Commons Sitting of 29 April 1907

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.

COMMISSION.
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went; and, having returned;
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

1. Army (Annual) Act, 1907.

2. Portobello and Musselburgh Tramways (Port Seton Deviation) Order Confirmation Act, 1907.

3. Royal Insurance Company's Act, 1907.

4. Galwey's Divorce Act, 1907.

5. Byrne's Divorce Act, 1907.

NEW WRIT.
For the County of Surrey (North-Eastern or Wimbledon Division) in the room of Charles Eric Hambro, esquire (Manor of Northstead).—(Sir Alexander Acland-Hood.)
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  MR. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—Manchester Corporation Tramways Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a secondtime.
  London and North Western Railway (Superannuation Fund) Bill; North East London Railway Bill; Port Talbot Railway and Docks Bill; South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways Bill.—Read the third time, and passed.
  Shanklin Gas Bill.—As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Borax Consolidated Bill [Lords]; Devonport Corporation Bill [Lords].—Read a second time, and committed.
  Manchester Ship Canal (Bridgewater Canal) Bill [Lords]; Middlesbrough Corporation Bill [Lords]; Mullingar, Kells, and Drogheda Railway Bill; Society of Apothecaries of London Bill [Lords]; Staveley Coal and Iron Company Bill [Lords]; Tees Conservancy Bill [Lords]; Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier Bill [Lords].—Read a second time, and committed.
  London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill.—Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Dunnikies; and Dysart; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Burntisland; Corstorphine; Dumbarton; Dunoon; Dysart; Ellenabeich; Glasgow (two); Kinghorn; Kirkcaldy (three); Kirtle; Largs; Pollokshaws (three); Rothesay; and Rutherglen; to lie upon the Table.
  SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  VIVISECTION (ROYAL COMMISSION).
  Copy presented, of Second Report of the Commissioners, and Minutes of Evidence, February to March 1907, [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  WELLINGTON COLLEGE.
  Copy presented, of Report of the Governors of Wellington College for the year ending 31st December, 1906, with Accounts [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Urban District Council of Acton, and

  489
  confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the Hours of Closing for certain classes of Shops within the Urban District [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  Accounts presented, of the Metropolitan Police and the Police Pension Funds for the year ended 31st March, 1907 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 132]
  ARMY (VOLUNTEER CORPS).
  Copy presented, of Annual Return of the Volunteer Corps of Great Britain for the year 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Report, Annual Series, No. 3769 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA COUNCIL (REAPPOINTMENT OF SIR JAMES LYLE MACKAY).
  Copy presented, of Minute by the Secretary of State for India, extending the term of Sir James Lyle Mackay's office as Member of the Council of India [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.
  Copy presented, of Twenty-fifth Report of the Royal University of Ireland, being for the year 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOAN FUND BOARD (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Sixty-ninth Annual Report, 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon, the Table.
  POST OFFICE (FOREIGN AND COLONIAL PARCEL POST).
  Copy presented, of the Foreign and Colonial Parcel Post Amendment (No. 4) Warrant, 1907, dated 11th April, 1907 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  INTER-IMPERIAL TRADE.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 18th April; Mr. Harold Cox];to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 133.]

  RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC ACT, 1888.
  Copy presented, of Report by the Board of Trade, under Section 24 (4) of the Act, on the Schedule of Maximum Tolls and Charges to be made applicable
  490
  to the New Junction Canal, authorised by the Aire and Calder and River Dun Navigation Junction Canal Act, 1891 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 134.]

  BRITISH AND FOREIGN TRADE AND INDUSTRY.
  Return ordered, "showing, for each of the years 1904 to 1906, the value of the imports, exports (British and Irish), and re-exports of articles wholly or mainly manufactured, distinguishing, so far as possible, (a) articles completely manufactured and ready for consumption; (b) articles manufactured but requiring to pass through some process of adaptation or combination before entering into consumption; (c) articles partly manufactured (in continuation of the information given in the second series of Memoranda, &c., relating to British and Foreign Trade and Industry, Cd. 2337, of Session 1904)."—(Mr. Murray Macdonald.)
  CASUALTIES TO SHIPS.
  Return ordered, "of Casualties to Ships on the Navy List, viz.: (1) Casualties to ships, including all cases of collision or grounding; (2) Casualties to engines, during the year ending the 31st day of December, 1906, showing the date, the name, and class of the ship damaged, the nature of the accident, time under repair, and the result of any inquiry that may have been held into the circumstances, specifying if a court-martial was held (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 319, of Session 1906)."—(Mr. Bellairs.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Income Tax Assessment Forms.
  SIR WILLIAM BULL: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if it is by his direction that on the 23rd instant Income Tax forms of returns were delivered by hand throughout the City of London,demanding particulars of the number of officials, their salaries, and other details, employed by each company for the year ending 5th April, 1908, on the old forms of 1907, showing none o the proposed abatements.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) Such forms have been issued in the course of the regular annual procedure. It is impossible for the Inland Revenue either to anticipate the decisions of Parliament or to arrest the whole machinery of assessment until those decisions have been finally reached. When that has been done, the necessary measures for correction and adjustment will be taken.

  Irish Police and Cloveneden Hibernians' Bands.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that on the28th January, 1907, the authorities of Dublin Castle, in response to a petition from the Catholic inhabitants of the townland of Cloveneden, in the parish of Loughall, in the county of Armagh, stated that they had issued instructions to the local police that the Cloveneden band of the Ancient Order of Hibernians should be permitted to proceed from the Hibernian Hall via a bye-road, passing the Catholic curate's house, to the county road leading to the Catholic chapel; that on the 18th March, 1907, a force of forty police, under the command of Inspector Hussey, contravened these instructions, refusing to allow the band to take this route, compelling them to go by a swampy track by the Moy Road to Armagh, three miles out of their way; that on that date the Orangemen were permitted to parade all day up and down on the road leading to the Catholic chapel with sticks and firearms, the police looking on; and that on the 25th of the same month (a holiday) the police again refused to allow the band to go in procession from their hall to the Catholic chapel stating that they would use physical force to prevent the band so doing, though the Hibernians had fulfilled the request of Dublin Castle that due notice of the procession should be given to the police authorities; and whether he will take steps to secure that in future Catholics will be permitted the use of the King's high road, in conformity with the Law of the land and the instructions of Dublin Castle.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The instructions to the police are as stated in the Question, but they apply solely to
  492
  occasions on which the band is about to proceed to or towards the Catholic chapel. The band has been distinctly informed that it cannot be allowed to go in the opposite direction, namely, over Cloveneden Hill, which would be both an unnecessary and provocative proceeding. The members of the band gave notice to the police that they intended to go to Armagh on 18th March. The police refused to permit them to proceed by the route over Cloveneden Hill, and required them to go by an alternative route which is somewhat shorter. The route which the band was obliged to follow is in bad repair, but the other route is in a similar state. There is no foundation for the statement that the Orangemen were permitted to parade all day on the road leading to the Catholic chapel. It is not the fact that on 25th March the police refused to allow the band to proceed to the chapel; on the contrary, arrangements had been made to send a large force of police to protect the procession, but the procession was abandoned. The band can proceed by a direct route to any destination without passing over Cloveneden Hill, and in doing so will receive full protection from the police. For the reasons already stated, it cannot be permitted to pass over Cloveneden Hill.

  Iron and Steel Imports into Canada—Duty on British and Foreign Goods.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the President to the Board of Trade what iron and steel manufactures are imported free of duty under the new Canadian tariff if imported from the United Kingdom or a British Possession and are dutiable if imported from a foreign country.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) In order to benefit by the preference accorded to British goods under the new Canadian tariff it is requisite that; the goods shall be the produce of, and not merely imported from, the United Kingdom or a British Possession. The following is a list of the iron and steel manufactures enumerated in the tariff which are free of duty on importation if the produce of the United Kingdom or a British Possession, but which are dutiable if the produce of a foreign country:—Rolled iron or steel and cast

  493
  steel, in bars, bands, hoop, scroll, strip, sheet, or plate, of any size, thickness, or width, galvanised, or coated with any material or not, and steel blanks for the manufacture of milling cutters, when of greater value than 3½ cents. per pound. Rolled iron or steel sheets and strips, polished or not, number 14 gauge and thinner, not otherwise provided for, Canada plates, Russian iron, terne plates and rolled sheets of iron or steel coated with zinc, spelter, or other metal, of all widths or thicknesses not otherwise provided for, and rolled iron or steel hoop, band, scroll, or strip, number14 gauge and thinner, galvanised, or coated with other metal or not, not otherwise provided for. Seamless steel tubing, valued at not less than 3½cents, per pound, rolled or drawn square tubing of iron or steel, adapted for use in the manufacture of agricultural implements; steel balls, adapted for use on bearings of machinery and vehicles. Wire, crucible cast steel, valued at not less than 6 cents. per pound.

  Wages in Spinning Factories in Lancashire and Belfast.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether he can state the comparative wages paid in Lancashire and in Belfast to male operatives and to female operatives in spinning factories; and whether he can give any statistics as to the wages paid in Belfast in other industries compared with wages paid in the same industries in cities in England.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) Spinners in the cotton trade in Lancashire are mostly men, while in the linen trade in Belfast they are mostly women. The latest available official statistics giving information as to the earnings in these two trades, in which the system of piecework prevails, is contained in the Report on Wages in the Textile Trades (Cd. 5807 of 1889). A general inquiry by the Board of Trade into earnings is nowin progress which will give information on this subject. As regards trades in which piece wages are not the prevalent system of payment, reference may be made to the recently issued Report on Standard Time Rates of Wages at October, 1906 [Cd. 3245].

  Use of Clogher Courthouse for Foresters' Concert.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the High Sheriff of Tyrone has refused the use of the courthouse at Clogher for a concert in connection with the National Foresters' Society on the ground that the purpose is political; whether the courthouse is maintained out of the public rates; and, seeing that it is the only public building in the town, if there is any way of securing its use in the future, as in the past, for all sections of the people.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I have referred this Question to the High Sheriff of county Tyrone, who informs me that he has received an application from a national band for the use of Clogher Courthouse for a concert, and has refused it on the ground that the concert was to be held for the promotion of party politics. The courthouse is maintained out of the rates. The custody and control of county courthouses is entirely vested in the high sheriff of the county, and under the Law as it stands the Government have no power to interfere with the high sheriff's discretion as to the purposes for which he may permit a courthouse to be used when not required for the administration of the Law.

  Convictions of Soldiers on Foreign Service.
  MR. LEA: To ask the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the Annual Report on the Army [Cd. 3365], page 81, what were the rank and corps of the seven men serving abroad who were sentenced to penal servitude during the year ending 30th September, 1906; will he give in each case the offence or offences for which each man was tried, the sentences inflicted, and when, where, and by whom they were tried, and also the names of the persons who confirmed the sentences; whether the evidence has since been submitted to the Judge Advocate General; and if he sanctioned each sentence.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane). The following are the particulars asked for:—

  Rank.

  Corps.

  Offence.

  Sentence.

  Tried.

  Sentence confirmed by

  On

  At

  By

  Private

  3rd Bn. Middlesex Regiment

  Disobedience and violence to a corporal

  3 years

  27/10/05

  Middelburg, Transvaal

  General court-martial

  G.O.C. in C., South Africa

  Lance-corporal

  2nd Bn. Shropshire Light Infantry

  Drunkenness and wounding with intent to murder

  5 years

  10/4/05

  Fyzabad

  „

  Lieut.-General Gaselee

  Gunner

  Royal Field Artillery

  Wounding with intent to murder

  5 years

  26/4/05

  Rawal Pindi

  „

  Lieut.-General Blood

  Private

  3rd Bn. Middlesex Regiment

  Striking sergeant-major

  3 years and ignominy

  7/6/06

  Roberts' Heights, Transvaal

  „

  G.O.C. in C., South Africa

  Private

  1st Bn. King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

  Sodomy

  10 years and ignominy

  7/8/06

  Gibraltar

  „

  G.O.C. in C., Gibraltar

  Private

  3rd Bn. Middlesex Regiment

  Striking captain

  3 years and ignominy

  22/8/06

  Middelburg

  „

  G.O.C. in C., South Africa

  Gunner

  Royal Field Artillery

  Striking sergeant and violence to lieutenant-colonel

  3 years and ignominy

  31/8/06

  Trimulgherry

  „

  Lieut.-General Egerton

  Except in the Indian cases the proceedings were passed by the Judge Advocate General.

  The Auxiliary Forces and the New Army Scheme.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the Secretary of State for War, whether he intends to do away with any Volunteer battalions under the new scheme, or change the nature of any of the units of the Auxiliary Forces; and, if so, whether this duty will be relegated to the county association.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Under the scheme it is proposed that the Army Council shall notify its requirements for each locality to the county associations. The associations will then, in conjunction with the Army Council, work out the most suitable arrangements to meet those requirements, which will involve in many cases the changing of the nature of existing units in the Auxiliary Forces.

  Ecclesiastical Disorders.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that disorders continue in the Church of England, and that the archbishops and bishops have failed to take such steps as are necessary to enforce compliance with the law; and whether he will advise the withdrawal of the Letters of Business, recently issued to the Houses of Convocation, until such compliance has been enforced by the archbishops and bishops.
  (Answered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.) It is common knowledge that such disorders exist, and that the episcopal authorities have not enforced complete compliance with the law. I am unable to adopt my hon. friend's suggestion. Even if it were practicable I doubt if it would be effective.

  Royal Commission on Motor Cars—Government Action.
  COLONEL WARDE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can yet announce when action will be taken as the result
  498
  of the Royal Commission on Motor Cars, which reported in July, 1906.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I cannot at present make any announcement with regard to this matter.

  St. Lucia Riots—Nearest Warship.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what was the distance between the nearest available warship and the scene of the riots in St. Lucia on Tuesday, 23rd April; and how many of His Majesty's warships were within two days steam of the island on that date.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) 1,130 miles is the reply to the first part of the Question, and none to the second part. I may add that H.M.S. "Indefatigable" left Jamaica for Santa Lucia at noon on Sunday, 28th, a voyage of 930 miles.

  Erosion of Bottom Plates of H.M.S. "Antrim."
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that in the bottom plates of H.M.S. "Antrim," completed two years ago, serious erosion has set up; and, if the facts are as stated, whether any explanation can be offered, and whether any investigation has been held.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Reports have been received of somewhat extensive pitting and oxidation in the bottom of the "Antrim." Steps were immediately taken to deal with the matter, and according to the latest report the pitting has been arrested on one half of the ship, and the other half will be similarly treated. An investigation has been held, and a Report received to the effect that the cause of the pitting cannot yet be definitely stated, but the question is still under consideration.

  Re-decoration of British Museum Reading Room.
  MR. HADDOCK: To ask the First Commis-

  499
  sioner of Works why the firm now redecorating the reading room of the British Museum has been required to specify that the gold-leaf to be employed shall be of British manufacture.
  (Answered by Mr. Harcourt.) Because it was supposed to be of more lasting quality.

  Plague Precautions in India.
  DR. RUTHERFORD: To ask the Secretary of State for India, what action has been taken by the Government in regard to a deputation of the Royal College of Physicians, in May, 1905, to the Secretary of State for India, pointing out the danger of the plague and recommending certain measures to be taken; and will he lay upon the Table the Memorandum of the College of Physicians.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) Some delay, which I regret, has occurred in this matter. The Memorandum reached India at a time when the Government of India had called for and were awaiting Reports by the local governments on the subject of plague remedies, based on the personal experience of their officers. These Reports, which are very voluminous, were dealt with in a published resolution by the Government of India of the 17th January, 1906, laying down in detail a complete policy for dealing with plague. This policy in its preventive features is in practical accordance with the Memorandum of the Royal College of Physicians. The Government of India have since considered, in communication with the local governments, the recommendations of the Memorandum for a special medical organisation for dealing with plague. Their scheme has not yet been definitely formulated, but I understand that the sanitary service will be strengthened by employing a large number of qualified Natives of India. I shall be happy to
  500
  lay the Memorandum upon the Table if my hon. friend will move for it.

  Completion of the Calcutta Memorial.
  MR. FELL: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the sum of£300,000 was subscribed more than five years ago for the construction of the monument to Her late Majesty to be known as the Calcutta Memorial; whether such monument is under construction; and on what date it is expected to be completed.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The monument is under construction. It is not known when it is likely to be completed.

  Irish Labourers' Cottages.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is within the power of a rural district council and the Local Government Board to sanction the erection of a cottage under the Labourers Acts where the applicant's present cottage is sanitary, but owing to its small size and the number of the applicant's family, the ordinary decencies of life cannot be observed.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Answer to this Question would depend upon the circumstances of the particular case. Under Section 4 of The Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1883, a labourer's cottage may be provided when the applicant's existing house is unfit for habitation owing to the want of light, air, ventilation, or proper conveniences.

  Parliamentary Electors Struck off Roll for Non-payment of Poor Rates.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consent to a Return being furnished by the collectors of the poor rate in Ireland

  501
  setting forth, according to constituency or Parliamentary division, the number of persons struck off the voters' lists at the revisions of 1905 and 1906 by reason of the non-payment, within the statutable time, of the poor rate payable out of their qualifying premises; and also the number of such persons who in both years subsequently paid to the collectors the full amount of the rates due.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board have made inquiries as to the possibility of obtaining this Return, and they have come to the conclusion that it would be impossible to procure it with anything like accuracy, for in many cases poor rate collectors' districts extend into more than one Parliamentary division. Moreover, the collectors have not been required to keep records of the persons objected to, and the labour involved in making the necessary searches through the rate books, both as regards objections and subsequent payments, would be so great that it might seriously interfere with the collection of the current rate. The Government will, however, consider whether it may be possible to arrange that rate collectors should keep records of the number of persons struck off the voters' lists at this year's revision by reason of non-payment of poor rate.

  Appointments to Messengerships in the Irish Office.
  SIR SAMUEL SCOTT: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many appointments have been made to permanent messengerships at the Irish Office since January, 1906; and what was the occupation of the individual men prior to appointment.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) No such appointment has been made since January, 1906, at the Irish Office in London. One appointment has been made at the Chief Secretary's Office, Dublin Castle. The previous occupation of the man appointed was that of a constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary.

  Carrick on-Shannon Disturbances.
  MR. LONSDALE: To ask the Chief Secretaryto the Lord-
  502
  Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can give the House any information respecting the riotous proceedings at Carrick-on-Shannon on Thursday last, and state whether any persons have been arrested in connection with the disturbances.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.)On the occasion in question, which was market day in Carrick-on-Shannon, several contingents with bands attempted to enter the town, with the object, as the police believed, of intimidating persons who had taken grazing lands. The policewarned the persons concerned that they would not be allowed to enter the town, and, upon their persisting, prevented them from doing so. Some disturbances took place, but the police succeeded in achieving their object. No arrests were made, but the evidence available against certain persons is under consideration, with the object of deciding its sufficiency to ground a prosecution.

  Enlistment in the Militia prior to passing of Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill.
  LORD J. JOICEY-CECIL: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether a man enlisting in the Militia, before the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill passes into Law, will be entitled to receive the same pay, allowances, bounty, and articles of clothing as at present for the whole time, six years, of his enlistment; or, if not, for what portion thereof.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) A man enlisting in the Militia before the Bill becomes Law will come under Clause 28, and if he does not consent to serve under the new conditions he will, if called up for training as a Militiaman, receive the pay and allowances for which he contracted.

  Employment for Workmen discharged from Woolwich Arsenal.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has reason to believe that the state of the labour market is such that the workmen discharged or about to be discharged from Woolwich Arsenal will generally be able to obtain employment in this country and, if not, whether he

  503
  will be disposed to consider the practicability, in the case of skilled workmen of long service, of affording in the case of those who desire it pecuniary facilities for emigration to those of our Colonies where a demand for a similar class of labour obtains, or, if this be impracticable, to make some grant by way of bonus in order that they may be supported for a reasonable time while seeking employment.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) There is reason to believe that skilled workmen, and especially mechanics, will be able to obtain employment in this country without difficulty. Workmen who have more than seven years service in the Ordnance Factories are, when discharged on reduction, entitled to a bonus of one week's wage for each year of service. There are no funds at my disposal from which pecuniary aid of the nature suggested in the Question could be granted.

  Finance Act, Section 20, and the Transvaal.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD (Essex, Epping): To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies why the provisions of Section 20 of the Finance Act of 1894 have not been made applicable to the Transvaal.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) Section 20 of the Finance Act, 1894, cannot be applied to the Transvaal unless and until the law governing the levying of estate duty in that Colony has been modified. This has not been found practicable hitherto. I cannot at present say what

  Hay Land.

  Pasture Land.

  Grain, root, and green crops.

  Great Britain

  10

  56

  34

  Belgium

  13

  13

  74

  France

  —

  —

  82

  Germany

  17

  8

  75

  Ireland

  11

  65

  24

  It must be remembered that the figures for each country relate to different
  view of the matter will be taken by the new Government.

  The White Slave Traffic.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign A airs whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to lay upon the Table any Papers relating to the third International Congress for the suppression of the white slave traffic, held at Paris in October last.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) The Answer to the Question is in the affirmative. Papers will be laid in the course of the next few days.

  Land under Crops in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, and Ireland.
  MR. DOLAN: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the statistics in his possession of the percentage of land under crops in Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, and Ireland, distinguish between hay land, pasture land, and land yielding grain, root, and green crops.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The Answer is in the affirmative, except that in the case of France the statistics do not distinguish between hay and pasture land. Treating the expression "hay land" as applying only to permanent grass, excluding clover and rotation grasses cut for hay, the percentages to the total area under crops (including pasture and rough grazings) are approximately—
  years, except in the case of Great Britain and Ireland.

  Removal of Plant Houses and Forcing Frames from Kensington Gardens.
  SIR GEORGE FARDELL: To ask the First Commissioner of Works if he can state when the plant houses and forcing frames for the plants required for the service of the Royal parks, which stand in Kensington Gardens and spoil the architectural effect of the Palace and of Wren's orangery, will be removed to the enclosure in Hyde Park, the area occupied at present by the houses and frames, when vacated, being laid out as an ornamental garden, an improvement foreshadowed in the Answer given by his predecessor in office on 22nd February, 1904.
  (Answered by Mr. Harcourt.) As I stated in the discussion on my Estimates. I hope to be able to carry out this work at the end of this year and to undertake the ornamental garden next year if funds are provided.

  Guardians as Magistrates Adjudicating in Poor Law Cases.
  MR. BRUNNER: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the practice of certain magistrates of adjudicating in cases where, as guardians of the poor, they are prosecutors;and whether he will cause a circular to be issued intimating the undesirability of the practice.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I have no information to show that any circular on this subject is called for. I may point out that there is nothing to prevent magistrates who are guardians adjudicating in such cases, provided that they were not present at the meeting of guardians at which the resolution to prosecute was passed.

  Hours of Labour in Mines.
  MR. GLOVER: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the intention of the Government to bring in a Bill to shorten the hours of labour in mines, and to pass it into law this session of Parliament; and when the Government will introduce the Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) As I have already stated, the Government
  506
  intend to bring in a Bill to shorten the hours of labour in mines as soon as possible after the Departmental Committee has reported, and to pass it into law without any unavoidable delay. Its progress, however, must of course depend largely on its reception by the House and upon the state of public business.

  Sentence for Theft of Ink-pot at Parliament Street Post Office.
  MR. LEHMANN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of John Baines, a dealer, who, on Wednesday, 24th April, at the Central CriminalCourt, was sentenced to twelve month's hard labour for the theft of a metal inkpot from the Parliament Street Post Office; whether there were any previous convictions proved against the prisoner; and if not, whether he will take the matter into consideration with a view to satisfying himself that the sentence was not unduly severe.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) My attention has not previously been called to the sentence passed upon this man. His record shows previous convictions of a serious character, but I will ascertain by inquiry whether these convictions were proved in court.

