HC Deb 08 August 1905 vol 151 cc642-709

[SECOND READING]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

*MR. ASQUITH (Fifeshire, E.)

As by this Bill, Sir, is made final provision for the remainder of the financial year, and as included in it is the salary of every executive officer, it is, I think, proper and in accordance with the usages of this House that on the Second Reading we should take note of the general position and policy of the Executive Government, not merely as it stands at the moment, but in its necessary and even in its probable developments. If ever there were a time at which such an examination was justifiable and appropriate, surely it is to-day. Here we are on the eve of the prorogation of Parliament in a situation which I venture to think it would be difficult to parallel in the history of this House. We have a Government which is about to retire into winter quarters with the provision which this Bill gives them—a Government which even the hardiest of its apologists on the platform or in the Press do not pretend to deny has lost the confidence, if it ever possessed it, of the majority of the people. It is, further, a Government which, possessing still an ostensible majority of, I suppose, something like seventy in this House, was only three weeks ago defeated here upon an important issue of public policy in a full House and upon a division which was conducted upon strict Party lines.

We all know that, as regards that defeat, the Prime Minister, in deference to his own conceptions of constitutional propriety and personal dignity, thinks it his duty altogether to ignore it. But, Sir, it is bare justice to hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that the Prime Minister's supporters, and still more the Prime Minister's Whips, attached to that defeat a very different significance. The incident which the right hon. Gentleman brushes aside so lightly has become to them, as we have all seen during the last few days, a positive obsession. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that they have ever since been in a condition of political hysteria. Their imaginations are peopled by day and by night—particularly by night— with what Milton calls "Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire." They tremble when they see the Opposition Benches full. They tremble still more when they see the Opposition Benches empty. And they tremble most of al when they see the Opposition Benches neither empty nor full. Every one o the commonplace incidents of our Parliamentary life has begun to assume in their eyes a sinister and baleful significance. In events the most ordinary and common place they have learnt to discern, with the aid of the second sight vouchsafed to the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, the workings of a dark, unsleeping, and subterranean conspiracy, by which in the first week in August the worst of Oppositions has the unthought-of bad taste and the incredibly low manners to attempt to vex and harass he life of the best of Governments. Am I not right in saying that we are in an unique situation? By means of the provision which is to be made by this Bill now to be read a second time, a Government, admittedly bankrupt in popular confidence—if they do not think they are, let them put it to the test—I say admittedly bankrupt in popular confidence—a Government which is driven to live here in this House from day to day, and I might almost say from hand to mouth, in reliance not so much on the loyalty as on the fears of the panicstriken majority; by the provision to be made by this Bill, such a Government is to be enabled, it may be for six months to come, to conduct the affairs of the Empire in defiance of the will of the nation and without the least semblance of Parliamentary control.

I am not going to attempt anything in the nature of a retrospect of the past session. It would not be an exhilarating narrative, although it is not without features that will both puzzle and amuse the historian of the future. I need only remind the House—for memories are short—of such episodes as the MacDonnell incident; with the mysterious and still unexplained resignation of the late Chief Secretary and the equally mysterious and equally unexplained retention of office by the Prime Minister. Or, again, I may recall the long series of organised stampedes whenever the fiscal question was raised; or, once more, that memorable week when in order to appease the public indignation aroused by the Report of the Butler Committee, the Government came down here upon three successive nights with three successive policies—a record, I imagine, even in the annals of vacillation. But these things belong to the domain of history; and I would rather utilise the time at my disposal by seeking some much-needed information on matters as to which we may find ourselves, when we meet again (if we do meet again), gravely and perhaps hopelessly compromised by the action taken by the Executive during the recess.

MR. J. P. HOPE (Sheffield, Brightside)

I rise to a point of order. I have to ask whether it is not a fact that in August, 1903, the late Speaker ruled, on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill, that it was not in order to discuss the probable or possible future developments of Government policy or the action to be taken by the Government with a view to such developments.

MR. WHITLEY (Halifax)

Is it not in order to discuss what Ministers may do with the salaries voted under the Appropriation Bill?

*MR. SPEAKER

I have not in my mind the exact circumstance to which the hon. Member for Sheffield refers; but I was waiting to hear what the right hon. Gentleman was going to say. It is open to the House to criticise the administrative action which the Government may take during the course of the recess. If the right hon. Gentleman limits himself to that, I think he will be perfectly in order.

MR. J. F. HOPE

May I read the terms of Mr. Speaker Gully's ruling, which decided that it would not be competent for the House to discuss on the Appropriation Bill the future fiscal policy of the Goverment or the merits of the fiscal inquiry then being held?

*MR. SPEAKER

I do not think that anything I have said contradicts the ruling cited by the hon. Gentleman.

*MR. ASQUITH

I propose to take my rulings from the Chair, Sir; and if I digress you will, no doubt, be the first to call me to order. In the first place, I wish to call attention for a few moments —I do not know whether this will offend the purism of the hon. Member—to the growing feeling of disquietude and even alarm which possesses the public mind in regard to the condition of the Army. The hon. Member does not seem to object to that. Whatever else may be said of the present Government, no one can complain that they have been inactive in regard to the Army. If good health could be secured by constant change of doctors, of drugs, and of diet, the British Army, after the experiments of the last three years, ought to be the most flourishing organism in the civilised world. It has enjoyed during that time every conceivable variety of treatment. We have had two Secretaries of State for War—I do not see either of them present—men no doubt cast in a different mould, but neither of them deficient in selfconfidence. We have had a Commander-in-Chief, we have had an Army Council, and we have had more Commissions and Committees of inquiry than any one can remember. Last, but not least, we have had the supervision of the whole thing by the Committee of Defence with a strategically-minded Prime Minister at its head. Now, Sirs, how do we stand at the end of all this? It is rather less than three weeks since the country was startled by the deliberate pronouncement of our greatest soldier in the House of Lords that the Army was as ill-prepared for war to-day as at the outbreak of the South African campaign. Lord Roberts was duly scolded in this House by the Secretary of State for War; but since then, in the City, Lord Roberts has returned to the charge. As the words he used are grave words, I will read them to the House— My condensation in the House of Lords of the condition of our armed forces was not, as the Secretary of State has described it, of too sweeping a character. I was justified in stating that the military forces of the Crown are no better prepared for war than they were in 1899 and 1900. The truth is that I rather understated than over-stated the case. While as regards organisation, efficiency, and the power of expansion we are no better off than before the war, in one particular we are far worse off —I mean the falling off in the number of officers. Now, it is impossible to have a graver statement than that. We are not concerned to examine to-day Lord Roberts' estimate of our future military necessities nor his suggestions as to the best methods by which those necessities ought to be met. The Prime Minister, I think, is quite entitled to say, as he said yesterday in answer to a Question, that these matters cannot be dealt with by a simple expression of assent or dissent. But I am dealing—and I ask the House to consider it—I am dealing only with Lord Roberts' description of things as they are, his deliberate declaration that after three years of ceaseless and costly experimentation we are not better, but even worse, off than we were at the commencement of the Boer War. Now, that is either true or not true; and we are entitled on the Second Reading of this Bill, which is appropriating enormous sums to the Army, a great many of which have not been discussed either in Committee or on Report—we are entitled to ask the Executive Government what they say to that simple proposition of fact. I need not point out its gravity. We are not dealing here with the anonymous grumblings of service newspapers or service clubs; we are not even dealing with the criticism of a general who has retired from the service and who occupies a detached and irresponsible position. Nothing of the kind. For some considerable part of the three years which followed the conclusion of the war, for a very large part of that period, Lord Roberts was Commander-in-Chief; and when he was dispossessed of that office his salary, a large one—I am far from saying unduly large, but a large one—a salary which appears, I presume, in the Estimates on which this Bill is based—his salary was continued in order to secure the advantages of his active services as a member of the Committee of Defence. So this indictment which I have read to the House proceeds from a late Commander-in-Chief, who has only very recently demitted that office, and who is an actual and present member of the Committee of Defence, It is impossible to brush it aside as though it were the obiter dictum of some respectable but irresponsible outsider. I say, therefore, that this House and the country will await with anxiety, and are entitled to-day to receive, whatever reassuring statement the Prime Minister may have to make.

I come to another matter; it also concerns the executive action of the Government. It concerns that action in quite a different sphere, and as to it the intentions, I will not say announced, but adumbrated by Ministers appear to me to be full of obscurity. I am not going to discuss—of course it would be out of order to do so—the merits of those Redistribution Resolutions which were so tardily introduced and so hastily withdrawn. Those Resolutions are dead, and whether they will ever be reincarnated in a Bill we must leave it to time and perhaps to the chapter of accidents to decide. But there is a question which we are entitled to deal with now. We are entitled to know something more of the machine which the Government have announced that they mean in their executive capacity to set up during the recess for dealing with the question of boundaries.

MR. J. F. HOPE

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I point out that this is exactly what your predecessor ruled out of order? He ruled that it is not open to the House to discuss whether or not there is a necessity for collecting information for a Redistribution Bill, and he ruled similarly as regards a fiscal inquiry.

*MR. SPEAKER

I do not think the hon. Member is quite right. I have the ruling of my predecessor on the point of order beside me. I understand that the point the right hon. Gentleman was going to raise was this, whether the information is to be collected by a Committee or Commission or in what other way? That has been a matter of discussion in this House by Question and Answer, and I think it is perfectly relevant to the question now before the House.

*MR. ASQUITH

I am dealing with an announcement of the action of Ministers. The hon. Gentleman does not seem to remember—perhaps I may remind him— that there is a provision made in this Bill for the salary of every executive officer of State for the year ending March 31st, 1906. What more appropriate and legitimate occasion could there be for discussing the development of executive action or the course of executive action which the responsible Ministers of the Crown have already announced their intention of taking? I will not waste any further words about that. I rather gathered from an Answer which the Prime Minister gave yesterday to a Question, that this machine was going to take the form, not of a Royal Commission, but of a Departmental Committee. Now, I want to ask one or two Questions about that. What is to be its composition? Still more important, what are to be its instructions? Is it to act as though the abandoned Resolutions had been adopted and approved by this House? What is to be its procedure? Is it to be public or private? What opportunity are any of the constituencies which may be affected by its Report or decisions to be given of supplying or checking information, of making objections or offering suggestions? Those are not peddling or gratuitous Questions; they are Questions strictly relevant to the case, Questions to which it is most important that we should have an Answer at once. It is of the essence of a boundary scheme — I do not care by whom it is compiled—that its parts should be interdependent. Every stone is in a sense the keystone, because if you take one out the whole structure falls to pieces; and therefore it is essential, and I hope the Government will agree that it is essential, that the country should know in advance, before this machine is set in operation, what is the nature and what are the conditions of the inquiry, and what are the instructions and what the authority of those by whom it is about to be undertaken. Those are questions, I think, which most strictly arise in reference to the Second Reading of this Bill.

Now I pass to another and still more important point. The hon. Member may again get out his book. I mean the summoning of the Colonial Conference. Now, if the conference, or a conference—it is perhaps better to use the indefinite article—if a conference is to meet, as was clearly intended in the year 1902, in the spring or summer of 1906, I think it is pretty clear that some steps must be taken with a view to bringing it together during the recess. But notwithstanding the admirable and undefeated pertinacity of my hon. friend the Member for Banffshire, we still remain on this matter in a state, I will not say of darkness, but certainly of twilight. Let me just recall to the House the successive stages of this particular question. In October last year the Prime Minister at Edinburgh used these words— My view is that the policy of this Party should be, if we have power after the next election, to ask the Colonies to join in such a conference. That is the policy which has since been known as the policy of the two elections, the policy, that is to say, which implied, first, that before any conference was summoned at all to which a discussion of the fiscal question could be delegated in any of its phases a mandate would have to be obtained from the electorate of this country, and, next, that after such a conference had met and come to a decision, that decision again would not be regarded as binding either on the Government or the people of the country until it had been submitted to a general election also. Further, I remember well that the right hon. Gentleman in January of the present year reaffirmed that policy in a speech which he made at Manchester. Now, let me ask the House to look at the subsequent developments. In March, speaking in this House, I think in Answer to a Question of my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean, the Prime Minister said— If the calling together of the Conference and the delegation to it of any question of fiscal reform should take place under the present Government India would be represented. Mark the word "if"; and later, speaking on May 5th, having had his attention in the meantime called to the fact, which he had forgotten, that in any event there would be an automatic reassembling of the Colonial Conference next year, he used these words— If the conference of 1906 meets before the dissolution, it will be, of course, the conference contemplated by the Resolution of the conference which met in 1902. That Resolution did not suggest either Indian or Crown Colony representation. Now, if the mind of the Government on the matter is clear, certainly the mind of the country is not clear; and in view of those declarations which I have quoted textually from speeches and Answers of the Prime Minister himself, I want to put one or two Questions. My first Question is, Are any invitations going to be issued during the recess to the self-governing Colonies to attend any conference of any kind? That is a very simple Question. My next Question is—Are similar invitations to attend that or any other conference going to be sent to the Government of India and the Governments of the Crown Colonies? Do the Government, or do they not, regard the conference, which has been called the automatic conference, of 1906 as competent to discuss the question of fiscal preference? Or, to put the same thing in other words, is this conference of 1906 such a one as the Prime Minister contemplated in his Edinburgh speech? My last Question, which I think ought to clear up the whole matter, is—If the Government are re turned to power at the general election, is it still their policy that another conference would have to be summoned to which not only the self-governing Colonies but the Crown Colonies and India would have to be invited? Those are very simple and direct Questions. They are, every one of them, concerned with the action which the Executive, in view of the announcements that have been made, either will take or ought to take during the coming recess; and I earnestly hope that we shall have, if not from the Prime Minister himself, at any rate from the Colonial Secretary, a distinct and categorical Answer.

