Commons Sitting of 24 March 1903

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
The Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of the Chairman of Ways and Means.
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order No. 62 has been complied with, viz.:—
  Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (Transfer) Bill.
  Ulster and Connaught Light Railways; Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

PRIVATE BILLS (PETITION FOR ADDITIONAL PROVISION) (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—
Maidstone Gas Bill.
Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
Cheshire Lines Committee Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
Billingshurst and Districts Gas Bill [By Order], Order for Second Reading lead, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
Metropolitan District Railway (Various Powers) Bill [By Order]. Read a second I time, and committed.
Kent Water Board Bill. Order [16th March] for Second Reading upon Thursday read, and discharged. Bill with-drawn.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill; read a second time, and committed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Aberavon, Darlington, Hexham, Reading, Stafford, and Wallasey, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Barnes, Burton-upon-Trent, Castle Ward (Rural), Matlock-Bath-and-Scarltim-Nick, Newton Abbott, Penrith, Stroud, Worthing, and Yardley (Rural), ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3).
Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board
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relating to the counties of Oxford and Worcester, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES).
Bill to confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Bolton, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Grant Lawson and Mr. Walter Long.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Aberavon, Darlington, Hexham, Reading, Stafford, and Wallasey," presented, and read the first time: to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 115.]
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Barnes, Burton-on-Trent, Castle Ward (Rural), Matlock-Bath-and-Scarltim-Nick, Newton Abbott, Penrith, Stroud, Worthing, and Yardley (Rural)," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 116.]
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the counties of Oxford and Worcester," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 117.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES) BILL.
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Bolton," presented, and read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 118.]
East Ardsley Gas Bill; Bridgwater Gas Bill; Winchester Water and Gas Bill.
Reported with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  COUNTY COURTS JURISDICTION EXTENSION BILL.
  Petitions in favour: from Association of Municipal Corporations; and Nottinghamshire; to lie upon the Table.
DETENTION OF POOR PERSONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Petitions in favour: from Denny; Lanark; Kirkoswald; Riccarton; and St. Ninians; to lie upon the Table.
LICENSING (SCOTLAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
Petition from Linlithgow, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
Petitions against: from Merthyr Tydvil; Staines; Depwade; Handsworth; Stoke Newington; Walthamstow; Croydon; and Chipping Norton; to lie upon the Table.
RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
Petition from Clitheroe, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
ROMAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY IN IRELAND.
Petitions against establishment: from Dunfermline; Falkirk; Oban; and Cowdenbeath; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (NAVY VOTES).
  Return [presented 23rd March] to be printed. [No. 87.]
EXPLOSIONS (NOBEL'S EXPLOSIVES FACTORY AT ARDEER, AYRSHIRE).
Copy presented, of Report by Captain M. B. Lloyd, His Majesty's Inspector of Explosives, to the right hon. the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the circumstances attending an explosion of nitro-glycerine, which occurred in one of the final washing-houses of the factory of Nobel's Explosives Company, Limited, at Ardeer, near Stevenston, Ayrshire, on the 7th October, 1902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1887.
Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 16th March, 1903, granting a retired allowance to Arthur Algernon Parkin, 3rd Class Clerk, Money Order Office, Post Office, under the Act [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL DEBT ANNUITIES.
Account presented, of the gross amount of all bank annuities and any annuities for terms of years transferred, and of all sums of money paid to the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt, and the gross amount of annuities for lives and for terms of years, etc., granted within the year ended 5th January, 1903 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 88.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Treatment of Prisoners Convicted under the Vaccination Acts.
  MR. LEVY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the police sergeant responsible for the handcuffing of two men at Hinckley on 27th February, when arrested for non-payment of fines and costs incurred under the Vaccination Acts, is the same sergeant who, on 6th January, struck a man on the head with a stick, thereby cutting his head open and rendering him unconscious, because he refused to allow the sergeant to examine the bag he was carrying; whether complaints have been made to the Home Office or to the Chief Constable of Leicestershire respecting the conduct of this officer; and what steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence of such conduct on his part.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) I have made inquiries and am informed that the sergeant to whom the latter part of the Question refers did use handcuff's in making an arrest early in the morning of 27th February, but had nothing to do with handcuffing the two men indicated in the Question. No complaint has been made to the Home Office as to the affair mentioned in the latter part of the Question, but the chief constable of Leicestershire informs me that on the 30th December the sergeant

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  in question did inflict considerable injury on a man whom he mistook for a burglar. His conduct on that occasion was inquired into at the time and was dealt with by the Chief Constable. The injured man was compensated.

  Naturalisation of Aliens.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if inquiry is made in the country of origin with regard to the antecedents therein of an alien applicant for letters of naturalisation as a British subject; or what steps are taken to ascertain if the alien's presence in the United Kingdom is not due to a sentence of deportation from his native country for some criminal act; and, further, what is the period of residence in the United Kingdom required before naturalisation, and what fee or evidence of means is necessary.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) In every case of application for a certificate of naturalisation careful inquiry is made by the police as to the character of the applicant and the respectability of the referees whom he is required to produce in support of his application, but inquiry is not made with regard to the applicant's character in the country of origin, unless there is some reason to suspect misconduct before the alien's arrival in this country. Before a certificate is granted, the applicant must show that he has resided in the United Kingdom for five years out of the last eight years. A fee of £5 is required to be paid for a certificate.

  India—Loans to Native Princes.
  SIR JOHN LENG: To ask the Secretary of State for India, with regard to the remission of interest for three years on loans advanced by the Government of India to Princes of the Native States, enabling them to extend relief to their famine stricken subjects, as arranged by the Governor General at the Delhi Durbar, will H.H. the Nizam share in that concession in respect of the 141 lakhs of the Berar Loans mentioned in paragraph 5 of the Government of India's Despatch of 28th April, 1902, and in other passages of Parliamentary Papers issued in December last.
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  (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) The arrangements announced at the Durbar did not provide for any alteration in the financial relations recently established between the Government of India and the Nizam in respect of Berar.

  Dunmore Petty Sessions Court.
  MR. DUFFY: To ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he is aware that at the Petty Sessions Court at Dunmore, County Galway, on the 12th inst., two men were charged with assault; that the bench was composed of four magistrates who were equally divided, two for inflicting a fine and two for returning case for trial; and that the case was sent for trial; and will he say if any precedent exists for such action.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) In this case the injured man received five severe cuts on his head and had his skull fractured. Two magistrates wished to treat this as a trivial assault, and deal with it summarily, inflicting a fine. This was wholly illegal and improper. They had no jurisdiction whatever to deal with it summarily. All the justices held the offence was proved; and as it was indictable the only legal and proper course was to return the accused for trial. Two of the justices, in conformity with two recent precedents, adopted this course.

  Ireland—Police Pensioners as Post masters.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will state the number of police pensioners and police pensioners' wives at present in charge of post offices in Ireland.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The information asked for by the hon. Member is not at present in my possession; and to obtain it would involve a considerable amount of trouble, which would not, I think, be justified by the results obtained.

  H.M.S. "Warrior"—Cost of Alterations.
  MR. HARMSWORTH: To ask the Secretary to the

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  Admiralty if he can state to what purpose it is intended to devote the "Warrior," and what has been the cost of the alterations to this ship; and whether he will explain why, with a view to reducing the cost, an examination of the boilers and engines was not made before the vessel was roofed in.
  (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) The "Warrior" is being prepared for service as a repair and depôt ship for torpedo boat destroyers. The cost of the alterations up to date has been about £6,000, but further work still remains to be done. It was at first intended only to utilise the vessel as a lay apart store for destroyers, and for this purpose the removal of the lighter portions only of the machinery was necessary. It was subsequently decided to convert the ship into a repair and depôt ship; and this decision involved the removal of the whole of the machinery. The latter part of the hon. Member's Question is therefore based on a misapprehension.

  Collier "Hampstead"—Cost of Alterations— Speed.
  MR. HARMSWORTH: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state what has been the cost so far of the alterations made in the collier "Hampstead," now called the "Aquarius," which it is proposed to employ as a fleet auxiliary, and will he state what her speed is to be.
  (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) The expenditure up to date on the "Aquarius" has been £17,000. The speed of the vessel when loaded will be about 10 knots.

  Secondary Education in Ireland— Deputation to Chief Secretary.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a memorial from the various educational associations in Ireland connected with secondary education asking him to receive a deputation from these associations with reference to the proportional grant due to Irish education; and, if so, whether he can say if he will receive the deputation; and, if so, where and when.
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  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The memorial has been received. I regret, however, that it is not practicable for me to receive the proposed deputation. As already stated, I hope shortly to make an announcement on the subject.

  Emigrants to Canada—Government Assistance to Discharged Soldiers.
  MR. MARSHALL HALL: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of giving to Army Reservists and discharged soldiers who have fought in the late South African War some pecuniary assistance to enable such of them as may so desire to emigrate to Canada, or some other colony willing to receive them.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) I fear that this object, however desirable in itself, is not one to which Army Funds could properly be devoted.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Commissions in King's African Rifles.
    MR. FREDERICK WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will explain why officers of the Imperial Yeomanry who served throughout the war in South Africa, but who do not belong to the Home Yeomanry, are excluded from the chance of obtaining commissions in the King's African Rifles, seeing that such commissions are open to the competition of Yeomanry officers who have never seen service in the field.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord STANLEY,): The hon. Member has been misinformed. Service during the war in South Africa is held to be an essential qualification for commissions in the King's African Rifles. Officers to hold commissions in these Rifles must already hold a commission in some other branch of the service.

  Army Recruiting—Character Regulations.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will undertake that his recent decision to inquire into the character of all applicants for enlistment in the Army, and to require

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  in all cases some evidence of respectability, shall not only be announced in Army Orders and in instructions to recruiting officers, but shall also be promulgated as widely as possible, and particularly by official posters displayed, with the consent of the Postmaster-General, in every post office in the United Kingdom.
  LORD STANLEY: It is not customary to announce such changes in Army Orders, but instructions were yesterday issued to all recruiting officers, who will take any steps they think necessary to secure further publicity.
  MR. ARTHUR LEE: Are the officers responsible for the issue of official posters?
  LORD STANLEY: I cannot say at the moment, but they have been told that they are to take every means in their power to make this regulation publicly known.

  New Service Rifle.
  MR. FREDERICK WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of changing the fixed bar of the back sight of the new service rifle into a sliding bar so as to allow for windage in shooting.
  LORD STANLEY: The question of a sliding bar on the sight was fully considered, but it was decided that such a sight was unsuitable for service conditions.

  Officers' Outfits.
  MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he will state to what firms in London a circular was recently issued by the War Office stating that the Commander-in-Chief proposed to furnish officers, on appointment to the Army, with lists of firms pre pared to give special cash prices for the outfits required by them; and whether this circular was sent to tailors in Ireland, Scotland, and the provinces.
  LORD STANLEY: I am not prepared to read out a long list of firms in reply to a Question, but I may inform the hon
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  Member that the circular recently despatched was sent to those firms who took the trouble to respond to the original circular, and amongst those were tailors in Ireland, Scotland and the provinces.

  Bloemfontein Inter-Colonial Conference.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state what decisions have been so far arrived at by the Inter-Colonial Conference at Bloemfontein.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I am not yet in a position to make any statement on the subject.

  Italian Ice Cream Shops in Scotland.
  SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether complaints have reached him that in some places in Scotland Italian ice cream shops are allowed to keep open to very late hours and retail alcoholic liquors after the public houses and licensed grocers' shops are closed; and, if so, whether the police will be instructed to deal with such cases.
  MR. ANSTRUTHER (for Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire): Complaints have often been made as to the keeping open of ice cream shops, but the retailing of liquors therein is an offence under the existing law and the police have ample power of dealing with it.

  Technical Instruction for Small Allotment Holders.
  MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of recommending to the Department of Agriculture that it should appoint instructors to disseminate information amongst, and give object lessons to, the tenants of small allotments, such as the occupants of labourers' cottages and small farmers, showing how plots of a small acreage may be best cultivated, what methods of horticulture could be most usefully employed, and also with

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  the object of introducing and fostering profitable home industries amongst the poor.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The appointment of instructors for these purposes is a matter for the County Committees of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. Fifteen counties have already appointed such instructors, and fourteen other counties have made provision for their employment.

  Balbriggan Harbour.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention had been drawn to the state of Balbriggan Harbour, which, owing to the accumulation of sand, has become almost useless except at high tide; and whether he can hold out any hope that the dredger which has for some time been in use at various places on the East Coast of Ireland will be available for use at Balbriggan during the next six months.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The harbour is controlled and maintained by the Dublin Port and Docks Board. The dredger referred to in the Question is the property of the Commissioners of Public Works, and it would not be practicable for them, in the circumstances, to incur the expenditure proposed.

  Irish National Schools.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can say when the new plans for national schools in Ireland will be ready, in view of the fact that inconvenience has been caused by the delay in furnishing them.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The matter is still the subject of correspondence between the Irish Government and the Treasury.

  Land Purchase in Limerick.
  MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to what extent have proceedings in the Land Court been advanced as regards the sale to the tenants of the property of the late
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  Michael Marshall Lloyd Apjohn, on the townlands of Garrison, Nicker, Garran more, Garranebeg, Drominboy, and Ballyvoneen; and will he explain the delay in carrying out the sales.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am now informed that the rental has not yet been settled, but that it is expected to be completed within a month. When that has been done a request may be issued for an inspection under Section 40 of the Act of 1896, or, if the land judge so directs, negotiations will be opened for a sale to the tenants by agreement between the parties.
  MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state under what provision the sale was attempted in the Land Court of the Marshall Estate, in the parishes of Doon and Oola, County Limerick; and will he explain why the sale was not carried through.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The provisions of the 40th Section of the Act of 1896 were held not to be applicable to this estate. It is still open to the tenants to purchase their holdings, by agreement, under the Land Purchase Acts.

  St. Patrick's Day—Closing of Public Houses in Dublin.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can give an estimate of the number of public houses in Dublin voluntarily closed on the National holiday, St. Patrick's Day; and whether he can give the number of cases tried in Dublin police courts on Monday, 16th, and Wednesday, 18th March, and what comparison those figures bear to last year.
  MR. WYNDHAM: 425 out of a total of 918 licensed houses in the Dublin Metropolitan Police District were voluntarily closed on St. Patrick's Day. The number of cases tried on the day following was thirty-two, compared with sixty-nine on the corresponding date of last year. There were eighty-nine cases tried on the 16th March, which, in 1902, fell on a Sunday.

  Brownhall Estate, County Mayo.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state how long the estate known as Brownhall Estate, near the town of Balla, in the barony of Clanmorris, County Mayo, has been in the Land Judge's Court; and whether, seeing that the tenants on this estate signed agreements to purchase their holdings in 1899, he will explain why the solicitor for the receiver is still pressing the tenants for their old rents immediately the running half gale becomes due; why this solicitor has demanded costs of said processes, although the rents were sent on before they were served; and why the sale of the estate has not been completed.
  MR. JOHN O'DONNELL: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in 1900 the solicitor to the mortgagees of the estate known as the Brownhall Estate, in the barony of Clanmorris, County Mayo, in reply to a communication from one of the tenants on that estate, informed him that everything was ready for completing the sale and bringing it before the Court of Chancery the following week, and that a similar reply has been given to tenants in 1901 and 1902; and whether he will take steps to expedite the final settlement of the case of these tenants.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The information before me does not enable me to reply to all the inquires in these two Questions. I am informed, however, that considerable delay was occasioned in carrying out the sale by objections filed by the tenants. They have now been disposed of, and it is hoped that within a fortnight the tenants' applications for advances, as well as the rental, will be lodged in the Land Commission.

  Steamship Subsidies Committee.
  MR. EVELYN CECIL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the Report of the Steamship Subsidies Committee; and whether he will consider the advisability of appointing,
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  in accordance with their suggestion, a permanent Committee, consisting of a representative of the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, Colonial Office, and Post Office, with the addition of trade representatives, to watch the development of foreign competition, and consult from time to time what steps are required to meet it.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am aware of the recommendation of the Select Committee, which formed a part of the excellent Report for which my hon. friend was chiefly responsible. The question of the formation of a permanent Committee is under consideration. Whether in addition to the departmental members of it there ought to be representatives of the shipping interest seems to us very doubtful, as it is possible they might themselves be recipients of any subsidy which the Committee might recommend. As at present advised I am not averse to the idea of introducing an outside element.

  Sale of Adulterated Butter Bill.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he can fix an early day for the Second Reading of the Sale of Adulterated Butter Bill.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD,)said it was hoped that the Second Reading of the Sale of Adulterated Butter Bill would be taken next week, either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELLAs there is considerable difference of of opinion on this Bill, and we are anxious to have further information, may I ask if the Second Reading cannot be postponed till after Easter?
  MR. GALLOWAY: If it is proposed to refer this Bill to the Grand Committee on Trade, would it not be better to read it a second time before Easter?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand it is the general wish that the Bill shall be proceeded with without unnecessary delay.

  Venezuela.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether His Majesty's Government have been called upon to make amends to the Government of the United States for the publication, on page 214 of the Blue-book, Venezuela, No. 1, 1903, of reflections of a personal character made by His Majesty's Minister at Caracas on members of the United States legation at that capital; and whether notice has been taken by the Secretary of State of the conduct of the officer in his Department charged with the preparation of this Blue-book so as to prevent any recurrence of an incident of this nature.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The United States Secretary of State brought to our notice the passage to which the Question refers, and was informed by His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington that it had escaped attention, otherwise it would not have been published. I need say no more than that an error of this kind, however regrettable, may occasionally occur in a Department, especially when that Department is undergoing the strain of heavy work.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Has proper notice of it been taken in the Department?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course proper notice has been taken of it in the Department.

  The Easter Holidays.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I wish to ask whether the Leader of the House is in a position to state, more especially for the information of north country Members, when the holidays are likely to begin.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should not like to pledge myself absolutely on the subject, but I hardly think it is possible they should begin before the Wednesday preceding Good Friday. I cannot pledge myself that they will begin even on that day.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: How long will the holidays last?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am afraid I cannot answer that Question.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  Mr. HALSEYreported from the Committee of Selection: That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, Mr. Attorney-General; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Solicitor-General.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Resolutions reported from the Committee:

  1. "That, in the case of the Beckenham Urban District Council Bill, Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with. That the parties be permitted to introduce their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

  2. "That, in the case of the Leigh Corporation Bill, Petition for dispensing with Standing Order 129 in the case of the Petition of the 'Reverend Bernard Vaughan and others' against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought to be dispensed with."

  3. "That, in the case of the North Eastern Railway Bill, Petition for dispensing with Standing Order 129 in the case of the Castleford Urban District Council against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought to be dispensed with."

  4. "That, in the case of the Wigan Corporation Tramways Bill, Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with. That the parties be permitted to introduce their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

  Resolutions agreed to.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to,
  Bank Holidays (Ireland) Bill, without Amendmen;
  Light Locomotives (Ireland) Bill, with Amendments.

