Commons Sitting of 20 March 1906

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

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDER 62 COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order No. 62 has been complied with, viz.: — Wandsworth and Putney Gas (Removal of Sulphur Restrictions) Bill.
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS (PETITION FOR ADDITIONAL PROVISION) (STANDING ORDERS NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—Sutton, Southcoates, and Drypool Gas Bill.
  Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  London County Council (General Powers) Bill. Petition for additional Provision; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Resolutions reported from the Select Committee.
  "That, in the case of the Shrewsbury Corporation Water, Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for a Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with. That the parties be permitted to deposit their Petition for a Bill."
  "That, in the case of the Cork City Railways and Works Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with. That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill, provided that the powers of subscription proposed to be conferred upon the London and North

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  Western Railway Company, and the Cork and Macroom Direct Railway Company, and the powers of subscription and guarantee proposed to be conferred upon the County Council of Cork and the Corporation of the City of Cork be struck out of the Bill. That the Committee on the Bill do report how far such Order has been complied with."
  "That, in the case of the Hammersmith, City, and North East London Railway Bill, Petition for dispensing with Standing Order 128 in the case of the Petition of the 'Corporation of the Hall of Arts and Sciences,' against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought to be dispensed with."
  "That, in the case of the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill, Petition for dispensing with Standing Order 128 in the case of the Petition of 'Hampstead Borough Council,' against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought to be dispensed with."
  "That, in the case of the Middlesex County Council (Tramways) Bill, Petition for dispensing with Standing Order 128 in the case of the Petition of 'Hampstead Borough Council,' against the Bill, the said Standing Order ought to be dispensed with."
  Resolutions agreed to.
  Epsom and Ewell Gas Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.

  PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  Petitions against alteration of Law; From Accrington (six); Beaumont; Chaldon Herring (two); Chorlton on Medlock (two); Clifton in Salwick (two); Clitheroe; Coton in the Elms; Cornhill on Tweed; Crawshaw Booth (two); Crowell (two); Dawley; Goathurst; Harlton (two); Higham Dykes; Higher Broughton; Hoole; Humshaugh; Jevington (two); Keyingham (two); Kilmington; Knuzden St. Oswald's; Littte Barford (two); Little Hulton (two); Little Totham; Lullington; Mundesley (two); Manchester; Nelson; Newton;
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  Oswaldtwistle; Pendleton; Pendleton and Mearley; Porthleven; Rawtenstall; St. Oswald's; Salford; Sandford Orcas (two); Scrooby (two); Shiremoor; Tankersley; Thornham; Wentworth, and, West Camel; to lie upon the Table.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  ALIENS ACT, 1905 (REGULATIONS).
  Copy presented of Regulations made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department with regard to the administration of The Aliens Act, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOAN FUND BOARD (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Sixty-eighth Annual Report, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  IRISH LAND ACT, 1903 (REGULATIONS).
  Copy presented, of Regulations made by the Lord-Lieutenant in pursuance of the 'provisions of Section 23 (8) of The Irish Land Act, 1903 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of Order amending Final Order, No. 1130, made under Section 11 (8) of The Education Act,. 1902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904 (CLOSING ORDER, BOROUGH OF STOKE-UPON-TRENT).
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Council of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the Hours of Closing for Barbers' and Hairdressers' Shops within the Borough [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND DEATHS (ENGLAND).
  Copy presented, of General Abstract of Marriages, Births, and Deaths registered in England and Wales in the year 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRAINING COLLEGES FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS.
  Return ordered, "showing for each of the training colleges for elementary teachers, both day and residential, the total amounts received since their foundation for maintenance from (1) (a) voluntary subscription; (b) endowments; (2) students' fees; (3) Exchequer grants."— (Dr. Macnamara.)

  FLEETS (GREAT BRITAIN AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
  On Sir CHARLES DILKE'S moving for a Return showing the Fleets of Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, United States of America, and Japan, on the 31st day of March, 1906, distinguishing:—Battleships, built and building; cruisers, built and building; coast defence vessels, built and building; torpedo vessels, torpedo boat destroyers, torpedo boats, and submarines, built and building. Return to show date of launch, displacement, and armaments reduced to one common scale (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 96, of Session 1905),
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: I object.
  MR. SPEAKER: The Ayes have it.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: May I ask, Sir, if it is not competent for anyone who thinks it injudicious that a Return of this character should be granted, to object?
  MR. SPEAKER: The granting of a Return is a matter which rests with the Department concerned. If the Department agrees it is an unopposed Return.
  Return ordered, "showing the Fleets of Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, United States of America, and Japan, on the 31st day of March, 1906, distinguishing battleships, built and building; cruisers, built and building; coast defence vessels, built and building; torpedo vessels, torpedo boat destroyers, torpedo boats, and submarines, built and building."
  "Return to show date of launch, displacement, and armaments reduced to one common scale (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 96, of Session 1905)."— (Sir Charles Dilke.)

  MANUFACTURED IMPORTS AND EMPLOYMENT.
  Return ordered, "showing, for each of the years from 1860 to 1904, the average percentage of workmen returned by trades unions as not unemployed, the value of the import of articles wholly or mainly manufactured, the yearly increase or decrease in the average percentage of workmen returned by the trades unions as not unemployed, and the yearly increase or decrease in the value of the import of articles wholly or mainly manufactured in the United Kingdom."—(Mr. Bowles.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Dublin Post Office Staff.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that, when on his defence in the Corcoran defalcation case some years ago, the controller of the Dublin sorting office stated that he had not a man on his staff capable of filling the higher positions in his office; and will he lay upon the Table of the House any statements then made by the controller which were reflecting upon the staff under his charge, and which may still be operating against their chances of advancement or promotion.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The Reports and statements in the Corcoran case were fully considered at the time, and I can see no good purpose in reopening the matter after a lapse of five years.

  Post Office Committee—Position of Sub-Postmasters.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the position of sub-postmasters is to be inquired into by the Committee on Post Office Servants.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Yes, Sir. The Committee is asked to report on the remuneration of sub-postmasters.

  Postal Facilities at Burtonport, County Donegal.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he can see his

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  way to arrange for an evening delivery of letters at Burtonport, county Donegal; and also for an outgoing mail service in connection with the train leaving Londonderry at four p.m. via Larne.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Inquiry is being made on this subject, and I will send the honourable Member a reply as soon as it is completed.

  United States Tariffs.
  MR. TORRANCE: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the United States Government have passed a Tariff Bill prejudicing the interest of British shippers of cotton textiles; and whether, in view of the Treaty of Paris, signed with Spain in 1899, he is taking steps to cable our representative in Washington to protest against the Bill being put into operation.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The measure to which the hon. Member no doubt refers proposes to increase the duty upon a certain class of cotton goods imported into the Philippines. The change of tariff classification would apparently apply to imports from all countries, and would not infringe any treaty rights.

  Russia and Immigrants excluded from Great Britain.
  SIR W. EVANS GORDON: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any official denial from the Russian Government that immigrants who were refused admission to this country under the provisions of the Aliens Act were executed without trial on their return home.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) No official Report of such executions having taken place has reached His Majesty's Government, and there has therefore been no question of an official denial by the Russian Government.

  Preferential Treatment of German Shipping at Buenos Ayres.
  MR. HOUSTON: To ask the Secretary of
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  State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that German and other steamers under foreign flags receive preference, in entering the docks at Buenos Ayres, and obtaining discharging berths, over English steamers, and that recently the German steamer "Pontos," although not in port, was given special permission to enter the docks, notwithstanding the late special (Argentine) Government decrees, whilst many British steamers, already in port, were waiting for discharging berths; whether he has received any Report from the British Consul in this connection; and whether he will make representations to the Argentine Government that British vessels shall at least be treated on an equality with vessels of German and other nationalities.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) A Report has been received from His Majesty's Consul respecting the congested state of the docks at Buenos Ayres, and His Majesty's Chargéd' Affaires was instructed to bring about an amelioration of the present state of affairs by such means as might be open to him. If the hon. Member will give me any further details he may have as to the alleged preferential treatment there of steamers under foreign flags, I will cause inquiry to be made. No cases of preferential treatment have been reported to us.

  The Swaziland Protectorate.
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDON: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Swaziland is now regarded by His Majesty's Government as a Dependency of the Transvaal Colony, or as a Protectorate under the direct supervision of the Crown; and whether His Majesty's Government will make the situation clear to the Transvaal authorities and to the Swazi people.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The position of Swaziland is that of a Protectorate, administered by the Governor of the Transvaal Colony, which is responsible for the finances, under the provisions of the Order in Council of June 25th, 1903. See page 57 of House of Commons Return, No. 130, of Session 1905. The Government and Legislature of the Transvaal have not, as such, any

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  authority in Swaziland. The Order in Council was published in the Transvaal and in Swaziland, and the Secretary of State has no doubt that the situation is clearly understood by the Transvaal authorities and by the Swazis, so far as the latter can understand the subtleties of British Constitutional Law.

  Unskilled White Labour in Witwatersrand Mines before and after the introduction of Chinese.
  MR. MOND: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state what was the number of unskilled white workmen employed on the Witwatersrand mines before the arrival of the Chinese coolies; and what is the number of such unskilled white workmen at the present time.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Secretary of State will telegraph for the information. The information asked for in the Return, for which the hon. Member moved on February 22nd, of the number of unskilled white men employed underground, has not yet been received.

  Postal Facilities in Nairnshire.
  MR. A. WILLIAMSON: To ask the Postmaster-General whether representations have been received, requesting increased postal facilities in Nairnshire; and whether he will authorise the establishment of a post office at the village of Little Mill, and a daily delivery of letters to all houses in the neighbourhood.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) An application has been received within the last few days for an improvement in the postal service in the neighbourhood of Little Mill. There has not, however, yet been sufficient time to make full inquiry on the subject, but I will send the hon. Member a reply in due course.

  The Telephone Agreement.
  MR. J. WILLIAMS BENN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether it is the intention of the Government to place before the House the revised agreement, entered into by the Postmaster-General and the National Telephone Company, with respect to the purchase of the company's undertaking in 1911.
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  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have arranged to present to Parliament a copy of the supplemental agreement with the National Telephone Company of August 8th last, which was made in order to-give effect to one of the recommendations of the Select Committee of last Session.

  Appointments as Postmen for Telegraph Messengers and Ex-Soldiers and Sailors.
  MR. DU CROS: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the rule of giving postmen's appointments to senior telegraph messengers and ex-Army or Navy men in rotation is still in force in the provinces, and if the rule also applies to the allotting of substitute duties to cover postmen's vacancies, annual leave, and sick leave.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The Answer to the first part of the hon. Member's Question is in the affirmative. The rule does not apply to the allotting of substitutes.

  Postal Servants' Associations.
  MR. DU CROS: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the notice in the Post Office Circular, No.1702, of February 13th, 1906, granting secretaries of the various postal organisations the right of making representations to the Postmaster-General, is to be regarded as an instruction to postmasters and surveyors to receive and consider communications from secretaries of branches of such organ sations in their districts, relating to the service and affecting members of the class of which the branch of an association is representative; if not, will he issue instructions for this to be done, in order that the postal organisations may be fully recognised.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The secretaries of the branches of the various postal organisations are at liberty to make, to postmasters and surveyors, representations relating to the service and affecting the class of which the branch of an association is representative. In regard, however, to matters solely affecting an individual, and not his class or branch of the service, the appeal is to come from the individual himself.

  Salaries of Bradford Education Officials.
  MR. ALFRED HUTTON: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the Bradford City Council has declined to pay the annual increases in salary due to their officials in the education office, increases which arise under the scale and are part of the contract made by the defunct school board; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I am informed that, subject to certain exceptions, the Bradford City Council have not adopted the recommendations made to them by their education committee to advance the salaries of the official staff in accordance with a fixed scale. The scale I understand to be that upon which the officers were appointed or their salaries were fixed by the late school board. I lave no authority to take action in the matter, but I learn from the town clerk that he has recently reported to the finance and general purposes committee of the council to the effect that, in his opinion, the officers are legally entitled to these fixed increases of salary. He adds that this opinion has not yet been considered by the education committee, or the council sitting as the education authority.

  Unemployed Committees and Ex-Soldiers and Sailors.
  MR. CLAUDE HAY: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Central Unemployed Committee for London on January 5th last requested, by letter to the Local Government Board, that such facilities as the employment register may afford for obtaining employment without outlay by the central body, be extended to ex-soldiers and ex-sailors within twelve months after completion of their term of service, even though, by reason of their service in the Army or in the Navy, they may not possess twelve months residential qualification, and that such soldiers and sailors were discharged with characters marked as good, and that they have resided for at least ninety days previous to their application for employment in the district served by the district committee concerned, provided
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  that the Local Government Board consents to make a uniform regulation to this effect throughout the country; and whether he has acceded to this request by the issue of a regulation, or otherwise, applicable to the whole country, so that unemployment relief should be available for ex-soldiers and ex-sailors without involving a burden upon London ratepayers.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I have no power to make a regulation which would enable the central body to give assistance under the Unemployed Workmen Act to ex-soldiers and ex-sailors who do not possess the residential qualification prescribed by the Act. Legislation would be necessary for this purpose. Without any regulation these men can avail themselves of labour exchanges and distress committees, and their officers can afford them information as to vacant situations. I will address a communication to the central body on this subject.

  Ventilation of Pimlico Army Clothing Factory.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Home Office can further press the War Office to communicate at once to the Home Office the plan of improved ventilation for the Pimlico Clothing Factory long promised and delayed.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I have already written to the War Office asking what progress is being made.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is now able to fix a date at which the Army Council will communicate to the Home Office the nature of the improved system of ventilation for the Pimlico Clothing Factory.
  (Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) Every effort is being made to expedite the presentation of these plans, but I am unable at present to fix a definite date.

  Visits of Women Inspectors to Pimlico Army Clothing Factory.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether His Majesty's women

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  inspectors have free access to the Pimlico Clothing Factory; and whether he can arrange for more frequent visits.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part of the Question, there are no special grounds, I understand, part from the question of ventilation, which has already been the subject of inquiry by the Factory Department, for increased inspection of this factory, having regard to the heavy demands on a limited staff.

  Famine Belief in India.
  MR. T. HART-DAVIES: To ask the Secretary of State for India what are the total numbers of persons

  On works.

  Gratuitously relieved.

  Total.

  Ajmer

  22,671

  1,223

  23,894

  Merwara

  23,923

  2,626

  26,549

  Bijapur

  1,697

  4,125

  5,822

  Sholapur

  951

  303

  1,254

  Belgaum

  3,385

  3,316

  6,701

  Total

  52,627

  11,593

  64,220

  The total number of persons on works or gratuitously relieved in India in

  On works.

  Gratuitously relieved.

  Total.

  British India

  155,302

  32,312

  187,614

  Native States

  81,771

  13,482

  95,253

  Total

  237,073

  45,794

  282,867

  On the Commission's Report being published, the preparation of programmes of village works was taken in hand in
  on famine relief works or obtaining gratuitous relief, and the numbers of such persons in the districts of Ajmere, Marwarra, Bijapur, Sholapur, and Belgaum, respectively; whether any village water-storage works, as distinguished from large irrigation schemes, have been constructed in those districts since the Irrigation Commission's Report was published; and whether the Agricultural Department has been able to promote to any appreciable extent the cultivation of drought-resisting plants suitable for providing cattle with fodder.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) According to the latest Returns, the number of persons on famine relief works or obtaining gratuitous relief in the five districts are, respectively, as follows:—
  cluding Native States, on the same date was:—
  these and other districts by the revenue authorities, the more important schemes in the programmes being referred for

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  further examination to the Public Works Department. I am unable to say how many village works have actually been constructed. They are for the most part of limited public utility, and in ordinary times would not be executed from general revenues, but by private individuals, the village community, or the district board. In years of drought they form useful relief works, on which the State can find employment for the people. In the present season they are being so utilised. The agricultural departments in the several provinces are conducting experiments with a number of drought-resisting plants, but so far without marked success

  County Clare, Police Force.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, why the police prevented the fife and drum band of O'Callaghan's Mills playing on the 28th February; whether he can state why the number of police in this district of Clare has been increased recently; and why a large force was drafted into O'Callaghan's Mills on 11th March.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed by the Inspector-General that the police did not prevent the band in question from playing until it reached a point, at a considerable distance from O'Callaghan's Mill, where it was feared that intimidation might result. Several months ago, the police force at O'Callaghan's Mills and Broadford stations was increased by three and two men, respectively, because there had been signs of trouble in those districts. An extra force of six policemen, and no more, was sent to O'Callaghan's Mills on Sunday the 11th March in order to prevent a recurrence of disorderly conduct which had occurred in the village on the preceding Sunday.

  The Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. SAMUEL YOUNG: To ask the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can state the number of the Royal Irish Constabulary in active service in Ireland and the cost, and the number of pensioners and the cost; and whether the reduction of the force is contemplated.
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  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I beg to refer the hon. Member to the Estimates for the coming year, which show that 9,978 officers and men are to be provided for the total net cost, exclusive of pensions and gratuities, being, £923,862. The same Estimates show the present number of pensioners to be 7,736, and the amount of their pensions £379,676. A considerable reduction in the number and cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary has been effected in recent years. The question of further reducing the force has been and is under my consideration.

  Prisoners in Irish Prisons
  MR. GINNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the average aggregate number of prisoners detained in all Irish prisons during each of the last three years.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The average total number of prisoners confined in all Irish prisons, convict and local, during the last three years, was as follows:—In 1903, 2,557; 1904, 2,574; 1905, 2,605.

  Irish Tenders for War Office Contracts.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether arrangements will be made to establish a depot in Dublin for the reception of samples arising from tenders of articles to be supplied to the Government Departments in Ireland.
  (Answered by Mr. Buchanan.) It is understood that the hon. Member is desirous that patterns or samples should be exhibited in Dublin to guide firms in tendering for such articles as it may be decided to obtain locally for Army use. Samples of stores are available for inspection in Dublin for all articles which are tendered for delivery in Ireland.

  Supply of Water for East Pier, Kingstown
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will say how many days per week a family named Rice supplied the water to the Battery, East Pier, Kingstown, at 1s. 6d. per day; whether, seeing that they were

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  prosecuted at the instance of the Kingstown Urban District Council for supplying water without payment, their services have been dispensed with; and if any compensation has been given.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This family supplied the water three days a week at 1s. 6d. per 48 gallons per diem. Their services have been temporarily dispensed with, pending further action on the part of the district council. No compensation has been given to them.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the fresh water supplied to the East Pier Battery, Kingstown, is conveyed from Marlborough Barracks, Dublin, by the Army Service Corps in tanks drawn by two horses; and whether, seeing that water can be procured in Kingstown at a charge of £5 per annum, he will say whether anything is paid to the Dublin Corporation for the water; what is the cost per diem for two men, two horses, and cart to convey the water; whether any saving has been effected; and what is the distance from Marlborough Barracks to Kingstown.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The fresh water supplied to this battery is being so conveyed by the Army Service Corps. No expense is incurred thereby, as the two men, two horses, and cart so employed are engaged on ordinary Army Service Corps duties. Payment is being made to the Dublin Corporation for the water at the rate of 4d. per 1,000 gallons. A temporary saving has been effected by this mode of supply. The distance from the Royal Barracks to Kingstown is six miles. An arrangement has now been made by which water will be supplied from Kingstown to the battery.

  Capacity of Ex-Soldiers to serve in Home Defence Army.
  MR. MOND: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can state what is the number of men in the United Kingdom, whose age does not exceed forty-five, who have passed through the Army and Reserve, and no longer constitute any part of His Majesty's regular
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  forces; and whether he can state what number of such men are physically capable of serving in a Home defence Army.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) No statistics are maintained of ex-soldiers, other than pensioners, who have passed through the Army and the Reserve. It is regretted, therefore, that it is not practicable to give my hon. friend the information he requires.

  Prosecutions under the Education Act
  MR. BARKER: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that prosecutions continue to be taken against persons holding conscientious objections to the Education Bill of the late Government; and whether he will cause steps to be taken to stop further prosecutions, pending the introduction of the Education Bill of the Government.
  (Answered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.) I am aware of the fact that prosecutions continue to be brought against persons holding conscientious objections to the Education Act of 1902, and I much regret it; but I do not see how the Government can interfere in the matter pending the introduction of the Education Bill.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Germany and the Welsh Coal Fields.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any official information as to the purchase by Germans of two more anthracite collieries in South Wales; and whether he will consider the advisability of introducing legislation to prevent the transfer of coal mines to foreigners, with a view to preserving supplies of coal necessary for the Royal Navy.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): I have nothing to add to the Answer given by the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for Mid Armagh yesterday.†
    †See page 99.
    MR. FELL: There was further information in this morning's paper.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is not entitled to make a statement.

    Dartmouth Naval Cadets.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty will direct a ballot to be taken of the 418 cadets at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and the new system cadets now at Dartmouth, in order to ascertain how many, if any, intend to volunteer for the engineering branch; and whether he will state the result to the House.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: It is not considered necessary to take the course suggested by my hon. friend.
    MR. BELLAIRSasked how the right hon. Gentleman proposed to get over the disinclination of these boys to join the engineering branch.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I do not know that there is any such disinclination.

    Tristan Da Cunha.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what was the last occasion on which one of His Majesty's ships was despatched from the Cape to Tristan da Cunha, with mails and parcels for the islanders.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The last occasion was in January, 1904, when H.M.S. "Odin" carried out this service from the Cape.
    MR. ASHLEYasked whether it was not a fact that a petition had been presented to the Governor of Cape Colony by relatives of the islanders asking that a ship might be sent at an early opportunity to enable them to communicate with the islanders.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was not able to answer that Question.

    Defence of the Mersey.
    MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, on
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    Saturday, February 24th last, a preliminary practice of mobilisation for the defence of the Mersey was carried out under the direction of Colonel Kelly, R.E., and that four Volunteer battalions were extended on the two shores of the Mersey, and were under arms from 1.30 p.m. to 11.30 p.m., and that the whole of these troops were supplied with ball cartridge for the purpose of these manœuvres; and whether he will, in the future, take stops to prevent such a danger to the public.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): It is considered that mobilisation practice in coast defence work should approximate as nearly as possible to service conditions. These conditions entail practice in drawing the necessary ammunition. Special instructions were issued to guard against any danger to the public. I think that the Volunteers may be trusted to prevent men firing ball cartridge indiscriminately and without orders.

    Small Arms Factory.
    MR. ABEL SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what orders are likely to be given to the sword and bayonet department of the small arms factory during the current financial year.
    MR. HALDANE: The patterns of both sword and bayonet are under consideration, and no manufacture of existing patterns is contemplated pending decision.
    MR. ABEL SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War how many short rifles is it proposed to manufacture during the current financial year, and what proportion of that number will be allotted to the Enfield Small Arms Factory.
    MR. HALDANE: The allocation of orders has not yet been settled.

    West Indian Colonial Constitution.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in connection with recent labour troubles in the West Indies, his attention has been called to differences existing in various West Indian islands, between the Government and representatives of the

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    population occupying elective situations; and whether the Colonial Office will consider the wisdom of taking steps to revise the existing constitutions of several of the West Indian colonies in the direction of greater recognition of the interests of the working majority of the population.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,: The recent labour troubles in Demerara, to which my right hon. friend presumably refers, were not the outcome of political differences; and, having regard to the peculiar racial conditions of the West Indies, His Majesty's Government are not satisfied that the extension of elective institutions would be likely to conduce to the prosperity or tranquillity of the population. The constitutions of the Colonies have been so frequently, and in some cases, so recently revised, that it is not considered expedient to undertake further experimental changes at present unless special occasion should arise.

    Re-enlistment of Chinese Coolies.
    DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether re-enlistment for a further period of three years of Chinese coolies, now engaged under the Transvaal Labour Ordinance, will, under any circumstances, be possible, if responsible self-government be granted before the first batch of licences expire in May, 1907; and whether re-enlistment will be possible in the case of licences expiring before responsible self-government be set up.
    MR. CHURCHILL: It is most improbable that any of the existing licences will expire before the Transvaal has become a responsible self-governing colony. After the grant of self-government is complete, re-enlistment, like further importation, will be permitted only if the Transvaal Assembly pass a new Ordinance in respect of Chinese labour which commands the assent of the Imperial Government.
    DR. MACNAMARA: Do I understand that re-enlistment will not be possible under the existing Ordinance after local self-government has been granted?
    MR. CHURCHILL: Re-enlistment under the existing Ordinance will, of course, not be possible. The whole matter will be reconsidered by the new Assembly and every circumstance will be subject to the general review of the Home Government.

    Kaffir Outrages at Pietermaritzburg.
    MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the number of outrages by Kaffirs on white women and children in Pieter maritzburg; and will he say what steps have been taken to put an end to this state of things.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The attention of the Secretary of State has not been called to this matter. It is for the Courts of the Colony to deal with such cases under the law of the land.

    Flogging of Kaffir Servants by Boers.
    MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps he intends to take to compel the Boers to discontinue the use of the sambok in flogging their Kaffir servants; and if he will consider the possibility of making the sambok an illegal weapon.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The law at present imposes penalties on the employer for assault on his servant, and the Secretary of State is not aware that adequate cause has been shown for further legal provision.

    Manchuria.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information with reference to the evacuation of Manchuria by the Russian army.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): According to the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5th, 1905, the evacuation of Manchuria by the armies of Russia and Japan was to commence immediately after that date, and was to be completed within a period of eighteen months. The St. Petersburg Press reports

    215
    that the evacuation by Russian troops is proceeding.

    Illegal Flogging of Chinese Coolies
    DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the letter from the Chinese Legation, dated February 11th, 1904, pages 3 and 4, Cd. 1945, in which the Chinese Government insists that it shall not be legal to inflict corporal punishment upon Chinese coolies working under the Labour Ordinance in the Transvaal mines; whether his attention has been called to the assurance of the Colonial Office, dated February 15th, 1904, page 5, Cd. 1945, that this requirement shall be respected; whether it is now admitted that under Lord Milner's sanction this undertaking was violated; and, if so, what communication, if any, he proposes to make to the Chinese Government respecting the matter.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The Chinese asked that a special regulation should be made to prevent corporal punishment of the immigrant by the employer or his servant. This was considered to be sufficiently provided for by the fact that any labourers imported would be amen able to the law of the land, under which no corporal punishment could be inflicted except after trial and sentence by a magistrate or judge, and a special regulation was therefore held to be unnecessary. The extent to which this undertaking was infringed has now been publicly explained and admitted. The Chinese Government have made no communication on the subject; should they do so, His Majesty's Government will be prepared to give them a full statement of what has occurred and to repeat the assurance that nothing of the kind shall be repeated.

    Congo Inquiry Report.
    MR. J. R. MACDONALD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can say if the Report of the second commission of inquiry into the conditions of the Congo is now ready; and, if so, whether he proposes to press that a copy of the full Report should be communicated to His Majesty's Government and laid upon the Table of this House.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The Report has not been published, but I understand that the recommendations which it contains are likely to be embodied immediately in enactments which we have reason to believe will be published next month.