I have made these specific inquiries on points which seem to me both grave and urgent, but I conclude with a larger and more general Question to the Government. My Question is this. By what authority, during the months that are covered by this Bill, do they claim to go on speaking and acting in the name of the people of this country? The opinion of the electorate is beyond dispute; you tremble for the very safest seats; and you do not affect to regard a dissolution as leading to anything else but a sentence of death. In this House, as we have seen during these last few weeks, it is only by the most frantic appeals, it is only by the most desperate devices, that you can keep your rank and file in the fighting line. I will go further. I say there is not a foreign country, there is not a British colony, which does not recognise you for what you are, stripped of all moral authority, agents who are trading upon an exhausted mandate; in a word, accidents of the Septennial Act. We hear a great deal of duty and dignity. Is it not time that this long martyrdom to duty and to dignity should come to an end? Let the Government look the facts in the face and let the nation speak.

THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J.) BALFOUR, Manchester, E.

There is one sentiment at all events to which the right hon. Gentleman gave utterance in which I am in hearty agreement with him. I think he was perfectly justified both by the practice of this House and by the obvious and natural opportunities which a Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill gives in making such a survey as he chose both of the action of the Government since the financial year began and the action of the Government—supposed or prophesied action of the Government —as it might be after the financial year closes. I, for my part, have no quarrel with the object which the right hon. Gentleman set before himself, however little I may think of the arguments by which he supported the intention which he has laid before the House. The right hon. Gentleman dealt briefly with the events of the session, so briefly, that that part of his speech was simply a compressed resume of all the Party attacks which he and his friends have—quite rightly, as the Opposition of the day— made upon the Government from time to time. I do not mean to dwell upon that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, because he himself did not pretend to do more than make a most concise summary of all the points which rightly or wrongly he thought could be used against His Majesty's present advisers in their conduct of public affairs during the last six months.

One observation, indeed, struck me with some surprise. He talked of the defeat of the Government upon an Irish Vote in terms which greatly surprised me from a constitutional authority like himself. He talked of that defeat as if there had been a great passage of arms between the two Parties in which there was some foreseen issue to be fought out and in which there was some great matter of public policy in which the whole Opposition were interested. One section of the Opposition, and I do not deny a most important section, the Gentlemen who represent Irish constituencies, did take great interest in that question. I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman himself was on that bench five minutes. There was not the smallest interest shown by any member of the orthodox Opposition in the subject of debate. They took an interest — a legitimate interest — in another and quite a different aspect of the subject before the House; they took a great interest in so arranging matters that there should be a division which they hoped—as it turned out in accordance with the fact — would put the Government in a minority. The idea that they took the smallest interest in the question except in so far as it might be used to damage the Government, the idea that if they came into office they meant to reverse the policy of the Secretary for Ireland, the idea that on this as a considered issue the whole Opposition were acting as one man, determined to substitute a new policy for the old policy—nobody who looked at those sparsely-occupied benches could for a moment entertain such an idea.

There is another point to which I will call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman as a mere question of constitutional practice. I understand that the hon. Gentlemen opposite who represent Ireland describe themselves, and describe themselves justly, as an independent Party with an independent organisation, in no sense bound up with what is called the Liberal or Radical Party, although it may please them from time to time to act with that Party. [An OPPOSITION MEMBER: They have also acted with you.] If that be so it is, I suppose, because the hon. Gentlemen agreed with us, and they were quite ready to act with us when they agreed with us. I do not quarre with them. If my i's require to be dotted and my t's to be crossed, it is evident that that interruption emphasises the well-known fact to which I ventured to call the attention of the House. The debate was wholly conducted by that Party, the division on which the Government was beaten was taken under the auspices of the Whips of that Party, and, according to all constitutional usage, it should have fallen to the lot of the Member for Waterford to be sent for by His Majesty, and not his subservient allies, had we taken the unconstitutional course, as I think it, of regarding a division under those circumstances and under all the conditions which then prevailed as constituting a vote of censure and requiring the resignation of the Government. I only go back to that interesting event because the right hon. Gentleman thought it worth while to make a passing reference to it. I think, even in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman, it had somewhat lost its interest, and he evidently, upon the general tenour of his speech, was more anxious to criticise, and, I think, rightly more anxious to criticise, the policy of the Government as it has been, and as he anticipates it will be, than to deal with what occurred three weeks ago in the division lobbies.

He has asked me Questions upon three separate subjects. He has asked me a series of questions about the Army, some Questions about the Redistribution Bill, and some Questions about the Colonial Conference. I will endeavour briefly to deal with the points that he has laid before the House under each of those separate heads. His first Question was about the Army. The text of those observations was in certain speeches made by Lord Roberts, one in the House of Lords, the other, I think, in the City. He attached great importance to the fact that Lord Roberts was not merely a great general, which everybody recognises him to be, not merely a great authority on military matters, which all allow him to be, but also a member of the Defence Committee; and the right hon. Gentleman, following the well-trodden path of his companions on that bench, has not been able to allude, even in a passing word, to the Defence Committee without a somewhat cheap sarcasm being levelled at myself as a person who affected to have an authority in strategic matters which his training did not fit him to possess. I do not feel much moved by those gibes. I have never made the smallest pretence to any special authority on strategic subjects. I am open to the charge levelled at me by the right hon. Gentleman that I take an interest in those subjects; and I only hope that my successor in office will, when he comes to be His Majesty's principal adviser, also take an interest in the Defence Committee, and that he also will attend its meetings. Is it too much to hope that he will not attend them as a mere perfunctory spectator of discussions in which he takes no part, but will also lay himself open to the charge, the severe charge, which, has been levelled against me, that he does hope to arrive by the aid of his expert advisers at some conclusions not useless to the Empire and to discuss some questions which have too long been allowed to sleep, not under this Government only, or chiefly, but under Governments of which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends have been members?

It is true that Lord Roberta is a member of that Committee. It is also true that on that Committee Lord Roberts has done, and is from week to week doing, admirable service. I do not remember a single occasion—I speak from memory—on which Lord Roberts has either felt or expressed a different opinion from that at which the majority of the Committee have arrived. But that Committee Lave not got under their charge, as I have said over and over again in this House, the questions of the organisation and discipline of the Army, and it would be in the highest degree inexpedient that they should have under their charge the organisation and discipline of the Army; that must rest primarily with the War Office; secondly, with the Government as a whole. When Lord Roberts speaks upon that subject he speaks with all the authority of a man who Iris himself an unparalleled military record behind him; he speaks also with the authority of a man who was, I think, himself Com-mander-in-Chief over the greater number of those years whose barrenness in military reform he now regrets. I would only add to that, that as regards the actual details of contemporary Army administration, I can see that Lord Roberts is probably very well informed, but he has no official cognisance of what has been done or is being done. He is not connected now in any official sense with the War Office. He speaks on these subjects, which are outside the purview of the Defence Committee, with the authority of a great soldier, with the authority of a man who has himself been in the highest office in the War Office. I do not know whether anything could add to the authority with which he speaks in these two capacities; at all events, he gains no additional authority from the fact that he is doing the admirable service on the Committee of Defence which I have already indicated to the House.

Without going into details on the criticism which Lord Roberts has passed on the Army, I agree with him about the officering difficulty both here and in India. I do not agree that the Army is in the same condition that it was in 1899. It has improved, in my opinion, upon the Army of 1899, just as the Army of 1899 improved on that of 1895.

MR. MCKENNA (Monmouthshire, N.)

Just in the same way.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I say so without either suggesting or desiring to suggest criticism upon those who were responsible in 1899 or 1895. With the progress of years and the increased knowledge, it would be unfortunate if no corresponding increase in efficiency were attained.

I think the next subject upon which the right hon. Gentleman asked me a series of Questions was the policy of the Government in respect of the redistribution of seats, and more particularly the course they meant to adopt in regard to any inquiry to be conducted during the recess which may lay the foundations of a Bill to be introduced next session. I think there is no difficulty in satisfying the right hon. Gentleman upon these heads. We propose to follow very closely the example set up by Mr. Gladstone in 1884. Mr. Gladstone, as the House knows, appointed a Committee in the early days of the recess. That Committee carried on investigations and made a confidential Report to the Government. They were then, with the addition of one or two members, turned into a Commission. The Commission held public inquiries, and the result of those investigations, both public and private, both confidential and not confidential, were embodied in a Bill and subsequently passed into law.

Mr. ASQUITH

By consent.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The Bill passed by consent. [Cries of "No," and "The Commission was appointed by consent."] Yes, but the Committee was not. That is really the important point. After all, the fact that the Bill passed by consent was an accident in the political situation. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite could not get their Reform Bill without a Redistribution Bill, and we could not get a Redistribution Bill without a Reform Bill. There were the elements of a compromise, which are absent at the present moment, as we do not propose to introduce a Reform Bill, and I doubt whether hon. Members opposite are more enthusiastic in that direction than we are ourselves. That circumstance does not alter the procedure we intend to adopt, nor doss it seem to me to have any bearing upon it whatever. We are proposing to appoint a Committee, as Mr. Gladstone appointed a Committee, which should have large freedom of action, to report to us confidentially, and we should then, either at a later stage, possibly, indeed, only just before, or even after the Bill had been introduced, appoint a Commission, though on that point I should like to reserve absolute liberty of action. There is no reason, so far as I know, why the Commission should receive statutory assent, and I think the best course to pursue will be that which enables the Government best to prepare their Bill, and which will best provide the House with an opportunity to judge whether that Bill is or is not founded upon reasonable principles and ought or ought not to be passed into law.

MR. ASQUITH

Will the Committee proceed upon the assumption that the abandoned Resolutions are to form the groundwork of the new Bill?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The view of the Government on that point is quite clear. I think the Resolutions should form the basis of any inquiry which the Committee makes. Of course, it does not follow at all that the Report of the Committee itself may not induce the Government in some respects to modify the Resolutions.

The right hon. Gentleman then went on to discuss the question of the Colonial Conference; and he asked me four Questions, three of which, at all events, I think have been categorically answered, and the fourth, if not categorically answered, the answer to which carries with it no new principle. The right hon. Gentleman first asked me whether, in respect of what is known in the phraseology of the fiscal controversy as the automatic conference, the invitations to that conference will be issued during the recess. I conceive, if Parliament meets at its usual time next year, there can be no reason, either of precedent or otherwise, why the Government should issue those invitations before the meeting of Parliament. The next Question the right hon. Gentleman asked me was whether India and the Crown Colonies were to be represented in this automatic conference. With regard to the Crown Colonies, let me say it has been held, and I think with some justice, that their proper representative at any conference would be the Colonial Secretary for the time being. As regards India, we shall of course not issue any invitations to India for the automatic conference. Then the right hon. Gentleman asked me two Questions which may be treated together. He asked me what would be the relations of this conference to the conference of which I spoke at Edinburgh, and which it would be the duty of His Majesty's Government to summon should we be returned to power at the next election. I have more than once said that the automatic conference cannot be a substitute for the conference which would be summoned if at the next election we were returned to office. At the same time, although that conference could not be a substitute for the conference we should summon after a successful general election, we do not propose so far as we are concerned to prevent the representatives of the conference discussing what matters they please. We think that no precedent would be worse than that of the mother country saying to the Colonies, "You may come here, but you must come fettered. There are some topics which we can allow you to discuss; there are other topics on which we must respectfully request you to hold your peace." No such principle will be laid down by us; no invitation couched in language so insulting will issue under our auspices from the Colonial Office.

I hope the right lion. Gentleman will see that, although I have answered the four Questions he put to me briefly, I have answered them completely, and there ought to be no doubt whatever as to what is the policy of His Majesty's Government with regard both to the automatic conference and the conference which is to succeed it, supposing what hon. Gentlemen opposite are pleased to term impossible should come to pass and we should be returned to power. As the right hon. Gentleman based the whole of his speech on the conviction that such a consummation was impossible, I do not know why he is so anxious about a contingency which could only occur if the impossible takes place. All through his speech not only was he of opinion that the public never would give a verdict in favour of the Government on which he has showered so many uncomplimentary epithets, but he also assumed that every Gentleman on this side shares to the full that opinion. But then, why bother about what is going to happen after we are returned to power? I cannot understand this morbid curiosity which shows itself on every occasion on the benches opposite about a contingency which they neither in public nor private admit to be even conceivable. I think that is curiosity gone mad. If it is so absolutely certain that that united Party is to return, with a united policy, and on the crest of a popular wave extending over England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, into power at the next general election, why trouble your heads with what the present holders of office would have done had something quite different occured? I think really some of the debates on this question might almost be abbreviated if hon. Gentlemen would consistently assume that the hypothesis to which they pin their whole credit as political prophets was finally accepted, and we were spared a catechism which only deals, on their own view, with the impossible.

As I am on my legs, and as all these Questions are being asked about what is to happen after the election, and what the present holders of office are going to do after that event, I should like to know if any speaker follows on that bench what they are going to do. It is quit an important question.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)

Is it in order?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

We shall be, according to their view, reduced to the comparatively humble rôle of requiring the Government to sit up until four o'clock in the morning over an uncontentious Bill.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

On a point of order, would it be in order for hon. Members on this side, following the Prime Minister, to go into the details of the Liberal policy in the event of their return to power.