  Cost of Upkeep of Harrow School.
  MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can give in detail the amount of endowments spent during the last three years in the upkeep, including the cost of buildings, of Harrow.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I hope to be in a position very shortly to furnish the hon. Member with a statement as to the endowments of Harrow School and their application.

  Age-Limit in the Post Office, Excise, Taxes and Customs Departments.
  MR. CLELAND: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury at what age and under what regulations and conditions officials in the Post Office, the Excise, Taxes, and the Customs

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  Departments, respectively, are called upon to retire after reacting sixty years of age.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) In all Departments of the public service an established officer may be called upon to retire at the age of sixty. Retention beyond this age depends upon efficiency; but retirement is compulsory in ordinary cases at the age of sixty-five. These rules are acted upon in the Departments refered to in the Question, but it is the practice of the Board of Inland Revenue to require all officers to retire at the age of sixty-two, provided they have completed forty years of pensionable service and that their retirement at this age is not thought to be detrimental to the public interest.

  Promotion of Second Division Clerks.
  MR. CLELAND: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury how many clerks who entered the service as Second Division

  Office.

  Number employed.

  Higher Grade.

  Promotions to First Division.

  Length of Service.

  Scale of Salary.

  Years.

  Post Office Savings Bank Department

  460

  1

  —

  11½

  £250–£350

  Estate Duty Office

  101

  —

  9

  nearly 12

  £150–£300, and thence subject to efficiency, to £500

  Issue of Vaccination Order.
  MR. LUPTON: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the reasons for delay in issuing the Vaccination Order, which, on the 14th February, he stated in the House was to be circulated in a few days; and if he will name a day by which the Order in question may be expected to appear.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) Some questions of difficulty have arisen in settling the details of the Order which have delayed its issue. These will, I hope, be very shortly surmounted and the Order will then be issued.
  clerks, under the Order in Council 21st March, 1890, are employed in the Savings Bank, and how many have been promoted to the higher grade and First Division, respectively; what was the average length of service, and to what scale of salary were they entitled on promotion; how many clerks who entered the service as Second Division clerks, appointed under the Order in Council 21st March, 1890, are employed in the Estate Duty Office, Somerset House, and how many have been promoted to higher grade and the First Division, respectively; and what was the average length of service, and to what scale of salary were they entitled on promotion.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I am informed that the statistics asked for respecting second Division clerks who entered the service under the Order in Council of 21st March, 1890, are as follows:—

  Revenue Restrictions on Manufacture of Rum and Brandy.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the details on which the estimate is based that 4d. per gallon on rum and brandy, and 5d. per gallon on other spirit, represents the cost to British distillers of revenue restrictions on the manufacture of these spirits.
  (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The hon. Member will find the matter discussed in Appendix No. 1 to the Report of the Industrial Alcohol Committee (Cd. 2472 of 1905).

  Shortage of Rolling Stock on Indian Railways.
  MR. HAROLD COX: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the allegation that the shortage of rolling stock on the Indian railways is due to the failure of the Government of India to sanction, at a sufficiently early date, proposals made by the railway companies and by the railway administration that more capital should be expended on rolling stock; whether there is any ground for this allegation; and in any ease, whether he will consider the desirability of completely separating the finances of Indian railways from the general finances of the Government of India, either by creating a railway trust or by extending the system of leased lines while enlarging the financial independence of the lessee companies.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) As I think my hon. friend is aware, I have recently appointed a Committee to report on the whole question under which funds are supplied to Indian railways. The allegation referred to by my hon. friend, as well as the suggestion contained in the last portion of his Question, will no doubt be examined by this Committee.

  Salmon Fisheries of the Rivers Bann, Erne, and Foyle.
  MR. BARRIE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the fisheries of the Rivers Bann, Erne, and Foyle form the largest commercial salmon fisheries in Ireland and are valued under the Poor Law at over £5,000 per annum; that there is not a single person interested in salmon fisheries and resident in the province of Ulster who is a member of the special Committee who advise the fishery authority; and that the commercial salmon fisheries of the North-west of Ireland are, therefore, entirely unrepresented on this Committee; and whether, seeing that the owners of the fisheries of the Rivers Bann, Erne, and Foyle have repeatedly claimed that they should be given some representation on such Committee, and that such request has been
  510
  declined, he proposes to take any action in the matter.
  MR. BARRIE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the fisheries in the Rivers Bann, Erne, and Foyle were the first in Ireland to be equipped with suitable hatcheries and are carried on in a businesslike manner; that they contribute large sums voluntarily to the funds of their respective boards of conservators for the protection of these fisheries over and above their legal obligations; whether, in view of the character, business habits, and skill of the owners and lessees or of the managers of these fisheries, he will take steps to secure their representation on the Committees; and will he say how many meetings of this Committee have been held within the last three years.
  MR. BARRIE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the views of the owners and lessees of the Rivers Bann, Erne, and Foyle fisheries, in regard to any proposed legislation which has come to the knowledge of the fishery authority or in regard to any question which affects in any way such fisheries, have been requested by the fishery authority; if not, can he explain why; whether he has received resolutions from the Salmon and Trout Association (England) and from the Irish Salmon Fisheries Protection Association urging that representation should be given on such Committee; and whether he will now undertake that representation will be given, or state why it should be longer withheld.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The proposals for legislation referred to in the third Question were brought under the notice of the Department of Agriculture, who considered them in consultation with their advisory Committee on fisheries and with representatives of the milling interests. Neither the lessees of the private fisheries mentioned nor the owners of any other private fisheries were, as such, specially invited by the Department to express their views. The observations of the Department on the proposals are in possession of the Government and will receive due consideration

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  when an opportunity presents itself of introducing fishery legislation. The Department consider that the general commercial salmon fisheries of Ireland are adequately represented on their advisory Committee, and that that body is at present sufficiently large for efficiency. It was not the intention of the Department in forming it that private interests should be represented on it, but rather that the Committee should be composed of gentlemen generally experienced in fishery matters who, instead of specially advocating particular interests, would look upon the whole Irish fisheries as a national asset, and deal with questions submitted to them from that point of view. The Department do not intend to alter that basis of selection; but, if any vacancy should occur or rearrangement be contemplated, the question will be considered of appointing some person who, while possessing the necessary qualifications from the Department's point of view, will also have a special knowledge of the commercial fisheries of the north-west of Ireland.

  Amendment of Irish Fishery Laws.
  MR. BARRIE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the proposed Bill to amend the Irish Fishery Laws has been prepared by the Salmon and Trout Association (England), and submitted to the Irish fishery authority; will he state what are the views of such authority in regard to the provisions of this Bill; and will he undertake to introduce it this session.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Bill to which the Question refers has been submitted to the Department of Agriculture, who are of opinion that, with certain modifications, it might be made the basis of a measure to amend the Irish Fishery Laws. In the present state of public business I am unable to say anything as to the possibility of introducing, during this session, any Irish legislation not already announced.

  Development of Fishing Industry at Mullaghmore.
  MR. P. A. MCHUGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is
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  aware that the Congested Districts Board, at its meeting in January last, considered the advisability of establishing a fish-curing station on the north coast of Sligo, and arrived at the conclusion that Mullaghmore would be the most suitable site for such a station; and can he say what steps have since been taken to develop the fishing industry at Mullaghmore.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Congested Districts Board have had under consideration the question of establishing a fish-curing station at Mullaghmore, but have not yet come to a decision in the matter. They have, however, instructed their inspector to report as to the requirements of the place in the event of a considerable improvement in the herring fishery. At present moderate quantities of fresh fish can be disposed of in the district at better prices than would be given by curers.

  Purchase of the Estate of Mr.Charles O'Rorke, County Galway.
  MR. HAZLETON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners are willing, as requested by the tenants, to buy the estate of Charles D. O'Rorke, Cloonberren, Kilbannon, county Galway, which has been since 1883 in the Land Judges' Court; and, if so, what is the cause of the delay in doing so.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have, for some time, been in communication with the Land Judge in reference to the purchase of the estate referred to, and on the 27th instant they transmitted to the Judge an amended offer for the estate.

  Irish Local Government Board and the Appointment of Mr. Thomas Daniel as Architect to the Bailieborough Rural District Council.
  MR. SAMUEL YOUNG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Local Government Board for Ireland have, without assigning any specific reason for their action, twice refused to sanction the appointment by the Bailieborough Rural District Council

  513
  of Mr. Thomas Daniel as architect to their improvement scheme under the Labourers Acts; whether he is aware that Mr. Daniel, under a resolution appointing him as architect of the council, carried through four improvement schemes to the satisfaction of his council and without objection or complaint from the Local Government Board; whether he was recently appointed architect to the council in connection with repairs to existing cottages and for other purposes, with the consent of the Local Government Board; whether he is aware that a medical certificate of Mr. Daniel's physical fitness has been sent to the Board; and whether he will see his way to ask the Board to reconsider their decision.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board were unable to approve of Mr. Daniel's appointment because he failed, when called upon, to furnish evidence that he possesses the qualifications necessary to enable him to discharge all the duties which would devolve upon him, and the Board have so informed the rural district council. The Act of last year requires the Board to give their approval to such appointments. It is not the fact that the Board have made no complaint regarding the work carried out under Mr. Daniel's supervision in former schemes. Mr. Danielhas recently been appointed by the council to supervise the repairs of cottages already built, but the Board's approval is not required in such case. The Board have been furnished with a medical certificate as to Mr. Daniel's physical fitness for the postof architect. If Mr. Daniel is willing to submit himself for examination the Board will arrange for his examination.

  Evicted Tenants at Bailieborough, County Cavan.
  MR. SAMUEL YOUNG: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the number of applications received by the Estates Commissioners from evicted tenants for reinstatement from the Bailieborough, county Cavan, rural district, and the actual number reinstated.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have received applications
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  for reinstatement from forty-three evicted tenants in the Bailieborough Union. The number reinstated up to the present is five.

  Sale of Estate of J. C. Delmage, of Glensharrold.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the estate of John Christopher Delmege, deceased, situate at Glensharrold, in the County of Limerick, is still in the Land Judge's Court; and, if so, whether any steps have been taken to bring about a sale of it to the tenants under the Land Act of 1903.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I am informed by the registrar of the Land Judge's Court that all the tenants on this estate except one purchased their holdings in 1902. In the outstanding case the tenant refused to purchase on the same terms as the others. The Land Judge is now about to have the case of this tenant listed for discussion, and, if necessary, the provisions of the 40th Section of the Act of 1896 will be put into operation.

  Irish Poor Law Returns.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the resolution of the Mount-mellick Board of Guardians, reaffirming its approval of the Report of the Poor Law Reform (Ireland) Commission, and stating that, in view of this Report, the board consider the preparation of Returns, extending over the entire year ending 31st March, 1908, asked for by the Royal Commission on Poor Law and Relief of Distress, unnecessary, since very full evidence, statistical and other, has been quite recently given to the Irish Commission; and, furthermore, the board is of opinion that compliance with the circular of the Local Government Board, dated 27th March, 1907, requiring daily preparation of these Returns for the year, would impose on their officials a task that would seriously hinder them in the discharge of their ordinary duties, and calls for its withdrawal; and will he say that, in case compliance with the

  515
  circular is insisted on, due provision will be made for suitable remuneration to the officials concerned for this extra duty.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Royal Commission on Poor Laws and the Unemployed have informed the Local Government Board that they find it absolutely necessary for the purpose of their inquiry that they should be furnished with a reliable record of the actual pauperism of the United Kingdom for one year. Neither the published statistics of the Local Government Board nor the Returns prepared by the Viceregal Commission give this information with sufficient accuracy, for although the total number of admissions during the year and the average daily number are annually published, the same persons are in some cases re-admitted many times during the year, and on each occasion are recorded as new cases. Thus the total number of admissions during the year is largely in excess of the actual number of individual persons who obtained poor law relief. It is this latter information which the Commission requires, and the workhouse officials should have no difficulty in entering each day the particulars of admissions and discharges upon the form required for the Commission's Return. It should occupy the master a very few minutes, and is a mere matter of copying. No objection has been raised to the keeping of this Return except in Mountmellick and one or two other unions. The Return will form the basis upon which the Royal Commission will estimate the extent of the problem the State has to deal with, and the Local Government Boardfeel that they are bound to require it to be prepared for every union in Ireland without exception.

  Holdings Sold under the Irish Land Act.
  MR, GINNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will now state the number of holdings sold under the Land Act of 1903, within the zones and outside the zones respectively, and the number in each of these classes in which the price agreed upon has been refused as excessive, down to 31st March, 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell). The Report of the Estates Commissioners for the period ending 31st March, 1907, which is in course of preparation, will give the number of holdings sold within and outside the zones respectively, and also the number of applications for advances refused on the grounds of insufficient security. Having regard to the provision of Section 1 (1) of the Act, the power of the Commissioners to refuse applications for advances within the zones on the grounds of insufficient security is limited to the cases of holdings which are included in property declared to be an estate for the purposes of the Act of 1903.

  Stock Exchange Gambling.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that out of 5,400 members of the London Stock Exchange 3,000 are jobbers, whose sole business is stock jobbing and the making of fictitious prices of a gambling nature; that the 2,400 brokers are practically compelled to buy from or sell to those jobbers for any business they may have to transact for the public, and that agencies have been recently opened in London by foreign finance houses, with the primary object of gambling in stock and share operations; and whether, seeing that the number of outside brokers and bucket shops have considerably increased, and in view of the development of stock exchange loan business with the great joint stock banks, with the object of fostering international gambling, His Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of taking measures in conjunction with other Governments to protect producers, manufacturers, consumers, bona fide investors, and speculators from the ruin caused by international bull and bear gambling.
  (Answered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.) His Majesty's Government are not prepared to take any action in the direction indicated by the hon. Member.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Army Pensions.
    MR. HAROLD COX: l beg to ask the Secretary of State for War

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    whether he has yet been able to devise any plan for dealing with those Army pensioners who cannot resist the temptation of drink, and who in consequence spend a large part of their time in the workhouse; and whether he will take care that any plan he may institute for dealing with this evil shall not interfere with the convenient arrangement of paying pensions quarterly to pensioners who conduct themselves properly.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): The whole question is still under consideration by the Committee under the chairmanship of the Paymaster-General.

    Army Establishments.
    MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what was the strength of the Regular Infantry (Guards and Line) and of the Royal Artillery serving with the colours in October, 1905; and what is the establishment of the same branches of the service at the present time.
    MR. HALDANE: The figures for all ranks are as follows:—

    .

    Strength on 1st October, 1905.

    Establishment on 1st April, 1907.

    Infantry

    159,008

    147,856

    Artillery

    54,724

    49,613

    The difference in the case of the Artillery is due mainly to Garrison Artillery reductions.

    Garrison Artillery.
    MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether recruiting for the Garrison Artillery has been checked during the last two years; whether there has been any reduction in the establishment and in the strength of the Garrison Artillery, respectively, in 1906 or 1907; and, if so, what has been the amount of such reduction.
    MR. HALDANE: The standard of height of gunners for the Royal Garrison Artillery was raised one inch to 5ft. 8in. at the end of 1905, and lowered again to 5ft. 7in. in February last; this acted as a check on recruiting for this period. The
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    figures for establishment and strength are as follows for all ranks:—

    Establishment.

    Strength on 1st April.

    1905 –6

    22,851

    1906

    22,983

    1906 –7

    21,538

    1907

    20,112

    1907 –8

    19,677

    Rifles for Rifle Clubs.
    MR. CARLILE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he would be willing to issue the old Lee-Metford or Lee-Enfield rifles, recently withdrawn from the regular troops, to affiliated rifle clubs free of charge, to be used with a Morris or other tube on miniature ranges.
    MR. HALDANE: As all the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield rifles recently withdrawn from the troops are required for conversion and for reissue to such troops as are still in possession of the long rifle, there will not be any available for the purposes suggested in the Question.
    MR CARLILEasked if a considerable number of the rifles withdrawn were so worn in the bore that they would be incapable of being used in the service.
    MR. HALDANEsaid that those that were useless would not be converted.
    MR. CARLILE: Cannot those that are useless be issued?
    MR. HALDANE: I will consider that.
    LORD BALCARRES: Is it not the case that only one fifth of the rifles that are suitable are going to be converted this year?
    MR. HALDANE: They are all going to be converted; provision is made for converting a great many this year.
    MR. CARLILE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that however worn the barrels may be, and unsuitable for ordinary purposes, they may be used on miniature ranges if fitted with Morris or other tubes?
    MR. HALDANE: If the hon. Member will put down a Question, I will inquire.

    Convictions of Soldiers on Foreign Service.
    MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the Annual Report on the Army [Cd. 3365], page 81, what were the rank and corps of the seven men serving abroad who were sentenced to penal servitude during the year ending 30th September, 1906; will he give in each case the offence or offences for which each man was tried, the sentences inflicted, and when, where and by whom they were tried, and also the names of the persons who confirmed the sentences; whether the evidence has since been submitted to the Judge Advocate General; and if he sanctioned each sentence.
    MR HALDANE: The information is too long to read out to the House, and I will have it printed in the Votes and Proceedings.†
    MR. LEA: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the statistics affecting India as well?
    MR. HALDANE: I will consider that.

    Army Courts Martial.
    MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the Annual Report on the Army [Cd. 3365], page 84, what were the three infantry battalions and the three cavalry regiments with the greatest number of courts martial during the year ending 30th September, 1906, specifying the number in each case, and also the respective percentages of men tried to average strength.
    MR. HALDANE: My military advisers are strongly of opinion that to publish the crimes of certain battalions and regiments would not be conductive to esprit de corps and would be in every way inadvisable. In this view I concur. The state of discipline in all regiments and battalions is very carefully watched.
    MR. LEA: If that is the view the right hon. Gentleman takes, how is it possible for any Member of this House to ask Questions as to any battalion or regiment in which crime is predominant to an abnormal extent?
    †See Cols. 496–6.
    MR. HALDANE: If crime is really predominant to an abnormal extent, any Question addressed to me will have the closest attention; but it is not, I think, desirable to ask roving questions.

    Soldiers and Education.
    MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the Annual Report on the Army [Cd. 3365], page 105, whether he can see his way to offer pecuniary rewards to non-commissioned officers and men on their obtaining first and second class certificates of education; and whether, in view of the improvement effected in shooting by giving money rewards, he will consider whether the same effect would be achieved in the direction of better education, thus enhancing the soldiers' chances of obtaining civil employment on leaving the Army.
    MR. HALDANE: The advantages in the matter of promotion which accrue to soldiers from the possession of first and second class certificates of education are considered to be sufficient attraction to induce men to obtain them. This view is clearly borne out by the large increase in the percentage of men in possession of certificates, as shown on page 106 of the Report. With regard to the second part of the Question, committees have been formed in the various commands with a view to arranging for the instruction of soldiers in various trades; while in Army schools, men in possession of first-class certificates are given the opportunity of studying certain subjects which are likely to be useful to them in civil life. It is hoped that the prospective advantages which these increased facilities for education offer to the soldier will foster a spirit of self-endeavour, and it is considered undesirable to introduce the artificial stimulant of a pecuniary reward.

    South African Constabulary.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Lord Roberts, on the conclusion of the South African War, proposed that a local force of 12,000 constabulary should be raised for the maintenance of order in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, to be paid for by the Colonies concerned; whether that force has since been cut down to 4,500 men or less; and, if so,

    521
    whether the reduction of this proposed constabulary force has had any effect in determining the magnitude of the military garrison maintained at the expense of the British taxpayer.
    MR. HALDANE: The South African Constabulary is a force maintained entirely for police purposes. At the time of its formation in October, 1900, it was recruited, I understand, on the advice of Lord Roberts, up to a strength of 10,000. Since then the authorities in the Colonies concerned have reduced the numbers until they now stand at about 3,100.

    British Garrison in South Africa.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what is the total force of British troops now stationed in South Africa; whether the retention of those troops abroad involves the maintenance, under the linked-battalion system, of an equal, or approximately equal, number of troops at Home; what is approximately the nominal strength of this Home force; and what is the total cost to the British taxpayer of the troops in South Africa, and of the linked force maintained at Home.
    MR. HALDANE: The total force of British troops now stationed in South Africa is about 16,350 of all ranks, and its cost to the British taxpayer about £2,310,000. The troops of all arms at home fulfil the double purpose of maintaining the forces abroad and furnishing an expeditionary force; and under any system some Home force must be maintained for these purposes. The linked-battalion system, which applies only to Infantry, aims at organising the Infantry at Home in as many battalions as are maintained permanently abroad; but there is at present an excess of six battalions abroad. For these reasons I am unable to earmark any definite number of troops at home as maintained in consequence of the retention in South Africa of the present garrison.

    Sir Percy Fitzpatrick and the British Garrison.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the statement made by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick,
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    during the recent Transvaal elections, to the effect that he was in favour of keeping British troops in the Transvaal after the grant of self-government, because they were good for trade and were not paid for by the Transvaal; whether the British troops now in the Transvaal are retained there for any other purpose than the benefit of local trade, if so, what is that purpose; and whether there is any prospect of the establishment of a Colonial force to serve that purpose.
    MR. HALDANE: My attention has not been drawn to the statement alluded to in the first part of the Question. The British troops in the Transvaal are not retained there for the benefit of local trade but for purposes of Imperial defence. As regards the last part of the Question, I have no information to give my hon. friend.

    Fife Garrison Artillery—Gunner Crossan.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the accident which occurred to Gunner Crossan, of the Fife Royal Garrison Volunteer Artillery, on 13th April, who received the effects of a blank cartridge, fired from a rifle, in the face; and whether he will grant him adequate compensation for the accident.
    MR. HALDANE: My attention has been drawn to this unfortunate incident which appears to have been quite accidental. The question of compensation will be as favourably considered as is possible.

    Volunteers and the New Army Schene.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he intends to do away with any Volunteer battalions under the new scheme, or change the nature of any of the units of the Auxiliary Forces; and, if so, whether this duty will be relegated to the county association.
    MR. HALDANE: Under the scheme it is proposed that the Army Council shall notify its requirements for each locality to the county associations. Theassociations will then in, conjunction with the Army Council, work out the most suitable arrangements to meet those

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    requirements which will involve in many cases the changing of the nature of existing units in the Auxiliary Forces.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked whether he was clearly to understand that this unpopular duty would be relegated to the county associations.
    MR. HALDANEsaid not necessarily to them alone. Primarily it would rest with them, but half of these associations consisting of commanding officers would consider the arrangements in conjunction with the Army Council and the chief of the staff and also, no doubt, with local commanding officers.

    Garrison Artillery Militia.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if gun practice will be dispensed with in the case of all the Garrison Artillery Militia during their forthcoming training, and that in consequence no gun ammunition will be issued to any of them.
    MR. HALDANE: The reply is in the affirmative.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: Why are the Militia to be called up for training at all, if they are to have no practical experience in shooting?
    MR. HALDANE: This is simply a stage of the conversion scheme for which we are asking the sanction of the House. We are drilling them, but it would be useless to set them to guns which are obsolete.
    MR. ARTHUR LEE: Then they are Field Artillery in an embryonic form?
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Are they to be made into Field Artillery?
    MR. HALDANE: Yes. They are to be converted into Field Artillery because their functions are to be fulfilled by the Volunteers.

    New County Association Schemes.
    SIR SAMUEL SCOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the difficulty the House will be placed in when discussing certain portions of the Army
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    Bill in Committee, he will be prepared to issue some model scheme for the future constitution and duties of the proposed new county associations, especially with respect to their relations with the Army Council and the powers of control that body will have over the associations, irrespective of the financial control, if they do not carry out their duties in an efficient manner.
    MR. HALDANE: The broad features of the future constitution and duties of the county associations are described in the Territorial Forces Bill. Details will necessarily vary according to the local conditions; upon the relations of the associations with the Army Council I propose to make a statement in Committee.

