Commons Sitting of 1 March 1906

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

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order No. 62 has been complied with viz:—London Southern Tramways Bill; Uxbridge Gas Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS [LORDS]. (STANDING ORDERS COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the Petition for the following Bill, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have been complied with viz:—West Cumberland Electric Tramways Bill [Lords].

  PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for the following Bill, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz:—Mid Derbyshire Railway Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Report to be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

PETITIONS.
  LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING) BILL.
  Petition from Finsbury, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  NAVY (DOCKYARD EXPENSE ACCOUNTS 1904–5).
  Annual Accounts presented, for 1904–5 of Shipbuilding and Dockyard Transactions, etc., with Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 66.]
  NAYY (VICTUALLING YARD MANUFACTURING ACCOUNTS 1904–5).
  Annual Accounts presented, of the Cost of Manufacturing Provisions, Victualling Stores, etc., at the Home Victualling Yards and Malta Yard for 1904–5, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 67.]
  ARMY (ORDNANCE FACTORIES).
  Annual Accounts presented, for the year 1904–5, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 68.]
  PAUPERISM (ENGLAND AND WALES) (MONTHLY STATEMENTS).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 28th February; Mr. Runciman]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 69.]
  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

    Hammersmith Postal Arrangements.
    SIR WILLIAM BULL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he will consider the desirability of including Margravine Road in the postal district of Fulham, rather than in Hammersmith, in which it is at present.
    (Answered by Mr Sydney Buxton.) Margravine Road is nearer to the Hammersmith than to the Fulham Office, and it would not be possible to transfer it from the postal delivery of Hammersmith to that of Fulham without transferring a considerable number of other streets also, and thus dislocating the arrangements in both districts. Moreover, the Fulham district is already a very large one, and I do not think it desirable to increase it.

    Postage Rate for Periodical Literature.
    MR. NORMAN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been directed to the inequalities in the postage rates of periodical literature in the United Kingdom; and whether he proposes to grant the cheaper postal transport of magazines so often requested in the public interest.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton). I have carefully considered the matter to which the hon. Member refers. The preferential rate of postage enjoyed by newspapers was specifically granted to them under The Post Office Act, 1870, and is restricted by the Act to publications which, inter alia, are issued at intervals of not more than seven days, and consist wholly, or in great part, of current news or of articles relating thereto. In view of the loss of revenue which would be involved, I am sorry that I am not in a position to introduce a reduced rate of postage for periodical publications.
    MR. NORMAN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he has yet been able to consider the imperial and commercial advantages that would result from cheaper postage rates for periodicals and magazines to British Colonies; and, if so,

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    what action does he propose to take in the matter.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton). The matter is receiving my careful consideration; but I fear that I cannot hold out any hope of a general reduction of the rate of postage applicable to periodicals and magazines sent from this country to British Colonies.

    London Suburban Telephone Service.
    MR. NIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General upon what principle the official charges for the telephone service in the suburbs of London are based; and why the Department are making a fixed charge of £15 per annum or thereabouts, plus message rate, for the use of a telephone in part of the northern postal district, and within six miles of Charing Cross; and whether there is any prospect of this charge being reduced, with a view to popularise the service.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton). The ordinary message rate subscription for a line to any exchange in the London telephone area outside the county of London is £4 a year, with a foe of 1d. for each call on the same exchange and 2d. for a call to another exchange. The unlimited service subscription covering communication with all exchanges throughout the London area is £17 a year. I am not aware of the circumstances of the particular case referred to by the hon. Member. If he will be good enough to furnish me with particulars of the case I shall be happy to make inquiry.

    Central Telephone Exchange.
    MR. NIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that considerable dissatisfaction exists among subscribers to the Post Office telephones in connection with the working of the Central Exchange of the Post Office telephone system; and whether he will institute an inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of such complaints, and take steps to remedy any matter appearing to call for alteration or amendment.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The lines of the subscribers to the Central Exchange, some 12,000 in number, were transferred to a new switchboard on
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    Saturday the 17th ultimo, in order to allow of some necessary alterations in the Central Exchange switchboard. The transfer temporarily affected the working of some of the subscribers' lines; but the faults were remedied in the course of last week, and the Exchange is now working under normal conditions. The change was of great magnitude, and, though I regret that any inconvenience should have been caused, I consider that great credit is duo to the engineers and to the Exchange staff for carrying out a very difficult operation with so little disturbance to the service. I am unaware of any dissatisfaction among the subscribers of the Exchange, so far as its ordinary working is concerned.

    Irish Arterial Drainage.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject of the arterial drainage of Ireland have held any sittings to take evidence; when may a report be expected from the Commission, and is it the intention of the Government to legislate on the subject-matter of the inquiry at an early date?
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) During the past two months the Commissioners have held a number of sittings, but a great many witnesses have yet to be examined. The report of the Commission is expected towards the close of the present year. The question of legislation cannot be considered until the report is received.

    Trinity College, Dublin, Estates.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOK: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether steps have been taken to give effect to the recommendations of the Commission appointed to inquire into and report upon the means by which the purchase by the occupying tenants of their holdings on the estates of which Trinity College, Dublin, is the head landlord; and, if any such, will he state what they are.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). I beg to refer to the reply which I gave on the 21st February to the similar Question of the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh.†
    †See (4) Debates, clii., 348.

    Alleged Outrage at Loughrea.
    MR. DUFFY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that since an alleged attack was made on Mr. Harry Persse's house, Millmount, Loughrea, some time last year, a large extra force of police have been quartered in Woodville and Kilchreest, he will say whether any portion of the cost is chargeable to the district; and whether, in view of the peaceful state of the district, he will take steps to have the force lowered to its normal level.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The extra police stationed a Woodville and Kilchreest are considered by the police authorities to be necessary to the peace of the district. No charge in respect of extra police is at present made upon any local authorities in county Galway, seeing that the force employed in that country does not exceed the established strength of the county force.

    Athenry Outrage.
    MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenent of Ireland whether it was reported to the police, in December last, that a party of armed men had visited the house of John Madden, of Cawnmore, Athenry, and fired several shots through the doors and windows; whether the reason assigned for the action was that Madden had paid his rent against the wishes of other tenants; and whether any attempt was made to trace these persons, and with what success.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed by the police authorities that, on the evening of the 15th November last, several shots, apparently from a revolver, were fired outside the house of John Madden. None of the shots struck or entered the house. The police are unable to say whether more than one person was concerned in the offence, as no one was seen by the inmates. There is no evidence enabling me to assign a motive for the offence. The police have made every effort to trace the offender or offenders, but so far without success.

    Public Appointment at Cahirciveen.
    MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of
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    Ireland whether his attention has been called to a resolution passed by the Cahirciveen District Council and Board of Guardians on 26th July, 1905, pledging itself in future to give no position within its gift to any but Nationalists who are members of the United Irish League and Gaelic League; whether he has any information as to the number of other Irish bodies who have passed similar resolutions; and whether the Local Government Board will restrain district councils and boards of guardians from taking a course which necessarily imposes disabilities upon a large section of the Irish people for political reasons.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) Notice of motion to the effect stated appeared on the minutes of the Cahirciveen District Council of 12th July last, but there is no subsequent entry to show that the matter was further dealt with. Without an exhaustive search through the minutes of all the local authorities in Ireland, the Local Government Board are unable to say what similar resolutions have been passed. A general resolution of this nature would not, in the opinion of the Local Government Board, be binding on any future meeting of the board of guardians or rural district council. The Board have no authority to interfere with the rural district councils in these matters; but if boards of guardians were, in advertising vacant posts, to add restrictive conditions of the kind referred to, the Local Government Board would have power to remonstrate, on the ground that the field of selection ought not to be narrowed by excluding candidates qualified by character and capacity.

    Kiltimagh Dispensary Doctor.
    MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that in December last the Swinford Board of Guardians, in choosing a medical officer of Kiltimagh dispensary district, rejected a fully-qualified candidate solely upon the ground that he had been educated in Queen's College, Galway; whether his attention has been called to the pastoral letter issued by the Roman Catholic bishops in 1900, in which they urged boards of guardians and other representative bodies needing medical officers

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    to elect only those who have been educated at the Roman Catholic School of Medicine in Dublin; and whether the Local Government Board will make representations with a view of preventing such preference being given in the selection of medical officers in Ireland.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). The minutes of the proceedings of the board of guardians on the 28th November last show that the guardians rejected a candidate upon the ground stated in the Question. I have not seen the pastoral letter referred to; but, in any event, the matter is not one in which the Local Government Board can intervene, having regard to the fact that the selection of a medical officer rests with the guardians, and that the functions of the Local Government Board are limited to seeing that the person seleced is duly qualified.

    Hunting Difficulties in County Galway.
    MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at a meeting of the East Galway executive of the United Irish League, held at Ballinasloe on 10th September last, a resolution was passed declaring that the tenant farmers of Galway would not allow any hunt to pass over their lands which is accompanied by any special juror who assisted the Government in imprisoning their friends; whether he is aware that this is part of an organised system of intimidation directed against special jurors who are true to their oath to return a true verdict according to the evidence; and what measures he proposes to adopt to secure the efficient and impartial administration of justice.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed that the meeting referred to was a private meeting held within doors. The police authorities have no evidence of what took place at it; but a resolution to the effect stated was reported in the Press as having been passed at the meeting, which, as the date indicates, took place long before I came into office. The police have no evidence that the resolution has been acted upon, nor is any evidence before mo showing that there is an organised system of intimidation against the special jurors in question, or
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    that the impartial administration of justice is now suffering.

    Alleged Outrage at Ardrahan.
    MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that four men who were committed for trial on a charge of being concerned in an outrage near Ardrahan, county Galway, when Mr. and Mrs. F. Shawe-Taylor were fired upon by a gang of men and narrowly escaped with their lives, were loudly cheered by the people when they were taken away by the police; and whether the place in which this occurred is one of the districts where the operation of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, has been recently suspended.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) My attention had not been called to this incident of the cheering, which occurred on December 11th last, before I took office. I am now, however, informed that some people who were at Ardrahan fair cheered on the occasion mentioned. The Answer to the latter inquiry is in the affirmative. The men are awaiting trial.

    Irish Land—Future Tenants.
    MR. GINNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland can he state approximately the number of future tenants now in Ireland, the aggregate amount of rents paid by them annually, and the amount by which that aggregate would by this time have been reduced according to the average reduction for the whole of Ireland had those tenants been allowed to enter the Land Courts; and, having regard to the purposes of the Land Act of 1881, and to the fact that many of those future tenants have been in continuous occupation for more than a quarter of a century, whether His Majesty's Government will open the Land Courts to the future tenants.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Land Commission inform me that they have no information from which they can state, even approximately, the number of future tenants now in Ireland or the aggregate rents payable by them. The only cases in which they have information are cases in which application is made to them by

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    present tenants to fix fair rents, or in which the parties enter into agreements, fixing such rents, either under Section 8 of the Act of 1881, or under Section 17 of the Act of 1896. Under the latter Act future tenants may have fair rents fixed. I cannot at present make any statement as to possible legislation on the subject.

    Horse Disease at Waterford—Claims against the War Office.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will make inquiry as to the claims made by the Waterford County Council and the Waterford Agricultural Society in 1905, to be recouped the expenses and losses incurred by these bodies in consequence of the introduction of the disease called epizootic lymphangitis into the county and city of Waterford, by Army horses brought from South Africa, and sent by the War Office authorities to the Waterford military barracks.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I will make inquiry into this matter, but do not expect to be in a position to make a statement on the subject for some little time.

    The O'Hara-Trench Estate, County Galway.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the tenants on the O'Hara Trench property in county Galway met the landlord and agent in May of last year at the rent office to discuss terms of sale and purchase; that both parties agreed to a sale of tenants' holdings at twenty-three years purchase of second-term rents or their equivalent; that the sale fell through owing to the fact that Mr. Trench insisted on retaining the game rights and refused to negotiate further on the matter of sale, and withdrew his offer; and that Mr. Trench has, since the negotiations were broken off, sold seven of the tenanted and occupied holdings to Lord Ashtown without communicating with these seven tenants or giving them a chance of availing of the Purchase Act, 1903; can he say what price Lord Ashtown paid for these holdings; whether it was above or below the tenants' offer, twenty-three years purchase of second-term rents,
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    plus the bonus; and, if so, how much; whether Lord Ashtown has yet paid the purchase-money; and, in the event of a sale of either the O'Hara-Trench or Ashtown properties in the future, the Estates Commissioners will make full inquiry into all the facts of the case.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received a petition from the tenants on the estate referred to. The petition practically sets out the statements made in the Question, and requests that the Commissioners will intervene on the tenants' behalf. The estate has not come before the Commissioners, but they will consider whether now or hereafter they can usefully take any action in the matter.

    Longford Court Houses.
    MR. J. P. FARRELLTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at their last meeting the Longford County Council unanimously adopted a resolution asking the Government to give the county council, who pay for and maintain these buildings, the control and custody of the court-houses of their county; and whether, in view of the fact that these buildings in England and Scotland are the property of and in control of the people who pay for them, the like rule will be extended for Irish court houses.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) It is the fact that such a resolution was passed by the Longford County Council. I am not, however, prepared to make a statement as to the change suggested, as the matter would require to be carefully considered, and the object desired would require legislation.

    Longford Evicted Tenant—Case of Mary Moran.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the case of Mary Moran, an evicted tenant on the Jessop (Doory) Estate, whose farm is now in possession of a man named George Burnett, who holds it pending sanction of the purchase to him on the eleven months system; and whether, before this sale to Burnett is sanctioned, an inquiry will be made

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    with a view to the restoration of the evicted tenant.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) In April, 1904, the Estates Commissioners received Mrs. Moran's application for re-instatement, in which she stated that she was evicted in 1868. Her ease, therefore, does not come within the provisions of Section 2 of the Act of 1903, and she was so informed. The sale of the Jessop Estate was completed in May, 1905, but the Commissioners have no record that Mrs. Moran's former holding was sold.

    Government Grant for Mullingar Lunatic Asylum.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that whilst the capitation cost in Mullingar Asylum has gone up to 11s. per head the Government grant of 4s. remains the same; and whether, having regard to the increase of lunacy in Ireland and the decrease of population, coupled with an increase of taxation, the Government will consider the advisability of increasing the Irish capitation grant per head for asylum patients from 4s. to 7s. 6d. per head.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). The net capitation cost in respect of maintenance in Mullingar Asylum amounts to 9s. 9d. per week; but, inclusive of repayments for loans in respect of buildings it is 12s. 8d. per week. The Government grant of 4s. per week is fixed by statute, and I am unable to hold out any hope of legislation to increase the amount. I am informed that the capitation cost in this asylum has not yet recently increased, as implied in the Question, but is now considerably less than it was a few years ago.

    Jessop Estate, County Longford.
    MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the sale of the Jessop, county Longford, estate has yet boon sanctioned; whether he is aware that James Rhatigan, of Clonard, Ballymahon, the son of the evicted tenant, has lodged an application with the Estates Commissioners for the restoration to him of his ancestral holding in the townland of Doory, now held by Ambrose Frayne on the eleven months system; and whether the Commissioners, before sanctioning any advance to Frayne, will consider the
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    right of Rhatigan to be restored to this holding.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). The sale of this estate was completed in May, 1905. The Estates Commissioners have received an application from James Rhatigan, who states that he was evicted from his holding in 1858. His case, therefore, does not come within the provisions of the Act of 1903. The Commissioners have no knowledge of any letting to Ambrose Frayne on the eleven months system; but Mr. Frayne was the purchaser of a holding on the estate, and the advance to him was sanctioned in 1905.

    Mountmellick, Assault Case.
    MR. DELANY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in the case of Edward Carroll, Lacken, Queen's County against Constable Masterson and Cry an, Royal Irish Constabulary, late of Mountmellick, for an assault committed at Somergrove, Mountmellick, on March 17th last, heard in the superior courts, a Dublin jury awarded the plantiff £100 damages have been paid, and whether Constable Cryan is still in the force, and, if so, where stationed, and whether there is any account of the whereabouts of Constable Masterson.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). The facts are as stated. The Inspector General informs me that the damages have not yet been paid. Constable Cryan, who is still in the force, is stationed at Oylgate, county Wexford. This constable wrote to the plaintiff's solicitor offering to pay £50 by instalments, but the offer was refused, and nothing further has been done. No account of the whereabouts of Constable Masterson, who is no longer in the force, has been received.

    Armagheur Grazing Farm, County Sligo.
    MR. O'DOWD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the grazing farm of Armagheur, comprising a portion of the Miss Nicholson estate, situate at Castlebawldin, near River-town, in the county of Sligo, and at present in the Equity Court, has recently been sold to a man named James Murrin;

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    and will he say whether the Estates Commissioners will consider the advisability of having this ranch utilized for the enlargement of the small uneconomic holdings surrounding him.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). The Estates Commissioners inform me that they are not aware of the matters referred to in the Question. No application or request in respect of the estate of Miss Nicholson has been made to them, and no proceedings in respect of the sale of this estate are pending before them.

    Sir Horace Plunkett and South Dublin Election.
    MR. O'DOWD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that Sir Horace Plunkett has joined a movement started with the object of making a presentation to Mr. Percy Bernard, who retired from h s candidature in South Dublin in order that the late Chief Secretary for Ireland should be returned for that constituency; and will he say if the action of Sir Horace Plunkett in joining a political movement is consistent with the terms on which he holds his present appointment.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce). Sir Horace Plunkett informs me that his action in the matter referred to in the Question was limited to subscribing to a presentation to Mr. Bernard, who had been a personal friend of his for over thirty years. He did not himself attach any political significance to his action, nor did it occur to him that anyone else would.

    Proposed Bureau of Forestry for Ireland.
    MR. HAYDEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if it is intended, in the forthcoming inquiry into the status and working of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, to include an inquiry with the view of establishing a bureau of forestry for Ireland, or of making other suitable arrangements, so that the subject of national afforestation may be taken up systematically on an adequate scale; and also that immediate steps may be at once taken to acquire suitable waste lands, which may be now available through the operation of the
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    Land (Purchase) Acts, that they may be utilised subsequently for planting.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The inquiries which I am making into the working of the Department of Agriculture will not necessarily include the establishment of a bureau of forestry, but I am keenly alive to the great importance of that question. I am considering the institution forthwith of a separate inquiry into it, so as to see whether afforestation can be undertaken systematically, with a prospect of its being made remunerative.

    Agricultural Transport in Ireland.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has under consideration any proposals for the promotion of light railways and motor services for agricultural transport in Ireland; whether he will publish any correspondence which may have taken place on the subject; and whether he has considered the advantages to be derived from the use of anthracite coal, which is available in the South of Ireland for gas engines for motor traction.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) No proposals for the promotion of motor services for agricultural transport have been under the consideration of the present Government. There is, therefore, no official correspondence on the subject, and the question of the fuel to be used for such motors has not yet arisen. The question of improving the light railway services, and rendering these railways more serviceable for agricultural and other transport, is one of great imporance, and has been engaging my attention for some weeks past.

    Waterford Evicted Tenants.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many evicted tenants have been reinstated under the provisions of the Land Act of 1903 in the county Waterford; whether inquiries will now be made and steps be taken to expedite the restoration to their holdings of the many evicted tenants still unprovided for in that county; whether the Estates Commissioners are negotiating for the purchase of, or have agreed to purchase, untenanted lands consisting of 300 acres in the Parker estate, and 800 acres in

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    the Woodrooffe estate, in the county of Waterford.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that eight evicted tenants have been reinstated in this county, and that, in accordance with the recent regulations, they are about to make inquiries into the cases of all evicted tenants who have applied for reinstatement. The Commissioners are negotiating for the purchase of the Parker estate, comprising 221 acres of untenanted land, but they have no knowledge of the Woodrooffe estate.

    Steam Trawling in Bantry Bay.
    MR. GILHOOLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that steam trawling within the limits in the inner harbours of Bantry Bay is destructive of the spawn and causing loss to the line and net fishermen; and whether he will grant a sworn inquiry in connection with this matter.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Department of Agriculture are not aware that steam trawling in the inner waters of Bantry Bay is destructive to the spawn of fish. A bye-law prohibiting trawling in the whole of Bantry Bay by steam vessels of more than 20 tons net register has been in existence since the year 1897, and has been successfully enforced. Another bye law limits all trawling in the bay to the hours between 10 o'clock in the morning and sunset, so that nets and lines set at night shall not be interfered with. In the inner harbours of Bantry and Glengarriff, and in a portion of Berehaven, all trawling is prohibited at all times. Since the year 1897, when the bye-laws affecting trawling in Bantry Bay were last revised, no application for an inquiry regarding this method of fishing in the Bantry district has been received.

    Land Purchases by the Congested Districts Board in County Cork.
    MR. GILHOOLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Bird, Beamish, Bandon, and O'Donovan estates, Kilcrohan parish, county Cork, recently purchased by the Congested Districts
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    Board, will be resold to the tenants, who are poor at a loss of 10 per cent., as is allowed under the Act of 1903.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The provision in the Irish Land Act, 1903, for the re-sale of congested estates at a loss not exceeding 10 per cent., applies to purchases by the Land Commission, and not to purchases by the Congested Districts Board, who have full power to sell at any such prices as they may think fit. The estates referred to in the Question have not yet been legally vested in the Board, and, until that is done, arrangements for re-sale cannot be made.