    National Repertory Theatre.
    MR. W. F. D. SMITH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has been requested to grant an annual subsidy towards the permanent establishment of a national repertory theatre, in connection with a scheme suggested by Mr. Walter Stephens; and, if so, can he state the answer given to the request.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,): My reply to the representations made to me by Mr. Stephens on this subject was that, regard being had to the large number of objects of much more pressing national importance for which funds are required, the Government would not, in my opinion, be justified in asking Parliament to sub-sidise such a scheme.

    Lancashire County Court Clerks.
    MR. SEDDON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will give a Return stating the number of junior clerks engaged in the county courts of Lancashire, salaries paid, length of service, and method of promotion; also whether salaries are progressive.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA,): Clerks in county courts, whether in Lancashire or elsewhere, are in the personal employment of the Registrars. The Treasury has no information from which a Return could be compiled giving the particulars asked for.
    MR. BELLOC: Is it in tended to put these on the same footing as other civil servants?
    MR. MCKENNA: They are not civil servants.

    Passive Resisters
    LORD TURNOUR: I beg to ask the President of the Board

    217
    of Education if he will state the number of persons whose goods were distrained upon owing to objections to paying the Education Rate during the years 1903, 1904, and 1905.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): I am aware of the fact that prosecutions continue to be brought against persons holding conscientious objections to the Education Act of 1902, and I much regret it; but I do not see how the Government can interfere in the matter pending the introduction of the Education Bill.

    Workmen's Compensation Acts.
    MR. HENRY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the intention in the Bill to be submitted for amending the Workmen's Compensation Acts, to make provision that compensation should be extended to men and women who may contract injuries to health at their work through lead poisoning, gases, from anthrax, or other causes.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I hope to introduce the Workmen's Compensation Bill early next week. With my hon. friend's permission I will defer answering his Question till then.

    Shop Hours Act,
    MR. SEDDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give a Return giving the number of local orders issued under the Shop Hours Act of 1904, and what trades are included; and whether any orders have been made covering the whole of the trades in any particular town or area.
    MR. GLADSTONE: All Closing Orders under the Shop Hours Act are, when confirmed, laid before Parliament and are included in the lists issued as supplements to the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons. I think, therefore, that a Return is unnecessary, but I can give the hon. Member a list compiled in my own Department, if he desires. I may say that forty-nine orders have been confirmed in England and Wales, and that the great majority of these relate to the trade of barber or hairdresser. No order applying to all
    218
    trades in a locality has yet been submitted for confirmation. As regards Scotland and Ireland, I must refer the hon. Member to the Departments responsible.

    Aliens Act.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the deaf and dumb alien, who was allowed to land because it was impossible to ascertain his country, or whether he was not a political refugee, is now in a workhouse; and, if so, what union is supporting him, and what steps he proposes to take in the matter.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I fear that I cannot identify the case to which the hon. Member refers. If it is the man whom I think, my information is that he is a Polish Jew, and the latest information was that he was wandering about the country.

    Lunatic Asylum Attendants' Hours of Duty.
    MR. PARKER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the number of working hours, ranging from fourteen to sixteen hours per day, worked by asylum attendants, and the percentage of these attendants who ultimately suffer from lunacy; and whether he is prepared to cause an inquiry to be made into the subject.
    MR. GLADSTONE: My attention has not been called to this matter, but I will cause inquiry to be made from the Lunacy Commissioners.

    Accidents on the District Railway.
    LORD CASTLEREAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the public inconvenience caused by repeated breakdowns and stoppages on the District Railway; whether he can say what these occurrences arise from; and whether he will use his influence with the company to secure the provision of plant and rolling stock which will insure the proper running of the trains.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): Yes, Sir, I am aware that

    219
    the public have suffered inconvenience from the circumstances to which the noble Lord draws attention, and I have communicated with the Railway Company, who have expressed their great regret for these delays, and the consequent disturbance of the train service. They state that it has been a task of very great difficulty to substitute electric for steam traction on the whole of the District Railway, and on other allied and connected lines; to increase the frequency and speed of the train services; to put into service an entire new equipment of rolling stock, and at the same time to introduce a complete system of automatic signalling, without interrupting the train service for a single day. It is added that the difficulties are being steadily overcome, and that the number of delays has now been greatly reduced. The company explains that the stoppages and delays have been mainly caused by a number of small (remediable) defects, in the mechanical and electrical equipments, and by the necessity of training, by experience, in new work a large number of men in various grades. They are making every effort to remedy the defects, and hope that the train services will soon be worked with no more than the normal percentage of failures, which must occur on every railway on which a train mileage of such density is run.

    Freight Rates to South Africa.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the freight rate from the United States of America to South Africa for agricultural machinery is 17s. 6d. a ton, whereas from this country it is 40s. per ton; that the average freight rates from the United States of America is 33⅓ less than the freight charged from this country; whether this has caused South African trade, especially in Cape Colony, to decline by 2 ½ per cent., whereas for the same period foreign trade with the same Colony has increased by 25 per cent.; whether this is due to the monopoly secured by the shipping ring, particularly the Union-Castle Company; and what action he proposes taking to remove this handicap from British trade with the South African Colonies.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have compared the figures quoted with the infor-
    220
    mation on this subject in the possession of the Board of Trade, and I find that my hon. friend has been misinformed as to the figures he quotes, and the deductions which he draws from them are therefore probably erroneous. I have communicated with the Union-Castle and other lines interested. They say the tariff rates for agricultural machinery are as follows:—

    From the United Kingdom.

    Cape Town.

    Algoa Bay.

    East London.

    Natal.

    Delagoa Bay.

    25s.

    25s.

    32s.

    6d.

    32s.

    6d.

    35s.

    From United States of America.

    25s.

    27s.

    6d.

    30s.

    32s.

    6d.

    40s.

    On the whole therefore these rates are in favour of the United Kingdom. The whole question of South African freights is under the consideration of the Government.

    Electricity Provisional Orders.
    DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will grant a Return showing the appeals to the Board of Trade in respect of Provisional Orders for electricity purposes by local authorities and companies during the ten years ended March, 1906, and also particulars of the names of local authorities and companies, objects of applications in appeals, dates when made, and decisions of the Board of Trade respecting them.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I shall be pleased to communicate with my hon. friend with the object of meeting his wishes, if possible.

    Railway Brakes and Couplings.
    MR. BELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will take an early opportunity of appointing a Statutory Committee, representing the railway companies, Board of Trade, and railway employees, to examine and select automatic couplings and either-side brakes for railway trucks, and arrange for experiments with such couplings and brakes, in accordance with Section 15, Sub-sections 1, 2, and 3 of The Railway Employment (Prevention of Accidents) Act, 1900, with a view to their adoption.
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes, Sir, steps will be taken to set up such a Committee at an early date, and I hope it may be possible to constitute it somewhat in the manner suggested.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of enabling the Committee to test practically designs submitted by railway employees, who necessarily have the best knowledge of what is required, but who in most cases have not the necessary means to enable them to give a practical full-scale demonstration of their inventions?
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Of course; that is the object of the Committee.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: Have you the sanction of the Treasury to spend any money on this?
    MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes. I have the sanction of the Treasury to expend a certain sum of money upon practical experiments.

    Isle of Dogs.
    MR. BROOKE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Millwall Dock Company has for a number of years been in the habit of depositing dredged material on land in the Isle of Dogs closely adjacent to inhabited houses; whether, in view of the continual protest made by residents of these houses and the inhabitants of the Isle of Dogs generally against such deposits, as a menace to health, as a source of offensive odours, and a danger to the adjoining property, he will urge upon the Millwall Dock Company their obligation to cease and discontinue these deposits of the dredgings of their docks on the said land; and whether he will consider the desirability of using the opportunity afforded by the Millwall Dock (Superfluous Lands) and London and India Docks, and Millwall Dock Companies (Amalgamation) Bills for making provision to secure this object.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): My attention has been called to this matter. I understand
    222
    that the Company in 1898 expressed their willingness to discontinue the practice of depositing dredged material on the land referred to if detriment to the public health could be shown, but that up to the present time no sufficient evidence in support of the contention that the deposit is a menace to health has been obtained. I have no control over the Company, and I do not think that I could take action with a view of giving effect to the suggestion in the last paragraph of the Question.

    Australian Mail Service.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State to the Colonies if he will state what are the arrangements of the Government as to the Australian mail service, and when the present mail contract ceases; and whether the Commonwealth Government have made any arrangements with the Home Government on the subject of the carriage of mails for the future.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr SYDNEY BUXTON,): Perhaps I may be allowed to answer this Question. The arrangements are as follows:—Under a contract with the Peninsula and Oriental Company for a mail service to and from India, China and Australia; a fortnightly service is provided by His Majesty's Government to and from Australia; and under a contract with the Oriental Company an alternating fortnightly service in both directions is provided by the Australian Government. Both contracts expire on January 31st, 1908. The Commonwealth Government have made no arrangements with the Home Government on the subject of the carriage of mails after that date.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Am I to understand that the contract with the Peninsula and Oriental Company is entirely paid for by the British Government and that with the Oriental Company by he Commonwealth Government?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: That is substantially the case.

    Postal Inquiry.
    MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD): I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he will give a

    223
    schedule of the various classes of employees in his Department whose case can be argued before the Select Committee.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It is for the Committee to decide what classes of Post Office servants are covered by the reference.
    MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: Is it not competent for the Postmaster-General to state what classes he proposes to include in the inquiry?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It is for the Committee to interpret the terms of reference.

    Lord Stanley's Revision.
    MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he can state whether the scheme for re-organisation of officers, promised by Lord Stanley, is yet completed, and when it is likely to be made public.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Before framing the scheme of reclassification to which the hon. Members refers, it was necessary to ascertain the comparative cost of living in various localities. This involved prolonged and detailed inquiry, which is not yet completed.

    Mr. Donald Murray.
    MR. WARDLE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if the Electrical Engineer (unestablished) referred to in the Revenue Department Estimates, page 114, is Mr. Donald Murray, the inventor of the Murray telegraph system and if so, does Mr. Murray receive a salary of £500 from the Government; and further, what steps have been taken to ensure that the experience thus gained shall not be used to the advantage of foreign Governments.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The reply to the first two Questions is in the affirmative. No steps have been taken in the direction indicated. Telegraph administrations all over the world freely place their experience at the disposal of each other; their interest in efficient telegraphy is one and the same.

    Sheep Scab in East Yorkshire.
    MR. STANLEY WILSON: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that there is no sheep scab in the East Riding of Yorkshire; and whether he will, therefore, consider the advisability of excluding it from a compulsory sheep-dipping order.
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: My noble friend received a deputation from the East Riding County Council on this subject last week, and the representations they made are now under consideration.

    Rotherham Pupil Teacher's Dismissal.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he has asked the Rotherham Borough Council, or the Committee, for an explanation of their action in connection with the dismissal of Miss Turner, a pupil teacher, for refusing to remove an engagement ring from her finger, at the bidding of Miss Hodge, one of the mistresses; what explanation do they offer for their treatment of this young lady; whether he is aware that, when ordered to remove the ring, Miss Turner stated that she was wearing it with the sanction of her parents, and that she did not recognise the authority of any one else to order her to remove it; whether there is any rule prohibiting the wearing of engagement rings in the pupil teacher centre, Rotherham; and whether he will recommend that Miss Turner be reinstated in her position, where she gave five years service, or that adequate compensation be given her for the loss of her employment.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,): I have communicated with the Rotherham Borough Council, and I am informed that technically Miss Turner was not dismissed, but that the borough council took advantage of the clause in her agreement under which the agreement might be terminated by either party at any time, without assigning cause, on the payment of £5. Her wages were also paid up to date. No interference is possible on the part of the Board.

    Members' Hair Dressing Room.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he is aware that the Members of the House consider that the charges in the hair-dressing department are too high; and whether he can do anything to reduce them.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT,): Yes; my attention has been called to this matter and, as I find that that piece of patronage is in my gift, I have been able to secure an immediate reduction of all the charges by one-half.

    Dunblane Police Court
    MR. ERSKINE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been directed to the fact that the burgh of Dunblane has, in respect of their powers under Act of Parliament, set up a police court in the said burgh; whether he is aware that the county council of Perthshire has been applied to for, and has refused to supply, the necessary police assistance (such as it affords to other burgh police courts in the county) to enable the business of the said court to be carried on, with the result that it is impossible to adequately prosecute the police offences that are committed within the said burgh; and whether he will take such steps, by legislation or otherwise, as may be necessary to bring this state of matters to an end.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): I understand that the burgh of Dunblane has set up a police court and has applied for the assistance of the police in connection with it to the county council, but these two authorities have not come to terms on the question. I am advised by the present Lord Advocate, who concurs with an opinion of Lord Advocate Graham Murray, expressed on the same subject, that neither the Lord Advocate nor the Secretary for Scotland has any authority to intervene, and I do not therefore propose to take any further steps in the matter.

    Oysterbed Quay, Sneem.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a storehouse is very much required
    226
    on Oysterbed Quay, at Sneem, county Kerry; and whether in view of the fact that all opposition on the part of the landlord to its erection has been withdrawn, and that, owing to the absence of a storehouse, this quay is very little used, the Congested Districts Board will undertake to erect one.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE,): The Congested Districts Board are aware that a storehouse on Sneem Pier is needed, but as only one steamer trades to Sneem, the Board are of opinion that the owners should provide their own store. The Board, moreover, have been advised that they have no power to give a site for a building on the pier which they have constructed, even if the space were sufficient, which it is not; and they are not the owners of the adjacent land.

    Warden Estate, Sneem.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the cause of the delay on the part of the Estates Commissioners in sanctioning the sale of the Warden estate, at Sneem, county Kerry; whether it is intended that the townlands of Druminamore, Druminabeg, and the village of Sneem, will be included in the sale; and whether, in carrying out improvements on the estate, the Commissioners will make a new road at Dereen-avarrig, to which the attention of the Congested Districts Board has been frequently called in past years.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners are negotiating with the owners for the purchase of the estate mentioned, but the completion of the purchase is awaiting the decision of the Judicial Commissioners upon a point of law which has been raised. The proposed purchase does not include the townlands of Druminamore, Druminabeg, or the village of Sneem. If the Commissioners should purchase the property, they will consider the question of making the new road referred to.

    Commitments for Contempt of Court.
    MR. DILLON: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Sligo I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his

    227
    attention has been directed to proceedings in the Land Judge's Court in Dublin, on March 9th, when attachments had been issued against Thomas J. Smith, J.P., Joseph Mulligan, and Terence Fitzpatrick; whether he is aware that the three defendants named were charged with a criminal offence, and pleaded not guilty, and demanded, through their counsel, a trial in accordance with constitutional usage; and whether, seeing that there is no appeal from the order made sentencing the defendants to unlimited terms of imprisonment, and that under that order they may be kept in prison for life unless they plead guilty of a charge which they deny having committed, he proposes to introduce legislation to deal with the matter.
    MR. BRYCE: I beg to refer to my replies to previous Questions on this subject on Thursday last. I understand that these persons were charged with contempt of court in taking part in an unlawful assembly, the object of which was alleged to be to intimidate the holder of a farm which is under the control of the Court. I am informed that there is no constitutional usage which requires trial by jury to be had in such cases. I understand that the law in these matters is the same in England as in Ireland. There is no intention of introducing separate legislation for Ireland.
    MR. DILLON: Then are the Irish Government prepared to acquiesce in a system which allows a Judge on the affidavit of an interested person to imprison a man for life?
    MR. BRYCE: I cannot make any statement as to altering the law until I have considered the point. It is the same in both countries.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: It is not administered in the same way.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman refer to the declaration of Mr. Gladstone that legislation ought to be introduced on this question.
    MR. BRYCE: Yes, if you give me the date.
    See (4) Debates, cliii.,1383.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: October, 1882, in this House.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: Does the Lord Chancellor propose to remove Mr. Smith's name from the Commission of the Peace?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Seed Potato Supply Loans.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is prepared to recommend that a lower rate of interest than the 3½ per cent. mentioned shall be payable to the Board of Works under the Seed Potatoes Supply (Ireland) Bill.
    MR. BRYCE: The rate of interest, namely 3½ per cent., provided for in the Seed Potatoes Supply (Ireland) Bill, was fixed when the loans were advanced as being the lowest rate at which the loans could be made without loss. I may, however, remind the hon. Member that the Department of Agriculture has made a grant in aid of these seed supply operations which will cover the interest on all the loans nearly twice over.

    Section 7 of the Irish Land Act.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the latest Return disclosing the fact that 2,221 tenants and thirty-eight sub-tenants have been deprived of their tenancies during the year 1905 under Section 7 of the Land Act; and whether, in view of the fact that these persons have lost all right under the various Land Acts passed with a view to settle the Irish land question, the Government will bring in a short Bill during the present session repealing the said section.
    MR. BRYCE: The numbers of tenants and sub-tenants upon whom eviction notices under Section 7 of the Land Law Act 1887 were served in the year 1905, are correctly stated in the Question. The great majority of such persons are not ultimately deprived of their tenancies, and do not lose their rights under the various Land Acts. The section quoted provides a right of redemption which may be exercised within a period of six months; and upon the exercise of such

    229
    power of redemption all rights are restored to the tenant. The numbers of tenants and sub-tenants actually dispossessed from their holdings under the section quoted during the year 1905, were ninety-six and five, respectively, that is, less than 5 per cent. of the number served with eviction notices. I am advised that a repeal of the section might prove to be an injury rather than a benefit to the tenants concerned, seeing that it might involve the actual eviction of tenants who, from any temporary cause, were unable to pay their rents.
    MR. FLYNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of those who were prominently connected with the enactment of Section 7 have since expressed their strong condemnation of it—for instance, the hon. Member for South Tyrone?
    MR. BRYCE: I am not aware of that, but I may say my right hon. friend the Attorney-General for Ireland thinks it very doubtful whether an amendment of the law would really benefit the tenants.

    Dr. Ellis's Surcharges.
    MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the action of Dr. Ellis, the Local Government Board auditor, who has recently surcharged six urban councillors in Newry £1,092, on the grounds that the defaulting rate collector's bond was not in order, and of no use, and that money was lost; and whether, in view of the fact that under the Public Bodies Orders, the auditor is responsible for the correctness and utility of the bonds of the officers, and is provided with a special form (Form 41 G) for that purpose, to be filled up and signed by the auditor, he will state whether he will take steps to set aside this surcharge.
    MR. BRYCE: The Local Government Board have not yet received the auditor's report on the audit of the accounts referred to. Pending receipt of this report, the Board are not in a position to express an opinion on the case, but it may be pointed out that the Public Bodies Order did not come into force until April 1st, 1905, whereas the
    230
    surcharge in question was made in respect of the accounts for the previous year.
    AN HON. MEMBER: Is this not the gentleman who has been removed from various districts because he is in the habit of making vexatious and illegal surcharges?
    MR. BRYCE: I have no information on the point.

    Mr. J. M'Inerney of Ennistymon.
    MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the police protection afforded to Mr. John M'Inerney, of Ennistymon; and whether, seeing that Mr. John M'Inerney goes to fairs and markets through West Clare, leaving home early in the morning and coming home late at night, without police protection, and that he travels to his farm fifteen miles from his residence without protection, he will explain why the only place and time that he has police with him is in the streets of Ennistymon from 10 a.m. until 2.30 a.m. the following morning.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed that Mr. M'Inerney is not in receipt of constant police protection, but that such protection as may be necessary is afforded to him by police patrols. This form of protection is given both by day and night, in Ennistymon and elsewhere, as necessity arises.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is it not the fact that at the last assizes the Judge congratulated the people of the county on its peaceable state?
    MR. BRYCE: I believe so.

    Commission of National Education for Ireland.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what was the amount voted to defray the expenses of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland for the year ending 31st March, 1906; has the full amount of this Vote been expended; and, if not, can he state what unexpended balance is it estimated will remain at the end of the year.
    MR. BRYCE: The net amount voted to defray the expenses of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland for the year ending 31st March, 1906, was £1,391,721, exclusive of grants from the Ireland Development Fund. The Commissioners do not anticipate any considerable unexpended balance, but no statement on the subject can be made until after the 31st March.

    Rates on Iron Hay Sheds.
    MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the revisors of rateable property in the county of Clare have been instructed to value iron hay-sheds put up by the tenant farmers so as to levy rates off them; and, if so, whether he will issue instructions to the revisors of the county of Clare to discontinue valuing these sheds, in view of the taxation already levied on these tenants.
    MR. MCKENNA: Under Section 12 of the Valuation (Ireland) Act of 1852 farm out-houses are rateable hereditaments and must therefore be valued for local rating. The valuation is done on the request of the county or urban district councils. Under Section 14 of the same Act, however, these out-houses escape local rates for a period of seven years after they are erected.

    Registration of Teachers in Ireland.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that information respecting the fact of their recognition under certain provisions of the Order in Council establishing a register of teachers, is forwarded to the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, instead of being sent directly to the schools which have applied for such recognition; and can he state the reason for this course of action.
    MR. BIRRELL: The practice of the Board is as described. The Board communicate with the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction as to the recognition of the schools, and it seems, therefore, the proper course to announce the results through them.
    MR. BOLAND: Is this a new development.
    MR. BIRRELL: I will inquire.

    Annaclone Postal District.
    MR. LIDDELL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General what are the present arrangements for the delivery and despatch of letters in the Annaclone postal district, county Down; and whether, seeing that the district affected by the present system is nearer to Banbridge than Rathfriland, that it is dependent largely on its trade and business relations with the former town, and that a great many letters are addressed with Banbridge instead of Rathfriland for this district, he can say what additional expenditure, if any, would be involved if Banbridge, which is only five miles from Annaclone, was made the head office instead of Newry, which is fourteen miles distant as the letters are now carried.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Inquiry is being made on this subject and I will communicate the result to the hon. Member in due course.

    Keadue Telegraph Office.
    MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether the Post Office authorities are about to establish a now telegraph office in a public-house in Keadue, county Roscommon; and whether, in view of the Post Office regulations against having an office upon premises licensed for the sale of intoxicants, he can state the reasons for a departure from the regulations in this case; and whether other and more suitable premises cannot be obtained in the village
    MR SYDNEY BUXTON: The Post Office at Keadue, to which the telegraph system is about to be extended, is in the licensed premises in which the Post Office business has been conducted for the last twenty-six years. I am not aware of the reasons for which an exception to the usual rule was sanctioned when this office was opened; but as the sub-postmistress is prepared to provide a suitable office with a separate entrance, I do not, under the circumstances, propose to remove the office to other premises.

    Lord Dudley and Devolution.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: I wish to ask you, Sir, a Question on a matter of order. I wish to ask you whether I would be in order in addressing the following Question to the Leader of the Opposition:— "Whether he would consent now to the

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    publication of the correspondence which took place between him as Prime Minister and Lord Dudley as Viceroy of Ireland, on the question of devolution?"
    MR. SPEAKER: The Question addressed to the Leader of the Opposition by the hon. Member does not relate to any matter or any Bill before this House. I should like to have seen the Question in writing so that I might have given it full consideration, but, having heard it, I should say that it is not a Question that could be asked.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will take cognisance of the Question which, if it had been in order, I would have addressed to him.

    The Durst Hop Pool.
    MR. COURTHOPE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he is aware that M. H. Durst, of Wheatland, California, exporter of hops for the London market, has formed a corporation, known as the Durst Hop Pool, to control the hop crop of Oregon; and that the Oregon hop-growers employ Chinese labour; and whether he will take steps to prevent this or similar hop pools from destroying the English hop industry, which employs more labour per acre than any other branch of agriculture.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN): No, Sir, the Government have no information as to the formation of the Durst Hop Pool. As to Chinese labour I am informed that it is not employed to any extent by the Oregon hop growers, and I have no reason to believe that so far as it may be employed it is otherwise than under free conditions. With regard to the last part of the Question, I am afraid I cannot undertake to embark on a crusade against hop pools in the United States or anywhere else.

    Ministers and Company Directorships.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the President of the Board of Education, the Paymaster-General, the Secretary of State for India, the Under-Secretary of State
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    for India, the Under-Secretary of State for War, the Secretary to the Admiralty, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden, a Lord of the Treasury, the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, and Lords Granville and Denman, Lords in Waiting, have been recently directors of public companies, holding directorships of the Canada Life Insurance Company, of the Great North of Scotland Railway, of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, of the Royal Bank of Scotland, of the Western Assurance Company, of the London and Provincial Bank, of the National Provident Institution, of the Anglo-Californian Bank, of the Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton Railway Company, of the Star Life Assurance Society, of Sir Joseph Causton and Sons, Limited, of the Scarborough Electric Supply Company, of the Artisans', Labourers', and General Dwellings Company, of Western Mansions, Limited, of Pease and Partners, Limited, of the British Columbia Land and Investment Agency, Limited, of the Wouldham Cement Company, of the Lilleshall Company, Limited, and of the International Tea Company's Stores, Limited; and whether in view of their duties as Ministers of the Crown, he will say whether these Ministers of the Crown have resigned from the above-named companies; and, if so, will he give the date of such resignations.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The condition which was laid down on the formation of the Government was that all directorships held by Ministers must be resigned except in the case of honorary directorships, directorships in connection with philanthropic undertakings, and directorships in private companies. Every member of the Government has either complied with this understanding or is in process of complying with it. I do not think it is necessary to say more except to add that my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for India, whose name is mentioned in the Question, has never held a directorship, and the same remark applies to my hon. friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty.
    MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid the name of the Civil Lord or the Admiralty appeared in error. It should have been Secretary of the Board of Trade. He asked whether the process of resignation was still in

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    course of being carried out, and, if so, when it would be completed.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not know that the process of resigning is complete. Sometimes it is necessary or desirable or convenient to go on until the annual meeting is held, or some occasion of that sort. It is not desirable that these things should be done in an inconvenient way. The purpose will be carried out to the full.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a list of the drectorships in private companies held by members of the Government.
    MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the International Tea Company is a philanthropic society?
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I should say that depends on the quality of its tea.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he intends to introduce legislation to give effect to the excellent rule he has laid down, having regard to the fact that among the the members of the late Government no fewer seventy-one company directorships were held.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I hope that legislation will not be necessary. A good example has been set.

    Discussion of Indian Subjects by Parliament.
    MR. SMEATON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will consider the advisability of placing the salary of the Secretary of State for India on the Estimates, so as to enable this House to challenge by a direct vote any action of the Government of India, or of the Secretary of State, of which it disapproves.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The issue raised is a large and important one involving grave constitutional and legal considerations; and we cannot at present give any pledge or promise on the subject.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I wish to ask what business will be taken to-morrow.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that the business to-morrow would be the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, and on Thursday he hoped to make the ordinary Motion for the Speaker to leave the Chair on the Civil Service Estimates.

NEW BILLS.
  SHOPS BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Shops," presented by Sir Charles Dilke; supported by Mr. Bowerman, Mr. Hobhouse, Dr. Macnamara, Mr. M'Crae, Mr. Nannett, Mr. Alfred Scott, Mr. Seddon, and Mr. John Tennant; to be read a second time upon Friday, 27th April, and to be printed. [Bill 111.]
  ALLOTMENTS (LONDON) BILL.
  "To facilitate the provision of Allotments by the London County Council," presented by Mr. John Benn; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 112.]