    Honorary Bank on Retirement.
    SIR ROBERT HOBART: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will give consideration to the claims of those colonels whose prospects of promotion and pensions were injured by the Royal Warrant of 1st January, 1901; whether he will give due weight to the promise made by the late Mr. Stanhope, when Secretary for War, duly recorded at the War Office, on which these officers have relied, i.e., that the system of promotion by selection to fill an appointment would not be brought into force until the number of general officers on the active list was reduced to 100, which limit has never been reached; whether, as all these colonels are purchase officers, he will also remember the promise of the late Mr. Gladstone that he would rule any doubt in their favour; and whether, as the number of these colonels is now small, all of whom held important appointments at Home during the South African War, he will at least grant their promotion to the higher honorary rank of major-general, even if financial exigencies preclude the possibility of the higher pension as major-general.
    MR. HALDANE: The decision to abolish the honorary rank of major-general on retirement was the result of a very careful and prolonged consideration of the various issues involved. This decision was subsequently reconsidered and ultimately maintained by my predecessors, and I am not prepared to

    525
    depart from the conclusions at which they arrived.
    SIR KOBKRT HOBART: I will take an early opportunity of drawing attention to this matter.

    Hamilton Barracks.
    MR.WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that valuable seams of coal exist under the barracks at Hamilton; that the War Office authorities have always hitherto followed the policy of neither working the coal themselves nor letting anyone else work it; and, seeing that coalmasters are at the present moment willing to purchase and work this coal at prices which would in a few years provide several sets of cavalry barracks for Scotland, whether ho proposes to consider proposals for working this coal.
    MR. HALDANE: I am aware of the existence of seams of coal under Hamilton Barracks. Leases extending from 1880 to 1901 have been given to extract one-third of the coal; the extraction of further amounts would lead to the collapse of the barracks. The War Department received about £5,000 during these leases, and would receive about £11,000 if the remaining two-thirds were to be extracted—but on the other hand would lose the existing barracks.

    The Woolwich Arsenal Discharges.
    MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether arrangements have been made to work the Woolwich Arsenal on five days per week only; if so, will this entail the re-engagement of some men already discharged or under notice; and what will be the monetary loss per head per week to those at present employed.
    MR. CROOKS: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information to give us also about the alleged dismissal of 3,000 men after the promise given last week?
    MR. HALDANE: I had this morning, when I read the statement in the newspapers, no information whatever, and I have endeavoured to find the source from which the report, which professed to be authorised, proceeded. I have been unable to do so. It was certainly not
    526
    sanctioned by the War Office, and I have sent out an official contradiction this afternoon. There is no truth in it of any sort or kind. As we have already indicated, about sixty men per week at present will be the rate of dismissal. In answer to the hon. Member for Darlington, I have to say that arrangements have been made to close most of the shops in the Arsenal on Saturdays, commencing from the 4th prox. This will not entail the re-engagement of any men already discharged. The monetary loss to men on day-work will be about one-tenth of their rating. The reason of the arrangement is that the men were very properly desirous to agree to a certain shortage of work rather than let their comrades be discharged.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us for how many weeks these dismissals of sixty men per week will go on?
    MR. HALDANE: They will certainly go on into the summer. It is impossible for me to say how many weeks.
    MR. CROOKS: Has the minimum yet been fixed?
    MR. HALDANE: No.
    MR. J. WARD: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of doing what most big industries do in similar circumstances— placing the men on short time?
    MR. HALDANE: The men have been willing to go on short time in order to avert the discharges, and I think the arrangement is in practical working order.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: May we understand that the 3,000 may still be correct?
    MR. HALDANE: No, there is no intention of the immediate dismissal of 3,000 or 4,000 men, nor has any number been fixed upon as the ultimate limit of the establishment. We are not working out anything at haphazard. Our purpose is to get an establishment in time of peace which will expand in war to what we may require. That entails, obviously, keeping a certain amount of surplus

    527
    machinery idle in time of peace, and keeping a strong staff, so that the establishment may be a nucleus of the minimum establishment required. What is the minimum staff required to keep that establishment effective we do not know, but when we have ascertained it we shall not allow it to sink below that. The reason of these reductions is that the enormous establishment of 1902 was duo to the necessity of making up for the wastage of munitions of war. The late Government reduced the establishment by about 5,000 or 6,000 men. I have reduced it by about 1,300, and I shall have to reduce it still more to get back to the proper minimum. How far I shall have to go is being carefully worked out by the best expert assistance at command. I have watched it myself, but I am not yet in a position to say what the extent of the reductions will be, and I do not wish to excite any hopes that I may not be able to fulfil afterwards.
    MR. HUNT: Are there at the present time quite 2,000 fewer men employed than there were in 1898?
    MR. HALDANE: I cannot give figures from memory, but the hon. Member will remember that 1898 was a time when we had been making preparations for the Nile and other small expeditions, and there was an immense deal of military work on hand, although the great war had not commenced.

    The Nairobi Incident.
    MR. CARLILE: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that no proceedings were taken against Captain Grogan and those associated with him in the Nairobi incidents for a week, and that they were not arrested until nine days after the chastising of the natives, to which exception was taken; and will he say whether the issue of summonses, and the subsequent arrests, were the result of instructions from the Colonial Office.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): With regard to the first part of the hon. Member's Question, the natives were flogged on Thursdays, 14th March, and
    528
    on Tuesday, the 19th, summonses were issued against Captain Grogan and his associates to appear on Monday, the 25th, With regard to the second part of the hon.Member's Question, no instructions were sent from the Colonial Office, but in one of his telegrams the Secretary of State said that he presumed that legal proceedings had been taken against the ringleaders, and the Acting Commissioner replied that summonses had been issued.
    MR. CARLILE: May we take it that the arrests were the result of recommendations made by the right hon. Gentleman?
    MR. CHURCHILL: As far as I am aware, it is exactly the contrary.

    St. Lucia Riots.
    MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give information as to the nature and extent of the riots in Castries, St. Lucia; whether one of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's vessels has been sent from Barbados with a detachment of Volunteers; whether any of His Majesty's warships have been ordered to proceed to Castries; and what steps are being taken to restore order.
    MR. LONSDALE: At the same time may I ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he is able to give the House any information respecting the recent riots at St. Lucia and the present state of affairs in the island.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I will supplement the information as to the disturbances in St. Lucia which has already appeared in the Press by reading two telegrams from the Governor of the Windward Islands which were received the first on Saturday afternoon and the second yesterday afternoon:—
    "One hundred armed police under command of Inspector-General of Police arrived from Barbados, twenty-eight from St. Vincent. I rode to Dennery factory this morning, buildings undamaged, large amount of stock killed, some canes burnt down. Hearing that large body of looters were at village three miles distant, I galloped immediately with private secretary, and arrived in time for prevention of further disturbances. Armed

    529
    police arrived and arrested several prisoners. Leaving detachment, main body inarched to factory with me, no firing, no lives lost."
    "27th April. Situation improved, but Dennery factory and district greatly disturbed. I returned to-day, leaving Inspector-General of Police and ninety Barbados armed police in district. Have despatched St. Vincent armed police under special service officer to protect Roseau factory. Must keep Barbados armed police until arrival of 'Indefatigable.' No further assistance required."
    The Governor has been asked to report fully as to the causes and particulars of the riots as soon as the crisis is over.
    VISCOUNT TURNOUR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when this warship is likely to arrive?
    MR. CHURCHILL: I should say it will arrive to-morrow or the day after—I should think not later than the day after to-morrow.

    Foreign Office Messengerships.
    SIR SAMUEL SCOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many appointments have been made at the Foreign Office since January, 1906, to permanent messengerships; and what was the occupation of the individual men prior to appointment.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dewsbury, for Sir EDWARD GREY): No appointments have been made since 1905.

    "The Mikado."
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any complaints have been received from Japan protesting against the playing of the Mikado in London; have any steps been taken; and will the provinces be affected.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: No representations have been made, but I am informed that the Lord Chamberlain has withdrawn the licence which was issued many years ago. The withdrawal affects all theatres, including the provinces.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Does the prohibition extend to Ireland?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: My information is that the licence has been withdrawn.

    Turkish Customs.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the protocol agreeing to the increase of the Turkish customs has been signed; and whether the assurances received by the British Ambassador constitute an effective guarantee of the performance of the reforms in the customs administration.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The protocol has been signed. His Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople has assured himself that the obstructions, which it was feared would be raised to the execution of the customs regulations, have been removed. Papers will now be laid as soon as possible, which will explain the conditions fully.

    Aliens.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a presentment of the Grand Jury of the Central Criminal Court, on Tuesday, 23rd April, to the effect that they, the Grand Jury, being impressed with the number of cases in which aliens appeared, were unanimously of opinion that the exclusion of undesirable aliens and the deportation of others from our shores should be more rigidly enforced; whether he is prepared to give favourable consideration to these recommendations; and what action ho proposes to take in the matter.
    SIR W. EVANS GORDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the presentment handed by the Grand Jury to the Recorder at the Central Criminal Court on the 23rd instant, animadverting upon the number of cases in which aliens appear, and expressing the unanimous opinion that the exclusion of undesirable aliens and the deportation of others from our shores should be more rigidly enforced; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): I have seen a newspaper report to the effect indicated, but have received no communication from the Court. If the presentment is submitted to me I propose to ask that I may be favoured with a statement of the facts and figures on which it was based. In the meantime 1 may point out, as regards the expulsion of aliens, that the matter rests largely in the hands of the Court. A certificate from a Court is a condition precedent to expulsion under the Act. During the sixteen months that the Act has been in force, only twenty-three certificates have proceeded from the Central Criminal Court, twenty-one in 1906, two since the beginning of the present year. In eight cases expulsion orders have been made; in the remaining fifteen cases the sentences of imprisonment have not yet expired. As regards the exclusion of undesirable aliens I am carrying out the provisions of the Act.
    MR. BYLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the proportion to population of alien criminals is as great as or greater than that in the case of British criminals?
    MR, GLADSTONE: I have made no calculations as to that.

    Purley Railway Outrage.
    MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to a murder committed on the 24th instant in a railway carriage on the South; Eastern and Chatham Railway between Tattenham Corner and Purley stations; and what steps he proposes taking in order to protect the public from scoundrels who are attracted to race meetings in close proximity to the metropolis.
    MR. GLADSTONE: As this Question arises out of and depends upon a criminal charge now pending before the: Courts, it is clearly impossible for me to discuss the matter.

    Employment of Young Persons.
    MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department
    532
    what steps he has taken to bring under the notice of the employers affected the provisions of No. 680 of the Statutory Rules and Orders of 1906, prohibiting the employment of young persons under the age of 16 in certain industries without a certificate of fitness, more particularly in the boot and shoe industry, so far as it is dealt with in the Order.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The Order was sent to 346 representative associations of employers and of workers in the trades specified in the Order, including the federations and local associations of boot and shoe manufacturers, and the unions of boot and shoe operatives. About 800 copies were sent to the Press and to Public Departments. A large number of copies have been distributed to occupiers of workshops affected by the Factory Inspectors, who have also drawn attention to the requirement at their visits. Notice of the requirement will also appear in the new edition of the Abstract now in preparation—and special attention is to be drawn to it in a circular which will shortly be sent out to every factory and workshop occupier with a copy of the new Abstract and other papers.

    Assistant Factory Inspectors.
    MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the instructions under which district inspectors of factories assign duties to assistant inspectors, and those which define the scope and limits of the duties of assistant inspectors, both before and after the alterations which he has recently made in those duties.
    MR. GLADSTONE: 1 am afraid I can add nothing at the present time to the reply on this subject which I gave to my hon. friend on the 18th February last. † As I then said, the new arrangements are, of course, provisional, and experience of their working will no doubt suggest developments.

    Jones' Homes, Sandgate.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the occupants of the Jones' Homes
    †See (4) Debates, clxix., 551.

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    at Sandgate, numbering about 200 souls, are deprived of all religious ministration; and whether he would take steps to remedy this state of things, in view of the fact that they are mostly Poor Law invalids and consequently entitled to it.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (MR.JOHN BURNS,): I have made inquiry on this subject, and am informed that it is not the case that the patients in these homos are deprived of religious ministration. I understand that a clergyman of the Church of England has visited them regularly, both on Sundays and weekdays, for some months past, and that he has also given services in the homes regularly on Sunday evenings. It is further stated that a Roman Catholic priest has visited the homes from time to time for some yours past, that there are a number of persons who are continually visiting the homes and giving religious teaching to the inmates, and that if a patient who is ill expresses a wish to see a minister of any denomination, one is immediately called in. It is added that the majority of the inmates are sufficiently well to attend service at the places of worship in the town, and that, if they desire it, they can do so.

    Equalisation of London Rates.
    DR. COOPER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has decided what he intends to do re the question of the equalisation of London rates; and, if so, whether he will state by what means he intends to deal with the question this year.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I am not at present in a position to make any statement on this subject; but I shall not lose sight of it.

    Parish Overseers and the Workmen' S Compensation Act.
    MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether a payment for insuring a parish council clerk or an assistant overseer against accident under the Workmen's Compensation Act would be passed by the Local Government Board auditor or allowed by the Local Government Board; and whether a rate, exceeding the statutory limit of 6d. in
    534
    the pound, could be levied to discharge a liability under the Workmen's Compensation Act to such person or persons or their dependents, or out of what fund, if any, would compensation be payable.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: If any charge appeared in the accounts of a parish council in respect of the insurance against accident of an assistant overseer who was also their clerk, the auditor would have to consider whether the charge was legal. I cannot say what view he might take in any particular case, and I should have no jurisdiction in the matter except on an appeal against his decision. I may, however, state that, as at present advised, it does not appear to me, speaking generally, that the parish council would be liable to pay compensation under the Act in such a case as that referred to. There is no provision in the Act to authorise the levy of a rate by the parish council in excess of the statutory limit.

    Employment of Aliens in East London.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the fact that in the East End of London, particularly among cabinet makers, employment is only given to aliens, and that at certain of these establishments notices have been at times exhibited calling for labour, but adding that no English need apply; and whether he can take any steps to prevent this interference with the rights of English labour to work in England.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY, Devonport): We are of course aware that many aliens are employed in certain industries in the East End of London, including branches of the cabinet making trade, but we have no information as to the alleged notices alluded to by the hon. Member beyond a vague allusion in a newspaper. If the hon. Member has any specific cases within his knowledge I shall be glad if he will furnish us with them.
    MR. BYLES: Has the attention of the hon. Gentleman never been called to notices much more frequent in this country, "No Irish need apply?"
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Argentina Tax On Commercial Travelers.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the taxes imposed on commercial travellers in Argentina, which prejudicially affect British trade; and whether he will open up negotiations with the Argentine Government with a view to the removal of these imposts.
    MR. KEARLEY: The attention of the Board of Trade has on various occasions been directed to the taxes in question. They are, however, imposed on all commercial travellers, without distinction of nationality, and are not therefore specially directed against British trade. My right hon. friend will, I understand, consult the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as to the expediency of negotiating with the Argentine Government on this subject.

    Cliff Ladders for Shipwrecks.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the fact that at a recent shipwreck the height of the cliff, some 300 feet, prevented the traveller and basket working with freedom, cliff ladders will be supplied to such coastguard stations where they would be likely to be of use in saving life.
    MR. KEARLEY: Cliff ladders are supplied to life saving stations on the coast upon the recommendation of our inspectors and coastguard officers. Such ladders have now been requisitioned and supplied to Hope Cove, where the wreck of the "Jebba" recently occurred.

    Secondary Education.
    MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the information in the possession of the Education Department regarding the endowments available in England and Wales for secondary education is sufficiently complete for any county or counties to be of use if published; and whether he will grant a Return giving such information.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA,): I regret very much that the information in the possession of
    536
    the Board is not at present collected into a form in which it could be usefully published, even for a single county. A Return of Endowments involves the examination and classification of a very large mass of material by persons possessing special technical knowledge, and, if it is to be efficiently and economically carried out, cannot be undertaken without due preparation. I have no doubt that a summary Return (on the lines of some Reports recently made relating to endowments applicable to purposes of elementary education in the counties of Stafford and Northants) would be of great value, and it is my intention to undertake the work as soon as possible. It will, however, be difficult to make much progress until the staff of the Board are transferred to the new offices.

    Income-Tax Refunds.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Revenue authorities have declined this year to return to Messrs. Swinburn, Green, and Herron, of Stanley, county of Durham, the income-tax on the bank interest earned in connection with thirty miners' cottages built by them; whether he is aware that the interest was returned in previous years, and that the only reason given for departing from the practice is that the investment was speculative; whether he is aware that the houses were built to be retained and not to be sold, and, if so, on what grounds the investment is held to be speculative; and whether, having regard to the fact that the assessed income of the property is £304, and that the Revenue has received income-tax on £415, he will give directions for the overcharge to be refunded.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The claim in question was refused on the ground that the interest was paid in respect of a single speculative transaction, in which case the Board of Inland Revenue do not recognise any title to repayment of income-tax on the part of the person paying the interest. If, however, asis now understood to be the case, the building operations have ceased and each of the gentlemen named is in receipt of a fixed, share of the rents from the property, which is duly assessed to income-tax under Schedule A and out of which the

    537
    interest is paid to the bank, the Board of Inland Revenue inform me that they will be prepared to consider a claim for repayment of the tax on such interest, provided they are satisfied that the claimants have borne tax upon the whole of their incomes. I understand that the Board is in communication with the claimants on this subject.

    National Physical Laboratory.
    MR. NIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state approximately the amount of fees received during the past three years by the National Physical Laboratory in respect of work of the class which, prior to the establishment of the Laboratory, was carried out at Kew; and whether this branch of the work done at the Laboratory was self-supporting in the sense that the Kew establishment was, with the aid of the Gassiott fund.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I am informed that the fees received during the past three years for work of the class which previously to the establishment of the Laboratory was carried on at Kew, excluding, that is, merely chemical tests and the ordinary engineering tests on materials of construction, have amounted to £3,680 13s. 8d., £4,225 12s. 9d. and £4,645 3s. 9d. respectively. The Answer to the second part of the Question is in the negative. The character of the work conducted at the two establishments is so different that I do not think a fair comparison can be made.

    Board of Agriculture Staff Salaries.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury on what grounds it is considered that the salaries paid to the staff of the Board of Agriculture are adequate for the requirements of that Department; what was the last occasion on which the scale of salaries in force was revised; and whether he is aware that the many fresh duties imposed on that Department by legislation have been of an onerous character.
    MR. RUNCIMAN:I fear I cannot explain in answer to a Question the various considerations which guide the Treasury in deciding on applications for increased scales of salary in the public
    538
    service. The last revision of salaries in the Board of Agriculture took effect from the 1st April, 1906. I am unable to say whether the fresh duties imposed on the Department by legislation can properly be described as "onerous."

    The Under-secretary of State for War and his Tenants.
    MR. LEA: I bog to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether his attention has been drawn to a letter from a large landowner in Hampshire to one of his tenants stating that, if this or any other tenant insisted upon their power under the Ground Game Act of constantly disturbing the land in pursuit of ground game, he would change his tenant; whether he is aware that the tenant in question had held a farm on this estate for over thirty years, and, in consequence of having exercised his legal rights under the Ground Game Act to protect his crops, was driven from his farm and thereby incurred a serious pecuniary loss; and whether the Board of Agriculture will consider what steps can be taken to protect the interests of the tenants referred to.
    MR. J. WARDasked the hon. Baronet in his reply to state whether the large landowner referred to was the Earl of Portsmouth, the Under-Secretary of State for War.
    THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHKY,: We have no knowledge of the facts of the matter to which my hon. friend refers, and this being the case I cannot say whether it be possible for the Board to intervene in any way with respect to it. Perhaps my hon. friend will furnish me with any information on the subject which he may possess.
    MR. LEA: Has the hon. Baronet not received a private letter from me on the subject, acquainting him with the facts of the case and the name of the noble landowner in question?
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: It is true the hon. Gentleman was good enough to write to me referring to the newspaper called Truth, but up to now I have not had an opportunity of seeing it.
    MR. LONSDALE: Will the hon. Baronet now make inquiries as to who the particular nobleman is?
    MR. LEA: May I ask the Prime Minister, in view of his recent vigorous speech on land reform, which contained a scathing allusion to the growing excess of game preservation and the supposed rights of landowners over pheasants and hares, whether he does not consider it incompatible with his expressed views that a noble landowner like the present Under-Secretary of State for War should continue to hold office in this democratic Government?
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H.CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs): Only five minutes ago I was not aware of any of the alleged circumstances in this case, but the opinions I have expressed are my opinions, and 1 hold to them. We must know a little more about the matter before we proceed to take action.
    MR. LEA: And if the facts are as stated, will the right hon. Gentleman—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. That is a purely hypothetical question which Cannot be put.

    Paisley Licensing Case.
    MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if his attention has been drawn to the remarks made by Sheriff Darling Lyell in regard to the case at Paisley, where two of the local magistrates, one a joiner named M'Naughton and the other a plumber named Kilpatrick, reported on structural alterations necessary at a licensed house, and where the joiner who undertook the reconstruction of the premises was the very Mr. M'Naughton who, in his capacity as magistrate, had ordered the work to be done to his own satisfaction and that of his brother magistrates; and where not only was this so, but the plumber who contracted to do the plumbling work to the orders of Mr. M'Naughton was the brother magistrate who also inspected, reported, and concurred in requiring this work to be done; and, having in view the foregoing facts, will he indicate what action he proposes to take in order to prevent the recurrence of such an incident.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): The facts stated in the question appear to be substantially correct I am advised that no proceedings can be taken in the case. While it may be accepted that no corrupt motive can be ascribed to the persons named,. I am of opinion that their conduct was irregular and should be discountenanced.

    Forth Fisheries.
    MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that the dredgings from the Upper Forth are emptied between Aberdour and Granton, causing destruction to the fish in that neighbourhood and loss to the fishermen; if he is aware that the Clyde dredgings have to be carried three miles beyond Cumbrae Head, a distance in all of fully twenty miles;and if he will see that this difference of treatment between east and west is remedied, and the Forth dredgings carried to the open sea.
    MR. SINCLAIR: No information has reached me on the subject referred to by my hon. friend, and I am informed that no complaints have been received by the Fishery Board as to destruction of fish or loss by fishermen. If specific information is furnished it shall be investigated.

    Illegitimacy in North West Lanark.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will state what is the number of illegitimate births in the North-West Division of Lanarkshire for the last statistical year available; and will he say what percentage the figures bear to the rest of this county.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The North-West Division of Lanarkshire not being constituted by complete registration districts it is impossible to give precise information. Taking, however, the portion of the division for which statistics are available, the number of illegitimate births in 1906 was 130 or 3 ·8 per cent. of the total births thus registered, while the rate for the rest of the county was 6·l per cent.

    Sir Horace Plunkett.
    MR. LAMONT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether

    541
    the position of the Agricultural Commissioners under the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill will be of a political: character; and, if not, whether, in view of the fact that thy systematic develop-merit of agricultural education, co-operation, and organisation is vital to the success of small holdings, and in view of the services rendered in this field by Sir Horace Plunkett in Ireland, he will consider the desirability of inviting Sir Horace to accept the position of Agricultural Commissioner in Scotland.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The answer to the first portion of my hon. friend's Question is in the negative; and if it is his intention to assure me that Sir Horace Plunkett is likely to desire to become a candidate for one of these appointments I have to say that I shall be glad to consider the suggestion at a later date. In the meantime, and until the Bill has passed through Parliament, the Question seems premature.

    Scottish Office Messengerships.
    SIR SAMUEL SCOTT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland how many appointments have been made at the Scottish Office since January, 1906, to permanent messengerships; and what was the occupation of the individual men prior to appointment.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The answer is none.

    Extractor's Department—Clerk's Super annuation.
    MR. WATT: 1 beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he is aware that an official of the Extractors' Department, who had to discontinue his duties owing to ill-health after forty years' service, has not yet received any superannuation allowance or gratuity, although it is now nearly two years since he left; and if he will take steps to remedy this state of matters.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. THOMAS SHAW,): The Answer given by me to my hon. friend on the 16th instant covers this Question.†This matter, as I explained, depends upon rules of the Treasury, and any further question upon the subject should be addressed to that Department.
    †See (4) Debates, clxxii., 953.