    Building Flans for Irish National Schools.
    MR. GILHOOLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish Government has yet come to a decision on the question of new plans, estimates, etc., for Irish national schools; and whether he is aware that inconvenience has already been caused by the delay in settling this matter.
    (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I can add nothing to the Answer which I gave to the hon. Member for South Kerry last Tuesday, to which I must refer the hon. Member,†

    County Monaghan Agricultural Committee and the Department of Agriculture.
    MR. O'HARA: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the passage of a resolution by the County Monaghan Committee of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, calling for the reform of the Department of Agriculture so that it will work intelligently for the needs of and in harmony with the people of Ireland; whether he can state when the proposed inquiry into the work of the Department is to begin, and by whom it is to be conducted; and will any representations be received from county committees or county councils as to the future working of the Department.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) My attention has been called to the resolution.
    † See (4) Debates, clii., 1028.

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    referred to. It is intended that the inquiries which I propose to prosecute shall begin at an early date, and I shall shortly be in a position to state the names of the gentlemen who will hold it. I shall arrange that representations received from the bodies named are duly considered at the inquiry.

    Afflicted Children Bill—Local Opinions.
    MR. WALTER LONG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is yet in a position to state what has been the result of the circular issued to local authorities by the National Board of Education, with the object of ascertaining their views upon the provisions of the Afflicted Children Bill (deaf, dumb, and blind) introduced in the last Parliament; and whether it is the intention of the Government to reintroduce the Bill.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The circular was sent on the 11th September, 1905, to the councils of the thirty-three administrative counties and the six county boroughs. The following is an abstract of the replies received from twenty of these councils:—Matter still to be considered by council, six; matter to be further considered by council, four; no action taken, two; approve of Bill, four; approve, subject to certain suggested amendments, two; disapprove, one; no action will be taken unless present Government proposes to reintroduce the Bill, one. No reply has been received in the remaining nineteen cases. I have not yet had time to fully consider the question of reintroducing the Bill, but I agree that the question is one of importance.

    Evicted Tenants Returns.
    MR. WALTER LONG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the Returns prepared by the Estates Commissioners, at the instance of the late Government, setting forth by order of counties the names and various other particulars concerning the persons who claimed to be reinstated as evicted tenants or as the representatives of evicted tenants; and whether he will lay these Returns upon the Table of the House for the information
    1276
    of hon. Members, supplemented by the additional details which were called for from the Inspector-General, Royal Irish Constabulary.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Return in question is merely a nominal list of persons who claim to have been evicted, or to be the representatives of persons evicted, from estates. The additional details supplied by the police are corrections of obvious inaccuracies as to habitation and the like appearing on the face of the list. The lists have not as yet been verified by the Estates Commissioners, and cannot at the present time be regarded as authentic. Until they have been so verified, it would not be desirable to lay the lists upon the Table of the House.

    Irish Arterial Drainage Inquiry.
    MR. WALTER LONG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what progress has been made by the Commission appointed last autumn to investigate the question of arterial drainage in Ireland; and when it is expected that the Commission will complete its labours and present its Report.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Commissioners have held a number of sittings, but a great many witnesses have still to be examined. The Commissioners do not anticipate that they will be in a position to present their Report until late in the present year.

    Attack on Orangemen at Donemana.
    MR. LIDDELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Saturday, 17th February, at Donemana, North Tyrone, two prominent Orangemen, named Robert Forbes and Thomas Spence, were attacked in the street by a band of Nationalists, and so badly beaten that Forbes is still confined to his bed by his injuries, and Spence is suffering from a severe wound in the face; whether the police have made any arrests in connection with this assault, and what steps are being taken to protect the people of this district from such attacks.

    1277
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed that the two men named received injuries in a Party quarrel on the date in question. The injured men have expressed the intention of prosecuting their alleged assailants, whom they know. The police have made no arrests, the necessity for that step not having arisen. Two extra policemen have been sent to this village in consequence of assaults and window-breaking by both parties.

    Kerry Evicted Tenants.
    MR. MURPHY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what is the number of applications received by the Estates Commissioners from evicted tenants in the county of Kerry; in how many of such cases have the Commissioners approached the landlords with the view of securing the reinstatement of such tenants; and what is the number of evicted tenants reinstated or provided with holdings in the county by the Commissioners up to the present time.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) Four hundred and fifty-three applications for reinstatement have been received by the Estates Commissioners from the evicted tenants in the county Kerry, but in some of the cases the applicants do not come within the provisions of the Act. The Commissioners, in pursuance of the regulations recently issued, are now about to make inquiries in all cases in which they have received applications, and to approach the landlords in such cases as may be desirable. The Commissioners have not themselves effected any reinstatements, but they are aware that thirty-three evicted tenants have been reinstated in the county by landlords.

    Royal Irish Constabulary Recruits.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of recruits for the Royal Irish Constabulary taken into the constabulary depôt, Phoenix Park, during the months of September, October, November, and December, 1905, respectively, also January, and February 1906.
    1278
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The numbers enlisted were as follows: in September 1905, none; in October, 39; in November, 41; in December, 91; in January, 1906, 42; and in February, 55.

    Labourers' Cottages in Ireland.
    MR. SHEEHAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in pursuance of Section 7 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1891, improvement schemes have been formulated by any sanitary authority for the purpose of providing suitable dwellings for agricultural labourers in villages or towns without garden allotments; and if so, will he state the sanitary authority or authorities which have given effect to this section, and the number of cottages erected in Ireland in accordance with its provisions.
    (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) Proposals of the nature indicated are merged in schemes to meet the general needs of the labourers in a rural district, and it would be impossible for the Local Government Board to give definite information ad to the particular councils which have availed themselves of the statutory provision referred to, and the extent to which they have done so, without making an elaborate investigation into all the schemes submitted since 1891. The Board, however, are in a position to state generally that the section has not been put into operation to any considerable extent, owing no doubt to the advantages of building the cottages which may be required in the vicinity of the villages or towns rather than actually in them. The tenants can in that event be provided with gardens, and are brought nearer to their probable sphere of employment.

    Witwatersrand Deep Mine.
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: To ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies what were the considerations which led the Secretary of State for the Colonies, on receipt of the Earl of Selborne's dispatch of the 20th November, 1905, to telegraph, on the 23rd December, 1905, urging the Earl of Selborne to obtain information on which to prosecute some

    1279
    person on the Witwatersrand Deep Mine, though he had received no affidavit in support of the prosecution, but to delay till 15th February, 1906, any recommendation to prosecute Mr. Pless, whose cruelty was sworn to by affidavit contained under cover of the same dispatch from the Earl of Selborne of the 20th November, 1905.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The inquiry in the telegram of 23rd December, as to whether there was any information on which to prosecute, did not relate to the Witwatersrand Deep Mine, but generally to the proceedings brought into question by Mr. Boland's allegations. The hon. Member might have perceived this by studying the telegrams of 2nd January and 10th January, printed at page 46 and page 58 of the Blue-book [Cd. 2819].

    Demerara Labour Troubles.
    MR. O'GRADY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the recent troubles in Demerara; whether he will indicate the cause of the alleged riot; whether an armed police force was used and H.M.S. "Diamond" urgently dispatched from Bermuda to quell the alleged riot; whether the action taken by the Governor during the troubles was on his own initiative or from instructions received from the Colonial Office; and whether information will be laid upon the Table of this House dealing with the whole matter.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). The disturbances arose out of a general strike of casual wharf labourers at Georgetown for higher wages. The strikers were joined by the more turbulent classes of the population, and on 1st December the violence of the mob made it necessary for the police to use their firearms. At the request of the Governor, H.M.S. "Sappho" and H.M.S. "Diamond" arrived at Georgetown from Trinidad and Barbados, and detachments of blue-jackets were landed; but no further serious disturbances occurred after their arrival. The Governor acted on his own initiative in the suppression of the disturbances, but the measures which he took have been approved by the Secre-
    1280
    tary of State. Correspondence on the subjects will shortly be laid upon the Table of the House.

    Punitive Expeditions in Southern Nigeria.
    MR. JAMES O'KELLY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what has been the number of punitive expeditions against the natives of Southern Nigeria during 1904–5; what number of natives have been killed and wounded in these expeditions; what number of villages destroyed; what quantity of cattle and other goods seized and carried away; whether the increase in trade referred to by the Governor is looked upon as a satisfactory outcome of these expeditions; whether nearly all the revenue of Nigeria and Lagos is derived from the alcohol traffic; and whether he will consider the advisability of instituting inquiry into the state of affairs in this territory.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). In 1904–5, under the late Administration, there were eight expeditions in disturbed districts of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate. In explanation of these operations it may be urged that they were undertaken in order to put a stop to the murder and robbery of peaceful traders by less civilised tribes, the harbouring of escaped criminals, and assaults on Government servants, and also to check human sacrifices and cannibalism. It is not possible to give exact information as to the numbers killed or damage-done in these operations, but in most cases there was little fighting of a serious character. The High Commissioner states that all unnecessary fighting was avoided, and in every case the operations have been followed by the establishment of civil administration in the districts visited, and the requirements of the Government as to stoppage of intertribal fighting, human sacrifice, and interference with traders, have been fully explained to the natives, though not in all cases with entire success. At Onitsha, however, where an industrial exhibition has been held, which was attended by about 20,000 natives, and passed off without the slightest disturbance, although many of those present came from districts where punitive measures had been found necessary only

    1281
    a year before. The total revenue of Southern Nigeria in 1904 was £550,013, of which £322,116 was derived from duties on spirits. The latest figures for Lagos are for the financial year 1903–4. Total revenue, £334,695. Revenue from spirit duties £160,640. While the Secretary of State does not regard any extra-departmental inquiry as necessary, the whole question of the scope and nature of the activities and responsibilities to which His Majesty's Government find themselves committed in Nigeria will engage his serious attention.

    Alleged Atrocities in Transvaal Mines.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if sufficient information has been obtained to justify the Crown prosecution of those who circulated the allegations and atrocities in various Transvaal mines, as refuted in Cd. 2786, Despatch No. 41, in view of the sworn statements of the managers, overseers, and staff, and the publicly expressed wish to take legal proceedings to vindicate their character.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). No further information than that given in the despatch referred to by the hon. Member has been received.

    Coolie Labour Regulations.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the new regulations governing the employment of the recently engaged Chinese coolies in South Africa are to be applied to all those now employed in the Transvaal.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). Yes, Sir; any modifications of the Labour Importation Amendment Ordinance will apply to all Chinese coolies.

    The Transvaal and Responsible Government.
    EARL PERCY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Papers will be published containing any evidence of a practically unanimous demand in the Transvaal for the grant of responsible as distinguished from representative institutions.
    1282
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). It is not proposed to publish further Papers at present.

    Labour Recruitment in British South Africa.
    EARL PERCY: To ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether further recruitment of labour from British Central Africa for the mines of the Transvaal has been prohibited.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). The present position of the matter is as described at page 44 of Cd. 2819. Recruiting ceased on 31st January, and will not be resumed unless the mortality Returns for the year ending 30th June, 1906, show marked improvement.

    Lord Selborne's Salary.
    MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the total salary paid to Lord Selborne, and how much of that salary is paid by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom; and whether any other contributions are made out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom to the civil expenditure of the South African Colonies.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). Lord Selborne's total salary is at the rate of £11,000 per annum, of which £3,000 per annum is paid to him as High Commissioner for South Africa from Imperial funds. Other contributions from Imperial funds to civil expenditure in the South African Colonies are estimated to be as follows in the current financial year:—High Commission expenses, £6,400; Southern Rhodesia Resident Commissioner £2,700; Bechuanaland Protectorate, grant in aid of deficiency of revenue, £36,000.

    South African Coal Duties.
    MR. D. A. THOMAS: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether duties have been recently imposed or increased in any of the South African Colonies upon imported British coal; if so, whether he can state the amount of the duties, and when they were imposed or raised; and whether he is prepared to suggest in the proper

    1283
    quarter the propriety of removing the Colonial preference given to the South African product, until such time as the financial burden, resulting from the late war, presses less heavily upon coal pro ducers in this country than is the case at present.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The duty on coal imported into the South African Colonies has not, so far as I am aware, been altered since the Customs Convention of 1903, under which a duty of 3s. per ton of 2,000 lbs. is levied. The Secretary of State is not satisfied that he could usefully make the suggestion desired by the hon. Member.

    White Labour in the Transvaal.
    MR. FIENNES: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state how many skilled British miners who are earning good wages will weekly lose their employment through the imporation of Chinese coolies being stopped, natural shrinkage going on, opportunity having been afforded to coolies to break their contracts, and native labour seriously diminishing.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) No, Sir, I can give the House no such figures; it is impossible at present to phophesy as to either increase or decrease.

    Importation of Coolies not to be Stopped.
    MR. FULLERTON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will consider the desirability of preventing the importation into South Africa of such of the 16,199 coolies whose licences were signed between the 12th and 18th of November last, but who have not yet arrived in South Africa, and prevent the expenditure of £17 10s. per head, the estimated cost of repatriation.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) His Majesty's Government have been advised that they cannot lawfully prevent the importations in question; and their policy in respect of Chinese indentured labour has received in its integrity the support of the House of Commons. It is not now possible to reconsider
    1284
    it. Any contradiction which may exist between this importation and the new scheme for repatriation must be attributed to the clear differences in view and purpose which distinguish the present administration from the old.

    Effects of Chinese Repatriation.
    MR. BOTTOMLEY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether His Majesty's Government have taken into consideration the possibility of the whole of the Chinese labourers in the Transvaal availing themselves of the opportunity of at once returning home at the expense of the Imperial exchequer; and whether any, and, if, so, what steps are in contemplation to deal with such a contingency.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) From the information at their disposal, His Majesty's Government do not regard such a contingency as at all likely to occur.

    White Labour in the Transvaal Mines.
    MR. EDWARD DUNN: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can inform the House of the number of white persons employed in the Transvaal mines on ordinary mining work (as distinguished from work of construction and repair) in each month for the year ending 31st December, 1905.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The statistics published by the Mines Department do not enable me to give this information. I would refer the hon. Member to the statement printed at page 11 of Cd. 2563, which gives certain particulars.

    Lord Selborne's Despatch of January 6th.
    MR. EDWARD DUNN: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any and what answer has been received to the third question in the Secretary of State for the Colonies' letter to the Earl of Selborne, of the-5th January, 1906 (Cd. 2819, page 46), asking for a Report showing whether, in the case of Chinese coolies who have served, say, six months on the mines, more or less supervision by white labourers is required, than in the case of coloured labourers, and which question seems

    1285
    to have been overlooked in the reply received to such letter by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the 27th January, 1906 (Cd. 2819, page 87).
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Secretary of State is still awaiting the report referred to. His inquiry was by a mailed despatch dated 5th January, and could not, therefore, have been answered by Lord Selborne's despatch of 6th January,, which reached the Secretary of State on the 27th of that month.

    General Botha's Claim.
    MR. MORTON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the case of General Botha, whose house near the Natal border was burnt, like that of nearly all the generals, and who had large claims, which he assessed at £15,000; whether he is aware that they were reduced on the Government assessment to £7,000, and that when General Botha was offered a cheque for £800, which was endorsed "Receipt in full," he declined to give such a receipt, and has not, therefore, received payment; and will he say whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Secretary of State has not received information as to the claims of General Botha, but he does not understand that his claim has been treated differently from those of others entitled to share in the £3,000,000 provided for ex-burghers. No action is proposed.

    Issue of Coolie Labour Import Licences.
    MR. WALSH: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that, notwithstanding Mr. Lyttelton's telegram of 27th October, intimating that it would be good policy for the mine-owners voluntarily to stop the importation of coolie labour for six months, a greater number of licences were issued in the ensuing three weeks than had been granted in the previous nine months; and whether he is able to lay before the House any other information respecting this increase of licences.
    1286
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) If my hon. friend will refer to page 8, of Cd. 2788, he will see that he is mistaken in supposing that the number for which licences were issued in November exceeded that for the previous nine months; but they were certainly in excess of the number issued in the preceding six months. The Secretary of State is not in possession of any further particulars of a material character in addition to what is published. The expression by Mr. Lyttelton of his opinion as to what would be a prudent policy for the mine-owners voluntarily to adopt, was not apparently regarded by the Lieutenant Governor as fo the nature of a definite instruction to cease to act upon his discretion without consulting the Secretary of State.

    Discharged Arsenal and Factory Workers.
    COLONEL LEGGE: To ask the Secretary of State for War if it is proposed to re-engage the men recently discharged from the arsenals and factories controlled by his Department.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Any men discharged from the arsenals and factories controlled by the War Department will have the preference for re-engagement should the orders in the coming financial year warrant increase in the numbers of such men employed.

    Gun Firing at Cawsand Bay.
    MR. DOBSON: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that numerous complaints have been made that the firing practice from Bovisand, Picklecombe, and Tregantle forts off Plymouth, and especially from a gunboat stationed at Cawsand, is a constant danger to the fishermen engaged in fishing in the vicinity; whether any arrangement was made by the War Office and Naval authorities about two years ago that such firing should take place on Saturdays and Mondays only; and, if so, why such arrangement has not been adhered to.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) None of the complaints to which my hon. friend referred have reached me. None

    1287
    have reached either the War Office or the General Officer Commanding at Plymouth as regards firing from Bovisand, Picklecombe, or Tregantle Forts. As regards the gunboat at Cawsand I have no knowledge of this, and I must refer him to my right hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty. The arrangement as regards firing on Saturdays and Mondays refers only to the Whitesand Bay batteries and there is no reason to suppose that the by-laws governing such firing have been infringed.

    Army Promotions.
    SIR ROBERT HOBART: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Army officers of the rank of major who are not now seconded when holding staff appointments under the present system of allowing extra captains instead; and, further, if he will consider whether majors who are passed over for the appointment of second in command, by reason of their holding staff appointments, should not at once be placed on the list of officers extra-regimentally employed instead of being retained, as at present, on the lists of regiments.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The question of seconding majors while holding staff appointments has been frequently considered, but the financial expenditure involved is held to be prohibitive. There are similar financial objections to the proposal made in the second part of the Question. If these proposals received effect it is estimated that a new charge of some £30,000 a year would be placed upon the taxes.

    Waterford Horse Epidemic.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether in or about January, 1905, three horses, the private property of Army officers stationed at Waterford, were destroyed under suspicion of being affected by the disease called epizootic lymphangitis; whether the owners of these horses got compensation for their losses; and, if so, out of what fund was such compensation paid and by whose directions; and what were the amounts claimed and paid respectively in each of the cases.
    1288
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The horses in question were destroyed, as they were in close proximity to other horses, the property of the public. As an act of grace the owners were allowed part compensation from Army funds to the extent of £8 10s., £15, and £37 10s. respectively.

    Imperial Troops in Natal.
    GILBERT PARKER: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if Imperial troops are to be employed in the disturbed districts of Natal.
    MR. HICKS BEACH: To ask the Secretary of State for War if Imperial troops are to be employed in the disturbed districts of Natal.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I will reply at the same time to a similar Question put by the hon. Member for the Tewkesbury Division of Gloucestershire. The 2nd Battalion Cameron Highlanders has been sent to Natal from Pretoria, and there are about 200 men of the Royal Garrison Regiment at Pietermaritzburg. These troops are available for employment in the disturbed districts if required.

    Training of Militia Battalions.
    MR. RAWLINSON: To ask the Secretary of State for War during which months the winter training of the twenty Militia battalions is to take place.
    MR. JAMES MASON: To ask the Secretary of State for War if Cavalry and Artillery will be trained during the winter, in order to afford to some or all of the Militia battalions opportunities of exercise and manœuvre in company with a mixed force.
    MR. JAMES MASON: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will lay upon the Table the Reports from recruiting officers as to the probable effect of the winter training of Militia battalions upon enlistment for the Infantry of the Line; and if the Army Council is satisfied that the winter training will not seriously affect Line recruiting.
    MR. HICKS BEACH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he contemplates that the training of certain battalions of Militia during the winter months will have any injurious effect upon the supply of officers for those battalions.
    MR. HICKS BEACH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in the proposed scheme to train certain battalions of Militia during the winter months, it is intended to include the usual musketry course; or whether a supplementary training will be held during the summer months, when the conditions of light and weather are most favourable for musketry practice.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) There appears to be some misapprehension as to our proposals with regard to the Militia, and I will, if the hon. Members will permit me, reply to all the Questions regarding Militia training together. The Army Council are selecting twenty Militia Infantry battalions, with which to try an experimental training of six months for recruits on first enlistment. They are also considering whether the training might not be six weeks for these particular battalions, instead of twenty-seven days. The existing system is sixty-three days for recruits and twenty-seven days for Militiamen.
    This increased training is in accordance with the recommendation of the Norfolk Commission, and the Army Council are desirous of ascertaining whether such longer periods will fit in with the civil avocations of the non - commissioned officers and men. Infantry only will be selected for the experiment, and General Officers Commanding have been asked their opinions on the units suggested. The training of the battalions will take place, for the present, in the main during the summer, but on this point we are consulting General Officers Commanding in Chief. It will be optional for recruits to enlist for their six months training at any time convenient to themselves. It is not anticipated that any injurious effect will result as regards the supply of Militia officers, and the experiment will show
    1290
    how far the recruiting for the Line is affected. Militiamen will be required to complete at least one annual training before transfer to the regular Army. Increased attention will be devoted to musketry, and a revised course for both recruits and trained Militiamen is under consideration. There are no figures available to show what proportion of Militiamen are habitually unemployed during the winter, but it is hoped that this system may be the means of reducing that number. The annual cost of a Militia battalion under the new system will necessarily be higher than at present. Barracks will be utilised where possible. In other cases hut accommodation or large buildings will be provided when practicable, and failing these, billeting will be resorted to. Our object is to provide as great elasticity as is possible.