NEW BILL.
  SHEEP SCAB BILL.
  "To amend The Diseases of Animals Act, 1894, in relation to Sheep Scab," presented by Mr. Hanbury; to be read a second time to-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 119.]

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Order for Second Reading, read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid the Amendment on the Paper was not intended to prevent the Government obtaining the forty millions of money dealt with by the Bill; the object of placing it there was to concentrate the discussion on the question of native labour and native taxation in South Africa. The question was a very wide one, and there might be some advantage to the House to have a debate at the present moment, in which they could put to the Government matters as to which it was very desirable hon. Members should be placed in possession of information as speedily as possible. It was useless to attempt to argue the extent of their responsibility in that matter, for that was admitted on all sides. The Government would admit that, whatever had been their responsibility towards the natives before the war broke out, it was still stronger now. The leading members of the Government, when they spoke of the circumstances which preceded the war, and referred to what they hoped might be the consequences to the natives if the war were successful, put the responsibility very high. It was said that the Boers had not treated the natives as a civilised nation should treat them; we had a higher ideal, and though we might have fallen short of that ideal we had never drawn a colour bar against natives by legislation. He was certainly not one of those who had any admiration for the views of Mr. Rhodes with regard to the native question, but it was only due to him to say that no one ever put the objection to the colour bar more strongly than he did in his policy. On Thursday the Colonial Secretary spoke of the natives as children, and on Monday the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in receiving a deputation on this question, used the same phrase; but the analogy was inapplicable, since the Government were under no undertaking to fit and train the natives for the position
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of citizens. They were to be permanently kept in a dependent and wholly subordinate situation.
A Question was put to the Colonial Secretary that afternoon as to what had been done by the Conference which had been recently sitting to consider that subject, and he gathered from such knowledge as he had of its proceedings that the Conference dealt with native taxation throughout all colonies and protectorates and the introduction of labour from outside. He did not wish, in dealing with that matter, to show any greater distrust of those who were employed in this work of importing native labour than must necessarily be felt in regard to any uncontrolled employing class, but every one knew that the employing class could not be trusted wholly, without supervision, to make their own arrangements for labour in a country where that labour had no voice in the affairs of the State. In the Rand address to the Secretary of State words were used which somewhat grated on their ears, viz.,
"The native of South Africa is an excellent and powerful muscular machine."
The Conference had dealt with the taxation of natives, and he asked that any proposal for the equalisation of direct taxation should not be agreed to without the consent of the House. Such equalisation might constitute an enormous increase of native taxation. As to the comparison the Colonial Secretary made a few days ago in regard to the amount of the native taxation before the war broke out—a comparison which suggested that it was greater than the £2 a year represented by the new consolidated tax, he would like to point out that no native paid all the taxes the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and before the war large proportions of the native population paid no taxes at all. In many parts of the country taxation was not enforced. Under our system, of course, it would be enforced everywhere. But that only touched one side of the problem. The new consolidated tax only affected direct taxation. The native, however, paid enormous indirect taxation, as was exemplified by the 20 per cent. ad valorem duty on imported blankets. What he feared was that equalisation of taxation would mean

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that Cape Colony would be asked to screw up taxation to the new Transvaal level. They ought to ask the Government, before it allowed the taxation to be raised in the colonies under their control to one uniform high level, to lay some information before the House with regard to the recommendations of the Inter-Colonial Conference.
As to the recruiting for native labour, no doubt the ordinance quoted by Lord Lansdowne was useful; but there was reason to think it had not always been acted upon. The Conference, it appeared, had recommended the importation under contract of labour from all British colonies in Africa. As regarded East Africa and Uganda, the objections to the transfer of labour to South Africa were known. They were well aware of the great depopulation which had taken place there; but as regarded the natives of British Central Africa, the slave raiding to which they had been subjected had created a terror at the thought of leaving their own country. Almost all the slaves in Zanzibar had, in fact, been taken from British Central Africa. At the deputation on the previous day Lord Lansdowne gave very satisfactory assurances with regard to the 1,000 natives to be levied in Central Africa, and probably there were other conditions besides those named by Lord Lansdowne. He would not trouble the House with all the conditions, but would deal only with one, which was that each native was to have thoroughly explained to him his work, his wages, and the terms of his employment. But under the Labour Agency ordinance of February, 1902, he understood that that was the law already, and it was a notorious fact that that stipulation had not been acted upon in the past, especially in the case of the labour brought in from the Portuguese dominions by labour touts. He thought that this was made clear by the enormous number of desertions which took place. In the case of the Portuguese native the conditions, he ventured to say, had not been enforced. He was practically kidnapped by his chief, who received a certain sum per head, and he certainly could not be considered to be a free contracting agent. The great majority of the natives were obtained from Portuguese territory, which was
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the principal source of supply. Indeed; of the 50,000 natives imported last year by one agency, nearly 39,000 came from Portuguese East Africa alone, and were brought in by outside touts. These natives clearly did not know the conditions of the labour, but they were subjected to punishment for breaches of their contract, and thus virtual slavery was enforced. Surely, tinder these circumstances, it was essential that if they gave attention to the natives in their own territory, the House should also give its attention to natives brought into that territory from the outside. He would quote to the House only one statement made some years ago in the House of Lords by a former High Commissioner. Lord Loch said—
"He had had to check I he system of applying to a chief for the supply of labour because, upon the chief hesitating to do this, action was taken to compel the chief to supply the labour required. This, "he went on, "was as much forced labour as if men were compelled at the bayonet point to work."
The Colonial Secretary in 1901 said—
"If a native contracts to serve in the mines and than deserts for any reason, say for higher wages in another mine or for any other purpose, he must pay damages and be punished."
But such a principle could only be enforced where a man knew what he was contracting to do, and that condition did not exist in the case of the natives obtained from Portuguese territory. The right hon. Gentleman had suggested that he disliked the idea of the Government itself acting as a recruiting agent, but it was not at all certain that that would not be better than that the recruiting should be done by persons without any responsibility. He should like to know how far the arrangement went between Johannesburg and Rhodesia with regard to labour. He feared that the agreement entered into for the importation of labour from Barotzeland was as unsatisfactory as that under which natives were obtained from Portuguese territory.
In offering these remarks he did not wish to make any attack on individuals in South Africa, which could only prejudice their case. He had nothing to say against the language used by the Secretary of State, who had shown much sympathy with their ideas in the past; there was only one statement in his speech on

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Thursday last as to which he did not feel satisfied. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the folly of the mine owners in having suddenly lowered the wages and so killed the supply; he spoke of the wisdom of retracing that step, and he went on to describe the low-grade ore, and said that it could not be worked except at wages at a very low rate indeed. Of course every mining Member of the House was aware of the fact that owing to the progress of mining science ores could now be worked at a profit which formerly could not be so worked. No doubt there was a great reserve in the Transvaal of deposits which would be worked some day through the progress of mining science, but was it necessary to try to develop suddenly and at once all those low-grade mines, and submit to any conditions of labour and any reduction of wages which might be necessary to bring these mines into operation. He had always heard that the principal difficulty in the way of working these low-grade mines came, not from the price of labour, but from mines of another grade. He submitted to the House the view that it was inconsistent with the other portion of the speech of the Secretary of State—the more excellent portion of that speech—that we should have too much in view the condition of these low-grade ores and the purpose of getting labour very cheap. We could not dispossess ourselves of the enormous responsibility that weighed upon us on this question, which had been augmented by the circumstances and promises of the war. If it were true, as the Secretary of State told them, that this was not merely the native labour question, but the labour question as a whole—the fact that white labour would not compete with black labour, and if they were compelled for all time to rely on this servile class—a class which was never to rise, even in the persons of its most chosen citizens, out of its dependent position, and never to obtain anything in the nature of citizenship—they were discussing something which was not the native labour question, but the whole future of South Africa. The prosperity of that country depended on the contentment of the working class. It was a commonplace of all those who had watched governmental questions throughout Africa that no colony in Africa could
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permanently succeed until the contentment of the blacks was obtained. The prosperity of South Africa must depend on the native, and therefore there was no question which affected so much the future of that country as that of native labour.
Mr. BRIGGseconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'this House calls on His Majesty's Government before acting, in the case of Crown Colonies or Protectorates in South Africa, on any agreement as to Native labour or Native taxation come to by the recent conference, to place the proposals before Parliament.'"—(Sir Charles Dilke.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
SIR JOHN GORSTsaid that since he asked a Question of his right hon. friend the Secretary for the Colonies a day or two ago on this subject, a speech by Lord Lansdowne to a deputation of missionaries yesterday had thrown a flood of light upon it. He should like to express the pleasure with which he read of the firm determination of Lord Lansdowne to consider and uphold the rights of the natives in Central Africa. He should like to say that he did not attribute either to Lord Lansdowne or to the Secretary for the Colonies any luke-warmness in this matter, and any observations he made to the House would not be made with the intention of attacking them in any way, but rather to strengthen their hands in the extremely difficult task they had before them. He should like to say, in the first place, that it was rather often that men of the world and business people undervalued the testimony of missionaries in regard to the social condition and character of native races. In his earlier days he had rather singular opportunities of testing the value of missionary evidence in the Colony of New Zealand, and that experience had impressed upon him, throughout life, the conviction that there was no class of men on whom they could more safely rely to give evidence as to the character and condition of

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native races than missionaries. Their testimony was always disinterested. They had no interested motive to follow, and very often from them alone could knowledge be obtained in regard to natives, and the purposes for which they might be employed. He naturally looked to the objections of the missionaries to the transference of negro labour from Central East Africa to the Transvaal. These were objections which Lord Lansdowne said would be very carefully considered. He had no doubt they would be carefully considered, not only by Lord Lansdowne, but by His Majesty's Government generally. These were the main objections. First, the complete severance of family ties. He hoped the House of Commons would not mock at the family ties of a negro. There were some matters in which undoubtedly the white races were superior to the savage, but in regard to family ties, the love of children, attachment to fathers and mothers, and general love of their families, he believed most civilised people differed very little from the black races. Indeed, he was not sure whether the superior cultivation of our intellects might not to some extent make us a little less quick and earnest in the emotional part of our nature than those native races. Undoubtedly, in the case of the negro family, the absence of the head of the house for a year in a foreign country where he was never heard of, and during which time no communication from him ever reached his home, was an evil which was little compensated for at the end of the year, even if the negro made ample wages in the meantime.
The second objection was the lack of labour in Central Africa itself. This was a matter which appeared to him to weigh very strongly indeed upon Lord Lansdowne, so much so that he told the deputation that he had hesitated considerably before he agreed to the proposal, and that he had only yielded when he received a telegram from an official agent in South Africa to say that 1,000 men could be spared without interfering with local demands. It appeared to him that the duty of the Government which had undertaken the Protectorate of Central Africa was to make the interests of Central Africa in this matter its first consideration. He
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doubted whether any consideration ought to allow the interests of Central Africa to be sacrificed to the interests of the Transvaal. The third objection was drawn from the experience of what had taken place in past times. It was the same sort of experience which he thought everybody had had when uncivilised labour was transferred from one place to another. There had been negroes sent to South Africa, and after working there they had generally gone back very much deteriorated in their moral character. They acquired the habit especially of drinking, and were very much less desirable citizens to the country to which they returned than they were before they went away. That was common experience, and the missionaries believed that was very likely to happen in Africa. The last objection was that of health. It was confessed by our medical authorities that the removal of the inhabitants of a torrid region to a temperate region was an extremely dangerous and hazardous experiment. He had this strongly impressed on himself in his earlier days, because the late Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Patteson were in the habit of bringing a number of young Polynesian boys from the tropical islands north of New Zealand to New Zealand. But this was put a stop to because it was found impossible, with all the care and the best medical advice that could be bestowed, to prevent these boys from attacks of dysentery, which decimated those who were brought. It was in consequence of that that the native college in New Zealand was entirely abandoned, and that a college was established in a more suitable climate.
It was impossible to read Lord Lansdowne's speech yesterday without coming to the conclusion that it was not the interest of Central Africa, but that it was overwhelmingly the interest of South Africa which had brought him to consent to the scheme. He spoke of the disastrous effect in South Africa of protracted wars. We here had done our best to remedy the effects of the recent disastrous war, and we were in duty bound to make every sacrifice to redeem the country as far as possible. This House had never objected to vote large sums of money to do away as far as possible with the result of the Transvaal War. But Lord Lansdowne stated to the deputation that the

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Transvaal was clamouring for labour. He was not at all sure but that in those words Lord Lansdowne had let out the real pressure which was brought to bear on His Majesty's Government, and which this House should refuse to entertain. He also spoke of the only way of teaching these natives to work hard. Why should we teach these natives to work hard? If Providence had placed them in a richly cultivated country where they could live a happy and contented life without any very hard labour, why were we interfering? This was admittedly an experiment. Now, what was to happen after the experiment was made? First of all, suppose the experiment failed. He was supposing that those natives, when they were brought to the Transvaal, either would not learn to work hard, or died off like flies from diseases of a temperate climate, or in some way failed, that the lives of some of these unfortunate men would be sacrificed and their families left desolate, and that nothing further would be done. Lord Lansdowne hinted to the deputation that, if it was found impossible to carry out the proposed transaction under the proposed conditions, it would be rather a good thing. But suppose that the experiment succeeded, and that these men worked well in the mines, that they were orderly when they were there, and that they could stand the climate, what were we going to do? Were we going to depopulate all Central Africa and all Eastern Africa for the purpose of providing natives to work in the gold mines of the Transvaal? According to the Agent in Central Africa, only 1,000 natives could be spared, but what were we going to do if the experiment succeeded? He understood from the speech of the hon. Baronet that the Native Agent was to be the sole agent for recruiting; but from a reply to a Question he put to the representative of the Colonial Office, he thought the Native Labour Association were going to employ their own agent, and take upon themselves the responsibility of procuring the recruits and of looking after them when they came to the Transvaal. He understood that the High Commissioner had nothing to do with the arrangements. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary had promised that the conditions under which these natives were recruited in Central Africa would be laid on the Table of the House. He was
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specially referring to Central Africa, but what he was saying applied equally to the natives of Uganda or any other native races under British protection. He believed that none of these native races could leave their protectorates without a permit from our Agent or Commissioner, and therefore we were responsible for letting them go and for the conditions under which they were to work, and should see that they were satisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary had promised that these restrictions and the conditions of the permits should be laid on the Table of the House, so that hon. Members could judge for themselves of the efficacy of the measures that were taken, and could strengthen his hands, if necessary, still more.
He would impress on the right hon. Gentleman the great importance of having the nature of the contract explained to the natives before they left their native country, and not when they arrived in the Transvaal; and that for two reasons. In the first place, it was most important to see that the natives went to the Transvaal of their own free will and were not coerced by the chiefs or headmen into a contract, or to go on an expedition of which they did not approve. In the second place, it was probably only in the country from which they came that any one could be found who was fully conversant with their language and could fully explain to the natives the real conditions under which they were going to the Transvaal. He knew that great injury was often inflicted in this respect on native races, who spoke an immense multitude of languages and dialects. It was impossible, very often, for any white man to understand what these men were saying or to explain to them what they had to do. Any one who had had to deal with the Polynesian races would appreciate that. Well, then, he should like to know particularly if this limit of 1,000 would be adhered to at present, and if they would have an opportunity of seeing the result of this experiment communicated to the House and to the people of this country before any further numbers were brought either from Central or Eastern Africa. He observed that Lord Lansdowne had stated that there was a famine in Central Africa, and his Lordship seemed to think that if this

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experiment were tried it would be better for these natives to go away to South Africa during the famine in order to save the lives of their women and children. He was not quite sure that that was a correct inference. The conditions of famine in Central Africa were very different from those of famine here. There the food of the native was grown by the labour of the man and his family, and if the man were taken away from his home for a whole year he was not sure but that at the end of the year there would be a worse famine than there was before.
Oddly enough, this very statement of Lord Lansdowne was controverted accidentally by a letter which was published in The Times that morning from the Rev. A. Hetherwick, of the Blantyre Mission, Central Africa. Mr. Hetherwick stated in that letter that the projected railway from the Lower to the Upper Shire River in Central Africa was about to be built and that work upon it was to be commenced in April. That, of course, was an extremely important and valuable scheme for Central Africa. It would expedite the transfer of produce from Central Africa to the outside world, and the articles of our trade from the outside world into Central Africa, and it would set at liberty a very large number of persons, who were now engaged in the transport service, as soon as the railway was made. But this railway, said the missionary, would require a larger amount of labour than the Protectorate could supply. Not only was there this dearth of labour in the Protectorate but they wished to import labour from other parts of Africa, and oven from the Transvaal itself. Mr. Hetherwick also informed them that there was a labour bureau in Central Africa, and that on their books there were applications for the services of 5,000 labourers who could not be supplied. Now, if the railway works were begun next month there would be ample employment for the starving people, and that would be a better way of doing away with the danger which might arise from the temporary famine than to transfer the natives to the Transvaal. As his last point, he would ask the House to attend to another statement by Mr. Hetherwick, in the course of which he said that there
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were hundreds and thousands of square miles of good land in Central Africa capable of growing cotton, tobacco, sugar, chillies, and other tropical crops, and which were only waiting the application of labour to it to enrich the world with its produce. Let the House consider—for the moment he put the question of South Africa altogether out of consideration—whether it were better for the world and mankind at large to employ labour on those thousands of square miles of land now lying derelict in Central Africa and to enrich the world by the produce of that labour in the shape of cotton, sugar, tobacco, chillies, and other valuable products which could be consumed by mankind, which would add to the happiness of those who consumed them, and which, incidentally, would create work in many industries in this country in supplying tools and clothes in exchange for these products, than to enable that labour to be employed for the purpose of extracting a quantity of dirty gold from the reefs of the Transvaal? Taking a wide view of human life and the interests of the world, and forgetting for a moment the interests of the Transvaal capitalists and the interests of the negroes of South Africa—quite apart from philanthropy—he contended that they should do as much as they could, and he was quite sure the Secretary of State for the Colonies would do as much as he could, to divert the labouring propensities of the negro into these fruitful and prolific fields, and keep them, as far as possible, from wasting their labour for the mere purpose of extracting from the earth gold which would not make one human creature one bit the happier.
MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary in the debate last week had protested with indignation against the idea that it would be possible for compulsory labour in any form to be introduced into South Africa. But it was notorious that compulsory labour had existed in South Africa. It had certainly existed in Rhodesia. Sir Richard Martin, who was sent by the Colonial Office to investigate into the origin of the Matabele War, reported that compulsory labour did exist in Matabeleland.

