Commons Sitting of 24 May 1906

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.
NEW WRIT.
New Writ for the County of Carnarvon (Southern or Eifion Division), in the room of John Bryn Roberts, esquire (Judge of the County Court of Glamorgan.)— (Mr. Joseph Pease.)

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Thornton Urban District Gas Bill. Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
London United Tramways Bill (King's consent signified); Bill read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]
Derby Gas Bill. As Amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Rochester, Chatham, and Strood Gas Bill. As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
Land Drainage Provisional Order Bill, Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time to-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill. Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered to-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill. Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time Tomorrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill. Reported, without Amendment. [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be real the third time Tomorrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill. Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time Tomorrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill. Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Tottenham and Edmonton Gas Bill; Watford and Edgware Railway Bill; Kettering Water Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Superannuation Fund) Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
South Lancashire Tramways (Extension of Time) Bill [Lords]. Reported with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
National Assurance Company of Ireland and Yorkshire Fire and Life Assurance Company Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
North West London Railway Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND BILL.
  Petition of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, for reference to a Select Committee; to lie upon the Table.
  POLLING ARRANGEMENTS (PARLIA MENTARY BOROUGHS) BILL.
  Petition from Kensington, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA AND CHINA (OPIUM TRADE).
  Petition from Worcester, for suppression; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions against; from Ambleside; Merthyr Mawr; and Salisbury; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  Petitions against alteration of law; from Bedford (two); Condover (two); I Corsham (two); Cuckfield; Darton (two); Davington; Heeve; Horfield; lronville; Minster; and, Nailsea; to lie upon the Table.
  LONDON MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS HOURS OF POLL) BILL.
  Petition from Kensington, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SUEZ CANAL (COMMERCIAL, No. 4, 1906).
  Copy presented, of Returns of Shipping and Tonnage passing through the Suez Canal 1903, 1904, and 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LEEWARD ISLANDS.
  Copy presented, of Amended Prison Rule relating to Prison Officers' Fine Fund [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Phibbs Estate, County Mayo.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that there is a large grazing farm called Erreiff on the Phibbs estate, in the parish of Keelogues, near Castlebar, county Mayo, and that surrounding this farm, or in its immediate vicinity, are a number of very poor tenants of uneconomic holdings; and can he say whether any person has been or is in negotiation with the Estates Commissioners or the Con-
  1396
  gested Districts Board as to the purchase of this farm, and, if so, what is the name of such person; and will he see that this farm is purchased either by the Estates Commissioners or the Congested Districts Board for the sole benefit of and for distribution amongst the poor tenants in the neighbourhood.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed that neither the Estates Commissioners nor the Congested Districts Board have any knowledge of the grazing farm referred to. If an application should be I made to one or both of these bodies by any of the persons interested, it will, I have no doubt, receive due consideration.

  London Postmen's Pay.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state how many postmen in London have received advance of pay at the ago of twenty-five since April 1st, 1905, and how many have received advances since that date under the provision which makes a certain proportion of unestablished service count towards increments.
  (Answered by Mr. Sulney Buxton.) The numbers are approximately 900 and 1,100, respectively.

  Adulterated Brandy.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether foreign spirit made from beetroot and materials other than the grape, and Hamburg potato spirit, are admitted to entry in this country as brandy; whether this constitutes a false trade description under the Merchandise Marks Act; do the Customs authorities refuse to enforce the provisions of that Act as regards brandy; can he explain why rum from other than the sugar cane must be described at import as imitation rum; and is he aware that the courts have recently decided that brandy must be the distillate of the grape, and that this decision has been accepted by the wine and spirit trade.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) It is not the case that spirits made from beetroot and materials other than the grape and Hamburg potato spirit, are admitted to entry in this country as brandy. If such spirits were described as brandy on the

  1397
  Customs' entry, such description would be a false trade description under the Merchandise Marks Acts. The Customs authorities do not refuse to enforce the provisions of those Acts as regards brandy. Rum is spirit produced from the sugar cane, and, therefore, spirit purporting to be ruin, but produced from any other material than the sugar cane, must be described at import as imitation rum. I understand that several cases bearing on the question, what is brandy, have been decided in the metropolitan police courts, but I do not know of any decision of the High Court upon the point. I am not aware that there has been any general acceptance by the wine and spirit trades of the decisions of the police magistrates.

  Soldiers and Vaccination.
  MR. T. F. RICHARDS: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will quote the statute empowering him to impose the vaccinal test on conscientious objectors seeking enlistment in the Army or applying for employment in the Arsenal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) A man seeking enlistment in the Army or applying for employment in the Arsenal is asked whether he is willing to he vaccinated or re-vaccinated; if he declines he is not enlisted or taken on. No statutory authority is required for such a condition.

  Captain Huntsman.
  MAJOR DUNNE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of Captain Huntsman, of the Army Pay Department; and whether he will state the reasons for this officer being passed over for promotion and suspended from his duties; and whether, in view of the remarks of the Commissioners on the War Stores Commission, full reparation will be made to this officer if any injustice his been done to him.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) My attention has been called to the case of Captain Huntsman. In consequence of evidence given before General Butler's Committee he was, on June 9th, relieved from duty until the Royal Commission should have made its Report. In view of
  1398
  the remarks of the Commissioners, I have given instructions that Captain Huntsman should be permitted to return to duty. He has been continuously on full pay during the whole period.

  Slavery in Zanzibar.
  MR. J. W. WILSON: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the number of slaves freed by the courts, under the decree of 1897, in Zanzibar and Pemba, respectively, in each of the years 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905 (in continuation of Africa, No. 6, 1902); also the total of those where emancipation has been voluntarily granted and registered, or labour contracts officially drawn up and recognised by the courts; and further whether he will consider what steps can be taken to put an end to this period of transition, and the existence of slavery in the Protectorate.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The number of slaves freed by the courts, under the decree of 1897, in Zanzibar and Pemba in 1903 is given in Africa, No. 14, 1904, which is the continuation of Africa, No. 6, 1902. The total of those whose emancipation has boon voluntarily granted and registered for 1902 and 1903 will be found on page 6 of the same volume. A Report will be called for from His Majesty's agent at Zanzibar, as to whether there are any instances of labour contracts being officially drawn up and recognised by the courts. Details will at the same time be asked for for the years 1904 and 1905.
  As the legal status of slavery has been abolished by the decree of 1897, which has worked so satisfactorily as will appear by reference to Africa, No. 14, 1904, it does not appear that anything further could be more effective.

  Colonial Reports and Maps.
  MR. WALKERTo ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make an inexpensive start in the direction of facilitating the study of Colonial Reports, by appending to Reports upon Northern and Southern Nigeria the map contained in the Colonial Office list for 1906; and to Reports upon British East Africa, the map contained in the pamphlet upon that Protectorate which has been

  1399
  issued by the Emigrants' Information Office.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The Secretary of State will arrange, if possible, to have the maps in question, or similar maps, appended to the Reports. But it must not be forgotten that many, if not most, of the readers of these Reports are familiar with the geography, and may not appreciate the additional cost which the maps will entail.

  Island of Lewis.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will state how many houses in the Island of Lewis are rated, and how many not rated.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) The exact numbers are not available. The 1902 Report on the social condition of the people of Lewis estimates the number of cottars who would not appear on the valuation roll, and therefore not to be rated, at from 900 to 1,000, the remainder are to be found in the valuation roll, and are no doubt rated for local purposes. The same Report gave the number of crofter holdings on the roll as 3,076.

  Irish Ordnance Survey.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether there is any objection to the Irish Ordnance Survey being directly under the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), having the Irish Survey headquarters at Dublin; and, if so, whether he can state the objections.
  Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The division of the work of the Ordnance Survey in the manner suggested would be attended with diminished efficiency and increased expense. No change is therefore contemplated in the existing arrangements.

  Survey Officers' Travelling Expenses.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he can state what has been the charge against the public during the past financial year of Army officers employed in survey duties; and if they can travel
  1400
  in motor cars, and are allowed first class railway fare in lieu.
  Answered by: Sir Edward Strachey.) The Army officers employed on the Ordnance Survey received in the year ended March 31st, 1906, from Vote for Surveys of the United Kingdom:—

  £.

  s.

  d.

  For pay and allowances

  8,000

  9

  9

  For travelling expenses

  976

  16

  2

  Their regimental pay was issued direct from Army Votes and amounted approximately to

  5,028

  0

  0

  Officers using their own motor vehicles for journeys taken on the public service receive allowances on the scale sanctioned by the Army Council, provided that the cost of ordinary means of conveyance is not exceeded.

  Municipal Employees' Holidays.
  MR. JOYCE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether municipal borough councils and county councils have power to grant holidays or half-holidays to their employees, by resolution of such councils; and whether the Local Government Board have ever taken any action to deter public elected bodies from exercising such rights.
  Answered by Mr. John Burns.) It appears to me to be competent for these councils to provide in their agreements with their employees for reasonable holidays or half-holidays being given to them. I am not aware that the Local Government. Board have ever taken any action to deter public elected bodies from adopting this course.

  Paddington Retail Meat Traders.
  MR. CHIOZZA MONEY: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Paddington Borough Council have abruptly terminated, an arrangement whereby the retail meat traders of Paddington had the protection of the daily inspection of their meat purchases before the same was exposed for sale, so that they are now open to the risk of criminal prosecution, confiscation, and fine, notwithstanding the fact that they have taken all precautions in their power to purchase sound

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  meat; and whether he proposed to take any action in the matter.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to a circular letter under date of March 31st, 1906, issued by the Paddington local authority to all meat purveyors in their district, notifying the withdrawal of the protection, which prior to the date of the letter had been accorded meat traders, whereby the latter on submitting carcases of pork for inspection prior to exposure thereof for sale were immune from the institution of criminal proceedings should any carcase so submitted be found affected with tuberculosis; and whether he will make such representations to the Paddington Borough Council for the continuation of the system of inspection.
  Answered by Mr. John Burns.) Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these two Questions together. I have made inquiry and am informed that the Public Health Committee of the borough council have felt themselves obliged to abandon the arrangement referred to by the hon. Members, and to give instructions for the inspection of meat to be carried out strictly in accordance with Section 47 of The Public Health (London) Act, 1891. The arrangement was a tentative one, and I am informed that the results have been disappointing. I think the practice which has been followed by the borough council had advantages, but it was optional with them to determine whether they would continue it, and I have no authority to require them to do so.

  Metropolitan Labour Yards.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether any metropolitan boards of guardians were among those with which he recently communicated respecting the closing of their labour yards; if so, will he state the names of those boards; whether before making these communications he had informed himself respecting the state of unemployment in the districts concerned; and whether any of the boards, and, if so, which have closed their labour yards in consequence of his communications.
  Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I do mot find that any communication of the
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  kind referred to has been made to boards of guardians in the metropolis.

  Bristol Postal Staff.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Postmaster General when the vacant overseership on the postal staff at Bristol, consequent on the retirement of the chief superintendent on December 13th, 1905, will be filled; will he date the promotion from the date the vacancy occurred; and will he give an assurance that the vacancy will be filled by the promotion of an officer at present borne on the postal establishment.
  Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton). The staff at Bristol being at present in excess of the requirements of the work, the question of the number of officers the business will warrant is under consideration, and in the meantime the vacant appointment referred to by the hon. Member cannot be filled.

  Income-tax Assessments in Ireland.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, what is the total income-tax paid in Ireland under Schedule A (land and houses), the total assessment value of those lands, and the amount paid under Schedule D (trades and professions) for the year ended March, 1906.
  Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The statistics of the income-tax for the year ended March, 1906, are not yet complete. The estimated amounts are as follows:—

  £

  Total income-tax paid in Ireland under Schedule A (lands and houses)

  422,000

  Total assessment value of lands and houses (not)

  8,400,000

  Income-tax paid under Schedule D (trades and professions exercised by private persons)

  182,000

  Indian Superior Police Service.
  SIR SEYMOUR KING: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether it is in contemplation to discontinue the exchange compensation allowance to members of the Superior Police Service appointed in India in or after the year 1906; and, if so, on what ground the change is based.

  1403
  Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The Answer is in the affirmative. Exchange compensation allowance was instituted with the view of meeting to some extent the fall in the gold value of salaries paid in rupees which had taken place since such salaries were fixed. In the case of police appointments a new and improved rate of pay has been introduced, which is considered adequate, and it is no longer thought necessary to give compensation based upon a past standard of salaries which has now been abandoned.

  Campbell Estate, Carlow.
  MR. HAMMOND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he would cause inquiry to be made with regard to the holding of Patrick Fitzpatrick on the Campbell estate, at Wells, Carlow county, lately sold under the Act of 1903, by which sale Fitzpatrick remains as a sub-tenant under judicial lease, with Mr. Edward Drea as landlord; and would the Commissioners withhold payment of purchase money until this Fitzpatrick case will have been fully investigated by them.
  Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners will, before sanctioning the advance applied for by Edward Drea, make inquiry into the question relating to Fitzpatrick's sub-tenancy.

  Irish National Schools.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing that over three-fifths of the national schools have an average attendance of less than fifty, he will undertake that teachers of such schools will receive as favourable consideration as those of large schools when their salaries are being revised.
  Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the cases of teachers in schools with an average attendance of less than fifty pupils are most carefully considered when their salaries are being revised in accordance with the rules. The Commissioners are unable to make any further general promise in the matter.

  Belfast Police.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can state whether the recommendations of the Day Commission regarding the religious constitution of the Belfast police force have been adhered to.
  Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am not aware that any recommendation regarding the religious constitution of the Belfast police force was made by the Commission mentioned.

  National School Teachers' Salaries.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is the intention of the Commissioners of Education to deprive principal teachers of national schools from receiving any increase of salary whose average attendance of pupils is under fifty; and, if so, will he say why.
  Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the answer is in the negative. Principal teachers in schools with an average attendance of less than fifty may be promoted to the second grade and advanced to the maximum, salary of that grade.

  Dublin Police.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force were allowed, when complaints or charges against them were under investigation, to call witnesses and to go into their defence during the period when Mr. Jones was Chief Commissioner; did they actually examine witnesses and make statements or explanations on their own behalf; has this system been departed from since Sir John Ross, of Bladensburg, was appointed Chief Commissioner, and, if so, for what reason: if policemen are now allowed to call witnesses, do they generally avail themselves of the privilege, and, if not, what is the reason for their disinclination to do so; will he state the proportion of the acquittals to the complaints in the Dublin Metropolitan Police while Mr. Jones was Chief Commissioner and the same particulars, so far, during,

  1405
  the Chief Commissionership of Sir John Ross, of Bladensburg.
  Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police informs me that there has been no change in the system in force in the time of his predecessor, under which members of the force are permitted to call witnesses and to make statements or explanations in their own defence when complaints are made against them. The Chief Commissioner is not aware that there is any disinclination on the part of accused constables to call witnesses. It would not be in the interests of the public service, or of the discipline of the force, to give the details asked for in the concluding part of the Question.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that discontent exists in the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force at the system under which charges and complaints against the members of the force are investigated in camera, and at the procedure followed at such investigations, and that there is a concensus of opinion in the force that inquiries into such matters should be conducted in public and in the presence of the Press, as in the case of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and by a tribunal similarly constituted to that of the Royal Irish Constabulary for inquiry into charges and complaints, also that depositions should be taken at such inquiries and the defendant allowed to employ counsel as is the practice in the Royal Irish Constabulary; and whether, if he is not prepared to provide for such inquiries, he will say what are the objections of the Dublin Metropolitan Police authorities to the adoption of this course. Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I have no information to the effect stated in the Question. I have referred the matter to the Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, who informs me that he is not aware that any discontent exists as stated, or that there is any general desire for a departure from the system at present in force in regard to disciplinary investigations. The statutes and regulations governing the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police differ considerably. The men of the Dublin force have the advantage of
  1406
  making a personal statement of their defence to the Chief Commissioner, a course which would not be practicable in the case of the constabulary owing to their wide distribution. The Chief Commissioner believes that the advantages of a personal investigation of their cases by him are thoroughly appreciated by the force generally.

  Army Ordnance Department, Dublin.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War under what circumstances the General Officer Commanding in Ireland refused to forward to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury an appeal from the three storeholders in the Army Ordnance Department at Dublin respecting their altered positions; and can he see his way to allow a committee of civil servants (not military officers) to inquire into the alleged grievances of the late storeholders in Ireland, who have suffered financially through no fault of their own.
  Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in Ireland, after careful consideration, decided that as the matter had already been fully represented to and settled by the War Office the petition should not be forwarded to the War Office. Within a few days of the receipt of this petition these three storeholders accepted in writing their re-classification to principal foremen and foremen. I may add that they retain the pension rights to which entitled. It is imperative in the interests of the public service to cut down unnecessary expenditure, and I am not prepared to make any further inquiry into a matter which has already been thoroughly well considered.

  Militia Accoutrement.
  MR. H. BEAUMONT: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether those Militia battalions not already in possession of them can be immediately supplied with brown leather leggings from the large stock lately handed in by line regiments on the issue of puttees to the latter.
  Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Militia battalions now in possession of black leather leggings cannot be supplied with brown leggings until the present stock of the former is exhausted. The reply, therefore, to the Question is in the negative.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Osborne Cadets—Instruction in Navigation.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the teaching of navigation to the cadets at Osborne is controlled by civilians, and that landsmen who have never practised any sort of navigation of the sea are daily teaching the cadets this branch of a naval officer's profession; and whether the Admiralty have sanctioned this method as the one best adapted for imparting the practical knowledge.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee): Mathematical teaching is given by civilian masters with a view to preparing the cadets for the future instruction in navigation which they will receive from naval officers. It is not, however, the case that the teaching of navigation is undertaken or controlled by civilians, and it would appear that the hon. Member has been misled by the difficulty of drawing a hard and fast line between trigonometry and theoretical navigation.

    Osborne Cadets and Engineering.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he has any confirmation of the unanimous Report of a recent Committee presided over by Admiral Sir A. Douglas, and of which the Director of Naval Education, Professor Ewing, was a member, to the effect that a few of the Osborne cadets manifest a disinclination to study engineering subjects, and it is suspected that this has been encouraged by the parents; whether the Admiralty agree with the conclusion of the Committee that the development of such feelings or prejudices must have a deletrious effect on the system of training as a whole; and, if so, what steps do the Admiralty propose to take to eradicate this feeling.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: In reply to the first part of the Question, since the report of the Committee no complaints of this nature have reached the Admiralty. The remainder of the Question accordingly does not arise.

    Royal Navy Supplementary Lieutenants.
    MR. JOWETT: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty; if supplementary lieutenants in the Royal Navy are to have a chance to be promoted the same as other lieutenants in the Royal Navy.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The regulations under which these officers entered (which were established by Order in Council June 29th, 1895,) do not provide for promotion above rank of lieutenant on the active list except for distinguished war service.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: May I ask why it is that to-day the Union Jack is not flying over the Admiralty, as well as other public buildings?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. That does not arise out of the Question on the Paper.

    The Army Re-organisation.
    COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can conveniently communicate to the House the series of questions which he has put before the Committee appointed to advise the Army Council on the formation of a new Army; whether he can also communicate the series of questions submitted to the Committee by the chairman; and whether the two sets of questions are identical or supplementary to one another.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE, Haddington): I not think that any good purpose would be served by communicating to the House at the present time the series of questions now being put to the Committee to which the hon. and gallant Member alludes. The questions now being submitted by the Chairman are identical with those which I put before the Committee.
    COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY: Am I to understand that the questions being put bear upon a scheme formulated by the right hon. Gentleman himself or by the Army Council, or by some irresponsible reformer?
    MR. HALDANE: They specifically refer to matters which were outlined when

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    I addressed the House in presenting the Army Estimates.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: Is my right hon. friend aware that in two newspapers long accounts have been published recently of what has got out, and, that being so, does he not think it would be better to make a real publication?
    MR. ARNOLD FORSTER: As it appears that these questions have been communicated to, at least two newspapers, and are moreover in the possession of some hon. Members, would it not be more convenient that the whole House should have the advantage of seeing the documents?
    MR. HALDANE: I certainly do not think so. The House will be furnished with full information when the work is done. It is very inconvenient to make partial statements now. As to what has appeared in the newspapers I know nothing, nor do I know how it got there. I think it is very likely that, like many other things in newspapers, it is inaccurate.