    War Office Land Purchase in Essex.
    MR. A. L. LEVER: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the purchase of 300 acres of land in the parish of Fingringhoe, near Colchester, Essex, is intended to be completed on 25th March; whether it is intended to purchase the cropping and use the land at once for military purposes; if so, whether he has taken into consideration the effect on the labourers and farm servants who would be thrown out of work, and at a season when they would experience difficulty in finding fresh permanent employment; and whether he will consider the desirability of deferring the completion of the purchase of this land until Michaelmas.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The purchase of this land will be completed on the 25th March. The purchase includes cropping and use of land for military purposes. The effect of turning labourers and farm servants out of work has been carefully considered, as is usual in such cases; but in view of the urgent military requirements of this case, it has been decided that it is necessary to proceed with the purchase without delay. I am afraid, therefore, that it is not possible to adopt my hon. friend's suggestion of deferring the completion of the purchase.

    British Trade in Manchuria.
    MR. F. E. SMITH: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware, or has received any complaints, that the Japanese authorities are presenting foreigners, other than Japanese, from proceeding into or landing at any port in Manchuria or sending any goods into the interior of Mancburia, and thus seriously interfering with British trade; and, if so, whether he will take steps to prevent such interference by the Japanese authorities; whether a date has been fixed for the evacuation by the Japanese troops of Chinese territory which prevents the free exchange of commerce between British traders and Chinese merchants.
    (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) Complaints have been received to the effect stated in the Question and representations were made to the Japanese Government at the time on the subject. They expressed their regret that the prohibition was rendered necessary by the railways being required for the movements of Japanese troops; but it was understood from a Report received from His Majesty's Consul at Newchang that this applied to persons only and not to

    1st April, 1905.

    31st January, 1906.

    Net Reductions.

    Portsmouth

    10,380

    8,674

    1,706

    Devonport

    9,032

    7,291

    1,741

    Chatham

    8,884

    6,950

    1,934

    Sheerness

    2,634

    1,740

    894

    Pembroke

    2,720

    2,219

    501

    Beck Commission Bill.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: To ask Mr. Attorney-General whether it is intended to re-introduce the Bill recommended by the Beck Commission, providing machinery to compel a judge at a criminal trial to state a case for the Court for Crown Cases Reserved.
    (Answered by Sir Lawson Walton.) It is not proposed to reintroduce the Bill recommended by the Beck Commission
    1292
    goods. On the receipt of more recent complaints that the prohibition is being enforced against British merchandise, His Majesty's Minister at Peking has been requested to inquire into the matter, and he has despatched the Commercial Attaché to His Majesty's Legation to make investigations at Newchang and to furnish a Report. The evacuation by the Japanese troops of Chinese territory is fixed to take place eighteen months from the signature of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 23rd August 1905.

    Dockyard Discharges.
    MR. NAPIER: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will state the approximate numbers of men employed and of discharges in consequence of reductions in the Estimates from the 1st of April, 1905, to the 31st January, 1906, in the Royal Dockyards at Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, Pembroke, and Sheerness respectively.
    (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The numbers of workmen employed in the dockyards on the dates named below, and the net reductions during the period covered by those dates, were as follows:—
    to which the Question refers, but the introduction of a measure by the Government relating to the review of trials and sentences in criminal cases is now under consideration.

    Beet Sugar Prices.
    MR. HICKS BEACH: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he will state the average monthly prices per cwt. of 88 per cent. beet sugar; from September, 1903 to January, 1906.

    1293
    (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The following statement gives the prices asked for, for each month of the years 1903,

    Month.

    1903.

    1904.

    1905.

    1906.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    January

    8

    0

    8

    0

    15

    8¼

    8

    2¾

    February

    8

    0

    7

    10

    15

    4¼

    8

    1

    March

    8

    4¼

    8

    3¼

    14

    8

    —

    April

    8

    7½

    8

    6¼

    13

    6

    —

    May

    8

    4¼

    9

    4½

    12

    1

    —

    June

    8

    0

    9

    3¼

    11

    9

    —

    July

    7

    11¼

    9

    7¾

    10

    6

    —

    August

    8

    5¼

    10

    5¼

    9

    7¾

    —

    September

    8

    6

    10

    10½

    8

    8¼

    —

    October

    8

    4¾

    11

    0

    8

    6

    —

    November

    8

    2¾

    13

    5¾

    8

    2½

    —

    December

    8

    3¾

    14

    1

    8

    3¼

    —

    Alien Pilots on British Ships.
    MR. GIBBS: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Bill to be brought in to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts will deal with the employment of alien pilots on British ships.
    (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) Alien pilots are not employed on British ships in British waters.

    Pending Postal Inquiry.
    MR. WILES: To ask the Postmaster-General whether representatives of the assistants at the Returned Letter Office will be allowed to give evidence before the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the grievances of postal servants.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Burton.) The Committee will be asked to inquire into the position of the principal classes
    1294
    1904, and 1905, and January and February, 1906:—
    of Post Office servants. It must be left to their discretion as to whom they will desire to hear as witnesses.

    Clonmel and Dungarvan Mail Service.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the question of the substitution of a motor service for conveying the mails between Clonmel and Dungarvan instead of the present slow service.

    Dungarvan and Lismore Mail Service.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, as the English mails are not now received and delivered in Dungarvan and Lismore until late in the afternoon and too late to permit of a reply on the same day, he will suggest that a motor train should be provided by the railway company to convey the mails which reach Mallow at 10.30 a.m. and Fermoy at 11.30 a.m. to Lismore, which only requires one-half hour, and

    1295
    Dungarvan, which only requires one hour and five minutes by ordinary train from Fermoy, so as to provide these towns with similar facilities so far as possible to those now enjoyed by Fermoy.
    MR. O'SHEE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will cause inquiry to be made with a view to providing improved postal facilities for portions of the districts of Old Parish and Ringville.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have called for Reports on these subjects, and on their receipt I will consider the suggestions of the hon. Member and will communicate the result to him.

    Aliens rejected at British Ports.
    MR. J. M. ROBERTSON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state how many aliens have been refused admission at British ports since 1st January; and for what reasons.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The figures for February are not yet available. During January, leave to land was withheld in the case of 202 alien immigrants. In 172 cases the reason was lack of means; in thirty, medical grounds. Appeals were made to immigration boards as regards 199 immigrants; and in the result eighty-nine immigrants, seventy-six on account of lack of means and thirteen on medical grounds, did not receive leave to land.

    Directorship of the National Gallery.
    MR. R. L. HARMSWORTH: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the position of Director of the National Gallery has been vacant for a considerable time; and if he can state when and, if possible, by whom the vacancy will be filled.
    (Answered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.) I am aware that this position has been vacant for a considerable time. The matter is engaging my attention, but I cannot yet state when the vacancy will be filled.

    Saccharine Smuggling.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he
    1296
    is aware that smuggled saccharine, of the value of £700, was seized and thrown into the sea by order of the Customs on Monday last; whether it could not have been saved for purposes connected with any Government departments; and if any settled rule is prescribed for dealing, with smuggled articles.
    (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) I would refer the hon. Baronet to the reply given yesterday on this subject to the hon. Member for Thanet by the Secretary to the Treasury.

    Indian Finance.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: To ask the Secretary of State for India what amount of Council drafts on the Indian Treasuries since 1st April, 1905, have been brought to account in excess of the £19,250,000 sterling as entered in the Indian Government's Budget last March; what are the circumstances to which such excess drawings are attributable, and to what purposes have these funds been applied; what are the present amounts of the Indian Government's cash balances, both silver and gold, in India and at Home; if the latter largely exceed the amounts usual in former years; has due consideration been given to the effects on Indian commerce of such large withdrawal of funds formerly available in the Presidency banks for Indian trade purposes; are the recent accumulations of gold here on Indian account due to the artifically established rate of exchange arranged for in 1900; and what is the amount on balance of enfaced rupee paper remitted from or returned to India during the present financial year.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The amount received by the Secretary of State in Council on account of bills and telegraphic transfers in the period from 1st April 1905, to 26th February 1906, is £27,172,530, being an excess of £9,339,530 over the estimate of £17,833,000 for the period from 1st April 1905 to 31st March 1906 which was included in the Budget of the Government of India in March 1905. The excess is due to the large trade demand which it is the practice of the India Office to meet as fully as possible. Of

    1297
    the excess mentioned above, a portion has been used for the purchase of silver, a portion has been invested on account of the gold reserve fund, and a portion, has been temporarily added to the paper currency reserve in England, against a corresponding withdrawal in India. At the end of January 1906, the Treasury balances of the Government of India amounted to Rs. 14,71,00,000 (£9,810,000) of which £240,000 was in gold. On the 26th February 1906 the balance held by the Secretary of State in Council was £7,850,000; on the corresponding date in the four preceding years the figures were as follows:—26th February 1905 £10,323,000; 26th February 1904, £5,914,000; 26th February 1903, £5,086,000; 26th February 1902, £3,560,000. The effect of large sales of Council bills and transfers (which in the present year have been accompanied by heavy coinage of rupees) is not to diminish, but to increase the funds available in India for trade purposes. The holding of gold by the Secretary of State in Council and by the Government of India, as part of the Paper Currency Reserve, is one of the consequences of the successful establishment of a gold standard in India. The amount of rupee paper standing on the books of the Bank of England was on 31st March, 1905, Rs. 16,67,99,800 (£11,120,000), and on 31st January 1906, Rs 16,25,03,400 (£10,834,000), a decrease during the present financial year of Rs. 42,96,400 (£286,000).

    Land Grants in South Africa.
    SIR CLEMENTHILL: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will lay upon the Table Returns of the land grants made in the East Africa Protectorate subsequent to those enumerated in Africa, No. 15, of session 1904.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill). A Paper will shortly be laid containing the Returns which have been received up to the present time, and future Returns will be included in the Annual Report on the Protectorate.

    African Game Licences.
    SIR CLEMENT HILL: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
    1298
    whether he will lay upon the Table Returns of the game licences issued, and of the game shot thereunder, in the British Central Africa, East Africa, Uganda, and Somaliland Protectorates, in continuation of the Returns given in Africa, No. 13, of session 1903, and Nos. 2, 5, and 12 of session 1904.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) I propose at an early date to lay upon the Table Papers relating to the general question of the preservation of game in the British Possessions in Tropical Africa, and these Papers will include the Returns asked for by the hon. Member.

    Regimental Marches through Agricultural Districts.
    VISCOUNT TURNOUR: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether route marches through agricultural districts have almost invariably resulted in a number of recruits being obtained; and, if so, whether he will see his way to insisting upon such marches taking place more frequently in the future.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The recruiting marches that have taken place in the last few years have varied considerably in respect of the results attained, and in some cases the numbers of recruits raised do not appear to justify the expenditure involved. The matter rests to a certain extent with the General Officer Commanding in Chief in each command to arrange from the funds at his disposal, but it is not proposed to interfere with his discretion. Any proposals for such marches that may be forwarded to the War Office receive favourable consideration should the state of finances admit of the expenditure involved.

    Financial Control of the House of Commons.
    MR. EUGENE WASON: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will be prepared to give effect to the recommendations of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, and especially that a new rule of Supply should ensure that at least one day should be provided for the consideration

    1299
    by the House of the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee; and that an Estimates Committee should be appointed at the beginning of each session to examine and report into one Class of the Estimates.
    (Answered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.) I think a reasonable opportunity should be given for the Report of the Public Accounts Committee being discussed by the House of Commons. The whole question of the manner in which the financial control of the He use of Commons should be exercised seems eminently a matter for the Committee on Procedure to consider.

    QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

      Admiralty Policy and the Engineers and Artificers.
      MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, with reference to the Report of the Committee quoted in the statement of Admiralty policy, 30th November, 1905, whether there was a minority Report; whether any artificer engineers or artificers were examined by the Committee; and whether he will lay upon the Table the complete terms of reference, evidence, and the Report or Reports of the Committee.
      THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee): There was a minority Report dealing with one point of the enquiry, but it had nothing to do with the engine room staff, on which the Committee were unanimous. The answer to the second part of the Question is in the affirmative. The complete terms of reference to the Committee are given in the statement of Admiralty policy. The Report is a departmental document intended solely for the information and use of the Board of the Admiralty, and as such would not be published.

      Corporal Punishment in the Navy.
      MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state upon what ground boys in the Royal Navy who have committed no offence are compelled to witness the
      1300
      infliction of corporal punishment upon their comrades; and whether the Board of Admiralty is prepared to order the abolition of this practice.
      MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The presence of boys at canings is not specifically laid down in the Regulations, but it has hitherto been customary in the Service. Instructions will be issued abrogating this practice in future.

      Dockyard Discharges.
      MR. JENKINS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether a further discharge of workmen from His Majesty's dockyards is contemplated in March next.
      MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: No discharges will take place during March. Certain adjustments of the numbers will be necessary in the ensuing financial year, but the details are still under consideration.

      Keyham Harbour Works.
      MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that the Government contractor for the Keyham Harbour works is purchasing the granite required from Norway, instead of in this country, because the Norwegian workmen will work for about half the wages required by British men, he proposes to take any steps to compel the Norwegian employers who are providing this granite to give the recognised trades union rates of wages, according to the resolution passed some time ago in the House.
      THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. LAMBERT, Devonshire, South Molton): No, Sir.
      MR. HUNT: May I ask how men who lose their employment through this unfair foreign competition are going to have work found for them?
      MR. J. WARD: Is it not a fact that the granite in Norway cannot be produced, so far as the cost of labour is concerned, any cheaper than in Cornwall, and that the whole difference in cost is the freightage over our privately-owned railways?
      MR. LEIF JONES (Westmoreland, Appleby): Is it not the case that two-thirds of the granite used at Keyham harbour works is British, and only one-third foreign?
      MR. CHARLES DEVLIN: Galway granite is the best.
      MR. LAMBERT: I would ask for notice of the Questions put by the hon. Members for Westmoreland and Stoke-on-Trent. As regards the supplementary inquiry put by the hon. Member for Ludlow, the question itself shows that British workmen are taking care of themselves, considering that their wages are double those paid in Norway.
      MR. PIRIE: I cannot allow an advertisement of Galway granite to pass without mentioning Aberdeen granite.
      MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member knows perfectly well that no statements are allowed at Question time.
      MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask Mr. Lambert whether, when he is in considering the material for this work he will bear in mind the fact that the best and cheapest stone in the world is in my constituency?

      Directorship of Public Instruction in Bengal.
      SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the feeling which is being felt, and has been expressed in India, regarding the appointment to the office of Director of Public Instruction in Bengal, which will shortly be vacant; and whether he will take steps to provide that the appointment is conferred, in accordance with the practice of the past forty years, on an officer of the India Education Department.
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. JOHN MORLEY, Montrose Burgh): I am aware of the matter to which the Question refers. It has already been before the House on more than one occasion last session, when my predecessor explained the reasons which had actuated the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal in appointing a member of the Indian Civil
      1302
      service to succeed Sir A. Pedler as Director of Public Instruction in Bengal, and also that the appointment was purely temporary, and it was intended in two or three years time to revert to the practice of selecting a Director from the Indian Educational Service. I do not propose to interfere with the action of the Lieutenant-Governor in the matter.
      SIR H. COTTON: For how long a period is the appointment?
      MR. JOHN MORLEY: Two or three years, I think.
      SIR H. COTTON: That is very vague.

      The Partition of Bengal.
      MR. C. J. O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has any official information showing that there is a subsidence of the feeling against redistribution of Bengal; if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table; and whether he can explain how a partition based on the formation of a new Western Province, consisting of Behar and Chota Nagpur, a redistribution strongly favoured by the inhabitants of these areas and acceptable to the people of Bengal, would involve more taxation than the partition recently sanctioned.
      MR. JOHN MORLEY: I have no information at present as to the subsidence of local feeling against the partition of Bengal which I can lay on the Table of the House. As regards the latter part of the Question, I understand that, since the matter was decided last June, considerable expenditure has already been incurred in establishing the new head quarters at Dacca, which would be thrown away if the matter were re opened, and a capital established elsewhere, involving a further expenditure. As regards the opinion of the inhabitants of the areas mentioned in the Question, I must not be understood as making any admission.
      MR. C. J. O'DONNELL: With regard to the first part of my Question, is it not stated in this morning's paper that at a public meeting at Calcutta a bonfire was made of British goods, thus showing the strong feeling that exists?
      MR. JOHN MORLEY: I have not had time yet to read this morning's papers.
      MR. C. J. O'DONNELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to wait until a prison is blown up?

      International Sugar Convention.
      SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the present policy of His Majesty's Government to prepare for the eventual termination of British participation in the International Sugar Convention; and, if so, whether it is intended to address any preliminary communication to the Powers interested in order to allow full time for their arrangements to be made.
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): We cannot withdraw before September 1908; to do this notice must be given in September 1907. As a large question of policy is involved on which several departments must be consulted and as no decision taken before September 1907 can be effective, the matter has not yet been considered owing to other questions, which are more pressing.
      SIR CHARLES DILKE: I gather from the terms of the reply that the principle is accepted. If there should be that intention in the minds of the Government, it would lie wise to make a preliminary announcement without waiting for the actual date.
      SIR EDWARD GREY: Of course, I can say nothing about the intention of the Government until I have consulted the other departments; but if the decision is come to to withdraw, it will be made known as soon as possible in the interests of the trade.

      Macedonian Reform.
      MR. GOOCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople had the approval of His Majesty's present advisers in consenting that the Commission for controlling the finances of Macedonia should include a member appointed by the Ottoman Government, and that the inspectors should be Ottoman subjects, these concessions
      1304
      having been made after the resignation, of the late Government.
      SIR EDWARD GREY: His Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople was authorised by Lord Lansdowne to sign the note which contained these concessions. It was necessary to make them in order to maintain the concerted action of the Powers without which no result would have been obtained, and it was considered that they did not materially weaken the Commission. I do not think any other course could have been adopted.

      China and the Tibetan Convention.
      SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how long negotiations have been proceeding between His Majesty's Government and the Chinese Government in regard to the Tibet Convention of 1904; where these negotiations are now being carried on; whether special officers or plenipotentiaries have been appointed by the respective Governments concerned to conduct the negotiations, and, if so, what are the names and official designations of these officers; and whether it is possible to inform the House when these negotiations are likely to be concluded.
      SIR EDWARD GREY: Negotiations for the adhesion of China to the Tibet Convention began before the Convention was signed on 7th September, 1904. They are now proceeding at Peking between His Majesty's Minister and the Foreign Board, but it is not possible to say when they are likely to be concluded.

      Consular Commercial Reports.
      MR. BRIGG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in giving the new instructions to His Majesty's Foreign Consuls, he will impress upon them the necessity for rendering in their Reports all returns of weights and values in their English equivalents.
      SIR EDWARD GREY: Yes, Sir. This will be done in the next issue of Consular Instructions.

      Metropolitan Police and Foreign Languages.
      MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State

      1305
      for the Home Department whether members of the Metropolitan Police Force learn foreign languages at their own expense, or whether they receive any allowance in money, time, or advantages in the matter of promotion for so doing.
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.): The Home Office has granted a small sum to be given in prizes to men who have made themselves proficient in Yiddish; and it is hardly necessary to say that where an officer's usefulness is increased by his proficiency in a foreign language, this qualification is taken into account along with other considerations when the question arises of his selection for promotion.
      MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of the members of the Metropolitan Police Force who are now learning or have learnt Jüdish-Deutsch or other foreign tongues in order to qualify them for the effective discharge of their duties among the alien population in this Kingdom.
      MR. GLADSTONE: Eighty-one police officers have acquired some knowledge of Yiddish and other foreign languages, and about 130 officers are engaged in learning them.

      Trades Disputes Bill.
      MR. BELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state when he proposes to introduce his Bill dealing with Trades Disputes.
      MR. GLADSTONE: I am not able at present to make any announcement on the subject.

      Examinations for Factory Inspectors.
      MR. H. J. TENNANT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, under the newly proposed scheme of admission to the factory department, candidates will be permitted to administer the Factory Acts for two years before their knowledge of factory law and sanitary science has been tested; and whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a knowledge of mathematics,
      1306
      economics, chemistry, physics, or practical mechanism need never be acquired by candidates for the inspectorship of factories.
      MR. GLADSTONE: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative, but I may point out that under the old scheme now superseded the test of a candidate's knowledge of factory law and sanitary science was a mere test of book-knowledge; and the new inspector was obliged, then as now, to gain his much more important practical knowledge of these subjects in the actual work of inspection under the guidance of experienced inspectors. By deferring the examination in factory law and sanitary science until an inspector has done two years actual work, it will be possible to test his practical as well as his theoretical attainments. As regards the second part of my hon. friend's question I may point out that the selection of inspectors is not done merely, or even mainly, by the competitive examination. It is done chiefly by the Secretary of State, who scrutinises closely the qualifications of the candidates on his list, and satisfies himself that every one whom he nominates to take part in an examination possesses such attainments as are likely to fit him for the inspectorate.
      In answer to a further Question,
      MR. GLADSTONEsaid that some time must elapse before he could come to a final decision.

      Foreign Pilots on British Ships.
      MR. BECKETT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if the Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts will deal with the question of foreign pilots and seamen employed on British ships.
      THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs): In reply to the lion. Member, I would point out that foreign pilots are not employed on British ships in British waters; but I propose to deal with the question of foreign seamen on such ships.
      MR. JOYCE: May I ask if the Government are going to give any protection to British pilots? Are they going to allow all their rights to be filched away from them by foreigners?
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: That is not the Question put to me by the hon. Member opposite. The question of the employment of masters of foreign ships as pilots is a totally different question, and we may deal with that in the Bill.
      MR. JOYCE: I hope you will deal with it in the right way.

