Commons Sitting of 28 July 1903

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  GREAT NORTHERN, PICCADILLY AND BROMPTON RAILWAY (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
  MR. DISRAELIasked why the preamble of the Bill had been omitted.
  MR. CALDWELL: This question is only put for purposes of annoyance, and if other hon. Members ad opted the same course it would bring
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  Private Bill Business to a deadlock. It is not my duty to explain the details of the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman opposes the Bill, it will have to be taken at an Evening Sitting, and the necessary explanation can then be got from the promoters.
  MR. DISRAELI,on a point of order, took exception to the statement that Ids object was to annoy the hon. Member. His object had been to obtain information for the House.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member ought not to impute motives, but at the same time he is quite right in saying that it is not his duty to explain the merits of or advocate Bills. It is greatly for the convenience of the House that there should be some one familiar with its practice to carry on in proper form the Private Business.
  MR. CALDWELL: The hon. Gentleman told me last night that he would block every Private Bill to-day, and I think I was justified from that statement in making the observation I did.
  Lords' Amendments agreed to.

  LONDON, TILBURY AND SOUTHEND RAILWAY BILL.
  MR. DISRAELIasked again for an explanation of certain Amendments. He declared that they were purely agents' Amendments, and the House ought to know what it was doing. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark was a mere dummy sitting there doing nothing.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. Member was not entitled to use such language. If he had any real objection the Bill could stand over. That was the understood practice and he could not expect the lion. Member for Mid Lanark to answer these Questions.
  MR. DISRAELI: Had we better not have some one there who does know about these Bills.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can object, and the Bill will be ordered; for a future day when those interested will attend.
  MR. DISRAELI: I have no wish to do that.
  Lords' Amendments agreed to.
  North Western Electricity and Power; Gas Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments.
  Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  London County Council (General Powers) Bill; Watford and Edgware Railway Bill. Lords' Amendments considered and agreed to.
  Barry Railway Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  Dewsbury, Batley, and Birstal Tramways Bill [Lords]; Manchester Southern Tramways Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  Pentillie Estate Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  Worthing Corporation Tramways Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  Bristol Corporation Bill [Lords]; West Bromwich Corporation Bill [Lords]. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Lanarkshire Tramways Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. Read a second time; to be considered to-morrow.
  Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to he upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered tomorrow.
  Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 2) Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered tomorrow.
  Salford Corporation Bill [Lords]; South Staffordshire Tramways Bill [Lord]; Hastings Harbour District Railway Bill [Lords]; Liverpool Univercity Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Kip's Patents Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill to be read the third time.
  Bangor Corporation Bill [Lords]; Shropshire and Worcestershire Electric Power Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments. Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Brighton Corporation Bill [Lords] Reported, with Amendments, from the
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  Police and Sanitary Committee. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to Bath Corporation Water Bill; East Ham Improvement Bill; Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway Bill, with Amendments.
  Amendments to Sutton Goldfield Corporation Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
  That they disagree to one of the Amendments to each of the following Bills, viz.:—Carmarthenshire Electric Power Bill [Lords]; Fife Electric Power Bill [Lords], for which disagreements they assign their reasons, and agree to the rest of the Amendments to the said Bills, without Amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to define the ranking and priority of the mortgages of the Hastings Harbour Commissioners already issued and to be issued under former Acts for the completion of the harbour works; to extend the periods limited for the purchase of lands for and for the completion of such works, and for other purposes." [Hastings Harbour Bill [Lords].
  Hastings Harbour Bill [Lords]. Read the first time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITION.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Farringdon, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SOUTH AFRICA (INDIAN COOLIES').
  Copy presented, of correspondence relating to a proposal to employ Indian coolies under indenture on railways in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  CHURCHES (CITY OF LONDON).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 23rd February; Mr. Talbot]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  PARTSHES (UNITED, DIVIDED, ETC.).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 23rd February; Mr. Talbot]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 278.]
  DEATHS FROM STARVATION OR ACCELERATED BY PRIVATION (LONDON).
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 23rd March; Mr. Talbot]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 279.]
  PARLIAMENTARY BOROUGHS, ETC. (DIAGRAMS.)
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 7th May; Mr. Kimber]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 280.]
  PROBATION OF FIRST OFFENDERS.
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 6th July; Sir Howard Vincent]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 281]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3042 to 3048 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL TAXATION (IRELAND) RETURNS.
  Copy presented, of Returns of Local Taxation in Ireland for the year 1901–2 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Woolwich Arsenal Explosion—Provision for Widows and Children of Men killed.
  DR. SHIPMAN: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury what is the nature or amount of the provision which the Government has made for the relief of the widows and children of the men who lost their lives in the recent explosion at Woolwich.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) Provision has been made on the principle of a gratuity for the child or children of any man who lost his life in the explosion, and a pension for his widow. The awards were made under a scheme accepted by the working staff at Woolwich in preference to the scale fixed by the Workmen's Compensation Act.

  Enrolment of Naval Volunteers.
  SIR THOMAS DEWAR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state what progress has been made with the enrolment of the Royal Naval Volunteers under the Naval Forces Act; and how many men have been enrolled in London.
  (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) The actual enrolment of Royal Naval Volun
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  teers under the Naval Forces Act has not yet commenced. The Admiralty Volunteer Committee, the appointment of which was announced immediately on the Naval Forces Bill becoming law on the 30th June last, is at present actively engaged in completing the necessary arrangements for the establishment of volunteerdivisionas at the principal maritime centres, and an announcement will shortly be made as to the appointment of officers to the command of two of these divisions—viz., London and the Clyde. These officers will in duo course proceed with the work of enrolment, and it is hoped that the work of recruiting and drilling will soon be taken in hand at both centres.

  Prisoners under the Vagrancy Act Sentenced to be Flogged.
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of prisoners sentenced to be flogged who were sent to the sessions to be sentenced under the Vagrancy Act during the years 1900, 1901, and 1902 respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) There were two cases in 1900, none in 1901, and one in 1902.

  Postal Facilities at Rathmullen, County Donegal.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state the number of mail services at present to Rathmullen, County Donegal, and the hours of arrival and departure of mails into and from this town, and the routes by which the mails come thereto from Londonderry; and whether he will consider the advisability of having the morning mail conveyed by steamer from Fahan instead of by car from Letterkenny, as at present.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) I will make inquiry on the subject, and send an answer to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

  Extra Remuneration of Sub-postmasters.
  MR. SCHWANN: To ask the Postmaster-General if it be intended to increase the remuneration of the sub-postmasters, owing to the extra labour and responsibility involved in the issue of the new additional postal orders.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) It is not intended to increase the remuneration of sub - postmasters for postal

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  order work; but I may state that I am considering the general question of their remuneration, with the view especially of benefiting those at the very small offices.

  German Duties on British Produce.
  COLONEL SADLER: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the recently published statistics showing that in the past decade British imports into Germany have decreased 10,400,000 marks annually, whilst the exports from Germany to Great Britain have increased by 325,500,000 marks per annum, or 50 per cent.; and, if so, whether he will renew his remonstrances against the proposed new German tariff, which increases the duties on many o the manufactured articles sent from this country to Germany.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The figures quoted appear to be taken from the Imperial German Returns, which show, not the British goods imported into Germany, but the total imports into Germany from the United Kingdom, including foreign goods re-exported and also including bullion and specie. Moreover, the decrease and in; crease quoted are not annual, as stated, but refer to a ten-year period If merchandise only be included, the same Returns show that imports of goods from the United Kingdom into Germany, increased by 9,720,000:narks in place of the decrease stated in the Question. An examination of the Trade Accounts of the United Kingdom shows that there was a very much larger increase in the exports of British produce into Germany, which was largely set off by a decline in the re-exports of foreign and colonial goods. I give the figures for Germany, Holland, and Belgium together, in view of the difficulty of identifying the trade which passes through Belgian and Dutch ports. Increase or decrease in exports from the United Kingdom to Germany, Holland, and Belgium, between 1892 and 1902, as shown in United Kingdom Accounts: British produce (increase), £6,339,000; re-exports of foreign and colonial produce (decrease), £5,639,000; net increase, £700,000 The figures in the United Kingdom and German Accounts do not agree exactly, for reasons explained in
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  my reply to the hon. Member for Merthyr on the 20th instant.† The new German tariff is being carefully watched. As the hon. and gallant Member is aware, the tariff is not at present applicable to British goods, and is subject to modification as the result of negotiations for commercial treaties before it is put into operation.

  Canadian Exports shipped through American Ports.
  MR. PARTINGTON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can give the value and quantity of Canadian foodstuffs shipped through American ports during the months of last winter in which the Canadian ports were icebound and can he also state whether these exports are allowed to pass through American territory free of duty.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative; these exports are allowed to pass through American territory free of duty under bond.

  Inadequacy of Cottage Accommodation at Erpingham, Norfolk.
  Mk. SCHWANN: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the inadequacy of the cottage accommodation and the condition of the cottages in the rural districts of Erpingham, Norfolk, necessitating recently the accommodation of one or more whole families in the Workhouse at West Beckham, because no cottage could be found for them; and whether, in view of the fact that fifteen months ago, and again three months ago, application was made by the rural district council to the County Council for powers to adopt Part III. of The housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, and such powers have not yet been granted, he will say what action the Department will now take in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Waller Long.) I am aware that the medical officer of health has referred in his annual report to t he inadequacy of the house accommodation for the working classes in this rural district. I have not received any information as to the matter referred to in the
  †See (4) Debates, cxxv., 1134.

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  last part of the Question, but I will make inquiry on the subject.

  London Education.
  DR. MACNAMARA: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education what steps it is proposed to take to meet the circumstance that whilst the term of office of the present School Board for London expires on 30th November, 1903, the London County Council will not assume jurisdiction under the London Education Bill until 1st May, 1904.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) As I said on 13th July,† in reply to a similar Question from the hon. Member for South Hackney, on the London Education Bill becoming law, Schedule II (10) of the principal Act will apply.

  Exports from India.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE: To ask the Secretary of State for India, in view of the fact that it is stated in the Board of Trade Return showing the Imports and Exports of the United Kingdom, dated 22nd June and presented recently to the House, that the imports into the United Kingdom fell from £32,234,000 in 1891 to £28,794,000 in 1902, whether the exports from India to other British possessions and to foreign countries have increased during the period; and, if so, by how much in each ease.
  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) The Indian Trade Returns give the value of the exports of Indian produce and manufacture (excluding treasure) from India to British possessions and to foreign countries in 1891–2 and 1901–2, respectively, as follows:—

  (In tens of Rupees.)

  1891–2.

  1901–2.

  Increase.

  —

  —

  —

  RX.

  RX.

  RX.

  To British possessions (excluding the United Kingdom)

  20,789,000

  26,392,000

  5,603,000

  To foreign countries

  49,315,000

  64,442,000

  15,127,000

  Improved Landing Accommodation at Kinnagoe Bay, Co. Donegal.
  MR. O'DOHERTY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of
  † See (4) Debates, cxxxv., 393.
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  Ireland whether the Congested Districts Board have as yet concluded their investigations into the necessity for the improvement of the landing accmomodation at Kinnagoe Bay, near Moville, County Donegal, and, if so, will he state with what result.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The landing place at Kinnagoe Bay has been inspected by a committee of members of the Board. Further consideration of the proposal to improve the landing accommodation there has been postponed.

  Irish Model Schools Inquiry.
  MR. DILLON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the inquiry into the model schools in Ireland, which was in progress in 1897, was completed; whether the Report and evidence have ever been presented to Parliament; and, it not, whether he can state when they will be presented.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) This question was referred to the Board of National Education, who have made a statement as follows:—A committee of the Board to inquire into the working of the model schools was appointed on the 5th January, 1897. The committee sat at various times between January and August, 1897. During that period the committee inquired into the working of the central model schools only, and made certain recommendations to the Board, which were subsequently given effect to. The investigation into the cases of the other model schools, twenty-nine in number, has not yet taken place, although some preliminary Returns have been called for. The changes in the system of national education brought about by the recommendations of the Manual and Practical Instruction Commission of 1898, involving the revision of (a) the entire school programme; (b) the methods of promotion and payment of the teachers; (c) the methods of inspection of schools and modifications in the classification, method of appointment, promotion, and remuneration of the inspectors, together with other important changes in the system, occupied so fully the time of the Board that the model school inquiry was necessarily suspended. Last year the Board directed that the inquiry should

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  be resumed. It must be observed, however, that owing to the changes in the national system above alluded to the model school question has assumed a new phase. Under the revised arrangements model school teachers come under the same conditions of the service as the teachers of ordinary national schools, and are subject to the same regulations in regard to promotion and payment. Model schools are now somewhat like ordinary national schools which are vested in the Commissioners, that is, the buildings are maintained at the cost of the State, and the teachers are paid, in the case of new appointments, according to the same scales as the teachers of ordinary national schools. Model schools really only differ from ordinary national schools vested in the Commissioners in having a staff of pupil teachers and some teachers of special subjects, and in being under the direct management of the Board instead of local management. It is impossible to say when the committee of inquiry will terminate its labours.

  Construction of Piers at Gortnasate and Falchorrib, County Donegal.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the County Council of Donegal has now given the required guarantee in connection with the piers proposed to be built at Gortnasate and Falchorrib under the Marine Works Act; and, if so, when it is intended to commence the construction of these works.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The County Council has agreed to give the required guarantee in respect to the works proposed at Gortnasate, and the Lord Lieutenant's certificate under the Act has been forwarded to the Treasury. No date can be fixed for the commencement of the works. The question of proceeding with the work proposed at Falchorrib is still under consideration.

  Military Bands at Sunday Concerts.
  MR. FREEMAN THOMAS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can reconsider his decision prohibiting the appearance of military bands at Sunday concerts where they play for profit.
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  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The Commander-in-Chief carefully considered this question before giving his decision, and I have not hitherto seen cause for re-considering the matter.

  Transvaal Diamond Ordinance.
  MR. MARKHAM: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received from Lord Milner, Sir A. Lawley, or any other Transvaal official, any despatch, report, letter, or any communication whatsoever relating to the new Diamond Ordinance.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) I refer the hon. Gentleman to my answer to the same Question on the 15th of this month.† I am still waiting for Lord Milner's Report.

  South Africa—Duty on Dynamite.
  MR. MARKHAM: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, seeing that under the Bloemfontein Customs Convention the Transvaal Government have agreed to sanction a coast duty on dynamite of £14 a ton, he will say if that Government have any power, in view of the terms of this convention, to levy Excise duty on dynamite imported to the Transvaal and manufactured by the De Beers Company in Cape Colony.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) Under Article XVII. the Transvaal has power to levy a Customs duty on dynamite manufactured in the Cape.

  Schools in Ceylon.
  MR. SCHWANN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state how many estates schools are provided in Ceylon; what was the total average attendance at the same; what amount of money was found by the Government of Ceylon towards the maintenance of the schools; and has Sir West Ridgeway yet submitted his Reports on the education of Coolie children in the island and also on leprosy in Ceylon.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) I am unable to give the information asked for in the first part of the hon.
  †See (4) Debates, cxxv., 697.

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  Member's Question, but I will ask the Governor to supply it. There has not yet been time for Sir West Ridgeway to send home the Reports referred to at the end of the Question.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    India and the Fiscal Inquiry.
    MR. MANSFIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India has the Indian Government been asked, or will it he asked, to take part in the inquiry into the fiscal policy of the country and the self-governing colonies.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Earl PERCY, Kensington, S.): The Government of India will be fully consulted on the question.

    National Debt.
    SIR EDGAR VINCENT: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state the aggregate gross capital liabilities of the State on the 31st March, 1903, and the estimated corresponding figure for the 3Ist March, 1904.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. RITCHIE, Croydon): The dead-weight debt will, it is anticipated, be reduced from £770,779,000 on 31st March last, to £760,619,000 on 31st March next. This is without reckoning anything for the first instalment of the Transvaal war contribution of £10,000,000. The liability on capital accounts for works will be increased from £27,570,000 to £35,870,000, but against these accounts there are assets held, and an automatic sinking fund is borne on the Votes which is, of course, in addition to the sinking fund, included in the annual fixed Debt Charge.

    Hansom Cabs.
    SIR CHARLES CAYZER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having regard to the accidents caused by the falling of horses in hansom cabs, he can see his way to instruct the Commissioner of Police, before granting or
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    renewing hansom cab licences, to ascertain if a handle or some other suitable fastening can be placed on each side of the hansom by which, in the event of the horse falling, the occupant can save himself from being thrown out.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS, Kent,St. Augustine's: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that experiments have from time to time been made with the view of securing the better protection of passengers in hansom cabs, and that every facility is afforded for the testing of appliances designed to provide greater safety or comfort in private carriages. He does not, however, consider it desirable to attempt to enforce, by mans of refusing licences, the adoption of any contrivance the advantage of which may, after all, be open to question.
    SIR CHARLES CAYZERinquired what steps had been taken after the e trials to prevent accidents of this character.
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: The Commissioner of Police is always anxious to consider the question, and to have experiments made, but even if he wished to carry out any one particular patent of any one firm it would just have to be made perfectly certain that it provides the safety generally desired.

    Iron and Steel Rails.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucester-shire, Forest of Dean): On behalf of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the average tonnage rate per mile charged for the carriage of manufactured iron on British railways, and the average charge as mining rents, wayleaves, and royalties on the materials used in the manufacture of a ton of steel rails in Great Britain.
    THE PRESIDENT of THE BOARD or TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative. Some information with regard to the matters referred to in the last, part of the Question

    541
    is contained in the Report of the Royal Commission on Mining Royalties issued in 1893 (Final Report, paragraphs 42–50).
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: On behalf of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state the average tonnage rat per mile charged for the conveyance of manufactured iron on German and Belgian railways, and the average charge as mining rents, wayleaves, and royalties on the materials used in manufacturing a ton of steel rails in those countries.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord CLAN-BORNE, Rochester): No, Sir; But the hon. Member will find general information on the subject of railway rates in "Commercial No. 2 (1898)"; No. 574 Miscellaneous Series of Diplomatic and Consular Reports; and in the Reports of the Royal Commission on Mining Royalties

    Shipping Statistics.
    MR. MANSFIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade will he state what was the total tonnage of British vessels trading with foreign countries for the years 1840,1850,1870, 1880,and 1900; also the same particulars as to the trading vessels of France, Germany, and the United States of America.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The information, so far as available, is contained in the annual Return of the Progress of Merchant Shipping (PP. 329 of 1902), in the Tables of pp. 7, 21, 24 and 28.

    Nonconformist Teachers in Church Schools.
    SIR JOSEPH LEESE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether, having regard to frequent statements made by the First Lord of the Treasury in debate during the passing of the Education Bill, 1902, that the Bill would open up appointments in denominational schools hitherto closed to young Non-conformists, his attention has been called to the recent case of the refusal by the managers of the Christ Church School in Accrington to appoint Isabella Croft
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    to the position of pupil teacher because she was a Unitarian; and whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY To THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON, Oxford University): The Board have no official information on the subject; but I am informed by the correspondent of the school that it was unanimously decided at a meeting of tire managers, at which one of the local authority managers was present, that the candidate in question was not under the circumstances the roost suitable person for the vacant pupil teacher-ship. The candidate herself fully agreed with this decision. There is no reason to suppose that there is any dearth of openings or opportunities in Accrington for Nonconformists desiring to become pupil teachers as there are six Nonconformist schools in the town. I understand also that there are at present five Nonconformists on the teaching staff of the three Church schools in this particular parish.

    Educational Equipment of the Voluntary Schools.
    MR. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether copies of the book of Common Prayer are educational equipments that may be requisitioned by voluntary schools from the local education authority.
    SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The circumstances and conditions under which this question might arise are so various that it is impossible to give any general answer, and it is especially undesirable that I should attempt to do so inasmuch as the matter is one on which an appeal might he to the Board of Education.

    Irish Motor-Car Races—Telegraphists' Duties.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: On behalf of the lion. Member for the College Green Division of Dublin, I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, is he aware that telegraphists who were engaged at the Grand Stand, Bally shannon Cross Roads, in connection with the motor race on the 2nd inst.,

    543
    having performed a full day's duty at the head office, Dublin, on the 1st inst., which in some cases terminated after 8 p.m., were called upon to leave headquarters for the Grand Stand at 2.30 a.m. on 92nd inst., and did not return to headquarters until 5.30 a.m. on 3rd inst., thus performing twenty-seven consecutive hours duty; that no arrangements were made to enable them to obtain rest or refreshment during that time; and, if so, will he take steps to prevent the recurrence of similar circumstances.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. ELLIOT, Durham): The Postmaster-General has asked me to read his answer. The hon. Member has been misinformed as to the facts. The telegraphists sent to Ballyshannon on the 2nd performed their day's duty at Dublin on theist in the ordinary course, but only one of them was working after 8 p.m. and his duty terminated at 8.10. He willingly accepted the engagement for Ballysannon. The staff had intervals for refreshment between 6 and 7 a.m., between 12 noon and 1 p.m., and a short interval before 6 p.m., and in addition occasional reliefs for refreshment and short periods of rest were arranged for throughout the day. After 10 p.m., when the bulk of the work was done, there was no difficulty in regard to rest and refreshment.

    Postal Service at Portarlington.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that Miss Blanc, late assistant at Portarlington, gave twenty-eight and-a-half years service, that her remuneration was paid out of moneys voted by Parliament, and that no censure was passed upon the manner in which she discharged her duties, he will reconsider her case with a view of recommending her claims for a compassionate gratuity to the favourable consideration of the Treasury.
    MR. ELLIOT (for Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN): My right hon. friend has already explained in reply to previous Questions † that the capacity in which Miss Blanc was employed did not entitle
    †See (4) Debate, cxxv., 1157 and 581.
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    her to any award from public funds, and he was therefore unable to make any recommendation on the subject.
    MR. DELANY: I shall bring this matter up on the Motion of Adjournment.

    Killoughy Dispensary Medical Officer.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed at a special meeting of the Irish Medical Association, held at Tullamore on the 8th instant, protesting against the action of Dr. M'Carthy in accepting the position of medical officer of the Killoughy Dispensary District, King's County, in defiance of the expressed and conveyed opinion of the members of the Irish Medical Association, and requesting him to reconsider his position; and whether, seeing that in consequence of this resolution Dr. M'Carthy has tendered his resignation, although his appointment had been sanctioned by the Local Government Board, he will state what steps he proposes taking in the matter.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover): The resolution has been received. The Local Government Board has suggested to the guardians the propriety of calling upon Dr. M'Carthy to take up at once his duties as medical officer. In the event of his failing to do so the Board will hold a sworn inquiry into the circumstances of the case.

    Poor Law Relief in Ireland.
    MR. O'SHEE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant the Return as to persons in receipt of indoor and outdoor relief in Ireland standing on this day's Paper.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The annual reports of the Local Government Board contain a number of statistical tables on this subject. The preparation of the special Return indicated by the hon. Member would entail an immense amount of labour on the part of local authorities, which I hesitate to impose—the more particularly at the present moment, when the Poor Law Commission propose to compile further statistics in the matter.

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    The following is the return referred to—
    Poor Law (Indoor and Outdoor Relief) (Ireland). Return in respect of the persons in receipt of Indoor and Outdoor Relief in Ireland respectively on the 1st day of January, 1903, and at any time during the twelve months ended on the 31st day of March, 1903 (in the same form as Parliamentary Paper, No. 965, for England and Wales, of session 1892).

    Irish Department of Agriculture —Clerks' Salaries.
    MR. O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that the Department of Agriculture have on their staff a number of clerks with a service of eight years and upwards whose salaries fall short of £100 per year, and whose present rate of yearly increment does not amount to an increase of one shilling per week; and whether, in view of the fact that persons of less experience have since the establishment of the Department been employed at higher salaries to do similar work, he will take steps to have the claims of the clerks in question suitably recognised.
    MR. WYNDHAM: I refer the hon. Member to my replies to the similar Questions put to me by the hon. and learned Member for North Lout h on the 28th May, 17th June and 7th July.† The Questions asked a number of particulars about two clerks who have been appointed at higher salaries than three existing clerks, to which the three existing clerks object; the answers were to shew (1) that the existing clerks have been well treated in being made permanent with increase of pay instead of temporary; (2) that the new clerks are persons of experience.

    Irish Labourers' Grievances.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state what form the inquiry will take during the autumn into the claims of
    †See (4) Debates, cxxiii., 110 and 1162; cxxiv., 1524.
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    the Irish wage-earning labour population to obtain access to the land and into the Amendments which are necessary to the Labourers (Ireland) Acts; how does he propose to gather evidence as to the requirements of the different provinces; and will he consider the desirability of recommending the appointment of a Viceregal Commission which would go thoroughly into the whole subject.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Local Government Board is already in possession of much information, statistical and otherwise, appertaining to the working of the Labourers Acts. It proposes to supplement this information by special reports from its inspectors throughout the country. I shall direct investigation by any other Departments in a position to contribute pertinent information. No advantage would he gained by the appointment of a Viceregal Commission.

    Royal Irish Constabulary and Masonic Meetings.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether members of the Royal Irish Constabulary are allowed to attend Freemason meetings; if so, by whom is permission granted; is the day of absence at such meetings counted in their annual leave; and does the fact of being a Freemason secure any special privileges in the police force.
    MR. WYNDHAM: Members of the Royal Irish Constabulary are allowed to attend Masonic meetings, provided their absence does not interfere with the performance of their public duties. Leave is not specially asked or granted for such purposes. Every application for leave is made on a prescribed form and is recorded against the applicant. The reply to the concluding inquiry is in the negative.

    Irish Land Bill Administration.
    MR. O'SHEE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is intended that the Estates Commissioners, in carrying out Clause 92 of the Land Bill, shall have the assistance of one of the inspectors of the Local Government Board who have been engaged at local

    547
    inquiries under the Labourers' Acts; and, if so, whether he will try to secure some one in more sympathy with the claims of the labourers than many of the Local Government Board inspectors have shown themselves.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The provisions of Section 92 do not call for any alteration in the functions of the Local Government Board. The Board will still have to inquire into the merits of the schemes recommended by sanitary authorities in pursuance of Section 94 (2). The Boards inspectors have satisfactorily discharged their duties under the Labourers' Acts and no change is necessitated by the provisions of the Bill in the existing practice of the Hoard.

    Listowel and Ballybunion Railway.
    MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that the Listowel and Bally bunion Railway Company is at present under the Vice Chancellor's Court, he will say what is the amount of the debt and who are the mortgagees and solicitors having control over the management; to whom can any servant of the company appeal in case there is a grievance; and to whom should the public appeal where it is necessary to call attention to the management or where it is necessary to appeal for through or exceptional rates affecting the district through which the line runs.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The affairs of this company being before the Vice-Chancellor in his judicial capacity, he declines to give ally information in respect to it. With reference to the concluding inquiry I presume that any specific complaint by persons aggrieved may be addressed to the Department of Agriculture.