    Army Service Corps
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if there are at present ten or eleven companies vacant in the Army Service Corps, and, if so, why are they not filled at once by those officers who have successfully passed the necessary examinations held last November; and if it is intended to keep these companies vacant until the results of the new examinations, just commenced, shall be made known, so that officers now qualified for promotion may be then passed over by others not at present qualified. And further may I ask how it is that on Empire Day the Union Jack is not flying at the War Office?
    MR. SPEAKER: That has nothing to do with the Question on the Paper.
    MR. HALDANE: It is not intended to defer the promotions to the vacancies in question until the result of the next examination is known. The delay has been occasioned by necessary references to India and South Africa.

    Military Prisoners.
    MR. LEA (St. Pancras, E.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the increase in the number of prisoners committed to military prisons at home and abroad (excluding India), as shown on page 8 of [Cd. 2699] the Report on Military Prisons, 1905; and if he will explain this increase, seeing that the number of committals has gone up from 11,414 in 1901, when the average Army strength at home and abroad (excluding India) was 335,910 to 19,461 in 1905, when the average strength was only 188,570.
    MR. HALDANE: The strength given in 1901 included the mobilised reserve and auxiliary forces. In that year the troops in South Africa were on active service and offences committed there were as a rule dealt with by field imprisonment and not by committal to military prisons. No comparison therefore between the figures for 1901 and 1905 can properly be made.
    MR. LEA: I want the right hon. Gentleman to compare the figures with those for eight years ago.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to make a speech.
    MR. LEAput a further Question as to the increase in the number of court martials.
    MR. HALDANEasked for notice.

    Chinese Coolies in the Transvaal—Appli cations for Repatriation.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any of the Chinese indentured labourers in the Transvaal have up to the present applied to be repatriated under the terms of the proclamation recently posted; and, if so, how many.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dewsbury, for Mr. CHURCHILL): Lord Selborne has informed us that he will report fully regarding the working of the repatriation notices next week, when the notices will have been posted

    1411
    for a fortnight. No advantage will be gained by anticipating his report either with partial and imperfect information or premature conclusions.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he can define Chinese public opinion?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Wages of Chinese Coolies.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the determination of His Majesty's Government not to permit further recruiting of Chinese indentured labourers for the Transvaal will lead to a disturbance of the existing system, voluntarily carried on by the Mines Labour Agency, of distributing the portion of the coolies' wages allotted to the support of their families in China; and, if so, what arrangements are being made for carrying on this work.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The Secretary of State has been in communication with Lord Selborne for some time with a view of placing the allotment system on a more satisfactory footing, but he has had no intimation that it is proposed to discontinue it.

    The Zulu Rebellion.
    MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there is any censorship of telegrams between this country and Natal; whether if he can say if the resolutions of sympathy with the Zulus now in rebellion, adopted at a recent labour demonstration at Woolwich, have been telegraphed to the Natal Government and Bambaata, or have been published in Natal newspapers; whether the Natal Government has declined Imperial aid in suppressing the Zulu revolt.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: There is no censorship of telegrams between this country and Natal. The Secretary of State has no official information in regard to the resolutions referred to being transmitted to Natal. The Natal Government has not declined Imperial aid. Members of the Natal Government have publicly stated that they do not desire to ask for
    1412
    Imperial troops to be actively employed in suppressing the revolt. The battalion which is now stationed at Maritzburg was sent on the representations of Ministers in February that its moral effect upon the native community would be incalculable. H.M.S. "Terpsichore" was also for a short time moved to Durban.

    Leinster Regiment—Petition on behalf of Mutinous Soldiers.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the fact that a petition has been presented to the Lieutenant Governor of the Transvaal, Sir Richard Solomon, K.C.M.G., on behalf of the prisoners of the Leinster Regiment, convicted in 1903 for a mutinous offence and sentenced in one case to imprisonment for life, and in the other four cases to long terms of imprisonment; and whether, taking all the circumstances into account and the length of time those men have been in prison, he can now say that an inquiry will be held with a view to extending the clemency of the Crown to those prisoners.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The Secretary of State has no information as to the presentation of such a petition, and has received no official information whatever on the subject since his predecessor stated in the House of Commons on 19th July, 1904, that no grounds had been submitted to him on which he would be justified in intervening in the administration of justice in this case.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Will the Secretary of State himself inquire into this matter.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid my noble friend cannot depart from the position taken up by his predecessor.

    Repatriated Coolies—Penalties for Return to South Africa.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, if it has been decided what penalty or punishment will be inflicted upon a Chinaman who, after having been repatriated, returned t to South Africa.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The penalty to be imposed is one of the points still under consideration and on which the proposals of the High Commissioner are awaited; but it is obvious that when the licences now currant expire shortly, there will be no opportunity for a coolie to return.

    Unemployment in the Transvaal
    MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he has any official information showing that one thousand unemployed workmen of the Transvaal have recently sought enlistment in the forces now operating in Natal; and that this dearth of employment and this state of things is attributable to the introduction of Chinese labour into the Colony?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I have no official information as yet on this point. The dearth of employment must be due to a variety of causes, the effect of each of which it is difficult to gauge without full inquiry.

    The Partition of Bengal.
    SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the two circulars issued by the Government of Eastern Bengal and Assam on the 8th November, 1905, have been completely or only partially withdrawn, and especially whether that portion of the second circular which relates to the prohibition of political or quasi-political meetings in public places has been withdrawn; and whether the circular of the Government of Bengal No. 1679 P—D, dated the 10th October, 1905, directed against schoolboys and authorising the enrolment as special constables of headmasters and teachers of schools and those connected with their management, has been withdrawn.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY, Montrose Burghs): The Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam has withdrawn all restrictions on public meetings and processions imposed by previous orders. The other circular of the Government of Bengal is of a completely different character. It was directed against acts of violence and breaches of the peace in connection with the boycotting of British goods, and the instructions were to have
    1414
    effect only in cases where mischief had actually occurred. One object of the circular was to induce the educational authorities to enforce discipline upon schoolboys and students, instead of leaving them to be dealt with by policemen and magistrates. So far as I know it has not been formally withdrawn.
    SIR H. COTTON: Has it been enforced? Have the teachers and others concerned in the management of the schools been enrolled as special constables for the control of the schoolboys?
    MR. MORLEY: I believe there was some circular inviting them to be enrolled as special constables. As far as I understand it, they were not enrolled as special constables because they were heads of schools and colleges; but they were invited as the heads of these institutions to deal with their students rather than allow them to continue unruly—a course which must have brought them into conflict with the police.
    SIR H. COTTON: Special constables are not invited to enrol, but are compelled to serve, under an order of the magistrate.
    MR. MORLEY: Special constables were enrolled in the event of disorders taking place and being persisted in. The magistrates were directed to enrol schoolmasters as special constables so that they might identify the boys and deal with them as schoolboys instead of as criminals. That was a very sensible provision.
    SIR H. COTTON: Were not the headmasters competent to control the boys without that?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    The Barisal Disturbances.
    MR. C. E. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether any action has been taken or is intended to be taken by the Government of India with regard to the alleged unprovoked assaults by the police on the delegates to the Bengal Provincial Conference at Barisal, and the dispersal of the conference by force during last Easter.
    MR. MORLEY: As those proceedings, are, I believe, now before the courts of

    1415
    law, I can hardly say anything as to any administrative action in the matter. Meanwhile, as my hon. friend is aware, all the circulars and proclamations are now withdrawn.

    Indian Administration.
    SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, having regard to the fact that a memorial signed by Lord Hobhouse, Sir Richard Garth, Sir Richard Couch, Sir Charles Sargent, Sir William Markby, Sir John Phear, Sir John Scott, Sir William Wedderburn, and others, praying for the separation of judicial and executive functions in India, was addressed to his predecessor, Lord George Hamilton, in July, 1899, and that the opinions of all the local governments and administrations in India on the subject of that memorial were submitted to the Government of India before the close of the year 1901, and that the Government of India, notwithstanding repeated promises, have not yet submitted any Report in regard to that memorial, he will now issue such instructions to the Government of India as shall ensure that no further delay is allowed to occur in dealing with this memorial.
    MR. MORLEY: I understand that until a very recent date, the Government of India did not regard the time as opportune for pressing this question rapidly to a decision. I will draw the attention of the Government of India to the subject, and they will no doubt let me know their views at an early date.

    Chinese Maritime Customs.
    MR. H. H. MARKS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the explanation offered by the Chinese Government in regard to the Imperial edict placing the maritime customs under the control of a Chinese administrator is regarded by His Majesty's Government as adequate; and whether a request has been made for further and more definite assurances.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR.FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY, Northumberland, Berwick): I have nothing to add to the answer given on the 22nd instant.† We have asked for
    1416
    more definite, assurances: the reply has not yet been received.

    China and British Trade.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if; he has considered the effect likely to be I caused on Chinese public opinion by the stoppage of further recruiting of indentured labour in China for the Transvaal; and whether he is taking any precautionary measures to prevent the Chinese placing retaliatory restrictions upon the importation of British manufactures.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: His Majesty's Government are under no obligation to avail themselves of the facilities for recruiting coolies which were granted by the Convention of May 13th, 1904, and I have no reason to think that the cessation of recruiting will have any effect on Chinese public opinion.

    Great Britain and Russia.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement as to the alleged agreement arrived at between His Majesty's Government and Russia.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I cannot make any statement about the alleged agreement as described in the Press, because such an agreement does not exist. But I may add that there has been an increasing tendency for England and Russia to deal in a friendly way with questions concerning them both as they arise. This has on more than one occasion lately led the two Governments to find themselves in co-operation. It is a tendency which we shall be very glad to encourage and which, if it continues, will naturally result in the progressive settlement of questions in which each country has an interest, and in strengthening friendly relations between them.

    Registration of Deaths—Chicken-Pox and Small-Pox.
    MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, with reference to the entry in the Registrar-General's 67th Report for 1904 of 104 deaths from chicken-pox, whether he

    1417
    will order the transfer of the majority of these cases from the heading of chicken-pox to the heading of smallpox in the Registrar-General's corrected Returns, in accordance with the remarks made in Dr. Tatham's annual letter to the Registrar-General, analysing the causes of death.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS, Battersea): I have communicated with the Registrar-General on this subject, and he informs mo that it would not be practicable that the suggested transfers should be made, as he has no means of ascertaining how many of the cases referred to were in fact cases of small-pox.

    Legislation on Unemployment.
    MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the advancement of the session, and the extent of Parliamentary business to be dealt with, he can now inform the House that proposals will be placed before it sufficiently early to assure legislation which will this year make better provision for dealing with the distress and difficulties due to the unemployment still prevailing.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: The Prime Minister has already intimated that this Bill cannot be introduced before Whitsuntide, and I do not think that I can at present add anything to that statement.
    MR. CLYNES: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that legislation in fulfilment of the Government's promises will be introduced to deal with what is a serious and urgent matter of public importance, namely, the starvation and distress of thousands of men and women?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I have nothing to add to the statements I have previously made on this subject.
    MR. O'GRADY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figures published in the May issue of the Labour Gazette as to the building trade show that what I stated yesterday was correct?
    MR. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I am not answering yesterday's questions.

    Local Distress Committees.
    MR. SEDDON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will issue a Return giving the number of local distress committees and the cost of working the same up to March 31st, 1906.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: There are eighty-nine distress committees in England and Wales outside London. I am obtaining particulars as to their expenditure, and I will then consider the question of the issue of a return on the subject.

    Report on the Unemployed.
    MR. H. J. TENNANT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will put pressure upon the central (unemployed) body to present the Report for which he is waiting; and, if he does not see his way to do so, will he assure the House that the delay will not retard the introduction of his proposed amending Bill to the Unemployed Workmen Act.
    MB. JOHN BURNS: I am in communication with the chairman of the central (unemployed) body with a view of obtaining their preliminary report at the earliest date practicable.

    Sunderland Distress Committee.
    MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has received a Report of the working of the Unemployed Act from the Sunderland Distress Committee; and what action he proposes to take in regard to such Report.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I have not at present seen the Report, but I have written to the Distress Committee for a copy of it.

    Royal Commission on Motor Cars.
    MR. REMNANT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can explain the delay which has occurred in the

    1419
    presentation of the Report of the Royal Commission on motor cars; and whether he will undertake that the Vote for his salary shall not be put down until this House is in possession of such Report,.and has had an opportunity of studying it.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I understand that the Report is still under discussion, but that its preparation is being proceeded with as rapidly as practicable. I fear I could not give the undertaking asked for in the last part of the Question.
    MR. REMNANT: Shall we be able to discuss the Report before the end of the session?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I trust that the Report of the Royal Commission will be laid on the table of the House before the close of the session. Personally, I do not object to my salary being reduced, if an adequate discussion of the Report takes place.
    MR. REMNANT: Shall we have an opportunity of discussing the Bill before it is extended?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I hope so; I will place no difficulty in the way.
    MR. H. J. TENNANT: Can the measure not be included in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill?
    MR. JOHN BURNS: Certainly.

    Calverton Postman's Wages.
    MR. STARKEY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that a postman employed at Calverton, Nottinghamshire, at a wage of only 9s. per week, has been ordered to be vaccinated at his own expense; and will he say if this is the usual custom in the Post Office service.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar): I am having inquiry made and will communicate with the hon. Member.

    London Jewish Schools.
    COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether
    1420
    he can state what sum was expended out of the rates on Jewish Schools in London during the last school year; and what proportion of that sum was expended in teaching Judaism.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. LOUGH, Islington, W.): I have no information on the subject.

    Parliamentary Refreshment Bars.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works if he can arrange for additional facilities downstairs for refreshments, so that Members may not be compelled to leave the House and thus lose opportunities for taking part in divisions.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. LEWIS HARCOURT, Lancashire, Rossendale): I hope shortly to be able to announce the details of new accommodation for refreshments downstairs, which will enable the hon. Member to remain in continuous attendance.

    Patent Agents.
    MR. J. D. WHITE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether ho is aware that various patent agents and others describe their places of business, by brass plates and otherwise, as patent offices; whether he is aware that this misdescription is misleading and induces intending patentees to go to these places of business under the impression that they are, or are officially connected with, the Patent Office; and whether he will consider the advisability of promoting legislation on the subject.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY, Devonport): I am aware of the existence of the practice referred to, and in the event of the introduction of any legislation by the Government relating to patents, I will certainly consider the desirability of dealing with it.

    Fees in the House of Lords.
    MR. ARTHUR STANLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what was the amount of the legal fees paid during the last year in the House of Lords; and how, and under what authority, statutory

    1421
    or otherwise, this sum of money is disposed of.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA, Monmouthshire, N.): The total amount of legal fees paid during the past financial year in the House of Lords was £2,113 4s. By an arrangement made between the House and the Treasury in 1868, after reserving so much as may be required (together with the interest of the invested Fee Fund) to meet retiring allowances, all fees payable to the House of Lords were paid into the Exchequer. Since 1896–7 the surplus fees have been Appropriated in aid of the annual Vote.

    The New Forest.
    SIR ROBERT HOBART: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the attention of His Majesty's Commissioner of Woods and Forests has been given to the numerous fires which have recently broken out in the New Forest; if he can state what precautions have been taken by the Crown authorities to guard against and prevent the destruction of this beautiful public property; whether they have any evidence that this wanton waste is the work of incendiaries; and if any persons have been apprehended, convicted, and punished for such offences.
    MR. MCKENNA: This matter has long been the subject of serious consideration, and there are grave reasons for suspecting that in many instances the fires are spread by incendiaries. Rewards have been offered for information, but without effect. The Commissioners of Woods are considering what further steps can lie taken to check the practice. Two youths were tried at the Winchester Assizes and released on their own recognizances.
    Asked if any arrest had been made in connection with a fire last Easter by which 2,000 acres were destroyed,
    MR. MCKENNAreplied that he believed not, unless it was the case of the two boys already mentioned.

    Ex-cabinet Ministers' Pensions.
    MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury
    1422
    whether he will state the date on which Sir Michael Hicks-Beach notified to the Treasury his desire to cease drawing a political pension; and the date on which an application was received from Mr. Gerald Balfour applying to be placed on the pension list.
    MR. MCKENNA: Sir Michael Hicks-Beach resigned his pension on December 1st, 1905. Mr. Gerald Balfour applied for his on the 5th idem.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Can any arrangement be made whereby Mr. Gerald Balfour's salary as a company director may be deducted from the amount of his pension?
    MR. MCKENNA: No, Sir; no such arrangement can be made?
    MR. DALZIEL: Are we to understand that the applicant applied four days after the previous pension had been withdrawn, and is it the case that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach continued to draw his pension on the ground of poverty after he had been paid £100,000 for Salisbury Plain?
    MR. MCKENNA: I do not think poverty is the ground put forward. It is quite true that Mr. Gerald Balfour applied for his pension four days after Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had resigned his, but I do not think Mr. Gerald Balfour would have been likely to apply for that pension until his Government went out of office.
    MR. DALZIEL: Was there any understanding in regard to the peerage being granted when this pension was given up?
    MR. MCKENNA: None, so far as I am aware.
    MR. MORTON: What is the nature of the declaration a Minister has to make when he receives a political pension?
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that Question.

    Counsel's Retaining Fees.
    MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether he will consider the desirableness of introducing legislation to make barristers,

    1423
    who accept retainers on behalf of litigants and fail to appear on their behalf, liable in damages for broach of contract.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir JOHN WALTON, Leeds, S.): I fear the sort of legislation the hon. Member suggests is not possible, and, in my opinion, if it were possible, it is not necessary or desirable. It is not possible, because there is no contract entered into between a barrister and his client, and damages in respect of a non-existent contract can scarcely be recovered even under the sanction of an Act of Parliament. If there be any breach of faith or duty, the client has a remedy, because the matter can be brought to the notice of the Benchers of the Inn, to which the counsel belongs, who have ample powers to see that reparation is given. The remedy is really in the hands of the client himself, because, in my experience, he prefers the mere chance of the services of a meteoric counsel who ranges over the whole legal firmament to the certainty of the presence of a stationary but less brilliant luminary. I may add that he may also follow the course which has been pursued with such conspicuous success by the hon. Member himself and conduct his own case.
    MR. BOTTOMLEY: I was not asking the question on my own behalf, but in the public interest. Has the Attorney-General ever known the benchers to order any kind of recompense to be given to a client who had suffered in this way, and what does ho mean by "stationary luminary" so far as the King's Bench Division is concerned?
    SIR JOHN WALTON: I am not aware that a case has been submitted to the benchers, but I am quite sure that, if a case was submitted, the counsel would be asked to make the reparation demanded of him. I used the word stationary in a comparative sense with regard to the King's Bench Courts, and in a more absolute sense with regard to the Courts of Chancery.

    Clifford's Inn and New Inn.
    MR. LEHMAXN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether, before any final division is made of the funds arising from the sale of Clifford's Inn and New Inn, the claims of the University of Lon-
    1424
    don and other Universities and institutions providing legal education in London and the provinces to share in such funds will be taken into consideration.
    SIR JOHN WALTON: Yes. They have been and shall be considered.

    Scottish Fishery Board.
    MR. J. D. WHITE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland when the Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland will be published; and, whether, in view of the condition of some of the Scottish fisheries, he will take steps to expedite the publication of it.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR, Forfarshire): The Report has been presented and is now being printed.

    Scottish Procurators Fiscal.
    MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether procurators fiscal are entitled to be elected and sit on Scottish county councils.
    THE LORD-ADVOCATE (Mr. THOMAS SHAW, Hawick Burghs): Under a regulation by the Lord-Advocate dated 25th November, 1889, procurators fiscal were directed not to allow themselves to be nominated as candidates, nor interfere in any way in the election of county councillors. That regulation is still in force, and I have no intention of in any respect abrogating it.
    MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether procurators fiscal are allowed to carry on private practice or business in the towns or counties for which they act.
    MR. THOMAS SHAW: The question whether a procurator fiscal is entitled to carry on private practice or business depends on the terms of his commission. In every case where it is possible, the policy has been to restrict the procurators fiscal entirely to their official work.

