Commons Sitting of 26 March 1901

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  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 Bill, referred on the First Heading thereof, Standing Order No. 62 has been complied with, viz:—
  Great Central Railway Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDERS 62 AND 66 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 Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Orders Nos. 62 and 66 have been complied with, viz.:—
  Kingscourt, Keady, and Armagh Railway Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

GLASGOW AND SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  HULL, BARNSLEY. AND WEST RIDING JUNCTION RAILWAY AND DOCK BILL.

    LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAMWAYS AND STREET WIDENINGS) BILL.
    NORTH EASTERN RAILWAYS HILL.
    NOTTING HILL ELECTRIC LIGHTING BILL.
    CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS BILL. (BY ORDER.)
    Read a second time, and committed.

LONDON WATER (PURCHASE) BILL. (BY ORDER.)
Order for Second Reading read.
*MR. JOHN BURNS: I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is a private Bill, but, in consequence of the magnitude of the issues involved and the large area to which it applies, as well as the public interest which for many years—for generations I may say—has attached to this subject, it is not a private Bill in the ordinary sense, but it is a public measure of great and universal interest to London. It is a Bill, too, which, notwithstanding the magnitude of the issues involved, would, had it applied to any other city than London, have been unanimously read a second time and sent upstairs to be dealt with by the ordinary tribunal appointed by this House. It ought not to be made a Government measure. It ought not to be subjected to either Parliamentary prejudices or political tests. It is a Bill that is complicated by many issues which, in the past have prevented London getting what, under similar circumstances, other municipalities have secured and enjoyed. But, being a London Bill, this measure has to pass exceptional ordeals. There are many reasons for this, but I need not go into them this afternoon. They are patent to everybody, but I believe that some day public opinion will make up its mind in such an overwhelming and decisive manner that even Parliament will no longer ignore the claims of London.
This Bill has an exceedingly good object. It deals with a matter of public health, and involves the elements of life and death in a great community. It deals with a subject which vitally affects this great metropolis. It has to do with cleanliness and with public safety. It seeks to give to London that coequality of treatment which is enjoyed by other cities—cities which have been afforded the opportunity of converting the private owner-
1292
ship of the public water supply into a municipal ownership, and which have, consequently, been enabled to improve the public health, and to reduce the cost of the water supply. What other cities and towns have been permitted to do this Bill proposes to enable London to do. It will, if carried, convert a supervisory body in regard to water—and that is what the London County Council now is—into an owning and controlling body, with full powers and the widest responsibilities. I contend, on behalf of the London County Council, that as that body is the fire authority, the drainage authority, and the flood prevention authority for fire millions of people, the additional power that this Bill seeks to impose upon it is the logical complement of its public health duties. Recent events have induced the London County Council to repeat this session the policy of purchase which has characterised that body ever since it was created. At the last election London gave to the County Council a clear, decisive, and overwhelming mandate in favour of the purchase of the London water companies' undertakings. [Cries of "No. no."] Hon. Members say, "No, no." I have the honour of being elected on the County Council with a majority of 4,100 votes. That decisive majority could not have been given to me on account either of my views on the war or on pure beer. It was the largest majority I ever secured, and I believe it was given in favour of the policy I have always advocated of securing a pure water supply under the management of the London County Council. I believe it will not be generally disputed that that mandate was given because the view is growing up in London that the County Council is the only body which can be definitely charged with the purposes of this Bill. It is the only authority that has, or could have, power to deal with the question effectually. It is the only body which could be expected to raise the money necessary for the purchase of these gigantic undertakings. I will only quote one authority in support of my opinion of the nature of the mandate, and that is that of Mr. Harris, the able and courteous leader of the Moderate party on the London County Council. He says that the election was fought on the question of the expropriation of the water companies as soon

1293
as possible. That is clear and unmistakable, He also says: "Personally I have no doubt whatever as to the mandate of the Council to get the question settled."
I now come very briefly to the history of this question. Since 1880 we have had commissions galore and committees innumerable, and all of them have ended in favour of purchase, while many of them have trended to control. I am glad to say there has been absolute unanimity as to what should be the authority purchasing these gigantic undertakings. The Report of the Water Committee in 1880 said it would be desirable to have some public authority to regulate the water companies. Now we know all that the regulation of the water by a public company is impossible, for these companies have been unable to regulate themselves. The 1880 Committee also said that it would be possible to have an independent supply, and upon that I have just one word to say. I believe to obtain an independent supply would be difficult and costly, and that it is altogether unnecessary, but these Commissions are all agreed that the purchase of the water supply should be accomplished. That is the object of this Rill. This Bill varies very slightly from the one that was introduced in 1890, seeking power to acquire and administer the water companies, which was rejected. In 1895 a similar Bill for the purchase of the companies was carried by a majority. That Bill went to a Select Committee, over which Mr. Plunkett presided. A practical settlement was imminent and possible, but after the Committee had sat for twenty days the dissolution of Parliament prevented that settlement taking place. Since 1895 the Bill had been reintroduced several times, but since then Lord James has added to the difficulty by introducing a Water Board and Trust Bill, which was not proceeded with for a reason which. I believe, will always apply to any such measure if ever it is introduced. In 1897 we had another Bill rejected because a Royal Commission had been appointed to consider the whole question, and it was not considered desirable to legislate while that Commission was sitting. Now I believe in Royal Commissions upon this subject just as much
1294
and just as little as Lord Salisbury, and for the reasons he gave. In that we are in strict accord. In 1900 the Commission reported, and in 1901 we find the London County Council still persisting in the policy of purchase, that persistence endorsed by water consumers, the proceedings of the Royal Commission strengthening, rather than otherwise, our intention to carry out this undertaking.
Those are the short and simple annals of the London County Council in respect to water purchase, but it is just as well that we should know what has happened between the appointment of the Royal Commission and the introduction of this Bill. We have had two water famines, a great addition to the capital of the water undertakings, huge reservoirs constructed and storage tanks erected, and we have had Parliament recognising the difficulty and gravity of the problem by insisting that the exceptional nature of the problem demanded that all the companies should be linked up together, and that they should assist each other in times of emergency when there was a shortage of water. I say that the very fact of the Government having been compelled to interfere with private companies in that way indicates, first of all, how short the water supply of London really is, to what straits that supply is reduced, and also what may some day be imminent, unless the London County Council policy of purchase and a new supply is undertaken. The crowning injustice of the present situation was brought before us in January this year. The water company, seeing difficulties and troubles ahead of them in the matter of water supply, have attempted to impress upon their customers the necessity of storing water, which practically brings back the old cistern system, at the same time making an extravagant charge, and the effect of that has been that the London County Council has received a mandate for the purchase, administration, and management by a public authority of the, water supply of London, the like of which London has never before experienced, and which the Council through this Bill demands.
Now the gravity of this problem is indicated by the very sensible words of Lord Onslow, made use of in a speech

1295
when he was a member of the London County Council in 1895. These were his words—
"He thought that since the events of this summer, knowing that they had narrowly escaped a very serious calamity in the East End, there were not many in the council hut would agree with him that the time had come when they could not any longer allow the water supply of London to remain in private hands. He believed they were now almost unanimously agreed that the water companies must he purchased."
What was said in 1895 by Lord Onslow, London has said since by elections, and both the opinion of London and Lord Onslow have been confirmed by the Report of the Royal Commission of 1899, which shortly said—

(a) "That the work of rendering potable by scientific treatment the river-derived water supply of London should he in the hands of a public authority."

(b)"That, if a public authority became the purchaser, water would be supplied at constant pressure to the highest houses."

(c)"That unification of the water undertakings would bring in its train facilities of intercommunication and simplification of extension and enlargement of the water supply."

(d)" That it would tend to the prevention of waste."

(e)"That it would afford greater facility for raising the large sums necessary for the future supply."

(f)"In view of the prospective requirements of water supply in London."

I contend upon those six points that the Report of the Royal Commission is in favour of the London County Council rather than against it, but the Report of the Royal Commission unfortunately stultified these excellent recommendations by others which are not so good. One of those recommendations was that there should be a water trust—well, Trust is dead, the last election killed him. The problem of acquisition was further complicated by the Lands Clauses Act, conditions of purchase being imposed upon London by the Royal Commission of 1899. It is convenient that the House should know what has been the result of all these inquiries. The Committee of 1880 recommended purchase, the Bill of 1891 advocated a single water authority, the Royal Commission of 1896 protested against the present company system, the Bill of 1898 linked all the companies up together, the Report of the Commission of 1899 recommended purchase, and the London County Council on Tuesday last, by a majority of ninety-one to seven, decided

1296
in favour of this Bill. We may take it for granted therefore that the London County Council is nearly unanimously of opinion that purchase is desirable in the interest of the river, the trade of London, the health, the pleasure, and the fire safety of London generally. In a word, all inquiries end in purchase, all experience leads to amalgamation, and all failures of water supply make for the water supply of London to be, as in Glasgow, Bradford, and Birmingham, in the hands of the rate-paying authority. All these resolutions are in favour of the administration of water being in the hands of a public body, and except for an unreasonable minority all are agreed the County Council is that body. I believe the people who raise the money ought to purchase. The people will have to pay the money, and their trusted representatives ought to be the people to purchase, and that was the mandate of the last election. Now why should the London County Council purchase? Because the London County Council is the only body that can raise the £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 which are necessary for that purpose. No trust could do it. A Parliament should not give power to any irresponsible trust to raise such a sum as that from the public; and, moreover, I believe, I if Parliament did give power to a Trust to levy a rate for that purpose, the whole of London would revolt against it, and the scheme would be an absolute failure, if not at its inception, in its subsequent mismanagement. The London County Council is directly elected, and is susceptible, as all such institutions are in England, to popular and proper influence; its financial credit is good, the commercial capacity of the officers of the finance Committee is undoubted, its officers are qualified to carry out the administration of this undertaking, and as London will have to provide four-fifths of the purchase money, I see no reason why Parliament should not give it this power. If the London County Council is allowed to purchase, it is asked what will it do? I think it will display its characteristic zeal and energy, and a typical regard to the outside local authorities with which it has to deal. It will boldly and, at the same time, economically administer a better water supply, and in the administration will serve its constituencies well,

1297
and in so doing, I believe, will economically pursue the line of least resistance. It will seek the co-operation of many local bodies now supposed to be its enemies; it will make terms with the outside authorities, as it now effectively does over its outside drainage areas into its system; it will supply to them in bulk any supply which may be required, and generally speaking the County Council and the outside authorities can be left to make reciprocal terms under the Bill.
Some may say, given the Council as authority, what are to be the conditions as to price? I believe that the only bono of contention between the London County Council and the water companies is the conditions of price; and given that the price could be settled, I do not think you would find that the companies would stand up or care for the outside authorities. They give the outside authorities no power of control now; they appropriate their water and charge them whatever they like. Worse conditions than those the outside areas could not get from the London County Council, and 'they stand to gain more than they can lose. The companies want the highest price possible, the London County Council desires a fair and reasonable price determined by arbitration, which shall take all the circumstances of the case into consideration. This is objected to as being hard upon the companies; submit that to a tribunal such as the Council demands. Before the Land Clauses Act was passed, and water companies bothered, and London County Council promoted Bills, my illustrious namesake made a very true remark. Robert Burns wrote—
"When self the wavering balance shakes
It's rarely right adjusted."
That applies to the companies as forcibly as to the London County Council. I want neither the London County Council nor the water companies to strike the wavering balance. The Land Clauses Act cannot apply, and I want an arbitration to investigate the case with a neutral umpire between the water companies on the one side and the London County Council on the other.
I shall be told, perhaps, that Parliament has never done what the London County Council seeks and asks power to do. Parliament has, and has not, done it.
1298
It has partially done it. Parliament sanctioned special terms of arbitration under the Housing of the Working Classes Act in 1890, and I am quite prepared to leave this matter to such a tribunal as they sanctioned under that Act. Hon. Members opposite who object to this particular form of arbitration tribunal in the Council Bill must remember that Lord Plunket's clause, and several of the recommendations of subsequent Committees and Commissions, have been at variance upon the rigid automatic operation of the Lands Clauses Act. The London County Council say that the Lands Clauses Act may mean eight different arbitrations, sixteen different arbiters, and eight umpires. The County Council want to simplify and unify the process of arbitration under this Water Bill, and they want a strong tribunal for the acquisition of the eight companies, so that this matter shall be settled by a competent and strong tribunal with full knowledge of all the facts and circumstances relating to our London Water Supply. What is more, it is not fair to take the Lands Clauses Act, which was not passed for a special undertaking like the water scheme of London. The arbiter ought to take into consideration the question of plant, buildings, pipes, and machinery. All these are fit subjects for special valuation and for independent arbitration. Paragraphs 54 and 56 of the report of the Commission confirm the need for special arbitration by declaring no solatium for compulsory sale. Paragraph 128 of the report of the Commission of 1899 says that the large expenditure established the necessity for some form of special arbitration. Parliament also, by the Sterilisation clauses passed in recent years inregard to new capital, has shown how the water companies differ from those engaged in other matters. What is more, the new expenditure which the companies have undertaken, and the restrictions Parliament has imposed, are all eloquent in favour of the special form of arbitration I have indicated. Whether that be so or not, it is not on the Second Reading that these details ought to be threshed out. The proper tribunal to discuss them is the Committee upstairs first, and then the special tribunal to which I have alluded, and it is because I believe that a trust, if brought in, will

1299
have to undergo a similar test that I ask I Parliament to give the trust to the County Council, which has received so many mandates for dealing with this subject. I wish this subject to go to the tribunal upstairs to be settled in a proper way.
On this point some hon. Members may say, what about severance? Well, the Council has been, I think, put in the worst light with regard to severance. I believe it has been exaggerated rather by certain opponents of the Council and by suspicious friends of the outside areas, who, in my opinion, do not care two pence for the outside areas except as a means of playing them off against the Council, to the detriment of both, and for the betterment of the water companies. But I might say this, as a matter of fact: Birmingham, with a population of 500,000, supplies 180,000 outside; Bolton, with a population of 120,000, supplies 130,000 outside. I could give instance after instance in which it is possible for a central municipal body to get over the difficulties severance implies, and where, generally speaking, it works harmoniously with its neighbours. What the provincial cities have done London will undoubtedly do. But some may say, what experience have we that that harmonious action will take place? I can only give the nearest parallel instance I can find. The Council in spending £200,000 on technical education works with outside bodies most harmoniously, it co-opts outsiders and strangers, and they have done great work between them. It sends six members to the Thames Conservancy, and no one will deny that these six have done some good work. It works with the City Corporation on many public questions, and notably for gas, and on some occasions for municipal water supply. Whilst on drainage, it has solved the question of severance with many outside authorities already. It works with the local authorities of London on such subjects as gas regulation and water control; it is the harmonious convener of the local authorities of London, and is slowly but surely winning its way as the champion of London, and as the buttress against those municipalities which too long have threatened London's existence. It is on the ground
1300
that purchase is desirable that I ask that the Council should have power to purchase; it is because I think a public authority is desirable for this that I think the Council is the best authority, and it is because I think I have proved that the Council will not override the outside areas that I ask that this Bill be passed.
What is the alternative to the Council's Bill? The alternative is the Water Board, and what is the Water Board? It is to consist of thirty members, and there is to be little of the London County Council on it—no direct representative of the water consumers are to be preponderant. London in this respect is to be muzzled by the creation of this Water Board. The Report of the-Royal Commission says that a trust of thirty nominated members will be representative. I deny it. It will not be more capable than the Council. I believe it will be less capable than any statutory committee of the London County Council. It will be more costly, because this trust of thirty members will require salaries, I presume, of from £3,000 a year for the chairman down to £1,800 for some of the other members. It will be more extravagant and less-susceptible to public influence and control. The trust will be above criticism, it will be beyond removal if it does wrong. It will represent nobody but themselves. It will be without mandate and without representation. Now I put to hon. Members opposite, who do not agree with me, How much longer should London be subjected to these nominated bodies? Past experience proves that they are less efficient, more costly, and more difficult to deal with than the popularly elected Borough Council or County Council. But see how this metropolis is being; treated in this matter. How in a descending scale London has been, treated over a number of years. Lord Cross's Bill elected a trust of twenty-one. and 76 per cent, were from London; the City Bill in 1891 gave 53 per cent; the Vestries Bill in 1891 gave 74 per cent. to London; Lord James's Bill of 1896 gave 60 per cent., to London; but the Report of the Royal Commission of 1899 gives London only 33 per cent, of the representation on this trust. That is 33 per cent, of the representation on a body that represents; 80 per cent, of the con-

1301
sumers and will provide 87 per cent, of the money necessary to purchase these undertakings. There are no equal lights for all white men in that. I say it is a slur upon the municipal representation. It is a reproach upon the admitted zeal and capacity of the London County Council, and it is a kind of stigma which would not be attached to any other body but that which for the moment has the honour and pride of the burdensome duty of representing the people against the vested interests of this vast city. But some will say that this trust will probably select a better type of men to manage the water supply of London than the County Council could elect or select. Is that the fact? We have had water directors on the London County Council. I venture to say, from the point of view of ability and capacity and disinterested service to London, they were the least conspicuously able and capable on the London County Council. From the point of view of capacity, they were less commendable than any of the other County Councillors I had the honour of working with. What are the facts? The average water director is not an engineer. If he were an engineer, he would have put the water companies waterworks into better order than they have been on many past occasions. If the water directors were chemists, they would have urged upon the Water Board the necessity of getting a supply of some water better than that from a sewage-polluted watershed. If they had been men of business they would have made their dividends and yet placed London consumers in a better position than had been the casein the past. I believe that if the Council Bill is passed and we have a Statutory Committee or an ordinary Committee of the London County Council, we shall have a competent and capable body of men to manage our water supply. I venture to pit Mr. Dickinson against any director connected with the water companies. I venture to pit Mr. McKinnon Wood against any hon. Member representing water in this House. I venture to say that the chemists, engineers, retired business men, and capable civil servants whom London has harnessed to the
1302
chariot of its municipal work, are in every sense better qualified than the average water director, who is elected for other and frequently not such exalted reasons. Is there any reason to suspect the Council of inefficiency for the management of water affairs? Is there any reason to suspect the efficiency of the management of its fire brigade? Sometimes, however, we do not get enough water at our fires. Our drainage and flood prevention is exceedingly well done, while the purification of the river, which has been undertaken by the London County Council under difficult circumstances, is the admiration of every Member of this House. I hold that for efficiency, capacity, and disinterestedness there is no reason for a trust, and there is no reason for mistrust of the Council.
My last point is this. Suppoisng the Council is the body to purchase, supposing that purchase is decided upon as it must be, and supposing a Committee of this House and the arbitration tribunal take all the circumstances of the case into consideration, is there any reason to suppose that the London County Council will not be equal to the work, while the provincial corporations which have managed the water supplies had done so in a magnificent yet practical manner? Why should London be the Cinderella of all municipalities? Why should it do all the drudgery of municipal work and have none of the remunerative duties to perform? The million a year which the water companies now earn for their shareholders might better go in reduction of rates, extension and improvement of the water supply, the cleaning of streets, and in removing slums and in carrying out other beneficent municipal objects, which other cities to their credit had done. The Empire city is alone to be snubbed in this way. The metropolis alone is to suffer this contemptuous disqualification. London does not lack the engineering skill. Londoners can bridge the Indus, we can ford the Ganges, and we can dam the Nile. We can irrigate the dry places of the earth, and we can make two blades of wheat or grass grow where one formerly could only be produced. All but London is to feel the impulse

1303
of engineering talent, of civic zeal, and social reorganisation. This ought not to be. On the contrary, if this Bill is passed, Loudon will be able to attract to the management of her water supply some of the ablest men, some of her most devoted citizens. In moving the Second Reading I appeal to provincial Members, who in their own cities enjoy to-day what London lacks, to help the metropolis, whose hospitality they enjoy, in the struggle against the water monopolist, the water director, and water shareholder, and to give London the means of reducing its death-rate and increasing its health and happiness by securing a cheap, pure, regular, and sufficient water supply.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
*SIR F. DIXON-HARTLAND: In rising to move the rejection of the Second Reading of this Bill. I must compliment the hon. Member for Battersea, who moved the Second Reading, upon the very moderate way in which he has stated his case, and I think the London County Council have done the very best thing they could in placing the Bill in his hands. I am very sorry that the London County Council have introduced this Bill now, because practically the same measure was brought in last year, and I think this is an unnecessary wasting of the time of this House. I consider also that it is very hard upon the taxpayers of this Metropolis that money should be wasted upon a Bill which the promoters know very well has no chance of passing. After the Report of the Royal Commission, and after the undertaking given by the Government to bring in a Bill next year dealing with this question they could have no hope of seeing this Bill pass. The hon. Member for Battersea stated that in the case of any other city or town but London, the Second Reading of such a Bill would have been passed at once. The hon. Member for Battersea spoke of this measure as a London Bill, but it is because it is not a London Bill that it is opposed at the present moment. The hon. Member for Battersea has spoken about the
1304
mandate received at the last election by the London County Council in regard to the water supply of London. I have no hesitation in contradicting that assertion, and I say that they had no mandate of that sort from the electors at the recent elections. What caused the defeat of the Moderate party was the regulations brought in just before the election by the water companies, which I think were obnoxious to almost everybody in the Metropolis. Both sides on the London County Council were, equally opposed to those water regulations, and it was a most suicidal policy. The report went out that it was only the Progressives who were opposed to these water regulations, but that was not the fact, it is well known that if you give a lie twenty-four hours start, it is difficult to catch it up again. Therefore, this mandate spoken of as being in favour of this Bill does not exist. The hon. Member for Battersea has used arguments which have been answered over and over again in this House, and he has not approached the real question when he says that it is a London question. He says that the London County Council is the proper body to have charge of the whole transactions of the water companies, but what did the Royal Commission say upon this point. They reported that—
"Inasmuch, therefore, as all the metropolitan counties, except Hertfordshire, are bent on demanding what the London County Council are pledged to concede, we think that a purchase by the London County Council of the water undertakings must necessarily be followed by that severance and division of the works of supply and distribution into five distinct portions, which appears to us open to so much objection as to be practically inadmissible. On this ground, among others, we have come to the conclusion that the London County Council should not be the purchaser.''
I wish to bring before the House the fact that the limits of supply of the water companies extend over 620 square miles, of which only 122 square miles are within the jurisdiction of the London County Council. That leaves nearly 500 square miles outside these limits, which include part of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, Hertford, and Kent, and in such parts there are four boroughs and fifty-six urban and rural district councils, a total of sixty local authorities. The area and population

1305
supplied by the companies in 1898 were as follows: Inside Metropolitan area, 120 square miles, population 4,478,396. Outside Metropolitan area, 230 square miles, population 1,341,187. These figures, relating to all the companies, bear out the conclusion above stated, that almost the whole future increase of population and water supply will take place outside the area of the London County Council. If the London County Council are permitted to purchase the undertakings of the water companies, they must either supply the other counties and local authorities with water in bulk, or divide the sources of supply and works of distribution between the five metropolitan counties.
What has taken place in regard to these companies only last year? I will take the case of three companies. The Lambeth Water Company during the last four years increased its inside area to the extent of 6,431, while the outside area increased by 6,857. Therefore it will be seen that the consumption of water is growing faster in the outside area of this company than in the inside. The outside area of this company includes the borough of Croydon and Kingston-on-Thames. and other rural and urban districts which do not want to come under the London County Council. The Grand Junction Water Company as late as February last were actually supplying more water in the county of Middlesex than in London. In the case of the East London Water Company the increase of the supply in the outside area amounted to between 30,000 and 40,000 gallons more each year, whilst the supply in their inside area was diminishing. The population supplied by the East London Company is only 6,360 inside the London area, while the population supplied outside is 648,936. Therefore if the London County Council are permitted to purchase these undertakings they must supply water in bulk to these places outside their own area. Sir Alexander Binnie, the engineer of the London County Council, in his evidence before the Royal Commission stated—
"that, as a water engineer, he would not advocate such a severance from the point of view of economy in the administration and construction of the works; and that in his opinion the objections to severance and its cost would lead the outside counties to take water
1306
in bulk from the county of London, contenting themselves with taking over the distribution of that water in their own district."
With regard to these two modes of supply the Royal Commission report—
"The system of supply in bulk is not only inconvenient and expensive, but it shuts out the supplying authority from prospective increase of income arising in the district supplied. The price in bulk would no doubt be so fixed as to leave a small margin of profit to the supplying authority; hut that would not cover the prospective increase of income it might expect to receive if it dealt directly with the water consumer. If London had to supply water in bulk at a fixed price for the present and future wants of so much of the live adjoining counties as lies within water London, the ratepayers of London would find themselves in a very different financial position from that of the eight companies or from that of a purchaser who took over the whole present system.
"The conclusion we arrive at on this subject is that although severance of the works and sources of supply of the several companies and the division thereof between the Councils of the six counties within the limits of supply are not actually impracticable, they would be very difficult and highly undesirable. They will involve needless waste and expense and can only be carried out with constant friction in working details and at a greatly increased cost of management. All the advantages and economies of concentration and amalgamation will be sacrificed; it will become increasingly difficult to deal with future wants; and no compensating advantage will be secured."
The outside counties strongly object to the London County Council acquiring any rights of supply within their area, either by supplying the customers directly or by supplying in bulk, and that Council are pledged to effect a severance of the undertakings, if they are allowed to purchase them, between themselves and the five Metropolitan counties. No words can be stronger than those of the Royal Commission on these points, namely—
"To the objections of these county authorities to being placed by purchase under the control of the London County Council we attach great weight, in consequence of the large proportion of the water-consuming population which is under their jurisdiction, and not under that of the London County Council. At the present time it is between one-fifth and one-fourth of the whole population supplied by the water companies. It is increasing at a very much more rapid rate than that of the population of London proper, and when the population of Water London reaches the large figure of 12,000,000, which we have mentioned, it is very possible that the population of this outer ring, for which the additional quantities of water are wanted, may fully equal that of the administrative County of London."