    Lough Erne Drainage Charges.
    MR. EDWARD MITCHELL:: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what will he the position, under the Land Bill, of landlords now paying drainage charge on their property in connection with Lough Erne drainage; and if he will see that such in
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    no way hinders the prospect of landlords selling and tenants buying where such charge is at present levied.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The capital charge will be redeemed in like manner as a superior interest, and the charge for maintenance will remain outstanding and be apportioned amongst the holdings of the purchasers. There is nothing in this to prevent landlords from selling, or tenants from buying holdings liable to the charge.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some eases this charge equals three-fourths of the rent.
    [No answer was returned.]

    Limerick County Council Rate.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a resolution passed by the Rathkeale District Council, with a view to having credited to the ratepayers of the parish of Dunmoylan in a future rate to be made by the Limerick County Council the amount of £38 odd, amount of rate of 3¾d. in the £ for a malicious injury case, in which a decree was obtained against ratepayers of Dunmoylan, it having been inserted by mistake in decree for the parish of Kilmoylan; and, if so, whether he will give directions to the Limerick County Council to credit the ratepayers of the parish of Dunmoylan with the sum in the future rate, seeing that it was levied off them owing to a clerical error.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The facts are correctly stated. The matter is not one, however, in which the Government, by administrative action, can remedy the mistake that has been made.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked how the ratepayers were to get back the money they had paid under protest, and on the distinct understanding that in a future levy they were to he credited with the overcharge.
    MR. WYNDHAMsaid he had given the best advice he could.

    Arklow Labourer's Cottage.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the 3rd of June, 1902, after a sworn inquiry had been held at Rathdrum Union, a Provisional Order was issued by the Irish Local Government Board requiring the Rev. Mr. Hallowes, of Arklow, to build and complete a labourer's cottage within twelve months; and, if so, in view of the fact that the Order has not been complied with, will he say what action the Local Government Board propose to take in the matter.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Rev. Mr. Hallowes undertook to erect a cottage at his own expense on the site proposed to be taken by the District Council. The provisional Order, which became absolute on the 19th August, 1902, authorised the Council to take the plot compulsorily and to erect a cottage on it if, within twelve months from that date, the owner fuiled to give effect to his undertaking. The period of twelve months will expire on the 19th promixo, when it will be open to the District Council to exercise the powers conferred upon it by the Provisional Order, should the owner have failed to fulfil his undertaking.

    Naas Labourers' Cottage Scheme.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can explain the cause of the delay on the part of the Local Government Board in holding a local inquiry into the improvement scheme under the Labourers' Acts passed by the Naas (No. 2) Rural District Council on the 3rd of January last, the petition for the inquiry having been signed on the 2nd of May.
    MR. WYNDHAM: The Local Government Board have not received the scheme referred to, nor any documents connected with it. Consequently they are not in a position to hold an inquiry. The Board will communicate with the District Council on the subject.

    Irish Gold Ornaments Cost of Legal Proceedings.
    MR. WHITLEY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury
    550
    if he can state the total cost of the proceedings relating to the ownership of the Irish gold ornaments; how much of the cost consists of fees to the Law Officers of the Crown; what is the estimated value of the ornaments; and will the Treasury have to pay the costs of both appellants and respondents in the action.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): The total cost of the proceedings was £3,114 0s. 2d. The fees of the law officers were £595 5s. The amount paid by the British Museum for the ornaments was £600. The Treasury paid the taxed costs of the British Museum, the defendants in the action, amounting to £1,486 12s. 2d.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask whether this great expenditure would not have been avoided if my advice had been accepted?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not remember to which of his pieces of valuable advice the hon. Member alludes.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: It was a Bill which I introduced.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not call that advice.

    Cost of the Fiscal Inquiry.
    MR. MANSFIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury does the inquiry into the fiscal policy of this country involve the Departments concerned in any additional expense; and. if so, when will the House have an opportunity of discussing the administration of those Departments in relation to the inquiry.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I apprehend there will be no occasion for a supplementary Estimate.
    MR. MANSFIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury will he state which of the Government Departments are directly concerned in the inquiry into the fiscal policy of this country; and will he also say to which Departments information may be sent, and

    551
    from which Department information can now he given as to the particulars which the Government are anxious to secure evidence upon.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As I have already mentioned, in answer, I think, to the hon. Member for the Ruslichfle Division, † the Departments concerned are the Board of Trade and the Customs and Inland Revenue. Correspondence on this as on any other subject should, I think, be addressed to the Parliamentary heads of the Departments. As to the third part of the Question, I have nothing to add to previous statements I have made.

    Colonial Contributions to Army Expenditure.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if any increase will be proposed in the contribution to Army charges of the Straits, Ceylon, and other colonies towards the increased cost of the pay of the British Army, in respect of which £786,000 per annum is to be charged upon the revenues of India.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, and Mauritius now pay certain percentages of their revenues towards the cost of the garrisons of those colonies. Those percentages were fixed by agreement, with the concurrence of the Treasury and the War Office, but they are independent of any increase that may be made in the cost of the garrisons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. BRYCEasked as to the business to be taken on Friday.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I propose to put down first the Committee stage of the Naval Works Bill, secondly, the Employment of Children Bill, and, thirdly, the Committee stage of the South African Loan Bill The Motor-Car Bill and the Patriotic Fund Bill will be put down next in order.
†See (4) Debates, cxxv., 415.

SHEEP SCAB BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Trade, &c.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 282.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed [No. 282.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 298.]

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Arthur Henderson, esquire, for the County of Durham (Barnard Castle Division).

HOUSE OF COMMONS (VENTILATION).
Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 283.]

NEW BILL.
  WILD BIRDS' PROTECTION ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Wild Birds' Protection Acts," presented by Mr. Sydney Buxton; supported by Sir John Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Robert Reid, Colonel Lockwood, and Sir Edward Grey; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 299.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (GOVERN-MENT BUSINESS).
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): I now rise to move, "That, for the remainder of the session, Government business be not interrupted, except at half-past seven of the clock at an afternoon sitting, under the provisions of any Standing Order regulating the sittings of the House, and may be entered upon at any hour though opposed, and that at the conclusion of Government business each day Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put." This Motion, which is usual towards the end of the session, has been deterred this year, I think, rather later than has been customary within my Parliamentary recollection.

  553
  It is not a very pleasant thing to suspend the Twelve o'clock Rule, and the House always does it with reluctance. But I may remind hon. Members that, in the first place, it is the happy presage of the end of the session, and, in the second place, that I do not think there has been a year in which the rule has been less interfered with For the first time we have worked through a complete session under the new rules, and I think it will be admitted, whatever other ' results may have ensued, that in the first place it has enabled private Members to know precisely when their own Motions would come on, and in the second place it has enabled us to get through the business with which we have had to deal with fewer exceptional Motions of this nature than has ever been known before. I am not aware that up to the present I have had to stand at this table and ask the House to pass any Motion except the Motion for the holidays. This is the first exception to the rule, and it is a necessary and inevitable exception, as everybody will be prepared to admit. I do not think the amount of business I shall ask the House to get through before rising for the holidays is at all beyond what we should be able to do without any undue effort, and it certainly does not equal the calls that have been made upon it, and made successfully, in previous years. The Bills which we must pass before we separate naturally fall into two classes and under two heads or divisions—the class of administrative Bills, and the class of Bills involving policy. And the division is not always perfectly clear cut, because there are some measures which naturally he on the border land. Still, I think it will be generally convenient if this afternoon I adopt this division.
  Now as to the Bills involving policy. The main Bill, the largest and most controversial Bill with which we have got to deal is, of course, the Sugar Convention Bill. I have no reason to believe that that will take any very great amount of Parliamentary time. And I do not think it ought to, partly because it is a Bill merely to carry out treaty obligations, and also because it is a Bill the principle of which the House has already affirmed, and because, too, it is the principle rather than
  554
  the details which excites the criticism of those who are opposed to the policy. Therefore it is on the Second Reading rather than on the Committee stage of the Bill that the House will desire to have a full and extended debate. The next Bill is that dealing with the employment of children. That is in no sense a Party measure. It is not a measure which has excited any opposition on either side of the House, and there is only a small portion of it that remains to be dealt with. It will not, therefore, throw any burden on our Parliamentary time. The same may be said of the South African Loan Bill, the principle of which was discussed yesterday. It was passed without a division, and I do not imagine that on the later stages of the Bill any questions of a controversial character are likely to arise. The Port of London Bill also deals with policy. I was urged earlier in the session by a right hon. Gentleman sitting on the bench opposite to do all I could to facilitate and secure the passage of that measure, and I have every reason to hope it will pass into law. I believe that a great many, if not all, of the interests that were at one time opposed to one or other aspect of the measure have been conciliated by the changes introduced into it, and I cannot believe it will lead to any very lengthened debate. Perhaps I ought to class as a Bill involving policy, though it is small and quite uncontroversial, the Railways (Electrical Power) Bill. I believe that is practically an agreed Bill, and I only mention it in order that my statement may be as far as possible complete.
  Next I come to the administrative measures. The House will recognise that the Naval Works Bill and the Military Works Bill are measures which we must obtain. There is a Bill transferring to the Board of Agriculture the duties connected with fisheries, now carried out by the Board of Trade, which was initiated by the late Mr. Han bury and my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade. I believe it meets with general acceptance, and if that is so I imagine it will pass without any great expenditure of public time. The Irish Development Grant Bill must also pass. It is a consequential measure closely related to the

  555
  great Bill, soon to become an Act, for facilitating land purchase in Ireland. The greater Act cannot work satisfactorily unless we pas this supplementary measure. There are two small Ecclesiastical Bills, which raise no question of policy or of theology—the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Bill and the Bishoprics of Southwark and Birmingham Bill [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh"] They are purely administrative in character.
  MR. WHITLEY: Not the second one.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will not argue the question now, but it seems to me that if hon. Gentlemen will look at the contents of the Bills they will see that my description of them is right. We must also pass other administrative Bills dealing with the building of public offices. One of them is to enable the great public offices now in course of construction to be continued. The other is to carry out the work necessitated by the passage of the Patent Law Amendment Act last year. Further accommodation is required in connection with the Patent Office. I ought, perhaps, to say that this Bill will have to be referred to a hybrid Committee, inasmuch as it is in the nature of a Private Bill although it is brought in by the Government. There is an unopposed Poor Law (Dissolution of School Districts and Adjustments) Bill, which I think will pass by universal agreement, and there are three measures incident to the end of the session—the Public Works Loan Bill, the Isle of Man Customs Bill, and the Expiring Laws Bill, which I suppose may also pass with universal consent..That concludes the list of measures which must be passed, and though the number sounds considerable the actual time they need take is very inconsiderable. I pass now to the second class of Bills, which I have great hopes the House will pass, but which I recognise cannot be passed if they are to raise any prolonged or continuous discussion. I do not pretend that they are unopposed, but there is a very large measure of agreement about them on both sides of the House, and they ought to pass in the public interest. The first is the Prevention of Corruption Bill;
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  there are quarters from which that Bill has received a considerable amount of criticism, and if that criticism is persisted in I suppose it will be difficult to pass it into law. But there is a great demand for it on the part of the mercantile community, and I should be sorry if it were lost through want of time. Nearly the same expressions may be used with regard to the Adulterated Butter Bill, which excites great interest in the agricultural community. It had at one time a large number of rather formidable opponents, but it has been subjected to a long and searching examination in Grand Committee; I believe the opposing interests have been greatly modified, and that there is a not inconsiderable chance of its meeting with general acceptance from Gentlemen in all quarters of the House. A less important agricultural Bill, rejoicing in the euphonious name of the Sheep Scab Bill, is a small Bill, and, I hope, non-contentious.
  SIR CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I hope non-contagious, too.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot imagine the subject giving rise to much Parliamentary eloquence, and I hope the Bib will be added to the St tutebook. There is a Bill introduced by the President of the Local Government Board, in obedience to an appeal made to on the King's Speech, for dealing with certain aspects of the great problem of the housing of the working classes, which I do not think raises any seriously contentious matter. If my right hon. friend is able to convince hon. Members interested in it that it is of the uncontroversial kind which he believes it to be, it might usefully be passed in the course of the present session. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, on one of the earlier stages of the Finance Bill, promised that in the interests of the farmer he would bring in a Bill to abolish the duty on raw molasses, which but for the duty would be used by farmers as a most effective feeding stuff, as it is used in every other country. I think it is really freeing the raw materials of manufacture from taxation, and I hope the House will allow the Bill to pass. I ought to

  557
  say that the Bill contains a good many other provisions [Mr. GIBSSON BOWLES Hear, hear]; but they are all, I believe, of an uncontroversial character. There is a Bill for legalising certain marriages which have been irregularly performed, which involves no question of general policy whatever, but which would remove a great and pressing hardship from a large number of families in whose interest, I think, the House should pass the Bill. There is a Bill fur remodelling the Patriotic Fund, which I hope will prove of an uncontroversial character. I have had, earlier in ale year, many communications from Gentlemen on both sides of the House on the subject of carrying out the wishes often expressed by the House in regard to that fund. The Bill is one in Which the hon. Member for Devonport has taken great interest, and it may be expected to pass. The Congested Districts (Scotland) Bill is greatly desired by Members representing parts of Scotland in which congestion prevails, and I hope that it will not be opposed, although I understand some opposition is at present threatened. There remains in this class the Motor-car Bill, which we may expect from the House of Lords, where it has been subjected to considerable discussion, very shortly. Undoubtedly that Bill deals with a subject which has raised a great deal of feeling, amounting almost to passion, on both sides, and a Bill of that kind cannot pass unless those deeply interested in the subject will consent to restrain the perfectly legitimate exercise of their debating powers in defence of their own particular views. I quite agree that it is a Bill which would naturally excite a considerable amount of debate; but I fear that if the time for that debate is given to it, it would either prevent other measures, which must be passed, becoming law, or it would unduly pro-long tire length of the session. I would appeal, very respectfully, to those interested in this subject, whatever their views may be, to remember that by universal consent the present state of the law is eminently unsatisfactory, alike to those who do not use and to those who do use motor-cars. I should regret it if the subject, which though in one sense no doubt is of secondary im-
  558
  portance yet raises important questions, should remain unsolved and undealt with until the House re-assembles, and, therefore, I make this appeal to the House. I feel that if the appeal is not listened to sympathetically there is no chance whatever of the Bill passing into law. There is in the House of Lords a Light Railway Bill, of a purely uncontroversial character, which it would be extremely desiral do to pass, but which cannot be passed if it is opposed. There is also a Bill which the Lord Chancellor proposes to introduce in the House of Lords, dealing with a difficulty which a recent decision of the Court of Appeal has made in connection with crossed cheques. The Bill only affects bankers, but I am told it is very desirable in their interest that the law should he made what it has always been supposed to he. Though I should never think of pressing that Bill, if it is received as an agreed measure I should not feel precluded from proceeding with it. That completes the list of Government Bills, which we either must pass or hope to pass. We do not expect to pass the Police (Superannuation) Bill, nor the Marine Insurance Bill, much as that is desired ill very influential quarters. Neither do we expect to pass the London School Board (Hilldrop Site) Bill, the Electric Light (London) Bill, the Statute Law Revision (Scotland) Bill, the Bankers (Ireland) Act Repeal Bill nor the Justices of the Peace Bill. As to private Bills, at this period of the session, only whet a Bill is practically agreed is it possible to put it under the œgis of the Government. There are two such Bills, in which the Scottish Office has been peculiarly interested, the Burgh Police (Scotland) Bill, and the County Council (Scotland) Bill, both of them lengthy measures which absolutely cannot pass except by agreement. I believe they are desired by Scottish Members on both sides, and if that desire carries with it the necessary silence these Bills might also be passed. I do not absolutely exclude the possibility of starring other private Bills if I am convinced of their uncontroversial character, but those are the only two at present, I believe, that come under that description. I forgot to mention that in the first class of Bills there were three uncontroversial measures. The first is the Naval Works (Portsmouth Barracks Site) Bill.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That is ecclesiastical.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is only ecclesiastical in the sense that a church is to be sold. The other is a Bill to set free certain funds which already are awaiting investment provided from the sale of land at Battersea Park. The third is the Borough Funds Bill, already agreed to by the House of Lords with one Amendment. I have now completed my task, and I believe on examination it will be found that the programme is in no sense too heavy or considerable for the time that now remains at our disposal. I hope the House will be able to get through it without trenching upon its legitimate holidays, and without deferring the time when we usually separate. I beg to move.
  Motion made, and question proposed, "That, for the remainder of the session, Government Business be not interrupted, except at half-past Seven of the clock at an Afternoon Sitting, under the provisions of any Standing Order regulating the Sittings of the House, and may be entered upon at any hour, though opposed, and that at the conclusion of Government Business each day Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put." —(Hr. A. J. Balfour.)
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman seems to have made the sort of statement that would have been made by Mark Tapley if he had attained to the position of being Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman has named some thirty-five Bills, and the number which he has condemned to death is very few indeed. There are twenty Bills which the right hon. Gentleman says must be passed, and a great many others that will be passed if the House is kind towards them. The right hon. Gentleman has shown himself altogether too hopeful. He has named a number of measures which will un-doubtedly occupy a great deal of time. Fully recognising, as I do, the necessity of dealing with the question of motorcars, I do not think we can anticipate that in any case a Bill for that purpose can go through the House without a
  560
  considerable expenditure of time. Then there is the Port of London Bill, which will require also a good deal of time. Moreover the right hon. Gentleman has not referred to the further stages of the Irish Land Bill, when it comes from the House of Lords, the Scotch Licensing Bill, and the London Education Bill, which may be amended in another place. The right hon. gentleman has taken credit for the position in which he finds himself, and especially for having avoided more than usual the suspension of the Twelve o'clock Rule, and he claimed credit for the action of the new rules. But these new rules are still left in a truncated and indeterminate form, and I would like to know for how many sessions they are to remain dangling on the Notice Paper, relics of a past controversy—chronic, but still existing. Then there is the Morgan combination and the Cunard subsidy, for which time was promised; and there are also the Indian Budget and the statement the right hon. Gentleman promised to make on the subject of legislation for the purpose of compensating publicans. If there is to be a statement there must be a peg on which to hang it.
  ME. A. J. BALFOUR: I said I would be glad to answer a Question on the subject before the end of the session.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That eases my anticipation so far as that goes; but some indignant partisan may proceed to move the adjournment for the purpose of discussing the right hon. Gentleman's answer. In my opinion, the right hon. Gentleman's programme of Bills is altogether out of the question. It is also suggested to me that Questions may be asked of the right hon. Gentleman on the subject of the fiscal policy. The prospect, therefore, is not so rosy as it has been presented by the right hon. Gentleman. We have not been told when the House is likely to rise. There are certain days of Supply still before the right hon. Gentleman, and he has also the Appropriation Bill to provide for, and all the measures which he says must pass, as well as the measures he says he hopes to pass. I do not think that this is a serious massacre. I think the right hon. Gentleman will

  561
  have to harden his heart and abandon a great many more measures before the real business of the House for the rest of the session can be said to have been settled. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has much to complain of in the attitude and conduct of the House this session. There has been no waste of time, and no undue prolongation of debate, or any of the other evils of which a Leader of the House often complains. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman ought not to attempt to crowd into the last fortnight of the session such a great catalogue of measures as he has indicated.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he did not intend to make any appeal to his right hon. friend, but he wished to make one or two representations in regard to portions of his statement. His right hon. friend informed the House that the very serious matter of the Licensing Bill, introduced by his hon. friend, would be the subject of a statement by itself. His right hon. friend had not, however, told the House whether he would give any facilities for that Bill. He must be well aware that it excited very great interest; and although it was the fashion nowadays to relegate everything to an inquiry, he thought this was a matter which demanded consideration. With regard to the Sugar Bill, his right hon. friend claimed for it special indulgence, because he said that the principle was affirmed by a Resolution previously passed; but he would remind his right hon. friend that the Resolution was affirmed by the House on a false translation of the Convention. The falsity of the translation was subsequently admitted, and a new copy was circulated which t he House had not seen when it agreed to the Resolution. Moreover the short and altogether inadequate debate on that false translation was made shorter by the Closure. With regard to the Irish Development Grant Bill, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that it would pass as a matter of course. He could assure his right hon. friend that the Bill raised such a serious constitutional principle, and there were such serious constitutional objections to it, that he might anticipate
  562
  considerable discussion upon it. With regard to the Revenue Bill to be introduced, so far as he could see there was not anything objectionable in it; but it was all matter which ought to have been introduced in the Finance Bill. The alterations, proper as they night be, should not be introduced in a separate Bill, but in the Finance Bill, in accordance with precedent. With regard to the Motor-Car Bill, he would say that if the law were unsatisfactory, the conduct of a great many motorists was also extremely unsatisfactory. There again the limits of speed, or whether they should he any limit, would take a considerable time to discuss. The right hon. Gentleman opposite mentioned the Morgan Agreement; but there was a much more important agreement than that, and that was the Cunard Agreement, which involved something like £5,500,000 sterling. They had had promise after promise that that matter would be discussed before it was finally carried into effect. The right hon. Gentleman had the optimism to claim credit for his new rules on the ground that private Members now knew when their Motions would come on. Alas! they did. Before Easter the coat of the private Member was removed; after Easter his waistcoat was taken away; and after Whitsun the rest of his garments were removed Private Members knew that their Motions never came on; and they had no such sense of consolation as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to suppose. It appeared to him that on this occasion the right hon. Gentleman had far less justification for taking the whole of the time of the House and suspending the Twelve o'clock Rule than any Minister ever had in any previous session. The right hon. Gentleman had taken all the time of the House to the exclusion of the one particular subject the House desired to discuss. The Prime Minister now at the end of the session came down with a list of thirty-eight or thirty-nine Bills which he expected the House to pass, and left the House, apparently to his own satisfaction in the humiliating position of being the only place on God's earth where the subject uppermost in all men's minds could not and would not be discussed. He would rather find time for discussion on that matter than the Sheep Scab Bill, the Congested Districts (Scotland) Bill,

  563
  and some others. The House had lost much interest for people outside, and some of it, he thought, for the right hon. Gentleman himself, for he did not attend it so often as they should desire to see him. [MINISTERIAL criesof "Oh"] Those hon. Members who murmured could not themselves have been often there. He hoped this would be remedied, and that if these thirty-eight or thirty-nine Bills were to be passed they would be assisted in their debate by the right hon. Gentleman himself. The right hon. Gentleman, he supposed, must have the time he asked for, as this was usual at that period of the session, and he would not therefore vote against the proposal.
  Sin F. DIXON-HARTLANDsaid he had no doubt that the Prime Minister would remember that the Port of London Bill was put down to pass its Second Reading on the understanding that time would be given for its being thoroughly threshed out in Committee. What had taken place? There was a feeling of very great indignation that the Bill had been rushed through in Committee, that witnesses who had tendered themselves for examination had neither been called nor heard, and that the matter had not been properly discussed. The City of London, the Thames Conservancy, the shippers, the wharfingers, the water-men, the dockers, and all those who had Interests in the Bill were indignant at the way in which it had been treated, and appealed that it should be deferred till next session, when it could be properly discussed. There was no doubt it was a Bill of the very greatest importance to the City of London, and it was a Bill upon which the whole future of the Port of London depended; and if, by any error made now, the Port was made a dear port, a great deal of the wealth of this City would disappear. It was not a Bill that should be forced through after a few hours discussion. The feeling was most strong that this Bill, which was a most necessary one, did not meet the views of any of the parties concerned, and therefore he hoped time would be given for its discussion next session.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEexpressing general concurrence in the strictures of the hon. Member for King's Lynn, expressed surprise that they were not to be followed
  564
  up by his vote against the Motion. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the list of measures put down as being necessary, and which must pass, included a large number of Bills not usually included at this period of the session, and included a far greater number of Bills than was ever submitted at this time of the year. He agreed also with his hon friend, and a large section of the House would also agree, that the House ought hardly to be called upon to give facilities for the passing of such a long list of measures, looking at the way in which the Government were bulking discussion on the fiscal issue, an issue on which the Government themselves had asked the judgment of the House and for which they had refused to give facilities. The Prime Minister had no even told them when the House would rise, if the facilities he asked were given, as was usual when such Motions were made.
  Mr. A. J. BALFOURdenied that any Prime Minister had ever done that.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEthought it would be found that it had not only been done always, but that it had often been done twice in the session; but certainly on this Motion it had always been the practice for the Leader of the House to make a statement of when he would be able to wind up the business of the House. The nature of the legislation the House would be asked to pass during the remainder of the session was also deserving of stricture. Some of them were the less inclined to grant facilities because they felt a good deal of bitterness about recent legislation which had proceeded on reactionary lines. Three highly controversial measures for which the whole time of the House ought not to be asked were two Bishopric Bills and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Bill.
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I only mentioned two of them.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid then they now understood that one of the Bishopric Bills was to be dropped. Then it was proposed to go forward with a Bill dealing with the great question of housing, and putting off those who desired that this

  565
  question might be disposed of by doing some things which were desirable to be done, but also, as everyone knew perfectly well, putting off a larger solution for over three or four years.
  MR. CHARLES MCARTHURmade an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to give facilities for the passing of the Marine Insurance Bill, a non-contentious measure to simplify am I codify the law of marine insurance. It had been before Parliament now for nine years, and had secured the approval of every Committee it had been sent before. The whole shipping and mercantile community desired this Bill, and he hoped the right hen. Gentleman would give such facilities, as would ensure its passing in to law this session. Why was it not to be passed into law? The measure had unfortunately found an opponent in the hon. Member for Mid Lanark, who had put down a number of Amendments which under ordinary circumstances might he taken as intended to wreck the Bill. The hon. Member, however, said that he desired to he satisfied that the Bill, if passed, would work. If that were so, why not send the Bill to the Grand Committee on Trade, where it could be examined, and every opportunity afforded for the consideration of Amendments? It was not right that a Bill of this kind, desired by the whole commercial community, and approved of by the highest law officers in the country, should he prevented from passing by the opposition of one Member. He hoped the Government would reconsider this matter, and if possible transfer the Bill from the list in which it had been placed to a position in which it would have some chance of passing into law.
  Mr. CALDWELLsaid the Bill to which the hon. Member referred was a codification of the Marine Insurance law, which for 800 years had been common law, based on principles which had given universal satisfaction. It was now to be changed into statute law, the delicacy of which procedure every Member of the House knew. The whole thing was to be put into the melting pot, and the statute law would have to be interpreted by itself. The difficulty of the matter might be
  566
  judged from the fact that Bills were introduced in the House of Lords and amended in 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1899, but Lord Herschell, the parent of the measure, would not take the responsibility of passing it even through that assembly. The Bill was again introduced, and amended in 1901, 1902 and this year, and now the House of Commons was asked, practically without discussion, to place upon the Statute-book a measure which would materially alter the whole construction of the law relating to marine insurance. He hail said sufficient to show that the Bill was not so simple a measure as bad been represented, and that it ought, at any rate, to be examined by a Select Committee of experts before being passed into law.
  LORD HUGH CECILdesired to point out to the Prime Minister that many hon. Members behind him would feel a certain difficulty in supporting him upon the present occasion. His right hon. friend had reflected with natural complacency on the working of the new rules. It many respects those rules had worked admirably, but the Leader of the House had not commented on the fact that they gave to the Government of the day an almost boundless control over the time of the House —a control which had certainly been used in a manner altogether unparalleled in the history of Parliament. The matter was relevant to the present discussion, because a Motion such as that before the House was defensible only on the hypothesis that deliberation in the House of Commons was a desirable thing. If all that was wanted was to get through a certain amount of business, all the Bills enumerated by his right hon. friend could easily he carried if the House abstained from any discussion whatever. The justification of the Motion, therefore, was that deliberation by the House of Commons was useful in the public interest. How could his right hon. friend, with any consistency, maintain such a thesis as that? If deliberation was useful, it was surely as useful in more important as in less important matters. If measures of a departmental and administrative character were to be deliberated upon, why not a fiscal policy which was to revolutionise the whole fiscal system of the country?