    Cleagh Evicted Tenants.
    MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Widow Lynch and Michael Lynch, tenants on

    1425
    the O'Gready property at Cleagh, New-market-on-Fergas, in the county of Clare, applied several times to the Estates Commissioners to reinstate them in their farms from which they were evicted in.November, 1886 for the non-payment of one year's rent, and that emergency men are in their farm since they were evicted; whether two emergency men and one policeman were shot at and wounded on account of this farm; and will he inquire whether the Estates Commissioners will take up those farms for the tenants.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.): The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received applications for reinstatement from the persons named, and have directed one of their inspectors to inquire into the cases.
    MR. FLAVIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of withdrawing the police from these farms?
    Mr. BRYCEsaid that did not arise out of the Question on the Paper.

    Dr. O'Brien, of Ennistymon.
    MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the specific neglect of duty of which Dr. O'Brien, of Ennistymon, in the county of Clare, was guilty, and for which the Local Government Board called for his resignation; whether all the patients who were the subject of the inquiry left the hospital cured; whether he is aware that the inquiry was held in spite of the repeated protests of the guardians; whether he is aware that the same official who presided at the inquiry collected evidence beforehand; and whether the board of guardians requested the Local Government Board to permit Dr. O'Brien to continue in office.
    Mil. BRYCE: The cases of specific neglect of duty of which Dr. O'Brien was guilty, could not be properly stated within the limits of an answer to a Question. It is the fact that none of the patients who were the subject of the inquiry died in hospital, but this does not alter the Local Government Board's opinion as to the medical officer's neglect of duty. The inspector who held the
    1426
    formal inquiry on oath had, on the occasion of the previous visit to the workhouse in connection with the complaint of a patient that no proper professional assistance was rendered to him, made certain inquiries regarding some of the cases; and it is the fact that the board of guardians requested the Local Government Board to permit Dr. O'Brien to continue in office. It is the statutory duty of the Local Government Board to hold inquiries on oath in such cases, and they are empowered to remove an officer whom they find to have seriously failed in the discharge of his function; and as they considered that in this case they must, in justice to the sick poor at Ennistymon, exercise their powers, they called on Dr. O'Brien to resign, which he did.
    MR. HALPIN: Will the Local Government Board sanction the doctor's re-appointment by the guardians?
    MR. BRYCE: No, I will not. I have looked into the case and I am satisfied the Local Government Board could not do otherwise than it has done.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: As no serious results followed the alleged neglect, will not the right hon. Gentleman meet the universal feeling of the district by giving the doctor at least another opportunity?
    MR. BRYCE: I am sorry to say I do not think I can. Serious results did follow and disease spread among a number of people.

    Dublin High Court Appointments.
    MR. CONDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who, outside the Members of the Bench, claim or have a right to appoint junior or other clerks to positions in the High Courts in Ireland; whether such claim or right, outside the patronage which the judges exercise in their respective courts, has any authority; and to what offices is judicial patronage limited.
    MR. BRYCE: I have referred this Question to the Lord Chancellor, who has furnished me with the following reply:" All appointments to junior clerkships in the High Courts in Ireland are made by open competition except in cases in which existing rights of patronage have been

    1427
    preserved by statute to certain judges. There are, however, certain clerks employed in the Central Office under the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, who are not on the permanent official staff of the High Court, and pending the consideration of the requirements of that office and the status of the clerkships, the employment of these clerks is regulated by the registrar of title."
    MR. MACVEAGH: How many clerks have first been temporarily appointed and then forced on the permanent staff?
    MR. BRYCE: That does not seem to arise out of the Question on the Paper.

    Mineral Bights in Irish Land.
    MR. CONDON: On behalf of the hon. Member for S. Meath, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have asked the assistance of the law officers to find a means by which the commissioners could lease or sell the mineral rights vested in them in properties sold under the Land Act of 1903; and, if not, what steps, if any, they have taken to secure that where minerals may be found or believed to exist, they shall not remain unused, and willing workers in their vicinity compelled to idleness or emigration.
    MR. BRYCE: I have already assured the hon. Member that this important matter is receiving the closest attention. I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject.

    Political Economy in Irish Schools.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: On be half of the hon. Member for West Kerry, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in the national schools of Ireland any attempt is I made to give Irish children an insight into the elementary principles of political economy, especially as it affects the welfare of their own country; and whether, seeing the desire that exists amongst all classes in the community to turn to the best account all the available resources of the country, steps will be taken to give the children in the schools a knowledge of the scientific principles of success in commerce and industry.
    MR. BRYCE: Political economy is not a subject of instruction in national schools, but the Commissioners of National Education inform me that lessons on some of the elements of branches of that science, such as banks, commerce, and kindred matters, are contained in the reading books of the fifth and sixth standards.

    Hutchins Estate, Berehaven.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received any communication relative to the sale of the Hutchins estate, situate near Allihies, Castletown, Berehaven, county Cork; and, if so, whether they have been informed that there are evicted tenants on it; and, seeing a. so that there is a large tract of grazing land in the possession of the landlord, will the Estates Commissioners see that the evicted tenants are restored to their holdings, or to a portion of this grazing land, the remaining portion to be used for the purpose of enlarging small adjacent holdings.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that no originating application or request in respect of the sale of this estate has yet been lodged with them. Applications from five persons claiming reinstatement as evicted tenants upon the estate have been referred to an inspector for inquiry and report.

    Mr. Kearney's Rossmore Farm.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Congested Districts Board made an offer to purchase Mr. Kearney's farm at Rossmore, Durrus; and, if so, with what result.
    MR. BRYCE: The reply is in the negative.

    Rossmore Evicted Tenant.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have yet inquired into the eviction of Mary Evans, at Rossmore, Durrus, county Cork; and, if so, what was the result of the inquiry.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners have directed one of their inspectors to inquire into this case, but the inspector's report has not yet boon received.

    Bird Estate, near Bantry.
    MR. GILHOOLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Baleragh, on the Bird estate, Kilcrohane parish, near Bantry, was offered for sale to the Congested Districts Board; whether the Congested Districts Board made an offer of purchase; whether they are aware that in purchasing this farm, they, in addition to improving two migratory tenants, would give twice as much land to each of the four Forlbeg tenants and would also improve the condition of the Escraha and Tooreen tenants; what are the dates on which their inspectors valued this farm; and when may a definite offer be made.
    MR. BRYCE: The Congested Districts Board have arranged to purchase the portion of the Bird estate referred to, namely, Baleragh.

    Irish Assistant Female Teachers.
    MR. T. SMYTH: On behalf of the hon. Member for Longford, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the proposed appointment of assistant female teachers in Irish national schools after the 1st July, is voluntary or compulsory on the part of Catholic managers; and whether, in the case of managers who object to the arrangement, there will be special inquiries held before any compulsory order is made.
    MR. BRYCE: the Commissioners of National Education inform me that the appointment of junior assistant mistresses will be made only in cases in which the local managers apply for them. There is no distinction in the case of religion.

    O'Grady Estate, North Longford.
    MR. T. SMYTH: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Longford I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any inspection has been ordered in the case of the sale of the O'Grady Estate at Carn, in North
    1430
    Longford; whether he is aware that several important questions will arise for ruling; and will he undertake to see that a full report is received before any rulings are made.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they are finable to trace any proceedings as having been instituted before them in respect of the sale of the estate mentioned.

    Case of James McCann.
    MR. T. SMYTH: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Longford I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in the case of James McCann, convicted at the Longford March assizes, and sentenced to three years' penal servitude, the Lord-Lieutenant or Lords Justices, before deciding that the law should take its course, called for a Report from Mr. Justice Kenny; whether they also had a Report from the local police authorities; and on which report they based their decision.
    MR. BRYCE: The decision in this matter was given by the Lords Justices. It would be contrary to the established practice to state the grounds upon which such decision was based, but the hon. Member may, I think, rest assured that the Lords Justices did not act without having full information before them.

    Overflow of the Riffey.
    MR. T. SMYTH: On behalf of the hon. Member for North Longford I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether ho is aware of the complaints made as to damage to crops, etc., by the floods caused in wet weather by the overflowing of the River Riffey; and whether he will direct that one or two witnesses from this portion of county Longford be heard by the Commission on Drainage now sitting, with a view to the present state of things being remedied there.
    MR. BRYCE: I understand that two witnesses from county Longford, including the chairman of the county council, will probably be examined before the Arterial Drainage Commission; but I would remind the hon. Member that the Commission was appointed to consider what amendments of the law are necessary

    1431
    to enable arterial drainage works to be carried out, and not to inquire into the needs of particular localities.

    Recovery of Land Annuities.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the Land Commission have recently obtained judgment against a tenant named Reidy for non-payment of an annuity due under a purchase agreement signed eighteen years ago; whether this annuity has been shown to the Land Commission to be excessive; whether, after an inspection of the lands, it has been declared by an inspector of another Government department that the occupier is paying too high a rent in the form of an annuity; and if he can take any steps to save this occupier from eviction and prevent other occupiers from placing themselves in a similar position by the payment of excessive prices for their lands.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Land Commission that the sale to the tenant purchaser in this case took place twenty years ago. The Commissioners recently obtained judgment for a half year's annuity due on May 1st, 1905. Further proceedings in the matter were deferred at the request of the tenant purchaser, who expressed the wish to dispose of his interest in the holding, and has since advertised a sale by auction. The Commissioners have no information that the annuity is excessive, or that the holding has been inspected on behalf of another Government department.
    MR. MURPHY: As the farm was not sold when put up will the right hon. Gentleman recommend the Land Commissioners to comply with the tenant's request for a remission?
    MR. BRYCE: I will convey the suggestion of the hon. Member to the Commission, but I have no right to make any recommendations.

    Hungerford and Cloran Estates, Duhallow, County Cork.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in reference to negotiations for the sale of the Hunger-ford and Cloran Estate, barony of Duhallow, county Cork, whether the
    1432
    Estates Commissioners are now in a position to say whether pressure to sign a purchase agreement has been brought to bear on Denis Breen, the present occupant of two evicted farms, with a view to exclude the two evicted tenants, in the shape of a writ for one year's arrears of rent; whether the Commissioners will instruct their inspector to inquire into this alleged pressure, and, if such is found to be the case, will the Commissioners decline to sanction the purchase under existing circumstances?
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have referred this case to one of their inspectors for inquiry, but until the inspector's report has been received they are unable to say what action they may take in the matter.

    Irish Fishery Board.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state how many elected members of boards of conservators of fisheries there are in Ireland; the number of persons eligible to act on such boards because of their being owners of fisheries valued at £100 or over; the number of persons eligible to act on such boards because of their being justices of the peace whose holdings are bordering on rivers or lakes, and having paid one pound licence duty; and also the number, elected or otherwise, of fishermen who earn their living by fishing who act as members of such boards?
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed that there are 254 elected members of boards of conservators in Ireland, half of whom are elected by licence holders in tidal divisions of the districts, and half by those in fresh water divisions. The number of fisheries valued at £100 yearly or upwards is sixty-five. There is a variation from year to year in the number of persons eligible to act on such boards by reason of their being magistrates paying licence duty and being owners of land abutting on rivers or lakes. The Department are, however, willing, if desired, to ascertain the number of such persons who acted as ex-officio members of the different boards during 1905. In the largest district (Limerick) the number was about ten. The Department are not aware of the

    1433
    number of members of such boards who earn their livelihood by fishing.

    Westport Guardians and the Reverend Mr. Hannay.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the strong language and resolution used and adopted by the Westport, county Mayo, guardians, on the 17th May, towards the Reverend Mr. Hannay, rector of Westport, and workhouse Protestant chaplain, because of opinions expressed and characters and types portrayed in the novels of which the guardians allege that the reverend gentleman is author; whether, in view of the speech of one of the guardians advising that Mr. Hannay should be dragged through the streets of Westport and pitched into the river, the police will be directed to be watchful to prevent this suggestion from being carried out; and whether the Local Government Board intend, as demanded by the guardians, to dismiss the Reverend Mr. Hannay from the chaplaincy, on the charge of having written two very readable novels.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Is it in order to use the notice paper of this House in order to describe novels as "very readable"? I have tried to read one of these novels and failed miserably.
    MR. BRYCE: I have seen, since this Question appeared, a newspaper account of the meeting referred to. Some rather pointed criticism appears to have been passed upon newspaper extracts from works of which the reverend gentleman is conjectured to be the author, but there does not appear to be reason to apprehend that any more direct form of disapproval will be manifested. It sometimes happens that critics do not themselves read the books on which they pass judgment, and I gather that this was the case in the present instance. The Local Government Board do not intend to dismiss the Reverend Mr. Hannay from the workhouse chaplaincy.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer that part of the question which says that these novels are "very readable," and say whether he has read them?
    MR. BRYCE: The novels are not mentioned by name, and I do not know that I am entitled to assume what they are. But if one of them is the one I believe it to be, I am bound to say I found it very readable.

    Irish Railway Rates on Grass Seed.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Department of Agriculture has been drawn to the fact that on the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) the rate per ton for conveying grass seed from Derry to Dublin (162 miles) is 6s. 8d., whilst from Banbridge to Dublin (86 miles) the rate is 9s. 2d.; and, if so, whether steps will be taken to induce the company to reduce the rates from Banbridge to figures proportionate to the rate from Derry.
    MR. BRYCE: The attention of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction has not been drawn by any communication from agriculturists or traders to the rates referred to. They will now make inquiry into the matter with a view to such action as the circumstances may require.

    Miss Nicholson's Sligo Estate.
    MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the grazing farm of Annagheur, comprising a portion of the Miss Nicholson estate, situate at Castlebawldin, near Riverstown, county Sligo, and at present in the equity court, has been leased for a term of years under a court letting, to one James Murrin, a former herd of the farm; and, if so, will he state the circumstances under which this letting took place, and explain why the demands of the uneconomic landholders of the district to have this farm utilised for the enlargement of their holdings, were not acceded to.
    MR. BRYCE: The registrar of the Land Judge's Court informs me that the estate in question is being administered by the land judge as receiver judge in a Chancery action of Gorman v. Gately. The letting to Murrin, under a court tenancy, of part of the lands in question, was made in accordance with the usual practice of the Court and after full consideration by the learned judge;

    1435
    and as the acceptance of Murrin's proposal was a judicial act, the judge is not prepared to discuss the circumstances of the case or the reasons that actuated him in making the letting.

    Richmond District Lunatic Asylum.
    MR. COGAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Board of Control prior to the year £9,000 had plans and specifications prepared involving an expenditure of about £9,000 for the alteration of certain buildings in the Richmond District Lunatic Asylum, to provide accommodation for private patients whose friends wished to have treated in that institution, and that the Joint Committee of Management on coming into office under The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, continued the operations begun by the Board and the necessary alterations made; that under the powers given to them by the above-named Act the Joint Committee drew up regulations for the reception and management of private patients and submitted them to the Lord-Lieutenant for his sanction, and that His Excellency withheld his sanction thereby refusing to allow the Joint Committee to use the buildings; and will he say whether such refusal was based on the plea that there are a number of harmless pauper lunatics in workhouses in the district; and whether, pending the publication and consideration of the Report of the Poor Law Commission, the Lord-Lieutenant will allow these buildings to be used having regard to the sum of public money spent upon them.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed that the plans and specifications referred to were prepared in 1900, not by the Board of Control, but by the Joint Committee of Management of the Richmond Asylum. The proposed works were for the purpose of providing further accommodation for the lunatic poor, and not for private patients, and Government approval was given to the scheme as for the first-named purpose. Upon the completion of the works the Committee drew up regulations for the reception and treatment of private patients in the new portion of the asylum. The Lord-Lieutenant's sanction was withheld upon the ground that it would be indefensible to permit asylum space to be appropriated for the benefit of the wealthier
    1436
    class of insane whoso relatives could pay for their maintenance in private asylums, while there were such large numbers of lunatic poor in workhouses of the district who ought to be provided for in asylums. I am informed that there are at present about 600 persons of unsound mind in workhouses in the Richmond Asylum District who stand urgently in need of asylum treatment. The reply to the concluding inquiry is in the negative. The Report of the Trish Poor Law Reform Commission may be expected shortly, but I am not aware that it will have any direct bearing on the Question.
    MR. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are other institutions that can be utilised for the purpose of housing harmless lunatics?
    MR. BRYCE: The hon. Member may safely assume that the action taken by the Lord-Lieutenant is in the interest of these poor people.

    Incorporated Law Society.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the president's speech at a meeting of the Incorporated Law Society; will he cause the correspondence that passed between the Incorporated Law Society and the Estates Commissioners to be laid upon the Table; and is it his intention to take steps to increase the staff to enable the Land Act to be worked with more expedition.
    MR. BRYCE: Since the Question appeared on the Paper, I have obtained a copy of a newspaper containing a report of the proceedings mentioned. I am informed that the correspondence between the Incorporated Law Society and the Estates Commissioners has already been published in the Dublin newspapers. I should doubt whether in the circumstances it is worth while to have it printed and be laid on the Table as a Parliamentary Paper. The staff of the Estates Commissioners has recently been increased for the purpose mentioned in the Question, and the Commissioners have at present under consideration the question of expediting procedure.

    Uneconomic Holdings in County Cavan.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the estate owned by the Cookenden and Carey syndicate in county Cavan is largely composed of uneconomic holdings, and considerable portions of it congested; is he aware that these impoverished tenants are being warned to pay their old rack rents and arrears, and in view of the fact that the sale of this estate has been refused by the Estates Commissioners will some protection be afforded so as to avoid the whole district from being depopulated; and will he say why the Commissioners refused to allow the sale to go through.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the facts are as stated in the first part of the Question; but they have no knowledge as to the tenants being called upon to pay rent and arrears. When the proposed sale of the estate in parts was before the Commissioners they considered the Report of their inspector; and in the exercise of their discretion, and having regard to the economic conditions of the holdings, they refused to declare the lands offered for sale to be separate "estates" for the purposes of the Act of 1903. The Commissioners, however, will be prepared to purchase the entire estate, with a view to the re-sale of the holdings to the tenants, if the owners should be willing to sell under Section 5 of the Act.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: And do the Government in the meantime intend to provide troops to evict these tenants? These are the men who broke down the bridges of the Cavan Railway twenty years ago.

    Drumroe Evicted Tenant.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state if the Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement from Ellen Reilly, daughter of Charles Maguire, deceased, who was evicted in 1884 from his farm in Drumroe, county Cavan, by Lieutenant-Colonel Clifford Lloyd and Mr. W. H. Lloyd, is this estate being sold, and will the untenanted land on this estate in Lossett and Coolbawn be included in the sale.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners have received an application for reinstatement from Ellen Reilly. Proceedings for the sale of the estate of W. C. Lloyd and others have recently been instituted before the Commissioners, and the lands referred to in the Question appear to be included in the property which is being sold.

    Education Grants for Ireland.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutentant of Ireland if he has taken any steps to secure for elementary education in Ireland any equivalent for the annual sum of £1,000,000 estimated as required for elementary education in England and Wales under the present Education Bill; and, if not or in any event, whether he can state what sum Ireland is entitled to as an equivalent for this sum.
    MR. BRYCE: The subject mentioned in the Question will not escape the attention of His Majesty's Government, but the time has not arrived for making a statement regarding it. I may refer the hon. Member to the Answer given by my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Question of the hon. Member for North Derry on April 30th.†

    Dublin Police Band.
    MR. LIDDELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on Sunday the 6th instant an order was issued directing the band of the Royal Irish Constabulary in Dublin to head the procession of Roman Catholic constables to Aughrim Street chapel for mass, and to wait for them and play them back to the Constabulary barracks after the service; and whether, seeing that this band is composed of twenty Protestants and twenty-five Roman Catholics, he will have the order withdrawn.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Inspector-General that the order in question was issued by the Commandant of the Royal Irish Constabulary Depot. It was not intended that the order should apply to the Protestant members of the band, but owing to a misapprehension the full band attended on the first two

    1439
    occasions. The Commandant has already before this Question appeared issued orders that the Catholic members of the band only shall attend in future.

    Fitzwilliam Estate, County Wicklow.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many of the 1,055 tenants, who have purchased their holdings on the Fitzwilliam estate, county Wicklow, purchased outside the zones; how many years purchase did they pay on first and second term rents, respectively; and what was the total amount of their purchase money.
    MR. BRYCE: There has not been sufficient time since the Question was put down to procure the detailed information asked for, but I will forward it to the hon. Member in the course of a day or two, or he can renew the Question if he should desire.