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Sir Marshall Clark had reported similarly. Compulsory labour existed in the public works in Natal, and Sir Alfred Milner reported that compulsory labour had existed also in Johannesburg. He fully admitted that the Secretary of State for the Colonies and Lord Milner had resolutely opposed the introduction or perpetuation of any form of direct compulsion. Everyone who had followed this subject would be aware that the Secretary of State had, on several occasions, resolutely suppressed attempts made in Rhodesia and elsewhere in the direction of compulsory labour. But compulsory labour was of two kinds. They might go to a native and say, "If you do not work in the mines, we will fine and imprison you." Or they might say to a native, "You will be heavily taxed, and you will only be able to pay the taxes if you work in the mines; and if you do not pay, you will be fined and imprisoned." It was that kind of compulsion to which it was notorious many of the mine owners in the Transvaal desired to resort. He would ask leave of the House, in order to prove that statement, to make one or two quotations. Mr. George Albu in his evidence before the Industrial Commission was asked—
"You would make labour compulsory?"
And his reply was—
"Yes, I would make labour compulsory, and without using force, a tax could be levied."
Mr. Rudd, at the meeting of the Consolidated Gold Fields Company, said—
"We should try some potent form of inducement, or practically compel the native, through taxation or in some other way, to contribute his quota to the good of the community, and to a certain extent he should then have to work."
Mr. Codrington, the Administrator of Northern Rhodesia, and Mr. Lionel Phillips, also advocated the same proposal; and the Report presented to the right hon. Gentleman at Johannesburg on behalf of the Chamber of Mines urged that "more legal and moral pressure to compel a greater number of natives in British possessions to work, and for longer periods," should be adopted. The late Bishop of Pretoria had written—
"I am disposed to think some compulsion is necessary, or such steadily and regularly enforced taxation, and to such amount, as may compel labour to pay it; which comes very much to compulsion."
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He could give similar quotations from speeches by Lord Grey, from the local Press at Bulawayo, and other sources. What had given rise to much alarm in the country was the fact that the Colonial Secretary had apparently fallen in with this idea of pressure by means of taxation; and in answer to a question which he put to the right hon. Gentleman last week, he said that he considered the present rate of taxation too low in some cases, and he hinted that the rate of taxation should be raised. In such circumstances, he submitted there was very grave cause for concern lest this monstrous proposal of forcing the natives to work in industries and under conditions which they were unwilling to accept should be adopted by the British Government. Very much the same argument applied to the wives of polygamous natives. He was not concerned, naturally, to defend polygamy; but many native customs were not so immoral as was frequently supposed. The practice of paying a sum of money to the father of the lady about to be married was not, as had been suggested, for the purchase of a slave, but was rather in the nature of a marriage settlement; and the cattle which were paid for the wife were maintained for her support in case of the death of her husband, or her separation from him. In order to show the excellence of native customs in certain respects, he would quote a custom in Uganda, the part of Africa with which he was personally best acquainted. There it was the rule that a mother-in-law should never enter the hut of her son-in-law; and if she met him on the road she was obliged to step aside and cover her face with her robe. Such customs, so far from being barbarous, had in some respects, at all events, reached a high point of perfection and refinement. And it seemed a strange coincidence that this attack on polygamy should be limited to South Africa, and should take place at this particular moment. There was polygamy in India, in Malaya, and in Central, East, and West Africa. England, as the greatest Mohammedan Power, had probably the largest number of polygamous subjects; but it was only in South Africa, and only when the natives were needed to work in the

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mines, that they heard an attack on moral grounds on polygamy, and the necessity of taxation in order to remove it. There was, therefore, reason to suspect some hypocrisy in the proposal, and that it was not merely the moral well-being of the natives that was the object in view.
The whole question came to this—What was a fair rate of taxation for a native to pay? That the natives ought to pay taxation was admitted, and they themselves were willing to pay taxation to a moderate amount. The right hon. Gentleman said that the taxation imposed on them could easily be paid by a few weeks work. In the first place £2 was a heavy tax, even for a miner. On the Rand, it amounted to one-eighteenth of his total income it he worked the whole year, and was equivalent to an income tax of 1s. 2d. in the £; or in Rhodesia, where the wages were rather lower, it amounted to one-twelfth of his total income, and was equivalent to an income tax of 1s. 8d. in the £. And then there was the indirect taxation to which his right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean had referred. The natives were very heavily taxed on their blankets, rugs, picks, hoes, beads, and other commodities; and in Natal alone the amount of indirect taxation paid by the natives amounted to about £170,000 per annum. But apart from natives who worked in the mines, they would have to ask, what would be the criterion of a just rate of taxation? What would a native who preferred to remain on the land be able to pay? Many of the natives were steady agriculturists. They used the plough; and, therefore, did not depend on the labour of their wives. In South Africa women were not allowed to plough with cattle. Perhaps a native was living remote from a market and was unable easily to sell his produce. He preferred to live his own life in his own way. As was well said by one well-qualified to speak, "To the native, the valley in which his kraal is built holds all that makes his life worth living." It would be a very great responsibility for this House or this country to say to that man, "You shall not remain on the land; we will impose taxation on you so great that you will be compelled to seek employment
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in the mines." That would open up one of the most momentous I problems of Empire—whether they should force their economic system on the native races. If the natives wished to enter that system of their own free will, their responsibility would be lighter; but if they forced it on the natives, they would become directly responsible for any degradation that might come to many of those who should be regarded as wards of the Empire. Nor could they limit the matter to South Africa. If adopted in South Africa it would be regarded as a precedent elsewhere. It was possible, even probable, that minerals should be discovered in British East Africa; then there would be the same shortage of labour, the same demand for taxation, the same plea for indirect compulsion. In the West Indies the planters were often obliged to import labour, because the negroes would not work; and a similar claim might be made there. If this system were adopted as part of the policy of the Empire, it could not be limited to one part of Africa.
The right hon. Gentleman urged that if there were self-government in South Africa they would not be in any way able to interfere in the question; but even if it were true that colonial native policy would be uncontrolled under self-government, that was no reason why they should commit an injustice as long as the decision of the matter rested in their own hands. They should show an example as to how the natives should be treated. But so far from its being impossible to control the policy of the self-governing colonies, the right hon. Gentleman surely forgot that under the Sand River Convention in 1852 a special reservation was made on behalf of the natives, that slavery should not be permitted or practised in the Transvaal or Orange Free States. A similar clause, mutatis mutandis, might be inserted in the constitution that would later be granted to the new territories, referring not merely to slavery, but to indirect compulsion to secure native labour. In addition, if self-governing institutions were established, the Colonial Secretary would still have the right of veto upon all measures adopted in those territories. The right hon. Gentleman had used that right

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himself with regard to the Sugar Works Guarantee Act passed in Queensland, on the ground of certain regulations affecting Asiatic labour. He submitted that England had a right to a voice in this matter. The sacrifices this country made in the war, partly on behalf of the natives, gave them a claim to insist that British ideas as well as colonial ideas should be consulted in the settlement of the native question. One of the chief proposals now made was that native labour should be recruited from the North. He himself was at one time inclined to favour that proposal; but, on further consideration, he was convinced that as far as Uganda, at all events, was concerned, no proposal could be more disastrous. He had had an opportunity of speaking on the subject to Sir Henry Stanley, whose opinion was entitled to some weight in the House and the country, and he held the view most emphatically that, to use his own words, it would not be merely a folly, but a crime, to enlist natives in Uganda to work at Johannesburg, as they would not be able to stand the climate, and would be certain to die in large numbers. Sir Henry Stanley's experience was that, if the natives of Uganda moved even a short distance from their own country, they died in great numbers; and Bishop Tucker recently wrote to The Times that in one expedition where natives were engaged as porters, no fewer than 2,000 of them died because they were removed to a different climate and fed on a different diet. It should be remembered that Uganda was on the Equator, and 4,000 feet above the sea, while Johannesburg was twenty-six degrees south of the Equator and 5,500 feet above the sea. It was as if the inhabitants of Morocco were set to work in Scotland, and not only on the plains of Scotland, but on the hill-tops. Sir Henry Stanley also urged that, as this country had now spent £6,000,000 on the Uganda Railway, it would be an act of folly to deplete the country of its most energetic, intelligent, and sturdy labourers.
He attended a deputation to Lord Lansdowne on the subject yesterday, and the statements made by the missionaries, who spoke on behalf of British Central Africa, as to the demoralisation which
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had resulted to the men who had previously worked in the Transvaal mines were exceedingly striking. What was the right policy that should be adopted? They, both political and from the point of view of public finance, all realised the immense importance of the prosperity of Johannesburg; but, surely, it would not be impossible under slightly different conditions to employ a larger number of white men, with more machinery, and to make that profitable by lowering the cost of living. Mr. Albu had said recently—
"It was impossible to employ poor whites in great numbers owing to the inflated price of food-stuffs."
And that was the real difficulty of the whole matter, and the rings and monopolies which controlled the food supplies of Johannesburg were largely responsible for that difficulty. It ought to be possible, also, to remove the obstacles and deterrents which prevented the natives from going to the mines. It was not necessary to make wholesale accusations of laziness in order to explain the lack of labour. It was the Kaffirs who had built the railways and the towns, had worked the farms and plantations, had developed the coal-, diamond-, and goldmines, had supplied the domestic service of South Africa—the Kaffirs, who it was now said were constitutionally unwilling or unable to work.
The House did not fully realise the extraordinary difficulties, the grave obstacles, which used to exist, and did to some extent now exist, to deter natives from going into the mines. Many of them had to make journeys of from 500 to as many as 1,600 miles in length in order to reach their employment; there was no accommodation on the roads, and many of them arrived in a half-starved condition; the conditions of the contracts were frequently misrepresented to them by the labour agents who were sent to recruit labour, and who were of the lowest and most, unreliable character; the diet given to them was in many cases unsatisfactory; numbers went back suffering from scurvy; badly-prepared food frequently gave them intestinal disease, and in the mines of the Selukwe district in Rhodesia the death rate during the two years ending March, 1900, was no less than seventy-five per

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thousand per annum. They were compelled to associate with men of other tribes in the compounds; they suffered many petty injustices through the difficulty in making themselves understood; in many cases the wages contracted to be paid to them were not paid; they were exposed to the temptation to drink, which many of them were unable to resist, and the result was that many of them took home little or no savings. In consequence of these things the missionaries were often unwilling to let those under their influence go to the mines. On the whole, it was rather surprising that so many went to the mines rather than that there should be a shortage of labour. Let these obstacles be removed, as Lord Milner was actively endeavouring to remove them, and the question would in large measure solve itself. There was no need to force them into the mines by taxes; to whip them to work with an economic sjambok. Could these blacks make their voices heard in that House, they would say to them: "You have taken away our independence, and to that we submit; you have occupied our land, and we do not protest; you ask us to contribute to the upkeep of your revenue, and we are willing to do so according to our means; but we ask to be allowed to live our own lives in our own way on our own land, without being forced into your economic system." That was not an extravagant demand. It was a demand within their rights. Those people looked to this House as the guardian of their rights. The right hon. Gentleman in a speech at Kimberley, in a glowing description of the future of the Empire, spoke of the Empire as "based on the ideals of humanity, justice and freedom." Those were principles which should not be kept merely for the uses of a peroration, but ought to be maintained as permanent guides of our policy.
MR. MARKHAMsaid there were four propositions it was essential for the House to apprehend in order to arrive at a proper understanding of the conditions of South Africa. He was one of those who believed that there never could be, in a country where white and black races had to live together, any question
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of equality. No white man, so far as he was aware, in South Africa had ever been in competition with black labour. It was futile to refer to Australia and other countries where no black labour existed, because where no black labour existed the colonists had a right to say that the colonies should depend solely on white men, and not upon the introduction of black or coloured races. The prosperity of South Africa depended, not on agriculture, but on the mines of the Transvaal, and hon. Members who denied that must arrive at the same conclusion when they reflected that all the improvements that had taken place in that country had been the result of the mining industry, and no other, and all prosperity could come from no other source. It was only from proper attention being paid to the development of the resources of the Transvaal that prosperity could come both now and in the future to the whole of South Africa. There were two paths which the Government might follow. In the first place the Kaffir in South Africa will not work, and it is idle to suppose sufficient labour could be obtained unless the Kaffir was forced to work. At this time the field from which labour was recruited in South Africa was exhausted, and pressure had been put upon the natives to come from Portuguese East Africa, and the question which the House had to consider now was whether they were going to allow the system of forced labour which was the only method by which the resources of that country could be continued, or would they take the only other possible alternative which could be taken with advantage to the country?
There was nobody in this House or in South Africa who advocated forced labour. That idea was repudiated in South Africa and by all sections of this House. He had met Kaffirs coming down from Central Africa itself. The great majority of them, except those who came from Portuguese East Africa, came voluntarily. He admitted that the majority came from Portuguese East Africa, and they came because they were forced by the Portuguese officials, who got a bonus for those they sent, but there was no proved

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system of slavery under the old Government, The only proved system of slavery was that introduced by the Chartered Company. The point he desired to call to the attention of the Government was the choice of two alternatives: they must either rely on what labour could be got in South Africa, or introduce labour from outside. A very strong feeling existed on that side of the House that labour should not be introduced into South Africa from outside, but he was unable to see any argument which could reasonably be urged against such introduction. Was it not just as reasonable to bring men from India as Kaffirs from Uganda? If coolies were brought under indenture to Cape Colony, it was no more wrong to go farther and bring in any class of labour that was willing to work at a reasonable wage. To work the mines by white labour the whole rate of wages would have to be reduced to a nominal sum. The present rate was nearer £20 than £30 per month. Of the cost of production per ton of ore crushed, 30 per cent. was for white labour, 28 per cent. for native labour, 9 per cent. for coal, 10 per cent. for dynamite, and the balance for stores, so that for every £1 spent on Kaffir labour more than £1 was paid for white labour. It was impossible to work low grade ores with white labour. The average production of gold amounted to only about ten and a half dwts. per ton of ore, except in the Central Rand, where the richness of the ore was exceedingly high. With the exception of about ten, the whole of the mines were low-grade ore, and unless labour was secured by which the low-grade ores could be worked successfully they could not look forward to any future development of the mining industry in South Africa. To have a prosperous industry in South Africa coloured labour was necessary, unless the wages for white labour were reduced from £20 to £5 per month. It was not for the benefit of the Transvaal alone that the gold industry should be kept up. The whole prosperity of South Africa depended on the gold mines and the mineral industries. He was strongly against slave labour, but the only way in which it could be avoided was by bringing in outside labour.
SIR J. FERGUSSONsaid the last speaker seemed to use a series of syllogisms; they must have mines in order to get dividends; they must cultivate such ore as was there to get dividends; and if it was poor ore the only way was by cheap labour; the only cheap labour was coloured labour, therefore, coloured labour they must have, and so let them introduce natives from other parts who were more or less willing to work. He would go almost any length in supporting the Colonial Secretary in the great work he had taken in hand. No statesman in his time had undertaken so great a work and carried it through with greater resolution, perseverance, and courage; but he did entertain great doubt as to the result of the system of bringing down Central African labour to work in the Transvaal. Any sort or form of compulsion he was quite sure the House would be very impatient of; it could not be sustained. If the result of this experiment was a great mortality among imported labourers, he thought the feeling of the country would be terribly strong, and would not only bring the experiment to an end, but would have a very painful effect. Therefore he did not think it was an experiment to which they could look forward with any very great confidence. He wanted to know why were we to interfere and fall in with the prejudices of those who would not have the sort of labour which was willing to come and was fitted for the purpose? He did not think East Indians would do in the Transvaal; they would do exceedingly well in tropical climates. But the Chinese could stand the cold climate perfectly well, because large parts of China were much colder than the Transvaal in winter. He knew there was amongst a certain class of colonists great prejudice against the Chinese, but if we were going to get suitable labour for the mines, he did not think we should go to the least suitable field when a perfectly suitable field was open, if suitably tapped. Coloured labour must be got by paying the market price. Very few would view with favour any system by which any form of compulsion was applied. The rate of taxation indicated by the Secretary of State the other day seemed a very high rate, but he was quite sure that both he and the Foreign Secretary would take

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great care that this experiment was made with every possible precaution against abuse. He did not think it was one they could hope to carry far without mischief, but he did think that much better means could easily be found of providing labour without corresponding dangers, and that we ought not to lend ourselves to the prejudices of those who said they would not have Asiatic labour.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary will not consider that in this debate anyone has cast imputations upon him of not being desirous to protect the natives in South Africa. I have observed before that in my opinion he has exercised the great influence he possesses already in favour of the natives. He has successfully pressed upon the British Administration in South Africa the removal of those atrocious provisions in the old Pass Laws authorising floggings in order to enforce civil contracts. It was with great reluctance on the part of the British Administration in South Africa that the right hon. Gentleman succeeded in absolutely excluding flogging from the Pass Laws, and in amending those laws in the manner in which they have been amended. But what is the urgency of the present occasion when we have to consider what is to be done in regard to the natives? There is a deficiency of labour now, but there was no deficiency before the war.
MR. MARKHAM: Yes.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: It was stated by the Industrial Commission in 1897 that they could get all the labour they wanted.
MR. MARKHAM: The report of the Industrial Commission was issued two years before the war.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The statement was that the supply was double what it is now. Why has it failed? Therein is the whole case.
MR. MARKHAM: There were 6,000 stamps before the war.
SIR. WILLIAM HARCOURT: The hon. Member will allow me to proceed; he has had his opportunity. We have had different views expressed by the hon. Gentleman on those subjects at different times. I repeat my question: Why is there a deficiency of labour to the extent of 50 per cent. since the war as compared with the period before the war? The answer to that is extremely simple. It is found in this fact, that at that time, when they had 80,000 or 100,000 natives to work in the mines, mine owners were determined to diminish wages compulsorily, and they applied through the Industrial Commission to the Boer Government to support them by what they called indirect compulsion. Their desire was clearly expressed in their evidence. But the Boer Government refused to support them, and consequently they did not succeed in their endeavour at that time in cutting down the wages of native labour. That is the true cause of the present dearth of labour, and the Colonial Secretary has alluded to that as a mistake. The mine-owners made more than a mistake; they committed a blunder amounting almost to a crime, because it is that which has paralysed and almost ruined the gold-mining interest in South Africa. With the establishment of British supremacy the mine-owners thought the time was opportune, adopting Mr. Rhodes's dictum that "the British flag is a commercial asset," and their Executive Committee in October, 1900, resolved that "the schedule of native wages in existence prior to the war should be abandoned, and that the minimum rate of wages for adult native labour should be 30s. per month of thirty working days, or 1s. per diem, and the maximum 35s. per month of thirty-one days, or 1s. 2d. per diem." There were provisions for payment of higher wages in specific cases; but throughout 1901, when the mines began to work again, there were 18,000 natives employed, and the average of wages paid was 31s. a month, and therefore the whole of the wages were practically upon the lowest scale during the whole of that period. That is the cause, in my opinion, of the deficiency in native labour at the present time in South Africa, and nothing else.