  567
  He was aware that his right hon. friend had said elsewhere that even he could not discuss this question within the walls of the House of Commons, and that the House of Commons ought to discuss only definite proposals upon which they were to come to definite decisions. But if such declarations were to apply to questions of first-class importance, it was clear that the House of Commons would never be allowed to discuss matters until discussion had become superfluous, because in a democratic country questions of first-class importance were decided by the country at large. This very question was admittedly to be decided by the country at large; and it had been expressly stated that no proposal would he made until after a General Election, and then, forsooth, the House of Commons were to be allowed to discuss it! After everything had been settled, they were to have their little chatter and pass by. After the verdict had been delivered, there would be time to listen to the arguments! The Government in moving this Motion were hardly in a consistent position, but he was not at all surprised that they should prefer inconsistency to the inconveniences which would attach to the more logical course. He was not at all surprised that they should shrink from the preliminary discussion which he felt very confident indeed would result in showing the fallacy of the proposals that had been indicated. Never was a discussion wanted more than now, when on every hand there were signs of some modifications in the proposals; when some supporters of what was called by the Birmingham leaflets "the Chamberlain policy" were evidently in full retreat and were assuring the country that there was to be no taxation of food, or, at any rate, little taxation of food—so little as to be insignificant—seeking in that policy protection from obloquy, which was the chief privilege of insignificance. Never more than now was an opportunity needed for clearing up these ambiguities. He confessed that when he saw a great number of persons putting forward various modifications of what was believed to be the Colonial Secretary's policy, when he heard many recommending that much more was to be taxed, and others recommending
  568
  that much less was to be taxed, he remembered the lines—
  "But those behind cried 'Forward,'
  And those before cried Back;'
  And backward now and forward
  Wavers the deep array;
  And on the tossing sea of steel
  To and fro the standards reel,
  And the victorious trumpet's peal.
  Dies fitfully away."
  But it was of course impossible to persuade the Government, or the Leader of the House, that a discussion on this great question was a proper matter for the House of Commons. They had to go and listen in another place when they wanted to hear the subject discussed, and when they got there they were very well satisfied. The condemnation that ranged from the House of Lords to the miners of Durham was satisfactory enough for them. Therefore their feelings were a great deal less heated than they were a few days ago, when the issue seemed more doubtful than at present. Nevertheless he thought it right to say that it was not they who shrank from this discussion; they were anxious to have it, but if they were refused it in the future as they had been in the past, there could be but one inference to be drawn from it, and that was, that the authors of the policy knew that it would not stand the criticism that they were willing, and anxious to offer.
  MR. CATHCART WASONprotested against the manner in which Scotch business had been neglected during the session. Scotch affairs had received practically no attention whatever, and the one Scotch Bill in regard to the passage of which the Prime Minister held out hope was given a very low place in the list. There might be some hon. Members who wished to discuss this measure, but it was not fair to those representing the congested districts in Scotland that this Bill should be brought in at this period of the session, when hon. Members were told that if they ventured to discuss matters which were of the most vital importance there would be no chance whatever of carrying the measure into law this session. This measure ought to have been introduced months ago, and it should have been discussed upon its merits. It was a Bill which they

  569
  urgently desired for the relief of the congested districts, and it was a cruel wrong that the poor people should not receive the assistance they were entitled to have from the Congested Districts Board. The will was there and the money was there, and there was nothing but the incapacity of the Government that was preventing this measure becoming law. With regard to the Motor-Car Bill, those who took an interest in that measure knew that it was one of the most essential measures for the safety of the public. They all knew how unjustifiably the public roads were being monopolised at the present moment, how the local authorities were laughed at and how the police were accused of being spies and informers for simply carrying out their duty. They knew very well the state of affairs in Scotland as well as in England with regard to the gross abuse of their public roads, and matters had been allowed to slide while the time of the House had been occupied with purely academic discussions.
  MR. DALZIELsaid he rose to give hon. Members who desired it an opportunity of discussing the fiscal policy of the country. He wished to propose as an Amendment, after the word "session," in line 2, to add the words "except on such days as may be set apart for the discussion of fiscal policy." It appeared to him that there was at all events almost a unanimous desire that there should be a discussion of their fiscal policy. Both sides of the House were desirous of inquiry and discussion, and if the Government saw their way to afford an opportunity for the discussion of any Resolution they desired to submit with regard to this matter, they ought to be allowed to do it. On that account it was desirable that they should, on the present occasion, not bar themselves from any concession that might be made by the Government with regard to this matter. Why the Government should object to this Amendment he did not know, because he thought the right hon. Gentleman would recognise that they ought to have such a discussion without making it a Party question, and this Amendment would allow the Government an opportunity of putting forward such a Resolution as they might think proper,
  570
  or an opportunity of accepting any Resolution put on the Paper provided they were of opinion that it was a Resolution which the House ought to discuss He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept this Amendment, because he was sure there was a general desire to have a discussion on this very important matter before the session closed. Such a discussion had taken place in another place, and he thought it would be recognised that this question ought to be discussed not as a Party question or as a Vote of Censure on the Government. He begged to move his Amendment.
  MR. COURTENAY WARNERseconded the Amendment, and said he hoped they would agree to allow an opportunity for discussing this most important subject, which was likely to be the demarcation of Parties in future times.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In line 2, after the word session' to insert the words except on such days as may be set apart for the discussion of fiscal policy.'"— (Dalziel.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not quite follow the reasoning of my hon. friend. He desires that there should be a discussion of the fiscal question before the end of the session, and he proposes to obtain it by saying that it is to be limited to those days. There is nothing in the hon. Member's Amendment binding the Government, or even suggesting to the Government that they should give those days for discussing the fiscal policy, and if the hon. Member's Amendment were carried he would be no nearer obtaining the discussion he desires. All he would secure is that on any day on which such discussion did take place, we should all separate at twelve o'clock. I do not see how that would further his general wish for a discussion. I do not know whet her I. should be in order in discussing the advantages or the disadvantages of having a debate on this question. My noble friend who spoke earlier gave expression to his views on this topic, but he appears to have been labouring under

  571
  a very great misapprehension as to what has been the practice of Parliamentary procedure in matters of this kind. My noble friend says very truly that Parliament exists largely for the purpose of discussion, by which he means, and I mean, that the debates which take place in the House of Commons are essentially a part of our functions, and very greatly conduce to the sober and wise settlement of the various questions brought before it. So far my noble friend and I entirely agree; but we separate when we go a little further into detail, because my noble friend thinks that provided a subject is one which occupies public attention, it immediately becomes fit and ripe for Parliamentary discussion, and Parliamentary discussion is immediately required in order that people's minds may he made up and the country may come to an immediate decision. That would be quite right if the country was asked to come to any such decision, and if it was obvious on what precise point.
  LORD HUGH CECIL: Will the House have a chance of discussing this matter before Parliament is dissolved?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If you ask me my opinion I think it will have an opportunity, but in that respect I may be wrong. I will come to that portion of the noble Lord's argument. It is not for me to pledge either myself or my colleagues on such a matter, but probably the House will have that opportunity. However this may be I challenge the new version, or the more detailed version, of doctrine laid before the House by my noble friend. I do not admit that every Parliament has to discuss the programme which is to be laid before its successors, nor has that ever been accepted as a constitutional practice. What would have been thought of the lunatic who suggested that it was improper to dissolve the Parliament that assembled in 1892 without its having a full opportunity of discussing the Newcastle Programme? It is absurd. My noble friend has the credit of inventing an entirely new constitutional doctrine, and one to which I can give no countenance. Of course, during the period private Members have allotted to discussion it is quite open to any private Member to put down a
  572
  Resolution dealing with this subject, but to come to the Government and say—" It is true that you have no policy and that you have got no propositions to which you are committed and on which you are going to make proposals either this session or next session or any other session; nevertheless, although you have not put forward these definite proposals to embody your fiscal policy still the question has been raised, it has caused great excitement and interest in the country, and you are bound to have miscellaneous discussions." That seems to me to be a preposterous demand in the first instance, and it becomes doubly preposterous when the Government have declared, with, I believe, the assent of the majority on this side of the House, and of the country, that this is a subject deserving of inquiry, and an inquiry is going on. I know my hon. friends behind me who cheer are conscious that they are in possession of such clear cut and distinct views and such a wide range of knowledge on this subject that they have not got to consider nor to wait for information. And they are conscious, I am sure without the slightest touch of personal pride, that they have a great many important things to say to the House and to the country, which it would he infinitely for the benefit of the souls of Gentlemen in this House and of the public at large that they should immediately have an opportunity of saying. They are not content to say these things upon the platform, or to take any other method which is open to every citizen of a free country. I do not quarrel with them; I can only say I do not agree with them. I am prepared, at all events, to admit that by one of those happy intuitions my hon. friends have reached at once the heart of the truth, and they demand no inquiry, no investigation, and no time to make up their minds. But I belong to a duller and slower generation. I think it would be for the advantage of the House to have the views of the Government before they criticise them. I know my noble friend is anxious to criticise them before he has them.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is only competent for the right hon. Gentleman to discuss, on the Amendment, the question of an opportunity being given

  573
  for discussion, and the time when it should be given. Neither the merits of having an inquiry nor of a fiscal policy can be discussed IIONV any more than the merits of any Bill.
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I need not say, Sir, I fully accept your ruling. I thought I was confining myself to the propriety of a discussion in this House and the reasons why I think it is inconvenient to have a discussion while the inquiry is going on. I apologise to you, Sir, and to the House for having travelled beyond the due bounds of order. Whether the inquiry is right or wrong, the inquiry is going on; and I do not think that this is a question upon which discussion ought to take place in this House, for this among other reasons—that it would he impossible for members of the Government to speak for the Government, or at all events it would be impossible for them to formulate views representing the opinions of the Government, while the inquiry is going on. That surely stands to reason. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laugh as if I had revealed a new truth. I therefore do not in any way retreat from the position I have systematically taken up, which is, that it is not a convenient moment to have a discussion, and I do not think the time of the House could he usefully employed in it. There are some Gentlemen who have a desire to put the Government in a difficulty by having a debate prematurely sprung upon the House and the country, and there are other Gentlemen, more amiably constituted, who are merely desirous of expressing views which they are convinced are of inestimable value to the House and the country. I do not dissent from the last proposition, but I have no sympathy with those who think that this is a desirable moment to have a debate in order to see what the Government say, although the Government have admitted that they are inquiring. It is a mere Party move, of which I do not complain, but which I am not such a fool as to give in to. When the tactics are so obvious as they are in this case he must be a very poor strategist who allows himself to be taken in by them. I think in the circumstances the hon. Gentleman will feel that although his Amendment, so far as it goes, is innocuous, and positively inoperative, it is one which, if carried,
  574
  would not help his object or improve the Motion before the House. I hope either that the hon. Member will withdraw the Amendment or that the House will reject it. I do not believe that anything would be gained by adopting it, and I am perfectly certain that there will be a far better chance of this matter being dealt with in the sober and serious spirit in which it ought to he dealt with if we avoid throwing it down prematurely on the floor of the House, to be worried by the hon. Gentlemen whose characteristics I have endeavoured to describe.
  Sin H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It seems to me that the ingenious argument of the right hon. Gentleman may be disposed of by one fact. He poses as the bewildered head of an innocent Government, who see the public mind disturbed but do not desire to have the time of Parliament occupied by a number of people who have made up their minds in a certain way on the question of the fiscal policy of the country, and who wish to have an opportunity of taking the opinion of the House of Commons upon it, or, at all events, of bringing their opinions before the House of Commons. Who is it that has brought this question before the country? The right hon. Gentleman says the Government have no opinion. We know they have none. We know that he has no opinion at all, and that his colleagues have no joint or consolidated opinion. But the matter has been spontaneously, and even wantonly, brought before the country by a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman. The author of that movement, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite also, must have been aware that the moment it was brought forward, in the authoritative manner n which it was announced, it must supersede all other questions and demand almost the whole attention of Parliament and of the country. The right hon. Gentleman has himself in this House listened to a speech by the Colonial Secretary in which he propounded a doctrine of the most explicit character, and of a character that cannot be withdrawn or modified without very serious results. We have heard it said that the Empire would go to pieces unless we had preferential duties, which would involve the taxation

  575
  of food. Are we to be told that it is not the fault of the Government that they are being interrupted in their peaceful conduct of the affairs of the session by noisy people interested in this fiscal question The right hon. Gentleman told us that the Government were inquiring into this question, and while they were inquiring nobody was to be allowed to discuss it. That excuse will not hold water, because, as I have said, it it is his own colleague who has unauthoritatively made a statement as to his conduct at the next election and has absolutely invited the discussion of this House upon it. We are told that it is to be the issue at the next election, and we want to know, first of all, what the issue is. We have not yet obtained that information, and we wish to obtain it by discussing the authoritative statement which the Colonial Secretary has made. The right hon. Gentleman says this is a mere Party move, and he is not such a fool as to give way to I think I can retort upon him in that respect. He says, "If you wish for a discussion, bring forward a Motion of want of confidence. Then I will give you a day." Well, that proposal is a Party move, and nobody here is such a fool as to agree to it. He has been aware all along, and anyone who is acquainted with the ordinary procedure of Parliament is aware, that any division in this House on this subject would be a misleading division if the Government exercised their power over their supporters. It is undesirable to start this controversy with a false move here; it would mislead the people of the country, and the people throughout t he world, as to the real feeling of the House of Commons, and therefore we have resisted the tempting proposal that the right hon. Gentleman has made. But a discussion of another kind, such as the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies invited and urged the House to have on this subject, would have done nothing but clear the air, satisfy the public mind, and lead to the formation of a better estimate of what the people of this country really think on the subject.
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid his noble friend the Member for Greenwich had made an
  576
  appeal to the Prime Minister on behalf of certain young members of the Unionist Party, but he would like to make a very short and temperate appeal to the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of the older members of that Party. They were holding no strange and revolutionary doctrines They were simply adhering to the fiscal principles which had been the principles first of the Conservative Party and afterwards of the Unionist Party during the whole life time of anyone now present in Parliament. If there was a real discussion and inquiry going on on behalf of the Government as a whole, they might hold their tongues and await the result of that inquiry. If every member of the Government used the same language as that used by the noble Duke, the Leader of their Party in another place, they would be able, with perfect self-possession and self-contentment to await the result of this inquiry, which no doubt certain members of the Government were engaged in prosecuting. But there was one member of the Government who was not inquiring, and who not only was not inquiring but was not observing that reserve which they were asked to observe while the inquiry was going on. It was now more than two months since one of the most prominent and active members of the Government laid down proposals, not of a perfectly clear and distinct character in detail but showing perfectly clearly what his policy was; and these proposals had never to this day been accepted or rejected by the Government to which they looked for guidance and leading. But that was not all. At the present moment an active propaganda was being carried on in every constituency in the country by people who would not hold their tongues while the inquiry was going on, but were now engaged in endeavouring to persuade the members of their Party in every constituency in the country to adopt certain fiscal principles which were contrary to those held by th6r Party for the last fifty or sixty years.—[Cries of "No."] Those who held the old fiscal principles of the Party were denounced as traitors and as rebels against the Party.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order The right hon. Gentleman cannot enter into the question of fiscal policy, which does not arise. This is a very limited Amendment to a limited Motion.
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid he knew he was out of order and he apologised; but he had been drawn astray by the interruptions of hon. Gentlemen behind him. He was giving reasons why certain Members of this House, including his noble friend the Member for Greenwich, were eager for discussion; and he wished to say to the Prime Minister that the reason why certain Members of his party, who were not the least devoted and loyal to that Party, had been asking him to give time for discussion was in order to clear up the anomalous situation to which the utterances of the Colonial secretary had given rise. It was not they who were to blame for the necessity for an inquiry. It was not they who were to blame for the demand for discussion. It was the member of the Government who was not inquiring at all; who had expressed in that House his deliberate convictions and had even sneered at the Government for having inquired at all. [Interruption]. It was because of the course which that member of the Government was taking in agitating among the constituencies and denouncing all those members of his own Party—[MINISTERIAL cries of "No, No" and "Withdraw"]—it was on that account that they desired and appealed for an opportunity of having this matter cleared up in the House of Commons before the House adjourned and hon. Members were dismissed to their constituents without knowing what they were going to do or say as to the direction in which the Government were going.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid he would make one suggestion to the Prime Minister which would remove all difficulties—viz., to have an autumn session, to be devoted entirely to a discussion of the Colonial Secretary.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid he did not at all complain of his right hon. Friend's reply. He was quite sufficiently ac
  578
  quainted with that right hon. Gentleman's oratory to know that when he had recourse to chaff he had no case. He wished to call attention to what was said by a member of the Government in another place. The Duke of Devonshire on 29th June said—
  "I would just remind the House—"
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The noble Lord is quoting from a discussion which took place in the House of Lords this session, and that is not in order.
  LORD HUGH CECIL: I am quoting from a discussion in another place.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Say it.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid he could not recite it. What was said in the course of discussion in another place was—
  "I would just remind the House that I do not think that any member of the Government has spoken of this quest-ion in the sense of being a mere inquiry. The expression which I certainly used, and which I think other members of the Government have employed, was inquiry and discussion."
  (Cries of "Order!")
  MR. SPEAKER: That is quite irrelevant to the question before the House. That has reference to the inquiry, which is not the point before the House. The hon. Member is now making use of the opportunity of quoting what was said in another place dealing with the question of inquiry, and that is not in order
  MR. THEODORE TAYLORsaid that the right hon. the Prune Minister had stated in the course of the debate that it had never been the rule to discuss a policy or proposal in one Parliament that was to be introduced in another. He begged to remind the right hon. Gentleman that Mr. Gladstone submitted to this House, in 1868, Resolutions on the Irish Church question. Mr. Gladstone was not then Prime Minister, although he was chief of the majority in the House for the time being, so that the principle, though not exactly in form quite the same, applied to the course proposed to be taken that day. The Prime Minister was sarcastic in referring to his young

  579
  men who had settled convictions on certain questions, but he did not think that it was any reproach whatever, that on a subject of cardinal importance men who had been studying the fiscal history of their country should have settled convictions. [Interruption.]
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will see that he is not in order, and that he is now entering on a new question.
  MR. THEODORE TAYLORsaid he begged Mr. Speaker's pardon if he were out of order. He had only been following hon. Members on the other side of the House. He would not wilfully diverge for one moment by a hairsbreadth from questions which had been previously debated. He had only been referring to the fact that the proposed debate seemed to be called for because it seemed to him
  to be reasonable, and the subject ripe for discussion. The emergency of the case was because the country at large, and more particularly the Party opposite, hoped that they were going to have the guidance which they had a right to expect. But they had had no. promise that day that they would have any deliverance from the Government before the recess as to the policy which they intended to pursue. The discussion on general lines of policy in the country ought to be inaugurated by a discussion in this House. He supported the Amendment because it, did indicate the direction in which the majority of the House and of the country desired the discussion to take place.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 97; Noes, 194. (Division List No. 193.)

  AYES

  Allen, Chas. O.(Glos., Stroud)

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Runciman, Walter

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Russell, T. W.

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Shackleton, David James

  Beaumont, Wentworth C B.

  Joicey, Sir James

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Brigg, John

  Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Labouchere, Henry

  Spencer,Rt. HnC.R(Northants

  Buxton. Sydney Charles

  Lambert, George

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Caldwell, James

  Langley, Batty

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Cameron, Robert

  Lawson,Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Thomas,F.Freeman-(Hastings)

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

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

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Levy, Maurice

  Tomkinson, James

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Toulmin, George

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Lloyd-George, David

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Lough, Thomas

  Ure, Alexander

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall

  Wallace, Robert

  Dewar, John A.(Inverness-sh.)

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.)

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Mappin, Sir Fredk. Thorpe

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark

  Mitchell,Edw (Farmanagh, N.)

  Wason,John Cathcart (Orkney

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Morley,Rt.Hn.John (Montrose

  Weir, James Galloway

  Dunn, Sir William

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Elibank, Master of

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith

  Palmer, Sir Charles M(Durham

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

  Partington, Oswald

  Wilson, Chas. H. (Hull, W.)

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Paulton, James Mellor

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

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

  Pickard, Benjamin

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Price, Robert John

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm.

  Rea, Russell

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  Mr. Dalziel and Mr.

  Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Warner.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighish.)

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bagot, Capt.Josceline FitzRoy

  Balfour,RtHnGeraldW (Leeds

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Banbury, Sit-Frederick George

  Arrol, Sir William

  Balcarres, Lord

  Bathurst, Hon. Allen. Benj.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

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

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C

  Aubrey-Fletcher,Rt.Hn.SirH.

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Bignold, Arthur

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Hain, Edward

  Pease,HerbertPike(Darlmgt'n

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Percy, Earl

  Bowles, Lt.-Col H.F(Middlesex

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Ld.G.(Midx

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Carew, James Laurence

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

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

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Cavendish,V. C. W (Derbyshire

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick G.

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Purvis, Robert

  Cecil. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Pym, C. Guy

  Chamberlain, Rt Hon. J (Birm

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Chamberlain,Rt.Hn.d A (Worc

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Chaplin, Right Hon. Henry

  Hoult. Joseph

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Chapman, Edward

  Howard, Jn. (Kent, Faver'h'm

  Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green)

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Howard J. (Midd., Tottenham

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

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

  Hudson, George Bickerstetn

  Robertson, H. (Hackney)

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Jeffreys,Rt.Hon.Arthur Fred.

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Johnstone, Heywood

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Colston, Chas. Edw H. Athole

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col.W. (Salop

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Kimber, Henry

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Knowles, Lees

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Lambton, Hon. Fredk. Wm.

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. E. J.

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Cost, Henry John C

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lawson, JohnGrant(Yorks, N R

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H.(Renfrew)

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham)

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S

  Smith, James Parker(Lanarks.)

  Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

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

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Stanley, EdwardJas.(Somerset

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Was. Hart

  Lowe, Francis William

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Stock, James Henry

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Lucas, Reginald.J.(Portsmouth

  Talbot, Lord E.(Chichester)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Man'r

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  M'Killop, James (Stirliqshire

  Trition Charles Ernest

  Finch, Rt. Hon, George H.

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

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Valentia, Viscount

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Middlemore, Jn.Throgmorton

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Flannery, Sir Forteseue

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Flower, Ernest

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Walrond, Rt Hn. SirWilliam H.

  Forster, Henry William

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants)

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Morgan, David J.(Walthamst'w

  Williams Rt Hn J Powell(Birm,.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

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

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans

  Mowbray, Sir Robt. Gray C.

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

  Godson. Sir Augustus Fredk.

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

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

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Gralland (Bute

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Gore, Hn G.R.C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Gore, Hon. S.F. Ormsby-(Linc.)

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Wylie, Alexander

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Nolan, Col. John P.(Galway,N

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George.

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Gray Ernest (West Ham)

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Greene Henry D(Shrewsbury)

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Sir Alexander Aclard.

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

  Main Question again proposed.
  LORD BALCARRESsaid he wished to express his regret that his right hon. friend had not seen his way to include in the list of measures he proposed to pass during the present session the Musical Copyright Bill, which had passed through the House of Lords, and of which he was in charge in
  582
  this House. He was bound to admit that the Bill was not uncontroversial, but it dealt with an acknowledged fraud, and he considered it was the duty of the Government to take it up. An obligation rested on the Government to deal with this Question in view of the fact that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in answer to representations from foreign countries, had promised he would do what he could to

  583
  diminish the evil, etcetera. If his right hon. friend could not give facilities this session, which he considered he ought, in view of the fact that this fraud had asmined grave dimensions, and was injuring a very respectable and hardworking trade, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give an assurance that the matter would not be overlooked by the Government.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid he wished to ask if the right hon. Gentleman would give the House an assurance that, having regard to the very important questions which were pending, and which had a direct bearing on India and Indian govern ment, he would take the Indian Budget at as early a date as possible.
  Mr. DISRAELIsaid he wished to support the request of his noble friend in reference to the Musical Copyright Bill. If it were not possible to proceed with the Bill this session, he hoped an assurance would be given that it would be proceeded with next session.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he was in entire sympathy with his noble friend and his hon. friend, but they must k now perfectly well that there were limitations which necessarily circumscribed the action of the Government in connection with private Bills. He should still hope that the opposition to this particular Bill might be overcome. No one would rejoice more than he would if it were found possible to deal with this copyright question in the course of
  the present session. With regard to the Question of the hon. Gentleman opposite, he should be glad to bring in the Indian Budget at as convenient a time as he could; but, until he saw the progress of the programme of business he had sketched, it was impossible for him to give any distinct pledge.
  MR. MOONasked the First Lord of the Treasury if, in the unfortunate event of his being unable to give an assurance in reference to the Musical Copyright Bill this session, he could make any promise with reference to the passing of the Bill next session.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURwas understood to say he hoped so.
  MR. WEIRsaid he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give him an assurance also with reference to two small Bills which had been on the Order Paper for some years. One was to enable small tenants in the Highlands to avail them selves of the Crofters Acts, and the other was to enable tenants with a valuation of £4 and under to vote at School Board elections. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give him a pledge with regard to these two Bills, which materially affected the Highlands of Scotland, which the right lion. Gentleman knew and loved so well.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 231; Noes, 93. (Division List No. 194.)