*MR. SPEAKER

That was a rhetorical retort; it is conceivable that the salaries might be drawn by hon. Gentlemen on the other side.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon has, I think, very naturally interrupted me. I think his intervention was, if not justified on a strict point of order, at all events justified from the point of view of expediency as he sees it. I cannot imagine, if it were in order to put the hon. Member for Carnarvon through a cross-examination as to what he was going to do on the Education Act in Wales, and out of it, anything more embarrassing to the hon. Gentleman, and he was perfectly right to invoke the rules of the House to protect himself from so unpleasant a prospect. But I do not press that point. It is sufficient that I have asked the Question; it is sufficient that that Question is a very unpleasant one ["No",] and the obvious reluctance to deal with it is all the Answer that I require at this moment.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

It would prolong debate.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I admit that if each section of the Opposition were to give their views of what the constructive policy of their Party ought to be, the clock would have gone twice round its circle before we brought the debate to a conclusion, and when it was brought to a conclusion, I do not know in what condition the Opposition would be found.

The right hon. Gentleman is very indignant that a Government should retain office, which, as he says, has lost all authority not merely at home, but abroad, not merely in be mother country but in the Colonies. I do not agree with his diagnosis of the facts. I may say, incidentally, that I take a much more favourable view of hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite than is taken of them in foreign countries I have never been a pessimist about right hon. Gentlemen who sit upon that bench when they come to occupy this. I have no doubt they will rub along somehow. If they add neither to the glory or the stability of the country, at all events they will, I dare say, get out of a position into which they have rashly got without any fatal degree of discredit. I think well of them. But I can assure the House that my opinion of them is not universally shared. If you were to go through, the Chancellories of Europe and through the various colonies that make up the British Empire, you would find a, fear, which I hope and believe is groundless, but a genuine and great fear, lest in the ordinary mutations of Party government, this Treasury Bench should be occupied with other occupants than it has at present. If I shared the views of these ill-informed or half-informed persons, I should think very ill of the British Constitution, because under the British Constitution such mutations of Party are inevitable and necessary. They have always taken place at intervals, and they will always take place at intervals; and if the whole Empire has simply to depend on the efforts of one Party, of course it is a very serious matter. I do not go that length at all.

Of course, I think, what, indeed, is obvious, that right hon. Gentlemen opposite will have to eat a great many of their words when they come to deal with the actual facts of the case. I have to assume, and I do assume, that when instead of irresponsible critics they become responsible governors, a very different tone will pervade their speeches. I do not think that, with the exception of the right hon. Gentleman himself and the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, I have heard a single Member of the Opposition during the whole session make the sort of speech which I should have thought a wise man would have made if he felt that he might be responsible for public affairs within the next two years. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean did speak the other day like a man who felt the responsibility that may come to the Party to which he belongs. But how many others spoke in the same sense? Not one. They go on repeating the old Party parrot cries, things that a year or two ago brought down the cheers on the platform. That may be all very well when you see five years of Opposition before you. But if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite believe, as they profess to do, that the fruit is almost within their grasp; that it is ripe—some of them would say, perhaps, it is over-ripe — if they believe that, I am unable to understand how they carry on the sort of irresponsible campaign they do, both in this House and in the country. His Majesty's Government possess the confidence of this House. We do not think that while we possess the confidence of this House it can justly be charged against us that we lack authority to deal with home, foreign, or colonial affairs. I repudiate as utterly unconstitutional the doctrine laid down by the right hon. Gentleman. The Government of the day derives its authority from nothing but the majority of this House. That is a constitutional doctrine upon which the right lion. Gentleman himself has relied in the past, and I have no doubt that he will have to rely on it in the future; and it is upon that doctrine that I base myself on the present occasion.

*MR. VILLIERS (Brighton)

hoped that, as this was the first time he had ventured to address the House, there would be extended to him the same indulgence that was invariably extended to new Members on such occasions. He had refrained from addressing the House until now because he had always considered that a new Member, like a new boy in a public school, should be very slow to assert himself, and perhaps he would not have spoken even now but that he felt that he could not miss the opportunity which this debate afforded of making an earnest appeal to the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament in the autumn. He did not ask for an Answer that afternoon; but he did hope that the right hon. Gentleman would consider some of the words which he would venture to address to him. With regard to this House he had been more an outsider than an insider during the life of the present Parliament; he had therefore, perhaps, occupied a better position than those actually concerned in the work of the House from which to judge the ethics of the question. It was not a pleasant duty to tell anyone that he had outstayed his welcome and that his portmanteau was on the doorstep, but he had no alternative but to voice the protest made with such overwhelming force on the occasion of his own election. He gave the Prime Minister credit for the most patriotic intentions in remaining in office, but he thought, nevertheless, that the right hon. Gentleman entirely missed the situation. In fact, he had no hesitation in saying that the course the Prime Minister was adopting, well intentioned as he was sure it was, was doing much to lower the standard of honesty, efficiency, and mutual confidence between the governors and the governed, which should always distinguish the life of a Ministry.

In the first place, he maintained that the Prime Minister could not continue in office without breaking faith with the country. The present Government was returned almost entirely on the war issue. The country was given to understand by utterances of Ministers themselves that no contentious measures would be passed by means of the majority so obtained, and it naturally concluded that when South Africa was settled another appeal would be made. The evasion of that compact was producing in the country an intense resentment. The sense of wrong was spreading and deepening with every additional week of those unredeemed promises. It took a long time for a political conviction to reach the bed-rock of the electorate, but he had seen the effect of this conviction on the minds of hundreds of those who were not naturally political, who in taking up a newspaper looked at the cricket and football and every other news before they looked at Parliamentary debates; he had seen the effect on young men just formulating their political opinions and getting their first impressions of the standards of political life; and he had also seen old supporters of the Government at their wits end to give a satisfactory explanation of the conduct of Ministers, and wincing under the imputation of broken faith with the electorate.

And they knew what had been the effect in that House. This cooked policy had led to inefficiency on the one side and exasperation on the other, probably unparalleled in the history of Parliament. The ignoble position had been reached of Ministers truckling to their followers and fleeing from their foes; support was obtained anyhow and from anywhere; fruitful legislation was sacrificed to catch-vote measures; genuine debate was closured; votes of censure were met by mere technicalities; honest issues were evaded by reference to The "previous Question"; personalities were induced, insults pocketed, colleagues betrayed, and reputations lost. In a word, truth was throttled and artifice reigned supreme. Through all this the Prime Minister was, he believed, actuated by the highest motives. Though his action was sapping the "fountains of belief" in the country and reducing the House of Commons to a spectacle, he believed the right hon. Gentleman honestly thought that out of all this evil good would come. The Prime Minister feared to entrust the Empire to the Liberal Party, who, in his opinion, were a ragged and unravelled lot, without cohesion and without policy.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I did not use those expressions; I leave that sort of epithet to hon. Gentlemen opposite.

*MR VILLIERS

said the Prime Minister had inferred it, and as to the Liberals having no policy he could assure the Prime Minister that he was mistaken. "Honesty is the best policy." With regard to union, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would tell the House that he did not say a word just now about that matter. But "Justice is a great ally," and he could promise the Prime Minister that in a young Parliament there would be a number of men possessed of some ability and much determination, banded together in the cause of good government, which was the cause which the right hon. Gentleman himself had at heart. They would be prepared to preserve the continuity in foreign policy; they would be as devoted to economical administration, constitutional principles, and individual rights, as was the Prime Minister himself. They would have as great a horror of plunder and pillage as any he could possess. And if, on the other hand, the Prime Minister thought that by continuing in office be would save the Conservative Party from adopting projection, he could vouch for it that he might confidently leave that matter in the hands of the electorate. The country had shown no liking for protection, and what it did not like any batter was mystification. Dual utterances such as those the Prime Minister had delivered during the last two years on the fiscal question, it could not and would not understand. He would remind the Prime Minister, with his great classical knowledge, of a law which obtained among the ancients which required hermaphrodites to declare themselves, and to choose the sex to which they wished to belong. He thought that the political hermaphrodites of to-day might declare themselves with advantage. What they wanted was more sincerity and straight dealing. They had heard a great deal lately about the return to the simple life. They had it in furniture, art, and manners. Might he put in a plea for its extension to the domain of politics? Cromwell, Pitt, and Gladstone were all straightforward men, and their names were great in the political history of this country. He appealed again to the Prime Minister to put an end to this artificial situation. The advantages he might see in continuing were as nothing to the fundamental wrong of breaking faith with the nation. By so doing he was not considering the interests of his country, his Party, or himself. He who clung to office very often lost power, and he begged of him to take a straight course and thus earn the respect of his contemporaries, and enable the historian to secure for him a place in the temple of fame.

MAJOR SEELY (Isle of Wight)

moved that the Bill be lead a second time on that day three months. Having congratulated the hon. Member for Brighton on the eloquent speech he had made on his first appearance in the House, he said the Prime Minister had endeavoured to show that the Government legislation and the conduct of the business of the House, for which he was responsible, was not lacking in authority because he had a majority in the House. He was not prepared to dispute that at the moment. What he was concerned about was the lack of skill on the part of the First Lord of the Treasury with regard to national defences. Three years ago he brought before the House on this very occasion the deplorable state of the defences of the country, and the Prime Minister, in replying, expressed agreement with many of the statements he then made. It had been pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife, that since that date three years ago, according to the highest authority who could be found in regard to Army matters, the state of our defences as a whole was not only not better, but positively worse. In regard to the defences as a whole, what was then asked for was that a Committee of Defence should be appointed—a thinking department, as it was called by the noble Lord who then represented Woolwich. At last a Committee of Defence was appointed, but he was sorry to say that the proceedings of that Committee had made confusion worse confounded. It was perfectly possible that their private proceedings might be of advantage to future Governments, but in so far as the Committee of Defence had been a guiding force in the strategy of this country, it seemed to him that their influence had been deplorable, for, after all, what had it done? It had brought confusion, and it had spread uncertainty.

The right hon. Gentleman had given long and deep thought to this matter. He had no doubt at all that if the Prime Minister had been Dictator of the country, and if he had had a united Party to lead, he would have given wise and sound advice, and we would not have been put in the position in which we now stood. The Prime Minister had been obliged, in order to keep his Party together, and in order to keep two divergent schools of thought in one, to adopt the limited liability view of the British Empire—the most fatal view that was ever suggested from the Treasury Bench. The right hon. Gentleman had to reconcile two schools of thought, one represented by the present Secretary of State for War, who adopted the naval policy that the invasion of this country was, if not altogether impossible, at last impossible except in small numbers. On the other hand there was a large body of Volunteer officers who in secret conclave unburdened their souls with some freedom as to the danger of invasion. The surer and the wiser course was to assume that every danger was possible, and that if the people were willing to take precautions they should be encouraged to do so. The Prime Minister had to make a compromise, and his view was that invasion was possible, but not by a greater force than 70,000, and that they could be effectually opposed by a certain number of troops in this country. He asked the House to observe that this tallied with the views of the Secretary of State for War. That was what might be called the limited liability view of national service to be given by the citizens of this country.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said that the decision of the Committee of Defence was arrived at before the present holder of the office of Secretary of State for War had come into that office at all.

MAJOR SEELY

said he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his courteous interruption. It seemed to convey the suggestion that the view he was urging was not founded on fact. As a matter of fact, it did prove that the advice on which the Committee had arrived at their decision was that of the late Secretary of State for War, the present Secretary of State for India. At that very time the extreme naval school were not represented on the Committee of Defence, but when they were afterwards represented a conflict of opinion took place.

He could not conceive how any reasonable man who looked at the history of this country and other countries during the last few years, and even months, could seriously support the views of the Prime Minister. The whole history of the Far Eastern war tended to show that the theory that responsibility could be limited to a certain definite number of invaders was always the height of folly. It was on that rock that Russia split. Russia propounded precisely the same limited liability theory in regard to Japan which the Prime Minister had propounded as to the possibility of invasion of this country. They made statements as to the number of Japanese necessary for invasion, they used the same arguments as the Prime Minister as to the difficulties of transport, and they used the same arguments with regard to torpedo boats and ships at Port Arthur. After all, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India had reason now to congratulate himself that the views he upheld in this matter with pertinacity and determination—although some hon. Members differed from him as to the way of carrying them out—had been so fully justified by the events of this war. Disaster had followed disaster upon sea and land to the Russian arms.

He had made his protest against this limited liability view. It was hopeless for the authorities to talk about compulsory military service for national or Imperial defence in this country except in the hour of great national danger. All they could do was to take the people into their confidence and tell them that it was impossible to foresee the manifold dangers of war, but that one thing was certain—however numerous the number of men trained to arms, the country would always want more. No general in the field had ever had too many men, and no Prime Minister had ever had too many supporters. Therefore it was that, in this country more than in any other country—more than in Russia—this suggestion that our dangers were less than had been supposed was particularly to be avoided. He asked the Secretary for War to correct the impression that had gone abroad tending to sap the patriotic effort of the people that, after all, we had taken more trouble than was necessary in providing a vast array of men. He blamed the right hon. Gentleman for having introduced a state of confusion and uncertainty in all branches of the military forces. He noticed that the Secretary for War was not in his place, though he was not surprised at it. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he would not stand at that box unless his scheme was enforced. Why had the Secretary of State for War not come boldly forward with his schemes to enforce and defend them? and when the House looked back on the history of the past they had reason to regret the loss of a War Minister like the Secretary for India, who had the courage to state his views and to adhere to them. That was not the situation now. The Regular Army had been thrown into the melting-pot. They believed that the right hon. Gentleman's proposals for a dual Army would be disastrous, and that they must end in enlistment for short service only, thereby causing difficulties in the Indian Army. The right hon. Gentleman would not say whether or not he proposed to begin this disastrous experiment when Parliament had no opportunity of being able to veto the scheme. He maintained that the right hon. Gentleman's action was a highly unconstitutional proceeding, especially if he proceeded during the recess to make a fundamental change by establishing a home-service Regular Army without the previous sanction of Parliament.