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Of course the knowledge of this spread through all the sources from which native labour is obtained; the supply of labour ceased naturally, and the difficulty in working the mines followed. In 1902 the mine owners began to discover what their insensate policy had produced, and to some extent they raised their scale of payment; but it will take a long time to undo the effects which their policy had brought about. I was very glad to hear that at the Guildhall the other day the Colonial Secretary rehabilitated the Boer character and did justice to Boer treatment of the natives. There has been a good deal of very discreditable vilification of the Boers, not only in their own personal character but also in respect of their treatment of the natives. We were accustomed to hear that as one result of the war the native would be redeemed from the brutal oppression of the Boers. We now learn that there was no foundation for the allegations indulged in, and many people have cause to be heartily ashamed of the language used as to the treatment by the Boers of the natives. The native of South Africa, too, was described as a brute only fit to be used as a beast of burden; but, in fact, when properly treated and properly paid he is an industrious labourer, and nearly the whole manual industry of South Africa is accomplished by the Kaffirs. Practically speaking the manual labour has been theirs, and it is time that the truth should be told as to the character of the Boers and the nature of the Kaffirs. I have read within the last fortnight a speech made upon this subject by a very high authority in South Africa, Sir Percy FitzPatrick, and he says—
"The rate of progress was determined by the supply of native labour. Prior to this war the maximum supply was to the mines 96,704; to the towns 25,000. They were still short of the previous complement of the mines by 50,736."
That was just about half the number they had got previous to the war. The hon. Member for Mansfield corrected me just now, but perhaps he will accept the authority of Sir Percy FitzPatrick upon that subject. Sir Percy proceeds to say—
"Every man now seemed to be a kind of Pontifical authority on this labour question. The claims of this town naturally came first, and it had procured its complement because private individuals were able to pay much higher wages than public companies."
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What an astounding statement! Private individuals able to pay higher wages than the gold-mining companies of which we hear so much as the means of making fortunes, and as the chief source of their wealth. The gold-mining industry comes forward and claims forced labour, suing in formá pauperis and representing that they are so poor that they cannot pay the wages paid by other employers in other industries in South Africa. That is the whole history of the deficiency of labour in South Africa. With a blindness which somehow seems to attend the lust for gold they have destroyed their own interests by their own conduct. What an extraordinary statement it is that these great companies in South Africa are so poor that they cannot pay wages according to the rates other industries can pay. It may seem strange to some who have not considered this subject, but take it all round gold-mining in South Africa is not a profitable industry. There are mines that are easily worked, but they have been over capitalised by people who think only of flotation, and their margin for earning dividends is not great. But there are a much greater number of mines worth nothing at all and never intended to be worth anything; they are like the razors which were made not to shave but to sell. These low-grade mines were not made to work, they were made to sell, and they have been sold, and the people who invested in them have been sold also. That is the history of gold mining in South Africa, and it is this which is now being discovered by the public of British gamblers. That is the reason of that singular statement by Sir Percy Fitz-patrick—that they cannot afford to pay what other people can pay. And why? Nobody will buy to-day what everybody wishes to sell—mining investments in South Africa. That is the paralysis that has come over the gold industry both in the Stock Exchange and Africa itself, and that is why in my opinion the first thing to be observed is that neither in the interest of South Africa nor in the interest of the investors in gold mines themselves are the counsels or the advice of the mine-owners to be attended to by this House. They have ruined their own interests, and if their counsels are followed they will ruin the

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future of South Africa. That is a thing which I would ask this House to consider, why it is, now the future of South Africa has passed into British hands, that the mining interest, which was to be so much richer after the war, is now in a state of destitution. We all remember one of the highest authorities—the authority of one of those American engineers whom the right hon. Gentleman referred to the other day—estimated first of all that the gain, "the commercial asset" of the British flag, would be worth, figuring it out at so much per ton, £4,000,000 a year to the gold interest. That was found to be a dangerously sanguine estimate, which was afterwards cut down to £2,000,000, and at all events they were to be better off to the extent of that sum from the British flag. Now all these expectations which had "boomed" the mining shares in the market have disappeared, and that is why people are beginning to understand the real state of things, and why they are so unwilling to deal in these shares. Therefore this is a thing we have to bear in mind, because as my right hon. friend the Member for Forest of Dean said—
"What is to be your test which you are going to apply to labour? Are you resolved to lower the wages of labour until you make those worthless mines worth something in the future?"
Because that is the sort of plea that is put forward when you are told that you are bound in any event and by any means to make the low-grade ores pay. Well, what is the rate of wages at which these low-grade mines, which have paid no dividends, and in my opinion never can pay any dividend at all—what is the figure at which you are to place native labour, by some means, it matters not what, in order to make these mines pay? Why is it that all those great companies with their enormous capital are pleading in formá pauperis for cheap native labour? It is because their nominal capital is such that with the ordinary market price of labour they cannot show the profits which they desire, because when you go to the deep low-grade ores the thing becomes still more impossible.
In my opinion the cause of the present deficiency of labour in the Transvaal is the attempt to cut down the price of native labour at which,
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before the war, they were doing pretty well. Now they have scared and driven away the natural sources of supply, and though I believe things are improving since they have raised wages in the Transvaal, that process will necessarily be a slow one, because of the foolish and insane policy of cutting down wages wholesale immediately the British flag was hoisted. That policy, as unwise as it was unjust, has done infinite mischief, which it will take a long time to repair. Now it is said that nobody is in favour of forced labour. Is that true? I see that in the Conference at Bloemfontein, one of the Resolutions expressed surprise. They say—
"The Conference deplores the misconception in certain quarters in the Mother Country regarding South African native policy, and affirms that forced labour is not countenanced by any South African Government, and is repugnant to the civilised opinion throughout the country."
Well, I am extremely glad to hear it, because we shall now know what is civilised opinion in South Africa. As to forced labour, I wish to refer to the Industrial Commission, because Mr. Hay and Mr Albu accepted the proposition regarding forced labour. A question was put to Mr. James Hay, President of the Chamber of Mines—
"Do you think it would be desirable to get forced labour?—Yes."
Then Mr. George Albu was asked by Mr. Smith—
"Suppose the Kaffirs were to turn back to their kraal. In case that happened, would you be in favour of asking the Government to enforce labour?"
The answer of Mr. Albu was—
"Certainly; a Kaffir cannot live on nothing."
"You would make it compulsory?—Yes, I would make it compulsory; and, without using force, a tax could be levied."
"Do you think you would get a majority of the people on the Rand with you in trying to make the Kaffirs work for a certain payment?—Yes, I think so."
That at all events shows that in 1897 there was an opinion in favour of forced labour. The Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Schalk Burgher, said this, as against the proposal of the mine owners then for forced labour.
"One way to encourage them to come to the mines would be to give them facilities for coming here, to make their lives as pleasant as possible, and to pay them as much as possible

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even more than at present, and that you don't want to do; whilst to compel them every body acknowledges to be impossible."
The right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary said the other day that the Boers had been entirely misrepresented when it was said that they were oppressors of the natives. That is the simple truth. They were the protectors of the natives before the war, and of that there cannot be a doubt. Well, this advice given by the President of the Industrial Commission was rejected, by the mine-owners, and they insisted upon not paying more, but paving less, and instead of making things more pleasant for the natives, as Mr. Schalk Burgher suggested, they menaced them with increased taxation. That was the course taken before the war. But Sir, when it is said by the Conference that there is no civilised opinion in South Africa in favour of forced labour, there is a matter of importance to which I shall refer. It was the doctrine presented to the Colonial Secretary in South Africa within the last two months, setting forth the demands of the mine-owners by their representatives officially appointed for that purpose as to the deficiency of labour, and the remedies to be provided for it. These are the words in the official document presented to the right hon. Gentleman. It was called an "Industrial Manifesto." What they said they suffered from was "insufficient pressure on the native to make him labour proportionately to the white man." Insufficient pressure! Then that is defined as "more legal and moral pressure to compel a greater number of natives in British possessions to work, and for longer periods." Is that forced labour, or is it not? It would be impossible to describe forced labour in more definite terms than these. [Mr. Chamberlain shook his head.] The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but we shall hear from him what interpretation he puts upon the words "insufficient pressure," and "more legal and moral pressure to compel a greater number of natives in British possessions to work, and for longer periods" If that is not forced labour I do not know what is. I think it could not be described in more definite terms. They
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took credit in that document for being the only persons in South Africa who had reduced the pre-war rate of wages. That was the claim they made before the Colonial Secretary in regard to the deficiency of labour in South Africa. They wanted more legal and moral pressure in order to give them cheaper labour, and it was in order to carry out their desire, which was to reduce the rate of wages from what it was before the war. Now, Sir we have never had any official account of what was the answer of the right hon. Gentleman to those demands, and I do not think they are on record anywhere; I have attended closely to this matter, and I have never seen the answer which the right hon. Gentleman has made to the formal demands made in that formal document. Now is this the opinion of civilised people in South Africa? Who were these people who made these demands in that language. They were a body of engineers appointed to represent the great gold mining interests of South Africa. Their names are given in that document, and are these:—
"Eckstein & Co., Consolidated Gold Fields, Faison Brothers, Albut, (Goery & Co., Barnato Brothers, Neuman & Co., Lewis & Marks, Rand Mines, J. B. Robinson, Bertinck & Deltelbach, and others."
Is that civilised opinion? We are told that it is repugnant to civilised opinion throughout the country. I suppose we must take it for granted that the opinions of these gentlemen do not represent the civilised opinion of South Africa. This is a serious matter; because these persons, with their great influence and great wealth, must have a very preponderant influence in the future over those colonies and in the counsels of the present Government. Where is the material that is to be found for determining these questions in South Africa if the opinion of persons in the situation of those whose names I have read are to be treated as not representing the civilised opinion of South Africa? Where is the British Administration to receive its advice, and what is to be the opinion that is to prevail in these matters? These are serious questions which the House of Commons with its responsibility will have to consider.

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Then there is the question of increased taxation. I understood from the right hon. Gentleman's statement that the taxation in the Transvaal has been diminished to what it was before the war; but he gave some figures which I have not been able well to understand, because the figures of the taxation before the war do not correspond with those which have been recently given. Before the Industrial Commission it was stated that the taxation in the Transvaal amounted to 50s.; that is to say, there was a hut tax of 10s., a poll tax of £2, which was a new introduction in 1895—I imagine at the instance of the mineowners—and there was a road tax. But, curiously enough, that is the figure also given in the year 1901 by Sir David Barbour in his report on the mining taxation. He says that there was a hut tax of 10s., and, if there was more than one wife it was 10s. a head—not £2 additional, as I understand it now is. Then there is this remarkable statement. He says—
"Neither the hut tax nor the poll tax is paid by the natives working in the mines."
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether under the present arrangement men working in the mines are to be free from that taxation.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN: No.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Very well, then there is not a reduction. Sir David Barbour says in his report that taxation at that time was nominally 50s., as against 40s.; that when a man was working in the mines and was absent from his home he was relieved from this taxation. But if you are going to levy it on 100,000 of these natives when they are working in the mines, or 200,000, as we are told there are to be in the future, you are enormously increasing the weight of taxation, and upon the very people who ought to be relieved from it. Therefore, this representation that there has been a reduction of taxation is a complete mistake. The real truth is, if you are going to put on this taxation—this capitation tax of £2 a head upon the men working in the mines—you are doing that which they have never been accustomed to before. They were always told when they worked in the mines for
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three or four months that they would be relieved from that tax. If you are going to tax them in that way it is not a diminution of taxation; it is an increase of taxation.
Then there is the tax on polygamy. It is a very curious tax. There used to be at one time, I believe, in England a tax upon bachelors. That was to do away with celibacy. This is an opposite system of taxation; it is a tax upon the number of wives, and the right hon. Gentleman said the other day, in this House, that it was a tax against polygamy. But polygamy is one of the customs of the natives; and you do not propose to put it down, because you know what the consequences would be if you were to determine to do so. There, again, there has been a gross misrepresentation of the state of things. I have seen in the newspapers speeches of gentlemen who ought to know better, who say that these Kaffirs buy these women as slaves. They do nothing of the kind. They deposit a certain number of cattle with the father of the wife. It is a custom among these people which is as elaborate as any British marriage settlement. The cattle are deposited with the father, who takes them as compensation for his daughter who is taken away. But he remains responsible for the cattle under the marriage settlement, and the woman, if she is ill treated and leaves her husband, has a right to come upon these cattle, in whosesoever hands they are. It is a very curious, very elaborate, and highly civilised proceeding. That is what is called buying a slave. But the custom among these people is that the male Kaffir has charge of the cattle. Whatever is done by the cattle falls to him, and the women work in the fields, as I very well remember their working in the fields in England. This polygamy argument, of which we heard nothing as long as the mines were doing well, but which has been invented now as an excuse for insisting upon forced labour, is repudiated by the recent Conference. The Conference says—
"Except in Rhodesia the influence of polygamy on the labour supply is greatly exaggerated. Polygamy is decreasing from natural causes, the advance of civilisation, and the ameliorated condition of the women. Ploughs have relieved them largely from field labour."

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The moment the plough is used the women disappear from the fields altogether, because they are not allowed to intervene in the cattle business at all, and the moment cattle appear on the ground the women are relieved altogether from the work. To my mind this grievance has been invented really for the purpose of bolstering up a tax on the Kaffirs. We desire that female labour in the fields should be removed as, in our own recollection, it has been removed in this country. But I do not think it is a very prudent thing to interfere violently in this form of taxation with the customs of these people. You are extremely likely to irritate the people and lead them to imagine that you are making war upon customs which we have always professed to respect in South Africa.
There is one other question on which I must touch—that is the question of Asiatic labour. It is said that Asiatic labour is only to be introduced in the last resort as the ultima ratio. But nobody can follow this matter carefully, as I have endeavoured to do, without knowing that that is the thing upon which the mine owners really rely. They are going to America to see what they can make out there about Chinese labour. I had thought the opinion of this country had been made up on that question, that the notion of founding a new British colony, of which the basis should be Chinese labour, would be a thing which would be repugnant to the opinion of every man in this country, as we know it is repugnant to the opinion of the colonies who have had experience of it. An endeavour is made to reconcile us to it by an assurance that it is to be done under the Government, and that every precaution is to be taken to prevent the consequences that are feared from it. I have read the opinions that have been collected in Rhodesia upon that subject, and I would just like to read an extract from the opinion of a gentleman who is very well known in South Africa, Major Maurice Heany. He is a great advocate of Chinese labour, and he says—
"There can be no harm in Chinese labour, because we will take care to fence it round."
And this is his description of how a Chinaman should be treated when he
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comes to South Africa. He is to be kept out of mischief in this way.
"The Chinaman, if he comes, must come as a hewer of wood and drawer of water—as nearly a beast of burden as it is possible to make a human animal into."
That is the prospect of staple model labour in a new British colony—
"And when his task is done, he must go. He may not become a miner; neither may he own a prospector's licence, nor a licence to trade. No white man may enter into partnership with him for the performance of mine or other contracts; nor may he enter into contracts on his own account. Above all he may not acquire, by purchase or otherwise, any house, lands, or claims, nor in his own right enter upon the occupation of rented premises. He will come simply as a labourer, and a labourer he must remain."
It is proposed to have 100,000 or 200,000 of these men, who are to be the basis of the whole industry of the new colonies, and they are to be kept under the control of a British Government on these conditions.
What is the House of Commons going to do in this matter? Is it going to accept the gold-mine owners of South Africa as its advisers in dealing with native labour? I think not. I hope not. We are sometimes told that it is for South Africa to deal with—that it must be dealt with according to the civilised opinion of South Africa. We have had some inkling of what that civilised opinion is. I believe that this question will be determined, as it ought to be determined, according to the ancient traditions of the English people, and in accordance with those principles and the freedom of labour, of whatever colour, that have been among the chief boasts of the English people both here and abroad. There has been in the world a good deal of criticism upon the war in which we have conquered. There has been a good deal of just approval of the spirit of conciliation in which we have dealt, by the assistance of the Colonial Secretary, with the injuries inflicted by that war. But I believe that the judgment of the world upon us in this new territory which we have thus acquired will be greatly and mainly determined by the manner in which we deal with the native races and with this question of the native labour. We cannot discharge ourselves of this responsibility. We cannot leave it to the interested

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parties to determine the policy of the British Empire in this matter. I hope the Colonial Secretary will treat it in the enlightened spirit of conciliation in which he has sought to heal the wounds that have been inflicted in the war; and in taking that course I am certain he will receive the unanimous support of the House of Commons, and that he will enforce the principles which are worthy of the name and the fame of the British people.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I do not think I need detain the House at any length in answer to the speeches which have been made, for the second time, upon this very interesting subject. We had a very considerable discussion on the matter a few days ago, and I then gave to the House all the information in my power and a frank exposition of my views as far as they were relevant. I do not think the second discussion this afternoon has added much to our knowledge or produced any new argument to which I can be expected to reply. I do not in the least complain of the discussion, which has been conducted in a spirit entirely free from any party feeling; and I acknowledge the kindly way in which the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has spoken of me. He has truly said that I may justly consider myself as a friend of the natives, for I have, from the earliest days of my political life, taken a great interest in their future, and endeavoured, as far as I could, to promote their welfare. But, although the discussion has been interesting, I am totally unable to discover what is the practical issue that is placed before the House. What is the House asked to do; what is the Government asked to do; what is it our colonists in South Africa are asked to do? One thing I do glean from every speech that has been delivered from the other side of the House, and that is that there exists in the minds of those speakers a perfectly irrepressible distrust, almost a detestation, of the mine-owners. I would almost say that I should judge that their real object was, by hook or by crook, one way or another, to ruin the gold industry. Take the right hon. Gentleman opposite. How did he begin his speech? He began by talking about the lust of gold
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of the mine-owners, and about their wretched greed—language which is really, I would say, unnecessarily offensive. This is, after all, only another way of saying that the mine-owners, like other capitalists—for I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that it is not confined to mine-owners—seek their own interests, and endeavour to make the largest possible profit for their expenditure. We need not treat them as philanthropists; we need not praise them for doing their best to get the largest dividends. But, on the other hand, we need not treat them and speak of them as though they were the lowest of human kind. That is a great mistake, because, as I have tried to point out, you cannot separate these mine-owners, whatever you may think of them, from the rest of the British and Dutch population of the colony with which you are dealing. Anybody who goes to South Africa will find that the whole of that country at the present time is more or less dependent for its future prosperity upon the Transvaal gold mines. He will find that, in the course of a few years, there has been a gigantic development of that great industry; and that, as a result, thousands, and tens of thousands, of British workmen of the very I best class have left their own country and established themselves—in many cases, I believe, permanently—in the new colonies. He will see great towns rising almost out of the veldt; he will see large industries contingent on that main industry; everywhere he will see development, all due to this one industry. The men who, by their skill, their capital, and their energy, no doubt not from philanthropic motives, but with the idea of filling their own pockets, have done all this are spoken of, and treated,; as though they were pariahs, and as if their ruin would be a desirable thing and an advantage to the country. That is an absurd position to take. In future, do let us either leave the mine-owners alone or treat them with the same kind of respect with which you treat your coal-owners, your cotton merchants, your bankers, your financiers, or any other person who is engaged in using his brains in order to make his living.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. My condemnation was that the mine-owners cut down wages, even against their own interests.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: That may be a very foolish thing; but, good heavens, it everybody is to be spoken of in such terms of violent contempt, and to be denounced, as from a pulpit, for their lust of gold and their abominable greed, because they try to get their wages lowered, what would become, I should like to know, of the whole manufacturing industry of this country? I thought it was one of the great doctrines and principles of the Cobden school that you should buy in the lowest market and sell in the highest; and for the life of me I do not see, under these circumstances, why the unfortunate mine-owner is supposed to be out of the ordinary run of humanity, or in any way different from them. My argument is, that as the future of the country depends, in the first instance at any rate, upon the progress of this great industry, it is our interest as a British Government and a British people not to discourage it, but to do everything in our power to encourage it. As a mere matter of politics, we want to see this great colony, in which large numbers of our own countrymen gain their subsistence, prosper. Their prosperity, and the prosperity of the Boers as well, depends on the success of this greatest industry; and without the capital which this industry and the contingent industries provide, you will not be able to develop the other mineral resources of the country, which are also important, and, above all, you will not do what I believe may prove to be in the long run (I do not speak of this year or of next, but of cycles) a source of great prosperity—you will not develop the agricultural resources of the country.
Any one who knows South Africa knows perfectly well that there are vast areas of country which only want expenditure on irrigation to make them as fertile as Egypt itself. It means, in the first place, a demand for the produce of the land, and it means, in the second place, capital in large quantities in order to develop it. I say let us treat this
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question of native labour, not with any prejudice, but simply in connection with the general prosperity of the country, and let hon. Members opposite remember this—that the violence of the language they have used on this question is as repulsive and as offensive to the Boer population as it could possibly be to the British population. Though it is perfectly true, as I said the other day, that I think the Boers were absolved from some of the charges that were made against them, chiefly, by the way, by missionaries and on missionary authority, in connection with their treatment of the natives, I also say that they take a different view of the native from what may be called the extreme philanthropic view. They do not consider that the native is capable of being placed upon anything like the same level as the white population. In my recent journey, one of the principal complaints made to me by the great Boer deputation at Pretoria, and repeated to me by almost every deputation I received, was that the Government ought to interfere to secure a proper supply of labour for the farms. The right hon. Gentleman opposite and others speak as if the labour question affected the mines solely. It affects every branch of industry, and it affects agriculture no less than the mining industry. What the Boers said to me was, that since the war, from various causes, the native has grown insolent, and squats on the land, and will not do any work. If there is any definite, strong opinion on the subject of what is called forced labour, it is to be found among the Boers, and not among the British population. "But," says the right hon. Gentleman, quoting a document written by persons not as literary as himself, who do not perhaps understand the weight to be attached to distinctions of language, "These mine-owners say that the native must be compelled to work." Yes, but when they say compelled it merely means by legal and moral means. When you talk of forcing labour what you mean is labour enforced by physical compulsion. [Some OPPOSITION cries of "Oh."] You do not? Well, by slavery and forced labour I have certainly always understood a state that is produced ultimately by

