netted a profit out of the Government of £5,000. This was sheer waste of the taxpayers' money. The system of the War Office was unbusinesslike, and would bring any shopkeeper into bankruptcy. Ho could not understand why it was allowed to continue, and he hoped an assurance would be given that that state of matters would be remedied. Another point he had not an opportunity of bringing before the House in Committee was the system of buying horses under martial law in Cape Colony. Under the autocratic rule of martial law farmers were, he believed, forced to make sales of their horses, and he thought the House should exercise its power of insisting that these sales were made on a fair basis. The principle of compulsory sale, which they in Ireland wanted to apply to land, was applied to horses in Capo Colony, and for the honour of the House and of the country they ought to be careful how the prices of these horses were arranged. The House should carefully examine the enormous amounts asked for as Supplementary Estimates, and he trusted some further details would be given as to how the money had been spent.
  MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)protested against the way in which the Estimates wore put forward. It was almost impossible to discover which Vote was to be discussed, and without an actuarial training it was practically hopeless to attempt to arrive at a fair estimate of the amount of the excess asked for from the Papers supplied. The original Estimate of £61,499,000 had now swollen to the enormous total of £91,999,000. Such figures wore staggering, and the House had no guarantee that before the end of the financial year further Supplementary Estimates would not be brought forward. The Government had frequently been pressed for particulars as to the prices paid for horses and forage. All descriptions of horses were lumped together, so that it could not be shown how small at

  189
  number of Irish horses had been bought. While orders were given that Ireland should be treated very charily in the matter, Continental countries were being scoured from end to end for horses. When the quality and condition of the Argentine horses were borne in mind, it was no wonder there had been so much delay and disaster in connection with the transport service in South Africa. The matter as regarded Ireland was even more serious in the question of forage. It seemed inconceivable that the Government should be sending to all parts of the world for forage and yet pass over the almost unlimited supplies of sweet meadow hay which could be obtained in Ireland. With regard to meat for the troops it was the same. Enormous quantities of foreign meat were purchased for the Army by the War Office, the quality of which was decidedly inferior to either Irish or Scotch meat and all for a trifling saving which did not amount to more than a halfpenny or three-farthings in the pound. The War Office had, wherever they could, given a preference to foreign meat. It was well known that good Scotch or Irish meat was in the end cheaper, because it was more nutritious, and a certain quantity of it went much farther than foreign meat.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BAKTLETTcalled attention to the great expenditure on horses. This was a most remarkable lesson taught by the history of this war. He believed that over £8,000,000 had been spent on horses going to the war. What did that mean? It meant that if £500,000 had been spent in the earlier stages of the, war, or before the war began, this vast expenditure would not have been necessary.
  LORD STANLEY,in replying to the questions with respect to the purchase of horses said that, in addition to being officially interested, he was very much personally interested in this matter. As far as possible he wished to see not only in Ireland, but in England and Scotland, the War Office buyers brought more in con-tact with private breeders. At the same time hon. Members would understand that it was very difficult for any buyer to go about the various districts to see one or
  190
  two horses. That was almost impossible. He hoped that some scheme might be arranged whereby the vendors might be brought together. If that could be done, he would endeavour to get the War Office buyers to go to them. How that was to be done was still under consideration, but he hoped they would come to some satisfactory conclusion. He was afraid that, personally, he could not agree with the hon. Member who asked about the three-year-old horses, He knew that it would be much better for a seller to get the price of a five-year-old for a three-year-old. With regard to the horses bought under martial law, instructions had been given to pay the fair market value for the horses. The remark had been made that there had been corruption. It was easy to make the suggestion of corruption, but it was very difficult to prove it. [An HON. MEMBER: How many actions are pending for fraud?] He could not answer that question, but if the hon. Member would bring before him any ease in which he had satisfied himself that there had been fraud, he would be only too glad to take any action that lay in his power. With regard to the question of home-fed meat, which had been brought up by the hon. Member for North Cork, he could not give any facts at the present moment The whole tiling was being considered, not with the view of going against the hon. Member's wish but in order, as far as possible, to meet the views of gentlemen on both sides of the House, that we should buy the meat of our own producers, instead of that of foreign producers.
  *MR. FIELD (Dublin. St. Patrick)said he found from the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General that on 27th October, 1899. a contract was entered into with the South African Cold Storage Company to supply fresh meat for the troops at 11d. per pound, but two-thirds of the supply was frozen meat. The hon. Member could say as an expert that 11d. per pound for frozen meat was a famine price. In consequence of this infraction of contract, it appeared from the War Office Papers that the sum of £27,000 was to be refunded by the Company. He wanted to know if that money had been refunded to the War Office. Here