    Irish Customs Watchers.
    MR. HALPIN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury how many police pensioners are at present employed as watchers in the Customs Department in Ireland, with pensions varying from £48 to £72 per annum; and whether he will consider the advisability of the employment of civilians of irreproachable character and fair intelligence in the positions now occupied by Royal Irish Constabulary pensioners.
    MR. MCKENNA: Out of sixty places of watchers at the various ports in Ireland, fifteen are filled by police pensioners with pensions varying from £48 to £72 per annum. In the appointment of watchers preference is given to pensioners from the Army, Navy, or police, because (a) a pension is regarded as a guarantee for good conduct and the correct discharge of duty, (b) the post of watcher is not itself pensionable. Non-pensioners are only appointed when suitable pensioners are not available.

    Soldiers and Sailors in Irish Lunatic Asylums.
    MR. COGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether Civil Service, Naval, and Military pensions payable to inmates in Irish lunatic asylums are reducible by what-
    1440
    ever amount is paid to those asylums as capitation grant; if so, what fund receives the benefit of the amounts so deducted.
    MR. MCKENNA: The Answer to the first part of the hon. Member's Question is in the affirmative. The deductions are made in pursuance of Section 7 (2) of the Superannuation Act of 1887. The amounts deducted remain to the benefit of the Vote to which the pensions are chargeable.
    MR. COGANasked if steps would be taken to credit the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account with a sum equivalent to that deducted from the pensions of inmates.
    MK. MCKENNA: I quite appreciate the point of the hon. Member's Question, and I will took into the matter.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDYasked if stops could not be taken to make the pensions payable to those dependent on the pensioners.
    MR. MCKENNA: I will inquire into that matter.

    Dublin City Revaluation.
    MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how long it is since the revaluation of the city of Dublin should, according to the statute law, have been undertaken; what is the cause for the delay; can he say when the work will be commenced; and how long is it estimated it should take to complete; and whether he is aware that the ratepayers of Dublin are anxious for the revaluation, except the publicans and brewers whose property is undervalued.
    MR. MCKENNA: Under Section 60 of the Dublin Corporation Act of 1900, the corporation are deemed to have made application for the revaluation of the city. Delay in commencing the work was due to the prior application of the Belfast Corporation for revaluation of that city, and the legal difficulties which have arisen during the carrying out of the work. The revaluation of Dublin will be commenced when the necessary financial arrangements have been made. I have no information respecting the last

    1441
    two paragraphs of the hon. Member's Question.

    County Court Railway Grant.
    MR. EDWARD BARRY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the £93,000 promised under the Fishguard and Rosslare Act, 1898, was intended solely for railway development in county Cork, the claim of Waterford being satisfied by a reduction of £7,000 per annum in taxation; and whether, see now that part of the money remains unexpended, steps will be taken to have this used in constructing a railway from Clonakilty to Glandore, thus opening up the best fishing district in South Cork, as well as enabling the slate quarries of Benduff to be profitably worked.
    MR. MCKENNA: The original intention as regards the £93,000 was that it should be votel for repayment to the Fishguard Company in the event of the conditions stated in the Agreement scheduled to the Act of 1898 being fulfilled. I am afraid that I can hold out no hope that any part of this money will be devoted to the purpose suggested by the hon. Member.
    MR. POWER: Really the action taken by the hon. Member for Cork in the interest of the people of Waterford is most perplexing.

    The Ancient Order of Hibernians.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Postmaster - General whether employees of the Post Office in Ireland are permitted to belong to the Ancient Order of Hibernians; whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Francis M'Gilly, a postman at Annaghmore, county Armagh, who is reported to be the secretary of the Tartaraghan division of the Order in county Armagh; and, if so, what steps does he intend to take.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I will inquire into the matter, and communicate with the hon. Member.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: And will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this is a benefit society which
    1442
    does a great deal of good among thousands of people?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Certainly.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs)said that it might be for the convenience of the House if he stated that he considered that the discussion on Clause 1 of the Education Bill should be concluded on Monday next, and it was proposed to ask the House to suspend the Eleven o'clock Rule for that purpose. On Tuesday the Government proposed to proceed with the Committee stage of the Finance Bill. On Wednesday, the chief business would be the Motion for the adjournment, but it might also be necessary to take a few minor orders, if they had not been previously disposed of. He might perhaps particularly refer to the Metropolitan Police Commission Bill, which had been estopped day by day. It had been understood that the Bill would go through the House, as the Bill which formed the precedent for it did last year, without opposition, and he hoped there would be no objection to its being taken on Monday. If not opposed it might be taken, and he trusted it would pass the remaining stages the following day.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: On what day will the Labourers' Bill be taken?
MR. BRYCE: I still hope to bring it in on Monday under the Ten Minutes Rule.
SIR A. ACLAND-HOODsaid there might be some discussion upon the Metropolitan Police Bill. Perhaps it might be brought in among minor Bills on the Wednesday.
Sin H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that would only carry the matter as far as the Second heading, and the other stages would then have to be taken after the Whitsuntide holidays, which would be almost equivalent to a frustration of the intentions of the House.
MR. JOHN REDMOND: What will be the business immediately after the holidays?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that on the Thursday when the House reassembled after the Whitsuntide holidays, he proposed that Army Votes which were not necessarily of a contentious character should be taken. Supply would also be taken on Friday. The following Monday it was intended to resume the discussion of the Education Bill in Committee. He hardly considered it likely that the Committee stage of the Trade Disputes Bill could be taken until the Education Bill had passed through Committee.
MR. KEIR HARDIEasked when the Committee stage of the Trade Disputes Bill would be taken.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANreplied that that did not come within the range of the days to which his vision was confined. He thought the Education Bill would have to be the main business of the House until it was finished; but the Trade Disputes Bill would be taken at the earliest opportunity.
MR. LEA (St. Pancras, E.): Shall we be able on the Thursday we reassemble to discuss the question of the amount of crime in the Army?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That will depend on the Votes submitted and on the ruling of the Chair.
MAJOR SEELY: What Votes will he taken?
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Among others the Volunteers Vote, Votes 5 to 12, Votes 14 and 16, Ordnance, Works, Buildings, Establishment, Education, Miscellaneous, and non-Effective Votes.

SELECTION STANDING COMMITTEES.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, in respect of the Open Spaces
1444
Bill: Mr. James Parker; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Glover.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported, That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, in respect of the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Bill: Mr. Parker; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Glover.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported, That they had added to the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in respect of the Prevention of Corruption Bill [Lords]: Mr. Kelly.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

SUPPLY [9TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1906–7.
1. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £2,053,200, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the expense of Victualling and Clothing for the Navy, including the cost of Victualling Establishments at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907."
MR BOWLES*MR BOWLES(Lambeth, Norwood) moved the reduction of the vote by,£10,000, in order to draw attention to the real working of the system under which the Navy was at present victualled. He said the theory of the victualling of the Navy was that the Admiralty completely fed both officers and men, and no doubt the quality and quantity of the provisions supplied by the Admiralty accordingly was extremely good. But so long ago as 1799 it was found that the men were not content to rely solely on the Admiralty dietary, and a system of "savings" was instituted. The Admiralty said in effect —" We provide you with food; if you do not like to take that you need not, and we will give you a certain allowance for

1445
it." This gave rise to the establishment of ship's canteens, and that inevitably led to well-founded discontent. The allegations of corruptions and abuses culminated in 1902 in the appointment of a Committee to consider the subject of victual ling. The evidence had not been published but it was admitted that the Committee's report disclosed very serious and grave abuses. The Committee recommended that the old system of the ship canteen should be superseded by the tenant system, under which a tenant held a contract for the management of the canteen, paying the ship's company a fixed rental, and being subject, so far as prices and his dealings with the ship's company were concerned, to a committee consisting of the captain and certain other officers and representative ratings. That system sounded reasonable, but worked extremely badly. What happened? While a ship was commissioning the agents of rival contractors appeared on the lower deck and ingratiated themselves, by methods which would not bear inspection, with a few of the higher ratings on the lower deck. These few leading ratings, under those inducements, selected one particular contractor. The captain, who regarded the canteen as a great nuisance and an excrescence on his ordinary duties, usually agreed to this selection without question as being that of the ship's company. The tenant, thus chosen, entered the ship, and from that moment charged whatever he pleased. The mess books which he had seen showed a very serious state of affairs in this respect. It was undeniable that at the present moment the men of His Majesty's Fleet throughout the whole world and even in Home waters, for things which they bought in increasing quantities and upon which they depended for their sustenance, paid prices which were 50 or 100 per cent, over anything which was reasonable. Ordinary bread which when of the very best quality could be obtained at 10d. a gallon was sold in the Navy at from 1s. to 1s. 4d. a gallon. Tinned milk which one could purchase at 3d. a tin elsewhere was sold for 6d., and butter throughout His Majesty's Navy was sold to the men in the canteens at 1s. 2d. a pound. He asserted, and it could be shown beyond contradiction, that the so-called butter which was sold at 1s. 2d. a pound was not butter at all,
1446
but margarine of contemptible quality, which could be purchased anywhere at 6d. or 7d. a pound. But that was by no means the worst of it. There was absolutely no control of any kind whatever on these canteens. There was no system by which the goods supplied were even weighed or checked. The accounts which were rendered seemed from malice prepense to be rendered in an absolutely illegible form so as to make it impossible for anybody to check them. It was a small thing, but it showed the system, that no stamp was even affixed to the receipts in regard to these mess accounts although they amounted to huge sums every month. The Committee, moreover, would hardly believe that throughout the Navy at the present moment it was the universal practice with many canteen firms to give not sixteen but twelve ounces per pound of the food they supplied. Hon. Members would ask why did not the canteen committee, which represented the ship's company, take action, and that was no doubt what the right hon. Gentleman who represented the Admiralty would say. No doubt that committee represented the ship's company and were in a fiduciary position towards them, and it would be asked why did they not control these canteen tenants. The answer was an extremely simple one. It was that a system which would be extremely satisfactory in an ordinary free community was bound to be unsatisfactory in the highly artificial society of the lower deck of a man-of-war. These men who sat upon the canteen committees were members of a service in which discipline was carried to an extent that was not realised ashore, and every man who sat upon those committees knew perfectly well and every man on the lower deck knew perfectly well that if he once got a character for being the kind of man who made trouble in regard to the canteen it would be very bad or him in regard to his career. He knew of many cases with which he would not trouble the Committee. He knew of cases in which men had been punished or having brought complaints in regard to the canteen which any unprejudiced person would say were well-founded. The long and the short of it was that, while the representative system

1447
was good in a free community, it was sure to fail in a highly disciplined service such as existed on board a man-of-war. How did the matter stand? The position was that the men of the Fleet were being forced to an increasing extent to rely for their food upon a system for which the best that could be said was that the prices were fantastic, and that the quality of the goods was extremely bad. The system presented all the symptoms of an entrenched and corrupt monopoly. It was thoroughly bad, and could not be defended. He was sure the Secretary to the Admiralty would not defend it. That being so it was no small matter. There were, as he had explained, two systems of victualling in the Navy. There was the official system and the auxiliary system, and one would imagine that the official supply was the greater of the two. If anybody doubted the incapacity of any Government Department, even the Admiralty, to provide a dietary which would satisfy men of this description, one had only to point to the fact that the bill for the official food supply of the men was infinitely less every year than the value of the food which they bought from these auxiliary sources, in spite of the prices to which he had referred. In 1905–6 the total cost of the provisions supplied by the Government to the Fleet would be found by the Estimates to be £762,000, but it was fair to add to that a considerable sum of standing stock which was partly used up in the year, and he supposed it would be a fair estimate to say that about £850,000 worth of food was provided by the Admiralty to the Fleet in the last year. But how much was paid by the men to the canteens? Not £850,000, but at least £1,500,000 was spent by the men on food during that year in the canteens. What one found, therefore, was that the official food supply was about one-third of the total food supply, and that not less than two-thirds of the food used by the men came not from the Admiralty but from the private canteens. What was the position of the Admiralty? The Admiralty was perfectly well aware of the circumstances; they knew perfectly well that the disproportion between the amount of food which they could supply and the amount of food which the men got from the
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canteen was growing and that the men relied less and less upon their supply and more and more upon the canteen. At this moment, however, the position of the Admiralty was what it had always been, one of tacit recognition of the system and yet of repudiation of all responsibility for the manner in which the system was conducted. On the 30th of April he asked the right hon. Gentleman a Question in that House—a Question which involved grave charges of fraud against many of the canteen-tenants in the Channel Fleet. What was the right hon. Gentleman's answer? He said that the Admiralty had no information in the matter, and in effect suggested that the Admiralty did not greatly care whether the men were being defrauded in this way or not. He very respectfully suggested to the right hon. Gentleman in view of his increasing reliance upon the outside system and the decreasing reliance upon official sources, and of the great abuses which prevailed under the present system, which he was sure he would not deny, that the time had come when the Admiralty would be well advised to lift their heads out of the sand in which like ostriches they had buried them and acknowledge that the system did exist, and that they could not refuse responsibility for what was neither more nor less than the robbery of the men under their control. The present system was quite disgraceful, and its continuance seemed all the more disgraceful in view of the fact that in a great institution under the Admiralty a new system had recently been set up, through the enterprise of a few officers, which provided a naval canteen satisfactory to everybody concerned. He referred to the system of canteen management recently initiated at Portsmouth Naval Barracks. That system could easily be extended to His Majesty's ships generally. He was perfectly convinced that if it were an enormous boon would be conferred upon the men of the Fleet, and what was far more important, it would conduce to the greater efficiency of the Fleet. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give some indication that, in view of the great and admitted abuses to which he had referred, and in view of the fact that under his eye and hand he had a complete and possible remedy,

1449
he would be able to assure the Committee that the Admiralty would not continue the absurd system under which the victualling of the Fleet was now conducted, but would take the matter under their own control and devise some system which would prevent the indefinite perpetuation of proved and acknowledged abuses. He begged to move.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £2,043,200, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. Bowles.)
MR. J. WILLIAMS BENNsaid he desired to associate himself with his hon. friend in his remarks as to the victualling of the Navy. He might be permitted to say that he seemed to hear in those remarks an echo of many speeches made by his hon. friend the senior Member for Devonport. The Secretary for the Admiralty had admitted the viciousness of the present system, and he was perfectly sure that when the right hon. Gentleman had the opportunity and saw a that the remarks of the hon. Member opposite were justified, he would be able to make some recommendation in the direction of the system which the hon. Member for Norwood had brought before the Committee. He desired to draw attention to some very minor matters which, however, caused a good deal of annoyance and a feeling of resentment among the men. First of all, there was a class of men who were called "writers," and he desired to know whether his right hon. friend could not alter the style and title of those gentlemen and bring them into the grade of civil clerks. He also noticed that for something like twenty-six years they had had no increase in pay. In the constituency of Devonport house-rent had increased 30 per cent, and he submitted, therefore, that the case of these men was entitled to some consideration. With regard to the question of uniform clothing he thought he was justified in saying that the present seamen's uniform was unsuited in many cases to the requirements of a ship of war, and that many modifications were necessary to make it efficient for service on
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land as well as at sea. He ventured to suggest that the different uniforms might be assimilated for all ratings from that of boys upwards, and that distinguishing badges might be used to show the rating. There was another matter which he desired to draw attention to, which was that there were a class of men who acted as stewards on board ship, but who were described as domestics. This caused a great feeling of resentment, and he thought these men would be greatly gratified if their style and title was amended to that of "ship's steward." They very much resented being called domestics. He apologised for bringing these very small points before the right hon. Gentleman, but he could assure him they were matters which excited considerable feeling.
MR. MADDISONsaid the question raised was a very important one. He expressed the hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty would give some assurance to the Committee that the Admiralty were going to alter a system which appeared to be inflicting a very serious wrong upon the men of the Navy. These Estimates raised very important matters, and the hon. Member for Norwood had ventilated some very substartial grievances. Some of the stereotyped methods of continuing what was obviously wrong went on year after year. The question brought forward by the hon. Member for Norwood was not new, but it was a condemnation of the officials of the Admiralty. Many hon. Members were strongly opposed to the large expenditure that now went on in the Army as in the Navy, but they had always taken the line that they did not want to retrench at the expense of the men who worked the ships. The men were wanted, and wanted in good condition, and the hon. Member for Norwood had made a suggestion which, if carried out, would, without causing a penny to be paid out of the public purse, increase the wages o f the men enormously. They were now mulcted and blackmailed by an absurd system which had been allowed by the Admiralty to continue from year to year. They now expected something from the right hon. Gentleman

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the Secretary to the Admiralty. He was a reformer and they had confidence in him. But they did not want him to acquire the official habit of the Front Bench on which he sat and give the official reply that no doubt there were very great disadvantages in the system but on the other hand—he loved the official style—there was great difficulty in interfering with the free choice of the men. He knew nothing about actual life in the Navy, but he had no doubt that the hon. Member for Norwood was quite right when he stated that this freedom of choice was conspicuous by its absence. He supported the Motion.
MR. JENKINSagreed with the hon. Member for Devonport that the clothing for our seamen was practically obsolete. One would imagine from the way in which they were clothed that we were still living in the days when the old wooden walls were on the water and the men had nothing to do but to climb the rigging. But nowadays a man-of-war was a huge piece of machinery from stem to stern; yet the men were asked to work the ships in clothing which was most objectionable and most unhealthy. Much exception had been taken to extravagant expenditure, but they did desire that the men should be well clothed and well fed and generally in good condition. They wanted the Secretary to the Admiralty to give some undertaking that the condition, which was by this time well known to the Admiralty, of the clothing and the feeding of the men, would be improved. He expressed the opinion that there was too much extravagance in the shape of gold lace and cocked hats, and that if there were less spent in that way more could be done for the men.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty would, of course, reply to the many questions raised, but he would like to say one word in reply to the hon. Member for Burnley, who had very frankly said he was not acquainted with the victualling of the Navy. The hon. Member had not quite realised what had taken place. The scale of Navy victualling was based upon what
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was required in time of war. It was obvious that they could not allow the men in time of peace the same as in war time, and the result was that the men had to get a great amount of things which were not on the war establishment of ships. For that purpose the men were allowed to form and did form committees of their own. The hon. Member for Norwood was wrong when he said that the men had no control. That control very often fell upon a few persons, but those persons were undoubtedly representatives of the lower deck. During the last Administration at the Admiralty this question was discussed and a very important change made. The Admiralty recognised that the service supply of food was not adequate to the requirements in the matter of variety, and as the result of a very strong Committee considerable additions were made to the dietary scale. He thought the Secretary to the Admiralty would confirm what he was about to say, namely, that it was all very well to put articles, however good, upon the official scale, but the bluejacket has an ineradicable dislike to what was supplied by the Government.
MR. MADDISON: No wonder.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERthought the hon. Gentleman was wrong, and that, if he would investigate this matter for himself and inquire into the sources of supplies to the Navy he would find that it was almost impossible to subject articles to closer scrutiny or to get better sources of supply.
MR. MADDISON: I was not doubting that. I rather wished the Government would take full control.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid he was mistaken in supposing the hon. Gentleman was rather repeating the suggestion that was sometimes made that the men were justified in mistrusting the Government. He did not think it was true, and it would be very unfortunate if it were. He had sampled the foods very often and made very minute inquiries into the sources of supply and character of the food, and found them exceedingly good. But very often the men would not take

