Commons Sitting of 14 March 1906

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ascot District Gas (Electric Lighting) Bill (by Order). North East Lincolnshire Water Bill (by Order). Read a second time, and committed.
PETITIONS.
  LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING) BILL.
  Petition from Reigate, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Aberdeen, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  POST OFFICE TELEPHONES.
  Petition from St. Albans against the erection of telephone poles in St. Peter's Street, St. Albans; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  Petitions against alteration of Law: From East Retford; Gailey; Oldham; and Shaw; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EAST INDIA (MINERAL CONCESSIONS).
  Return [presented 9th March] to be printed. [No. 85.]
  SUGAR.
  Return ordered, "showing, with regard to London, Paris, and Berlin, the price of sugar and the duty levied thereon at the 1st day of March 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906, on the lines of the Return, No. 174, of Session 1905."—(Mr. Toulmin.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Falsification of Records by Assistant Superintendent in Dublin Post Office.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the Postmaster-General if he has received papers in connection with a charge of falsification of time made by an overseer against an assistant superintendent over three months ago in Dublin; is he aware that a charge of falsification of records was made against this same surperintendent some four or five years ago; and will he inquire into the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have received the papers referred to, and have taken notice of the matter. The officer concerned had not, so far as I am aware, been previously reported for falsifying the records of his own attendance; but he was, some years ago, reported for furnishing incorrect records of the conduct of a subordinate officer. For this grave offence he was severely punished.

  Repayments of Loans under the Barracks and Military Works Act.
  MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is his intention to continue the terms of repayment of the sums advanced under the Barracks and Military Works Acts, in respect of payments made under those Acts for the year 1906–7, or whether it is intended to include such payments in the ordinary Army Estimates; and, if so, where are they to be found in such Estimates.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The sums advanced in the past, under the Barracks and Military Works Acts, will continue to be subject to repayment upon the terms prescribed by the Acts, and the necessary provision for repayment will be included as heretofore under Army Vote 10.

  Co-operative Societies and Payment of Income Tax.
  SIR. EDWARD SASSOON: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether co-operative societies are exempted from the payment of income-tax; and, if so, whether he comtemplates

  1219
  legislation to make these societies assessable to the tax.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) This question was fully examined by the Departmental Committee on Income Tax, presided over by the late Lord Ritchie. The Committee advised that no case was made out for alterations of income-tax law in regard to co-operative societies (see paragraphs 130–139 of Report [Cd. 2575], 1905).

  Year.

  Strength.

  Total, all ranks.

  Officers.

  Warrant officers.

  Non-commissioned officers and men.

  1st January 1896

  7,756

  907

  213,531

  222,194

  1st January 1897

  7,721

  917

  212,231

  220,869

  1st January 1898

  7,689

  921

  212,393

  221,003

  1st January 1899

  8,537

  982

  222,332

  231,851

  1st January 1900

  9,318

  1,081

  291,145

  301,544

  1st January 1901

  13,410

  1,225

  406,538

  421,173

  1st January 1902

  12,882

  1,253

  383,547

  397,682

  1st January 1903

  12,000

  1,267

  311,386

  324,653

  1st October 1903

  11,759

  1,349

  279,303

  292,411

  1st October 1904

  11,156

  1,310

  274,774

  287,240

  1st October 1905

  10,788

  1,310

  260,035

  272,133

  N.B.—The regimental strength does not include the permanent staff of the auxiliary forces, staff, or miscellaneous establishments.

  Colonial Audit Branch Appointments.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will explain the method of appointment to positions in the Colonial Audit Branch, under the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and what test these officials have to undergo before appointment; and whether the test is similar to that undergone by those appointed to positions in the other branches of the Home service.

  Strength of the Army.
  DR. MACNARMARA: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state the total strength of the British Army, regular forces, during each of the years 1896 to 1905 inclusive, stating the numbers of the commissioned and non - commissioned ranks separately.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The figures are as follows:—
  (Answered by Mr. M'Kenna.) All appointments to the Colonial Audit Branch are made by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The higher officers at present in the branch at the headquarters in London were selected from the staff of the Exchequer and Audit Department. Candidates for the appointment must satisfy the Comptroller and Auditor-General that they possess the requisite knowledge and ability for the due discharge of their duties, and that they are within the limits of age, which are fixed at from eighteen to twenty-six. Their physical fitness for service in the Colonies, including the west coast of Africa, is

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  ascertained by one of the medical advisers of the Colonial Office. Some of the clerks were originally in the second division of the Civil Service, but the majority of the candidates recently appointed have been selected from graduates of the Universities. In some cases appointments have been made from officials already in the Colonial Service. The Colonial Audit Branch does not stand on the same footing as ordinary departments of the Home Civil Service, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General is alive to the fact that there are certain anomalies in the constitution of the department, and has under consideration a scheme with the object of removing them.

  Navy Estimates—Table of New Guns.
  MR. BELLAIRS (Lynn Regis): To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty why the table as to guns to be ordered in the new financial year and ordered in previous years, which has been given in the Navy Estimates for many years past under Vote 9, Item F, has been omitted from the new Navy Estimates; and whether, having regard to the public anxiety which existed last year as to our reserve of heavy guns, be will say if this reserve has been or is being increased.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The details referred to were omitted, because they furnished information as to the armament of new ships and reserves of guns which it is considered undesirable to publish in the public interest. It is not considered desirable, for the same reason, to make any statement in reply to the second part of the Question.

  Naval Officers—Specialisation of Duties.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the rule is still in force, and will continue in force, that all candidates for naval cadetships will be required to volunteer for any one of the three branches of executive, engineering, and marine officers, so that the Admiralty can allocate the careers of the officers at their sole discretion; and, if so, whether he will notify it in the most public manner, so that the parents of cadets may know that the statement of Admiralty policy, November 30th, which decided against permanent specialisation in the three branches, has been cancelled.
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  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The rule referred to remains in force, and the statement of Admiralty policy has not been cancelled.

  Supply of Drafts for Regiments with both Battalions Abroad.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will say by what system drafts are supplied to the Norfolk Regiment, the Royal Sussex Regiment, the Black Watch, the Essex Regiment, the Royal West Kent Regiment, and the Royal Munster Fusiliers, all of which have both battalions abroad; and what are the military or economic disadvantages of this system as compared with the linked-battalion system.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The system of supplying drafts to regiments which have both battalions abroad is practically the same as for all other regiments of infantry. One battalion, which is in a temperate climate, receives a draft of recruits from the depot, and in its turn sends a draft of mature and fully-trained soldiers to the other battalion, which is usually in India or at some station in the tropics. If the regimental depot supplied drafts direct to both battalions, its establishment would have to be largely augmented, and considerable extra expenditure would be involved.

  Enlistment of "Specials."
  MR. NIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state what is the number of men known as specials who have enlisted during the past twelve months, and what percentage they bear to the total enlistment; and, further, what proportion of such men (specials) are likely to become fully trained and competent soldiers.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) If the hon. Member will kindly refer to the Report on recruiting recently published, he will find the figures for the year ending 30th September, 1905, as 220 and the percentage as 0·6. It is hoped and believed that all these recruits will become fully trained and competent soldiers.

  Minimum Wage of Labourers in Government Departments in Dublin.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland

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  whether he can arrange a minimum weekly wage of 24s. a week for all labourers in Government employment in Dublin.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) A weekly wage of 24s. would be, I have reason to believe, very greatly in excess of the prevalent rates for labour paid outside the Public Departments in Dublin, and I can give no such promise as that asked for by the hon. Member.

  Dismissal of James McKeough of Dundrum Asylum.
  MR. J. P. NANNETTI: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the particular act of insubordination James McKeough, the late shoemaker attendant of His Majesty's Asylum, Dundrum, was guilty of, and the date on which it occurred, the particular duties he failed to perform, and on what dates; will he explain why McKeough was not communicated with and his version of the facts taken; and whether, in view of the fact that on August 14th, 1905,McKeough received material evidence in writing as to the means used to have him dismissed his position, he will grant an impartial inquiry at which McKeough will be present to enable him to clear his character.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed that this man was dismissed in 1903, by order of the then Lord-Lieutenant, for insubordinate conduct and failure to satisfactorily discharge his duties. Before he was discharged, three separate inquiries on oath with reference to his conduct were held by the inspectors of lunatic asylums, at each of which he was afforded a full opportunity of defending himself. As a result of the third inquiry he was, by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, called upon to resign, and, having refused to do so, was dismissed. I do not think it desirable to re-open the consideration of a case which was disposed of three years ago by the Government of the day.

  Progress of Marine Works at Falchorrib.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when it is intended to proceed with the works at Falchorrib,
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  county Donegal, under the Marine Works. Act.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I find that originally a sum of £1,000 was provisionally mentioned in connection with proposed works at Falchorrib, under the Marine Works Act, but that it was subsequently ascertained that works there to be effective, would cost a much greater sum. The disposal of the balance available under the Marine Works Act is receiving my attention, but I do not expect for some time to be in a position to say whether it will be possible to undertake works at Falchorrib. Meanwhile, I may remind the hon. Member that Donegal has already received a very substantial sum from the Marine Works fund.

  Tenders for Drugs for Irish Local Authorities—Recoupment for Local Taxation Accounts.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Government in Ireland through the Local Government Board, intend to exercise the power of imposing restrictions on local boards of guardians in refusing to allow a recoupment from the local taxation account, unless the guardians accept the lowest tender for the supply of drugs or other articles contained in the prescribed lists; and whether, under the present system, Irish firms are precluded from tendering for supplies to English boards of guardians.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) By Article 10 of the Order of the Local Government Board for Ireland, dated December 20th, 1905, it is provided as follows:—Recoupment from the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account will not be allowed in any case where the guardians accept a tender other than the lowest tender received by them for the supply of drugs or other articles contained in the prescribed lists unless the Local Government Board, on application being made to them by the guardians for that purpose, approve of the acceptance of such tender. In reply to the latter part of the Question, I beg to refer to the reply given by my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board to a similar Question addressed to him by the hon. Member for West Mayo on Wednesday last.†
  †See (4) Debates, chii., 435.

  Appointments held by Ballycastle Petty Sessions Clerk.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will cause independent inquiry to be made into the number of avocations followed by the clerk of petty sessions at Ballycastle, county Antrim; whether the previous information was supplied by the clerk himself to the registrar of petty sessions; whether he can state specifically which of the appointments he is alleged to hold are not actually held by him; and whether any of his duties as clerk are discharged by assistants, if not by deputy.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The registrar of petty sessions clerks in Dublin informs me that since the hon. Member's former Question on this subject he has received a statement, signed by all the magistrates of the Ballycastle petty session district to the effect that the clerk has always discharged his duties in person, and to their complete satisfaction. In these circumstances further inquiry into the matter appears to be unnecessary.

  Marine Works at Westport Harbour.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has recently received a Resolution from the Westport Harbour Board, urging the necessity of carrying out in the neighbourhood of Westport the marine works sanctioned under the Marine Works (Ireland) Act; whether he is aware that the delay in carrying out those works has caused disappointment in the locality; and would he, during the Easter recess, visit West-port with a view to hearing the views of the inhabitants on the proposed works.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I have seen a resolution on this subject which was received in September last from the Westport Harbour Board by my predecessor in office. The matter in question will not escape my attention, but I cannot at present say whether other duties in Ireland will permit me to have the pleasure of an expedition to Westport at Easter.

  Main Roads in the County of Antrim.
  MR. O'NEILL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-
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  Lieutenant of Ireland if he will lay upon the Table the Report of the Inspector of the Local Government Board on the question of the main roads in the county of Antrim; and if he will take steps to have the veto of the Local Government Board removed by legislation, so far as the question of main roads is concerned.
  (Answered by Mr Bryce.) The Report in question was prepared by the confidential information of the Local Government Board, and it would be contrary to practice to lay it upon the Table of the House. The provision to which the hon. Member refers was enacted by Parliament in order to safeguard the interests of the ratepayers of rural districts affected by the decision of county councils, and I am not prepared to introduce legislation for the repeal of that provision.

  Police Process Servers in County Donegal.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on whose authority were the police told off to accompany a process server when serving ejectment processes on the tenants of the Rutland estate, near Dunkinnerly, county Donegal, on the 3rd and 5th March; why, having regard to the peaceful state of the locality and the absence of crime from this district for many years, was this step taken, which was calculated to convey an erroneous impression of the state of the country; and whether the Government will refuse to put the forces of the Crown in motion to aid eviction proceedings except in cases where there is a reasonable ground for apprehending a breach of the peace.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) This Question probably refers to the Bustard estate, near Dunkineely, county Donegal. I am informed by the police authorities that processes for rent were served on tenants upon that estate on the dates named, but that no application for police protection was made, and that in fact the police did not accompany the process-server.

  Agrarian Outrages at Glenties and Dunfanaghy.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the number and nature of all agrarian outrages committed in the rural districts of Glenties and Dunfanaghy during the past ten years.

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  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I will have this information prepared and forwarded to the hon. Member.

  The Disturbance in Natal.
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any official information to the effect that, on the 10th instant, after his military operations against Gobizembi's tribe in Natal, Colonel Leuchars levied a fine of 1,200 cattle and 3,500 sheep and goats, and deprived the tribe of part of its location as a punishment for resistance to the poll tax; whether this and similar action in other districts of Natal has been authorised by His Majesty's Government; whether the disturbed portions of Natal are in a state of war, warranting Colonel Leuchars' alleged warning to the tribesmen that, although the voice of the supreme chief had spoken through the guns, they had not felt his bite; and, if so, over what part of Natal this state of war prevails; and whether His Majesty's Government is satisfied that, in the arrangements now in progress for enforcing payment of the poll tax, there is no danger of provoking further disturbances.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) 1. The Secretary of State has no official information to this effect. 2. The action has not been authorised by His Majesty's Government. 3 and 4. Owing to the native disturbances the Natal Ministers advised the Governor to place the whole of the Colony under martial law. 5. His Majesty's Government do not feel that they can with advantage interfere with the responsible Government of Natal in dealing with the situation.

  Massacre by Turkish Troops.
  MR. GOOCH: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what was the result of the Commission of Inquiry into the massacre of women and children by Turkish troopsat the village of Konopnitsa, in the vilayet of Kossova, on August 19th, 1905; whether any officers in command of the troops, or any of the Turkish authorities at Egri Palanka, have been punished; and, if so, to what extent; whether any of the Austrian gendarmerie officers were members of the Commission of Inquiry; and whether they concurred in its decision.
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  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The Commission concluded that the shooting of villagers was due to a misapprehension, by which they were taken for komitadjis. None of the officials concerned have been punished. An Austrian officer was present during the inquiry. He has not, so far as His Majesty's Government are aware, expressed an opinion as to the accuracy of the decision arrived at.
  MR. GOOCH: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what was the result of the Commission of Inquiry into the murder by Turkish troops of nine peasants in the village of Mogila, in the vilayet of Monastir, on September 3rd, 1905; whether any punishment has been inflicted on the officers in command or any Turkish officials; and, if so, to what extent; whether any Italian gendarmerie officers were members of the Commission of Inquiry; and, if so, whether they concurred in its decision.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) No information has reached His Majesty's Government as to the conclusions of the Commission in question. His Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople will be instructed to furnish a Report on the subject.

  Saturday Half-holiday in Government Offices.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if the Saturday half-holiday, now so usual in all business houses, is extended to the clerical staff of the Civil Service so far as the public service permits; and, in such case, if he will have the Order in Council of 1890 upon the subject amended in that sense, so as to enable all Civil Service clerks to devote their Saturday afternoons to service in the Volunteer Force and upon the rifle range.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The Orders in Council of March 21st and August 15th, 1890, provide for a half-holiday on alternate Saturdays, at the discretion of heads of departments, if the state of public business permits; and I am not prepared to amend the Orders in Council, so as to extend this privilege, unless the time can he made up by increasing the working hours on other days of the week.

  Superannuation for Temporary Civil Assistants in Ordnance Survey Branch.
  MR. GIBBS: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will consider the claims of the temporary civil assistants in the Ordnance Survey to be placed on the same footing as other civil servants as regards the benefits of superannuation, seeing that many of them have served for over thirty years.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I have been for some time in communication with my hon. friends the Members for Southampton on this subject, which I am still considering.

  Aliens Act—"Disturbed Districts."
  MR. BURDETT - COUTTS: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which parts of Europe have been scheduled as disturbed districts in the new instructions given to the officials administering the Aliens Act.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) None, Sir. The matter is explained by the oral Answers I have given in the House this afternoon.†

  Unemployed Bill—Date of Introduction.
  MR. THORNE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board when it is his intention to introduce the Unemployed Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I am not able at present to fix a date for this purpose.

  Eton Drainage Scheme—Sanction of Loan.
  MR. HERBERT: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, having regard to the fact that the Eton Rural District Council has obtained the sanction of his Department for the loan necessary to purchase the land for the treatment of the sewage under its proposed drainage scheme, and that a conditional contract has been entered into for the execution of the main work, he is now prepared to sanction the loan for the main work, which would give employment to the many men now out of work.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) Some points in connection with the scheme
  † See (4) Debates, cliii., 1241.
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  formed the subject of an interview, on Friday last, between officers of the Local Government Board and the engineers employed by the district council. These points have now been settled and the loan will be sanctioned at once.

  Cost of Naval Cadets at Osborne.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what was the number of cadets borne on the Royal Naval College, Osborne, on which the calculation of the cost to the State of £98 per annum per cadet was founded; whether he will state the actual number of cadets there at the present moment; and whether the calculation takes account of the further prospective expenditure under the Works Vote of the new financial year.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The number on which the calculation was based was 414; the actual number of cadets at Osborne at the present moment is 416. The Answer to the last part of the Question is in the affirmative.

  Free Meals for Children in Berlin Schools.
  MR. LEWIS HASLAM: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can state where particulars with respect to the provision of free meals to children in the elementary schools in Berlin may be obtained; and, if he has no information by which he is able to answer this Question, will he take means to obtain it.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I am afraid that there is no information published upon this subject beyond what I have given to the hon. Member; I will send the hon. Member the address of the association which provides the meals.

  Alterations in the Temple of Bodh Gaza at Behar.
  MR. BOLAND: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the projected removal of certain pillars from the abbey to the temple of Bodh Gaza, in Behar, in defiance of the wishes of the Mahmout, his brethren, and adherents throughout India, ostensibly in the interests of the preservation of ancient monuments; and whether he is aware that systematic efforts have been made by the temporal authorities of the Gaza district to harass the Mahmout, by

  1231
  forcing him to obey petty summonses to Government courts, thus attempting to deprive him of the ancient exemption of his order and its abbots; and whether he will issue an order confirming the Mahmout in these ancient exemptions, and in all reasonable rights and privileges, as proprietor or ecclesiastical trustee of all the abbey lands.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I have not had my attention called to the matter referred to in the Question. If the Mahant is dissatisfied with the action of the Government of India, it is open to him to appeal to the Secretary of State in Council in the usual manner; but I apprehend that it rests with the civil courts to define the exact position of the Mahant in respect of the Bodh Gaza temple and its appurtenances.

  Sale of Liquor to Coolies on Indian Tea Plantations.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the efforts now being made by the Government of Eastern Bengal and Assam to induce tea planters to take out licences for the sale of liquor to coolies employed on their estates; whether he can state to what extent this proposal has been adopted; and whether the increase of drinking facilities thereby afforded is in accordance with the declared policy of the Government of India in reference to Excise administration.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I would refer my hon. friend to the Papers laid before Parliament in 1904 regarding the Excise administration in Assam. The Government of India agreed with the Chief Commissioner of

  Year.

  Average number of troops in South Africa.

  Cost on Army Estimates.

  Expenditure on Military Works Loan.

  Total of two preceding columns.

  £

  £

  £

  1903–4

  31,000

  7,760,000

  1,430,000

  9,190,000

  1904–5

  23,000

  2,830,000

  1,130,000

  1,140,000

  1905–6

  20,000

  2,400,000

  300,000

  2,700,000

  The only contribution towards the above cost made by the Colonial adminis-
  Assam that planters should not be pressed to take out licences. I am not aware that the decision has since been departed from. According to the last received Excise Administration Report for Assam very few such licences have been taken out. The expedient was originally suggested by the Planters' Association with the object of enabling the managers of tea gardens to keep control over neighbouring liquor shops, and it is not intended to increase facilities for obtaining liquor.

  War Office Clothing Contracts—Alleged Sweating.
  MR. THORNE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that a woman has been receiving 2½d. per hour for making soldiers' trousers, from a contractor doing work for the War Office; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) No trace of the receipt of such a complaint can be found in the War Office. I shall be obliged if my hon. friend will furnish me with particulars of the case in question.

  Army Charges for South Africa—Colonial Contributions.
  MR. MOLTENO: To ask the Secretary of State for War what has been the number and cost in each year since the war ended of the troops maintained in South Africa, and the cost in each year of barracks and other military works; and what has been the amount of the Colonial contributions to these costs.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The figures are as follows:—
  trations is an annual payment of £4,000 by Natal.

  Government Grant to Unemployed Distress Committees.
  MR. THORNE: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury if the Government can see their way clear to make a grant of money to distress committees where unemployment is most acute, pending the passing of the Unemployed Bill.
  (Answered by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.) I am afraid I can add nothing to the Answer that I have already made on this subject to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent.

  Poor Law Commission—Representative of Irish Medical Profession.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is intended to give effect to the recommendation of the Leinster Branch of the Medical Association that the Poor Law Commission should include a representative of the medical profession in Ireland.
  (Answered by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.) The Answer is in the negative.

  Machinery and Cost of Contested Elections to Foreign Legislative Assemblies.
  MR. CHANNING: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether His Majesty's Government will obtain and issue as Command Papers, with the least possible delay, Reports from His Majesty's representatives at the several European courts as to the machinery and cost of contested elections to legislative assemblies at the present time in the several countries, and as to the proportion of the expenditure borne out of local or Imperial funds at the present time, similar to Reports on these subjects obtained in 1881 [Cd. 2987], 1882 [Cd. 3159], and 1893–4 [Cd. 6953], and Reports from the several Colonial Governments in the British Empire, giving the most recent facts as to the machinery and cost of elections, and how these costs are borne.
  (Answered by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.) I quite appreciate the importance of obtaining the information which my hon. friend desires, and I have ascertained that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is willing to
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  issue an instruction to His Majesty's diplomatic representatives calling for Reports upon the subject, and also that the Secretary of State for the Colonies will ask the governors to supply him with the particulars required. When these Returns are obtained, we shall have an accurate basis for estimating the relative cost of Parliamentary elections in this and other countries, together with a complete statement as to how these expenses are borne.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Reserve of Navy Guns.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty why the table as to guns to be ordered in the new financial year and ordered in previous years, which has been given in the Navy Estimates for many years past under Vote 9, Item F, has been omitted from the new Navy Estimates; and whether, having regard to the public anxiety which existed last year as to our reserve of heavy guns, he will say if this reserve has been or is being increased.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): The details referred to were omitted because they furnished information as to the armament of new ships and reserves of guns, which it is considered undesirable to publish in the public interest. It is not considered desirable, for the same reason, to make any statement in reply to the second part of the Question.

    Naval Cadets.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the rule is still in force, and will continue in force, that all candidates for naval cadetships will be required to volunteer for any one of the three branches of executive engineering, and marine officers, so that the Admiralty can allocate the careers of the officers at their sole discretion; and, if so, whether he will notify it in the most public manner, so that the parents of cadets may know that the statement of Admiralty policy, 30th November, which decided against

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    permanent specialisation in the three branches, has been cancelled.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The rule referred to remains in force, and the statement of Admiralty policy has not been cancelled.
    MR. COURTHOPE (Sussex, Rye): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that an impression to the contrary exists in the public mind since he made his speech on the Estimates?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I am not.

    Irish Press and Irish Recruiting.
    MR. LONSDALE (Armagh, Mid.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a statement in the last Report of the Director of Recruiting and Organisation [Cd. 2693], that, in Ireland, articles in the Press have been published, and placards have been posted up to deter intending recruits from enlisting; and whether the notice of the civil power has been drawn to this drawback to recruiting in Ireland.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): I am aware of the statement alluded to. I believe that the notice of the civil power has been drawn to the matters mentioned. Personally, I attach very little importance to the matter.
    MR. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the hon. Member who put this Question was asked to volunteer for service in South Africa, and refused to go there?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Volunteer Encampment.
    MR. SCOTT (Ashton-under-Lyne): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the advisability of allowing all Volunteers to go to camp for sixteen days, under the same conditions that Field Army Brigades (Volunteer) are at present privileged.
    MR. HALDANE: This subject will be considered in all its bearings, but my hon. friend will well understand that I
    1236
    am not at present able to make any definite pronouncement on the matter.

    Ireland's Garrison.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state what is the number of troops required in Ireland; what is the present strength, with the approximate cost; and where are these troops stationed.
    MR. HALDANE: The figures for all ranks are as follows:—

    Establishment.

    Strength.

    Cost.

    £

    Regulars

    29,005

    25,827

    2,648,000

    Militia

    29,279

    19,468

    398,000

    Yeomanry

    940

    911

    19,000

    I cannot undertake to read out to the House the list of places at which these troops are stationed. If the hon. Member will refer to the Army List, he will, I think, find the information he requires.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when and where these troops were actively engaged in Ireland?
    MR. HALDANE: I must refer the hon. Member for these particulars to the Army List.