    Dublin Treasury Remembrancer's Clerk.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, can he Say why Mr. J. T. Drennan, on being appointed as a temporary clerk in the office of the Treasury Remembrancer, Dublin, was given a salary of £3 per week, which is double the salary usually given to temporary clerks employed in Irish Government offices; under what circumstances was he subsequently appointed to two positions (the chief clerkships, respectively, of theRegistry of Titles and Estates Commissioners' offices), which posts had no previous existence and which appear to have been created specially for his advantage; whether he is aware that a number of the temporary clerks, appointed prior to Mr. Drennan's first appointment, are still serving in Dublin offices at £80 a year, while Mr. Drennan draws about seven times that amount; whether Sir Robert Holmes has shown any practical solicitude for the amelioration of the conditions under which these other temporary clerks serve; and will he investigate a state of affairs which makes it possible to reject proposals for small increases to other clerks in Dublin Government offices whilst the personal subordinates of the Treasury Remembrancer receive promotions of the character indicated.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I will answer the first part of the Question. Mr. Drennan was appointed in 1892 at a salary of 30s. a week, which was raised in December, 1894, to £2 a week, and from 1st January, 1899, to £3 a week. His appointment to the post of staff officer in the Registry of Titles was offered him by the Registrar, approved by the Lord Chancellor and the assigned judge of the High Court and sanctioned by the Treasury. The appointment was made whollyupon grounds of merit, which have been amply confirmed. As regards the remaining portion of this Question I, must refer the hon. Member to my reply of the 23rd instant.‡

    Irish Land Stock Interest.
    MR.JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if under the Treasury rules issued in pursuance of Section 36, Subsection 5, of the Irish Land Act, 1903, a
    ‡See (4) Debates, clxxii., 1570 –8.

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    person to whom land stock is issued in the month of March or April in any year is paid six months' interest on such stock on the 21st of June next following, although this stock has only been in existence for a portion of six months; if he is aware that Section 28, Sub-Section I enacts that dividends on Irish land stock, are to be paid at the rate of 2 ¾ per cent. per annum, and that payments such as described above are largely in excess of the rate of 2 ¾ per cent. per annum; can he state by what authority the Treasury are entitled to pay a greater rate than that authorised by the Irish Land Act, 1903, to the detriment of Irish funds, which were declared and intended to be for other purposes; and whether he intends to bring the Treasury Rules into conformity with the Act of Parliament, and take steps without legislation to see that no unearned dividend is paid on future issue of land stock, by notice at the time of issue that dividends will only be paid half-yearly at the rate of 2¾ per cent. per annum, as provided by Section 28, Sub-section 1.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: The Treasury Rule under Section 36 (5) prescribes the dates on which certain payments shall be made by the Irish Land Commission to the National Debt Commissioners. It does not affect the amount payable as dividend to a holder of guaranteed 2¾ per. Cent. stock. The dividends on that stock are not payable on 21st June, but on 1st January and 1st July in each year. I am aware that Section 28 (1) of the Act provides that the stock shall yield dividends at the rate of 2¾ per cent. per annum on the nominal amount of the capital. Where a fresh issue of stock is made in the month of March or April, the usual practice would be to issue the stock with a title to a half-year's dividend on the following 1st July. The stock is in effect created as from the preceding 2nd January, and bears interest at 2¾ per cent. from that date. There is nothing in the Act to prescribe that the stock shall bear interest only from the date on which the subscribers' instalments are paid up. There is, however, a provision in Subsection (2) of Section 28 requiring that equal half-yearly dividends shall be paid on the due dates, which might be difficult to reconcile with the procedure proposed by the hon. and learned Member. Be
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    that as it may, however, the practice of issuing stock to carry a full dividend on the first dividend day is the regular practice in the issue of British Government stocks; it is not a special procedure devised for the guaranteed 2¾ per cent. stock; and it is adopted on the highest expert advice as being the course best calculated to secure the most favourable issue of the stock.
    MR. MOONEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman issue a statement showing how the loss of £102,000 is made up?
    MR RUNCIMAN: Yes; if the hon. Member will put down an unstarred Question I will circulate the Answer.

    The Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Ulster Members.
    VISCOUNT TURNOURasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland a question of which he had given him private notice, viz., to which hon. Members the right hon. Gentleman referred in his speech at Halifax on Friday, when he said there were men in the House of Commons who made it their business at question time, day after day, to ask questions, not for the purpose of gaining information,, but to malign and misrepresent their native country.
    MR. SPEAKER: The Question does: not come within the rule of urgency.
    SEVERAL NATIONALIST MEMBERS: Carrion crows Carrion crows
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: I desire respectfully to ask you, Sir, upon what seems tome a breach of privilege, whether the Chief Secretary was entitled to say of brother Members that they ask question after question, not for the purpose of gaining information, but solely to malign and misrepresent their native country. That is a deliberate indictment of the honour and bona-fides of Members of this House.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: It was absolutely true, nevertheless.
    MR. SPEAKER: If that statement had been made within the walls of this House it clearly would not have been permissible. It would have attributed motives, and that is not permissible.
    MR. BIRRELL: After what has just fallen from you, Sir, may I say that the words which I find at the foot of the Question of which the noble Lord gave me private notice are a condensation of what I actually said, which was that, as questions were constantly put to me which evidently added nothing to the information of the persons asking them, or to that of the police who are responsible for the peace in Ireland, or to my information, it would seem that the only object in putting them was to create a false impression in England of the real state of things in Ireland.
    VISCOUNT TURNOUR: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for having taken the words of The Times report as what he said. Had I known The Times report was false I should not have put down the Question.
    MR. BIRKELL: The noble Lord may not have had as much experience as I of the condensation of reports.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that he used the words? [NATIONALIST cries of "Caw, caw."]
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to ask a question of that kind without notice.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: May I put a Question down on the Paper?
    MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member will hand in the Question I will consider it from the point of view of order.

    Court of Criminal Appeal.
    MR. BILLSON: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if, in view of the interest taken in the Court of Criminal Appeal Bill, he will arrange for the Second Reading on an early day.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I hope to put this Bill down for an early day, but I am afraid I cannot state a definite time at present.

    Care of the Feeble-minded
    LORD R. CECIL: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he can state when the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble minded is likely to report.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have made inquiries and I am informed by the Chairman of the Royal Commission that the evidence has just been closed and that the Report will be presented at the earliest possible moment, but how soon this will be it is impossible to say.

    Sir Horace Plunkett
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether Sir Horace plunkett has resigned the office of Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The hon. Member will have seen the published correspondence between Sir Horace Plunkott and my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary, and that will give him the information which he desires.

    The Imperial Conference.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he will state the reasons which have led the Government to oppose the full and immediate publication of the proceedings of the Imperial Conference on the subject of preferential commercial relationships between the States of the Empire.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No distinction is drawn between different subjects in the manner of their treatment with regard to publication. The question of publication is, as I have frequently stated, for the decision of the Conference itself.
    VISCOUNT TURNOURasked why the report of that part of the Conference which dealt with Imperial defence and of the speech of the Secretary for War was published in much fuller detail than reports dealing with other subjects.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I understand the Conference so decided. At any rate, there has been no interference on the part of the Government.

    Public Rights of Way
    MR. HAROLD COX:I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether in any scheme of land legislation he may submit to the House he will include measures

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    for restoring to public use and enjoyment roadside strips, public footpaths, and commons that have been illegally appropriated by private persons and are now held without legal title.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The matter that my hon. friend refers to will not be lost sight of, though I hardly think it would be desirable to overload the Bills which we have contemplated by provisions such as he suggests. I may perhaps remind him that the Local Government Act of 1894 empowers local authorities to take certain steps in maintaining rights of common.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman state upon what grounds he contemplates fresh legislation in regard to land in England when the President of the Board of Agriculture stated last session in the House of Lords that the Agricultural Holdings Act, then before Parliament, represented the whole policy of the Government as regards land.
    SIR. H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not see how that arises in the very least degree out of the Question.

STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIRMEN'SPANEL).
Mr. STUART-WORTLEY reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Sir Thomas Esmonde to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A; Mr. John William Wilson to act as Chairman of Standing Committee B; Mr. Laurence Hardy to act as Chairman of Standing Committee C; and Mr. Eugene Was on to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.
Report to lie upon the Table.

SMALL, LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Order for Second Reading road.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONrose to move as an Amendment, "That this House welcomes State action to promote small holdings; but, supporting the principle of responsible ownership in land, it believes that the Government
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policy should be based on purchase, and deprecates the extension of an extreme form of divided ownership to districts beyond those crofter areas where the occupier provides equipment." He said the Amendment dealt with two aspects of the Bill which were detrimental to individual initiative and failed to meet the requirements of public control. The Amendment of his hon. friend opposite dealt with a similar point on more contracted lines.†It also asserted the principle of responsible ownership. That, to his mind, was an essential principle and he would be prepared to support such an Amendment as against the Bill. In his opinion no more important question had ever come before the House, and he would like to remind hon. Members of some of its main features. On the one hand they had a depressing shrinkage in the number of persons employed on the soil, a point of supreme importance when considered in connection with the restricted area of these islands and the proportion which the country population bore to the total population as well as the extent of their external responsibilities. The landward population furnished the vital strength of the people. Among the weak points of our land system one was that in no country was there so large an area of waste as they found in Scotland. In no country were large estates and large holdings so prevalent; in no country was there such an unparalleled import of the necessaries of life which could be profitably grown at home, nor was there elsewhere any such cleavage as was to be found in Scotland between the country and town populations, and where there were so few of those living in the villages and towns who found employment on the neighbouring land. In fact, in Scotland, if additional labour was required on the land they could only got it from Ireland, and they found, he admitted, that the Irish were the best workers after all. Another feature was the large extent of land devoted to purposes of pleasure and of sport. If access to the land was difficult at times it was even more disquieting to find access to it so generally unsought, and the condition
† MR. BARNES:—On Second Reading of Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill, to move, "That no Bill providing for State aid in the purchase of land can be satisfactory unless it provides for the vesting of the freehold in the state."

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of affairs in Scotland showed how entirelydivorced the urban population had come to be from the soil. The State, was nowhere so little alive to its responsibilities, whether as an educator or an experimenter, and especially as an active agent in cases where the initiative of the private owner failed. On the other hand they had the first agriculture in the world in the production of certain forms of crop; they were the first stock-raisers in the world, and in no other country was the equipment of a holding at once so complete or so costly as in Scotland. They had also an elaborate system of preservation of game. He believed his right hon. friend the Lord Advocate had given some attention to that matter. But he was not himself sure of the advantages of that form of revenue. Still, it was there, and they had to make something of it as best they could, because, after all, a considerable proportion of the population in some places had come to depend upon it. He was inclined to think that on the whole they would have been bettor off in Scotland if no game rent had ever been received in that country, because then they would have had to devote their attention to the ordinary products of the soil, and the industrial use of the land by agriculture would have been more advanced than it now was. Out of a total area of nineteen million acres in Scotland about one fourth was available for agriculture and one fourth for sylviculture. Apart from the urban area, they had about ten million acres which remained to be dealt with. Their objects were two-fold, first to increase the number of those that the soil would maintain, and secondly to improve the status of those who were there. There were three lines of action open to them, the first was afforestation, the second was intensive agriculture, and the third was the creation of small farms. Afforestation would be a means of bringing population to the land of Scotland. There were four of five millions of acres which, under a Forest Department, might attract people to the soil and this was Government work, because under no other form could they ensure that continuous good management which made sylviculture possible. There were two or three millions of acres best suited to sylviculture which might be transferred, under the schedule of the Deer Forests Commission, permanently to crofters graz-
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ing lands, that might not add appreciably to the number on the soil; it would add to the comfort of those who were already there; whereas if the area were retained for afforestation tens of thousands of families might find their living in the work of sylviculture and its attendant industries. TheBill neglected the remedy for depopulation which afforestation would afford, and unless there was some security for obtaining freeright of entry upon land suitable, it would block the way to developing any scheme of afforestation. By intensive cultivation they could supplant ordinary agriculture and it would add to the number on the soil. He thought three or four acres were sufficient to maintain a family in comfort on suitable soil. As an illustration of that he would quote from the evidence given before the inquiry of James Stewart, a small holder, who was a shoemaker by trade. He rented two acres at £5 per acre about twenty-five years ago, and went into the fruit trade. Stewart's next venture was the leasing of five acres of ground at Old Rattray, and subsequently ho bought this ground at £100 per acre. In a short time he had sold two and a half acres for £700, and held as profit the remaining two and-a-half acres plus £200. He then leased nine acres at £10 peracre, this high rent being caused by the fear of compensation claims. In 1902 he bought fifteen acres, and was now one of the occupying owners at Essendy. Since then he had leased a number of acres at St. Fink, two miles north from Rattray, at £4 per acre. That was a remarkable example of what might bedone by fruit growing, on a system of intensive cultivation. Intensive cultivation could be well conducted either through local authorities, agricultural associations, or occupying ownership. Much could be done simply through purchasing land and reselling it. In his opinion intensive cultivation was the proper sphere for the local authorities. The land needed very little equipment, whereas the county council was not competent to work small farms, because of the cost of equipment and the difficulty of management; that branch of the land question could best be dealt with by a central authority. The local authority was an admirable agent, not only to provide land for market gardening but for another ultimate purpose. If the town councils could take land by compulsion at a fair

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market price they could possess themselves of land values, and in that way they could solve the building land difficulty. For these reasons he thought the largest powers should be given to local authorities, and there was no reason why the fullest freedom should not be allowed to the expansion of intensive cultivation. He regretted that the Bill ignored the agency of the local authority; indeed, it expressly excluded suburban land from the scope of the measure, and that was a limitation which needed explanation. Then as to the creation of small farms, he contended that if these small farms were to be used for the growth of the ordinary agricultural crops they ought to be of an economic size, say fifty acres. But by their creation they did not necessarily add to the number of persons on the soil; what they did was to add to the status of the small farmer as compared with the farm servant. The area available for small farms was limited by the visiting equipment, which represented the whole value of the arable land. They were dealing, therefore, not with land but with capital. The small farmers could not afford to pay the same rent as the large farmers. The small farmer might be able to compete with the large farmer if he was equally well trained, and could co-operate. It was only fair to state that small farms had held their own wonderfully well in Scotland considering the great disadvantages under which they laboured, although the work of dairy farming, which was the most remunerative form, without co-operation was but a life of grinding toil. The immediate needs with respect to small holdings were that the State should experiment with large groups of small holdings in suitable localities, and when it had been shown that they could be made a permanent economic success they would then be widely established. The large farmer was able to handle his produce in bulk, but not so the small farmer; and therefore to scatter small farms promiscuously throughout the country was to invite failure at the public expense. Groups of small holdings ought to be set up under cooperative conditions, and under a variety of tenure suitable to the customs of the locality. The cast-iron tenure laid down was one of the defects of the Bill. Tenure differed in different counties. In Worcestershire they found occupying
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ownership, in Lincolnshire there was mostly a yearly tenure, in Scotland as a rule they had the nineteen years lease tenure, and in the Highlands the permanent form of tenure. They had to adopt the kind of tenure which was suitable to the locality before they could put the tenants on a basis which was likely to succeed. In agriculture there was great need of object lessons, especially in regard to experiments in equipment. He believed that land could be equipped cheaper for small than it was now equipped for large farms, but until more experiments were made upon that point it would remain a matter of opinion. He noticed that there was no money provided for such experiments under the Bill, and consequently the essentials to make the scheme a success would be starved, because all the money under the Bill was ear-marked for the equipment of small holdings. The smallholder had very few enemies as yet, but he thought that he would find a good many enemies created for him under the Bill. The machinery required for England and Scotland was practically identical. There were three agencies available: (1) The agency of the State; (2) the agency of the local authority; and (3) that of the individual. He drew attention to the land programme as outlined by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies at Drury Lane, and stated his belief that the trend of opinion, whether in the Highlands or elsewhere, was entirelyin the direction of small holdings. It was very important that the House should see the English Bill before they went into Committee on the Scottish Bill. If purchase was a sound principle in the one case, it would not be unsound in the other. It would be of infinite advantage to both countries to know what principle they were definitely embarking upon. After all, though the Cheviots formed the dividing line between the two countries, they did not divide two systems of agriculture, except that to the north equipment was mere costly, and tenure was more methodically arranged. The application by a central authority of its own powers, or of its pressure upon local authorities and private owners, to meet any genuine demand for small holdings was the pivot of the settlement of this question. The speech of the Under-Secretary for the Colonies had made it clear that the

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English Bill was to be on a purchase basis. The right hon. Gentleman said—
"They wished to pay a fair market price for land which was taken for public purposes. Private person would imitate the State and initiate small holdings. Land acquired by the State by the use of its credit and authority could never be alienated again. Nothing could be accepted that would obstruct public ownership. No scheme could have a chance which did not combine individual incentive with collectivist apparatus."
That was a perfectly sound policy, it clearly indicated a purchase basis and responsible ownership of the land. By responsible ownership he did not mean ownership entirely in the hands of the individual, but ownership by the State or the local authority or the individual. With an English Bill on these lines they should get to work immediately. They got the requisite flexibility of tenure because that was assured under responsible ownership, and they would use the owner to the full, for he would desire to avoid expropriation. There was no reason why the £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 a year now spent on equipment by British landowners should not be spent just as readily on small holdings as on large. But that expenditure must necessarily cease under any system of divided ownership. This Bill would provide £65,000 a year I to be spent in equipment, and would I risk the loss of the £2,000,000 a year that was now spent by the owners, who would no longer invest under divided ownership. He was merely talking of what an ordinary business man in Scotland, or anywhere else, would do under divided ownership; they could not expect the present landowners to go on with this expenditure. With divided ownership it was more difficult to borrow money for improvements, and the value of the property was depreciated. That had been seen in one or two cases which had lately been tried. If a small holder made money on his little farm, or failed, he would wish to leave or to take more land in order to make more money. Then; the owner was resurrected in order to take over the new equipment and add it to the old one left on his own hand. The State was to make gifts and advance loans in a way which made the Bill far more complicated than anything in the Irish Land Act. If a small tenant failed, he remained attached to
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the land until he could pay up his debt. He could hardly conceive a more complicated system. In fact, it was unworkable. It would set up a body judicial in form, but not judicial in character—an exotic authority having no place in the permanent institutions of the country. It would not be of a judicial character, because it would represent an interested party, and all claims would be settled by it. It would come under the lash of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for any loss, or it would come under the lash of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty if it did not take up enough land. In case of failure the loss would have to fall on somebody. The Land Court proposed tinder the Bill would not be accepted as a judicial authoiity—it had some of the characteristics of the Star Chamber and some of the attributes of Paul Pry. Its business was to make the thing pay at any cost, and therefore it could not be accepted as impartial. Co-operation would be withheld. In most of the clauses there was an unlimited opening for litigation—an opening which was lacking in last year's Bill. He was dealing with people who, taking land under economic conditions, were anxious to make money. He believed that the costs of a Land Court would be a very serious matter indeed. As to the framework of the Bill, it was repudiated by the agriculturists of Scotland. It had been repudiated by the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture almost unanimously at a meeting at which over 200 members were present. He confessed that he would like to see a special branch of the Board of Agriculture in Scotland, not another dead branchof the dry administrative tree, but an organisation which would have the authority and knowledge of the Agricultural Department in London. The Bill professed that its object was to attract people to the soil; but he maintained that it would not. It was intended to raise the status of those who were on the soil. That was doubtful, because a small holder would find it very difficult to rise under the conditions of the Bill. They gave him no facilities to rise. Free sale would have to be given, so that he might get rid of his equipment and be able to go on to another farm. Why should he forfeit all protection under valued rent when he took a larger farm? He believed that free sale was an essential

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provision, under ordinary economic conditions, of any scheme of security of tenure under divided ownership. The Secretary for Scotland, in Roxburghshire, recognised that there must be co-operation amongst small farmers and held that this was impracticable without security of tenure; but it was just as much in the interests of the landlords to co-operate as it was to the tenants. If a central creamery or depot were put up the landlords would save enormously by not having to provide separate milk and cheese rooms for each tenant. He believed that if in Scotland they set up divided ownership with valued rents it would lend itself to bad farming, for the farm would often be run down out of condition before the valuation was fixed. It would be the Irish failure over again. The Highland tenure worked well because the people there were fixed on the soil. Suppose crofters wanted to emigrate to Canada, the Crofter Act would break down unless there was free sale. There was a real distinction between the Highland and the Lowland line. On the one side the tenant made the permanent improvements, and on the other side the landlord made the permanent improvements. He believed that divided ownership was impossible outside the crofter area. Before the Small Holdings Inquiry there was no shred of evidence in favour of dividing large farms into small holdings by compulsory leasing. Mr. Miller, who was a leader of the Land League in Caithness, like other witnesses before the inquiry, was in favour of purchase. On that principle all difficulty disappeared. If an Agricultural Commission and Land Court were set up no man would be ever able to get through the work of the Agricultural Commissioner. All holdings of under fifty acres would have to be dealt with. He would have to supervise not only the control of all holdings under fifty acres, and to have the responsibility of sub-dividing all holdings over 150 acres, but also to provide a fresh equipment by way of loan or gift. One of the leading defects of the Bill was that the land within urban areas would be outside its scope, whether holdings were large or small. He would like to see something like what they had in France, intensive cultivation within a wide radius of populous centres. Under the provisions of the Bill
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farms would be excluded from its operation in Scotland until the leases fell out. The restriction affecting a farm between £50 and £150 leaving the authority of the owner over it absolute, was either hostile to the main object or a mere paper restriction. If fixity of tenure was a good thing for farms below £50, was it a bad thing above £50?He thought that all these restrictions ought to be swept away out of the Bill, because they would never have appeared except for the vicious principle of divided ownership upon which the Bill was founded. The influence of divided ownership was over the whole scheme, and he did not see how the landlord could be expected to keep up the equipment whether farms came under the Act or whether they did not. He believed. that free sale was the inevitable consequence of the provisions of the Bill in order to provide efficient equipment. Money must be found somehow in Scotland for this equipment. If the owners did not find it itmust be found by the occupiers, who would not readily find it, and did not want to do so, and therefore it must be found by the State. If the money was to be provided by the State it would not be £65,000, but ten or twenty times that sum. The Scottish farmer was very much of the same opinion as the Scottish owner. They held that divided ownership could not be a permanent system. The promoters of this Bill had never faced the difficulty of equipment, but, like the perplexed minister, having looked the difficulty firmly in the face, they had passed it by on the other side. The finance of the Bill, moreover, deserved, he thought, the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer because some innocent successor of the present occupant of the office would some day have to find another hundred millions necessary to produce order out of chaos, and once more establish responsible ownership in some shape or another by the State, the community, or the individual. It was said that "all depended upon the members of the Land Board and the Coin-mission," and no doubt a good deal did depend upon them. Too much. He did not think that any such power as that proposed could be given to any Department. He was not sure whether, even if the promoters of the Bill were to appoint themselves on the