  PURCHASE OF LAND BILL.
  "To provide for the Purchase of Land by Local Authorities," presented by Mr. George White; supported by Mr. Alden, Mr. Branch, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr. George Hardy, Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. Higham, Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Money,

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  Mr. Alfred Scott, and Mr. Thomas Frederick Richards; to be read a second time upon Friday 11th May, and to be printed. [Bill 113.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).
  Ordered, That the Proceedings on the Business of Supply, if under discussion on the interruption of Business at this Afternoon's Sitting, be resumed and proceeded with, though opposed, after the interruption of Business at this Evening's Sitting.—(Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.)

  THE MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): I have to ask the leave of the House to introduce a Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1900. The Bill which I propose to introduce is based on the report of two or three Committees. The first is the Committee which reported in 1903, Lord St. Helier's Committee, dealing with two or three different matters relating to the mercantile marine; secondly, the Seaman's Wages Committee, which reported last year; and, thirdly, the Committee known as Mr. Bonar Law's Foreign Ships Statutory Requirements Committee, which also reported last year. No attempt is to be made to codify the Merchant Shipping Act, although that is very necessary. An amendment was felt very necessary to bring the merchant shipping laws up to date last year, but owing to the fact that no time was given by the Government the Bill had to be carried through without any amendment at all. This Bill deals with a few of the admitted grievances from which British shipowners and seamen suffer. The first is in reference to the application of our safety regulations to foreign ships. The regulations applicable to British ships may be divided roughly into four parts. One deals with overloading; the second deals with unseaworthiness—the defective condition of hull, machinery, and equipment, and undermanning; the third deals with stowage of grain; and the fourth deals with appliances—life-boats, buoys, and life-belts. There is no doubt at all that these regulations have had the effect of saving life during the years they have been in operation. In 1872 I find that
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  the loss of life in the mercantile marine amounted to 3,533, in 1874 to 4,171, and in 1904, the last year for which we have returns, to 1,113—a very considerable reduction. The loss of life in 1872 was one in sixty-four of those employed in our merchant ships, and it now varies between 1 in 150 and 1 in 220. This is not entirely attributable to legislation with regard to life-saving appliances and with regard to overloading and unseaworthiness. It is due also very largely to the gradual substitution of steam for sailing ships. With regard to the overloading of foreign ships in British ports, under the regulations they may be detained at the present moment if they are overloaded. These are made applicable by the rules of the Board of Trade— in 1876 a clause was introduced into the Act which made it distinctly applicable to foreign ships loading cargo in a British port; but unfortunately owing to the absence of the disc, it was exceedingly difficult to detect what ships were overloaded and what were not, and. if the Board of Trade officials detained a vessel which afterwards on survey was discovered as a matter of fact to be not overloaded, then the Government would be liable to very substantial damages for detention. Unless it was pretty obvious that a foreign ship was overloaded, the Board of Trade officials were naturally very cautious and circumspect and did not care to run the risk of detaining a vessel. Foreign ships could arrive in this country overloaded, and we have had a good many cases. We watched for some months, and reports were made to the Board of Trade. There is a very long list appended to the report on the subject, as an appendix to the evidence of Mr. Howell, of foreign ships overloaded, some to the extent of ten, twelve, and even nineteen inches, arriving in British ports in very dangerous conditions, especially ships engaged in the carrying of ore from Spain and Sweden. The Board of Trade had no right to interfere, because the regulations were not applicable to ships arriving from foreign ports. The same thing applies to unseaworthiness. A foreign ship might arrive in a British port and sail from a British port in a most unseaworthy condition: her hull might be defective and her machinery and equipment might be deficient, but the Board of Trade had no right to intervene at all.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Both going and coming?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes, both going and coming. There is no distinction. If British shipowners found when their ships were condemned as unseaworthy by the Board of Trade officials that it was hardly worth refitting them, if they were too rotten, they generally sold them to foreigners. There was no market for them in this country, and the consequence was that they were sold practically for an old song. I find that last year 78 per cont. of 422,000 tons of British steamers sold to foreign ship-owning syndicates, was constructed before 1895, whereas in our own country we added 1,226,000 steam tons to the register of the United Kingdom, 98 per cent. of it being new steamers. Not merely is the initial expenditure less, consequently upon the foreign shipowner getting old, discarded British ships for next to nothing, but the current expenditure of keeping the ship going is less. We have no regulations compelling them to keep up the standard, which will cost a considerable sum of money. Consequently the competition to which British shipowners were subjected by these vessels was grossly unfair. The initial capital was less, the expenditure of keeping them going was less, and not merely that, but they might come to this country considerably overloaded, probably over 200 or 300 tons in some cases. We, on the other hand, compelled our ships to be up-to-date, to conform to our regulations with regard to life-saving appliances; and shipowners not unnaturally complained that the competition was exceedingly unfair. Seeing that these laws were passed in the interests of humanity, in the interests of saving life—and that, after all, is not a national, but an international obligation —we felt that it was grossly unfair to impose obligations of this character upon our shipowners in the interests of humanity, and at the same time to allow foreigners to come into our ports and break our own laws. Therefore it is the intention of the Government to make these ides and regulations applicable to foreign ships, whether they sail from British ports or whether they arrive in British ports. In order to make them effective, it is perfectly clear you cannot throw the risk
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  upon the Board of Trade surveyor of saying whether the ship is overloaded or not. It is too much of a risk for him to undertake at the present moment, and the result is that a very considerable number escape. Therefore it is intended that after a certain date—two or three years will be given to enable the foreign shipowners who trade regularly with this country to make up their minds —foreign shipowners must subscribe to the conditions of the same disc to enable any one to see whether the ship is overloaded or not. After that date the foreign ship cannot be overloaded whether coming or going, she must be in a perfectly seaworthy condition, and coming and going she must be subject to the same regulations with regard to life-saving appliances. The only other point is with respect to stowage of grain. In some trades it is exceedingly dangerous unless you stow grain very carefully, for in rough weather the grain may be shifted and give the ship a list, rendering her very dangerous, and there are cases where the vessel has turned turtle as the result of the shifting of grain in rough weather. We have introduced regulations for the very careful stowage of grain in some parts of the ocean, more especially in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, to prevent accidents of that character, but they are not applicable to foreign ships. Thirty-six foreign ships of this character were watched the year before last, and this is the result. In nineteen cases the precautions which had been taken against the shifting of grain were practically equivalent to ours. It is not our idea to impose our regulations on foreign ships if their own are in the main equivalent to ours. In nineteen cases they were practically equivalent to ours, in five they were described as fair, and in twelve as more or less indifferent. In those cases the ships would be subjected to the same regulations with regard to the stowage of grain as our ships. The same thing applies to life-saving appliances. I do not think that the foreigner can complain. After all, he is treated very well in this country—very much to our advantage. We buy nothing from him that we do not want. There is no compulsory purchase of foreign goods. We have given him an open market and open harbours, and we treat him exactly as we treat our own ships. The Government do not propose to

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  impose upon him any obligations which our own ships have not been subjected to for years, very much to their own benefit. It is to be made plain that their ships shall enjoy the same rights, privileges, liberties, immunities and exceptions in matters of navigation as are or may be enjoyed by ours. That is really what you find in ail navigation agreements; they simply claim the same privileges and rights as native subjects enjoy.
  MR. H. H. MARKS: What will you get in return?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: That is all we propose to do. We propose to put them under exactly the same obligations, and, after all, we have a sort of national obligation. Up to the present we have exacted a standard in the matter of protecting life at sea. It is not a fancy standard. It is something we have subjected our own ships to for years. Other countries are gradually approximating to ours. Germany is getting closer year by year and Franco is improving. It is not the great countries we complain so much about. Therefore I think it would assist if we not merely set this standard for our own ships, but insisted upon its being applicable to every ship that trades with our ports. After all, our carrying trade is the greatest in the world. There is a real inducement for foreign shipowners to follow the very excellent example set by us in this respect. So much for that part of the matter. I think I have dealt with grain stowage, life saving apparatus, seaworthiness, and load line. There is one thing before I dispose of this part of the Bill I should like to say. It is obviously impossible to apply rigidly our rule to foreign countries who have got regulations of their own that are practically equivalent to ours, and therefore we take power where we are satisfied that the regulations of any particular country are substantially equal to ours to except by Order in Council all vessels of that country from our rules with regard to loading. At present, if a foreign emigrant ship calls at a British port to take emigrants on board, she is subject to all the emigration regulations of this country, but if she is an emigrant ship calling for passengers she is not liable or subject to our passenger regulations. Now I think
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  the House will agree that if they are already made liable to our emigration regulations, they should also be subject to our passenger regulations with regard to overcrowding, and more particularly with regard to life-saving appliances if they are going to take passengers. There again these regulations are in the interests of humanity.
  I now come to deal with a subject of much greater complexity and difficulty and one which has caused me much more anxiety. It is the question of foreign seamen. I confess when I first looked into the figures I was really very startled. In 1870 we had 200,000 British seamen in British ships, and 18,000 foreign seamen and hardly any lascars; I will give the lascars separately because their case is very different from that of foreign seamen. In 1904 the number of British sailors had fallen from 200,000 to 176,000, and the number of foreign sailors had increased from 18,000 to 39,000. The foreigner had increased from 9 per cent. to 22 per cent. Whereas we had hardly any lascars in 1870—1 believe they began about 1886—you had lascars before that but not in great numbers— they have now increased to 42,000 odd. I confess, looking at these figures, they are rather startling, and in the evidence taken on the subject suggestions have been put forward, sometimes by representatives of the seamen, and sometimes by others, that the presence of many foreigners in our British mercantile marine is attributable to the fact that the shipowner can get foreign seamen at a lower rate of pay and that he is much more amenable to discipline. But I confess, alter going into it very carefully —not merely reading evidence, but seeing shipowners and making inquiries— that I do not think there is substantial ground for that suggestion. I think shipowners have no alternative. They have taken foreign sailors because there is not an adequate supply of British sailors for the purpose of meeting the enormous and growing demands of our mercantile marine. The growth of the mercantile marine has been so amazing. It was quite impossible for the supply to keep pace with it. In 1870 you had 5,500,000 tons and in 1904 that had gone up to 10,250,000 tons, almost double in thirty-five years. The number of men

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  employed in 1870 was 218,000 and in 1904 259,000. The Navy has practically taken the cream of our men engaged in seafaring life. In 1868 there were 64,000 men in our Navy, and last year we took a Vote for 129,000 men, double the number. Last year one out of every thirty-six of the adult population of this country was engaged in a seafaring occupation, and supposing you brought in a Bill to stop every foreign seaman being engaged on British ships you would ruin the British mercantile marine. I do not despair of being able to do something with the assistance of shipowners, who seem to me just as anxious as anybody to get British seamen into British ships, and we are considering all sorts of schemes at the present time. Sir Alfred Jones has been down to Swansea, and he has suggested that in each port you should set up some arrangement for the purpose of training British sailors. I think that is an admirable idea, and I think if the Corporation in every seaport town in the United Kingdom were to take the matter up, in a short time shipowners would not be driven as they are now to foreign seamen for the purpose of manning their great fleets. That, however, is a thing we could not possibly introduce into an Act of Parliament at the present stage.
  That is with regard to that particular branch. Let me put another point before I dismiss it. I have not disposed altogether of foreign seamen. A good deal of British shipping trading between foreign ports never touch the home ports. The ships have hardly been at home since construction. We have 54 per cent. of the carrying trade of the world. There has not been anything like it in history. It is not merely that we carry two-thirds of our own trade, but 54 per cont. of the trade of the whole world, and therefore, a good number of British ships trade between foreign ports and never touch homo ports except once every four years for the purpose of classification at Lloyds. You cannot get British sailors to remain on board ships of that kind. You may get your captain and officers, but you cannot get your British sailor to live altogether in a foreign port. If you prevent shipowners from engaging foreign sailors you stop the whole of that international trade, and that is why I have come to the conclusion that British shipowners are
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  not altogether to blame for the enormous increases of foreign sailors in British ships. They have no alternative. I believe from what I have seen that they are anxious and will assist in the future to got British sailors into British ships. It is said that there is really a great danger to the safety of the country, but that is not the view of the Admiralty. I am not a great authority on armaments, but it really seems to be the view of men who know about it that there is no real substantial danger. They say that when war comes you would not draw so very much from the mercantile marine, because you would want them to carry on the trade. I would remind hon. Members who think otherwise that, as I am told, in Nelson's fleet 22 per cent. of the men were foreigners. That is not the state of things now. So much for the pure foreigner. Now I come to the lascars. There has been a decrease during the last two or three years, so far as the foreigner is concerned, and I am inclined to believe that that decrease is a permanent thing, because the conditions are improving in foreign ships, and the greater the improvement the more foreign countries will be able to absorb their own seafaring population. But when you come to the lascar there is a continual increase. The lascar, however, is a Britisher. [A LABOUR MEMBER: Like the Chinaman!] You cannot make a Britisher of him merely for the sake of bragging of the extent of your dominions, and then the moment he asks for a share of your privileges say "You are a foreigner." That is not fair; it is a question of fair play. [A LABOUR MEMBER: And wages!] The lascars themselves sent a petition which is rather interesting. They are very much concerned about their accommodation. They said—
  "We are told that in the Parliament of England sits a gentleman of the name of Havelock Wilson Sahib. He has urged there lately, as he has often done in the past, that we should be given more space. We beseech your Lordships to tell him that his benevolence will be our bane; that as we have done him no wrong, and if he really wishes us well he will have the mercy to spare us. Should he, however, pursue us with his attentions, we are sure that after this humble representation of ours, the other members of the great Assembly will refuse to listen to him."
  The lascars came before Lord St Helier's Committee and I am assured by those who sat on that Committee—and

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  they are very competent judges—that no more intelligent witnesses came before them than these fellow-British subjects of ours. I am told, on all hands, that the lascars are very intelligent, exceedingly sober, hard-working and skilful, and in an emergency they are courageous men. Let me put in another word for the lascar. The lascar is an hereditary sailor. He belongs to a sailor caste. He is bound by the rules of his caste to pursue the trade his ancestors have pursued from time immemorial, from the days of the Flood. Well, now, what do they say? They had a considerable coasting trade along the coast of India. We came along and deprived them of their livelihood and they say that the least we can do is to allow them to take part in running our great mercantile marine. I am with them heartily. The British mercantile marine cannot do without them.
  There is a real objection in the case of the foreign seaman because he very often endangers the safety of the ship through not being able to understand the words of command. There have been a good many cases of that character lately. If the House will allow me I will refer to one or two of them. There were cases which were tried at Cardiff. There were quite a number of wrecks, and an inquiry was held at Cardiff by a very competent and experienced Judge, and in at least three of the cases it was shown that a majority of the seamen on board were foreigners. This is the judgment of the Court in one case—the case of the "Ordovician."
  "It is not within the province of this court to express an opinion as to policy, expedience, or necessity of employing foreign seamen on British ships, nor to institute any comparison between British and foreign seamen. But the Court deems it a duty to direct attention to the fact that this is the third wreck inquiry held here within a month, in which the deck hands have been chiefly foreign seamen with no knowledge of the English language.
  "In the recent 'Rowtor' inquiry it was proved that a Spaniard who could neither speak nor understand English was at the wheel when the vessel stranded, and the court found that either bad steering or a certain other cause mentioned was a contributory cause of the stranding.
  "In the inquiry into the loss of the "Bavaria"—which involved the loss of many lives—the only deck hands that gave evidence were Russians who were entirely ignorant of the English language; and this court was satisfied that they made a false imputation on
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  the reputation of the master, who had lost his life in trying to save his vessel."
  In the case of the "Bavaria," it was shown that foreign seamen managed to get hold of the life-boat, and having got on board with only one Britisher a Russian cut the rope; those in the life-boat were saved, but all the rest of the hands sank. In another case—the "Ordovician"—a Greek who could speak no English was at the wheel, and a Greek who could speak no English was at the look-out; also bad steering conduced to the casualty. There is overwhelming evidence that the lives of men engaged at sea are endangered by the fact that you have seamen on board who do not understand the English language, who consequently do not understand the word of command, and who, especially in moments of emergency, are absolutely worthless for that reason. The Government are of opinion that, although they cannot bring in a Bill to exclude foreign seamen from British ships, at any rate they ought to introduce into the Bill a provision that no foreign seamen, with the exception of British subjects, shall be engaged on board British ships, unless in the opinion of a competent Board of Trade officer they are capable of understanding the word of command in the English language. I put it entirely on the ground of safety. There is nothing further that I wish to say about the foreign seamen, except this. I earnestly hope that British shipowners will assist us in trying to bring into existence or to promote some sort of scheme whereby the undoubted deficiency in the supply of British seamen can be, somehow or other, made good. I am quite certain that a good deal can be done by a system of apprenticeship. The firm with which my hon. friend the Member for Dewsbury is connected—than whom there is no man in this House more competent in matters affecting the merchant service—have a regular system of apprenticeship, which is working admirably. About 50 per cent. of the boys who are apprenticed eventually stick to their posts, and I think that that is about as high a percentage as you can really expect. I believe that the experiment which has been made such a success in my hon. friend's firm could be made a success in any other firm if a real effort were made. Here you have 40,000 berths at present filled by foreigners, according to the shipowners, because

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  Britishers cannot be obtained. There would be an opening for some philanthropic trade unionist or tariff reformer who wished to find employment for British hands.
  Then I come to another branch of the Bill, and that is in regard to food and the scale of provisions. At the present moment there is no statutory scale of provisions enforced upon shipowners. There is something which is known as the Board of Trade scale, but it is not a Board of Trade scale at all; it is purely a skeleton which the Board of Trade expect each owner to fill up for himself, but too often the skeleton has done the part of a real living scale. The "Board of Trade scale" is a sort of traditional scale: it is very little beyond salt meat, biscuits, tea, and sugar. It would be unfair to shipowners if I were to suggest that that is the scale of provisions which they give to their sailors. It is not. There is a conflict of evidence on this point; but I should say that the vast majority of shipowners not merely improve upon that scale, but improve upon it very considerably. Some shipowners, more especially on the great liners and the great tramp ships, provide as generous a scale as could be put into an Act of Parliament—I should say a better scale than you could possibly put into an Act of Parliament. But at the same time there is no doubt of this —that a very considerable minority of sailing-ship owners and tramp-ship owners do provide a scale for their seamen which is not much better, if at all, than this meagre, monotonous, miserable scale of salt beef, biscuits, tea, and sugar. I think that that is not the sort of thing which ought to be allowed. We have had considerable evidence with regard to desertions. The House will, I am sure, be surprised to know that in the course of a single year the desertions from the British mercantile marine amount to 28,000. According to some of the evidence, the desertions are duo to a large extent to the monotony, the poverty, and the lack of variety of the food scale in some of the sailing ships. Another sot of witnesses said that the difficulty which had been found in inducing men and boys to join the mercantile marine was very largely attributable to the fact that the food scale did not commend itself in many instances to the British working man. All that we
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  say is this. The great majority of shipowners supply their sailors with excellent food, good in quality, admirable in quantity, and excellent as far as variety is concerned, taking into account that, after all, the sea is the sea, and that you cannot go out every morning and buy fresh meat and so on. Taking all these things into account, the vast majority of British shipowners do their duty by their seamen; and all that we say is that it is no reflection upon a trading community to introduce a law or a regulation that forces the recalcitrant members of that community to live up to the standard, as it were, of the majority of their fellow-traders. That is all that we do here. We say to these men who do not provide their sailors with the kind of food which ought to be given to them, "You must, at any rate, come up to the average of the British shipowners." There has been a great deal of complaint under this head. I do not want to read out too much of the evidence, but there is a case for introducing some sort of minimum scale of provisions. I will not refer merely to the evidence of seamen; the evidence given by sailors is practically unanimous on the point. But the evidence given by independent Board of Trade witnesses corroborates the evidence given by the sailors to a very large extent. There is the evidence given by Mr. Longford, who says that the cooking on sailing ships is, as a rule, wholly uncharacterised by skill. When we are so anxious to reduce the number of foreigners on our British ships and to increase the number of British sailors, one thing to do is to make the merchant service as attractive as we can, and the first condition undoubtedly is to provide fairly good food. The life of the seaman is a pretty hard one. His accommodation is cramped under the best of conditions; there is a kind of food which in the best service in the world he would have to get accustomed to; there is the absence from home, and the deprivation of all the comforts of home life. Under these circumstances it is not too much to ask that a minimum scale of provisions should be provided for these men, and the Government have decided in this Bill to have a minimum scale. But I do not think you can have a scale which you can rigidly enforce—a scale of so many pounds of this a week and so many ounces of that. It is quite impossible rigidly to enforce a

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  scale in every particular. The only thing you can do is not to set up a scale, but to set up a standard, and the minimum scale which we introduce into this Bill is not so much a scale as a. sort of standard to which we shall ask shipowners to conform. If a sailor complains that he has not had a fair share of the things provided in the scale and the shipowner can prove that he has had substitutes which are equivalent. then the sailor will be non suited. I think that that is fair on the whole; it is hotter for the sailor and better for the shipowner. I need not say that in many ports it would be quite impossible for the shipowner to provide the ship with some article included in the scale, and then he would be able to provide some substitute.
  Then it follows almost as a matter of course that if we have a minimum scale of provisions we must have some provision with regard to cooking. The Committee recommended that the cooks should be certificated. I am told that the evidence is overwhelming that the cooking is bad as a rule, and that the cook is generally a man who is not fit for anything else. The result is that shipowners do not get justice done to them because of the badness of the cooking. The provisions which come before the sailors are dressed up in such a way as to look very much worse than they really are. Therefore we have decided to incorporate the recommendation of the Committee, and to say that cooks must go through some course of training. We give two years, so that all those who have been in the service two years will get their certificates as a matter of course; therefore, for some time sailors will have to put up with a good deal of bad cooking. My own opinion is that when you get these certificated cooks the shipowners themselves will feel that it is so much easier to attract and obtain a good class of men because of the excellence of the food, that they will infinitely prefer the certificated man to the experienced but inexpert cook of olden times. I do not think there is anything for shipowers to complain of in that. I have consulted them in regard to the minimum scale, and while they agree on the whole, they do not quite agree with the minimum scale we have suggested, but we think that we have struck a very fair compromise between the scale suggested by the sailors and
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  that to which the Shipping Federation were prepared to agree. I think that on the whole our scale is not an extravagant one. Whenever I have put it to a shipowner he has always told me that his scale is bettor than that: therefore he cannot complain: he is always thinking of somebody else, not himself. But I think the standard in these matters ought to be set by the better class of shipowners. In their own interest and in the interest of the trade, the excellent example which they have sot for forty years but which has not been followed by others ought to be enforced by Act of Parliament, and that is why we have introduced this provision into the Bill.
  We are also going to extend the inspection of provisions. As hon. Members who are acquainted with the Merchant Shipping Act know perfectly well, provisions are inspected on vessels going to certain parts of the world—round Cape Horn, round the Cape of Good Hope, and through the Suez Canal; but there is no inspection of the provisions on vessels going to any other part of the globe. If you inspect the provisions in the one case, it is necessary to inspect them in the other, because, on the whole, the worst-provisioned ships are not those which go these long voyages. We are not going to make the inspection compulsory; we are going to say that the Board of Trade inspector may inspect provisions in every case—that he shall have the right to do so. A good many shipowners have told me that they regard this as a protection to themselves, as very often the store-keeper is to blame for palming off inferior stores upon the shipowner. That is what I am told by shipowners, at any rate, and they think the provision will act as a guarantee as to the quality of the food.
  Then there is another thing. I am sorry to weary the House with all these details, but I want to explain the whole Bill. We are going to substitute new regulations for those which are found in some of the schedules of the old Acts. A good many of those regulations, with regard to the emigrant ships and the carrying of cattle, and so forth, are hopelessly antiquated; they were made for a state of things which does not at all obtain at the present day. In 1854, our ships were chiefly of wood and iron; they are now of steel; in 1854, our sailing

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  ships were 4,000,000 tons and our steam only 300,000; in 1904, and it is going up every year, our steam had gone up to 8,750,000, and our sailing ships were only 1,800,000. It is quite clear that regulations applicable to the old days of sailing ships, when steam was only an experiment, would be inapplicable when steam is everything and the sailing ship is a declining and decaying quantity. Not only that, but in the old days you had not the huge mammoth concerns which you have now. For instance, in those days you had a regulation like this: you are not allowed to carry in an emigrant ship more than ten head of large cattle, including horses and asses. All that sort of thing is hopelessly inapplicable to the present state of our shipping, and what we propose is this. It is a great mistake, I think, to put into an Act of Parliament rigid rules which require another Act of Parliament before they can be altered. It is very difficult to carry Acts of Parliament nowadays, under any scheme, with the present congestion of business. That applies to the simplest Act of Parliament, even when you have the assent of practically the whole House —and that is a thing you cannot always get. One man raises his hat, and his hat is more potent than the voices of the remaining 669 of his fellow members; he simply has to object and the Bill is stopped. Therefore, it is inconvenient to require an amending Act of Parliament whenever a new regulation seems to be necessary to meet the changing circumstances of our mercantile marine. In ton or twenty years there may be as great changes in our mercantile marine as have taken place during the last twenty years. Who can foresee what may happen? There may be a totally different state of things existing, and what we want is to be able, by means of an Order in Council, if necessary, to introduce regulations applicable to the changing circumstances of the hour, without having to have constant resort to the House of Commons to obtain sanction for every change that may be required. That is what we propose. We propose to abolish these schedules and to substitute for them regulations of that character.
  Another thing that we propose to do is this. It is obviously impossible for shipowners under every condition to conform absolutely to every regulation made by
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  the Board of Trade or laid down by an Act of Parliament. Circumstances are sometimes too strong for them; they have to carry on their business under very trying conditions. There is at present, in the Act of 1894, a sort of dispensing power. Where a shipowner has on the whole done his best to what the regulations demand of him, there is a power to dispense with the strict enforcement of the letter of the regulation—but it is only in certain circumstances. We propose to include in this Bill a rather wider dispensing power under which the Board of Trade may dispense with the strict enforcement of regulations of this character where it is perfectly clear that the shipowner has done everything the circumstances would allow to conform to the regulations or the law.
  Another thing is this, and I hope this will be my last point. It is proposed to give power to the Board of Trade to set up Advisory Committees for the purpose of consultation with regard to regulations. The Board of Trade, in the last few years more especially, have set up Advisory Committees for the purposes of consultation in regard to load lines, safety appliances, and all sorts of things in regard to which the law has laid obligations upon our mercantile marine, and almost without exception those committees have proved to be of the greatest possible assistance to the Board in arriving at decisions satisfactory to all parties concerned. After all, no one wants to harass our great mercantile marine in the conduct of its business; but it must be subject to those regulations for the safety of human life or the protection of the sailor, whose guardian we are. But I think it is fair that the men who are interested, who have special knowledge and experience in matters of this character, should be consulted, and I propose, if this clause is carried, at once to invite gentlemen representing the various interests to form an Advisory Committee to assist the Board of Trade in framing these new regulations. They may also assist with regard to the food scale; there may be reason to vary that from time to time. In matters of this and other kinds such a Committee would be of undoubted assistance to the Board of Trade in framing regulations which would work satisfactorily.