      British Factories Abroad.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of Board of Trade if he can enumerate the British firms who have been compelled by foreign import duties to open works in foreign countries so as to obtain continued access to the foreign market; and if the goods they there manufacture have access to the British market without payment of a toll to the labour displaced by their migration over the sea.
      MR. LLOYD-GEORE: I am not in a position to give the reasons which have actuated firms, whether British, American or German, in opening works in foreign countries. The goods manufactured in such works are admitted to the United Kingdom on the same terms as any similar articles imported from abroad.
      AN HON. MEMBER: Can the number of foreign firms established in this country also be enumerated?
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Amerian and German firms establish their business abroad exactly as our firms do.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: The right hon. Gentleman is not President of the Board of Trade for America or Germany but for this country. Has the right hon. Gentlemen no list at the Board of Trade of the firms in this country who have established their works in Germany, France, Russia, and other foreign countries in consequence of protective tariffs?
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes, I have one in my pocket now, and I will show it behind the Speaker's chair to the hon. Member after Questions.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: But why not give it to the House now? Why should I be preferentially treated or have preferential right of access?
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I thought that my hon. friend was a believer in preference.

      Foreign Tariffs.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if the rates of import duties levied in European countries, in the United States, and in Japan upon the produce and manufacture of the United Kingdom still remain at the average rate detailed in the last official return, namely, Russia, 131 per cent.; Spain, 76 per cent.; United States, 73 per cent.; Portugal, 71 per cent.; Austria-Hungary, 35 per cent.; France, 34 per cent.; Argentina, 28 per cent.; Italy, 27 per cont.; Germany, 25 per cent.; Sweden, 23 per cent.;; Greece, 19 per cent.; Denmark 18 per cent.; Roumania, 14 per cent.; Belgium, 13 per cent.; Norway, 12 per cent.; Japan, 9 per cent.; and what steps it is proposed to take to secure for British goods in those countries the free market given to foreign goods in the United Kingdom.
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Since the publication of the return referred to a new tariff has come into force in Norway, and now tariffs come into force to-day in Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania. There have also been some modifications of the Belgium, Italian and Argentina tariffs. In the other countries named the tariffs remain unchanged. The last part of the Question cannot be dealt with within the limits of an Answer, but His Majesty's Government are fully alive to the importance of securing all the advantages possible for British trade in foreign markets.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Are the figures given in the Question generally correct?
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: They are not correct.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Are the duties higher now than they were? This, is a very important question.
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: In some respects they are higher, and in other respects lower.
      SIR HOWARD VINCENT: In what respects?
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The hon. Member must know, with all respect to him, that this is a very absurd question. There are about 900 classses of German goods in the tariff, and I cannot go through them in the course of an Answer.
      MR. CHIOZZA MONEY: Is it not the case that the prosperity of the countries mentioned in the Question is in inverse ratio to the high tariffs?
      [No Answer was returned.]

      Steerage Accommodation on Foreign Steamers.
      SIR WILLIAM EVANS-GORDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his attention has been called to the report of the medical officer of health to the Corporation of London regarding the insanitary conditions under which steerage passengers are brought to this country in foreign vessels; whether similar conditions are tolerated on English ships; if not, whether steps will be taken to oblige foreign owners to conform to the same sanitary regulations by which British owners engaged on the same trade are bound.
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes, Sir. My attention has been called to the Report to which the hon. Member refers. Similar conditions are not tolerated on British ships which have to conform to the full requirements of our passenger steamer regulations. I propose to include in the Merchant Shipping Bill shortly to be introduced to Parliament provisions extending these regulations to foreign vessels.

      Shipping Statistics.
      MR. CAIRNSI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he will make an investigation to see whether it be possible to compile reliable statistics whereby the Home trade of the country in volume and value can be recorded, as distinguished from exports and imports, with due regard to the privacy of the business of individual firms.
      1310
      I beg also to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he will make inquiries to ascertain whether a system can be devised whereby the freight earnings of the British mercantile marine engaged in the oversea trade can be recorded, with due regard to the privacy of the business of individual shipowners.
      MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The Board of Trade are fully alive to the importance of both the matters referred to in these Questions, and have already had them under consideration. Any attempt, however, to obtain trustworthy statistics of the kind suggested would involve great difficulties, and would, I fear, be useless without legislation conferring compulsory powers to exact the information. I should welcome any expression of views on the part of the commercial and shipping community as to the acceptability of legislation providing for a periodical census of industry and shipping, for which, from a purely statistical point of view, there is no doubt a good deal to be said.

      Free Postage for Members of Parliament.
      MR. BARNES: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the tax imposed on Members by having to pay postage on the enormous correspondence they are obliged to deal with in the discharge of their public duties; and whether he will consider the desirability of returning to the old system of franking the letters of Members, or in some other way relieve them of this financial burden.
      THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar): The Act 3 and 4 Vic. c. 96 expressly abolished the privileges of franking which Members of Parliament had previously enjoyed. I hardly think it would be expedient to revive it, even under the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Member.
      MR. KEIR HARDIEasked whether Cabinet Ministers had not a right to frank their letters, and, if so, why private Members should not have the same privilege.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The privilege is confined to those in office, and to their official correspondence.
      MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Is it not also confined to such official correspondence of Ministers as is written from their offices or from this House?
      MR. PIRIEasked whether in 1840, when franking was abolished, the penny postage did not exist and the conditions consequently were wholly different?
      MR. BELLOC: Is it not the fact that the greater number of Members of Parliament were in those days very wealthy men, as, thank God, at present they are not?
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Circumstances have altered very much since 1840. No doubt penny postage has greatly increased the amount of correspondence, while the average wealth of Members is not so great. But the real difficulty in regard to franking is this, that if it is allowed to 670 Members it is almost impossible to prevent abuse and even fraud. Even under the strictest conditions which prevailed before 1840 this was the case. It was largely on this ground—the difficulty of preventing fraud—that the system of franking was brought to an end.
      MR. KEIR HARDIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree to the appointment of a small Committee to consider and report on this matter.
      MR. PIRIE AND MR. BOTTOMLEY Hackney, S.)asked why the privilege could not be confined to letters posted in the House of Commons.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I, for one, nave great sympathy with this view, because correspondence is a very heavy burden on hon. Members of this House. If the hon. Member will give me notice of a Question, I will consider the matter.

      Postage on Literature for the Blind.
      LORD VALENTIA: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether,
      1312
      in view of the fact that embossed literature for the blind is, owing to its weight, subject to a heavy postage rate, he can see his way, considering the small amount of such literature and the poverty of many for whose use it is issued, to allow such documents to pass free through the post, as permitted in some foreign; countries; or, if not, to reduce the postage rate now charged on parcels marked for the blind.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The hon. Member is perhaps aware that letters in embossed type have been placed on the same footing as printed matter, and can be sent under the existing regulations for a postage of a ½d. up to 2 ozs. in weight. I regret that I do not see my way to give a further concession such as that suggested by the hon. Member. To do so would greatly detract from the simplicity and speed of the postal arrangements, which is of the utmost importance for securing prompt delivery.

      Members' Post Office.
      MR. BRIGG: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he can make arrangements for the enlargement of the Members' post office in the Lobby, and also make such changes as will obviate the necessity for Members crowding round the window of the post office, and having to wait until their letters are sorted from among others bearing the same initial letter.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am making inquiry in this matter.

      Western District Office—Adult Messengers' Overtime Pay.
      MR. BURDETT-COUTTS: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, if he is aware that adult messengers employed at the Western District Office on duty after their usual time, during the week ending 19th January, have not yet received payment for the same; and when they will receive payment.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The claim for the overtime to which the hon. Member refers was one of the many which arose out of the General Election. The large

      1313
      number of claims has caused some unavoidable delay in settlement, but all amounts still due will be paid very shortly.

      Manchester Postmen's Pay.
      MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Postmaster - General whether he will take into consideration the position, as regards pay, of the postmen employed within the area of the late Withington Urban District Council, recently absorbed by Manchester, and place them on the Manchester scale of wages; whether he is aware that, although the postal facilities within their area have been increased, their maximum rate of wages is 6s. per week lower than the Manchester maximum; and whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a Question was asked on the 16th February 1905 on this same subject, and the Answer then was that the matter is at present under consideration.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The Question has been considered but no adequate ground has been found for increasing the present scale of pay at Withington. The whole question of postmen's pay will, however, be reviewed by the Select Committee which will inquire into the wages of postal servants.

      Labour Bureaux.
      MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Report of the Inspector (referred to in Circular 1071 of the Local Government Board) appointed to inquire into the working of existing labour bureaux has been received; and, if received, why it has not been published in accordance with the terms of Circular 1071.
      THE PRESIDENT OP THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS, Battersea): The Report referred to has been received. The intimation given in the Circular was to the effect that after the receipt of the Report some further communication would probably be made to the local bodies concerned. This is now under consideration.

      Aged Poor.
      MR. BARNES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if
      1314
      he will state the number of persons over the age of sixty-five who are in receipt of poor law relief and the annual cost of such relief.
      MR. JOHN BURNS: According to the latest return on the subject the number of persons over sixty-five in receipt of relief in England and Wales was, on 1st September, 1903, 284,265 (excluding casual paupers, lunatics in asylums and persons only constructively in receipt on account of relief given to wives or children). As regards the cost of relief to persons above sixty-five, I can only repeat what I stated the day before yesterday, in reply to my hon. friend the Member for the Tottenham Division, that I am not able to give this information, and that I fear it would not be practicable to obtain it.

      Importation of Canadian Cattle.
      MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if it is proposed to open British ports to the importation of any colonial or foreign store cattle.
      SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: I am not in a position as yet to add anything to the reply which my noble friend gave on this subject to the deputation which he received from the Free Importation of Canadian Cattle Association on the 5th ultimo. I shall be happy to supply the hon. Member with a verbatim Report of the proceedings on that occasion. My noble friend has arranged to receive a further deputation on the 6th inst., at which the views of the Central Chamber of Agriculture and other agricultural bodies are to be submitted to him, and, as the hon. Member is aware, a Bill on the subject has been introduced by my hon. friend the Member for Newcastle, the Second Reading of which is fixed for Friday the 6th April. On both these occasions further statements as to the position of the Government in the matter will be made.
      In answer to a further question Sir EDWARD STRACHEY promised to consider

      1315
      if the Report could be laid for the convenience of Members.

      Vacant Crown Lands.
      MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state the details of the rental for the year 1904–5, amounting to £513,760 9s. 7d,, mentioned in page 166 of the eighty-third Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, dated 29th June, 1905, and where any information in connection with the specific rentals, the amount of each rental, the tenure, the character, whether agricultural or otherwise, can be found; whether there are in any, and what, counties agricultural or farming lands vacant and unlet which are available for the purpose of use by the unemployed under the direction of the Distress Committees; and what is the total acreage of agricultural land in each county, or land available for such purpose, under the charge of the Commissioners.
      THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA, Monmouthshire, N.): Detailed particulars of leases granted each year are given in the appendices to the Commissioners of Woods Report for that year. A classification of the rents collected by Mr. Stafford Howard is given in the report for 1905, see pp. 3 to 7. A classification of the rental collected by Mr. Horner was given in the Report for 1901, pages 84 to 103, and the variations that have occurred since by purchases, sales, re-lettings, etc., are for the most part shown in the subsequent reports. The Report for 1905, page 74, gives details of the agricultural lands which are temporarily in hand for want of suitable tenants. These lands are all in course of cultivation, the necessary labour being employed by the Commissioners of Woods. The Commissioners have no power to appropriate the land for use by the unemployed under the Distress Committee unless on payment of adequate rents.

      Customs Statistical Office
      MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether
      1316
      the overtime work, performed by abstractors in the Customs Statistical Office on the preparation of the monthly and annual statements of trade, is compulsory, and whether, seeing that the rate of pay is less per hour than that earned during the official day in a large number of cases, a higher rate per hour can be introduced.
      MR. MCKENNA: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The rates of overtime pay for abstractors are fixed on grounds of convenience on a sliding scale, which gives a rate, sometimes above, sometimes below, but fairly represents on the average the actual rate of pay. I see no reason to change the rates of overtime which were improved only last year.

      Queen's Colleges in Ireland.
      MR. WALTER LONG: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Treasury have signified their concurrence in the proposal made to them by the late Government in favour of an additional endowment for the Queen's Colleges at Belfast and Cork; and, if so, what provision is proposed to be made for the purpose in the Estimates for 1906–7.
      MR. MCKENNA: A sum of £5,400 is being taken in the Estimates for 1906–7 for buildings at Queen's College, Belfast, conditionally on an equal sum being appropriated to the same purpose from funds raised by public subscription. The case of Queen's College, Cork, will be considered if the same condition is satisfied; but no scheme for new buildings at Cork has yet been matured, and I am not aware that any local contributions have been promised. It is therefore not proposed to make any provision for Cork in the Estimates for 1906–7, except a small sum for minor improvements.
      MR. JOHN REDMONDasked whether it was not the fact that the late Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Dover when Chief Secretary stated that they could not approve additional endowments for the

      1317
      Queen's College in Belfast, except as part of the general settlement of the University question which would provide additional facilities for the University education of the Roman Catholics of Ireland.
      MR. MCKENNA: The hon. Member is correct in what he says, but the change was made by the right hon. Member for South Dublin. I believe that £72,000 was subscribed in Belfast.

      County Court Printing and Stationery Contracts.
      MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to the dissatisfaction caused by the threatened change in the source of supplies of stationery and printed matter, namely, from local printers to His Majesty's Stationery Office, in use in County Courts; and whether, in view of the inconvenience and delays which will occur in the work of Courts, and the loss entailed on the local printers and the dismissal of some of their employees, he proposes to take any action in the matter.
      MR. MCKENNA: The supplies of printing for the County Courts will continue to be drawn from the local printers, provided that the Controller of the Stationery Office is satisfied as to the reasonableness of the charges. Stationery, however, as distinguished from printing, will be supplied (saving existing orders) from the Stationery Office, as it appears that a large economy can be effected in this manner.

      Training of Teachers.
      MR. CROOKS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education, whether he will at once consider the desirability of amending the regulation which comes into force next year, and make it quite clear that the Education Department will encourage university training to be given in the elementary teachers' training colleges, having regard to the fact that most of the students in training are the sons and daughters of those who are unable to give them an opportunity to obtain degrees in either of the universities.
      THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.): In replying to the Question I should like to assure the hon. Member that the Board of Education have no desire to discourage the entrance to University courses and the acquisition of University degrees on the part of persons intending to become elementary school teachers, who are qualified to profit by such courses and to obtain the degrees. The intention of the circular to which the hon. Member seems to refer in his Question is not to discourage this movement, but to secure that persons of inadequate attainments should not be diverted from other courses of training more suited to them. I am giving the whole matter my most careful consideration as I recognise the importance of the issues involved, but I must remind the hon. Member that these grants are voted by Parliament to secure the regular supply of competent teachers for our elementary schools, and that the Board are bound to see that other objects, however desirable in themselves, are not allowed to supersede this primary purposes.
      MR. CROOKS: Is it not the case that the permanent officials of the Department discourage rather than encourage the movement?
      MR. BIRRELL: I hope not. It is not my view that they should.

      Examinations in Welsh Subjects.
      MR. D. A. THOMAS: I began to ask the President of the Board of Education, whether he has received representations from any local education authorities of the Principality in respect to the omission from the regulations and syllabus for the preliminary examination for the certificate, 1907, of Welsh subjects, and respectfully urging him to restore the subject of Welsh to a position of at least equal prominence to that which it enjoyed in the Code for former years; can he say why Welsh has been omitted; and does he propose to respond favourably to the appeals that have been made for its restoration to the Code?
      MR. BIRRELL: A revised edition of the regulations referred to will be published, I hope, on Monday next. I think that the hon. Member will find that the

      1319
      various points in regard to Welsh subjects upon which representations have been made, are satisfactorily dealt with.

      Kensington Avenue School, East Ham.
      MR. BEIDGEMAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education, whether the attention of the Board has been called to the report of the medical officer of health at East Ham on the over-crowded condition of Kensington Avenue school, and on the number of vacant places in the neighbouring school at Monega Road, and whether he has taken or will take any action in the matter, and, if so, what action.
      MR. BIRRELL: A copy of the Report in question has been forwarded to the Board by a correspondent. I understand that the Local Authority has taken prompt measures to meet the complaints of their Medical Officer. No action for the present, at any rate, appears to be needed on the part of the Board.
      MR. BRIDGEMAN: Is it not the fact that the local education authority have postponed any action until the end of the educational year.
      MR. BIRRELL: I am not aware that that is so. I will look into it.

      Commercial Corruption.
      MR. VIVIAN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General, when the Government propose to introduce the Bill to prevent secret commissions or commercial corruption, referred to in the Speech from the Throne.
      THE ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir LAWSON WALTON,): I understand that a Bill to prevent secret commissions or commercial corruption will shortly be introduced into the House of Lords by the ex-Lord Chancellor, and will be supported by the present Lord Chancellor.

      Church Bates in Scotland.
      MR. PIRIE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether his attention has been called to the proceedings taking place in the parish of Old Machar, which embraces a large section of the town of Aberdeen, under
      1320
      which owners of land and houses have been assessed for the payment of rates in support of a church and a manse with which a majority of the ratepayers have no acquaintance or concern, and to the fact that these assessm nts are levied under a threat of seizure and sale of the goods of those who resist the exaction; if he is aware of the dissatisfaction prevailing throughout Scotland in connection with the above and many similar proceedings; and if the Government will be prepared to bring in a Bill for the abolition of church and manse rates in Scotland.
      THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR, Forfar): My attention has been called to the proceedings referred to by the hon. Member. The Government is alive to the dissatisfaction with which these proceedings are regarded. They are not prepared to bring in such a Bill.
      MR. EUGENE WASON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Church rate has been abolished south of the Tweed and will he take steps to give similar relief in the North?
      AN HON. MEMBER: And is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these funds are no longer applied to national purposes? Will he see that that is altered?
      MR. SINCLAIR: I can add nothing to my Answer.
      MR. PIRIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Lord Advocate has already expressed his opinion that those rates should be entirely abolished?
      MR. SPEAKERruled the Question out of Order.

      Scotland and the Housing of the Working Classes Act.
      MR. BARNES: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he will take the necessary steps to put Scottish municipal authorities on an equal footing with those of England in regard to the term of repayments under the provisions

      1321
      of the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890.
      MR. SINCLAIR: It is not clear that Scottish opinion demands so long a period as the eighty years permissible under the English Act of 1903, but I shall be glad to consider any representations on the subject.

      Sligo Conspiracy Trials.
      MR. P. A. MCHUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, whether he is aware that at the trial of Messrs. John O'Dowd, M.P., Conor O'Kelly, M.P., and James Mills, J.P., for alleged conspiracy at the recent winter assizes at Sligo, every member of the jury empanelled to try the case was a Unionist in politics and a Protestant in religion; that all Catholic jurors, to the number of eighteen, who were called to the box, were ordered to stand by, and that in the same case nine Protestants were ordered to stand by; is he aware that the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. Powell, stated in reply to the judge that the Crown Solicitor was acting on the instructions of the Attorney General in ordering certain jurors to stand by; and that the Crown Solicitor in the case has since been promoted to the position of Chief Crown Solicitor for Ireland; and what steps does he propose to take to prevent in Ireland the abuse of the practice of the Crown of unlimited challenge without cause assigned.
      THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY, Liverpool Exchange): At the trial referred to, the number of persons called as jurors and ordered by the Crown to stand by was, as stated, twenty-seven. The Crown Solicitor informs me that he did not inquire into the religion or politics of the jurors; and I do not know, and I have no means of ascertaining, what their opinions on political or religious matters were, or now are. The Senior Crown Prosecutor stated at the trial, in reply to the learned judge, that the Crown Solicitor was acting under the authority of the Attorney-General in challenging as he did. As the hon. Member is aware, I was not at the time Attorney-General, and I know nothing of the facts personally. The Gentleman who was at the time Crown
      1322
      Solicitor for Mayo has since been promoted to the position of Chief Crown Solicitor for Ireland. In reply to the last paragraph of the Question, I beg to say that I propose immediately to call the attention of all the Crown Solicitors in Ireland to the Rule, originally issued in 1894, that no person should be directed to stand by on account of his religious or political opinions, and to impress upon them the importance of strict compliance with it. I am also conducting inquiries with a view to ascertaining whether it is possible, with due regard to the interests of justice, to make any change in the rules at present in force upon this subject.
      MR. LONSDALE: Is there not an organised system of intimidation of the special jurors in the West of Ireland who have to deal with agrarian offences?
      MR. CHERRY: I must ask for notice of that question.

      Private Bags at the Wexford Post Office.
      MR. FFRENCH: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether he is aware that the manufacturing firm of Messrs. Pierce and Company, cycle and machine makers, Wexford, have for many years had the right of a private bag for their letters, on a payment of two guineas per year, but that on renewing the fee this year an increased fee of three guineas was demanded; and whether he will direct that the sum formerly charged be still accepted from this firm.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It would seem that owing to some misapprehension a fee of one guinea only has hitherto been charged for the rent of a private box at the Wexford Post Office, whereas the fee ought to have been £2 2s., which with the fee of £1 1s. for private bag makes £3 3s. in all. Messrs. Pierce and Company have for many years had the benefit of the service although they have not paid the full fee; but now that the error has been discovered they must of course be charged the proper fee.