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Commission and the Land Court, the operation of the Bill would be freed from peril. If they were going to nationalize land, by all means let thorn do so; let them do so by some thoroughgoing and states-manlike scheme; but he did object to the policy of abolishing responsible owner-ship. He was one of a small minority in the House who were perhaps better at working on the land than at talking about it. He had tried to make his views plain, and had asked some plain questions, to which, he had no doubt, he would get perfectly plain answers. He wanted to know why the system of purchase had been set aside, and whether the substance of the English Bill would be known before they went into Committee on this Bill.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,: Certainly not. It is not before the House.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid he regretted that, and in that case he thought the Bill ought to be considered in Committtee of the Whole House, Strongly as he was in favour of the Scottish Committee, he had always said that there were certain conditions under which Bills should be considered by a Committee of the Whole House, or one representative of the Whole House.
MR. SINCLAIRpointed out that he was not responsible in the least for the English Bill. The hon. Member knew the arrangement in regard to this debate, which was that it should be taken to-night and to morrow night, and that no other business should be taken, and that then the Bill should automatically go to the Standing Scottish Committee upstairs.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONthought that they ought to know definitely what the form of the English Bill would be before this Bill wentupstairs. He was convinced that the limitation and machinery of the Bill would circumscribe the very small relative area available for small farms. At best that area was very small and if unnecessarily restricted he thought it would be impossible to give them a fair chance. The first draft of the Bill did not provide for the Land Court, and he would like to know for what reason it was introduced. No doubt most owners desired to co-operate in small holdings, but he
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did not see how they could, and if they did not find it possible, how were the two or three millions a year necessary for equipment and development to be found? It would also be desirable to know on what principle the gifts or loans of the Government were to be distributed, and why the local authorities were not to have compulsory powers of purchasing land at a fair market value assessed by official valuers. Again, how was the owner to be assured of his existing rent whether it was high or whether it was low, and after the seven fat years he was to enjoy, how was he to fare during the succeeding lean years? How was the money to be got for groups of small experimental farms, and how were the Government going to face the expenditure upon afforestation? On what ground was it proposed to withdraw agricultural interests from the Board of Agriculture and set up another Board in Edinburgh? One would also like to know, if fixity of tenure was good in itself, why it was to be limited to the cases of holdings below £50? And why should free sale be denied when it was really wanted if the small tenant was really to obtain facilities to rise? All the limitations in regard to the taking of land should be dropped and compulsory leasing should be abandoned in favour of purchase, while town and county councils should be utilised and a Forest Department should undertake sylviculrure. Although he did not look at it as the sole solution, still he had great sympathy with the occupying ownership scheme of his right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley, because he thought if they were going to attract people from the towns on to the soil again it was only a system of ownership which would do it. He could not blame anyone for voting against this Bill as it stood, because he should vote against it himself. It was not, he might point out, always the landlord who suffered by a badly drafted Bill, but often the tenant. When the Land Tenure Bill was before the House they had a discussion which ended in the landlords getting all the Amendments in their favour inserted and in the tenants losing all the Amendments which wore put down in their interest. He urged, therefore, that this Bill should be put upon a sound basis of responsible ownership,

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and that the limitations which it contained, and which were necessitated by its vicious principle, should be left out of it. He begged to move.
SIRE. TENNANTin seconding the Amendment, said the delicacy and importance of the Bill now before the House had drawn him from a seclusion which had hitherto remained unbroken. They had authority for saying that the position of small holders was not ideal. In France especially there were 6,000,000 of small holders who were in receipt of pauper assistance. They wished to see small holdings adopted in this country, but in order that they should be adopted they must be on an economic basis. The question arose, therefore, how that could be done. Scotland was not a new country like Tasmania, where it could be easily accomplished. In Scotland they had an ancient land tenure that was understood and which was characteristic of the Scottish nation. It must be provided in the first place that these holdings should be put on a business footing. The second condition was that there should be no element that could alienate any class; and the third that a fair return or capital should be reasonably expected. How were those conditions borne out in the Bill? The Government proposed to take good land from possibly a good landlord, who might be a poor landlord, while the bad landlord in the same neighbourhood might not suffer at all. It must be remembered the land in Scotland was not looked upon merely as capital from which interest alone might be extracted. It was regarded as a sacred heritage. The applicant for a small holding might be an inexperienced man; the Land Commissioners might erect buildings for him, and he might make a start. He could quite imagine a few bad years, and want of knowledge of the conditions of the country would leave him bankrupt. If such a man left his holding what became of the improvements? He supposed the Land Commissioners would endeavour to get their value from the landlord, and leave him with improvements which he did not want. The Bill not only transgressed the ordinary canons of commercial life, but very nearly transgressed the Ten Commandments. They used to look for protection from the Government, but compared with this Bill the nationalisa
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tion of land became a reasonable proposal. It was one thing to redistribute the land as national property, but quite another thing for the Government to redistribute land in this manner, and take the land of large owners of property without taking financial responsibility. If the demand for small holdings was not artificial there was plenty of good land in Scotland to-day which might be had by voluntary purchase. His hon. friend had shown what land had been excluded from this Bill, yet that land, surburban land, was the very land where this experiment might have been tried with the greatest success. In the neighbourhood of towns was to be found a ready market, handy railway communication, and every advantage to make small holdings a success, and with regard to intensive agriculture in the future he had the greatest hope for that form of agriculture where co-operation was possible. If the Government desired to give small holdings in Scotland they should have avoided the interminable confusion which these questions would raise when tenancies came to an end. When rights of landwore taken away they should surely be paid for. He seconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out from the word 'that' to the end of the Question, in order to insert the words, 'this House welcomes State action to promote small holdings; but supporting the principle of responsible ownership in land, it believes that the Government policy should be based on purchase, and deprecates the extension of an extreme form of divided ownership to districts beyond those crofter areas where the occupier provides equipment.' "—(Mr. Munro Ferguson.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. URE, Linlithgowshire)said the House had listened to an interesting although some what discursive homily on agriculture in general, and intensive cultivation and small holdings in particular. With a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman had said he entirely agreed, but it did not seem to him that it was militated against in the slightest degree by the present Bill. The House would, however, agree that they had not heard from his hon. friend any reasoned attack on the principle of the

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Bill, and still less any reasoned defence of the Amendment which was proposed. He was emboldened to rise at once and make some reply to the challenge of his hon. friend upon the method, not the aim of the Bill, because the Amendment did not encroach on the question of husbandry, but was confined exclusively to a question on which he did not feel himself quite at sea. His hon. friend had commented on the absence from the Bill of what he called responsible ownership, but he would endeavour to show that although responsible ownership in the form understood by his hon. friend was absent the valuable element to a small holder of responsible ownership was present. The hon. Gentleman had also complained of the presence in the Bill of what he called divided ownership. He (Mr. Ure) hoped to satisfy the House that there was not a shred of divided ownership in the Bill. His hon. friend had put forward as a complete solution of the problem which confronted the House a scheme of State aided land purchase, of which all that need be said was that it was a system contrary to the genius and customs of the Scottish people.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid he did not contemplate a general system of land purchase. Ho only advocated land purchase for groups of experimental farms as a preliminary step.
MR. UREsaid that limited the Amendment to a very narrow area. He was, however, afraid that as he understood it there was no other alternative to the scheme. A scheme for acquiring small holdings by purchase would cost millions of money and would, in the opinion of the Government, need to be forced on those for whoso benefit it was intended, and further it afforded no guarantee against inefficient cultivation of the land. He congratulated his hon. friend on his phraseology. He had abandoned dual ownership. Dual ownership was a vile phrase—a phrase which found no place in our system of Scottish jurisprudence. "Joint ownership" they knew, but joint ownership was not in this Bill. Joint ownership meant that without agreement or without recourse to the law courts the joint owners were paralytic on their own property. But he denied the existence of joint ownership in this
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measure. He did not propose to split straws or chop logic, but to inquire what were the rights of which the landlord would be shorn and what were the rights which the tenant would obtain if the Bill became law tomorrow. What could the landlord do to-day which be would not be able to do when the Bill became law of the land? The House would agree that that was a fair way to state the case. He said without hesitation that t the only change which the Bill made in the land tenure of Scotland, in the law which regulated the relationship between landlord and tenant, was that it deprived the landlord of the right which he at present possessed, without giving, or indeed having, any good reason whatever, to remove a tenant; and it endowed the tenant with the right, which he did not at present possess, of remaining on in his holding unless there was some good cause to remove him. He said deliberately that that was the sole change which was made in the law of landlord and tenant in Scotland by the Bill. He was not for a moment forgetting the existence in the Bill of the provisions for enabling an impartial and skilled tribunal to fix a fair rent between landlord and tenant. As the House very well knew, the fair rent court was the inevitable consequence of the introduction of fixed tenure. Fixed tenure, as the House knew quite well, was an impossibility without a fair-rent court. It was perfectly obvious that if the landlord was eager to get rid of a disagreeable tenant he had only to fix an exorbitant rent, and when the tenant could not pay he turned him out. Therefore the House could not say that such a. change was not abolishing the right of arbitrary eviction on the part of the landlord. The Bill carried the matter a step further than the Act of last session. The Act of last session, the House would remember, left the landlord's right of arbitrary eviction untouched, but compelled him to pay compensation for the exercise of it. This Bill, on the other hand, abolished the right altogether, and correctly so; because let the House never forget that the measure dealt exclusively with the holdings which were men's homes, and out of which they had to make their living. A man's right of tenancy was absolutely destroyed, if he ceased to live upon and to cultivate his holding. He did not for a single moment underrate the magnitude of this

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change, which provided that a tenant should no longer, without good and valid reasons, be removed from his holding. It might be said that the objection to the change was sentimental. Let it he so. Sentiment was the most powerful motive which actuated mankind. Man died for sentiment. But then, although a sentimental objection did not yield to logic, it vanished away before the soothing influence of time. Although he had often heard hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite threaten what the landlords would do if certain Bills were passed, he had never heard one hon. Gentleman or right hon. Gentleman say that they would do those things themselves. He rather thought they did the landlords an injustice. For his part, he declined absolutely to believe that if the Bill became law the landlords of Scotland would refrain from following that fair and just policy which they had almost universally pursued in the case of their tenants, Members opposite might say why then did the Government propose to destroy the landlords' prestige. His answer was, "Sentiment," and sentiment was just as strong in the tenant as in the landlord. It was a sentiment which produced in the tenant that sense of security which enabled a man to say, "This is my house in which my wife and family may continue as long as I cultivate the land and conform to the reasonable conditions of my tenancy." The sense of security was the most powerful stimulus to the cultivation of the land. Why did ownership give that sense of security? Was it because the owner knew he had power to sell? Certainly not. Was it because the owner had power to let or to borrow? Certainly not. It was because the owner knew that he could remain on his holding, no one daring to bid him go. That sense of security was given by this Bill without establishing ownership, and if that was so, the Government had achieved the maximum of gain with the minimum of change. If the Bill became law the landlord would still be able to sell his land, to let it, to borrow on it, to clear it of tenants for a good reason, and to bequeath in his will. He would ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite if they could really say that a man who had all these rights left to him was deprived of the rights of ownership? Could they really say that a tenant who
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had none of these rights had a shred of ownership in the land? Was it not an abuse of language to speak of divided ownership as between a man who possessed all these rights, and the man who possessed not a single one of them? He went further. In spite of the presence of the tenant on the land, the landlord had the right under the Bill to enter on the land at all reasonable times; to cross the land if he had occasion to make roads; to enter upon his land for the purpose of mining and quarrying, cutting timber and cutting peat, unless the timber was grown by the tenant, or peat required for the tenant's fire. The landlord had the right to shoot, hunt, fish, and kill game, game under sixteen different categories, beginning with deer and ending with widgeon and teal. Under the Bill, if a tenant obstructed the landlord in any of these rights the penalty was forfeiture of the tenancy. He doubted whether hon. Members opposite knew of any rights which a landlord who had let his land to a tenant, possessed higher than those he had enumerated, but if hon. Members could suggest any other right which the land land ought to possess, then he undertook, on the part of the Government, that it should receive most favourable consideration.
MR. LAMBTON: His rents.
MR. UREsaid he did not understand the hon. Gentleman. The interruption was hopelessly irrelevant. For the hon. Gentleman and his friends made it the head and front of their attack upon the Bill that it left the landlord with his rent and nothing more. It might be said that the landlord was deprived of his power of resumption of the land. Nothing of the kind. If the landlord had any reasonable cause for resuming his land connected with the advantage of the estate, he was entitled to resume it. If he intended to farm the land, to erect buildings upon it, to plant it, to use it for any purpose for the advantage of the estate, he was entitled to resume his land. Was it not a travesty to say that a landlord endowed with all these rights was a mere rent charger or rent receiver? What other rights than those he had named could they endow the landlord with? [An HON. MEMBER: The right to fix fair rents.] His hon. friend had

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surely not observed what he had said, that it was impossible for the Government to give the security proposed without having a fair rent court, He repeated that it was a travesty of the Bill to say that it reduced the landlord to a mere rent charger or receiver. It was no serious contribution to the debate to speak of the landlord as a mere rent receiver. Fixity of tenure was the object which they had in view, and fixity and security of tenure was the object which they believed would be achieved by the Bill. From the many things he had read and some he had heard he was bound to say that the phrase "fixity of tenure" seemed to belamentably misunderstood. Many appeared to believe that fixity of tenure was some method by which bad tenants were irremovably attached to good landlords. Had hon. Members really examined the safeguards which were set out in the Bill, or had they considered all the conditions which were imposed upon the tenant in case he failed to carry out his agreement? If he failed to pay his rent, if he did not live on and cultivate the holding, if he deteriorated the soil, if he dilapidated the buildings which he himself might have erected from money borrowed from the Agricultural Commissioners or supplied by himself, if he broke any of the conditions imposed on him by the Land Court, if he sub-let or assigned or sub-divided his holding, if he opened a public-house upon it or if he became bankrupt, in all those events the tenant would forfeit his tenancy. Could hon. or right hon. Gentlemen opposite suggest any other conditions which ought to be imposed? He could conceive none. If hon. Gentlemen opposite could suggest any other conditions which might reasonably be laid on the tenant, they would be favourably received. That was the position and those were the rights of the landlords upon the question. He now turned to the rights and the position of the tenant under the Bill. The tenant could not sell or let or bequeath the holding, and he could not borrow money and burden his holding. He could not sub-let it, he could not exclude the landlord from the holding nor cease to cultivate it, and if he borrowed money for the purpose of erecting buildings he could not move or sell those buildings, and he would be compelled to leave them on the holding, receiving for
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them when he left only such compensation as represented their value to an incoming tenant. Under those circumstances he thought the House would agree that it was incorrect to speak of a divided ownership between the two either in theextreme sense suggested by his hon. friends or in any sense at all. He might be asked why he had laboured at such length to demonstrate that there was neither dual or divided ownership in the Bill. He scarcely knew why he had done so, except for the reason that the tenants had always represented that dual ownership carried in its train all those disasters which had dogged the footsteps of land reform in Ireland. He had never heard the reason why oven if this Bill reeked with dual ownership the disasters which were said to have followed land reform in Ireland should concern them in Scotland. He saw in his place the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, who possessed an unrivalled knowledge of agriculture, and a very large experience in Irish land administration. Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to tell them when he intervened what relation there was between dual ownership in Ireland and the disasters which had followed Irish land reform? There were some ex-Chief Secretaries for Ireland in the House, and they were told the other night what a valuable asset they were. He would welcome their intervention in the debate. If the Government denied to a tenant the right to sell under this Bill or the right to burden his holding, then they had fixed a great gulf wide, deep and impassable between the lrish and the Scottish system of land tenure. There was another feature in which the system set up by this Bill differed from the Irish, the importance of which, in the eyes of those who like himself had some knowledge of legal procedure and the expenses it involved could not possibly be exaggerated. They had provided that there should be no appeal whatsoever from the Land Court and that the procedure in that Court should be of the cheapest and most expeditious order. The Irish Land Court had cost £133,000 and it had taken twenty-five years to fix the first and second statutory terms of 300,000 holdings. In order to reduce the rents it cost the wretched tenants in legal expenses not less than the advantage they would gain for a

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whole year. He need say no more upon that point to convince the House how it was that Irish land reform had suffered so desperately under this colossal weight, expense, and delay. But he had never yet heard any man state in this House to what the alleged failure of the Irish Land Act was due, and panting for information he turned to the Report of the Select Committee presided over by the Secretary of State for India, when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1894, upon the working of the Irish Land Acts. Ho did not think he would be far wrong if he said that failure could be traced directly to two causes. In the first place the interpretation of the Acts by the Land Court, whether right or wrong, absolutely defeated the intention of Parliament and saddled tenants with rents fixed upon their own improvements, runts which by universal admittance they were hopelessly unable to pay. In the second place, there was the absolutely appalling weight of legal expense which was increased enormously by the delay in legal proceedings. Those, he thought, were the two main reasons why Irish land reform had proved a failure. If he had stated those reasons aright then the supporters of this Bill had nothing to fear from the Irish example. He observed that a great English, Irish and Scottish landowner, the noble Marquess who led the Opposition in the House of Lords, speaking in Scotland not many months ago used these very remarkable words—
"I am connected with a country which should be an object lesson to land reformers— I mean Ireland. We have had land Bills enough to paper the walls of this room. We have tribunals costing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year; we have Courts which may be perfectly honest, and doing work to the best of their ability, but which are distrusted by both parties, and now the last Government has added another and found a very large sum of money in order to extract us from our hopeless condition by means of an expensive scheme of land purchase."
Those striking sentences did not need any comment, for they stated clearly the reasons for the so-called failure of the Irish Land Acts. Scotsmen had no reason whatever to fear from this comparison. He had been asked why the Government preferred their own scheme to the alternative of land purchase. There seemed to be overwhelming reasons in favour of the Government scheme. First of all, it appeared to them that the method chosen
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involved the smallest change in the existing law compatible with the achievement of the objects they had in view. In the second place, and not less important, they had experience to guide them, for they had the valuable experience gained by the working of the Crofters Acts. It had been universally admitted that those Acts had produced admirable results. In the third place, the Government believed that under that scheme they had a bettor guarantee for the efficient cultivation of the land. And lastly, there was the cost. Millions of money would have been required to accomplish their object by the method suggested by his hon. friend, and those who knew the rigid front which the Treasury always offered to the pecuniary demands of Scotland would realise what a formidable objection was in their way. He was well aware that the experience gained under the Crofters Act was considered by hon. Members opposite as being valueless, when applied to the scheme of the present Bill. Why was it that a scheme which had succeeded in crofting parishes should prove unsuccessful in the lowland parishes? He would probably be told the reason was that in the lowland parishes it had been the practice and the custom for the landlord and not the tenant to erect the buildings and make the improvements. Assuming that was the case, why should a man be deprived of security of tenure and the incentive to good cultivation which that gave him, merely because his landlord had made the improvements upon the property? The Government lived in no fool's paradise in embarking on this project of land reform and they were the victims of no sort of delusion, for they had studied carefully the statistics of rural depopulation. It was no new phenomenon. He found that in the reign of Henry IV. an Act of Parliament was passed from which it appeared that the fields in this country were deserted, and that many people were seriously impoverished, because of the rush of labouring men seeking apprenticeships in the towns. They would all be agreed that in 1405 England was an agricultural community, primarily at all events. For generations back they had deliberately resolved that they should be not an agricultural community, but an industrial and manufacturing community, and hence the rush from the

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country districts to the towns had increased. They shared the opinion expressed by the Leader of the Opposition at an earlier stage of this Bill, that it was impossible to stem the tide that brought men from the country to the town, but the Government believed it was possible to check the strength of its flow. They believed that by this Bill they would do something in that direction. They did not expect miracles. They did not expect that men who had secured remunerative employment in the towns, and who had been bitten by the glare and glamour of city life, would be drawn back to the country, at all events, not in large numbers, if they could be drawn back at all. It would only be those who at some earlier period of their career had had experience and training in country life who would be induced to return. They did not expect that the wastrel would go to the country, but they very much agreed with the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords who said the other day that they should never lose sight of the fact that agriculture was a business, and that it must be carried on on business-like lines. Although they did not expect that tradesmen and artificers would be swept back by this Bill to the cultivation of the soil, they did believe that men would be kept on the soil who were there already, and that enterprising and enlightened agricultural labourers would have a career opened up to them. The Government believed, at all events so far as the labourers were concerned, that the Bill would stop that pouring in from the country to the town which they all deplored and which in all quarters of the House they were anxious to prevent, because it might be assumed that there would be no difference of opinion that the more contented people were got to settle down on the land, the more people they could induce to make their homos on the land and to make their living there, the better it would be for the stability and for the safety of the State. The Goverment were modest in their recommendations, as might be seen by the financial provisions of the Bill. They only proposed to place at the disposal of the Commissioners £65,000 a year, a sum which had called forth somewhat contemptuous comments from the other side of the House. With a modesty character-
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istic of Scotsmen the Government were only providing that sum to be devoted to the purposes of the Bill. A learned friend of his own who had made a careful investigation on this subject had pointed out that for the equipment of a holding of fifty acres a sum of £600 was required. He thought £400 was the figure which the Agricultural Commissioners had placed upon it, but assuming that his learned friend's figures were correct, and assuming also what he was by no means certain of that the Agricultural Commissioners would give to the small holder a sum sufficient to equip his holding, that sum would only represent 110 holders in the year. The Government had kept carefully in view in all these matters the homely Scottish maxim "Ye maun creep before ye gang." They had not forgotten that this was an experiment, and that if their expectations wore fulfilled, and if the Bill proved a success, as they believed it would do, then he, for his part, did not despair of the importunity of his colleagues in attacking the battlements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of their securing larger grants for this most laudable object. Nor did the Government believe that by the passing of this Kill Scotland would be transformed as by the stroke of a magician's wand into an arcadia. They did not picture to themselves the land-owner sitting with folded arms under his own vineand fig tree, listening to the humming of the bees, and watching the growth of his own tomatoes. Under their skies and on their soil success only followed strenuous, unremitting and un-lightened toil—a hard lot some of them might think, and so perhaps it was. So it had been always. Some of his colleagues in the House might remember the pathetic words in which more than 100 years ago Robert Burns described his experience in Lochlea— "the cheerless gloom of the hermit, and the ceaseless moil of the galley slave.'' Most hon. Members who were accustomed to the stir and bustle, the excitement and the whirl of city life, might think that Burns did not overstate altogether the monotonous gloom of the agriculturists' life, but he was not so sure that they did not sometimes exaggerate his conditions. They were inclined sometimes to smile perhaps at the simple joys which filled up to its brim the agriculturist's cup of happiness. But, at all events,

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let it never be forgotten that in congenial toil pursued under reasonably comfortable conditions the intensest satisfaction was to be found. He thought that Members of the House would agree that the honey of life, its most fascinating pleasures, and its profoundest happiness, were not for the idler and the dilettante, but for the man who, whatsoever his hand found to do, did it with his might.
MR. WALTER LONG: The hon. and learned Gentleman has defended the measure in such a way that he has left hon. Members on this side of the House, and 1 suspect a few on the other side of the House also, asking themselves what, in the name of fortune, the Bill proposes to do; what is all the excitement about in connection with it. The hon. and learned Gentleman has told us that there was no reasoned attack made by my hon. friend the Member for the Leith Boroughs and my hon. friend the Member for Salisbury on the principle of the measure. Well, I do not pretend to know what the hon. and learned Gentleman calls a reasoned attack, but certainly both of my hon. friends condemned the proposals of the Bill as they stand root and branch. It appeared to me that they gave very sound reasons for the views they hold. The hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say that there was no shred of that vile phrase "dual ownership" in the Bill. I do not know about the phrase being vile. but I am quite sure about the thing being vile. I will endeavour to show that the defence of the hon. and learned Gentleman has not really covered the ground or removed the apprehensions held—as he suggested—only by Gentlemen sitting on this side of the House. I do not care, for my part, whether the thing is called "divided ownership" or "dual ownership." What we say is that there is a division of ownership which is now held in one hand, and that that division is not wisely arranged in our judgment and does not make wise provision for the future. It is a remarkable fact that this charge about dual ownership is not only not limited to this side of the House, but has been made on more than one occasion at gatherings of the ablest and keenest men amongst Scottish agriculturists. Lord Carrington was himself present at a meeting of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture and allowed an
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amendment affirming the principle of dual ownership to be moved.
MR. SINCLAIR: The noble Lord argued the point at the meeting.
MR. WALTER LONG: The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite has suggested that the dual ownership charge belongs to this side of the House alone—in other words, that it belongs to the Party with which I have the honour to act. I do not think the Secretary for Scotland can have listened to the speech of his colleague. I am going to show the undoubted fact that in all the debates on this Bill— and they have been numerous—it has been held by critics who do not hold our political views that this Bill does involve a division of ownership as it now exists. The defence of the measure by the Solicitor General has convinced me, and, I think, many others, that the Bill is even worse than we thought it to be when we first examined it. We have to look at this question from the compulsory system of hiring point of view, and that is one of the reasons why we believe that the Bill proceeds on entirely wrong principles. The Solicitor-General was very eloquent about the security of tenure the Bill would give to the tenant, and the better treatment the land would get in consequence. The hon. Gentleman knows his Scotland better than I do, but as most of the land in Scotland is under better cultivation than any other land in the world, the Government are setting themselves a very hard task in seeking to improve it. The Government believe that some little good may be effected by this Bill; but they are wiser than they were in 1894, when they were passing not a Land Tenure Bill, but a Parish Councils Bill, and when the Government of that day said that they were going to make the land gold with corn. Those of us who were in Parliament in 1881 know that the same kind of argument as that put forward by the Solicitor-General for Scotland in regard to setting up tenant-right was used to allay our fears. It was then said, "What right are you taking away from the landlord which he now enjoys? and the Solicitor-General said that if any right was taken away from the landlord the Government would take that into consideration, such as the rights of shooting and fishing. The Solicitor-General