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  There are other provisions which I will not stop now explain, dealing with the title of ships to be registered—the Board of Trade will require proof that a ship is entitled to be registered as a British ship, because it is at any rate suggested that there are frauds at the present time—the bringing of certain rules in the Act of 1894 up to date, the property of seamen dying on board ship abroad, desertion and so forth; but I think that, on the whole, I have outlined the main provisions of the Bill. After the Second Reading I shall ask the House to refer the Bill to the Committee on Trade, where I hope, and I have no doubt that it will, be freely criticised. But I should be sorry if the Government were to bring to bear the pressure of their Whips to force the Committee to any conclusion against its will. For my part, I shall throw the Bill on the mercy of the Committee, as I think it is a great mistake to make every detail of a Bill a Government matter, and I trust that when it emerges from the Committee it will be a Bill which will be of benefit to all concerned in our mercantile marine— the greatest the world has ever seen.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1901."— (Mr, Lloyd-George)
  MR. WYNDHAM: I wish to say that we have listened to the right hon. Gentleman's speech with intense interest. No apology was needed from him for detaining the House so long as he did. It was not only an interesting speech, but I think it will prove to be a memorable speech. It marks a stage on the road which leads away from the high and dry theory of free trade. I noticed the anxious care which the right hon. Gentleman took from time to time to assure us that all this interference on the part of the State was solely in the interest of human life and the safety of human limb. Did it occur to him whilst framing this interesting piece of legislation that the result might have a protective value? Has it never occurred to him either that, by interfering as much as he does interfere, he may, by putting disabilities on the freedom of trade in one country, be imposing disabilities upon those who compete with our trade? We have heard from a member of
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  this Government — from one of the great protagonists of free trade—that some kinds of competition can be grossly unfair. And why—I quote the right hon. Gentleman's words:—"Why are British shipowners subjected to grossly unfair competition?" Because labour legislation, and very proper labour legislation, places some restrictions upon British shipowners which do not apply to the owners of foreign vessels who compete with us How far is the President of the Board of Trade prepared to go on this path? We welcome his first footsteps along it. The salutary regulations of the Board of Trade are no doubt restricted so far as the shipowners are concerned. It costs them more to make a profit under these regulations than it costs shipowners who are not subjected to them. What about the Board of Trade regulations which apply to railways? The goods which come on a ship which is allowed to be unseaworthy come over a railway which is not subject to the regulations which apply to our railways. Is he prepared to say that notice will be taken of the fact that the platforms may be as short as you please on the railways of a foreign country?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: They do not run in our country.
  MR. WYNDHAM: But I presume the goods come partly by rail and partly by ship. Some regulations are to be imposed with respect to the sea borne part of the voyage, but the railway part is a matter we need not take into account. But I do not want to discourage the President of the Board of Trade. We cannot expect his progress to be very rapid, but it is significant. Then he apologised almost to the Labour Party for not legislating directly at this stage against the employment of foreign seamen. We may hope for that in another year or two, when the education of the right hon. Gentleman has proceeded at the hands of the Labour Party, and then perhaps legislation will take direct notice of the fact that foreign seamen compete, and compete seriously, with our British mariners. The right hon. Gentleman says that if they got rid of foreign seamen they would ruin the mercantile marine. There is very little applause for that sentiment from hon. Gentlemen who sit below the gangway on the Opposition

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  side. And so now the right hon. Gentleman is going to perform one of those manၓuvres to which the orthodox is sometimes driven. The foreign seaman is to compete with the British seaman, but not unless he knows what starboard and larboard mean. And so a little incidental protection is given, for which no free trader, however orthodox, may have cause to blush. We do not complain only that foreign seamen are ignorant of our language, but we complain that some foreign captains and mates have too much knowledge of our coasts; and it is a matter to us of intense importance that now you are looking into this business you should see that the British pilot, who goes through an expensive training to take out a certificate, is not robbed of the fruits of his industry by foreigners, even though they do know our language, which they have studied in our estuaries and channels. Then the President of the Board of Trade went on very effectively to say that seamen ought to be properly fed—that the Board of Trade scale was a skeleton at their feast, and so forth. But he was going to deal with this matter very cautiously, even in respect of British seamen. I have got one Question to ask him: is he going to look after the meals of the seamen on foreign ships which compete with British ships?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Which?
  MR. WYNDHAM: In foreign ships.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Name one.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not see the force of the remark.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: It makes all the difference in the world. If the right hon. Gentleman will name a foreign country that has not got a minimum scale, I will answer him.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman seek to establish equality in that respect? He has told us, so far as unseaworthiness and over-loading go, that he is going to apply to foreign vessels which come to our ports the regulations which apply to British vessels. I merely asked him whether, when he was arranging for the British mariner's meals, he would also see that
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  the mariner on the foreign vessel had as good a meal? Why have equality in respect of over-loading and unseaworthiness if the foreign competitor is allowed to economise on the meals taken on the competing vessel?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The United States of America have a much higher minimum scale than I propose to introduce here. France has got a minimum scale, so has Germany—or at any rate at its principal seaports—and Denmark, Sweden, and practically all the foreign countries in the world except ours.
  MR. WYNDHAM: What I asked the right hon. Gentleman was—and I repeat the question—whether he will see that our scale is not superior to the scales of other countries. I now come to the last part of the speech, to which I invite the serious attention of the House. You cannot pick and choose amongst these regulations by saying some insure safety of life and limb. If once you begin to interfere with freedom of trade you have abandoned free trade, and you must take a general view of the whole facts of your interference with that trade, and so the right hon. Gentleman will discover. But when I ask him whether in respect of his regulations as to food he will see that equality is maintained, he is not in a position to answer me, because he is going to give up his power, as I understand, in a large measure to such counsels as he may receive from advisory boards.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: No.
  MR. WYNDHAM: He is going to withdraw the power from this House, and that is a matter of immense importance, and even on the first bringing in of the Bill we cannot afford to pass it over without some solemn word of warning. As I understand it, these regulations and schedules are to be changed by Order in Council. That is a constitutional change of grave moment, and although it would not be proper at this stage of the Bill to express any opinion upon that, still I think the right hon. Gentleman must be warned that to withdraw questions of this kind, in which the public is more interested perhaps now than in any other questions, from discussion in this House and to reserve to a bureaucracy the power of altering conditions of labour on

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  British ships is a grave constitutional question; and when, in addition, you withdraw the power from this House and transfer it to a Government Department, and say that the head of the Department is going to reserve to himself a right of dispensation, and that certain ships which find favour with high Government officials are not to be interfered with, and that others not so fortunate are to be interfered with, that is a power of dispensation of which our ancestors in this country have always been jealous, and of which we shall be jealous when the Bill is brought in.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down gave us, I think, a very humorous speech. I did not expect that he would have dealt with this very serious question in that way, and I fail to see how he could with reason work in the question of tariff reform. However, it is quite evident that hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side, whenever they can put in a word to bolster up tariff reform intend to do so. There was only one serious point on which, I think, the right hon. Gentleman touched, and that was the last one of all, in which he dealt with the subject of advisory committees. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover that that is a very serious and a very dangerous proposal, because I can imagine that a Liberal Government might make very liberal regulations, and in the course of time we might have a change of Government, and I can imagine a Conservative Government being very ready to alter the regulations to suit the convenience of some of their numerous friends. Therefore it would not, in my opinion, be to the advantage of the seamen. Something of the kind has been going on during the past twelve months with regard to load line regulations. By Order in Council, the Board of Trade are empowered to make certain alterations, and within five years the shipowners without coming before the House of Commons, without the matter being discussed or adopted in the House of Commons in any shape or form, have had two goes at the load line, with the result that ships are now carrying more cargo than they carried previously; and only two days ago the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of
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  Trade had to sanction certain regulation that had already been practically adopted by the late Government or the late President of the Board of Trade, which regulations have not been submitted to this House, with the result that shipowners are now able to load their ships deeper than they could before those regulations came into operation. Therefore I think the right hon. Gentleman did score a point with regard to Advisory Committees. If the Government would make the Committees equal in representation — if they would give the seamen, and shipmasters, and officers the same representation on the Committee as the shipowners — then I am sure that the seamen and the officers would certainly be able to hold their own. But I have had twenty-six years experience of Advisory Committees, and I generally find that they are composed of shipowners, insurance brokers, who are largely interested in shipping property, and a number of other people interested in ships, and then, as a kind of makeweight, they throw on a seamen or a fireman, who is practically helpless, and whose voice exerts no influence on the Committee. If the Advisory Committee gives equal representation for all parties, then I would not say that the proposal would be so dangerous. With regard to the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, I desire in the name of the seamen of this country to thank him and the Government for making one step forward in the right direction. I always believe in the policy of taking all you can get and then asking for more. The proposals of the right hon. Gentleman do not satisfy me by any means. Take the whole of his proposals and they amount to very little indeed. Certainly there are one or two very important points. First of all with regard to the application of English regulations to foreign ships. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover has an idea that by adopting what the Government now propose we are taking a step in the direction of protection. May I assure him that the law has been the same for the last twenty years, and under it foreign ships are now subjected to the English law with regard to the carrying of deck loads of timber to English ports in the winter months. That law has been in operation for over twenty years, so that it is not a new

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  principle, but simply a matter of understanding the principle which has been recognised for many years. The same with regard to the loading of ships. We have always had the power to interfere with foreign ships when loading in British ports, but as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out very clearly—as I think every hon. Gentleman interested in shipping will understand—there is the responsibility of the officer detaining a ship which has no mark or anything to guide him; and it might turn out that the ship was not overladen, and then the owner would be entitled to heavy damages. Therefore it is necessary to have the load line on the side of the vessel, so that at a glance the Board of Trade officer may be able to satisfy himself whether or not the ship is all right and in proper trim. I cannot see that this has anything at all to do with free trade or protection. [AN HON, MEMBER: It is fair trade.] Well, we will allow it to be that, but it is a question of the protection of life and limb, and it is not a question of giving British ships any advantage. We are simply asking that the same law which applies to a British vessel shall apply to a foreign vessel in our own ports. I do not know whether my right hon. friend intends this Bill to apply to ports outside the United Kingdom—I mean to our Colonies. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will seriously consider this point.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I cannot.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: The right hon. Gentleman says that he cannot do this.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I cannot legislate for the Colonies.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: Some of the Colonies are in advance of our own law upon this question; Australia and New Zealand, especially, are well ahead of us. I see no reason, however, why the right hon. Gentleman should not apply this condition to India, because the Imperial Merchant Shipping Act is bound to have an effect upon all ships trading in Indian ports. I do not think there is any question about that. I think the proposal of the Government to bring foreign ships coming into British ports under our regulations with regard to life-saving appliances, loading and the load line, is a step
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  in the right direction. With regard to the President of the Board of Trade's remarks about foreigners and lascars, I am sorry that I cannot follow him—in fact, I do not agree with him at all. First as regards the foreigners. The right hon. Gentleman said that as far as the figures he had got went, the number of foreigners on board British ships was 40,000; but if my right hon. friend was to put another 20,000 on the top of that, I think he would be nearer the mark, because it must be borne in mind that there are hundreds and thousands of foreigners who have British names, and as a matter of fact, claim to be Britishers. I have seen a foreigner who could scarcely speak a word of our language sign an English name, and he told the British officer in charge that he was a native of Penarth. It must, therefore, be taken for granted that, in addition to the number mentioned by the President of the Board of Trade, there are a number of other foreign seamen. I wish it to be understood that I raise no objection to foreign seamen. I do not object to any man on the ground of his nationality or his colour, but what I do say is that foreign seamen have no right to be given employment which they are not competent to perform. Again, it is not right in principle that foreign seamen should be used for the purpose of lowering the conditions of employment of our own men in our own country. I have given a good deal of consideration and thought to this question for many years, and I do not agree with my right hon. friend when he says that the reason why the foreigner has been brought in is because the shipowner is unable to get British seamen. Let me draw a distinction for the moment between the sailor and the fireman. We are always hearing a good deal about the boy sailor. I wish to speak about the fireman, because it must be borne in mind that the firemen on board British steamers are more numerous than sailors. I think I am right in stating that there are a much larger number of firemen than sailors employed under present conditions. Therefore, I do not see the force of always talking about taking apprentices to create boy sailors. In my opinion the stokers ought to be the great question for us to consider on board ship. The President of the Board of Trade appeared to think that there has been a

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  great increase in the mercantile marine, and that in consequence the supply of seamen has not kept up to the demand I would like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that we have less sailors now than we had twenty-five years ago. I may say that twenty-five years ago the number of sailors in the mercantile marine was over 300,000, and now there are not more than 240,000. The reason of it is that there has been a great change from sailing ships to steam ships, and therefore the fireman has come in to take the place of a large number of the sailors and deck hands who have been displaced. But it is nonsense in my opinion to say that the shipowner has been obliged to resort to the employment of foreigners because he could not get Britishers; that is not so. I have seen in almost every seaport in this country hundreds of British seamen who could not get employment, and as a matter of fact, if a sailor can get employment upon another ship, within six weeks of leaving his old vessel, he is a very fortunate man indeed. For every sailor that is required in any seaport town you will find at least nine or ten who want employment, and that is the state of affairs that has prevailed for the last twenty years. There has never been a scarcity of British seamen, and I say to the shipowners in this House, that if they want to fill their ships with British seamen and firemen they can do it tomorrow without any difficulty whatever. Let us take some of the principal lines; take, for example, the Cunard Line. Have they any trouble in getting British seamen? Take the White Star Line. Have they any trouble in getting all the British seamen and firemen they require? The same applies to the Union Castle Line, and any other firm of shipowners. I am not arguing that foreigners should not be employed; all I say is that if a foreigner is employed on board a British ship he ought to conform to our standard; he ought to be a qualified sailor or fireman, and he ought to be able to understand the ordinary language used on board a ship in giving orders. The cases that I have brought before the House of Commons from time to time of the class of crews that have been engaged at ports on the Continent for British ships reveal a perfect scandal. I have brought under the notice of this House cases in which fourteen and fifteen men have been
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  engaged on a British ship in Antwerp and eleven or twelve of them have been men of different nationalities, not one of whom was able to understand a word of our language. Can we wonder that ships are lost when manned under such conditions as those? Then I would like to ask what necessity is there for the discharge of crews in foreign ports? The right hon. Gentleman says the shipowners cannot help this, and that it is not a question of wages; but I say emphatically, in the presence of shipowners in this House, that there is one reason, and one reason only, why they discharge their crews in Antwerp, Hamburg and Rotterdam, and that reason is that they may got men at a lower rate of wages. Let any shipowner contradict that statement if he can. The Articles of Agreement for these men are drawn up for the final port of discharge to be a port in the United Kingdom; and when they discharge the men on the Continent, it is because the wages at Continental ports are about 20s. a month less than in British ports. I do not make that statement with a view of making grave charges against shipowners. I do not wish to give offence to any hon. Gentleman interested in shipping, but I do say that I am not going to have it said that the reason for the employment such a large number of our ships is that they can any other class of labour. I cannot possibly tolerate such state-know that being true. With regard to the lascar, I have no objection to lascars being employed whatever. I agree with some of my hon. friends who say that the lascar is a Britisher, but what about the lascars who are not Britishers? How many thousands of them have we on board our British ships who are not Britishers? What about the Chinamen included on board British ships? When were they made British, and what part of the British Empire do they come from? I noticed that there was a great cheer went up from the tariff reformers when the right hon. Gentleman spoke about the lascars being Britishers, and when he said that they ought to have more consideration than the I would say, however, that put the lascar's wages up standard of the alien, the lascar will no longer be required,

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  although he is a Britisher. What I want with regard to the lascars is this. I want them to have the same conditions on hoard British ships that Britishers obtain. I want them to have the same accommodation as white men. As a matter of fact, according to the evidence given before the Mercantile Marine Commission, Dr. Collingridge, the medical officer of the Port of London, said, when questioned as to whether a lascar required as much space as a white man, that he required more space, because he was physically weaker. And yet we have shipping companies getting large subsidies from the Government who are employing lascars and giving them between forty and fifty cubic feet of space instead of seventy-two feet. We would have had 120 cubic feet as recommended by the Royal Commission had it not been that the Board of Trade would not offend the P. and O. Company by making a proposal to increase the accommodation. We could have increased accommodation for the white man if we would leave the lascar outside. I can see that the policy of that is to give them better facilities for employing coloured labour. With regard to the Chinaman, the right hon. Gentleman did not make any degrees when he talked of lascars, but he included, I suppose, all Asiatics. But the Chinaman is not a British subject, as far as I am aware, unless he hails from Hongkong, and I suppose they all come from Hongkong when they are on board a British ship. In dealing with the question of the language test, will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the Chinaman from Hongkong? He ought to know something of the English language at least. If all of them do not understand it, at least a proportion of them do. I have had some experience in this Chinese flood, as I call it, because British seamen have been gradually done out of employment on board British ships, largely by Chinamen whom I look upon as a greater danger than foreigners. I hope the right hon. Gentleman in bringing the Bill forward will not forget that. Then, with reference to the food scale, at last the long looked for comes. I have been looking for this food scale for a long time now, and certainly I have made a good many speeches in the House of Commons with regard to it. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not, as far as I can judge, made it as
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  liberal as it ought to be. I was sorry to hear him say that it is on a lower standard than that of the United States of America. I think we ought to feed our seamen as well as those of the United States are fed, and I am rather surprised that we are not going to have such a good scale: why, I do not understand. The shipowners and other gentlemen interested in shipping to whom I have talked in regard to this matter have all assured me that they pay not less than 1s. 6d. per day per man for feeding the crews. The food recommended by Sir Francis Jeune's Committee only cost 1s. 1d. per day, so chat the shipowners evidently are going to have 5d. per day out of this scale; 5d. per day is a consideration.
  MR. LLOYD-GEOEGE: No.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: The right hon. Gentleman says that they are not going to save 5d. per day. I know that the scale of Sir Francis Jeune's Committee will only cost 1s. 1d., and I do know that if the shipowners say they now pay 1s. 6d., then they are going to get 5d. per day.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: My hon. friend will see that the cost of food depends on how it is calculated. Are you going to calculate 1s. 6d. per day as the price here, or taking the voyage all round? It is very difficult to arrive at the price, because the cost depends upon whether you calculate here or make the provision for all over the voyage.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: We can only calculate from England.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Well, it will be nothing like 5d. per day.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I do not know that. I say that if a shipowner states that he is now paying 1s. 6d. per day, and that the new scale will only cost 1s. 1d., it will be a disadvantage to the seamen. It is time that we had a food scale, because there has been a great deal of dissatisfaction on board ship, and I think it is largely due to the unsatisfactory scale in existence since 1854. I am sure that the majority of the shipowners of this country feed their men well. It was only the other day that I asked a sailor who had been in the line,

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  "What kind of food have you had?" "Well," he said, "we could not have had it better." But there are a minority to whom 8d. per day would be an extravagant price to pay. They are in the hands of the ship's stores dealer, and I say that very often indeed he is the worst chap of the whole lot. I hoard of a case, and I have every reason to believe it is true, of a certain ship's stores dealer who opened the casks of beef and took so many pieces out of each cask, and in that way made up additional casks. Each cask contains 312 lbs., but in this case there was only about 270 lbs. Now, the steward is responsible for 312 lbs., and by-and-bye the beef begins to get down, and the captain begins to grumble at the steward when the beef is disappearing so rapidly. The steward has to clip a bit off the men every day to make it spin out. I think that the Board of Trade, when they inspect provisions, should also weigh them and see that the proper weight is in each cask. That would be a safeguard to the shipowners and protect their interests. A shipowner cannot always be present. He may have a ship loading in Liverpool, and he does not wish to trouble to go down there to see after the beef; but if he could know that the Government Department was seeing after not only the quality, but also the weight of the provisions put on board the ship, I think it would be an advantage to shipowners generally. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to carry the inspection a little further? At the present time the Board of Trade inspect only certain portions of the provisions, such as beef and pork, bread and flour. I cannot see why the whole of the provisions should not be subjected to inspection. Butter, tea, and coffee should also be inspected. I got a sample of butter from a ship the other day and I took it to an analyst. He thought it was cart grease. I showed it to one or two Members of this House and the smell of it was sufficient for them. One gentleman was going to venture to taste it, but I advised him otherwise. That butter had in all probability the shipowners did pay for butter, though it was not butter. The seamen who are supplied with provision of that kind are getting food which is not fit for human consumption, and there ought to be some authority to whom they
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  might appeal, and a prosecution should take place in the same way as would be the case on shore. With regard to cooks, I think the right hon. Gentleman has touched a very sore point on board ship. The food has not been very plentiful on some of these tramps which we have condemned severely; but when they have an inferior cook that makes matters worse, and I think the proposal that cooks should have certificates is a very good thing indeed. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will make the Bill cover as many points as possible. I do not want to ruin the shipping trade, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman of that: I want to help the shipping trade if I can; but, at the same time, I want to see a body of men in the mercantile marine that this country will be proud of, and I want to know that those men have something like fair conditions.
  MR. BRACE: I desire to associate myself with the expression of opinion which has been given by my hon. friend the Member for Middlesbrough. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade upon the introduction of this Bill, which refers to a number of matters which show that human life after all is of some value to this country. As I understand the Bill, it has been introduced for the purpose of affording better protection to the lives of our sailors than is given at the present time. I welcome gladly the provision that seamen shall not be employed on British ships in future unless they have full understanding of the language, so that they may understand the orders given to them by their officers. May I venture to express the hope that the House of Commons will also later on carry out the same principle in connection with the mines of this country? A similar provision ought to be made by which alien miners — the Poles in Scotland — who do not understand the English language should be prevented from going into mines until they have learned the language sufficiently to understand the orders that are given; otherwise danger is involved not only to themselves but to the whole of the men employed. I was very surprised to hear the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that there is a shortage of British sailors. I represent

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  the constituency of Barry Dock, perhaps the greatest export dock in the world, and I have found continuous complaints of unemployment by Britishers there. I have also found a similar complaint at Carnarvon. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade stated that the reason why alien sailors are employed is that there is a shortage of British sailors. Probably later on I shall have an opportunity of going more closely into this and inquiring into the actual facts of the case. My experience, like that of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, is that there are plenty of British sailors conditionally, that is, if the shipowners are prepared to pay the wages. It is largely a question of wages. There is no inducement under the present rate for a Britisher to go to sea if he can get work on land at all. One cannot be surprised under these circumstances that men will not go to sea, with all its dangers and discomforts, if they can get better wages on land. I therefore ask the President of the Board of Trade to give some attention to the question of wages which these men should enjoy; and I ask him, in reference to foreign sailors on British ships, that he should also lay down the law that alien seamen and firemen shall be paid at the same rate of wages as British sailors and firemen. I notice that provision is made for in-pecting the provisions supplied to the sailors. That is very proper; but why not inspect the ships as well which are in course of repair in British docks? During the last day or two I have had a considerable correspondence with workmen interested in the shipbuilding industry, and they inform me that for want of local inspection by practical men many ships have been sent out of dock after repair which would not have been allowed to be sent, if they had been properly examined. Statements have been made to me—I do not vouch for their absolute accuracy— that some of the plates in some of these repaired ships were as thin as a shilling. Therefore, I venture to hope that the right hon. the President of the Board of Trade will follow up the close inspection which ought to be made of the food by a more exacting inspection of the vessels in course of repair than is provided for at the present time. In regard to what the right hon. Member for Dover has said on the question of alien pilots, I am not aware that it will
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  be touched by this Bill, although I think that it should be. There is a real national danger in allowing masters and first officers of foreign ships being granted pilots' certificates to bring foreign ships into British ports, if their ships trade with these ports regularly. In Russia, Germany, France, and many other maritime countries, there are a sufficient number of men regularly working in these foreign mercantile ships who could pilot a foreign Navy into British ports. Therefore, if no provision has been made in this Bill to prevent that, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will do what has been asked for for many years, namely, provide that every vessel coming into a British port shall be piloted by British citizens, by men whom we can trust. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite if this question is so important as the right hon. Member for Dover now says it is, why did not the late Government do anything to remedy the evil when they had the power? I understand that the pilots in British ports have, by deputation and petition, been pleading with successive Presidents of the Board of Trade to do something to abolish what, in my judgment, is a very serious danger to the nation. I welcome the introduction of this Bill and support its principle, with the reservation that when it comes into Committee we shall be at liberty to move any necessary Amendments.
  SIR ROBERT ROPNER: In reference to what the hon. Member for South Glamorganshire who has just sat down has said in regard to the repairing of ships in dock, I may say that vessels nowadays are nearly all classified. There is not a single steamer or sailing vessel now being repaired in this country which is not properly inspected by the Surveyors of Classification Committees. I should like to congratulate the President of the Board of Trade on the manner in which he has dealt with the recommendations of the three Committees of which this Bill is the outcome. I think he has dealt with these recommendations in a very judicious and fair manner. I can only say that I was glad to hear his concluding remark that this is not a political question. It is not a political question, and I do hope I shall have the sympathy not only of hon. Members on this side of

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  the House, but of hon. Members on the Ministerial Benches, when I say that we shipowners come here not to differ from the President of the Board of Trade, but to congratulate him, and to endeavour to make this Bill as good a measure as it can be made. The Bill, I believe, will do away with the necessity for any further legislation for fifteen or twenty years; for it is very much to be deprecated when there is continued interference with any trade. No trade can prosper when there is a fear that something will be done by way of legislation to interfere with it. We are all aware of the importance of the mercantile marine to this country. If it were not for that mercantile navy I do not think that our country and Empire would be what it is to-day; and therefore there ought to be sympathy with the men who carry on that trade, and they should be dealt with in a fair manner. Of course, we have in the mercantile navy passenger liners, but we do not look upon them as the whole of the mercantile marine. They constitute only 10 per cent. of that navy. The main part of it is made up by the so-called tramp steamers, which carry cargo all over the world. These are the mainstay of our mercantile navy. As the President of the Board of Trade has pointed out, this measure naturally divides itself into two sections, one to remedy some of the evils under which the British shipowners have suffered for many years, and the other to improve the conditions of seamen employed on British ships. British shipowners welcome the provisions which will put foreign vessels under the same restrictions with regard to overloading, seaworthiness, and equipment, as British, and also as to the regulations with regard to the carrying of passengers. In regard to the load line, I should like to say that, though in future, if this Bill passes, foreign steamers in our ports are to be dealt with in the same manner as those belonging to our own country, that is not the whole difficulty under which we labour. It is only in the ports of the United Kingdom that they will be interfered with. They will have the same freedom as at present all over the world to carry much greater cargoes than British ships can. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade that no British legislation can remedy this; but we British
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  shipowners shall do our best in the future as in the past to meet this unfair competition. I now wish to say a few words in regard to what a good many shipowners in this country will no doubt think the prejudicial part of the Bill. The clause making it impossible hereafter for sailors to be employed on our vessels who have not a sufficient knowledge of English seems right, and I, for one, am perfectly agreeable to that; and I am perfectly certain that a large majority of British shipowners are quite agreeable to have a law of that description. I think it is only right that the men manning our ships should understand the orders given to them, but I would warn the President of the Board of Trade not to make that clause too drastic. Everything depends upon the man who has the supervision of the signing on of sailors. I hope that when the Bill passes it will only put a stop to the engagement of sailors who cannot understand sufficiently the orders which are given to them, otherwise it might be difficult to employ foreigners on board of British vessels at all, and in spite of what has been said by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, I am of opinion, speaking from the experience of many years, that there is not a sufficient number of British sailors to man all our ships. If we were only carrying on the trade of our own country there might be a sufficient number of British sailors, but seeing that we are actually the intermediaries of the trade between foreign countries, it is quite impossible that we should be able to find a sufficient number of British sailors to man all the British ships at sea. I admit that there may be occasions when there are British sailors in British ports unemployed, and that some owners may give a preference to foreign sailors. But I am told to-day for the first time that the cause of that is the lower wages paid to foreign sailors.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I did not say that the foreign seamen accepted lower wages than British seamen in the United Kingdom. What I said was that foreign seamen accepted lower wages than British seamen in Continental ports.
  SIR ROBERT ROPNER: I accept that explanation; but what I say is that foreign sailors when engaged