1307
There is no doubt that London, inside and outside, is filling up very rapidly. But I think there is very little chance of an increase in the water supply being required for a long time in the inside London area, whilst, on the other hand, the outside area is growing very rapidly by leaps and bounds, and it will very shortly be quite equal to the area of the county of London.
It is all very well to speak about Bradford. Liverpool, and Birmingham, but those are not similar cases. I have no hesitation in saying that the feeling of the counties is so strong that they will oppose in every possible way any intention to place them under the London County Council. I am speaking in this matter with the authority of the various counties I have consulted. Why should the London County Council interfere with these other counties who consider that they are just as able to manage their own affairs as the London County Council? I think we have as good men on our county councils as are found on the London County Council. Any Minister who tries to put these districts under the London County Council will find himself very strongly opposed by the whole of them and the councils representing them. The question is not whether the London County Council perform their work well, or whether they manage their own affairs well or not; but the issue is that the London County Council are trying to increase their borders and are trying to obtain control of that which does not belong to them. The hon. Member for Battersea spoke about the Royal Commission's reference to the Water Trust, but that was only a suggestion. I think London ratepayers may fairly object to the rates of London alone being pledged as ultimate security for purchasing, managing, and developing undertakings in an area five times the size of the county of London. The Bill gives no power to outside local authorities to purchase water in bulk unless the London County Council assent, and if the outside bodies are not represented they are likely to be treated worse than they are at present by the water companies. I believe that if the Bill promised by the Government is brought in next year and a proper Water Trust is created, in a very short time
1308
everybody will be glad that this Bill has not been read a second time. I beg to move the rejection of this Bill.
Amendment proposed,
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Sir Frederick Dixon-Hartland.)
Question proposed. "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
MR. WHITMOREsaid the hon. Member for Uxbridge had gone into the reasons which actuated outside bodies in opposing this Bill. With regard to the particular proposals of the Bill the opposition of the outside areas might be pressed into a very small compass. Those who had the honour of being members of the London County Council must welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Battersea. That speech was well reasoned and was considerate beyond doubt. He felt sure that every Member on the Ministerial side of the House recognised that this was a large question which ought to be approached without any display of petty party feeling or personalities. At the same time he was bound to say that a great part of the speech of the hon. Member for Battersea was in favour of purchase generally, but he submitted that that was not the real issue. The issue which the House had to consider was whether or not it should promote the settlement of this protracted controversy by reading the Bill a second time. This Bill was substantially the same measure as was presented last year, when it was rejected by a good majority. The main feature of the Bill was to enable the County Council to become the purchaser of the undertakings of the water companies. This proposal was condemned by the Royal Commission. It should be noted that if purchase by the County Council was sanctioned severance must subsequently ensue. The outside authorities would insist upon this, and severance meant that instead of one authority there would be five separate authorities. Therefore one of the great-financial and administrative benefits which ought to be derived from purchase would at once be taken away. Severance was, moreover, explicitly condemned by

1309
the Royal Commission. Every one of the main proposals of this Bill had been emphatically condemned by a very powerful Commission. They were part of the Bill brought forward in this House last year which was then opposed by the President of the Local Government Board and rejected by a substantial majority. Why should the House read this Bill a second time, when they rejected it last year?
DR. MACNAMARA: This is a new Parliament and a different Bill.
MR. WHITMOREsaid those were the main reasons why they were opposing the Bill. He could quite understand that hon. Members on both sides, wishing to bring this unfortunate controversy to an end, were rather tempted to let the Bill be read a second time, in the hope that it might be improved before a Select Committee. Was that the proper spirit in which to enter upon a matter of this kind? How could they have any assurance that all these things would be remedied in Committee? He did not know whether any hon. Gentlemen had tried to draw up the Instructions they would like to move in order to convert this Bill into one which they would like to see passed into law. It was impossible to draw up an Instruction which would compel the Select Committee to transform the Bill. Moreover, the scheme would be presented before the Committee by experienced officials in the most admirable way; and how in the world could outside authorities or others who did not approve of the Bill formulate a scheme which would have a chance of securing equal treatment with the scheme of the County Council? The fact was. this question had become too large to be settled by any Select Committee, however careful; and influential. It must be dealt with by the Government, and the Government alone. He hoped that in opposing the Second Reading of this measure no one was doing it with a dilatory or obstructive motive. [Opposition cries of "Oh, oh."] He was glad to hear that note of dissent, but he was going to give his vote against the Second Reading, firstly because he did not think it was a proper Scheme to settle this great question;
1310
and in the second place because he wished to get rid of this system of the London County Council introducing into this House year after year impossible measures. What he wanted was that next year the Government should deal finally and effectually with this great problem.
This was a matter of such magnitude and perplexity that it should be dealt with by the Government. That fact was more or less recognised by the Government of 1880, but unfortunately that Government was not allowed to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. Had the question been dealt with then, all of them on both sides of the House, and the ratepayers as well, would have been happier to-day. Ever since that date successive Unionist Governments had recognised that the responsibility for the ultimate settlement of the water question in London rested with them and not with the municipal authorities. In the year 1892 the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Balfour of Burleigh made a very valuable Report, and the Commission presided over by Lord Llandaff also presented an admirable Report. Last year the London County Council introduced a Bill and the President of the Local Government Board on behalf of the Government opposed it, and it was rejected by a considerable majority. It was not, however, enough for them and the Government to go on opposing in that way. The question was now ripe for settlement, and in his judgment the history which he had briefly detailed showed that successive Governments had recognised that they had a responsibility and an obligation in the matter. They were not giving an absolutely negative vote, but they were waiting for a practical measure dealing with the question which would be introduced by the Government next year. He did not think that the treatment of the question by the Government presented insuperable difficulties. After all, there had been a great approximation of opinion on the matter. Personally, he had for years struggled against the idea of purchase— [Opposition cheers]—yes, he candidly admitted it—but his view had been shattered partly by the conclusions of the Royal Commission and partly by the general tendency of events. Now he was

1311
anxious to see the question settled on the general lines of the Report of the Royal Commission. Who could doubt that even the water companies must now be anxious to have such a settlement? Recent events had shown that they had not the moral power to enable them to carry on their business satisfactorily. Public opinon was unfair to the water companies, and they could not get the powers they required. In the interests of the water companies and their shareholders it was most desirable that this trouble should cease. There need be no great difficulty in the constitution of the new Water Board, and even the Progressive party on the London County Council had in many ways shown a sweet reasonableness, and he did not doubt that when once the Government showed itself in earnest the end of the long controversy would soon be at hand. He hoped he had not been detaining the House too long. In conclusion, he wished to say-that he gave his vote unhesitatingly against the Second Reading of this Bill, and he did so not with any obstructive motive, but in the hope that next session the question would be settled permanently and satisfactorily by a measure introduced by the Government.
*SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Everything depends upon what the Government are doing, and, indeed, something more than that— upon what they will do, because the two things, as the House knows on many important social questions, are not identical. If the arrangement as to the London water supply is going to remain in its present position, like old-age pensions, it will not be satisfactory. We would like to hear from the President of the Local Government Board what they are going to do, and form our own judgment as to what the Government are likely to do. I therefore at this stage, until we have heard what the Government are going to do, do not propose to go at any length into this matter. The hon. Member for Chelsea thought it worth while to incidentally attack the Government of 1880. [Cries of "No" and "The Opposition."] There were two Governments in 1880; there was one in which I was interested, and one of my earliest, duties as Home
1312
Secretary was to preside over a Committee on this question. There has been a good deal of misrepresentation on this subject, and I will in a few sentences state what occurred on that occasion. I was chairman of that Committee, and received most valuable assistance in its conduct from the present Colonial Secretary—in; fact, we together drew up the Report. Among the other members of the Committee were the present Lord Cross, the author of the proposal of the former Government of 1880, and the present Secretary of State for India. Well, that Committee had before it certain agreements upon which the early Government of 1880 had proposed to purchase the water companies, and there attended, by counsel, the Corporation of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works, who represented upon that occasion and for that purpose the consumers of London. Counsel implored the Committee not to sanction the agreements on the ground, so the Report showed—
"that those two bodies have declared to your Committee their opinion that the terms contained in those agreements do not furnish a satisfactory or admissible basis of purchase, and in that opinion your Committee concur."
I do not think that that Committee or any other Committee could reject the opinion of the London Corporation and. the Metropolitan Board of Works. The next paragraph of the Report, the author of which was the present Colonial Secretary, was as follows—
"It is obvious, therefore, that the judgment of the public, as evidenced by the market price, coincided with the opinion of the Corporation of Loudon and the Metropolitan Board of Works—namely, that the price stated in the agreements is greatly beyond the estimated value of the property."
The charge made against us was that, being urged by the representatives of the consumers of London not to purchase the water companies upon those terms, we agreed with the Corporation of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works, and we did not attempt to force the consumers of London to purchase their water at a price far beyond the market price of the commodity. That is the position which has been misrepresented ever since, and the remarkable part of it is that the very author of the proposal in the Conservative Govern-

1313
ment of 1880 was a member of the Committee. The present Secretary of State for India and Lord Cross never attempted to challenge that verdict of the Committee; they never pretended, after the examination of Mr. Smith, that it was possible to purchase the water companies upon the terms proposed. There was some suggestion that there should be some other terms and some other negotiations, but as to defending the proposal of the preceding Government there was no definite attempt whatever on the part of its author. To the general principle laid down by the Committee I adhere. The principle then laid down was that the water supply of London ought to be in the hands of some public body representing the consumers; and we suggested a body that might be constituted for that purpose, solely upon the ground that there was no municipal authority at that time in existence which adequately represented the community of the metropolis. There is such a body now. The principle of the Report was that as soon as such a body was constituted it should have control of the water supply, and to that principle I adhere. It was then discussed whether the best process was by purchase or by some independent supply. That question was left open; but it will be found in the Report that purchase for certain purposes was regarded as necessary. That is the simple history of the Committee of 1880. I believe that every one of the Committee's conclusions has been justified, and that to blame the Committee of 1880 for having refused to purchase the water of London at a price which was absolutely beyond its value at the time is entirely unwarrantable. I contend that the Committee of 1880 and the Government which acted upon its recommendations were wholly justified in the course they took on that occasion.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): Nobody will be inclined to blame the right hon. Gentleman for defending himself as one of those who took part in the deliberations which led to the conclusion arrived at in 1880. At the same time I may be forgiven for pointing out that, valuable as the right hon. Gentleman's observations are, they do not throw any particularly new light
1314
on the question we are now debating, in the first place, the contention put-forward by my hon. friends behind me is not in any sense disposed of by the criticism of the right hon. Gentleman. What the hon. Member for Chelsea pointed out with irresistible force and unanswerable effect was that, had the suggestion which Mr. Cross, now Lord Cross, made in 1880 been adopted, enormous benefit would have accrued to the ratepayers of London. To tell us now that the representative bodies in London supported the right hon. Gentleman and his friends in their objections to the proposals of the water companies is not to dispose of our contention that if the scheme had been adopted great good would have followed, and we should not have been discussing the Loudon water question to-day.
The moderate speech of the hon. Member for Battersea deserves all that has been said of it. But the hon. Member looked at the question from the point of view of the London County Council, and from the point of view of that part of London controlled by the London County Council only. I have read the Report of the Committee to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. Of course I do not pretend to speak of it with the same knowledge as he possesses, who served on the Committee, but I confess it is difficult to realise that in the recommendation about the appointment of a municipal authority the Committee contemplated that that representative authority was to be representative of only a portion and not the whole of London. The hon. Member for Battersea and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth are a little to apt to talk of London as if it were necessarily limited in these matters to the area of the London County Council. The hon. Gentleman made the mistake of following too closely the suggestions of the Royal Commission. The recommendations of the Royal Commission in the main are those which my hon. friend supported, but it does not follow that the part of the Report to which he refers or other parts will be so closely followed as to do injustice to those parts of London to which he alluded as he seems to imagine.
Now it is my duty to say a few words in advising the House-

1315
what course they should take upon the Rill which is under consideration. The hon. Member for Chelsea assured the House that he had no desire to delay or obstruct the progress of this important question. That is the last thing that any member of the Government, and especially the President of the Local Government Board, would be likely to desire to do if he could see his way fairly and honestly to take any other course. Various Committees and Commissions have sat upon the question, and they have made recommendations which varied in some degree. The last recommendation is to the effect that the controlling body dealing with the London water supply should be representative of the area which is to be controlled, and that the terms upon which the companies are to be acquired should be fair and reasonable terms, just alike to the shareholders of the companies and to those who will have to pay the cost of buying the undertakings. In what way does the Bill of the County Council meet the first of these recommendations—that of a representative body for the whole of the area concerned? Clause 44 of the London County Council Bill is a clause which proposes that the authority shall be a committee of the London County Council, and the Bill also gives the County Council a power to co-opt members of other representative bodies. Can it possibly be said that this is adopting the principle laid down in the Report of the Royal Commission? The Royal Commission make it perfectly plain. In Clause 140 of their Report they refer to the possible effect of the London County Council becoming the owners of the water supply upon the outside areas, and they say, among other things, we have come to the conclusion that the London County Council should not be the purchaser, and they give their reasons why; but those are not the only reasons they give, for in another clause there are other reasons which point to the same conclusion, and they go on to give those reasons. Is there any comparison between a, representative authority appointed to represent the whole of what we may call Water London and a Committee of the London County Council with power, if they see fit to do so, to appoint outside representatives—a
1316
Committee which will be, after these outside Members have been co-opted, subject to the control of the Council itself? Can it be contended that there is any comparison whatever between the body proposed to be set up by this Bill and the body proposed by the Royal Commission? The hon. Member for Batter-sea may say quite frankly that there is no comparison, but that he agrees with the policy of the Bill, and does not agree with the recommendation of the Royal Commission; but that is a reason why we find it difficult to justify the suggestion that this Bill should now be read a second time. The differences are not mere differences of detail. The hon. Member for Battersea said that there was no precedent for a Trust, but I am not quite sure that the hon. Member and the hon. Gentleman who supported him are quite right in their views. What has been the most recent action of Parliament? Not so very long ago a very important water trust was formed in the Midlands in order to deal with the questions arising between different municipalities for the supply of water, and therefore I do not think the hon. Gentleman is justified in drawing the comparison in favour of London which he has.
MR. JOHN BURNS: In that case they were all municipal bodies.
MR. WALTER LONG: Moreover, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea is not only trying to deal with what is apparent, but is also dipping into the future. He might be contented to deal with that part of the subject with which he is thoroughly acquainted, and he will allow me to suggest that in attempting to deal with any future body he is dealing with a matter the conditions of which must to a large extent be imaginary.
Now a great deal has been made in the course of this debate of the demands of London, but in dealing with this most difficult question it seems to me that the London County Council have almost wilfully ignored the evidence brought out before the two Commissions with regard to the population of London within and London without. As closely as they can be arrived at, the figures are

1317
these: the population of the administrative county of London in 1899 was 4,568,689, and if you add to that the increase in population since then to the present day you bring up the total to 4,658,000. The estimated number of persons supplied by the water companies throughout what we may call "Water London" is 6,172,320, showing that there are no less than 1,513,000 odd people outside the administrative county of London who are closely concerned with the water supply; so it is not quite fair to compare this question with those municipal instances given by the hon. Gentleman, which refer to entirely different circumstances; which refer to cases where municipalities having the control of their own water supply have, because it was advantageous to outside populations in their vicinity, entered into arrangements undertaking to supply them. This is an entirely different question, this is a case of supplying inside London and outside London; and we are asked to supplant the companies by an administrative body. If we are going to do this we must realise these figures, which are very remarkable, but there is an estimate made by the Royal Commission which is very striking as to the future population to be supplied in 1931. The Royal Commission estimates that the population to be supplied in 1931 will be 11,192,000, or an increase of 5,000,000 on the present number, of which nine-tenths will be outside the administrative county of London. It is absurd to suggest that in setting up a great body to control this most difficult question of the water supply of this great area that we are to ignore altogether not only the million and a half who already form part of "Water London," but who are outside the administrative county; but the evidence which shows that the growth in the future will be almost exclusively the outer parts of London, and that in a comparatively short time we shall have as great a population outside the administrative county but within "Water London" as we have in London. Yet we are asked deliberately to give the whole control to a body representative of a portion only of the area, and to exclude from control and administrative power and authority in connection with the treatment of this important question
1318
a probable population as great as the figures which I have just given to the House indicate.
I might also quote if the House has still any doubt as to the constitution of the authority one further paragraph from the Report of the Royal Commission. It is said that the suggestions of the Royal Commission are worthless suggestions, and that they cannot be given effect to in some respects; but nobody will ever deny or ever has denied that the Commission was composed of men well fitted for the work which they had to perform, and which they did perform with great credit to themselves, and I think we are bound to give very great weight to their recommendations. In regard to the question of the authority they say that in their opinion the Board should be a permanent and not a fluctuating one, consisting of not more than thirty members, selected on account of their business capacity and their knowledge of matters connected with water supply. The hon. Member for Battersea, I am sure, did not intend by his reference to the water directors to draw any invidious distinction as to the manner in which they discharged their duties, and the suggestion of the Royal Commission is one that ought to have met with his entire approval. The meaning of that suggestion was that the men in charge, as they will be, of these responsible and difficult duties, should be appointed in such a manner that they are not liable to be changed from time to time, and that they should be selected for the experience which they have had or ought to have had of a training fitting them for this difficult and peculiar work. I think that is a part of the Report which ought to meet with general approval, whatever may be thought of the claims of the London County Council. The Report then goes on to say that this Board should be so constituted as not to give any preponderance to any of the conflicting interests. Is that borne out by Clause 24 of the London County Council Bill? It is not a question of preponderating influence here, because if the proposals of the County Council were to pass into law the whole control over the water supply of both inner and outer London would be handed over to the power of the County Council. It is not only in connection with the administra-

1319
tive part of the proposal that it is obligatory upon us to criticise this measure; the purchase clause of the Bill is, I frankly admit, an improvement upon anything that has ever appeared in previous Bills, but it is certainly unfortunate when the London County Council made up their minds to improve this clause in the way they had done that they could not frankly adopt the language of the Report of the Royal Commission, because the recommendations of the Report with regard to the purchase question are very plain, and it is difficult for anybody to disagree with them. The hon. Member for Battersea quoted from the Housing of the Working Classes Act, but that has no analogy to the case, because the suggestion that was adopted in that case was in order to deal with owners of property who had abused their rights by not dealing with their property in the manner in which they ought to have done. The gentlemen who are to take the place of the water companies are to take the place of men who have done their business under very difficult conditions, and even supposing that it could he shown that they had made mistakes, it would not be just to treat them in the same way as owners who had deliberately allowed their property to fall into decay to the injury of the community. The Commissioners in their Report say—
"The companies have upon the whole performed their duties to the public satisfactorily, and most of them have gone through periods of struggle and difficulty during which the shareholders ran considerable risks and received inadequate returns for their money. Some have now reached and others are approaching a more prosperous condition, by the help no doubt of great privileges which Parliament has given them. We see nothing which leads us to suppose that if these undertakings are compulsorily purchased for the public advantage, Parliament will sanction any exceptional provisions or depart from the terms of arbitration usual where the property of private persons is taken from them. We shall, therefore, assume that if the policy of purchase is adopted the price of the undertakings will be determined by an arbitration conducted on the lines of the Lands Clauses Act; although possibly, in view of the magnitude of the undertakings a different, constitution of the tribunal may be adopted."
From the drawing of the Bill it is obvious that the County Council is to be the sole authority which in future is to control all these matters, and the question which
1320
we have to ask ourselves is whether under all these circumstances it is possible to allow the Second Reading and let the Bill go to a Committee. Are we not to consider, in the absence of any declaration on the part of the promoters of their intentions, that when the Bill reaches Committee we shall lay ourselves open to the inevitable conclusion that the Mouse has approved the principle.
There are other grounds upon which this Bill is recommended to the House. The hon. Member for Battersea said that the recent County Council Election had settled this question altogether, and that there is no doubt that the opinion of London had been in favour of the London County Council's proposal. I have had to follow very closely some of the elections of the London County Council, and I certainly do not agree with the hon. Member. Among other things there was a speech of Lord Rosebery's, a speech made on the 28th February last, in which he says—
"What has been the result of the policy of the Moderate party? I am not denouncing them. But the policy of that party in support of the Government on this question of water— you have at last heard the crowning of it—you know the result, the splendid result, of an omnipotent Government—omnipotent in both Houses of Parliament, with its mandate loyally and generously renewed by the whole country—you know the result of their policy with regard to water. It is this. The companies have enjoined on every householder to put down expensive cisterns at his own expense; and at the outcry of universal indignation have had to withdraw it."
It is perfectly true that those recommendations were denounced, although they were made at the instigation of the Royal Commission, but that does not look as if Lord Rosebery was so satisfied with the policy of the Water Committee of the London County Council. If it were not unduly trespassing upon the patience of the House I might quote to them speeches made by hon. Gentlemen with reference to the action of the Local Government Board, but it is not worth while to go back to that, and while I do not seek to deny the importance of the County Council election, I submit the clear issue of whether the water companies should be bought by the County Council or by the municipalities of the whole of the area was obscured by the matter of regulations to such a

1321
large extent that it cannot be correctly stated as having been decided. The hon. Member for Battersea relies on the position of the London County Council as compared with other municipal authorities, but that point has already been dealt with by another hon. Member. In the earlier portion of his speech he frankly admitted that the question of the control of the water supply for London had been taken out of the level of the ordinary subjects; that the magnitude of the interests involved, and the amount of the capital required, had removed it from the position of an ordinary municipal question, and, therefore, it would be unfair to say more about that than this one word, that if the London County Council had seen their way to adopt, not every line and word, but the general tone, of the recommendations of the Royal Commission upon this subject this Bill would have been received as other municipal measures had been, and opposition would have disappeared, and because the London County Council had not seen fit to adopt that course they must not cast blame or responsibility on this House for opposing it. The House must have regard for the outside areas and therefore we adhere to the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and not to those of the London Comity Council.
What is the position to which we are brought? My hon. friend behind me, who seconded the rejection of this Bill, referred to the future area, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Monmouth said the whole of my hon. friend's speech consisted of references to the Government. That was not a fair description of his argument. He expressed the conviction that this matter would be dealt with by the Government. I quite agree that a complete change has come over public? opinion in regard to this question, and anyone who has studied this question as I have will be struck by the fact that, whereas there was a great disagreement in the past as to purchase, there is now a general agreement as to the necessity for purchase, and, roughly speaking, as to the scheme or method by which the purchase should be carried out; there is also a general agreement that there ought not, if it could be avoided, be any further
1322
delay in dealing with it. I entirely agree with what has fallen from more than one hon. Gentleman in this debate, when they said it would be impossible for us to go on year after year advising the House to reject Bills of this description, and take no step ourselves. [Cries of "Six years ago."] Hon. Members who talk so glibly of "six years ago" forget that the Government appointed six years ago a Royal Commission, and they are not to be blamed for not legislating while the Commission was sitting. Or perhaps they think it would be better to legislate first and investigate afterwards. Nobody who has taken the trouble to look into the Report of the Royal Commission will deny that it contains a great deal of new matter, and therefore I say it is not quite reasonable to blame us for not having legislated before; but as the Government is now situated, it is absolutely impossible to bring in a Bill this session, because if we had intended to legislate we must have given notice last November.
I do not underrate the difficulty for a moment of dealing with this problem in a satisfactory manner. I have already informed a deputation that, being unable to recommend this Bill, I am engaged upon a measure based upon the recommendations of the Royal Commission, with an administrative body representative of the whole area of Water London, with full and proper representation to London itself. I shall spare no effort to make the measure a success, and to deal in a final and reasonable way with the water question of London. If I am able to secure the approval of my colleagues, which I do not doubt I shall be able to do, it will be my object and hope to bring in the Bill next session. That is the hope I entertain, and I may say that I confidently believe that we shall be able to settle the question, which has been before the inhabitants of London too long.
MR. ASQUITH: I think all of us welcome the right hon. Gentleman's acknowledgment that a great and complete change has come over this question. I am glad that he did not associate himself with the complaint which was made by one hon. Gentleman behind him in respect that the County

1323
Council having promoted a similar measure to this, which was defeated last year, had the presumption again to submit that proposal to the House of Commons. A great deal has happened since this time last year. We have now a new Parliament and a new Government—a Government so new that the formal notices in connection with purchase could not be sent to the water companies in November —and, lastly, a new County Council. I have listened with interest and amusement to the speculations and hypotheses put forward from the opposite side of the House as to the true inward meaning of the recent County Council elections. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen appear to be agreed that the election turned, not upon the question of purchase, but upon certain ill-advised regulations of the water companies put forward at the eleventh hour. I have in my hand here a leaflet. Sometimes leaflets are very useful things to refer to. This was issued for the purpose of the election by the London Municipal Society, and it is a manifesto, or at any rate a summary of arguments why the electors should vote for Moderate candidates. It says—
"The new regulations proposed by the water companies would, if allowed, inflict an unjust expense upon the householder, and must be strenuously resisted."
How are they to be defeated?
"By returning a Conservative majority to the London County Council."
Then as an illustration of how evil communications corrupt good manners, I find at the end of the leaflet this pregnant sentence—
"Every vote given to the Progressives is a vote given to the water companies."
I confess that I am in a state of mental difficulty in this matter. This election turned upon the water regulations, but the Moderates, as they called themselves, if this leaflet is to be believed, were the most strenuous opponents of the water regulations. So also did the Progressives profess their opposition. Then what was the issue of the elections? The issue was not the water regulations, on which both sides professed to be in agreement, but whether the water companies should or should not be purchased by the London County Council. [Cries of "No."] I dare say that there are some hon. Members opposite
1324
who did not put that issue so plainly and candidly as I have stated to the electors; for while the Progressives were talking about water supply, hon. Members were talking about the war in South Africa. But the electors of London, who made so striking a demonstration less than a month ago as to their views of what municipal Government should be, were not thinking of South Africa; they were thinking primarily and mainly of the water supply. And that I believe is the only true and sufficient explanation of the enormous majority the Progressives received.
What is the question now before the House? The real question is— shall this matter, which has been delayed year after year, be again indefinitely hung up? It is exactly six years since the House of Commons, as then constituted, passed a Bill similar to the present Bill, promoted by the London County Council, for the purchase of the water companies. That Bill was closely investigated by Mr. Plunkett's Committee, and was passed, these two leading principles being expressly affirmed. First, that the companies ought to be purchased, and by the London County Council; and secondly that, in estimating the terms on which the purchase should be carried out, the ordinary system prevailing under the Lands Clauses Valuation Act, which gives, as everybody knows, an excessive bonus for compulsory purchase, ought not to be adopted. But for the accident of the dissolution of Parliament that Bill would have been passed into law, and we should already have entered upon the municipal administration of the water supply of London. What has happened in the interval? The right hon. Gentleman tells us by way of excuse for the delay that this Government, or rather the Government before this, appointed a Royal Commission, and he asks us in terms of indignation how the Government could be expected to legislate until they had inquired. In the opinion of many of us no inquiry was needed at all. The subject had; been inquired into again and again, and all the materials for legislation were already in the possession of any Government which chose to make use of them. I am rather interested by the attitude the right hon. Gentleman has taken

1325
up towards Royal Commissions. I wonderif the right hon. Gentleman remembers how the Government of which he was a member passed an Agricultural Rating Act which vitally tampered with the whole of our system of rating, and then appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the subject of local taxation? The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Report of Lord Llandaff's Commission as if it were an inspired and sacrosanct document. We should be very glad if the Government would treat with anything like the same amount of respect the Reports of some other Commissions appointed by themselves. Less than a week ago the Under Secretary for the Home Department, whether in his private or official capacity was never explained, stated to the House—
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. JESSE COLLINGS,): I said distinctly that I spoke in my private capacity.
MR. ASQUITH: We know that one member of the Government, in his private capacity then, treated with very scant respect the Report of a Commission appointed by his colleagues, none of whom had the courage to defend it. If the course which the County Council propose to take had been sanctioned six years ago, how much would have been saved! In the, interval the companies have been coming to Parliament to obtain fresh capital powers; and the Sterilisation clauses, as they are called, to prevent for a term of years any increase in the amount to be paid for purchase by a public undertaking, have been running out. There have been in the interval two periods also, if not of panic, of a serious shortage in the London water supply, causing great inconvenience. I mention these facts to show that when we say this is a question which should no longer be hung up we are not speaking without some experience of the evil effects of delay in the past.
As to the terms of purchase, I do not think there is any difference of principle whatever. Both Mr. Plunkett's Committee and Lord Llandaff's Commission agreed that the ordinary
1326
bonus given in an arbitration under the Lands Clauses Act ought not to be applied in this case. The right hon. Gentleman did not tell us that when he quoted one passage in this Report on this very matter. He quoted the authority of the Commission that arbitration should take place under the Lands Clauses Act and not by the special form of arbitration proposed in the Bill. I think it would have been relevant to have added the passage which I am now going to quote to the House, and which evidently bears out what I have said. I will just quote one sentence—
"In the present case it is improper for the-arbitrator to give any compensation."
This statement thoroughly justifies that which is the essence of the clause, namely, that the arbitrator, in order to ascertain the purchase money, is to inquire into and consider all the circumstances of the case, and that no allowance is to be made in respect of compulsory purchase. I think J am justified in saying, therefore, that there is no substantial difference of principle on both these points—the urgency of purchase or the terms of purchase.
I come now to what is really the outstanding principle, the one which the right hon. Gentleman and those who supported him think is the question—that of the authority. In reference to that let me say at the outset, that there is, to my mind, a broad distinction between the purchasing authority and the management authority. It is not in the least degree necessary that the authority which carries out the process of purchase, and in whom in I the first instance the estate of the undertakings of the water companies is vested, should either immediately or for all time to come be the authority which should exclusively or without extraneous infusion manage the undertakings transferred. I do not commit myself at this stage of the question to a determination of that matter. I will consider in a moment the objections which have been raised. But let me point out first of all that the County Council is undoubtedly at this moment not only the natural but the only possible-purchasing authority. [Cries of "No."]