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the articles that were provided. He would give an example. They had had advice from many hon. Gentleman that it would be an advantage to put jam on the dietary scale. The Admiralty bought thousands of pounds, and he saw mountains of it stacked in the Victualling Yard, but the moment the men got it the demand for it diminished. It was not just however, to a public department that they supplied was good when they had made enormous shorts to get abreast of public requirements, to charge them with shortcomings in this matter. There remained the other point as to whether the time had come when they could safely transfer the control of the canteen from the men to the officers of the ship. In some respects that would be an admirable step, but it must be remembered that they would be taking away from the men privileges which, when they were likely to be deprived of them, they would value. He had read scores upon scores of letters sent by the men with regard to victualling and the conditions under which these canteens existed, and personally he would be very glad if the Secretary to the Admiralty could tell the Committee that he thought the time had come when they could safely introduce the Portsmouth canteen system into the canteens of the ships at sea. In that matter he thought they must trust to a certain extent the judgment of the officers.
MR. LEIF JONESsaid he wished to draw attention to one question with regard to dietary, and that was the continued use of spirits as a daily ration. The time had come, he thought, when rum should cease to be regarded as a necessary part of the daily diet of our seamen. It was quite true that in deference to the growing opinion against spirits the men were allowed a substitute. There was a general feeling among the men, however, that the money substitute, namely,¾d. a day, was not an equivalent. It was consequently a frequent practice, he was told, even among teetotalers in the Navy, to take their rum, and by arrangement, pass it on to those who still relished it. He knew this was against the regulations; still it occurred, and he
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urged upon the right hon. Gentleman that the time had come when an end should be put to the practice of supplying spirits as a part of the daily rations.
MR. FLAVIN: Why not stop it in the House of Commons?
MR. LEIF JONESsaid it was no fault of his that it was not. He did stop it as far as he could. In making his suggestion he might quote the example of the United States Navy, which abolished the use of rum as a ration so long ago as 1862, actually in the middle of the Civil War, because of the evil which resulted from the supply of that ration. He did not think anyone connected with the United States Navy would return to the old system. The greatest possible benefits had accrued to the men in the United States Navy from the cessation of the rum rations, on the testimony of all who were connected with that service. He ventured to think the same results would follow if the example were adopted in our Navy. He knew he would fill the hon. Member for Norwood with dismay if he proposed that the use of rum should cease in His Majesty's ships, and therefore he was not going to ask the Admiralty to take any heroic measures. What he would suggest was this. At present the men had three alternatives. They could have rum, money value, or tea, cocoa, and so forth, and his suggestion was that while not interfering with the men at present in the service, new recruits should be offered only the alternative of money or the other substitutes for rum. By a gradual process in that way the rum rations would cease throughout the Navy. He believed it would tend greatly to the advantage of the service and would be welcomed by an increasing number of the men themselves.
THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee)frankly confessed that he had found this short debate both interesting and instructive. He thought the hon. Member for Norwood had made out a case at all events for inquiry. He was very much relieved when, after a condemnation of the canteen system on board ship, he praised the canteen establishment at Portsmouth. He had himself

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critically examined that canteen and he could say that he came away with an excellent opinion of it. One thing that struck him, however, was that for the privilege of selling beer at a panny a glass to men attending the canteen a tenant paid to the managing committee no less than £3,000 a year, which sum was used by the men in various ways, in part, he was glad to think, in keeping up a corps of cadets. He did not dispute the gravamen of the charge the hon. Gentleman had made, and he thought the time had come for something to be done. The first thing, was, of course, an inquiry within the Admiralty itself, and he thought he might promise that a full and complete inquiry would be made. With regard to baking on board ship, he would point out that improved bakeries had been provided. The hon. Member for Devonport had raised the question of clothing and the position of writers. The whole subject of clothing was actually under consideration by the Admiralty. With regard to the writers, they complained of the name and desired to be called clerks. That was a complaint which had come from many of the dockyards, but it amused him to think that anybody would imagine that the title of clerk was a higher degree than the title of writer. When the proper time name the point raised about the spirit rations would not be forgotten.
MR. COURTENAY WARNERsaid the control was very good if the officers were kept up to the mark. At one time there was nothing sold but beer, and there was some friction as to the way the canteens were carried on by the officers.
MR. BOWLESsaid that after the sympathetic and satisfactory answer given by the right hon. Gentleman he did not feel that he would be justified in pressing his Amendment to a division, and he would ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw it. The system of canteen management, regulation and control in vogue at Portsmouth had won the admiration of everybody. He had no doubt that the promised inquiry would result in the extension of that system with great advantage to His Majesty's Navy.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Question put, and agreed to.
2. £275,500, Medical Establishments and Services.
3. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £14,700, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Martial Law, including the cost of Naval Prison Home and Abroad, which will come course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907.' "
MR BOWLESsaid he desired to move a reduction of £1,000 in regard to the item of £1,700 for courts-martial, in order to call attention to the remarkable system under which justice was administered by naval courts-martial at present, and under which it had been administered for a long time past. Naval courts-martial were clothed with enormous powers and it was necessary that they should have extremely strong powers. They had constantly to deal with difficult cases often involving the whole question of the maintenance of discipline in His Majesty's Navy. In the vast majority of cases the justice administered by courts-martial all the world over was of the most excellent, fair, and merciful description, and he had nothing to say against the general administration of justice by those courts. The mere fact that from the necessities of the case it was considered essential to give such stupendous powers to these courts as they now enjoyed made it equally necessary that there should be some sort of control over their decisions by a superior authority. A certain measure of control did exist, but it was entirely illusory and different from the practice in the Army and in military courts-martial. Indeed, naval courts-martial were left entirely masters of the situation and there was no effective control whatever over them. The procedure was as follows:—A man on the China Station, miles away from this country, might commit an offence of sufficient gravity to warrant his being tried by court-martial. This case would be tried out in China. The court-martial would meet, have the man before it, hear

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the evidence and try the case and come to its conclusion and verdict accordingly. The man would be brought back and the sentence decided upon would be announced to him. Forthwith upon the announcement of the sentence without any interval of any kind the sentence would begin to take effect. The man might have been sentenced to four months imprisonment with hard labour and instantly he would be sent to gaol and put into the cell. There was no waiting or delay. At the conclusion of the proceedings of the court the President dispersed the court and dissolved it. And it was thus only after the punishment had actually begin that the system of control and revision began to come into operation. The proceedings of the court-martial were forwarded immediately to the Commander-in-Chief of the station and he revised them and made any notes or remarks he desired to make in regard to them. The Commander-in-Chief was a busy man, and this, of course, took time. When he had finished with the report; of the proceedings it was packed up and the whole thing was sent with the remarks of the Commander-in-Chief to the Admiralty. It took the papers some time to get there, because they were sent by post. If the prisoner had pleaded guilty and no point of law arose, the papers went straight to the Board. In the vast majority of cases, however, the prisoners pleaded "Not guilty," and in those cases the papers went to the Judge-Advocate of the fleet, who revised and scrutinised them, made his report upon them, and then returned them to the Board. Thus the sentence went from the court which pronounced it to the Commander-in-Chief, from him to the Admiralty, then to the Judge-Advocate, and then back to the Admiralty Board. Supposing the sentence was found by the Board to have been improperly imposed, how long would it take to have this complicated procedure gone through in the case of a man on whom sentence had been pronounced? A long time. And throughout sill that time the man would have been serving his sentence. It seemed to him a ridiculous system— and he hoped it would seem so to the Committee—to try and sentence a man, and then, while he was undergoing
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the sentence, to go through a long and complicated process which must, he supposed, in the majority of cases take longer than the time of the sentence in order to find out whether the sentence ought to have been given or not. Would not the right hon. Gentleman, or anybody, have serious ground for irritation if, after serving a sentence, he was to be told, as must constantly happen under this system, that in the opinion of the Admiralty half the sentence would have been sufficient, or that the whole sentence was wrong. This was what he called illusory control. The process, he would point out, was the reverse of that in the case of military courts-martial. What happened in the case of members of the Army applied under the Army Act equally to marines ashore. A marine, when afloat, was under the fantastic system he had described. When a military court-martial passed a sentence it did not take effect for a considerable time. At the conclusion of the trial an account of the proceedings was sent to the Judge-Advocate General for review, and it was submitted to the Army Council and the Board of Admiralty respectively. The Army Council and the Board of Admiralty had power to send back the finding of the court to the court which had made the finding for revision of the sentence in cases where that was thought to be necessary. It was only when the Army Council or the Board of Admiralty had confirmed the sentence that it began to take effect. There was a substantial difference between the two methods. Unless there was some serious and weighty reason in favour of the present system in the Navy it should be altered, for it seemed to be a gross and palpable anomaly and injustice.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A. be reduced by £1,000."— (Mr. Bowles.)
MR. JENKINSsaid he desired to call attention to the fact that chief officers, petty officers, and noncommissioned officers in the Navy could be dealt with by the captain of a ship for a very trivial offence, and that they could be disrated without any appeal to a court-martial. That seemed to him

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a very serious state of affairs. A man gained warrant rank, or non-commissioned rank, after many years service, and in order to gain promotion he must be a man of ability, and his character must be exceedingly good, but for a small offence he could be disrated. He had in his mind a case where very recently a man was disrated for a small offence, and if he were to mention it to the Committee he was sure they would agree with him that the punishment was not suited to the offence. The whole of the naval men were desirous of having trial by court-martial, and that some one of non-commissioned rank should be appointed who thoroughly understood the position of their fellow-men. When persons in civil life were brought before a criminal court charged with serious offences they had the right to appeal to be tried by jury. Why should not the same right be extended to seamen on board His Majesty's ships? This was a grievance which the men thought they had a right to raise in this Committee. He asked the Secretary to the Admiralty to consider the matter. Could not these men be dealt with in the same way as the captain of a ship, a lieutenant, or any superior officer?
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid the hon. Member for Norwood had by this Motion opened up a question which had a great personal attraction for himself, because it was one in which he took a good deal of interest in former days, when he was in a position of "greater freedom and less responsibility." A demand had been made to-day for the assimilation of the practice in the matter of trials. In what he was about to say it must be understood that he was not speaking officially for the Admiralty on that matter, but indulging in a personal reminiscence. The hon. Member opposite did not fully explain the position of Judge-Advocate General in former days. The Judge-Advocate General in former days was an independent Minister having direct access to the Crown; he was independent of the War Office in matters relating to court-martial, and he stood between the private soldier and the military authorities. That was an office which, he had always thought, was
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well worth retention, but unfortunately now the Judge-Advocate General, instead of being an independent Minister having access to the Crown, and always; reporting directly to the Crown on his own responsibility, was a mere subordinate official who was under the War Minister. His personal solution of the question would have been not to have abolished the office of Judge Advocate-General as it had been abolished in respect to his being a Minister, but to have given him control over Naval courts-martial as well as Army courts-martial. He was expressing his own personal opinion in this matter. He did not know whether he rightly gathered that the hon. Member for Norwood desired in all cases where an appeal was entered from the decision of a court-martial that the carrying out of the sentence should be stopped pending the disposal of the appeal.
MR. BOWLES: Yes. Sir, that is the point.
MR. ROBERTSONsaid that involved a large point in criminal law. It was a difficult and delicate point.
MR. BOWLESsaid the revision and the scrutiny of the proceedings before a court-martial amounted to a useless formality unless the beginning of the sentence was postponed until the scrutiny was completed.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid that was a very debatable point, but he would not debate it now. He did not know that this question was to be brought on at all. He might say that the attention of the Admiralty had already been given to the system of court-martial in the Navy, and that a Committee for the consideration of the whole subject had been, if not actually appointed, at all events decided upon. He thought he was correct in saying that. He thought that decision would satisfy the hon.. Member. The important point raised by the hon. Member for Chatham would naturally be attended to. He would try to remember it and to see that it was brought before such a Committee. He hoped he had given satisfaction to the hon. Member and that this Vote would now be allowed to be taken.
MR. BOWLESsaid he was very glad to learn that this matter was engaging the attention of the Admiralty, and he hoped that the Committee to be appointed would see the force of his contention. After the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Question put, and agreed to.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £165,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Educational Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907."
MR. BELLAIRSsaid he desired to call the attention of the Committee to the great rise which had taken place in recent years in the cost of the educational services for the Navy. During the last ten years the Vote had doubled, and if some subsidiary Votes were included it had more than doubled in four years. He could bring home to the Committee this increase more forcibly by saying that in three years the Navy Education Vote had increased by £30,000 from £138,000, or 22 per cent., which was exclusive of large sums spent on the new system of boy artificers and training mechanicians, which, appeared on other Votes. Some hon. Members seemed to think that the increase in the Navy Votes was due to an increase in the number of men. But that was not so, because the number of men had actually decreased in this three years' period by 1,500. It had been largely due to the new scheme of training for the service. He found, roughly, that it took now about ten years for an executive officer to reach a position of responsibility; and that that training cost at the least £1,000. All boys were now entered at thirteen years of age, and the additional cost of the training of an executive officer was about £250. that of a marine officer was more by £700, and of an engineer officer £500. By abolishing the direct entry of engineer officers into the Royal Navy, a class who cost the country nothing for their training, the new system would cost the country £100,000 in substituting new officers for
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say one hundred direct entry engineers. The change which had been initiated was the result of the battle between specialisation when young and specialisation when old; of specialisation as a pastime and specialisation for a lifetime. Specialisation when young and for a lifetime existed in every Navy in the world except in America where the new system of specialisation for a period only was acknowledged to be a failure. It existed also in every rank on shore and also in the mercantile marine. The new system was also a substitution of a system of artificial selection for a system of natural selection. By natural selection he meant that the boy himself chose the line in which he meant to spend his life. From information he had in his possession he found that out of 650 cadets at Osborne only two were the sons of naval engineer officers, where is according to the Keyham scale there should have been eighty-five. What was worse was that by the present system they were divorcing the Navy altogether from the country. They were cutting off the chance of receiving boys from the technological, grammar, and public schools of the country. Again, he found that the Royal Commission on the Royal College of Science strongly urged the encouragement by the Government of the technological schools; but by the present system of education of officers for the Navy they were going in the opposite direction. They were setting up an imperium in imperio. Moreover, the present system was divorcing the Royal Navy from the mercantile marine, because the Royal Navy reserve officers who were efficient in executive duty would later on be told they were not wanted because they did not know engineering and the engineers of the mercantile marine would be excluded because they could not come up on deck to take charge of the ship.
MR. LONSDALEdrew attention to the fact that forty Members were not present.
Committee counted, and forty Members being present,
MR. BELLAIRScontinued his speech. He said he was, when interrupted, about

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to call attention to the fact that the new educational system was divorcing the Navy from the workshops of the country— as in the competition of service trained boy artificers and stoker mechanicians, who were to take the place of the artificers we had always obtained by competition from the ranks of private industry. But what would appeal to the Committee more than anything else as showing the divorce of the democracy from the Royal Navy was the rules about the entry of cadets into Osborne. He had evidence to prove that the expense to parents of entering cadets to Osborne was that they must put aside £600 for their boys during the time at Osborne in spite of the State paying £468. The budget, apart from holiday expenses, was a minimum of £135 and a maximum of over£150 a year. He knew that on this matter he had the sympathy of the Secretary to the Admiralty, to judge from the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman when the new scheme was introduced, and also the sympathy of the Prime Minister, and he hoped that they would have some assurances from the Government that the points which he had put before the Committee would receive their consideration. This question of engineering education had been dealt with by Sir William White's Committee. On May 22nd he asked a Question on the subject,† and the Answer he got from the Admiralty was that that report dealt with a scheme for the training of youths whose after - career and employment would be essentially different from the career and duties of a naval officer. Sir William White, in reply to a communication, wrote—
" The Committee of the Institution of Civil Engineers made no inquiry into the best course of engineering training for naval officers generally. This inquiry, however, did cover the training of all classes of skilled engineers charged with the responsibility for the working find management as well as the design and manufacture of every kind of engine, including marine engines."
That Engineer Committee embraced Sir William White and the most distinguished members of the engineering profession, and it reported—
" The average boy should leave school when he is about seventeen years of age. Much
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depends upon the development of individual boys, but the minimum age should be sixteen and the maximum eighteen years."
Further, the report recommended that there should be from six to seven years of training in engineering. But the Admiralty new system entered boys at thirteen years and provided for engineer specialists two years nine months. There was a very strong contrast between that report and the one presented by Sir Archibald Douglas. By the former Committee 267 witnesses were examined and all agreed. They included eighty-two mechanical engineers, thirty-two naval architects, shipbuilders and marine engineers, and thirty electrical engineers and thirty engaged in teaching. He found that the questions of specialisation young or old and for a brief spell or a life time were never asked of witnesses by the Douglas Committee and yet the Cawdor Memorandum, on making these great changes, claimed to be based on a thorough investigation by the Douglas Committee. He remembered the refusal of the Admiralty to give them this report when they asked for it and it looked to him what they call in slang language "fishy." The First Sea Lord's present naval assistant, Captain Madden, said the time to specialise was "on leaving the sea-going training ship "—a remarkable statement, with which he most emphatically agreed. That would mean at about the age of seventeen and three-quarter years, and was very reasonable. The Committee themselves appeared to have been in a helpless fog, because on page 54, after two years experience of the children at Osborne, they said—
" We are now in a position to predict the general state of professional knowledge of the new sub-lieutenants when they arrive at that rank."
That meant that they were able to predict the state of knowledge which these people would possess eight years hence, and they were to watch and wait for that time. But at page 170, the Committee said—
" It is impossible to foresee at the present moment exactly what progress will be made in engineering, etc."
These two statements contrasted showed that the Committee were hopelessly in a fog. Then this wonderful Douglas Committee took six weeks—indeed, but

1465
a little over five weeks—to report. They apparently were able to pursue their ordinary duties and to take evidence once a week, and they only devoted two days to the provision and duties of officers of the Navy, two to naval constructors, and one to the provision of mechanicians to the watchkeeping duties in the engine rooms. The White Committee took, however, two and a half years, and examined 267 witnesses, including engineers of eminence, while it had upon it men of the greatest engineering reputation. As a contrast to this he might mention that the Douglas Committee devoted two days to the two engineering questions submitted and saw six Admiralty engineers, two college ones, and two others. The witnesses were only asked questions upon some little point or other, and, from what one could gather, their evidence did not support the finding of the Committee. Only one engineer thought the new system engineers would be as competent as the present ones, but it came out subsequently that he did not understand the scheme. Engineer-Lieutenant H. F. Smith said—
" The scheme would give us inferior mechanical engineers who would not be able to direct the work of the artificers in a ship as well as the 'Keyham' cadets. They would not be so ready to trace a defect to its cause, or so competent to remedy it in the quickest way."
The next, witness, Engineer-Commander Marrack, was very emphatic and expressed the opinion that a boy should specialise in engineering and remain an engineer all his life. On page 74 would be found the questions, but the great question the Committee should have been called upon to ask the witnesses was whether to specialise, young or old, for a short spell, or for a life time. These were fundamental questions and were very important. No executive officers were examined, however, and no engineer was asked these questions. Five marine officers were examined in one day, and the Royal Marine portion of the Committee and one naval captain pronounced dead against the scheme, and sent in a minority report. The first marine witness held such strenuous opinions that a portion of his evidence was represented by suggestive stars. He was on the subject of mutiny. He said—
" You have to consider Trade Unions Socialistic, and Republican ideas‥‥It is a
1466
fundamental principle of all armed forces that there should be separate units, one to keep the other in cheek."
However, he must not laugh at this witness, because he was asked and he did pronounce in favour of that life-long specialism for which he was contending. The next witness declared that the scheme would be the end of the marine force altogether, and that appeared to be the opinion of other witnesses. A third witness, Colonel Luke, thought that the marine officers would become specialised too old. The recent changes since his evidence made the specialisation, at an even more advanced age. This witness, however, was decidedly in favour of the scheme, but believed the marine corps would disappear. The fourth officer also thought that the scheme would abolish the marine corps, and that the changes would be unpopular in the corps. The fifth witness also thought the corps would disappear. The minority report to which he had referred was signed by the representative of the marines and one other officer, and pronounced in favour of distinctive marine officers without engineering training, and significantly added that there would be a great saving in expense if the new scheme were abandoned. It also concurred in the unanimous evidence that the new scheme of training would result in the disappearance of the marine corps. He did not think the Committee or this House would like to do away with the marine force altogether. These were the people whom Lord St. Vincent called the sheet anchor of England," and if one looked at statistics it would be seen that the cost of a marine was one-third that of a blue-jacket. He was far better disciplined as the punishment returns revealed. As to results, moreover, so far as he could examine into the returns, it appeared that the marine was a better shot than the blue-jacket. It was on the evidence of these witnesses, who were not really competent to deal with so large a question, and whose evidence was taken during two days, that all the structure of the Cawdor Memorandum rested. The Cawdor Memorandum contained a declaration in favour of late specialisation, and, as he had already pointed out, the country was, under Lord Tweedmouth's policy, to