That was not all. The Militia had also been placed under a sentence of death, and infinite harm had been caused by the action of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the Volunteer force. An order had been issued stating that the Volunteers should be medically examined for foreign service. Was there, he asked, any precedent in the Army for the issue of an order by the War Minister for which there was no legal sanction? He did not believe that there was any precedent, and the attempt by the right hon. Gentleman to establish it now had caused great concern to the force, and would cause grave injustice to it. He had made inquiry as to what had been the result of the right hon. Gentleman's illegal proceeding. In one corps of 508 men with which he was familiar only twenty-four men were returned as being unfit for foreign service, a fact which showed that there was a higher proportion of Volunteers available for foreign service than among the rank and file of the Regular Army. He suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that he should withdraw the obnoxious circular, and said that if the right hon. Gentleman were wise he would stop his perpetual attempt to upset the existing order of things in the Militia and Volunteers, which had served the country so well. The right hon. Gentleman should devote himself to the humble but more profitable work of using the weapons placed in his hands to the best advantage, he should attempt to improve the condition of the soldiers and officers, and should not embark on any policy that would not only undermine the patriotism of the Auxiliary Forces but the whole military spirit of the nation.

*MR. McCRAE (Edinburgh, E.),

in supporting the Amendment, said he thought after the second speech of Lord Roberts the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War ought to make some statement as to what his intentions were with regard to the Army and Volunteer forces during the Parliamentary recess. It was admitted on all hands that they had chaos at the War Office, and as he would have to criticise the right hon. Gentleman pretty severely he ought at once to say that there was one thing for which the right hon. Gentleman was to be commended. At least he had repaired the damage done to the Army by the action of his predecessor in introducing the three years enlistment system, which deprived this country of the necessary drafts for India. He had done so by the introduction of the nine years enlistment system by which they again hoped to provide the necessary drafts for India and the Colonies. But did the right hon. Gentleman, after having accomplished the purpose for which the nine years system of enlistment was introduced, intend it to remain as part of the permanent Army administration, or did he mean to proceed at once with the short-service system of two years enlistment which he put before the House on the 14th of July last? Or was this short-service system to follow the Army corps of his predecessor? He understood that the right hon. Gentleman was not to proceed further with the establishment of this short-service home-service Army, but that he was going to make an experiment at Lichfield. He did not know whether that was so or not, but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would lay all doubt upon that matter at rest.

The present Army administration was causing great dis-service to the Army itself. He had spoken to a great number of officers of the Line, and they were all of opinion that their position was untenable at the present time. The Volunteers had certainly been the victims of vivisection; they had been experimented on almost to the death, and he wished to know whether, in the coming months of the Parliamentary recess, the Volunteers were to have the same privileges which were to be accorded to the politicians— were they to have a close time? Might they rest assured that until Parliament met again there would at least be some stability with regard to that force. They had survived ridicule; they had been almost killed by the present Administration, and he wanted to put this straight Question to the right hon. Gentleman: What did the right hon. Gentleman wish the Volunteers to do? Did he wish them to be the home-service Army? If so, why did he impose conditions which could only apply to foreign service?

The circular which had been so much debated was an evidence of the administration of the War Office. They did not know their own minds. They issued an order unaware of what was to be the consequence of its issue. He was constrained to say that he thought the right hon. Gentleman had come to the verge of his political veracity in regard to this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman would take his mind back to the time when the attention of the House was first called to the order in this circular and compare the Answers given to Questions then with the Answer given by him yesterday, the right hon. Gentleman would at once see that there Was something that called for explanation. The Answers given on the 10th of July were certainly not in accordance with that given by the right hon. Gentleman yesterday. The Volunteers did not object to being brought to a high state of efficiency. That could only be limited to the conditions of employment in their ordinary occupations; but with regard to the tests the right hon. Gentleman wanted to impose on the Volunteers it was only by such a test that the right hon. Gentleman could get his way and reduce the present strength of the Volunteers, which was now 240,000, by 65.000. The right hon. Gentleman could only do that in one way and that was in this way.

To show how absurd the issue of that circular was he need only illustrate the case of the 32nd Brigade when it was training at Stobs. The men, having been engaged from 6.15 a.m. till noon were at a quarter-past eight at night called out for a route march. From 8.15 at night until 3.30 in the morning they marched fifteen miles, with short intervals for rest. At 3.30 they were placed in the line of battle without a rest and were engaged until six in the morning. Though they were under arms all the time there were no complaints and not more than half-a-dozen men fell out. The men underwent the test after two days in camp, and yet he believed that a great number of them would be rejected as unfit on the examination which was to take place according to the circular issued by the right hon. Gentleman. Did the House realise what that meant? A great many of these young men were under the age of nineteen years; they had not the physical equivalent of nineteen years of age, yet they were capable of undergoing all that. He did not believe they all had teeth which would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman, but that did not prevent them marching or enjoying a very good breakfast after it was all over. That was simply an illustration of the absurdity of the circular that was issued by the right hon. Gentleman. He did not think that the mere fact that the circular was not discussed at the meeting of which they had heard was to be taken as evidence that all the officers agreed with the circular. He had come across a good many officers within the last three weeks, and he had discovered only who supported the right hon. Gentleman, and that one had given himself away to the right hon. Gentleman one night at a Volunteer celebration after dinner. With that one exception, he did not know of an officer who approved of the policy of the right hon. Gentleman.

He believed the right hon. Gentleman had been very much handicapped in this matter. It was notorious that the members of the Army Council were at loggerheads, and that the War Office and the right hon. Gentleman were at loggerheads. The right hon. Gentleman had a scheme of Army reform, but he had not been allowed to carry out that scheme in its entirety. The sample that had been given to the House was a thing of mere threads and patches. There was only one course to be followed when the right hon. Gentleman came to loggerheads with the Army Council. The right hon. Gentleman should either have insisted on carrying his scheme en bloc, or have sent in his resignation. It would have been much better if the right hon. Gentleman had taken the latter step, and he regretted that he had not taken up that position. He also regretted that he had taken up this policy of continually nagging at the Army, the Volunteers, and the Militia. There was a great deal to be done if the right hon. Gentleman would only apply the same time and energy that he had applied to upsetting the Volunteer force in other directions. The right hon. Gentleman would have done a great deal of good if he had applied himself to perfecting a scheme of transport for the Volunteers. He (Mr. McCrae) felt he bad been hardly treated in this regard. He served on a Committee in 1902 which formulated a scheme of transport for the Volunteers, and the cost was put on the Estimates for 1903–4, yet nothing had been done. If the Volunteers were to be efficient they must have a complete system of transport. They had been crying out for it for many years, and nothing had been done. The right hon. Gentleman's attitude with regard to the Volunteers had been one of destructive criticism, instead of constructive policy. Both Lord Roberts and the right hon. Gentleman agreed that we ought to have a small Volunteer force, highly equipped and trained, but in his opinion that was altogether a wrong idea. What we wanted for this country was not only efficiency from a military standpoint, but that every young man capable of bearing arms should have an opportunity of going through a course of training. The right hon. Gentleman's policy had been the reverse. His policy had been to reduce the Volunteers to 180,000. The right hon. Gentleman should see that there was increased efficiency, but he should bear in mind also that he could not conscientiously take up that view, for he proposed to reduce the grant by £300,000 when he proposed the scheme for the reduction of the force to 180,000.

The Government had no consistent policy either with regard to the Army or the Volunteers. They had adopted all along a hand-to-mouth policy, not knowing what they were to do from day to day. They had been the sport of every wind that blew, and now the final stage had come, and he did not think they would be worried by the right hon. Gentlemen who sat on the Treasury Bench for many months longer. Was it, therefore, too much to ask that during that short period the House should be assured that neither the Army nor the Volunteers should be subjected to any further treatment of this very irritating kind. The First Lord of the Treasury had asked what the Liberal Party were going to do with regard to this policy. He could not speak except for himself, but he thought he voiced the views, if not of the Front Bench, at least for the private Members on that side of the House, when he said that the Liberal Party, when they came into power, would see that the Army was treated in a different way to that in which it had been treated during the last three years.

Amendment proposed— To leave out the word 'now' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months'."—(Major Seely.) Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

SIR JOHN COLOMB (Great Yarmouth)

said he had for a considerable time been moved by feelings of the greatest pessimism as to the Army, but he confessed that after what he heard he felt more gloomy than ever as to any real Army reform taking place. In his view the real difficulty in the way of dealing in a statesmanlike fashion with the defence of the Empire lay with Party politicians in that House. They had opposed the whole of Supply practically on the specific ground that they did not approve of the way in which the Army problem had been dealt with. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who opposed this Bill spoke very highly of Lord Roberts' views; the seconder said those opinions were wrong. He certainly thought when hon. Gentlemen came down to the House to speak against any scheme for the defence of the Empire they ought at least to agree. He, therefore, claimed he was justified, considering the gravity of the issue, in saying that the difficulties in the way of dealing with the problem of the defence of the Empire lay in that House.

He thought it would be as well if those who criticised took more trouble to study and had a better sense of responsibility. This was about the biggest problem that could be faced. The problem of the defence of the Empire was doubly difficult because it was a complex problem of naval power and military force. They had heard nothing about that. They had heard a great deal about whether a man was fit to go abroad, but they had heard nothing about the principle except from the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who was pleased to say, with regard to the Committee of Defence, that it only made confusion worse confounded. He had great respect for the sincerity of the hon. and gallant Member and thought when he was older and had studied this question more he would be a useful military Member of the House.

After the Peninsular War, for forty years this House and this country had practically no experience of war involving great naval operations. The only experience this country had had since Waterloo was the Crimea, where the moral effects of the combined fleets secured automatically unquestioned command of the sea. The Indian Mutiny and the war in South Africa did not involve naval operations of war. The series of military wars in Europe and America kept the mind of this House and the country in a purely military groove, till at last everybody supposed that the Army was an abstract question to be discussed by itself. Naval Estimates were reduced and nothing was heard of invasion except as a purely military question. Then came the war between Japan and China followed by the Spanish-American War, which showed distinctly, with regard to over-sea warfare, that large military operations over-sea could not be attempted without sea command. That, at once, brought the mind of the country towards the old principle and practice of this Empire, which was that our Navy was not merely our first line of defence, but that the command of the sea was essential to us for economic reasons. Such command necessarily guaranteed immunity from over-sea attack. Then the House realised that it could not discuss Army policy without relation to Navy questions, but to do so was transgressing the rules of debate. He did not know how many times during the last twenty years he had been called to order for attempting, to discuss the problem in that way. Out of this came a feeling in the House that it was a ridiculous thing, and a recognition that if the problem of the defence of the Empire was to be dealt with on common-sense lines there would have to be some expert body, responsible through Ministers to this House, whose duty it should be to grasp the problem presented by the Empire as a whole, and to lay down principles for the guidance of military policy based upon assertion of naval supremacy. Thus the Committee of Imperial Defence was appointed, and he regarded the appointment of that Committee as the greatest step ever taken towards economy and efficiency.

For fifty years there had been built up a military policy which ignored naval conditions and it was not to be expected that the Committee would produce a great change immediately. The absence of perspective or the sense of proportion in the mind of the hon. Member opposite was shown by the fact that the greater part of his speech was devoted to the Volunteer circular. The real military obligations of the country were not at home but over-sea. He denied that he belonged to the extreme naval school. He belonged to a school which looked to past history and the teaching of all wars in cases involving combined naval and military operations. He belonged to a school which, in view of the economic position of this country and the fact that our Empire was an oceanic Empire, held that our first principle must be the ability to assert and keep command of the sea, and when the hon. Member referred to the "extreme naval school" he was not talking of any body of men worthy of being called a school, because nobody who knew anything at all about the subject could ignore the fact that the Army was the necessary complement of the Navy. The fact of the Navy making these Islands secure from attack did not in itself secure the land frontiers of the Empire abroad. It was necessary for students of this problem to get rid of small ideas, and to fix their eyes on the British frontiers abroad, remembering that if only one of those frontiers were broken through the whole structure of Empire would come down like a pack of cards.

The real burden of Lord Roberts' speech was how were we going to discharge our military obligations over-sea. He was glad Lord Roberts had raised that question, because the matter would only be properly dealt with under the pressure of a sense of duty in the citizens at home and throughout the Empire. The Army itself had been brought up in a false school of thought as to its military obligations which were over-sea and not at home. The readiness with which generals rushed to the platform and declared this and that about invasion, quarrelling with the Government and with the Secretary of State, was one of the difficulties which we encountered in regard to Army reform. The time had come when the Ministry ought to show their teeth a little more in dealing with such persons. He thought that General Lyttelton, as Chief of the Army Council, should have received notice to quit when he made his first speech, and certainly when he made his second. And when a late Commander-in-Chief, a Field-Marshal on full pay drawing £5,000 a year and a member of the Defence Committee, covertly attacked the Government and the War Office at a meeting with the Lord Mayor in the chair, and committed a breach of every rule of military discipline, the Government ought to put their foot down. If the Army was to be reformed it must be done by a determination to stand no nonsense from these generals. Greatly as he admired Lord Roberts, he did not accept him as a great administrator. He had been some three years Commander-in-Chief and had done nothing to remedy evils of which he now complained. A great general in the field was seldom a good administrator in peace. When Lord Roberts came forward as a teacher in questions of military strategy and tactics he was entitled to be listened to with all respect, but when, while in receipt of full pay as a Field-Marshal, he came forward as an Imperial administrator and quarrelled with the Government, he was doing wrong and ought to be stopped. The difficulty in Parliament was Party politics. If General Lyttelton had been told to go, questions would have been raised night after night on Motions for the adjournment of the House.