1327
I should like to know of any other authority now in existence capable of carrying out the transaction. The County Council contains within the area which it represents 75 per cent, of the population which consumes the water supplied by the companies, and somewhere between 80 and 85 per cent, of the rateable value, and this is a most material element, because the companies derive their revenues upon the rateable value of the houses in which the consumers live. It cannot be suggested that there is any other authority in existence, or which could be called into existence, which could possibly be put in competition with the County Council as the purchasing authority for these undertakings. The right hon. Gentleman gave the House some speculative figures as to what is likely to be the increase of the population in 1931. I am not in a position to check the figures. They may be perfectly correct. We are not legislating at this moment for 1931. We are legislating for 1901. ["No, no."] I am sure that hon. Gentlemen will not misunderstand my meaning. Of course we have to look to the future as well as to the present; but the question is how best, most promptly, and most economically, to transfer these undertakings, which everyone says ought to be transferred, to a public authority. What is the authority to whom they ought to be transferred? What is to be their subsequent management? Above all, what are the provisions to be made for the distribution of water in the metropolitan and the extra-metropolitan area thirty years hence, is not a matter of urgency, and may be left to the future. The question of purchase, however, is urgent and ought to be settled at once. In making the County Council the purchasing authority, admitting at the same time that water will have to be supplied to the outlying areas, we are acting strictly according to Parliamentary precedent. Over and over again in the great municipalities of the country, like Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow, where the purchasing authority is the supplying authority, those outlying areas which come within the natural district of distribution obtain from the central body, either by purchase or in bulk or by special arrangement, so
1328
much supply as is necessary for their local purposes. If that has been done in the great provincial towns why should it not be done in London also? Can the Government not trust the body which represents the enormous preponderance of interest which has been specified to carry out by proper arrangements the distribution of the outlying supply to those other districts? ["No."] Why not, unless as the hon. Member for Batter-sea has said, there is a dose of original sin in the composition of the County Council which prevents this House from entrusting to it powers which it entrusts, without reserve or suspicion, to all the other municipal bodies?
What does the Royal Commission propose? It proposes to constitute a water board of thirty members, in which the County Council should only be represented by ten members—in other words, the body which has three-fourths of the population and four-fifths of the rateable value is to have one-third of the representation on the authority to manage the water supply. I do not like to use hard language about the recommendations of a Royal Commission, but I think that is a grotesque proposal, and, as my hon. friend has already pointed out, it flies in the face of every proposal hitherto made, and in particular of the proposal, I will not say of the late Government, but of the Government which was in office before the right hon. Gentleman came to the Local Government Board, and that is the dividing line in this matter. It is entirely contrary to the proposal of the late Government, which was put forward by Lord James in 1896, who proposed that out of a water board of thirty the County Council should have eighteen members, on the express ground that London had a predominant interest and a predominant claim to representation. The Royal Commission has told us it would not trust those matters to a fluctuating body. Why not? All our municipal corporations are fluctuating the House of Commons is a fluctuating body, and every representative institution in the country which is recruited from time to time by election is fluctuating. The whole advantage which has been found by experience in the past from the result of transferring large undertakings like

1329
gas or water from private or corporate management to municipal management has consisted in the fact that you have a fluctuating body, a body of managers responsive to the wishes and appreciative of the interests of those whom they represent, and who, if they disregard those wishes and interests, can be replaced by others. I therefore entirely demur to the notion that you are going to take away from the directors, for whom we have the highest respect, and many of whom are most excellent business men, the management of those companies to hand it over to what apparently is to be a body of experts responsible to the Local Government Board. I do not hesitate to say that I would rather see the water supply of London left in its present position than see a solution of it like that; and I cannot express my condemnation of the suggestion in stronger language than that.
I think I have satisfactorily shown to the House, first of all, that there is universal agreement as to the necessity of the prompt transfer of the companies to a public authority; secondly, that there is no substantial difference of principle as to the terms on which the transfer should take place; thirdly, that both in the nature of the particular case, and on the precedents which have been cited to us in the Parliamentary procedure of the past, the County Council is the natural body, and indeed the necessary body, to whom the transfer should be made; fourthly, that the arrangements for the management and distribution among the various subordinate localities and interests is a matter of detail which can be arranged; and. lastly, that it is all-important in a matter of this kind that the ultimate authority, whether for purchase or management, should be exactly what the Commission said it should not be—that is, a fluctuating and responsible body. If all these propositions are true, what is the reason for rejecting the Bill? Why is the Bill not to go before a Committee upstairs? I say in the most direct and explicit terms possible that, if this Bill is rejected, and if its details are not to be examined by a Committee, the responsibility will rest entirely on the shoulders of the Government, The Government appear to be prepared to accept that responsibility. It is through their action that this question, which ought to have been settled six years ago, has been hung
1330
up until to-day. They have bad in their hands the Report of this very Commission, which has been the pretext for delay for fifteen months, and up to this moment we have only vague assurances that twelve months hence the House may be in possession of their proposals. In the meantime London is to wait; and a question on the solution of which the health and comfort of six millions of people depend, and which is one of the most vital of social and economic wants, is to remain in its present highly unsatisfactory state. If hon. Members opposite oppose the motion they will associate themselves in a responsibility which at present rests on the shoulders of the Government.
*MR. HARRY SAMUELsaid he had the honour of representing a constituency which had had a great deal of experience upon this water question. He ventured to say that the ideas put forward by the hon. Member for Battersea in regard to the defeat of the Moderates at the last County Council Election were somewhat erroneous. If it were true that London suffered so much from this want of water, in what part would it have been felt more than in the East End and in the Tower Hamlets? What was their answer to this question? Why, it was the only part of London where the Conservatives won two seats at the County Council Election. They had been told that if this matter was not settled to-day the onus would fall upon His Majesty's Government, He had never expressed or felt any affection for the water companies, and he did not think they had carried out their duties as well as they might have done, for they had inflicted considerable hardship upon the water consumers of London. The people of London had been forced by the Radical party to wait twenty-one years for a solution of this question, and he thought they would be walling to wait one year more in order to have it carried out on a sound and proper basis. He did not think East London had much trust in the London County Council upon this water question. The East London Water Company came down to this House and asked for additional storage powers, and they told the House that unless they got those powers they could not be relied

1331
upon to give a proper water supply. What was the result? At the initiative of the Radical members of the London County Council that Bill was thrown out and that action ultimately resulted in the serious water famine in the East End of London. He welcomed the declaration which had been made by the President of the Local Government Board, for he recognised in it the absolute determination of the Government to pass a Bill next session which would once and for all settle this question upon a sound commercial basis. If the London County Council had really cared to settle this question they could have done it in this Parliament by bringing in a perfectly straightforward and honest Bill carrying out the wishes of the Royal Commission, and constituting a water authority which would be representative not only of London but of all the outside areas concerned. It was now twenty-one years since Mr. Cross's Bill was brought in, and the ratepayers of London were entitled to say that whatever extra amount beyond £33,000,000 had to be paid for these undertakings the Radical party were responsible for. In supporting the Government upon this question he contended that he was carrying out the wishes of his constituents.
DR. MACNAMARAsaid that when he looked into the history of this and the last Government he had the greatest possible difficulty in believing that anything was intended in regard to this question but delay. On the 22nd of February, 1895, a Bill to purchase the London water companies passed its Second Reading. In 1896, after the General Election, that suspended Bill was reintroduced, but the House threw it out because the Government promised to bring in a Bill the next year. He thought Lord James's Bill was a measure which was never intended to pass. It was a pure abortion, and the history of this question suggested to him that it would be in the same position next year. The Duke of Richmond's Commission in 1869 unanimously recommended that the control of the water supply should be under public authorities.
The hon. Member for Uxbridge had stated that there was no mandate at the last County Council Election for the
1332
purchase of the water companies. He quoted from a leaflet issued by a joint committee of the London Municipal Society and the metropolitan division of the National Union of Conservative Associations. This leaflet set forth that "the Conservative policy is purchase and management of the supply by a single public authority," and called upon the members to vote for the Conservative candidate. There was nothing in that about the water regulations, for it was a specific request to vote for the Conservative candidates in order to secure purchase and management of the water supply by a single public authority. But why should they wait until 1902 for the settlement? He believed that, the intention of the opponents of this-measure was to secure delay which would make matters worse for the ratepayers and better for the water company shareholders. The County Council had substantially modified its purchase clause, and the only outstanding question was, who should buy the water companies out and control the future supply. The Government, he understood, had committed itself in general terms to the proposal of the Royal Commission—namely, that there should be a composite trust of thirty persons, ten from the London County Council, twelve from neighbouring county councils, four from the Thames Conservancy, two from the Lee Conservancy, and two from the Local: Government Board. From the point of view of population London ought to have twenty-one representatives, and from the point of view of rateable value London was entitled to twenty-three members of that Board, or at least three-fourths. He, emphatically asserted that that was not a scheme for the representation of the ratepayers, and he could, not understand, how anyone could seriously propose to give rating powers to a body so constituted.
In regard to the outside towns, he sympathised with the desire to give them some representation. He had, however, written to many large provincial corporations; and he found that in no single case where they sold water to an urban or rural district did they permit them to have- any representation on the water authority. Cardiff and Glasgow sold, water to outside municipal areas, and

1333
permitted no representation. The Bradford Corporation supplied water to 231,000 inside its area and 205,000 outside, and those outside had no representation. In Bolton they had 120,000 persons inside the area and 130,000 outside, and yet those people outside were not permitted to have any representation. What they did there was to charge them a higher rate instead of giving them representation. He was rather glad to see this tender solicitude for the recommendations of the Royal Commissions. The problem was one of extreme urgency, and the Bill before the House would give them at least twelve months start. The Government policy was one of delay, and as a London Member he emphatically protested against that policy, because it meant more East End water famines and heavier financial burdens upon the ratepayers. Every five years delay meant that the ratepayers would have to pay £2,000,000 more, and they could scarcely expect the promised Government measure to come into operation before the 1906 valuation. If the Bill of 1895 had passed, London ratepayers would have been saved £2,000,000. Last Wednesday the Under Secretary for the Home Department volunteered the statement that he had but a poor opinion of the Londoner. He did not know whether that arose from the fact that out of the sixty-two hon. Members representing London fifty of them sat on the Ministerial side. If the Government assisted to wreck the Second Reading of this Bill he felt sure that Londoners would give the right hon. Gentleman good reason to alter his opinion of them at the next election. As a mere Radical partisan he might view with equanimity the throwing out of this Bill if the issues were not so serious. The issues involved were the health and the comfort of millions of people, and he appealed to the House and to the Government to give the Bill a Second Reading.
MR. PEELsaid that as one of the two Members of the London County Council who sat on the Ministerial Benches, and as one of the few remnants of the Moderate party which was left on the shore at the last election, he thought he was entitled to say something in regard to the mandate which
1334
had been spoken of, and in reference to the causes of the great Progressive majority. Before this election came on the party opposite were very melancholy, but at the last moment those water regulations came upon them and wrecked the Moderate chances entirely. It was very easy to put various interpretations on that mandate. So far as the ordinary ratepayers of London were concerned, all they wanted was plenty of water at as cheap a rate as possible, and if they got this they did not care two pence what the authority was. The electors had been persuaded by a number of ingenious persons that the only way to achieve this was to purchase the water companies, and that the purchasing body should be the London County Council. He wished to be perfectly fair to the water companies, but anything more inept, more fatuous than their bringing out their regulations within a fortnight of the County Council election the tongue of man could hardly describe.
COLONEL LOCKWOOD: It was not we who fixed the date for bringing out the regulations.
SEVERAL HON. MEMBERS: Who do you mean by "we"?
COLONEL LOCKWOOD: I am a water company director.
MR. PEELsaid he would accept the statement of his hon. and gallant friend, but he hoped the engineering of the water companies would turn out better than their electioneering. In regard to Manchester, it was true that they supplied water in bulk to twenty-four townships outside their area, but the difference between the case of Manchester and London was that the districts outside London did not want to be supplied in that way, and they wanted representation on the Water Board. If the persons to be supplied lived within the area, then the London County Council ought to control that supply. The outside district around London desired representation, and that being so, they were compelled to ask for an authority which was somewhat wider than the London County Council. He hoped the offer of the President of the Local Government Board in regard to this matter was not a

1335
hypothetical one, but that it was one which he would be able to carry out next session. In regard to the suggestion made by the Royal Commission, he was of the opinion that London must have a far larger representation than ten. As one engaged in administrative work in the County of London, for many reasons he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would bring in legislation next year which would solve this problem.
SIR JAMES KITSONsaid he was a Member of the Committee which considered the County Council Bill in 1885, and he wished to say a word or two upon this measure. He wished to express his sorrow for London having now to bear the excessive charge caused by the delay since 1895, and the argument of delay now put forward was intended to secure for the companies an additional value. From the point of view of the local authority owning its own water supply, the whole of the points which had been raised by the President of the Local Government Board were dealt with in the city of Leeds. The City Corporation of Leeds supplied outside authorities with water in bulk, and they had no representation on the Water Committee. Polities did not enter into the question of water supply in Leeds, for there both Liberals and Conservatives joined in promoting any legislation or expenditure which, would secure a pure and ample water supply. Leeds was in the first instance supplied by a private water company, but it was bought by the City Corporation, and they had since spent over £2,000,000 in securing a water supply from the moorlands around Harrogate. The result of that expenditure was that the city of Leeds now had a revenue of £128,000 a year from its water supply; the expenditure was £28,000, interest £60,000 on the two millions, which left a profit of £40,000 a year, which was devoted to the repayment of the capital. The consequence was that this great local authority, which now owned its own water supply, was enabled to come to Parliament to ask for powers which a company could not acquire. A company for private gain would not be permitted to do what Leeds had done, for it obtained two sessions ago power to buy the whole of the lands
1336
within its water areas. The consequence was that it was able to protect the health of the inhabitants of the city by having a proper system of drainage. He supported the Second Reading of this Bill, because he believed it was in the interests of a great population which was now placed in a very inferior position to the great cities of the north of England.
MR. GRAYsaid it had been stated that the London ratepayers were strongly in favour of this Bill. He would have been very much surprised to hear that they were not in favour of it, because it would be an admirable bargain for London at the cost of the inhabitants of Greater London. In West Ham they looked upon it as a measure to destroy eight monopolies and to set up one greater monopoly. Under this Bill 320,000 people in West Ham, without any voice in the management of this great concern, would be compelled to I take their water upon whatever terms the London County Council cared to dictate. London was to reap a large profit out of this undertaking, but at whose cost? It was to be accomplished at the cost of those consumers in the outside areas. He welcomed the assurance that had been given by the President of the Local Government Board, and he should vote against the Bill on the clear understanding that next session the Government would pass through Parliament a measure for dealing with the water supply of greater London. He should vote against the Bill under the clear belief that next session they would have a measure dealing with this question and providing a water board upon which the outer districts would have equal representation.
MR. HOLLANDremarked that this was a measure which he should have the greatest pleasure in voting for. He was surprised at the attitude taken up by the Member for South Manchester, for if he consulted his own constituents in the city of Manchester he would find that there the principle of this Bill had been carried out with great success. In the great city of Manchester, under the management of the council, the water supply was better in quality and quantity and cheaper than it had ever been

1337
before. To those familiar with the working of provincial councils it did seem strange that the London County Council, which was the greatest council of them all, should be kept in apron strings to a degree which was unknown in any other part of the country.
MR. LOUGHsaid that before the debate closed he wished to point out that upon this question they were having one of the most shocking examples of the mismanagement of public business that they had ever experienced. Instead of allowing the question to be dealt with by this Bill the Government had given a clumsy promise that they would take the question up next year. There could be no serious intention on the part of the Government of fulfilling that promise, and no doubt the farce of 1896 would be reacted. It had been stated that by introducing this Bill the promoters were wasting the time of the House, but they had just got a promise from the Government that they would do all they could to waste more time in connection with this subject next year. The hon. Member for Chelsea had made a most candid speech, and he had stated that he and those who acted with him were in favour more of private enterprise than public control. There seemed to be a sort of conspiracy amongst those in favour of private enterprise to defeat this great public Bill. The water directors would no doubt defeat this Bill, as they defeated the Bill of 1895. One party would be shepherded into one lobby by the directors and shareholders of these companies, while the other party would bring their friends and supporters into the other lobby, where their votes would be given in the public interest rather than in that of private
enterprise. This was a gigantic question. They, in London, did not enjoy one of the franchises which were the possession of the people in the majority of the other towns and cities in the kingdom—water, gas, telephones, means of communication, etc. Everything in London was in the hands of the private monopolists. There was no subject on which there was such keen feeling on the part of the people of London; and it was these old companies that made London life almost intolerable. [Cries of "Divide" and laughter.] Hon. Members might smile at his attempts to interest the House on this question, but if the House would not be interested, the people of London outside were extremely interested, and thought the time had come when the reign of the monopolists should be put an end to. He had read a most interesting note in The Times the day before. It was a little quotation from the proceedings of the House of Commons on 25th March. 1801, and was as follows—"If any more Jobs are attempted to be forced through the House of Commons an hon. Gentleman intends to move that they be referred to the Committee on the Scarcity. "He could not but think that when the editor of The Times saw the Water Bill on the Order-book for that day, he had inserted that note as a hint in regard to their proceedings. [Cries of "Divide."] In conclusion, he did not think he asked too much when he expressed a hope that no director or shareholder, or any one who had got a personal interest in these water companies, would take any part in the division.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 176; Noes. 253. (Division List No. 106.)

AYES.

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

Brigg, John

Cogan, Denis J.

Allen, C. P. (Glouc, Stroud)

Broadhurst, Henry

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Ambrose, Robert

Brown, Geo. M. (Edinburgh)

Crean, Eugene

Asher, Alexander

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Cremer, William Randal

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.

Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

Crombie, John William

Austin, Sir John

Burt, Thomas

Cullinan, J.

Barlow, John Emmott

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Dalziel, James Henry

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Caine, William Sproston

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

Bell, Richard

Caldwell, James

Delany, William

Black, Alexander William

Cameron, Robert

Dewar, J. A. (Inverness-sh.)

Blake, Edward

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Boland, John

Carew, James Laurence

Dillon, John

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Causton, Richard Knight

Donelan, Capt. A.

Boyle, James

Cawley, Frederick

Doogan, P. C.

Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

Clancy, John Joseph

Douglas, Chas. M. (Lanark)

Duffy, William J.

Levy, Maurice

Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries)

Dunn, Sir William

Lewis, John Herbert

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Edwards, Frank

Lough, Thomas

Robson, William Snowdon

Elibank, Master of

Lundon, W.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Ellis, John Edward

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

Fenwick, Charles

M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Ffrench, Peter

M'Dermott, Patrick

Schwann, Charles E.

Field, William

M'Fadden, Edward

Scott Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Mansfield, Horece Rendall

Sinclair, Capt John (Forfarshire)

Flynn, James Christopher

Mooney, John J.

Smith, Samuel (Flint)

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

Morgan, J. L, (Carmarthen)

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Fuller, J. M. F.

Morgan, E. J. C. (Devonport)

Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (North'nts

Furness, Sir Christopher

Moulton, John Fletcher

Stevenson, Francis S.

Gilhooly, James

Murphy, J.

Strachey, Edward

Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Sullivan, Donal

Goddard, Daniel Ford

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Tennant, Harold John

Grant, Corrie

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick)

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

Thomas, Alfred (Glamorgan, E.)

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid)

Thomas, David Alfred (Merth'r

Haldane, Richard Burdon

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William

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

Thompson, E. C. (Monaghan,N

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Tomkinson, James

Harwood, George

O'Doherty, William

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Hay, Hon. Claude George

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

Ure, Alexander

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Dowd, John

Wallace, Robert

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

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

Walton, John Lawson (Leeds, S.

Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol. E.)

O'Malley, William

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.)

O'Mara, James

Warr, Augustus Frederick

Jacoby, James Alfred

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Weir, James Galloway

Jameson, Major J. Eustace

Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham

White, George (Norfolk)

Joicey, Sir James

Partington, Oswald

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

Pemberton, John S. G.

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

Philipps, John Wynford

Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

Joyce, Michael

Pickard, Benjamin

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Kearley, Hudson E.

Pirie, Duncan V.

Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid

Kinloch, Sir John Geo. Smyth

Power, Patrick Joseph

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

Kitson, Sir James

Price, Robert John

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Labouchere, Henry

Priestley, Arthur

Wodehouse, Hn. Armine (Essex

Lambert, George

Rea, Russell

Yoxall, James Henry

Langley, Batty

Reckitt, Harold James

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Reddy, M.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Leamy, Edmund

Redmond, JohnE. (Waterford)

Mr. John Burns and Mr. Holland.

Leng, Sir John

Redmond, William (Clare)

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.

Blundell, Col. Henry

Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Bond, Edward

Cranborne, Viscount

Aird, Sir John

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Cripps, Charles Alfred

Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

Boulnois, Edmund

Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Bousfield, William Robert

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Anstruther, H. T.

Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Midd'x)

Oust, Henry John O.

Archdale, Edward Mervyn

Brassey, Albert

Dalkeith, Earl of

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Brown, Alex. H. (Shropshire)

Dewar, T. R. (T'rH'mets, S. Geo

Arrol, Sir William

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

Cautley, Henry Strother

Dickson, Charles Scott

Atkinson, lit. Hon. John

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

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Dorington, Sir John Edward

Bain, Col. James Robert

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Baird, John George Alexander

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm

Duke, Henry Edward

Balcarres, Lord

Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

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

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

Balfour, Rt. Hon G. W. (Leeds)

Chapman, Edward

Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

Banbury, Frederick George

Charrington, Spencer

Faber, George Denison

Barry, Sir F. T. (Windsor)

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Fardell, Sir T. George

Bathurst, Hon. Allen B.

Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed ward

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

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Beach, Rt. Hon. W. W. B. (Hants)

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Finch, George H.

Bentinck, Lord Henry O.

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

Firbank, Joseph Thomas

Bignold, Arthur

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Fisher, William Hayes

Bigwood, James

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

1340

1341

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

Flannery, Sir Fortescue

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Rankin, Sir James

Fletcher, Sir Henry

Leveson-Gower, Fred'k. N. S.

Raseh, Major Frederic Carne

Garfit, William

Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

Ratcliffe, R. F.

Gibbs, Hn. A. C. H. (City of Lond

Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

Reid, James (Greenock)

Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

Long, Rt. Hn Walter (Bristol, S.

Remnant, James Farquharson

Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Gordon, Maj Evans-(TrH'mlets

Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

Renwick, George

Gore, Hon. F. S. Osmsby-

Lowther, Rt. Hon. J. (Kent)

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Staly bridge

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Lowther, Rt Hn J W (Cum. Penr.

Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green)

Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thornson

Greene, Sir E W (B'rySEdm'nds

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

Robertson, H. (Hackney)

Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Grenfell, William Henry

Macdona, John Cumming

Round, James

Gretton, John

Maclver, David (Liverpool

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Greville, Hon. Ronald

Maconochie, A. W.

Rutherford, John

Groves, James Grimble

M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

Sadler, Col. Samuel Alex.

Guthrie, Walter Murray

Majendie, James A. H.

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Hain, Edward

Malcolm. Ian

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Hall, Edward Marshall

Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Halsey, Thomas Frederick

Martin, Richard Biddulph

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Mid'x

Massey-Mainwaring, Hn W. F.

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.)

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd

Max well, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

Smith, H C (Nortb'mb, Tyneside

Hare, Thomas Leigh

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Smith, James P. (Lanarks.)

Harris F. Leverton (Tynemo'th

Middlemore, Jno. Throgmorton

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

Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

Milton, Viscount

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.)

Milward, Colonel Victor

Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

Heaton, John Henniker

Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

Stroyan, John

Henderson, Alexander

Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants)

Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

Hermon-Hodge, Robert Trotter

Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Higginbottom, S. W.

More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxford U.

Hoare, Edw. Brodie (Hampste'd

Morgan, David J. (Walthamstw

Tborburn, Sir Walter

Hogg, Lindsay

Morrell, George Herbert

Thornton, Percy M.

Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.

Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

Hornby, Sir William Henry

Morrison, James Archibald

Valentia, Viscount

Horner, Frederick William

Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)

Vincent, Col. Sir. C. E. H (Shef'ld

Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

Mount, William Arthur

Walker, Col. William Hall

Howard, CaptJ (Kent, Faversh.

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham

Muntz, Philip A.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

Welby, Lt.-Col. ACE (Taunton

Button, John (Yorks, N. R.)

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

Wharton, Rt. Hon. John L.

Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies

Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

Whiteley, H. (Ashton-u.-Lyne)

Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

Myers, William Henry

Wilson, A. S. (Yorks, E. R.)

Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick

Newdigate, Francis Alexander

Wilson, John (Falkirk)

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Nicholson, William Graham

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Wilson Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)

Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir JohnH.

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

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

Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh

Parker, Gilbert

Wolff, Gustay Wilhelm

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

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

Keswick, William

Penn, John

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Kimber, Henry

Percy, Earl

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Knowles, Lees

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Young, Commander (Berks, E.

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Plummer, Walter R.

Law, Andrew Bonar

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Lawrence, William F.

Pretyman, Ernest George

Sir Frederick Dixon-Hartland and Mr. Whitmore.

Lawson, John Grant

Purvis, Robert

Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Fareham

Pym, C. Guy

First Three Resolutions agreed to.

Words added:—
Second Reading put off for six months.

METROPOLITAN WATER COMPANIES (AMENDMENT OF ACTS) BILL. (By ORDER.)
Read a second time, and committed.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade
1342
under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Abertillery, Aspull, Briton Ferry, Cannock, Ebbw Vale, Faversham, Llandaff, and Dinas Powis, Llangollen, Neath (Borough), and Tredegar, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Austen Chamberlain.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882

1343
and 1888, relating to Abertillery, Aspull, Briton Ferry, Cannock, Ebbw Vale, Faversham, Llandaff and Dinas Powis, Llangollen, Neath (Borough), and Tredegar," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 120.]