      Keadue (Roscommon) Telegraph Office.
      MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether it is intended to establish

      1323
      a telegraph office at Keadue, county Roscommon, the necessary guarantee having been given by the Boyle No. 1 district council; whether care will be taken that other than licensed premises will be secured for the purpose; and whether any applications have already been received.
      MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The Boyle No. 1 district council intimated on the 21st ultimo that they are prepared to give the guarantee required in connection with the provision of telegraph facilities at Keadue, and a draft agreement for giving effect to the arrangement was sent to the board on the 27th ultimo. As the sub-postmistress, who has held the office since 1880, is able and willing to undertake the new business, and as it is understood that she is prepared to provide the necessary accommodation, there is not likely to be a vacancy; but one application for appointment has been received.

      Unemployed White Labour in the Transvaal.
      MR. FELL: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he will be prepared to offer to English workmen thrown out of work in the Transvaal, owing to the departure of the Chinese, the privilege of returning to England at the expense of the Imperial Exchequer.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fife, E.): The contingency has not arisen, and I see no reason for making any provision against it.

      Tea Duty and the Budget.
      MR. BYLES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with a view to preventing disturbance in the tea trade, which has twice been disorganised by alterations of duty during the last two years, he can now say if he proposes to reduce the tea duty this year.
      MR. ASQUITH: I am unable to depart from the established practice of declining to give any information as to the intentions of the Government with
      1324
      reference to duties upon commodities in advance of the Budget Statement.

      The Royal Commission on Canals.
      MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in the reference to the proposed Royal Commission on Canals, he will include an Instruction to the Commission to inquire into the canal systems of other countries, including India, with the object of ascertaining to what extent navigable canals pay a satisfactory return upon the capital invested in their construction.
      MR. ASQUITH (for Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN): I do not think such an instruction is desirable; the reference, which has been carefully settled, will give the Commission full discretion to take evidence upon the canal systems in other countries.

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what business he proposes to take next week?
    MR. ASQUITH: As a result of the dislocation of our arrangements we have had to do the best we can and must ask the indulgence of the House. Next Monday the Government propose to take the Civil Service Vote on account. On Tuesday Naval Supply will be taken, and on Wednesday Naval Supply again, or if it is possible, Report of the Vote on account. I cannot pledge myself absolutely as regards Thursday, but if everybody is then in a normal state of health we may possibly take the free trade resolution.

    QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.
    It being now five minutes to three o'clock thirty-six starred questions to the Irish Office, seventeen to the Colonial Office, and twelve to the War Office remained unanswered.
    MR. JOHN REDMONDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention had been called to the fact that

    1325
    to-day in the time allocated to Questions, less than one-half of the questions on the Paper were asked, and also that all the Irish Questions put down to the Chief Secretary were excluded; and whether the Government would consider this matter when they prepared the scheme which they were about to submit to the Committee on Procedure, with a view to giving more time to all Questions.
    MR. ASQUITH: I have been very much struck almost every day since the House has met by the extreme unfairness of the existing arrangements. The hon. Gentleman and his friends happen to be the victims to-day, but also not a single Question addressed to the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, many of them of the greatest importance, and not a single Question addressed to the Secretary for War, have been reached. That is a very serious and inconvenient state of things and one which will engage the attention, I hope, of the Committee, as it will of the Government.

    NEW MEMBER SWORN.
    James Murray, esquire, for the County of Aberdeen (Eastern Division).

    SELECTION (UNOPPOSED BILL COMMITTEES) (PANEL).
    Sir Brampton Gurdon reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had selected the following seven Members to be the Panel to serve on Unopposed Bill Committees under Standing Order No. 109: Mr. Brynmor Jones, Mr. Paulton, Mr. Crombie, Mr. Beale, Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. J. W. Hills, and Mr. Mooney.
    Report to lie upon the Table.

    SUPPLY (NAVY ESTIMATES).
    Order for Committee read.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee): I am sure the whole House regrets the circumstances which have led to the alteration of our arrangements for
    1326
    to-day, and nobody has more cause to regret them than I have, because at a few hours notice I am called upon to propose the Navy Estimates for the coming year. The whole Board of Admiralty, too, have been put upon short notice. We have only been in office a few weeks. But there are some mitigating circumstances. The Navy Estimates, although they are usually the largest, most complicated, and, I think, the most important of all the Estimates, are usually the most non-contentious. There are special features in the present year's Estimates which the House will allow me to allude to briefly. On coming into office a few weeks ago we found the Estimates for the coming year practically complete, and the result of them had been made public in an Admiralty Memorandum. That is the first fact to which I would call attention. In the second place we found ourselves in the presence of a new policy, also complete, also made public and already actually in operation or only waiting formal sanction. The third fact upon which I would lay special stress is that we found ourselves allied with four naval colleagues who had been members of the late Board, and, as such, responsible both for the Estimates and for the naval policy which those Estimates expressed. The four Sea Lords were continued in office by my noble friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, according to tradition, which I think ts a good tradition, ensuring thereby hie continuity of naval policy and advice. The Sea Lords form a sort of nucleus crew at the Admiralty. These facts justify. I think, the attitude of the new Board which I am now about to describe both as to the Estimates and the policy. With the exception of a few minor adjustments, we have accepted the Estimates as they came into our hands from our predecessors. There are one or two points of detail in which we made some slight alteration. One of these is Rosyth. The item for Rosyth has been struck out of these Estimates, but I do not want anybody to run away with the idea that the Rosyth scheme has been abandoned. On the contrary, there is no intention of abandoning or of departing from the scheme; but, in view of the requirements of the new type of vessels and possible

    1327
    modifications in designs, it has been decided to give some further consideration to the details of the scheme. For this reason, and for this reason only, no definite sum can yet be set down as the total amount required. The sum still remaining to be spent under the loan is quite sufficient for the preliminary work now going on. There are also certain new proposals with regard to Portsmouth. As to these, I may say on behalf of the Admiralty that we consider it undesirable that the closed repairing basins should have only one entrance. It is most undesirable that any important closed repairing basin should have only one access, and it is equally important that one of these should be in the nature of a lock, so that vessels can enter or leave the basin at all times independently of the state of the tide. The entrances to the basins at Portsmouth at present, with one exception, are not of sufficient width to take vessels like the "Dreadnought," and the locks are not long enough to take several of our armoured cruisers or the "Invincible" class. The alterations therefore, are intended to get over these disadvantages, which are not such as should be allowed to remain in our most important dockyard. The lengthening of the building slip at Portsmouth is also necessary, as longer vessels than the "Dreadnought" are contemplated, and a re-arrangement of the buildings in the vicinity is necessary for more economical production. The only other point that I need dwell upon here is as to the new ship-building programme set out in Vote 8. It is a considerable programme, but it will be observed that only a comparatively small sum of money is to be taken for the new shipbuilding which is to be absolutely begun in this coming financial year. The building of the four large vessels will not commence until quite late in the year, and as to these vessels we do not propose to ask the House to tie its hands at present. It has been the regular practice for many years past to defer the consideration of Vote 8 to a comparatively late period of the session. In respect of that portion of the Estimates, therefore, I claim a certain amount of freedom, and I hope the House will be content on this as on former occasions to leave the considera-
    1328
    tion of the details of Vote 8 until some where about June.
    Now I come to our attitude towards the policy which underlies a great portion of these Estimates. I have described it as a new policy. It is a policy which is the result of much patient study, and it is a policy which demands much patient study from us. Want of time alone would prevent us from declaring now that we disagree with any portion of that policy, considering by whom it was originated and considering the responsibility of our own naval colleagues in regard to it. The very limited time we have had at our disposal, while it makes it impossible for us to say that we disagree with any portion of this policy, is also a good reason against our committing ourselves irrevocably to it. As to the various items of policy set forth in the Cawdor Memorandum, I may say that the Government will accept it and act upon it. Where a formal Order in Council is all that is wanted to carry the new policy into effect we shall allow that Order to pass. We shall put the proposals of the Memorandum into execution without prejudice, without any unfavourable suggestion with regard to them, and watch and wait. That is all we can be called upon at the present moment to do. Perhaps there is one point on which I ought to make a reservation. All the items contained in the Cawdor Memorandum are not in operation, and there are some—one I have in my mind—to which my observation would not apply. A new scheme of training is in operation. It is a fact, and we propose that it should go on and be watched carefully. But there is a proposal in the Cawdor Memorandum which is a development of the original scheme, which will not come into operation for three years or more, and to which, therefore, my observations would not apply. I mean the new proposal with reference to the non-specialisation in future of the various ranks of offices. I do not, however, say anything against or in favour of that alteration. The Cawdor Memorandum will no doubt be discussed a great deal in this House. I am sure we regret the absence of the late member for King's Lynn, but his place is taken, I am glad to hear, by several naval experts, and I am sure no one will listen with more interest

    1329
    or with greater desire to learn from their expert knowledge than I shall.
    Another matter I want to refer to is the question of the Naval expenditure involved in these Estimates. We ought to take the gross figure, the whole amount called for by the Estimates, including the sum voted for appropriations in aid which the Admiralty is allowed to use on its own responsibility. I intend also to count in some other items. Accordingly this year, instead of the net expenditure of £31,865,000, I ask the House to take the estimated expenditure on the Navy at the sum of £33,573,000. That is the real expenditure. To that I must add the comparatively small sum of £369,000 which is expended on behalf of the Navy by other Departments of the State. Account should also be taken of the sum which is being expended or will be expended under the Naval Works Loan Act. I am informed that the anticipated expenditure out of the loan for the year 1905–6 is somewhere about £3,500,000. The amount which we are likely to expend under the loan in the coming financial year is, I am told £3,200,000. If you add all those items together you have a large and quite misleading figure, because it is necessary you should deduct an amount in connection with annuities. After making the necessary allowance, the entire Naval expenditure for the present year is not less than £36,000,000. That may seem to some new Members, and some Members who have only been in the habit of looking at the net Naval Estimate, a very large sum; but let me remind you that only two years ago the Naval expenditure of this country estimated in the same way would have turned out to be not less than £42,000,000. At one time it seemed likely to be £43,000,000. We have this consoling fact, that, taking the gross expenditure all round, we are spending £6,000,000 less this year than we were spending two years ago. We anticipate an expenditure under loan in the new financial year amounting to £3,200,000. The borrowing power as it stood under the la t Act, passed last year, will not be exhausted by the expenditure of next year. There will be a margin of over £1,000,000. That is to say, if our ideas are realised, on March 31st, 1907, there will remain unexpended a borrowing
    1330
    power under the Act amounting to about £1,000,000. Then this has to be considered also—the Acts as they stand do not create borrowing powers to the full extent of the estimated cost of the works authorised by this House. There is a balance unprovided for in connection with the cost of works authorised amounting to about £4,613,000. That is the difference between the estimated cost of works authorised and the amount of borrowing power provided by the Act. It has nothing to do with £1,000,000 which remains over under the existing borrowing powers. I may be asked how it is proposed to provide for the works which are unprovided for. Last year there was a general consensus of opinion on both sides of the House that the regime of loan works should, as soon as possible, be brought to an end. What is to be done at the end of the year 1907? The question was not really settled in the House last year, and there has not been time to deal with it yet this year. It is a question which must be left over for consideration. More than a year must elapse before any new policy can come into effect.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: May I take it that the right hon. Gentleman adheres to the policy announced by the late Government that no new works should be introduced into the works loan?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Most assuredly. The only doubt I ventured to insinuate is really only because of my own ignorance. No decision has been come to as to old loan work for which sufficient provision has not been made. I should like to ask the House to listen to a statement of the growth of expenditure dealing with the gross Estimate of the year. Some eleven years ago, at the beginning of the year in which I last had anything to do with the Navy—the year l895–6—the gross expenditure on the Navy in the Navy Estimates was £20 700,000. It rose the next year to £23,000,000. It stood there for a year, and then bounded up in 1898–1899 to £25,000,000. In the following year, 1899–1900, it rose to £27,000,000, in the following year to £31,000,000, and again

    1331
    in the year after to £32,000,000. It stood there for twelve months, and then bounded up again to £37,000,000. We now come to the great culminating year of expenditure, the year 1904–5, when the gross Naval Estimates rose to no less a sum than £38,327,000. Last year they were reduced to £35,000,000, and this year they are down again to £33,000,000. The Estimates I am now proposing to the House show roughly a reduced expenditure amounting to £1,500,000; but it is not for us to claim the credit for that. This reduction was an essential feature of the Estimates which came from the hands of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I think it is only fair and honest that that should be stated. I think it should also be stated that this reduction may be regarded by some financial experts as perhaps more apparent than real. For instance, some part of it is undoubtedly due to using money belonging to this financial year for the purchase of armour which would otherwise have fallen on the next financial year. In the now expiring financial year, 1905–6, a sum amounting to £289,000 will be taken and applied to the purchase of armour, which purchase would naturally have fallen on the new Estimates, which are correspondingly lower by that amount. This enters into the £1,500,000 reduction which I have stated to the House. There is another item which also affects the diminution. A considerable part—I should think as large a part as I have referred to—of the reduction this year is due to the use of stores without replacing them. I am now speaking financially and not in any way in regard to policy. I do not believe that the efficiency of the Navy or the sufficiency of the stores will be found to have suffered in the least by this operation. The credit of all that, the amount of the saving and the mode by which it has been accomplished, belongs to our predecessors in office, and we take it over from them. The only difference we make is this. According to the practice of the House, I apprehend that we might have applied this money to the purchase of armour, intending to reduce the Estimates, without presenting a supplementary Estimate, but we thought that a subsequent application of money such as this should be put into a supplementary Estimate.
    1332
    We have accordingly taken that course, and the Estimate will be laid before the House before many days are over. There is only one other item in connection with expenditure to which I should like to refer briefly, and herein I am pursuing the same course in office as I pursued in opposition. I have always insisted on the supreme importance of Vote 8, the great shipbuilding Vote, and especially that portion which refers to what is called new construction. Perhaps I may explain that. By new construction we mean the money expended on the building of new ships of any kind whatever, no matter when commenced. The new programme is that which commences this year. New construction is the running programme which may have been commenced one, two, or three years ago. Vote 8 dominates all the Navy Estimates. If you allow that to rise, every other Vote is bound to rise, and I would ask leave to give the House some figures showing the progress of the provision made for new construction in the last eleven years. In the first of these years, 1895–96, the provision for new construction—and here I include everything voted by supple-men ary as well as by the orginial Estimates—was £5,393,000. It rose the next year by £2,000,000 to rather more than £7,000,000. Then it dropped again to £6,641,000, but bolted up again the next year to £7,600,000, and in the following year to £8,855,000. It fell a little the next year, to £8,460,000, rising again in 1901–2 to £9,000,000, standing practically at that amount in 1902–3, and rising again in 1903–4 to £10,136,000, or nearly double what it was in 1895–96. Then comes the great culminating year of 1904–5, when the provision for new construction rose to the prodigious total of £11,654,000. Last year, however, the provision was only £9,500,000, and this year it is a little less—that is to say about £9,250,000. But I am afraid, in spite of the reduction, this year it will fluctuate in the neighbourhood of £9,500,000. I take it that the present provision carries us back pretty much to the years 1901, 1902, and 1903. It is a reversion, at all events, to something very near the figures of that period. Assuming it is a reversion to the two-Power standard—I used to think that

    1333
    the two-Power standard had been exceeded in some of the years in which the high water mark of the figures was reached—assuming that that is so, and that the new construction Vote this year invites the House to provide a normal and not an abnormal figure, I want to put the House in possession of my forecast of the naval expenditure of the future on that basis. Assuming that new construction is to stand about where it is now, assuming that Vote 10, which is a very speculative and uncertain Vote, will not greatly exceed the provision made this year—making these two great assumptions, the rest becomes a calculation which is practically automatic. We have the sum of £9,500,000 for new construction and a reduced expenditure for the present year of something like £1,500,000. I am assuming that that state of things is to continue, and that no advance is to be made in new construction and works. Then you will see what the effect of the automatic process will be. By automatic process I mean this. There are certain Votes which must rise in consequence of what we have done in the past, and one of them is Vote 10 for works. The annuity for the payment of loans is this year, in respect of principal and interest, something like £1,000,000. I propose to take payment for five years only. By the end of five years that provision will have risen to £1,500,000. And there are other non-effective Votes which will rise in the same way. An increase in the number of ships, an increase in manning, carries with it at no very distant date an increase in the non-effective charges. Taking this year the gross Estimates at £33,575,000, next year, 1907–8, we may calculate that the Naval Vote would be £34,240,000. In 1908–9, I am told, on this calculation, we shall be close upon £35,000,000; the next year, 1909–10, £35,226,000; and in the year 1910–11, £35,400,000. There is no increase in Vote 10 and Vote 8, and assuming the result will be what I have already described we shall be committed to Navy Estimates exceeding the present Estimates by £2,000,000 or £3,500,000. I do not wish to indulge in these speculations with a view to challenging the past policy, but I have always thought it right that the House
    1334
    of Commons should know, and if possible that the country should know, what it is paying for this great and most important of our public services. I have always dwelt upon the growing expenditure of the Navy, and have always said that we were always obliged to go on increasing that expenditure, but that it was possible to aim at some lower figure.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Please turn round. We cannot hear you.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I want the House to consider by way of justification, if you like, by way of fair play, if you like, what the increase in the world's naval burden has been in the last ten years. These figures have no official authority; they are estimated figures, not actual expenditure. I have taken three years. In 1894 the naval expenditure of Europe and America—I leave out Japan—amounted to £48,500,000, including Great Britain. In 1899 that expenditure had risen by £20,000,000—to £68,500,000. It then began to alarm the world, and the consequence was the summoning of the Hague Conference, which had for its main, its capital, its prime purpose to reduce by agreement the growing and colossal burden of naval expenditure. The Hague Conference expired with the pious expression on its lips that the greatest service the nations could render to humanity would be to combine together to carry out this reduction. Those were the last dying words and testament of the Hague Conference. What has happened since? In the succeeding five years the Naval expenditure of Europe and America has risen from £68,500,000 to £101,500,000. In other words, since the Hague Conference made its suggestion there has been an addition of 50 per cent. to the naval burden of the world. I am not saying that by way of blame. All those who contributed to that expenditure—and all the world pretty well was in it—must share the blame equally.
    MR. HIGHAMasked whether it was not the fact that this

    1335
    country was responsible for more than half of the increase.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I should think it is quite possible, but I have not the figures.
    SIR HENRY KIMBER: Did you not say that the increase in our Naval expenditure was £11,000,000 in eleven years?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Our increase was a great deal more than that. Our expenditure rose from £20,000,000 gross in 1895–96 to £38,000,000 in 1904–5, not counting the expenditure on new loan works at all. Perhaps I may be allowed, in conclusion, to read two or three sentences which, I believe, express the feeling entertained by both sides of the House as to the evil, it may be the necessary evil, of these great armaments. They are the words spoken by the Prime Minister at the great meeting in the Albert Hall. He said—
    "I hold that the growth of armaments is a great danger to the peace of the world. A policy of huge armaments keeps alive and stimulates and feeds the belief that force is the best, if not the only solution of international differences. It is a policy that tends to inflame old sores, and to create new sores. And I submit to yon that as the principle of peaceful arbitration gains ground it becomes one of the highest tasks of a statesman to adjust those armaments to the newer and happier condition of things. What nobler role could this great country assume than at the fitting moment to place itself at the head of a league of peace through whose instrumentality this great work could De effected?"
    With these words of the Prime Minister I shall conclude what I have to say, and beg to thank the House for the patient hearing which they have given to me.
    Motion made and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that the right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech by asking the House to sympathise with him in the difficult position in which he was placed by having to defend these Estimates at such short notice. He hoped the House would also extend a share of its sympathy to him for having to deal, at equally short notice, with the Statement
    1336
    which the First Lord of the Admiralty had circulated with the Estimates. Although he was, it was true, at the Admiralty when these Estimates were framed in bulk he had only had an opportunity of seeing them in private within the last few hours. That difficulty sprang from causes over which neither side of the House had any control, and therefore he hoped the indulgence of the House would be extended both to the right hon. Gentleman and to himself. If he understood the Secretary to the Admiralty aright he appeared rather to wash his hands of responsibility with regard to these Estimates, and desired to throw the burden of expounding and defending them upon those who were associated with the late Admiralty Board. He thought that was a somewhat novel and unconstitutional position. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about having been in office only a few weeks or days, but his impression was that he had been in office a little longer than that—in fact, it was nearly three months.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: But I could not do any work until after the election.
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that electioneering work was not usually considered to be any excuse for not doing the business of the Admiralty, but he did not wish to press that point. But the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were responsible for these Estimates. Their signatures appeared upon them, and therefore he did not think they had any right to throw upon their predecessors the burden of expounding them.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: My suggestion was that we should share it.
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid they were prepared to share it. If the Estimates for which the late Government were responsible were attacked, he should be glad to co - operate with the right hon. Gentleman in defending them, if he was in need of his assistance. At any rate they would wait until the attack developed. Their position on the Opposition Benches with regard to Naval policy could easily be