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has failed altogether to realise what is not only the most valuable, but the most important right the owner possesses, namely, the power by the right of ownership to make the best use he can of the land for himself and for those connected with him. That right is taken away by this Bill. If not, what is the meaning of Clause 7, which says that—
"It shall be lawful for the landlord of any land and any other person to agree that in respect of such land such person may apply to the Land Court to be registered as a new holder under the Act."
But if that agreement breaks down then comes in the compulsory powers of the Commissioners of Small Holdings—
"To report from time to time to the Agricultural Commissioners what demand for new holdings exists in any district and what suitable land (if any) is available to meet that demand."
The necessity for this I cannot perceive. I do not wish to suggest that the object of the Government is to attack the landlords. I fully believe the Government honestly desire to advance the cause of land occupation in order that peoplemay be brought back to the land. But the Government are using compulsion in the wrong way, and in a way which will bring trouble to them in the future. They say they are imposing strict limitations upon the tenant; but surely they do not think that by setting up a Commission they will restore agriculture to a better condition or encourage people to take holdings if strict conditions are placed upon them. If the Government were going to select particular parts of the country to carry out their proposals, then the injury done to existing owners would be limited. But they are doing nothing of the kind. They have forgotten to recognise what every landlord who has tried to develop the principle of small holdings would admit, that it is a most difficult task to carry out. The subject seems to be talked about as if it were a sudden discovery—a new patent entirely the Government's own—but it has been tried in all parts of the country, and it is only with the utmost caution and care in the selection of the men and with equal care in the selection of the land that you can possibly hope to start small holdings successfully. It is incumbent upon the Government to proceed with the utmost possible caution because it is extremely difficult to do any
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good in connection with land reform. It is, on the other hand, very easy by ill-considered legislation to do immense harm. The Government may make this experiment and get whatever popularity they may from it; but if it fails—if the man put on the land fails to make a living of it and the quality of the land deteriorates—it will not be the Government nor the State nor Parliament who will pay for it, but the unfortunate owners of the land. Under the Bill the owners will be left with the land if it is injured, and they will have to pay the cost of the measure. The Committee ably presided over by Lord Onslow carefully considered the question, and they approved of the powers for acquiring land by purchase, and did not approve of the compulsory powers of hiring land, because they thought they would be unfair both to landlords and to tenants, and would involve a system of tenant-right in which the power over the land would be divided between two people. That must be the result of this Bill. The Solicitor General did not contest it, and I doubt if anybody can from the legal point of view. On the other hand, I doubt if it can be disputed that in Clause 7 there will be a reduction of rights which the landlords regard as most important. There is, and must be, a general interference between the owner of the land and the tenants, not merely in regard to the selection of the land for particular purposes, but in regard to the future occupation of the holding by the tenant. The Solicitor-General has said it is hopeless to battle over phrases, and I do not wish to do so, but I would ask the House to remember that in dealing with the land problem they are dealing with one of the most complicated and difficult problems with which they are confronted. The Solicitor-General appealed to us about the Irish Land Act. It is a most remarkable fact that the whole of the Irish Land Bills recognised the existing tenant-right. The new Scottish legislation originated in the croft, and we were told that this kind of legislation ought to be limited to the crofter. Now, however, the limitation is moved from £30 to £50. In the general application of the principles and the history of the legislation in Ireland and Scotland the one followed the other in a remarkable way. The Solicitor-General has said that

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the only reason land legislation in Ireland has been followed by such disastrous results is solely owing to the question of fixing the rent. Thirty years ago, when in opposition, we were told that there was nothing in the legislation to deprive the landlord of any right he then enjoyed. I remember Mr. Gladstone telling the House emphatically that the Opposition were wrong in arguing that the landlord would be deprived of his rights. Now there is being given to-day a repetition of the argument. The land legislation which began thirty years ago ended in consequences which have cost this country a great deal of money. By what possible argument can it be contended that the Scottish land legislation is not being put on the same incline and will not end in the same way? We are supporting the Amendment of my hon. friend because we believe that he has indicated a better course and that the Government will be well advised in supporting it. I object to the Bill in its present form and support heartily the Amendment, not in the interests of the landlords, though I think the measure will do great injustice to them, but in the interests of all. It surely must be admitted that the Irish land legislation has divorced the landlord from the soil, deprived him of any possible interest in his estate and made him a mere rent charger. This is the direction in which the present Bill will lead us. Apparently the Government are learning nothing from the experience of the past. If the land question has to be dealt with in Scotland, it should be by a system of purchase and not of compulsory hiring. I have read through the Prime Minister's return containing the so-called justification for this step. Of what does this "official" account, in which I find nothing official, consist but the views of certain gentlemen some of whom are supporters of the Government? What is there to lead us to believe that the tenant we are going to create will be in any way better than the tenant under the existing law. I do not think this Bill is going to be beneficial to anything like the degree that you tell us. There are many parts of the country where the landlord has done his best to set up small holdings, even at great cost to himself, for which he has received little return. Would it not be wiser to encourage landlords to go on with this work
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and induce them to run the risk rather than let it be done by the State, who, if this Bill is carried, will have to bear the risk which will ultimately fall upon the landlords? It is for these reasons that we support the Amendment of my hon. friend, believing that it is in this direction that land reform of this kind should go. The Solicitor-General said something about privileges being reserved to the landlord. For instance, it was said that he could still charge his land. I do not know that a power to charge his land is one which a landlord will look upon with great pleasure.
MR. URE: He has the right.
MR. WALTER LONG: Well, the right is reserved. I listened to that remark with great interest because I believe that it may turn out to be of greater importance than the Solicitor-General realises at the moment, but the Solicitor-General knows that the question of the effect upon agricultural estates of legislation like that for which the Government is now responsible is forming the subject of grave and anxious inquiry at the present time. It may be true that the right to charge remains, but suppose the property which remains is of nothing like the same value? If you bring in commissions between owners and their land, and allow central authorities to speculate with other men's property, does anybody suppose that that property will retain its value or that people will in future advance the same money on the estate as they would in the past? I think you are taking a great risk and interfering seriously with the future value of the land. If you do that you will make it harder for many landlords, who already find it hard enough, to make proper provision for their estates. It is because we believe that this is an undue interference with the rights of property in the land, and that it will not only interfere with the landlord but with the large farmers in many places; that they will be interfered with not by the landlord who knows the property, not by the local authority who knows what the position is, but by a central authority with no knowledge of the local circumstances—it is because we believe this experiment has not been well considered and that it will be attended with the greatest risk that we shall certainly support the hon. Member's

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Amendment. We shall support it because we believe that in wisdom and justice it is on the lines of that Amendment that this Bill should proceed.
MR. MURRAYsaid he desired to lay before the House the reason why he considered the Bill should become law. He did so not only because he represented a large agricultural constituency, but also because ever since his boyhood and youth spent on his father's farm, agricultural and rural affairs had had a deep and abiding interest for him. In speaking on this occasion he trusted his inexperience in Parliamentary debate would not be allowed to prejudice the case he desired to put forward. The Bill, as presented, proposed to deal with that class of small farmers known as crofters, but if passed into law, it would also affect the condition of the cottar and farm servant. The existing conditions of rural life in Scotland as regarded the crofter, the cottar, and farm servant were such as, in the opinion of all thinking men who had any knowledge of the subject, required amelioration and that speedily. He would take the case of the crofter first, as the class more immediately affected by the Bill. In the constituency that ho represented there were no fewer than 3,922 crofts-some held from year to year and some on lease for a longer period. The rents paid ranged from £10 to £30 for holdings of from seven to twenty-five acres. In numerous cases the present tenants or their predecessors had reclaimed the land; had built their own houses and byres and had eked out a hare livelihood through the medium of the croft and such labour as the adjoining farms could provide, or through the special knowledge of some handicraft which they exercised in their neighbourhood. From this class had been drawn the cottar and the agricultural labourer—the backbone and mainstay of the larger agricultural community. Adverse conditions, however, had been operating against this class during the last thirty or more years, which had brought about the necessity of considering what should be done to overcome them. The conditions to which he referred were the constant and regular absorption of small holdings into larger upon the dilapidation of the buildings and
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the desire of the landowner to refrain from further capital expenditure on such holdings, or his inability to provide therefor. In one parish alone in his constituency there had disappeared no fewer than forty-four small holdings, through their having been added to the adjoining farms. The effect of such a policyor state of matters was to diminish the rural population and to increase that of largo cities. For years past the rush of people from country life to large towns had been a source of much thought and disquiet to many minds, both inside and outside the House. Many people had pondered over this migration from the country to the town; the huddling together of human beings, especially of children—the fathers and mothers of the generation to follow—in the slums of many of the big cities, where the environment was such that inevitable disaster and distress must: arise to the once healthy offspring of a rural race. On the other hand, the labourer in the city found from this cause that the number of his competitors was being increased by those sometimes too ill-fitted to bear the conditions and hardships of city life, with the result that both suffered and the ranks of the unemployed were unnecessarily increased. Philanthropic workers and those engaged in the administration of the work of distress committees could bear testimony to this. Hasty measures had to be passed by Parliament to remedy by artificial and very ineffective means the situation thus created. If the present state of matters was continued there could not be the slightest doubt that the situation would become worse instead of better. The agricultural worker maintained that he must remain either a mere laborer upon a farm or go city ward. The gradual disappearance of small holdings—mainly by annexation to larger ones—during the past twenty to thirty-five years had enhanced the value of those that remained to such an extent that to occupy them with profit to himself and his family was a financial impossibility. This over-competition had raised the rent of the crofts or small holdings in many cases far beyond the amount per acre paid for adjacent farms of similar quality of land, and had thereby made it impossible for the farm labourer to look forward to a time when he might by stern economy and

579
hard living save sufficient means to raise himself in the social scale by having a holding of his own. It was not because of a desire to enter town life, but because he was driven to do so that they found such a man migrating from the district of his birth. His surroundings, his education, his training as a farm hand, all tended to retain him upon the soil, but the operating causes already mentioned compelled him to a course he would never otherwise have followed. Many hon. Members must be aware of the fatal effects on human nature when once it came to hold the belief that it was engaged in a hopeless struggle, surrounded and crushed by impossible conditions; loath at first to believe that the ideals of a lifetime could not be attained; loath to believe that the goal exhibited to boyhood and early manhood was beyond reach; what could follow but complete abandonment of the object aimed at? And so in this case the sturdiest and fittest men drifted from the soil to cities or to foreign lands. These men were as thorough practical farmers as any in our midst, toiling early and late upon the farm. They were the progenitors of large families—families that were recognised as producing the best outdoor and indoor servants to be found in any community—veritable nurseries of the finest peasantry to be found in any country. Surely it was to the advantage of the nation to retain this class upon the soil, and such he understood was the aim and scope of this Bill. It was an honest endeavour to check migration from the country; to retain upon the soil the people best fitted for the soil; to encourage the crofter to become the farmer, the cottar and farm servant to become the crofter; to encourage industry and thrift and improvement of agriculture by providing fixity of tenure, fair rents, compensation for permanent improvements, and the right to renounce the tenancy. What reasons were adduced by the Opposition against such a remedial measure of national importance? It was alleged that the Bill unduly interfered between the landlord and his tenant. Surely this was not the case. The landlord and tenant might still agree to contract as hitherto and to regulate the rights flowing from such contract as before, and landlords whose holdings were held on fair terms need not fear that any evil
580
results would follow as far as they were concerned. But in the case of those who had rack-rented their tenants, whether through the exigencies of their own requirements or the desire to exact as much for the holding as they could in a market where the competitors far out numbered the holdings, these could not complain if the rent of the subject let was reduced to its fair value. What did the landlord give? Simply the use of the land to be operated upon by the skill, labour, and capital of others; and if, as atpresent, land was practically a monopoly in the hands of a few, it was but fair in the interests of the nation t lint the skill, labour, and capital of the tenant should receive an adequate return, at the same time, also, that the landlord should receive a fair rent for giving the use of that which by succession or purchase he had acquired. Was it to be maintained that the Commissioners to be appointed when this Bill became law would not deal fairly between both, parties? As he understood it, the Land Commission fixed the rent after hearing; the parties and considering all the circumstances of the case, holding, and district, and particularly after taking into consideration any permanent or unexhausted improvements on the holding, and suitable thereto, which had been executed or paid for by the landlord or by his predecessor. Was it to be maintained by hon. Members opposite that a landowner was entitled to more than that? They could not maintain that a landowner had a right to obtain a rent upon an improvement he had not effected; and surely they would not allege that Commissioners appointed by this House would act otherwise than in a fair and reasonable manner. He knew that it had been maintained that the Bill would create a dual ownership in a holding. That he denied. It only gave a landholder fixity of tenure and compensation for permanent improvements effected upon his holding. Besides, it was nothing new in Scotland for a tenant to take over the buildings and fences from the landlord under the obligation to leave them in like good order at the termination of his tenancy, paying for any defects, but not receiving payment for any amelioration. Such a state of matterexisted years ago without complaint. Why should the landlord object if the position was altered only so as to secure to a tenant that which was his own? It

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was further alleged that the provisions of the Bill would entail hardship upon the landlord because he was obliged to pay a capital sum at the termination of a tenancy for buildings erected without his consent. To him it seemed that it would be a relief to landowners to be saved the necessity of expending capital sums upon small holdings at the commencement of a tenancy, as at present the expenditure of such sums was given as the reason for the absorption of small holdings into large farms. When relieved of this at the commencement of a new holding what did they pay? And when did they pay? They only paid at the termination of a tenancy which, if this measure answered the expectation of its supporters, might be at a very distant date, and then only the then value of the improvements effected. It was said that there was no demand for small holdings which was not met under the present system. That was not the experience in his constituency. In touring through East Aberdeenshire he had had occasion to meet all classes of men connected with agriculture, and the farm servants assured him emphatically that the agricultural labourers of Aberdeenshire could save enough money in ten or fifteen years to take a small holding, on which, they said, any man who knew his business could obtain a bettor livelihood than he could as a farm labourer. The crofts or small holdings most favoured by the farm servants were those of ten acres and thirty-five acres, respectively—the ten acre croft situated on the neuk of a farm, the small holder working on the farm and getting the farmer to cultivate his croft, and the thirty-five acre holding one on which the small holder could do verywell when joining forces with a neighbouring crofter in cultivating the land and reaping the crops. It was impossible to meet the demands for small holdings in East Aberdeenshire under the present arrangements, and, therefore, speaking for the farm servants and smaller tenants of East Aberdeenshire, he asked the House to pass this measure into law. It seemed to him that landowners should welcome the Bill in the patriotic spirit in which it was conceived. If the Government were prepared to subsidise small holdings in the national interest upon bold and enlightened lines it could not but follow that all interested in or con-
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nected with those holdings must participate beneficially in consequence thereof.
MR. LAMBTOXsaid he had listened to the speech of the Solicitor-General for Scotland, and nothing could be more delightful than a sentimental Scotsman. The hon. and learned Gentleman had told them how the Bill was full of sentiment, and, in regard to the measure, he had himself been pretty well aware of what the representative of the Government was going to say before he got up. He spent his Easter holidays in Scotland, and on the 5th April, while he was there, he read a long speech by the Solicitor-General, who seemed to be agitated about some remarks by Lord Rosebery a few days before. The hon. and learned Gentleman had told thorn that the Bill was well thought out, that nobody need be in the least afraid that it was a Socialistic measure, and that the Bill was also a Scotch Bill. As the House knew, they had a Scotch Government in that House; most of the Members of the Cabinet were either Scotsmen, or descended from Scotsmen; and, therefore, a Bill like this was the highest possible achievement of the Government, and should be considered as of the greatest importance, though it would automatically go upstairs to the Scotch Committee. He apologised if he used the word "Scotch" in the wrong sense. Hon. gentlemen from Scotland were susceptiblo about the word Scotch, and he did not know whether it should be "Scots," "Scottish," or "Scotch." They had the Scottish inhabitants of Scotland, they had the Scottish corps of Volunteers, but he had never hoard whisky called Scottish. Perhaps that was because it was less observed in the letter than in the spirit. He would remind hon. Members that when this Bill was first introduced they wore told that it would not necessarily be confined to Scotland and would be extended to England. He lived in Northumberland, and his homo was at Flodden Field; he could look on that blessed spot from his window. He had also a small property in Roxburghshire, which came under the Bill. Therefore, he looked on the question with more or less personal interest Having some knowledge of the condition and interests of the Borders, for the life of him he could not understand why a Bill of this kind had been introduced to

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deal with agriculture in the south of Scotland. The hon. and learned Gentleman had asked what rights the landlord had lost under the Bill which he possessed at present, and he had interpolated the word "rent." The hon. and learned Gentleman had said he could not possibly understand that. He was not ashamed that landlords got rents; they ought to have rents. He did not know that that was the view of the Government. The land policy of the Government had been announced at the Holborn Restaurant, and the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, at Drury Lane, had made a direct attack on the principle of private owning of land in this country. The provisions of the Bill surely carried out that policy. Hon. Members below the gangway were opposed to private ownership of land, but they, at least, were open foes. But what could be said of hon. Members opposite? Theirs was very like the courage of camp followers; at the same time they had the predatory instincts of camp followers. Anyone who read the Bill would see what was proposed to be done. He did not like to use the word, but it was sought to accomplish by a side wind what hon. Members below the gangway would do openly. The arrangement proposed by the Bill was neither more nor less than confiscation of the landlords' property in Scotland. He would read a remark or two of the hon. and learned Gentleman when he spoke in Scotland. The Solicitor-General for Scotland said—
"If the landowner did not see his way to let out the ground for small holdings, the Agricultural Commissioners gave notice to the landlord that they were going to the Land Court to get the holdings marked off and the rent fixed and the other terms arranged, so I hat the men who wanted to cultivate might be able to do so. The Land Court then inquired into the facts, heard everybody who had an interest to be beard, and, if they thought right, marked off the ground, fixed the rent, and other terms, and the thing was done."
If there was to be a Land Court, he would ask the Member for Northwich why should there not be a Commercial Court to look into such questions, say, as the profits on alkali works, and see what profits were proper to be divided among the men who produced that profit. When he looked at the Benches opposite, crowded with Liberal plutocrats, he thought there ought to be Commercial Courts. "Cleanliness was
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next to godliness," and why should not a Commercial Court inquire into the profits of soap boilers, so that the community might receive a share of the profit, and also those who helped to produce the profit? No doubt hon. Members below the gangway would be able to enlarge upon that point better than he would himself. There were to be five members of this land Court— one paid, £2,000 a year, and the others £1,000 a year each. They were to be five skilled persons. One was a barrister of ten years experience. Was he a skilled person in agriculture? Another had a knowledge of Gaelic; and these five persons were to go about the country picking out the most suitable pieces of land in anybody's estate, and do things which in his opinion were absolutely tyrannous. The financial clauses of the Bill he thought would remain in the House. The only generous part of the measure was in relation to the Land Court and the salaries of £2,000 to one and £1,000 each to the others. They were to be appointed by the Secretary for Scotland, and therefore these officers would be political. Were these gentlemen likely to perform their duties in the interests of the landlords or in the interests of the tenants? Most of them knew what political pressure put on persons meant; and it stood to common sense that in talking about a fair rent being fixed by the Land Court, these Commissioners, any one of them, if their office depended on a political secretary, would fix the rent which they thought would be most popular. Every tenant of a small holding whose rent was fixed would make objection to one or other of these Commissioners, and the only consequence would be—they were dealing with human nature—that they would in their own interest fix the rent as low as they possibly could. That was the strong objection he had to these powers. There were various other things which he need hardly go through. The House would have to consider these clauses very carefully one by one. His experience of Grand Committees upstairs was that they did not get through much work. He happened to be on the Grand Committee which considered the Miners (Eight Hours)Bill, and the Home Secretary sent that Bill back to the House before it had been discussed. The Secretary for Scotland performed the same operation with

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another Bill; and they had no security under the new rules that Bills would be properly discussed upstairs. He hopod the hon. Member for the City of London and other Members would carefully consider this Bill. Anyone who looked into it saw the powers which were given to the Land Court. That was the way in which landlords were to lose control over their land, and it was to be done in a way which was not straightforward or above board. To expropriate landlords would not be a good policy for the country, and certainly would not increase its credit; but if the country wished to expropriate them, it was rich enough to pay for it. It was because he was opposed to Socialism and all its works that he should vote against this Bill.
MR. BARNESsaid that, in intervening for a few minutes in the debate, he was conscious that be should be playing a somewhat unaccustomed role, and some might think that the task he had undertaken ought to have been left to someone with a more detailed knowledge of agriculture than he possessed. He hoped, however, that it would not be thought presumptuous on his pare if he offered a few observations upon the Bill, although he could not claim, nor could any of his colleagues claim, that they represented agricultural interests or agricultural constituences. They did, however, represent congested urban areas, many of whose inhabitants, having been driven by landlordism out of the country districts, had a substantial interest in this matter. They wanted to: arrest the stream from the country to the town, and, if possible, make country life sufficiently attractive and remunerative, even to reverse the flow of the stream from the towns back to the healthy and wholesome life of the country. He desired to give to the House a figure in order to impress hon. Members with the magnitude of the problem they had got to face, and then it would be seen that, after all, this Bill, good as it was so far as it went, only touched the fringe of the immense problem which surrounded it. In Scotch towns there were 135,864 families living in one-room tenements and 287,000 families living in two-roomed tenements; in other words, one-fourth of the population of Scotland lived in one and two-room tenements. That
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was a fact which they ought seriously to consider. They should endeavour to ascertain the real cause of this immense shifting of population and the congestion of urban areas. The Leader of the Opposition had said that this was due to free trade, but he would remind him that the depopulation of the rural districts was a phenomenon which was not confined to this country, but was to be found in all parts of the world. In protectionist countries like France and Germany the crowding of the people in towns was much greater than in Holland and Denmark, which were practically free trade countries. Moreover rural depopulation had been going on in our own country before Cobden and Bright were born. Even 150 years ago, or there-abouts, Goldsmith had deplored—
"The land to hastening ills a prey Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
And, with unerring instinct he had put his finger on the cause. The cause was that, under our present competitive and owning system, increase of wealth, and of wealth-producing capacity, instead of leading to increased wages and a diffusion of the annuities of life as they should leave done, had resulted in heaping up wealth into too few hands, and this enabled the possessors of that wealth to get possession of the land, which they used as deer runs and pleasure grounds instead of allowing it to be used for maintaining a rural population and raising food for the people. Another cause was to be found in the ordinary development of social life. People were no longer content with the ordinary essentials or simple things of life. The working man for instance was no longer content with his porridge or his brose every day in the week and to don his marriage coat wherein to go to Church as long as he lived. He wanted to know something about books and things which only the town could give. The problem they had to solve was partly economic, partly social, and partly human. Members of the Opposition talked about a tax of 10 per cent, on imported food, but the net result of that would be to lower the margin of cultivation in this country and increase rents. Those who were putting this proposal forward knew what it meant. It might mean an increase in the rural population, but it would only place more people at the beck and call of the landlords.