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No.3).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Birstall, Cheshunt, Dorchester, Felling. Frome, Lichfield, Mitcham, New Hunstanton, Northfleet, and Skipton, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Austen Chamberlain.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No.3) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Birstall, Cheshunt, Dorchester, Felling, Frome, Lichfield, Mitcham, New Hunstanton, Northfleet, and Skipton." presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 121.]
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Atherton, Ben-well and Fenham, Beverley, Burgess Hill, Chesham, East Cowes, Hindley, Honley, Standish-with-Langtree, and Stratford-upon-Avon, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Austen Chamberlain.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Atherton, Ben-well, and Fenham, Beverley, Burgess Hill, Chesham, East Cowes, Hindley, Honley, Standish-with-Langtree, and Stratford-upon-Avon," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 122.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
London Underground Railways.—That they have appointed a Committee of Five Lords to join with a Committee of this House to consider and report:—

1. Whether the lines of route for underground railways in and near London, proposed by Bills which have been or may be introduced during the present Session, are best calculated to afford facilities for present and probable future traffic; and, if not, what modifications of those lines of route are desirable;

2. What special provision, if any, should be made for the protection of the owners, lessees, and occupiers of properties adjacent to-underground railways from possible damage and annoyance;

3. What special terms and conditions, if any, as to construction and working should be imposed upon the promoters;

4. Whether any, and which, of the schemes proposed by the said Bills should not be proceeded with during the present session;

and request this House to appoint an equal number of its Members to be joined with the said Lords.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable Henry Diaper and Company of Liverpool to issue transferable certificates and warrants for the delivery of goods; and for other purposes." Henry Diaper and Company (Delivery Warrants) Bill [Lords].

HENRY DIAPER AND COMPANY DELIVERY WARRANTS) BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; and referred to-the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
BRISTOL CORPORATION (DOCKS AND RAILWAYS, ETC.) BILL [Lords],
Copy ordered, "of the Report of the Board of Trade on the Bristol Corporation (Docks and Railways, etc.) Bill [Lords]."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
Copy ordered, "of the Report of the Board of Trade on the Glasgow and South Western Railway Bill."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
Copy ordered, "of the Report of the Board of Trade on the North Eastern Railway Bill."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
Copy ordered, "of Memorandum stating the nature of the Proposals contained in the Provisional Orders included in the Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)

STANDING ORDERS.
Resolutions reported from the Committee:—

1."That, in the case of the Kings-court, Keady, and Armagh Railway Bill, Petition of the 'Meath County Council' for dispensing with Standing Order 129 in the case of their Petition against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought to be dispensed with."

2."That, in the case of the Biggleswade Water Board, Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:— That the parties be permitted to deposit their Petition for a Bill."

3."That, in the case of the Watford and District Tramways Bill [Lords], the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill, provided that Tramway No.7, and so much of Tramway ways Nos. 1, 10, and 11 as are within the district of the Watford Rural District Council be struck out of the Bill:—That the Committee on the Bill do report how far such Order has been complied with."

4."That, in the case of the Wales and Laughton Railway, Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought not to be dispensed with."

5."That, in the case of the Shannon Water and Electric Power Bill, Petition of ' Robert John Quaile and Augusta Anderson ' for dispensing with Standing Order 129 in the case of their Petition against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought not to be dispensed with."

Report to lie upon the Table.

LONDON, TILBURY, AND SOUTHEND RAILWAY BILL.
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
HARTLEPOOLS GAS AND WATER TRANSFER BILL.
Reported [Preamble not proved]; Report to lie upon the Table.
PETITIONS.
  AGRICULTURAL RATES ACT, 1896.
  Petition from Fife, against re-enactment; to lie upon the Table.
  BEER BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Ingleby Greenhow; Darlington; Cowbridge; Ramsholt; Neyland; Milford; Acton; Haverfordwest; Tenby; Saundersfoot:, Fishguard; Penally; Blymhill; Brigg; Sudbury; Milborne St. Andrews; Dullingham; and Narberth; to lie upon the Table.
  CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
  Petition from Frodsham, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EMPLOYMENT) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Leven; Denby; Greasborough; Markham Colliery; Primrose Main; Barnsley Main; Hickleton; Kilburn; Redding; B. Winning; Cliff; Moresby; Harrington; Fords Colliery; Skelton Park; Kilton; Lazenby; and Eston; to lie upon the Table.
  COMPENSATION FOR DAMAGE TO CROPS BILL.
  Petition from Fife, in favour, to lie upon the Table.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (HIGHER GRADE AND EVENING CONTINUATION SCHOOLS).
  Petitions for alteration of Law, from Mexborough; Horwich: and Tyne-mouth; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Petition from Peterborough, against: to lie upon the Table.
  MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Leven; Denby; Markham Colliery; Greas- borough; B. Winning; Kilton; Cliff; Barnsley; Primrose Main; Hickleton; Kilburn; Redding; Eston; Lazenby; Skelton Park; Harrington; Moresby; and Ford's Colliery; to lie upon the Table,
  OFFICERS OF THE INDIAN STAFF CORPS.
  Petitions for redress of grievances, from Alexander Lee; A. Skeen; H. L. Richardson; M. E. L. Bruce; and Colin Finch; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.
  Petition from Aberystwyth, for extension to women; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Holt; and Melton Constable; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from West Thorney; Amlwch; Penyfarnedd; Holyhead; Llangefni; Llanfairpwllgwyagyll; Beaumaris; Bodedern; Menai Bridge; Llan-degfan; Linlithgowshire; Hull (two); Aspull; Sneinton; Shipley; Kidder minster; Lancaster; Christchurch; Boscombe; Liverpool; Arundel; Saffron Walden; Fenton (two); Blackburn (two); Brynamman; Gwynfe; Llangadock; Blackheath; Penygroes; Felmfoel; Hunslet; Shipley; Wigan; Porth-leven; Goxhill; Prestwich; Berwick-upon-Tweed; Brysley; Barnoldby; Ashby; Stallingborough; Bristol; Old Bolingbroke; Heanor (two); Lang-ley Mill; Riddings; Codnor (four); Penryn; Pendleton; Retford; Sandown; Long Eaton; Marlpool; Ancoats; London; Chester; Newport Pagnell; Doncaster; Scunthorpe; Macclesfield; South Ferriby; and Wolverton; to lie upon the Table.

  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS TO CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour, from Finstown: Kirknewton (two); Whitburn; Edinburgh; Leith (two); Nesting (two); Paisley; St. Monance; Bathgate; Fauld-house; Cullen (two); Barrhead; Newton-
  1348
  more; Grangemouth; Laurence Kirk; Dundonald; Melrose; and Berwick-upon-Tweed; to lie upon the Table.

  SOVEREIGN'S OATH ON ACCESSION BILL.
  Petition from Leven, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.
  Copy presented, of Annual Reports of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, etc., the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, for the year 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  MINES AND QUARRIES.
  Copy presented, of Reports of His Majesty's Inspectors of Mines for the year 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  MEDICAL COUNCILS.
  Accounts presented, for 1900 of the General Medical Council and Branch Councils, and of the Dental Registration Fund [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  INEBRIATES ACTS, 1879 TO 1899 (RULES FOR RETREATS).
  Copy presented, of Rules for Retreats licensed under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1899, dated 28th February, 1901, approved by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in substitution for the Rules dated 18th October, 1900 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 99.]
  LAND TRANSFER ACT, 1897.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council of 9th March, 1901, further postponing the operation of the Land Transfer Order in Council of 18th July, 1898, as regards the City of London, until the 1st January, 1902 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SPRING ASSIZES ACT, 1879.
  Copies presented, of Two Orders in Council of 9th March, 1901, relating to Spring Assize Counties, Nos. 2 and 3 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  Return ordered, "giving populations of the cities of Belfast, Londonderry, Cork, Waterford, and Limerick; number of permanent police force in each city; number of free constables allowed to each city; number of constables paid for by each city; amount paid by each of said cities during past year for extra police at exceptional periods during the year; amount paid by each of said cities for the ordinary police force last year."—(Mr. O'Doherty.)
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  QUESTIONS.

    SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—THE LINDLEY SURRENDER.
    *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state who are the persons who raised the white flags named in the inquiry into the case of Colonel Spragge.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): I think, perhaps, the House will excuse my giving the names, especially as in one case, owing to the person affected being wounded, there has been a delay in hearing his explanation.
    *SIR CHARLES DILKE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any proceedings have been taken against them or any punishment inflicted?
    MR. BRODRICK: Yes, proceedings were taken.
    MR. LAMBERT (Devonshire, South Molton): Has any punishment been inflicted?
    [No answer was given.]

    FINANCIAL CONDITION OF ANNEXED REPUBLICS—BEEWAARPLAATZEN.
    MR. M'DERMOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has yet received a report from Sir David Barbour on the financial condition of the Transvaal and of the Orange River Colony; and, if so, whether it includes an estimate of the value of the Beewaarplaatzen; whether His Majesty's Government are aware that the Government of the late South
    1350
    African Republic has decided to sell the mining rights in this property by public auction, the proceeds to be applied to the general revenue of the Republic; and whether His Majesty's Government intend to dispose of those rights by a similar process or by allowing the present mine owners to acquire them at a valuation.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,):Sir David Barbour has not yet completed his investigation, and until he has done so I cannot publish any communication from him. He has been specially asked to report on the subject of the Beewaarplaatzen.

    PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WITH GENERAL BOTHA.
    MR. BLACK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he expects that his or any other Government Department will receive from Lord Kitchener a written Report of his Lordships conversation with General Botha upon 28th ultimo; and whether this Report, with any observations or recommendation which may accompany it, will be published in its ent rety as soon as received, even although the House should not be then in session.
    MR. BRODRICK: I hope to receive a despatch from Lord Kitchener, and will immediately on its receipt consider as to its publication. It is not customary to give a pledge in advance as to despatches not yet received.

    CAPE FIELD ARTILLERY VOLUNTEERS.
    MR. WEIR: beg to ask the Secretary of State for War-whether any arrangements have yet been made to relieve the Cape Field Artillery Volunteers, who have been on active service in South Africa since the commencement of the war.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): The arrangements relating to the Cape Field Artillery Volunteers are made by the Cape Government. I am not therefore in a position to reply to the hon. Member.

    ALLEGED BRITISH ARMY ENLISTMENTS IN SILESIA.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has any official information to the effect that in the early days of this month the police commissioner of Zittau, in Saxony, warned the public against attempts made by two English agents to enlist recruits in Silesia for the English Army in the Transvaal and requested that immediate notice of their appearance in any district should be given at the nearest police station; and that 650 young men, who had been enlisted for the English Army, and were on their way from Southern Italy to Antwerp and Liverpool, were stopped by the authorities at the Milan Railway Station.
    LORD STANLEY: No, Sir.

    IMPERIAL YEOMANRY TRAINING.
    CAPTAIN BAGOT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state what is the total number of officers and men of the Imperial Yeomanry sent to South Africa, and what is the number of officers and men out of that total who had received one or more trainings with a Yeomanry regiment before joining the Imperial Yeomanry; and whether the Colonial mounted contingents are trained as mounted infantry or as cavalry before leaving the colonies.
    MR. BRODRICK: 10,717 officers and men were despatched with the original force and 13,702 have been already sent of the force recent by raised. It is not possible to give the information required by the second portion of the question, but I will inquire if the Yeomanry regiments can furnish it. It is not possible to say with accuracy how the Colonial contingents were trained, but I believe there was no general training in cavalry tactics.

    YEOMANRY ESTABLISHMENT.
    CAPTAIN BAGOT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, in the event of it being found impossible to bring an existing regiment of Yeomanry up to the required strength of four squadrons and 500 men, will any such regiment be disbanded, or will local circumstances be taken into consideration and any exceptions made.
    MR. BRODRICK: A regiment of Yeomanry will be liable to be disbanded if to falls below 420, and a squadron if it falls below 100. The question of enforcing the liability will rest with the War Office, and local circumstances will certainly be taken into consideration.

    RESERVE OF OFFICERS.
    MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the position of officers of the reserve of officers who were called out to serve with Reserve regiments in June last, whether some of such officers were informed that on the Reserve regiments being broken up and Provisional regiments formed in their places their services would no longer be required, and that this would come into force on the 7th of March, but that instead of this-taking place, some of these officers have now been required to continue their service with the Provisional regiment and others with Regular regiments; and whether such action is in keeping with the promises made to these officers and with statements made in this House as to-the intentions of the War Office, and what is intended to be done as to retaining these officers.
    LORD STANLEY: The General Officer commanding a district in Ireland allowed certain officers of the Reserve to go on leave pending their release from service. Circumstances have, however, rendered, it impossible to spare these officers, and it has been found necessary to recall them. No promises have been made from headquarters to these officers, but there is every intention to allow them to return to civil life as soon as the emergency will permit.

    REGIMENTAL ACCOUNT-KEEPING.
    *MR. TOMKINSON:. I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in his new scheme of Army reform, he will include a provision to relieve squadron and company officers from the responsibility of their accounts, and revert to the old system of regimental paymasters.
    LORD STANLEY: The old system of regimental paymasters in no way relieved officers commanding companies and squadrons from the responsibility of their accounts. There is no intention of

    1353
    reverting to the system of regimental paymasters. The question whether any alteration should be made to meet the difficulties connected with the payment of soldiers on active service is now receiving consideration.

    ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY, WOOLWICH—ST. PATRICK'S DAY.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that at the church parade on St. Patrick's Day at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, the officer in command ordered all the cadets wearing shamrock to remove it; and can he explain why the cadets at the Royal Military Academy are specially exempted from the permission accorded generally to the Army by the late Queen.
    *MR. BRODRICK: The Governor of the Royal Military Academy informs me that cadets were allowed to wear shamrock on St. Patrick's Day at all the parades except church parade. At this particular parade the bunches of shamrock worn in the helmets were of such abnormal proportions, and occasioned so much jocularity and unsteadiness in the ranks, that the officer on duty directed their removal in the interests of the respect due to divine service.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: Did the subaltern in charge give the order on his own responsibility?
    *MR. BRODRICK: Yes; and I think that under the circumstances he was probably justified.

    SALISBURY PLAIN—POLICE ARRANGEMENTS.
    MR. FULLER: beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what arrangements he proposes to make for policing the increasing population that is being attracted to the eastern part of Salisbury Plain in consequence of the establishment of the camps, and whether he proposes to enter into negotiations with the county authority on the subject.
    *LORD STANLEY: Arrangements have already been made with the Chief Constable for extra police. As the population increases the arrangements will be extended.

    INFANTRY SOLDIERS' KITS.
    MR. KEIK HARDIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will agree to placing infantry soldiers on the same footing as Royal Marines in the matter of underclothing by supplying three shirts to them on enlistment and one yearly thereafter during their period of service.
    *LORD STANLEY: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member on Thursday last.†

    MARK IV. BULLETS.
    MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the value of the four-and-a-half millions of Mark IV-bullets that were broken up because of their uselessness; whether he will give the name of the firm that supplied such material; and whether, under the circumstances, any refund has been made to the Government; and, if so, when, and of what amount.
    *LORD STANLEY: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to similar questions put by the hon. Members for Kilkenny and Ross and Cromarty on Friday last.‡

    ARMY STAFF REORGANISATION.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if his proposals for the reorganisation of the Staff of the Army will extend to the formation of a body of Officers on a basis similar to that of the General Staff in Berlin, solely engaged in preparing for every eventuality of war, unencumbered by administrative duty.
    *MR. BRODRICK: This question will be carefully considered, but I am not yet in a position to explain the exact distribution of duties.

    ARMY REORGANISATION—THE RESERVE.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, having regard to the fact that the first reinforcements for the Field Army in South Africa, to the number of over
    † See page 700. ‡ See page 849.

    1355
    13,000 men, were furnished by the Militia Reserve, and that such reinforcements were necessary within three months of the declaration of war to supply the wastage of a campaign, if ho will be good enough to state from what source under his proposals such reinforcements will be obtained if the Militia Reserve for the Army is abolished.
    *MR. BRODRICK: The Army Reserve will in the normal be considerably increased by the percentage of three years men now taken who give nine years service in the Reserve; and also by the fact that the establishment of home battalions has been raised from 720 to 800. These steps were taken in 1898, and had not come into operation when the Militia Reserve was called up in 1900.

    WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY IN THE NAVY.
    SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of the development of Marconi's wireless telegraphy on board the "Ophir," the escorting cruisers, and the stations at Gibraltar and Malta, the Admiralty will request the electricians to furnish special reports describing the operations, giving specimens of the messages transmitted from vessel to vessel and between the vessels and the shore, and also stating the distances between which they have been communicated; and will he also state on what number of His Majesty's ships installations of apparatus for wireless telegraphy have been made and arranged for.
    *THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.): The "Ophir" is not fitted with wireless telegraph apparatus. Wireless telegraphy has been in use in His Majesty's Navy for some time, and it is not expected that any special information will be derived from the operations conducted by the cruisers accompanying the "Ophir," or that any report upon the subject would be of value. Thirty-six of His Majesty's ships have installations of wireless telegraphy, and arrangements are in progress for installing the apparatus on other ships.

    NAVY AND NAVAL RESERVE— STATISTICS OF NATIONALITY.
    MR. BLACK: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Return on the Paper of to-day as being moved for by me will be given as an unopposed Return,†
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The preparation of the Return asked for by the hon. Member would involve considerable time, labour, and expense, and, if it were furnished, it would not give the information which it is desired to obtain; the place of birth of officers and men serving affording no certain indication that the parents are natives of the country where the children are born. No inquiry is made by the Admiralty as to the particular locality from which officers and men come, the Service being common to the United Kingdom.

    ADMIRALTY CONTRACTS—PENALTIES FOR DELAYS.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, what was the total amount of penalties for delay in the fulfilment of Admiralty contracts incurred during the year 1900, and the amount of the penalties enforced during the same period.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The total amount of penalties for delay in the fulfilment of shipbuilding contracts, during the year ending 31 December, 1900, was £172,911, and penalties were inflicted to the extent of £1,177.

    WEST AFRICAN GOLD MINING COMPANIES.
    MR. M'DERMOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any, and, if so, what West African Gold Mining Companies pay tax on their gross receipts; and what are the considerations in respect of which they make such payment.
    †The following is the Return referred to:—"Return of the nationality of the personnel in active service in His Majesty's Navy, distinguishing between English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Colonial; also between the Navy proper and the Naval Reserve; and showing the number of each nationality in each, rating."
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Two companies, the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation and the Castle Cold Exploration Syndicate, pay a royalty to the Cold Coast Government on the gross value of all gold got from the lands occupied by them. These payments, which are due under agreements made some years before the passing of the Concessions Ordinance, are made by the companies in consideration of their having been authorised by the Government to occupy the lands leased to them by the native owners.

    ASHANTI—MILITARY OPERATIONS.
    MR. M'DERMOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state the number of towns and villages which have been destroyed during the recent military operations in Ashanti; and, whether any steps have been taken to ascertain the extent of the destitution and loss of life caused by the destruction of the habitations of the people and of their crops and other food stuffs.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: No; but in reply to inquiries I made at the time, I was assured that the destruction of towns and villages was limited to what was absolutely necessary to produce submission, but that the food supply was practically inexhaustible, and that there was no danger of famine or destitution.

    CHINA—RUSSO-CHINESE AGREEMENT.
    MR. HARWOOD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the suggested agreement between Russia and China will affect the interests of British traders in those parts of China which are proposed to be thus brought under Russian influence.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount CRANBORNE, Rochester): The versions of the proposed agreement which have come under our notice contain provisions which would apparently affect British trade interests in China in those parts of the Empire to which the agreement applies.
    SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask a ques-
    1358
    tion of which I have given private notice, namely, whether the Chinese Government has at present refused to sign the agreement regarding Manchuria which Russia is now pressing upon her, and will the Government support China in her refusal.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: His Majesty's Government cannot pretend to be accurately informed as to the precise position of the negotiations, to which this country is not a party, and under these circumstances I must respectfully decline to answer any hypothetical question as to our conduct.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is it intended on the part of the Government to intimate to China that Russia will not be allowed to take Manchuria?
    [No answer was returned.]
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: Do as you did at Fashoda.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I shall give notice.

    ALLEGED LOOTING AT PEKING.
    MR.PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the Chief Ordnance Officer of the Staff of General Chaffee in China stated that the British looted openly and systematically and sold the plunder by auction each afternoon at the British Legation under the direction of an officer, the proceeds being used for the soldiers; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made from General Gaselee with a view of contradicting such a statement if incorrect, or if not, of dealing adequately with those permitting such a state of affairs.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR; INDIA (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I am not aware of any statement of the kind said to have been made; but as I have before said, if any specific allegation is brought to my notice I will cause inquiries to be made into it.

    CUTTING SUBMARINE CABLES IN WAR TIME.
    *SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

    1359
    whether he will cause to be presented to this House, as soon as possible, a Copy of the Code of Law issued by the Navy Department and signed by the President of the United States, concerning matters relating to the cutting of submarine cables in war.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Inquiry will be made through His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington as to whether there is any objection to publishing the rules in the United States Naval War Code relating to submarine telegraphic cables. If not, I shall be happy to give the hon. and gallant Member the information he requires.

    INDIAN MINTS—SILVER COINAGE.
    MR. GRENFELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been directed to the fact that with the mints closed to the free coinage of silver, no less than seventeen and a quarter crores of rupees have been coined during the past year in India; whether so large a number of rupees were ever coined in a single year when the Indian mints were open to the free coinage of silver, and if so, in what years; and what has been the average profit per rupee coined during the financial year.
    LORD G. HAMILTON: The coinage in India during the twelve months from 1st March, 1900, to 28th February, 1901, appears to have been a little over sixteen crores of rupees. This is nearly equal to the amount of the coinage in 1877–78, the greatest hitherto recorded. The average profit per rupee coined cannot yet be stated, but it is doubtless very large; possibly about 30 per cent, of the coined value may be profit. The profit is not being treated as revenue, but is being set apart in a gold reserve fund. There is no intention of again considering proposals for the re-opening of the Indian mints to the free coinage of silver.

    ARMY AND NAVY WORKS EXPENDITURE.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is now the Estimate of expenditure in the present financial year, and what the Estimate for the next financial
    1360
    year of the Expenditure on Capital Account by the Admiralty and the War Office under the Naval Works Acts, the Military Works Acts, or otherwise, in addition to any sums repaid by annuities charged on Estimates.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): The amounts issued on Capital Accounts in 1900–1, which may be taken to represent probable expenditure, are as follows—

    £

    1. To the Admiralty, for Naval Works

    2,135,000

    2. To the War Office, for Military Works

    1,200,000

    £3,335,000

    To this must be added the Charge for Annuities paid in respect of Loans under the old Barracks Act

    286,000

    £3,621,000

    It is not yet known what the expenditure is likely to be next year, nor could I make myself responsible for an Estimate for it.

    OFFICERS ON ACTIVE SERVICE AND INCOME TAX.
    MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he could consider the possibility of exempting officers serving in South Africa from Income Tax on their pay.
    SIR M. HICKS BEACH: It would be quite unprecedented to do this. Officers of the British Army serving abroad are by law chargeable on the pay they receive through the War Office, and have never heretofore been exempted by reason of foreign service.

    OVERCROWDED RAILWAY CARRIAGES.
    MR. GRAY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the overcrowding of many of the trains and the lack of proper accommodation at the stations on the London, Tilbury, and Southend line, particularly

    1361
    between London and Barking; and whether he can exercise any power to remedy the defects of which complaint is made.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): I am afraid the Board of Trade cannot put a stop to overcrowding on railways; I have, however, communicated with the company on the subject of the Hon. Member's question, and I shall be happy to show him the reply, which is lengthy.

    LIGHT RAILWAYS IN THE HIGHLANDS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that, under The Railways (Ireland) Act. 1896, the Treasury is under no restriction as to the amount of an advance where, the proposed railway is situated wholly or mainly in a congested districts county; and, in view of the fact that, under the existing Act, it is not practicable to secure the construction of light railways in the Highland crofting counties, will the Government consider the expediency of amending the Light Railways Act, 1896, so as to enable the Treasury to give grants to light railways in the crofting counties without the limit imposed by Section 5 of the Light Railways Act.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir, I am not prepared to propose an alteration of the Act in the direction suggested. I am not satisfied that the Amendment referred to by the hon. Member is necessary in order to enable Light Railways to be made in the High- lands.
    MR. WEIR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that not a single light railway has been constructed in the Highlands under the Light Railways Act?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No. Sir.

    DUNKELD RAILWAY FACILITIES.
    MR. STROYAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the dissatisfaction among the inhabitants of Dunkeld and district in consequence of the
    1362
    alleged insufficient facilities provided by the Highland Railway Company for this centre on the southern section of the Highland Railway; and especially in connection with the train leaving Perth at 6.15 a.m., which passes Dunkeld without stopping, this arrangement making it impossible for passengers travelling to stations north of Aviemore to leave Dunkeld until 12.15 p.m., and further making it necessary to carry the morning mails and newspapers on to Ballinluig, from which junction they are brought back to Dunkeld; and will he give this matter and the claims of the inhabitants of Dunkeld to better treatment at the hands of the company his consideration.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Questions relating to the reasonableness of the facilities furnished by railway companies for the forwarding of traffic are for the Railway and Canal Commissioners and not for the Board of Trade; but I shall be happy to communicate with the company on the subject of the hon. Member's question, and inform him of the result.

    GAMBLING IN GRAIN OPTIONS.
    MR. FIELD (, St. Patrick): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has had any communication from the German Government upon gambling in grain options; whether he will inquire into the operation of the German law prohibiting such gambling in food stuffs; and whether there is any prospect of the Continental, United States, and British Governments considering the advisability of co-operating to prevent a corner in corn being manipulated in the corn exchange markets by gamblers in futures.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have had no communication from the German Government on this subject. Reports on the operation of the German law regulating produce exchanges have been received from time to time through His Majesty's Embassy in Berlin. The last, published in the Board of Trade", Journal for 12th April, 1900, reported the reopening of the Berlin produce exchange. I see no need for a special inquiry. So far as I am aware there is

    1363
    no present prospect of such action as is suggested in the last paragraph.

    VENTILATION ON THE METROPOLITAN RAILWAY.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that under Section 23 of the Metropolitan Railway Company Act of the 2nd August, 1898, the Railway Company is enjoined either to adopt a system of electric traction or to arrange artificial means of ventilating the railway otherwise than by openings within a period of three years from the passing of the Act; and will he ascertain what steps the company have taken with a view to carry out these conditions, and will he consider the expediency of enforcing them.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir, that is not quite the effect of the section referred to. It is, however, I think, common knowledge that the company-are taking active steps to select a satisfactory form of electric traction.
    MR. WEIR: Have not this company had three years in which to provide electric traction or to arrange artificial means of ventilation?
    [No answer was given.]

    FOREHOE (NORFOLK) GUARDIANS.
    MR. F. W. WILSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he is aware that owing to differences between the Forehoe (Norfolk) Guardians and the master of the workhouse, forty-four out of forty-seven members of the board resigned their seats, and that practically the whole of these guardians have been reelected by the ratepayers; whether the Local Government Board is sustaining the master against the board of guardians; and, seeing that meetings of the guardians have ceased through inability to form a quorum, what steps the Local Government Board intends to take to replace the public control by elected guardians which has hitherto existed.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I am aware of the
    1364
    circumstances of the ease referred to in the first paragraph of the question. The number of members who tendered their resignation was, however, less than that supposed by the hon. Member, and these resignations did not take effect as I did not accept them. The guardians wished that the master of the workhouse should be removed from office; but, after an inquiry had been held on the subject by two of the inspectors of the Local Government Board, I came to the conclusion that there was no sufficient ground for his dismissal. The administration of the affairs of the incorporation devolves upon the guardians, and the responsibility for any difficulty which may arise from any failure to attend the necessary meetings must rest entirely with them. I have caused the guardians individually to be reminded of their duties and responsibilities, and I trust that there will be no further difficulty in the matter.