    1337
    defined, for they regarded it as non-contentious and non-Party, and in this particular case they would naturally be only too willing to support Estimates and a policy which they had themselves initiated and elaborated, and the main structure of which was completed before they left office. When the right hon. Gentleman pleaded want of time as an excuse for not committing himself or his colleagues to an approval of a policy which the late Government initiated, he perhaps might be allowed to express a wish that another State Department, namely the Colonial Department, had shown similar prudence in dealing with problems of vast importance in South Africa, of which the Prime Minister had said they were wofully ignorant. If the Government proposed to continue and maintain the broad outlines of naval policy which had been handed over to them by their predecessors, they would receive from the Opposition every possible support and assistance. But there was a somewhat ominous note in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, when he rather went out of his way to disclaim any responsibility for continuing the policy of the late Government in the future. Of course he was entitled to do so if he liked. When the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the advantage of continuity of Naval policy at the Admiralty, and mentioned as an illustration that the Sea Lords had been continued in office, describing them as a "nucleus crew," he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would remember that the nucleus crew consisted of the skilled ratings, and that their advice should be followed accordingly, This would necessarily involve continuing the policy which the late Government handed over to their successors. If, on the other hand, the Government decided to modify or to depart from that particular policy, he and his friends would be entitled to ask the reasons, and after having those reasons explained they would of course reserve full liberty of action. There was one point to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in the nature of a change in the Estimates. He was very glad indeed to hear the right hon. Gentleman's statement with regard to Rosyth, because the absence of that item, or rather its excision
    1338
    from the original Estimates, naturally caused some anxiety to those who believed that a naval base at Rosyth was an absolute necessity. He understood from the right hon. Gentleman that there was no intention whatever on the part of the Government to abandon the Rosyth scheme; that, on the contrary, they still regarded it as a feature of vital importance, and that they only found it necessary to reconsider some of the details of the scheme, in view of possible changes of design in warships.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid his words were that the Admiralty had no intention of departing from the scheme of repairing and docking accommodation at Rosyth, because it was of imperative necessity that this should be provided on the East coast, where at present no such accommodation existed.
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid he thought that assurance was satisfactory. When the late Government went out of office the policy was to press on Rosyth with all possible speed, and it was indeed anticipated that the main contract would be let by about the 1st June. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman had given reasons for modifying that policy, but so long as the scheme was to be vigorously proceeded with he had no objection to offer. The only other large scheme of new Naval works was at Portsmouth, and he was glad to see from the Estimates that the scheme of the late Government providing for increasing shipbuilding and docking facilities at Portsmouth had been completely adopted, and that provision would be taken for it in this year's Estimates. With regard to the new shipbuilding programme they had been told that the ships would not be laid down till late in 1906. He would like to have an assurance that the delay was not due to any considerations merely of economy, but that it was a question of design.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I think it was your own proposal.
    ME. ARTHUR LEEsaid the designs were very far advanced when he left the Admiralty, and he was surprised to find

    1339
    so great a delay considered necessary, but if he was told the delay was due to difficulties of design he had no more to say.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I did not say that.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: Then it is out of consideration for economy.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I said I did not think anything would be proceeded with before June, and that I inferred from the amount taken for them in the Estimates we are proposing. I think I am right in saying that the whole provision for the new programme is only £645,000.
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that as long as the new programme was not being delayed for the cause he had suggested he had no objection to offer. The right hon. Gentleman said it would be possible later on to give fuller information as to the details of the new programme. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not adopt the policy of giving too much information in regard to the details of designs to the House, and consequently to the outside world. He was aware that last year for the first time the House was asked to accept the principle that it was not desirable that new and novel designs should be made public more than was necessary, and the House assented to that proposition. He hoped that that would constitute a precedent for the future. The right hon. Gentleman expressed a reserve in his mind with regard to the new scheme of education on the point of non-specialisation. He had suggested that the system of non-specialisation was something new, which had not been contemplated when the system was introduced. He assured him that that was not the case. The original scheme distinctly contemplated that there should be non-specialisation, and it was both the intention and the confident hope of its framers that non-specialisation would be ultimately adopted. As regards the general situation, they on the Opposition Benches were of course both earnest and enthusiastic advocates of a strong and indeed an invincible
    1340
    Navy. While in office they translated that advocacy into a definite policy and, a practical realisation. He thought the right hon. Gentleman in reviewing the question of expenditure had not given due weight to what had been accomplished by that expenditure. It had been a unique period of naval development, particularly during the last two years, when a great naval war—the first great naval war of our time—had taught practical lessons which could not possibly have been learned by any other means, and which must necessarily make the mere theories on which they had been bound in the past to proceed of comparatively little value. As the result of that war many of the accepted theories—when he said accepted he meant accepted not only by the Admiralty of this country but accepted by the Admiralties of all countries—had proved to be wrong, and our Admiralty had not been ashamed to own that they had been wrong in some matters, and as the result it had been necessary to effect a practical revolution in naval affairs. The main structure of these great reforms was completed, and the late Government handed over to their successors a Navy which was greater in strength and efficiency, better manned and equipped, better trained and educated in every way, and more ready for instant service than this country had ever in the past had at its disposal. He thought this must be set against the increased expenditure which the right hon. Gentleman, from the purely financial point of view, so justly deplored. The right hon. Gentleman went on to draw his moral that it was highly desirable, not only in the interest of this country, but of the world at large, that this naval expenditure should be reduced, and that we should endeavour to come to an arrangement with foreign countries by which some system of disarmament could be accepted. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted the speech of the Prime Minister at the Albert Hall on that subject. Every sensible individual in this and in other countries was in favour of such an arrangement if it could possibly be effected, but he could not suggest too strongly that it was not the business of this country, which depended for its very existence on its naval

    1341
    supremacy, to commence any such policy of disarmament; but if other countries which did not depend for their existence and for their daily bread on the command of the sea chose to initiate a policy of this kind or make proposals, he was sure that the Government, from whichever Party it might be constituted, would be only too glad to listen to such proposals. But the proposals must come from them, and not from us in the first place. He had no doubt that in the course of the debate there would be many criticisms made on points of detail in these Estimates. No one, he presumed, would contend that there were no opportunities for criticism in such an extended series of proposals; but, after all, what was the true test as to whether the policy which was expressed in the Estimates was a good and right policy and one which ought to be approved by the House of Commons? The only true test of success in naval policy was in the answer to the question, How many ships of complete efficiency according to modern requirements, and manned by thoroughly trained crews, can be put into line of battle at a moment's notice? That was the only true test, because naval war, they had reason to suppose, in future would generally come like a thunder-clap from a blue sky. Applying that test to the present condition of affairs, he asked the House to remember that under the new scheme all ships of any fighting efficiency in the Navy—every ship rated as being of fighting efficiency—was now always ready for active service, and instant battle if necessary. In time of war they would all be manned by active service ratings without any necessity for calling upon the Reserve at all, and the available fighting strength of the Navy had not only been enormously increased but practically doubled in the last few years. That was what the country had got for its money, and he believed it was good value He might conclude by quoting a very striking and Impartial opinion upon our new naval policy by a distinguished French statesman, M. Hanotaux, late French Foreign Minister, who, though not recognised particularly as an Anglophile in other directions, was an authority whose
    1342
    opinion carried great weight. He wrote—
    "Hardly had our Government ratified the Anglo-French Agreement than the English Admiralty issued an order for the general re-organisation of the British Fleet and the redistribution of British Naval Forces all over the world. Nothing to compare with it has ever been seen in history. Neither the Romans nor Napoleon ever conceived anything equal to it. England now dominates everywhere. Peace and war are equally under her control. Our neighbouring Power can now calmly await any complications that may arrive. By her recent measures she has set the seal upon her power and greatness."
    He thought that was a very high tribute indeed to the Admiralty policy of the late Government, and one which was well deserved. It was on these grounds that he wished to express his satisfaction that the right hon. Gentleman had told the House that the Government did not propose to depart from that policy, or at any rate that that was not their present intention. And if that policy was continued in the future, he could give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that, from the Opposition Benches, he would receive not only no hostile criticism, but every possible assistance and support.
    MR. MCCRAEcongratulated his right hon. friend on the very clear statement he had given to the House that afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman was the first Minister who had, on such an occasion, given a complete estimate of the Naval expenditure for the year. It had always been a subject of complaint that the Naval Estimates had hitherto been presented piecemeal, and that they did not get all the particulars of the expenditure under the Naval Works Loans Acts. He had had the honour of moving last year an Amendment in which regret was expressed that the then Government had not by negotiation with foreign Powers brought about a still further reduction on the Naval Estimates. That Amendment was thought rather out of place, seeing that they were then having a reduction of £3,500,000 on the previous year's Estimates. But the Estimates before the House justified the attitude then taken by him, for they had now, in round figures, a further reduction of £1,500,000, or, altogether, a reduction in

    1343
    two years of £5,000,000. That showed that mere expenditure was no guarantee of efficiency. It was very interesting to consider the expenditure on the Navy since 1899. He did not go farther back than that year, because it was the year before the South African war; and the Estimates for that year were £27,000,000. In six years that amount had increased to £38,000,000. Those who then sat on the Opposition side of the House criticised the expenditure as unnecessary. Well the result had been a reduction of £5,000,000, while the Navy had been rendered more efficient. This reduction had been brought about by a redistribution of the Fleet, with increased efficiency. He noticed in the Statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty a paragraph showing that the system adopted last year had got rid of every obsolete vessel and all obsolete ammunition. He did not know whether it had been said in a sarcastic spirit by the First Lord of the Admiralty, but he did say that a large quantity of ammunition which had become obsolete for Naval purposes had either been disposed of or had been handed over to the War Office. He understood that this ammunition might be suitable for War Office purposes; but the principle adopted of getting rid of everything obsolete was the right principle. He must confess that he could not follow the right hon. Gentleman in his proposition to deal with the very large expenditure for the completion of the naval base at Rosyth. He had witnessed with some amusement the extreme virtue of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Secretary to the Admiralty stated that there was to be no more expenditure under the Naval Works Loans Act. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer took all the advantage of that system by postponing payment and making his Estimates for the year appear really less than they were; and now the right hon. Gentleman posed on the floor of the House as the apostle of financial purity. His right hon. friend the Member for Dundee was to be congratulated on his determination to carry out in office the views he had expressed in Opposition. However, he put it that even the present Estimates of £33,000,000 for the Navy were excessive, and he would urge that
    1344
    the Government ought, by negotiation with foreign Powers, to endeavour to come to some understanding in regard to naval expenditure. He had been rather disappointed at the statement of the hon. Gentleman opposite, the late Civil Lord, who said that it was not the business of this country to initiate negotiations for a general arrest of naval armaments.
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid he meant that this country should not initiate a policy of disarmament—not initiate negotiations for disarmament.
    MR. MCCRAEsaid he would accept the hon. Gentleman's correction. But Great Britain was the greatest Naval nation in the world, and it was essentially our part to take the initial step. The hon. Member would remember that Lord Goschen made a statement to that effect some years ago; and he asked whether the late Government had ever made any attempt whatever to enter into negotiations with foreign Powers. Subsequent to the discussion on the question in this House, there was a debate in the French Chamber, in which the members of that great assembly reciprocated a wish for the initiation of negotiations for the purpose indicated. He hoped his right hon. friend would initiate his new period of office by making an attempt to bring about some reduction n the Naval armaments of all the Great Powers.
    MR. BELLAIRSsaid he regretted that the Statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty and the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty had been somewhat colourless, especially in regard to the training of the future officers for the Royal Navy. It had been pointed out that there had been considerable reductions in the Vote for new construction. But the right hon. Gentleman had insisted that new construction ruled the whole of the rest of the Vote, including personnel. Now, in war time he waste of material was in excess of that of personnel and it was not, therefore, necessary to man all the ships built. There was an idea that we should initiate negotiations in regard to

    1345
    the reduction of Naval armaments. He believed that there would be no success in these negotiations. In fact, the result of the last negotiation for that suggested purpose had been a considerable increase in Naval armaments all round. Great Britain would lay herself open to some such retort as had been given to her by Napoleon III., who said—
    "You ought to be twice as strong as I am; and each of us can look after our own business."
    If a Committee or Commission was formed to negotiate for the reduction of Naval armaments this country would be liable to put her maritime policy under the domination of foreigners. They were all indignant at putting our sugar policy under the domination of foreigners by the Brussels Convention; but that resentment would be stronger were we to put our Naval policy under the domination of foreigners. The present Admiralty scheme for training officers was issued just forty-eight hours before the late Government, left office, and therefore the present Government was in no way responsible for it. The change involved a revolution in the officering of our Navy. The Selborne scheme provided for a common source of supply; a common system of entry; a common system of training up to twenty, and then permanent separation. But one did not make a scheme democratic, as it had been called, by making it have a common system of entry. If that were so they would have to allow that the House of Lords was a democratic institution, because there was a common avenue of entry into it. The scheme, so far from being democratic, went quite in the other direction and made the conditions very much worse. The education of engineering cadets cost a father about £50 a year and entry was by open competition. He had a question on the Paper addressed to the Secretary to the Admiralty, and he should be very much surprised to hear if the expenses of the cadets at Osborne under a system of nomination were less than £120 a year, a price which was very undemocratic, because it excluded nine-tenths of the nation from being Naval officers, Under such a scheme no Nelson and no St. Vincent could have entered the service, because their fathers could not have afforded the fees. The system was like
    1346
    the Royal Yacht promotions, inconsistent with democratic ideals, and it was something which the Liberal Party ought to do away with. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee denounced the scheme when it was introduced, in strong terms, and so also did the Prime Minister, in very strong language indeed, for he said it was a state of things "not to be contemplated for a moment." He had had letters form schoolmasters and Admirals from which he gathered that their experience led them to be dead against the scheme. One schoolmaster wrote—
    "From the experience I have had so far I can only assume that social position and political influence have far more to do with the granting of nominations for general ability or fitness for the service."
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon pointed out that there would I be no lack of engineer candidates, but two and a-half years later they found Lord Cawdor stating that—
    "It can hardly be expected, nor is it right to expect, that even a small proportion will volunteer for a specialist engineering branch."
    Therefore, a change was made by which if the occupant of the bridge was killed, the engineer who had been below came up and took charge on the bridge. This was the case although he might have been ten years below decks. So we got the officer who was going to be able to do everything. He was to be the fighting officer with guns or torpedoes, the signalling officer with flags and wireless telegraphy, the navigating officer, the tactician, the judge on Courts martial, the engineer with turbines, reciprocating engines and a multitude of water tube boilers. Now it was added that he was to be marine officer, able to direct troops on shore as well as to take charge of ships afloat. Was it to be wondered at that the Navy afloat was in a large majority against this scheme. This was accounted for by the fact that in the first place the Board did not pretend that they had consulted the man of experience afloat. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon said on March 4th, 1903—
    "The first Lord sent a copy of his memorandum at the time of issue to all the Admirals

    1347
    in command of foreign stations. There was no necessity to consult them on the new scheme before its adoption, as the Board of Admiralty, from the nature of its constitution, is fully competent to act on its own initiative."
    He would, however, point out to the House that a few months before the right hon. Gentleman introduced that scheme he said that the Sea Lords had no time to think out the problems connected with this work. Lord Selborne, only a few months before the introduction of the scheme, had inquired of officers, amongst whom must have been Sir John Fisher, whom the noble Lord met in the Mediterranean, and then he made a speech in which he said he acted on—
    "The authority of admirals and captains fresh from the sea,"
    is saying that—
    "So far as the personnel goes, it is scarcely possible to improve the officers or the men. They say with extraordinary unanimity that subject to some improvements in detail, the general system of training young officers and seamen leaves nothing to be desired."
    If that was the case, why revolutionise the whole system under which the Navy was officered? Yet the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon said—
    "The changes are being made not spasmodically, not as the result of a whim or sudden inspiration or in the individual opinions of any individual member, but as the result of the combined counsel of the Admiralty."
    The Times said that Lord Selborne's change was carried unanimously by the Board of Admiralty, but as he understood it there were one naval and two civilian members against three naval members. He did not believe it would be possible to get a statement from the other naval members of the Board of Admiralty that they were in favour of the scheme—at any rate in favour of the scheme as it stood now. The one naval member was Sir John Fisher, who was only saved from compulsory retirement by the regulations being set aside by a special Order in Council. If that had not been done the chances were that they would have another naval officer on the Board reversing the policy which was being carried out. As it was, however, they had this policy of Lord Cawdor, and the House would note the difference of treatment Sir John Fisher meted out to himself and to others, as 4,000 artificers were ruth-
    1348
    lessly, remorselessly, and relentlessly swept out of what they were entitled to and deprived of their best positions as the watch keepers of the Navy. The Admiralty had one law for the artificer and another for the Admiral. They had had a flag list two-thirds of the members of which were doing nothing and it was increased by an addition of one Admiral of the Fleet in order to give Sir John Fisher a fresh lease of life. There appeared to be one law for the quarter-deck and another for the lower; one law for the Admirals and another for the artificers. Although the latter were doing their work excedingly well they were to be remorselessly swept out. The Admiralty had justified this last reversal of the law of specialisation by certain statistics. They said—
    "Since the first two years of the training of cadets under the new system has now been completed, an estimate can be formed of what the attainments of these officers will be at the end of their sea training as midshipmen."
    And again they said—
    "Now that sufficient experience of the working of the new system has been obtained, it is desirable that, definite regulations for future procedure, with regard to the allocation of officers, to the various branches of the service should be formulated and promulgated at the earliest possible moment."
    The experience they had obtained was two years in regard to boys between twelve and a-half and fourteen and a-half years. The Admiralty, which was Sir John Fisher, did better than Cœsar. They taught these children mechanics for four and a-half months, and then said that they knew they were going to be able to handle ships as engines in war twenty years hence. They had heard to-day that they could watch and wait, but he denied that that was the case, for all this time the officers who were going to be placed in responsible positions ten years hence were being trained to be jacks-of-all-trades and universal experience showed that they would be masters of none. Why was it undesirable that men who understood machinery should run engines and that men who understood navigating ships should go down and run engines? One reason he believed why the Admiralty had carried out this step was that there was a very strong engineering agitation to which about sixty Members of the House subscribed

    1349
    some years ago, and it seemed to him that this hostility to the artificers was an attack upon the trades unions which the artificers had the wisdom to join before they entared the Navy. An admiral who was well informed had written a letter of which he had a copy. It ran—
    "The ships are certain to go back and have defects increased enormously by this new plan, first, the engine-room artificer will not be in a position to prevent wear and tear which he would by keeping watch, and secondly when the ship goes into harbour there will be only half the engine-room artificers to undertake artificers' work. The whole thing is ludicrously theoretical and absolutely unworkable."
    In answer to a question the other day they were told that protests had been received from officers of the Fleet. It was a long time since in the Navy we had had protests addressed to the Board of Admiralty about its policy. There was a protest about 114 years ago, addressed by Lord Hood about Admiralty policy and lie was superseded. No action had been taken in this case, and he found that Lord Selborne in his annual statement for 1902–3, writing of the old system, said that, judged by its results and the excellence of the officers turned out under it, it was a good one. Why change it? The change was introduced when Sir John Fisher joined the Board of Admiralty, and then changes were brought in which Lord Selborne described as "far-reaching and in some respects sweeping." In his view the gentlemen who were associated with Sir John Fisher on the Board were simply there for ornamental purposes. The fact was that the Admiralty had been for some time past a one man show with Sir John Fisher running it. The present state of things showed room for improvement. Neither engineers nor executive officers knew their job. We had now numerous collisions and other catastrophes. A return which had been issued showed that there had boon three collisions and groundings per fortnight in 1904. Were they likely to diminish that number of collisions and groundings by sending officers down to do engine-room duties? Again, when right hon. Gentlemen opposite were at the Admiralty, we had numer-
    1350
    ous breakdowns in the engine-room. That was when we had the water tube boiler scare, of which the House heard a great deal. The only way the Government got over the water tube boiler business was by training the officers for their proper job. That was what we should do now. The present scheme was being hotly opposed by engineers and by the engineering Press. Such papers as Engineering had gone strongly against the scheme, and at the conclusion of one of his leading articles the editor of the last-named journal had to go back to the days of his childhood for a simile. After riddling the scheme with shot and bursting shell words failed him, and he said of this "wonderland" scheme—
    "Mother, I want to learn to swim,"
    "Oh yes, my charming daughter;
    Hang your clothes on a gooseberry bush,
    But don't go near the water."
    It, was impossible to train officers in engineering by teaching them seamanship. One had to teach them to take their coats off and to do their work in the engine room. The practical experience of the whole world was against this idea of making officers jacks - of - all-trades and masters of none, which they all knew was the result of any such attempt. All over the globe every thoughtful person was in favour of specialisation. In the mercantile marine the man who navigated the vessel was quite distinct from the man who worked in the engine room. The Japanese Navy tried the experiment for four and a half years and abandoned it as impracticable. This system was introduced in the United States Navy about eight years ago, and the result had been an utter failure. Three years ago Admiral Melville, engineer-in-chief, reported that officers who had been trained in professional engineering work would lose interest, aptitude, confidence, and even efficiency in engineering duties, if they were allowed to specialise in other directions. He said that engineering efficiency was "rapidly decreasing." But thorn was even a more recent verdict of the engineer-in-chief of the United States. The new engineer-in-chief reported last-year that so long as the older officers of the former engineer corps remained available for service at sea, supplemented by the new body of officers styled machinists, the engineering duty of the Fleet