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This Bill was certainly a good deal more hopeful, and the Labour Party were going to give it their support on the whole, while thinking it was open to certain objections, which they would probably raise in Committee. Fixity of tenure, the fundamental idea of the Bill, was a good one. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin had said that he did not see how it would improve things or make the tenant a better farmer. He (Mr. Barnes) could not, however, see how an arrangement which placed the tenant at the mercy of the landlord was going to result in the greatest productivity of the farm. He would give a case which had come under his notice since the introduction of this Bill. When making inquiries into the question of small holdings he came across an old man nearing sixty years of age who had a short lease of a farm of about eighty-seven acres. He had four years of his lease to run, but was it likely that he was going to work that farm to the best advantage of the community for the remaining four years of his lease when there was a prospect at the end of his lease of his landlord coming down upon him for an increased rent? He thought, however, that the limitation of £50 annual value was a weak point in the measure; there should be some elasticity in that respect. It seemed to him that the man of small means would be likely to suffer under the Bill. The main principle of the Bill was to apply to farms of such a size as could be worked by a man and his family. It seemed to him that the limit ought to vary according to varying circumstances, and he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that an Amendment of that character and giving discretionary powers to the Land Court should be inserted in the Bill. He now came to the financial aspects of the Bill, and said that the Bill was more than fair to the land lords, whose estates would be improved by monies of the State, whose gross rents would be turned into net rents. The landlords were opposing the Bill because they did not know a good thing when they saw it. He believed, not in bribing the landlords, but in the old policy of ransom put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in his palmy days. He wanted to direct attention to the method in which the money was to be spent. So far as he understood £35,000 was to be
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spent for the purposes of the Congested Board Act of 1897, and the remaining £65,000 of the £100.000 annually voted for the purpose of the Bill was to be applied under the Consolidated Act. Sections 5 and 6 of the Congested Board Act gave power to the Board to set up peasant proprietors, and already 230 of these had been set up. He objected for his own part to the setting up of peasant proprietorships. He did not believe in peasant proprietorship. He did not believe in private landlordism at all, and, therefore, he did not believe in any legislation which, by multiplying the number of private landlords, Was going to make it more difficult for the State at some time or another to resume possession of what he could not help regarding as its own. His mind went back only a fortnight ago to the Holborn Restaurant meeting and to the Drury Lane Theatre demonstration held later, when the principle was put forward that the State once having acquired possession of land should never let it go. He hoped that theGovernment would give effect to that principle. As to who was going to be the landlord under this Bill he really did not know. He had heard the speech of the Solicitor-General for Scotland about the joint ownership in contradistinction to divided ownership, and yet he could not understand it. It seemed to him that the Bill set up a sort of trinity, three in one and one in three, the State finding the money, the landholder or tenant finding the labour, and the landlord carrying off the "swag." The landholder or tenant, at all events, got the benefit of fixity of tenure and fair rent as the hon. and learned Gentleman had explained, and that, so far as it went, was good, but he thought that the landholder or tenant got a little more and something to which he was not entitled. Under Section 7 of the Bill public moneys were to be given at the discretion of the Commissioners—given, not lent—to the small holder who was set up under the provisions of this measure, and pro tanto that man was also made landlord as he understood. If he was wrong in his interpretation perhaps the Secretary for Scotland would explain the matter. He objected to this, first of all on theground that they were going to differentiate treatment as between that man and another man. Let them take the case of a trader in a village who failed in his business.

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He drifted into the ranks of the unemployed in a town. What did the State do for him? So far as he knew they sent him off to Canada under the Unemployed Workmen Act. But the treatment meted out to the tenant by giving him money was altogether different. He suggested that that was more than fair to the small holder. He objected in the second place to the setting up of more landlords, or part landlords. That was why he objected to public money being used in that way. He believed the Bill only touched the fringe of the question, because after all it would not enable the small man in Scotland to get a footing upon the land in any considerable number. When he said the small man, he meant grieves and superior ploughmen. They were told that the Bill was going to do something in the way of improving the chances of those already on the land. It would improve the chances in life of the man who was able to stock a farm. It took, however, about £10 per acre to stock a farm and there was not one man in a hundred in Scotland who was now hungering for I land, and who wanted to make himself a little more independent, who would be able to get the advantage of the Bill, simply because he had not the money to stock a farm. Why not face the problem as a whole, and set up those small holders as tenants of the State in some shape or form, and so put them on their mettle? He thought a far better result would be achieved in that way. The Secretary for Scotland, in introducing the Bill, deprecated this because the State was a bad bargainer. The right hon. Gentle-man stated that the State was open to political pressure. Well, there might be political pressure, but the State, after all, was a bettor bargainer than a poor man under pressure of poverty, who was competing for the tenancy or ownership of a farm in competition with other people whom he had never seen. Only recently when he was in Scotland he inquired how the rents of small holdings were fixed. One man after another told him the same tale. When they wanted to get into farms they had to bid for the farms, and they did not know whom they were bidding against. When they wore called upon ultimately to enter into occupation, they never knew how many had been competing for a farm, although they had understood that there had been a large
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number. Under these circumstances rents were far too high, as experience had proved. The hon. Member for Durham spoke, he supposed, from the point of view of the landlord when he objected to Land Courts on the ground that they would reduce rents. Had not experience proved in Scotland that under the operation of the Crofters Act rents had been reduced 25 to 30 per cent., and that there was reason for the Land Court making the reductions? There had been the same experience wherever judicial rents had been tried. Under the operation of the ordinary law of supply and demand rents had been fixed too high by the landlords. It seemed to him that they would have to come, sooner or later, to State ownership, and in conjunction with the acquirement of land by the State they would also have to set up some form of land banks whereby small men should be enabled to stock their farms and become tenants of the State. He had stated these views somewhat crudely. This was a matter which the Labour Party had not yet given great attention to. They were going to support the Government on this Bill, reserving to themselves the right to do what they could to amend it in Committee. They trusted that it would go through, and that it would result in the fixing of a much larger number of people on the soil in Scotland than had hitherto got a living there, and that it might to some extent enable the House to gain experience as to how they coulddeal with the subject in England. It might be said that what he had suggested was too large a scheme. Well, the evil was largo, and it called for large and oven heroic remedies. The time would come, whether under this Government or not, when the credit of the State would have to be used to fix people upon the soil in much larger numbers than this Bill promised to.
CAPTAIN WARINGsaid that, in venturing to criticise the Bill, he was actuated by no hostile spirit, his only desire being to voice the opinions of the constituents whom he had the honour to represent. They would welcome the Bill, even should it pass in its present form, although, having regard to the well-known opinions of the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate, they had hoped for something more than

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a re-draft of the Act of 1886—something more final, more drastic, and more complete in the nature of land reform. Before he became connected with his constituency the Liberal Association of the County of Banff—which included a large number of well-known and able agriculturists, many of whom were small holders of the crofting class, and possessed a knowledge of the land question as extensive and full as their knowledge of farming—meeting in August last, passed a resolution to the following effect—
"That while welcoming the Government measure of 1906 (which is practically similar to the measure now before the House) and cordially supporting the object and general principles of the Bill, they would suggest that the Government provide facilities whereby tenants may become occupying owners of their holdings, while the Government retains the superiority of the land."
He was in hearty agreement with that resolution, expressing, as it did, a desire for land purchase in the place of the present proposal of compulsory leases, and he had discovered that his constituents were unanimous in that desire. He must admit that he listened with astonishment to the statement of the learned Solicitor-General for Scotland that the desire to become owners of the soil was alien to the genius of the Scottish race. He agreed that a complete scheme of land purchase for Scotland must be a large measure, and must of necessity entail a great expenditure, even when the land was valued at its fair and proper price and not at any fancy sum, or with the addition of any mysterious bonus to bribe individuals to enter into a patriotic and genuine scheme for the improvement of the agricultural industry of the country. He was also aware that he belonged in that House to a section renowned for its unswerving loyalty to the Government, and there was one thing that even his brief and limited experience of politics had taught him, namely, that it was often necessary to frame one's demands in inverse proportion to the extent of one's loyalty. Therefore he did not suggest a complete scheme of purchase at the present juncture. It had been said that the value of the land could not be accurately ascertained until a sufficient period of time had elapsed to permit of fair rents having been fixed. He thought that if it was possible to fix a fair rent it was also possible to fix a fair value, and that at
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the present time a gradual system of purchase might be instituted which would not entail a very great annual expenditure, and would be the means eventually of peopling Scotland with a community of peasant proprietors looking to one superior only, and that superior the State. If, then, the Government could see their way to giving greater elasticity to the Bill and to providing facilities for a gradual development of that description, they would produce a measure more in accord with the great bulk of opinion in Scotland, than the Bill as it at present stood. Turning to another point—he desired, if possible, to emphasise the position of the agricultural labourer under the Bill. Everyone knew what excellent labour was provided by the croft, and how greatly the loss of that labour had been deplored by the larger farmers in districts where crofts have disappeared. But in the south-east of Scotland crofters were practically unknown, and not only in the south-east, but in all parts of Scotland, there existed representatives of that excellent and worthy, though rapidly dwindling, class— the agricultural labourer. Under this Bill—and he regretted that in this he differed from his hon. friend the Member for East Aberdeen, though he could agree with the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow'—there was nothing, or practicallynothing, done for that class, since to benefit under the Bill a man must be able to satisfy the Commissioners that he had the experience and the capital necessary to equip a small holding. In his judgment it was almost imperative to provide land for the farm labourer, if ho was to bekept on the land at all. Only a few acres would be necessary, but the possession of these would enable him to gain experience and put aside money, which would eventually place him into a position to enter into a bigger holding, possibly a pair-horse farm. He would quote an instance that had come under his notice: A farmabourer occupied a holding of twelve acres, which was wrought for him by the farmer in consideration of the former receiving from the latter £32 in wagesinstead of £36. The man occupied that twelve-acre holding for nine years, at the end of which period, and as a direct result of his occupation of the holding, he was enabled to take a thirty-acre croft at a rental of £15. He might

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say in passing that when the individual moved into his thirty-acre croft, the labourer who had been driving the second pair on this same farm took up with alacrity the twelve-acrecroft which had been vacated by his colleague. That he believed to be a most desirable arrangement, and he thought that some clause might be introduced whereby a farm labourer could be placed in a position to obtain both the experience and the funds necessary under this Bill for him to enter into a larger holding. Then with regard to Clause 16 of the Bill, the resumption of holdings by the landlord. He was aware that hard cases made bad laws, but he was going to put forward a case which was a hard one, and he thought entitled to some consideration from the right hon. Gentleman. Clause 16, or rather Clause 2 of the Crofters Act of 1886, permitted the landlord to resume the holding at the expiration of the lease for certain very laudable purposes. But it did not provide for the landlord resuming possession in order to himself, with his family, occupy the dwelling house and farm the lands. In Banffshire a very large estate, consisting almost exclusively of small holdings within the meaning of this Bill, was offered for sale at a very proper and reasonable price. The existing tenants however, in most cases, refused to purchase though given the refusal, and the holdings were purchased by others of the crofting class, who became rent receivers for the time being, intending as the leases fell out to occupy the holdings themselves. The majority of these leases would terminate in five to seven years time. But should this Bill become law the existing tenants could apply for fixity of tenure, and these other crofters belonging to the same class, the very class the Bill was intended to benefit—individuals worthy of all praise, for they were solvent since they purchased, thrifty since they were solvent, and eminently desirable as occupiers of the land, since they had actually purchased their holdings out and out without the assistance of the Treasury or of an Act of Parliament—these crofters would never be able to occupy the holdings which they intended to make their homos. He thought that that case was worthy of attention and that Clause 16 should include a provision that the desire to occupy and farm a holding should be deemed a reasonable ground for resump-
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tion by the owner. Hecould only say that in the parts of Scotland with which he had been and was now connected, land reform would be thankfully received, and they welcomed this Bill in spite of its limitations, because it inculcated the principle that when any man desired land for the purpose of cultivation, he could obtain it and would no longer meet with that obstruction of insane prejudice which had been the ruin of the agricultural industry of this country.
SIRHENRY CRAIKsaid he wished to congratulate the Government upon the approval which the Bill had received from the hon. Member for Glasgow and the hon. Member for Banffshire, and other Socialistic supporters. He also congratulated the Government upon the logical result of the arguments of the hon. Members for Glasgow and East Aberdeen-shire, that the proposals in the Bill would lead to, not only dual ownership, at the suggestion of which the Solicitor-General was very indignant, but a trinity of ownership—the Land Court, the owner who was to be left with a remnant of his interest, and the occupying tenant. There were many Members on the Ministerial side of the House as distinctly opposed to Socialism as they on the Opposition side were. For instance, the hon. Member for Midlothian had gone on a campaign against Socialism. Were these hon. Membersprepared to see Socialistic views carried as far as was proposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow and the hon. Member for Banffshire? He held no brief for the landowners of the country. No one was less connected with land than he was, and no one related to him had ever been the owner of twelve acres of land. His interest in the land question was that only of a student of the economical development of the country, and, in that aspect, these proposals were of the groatest importance. Two hundred years ago, at the time of the Union, the population of Scotland was only one million, and it was almost entirely rural. In his own time he had seen the marvellous transference of the population from the country to the town; but at the time of the Union not more than 100,000 people lived in towns of over a population of 4,000. But what was the condition of that overflowing

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rural population? Was it really nourished in any decent conditions by the land? He recalled some statistics given by no less sapient a statesman than the Baillie Nicol Jarvis, whose words were put in his mouth by a brain which understood Scotland, and interpreted by an imagination which could realise, as few could, the actual facts. The Baillie's calculation was that the population of the Highlands was 230,000, of whom he said by no human possibility could more than half earn an honestlivelihood, and the rest he asserted without fear of contradiction were little else than thieves-picturesque and romantic thieves, no doubt—but all the same living on plunder. But he rather respected them, because they were not ashamed of their profession, and although occasionally they took cattle which was not their own, they did not describe it as thieving, but called themselves "gentlemen drovers." That proved that during the 18th century, in regard to which they had comparatively few statistics, they had a very populous country, and an immense leeway to make up in regard to town population. The vast increase of manufactures, by which after all Scotland had to gain her wealth, because her country was not one which could have brought her to be a leader among agricultural countries, was concomitant of the necessary advance in urban population. This state of things went on till 1800, when he calculated that the rural population was something like 1,200,000, against an urban population of something like 400,000. In the middle of the last century it had grown until the population was something like 3,000,000, an increase of 60per cent, over that of the first part of the last century, and that was accompanied by a growth of population in the eight large towns to 750,000. As the result of the development of the commercial undertakings of the country, the population in these large towns had now grown to 1,700,000 out of a total of 4,500,000. In that Scotland had not differed from the other countries of the world, because this sort of change had been going on everywhere. Theincreased population in towns, therefore, was not due to any wickedness on the part of the landlords, or to any niggardliness on their part. In the latter part of the last century the movement was due to causes which were absolutely
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patent to everybody who cared to take note of them. The hon. Member for Glasgow looked askance upon the new efforts at colonisation which had been made, but he was prepared to say that a large part of the youth of Scotland, especially the most ambitious youth of Scotland, would always find a home in our Colonies greatly to the advantage of the Colonies, their own country, and themselves. That was inevitable when one considered the advances which mankind hadmade together with the enormous amount of labour-saving apparatus now employed in agriculture. These causes not only naturally but necessarily led to the vast shifting of the population between 1851 and 1901. The shifting of the labour population in Scotland, however, had not been so large in recent years as it had been in years gone by. No doubt some counties had suffered a small diminution of population, but the diminution in those counties where it had most taken place was in total numbers during the last fifty, sixty, or seventy years something under 100,000. That was not a very great diminution when one was dealing with a population of 4,500,000, and it had not been a universal diminution or one which had prevented the rural population of Scotland as a whole increasing during that period. What was the proposal of the Government to deal with this change? The Opposition were as anxious as the Government to stimulate residence in the country, to relieve the pressure upon great towns, and to do something to stem that physical deterioration which necessarily came from the conditions of town life. He did not believe, however, that these results would follow from the establishment under the Bill of a few holdings of which no one would be the owner, and in whicheach partner would feel himself fettered by restrictions. The restrictions would only lead to friction and recourse to the Land Courts. That was not the way in which the peasantry of Scotland had grown up, and it would not give them a new peasantry now. It was not the way in which new relations between landlord and tenant would have to be set up in country districts, and it would not tend to the establishment of that form of Socialism which all regarded as distinct from the Socialism which rested

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upon abstract political ideas—that form of Socialism under which the community was knit together by ties of mutual interest and a desire to help each other. The Bill would destroy alike the influence of the tiller of the soil and the influence of the landlord. If the influence of the latter were injured it would mean that the good work he had done, which even hon. Members opposite acknowlodged, would cease, and in the case of the tenant the Bill would mean that he would lose the first instinct of mean-kind, which was to have a sense of self-respect, increasing when he could call his home his own, and when he knew that what he had spent on it would remain his property. The Bill would create a set of occupiers who were to be held to the soil under Land Courts by means of payments, and the landlord would have no more interest in the land than the money lender or the mortgagee. It was to that position that the Government would reduce the landlords of Scotland, and although they all agreed that they should hold to the soil as many as the soil could maintain and should attract people back from the large towns, the Bill touched the mere fringe of the question and would destroy far more than it created by undermining the interest of the proprietors of the soil. The Solicitor General had said that the landlord was deprived of no rights whatever except the fixing of the rent; that he still retained the inestimable privilege of raising money on his land. But it was not now possible to raise money on the security of the land so easily as before. These proposals had not only reduced the power but the responsibiliy of landlords in cases where a new tenancy might be set up. They undermined the whole of that which was the landlord's property quite as much as a mill was the property of a manufacturer. Not only would these proposals do that, but they would introduce absolute insecurity. The landlord would never know whether, or when, any of his larger tenants might have their holdings cut up. How could these men carry on in any sense of security the farming of the larger holdings when they know they were subject at any moment to have their land divided into miserable pieces? He believed the Government would have
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done better and done more for the rural population of Scotland if they had by some means or other improved the housing and sanitary conditions of the festering masses which were herded together in the midst of the towns. What was proposed by this measure was at best a small and ineffectual remedy for an evil of vast extent. Did the Government suppose that by allowing a few; rents to be fixed on a few holdings they would relieve the pressure of the towns? The emptiness of the country was no doubt partly caused by vast aggregations in towns. If they wished to palliate the evils of town life they must do so by attacking those evils at their centre, and not by starting an artificial system of land tenure in the rural districts of Scotland. Let them consider for a moment what the climate and conditions of Scotland were. Out of 19,000,000 acres of land in Scotland only 4,500,000 were under cultivation, or something like one acre per head of the total population, or two acres per head of the agricultural population of the country. Did they really think that by a mere "Mrs. Partington's" mop of this sort they would stem the tide of colonistion, and check the energy and the zeal which carried the young men of Scotland out to the Colonies, to the veldt, or to the virgin prairies to make two blades of grass grow where one had grown before It was the smallest, the most insignificant, the most ridiculous attempt that had ever been made to provide for the great and growing youth of Scotland, whose ambition was not to be circumscribed by the boundaries of a small holding measured out to them by a Land Court under fixed conditions. Did the Government think that was a good substitute for all that they were doing all over the world? There was another aspect of the question. They had been taunted with being tarred with the brush of Protection. He did not know, and therefore was not prepared to say, whether there were not on both sides of politics peopletarred with that brush. His withers were unwrung, because he made his position perfectly clear at the time of his election; but he asked who would make most proselytes for Protection—the Unionist Party, or the Government that established a doubtful system of small holdings, that planted a few persons of its own choosing on small

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holdings, contrary to the conditions of the market, fixing what rent they had to pay by an arbitrary Commissioner, making them strive to earn a livelihood out of those small holdings under conditions which necessarily could not pay in competition with the more productive larger holdings, and without that great capital with which alone the vicissitudes of agriculture could be met in a climate which was not fitted to compete with the more genial climate of other countries? The climate of Scotland might develope scientific horticulturists, but it was not one which would permit of largo profits in agriculture. Were not the Government likely, if their proposals were carried out, to make out of every one of the now tenants put upon the land not only hardened but bigoted Protectionists, because only out of Protection of the severest kind could they ever gain their livelihood? He believed that this measure could only produce an infinitesimal amount of good in relieving the congestion in the great cities, and for that problematical advantage they were sacrificing the rights, interests, and duties of the landlord. He quite agreed with one hon. Member who spoke, that they were fully justified in expropriating by compulsory purchase a landlord who was an evil to the country, but every body would admit that this Bill propounded a scheme that would shake the foundations of our social system.
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.