    LEADLESS GLAZE—GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS.
    MR. TALBOT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the War Office have assimilated their practice to that of the Office of Works in the matter of the use of leadless glaze in china and earthenware goods ordered by contract.
    LORD STANLEY: The existing War Department contract for earthenware goods, which runs for three years and has been in force since the 1st February, 1900, prescribes the use of leadless glaze.
    MR. TALBOT: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty have assimilated their practice to that of the Office of Works in the matter of the use of leadless glaze china and earthenware goods ordered by contract.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The matter is now under consideration in connection with the tenders for next year's supply of earthenware goods, the manufacturers having been asked to give alternative tenders for the ordinary and the leadless glaze.
    MR. TALBOT: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the use of leadless glaze on china and earthenware

    1365
    goods is now required in the Departments over which the Treasury has control.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): I am obliged to my right hon. friend for calling my attention to this matter. I find that nearly all the china and earthenware required by the Departments referred to in this question is supplied by the Board of Works. In the few cases in which this is not done I will endeavour to arrange that the use of leadless glaze shall as far as possible be insisted upon. I am, however, informed by the Postmaster General that he has not, as yet, been able to secure sufficient numbers of properly glazed insulators for telegraph purposes treated without lead, but he hopes that before long the present difficulties may have been overcome, and that he may be in a position to give orders that only insulators treated with leadless glaze are to be used.

    SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION IN LONDON.
    MR. TALBOT: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education what basis is taken for calculating deficiencies in school accommodation in the district of the London School Board.
    THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,): The basis taken is always the amount of accommodation for which a given school is actually recognised by the Board of Education.
    MR. TALBOT: Is the basis of population determined by the last census, or by the present estimate of population?
    SIR J. GORST: Perhaps the right hon Gentleman will put the question down for Thursday, when I shall be able to answer it.

    IRISH DRIFT SURVEY.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can state when the Drift Survey for Ireland was commenced; when it was completed; whether
    1366
    the maps embodying the said Irish Drift Survey have been published; and whether they were six-inch maps similar to those now being published for England.
    SIR J. GORST: It was commenced in 1845 and completed in 1887.

    PRIVATE POSTAL COLLECTIONS— SHEFFIELD CASK.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask. the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any decision has been arrived at which will meet the claims put forward by Mr. J. G. Graves, of Sheffield, for having parcels of a certain postal value collected at his works.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Postmaster General has sanctioned an arrangement by which registered letters and parcels of whatever value can be collected under certain conditions from the premises of private firms and others who may desire to post such articles in large numbers. The necessary constructions for regulating this service are now being issued.

    SMALL HOLDINGS IN SCOTTISH CROFTING COUNTIES.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if the Secretary for Scotland will consider the expediency of introducing legislation with a view to an amendment and extension of the Local Government Act of 1894, so as to enable parish councils to acquire land compulsorily for allotments and small holdings by an inexpensive process; and will he state the number of allotments which have been secured in the six crofting counties under the existing legislation.
    *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The Secretary for Scotland cannot come under the obligation suggested in the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question. The information asked for in the second paragraph of the question cannot be obtained from any official Department, but a Return on the subject of allotments has been moved by the hon. Member for Clackmannan, which will include the information desired.

    LOCH CARLOWAY.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Fishery Board for Scotland has received a copy of a resolution passed at a mass meeting of fishermen held at Carloway, Lewis, on the 11th instant, urging that a beacon should be erected on Tanasgeir, Loch Carloway; and will he state the nature of the reply sent to the fishermen.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: A copy of the resolution referred to was received by the Fishery Board for Scotland, who replied that they were not the body charged by Parliament with the management and control of lights. The Secretary for Scotland has requested the Fishery Board to send the Papers to the Northern Lights Commissioners.

    AVOCH HARBOUR.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, seeing that Mr. Fletcher, of Rosehaugh, Ross-shire, has allowed the Provisional Order, granted to him in July, 1894, for the construction of a harbour at Avoch to lapse; and, in view of the fact that Avoch is a fishing station, and that the fishermen have suffered pecuniary loss for the want of suitable harbour accommodation, will the Secretary for Scotland state what steps it is proposed to take in the matter so that the; fishing industry in this district may not be further injured.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The matter is not one for the intervention of the Secretary for Scotland, but lies with those locally interested in the harbour; and any proper representation made to the Fishery Board on the subject will no doubt be duly considered.

    ROADS IN THE ISLAND OK LEWIS.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state what progress has been made with the arrangements for the construction of a road between Gravir and Cromore in the Park District of the Island of Lewis.
    *MR.A.GRAHAM MURRAY: I am informed by the Congested Districts Board that one or more members will probably meet the local promoters on the spot next month, and come to a conclusion as to the best route to adopt.

    CONGESTION ON THE ISLAND OF BARRA.
    MR. JOHN DEWAR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Congested Districts Board have succeeded in acquiring land from Lady Gordon Cathcart to relieve the congestion among the crofters and cottars in the Island of Barra.
    *MR. A. GRAHAM MURRAY: The land in Barra which has been purchased by the Congested Districts Board from Lady Gordon Cathcart includes North-bay, Groan, Cliat, and Ardveenish, approximately about 3,000 acres, with complete possession of a great portion of it during the present year.

    CROFTERS' COMMISSION REPORTS.
    MR. JOHN DEWAR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, having regard to the fact that the Annual Reports of the Crofters' Commission are frequently required for reference in the various distrcts of the crofting counties, can arrangements be made for these Reports to be sent to the sheriff clerks' offices in each of the six crofting counties, so that they may be readily available.
    *MR. A.GRAHAM MURRAY: The gratuitous distribution of Parliamentary Papers is only sanctioned under exceptional circumstances, which do not appear to exist in the case referred to by the hon. Member. So far as the Secretary for Scotland is aware, no similar demand has been made for them during the fourteen years these Reports have been issued. Each Annual Report is published by the Stationery Office at the price of ll½d. If the Secretary for Scotland were convinced that there is a reason for a somewhat exceptional course ho would be willing to approach the Treasury on the subject.

    DONEGAL FISHERIES.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that loans are issued by the Congested Districts Board to fishermen in congested districts for the purchase of herring nets and for fishing gear; that in June and July the only fishing available along the north coast of Donegal is

    1369
    for salmon; and that application has been made to the Board by fishermen in congested districts for loans for salmon nets, as at present the fishermen are handicapped by the terms upon which they only can procure nets locally; and whether the Board have determined that the loans for the purchase of salmon nets would be contrary to their policy; and, if so, whether the Government will direct the Agricultural and Industries Department to consider this matter and issue loans in congested districts to fishermen and others requiring them for salmon nets on terms similar to those upon which herring nets are supplied by the Congested Districts Board.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The reply to the first query is in the affirmative. Both the Congested Districts Board and the Department of Agriculture have decided to adhere, for the present, to the policy hitherto adopted by the Fishery Authorities in refusing to make loans for the purchase of salmon nets.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: Cannot the Agricultural Department grant loans for salmon nets for fishermen on the same terms as the Congested Districts Board lends money for the purchase of herring nets?
    MR. WYNDHAM: No, Sir; and for the reason that salmon nets can be obtained on very favourable terms from the merchants.

    LOUGH FOYLE SALMON FISHERY LICENCES.
    *MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the annual licensing duty payable by the fishermen of Lough Foyle for the privilege of fishing for salmon in the open sea outside the lough; how many hours per week do those licences enable fishermen to fish for salmon; what is the annual licence payable by fishermen in inland rivers and loughs for the privilege of fishing for salmon; and to whom does the money thus payable by these fishermen go; do the conservators or those to whom this money is payable apply any of it for protecting the Foyle
    1370
    and Bann fisheries for the Irish Society of London, who receive an annual rent of £3,000 for them; and will the Government take steps to carry out the suggestion by witnesses from the districts examined before the Inland Fisheries Commission that the fishermen who have to fish in the open sea outside the lough should be granted licences at lesser sums than at present, and that the money at present payable by the conservators or those to whom the licence duty at present goes should not be spent in protecting the fisheries for the Irish Society, who receive annually such a rental out of the property.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The licence duty-payable on each drift net for taking salmon in the open sea outside Lough Foyle is £3. These nets may be used for 120 hours per week, during the annual open season. In inland rivers and loughs the licence duty on drift nets is £3, that on snap nets ranges from 15s. to 30s. The moneys paid for licences are received by boards of conservators. The funds of these boards are expended in paying bailiffs to enforce the fishery laws; but I have no information as to how far the protection thus afforded is carried out in the special interest of any fishery proprietor, or of the public who fish on their common law rights. The fixing of licences within statutory limits rests with boards of conservators, subject to the approval of the Department of Agriculture. The Department is not at present prepared to apply for legislation enabling it to fix licences for this district in opposition to the views of the conservators.

    KINNAGOE BAY, MOVILLE.
    *MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if the attention of the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) has been called to the necessity for the improvement of the landing accommodation at Kinnagoe Bay, near Moville; and, seeing that a report was made by the engineer of said board as far back as 1894 as to the necessity of this work, and a drawing and estimate furnished for the carrying out of this work, that a memorial has been received from the local fishermen pointing out the

    1371
    necessity for the work in question, and as the engineer of the Congested Districts Board estimates the cost at £190, whether directions will be given to the board to have this work carried out at once.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Board's engineer reported on the nature of, not the necessity for, the work mentioned. The question of undertaking it is at present under consideration by the Board.

    IRISH AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES.
    *MR.O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what steps, if any, have been taken by the new Department of Agriculture in Ireland to put into operation Section 17, sub-section (a), of the Agricultural and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899; has the Department instituted any investigation with a view to have this sub-section duly administered; and has the head of the Department considered the necessity of appointing a permanent official, such as those appointed by the Canadian and other Governments, for the purpose of having this section properly put into force, and thereby protecting the agricultural and other industries in Ireland.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Department is not yet in a position to take action under the provision referred to. Information on matters coming within the scope of the section is being obtained. The question of the appointment of an official having expert knowledge of the subjects to be dealt with has not escaped the attention of the Department. It has, however, been considered advisable to postpone a decision in the matter until it can be ascertained to what extent technical assistance of the nature required can be afforded by other Departments.
    *MR.O'DOHERTY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Vice-President of the Department applied for special permission to appoint an expert to carry out this section of the Act, and that the Treasury refused?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    BUNAGEE PIER.
    *MR. O'DOHEBTY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the pier at Bunagee, Culdaff, was erected according to plans and upon a site selected by the Board of Works: when was it erected; how much did it cost; how much of the total cost was contributed out of the local rates: whether his attention has been called to a speech delivered by his predecessor in office, on the cutting of the first sod of the Carndonagh line of railway, wherein he designated this construction as a dry land pier: and, whether compensation will be made by the Irish Government for the money thus expended by the Board of Works, either in providing a harbour of refuge for fishing boats along this coast, or in cutting a canal to bring water to this dry land pier so that it may be of some service for the purpose for which it was constructed.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The site for the pier referred to was selected not by the Board of Works, but by the Fishery Piers and Harbours Commissioners—a body created by the Sea Fisheries Act, 1883. The plans were approved by the Commissioners, and the pier was completed in November, 1887. The cost was £3,842, of which the sum of £239 was provided by loan payable out of local rates, £3,353 advanced by way of Grant under the Act of 1883, and £250 contributed by persons interested in the locality. I have not seen a report of the speech referred to in the second paragraph. With reference to the third paragraph, I have already informed the hon. Member that the suggested construction of a harbour of refuge on this coast is a project which can only be considered in connection with similar projects of considerable magnitude.

    CONTEMPT OF COURT—WTDOW SALMON'R CASE.
    MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will give a Return of the number of cases of contempt of court that have been dealt with in the Westport petty sessions district within the past five years, and the term of imprisonment imposed in each case.
    MR. WYNDHAM: There has been only one such case, that of Mrs. Salmon, referred to in the next question of the hon. Member.
    MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will give a Return of the number of times that Widow Salmon, of Carrowkennedy, near West-port, has been convicted at the Westport petty sessions, the date of each conviction, the date of her committal and release from prison, and the term spent in prison on each separate occasion, and the nature of the charge for which she was so convicted: whether he is aware that on a recent occasion this woman got a sentence of one month's imprisonment for contempt of court, in addition to two months imposed upon her for an alleged assault on the man who has taken her holding of land: and whether he will recommend that at the expiration of her first sentence this woman will be liberated for the purpose of looking after her eight orphans.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Return is in preparation, and will be forwarded to the hon. Member when completed. The answer to the second paragraph is in the affirmative. Any application by this woman, or on her behalf, for a mitigation of sentence should be addressed in the usual way to the Lord Lieutenant.

    NATIONAL LIBRARY OF IRELAND.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the number of assistant librarians and attendants employed in the National Library of Ireland, and in the British Museum Library of Printed Books, respectively, and the annual attendance of readers at each of these libraries as shown by the latest Returns; whether he is aware that, owing to want of accommodation in the National Library of Ireland, there is no room for the increase in Ordnance Survey Maps and Patent Specifications; and that a free gift of the American Patents Specifications had to be declined for this reason; and, will he state to what extent the recommendations of the trustees have been carried out.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The number of assistant librarians in the National Library of Ireland is two, and the number of attendants is twelve (six men and six boys). The number of readers in the Library in 1899 was 154,878. I cannot speak for the British Museum. Accommodation has been found in the Dublin Library for the Maps and Specifications. The offer of the American Patents Specifications has been declined by the trustees, partly owing to considerations of space and partly because a larger staff would be required for the additional work that would arise if the offer were accepted. It is not clear to what recommendations the last paragraphs refer.
    MR. BOLAND: Considering that the staff at the National Library is so inadequate, as well as the buildings, will the light hon. Gentleman take steps to have both these matters remedied?
    MR. WYNDHAM: If the hon. Member means will I put myself in communication with the Treasury for the purpose, I cannot undertake to do so.

    FLAX CULTIVATION IN ULSTER.
    MR. M'FADDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if his attention, as President of the Agriculture and Technical Instruction Department, has been drawn to resolutions of the county councils of Londonderry and Donegal, passed at their last quarterly meetings, requesting the Government to take immediate steps to have the fishery laws amended so that flax cultivators will not be compelled as at present to retain the flax water in the dams after the removal of the flax from the steep; and. whether, seeing that flax is extensively grown in said counties, and is a remunerative crop which enables farmers to a great extent to pay their rents, and that the farmers of Ulster unanimously demand the change in the law indicated, he will advise the Government to legislate and remove the restrictions imposed on flax cultivators and the alleged grievances at the hands of fishery conservators.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative.

    1375
    The Department, as at present advised, does not consider it desirable to relax the restrictions provided by law against the discharge of flax water into rivers frequented by salmon and trout.

    LIFFORD BRIDGE.
    MR. M'FADDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Strabane Urban Council, although requested by the County Council of Donegal to contribute to the maintenance and repair of Lifford Bridge, which connects the counties of Tyrone and Donegal, and which should be maintained at the joint expense of those bodies, has refused to comply with the request of the county councils of the counties which benefit by the bridge and are legally liable for its maintenance and repair; and, if he will, as President of the Local Government Board, instruct that body to inform the Strabane Urban Council and the county council of Tyrone that they are liable to the demand of the county council of Donegal.
    MR. WYNDHAM: It does not appear (from the information before me) that the Strabane Urban Council have made this refusal (to contribute towards the maintenance and repair of this bridge). The secretary of the Donegal County Council states that the subject will be further considered at a special meeting on the 3rd April. The Tyrone County Council considers that the matter is outside its jurisdiction, the bridge being within the Urban District of Strabane. The Local Government Board has not been asked to advise the councils upon the question, and until a decision has been arrived at by each of these bodies, it does not appear to the Board that the matter is one in which it is called upon to intervene.

    WHITE ESTATE, BANTRY.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state when the sale of the White Estate, near Bantry, will take place.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The rental for the sale of the holdings on this estate was
    1376
    settled on the 18th instant, and it now rests with the solicitors having carriage of the sale to apply to the judge for a request under the 40th section of the Act of 1896.

    IRISH BOARD OF WORKS LOANS.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the payment of instalments upon Board of Works loans under present conditions presses upon borrowers; and whether, with a view to lighten the burden, consideration will be given to the desirability of extending the term of repayment and reducing the rate of interest, together with periodical revisions, as adopted under the land purchase system.
    MR. WYNDHAM: There is nothing in the representations made to the Board by applicants, or in the way in which repayments are made, to suggest that the terms of repayment involve undue pressure. The rates of interest have been fixed by the Treasury as liberally as a due regard to the position of the local funds will admit. The answer to the last portion of the question is, therefore, in the negative.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: Cannot the suggested change be made without material cost to the Treasury?
    MR. WYNDHAM: That is a question for the Treasury.

    IRISH LANDED ESTATES COURT.
    MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that there are a number of estates at present under the jurisdiction of the Landed Estates Court in Ireland on which no steps have been taken to make tenants the owners of their farms in accordance with the provisions of the 40th section of the Land Act of 1896; and what action, if any, is contemplated with the view of having the sales of these estates effected.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The case of every estate in which a receiver was appointed prior to 1897 has been brought before the land judge for his decision whether the provisions of the 40th section were

    1377
    applicable. In many of these cases the proceedings have not yet reached the stage when a request can be issued for an inspection by the Land Commission. These cases are not, however, lost sight of but are relisted from time to time in older to see what progress is being made to a sale. In other cases, in which a receiver was appointed since 1897, a similar arrangement is being carried out.

    ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY— SUMMER UNIFORMS.
    MR. JOHN HUTTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ire-land whether he has been able to arrange for the supply of suitable summer clothing for the Royal Irish Constabulary during the present year.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Experiments will be made during the coming season with a view to the selection of a, suitable material, but it will not, I am afraid, be found possible to arrange for the supply this year of summer clothing to the constabulary.

    PORTADOWN DISTURBANCES.
    MR.CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now state what the special police protection was which was afforded on the 26'th August last to certain Roman Catholic excursionists of Portadown against insult and injury at the hands of the Orange majority
    MR. WYNDHAM: The precautions taken by the local police authorities on the date mentioned consisted in the concentration of seventeen men at various points on the line of route followed by the excursionists in the morning. An additional force of 100 police arrived at Portadown in the course of the day, and these men, with the local force, were also distributed where it was considered their services could be utilised to the best advantage.
    MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: Is there any reason for stigmatising these people as "Orangemen"?
    MR. CLANCY: The right hon. Gentleman stated last night that the police had
    1378
    been remiss and that some persons connected with them had been censured. Can he name a single person connected with the administration of justice in Portadown who has been removed from his post?
    MR. WYNDHAM: There was no occasion for any such drastic measure.

    FACTORY PROSECUTION IN DONEGAL.
    MR. M'FADDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state the costs of the Crown in the case of Squire V. Sweeney, heard on a case stated under the Factory Acts in the Queen's Bench Division, Ireland, in the months of June, 1900, and January, 1901, and the costs of the defendant in the case paid by the Crown as a result of the decision of the Queen's Bench affirming the decision of the magistrates at Dungloe, county Donegal, Petty Sessions, dismissing the charge against the defendant; and whether the fines imposed on several defendants in similar cases at petty sessions in county Donegal have, since the decision of the High Court in this case, been refunded to the defendants, and the amounts of the fines so refunded.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,): At the request of my right hon. friend, I will reply to this question. The costs of the Crown have not yet been taxed, and I am unable to state what they amount to. The costs of the defendant in the first case amounted to £42 5s. 1d. The defendant's costs in the second case are at present before the Master of the Crown Office. The answer to the last query is in the affirmative. Pines imposed in eight cases, amounting in the aggregate to £65, have been refunded.
    MR. M'FADDEN: Were not six magistrates brought to Dublin in connection with this case? Seeing that their action was vindicated, will not the Crown pay their expenses?
    MR. ATKINSON: I do not agree with the view of the hon. Member. Anyhow, there is no power on the part of the Crown to pay their costs.

    CRIMINAL LUNATICS IN IRISH LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
    MR. GILIHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the maintenance of criminal lunatics confined in Irish asylums is defrayed out of the local rates since the passing of the Local Government (Ireland) Act; and, having regard to the fact that prior to the passing of the said Act a contribution of 4s. per head was paid from the Imperial Treasury, which grant now ceases, the contribution in aid of the rates coming from the local taxation account; and seeing that the cost of criminal lunatics in England is defrayed by the Treasury, whether he will have the Local Government (Ireland) Act amended with a view to assimilating it to the English Act dealing with the subject.
    MR.WYNDHAM: The maintenance of criminal lunatics is not defrayed solely out of local rates, as approximately only one-half the cost of such maintenance falls on the local rates, the balance being met out of the local taxation account. The entire cost of criminal lunatics in England is defrayed by the Treasury, and the Government is now considering the question of assimilating the law in both countries.

    CORK DISTRICT LUNATIC ASYLUM.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the cost of maintenance of criminal lunatics admitted from gaols and Dundrum Asylum to the Cork District Lunatic Asylum, with sentences unexpired or confined during the Lord Lieutenant's pleasure, is properly chargeable to the funds available for the maintenance of the lunatic poor of the County Cork district, and, if not, whether he will make provision for refunding the cost from Imperial sources.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The cost of maintenance of criminal lunatics in the Cork District Lunatic Asylum is chargeable to the funds available for the maintenance of the lunatic poor of the County Cork district; but, as stated in answer to the preceding question of the hon. Member, the Government is considering the question of defraying the cost of maintenance from Imperial sources.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to a resolution recently passed by the Board of the Cork District Lunatic Asylum in which it was stated that the sum of £3,688 0s. 3d. has been long since certified by the auditor as being due as grant in aid for the three months ended 31st March, 1899; whether he is aware that a supplemental Vote has been passed on the 17th July last to recoup the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account for the grants in aid of Irish lunatic asylums; and, can he state what action he proposes to take in the matter.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. In answer to the second paragraph, the Supplementary Estimate was not a grant in aid of the maintenance of pauper lunatics. If the hon. Member will refer to the statement made by my right hon. I friend the late Secretary to the Treasury on the 30th April, 1900,* he will find the object with which this Vote was taken fully explained.
    MR. GILHOOLY: Is this money going to the credit of the Irish Local Taxation Fund at Dublin Castle?
    MR. WYNDHAM: If the hon. Member refers to the statement I have mentioned he will get all the information available.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: In view of the fact that nearly every asylum in Ireland has made a complaint in reference to the same matter, will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into the matter and lay some statement before the public justifying his action?
    MR. WYNDHAM: I have inquired, and have corresponded at some length with the asylums concerned, but they do not accept the explanation I offer.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMONthat apply to the Clare Asylum, because—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is about to argue.
    * See The Parliamentary Debated [Fourth Series], Vol. lxsxii. page 285.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I will put a question down for Thursday. I only wanted to save time.

    SCHULL LETTER CARRIER.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the case of Mr. Dempsey, letter carrier in the town of Schull, has been considered; and, if so, with what result.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Postmaster General has sanctioned an increase in the wages of the letter carrier at Schull, county Cork.

    EYERIES POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, in view of the importance of Eyeries, county Cork, as a fishing station, he will reconsider his decision and give a Sunday postal delivery there.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Postmaster General regrets that, in view of the large deficiency on the existing postal service to Eyeries on week days, he would not be justified in sanctioning additional expense for the purpose of providing a Sunday post.

    NAVAL EXPENDITURE IN IRELAND.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state how much of the total Vote for the Navy has been expended for the last year in Ireland, how it has been expended, and how much of the present Vote it is proposed to spend in Ireland.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The accounts of the Admiralty are not kept in such a form as to enable this information to be given. Any statement on the subject is necessarily incomplete, and is nothing more than an approximation.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Arising out of this matter may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the interest naturally felt in Ireland in this matter, he cannot take steps to make some arrangement to have it known how much the Irish people are likely to participate in the great expenditure on the Navy?
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not think it would be possible to make a forecast of the expenditure. It is impossible to foresee what the movements of His Majesty's ships may be during the year.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: But the latter part of the question asks how much has been spent in Ireland during the last year. Surely that needs no forecast, and can be easily ascertained?
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not think it would be possible to give anything more, than the approximate amount. I have no objection to endeavouring to obtain the information from the hon. Member, but I cannot promise to give the exact figures.
    MR. JOYCE: Arising out of that answer, are we to understand that the hon. Gentleman will give the approximate amount?
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Yes; if I can.

    IRISH PROVISIONS FOR THE NAVY.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the amount expended for the last year in Ireland in purchasing pork and bacon for the Navy; whether any of this sum has been expended with Limerick city firms; and whether he will state the amount expended on pork and bacon in foreign countries.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: During the current financial year £850 worth of pork was purchased from foreign countries. The whole of the remainder of the pork for the Navy—to the value of £13,234— was purchased in Ireland. The contracts for the supply of Irish pork were obtained by Cork firms, none of the Limerick firms having been successful in their tenders. Bacon is not purchased by the Admiralty for the use of the Navy.
    CAPTAIN DON ELAN: Has not Irish pork proved superior to foreign pork?
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I have had no opportunity of forming a personal opinion.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he can give an undertaking that no money shall be spent in purchasing provisions in foreign countries when, seeing that they can be obtained in Ireland, there is no justification for it?
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not think I can do that.

    LONDONDERRY SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY—ADMIRALTY CONTRACTS.
    MR. O'DOHERTY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the shipbuilding industry has been revived on the river Foyle, at Londonderry, and whether, having regard to the efforts made by the local people in promoting this Irish enterprise, ho will have the yard inspected by technical officers of the Admiralty, as was done by his predecessor in 1887, with a view to ascertaining its capacity for executing Admiralty contracts and having it placed on the Admiralty list as eligible for contracts.
    *MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: An application has recently been received at the Admiralty that the Londonderry Shipbuilding and Engineering Company may be considered with reference to future Admiralty work, and it is proposed to make arrangements for inspecting the establishment to ascertain its capabilities.

    GRAND CANAL, IRELAND.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Board of Works, Ireland, exact a tonnage rate in excess of the weight carried by canal boats on the Grand Canal, Ireland, and that vessels coming into Irish ports pay upon a registered tonnage less than the cargo carried: and whether he can explain the difference of system regarding the rating of inland waterway boats and ocean vessels.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: If I rightly appreciate the question, the hon. Member is comparing the tonnage rate charged for inland waterways for conveyance of goods with the harbour dues charged in respect of ocean vessels in
    1384
    ports. Conveyance rates and harbour dues do not seem to me to be comparable.

    THE EASTER RECESS.
    MR. SAMUEL SMITH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will consider the expediency of shortening the Easter Recess, in view of the pressure it will put on the House in the closing months of the session; and whether he will consider the advisability of utilising any spare time that may be available either at the Whitsuntide Recess or by an earlier adjournment in the autumn.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The question of the expediency of shortening the Easter Recess in view of the pressure put on the House in the closing months of the session does not seem to be very popular. If the holidays were diminished at the Easter end, it would mean sitting on the Thursday before Good Friday, which would be a very inconvenient day. I do not think that would be for the general benefit of the House. On the other hand, if the holidays were diminished at the Whitsuntide end, that would mean the cutting off of three days—namely, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—in order to get one Government day, and I hardly see how that would materially shorten the session, at the end of which Government business is usually congested.
    MR. SAMUEL SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many Members of the House would prefer to have a longer holiday at Whitsuntide than at Easter?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I doubt if it would be felt generally convenient to sacrifice three days in order to secure an additional day for the Government.
    *SIR CHARLES DILKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the general interest felt in the first Order of the day for Wednesday, 17th April—the Bill of the hon. Member for Derby affecting employment in coal mines, as to which there is a possibility of some agreement?
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I would also call attention to the second Order for the Tuesday.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no doubt that great interest is taken in every Order, but that does not touch the question put to me by the hon. Member for Flintshire.