  AYES

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

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J A (Worc

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bignold, Arthur

  Chaplin, Right Hon. Henry

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Chapman, Edward

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Arrol, Sir William

  Bowles,Lt-Col.H.E(Middlasex

  Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E.

  Atkinson, Right Hon. John

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Coddington, Sir William

  Aubrey-Fletcher,Rt.Hn.SirH.

  Brown, Sir Alx. H (Shropsh.)

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Bagot, Capt.Josceline FitzRoy

  Bull, William James

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

  Balcarres, Lord

  Carew, James Laurence

  Colston,Chas. Edw. H. Athole

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

  Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

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

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds

  Cavendish, V C W (Derbysh.)

  Cox, Irwin Edwd. Bainbridge

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor.)

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Bathurst,Hon.Allen Benjamin

  Chamberlain, Et Hon J (Birm

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Cust, Henry John C.

  Lambton, Hon. Fredk. Wm.

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Redmond, Jn. E. (Waterford)

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Law, Andrew Boner (Glasgow

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Delany, William

  Law, H. Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lawson, JohnGrant(Yorks, N.R

  Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green)

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Leamy, Edmund

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. C. Thomson

  Doogan, P. C.

  Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham)

  Robertson, H. (Hackney)

  Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir J. E.

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Doxford, Sir Wm. Theodore

  Leveson-Gower, Fredk. N. S.

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Russell, T. W.

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. Hart

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Lowe, Francis William

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed.

  Lucas, Reg'ld J. (Portsmouth)

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. E. J.

  Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Man'r

  Lundon, W.

  Scott, Sir S. (Marglebone, W.)

  Fielden Edward Brocklehurst

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Seely, Chas. Hilton (Lincoln)

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Shaw-Stewart, M. H.(Renfrew)

  Fisher, William Hayes

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

  Simeon, Sir Barrington

  Flower, Ernest

  Malcolm, Ian

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Flynn, James Christopher

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

  Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East)

  Forster, Henry William

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks.)

  Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S.W.

  Middlemore, Jn.Throgmorton

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

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Mitchell, Edw.(Fermanagh, N.

  Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk)

  Gardner, Ernest

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

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

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Stanley, Lord (Lanes.)

  Gibbs, Hn. Vicary (St. Albans

  Montagu Hon. J. Scott (Hants.

  Stock, James Henry

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

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

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

  Sullivan, Donal

  Gore, Hon. G.RCOrmsby(Salop)

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Gore, Hn. S. F. Ormsby- (Line

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Taylor Austin (East Toxteth)

  Goschen, Hon. Geo. Joachim

  Mount, William Arthur

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. E. M.

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Tritton, Charles Ernest.

  Greene, Hv. D. (Shrewsbury)

  Murray, Rt Hn A.Graham(Bute

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Greville, Hon. Donald

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Hain, Edward

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

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Halsey. Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

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

  Walrond, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

  Hamilton, Rt Fin Ld.G.(Midx

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Hare. Thomas Leigh

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  Whiteley, H (Ashton and Lyne

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

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

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  O'Mara, James

  Wililams. Rt Hn P Jowell (Birm,

  Hatch, Ernest Frederick G

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R (Bath

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Hoult, Joseph

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B.Stuart

  Howard, Jno(Kent,Faversham

  Pease, H. Pike (Darlington)

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Howard, J. (Midd. Tottenham)

  Pemberton John S. G.

  Wylie, Alexander

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Percy, Earl

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Jeffreys Rt.Hon. Arthur Fred.

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Yerburgh, Robt, Armstrong

  Kemp, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Kenyon, Hon. G. T. (Denbigh

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W.(Salop

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Sir Alexander Acland-

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edwaro

  Hood and Mr. Anstruther.

  Kimber, Henry

  Purvis, Robert

  Knowles, Lees

  Pym, C. Guy

  NOES.

  Allen, Chas. P. (Glos., Stroud)

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardign

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Caldwell, James

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Cameron. Robert

  Dilke., Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Duncan. J. Hastings

  Brigg, John

  Cawley, Frederick

  Dunn, Sir William

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Elibank, Master of

  Bryce, Right Hon. James

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith

  586

  587

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.

  Lough, Thomas

  Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Mansfield, Horace Kendall

  Thomas, F. Freeman (Hastings

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Mappin, Sir Fredk. Thorpe

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

  Harcourt. Rt. Hon. Sir Wm.

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John(Montrose)

  Tomkinson, James

  Harwood, George

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Toulmin, George

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

  Palmer, Sir C. M. (Durham)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Hayter, Rt Hon Sir Arthur D.

  Partington, Oswald

  Ure, Alexander

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Wallace, Robert

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Pickard, Benjamin

  Walton, J. Lawson (Leeds, S.)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife West

  Price, Robert John

  Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Rea, Russell

  Wason, E. (Clackmannan)

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Reid, Sir R.Threshie (Dumfries

  Wason J. Cathcart (Orkney)

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Joicey, Sir James

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Runciman, Walter

  Wilson, Chas. H. (Hull, W.)

  Lambert, George

  Shackleton, David James

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

  Langley, Batty

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid(Cornwall)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  TELLERS FOE THE NOES—

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Mr. Herbert Gladstone and

  Levy, Maurice

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Mr. William M'Arthur.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Spencer, Rt Hn C. R. (Northants

  Lloyd-George, David

  Taylor, Theo. C. (Radcliffe)

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Ordered, That, for the remainder of the Session, Government Business be not interrupted, except at half-past Seven of the clock at an Afternoon Sitting, under the provisions of any standing order regulating the Sittings of the House, and Wray be entered upon at any hour though opposed, and that at the conclusion of Government Business each day Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put.

  SUGAR CONVENTION BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): On the 24th of November last this House passed the following Resolution
  "That this House approves the policy embodied in the Convention relating to sugar, signed at Brussels on the 5th of March, 1902, and in the event of the Convention receiving the ratifications required to make it binding, is prepared to adopt the necessary measures to enable His Majesty to carry out its provisions."
  Since that Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austro-Hungary, and Great Britain have all ratified the Convention, which thereby has become a binding document on those Powers. The Bill of which I ask leave to move the Second Reading to-day is a Bill, in the language of the Resolution, "to enable His Majesty to carry out" the provisions of the Convention. It is a Bill, in
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  other words, the provisions of which have already received the sanction of the House of Commons, and to, which the good faith of this country is pledged. It will be clear to the House that Great Britain cannot recede from engagements it has entered into or fail to carry them out without infinite discredit to itself, and without destroying the confidence of foreign nations in our ability and willingness to carry out our international obligations. I would not do hon. Members who oppose this Bill the injustice of supposing that this consideration has escaped them, and therefore we may perhaps fairly assume that in taking the unusual course of opposing the First Reading and now in opposing the Second Reading they are actuated not so much by any expectation of being able to defeat the Bill, but rather by a desire to express their hostility to the principles of the Convention itself, and perhaps they would not carry their hostility so far if they thought there was any real chance of their securing a majority in the lobby. (OPPOSITION cries: "Nonsense" and "Yes we should.") I am very sorry to hear that statement because, whatever the intention in opposing this Bill may be, the effect of success would be to prevent this country carrying out its treaty obligations.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that these treaty obligations are specifically conditional upon the constitutional laws regulating this country.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: This country is absolutely pledged to the Convention which has been ratified after receiving the approval of the House of Commons. In any case I feel sure of this, that that is the view foreign Powers are certain to take. I hope that hon. Members, at any rate on this side of the House. even if in the first instance they were opposed to the policy of the Convention, will do nothing now calculated to east a doubt upon our obligation to give effect to the provisions of the international instrument to which we have set our seal.
  Even apart from that consideration, has anything occurred which would justify the House of Commons in reversing the approval of the policy of the Convention which it placed on record last November; or is there anything in the Bill of an unexpected, objectionable character which would justify such a reversal? So far as I know t here is nothing. On the contrary, what has occurred since has rather tended to remove objections which were formerly felt than to create new ones. Take, for instance, the question of the application of the Penal Clause to our colonies. The other Powers in depositing their ratication made no reservation whatever. The only Power which made a reservation was Great Britain, who added the following declaration:—
  "In depositing the ratification of His Britannic Majesty, the Minister for Great Britain declares it necessary to place on record that the Government of His Britannic Majesty will not consent under any circumstances to be bound to penalise sugar imported into the United Kingdom from any of the self-governing colonies. He further declares that His Britannic Majesty's Government are not prepared to accept any reference of this question to the permanent Commission to be established under Article 7, and His Majesty's ratification of the Convention is deposited under the specific declarations above mentioned."
  Why was this reservation made by the Government of Great Britain? Because doubts had been expressed in many quarters as to the true meaning and interpretation of the Convention. The view taken by the Government has however never charged It was expressed in a circular dispatch from the Foreign Minister dated 13th January of this year—
  "The attitude of His Majesty's Government in regard to the matter has never varied. They
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  have declined altogether to agree that Great Britain should be under any obligation to treat British colonies as foreign countries. The British delegates at the Brussels Conference repeatedly and formally declared that the fiscal relations of Great Britain and her colonies must remain outside the Convention, and that under no circumstances would the Penal Clause be applied in the United Kingdom to British colonial sugar. Those declarations are recorded, and are most explicit and categorical."
  I admit that if the terms of the Convention had really put us under a contingent obligation to penalise colonial sugar, in that case the Convention would have been open to very serious objections from the British point of view, even though the contingency might be remote. We therefore thought it our duty, in order that there should be no doubt as to the true significance of the Convention, to direct His Majesty's Minister in depositing the ratification to accompany it by the reservation which I have just read, which removes all possible ambiguity.
  Again, exception has been taken to the powers entrusted to the Permanent International Commission, the most extravagant and exaggerated language has been used on this subject. We have been told that we were abandoning the autonomy of our commerce and destroying the independence of our finance, and it was not obscurely hinted that the representation of the Continental Powers on the Commission would combine together to outvote the British representative, with the deliberate intention of injuring British interests. How they were to contrive that is not apparent. The Commission have however met, and what have they done? They have considered the legislation actual or proposed of the various contracting countries—including the Bill now under discussion—and no objection has been taken to the legislation, of any of the contracting countries, with the exception of Austria-Hungary and France. In the case of Austria-Hungary the Contingent Law was declared by the Commission not to be in harmony with the provisions of the Convention. In regard to France, exception was taken to the arrangements for refining in bond. We have every reason to be lieve that the legislation of Austria-Hungary will be brought into harmony

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  with the provisions of the Convention before the 1st of September, and we have also reason to believe that at the earliest possible date France will make the necessary amendments in her system of refining in bond. So much for the contracting powers.
  But what about the non-contracting countries? In the case of Spain, Denmark, Japan, and Roumania, the Commission have fixed the amount of the countervailing duties to be levied. None of those countries during the last year sent to Great Britain any appreciable amount of sugar, so that it will not be necessary to apply to them the Penal Clauses,
  MR. LOUGH: But suppose sugar comes from those countries?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: If sugar comes from those countries in any appreciable quantity, it will be the duty of this country to apply the Penal Clause. So far there is no reason to believe that sugar will come in sufficient amount to make it necessary to prohibit its entry. As to other non-contracting States, the Permanent Commission have, as a provisional measure, applied the scale of countervailing duties at present in use in the United States. What is the practical effect of that decision? In the case of four countries, and four only, does it appear that we shall have under any circumstances to apply the Penal Clause. Those countries are Russia, Argentina, Chili, and Peru. In the case of Russia the amount of sugar sent to this country during 1902 amounted only to about £2,000 worth. Peru has already signified her desire to adhere to the Convention, but she has not yet brought her legislation into conformity. It is not yet known whether Argentina and Chili intend to adhere to the Convention. The case of Argentina is somewhat peculiar, as part of the sugar exported from that country is in receipt of a bounty and part is not. But that has caused no difficulty in the United States, and I see no reason why it should create any difficulty here.
  With these facts before us we have some measure of the true magnitude of those molehills which certain hon. Members have been so anxious to magnify into mountains. We now see what these
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  magniloquent phrases about abandoning the autonomy of our commerce and destroying the independence of our finance really come to. Even supposing—which do not for a moment believe will be the case—that we had to prohibit the entire imports of sugar which we receive from these four countries, it would amount to only about 1,000,000 cwts., or less than one thirtieth of the total amount imported into this country.
  MR. LOUGH: How much do the West Indies send?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: That has, nothing to do with the point. Seeing that the total production of the world is. about 13,000,000 tons, a change in the. particular source from which about 50,000 tons—less than one-half per cent. of that production—is sent to the British market, need not seriously disturb the slumbers of my right hon. friend the-Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  I think I have said enough to show that nothing has occurred since the passing of the Resolution last November to justify the reversal of the conclusion then arrived at. I suppose, therefore, that those who intend to oppose this Bill will rest their case upon the arguments with which we were made familiar in the previous debate. Now on that occasion three main lines of opposition were urged. In the first place there was the opposition of those, who profess a desire for the abolition of the bounties but who object to the Penal Clause. That was the attitude taken up by the Royal Commission which inquired into the case of the West Indies, and until last year it was also generally believed to be the attitude of the majority of the Liberal Party. At all events that was the policy they had, pursued for very many years past. Last year I must admit revealed a change. Whether hon. Members opposite have been converted by the confectioners in their constituencies I cannot say; but at all events most of them seem to have deserted their colours and gone over body and soul to the second class of objectors. What are the second class of objectors? They are those who claim to represent the interests of the consumers and of the sugar-using industries, and ho denounce the Government for having wantonly thrown away a present of

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  millions of money which the bounty-giving nations are foolish enough to make us. The third class of objectors are those who hold that the Convention will not have the effect of appreciably raising die price, and therefore cannot avail to save the West Indies from ruin.
  In the course of the previous debate I went very carefully into these various arguments, and I do not wish now to travel over the ground which I then traversed in detail, but I should like to make one or two observations. In the first place it is evident that these various objections are not really consistent one with the other. Those who hold that the abolition of bounties will in itself be a good thing, though they may object to the particular means we have taken to bring it about, cannot complain of the economic effect of the abolition of bounties, which is obviously independent of the means by which it has been effected. They cannot, make it the ground of opposition to this Bill that the effect of the Convention will be to raise prices. On the other hand those who contend that the effect of the Convention will be to cause a heavy rise in price to the consumer, cannot also contend that the West Indies will not be benefited. We shall probably in the course of this debate hear all these arguments over and over again, but I trust that at least we shall not again hear them used by the same speakers. In the next place the effect which the Convention is likely to have upon prices is so important that I should like to say a few words on this part of the subject, in order to make the position clear as I understand it. The opponents of our policy argue as if this was a perfectly simple matter. They start from an assumption that a bounty of 5s. per cwt. or £5 per ton is given by the producing countries. They take the consumption of this country at about 1,500,000 tons, and by multiplying the figures together they arrive at the easy conclusion that this country, by the effect of this Convention, will be throwing away a sum of money equal to between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000 sterling. My hon. friend the Member for Kings Lynn, speaking the other day at a meeting in the Westminster Palace hotel, went even
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  farther than this. According to the Times of July 18th he said—
  "It was a Bill the essential clause of which put the King of England into foreign bondage, for he was placed under the orders of a. permanent Commission sitting at Brussels. Sugar which in Berlin cost 5d per 1b. and in Paris 7½d per lb. could be bought in London for 1½per lb. That was in consequence of the now existing, but soon to be abolished, bounties."
  In other words my hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn made a bounty, which at the utmost calculation does not amount to more than a halfpenny per £, responsible for a difference in price as between London and Berlin of 3½d and as, between London and Paris of 6d.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: The figures I quoted were from Mr. Czarnikow a. very great authority in the sugar trade.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It is quite possible that the figures quoted correctly represent the difference in price between London on the one side and Berlin awl Paris on the other. But I do not think Mr. Czarnikow drew the same conclusion as the hon. Member. I do not think he would be prepared to commit himself to the hon. Member's deduction that a bounty of a halfpenny per pound was responsible for a difference in price as between London and Paris of 6d. I really think that my hon. friend the; Member for King's Lynn on this occasion has given somewhat less careful consideration than he usually does to the subjects to which he devotes his attention, or else he must have been presuming a good deal on the credulity of his audience. However that may be, even the more modest estimate of between £7,000,00 and £8,000,000 which we are informed the British Government have recklessly and foolishly thrown away rests upon a patent fallacy. What is that fallacy? It is that of supposing that the producers and exporters of bounty-fed sugar make a present of the whole advantage of the bounty they enjoy to the British consumer. It is absolutely certain that they will do nothing of the kind unless they are obliged to, and they will only he obliged to do it in certain very exceptional conditions of the talker,. As a general rule, I doubt whether they give one-tenth part of the bounty they receive to the consumer, and what they give to the consumer they give, not only

  595
  to the consumer in this country, but in the producing country as well. Those who have studied the history of the sugar industries during the last ten years know very well that prices have been subject to violent fluctuations. During the last ten years prices have varied from 18s. a cwt. down to something below 6s. a cwt., which was the figure reached for the first time in the whole history of the sugar trade in June or July last. I expressed an opinion in the debate last year that, after the Convention had come into operation, the average price of sugar in the next ten years would not he higher, and would probably he lower, than the average price in the ten years which have just passed; and to that opinion I still adhere. At the same time I am quite ready to grant that so long as the present cost of production continues the effect of the Convention will probably be to prevent sugar from falling again, as low as 6s. per cwt. It will also, I believe, prevent sugar from rising so high as 18s. per cwt. Let me remind the House that 6s. per cwt. is nearly 3s. per cwt. below the lowest cost of production. By far the larger amount of sugar imported into this country comes from the Continent, and more especially from Germany, and it is the cost of production of 88 per cent. beet sugar f.o.b. Hamburg that I am speaking of. The cost of sugar from the West Indies, proper allowance being made for difference of quality, is also about the same figure—namely, from £8 15s. to £9 per ton. In my judgment the effect of the Convention will he to bring about an era of moderate and, at the same time, comparatively stable prices. In June or July last the cost of sugar was 3s. per cwt. less than the cost of production. Even the forward prices quoted for delivery in April and June, eight months after the Convention comes into operation, are barely, if at all, above the cost of production. I commend that circumstance to hon. Gentlemen opposite and their friends the confectioners, who seem to be crying out very long before they are hurt. At I the same time I do not wish to question for one moment that the price of sugar after the Convention is passed, will not gradually rise above the level of the cost of production. I think it will so rise until it represents the cost of production
  596
  plus a reasonable profit to the producer. That price I put under present circumstances, and assuming the present cost of production to continue, at about £10 per ton. £10 per ton may I think be regarded as the normal or natural price after the Convention has come into operation, and a system of free trade is established in connection with this commodity. At such a price, and provided the trade is freed from the violent fluctuations which the bounty system tends to produce and to aggravate, the West Indian planter may hope not indeed, perhaps, to make a great fortune, but, at all events, to secure something like a living wage. What ruined the West Indian planter in the past was not the average price of sugar. It was the uncertainty in the price and the recurrent periods of very low prices. With moderate but fairly stable prices he can once more look forward to a time of reasonable prosperity. Possibly some one may point to the price of 6s. touched in July last, and contrast this with the price of 10s. which I anticipate will be the normal price when the Convention has had its full effect. But does any one who has considered the problem imagine that a price nearly 3s. below the cost of production could possibly continue indefinitely, even if the Convention had never been heard of? Experience and common sense alike show that that is not possible. When he price falls as low as 6s. per cwt. the necessary result is to curtail the area of production. That again produces a reaction, prices rise, and the mount of production also rises, and a further reaction is produced and prices again fall. In this way you rave a series of fluctuations in which prices are alternately greatly below and greatly above the cost of production. That is the condition of things that has ruined the West Indies, and that is the condition of things which we desire to bring to an end. If the price really was to continue at 6s. for any considerable period I believe the result would be that Austria and Germany would probably be the only countries to ride out the storm. But what would become of cheap sugar then? Is it not clear under these circumstances

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  that the Austrian and German kartels would become masters of the market, and that prices would rise, not merely from 6s. to 10s., but to a figure which would, I think, convince the opponents of the Convention of the short-sightedness of their present policy.
  I have alluded in the course of my speech to a meeting of the Confectioners Alliance recently held at the Westminster Palace Hotel, and which was addressed by my hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn. I believe the chairman of the meeting, who is also one of the most active organisers of the opposition to the Sugar Convention, is a member of the firm of James Keiller and Sons, the well known makers of marmalade. I do not know whether Mr. Bond represents the opinions held by the firm at the present time. If so, I can only say that they have not always been of that opinion. In 1889 Messrs James Keiller and Sons wrote a letter to Sir Neville Lubbock, which seems to me to fit in so well with the circumstances of the present moment that I will ask the leave of the House to read it.
  "Dear Sir,—As large consumers of sugar we trust the efforts of your association will succeed in spreading the knowledge of facts bearing on the question of sugar bounties. The more widely they are known, and the better understood, the more evident will it appear that the abolition of bounties would not injure the fruit-growing, fruit-preserving, and the confectionery trades of this country, but would confer a direct benefit on them by giving them an ultimately cheaper as well as a more regular and more reliable supply of sugar. More than a year ago we expressed this opinion to Mr. J. Duncan, and subsequent, discussion and study of the question have served to confirm it. An international agreement on the sugar bounty question would be a blow to bounties of all kinds which might be applied to any trade, and those who are fortunate enough to bring negotiations on the subject to a successful issue will merit the gratitude of the working classes as well as the merchants and manufacturers of the country. —We are, yours truly,
  JAMES KEILLER & SONS."
  Before I conclude let me briefly call attention to one sentence in this letter. It is that in which reference is made to the possibility of the bounty system being applied to other commodities as well as sugar. Some ten years ago when the letter was written that danger might have seemed comparatively remote. I venture to say that it is remote no longer. The most dangerous bunnies are not those which arise from
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  direct payments by a Government. They are those which arise from the operations of cartels supported by a prohibitive tariff. This kind of bounty is peculiarly dangerous because where-ever a trade is organised under a trust or cartel, it can be applied to almost any article which comes within the protective tariff. Now the Brussels Convention has struck the first formidable blow against this new and insidious method of bounties. I venture to ask the support of the house to this Bill not merely on the ground that the Convention will avert ruin from the West Indian planter, and relieve the British sugar refiner from unfair competition, without, in my opinion, injuring the consumer; not merely on the ground that the Bill is required in order to enable us to fulfil our treaty obligations; but also because the Convention is the first great public instrument which has recognised that form of bounty which arises from the operation of trusts acting under the cover of protection, and acknowledges that to meet and defeat such bounties the strongest fiscal remedies may be properly and legitimately applied. I beg to move.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. LOUCH: The right hon. Gentleman has proved to us with some skill that we are bound to fulfil the treaty. Well, that does not carry us far. This Bill is quite different from the treaty. When we had last a long speech from the right hon. Gentleman on this subject, we wore told that we were to fulfil the treaty in quite another way. We were to do it by countervailing duties. There is nothing about countervailing duties in the Bill. He does not propose to carry out the treaty in that way, and we may say that there may be other ways of meeting our obligations under the treaty. The House is perfectly free to do as it pleases with the Bill. It is not for us on this side of the House to say what we would do if we were supported by a majority and in the right hon. Gentleman's place. If we were there, we would let him know what we would do. The argument of the right hon. Gentle man about the Powers whose sugar we

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  would have to prohibit is that we only get a thirtieth from those Powers. How much sugar do we get from the West Indian Islands, which started this campaign? It would have been convenient to the House if the right hon. Gentleman had answered that question. We got only a fortieth from the West Indies, and the Government think it necessary on behalf of that fortieth to undertake all this campaign. And now it is the right hon. Gentleman who says that the thirtieth is a mere bagatelle and not worth considering. I desire to move the Amendment that stands in my name, namely, that this Bill be read a second time this day three months. We had a statement from the First Lord of the Treasury with regard to the Bill, to which I would direct the attention of the House. He was speaking of the new fiscal proposals, and he put this Bill in the forefront of his speech. He said—
  "If it were not that the proper investment of capital in the West Indies has become impracticable and dangerous, there is no conceivable reason why we should not allow the foreigner to tax himself for the benefit of the consumer in this country."
  In that remarkable statement of the First Lord of the Treasury there are three confessions to which I would direct the attention of the House. Firstly, he confesses that this Bill is brought forward in the interest of a small group of capitalists; secondly, he confesses that it is brought forward to relieve the foreigner of a tax; and thirdly, he confesses that the payment of that tax was a great benefit to the consumers in this country. Now I think there could not be a more excellent epitome of the fiscal proposals now before the country. It is supposed by many that the principles of this Bill are sanctioned by the Royal Commission that inquired into the question six years ago. In accordance with the recommendations of that Commission we spent £400,000, and we make an annual payment of nearly £40,000 to these Islands. We have fulfilled every recommendation made by the Commission, but there is no truth in the contention that they went the length of the Bill now before us. Anyone who has read the speeches of the
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  right hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division will know that no Commission of which he was a member would recommend the closing of our ports in the way now proposed. It did not recommend the laying of any permanent burden on the taxpayers, or any countervailing duties. Its most fruitful recommendation was that other sources of cultivation should be resorted to. The fate of that report throws light on the alleged enquiry the Government is making now. The Secretary for the Colonies was not satisfied with the recommendations made by the Royal Commission. The Commission itself was only a blind, and the moment the right hon. Gentleman had carried out those recommendations, he introduces a new policy. Only last July we granted £250,000 to the sugar planters of those islands, one of the most flagitious applications of public money ever sanctioned by Parliament. Then he proceeds to introduce this Bill, the whole responsibility for which, therefore, rests on the Cabinet alone.
  Perhaps we will have a complete view of the question if the House will allow me to look at the position occupied in this country by the great commodity with which the Bill deals. Let us contrast the position of the sugar industry in England and in France. The moment we do that we become aware of the great disadvantages from which we suffer compared with France. France is a producing country. It was in France that the art of extracting sugar from beet was devised. The French also possess great skill in refilling and in the manufacture of sweet-meats. But they never developed any great industry out of their discoveries. The sugar was mainly used in sweetening coffee and making cakes and sweet-meats, and the total consumption is much the same as it was in England sixty years ago, and amounts to only twenty-nine pounds per head of the population. And it is remarkable that this is also the consumption in Germany, Austria, Holland, and Belgium—all the great producing countries. We turn to England and find that against these natural disadvantages we have only one set-off, and that is our free-trade or dumping principles, which permit the free import of sugar in