He was afraid he had but feebly discharged what he felt was the obligation to look at this question from a broad point of view, but he was over-weighted with anxiety as to what awaited this Empire if we went on dealing with the Army in the present pettifogging spirit, and blocking all sincere efforts to carry out a reasonable programme of reform. Whilst he was entirely at one with the general principle of policy of his right hon. friend, which was absolutely consistent with the true conclusions of the Defence Committee, he did not agree with the methods or the manner on which he proceeded to their accomplishment. He should vote against the Amendment, believing it was calculated to do more harm than good. He desired to see the House rise to a higher patriotism and help to arrange methods by which the great military obligations of the Empire could be discharged in a way more worthy of our traditions.

*SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER (Wiltshire, Chippenham)

said the House had listened, as it would always listen, with interest and respect to the hon. and gallant Member opposite when he spoke in support of the policy which he had consistently enunciated with regard to Imperial defence. Speaking generally, it might be said that all who addressed themselves to this question were in general agreement with the main principles laid down by the hon. and gallant Member, namely, that the Navy must be paramount, and that our frontiers must be placed on a strategic basis. But as practical men they had to realise that it was impossible, in the future as in the past, to rely upon being able to maintain those frontiers, in the event of a foreign war, solely by resorting to the Regular Army. It was with that intention they urged upon the Secretary of State for War the paramount importance of maintaining a large and efficient Auxiliary Army in this country, not only for home defence, but sufficiently equipped and susceptible of rapid training to form what must be the only real reserve for a large Regular Army abroad.

The Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill afforded an opportunity for reviewing and commenting upon the legislation and administration of the Government during the session, and perhaps it would not be considered out of order if he ventured to make something in the nature of a personal explanation. For the first time after a service of thirteen years in that House, he found himself speaking from benches opposed to the Party with which he had been associated so many years. The House would readily understand that anyone who had been in the House of Commons for a period so long as that did not take that step, which was a grave one, with personal significance to oneself, without very careful reflection and due deliberation. Others of his hon. friends had found themselves obliged to do it before; he had not a doubt there might be found, as time proceeded, others who would follow in the wake hereafter. But he felt confident that all, whoever they might be, would only do it after weighing the cost and looking very carefully into what they were undertaking. Ever since the fiscal question had been before the public, he had found himself opposed to the Government upon that issue. But anyone opposed to a Party upon a single issue reflected for a long time before he severed himself from that Party. In fact, it might be said it was seldom found sufficient, even if the question was of great importance, to sever connection with the Party which one supported, upon a single issue.

For two years he had been placed in a position of independence, to judge questions upon their merits, free from Party predilections. He had received whips from neither Party, and he had tried to address his mind to all the subjects brought forward by the Government with an independent view and to decide upon them on an impartial basis. What had been the result? He had found himself invariably and instinctively opposed to nearly all the main questions put forward by the Gentlemen who sat upon the Treasury Bench, and under those circumstances he had come to the conclusion that he was no longer justified in sitting upon that side of the House with those hon. Members who continued to act with and support the present Government. He fully recognised that there was ample and distinguished precedent for him to have remained below the gangway on the other side. Many Members remembered distinguished Members sitting in the closest possible proximity to hon. Members with whom they were in the acutest antagonism. He had taken this course purely on political grounds, and he was not actuated by anything but the deepest admiration for the Prime Minister, who for many years had been his Leader. He realised, as everybody in that House must recognise, the high character of the right hon. Gentleman; that he possessed in an unique degree Parliamentary qualities unsurpassed by any one in that House. He had failed to escape, like every Member of the House, in whatever quarter he sat, that charm which the Prime Minister shed over the whole atmosphere of the House, and probably the chief regret he had, in severing himself from the Party with which he had acted in the years gone by, was that he would sever his political connection with the Prime Minister. But in saying this he could not, he ventured to assert, advance a stronger illustration of the deep-seated aversion that he held to the Prime Minister's policy during the last two years. Were his personal inclinations to lead him, he would go one way; but were his political convictions to lead him, he was driven in another. He would indeed have to ransack his brain to find any important question brought forward and passed in that House during the past two years by the Government to which he could give unstinted approval.

The Government had claimed for many years to be the Imperialist Party in this country. Many members of the Unionist Party had never ceased to instil into the minds of the electorate that that Party was really the only Party that could truly control and promote the interests of the Empire. He could remember a few years ago when domestic questions in that House were relegated to a place of secondary importance, and those who devoted their minds to such questions were looked upon as objects for pity, as men possessed of minds encumbered by parochial ideas. He was glad to see that opinion was to-day less prevalent. There might be many contributory causes, into which he would not enter. In 1900, he, with the rest of the Unionist Party—

*MR. SPEAKER

The events of 1900 are rather remote from the Appropriation Bill of 1905.

*SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER

said he would make only the barest allusion to them in order to establish his point. In 1900 the Unionist Party was returned with a perfectly clear mandate—to terminate the war in South Africa and reform the War Office and reorganise our Army organisation. No Government set out with more favourable conditions for the realisation of that object. They had a great Parliamentary majority, the Members of which vied one with another in their anxiety to see that object realised; the country was ripe for drastic changes in the Army system, and was prepared to exercise every kind of self-denial to bring them about. Five years had passed away, and he ventured to say that the last condition of the Army to-day was worse than the condition five years ago. He did not say that everything should be done in five years, but they did expect that something should be done in that period. Was there any Minister on the Treasury Bench, was there any general in the British Army, who could accurately and clearly define to-day the Army policy of His Majesty's Government? It was as difficult to define the Army policy of the Government, after all these changes and shifts, as it was to define the fiscal policy of the Government.

What they wanted to know first of all was whether, according to the Government, this country required an Army for home defence. The Secretary of State for India, when Secretary of State for War, had told them that they required a large Army. Now they were told in more recent speeches that an Army for home defence was practically not a necessity in the general military organisation of the country. Could they feel any reliance that the present period of service in the Army was to be continued permanently in the future? There had been many changes. They had long service, then they reverted to short service, and now they had reverted to long service again. These changes meant great loss to the strength and efficiency of the Army. He would ask whether we were to have in future any real established scheme for the employment of men whose time had expired in the Army. He believed that this was one of the most important questions not only of Army reform but of social reform. If we continued the present system of voluntary enlistment, and if a man was able to show a proper record at the end of his term of service, there should be ensured to him, without let or hindrance, some settled and respectable employment Questions had often been asked on this subject, but nothing had been done. What was to happen to the Volunteers? These were vital and urgent questions, and it appeared to him that the very existence of the Government depended on their carrying out their duties in regard to them. Lord Roberts, the late Commander-in-Chief, had said that the Army was no better prepared for war than it was before the South African War.

What was the cause of this state of affairs? In his judgment it was because the fiscal question caused the Unionist Party to be divided from top to bottom. In order to keep in office the Prime Minister was obliged to trim his sails to catch both winds. After two years of this confusion and indecision was not the continuance of the present Government in office a greater injury to the State than would be its immediate extinction? The baneful influence of this fiscal question was to be traced in every work and act of the Government. What was the conclusion to which he was obliged to come in the face of all this? The conclusion he had come to — the conclusion at which the overwhelming majority of the people had arrived—was that the Government must be brought to an end as quickly as possible. That was the reason why he could not any longer remain an object of negation on the other side of the House, and why he had determined to work with those who now sat around him to bring to a speedy conclusion a condition of things which impaired the dignity and efficiency of the House and was fatal to the best interests of the country.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FOESTER,) Belfast, W.

said he was not surprised at the present attitude of the hon. Member for the Chippenham Division. It was a considerable time since the Government had had the advantage of the support of the hon. Member. But he thought the hon. Member took an unnecessarily gloomy view of the position of the Government in Army matters. The hon. Member had mis-quoted Lord Roberts, He represented Lord Roberts as having said that the Army was worse now than it had been five years ago. Lord Roberts said something very different.

*SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER

He said something very like it.

MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

What Lord Roberts said was that he did not believe the Army was inefficient, that on the contrary he agreed with Sir John French that it was better trained and more efficient than it had been before the war. "What he meant," said Lord Roberts "was the unpreparedness of the Army force generally." There was no issue between Lord Roberts and himself on that point. If there was any man who had urged in season and out of season that the Army as at present organised was not prepared for the task which it had to discharge he supposed it was himself. He had had a lecture from the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, who told them that the one duty of this Government ought to be, and that the primary duty of the next Government would be, to do nothing—to let matters stand.

*MR. McCRAE

I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he is misrepresenting and mis-quoting me. I accused the right hon. Gentleman of a destructive as against a constructive policy. I hoped that there would be a constructive policy, and that we should not worry the Army or Volunteers.

MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

said he took a note of what the hon. Member said. He said that the best policy was to leave things alone.

*MR. McCRAE

No.

MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER

said he was glad that they were agreed on this. He was convinced that whatever Party was in power they would find that the policy of leaving things alone was not possible; that the organisation of the Army in its every branch required change to meet the great and ever-growing needs of the country.

The hon. Member for East Edinburgh had said that in the Auxiliary Forces the country had got the only reserve for the Army on service abroad. He admitted that that was a fair but general statement. He believed an Army system could be framed which would give a very large reserve, without having to depend exclusively, or even mainly, on the Auxiliary Forces. At the same time he admitted that the country must rely on the Auxiliary Forces for reinforcements for the Army over-sea in time of war. But what was the inevitable conclusion which followed from that? It was that the Auxiliary Forces must be kept in a state of efficiency which would enable them to discharge the duty that was cast upon them in that respect. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh had quite unintentionally travestied a good many of his views with regard to that branch of the subject. He put the question to the House: Was the Volunteer force efficient now? All the evidence was that it was not so efficient as modern necessities required. He cherished the hope that the Volunteer force might, when the demand was made upon them, be capable of satisfying that demand.

There were three courses open. The first was whether they could largely increase the Army Estimates for the purpose of giving to the Volunteers that which they did not now possess; the second was to leave things exactly as they were, in which case they would be leaving the Volunteers in a state which they believed to be unsatisfactory; and the third was whether, without making a large addition to the Army Estimates, they could give them that which they ought to have in the interests of efficiency. He eliminated the first of those alternatives because they were told the Army Estimates were already too high. The policy of leaving things as they were was an alternative which he for one would never accept. The third was the course which he suggested and which he believed the Volunteers generally were most ready to accept themselves.

As to the recent circular, he appealed to common sense as to whether it was not an ordinary reasonable document issued in discharge of the obvious duties of the War Office. [Cries of "No."] They were all agreed that a great number of Volunteers would serve abroad, [Some HON. MEMBERS: No.], and, what was more, a great number ought to serve abroad. Experience had taught them that no troops could serve abroad in tropical countries, where our Army had so often to serve, unless they complied with certain conditions. Were they to disregard the experience of every nation, including our own, and make no inquiry as to whether the men who were willing to serve were fit to serve? Were they to wait until the pressure of war came to ascertain what was the force with which we could make war? The War Office imposed no conditions on the Volunteers at all—none. They simply issued an order to commanding officers to furnish them with certain information which they did not possess, which they ought to have, and which he was confident the Volunteers were only too anxious to afford. It might be there were individuals or corps which did not desire to submit to the medical examination, which was the best way of obtaining this information. He believed there were very few of them. From every part of the country he had got the same reply, and he found that commanding officers among the best corps were furnishing the War Office with this information. They were having no difficulty about it. With regard to corps which might be unwilling, the position was that the Department did not know to what extent they could help them in time of war.

It was alleged that there were signs of discouragement and a falling off in recruiting. Were there such signs? There were difficulties which must be overcome, but he could not see how these difficulties were to be overcome by disseminating a spirit of despair. In the Regular Army last week they took more recruits than in the corresponding week last year. Recruiting for the Militia was going up. The Volunteers were increased by 2,000 men. Volunteer camping was in excess of what it had ever been. The demand for commissions in the Army was larger than it was before, though it was true there had been a falling off in one branch of the Army owing to special conditions which had no relation to the rest of the Army. He therefore asked the House not to believe that discouragement existed; and, in any case, even if it did, it would not help them to disseminate a spirit of discouragement and despair which facts did not warrant. He still believed that the principles which he had laid before the House were the only principles upon which the problem of the Army could be dealt with.

On the general principle he was confident that the moment any Party came to look at the problem face to face they would follow step by step along the lines which he had already proposed. Hon. Members talked about a return to the Cardwell system, but that system would not give them the Reserve they desired. He admitted the difficulties of the question and the slow rate of satisfactory progress. Lord Roberts gave one not unilluminating reason for some part of the delay. He told them very frankly that he was responsible for the reduction of the three years system of recruiting. What were they doing now? They were taking exceptional measures to relieve the Army from the difficulty in which it was placed by that three years system. He could wish that Lord Roberts had been able to give them his counsel in another form and in another way. No one would accuse him of being wanting in admiration and respect for that great soldier, but he had for so many years felt that the Committee of Defence was an absolutely essential part of the equipment of this country, and what this country had lost by the non-existence of such a body, he had been able to see even how much good might be done by such a body still in its infancy, that he could not help regretting that counsels so weighty, coming from an officer of so much distinction, were not placed before them in another way.