    Free Holiday Passages for Soldiers from India.
    SIR CARNE RASCH (Essex, Chelmsford): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he would consider the propriety of allowing soldiers of six years service, who are willing to reengage, to have a free passage out and back on furlough home.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. JOHN ELLIS,): A six months furlough with free passages both ways is granted to all non-commissioned officers who have completed six years service abroad and have re-engaged, so that the suggested concession may be said to be already in force for a portion of the men referred to. An offer of furlough with free passages after four years total service was recently made to men enlisted for three years who would extend to complete eight years. The Secretary of State for India has recently considered

    1237
    in consultation with the Army Council concessions of furlough, and is not prepared to go beyond the offers already made.

    Colonial Conference.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any, and, if so, what, communications have been sent to the Governments of the self-governing Colonies with regard to the next Colonial Conference; and whether any date has been fixed for the holding of that Conference.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES Mr. CHURCHILL,): I have to refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave on the 12th instant to the Question of the hon. Member for the Elland Division.† The despatch which has been addressed to the Governors of the various Colonies on the subject of the next Colonial Conference will be laid on the Table as soon as the correspondence is completed.

    Flogging of Chinese Coolies—Lord Milner's Action.
    SIR J. JARDINE: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the year 1905, any Chinese coolies of the gold mines in the Transvaal were subjected to any flogging or corporal punishment otherwise than in accordance with Ordinances or other enactments; and, if so, how many persons were so treated, and what were the nature and extent of such flogging or corporal punishment; whether it was preceded by any judicial inquiry or inquiry by any public officer, and whether any record was made at the time of the reasons for, and amount of, the sentence; and whether Lord Milner gave a written or oral sanction to any such system, and whether he consulted the Lieutenant Governor or any law officer before so doing.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The hon. Member will find information to the effect that such corporal punishment took place, in Mr. Lyttelton's telegram of October 24th printed at page 44 of Cd. 2786. The Secretary of State is not aware how many
    †See (4) Debates, cliii., 913–14.
    1238
    persons were subjected to this illegal treatment. The permission given is stated to have been for slight corporal punishment as practised in public schools in England, but it is admitted that the permission was abused. It was not preceded by any judical inquiry or inquiry by any public officer, and so far as the Secretary of State is aware no records were kept. The sanction which Lord Milner is understood to have given by intimating that he would take no objection as stated in Mr. Lyttelton's telegram appears to have been oral. There is no information in the possession of the Secretary of State to show that Lord Milner consulted the Lieutenant Governor or any law officer.
    MR. BELLOCasked the hon. Gentleman whether, in his opinion, there was any guarantee whatever that Lord Milner did not do any illegal thing if they had no record.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I think my hon. friend will see that there is no doubt whatever that in authorising illegal punishment of this character at the same time that his official superiors were denying that such punishment was being permitted Lord Milner committed a grave dereliction of public duty, and at the same time an undoubted infringement of the law.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.): Is Lord Milner still a member of the Privy Council?
    SIR J. JARDINE: Will the hon. Gentleman make inquiries of Lord Milner or of others, with a view to getting more information than is contained in the Blue-book, as to how this authority was given, whether orally, or by special intimation, or—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Notice must be given of that Question.
    MR. MACKARNESS (Berkshire, Newbury): Has any information been sought from Mr. Evans on this matter?
    MR. CHURCHILL: No, I do not think that any information on this particular question has been sought from Mr. Evans. The fact that Lord Milner has himself publicly assumed responsibility for this transaction has placed Mr. Evans in a

    1239
    somewhat indirect position in regard to this matter.
    MR. J. WARD(Stoke-on-Trent) asked whether it was the intention to apply to some one in authority on the Rand to ascertain how far this unauthorised torture was inflicted on the coolies.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I will ask the Secretary of State whether he will make inquiries on that subject.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Will the Attorney-General be asked whether the Public Prosecutor should be put in motion?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Labour Regulations.
    MR. HARMOOD - BANNER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies with reference to the new regulations to be enforced about Kaffir compounds, Command Paper 2819, page 141, whether he will say when the new regulations, under the Coloured Labourers Health Regulation Ordnance, will be published.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The Secretary of State has not yet received information as to the publication of the new regulations under the Ordnance referred to. Inquiry will be made.

    Workmen's Compensation Act—Child Workers.
    MR. CHIOZZA MONEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider the advisability of including in the Workmen's Compensation Bill, promised in His Majesty's Speech, a clause to provide adequate compensation for child workers who, at the time of their injury, can only be earning a few shillings a week.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): The point has not been overlooked in preparing the Bill which I hope will shortly be introduced.

    Administration of the Aliens Act.
    MR. S. COLLINS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he
    1240
    will take steps for the immediate provision of a receiving house for the accommodation of persons detained at ports under the Aliens Act.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have no power under the Act to provide such a receiving-house. The responsibility of dealing with alien immigrants from whom leave to land is withheld is left by the Act with the shipping companies or shipmasters who bring them. In some ports receiv-houses have been established by the companies concerned, and I have continually urged and will urge the London companies to join in establishing a receiving house for London.
    SIR W. EVANS-GORDON (Tower Hamlets, Stepney): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department upon what grounds and evidence the new regulations providing for the admission of all persons coming to this country from disturbed parts of Europe have been framed.
    MR. GLADSTONE: No such regulations have been made. The instructions issued to Immigration Officers and the advice to Immigration Boards are only that they should give the benefit of the doubt, where any doubt exists, to persons coming from disturbed parts of Europe who claim the privileges of a refugee.
    SIR W. EVANS-GORDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to lay upon the Table a Copy of the revised Rules under the provisions of the Aliens Act; and, if so, when the House will be placed in possession of them.
    MR. GLADSTONE: There has been no revision of the rules. I have revoked one existing Order, viz., that fixing the number twelve as the number which constitutes a ship an immigrant ship, and I have in draft a single new rule dealing with the admission of the Press to Board meetings. I have no objection to laying both these on the Table, together with copies of all the existing rules and Orders. I will also lay a copy of the letter I have just addressed to Immigration Boards, and a copy of the instructions I have just issued to Immigration Officers.
    MR. BYLES (Salford, N.): Is it the intention of the Government to introduce legislation amending the Aliens Act?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Notice must be given of that Question.
    SIR. GILBERT PARKER (Gravesend): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his decision to give full benefit of the doubt to any Russian emigrant who alleges that he fears persecution at home will be extended to all Russian subjects who reach this country from non-Russian ports.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Cases must be decided on their individual merits by Immigration Officers and Boards.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if Macedonia, Hungary, the Turkish Empire, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Spain are included among the countries specified by the Home Secretary as being disturbed, and from which free access of aliens will be permitted to this country.
    R. GLADSTONE: I specified no country. My remarks were intended to apply to any country where it appears for the time being that serious political disturbances are taking place.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton): How does the right hon. Gentleman propose to obtain the information as to the disturbed countries?
    MR. GLADSTONE: It is a matter of commonsense and common knowledge.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of his intention to extend the hospitality of these shores to all foreign persons who allege they are suffering from religious or political persecution, he will take the necessary measures to prevent such persons from becoming a burden upon the poor districts of the great cities of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and to prevent the hospitality extended to foreigners who allege they are distressed becoming a charge upon the national funds.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I can only say that I have expressed no such intention.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the uncorroborated statement of an alien immigrant is to be accepted, under the new regulations of the Aliens Act he has announced, that he or she comes from a disturbed country or a disturbed district of a foreign country.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have never suggested that this should be done, nor have I ever made any regulation to this effect.

    Aliens Act—Maintenance of Aliens.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take under the new regulations of the Aliens Act to ensure that aliens who allege they have taken ship to this country because they are the subjects of religious or political persecution shall not become a charge upon the public funds.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have already answered this Question.

    Import of Bounty-fed Malt.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a bounty or rebate of five francs per quarter paid by the French Government on all malt made in France and shipped to England, and that such bounty-fed malt is now coming to London, and being offered to the English brewers at a price from three to four shillings below the price of English malt; and what steps he can take to save English maltsters and the barley growers in this country from this competition.
    MR. FELL had given notice of the following Question also: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a duty of eight francs per quarter on malt imported into France; and whether, in view of the effect of this duty upon the export of English malt into that country, he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): I will answer the two Questions of the hon. Member together. The French import duty on malt is four francs per 100 kilogrammes. I am not aware of any bounty on exported malts. Possibly the hon. Member is referring to the system of "temporary admission," under which the import duty on barley is remitted on condition of exporting an equivalent amount of malt. I have no reason to suppose that this system gives rises to a bounty. Up to the end of last month only 60 cwts. of malt had been imported into the United Kingdom from France, since the beginning of 1905.
    MR. FELL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he could make further inquiry as to what is going on at the present time? I am informed there are 500 quarters of malt from France in the Thames at the present moment.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: If the hon. Member will give me any particulars of that sort I shall certainly inquire.

    Employment and Manufactured Imports.
    MR. BOWLES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that, during the period from 1860 to 1903, the greatest improvement in employment in any one year in the United Kingdom was accompanied by the greatest yearly increase in manufactured imports, that the year 1872 of best known employment during that period was a year of great increase in manufactured imports, and the year 1879 of worst known employment was a year of great decrease in manufactured imports; and whether he would grant a Return, showing the increase or decrease of employment, and the corresponding increase or decrease of manufactured imports, for each year during the period in question.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The facts are as stated in the hon. Member's Question. There would be no objection to granting such a Return if moved for.

    Merchant Shipping Bill.
    MR. H. H. MARKS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when it is his intention to intro-
    1244
    duce the Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I hope to introduce the Bill on Tuesday next.

    Government Officials as Political Agents.
    MR. VIVIAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the case of a paid permanent civil servant, viz., a registrar of births, marriages, and deaths, who has acted for three weeks as a paid agent for a political candidate; and if this civil servant, having been warned of the consequences of his conduct, still persists in doing paid work for this candidate, will he say if he proposes to continue him in his appointment.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): My hon. friend has asked me to reply to this Question. My attention has not been called to the case referred to in it, but I may point out that registrars of births and deaths and registrars of marriages are not paid permanent civil servants, or indeed civil servants at all. They are appointed by the boards of guardians or superintendent registrars, as the case may be, and are paid by fees. They hold office during the pleasure of the Registrar-General. Speaking generally, a registrar is not debarred from performing political or other work in the hours which he is not required to devote to his public duties, provided that those duties are in no way interfered with. If, however, my hon. friend will inform me of the name of the officer to whom he refers, and of his district, I will ask the Registrar-General to inquire into the circumstances of the case.

    Licensing and Welsh Disestablishment.
    MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he intends to introduce next Session a measure relating to licensing reform; and whether he can now give any indication as to the time when he proposes to bring in a Bill to terminate the establishment of the Church of England in Wales and Monmouthshire.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The Answer to the first part of the hon. Member's Question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second, I am not in a position to make any statement.

    Langside (Glasgow) Postal Arrangements.
    MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the postal arrangements for the district of Langside, Glasgow, are causing inconvenience to the inhabitants of the said district; and whether he will give instructions to the postmaster in Glasgow to deliver and collect letters from that district in uniformity with the other districts comprising the municipality of Glasgow.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): Inquiry shall be made in regard to the postal arrangements at Langside, Glasgow, and the result shall be communicated to the hon. Member.

    Scottish Sub-Postmasters and their Holidays.
    MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that no provision is made whereby sub-postmasters in the rural districts of Scotland are entitled to yearly holidays; that some of them have not had holidays for many years, and that when holidays are granted they are expected to provide and pay for efficient service during their absence; and if he will consider the claims of sub-postmasters to yearly holidays without their being expected to provide or pay for substitutes.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Sub-postmasters with no private business, who are paid an inclusive fixed salary, and are required to give a regular daily attendance of not less than eight hours are granted annual leave of twelve working days; but sub-postmasters who are paid by commission according to the amount of post office business transacted, and who are generally shopkeepers, may be allowed leave of absence only when they them selves can make satisfactory provision for their duties while they are away. These latter are in the position rather of contractors than of servants; and as long as they provide for the work for which they are paid, their personal attendance is not generally obligatory. This rule is applic-
    1246
    able to the whole of the United Kingdom.

    Rothesay Fishery Conference.
    MR. LAMONT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the unanimous resolution of the recent Fishery Conference at Rothesay, the Fishery Board for Scotland will now enforce the Act 52 and 53 Vic., cap. 23, section 5, prohibiting daylight fishing in the Firth of Clyde.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): Daylight fishing for herrings between Ardnamurchan Point and the Mull of Galloway is prohibited between June 1st and October 1st, and the Fishery Board will continue their endeavours as hitherto, to secure the enforcement of the statute.

    Royal Irish Constabulary—Pension Regulations.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the Bill introduced by the Secretary of State for the Home Department regulating police superannuation in England, containing a clause specifying, among the cases in which a pension or an allowance becomes forfeited, the case of a grantee who without the consent of the police authority accepts any testimonial of pecuniary value on his retirement; and whether he will introduce a similar regulation for the Royal Irish Constabulary.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,): The Question raised by the hon. Member will be considered in the event of the introduction of a Bill for the Amendment of the Royal Irish Constabulary Acts.
    MR. O'MARA: Will the Bill be brought in this session?
    MR. BRYCE: I have not considered that yet.

    Irish Judicial Rents.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the increasing difficulty of paying judicial rents; and whether, in view of the fact that those

    1247
    amounts are reached by giving the landlord credit for improvements made by the tenant and by inadequate consideration of the prices of farm produce and of labour, His Majesty's Government will make any provision, like Section 29 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, for revising within the statutory term rents fixed on inadequate or improperly applied data.
    MR. BRYCE: The Irish Government have no information that there is increasing difficulty in paying judicial rents. I have already dealt with the remaining points of this Question, in my replies to previous Questions put by the hon. Member. I am not prepared to make any statement as to amending legislation until more experience has been accumulated of the working of the Land Acts.
    MR. GINNELL: When the schedule states that the landlord has made no improvement while the tenant gets no credit for the drains he has laid down, is not that transferring the tenant's property to the landlord?
    MR. SPEAKER: Notice should be given of that Question.

    Tenants' Improvements.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, having regard to the definition of improvement in The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, the rights conferred upon tenants in respect of improvements by that Act, amended by the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896, the inadequacy of the form of schedule now used by the Irish Land Commission for recording improvements, and the practice of fixing rents upon the tenant's improvements, contrary to law, he will order the immediate preparation and use of an amended schedule, setting out expressly under the general heading Improvements, the following sub-headings, namely: buildings; reclamation; fences made or removed; drainage; farm roads; planting for defence or shelter; manures unexhausted; deep tillage; removal of rocks; removal of furze and heather from land naturally subject to them; levelling hills, filling hollows; wall or embankment against water; and any other work which adds to the letting value of the holding.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Land Commission that the schedule referred to is in the form which has been duly prescribed in pursuance of Section I of the Land Law Act of 1896. The power of prescribing such form is vested by law in the Land Commission, and it is not competent to me to direct the changes which the hon. Member desires. I may, however, add that I am informed that the statement that the practice prevails of fixing rents upon the tenants' improvements is not in accordance with the facts.

    Agrarian Crime in Galway.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will explain why several men, who were sentenced at the Galway assizes for agrarian offences, were released on 19th February, two months before their terms had expired; whether he is aware that the same night an attack was made on the house of a grazier in the neighbourhood of Ballindereen; and will he say whether the police have made any arrests in connection with the matter.
    MR. BRYCE: The men referred to in the first inquiry were released by order of the Lord-Lieutenant on 19th February. They had completed seven out of the nine months' imprisonment to which they were sentenced. I cannot make any statement as to the reasons which influenced the Lord-Lieutenant in the exercise of the prerogative of mercy vested in him. I have already answered the remaining inquiries in my reply to the hon. Member's Question of the 27th February.†
    MR. DUFFY: Has the right hon. Gentleman received a copy of a Resolution passed at a meeting in this parish, presided over by the priest?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Notice must be given.
    MR. DUFFY: I only want to know if the right hon. Gentleman has received the Resolution from this parish denouncing this outrage.
    MR. SPEAKER: Notice must be given, as the right hon. Gentleman must refer to the office to find out.
    † See (4) Debates, clii., 1032.

    Irish Exports and Imports.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, as representing the Department of Agriculture, whether the provisional and approximate figures of the exports and imports of Ireland for the year 1902–3, promised by the right hon. Member for Dover in 1904, are yet ready for publication.
    MR. BRYCE: Statistics for the year ending 31st December, 1904, have been compiled, and will be published at an early date. It is not now intended to publish statistics for any year prior to 1904, as the returns which it was found possible to obtain were not of sufficient completeness to justify publication.

    Irish Industrial Schools.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state what is the exact income from all sources of the industrial schools in Ireland; and, if not, will he grant a Return giving full particulars.
    MR. BRYCE: I beg to refer the hon. Member to the table on page 13 of the Report for 1904 of the Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools in Ireland (Cd. 2707 of 1905), which gives the information asked for.

    Woman Inspector for Irish Industrial Schools.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of appointing a woman inspector for reformatory and industrial schools similar to that exising in England and Scotland.
    MR. BRYCE: The suggestion made by the hon. Member will be considered. I understand that there is only one such inspector in Great Britain, and the number of schools to be inspected there is of course very much larger.

    Mrs. Hildyard's Estate, County Limerick.
    MR. LUNDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can say if negotiations for sale to the tenants are in progress between Mrs. Hildyard and the Estates Commissioners, in regard to
    1250
    her estate in Dunkip Croom, County Limerick; whether the unoccupied portion of the estate will be parcelled out to labourers; and will the part subject to inundations be given over to poor farmers in the district.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Estates Commissioners that no proceedings for the sale of this estate have been instituted before them. They have, however, received an application on behalf of the labourers on the estate which will be duly considered in the event of the estate coming before them to be dealt with.

    St. Patrick's Day Celebrations.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the Licensed Premises (St. Patrick's Day) (Ireland) Bill now before Parliament, he will take steps to ascertain the percentage of public houses closed wholly or partially on the 17th March next in the following police districts: Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Londonderry, Limerick, Waterford, Galway, and Kilkenny.
    MR. BRYCE: I presume that the police will be in a position to report on this matter, as they did last year, and I shall have no objection to make known the result.

    Value of Irish Crops.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will include in Cd. 2854 the estimated annual value of the different items of agricultural produce dealt with therein; and whether he can give an estimate what the total value of the net produce of the crops was for the year 1905 in Ireland.
    MR. BRYCE: The estimated annual value of the principal Irish crops in 1905 will be shown, in accordance with the existing practice, in the detailed annual report on agricultural statistics. A provisional estimate, however, will beinserted next year in the return for 1906 corresponding to Cd. 2854. The value of the principal Irish crops in 1905 may, in the opinion of the Department of Agriculture, be estimated at 30½ millions sterling.

    Irish Butter Production.
    MR. O'MARA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can give an estimate of the total value of butter produced in Ireland in the year 1905; and what percentages of this production were consumed therein and exported respectively.
    MR. BRYCE: It is estimated by the Department of Agriculture that the value of the butter produced in Ireland in 1905 was £5,250,000 sterling. No estimate of the value of the butter exported in 1905 has been formed, but it is estimated that the value of the butter exports from Ireland in 1904 was £3,250,000 sterling.

    Appointments of Teachers to Irish Schools.
    SIR EDWARD CARSON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is the practice in Ireland for the managers of public elementary or national schools invariably to appoint teachers of their own religious denomination.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Commissioners of National Education, that as a rule the managers of national schools appoint teachers of the same religious persuasion as themselves, but not invariably so.

    Religious Instruction in Irish Elementary Schools.
    SIR EDWARD CARSON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether religious instruction is given to the pupils in all public elementary schools in Ireland, and by whom such instruction is given.
    MR. BRYCE: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that under their rules opportunities must be afforded to the pupils in all schools for receiving such religious instruction as their parents or guardians may approve. In vested schools such pastors or other persons as shall be approved by the parents or guardians of the children must have access to them in the school-room for the purpose of giving them religious instruction there. In non-vested schools the patrons or local managers determine whether any, and if any, what religious instruction shall be given in the schoolroom, but if they do not permit it
    1252
    to be so given, the children whose parents or guardians so desire must be allowed to absent themselves from the school at reasonable times for the purpose of receiving religious instruction elsewhere. Religious instruction is given in nearly all national schools, and in the majority of cases by the teachers of the schools. In a great many cases, religious instruction is also given by the pastors of the different denominations.

    Irish Land Purchase—Trustees Investments.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Public Trustee under the Land Act of 1903, acting on the advice of counsel, has refused permission to trustees to invest in certain stocks which the Court of Appeal have decided come within the scope of the Land Act; and whether he is prepared to introduce a Bill to make clear and enlarge the powers of trustees in regard to investments.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Public Trustee that he has refused permission to trustees to invest in the stocks of foreign railway companies, and has also refused permission, in one particular case, to invest in the ordinary stock of a certain home railway company. Under Section 51 (1) (f) of the Act of 1903, the sufficiency of investments in railway stocks to realise the sum invested upon the termination of the trust shall be secured to the satisfaction of the Public Trustee. I am informed that, in a case decided last year, the Master of the Rolls while holding that the ordinary stocks of railway companies were not excluded from the consideration of the Public Trustee, stated that if he were Public Trustee it would be very difficult to persuade him that any such ordinary stock was secured in the sense indicated in the section. In the same case, the Court of Appeal in Ireland subsequently expressed concurrence in the opinion of the Master of the Rolls. In these circumstances, it does not appear to be necessary to introduce amending legislation.

    Royal University of Ireland.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant

    1253
    of Ireland whether he has had communicated to him the resolution passed by a majority at the last meeting of the Senate of the Royal University, recommending that it should be made a teaching university, with colleges adequately constituted and brought into organic connection with it; whether this resolution is in accord with the policy of the Government; and when he will be able to make a full statement of the scheme of the Government for dealing with university education in Ireland.
    MR. BRYCE: The Resolution in question has been communicated to me. I am not prepared to make any statement on the subject at present.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: IS the right hon. Gentleman aware that Ireland has no teaching university of any kind?
    [No Answer was returned.]
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is able to state the reasons given by the right hon. the Earl of Meath for his resignation of the office of Chancellor of the Royal University; and whether, in selecting his successor. the Government will make representations to the Senate with regard to the desirability of taking adequate steps to prevent a repetition of the disorderly and disloyal demonstration which occurred at the last conferment of degrees.
    MR. BRYCE: Lord Meath entertained doubts as to the competence of the Senate under the Charter of the Royal University to maintain order at the conferring of degrees; and, in consequence, he proposed that the Charter should be amended, or that he should be relieved of the responsibility of maintaining order. The Government informed Lord Meath that they were advised that the Senate had the power to maintain order and to take all steps necessary to that end; and that an amendment of the Charter for that object was, therefore, unnecessary. Lord Meath, however, continuing doubtful as to the Senate's powers, resigned the Chancellorship, to the regret of the Government.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant
    1254
    of Ireland, whether he can state who has been selected for the office of Chancellor of the Royal University.
    MR. BRYCE: No appointment has yet been made.

    Prohibition of Cattle Imports into the United Kingdom.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a Resolution passed by the Cattle Committee of the Armagh Agricultural Association, protesting against any alteration of the existing Law, which debars Canadian and all foreign store cattle being admitted into the United Kingdom; and whether, in view of the consequences that the removal of the present restrictions would have for Irish farmers, he will take care that the interests of Ireland are fully considered by the Government.
    MR. BRYCE: I have received the Resolution referred to. The hon. Member may rely that the interests of Ireland, as indeed of all parts of the United Kingdom, will be fully considered by His Majesty's Government.

    Lambert's Minors Estate.
    MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the estate of Lambert's Minors, at present under the control of the Lord Chancellor, is about being sold to the tenants; and, if so, what is the intention of the Estates Commissioners with regard to the untenanted grass lands surrounding the town of Athenry; and whether, in view of the representations made by all the local bodies, the Commissioners will facilitate the sale of the town holdings on the estate to the occupying tenants.
    MR. BRYCE: The Lord Chancellor informs me that the reply to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative, and that he will put no obstacle in the way of the sale of the town holdings to the tenants. The estate has not come before the Estates Commissioners, but if they should acquire untenanted land in the locality they will consider the best method of utilising it, and also any application made to them with reference to town holdings.

    Irish farmers and Canadian Cattle.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in the event of the Government deciding to remove the restrictions which at present exist against the importation of Canadian cattle into the United Kingdom for breeding or store purposes, he proposes to introduce a measure to reduce the annual instalments payable by farmers in Ireland who have bought out their holdings under recent Land Acts to an extent commensurate with the loss which they would suffer through the removal of the protection which existed when they bought their farms.
    MR. BRYCE: I beg to refer to the reply which I gave on Monday last to a Question on this subject put by the hon. Member for South Cork.†

    Ellis Estate, County Limerick.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the agricultural portion of the Ellis estate, in the parish of Abbeyveale, in the county of Limerick, is about to be sold under the Land Act, 1903, and that the tenants of houses in the town of Abbeyveale on the estate, to nearly all of which there is land attached, are willing to buy their holdings under the Act; and whether, seeing that almost all these houses were built by the tenants, under the circumstances the Estates Commissioners will sanction the advance to the agricultural tenants, without inquiring into the matter, and having the town tenants included in the sale of the estate.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the originating application in respect of the sale of this estate sets out thirty-three acres of the town of Abbeyveale as property in the occupation of the vendor which he does not propose to sell, as being outside the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts. The sale of the estate will be dealt with in order of priority, and the Commissioners will consider the position of the town tenants.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Can the estate be sold if these thirty-three acres are excluded?
    † See (4) Debates, cliii., 864.
    MR. BRYCE: It is for the Commissioners to decide whether they will buy only part of an estate.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Commissioners to inquire into this matter before they advance any purchase money?
    MR. BRYCE: Clearly the matter is before them.