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watch and wait for seven or eight years. The country was humbugged into believing that a great Committee had thoroughly vindicated the scheme contained in the Cawdor Memorandum. One of the reasons he objected to the scheme introduced at the end of 1902 was that it would give us amateur engineers and bad executive officers. The scheme provided for common entry, common training, and late specialisation at the age of twenty-three. The only point in doubt was whether what was meant was specialisation for a time or specialisation for life. When a previous debate took place on this point before the I Douglas report was published he was found fault with for stating in opposing the scheme for common training that it had failed in the American Navy. There was no doubt that the scheme had failed, because the head of the American Navy had declared that under the system of common training the American Navy was unfit to go to war. The American scheme resembled ours, and the reason why it failed was that the officer who went down into the engine room still considered himself a possible Nelson, and always had his eyes on the bridge. He urged upon the Admiralty that they should thoroughly investigate this scheme; he thought it should be inquired into by a Committee of three. In his judgment the Committee which was supposed to investigate this question did not investigate it at all; in fact in his judgment it was a bogus Committee. It was, he thought, impossible for the Admiralty to claim that they had really investigated the matter, and he was sure there was room for real investigation. Motions had again and again been made for inquiries, and the Government had had the good sense to grant them. In 1874, on this very question of education, Lord Chelmsford proposed one in regard to the training of "Britannia" cadets and the Government granted it. In the fifties there was a Treasury Committee upon our naval strength. It was now said that an inquriy would cast a reflection upon the Admiralty. But surely that could not be said when without objection a Treasury Committee had sat and dealt with such a subject. Let them take the kindred
1468
service, the Army. It was the fact that a Committee of three, presided over by Lord Esher, had sat and investigated the whole I question of the administration of the War Office. Therefore he thought that the whole argument about an inquiry being derogatory to the Sea Lords of the Admiralty could not hold water. They insisted upon the necessity of continuity of policy in the Navy, but how could they get it if they could not insist that the Sea Lords who were going to take office should be in favour of the scheme which they were about to carry out? They could not get continuity of policy with a hostile Navy. He had reason to believe that the officers of the Navy were almost to a man hostile to this scheme of naval training, and he noticed that Admiral Fitzgerald, who had held a responsible command in the Fleet, had stated in the Naval and Military Record on March 29th, 1905, his opinions on the subject. He said—
" I could (if it were not improper) give the names of five admirals with their flags now flying who are most strongly opposed to the new scheme; and on looking through the list I have some reason to believe, though I am not certain, that about a dozen others with their Hags flying are opposed to it."
When this question was brought forward in the House of Lords by Lord Goschen, who was absolutely hostile to the experiment and claimed that it was exciting widespread alarm afloat, Lord Tweed-mouth said—
" While he was ready to keep an open mind on the subject, he thought that, there was not evidence sufficient to stop this experiment. They ought, therefore, to go on with it, in order to see what kind of officer would be produced in seven or eight years, and then judge by the result of the experiment."
That was the answer which the noble Lord got in regard to this point of specialisation which he was arguing; it was said that the whole matter must be put off for seven or eight years. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give some assurance that there would either be a Commission or that the Admiralty would come before the Committee next year and say plainly what they intended to do. The scheme was introduced at the end of 1902 and in March, 1903—in the initial stages of the scheme—the right hon. Member for Croydon, who then spoke for the Admiralty, said there was no necessity

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to consult admirals afloat, as the Board of Admiralty was competent to decide. But he contended that when a revolutionary change of policy of this character was contemplated, a change which admirals afloat would have to continue when they came to the Admiralty, it was necessary to get the opinion of the admirals afloat. The right hon. Member for Croydon had said in 1902 that admirals at the Board of Admiralty had no time to think out problems. Why, then, these revolutionary changes without inquiry? But, as a matter of fact, Lord Selborne did consult admirals afloat the previous year, just before he made this change. Then he made a speech in which he said he had—
" the authority of admirals and captains fresh from the sea "
for saying that—
" So far as the personnel goes, it is scarcely possible to improve the officers or the men. They say with extraordinary unanimity that subject to some improvements in detail, the general system of training young officers and seamen leaves nothing to be desired."
If that was so why change it? He had had the opportunity of consulting admirals and captains fresh from the sea. Then a new sea lord arrived at the Admiralty, and the whole thing was revolutionised. No change should ever be made in the Navy unless there was the strongest probability, almost amounting to certainty, that the change was in the right direction, especially if foreign navies had not made the change. The Selborne scheme, which was the scheme that the Government were still pinned to, was condemned by the Douglas Committee. Inefficient as the Committee was, it certainly brought out one truth in its Report when it said that when the time came for specialising late in life no officer would volunteer for engineering or the Marines, and that the consequence would be that they would have to be ordered to join these services. In the words of the Committee— '
" In neither case could we hope for the satisfactory performance of the duties of those departments."
This was an age of specialisation all along the line. In the Army the garrison gunners were cut off from the Field Artillery because the field was so great
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they could not cover both sections. But this system involved a far wider field. If they were to join the whole of the Artillery together and amalgamate them with the Engineers they would not have to cover so large a field as this. The Navy was travelling in a directly opposite direction to that in which the Army found it necessary to go. Speaking at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution on March 21st, Lord Tweedmouth said—
" He thought Sir Edmund Fremantle was inclined to draw him into a discussion on naval policy. 'In vain was the net spread in the sight of any bird.' The Admiralty policy seemed likely to be the subject of somewhat lively criticism under present conditions, and he would be quite ready to take his part in it. He thought sometimes the handiness of the 'handy-man' was a little bit presumed upon, and that there was a desire to make him rather too much a 'jack-of-all-trades.'"
That was exactly what this scheme did. It said to an officer that he had to become an engineer, a marine, and an executive officer all in one. The Report of the Douglas Committee described the underlying idea by stating that—
" Each of these officers would have special knowledge in one particular branch, but all would have a general knowledge of the duties of the other branches, and all would have the opportunities of fitting themselves for the position of captain of a ship, and thence of rising to the highest eminence in their profession."
That meant that if the engineer officer happened to be the next in seniority to the captain and the captain were shot down, the engineer officer would have to come up and conduct and fight the ship. How could that be expected of a man whose duties kept him below decks till he was thirty-seven years of age? These schemes were worked out beautifully on paper, but when it came to actual practice they could not be carried out. One of the regulations in the Navy List said that the navigating officers should go through courses of gunnery training, but he did not think during a period of thirty-five years more than two officers had gone through the course. Another regulation said that the Admiralty were particularly desirous that lieutenants should go through the senior officer's course at Greenwich and that facilities would be given to them, but never during the time that he was in the service did a lieutenant go through that course.

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Only a few years ago the Admiralty issued orders that it was absolutely necessary for naval Instructors to spend a period at sea, but the order was a dead letter. He submitted that what was needed in the Navy was that we should level up the engineer training of the engineers and that we did, to a great extent, and so stopped the water-tube boiler crisis; that we should level up training of the executive officers, and as regards gunnery practice that had been done. But the seamanship still left much to be desired. He noticed that in the year 1904 there were no less than seventy-eight collisions and groundings, or at the rate of three a fortnight. It would not improve matters to send officers to spend 30 per cent, of their time in the engine-room. Engineers' training was a matter of training the ear, the executive officers' training on deck was a matter of training the eye, and the Admiralty would find that out when the time of trial came and the officers were submitted to the great strain of war.
MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid this subject was an extremely technical one, and one which appealed mainly to experts. He was afraid, also, that it was only too clear that in some cases the experts did not understand it. He did not profess himself to be an expert on naval education, but as he was a member of the Board of Admiralty which adopted and developed the scheme which the hon. Member had so unsparingly condemned, he desired to say a few words. He had studied this matter very closely, and while from time to time he had heard many criticisms made and arguments directed against it, he must admit he had seldom, heard any which were so wide of the mark and so unjustified as those of the hon. Member for King's Lynn. This was not the first attack the hon. Gentleman had made on the new scheme of naval education. It was clear that the hon. Gentleman was an undiluted worshipper of the old system. He wanted things left as they were. The hon. Member had said it was a mistake on the part of the Admiralty to make changes before foreign Navies adopted them.
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He himself did not think the Admiralty: should base their reforms solely on the practice of foreign Navies, as it had always been the privilege of the British Navy to give the lead in these matters. After all, what was the burden of the hon. Gentleman's indictment? He said in the first place that this system of entering the Navy was not democratic, and he proceeded to develop; that by saying that there were certain classes who did not go to Osborn. But the fact remained that all who wished to be candidates were invited to come up before the committee and no distinction was made in the class from which they came. The old class distinctions that formerly existed between the engineer officers and the executive officers had been abolished and absolute social equality had been, established. Then the hon. Gentleman had raised the question of the cost of education. That was a financial objection which did not interfere with the principle of the scheme. He himself had no objection to the cost to the parents being reduced, as far as desirable, or even abolished altogether. That was entirely a question for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was a consideration that only that right hon. Gentleman was competent to deal with and it did not in the least affect the principle of the scheme. The hon.. Member then complained that the new system produced a class of officer with superficial acquirements and that they were jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. That view was really based on a misunderstanding of the intention and actual working of the scheme. He saw with astonishment that even Lord Goschen, speaking in another place, had referred to—
"The feeling of alarm with regard to the interchangeability which was to be the foundation of the future officering of the Navy."
The hon. Member for King's Lynn, speaking on another occasion, had said that the object of the scheme was to produce an officer who was able to do everything; and again to-day he had spoken as if the officers who would be produced under this scheme of education were required to be specialists in gunnery, torpedo work, signalling, navigating, engineering, tactics and everything else.

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That was a pure illusion. The scheme provided nothing whatever of the kind. There was no interchangeability. There was merely temporary specialisation in one subject which the particular officer chose. It was estimated that about 60 per cent. of officers in the service would probably specialise, but not a single one of them would ever be called upon to perform the speciality of any other. Therefore, the charge that this scheme produced a sort of interchangeable jack-of-all-trades officer was a complete misunderstanding and was a creature of the hon. Gentleman's own imagination.
MR. BELLAIRSsaid he had read the extract from the Douglas Committee's Report showing that the officers were to be versed in every trade.
MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid there were a good many points referred to by witnesses in the Douglas Committee's Report, but that Report was not necessarily the scheme of the Admiralty. The hon. Gentleman had claimed that the original idea of the new scheme of training had been abandoned, in that the original idea was that there should be permanent specialisation. He would, however, call attention to a speech made by Lord Selborne, who introduced the scheme originally, in another place in May 1903. The noble Lord explained very clearly that it was not the intention that officers should be permanently specialised under the new scheme. In that speech he expressed the belief and hope that engineers as a special branch would disappear altogether, and that specialised engineer-lieutenants would be only known by the letter E after their name. That entirely disposed of the charge of the hon. Gentleman, and the original condition under which cadets were introduced into Osborne was adopted solely as a precaution in case the scheme should not turn out so successfully as it had apparently done up to the present. The hon. Gentleman's next contention was that officers who temporarily specialised for engineering duties would not be as competent as they should be for executive duties. But he would point out that 40 per cent, of officers, would not specialise at all, and therefore the hon. Gentleman's criticism could not possibly extend to them. These non-
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specialised general service officers as a matter of fact would have more experience of actual deck duties than their fellows to-day, and they would have also a good fundamental knowledge of engineering, which he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not consider a disadvantage in a sea officer. But, after all, the arguments the hon. Gentleman had used were very old arguments. They were advanced in times past against the teaching of navigation to executive officers. The extraordinary situation in which a ship could not go to sea because of the illness or absence of the navigating officer had, however, been got rid of. He could not see why, if there was no objection to an executive officer having an expert knowledge of motive power when that motive power was wind, there should be any objection to an executive officer having a knowledge of motive power when the motive power happened to be steam. We were rapidly approaching a mechanical age when a steam engine would no longer be a mystery to the rising generation. The marine steam engine of the future would be much more simple than the engine which preceded it. The introduction of turbines, which were to be put in all warships laid down since last October, would greatly simplify the problem of marine engineering. A knowledge of these engines could be acquired with much less difficulty than a knowledge of the reciprocating engines hitherto used. The hon. Member's contention that temporary specialisation in engineering or anything else would unfit officers for the command of ships or squadrons was one that was rather difficult to follow. The specialist period only lasted during the officer's term as lieutenant. Afterwards, nearly the whole of the specialist officers reverted to the general list and returned permanently to executive duties. A complete answer to the criticism offered on this point was afforded by the fact that at least 50 per cent, of the officers now in command of first class ships of war had been temporarily specialists, either as gunnery or torpedo lieutenants. The difficulties of specialisation in connection with engineering under the new scheme would be no greater than those attending the specialisation of gunnery and torpedo

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lieutenants. Moreover, if an officer did not show an aptitude for the command of a ship at any time, it was obvious that he would not get a command. Permanent specialists would be required for scientific work at establishments on land, and the Admiralty might find a new ally in matrimony. Officers conscious of inaptitude for the work required at sea might specialise for matrimony and shore billets. It had been said that the new engineer officers, Lieutenants (E) as they were called, would be inefficient under the new system. It was universally admitted that the engineer officers trained under the old system were generally efficient, but the Lieutenants (E) would have more engineering knowledge than the officers under the old system. The comparative figures regarding length of engineering training given by the hon. Member for King's Lynn were inexplicable and directly contradicted by the calculations made by the advisers of the Admiralty when the scheme was worked out. The best information the Admiralty could get showed that the Lieutenant (E) would be more highly trained than the engineer-lieutenant under the old system. Engineer officers under the new system, moreover, must all be officers who show a special aptitude and liking for that particular branch and they must have their hearts in the business,whereas under the old scheme there were necessarily misfits, who had merely entered the engineering branch because they had been unable to go into the executive branch; and who had no special talent for the work. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had contended that the new scheme was opposed by engineers generally and by the engineering Press. The Marine Engineer, on this very question in its issue of March 16th last said—
" It is entirely inaccurate to say that the organs of the engineering profession are opposed to the new scheme, as their columns will show; on the contrary they regard is as a fine piece of constructive statesmanship."
Then this journal went on to quote the words of the late Sir William Allan, whose opinion was always very much respected in this House, and who made an unqualified eulogy of this system. He had had, during the last three years, considerable personal contact with Naval
1476
officers, not only in high commands but in command of ships, and he entirely failed to discover the widespread opposition and dissatisfaction with the new scheme which had been referred to by the hon. Member for King's Lynn. Although the hon. Member thought the scheme was bound to fail he might remind the Committee that the Board of Admiralty, backed up by its expert advisers, was of opinion that it was bound to succeed. He was glad to know that the present Board of Admiralty saw no reason to disapprove of or depart from the policy of its predecessors in this matter. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had said that what they wanted was continuity of policy. Well, they were getting it now. He had also referred to the case of the Marine officers, and he agreed with the hon. Member that that was more difficult. Many of them were men of great ability and high ambition, but they were obliged to remain comparatively idle in many cases, whilst everybody else were busy. They had no prospects and no responsible position on board ship. What an extraordinary situation it was when, with a great demand for lieutenants, they had 500 Marine officers who were quite unavailable for executive duties or for the general service. It was a most humiliating position for them and they felt it very strongly. Under the new scheme Lieutenants (M) would have a greatly increased sphere of activity, and they would be available as watch-keepers and carry nearly all the responsibilities of general service officers. They would also be specialised in military duties as well. He admitted that this was a most difficult question, but it was a far better solution for the Marines than the old system in which they laboured under such great disadvantages. The whole subject was necessarily a most complicated and difficult one, but at the same time it was one which formed the basis of the efficiency of our Navy. It was, however, a question which experts alone could properly decide, and it had received the fullest consideration of such experts as the Admiralty could command. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had made some unnecessarily insulting remarks about the Douglas Committed and the witnesses who gave

1477
evidence before it, but in his opinion that Committee produced a most valuable Report. He knew that the new scheme was condemned by the hon. Member for King's Lynn and others, whose literary abilities were far in excess of their practical professional qualifications, and whose opinion the Committee were not justified in accepting in the face of the opinion of the experts at the disposal of the Admiralty. The hon. Member had specially urged the Committee to reject the advice of the present First Sea Lord, whose energy and genius were well known, because he disagreed with him. He thought the British public were not quite persuaded that the hon. Member for King's Lynn was likely to be a better guide in these matters than the distinguished Admiral of the Fleet who had given the closest possible study to these matters for a great number of years, and who was doing brilliant service for the Navy long before the hon. Member was born. Moreover, the First Sea Lord commanded the entire confidence of his naval and civil colleagues at the Board of Admiralty. The new system, of course, had its merits; and demerits, but it had come to stay, and it was working admirably as far as it could be judged. It was breeding up a new race of naval officers who in nearly all respects would be more highly trained, because they were being more scientifically educated, than their predecessors, and at the same time they were losing none of those fighting qualities which had always been pre-eminent in the Naval service. He hoped the Committee would not be led into the belief that all the attacks which had been made by the hon. Member for King's Lynn were well founded, or that any evidence could be produced to justify the Board of Admiralty in departing from this new policy which was showing such great promise of success.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid the hon. Member for Fareham had spoken for the late Board of Admiralty and what he had said had materially shortened what he should have to say in reply. This was a question of education. The essential feature of the new system which had been attacked was a common entry of
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all candidates for officerships in the British Navy, whilst under the old system they had three classes of Naval officers. The result of the old system was a certain amount of want of unity between the three ranks of officers, and it was in order to avoid those difficulties that the new system was established. It was to meet that difficulty that the new system of common entry was established. It was true that he had objected to the scheme on the ground of early entry. He still held that view. He believed that early entry, however cheap the system of education might be, excluded 90 per cent, of the people of England from the right of sending their sons to be Naval officers. In that view he was supported by the Prime Minister and by distinguished Naval officers, but he admitted they were a small minority. Personally, he thought the Navy ought to be able to call upon the best brains, blood, and sinew of the country without exception. His ideal was the Japanese system, which admitted cadets to the Naval service up to the age of twenty, the only disqualification being marriage or bankruptcy. He confessed he did not see his way to get rid of early entry. The Board of Admiralty were united and progressive, and they had; accepted common entry at all events. Under the new scheme there was common entry at the age of thirteen, when the boys went to Osborne. At the age of fifteen they went to Dartmouth. At seventeen they went on board a training cruiser for six or seven months. At seventeen and a half a cadet became a midshipman. After three years at sea, at the ago of twenty and a half, he became an acting sub-lieutenant, and at the age of twenty-two and a half he became a lieutenant. Up to that point all the cadets had a common training. Then specialisation began, either as Marine officers, engineer officers, or executive officers. That special training continued during the whole period of lieutenancy, until the rank of commander was reached, at about the age of thirty-seven. Then, with certain exceptions, the three divergent lines converged again, and the great bulk of these specially trained officers were available for executive duty or any other duty. A certain number of them would

1479
always remain Marine officers or engineer officers.
MR. BELLAIRSasked how the officers were to be selected for special training.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid there would be an opening for voluntary selection, subject to the power of the Board of Admiralty to determine the branch of the service in which an officer should be trained. The difference between Lord Selborne's scheme and Lord Cawdor's scheme was that under the latter the specialisation began a year earlier, and, instead of being permanent, terminated when the rank of commander was reached. Lord Selborne's Memorandum undoubtedly stated that the choice of special training having been made or determined, an engineer would always remain an engineer, a Marine would always remain a Marine, and an executive officer would always remain an executive officer.
MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid Lord Selborne stated in the House of Lords that that was not the intention.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he was referring to the Memorandum. He was aware that Lord Selborne afterwards said in a letter that he thought an interchange of duties should take place. He thought they were all agreed that there must be common entry, and that specialisation must begin at some time or other. The only question was whether specialisation should be perpetual or should come to an end when the lieutenant reached the rank of commander. The oldest boy affected by this scheme was at present fifteen years of age. It might be twenty years before it was necessary to apply this scheme to him. Therefore there was time for consideration. Surely it was too early to prophecy and be dogmatic as to what was to happen at so remote a date. The suggestion of his hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn was that a new Committee of Inquiry should be appointed. He must decline on the part of the Admiralty to delegate their functions to any Committee. The line taken by the Admiralty had been
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expressed by him in introducing the Navy Estimates and by the First Lord of the Admiralty in another place. The Admiralty felt itself perfectly competent to come to a decision upon all the questions. Most of the recommendations of the Cawdor Memorandum were actually in operation or about to come into operation when the present Board assumed office at the end of December. Their policy in regard to the new system was one of watching and waiting. That attitude did not imply any doubt of the soundness of the system as to specialisation in its essential parts; but they held themselves bound to employ free minds and free hands in the settlement of the difficulties that must arise under the new system, just as they had arisen under the old. It was a very obvious criticism for the hon. Member for King's Lynn to make. "How can you assure that you will have as good executive officers in the future as in the past?" That was a question which wanted watching; and so in regard to engineer officers. He admitted that the case of the Marine officers was involved in exceptional difficulty and delicacy; but they were going to watch them all and give them a fair trial. He submitted that that was a sound and rational attitude for the Admiralty to assume. They had not initiated the new system, but they intended to give it a fair trial; and to do what experience might show to be necessary for its improvement.
MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid that perhaps the hon. Member for King's Lynn would bear with him if he said, from very intimate knowledge of the matter, that his estimate of the cost to the parent of a cadet at Osborne was entirely erroneous. He himself would put it at less than £100 a year. With regard to the new system, it was intended by the late Board of Admiralty to meet the great and growing difficulty of obtaining engineers for the Navy. It was brought home to them that service in teh Navy would never be made attractive to engineers until all the emoluments and prizes of the service were open to them. Therefore, they decided to devise a scheme by which engineering officers would have the same opportunities of rising