    AGRICULTURAL LAND RATING ACT.
    MR. LEVY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can now inform the House when the proposal to renew the Agricultural Land Eating Act will be made, and if it will be by a separate motion or by inclusion in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any information as yet with regard to the date at which this matter will be dealt with by the House, but in all probability it will be by a separate motion, and not by any modification of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.

    BIMETALLISM.
    MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether any steps have been taken to call together an international conference to consider the currency question with a view to reestablish a bimetallic currency.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir.

    POET LAUREATESHIP.
    MR. EDWARDS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the post of Poet Laureate became vacant on the demise of the Crown; and, if so, whether he will consider the advisability of abolishing the office.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We do not propose to make any change.

    LAND TAX COMMISSIONERS' NAMES BILL.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government intend to introduce a Land Tax Commissioners' Names Bill this session.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir. I understand that it is not necessary.
    MR. HERBERT LEWIS: Is it not the custom at the commencement of each Parliament to introduce a Land
    1386
    Tax Commissioners' Names Bill? Why has that practice been departed from?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman had better give notice of that question. I am informed that it is not necessary to do as he suggests.

  SUPPLY—ARRANGEMENT OF VOTES—PROPOSED COMMITTEE.
  SIR WALTER THORBURN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether, in the interests of the adequate discussion of the Votes in Supply, he will appoint a Committee of the House to consider and report upon the appropriation of a specified time for each class of Votes, with the view of securing reasonable discussion for the most important Votes during the period allotted for Supply.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am greatly in favour, as my hon. friend is aware, of a proposal which would lead to a Committee of this House being appointed for the allocation of the successive Votes in the business of Supply. I think my hon. friend proposes to go rather further than that, and to entrust to this Committee the determination of the exact length of time which each discussion should occupy. I see much greater difficulty in that proposal than in my more modest suggestion.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Will the Committee be moved at an early date?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Very probably.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Mr. HALSEYreported from the Committee of Selection: That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures:—Sir Charles Dalrymple; and had appointed in substitution: Colonel Williams.
Report to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILLS.

  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES AND RATING.
  Bill to amend the Law relating to the Housing of the Working Classes,

  1387
  to establish Fair Kent Courts, and to amend the Law of Hating, ordered to be brought in by Dr. Macnamara, Mr. John Burns, Captain Norton. Dr. Ship-man, Mr. George White, Mr. Stuart Samuel, and Mr. Bell.

  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES AND RATING BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Housing of the Working Classes, to establish Fair Bent Courts, and to amend the Law of Rating," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 18th April, and to be printed. [Bill 123.]
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING (LONDON).
  Bill to provide for the adjustment, in accordance with changes of boundary effected under The London Government Act, 1899, of the areas within which Local Authorities and Companies are authorised to supply electricity, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. Austen Chamberlain.
  ELECTRIC LIGHTING (LONDON) BILL.
  "To provide for the adjustment, in accordance with changes of boundary effected under The London Government Act, 1899, of the areas within which Local Authorities and Companies are authorised to supply electricity," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill. 24.]
  HOME INDUSTRIES.
  Bill for the better regulation of Home Industries, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Charles Douglas, Mr. John Burns, Mr. Churchill, Colonel Denny, Mr. Emmott, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Munro Ferguson, and Mr. J. W. Wilson.
  HOME INDUSTRIES BILL.
  "For the better regulation of Home Industries," presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday, 6th May, and to be printed. [Bill 125.]

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No.1) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

ADMINISTRATION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT IN IRELAND.
SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: We wish to take this opportunity of drawing attention to the condition of Local Government in Ireland. At this moment the situation in regard to local administration in that country is sufficiently serious to engage the attention of Parliament. Grave dissatisfaction exists, is increasing, and is likely to increase, owing to the policy of the Local Government Board towards the local authorities. As a consequence of this dissatisfaction the efficiency of Irish Local Government will be seriously compromised. Irish local bodies are animated with a sincere desire to administer the Local Government Act to the greatest advantage of the community. I can speak from my own experience. Since I have had the honour to be associated in the administration of the local affairs of my own county with the County Council of Wexford and the District Council and the Board of Guardians of Gorey, I can speak of the zeal, energy, and self-sacrifice with which the members of these bodies have since the inception of the Irish Local Government Act endeavoured to do their duty to the public. The same may be said of the local bodies all over Ireland. Their members have cheerfully sacrificed their time, their convenience, and their money to discharge their duties to the greatest possible public advantage. The Local Government Act is a complicated and badly-drafted measure. The Irish local authorities have worked hard to make the best of it, and, in spite of the imperfections of the Act, and in spite of the complexity of the Act, they have succeeded to a wonderful extent. Our local bodies are universally and specially anxious to diminish the expense of ad-ministration, but, notwithstanding all their efforts, we find that the expense of local administration in Ireland increases every year by leaps and bounds. One would have thought that in their endeavours to administrate the Act efficiently, and to keep down the expense of administration, the Irish local authorities would have had the assistance of the Local Government Board for Ireland, but at every point they have been hampered and obstructed by the Local Government Board, with the result that

1389
intense dissatisfaction prevails all over the country at their unwarranted interference.
The action of the Local Government Hoard, speaking generally, is quite un-constitutional; we believe that it is in many cases illegal. A significant case in point is that of the Wexford County Council, to which I mean shortly to refer. Hitherto the high-handed action of the Local Government Board has been allowed to pass unchallenged. This is not so likely to occur in the future, as the result of certain cases which have been recently decided in the Law Courts. I foresee in consequence an enormous increase of litigation throughout the country, with a corresponding waste of public money, unless the authority of Parliament is immediately used to stop the evil.
The case of Wexford proves the necessity of thoroughly examining, and as far as possible resisting, the mandates of the Local Government Board. The last stage of this Wexford dispute is set out in a Return presented the other day which is in the hands of Members. But before dealing with the case may I say a word about the Return itself? The Return is drawn up in a confusing manner; for instance, Exhibits D and E (the statements of the county council), on page 25, are in answer to exhibits B and C on page 31 (the statement of the county surveyor); the statements in Exhibits D and E on page 25 are in answer to the statements similarly numbered in Exhibits B and C on page 31. These Exhibits should be examined together to explain the case of the county council. Similarly Exhibit I) on page 43 (the statement of the county council) is in answer to Exhibit C on page 42 (the statements of the assistant surveyors). The Return is also confusing in other respects. But I make no complaint as far as the Chief Secretary for Ireland is concerned in relation to this Return. He deserves credit for the promptness and the courtesy with which he laid this Return upon the Table. I do not propose to go into the Return in detail, or to answer the points which were put forward by the Local Government Board; these points are easily answered, but there is no necessity to deal with them now, since the claims of the Local Govern-
1390
ment Board were unanimously rejected by the judges. I may remind the House of the history of the case. The Local Government Board claimed the right to increase the salaries of certain officials employed by the County Wexford County Council from 33 per cent, to90 per cent., speaking roughly; an additional tax of something about halfpenny in the pound, sufficient, at all events, to put the Technical Instructions Acts in force throughout the county. Against these increases of salaries the council protested, and gave reasons for its protest. No attention was paid either to its reasons or to its protest. Then the Irish Government was asked to receive a deputation from Wexford and other counties interested in this same question, with a view to an amicable arrangement. This request was refused. Then the Local Government Board served the Wexford County Council and the other county councils with a Sealed Order commanding them to pay these increased salaries. This is the first instance in which the Sealed Order has been used in the case of county councils. The Sealed Order, it is worth noting, is an instrument unknown in England; it has been specially invented for the benefit of Ireland. It would not be tolerated for a moment in England, where public opinion is in favour of respectful treatment of local governing bodies by the central government Department in London. But the Sealed Order is a, favourite instrument of administration in Ireland. Then in July last I moved the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing this new and unprecedented form of dealing with Irish county councils by serving them with Sealed Orders, and with a view also to a general ventilation of the case for the purpose of inducing the Government to adopt a moderate course. My motion came to nothing. I was told that my proceeding was an abuse of the privileges of the House; and so the matter rested as far as Parliament was concerned.
All their attempts at conciliation having failed, and having been driven into a corner, the County Council of Wexford, together with other county councils, decided to go to law with the Local Government Board with a view to securing a revision of the case, Unfor-

1391
tunately, in the Court of Queen's Bench the trial went against us, mainly owing to certain affidavits of the Local Government Board to which I propose to refer later. An important point was gained, however, in this trial, namely, that the Orders of the Local Government Board can now be put aside on certiorari. Previous to this trial the Local Government Board evidently considered themselves above all law. Undeterred by the failure of this action, the Wexford County Council carried their case to the Court of Appeal, and there they gained a complete victory. The decision in this matter is the most important judicial pronouncement made in Ireland for years, and one of the rare instances in Irish history in which the people have found the law on their side, and not on the side of their oppressors. The case undoubtedly will have an important bearing on the future of Irish administration. It will make for peace if the Government have sense, or it will make for further turmoil if the Government so elect; and if the Government wish for further fighting I can assure them we are ready to oblige them in this respect. The decisions of the judges in the Court of Appeal are given fully in the Return to which I have referred. I would ask English Members to read the judgments in the case, and form their own opinions upon them. As I have already said, I do not propose now to go into the details of this Return, or to answer the arguments put forward by the Local Government Board. It would be easy to answer them, but there is no need. They did not weigh with the judges, or prevent the case being determined in our favour. I may, however, be permitted to touch upon one or two points to illustrate how Irish local bodies are treated by the Local Government Board for Ireland.
One contention of the Wexford County Council was that the Order of the Local Government Board increasing the salaries of their officers was unjust. Let me quote on this point Chief Baron Palles—
"It was argued that the Order was made in disregard of natural justice, because the Council had not a proper opportunity of hearing what was alleged against them and of being heard in reference to it. This second ground raises a question so important that I prefer not to express my opinion with reference to it."
1392
It will be noted that the Chief Baron does not express disapproval of our contention. Later on I will quote Lord Justice Holmes on the same point.
From this Return the House will see that the Judges unanimously decided that the action of the Local Government Board was in excess of their jurisdiction. This is a serious reflection on a Government Department holding the extremely responsible position occupied by the Local Government Board, and if in this Wexford case the Local Government Board have exceeded their jurisdiction, in how many other cases may they not have exceeded it—cases which have never been brought into the Court of Appeal? And if they have so exceeded their jurisdiction to-day, what is to prevent them exceeding their jurisdiction upon some other question to-morrow? I will ask leave to quote shortly from some of the judgments upon this point—
"This brings us to the third ground, that the decision was based upon a wrong principle I cannot think that the arguments in this Court upon this part of the case were identical with those which were presented in the Queen's Bench Division. I gather from the judgment of Mr. Justice Gibson that the ground of impeachment there relied on was that the determination proceeded on the application of a predetermined general scale, without due consideration of the facts and circumstances of the particular case, and no doubt that argument was one of those presented to us upon this portion of the case.
"It was, however, further argued before us that the matter determined by the Board was a matter different from that which they had jurisdiction to determine. Their jurisdiction, it was rightly said, was to determine increase of remuneration in proportion to increase of duties. What they did determine, it was alleged, was the total amount of remuneration for all duties, including those which were performed before the Act. It is clear, indeed it is admitted, that if they did this they exceeded their jurisdiction."—(Chief Baron Palles, p.9, in Return.)
I quote further from the Chief Baron—
"There is no doubt that in the case under consideration (Leary's case) the increase of salary was arrived at by deducting his former salary, £80, from the £150 fixed by the scale."(In the Board's letter of the 23rd February, 1900.)"Thus what they have fixed is the total salary and net the increase of salary. In determining as they have done a material point must have been the remuneration which ought to be received for the duties these officers performed before the Act, but the Board has no power to determine this…The action of the Board as described in this letter was in excess of their jurisdiction.

1393
And the Chief Baron goes on to say—
"In Mr. Webster's case I therefore hold that the Board determined a matter wholly outside of their jurisdiction."
I will quote now from Lord Justice FitzGibbon, page 15 of Return:—
"In the case of Assistant Surveyor Leary, it is hard to believe that the Act of 1898 can have doubled his work, and nothing appears to explain this doubling of his salary except a determination to pay him more for his old work as well as for his new. The same principle seems to have been adopted in the case of the Council Surveyor Webster, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Upon this ground and in this respect I think the Orders now before us are made in excels of jurisdiction and are therefore bad. The Board converted Section 115 (18) from being a protection of vested interests into an occasion of raising salaries all round, and this it had no jurisdiction to do."
I now wish to direct attention to another point. In this case the Judges were at considerable pains to reconcile the affidavits filed on behalf of the Local Government Board with the letters written by the Local Government Board to the Wexford County Council. It will be remembered that the previous trial in the Queen's Bench, in which the Wexford County Council was defeated, was to a large extent ruled by these affidavits. I will quote from Chief Baron Palles, page 9 of Return—
"Let us therefore see what was the action of the Hoard in this matter. The relevant material before us are four letters of the Board—namely, those of the 7th and 23rd of February, the 27th June, and 6th July, and the affidavits of the Vice-President. It is suggested by Mr. Matheson" (the Counsel for the Board) "that the letters of the Board were inaccurate, having been written hurriedly in consequence of an alleged insufficiency of the staff. The affidavits from Sir H. Robinson do not allege or even hint at any such mistake, and it is to be remembered that they were filed in answer to affidavits on the part of the prosecutor (the County Council of Wexford), which referred to and relied upon the letters in question. Such a statement, before I could act upon it, should be supported by clear and satisfactory evidence, and of such evidence I do not find a trace. I consequently find myself coerced to hold that they truly represent the action of the Board."
On the next page of the Return the Chief Baron says:—
"The answer presented by the Counsel for the Board. …. is that the affidavit.…. shows that the Board did not do what is stated in this letter that it did do."

1394
(The letter was written to the Wexford County Council on the 23rd February, 1900).
I quote again from the Chief Baron—
"As to the county surveyor, Mr. Webster, the ground of impeachment is not so clearly I made out. That mode does not appear as clearly from the letters of the Local Government Board in this case as it does in reference to the assistant surveyors, and he Board within whose sole knowledge it is, have not thought it proper to bring before us as fully in my opinion as was desirable in proceeding under the Act of Parliament, which contemplates the individualism of each county. Prima facie, neither uniformity nor scale should have any place."
On page 18 of the Return Lord Justice Holmes says:—
"We have here letters deliberately written by the official whose duty it is to make known the views and decisions of the Local Government Board."
I leave to the apologists of the Local Government Board to explain the difference between their letters and their affidavits, which evoked such comments from the Judges of the Court of Appeal, but in view of the criticisms of the judges it would be interesting to know who wrote the letters in question. Was it anyone in authority in the Local Government Board, or was it an irresponsible clerk? I would suggest an inquiry into this matter; I think we have a right to be informed upon it, and I would further suggest the transfer of this officer to some other sphere where his talents would find proper and fitting application, say to Tientsin or to the Yang-tsze Valley, for his methods savour very strongly of those of the heathen Chinee.
I come now to the judgment of Lord Justice Holmes. I doubt if this judgment gave much satisfaction to the Local Government Board, but it certainly gave intense satisfaction to those interested in Irish Local Government. It is the most important and most instructive comment on the methods of administration in Ireland that I have ever read from the Irish Bench. On page 18 of the Return Lord Justice Holmes says:—
"It might have been more prudent if, before considering the Memorandum and Petition (of officers interested) the Board had called the attention of the council to these documents, and invited their comment thereon; but if the letters of February were, as I should have regarded them myself, and as the county council regarded them, not a final determina-

1395
tion of the matter, but a statement of what was in contemplation, no harm would have resulted On the receipt of these letters the council took a judicious course; it forwarded a statement of the reasons against the increase of salaries, which, whether they were good or bad, were at least worthy of consideration. The replay to this document has caused me much suprise, and I feel myself bound to say that if it accurately reflects the spirit in which the Local Government Board has undertaken the important duties imposed upon it by the Act, no one can wonder if the result be friction and un preasantness with the local authorities, I is purport is that if the arguments put forward in support of their protest … had been furnished to the Board in the previous autumn … it (the Board) would have weighed very carefully the council's opinion before deciding upon the increased selaries to be allowed. This must mean, if it has any meaning, that arguments, relating to the performance of a public duty involving the rights and liabdities of officers and ratepayer, submitted by one of the interested parties, which would or at least might have deserved to be weighed very cerefully, were to be wholly disregarded because they had not been submitted at an earlier period. When it is remembered that the only notice of any kind given to the council was a letter of August—"
this was not a letter at all, but a badly printed circular, numbered 317, to which nobody would be likely to pay any attention unless their notice was specially directed to it—
"received at a time when the newly constituted Indies had only begun to learn then-duties, that the board had never informed the Council of the Memorandum and Petition of the officers, and that the inquiry consequent thereon was conducted behind the back of the parties interested; above all, when it is remembered that it was not until two months later that the sealed orders were issued, and that therefore the matter was still sub judice, the April letter must be regarded as a very curious contribution to official literature."
I will now quote from this letter of April this very curious contribution to official literature—
"Local Government Board,
"Dublin, 30th April, 1901.
"Sir,—The Local Government Board for Ireland have had before them the resolutions of the Wexford County Council of the 28th ult. and 3rd inst. on the subject of the salaries fixed by the Board for the county surveyor and the assistant surveyors in the county, and in reply the Board desire to state that if the arguments put forward by the council in support of their protest against the increased salaries of the county survey or and his assistants had been furnished to the Local Government Board last autumn, when they invited the views of the council upon the
1396
claims of these officers, the Board would have weighed very carefully the council is opinions before they decided upon the increased salaries to be allowed in this case. The council, however, did not intervene in the matter, either by supplying the Local Government Board with any statement of their views or by coming to an agreement with these officers, and the Board had under these circumstances only to fulfil the obligations imposed upon them by Section 115 of the Act."
I would like to say, in the first place, that in December previous the county council had put their views before the Local Government Board, and, secondly, that it was not possible for the county council to come to any agreement with their officers, for their officers were looking to the Local Government Board to settle their case, and no agreement with them by the county council would have been possible.
"With regard to the council's resolution the Board have only to remark that while the council admit that these officers have certain increased duties to perform, they nevertheless propose to allow them no increase of salary whatever"
Here I must remark that the Local Government Board apparently did not read the communications they receive from the Wexford County Council. That council never admitted that there was any increase of duties devolving on their officers, while they expressly stated that they had no objection whatever to paying increased remuneration for increased duties if increased duties could be proved.
I may now quote the reply of the Wexford County Council, which epitomises the entire case—
"That we declined to comply with the demands of the Local Government Board for increased remuneration in the case of our county surveyor and assistant surveyors, no reason having been advanced by the Local Government Board for increasing the salaries of these officers. That the notice of the trans-action received by this council from the Local Government Board was quite insufficient, the only intimation being the receipt of a badly-printed circular which was sent to the secretary of the County Council instead of being-sent, as it should have been, to the chairman and every member of the council and in the extreme pressure of business connected with putting the Act into operation and the effort made by this council to deal with the deluge of circulars which poured in upon them last year, the urgency of the matter escaped our notice. That as a simple matter of equity and ordinary courtesy the council had the right to expect that a question of such

1397
importance would not have been decided by the Local Government Board without their taking further steps if necessary to ascertain the views of the representatives of the race-payers upon it. This consideration has been admitted to weigh with the Local Government Board in their subsequent correspondence with this council, in which they are pleased to intimate that if they had known what the true state of the case was when they delivered their judgment, that judgment would have been different from what it was."
I invite English Members to read this reply of the county council in conjunction with Lord Justice Holmes's judgment, and form thereon their conclusion as to whether that reply is not both appropriate and correct. And now the contest has entered on another phase. Instead of allowing the matter to rest, the Local Government Board have decided to reopen the case, and their explanation for this proceeding is quaint in the extreme. They admit that their proceedings have been informal—informal in the face of the unanimous decision of the judges, expressed in terms unprecedented in Irish law! Informal! Wholly unconstitutional and grossly illegal would have been nearer the truth. Their proceedings, they say, have been informal, and so they intend to begin again. They propose to hold an inquiry with a view to increasing the contested salaries. I invite the Government to consider seriously what they are about to do. There is quite sufficient ill-feeling already over this business, and do they wish to aggravate it? There is such a thing as law, no doubt, but there is also such a thing as policy, and the Government should consider if it is worth while to insist upon their pound of flesh with the result of reducing Irish local administration to a condition of chaos. The Attorney General will tell us that the law gives no alternative; I tell him that it does. You have your Orders in Council which have the effect of law; you have other remedies besides; you can make use of them if you choose, and so make your selection. It is utterly immaterial to me and to my hon. friends what you do. The Irish people are quite as ready to fight you on the Local Government Act as on any other question. We have no doubt as to who will win in the end, and, as I told the Government last July that the people of Wexford, though not anxious to fight, would fight if com-
1398
pelled, so I tell you now that they will fight you again if necessary, not for the I sake of the few hundred pounds yearly in question, but for the sake of the principle at stake. The principle at stake in this contest is the right of the people to manage their own affairs. If we are not allowed to manage our own affairs, we will allow nobody else to manage them—so make your selection. I protest against the reopening of this case. I protest against the proposed inquiry by the Local Government Board; in the face of the judgment of the Court of Appeal the proceeding is simply indecent. I protest against the inquiry on the grounds that the Local Government Board are interested parties and incompetent to do justice in the matter. I protest against the inquiry for another reason, which is found in the Act itself. I quote from Chief Baron Palles on page 7 in the Return—
"The determination of the Board as to the increase of duties and fixing the increase of remuneration in due proportion to the increase of duties so determined, if made within jurisdiction, will bind the council and impose liability upon them whether the amount so determined be right or wrong; if, for instance, the increase in duties was in fact 20 per cent., and the Board determined that it was 50 per cent., and accordingly determined that the increase of remuneration should be equal to 50 per cent, of the former remuneration, that decision would bind the council."
Now it is obvious that Parliament never intended this injustice. This is a blot in the Act which must be removed before any inquiry can take place. My county council have recently held a meeting to consider this question of inquiry. They have acted with singular moderation, considering the provocation they have received. They have passed the following resolution—
"In reply to the Local Government Board's request that we name a date for an inquiry into the question of the future remuneration of the county and deputy purveyors, it is hereby resolved that the Local Government Board, having previously fixed the remuneration of these officers illegally, as decided by the Court of Appeal, we hold that the Local Government Board is thereby prejudiced, and consequently in our opinion incapable of doing justice as between us and our officers; and we claim that the proposed inquiry be remitted I to arbitrators selected by those interested."
If we are to have an inquiry, let us have an impartial inquiry in this case of Wex-

1399
ford as well as in the other cases. There will be no difficulty in finding arbitrators in Ireland who will command the confidence of both parties interested in this dispute, and whose decision will be accepted as final.
And now one word as regards the cost of this inquiry. We are told that the Local Government Board has no option but to charge us with the costs of the inquiry. Let me quote again from Chief Baron Palles—
"Under Subsection 3 of the Application of Enactments Order, the Local Government Board may direct the costs of the inquiry to be paid by councils, and such orders may be made rules of the High Court."
The Local Government Board may direct the costs of the inquiry to be paid by the local authorities, but there is no compulsion in the matter; the clause is purely permissive, and it is just as easy for the Local Government Board to direct that the costs of these inquiries shall not be paid by the local authorities as to direct that they shall. The costs can be defrayed out of public funds. Our fighting with the Local Government Board has already cost us in the county Wexford a considerable sum of money. As we have been declared in the right, we should be indemnified for the expense to which we have been put already, and if there is to be a further re-opening of the case, it should not be at our expense. I therefore claim on behalf of my county council, first, that the issue between us and the Local Government Board shall be decided by arbitration unless the Government will give me a pledge that we shall have the right of appeal in the event of our finding the result of the proposed inquiry unjust; secondly, that the expense of this contest so far, and the expense of any further inquiry or appeal from that inquiry, shall not be a charge upon the ratepayers of the county of Wexford. Consider for a moment what is the character of the county council which the Local Government Board invite you to attack. If it were an improvident council or an incompetent council, a dishonest or a self-seeking council, there might be some excuse for crippling it with law costs. I go to the Local Government Board itself for the character of the County Wexford
1400
County Council, and what does the Local Government Board say?
"I am happy to state that the county council (of Wexford) and its finance committee appear to manage their business with judgment and discretion, and to exercise a careful supervision over the management and disbursement of the funds entrusted to their charge. I have only to add that the secretary's accounts have been most accurately and carefully kept.— W. Gibson, Auditor, Local Government Board Dublin; 8th February, 1901."
We have had a similar certificate of character on the conclusion of each year since the administration of the Local Government Act began, and this is the council which is to be penalised for its defence of the rights of local government in Ireland. I earnestly invite the attention of the Chief Secretary to this matter. I have now done with the case of the Wexford County Council. I leave it to the judgment of the House, and I leave it to the House to say if a body acting as the Local Government Board has acted is fit to be entrusted with the far-reaching powers, conferred on it by the Act of 1898.
In conclusion, I wish to give expression to my views upon the general question of administration of local affairs in Ireland as affected by the Local Government Board. It is notorious that the Local Government Act has not fulfilled the promises which were made in its behalf. We were promised equal rights with England. We have been given nothing of the sort. Apart from the concession of the elective principle we have gained nothing. We are only doing now, at a vastly increased expenditure of time, and money, and energy and convenience, what was done before in a quarter the time and at half the cost. The business of Irish local administration has been enormously complicated, for no reason that I can discover except to enable the Local Government Board to posture as a sphinx. The time of our local councils is perpetually wasted in discussing Local Government Board conundrums, to which, very often, the Local Government Board itself cannot supply an answer. The councils have no control over their officers. The Local Government Board controls the officers. The Local Government Board is the master of the officers. The officers look to the Local Government Board and