  191
  was a company which had fraudulently appropriated that money, and when he called attention to the matter on a former occasion he did not receive any definite assurance as to the money. Frozen meat was supplied by the same firm to the troops in Gape Town at 5¾d. per pound, while 11d. was paid for the same class of meat to feed the English troops in the field. The Irish Cattle Trades and Stockowners Association, of which he was president, had been in communication with the War Office on this subject for many years, and it was only very lately that a supply of live cattle had been given in the Curragh. There was this extraordinary state of things, that Ireland was a meat-producing and exporting country, and yet in almost every barracks in the land frozen meat was supplied to the men. This was really a matter of vast importance, and in the stand he was taking he was representing not only the tenant farmers but also the landlords. Moreover, the larger portion of the forage for the horses in Ireland consisted of foreign hay and Russian oats, and it was nothing less than a scandal that such a system should be perpetuated in an agricultural country like Ireland. The Government, through the War Office, was absolutely boycotting the Irish producer, and the question undoubtedly demanded the serious consideration of all who had the welfare of the community at heart.
  MR. HERBERT LEWISconsidered the frozen meat contract to which reference had been made was an instance of the extraordinary business methods of the War Office, and he asked the noble Lord whether be was satisfied that, under the circumstances, the deduction of two pence in the pound was adequate. The contract was undoubtedly a live meat contract, expressly providing for drovers and butchers to accompany the animals with the troops, and yet three-fourths of the meat supplied was refrigerated meat. Under the circumstances he thought the War Office had a right to a considerably larger deduction. He further asked to what extent the Army Veterinary Department had been improved. The enormous wastage of horses in South Africa had been largely due to the undermanning of the Veterinary De-
  192
  partment. The matter had been treated too much from the £ s. d. point of view. Important as might be that standpoint, there was another the House should bear in mind—namely, the horrible sufferings endured by the wretched animals. No one with a, grain of sympathy for animals could have read the heartrending accounts of the terrible treatment—proble; ably unavoidable under the circumstances —to which animals had been subjected in South Africa without feeling a great amount of regret that it had not been possible to avoid or minimise it to a greater extent. Another point was that hitherto when horses had been landed at Cape Town they had been at once hurried up in droves to the front instead of being given an interval for exercise and so on after the voyage to get them into fit condition for their work. Had that mistaken policy now been changed A further question was with regard to the purchase of horses and the prices at which the animals had been bought. He remembered riding out a considerable distance with some friends in the Argentine, and he was told that the value of the horses they rode was about 75s. His informant was a German, and he thought perhaps he was imposing upon his credulity, but he afterwards made inquiries and found that the statement was perfectly correct. One of those horses had been ridden by the President of the I Argentine Republic himself. He mentioned these facts to show that the price of horses in the Argentine was extremely low. He knew that the quality was poor, but suggestions had been made that a, higher price had been paid than ought to have been paid. In the Argentine you could buy as good a horse as anyone needed to ride for £10, and he trusted the noble Lord would give them a satisfactory reply in regard to the prices paid for the horses purchased in the Argentine Republic.
  COLONEL NOLANsaid he could not understand what the object of the Government was in hiding the prices paid for those horses. He was glad to hear that the noble Lord opposite was anxious that the producer should get the profit which had hitherto been taken by the dealer. The horse fairs in Ireland were remarkably good, and the War Office

  193
  ought to be supplied with a list of them and arrange for their buyers to attend.
  MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.)wished to have some information from the noble Lord with regard to the corn contracts. The corn produced in Great Britain and Ireland was heavier than the foreign corn, and if his information was correct the War Office bad laid down a standard weight of 35 pounds to the bushel, but a corn weighing 38 pounds or 39 pounds could not be supplied at the same price, He wished to know whether the corn was tendered for at so much per quarter or so much per 100 pounds. He wished the Irish producer in this matter to be Placed on an equal footing with the foreigner. For the last two years the War Office had been absolutely blind to their own interest in refusing to give this information. They not only gave the preference to the foreigner, but they were also giving him an unfair advantage over the English and the Irish producers.
  MR. O'SHEE (Waterford, W.)said he understood that the average price the dealers had been paying for horses in Ireland was £27, and the average price the dealer received was £35. He did not sec why the Government should pursue such a system. He understood from a statement made by the noble Lord that the number of horses purchased direct from the producer was about 200, while the number? purchased from dealers was 5,300. It was an extraordinary thing that, although they had many fairs in Ireland, the Government had not been able to purchase directly more than 200 horses. There was really no excuse for not going direct to the farmers of Ireland to purchase these horses and give them, something like the price which had been paid to the dealers. He considered that two millions was a vary extravagant sum to ask for remounts. Something like 100,000 horses and mules had been sent to South Africa, and money had been wasted in the Argentine Republic and other places which ought now to be available for remounts.