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physical force. If that is not so, I do not understand the difference between your forced labour and my inducement, I am utterly and entirely opposed to anything in the nature of forced labour. I am quite certain that the resolution, it was not given to me officially, but I saw it reported in the papers, of the Conference says that no sanction will be given by any civilised opinion in South Africa to forced labour. But while I believe that is absolutely true, on the other hand there is a very general belief throughout South Africa that the natives should be in their own interest, as well as in the interest of the country, induced to work. Accordingly that is the only practical question to be considered. These names and charges, which are extremely offensive to the people against whom they are brought, ought not to be used, and we should consider on the merits the proposed inducements. Possibly it may be considered that they in themselves are objectionable; if so, it is quite right and natural that some opinion should be pronounced by this House on the subject; but do not call forced labour what is after all at the worst only labour which has been induced by legislation which indirectly effects that result.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The words I used were indirect compulsion.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Quite so. There are, as far as I know, two forms of inducement. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had not seen the notice of any reply I had made to the memorial which was addressed to me. I made no reply to that memorial; but I had many conferences with the mine-owners, and I expressed my own opinion very fully, and very much to the same effect as I have expressed it to this House. I urged upon them, in the first place, to induce the labourer to work by the ordinary means which people take—that is to say, by tempting them by greater opportunities of securing the satisfaction of their wants and necessities as a result of their wages. If you can increase the wants of a native you at once give him the desire to work in order to supply those wants. Take, for instance, the native in East Africa—the
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Masai; he is a savage with very little clothing, and very few wants; if you can induce in him or in his wife or wives a love of finery, a desire for better food, or a desire for clothing, you at the same time induce in him a readiness to work. That is one thing which I said, undoubtedly; in my opinion they have not up to the present done all that could be done in that respect, and I ventured to put before them various suggestions in regard to that matter. My right hon. friend the Member for Cambridge University says in effect: "Why should you induce this happy man to work? Here he is lying naked in the sun for the greater part of the day; he does not want to do any work, and it is not necessary; his wife, although not a slave, probably from affection, is willing to do what work is necessary in order to provide him with subsistence. Why should you interfere with this happy being, why induce or teach him to work?" If that really is the last word of civilisation, if we are to proceed on the assumption that the nearer the native, or any human being, comes to a pig the more desirable is his condition, of course I have nothing to say. But that is not the argument either of the missionary or of the civilised world in general, to which appeal is so often made. Although some ridicule has been cast upon the phrase—it is not mine, but that of a very distinguished missionary—I must continue to believe that, at all events, the progress of the native in civilisation will not be secured until he has been convinced of the necessity and the dignity of labour. Therefore, I think that anything we reasonably can do to induce the native to labour is a desirable thing.
The right hon. Gentleman gave us a great deal of information which is not new to me, although it may be to the House; but I could not really see in what way he hung the different parts of his speech together. For instance, he began by asking why there was any urgency in dealing with this question, and why there was any scarcity of labour. He proved to his own satisfaction that the scarcity was entirely due to the mistaken policy of the mine-owners in trying to get the natives to work at lower wages, and said that, if that were the case, of course the remedy was perfectly simple—

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all you have to do is to raise the wages. I am sorry to say that that shows an insufficient acquaintance with the facts. At present the total number of labourers is probably as great as it ever was; but they are taken off from the mines to other labour. There has arisen since the war, in connection with the great development that is taking place a very largely increased demand for labour; the extensions of the railways have taken thousands and, I believe, tens of thousands of natives; then there is a great activity in the retail trade, the demand for ordinary service has become very large, and the demand for agriculture is also very considerable. It is calculated that on the whole there are at the present time probably from 30,000 to 40,000 more Kaffir labourers employed in other occupations than mining than there were before the war, and that accounts for most of those who were at work at the mines before the war. But there are other reasons also working rather to reduce the number of labourers. In the first place, we are carrying out that excellent drink law which was passed by the Transvaal Government, but never carried out by them, with the result that at the present moment a native cannot get drink. I do not say that a native can never escape supervision, but the penalty for supplying the native is so high that I believe the law is very seldom violated. No doubt the greatest of all temptations that can be offered to an ignorant native is strong drink. That temptation has been taken away; and those others which, I think, will ultimately take its place have not been supplied. The mine-owners, and this is to be said to their credit, have always been among the strongest in favour of the strictest possible law against supplying natives with drink. They have said that while, on the one hand, it reduces the temptation of the native to work, on the other hand, when he does work, his work is better and he himself enjoys better health, so that it is not entirely a loss. In addition to that, the natives during the war obtained very considerable sums from both sides for labourers' work and scouting and other work; and until they have spent that money they are not coming back to earn more. Whether
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they are to be blamed or not, at all events, they are taking a holiday, and as long as it lasts that is another cause which has militated against a very large supply of labour. But the point is this, that when you have got as a labourer every available man south of the Zambesi, there seems to be very little doubt that you will not have enough labour for the whole of the development that is taking place in the country.
The right hon. Gentleman opposite asked, "Why should you work the low-grade ore?" Well, why not? Of course, it is a matter of common sense that the lower the grade of ore the lower must be the cost of extraction if it is to pay; and you cannot get capitalists to put money into the business if it does not pay. If it can be made to pay, surely that is a very good thing; for a low-grade mine requires for the crushing of a certain number of tons exactly as much labour as the higher-grade mine, and therefore, so far as the finding of employment for British workmen is concerned, the working of low-grade mines is just as important to us as the working of the richest mine on the Rand; and it is undoubtedly the policy of the Government, if it wants to secure the early prosperity of the country, to get as many of these mines to work as possible. The question of what wages are to be paid surely is entirely a question of supply and demand. In the first place, as regards the white man, he is able to say what wages he will take and what is the minimum. Probably the very high wages now given on the Band to the European workmen will come down very much, especially when the cost of living is reduced, as no doubt it will be before very long. That, in itself, may make a great difference, and may displace some of the black labourers who otherwise would be required. When you come to the black, he also, if he is a free agent, is able to make his own terms. Hon. Gentlemen have been pointing out that terrible things will happen if the native leaves Central Africa; but are there not terrible things there? Cannot the conditions be put before them by the missionaries? Unless the native, after considering the whole

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circumstances, is convinced that it is to his advantage to go, he will not go, and if he goes to the mines and dislikes the work he can find employment in other occupations.
The real fact is this—that if you give only 1s. a day or less in Central Africa for work on coffee estates and offer 4s. a day for work in the mines there will be a great number of natives who will be tempted by the higher price; and my argument with regard to Central Africa is that in the interests of the native you have no right to take the choice from him. You have a perfect right to make whatever provisions are necessary to prevent scandals such as have arisen in connection with mining and other work, especially in connection with coolie labour. In regard to those provisions, I am, of course, in favour of giving the Kaffir who has removed from Central Africa, or other parts of Africa, to South Africa precisely the same protection as is given to the coolie who leaves India for the West Indies. When the deputation represented the other day to Lord Lansdowne that the migration of natives was open to great objection in that it led to the severance of a man from his family, and that there was a chance of his deteriorating among the populations of the towns, and so on, we say that every one of these objections attaches equally to the coolie from India as well as to all other classes of labourers who leave their wives and families in order to earn a larger wage than they could by remaining where they were born. To say in this parental way that we are to stand between the native and what I believe is to his advantage is perfectly monstrous; while if the statement is accompanied by the idea that somehow or other the mining industry is one to be discouraged and deprecated—well, I do not believe any sensible man would think of taking up such a position. The question of the obtaining of extra labour is the only practical question before the House on which there can be the slightest use in expressing an opinion. There is no question of forced labour or Asiatic labour before the House; and I cannot understand why Gentlemen opposite who feel strongly on this subject should not have reserved themselves
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to a later period, until there is really some danger of a question of that kind arising. Remember this, the vast majority of the people in South Africa are opposed both to forced and Asia tie labour; and, so long as that condition obtains, the Government are not going to force either compulsory or Asiatic labour upon them. The danger will come, if it ever comes, when the whole of South Africa, or the large majority, is in favour of the legislation of which the right hon. Gentleman disapproves, or is in favour of the importation of Asiatic labour; and if that time comes I would venture to say that neither the right hon. Gentleman nor the House at large could possibly prevent it. It is of no use mincing matters. This is not a question in which we can compel our Colonies against their will. It is said that though we could not interfere in the case of self-governing Colonies, we could interfere in the case of the Transvaal or the Orange River Colony, as they are Crown Colonies. I say no; I say to the House, as I said to the Transvaal." It is true that for certain purposes you are a Crown Colony, and that the influence of the Government will be used for a time in order to modify any feelings of hostility which may still exist, and to bring you together and to make preparations for the introduction of the self-government you will ultimately obtain. Meanwhile it is in the interest and policy of the Government to treat you, in regard to legislative action, as if you were a self-governing Colony. We have to try to find out, if we can, what would be your action if you were a self-governing Colony, and to treat the matter upon that basis." That is, at any rate, the principle of the policy of His Majesty's Government, and if the right hon. Gentleman likes to question that policy, by all means let him do so; but there is no idea on our part of using our theoretical supremacy, in a Crown Colony government with a great white population like that in South Africa, against the feeling of the vast majority of the people.
Then, Sir, as regards this question of the supply of labour, as I have said, there is another form of inducement, and that is taxation. The right hon. Gentleman gave us a long account of his views on polygamy amongst native races. I do not want to dispute with him on the

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subject; but I will say that, if he is right in thinking that the purchase of wives is not to some extent a commercial transaction, and that polygamy is dying out, he must see that it is a matter of very little importance whether we put a tax on extra wives or not, because, then, if there are no extra wives we shall not collect any taxes from that source. But, on the other hand, if there are extra wives, let me say at once that, although the discouragement of polygamy may very fairly be an object, I do not think it could be put forward as the sole, or even the principal, ground for the tax. On the contrary, what has been said is that polygamy is an evidence of wealth. If a man has one wife and a dower he can afford to pay £2for his wife, but if he has two wives and two dowers it might rightly be assumed that he is proportionately a wealthier person and can afford to pay. Whether it is because he has an extra wife or whether it is under the complicated marriage settlement to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, he has a dower on which he can depend. In either case he is a richer man and can afford to pay another £2. If he has three wives the tax is increased.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Graduated taxation?
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, the Government of the Transvaal have flattered the right hon. Gentleman by copying his graduated taxation, and in proportion to the wealth is the amount of the charge. Therefore I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw all his criticisms on that score. The present proposal is for a tax of £2; and I maintain, in spite of all the figures that have been presented, that it is on the average a reduction of the burden borne by the natives. As I have said the thing is very complicated. You may pick out a native here who pays more, and there one who pays less; but on the average this consolidated tax is a less tax than the burden put on the native by the late Government. But, after all, that is not the point, and we need not enter into any controversy on the matter.
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The question is, on its merits is the tax too high a tax? I say it is not. I say it is a very reasonable tax. I will not say it ought to be more; I have no proposal to raise it, consequently I will not commit myself to any opinion on the subject. I say at the present time £2 is a very reasonable tax. If so, as in the Orange River Colony the tax is 10s., it might be considered there to be too low, and I have already informed the Government of the colony that if they are inclined to propose a higher tax I shall have no objection. In the same way I have no objection to the tax being raised in Rhodesia, provided that we can be assured that such a tax shall not be too heavy a burden on the natives and is not likely to produce disturbance. On its merits of whether or not it is a tax that the native can fairly be asked to pay towards the cost of the Administration by which he benefits, I pronounce emphatically in favour of the tax as it is at present. Of course I cannot deny that the existence of the tax is an inducement to labour; for it is quite true that if the native sits still and does no work he will not have the £2 to pay for his wife, unless, indeed, he has an agricultural business from which he can hope to derive the necessary sum, but in other cases they cannot do it. Why should the right hon Gentleman say that is an inducement to him to go to the mines? No, it is not. It is an inducement to him to work, but whether or not he goes to the mines is a matter entirely for his own choice. There is nothing to force him into the mines if he chooses to work on the railways, or on the farms of the Boers, or in the towns, or, as the Bechuanas do, in Kimberley. He has the choice entirely in his own hands. He is not forced or directed in any way to any particular form of work; but he is undoubtedly induced to work, and that is an indirect result of the tax. But I am prepared to defend the tax on its own merits without the least reference to the question whether it makes the native work or not.
I think I have touched on everything except the question of Asiatic labour. Well, why should this House undertake to instruct our colonies upon this matter? As I have said, the vast majority of the colonies have, unassisted by the wisdom of gentlemen in this country, come to the conclusion that they do not desire the

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presence of Asiatics except in Natal, where they work on the sugar estates; and I can conceive nothing really more calculated to provoke discussion which might lead to a change of that opinion in the colonies, than any idea on their part that we were taking upon ourselves to be their guides and philosophers in matters on which they are themselves quite as capable of judging as we are. They know perfectly well, and we know or ought to know, that they are just as humane, just as Christian, and just as virtuous as we are ourselves, and they resent this pretence of superior philanthropy which leads men on this side of the water to give them advice which they do not want. If we were a debating society I agree that all these questions are questions of very great interest and might very properly be discussed; but until this House can intervene effectually for a specified purpose I strongly urge on all friends of the Colonies and all friends of this country that they should not discuss matters in a spirit of what I must call carping criticism on our fellow-subjects abroad.
MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that although the right hon. Gentleman had drawn a wide distinction between inducement and compulsion, his officials in South Africa did not conceal the fact that their intention was to compel the niggers to work. There was a despatch by Lord Milner of the 4th October, 1901, dealing with this very question of using taxation as a means of securing labour for the mines. In that despatch his Lordship said that he did not see that it was any particular hardship that the black population should find themselves compelled to work by the necessity of having to pay taxes. That was at least an open expression of Lord Milner's opinion, and indicated that the object of imposing this tax upon the wives of the Transvaal natives was to compel them to work. It was said that these poor natives were living a more comfortable home life than the bulk of the working class population in Europe, and that they must be compelled to work in order to learn the dignity of labour. The dignity of labour in Europe consisted in living in
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slums and labouring incessantly, and they could well understand the native objecting to recognise that form of dignity. He wondered how far the Colonial Office was prepared to carry this compulsion. The Colonial Secretary said that the question really was whether this tax of £2 per wife was too high. That, said the right hon. Gentleman, was the real subject under discussion. The House might not be aware what this sum amounted to. He understood from those who had studied the question on the spot that it was the ambition of the Transvaal native to be a husband of eight wives, and this would mean a tax of £16 a year which each native would be called upon to pay. He ventured to say that at the rate of wages now being offered, even if the native worked the whole year round, he would not be able to save £16 to pay this tax. If the native went to work the proposal was that he should be exempted from paying the tax, and how did that square with the argument that this tax was necessary to put him on an equality with Europeans? In regard to the lower grade ore he wished to point out that the work in which the natives were chiefly engaged was drilling or boring the holes for charges of dynamite. In other mines this work was not performed by hand labour, but by pneumatic drills, and therefore the alternative was either to obtain a supply of cheap native labour or introduce mechanical drills. Of course the mine-owners found that native labour was cheaper. Notwithstanding what had been said he ventured to say that this lower grade ore would continue to be worked even if native labour was prohibited.
It was only in the Transvaal territory that he understood this exceptionally high tax was going to be imposed. For the rest of South Africa, including Cape Colony, Rhodesia and Natal, the hut tax ran from 10s. to 20s. The highest native tax outside the Transvaal was 20s. per hut, but the tax now in operation within the Transvaal where a man had his full complement of wives was £16 per annum, and upon that basis could such an increase be justified apart from the necessities of the mine owners to obtain cheap labour? Disguise this