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  in this country get exactly the same wages on British ships as British seamen. There is no truth in the allegation that the foreign sailors are engaged in this country because they accept lower wages than our own men. I should like to say a few words in reply to what the hon. Member said as to the statutory scale of provisions. I speak again from experience, and I say that the food scale which is at present being employed by most of the shipowners costs something like a minimum of 1s. 3d. per day, and the food scale which is now being introduced by the Board of Trade will cost the shipowner an additional 3d. a day per man more than he has been accustomed to pay. The additional 3d. a day per man means £100 a year for a tramp steamer manned by twenty-five hands. Even £100 a year is a great consideration to a good many tramp steamship owners who cannot protect themselves by forming themselves into syndicates, conferences, and trusts, and who have to go into the open markets to do the best they can. Seeing that there is a great deal of competition by foreign steamships, it is a most difficult matter sometimes to secure freights with which you can pay your way, and to pay something like £100 more for food when you are aware that you are giving as much in the way of food as any workman in this country gets, and more than our sailors get under the food scale in the Navy, seems to me a little hard. I do not think that shipowners should be called upon to give a better scale than exists at present. Nevertheless, here again we are quite ready to do what is reasonable, and if this House thinks that the food scale proposed by the President of the Board of Trade is a fair one, I shall be the last one to say a word against it. I hope that the proposal will be generally accepted in that spirit by the shipowners of the country, but I repeat that the scale as now drawn is a better one than required, especially as I know that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough himself a few years ago would have been glad to have accepted a scale of a lower description. The next point I have to deal with is the inspection of provisions and water. There is no reason whatever why provisions and water should not be inspected. All shipowners are anxious
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  to see that good provisions are put on board. This is naturally the case as we have to pay for them, and I am glad to learn that the Bill provides that not only shall the shipowners be responsible for bad stores, but that the storekeeper who supplies them shall also be liable. As to the scheme for providing certificated cooks, I am not quite sure whether the time before this Bill will come into operation is long enough to enable us to make certain that when the moment comes for this provision to come into operation we shall have sufficient certificated cooks in the country to supply the demand. We are told, however, that the President of the Board of Trade will have power to make new regulations, and I have no doubt that in this matter also he will have power to meet the difficulties of the shipowners should they arise. I think I have touched upon everything of importance in the Bill. I entirely approve of the intention of the President of the Board of Trade to have an Advisory Committee. Who are the people in the country who are best able to give good advice, and able to judge what is best for this shipping industry but those who are engaged in the trade and who are fighting its daily battle? Therefore I say it is a very wise thing that an Advisory Committee of that kind should be called into existence. It is another question whether the Board of Trade should receive the power which the President is going to take, to make new regulations without the consent of the House being obtained, and this is a question which the House itself must decide. In conclusion I should like to finish as I commenced. I do hope that this Bill will be looked at not only from the political point of view, but from the trade point of view, and that it will emerge from this House fashioned in such a manner that it will give entire satisfaction not only to the shipowners themselves, but also to the men whom they employ.
  MR. JENKINS: I must join with my hon. friends in congratulating the President of the Board of Trade upon the presentation of his Bill, but I should like to put one or two questions to the right hon. Gentleman which I have tried to formulate as carefully as possible. I

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  understood him to say that lascars were British subjects, and I quite agree that that is so. But with regard to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman when he dealt with the question of foreigners on board British ships and suggested what the Government intended to do in order to dispose of the difficulties which have been encountered very recently, and especially in connection with several wrecks that have taken place on our coasts, I should like to put a query to him. The right hon. Gentleman is going to provide that a clause shall be inserted in his Bill whereby the Board of Trade official when the crew are being signed on is to satisfy himself that the foreigner is able to understand the British language. That is a provision which I entirely agree with, but lascars, although they are British subjects do not understand the British language. I myself have worked on board ship, where, going into the forecastle of the ship, you would find thirty or forty of these men, not one of whom could understand a word of English. I do not know whether the same conditions are to be observed when the lascar is shipped on board British vessels, as are to be observed in the case of foreigners. If the right hon. Gentleman when he replies will bear that point in mind I shall be exceedingly obliged to him. I am not going to say one word about the provisions except in so far as the inspection is concerned. I understand from the President of the Board of Trade that an inspector will be appointed to carry out not in regard to part but in regard to the whole of the ships, what is being done at the present time in regard to a part. On certain ships the provisions are being inspected according to the principle laid down by the President of the Board of Trade for certain voyages. Now we have from the President of the Board of Trade a proposal that the inspectors of that body "may" inspect, and whilst I have every respect for and agree with the general remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, "may" to me is a word which is very permissive, and I do not myself believe in Acts of Parliament where there are too many "mays." This word is very often interpreted in a very wrong way. I happen to be a member of one of the Local Marine Boards of this country. I am a lay member, and have been appointed by the Board of Trade,
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  but nearly all the other members our Local Marine Board are shipowners. It is the same throughout the country, and I would respectfully suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should consider this matter and give a fairer representation to seamen on the Local Marine Board. This would do away with the suspicion which is created in the minds of the seamen by the fact that nine tenths of the members of those Boards are directly connected with or interested in shipping. In other respects I trust the President of the Board of Trade will not make this Act too permissive. I should also like to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentle man to the fact that he has omitted to consider one important post on board a ship. I refer to ships' carpenters. There is no compulsion upon a ship to carry a ship's carpenter, but where there are ships' carpenters no provision is made for their examination. At the present time a system prevails whereby a man is shipped on board a vessel not as a carpenter, but he is termed "seaman and carpenter." There is a very old saying that no man can serve two masters, and he certainly cannot be at the same time a seaman and a carpenter. This method of shipping him is adopted from the economical standpoint and not for the purposes of securing safety. I say that the President of the Board of Trade should do by the carpenter what he does by the engineer. You will not enter into your dockyards or into the ships of the Navy a carpenter unless he passes an examination, and if you insist upon that in the Navy and the dockyards, why should not care be taken that thoroughly trained men, conversant with the technicalities of ship-building, are employed on board other ships? There are many technical matters upon which in case of emergency it is necessary that the ship's carpenter should be fully instructed. I thank the President of the Board of Trade for having brought forward this Bill, and for suggesting that it should not be dealt with by means of any hard and fast line. He says that he is willing to receive all that he can get in the way of opinion from this House, and that with the assistance of the House of Commons he will endeavour to carry a Bill which shall be suitable, and which

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  shall at any rate in every way be practicable and possible. Therefore I appeal to him to insert in the Bill a clause as to the carpenters on board ship, that they shall pass a qualifying examination, showing that they have served their apprenticeship to the trade, and that they are able in a practical way to demonstrate their ability, and in a theoretical way to explain all that is necessary for the safeguarding of a vessel at sea.
  MR. H. H. MARKS: The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has to-day dealt in a very sympathetic manner with a matter of great importance and of increasing interest. The Bill which the right hon. Gentleman has introduced has been awaited with very great expectation and interest, but judging from what we have heard this afternoon those expectations are not likely to be fully realised, though there is reason to hope they will not be entirely disappointed. It was hoped that the President of the Board of Trade would have been able to see his way to do something to prohibit or restrict the employment of aliens, not only as seamen, but also as captains, officers, and petty officers, and as pilots in British waters. With regard to the employment of aliens as seamen, the Bill which is to be introduced proposes to deal only with the fringe of a great question, and that very lightly, by what is called the language test. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has suggested one reason for not dealing with this question on its merits. He says there is some doubt as to whether there are a sufficient number of Englishmen to man the ships now largely manned by foreigners. On that point I admit there may be some doubt, although the information that I have gathered does not confirm the view that there is any great shortage of Englishmen for this purpose. On the contrary there is strong evidence that if Englishmen are wanted they can readily be obtained. But however that may be, if it should hereafter appear that the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman was not accurate, and that the employment of aliens was not due to the lack of British seamen, I do not gather that, under this Bill, he would be able to deal with that subject. That seems to
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  me to be a serious defect in the Bill. If we are to have provisions dealing with foreign emigrant ships calling at English ports, dealing with the load line; with the carrying of life saving apparatus; with the storing of grain; with the food scale; and in addition to all these provisions the Board of Trade proposes to take powers for the purpose of modifying certain existing regulations. It seems to me a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman does not cast his net a little wider, and take powers to deal with the question of the employment of aliens in the mercantile marine, and with the question of granting pilot certificates to aliens in competition with British pilots, many of whom have served an apprenticeship of twelve years before they could aspire to the responsible and remunerative position which is practically within the grasp of any foreigner who has had six months experience in our waterways. Another point which might have been considered, but which I think that the right hon. Gentleman has not considered, is the question of the discharge of British seamen in foreign ports. That is a question that presses for treatment at the present time, not only because it indirectly affects the whole question of the employment of alien seamen, but also because it leaves British seamen stranded in foreign parts and leads to great hardship. Among other things it leads to the spending by British seamen discharged at foreign ports of their accumulated wages, which would otherwise reach their families to be spent in England. No adequate facilities are afforded to seamen to send their wages to their families at home. It is true that there is some arrangement by which the wages may be sent home through the British Consuls, but the charges made by the Consuls are excessive. They amount to something like 3d. in the £, which is about four or five times as much as the ordinary banker charges for a similar accommodation. In the year 1904, at the four ports of Antwerp, Dunkirk, Rotterdam, and one other whose name I do not recollect, 27,674 British seamen were paid off, and only 4,134 remitted their wages home. Out of the £232,000 which was paid to them in wages, only £54,000 was transmitted to England. I submit that that is a matter that might well engage the

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  attention of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade and power to deal with it should be included in the powers he now proposes to take for the Board of Trade. I do not say that we should not be thankful for the language test, and accept it with gratitude for what it is worth, but whether it would be feasible to have a Board of Trade official in every seaport of the world in order to secure that no alien should be shipped who did not understand the English language is a point which we can only find out in practice. No captain short-handed in a foreign port would be very hard to satisfy as to the knowledge of English by a foreigner desiring to join his crew. No seaman who had been doing double duty owing to the ship being undermanned would be very critical on the point. The complaint I make against the Bill is that its policy is the policy of personal restriction, whereas powers of general restriction (subject to Parliamentary) control would enable the Board of Trade to deal with each and every grievance as it arises. Instead of a language test the Bill should provide general powers to impose such tests or restrictions as circumstances might show to be desirable. The Board of Trade might take powers to make regulations—as it has made collision regulations —instead of having to come to this House on each occasion with a proposal for new legislation. To take such powers would not necessarily prejudge the question of their application. The new regulations would lie on the Table of the House and would be subject to Parliamentary sanction. They would commit neither Parliament nor the Board of Trade to anything, but at the same time the plea of having no power could no longer be made the ground for non-interference. One of the chief objections to this Bill is that while it only touches very lightly the fringe of this important question it will be counted in the future as a measure dealing with the whole question. However ineffective it may prove to be—and I hope it will not prove to be very ineffective—it will be brought forward for years to come as a reason for not further dealing with the Merchant Shipping Acts. It may therefore, while doing very little good now, be the means of preventing much good being done in the near future. We hear much of the pressure of time in this House, and
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  the right hon. Gentleman has said very truly that it is very difficult to carry an Act of Parliament whenever a change of regulations is required. For that very reason, therefore, I would urge upon him now to put in this Bill all that may be required in the near future; to include in it all the subjects that he and the past Presidents of the Board of Trade have had pressed upon their attention. It has been said by the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors in office, and notably by his immediate predecessor, upon a question which was put to him with regard to the issuing of pilotage certificates to aliens, that while they sympathised with those who brought the matter forward, they had no power to act. Let the Board of Trade take power now. I urge this upon the right hon. Gentleman now, because he has introduced a good Bill and has outlined the way in which it is going to deal with a very important question. But the Bill unfortunately leaves outside its scope many other important matters of detail which must inevitably call for treatment before long. Now, therefore, is the time when the right hon. Gentleman should see to it that this Bill shall be no mere makeshift but should, so far as circumstances permit, be made a comprehensive and an effective measure.
  Mr. MUNRO FERGUSON: The House, having heard the speech of the hon. Member for Stockton, will regard that as a happy augury of the prospects of this Bill. Nobody could have spoken with greater weight upon this subject, and the hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, have the support of every one who desires to see legislation on this subject. When he said that he trusted that this question would not be discussed in a Party spirit, or treated as a political measure, I agree that there is a good reason why the Bill should not be regarded in that light. Here we are not only dealing with a great Imperial industry, but with a class who, by their calling and their absence at sea, are precluded to a large extent from taking part in the elections to this House, and who are therefore to a large extent unrepresented. I congratulate the Government on having introduced at so early a stage in the session this important measure for the good of this great industry and for

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  the good of what has been a neglected class of the community for many years past. I should not have intervened at this stage of the Bill had it not been for the attempt that has been made to drag the trail of protection over this measure. I served on the Committee appointed by the late Government and presided over by the late Secretary to the Board of Trade, Mr. Bonar Law, and I remember then that some alarm was expressed that this Bill might have a protective tendency. The Chairman of that Committee was perfectly fair in the attitude be then look up, and he stated that there was never any suspicion of its having any protectionist character. As for the main provisions, I think on the whole they are excellent. I will say a word about these consultative committees which have been proposed. I think those committees are very desirable, but where I think we need some reassurance is that the representation of the officers and men shall be adequate. I think that if that is secured these committees are good in themselves, because the officers and men are so much at sea, and it is so comparatively difficult for them to combine, that the shipowners are not in such constant touch with them as other classes of employers and employed, and I look to those consultative committees, as giving them a common meeting ground, to remedy some of the many grievances of which we complain. I am delighted that so much stress has been laid upon inspection. We all of us regret that there is not a greater proportion of British seamen on board our mercantile marine, and I am sure that one of the best ways to set about the remedy is by having better conditions of food and accommodation. I hope that the inspectorate will have a wide discretion, and will be able to inspect very freely and very largely at its discretion, and that an effective remedy may be introduced. I think the language test is an excellent one. I myself will not go much farther than that, at any rate at present, and I think so far from this being an unimportant Bill it promises to be one of the most valuable of measures to one of the most neglected classes; and when we reflect, whether in regard to compensation for injury or in respect to other circumstances, how this class has been, I might almost say wronged as compared with other sections
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  of the community, I think we might well join to secure for this Bill a full and fair discussion, and give it every chance to pass into law.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: Representing a riverside constituency—a constituency which has observations always on trade and commerce as represented by shipping—I think it not unnatural that I should say a few words in connection with this Bill, so ably introduced by the President of the Board of Trade. I think that the moderation of the speeches which have been delivered is the best evidence that can be given to the President of the Board of Trade, first, of the wisdom of having brought in the Bill, and, secondly, of the wisdom of the provisions so far as they go. For myself I do not think the provisions have gone quite far enough, and I do not wish the President of the Board of Trade to think that is because I am supposed to have protectionist leanings. It is not that, but it is because one cannot travel the world over and observe the conditions under which our seamen work, and in which our shipping moves throughout the Empire, without having brought home very strongly to him certain inequalities, the regulation of which the right hon. Gentleman has embodied in this Bill. The President of the Board of Trade would not think, I believe, that he had protectionist leanings if I said that he was interested in the regulation of inequalities in international trading as represented, for instance, by the embargo placed upon British shipping in the islands of the South Sea. I do not want to enter into that question, but it must show the House that one is necessarily impressed in watching the developments of our shipping by these inequalities in international trading which oppress not only the seamen but the shipping itself. The President of the Board of Trade said that he was very much astonished to see the proportion of foreign seamen in our mercantile marine as against the number of British sailors employed. He regarded it at first as a very serious thing. I still regard it as a very serious thing. The President of the Board of Trade thinks also that possibly these conditions will be ameliorated by foreign countries in developing their own shipping and absorbing the men who now come into

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  our mercantile marine. Very well; but is it not a curious thing that since the very beginning of the development and extension of foreign shipping there has been an increase of foreigners in our own mercantile marine? That is a point which I beg the President of the Board of Trade to consider.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: What I more particularly referred to were the conditions of sailors on board foreign vessels.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: I may have misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman, but I think the impression of the House was that they were going to absorb in their own ships the seamen who now come to us. I think, on the contrary, that when you once begin to decline in the employment of your own people, unless you take more or less drastic measures, you cannot prevent continued decline. If the tendency is to decline it will continue to decline, and if there is an upward movement, it will continue to be upward unless you have something more than a moral oversight of these conditions. I suggest to the President of the Board of Trade that while I am sure he is sympathetic with me and a great many others who sit on the Opposition side or on the Ministerial side in regard to alien pilots, he ought to put his sympathy into practical exercise. I know the House is quite aware that while we admit alien pilots into our waters to exercise their functions, without any of the real examination which our own pilots undergo—an examination which belongs also to a constant daily experience in our waters— while that is the case, not a single British pilot can have the run of foreign waters. That is an inequality which has nothing whatever to do with protectionist leanings, but has to do with an injustice which I hope the President of the Board of Trade will attempt to remove, in spite of the suggestion that the agitation behind this Alien Pilots Bill may come from the Opposition side of the House. I honestly do not think that the President of the Board of Trade would attribute to sympathy with protective measures in other directions the view we take on this matter, and if he goes on in the course which I judge he has mapped out for himself in this Bill, I think he will find on the Opposition side of the
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  House constant congratulation. I have always felt during the six years I have been in Parliament that the Board of Trade was behind in matters which it ought to have been forward in. The President of the Board of Trade has an opportunity of creating for himself a reputation in that department of public service for which not only his own side of the House will thank him, but also the Opposition and the Labour Members. May I raise another question? I do not know whether Members on the Opposition side will agree with me or not—but take the question of the lascars, and other Asiatics, who are employed in the mercantile marine. It is a very difficult question and involves a constitutional consideration, to say the least, but I think that in the interests of safety the language test ought to be applied to them as to foreign seamen —to this extent, that one man at any rate out of ten lascars should be able to speak the English language. It is evident that I am not pressing this in order to achieve any object except that of having in our mercantile marine the quality of safety. Now the President of the Board of Trade bases all the provisions regarding these regulations as to foreign seamen upon the basis of safety. I really do not think it is the case. I think he has other ends in view. However that may be, he let the matter rest upon the basis of safety. I really cannot see why the same element of safety should not enter into the employment of lascars in our mercantile marine, and I would suggest that the Serangs, who are generally the head of about ten lascars, should be able to speak English.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: He must.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: Very well; but is that embodied in the law? I press this upon the right hon. Gentleman as a question to consider. It would naturally come up on the Second Reading of the Bill. I congratulate him on his intention of establishing regulations for a load line and for a scale of food. It is not for me to say a word against shipowners or to make any criticism whatever, because I do not know the inside of the business as the right hon. Gentleman does; but I have, for the past five years, been reading on this subject—my constituents compel me to do so—and I find that again and again responsible public men

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  connected with the trade of shipping have stated that much could be done, by improving the scale of food on ships, in inducing not only boys to enter the mercantile marine but to stay and not desert. The right hon. Gentleman said, I think, that 28,000 seamen deserted last year. That is a very serious thing indeed, and I believe that if the seaman's life, which is not an easy one, were made more palatable by better fare, and better accommodation on board, there would be a difference in the returns regarding desertion, and you would not find that continually decreasing number of British seamen. I wish to read an extract from a report upon certain occurrences at Cardiff, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Cardiff is, of course, in a peculiar position, as we all know. Cardiff is different from almost every port in the kingdom; there you have a centre of disaffection among seamen for many reasons. You have the question of employment of "Greeks, infidels, and heretics" and people of all nationalities, who are employed at £1 per month less than British seamen receive. If you have one part of the United Kingdom where that kind of thing is going on, you have just as dangerous a thing surrounding wages and employment and the standard of life of the seamen as you would have if you introduced into Stepney 8,000 or 10,000 aliens. It is exactly the same thing. Bring foreigners into Stepney to lower the standard of wages and the whole condition of labour, and you have exactly the same thing as occurs in Cardiff which is described in the following newspaper quotation—
  "It is not uncommon outside Cardiff shipping offices to see scores of British seamen standing aside with discharge books, while the books of Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Italians and Russians have been taken possession of by the chief officers of ships. In a walk along the Bute Road—the main thoroughfare to the docks—one meets and hears as many foreigners as Britishers."
  I think I see in this proposed Bill something which is going to have a considerable effect upon such conditions, because if it establishes the principle that every foreigner upon a British ship must understand the rudiments of the English language, then I think that when that British ship goes abroad to a foreign port, it will not dismiss its British seamen to the same extent as is being done now, if that ship
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  when it returns to a British port must employ a foreigner who can speak the British language. Therefore, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon one means of checking alien immigration which I think will be most effective, and it has no taint whatever of those principles which I and my friends profess. It is retaliatory but not protective. It only establishes the conditions that there shall not be gross inequalities of service between the foreigner and the British citizen. I shall have great hopes of the Party opposite if the President of the Board of Trade is only permitted to lead them in their policy, which will satisfy me as well the Labour Members sitting on this side of the House, who are as keen about these things which are not called by such names as terminological inexactitudes, but which deal with conditions in which foreigners work at an advantage over the British workman, whether in shipping or any other form of labour in the national life. I wish to quote one thing more, and it has reference to the question of wages. We have dealt most largely in the House this afternoon with sailors in our home ports, and in what may be called home trade. I wonder if it is realised how extensive is the employment of foreign sailors on British ships in distant parts of the world. The figures, I am sure, have astounded the President of the Board of Trade, and they have astounded me. Of petty officers the percentage of foreigners is between 60 to 78 per cent. of those employed, able seamen 77 per cent., and firemen 86 per cent. Those figures relate to sailors employed on British ships trading to the Ear East and elsewhere.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Does that include lascars?
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: No, it does not include lascars. If these figures are not correct, they are worth consideration. This report goes on to say—
  "I have exact particulars of a small vessel trading to the East which has tried all three crews for the same voyage. The monthly wages were:—British (18), £81; Dutch (18), £68 5s.; Lascars (37), £60 13s. There was a further difference in the cost of food of 5s. 9d. a day in favour of the lascars against the other two, which both cost the same for this item. The proportion in cost works out thus:—Lascars 100, Dutch 118, British 131."
  It must be clear to this House that if you have those cutting conditions in the

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  trade of shipping or anything else, our own seamen must suffer. It has been said in the House that the fact is that there is no competition, and that our working classes do not care to be seamen. It is said that other trades are more attractive, and that even if you were to give them more encouragement they would not accept service as seamen. I may say that there is scarcely a week passes without an appeal reaching me from my constituency from some home or foreign going pilot, or some waterside man who says that he cannot get his son into a British ship. I know two instances of boys of nineteen years of age who are able-bodied fellows, who came up to the London docks and applied to the British ships there, and could not get on; and why? Because of the foreigners. At last one of them got a berth on an American ship, but the other returned to Gravesend and he is still seeking employment. That young fellow wants to go to sea. I am aware that British shipping companies have done a vast deal to encourage boys to enter the mercantile marine. I think the right hon. Gentleman suggested that Sir Alfred Jones had tried to experiment first under Mr. Ritchie's scheme which was effective although not so effective as it ought to be. Other firms have records which I could enumerate and develop, but I forbear on this the first reading of this Bill. Earnest efforts are being made by British shipping companies to induce boys to go into the mercantile marine. A remarkable letter was written by Lord Inverclyde which offered a very excellent suggestion, to which I will draw the attention of the President of the Board of Trade. Lord Inverclyde says—
  "I believe British shipowners are most desirous of employing dependable British sailors, and from my own experience those sailors who have had a training in the reserve of the Royal Navy are most desirable men to have in merchant vessels, and if the Admiralty will do more to encourage boy sailors in the Naval Reserve, there will be more British sailors in the mercantile marine."
  If there were more co-operation between the Board of Trade and the Admiralty in this direction, I think a great deal might be done. The danger is not alone an industrial danger. It is serious enough industrially, but it is also a national danger. It effects our very security and our position as a great mercantile nation; and not only this, but
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  it affects us also as a great Imperial Power with vast interests in every part of the world to protect. Continually, as we are opening up new avenues for our trade in neutral markets, since we are shut out of other markets to a considerable extent, there devolves upon us the responsibility of encouraging by some wise scheme the employment of boys as apprentices. I know the old system of apprentices cannot be re-introduced, but I suggest that these figures are extremely suggestive and very significant. In the year 1845 the number of apprentices in our mercantile marine was 15,704, but in the year 1903 the number was only 1,072. I do not know whether the hon. Members who represent the interests of labour more directly than I do can see a way out of that difficulty, but I do suggest that the President of the Board of Trade,, in further developing this Bill, as I hope he will do, will see if there is any way by which he can create a new interest for boys in our mercantile navy and give them a new encouragement. I am certain that if the right hon. Gentleman develops this Bill on the lines upon which it has been introduced, and if it passes with all those suggested clauses which the right hon. Gentleman has presented this afternoon, the course of the employment of foreign seamen in our waters and in our ships will be arrested, and we shall have started upon a new course in the defence, shall I say, of the interests of our shipping, of the interests of industry, and of the interests of labour. Because I feel that this Bill is a step in the right direction, I most cordially support the measure which the right hon. Gentleman has brought in; and when he has passed it, the President of the Board of Trade will have produced for this country legislation which is for its good, for the good of trade and commerce, and in the interests of national safety.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: I should like to say a word or two with regard to this Bill. It seems to me that not sufficient attention has been paid to the mercantile marine in times gone by; this Bill is wanted very badly so far as the mercantile marine is concerned. It has occupied a very prominent part in the recent election, so far as the north-east coast is concerned, on account of there being no load line on foreign