It might be that this would be the last time he should have the opportunity of meeting hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, in conflict. It might be that next year the rôles being filled by hon. Members opposite and the Government would be reversed; but having had some experience in the administration of the Army, he would say that hon. Members would certainly never find in him a too hasty critic of any policy they might desire to adopt. His belief was that the evils which beset our Army system were far deeper than many of the references made to it would seem to imply. He thought that he was expressing a view which was coming more and more into favour, cutside the House at least, that questions of Army administration must be treated to a far greater extent than now us being non-Party and non-political in their character, so that they might be enabled with advantage to take counsel between the two Parties in the State in order to see whether the problem could not be solved on a basis satisfactory to all. In the meantime he claimed that the administration of the Army was not open to the charges brought against it. In dealing with the Regular Army, the Militia, and the Volunteers, he disclaimed any desire to act otherwise than to fit each branch of the service for the varied rôle for which each existed. He had not uttered a word of criticism against any branch of the Army except when he believed it to be unfitted for its work. Though he had said many things about the Volunteers, he had not said a word which could justify any hon. Member in looking upon him as being otherwise than an admirer of this great force. He knew the splendid material of which the force was composed, and was conscious of the zeal which animated it. He had longed to see it made more efficient, and he believed that when hon. Gentlemen opposite came to deal with the problem they would do the same thing for the Volunteers as he wanted to do for them now. In this hope and belief he appealed to the House with some confidence to support the Government in this matter.

MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)

said he thought the right hon. Gentleman would not deny that the circular he had issued had caused not only irritation and disquiet, but that it was universally acknowledged to be an unfortunate step towards that development of the Volunteer force which the right hon. Gentleman desired, and which everybody ought to desire who knew what an important force it was. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that whoever might address himself to this question in the future would be obliged to come to the same conclusion as those to which he had arrived, and that anyone who desired to reform the Army would have to follow the lines which the right hon. Gentleman had laid down. Were the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues following those lines? Had he convinced them that this policy was the only one which could be followed? Because, if so, why had there not been more progress made?

The right hon. Gentleman did not appear to give an effective Answer to the very valuable criticism addressed to the House by his hon. friend the Member for Edinburgh, nor did he deal with the criticism of Lord Roberts. The case of Lord Roberts was that six years after the outbreak of war in South Africa this country was no better prepared for war than it was then. That was the gravamen of the whole matter. The one consolation they were told to draw from the war was that, at any rate, they were never to be in a similar plight; yet Lord Roberts told them after all these years, after all these schemes of Army Corps and short service by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that they were not better prepared, but rather worse, than when the war started. The First Lord of the Treasury, in answer to those criticisms, said that Lord Roberts was not necessarily conversant with the state of the Army because he was a member of the Defence Committee. Lord Roberts, up to a recent period, was the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. As his colleagues on the Defence Committee he had the First Lord of the Treasury, who was the President, and the most important members of the Committee were the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War. He asked, therefore, how was it possible that a member of the Defence Committee could not be conversant with the state of the Army when he had such men for his colleagues, and, further, how could the Defence Committee address itself to the question of the defence of the Empire unless it was conversant with the state of the Army? How could the Imperial Defence Committee deal with the question of the North-West Frontier of India unless it knew everything in the mind of the Secretary of State for War? The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War had done nothing to remove the gravity of, or allay the anxiety caused by, the statement of Lord Roberts. Lord Roberts was the best witness they had as to the state of the Army, and at present his statement stood unanswered, and much would have to be done before they could accept the Government's point of view upon that subject.

On the subject of Redistribution, the Prime Minister had told the House that he would follow the precedent of Mr. Gladstone in 1884. But in 1884 an agreement was arrived at between both sides of the House as to the principles on which the inquiry should proceed, and a Committee was appointed to draw up a scheme on the principles arrived at by both sides of the House. Supposing that the Commission drafted a scheme on the lines indicated by the Prime Minister, and Parliament, made changes in it subsequently, which made it impossible to carry it through in the form in which it was brought in, any part of the scheme taken out would render the rest of the scheme impracticable because it was brought in as a whole, so that the House would be in this position, that it must either accept the scheme as proposed by the Prime Minister, in which case it lost its freedom, or it must reject the scheme, with the result that another Boundary Commission must be appointed and a new scheme drawn out, with the result that the settlement would be postponed for another year.

On the subject of the Colonial Conference, he contended that the Colonies ought to know beforehand what the policy of this country was as to preferential duties. It was not very candid or courteous to allow these people to come here with instructions, perhaps, to open the subject, and in some cases to propose or formulate a proposal —it was not fair to allow them to come here and find when they arrived that those proposals would be disapproved of by the people of this country. If the opinion of this country was once known, the Colonies would be in the position in which they ought to be, and be possessed of the questions which would really be allowed to come before the conference for discussion.

He would like to say a few words upon another topic which was forcibly brought to their minds by the position in which the House now stood when it was going to vote money to carry on the administration of the country for the next six months. He wished to draw the attention of the House to the neglect by Ministers of those minor measures of legislation which were so essential to the welfare of the people of this country. Some years ago the power of private Members for legislation was practically taken away, and for the useful unpretentious measures of which the House had thus been deprived the Government had not provided an substitute. Commissions and Committees reported, and no action was taken on their recommendations.

*MR. SPEAKER

said that he did not see how these matters were relevant to the Bill before the House.

MR. BRYCE

said that the failure of the House to respond to the demands of the country proved that Parliament had become an impotent body. That was due, to some extent at least, to the fact that the House of Commons and the Government had lost the moral authority which they ought to enjoy. The love of the House for the Government had grown cold, and had recently required rather exceptional measures of heating. But the real source of the authority of the House was to be found in the confidence of the people; and the Prime Minister was not on constitutional ground when he said that the confidence of the House, without the confidence of the people behind it, was enough. Without that confidence the House became so many persons—a body without a soul.

The British Constitution was peculiar in leaving more than any other Constitution did to the influence of good sense and tradition and respect for usage. Our Constitution was free and flexible and remarkable in the amount of liberty and discretion which it gave in the confidence that it would not be abused. If those traditions were disregarded and the understandings of the Constitution transgressed, the greatest possible injury was done to the Constitution itself. If the powers demitted to Ministers and Parliament in the trust that they would not be abused were, in fact, abused or strained, the system must necessarily break down. Every deviation from the traditions and precedents established by the wisdom of past times became a precedent for the future, and was likely to be pushed still further by those who had to follow. Every violation of the spirit of the Constitution was likely to lead to further violations, and it would be impossible to go on with the Constitution as it had been worked hitherto. If the principle that Ministers must enjoy the confidence of the country was neglected, there would have to be some device for shortening the term of Parliaments, or some plan such as the rejerendum adopted, to ensure, that the Legislature were representing the will of the people. Most Members would be very unwilling to contemplate such changes as those, but if the Constitution was to be subjected to the unprecedented strain which it had borne during the last two years such proposals would have to be expected. The country had grown very impatient with the present state of things; he doubted whether the Prime Minister realised the indignation, not to say disgust, with which the nation viewed the present position. No one had more personal regard than he for the First Lord, or would be more unwilling to make any severe criticisms on his political methods, but whatever the right hon. Gentleman's motives had been, the nation was being driven to the conclusion that he was thinking more of his Party than of the interests of the country, and that both Parliament and the Constitution were suffering greatly from the methods which had been adopted during the last few months. The Opposition held, therefore, that the time had long since come when the people should be allowed to express their opinion upon these issues, and to empower a new Parliament to deal with problems which the present Parliament was obviously unfitted to solve.

Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

called attention to an act which he regarded as a great administrative misfeasance, viz., the appointment of General Sir Forestier-Walker to the Military Governorship of Gibraltar. Although the Secretary of State for War was the official agent, the act must be impugned as the deed of the Government itself, because, while the appointment came within the purview of the patronage of the Secretary of State, it was well known that the right hon. Gentleman would not make it without the sanction of the Government as a whole. Personally, he had no feeling whatever against General Walker, but during the whole of his Parliamentary life he had always protested against any connection between officials and Government contracts. Such cases were not likely to occur in the future for the simple reason that with the exit of the present Administration the close connection between Ministers of the Crown and company directorates would cease, and never again would the country see an Administration the members of which divided amongst them no fewer than seventy-one directorships, and who, therefore, had difficulty in seeing where public interest ended and private interest began.

General Walker was appointed to the command of the Cape on the recall of General Butler, and was there for about two years, during which period there was a contract known as the "Cold Storage Contract" out of which the company were said to have realised no less than £6,000,000 sterling. Meat brought to the Cape at a total cost of 3d. or 3½d. per pound was sold to the Government for 11d. General Walker at this time was in command of the lines of communication, having under him the officers who passed these contracts, and he could have made things very unpleasant if the cold storage contract had not gone smoothly. The command at the Cape was generally for a term of five years, but in 1902 General Walker came home. The first thing the public heard was that he had shares, obtained after his relinquishment of the command, in the Cold Storage Company —£100 in his own name and £200 jointly —and then that the Cold Storage Company was to be succeeded by the Australasian and South African Storage Company. In the Westminster Gazette of March 1st, 1902, it was announced that General Walker was to be a director of the new company, and was bringing to it his shares from the vendor company. The new company was the notorious concern about which the Army Stores Commission would have something to say. Now, of all persons in the world, Sir Forestier-Walker was seat to Gibraltar, where in almost every step he took he must deal with contracts or stores. Without impugning in the least General Walker's good faith and honour as a military man, he submitted that, in view of all the circumstances, the appointment was not one that ought to have been made.

Passing to another subject, he traversed entirely the statement of the Prime Minister that, having a majority of the House of Commons, he was constitutionally in power. A Ministry might be strong in the confidence of the House of Commons when the House of Commons reflected the mind and wishes of the people of the country, but when it ceased to reflect those sentiments it was no longer the House of Commons. The House of Commons had no power at all, except so far as it represented the voice of the people, and the Prime Minister had no right to speak of the support of his majority when seventy-eight Members of that majority had declared that they would never face their constituents again, and had no more legislative authority than the merest stranger in the lobby. If there was one man in history upon whom he looked with abhorrence it was Oliver Cromwell, but if he were there he would put a stop to the Government and all their works, and, great as was his abhorrence of that personage, he would willingly bring the Protector up or down for that sole purpose.

MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.)

called attention to the treatment by the Treasury and the Irish National Board of the Irish language in the national schools of Ireland. They had been trying in that House to get from the Chief Secretary the Minutes of the meetings held by the National Board at which it was decided to withdraw payment for the Irish language as an extra subject in the national schools. They had also tried, without success, to get the right hon. Gentleman to lay on the Table of the House the correspondence which had passed between the Treasury and the National Board with regard to the subject. He did not know why the Chief Secretary should be so much afraid to lay the correspondence on the Table of the House. There was no need for secrecy in the matter if neither body had done anything dishonourable He and his friends felt that there was something which these men were afraid to disclose to the light of day. In the last debate, on the Education Estimates they were told that the Treasury had decided to withdraw the payment for Irish as an extra subject, and that the National Board, which was supposed to represent Irish interests in matters of education, had unanimously agreed to that decision on the part of the Treasury. Every Irishman who was interested in the educational development of the people felt that the language movement of the last ten years had been one tending to their intellectual advancement. The peasants were now taking an interest in the education of their children, such as had not been known in the country for a century. He would impress on the House that Protestants and Catholics, the educated classes of the country, men from Trinity College with the highest degrees the college could confer, were enthusiastically supporting the movement which had for its object the propagation and extension of the Irish language.

MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)

said he did not think the hon. Gentleman was right in saying that the Protestants were supporting the movement.

MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL

said the hon. Member had a perfect right to hold his own opinion on that matter. He was stating an actual fact, and he had no desire to treat the subject controversially. He was proud to say that members of all classes and creeds felt that this movement had for its object the intellectual uplifting of the country. For ten years the movement had been going on, and that House and the National Board had consistently opposed all advance towards the study of the Irish language. That was rather a sad state of affairs. If the body of Irish thought which hid grown up from North to South, independent of creed, Protestant or Catholic, was going to continue, then no National Board, no Chief Secretary would deny to the Irish people the right to know their own language. There was no crime in knowledge, or in the possession of the truth.

He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary what had been exactly the condition of affairs during the last ten years, during which the Irish language had been taught in the Irish national schools as an extra subject. The teachers had been paid 10s. for each pupil who had passed the examination at the end of the year. Gradually from 1893 to the present day the number of boys and girls taught the Irfsh language in these schools had increased from 2,000 to 100,000. But the Treasury were rather looking with disfavour on the Irish language as compared with French and Latin. The Treasury suddenly discovered that last year a sum of £20,000 had been paid to the teachers for teaching the Irish language, and they asked the Board of National Education in Ireland what was the meaning of all this, as too much money was being spent in teaching the Irish language. The Board of National Education meekly and quietly submitted, and said that after 1906 the Irish language should no longer be taught in Irish schools to Irish boys and girls except under certain special conditions. He, himself, had been convinced that the time had come when the Irish language should not be taught as an extra subject. He thought that it should not be taught at the end of the school day, but as part of the ordinary subjects and tuition throughout the day.

He had endeavoured to find out from the Chief Secretary and from the National Board whether they had made provision that the Irish language should be taught in the ordinary school hours, but the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had never been able to answer that Question. He did not in the slightest degree suggest that the Irish language should be taken out of the category of extra subjects, provided that it was properly taught to Irish boys and girls within the ordinary school hours. What he wanted was that the Irish language should be taught as an ordinary subject in ordinary school hours. Why should the Treasury have a fear of that? When he asked the Chief Secretary a Question on that subject, the right hon. Gentleman referred him to Rule 123 (b) which stated that all extra subjects might be taught, provided they did not interfere with or impair the teaching of the ordinary school subjects. But if the ordinary school subjects were not taught with efficiency within the ordinary school hours, how could Irish be taught at all? That affected the position of the teachers, who had a long and difficult programme to carry out. Under these conditions there was not the slightest chance of their taking up the subject of teaching the Irish language out of school hours.