    1351
    was satisfactorily performed. He, however, rubbed in a good deal of candid criticism. He said—
    "So few officers of the line are taking up engineering seriously that the situation is becoming alarming. That the Department must do something to relieve this situation, and do that something at once, is only too obvious to the most casual observer of present conditions. Were the country suddenly plunged into war, the Navy would find itself in no condition to win battles. As necessary as good markman-ship is the ability to carry our guns to the firing line, and to keep them there amidst the havoc created by modern ordinance, and this will never be done with amateurs in charge of the machinery."
    He wanted to know whether this House was willing to sanction a scheme, without further inquiry, which was likely to bring about the same state of affairs in the British Navy as now existed in the United States Navy. The admirers in the United States of the scheme which he was criticising were falling away one by one. Mr. Long, who was at the head of the Navy when this scheme of a fighting engineer was introduced, now prophesied that the machinist—that was our engine-room artificer—would become the future engineer officer. Because some of them who wrote for the Press did not believe in these changes and stuck to the old fashioned belief that a jack-of-all-trades was master of none they were called antediluvians, and were told they ought to be scrap-heaped by a masterly stroke of the pen, and that the great Sir John ought to put them in the Yarmouth naval lunatic asylum. But if that were attempted he was afraid that Sir John Fisher would have to sweep away most of the flag list of the Navy. They wanted continuity of policy. Sooner or later they would have to recruit their Board with fresh blood, and then what happened to their policy? Because he wanted continuity of policy, he advocated inquiry. In his opinion, therefore, the best thing this House could do was to order a Committee of Inquiry, consisting of three impartial men, who would examine into the precise scope and effect of these revolutionary memoranda which had been introduced by Lord Selborne and Lord Cawdor. If such a Committee saw any advantage in the scheme then hostile critics like himself would cease to oppose it.
    CAPTAIN HERVEYsaid that among all the speeches which had been made during the general election by hon. Members he believed that in most cases the Navy was left out in the cold. They had just heard a very able statement from the Secretary to the Admiralty, from which it appeared that no less than £34,000,000 was going to be devoted to the Navy this year. He thought that in English politics it would be very much better that the Navy should hold a bigger place than it did at present. No doubt hon. Members opposite in their platform speeches used that very striking phrase, "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." A splendid text to preach upon, from a Naval point of view. The other night the President of the Local Government Board said that what this country really wanted was peace. How was peace to be retained? That which was most likely to ensure peace in this country was a strong Navy. If we had a strong Navy there was not the slightest question but that the nations about us would respect our rights. If we had a sufficiency of force at our back, he was quite certain that we should find our position to be what it ought to be in the Councils of Europe. What did Nelson say when it came to a question of dealing with foreign nations? He said, and his speech was one which ought to be posted up everywhere, that there was no better negotiator in the Councils of Europe than a fleet of English line of battleships. He should like to have heard the Secretary to the Admiralty, in reference to the question of continuity of policy, confirm the principle which had been laid down for a great many years past, that our armoured vessels should be equal in number to the armoured vessels of any two foreign Powers. He believed that at the present moment we stood in a good position, but it was not for us to sit down and simply admire our strength. It was for us to say how in the future we intended to keep that strength up to the standard to which it had been brought in recent years. He understood, however, that the Board of Admiralty had laid it down that they were only going to increase the Navy by four now armoured ships each year. They had

    1353
    not said whether those ships were to be armoured cruisers or battleships. He did not quarrel with the Admiralty at the present time for not defining the class of ships, but he thought that the number of ships to be laid down and the necessities of the case should be carefully scrutinised. He believed that at the present time we were up to the two-Power standard which had always been laid down as the proper point at which the Navy should be kept. He hoped they should not find that, as time went on, owing to the pressure for economy which was apparently being brought upon the Admiralty, there were attempts to reduce our armaments below the standard he had named. He had calculated the position as far as he could with the assistance of a great many experts. He understood that at the present moment the Admiralty considered that the life of one of our big armoured ships was not more than about fifteen years. If, therefore, we had to consider our position from the point of view of the two-Power standard we must take that consideration into view. Up to 1904 the fleets of two great nations had been considered as the two against whom we should have to calculate our figures, viz., France and Russia. Owing to the great defeat that Russia suffered at the hands of another nation a little time ago, Russia no longer had the naval position that she formerly had. He believed that the fleets we had now to consider to test the two-Power standard were those of France and Germany. If France and Germany carried out their respective programmes of shipbuilding up to the year 1919, and we only increased our fleet by four armoured vessels a year, Great Britain would then have sixty-three armoured ships of not more than 15 years old, France would have thirty-three, and Germany thirty-five. Therefore on that year we should be five ships to the bad. That was not a position which we should contemplate with equanimity. So much for peace. We ought to be strong, and we ought to see that the defences of the country were strong and kept up to the mark. The next point was retrenchment. That was a very excellent thing so long as it did not impair efficiency. Through carefully
    1354
    building up in recent years we now possessed a fleet in good order; we had the men ready and were in the position at which we had been aiming. It was necessary to see that we did not go down from that position. In order to effect what was called retrenchment and efficiency the late Board of Admiralty brought in a scheme by which 150 vessels, mostly small, old, or of little fighting value, were practically put upon the scrap heap. They had come to the conclusion that, owing to the alteration in fighting arrangements, a number of ships which from time immemorial had done various duties, not always of a strictly naval character, should be removed from the active list and dispensed with. This Act secured efficiency and retrenchment. Those 150 ships had been absorbing the time of many good men and costing an immense amount of money in upkeep and repairs, and in time of war the great difficulty would have been to get them safely into a British port. Diplomatic troubles often came very swiftly, and in case hostilities broke out many of those 150 ships would have had a poor chance in fighting against the improved ships of our enemies, and consequently they were a source of weakness. Besides this they were keeping good men bottled up in them who ought to be manning the vast number of ships in the reserve. What had revolutionised the Navy was that these ships had now been put upon the scrap heap, their crews had been taken out of them re-organised, and all the efficient men in them had been put into ships in the reserve and were now ready at a moment's notice to go to sea. That was a thing which the Navy had been hoping against hope for for years, and now it was an accomplished fact. There were a vast number of ships in commission, and all the ships strong enough for the fighting line were now ready to go to sea. The Board of Admiralty were thoroughly awake, in fact they never had a more efficient Board than at the present time. The hon. Member for King's Lynn said he hoped a Committee would be appointed to inquire into certain subjects, and he suggested that three gentlemen should inquire as to what the Board of Admiralty were doing. Was it right that there should be in this Kingdom three men whose opinions they were ready to take

    1355
    as against those of the most efficient Admirals in the Navy List? What use would such a Committee be?
    MR. BELLAIRS: What I said was that there was a strong difference of opinion amongst the Admirals, and therefore a Committee was necessary in order to get their opinions.
    CAPTAIN HERVEYsaid that if the Admirals on the Board of Admiralty were not the best men they ought to get others. It was no good having a Board of Admiralty composed of the best men who had got all the information possible from every source, and then appoint a Committee to set up their opinions against the Board of Admiralty which was supposed to be composed of expert opinion. He thought they were quite safe in trusting the Board of Admiralty to do what was right. As far as continuity of policy was concerned in the future when other officers had to take up this scheme they would find that a master hand had had the running of the show; they would find that it had been started upon right lines, and they would have very little difficulty in carrying out the present policy. There were some other things in connection with efficiency in regard to these Estimates which he should like to see carried into effect. He had heard them described as bloated Estimates, but they were bloated with things which he did not think ought to hive anything at all to do with the Board of Admiralty. He noticed amongst the Estimates such things as cost of r te tion of fisheries, sums of money for astronomical observatories, and Votes for coast-guards. Such things as those ought not to be put upon the Navy Estimates. The highly trained men of the Navy ought not to be employed looking after fisheries; such work could be done by a proper system of merchant ships not under the Admiralty. The same might be said of the astronomical business. It was a good thing to know what the sun and the moon were made of, but such things were of no special practical benefit to the Navy, and therefore they should not be placed on the Navy Estimates. The same argument would apply to the coast-guards, who had to board ships from foreign ports and
    1356
    perform other duties which might very well be relegated to a totally different department, and thus leave the Navy Estimates solely for what was required for the actual service of the Navy as a fighting machine. With regard to the question of the system of training and entry of officers, criticism had moulded the policy of the Admiralty. They had not tied themselves too rigidly to the position which they had taken up in 1902, and he thought they ought to have a free hand in dealing with a question of this kind, so that they might modify the system in detail if they desired. But why was it necessary to have this alteration in the system in question? Because the necessities of the personnel of the Navy had quite altered from what they were in the olden days. Some fifty years ago steam was introduced, and with that had gradually come engineers of the very highest type whom all respected and admired. They had reasons for wishing certain reforms in their class, but so long as they remained engineers pure and simple it was difficult for any satisfactory arrangements to be arrived at which would grant what the engineers wanted; and consequently the whole system had to be put into the melting pot and a new one evolved. The basis of the new system was that in the Navy of the present day it was essential that every executive officer, no matter what grade he might belong to, should have to a large extent an engineer's training. The ships in the Navy at the present time were a bunch of tricks; there were so many different engines and persons responsible that it was absolutely necessary not that the present engineers should be executive officers but that the future executive officers should all be engineers. There had been the class difficulty to get over, not because of the present engineers, who were such as all officers would be glad to meet on equal terms as well on shore as on board ship, as he knew from practical experience, but there was that difficulty of class—a prejudice much more pronounced in the country than ever was the case in the ship. That prejudice had spread and made difficulties in getting engineers into the service. To obviate this a totally different training had been resorted to for the engineers,

    1357
    the outcome of which was the new system of training and entry. The difficulty had also been mentioned between the engine-room artificer and the stokers in the Navy, and the question of trades unions had been introduced into the debate. He held most strongly that trades unions were not wanted and ought to have no place on board ship in His Majesty's Navy. A ship was a place where there ought to be a common good feeling between the men, such a feeling as had resulted in the British sailor being called the handy man, because he was ready to take any job in any place wherever he went, and was not afraid by doing that job of taking the bread out of the mouth of the man alongside him. The scheme in working out the naval programme should be to enter these artificers in such a way that from the beginning of their service they should be dependent on the Navy and not on trades unions. The engine-room artificers were a most excellent body of men and a splendid lot of workmen. They were entered for duty in certain specific trades, but not in any way as efficient watch-keepers. The whole of that part of the business was learnt on board ship. There were perhaps two trades—the boiler-maker and the engine-fitter—which had some connection with the running of engines, but the other trades had practically nothing to do with the running of engines. The stokers were a body of men thoroughly good at their job now, and had been highly trained, and they numbered about 30,000 as against about 4,000 engine-room artificers. They had as much right to be considered for promotion as the engine-room artificers and there was no reason why they should not prove efficient for engine-room watch-keeping. It had been stated that the engine-room artificers were to be done away with ruthlessly and remorselessly by a stroke of the pen, but there was no intention of doing anything of the sort. Stokers were to be brought into line by making them watch-keepers, and then they were to take the places, as opportunity came, of the present engine-room artificers. That was the form which this remorseless scheme had taken at the present time. Up to now the stokers had had no opportunity of rising to warrant rank, because there were no
    1358
    big billets to put them into. The present scheme of the Admiralty was to give them the opportunity, and it was in no way contended that the artificer should suffer in consequence of the stoker getting such promotion. These stokers, after they had been properly trained in the engine-room to run engines and work at boilers, were properly skilled workmen as much as the engine-room artificers, and he could not therefore agree with the objection that had been raised to the scheme that the artificers as a skilled labour class resented being placed under men who were not skilled. He believed the scheme would be for the good of the service, and he hoped nothing would be done which would tend in any way to minimise the good effect of it.
    MR. J. WILLIAMS BENNsaid he did not claim to be a naval expert, but he desired to offer a few commonplace observations as a dockyard Member. First of all as a dockyard Member he felt himself to be under a great obligation to his right hon. friend the Secretary to the Admiralty for the most admirable statement he had made. He was glad that that statement indicated continuity of the Naval policy of the country, and although the right hon. Gentleman did not pledge himself to an endorsement of the new policy, he understood he was prepared to give it a fair trial, and from the figures he gave he gathered that the policy of the new administration was the policy of a strong and efficient Navy. But there was one thing in the new policy which up to now had given grave concern to the dockyard Members. The right hon. Gentleman did not inform the House what proportion would be allocated to the Royal dockyards and what to private yards when he told the House what sum of money would be spent in construction. Documents recently issued seemed to show that the Royal dockyards were to take a second position with regard to this expenditure. They were really to be starved in order that the great private dockyards of the country might be kept going. He had nothing to say against the private dockyards, which he believed to be a valuable national asset, but it was the first duty of the Government to keep their own

    1359
    dockyards fully employed before considering the question of giving work to outside contractors. Those outside contractors could gather work from all parts of the world. He desired to draw attention to the words in official documents which had caused some of the dockyard Members very grave anxiety. In the Memorandum which Lord Selbome issued a year ago he said—
    "Henceforth it should be borne in mind that the first business of the Royal dockyards is to keep the fleet in repair, and accordingly the amount of new construction allotted to those dockyards should be subordinated to this main consideration."
    That seemed to show that the intention at all events of the last Administration was to turn our dockyards into repairing shops rather than into places of construction. That fear was further confirmed by Lord Cawdor's statement in November last that—
    "the elimination of the older vessels which require most frequent overhauling and repair greatly reduces the work of the dockyards, and therefore allows a reorganisation of the labour conditions."
    On the top of that there was the Memorandum issued this morning, in which Lord Tweedmouth said—
    "Owing to changes in the organisation of the fleet the amount of repairing work in the dockyards has been substantially reduced."
    Their concern arose from the fear that the dockyards were to be turned into repairing shops. How were the people they represented to be kept in employment if that was the policy? He thought they would find in this policy the reason for the discharges which had caused so great trouble at the dockyard centres. He asked for information in regard to this policy, and especially what portion of the money was to be allocated to the national workshops. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that if this was to be the policy of the Admiralty the distress already existing in dockyard centres would be greatly accentuated, because these Government establishments had attracted large numbers of workmen, and if they were to be thrown out of work by a "stroke of the pen," as the late Prime Minister would say, it would be difficult for them to obtain employment, because they did
    1360
    not happen to be in districts where shipbuilding obtained. By way of illustration he would mention a case that occurred in his own constituency. Prior to the introduction of this policy forty-six trained workmen were engaged in certain parts of the dockyard, and of these eighteen were young men who had been brought up to this particular branch of industry. When this policy was instituted all these men were thrown out of employment. At the present time the eighteen young men, who had secured considerable success in their examinations, were doing labourers' work. Being employed in Government dockyards, they could not take the precaution of joining a trade union—he understood they could not—and therefore if they went to other towns where their services might be required they would have considerable difficulty in finding employment. That instance showed the hardship involved in this change of policy to many of those who had been in the Government employment. With regard to labour, were they to have a declaration that the Government was prepared to abide by the condition that the trade union rate of wages should be paid in the Government departments? He thought it was time that they had a clear declaration on that point.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now anticipating an Amendment. It is not fair to the hon. Member who has put the Amendment down.
    MR. J. WILLIAMS BENNsaid that under these circumstances he would refrain from any further observations on that point. The dockyard Members heretofore had had the very great advantage of meeting year after year the First Lord of the Admiralty and the leading officials in order to discuss matters of general policy, and he hoped a promise would be given by the right hon. Gentleman that this very useful custom would be continued. Many of the matters which concerned the dockyard employees might be thrashed out in that informal way.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid he would not like to let this debate pass

    1361
    without saying a word or two with regard to the speech of the hon. Member for King's Lynn. He did not agree with the hon. Gentleman in his conclusions, and he very greatly regretted the arguments by which he thought fit to enforce them He had made an attack upon the members of the Board of Admiralty which was he thought, undeseved, and which he did not believe was in accordance with the general sentiment of the House or the public outside the House. The hon. Member had spoken of the First Sea Lord as an officer who had apparently been unwisely retained in the position he occupied, and he pointed out as a bad example that he should have been allowed to remain on the flag list. He himself did not think that condemnation of that kind was the reward which should be given to an officer who had devoted so much of his time and energy to the service of his country. He found but one note running through the hon. Member's speech. It was a personal one. At the back of every generalisation was a personal note of animosity against an individual. The example had been cited of an admiral who wrote minutes questioning the decision of the Board and was told to haul down his flag. He did not know that that was a very bad example. It certainly had had a very good effect, but, whether that were so or not, he thought the general sense of the Navy would be that it was not desirable or expedient that admirals should make their views known in this House through Members of Parliament when they had a clear course prescribed to them in the regulations, and that was to approach the Board of Admiralty. He did not agree with the matter or the manner of the hon. Member's indictment. The hon. Member told them that great changes were being made, and he invited the House to condemn those changes. He asked why changes should be made at all. The answer was very clear. All was changing in the Navy, and if we did not change the organisation of the personnel the most important part of the Navy must fall behind. Some of these changes had already been made, and we could see their results. One had not yet been completed, and the hon. Member's indictment was against that one. He hoped the House would
    1362
    judge of the tree by its fruits. Was it not a fair thing to say that a policy which, wherever they had been able to judge by results, had been an extraordinary and undeniable success, was one which should receive their confidence? What had been the result of these changes so-far? They had not only revolutionised the Navy, but had reduced the cost by between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000 by getting rid of that which was not fit for war and making efficient what remained. That was not a bad record, and to that economy they had added an enormous increase in efficiency. He thought they might take it that the Board of Admiralty as now constituted marked a new departure, but the hon. Member had asked the House to condemn that portion of the new policy as a failure. He knew perfectly well that there were some officers who did not believe in bringing the engineer officers into line with the executive officers of the Navy. The country, however, he believed, deliberately accepted the idea that the engineer officer should be given the same chance of promotion as any other officer in the ship. That was the end which the present system contemplated, and which, if let alone, it would effect. The hon. Member had said that we were trying to make an officer into a Jack-of-all-trades. That was a mistake It was not a fact that there was any parallel between the system which existed in the United States Navy and that which had now been introduced into the British Navy; and if it were he would point out that the system in the United States Navy was introduced for the same purpose as our own system, though he thought it less calculated to arrive at that result. To cite the case of Japan as an example was simply to mislead the House. The hon. Member said that every other country was opposed to the view of making an officer a Jack-of-all-trades. As a matter of fact every other country was finding the same difficulty which we had experienced with regard to engineer officers. The difficulties in the French Navy in this matter were known to be very great. When he was in the German harbour of Kiel he found that these same questions were being raised in regard to the exclusion of the engineer officer from the highest command in a navy which

    1363
    must daily become more and more of an engineering concern. We in this country had been the first to face the problem and try to find a solution of it, but the problem existed elsewhere. In the French Army at the present moment they were reorganising the training of candidates for the general staff and for the high commands. They were making them serve two years in every branch of the French Army, and yet it would not be supposed that the men would be less effective members of the general staff or commanders because they had served in all these branches. He could well understand that if they accepted all the hon. Member had told them the House might be inclined to believe that this training would be superficial. But that was not so. He would tell the House very briefly what these officers had to learn. A boy went to Osborne at the age of twelve and a-half years, and during the whole of his time there, he was largely engaged in studying the elements of mechanics and engineering. He then went t sea or three years, 30 per cent. of which time was spent on the engine-room watch, while the rest of the time he was employed on the engines. Then he went to learn his trade on shore and went through the engineering and training just as sub-lieutenants went through torpedo end gunnery training. After that, for seven years he must help to take charge of the machinery of a seagoing ship before he was allowed to take charge of the engines of a first-class ship-of-war. He did not see anything to prevent a man taking charge of the engines of a ship-of-war after undergoing a training of that kind. The hon. Member had stated that these officers would have to sit on Courts-martial and take duty as deck officers. What was the case now? An executive officer must be, and was, a member of a Court-martial. He had specialised either in gunnery or torpedo work, but did that unfit him for the duty of command?
    1364
    Fifty per cent. of our captains were specialists. Permanently to exclude the engineer officer from participation in the working of a ship was, in his opinion, a retrograde step of the most unparalleled kind. The hon. Member had spoken of the position of the engine-room artificers and stokers. At the present moment there were 29,000 stokers in the Navy. On the average they had the best character of any class of men in the Navy. They enlisted in the Navy as men, and after fulfilling their time, 20 per cent. of them re-engaged, proving that they were better value than any other class of men. Up to the present there had been no promotion for these men at all. That was not a condition, surely, which hon. Members desired to impose on any man. Every man should have the power to rise in the service to which he belonged. In order to give that power the Admiralty had made a most sensible change. They had said, "We will teach these stokers who have spent their lives in the engine-rooms to run those engines. They are perfectly competent to learn and, if we provide the instruction, they will make themselves masters of the work. When they have so learnt they will be fit to receive warrant rank, and thereby get the promotion to which they are entitled." The engine-room artificers in the Navy numbered about 5,000. Many of them were taken from a great variety of trades which had nothing whatever to do with the driving of great marine engines. They had to be taught as the stokers had to be taught. These men were taken on for the purpose of doing repair work on board ship, and then they were taken away from that work and put on to the engines. What was the most conspicuous feature in the Japanese war? It was that they could repair their ships at sea. Was it not common sense that these men should be allowed to do their own work? They would not be deprived of promotion or of any advantage they might have in the Navy, but they would find that the

    1365
    work of driving engines would be thrown open to them and that they would reach the rank of warrant officer. He would not detain the House on what undoubtedly was a technical question but one which he thought had beer raised in a way likely to mislead, and if the House adopted the view put forward it would imperil one of the greatest reforms which had been undertaken for the Navy in past years. He urged hon. Members not to be too hasty in their judgment on the Board of Admiralty. The proof of their work was there for every man to see and test for himself; and because one portion of that work had a personal side which was unpalatable to some persons not members of that Board, they were asked to call that Board of Admiralty to the bar, not to judge it for what it had done, but to impugn its judgment because some discontented persons said, "You must stand at the bar of the House of Commons and account to the House, not for what you have done, but for the effect which we believe your policy will have in future."
    MR. JENKINSsaid he wished to call attention to the wages paid and the conditions of employment generally in the Government dockyard and to move a Resolution. For many years representations had been made to the Board of Admiralty by the workmen employed in the dockyards through petition and otherwise in regard to these subjects. He regretted to say, however, that, although many promises had been made—he himself had been present and had listened to the exceedingly pleasant manner in which the chief officials of the Admiralty had replied to the statements of deputations which had waited upon them—nothing had been done in the way of redressing the workmen's grievances. The ordinary labourer in a dockyard at the present time was in receipt of only 20s. a week. He had to pass a
    1366
    medical examination and must look strong and fit before being employed. It was not for him to paint the picture to this House as to what a man could do on 20s. a week; but he ventured to say, as representing a dockyard constituency, that house rent was very dear there and probably absorbed one-third of the labourer's weekly wage. That left him only 13s. 4d. to provide himself and his family with the ordinary necessaries of life. He did not know why it was that the Board of Admiralty had hesitated to yield to the reasonable demands made by these men, who would not be able to perform the arduous work in the dockyard if they had insufficient food. Taking the average number in a labourer's family—whether by Providence or otherwise—at seven there; was only 1s. 10¾d. per day to feed and clothe them all, or 3¼d. for each member, Yet when these facts had been pointed out, and appeals had been made to the Admiralty, the Board had absolutely refused to consider what was, in the opinion of the workmen, a fair and honest advance in their wages. Then there was the case of what the Admiralty called the skilled labourer. He was old enough to remember the days when the "wooden walls of England" were built and the class of workman who were employed in building these ships. The Admiralty, however, decided that a large part of the work should be let out, and therefore the labourer was taken in and trained to do skilled or mechanical work, and at the present moment they were doing skilled work of all kinds which when done by mechanics received the highest pay. He complained that although the labourer did this skilled work he did not receive the pay to which he was entitled, which was manifestly unfair. What the Government should do was to delete the word labourer, and if a man was a riveter of a sailmaker he should be called a