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  abundant quantities. What is the result? The springs of industry have been loosed, invention has been stimulated. Capital and enterprise were devoted to the development of fruit preserving, fruit growing, the manufacture of mineral waters, to brewing, and to hundreds of other kindred industries; so that sugar has ceased to be merely a food, and become a raw material of the greatest importance, and the national consumption has risen to the astounding figure of ninety pounds per head of the population. When we come to ask, "Why have they not been able to do this in these foreign producing countries, where they have every natural advantage?" the only answer is that in France and Germany they had also protection, prohibition of imports, a heavy ditty, and high prices, which are the very evils which the Government desire to bring on this country. When we look at the question from this simple standpoint, it seems as if the Government had merely entered into a conspiracy with these foreign Powers to destroy some of our fairest national industries. But it has been said that the object of the Convention is not to make sugar dear and that the price will not rise materially. It would be desirable if we could get a clear understanding with regard to this. Without higher prices none of the objects of the Convention can be realised. The right hon. Gentleman has been candid in regard to this matter, and he says it will rise 5s. per cwt.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir; I do not think the average price will rise at all.
  MR. LOUGH: I will not weary the House with niggling details. I will present my argument in my own way. I thought I was trying to treat the right hon. Gentleman fairly. The Colonial Secretary admitted that there might be some rise.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN, Birmingham, W.): I never made any such admission.
  MR. LOUGH: Well, Sir Henry Norman said—
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Nor Sir Henry Norman.
  MR. LOUGH: Sir Henry Norman suggested that there might be a rise of a halfpenny in the lb. But there is a rise already of 30 per cent. in the price of sugar in view of the passage of this Bill. I think that the Government would do better if they were candid. If the price of sugar does not rise, no advantage whatever can accrue. If you look at the Report of the West Indian Commission, you will find that the promise was made that benefit could only accrue to these Islands if the price of sugar rose. But suppose the rise is a halfpenny in the lb., 5s. per cwt., or £5 per ton on the consumption I have quoted, it would impose a burden of £8,000,000 on the people of this country. We have placed a tax of, roughly, a halfpenny on sugar which brings us in £7,000,000 a year. That is to say that a rise of 1d. per lb., which has almost taken place at the present moment in the price of sugar, means a burden of £15,000,000 on the people of the country; and that is equal to the produce of a 6d. Income Tax. With the rise of a penny sugar is only 2½d per lb. But why should the rise in price stop at 2½d., or 3½d., or 4½d.? Why should not the price of the sugar rise to the same level as in Paris or Berlin—the capitals of the countries with which we have entered into alliance? Whatever the rise may be every penny represents £15,000,000 of a burden on the people of this country. And in this connection I would warn the House of the one great mistake that it has always made in dealing with this Government. It has never realised the weight of the burden that the small beginnings of its had policy might throw upon the people. When we entered on the war with South Africa the cost was to be £14,000,000; but in three years it ran up to £230,000,000. If we pass this Bill, I should not at all be surprised that it will lay on the people of this country a burden as great as that caused by the South African War. We may be told that the object of the Government is not to destroy our industries, nor raise prices, but to abolish bounties. What does that argument mean? It means that we shall get rid of these bounties in

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  accordance with the principles of free trade. I could wish that this were true; but I regret to say that it is not only not true, but the very opposite of the truth.
  When you come to examine the Convention, you see that by Clause 1 bounties are abolished with a profusion of expression which would make any one suspicious. But by Clause 3 a surtax is set up. We had never heard anything of this surtax from the Government. The surtax is the difference which is allowed between the import duty charged in the producing countries, and the Excise duty in these countries; and the surtax is fixed at £2 10s. per ton, or 30 per cent., on the price of the sugar. I wish to make two remarks on that point. The first is, that that is a provision absolutely hostile to the principles of free trade. Anyone who examines the last clause in the Convention will see that it is there plainly and openly stated that the object of the surtax is effectually to protect the home markets of the consuming countries; not only that but each one of the countries which have gone into the Convention are open and avowed protectionists. There is also a provision which allows the surtax, if not sufficient for the purpose intended, to be increased. There is therefore written over this Convention the words "Free trade abandon, all who enter here." What the Government have done is this—they have substituted for a system of bounties which were an offence against free trade, with which we had nothing to do, and which were favourable to this country, a system which is still more offensive to free trade, and for which we are responsible, and which will do the utmost injury to the people of this country. The second remark I wish to make on the surtax is, that it is a circle within a circle. It is a provision of the Convention very beneficial to all the signatories except to us. It makes it a Convention between a flock of sheep and a pack of wolves. They all get something out of it except us; and we get nothing, because we are not producers. The surtax enables them to set up the most extravagant cartel ever established in the world. That
  604
  cartel will control an output of 5,000,000 tons of sugar annually. Its object is to regulate production, distribution, and price. What is the last information we have on this point? The Prime Minister does not deny that there has been a Conference, from which we were excluded, between the Sugar-producing Powers, the object of which was to raise the price of sugar in England and prevent the flooding of the British market. If the House will only think of the extent to which that may be carried, it will realise that the suggestion I have made as to the terrible burden which will be placed on the people of thiscountry was not in the least exaggerated.
  It adds to the humours of the situation to remember that at the very time the Government are assisting in founding this cartel, the Prime Minister and the Colonial Secretary are going up and down the country lecturing the people on the evil of Trusts. Then there is the very extraordinary Article IV., to which I wish to direct the attention of the House. It obliges all the signatories to this Convention to impose a special duty on the sugar from all countries which give a bounty of any kind. When we had a discussion on 24th November last on the subject we were told by the President of the Board of Trade that the Government would adopt this course, that countervailing duties were not offensive to free trade, that when imposed under the Convention there was no harm in them, and that Mr. Gladstone, Lord Farrer, and others had spoken in support of countervailing duties. He went so far as to say that there were some who considered countervailing duties a "damnable heresy, an unclean thing which this House should not touch," but that he regarded such persons as guilty of "aggravated economic prudery." He was followed by the Colonial Secretary, who was as clear in his statement that Mr. Gladstone approved of countervailing duties. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the other day, blamed me for suggesting that such duties were in the Bill and the right hon. Gentleman said there was no suggestion of countervailing duties. I would ask

  605
  him to talk to his colleagues the President of the Board of Trade and the Colonial Secretary as to that. We are not being treated fairly in this matter. We ought to know why countervailing duties were adopted in the first case; and why they have been abandoned. This is not a mere debating point. The Prime Minister has already told us twice that the principle of this Bill has been assented to. The President of the Board of Trade also put that point just now. But we assented to it when the agreement was for countervailing duties. That is not now the principle of the Bill at all. The Bill is based on the principle of prohibition. As far as I can see, what happened was this. The Board of Trade found themselves in this difficulty—that countervailing duties were impossible, if not unconstitutional. I believe the Government lawyers in 1881 said they were unconstitutional. For some reason, they have been abandoned; and the policy of prohibition has been adopted. This is a notion taken from the 42nd Clause of the Customs Consolidation Act, which deals with false coin, indecent literature, adulterated food, and diseased cattle; and the idea of the Government is to add the word "sugar" at the end. What parallel can there be between a clean and decent import such as sugar and anything else mentioned in that clause.
  Consider the difficulty that this policy of prohibition will lead us into. It will be necessary to issue orders for prohibition against some of the countries who are our best friends and customers, such as Russia, Denmark, Spain and Portugal, the United States, and the Southern States of America which have been mentioned. You will have prohibition against every one of them. Just think of the position of a captain of a British ship at a loss for cargo at any one of the ports in these countries. He will not be able to fill up with sugar. My hon. friend the Member for Hull, who sends his ships abroad laden with coal to bring back sugar, will no longer be able to do so, because a prohibition order may he issued against the particular country at which his ships happen to be. If you adopt a policy of countervailing duties sugar may be admitted at a price; but under this Bill no added
  606
  price will permit it to enter. This measure will necessitate a policy of certificates of origin. Those certificates apply not only to the prohibited countries, but to all other countries from which we receive sugar. After the 1st September next, no sugar can come into this country without a certificate of origin. The reason is plain. We might get sugar from a prohibited country, through a country which observed the Convention. There will be further proofs required. The domestic aspect of this question of prohibition ought to cause this House to pause before it puts its sanction on such a policy. We ought to think of the difficulties we will get ourselves into with other countries, such as the United States. If the Government will not consider the question more fully from the domestic point of view, I believe the consideration of the question will be forced upon them by the foreign difficulties into which they will stumble.
  There is one other very curious provision in this Convention. Article 7 sets up the Permanent Commission already mentioned. The House ought to bear in mind the constitution of this extra-ordinary Court. It is to consist of eleven Judges, ten appointed by Continental sugar-producing Powers, and one appointed by this country. It will deal with all the questions of prohibition. But the curious thing is that while we only appoint one Judge, all the interests the Court will have to deal with are ours and ours alone. The other contracting Powers are not importers. We are to submit all our great interests and trade in this vast article of commerce, as well as the interests of all the trades springing from it, to this Court in which we are in a minority of one to ten. I suppose the Government were as much misinformed about this question of imports as they were as to where we got our sugar from. At any rate, they ought to have known that this question of imports did not interest foreign Powers. They are producers. We produce nothing. We may be starved under the Convention. We are entirely dependent upon our imports. There was a meeting of this Permanent Commission; and I do not quarrel with the description of it which was given by the right hon. Gentleman. It was true, as far as it went, but I would direct the attention of this

  607
  great. Parliament, which believes in public opinion and in letting the people know what is going on as regards interests which concern them, to the proceedings of that meeting. The Convention met on the 1st of June. I waited ten days, thinking we would be furnished with an account of the proceedings, and I asked the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairsa Question on the subject. Hecould give me no answer; but he handed over the Question to the Prime Minister, no doubt relying on his great capacity to answer Questions without telling us anything. Only yesterday we were told that we would get the proceedings in about a fortnight or three weeks. Was there ever anything so insulting said to the House of Commons? Here we are assembled to discuss a Bill, the whole basis of which is this Permanent Commission. We must remember that this treaty is not a thing which we can merely agree to, and that then nothing more happens. It is a sort of living organism; it sets up a Permanent Commission which may meet as often as it likes, and may send out these prohibition orders which affect our trade and our trade alone of all the countries in Europe.
  The first duty of the Convention was to consider whether each of the signatories to the treaty was fulfilling its obligations. Its second duty was to decide which countries outside were giving bounties. What did it do with the Powers who signed the treaty? Germany appears to be the Power which conies out on top in all this affair. The affection and love which the Colonial Secretary has for Germany is amazing. It was decided unanimously that Germany was acting in harmony with the Convention; and will the House believe that Germany is the only Power which has an absolutely clean record. Austria-Hungary was held to have acted contrary to the terms of the Convention. Then the Convention dealt with France, and some persons present made a complaint against that country. I know that the British, among other delegates, promoted this criticism of the French system. France was condemned; and we are told that her system was not in accordance with the Convention. Holland escaped be-
  608
  cause it was found by a majority to be acting in harmony with the Convention; but when the Convention meets again in October that majority may be turned into a minority. Belgium has passed no law, and if we pass no law—and I earnestly hope we will not—we will be in the same position as France, Belgium, and Austria-Hungary. None of those countries have brought their proceedings into harmony with the Convention. Why should we hurry? I recommend the House of Commons to be extremely slow and to watch the action of these other Powers. Then the Convention went outside the circle, and the first Power attacked was Russia. Russia is a very astute country to deal with. The Convention went, so to speak, baldheaded for Russia, and unanimously agreed that the Russian system was all wrong, and fixed a countervailing duty of thirty francs on raw sugar and forty francs on refined sugar. Russia did not take this lying down. She entered into communication with Germany and said, "Would you mind bringing up our case again. We think that this Convention does not really know much about sugar. It has not dealt with us fairly." The Convention met again and decided that everything it had arranged about Russia was wrong, and it reversed its decision with regard to Russia, the Argentine and other countries. In short, it appears to have got into a great mess; and on its second meeting it said in effect—"We do not know anything about the sugar legislation of these countries, and we have no means of finding out anything about them; but we would advise any country to adopt the system in the United States." This is a very curious position. The United States has been too astute to go into this business at all. How then comes it that we are told to fall back on the United States system. I immediately asked what was the United States system. But the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs declined to tell me. We are, therefore, asked to accept this decision of the Convention without in the least knowing what it commits this country to. Surely, if the business of our merchants is to be submitted to a tribunal, nothing is more essential than that the decisions of that

  609
  tribunal should be clear, and that it should be readily known what they are. I ask whether anything of the kind can be said about this Commission. It is a farcical Commission; and I do not believe that even its own members take their duties seriously. We have no information that they have made any effort to fulfil the obligation made on them in the treaty. Why should the House of Commons have anything more to say to this extraordinary transaction?
  Why have we gone into the Convention at all? It has been confessed to-day that we did it to assist the West Indian Islands. It would be more true to say that we have been led into this Convention by the astuteness and ability of two or three capitalists who pose in this country to represent the West Indian Islands but who only represent their own interests. I allude especially to Sir Neville Lubbock. He deserves the greatest credit for the way in which he has conducted this matter. When the Colonial Secretary was at the Board of Trade in 1881, Sir Neville Lubbock came to him with the same story; but then the right hon. Gentleman said that the Government preferred the interests of the vast body of consumers in this country to the interests of a small group of capitalists; and the Board of Trade declined to have anything to say to this business. How different was the Colonial Secretary then from what he is now. No now factor has arisen within the last twenty years. One reason why there is such an extremely strong feeling throughout the great industries whose prosperity will be affected by this 13i11 is that they thought that in 1881 they received the Magna Charta of their liberties from the right hon. Gentleman himself. They thought they could invest their capital safely, and that the Government would not sanction any disturbance, and now they find their hopes shattered and their business disorganised by the present Convention. I will only say with regard to the West Indies this one word. The right hon. Gentleman has accused some of us of being inconsistent with regard to the West Indies. He cannot level that accusation against me. I have always been consistent in that I have always said that we ought to look after ourselves at home and let the West Indies look after them-
  610
  selves, we giving them what assistance we can by way of advice. The danger of the West Indies is that they rely too much on sugar, and when they use the fertile soil and beautiful climate for other cultivations besides sugar they will escape this danger. Already during the last five or six years in which we have been discussing this matter three-fourths of the West Indies have got out of their dependence upon sugar, and the other fourth will free themselves if they are left to the healthy operation of economic laws, and not subjected to this grandmotherly legislation. The population of the islands is increasing satisfactorily. During the last three years the coolie immigration has doubled, and reports of reasonable prosperity are given by each of their Governments. That this is so is shown by the annual reports sent to us, and it is a strange thing under those circumstances to undertake this extraordinary legislation. We only get about three per cent. of our sugar from the West Indian Islands, and we are putting this great burden on all our supplies of sugar in order that those who send us three per cent. may get a little more out of it. If they sent us all their production it would only be 15 per cent. of what we consume. While we give a slight benefit to the West Indies, we give the great benefit to those who send us most sugar. Germany sends us 50 per cent. of our sugar, and therefore Germany gets 50 per cent. of the benefit. If the benefits to be derived from the legislation are doubtful, its risks and dangers are clear met apparent. We shall put a great burden on our consumers and upset these industries of which I have spoken, and dislocate the great shipping industry. Shipowners are alarmed. New vessels will not be built, nor new routes opened out for a trade which depends on the whim of a secret foreign Commission. Nor are the evils of the situation confined to our own land. The Powers outside the Convention will be irritated and jealous. I therefore suggest that the House goes no further in this matter. Let the Prime Minister, who is so good at answering Questions to us, make some statement—raise some difficulty—so that this shall not be proceeded with for six or eight months, and then the whole thing will disappear. Sugar as an import occupies to-day the the position which corn occupied in the forties. Cobden always put sugar next

  611
  to corn in importance, and he saw that if the principles of free trade were applied to corn, they would gradually spread to every other great commodity. No doubt the Government may, with the assistance of their majority, put their Bill through. Our opposition may not be of any use, but we must make the greatest effort on behalf of the principles in which we believe. You may carry this Bill, but if you do I am certain that when our ports are closed under it people outside will look back with deep regret to the time when our ships could come without certificates of origin of the goods they brought when our ports were open, when the factories of the country could be carried on without the prying visits of Government inspectors, and when it was the fixed principle of the legislation this House that there should be no tax on food or raw material. I beg to move.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I rise to second the Resolution so ably proposed by my hon. friend opposite. Sir, this is a Bill to promote a foreign monopoly created by Germany in sugar, and the President of the Board of Trade, forsooth, tells us that it is a pure formality; that we have scarcely a right to debate this measure; that the House is bound to pass it because the credit of the country is pledged, and that if we reject it the honour of the country will be somehow involved. It is nothing of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman forgets that the Convention itself, by Article 12, provides that the fulfilment of the mutual engagements therein contained is expressly subject to the formalities and requirements established by constitutional law. One of the formalities and requirements of our constitutional law is that before any tax can be placed on the subject the consent of this House must be obtained. This House has a complete right, and it is not only the right of this House, but its absolute duty, to reject this Bill. This Bill is recommended to the House by the argument that England is going to gain something, but it is the fact that England is going to gain nothing. It is avowed that England must lose. All that is suggested is that the West Indies may gain something and also the sugar refiners.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I suppose that, in the hon. Member's argument, the sugar refiners are not Englishmen.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: As a matter of fact it appears from the Blue-book that they are mostly Germans. I will deal with the sugar refiners and their interests if the right hon. Gentleman will only be patient. Now, Sir, let me point out that this country is the great market for sugar; this is the great consuming country to which every beet sugar manufacturer looks for the sale of his produce. You may add the United States, but the United States provides for itself. The English market is the great prize contended for by European sugar-producing countries, who, to capture it, have fought each other by bounty against bounty. The result in this country has been cheap sugar. The figures I quote are those of Mr. Czarnikow, who, at all events, has not an English name. [A VOICE: He is a broker.] I have no doubt he is a most eminent broker; he says the price in London is now 1½d. per lb., while in Berlin it is 5d., and in Paris 7½d. I confess that it seemed to me that the cause of this difference in the price of sugar was bounties, but the right hon. Gentleman has said that is not so. The right hon. Gentleman, while denying that bounties cause the difference in price, offered no other explanation.
  MR. GERALD BALFOURwas understood to say that the difference partly arose from the internal tax.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I am glad to have got from the right hon. Gentleman an admission that part of the difference in price is caused by protective duties. But I do not care what is the cause of sugar being only 1½d. a lb. in England and 7½d. in Berlin. I am content to accept cheap sugar. It may be a bad thing, but I am prepared to endure it because I see it has been a source of cheap food and the cause of setting up very extensive industries in this country. I am afraid the. House has no idea of the amount and extent of these industries. Take the preserving industry. I know of no preserves quite so good as French preserves, no chocolates quite so good as the French, yet it is the fact that one French manufacturer of chocolate,

  613
  because of the cheapness of sugar, has established himself in this country, and that English jams, made with French cheap sugar, are driving French jams out of the market in France. The enormous trade in sweetmeats which has sprung up has been founded and encouraged by our cheap sugar. There is not one little shop or a single country fair that does not show new kinds of sweetmeats entirely unknown in older days, the whole of which has been encouraged by cheap sugar. Of course I have every sympathy with the sugar planters and producers in the West Indies, and I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the capitalists who furnish the money necessary for them to conduct their business, and I am prepared to entertain any fair proposition to enable them to carry on a business in which for generations they have so signally failed, but there is nothing either in this present Bill or in the doling out of grants to the West Indies by which their trade can be saved, so long as they are deter, mined to tie their life up with the production of sugar. The West Indies sugar planters are demoralised. They were demoralised by slavery, and have never been able to rise to a conception of modern methods, of enterprise, or of improved machinery as other sugar-producing countries have done. Java produces sugar at 6s., Cuba produces it at 7s., yet the West Indies cannot produce it under 8s. or 9s. a cwt. I do not believe you will get thorn out of their difficulties by any system of state doles. It requires a new generation. Even then the West Indies will not be revived by sugar, but rather by fruits or by cotton. In support of my contention that this will not save the West Indies, let me read the testimony of Sir Henry Jackson, governor of the Leeward Islands. He says—
  "What the effect of the abolition of bounties may prove to be in large colonies producing high-grade sugar is not for me to say, since the Leeward Islands are not among them, but it is only too certain that in these islands, producing only muscovado, and that by means of indifferent machinery, the immediate effect will be the reverse of beneficial."
  He goes on to say—
  "It is absolutely certain, as shown by Dr. Morris, that directly muscovado and beet sugars come into open competition in the same market, as they must do on the abolition of bounties, the former trade must be annihilated
  614
  unless the production can be improved. Even if the bounty system be continued, and the industry lingers on for a short time, it will be in a gradually diminishing condition, while with the abolition of bounties and without central factories, there will be an immediate stoppage on many of the largest estates."
  I think that shows that this remedy will not be sufficient for the West Indies.
  Then I come to the sugar refiners. They talk as though their industry was in danger of ruin. Let me read the prospectus issued by Messrs. Tate and Sons on March 4th of this year. Does this tell a tale of ruin?
  "Ever since its formation in 1859 the business has been eminently successful. The sugars have competed successfully with those of all makers of refined sugar, both British and foreign, notwithstanding the advantage possessed by the latter in the bounties given by the Governments of the countries of their production."
  They go on to set forth the increased prosperity of the business, and finally they give a list of their profits for the last eight years. showing annual profits varying from £91,000 to £148,000, while in the year ending 30th of September, 1901—five months before the Sugar Convention was signed, and when they ought to have been at their last gasp—the profits of these poor oppressed sugar refiners amounted to no less than £215,000. There is testimony taken from the fountain head—continued, unbroken. and increasing prosperity, and a share capital of one million pounds offered to the public for subscription. I think that disposes of the sugar refiners.
  AN HON. MEMBER: That is only one of them.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: But even if the claims of the West Indies and of the sugar refiners were as sound as I believe them to be unfounded, I should still have a warm corner in my heart for the people at large in Great Britain; I should still claim cheap sugar for the poor; I should still have some feeling in my breast for those large new industries, built up on cheap sugar, upon which, as I am credibly informed, no fewer than 250,000 persons depend for their livelihood; and I should still appeal to the Government not lightly to sacrifice the interests of those persons to what I believe to be an entirely mistaken idea that they can

  615
  either revive the West Indies or increase the tremendous prosperity of English sugar refiners by making sugar dearer, as they propose to do by this Bill.
  I will now go rapidly over the Convention. Its purpose is stated in the preamble. The various Powers having met, this was declared to be their object—
  "Desiring on the one hand to equalise the conditions of competition between beet and cane sugar from various countries, and on the other hand to promote the consumption of sugar."
  Let us see how that purpose is carried out. By the first Article, all the contracting Powers agree to suppress bounties on sugar and sugar products within their own borders. Let the House not suppose that this Bill and this Convention affect only sugar. In the language of the Convention and of our own Customs tariff "sugar" inclues all products into which sugar enters. It includes biscuits, milk, rose petals, violets, and even blacking, and the House will hardly credit the fact that it also includes Angostura bitters. The subject therefore is an extremely large one. The second article provides for refining sugar in bond; the third provides that the surtax, which represents the difference between the import duty and the excise duty, shall not exceed 2s. 6d. per cent.; the fourth article, which is the most important in the Convention, provides that each contracting State shall place upon bounty-fed sugar and sugared products a countervailing duty equal to that which is decided to be the bounty given. That decision rests with the permanent Commission, which has two duties—first, to pronounce whether the contracting States do or do not observe the obligation not to give bounties; and, secondly, to decide whether non contracting States give bounties, and if so, to what extent. In the case of the contracting States if the permanent Commission decide that they do give bounties, a reference has to be made to a conference of all the Powers concerned, with which the final decision rests. But in the case of a non-contracting State the permanent Commission decide out of hand without appeal and without conference, and their decision is "executive," and must be carried out by every one of the contracting States
  616
  within two months. Finally, by Protocol A 2, this country is bound to give no preference to colonial sugars as against sugar from contracting States. The effect of all this must be to achieve dear sugar by giving a monopoly of the supply in this country to the contracting States have been amazed at the way in which the negotiations for the conclusion of the Convention were conducted. They were muddled and hurried; the negotiators were ordered to hurry over important matters like the cartel because if the abolition of the cartel was insisted upon, the Convention would not be obtained. To crown the whole business, t he Convention was submitted to this House in a translation so admittedly false that upon my representations the Foreign Office had to withdraw it and issue a new translation. flat it was on the first and false translation, supported at last by the Closure, that the decision of this House was asked and taken, and that, forsooth, is the debate upon whch the Prime Minister relies when he says that the principle of this Bill has been already accepted by the House.
  This Convention differs wholly from the proposals made by the Colonial Secretary for the conduct of the fiscal affairs of this country. The idea of the right hon. Gentleman is to tax the foreigner for the benefit of the Englishman, and to prefer the colonies to all the word besides, excepting—though I am not sure whether he would not include—England. This Convention will relieve the foreigner from taxation which he now bears, it will prohibit us from carrying out the most beneficient ideas of the Colonial Secretary in the way of giving a preference to the colonies, and instead of increasing the industry and prosperity of the Empire, it will tend to make sugar dearer and seriously to hamper, and perhaps to crush, the new industries which have been created. Let the House remember that this is all to be done for the profit of a very few States with Germany at their head. It is a strange fact that to the conferences on which this Convention was founded one of the States most interested in the production of sugar. and which will yet be a competitor in this market—the United