1401
not to their councils, and this is destructive to local government. It is a notorious fact that we had no trouble with our officers until the Local Government Board sent out its ill-omened circular of August. 1899. Since the issue of that circular there has been unceasing trouble; that circular has cost the ratepayers of Ireland thousands of pounds. The object of the Local Government Board apparently is to establish a new garrison in Ireland of civil servants. They find that unless they can control the officers they will be unable to control the councils; hence their frantic endeavours to supplant the councils in the loyalty of their officers. I have said that thousands of pounds of the ratepayers' money have been spent on needless law since the issue of that circular. Thousands of pounds more will follow. This new law tax is only beginning to grow. One of these days, I propose to move for a Return giving the amount expended in law by Irish local bodies since the inception of the Local Government Act. and if I am granted this Return it will be a startling revelation as to the waste of money of the ratepayers.
On the whole, Sir, it seems to me that there is no way of dealing with this question except by the appointing of a Commission to inquire into the working of the Local Government Act in Ireland, into the operations of the Local Government Board, into the increased expense of administration, and into the status of Irish councils compared to English and Scotch, and to suggest remedies, if possible, for the condition of things which prevails with us; for. as things go now, Irish local government is becoming just as great a farce as it is a misnomer. We are growing sick of it, sick of continual dictation and interference. We have our own business to attend to, and we cannot submit to perpetual worrying by a clique of unknown officials without either responsibility or stake in the country, who pay no rates, who only raise them, and who apparently have as much knowledge of as they have sympathy with the people.
There are two courses which Irish local bodies are likely to be tempted to adopt. First to give up local govern-
1402
ment altogether, and to let the Local Government Board carry on the business and collect the rates, in which event I wish the Local Government Board joy of their undertaking; or, secondly, for the local bodies to come together, and join together and set the Local Government Board at defiance. This I think the better policy. If the local councils will go on in their own way, disregarding the Local Government Board, never minding Local Government Board circulars, letters, Sealed Orders and all the rest of their tomfoolery, never minding their inspectors or their auditors, the Local Government Board will be extremely angry, but it will be powerless in the face of a general policy to this effect. The Local Government Board may perhaps succeed in coercing a single board of guardians, but the Local Government Board cannot coerce an Irish county, much less an Irish province or combination of counties. My last word to the Government is, reform the Local Government Board. It is an anachronism in its present shape, and it must be changed. My advice to the Government is to make the Local Government Board representative and Irish— to introduce the elective principle into its constitution, and in that way to bring it into touch and sympathy with the people whose concerns it is now mismanaging. I would urge upon the Government not to delay, otherwise the Local Government Board will surely land them in further trouble. It has come to this now with us, that the, Government must choose between the Local Government Board in its present shape and local government in Ireland, for the two cannot exist together.
MR. CULLINANdeclared that the action which had been shown by the Courts to be illegal was not confined to Wexford. He had had communications from various councils showing that the Local Government Board had increased the salaries of officers by seventy-five per cent, over the original amounts, and fifty per cent, beyond the sum the councils were prepared to give Surely the elected representatives of the people, who were mostly large ratepayers, living in the different counties, were the people who best understood

1403
the needs and requirements of the districts, and realised whether the duties of the officials had been increased to an extent to warrant such increases of salary. Take the case of the county surveyor in South Tipperary. His salary was £600 a year; the county council were willing to increase it by £100; but the Local Government Board stepped in and ordered a salary of £852 to be paid. The county council refused to pay it, they defeated the Local Government Board in the Courts; a few days afterwards the board withdrew from the matter, and nothing had been heard about it since. But what had been the consequence? The officials instead of being the servants, now wanted to bo the masters. The county surveyor of South Tipperary attended the last meeting of the finance committee, and instead of accepting £800 a year declared he wanted £1,200 and would fight for it, That was the teaching of the Local Government Board. Officials were now telling county councils that they would do as they liked in regard to certain matters, and that in so doing they would have the protection of the Local Government Board. A question of great interest was whether those cases in which county and district councils had made arrangements with their officers under a false impression as to the real state of the law, would be reopened in consequence of the decision of the Court of Appeal. The Local Government Board would certainly have to be reformed. The Local Government Act would never ' work properly unless there was a change of administration. The hoard was composed of gentlemen taken exclusively from the landlord section of the community. Under the Local Government Act the occupiers, not the landlords, paid the greater portion of the rates, and certainly the section who paid the largest proportion of the rates ought to have the largest representation upon the central controlling body. What was the qualification of the gentleman who, immediately after the passing of the Act, was placed on the board in command of the councils? Simply that he was the leader of the landlord party in county Tipperary, and that when the Home Rule movement was strong in England, he came over and on every possible
1404
platform defamed his countrymen, and tried to prove their unworthiness to govern themselves. The medical officers, the poor-law inspectors, and the auditors, employed by the Local Government Board to carry out the Act, were either lawyers without briefs, doctors without practice, Orangemen, Army pensioners, or sons of Unionist representatives of Ulster. When some time ago a few representatives of the popular class were appointed on the board, and had to visit the different boards of guardians and the various institutions, there was never the slightest trouble with the officials or with the boards, simply because these gentlemen were in sympathy with the poor and with the representatives who had been elected.
Until 1880, boards of guardians in Ireland were controlled by the ex officio and landlord element. In 1880 the national element obtained the control, and when they came to discharge their duties they found the workhouses in the most disgraceful state—bad ventilation, unplastered walls, unceiled rooms, dirt and filth of every description, wretched straw heaps on the floor for the poor to sleep on, and dirty vessels out of which they had to take their food. That was the legacy bequeathed by the landlord element. The first step of the popular representatives was to improve this wretched system, but as soon as they did that the officials of the Local Government Board stepped in and declared that they were not doing half enough. The record of the board was one of discredit and disgrace. It pandered and played to an insignificant minority who were troublesome in Ireland. Any person with popular leanings who was connected with the board was bound to be victimised by the minority, as was proved at the last General Election, when a right hon. Gentleman lost his seat in this House because he went in for popularising the board with which he was connected. He would take as an instance the county of Tipperary, with which he was connected. It was the only county in Ireland which had two county councils. It was ordered that the gentleman, Mr. Bailey, who had been Grand Jury Secretary, should be secretary to both councils, but his manner of doing the business was so absurdly inefficient that on the

1405
plea of the work being too heavy he resigned the secretaryship of one, South Tipperary, and retained the other. He left the accounts in such a state of extreme confusion that it was necessary for the council to pass resolutions ordering him to employ an accountant to put things in order. In the end that was done. The secretary who was then appointed, Mr. Shee, soon had affairs in a satisfactory condition. But, what happened? The auditor came down, and required that within a couple of days Mr. Shee should stand an examination by a Mr. Saunderson—son of the light hon. Gentleman opposite, who did not object to getting fat salaries for his friends and children. Then this Mr. Saunderson who had passed no examination himself, and who would sneer at poor Irishmen because their countrymen supported them whilst they fought their battles in the House, examined Mr. Shee on the 22nd March, with the result that on the following 5th April there came down an order stating that Mr. Shee had not passed an examination, and the council should proceed to appoint another secretary. They found that his waiting was bad, and that his spelling was not good. But the council's knowledge of Mr. Shee's capacity was such, that they pressed the Local Government Board to allow him a six months trial, at the end of which time the accounts and business of the council were put upon a footing of the most excellent order. Then came down an auditor (Mr. Courtney Croker), who himself had never passed an examination as auditor, and who made a note that the accounts showed the most careful supervision by Mr. Bailey—Mr. Bailey, who had left the accounts in the state which he had described, and who had never as much as seen them after that time. The Government persevered in rejecting Mr. Shee, notwithstanding the fact that men like General Massy, famous as Redan Massy, the chairman of the county council, and Mr. Grubb had proposed resolutions in favour of Mr. Shee's retention, and that those resolutions were supported by the members of the council, a representative body of men who he ventured to say were as competent in such a matter as any that could be found in an English or Scotch
1406
county. They represented the people, and had the interests of the country at heart. They were satisfied with Mr. Shee, yet they were told that the Local Government Board would have none of him. The board insisted that he should be called upon to resign; threatened the council with a mandamus, with a Scaled Order, with legal proceedings of every description. Yet the council stood by Mr. Shee, and the consequence of the Conservative gentleman on the board holding to the same view was that the hands of the board had been stayed. They had not, however, given in, and their last contemptible resort, after failing to intimidate the council, was not to bring them into open court, for that would be too manly and honest a course, but to threaten that if he was retained any longer as secretary, the auditor would surcharge the members of the council. The explanation of all this was that Mr. Shee was a staunch Nationalist, whilst his predecessor was a staunch Unionist and Freemason. This gentleman, who was not competent to open accounts for them in South Tipperary, who could not read the minutes of the meetings properly, had been granted by the Local Government Board an increase of salary of £150 a year in North Tipperary. That was the kind of administration which it was necessary to expose, for he believed there were a great many English Members of the House who believed that there was in Ireland the same kind of local government as in England, where he was informed the county councils had practically a free hand in the management of their own affairs. In England the Local Government Board exercised a judicious control and did not unduly interfere with the county councils, but in Ireland they could not appoint or dismiss an officer, or even pay away£5,without first getting the permission of the hostile assembly in Dublin Castle. Those examinations had been instituted simply to disqualify Nationalists and force into office the nominees of the Local Government Board.
Why was it there was to be an examination of officers in Ireland and none in England? It was an insult to the intelligence of the Irish county councils. Was there any general standard of ex-

1407
animation, and would the right hon. Gentleman publish the questions which were put? As a matter of fact, there were different kinds of examinations adopted, for in some cases a very severe test was imposed, whilst in others candidates got through by a small conversation. It was an outrage to say that the County Council were not the best judges of who was best qualified to serve them as clerk, and they should not be interfered with by the Local Government Board. Why should these examinations not be the same as Civil Service examinations? Petty sessions clerks were given six months notice to prepare. Why should not council secretaries be given the same opportunities? He certainly thought it was an outrage to say that the County Council of South Tipperary were not the best judges as to who was best qualified to serve them as clerk, and they ought not to be interfered with by the Local Government Board. A good deal had been heard about the benefits the Local Government Act would confer upon Ireland by allowing the people to elect their own representatives, but all those councils were handcuffed by the instructions sent down by the Local Government Board. They had had a good deal of discussion in the House recently upon the South African war. At the time of the outbreak of the war the Colonial Secretary had said that the war was entered upon because the Government of the Transvaal would not give the Uitlanders the franchise, and place them in the same position as the burghers. They had spent a hundred millions and sacrificed thousands and thousands of lives to give freedom to the Uitlanders, but they treated the Nationalist majority in Ireland far worse than ever Mr. Kruger treated the Uitlanders. He maintained that the Government by their action in Ireland belied the excuse they gave for embarking on the war in South Africa. He was perfectly satisfied that when the right hon. the Chief Secretary, and possibly the Attorney General for Ireland, got up to reply, they would tell the House that the members of the Local Government Board were fine gentlemen, most competent gentlemen, and most honourable gentlemen. He was not going to say that the members of the Local Government
1408
Board were not honourable gentlemen in their own sphere; but he would certainly say that they were not honourable gentlemen in the sphere which they occupied as controlling the county and district councils of Ireland, in the interest of a section of the community, and in order to please an insignificant minority whenever it rattled upon the Orange drum. The cause of all these troubles in Ireland was the constitution of the Local Government Board; and it was perfectly useless to think that the Local Government Act would be popular in Ireland until the Government realised that they must do away with a Castle board, and substituted for it an elective body which would administer local government in the interests of the people. It was just as well that the Government and other hon. Members opposite should know that this tinkering with local government was not going to settle the question of complete self-government for Ireland. This tinkering with the Local Government Act was only meant to satisfy the Unionist representatives, to try to preserve for their sons and friends the plums of office, to keep what influence they had in their own hands, and to crush the popularly-elected councils.
MR. CLANCYthought that no one who had listened to the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down could help coming to the conclusion that there was scarcely any exaggeration in anything that had been said from the Irish Benches as to the domineering spirit of the Irish Local Government Board. He thought that the Wexford case was an even more striking example of the action of the Local Government Board than that brought forward by the hon. Member for South Tipperary. He would recall some of the facts mentioned by the hon. Baronet. The Local Government Board, at least so their contention was, had, on the passing of the Act, to determine whether an increase of duty was imposed on any existing officer, and if so, to fix the increase of salary he was to receive in consequence of that increase of duty. Who would imagine that there was any difficulty in interpreting that instruction of the Local Government Act? The Local Government Board, having at its disposal

1409
a large amount of legal talent, should have made no great mistake in discharging their proper function. But what was the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Ireland on that point? It set forth that, instead of fixing the increase of salary to which these officers were entitled, they went on to revise all the old salaries so that if they came across any officer of the Grand Jury whom they thought insufficiently paid in the past, they took advantage of the Act to pay them a sufficiency in the future, although the Act gave them no such authority whatever. He congratulated the hon. Member for North Wexford on having had the prescience to ask for a Return giving the judgment of the Court of Appeal, because he was very suspicious of the acts of the agents of the Government in Ireland, and if that judgment had not been before the House the illegality committed by the Local Government Board might have been denied by the Chief Secretary on the authority of some of his underlings in Dublin Castle. A great hardship existed in the case of those councils which, unlike that of Wexford, did not carry their cases to the highest Court of the land. He thought that the question put by the hon. Member for South Tipperary ought to be put again and again to the Chief Secretary, namely, whether those councils on whom illegal salaries had been imposed were to be put to the expense and trouble of going, each of them, to the Court of Appeal to have these illegal salaries re-adjusted. He maintained that there had been a total disregard by the Local Government Board of the opinion of the new local bodies, although one might have imagined that quite a different course would have been pursued. The Unionist Government of England in setting up these local bodies by Act of Parliament presumably thought that they were competent for the discharge of the duties imposed upon them, and surely they ought to be treated with respect and confidence by the Local Government Board as competent for the discharge of those duties, but it was only in the last resort, and when compelled by legal proceedings, that the Local Government Board had acted according to law.
What was the procedure of Dublin Castle as illustrated by the case of the Wexford County Council? In August
1410
1899, the Local Government Board brought to the knowledge of the county councils the fact that the salaries of the old grand jury officials would have to be revised, or, rather, that they would have to be increased or decreased according to the duties imposed on them in consequence of the passing of the Local Government Act. As might well be imagined, the county councils, having been only a few months in office, had a great deal to do; new and important duties had to be discharged, some of which, it was reasonable to suppose, they scarcely understood. At any rate they were hard at work when they received a circular from the Local Government Board, to which a great many of them gave no answer. They simply put the circular aside intending on a future day to make a full answer. Well, the Local Government Board received a communication from a county council official in regard to his salary, and the Board having heard only one side of the story, and without seeking for further information from the county council, issued a notice laying down that certain salaries were for the future to be paid by the county council to that officer, and if they did not pay such salary the officer would compel them to do so. The county council of Wexford woke up to the situation and submitted a series of reasons why the salary should not be increased. The Local Government Board themselves admitted that that list of reasons was of great importance and worthy of the greatest consideration. But, having that list of reasons before them, they actually wrote a month after, and three months before they issued the Sealed Order, and said that if they had got them sooner they would have taken them into consideration; meaning thereby that they could not take them into consideration because they received them too late. He thought that if the county councils in England were treated in that fashion by the English Local Government Board there would be an uproar in England and a demand for a change in the English Local Government Board. It was no wonder that Lord Justice Holmes, a gentleman who could not be accused of any Nationalist feeling or leaning, stated that the Wexford Council had taken a judicious course. He said—
"It forwarded a statement of the reasons against the increase of salary, which, whether

1411
they were bad or good, were at least worthy of consideration. The reply to this document has caused me much surprise; and I feel myself bound to say that if it correctly reflects the spirit in which the Local Government Board has undertaken the important duties imposed upon it by the Act, no one can wonder if the result be friction and unpleasantness with the local authorities. Its purport is that if the arguments put forward by the council in support of their protest, against the increased salary of the county surveyor and his assistant had been furnished to the Board in the previous autumn, when the views of the council were invited upon the claims of the officers, it would have weighed very carefully the council's opinion before deciding upon the increased salaries to be allowed, but that as the council did not intervene, either by supplying any statement of its views or by coming to an agreement with the officers, the Board had only to fulfil the obligations imposed by the sub section."
Then Lord Justice Holmes went on to express his opinion that the Board's letter of April "must be regarded as a very curious contribution to official literature," which was another way of saying that it was a most incompetent document to issue to any local body. Was it any wonder that there were differences between the Local Government Board and the local bodies? Some of the details of this case were really amusing. One of the reasons given in a letter by the Local Government Board for holding to its decision to increase the salaries, was that after all to increase the salaries of the officers would not add a half-penny to the rates. What business had the Local Government Board to take into consideration whether it would add a half-penny or a penny to the rates? Their business was to act according to law. It appeared from the affidavit of Sir Henry Robinson that the county of Wexford required extreme skill and attention on the part of the county surveyors, because it had a large seaboard, with piers and harbours and several roads running down to strands and landing places, and that there were a number of important bridges. But the large sea-board and the piers and harbours and bridges were there before the Act of 1898 was passed, and the surveyor was obliged to do all that inspection before the passing of the Act; and yet this great Department actually indulged in that ridiculous ground of excuse for increasing the salary of the county surveyor. He wanted to draw attention
1412
to a claim made by the Local Government Board both in the Queen's Bench and in the Court of Appeal. That claim of the Local Government Board was that they were above the law. They said—"Wo are a great Department of State; we are like the Lord Lieutenant, or the Lord Chancellor in the distribution of legal patronage, and our acts, no matter what they are, cannot be inquired into in a court of law." In that case, as was pointed out by one of the counsel, if they declared Li Hung Chang to be an existing officer, entitled to an increase of salary, their order could not be investigated or set aside in a Court of law. All the judges of the Queen's Bench Division had decided against that contention, and the Court of Appeal had also unanimously decided against it; but the mere fact that such a claim was made by the Local Government Board in Ireland showed more clearly than anything else the spirit in which they administered a remedial Act of Parliament.
Speaking as an Irish Nationalist representative, he was of opinion that several good acts had been passed by this Parliament for Ireland, which, if they had been properly administered, would have done great good and settled probably great questions sooner than they would otherwise be. The Land Act of 1870 was, in his opinion, a great Act and contained great principles, and if it had been administered so as to give full effect to the intentions of Parliament they would never have seen the agitation of the last ten years. In the same way, if the Land Act of 1881 had been administered in a spirit calculated to give effect to the intention of its framers, they would never have seen the agitation which compelled the passing of all the Amendments of that Act. The truth was, that the best Acts might be passed with the best intentions, but as long as they left in Ireland a bureaucracy out of sympathy with those for whose benefit they were passed to administer these Acts, there would never be anything but failure. So also in regard to the Local Government Act. He did not agree with some of his colleagues in their criticisms of the Local Government Act. He thought that

1413
Act did give to Ireland the same rights and privileges as the English Local Government Act gave to England, and in his opinion it was a great work of legislation, and he would not be candid or telling the truth if he did not say so. At the same time the Board which set to work to administer that Act was composed of persons out of all sympathy with the people, and with the spirit in which the Act was conceived, and were consequently determined in their own minds to frustrate the objects of that Act and all other remedial measures passed for Ireland. He, for one, deplored this state of things, and he must confess that he despaired of seeing any remedy. This led up to a bigger question than that they were now discussing, namely, national self-government for Ireland. As long as Home Rule and the management of Irish national affairs by a free Parliament elected by the people in Ireland was refused, they must maintain these English agents in Ireland, for no matter who went into Dublin Castle he was speedily corrupted. Therefore, he had not the least hope, from these debates, that any radical reformation would ensue. All the same, it was their duty to make perfectly plain the state of affairs that now existed, and if that state of affairs could be defended he would be greatly surprised.
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid he wished to say a few words on this subject, because when the Irish Local Government Bill was passing through the House he called the attention of the Committee on the Bill to the extraordinary character of the clauses that were practically the subject of debate now, especially when compared with English legislation. He ventured to prophesy that at a very early stage trouble would arise in Ireland over these clauses, and that was what had occurred, although he would rather have been a false prophet in the case. As a matter of fact, it was perfectly clear that these wide clauses, giving such large powers to the Local Government Board, had already been a cause of mischief—a greater cause of mischief even than he anticipated. The Irish Local Government Board appa-
1414
rently by some of these unfortunate motives had failed to administer the Act properly, and had used the powers given to them to put a construction upon the Act which had been questioned before the law. As a matter of general principle, he rejoiced when a court of law put its foot down against the most gigantic attempt ever made to set up administrative law, a law conceived in the secret rooms of a Government Department, to over-ride the law of the land. There were clauses and schedules in the Irish Local Government Bill which undoubtedly did arm the Board with gigantic powers, and he and others had at the time pointed out that that was an unprecedented attempt to set up administrative law as distinct from the law of the land. He must say that he thought the Government had been successful in doing so, and that it would not be in the power of a court of law to escape from the loose declarations in the Bill, by which apparently it was put in the power of the Local Government Board to do anything in the world in bringing the Act into operation. But seemingly a limit had been reached, and an Irish Court had been found strong enough to say—thus far and no farther. He ventured to say that the Irish Court had rendered a service not only to Ireland but to England, because Government boards-had done injury to the public by obscure amendments of administrative law.
He would take the particular case under discussion. The County Council of Wexford, it appeared, imposed certain new duties upon one of its officers, and that officer, under the terms of the Local Government Act, was entitled to have his salary increased in proportion to the new work placed upon him, and if he was dissatisfied with the salary offered, he had a right to go to the Local Government Board as a sort of arbitrator. But the Local Government Board attempted to go beyond that, and said that they would inquire into the whole question of the salary, and would practically decide, not only whether the percentage of increase of salary represented the percentage of increase of work, but whether the original salary was or was not adequate. Now, the Government should trust the county councils to arrange these questions of salary. If they could not trust them in

1415
matters of that kind they might as well not have called the county councils into being at all. The one chance of improving the administration of Ireland was to trust the local bodies which had been called into existence. Of course there would be mistakes; there were mistakes even in local bodies outside Ireland. After all, if they could not trust the county councils, whom were they going to trust? These were the most important of all the local bodies, and the bodies to which all of them looked to lay the foundation of a sound public opinion in Ireland. They on that side of the House looked to the county councils of Ireland as paving the way to something, as they thought, larger, higher, and better—to what they called Home Rule. They knew that hon. Members on the Government side of the House did not believe in that view, but looked to the county councils as being able to do such great things for administration in Ireland as to make Home Rule unnecessary. It was part of the great plan to kill Home Rule in Ireland by concessions and kindness; but how were they going to do that unless they treated these local bodies which they had created with some amount of confidence and goodwill? After all, what was it that these county councils wanted? Who were the officers of these councils? There was no chief constable, because the police wore entirely centralised; and there was no county medical officer of health. The only leading officers were the county clerk, the county treasurer, and the county surveyor. Did they mean to tell him that Ireland was such a backward country that they could not trust the Irish county councils to settle the salaries of these three officers? If they were not able to do that, what were they fit for? He agreed with what fell from the hon. Member for North Dublin, that a strict eye must be kept on the administration of this Act, for it was a fact that whenever a Bill was placed on the Statute Book there were, at headquarters in Dublin, a set of men whose object was administratively to reduce and, if possible, destroy the wise concessions to Ireland which had been made in this House either by a Liberal or a Tory Government—the only difference being that they regarded the Liberals as enemies and the Unionists as traitors to their
1416
cause when they made any concession. In his opinion the hon. Baronet was perfectly justified in bringing up this case. He remembered when he last had the honour of a seat in the House there was an inquiry as to the Irish Board of Works, which was shown to be determined to stand in the way of any reform or of being reformed itself, and the Commission recommended what ought to be done. That was during Mr. Gladstone's first administration; but when Mr. Gladstone came into power again the Board of Works was just exactly as it was when the Commission reported upon it. What was true of the Irish Board of Works was true of other bodies. There was nothing in the world so difficult to fight as the accumulated prejudices of a Government Department. The departmental official was always there; the parliamentary official came and went. If the permanent official only lasted long enough he was bound to outlive the Parliamentary official. He did not attack the Chief Secretary, because he was aware of the difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman had to face; but whether they were favourable to our rubor not, it was necessary to make Dublin Castle understand that when Parliament passed an Act it was intended that the officials at the Castle should obey the Act in the spirit as well as in the letter. In nine cases out of ten, though the officials carried out an Act to the letter, they never carried it out in the spirit. He considered the establishment of the county councils in Ireland the greatest reform which had been placed on the Statute Book for ten or fifteen years, and everyone should unite in seeing that the benefits that Parliament decided three years previously should be granted to Ireland should not be given with one hand and taken away with the other.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The noble Lord will forgive me for saying that his speech was not so closely addressed to the question before the House as some of those to which we have listened in the course of this debate. It was rather in the nature of a disquisition into the nature of government in Ireland. The noble Lord told me he brought no charge against myself or my predecessors, but he drew a gloomy

1417
picture of Irish officials banded together for the purpose of destroying the benefits just given by this Parliament to Ireland. He said that the Local Government Board was inspired by unfortunate prejudices. I hope to prove that in this matter the Local Government Board has been inspired solely by the motive of discharging the strict obligations imposed upon it by this House in the year 1898, and I can prove that out of a speech to which we have listened this evening—the speech of the hon. Baronet who brought this matter before us this evening. I was much, struck by a. sentence which fell from him towards the end of his speech. He said in the most emphatic terms, "We are bound to have the Act amended.'' That is the whole point. This attack, which I admit is justified, against the Local Government Board, is founded upon a mistake in the Act of 1898. It is an attack against provisions which are vital to the Act, and in the absence of which the Act never would have been passed by this House or any similar assembly.
Let me come direct to the point. In the Local Government Act of 1898 there is one part—part 8— which is specifically labeled "Transitory Provisions." The Local Government Act of 1898 effected a revolution in the government of Ireland. It transferred from the grand juries greater [lowers than had ever been held by similar bodies in the country. Almost all power of local government had accumulated in 200 years in the hands of the grand juries, and those powers were transferred to elective bodies. No such Act could have been passed without providing protection for the officers who had been employed by the grand juries; and in these transitory provisions it was provided that the officers who had served the grand juries—secretaries, surveyors, and others,—should have certain rights, after the period of a year, as they were bound to go on serving So that they should not embarrass the new body by immediate resignation. They were to serve on at the same salary, and for any increase of duty they were to have an increase of emolument, and the Local Government Board, and no other any body was to determine the in-
1418
creased emolument. That is in the Act, and if that is desired to be altered, hon, Members must come into the House and argue that the law is faulty.
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: That is quite understood, but my point was that the Local Government Board went beyond that. They tried to gauge the salary without going into the question of whether the percentage of increased emolument represented the percentage of increased work, and it was decided by the Irish courts that their action was illegal.
MR. WYNDHAM: I was coming to that immediately. It was for that reason that the hon. Baronet who opened the discussion was driven to the conclusion that until the Act was amended nothing could be done. I can go as far as anybody in believing that when you give power to local bodies you should not wreck that power with unnecessary restraints, but this is not an unnecessary restraint. This is a transitory provision similar to the provisions embodied in the English Act, and which is always embodied in Acts of this kind. It might be galling to have to employ a man whom you do not like, or to have to pension him off at Civil Service rates in order to employ the man you prefer. But this is part of the necessary sacrifice which must be made in order to carry through a great revolutionary and beneficial change in local government. It was put up with in this country without a murmur, and also in a great part of Ireland; and where objection is taken it is taken in order to make another attack on the Local Government Board—["Certainly not"]— because it embodies in the minds of hon. Members the emblem of British rule. [Cries of "British misrule."] I am not surprised to hear that cheer, but how factious is this attack. The Vice-President of the Local Government Board, who is principally arraigned, is a distinguished Irishman and the son of a distinguished Irishman. He is a man who enjoys the warm respect of most Irishmen; and he deserves that respect, for the energy and devotion with which he applied himself to the work placed on the Local Government Board when called upon to interpret