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to the top of the Navy as any other officers in the service. The hon. Member for King's Lynn was under a misapprehension as to the position of the Admiralty in respect of the system adopted in the United States Navy. He had spent many hours on board United States ships and had had a conversation with the Chief Engineer of the Navy. The American system differed in toto from that adopted by the British Admiralty. It should be remembered that not less than 50 per cent, of the high executive officers of the Navy were officers who had specialised in torpedo or gunnery; and in his opinion there was nothing to differentiate specialisation in the engineering branch from specialisation in the gunnery and torpedo branches. There was, it was true, a certain amount of opinion opposed to these changes; but it must be remembered that they were changes which were due to an inevitable progress. The engineer officer had become almost the most important officer in the Navy, and the time had come when they could not keep the engineer officer out of the highest commands of the Navy. Masts and sails had gone, and therefore it was absolutely necessary to revolutionise the whole system of training, so as to give it an engineering instead of a purely seamanship quality. He hoped the Committee would not accept as true all that the hon. Member for King's Lynn had said about the feeling of the service. He quite admitted that there was a certain amount of difficulty and hardship when changes of this magnitude were made. But these changes were initiated in favour of progress. In view of the changed condition of things it was necessary to revolutionise the whole training of the Naval officer, and in the course of that process it was inevitable that they should find a certain number of officers to whom that change, however inevitable it might be, was intolerable. He believed, however, there was an amount of good will and power of adaptation in the Navy which would help them enormously in getting over the difficulties of the transitional period. With regard to the Royal Marines, he had never altered his opinion that the solution of that question was an entire alteration of the function of the Royal Marine
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Corps, and its development to meet the peculiar circumstances of a maritime nation. He believed that if the guardianship of our maritime stations were given over to the Royal Marines, the whole of the present difficulty would vanish.
MR. G. CROYDON MARKSwelcomed the initiation of a policy to give a rank to the engineers in the Navy. The engineers under the old reigme had no association with the officers and were looked down upon and snubbed. That was the reason of the failure to get men to enter the service. There were plenty of men capable of entering the service but they did not do so because they could get better positions in the merchant service and were there treated as gentlemen. To get over this the Admiralty had wisely determined that there should, be no social distinction between the engineer and other officers, and had opened to the engineer the possibility of being something more than a workman by giving him a rank equal to that of a navigating or seamanship officer. By doing so they would make the service more attractive. There was a large amount of money set apart for training stokers to become engineers; but if they thought the engineering profession could be learnt by three years training by-and-bye they would have some lamentable failures and discover their error. A man-of-war was a mass of machinery, and the most important man in the ship when it was going was the chief engineer, but to oblige every man who went into the Navy to go through a certain course in the engine room, an experience which must be detestable to him, was a very peculiar way of training up engineers with a love for their business. An engineer must be a man of resource, and must know what was likely to happen the moment he heard a click. Did they think a stoker after being trained for a couple of years as a mechanician would know what a particular hissing meant? He would not know what had happened until something went wrong, because he had never had he experience and therefore could not foresee the difficulty. In his opinion the intention of the Admiralty to spend a large sum of money in educating men

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for the purpose of doing work which could be done by men drawn from outside the service was a huge waste of money and the result would not be satisfactory. The idea of taking a man who had been feeding the fires, at about twenty-five years of age and when he had lost his best powers of learning a new trade, training him as an engineer and putting him in charge of the engine room, was based on a misconception by the Admiralty of the duties the engineer had to perform. In engineering science there was no finality; improvements were always going on, and it was essential that the Navy should have engineers who knew what was being done and who were capable of adapting themselves to that which was new.
MR. LAMBTONsaid he was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty say that he had an open mind on the question of this new scheme of naval education, and that the Admiralty would be allowed a free hand in the matter. The right hon. Member for Croydon had pointed out that the system had been introduced chiefly because of want of social distinction afforded to the engineer officers. That must have been mere conjecture, because when he looked at the report of the Douglas Committee he found that this vast change had been introduced into the Navy entirely because of imaginary social disabilities of the engineers. It was not entirely a question of the social disabilities of the engineer officers or the way in which they would perform their duties. Previous speakers had spoken of the enormous knowledge an engineer officer should possess, but the executive officer should have some knowledge as well; and the chief knowledge an executive officer should have was that of the leadership of men. How was an engineer who up to the age of thirty-five had passed his time in looking after the machinery of the ship to be expected to have the knowledge of how to lead men? The young executive officer, from the moment he was admitted, had to exercise that leadership and that responsibility which had made our naval officers such a force. A man who was kept below until an advanced
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age could not acquire the same confidence in the management of a ship. The report of the Douglas Committee showed that the new system did not recommend itself to the marine officers; the speeches just made proved it did not find favour with the engineers; and he believed the majority of executive officers were against it. It was to be hoped the Board of Admiralty would have some regard for the wishes of officers now serving in the Fleet and would proceed very carefully. The Government had said the new system would be given a fair trial, but if that trial was too prolonged great danger might result to the country.
MR. WEIRsaid that he had not intervened in this debate before, and should not have done so now, but he thought the time had come when the whole system of Cadet examinations should be inquired into. Who, he would like to know, were the examiners who examined the candidates? Out of 588 accepted candidates who submitted themselves for examination, only two sons of engineer officers were selected. Only the other day he put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman upon this subject. He asked him for the names of the examiners who passed these 588 candidates, but the right hon. Gentleman took advantage of the Question being unstarred and gave information he had not asked for. In future he would star his questions and so give himself the opportunity of putting supplementary ones if necessary.
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Does the hon. Gentleman complain that he has not had the names of the examiners?
MR. WEIRsaid the question he put was would the right hon. Gentleman state the names of the members of the Admiralty Board who constituted the examiners. That information was not given. He could toll the right hon. Gentleman who they were. One was the First Lord, one his private secretary; then there was the Civil Lord, and there was one outsider. He should have thought that the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Civil Lord would

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have had far more important duties to perform than that of examining small boys. Matters were managed very much better under the old system, and he hoped the present system would be changed. It was a most unsatisfactory system. It was not a system of selection after open competition at all; it was a system of nomination pure and simple. That was not the way to get the best brains of the country. Out of the 588 accepted candidates for Osborne, to whom he had referred, instead of two there ought to have been something like eighty sons of engineer officers. He was not satisfied with the system and he was not surprised that the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who spoke with considerable knowledge of the subject, should have condemned it in the manner he had. Sons of the aristocracy were pitchforked into places because they had neither the brains nor the assiduity to stand the strain of a competitive examination, and so they were smuggled in in this fashion. Nelson would have been out of it if the present system had existed in his time. The doors were opened to the sons of aristocrats, too often wooden-headed ones, and favourites. He had always gone into the lobby, whatever Party had been in power, in support of the Navy, but he was anxious to know how the Navy was going to be managed in the years to come. How were they going to train up officers under the present system? They might just as well expect a man with a certain amount of knowledge to dig the foundations of a house, build it, do the carpentery, painting, and finish it throughout, and finally draw the pictures on the panels of the rooms. They did not find the railway companies doing what the Admiralty were now doing. Those who had the driving of the engines were first cleaners, then stokers and finally engine drivers. These men could not make the engines. The idea of puttting an expert engineer on the bridge of a man-of-war was absurd. It was impossible to get the best by the system that had been adopted. It was nonsense to think that because a man could turn a lever he should be able to take the machine to pieces or make a part if necessary. They would not get experienced men by this system. They
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would have Jacks of all trades to manage ships which cost a million of money. He observed that there was an increase of £16,560 in the training of Naval cadets. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to see that this increase stopped. If it did not he should move a reduction and go to a division another year. He wished to deal gently with the right hon. Gentleman, because the present Government had not been long in office. Those to whom the extravagance was due now sat on the front Opposition Bench. He also desired to ask the right hon. Gentleman to see that the ragging which went on in the Naval schools was stopped. He would call attention to the large number of withdrawals of cadets under the new system. It was a great injustice to the parents. All this was avoided under the old system of examination by the Civil Service Commission. Why should the boys be examined by an Oxford and Cambridge Board at double the cost? He was anxious that these boys should be examined by the Civil Service Commissions, and he hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would consult the First Lord of the Admiralty, and see if the present system could not be altered. They did not want the present oral examinations, which were only part of a system of jobbery under which boys were smuggled into the Navy. He considered that the whole system was unsound. Whether a boy was the son of a prince or a peasant he had no business to be smuggled into such a department as the Admiralty. He desired to see the Navy efficiently manned, and it was the future they had to consider. He wanted to ensure that twenty-two years hence the British Navy would be in efficient hands and not in the I hands of wooden-heads. Why was this system of oral examination not stopped? Why did the right hon. Gentleman continue it? Everything was not well with the Navy, and this was the black spot in its management. He hoped some alteration would be speedily brought about. They must stop this detestable system of smuggling boys into the finest Navy in the world; they wanted the very best men they could get in the-Naval service. There had been gross

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mismanagement in the Army, but the "Navy was managed better. Looking along the vista of time he saw that they would have trained a class of Naval officer quite unfit to manage ships of war. He was very anxious for the welfare of his country, but there could be no confidence whilst things of this kind were going on under a system of favouritism and jobbery.
CAPTAIN HERVEY (Bury St. Edmunds)said that as one of the wooden-heads who was smuggled into the service at the head of the list some thirty years ago, he might be allowed to speak on this subject.
MR. WEIRsaid he had not charged the hon. Member with wooden-headed-ness.
CAPTAIN HERVEYsaid that as he entered the Navy some thirty years ago perhaps he might be allowed to say a word or two upon the way in which the education of the Navy was now being managed. The new system and the way in which it was being tried was not properly understood. When so great a luminary as Lord Goschen in another place could say that there would be a state of complete interchangeability amongst the various classes in the Navy, and that a man might be an engineer officer one day, a gunnery expert the next, and a navigating expert the next, it might very well be open to others to make similar mistakes. They had been told something about the American Navy, and how the Americans had tried our scheme, and it had proved to be a failure. But was that so? Was the scheme of the American Navy the same as we were now trying in the British Navy? No, it was not. The American scheme did involve such complete interchange ability between the different branches of the service that a gunnery officer on one Commission might be an engineer officer on the next Commission. That was not what the Admiralty were trying to do. In twenty-two years time he thought the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty would find that none of the prognostications which he had put forward lad any foundation. The training
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which young officers were now going through had been very carefully thought out, as anybody would realise who had read from cover to cover the report of the Douglas Commission as he had done. There were many points in that Blue-book which had not been dealt with in this debate at all, but as hon. Members desired to discuss them on other Votes he would not deal with them now. He had intended pointing out to the Committee what the real scheme was, but the Secretary to the Admiralty had done it so clearly that it was unnecessary for him to deal with it at any length. He would only say that he was glad that all officers were under the new scheme to have a good grounding from the time of entry up to the time of specialisation in engineering. He had discussed this education question with engineers, and he had learnt that their grievances under the old system were not at all confined to the social grievance. There was no social difficulty between officer and officer on board ship; and, as a matter of fact, many of the engineer officers had brothers in the executive branch. What the engineers had lacked was the opportunity of obtaining higher rank and comparative status in the ship owing to their not having executive rank.
MR. NIELDdrew attention to the fact that there were not forty Members present.
THE CHAIRMAN: I have so recently counted the House, that I do not see any necessity to count it again now.
CAPTAIN HERVEYsaid similar grievances were felt by the marine officers who had never found employment as general officers. At the present time three marine officers had only 100 men to look after and instruct in marine duties; the consequence was that they had very little to do, and yet at the same time there was a great demand for more naval officers on board ships where these marines were serving. It was obvious that under these circumstances something had to be done. The Board of Admiralty, in starting this new scheme, had acted in a far-seeing and splendid way when they brought in the system of

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common entry. It had been said that these new officers would not be able to carry out the work required of them in the higher ranks in the service— that was to say, when they were promoted from the rank of lieutenant. He entirely disagreed. It was a good thing to get boys at the age of thirteen, just when they were finishing their preparatory school course and when they could with most advantage be started on a new branch of work. Then they entered with the clear understanding that they might be selected to enter into any of the big branches—marines, enginers, or executive. He believed that no difficulty whatever would be found in getting a sufficient number of young officers of the right sort to volunteer for each of those branches. It had been alleged that good men would not be got to go in as engineers or marines, because they would be looked down upon, but he believed that with better promotion and better pay the right sort would be induced to go into the different branches, just as in the past suitable officers had by the offer of better pay and earlier promotion been obtained for the gunnery, torpedo and navigation branches. As to the suggestion that they would not be able to train boys in the service for engineering duties to equal those now entered from the outside, he asked why they should not be able to do so. He believed those trained in the service would be every bit as good when it came to the final test. Under the new scheme they would be able to get rid of grievances which existed now, and he believed they would get just as good officers in the future as in the past.
MR. BARNEScalled the attention of the Committee to an item of £750 for "Assistant Masters for Boy Artificers and Mechanicians' Establishment," and an item of £150 for "Assistant Masters for Mechanicians' Establishment." These items concealed the real cost which was involved in the training of the artificer class for the Navy. In fact these two items only represented an infinitesimal part of the money spent in the training of the artificers. He was told that there
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were something like twenty-five artificers withdrawn from their ordinary duties to undertake the training of the boys on the ships where the training was given. The cost of these men was £3,000 a year. There were also six artificer engineers at a cost of £1,000, three engineer lieutenants at a cost of about £700, and a captain commander, two engineer commanders, and five lieutenants at a cost of about £5,000. Altogether for the training of 400 boys and about 200 of the mechanician class the expenditure was about £9,000 a year. This did not by any means exhaust the matter, because there were charges for food and many other items, and he was probably within the mark in stating that the total cost was £20,000 per annum. He was told that each one in the mechanician class trained in the manner he had indicated cost about £600, and that to train a boy as an efficient artificer involved an expenditure of £1,750. What was the reason for this? Hitherto the naval authorities had drawn the artificer class from the ordinary civil life of the community, and it was on record that the naval authorities themselves had said that they got good and reliable men who performed their duties efficiently. It ought to be said, and they got these men for nothing. He wanted to know from the Secretary to the Admiralty why, if good men had been so obtained in the past, this change had been carried, out. It had been said that it was necessary to give an outlet for promotion to the stoker class in the Navy. He did not want to say anything that would even bear the semblance of interfering with the natural and legitimate desire of any man to get promotion if his abilities warranted it, but he submitted that this project had been put forward not in the interests of stokers but as a set-off against the stokers' demand for increased pay. He had made inquiries in this matter not only from artificers but stokers as well.
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is discussing a subject which could be much better discussed on another Vote. He can discuss the matter of education now, but he is entering on the question of policy which does not seem fitted to this

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Vote. If I allow it to be discussed row I cannot allow it to be discussed later on.
MR. BARNESsaid it seemed to him there was not sufficient warrant for the change seeing that recruiting was going on fairly well prior to its being initiated. He hoped the Secretary to the Admiralty would tell the Committee how the change had been brought about.
And, it being a quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed without Question put.

WIRRAL RAILWAY (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL [LORDS] (BY ORDER).
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. W. H. LEVERsaid he did not know whether he would be in order, but he wished to move after the Second Reading of the Bill, "That it be an instruction to the Committee to leave out Clause 8 of the Bill."
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member would not be in order in moving such an instruction because he has given no notice of it. The hon. Member for Birkenhead has given such notice.
MR. W. H. LEVERsaid that the hon. Member for Birkenhead could not be present in the House that night and he wished to know whether he could not move the instruction in behalf of his hon. friend.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to do so by the Rules of the House.
MR. W. H. LEVERsaid that in that case he must move the rejection of the Bill. It was a very unusual course, and he would not have done so if the matter
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had not been an urgent necessity. This Bill was similar to the Mersey Bill which was before the House last week, only it was more vital to the interest of the municipality. The opposition which he represented was that of the Wallasey Urban District Council, whose area of administration had a population of 60,000, a rateable value of £370,000, and an extensive tramway system which had cost £135,000 of the ratepayers' money. These trams ran from Seacombe to New Brighton and served the whole district extremely well. Parliament granted to the Urban Council the monopoly, and it was on the strength of the monopoly that the ratepayers had sunk their money in the tramway system. The Wirral Railway Company opposed the granting of these powers in 1899, but with no avail. Last year the Corporation proposed to extend their tramway system, and in addition to run motor omnibuses; and later the Wirral Railway Company promoted a Bill which proposed to give them powers to run motor omnibuses. Both these Bills came before the House of Lords Committee at the same time. It was a fact that the Chairmen of Committees, whatever their private interests might be, were undoubtedly perfectly fair and just in their dealings with all the matters which come before them. He did not want it to be supposed that he, or those he represented, had any cause of complaint with the constitution of the Committee of the House of Lords. They did their duty to the best of their ability. But the fact remained that the Chairman of the Committee was the Earl of Cawdor who was an ex-Chairman of the Great Western Railway Company, and he decided that the Bill promoted by the Urban District Council should be refused because the powers sought would enable them to compete with the railway company, and he passed the Bill promoted by the railway company although it would undoubtedly enable the company to compete with the tramways. He believed a matter which weighed with the Committee in giving the decision was an agreement entered into at the time when the company made the line down to Seacombe Ferry. That agreement provided that the railway

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company should receive one third of a penny for every passenger by the ferry who proceeded by train from Seacombe, and under that agreement the company had received some hundreds of pounds a year. But there were a certain number of passengers who did not book through, but paid their fare to Seacombe by the ferry and then walked to the station and rebooked. Of these passengers there was no record, and therefore no account could be rendered. It was entirely a matter for adjustment between the two authorities. The Wallasey Council had always acknowledged that the matter should be adjusted, and had always been prepared to adjust it, but they had not agreed with the company as to the method of adjustment. But to say that because in consequence of this agreement the company ran the line to Seacombe therefore, for all time, no matter what modern improvements were made, nothing must be allowed to compete with the lines seemed to be perfectly absurd. It never was intended by Parliament when they sanctioned the extension of that railway that because of that agreement the company were to have the sole monopoly of carrying over their line all the passengers that came across the ferry from Liverpool. Yet it was believed that it was because of the production of that agreement that the council's Bill was thrown out the effect of the position taken up by the railway company was to prevent the council from extending their tramway system, and providing a service of motor omnibuses. It was quite obvious that if this Bill was passed municipalities would not be allowed to develop their tramway or other transit system, and it was mainly on that ground that he moved the rejection of the Bill. The promoters of the Bill claimed that they alone were to be entitled to use motor omnibuses, and they said that they would limit the carriage of passengers to and from their stations and hotels. Now they had no hotel there. He contended that it would be impossible to work Clause 8 as it stood. It was claimed by the railway company that the Bill, if passed, would enable a large number of clerks in Liverpool to cross the river and get home to their dinner. But he had studied the railway time tables, and had found that the journey to and from Liverpool to
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Seacombe and New Brighton would occupy every minute of the time given to clerks for their midday meal. No maximum fare for the omnibuses was provided for, although it was usual to fix the fare in the Bill itself. The promoters had been approached and asked to take a reasonable course, but, they had refused to do so. Having beaten the municipal body and acquired a monopoly, they wished to be at liberty to fix such a fare as they as monopolists could obtain. The measure, moreover, although it gave power to the urban authorities to control the traffic, did not give that power to the rural authorities. Of course the Bill might be amended in Committee, but as it at present stood it did not give that power to the rural authority. He came to another point, and that was the damage which would be done to roads by this motor omnibus traffic. The Wallasey Urban District Council was responsible for the upkeep of the roads, and they would have to spend the ratepayers' money in maintaining them. Parliament had however refused them the right to have omnibuses of their own, but now the proposal was that that privilege should be granted to a railway company and that the railway company should have a monopoly in regard to the right of running such vehicles without any provision being inserted that they should pay a single penny for the maintenance of the roads. Moreover, when these omnibuses left the urban district they would go into a rural one, and who was going to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of those rural roads? The farmers whose land bordered upon the roads were not interested in this traffic at all. It might benefit the urban population, but so far as the farmer was concerned, schemes of this sort only mean taking snippets off his land here and there, and depriving him of the raw material by means of which he made his living. This Bill, however in addition to that deprivation, would force upon him the increased cost of the upkeep of the roads. In reply to that the promoters of the Bill said that Parliament had given the local authorities power to make extra charges for extraordinary traffic. It was very doubtful to his mind, however, whether within the legal