    Donegal Fishing Industry.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he has received a Memorial forwarded to him by the principal inhabitants of Dunkineely, adopted at a public meeting over which the Rev. John M'Nulty presided, praying for the construction of a pier and boat slip at the Scar, Ballydonnell, on the south side of St. John's Point, Inner Bay, county Donegal; and whether, having regard to to the necessity in the interests of the fishing industry and the protection of the lives of the fishermen of the district for the construction of this work, and that there is a sum available out of the £16,000, the marine grant to Donegal not yet allotted, he will favourably consider the request embodied in the memorial.
    MR. BRYCE: I have received the Memorial referred to. The claims of the locality will be considered if it should be found that further funds under the Marine Works Act are available for Donegal; but I think, as at present advised, that it may be found necessary to give priority to the claims of other places in the county of Donegal.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a sum of £2000 or £3000 unappropiated of the amount allocated to Donegal?
    MR. BRYCE: I believe so, but if the hon. Member will consult his colleagues from Donegal he will hear that they have strong claims on it.

    Goodbody Estate, Athenry.
    MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if any communication has been received by the Estates Commissioners, respecting the allocation of the Goodbody

    1257
    estate, near Athenry, from the people of Athenry; and, having regard to the fact that a number of the townspeople have been in possession of portions of the estate for close on half a century, is it the intention of the Commissioners to deprive these people of the accommodation which they have enjoyed so long.
    MR. BRYCE: The estate in question was purchased by the Department of Agriculture for their own particular purposes; but the Department re-sold to the Estates Commissioners portion of the lands for distribution among the existing tenants of the estates, many of whose holdings were uneconomic. The Estates Commissioners have already distributed the land so purchased by them among the tenants in question.
    MR. DUFFY: How many people applied for land.
    MR. BRYCE: I should like notice of that Question.

    Monnerbawn Farm, Athenry
    MR. DUFFY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that 200 acres of the Monnerbawn Farm, Good-body Estate, Athenry, has been sold to Mrs. Lopdell, and at what price; and whether he will state if, before selling it to an extensive landowner, steps were taken by the Estates Commissioners to find out how many people in the locality were willing to take holdings on this large farm.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that it has been arranged to sell a portion of this estate, comprising 311 acres of mountain land, to Mrs. Lopdell for £500. This land was not suitable for the enlargement of small holdings, but only for sporting purposes or for the planting of trees.
    MR. DUFFY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire further.
    MR. BRYCE: Yes, if necessary; but it seems to me the Land Commissioners have already inquired into the matter.
    MR. DUFFY: The feeling in the locality is quite opposed to the opinion
    1258
    expressed in the right hon. Gentleman's Answer.
    MR. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in all parts of Ireland where there are untenanted lands, the poor people are glad to get land to re-claim?
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed this land is rough mountain land which cannot be brought under cultivation. That is all I know.

    Marlfield National School, Belfast.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to scenes that have taken place at Marlfield National School, Belfast, owing to the eviction of the principal by the manager: if he has received a Resolution passed at a public meeting, held on the 4th instant, condemning the treatment meted out to the teacher, and will he say on whose authority and on what grounds has the school been closed; and whether, in view of the fact that in November last, at the instance of the manager, an inquiry was ordered with the view of having the teacher dismissed, and after consideration of the whole facts the Commissioner refused to sanction the same, he will order the school to be opened until proper inquiries are made as to the real offender in this matter.
    MR. BRYCE: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that their attention has been called to this matter, and that they have received the Resolution referred to. The school has been closed on the authority of the manager. In November last the manager applied to the Commissioners for then assent to the summary dismissal of the principal teacher, whereupon the Commissioners directed an inquiry to be held as the outcome of which they expressed the opinion that in the circumstances of the case the dismissal of the teacher, without notice or salary in lieu of notice, would not be justified. The school-house in question is non-vested, and the Commissioners have, therefore, no power to interfere with the action of the manager in closing the school.
    MR. SLOAN: Have the Commissioners no power to interfere in such a case as this?
    MR. BRYCE: I understand they have no power to prevent the closing of this school.
    MR. SLOAN: I must respectfully say the Commissioners are the referees in a case like this, and the managers have no right to act without their sanction.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is not entitled to make a speech.

    Irish Produce Commissioner in England.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will say how many candidates applied for the position of Irish Produce Commissioner in England; how many of the applicants were from Cork; and whether he would ascertain if the exporters of butter in Ireland would, while waiting for legislation, agree to have their places of business registered and subject to inspection by Government officials, and, further, be prepared to show to the inspectors from their books that the various kinds of butters received by them were sent out under their correct designations so that the producers and consumers might be protected from the losses caused to both sections by misrepresentation.
    MR. BRYCE: There were twenty candidates for the post of Inspector in connection with Irish agricultural produce in England, and four of these were from Cork. I am afraid that no practical good could come of such an inquiry as is suggested in the latter part of the Question. The matter there referred to is one which, as I understand, will receive the attention of the Committee on the Butter Trade which it is proposed to appoint forthwith.
    MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.): Is it not a fact that the man appointed had no practical acquaintance with the butter trade?
    MR. BRYCE: I was informed he had.
    MR O'SHAUGHNESSY: Who were the four applicants from Cork?
    MR. BRYCE: I have no information.

    Ballinacurra Sewer Loan.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has any further information with regard to the loan for the Ballinacurra sewer at Limerick; whether his attention has been called to the need for such sewer in the interest of the public health; and whether, seeing that the loan has been applied for, he will use his influence to have it issued without delay.
    MR. BRYCE: I have already informed the hon. Member that the Local Government Board have given their sanction to the raising of this loan. I understand that the Rural District Council have now applied to the Board of Works for the loan, and I must therefore refer the hon. Member to my hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury, who will answer for the Board of Works.
    MR. JOYCE: I will put another Question in a week's time.

    Roxborough Road School, Limerick.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he has had any communications recently from the Borough Council of Limerick with regard to the Roxborough Road schools in that city; and, if so, whether he would state generally the purport of these communications, and lay them, with his Answers, upon the Table of the House.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,): I have received communications from the Borough Council of Limerick with regard to the Roxborough Road schools in that city. These are at present engaging my attention, and I hope to be-able to reply to them fully in a short time. Until I am able to do so I must ask the hon. Member to postpone the latter part of his Question.

    Wexford County Council and Cattle Imports.
    SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he has received a Resolution, passed unanimously by the County Wexford County Council, opposing the removal of

    1261
    the restrictions now in force upon the importation of Canadian and foreign cattle into Great Britain; and if he will give due weight to this and similar resolutions in dealing with the question.
    MR. SINCLAIR (for Sir EDWARD STRACHEY): We have received the Resolution in question, to which due notice will be given.

    Protection of Irish Cattle against Disease.
    MR. EDWARD BARRY: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that the punctual payment of their instalments by the farmers who have purchased their holdings in Ireland under the Land Purchase Act of 1903, is dependent on the stock-rearing and butter industry of that country; whether, in view of the necessity for the Irish people to adopt the best methods in the manufacture and marketing of butter, to successfully meet foreign competition, to maintain a continuity of supply throughout the winter months as well as in spring, summer, and autumn, so as to safeguard against giving a monopoly to foreign countries in an interval of shortage in Irish supply; and, seeing that an outbreak of infectious disease in Irish cattle would ruin the butter trade for a season or, until the disease could be successfully stamped out, permanently affect our standing in the markets of this country, will steps be taken to secure the dairy cattle of Ireland against an outbreak of foot-and-mouth diseases by maintaining the existing embargo against the introduction of Canadian store cattle into these countries.
    MR. EDWARD BARRYhad also given notice of the following Question: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that the outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease in 1882, caused loss to the stock-owners of Great Britain and Ireland, and also to the general consumers of meat in these countries as the result of the infection and the restrictions necessitated thereby; that the breeders of shorthorn and other pedigree cattle, and the general stock-owners who were dependent on those breeders for their bulls, sustained loss in having to use
    1262
    animals of inferior or no pedigree owing to the prohibition against removal from or to infected areas; and whether steps will immediately be taken to safeguard the general stock of the country, and to ensure an unbroken continuity of pedigree in the case of the pure-bred herds by a continuance of those precautions that have hitherto been adopted against the importation of Canadian and other cattle.
    MR. SINCLAIR (for Sir EDWARD STRACHEY): Perhaps I may be allowed to answer the two Questions at the same time, and to say, without entering into a detailed examination of the various sections of his Questions, that we take note of the reasons urged by the hon. Member in support of the maintenance of the existing law as to the importation of cattle from abroad.

    Importation of Live Cattle from Abroad.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is in a position to state the decision of the Government in reference to the maintenance of the present restrictions upon the importation of live cattle from abroad.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs): A Bill dealing with the restrictions upon the importation of cattle is before the House, and the decision of the Government will be stated on the Second Reading of that Bill.

    Speculation in South African Stocks.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that the fall in South African stocks, as the result of the uncertainty and delay in the settlement of affairs in South Africa, has involved British investors in a loss which is estimated at upwards of £90,000,000 sterling, while business in the Transvaal is being crippled by the same cause; and whether speedy measures will be adopted to place the Government of the Transvaal upon a stable basis.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Government are in no way responsible, as the hon. Gentleman appears to imply, for the results that he tells us have attended the financial operations which

    1263
    have been carried on in connection with the South African mines. The steps which are now being taken by His Majesty's Government will I hope result in placing the Government of the Transvaal upon a stable basis.

    Indentured Labour in the Transvaal—No Royal Commission.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will now advise His Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission of a judicial character, to examine and report upon the working of the system of indentured labour in the Transvaal, and upon the allegations made by certain of His Majesty's Ministers that the system constitutes a state of slavery or semi-slavery, and also to inquire whether the accusations of general cruelty and torture inflicted by British subjects on Chinese coolies are true; and, if they find them proved, to report the names of the persons concerned, and to advise as to the measures to be adopted to prevent in the future the possibility of proceedings so injurious to the honour of this country.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir, we have no such intention.

    Trade Advertisements and Beauty Spots.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will consider the advisability of giving the Board of Trade or local public bodies the control of trade advertising and issuing licences for the same; and, in view of the fact that many beauty spots are disfigured at present, and that revenue is lost to the State, will he introduce legislation on the above lines.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Questions raised by the hon. Gentleman require a little more attention than I have been in a position to give them. I sympathise with his desire to prevent the disfigurement of beautiful scenery, but whether this can be accomplished by the methods suggested by the hon. Gentleman I am not so sure.

    Hop Cultivation and Chinese Labour.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that quantities of the
    1264
    hops imported into this country are grown by Chinese labour; and whether, in the interest of the working classes of this country, he will take steps to prevent such importation in future.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am aware that considerable quantities of hops are imported into this country from abroad, notably from the United States, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, and as the hon. Gentleman and his Party are so deeply interested in this particular import I may add that New Zealand, Canada and other British possessions are also offenders in this respect. But I am not aware that Chinese labour is employed in any of these countries in connection with the cultivation of hops, unless it be on the Pacific Coast of the United States, from which region the imports for 1900 were 40 cwts.; for 1901, 165 cwts.; for 1902, 150 cwts., and for 1903 and 1904 nil.
    MR. COURTHOPE: Will the right hon. Gentleman obtain information as to the action of the Dürst Hop Pool in employing Chinese labour?
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That Question had better be put on the Paper.

    Crime by Chinese Coolies in South Africa.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that during the last six months the Chinese labourers who have escaped from the Transvaal mines have committed upwards of fifty serious crimes upon the peaceable inhabitants of the Colony, including at least eight murders and many cases of housebreaking and assault; and what steps the Government intend to take to prevent the continuance of this evil.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Secretary of State for the Colonies informs me that he has not yet received the Return of the crimes moved for by my hon. friend on the 21st of February, and he is therefore not aware whether the numbers stated in the Question are correct. He is asking Lord Selborne to indicate his views as to what further steps are possible to prevent crimes of

    1265
    this nature. I am satisfied that the Transvaal Government are fully alive to the necessity of effectually checking such outrages.

    Sea Erosion.
    MR. H. H. MARKS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can state when it is proposed to appoint the Royal Commission to inquire into the defence of the coast from sea erosion and other kindred subjects.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir, I am not in a position to give the hon. Member any further information upon this subject.

    Vote on Account—The Aliens Act.
    SIR W. EVANS GORDON: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Wimbledon Division of Surrey, I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will defer consideration of the Vote on Account (Report stage), in order to give Members sufficient opportunity to examine the new regulations of the Home Office under the Aliens Act.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir, I should be sorry to put any impediments in the way of an adequate discussion of the new regulations; but I am afraid it is impossible to defer the consideration of the Report stage of the Vote on Account, and the new regulations are really confined in such a small compass that even if this were not the case, I doubt if any object would be served by postponement.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Can the Leader of the House give any information as to the business for to-morrow?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that on Thursday it was proposed to take the Army Estimates, Votes A and 1, and, if they were obtained, to take afterwards the Navy Estimates. The 12 o'clock rule must be suspended on Thursday for a very innocent purpose—namely, to obtain the necessary resolution in Ways and Means. This was only a formal matter, but if taken before 12 o'clock it would vitiate the character of
1266
the day as one of the allotted days for Supply.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to say when the Budget statement is likely to be made.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Not yet.
MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Not before Easter?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not think so.

NEW BILLS.
  CORONERS BILL.
  "To dispense with the compulsory viewing of bodies on the holding of Coroners' Inquests," presented by Mr. Luke White; supported by Mr. Bramsdon, Mr. John Wilson, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Toulmin, Mr. Arthur Henderson, and Mr Summerbell; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 100.]
  CHARTERED SOCIETIES BILL.
  "To provide for the further protection of Chartered Societies," presented by Mr. Harmood-Banner; supported by Sir James Woodhouse and Mr. John Henderson; to be read a second time upon Thursday, March 22nd, and to be printed. [Bill 101.]
  SUPPLY [MARCH 5TH] REPORT.
  Resolution reported.
CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1906–7. (VOTE ON ACCOUNT.)
"That a sum, not exceeding £21,410,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, viz.:—

CIVIL SERVICES.
CLASS II.

UNITED KINGDOM AND ENGLAND.

£

Home Office

66,000

Resolution read a second time.
MAJOR SEELYmoved to reduce the vote by the sum of £100. He said his object was to call attention to the Convention made between this country and China on May 13th, 1904. This was a matter well worthy the attention of the House, for by this Convention with China the whole system of indentured labour, to which exception had been taken by hon. Members on that side of the House, was made possible. Had it not been for that Convention, as he gathered from the correspondence, Chinese labour in the Transvaal could never have taken place. His particular point was that our Consuls were engaged in assisting in this traffic. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs told the House the other day that he was not aware that the Convention had anything particular to do with Chinese labour in South Africa, but in point of fact it was part and parcel of the whole arrangement, and the Chinese could not have proceeded to South Africa without it. He would draw the attention of the Under-Secretary to the correspondence which took place prior to signing the Convention. It showed conclusively that it was only signed in order to provide Chinese labour for South Africa. It therefore behoved them to consider whether they should not stop their Consuls from engaging in a traffic which they regarded as immoral and wrong. We should be placed in a ridiculous position if we allowed this thing to

1271
go on. He gathered from the Papers that it was in their power to stop it. The second article of the Convention provided that our Consuls should consult with the Tao-tais of the ports in order to obtain coolies. They were to make known by proclamation and through the native Press the text of the indenture the coolies would have to sign; and it was clear that at this moment they were acting as recruiting agents and were engaged in facilitating a system which had been described by the Lord Chancellor as one of semi-slavery. They also had, by Article 3, to fit up buildings to receive coolies prior to their embarkation, and in effect to act as gaolers, while under Article 4 they were called upon to act as gaolers, as these emigrants were not permitted to leave the depôt except on a pass signed by the Chinese inspector and counter-signed by a British Consul. The British Consul was in fact made responsible for the safe keeping of these Chinese coolies. The situation was quite intolerable. The Foreign Office appeared to have had very little concern with this Convention; but, in his opinion, the matter required the urgent and careful thought of the Foreign Office as well as of the Colonial Office. The present Foreign Secretary was in no sense to blame, but it was apparent that the matter was rushed through because it was unpopular in this country. There was no reason why, because they did this in haste, they should repent at leisure. If repentance was to come—and hon. Members on the benches around him did repent—the sooner the better. He would ask the Under-Secretary for the Colonies whether he could give the House any indication of the steps it was proposed to take to put an end to this hateful system. If the Government had power to put a stop to it, it would be well if notification were given forthwith. Delay and uncertainty would cause distress to hon. Members who regarded the thing as wrong, and it would do harm to the industry in South Africa. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had said that certain allegations made in the country with regard to Chinese labour had brought us into disrespect with foreign countries; but the posters in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency had nothing to do with that. What brought us into some contempt with foreign countries when we wished to intervene in the Congo was the fact that
1272
official documents showed that, contrary to the promise given to the Chinese Minister, these coolies had been ill-treated, and that, presumably in consequence, they had spread over the country and committed a series of outrages. The Chinese Minister demanded before the treaty was made, first, that Chinese labourers should not be flogged without due process of law, and, secondly, that they should not be transferred from one employer to another, and both these conditions had been evaded. This latter point was dealt with by the late Member for Lincolnshire in a speech which made a great impression on the last House of Commons, a speech in which he said it was a strange thing for this country to be taught its duty to an inferior race by the Minister for the Heathen Chinee. The Secretary of State could effectively intervene if he wished, because the Government could truly say that, in point of fact, we had not been able to fulfil either of the promises on the faith of which the Convention was signed, and he would ask the Under-Secretary whether he could not give an assurance that action would be taken, if possible, to bring the Convention to an end. He was aware that it did not come up for revision or renewal for a period of four years from the date of signature, but it was possible to abrogate it by consent, and the fact that we could not carry out our own undertakings would be a very good reason for abrogation. Had the Under-Secretary communicated to the High Commissioner the important decision of the Government to veto the employment of Chinese labour under conditions at all similar to the conditions under the Ordinance, and, if so, had he asked the High Commissioner to make that decision known among the future electors of the Transvaal? Now, while parties were being formed and pledges were being given in that Colony, there must be no misapprehension that Chinese labour could continue to be imported under a system described by the Lord Chancellor as semi-slavery. If once it was made perfectly well known to the Transvaal that His Majesty's Government would stop it at its source in China as well as make it impossible for any such system again to be reintroduced, then they would know at last that Chinese labour was at an end, and the people of this country would rest assured that they had done their duty by determining that a system

1273
they had denounced as semi-slavery should no longer exist.
SIR CHARLES DILKEformally seconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out '£21,410,000,' and to insert '£21,409,900.' "—(Major Seely.)
Question proposed, "That' £21,410,000' stand part of the Resolution."
THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): I certainly do not quarrel with my hon. and gallant friend for having raised the question of the China Convention, because I think it will be admitted that the subject is one on which the House stands in need of information. I regret that in the debate on the Address I did not deal more fully with this subject, but I had already presumed on the indulgence of the House for a very considerable time, and I hardly dared embark upon the somewhat complicated details of this diplomatic instrument, and, in consequence of my unfortunate brevity, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham described all this apparatus of enlistment in China in a jaunty and scornful manner, and suggested that it was the intention of the Government—I am not sure he did not attribute it to me personally—to bring some influence to bear, I did not gather how, upon the Dowager Empress of China. But this China Convention is an instrument in itself not less effective, and I think far more convenient than the direct veto. It is an instrument which, used in conjunction with the direct veto, enables that veto to be exercised, if necessary, without raising in any direct manner the question of collision between the Colony and the mother-country, without infringing in any direct manner that principle of self-government which, on this side of the House at any rate, we are bound always to respect. The China Convention is based upon the Treaty of 1860. Article 5 of that Treaty stipulated that the Chinese Government should always allow its subjects to leave China for the purpose of labouring within the British dominions. Regulations were to be laid down later on, but no regulations were, in fact, made under the
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Treaty until the year 1904. The Convention of 1904 prescribed the regulations which really made the Treaty of 1860 effectively operative, and the Convention, like the Treaty, was general in its character. I may remind my hon. and gallant friend, when he speaks of wishing to abrogate the Treaty, that the question of Chinese Labour in South Africa, important and urgent as it is, is not by any means the only system of labour covered by the operations of the China Convention of 1904. Under that Convention and under the Treaty of 1860 the Chinese can go to the Straits Settlements, to the Federated Malay States, to Burmah, and to the Protectorate of British North Borneo. Of course they go freely to those places. They go there free if they wish to settle, they bring their wives and children with them, and sometimes they choose to do so because they are able to make a new home in those countries and to colonise them as well as to labour for their development. It seems to me that these tropical countries are well adapted to colonisation from China, and that a totally different question is raised when we are confronted with the system which prevails in the Transvaal. Let me ask the House to follow what is the operation of this Convention. On the notice of the British Minister at Pekin the Chinese Government instructs the local authorities at the Treaty Ports to facilitate emigration by every means in their power, and on receipt of these instructions the Tao-Tai appoints a Chinese inspector who, in conjunction with the British Consular officer, or his delegate, supervises the details of the emigration. My hon. and gallant friend is quite right in stating that the action of the British Consular officer is essential to the carrying out of the Chinese Labour Ordinance. It is the linch pin on which the whole of that system depends, and the action of the British Consular officer or of his delegate is essential both in regard to the signature of the contract and also in regard to making it clear that the emigrant understands fully the terms of the contract. In practice the Consuls delegated these important functions under the late Administration to the emigration agents of the Transvaal Government, and these agents derived their only legal status and exercised their powers solely in virtue of this delegation by the British Consular officer. The

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House will see that the Treaty with China binds her to permit and actively assist in the emigration of Chinese coolies from China. Without it China would not be bound to allow the coolies to go, and it is extremely improbable she would allow any large number to go, for, even with the Treaty in force, the Viceroys of the southern provinces have steadily blocked emigration from the south. We are asked, first, how can we abrogate this Treaty? My hon. and gallant friend is quite right when he says we can give notice in the first instance at the end of four years from May 13th, 1904, when the Convention was signed, to terminate it in one year, or by the consent of China—and I am not at all able to say whether China would be reluctant to consent to such abrogation—we could abrogate it at once. But if we did that it would affect other countries; it would affect emigration to those other tropical countries to which the Chinese now go to labour, and in which, when they go, they are, by the operation of the Convention, protected and supervised in the process of emigration by British Consular officers. Therefore, if it were possible, without interfering with the general structure of the Treaty, to separate that portion of the Ordinance affecting the Transvaal from the other, I have no doubt that it would meet the view of my hon. and gallant friend, and of those who think with him. And it happens that there is such a third method—that of instructing the Consular officers to resume the functions which they have delegated to the emigraition agents of the Transvaal Government. If they do that, the Convention becomes, so far as the Transvaal is concerned, a dead letter, because the provisions of the Ordinance cannot be applied except through the Consular officer delegating his authority or exercising it himself. If he is instructed to resume the authority, and not to exercise it himself again, unless he receives instructions from the Government, the whole of the Chinese Ordinance will be put out of gear, and no Chinaman can be enlisted under it,although they will still be free to go to the Transvaal under the same conditions as to other countries. That, briefly, is what His Majesty's Government propose to do. As I have told the House already this session, when we came into office we found ourselves confronted with 16,000 of these outstanding licences, which a prudent fore-
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thought or "an intelligent anticipation of events" had placed at the disposal of the mine owners in South Africa. To the carrying out of these contracts His Majesty's Government have been reluctantly compelled to consent, and the House has not less reluctantly agreed to that course by an overwhelming majority. While this importation continues it is impossible for us to revoke all the delegation of authority which the Consuls have made to the labour emigration agents, but in June or July of the present year these licences will have been worked out and the coolies contracted under them will be already on their way to South Africa. As soon as that has taken place, instructions will be given to our Consuls to cancel the powers they have delegated to the Transvaal emigration agency, and they will not take part in any further recruitments or enlistments until they are further instructed from home. If we do that we shall have turned the tap off, and if the tap is turned off, anyone who calculates how long a three years' agreement will take to expire and who studies the date when the coolies arrived will be able to tell the date when they will sail once again for their own country. But will that tap ever be turned on again? Well, Sir, that depends first of all upon the Transvaal Assembly. Within a year—I hope within a shorter period of time—the Transvaal will be a responsible self-governing Colony upon the general model of all self-governing Colonies which are to be found throughout the British Empire. As soon as that constitution is settled and the Transvaal Government is invested with its new powers, His Majesty's Government will fix a date when the existing labour Ordinance which was passed in the last House of Commons will come to an end. That will be fixed so as to allow the new Government in the Transvaal to take a reasonable survey of its affairs and to examine this labour question in all its bearings. My hon. and gallant friend asks me whether Lord Selborne has been notified of the new policy of His Majesty's Government. Quite apart from the electric telegraph which conveys regular, though somewhat one-sided, accounts of our proceedings in this House to South Africa, Lord Selborne is in daily communication at great length and considerable expense