1419
and to administer this great Act. In these difficult two years in every act he has been considerate, and his every word has been courteous. Yet the action of the Local Government Board is called into question as though he was naturally inclined to wreck the Act.
Let me come at once to the charge that is brought against the Board. The action of the Local Government Board is arraigned because it was illegal, and also because its action has been hasty, arrogant, and unjust, inasmuch as it has imposed a charge on the Irish ratepayers which it was not justified in imposing, and which was not entertained by the framers of the Act. I feel the charge of illegality, but I am not one of those who ask this House to constitute itself into a Court of Appeal, and I shall say little about that, but to the charge of illegality there has been added the charge that the actions of the Board have been hasty, arrogant, and unjust. I think as to the illegality I plead guilty at once, but I may remark upon this point, as the hon. Baronet upon the point of illegality addressed himself exclusively to English Members of the House, who may be horrified to hear that a great public department has been cast in the High Court of Appeal in Ireland, that consideration should he given to the circumstances. The Lord Chief Justice, who gave the judgment, insisted upon the great heaviness of the burden thrown on the Local Government Board in its duty of interpreting for the first time and applying to the whole of Ireland this new law. It is a fact that during many months that Department, which has been taunted with neglecting its legal work, had to write 3,000 official letters per week on matters involved in the Act, and it was on one of those letters that the Local Government Board was cast. When the case was brought before the court of first instance it was unanimously decided that the Local Government Board was technically right, and I need not labour the point of illegality further than to say that the House must understand that it does not follow because the Local Government Board was wrong on this occasion that therefore the county councils are to decide as to the salaries of the existing officers. The legal points were very ably argued, but
1420
few were decided. The Lord Chief Baron, Lord Justice FitzGibbon, and Lord Justice Holmes all agreed in saying that the Local Government Board under the Act had final, conclusive, and uncontrolled power to determine whether there had been an increase of duty or not. And if the Local Government Board has that right and is charged with that duty, who is to decide the increase of salary for such increase of duty? The three judges of the Court of Appeal also agreed that that duty was obligatory on the Local Government Board. It might be asked, if upon these two great questions of substance the Local Government Board was in the right, why was their action found to be illegal? Because the learned judges decided—and, I think, quite rightly—that the decision of the Local Government Board was based upon a wrong principle. The ground upon which they were cast was that in the terms of the letter they so expressed themselves as to leave the judges of the Court of Appeal no option but to believe that they had taken into account the adequacy of the original salary as well as the amount of increase and the emolument for that increase. That is the whole matter.
I accept the decision of the High Court, but I must tell hon. Members that this is not as a matter of fact the principle which guides the action of the Local Government Board. The words in the Act are not too clear. They are that these officers should receive such increase or diminution of remuneration in proportion to the increase or diminution of their duties as the Local Government Board might determine. That is not a very clear phrase, and the judges in the High Court gave various views as to what such proportion would mean. The intention of the provision, however, is clear. The intention was that the Local Government Board, and no one else, should have a discretion to give added remuneration which should be more or less proportionate to the added work imposed on the officers. I have only dwelt upon this legal point to show what a melancholy prospect is before us if the hon. Baronet persists in his determination to test every one of these technicalities in a court of law, and to make the Irish ratepayer pay for that

1421
intellectual exercise. But is the action of the Local Government Board in honestly attempting to carry out the duty placed upon it arrogant or unjust? The Act was passed in August, 1898, and declared that the new salaries of these officers were to begin from 1st April, 1899. From that date they were entitled to increase of pay, and the Local Government Board was responsible to Parliament and to eternal justice to see they received their due. It was not until August, 1899, that a courteousletter, to which no reference has been made, was addressed to the county councils of Ireland. That letter points out to the county councils the provisions existing in the Act, and invites their co-operation in giving any information at their command in order to assist the Local Government Board. That was a year after the passing of the Act. The hon. Member read a letter which, for the purposes of my argument. I am glad to find is in close juxtaposition to the affidavit of Mr. Piggot. This letter was written a year after the other letter to which I have referred, and two years after the passing of the Act, and Mr. Piggot swears in his affidavit that it is especially inequitable to fix these salaries on ex parte evidence. That is a year after the expression of their views was invited. From the Wexford County Council we have received no assistance or expression of views on this subject whatever.
SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: They replied in December of the same year.
MR. WYNDHAM: Then that letter is not printed in the Return. But I take the hon. Baronet's word. In December the Wexford County Council demurred altogether to the course the Local Government Board was taking. How many of these officers are there in Ireland? There are thirty-three secretaries, thirty-three surveyors, and 170 assistant surveyors, the duties of the surveyors and assistant surveyors being to inspect the roads in the counties of Ireland. Ten counties in Ireland, not on the motion of the Local Government Board, but of their own free will, came to an agreement with all their officers which entirely fulfilled all the intentions of the Act.
MR. CLANCY: In consequence of an illegal circular.
MR. WYNDHAM: The circular was not illegal, and the hon. Member is quite in error in supposing that the counties to which I have referred acted on the suggestion of the Local Government Board.
MR. CLANCY: It was on the basis of the circular of the 7th February that the Court of Appeal decided that the Local Government Board had committed an illegality, and that was the circular which dictated the agreement to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.
MR, WYNDHAM: I say that that is not so. The circular of the 7th February was the document which led the Court to hold that our action was illegal, but I say that ten county councils in Ireland agreed with all their officers irrespective of and anterior to the issue of the views of the Local Government Board; seven other counties came to an agreement with their officers at a time when I am not sure whether or not they were in possession of the views of the Board; six counties undoubtedly made agreements in accordance with the terms issued by the Board; and ten counties refused to act in accordance with the wishes of the Board. Indeed, the circular of the Board, which is chiefly impugned, was largely based upon the terms of the agreements which had been arrived at by the various counties in Ireland, and especially in the case of the assistant surveyors. I would point out that under the grand juries the assistant surveyors with one or two exceptions, had the same emoluments—namely, £80 a year; but by voluntary agreement county Cavan gave its assistant surveyor £1 70; county Dublin, £150; county Meath, £160; county Galway, £120; county Tipperary, one £200, and two others £140; and so forth. By voluntary agreement these counties gave higher salaries than that to which the hon. Baronet takes such exception. We did not take the highest of those, but we took £150 as the maximum and £120 as the minimum, and we felt that the discretion which we believe we have ought to be exercised within those limits. Under the grand juries the assistant surveyors. who had uniform duties and uniform salaries, had to inspect the roads twice and to make two reports to the grand

1423
juries each year. When this Act was passed their work was doubled, because instead of two meetings per year of the grand juries, it provided for four meetings of the county councils, and, therefore, four inspections of the roads, four reports, and so on. On that ground the Local Government Board undoubtedly took mileage into account, because if the work was doubled the man who travelled most miles had a larger increase of work than the man who travelled a smaller number of miles. Was it unreasonable to say that the man who had 800 additional miles to do should have £30 a year more than the man who did only 500 miles? The officer upon whose case these proceedings were taken by the Wexford County Council had to inspect 554½ miles of roads. The effect of doubling his work was therefore to impose upon him the duty of inspecting an extra 1,109 miles. For that his salary was raised by the Local Government Board from £80 to £150. I doubt whether anybody would say we had gone beyond the actual dictates of common justice or even been guilty of a technical illegality if they understood that that is the whole head and front of our offending. We were bound to take the action we did. We based it upon our construction of the Act, and fixed the scale upon the agreements voluntarily come to by various county councils, and, above all, upon the fact of the increased duties which we were directed by the Act to take into account when fixing these increases of salary. We may have been guilty of a technical illegality, but I doubt whether anybody with justice can say that the action of the Board was at all precipitate, arrogant, or unjust towards the ratepayers of Ireland. We did break the letter of the law, but the Wexford County Council and the hon. Members opposite are seeking that we should break the spirit of the law. ["No."] Yes, for what are the pleas which have been advanced? They are that the old salaries were ample even though the men have to make four inspections instead of two. [Hear, hear.] That proves my whole contention. That is precisely what we are precluded from doing by the explicit provisions of this Act. Hon. Members from Ireland are asking, and the hon. Baronet is driven
1424
by his own argument to ask, that we should repeal certain provisions of the Act. Correspondence on this matter went on in courteous terms, and it was not until July, 1900, two years after the passing of the Act, that the Local Government Board issued a mandate to say that these gentlemen were to receive the money due to them for fifteen months and guaranteed by Parliament.
I do not know that I should labour the matter any more. I would ask the hon. Baronet to consider where we now stand. I have said enough on the legal point involved to show that we could go to law about every phrase and technical point in the Act; but surely that would not be a wise thing to do. We are to have an inquiry into the Wexford case, and I suggest that it should be treated as a test case, and, if it should turn out that the Local Government Board have made some error in their calculation, of course the Local Government Board will take that into account. But, whatever happens, nothing can alter the fact that the officers who have honourably served the grand jury are entitled to continued employment at the same emolument and to increased emolument for increased duty, and are entitled to retire on pensions calculated on the Civil Service scale. These propositions embody the substance of my contention; all the rest is form and technicality, upon which may be opened an almost illimitable vista of litigation. I hope the hon. Baronet will not encourage those who trust in him to take so disastrous a course. When is an existing officer not an existing officer, which proposition is not a rule of three sum, and if not, why not—these are questions of the deepest speculative interest; but I doubt whether the Irish people should be called upon to pay for their elucidation.
MR. DILLONsaid he had seldom listened to a more characteristic-speech from an Irish Secretary than that which they had just heard. At the end of his speech and in the course of an eloquent appeal to the hon. Baronet who had earned the thanks of every county council in Ireland in respect of the action he had taken on this question, the right hon. Gentleman declared that he did not understand the clause under which the

1425
operations had been carried on so long. It had been argued in a court of law, and the judges had been utterly unable to understand what it meant. In the long debates which took place when the Local Government Act was before the House he ventured to say that it was a badly drafted Act, and that some of the provisions- and this would apply also to the orders and rules which had since been made—would lead to enormous and endless litigation in Ireland. He thought the prophecy he then made had been more than justified by the speech to which they had listened.
He came now to the substance of the speech. What did the Chief Secretary say at the very outset? He admitted frankly that the action of the Local Government Board was illegal, but he contended that that illegality was a question of form and not of substance. The statements which the right hon. Gentleman made with regard to the principle on which the Local Government Board acted on these occasions were absolutely contradicted by the judgment of the learned judges in the Court of Appeal. The Chief Secretary went on to say that certain action would be legal but idiotic—rather an extraordinary phrase. In fact his speech bristled with extraordinary phrases. The hon. Member contended that the action of the Local Government Board had been illegal and idiotic, because they not only fixed these salaries without proper local inquiry and without proper consultation of the county councils, but in their eagerness to do so they broke the law. Undoubtedly the Act conferred excessive powers on the Local Government Board of Ireland. That was one of the blots of the Act. He raised that question on the Second Reading and again several times in Committee. He complained that the Act as drafted conferred on the Local Government Board—a body utterly out of touch' with and irresponsible to the people of the country—powers enormously in excess of those conferred on the Local Government Board of England, which was directly responsible to the representatives of the people, and which would never dream of entering on the career of dictatorial assertion of its powers which was practised constantly by the Local Government Board of Ireland. He ventured to
1426
say that if the Act was passed in that form they would find in Ireland before it had been working long a revolt on the part of the population against its excessive powers. That was exactly what had happened. The Chief Secretary had entered into a long argument to show in reference to the increase of salaries and the other acts complained of that the Local Government Board had simply done its duty and carried out the law. The whole question was the spirit in which they had carried out the law, and the discretion which they had shown. Nobody objected to any official in Ireland left by the grand jury obtaining a just increase of salary in respect of a real in-crease of work. He believed there was not a single county council in Ireland which had raised any objection. What they objected to was that the Local Government Board had approached the consideration of this question in a spirit of partisanship, and that they had in many cases ignored the fair and reasonable opinion of the councils. By approaching the consideration of this question in a spirit of partisanship they had stirred up all this trouble. They ought not to give to the Local Government. Board in Ireland so wide a discretion as to say that they were entitled to raise the salary of any officer employed by any local body in Ireland without considering local feeling and without consultation with the local representatives of the people who were entitled to form an opinion on the subject. The local bodies who had to find the money were the only men in a position to know what increase there had been in the duties, and this action on the part of the Local Government Board would almost lead to a revolt in any other country in the world but Ireland.
He would turn for a moment to the assertion made by the Chief Secretary, in which he laid down the principle on which the Local Government Board considered these salaries. He distinctly understood him to say that this did not involve going back upon the question as to whether the officers had been paid previously too much or not. Here was an extract from the judgment given by Lord Justice Fitzgibbon—
"I am certain of the fact upon the evidence, and it is the ground of my decision, that the

1427
Board assumed the jurisdiction of considering the existing remuneration for the existing duties, and to lay down scales of payment for the future which were to regulate the pay for the old as well as for the new duties."
It was clear from this evidence that the board did assume the discretion which the Chief Secretary now denied. The same principle appeared to have been adopted in the case of county surveyors, and yet the Chief Secretary came down there and declared that there was no foundation for that statement. Another judge—Lord Justice Holmes—said—
"The Board has recast and revised old salaries."
That was what the Chief Secretary said they never did.
MR. WYNDHAM: I stated that although the terms of their letter which was laid before the judges drove them to that conclusion, really as a matter of fact the Board did not act in that way.
MR. DILLONsaid he saw in the Chief Secretary's speech abundant evidence of what they were to expect from him, and he was going to be the mouthpiece and conduit pipe for the officials of Dublin Castle. It was stated that there was not a shred of evidence to show that the Board had acted upon any other principle than that which he had stated, and yet they were asked to ignore the opinion of two judges and accept the statement of the Chief Secretary.
Coming to the question of discretion on the part of the Local Government Board, he heard the Chief Secretary state that by a calculation it was found that the county surveyors had to inspect twice as many roads as before. What evidence was there of that? None at all. He was not a county councillor, but he was assured by his colleagues who were members of these councils that there was no foundation for that statement. There was no provision in the Act requiring the road inspectors to go over the road twice as often as they did before. All the extra work they had to do was to attend the meetings of the councils four times a year, instead of twice under the Grand Jury system. On that point he preferred to take the information of his own experienced colleagues rather than the opinion of the Chief Secretary. The
1428
Local Government Board having, according to the Chief Secretary himself, interpreted this extraordinary clause, drafted as it was in a way which no human being could understand, in the sense of giving them the widest possible discretion, had exercised that discretion in the silliest and most idiotic way possible, The complaints on this score were made not only by the Nationalist Councils, but also by the councils on which the Unionists were in power. They had heard of the Tipperary and Wexford County Councils, which could compare with any county councils for administrative efficiency. But let them take the case of the county council of Derry. (He might say parenthetically that the Northern counties cut down the salaries of their officers to half what was given in the South). The Local Government Board declared in their knowledge and wisdom that the secretary of this council should get a large increase of salary on account of his increased work. But in this case the worthy man had never done anything at all. He was one of the class of Rois fainéants or "dead heads" under the old grand jury men, who did very little themselves, but who sweated some poor devil at £100 a year to do their work for them. This intelligent gentleman hardly did anything but sign his name, and yet the Local Government Board ordered his salary to be increased 50 per cent, on account of the increase of his labours! He never did any duty and never wanted to do any duty. There was another bitter dispute in the case of the secretary of the Antrim County Council. He alluded to these cases to show that this was not a party question. The substance of complaint was that the Local Government Board were given this power of descretion, and that they used it in a partisan, unfair, and outrageous manner. In the Wexford case the Local Government Board did not take sufficient pains to consult the men on the spot who knew the circumstances of the case, and who had to provide the salaries, and when their views were before the Board they treated the council with impertinence and neglect. It was idle for the Chief Secretary to fall back on the letter of the law in this case. He admitted that he was unable to tell what that was; but, even supposing it was

1429
quite clear, the letter of the law was nothing as compared with the administration. Would the Chief Secretary contend that the Local Government Board could so far exercise this power of discretion, as to go about the country doubling and trebling the salaries of officials? The Local Government Board had the power and discretion to do that, and would the Chief Secretary defend such action? Before exercising their discretion in this case, the Local Government Board should have hesitated, and thought twice, and three times, rather than come into collision with popular sentiment in the country, unless they were convinced that deliberately and of set purpose the representatives of the ratepayers meant to penalise and hunt down some old officials. He was of opinion that the Irish county councils in the South as well as in the north approached this question of dealing with existing officers in an honest spirit, and with a really sincere desire to carry out the spirit of the Act. The late Chief Secretary had said that this action of the Local Government Board had been taken under provisions in the Act to which the Irish party had assented. That was absolutely untrue. The Irish Members protested against all these provisions.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): I affirm most distinctly that we were pressed by the Irish Members to give more favourable terms to these officers.
MR. DILLON: I deny that that was the attitude of the Irish party.
MR. FLYNN: And I affirm most distinctly that we proposed a dozen Amendments in the contrary direction.
MR. DILLONsaid the late Chief Secretary was wrong in attributing to the Irish party any desire to press for more favourable terms. What that party did was to appeal to the Government to extend to other officials the same treatment as was proposed to be given to the old grand jury officials. The Irish Members always protested against the giving of this extravagant
1430
power to the Local Government Board; and as far as he was concerned himself he could quote for the House an extract from the speech he delivered on the Bill, in which he warned the Government that this clause would lead to endless litigation and to something like revolt on the part of the local bodies. The Chief Secretary now challenged them as to what they would do in this case, and wanted to know would they take it to a higher court. He again warned the Government of the danger of arousing in Ireland such a combination on the part of the councils as would make the working of the machinery of this Act very difficult. The Chief Secretary argued that there should be some ruling body to decide these matters. That might be admitted, but while the Bill was passing through the House the Irish Members warned the Government that if they packed the Local Government Board in the interests of the landlord party and the old grand jurors it would be sure to provoke a collision. That was what had been done by the Government. There was no representative of the people on the Local Government Board. But the Government had brought in to assist in the working of the Act a representative of the landlord class instinct with all the bitterness of that class—a gentleman, moreover, who had denounced the Act just at the time it was being passed, and even after he had been appointed, as an Act that bad been so badly drawn that no human being could understand it. The Board would always remain incompetent in the present atmosphere of Dublin Castle. If the Government had wanted to give the Act a chance of working what they should have done would have been to say, "Here, we are going to work a great popular machinery. Let us bring in on the Board two nominative gentlemen—(the Irish Members would rather have had them elective)—not Orange landlords, but two popular gentlemen who, without salary, will act along with the Board and keep it in touch with the local bodies." If the Government had done that, none of those troubles would have arisen, because these popular gentlemen who were in touch with popular sentiment would have kept the Board straight. The condition

1431
of Ireland was peculiar, and it was perfectly clear that the Local Government Board was not responsive to popular opinion, and that the local bodies had no more influence on the Board in Dublin Castle than on the Yamen. Therefore, he maintained that in Ireland they had a totally different condition of things to deal with from what they had in England, and if the Government wanted to work the system of local government in Ireland smoothly and successfully they should bring the Local Government Board more into touch with popular sentiment. The, Local Government Board was already a Department of Dublin Castle,, and as such in the existing atmosphere of Dublin Castle, was incompetent to work the machinery of an Act of this kind. When the Government nominated Mr. Bagenal to the Local Government Board, why did not they also nominate representatives of the Nationalist sections in the country? If they had done that none of these troubles would have arisen. The Chief Secretary knew that the conditions in Ireland were peculiar. He know that the Local Government Board was not responsible to Irish public opinion, and treated with contempt the views of the Irish Nationalist Members. Therefore if the Government had wished to work this Act successfully they should have appointed to the Local Government Board some representatives of popular opinion in Ireland.
In conclusion he would refer to one other case, that of Mr. Nicholas Shee, the secretary of the county council of South Tipperary. The Chief Secretary gave this case the go-by, probably because he was ashamed of the action of the Local Government Board. What happened in this case? Mr. Shee was a Nationalist, and a most respectable farmer in the County Tipperary. He was elected secretary of the county council against the opposition of the Unionist Members. He put the affairs of the Council on a business footing, and the Local Government Board refused, against the wishes of all sections in the Council, to sanction his appointment on the ground that he was not competent. A more grotesque piece of oppression he never heard of. The Local Government Board sent down the son of Colonel
1432
Saunderson to examine Mr. Shee, the secretary to this council. They might as well send the grand-master of an Orange Lodge in Belfast to examine a Catholic priest, and see if he was qualified. This young gentleman was sent down to examine a prominent Nationalist of Tipperary, and to report upon his qualifications. The hon. Member protested against the introduction of this system of examination in Ireland, when there was no examination in England for corresponding positions. What right had the Government to put upon the councils a test which was not exacted from the old grand juries when they were administering the country? He hoped the Chief Secretary would give some explanation of this case. The treatment of Mr. Shee was grotesque and outrageous, and he was compelled to think, unless the spirit and disposition of the Local Government Board was altered, they would never have a smooth or successful working of the machinery of Local Government in Ireland.
SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I venture to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, having regard to the lateness of the hour, whether it would not be possible to find an opportunity for discussing the subject of affairs in the Far East on the third reading of the Appropriation Bill on Thursday.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): Of course it does not in any way rest with the Government to say what topics should be taken on the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill. That depends on the Members of the House of Commons, and the order in which they are called upon to take part in the debate. The hon. Gentleman has asked whether I might not ask the House to meet earlier on Thursday, so as to increase the time given for the Third Reading. I think such a course would be very unusual, if not unprecedented; but I believe it would be possible, perhaps, at the cost of some inconvenience, to try to get the House of Lords to meet on Friday morning instead of Thursday night. If that is thought desirable,

1433
and if I can make that arrangement on separating to-night, we might take the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill now, without a division. I am sure the House will recognise that I am doing my best to meet their desire for the discussion of the Appropriation Bill, and also that all that can be done has been done by the Government.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: think the suggestion that has come from the First Lord of the Treasury is a reasonable one. The debate has not been so long and exhaustive as we could have wished. Indeed, I know that a number of my hon. friends here were anxious to take part in the discussion. Still one must recognise the fact that
the debate has been a substantial and important one. But we are dissatisfied with the result of the debate so far as the answer of the Government is concerned, and therefore we will mark our dissatisfaction by taking a vote. It will really be a division on the question of Local Government in Ireland which has been raised. We can reserve until the Third Reading, on Thursday, such other topics of discussion as may remain. Under these circumstances I would suggest to my hon. friends who feel keenly on this subject that it would be right for us now to take a division.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 143; Noes, 51. (Division List No. 107.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Godson, Sir Augustus Frederi'k

Mount, William Arthur

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir AlexF.

Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

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

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Green, Walford D (Wednesbu'y

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Gretton, John

Newdigate, Francis Alexander

Arrol, Sir William

Greville, Hon. Ronald

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Asher, Alexander

Groves, James Grimble

Parkes, Ebenezer

Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Pemberton, John S. G.

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Hamilton, Rt Hn LordG. (Mid'x

Pierpoint, Robert

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Hardy, Laurence (KentAshfo'd

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Bain, Col. James Robert

Hare, Thomas Leigh

Plummer, Walter R.

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

Harris, F. Leverton (Tynemo'th

Pretyman, Ernest George

Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W (Leeds

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Banbury, Frederick George

Hayne, Rt. Hn. C. Seale-

Purvis, Robert

Bathurst, Hn. Allen Benjamin

Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.)

Rankin, Sir James

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

Henderson, Alexander

Ratcliffe, R. F.

Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

Hope, J. F- (Sheffield, Brightsi'e

Rentoul, James Alexander

Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Ridley, Mat. W. (Stalybridge

Bill, Charles

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

Bond, Edward

Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.)

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

Brassey, Albert

Keswick, William

Rutherford, John

Brigg, John

Knowles, Lees

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John

Lambert, George

Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

Bullard, Sir Harry

Lambton, Hon, Frederick Wm.

Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)

Butcher, John George

Law, Andrew Bonar

Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

Caldwell, James

Lawrence, William F.

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

Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire

Lawson, John Grant

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Spear, John Ward

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

Leveson-Gower, Fredk. N. S.

Stewart, Sir M. J. M'Taggart

Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r

Levy, Maurice

Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

Charrington Spencer

Long, Col. Charles W (Evesham)

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Cochrane, Hn. Thos. H. A. E.

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

Valentia, Viscount

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

Walker, Col. William Hall

Compton, Lord Alwyne

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

Warde, Lieut.-Col. C. E.

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Cranborne, Viscount

Macdona, John Cumming

Webb, Col. William George

Dalkeith, Earl of

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton

Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham

Majendie, James A. H.

Whiteley, H. (Ashton und Lyne

Digby, John K. D. (Wingfield

Malcolm, Ian

Willox, Sir John Archibald

Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield-

Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F

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

Douglas, Rt. Hn. A. Akers-

Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

Wilson, John (Falkirk)

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Milton, Viscount

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Fellowes, Hn. Ailwyn Edward

Milward, Colonel Victor

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

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Finlay, Sir Robt. Bannatyne

More, Robert J. (Shropshire)

Young, Commander (Berks, E.)

Fisher, William Hayes

Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

FitzGerald, Sir Rbt. Penrose-

Morrell, George Herbert

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

Morris, Hon. Martin Herny F.

Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

Fletcher, Sir Henry

Morton, E. J. C. (Devonport)

NOES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Doherty, William

Ambbrose, Robert

Jameson, Major J. Eustace

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

Burke, E. Haviland-

Joyce, Michael

O'Dowd, John

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Leamy, Edmund

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

Clancy, John Joseph

Lundon, W.

O'Malley, William.

Cogan, Denis J.

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

O'Mara, James

Condon, Thomas Joseph

M'Dermott, Patrick

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Crean, Eugene

M'Fadden, Edward

Power, Patrick Joseph

Cullman, J.

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Reddy, M.

Delady, William

Mooney, John J.

Redmond, J. E. (Waterford)

Dillon, John

Murphy, J.

Redmond, William (Clare)

Doogan, P. C.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Sullivan, Donal

Duffy, William J.

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Thompson, E. C (Monaghan, N.

Ffrench, Peter

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

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Field, William

O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.)

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Flynn, James Christopher

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

Sir Thomas Esmonde and Captain Donelan.

Gilhooly, James

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

Bill read a second time, and committed or to-morrow, at Twelve of the clock.

WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.
Lords Message [1st March] relating to the appointment of a Joint Committee on the Widows and Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors considered.
Ordered, That a Select Committee of Five Members be appointed to join with a Committee to be appointed by the Lords to consider the various Charitable Agencies now in operation, and the funds available for relieving Widows and Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors, with a view to ensuring that the funds subscribed by local and private benevolence are applied to the best advantage in supplementing a scheme of Government pensions for Widows and Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors who have lost their lives in war.
Ordered, That Two Members be added to the Select Committee.
Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.
Ordered. That Mr. Bartley, Mr. Hozier, Mr. Hayes Fisher, Mr. Kearley, and Mr. Lambert be nominated Members of the Committee.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
Ordered, That Three be the quorum.—(Sir William Walrond.)

PRESENCE OF THE SOVEREIGN IN PARLIAMENT.
Lords Message [19th March] considered: —
Ordered, That a Select Committee of Five Members be appointed to join with a Committee to be appointed by the Lords to consider the accommodation available in the House of Lords when the Sovereign is personally present in Parliament, and the advisability of substituting Westminster Hall on such an occasion for the House of Lords (King's Consent signified).
Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.
Ordered, That Mr. Akers Douglas, Sir William Hart Dyke, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Mr. Holland, and Mr. James William Lowther be Members of the said Committee.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
Ordered, That Three be the quorum.—(Sir William Walrond.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS ACCOMMODATION COMMITTEE.
The Select Committee on House of Commons Accommodation was nominated of—Sir John Aird, Mr. Akers Douglas, Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Mr. Cochrane, Mr. Jacoby, Colonel Lock-wood, Dr. MacDonnell, Mr. Malcolm, Mr. Arthur Morton, Mr. Edward Morton, Mr. Newdigate, Mr. William Redmond, Sir Barrington Simeon, Mr. Soames, and Mr. Frederick Wilson.—(Sir William Walrond.)
Adjourned at a quarter before One of the clock.