  617
  States—was not even invited. I do not know whether Switzerland was invited, but at any rate she did not come in, and in the confectionery trade Switzerland, who will prove a serious competitor, will continue to enjoy sugar as cheap as she can get it. The Colonial Secretary's scheme is entirely inconsistent with this Convention. He attaches great importance, as do I, to the action and the judgment of the self-governing colonies. What is their judgment about this Convention? Every one of them has refused to receive it or to adopt it. Every one of them, and India as well. Moreover, no sooner was the Convention signed than we ourselves began to repudiate it. Article 4 binds us to impose countervailing duties upon every country that gives bounties. It applies to every country or colony in the world. It makes no exception. By myself and others it was at once pointed out that that would include the colonies. Upon this. the Government, although it had signed the Convention and had pledged itself to this Article 4, began to proclaim that they would never impose countervailing duties upon colonial sugar, and when subsequently they came to ratify the Convention, they repudiated their own signature and made a special reservation which entirely cut the ground away from Article 4, and was, in fact, a repudiation of that Article. I am not sure even that view will suffice to protect the self-governing colonies. From an answer given by the President of the Board of Trade it appears that the Australian surtax is from is. to 9s., but the limit fixed by the Convention is 2s. 6d. per cwt. Taking that in conjunction with the solemn, and as yet unrepudiated obligation not to give preference to colonial sugar, how can you admit the Australian sugar as bounty-fed without giving a preference to that sugar? It will still be necessary to repudiate the Protocol which binds you not to give any preference to sugar coming from your colonies, as you have already repudiated Article 4.
  Not only have we repudiated the Convention in one of its most important articles, but we have consistently violated—and His Majesty's Government propose to continue to violate—the most-favoured-nation clause of
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  our treaties in general. That clause binds us to admit the growth. produce, and manufacture of the country in question on as favourable terms as those of any other country whatever. We have that clause with no fewer than twenty-one countries which are not signatories to the Convention. Amongst them are Japan and the United States—Japan our, new ally, and the United States our dear cousins; and we are going to disregard the most-favoured nation clause and to violate, in their case and in every other, whenever it comes into conflict with the new notion set up by this Convention. The favoured-nation clause has given us priceless advantages. It has been recognised as the great bulwark and the necessary condition of our foreign trade. It has hitherto been ealously observed. So strongly, so earnestly, and so completely has every English Government hitherto desired to observe the most-favoured-nation clause that when accidently any infraction of it has been made we have made amends and have actually returned the duties levied under a mistake. In 1838 a duty was levied on beeswax from the United States, and the duty was repaid to the full. In 1884 a duty was levied on shins and hides from Sweden and that duty was also repaid to the full. In 1815 a duty was levied on rice from the United States, and that duty, because and only because it had been levied contrary to the nest-favoured-nation clause, was also repaid in full. And now it is contended by the Government that to put countervailing duties on sugar from Russia or to prohibit it from entering this country is no infraction of the most-favoured-nation clause. That is entirely contrary to the opinion of the law officers of the Crown of 1880. In that year the law officers of the Crown gave a considered opinion that any such act was a contravention of the most-favoured-nation clause. It is said that the present law officers have given a contrary opinion, but it has never been cited or quoted, and when I challenged the First Lord of the Treasury as to whether this was the opinion of all the three law officers of the Crown he did not answer. That left in my

  619
  mind the impression that it was not the opinion of all those three law officers, but only the opinion of one of them. That opinion has never been laid upon the Table. We know the precise effect of the opinion of 1880, and if there be another opinion in acontrary direction we do not know its exact terms or whether it is concurred in—which I very much doubt—by all the law officers of the Crown I believe that my right hon. friends the Attorney-General and the Solicitor General are far too good international lawyers to concur in any such opinion. Meantime we have declared to Russia that we will apply this penalising treatment to her sugar even although it maybe a repudiation of the most-favoured-nation clause. Russia claims that it is an absolute violation of the most-favoured-nation clause to treat her sugar like this. We denied this, and then Russia offered to submit it to the Hague Tribunal. If ever there was a subject with which that tribunal is fitted to deal, it is this. But His Majesty's Government refused, and said they would pay no attention to this strenuous protest. As to the Permanent Commission which sits at Brussels to order us to prohibit this sugar and admit that, I can only liken it to that secret trade tribunal the Vehmgerichte, which existed in the Middle Ages, such is its absolute power over our fiscal relations as far as sugar is concerned. It is to be remembered that the system established by the Convention is departed from and altered very much by the scheme of His Majesty's Government embodied in this Bill. The original idea embodied in the Convention is that you should levy upon the bounty-giving country a duty that would counter-balance the bounty. The first report of the Commission upon this question shows that the bounties vary from about 8d. per cwt. to something like 10s. per cwt. The object of the countervailing duties fixed by the Permanent Commission is to equalise of competition; but our way of carrying out the Convention under this Bill is to prohibit alike the sugar of the State which gives a bounty of 8d. and of the State which gives 10s. There is no equalisation of competition in this; there is only a
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  blind general closing of our ports for the advantage and the monoply of Germany principally and the other contracting States—for whom alone this our great market will be reserved by the Bill. My great objection to an International Commission is that this country should not be placed in any way under the orders of a foreign body consisting of ten foreigners and one Englishman, the ton foreigners all being interested in the maintenance of this monopoly.
  Even now it seems to be entirely uncertain as to what we are going to do. France has declared that she cannot change her law by the 1st September. What is the Government going to do I Are they going to prohibit French sugars after the 1st September? It has been declared by the Permanent Commission that the Contingent Law, which is the cartel system of Austria and Hungary, is not in harmony with the Convention. The right hon. Gentleman says he has every reason to believe that the law of Austria and Hungary will be brought into harmony with the Convention. For what reason? The right hon. Gentleman gave no reason, and I have every reason to believe exactly the contrary, because there is a telegram in The Times from its usually extremely well-informed Vienna correspondent, who says—
  "Dr. von BÖhm Bawerk, Minister of Finance, yesterday approached the Hungarian Government with a view to the substitution of some low arrangement for the state allotment system, which has been condemned by the Brussels Commission. He also seems to have met with meagre success. In regard to the tariff, the Hungarianscry, 'No changes without compensation!' and in regard to sugar decline to forego any part of the 300,000 quintals allotted to their refineries as a douceur to induce them to accept the allotment law. It may safely be predicted that the Hungarian Government will consent to no new arrangement that does not exclude foreign, and especially Austrian, sugar from the. Hungarian market."
  Will my right hon. friend tell me what reason he has for believing that the Austria-Hungarian Governments will bring their legislation and arrangements into harmony with the Convention, as they are not in harmony at present? I can get no information upon this point, and the right hon. Gentleman does not volunteer any reason. In the face of that I am bound to believe the information

  621
  published by the well-informed correspondent of The Times. I wish to know if the Government are going to prohibit sugar that comes from Austria and Hungary after the 1st September? I am not going into the difficulties which have been put forward by the hon. Member opposite as to certificates of origin. According to the Bill not a single pound of sugar can come into this country without a certificate of origin. There never was a system of certificates of origin that did not absolutely break down, and this will break clown. When we gave a preference to Canadian over Baltic timber, the Baltic timber was shipped over there and the certificate of origin was afterwards forthcoming. The same thing was done in regard to certificate of origin in Spain, for the Spanish merchants found that their trade was carried on in exactly the same way. Therefore the Government could not rely upon certificates of origin.
  There is one last thing I desire to say, awl it is that the whole of this intended equalisation of competition is going to be defeated by the new cartels. I think it was on the 18th July that a new cartel was made between Russia, Austria, and some of the other signatories, to this Convention, with the avowed purpose of limiting their output of sugar in order to keep up the price in England. In these circumstances I do not see how the President of the Board of Trade can say that the price of sugar in future will not exceed £10 per ton.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I said the average price.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: It will exceed that price if these eartel-making countries can effect it, and they avow that they intend to effect it if they can. I do not know how you can limit them to that price when you have given them a monopoly without competition from outside. I do not know at what heights they may establish it. To my mind the whole thing is a profound mistake. It has been marked by bungling and repudiation of other most solemn engagements such as has never been seen before or heard of in the history of the British Government. Its end must be to establish a monopoly which must be injurious to England, and from which England can gain no profit whatever. It will shatter
  622
  our trade, strangle a growing industry, close a market, except to monopolists, which has always hitherto been open, and make dearer for us sugar which it is in our interest to get cheap. But there is still a place of repentance left to His Majesty's Government. I had formed great hopes of His Majesty's Government in this session. I brought to their notice a mistake they had made in regard to the Baghdad Railway, and in seventeen days they retreated from the position they hitherto held and most fortunately and wisely retraced their steps and abandoned their policy. Let them do that on this occasion. The is not a pressing one for us. We have nothing to gain from it. The Convention is a very had one for us. Let them give up the Bill and repudiate the Convention It is provided for in the Convention itself by Article 12. If instead of that they press the Bill through by the aid of a powerful Government majority, if they impose on this If use by that majority, as the initial step in their policy of dear food, dear sugar—to be followed by dear corn and dear meat—then I say they will incur a grave responsibility before the country, and they will also cause a most profound distrust of themselves.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word anal at the end of the Question to add the word upon this day three months.'"—(Mr. Lough.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  Mu. WYLIE (Dumbartonshire): I have listened with much interest to the speech delivered by my hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn in support of the Amendment, but I hope in the course of my remarks to show the complete fallacy of some of the arguments. I support the Second Reading of the Bill for the following reasons—because it is a too long delayed measure of justice to a large number of employers and workmen connected with the sugar industry, both at home and in the colonies, who have been too long crushed by the conditions hitherto prevailing. I believe it will add greatly to the trade of the United Kingdom, not only in sugar but in a great variety of products which the increased prosperity of the colonial and home sugar industry

  623
  will necessitate. I support it as a measure of sound policy for securing the permanent cheapness of sugar by preserving the most powerful and reliable competition to beet sugar, which has lately been becoming a most dangerous monopoly. I support it in the interest of universal free trade. Let me refer to each of these points in a little more detail, and in the order in which I have mentioned them. For more than forty years a large number of the sugar manufacturers and the producers of sugar in the colonies have been crushed by a gigantic system of protection, one of the most obnoxious and injurious forms of protection, namely, in the shape of sugar bounties, from which it is proposed by this measure to relieve them. Hon and right hon. Gentlemen oppose it, but surely the British workman, whose products have been shut out of almost every market in the world by hostile tariffs, is entitled to demand at least fair play, if no favour, in his own country. if we deny preferential treatment to the colonies we are bound at least to give them that equality of treatment which will place them on a level with their Continental competitors, and which if they had been self-governing instead of Crown colonies they would long ago have secured for themselves This appears to be a matter of justice, and it was very ably stated by Mr. Gladstone, who persistently opposed bounties, when he said that while we were bound to observe the principles of equity towards foreign countries we were bound to observe the principles of equity towards our own countrymen. I am sorry to see that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite deny this equality of treatment to our own workmen on the plea that it will increase the price of sugar by a halfpenny per pound. It is a pity that to-day the policy the old champions of free trade advocated is so much spoken against by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The argument that the price of sugar will be increased by a halfpenny per pound is founded on an erroneous assumption. They say that this policy will injure the jam and confectionery trades by increasing the price to the extent of a halfpenny per pound But in the meantime let me say that those trades which have so success
  624
  fully resisted foreign competition in other respects will be able to survive. I believe cheaper sugar will be obtained for them under this arrangement. It is quite certain that by the aid of the cartel the complete extinction of the cane sugar industry would have been accomplished but for the intervention of the United States.
  Hitherto we have pursued a short-sighted policy in this matter. The total disregard of everything except cheapness has been one of the great fallacies in connection with our support of the bounty system. The bounty giving system is a total disregard of the principles of political economy. I suppose therefore in the interest of free trade this is the greatest measure since the repeal of the Corn Laws. We all know what free trade in corn did for corn. Apprehension has been expressed that free trade in sugar will have quite the contrary effect.
  SIR JAMES JOICEY: I listened with considerable interest to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, because when he first began he made a declaration that it was his intention to prove that the arguments of the mover and seconder of the Amendment were perfectly fallacious. I confess that, with all the care I have been able to use, I have not hoard one solid argument to show that my hon. friends, statements were fallacious at all. I must congratulate the mover and seconder of the Amendment upon the very excellent speeches they have delivered to the House, and am bound to say that no case was made out for the Bill by the right hon. Gentlemen who moved its Second Reading. Every argument of the President of the Board of Trade was completely riddled by the hon. Members for Islington and King's Lynn. I cannot see any justification for this Bill being brought into the House by the Government. Now, I am a free trader. I admit that there are advantages and disadvantages in connection with any tariff system which you may adopt. I recognise that in all tariff systems there is a balance of good on one side, and a balance of evil on the other side; but I confess that I cannot see where the balance of good comes in in connection with the system

  625
  proposed in the Bill. Personally, as a free trader, I am opposed to bounties, but there are many Governments which give bounties on articles other than sugar. The French give bounties on ships; are the Government prepared to adopt the same course in regard to these bounties as in regard to the bounties on sugar? I could hardly think that the Government would take that course. It is said that the Bill to abolish bounties is introduced for the purpose of benefiting our West Indian islands, winch send 47,000 tons of sugar to this country. But we receive 1,800,000 tons of sugar Born other countries; and I cannot help thinking that if the Government were really anxious to benefit the West Indies, they would have brought forward a grant in aid to the West Indies, which would represent an additional price to their 47,000 tons of sugar, rather than impose a duty on all sugar which conies from the various countries of Europe and elsewhere. We have heard the President of the Board of Trade make a good many statements as to what would be the effect of the policy of this Bill, but I confess, looking at the point as a business man, I am not very certain that the prophesies of the right hon. Gentleman will be realised. I feel sure that the President of the Board of Trade is not in a position to look into the future any more than any other Member in the House and I do not put the slightest value whatever on his prophecy that the average price of sugar, if the Bill becomes law, will be only £10 per ton. The Government ought to have made an overwhelming case in favour of their policy before bringing in this Bill, but I have listened to the debates both on the Convention and on this Bill, and I fail to see any justification whatever for the policy which they have adopted. I have not yet been able to get a grip of the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary, because he seems to have one policy one day, which he modifies the next. But if this Bill becomes law, the right hon. Gentleman will not be able to carry out one portion of his policy which he has foreshadowed— viz., to give preferential duties to our colonies in regard to sugar.
  I represent a very large working-class constituency, and come from
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  a district in the north of England which has 1,200,000 inhabitants, where the co-operative system is carried on to a great extent with extreme success. Now all the co-operative societies are thoroughly opposed to this Bill, and I believe that the working classes throughout the country, as a whole, do not imagine that they will get any benefit out of a measure of tins kind. I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member for Islington that the large number of industries which depend to a large extent for their prosperity on cheap sugar will be seriously injured if this Bill is passed. I also agree with the hon. Member for King's Lynn that the Bill puts the complete control of our sugar industries into the hands of a Commission of twelve men, only one of whom represents this country, the remainder re-presenting countries which will be benefited by the abolition of the bounties. In fact, I believe that the Bill will be most disastrous to tins country, and I shall do my best to prevent its passing into law. I shall oppose it at every stage, and I hope that its opponents in this House will also resist it at every stage so that the country may become thoroughly alive to the mischief with which the Government threatens the country.
  MR. WHITE RIDLEY: The hon. Members who moved and seconded the Amendment have made a great parade of the glorious principles of free trade, and given thier own personal opinion as to the effect of this measure. I wish to draw the attention of the House to the peculiar position in which they find themselves. Here is a practical opportunity of securing free trade in sugar, but because some protectionists support the Bill they would reject it. That position is illogical. If the Convention is not for free trade in sugar I would like to know what it is for. The natural, and indeed inevitable, result of trying to apply rigid economic theories to practical, work-a-day life is to land yourselves in difficulties. Those who have a great dislike to bounties are the very people who absolutely refuse to abolish them. They refuse to take the only practical means to abolish them

  627
  because, forsooth, there are certain industries in the country which have made a great stir about the matter, and which assert that they will be ruined by the Bill if it becomes law. Those who oppose the Bill have discovered a newly awakened interest in the consumer. They rest their case on the plea that the Bill will raise the price of sugar, and that their industries depend upon cheap sugar. I entirely controvert the proposition that their prosperity depends wholly on cheap sugar, because, when these industries were built up and became prosperous, sugar was twice the price it is now. They waxed fat and prospered when sugar was at £20 per ton, and when sugar has been reduced from £20 per ton to £8 per ton they complain that a very small rise which may take place in the price of sugar will injure their interests.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  SUGAR CONVENTION BILL.
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment to Question [28th July], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Which Amendment was—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months.'"—(Mr. Lough.)
  Question again proposed, "That the word 'now" stand part of the Question."
  Debate resumed.
  MR. WHITE RIDLEY: I was pointing out when the dinner interval interrupted me that jam, biscuit, and aerated water manufacturers had not so much to gain by cheap sugar as is imagined. They were able to make large profits when sugar was £20 a ton, and they cannot complain if sugar which is now £8 should rise to £10 a ton. The demand those interested in these industries are making is this—that those who have practically enjoyed a bounty for many years should be still allowed to enjoy that bounty when the Government have
  628
  an opportunity of getting rid of it; n t only that, but when the figures are examined we find that the consumption of sugar in this country induced by the industries which are concerned increased rather more during the early part of their prosperity, when sugar was dearer, than later. I take the average price from 1872 to 1885, fourteen years, and I find it was 28s. a cwt. Then I take the years from 1889 to 1897, when it was 16s. a cwt., or 12s. less, and I find during the former period the consumption of sugar increased by 37,000 tons, whilst in the latter period it only increased by 19,000 tons, so that when sugar was 28s. a cwt. the annual consumption of sugar increased at a very much greater rate than when it was only 16s. a cwt. Therefore I venture to say that these industries which make so great an outcry are greatly mistaken in thinking that they will not be able to maintain their prosperity if sugar should go up in price. One of the first conditions of a successful trade is a regular market and regular prices; and everybody who looks through the variation in the price of sugar during the past many years, will see at once that industries such as these, which depend on a regular supply of sugar, could not look for prosperity when the variations were so great. I find that in the last twenty years the variations in the price in the course of one year have never been less than 1s. 2d. per cwt., and during the last three years 3s. per cwt.; a variation in the course of one year of about one-third of the whole of the price of the cwt. A variation so great as that is not one which ought to induce these trades to think such a condition of affairs would lead to their permanent prosperity. If you take any year you like from 1882 to 1902 you find these enormous variations in the price of the raw material upon which these industries depend, and I say that the very industries that can gain, or ought to gain, by this Convention, which, whatever it does, will steady the price of sugar, will be these industries which complain.
  Turning to the case of the general consumer. The hon. Member for King's Lynn seemed very disturbed at what he called the monopoly created by this Convention. I say so far from creating any monopoly this Convention abolishes

  629
  monopoly. I was at a loss to understand what the hon. Member meant by monopoly, and was not enlightened by his speech. I find that the monopoly for supplying this country is gradually falling into the hands of Germany and Austria-Hungary; 68 per cent. of our, refined sugar and 35 per cent. of our raw sugar came from those countries in 1900; and taking the year 1902 I find the proportion of 68 per cent. of refined sugar has increased to 72 per. cent. and that the 38 per cent. of raw sugar has increased to 53 per cent. When you find two countries whose borders adjoin dealing in the same produce and adopting the same policy, and when you find those countries supplying this country with 72 per cent. of refined sugar and 53 per cent. of raw sugar I ant certain the House will agree with me in thinking we are rapidly approaching a time when Germany and Austria-Hungary gill have a monopoly. The hon. Member for King's Lynn thinks the saute monopoly will exist under this Bill, and thinks the surtax on the sugar, or tire difference between Customs and Excise duties will allow those countries to maintain that monopoly. I do not see how his opinion can stand against the deliberate opinion of the Convention. You find in the opinion of the Convention that the maximum surtax they propose to allow in the future is enough to stop any monopoly in these countries. What will be the real effect on the price of sugar? It is quite possible, and indeed probable, that the price will not fall blow the cost of production; but the utmost rise there can be will be a rise to the normal price of sugar, and I do not see that any section of the community can complain if the price is raised to its normal state. And I venture to say the normal price of sugar has been very little affected by the bounties. The lowering of the price of sugar by the bounties has been infinitesimal, The main cause of the reduction has not been the bounties but increased facilities of production incidental to modern ingenuity. Tire hon. Member for West Islington said, when it was a question of making a grant to the West Indies, that the price of sugar has not been affected to any extent by the bounties, and when the hon. Member
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  says that, it is reasonable to suppose the abolition of tire bounties will not cause a large increase of price. The fact is that the extremely low price of sugar during the last ten years is due not to the bounties but the extreme over production caused by the bounties. Hon. Members may think that if the price of sugar was reduced by whatever means, it might be a very satisfactory thing; but on glancing over the prices of sugar we find the result of the low price of sugar is a tendency to alternate to a high price. It is an artificial system of alternating prices, upon which no country can have any confidence whatever.
  It is said we have given the consumers £8,000,000, but it cannot be said that the whole of these bounties go into the consumers' pockets. Suppose the West Indies can sell sugar in this country at £10 a ton, and Germany can produce it at £8 15s, and that they obtain a bounty of £4 or £5, the German producer does not reduce his price to the extent of the whole of the bounty but only to such an extent as to enable him to undersell the West Indies, and puts the rest into his own pocket; therefore I cannot see how it can be said that this £8,000,000 goes into the pockets of the consumer. These bounties have not been responsible for the great decrease in the price of sugar; that has been affected by other causes. If the bounties were abandoned to-morrow the other causes would remain, and the reduction in price would still continue. Supposing sugar returns to the normal price, we might naturally expect that in competition induced by free trade the sugar would lower its price. Not merely the West Indies will benefit, but there are large areas in Central America which will also profit by the Convention. Experience has shown that sugar could be produced profitably in England if there were no bounty to compete with it. There is one circumstance that will prevent sugar reaching its normal price for some time. There are very large stocks held by producers of beet sugar, and when those enormous stocks are got rid of it will to a large extent prevent any increase in the price of sugar. What was the meaning of

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  the private convention of the sugar producers on the Continent. It was that they had got enormous stocks on hand, stocks amounting to something like 2,500,000 tons, and that they had to face the reduction caused by the abolition of the bounties. It will be said that the West Indies will not be great gainers if the price of sugar does not go beyond its normal price; but those who make that remark are those who have not studied the conditions in the West Indies. Those who have read the Blue-book published by the Colonial Office on this question, will know that what is feared in the West Indies is not the actual price now but the price in the future. If they look at the Blue-book they will see that the merchants who are in the habit of lending money to the cane growers on their future crops, refused to lend further money, because the bounties prevented the profitable growing of cane sugar. That is why the West Indies has not been able to get on. It is because they could not get the capital to go on with, and this is a matter of the utmost importance for the consideration of the House. This question involves the discontinuation of the system so prejudicial to the west Indies, which practically prohibited the exportation of their sugar. We have granted preferential duties, not to the West Indies but to Continental countries, and I should venture to think the people of this country will be inclined to say if we to grant these privileges at all we should grant them to our colonies and not to foreign countries; and they will be the first to realise that what in the end will be the cheapest sugar will be that supplied in regular competition with all nations under the sun. To suppose the people of this country are not capable of appreciating, that seems to me to he gambling, not on the food but on the intelligence of the people.
  With regard to the other chief objection which is raised to this Amendment. It is said we are placing our fiscal system under foreign control. It is an utter travesty of the situation to say so. This foreign board is one on which the British have an equal vote, or a more than equal vote, to that of the rest, and they have quite as much reason to see that the
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  Convention is properly carried out as anyone. It is not to the interest of France that Germany should go on granting bounties when she has abolished them, or to the interest of Germany that Austria-Hungary should go on when she has abolished them. It is the business of the Convention to decide what they shall give a bounty to, and what they shall not, and whether such sugar shall be excluded from the English market. The amount of sugar excluded will only be one-fortieth part of the supply, and it is a travesty of the situation to say that the exclusion of one-fortieth of the supply of sugar to this country is to render the food of the people dear. It is an utter absurdity which only has to be mentioned to show its falsity. This question is no doubt part of the larger one. It is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, some sign of the storm which is to break over us soon, but I venture to think those who are opposing any fiscal reform are those who ought to support the Convention. Nations, in their conflict with each other, can resort either to arms or to fiscal weapons. Neither of these methods appeal to those hon. Members who oppose this Convention. They approve of international agreement. This is n international agreement, and as such they ought to support it. Far from being a retrograde measure and one which this country will not participate in, I believe it is one of which the people of this country will unanimously approve. I believe the country will approve of this Convention, and heartily endorse the action the Government have so courageously taken in its support.
  MR. CAWLEY: I think the hon. Member opposite has proved too much. He seems to think that he knows more about the real interests of the consumers of sugar in this country than the consumers themselves. Surely an enormous trade, such as the jam and confectionery trade, are able to take care of their own interests; they certainly know as much about the matter as the hon. Member opposite, and they are unanimous in their demand that they should be allowed to buy their principal material in the cheapest market. The

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  hon. Member says we do not get the whole of the bounty. That is possibly so, because the producer of beet sugar in Germany in normal times makes a profit, and so pockets some of it. But they are in competition with one another, and when there is a glut in the market the producer has to give not only his bounty but something else as well. The whole thing seems so simple that it is difficult to understand why the Government are taking this course. Unless reasons are brought forward which have not yet been adduced, it is impossible for me to understand it. I know something of business, and to me the case seems to be this. These Continental countries want the votes of the agriculturists; they have influence brought to bear upon them to give a bounty for growing beet sugar, and in order to propitiate certain people they give the bounty. The bounty stimulates production; so much sugar is grown that it has to be dumped down here, often at a loss. Who pays that loss? The consumers in Germany, France, and Austria-Hungary pay a big price so that our people here can get sugar at a low price. In other words, the working classes of those countries take so much money out of their pockets and present it to our working people. That is what the Government propose to stop. Sugar is often sold here at 3s. below cost price, and how anybody can say that we are not gainers by that I cannot understand. This Convention will prevent sugar corning at such a low price, and according to the hon. Member for Stalybridge it is better for the jam trade that they should pay 10s. instead of 6s. per cwt. for their sugar.
  MR. WHITE RIDLEY: No.
  MR. CAWLEY: The President of the Board of Trade said that in future he thought the price would average 10s.
  MR. WHITE RIDLEY: The maximum.
  MR. CAWLEY: No, the average.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO TME BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. BONAR LAW, Glasgow, Blackfriars): He said, provided the cost of production remained the same.
  MR. CAWLEY: What I understood him to say was that if this Bill passes the chances are that the average price of sugar will be 10s. It can now frequently be obtained at 6s. What is the advantage of this I It is to enable the West Indies to make a profit. I say that it would be cheaper for us to give the West Indies a million or two per annum direct than to try to give them this advantage in such a roundabout way. The attempt to bolster up a trade in this way, by increasing the price, will not stand looking into. One of our principal competitors ill this matter is Switzerland. Switzerland will be able to get sugar dumped down in her country, and to produce confectionery at a lower price than we shall. At present we get sugar from Germany and France below cost; we manipulate it, make it into jam and sweetstuffs, and actually ship back their own sugar at a profit. That the Government want to do away with. To my mind it is a suicidal policy, which will do very little good to the West Indies; it will injure an enormous and growing trade which is worked under the best conditions as to labour, and employs 250,000 hands; and the Government by persisting in their policy will do a very ill deed to the country.
  MR. PLATT-HIGGINS: The hon. Member opposite has candidly admitted that he does not understand this subject.
  MR. CAWLEY: I said nothing of the sort. I said I understood business.
  MR. PLATT-HIGGINS: But not this business. I understood the hon. Member to rely on statements made to him by the trade, and he saw no reason why if cheap sugar were offered to them they should nut take it. I do not know whether the hon. Member is a fisherman or not. If he is, he will be aware that the bait usually contains a hook, and there are two very obvious hooks in this cheap sugar. One is that under the condition which he so favours, the trade of this country, especially in connection with confectionery, is absolutely at the mercy of some regulation of the German Government giving their export bounty on confectionery instead of on raw sugar. I