He felt that this was an indirect attempt to stifle the study of the language of his own country. Why should the Treasury grumble at the payment of the paltry sum of £20,000 for the teaching of the Irish language? Ireland was a country where education had been blocked, and they were fifty years behind any modern country. They were denied a quarter of a million per annum less than was given to Scotland and England, and at the same time they were grudged a paltry sum of £20,000 which was doing the best work in the country. He and his friends felt a keen interest in the matter, and it was then determination that no effort on the part of the National Board or the Treasury should block a movement which had done so much for Ireland. He trusted the Chief Secretary would be able to say that it was not a dodge on the part of the Treasury to grab any more money, or a dodge on the part of the National Board to turn aside a great movement which was capable of uplifting the country educational.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG,) Bristol, S.

said the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had asked him if the Minutes which had passed between the National Board, the Government and the Treasury with regard to the teaching of Irish would be laid on the Table. He had repeatedly answered that Question. Those Minutes were of the ordinary confidential character of Minutes which passed between two Departments, and they could not, of course, be laid on the Table. He did not think the hon. Member had fairly described the attitude of the National Board or the Treasury in connection with the fees for the teaching of Irish. It was suggested that the Treasury desired to grab £14,000 which would have been paid for the teaching of extra subjects in school hours, and that such action would destroy the teaching of Irish in the national schools. The hon. Member had rightly told the House what were the two rules of the National Board which governed the subject. The first was one which enabled Irish to be taught in those districts which were Irish-speaking, and the second was one which enabled Irish to be taught as an ordinary subject, provided there was no injury done to the general curriculum of the school. The hon. Gentleman had said that by the abolition of the fees the whole teaching of Irish would disappear. The extra subjects were only taught under the special fee system for a few half-hours in the course of forty weeks, and it Irish was so much valued as a subject of education, and people were so anxious to learn it, surely it was obvious that a minimum number of half-hours outside school hours would not be sufficient. It was only as a part of the ordinary curriculum that it could be taught with success.

MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL

asked if the right hon. Gentleman meant to suggest that the treatment of English in the same way would be tolerated.

MR. WALTER LONG

said he did not think the hon. Gentleman could seriously ask him to consider the two languages on the same footing. There were a certain number of schools where the children desired to learn Irish. They could learn it in ordinary school hours under precisely the same system as obtained in Scotland and Wales. In Scotland there were more children above three years of age speaking Gaelic than in Ireland. In England there was no money voted in extra grants, neither was there in Wales. The National Board had before them a proposition that the extra fees, which had grown from £2,000 to £14,000, should be terminated in the course of another year, and they passed a resolution consenting to the abolition of fees for extra subjects on the understanding that the money should not be absorbed by the Treasury but should be placed at the disposal of the National Board for the provision of additional instructresses considered necessary in the smaller schools. That was now under discussion between the National Board, the Government and the Treasury. It could not, therefore, be said that the teaching of Irish had been destroyed or that the Treasury had acted in a parsimonious spirit. Irish was taught in the training colleges, and there was full opportunity for those who desired to do so to learn it.

MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)

said he wished to protest against the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman had dealt with the subject. He evidently regarded it as quite a trivial matter, but he would find before he had been Chief Secretary much longer that it was serious, and that his action would be resented by the whole people of Ireland. The Treasury bad interfered and sent directions to the National Board telling them that money should no longer be spent in teaching Irish, and the National Board had meekly acquiesced. The whole proceedings of the National Board were on a wrong basis. It was perfectly monstrous that they should conduct their business in secret. They ought to have a straight Answer to the Question as to who initiated the discussion with regard to the fees.

MR. WALTER LONG

The Treasury suggested the revision of the system.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

said that, in his view, it was a most serious matter that the Treasury should have so interfered. He had risen to protest against the cavalier way in which the Chief Secretary had endeavoured to nut the matter on one side. His action was most offensive. There was no subject about which there was stronger feeling than that of the teaching of Irish in the schools, and for the right hon. Gentleman to get up without waiting for anybody to speak on

it and to endeavour to close the discussion by two or three words was a proceeding he regarded, and which would be legarded in Ireland, as offensive. The movement for the revival of the national language was one that had taken deep root, and if the right hon. Gentleman entered into a contest with it he would come off second best. He and his colleagues were deeply interested in the movement and would take every opportunity of pressing it on the Government.

And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to interrupt the Business.

Whereupon Mr. A. J. BALFOUR rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

MR. JOHN REDMOND

That is a most uncalled for and offensive action.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

, on a point of order, asked whether, the clock having actually struck half-past seven, it was competent for the closure to be moved.

*MR. SPEAKER

It is competent to move it on the interruption of business.

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes, 197; Noes, 87. (Division List No. 356.)

AYES
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel Brotherton, Edward Allen Crossley, RW. Hon. Sir Savile
Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden Bull, William James Davenport, William Bromley-
Anson, Sir William Reynell Burdett-Coutts, W. Davies, SirHoratioD.(Chatham
Arkwright, John Stanhope Butcher, John George Dewar, SirT.R.(TowerHamlets
Arnold-Forster, Rt.Hn.HughO Campbell, Rt.Hn.J.A.(Glasgow Dickson, Charles Scott
Arrol, Sir William Campbell, J.H.M.(DublinUniv. Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Dixon-Hartland,SirFred.Dixon
Balcarres, Lord Caultey, Henry Strother Doughty, Sir George
Balfour, Rt.Hon.A.J.(Manch'r Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-
Balfour, RtHnGeraldW.(Leeds Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Doxford, Sir WilliamTheodore
Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch. Chamberlain, RtHn.J.A.(Wore Duke, Henry Edward
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton Dyke, Rt.Hon.SirWilliamHart
Banner, JohnS. Harmood- Chapman, Edward Faber, George Denison (York
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin Clare, Octavius Leigh Fellowes, RtHnAilwynEdward
Bentinck, Lord Henry C. Glive, Capt. Percy, A. Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.
Bigwood, James Coghill, Douglas Harry Finay,Rt HnSirR.B.(Inv'rn'ss
Bill, Charles Cohen, Benjamin Louis Fisher, William Hayes
Blundell, Colonel Henry Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse Fitzroy, Hon.Edward Algernon
Bond, Edward Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R. Flannery, Sir Fortescue
Brassey, Albert Compton, Lord Alwyne Flower, Sir Ernest
Forster, Henry William Lyttelton.Rt.Hon. Alfred Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)
Gardner, Ernest Macdona, John Cumming Rolleston, Sir John F. L.
Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. Maclver, David (Liverpool) Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye
Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) Maconochie. A. W. Round, Rt. Hon. James
Gore, Hon. S. F. (Ormsby) M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) Rutherford, John (Lancashire)
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-
Goschen, Hon. George Joachim Marks. Harry Hananel Sadler, Col. Sir Samuel Alex.
Goulding, Edward Alfred Martin, Richard Biddulph Saunderson, Rt.Hn.Col.Edw.J.
Greene, HenryD.(Shrewsbury) Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W.F. Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Grenfell, William Henry Maxwell, W.J.H(Dumfriesshire Sharpe, William Edward T.
Gretton, John Melville, BeresfordValentine Skewes-Cox, Sir Thomas
Groves, James Grimble Middlemore, JohnThrogmorton Sloan, Thomas Henry
Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry Milvain. Thomas Smith, AbelH.(Hertford, East)
Hardy, Laurence(KentAshford Mitchell, William (Burnley) Smith, RtHnJ.Parker(Lanarks
Hay, Hon. Claude George Moon. Edward Robert Pacy Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Heath, SirJames(Staffords.NW Morgan. DavidJ(Walthamstow Stanley, Hon.Arthur(Ormskirk
Helder, Sir Augustus Morpeth. Viscount Stanley, EdwardJas.(Somerset
Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. Morrell, George Herbert Stanley, Rt.Hon. Lord Lanes.)
Hope, J.F.(Sheffield,Brightside Morton, ArthnrH. Aylmer Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Horner, Frederick William Mount, William Arthur Stone, Sir Benjamin
Howard, John(KentFaversham Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) Stroyan, John
Hozier, Hon.JamesHenryCecil Myers, William Henry Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Hudson, George Bickersteth Nicholson, William Graham Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Hunt, Rowland O'Neill. Hon. Robert Torrens Talbot, Rt.Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv
Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred. Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury) Tollemache, Henry James
Jessel, Captain HerbertMerton Parkes, Ebenezer Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.
Kennaway, Rt.Hon.SirJohnH. Peel, Hn.Wm.RobertWellesley Tuff, Charles
Kenyon, Hon.Geo.T.(Denbigh) Percy, Earl Turnour, Viscount
Keswick, William Pierpoint, Robert Walker, Col. William Hall
Kimber, Sir Henry Pilkington, Colonel Richard Walrond, Rt.Hn.SirWilliamH.
Knowles, Sir Lees Platt-Higgins, Frederick Warde, Colonel C. E.
Laurie, Lieut.-General Plummer. Sir Walter R. Welby, Lt.-Col.A.C.E.(Taunton
Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) Powell, Sir Francis Sharp Whiteley, H.(Ashton und.Lyne
Lawson, Hn.H.L.W. (Mile End Pretyman, Ernest George Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Lee, ArthurH.(Hants.Fareham Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Wills, SirFrederick(Bristol,N.
Lees, Sir Elliot (Birkenhead Purvis, Robert Wodehouse, Rt.Hn.E.R.(Bath)
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage Pym, C. Guy Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Liddell, Henry Randles, John S. Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Llewellyn, Evan Henry Rankin, Sir James Wylie, Alexander
Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. Reed, Sir Edw. James (Cardiff) Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.
Long, Col.CharlesW.(Evesham Reid, James (Greenock) Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Long, Rt.Hn.Walter(Bristol,S. Remnant, James Farquharson
Lowe, Francis William Renwick, George TELLERS FOR THE AYES—
Loyd, Archie Kirkman Ridley, S. Forde Sir Alexander Acland-Hood
Lucas, ReginaldJ.(Portsmouth Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) and Viscount Valencia.
NOES.
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Findlay, Alexander(Lanark, NE Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)
Bell, Richard Flavin, Michael Joseph Leese, SirJosephF.(Accrington)
Benn, John Williams Flynn, James Christopher Lundon, W.
Bright, Allan Heywood Gladstone, Rt.Hn.HerbertJohn Lyell, Charles Henry
Broadhurst, Henry Gray, Rt.Hon.SirE. (Berwick) MacNeill, John Gordon Swift
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James Griffith, Ellis J. MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Burke, E. Haviland- Hammond, John M'Crae, George
Caldwell, James Harrington, Timothy Murnaghan, George
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) Harwood, George Murphy, John
Causton, Richard Knight Hayden, John Patrick Nolan, Col. JohnP.(Galway,N.)
Channing, Francis Allston Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. Norton, Capt. Cecil William
Cheetham, John Frederick Healy, Timothy Michael O'Brien, Kendal(TipperaryMid
Clancy, John Joseph Henderson, Arthur (Durham) O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.
Crean, Eugene Hutchinson, Dr.CharlesFredk. O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Crooks, William Isaacs, Rufus Daniel Parrott, William
Cullinan, J. Jacoby, James Alfred Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)
Delany, William Joicey, Sir James Power, Patrick Joseph
Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea Rea, Russell
Dobbie, Joseph Jones, Leif (Appleby) Redmond, JohnE.(Waterford)
Doogan, P. C. Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)
Edwards, Frank Jordan, Jeremiah Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.
Ellis, John Edward (Notts.) Lambert, George Runciman, Walter
Eve, Harry Trelawney Lamont, Norman Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Ffrench, Peter Langley, Batty
Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) Ure, Alexander Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)
Seely, Maj.J.E.B.(IsIeof Wight Villiers, Ernest Amherst Yoxall, James Henry
Shipman, Dr. John G. Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Slack, John Bamford Warner, Thomas Courtenay T TELLERS FOR THE NOES—
Sullivan, Donal Weir, James Galloway Sir Thomas Esmonde and
Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr) Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) Mr. Patrick O'Brien.
Thompson, DrEC. (Monagh'n,N Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes, 197; Noes 87. (Division List No. 357.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Faber, (George Denison (York) M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel Fellowes, RtHn. AilwynEdward M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)
Allhusen, AugnstusHenryEden Fergusson, Rt. Hn.Sir J. (Manc'r) Marks Harry Hananel
Anson, Sir William Reynell Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. Martin, Richard Biddulph
Arkwright, John Stanhope Finlay, RtHnSirR.B.(Inv'rn'ss Massey-Mainwaring,Hon.W. F.
Arnold-Forster,Rt.Hn.Hugh O. Fisher, William Hayes Maxwell W. J.H.(Dumfriessh.)
Arrol, Sir William Fitzroy, Hon.Edward Algernon Melville, Beresford Valentine
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John Flannery, Sir Fortescue Middlemore,John Throgmorton
Balcarres, Lord Flower, Sir Ernest Milvain, Thomas
Balfour, Rt.Hon.A.J.(Manch'r) Forster, Henry William Mitchell, William (Burnley)
Balfour,RtHnGeraldW. (Leeds) Gardner, Ernest Moon, Edward Robert Pacy
Balfour, Kenneth R.(Christen.) Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. Morgan,David J(Walthamstow
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) Morpeth, Viscount
Banner, John S. Harmood- Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- Morrell, George Herbert
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin Gorst, Rt. Hon.Sir John Eldon Morton, Arthur H. (Aylmer)
Bentinck, Lord Henry C. Goschen, Hon. George Joachim Mount, William Arthur
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. Goulding, Edward Alfred Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)
Bigwood, James Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) Myers, William Henry
Bill, Charles Grenfell, William Henry Nicholson, William Graham
Blundell, Colonel Henry Gretton, John O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens
Bond, Edward Groves, James Grimble Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)
Brassey, Albert Hamilton, Marq.of(L'nd'nderry Parkes, Ebenezer
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashford Peel, Hn.Wm.RobertWellesley
Brotherton, Edward Allen Heath, SirJames(Staffords.N W Percy, Earl
Bull, William James Helder, Sir Augustus Pierpoint, Robert
Burdett-Courts, W. Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. Pilkington, Colonel Richard
Butcher, John George Hope, J.F.(Sheffield,Brightside Platt-Higgins, Frederick
Campbell, Rt.Hn.J.A.(Glasgow Horner, Frederick William Plummer, Sir Walter R.
Campbell,J.H.M.(DnblinUniv.) Howard,John(Kent,Faversham Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Hozier, Hon. James HenryCecil Pretyman, Ernest George
Cautley, Henry Strother Hudson, George Bickersteth Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward
Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire) Hunt, Rowland Purvis, Robert
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred. Pym, C. Guy
Chamberlain, RtHnJA.(Wore.) Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton Randles, John S.
Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton) Kennaway, Rt.Hon.SirJohnH) Rankin, Sir James
Chapman, Edward Kenyon, Hon. Geo.T.(Denbigh) Reed, Sir Edw. James (Cardiff)
Clare, Octavius Leigh Keswick, William Reid, James (Greenock)
Clive, Captain Percy A. Kimber, Sir Henry Remnant, James Farquharson
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. Knowles, Sir Lee Renwick, George
Coghill, Douglas Harry Laurie, Lieut.-General Ridley, S. Forde
Cohen, Benjamin Louis Law, AndrewBonar (Glasgow) Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse, Lawson, Hn.H.L.W.(Mile End) Robertson, Herbert (Hackney
Colomb, Rt. Hon.Sir John C.R. Lee, ArthurH. (Hants, Fareham) Rolleston, Sir John F. L.
Compton, Lord Alwyne Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage Round, Rt. Hon. James
Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile Liddell, Henry Rutherford, John (Lancashire)
Davenport, William Bromley- Llewellyn, Evan Henry Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-
Davies,SirHoratioD. (Chatham) Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. Sadler, Col. Sir Samuel Alex.
Dewar, SirTR.(TowerHamlets) Long, Col.CharlesW.(Evesham) Saunderson, Rt.Hn.Col.Edw.J.
Dickson, Charles Scott Long,Rt.Hon. Walter(Bristol,S) Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph Lowe, Francis William Sharpe, William Edward T.
Dixon-Hartland, SirFredDixon Loyd, Archie Kirkman Skewes-Cox, Sir Thomas
Doughty, Sir George Lucas,ReginaldJ.(Portsmouth) Sloan, Thomas Henry
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred Smith, AbelH.(Hertford, East)
Doxford, Sir William Theodore Macdona, John Cumming Smith, RtHnJParker(Lanarks)
Duke, Henry Edward MacIver, David (Liverpool) Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Dyke, Rt.Hon.SirWilliamHart Maconochie, A. W. Stanley,Hon Arthur(Ormskirk)
Stanley, EdwardJas.(somerset) Tuff, Charles Wodehouse, Rt.Hn.E.R.(Bath)
Stanley, Rt.Hon. Lord(Lancs.) Turnour, Viscount Wortley, Rt.Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Stone, Sir Benjamin Walker, Col. William Hall Wylie, Alexander
Stroyan, John Walrond,Rt.Hon.SirWilliamH. Wyndham-Quin, col. W. H.
Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley Warde, Colonel C. E. Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) Welby,Lt. Col. A. C. E.(Taunton)
Talbot,Rt.Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv. Whiteley, H. (Ashton und Lyne TELLERS FOR THE AYES—
Tollemache, Henry James Whitmore, Charles Algernon Sir Alexander Acland-Hood
Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. Wills, Sir Frederick (Bristol, N. and Viscount Valentia.
NOES.
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)
Bell, Richard Healy, Timothy Michael Power, Patrick Joseph
Benn, John Williams Henderson, Arthur (Durham) Rea, Russell
Bright, Allan Heywood Higham, John Sharp Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Broadhurst, Henry Hutchinson, Dr. CharlesFredk. Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)
Burke, E. Haviland- Isaacs, Rufus Daniel Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)
Caldwell, James Jacoby, James Alfred Runciman, Walter
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) Joicey, Sir James Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Channing, Francis Allston Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)
Cheetham, John Frederick Jones, Leif (Appleby) Seely,Maj. J.E.B.(Isle of Wight)
Clancy, John Joseph Jones William(Carnarvonshire) Shipman, Dr. John G.
Crean, Eugene Jordan, Jeremiah Slack, John Bamford
Crooks, William Lambert, George Sullivan, Donal
Cullinan, J. Lamont, Norman Thomas,David Alfred(Merthyr)
Delany, William Langley, Batty Thompson,Dr.EC (Monagh'nN.
Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) Tully, Jasper
Dobbie, Joseph Leese,Sir Joseph F.(Accrington Ure, Alexander
Doogan, P. C. Lundon, W. Villiers, Ernest Amherst
Edwards, Frank Lyell, Charles Henry Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Ellis, John Edward (Notts.) MacNeill, John Gordon Swift Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Esmonde, Sir Thomas MacVeagh, Jeremiah Weir, James Galloway
Eve, Harry Trelawney M'Crae, George Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Ffrench, Peter Murnaghan, George Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Findlay,Alexander(LanarkNE) Murphy, John Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)
Flavin, Michael Joseph Nolan, Col. John P (Galway.N.) Yoxall, James Henry
Flynn, James Christopher Norton, Capt. Cecil William
Griffith, Ellis J. O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid TELLERS FOR THE NOES—
Hammond, John O'Brien, Patrick(Kilkenny) Mr. Herbert Gladstone and
Harrington, Timothy O'Connor, James(Wicklow,W.) Mr. Causton.
Harwood, George O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Hayden, John Patrick Parrott, William