    1367
    veter or a sailmaker. There was something undignified in calling a man labourer; he was a ship's carpenter, and every man should be called after the grade to which he belonged, and should receive the proper wage for the work he performed. He had always found, although the rates in various parts of the country were high, that men as public men were very reasonable in the matter of granting a fair day's pay for a fair and honest day's work. Therefore he ventured to hope that the position of these men who received 24s. a week would not only be improved as regards their being called according to their grade, but also by having their pay increased to that which was paid for similar work in private yards which built ships of the Government. It was inconsistent on the part of the Government that they should pay these men such a wage while they compelled contractors, under the Fair Wage Resolution, to pay the union rate of wage of the district in which the work was done. He recently accompanied a deputation to the First Lord of the Admiralty and the indications given then were such that he hoped and believed the Government were prepared to deal honourably and generously with this matter, and were such that he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty would be able to tell the House that he readily accepted this Amendment. He would not trouble the House with the statistics of the various trades; it was sufficient for him to say that they were prepared to allow the Government to conduct the business in the dockyards in the way best suited to themselves provided they were prepared to recognise the trades union conditions with regard to the establishments concerned. Again, with regard to mechanics they had in the dockyards engineers, boilermakers, shipwrights, joiners, sailmakers, all the trades combined, yet in connection with those
    1368
    they found the rates of wages far below those paid in private yards all over the country, and here again they asked that the House should consider the very moderate request that the Government should pay the union rates. There was another point. In the dockyards, where the piece-work system was in operation, the system differed very widely from that adopted by private firms. The piece workers in the country had been able, with credit to themselves and the trade, to negotiate with their employers and had secured terms which had been agreed to amicably by both, and the system had operated most successfully. But in the dockyards they found that the schedule of prices had been drafted by the permanent officials of the Admiralty, or some one in the dockyards. The men had no share in the compilation of the schedule, and when the checkers were sent down at the end of the week, and the men were told what was due to them they found, although they had been working very hard under the piecework system, they had not earned a week's wages. He had no desire to suggest that trades unions were required in the Navy, but he ventured to say that this reasonable suggestion should operate in the dockyards, namely, that the men should be permitted to negotiate with the Admiralty for the purpose of scheduling the prices of the work at which they had to earn their living. He wanted to draw the attention of the House to another grievance which arose under the working of the Workmen's Compensation Act. They were told when that Act was passed that there would be no litigation, or at least very little, but some of them found in their own daily work that there had been a great deal of litigation. In many respects the Act was a good one. But he could not understand why a Government which framed the Bill were the first people to contract out of it. What did the Admiralty do? The

    1369
    Act provided for contracting out, and the Government sent to those workers a carefully prepared scheme which he ventured to say was very bad in every respect. He could give instances where men who had been totally disabled were receiving only a pittance which was unworthy of the Government who gave it. What they wanted was that there should be no contracting out under the Act. There was another grievance from which the workmen suffered. As a workman in the dockyard himself, he felt degraded when on going out of the yard a policeman accosted him, and he had to be searched. There was no private yard in the country which would place a workman in such an indignified position. Then there was the question of overtime. Recently the Admiralty had constructed a vessel in record time. The men were working day and night, though by the order of the Admiralty under the late Government thousands of men were discharged from the royal dockyard. If they wanted overtime let them have relays of men—one set of men working by day and the other by night, or let there be an eight hours day and three shifts. They were told that the dockyard workers received a superannuation allowance. That was granted, but how many men in the dockyard were on the establishment? About 30,000 men were employed in the dockyard, but only 22½ per cent. were on the establishment, so that a great number of the workers were not entitled to receive the superannuation allowance. That should not be considered against them in any way. So far as pensions after retirement were concerned that was only a question of six or seven years, and there were many men who, on the eve of the time when they would receive a pension on retirement, were struck down, and the money which had been stopped from their pay was not handed over to their families or other relatives. He hoped
    1370
    the grievances which he had brought to the attention of the House would be mitigated. He thanked the House for the manner in which they had listened to him, and he begged to move.
    MR. SUMMERBELLseconded the Amendment, which he considered was a very reasonable one. It merely asked, in the first place, that the Government should do what all private employers were doing at the present time, namely, pay the trade union rate of wages, and, in the second place, that the men should have a right to represent their grievances through their accredited representatives. In making that request they relied on the precedent created by the Postmaster-General, who had conceded the right to the post office employés to negotiate with the Postmaster-General through their accredited representative, and they simply asked that that principle should be extended to the dockyards. With regard to Portsmouth, he held in his hand a petition which had been presented by the dockyard men there, but up to now no redress had been given for the grievances of which they complained. From that petition he found that the sailmakers had to serve an apprenticeship of six or seven years, yet the men working in the yard at the present time were receiving only from 28s. to 29s. 6d. a week, whilst in private yards men doing the same work were receiving from 31s. 6d. to 42s. In London they received 40s. 6d., in Liverpool 36s., and in other places sums ranging from 33s. 9d. to 36s. per week; and in making the request that they should receive 33s. these men were asking for no more than they were entitled to, having regard to the wages paid elsewhere. It would no doubt be argued that they worked shorter hours than men employed in private yards, but even so, if the amount of the hours worked was taken in relation to the wage paid it would be found that

    1371
    they were receiving less than the trade union rate. He hoped the Government would concede these two points.
    Amendment proposed—
    "To leave out from the word, 'That' to the end of the Question in order to add the words "This House is of opinion that the Government, as model employers, should pay the workers in the dockyards not less than the standard trade union rate of wages paid for similar work in the district; further, in order to maintain amicable relations between the heads of the respective departments and the employees, the right of negotiation through the accredited representatives of the workmen should be at once recognised."—(Mr. Jenkins.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. NAPIERsaid that, as representing the dockyard town of Sheerness, he ventured to intervene in this debate and to associate himself with a large number of the sentiments expressed by other dockyard Members and with the arguments which they had placed before the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty would no doubt be ready to acknowledge that Sheerness had certain characteristics which were not common to most of the dockyard towns of the country. Sheerness was more completely a Government town than probably any other town in the country. It was practically without any other industry than the dockyard. Plymouth, Portsmouth and Chatham all had other industries, and when a man was discharged from those dockyards it was possible for him to obtain other employment in the surrounding district, but when a man was discharged from the Sheerness dockyard he had to migrate. This little town was surrounded on two sides by the sea and upon the other two sides by Government lands which the Government refused either to sell or to lease for business purposes, and beyond those lands were others over which the Government had
    1372
    certain rights which they exercised in the direction of forbidding any building. Having regard to these circumstances he submitted that Sheerness had some further claim upon the Government than other dockyard towns. The House would hardly realise that during the last year one third of the hands employed in the Sheerness dockyard had been dismissed, which meant that in this small town there was something like £1,000 per week less to be spent, and the distress during the winter had been exceedingly great. It had been perhaps more private than public in character because the people were thrifty and most of them had saved and owned their own houses, but their savings had now gone and their houses were either sold or mortgaged. There was little sign of the sufferings they had gone through because the dockyard men had formed a Distress Committee and had helped their less fortunate fellows, but the town was now at its worst and they wanted to know what the Government were going to do with them next year. Two years ago a deputation waited on Lord Selborne, and the noble Lord told hat deputation that there was no reason to believe that there would be in future years many discharges, because they were going to make the town a first class repairing depot for torpedo destroyers.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. Member appeared to be dealing with matters outside the scope of the Motion.
    MR. NAPIERsaid in that case he would reserve his remarks until some other opportunity.
    SIR J. BAKERsaid he wished to impress on the Admiralty that the rate of wages paid in Portsmouth dockyard was far behind the average rate paid by other employers, and was below the rate absolutely necessary to enable a man to live decently. The wages paid to labourers and mechanics was from

    1373
    19a. to 22s. a week, or 2s. or 3s. below the current rate in the locality. It was to the discredit of the Admiralty that they should persist in such a course. The same remark applied to every department in the dockyard, and the plea that there was continuity of employment with the prospect of a pension had been shown over and over again to have no foundation whatever. Just as winter was approaching, 1,500 men were discharged in batches week by week. Was that continuity of employment or a model for other employers? When the Admiralty wanted men they sent to the north to the great trades unions. Was it fair to employees that the Admiralty should deal with masses of men in such a summary manner? As to the possibility of a discharged man obtaining employment, once discharged he had to tramp the country and sometimes wander 300 or 400 miles before he could obtain similar employment. In the last five years there had been no improvement whatever, and the Admiralty had made no attempt to meet the demands of the men. Dockyard Members had pressed their arguments without effect. Except for a few small concessions there had been practically nothing during the past five years commensurate with the scale which the Admiralty admitted they should maintain as model employers paying the rate of wages current in the locality. The men had been waiting expectantly, and as they had a new Government with a new policy they hoped that the new policy would be in accordance with the general sentiment of the country.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he had no fault to find with what was said by the mover and seconder of the Amend-
    1374
    ment. He had no hesitation in saying that both propositions in the Amendment were reasonable. He would take the second part of the Amendment first, namely, that which required the Government to recognise the right of negotiation through the accredited representatives of the workmen. The desire was a perfectly fair and reasonable one, and was not likely to meet with opposition. The Government also recognised, in principle, that it was their duty to pay "the trade union rate of wages paid for similar work in the district," but they coupled that with the condition that differences between dockyard and outside work must be taken into account. His noble friend the First Lord of the Admiralty met the other day a deputation of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress, and he believed the hon. Member for Chatham was present and was not dissatisfied with what was said by his noble friend. At that interview the First Lord made reference to certain dockyard conditions which might modify to some extent the wages paid in the dockyards as compared with the trade union wages outside. He accepted both parts of the Amendment in spirit and substance, subject to the condition stated by Lord Tweedmouth, to which no exception was taken. The hon. Member for Chatham had alluded to two points which could not perhaps be quite covered by the Amendment. One point was with regard to the Workmens' Compensation Act, which it would require legislation to alter. On the question of overtime, perhaps he might be permitted to say that his noble friend and he, and their colleagues, were in full sympathy with the general dislike expressed with regard to it. He ventured to hope that what he had said would meet with substantial approval

    1375
    from the mover and seconder of the Amendment, and that they would be satisfied with the discussion. He would add that when he was last at the Admiralty it was the practice for the members of the Board to go down to the dockyards and to hear from the employees their story. He had sat through many of those deputations. They intended to carry on that practice. The Board would visit the yards in turn and discuss in a friendly manner with the workmen or their representatives questions in which they were interested. It was intended, if possible, to make a beginning in the Easter Vacation. Although he accepted practically every word in the Amendment, almost unconditionally, it was impossible, of course, for the Government to accept the Amendment as that would be to defeat the main question, which was that the Speaker do leave the Chair, and before carrying that Motion, they could not, of course, proceed to put their benevolent intention into practice.
    MR. KEIR HAKDIEsaid he approved of the sympathetic spirit in which the Amendment had been met by the Government. It was satisfactory to know that there was a reasonable probability of an end being put to the scandal of men working for the Government for starvation wages. As he understood the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman it was that, not at once, but as soon as possible, the wages paid in the dockyards would be levelled up to the wages paid for the same work in private yards. He understood, also, that in future not only would the Admiralty receive complaints from a trade union, but that when a Committee of the Admiralty visited a dockyard they would
    1376
    receive complaints from the men, and that the men might be accompanied by the trade union officials to assist them in putting their case. He was glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman assented to that. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman's statement would be received with very great satisfaction by all Government workers. With regard to the Workmens' Compensation Act he thought the right hon. Gentleman was under a misapprehension. His hon. friend did not argue for an amended Compensation Act, but pointed out that the Government workers were contracted out of the existing Act to their disadvantage. If an improved Workmens' Compensation Act was to become law shortly there might be no reason for interfering with the existing arrangement; but under the new Act it was hoped and expected that the Government would not set the bad example of contracting its own employes out of its operation. He was sure his hon. friend would be consulting his own wishes and those of the Labour Members if he allowed his Amendment to be negatived.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Main Question again proposed.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINasked if he might take the opportunity to put a Question and at the same time to congratulate the Civil Lord of the Admiralty on filling an office which he hoped he would find as interesting as he found it. He desired to ask whether the new hospital at Cape Town would be ready for the accommodation of patients during the present year. Anyone who had access to the reports about the old

    1377
    hospital would be anxious that the new hospital should be ready at the earliest possible time. If, as he had been informed, the work still remaining undone was not in the hospital itself, but in the medical officers' quarters, could not some temporary arrangement be made for the accommodation of the medical officers, so that the patients might have the advantage of the new building at the earliest possible moment? He also desired to know whether the Admiralty had arranged that properly qualified nursing sisters should be appointed to every considerable naval hospital, both at home and abroad; and whether any progress was being made under the scheme adopted some time ago whereby naval medical officers were to be given opportunities of walking the hospitals at home in order that they might keep themselves abreast with the progress in medical science.
    THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. LAMBERT,)thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the kind references he had made to him. The right hon. Gentleman knew well that the old hospital at Cape Town was not one which commended itself to the Admiralty or the medical authorities. Through the change of policy in regard to the redistribution of the Fleet the proposed accommodation in the new hospital had been considerably reduced. The Admiralty hoped the hospital would be completed in the next financial year. The quarters for the senior medical officers would also be completed in that year. With regard to nursing sisters he was glad to say that in all the considerable hospitals they were employed. In only three cases—Ascension, Cape of Good Hope,
    1378
    and Yokohama—they were not employed, because these hospitals were so small that it was hardly worth while to send nurses there. As to medical officers being allowed to walk the hospitals here, he was sorry he could not give the right hon. Gentleman a definite reply. He could assure him that the matter would receive the most favourable consideration of the Government.
    Question put, and agreed to.

    SUPPLY.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]

    NAVY ESTIMATES 1906–7.
    1. 129,000 Officers, Seamen, and Boys.
    2. £6,810,700, Wages, etc., of Officers, Seamen, Boys, Coast Guard, and Royal Marines.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,954,500 be granted to His Majesty to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, and Repairs, at Home and Abroad, including the cost of Superintendence, Purchase of Sites, Grants in Aid, and other Charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1907."
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINhoped the right hon. Gentleman would agree at this stage to report Progress. He thought the right hon. Gentleman must be well satisfied with the Votes already agreed to. In his experience he had never before known the two Votes just agreed to to pass without discussion as had now been allowed to do.

    1379
    He welcomed the unanimity with which the Committee had approved the Estimates prepared by the late Government, and he wished he could believe that, had they still been responsible for their conduct, they would have been accepted with the same unanimity. The Estimates were only placed in their hands that morning, and, as Members had had only the smallest possible time in which to make themselves acquainted with them, he moved to report Progress, so that further opportunity might be given for their consideration.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress; and ask leave to sit again.—(Mr. Austen Chamberlain.)
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was far from saying that there was anything unreasonable in the request of the right hon. Gentleman. He was deeply grateful to the Committee for passing these Votes. Of course, it must be understood that these were Estimates agreed to on both sides of the House. That remark applied equally to the Vote now before them, and as they had still thirty-five minutes before the hour for adjournment he thought it might be advantageous to hear what objections there might be to any of the items in this very important Vote. If there were no real exception taken to it, they might be allowed to add this Vote to the Votes already agreed to.
    MR. LEEreminded the right hon. Gentleman that this Vote, which was certainly not expected to come on for discussion that day, afforded the only opportunity they would have this session
    1380
    of discussing the loan expenditure of £3,000,000. If the Vote were allowed to pass without due notice the whole of the works for which the loan was required would go through without any discussion at all. He did not think that was desirable. A large number of hon. Members were anxious to have an opportunity of discussing the great works comprised in this Vote, and it would be only reasonable on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to agree to postpone the consideration of the Vote.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was sorry to appear unreasonable, but he thought they might utilise the half hour which remained to them in hearing what objections, if any, could be urged against this very important Vote.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid hat naturally, they did not wish to criticise Estimates in so far as they accorded with the Estimates which they themselves prepared, but he thought that private Members ought to have some opportunity of considering them. The discussion should not be confined to Members sitting on the Front Benches. Although he and his hon. friend had had an opportunity of seeing the Estimates, that was not true of private Members. It was not unreasonable that they should ask for a little more time to be allowed for examining the Votes before they were passed. He was sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would recognise the reasonableness of the request he had made. The Speaker had been moved out of the Chair at a reasonable time, two Votes had been passed, and the right hon. Gentleman was now asking the House

    1381
    to proceed with Vote 10 until half-past 7 o'clock. The point which he wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider was that no Member of the House except those in office or who had been lately in office, had had any opportunity of seeing the Estimates until that morning, and it was not reasonable to ask private Members to proceed with discussion until they had had an opportunity of examining the Votes. Moreover, Vote 10 was the only Vote on which they would have an opportunity this year of discussing the works policy and the loan expenditure which the Financial Secretary admitted would amount to three and a quarter millions. He repeated the appeal which he had already made.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,)said that if it were shown to him that there was any general disposition amongst private Members the Government would not oppose at half-past seven the Motion to report progress.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that he was quite satisfied with the offer made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he begged leave to withdraw his Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question proposed.
    MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that it had been promised early in the afternoon that the Civil Lord of the Admiralty would give the Committee some information in regard to two items in the Vote which showed a variation between the Estimates as they were originally drawn and those now before the House. The first
    1382
    had reference to Rosyth and the other to large alterations at Portsmouth. In the original draft of the Estimates there was a Vote of two and a half millions for the new Naval base at Rosyth, and a certain sum was put down for starting the work this year. It was also the intention to let the main contract about June. They were now informed that that intention had been given up, although it was not the intention of the Admiralty to abandon the whole project. He wanted some further explanation of the necessity of the change and of the intentions of the Government in regard to Rosyth. His second point had regard to the big alterations at Portsmouth upon which £940,000 were to be spent, the item appearing in the Estimate for the first time. He was personally generally acquainted with the idea of the scheme, but it might possibly have been modified since the late Government initiated it. He thought there could therefore be no valid objection to the right hon. Gentleman giving them the details in regard to this work. He would reserve any points of criticism upon these matters until he had heard the right hon. Gentleman's explanation.
    MR. J. WARDdesired to know, in reference to these extensive alterations and additions to the docks accommodation, whether it was the intention of the Admiralty to advertise and to state that the contractors tendering for the work would be required to pay the trade union rate of wages in the district where the work was to be done
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid the Government wished to give hon. Members an opportunity of giving notice of any question that they desired to be discussed. As no other hon. Member had risen, he

    1383
    did not see that they could usefully go on. Therefore, in order to carry out the undertaking that had been given, he begged to move that progress be reported.
    Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report progress and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Edmund Robertson.)
    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee also report progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

    WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY BILL.
    Considered in Committee.
    [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTONmoved in clause 1, page 1, line 6, to leave out "Parliament otherwise determine," and insert "thirty-first day of December, one thousand nine hundred and twelve."
    Amendment proposed—
    "In page 1, line 6, to leave out 'Parliament otherwise determine' and insert 'thirty-first day of December, one thousand nine hundred and twelve.'"—(Mr. Sydney Buxton.)
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," and negatived.
    Question put, "That these words be there inserted," and agreed to.
    Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 2 agreed to.
    Bill reported; as amended to be considered to-morrow.

    PUBLIC PETITIONS.
    Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed, to whom shall be referred all Petitions presented to the House, with the exception of such as relate to Private Bills; and that such Committee do classify and prepare abstracts of the same, in such form and manner as shall appear to them best suited to convey to the House all requisite information respecting their contents, and do report the same from time to time to the House; and that the reports of the Committee do set forth the number of signatures to each Petition only in respect to those signatures to which addresses are affixed—And that such Committee have power to direct the printing in extenso of such Petitions, or of such parts of Petitions, as shall appear to require it:—And that such Committee have power to report their opinion and observations thereupon to the House.
    The Committee was accordingly nominated of,—Mr. E. Barry, Mr. Burt, Mr. Ellis Griffith, Mr. Leicester Harmsworth, Mr. Henniker Heaton, Colonel Kenyon-Slaney, Colonel Legge, Mr. M'Arthur, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, Mr. J. W. Philipps, Mr. Charles Shaw, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, Mr. Wills, and Mr. Henry J. Wilson.
    Ordered, That Three be the quorum.—(Mr. George Whiteley.)

    ADJOURNMENT.
    Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn." (Mr. Joseph Albert Pease.)
    Put and agreed to.
    Adjourned at Twenty-three Minutes after Seven o'clock.