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  vessels trading in the ports on that coast, in competition with British shipowners, and the difference between the load which they are able to take has proved sufficient to enable the foreign shipowners in many cases to take the trade away from British firms. I am pleased, so far as this particular phase of the question is concerned, that in future both are going to be treated alike. I do not agree that we have not sufficient men in our own country to man the mercantile marine; on the contrary, I am convinced that we have sufficient Britishers, but when you review the whole of the circumstances appertaining to the mercantile marine, you will find that the conditions are not sufficiently tempting to induce boys to go to sea. If this Bill is carried out in a proper spirit, and all those reforms which have been mentioned are given effect to, the mercantile marine will be made more attractive, and we shall find that there are plenty of English lads ready to go to sea to serve their time as in days gone by. Certainly, so far as our sea-ports are concerned, the number of lascars and other foreign seamen employed have not at all admitted of English seamen going to sea. It is all very well to talk of the lascar being a Britisher, but whether in that category or not he should be made to comply with the same regulations as the British seaman. The right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill dealt with the case of foreign crews. I think that would be a danger in case of war, and it is not creditable to us as a nation that we should have so many foreign seamen on board our ships as we have at the present time. I think we ought to view the matter very seriously from that standpoint. I am convinced that if we were at war with any strong nation we would find it was an extreme danger. We ought to give more attention to it than the right hon. Gentleman seems disposed to do. In regard to the question of handing seamen over to municipalities for training, I think that should not be altogether considered a municipal question. In this country, however, some authority, I contend, should see to the fulfilment of the conditions laid down. I think there are many ways in which we might encourage lads to go to sea, and I would like, so far as the municipalities are concerned, that encouragement should be given to them to provide the necessary material.
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  I am pleased that the question of a food scale has been dealt with; I think that has been a standing disgrace in regard to many of our ships for many years. I do not see why we cannot have a food scale for the mercantile marine. We have a food scale in connection with the Navy and the Army. There is one matter which was touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman which I do not care much about, and that is the question of advisory committees. It has been a grievance for many years with regard to local marine boards that you have generally on a board one representative of the men and nine or ten shipowners. If we are going to have advisory committees of that character, then so far as I am personally concerned, the proposal will not receive my support If we are to have advisory committees there should be equal representation on them, and on that condition, and that condition only, am I prepared to hand over increased authority to the advisory committees. I am sorry that the question of alien pilots has not been dealt with. I do hope that this question will be dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman. I know that the pilots of the place from which I come feel strongly in regard to this matter; they have not only "deputised" myself on that question, but they have written to me at the House of Commons, and it will be a great disappointment to them if it is not taken up and dealt with in this particular Bill. I am very pleased at the advent of the Bill, and I hope and believe that if it is carried out in a proper and true spirit, it will tend to make the mercantile marine of this country more attractive to our sons, and tend also to the benefit of the nation.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I represent, it is true, an inland city, but it is one which takes the greatest interest in everything pertaining to the welfare of the mercantile marine. When I contested my first constituency, twenty-one years ago, Mr. Samuel Plimsol, to whom the mercantile marine are so greatly indebted, represented the City of Sheffield. That shows that it is a city which has been most deeply interested in seamen and in the shipping of our country, My right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade has received much congratulation from both sides of the House

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  this afternoon, and I hope it will be an encouragement to him in bringing in this measure of justice for British shipping and British seamen. I hope it will encourage him to turn his attention to other matters pertaining to his department, and that he will see that equal justice should be done to our countrymen in all branches of trade and commerce. For myself I have never pretended to care in the least from what Party the reforms I have advocated come. I am ready to accept them from the right hon. Gentleman opposite quite as readily as I should accept them from my own side. The only thing that I aim at is the reforms themselves, and if the right hon. Gentleman will endeavour to carry them out, my gratitude will go out to him quite as much as to his predecessors in office, who happened to be my political friends. It is not a question of fair trade, or protection, or tariff reform, or anything of that sort; it is a question of justice to our countrymen in the shipping trade and to our own sailors. The Bill which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has described this afternoon in many particulars, so far as we are able to gather from his able speech, appears to carry out, or endeavours to carry out, that measure of justice to our own people. I think he will admit that from all on this side of the House the matters to which he has referred have received very full consideration. The ship-owners, represented by the hon. Member for Stockton, who speaks with unequalled authority, gladly welcomed the Bill.? The seamen themselves have been largely represented, as also the interests affecting the sea ports. The right hon. Gentleman will not have failed to notice one suggestion of a very significant character which came from an hon. Member on his own side. It was to the effect that he ought to take care that the wages paid on foreign ships coming into British ports are on the same scale as the wages paid to British seamen on British vessels. I do not desire a better sentiment to be expressed from any part of the House or from any section of the community than that, and when we find that that feeling was received with so much favour on the benches opposite I hope my right hon. friend will take note of the sentiment and direct his legislative measure in that direction. I join with the hon. Member for Sunder-
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  land in expressing regret that nothing has been done as regards Alien pilots. This Bill will be referred to the Grand Committee on Trade, and it will be left, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, to the good judgment of that Committee without any pressure from Government Whips or political Parties. It is quite possible that the right hon. Gentleman may see his way to incorporate or assist in the incorporation of a clause in the Bill which will carry out this measure of justice with respect to the pilotage on our coasts. It is perfectly scandalous that so long a time has been allowed to elapse without any adequate measure being taken in that direction. Not only is there considerable danger indeed in giving such an intimate knowledge of our ports, harbours, and coasts to foreigners, but the competition which they exercise in that very important profession is of a very serious character, and I hope that means will be taken to put an end to it, and to enable our people to compete on fair terms. Many times in the past twenty years I have called attention to the immigration of between 10,000 and 15,000 foreign sailors. The hon. Member for Sunderland spoke of the difficulty of getting boys to enter the Navy and the figures which were given to the House by my hon. friend the Member for Gravesend were of a very significant character indeed. There were 15,000 apprentices in 1854 and only 1,000 in a recent year to which the hon. Member referred. I think the reluctance of boys to enter the mercantile marine is connected very intimately indeed with the enormous immigration of foreign sailors who make it exceedingly difficult for them to obtain a satisfactory livelihood. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, who speaks on this subject with authority, said that for every berth our British sailor could obtain there were from ten to twelve candidates. That is a very serious statement to have made to the House, and it is important that at last we should have the attention of the Board of Trade directed to this circumstance. I am sure that every support that can be given to the right hon. Gentleman in carrying the Bill which promises to be of such a valuable and useful character will be given by all the hon. Gentlemen who sit upon this side of the House. For myself, if I may venture to do so as representing

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  a constituency deeply interested in the mercantile marine, I express my gratitude for the measure he is proposing to introduce.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I trust that the House will now allow us to get our Bill. I did not introduce the Bill under the ten minutes rule because I recognised that there ought to be an expression of opinion on a matter of such considerable importance to the shipping industry. But I hope it will be recognised now that we have had two or three hours debate that we should be allowed to get the Bill brought in. The reception accorded to the Bill has been exceptionally gratifying. I think I had better not tread on the dangerous ground which the right hon. Gentleman opposite invited me to enter upon; it is rather a quagmire, and I would rather avoid it at the present moment. There are two or three very practical questions which have been raised in the course of the discussion, which I should like to reply to before I sit down. The question of alien pilots was referred to by the hon. Member opposite and by my hon. friends on this side of the House. It is not such a serious matter as hon. Members seem to imagine. I have gone into the matter and I find that there are only eighty-five certificates issued to foreigners. Now that cannot be a very serious detriment to our pilots in this country. Still, I agree on the whole that they ought to be granted. My impression is that none of the Presidents of the Board of Trade have come quite up to the high standard of the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield. This practice is quite recent, and I do not think it is one which ought to have been entered upon. I might have incorporated a clause of this kind in the Bill had it not been for the very important constitutional question which arises upon it. I believe that there are foreign countries which give pilot certificates to our shipmasters. At any rate, it is a treaty question. I submitted the matter to the law officers of the Crown, and it had to go to solicitors first. As hon. Members know, these gentlemen do not move very rapidly, and therefore I did not get an opinion from the law officers of the Crown on the point before my Bill was introduced. But if my legal friends tell me that there is no great constitutional or international difficulty in the
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  way, and if any Amendment is moved in that direction to the Bill when in Committee, I shall be happy to accept it.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow that that be an instruction to the Committee?
  MR. LLOYD GEORGE: I should say that that would be a question for Mr. Speaker. In regard to the advisory Committee, I do not understand my hon. friend opposite to deprecate the setting up of such a Committee. There must be a Committee to advise before the regulations which affect a very great industry are framed. The hon. Gentleman must not assume that the Board of Trade would not set up such a Committee without the seamen as well as the shipmasters being adequately represented. I certainly had it in my mind that there be representatives of a class whose lives depend on the working of these regulations. My hon. friend raised the questions of lascars. I do not understand him to go as far as to deprecate the employment of any lascars on British ships. That would be provincialism of the very worst kind. I think that my hon. friend only wishes that there should be a certain proportion of white men to the lascars, and, if I understood him aright, he suggested four in sixty. At the present moment there is one white man in fifteen, which fairly answers to what my hon. friend wants. Then my hon. friend spoke of the lascars being unable to understand English orders; but there is a serang, who gives the orders to the lascars, and I believe that he understands the sort of English language which is used in the East on British ships.
  SIR GILBER TPARKER: The proportion of white men to lascars may be the same as mentioned by the right hon. Gentlemen on P. & O. liners, but there are certain tramp steamers on which the proportion is not so large.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have given a general answer to the hon. Gentleman, but I will look into the matter further. I understand that there is not such a difference as my hon. friend seems to imagine, in regard to the question of wages paid to lascars. I am informed that if a calculation is to be made in regard to the wages paid on board ship, two

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  lascars are equal to one European. I understand that you cannot employ Europeans in the toke hold in the Red Sea.
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: I would point out that more than half the ships trading to the East through the Red Sea have white men employed in the stokeholds.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: That was the information given to me by a shipowner. However, I do not think that there is such a difference with regard to the wages as my hon. friend stated. I sincerely trust that hon. Members will now allow this Bill to be read a first time.
  SIR W. EVANS GORDON: The right. hon. Gentleman spoke of emigrant ships coming to British ports picking up passengers, but he did not make any mention of foreign immigrant ships which bring an enormous percentage of foreigners to this country, nor did he make any reference to the disgraceful condition in which these people come to this country.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: That matter will be dealt with in the Bill.
  MR. C. D. SCHWANN: There is, I am informed, as much danger of ships being underballasted as being overloaded, and I hope something will be done to fix a light load line. I am told that in an ordinary sea the screw is well under water in a lightly ballasted ship and that the vessel is well under control, but that in rough weather the screw pitches out of the water, and it then becomes exceedingly difficult to direct the course of the ship. A large proportion of the dangers and harm to vessels in ballast occurs when they are not sufficiently ballasted. I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to overload his Bill, but I wish to draw his attention to this matter, which is worthy of serious consideration.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: I wish to ask a question in reference to the status of officers on board British ships. Is it the intention of the right hon. Gentleman to do anything to secure that these officers shall be British subjects?
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  As I understood the President of the Board of Trade, he only referred to the members of the crew. Then as to the Consultative Committee. There are two associations — the Merchants' Service Guild and the Mercantile Marine Association. Does the right hon. Gentleman propose that either of these associations should have some representative on the Advisory Committee?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: In regard to foreign officers on board British ships, they must get a British certificate. As to the second point, I hope the hon. Gentleman will not invite me to enter on the very thorny subject as to which of the associations I shall make a selection of representatives on the Advisory Committees from. I will not commit myself on the point at the present moment. On the question of a light load line my hon. friend knows that it is a very difficult point, and that a Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on this subject and was dropped. However, I will consider it.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1901, and that Mr. LloydGeorge, Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Kearley, and Mr. Runciman do prepare and. bring it in.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  "To amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1901," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 114.]
  SUPPLY [19TH MAHCH] REPORT.
  Resolution reported.

  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1906–7.
  "That a sum, not exceeding £10,220,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Pay, etc., of His Majesty's Army (including Army Reserve) at Home and Abroad (exclusive of India), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  COLONEL, LEGGEsaid he would like to say with what pleasure as an old soldier he had listened to the sympathetic speech with which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had introduced the Army Estimates and the appreciation the right hon. Gentleman had expressed of the services of the officers of the Army. They had heard very frequently in that House depreciation of Army officers, and that depreciation had been very painful to brave, honourable and sensitive men who, having devoted themselves to the defence of their country, were unable to defend themselves in this House. He was also pleased to hear the appeal which the right hon. Gentleman made that the consideration of Army questions should be approached from a non-Party point of view. That appeal had been made by himself from the benches opposite and he regretted to say that it did not meet with the response which he thought it deserved, but he could assure the right hon. Gentleman and those who represented the War Office in the House that, as far as he was concerned, and he believed those sitting near him were quite agreed with him upon that point, they should on this question of Army administration, Army reform and Army organisation, show a non-Party spirit, though, of course, they reserved to themselves the right to criticise any proposals which might be brought forward. He was also pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he proposed to take the advice of the expert officers with whom he was now associated at the War Office rather than the advice of the experts of youth and inexperience sitting below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. With regard to the land forces that we had to keep up, he was one of those who did not desire that we should have in the Army a single soldier more than was necessary, but he did not believe that by simply reducing the numbers we should necessarily increase the efficiency of the Army. As had been pointed out by many speakers, the strength of our Army depended upon our Indian and Colonial garrisons, and he must say that he looked forward to the time when the Colonial
  296
  garrisons might be substantially reduced, if they were not taken away altogether. That time might be near or it might be distant, but he believed that in that direction we might eventually get some reduction of our land forces. With regard to India, however, he did not think anything of that kind was possible. The number of white troops which we kept in India at the present time was only 78,000, and although some Members had referred to the state of Russia at the present time and had drawn from that the idea that we might reduce our garrison in India, he did not believe for a moment that that was possible. Russia had no doubt suffered severely during the late war, but he believed that she had throughout it a very large force indeed upon the frontiers of Afghanistan. She was now withdrawing her Army from Manchuria, and there was no reason why that Army, or a very large portion of it, should not reinforce the troops which Russia already had on the North West frontier of India. They heard very often that the invasion of India through Afghanistan by Russia was a difficult operation, not in the least likely to be carried out. While, however, it was a difficult operation, the obstacles were not insuperable, and British forces had more than once traversed the territory; they had over Then it was said that Afghanistan was hostile to Russia, but when the British force from India reached Cabul in 1879 they found in the Afghan Treasury a large number of Russian gold coins. He had one of them with him. These Russian gold coins were sent there for a certain purpose. It was to pave the way and make Afghanistan the approach to India. There was no reason to suppose that what had been done once should not be done again. Under these circumstances he failed to see where the argument advanced by hon. Members came in. These gold coins were captured by the British, and at the time money not being very plentiful in the British Treasury chest, they were issued to the British troops for their pay; that was to say, the British troops were paid with Russian gold. He thought that was the only pay he had ever saved. The right hon. Gentleman began his speech in

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  introducing these Estimates by stating that our Reserves filled up the battalions for service. That was perfectly true, and our Reserves were in no proper sense of the word Reserves at all. They often heard it said that Mr. Cardwell's scheme gave short service and a Reserve, but that was only part of the truth. It really did neither. It did not give us short service in the way in which it was understood on the Continent, viz., service for two or three years with the Colours and a longer period with the Reserve. For the simple reason that we had to keep up the Army in India we could not reduce our term of service in the way that continental armies could. We therefore depended upon an intermediate service between the short and the long service. But even that was not entirely successful, for in 1889, when we had to mobilise our Army, the Estimates provided for a force at home of Regular troops of 125,000, and for a Reserve of 90,000. The Reserves were, however, practically only 78,000, and when it became necessary to mobilise our Army in South Africa we had to leave at home no fewer than 92,000 men who were unfit for war service. The result was that after deducting these 92,000 men and calling up the Reserve of 78,000, the Army after mobilisation was 14,000 weaker than before. That was a very unsatisfactory state of things, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would endeavour by some means or another to see if he could not get a real reserve for the Army. At present, as he had said, it was no true Reserve. So long as that system went on we should find ourselves in the same difficulty, the numbers of our Reserves must be limited by the number of our battalions and the strength of those battalions. The pay of the British officer was very much the same now as it was in the reign of Queen Anne, and if the right hon. Gentleman wished, as no doubt he did, to get officers for the Army it was necessary that they should get better pay, more especially those who joined the more expensive branches of the service such as the cavalry. Whenever this question was put before the right hon. Gentleman representing the War. Office in this House, it always received the same answer, namely that, though it was very desirable, there was no money to meet the extra expense. The time had, how-
  298
  ever, arrived when the officers of the Army should not have to depend upon any private fortune they might possess. The time had come when the country should be called upon to pay the officers of the Army a living wage. Officers of the Army should not be subjected to the stress and strain to which they were now subjected by having to pay so much out of their own private means. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider this matter in the scheme he proposed to bring in next year.
  MR. LUPTONsaid he was one of that numerous body of Members who sat upon the Liberal side of the House which had denounced the late Government for its extravagance. He was fully aware of the difficulties which had to be faced when making reductions, and he did not blame the right hon. Gentleman for taking plenty of time to consider the way in which this reduction should be made. If the right hon. Gentleman found the difficulties very great, he (Mr. Lupton) would suggest that it would be a good thing to strengthen his hands by the appointment of a Committee who would permanently take in charge the War Office Estimates—men who would not be salaried officers of the Crown and who would have to consider, not the feelings of the Department, but the ordinary taxpayer. It was not for the spending department to fix the amount of the expenditure, but those who had to find the money. The Army would never be a popular service and the Army would never have an efficient staff of officers under a system by which the officers were drawn from one class and the rank and file from another. If the authorities wanted the Army to be made popular in these democratic days they must make the ranks the only way through which a commission could be obtained. If that were done young men of every class of society would enlist. He himself had a friend who, not having much money went into the Army and worked his way up with great credit to himself, but he finally had to leave the Army because he could not win commission rank. He was a gentleman by birth and education, and he had to leave the Army, because it had no career for him. If the alteration he suggested were made, it

  299
  would be found that the class of men who became officers would be like those who were at the heads of great civil establishments, who had worked themselves up and acquired great scientific attainments. The men who went into the Army would be drawn from all classes, the emoluments offered being quite sufficient. The pay of a lieutenant or captain was not much to a rich man, but it was to a poor man, who would have an incentive to work hard to qualify for higher appointments, and the result would be that there would be in the Army a body of officers possessing considerable scientific knowledge. If this alteration were made it could not be said, as it was said during the Boer War, when the enemy told off sharpshooters to pick off our officers, that it was a mistake on their part, as it left the intelligent non. commissioned officers and men free to manage the Army in a proper way. A friend of his who went through the greater part of that war, with a force of cavalry, had told him that a young officer, who was sent out from England to take command, ordered them to dismount and take the bridles out of the horses' mouths, though everybody except the officer knew that there was a Boer gun 1,500 yards away. It was not until five men had been knocked over by the Boer fire that they got word to disperse, and that order was given by the sergeant. If the men who had charge of our Army had gone through the ranks, things of that sort would not have happened, nor should we have had a general officer ordering our forces to a river, as at Colenso, which river could not be forded, and, as there were no boats, those who could not run away were shot down. We could never have an efficient Army until a vital alteration was made in the manner in which the officers were chosen. It was possible to effect economies in the Army without reducing but adding to efficiency. There were four general officers commanding-in-chief, whose total salaries were over £12,000 a year. Why should we pay a general officer £3,000 a year? It was not as if they were obtained by advertisement. If we wanted to obtain the services of a soldier of fortune from any part of the world to lead our Army, it might be worth while to pay him £3,000, or £30,000 or even £300,000 a year. But the men now in charge entered the Army when they were almost
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  boys, and they did not know whether they were going to be field-marshals or not, and a sufficient pay for that position was £1,000 a year. It was unnecessary to give these large salaries. In civil life inspectors of mines, who had to do a tremendous amount of hard work and undergo great dangers, rose to £800 a year, a few getting £1,000 a year. For that money the best talented men of science could be obtained. Not only could an enormous amount of economy be made in officers' salaries, but also in the number of the higher officers. There were seventy-seven generals, all tumbling over each other's heels, and all enjoying large salaries. He doubted whether many of them would be much good in the case of an invasion by Germany or France, or even to conduct a war in some distant country. Again, there were £4,500,000 spent in pensions. It was quite right that an old soldier should have a pension, but it was not necessary to give such large ones as some of the officers received, the average for officers being something like £300 a year.
  MR. SPEAKER: Pensions are not borne upon this Vote, and the hon. Gentleman therefore, is not entitled to discuss that question.
  MR. LUPTONsaid that the total number of men of all ranks in the service of the King was 1,300,000; but he doubted whether we could put at short notice 100,000 men into a foreign country. If that were the case, as he believed it was, it did not say much for the efficiency with which the Army had been maintained in the past. When the Army was 50,000 men less than it was now, it was almost impossible to put 100,000 men in South Africa without a lot of fuss in this country, and a great many men had to be enlisted, and Militia and Volunteers sent out. That showed that the Army system was thoroughly bad and inefficient, and therefore it was not a question of merely how to reduce the cost of the Army, but also how to make the forces efficient. If the carrying out of what he considered was necessary economy would produce inefficiency he would not advocate it. A few years ago we had a discussion upon Venezuela. The President of the United States took up the side of Venezuela, and he sent a

  301
  telegram stating that it would be worse for us if we did not submit to arbitration. How was it that what this country refused to Venezuela we yielded to the President of the United States? Because we knew that the United States was impregnable; the country was so vast and the men so warlike that for this country to have attacked the United States would have been folly. They might have bombarded our sea coast towns.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not confining himself to the Vote before the House, and I must ask him to be more relevant.
  MR. LUPTONsaid that he considered that the troops in many of the garrisons abroad were a source of weakness rather than of strength, because they might require more troops sent out to them in order to defend them. He excluded those at Gibraltar, Malta, and Hong Kong, but with those exceptions the troops we had abroad which were not required for policing purposes were sources of weakness. He thought it would be agreed that the number of troops maintained in India was relevant to this discussion. It had always been said that the construction of railways in India would reduce the number of troops required for the defence of that country. The troops in India could now be more easily concentrated on one spot whore they happened to be needed, and an Army half the size would be considered more efficient with the aid of the better railway facilities than one double the size at a time when there were no railways. On those grounds he suggested that the Indian Army should be reduced by one half, and that the supports of the Indian Army in this country should also be reduced by one half. With regard to armaments, our troops are now armed with the magazine rifle.
  MR. SPEAKER: That subject arises on another Vote. I must warn the hon. Gentleman that I have already twice called him to order for irrelevancy.
  MR. LUPTONurged that in India the north-west frontier was not the greatest source of danger, because the danger was more likely to be on the Japan side. A large extension of the land forces at home
  302
  was necessary for the security of the country. He thought that could best be done by increasing the Volunteers. They might be doubled in numbers.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. That question arises on a different Vote. I have now called the hon. Member to order three times for irrelevancy, and I must therefore ask him to discontinue his speech.
  MR. POWERsaid the Secretary for War yesterday disclaimed any responsibility on the part of the War Office for the introduction into Waterford of a South African horse disease through Army horses. The disease had been introduced owing to the want of proper precautions on the part of the Army Veterinary Department. He might say that the matter was at one time thought to be so serious that it was a question whether or not the arrangements for the great national horse show should be suspended. He had listened with surprise to the reply given by the right hon. Gentleman to the speeches made upon this question. He could furnish the right hon. Gentleman with many statistics showing that the disease had been introduced through the medium of Army horses, and this had been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin. There was no doubt about this disease having been introduced by Army horses, and he could confirm it by evidence from his own constituency, because there never was a case of South African distemper in Waterford until the Army horses were brought back from South Africa. He did not know how the right hon. Gentleman could say that the War Office was not responsible in any respect. He could quote speeches in which the Secretary of State and the War Office were informed, before the horses were ever sent home, of the existence of the disease in South Africa and of the dangers which might result from their being brought to this country. Would it be believed that the veterinary authorities were cognisant of this state of things and that they allowed a number of horses stationed at Waterford to be sent out to grass in the country districts? In the end these horses were slaughtered. The War Office had peddled and trifled with the outbreak while the horses were in the barracks. It was on account of the

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  horses having been sent out to grass that the disease had been spread. The county council had done their duty most admirably, and by their action the disease had been largely, if not altogether, stamped out. The indirect effect of the outbreak in the dislocation of trade and the stoppage of fairs and markets had been enormous in his constituency There was not a single case of disease in the city or county of Waterford among so-called civilian horses until 7th February, 1905, and fifteen months before that there were the cases he had referred to in the barracks. There never was a clearer case in which the locality had no part in the origin of the disease. It was bad enough that the people of Ireland should be obliged to pay for a war with which they had no sympathy, but it was doubly hard that as a legacy of the war this disease should have been brought to the country. When he made a claim some time ago for compensation from the War Office, on behalf of the local authority, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin admitted that there were special circumstances in the case, and though he would not give a direct promise, he said he was quite prepared to recognise that there were special considerations to be taken into account. The disease had been propagated by the horses of officers who went out to hunt. He thought a reply of another nature might have been expected from the Secretary of State for War yesterday.
  MR. O'SHEEsaid the reply given yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman was the exact antithesis of the attitude taken by the late Government on the subject. Members of the late Government admitted that there was a case, though they contended that they had no power to give compensation out of Army funds for the loss sustained by local authorities. The right hon. Gentleman had alleged that he could claim from the locality for the loss of military horses by this disease. The facts easily disposed of that contention. He was rather surprised at what he could only call the audacity of the Army Veterinary Department in putting such an answer into the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman. The first case occurred on 5th October, 1903, and the horse was shot. Five horses were shot and cremated eight days later. During the
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  whole of 1904 horses were from time to time shot and cremated in the military barracks of Waterford. These cases occurred before there was a single case outside the barracks, and during that time officers whose horses were quartered in the military barracks were hunting throughout the district. In June, 1904, a number of horses were sent out to grass, and on 29th July one of them was shot. Three horses were shot in January, 1905, because they had been in contact with animals which were affected. These horses which were the private property of officers were sent out to the country, the officers thinking that in this way they would be able to save them from being slaughtered. His contention was that the Army Veterinary Department did not take such strong measures as they ought to have done to stamp out the disease. When there were animals in the barracks suffering from disease the officers' horses were allowed to go out three or four times a week to hunt all over the country. There were eight cases in 1905 in civilian stables, and seven of these places were stables of hunting men. As the result of the outbreak of disease the county of Waterford had already had to-pay £800 as compensation out of the rates. The Waterford Agricultural Society lost £345 in the expenses they had incurred when they were prevented from holding their annual show. The horses in the county of Waterford were prevented from attending the great horse show in Dublin and other local shows, and the result was that those local shows had to be dropped after all the preparations had been made for them. The direct loss had amounted to £1,500, but the indirect loss to horse breeders and horse dealers could only be estimated at many thousands of pounds.
  MR. O'MARAsaid that his constituency adjoined Waterford and there was an outbreak of this disease there traceable to the same cause—the introduction of the plague from South Africa by the military horses. Whole districts of his county had been put to enormous expense and trouble to stamp out the disease; while for three years in succession the shows in county Kilkenny could not be held. The local rates had suffered to the extent of £1,000, while the people had likewise suffered from not being allowed to move their horses from