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with my noble friend Lord Elgin, and my hon. and gallant friend may be quite sure that there is no decision announced by the Government to Parliament which Lord Selborne is not regularly apprised of, and of which South Africa does not become speedily aware. In the interval, until the potential Transvaal Assembly, the future Transvaal Assembly, has been formed, so far as the weight and influence of the Ministry can be thrown on one side or the other, it will be thrown in the direction of convincing the people of South Africa that the importation of 60,000 coolies under the conditions of the Chinese Ordinance is not a sure or satisfactory way to found a state. Unless within the time fixed by the date on which the Ordinance will automatically expire the Transvaal Assembly bring forward new proposals, the whole system of Chinese labour will automatically fall to the ground. No more Chinese will come in, and by that time those who first arrived will be on their homeward journey or about to start. Of course no new contracts or re-enlistments will be possible; the whole system will therefore come to an end within a time which may be accurately fixed.
Now, Sir, let us look at the other alternatives. I have always tried to argue this question quite fairly, and let the House see exactly what is the position of the Government, and what are the great difficulties and considerations, which on every hand, harass and hamper our action upon this question. Suppose, on the other hand, that the Transvaal Government make new proposals to us. We must subject those proposals to a searching examination, and no doubt there will be much correspondence before they are brought before the Transvaal in a definite and practical form. [OPPOSITION dissent.] I should imagine that there would be communications between our representatives in South Africa and the Colonial Office, and we should endeavour to show them what were the real objections entertained in this country to the Ordinance.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the hon. Gentleman anticipate that the Ministers of a self-governing colony would consult Downing Street before introducing a measure to their own Parliament?
MR. CHURCHILL: I should imagine that on a subject of this character it would not be impossible for informal communications to pass; but this is an entirely subsidiary point, and in any case the Government will be prepared to use the veto of the Crown without shrinking if the conditions of any proposal that may reach us from the Transvaal, no matter by how great a majority it may be supported, are really derogatory to the fundamental and elementary principles of liberty, and, I may say, of decency also. I do not for a moment minimise the importance of a veto of the Crown against a responsibly governed colony upon a matter in which the material interest of the colony is directly affected and the material interest of this country only indirectly affected, for that would be a very serious event in British colonial history. I do not for a moment attempt to minimise the importance of such a step, and I hope the House will not overlook that point. Hitherto in dealing with the Chinese question the Government have been able to act with the full sympathy of all the self-governing Colonies of the Empire. We have endeavoured to give effect to the wishes and desires of all those great Colonies who took part in the South African war, and who considered, like a great many of the working classes here who supported the war, that they had some right to be consulted as to the use that should be made of the victory. I hope that that sympathy and agreement Will be preserved during the conduct of these difficult and delicate negotiations. I hope that in relieving the Empire from what we consider a stain we shall have the moral authority that comes from common agreement among great and scattered communities. Here is where the importance of the Chinese Convention comes in, for I look upon its machinery as something like a pneumatic buffer which would prevent the direct impact of a veto and prevent the raising of the great issues of self-government. The Government are not only asked for assent but for assistance, not only to acquiesce but actively to assist, and surely in common reason the Government are entitled to refuse participation and responsible co-operation in a business for which they have so little liking.
Having said so much, perhaps I may be allowed to say one thing more on the subject

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which arises directly out of the Question asked by my hon. and gallant friend. What chance is there of the Transvaal proposals being acceptable if ever they are put forward? I feel bound to say I think the chance is not at all a good one. The Chinese are attacked here and in South Africa from two opposite points of view. Every restriction which South Africa demands on the ground of safety, we refuse on the ground of freedom; they dislike the Chinese, and we dislike the precautions they take against them. I really wonder whether it is worth while for an industry which depends so largely upon public confidence to establish itself upon the precarious footing of the chance of a compromise being reached in the future—in the not too remote future—a compromise to which not only the Transvaal Assembly, but the House of Commons will have to be parties. It is high time that the leaders of this great industry should face the facts of the situation. The House of Commons has exercised great restraint in spite of every taunt flung at the Government by the very persons who are responsible for this state of things in South Africa, and who have repeatedly assured us that the Empire depends upon this unsavoury system. I recognise the moderation the House has shown, and hope the Government will be permitted to proceed prudently and firmly to the end I have endeavoured to outline. The leaders of the mining industry here and in South Africa ought to recognise also the forbearance of the House of Commons. If it relieves their feelings to abuse the Government, by all means let them continue to do so. Surely it is about time they should leave off wringing their hands and weeping and wailing over the prospect of Chinese labour lost, and turn with manly energy to the discovery of some less unnatural substitute. Reasonable time is now given for them to look around. Reasonable time is now given for the transition to be effected. His Majesty's Government wish them no ill. Every law-abiding man—every lawful industry is a matter of serious concern to those who now are responsible for the direction of public affairs. Still more is the welfare and prosperity of the great city, which is, after all, the economic main-spring of South Africa. For my part I have always thought it wholly absurd to pretend that the prosperity and even the existence of
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the Witwatersrand Reef depended on the labour of 60,000 Chinese. I do not apprehend that any disastrous collapse will result from their gradual withdrawal. Bubble companies may break, rotten flotations may founder, shares which have been forced up far above their value may fall to their natural level, but I do not believe that any intrinsically valuable property—and after all we are dealing with the most valuable goldfield in the whole world—will be injured, or that the flow of gold from South Africa to this country, which so strongly and powerfully stimulates enterprise and credit in this country, will be sensibly or suddenly reduced. I am inclined to think that the arrangements which are made in South Africa to-day for recruiting native labour are wholly inefficient, and that a reorganisation of those arrangements might be found to produce much larger supplies of labour out of the enormous' native population. But I would suggest as a preliminary to that reorganisation that the conditions of labour should be made more attractive, that, at any rate, the men should be paid for working in the bowels of the earth not less than is offered for working on the surface on farms in the country, and that the natives should be permitted to some extent to choose their own mine so that they may avoid a few mines which have a name for unusual severity, or where, perhaps, a particular native may remember that he has been ill-treated. I was told the other day what the conditions of labour are in Western Australia in connection with the Ivanhoe Gold Corporation. That mine is working at a depth of 1,200 to 1,300 feet—working the most difficult ore in the world. It is hampered by the cost of water, which, I believe, is 5s. per thousand gallons. I give these figures under reserve. Wood, which is the fuel there, costs a price equivalent to that of coal at 30s. per ton. The one great advantage there is that food is cheap. Compare these facts with those now prevailing on the Witwatersrand. There the mines are working at a depth of between 1,000 feet and 1,200 feet. The ore is amongst the easiest to work in the world. The value of coal is, I believe, 7s. per ton at the pit's mouth. and has to be brought a very short distance. Water is cheap and abundant, and only the cost of living is expensive. The wages of manual labour in the

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Ivanhoe mine average about 12s. 6d. per day, and the mine is worked entirely with white labour. I believe that the lowest wage paid below ground is 10s. per day. The Ivanhoe mine is able to crush quartz at 24s. per ton, including an ample margin for development, against 22s. 8d. per ton, including 1s. 7d. for development, in the Transvaal in the year 1904–5. I do not say that these figures are conclusive.
SIR GILBERT PARKER: May I ask for information as to the yield of gold per ton in the Ivanhoe mine, and the yield of gold per ton on the Rand?
MR. CHURCHILL: My hon. friend does not seem to understand that the cost of treating a ton of ore is alone in question. It is quite true that there may be more profit per ton in one place than in the other. The hon. Gentleman is looking to profit. I was thinking of the working expenses which, after all, occasionally deserve consideration. As I have stated, I do not say that these figures are conclusive, but I think they are stupendous. I put that forward with all moderation, and I ask you to consider that the Ivanhoe is worked with the dearest labour of the kind, and that the mines on the Wit-watersrand Reef are worked with the cheapest and worst labour in the world—clumsy Kaffirs and sullen Chinese who leave before they have time to become skilful workmen. But let me say that in the last two years the productivity of the Ivanhoe mine has increased by over 50 per cent. as against practically no increase in the labour efficiency of the South African mines. But, as I say, I do not wish to draw any decided conclusion from that. I hope that,in the next few months we shall be able to go much more thoroughly into all these matters, and I trust they may be fully discussed. But I am anxious that we should not abandon the hope of having the South African mines worked more largely by white labour. I hope I have said enough to show that His Majesty's Government, while adhering to the policy declared to Parliament, are willing to consider in a reasonable spirit any practical or reasonable alternative which may be suggested, and, most of all, that we would encourage the increased employment of white labour in South Africa, which would not only
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support the Industry but sustain the British flag in the Colonies.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The debate which, unexpectedly to me at all events, has been initiated by the hon. Gentleman below the gangway and carried on by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies is one which, everybody must admit, whatever view he takes upon the particular controversies which have raged round this question for months past, raises a question of the most fundamental importance, not merely as regards public morality, but as regards the basis on which our Empire, largely composed of self-governing elements, can be expected to subsist. The House will recognise that it would be very easy for me to make play, if I thought it worth while, with all the subtleties which hon. Gentlemen opposite have indulged in with regard to the distinction between that which is slavery, that which is semi-slavery, that which can be described as slavery, and I know not how many other methods of manipulating that word, which would have puzzled a sixteenth century casuist. But I think the question is really too serious, after the speech which has just been delivered, for it to be worth anybody's while, this afternoon at all events, to make points against the speeches which have been delivered in this House or in the country by hon. Gentlemen opposite, or to knock their heads together, however easy that process may be. I do not mean to do it. But what I do want to call the attention of the House to is this. The hon. and gallant Member who initiated this debate asked the Government what they meant to do with regard to the China Convention. I understand from the explanations of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies that China is obliged, by the treaty of 1860, to permit and even in certain circumstances to encourage the emigration of Chinese labourers to British possessions; that by the regulations entered into in 1904 the British Consuls have delegated their powers to the agents of the mines; and that the British Consuls who are alone the legitimate channel through which this process can be carried on, might be instructed to withdraw these delegated powers, to reserve them to themselves, and then under orders from home not to use them at all. That, I understand, is a brief and not inaccurate

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summary of the view of the Under-Secretary, and I understood him to say that that was what the Government actually contemplated. Do they contemplate doing it at once?
MR. CHURCHILL: I said as soon as the existing contracts are concluded.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then what do they propose to do in this connection after they have given self-government to the Colony? Supposing they come to some agreement with the Colony, are they then going to instruct their Consuls?
MR. CHURCHILL: Yes; if we come to an agreement on a system that we regard as proper there will be no objection to our Consuls carrying it out.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that there will be a hiatus of some months after the existing contracts are concluded and before self-government is granted to the Colony in which the Consuls will be instructed practically to offer no encouragement at all to Chinese immigration.
MR. CHURCHILL: In which there will be no immigration at all.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: May I ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, without intervention on the part of the Consuls, it would be possible for a Chinaman, supposing he got permission or eluded the prohibition of the local Chinese officials, to emigrate to South Africa, and there take up his position in the mines under the existing regulations?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY, Northumberland, Berwick): Of course there is nothing to prevent the Chinese Government from doing what they like.
MR. CHURCHILL: The Chinaman could go freely; but he would not go under the Ordinance. He would only go to South Africa as a free man.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should say that the Chinaman would not go as a free man. He would go under the contract which he chooses to make with his employers. Supposing the contract he proposed to
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make with his employers was the precise contract granted under the Ordinance?
MR. CHURCHILL: It would not be a legal contract.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then it would be impossible, according to the Government, for a Chinaman, however willing or desirous to enter the Transvaal under the existing system of employment, to work for employers, however willing to carry out that arrangement?
MR. CHURCHILL: I understand it would not be possible.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Whether that is a contribution or not to human freedom, I do not know.
MAJOR SEELY: It is the law of England. I think it is admitted by every legal authority that no man can contract himself in this country under such terms as those of the labour Ordinance, because the law would not permit it.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That has nothing to do with the Transvaal or British Guiana. It does not effect the argument. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I never object to his interruptions, but I do object to interruptions which have nothing to do with the argument in hand. I hope the Secretary of State will make this point quite clear. Supposing the British Consuls were forbidden to act in this matter at all, under the Treaty of 1860, would it be possible for any Chinamen to enter the Transvaal under conditions similar to those under which he enters the Transvaal at the present time?
SIR EDWARD GREY: The Convention does not bind the Chinese Government not to do anything. They can allow what they please to go on in China, apart from the Convention. But they cannot force us in the Transvaal to recognise what they have done in China.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: But would there be any legal difficulty in the way of a Chinaman who desires to enter the Transvaal under the existing conditions? There was one part of the Under-Secretary's speech which I profoundly regret, and that was the threat which he held out to the existing mine owners in South Africa.

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After all, the interest that this country takes in any industry is, and ought to be, the interest it takes in that which makes for the prosperity of the community in which that industry prevails. It is not whether this or that rich man is to be made richer or poorer by this or that operation. What we must recognise in this House is that the Transvaal is as dependent on the gold industry—is far more dependent on it—than we are, or ever have been, on any single industry; and if that industry be really injured, you cannot measure the effect of it by its consequences upon the income of this or that wealthy man in England, or of the multitude of humble shareholders in mines in this country, though their interests are worth consideration. The main point is, what will happen to the Transvaal itself? It is from that point of view only that we ought to regard that great problem. I do think that for the hon. Gentleman to threaten the mineowners, to threaten the industry with this or that consequence if they do not at once fall in with the views of His Majesty's Government, is to use the powers which the Government possess in this House in a manner which is most detrimental to the general welfare of the Empire. It is an enterprise, no doubt like all other industrial enterprises, conducted for the profit of those who carry it on. But it is upon this enterprise that the wealth and prosperity of the Transvaal depends—the power of paying its debts, its power of affording a field of occupation to white men—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh !"]—its contentment, and its place in the great heirarchy of the British Empire. That is not a matter to be considered from the point of view of small shareholders or big shareholders, but from a far wider standpoint, and when I heard the Under-Secretary, speaking on behalf of the Government, threatening this industry, on which the whole social and industrial fabric of the Transvaal now depends, with pains and penalties if it does not at once fall in with the views of His Majesty's special advisers, I confess that in my belief, if the hon Gentleman has truly represented the views of the Government, as I have no doubt he has, it is an evil day for the management of the great Colonial work for which this House is responsible. But it is not that observation of the hon. Gentleman which makes me most un-
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happy. There are other things which fell from him which filled me with despair, or, at all events, with a profound anxiety for the future of our relations with the self-governing Colonies. What are we to understand the policy of the Government to be from the speech to which we have just listened? It is a policy by which the Government, during the period in which they are responsible for the affairs of the Transvaal, mean to put an end as far as they can to the existing system. Before complete self-government is given to the Colony, they mean to fix a date after which the Ordinance is to have no effect; and then they will leave it to the colony to determine whether they shall or shall not produce a new Ordinance which may happen to suit the views of His Majesty's Government. That is the policy which, I understand, is approved by gentlemen of all shades of opinion on that side of the House. I do not see how you are going to deal with self-government on those principles. I perfectly understand, although I do not agree with, the policy of a Government who should say, "We object to the existing system of Chinese indentured labour. Some of us think it slavery: some of us think it half-slavery; some of us think it partakes of the nature of slavery; some of us think it a servile condition; and others have objections to it of various kinds. Therefore we, being responsible for the government of the Transvaal, mean to put an end to it." That is an intelligible position. There is another policy which is also intelligible, and which says, "We do not profess to judge of this question. We think the Transvaal has reached the point at which its mature judgment may be trusted. We mean to endow it, as we have endowed Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand, with complete control of its own affairs; and we should no more think of interfering with the management of its affairs after we have given it these powers than we think of interfering with the self-government of Canada, of the Commonwealth of Australia, or of New Zealand." That also is intelligible. But what is the policy of the Government? It is a hybrid between these two policies—an unnatural mixture of these two schemes of dealing with your dependencies. On the one hand, you say that you are making the Colony self-governing; and at the very same moment

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that you tell them that you also inform them that, as regards the industry on which their whole prosperity depends, they are not to be masters in their own house. They are to be the slaves of the Foreign Office [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh"] as far as China is concerned, and the slaves of the Colonial Office as far as the forms of any future Ordinance is concerned. This Colony which you profess to endow with all the privileges you have given to Canada and to Australia with regard to its nearest and dearest interests is to be put under the heel of Downing Street. The Under-Secretary, who made so able a contribution to our debate, has not been very long a denizen of the office which he holds with such distinction. But I think that even his experience, brief and imperfect as it necessarily has been, through no fault of his, has informed him by this time that there is nothing which produces a keener jealousy and more bitter antagonism in the Imperial relations than interference from Downing Street with the affairs of self-governing Colonies. How many cases have there been in the last twenty years with regard to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, or Natal, in which this House and the Government of the King, who are dependent upon this House for their very existence—how many cases have there been when interference has been tried with the legislation of the Colonies, dealing with their own internal affairs? I doubt whether there has been one. I am quite sure there has not been one in regard to a question in which the interests of every man in the Colony were directly or indirectly concerned, in which its whole future, its financial prosperity, its manufacturing and economic standing were involved—I am quite sure that there is not one, in which this House, or the Government dependent upon this House, having given the great boon of self-government to those Colonies, have ventured to take it away in any particular case. I venture to tell the House, with all respect, but with a feeling of deep anxiety, that the policy which they are now pursuing is a policy which must lead to disaster. I think the Government are profoundly mistaken, and that they will be committing a grav error if they say to these Colonists
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of ours, "If you are not pursuing a course consonant with our ideas, we still have control over you, and that control we mean to exercise, whether you like it or not. You are still in statu pupillari and you must submit." I think that would be the greatest folly, but it is wisdom compared with the course they mean to pursue, because the course they mean to pursue is to say, "You are no longer a child, you have grown to years of discretion; you have all the elements which enable you to manage your own affairs without interference from home; we give you full self-government, but we do not give you that part of self-government which most concerns your commercial prosperity and welfare. We put you in a position which Canada and Australia would not stand, and unless you carry out the dictation of Downing Street to the letter, we tell you that we shall use our diplomatic power with China to keep your industries down—we tell you that we shall disallow your Ordinance and modify any regulation which you make which does not happen to square with our ideas, and we trust you will make the best of that position." All I can say is, that no British Ministry has tried to manage the British Empire upon these principles, and no Ministry ever will manage the affairs of the British Empire with success upon these principles. These gentlemen, however highly endowed they may be by nature ["Oh"], however rich they may be in experience—and I do not doubt either their ability or their experience—however well endowed they may be in all these great qualities—I tell them that they will most unquestionably fail if they attempt a task which their predecessors have never tried, and embark upon and undertake an experiment which has never entered into the head of any wise statesman, Liberal, Radical, or Tory, in the last generation, which would have been laughed out of court by all the great masters of Colonial policy, and which, if persisted in, as I gather it is to be persisted in by the present Government, can bring nothing but disaster to our great Colonial Empire.
SIR EDWARD GREY: I had no intention of intervening in this debate

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after the speech of my hon friend the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and I only rise now because the right hon. Gentleman opposite has asked me a Question and demanded an Answer.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I did not demand, I requested.
SIR EDWARD GREY: I did not use the word demand in that sense. I am quite willing to answer the Question to the best of my ability. My first difficulty has been in understanding it, and if I did, I do not know what bearing it has upon the subject of discussion. The Question I understand was this. Supposing this Convention was abrogated would there be anything to prevent the Chinese Government allowing its subjects to be recruited in China for employment in the Transvaal?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is not the Question.
SIR EDWARD GREY: Will the right hon. Gentleman put the Question to me again?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I assume the Treaty of 1902 to be still in operation. I wanted to know whether, if our Consuls were forbidden to take part in this recruiting, it could be done by private individuals?
SIR EDWARD GREY: That is the same Question. I do not mind which way it is put. Of course there would be nothing to prevent the Chinese Goverment from allowing its subjects to be recruited if they pleased. They are perfectly free now, if they decide to do so, to allow their own subjects to be sold into slavery, and will always be so, but even if they were allowed to leave China under those conditions they would not be allowed to land in any place in the British Empire. On landing the status of slavery would not protect them. Now supposing the Chinese Government, without going so far as that, were to say, "We will allow our subjects to be recruited privately for the Transvaal, and we will allow them to be bound by certain restrictions which provide that
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they are not be be employed in anything but unskilled labour, and are not to be allowed to settle in the country," I imagine that if the Ordinance of the Transvaal were repealed, none of those conditions would be recognised by law. Therefore I come back to this—I do not see the object of the Question, because while the Chinese Government has the right to do anything it likes in its own country, it has nothing to do with what would be permitted on British territory. As to the Convention itself, I said the other day that I do not understand what the Convention has to do in this matter. As my hon. friend said very properly, the Convention is the linch pin. Although the Chinese Government could allow recruiting in China without the Convention, I understand, as a matter of fact, it has so much regard for the welfare and prospects of its own subjects, that it would not allow them to be recruited without some Convention of of this kind. Consuls were named in the Convention in 1902 to carry out certain powers, but, as a matter of fact, there has been no Consular action lately. Since 1904 they have delegated their authority to the Transvaal agents, and all the recruiting has consequently been done, not by the Consuls, but by the Transvaal agents delegated for the purpose. Those delegates have discharged functions under the Convention, but it is open to the Imperial Government to tell the Consuls either not to renew this delegation or to withdraw it. What my hon. friend has said is that when the existing licences have run out, there will be no more recruiting in China; and that will be made effective by the Consuls withdrawing delegation. That, I think, is perfectly simple and plain. But that does not alarm the right hon. Gentleman opposite very much. What does alarm him is that the time may come when, under responsible Government, the Transvaal Government, being a self-governing and responsible Colony, may say it is desirable to resume the importation of Chinese labour, and then the Imperial Government may say, "We refuse to allow our Consuls to delegate powers of recruiting under the Convention." The right hon. Gentleman anticipates that it will bring a very

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serious state of affairs into the relations of the Transvaal and the Imperial Government.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, I said there were two dangers, both relating to a collision between the Home Government and the self-governing Colony. One was that the Home Government would use its diplomatic power to defeat and thwart the self-governing Colonies, and the second was, that it would use its power of veto for the same object.
SIR EDWARD GREY: I will deal with the first point, viz., that we should use our power to defeat and thwart the self-governing Colonies. What would happen would be this. The Colony, being under responsible government, would go to other countries, and would say to us at home, "Will you use your diplomatic influence to help us to carry out what we want?" If you refused to do that except under proper conditions, you would not be using your diplomatic influence to thwart the Colony. The position, then—and I think the right position—is this. So far as we know the disposition of the Chinese Government they will not permit recruiting unless they have some guarantees that the conditions will be properly observed by the recruiters, and they seek for those guarantees through the diplomatic sanction of the Consular authorities in China. Therefore Chinese recruiting cannot go on without the diplomatic machinery being set in motion to promote it. I think the only right and dignified position for the Imperial Government is to lay down, once and for all, that the Imperial diplomatic machinery will not be allowed to be used over any part of the Empire for an improper purpose. That is the position that has been laid down by my hon friend the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. The right hon. Gentleman anticipates from that still more conflict, between the self-governing Colony and the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office. I decline to believe that when the Transvaal has got responsible government, freely elected, on a proper suffrage and with a full sense of responsibility, there will be a moral conflict between the Colony
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and the mother country. My opinion from listening to the debate was that my hon. friend the Under-Secretary said that that was what might happen under certain conditions, but he did not anticipate that those conditions would arise, and that the right hon. Gentleman as a skilful debater would, and I do not complain, translate that into an anticipation that a conflict would probably occur. A serious moral question he called it, and I do not believe it would happen. It is equally right to say that there are probabilities of serious moral questions arising from a responsible community of white men in this country. The position we take up, and I think the right position, is that the industry of the Transvaal should be based on labour employed under conditions which are neither unnatural nor unwholesome. We are told that we are embarking upon a course which may endanger the Imperial sentiment. If we reverse this Ordinance we shall be reversing something which is already repugnant to to moral sense. The right hon. Gentleman brought in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The sentiment of His Majesty's Government throughout in this matter has been one which has commanded the sympathy and approval of all those Colonies. I believe that if the occasion ever arises when that sentiment has to be translated into action, it will also command that sympathy and approval; but I do not believe an occasion of that kind will arise. I believe that when the Transvaal has its responsible Government—whether it wishes to continue the importation of Chinese labour is doubtful—but if it does desire to continue it, I believe there will be no difficulty in arriving at an agreement between the Transvaal, as a self-governing Colony, and the mother country, that the importation shall continue only under conditions which are neither offensive nor repugnant to public sentiment in this country or in the other great self-governing Colonies.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: All Members of this House who have listened to the last three speeches will agree with me as to the enormous importance of the matter we are discussing and the desirability that we should come to a