Mr. A. J.BALFOUR claimed, "That the Main Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes, 196; Noes, 85. (Division List No. 358.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Bill, Charles Clare, Octavius Leigh
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel Blundell, Colonel Henry Clive, Captain Percy A.
Allhusen,Augustus HenryEden Bond, Edward Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.
Anson, Sir William Reynell Brassey, Albert Coghill, Douglas Harry
Arkwright, John Stanhope Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Cohen, Benjamin Louis
Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O. Brotherton, Edward Allen Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse
Arrol, Sir William Bull, William James Colomb,Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R.
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John Burdett-Coutts, W. Compton, Lord Alwyne
Balcarres, Lord Butcher, John George Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)
Balfour,Rt.Hon.A.J. (Manch'r) Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Glasgow) Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile
Balfour,RtHn.GeraldW.(Leeds Campbell,J.H.M. (Dublin Univ. Davenport, William Bromley-
Balfour, Kenneth R.(Christch.) Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Davies,Sir HoratioD.(Chatham
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Cautley, Henry Strother Dewar,SirT.R.(TowerHamlets)
Banner, John S. Harmood- Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire) Dickson, Charles Scott
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph
Bentinck, Lord Henry C. Chamberlain,Rt. Hn. J. A(Wore. Dixon-Hartland,Sir Fred Dixon
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. Chamberlayne, T.(S'thampton) Doughty, Sir George
Bigwood, James Chapman, Edward Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-
Doxford, Sir William Theodore Llewellyn, Evan Henry Renwick, George
Duke, Henry Edward Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. Ridley, S. Forde
Dyke,Rt.Hon.SirWilliam Hart Long,Col.Charles W.(Evesham) Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)
Faber, George Denison (York) Long.Rt.Hn. Walter(Bristol,S.) Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)
Fellowes,RtHn.Ailwyn Edward Lowe, Francis William Rolleston, Sir John F. L.
Fergusson,Rt.Hn.Sir J.(Manc'r Loyd, Archie Kirkman Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye
Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. Lucas,RoginaldJ. (Portsmouth) Round, Rt. Hon. James
Finlay,RtHn.SirR.B(Inv'rn'ss) Lyttelton. Rt. Hon. Alfred Rutherjord, John (Lancashire)
Fisher, William Hayes Macdona, John Cumming Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-
Fitzroy, Hon.Edward Algernon MacIver, David (Liverpool) Sadler, Col. Sir Samuel Alex.
Flannery, Sir Fortescue Maconochie, A. W. Saunderson,Rt.Hn.Col.Edw. J.
Flower, Sir Ernest M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Forster, Henry William M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) Sharpe, William Edward T.
Gardner, Ernest Marks, Harry Hananel Skewes-Cox, Sir Thomas
Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. Martin, Richard Biddulph Sloan, Thomas Henry
Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F. Smith,Abel H.(Hertford, East)
Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- Maxwell, W.J.H (Dumfriesshire Smith,Rt.HnJ.Parker(Lanarks
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon Melville, Beresford Valentine Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Goschen, Hon. George Joachim Middlemore,JohnThrogmorton Stanley, Hon. Arthur(Ormskirk)
Goulding, Edward Alfred Milvain, Thomas Stanley, EdwardJas.(Somerset)
Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury) Mitchell, William (Burnley) Stanley, Rt.Hon. Lord (Lanes.
Grenfell, William Henry Moon, Edward Robert Pacy Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Gretton, John Morgan, DavidJ.(Walthamstow Stone, Sir Benjamin
Groves, James Grimble Morpeth, Viscount Stroyan, John
Hamilton,Marqof(L'nd'nderry) Morrell, George Herbert Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Hardy,Laurence (Kent,Ashford Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Heath,Sir James(Staffords.NW Mount, William Arthur Talbot,Rt.Hn.J.G.(Oxf'dUniv.
Helder, Sir Augustus Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) Tollemache. Henry James
Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. Myers, William Henry Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.
Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside) Nicholson, William Graham Tuff, Charles
Horner, Frederick William O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens Turnour, Viscount
Howard,Jn. (Kent, Faversham,) Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury) Walker, Col. William Hall
Hozier,Hon.James Henry Cecil Parkes, Ebenezer Walrond,Rt.Hn.Sir William H.
Hudson, George Bickersteth Peel,Hn. Wm.Robert Wellesley Warde, Colonel C. E.
Hunt, Rowland Percy, Earl Welby,Lt.-Col.A.C.E. (Taunton
Jeffreys,Rt.Hon. Arthur Fred. Pierpoint, Robert Whiteley, H.(Ashton und.Lyne)
Jessel, Captain Herbert Morton Pilkington, Colonel Richard Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Kennaway,Rt.Hon.Sir John H. Platt-Higgins, Frederick Wills, Sir Frderick (Bristol,N.)
Kenyon,Hon.Geo. T. (Denbigh) Plummer, Sir Walter R. Wodehouse.Rt.Hn.E.R. (Bath)
Keswick, William Powell, Sir Francis Sharp Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Kimber, Sir Henry Pretyman, Ernest George Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Knowles, Sir Lees Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Wylie, Alexander
Laurie, Lieut.-General Purvis, Robert Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.
Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) Pym, C. Guy Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Lawson, Hn.H.L.W. (Mile End) Randles, John S.
Lee, ArthurH.(Hants.,Fareham Rankin, Sir James TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir
Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) Reed, Sir Edw. James (Cardiff) Alexander Acland-Hood and
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage Reid, James (Greenock) Viscount Valentia.
Liddell, Henry Remnant, James Farquharson
NOES.
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Edwards, Frank Jones,David Brynmor(Swansea
Bell, Richard Ellis, John Edward (Notts.) Jones, Leif (Appleby)
Benn, John Williams Esmonde, Sir Thomas Jones, William (Carnarvonshire
Bright, Allan Heywood Eve, Harry Trelawney Jordan, Jeremiah
Broadhurst, Henry Ffrench, Peter Lambert, George
Burke, E. Haviland- Findlay,Alexander (Lanark,NE Lamont, Norman
Caldwell, James Flavin, Michael Joseph Langley, Batty
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) Flynn, James Christopher Leese,Sir JosephF.(Accrington
Causton, Richard Knight Gladstone,Rt.Hn.Herbert John Lundon, W.
Channing, Francis Allston Hammond, John Lyell, Charles Henry
Cheetham, John Frederick Harrington, Timothy MacNeill, John Gordon Swift
Clancy, John Joseph Hayden, John Patrick MaeVeagh, Jeremiah
Crean, Eugene Hayter, Rt.Hon. Sir ArthurD. Marnaghan, George
Cremer, William Randal Healy, Timothy Michael Murphy, John
Crooks, William Henderson, Arthur (Durham) Nolan,Col.John P. (Galway, N.)
Cullinan, J. Higham, John Sharp Norton, Capt. Cecil William
Delany, William Hutchinson, Dr. CharlesFredk. O'Brien,Kendal(Tipperary,Mid
Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. Isaacs, Rufus Daniel O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Dobbie, Joseph Jacoby, James Alfred O'Connor,James (Wicklow,W.)
Doogan, P.C. Joicey, Sir James O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Parrott, William Shipman, John Dr. G. Weir, James Galloway
Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) Slack, John Bamford Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Power, Patrick Joseph Sullivan, Donal Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Rea, Russell Thomas,DavidAlfred (Merthyr) Wilson,Henry J.(York, W.R.)
Redmond, John E. (Waterford) Thompson,Dr.EC.(Monagh'n,N Yoxall, James Henry
Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) Tully, Jasper
Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) Ure, Alexander TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Mr.
Rose, Charles Day Villiers, Ernest Amherst M'Crae and Major Seely.
Runciman, Walter Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

Main Question put accordingly.