  635
  doubt whether that is a prospect which the confectionery trade can contemplate with equanimity. The next is the monopoly which the Germans now enjoy, and to which I will allude presently. A great deal has been said about the Convention putting a burden on the consumers of this country. In my constituency we have neither refineries nor jam manufactories, nor are we in the slightest way concerned with the West Indies; consequently I am supporting this Convention absolutely in the interests of the consumer. It is said that the abolition of bounties must raise the price of sugar by the amount of the bounties. That is the fallacy of the Cobden Club leaflet, No. 120. That leaflet sets out that Germany, Holland, and Belgium give us so much, and it totals up the amount at £2,770,000, which it says is a free gift, and asks why we should not have it, It is not always easy to upset predictions, but it is sometimes easy to upset statements as to the past. That leaflet refers to 1898, and it is easy to show that its argument is a fallacy. In that year, the average price of beet was 9s. 7d. f.o.b. Hamburg, or 10s. 3d. delivered in London. The cost of making sugar is 8s.9d. Therefore those countries not only did not give us a penny of that large sum, but they made a profit of 1s. 6d. per cwt. out of us. Hon. Members who talk of the burden on the consumer would do well to study these subjects. Then there is a leaflet of the National Liberal Federation in which we are told that by this Convention we shall lose £8,500,000 a year. That is based on the supposition that we should lose the benefit of 5s. a cwt. on the 1,500,000 tons that we receive. But hon. Members opposite know very, well t hat if two men on the Manchester Exchange offer to sell an article, one at 8s. 6d., and the other at 8s. 9d., and the one at 8s. 9d. has an illegitimate bargain of 5s. up his sleeve, the latter does not say that because he has that 5s. he will offer his article at 3s. 9d.; he tries it at 8s. 5d., and probably books the order, so that instead of getting 5s. the buyer gets 4d., and that is where the mistake of the National Liberal Federation comes in. It is said that you cannot upset the statement of Sir H. Norman that there would be an advance of ½d in the pound. But the whole of that passage is very
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  seldom read. It was made nearly six years ago, and is as follows:—
  "It must be admitted that if countervailing duties are levied, and have the desired effect, the people of the United Kingdom will have to pay more for their sugar than they do et present, perhaps to the extent of id a pound."
  There is a good deal of qualification about that "perhaps." What was the price in 1897? It was 8s. 9d. f.o.b. Hamburg, or 9s. 5d. delivered in London. Arise of ½d a pound would mean 14s. 5d. Will any member of the House bet a hat that the price of sugar will rise to 14s. 5d. this winter? This is a great struggle, not between the West Indies and Germany, but between cane sugar and beet sugar all over the world. I am utterly amazed that hon. Members opposite should constitute themselves the champions of a German monopoly. Germany enjoys an almost exclusive monopoly in the production of beet sugar. In 1893 the consumption in the United Kingdom of beet sugar from all quarters of the world was 1,000,000 tons; the consumption of cane sugar was 373,000 tons. In 1902 the consumption of beet sugar had risen to 1,400,000 tons, and that of sugar cane had fallen to 176,000 tons. Can any man of common sense say that it is to the interest of this country that cane sugar, which is the better sugar, should be driven from the country in this fashion? That is the attitude of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for West Islington took pride in showing how cane sugar is-as being driven even out of the West Indies. I see nothing to rejoice at in it. Rather is it to the interest of this country to stimulate the production of cane sugar, so that it may form a more powerful rival to beet sugar. The arguments of hon. Members seem to be based entirely en the fact that the price of sugar in 1902 was about Gs. But that was an abnormal state, and an abnormal state is in its essence temporary, and I say it is not to the interests of this country that the sugar supply should remain in that state. Some years ago American lard fell to 17s. a cwt., at which price it ceased to pay, and the production fell off. A trust in America got possession of the market, and the price has risen from 17s. to 58s. Are we to be exposed to a catastrophe like that I Yet that is the practical effect of the 6s. argument.

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  The danger of monopoly is one of the greatest dangers threatening thiscountry. In Manchester we have a very familiar example in the sewing cotton trade. That trade is in the hands of a combination. Does that combination make use of the fact to give cotton at the cheapest price? Not a bit of it. They use their monopoly to put dividends in the pockets of their shareholders, and their shares stand at an enormous price. It is asked, "But if prices rise, why doe: not competition come in?" Because it dare not. If it did the combination would come down and swamp it as easily and as ruthlessly as a farmer's wife wrings the neck of a chicken. As to the German monopoly, here is a report of a meeting of the United Alkali Company, held in Liverpool this year, at which the chairman bemoaned his hard fate. He said:—
  "The English manufacturer has to fight an unfair battle for his own home market. To meet this difficulty the company had had for two years an agreement with the German makers as to the quantity they should export to the markets of the world including this country. When the agreement came up for renewal for the present year the representative of the German manufacturers insisted that a large increase in the total quantity assigned to them must be made, and that the United Alkali Company should undertake not to sell for consumption in Germany and Switzerland, and, further, that rights should he given to the German makers to sell in our own home market and in the United States at a difference in price in favour of German bleaching powder which would give them power to undersell the company in those markets."
  Is that a state of affairs we can contemplate with equanimity? Yet it is a state of affairs which would be actually brought about. It is said that we have received some benefits from the bounty system. I think we have, but the bounties have been a counterweight to the rise in the price of sugar which might have taken place had there been no competition. I want to show that the benefit must still accrue whether the bounties go on or not. The Germans, the French, and the Dutch have laid out enormous sums of money in the cultivation of the beetroot. They have established a trade which cannot stand still, but which they will be bound to continue for a certain period of time. They will he bound to give us the benefit of their supplies, whether they like it or not. They will not plough the land up. Looking at the matter from a common-
  638
  sense point of view, it would be to the interest of this country that we should have, instead of one-tenth of cane and nine-tenths of beet sugar, half of each. If we distribute our production all over the world we shall be naturally on much safer ground. Bounties in their nature are like stimulants: there are times when stimulants may be given with advantage, but there conies a time when it is not safe to give them without serious danger to the patient. In my judgment that is the present state of affairs, but unfortunately those men who are so fond of bounties are like the dram drinkers who cannot give up dram drinking.
  SIR JOHN GORST: The first question which seems to arise is whether the House of Commons is free to exercise its judgment on the Second Reading of this Bill. The first Lord of the Treasury tells us that the Government has entered into a Convention which has been recognised by a vote of this House and therefore we are no longer free agents, and that we are hound to pass the Second Reading of this Bill merely to carry out the stipulations of a Convention already made. That seems to be a formidable argument. But, in the first place, the Convention itself reserves the right of the Legislature to consider this matter. Secondly, it must be remembered that the Resolution approving the Convention was passed at the end of an autumn session by the use of the closure and upon a document which was afterwards found to have been mistranslated. These circumstances justify the House in acting as if they were free agents. The last speaker talked as if those who were opposed to the Second Reading of the Bill were in favour of bounties. Nothing could be more incorrect. As a free trader I am strongly opposed to bounties. I think they form the very worst mode by which Government can interfere with the free course of trade, and I therefore rejoice that the countries of the Continent have seen the errors of their ways and are prepared to a certain limited extent to adopt the policy of abolition of bounties. But I am sorry to say that they reserve the surtax which is to have the effect of giving them the absolute monopoly of their own markets. If this had simply been an agreement on the part of the countries interested to abolish bounties,

  639
  we should have had nothing but approbation, sympathy, and the strongest possible admiration for their conduct. But in this case something is asked of us. We are not only asked to applaud the abolition of the bounties but to take an active part in a considerable interference with the course of trade. When we are called upon to do that it becomes our duty to ask what interest have we in this matter.
  Now, are our interests promoted by entering into engagements with regard to the sugar trade on the Continent? I wish to say a few words on two hypotheses: first, that the price of sugar will rise, and secondly, that it will not rise. I have the most profound distrust of the prophecies made by economists and by the Board of Trade as to what will be the effect of a proceeding of this kind. After all, the price of sugar depends originally on supply and demand and the causes which ultimately settle the price are of a very complicated nature. Suppose the price does not rise, the people of this country will get their sugar cheap. The consumers will not suffer at all, but those who have been hurt by the bounties will not get the advantage they anticipate under the Convention. The West Indian Islands will gain nothing. I confess that when I hear people crying out about the impossibility of carrying on an industry I always think it is owing to want of enterprise and skill in the conduct of that industry. I cannot help thinking that if a little of the energy and wisdom of Egypt were imported into the West Indian Islands there also the sugar industry would become profitable. Beet sugar cultivation was once tried in Egypt and it failed, so the agriculturists turned their attention to cane sugar and found it one of the most lucrative industries. Therefore it appears to me that if the price of sugar does not rise under the Convention nothing Will be lost and, on the other hand, nothing will be gained. But suppose the price does rise. What will he the result We know that there are cartels at work with a view to regulating the quantity of sugar to be placed on the market. If the price rises how shall we gain by it? In the first place, the great masses of the
  640
  people will have to pay more for their sugar, which is an extremely serious matter, as it involves a diminution of the people's food. The raw material of the sugar industries will also rise in price. It is quite true, as has been pointed out, that a rise in the price of raw material does not necessarily destroy trade. But it disturbs it, and I think the House will admit it would be a great misfortune if a rise in the price of sugar should check the development and prosperity of a big trade. The only compensation for these evils—and it is a small one—is that the sugar-refining industry at home and the sugar cultivators of the West Indian Islands will be slightly benefited. The Bill affords an object lesson of the risks and dangers and difficulties which attend the making of fiscal arrangements with foreign countries to the disturbance of trade. It is an extremely important Bill for that reason, and I hope it will be fully discussed so that the country may see the dangers that are lurking under this kind of interference. The Government got into difficulties in making this Convention by agreeing to prohibit the importation of bounty-fed sugar, and when the time came for the ratification of the Convention it was found necessary to insert words providing that the protocol should not apply to British colonies.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: We always intended that.
  Sin JOHN GORST: Then it is a pity you did not make it clear in the first instance. It shows that, in entering into trade relations with foreign countries, we shall have to make exceptions in favour of our self-governing colonies. Again, it has been found that the Convention is a violation of the "most-favoured-nation" clause in commercial treaties. We know what the United States has had to say to that, while it is important to note that Russia has taken up the position that England, by entering into the Convention, has violated the most-favoured-nation treatment in the commercial treaties between the two countries. We have actually been driven to repudiate the arbitration of the Hague tribunal in this matter. It is certainly a very unfortunate position for us. Then the next thing to note is that the Government do not

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  bring in all the members of the Empire. They have brought in the Crown colonies, but India has refused to come in. Yet India is completely under the control of the Government and Parliament of this country. Another difficulty is that if this Bill passes the House of Commons will become a body of log-rollers. I do not want to be personal or discourteous, but I must say that in the debate which took place in the autumn I thought I discerned some symptoms of incipient logrolling, and this will certainly he one of the difficulties of the future under a system of commercial legislation of this kind. I have just one more objection to this kind of legislation. After all, the discussion of this Bill in this House is a purely academic affair, because the Bill will go elsewhere. By "elsewhere" I mean, not the House of Lords, but an assembly in Brussels consisting of ten foreigners and one Briton. That assembly, which will have to give the final decision, has already censured and disagreed with the legislation of Austria Hungary and of France, and I suppose it will feel itself powerful enough to disagree with the legislation of Great Britain. As a member of the British Empire I strongly object to any kind of negotiations or agreement being entered into with foreign countries which interfere with the sovereign authority of the House of Commons and of Parliament. If we pass this Bill we shall have to refer it to the Belgium Commission to see whether it is pleased to approve of it, and if it is not approved then I suppose we shall have to amend it. It is this House which ought to decide whether or not we shall substitute total prohibition for countervailing duties.
  MR. BRYCE: I have kept an absolutely open mind on this question, for I have deemed it to be one on which we should endeavour to listen to all the arguments that can be adduced on either side. I have never addressed the House on it, and I entered the Chamber this evening with unusual curiosity and interest, looking forward to a full statement of the reasons which had induced the Govern- went to take this exceptional and even unprecedented course. This is the first time we have ever subjected our legislation to foreign control, and, therefore, a strung case must be made
  642
  out for it. I agree with the hon. Member for Stalybridge, who said we ought to study the interests of the consumers, but I confess I fail to see that he adduced any reason for the belief that the consumer would benefit under this Bill. He went on to say that he was opposed to monopolies. So are we, but it does not seem to us that the best way of stopping them is by prohibiting the importation of goods into this country. He told us later on that Germany was the enemy. I do not think he is right in that, for Germany has from the first been one of the countries willing to bring its legislation into conformity with that of other countries. The speech of the President of the Board of Trade was marked by much speculative thought but the right hon. Gentleman was unable to explain the difficulties which perplex our minds; he could not tell us what would happen if prices were raised and how the West Indies would benefit. The prophetic clement was particularly strong in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade. The right hon. Gentleman laid stress on the absolute obligation of this country to carry out this Convention; but not only is the constitutional right of the Legislature explicitly reserved, but it is an axiom of all Parliamentary countries that no treaty requiring legislation can possibly have any effect or bind any country until after legislation has been passed. We were absolutely and perfectly free, and I cannot for a moment accept the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman that we are bound in any way.
  The right hon. Gentleman did not put before us any practical arguments. He discussed a good many interesting questions, but he did not tell us what are the practical gains that we are to expect from this Convention. I will try to supply the omission by asking what are the practical gains which are put before us by the agitators who have kept up the movement in favour of this Convention for more than twenty years? In the first place, they say it will promote free trade. That is a very strange argument to come from protectionist s. This Bill is, as a matter of fact promoted IT protectionists. I do not include the President of the Board of Trade among the protectionists. The mental state of

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  Members of the Government has become a subject of absorbing interest to us on this side of the House, and we are only too delighted to have some little corner lifted of that veil which shrouds their intentions. I gather that the right hon. Gentleman is a free trader, and therefore I am sure it is in the interests of free trade that he has brought forward this Bill; but that is not the motive of the great bulk of the people who have been promoting the agitation against the sugar bounties. It is quite certain that Austria-Hungary, Germany, and France are not free traders, and that they intend to maintain their protectionist character. In one respect this Convention will be a setback to free trade, because it establishes the surtax, and we have made ourselves parties to that surtax. There is nothing in the Convention to get rid of cartels, and I do not see any ground whatever for thinking that cartels will not be just as powerful, just as able to raise prices in their own country, just as able to "dump" goods in this country as they have been hitherto. We are not escaping from cartels in any way. The President of the Board of Trade and the advocates of the Convention have defined free trade for their own purposes as that which allows commodities to find their natural level. There is no reason to believe that in that sense there will be any more free trade in sugar than there has been hitherto. The President of the Board of Trade argued that the Convention would have the effect of steadying prices, and making trade less liable to fluctuations. But there is no reason given for that; nor is there any reason to believe that the fluctuations are in many cases due to the bounties.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The fluctuations are largely due to bounties; but I admit there are other causes. We will never be able to get rid of fluctuations entirely.
  MR. BRYCE: That is a question on which I have no special knowledge. It is a statement which requires proof. I want to be shown that the fluctuations in prices are coincident with bounties. Just look at the enormous fluctuations that occur in cotton and grain, and who
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  will venture to say that there will be no further fluctuations in the sugar trade. It is not a statement that can be accepted on the mere ipse dixit of any Department. The cartels will very likely be interested in causing fluctuations, and they will have the power to cause them. The President of the Board of Trade said that the Convention struck a blow at the system of cartels, which was applicable to every protected country. That in one sense is a most valuable admission that the system of combinations and trusts and rings is more easily carried out where there are protective duties than where there are not. That has been our contention throughout, and one of the strongest objections to a change in the fiscal policy of this country was, that so far from delivering us from combinations it would expose us to them. Therefore, the admission of the right hon. Gentleman is of the greatest value. But let us remember that we do not get rid of protection. Are we, whenever we find a bounty in existence, to make a convention to put a stop to it. Take the case of our own colonies. Ontario is, I believe, at this moment giving a bounty on the production of beet sugar in order to meet competition. The Dominion Government is, I believe, giving a bounty on iron, lead, and steel. Are we to remonstrate with Canada? Are we to consider that Canada is pursuing a policy hostile to us because she gives a bounty? Let us mind our own business, and if some other country chooses to injure itself by giving bounties let it mind its own business. We hear a good deal about "dumping," and it is evidently to be a large part of the controversy. "Dumping" has become a term to denote the selling of goods below the cost of production. I suppose the term is intended to stigmatise the process as being something miserable and revolting. The idea suggests refusa, and that the articles "dumped" are fit for nothing except to be cast out and got rid of. How does that apply in cases in which the things "dumped" are iron, steel, and sugar, not useless articles, and in some cases parcels of cotton goods. Therefore, all that "dumping" means is that somebody is kind enough to give us goods below the cost of production. Is there anything to resent in that? Is it any injury to the

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  trade of this country? Has it ever been so? Never. I say with some confidence it has never been an injury to the trade of this country except on small occasions and for brief periods. I do not deny that there are moments when the markets are disturbed by putting parcels of goods below cost price on them; but what I do deny is, that there has ever been a case where permanent injury has been inflicted.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It has inflicted injury on the West Indies, and has almost destroyed their trade.
  Mr. BRYCE: I will be prepared to deal with that case presently. If goods are "dumped" here, what is the proper course to pursue I The proper course is to buy them. If people "dump" great quantities of pig-iron and steel upon us, it is our business to take that iron and steel, and to work it up into manufactured articles, making more profit than if the raw materials were produced in this country. That is the proper way to deal with "clumping." We may he perfectly certain that no body of foreign manufacturers, no foreign combination, in their own interest ever pursue this process for very long. Now I come to the ease of the West Indies, which is the whole foundation for this Convention. There is no other argument fit to be considered for a moment. The West Indies are amongst our oldest colonies, and they are a group of colonies of which we are proud. I do not wish to approach their case in an unsympathetic spirit, but I may remark that the.President of the Board of Trade omitted altogether to point out what is the substantial benefit to be expected by the West Indies from the Convention. It has been remarked that the sugar from the West Indies is only a small part of the total production, and only an exceedingly small part of our imports. The United Kingdom takes 1,600,000 tons annually, but only 45,000 or 50,000 tons from the West Indies, while the total animal production of those colonies is 240,000 tons, the great bulk of which goes to the United States. Therefore, our trade in the West Indies is a very small one, and it is a mere matter of opinion as to whet her that trade will be very greatly enlarged. At any rate it is not certain, and it is in the realm of hope and not
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  of fact. If the West Indies are to be benefited it can only be by the raising of the price of sugar, and very serious reasons have been given to show that it is not certain that the price will be raised. And if the price is not raised, how are the West Indies going to be benefited? I found when I visited the West Indies that the general impression, both in Cuba and Jamaica, was that the West Indies sugar trade was chiefly suffering from bounties, and that it would revive if the bounties were put an end to. We know that discontented people are likely to attribute their misfortunes to any cause except the right one, and I am not sure that the West Indies have made a true diagnosis of the disease from which they are suffering. The President of the Board of Trade did not commit himself upon the question as to whether the price would be raised or not. Very serious reasons have been given to show that it is not certain that the price will be raised.
  Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL: Not raised enough.
  MR. BRYCE: That is practically the same thing. The President of the Board of Trade says that we cannot argue both that the price will be raised and that it will not. If the Government raised the price they may possibly benefit the West Indies, but they will injure the trade and the consumers; if they do not raise the price they will not benefit the West Indies. How can the Government meet that dilemma?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It depends on whether we are speaking of the average price. If the average price remains approximately the same, without great fluctuations, the West Indies may be enormously benefited without any injury whatever to the consumers.
  MR. BRYCE: I admit, that that is an escape from the dilemma Which my right hon. friend has prepared for himself. There is nothing to show that the price will not fluctuate, and there may possibly be just as great fluctuations after we have got the Convention; and, if so, the West Indies may suffer

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  in the future just as in the past. Then it must be remembered that the cartels may reduce the price, and also that the loss of the United States market may inflict a far greater injury to the sugar trade of the West Indies than could possibly be made up by any rise of price the Convention might make. The United States is very likely, in view of its arrangements with Cuba, to raise the duties so high against the West Indies that they will be cut out of this, which has been their great market. That would be a far greater blow than any benefit which may be conferred under this Convention. There is, too, the competition of Cuba, whose last harvest of sugar was nearly three times as much as that of the British West Indies; under the fostering development of the United States, Cuba will in the future be a far more dangerous competitor. Cuba is an island bigger than all the West Indies put together, and it is admirably suited to sugar cultivation. It has now got a population far below what it is capable of keeping. It has only a population of about 1,500,000 and it is capable of supporting 10,000,000. In the last harvest it produced 800,000 tons of sugar. Cuba is to be opened up by the construction of railways. United States capital is flowing into it, and it is likely to undergo a very remarkable development, which will make it a far more dangerous competitor with the West Indies than it has ever been before. I give these warnings lest it should be thought that by passing the Convention we are ensuring the well-being of the British West Indies. The depression in those islands is due to far deeper causes than sugar bounties, such as the poor quality of the labour, the lack of enterprise, and the want of modern machinery and appliances. In Europe it is chiefly the application of science, skill, and enterprise which had developed the beetroot sugar trade, just as in Germany electrical machinery and dyeing industries have been developed. If Jamaica develops her trade in bananas, oranges, cocoa, and tobacco there is no reason why she should not do better than with sugar, and the same thing applies to a number of the other islands. Compared with the present policy, an annual grant to the West Indies would render
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  them a greater service, but unfortunately that is the very filing which this Convention forbids, and it thus closes to us the one door through which we might have helped the West Indies. A subsidy to the West Indies would have been better for those colonies, and it would have been a great deal cheaper for us in the end. As to the possible results of the Convention, one is the imposition of a total prohibition on the entrance of sugar from any country which does not comply with its provisions That prohibition has been adopted, I suppose, instead of countervailing duties, in order to escape from the operation of the most-favoured-nation clause.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR,: The reason is that we have considered that countervailing duties should not be applied without the direct sanction of Parliament.
  MR. BRYCE: The imposition of a countervailing duty is contrary to the most-favoured nation clause, and surely it is an à fortiori case to refuse to admit goods on any terms whatever. It is like putting on a duty so high that it is absolutely prohibitive. I take it that it is the general opinion of lawyers that this is a transgression of the mostfavoured-nation clause.
  I will not dwell on the other inconveniences, upon the difficulty that will be imposed on our shipping trade of not being able to get return cargoes, on the trouble that will be caused by the certificate of origin and other obvious difficulties which will arise, but there is one other matter upon which I wish to say a word. Just at the moment when we are claiming that we and our colonies are to be treated as one economical and political whole we are going out of our way to emphasise the difference between ourselves and the colonies. There is a grotesque inconsistency in our action with regard to this Convention. We have given the self-governing colonies the opportunity of joining in the Convention and they have refused to join, and we have bound ourselves not to give any preference to our colonies, and have made ourselves parties to a scheme under which our self-governing colonies, if

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  they give bounties, may be penalised. It is true the Government have tried to reserve power not to penalise sugar when it comes from a colony giving a bounty, but, under the Convention, sugar coming from a colony giving a bounty is to be penalised, and, being parties to the Convention, we shall be parties to the penalising of our own colonies. This Convention is clearly and admittedly bad for Great Britain. ["Oh, oh!"] It is intended to raise the price of sugar, and the only case made for it is that it may confer some benefit on the West Indies. I greatly doubt whether it will really do so, but I am quite sure that it is not the best way in which we can benefit the West Indies, because it will only prolong and partially alleviate their condition, which needs different and more courageous remedies. I cannot help doubting whether, when we entered into these negotiations, the Government meant to go so far as they have done, and whether they were not in some hope that they would obtain the abolition of bounties without entering into a convention at all. The question asked as to Austro-Hungarian sugar ought to be answered. Is it going to be penalised on 1st September?
  MR. GERALD BALIOUR: I do not think the question will arise. By that time in all probability the Austro-Hungarian law will be brought into conformity with the Convention.
  MR. BRYCE: We ought to know what will happen if it is not.
  MR. GERALID BALFOUR: There will be a new conference.
  MR. BRYCE: There will not be time to enter a new conference. The Government will have to go and ask the leave of the Commission not to penalise Austro-Hungarian sugar. That is not a satisfactory prospect. We are only at the threshold of the difficulties that will arise. This is an ill-advised, short-sighted measure, framed with an eye bent on certain small interests, and blind to much greater interests and to the endless inconveniences which arise
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  from the interference by an external body with the trade of the country. In the attempt to rectify the interference of bounties with the course of trade the Government are going to make a greater interference with our own trade. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred legislative interference with trade has done more harm than good. I fear we are going to have another illustration of that historical experience, and if we must have it, I only wish that it had been going on for some years, so that the country might have had an object lesson, which would be valuable now that we are asked to go back to an old policy which assumes that trade can be better managed by Parliament than by itself. The Convention is a trumpery and needless device for effecting, at the maximum inconvenience to the country, a relief to the West Indian sugar trade, which it is doubtful whether we can effect after all.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I desire in the first place to answer the question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen as to whether we are going to enforce the penalty against Austria-Hungary. He knows, or should know, if he has studied the history of the Convention, that in the case of any country which is a party to the Convention, we should not be bound to enforce any penalty until the Commission has declared that we are bound to do so.
  MR. BRYCE: This is exactly what I suggested myself.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He asks if we are going to enforce it on 1st September. He knows that it does not meet until 1st October. Another point on which the right hon. Gentleman invited an answer was in regard to the statement of my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade that cartels had been scotched, if not killed, by the Convention. The right hon. Gentleman told the House that they were going to be as strong as they had ever been.
  MR. BRYCE: I say it has not been shown to us that they are not going to be as strong as ever.
  MR. BONAR LAW: Does the right hon. Gentleman suppose for a moment that the cartel where the protective duty is 20s. will not be made infinitely stronger than where the protective duty is only 4s. 6d., and yet by the Convention that is the utmost limit of the surtax which can be put on? If the right hon. Gentleman will think about it, he will see that there is nothing like 4s. 6d. which can be given. The profit must be made out of the sugar sold to the borne market. That surely is sufficient proof that the cartels will not be as strong, but if he wants additional proof he will find it in this reason—that the private sugar industry in Austria has acknowledged that with a limitation of the surtax it was impossible to work a cartel that would do them the least good. There is only one other point in the last part of the speech to which I wish to refer. The right hon. Gentleman told us that prohibition was far worse than countervailing duties. I am not going to argue that point with him, but I will read the opinion expressed in this House in November last by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth. He said—
  "Of course, anybody would have preferred countervailing duties to prohibition."
  This has been a very interesting debate, and those who have spoken against the Convention have used some very strong language. It has been described as foolish, clumsy, blundering, and by some other adjectives which I have forgotten, but the hon. Member for West Islington beat the record when he described it as a nefarious proposal. I do not think that anyone in favour of the Convention objects to the use of language of that kind, for there is no feeling more universal or better justified than that. On such questions as this the strength of the language is always in inverse proportion to tire strength of the argument, and the debate to which we have listened is not one of the exceptions that prove the rule. I was reading the debate in the Austrian Parliament on this Convention, and I came upon a passage which I thought might be quoted as a
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  foil in regard to the strong language used in this House in regard to it. The speaker said—
  "England has conducted this business extremely cleverly and diplomatically."
  I would like hon. Gentlemen who think the Convention altogether to the advantage of Germany, and particularly the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen, to read the debates in the German Parliament on the question. If the light hon. Gentleman does so he will find that the German Parliament does not like it If he does so he will find they have accepted it simply because they had no choice and could not do anything else. Of course that does not prove anything to hon. Gentlemen opposite. These Germans are only poor ignorant foreigners; they know nothing about economics; they only know how to undersell us in our own markets. I do not object to the strong language, but I must say that it is surprising to find it applied to a Bill the principle of which has been approved over and over again by both political Parties in this country. That, however, is a consideration which does not weigh equally heavily with every one. The hon. Member for West Islington does not feel himself slavishly bound by the traditions of the Party to which he belongs. On the introduction of the Bill he made a speech in which he spoke very freely of Mr. Gladstone himself.
  MR. LOUGH: Hear, hear.
  MR. BONAR LAW: That is a view for which there is a great deal to be said—the view embodied in a familiar proverb. It would not be polite to the hon. Gentleman to quote it literally, but I may venture, without disrespect for the memory of Mr. Gladstone, to paraphrase it by saying, "A living Member for Islington is better than a dead Member for Mid - Lothian." Only four years ago the leader of the Opposition stated in reply to the Secretary of State for India that he was just as much opposed to bounties as my noble friend. He said bounties were bad, for they disturbed trade and hindered the development of the country. But we do not need to go back so far as four years ago. Only last year the right hon