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decisions of the Courts this could be called extraordinary traffic. They all knew what the Courts described as extraordinary traffic, but whether that principle of contribution would be applied to motor omnibuses sanctioned by Parliament was exceedingly doubtful. The promoters of this Bill ought to have acceded to the very reasonable suggestion made to them, that they should make some contribution towards the repair of the roads, the use of which they would enjoy, and on which so far as the Wallasey District Council was concerned they would have a monopoly of this kind of traffic. It was doubtful what the powers of the council would be in regard to the licensing of other motor buses; it might be held that they had no right to grant licences on the ground that Parliament had granted this monopoly. He would like to know who was better suited to run these omnibuses than the authority who was responsible for the upkeep of the roads. And let it be remembered that if the Bill passed they would have established a precedent which would prejudice the Wallasey District Council in succeeding Parliaments if they re-introduced their Bill seeking powers to run motor-omnibuses. By passing the Bill they would endorse the action of the House of Lords, which had declared that if they once gave a railway company the right to run a line for the benefit of their own shareholders, then the municipalities must not be allowed to compete with the railway company. The promoters claimed that they and they alone should serve the public with motor omnibuses, and although they professed to be ready to insert in the Bill a clause limiting their privileges to the conveyance of passengers to and from their stations or hotels, in practice such a clause would be inoperative. This was a serious matter for all municipalities, as it appeared that the monopoly was to be given for all time, and without any reference to any new advance which science might make in regard to motor power. In this state of things he had ventured to take the extreme course of moving the rejection of the Bill, and he asked all those who were in favour of extending the powers of local authorities to embark upon municipal enterprise to support his Motion. He begged to move.
MR. SUMMERBELL, in seconding the Motion, agreed with the Mover that the Bill raised a question of great interest to all municipalities. Speaking from the point of view of one who had been the Chairman of a tramway company for many years he would like to say that his objection to the Bill was confined to Clause 8, and he would rather have supported a Motion for its removal than one for the rejection of the Bill. He was, in fact, not concerned with other parts of the Bill Clause 8 stipulated that this company should be empowered to run motor omnibuses to carry passengers, passengers' luggage, parcels, etc. It might be argued that the Bill contained a provision which somewhat protected the municipalities in regard to the roads, but he did not think that that was so. If the House once embarked upon the practice of giving the railway companies throughout the country the right to run motor omnibuses, an inspector would be required in almost every street in which these motor omnibuses ran. Once this concession was given to railway companies they could not, as it was said this Bill would do, restrict the traffic to persons going to or from the trains or to or from their hotels. This was a question of interest not only to all municipalities but to all tramway companies, and he would give a case in point. A tramway company which he knew claimed the right to run a tramway for some six or seven miles, but a railway company opposed that Bill and said it was unfair that they should be deprived of their passengers. The House listened to the appeal of the railway company and rejected that tramway Bill. It thus appeared that while municipalities and tramway companies were prevented from running vehicles and affording public facilities the railway companies year after year came and made demands which, when other people made them, they opposed. He asked the House to negative this proposal in regard to motor omnibuses. If it was wrong for a tramway company or a municipality to run them it was equally wrong in the case of a railway company. The municipality had had given to them the control of the streets and had to keep them

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in repair, and therefore their views should be respected. Anyone who had anything to do with dealing with traffic in our large centres knew that they did not want to increase the traffic, but to decrease it as much as they could. He contended that the House ought not to give this railway company the facilities it asked for in view of the fact that the local authority had the responsibility of regulating the traffic and repairing the streets. In the case of the corporation, with a capital of £300,000 their Act made it obligatory that in thirty years the municipality must pay off that sum by yearly instalments of £10,000, and that being so, Parliament had no right to allow the railway company to step in and compete with a tramway company and thus prevent that condition being carried out. In taking the course he did he was not arguing against fresh facilities being given to the public; he was only pleading for fair play for the whole of the municipalities of the country.
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. William Lever.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
MR. ARTHUR HENDERSONsaid that both the mover and the seconder had made out a very good case, especially with regard to Clause 8 of the Bill. He gathered that the mover would have been quite satisfied if it had been possible for him to have accepted the position suggested in the Motion of the hon. Member for Birkenhead, but unfortunately that could not be. He himself thought no case had been made out for the entire rejection of the measure; it would be unfortunate so far as the promoters were concerned if because hon. Members felt strongly against Clause 8 the Bill had to stand over for another year. He therefore proposed to take the only course it was possible to adopt, and move the adjournment of the debate in order that the Bill might come before them again, and that the Committee might have an opportunity of
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removing the objectionable clause. He moved that this debate be now adjourned.
Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned "—(Mr. Arthur Henderson)—put and agreed to.
Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

SUPPLY.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. CALDWELL (Lanarkshire, Mid.) in the Chair.]
4. £165,600, Educational Services.
5. £65,100, Scientific Services.
6. £426,600, Royal Naval Reserves.
7. £482,200, Miscellaneous Effective Services.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £351,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expenses of the Admiralty Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1907."
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CIVIL SERVICES.

  CLASS VI.
  8. £358,969, to complete the sum for Superannuation and Retired Allowances.
  9. £122,644, Savings Banks' and Friendly Societies' Deficiencies.
  Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

SUPPLY REPORT [26TH APRIL].
Resolutions reported.
CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1906–7.

  REVENUE EEPARTMENTS.
  1. "That a sum, not exceeding £602,700, be granted to His Majesty, to

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  complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Customs Department."
  Resolution agreed to.
  2. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,429,500, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Inland Revenue Department."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid upon this Vote, which amounted altogether to a sum of £3,212,000, there was one item to which he desired to call attention. If the House would turn to pages 10 and 11 of the Estimates they would see that there were a considerable number of items with regard to the salaries of the preventive officers in the Customs.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, Order ! The Report of that Vote has just been passed.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOODsaid he intended to conclude his observations by moving the reduction of the Vote by £1,000. Many members of the Opposition were very much interested in questions that arose out of the Votes for the Revenue Departments which had just been passed in Committee sub silentio without a word of discussion. This Government boasted that they were returned for the purposes of retrenchment. The best way of securing retrenchment was by full discussion in the House of Commons. The Government came down and told the House it was going to take the Naval Votes. Not a word was said about the Votes for the Revenue Departments of the Civil Service and all
  1500
  his friends believed like himself that nothing but Naval Votes would be taken. The arrangement had been broken over and over again this session. Having got the Votes they wanted for the Navy, and then without a word of notice to take the Votes for the Revenue Departments, to discuss which there was a desire on both sides, was a breach of courtesy and faith between the two sides of the House. He moved.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid he could not put the proposed reduction, because he had already put the Question that the House agree with the Committee in the Resolution.
  MR. MCKENNAsaid they could quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman felt that a certain duty fell upon him. The right hon. Gentleman represented the Opposition on this occasion and they did not complain of what he had said except in so far as he had charged them with a breach of faith. What were the facts? A certain number of Navy Votes were put down, and had all been taken but one, which had been withdrawn at the request of a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman. There was no justification for the charge of a breach of faith, and nobody was more familiar with the business of the House than the right hon. Gentleman.
  SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: During the whole time I was Patronage Secretary I made arrangements invariably with the Opposition, and never broke a pledge or tried to spring a trap upon them.
  MR. MCKENNAsaid the whole House would readily agree with that statement of the right hon. Gentleman. But he had not charged the right hon. Gentleman with breach of faith. The right hon. Gentleman had charged the present Government with it, and he was endeavouring to show that the charge was not well founded. He had endeavoured to show the right hon. Gentleman that the discussion on the Navy Votes had been under discussion the whole afternoon, and the only Vote withdrawn had been withdrawn at the request of a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman.
  LORD BALCARRESsaid all that his right hon. friend asked was that the Vote should not be taken to-night, in order that at a later stage of the session further opportunity should be given of discussing Naval questions. He quite understood that there was to be a discussion to-night on Vote 12 of the Navy Estimates, and he himself was anxious to speak.
  MR. MCKENNAsaid the noble Lord could have had it; there was nothing to prevent the Vote being discussed. It was withdrawn in order to reserve it for a later stage of the session. That Vote and other subsequent Votes would have been passed sub silentio. They would now be discussing the Report of the Inland Revenue Vote, as to which nothing had been said, and as to which the Government had nothing to defend. The right hon. Gentleman asked for discussion. He could have had it on the Committee stage, but neither he nor his friends thought there was any ground for discussion, and he did not think there was any reason for delaying the business of the House any longer with these somewhat idle recriminations.
  Question put, and agreed to.

CIVIL SERVICES.

  CLASS II.
  3. "That a sum not exceeding £7,290 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council."
  4. "That a sum not exceeding £25,243 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission."
  Resolutions agreed to.
  5. "That a sum not exceeding £39,699 be granted to His Majesty, to complete
  1502
  the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. FELLcomplained of the speed at which the Votes were being rushed through, and said the House was entitled to some explanation of the increase of £494 for travelling expenses in the Department.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTpressed for an answer to the appeal of his hon. friend.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  " 6. That a sum not exceeding £5,589. be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Registry of Friendly Societies.
  7. "That a sum, not exceeding £65, be granted to His Majesty, to complete a sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Mint, including the Expenses of Coinage."
  8. "That a sum, not exceeding £7,348 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the National Debt Office."
  9. "That a sum, not exceeding £14,430, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment

  1503
  during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Public Record Office, and of the Office of Land Revenue Records and Inrolments."
  Resolution agreed to.
  10. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Establishment under the Public Works Loan Commissioners."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid the expenses and salaries of legal officers of this Department could very well be saved, as there did not appear to be any reason why a legal branch was required to be attached to the Department. He thought that the major portion of the special expenses in this Vote could easily be saved. There was now in power pledged to economy a Government which had not hesitated to charge the late Administration with extravagance, and here was a chance for them to carry out their pledges. If this Vote could not be withdrawn next year, he hoped the House would have some assurance that the Government would take this matter into their earnest consideration, and bring up the Vote next year in an altogether different form.
  MR. JOYCEasked how far the Government intended going with the business during this sitting. Very large sums of money had already been passed without a word of discussion.
  MR. MCKENNAsaid he was not in a position to answer that question with any authority, but he was under the impression that after Supply had been disposed of there could be no other business taken.
  MR. O'MARA: Can the hon. Member give us a pledge that the Irish Education (Afflicted Children) Bill will not be taken?
  Mr. MCKENNA: Yes, I can give that pledge.
  MR. FLAVIN: Can the hon. Member go on and finish the business to-night, and then adjourn for the holidays?
  MR. MCKENNAsaid he could not do it. In reply to the hon. Member for West Derby he wished to point out that the Public Loans Commissioners were a statutory body, and what the hon. Member had suggested could only be done by an Act of Parliament. The officers whom the Public Loans Commissioners appointed were appointed by statute and exercised statutory powers, and the Treasury and their predecessors were quite satisfied with the work they were doing.
  Question put, and agreed to:

  SUPPLY [17TH APRIL].
  Resolutions reported.
CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1906–7.

  CLASS I.
  1. "That a sum, not exceeding £31,800, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for Houses of Parliament Buildings."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid that when this Vote was in Committee he pointed out that the mortality amongst Members of the House of Commons averaged about twelve per annum, which meant that about one every month was stricken down. Not long ago it was necessary to take one of their number across to the hospital. Every hon. Member who had had any experience of other Parliaments would agree that this Chamber was in many respects capable of being vastly improved. The House would not seat all its Members, and during a memorable debate a fortnight ago some fourteen or fifteen Members were unable to obtain even standing accommodation in the House, and even then some 17 or 18 per cent, of the Members were absent. If the Members were more comfortably provided for they would be able to do their business with a great deal more satisfaction. This was the only Parliament which had not a desk in front of each Member, and a convenient place to sit which the Member might call his own. The other day he was put to great inconvenience because the only place he could take some friends who had come to see him on business connected with his constituency was a smoking room upstairs which it was impossible for anybody to stop in long on account of the amount of smoke in it. Consequently they were obliged to sit for an hour and a half in a draughty corridor. He was told that two conference rooms were set aside for the use of Members and their friends, but as a matter of fact both of them were engaged at the time, and they were miserably inadequate for the purpose. There were many passages in the House which were duplicated, and surely some alteration
  1506
  could be made so as to provide more reasonable accommodation for Members.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTsaid the House should carefully consider these Estimates in detail. The Party opposite was returned as a Party of retrenchment and reform and this was the first opportunity the Liberal Party or the Labour Party had had for fulfilling their pledges. But they—the Liberal, Labour, and Nationalist Parties—had adopted a conspiracy of silence and absolutely refused to attempt any kind of analysis of the Estimates. He wished Members to protest against these bloated Estimates, against which the Liberal Party had often spoken with burning eloquence from the public platform. The Estimates were either a mere farce or sham which ought to be voted in one solid block of millions at a time, or else the House should not laugh and sneer at any Member who rose to try to deal with them. If all the other sections of the House refused to analyse these Estimates and thus falsified the pledges they gave on public platforms, he was not prepared to go on fighting and struggling to criticise them. He left the responsibility to the Liberal and Labour Members. He washed his hands of any share in that deliberate conspiracy to squander millions of money at a single sitting without analysing the Votes.
  MR. THEODORE TAYLORcalled attention to the bad ventilation of the Committee Rooms of the House, remarking that Members felt the atmosphere of those rooms to be very injurious. He did not know whether he should suggest it after what had occurred in the ladies' gallery recently, but he thought that so long as the ladies' gallery was kept open they might return good for evil and do the ladies the courtesy of having an annunciator in the gallery to let the occupants know who was speaking

  1507
  in the House. They all had lady friends and he thought they would appreciate this concession. Sometimes eminent men were not known by sight to all the ladies, and when a Member got up it caused some whispering and talking behind the grille. It would be to the interests of the Members themselves if an annunciator was provided.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT, Lancashire Rossendale)said he did not suppose that the hon. Member for the West Derby Division of Liverpool would expect him, after an interval of only four days, to repeat all the answers to the questions he had put. When the Vote was in Committee he dealt with all the matters which the hon. Member had now brought before the House apparently to the satisfaction of other hon. Members if not to the satisfaction of the hon. Member. What was required was a chamber reasonably suitable for the business they had to transact. There could be no better example than the state of the benches at present that this chamber provided ample accommodation for the purpose to which it was devoted when they were conducting really serious business. [An HON. MEMBER: Especially on the Opposition side.] The hon. Member had drawn attention to duplicate passages in the House. He was not himself familiar with them, but if the hon. Member during the recess would conduct him through them, he would consider what steps could be taken to provide him with accommodation in them. The hon. Member for North Down took a different line, because he rather desired that the Government should exercise retrenchment on the Houses of Parliament Vote which would deprive his colleague the Member for the West Derby Division of the accommodation he wanted and other hon. Members of the indulgences for which they constantly pleaded. He had given instructions
  1508
  that something should be done for the better ventilation of the telephone room. Reference had been made to the ventilation of the Committee, rooms. That had always been a great problem, for it was extremely difficult to provide for the rapidly varying conditions of those rooms. Exhaust fans had been provided in most of the windows. He would consider during the autumn recess whether anything more could be done to improve the ventilation of those rooms. The hon. Member for the Radcliffe Division of Lancashire had suggested that an annunciator should be placed in the ladies' gallery. He was afraid he could not promise to carry out the suggestion. Annunciators were noisy and expensive. They reminded him of what a lady once said, that everything she wanted in life was either unwholesome, expensive, or wrong. Annunciators cost £60 each to install and £40 per year to run. He did not think that the noisy clicking of an annunciator in the gallery would add either to the comfort of the Members of the House or the amenities of those auditors whom they were always glad to welcome.
  MR. FLAVINasked whether, for the convenience of hon. Members who had to meet friends in the outer lobby, a door which was now kept closed could not be made available in order that they might be provided with a shorter way to that lobby.
  MR. HARCOURTsaid that he had been instructed by the Cabinet to provide for a new method of taking divisions, and he had also been instructed to make statement to the House on Wednesday next. The new system of taking divisions would come into operation immediately after the Whitsuntide recess. In this statement he would be able to say something about the opening of the doors of the division lobbies to give more easy egress to the outer corridors.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  2. "That a sum, not exceeding £48,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for Expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular Buildings, and for the maintenance of certain Cemetries Abroad."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid the House should get an explanation from the Government why there was an increase this year of £13,700, or 15 per cent., on this Vote.
  MR. HARCOURTsaid that he had given an answer to that question within the last four days.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  3. "That a sum, not exceeding £8,400, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1907, for Expenditure in respect of Osborne."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid that there was an increase of £2,000 on this Vote compared with last year. He thought the House should be given some additional information as to the reason for this increase. There was also
  1510
  reason to complain of the manner in which Votes were put down on the Paper.
  MR. HARCOURTsaid that he had given an elaborate explanation of the excess in this Vote in Committee. It was caused by a re-arrangement of the electric light installation by which a saving of £150 a year would be made in the future. Some of the increase was also due to drainage improvements; and to the satisfactory or, in one sense, unsatisfactory increase in the number of patients at Osborne. The hon. Member had complained as to the order in which the Votes had been put down in the Paper; but that was an ill reward for his endeavouring to consult the convenience of hon. Members opposite. If the method of criticism pursued by the hon. Member was to be generally followed he would revert to the ordinary course of procedure.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  4. "That a sum, not exceeding £426,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 3lst day of March, 1907, for the Customs, Inland Revenue, Post Office, and Post Office Telegraph Buildings in Great Britain, and certain Post Offices abroad, including Furniture, Fuel, and sundry Miscellaneous Services."
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he certainly understood that this Vote was not to be taken that night. At any-rate he knew that his hon. friend the Member for one of the divisions of Liverpool had given notice of a reduction of this

  1511
  Vote, and he had been told that there was an understanding that it was not to come on that night.
  MR. HARCOURT: No, no.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid he was not competent to explain to the House the points which his hon. friend was going to bring up; but he knew that in Liverpool the Custom House, the Post Office and the Harbour Office at one time were all under the same roof. The Harbour Office had recently been moved, and efforts had been made to induce the Treasury to build a new Custom House in place of the present antiquated building.
  MR. HARCOURTsaid that the hon. Member referred to had been in communication with him and was satisfied with the negotiations which were in progress. The hon. Member for the Derby Division was doing a disservice to his colleague and to the city he represented by opening this matter that night.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORDsaid that they were grateful that the Treasury were in communication with the authorities in Liverpool in connection with this matter. He thought it would be generally agreed that Liverpool was entitled to a decent custom house.
  MR. WEIRsaid he wished to call attention to the very urgent need there was for a new post office at Stornoway. It was arranged three years ago that a new building should be provided as the present one was in a most insanitary state, and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to look into this matter.
  MR. HARCOURTsaid he had been in communication with the Treasury on the subject, and had had the plans of the new building before him. But he thought that they were not sufficiently Scottish in design, and he had slightly altered them to suit the local colour of the town with which he might say he was as well acquainted as the hon. Member. He hoped that in conjunction with the hon. Member, the Department would be able to do justice to Stornoway.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  5. "That a sum, not exceeding £61,500, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for the Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens."
  6. "That a sum, not exceeding £46,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, for Expenditure in respect of Royal Palaces."
  7. "That a sum, not exceeding £317,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1907, in respect of sundry Public Buildings in Great Britain, not provided for on other Votes."
  Resolutions agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn"—(Mr. Joseph Pease)—put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Ten o'clock.