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right understanding upon what, after all, is really a very complicated subject. I have noticed now and again some interruptions and some hilarity. I think interruptions, except for the purpose of explanation, and hilarity are altogether out of place. We will endeavour to make our point of view clear, and we will ask you in return to make your point of view clear. We are not desirous of making a mere party point. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs tells us, and no doubt it is the opinion of gentlemen on that side of the House, that Chinese indentured labour, in the circumstances in which it is carried on in the Transvaal, is repugnant to the moral sense. That is, of course, an extremely strong declaration of opinion, and I am perfectly prepared to agree that as it has been represented it is regarded with intense dislike, not only by the majority of this House, but probably by a majority of British subjects. We think, however, there is a mistaken apprehension of what is going on. We think that if we really knew exactly what are the conditions of this labour, your moral sense would not be affronted in the way in which it is. We are entitled to hold that opinion—and, remember this, we at all events show our sincerity by pressing on the Government in the most urgent terms to send out an impartial Commission to deal with the subject. We do not believe that our fellow-subjects in South Africa are knowingly consenting to what would be repugnant to our moral sense, and therefore we think there has been the grossest exaggeration in the reports that have come home. While we give you every credit for honesty of opinion, we think you are deluded and mistaken. Why, then, if the Government are so confident, why, recognising as they must do, after this debate if not before, the extraordinary importance of the questions with which we are dealing, why do they insist upon hastily and prematurely giving their opinion and coming to their decision without making the inquiry for which we ask? We ask them to appoint a Royal Commission representing the economic as well as the moral questions which are involved. Send out your best engineers to inquire into the economic question. What authority has the Under-
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Secretary for the Colonies upon a mining question? I have the greatest respect for him, but neither he nor, I believe, any one in this House alone, has any right to decide in regard to the Transvaal whether or not that great industry can be carried on without the use of extraneous labour. Let the question be decided by the very best engineers whose services can be obtained by the Government. As to the moral question, I have asked the Government, and it has been refused to me to-day, to send out a Royal Commission, and it should be a judicial Commission, to inquire into the working of this Ordinance and how the system is being administered. If it be true that it is slavery, or semi-slavery, or has the taint of slavery, or any of the other expressions by which it has been designated by the other side, we on this side will be just as ready as you to say it ought not to continue. But do let us have authoritative knowledge on this subject. My second point is this—if you will not do that, if you are certain you know all about it, why do you allow this thing, which is repugnant to your moral sense, to continue for four, five, or, it may be, ten years? Why, holding this opinion, since you can stop it, do you not stop it? I do not want to use too strong language or to be carried away by a natural indignation on account of the way this subject has been prostituted for Party purposes; but I say that this system can be stopped immediately if you choose. It is only a question of money, and that is a small matter in relation to a question of morality which you profess to believe is here involved. How can you consistently, with moral indignation mantling upon your cheek, let a few hundred thousand pounds deter you from stopping this slavery? I do not think the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs understands, even now, the point of my right hon. friend. I daresay I shall not be more successful. It is rather a difficult question. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite seem to regard this matter as a joke. I cannot understand that kind of treatment of a matter of this sort. That has not been the treatment given to questions of this kind in previous Parliaments. It justifies the statement of the Prime Minister about the tone and temper upon which he relies. Our first point is this:—assuming you refuse to deal with the

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matter yourselves and postpone it till the new responsible Government has been created in the Transvaal, if that Transvaal Government takes your view, if it holds this system is repugnant to the moral sense, then, cadit guœstio there is an end of it. Of course, in these circumstances the system will stop and no further Chinamen will be imported into the Transvaal. But our point is that if the new responsible Government does not take your view, if it want s these Chinamen, and if it makes Ordinances to allow them to come in as indentured labourers, then no interference of yours with the Chinese Government will have any effect at all, and you are deluding the House by professing, as you do, that you have got the matter in your own hands, and that by refusing your diplomatic assistance you can thwart a self-governing Colony which is determined to have these men. All you can really do is to deprive these men of the protection which the Convention was intended to give them; for the whole meaning of the Convention and of the intervention of the British Consuls is that, in deference to British humanity, we demand that British officials or those they delegate shall be responsible for seeing that the men engaged are acquainted with the terms of the indenture, and are not in other ways to be ill-treated or deceived. Therefore, all that your boasted refusal to give diplomatic assistance will do is to deprive these unfortunate Chinamen of the protection of the Convention. I have heard it said—I do not believe there is any truth in it—on behalf of those who hold the views entertained on the other side of the House that the officials of the Chinese Government are corrupt, and that you can get as many Chinese as you like, not only as indentured labourers but even as actual slaves, if only you bribe the Chinese officials enough. If the intervention of the British Consuls is removed, it is to that that you are coming as an improvement on the present state of things of which you complain. I hope I have made that point clear. I repeat that as long as the Transvaal Government is in favour of indentured labour your proposed interference in China will not be worth the breath with which you will have spoken. I come now to another
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point. You have a weapon which you threaten to use and which you have used. I share all the strong feeling of the leader of the Opposition, and I share it with perhaps more experience than my right hon. friend in regard to the influence of these proceedings and discussions upon our Colonies. It is perfectly true that in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand there is the strongest feeling—a feeling, quite as strong as it is here—against cheap labour. But there is another feeling which is stronger still, and that is against any interference by the home Government with the self-governing Colonies. Nobody but one who has been in the closest communication with almost every authority, every prominent politician and statesman, in those great Colonies can-appreciate, as I do, the intensity of that feeling. They would say, "If you interfere when we think you are wrong it is intolerable; but it is not less intolerable when we think you are right. What we object to is the interference. We are self-governing, and you have no more right to interfere with our views, be they right or be they wrong, than you have to interfere with similar views on the part of the United States of America."
MAJOR SEELY: What about coinage? We interfere constantly in matters of coinage.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman does not know much, I think, about our Colonial Constitution. Of course, I exclude anything: in which Imperial interests are concerned.
MAJOR SEELY: Surely slavery is concerned with our Imperial interests.
MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Do you think that the question of indentured labour is one which we can rightly put forward as being of Imperial interest? All I can say is, I warn you, and I have the right to warn you solemnly, that if you try to give effect to that idea, if you think that on the ground of Imperial interest you can impose your ideas of morality upon self-governing Colonies, you are very much mistaken. I know there are plenty of people who are always ready to urge that idea, and they are almost invariably on the Liberal side. The

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Liberal Party which boasts, entirely without foundation, that they and they alone are the authors of all constitutional freedom in the Colonies, and that to them is due all the affection and patriotism of the Colonies, it is from them that come continual demands on every Colonial Secretary to interfere with the self-government which we have given, the moment the Colony begins to act in any respect to which we take exception, and especially when it is our moral sentiments that are aroused. You may admire the strong sense of humanity which leads to this interference, but you cannot act upon it—it is impossible—and keep your Empire together. I remember, in my time at the Colonial Office, I was asked to take the strongest possible measures by well-intentioned people who complained of the treatment of natives by West Australia. My own belief was then, and is now, that those statements of the ill-treatment of the natives were grossly exaggerated. But, whether they were right or wrong, I refused to pay any attention to them beyond conveying the letters in which the accusations were made to the Governor of the Colony, leaving it to his discretion to communicate them to his Government, but making it perfectly clear that I had no claim whatever to interfere in what was a matter of local interest and local interest alone. I deny altogether that on any ground of Imperial interest, as understood by any constitutional authority, we have or could have any right of interference in the case of West Australia, or, again, in the case of the Transvaal. How far are you going to carry this idea? The other day there was a discussion here on the treatment of the natives in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. The treatment of these natives, as alleged by certain people, has been worse than anything which has been alleged in regard to the treatment of the Chinese. But here your morality would come in very strongly. The treatment of these natives would also be an Imperial interest. [Cries of "It is."] Yes, it is an Imperial interest as long as you are responsible for it; and no one has ever thought of throwing off such a responsibility as that which under existing circumstances you retain. But is it the spirit of the Party opposite
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that they are going to give self-government to the Transvaal, and at the same time withhold from them the right, not only to deal with great economic questions, but also to deal with the native population? Let it be known what the Liberal Party mean when they talk of giving self-government to a Colony. There will be a long list of exceptions. I tell you that that will be an absolutely impossible policy. Even the threat of such a policy is the most injudicious and imprudent thing I have ever heard. Even if you contemplated—as I am sure you would do with the greatest regret—the possibility that you might have to interfere, I should have thought that common prudence would have prevented you from saying anything about it until that terrible necessity arose. But here is the Under-Secretary of State speaking for the Government and warning the people of the Transvaal, British and Boer alike, that whenever our morality is offended then an Imperial interest springs into being, and then you are to interfere with the liberities which you have granted. There is to be freedom for the Chinese, but there is to be no freedom for. the self-governing Colony.
MR. RIDSDALEsaid he might ask the indulgence of the House, rising as he did as a new Member under somewhat exceptional circumstances to disagree to a certain extent with the policy of his own Party. He only did so under the very gravest sense of the responsibility which this House was incurring by the action which he believed was contemplated. The first speech that was made by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies was one which he, and he believed every Member on the Ministerial side, welcomed. It promised the settlement of all questions in South Africa by the responsible government of the Transvaal which was to be given at the earliest possible moment. That had his full support, and had the full support, he believed, of every Member in the House; but he was sorry to say that step by step the Government seemed to have been forced further and further in a direction which he personally believed to be a direction of the greatest danger. He looked on it with the greatest possible misgiving that this country should in

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any way thwart or hold out expectations of thwarting any act that might lie entered into by a self-governing Colony of British subjects. He said "any act" because he could not conceive of any act of any of our Colonies that would not be as moral as any act of the Imperial Government. There was much talk about slavery; but the people of the Transvaal, who had the thing at their doors, were the best judges of whether the condition of the Chinese labourers was slavery or not. They were the people to judge the conditions. Surely as Liberals they ought to leave the question of a settlement of a problem like this to those who were the best judges of what was really taking place. He had as much objection to Chinese labour as any hon. Member sitting on the Ministerial side of the House, and had he been a Member of the last House of Commons he should have opposed its introduction into South Africa tooth and nail; but as Chinese labour was there, and the prosperity of the Transvaal had been built upon it, although he agreed that it was built upon an insecure and unsound foundation, he was not going to upset that prosperity by pulling away its props suddenly. [MINISTERIAL cries of, "No, no."] It certainly seemed to him as if those props were going to be withdrawn suddenly, but even if they were to be withdrawn gradually, that should be decided upon not by those who had not the information to know whether those timbers should be taken out, or how fast they should go, but it should be left to the decision of that Transvaal assembly which must be the best judge of what was best for its own country. And then there was a more sordid point, that was the money point.
ME. SWIFT MACNEILL: Yes, a Stock Exchange point.
MR. RIDSDALE: It should not be forgotten that the Transvaal depended practically entirely upon the gold mines, and if they stopped the working of those mines they would check the prosperity of the Transvaal. Stop the outflow of gold from South Africa, and they would have a rather serious state of things in the City of London. It was
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certain that the stoppage of this Chinese labour, whether sudden or not, would have the effect of checking that outflow of gold. But whichever way the Transvaal might decide, this country ought not in any way to interfere with them. The Government had had no mandate with regard to Chinese labour. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Yes."] Well, he was surprised if hon. Members thought they had a mandate from the country to stop Chinese labour in South Africa that yesterday they should have gone into the lobby and declared that the sole issue or the main issue at the last election was free trade. He would not occupy the time of the House further, but he thought it was time that it should be known amongst the Liberal leaders that there was a strong feeling that in this matter the Government were going too far. There was a feeling that the best way of settling this matter was to leave it to the Transvaal people who knew most about it. He asked that the question should be left to the people of the Transvaal, whose views of slavery were no worse than ours, and who, whatever hon. Members might say, were not people to be bought. [Cries of "Oh ! oh !"] Well, he had never tried to buy one at any rate, and he did not think those who did try would find it a very easy task. He urged the Government to treat this matter as one to be left to the Transvaal and to the Transvaal alone. He thought it was a very serious thing that this Imperial Government should threaten to place a veto upon any settlement which a Colony, after due consideration, might have determined to adopt.
MR. WALSHsaid he spoke with some diffidence on this matter, because he had listened with considerable satisfaction to the very lucid and he believed very sincere statement which had been presented to the House by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies. He found himself in most active opposition to the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down in saying that he believed the Government was going too quickly upon this matter. He would invite the House to consider the length of time it would take for the Government

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to develop its policy and bring about what might be described as its effective operation. The House had not been given the slightest hint or indication that any of the conditions under which the licences at present in operation, or the 16,000 licences issued in November and December last, were granted were to be at all abrogated. He would remind the House that not the slightest suggestion had been made by the Government that the existing Ordinance, or any of its conditions, was to be in any way abrogated until responsible Government had been conferred upon the Transvaal people themselves; and only after that particular Government had considered the requirements of the case would the possible right to veto be exercised. With regard to the undue haste of which the hon. Member opposite was afraid, he wished to point out that the first Chinaman set foot in the Transvaal in June 1904 to work under indentured labour. It might be therefore taken that to the end of the year 1905 there had elasped from the first to the last licence, eighteen months, giving an average of nine months for the general body of licences issued up to December last. So that, speaking broadly, there were on those licenses from 1904 to December 1905 in the first portion a term of twenty-seven months yet to run. The Ordinance further permitted re-indenturing, so that the men in the first batch of licences issued to December, 1905, had on an average from December, 1905, two years and three months to serve, and they might also serve a further period of three years. He did not think that was very great haste; at any rate it was what the Scotch would call making haste slowly. But supposing the men working under the present licences were permitted to re-indenture, then the Liberal Government, of whom the highest possible hopes were entertained, would find the first batch of licences still in operation when they were making a second appeal to the country. He had heard of many people in English history appearing in white sheets before their accusers or judges, but with every regard to the record of the Liberal Party of the past, and with every desire that they should set a better record in the future, he appealed to the Govern-
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ment to quicken their pace on this subject. It was said by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies that by June or July this year the whole of the coolies under the 16,000 licenses issued in November and December last would be shipped. He was not prepared to challenge that statement, but Lord Selborne had stated that those licenses would take up to September next to ship, and that a boat-load might be calculated as consisting of about 1,900 men. There were 16,119 licences issued, and that would certainly take very nearly nine months to ship. The last boat-load of men would probably be arriving in the Transvaal at the end of the present year. Their licences would enable them to work three years, so that even without reindenturing three years from the end of this year would elapse before those licences had a possibility of expiring. He submitted that that was a most serious matter. He was one of those who placed before his constituency in Lancashire day by day, and week by week, the depth to which this nation had descended by introducing Chinese labour at all into the mines of the Rand. Consequently he had nothing to withdraw, and he distinctly stated that this was one of those matters that deserved the severest condemnation. It was the kind of conduct which, greatly as they loved this Empire, would bring it to ruin if they disregarded human elementary rights. Although he believed that the Liberal Government was sincere and desired to bring Chinese labour to an end as quickly as was consistent with a minimum of economic disturbance, yet he believed that they had not accurately gauged the feeling of the country or the moral reprobation with which the people regarded this matter. With regard to the issue of 16,000 licences in November and December last, there was not one single word in the Blue-books or despatches from the Lord High Commissioner which justified the issue of those licences. He had spoken of the continuous expansion of the industry, but in the month immediately preceding the High Commissioner's despatch the industry had fallen, and there was a lesser output of gold from the mines than the average for the preceding six months. These licences

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were in no way justified. It might be said that that continuity of policy which was necessary in high State matters rendered it essential that these licences should go on. He did not believe that continuity of policy ought to be exercised in defiance of moral law considerations. These licences were issued in defiance of moral considerations. The Under-Secretary for the Colonies had spoken of intelligent anticipation. He and his friends did not think "intelligent anticipation" should be exercised by a gentleman occupying the position of Lord High Commissioner or by those acting under him. Its exercise up to now had been limited to successful journalists. He believed that the public had been deceived in this matter and that the Government too had been deceived, and they ought to exercise their right of suspending if not of abrogating all the licences issued in November and December last. Because, after all, what did it mean? He could speak for every man on the Benches around him at least, and he hoped he could speak for those on the other side of the House. It meant the moral degradation of labour the world over. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, with some part of whose appeal at least they were in agreement, had spoken of the futility and of the very grave danger involved in interfering with the Colonies' right of self-government. But, after all, the right of the British Empire to secure justice and equity and fair play overrode every right that the Empire conceded to the Colonies. They were the subjects of this State, and as such in moments of danger and distress they were entitled to demand and receive the assistance of Parliament. The Answer given to a Question by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies a few days ago was that the Government "did not view with pleasure" the issue of the licences to which he had referred. Well, if the issue of those licences was immoral—as he submitted it was—if it was not founded on equity, it was a mere legal fiction, because they were at present in a state of suspense. Thousands and thousands of them—probably 12,000 out of the 16,000 sanctioned in November and December last—had not yet been
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granted at all. That legal fiction was unworthy of the consideration of the Government, and those licences should be suspended, if not entirely abrogated, until a full and complete and unfettered inquiry had been made into the conditions under which they were granted. He believed most earnestly that the High Commissioner had not acted in that faithful and open manner to that House and the nation in which he ought to have acted. An hon. Gentleman who had recently spoken in the debate referred to the prosperity of the Transvaal. Had he read anything during the last eighteen months or two years—or even for the last three or four months—about the condition of life in the Transvaal, as described in the Board of Trade Gazette? Was he aware of the thousands and thousands of white people—many of them British subjects—who were tramping the streets of Johannesburg, depending upon soup kitchens and relief works? Was that the prosperity which the hon. Gentleman desired to maintain? Why, it was the experience of all the past, and undoubtedly it was the opinion of every economist and every employer who had given that matter serious consideration, that degraded labour was the worst possible form of labour. He was quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in his heart knew that that degraded labour was not a form of labour upon which a self-governing colony worthy of the name could at all be founded. This was a system which had disgraced the British name—which had laden us with reproach—and he most earnestly appealed to the Leader of the House to take stronger action in the matter. They asked the Government to consider less the investors and the mining speculators. Let them think of the thousands of people who were out of work and who would have found both work and better wages had this condition of labour not been introduced. In a word, he submitted that this matter was one of the highest moral consequence. It was not a question of playing off one Party against the other. In controversial matters most of them were inclined to say, "A plague on both your Houses." But in matters which went down right to the very

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bed-rock of the Empire—matters which really touched their hearts and their existence—they did most earnestly appeal to the Government. There was no right to compensation if no right was taken away. What did those men suffer who had never been given the power of using the labour of other people? The line of boldness in this matter was the true and honest line, and it was the most moral line. They ought to go outside the finnicking interpretation of the law given by the Attorney-General of the Transvaal. If the Government did not do what was expected of them in this matter they would find thousands of white people roaming the streets, while large hordes of Asiatics were introduced under conditions repellant to white men. Therefore he hoped that the Government would take a bolder action and thus place themselves more in sympathy and touch with the feelings of the nation.
MR. MARKHAMsaid the last speaker had dealt at considerable length with the question whether Chinese labour was right or wrong. Might he be allowed to ask the hon. Member this question? Supposing the Chinese came to South Africa free, would he say it was the duty of this House to prevent the introduction into South Africa of Chinese labour or not? [Several MEMBERS: "Agreed, agreed."] Members around him said "agreed," but he thought that Gentlemen on the opposite Benches would not agree. [A LABOUR MEMBER: Certainly not.] Therefore they were now to understand, so far as the Labour Members of the House were concerned, that the position with regard to Chinese labour stood in this way. Even if the people of South Africa through their elected representatives said that Chinese labour was in their opinion necessary to develop the resources of the Transvaal, if Chinese labour came there on conditions which were not repugnant, His Majesty's Government should prevent it. [Cries of "No."] He was perfectly willing to take the conditions existing in British Guiana. Was he to understand that if Chinese labour came into the Transvaal free no section in this House was opposed to its introduction
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provided the people of the Transvaal were in favour of it? [Cries of "No."] Then what was free labour? In 1900 he wrote an article in the Nineteenth Century in which he pointed out that there was not a sufficiency of Kaffir labour in South Africa and that the mines could only be worked by introducing outside labour. The late Sir William Harcourt dealt with that article at considerable length in this House and stated that there was an abundant supply of labour to be had in South Africa. All the evidence went to prove that there was not a sufficiency of labour in South Africa. That was a debateable point. In his opinion as a mining engineer it was not possible to work the Transvaal mines with white labour. [A LABOUR MEMBER: What about Australia?] An hon. Member said, "What about Western Australia?" He had been on every goldfield of the world. He knew the West Australian mines and the American mines, and he did not hold a single gold-mining share, nor had he held a mining share in South African mines since he had been a Member of the House. But what were the conditions in Western Australia? The average yield of gold per ton of ore milled was 76s. per ton, but the average yield in the Transvaal, according to the last Return, was 35s. 5d. per ton The great feature of the Transvaal gold mines was the regularity of the reefs; in this respect they were different from the gold-fields of Australia and all other parts of the world. Before the discovery of gold the revenue of the Transvaal was £50,000 a year, and when the Uitlanders were groaning under the burden of Mr. Kruger's Government the debt of the Transvaal under that terrible regime amounted to £12,000,000. What was the position to-day? The debt of the Transvaal, including municipal and Colonial debt, was now £40,000,000 and the expenditure for administration was £3,800,000, or £1,500,000 more than under Mr. Kruger. Now, from what other source than the mining industry could the Government of the Transvaal derive revenue to meet their obligations?
MR. FLAVIN: Will the hon. Member say whether the Boers live by mining or as farmers?
MR. MARKHAMsaid that where a Boer could live a British subject could not. [Cries of "Oh" from the LABOUR Benches.] How many Britishers were engaged in the Transvaal in agriculture? [An HON. MEMBER: A large number.] A very small number. He was not now talking of the Orange River Colony but of the Transvaal. There were drought, locusts, and otherdrawbacks to agriculture, and the result of placing British subjects on the soil would be that, in six months, they would be sitting on the steps of the mining magnates in Johannesburg asking for mining tips. The Transvaal was not a country where British subjects ever would settle. They would never create a British population on the soil there, and it was from the mining industry that they would have to look for the revenue to carry on the administration of the country. The question he desired to ask the Under-Secretary for the Colonies was whether those mines could be worked with a larger proportion of unskilled white labour than at present? The question as to whether these mines could be worked entirely with white unskilled labour was one that no mining engineer had ever put forward. Certainly the great majority of electors in this country were of opinion that it was possible to work these mines with white labour, and they pointed to the high dividends paid by the mines in the Transvaal, which amounted, in some cases, to 280 to 300 per cent. on the shares. No one said that the mines in the Transvaal could be worked by white labour alone—not even Mr. Cresswell. [Loud interruptions from the LABOUR Benches.]
MR. SPEAKER: I would point out that it is really impossible to continue the debate if hon. Gentlemen insist on these interruptions.
MR. MARKHAMsaid that his point had been disputed, but Mr. Cresswell had admitted that in the Village Main Reef Mine only one white man was employed for every three Kaffirs. A large number of people in the Transvaal, and certainly a majority of the people in this country, believed that it was possible to work these mines in South Africa by means of white labour. There were twenty rich mines in the Transvaal
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which might be worked by white labour, but it should be remembered that, taking rich and poor mines, the average yield was 35s. per ton of ore. He proposed that the Government should send out a Commission to South Africa to inquire into this whole question as to whether the mines could be worked by white labour, and suggested such gentlemen as the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division, Mr. Stokes, His Majesty's Inspector of Mines in the Midland district, some gentlemen nominated by the Mining Association of Great Britain, and two gentlemen from the Board of Trade as members of such a Commission. An inquiry by such a Commission would be of immense benefit to this House and primarily to the people of the Transvaal. At present the people in the Transvaal itself had not the opportunity of forming an independent judgment as to whether the mines could be worked by white labour. Investigation should also be made into the terrible rate of mortality among the Kaffir labourers It was because of this awful death-rate that in 1897 he approached the late Mr. Kruger and asked him to introduce Chinese-labour into South Africa. He had been in Portuguese East Africa and had seen the conditions under which the Kaffirs were recruited there for the gold mines. In that territory the chiefs had the power of life and death over the natives; they could farm them out and do what they liked with them. These Kaffirs, who had probably never worn any article of clothing, were taken from their tropical country on to the high veldt, and the-result was pneumonia and an appalling mortality. Besides, these Kaffirs did not go to the mines as free men, but as forced labourers. The cause of the high mortality was the bringing of Kaffirs from tropical and sub-tropical Africa upon the high veldt, as in that region they suffered from chest and lung disorders. He hoped the Under-Secretary would give his serious and earnest consideration to this terrible mortality. Rather than allow it to continue it was the duty of His Majesty's Government to suffer the mining industry of South Africa to perish. For himself he would rather see that industry perish than thousands of these unfortunate Kaffirs being done to death in the Transvaal. They were in