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question as they might, the question at issue was, would this House sanction forced labour in the interests of the mine-owners of South Africa? He trusted that the House of Commons, as the guardian of the rights of those who had no means of protecting themselves, and who were practically at the mercy of the millionaires of the Rand—who had shown their feelings in the matter by reducing wages by 50 per cent. since the war concluded—would stand between those natives who had now been committed to their charge, and prevent them being reduced to a form of slavery even if it be thinly disguised. Lord Salisbury said in October. 1899—
"With regard to the future, there must be no doubt that due precautions will be taken for the philanthropic and kindly and improving treatment of those countless indigenous millions of whose destiny I fear we have been too forgetful."
The war was now over, but the Government proposed to increase the taxation of the natives eight-fold, and to reduce them practically to a form of servitude. In the interests of the natives, and to prevent the inevitable result if this form of compulsion continued, and in order to carry out the pledge given to this House, he hoped the House of Commons would stand between the rapacious greed of the mine-owners of the Rand and the helpless condition of the native races.
SIR CHARLES DILKEasked leave to withdraw his Motion. Perhaps he might express, on the one hand, his satisfaction with the promise made by the Government to apply a system of enquiry as to the bonâ fides of contracts in all cases, and on the other hand he deeply regretted the expression of the intention to increase the taxation on natives in South Africa.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question again proposed.
MR. ALFRED DAVIESexpressed his dissatisfaction at the meagre statement the House had received from the Colonial Secretary
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with respect to his recent tour. He was no hostile critic, inasmuch as he had sent his good wishes to the right hon. Gentleman on his departure, and had welcomed him on his return to the House. The Colonial Secretary told the House last week that £15,000,000 were to be given to South Africa, including free grants to the Boers, and to those British subjects who had suffered, loans, satisfaction for stock requisitioned by the military authorities, and other objects. And as he had received £30,000,000 from the Transvaal towards the cost of the war, he practically returned with £15,000,000 in his pocket. The war had cost £250,000,000, and he would like to have known whether they were to have anything more than the £30,000,000 from the Transvaal. He remembered that at one time it was said they were going to get £100,000,000 from the mines. The late Government of the Transvaal owned a great deal of property. They largely owned the railways, and were possessed of extensive tracts of land. These were assets of immense and increasing wealth, but the House had not heard one word as to whether the railway interests had been given to the present Transvaal administration, or whether the lands hitherto held by the Boer Government had been parted with. He should not feel at all satisfied if the British Government received only £30,000,000 towards the heavy war costs from the Transvaal. Was the Orange River Territory going to contribute nothing to the war costs? And were they going to get nothing from Natal and the Cape, with its large surplus revenue? If after spending £250,000,000 on the war, they were only going to get back £30,000,000 from all sources, he, as a British taxpayer, protested, and he felt sure there would be millions of others who would do likewise. He would like to hear from the Colonial Secretary what had been done for the benefit of British Trade. The railway rates in the Transvaal and the Orange River Territory, as well as in other parts of South Africa, were very high. Had he obtained lower railway rates from the ports to the Transvaal and the Orange River Territory? Further, the docks at the ports which belonged to the various South African Governments charged excessively

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for the landing of goods. Besides this, the Customs Tariff in the two new colonies was especially high. Had the right hon. Gentleman done anything for merchants and traders in the way of getting these railway rates reduced, and also the excessive charges made at the docks? The Colonial Secretary's tour had been a triumphant one on the surface, but he could not say whether it would turn to good account in the future. They could only judge one, two, or more years hence, whether the right hon. Gentleman had been successful. The House would realise that the scattering of large sums of money to the tune of £15,000,000 would naturally give popularity to the scatterer. He truly hoped that the right hon. Gentleman's visit to South Africa would bear good fruit. They all wanted to see the South African question settled satisfactorily, and they would not object to the expenditure of the £15,000,000 if that expenditure produced prosperity. But they must have what they were entitled to get from the colonies towards the war costs.
The Colonial Secretary, when in South Africa, had referred on two or three occasions to the money sent from the Transvaal before and during the war. He stated that certain persons would not be allowed to return until this money had been traced and handed over for the benefit of the widows and orphans. He would remind the Colonial Secretary that in 1901 he endeavoured to enlighten him on this matter. It had been and was in the power of the Colonial Secretary to trace this money. In June of that year he had told the Colonial Secretary in the House that £2,000,000 of Kruger's money had been shipped from Delagoa Bay. It was through the carelessness of the British representative there that it was not seized. He even stated to the right hon. Gentleman in the House that he knew the name of the ship the money went by, and that the person was in London who had discovered the two millions at Delagoa Bay. He mentioned that if the Colonial Secretary would appoint a time for an interview he would give him the fullest particulars. In this event the Colonial
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Secretary could have tracked the money. But no appointment was made, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman's present action was incomprehensible.
Reverting to the earlier part of his speech, he hoped that they had not heard the last of the question as to whether they would not receive a bigger contribution towards the war costs from the sources he had named.
SIR JOHN LENGsaid that twenty or thirty years ago a similar condition existed in Nevada, America, to that which existed now in the gold mining region in Africa. The difficulties were solved easily, naturally, and legitimately in the United States by the mine-owners simply giving fair living wages to those who worked the mines. He believed that would be the proper solution in this case. He hoped we should not relapse in our policy in South Africa from the honourable course we had followed in our ad ministration of Egypt. Whoever had travelled in Egypt was aware that the glory of our administration there, the most conspicuous and the most honourable fact, was our abolition of that system of forced labour which had existed there from the time of the Pharaohs. He felt that any proposal to introduce that system in South Africa would be abhorrent to the moral feelings of the most enlightened people of this country. The right hon. Gentleman had vindicated what he spoke of as the pecuniary inducement, because it would enable the mine-owners in South Africa to work the low-grade mines. But was there any necessity for this? There were low-grade mines even in this country, but no one would ever think of proposing that they should bring those mines into operation and make them productive by adopting any system, either direct or indirect, of forced labour. He hoped that for the honour of our country there would be no proposals, either to import workers from Asia or to put even indirect compulsion upon the poor negroes in South Africa.
Main Question put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
SIR JOHN LENGasked for some further explanation as to the extension of the surveillance of the police over children from fourteen to sixteen years of age. The question of the employment of children, more especially school children, was a very important one, and he hoped the Bill would be referred to one of the Standing Committees, where Amendments might be proposed. It would be improper to have a Bill of great importance passed without fair and legitimate discussion.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,)said he had fully explained the Bill on its introduction; and, although there were some warnings from the hon. Member for Battersea of difficulties likely to arise, there was a general disposition in the House to welcome the proposals. For a considerable time the subject had excited attention both at the Home Office and the Education Department. Much light was thrown on the subject by the inquiry of a Committee in 1897 and 1898, and the Bill was based entirely on the Report of the Departmental Committee of 1901. While children were forbidden to work in factories during school hours they did engage in outside work daily both before and after attending school. This work was not regulated, was prejudicial to school progress, and was often carried on under conditions injurious to health and morals. The making of the bye-laws for the regulation of such work would be optional on the part of Borough and County Councils, and subject to the sanction of the Home Office. He knew that some of his hon. friends thought the Government were going rather hastily in the direction of interfering with the work of children and the help which they gave to their parents. But the Bill carefully provided that there should be full opportunity of enquiring
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into any complaints that might be made as to the loss to a trade of child-labour, and of considering the merits of the proposal. The Bill was essentially one for a Grand Committee. He would be quite prepared now or upstairs to consider any suggestions made by hon. Members. He hoped the House would now give it a Second Reading, so that it might be passed into law this session.
MR. ASQUITHsaid his hon. friend the Member for Dundee was quite justified in saying that this measure, welcome as it was, ought not to be read a second time without some discussion. For his part he had for many years taken a very great interest in this subject, and he had the very greatest satisfaction in the opportunity this Bill presented of removing what he believed to be one of the most serious evils at present oppressing the children of our working population. The House was aware that to child-labour in mines, factories, and workshops protection was given, but the fact remained that a great body of children were without any legal protection whatever. He did not think he was exaggerating when he said the number was 150,000. There was abundant evidence that many of these children were being worked excessive hours, and in occupations for which they were entirely unfitted. It was high time to extend the protection which had already been given to children in factories and mines to this important and hitherto altogether neglected class. He did not think there was any doubt as to the expediency of dealing with the matter in this way. He had only one or two observations to make with reference to the Bill itself.
In the first place the Bill applied only to children under fourteen years of age, and therefore it was much more limited in scope than the Mines Act or the Factories Act. As to the application of the Bill the House would observe what was probably a good provision, namely, that it was left to local option. He believed it would be extremely difficult to lay down an inflexible rule for the whole country. Local conditions varied very much, and although he quite agreed there was a certain risk in leaving these things to local

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authorities, on account of their slackness in the initiation of the law, still, on the whole balance of convenience, policy was in favour of the making of the bye-laws by a local body rather than by a general law. He understood that the objection always shown on this subject by the parents of the class to which these children belonged was the unnecessary and perhaps invidious discrimination between different classes of labour. He thought ample protection was given to all those interests by the fact that the bye-laws starting on the initiative of the local authority had to be submitted to the Secretary of State, and that the Secretary of State was empowered and directed by the Bill to take into consideration all objections from whatever interested quarter they might proceed. There would be very little risk of any particular class being unfairly treated. That being the general scope of the Bill he called attention to a particular provision which prohibited the employment of children between nine in the evening and six in the morning. There was power given to shift those hours, and that that should be the general rule of the law would be conceded on all hands as absolutely desirable and necessary.
One of the great abuses under irregular forms of child labour was that children were turned out at three or four o'clock to carry milk, to go errands, and do odd jobs of one kind and another, so that when they went to school they were thoroughly unfit to derive any advantage from the training which the State compelled them to undergo. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman proposed to send the Bill to one or other of the Grand Committees, where its details could be properly threshed out. In the meantime the House ought to acknowledge the service the right hon. Gentleman had rendered in bringing forward the Bill at a period when there was a prospect of its being passed into law this session.
MR. GALLOWAYsaid he desired to point out to his right hon. friend one feature of the Bill which he thought was going to arouse considerable opposition. The right hon. Gentleman said he thought it well that these matters should be left to
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local authorities. Therein he entirely differed from him. He did not think any Government Office in London could deal with matters of this kind, but he wished to point out that in an urban area, which for all practical purposes was one and the same town, there might be two or more local authorities. One set of rules might obtain in one locality, while no such conditions obtained in another. In that way not only great difficulties in administration might be raised, but a great sense of injustice might be in the minds of those parents who considered that their interests were prejudicially affected. If regulations were to be made at all it was essential to make the Act compulsory all over the country and to see that it was put into force. Surely it could not be argued that the children in one part of the country were not as important as those in another! He hoped his right hon. friend would consider this point between now and the time when the Bill would go upstairs. It appeared to him to be a matter of importance that the Bill should be dealt with in the manner he had suggested. The question of age would raise a serious difficulty; but that was a matter of detail and not of principle. He desired to congratulate his right hon. friend on having brought forward a Bill which he was sure would do much that was necessary for the children of this country.
SIR WALTER FOSTERsaid the measure was somewhat confusing when first read. It started in a distinctly permissive way; but when one got to the fourth clause, he found the permissive spirit considerably tempered by specific directions. He regarded the Bill as a very ingenious attempt to deal with the question of the employment of children. If the administration of the measure depended solely on the local authorities, very diverse methods might be adopted in different localities. But by the central control of the Home Office that was provided, they would have uniformity of direction; the conditions would not vary very much; and they would be able to bring about such control of children's labour as would remove the evils they all deplored. He

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hoped that such evils, which were a disgrace to our civilisation, and a great detriment to our young generation, would no longer exist in this country. That 150,000 children should be left without control as to their hours of labour was not very creditable; and he congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on having introduced a measure dealing with such a great evil. In the third clause they had a very valuable enactment with reference to the hours during which children should be employed; but the courage of the draftsman seemed to ooze out of his finger tips after writing the first two lines, because he left to the local authorities power to modify what was a very important and almost essential condition in a Bill of this kind. He was glad also that the second clause provided that children under eleven years of age should not be employed in street trading. There was to be no option there. Then again with reference to hard labour, which was likely to injure a child, there was to be no attempt to whittle away the provisions of the measure. He thought that sub-sections 4 and 5 of this clause were most valuable for protecting the health of our growing population, and preventing young children being employed under conditions likely to seriously affect their youthfulness and vigour in after life. He hoped the criticisms he had made would strengthen the right hon. Gentleman and his friends in Committee in an endeavour to make the Bill, if possible, a little stronger than it was in the direction of control from the Central authority, in order that they might, as far as possible, have a uniform system for the protection of the youthful members of the community, and that they should not allow children in any one locality to be employed at work likely to injure them. They should try to make the process, as far as possible, uniform and he hoped that, in its passage through Committee, the Bill would be strengthened as regarded the power of the Central authority, especially in reference to the first section of clause 3.
MR. PARKER SMITHsaid he gladly joined with other hon. Members in congratulating his
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right hon. friend on this Bill, and in expressing support of its principles. Last year the Government Bill did not apply to Scotland; but a Bill was brought in to cover the case of Scotland at the instance of the great School Board of Glasgow; and it obtained very strong support from School Boards and other interested bodies in Scotland. He especially welcomed the Bill as being another step in advance in what seemed to him to be a most vital matter in regard to education, and that was the taking of the health and physical development of the children into due consideration. For a long time they had acknowledged the duty of developing the intellect of children; but they did not take sufficient responsibility for developing their physical health and physical training. There were a great many points in the Bill that would have to be considered in Committee. One difficulty would arise in connection with Clause 2, which dealt with boys and girls up to the age of sixteen. He himself felt considerable difficulty in going beyond the school age. One proposal that he strongly disliked was the penalty that would have to be put on lads and girls if they broke the regulations. They would be liable to be fined 20s. for the first offence, and £5 for the second offence; and in default, he supposed, they would be sent to prison. He thought that would be a very lamentable consequence of their endeavour to secure better regulations as to street trading. That was a matter of serious difficulty, and dealt with a point on which he did not feel the necessity for action as he did in the case of younger children. Speaking from the Scottish point of view, the proper authority to see after the bye-laws and regulations in Scotland would not be the County Council but the School Board. They had School Boards all over the country which were in touch with the children, and who could act through their own officers, and not through the police. Therefore, he thought the powers under this Bill should, in Scotland, be given to the School Boards and not to the County authorities. Once more he desired to express his satisfaction that the Bill was being read a second time at such an early stage of the session.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he was very glad the Bill had been introduced; but he wished to say a word with regard to the question of penalties. Take a child who had neither father nor mother, or who had not arrived at the age of sixteen. It might be very hard that that child should have to work in the streets; but would it not be worse if he were sent to prison. Some discretion should be left to the magistrates as to whether a child should be sent to gaol or not. He understood that a fine of 20s., if unpaid, would carry imprisonment; and he thought it was very hard that a child should be sent to an industrial school, as the Bill provided, for an offence of that kind. One other matter he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman. He observed that the County Councils had power to put the Act into operation; but that if it were found that it was harshly used, or undesirable, there was no power to change the by-laws. He thought the House should face this question as a whole, and having fixed upon an age at which children ought not to be at work, the House and not the local authority should enforce the law, because it might be that there might be men on the local authority who had an interest, or who were controlled by others who had an interest, in the law not being enforced, and in that case it would become a dead letter. He urged upon the right hon. Gentleman who had introduced the Bill these matters, which he thought were worthy of consideration.
SIR GEORGE BARTLEYsaid everybody agreed with the general principles of this Bill, but there were some points which, in his opinion, would require very careful consideration. It seemed to him that there was some hardship and a chance that the children would be worse off after the passage of this Bill than before. He was afraid, unless they limited the words "employ" and "employment," it would be almost criminal for a child to assist its parents in the household. Of course, if a child was employed for wages outside its own homo that was a different matter. The House must be very careful as to these bye-laws, and see that they did not make it altogether impossible for these persons to live. If this Bill went to a Committee there were many points the details of
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which would have to be very carefully considered, and he ventured to think, though they were trying to do away with the great evil they all recognised as to street trading, they must not at the same time make it impossible for a child to assist its parents. They must not make it a criminal offence to do its best for those who have the first claim upon it.
MR. TENNANTsaid most hon. Members who had addressed the House on this subject had urged that in this matter there must be uniformity of administration, and it did not seem to him that the Bill in its present shape would bring about that uniformity. This was due to the fact that it was not obligatory on the County and Borough Councils to make bye-laws. It should be made obligatory, and then it would be possible for the Home Office to co-ordinate those bye-laws and do away with what had been well described as "the industrial Alsatias" which now existed. He called attention to the fact that 150,000 children of school age were now employed, and of that number a large proportion was sweated in work places which did not come under the provisions of workshop inspection. He was particularly anxious that those children should receive the benefits of this Bill, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would devise some means whereby they should come under inspection. He should like to know how this Bill, when passed, was going to be administered. The Factory Inspector had no right of entry, and there were not enough Inspectors under the local authority. It appeared to him essential that some inspector should be engaged to look after these children.
SIR JOHN GORSThoped the Home Secretary would not abandon the principle of local option in this Bill, which was the most valuable part of it, because, unless the regulations were made with some regard to the social conditions of the district, they ran a very poor chance of being observed. This Act could only be administered if the local authority which now had charge of the schools took care that it was administered in such a

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manner as to enable the children to come to school in such a condition as to profit by the instruction given to them. It was not likely that two contiguous districts would have an absolutely different set of regulations, and if they had the right hon. Gentleman could easily refer them back to those districts and refuse to assent to them until they had been assimilated. He hoped this Bill would go through; it was a small step in the right direction, and he should, after it had passed, certainly ask the Government for more. He should press the Government of the day, whoever it might be, to clothe the local authorities with such powers as to ensure that the children were not only intellectually but physically trained, that they might grow into strong and healthy men and women.
DR. MACNAMARAexpressed his pleasure at the Bill being introduced. It was long overdue. It was due in 1897; and in June, 1898, the right hon. Member for the Cambridge University ordered the inquiry to which reference had been made. In 1899 the right hon. Gentleman told the House the matter was of such importance that it could not wait any longer, and the Bill would now be brought in. Nothing should be done to endanger this Bill, which, although a very small one, would confer great benefit. But it was two years overdue. It was drafted by the Departmental Committee two years ago, and since then public opinion had considerably ripened. One fundamental principle recommended by the Committee had not been carried out. They had recommended a statutory minimum to which the local authorities were empowered to superadd bye-laws to carry the matter still further. The only statutory minimum in this Bill was that children under the age of eleven should not be employed in street trading. He hoped upstairs he should be able to persuade the Committee to say they should not be employed in trade at all. He should also suggest that the age should be raised from eleven to twelve. With regard to the other statutory minimum, with regard to children not being allowed to work between nine in the evening and six in the morning, subject to variations the Bill was nothing like so far-reaching
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as the minimum recommended by the Departmental Committee. These hours had been varied in the same manner as they were varied in the Scotch Acts. Another recommendation which had not been carried out at all was that which recommended a certain minimum number of hours. He thought that if a child worked twenty-seven and a-half hours a week in school, they should not be allowed to work more than twenty-eight hours out of school; that was quite sufficient for them to do. He was very doubtful whether young girls should ever be licensed for street trading, but he would certainly suggest that no girl under the age of fourteen should be licensed. He would suggest that street trading should be confined to girls over the age of fourteen.
A further point was that no factory half-timer ought under any circumstances to be licensed for street trading. He would further suggest, though he hardly expected to carry the House with him, these licences should be six day licences. He did not mind which day was struck out; there might be special reasons in some cases for including the Sabbath, but in any case, if they were in earnest in their desire to improve the physique of the children, one day in seven ought to be exempted. In the matter of definitions, all ambiguity would be removed if instead of those suggested in the Bill the definitions as set forth in the Education Act of 1876 were adopted. He sincerely thanked the Government for introducing the Bill, and even if he did not succeed in securing the Amendments he had suggested, he hoped the measure would be placed on the Statute-book in the course of the session.
SIR CHARLES RENSHAWagreed with those who thought that any compulsion that was applied should be general rather than local in its character. Whilst he believed that the raising of the age from fourteen to sixteen would be going beyond what was necessary in the case of certain occupations, and that such regulations would press very hardly on certain classes of the community, he thought it would be better that whatever bye-laws were made should be applicable either to rural areas or urban districts throughout the country, instead of being