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  place to place. The War Office owed more than an explanation to the county councils; they owed compensation for the expenses they had incurred; and still heavier compensation to private individuals whose losses could be traced to the introduction of the disease by the military horses.
  MR. HALDANEsaid he could assure the hon. Gentleman who had introduced this subject into the debate that the most strict instructions had been given to the Veterinary Department of the War Office, and their Report was that there had been no disease among military horses in Waterford since October, 1904, and he thought for some time past in other parts of Ireland. Even assuming that the disease had been originally introduced from South Africa—he did not admit it—it had spread among other horses.
  MR. O'MARA: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the outbreak was spontaneous?
  MR. HALDANEsaid that what he maintained was that horses were being constantly moved about, and the investigations of the War Office Veterinary Department went to show that there was no evidence that in the county of Waterford and still more in other places, the disease had been brought home to the military horses. On that footing the War Office was not liable. All he could say was that the utmost care had been taken of the military horses, and that everything had been done to prevent the spread of the disease.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he wanted to refer to a point which was inseparably connected with the pay of the regular soldier. If a higher rate of pay was offered, undoubtedly a better class of men might be induced to join the Army. At any rate, such men would be attracted if some more satisfactory outlook was offered the regular soldier when his term of service with the colours had expired. Volunteers earned wages, even when drilling; but the regular soldier was taken into the Army at a time when he had not had an opportunity to become a tradesman; and when his period of service expired he was cast upon the market as a
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  casual labourer. In our large towns such as Liverpool there were thousands of these men. There was no more sad sight in the face of civilisation than to see a poor woman, whose husband had gone out to find work, trying to comfort her children who were crying for bread. This casting of old soldiers on the market had increased the army of casuals, and that had caused more damage to the Army than anything else. He had looked in vain for some promise from the Secretary for War on this subject, and he suggested that when the re-organisation of the Army was taken up in detail, this matter should receive the most earnest consideration. In Germany the health, physique, and trade of every soldier was looked after. Each soldier had an opportunity of going on with his particular trade; but in our Army nothing of the kind was done. He had been present two or three times at dinners given to Army veterans, and the fact that the greater proportion of those veterans had to be brought out of the workhouse to enjoy the dinner was a scandal.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the Clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL (BY ORDER.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. MORTONregretted that he would be unable to move the instruction of which he had given private notice, as it was not in order, and therefore he moved the rejection of the Bill, in order to obtain some promise from the supporters of this measure to remedy the grievances which were complained of. His complaint was that while the railway gave sleeping carriage accommodation to first-class passengers, they refused any such accommodation to their third-class passengers. The third-class passengers at the present time paid all the expenses of working the

  307
  traffic, while the first-class carriages were always run at a loss. While the company did, as he was told, lose by its first-class sleeping carriages that loss, if any, had to be made up from the profits made out of the third class passengers. This railway came to this House for further favours for the benefit of its shareholders, and he submitted that the Bill could only be accepted upon the company undertaking to give equal facilities to both classes of passengers. Up to the present moment he had not heard that the railway company was willing to offer the third class passengers any facilities whatsoever. Personally he would have been satisfied if they had even said that they would consider the matter; but they did not even go as far as that, and therefore he had nothing to do but to oppose the granting of any more favours to this company until the grievance of the third class passengers was considered and dealt with. He moved that the Bill be read a second time this day six months.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he rose to second the rejection of the Bill, not in any spirit of hostility to the company, because he was a large shareholder in it, but because he thought greater facilities ought to be given to the travelling public. There had been con siderable negotiation between the Midland Railway, the Great Central Railway, and the people of Sheffield, who were very much prejudiced by the way in which the trains were run at present by the three competing lines, or perhaps he ought to say by the three different lines, because they evidently had an arrangement among themselves of which Parliament was not cognisant. He would not weary the House by going into the details of the Bill; he would only say that he had been requested by largo numbers of his constituents to take this and every other opportunity to bring this matter before the House. He thought that a commercial community of 450,000 was entitled to better treatment than Sheffield was receiving from this company at the present time, and upon that ground, and generally for the purpose of getting some assurance that greater facilities would be given to them, he seconded the rejection of the Bill.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.' "—(Mr. Morton.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  COLONEL LOCKWOODsaid he had been asked by the Midland Railway Company to state their case as shortly as possible to the House, and to ask its attention to the Bill now before them. He would first say that he had been informed by the Midland Company that the questions his hon. and gallant friend the Member for the Central Division of Sheffield was so anxious to raise were now engaging their earnest attention. With regard to the complaint of the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire he would say at once that the hon. Gentleman was right in voicing the complaints of the third class passengers, and he might be sure that, so far as in them lay, the railway company would do their best for that class of the travelling public. With regard to the Bill itself it conferrred no new powers on the company. It asked for powers to carry out works which were for the benefit alike of the travelling public and of the railway company; it did not ask for any great powers or the devolution of any great powers, nor did it ask for the application of any new principle. He submitted that the Second Reading of an omnibus Bill of this description was not the proper time to raise such questions as those raised by the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire. He thought, moreover, that of all the companies attacked for not giving facilities to the third class passengers, the Midland Railway Company was exceedingly free from the charge of neglecting that section of the travelling public. In fact, the Midland Railway Company was the first to consider them; they had been the pioneers in the matter of improving the condition of the third class passengers. They were the first company to run third class coaches on all their trains and to abolish the second class. He had been particularly asked to state that the policy of giving greater comfort to the third class passengers would continue to be their policy. The fact that such benefits had been given by them to the third class without any instructions

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  from this House should, they thought, entitle them to some consideration at the hands of the House. They also thought that the question raised by the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire was a question of internal management, and if pressed would only lead to a suggestion that the company were incapable of managing their own affairs, which was an insult to the shareholders. He asked the House to support the Second Reading and to send this Bill to a Committee.
  MR. DALZIELsaid the chief complaint of the hon. and gallant Member opposite was that this was not the best opportunity for the consideration of the questions raised by his hon. friend the Member for Sutherlandshire. But the House must remember that they were face to face with a situation which would preclude their having any opportunity other than the present of drawing attention to the great railway monopolies of this country and their duty to the travelling public. He thought that the complaint of his hon. friend was a just and proper one, and that before the Bill was allowed to be read a second time the House should have some assurance from the railway company that they intended to deal with these matters. That was not asking too much of the company, and if some assurance was not given then he would follow his hon. friend into the division lobby. He hoped that they would not have from the Government a strong Party rallying call with regard to this matter, but that the Government would leave this matter an open question so far as their supporters were concerned. He supported the Motion for the rejection of the Bill.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid he accepted the assurance of his hon. and gallant friend and would withdraw his present opposition to the Bill. But if that assurance was not carried out he warned the railway company that he should oppose the Bill at its subsequent stages.
  MR. MYERdesired to call attention to the fact that the railway companies had combined to defy the Board of Trade regulations in certain particulars. He thought that the Presi-
  310
  dent of the Board of Trade ought to look very closely into this question in order to find out definitely whether certain kinds of goods should or should not come under the Board of Trade regulations. About eight months ago the companies combined together and decided not to take a certain class of goods except at owner's risk. They met together in conference and resolved to refuse to take such goods as furniture and the like at the company's risk, under the Board of Trade regulations. In his opinion that was a matter which should be gone into very closely, because there were many manufacturers in London and elsewhere who were not able to fight this question for themselves, and therefore the Board of Trade should see that the railway companies were not allowed to continually defy these regulations.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. EMMOTT,)said the House would possibly desire to hear a word from him before this matter was decided. He recognised the importance of the objections against the Bill raised on both sides of the House, and he thought that at the proper time they would be discussed and dealt with. The House ought to remember that in these cases there was always a community of interests between the railway companies and the public, and they ought not to forget that when coming to their decision. He asked the House to take the view that the Bill ought to go to a Committee and ought not to be rejected on Second Reading. The grounds of objection taken to the Bill were well worthy of consideration at the right time. He thought he should point out with regard to the question of third class sleeping accommodation that that question had better be discussed on another occasion. It was really a matter which, if any change was desirable, called for a change of the general law rather than for amendment by a private Bill of this character. The real question they had to consider on the present occasion was whether this Bill ought to go upstairs to be considered by a properly constituted committee, who would go into the question of whether the concessions asked for by the Midland Railway were of a reasonable character. One of the best features about this House was the way in which Private Bill Committees

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  upstairs did their work. They considered with great care and great patience objections which were brought before them, and he thought in most cases they came to wise decisions. The Midland Railway Company asked for certain facilities from Parliament, and the question they had to consider on the Second Reading was whether it was right and proper that those facilities should be considered by a Committee upstairs. What the hon. Members who were objecting desired to do was to say that because some other facility was not contained in the Bill the measure should be summarily rejected. He begged the House, which was a new one, not rashly to interfere with an omnibus railway Bill dealing with comparatively local and small matters. The objections which had been raised, however just the contentions of hon. Members in regard to them might be, were not of a nature to warrant the rejection of the Bill on the Second Reading, or to justify the House in refusing a fair hearing before a Committee upstairs. All that was asked, no doubt perfectly legitimately, could hardly be properly put into the Bill. If the Bill were rejected on the Second Reading, and the facilities which were asked for and which were probably of some importance to the public were summarily refused, it would interfere with trade and also with employment. Therefore, so far as he was concerned, he should certainly vote for the Second
  Reading, and he asked the House to do the same.
  SIR EDWARD CARSONsaid he could not admit that the principles which the Chairman of Committees had just laid down were the principles which always governed the action of the House, because it was decided the other day on the occasion of the Rathmines Sewage Bill—on which the hon. Member did not give the new House, as he called it, any advice whatever—that the only question which the House should consider was whether a particular district was Protestant or Catholic. There was no word that night as to whether this railway ran through a Protestant or a Catholic district. There ought not to be a different principle in relation to the different quarters of the United Kingdom from which these Bills came, and so far as he was concerned, accepting as he did fully the decision which the House came to, viz., that a district in Ireland must not be drained because it was a Protestant district, he should certainly vote against any private Bill which came before the House, unless he had at first ascertained whether he was voting in relation to that Bill on Protestant or Catholic grounds.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 202; Noes, 43. (Division List No. 19.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, NE.)

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James(Aberdeen

  Dillon, John

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Bull, Sir William James

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Duckworth, James

  Arnold-Forster Rt. Hn. Hugh O.

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Duffy, William J.

  Astbury, John Meir

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Cairns, Thomas

  Duncan, Robert(Lanark Govan

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne),

  Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester)

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Barker, John

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Emmott, Alfred

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Essex, R. W.

  Beale, W. P.

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Bell, Richard

  Clynes, J. R.

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Bennett, E. N.

  Coates, E. Feetham(Lewisham)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Ffrench, Peter

  Bertram, Julius

  Corbett, A. Cameron(Glasgow)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Bethell, T. R, (Essex, Maldon)

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Billson, Alfred

  Crean, Eugene

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Boland, John

  Crooks, William

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Bolton, T.D. (Derbyshire. N.E.)

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Delany, William

  Gilhooly, James

  Brace, William

  Devlin Charles Ramsay(Galway

  Gill, A. H.

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Ginnell, L.

  Brigg, John

  Dickinson, W. H.(St. Pancras N

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Gooch, George Peabody

  M'Crae, George

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Grove, Archibald

  M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Hall, Frederick

  M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Halpin, J.

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Maddison, Frederick

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Hammond, John

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Harmsworth, Cecil B.(Worc'r)

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  Harwood, George

  Mansfield, H. Rendall(Lincoln)

  Schwann, Chas. E. (Manchester)

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Meagher, Michael

  Seddon, J.

  Hazleton, Richard

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Shackleton, David James

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Menzies, Walter

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Molteno, Percy Alfred

  Sheehy, David

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

  Montagu, E. S.

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Henry, Charles S.

  Murnaghan, George

  Snowden, P.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Nicholls, George

  Spicer, Albert

  Hills, J. W.

  Nolan, Joseph

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Hodge, John

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Sullivan, Donal

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Summerbell, T.

  Hooper, A. G.

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Horniman, Emslie John

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Tomkinson, James

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Torrance, A. M.

  Hudson, Walter

  O'Dowd, John

  Verney, F. W.

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  O'Grady, J.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Jackson, R. S.

  O'Kelly, James(Roscommon N.

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Jenkins, J.

  O'Mara, James

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southamp'n

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Wardle, George J.

  Jowett, F. W.

  Paul, Herbert

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Perks, Robert William

  White, Patrick (Meath North)

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfred

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)

  Wiles, Thomas

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Radford, G. H.

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  Lundon, W.

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Williamson, G. H. (Worcester)

  Lynch, H. B.

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Redmond, John E.(Waterford)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Young, Samuel

  Maclean, Donald

  Rendall, Athelstan

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Richards, T.F.(Wolverh'mpt'n

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Richardson, A.

  Colonel Lockwood and Mr.

  MacVeigh, Charles(Donegal, E.)

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Lane-Fox.

  M'Callum, John M.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  NOES.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Hogan, Michael

  Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampt'n)

  Barnard, E. B.

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  Reddy, M.

  Barnes, G. N.

  Hunt, Rowland

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Keswick, William

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Levy, Maurice

  Thorne, William

  Campbell, J.H.M.(Dublin Univ

  Liddell, Henry

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Cleland, J. W.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Corbett, C.H.(Sussex, E Grinst'd

  M'Kean, John

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  M'Killop, W.

  Winfrey, R.

  Craig, Captain James(Down, E)

  Montgomery, H. H.

  Cremer, William Randal

  Murphy, John

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness

  Myer, Horatio

  Morton and Mr. Dalziel.

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Shee, James John

  Main Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 237; Noes, 29. (Division List No. 20.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Arnold-Forster Rt. Hon. Hugh O

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch

  Astbury, John Meir

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Hall, Frederick

  Montagu, E. S.

  Balcarres, Lord

  Halpin, J.

  Murnaghan, George

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Murphy, John

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Nicholls, George

  Baring, Hn. Guy (Winchester)

  Hammond, John

  Nicholson, Chas. N. (Doncaster

  Barker, John

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Nolan, Joseph.

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Harwood, George

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Beale, W. P.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Bell, Richard

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Bennett, E. N.

  Hazleton, Richard

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Hedges, A. Paget

  O'Dowd, John

  Bertram, Julius

  Helme, Norval Watson

  O'Grady, J.

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

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

  Billson, Alfred

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.

  O'Mara, James

  Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordsh.)

  Henry, Charles S.

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Boland, John

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Shee, James John

  Bolton, T.D. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Hills, J. W.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Paul, Herbert

  Brace, William

  Hodge, John

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Hogan, Michael

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Brigg, John

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Perks, Robert William

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Hooper, A. G.

  Philipps, Col Ivor (S'thampton)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Hope. W. Bateman (Somerset, N

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hudson, Walter

  Price, CE(Edinburgh, Central)

  Cairns, Thomas

  Idris, T. H. W.

  Radford, G. H.

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.

  Jackson, R. S.

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Jenkins, J.

  Reddy, M.

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Jowett, F. W.

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Clynes, J. R.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Richards, T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n

  Coates, E. Feetham(Lewisham)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Richardson, A.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Crean, Eugene

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall

  Crooks, William

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Levy, Maurice

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Delany, William

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galw'y

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hn. David

  Samuel, Herb. L. (Cleveland)

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Lough, Thomas

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N

  Lundon, W.

  Schwann, Chas. E.(Manchester

  Dillon, John

  Lynch, H. B.

  Seddon, J.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Shackleton, David James

  Duckworth, James

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Shaw, Rt, Hn. T. (Hawick, B.)

  Duffy, William J.

  Maclean, Donald

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Sheehy, David

  Duncan, Robt. (Lanark, Govan

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Dunn, A. Edw. (Camborne)

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Emmott, Alfred

  MacVeigh, Chas. (Donegal, E.)

  Snowden, P.

  Essex, R. W.

  M'Callum, John M.

  Spicer, Albert

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  M'Crae, George

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Cheshire

  Everett, R. Lacey

  M'Kean, John

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Fenwick, Charles

  M'Killop, W.

  Sullivan, Donal

  Ffrench, Peter

  M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

  Summerbell, T.

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

  Taylor, Theodore C.(Radcliffe)

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Maddison, Frederick

  Tomkinson, James

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Torrance, A. M.

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Verney, F. W.

  Gilhooly, James

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Gill, A. H.

  Meagher, Michael

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

  Ginnell, L.

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Menzies, Walter

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Grove, Archibald

  Molteno, Percy Alfred

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton

  316

  317

  Wardle, George J.

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Young, Samuel

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Wiles, Thomas

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  White, Luke (York, E.R.)

  Williamson, G. H. (Worcester)

  Colonel Lockwood and Mr.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Lane-Fox.

  Whiteley, George(York, W.R.)

  Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  NOES.

  Barnard, E. B.

  Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Barnes, G. N.

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Hunt, Rowland

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Campbell.J.H.M (Dublin Univ.

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Thorne, William

  Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H.

  Keswick, William

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Cleland, J. W.

  Liddell, Henry

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Corbett.CH (Sussex, EGrinst'd

  Montgomery, H. H.

  Winfrey, R.

  Craig, Chas. Curtis (Antrim, S.)

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

  Myer, Horatio

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Cremer, William Randal

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  William Bull and Mr. T. L.

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Corbett.

  Bill read a second time and committed.

  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL (By ORDER).
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. MORTONmoved that the Bill be read a second time this day six months. He was not at all disheartened by the vote just taken on the Midland Railway Bill. He remembered when he proposed in 1893 to insert a Clause in a Tramway Bill to prevent extra fares being charged on Sundays and public holidays, he was opposed by the Liberal Government of that day, but in the end he defeated them and now that clause was a "Model Clause" and inevery Tramway Act all over the United Kingdom, and he had no doubt that the forty-three good and true representatives who voted against the previous Bill would win in the end. [Cries of "Divide" from NATIONALIST Members.] He should like to remind hon. Members from Ireland that he and others had supported them on many occasions in the dark days, some years back. They would gain no time by trying to shout him down. He did not at all agree with the doctrine laid down to-night by the Chairman of Committees. The Chairman knew distinctly that the
  318
  matter he (Mr. Morton) had brought forward could not be considered upstairs under the present circumstances, and therefore he must do his best to get this Bill thrown out. He remembered that in 1882 when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was President of the Board of Trade he told the people of this country distinctly that it was not only their right but their duty on occasions when railway and other companies came, to Parliament to ask that grievances should be redressed by the companies before any other favours were granted to them by Parliament. He was sorry the Government were against him to-night; but he warned them that in the interests of the people they would defeat the Government yet on this matter. There would be further opportunities on the consideration and Third Reading stages of these Bills to get redress for the grievances properly complained of by the people and he should avail himself of all those opportunities.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTseconded. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Epping Division of Essex, who appeared to be a universal railway director, was able to give the same assurance for the benefit of his constituents as he did in the case of the Midland Railway Bill, but if not he should have to support the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.' "—(Mr. Morton.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. DALZIELsaid it was most unfortunate that on an important Bill of this character no one was commissioned by the railway company to offer a word of explanation or to reply to any question which might be reasonably asked by any Member of the House. He believed there were directors of the company in the House, and it was their duty to say something. He did not believe that the division on the previous Bill was any indication of what the opinion of this House would be upon the question of whether or not proper accommodation should be provided for third class passengers. They were not asking for anything they were not willing to
  pay for. They would pay their 5s. or 7s. 6d., and it would recompense the railway companies to meet them in this respect. The railway companies were making a mistake in turning a deaf ear to the reasonable demands that were made. He regretted that so many hon. Gentlemen had found it their duty to oppose the present demand, which represented the opinion of the great mass of working people. In view of the fact that apparently no one was present to give any assurance on behalf of the railway companies, and in view of the fact that there were other matters to be considered to-night, he begged leave to move the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Dalziel.)
  The House divided: Ayes, 137, Noes, 166. (Division List, No. 21.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Mac Veagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Arnold-Forster. Rt. Hn. Hugh O.

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Mac Veigh, Charles(Donegal, E.)

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  M'Callum, John M.

  Barker, John

  Flynn, James Christopher

  M'Kean, John

  Barnard, E. B.

  Gilhooly, James

  M'Killop, W.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Gill, A. H.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Bell, Richard

  Ginnell, L.

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Billson, Alfred

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Meagher, Michael

  Boland, John

  Grove, Archibald

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Brace, William

  Halpin, J.

  Montgomery, H. H.

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Hammond, John

  Murnaghan, George

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

  Murphy, John

  Byles, William Pollard

  Harwood, George

  Myer, Horatio

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nicholls, George

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Hazleton, Richard

  Nicholson, Charles N (Doncast'

  Cleland, J. W.

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Nolan, Joseph

  Clynes, J. R.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Henry, Charles S.

  O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary Mid

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Hodge, John

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Corbett, CH(Sussex, E Grinst'd)

  Hogan, Michael

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Craig, Captain James(Down, E.)

  Hudson, Walter

  O'Dowd, John

  Crean, Eugene

  Jenkins, J.

  O'Grady, J.

  Cremer, William Randal

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon N.

  Crooks, William

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  O'Mara, James

  Cressley, William J.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  O'Shee, James John

  Delany, William

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay(Galway

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid

  Paul, Herbert

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Philipps, Col. Ivor(S'thampton)

  Dillon, John

  Liddell, Henry

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Du y, William J.

  Lough, Thomas

  Reddy, M.

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Lundon, W.

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Ffrench, Peter

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mptn

  Sheehy, David

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Snowden, P.

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Steadman, W.C.

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Sullivan, Donal

  Winfrey, R.

  Samuel, Herbert L.(Cleveland)

  Summerbell, T.

  Young, Samuel

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Seely, Major J. B.

  Thorne, William

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

  Shackleton, David James

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

  Dalziel and Mr. Morton.

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  NOES.

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Forster, Henry William

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Agnew, George William

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Gooch, George Peabody

  Perks, Robert William

  Astbury, John Meir

  Hall, Frederick

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Price, C. E.(Edinb'gh, Central)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Radford, G. H.

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester)

  Hardy, Laurence(Kent Ashford

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Beale, W. P.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Richardson, A.

  Belloc, Hiliare Joseph Peter R.

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Bennett, E. N.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Roberts. S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Bertram, Julius

  Henderson, J. M.(Aberdeen, W.)

  Robinson, S.

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Herbert, Colonel Ivor(Mon., S.)

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshire

  Hervey, F.W.F.(Bury S.Edm'ds

  Runciman, Walter

  Bolton, T.D.(Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Hills, J. W.

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Schwann, Chas. E.(Manchester)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hooper, A. G.

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

  Brigg, John

  Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset, N

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Bright, J. A.

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Brunner, J.F.L.(Lancs., Leigh)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Bull, Sir William James

  Hunt, Rowland

  Spicer, Albert

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Idris, T. H. W.

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.)

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Campbell, J.H.M.(Dublin Univ.

  Jackson, R. S.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury)

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Jowett, F. W.

  Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark)

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Tomkinson, James

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Keswick, William

  Torrance, A. M.

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Verney, F. W.

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Wadsworth, J.

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lever, A. Levy(Essex, Harwich

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Lever. W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Cowan, W. H.

  Levy, Maurice

  Ward, W. Dudley(Southampton

  Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim, S.

  Lynch, H. B.

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Macdonald, J. M.(FalkirkB'ghs

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  White, Luke (York, E.R.)

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Maclean, Donald

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Dickinson, W. H.(St. Pancras, N

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Wiles, Thomas

  Duckworth, James

  M'Crae, George

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  Du Cros, Harvey

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Williamson, G. H. (Worcester)

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark Govan

  M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

  Maddison, Frederick

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Emmott, Alfred

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Younger, George

  Essex, R. W.

  Menzies, Walter

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Col-

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Molteno, Percy Alfred

  onel Lockwood and Mr.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Moss, Samuel

  Lane-Fox.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Resolutions agreed to.

  Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

  TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
  MR. DUFFY: The Resolution I have the honour to submit for the consideration of the House, reads as follows—"That in the opinion of this House, the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, are not used to the best advantage for the promotion of the higher education of the Irish people, and that, in view of the deplorable condition of higher education in Ireland, it is of vital and urgent importance that the control and administration of these large revenues should be so achieved as to make them available for the use of the general body of the nation."
  I am not going to be tempted to enter upon anything like a critical historical survey of Trinity College and the University of Dublin, for the best of all reasons—I am not possessed of that close intimate knowledge of the institution which some of my learned friends can justly lay claim to; it is enough for my purpose to give a cursory glance back and see what it has done in the way of fulfilling its obligations in so far as providing a higher class University education for my fellow countrymen, and how it is engaged to-day in the pursuit of that great educational mission. As the House is well aware, Trinity College was established in the year 1592, on a charter of incorporation granted by Queen Elizabeth, and I speak the candid truth when I say it was built and endowed on the ruins of and out of the funds derived from the confiscated properties of the Catholics of Ireland. During all those centuries it has been conducted on exclusively Protestant lines—a foreign institution, nurtured and pampered during all those years for the express purpose of degrading and keeping the Catholic people of Ireland in ignorance—whilst its enormous revenues are employed for the purpose of
  324
  catering and providing a higher class University education for practically all those opposed to the Catholic and Nationalist forces in Ireland. As I have said, three centuries have now passed since it was first called into existence, and, except for some slight change which has taken place in the government of the College within a comparatively recent date, it has never faltered in its original mission, but remained perfectly consistent and even loyal and faithful to the teaching, and spirit of its founders, and has even treated the Catholic people of Ireland as outcasts and strangers. Some attempts have been made to concede to Irish Catholics a system satisfactory to the people, but all such attempts have failed, so far, in carrying out the objects in view. In the year 1794 the Irish Parliament made an attempt to settle the question; Up till that period the Irish Catholics were forbidden to attend the colleges giving a higher class education. Since then various other attempts have been made in the same direction by the Government of this country, and all of them have resulted in turning out failures of the worst possible kind. The last attempt, as the House will remember, was the appointment and sending out of a Royal Commission in the year 1901, for the purpose of gathering together all the expert evidence in Ireland on the subject, with a view of evolving a scheme satisfying the requirements of the Catholics of Ireland. A good deal of time and trouble was spent in trying to find a way out of the difficulty; they compiled a number of books of great educational interest, but the fact of excluding Trinity College, the one solitary teaching University in Ireland, from the scope of the inquiry, reduced the value of, if it did not destroy entirely the Report of the Commission. As usual nothing has come out of that Report, and Ireland to-day, as a consequence, is deprived of the opportunities for higher class University education, enjoyed by every other civilised country in the world. At the time the terms of reference to the late Royal Commission were being settled it was made abundantly clear that Trinity College should be included if it

  325
  was to bear any good result. The Presbyterians protested, for at a meeting of the Education Committee of that body a resolution was passed and sent to the Government. The Committee—
  "Protested in the strongest terms against the suggested exemption of Trinity College, Dublin, from the scope of the inquiry of the Royal Commission, as any inquiry so restricted instead of inspiring public confidence would awaken mistrust, etc."
  Some of the other religious bodies also expressed dissent, and it is well known that Trinity College was excluded from the inquiry, because, amongst other reasons, Judge Madden threatened to resign his Commission if there was any inquiry as to Trinity.
  The great Archbishop of Tuam, in examining the late Mr. Lecky, stated that Trinity College—
  "Deliberately excluded itself from the purview of the Commission."
  And His Grace said that that was—
  "A real misfortune."
  So that the cry was that no inquiry was to be made into Trinity College, and it was clearly on this understanding that the representatives of Trinity supported the claim of the Catholics to have a University of their own, though subsequently they made use of the exclusion of Trinity to do injury to any other finding of the Commission. For Dr. Traill, the Provost (Vol. III. p. 205), said—
  "If a new College is started in Dublin, with reduced fees, etc., it would be impossible for Trinity College, Dublin, to hold their own against such unfair competition. Again, in order to be in a position to defy competition, they would require another £100,000, and an annual grant of £6,000 a year."
  And then Dr. Traill went on to say that there was room for another College and University in Dublin. All this goes to show that Trinity College was purposely and designedly excluded from the terms of the Commission. I suggest that it was because they were afraid it would be proved up to the hilt, that since the Fawcett Act was passed in 1873 it would be impossible for the College to prove that the property of the University granted to it by Elizabeth, James I., Charles I. and II. was to be used as private property of the Provost and Senior Fellows, or that the confiscated
  326
  estates were to be used for Protestant and Episcopal purposes only. In the debates in this House in 1873, the College authorities professed the desire to make the University a national one, and this is borne out by the preamble to Fawcett's Act, which reads—
  "It is expedient that the benefits of Trinity College and the University of Dublin and of the schools in the said University, as places of religion and learning, should be rendered freely accessible to the nation."
  It could be shown that Trinity College has been enormously endowed out of public funds, not merely from the funds derived out of the Catholic estates confiscated all over the land, but by special grants from the Irish Parliament. In June 1709, our Parliament granted £5,000 to Trinity—
  "For erecting a public library in the said College."
  Again on 31st October, 1751, a further sum of £5,000 was voted—
  "To be expended in and towards rebuilding and adding to said College."
  And Taylor's History says—
  "By the sanction of their Majesties King William III., Queen Anne, King George I., II., and III., various sums were voted by Parliament for buildings in College, the whole sum amounting to £75,000, and still later a sum of £20,000 was lent (interest free) by the Government for the same purpose. Again, a sum computed to be about £140,000 was given as compensation for the right of presentation to livings which was taken away from the College in 1869. And it must also be borne in mind that under the Land Act, 1903, a yearly sum of £5,000 a year was guaranteed to Trinity to make good any losses sustained through the operation of the Land Act. The rental of Trinity College Estates, which are scattered over twelve counties, and which comprise about 200,000 acres in the lands of about 10,000 tenants, and which is valued under the Poor Law valuation at about £100,000 — is usually referred to as about £36,000 a year, but this is entirely an underestimate. No doubt the College receives £35,423 a year from middlemen, but in addition they draw a large rental of about £7,500 from tenants in occupation, and the Provost's private estate, the rental of which is not ascertainable, but which I am sure I do not exaggerate when I hit upon the valuation, which is £2,640, making a gross total of revenue to the College of £45,583."
  From all this it is clear that those speaking on behalf of Trinity College acted wisely in excluding the College, its endowments, its revenue, its controlling board and its system of carrying

  327
  on the education of the nation, from the scope of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into higher class education in Ireland. If the Commission had received power to investigate the affairs of Trinity, amongst other strange and unnatural phenomena that would come to light would be the absurd system of government that still rules the affairs of Trinity. It is a fact that the affairs and administration of the College are altogether in the hands of the Provost and seven Senior Fellows who constitute the Board. These are supposed to be men of vigour and great intellectual eminence, men who shine in the world of historical or literary research. That I cannot speak about, but what is the fact regarding their ages? I understand they are all old men, beyond the allotted span of life, —unlike the Civil Service or any other business in the world supposed to be conducted by men of vigour and men free from all physical complaints. Let me read for the information of the House the names and the ages of the distinguished gentlemen who are supposed, from day to day, to discharge the multitudinous duties entrusted to the keeping of a Board who have the name and the character and efficiency of a great University in their keeping—

  Born

  Years

  Traill, Anthony

  Nov. 1, 1838

  aged

  67

  Barlow, Rev. James W.

  Oct. 21, 1826

  aged

  80

  Williamson, Benjamin

  1827

  aged

  79

  Abbot, Rev. James K.

  Mar. 26, 1829

  aged

  77

  Gray, Rev. Thomas T.

  1834

  aged

  72

  Mahaffy, Rev. J. P.

  July 12, 1839

  aged

  67

  Tarleton, Francis A.

  Apr. 20, 1841

  aged

  65

  Tyrell, R. Y.

  Jan. 21, 1844

  aged

  62

  The average age of the governors is seventy-one and one-eighth years. It is absurd to think that a body of gentlemen so old and decrepit could possibly be able to attend to the affairs of such a great institution as the University of Dublin. Let the House picture to itself the position of Ireland to-day in respect to this great educational grievance. Ireland has a population of over 4,500,000, and for 4,500,000 of people Ireland has one teaching University; while on the other hand, Scotland with a lesser population, has four, England has seven, Germany has twenty-two and in addition innumerable schools of the highest possible rank. And yet there are people to be
  328
  found who wonder at the backward condition of the Irish people, and they grow wild and furious at the bare mention of setting up a national University for the education of the Catholic people of Ireland. How unreasonable and inconsistent they are, surely! They object to the establishment of a truly national University in Ireland, while at the same time they freely and willingly and generously endow a college for Mahommedans in Egypt. They maintain sectarian colleges in this country. They maintain, and justly so, in the north of Ireland, a University for the education of the Presbyterians of the north. They maintain every form of education in Ireland on strictly sectarian principles. Why, in the year 1852 Her late Majesty granted a Charter providing for the University education of her Catholic subjects in Canada, where the Catholic population was only 40 per cent. as against 90 per cent. in Ireland. You endow a Jewish College in Stephen's Green, and while you do all this, you hesitate and refuse to set up and endow a truly national University for the Catholics of Ireland. We have oftentimes been told that the reason why you oppose our fair and legitimate demands is because you think we are wishful and desirous of setting up an exclusively Catholic University —one governed by Roman Catholic bishop and priests. That is a false charge to prefer against us. We have asked and we continue to demand, and shall persist in our importunity till you satisfy us, till you give us a University that will satisfy—to quote Mr. Balfour's words— "The legitimate aspirations of the Catholics," a University which in its inception and government shall be truly national and acceptable to the great mass of the Irish people. The Irish people will never accept any system which banishes religion out of the schools, and the House should bear in mind it is dealing with a county where four-fifths of the people are Catholics. And how, therefore, is it possible to disregard and set at naught the religious convictions of the people? The idea is impossible. It is simply monstrous to ask any Irish Catholic—when the time has arrived for perfecting his education—to leave his country, to leave his religion, to bid good-bye to the associations of religion

  329
  and home, and to enter an institution where he finds himself in an atmosphere of rigid Protestantism. For, notwithstanding the changes effected in Trinity College within recent years, it is yet openly and aggressively a centre of Protestant thought and learning. It was founded and endowed for proselytising purposes, and the endowment included a Divinity school. After two hundred years of proscription, it is not long ago since positions of emolument were thrown open to Catholics. Yes, but some may say, "Is not all that bigotry and exclusion a thing of the past— Catholics are no longer shut out. Tests and disabilities have been removed." That is so, to a limited extent; but it is a well-known fact that the College is not acceptable or considered congenial for my co-religionists in Ireland. It was bred low and reared in Protestantism. It is Protestant in its history. It is Protestant in its customs and religious observances. It is as Protestant to-day as ever. Ninety per cent. of its students are Protestants. The Provost, the Fellows, and all the Professors are of the same religion, and consequently it is absurd and ridiculous for anybody to contend that it is suited to the wants and requirements of my fellow-countrymen. Is it not the height of madness to expect the Catholics of Ireland to be satisfied with it as a means of University education? It is, and, what is more, in face of the persistent and continual opposition offered to our claims for equality in University Life. The time has arrived at last when the leaders of public opinion in Ireland must take up a definite and determined stand in respect to the matter. And now that the way is cleared, inasmuch as the land question, slowly but gradually, is moving out of the way, it is a matter of urgent practical politics to concentrate their attention and undivided energies in having this great national question settled once and finally. Trinity, no doubt, is a great, historic institution, with long and ancient traditions behind it. It has given to the world some great and illustrious men, but as compared with its opportunities it has done very little. There is no good, however, in crying over the past. What is gone is gone and cannot be
  330
  recalled. Let us look to the future. Let the new Government handle this grave and complicated problem in a brave, upright, and righteous manner. If they do so, I am almost certain the day is not far distant when our land— once a nation of poets, bards, dramatists, orators, preachers, children of wit and children of fancy—will once again regain its position amongst the most learned and scholarly on this earth.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLseconded the Motion. He said it was not possible for him to say, in the time available to-night, one-tenth of what he had intended to say, but he would state a number of facts which, he imagined, would be a revelation to hon. Members on both sides of the House with reference to Dublin University, in order to show that there was great need for thorough inquiry into the administration of that institution. During the régime of the late Government he put a notice on the Paper asking for a return in regard to the administration, the revenues, and the method of teaching at Trinity College. The junior Member for the City of London said that the return could not be given, and the right hon. Gentleman referred him for information on the subject to a number of documents which he named. He would give briefly the result of his researches, and he might say that he could prove his statements up to the hilt by documents. His researches went to show that Trinity College was gravely mismanaged with reference to the distribution of its finances, the appointment of teachers, and the bestowal of degrees. Speaking as a Protestant, and with no feeling of unkindness towards Trinity College, where he had himself been a public examiner, he said that under its present management it was unacceptable to the very class for whom it was intended. For one in the Protestant community who would openly approve it, nine would condemn. The number of students who received the M.A. degree in 1886 was 1,346, while in 1903 the number had declined to 938. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were filled with Protestant Irishmen who went there rather than to their own colleges. That very day at University College the election had taken place

  331
  of a Protestant Irishman as master. The Chancellor of Trinity College, Lord Rosse, sent his son to Oxford. It was notorious that Trinity College was not acceptable, not only to Roman Catholics, but to what might be called the cream of the intellect, of the Protestant nobility and gentry of Ireland. Of three men who were representatives in succession of Cambridge University all were Irish, and two were closely connected by antecedents with Trinity College. Out of £66,000 per annum £20,000 was divided among eight old men—the Provost and the seven senior Fellows, whose average age was seventy-one. That was how education was promoted in Ireland. As to the Fellowship training, while it involved enormous intellectual labour it did not give to any man who got a fellowship any better position than a man who did not. Trinity College was called a teaching University. It was nothing of the kind. A young man might go there and get a degree and never attend a lecture. More than half of them did that. But whether they passed the examination or attended the lectures, they paid exactly the same fees. The fees, having regard to the class of students, were exorbitant. In the revenues of Trinity College must be included a sum of £122,000 which was given in 1869. From that day to this no account had been given of that money. He wished to know where it had gone. The Roman Catholics of Ireland, forming three-fourths of the population, would not have anything to do with Trinity College. It was a monopolist institution which did not benefit even the class for whom it was intended. It had been converted into an Old Man's Society, and, as it at present stood, it blocked the way of higher education in Ireland. He appealed with confidence to the Chief Secretary to find a remedy for the present state of matters.
  332
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, are not used to the best advantage for the promotion of the higher education of the Irish people, and that, in view of the deplorable condition of higher education in Ireland, it is of vital and urgent importance that the control and administration of these large revenues should be so altered as to make them available for the use of the general body of the nation."—(Mr. Duffy.)
  MR. CAMPBELLthought the House would agree with him that no very great advance towards the solution of the most difficult of all Irish questions—namely, that of University education—was to be hoped for from such a Resolution as this. This question of the administration of Dublin University had already formed the subject of investigation by a Royal Commission and of frequent debate in this House and on each and every occasion there had been a remarkable consensus of opinion in favour of the enlightened policy and wisdom of that administration. The Royal Commission of 1853 found that enormous improvements of an important character had been introduced from time to time by the authorities of Trinity College, that the general state of the University was satisfactory, and that the spirit of improvement had been especially shown in the changes that had been introduced in the course of education to adapt it to the requirements of the age. In the course of a speech on the Second Reading of the Irish Universities' Bill in 1873 Mr. Gladstone, who was then Prime Minister, said he had a strong sentiment of veneration and gratitude for Trinity College, which had done for Ireland a large portion of the good which had been done for her at all; and the late Sir William Harcourt, in the course of the same debate, spoke of Dublin University as one of the most

  333
  famous Universities of the world and the intellectual eye of Ireland. Mr. Pynn, the then Liberal Member for Dublin, also said that Trinity College had been the one successful institution in Ireland. In the same year, speaking in this House, Mr. William Redmond, who as a Home Ruler represented the City of Wexford, stated that the Roman Catholics of Ireland took pride in the renown of the Dublin University. That was the University of which the hon. and learned Member for South Donegal had spoken to-night. It was the University which so far back as 1794 petitioned the Irish Parliament and obtained through it permission to admit to its degrees the Roman Catholics of Ireland, anticipating by thirty years the occasion when the Imperial Parliament granted Catholic emancipation. In 1873 it came to the Imperial Parliament and obtained the abolition of all tests of every kind within the walls of the University. From that hour to this there was no prize or position of profit, emolument or government within the University, that was not open to all, without distinction, of class or creed. Three of its Fellowships had been held in recent years by members of the Presbyterian Church, and one by a distinguished member of the Roman Catholic Church. In the face of these facts, it was idle for hon. Members from Ireland to come to this House and endeavour, under a Motion of this sort, to obtain a vote in favour of a foundation on a sectarian basis. The hon. Member for South Donegal had said that there were seven senior Fellows who had entrusted to them the management of this institution and that they and the Provost had absorbed £12,000 a year of the funds of the College, but with beautiful Hibernian exaggeration the hon. Gentleman went on to increase that £12,000 to £20,000.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLsaid that what he had stated was that the senior Fellows got £11,000 odd, the Provost £2,500,
  334
  and that the expenses of administration amounted to one-third of the income of the College.
  MR. J. CAMPBELLsaid he did not know by what arithmetic £2,500 and £11,000 produced £20,000. The facts as to the payments to senior Fellows had never been kept back from the House. Returns were furnished year by year until 1874, and one was furnished in 1889. There were seven of those senior Fellows, whose names would enable the House to judge whether they were men who from age or infirmity were unfit to be entrusted with the management of an institution of this sort. They included Professor Williamson, Professor Mahaffy, Professor Tarleton, and Professor Tyrrell, all men with a European reputation for culture and scholarship, all men whose works were to-day the standard textbooks in the particular subjects in which they excelled. After some thirty years of splendid service in the cause of education the seven divided amongst them a sum of £9,900 a year, or an average income of some £1,400 a year, an amount far below what they would have earned had they devoted their abilities to commercial or professional life. It was only within recent years that there was any provision made whereby they could be pensioned. The compensation for the loss of presentation rights on the disestablishment of the Irish Church, about which inquiry had been made, was merged in the general funds of the college, subject to the permission given by a Queen's letter in 1880 to use the income of the fund for the pensioning of Fellows who became incapable of discharging their duties, provided that in no year should these pensions exceed the annual amount of £5,000. The hon. Members ought hardly to grudge to the author of "Who fears to speak of '98," the only gentleman who was in receipt of a pension under that scheme after fifty-three years, the amount he drew of £1,000 a year. It was said that the revenues had not been

  335
  made available for the bulk of the Roman Catholic youth of Ireland. It was true that many distinguished Roman Catholics had received their education within the walls of Trinity College. It was true that there were on the Irish Bench and in this country many distinguished Roman Catholics who owned much to the education they received there. But it was equally true that the great majority of the Catholic youth of Ireland had not been allowed to avail themselves of the educational benefits the institution offered. Ever since 1873 every distinction, privilege, office, and honour had been open to every Irishman, but in 1869 the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland met in solemn conclave and passed this resolution, from which they had never departed—
  "We condemn the mixed system of education, whether primary, intermediate, or university, as grievously and intrinsically dangerous to the morals of Catholic youth, and we declare that to Catholics only, and under the supreme control of the Church in all things appertaining to faith and morals, can the teaching of Catholics be entrusted."
  Here was the reason why the advantages of higher education freely offered since 1873 had not been availed of as they might have been. Let those who doubted it read the remarkable and powerful letter published some two months ago by Mr. Michael Davitt, an Irishman and a Catholic, who for twenty years had been a Member of this House, in which he demonstrated that the irreconcilable hostility of the Catholic Bishops had deprived him and his coreligionists of the benefit of University education for half a century. Let the saddle by put on the right horse, and let it not be said that this was due to the intolerance and bigotry of Dublin University. The University had ever been in advance of the age in this matter. This was a question affecting a great and ancient institution; he regretted that so little time was left for discussion, and he would not stand between the House and the Chief Secretary. Speak-
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  ing as an Irishman, and as one proud of his native country, his hope was that the University of Dublin might yet be permitted to become in fact what in name it had been for centuries—the great University where the youth of Ireland could engage in friendly educational rivalry, and while so engaged learn by mutual association abiding sentiments, of toleration and respect truly essential for national prosperity, but which they could not learn while imprisoned in rival sectarian compounds, perpetuating the religious differences of the past which had numbed and paralysed the energy of his countrymen. He hoped the House would lend no favour to an attack on Trinity College as profitless as it was ungenerous.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.),said it was impossible for him at that late hour to enter upon several of the interesting questions which had been raised and which, had time permitted, he would have gladly dealt with. He would confine himself to the essential points and to a statement of the intentions of the Government. He was rather surprised that the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down should have spoken of a 'crusade" against Trinity College. It seemed to him that the remarks about Trinity College were not couched in any hostile or angry spirit, and he certainly did not put that construction upon them. It seemed to him most natural that hon. Members from Ireland, whatever their religious and political opinions were, should be interested in the welfare of so great an institution, which was an ornament to Dublin and to the whole of Ireland, and should wish that this ancient centre of intellectual life should again fill the place it ought to fill in the intellectual and moral life of the country. The complaints made against the college had not, after all, been very serious. It had been alleged that it was a mistake to have a college and a University governed by a body of eight men all advanced in

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  life, that many Protestants left Ireland to go to Universities elsewhere, and that in some respects the arrangements for awarding Fellowships were not satisfactory. The hon. Member for South Donegal observed that these gentlemen had, at any rate, learned the art of living long. He thought every one's experience would convince him that there was nothing that kept a man so long in life as the possession of a good place from which he was keeping somebody else. The hon. Gentleman complained that Irishmen went to English Universities. The same thing was found in Scotland. The fact was that the English Universities were able to afford inducements which drew people away from smaller and poorer countries. That was a fact in modern life which they regretted, but which it was beyond their power to control. All that Dublin could do was so to arrange her endowments and organise her teaching as always to have a certain number of first-rate men whose presence would attract students from England and Scotland. As to the relation of Trinity College to Roman Catholics, the hon. Member for South Galway was not quite correct in saying that Trinity College had always been strictly Protestant. It was not so in the eighteenth century during the Commonwealth, and then for a considerable period it bade fair to be the centre of Catholic as well as Protestant life. The first period, unfortunately, came to an end at the time of Archbishop Laud, and the second period was about 1795. After that Trinity College, instead of being a meeting place for different schools and parties where young men might form friendships which would have averted political antagonisms, be-
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  came the fortress of one religious sect. Trinity College had not been inquired into since the year 1853, when the last Commission reported. Within that period there had been four Commissions of inquiry into the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and three Commissions of inquiry into the Universities of Scotland. Six new Universities had been founded in England, and there had been a complete revolution in English University life. There had been an increase in the number of students in English Universities from a little over 2,300 in 1865 to 13,000 in the present year. That extraordinary revolution in University life in this country had been accompanied by the inquiries to which he had referred, and by alterations in the statutes and arrangements of the English and Scottish Universities, due to the development of new subjects of study and research. Since 1853, with the partial exception of an inquiry into a particular class of funds in 1878, there had been no inquiry with regard to Trinity College, Dublin. That fact had convinced him that primâ facie there was a strong case for a new inquiry into the arrangements of Trinity College. He thought that case was strengthened by the consideration that the recognition of new studies, especially scientific studies' was not adequate in the Fellowship examinations, that the system of government seemed antiquated, and that there had been some diminution in the number of students as compared with 1880–85. In these circumstances, with no imputation whatever upon Trinity College, against which he did not think any charge ought to be brought, and which had shown itself thoroughly loyal in every respect to the principles which it adopted in 1873, when the Abolition of Tests

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  Act was passed, after all these years. and after all that had been done in England and Scotland, he thought the time had come when there ought to be an inquiry into Trinity College also. He might say he had arrived at that conclusion independently, and should have announced it before long, even if this Motion had not given a proper opportunity for announcing it. The inquiry ought to deal with the revenues of the College, and the manner in which they were applied, the government and the administration of the College and the University, the teaching staff and methods, the system of examinations, and the rewards which successful students obtained. He thought it would necessarily also deal with the method of awarding the Fellowships, and, of course, one would not exclude from the purview of such an inquiry the general consideration of the place which Trinity College occupied in Ireland in the higher education of the country. He thought the inquiry ought to be conducted by a small Commission, which was more likely to be effective for this purpose, and by a non-political Commission, because it would not have any political question to consider, and it ought to act promptly. The last thing he personally desired was to postpone any attempt that any one might make to deal with the Irish University question at large by the creation of another Commission which would last for a long time, take a great deal of evidence, and practically put off the approach of this question for a greater time than any of them desired. After what he had said, he thought he might fairly ask the hon. Member to withdraw his Motion. The object of the hon. Member had been attained; he had given a statement which he trusted would be
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  satisfactory to the hon. Member as regarded the course which the Government proposed to adopt, and he promised him that, as soon as it was possible to institute this inquiry, he would endeavour to do so. He hoped the inquiry, which he had reason to believe would not be unacceptable to the authorities of Trinity College—it was not designed in a hostile spirit to them, and he did not think they would take it in any such spirit—would have the effect of strengthening Trinity College, of improving it in any point in which it was desirable that it should be improved, of enlarging its range and giving it a wider influence on the Irish people, and of enabling it to discharge its duties to the Irish people in a manner worthy of the high standard of teaching it had always maintained, and of the many illustrious names with which it had been associated.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid it was exceedingly difficult for his colleagues and himself to express in the time at their disposal considered opinion on the speech of the right hon. the Chief Secretary. But he felt bound to say that they viewed with the most intense distrust the appointment of Commissions, and were it not for the concluding words of the right hon. Gentleman, in which he said his intention was that it should be a small Commission to meet at once and to report rapidly on a limited reference, he could not have advised his hon. friend, as he did now, to withdraw his Motion. As the same time he must safeguard himself by saying that without further examination, and without knowing a little more about the exact reference to the Commission, and something about those who were to be

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  appointed upon it, he could take no responsibility for it whatever.
  SIR EDWARD CARSONsaid that if it was meant by referring the question to a Commission to turn Trinity College into a different kind of University for the purpose of satisfying sectarian ambition in Ireland, he feared that the right hon. Gentleman's scheme would not be acceptable to Trinity College. Of course, however, it was impossible, until one saw the scheme, to express an opinion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS, ETC.
  Select Committee appointed to inquire into the number, bulk, cost, and circulation of the documents printed by Order of this House, or presented to it through public departments, and to report what reductions, if any, can be made thereon.
  The Committee was accordingly nominated of Mr. Victor Cavendish, Mr. Harold Cox, Mr. Crombie, Mr. Devlin, Mr. Maddison, Mr. W. F. D. Smith, and Mr. Toulmin.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Three be the quorum. —(Mr. George Whiteley.)

  CABS AND OMNIBUSES (METROPOLIS).
  Select Committee appointed to inquire into the following questions relating to
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  Cabs and Omnibuses in the Metropolis: —(1) The means to be adopted to prevent the use of drivers' and conductors' badges and licences by unlicensed persons, and the fees charged for those badges and licences; (2) the restrictions imposed on Cabs when not carrying passengers; (3) the restrictions imposed by railway companies on the admission of Cabs to their premises; (4) the structural requirements to be enforced with regard to Cabs and Omnibuses driven by mechanical power; (5) The scale of Cab fares, and particularly the question of the extension of the four-mile radius, and modifications (if any) to be made in the case of Cabs carrying taxameters.
  The Committee was accordingly nominated of, Mr. Armitage, Mr. Allen Baker, Mr. Bowerman, Mr. Cullinan, Mr. G. A. Gibbs, Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, Mr. Keswick, Mr. Lambton, Mr. M'Killop, Mr. Norman, Mr. Partington, Sir Samuel Scott, Mr. Stanger, Mr. Steadman, and Mr. Wiles.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Five be the quorum. —(Mr. George Whiteley.)

  SUPPLY [19TH MARCH] REPORT.
  Order read, for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [20th March], "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Resolution, 'That a sum, not exceeding £10,220,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Pay, &c, of His Majesty's Army (including Army Reserve) at Home and Abroad (exclusive of India), which will come in

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  course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907.'"
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDcontinuing his speech, which had been interrupted by the suspension of the sitting at half-past seven, said he intervened simply to make a few remarks upon the pay and allowances of our Regular soldiers. His object was to appeal from the civilian point of view to the Secretary of State for War to do something to improve the lot of the common soldier, and at the point when he finished his service not to leave him to join what appeared to be the only occupation open to him, the ranks of the casual labourer. The great reason why no respectable parent could with equanimity see a son join the Army was that he knew that the lad's life was practically spoiled, and that after a few years in the Army he would be thrown adrift without a trade. In Manchester, Birmingham, and other large cities, they were trying to find employment for men who were out of work, and the retired soldier was one of their greatest and most pitiable difficulties. It was a pitiable system under which one had to tell a man of good physique and good character that there was nothing for him to do but casual labour. We wanted good men for the Army, and to get them they must be treated as human beings. At present they did not get that treatment, and there was no railway company or private firm who would treat their employés as we did our soldiers. The pay and emoluments of the soldier compared
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  very badly with those of the sailor who left the Navy with a training and was a handy man who generally found something to do. There was no such opportunity for the soldier. He hoped the whole question of the re-organisation of the Army would be taken into consideration.

  WAYS AND MEANS [19TH MARCH]
  Resolutions reported; 1. "That,— towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1906, the sum of £120,580 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom." 2. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, the sum of £42,855,900 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  Bill ordered to be brought in by the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. M'Kenna.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
  "To apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and six and one thousand nine hundred and seven," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time this day.
  Adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.