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most cases forced to go to the Transvaal against their will, whereas the Chinese went there of their own free will. The mortality among the Chinese, moreover, was only one-sixth of that which prevailed amongst the Kaffirs. He believed that until a class of labour was introduced upon the high veldt which was able to face the climatic conditions prevailing at 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, this mortality would continue. Therefore, so long as labour was brought from tropical and sub-tropical Africa, the decimation of Kaffirs would continue. The only alternatives were unskilled white labour or Chinese labour. As to the first, he held that it was impossible to work these mines with unskilled white labour. He had held these views for ten years, and if he was accused of countenancing the introduction of Chinese native labour into South Africa, he would plead guilty. This, however, was a question for the people of South Africa to decide, and if the people of that country said that Chinese labour was essential to the development of South Africa—and he believed that the people would say that by an overwhelming majority—they were entitled to do so.
His Majesty's Government were endeavouring, and justly endeavouring, to see that any condition which they found in the Ordinance, which might partake of the character of slavery, was amended. What those conditions of slavery were he did not know. The only difference between the British Guiana Ordinance and the Transvaal Ordinance seemed to him to be that under the latter the labourer was not entitled to settle in the country after he had served his indenture, and he was prevented from undertaking any work except that of the unskilled labourer. But these were matters for the Colony, and if they were going to give self-government to the people of a Colony 6,000 miles away, they must trust the people absolutely. They could not discriminate; it was impossible to do so. If the Government thought they could not trust these people they must not give them self-government. They could not have it both ways. If the Transvaal was ripe for self-government then it must be full self-govern-
1310
ment; it must not be within the power of the House to say that in the opinion of some of its Members the policy of the Colony was incompatible with the views of the English nation. His Majesty's Government were prepared to grant self-government, and he hoped it would be granted at the earliest possible period; and when they had given to Transvaal that self-government they had no more right to enforce their views upon the Transvaal than upon any other colony. He was in Australia at the time of the Chinese labour trouble several years ago—he thought it was in 1889—when certain Chinese asserted the right to land at. Sydney. What was the position? In spite of the declarations of His Majesty's-Government the Colonial Government refused to allow these Chinese to come in to Australia. He did not think he was disclosing any secrets when he said that the Ministers of Australia said at that time that if the policy was insisted upon the Colony would cut the cord which bound them to the Empire. The action was repeated on another occasion when His Majesty's Government attempted to tell a self-governing Colony what it should do. To say that the mining magnates were going to treat 250,000 electors in South Africa, as nothing was absurd. They could not do it. They did it in former days on a very wide scale, as was shown by evidence which was complete, but to say that 150,000 of our fellow countrymen could be so treated under present conditions-was an insult. What was the position of the Boer? He had said in that House-several times that we had lost South Africa. He said it again. There was a portion of the British population in the Transvaal which was discontented, and would be discontented with the capitalist domination which had been going on since the occupation of Pretoria. The Boers were united on the question of nationality. A Legislature might make laws, but when once they struck at the nationality of a people they could not stifle it. If there was a dissatisfied Uitlander population they would make terms with the other side, and the time would come when the tie of affection, which was the only tie between Great Britain and her colonies, would be severed. The moment His Majesty's Government

1311
started to interfere with the rights of her self-governing Colonies the whole representative power of those Colonies would be opposed to her. Since Chinese labour had been introduced there had been an increase of 6,000 white men working in the mines in the Transvaal, and the average wage of these men, according to the mining engineer's report which had been presented to the House, was £1 a day, which was the highest wage paid in any part of the world to-day to any British workmen. Mr. Cresswell, before the Commission, said he paid 10s. a day but that that was not sufficient to enable the workmen to bring their wives and families out and support them. Mr. Cresswell said that the wage which unskilled labour received did not allow a man to bring his wife and family to South Africa. Was it not better to have 6,000 men who were, owing to a wage of £1 a day, able to have their wives and families with them, than to have a larger number of unskilled white labourers who could not settle in the country. Mr. Cresswell was the only mining engineer who said that these mines could be worked not entirely with white labour, but with a large proportion of white labour. It was the duty of His Majesty's Government who had been returned to the House because their supporters thought that these mines could be supported by white labour to inquire and report to the House whether that was the case. He appealed to the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary to send this Commission to South Africa so that this matter might be considered in all its phases. If it was found that the mines could be worked by white labour he would be one of the first to admit that he was wrong, and if an impartial Commission composed of impartial mining men were to say that such a thing was in their opinion possible, then it would be the duty of the House to give every possible support to any movement which would bring a larger white population into the Transvaal. Lord Elgin had not made up his mind whether it was possible to work the mines with white labour or not. Mr. Cresswell and many others believed that it was, and therefore it was only right that the Commission should be ap-
1312
pointed, and that their report on the whole subject should be laid upon the Table of the House so that the country might know the truth. He also asked the Government to say whether it was humane that natives recruited in subtropical Africa should be allowed to work in the mines. The Government had nothing to fear; so long as the country had the truth it would be satisfied; and he was certain that all those who conscientiously believed that these mines could be worked by white labour would be the first to welcome a Commission which would enable this country to have true information on the subject. It was not yet too late to do so before the grant of responsible self-government. The result of appointing a Commission would be that confidence would be restored in South Africa, because the people would feel that the Government had placed the interest of the country before the question of Party.
SIR W. EVANS GORDONsaid he rose to call attention to the drastic and fundamental changes which had been introduced by the Home Secretary with regard to the Aliens Act, and to express his amazement that such changes as the right hon. Gentleman had foreshadowed should have been hastily made by the issue of regulations without this House having been given any opportunity of pronouncing upon them. The changes the right hon. Gentleman had made amounted in fact to a repeal of the main provisions of an Act of Parliament which had not yet been three months in operation, and which was passed by an overwhelming majority of the last Parliament. The Aliens Act laid down certain categories of persons to be excluded from this country as undesirable immigrants. The effect of Clause 1, Sub-Section 3, was to lay the whole proof upon the immigrant that he was seeking this country as a refuge from religious or political persecution, but under the new rules and regulations the position had been changed, and, he maintained, the whole spirit of the Act completely altered. The instruction or the essential part of it which

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had been issued was in the following terms—
"I have issued to all immigration officers instructions that, in all cases in which immigrants coming from the parts of the continent which are at present in a disturbed condition allege that they are flying from religious or political persecution, the benefit of the doubt where any doubt as to the truth of the allegation exists must be allowed and leave to land must be given."
The onus of proof had thereby been removed entirely from the immigrant, and everyone must now be admitted on his bare, uncorroborated, and untested statement that he was suffering in the manner described. It must be obvious that the whole Act became null and void under those conditions. Persons in the categories excluded by the Act must now be admitted as a right upon their making this statement. The right hon. Gentleman had further raised the limit of the number constituting an immigrant ship from twelve to twenty. By doing that he further watered down the provisions of the Act, because it was notorious that the present limitation of twelve as the number which constituted an immigrant ship had been freely used for the purposes of evading the law. It amounted to this, that by this regulation any person could come in from any country however undesirable he or she might be, without question, and, so far as Russia was concerned, the principle was laid down that they were to be admitted on their own statement that they came from a disturbed country. It was therefore announced to the world that any country which chose to misgovern its subjects could thereby export them to England and that we could not protest against it. His first point was, had the Secretary of Statealegal constitutional right to alter the provisions of an Act of Parliament by means of regulations and instructions, while he still pretended that the Act remained in force? In his judgment the Secretary of State had stretched his powers beyond all precedent. Here was an Act of Parliament only in operation a few months based-on the findings of a Royal Commission after a long and exhaustive inquiry, repealed by a subterfuge, while a pretence was maintained that it was still in force. Why had this been done? Had the Act broken down? Had any
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allegation been proved to justify this extreme, hasty, almost indecent, and certainly unprecedented, course? What were the allegations? The hon. Member for Woolwich, who represented a certain school of thought in this matter, regarded the Act as a fraud and a sham. How could that possibly be proved with regard to an Act which had been in force for so short a time? If it really were a fraud and a sham, then that would be a ground for courageous repeal of the measure, and not an insidious step of the kind taken by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. With regard to the value of the Act and its administration they had not to look at the ports of arrival in this country, but to the ports of embarkation. He had been at some pains to find out whether the deterrent effect they anticipated from enforcing the provisions of the Act had in fact resulted at the ports of embarkation, and he found that before these instructions were issued emigrants to this country were being weeded out and selected by the shippers and agents interested in this business in precisely the same manner as they were weeded out and selected for America. Firm administration in this country for, say, a period of a year at most would have resulted in as beneficial an effect for this country as was at the present day enjoyed by America. Under the instructions issued by the Secretary of State for the Home Department all this was now to he thrown away. So much for the first allegation as to the uselessness of the Act. The second allegation was that the administration of the Act had been harsh, cruel, and unjust. What was the source and foundation of these allegations? The source was tainted, the foundation was prejudice and the methods adopted grossly unfair. That section of the Press which had dealt daily with columns of bogusatrocities had themselves complained that they had not been admitted to the Boards where these oases were inquired into and tried. To whom then did they go for their information? They went to the rejected immigrant himself or to some person interested in his importation, and then they dished up as facts, stories given to them by these people, and served them up to a hysterical public in order to prejudice feeling against this Act. The principal charm of these

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stories was, of course, that they reflected upon the good name, the humanity, the justice, and the honour of gentlemen who sat upon these Boards, and whom the Secretary of State had himself described as men of intelligence and character. When these alleged cases of hardship came to be examined in this House, what did they find? The Secretary of State for the Home Department had told the House that a good deal of inventiveness was being exercised with regard to these stories, and that already there had been a number of cases which apparently had been of great hardship, but in many of which there had been no corroboration. It was on a basis of this kind that the Secretary of State introduced these changes. The right hon. Gentleman further said that any reasonable probability of a claim to persecution being genuine sufficed to admit an immigrant. If that were so what possible case had been made out for altering the Act? The Secretary of State had himself in this House blown to pieces the very allegations upon which these changes were now announced. There was another source of information as to the way in which the Act was administered. The Manchester Guardian, a newspaper which was certainly not prejudiced in the direction of being too favourable to the Aliens Act, had recently published the result of independent inquiry, made on its behalf in London and Grimsby. In regard to London it appeared—
"That the Act had been administered in a liberal spirit,"
and that if a man stated that he came from any of the disturbed districts it was accepted as ample ground for the immigrant's being admitted. With regard to Grimsby, the Manchester Guardian reporter stated that—
"A review of the two months' test of the working of the Aliens Act at Grimsby seems to show that at this port the various officials have administered the Act with tact and discretion, and in a broad-minded spirit. The examination of the immigrants appears to have been conducted in an expeditious and considerate manner. The shipping companies have shown willingness to meet the wishes of the immigration officers, and no friction has occurred."
Most contradictory arguments were used against the Act. In one breath they
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were told that it was a farce and a sham, and in the next that the refugees were being delivered over to their tormentors in scores, and that the country was being closed to the poor and deserving. Hon. Gentlemen could not have it both ways. Capital had, moreover, been made out of charges of alleged hardship arising from rejection of diseased persons. On Monday last one such case was mentioned in this House. It related to a consumptive patient who was not allowed to land and was detained on board the ship. He yielded to no one in his sympathy with this poor creature. At the same time he would remind the House that consumption was now proved to be a highly contagious disease, easily communicated, especially where people were living under crowded conditions. They should, therefore, have some thought of the suffering that would be almost inevitably produced if they allowed people with this disease to come into the crowded quarters of our cities and towns. The same argument applied to the case of a girl named Chane Slutsky, who was rejected as suffering from trachoma, which was highly contagious, frequently led to blindness, and was the third chief cause of total loss of sight. Praiseworthy sentiment might admit the child, but how would that sentiment protect our own children against the infection of so serious a disease? It was our bounden duty to keep out diseases of that kind. Steps had been taken to protect the cattle of this country from infection from abroad, and was it reasonable when such a disease as miners' worm was imported to raise an outcry against sending; immigrants back who were suffering from that and other dangerous diseases? The question was one of principle. Either they had to admit diseased persons or to reject them. If they admitted one, they must admit all. It should be remembered that the responsibility in connection with the bringing of aliens in that condition rested with the shipping people who brought them. If those entrusted with the administration of the Act maintained their position firmly with regard to diseased persons, in a very short time no such cases would be sent to this country. He submitted that no case whatever had been or could be made out for

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changes which he thought were of doubtful legality and were tantamount to the total repeal of the Aliens Act. What was the reason for taking this course? He found it in the characteristic want of courage of His Majesty's Ministers. They expressed determination one day to administer the Act firmly, and a day or two afterwards the Secretary of State turned round and ran away from his responsibility. Of course, they all knew that it was very inconvenient for the right hon. Gentleman to be worried with Questions from his own side. Therefore, he was going to get rid of such criticism by a bag-and-baggage surrender. The House had become painfully familiar with this humiliating spectacle. An hon. Gentleman belonging to the Liberal Party below the gangway said "Boo," and then the great fabric of the Government began to tremble, and they saw Ministers running about like scared rabbits in a warren. This indecent surrender which they had witnessed in the Regulations just issued would have very serious and painful consequences. All the bitter discontent that existed in the East End of London and in the other great cities would be revived. All the complaints would be renewed. Since the Act came into force considerable improvement—or some improvement at all events—had been experienced in the state of things. [Cries of "Oh !"] That was perfectly true. He knew that hon. Gentlemen opposite said, and it had been said in the Press, that he was the originator of the discontent. Nothing could be further from the fact. He found the East End of London seething with discontent and deplorable bitterness of feeling on this subject. It was only after two or three years careful inquiry that he ventured to give expression to these strong feelings on behalf of the people he represented. It was said, too, that in advocating the strong administration of this Act and upholding its provisions he was inhumane or actuated by feelings of an anti-Semitic character. He repudiated the statements which were constantly made against himself with absolute scorn. If charges of anti-Semitism were made let them be levelled against the great Jewish financial houses on the Continent, who were making huge loans to the
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Russian Government. That money went to uphold and perpetuate the very tyranny of which Jews complained, and under which they suffered so severely. He might be called an anti-Semite, but he would sooner starve than lend money to a Government who were the oppressors and persecutors of his own people. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might say that the Act was a sham. That would not do. They had not tried the Act, and they were not giving it a chance. They were yielding to the first puff of opposition and to ignorant and prejudiced clamour. For what might occur as the result of these illegal changes the Government, and the Government alone, would be responsible.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): I think I heard the hon. Gentleman say that I and my colleagues ran away, and that I had been conspicuously active in running away. I do not think the hon. Member ought to talk about "running away" in this House. If there has been any running away it is perhaps owing to the infectious example of the hon. Gentleman and his friends, who in the last Parliament so frequently ran away. Time after time my hon. and gallant friend opposite was conspicuous by his absence when a subject in which he took great interest was before the House in the last Parliament.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: No; I was always present.
MR. GLADSTONE: I apologise if that was so. Will he pretend to say that he voted and that he spoke?
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Yes; I made long speeches.
MR. GLADSTONE: It is perfectly clear that the hon. Gentleman and his friends ran away over and over again, and therefore I think I may protest against this charge by the hon. Member. The hon. Member who has just spoken has failed to show that his charges against me of making drastic and fundamental changes and of practically repealing the Act are true. He has

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not quoted a single sentence in support of the statement that the immigration boards have been held up to scorn and reprobation. I repudiate that.
SIR W. EVANS GORDON: I have not attacked the right hon. Gentleman on that point.
MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Member has not explained his charges to the House, nor has he shown how the charges are true in any degree. He has been attacking me all through his speech. The immigration boards have been doing their duty extremely well and I should be the last man to put any extra difficulty in the way of their accomplishment of their task. I have not heard any charges such as those indicated by the hon. Member made against the boards. I have heard many charges made against the Act they have to administer; but that is an entirely different thing from personal charges against those administering the Act. The hon. Member spoke as if what I have done meant that every diseased and dangerous person could be brought into this country under the Act. I think the shortest way to answer the hon. Member will be to tell the House what I really have done, for the hon. Member seems to have gone wild under the idea that I have in some hidden, sinister, and illegal way abrogated the provisions of the Act. I have had particularly in my mind in what I have done individual cases of hardship. I have told the House that I thought it was my duty to administer the Act fairly and that I would do so. I am not responsible for the passing of the Act. I found it when I came into office. This does not relieve me from the obligation to watch over its administration, especially where in my opinion that administration led to cases of individual hardship which were severe even though they were not very numerous. What is my offence? In a covering letter sent with my circular to the immigration boards, dated March 9th, the Under-Secretary asks that the contents should be borne in mind when cases are being dealt with; and in the circular letter itself I express my opinion that it is desirable to set forth certain considerations of great importance in
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the administration of the Act. Then proceed to say—
"The Act was passed for the purpose of checking the immigration of undesirable aliens. Parliament, in the judgment of the Secretary of State, never intended that in the administration for that object of the provisions of the Act they should be applied with a rigidity which excludes considerations as to whether refusal of leave to land would involve great personal hardship or suffering in the case of women and children."
Does the hon. Gentleman dispute the justice of that? Does he, or does he not?
SIR W. EVANS GORDON: The particular questions which have been raised with regard to women and children are questions as to disease. I would not admit cases of serious disease.
MR. GLADSTONE: However distressing the cases were, the hon. Gentleman would send a woman or child back because she was ill and separated from her friends. The hon. Member would wish to see this Act put into force and administered with a degree of rigidity which took no account whatever of the greatest hardship that might be inflicted on women and children. If that is the hon. Member's view, it is not my view. I proceeded—
"So, too, a man who is free from any infectious or objectionable disease"
The hon. Member does not seem to have marked these words:—
"may be in a critical state of health, and to refuse him leave to land might expose him to cruel hardship."
Does the hon. Member still think there is no latitude to be shown in the administration of the Act in such a case? The next point is one on which the hon. Member would have a greater right to criticise the letter from his point of view—
"Again, the statements of a man claiming to be a political, or a religious, refugee may be insufficient or inaccurate, yet he may be exposed to serious risk from political causes if he is forced to return."
That is true. We know perfectly well by experience that these immigrants coming from some parts of Russia, absolutely ignorant of the English language, are told by their friends what to say, and that stories are put into their mouths; but this is not necessarily done because they are not fleeing from danger. That is

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the point. In my judgment an inaccuracy of statement on the part of one of these ignorant men should not necessarily be taken as a cause for exclusion. Then my letter goes on to express a hope—I have no power to do more than that—
"That, having regard to the present disturbed conditions of certain parts of the Continent, the benefit of the doubt, where any doubt exists, may be given in favour of any immigrants who allege that they are flying from religious or political persecution in disturbed districts, and that in such cases leave to land may be given."
The hon. and gallant Member has referred to a statement in the Manchester Guardian that certain disturbed districts are scheduled, and when a man said he came from one of these districts that was considered sufficient to justify leave to land. The hon. and gallant Member to my great surprise approved of that. If he approves of that I think he may as well approve of the whole of my circular.
SIR W. EVANS GORDON: I quoted that to show that the Act was not harshly administered.
MR. GLADSTONE: Then I do not quite understand why approval is not extended to the suggestion in my letter. I have the authority of the Leader of the Opposition on my side, who, in the course of discussion, on July 17 th said—
"There was no difference of opinion in the House as to the desirability of admitting aliens into this country who were genuinely driven out of their own country on the grounds of their being accused of political crime or involved in political agitation."
Then on July 19th the right hon. Gentleman went rather further, and said—
"We have heard a great deal of the possibility of Jews and others coming to this country in an absolutely destitute condition and being rejected under this Bill from our shores, although they were flying from religious or political persecution. Nobody desires that such a contingency should occur."
That is my opinion, and it is in order that such a case should not arise that I have addressed my letter to the immigration boards. Even though action taken on that letter may result in the benefit of the doubt being given in some cases where individuals in ordinary
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circumstances would be rejected, I think English people generally will approve. Perhaps the action which I have taken last week ought to have been taken earlier. The hon. Member says that I have done this without coming to Parliament for sanction. As a matter of fact I have altered only one Order. What is the history of these Orders? They were never presented to Parliament. The whole machinery for carrying the Act into operation was constructed during the autumn and winter, and when I came into office, I found it necessary to give my own signature to these Orders so as to put them into operation. Surely, if that were so, it was within my power, subject to the decision and approval of this House, to alter one of these Orders. We only came into office in December and the rules had to come into force on January 1st. I could not suspend them. I had no authority for that and it would have been most improper action on my part. I could not amend the Orders without consideration, and I had no time to consider them. I signed and accepted them as I accepted the Act which was passed—not on my responsibility. I have done my best to administer the Act fairly, and I tell the hon. and gallant Member that what I have done is, from his point of view, in the interest of the Act, for if I had not done that perhaps something more drastic might have had to be done. The time has not come for any general review of the operation of the Act, and I am not going to be dragged into any attempt to give an opinion on the subject. All I have done is to remedy certain grievances and to prevent great hardships being inflicted. I am confident that the whole country would have resented if I had not done so if it were in my power to do so. I repeat that it has not been my intention to deal unfairly with the working of the Act. I wish to give it a fair trial. If the Act is a bad Act we cannot prove that to the satisfaction of all parties concerned unless we have had experience of its working. I would point out to the hon. and gallant Member that during this session the Department over which I preside has had very important work to discharge in other directions than in the administration of the Aliens Act. I found the whole

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work of the office was being seriously interfered with by the administration of that Act, and I have been compelled to take action in order, if possible, to mitigate the pressure on the office and to enable the staff to turn their attention to other matters in connection with the present session of Parliament. I have acted from a sentiment which one ought to act on in a matter of this kind. At any rate, I have acted on grounds of reasonable humanity, and for my part I could not feel myself responsible for the continuance of the special hardships which had been inflicted on the men, women, and children who came to our shores, if it was in my power to remedy the evil.
SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he had every confidence in his right hon. friend, but it was with some dismay that he had heard an answer to a Question a few days ago as to very considerable changes which had either been made or were contemplated in the rules in force under the Aliens Act. Obviously it was much too soon to make these changes, and his right hon. friend had not carried out his own intention of giving the rules a fair trial.
MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. and gallant Gentleman talks about rules and orders which have been altered. I point out that only one out of twenty-five rules has been altered.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: That was the most important order of all—the instruction to the immigration boards. These instructions were "that in all cases in which immigrants coming from the parts of the Continent which are at present in a disturbed condition allege that they were flying from religious or political persecution, the benefit of the doubt, where any doubt exists, as to the truth of the allegation must be allowed, and leave to land must be given."
MR. GLADSTONE: Where there is any doubt.
SIR HOWARD VINCENTasked what right had the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State to issue such an imperative notice to the immigration
1324
officers? Why did not the right hon. Gentleman rely on the discretion of the immigration officers? He asked his right hon friend distinctly if he would furnish the House of Commons with the Report of the Committee on which these rules were framed? Would not the right hon. Gentleman circulate among Members the rules as originally defined and any proposed alteration in those rules.
MR. GLADSTONE: I said to-day that the altered rules would be laid.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: And also the Report of the Committee on which the rules were framed?
MR. GLADSONE: I will consider that.
SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid it was necessary that the House should have before it not only the rules, but also the Report of the Committee. Nobody desired that the Act should be administered with unnecessary harshness. Full latitude should be allowed to the board, and it was not the duty of the Secretary of State to send out these imperative instructions. The Act, which had been in operation for two months, had been working smoothly until quite recently. The people in the East-end of London were deeply interested in the administration of the Act, and any weakness on the part of the Home Office would be resented. No political considerations should be allowed to influence the administration of the Act. The only consideration should be the welfare and interests of our own people. The hon. Member for Accrington complained of the treatment he had received, but an admirable regulation, drawn by the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, was to the effect that the Aliens Act which took effect from the 1st of January 1906 would: cause no inconvenience to passengers to and from the Continent holding first class tickets. [A laugh] He did not understand the laugh. Did his hon. friend the Member for Accrington travel steerage or as a deck passenger? The regulation pointed out that the only question which could be asked was whether a passenger was a British subject or not,

1325
and the only answer required was "Yes" or "No." He gathered from his hon. friend that he was unable to give that simple answer. If there was any weakness, by the Home Office, in the administration of the Act, deep and serious resentment would be felt.
MR. LEVYhoped the Home Secretary would not be influenced by any pressure put upon him by the other side. The hon. Member for Sheffield said that the Act was working very smoothly, but if hon. Members looked at the papers day after day they would see that the name of Great Britain was suffering serious injustice from the way in which the Act was being administered. The whole evil arose from the fact that the gentleman who, under the late Government, was allowed to frame these rules, had exhibited an anti-Semitic feeling and had shown great bias against the aliens, and was an intimate associate of the hon. Member for Stepney. When the Aliens Bill was under discussion the late Government and their supporters repeatedly asserted that the Bill was not intended to preclude political or religious refugees. He therefore hoped the Home Secretary would see that the Act was administered in a fair and impartial manner, so as not to prevent political and religious refugees from landing in this country. Many of the interpreters who had been employed had not known their duty, and had not correctly interpreted the answers of people who perhaps showed some cunningness, as they dreaded to be returned to their native land. He appealed to the Home Secretary to show magnanimity and humanity in the administration of the Act, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not yield to the pressure which the hon. Member for Central Sheffield, and others, put upon him.
SIR HOWARD VINCENT: No, no.
MR. LEVYsaid the hon. Member had tried to put pressure upon the right hon. Gentleman. All that was necessary was to keep out the undesirables. Had the Act by its administration kept out any of the souteneurs of the West End of London or the owners of the
1326
gambling dens in London? No, and it never could. But, on the other hand, it had resulted in cases of gross injustice. Aliens were being excluded in consequence of the immigration officers claiming that there was no further demand for labour in the trades in which they wished to engage. This was a violation of the Act. New industries had been built up by aliens who had come and settled in this country, and if the administration of this Act refused people who could not show that they had at once a place of employment to go to it would be a very great hard ship, and he hoped the Home Secretary would not administer the Act in that spirit. Some of the greatest industries of this country had been introduced into the country and built up by aliens, who did not come here to take employment away but had created employment for the people of this country.
SIR EDWARD CARSONsaid he only desired to say a word on this subject, because he was in the House when a Question was put to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, and from the cursory examination he was able to give to the Answer he formed the opinion that the right hon. Gentleman was by the powers conferred upon him interfering with a statute passed in the previous session. Having heard the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, he believed that he (Sir E. Carson) had come to an absolutely erroneous conclusion. He believed the Act was one which required very great discrimination in its administration, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman had not a very easy task in securing a proper and moderate administration of what he believed to be a very important and useful Act, because on every hand if cases of undue hardship occurred under the Act the right hon. Gentleman would no doubt have great influence brought to bear upon him to mitigate those hardships, perhaps even by straining the powers which under the Act were given to him by Parliament. So far as he could see there was no justice in the allegation that the rules and recommendations of the right hon. Gentleman had in any

