§ SIR W. EVANS GORDON (Tower Hamlets, Stepney)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that at a meeting of all the members of the Immigration Boards, held recently at the Guildhall, it was decided to recommend the Home Office to reduce the number of passengers constituting an immigrant ship from twelve to five, in consequence of the evasion of the Act which had taken place under the twelve minimum, he will state for what reason the number has now been raised to twenty.
§ MR. PICKERSGILLIs it not the case that the alleged facts on which this Question is based are not true?
§ * MR. GLADSTONEThe members of the panel of the London Immigration Board at the meeting referred to considered the question of the number of alien steerage passengers which should constitute a ship an immigrant ship, but did not make any recommendation on the subject. The order restoring the number twenty, originally fixed in the Act, was made in the exercise of the discretion conferred upon me by the Act. My object in making it was to facilitate the Cross Channel traffic, about which complaints had been received from the French Government, and to ease certain difficulties in the working of the Act which had been experienced at non-immigration ports.