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made at the option of individual local authorities. In regard to the rural districts, it would be very difficult to draw up regulations which, while preventing the employment of children in occupations in regard to which it was quite proper that such regulations should be made, would not apply to agricultural operations in connection with which no such restrictions were necessary. He hoped the Bill would be referred to the Grand Committee on Trade, which invariably had charge of measures affecting factories and workshops and so forth.
MR. JOHN BURNSsaid it was a happy augury for the passage of the Bill that there should be so much unanimity as to its merits and the principle underlying its proposals. He believed that one of the chief reasons for its sympathetic reception was the fact urged over and over again in the recent Army debates, viz., the deterioration of the physique of the classes from which the recruits were largely drawn. If the Report of the Adjutant - General for Recruiting were examined, it would be found that the proposals of the Bill provided the remedy for many of the things therein referred to. He believed that a large proportion of the 33 per cent. of the recruits in certain manufacturing districts, who according to General Morris were rejected because they were incapable of passing the Army doctors, were boys who, between the ages of seven and fourteen, had been engaged in the very street occupations this Bill was designed to improve. It was creditable to the good sense of the House of Commons that it had seen, on information adduced, that the physique of certain sections of the working classes was deteriorating, and that having found it out it was willing to adopt a Bill by which a large amount of that deterioration would be stopped. As representing a large working-class district, he thanked the Government for introducing the Bill. The bread they were now placing on the waters would return after many days in the shape of improved physique, more vigorous constitutions, and a diminished number of unemployed adult workpeople. The Bill had not been
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introduced too soon; it was both desirable and necessary. As for local option, he was in favour of it when it succeeded; but if he had to choose between a lax system of administration by local authorities, varying one from another in their practice, and administration by a rigid centralised department, he would prefer the Home Office to the local authority.
He agreed with the hon. Member for Manchester that contiguous towns with comparable industries should have co-equal treatment, and that, in the event of, say, Manchester and Salford not adopting similar provisions, the Home Office should have power to compel them to do so. He did not think the local authorities would be so eager to adopt the Bill as the House of Commons, and he suggested there should be a clause enabling the Home Office, in cases of such reluctance, to convert the "may" into "shall." As to the statutory minimum, he agreed with the hon. Member for North Camber well that local authorities should not be allowed to go below such minimum, but that they should be able to go above it if they so desired. Then on page 3, clause 4, sub-section 2, "persons" should be converted into "persons or localities," so that if localities made representations to the Home Secretary as to unfair administration by a neighbouring locality the right hon. Gentleman would be able to listen to them. As to the declaration that no child under eleven years of age should be permitted to be employed in street trading, there were children of eleven and children of eleven. Some boys of eleven, who had been brought up under good conditions, in good homes, with good food, and by good parents, were much more capable of undertaking certain manual occupations than other boys of thirteen, fourteen, or even fifteen, who had been reared under adverse conditions. In such cases the medical officer ought to be able to vary the certificate, so that children of eleven who were physically unfit should not be licensed. He strongly supported the proposal for a six-days licence.

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Many Members would be under the impression that by enforcing the Bill an injustice would be done, here and there, to orphans. An orphan boy or girl of whatever age was a sympathetic figure, and the House ought to agree to anything that would enable him or her to get on in life. But they must not allow sympathy for exceptional cases to carry them away from the bedrock demand of the Bill—that the employment of children should be substantially Ameliorated. It was a remarkable fact that those who most strongly supported the Bill were schoolmasters, who knew the children in the schools; doctors, who knew their physique; and Poor-Law Guardians Why did the last named support it? Because they were continually having brought before them the evils inflicted by child labour, not only on the children themselves but on the parents, who too frequently were enabled to contract drunken and dissolute habits by the excessive over-work and the long hours of their children. He had been desired by the chairman of a Board of Guardians to say that one of the most fruitful sources of loafer fathers and dissolute mothers was the extent to which parents were able, by exploiting the labour of their children, to exempt themselves from working. Side by side with the grisly industrial fact that there were 400,000 adult unemployed, they had no right to be told there were 150,000 children able to work.
Let them go to Paris to see the way in which the selling of newspapers was conducted. In Paris it was much better conducted than in this country, where they allowed children between seven and twelve years of age to hang about in the streets selling newspapers until one o'clock in the morning. Instead of this Bill doing harm to the orphans, it would improve their condition, and all the Poor-Law Guardians would thank the Government. He believed this measure would do much to improve not only the physique but the rapidly decaying manners of the street children, who were not only weak but immoral in their habits, and blackguardly in their manners, simply because they were allowed to work in the streets when
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they ought to be in bed, or in the playground.
MR. SEELYsaid he wished to point out one matter upon which he thought a great deal might be said. He was sorry that he could not agree with the hon. Member for Battersea and the hon. Member for Camber well in regard to the employment of children under eleven years of age. One clause provided that a child under eleven years of age should not be employed in street trade. He thought it would be a much wiser course if that matter were left to the local authorities. He thought it was undesirable to make this hard and fast line. A considerable number of respect able children were employed in selling newspapers without any injury to themselves. He was aware that the conditions of street trading varied very much indeed. Street trading in a country town or a village was much different to selling newspapers in Piccadilly or in the Haymarket, and it would be better if this particular clause, instead of being made a hard and fast rule, was left to the local authorities to decide whether there was any reason why that provision should be carried out. With those remarks he could only say how heartily he appreciated the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman, and how he reciprocated what had been said upon this subject. He hoped this Bill would be passed, and that it would have the effect of improving the conditions under which children were employed.
Bill read a second time, and committed to the Standing Committee on Trade, etc.

COUNTY COUNCILS (BILLS IN PARLIAMENT) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
SECOND READING.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Debate arising.
MR. T. M. HEALY, said he wished to take objection to the title of this Bill, because if they passed it without some Instruction it would be impossible to apply it to Ireland. He thought it was most unfair that they should not apply the same law to all parts of the United Kingdom. If this was a United Kingdom, why should Ireland not have the same powers which they were now proposing to confer upon English County Councils? He noticed that the title of the Act was an Act to amend the Local Government Act of 1888. That Act was purely an English measure, and he wished to know if it would exclude any Amendment in favour of including Ireland.
MR. SPEAKER: I do not see how that can be done by Amendment.
MR. T. M. HEALYasked if it could be done without an Instruction.
Mr. SPEAKER: No.
MR. T. M. HEALYsaid that unless the Government could give him some assurance that it could be applied to Ireland, he could not see why they should press the measure now. If the right hon. Gentleman would give an undertaking that he would consult the Irish Office, he should be quite satisfied to allow the Bill to be read a second time. He was willing to sit down the moment the Government would state their willingness to reconsider their position. When the English Act was going through Committee, the Government permitted a provision which allowed English County Councils to petition against Bills, and that was a very important provision. What had happened since was most important. Parliament had realised the necessity, not merely of enabling County Councils to promote Bills dealing with large areas and watersheds, but it had been found necessary to deal with other questions, because, by tapping the water in certain districts they were affecting districts
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far away. When they had this difficulty in England Parliament was on the spot, and near at hand, but if they took the case of Ireland they had the obstacle of distance, and it was most unfair to pass a Bill of this kind in such a way as to exclude Ireland from its provisions. Why, for instance, should the County Council of Dublin be deprived of the relief which would be given by this measure?
MR. JOHN BURNSasked whether, considering the great benefit that the County Council Act of 1888 had conferred upon every part of the United Kingdom, the right hon. Gentleman did not think the time had arrived when he might respond to the appeal made by the hon. Member for Louth that this beneficent measure should be applied to Ireland. The conditions of the two countries in many respects were similar, and knowing something of the operation of the Act of 1888, and its effect upon London, he was convinced that an inconceivable boon would be conferred if Ireland had the same opportunity.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I think the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Louth has overlooked the fact that this Bill is, in its present form, inapplicable to Ireland. We propose to amend the Act of 1888, and also to adopt a portion of the Borough Funds Act which also does not apply to Ireland.
MR. HEALY: Yes, the Borough Funds Act has since been applied to Ireland.
MR. WALTER LONG: We have considered whether it was possible to make this Bill in its present form applicable to Ireland, and I have ascertained that it is impossible. If the suggestion is one which the Irish Government will accede to, then it must be done by a separate Bill. I shall be glad to consult the Chief Secretary, if that will be sufficient to satisfy the hon. and learned Member.
MR. CALDWELLsaid he thought this Bill should also apply to Scotland. In the Local Government Act for Scotland, the Clause relating to the Borough Funds Act was word for word the same as in the English Act.
And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned. Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

EVENING SITTING.

  AGRICULTURE (WALES).
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid, in moving the Motion which stood in his name, he fully realised that the aspects of agriculture did not at the present time particularly command attention, either in Parliament or in the country; it was at present overshadowed by other and very important questions. But anyone who had any knowledge of the state of feeling in Wales upon this matter must know that it was impossible for any Welsh Members to allow any opportunity to pass without seizing it, and attempting to express the minds of the Welsh people upon this question. Surprise was sometimes evinced because of the decided views held by the people of Wales on political and other questions, and one of the main features which accounted for this characteristic in the public life and temper of Wales was the question of the land, which they desired to raise to-night upon this debate.
  Wales had of late taken a prominent part in a great controversy in this country, a controversy in connection with education. Here again there was a direct and close connection between the convictions of Wales upon this and other questions, and the present organised and striking development of the land question of the Principality. Though at the present moment agricultural depression did not exist in any portion of the country, it would be the height of folly for Wales to cherish the notion that the present condition of things in Wales, with regard to the land, could be a permanent solution of the question. So long as the
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  evils of the present system remained unremedied so long would there be a Welsh land question.
  The debate this evening was interesting, by reason of the fact that on the morrow it was expected that a most important measure dealing with land reform in Ireland would be introduced in the House. Those who represented Wales earnestly hoped that that measure would completely satisfy the desires and aspirations of the Irish people; but it was quite evident that the introduction of a great measure of that kind, and the debates which must take place upon it, must force to the front the land questions of both England and Wales. His Motion claimed that there were special circumstances in connection with the land question in Wales which gave Wales a special claim for separate treatment at the hands of Parliament.
  The case of the Welsh tenant farmers was that there was a defined and historic development and difference in regard to language and race, and habits of thought and many other things between the great body of tenant farmers and the great majority of the landowners, and that that had created such a condition of things in the sphere of agriculture in Wales as to entitle them to separate treatment. This was not realised until comparatively recently, but in 1880 the feeling in Wales became accentuated and organised on this point. That feeling culminated in the year 1893 in the appointment by the Government of the Welsh Land Commission, which inquired exhaustively into all aspects of the land question of Wales. After sitting three years it issued its Report, which might be divided in two parts, one being the recommendations made by the minority of the Commission, and assented to by the whole, and which thus represented the unanimous findings of the Commission; and the other the recommendations of the majority of the Commission. He only desired to refer to those recommendations which, though made by the minority, were assented to by the whole of the Commission. The first group of recommendations related to the amendment and the extension of the Agricultural Rating Act of 1883. The amendments recommended were not only important

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  in themselves, but also important from the fact that in the opinion of the Commission it would be well to deal with them, so far as Wales was concerned, in a separate Bill. That in his mind justified the whole case which he was endeavouring to impress upon the House to-night, because if a Commission unanimously said that in their judgment the circumstances of Wales were so exceptional as to demand a separate Bill, that went a very long way to justify the Motion.
  There was a very important recommendation with regard to State loans to occupying freeholders, which recommendation was only justified by the special circumstances disclosed in the Report. To-morrow the House would hear what the proposals of the Government were with regard to the great scheme of land purchase in Ireland. He did not suggest that the case of the Welsh tenant farmer was at all on the same footing with that of the Irish tenant farmer, but to the degree of, and in accordance with, the measure in which the two corresponded he thought the same liberal financial treatment should be accorded to Wales as to Ireland. Very important recommendations had been made with regard to Crown lands in Wales and other matters; but nothing had been done by the Government, although those recommendations had been made. The object for that was not far to seek. The right hon. Gentleman opposite would no doubt get up and say it was impossible for Parliament to carry out all the recommendations made by the Royal Commissions which sat; but what did that mean? There must soon be some means of devolution devised; and he thought these matters should be left as much as possible in the hands of the people. One of the great points of difference between the tenant farmers of Wales and those of England and Scotland was that the bulk of the land of Wales was owned by men who had not in the past been in touch with the people of the country, or in sympathy with the modern currents of life in Wales, who spoke a different language, and had not been sympathetic with the aspirations of the people. That condition of affairs was, no doubt, improving now, but it had been going on so long that it had left its mark upon the agricultural situation. In his opinion,
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  therefore, under those circumstances there was a special case for special legislation for Wales.
  With regard to the question of land rental, when the late Mr. Thomas Ellis moved the Second Reading of the Welsh Land Bill in 1892, he quoted some very remarkable figures, which he had had from a right hon. Gentleman opposite, relating to the income-tax assessment in connection with the agricultural land in Wales. From those figures the House would find that in 1814 the total rental from agricultural land was £2,000,000; in 1842, it was £2,266,000; in 1842, £3,000,000; in 1882, £3,588,000; in 1892, £3,361,000. The increase in the agricultural rentals of Wales had been in the last century 63 per cent., whilst the corresponding increase for England had only been something like 16⅓ per cent., which proved abundantly that there had been at work in Wales during the last century influences which had created a different agricultural result which called for special and separate legislation. He need hardly say that, so far as the people of Wales were concerned, they would back up the right hon. Gentleman in any raid he might make on the Treasury for money for the encouragement of agriculture. He asked whether it would not be possible to obtain some provision of £3,000, £4,000 or £5,000 a year—it need not be a large sum at first—for the promotion and organisation of agriculture in Wales. A very large sum was usefully spent in Ireland through the channel of the Board of Agriculture there for agricultural purposes. Was it too much to hope that when such showers of financial blessing were to be poured on Ireland some of the drippings might fall upon Wales? In making this request for the separate treatment of Wales, they did not do so on any ground of social disorder. The Welsh people were loyal and strenuous supporters of the Empire, and they claimed that their farmhouses had been in the past the nursery of men who had played a not unimportant part in the development of this country. They believed that anything the Government could do to meet their wishes in the way he had indicated would tend to keep the best of their race on the soil under improved conditions.

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  It would be the means of perpetuating a gifted, educated, and, if he might say so, a religious race, and would add something to the strength and vitality of those dominions which were our common heritage. For these reasons he begged to move, "That, in the opinion of this House, the recommendations of the Welsh Land Commission demand the immediate consideration of Parliament."
  MR. ELLIS GRIFFITHseconded the Motion. He said it appeared to him that this was an exceedingly opportune moment for a Motion of this kind. They were looking forward to another great Land Purchase Bill for Ireland. He could only say on behalf of the Welsh farmer that he wished he was in as good a position as the Irish farmer at the present time. In Wales they felt rather keenly that what had been granted to the Irish farmer because of his disobedience of the law had been denied to them because of their obedience of the law. It was putting a premium on disorder, and giving a lesson which perhaps they would not be slow to learn in future. The Royal Commission was appointed ten years ago, and did its work for nearly three years. It examined over 1,000 witnesses representative of landlords and tenants and the general interests of the country. It cost the country something like £10,000, and he submitted it really was gross neglect on the part of the Government to take no notice of the recommendations the Commission made. He would not deal with what was called the Majority Report, but he would point out that the Commission unanimously reported that they thought the circumstances disclosed in Wales by their inquiry urgently called for legislation such as they had sketched, and that it would be expedient to deal with Wales in a separate Bill. In Wales there was a cleavage between landlords and tenants in religion, language, and politics, and it would be idle for them to be blind to these differences. These were considerations which entirely differentiated the case of England from that of Wales in this matter. Within the limits of the constitution they had done all they could to bring this matter before the House of Commons. The thirty-four representatives
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  of Wales had unanimously demanded a Bill dealing with the subject. England had never done anything like that.
  He thought it was conceded on both sides of the House that the three reforms needed by the tenants were fair rent, security of tenure, and compensation for disturbance. As to fair rent the majority of the Commission thought that could only be secured by a judicial tribunal. Into that matter he was not going to enter. If they had security of tenure he thought fair rent and compensation for disturbance would look after themselves. What impressed the Commission more than anything else in Wales was the number of sales that had taken place in the Principality upon the death of owners of estates. On the sale of an estate the tenants were placed in a very precarious position, notice being frequently given to them to quit their holdings in order to give a free hand to the new proprietor who, in this way, got possession of the improvements which the tenants had placed in the soil. The Commission recommended that possession of the farm should be retained by the tenants for three years after he was served with notice to quit, and that in certain other cases the tenant should be allowed a year's rent when driven from his farm. The Commission also unanimously recommended that the notice to quit should contain the reasons for the proprietor giving the notice to quit. He need not tell the House what safeguards these would be to the tenants. He would not enter into all the details of the recommendations of the Commission. There were twelve in all on which the Commission was unanimous, and if the Welsh people had a Bill containing these twelve points they would be satisfied.
  One unanimous recommendation of the Commission was that a loan of £5,000,000 should be given to the small freeholders in Wales, at 3 per cent. interest, who had purchased their freeholds after 1868. The year 1868 was fixed because at that date hundreds of Welsh farmers had been turned out of their farms because they had voted Liberal, and that had not unnaturally embittered the feeling in the Principality. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture would not tell them that he sympathised with them