1327
way interfered with the Act of Parliament. are thought that all the criticisms had arisen through the right hon. Gentleman having given instructions to the immigration officers. When he did that he would always be open to criticism. But if they were going to criticise him they ought to see the full extent of what he had done. He had told the officers that in cases in which they were in any doubt as to whether the alien was a political or religious refugee they ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. He (Sir E. Carson) should have thought that was the duty of the immigration officer without any instructions whatever. That was an ordinary rule in the administration of all Acts of Parliament. Therefore, the only matter in which there might be ground for criticism seemed to be taken away if they looked at the thing fairly and honestly, because all the Home Secretary had done was to bring to the minds of the immigration officers a sense of their duty which even without the instructions they no doubt obeyed. He had thought it right to make these observations after listening to the debate, because he would very jealously look upon anything that would interfere with an Act of Parliament. As the right hon. Gentleman was going to give the Act fair play, it was only right that he should have a fair chance.
MR. STRAUSsaid he took the view that it would be a bad day for this country when they closed their doors to the oppressed. One of the noblest characteristics of the Englishman had been his desire to do away with oppression, his love of freedom, and his willingness to open his portals and to welcome all those who were suffering from any form of religious or political persecution. It would be one of the worst day's business ever performed by the House if they refused to amend the Act in such a way as to make it impossible for these refugees to be refused admission. When they spoke of undesirables it was not the poor who were the most undesirable. It was the corrupt monied man who was the greatest danger to the nation, The most undesirable alien lived nearer Park Lane than Stepney. Another
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class that was undesirable was the prostitute, but this Act did nothing towards remedying that evil. An attack had been made on the Home Secretary for doing what was not only an act of justice but an act which was popular all over the country. The hon. and gallant Member for Stepney suggested that the instructions ought to have been considered by the House before they were given, but was it not the fact that the original instructions in the hands of the immigration officers had never been before the House or considered by any one except the hon. Member's friends when in power? He would mention that during the bye-election in Mile End a Stepney tradesman had placed a large and vulgar cartoon in his shop window depicting an alien, who was meant to be himself, robbing an Englishman of his work and food, and yet this very man was one of the first to be placed upon the Alien Immigration Board. Could one expect him to be unbiassed in his judgment after having shown these vulgar cartoons? He hoped the Act would have a fair trial, but he felt confident that it would prove quite inadequate, and it ought never to have appeared on the Statute Book. It was as absurd as engaging an elephant to kill a flea to have brought in an Act that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to prevent a few aliens coming into this country. The Act was one of the many inadequate and incompetent measures typical of the lat3 Government, which disgusted the people and gave the tone to the general election. He was glad to think that the people in East London were not led away by the Act, which they had already realised was a fraud, a delusion, and a snare. He believed the Secretary of State for the Home Department had taken a right and proper course in this matter. He felt strongly on the question. He had suffered from it. He had been told on repeated occasions that he was one of these aliens and could not speak a word of English. The truth of that statement the House could judge for itself. The question had been most unfairly dealt with in the East End of London, and it had taken some of them months of hard work to teach the unfairness of the Act. He did not believe the

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hon. and gallant Member for Stepney was actuated by any but the most honourable motives, but he was labouring under a misapprehension. This Act ought never to have appeared on the Statute Book, but now it was there they should all do what they could to make it work fairly and leniently towards those who were fleeing from persecution. He believed the majority in this House looked with pleasure upon the action of the Home Secretary, and he felt confident that the country would endorse the feeling of this House. When the hon. and gallant Member for Stepney suggested that they were only keeping out undesirables, what did he think of the poor nine-year old girl who, it was stated, was sent away because she was a deaf mute? That was a mistake. She was sent back because she was certified as being an idiot. In Hamburg she was seen by an eminent authority on the subject, and he found that she was a deaf mute of peculiar and remarkable intelligence, certainly not an idiot. If this enormous machine had been brought to bear upon poor people of that character—one of a family, the others being permitted to enter—it was not a credit either to the hon. and gallant Member for Stepney or the nation.
MAJOR SEELYsaid in view of the highly satisfactory assurances and the very definite statements made by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
MR. MORTONsaid he did not venture to question the right of withdrawing the Amendment, but he did desire to say that he had an undertaking from the Government the other night that he should have the opportunity on the Report Stage of bringing forward the question of General Botha. He also desired to bring forward a matter concerning the Scottish Office. He did not, however, wish to delay the Resolution, and he would content himself by saying he would take the very earliest opportunity he could get of bringing these matters forward at another time, when he hoped
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the Government Would endeavour to keep their promise.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Resolution agreed to.

EVENING SITTING.

  OLD AGE PENSIONS.
  MR. O'GRADYsaid the Motion which he had the honour to move this evening dealt with one of the very gravest aspects of the social problem. The House recently passed a Resolution assuring the people of a Bill to provide free food for starving children, and he now asked them to pass a Resolution to give similar assistance to the aged poor when past work. The House would no doubt concede that he and those who sat with him, who in many cases had gravitated from the workshop bench to this House, had some knowledge of this problem with which they had come into close contact throughout their lives. In the days of small employers of labour, when there was a direct contact of employer and labour in a manner that did not exist in the modern workshops, the conditions under which men worked were much easier, and the effective working life of a man or woman employed in a factory or workshop might be taken at thirty years. So that in those days, from twenty to fifty years of age a workman was fairly sure of steady and regular employment with less strenuous conditions than those which characterised employment to-day. But the conditions had changed. The whole tendency of capital was to syndicate and to become "trustified," the result being that the small employers were gradually being squeezed out, complex machinery was being introduced and the strenousness of factory life so accentuated for the workpeople as almost to reach breaking point. The average working life in a factory to-day from the expiry of apprenticeship was not more than twenty years, and if something was not done now to give a pension to those who were sixty-five and over, in ten years' time the Labour Members would have to plead in this House for an old age

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  pension for persons of fifty years of age and upwards. He had said that in the factories and workshops men and women became too old at fifty, but many Members who were acquainted with railway companies and engineering works would bear him out when he said that within recent years railway companies and large engineering concerns were taking care that men over forty should not be employed. There were men in London to-day in the cabinet-making trade—men who had come under his own observation—who were among the best craftsmen of the City of London, and who had been warned when grey hairs appeared on their heads that unless they were inclined to accept employment at a less price than that paid to younger and more vigorous men they would not be required. It had been urged that a workman who had been in good work for thirty years ought to have been able to have made provision for his old age, but Mr. Rowntree, who had dealt with this question so far as York was concerned, had conclusively proved that it was utterly impossible for a workman to provide for the days when his time of active labour had passed. When they appealed on behalf of the aged poor the House would, he thought, agree that these people were poor from no fault of their own; that where a man had a wife and three children to keep what he earned not only did not allow a margin for any provision for his old age, but, in fact, was not sufficient to provide food up to the ordinary standard of workhouse living for his family. These people were the creatures of circumstances over which they had no control. It was generally agreed that many of the aged poor required help, and the only question appeared to be what that help ought to be. He and those who supported him thought it ought to come from the State; that the people of this country should rise to a sense of their responsibility in this matter, and enable aged persons to live through the decline of their lives under easy circumstances. The last census showed 2,118,216 people over the age of sixty-five. It was not suggested that all those were in poverty, but it was believed that half of them were in a position requiring the help of old age pensions. 400.000
  1332
  persons over the age of sixty-five were in receipt of indoor and outdoor relief, and when the fact that there were considerably over 1,000,000 people over that age in want was taken into consideration one naturally desired to know by what means those who were not in receipt of relief were kept. The answer was not far to seek. The sons and daughters of the aged poor did all they could to keep their parents from that Bastile, known as the workhouse, and from the taint of poverty. In dealing with the question of pensions for the aged poor he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, when estimating the cost, take into account what it cost to keep our aged poor now inside the workhouse. He submitted that it would be far better and more humane if that were given in the shape of pensions rather than in the shape of relief in the workhouse. He would say that the average cost of keeping our aged poor would be about 6s. 6d. per head. Well, they were moderate in their demands. They asked that a pension of 5s. a week should be given to the aged poor in order to keep them in their homes free from the taint of the workhouse. This question -of old age pensions was submitted to the Premier and the Chancellor of the Exchequer some time ago and he had been dissatisfied with the somewhat unsympathetic reply which that deputation received. The Labour Party were quite willing to admit that the right hon Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be embarrassed in finding money owing to the wasteful expenditure of the last ten years, but the Government were able to find money for extra battleships and for more troops, and he submitted that this question ought to come before those, and that money ought to be found for a scheme of old-age pensions. We were unquestionably the richest country in Europe to-day. We had a total income of £18,000,000,000. 5,000,000 out of the total 43,000,000 of population took more than half the total income of the country, and during the last few years the assessable incomes had increased from £600,000,000 to £800,000,000. Therefore, what we had to do to get the money for old-age pensions was to broaden the basis of taxation and to get at the un-earned

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  increment which was entirely the result of communal effort, and the product of which should be used for social services such as the feeding of the underfed and starving children at that period of their lives when sustenance wus essential, and providing people with pensions when they were too old to work. We could easily do with a gunboat or two less and a battalion or two less, and by that means much money would be saved for old-age pensions. He desired to see this country always in the van of progress, and foremost in the desire to uplift humanity; but on the question of old-age pensions England was far behind her Colonies and every country in Europe, with the exception of Russia. New Zealand, in 1898, passed a law giving its aged poor, out of the consolidated fund, a sum of 6s. 11d., a week, or £18 a year; and, not satisfied with that, they subsequently amended the Act, and the aged poor now received a pension of 10s. a week. The Government of Australia also granted a pension of 10s., and the people were able to claim that 10s. a week as a right and not as charity if they had resided in the Commonwealth for twenty-five years. The Colonies and the countries of Europe were ahead of us in this matter of old-age pensions. They had become conscious of the fact that these old men and women were those who had helped to make the nation prosperous, when in their youth and vigour, and should therefore be sustained when their industrial usefulness had passed. He certainly thought the resources of the country ought to be taxed to provide pensions for the aged poor. He hoped in the course of the discussion which would take place upon this Motion the Government would do more than give expression to a mere pious opinion, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find some means whereby money might be had from the National Purse for this purpose. He moved.
  MR. GROVE, in seconding the Amendment, said his hon. friend had chosen a most opportune moment for bringing forward this Motion. Hon. Members had just come back from close contact with their constituencies where many of them had been brought
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  into touch with the poor, and had seen the state of poverty in which so many of the working classes had to spend their declining years. In addition to the time being in itself favourable for bringing forward a Motion of this character, the Labour Party recognised the fact that in an appeal to the Liberal Government while yet it was in the full strength and vigour of its youth lay their last chance of having an old-age pension scheme in scribed on the Statute-book. They had nothing to hope for from the Unionist Party. The front Opposition bench had but one occupant; on the benches behind were but seven Members, and that beggarly array truly represented the interest of the Unionist Party in this great problem of labour. The Prime Minister could not devote to better purpose the vast and mighty power which had been placed in his hands than in an attempt to find the means of helping the poor in their old age. The question was often asked—Where was the money to come from? His reply was that it could be got by means of a graduated income-tax. He was sure it was within the financial ability of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer to supplement Sir William Harcourt's death duties by bringing in what he would call "life duties," which would compel the possessors of over-gorged incomes to pay out of their superfluity for the support in old age of the men and women to whose labours in their prime they owed their wealth. It was said that such a scheme would destroy thrift. But was it not idle to talk of thrift in the case of a man with 12s. or 15s. a week and a family to support? It was said also that it would pauperise the people. A Cabinet Minister received a pension under certain circumstances. Was he considered to be pauperised? In like manner there could be no degradation in a working man receiving a pension at the end of his days of toil
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, a measure is urgently needed in order that out of funds provided by taxation provision can be made for the payment of a pension to all the aged subjects of His Majesty in the United Kingdom."
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. Asquith,): Regarding this Motion as I do as an affirmation of a principle, and reserving as I must do on behalf of the Government the fullest liberty as to the time, mode, and extent of the application of that principle, I shall certainly offer no opposition to its acceptance by the House. This is one of the subjects, few and rare I am sorry to say, as to which I believe there is no difference of opinion in any quarter of the House. I subscribe entirely to what has been said by the hon. Gentleman who so ably moved the Resolution, and my hon. friend who has returned to this House and whom we welcome so heartily from this side, as to the gravity of the evils and dangers which this aspect of our social position brings into relief. To my mind, the two most tragic things in our modern social condition are the figures of the man who wants work and cannot find it and of the man who is past work and has to beg for his bread and his bed. So long as those figures remain in the foreground of our life here in Great Britain and Ireland they constitute a standing reproach to our civilisation and a perpetual problem for statesmen. I say, therefore, on the broad grounds of principle on which this Motion has been put forward, not only is there no reluctance on the part of the Government to accept it, but there is the strongest and keenest possible desire by every means we can find available and practicable to further the object that the hon. Gentleman has in view. But it is, of course, my duty, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, not to content myself with bare words of sympathy; still less, I venture to say, to be guilty of the worst form of political quackery, which is to make promises you do not see your way to perform. I must, therefore, point out to the House that our position in this respect is a very different one from what it was even ten years ago. I think it is something like ten years since old-age pensions took a prominent place in political programmes. Yes, Sir, and how do we stand to-day compared to the position in which the country was then? During those ten years our annual national expenditure has risen by £.40,000,000. Old taxes have been increased. The income-tax
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  stands now at 1s. in the pound in a time of profound peace, the tea duty has been raised, and new taxes have been imposed, like the duty on sugar. And perhaps most serious of all, in the course of that time the aggregate capital liabilities of the State have risen from £652,000,000 to £796,000,000, an addition of nearly £150,000,000. It is no part of my purpose to-night, though it will be perhaps on a subsequent occasion, to discuss the causes and assign the responsibilities for this state of things. I simply point out that to the House as showing the enormously enhanced difficulties with which the statesman who approaches this problem with the most earnest desire to solve it is encumbered at every step he takes on the road. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution, and I think my hon. friend who seconded it, spoke rather lightly of the question of cost. But, after all, cost lies at the very root of the whole matter. Allusion has been made to the case of other countries. Our fellow-subjects in New Zealand have established a system of old-age pensions on, I think, a rather more liberal scale than is proposed here. I find they are spending every year in developing and carrying out that scheme £200,000. That is a very large sum for a community with a population which does not exceed somewhere between 800,000 and 900,000. Denmark, I think, has made, on the whole, the most successful, as it was the first, effort to deal with the problem, an effort which I hope, in some of its main aspects, we may be able to imitate and develop for ourselves. In Denmark, the cost of the system of old-age pensions as it at present exists, and has existed for something like ten years, is about £216,000 a year, spread over a population of 2,500,000—again a very heavy charge upon the community. Now, as both hon. Gentlemen have pointed out, this matter has been investigated and inquired into almost ad nauseam by Royal Commissions and Select Committees for something like fifteen years. We had the Aberdare Committee and the Rothschild Committee, and they were followed in 1899 by a Select Committee of this House, whose report was of the utmost value and deserves to be carefully studied, and who came to the conclusion that it

  1337
  would be practicable to create in this country a workable system of old-age pensions. They based their opinion on two important grounds—first of all upon the successful operation of the scheme which had been adopted in Denmark, and next upon the satisfactory results of the pension schemes established in this country by the Charity Commission. The conclusion of that Committee was that a man should be entitled as a right to claim an old-age pension subject to his satisfying a large number of conditions. He was to be a British subject, he was to be sixty-five years of age, he was to have a clean criminal record for a considerable period of time, and he was not to have received poor law relief except in special circumstances within the last ten years, he was to reside within the pension authority's district, he was not to have an income of more than 10s. a week, and he must give some kind of proof that to the best of his ability he had endeavoured to maintain himself. I am not saying that all those conditions must necessarily accompany any scheme of old-age pensions; but conditions of some kind, undoubtedly, there must be—conditions as to character, conditions as to residence, and I should certainly say myself conditions as to means. It was in consequence of the Report of that Committee, if the House will remember, that a Departmental Committee of experts was appointed, presided over by an eminent civil servant, Sir Edward Hamilton, to consider what the cost of carrying out this scheme would be. They found, taking the year 1901, that the population of the United Kingdom, over sixty-five years of age, might be estimated at a little over 2,000,000. If the whole of these 2,000,000 were to be entitled to receive a pension upon the scale suggested by the hon. Gentleman, 5s. a week—that is to say, £, 3 a year—the total cost would obviously be £26,000,000. But from these 2,000,000 people the Select Committee deducted no less than 1,350,000 as persons who would not come within the conditions which have been suggested, leaving 650,000 people who would legitimately become entitled to pensions charged upon the exchequer or the rates, as the case might be. Assuming that
  1338
  these people were to receive a pension varying somewhere between 7s. and 5s. 6d. a week, the estimated total annual cost would be £10,300,000. I think Sir Edward Hamilton has since stated that he believes that to be under estimated; it might approach something like £13,000,000, These are very serious figures. Whether we take £26,000,000, which is the outside estimate, whether we take £13,000,000, or whether we take £10,000,000, they are formidable, and, indeed, almost intractable sums. What I want the House seriously to consider is from what source and by what means are we going to provide funds for this purpose? I am not going into the question of the relative predominance of the various issues which were raised before the country at the recent general election. But I think my hon. friends behind me will agree that there is one point which we on this side of the House have come here to face. That is to do everything in our power to secure retrenchment, reduction of taxation, and economy in the public service. The Army and Navy presents fields of possible extravagance, and, certainly, not of possible, but of practicable reductions. There is no man in this House who entertains that sentiment more profoundly than I do myself; but let me point out that there are only two ways, two practicable ways, in which you can reduce expenditure upon the Army and Navy. What are they? In the case of the Army, by reducing the numbers of your permanent fighting force. There is no other way of doing it. And, in the case of the Navy, by contracting your shipbuilding programme. And, as my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War pointed out the other night when he was introducing the Army Estimates, in the long run those are questions of policy. A Government which is pledged, as we are pledged—no men have given stronger assurances to the people than we have—to pursue, by every means in our power, a policy of pacific and conciliatory intercourse with the other nations of the world is a Government which is bound to take steps, speedy and substantial steps, in both the directions I have mentioned. [Cheers.] Yes, Sir, but when those cheers have subsided, let me point out to my hon. friends, to both sides of the House

  1339
  as many previous incumbents of my position have had to point out, that the worst offenders in this matter are not the heads of the spending departments. Who are they? The Members of the House of Commons. Just let me ask the House to remember how it has been engaged since it came here just a month ago. As soon as we had disposed of the Address, an hon. Gentleman, I think sitting there [indicating the benches occupied by the Labour Party] raised a demand for free postage for Members of Parliament, a return to the old system of franking which was abolished because of the abuses it had led to and also its enormous cost. The next day the House proceeded to pass, with unanimity, the Second Reading of a Bill to provide free meals for all the underfed children in our elementary schools. We followed that up, I think the next night or the next night but one, by recording, by an enormous majority, the necessity of throwing the burden of returning officers' expenses off the shoulders of Members of Parliament and candidates upon the public. And the House finished up the week by passing, with an enormous majority, a Motion declaring the urgent necessity of voting out of public funds a stipend of not less than £300 a year to each one of its own Members. A very good week's work for a Parliament elected to promote retrenchment and economy! I am not going to abuse this occasion by discussing the abstract merits of these various propositions. With many of them, though not with all, I am myself in most hearty sympathy. But I must point out to the House this practical conclusion, which I want them to draw, that social reform, as we see and realise more clearly every day and every week that we sit here, in the long run depends upon increased expenditure, and that, if we are to proceed in these matters at all, we must show some sense of proportion—a sense of proportion, I mean, as between the relative urgency and the relative importance of the different reforms upon which our hearts are set.
  MR. DAVID MACIVER: Tax the foreigners, as other countries do.
  MR. ASQUITH: We are to provide the money by returning to the impoverishing futilities of the days of protection, when, for every penny you get from the foreigner, you will be paying twopence or threepence more out of your own pocket! It is not by such a road as that that we shall attain these great social reforms. What I am pointing out to the House, what, I think, they will believe I am pointing out in no spirit of want of sympathy with the great objects we all have in view, is that what we have to do is, in the first place, to introduce some relative sense of proportion into the various demands we make; and, in the next place, we must be content, as I am sure we must in this matter of old-age pensions, having regard to the enormous scope of the problem, to proceed gradually, step by step. For my part I am not without hope—I believe that great reductions in public expenditure are possible. I have spoken of the Army and Navy. I do not see my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Education on this bench. Appearances are very delusive, but my right hon. friend is, from this point of view, very little better than a professional bandit. I do not want to starve education, but I entertain the heretical opinion that, without any diminution of efficiency, we might introduce considerable economies even into our system of education, though the House must recognise that that is one great and growing source of annually increasing expenditure. There is another direction, also—I am not going to boast or to make improvident predictions—in which I trust we may look for fresh means for dealing with these social problems. It is not by taxing the foreigner, not by increasing the cost of the prime necessaries of life, not by reducing wages and lowering the standard of comfort, which is the inevitable result of a return to protection; but by such a readjustment of the burdens and incidence of taxation as will make a rational fiscal system more productive than it is at present, and as will apportion the ever-increasing weight of administering the affairs of this country and provide for the social needs of its people with greater

  1341
  justice and equality than at present. Those are the directions in which the Government hope, not at once, but gradually, and, I hope, effectually, to make some progress towards the solution of this problem. We have got here in this new House of Commons, I am glad to recognise, driving power such as we have never had before, which ought to constitute an effective impulse. towards social reform; and I am sure the majority of the House, while unanimously accepting this Resolution, will not think that I am in any sense wanting in sympathy with its object or in an eager desire to bring it at the earliest moment into practical effect if I say that I feel also that patience, and prudence, and adjustment are necessary.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I greatly regret the manner in which this subject was dealt with by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, who made a surprising attack on the Party in this House to which I belong. I think that was quite uncalled for, and it had no relevancy whatever to the subject we are discussing. It was also quite contrary to the well known history of the Party to which I belong. The Home Secretary spoke quite truly when he said that this question was not the particular possession of any Party in this House. It is a matter which is well known to the Members of the House, and it has frequently engaged the attention of all parties. There is probably no Member in the House who would not like to see the proposal realised. The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire was good enough to twit the Opposition for not being present in much larger numbers. I think after the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he will see some reason to modify that censure. I think we might have foreseen what has actually taken place. The other night we heard how the late Sir William Harcourt, burning with anxiety to achieve a great reform said—
  "I have neither the time nor the money."
  and how, two years later, with the same spirit animating him, he made the same reply. A few nights ago the Prime Minister, dealing with the same subject and animated by the same spirit,
  1342
  said he had neither the time nor the money to carry it out. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made substantially the same reply to-night in regard to the question now before the House. The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire appealed to the present Government with perfect confidence to realise an ideal, which he said hon. Gentlemen on this side neither desired nor were competent to realise. I do not know that his confidence was so thoroughly well placed as he supposed it was. This is a subject of far too much importance to be dealt with in the spirit of the speech of the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire. We all agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in feeling that the position of a man who has worked hard all his life and by no fault of his own finds himself in penury in his old age is one which deserves the utmost sympathy. A great many more people than most persons suspect are near to that dangerous and unhappy position. And this applies not only to those who receive a weekly wage, but to those who live on a monthly salary, and who as a class are reluctant to betray the poverty which oppresses them, and prefer by the habit of their life and on principle to suffer in silence. If we could remove that dread which hangs over the lives of so many of the population we should confer an enormous boon, not only on individuals, but on the nation at large. But what I want is a little more guidance from the Government as to the direction in which their thoughts are tending in this matter. I came here to-night to learn, and I have been rather fired by the unjust attack made by the hon. Member for South Northampton. I have been a student of this subject for a considerable length of time. I find that it is a subject which divides itself into two main branches of thought. It is quite clear that you cannot study what is going on in the new world or the old, or in the southern Pacific, without seeing that there are two distinct currents of thought animating the minds of men who are studying this matter. I say that the whole practical application of this doctrine in Europe has been on one line alone, and that is the line of

  1343
  co-operation between the person for whom the pension is intended and the State. I think I am right in saying that that is the almost universal rule. In Germany it is certainly the rule. Denmark there is a very large contribution on the part of the individual, for in that country a very large number of conditions have to be fulfilled by the recipient of a State pension. I think I am right in saying that the recipient must not have been convicted of an offence, and that he must have been in receipt of certain wages in order to be entitled to a particular pension. I am not now arguing for the one line or the other. What I wish to show is that there are two distinct currents of thought. One is that the pension should be given entirely independently of any contribution on the part of the individual; the other is that through some organised body, such as the friendly societies, there should be a contribution on the part of the individual. I want to know in which direction the ideas of the Chancellor of the Exchequer tend, because that will make an ernomous difference to the whole consideration of this problem. It will affect the money point of view, and it will affect what I may call the moral point of view. There are a great many people in this country who believe that, there is virtue in self-help. There are some who take the opposite view. I know that perfectly well, and so do hon. Members below the gangway.
  MR. CROOKS: Everyone of us believes in it. We are not going to be slandered in that way.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I think I may ask some indulgence in this matter. I have said what I believe to be the view of hon. Members below the gangway. They think that not only those who fail through no fault of their own, but that the just and the unjust, the successful and the unsuccessful, everyone, in fact, should receive a pension. I can see a moral ground for that contention. Those who hold that view say anything else involves differentiation which you have no right to make. They say that it is a duty which the State owes to every citizen alike. But there are others
  1344
  who do not take that view. I myself should like to see some contribution on the part of the individual towards this relief in old age. I should be glad if any member of the Government would tell us which is the view they take. I gather that at the present moment they take the view that I take. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that this relief must be conditioned by character, by residence, and by means. But a great extension may be given to all those limitations. Character may mean freedom from conviction for felony or it may mean the record of a life in which a man has shown a desire to occupy himself in profitable industry whenever the opportunity has been given. Residence may mean short or long residence, it may bring in those who are now coming into this country in great crowds from abroad, or include only those who have resided here for over twenty years. Means may mean a contribution by the individual to the cost of his pension.
  MR. ASQUITH: I did not mean that.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I only said it was one interpretation of means. [An HON.MEMBER: What is Mr. Chamberlain's theory?] I do not think that that interruption is either a good or a wise one. This matter is one of very grave importance, and must be discussed before a settlement of it can be approached. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has read us a lecture, which I am sure we all deserve, with regard to the question of means in another sense. He has told us that this reform is to be postponed until we have all learned to be good boys and not to spend too much money. I do not recollect that ten years ago in the halcyon period of which he speaks there was any very strong action taken in that direction by the Party opposite. [An HON. MEMBER: What about Mr. Chamberlain?] I do not think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham belonged to the Party opposite at that time, but he did a good deal towards forming public opinion on this matter. Where is the practical application of the principle to-night? [An HON. MEMBER:

  1345
  Ask that at the end of ten years.] That is not a very helpful answer to my question. When I refer to what my right hon. friend did to arouse public opinion on this question, I am told to wait ten years to see whether somebody else will be more successful than he was. In his lecture about ways and means the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not nearly exhausted the demands made upon our purse. I have been keeping a sort of diary from day to day of the form economies are taking, and up to the present I reckon they will mean an additional expenditure of about £10,000,000 a year. [Cries of "No."] I think they would. The right hon. Gentleman has omitted from his enumeration of expenses the week-end tickets for the Chinese.
  MR. ASQUITH: What do you mean by week-end tickets?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I am repeating the phrase used in another place for return tickets for the Chinese now in South Africa. There is also the Resolution respecting payments in Government establishments. [An HON. MEMBER: A very good thing.] I am not saying it is not a good thing, but it will add to the list of very costly items. I was doing my best to add to the long enumeration the right hon. Gentleman has already given. His enumeration was not complete. When he said that it was proposed to give free meals to underfed children he did injustice to the Bill which was brought before the House, because it was proposed to give meals to all children. [An HON. MEMBER: And to recover the cost from the parents.] I do not think the hon. Member seriously believes that can be done. We are all agreed as to the problem we are hoping to see solved. But how we are to solve it the right hon. Gentleman has not told us. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman knows. I do believe it is incum-
  1346
  bent on the Government to give us a lead on the matter. I hope the hon. Member below the gangway will help us through the initial stage of the matter, that he will help us to see what the Government think on this problem. If any member of the Government will tell us their view on this question I think we shall be glad to pursue our studies and to bring our contribution to the solution of the problem much more easily than we can otherwise do.
  MR. GOOCHsaid he honestly thought that this was the most urgent and pressing of social reforms, and one that would terminate much undeserved misery and suffering Reference was made by the introducer of the Motion to the various steps along the somewhat tedious way which the old age movement had had to tread, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown what formidable obstacles there were to be encountered before anything could be done. He felt that considerable progress towards agreement had been made during these later dull years. The present Parliament had freed itself more than ever from the old cramping and paralysing prejudices against State action, and they were no more afraid of calling in the State to grapple with old age pensions than they were of calling in the State a year ago to deal with the unemployed. He did not support the policy that had been associated for many years with the name of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. He thought he was right in saying that there were only two European countries where a pension system was fully at work—Germany and Denmark. In Germany contributions were required for individuals from the age of seventeen years. Similar amounts were paid by the employers, and the State made an addition. He did not think that the German system was worth all the money spent upon it. The facts and opinions published by Mr. Charles

  1347
  Booth on this subject deserved attention. His own belief was that the example we ought to follow was to be found rather in Denmark than in Germany, and the working of the system in that small and prosperous country should be carefully studied by anyone who had the framing of a measure for pensions for this country. He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that conditions must be introduced as a test of character. Mr. Charles Booth said that the applicant for a pension must have kept free of poor law relief, and from the police courts. In Denmark the fundamental conditions were that the State made the pension outright without any direct contribution from the individual. The recipient was required to show that he had not received poor law relief for ten years before the age of sixty, when he was entitled to make his claim; that he had never been in the police courts; that he proved to the satisfaction of the Pension Commissioners that his reduced financial condition was not due to his own fault—to drink, or to any vice or thrift-lessness on his part, and that his savings did not provide him with more than about £5 per year. There was more elasticity about this system than about the German or the New Zealand systems. When the age of sixty was reached questions were asked which no honest man could object to answer, and the claim for pension had to be backed up by two ratepayers. The applicant had to say if he had any friends or children with whom he could reside. It was astonishing how many people over sixty years of age there were who had no relatives to go to. A very interesting article by Miss Edith Sellers on old-age pensions appeared four years ago in the Nineteenth Century. That lady had gone through a London workhouse, containing 700 inmates, half of whom were invalids. An enormous number of those not invalids had nowhere to go and had no children. The number of people over sixty-five years
  1348
  of age to whom an outdoor pension would have been of any real assistance was extraordinary small. In Denmark the allowance was from 2s. 6d. to 6s. per week, if the pensioners could live with their friends or their children, but for those who had no friends or children with whom they could live homes were provided, the cost of which to the State was about 1s. per day per head, where they lived without restricted rules, not as paupers, but as retired civil servants so to speak. They enjoyed the Parliamentary franchise and were proud of their position, for it was a testimony to good character. He agreed with the right hon. Member for Croydon that the question of thrift was of the utmost importance. The Danish system was introduced in 1891. It had therefore been sixteen years in operation, and so far from the deposits in the savings banks going down, they had gone up considerably; That was a sufficient answer to the doubts which had been expressed that an old-age pension scheme would destroy thrift. If the pension was 10s. or 15s. a week, he admitted that it would destroy thrift, and he would oppose it; but if, as in Denmark, the pension in no case exceeded 6s. a week, he believed that it would be the greatest possible stimulus to thrift, for as it was not possible to live on that amount people would try and save enough to bring them in another half-a-crown a week or so. The only point of the Danish system which would not be applicable here was that part of the pensions was provided by the State and part by the Communes. The State part of the contribution, it was interesting to know, was derived from an extra tax on beer. It was the duty of those who were removed from all apprehension of old-age poverty to endeavour to secure a better state of things for those people who had spent most of their working life in a struggle for existence. The least

  1349
  that we could do for these old people was to see that their latter days were days of contentment and peace.
  MR. SAMUEL ROBERTSsaid that as a Royal Commission and two or three Committees had inquired into this subject the House need not hesitate to come to a decision upon it. The problem to be solved was to do something to alleviate the condition of the aged poor without destroying thrift, which they all knew was going on among the working classes. In 1900 the number of members of friendly societies in the United Kingdom was 11,000,000, in 1903 it had risen to 13,000,000, while the valuation of their capital funds had risen from £39,000,000 to £47,000,000. The number of depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank had doubled in fourteen years, and the amount of their deposits had increased from £67,000,000 to £148,000,000. A statement issued by the Local Government Board showed that there were 253,000 indoor poor in the country, and 547,000 outdoor poor, and one-third of these were sixty-five years of age and upwards. It was quite clear from the inquiries made by the late Mr. Ritchie, and the returns obtained by the hon. Member for Morpeth, that the poverty of those people over sixty-five years of age came almost entirely from their old age, because they could not work and earn wages sufficient to keep them. But another class should be provided for, viz., those who were doing the very best for themselves, and endeavouring to keep themselves and their families off the poor law. The report of the Chaplin Committee went fully into the matter of the conditions which should be imposed on old - age pensioners. He agreed that the applicant for a pension must have a good character, be able to show that for a certain number of years he had not received poor law relief, and that he had endeavoured
  1350
  to make some provision for himself The Chaplin Committee had formed an opinion that it was practical to establish a workable system of old-age pensions in the United Kingdom. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told the House, Mr. Chaplin's Committee estimated that if their scheme were adopted it would cost, in 1901, £10,000,000, and that by the year 1921 the number of pensioners would have so increased that the amount required would be £15,000,000. He maintained that under present conditions such a scheme was impracticable. He suggested that a beginning should be made by a small State contribution of, say, £2,000,000, supplemented by a similar contribution from the local authorities. At all events a beginning might be made by giving pensions to the most deserving. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham himself had said that we should only proceed step by step, and it was only in that way that we should arrive at satisfactory results. He was afraid that this debate must necessarily be of an acamedic character; but he hoped that when the report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law was issued, which he trusted would be before very long, some scheme would be forthcoming for making the lives of our aged poor more humane and more happy than they were at present.
  MR. J. W. WILSONsaid he was glad of the privilege of saying a few words on this subject, and he would endeavour not to cover ground already touched upon by other speakers. From personal experience he thoroughly believed, not only in the form, but in the practicability of old-age pensions. He felt that if the problem had been tackled more largely by manufacturers and employers it would have been found that a pension scheme was not a very heavy matter when spread over a large number of years. If new industrial companies were to set aside

  1351
  2 per cent. of the wages they paid their men they would have ample funds to make pensions to their old people. This was a matter which the State was bound to face, because the regulations which were passed by the House year by year made it more difficult for a man who had passed the prime of life to obtain a re-engagement. If the country did not take up this question the poor law guardians would have to do it, and establish a more extravagant form of relief than old-age pensions would be. Instead of shutting poor people up in large institutions it would be better for them and for the State if they were provided with an old-age pension in a state of independence. Fifty years ago there was more of the old feudal spirit than now, and employers would not let their old work people go to the poor house. Nowadays the case was different, with numerous liability companies, under paid managership. The manager was bound, in the interests of his shareholders, to engage only the best men, and therefore he could not act in that sympathetic, fatherly manner that used to subsist between employer and workman. Whether the problem was to be solved in one way or another, we ought to make a begining. If the finance would not stand old-age pensions at sixty, why should they not make the age sixty-five? But at any rate we ought to make a beginning by which we could gain experience and proceed further if the system was found to work. He appealed to the Government to make use of the information which had been acquired by committees in this country and in foreign countries and the Colonies. They heard a great deal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer tapping new sources of income. He wanted to see this
  1352
  system of old-age pensions hung upon a definite tax and a substantial start made.
  MR. E. EDWARDSsaid that in rising to make his first speech in this House he desired to associate himself with the Resolution moved by the hon. Member opposite, and to emphasise the remarks made by him, which he thought proved that even Labour Members were capable of putting a case before the House. The hon. Member started with a fact which was fairly well known, viz., that industries carried on to-day were not comparable with industries carried on thirty or forty years ago. In these days of trusts and companies the position of the worker in his old age was very different to what it was thirty or forty years ago. He wished to bring before the House the incidents of a trade with which he had been associated since he was nine years of age—the mining industry. He admitted that the right hon. Gentleman opposite gave to the workers of this country a great boon in the Workmen's Compensation Act, but he would suggest that it would have been a wise and statesmanlike measure if that Act had been preceded by an old age pension scheme. With all the advantages of the Workmen's Compensation Act, however, the worker had discovered that he had now much more difficulty in finding employment, not because he was physically unfit to work but because he had grown grey in the service of a particular combination. He should not like to say anything against the character of the great employers of labour or the great colliery owners of the country, for whom he had a high respect. But he recognised that in this highly competitive age limited companies were not so much

  1353
  in touch with the men and had not so much regard for them as the employers of fifty years ago. What happened was that rather than run the risk of having to pay compensation for injury, when a man was advanced in years they quietly gave him fourteen days notice and he was left to drift anywhere in the world. Friendly societies had been referred to, but as one who knew something of their working he wished to point out that the industrious workman who was a member of a trade union or a friendly society—and with all the faults of British workmen there were thousands who struggled to make provision for themselves—found when out of work at fifty, fifty-five or sixty years of age, that the society could not help him. The medical officer declined to grant a certificate for sickness, as the man was physically capable of work. It was not a question of wages, but a question of declining to take the responsibility under the Workmen's Compensation Act when a man was advanced in years, and he wished to emphasise that point as one of the strong reasons why the House should accept the Motion. He had found in many years of life in connection with local government that no one in the world had the least objection to an old age pension, and had no difficulty in getting it if he had a large sum of money behind him and was a highly paid official in the employ of a corporation or the State. The right of pension was never questioned except in the case of a poor man. He was pleased to think that there appeared to be no difference of opinion in the House, at least as to the principle, and he earnestly hoped the question would not be made a Party one. Surely all agreed that it was not creditable to a great civilised nation—a nation that all should be proud of—that so many old
  1354
  men, in the evening of their lives, were found without means of subsistence in a country so wealthy. He would urge on the Government that the question was one which should be taken up, even if some other matters before the country were postponed. It was a question which appealed to everyone on the highest grounds, and should be dealt with with all possible dispatch. As for the necessary funds, he only hoped the nation would be as ready to find them as it was to find the money needed for the war. Whatever was the predominant factor in the election which returned this man or that, there was certainly no question which excited so much interest and sympathy as this. He hoped they would have not only the assurance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but positive evidence that Ministers were ill earnest. Otherwise the Government, strong as it was, might find, at the end of five years, that the public was disappointed. This was one of the questions which the workmen representatives thought should be taken up, if not in this session at all events in the next, and he did not know of anything which would crown a Government with more glory whether Liberal or Unionist, than to have dealt successfully with this problem.
  MR. PIKE PEASEsaid that the hon. Member for Bath had referred to the question of old age pensions in other countries in Europe, and if he (Mr. Pease) might be allowed to say so, it seemed to him that the scheme in vogue in Belgium was the one which might most easily be adopted in this country. In our present state of civilisation it was almost impossible for us not to feel an enormous amount of

  1355
  pity for those who at the ago of sixty or sixty-five years found themselves, through no fault of their own, in a state of pauperism. It had been suggested by the Labour Party that a scheme of old age pensions might be introduced, whereby every man and woman over the age of sixty unable to support themselves would receive the sum of 10s. a week. He believed that the total number of such persons was approximately 3,000,000. If each of these received 10s. a week the total annual expenditure would amount to £78,000,000, or capitalised it would amount to a total sum of two or three thousand millions. The hon. Member for Woolwich thought that 5s. a week would be of very little use and that many people would not feel any richer if they were in receipt of such a sum. In the opinion of the hon. Member for Woolwich, however, many people would feel that they were little better off in the receipt of such a sum than they were under the present poor law system. It seemed to him that they could not arrange any system without exemptions of some kind. There were many people in this country to whom a pension of £26 a year would be useless; and, of course, they would have to take into account the question of State pensioners and as to whether they were eligible to receive old age pensions. It was a fact that about two-thirds of the men and women over sixty years of age were in want and were only kept to a great extent from starvation by the charity of relations. He thought it was extremely necessary that something should be done in the way of relieving this class of the community. Dealing with the subject in a broader sense, he believed that retrenchment might be secured if the Colonies
  1356
  were asked to pay a contribution towards national defence with special application to the Navy. Referring to the question of vagrancy, he certainly hoped the Government would deal with the matter in the near future. Every one knew that there was a large number of persons in this country who were existing at the present time entirely upon charity, and if the Government could deal with them upon the lines of the Report before the House to-day they would be doing something in the way of finding a solution of a most important problem.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): Few debates have been more creditable to the head and the heart of the House than the debate of this evening. There is perhaps a reason for it. We are all getting older, and the necessity of an old age provision dawns upon most of us with greater force as the number of our years increase, while to those in want outside, the approach of old age is not only more serious but a dark tragedy. There is universal sympathy for the condition of the old Burns wrote—
  "Then age and want—oh ill-matched pair."
  Nothing truer has been written or said of poverty in its old age. But the House has to devise some means by which old age shall suffer less want, and the evening of its days shall not be dependent either upon private charity or upon pauperising support out of rates and taxes. The Poor Law Commission sitting is considering this important question, and to some extent the fact that it is sitting impedes the immediate solution of the question by this or by any other Government within

  1357
  the next two or three years. I think that the Government has done wisely in accepting the Resolution, qualified with the provision that means shall he found to attain the end. But the theory of the need for some old age pension is universally endorsed by the House. I have been asked to give details of what the scheme will be like. It is impossible for me to do that, but in my judgment the best, the simplest, and the fairest scheme is the universal scheme put forward by Mr. Charles Booth-By that scheme everybody is to receive a pension irrespective of condition and means. Personally, I would not attach too much importance to character, because I have known many good fellows unable to pass a Sunday school examination, who, in many respects, are as deserving of an old age pension as men who have been regular in their attendance at Sunday school and at church. The best and fairest scheme is, therefore, the universal scheme, starting at 5s. a week at sixty years of age. But, although the fairest and the wisest scheme, it is the costliest. The cheaper, and perhaps more experimental, plan would be to accept the 5s. universal scheme, ruling out those who already receive Army, Navy, Civil Service, and municipal pensions. The total cost would be lightened by nearly £8,000,000 if all these were excluded. There are 170,000 persons who receive these £8,000,000 of public money in the way of pension or retired pay. It is true we should not save anything like all this money by this process, but it would considerably lighten the cost of a universal scheme. Beyond those there are the 30,000 friendly society pensioners, who equally could not be deprived of their pension. I only put forward these figures
  1358
  to show that for certain classes of men who contribute to the wealth of the State provision is made, and made in many cases for people whose services from the reproductive point of view are not so valuable as those of the miner, the engineer, and the carpenter. If this large sum could be used for pensions for retirements and superannuation, then in my judgment there is an equally strong claim, and with many sections of workmen a stronger claim, to sympathetic consideration than some of the sections who receive this large sum of £8,000,000, a considerable portion of which may for an experimental beginning be ruled out of the universal plan when they receive more than a certain amount per annum. I now come to the case of the poor law. There is a little misapprehension about the saving that might be effected in connection with the poor law. In England and Wales last year there were 800,000 men, women, and children dependent upon the poor rate for subsistence. They cost £14,000,000 per annum. Of these nearly 300,000 were sixty-five years and over, and to keep them in and out of the workhouse £6,000,000 is necessary out of the £14,000,000. It must not be assumed, however, that we could deduct from the cost of a universal scheme these £6,000,000 because there are thousands and scores of thousands of the 300,000 who would be infinitely worse off outside the workhouse with 5s. than they are in the workhouse frequently costing the community from 8s. a week in some workhouses, 10s. in aged poor relief homes, up to as much as 16s. or 17s. in the old age infirmary. We must not, therefore, count too much upon saving the larger proportion of the £6,000,000 I have referred to. What is more, I believe the tendency would be to

  1359
  give a smaller number of persons than those included in the universal scheme a larger amount than 5s. outside to look after themselves, and we would have to make the workhouses for the honest, industrious, decent poor more in the nature of almshouses, increasing the happiness and adding to the liberty of their inmates. I know a union in London which has taken the aged couples out of the ordinary workhouse, and put them into an aged couples' home, where they are infinitely better off than they would be living in one room in a poor street where they might be victimised by younger people. In eight cases out of ten where I have made inquiries I have found that the old people would be rather in this aged couples' home than outside with a combined pension of from 15s. to 20s. a week. They have said that to me individually. My view is that, pending the adoption of an old age pensions scheme, the workhouse has to be converted into an almshouse for the aged, giving greater freedom and greater liberty, to be further humanised and brightened, while the infirmaries should be converted into hospitals. Children ought to be kept out of workhouses altogether if possible, and pending an old age pension scheme we want a classification in the existing workhouses so that we can more or less differentiate those classes of people which are neither desirable nor attractive to decent old folk. We have to press on with this pending the adoption of some experimental scheme. We must not forget another fact. We must be careful that the adoption of an old age pension scheme, whether it be large or small, whether universal or limited, does not mask from our attention the fact that many trades and industries are prematurely ageing
  1360
  the men and forcing them into the workhouse or the hospital. To lengthen the health of working life is as desirable as providing for the pensionable period. Consequently with an old age pension we have to do our best to lengthen the life of men, by not allowing the child to force the mother into the workhouse or the mother and the child forcing the father out of the factory on to the streets, and forcing the burden, as we too frequently do, upon the child, the youth, the girl, and the mother, and working the man too hard between twenty and fifty years of age, and between fifty and sixty-five, when he dies, giving him casual work, or forcing him on to a pension scheme or into the workhouse. My view is that whatever is done should not be done according to any cast-iron formula. If we were Latin people we should adopt a universal 5s. a week pension scheme at once, but being Anglo-Saxon, and therefore not prisoners to phrases, the responsibility will be placed upon Ministers of making a commencement upon the scheme. I believe that as soon as the Poor Law Commission reports there will be, with the results of past inquiries, sufficient material with which to make a beginning. Whether we begin with a universal scheme or a modified one with income disqualifications, I do not think we need quarrel about, but the time has arrived for action, and, given the means and opportunity, it is the intention of the Government to do something on this subject. We have reason to be proud of the fact that between 12,000,000 and 13,000,000 of our population are members of 28,000 trade unions and friendly societies with benevolent aims and objects, but the fact is to some extent responsible for the non - introduction of a State or

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  communal old age pension scheme. The excellent provision made by our people out of their means for sickness, accident, and old age has deferred consideration of the question. I believe that trade unionists now realise that, excellent though their objects are, this question falls outside their areas and their power, however good their inclination may be. But we must still keep the workmen in their unions for industrial purposes and in their friendly societies for sick and accident pay and encourage them to identify themselves with the co-operative movement. We have to see that the morale of the British workman is still maintained and his independence buttressed and strengthened. I believe it is possible to do all these things and yet have some form of old age pension scheme to which the man who is too poor to belong to a union has a right to look. At the same time I believe that the British people, with their practical temperament, will bring to bear upon any Government—this Government certainly—sufficient reasonable, disciplined, and well-organised pressure to compel or, better still, to persuade them, as soon as means and opportunities allow, to begin some form of old age pension. I hope we shall have no more inquiries or committees, and that it will not be necessary for either Chancellors of the Exchequer or Presidents of the Local Government Board to give any more pledges, but that they will take opportunity and occasion by the hand and bring a measure of relief to the aged poor who have asked for it for so long and who will not be happy until they have secured it.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAYsaid he should like to claim the indulgence of the House as a
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  new Member, for all through his election campaign he advocated old age pensions, and he accounted it a privilege to be allowed to speak on that subject to-night. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, if he understood him rightly, indicated that it would take two years before they could get an old age pension scheme. It was a world of pities that they must wait for two years while men and women were dying from starvation. He could not help feeling when both sides of the House were unanimous on this subject, as he believed they were, because charity and sympathy were not the monopolies of any one side, that something might be done without waiting for the long period that had been mentioned. He knew the subject was full of difficulties, but difficulties were made for statesmen to overcome. If it were impossible to find money to pay these old age pensions at the age of sixty-five, they might at least make a beginning at a greater age, say seventy-five, or even eighty-five or ninety. The sooner they could do something to mitigate the sufferings of our aged poor the better for the credit of this great country.
  MR. CROOKSsaid he did not want the House to be under the impression that it was ever possible to make a workhouse a home. It never could be done and never would be done. There was not a board of guardians in the United Kingdom that had not done everything to make people happy and contented in the "house." After all, it was but a gilded cage. "Good nursing, good food, good treatment, and a holiday occasionally"—he always said to inmates, "Then you have nothing to complain of." "No, indeed," came the answer; "but it

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  is not home." A little hack room under any circumstances would still be the castle of an Englishman.
  MR. LUPTONsaid the President of the Local Government had delighted the House with his promises of the future, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had delighted them with his great sympathy, but it was surprising how poor they were and how the House could not do what their hearts dictated. The national income was 1,800 million sterling a year, and yet the country was so poor that we could not afford £18,000,000 to save the old people from misery. He thought a beginning might be made at once. The President of the Local Government Board might give instructions which would have that effect. A very slight increase in the amount of outdoor relief given would completely transform the life of the poor in many agricultural districts. In one union the allowance was 3s. 6d. a week and in another 5s.; 1s. 6d. extra made all the difference. They might incidentally remove the electoral disabilities from people receiving outdoor relief and so remove the stigma of pauperism. There might also be some improvements made at once in the conditions of the people in the workhouses. No doubt there would always have to be workhouses. Not every poor person wished to live at home, but there was no reason why the workhouse should not be improved, and a vast improvement could be made for an extra 2d. in the £. The same amount might be added to that which went to the poor outside the workhouse. In this way they would fulfil their promises to a certain extent, and it would make a great deal of difference in the life of these poor people.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolved, "That, in the opinion of this House, a measure is urgently needed in order that out of funds provided by taxation provision can be made for the payment of a pension to all the aged subjects of His Majesty in the United Kingdom."—(Mr. O'Grady.)

  PHARMACY BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Debate arising,
  MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid that at that time of the night the Bill could not be adequately discussed, but on behalf of a number of his constituents he had to protest against a Bill which would interfere with their occupation. So far as he understood the Bill, it practically gave a sort of monopoly to limited companies, which would interfere with those who had many onerous and difficult duties cast upon them. Chemists in various districts of London felt very keenly upon this subject. They said it was an attempt to filch their rights from them—to permit poisons and other commodities to be sold by what could only be called a subterfuge by persons who were not qualified and who had not been subjected to the training and tests of those in private trade.
  And, it being midnight, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed upon Tuesday next.
  Adjourned at three minutes after Twelve o'clock.