  AYES,

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Bagot, Capt. J. FitzRoy

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W(Leeds

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Bain, Col. James Robert

  Banbury, Frederick (George

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J.(Man.)

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen B.

  LORD STANLEYsaid that the War Office would endeavour to bring buyers and breeders of horses together. As to the 2d. per pound on the foreign meat contract, mentioned by the hon. Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin, that would be deducted at once. Regarding the question of the tax on incoming stock, that had never been placed on the contract. It was not imposed in the case referred to, nor in any other case, but he confessed the whole matter was unsatisfactory, and he would look into it.
  MR. FIELDasked if the noble Lord would give a guarantee as to the supply of Canadian moat.
  LORD STANLEYsaid he could not give a guarantee, but he would do his best in the matter.
  MR. FLAVINasked if the noble Lord could say anything about the corn question.
  LORD STANLEYsaid he could not answer that at present, but he would endeavour as far as possible to meet the views of the hon. Member.
  MR. FLAVIN: Will the noble Lord send me an answer by letter?
  LORD STANLEY: Yes, Sir.
  MR. DUFFY (Galway, S.)said he desired to ask the noble Lord a question which affected the constituency he had the honour to represent, it being a horse-breeding district. He wished to know if it was the intention of the Government to establish studs for the breeding of horses in Ireland.
  *MR. SPEAKER: That question cannot be discussed on this Vote.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 135; Noes, 43. (Division List No. 67.)

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

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Bignold, Arthur

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Bond, Edward

  Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

  Priestley, Arthur

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Howard, Cape J. (Faversham)

  Purvis, Robert

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Pym, C. Guy

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Ratcliffe, R. F.

  Caldwell, James

  Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbys.

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W (Salop

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Keswick, William

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Rentoul, James Alexander

  Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r

  Lawrence, William F.

  Renwick, George

  Chapman, Edward

  Lawson, John Grant

  Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybridge

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Ritchie, Rt Hon. Chas. T.

  Cellings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Leveson- Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Levy, Maurice

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East)

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Smith, James Parker(Lanarks.

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Lucas, Col. Francis(Lowestoft)

  Spear, John Ward

  Faber, George Denison

  Lucas, Reginald, J. (Portsmouth

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

  Macartney, Rt. Hn. W. G. E.

  Stmt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Finch, George H.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Talbot, Rt Hn. J G. (Oxf'dUniv.

  Fisher, William Hayes

  M'Arthur, Chas. (Liverpool)

  Thomson, F. W.(York, W. R)

  Fletcher, Sir Henry

  Malcolm, Ian

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Tufnell, Col. Edward

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fred

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.

  Valentin, Viscount

  Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Gore, Hon. F. S. Ormsby-

  Moore, William (Antrim, N.)

  Webb, Colonel William Geo.

  Goschen, Hn. George Joachim

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Welby, Lt.-Col. ACE (Taunton

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Morrell, George Herbert

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Gretton, John

  Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Morrison, James Archibald

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

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Ld. G. (Midx

  Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Hamilton Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

  Mount, William Arthur

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Murray, Rt Hn A Graham (Bute

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th.

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Rainier, Walter (Salisbury)

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon N.

  Ambrose, Robert

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Malley, William

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  O'Mara, James

  Poland, John

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Kennedy, Patrick James

  O'Shee, James John

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Leamy, Edmund

  Reddy, M.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Lundon, W.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Crean, Eugene

  Mooney, John J.

  Roche, John

  Delany, William

  Murphy, J.

  Sullivan, Donal

  Doogan, P. C.

  Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.

  Thompson, E. C. (Monaghan, N.

  Duffy, William J.

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Tully, Jasper

  Ffrench, Peter

  O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

  Field, William

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipper'y Mid.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Captain Donclan and Mr. Patrick O'Brien.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  O'Dornnell, John (Mayo's.)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Hammond, John

  O'Dowd, John

  Second Resolution agreed to.
  Adjourned at half alter One of the clock till Monday next.