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  on this question. They were very glad to have sympathy, but it was surely time that they had something more in Wales. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would persuade his colleagues to give some opportunity of dealing with this question which affected so materially the happiness and prosperity of the Welsh people. They only asked for what was fair and just, and he contended that they should have separate legislation for Wales on land as they had on the education and drink questions.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, the recommendations of the Welsh Land Commission demand the immediate consideration of Parliament.—(Mr. Herbert Roberts.)
  SIR H. AUBREY - FLETCHERsaid it might seem curious for a Member of a Sussex constituency to have any idea of legislating for the benefit of Wales, but, owing to circumstances, he was now placed in a position of some importance in the county of Glamorgan, and during the time he had been in possession of these large estates he had received from his tenants the greatest kindness and consideration. His hon. friend who introduced the Motion before the House had alluded rightly and properly only to portions of the Report of the Royal Commission, and had dealt chiefly with the report of the minority. Many of his friends on this side of the House who were interested in Wales, or who represented Welsh constituencies, were not altogether against the arguments adduced by the hon. Member; but there were a few points which he wished to be allowed to bring to the notice of the House which, from his long experience of and connection with agriculture in England, might explain some of the difficulties of the tenants both in England and Wales. He could say that his object was to help those who were on the soil to remain on the soil. When he went down to the Principality to take possession of his estates the spokesman who warmly welcomed him on behalf of the tenants, and who was over eighty years of age, told him that he and his family had
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  occupied the same holding for more than 500 years, and pointed out men whose families had been on the estate for 200 and 300 years. He appealed to the hon. Member for East Glamorgan, who was present on that occasion, to confirm his statement that every endeavour had been made to keep the tenants on the soil, and that good feeling existed among all those connected with the property.
  He did not agree with one portion of the hon. Gentleman's speech, when that hon. Member said he was anxious that the same tenure of farms as regarded leases should exist in Wales as in England In the South of England, which he knew best, there was no such thing as a long lease, and hardly any lease at all between landlord and tenant. He admitted that many years ago leases were granted, but for some time leases were scarcely asked for, and were not desirable. He knew that in Scotland leases were very acceptable to tenants and landlords, but he thought it would be found now that yearly tenancies were more beneficial, both to landlord and tenant, than long leases. He did not suppose that the case of Wales was very different from many parts of England in regard to the depopulation of the rural districts. Year by year lads and young men were leaving the rural districts to go into the towns and great centres of industry, where they considered they would benefit themselves more than by remaining in the country. He wished that the Minister for Agriculture could suggest something that would prevent that. One thing that had struck him most forcibly during his visits to the Principality was the way in which the children, and even grown-up sons and daughters, of the tenant farmers remained in their own homes to enable the father to carry on the work of the farm. He only wished that they could see that in many parts of England. He had intervened in the debate simply to show the House that he was anxious for some legislative reforms being carried out in Wales connected with agriculture. His ancestors had been in Wales from before the Conquest, and he was proud that he represented a family which had tried to help in past years those connected with

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  the soil. He would associate himself with the hon. Member opposite in doing what he could to advance the interests of agriculture in Wales.
  MR. BLACKsaid he had no connection with the Principality, but he supported the Motion of his hon. friend as coming from a different part of the United Kingdom, and as having had some experience of the effect of such legislation as that proposed by the hon. Member for Denbighshire. He referred to legislation in connection with the Scottish crofters; and he ventured to say that that legislation had proved beneficial to the State, to the tenant, and to the landlord. The hon. Member who had just sat down had implored the Government to do something to check the depletion of the rural population. Such a method had been found in Scotland, as shown by the Census returns. In Shetland the diminution of the population between 1881 and 1891 was 6·02 per cent.; in the last decade it was only 1·90 per cent. In Sutherland the diminution between 1881 and 1891 was 3·89, and last decade it was only 2·08 per cent. In Ross and Cromarty similar results were observed, notwithstanding the economic conditions which led to a much greater depletion of the rural population in other parts of Scotland. This was due in large measure to the Crofters Acts, which gave absolute security of tenure to the tenants. The fixity of tenure had encouraged the tenants to spend their money in improving their houses and holdings, and in increasing the productiveness of the land, while it had kept the people to the soil, and had likewise benefited the landlord. He ventured to think that if similar legislation were applied to Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom similar results would follow.
  MAJOR WYNDHAM - QUINsaid that as his hon. friend had confined himself to the consideration of the unanimous recommendations of the Royal Commission, he was happy to agree with him in what he had suggested for the benefit of the Welsh people. However, he did not believe that the Welsh people were entitled to any greater
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  consideration in respect to land legislation than the people in any other portion of the United Kingdom. If the Minister for Agriculture could see his way to conferring the benefits asked for by the Welsh people, he could say, on behalf of his constituents, that he would be happy to receive them. The hon. Member who introduced the debate had stated that, during a certain period, rents in Wales had risen 63 per cent., whereas, in the corresponding period in England, rents I had only risen 16 per cent. He did not think it was quite fair to compare England with Wales in this regard, because the greater portion of Wales was given up to stock-raising and dairy-farming, while a large portion of England was devoted to growing cereals. If a just comparison was to be made between Wales and England, it should only be with those portions of England where similar agricultural operations were conducted, such as Cumberland, Westmorland, and Devonshire. If the income-tax assessments from the year 1879 were examined it would be found that the rents in those particular counties were higher than in the Welsh counties. Then there was a difference between the conditions of agriculture in North and in South Wales. In the county of Glamorgan farms were held under a local custom, which had been established for more than a hundred years, and the tenants there would rather hold their land under that custom than under any Act of Parliament.
  MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENrose to continue the discussion.
  Attention drawn to the fact that forty Members were not present Numbers being counted, and forty Members being found present,
  MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid he did not rise for the purpose of objecting to the Motion of his hon. friend, because, from the manner in which he had moved it, he had excluded the proposal of establishing a Land Court which had been put forward by the majority of the Royal Commission, and had limited

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  his remarks to the unanimous recommendations of the Commission. That made a very considerable difference. Speaking not as a Welsh Member but as connected with Welsh land, he had much sympathy with the hon. Member opposite; but while the speech of the hon. Member was limited, his Motion covered everything. His Motion said, "That in the opinion of this House, the recommendations of the Welsh Land Commission demand the immediate consideration of Parliament." He presumed that the word "recommendations" meant the recommendations of the majority of the Commission. Therefore, he wished to move an Amendment which would bring the Motion of his hon. friend into line with his speech, viz., to insert the word "unanimous" before the word "recommendations." If his hon. friend would accept that Amendment, he had nothing further to say.
  Question amended, by inserting, after the second word "the," the word "unanimous."—(Mr. Griffith-Boscawen.)
  COLONEL KENYON-SLANEYsaid he had a considerable right to be sympathetic in regard to matters connected with Wales, for he had a large admixture of Welsh blood in his veins, and he had, by accident, a very near connection with an estate in Wales. He, however, objected to set up a line of demarcation between the tenants of Wales and England which would lead to all manner of unfortunate jealousies. He was opposed to setting up in any way a difference of treatment of land tenure and a difference in legal position between tenants on either side of a purely artificial boundary, like a dyke, dividing Wales from the adjoining counties. Personally he could not vouch in one way or another for what had happened in 1868, but supposing that there were many capricious evictions in 1868, there were no such things now, and why should they legislate in 1903 for a state of affairs which prevailed so long ago as 1868? It could not be urged that the landlords were treating the tenants badly now, or evicting them capriciously, or grinding
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  them down, or that a sufficient percentage of the income of the estates was not spent on them. Therefore there was no reason for this differentiation of treatment between the tenants of Wales and those in the adjoining counties. Did the tenants themselves, in the interests of agriculture and the development of the soil, show any reluctance to come forward and take vacant farms? No hon. Gentleman would assert that anything of this sort existed. They in England would be only too willing to experience the case and rapidity which obtained in Wales of finding tenants for their farms. In fact, there were many Welsh farmers who came over the border into Shropshire and took farms, and he himself had three Jones on his own estate. He protested against a difference of treatment being introduced between English and Welsh tenants. However moderate the speech and intention of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution might have been, there could be no doubt that underlying the whole question was the desire for an alteration in the land tenure of Wales, and a distinct tendency to an approach to a system of dual ownership, which only on the morrow they were going to destroy, at a great cost, in Ireland. It could not be argued that any of those proposals would result otherwise than in establishing some degree of dual ownership, which he could only describe as a pernicious, wasteful, and destructive system—a system to get rid of which in another part of the United Kingdom, the House would probably be asked to vote millions in the course of a few days. The carrying out of these recommendations would involve the building up of a system in Wales similar to that which they were seeking to get rid of in Ireland, and he therefore entered his most emphatic protest against a proposal which would ultimately bring that about—a proposal in which he distinctly saw the track of the serpent of dual ownership.
  MR. BRYN ROBERTSurged that there were exceptional circumstances in the case of Wales which required exceptional treatment, and he pointed out that

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  though rents had risen in pastoral counties in England, in similar districts in Wales the increase had been twice as great.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY,)said that if the Resolution had been placed before the House in its original form he could not for a moment have accepted it. He could not, for one thing, consent to any legislation for agriculture in Great Britain on the lines of the Irish Land Act. He could not consent to anything in the shape of a Land Court. Further than that, he would be unwilling to accept agricultural legislation limited to Wales alone. He could not recognise the distinction which had been attempted to be drawn between Wales and the rest of Great Britain with regard to the condition of agriculture. They must treat the matter as a whole. But with these reservations he was inclined to accept the Amendment which had been agreed to, especially as it involved dropping the suggestion for a Land Court. The recommendations of the Royal Commission, so far as they were unanimous, were chiefly recommendations which might be applied to the whole of Great Britain. There was the extension of agricultural education, to which there could be no objection. For his part he hoped that all over Great Britain more would be done than hitherto to extend agricultural education, and he trusted that even our country elementary schools would be brought more in accord with the surroundings of rural life. The same applied with regard to the education given in the various agricultural colleges. He was in hearty
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  sympathy with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on that point, and he thought that the Board of Agriculture, in that respect, had done more for Wales in proportion than they had done for the rest of Great Britain. Out of the limited sum of £9,000 placed at his disposal, they had apportioned to Wales £1,800. Then as to the circulation of leaflets, he thought Wales had nothing to complain of, and the leaflets now being issued would be found to be of much practical value.
  There were two changes he would like to see introduced. The areas dealt with by the weather forecasts were too large to make them of much value for individual parishes, and he would like to see some alteration made whereby the information could be more widely distributed than it now was. It could be done through the agency of the Post Office. In America mail carts in the rural districts carried a flag, which indicated the last Report of the Meteorological Office. He thought that through the agency of the Post Office something of that kind might be done in our own rural districts. With regard to the suggestion of giving farmers information as to the agricultural prices, he had succeeded in getting funds from the Treasury to carry out that recommendation, which was one of considerable importance to farmers. He hoped to establish throughout Great Britain a staff of correspondents which would give the farmers information as to the prices of agricultural produce. He had also done his best to instil into the minds of the farmers the necessity for combination and co-operation. As to local taxation, the Royal Commission had recently reported on lines very much as indicated by the Royal Commission dealing with land tenure in Wales; and the

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  report of a Commission of that sort must weigh very greatly with any Government. The codification of the Statutes dealing with offences in connection with game, and the suggestion that the local authorities should have more power in regard to the regulation of commons—thatadditioual power was given by the Act of 1899—were minor matters. The matter to which the Commission as a whole attached the greatest importance was the amendment of the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1883. He thought nobody could deny that the Act of 1900 was a very considerable advance on the Act of 1883, and he was sure they wished to give it a fair chance, and to see how far it contributed to the welfare of those interested, before taking further steps. Although he could not pledge himself to carry out all the unanimous recommendations of that Royal Commission, he thought that on the whole they were admirable and deserving of the attention of the House. He had no hesitation in accepting the Resolution as amended.
  MR. EDWARDSexpressed the satisfaction with which he and his colleagues had heard the assurances given by the right hon. Gentleman, and he congratulated his hon. friend the Member for West Denbighshire on having been the means of obtaining so definite a statement from the Minister of Agriculture. The right hon. Gentleman had dealt with many small points of interest to agriculturists, but what they really hoped was that the Government would be induced to bring in a Bill which would give Welsh agriculturists security of tenure and greater compensation for improvements. There was wonderful unanimity on both sides
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  of the House as to the necessity for doing something with regard to land tenure in Wales. The hon. and gallant Member for Shropshire had said he could see no need for dealing specially with the case of Wales as apart from England, but he would remind him that there had been no Royal Commission making recommendations with regard to England such as there had been in the case of Wales. Further, the hon. and gallant Member showed there was a great difference between England and Wales, seeing that tenants were not easy to find in England, whereas in Wales as many as twenty farmers sometimes applied for a vacant farm. They were only asking that effect should be given to the recommendations of that Royal Commission, and he submitted that the granting of these reforms in the interests of the Welsh farmers would not in the slightest degree injure the English farmer or landlord. He feared that the report of the Royal Commission had been treated with scant courtesy, and they were glad, therefore, to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that something was to be done. He hoped it would be something really useful—something monk than flying a flag from a mail cart.
  Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
  Resolved, "That, in the opinion of this House, the unanimous recommendations of the Welsh Land Commission demand the immediate consideration of Parliament."
  MR. FORESTRY LEWISsaid he desired to draw the attention

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  of the House to a question which was becoming one of great and increasing importance in this country, viz.: the desirability of further steps being taken for the afforestation of waste lands. He proposed to refer more particularly to the Report of the Departmental Committee recently appointed by the President of the Board of Agriculture. As the evidence taken by that Committee had not yet been published it would not be proper on his part to move a definite resolution. Still the question was becoming one of increasing urgency. A Select Committee was appointed to consider it in the year 1885, but he regretted to say that hardly anything had been done in the direction of carrying out its recommendations. Meanwhile our already inadequate stock of timber had been still further depleted. There were two cardinal facts in connection with the question which deserved the attention of the House and the country. The one was that the United Kingdom paid the enormous sum of £26,000,000 for imported timber, and the other was that the country contained 21,000,000 acres of waste land on a large proportion of which afforestation could be profitably undertaken.
  Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. Forty Members being found present,
  MR. J. H. LEWIS, continuing, said he thought he could show that even under the indifferent system of management which now obtained in the United Kingdom excellent financial results had accrued from afforesting land which otherwise would be of little, if any, value. Some valuable evidence was given by Dr. Schlich before the Departmental
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  Committee, which had sat recently, showing what had been accomplished by afforesting on the Continent. In one district, called the Anthonsthal Range, in Saxony, between an elevation of 1,500 and 2,700 feet, an area of 4,000 acres was treated. The receipts came to 48s. per acre per annum, as against 10s. per acre per annum expenditure—a net profit of 38s. per acre, on land which would not have been worth more than 4s. per acre per annum for agricultural or pastoral purposes. A like policy could well be adopted in many parts of this country. In Scotland there were large tracts of country solely devoted to sheep farming which did not support more than one man per 1000 acres, whereas if converted into woodland they could be made to support one man per 100 acres. That would help to stop the depletion of the rural population now going on, a depletion which was draining the best life of the country into the towns, and which unless it was arrested would result in disaster for the country as a whole. There was another aspect of the question. According to some of the best experts on afforestation the world was approaching a shortage if not an actual dearth of timber. This country consumed more timber than any other country in the world, and yet they were not making the best use of those natural advantages which they possessed. They could grow in this country most of the timber that was imported from abroad, more especially that which was imported in such large quantities from the Baltic. This timber could be grown in this country just as well as in the Baltic countries. The United Kingdom imported £26,000,000 worth of timber, and £20,000,000 of that total could be profitably grown in this country. It

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  was a painful fact that foreign timber was preferred to home-grown timber, and that in many architects, specifications foreign timber was specified to be supplied. British timber had been rejected for telegraph poles, and this was entirely due to their own neglect of this subject. The evidence given before the Committee on afforestation showed that until within the last ten years or so owners of woodland did not understand that the size, shape, and quality of trees could be altered by anything they could do. They thought this was all a mere accident, whereas it had been shown by evidence to be due chiefly to good management.
  In France, Germany, and Austria, systematised afforestation and education in forestry had improved the yield of timber, and had added greatly to the resources of those countries. The evidence that was given before the Committee on Afforestation unanimously favoured immediate and effective provision for bringing systematised instruction within the reach of foresters, agents, and woodmen. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman himself was in full sympathy with the spirit of those recommendations. The Committee recommended the establishment of two large State forests, which should demonstrate the most technical and economical development of the art of forestry, and where proper accounts should be kept. The idea was that these State forests should be managed as commercial undertakings and be so worked as to yield an adequate financial return. The Committee suggested that example plots should be attached to universities, and university
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  colleges in which instruction upon this subject should be given. With regard to Wales very valuable evidence was given before the Committee, and he trusted that some of the large water areas belonging to the great municipalities situated in the Principality would be used in future for demonstrations in forestry. He need hardly remind the House of the advantages of afforesting. It helped to fill up the labourers' year. It gave them work at a time of the year when work was most needed. Not only this, but it added to the natural beauty of the country and to its resources, and it would provide a new source of revenue and a new source of employment for the people. They had had a great deal of unproductive expenditure of late, but this would only mean a small amount of expenditure, and he need hardly urge the right hon. Gentleman to impress upon the Treasury the importance of this question and the fact that it would be reproductive expenditure. Such expenditure would pay for itself over and over again, and in the far distant future the people of this country would have reason to bless the name of the right hon Gentleman if he undertook this work, which he held to be of national importance. He begged to move the Motion standing in his name. Knowing, however, that the right hon. Gentleman was thoroughly in sympathy with the objects of his Motion he would afterwards ask the leave of the House to withdraw his Motion for the present, trusting that at some future time, when the evidence of the Committee had been published, they might have a further and better opportunity of discussing this extremely important question.
  Motion made, and Question proposed "That it is expedient to give effect, as early as possible, to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Forestry."—(Mr. J. H. Lewis.)
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY,): The hon. Member will admit that I have taken considerable interest in this question, and I hope that the appointment of this Departmental Committee may produce some very useful results. This question of afforestation is important from more points of view than one. When we see how the timber supply of the rest of the world is gradually diminishing, and with the possibility before us of something like a timber famine in the not very far distant future, it behoves us to look more carefully than we have done in the past to our own timber supply. There is a good deal of land in the country which hardly brings in any agricultural return, and I think it very probable that much of that land might pay better under timber. In various parts of the country we hear about the water supply becoming very scarce, and it is quite possible that a greater growth of timber in this country might go some way to remedy even that defect. I cannot possibly go into the question at any length now. The Departmental Committee has evidently conducted its work with the greatest possible care, but the evidence has not yet been published, and the hon. Member has the advantage of me in that respect, so that he will not expect me to express now any definite opinion as to how far their recommendations should be given effect to. The recommendations will undoubtedly receive my very careful con-
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  sideration, and, if supported by the evidence, I have no doubt they ought to receive the attention of the Government.
  MR. J. H. LEWISsaid that, in view of the reply of the right hon. Gentleman and the fact that the evidence of the Committee on Afforestation had not yet been published, he begged leave to withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

AFFORESTATION IN IRELAND.
MR. NOLANsaid that when he gave notice of moving this Motion, he thought an opportunity would be afforded him of submitting this question to the judgment of the House. He thought those views were also entertained by hon. Members sitting on the Government side who represented Ireland, but he was sorry to find that they were not now sitting upon the Government Benches. It could not be said that this question of afforestation in Ireland was an unimportant one. All the writers upon this subject, and there had been many, were agreed that the question of afforestation in Ireland was one of the most important questions that could occupy the attention of any Statesman.
Notice taken that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members not being present—
The House was adjourned at Eleven of the Clock till To-morrow.
Adjourned at Eleven o'clock.