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  Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen tacitly approved of the policy contained in this Convention. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary brought before the House a proposal for a subvention in aid of the West Indies. He introduced it and defended it solely as part of the Sugar Convention, and if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen thought then as they think now, that this is such an abominable measure, surely that was their opportunity for making their protest.
  MR. LOUGH: So we did.
  MR. BONAR LAW: They could have protested by speech or by their votes, for there was a division, but they protested in neither way. Not only did they give tacit approval, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen actually and openly approved the Convention which he has just condemned.
  MR. BRYCE: I did nothing of the kind. What I said was that I was unwilling to oppose the grant in the hope that it might help the West Indies to tide over immediate difficulties. But I gave nothing whatever of the nature of an approval of the Convention itself. That would have been quite inconsistent with the views that have always been held on this Bench.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I am sorry if I have misrepresented the right hon. Gentleman. These are his words—
  "But as the Vote was represented as being merely a temporary and exceptional remedy for tiding over the particular crisis which would exist until the arrangements made under the Sugar Bounties Convention came into operation he would…abstain from meeting it with that opposition which it might otherwise Bane been his duty to give."
  That meant that the right hon. Gentle, man would not disapprove of the grant, as it was part of the Sugar Bounties Convention.
  MR. BRYCE: Nothing of the sort. It was the last thing I should have thought of doing.
  MR. BONAR LAW: He especially told us in the debate that he disapproved of the grant, but would not oppose it as it was part of the Sugar Convention.
  MR. BRYCE: I said nothing of the sort.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. He did not speak or vote against it. If he did not approve of the Sugar Convention then why did he not speak against the grant?
  MR. BRYCE: The Sugar Convention was not before us. What I said was that I doubted very much the expediency of the grant, but it was represented that there was a case of distress in the West Indies, which would otherwise make it necessary to send charitable relief. That is why I would not vote against this particular proposal.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I will not argue that further. I would recommend the right hon. Gentleman to read his speech again, and if he does so I shall be greatly surprised if he does not admit that my interpretation is perfectly correct. But, after all, the important thing is not whether the right lion. Gentleman took one view last year and takes another view now. The important thing is whether the view he took last year or the one he takes now is the right one. Everyone who has spoken against the Bill has taken it for granted that the sole reason for introducing it is to benefit the West Indies, and not only so, but that it is impossible to benefit the West Indies except at the expense of the United Kingdom. I am not going to describe again to the House what is already known in regard to the position of the West Indies. A flourishing part of the British Empire has been brought to ruin, or the verge of ruin, by these bounties and by nothing else. I agree entirely with the statement made by the Secretary for India four years ago that, if one of the great industries of this country were ever destroyed in the same way as the sugar industry had been in the West Indies, he believed this country would not stand it. I believe that if the issue could be put before the country by itself, whether or no one of the great staple industries should be destroyed by unfair competition, there is not one man in a hundred who would not say such a thing should not be. I am sorry

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  to find that the right hon. Gentleman takes a different view.
  MR. BRYCE: I never said anything in the least resembling that.
  MR. BONAR LAW: What I was referring to was the statement that the more iron and steel that was dumped down upon us the better.
  MR. BRYCE: I never said that.
  MR. BONAR LAW: The House heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and I must leave the House to judge on that point. I will only quote a few words to show that Mr. Gladstone had no sympathy with such a view. He said—
  "If we are bound to observe the principles of equity towards foreign countries we are bound to observe the principles of equity towards our own subjects."
  And again—
  "I cannot regard with favour any cheapness which has the effect of crippling and distressing the capitalists and workmen engaged in any lawful British industry."
  I do not argue with those who hold that view, but I do appeal to those who would not allow an industry in the United Kingdom to be destroyed by such means whether this House is not equally bound to defend the staple industry of one of our Crown Colonies. I quite admit it might happen that to benefit the West Indies would imply a disadvantage to this country out of all proportion to the gain to the West Indies. But what reason have we to suppose that the Convention is going to injure the United Kingdom? To say, as is said on the other side, that bounties have done good, and nothing but good, is not only absurd but can be proved to be absurd. When I first entered a commercial office in Glasgow one of the most flourishing industries was the supply of machinery for the West Indies. That has been destroyed, and the bounties have destroyed it. Was that no disadvantage to the people of this country? Twenty years ago the cane sugar imported into this country was about 14,000,000 cwts.; that has been reduced now to 2,500,000 cwts. That represents only a small part of the considerations involved in the figures.
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  With the natural growth in consumption, what would it mean to this country if the whole import came from the cane-growing countries? What would it mean to the shipping industry? If this sugar came from a distant cane-growing country our ships would have been employed in bringing the sugar to this country and in taking out machinery and supplies produced in this country, and our workshops would have been busy in creating the supplies of all kinds required by these plantations. There is another disadvantage from which this country has suffered in consequence of the sugar bounties. I refer to the sugar-refining industry, which was once one of the most flourishing industries in this country. The number of people employed in the sugar-refining industry in this country has been reduced by more than 50 per cent. in spite of the immense increase in the quantity of sugar consumed. We are told that this disadvantage is more than compensated for by the growth of the confectionery and other allied trades. Where is the compensation? Why should we not have both? When the sugar refiners find that the capital they have invested in the sugar industry has largely been lost, and when the men who have made their living out of the industry have bad to seek, often in vain, for other employment, what comfort is it for them to know that the same cause that has ruined them has made jam-making possible in Dundee? Why should we not have both? The confectioners take it for granted that this Convention is going to destroy their industry. What grounds have they for that assumption? With the Convention they will still have sugar cheaper than it can be got in any other country. For every other country is going to keep up its protective system, and the confectioners in this country will be able to compete, not only on equal terms but on most favourable terms, and surely if any trade cannot compete under such conditions that is not a trade which the apostles of free trade would desire specially to protest. I do not know whether the confectioners are now unanimously of opinion that the Convention is going to do them a great deal of harm. They did not always hold that opinion. A leading firm expressed the opinion that the abolition of bounties would not injure the confectionery trade.
  AN HON. MEMBER: When was that?
  MR. BONAR LAW: In 1889.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Everything has changed since then.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I am obliged for the interruption of the hon. Gentleman. "Everything has changed since then!" Do principles alter with dates?
  MR. LOUGH: Ask the Colonial Secretary.
  MR. BONAR LAW: I am asking the hon. Member. There has been no change whatever in the position. Before 1889 the price of sugar had already fallen below 10s., a reasonable enough price. It is simply a difference of opinion among men in the same trade interests, and is it not fair to ask whether the confectioners of 1889 were not wiser and saw farther than their successors to-day.
  Now these are the disadvantages. What is the advantage? There is one only, that of cheap sugar, and that is said to be an advantage so great that it is supposed to out-weigh all the disadvantages. Is the average price of sugar cheaper on account of the bounties than it would have been without them? The answer is supplied by the hon. Member for West Islington, who, speaking exactly a year ago, said there was nothing remarkable in the fall of sugar, that it had fallen like other commodities. The hon Member cited the case of tea, which, he said, had fallen quite as much as sugar. What was the cause of the fall in tea? It was not bounties; it was the improvement in the method of cultivation, the adoption of machinery instead of hand labour, and, above all, in the immense increase in the area of cultivation. Why should not the same thing apply to sugar? There is an immense area suitable for sugar growing, and who is prepared to say that, if sugar had been left to the natural laws of supply and demand, the average price of sugar would not have been just as low without bounties as it has been in consequence of bounties? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen has asked, "How will this benefit the West Indies?" I do not think the answer is very difficult to find. It is found in a
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  speech of the right hon. Gentleman him self, when he stated that the West Indies could be made one of the best sugar estates in the world, and that Cuba, owing to American capital, had been able to make sugar at a price with which the West Indies could not compete.
  MR. BRYCE: I made that statement from my own knowledge.
  MR. BONAR LAW: What is it that has made it possible for Cuba to produce sugar at a reasonable price It is its connection with the United States; it is the knowledge that from the time Cuba was connect d with the United States its sugar would have a fair chance in the markets of the world.
  MR. BRYCE: The phenomena I described happened before Cuba received the privileges of connection with the United States. Cuba did not get these privileges until long after the end of the Spanish-American war.
  MR. BONAR LAW: My point is the pretty obvious one that long-headed men in the United States knew that after the war Cuba would receive these privileges, and there was an inducement for them to put capital into the industry, which has resulted in Cuba being able to produce sugar at a reasonable price. And, if the West Indies got similar advantages, if they had a lair chance in the markets of the world, is it not reasonable to suppose that the same capital and the same energy will be available there. I have an authority who is well entitled to speak from his special knowledge on this subject, the right hon. baronet the Member for Berwick. And this is what he says about the difference the abolition of bounties will make.
  "In these days of scientific invention, machinery will always he improved, and constantly have to be renewed; but in any business, for the renewal and improvement of machinery you must have credit."
  And he went on to apply the argument that the bounties had interfered with credit and prevented the owners of sugar estates raising the capital to enable them to get new and improved machinery. The right hon. Gentleman also said that what was wanted was

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  scientific methods and better machinery. You cannot get scientific methods and improved machinery in any trade unless there is a reasonable prospect of profit. That seems to me to be a complete answer so far as the West Indies are concerned. They say that they can compete with the rest of the world. Give them a chance and a fair field and you will find that they are quite able to hold their own against any sugar producing countries, cane or beet, which are to be found throughout the whole of the world.
  There is only one other point I would like to bring before the House. Nearly everyone who has spoken on this subject against the Government has taken it for granted that this question and all similar questions, can be dealt with by sonic, simple plan that acts automatically. Let us apply that argument to this case. The right hon. Gentleman opposite says that the Convention is contrary to free trade. I wish that my right hon. friend, the Member for West Bristol laid been present, for he knows as much about free trade as any hon. Member, and he thinks that the Convention is entirely within the scope of free trade principles. The world is now too complicated for us to get any simple plan which can be applied to every trade; to discover such, I believe, is no more possible then it was in earlier days to discover the Philosopher's Stone. You cannot do it. The trade conditions of the world have been changing enormously during the last twelve years. They have changed more, I believe, than at any previous period in our history in the same space of time. How are these changing conditions to be met? If the guidance of the country were in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, he would fly to the rock of his free trade principles, and, when the waves of foreign competition were sweeping over him, he would be seen, in the interval of a receding wave, clinging shivering to his rock and still exclaiming—" My principles are all right, the rock is still here, it is the facts that are all wrong." Yes Sir! It is the facts which are wrong, but since it is not possible for us to alter the facts to suit our theories, is it not time for us to begin to think of altering our theories to make them suit the facts?
  The FLETCHER, MOULTON: The speech of the hon. Gentleman puts the case of the Government on the most extraordinary basis. His justification of this Convention with all the consequences involved in putting England at the mercy of a foreign tribunal, is that it will enable the West Indies to get enough capital for the proper working of their sugar factories. The case that the Sugar Convention will raise the price of sugar and enable the West Indies to compete with the rest of the world is given up, and he would have us believe that this unprecedented step is solely to make it easy to get a million or two invested in new sugar machinery!
  At the end of his speech the Under Secretary to the Board of Trade appealed to us to remember that the conditions of trade had altered more in the last few years titan in the previous fifty years. The House has heard the piteous plaint the hon. Gentleman made that the sugar refineries had been thrown out of work, and his statement that any cheapness which was fatal to such a trade was a cheapness which should be viewed with suspicion. It is perfectly true that many sugar producers in the West Indies are in difficulties, conditions of trade have changed and in nothing more than in sugar. But the change has not been wrought by bounties, but by the introduction of a new source of sugar, beet, capable of being grown in temperate climates, in the midst of the most civilised countries amongst peoples who are able to apply, on the spot, scientific machinery and processes. Thus, the centre, of gravity of sugar production is changed; the production of beet sugar has been going up in civilised countries, while the production of cane sugar in the tropics has been going down. It is idle to look to bounties as the cause of this change and it would be just as ridiculous to attempt to keep alive the cane industry as it now exists in the West Indies in the presence of the beet industry in France and Germany, as to attempt to stop the introduction of machine-looms because you do not want to throw out of work the hand-loom weavers. Let us look plainly at the facts of the case. As soon as the beet industry became developed on the Continent, they looked for what was the great sugar

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  consuming market. That market was England; and so important was it that there arose not only individual, but national, competition for it. France, Germany, and Austria competed, not against us, but against one another, for us as a most valuable customer, and they offered us the best terms they could. The competition, national and individual, to which is due the present price of sugar is simply a testimony of the enormous importance of our market. The consequence was that they offered these bounties, the sole effect of which has been to render the price of sugar in England lower, and as we are not a sugar producing country, it has been an unmixed good to us to get our sugar thus cheap. Now, supposing that there had been only a bounty on raw sugar, there would not have been one single person in the United Kingdom otherwise than benefited by these bounties The complaint of the refiner is not against bounties generally, but against the existence of one set of bounties in favour of raw sugar, and another in favour of refined sugar, the latter being higher than the former. This has a tendency to increase the proportion of sugar imported in the refined state, but this is not the main cause of the disappearance of so many old refineries in England. In 1864 there were some- thing like sixty refiners. By 1882 they had dwindled to thirty, and now they are only about fifteen, and they do far more business than the sixty did in 1864. I know what sugar refineries are and have been both in England and abroad. The successful refineries of to-day hear a resemblance to their forerunners. The old English refinery was a fire trap of the worst description—a risk which no office would take, they were so ill-arranged and so behind all other manufactories in the nature of their plant. I have been over the great sugar factories in France, and I know that Germany is not behind France, and there I have found magnificent machinery arranged in a way that facilitated, and reduced to the smallest amount, the cost of production. Do you suppose that anybody is going to keep alive antiquated refineries in competition with these up-to-date sugar manufactories? I think the industrial life of this country ought not to he carried on in museum but in properly equipped establishments. The real cause of the decline in the
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  number of sugar refineries is the antiquated plant and machinery used. What right have I to say that is the real cause? Well, take the two firms at the head of the trade now—Tate and Lyle. It is true that Tate's bought a patent in 1870 for a special process of refining sugar, but it expired in 1884, and of so little importance was it that, I believe, not a single refiner adopted the process when it thus became open to the public. It was said Tate's had a patent for cubes, but it also expired in 1888 or 1890, yet Tate's remained still at the head, defying competition as before. Another firm had the right to use the patent for cubes, yet it went under while Tate's flourished. It was not the patent that kept Tate's up. It was business ability. Lyle's crystals were made out of raw beet sugar which came into the country cheap by reason of these bounties, and he competed on equal terms and with the greatest success with the German refiners. Where our refiners have been men of enterprise and energy these bounties have not crushed them. They have built up magnificent businesses. It is a perfect delusion that by our sugar refineries we deal with only an insignificant part of the sugar that comes into this country. One-third of it is refined in this country, and considering that sugar is produced in countries like France, Germany, and Austria, where there is every facility for manufacture, it is no wonder that two-thirds of it is sent out in a finished shape. Indeed, I am rather surprised that as much as one-third is refined in this country, because there is very little more difficulty in shipping refined than unrefined sugar. The truth is that our refineries have held their own where they have been modernised; and they still refine a large portion of the sugar which comes to England. That is how the refiners' case stands. Is it to be said that we are to make sugar dear and interfere with free trade into England just because our refiners cling to their old methods, and have not enterprise enough to follow their leaders in new methods. It would be a most calamitous policy for England if she tried to keep alive an industry which would not learn the lessons of the day.
  I have said that if it were not for the refiners, there would not be a word said by any-one in England against these

  663
  bounties. Everyone else in England unquestionably benefits by them. And this plea for the refiners is a mere pretence to cover the real motive for the action of the Government. The main reason why the Convention came into existence was, on the authority of Lord Lansdowne, the West Indian Islands. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said there was no justification for that statement. I do not know whether the dispatch of last year is any justification in his eyes. It is a despatch from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Of course, we know that there is now no connection between the views of one Minister and the views of another. Moreover, the dispatch was written a year ago; and that is rather a long period for a Party that thinks that the best use to make of the word "Consistent" is for a telegraphic address. But for all this the public are entitled to rely on the fact that Lord Lansdowne stated that the reason for this Convention was the state of the West Indies. Now I want to deal with that. The figures have been quoted again and again and they demonstrate the utter futility of such an excuse. The West Indies cannot produce enough sugar for England, and even if they could they would not. I feel satisfied that if the Government were not committed to this Convention, and if the individual members of the Cabinet had taken the opportunity of looking for themselves into this question, we should never have had the Convention forced upon us because of the so-called case of the West Indies. First of all, these islands only send us one-fortieth of what we consume, and only one-third of the sugar coming from cane-producing countries. So backward are the West Indies, that Java and places further off are able to beat the West Indies, not only in our markets, but in the markets of the United States. Nor is it true that the sugar they send is unable to compete with European sugar. They send a fine refined sugar, an artificially-browned sugar, which sells extremely well in the market. They might sell as much more as they liked, as, for old associations sake, people would buy it in preference to white crystals, which are equally good. But the West Indies are far too lazy to make that refined sugar throughout. What they largely make is a very coarse sugar, and
  664
  the principal market for that is the United States and not our English refineries. Our English refineries do not refine any of that sugar; and if it comes over here it is only to be turned into invert sugar for the purposes of brewing. Therefore, the West Indies are not producing what they could produce, and which would sell here at a very good price. The next point is that even if they would, they could not. Suppose we were to pass a self-denying ordinance refusing to use beet sugar, the consequence would be that the other cane-producing countries would beat the West Indies in sugar which is treated in this debate as being their own particular product, and the result would be that we should obtain our sugar from Java or other Foreign countries. Apparently that would delight very much the Under Secretary to the Board of Trade, who seems to admire everything that makes sugar expensive, and he seems to imagine that all the machinery for producing sugar would be obtained from England. If the hon. Gentleman looks into the question of sugar manufacture, he will find that England is not so far ahead in the question of making sugar machinery as it used to be. If we stick to old methods that is the consequence. Therefore, we cannot keep any important part of our market in the hands of the West Indies, by artificially raising the price. Yet this is what the Government are proposing to do. It is too silly to suggest that this Convention was entered into for the sake of enabling West Indian planters to get a loan of £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 of capital to put up works. Everyone knows that in some parts of the West Indies there are excellent works which are doing very well, and for which the proprietors have been able to find the requisite Capital. If this were the real reason it would be infinitely better for us if we were to give them £2,000,000 for the purpose of improving their works. No such subterfuges invented at the last moment will avail the Government. We know that one of the objects of the Convention is to raise the price of sugar, Sir Henry Norman said by ½d. in the pound, the Colonial Secretary said by £5 a ton.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I never said it would raise the price £5 per ton. All I said was that bounties at a particular time, in a particular country, amounted to £5 per ton.
  MR. FLETCHER MOULTON: The right hon. Gentleman, of course, does not remember all he has said. The right hon. Gentleman's statement was—
  "The advantage given by the bounties to other sugar as opposed to West Indian sugar is probably not less than £5; a ton."
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Hear, hear! I never said that the bounties raised the price by £5 a ton.
  MR. FLETCHER MOULTON: According to the right hon. Gentleman the advantage given is £5 a ton, and the consequence is that if you abolish these bounties you increase the price of bounty-fed sugar by £5 a ton. There is no reason to] think that it is now being sold at any exaggerated profit, and the consequence is that its price will be raised by £5 a ton, and that the West Indies will join in the increase. Bounty-fed sugar is the main sugar in the market, and fixes the price, West Indian sugar being only a small supply which has to compete with European sugar which is being subjected to a change of treatment calculated to raise the price £5 a ton. If that does not mean that West Indian sugar will have the advantage of the price of sugar being raised £5 a ton in England I do not know what it does mean. It very nearly corresponds with the estimate of Sir Henry Norman of an increase of ½d. per pound. Just see what we are going to do. The total produce of the West Indies at the present moment is 240,000 tons. Let us assume that they will give up sending their sugar to the United States, although I think the United States is at least as good a customer as we are. Even in that case, they would only send to us one-sixth of the quantity of sugar used in this country; and the consequence would be that what the West Indies would gain would be the rise of price on one-sixth of the sugar consumed in this country, the rise on the remaining five-sixths going into the national exchequers of France, Germany, and
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  Austria-Hungary. The fact is that these nations were in a very grave difficulty. when the Government came to their aid I have never said that bounties are good. They are as unwise as every other form of protection, but they are the one form of protection which does good to foreign countries, however bad it may be at home. Once bounties are started it is hard to drop them; just as it is hard to drop any other form of protection. As long as these bounties were kept up there was more or less competition between the different countries, and that kept down the price of sugar. Now what have we done? We have relieved these National Exchequers from paying sums which, in the case of France, amounted to something like £4,000,000. These bounties were paid by the Government of the several nations to secure for their nations as large a share of the English market as possible. They did this under pressure from the agricultural as well as the manufacturing interest and so long as they did so it was not practicable for the rings of sugar manufacturers and refiners in the different countries to limit and apportion production so as to get for themselves the maximum profit. But now all this is changed. Now the cartels can settle the whole matter among themselves and arrange what amount each country has to produce, and that is settled solely from the point of view of keeping up the price of sugar in England. The consequence is that we have relieved the Governments of these countries of the se huge payments—and they must have heaved a deep sigh of relief when they got this Convention safely signed—and have left ourselves defenceless as regards the cartels. We have set them free now, before any development has taken place in any other sugar producing country, and we are left as their victims. Every terror with which we were threatened as a possible censequence of the system of bounties has been made a present reality by the action of the Government. It is like a man who commits suicide because he is afraid he may be hurt in a duel. We have given these countries the power, if they like, to run up the price of sugar in this country, and what have we done it for? I have pointed out that the West Indies can only get, at the most part, the rise, whatever it may be, on one-sixth of the

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  sugar we consume, whereas, five-sixths will go to relieve the National Exchequers of other countries, and we set free £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 to be employed perhaps as bounties for other trade and we shall only have the satisfaction of knowing that by means of this Convention we have put a burden on the shoulders of the British consumer equal to about 5s. per cwt. Now I wish to show what a brilliant piece of finance this is. I wish to contrast West Bristol and west Birmingham. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer placed a tax on sugar, but it was put on in accordance with the traditions of English finance, and (allowing for the necessary friction and confusion of trade which accompanies every tax) every single penny of that sugar tax, to the amount of about £6,250,000, went into the National Exchequer. Now the Colonial Secretary proposes to put on us an approximately equal burden. The price of sugar will be augmented by just as much as in the other case. But this was not done according to the traditions of English finance, and the consequence is that a burden equal to the former sugar tux, or rather greater, has been put on the shoulders of the English consumer, not one penny of which will go to the relief of national burdens. Every penny that does not go into the Exchequers of Germany, France, and Austria Hungary, will go into the pockets of the planters of the West Indies. and he shall have contrived, at a time when expenditure is increasing so rapidly, and,the necessary taxes are so heavy, to put a second sugar tax on without reaping the benefit of a single penny from it. The only consolation I have is that when the fight comes—as apparently it is to come, when the dominant power in the Ministry says "go"—when it is a question of whether or not the new finance is better than the honest old English finance, we have only to send the people to the grocers' shop, and they will be able to see for themselves whether West Birmingham is an improvement on West Bristol.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Locomotives on Highways Act, 1896." [Motor-Cars Bill (Lords).]

  PUBLIC BUILDINGS EXPENSES (CONSOLIDATED FUND).
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [27th July], "That this House will, this day resolve itself into a Committee to consider of making further provision for defraying the expenses of the purchase of land and buildings, and the construction of buildings and works in connection with certain public Departments, and of authorising the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, and out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of such sums as may be necessary for those purposes."—(Mr. Elliot.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  Resolved: That this House will, this day, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of making further provision for defraying the expenses of the purchase of land and buildings, and the construction of buildings and works in connection with certain public Departments and of authorising the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, and out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of such sums as may be necessary for those purposes.

  PATRIOTIC FUND BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed for this day.
  Whereupon, in pursuance of the Order of the House of the 28th day of July, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  Adjourned at twenty-five minutes after Twelve o'clock.