WORTHING GAS BILL (BY ORDER).
As amended, considered.
MR. RIDSDALEin moving "That the schedule be omitted," said it was with considerable diffidence that he took the course which he was now taking. This Bill was a Bill for a private company, incorporated under Act of Parliament, and which had acquired statutory powers to supply gas to the corporation of Worthing. The Bill had already been before a Committee of the House upstairs, and had passed that Committee; and he was quite aware that if a private
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Member took the unusual course of opposing any part of that Bill in the House, it was necessary that he should make out a very good case. He asked the House to believe that it was with a full sense of the responsibility of the course he was taking, that he made the Motion which stood in his name. This company had now its work in the group of houses which constituted the town of Worthing itself. When it first obtained its Bill and erected its works, those works were in a comparatively unoccupied district. He found that as long ago as 1893 it required fresh ground in order to complete its works, though it had no room upon its present site. It then purchased a field called the Home Field, and kept it for some time without using it, because in the year 1893 Worthing suffered from a severe epidemic, and there was not that increased demand for gas which the company had been led to expect would arise. Finally, when the demand began as Worthing grew, the company visited the field and found it to be, in their opinion, unsuitable for the erection of gas works. They found that they could obtain a piece of land very much better suited to their purpose—a piece of open ground upon which their main works then stood. The corporation of Worthing at that time assented to their works being extended over that piece of ground, and it was only the strongest opposition of some householders and dwellers in the neighbourhood which prevented them from holding that piece of land. The opposition was so great that it became necessary for the Board of Trade to cause a local inquiry to be held. As a result of that inquiry a Report adverse to the scheme was made by Sir Alfred Bateman. The company consequently looked round for other ground to be obtained, and finding a site in the neighbouring village of Goring, acquired the property in the schedule of this Bill. As soon as the inhabitants of Goring became aware that the gas company desired to leave Worthing and to set up gas works among them, they began to be greatly perturbed and to do all that was in their power to object. The old parish council of Goring objected to the company. It was on the point of fresh election at the time this matter was pressing, and the election was fought mainly on the

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question whether the gas works of the Worthing Company should be allowed to be proceeded with in Goring parish or not. The supporters were entirely defeated, and the new parish council petitioned the House or the Committee upstairs against the Bill. Not only did the parish council of Goring petition against the Bill, but the neighbouring parish of Durrington also petitioned against it. And not only these two parish councils, but the East Preston District Council petitioned also, after a large meeting in which fourteen members out of a total number of eighteen voted, and the motion was carried unanimously. He could not conceive that it was to the interest of good local government that the views of local bodies should be overridden by the House. The House went to considerable trouble, he believed rightly, to set up parish and district councils in order that they might be able to manage their own affairs. Here was a case, if ever there was one, in which the council was able to form an opinion as to whether a proposal was to their detriment or to their advantage. They formed the opinion that the coming of these works would be detrimental, to the parish of Goring, and they asked and he asked in their name, that the House should not impose upon them the nuisance which really and truly belonged to their neighbours. Did that neighbour itself wish to impose that nuisance upon them? This, as he had stated, was a private company; its shareholders were all over the country, and no doubt many of them were in Worthing; none the less, it was a private company. It was not the corporation of Worthing. So far from the corporation of Worthing being anxious that the company should place these gasworks in Goring, which was the only avenue of expansion for the town of Worthing westward, the mayor and ten councillors up to the present date hadsigned a petition against the Bill. Were there any precedents for this course? To impose a nuisance upon a local body against its will was not a thing that ought to be done lightly. There must have been cases in the past in which attempts, at any rate, had been made. He had looked up those attempts, and he awaited some supporter of the Bill being able to put his finger on a single precedent for imposing gasworks on an
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unwilling community. There was a time when the Gas Corporation of Birmingham supplied gas to a neighbouring district of Erdington. As they supplied the gas to that district they said it would not be unreasonable to ask to be allowed to put gasworks there, but it was objected to. The Corporation of Tunbridge Wells desired to take their gasworks out of Tunbridge Wells and put them in a country district. That was refused also, and as far as ho could ascertain there was absolutely no precedent for the action proposed in the Bill. It was on these grounds that he was asking that the schedule should not be passed. Gasworks were admitted to be detrimental to the growth of a town. There was a very marked case within his own knowledge in the town of Brighton, where gasworks were erected in Kemp Town, and that stopped the growth of the town in that direction for about fifty years. At one time Kemp Town was the fashionable end of Brighton, but once those gasworks were put there, building stopped at the boundary, but never went beyond. It was true that when they ceased to manufacture gas there, houses were built beyond the boundary, and there were about half a dozen houses dotted about beyond the boundary. They might possibly think that it was only the landowners who objected to this. It was admitted that the presence of gasworks did depreciate the land near which they were placed, and it was computed that the coming of these gasworks into Goring would depreciate the value of the land by about 50 per cent. He was not concerned in that House to defend the position of landlords. But he did not want to see values unnecessarily destroyed, and if they were going to have the taxation of ground values it was highly desirable in the interests of everybody that these values should be maintained in order that they might be taxed. The village of Goring lay about 400 yards from the place where the gasworks were to be erected. The villagers were as strongly against the coining of the gasworks as the landlords themselves. Out of 118 voters 110 had signeda petition objecting to the proposal. The reason would be apparent to the House when he stated that Goring was a pretty little village at the seaside, and the majority of the inhabitants made a large portion of their yearly earnings from letting lodgings. They did this in the summer

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season to such people of the towns as required fresh air. So much was this the case that the clergyman of Goring felt it incumbent upon him to come up and give evidence before the Committee as to the damage which would be done to the village by the schedule of this Bill; and he stated in his evidence that he received every summer applications from some twenty or thirty people asking him whether he would be kind enough to procure lodgings for them. As far as he could see, the position of a clergyman in such matters seemed to be rather like that of a Member of Parliament, who was asked to do all kinds of different things which would not occur to most people. He thought he had made out a case as regarded the facts, and it would take some answering. As far as he could ascertain the arguments on the other side, they exactly amounted to this—that there was no other available site for the gas company to go to, and that it was common both to the objectors and to the supporters of the Bill that a further supply of gas was urgently needed for the supply of Worthing. When he stated to them that the corporation of Worthing included within its boundaries no less than seven square miles of territory, whereas its population was only 23,000, it would be apparent to them that the site difficulty could not be an insuperable one. Sir Alfred Bateman had reported that the Gas Company acted unwisely in 1894, and that it did not appear to him that there were any insuperable difficulties in obtaining a site for the extension near the railway. He hoped in a matter so vital to the inhabitants of Goring the company would not be allowed to ride rough-shod over them. He begged to move that the schedule be omitted.
VISCOUNT TURNOURseconded the Amendment. He thought when the House had heard the whole of the arguments for and against this Amendment, they would agree that there were very strong reasons for refusing to allow this measure to pass in its present form. What was the main reason why they objected to the Bill? It was because it imposed upon a village a scheme to which the inhabitants almost unanimously objected. As his hon. friend had stated in his speech, he believed there existed no precedent of any kind in which the House had sanctioned
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such a scheme to which the whole of the people in the area affected who had anything at stake took exception. The town of Worthing was by no means unanimous in favour of the scheme, if indeed the majority of the inhabitants were in favour of it at all. As a matter of fact, so far as they could judge, the town of Worthing was opposed to the scheme. Both the local papers published in the town of Worthing, one of which was a Conservative and the other a Liberal paper, had printed leading articles against the schedule of the Bill. Not only that, but a public petition had been got up in the town of Worthing against the Bill, which had been signed by the mayor and ten of the councillors and a largo number of other influential residents in the town. He submitted it as a very strong point indeed that even in the town of Worthing, which was supposed to benefit by the scheme, the inhabitants were by no means unanimous in favour of the scheme. He thought that upon this Amendment one should ask oneself two questions. Firstly, could the company obtain land within the Borough of Worthing? As his hon. friend had stated, the area within the Borough of Worthing was seven square miles, and there was not by any means a population to the square mile which was at all excessive. As his knowledge of Worthing was limited, for he had only been there on a few occasions, he did not put forward his local knowledge of the town and ask the House to accept it in any way. Anybody who has over been to Worthing would agree that there wore a great many sites in the town which could be utilised for the purpose. In the evidence given before the Committee the promoters of the Bill alleged that it was not possible to find a suitable site within the area of the town. That view was supported by an expert brought forward by the promoters of the Bill, but the opponents of the measure also brought forward an expert who said exactly the opposite. Anyone who had been connected with private Bill legislation knew that en Private Bill Committees that was a thing which very often took place. But he had very much stronger evidence to bring forward than that of the two experts, although he did not want to make any reflections upon their opinion. Sir Alfred Bateman, in his Report to the Poard of Trade upon another application of the

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Worthing Gas Company for an extension of their present works, gave as his reason for refusing that application that he believed it was possible to find a suitable site for the extension required near the railway which passed through Worthing. That was not long ago, and Worthing had not devoloped so rapidly as to make it any more difficult to obtain sites for these works. That Report brought out the extremely unbusinesslike method in which the Worthing Gas Company had conducted that part of the business which dealt with their application for increased powers. Some time ago, they acquired a certain site, which they afterwards discovered was not suitable for the erection of gas works, and Sir Alfred Bateman commented upon this action of the company in his Report to the Board of Trade. He believed that the company, if they were prepared to pay a proper price for the land, could obtain perfectly suitable land for the purpose within the Borough of Worthing. Even if the company were unable to obtain land within the Borough of Worthing, the House should ask itself whether the land could not be obtained anywhere else where the presence of the works would not be so resented by the inhabitants as it was in the village of Goring. He had some little local knowledge, and, although he did not know the town of Worthing well, he did know the land round about, and, in his opinion, on the east side of the town there were several sites which it would be possible for the company to acquire, where what he might call the nuisance works of the town of Worthing—the sewage, the electrical, and other works— had all been erected, and were now being conducted. As was clearly brought out in the evidence before the Committee, the east end of the town was not regarded as the part most likely to increase for residential purposes, or the part which during the last two or three years had increased most rapidly, very likely owing to the fact that these works, which were more or less of a nuisance to the neighbourhood, were already there. The people of Goring objected to the scheme, because it would destroy one of the principal charms of the village, and would very largely injure the position which the cottager and farmer now had in being able to offer lodgings in a small and quiet village removed from the hustle of town. They
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also alleged, as he thought with very great reason, that the erection of these gas works would seriously injure the future residential value of the village, because at the present moment the town was growing in that direction, although there was practically no building going on. There was no doubt that in a very few years the village would become part of Worthing, and all around, and especially in the neighbourhood where it was proposed to erect these works, could be found very valuable residential sites. The value of land for agricultural and horticultural purposes just where it was proposed to erect these gas works was very great. As far as his own position went in supporting the Amendment, he would certainly be more or less directed, as to whether or not he went to a division, by what the Chairman of Committees said on the Bill. He thought, however, that they were justified in calling the attention of the House to thestate of affairs which would be brought about if the Bill was passed, and to the very serious precedent which the Committee were making by allowing a company to erect works and force upon a village a scheme to which the whole inhabitants, the local councillors, and everybody connected with the place were strongly opposed. He trusted the Houso would not allow the Bill to pass in its present form.
Amendment proposed—
In page 25, to leave out the Schedule.—(Mr. Ridsdale.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
MR. WILESsaid he held no brief on behalf of the Worthing Gas Company; in fact, he regretted that the Worthing Corporation did not make gas themselves, but as they did not it was the desire of the company to supply gas for their town, and as he understood that this Bill was one which the corporation of Worthing generally supported lie had his name put on the back of it. He had no interest whatever in the gas company, nor had his correspondent who was chairman of the Electric Lighting Committee for the Corporation of Worthing. Generally the feeling in Worthing was quite contrary to the

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opinion expressed by the hon. Member for the Horsham Division of Sussex. He believed there was a vast majority of the people strongly in favour of the Bill, because the gas works were now too small to make the supply of gas required, owing to the great increase in the population of Worthing. With reference to the site, it had been said that other sites were available in Worthing. He knew Worthing fairly well, and he felt sure that it was impossible to get any suitable site within the area, except in the eastern part of Worthing. The hon. Member for Brighton said that the proper place to put the gas works was near the generating station and dust destructor. This company a few years ago purchased a site in that locality, and they found—and he believed other available land was in the same position—there was a large running seam of sand, twelve feet deep, in which it was impossible for them to lay a foundation.
VISCOUNT TURNOUR: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman and say that that is disputed both by the opponents of this Bill and by others. The contention is not upheld by Sir Alfred Bate-man's Report.
MR. WILESsaid he believed the Committee who went carefully into the details of the Bill were perfectly satisfied with the evidence they had that this was practically the only site available for the Worthing Gas Company. It had been said that the Bill should not be passed because a handful of people living in the charming village of Goring were opposed to it. The evidence of the opposition came from the rector or vicar, and the landlords who generally objected to gas works near their property. When the vicar was asked a question by the Committee with reference to the benefit of the proposed new works in increasing the population of Goring he said—
"We do not want to increase a certain class of people."
Then, when he was asked what kind of people he would like to come, he replied that they should like people who were able to live in houses of £70 to £80, and and who would bring their necessary servants with them. They were told that 110 out of 118 cottagers had expressed an opinion against the gas works
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being placed on the proposed site. He supposed they had been convinced by the landlords. It would be easy for landlords and their friends in any locality to get an expression of opinion on the question whether they would be in favour of gas works there or not. It had been argued that the Corporation were against the Bill. He was advised by his correspondent, who was a member of the corporation; that only ten out of thirty-two Members signed the petition against the Bill, and, there fore he thought it was hardly fair to say that public opinion and the opinion of Worthing Corporation, were against the Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: The Mayor is.] The Mayor might be, but he did not always represent the corporation, or the opinion of the town. For the House to reject a Bill after it had been three days before a Select Committee would be a very unusual course, and he hoped that on account of some Members who appeared to have some personal interest—
MR. RIDSDALE: I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker. I have no interest whatever in this Bill or in Worthing, or anywhere else. My interest is the public interest.
VISCOUNT TURNOUR: I must also ask the hon. Member to withdraw that statement. In saying that I have a personal interest in this matter he has made a serious accusation.
MR. WILESsaid he meant to make no personal accusation at all. When he said personal interest he meant a knowledge of the locality. He knew that both of the hon. Gentlemen had an interest in the district. He hoped that the House would not reject the Bill simply because of a little opposition from persons concerned in the way he had indicated.
SIR HENRY KIMBERsaid he was sorry to find himself in disagreement with two hon. Members who were good friends of his own. It seemed to him that they had given no reason why the House should depart from the good old practice of approving of the decisions of Committees when the propriety of those decisions had not been impugned on some good principle. The appeal was generally urged, if it was

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heard at all, on the evidence given before the Committee. He asked the House how much of the evidence given before the Committee had been read to the House on this occasion? The two hon. Members who had moved and seconded the rejection of the Bill—for that would be the effect of cutting out the schedule—had said that the ground of their opposition to the Bill was not put forward by the friends on whose behalf they spoke. He did not impugn their motives at all. He was sure that the mover and seconder were actuated by the purest of motives. But theparty who put them in motion had been heard before the Committee. The Committee sat for five days and took evidence, not hearsay evidence, as the House were doing now, but direct personal evidence on oath. The House devolved on the Committee the duty of hearing and examining witnesses and arriving at conclusions. No suggestion had been made that that Committee did not behave properly, that they had exceeded their duty, or that they had wrested justice in any manner. The House was asked on the ipse dixit of two hon. Members, who could not possibly have had the advantages afforded to the Committee who heard evidence for five days, to reverse the decision of the Committee. And what was the ground? The sole question was whether the gas company should be at liberty to obtain sufficient ground to fulfil duties imposed on them by Parliament. It was a question of site. It was admitted on both sides that they must have extra accommodation. They must get it somewhere. A gas company having no compulsory powers could not force the expropriation of ground for gas works. They had to make an agreement with somebody willing to sell. The investigations made two years ago by the Board of Trade through its very competent officer, Sir Alfred Bateman, showed that the site then proposed was not suitable and they advised its rejection. The gas company took twelve months to consider the matter, and consulted professional and expert men whose competency was not denied. They were produced before the Committee, and they gave evidence on oath. The only place they could find after twelve months exploration of the neighbourhood was the particular site scheduled in the Bill. They brought it before a Committee of the
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House, and the Board of Trade, having had an opportunity of examining the proposal, did not oppose it. The Committee had the advantage of knowing what the Board of Trade thought, and they passed the Bill. The dictum of Sir Alfred Bateman, which had been quoted, that he did not believe that the difficulty of obtaining a site near the railway was insuperable, had been met by this Bill, for the site was near the railway, and it was the only one, it must be presumed, which the gas company could obtain. As to its being in the village of Goring, it was nothing of the kind. It was a quarter of a mile off at least. It was admitted by the mover to be 400 yards off. He believed it was a great deal more from the village. Even the hon. Member admitted that the company must have further accommodation for fulfilling its Parliamentary duties to the public in the locality. The hon. Member had said that the House had to ask itself the question whether there was no other site available. Was it to be supposed that the Committee did not go into that question? As a matter of fact it certainly was inquired into by the Committee. The arguments of the opponents of the Bill was that there were other sites which could be obtained, but they were not successful in getting the members of the Committee to accept that view. The Committee decided unanimously in favour of this particular site, and gave the necessary powers. This was one of the forms of devolution by which the House worked through its Committees. It had been exercised for very many years with great advantage to the House, relieving it of the necessity of going into discussions like the present. He asked the House seriously to say that this Motion, if brought before a court of law in the form of an appeal, would be called a sham appeal, for the evidence had not been laid before the House. Although the Bill was five days before the Committee, not a scrap of evidence had been adduced to show why their decision should be reversed. It would be a travesty of anything that could be called justice to set aside the decision, and he asked the House to reject the Motion.
MR. ALFRED HUTTONsaid that as Chairman of the Committee he might be permitted to arid a few words to what had been so

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well said by the last two speakers. It might seem discourteous on his part if he did not say a few words on behalf of the the Committee that considered the Bill. He did not think he would care to object to everything that was said by the hon. Member for Brighton and the noble Lord the Member for the Horsham Division. It had been asked what was the opinion of the whole corporation. The whole corporation passed a resolution on the subject the effect of which he could not at the moment say, but he thought it was not to oppose the Bill. At least it left them to infer that the corporation would not oppose the Bill. The only other new point he heard from the hon. Member was that land would be largely depreciated in value. He thought the hon. Member had a very exaggerated view of the enormities of the Bill. He admitted that the strength of the case of his hon. friend was very great, and that it was pressed on their notice by able counsel and able witnesses. But he would state one or two of the reasons which weighed with the Committee in coming to their decision. This was the third attempt of the gas company to obtain a larger site; it had been generally admitted that something must be done, and that there was no room for extension of the works on the present site. Reference had been made to the inquiry made by the Board of Trade into the application of the gas company for leave to enlarge their premises, and to the objection taken by the people whose houses were close to the gas works. But the gas works had been there for seventy years, and the people had come to the neighbourhood with the full knowledge that they were there. His hon. friend urged that when they came to a new area with such works as gas works, all the objections that might be made against them should be taken into account. He did not think that the Committee could have asked the gas company to go further away for a site for their now works. The gas company ought not to be regarded as a nuisance, since it supplied a public demand. The public wanted gas, and more gas. The noble Lord had said that there were other available sites, but he could not find them, and every opportunity was given by the Committee to the witnesses to suggest a suitable site. Mr. Stevensen was asked if there was not an available site, and he
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put his finger on the map and said, "that site is perfectly suitable from every point of view." But when he was asked if he had inspected it, it turned out that he had only seen it from a railway train.
VISCOUNT TURNOURsaid that that might be the case, but did the hon. Gentleman allege that there was no other site that the company could obtain within seven miles? What was the objection to this particular site?
MR. ALFRED HUTTONsaid that it was not for him to go over all the evidence again. His recollection was that the site was open to the objection of having beneath it running sand. The Committee considered very carefully all the objections of the opponents of the Bill, but were forced to the conclusion that they ought not to reject it.
MR. NIELDthought the evidence was conclusive that the Bill should be read a third time. Some people seemed to object to gas works as much as to a small-pox hospital, but he thought that of two evils the lesser should be chosen. After all, if Worthing desired to have a further supply of gas, it ought to have it. The Committee upstairs considered the Bill for five days; they had the assistance of counsel in examining and cross-examining the witnesses, and they came to the conclusion that there was no alternative but to pass the Bill. The House ought to be very slow after that long investigation to reverse the decision at which the Committee arrived.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. EMMOTT)thought the House pretty well realised the facts of the situation. The Worthing Gas Company was prevented from extending its works in the neighbourhood of its present site after an inquiry by the Board of Trade. The company tried for other sites, and that selected was the only one which the Committee (a very strong one, presided over by the hon. Member for Morley), decided was the best alternative site available to the gas company. A good deal had been said about the nuisance of gas works, but the Committee had put in a clause to provide for

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the planting of trees round the works. It was found that only four houses were within 300 yards of the works. In the Report of the last day's proceedings there was a statement of the Chairman's which read as follows—
"The real question is the alternative site which I have been hammering at all along."
He read that to show the great care with which the Committee considered the question of the alternative site, and he would remind the House that it was no part of the duty of a Committee to consider the question of alternative sites. Their real duty was to deal with the business before them, which was the proposal contained in the Bill. They were, therefore, undertaking a work of supererogation in dealing with the question of alternative sites. Might he say one word about the result which would be entailed by upsetting the decision of this Committee? It would stop the increase of works and stop the increased supply of gas, which he understood was badly wanted. But it would have a very much more serious effect than that. It would have a very serious and undesirable effect upon members of the Committee who sat for five days and considered the matter with great care. It would also have a very serious effect upon other Members of the House sitting on Private Bill Committees if they were encouraged, as they would be encouraged by an adverse decision in this matter, rather to reject a Bill than to pass one which contained any novel or unusual solution of the question submitted to them. He thought the Private Bill Committee work of the House was a matter of which the House had always been proud, and might reasonably still be very proud, and it would be a very, very serious matter to interfere with it by upsetting a decision come to after a long and careful inquiry. He made no complaint of the matter being brought before the House. The decision was an unusual one, but it was unusual because the case was unusual. With regard to the question of precedents, to which the House rightly and naturally attached great importance, he did not know that there was a precedent on all fours with this case. All the other cases which had been mentioned as being similar were cases in which the Bills had been rejected in Committee. There was abso-
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lutely no precedent for a Bill which had been passed by the Committee, like this Bill, being rejected by the House on a purely Committee point. Therefore he thought the precedents might be used not only by those who opposed the Bill but by those who were seeking to support the finding of the Committee. Under these circumstances he asked the House to think twice and even thrice before it supported an Amendment of this character which would inevitably destroy a Bill over which a great deal of time had been spent and to which the Committee had given a great deal of attention.
LORD EDMUND TALBOTbegged to say, in self defence, that he had no interest direct or indirect in this question. He was only interested in it in his capacity as Member for a neighbouring division to that in which it was proposed to erect these works. He had the warmest sympathy with the hon. Member for Brighton, and so far as he had heard no one in the debate had yet met the challenge which he threw out in regard to precedents. The Chairman of Ways and Means had admitted that there was no precedent so far as he knew for the actual course taken by this Committee, but he went on to say, as he understood him, that there would be no precedent for the House going against the Committee in regard to a Bill of this character. He was not going now to take up the time of the House by entering into a discussion of the points which had already been raised, but what he suggested to the House was that if they adopted thedecision that the Committee had come to they were laying down, as he understood, for the first time a precedent, and that precedent was nothing more than this, that a private company was to have the right against the wish of the district concerned to "dump" its works down in a locality which was not to benefit from the existence of those works. If they did that they would be taking a strong step and one which ought not to be taken without further consideration. He should certainly support the Motion of the hon. Member for Brighton.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid he thoroughly agreed with the remarks which had been made by the

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Chairman of Ways and Means. The House had set up a system of Private Bill Committees under which this Committee sat for many days and listened to the evidence and to the arguments of counsel, and if they were to attempt to revise the decisions which had been come to after all that labour, he thought they might as well at once do away with Private Bill Committees and attempt to settle all such matters in the House itself. He knew nothing about the merits of the points in question, but he submitted that it would be a bad day for the House if on small or shallow grounds they were to reject the decision come to by a Private Bill Committee. He understood, and if it was the fact it would influence his vote, that if the inhabitants of the neighbourhood could prove that the gas company's undertaking as it was established constituted a nuisance they had a legal remedy. Under these circumstances, a Committee of the House having sat for five days, heard the evidence, and decided the matter, he should certainly vote for the Bill and against the Amendment.
MR. RIDSDALEsaid that in view of the remarks of the Chairman of Ways and Means he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment, hoping that further evidence might be produced by the opposers elsewhere which would result in a different decision.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill to be read the third time.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Postponed Proceeding on Amendment to Question [29th April], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was—
"To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, 'this House welcomes State action to promote small holdings; but, supporting the principle of responsible ownership in land, it believes that the Government policy should be based on purchase, and deprecates the extension of an extreme form of divided ownership to districts beyond those crofter areas where the occupier provides equipment.' "—(Mr. Munro Furguson.)—resumed.
Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR WEIRin supporting the Bill, said he wished to criticise some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities. The hon. Gentleman had gone a very long way back, but in the course of his speech about the development of towns and the depopulation of the Highland districts he had omitted to allude to the brutal evictions which had taken place prior to the passing of the Crofters Act, and which to a large extent had caused the decrease of people in those districts. Men were taken by hundreds and sent off to Nova Scotia like sheep. Let him and others who wish to make themselves acquainted with the character of the evictions about the middle of the last century read Mackenzie's Highland Clearances. The hon. Member did not tell them the details of the scheme by which he desired to stimulate interest in country life, and did not see how that was to be done except under some system of purchase and not by a Land Court such as was set up under the Bill. Surely anyone who wished to stimulate the development of the country would prefer the system proposed by the Bill rather than to leave matter under the control of the landlord. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the bond of union between the people and their landlords, but he had traced the history of men whose forefathers had been for two or three hundred years on the croft and to whom the usual forty days notice was given by the landlord or factor to clear out. The difficulty of borrowing money on land had been alluded to, and he had no doubt there would be difficulty at this moment. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the Bill as if the proposal was something absolutely new, whereas for twenty years they had had experience of the working of the Crofters' Act. Yet the hon. Member talked about this socialistic method of bringing about a change and said its result would be disastrous. Under the Crofter's Commission they had arrived at a better state of things than prevailed before in regard to the position of the crofter. The right hon. Member for South Dublin

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had referred to the present definition of ownership, and mentioned a number of societies, among others the Highland Society, which were opposed to the Bill. That was purely a landlord society. A man like himself would not be allowed to belong to it. Yet that was the society that the right hon. Gentleman instanced as being opposed to the Bill. So far as the Amendment was concerned he did not believe there were more than two Members, the mover and the seconder, on the Liberal side of the House who would support it. He was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that the landlord should have the right to make the best use he could of his land. The landlord had tried that a good many years before the Crofters Act came into force. Under the benign landlord rule, ovictions were carried out wholesale, tenants wore rack-rented to such an extent that theywere unable to pay the rent, and the Government of the Party to which the right hon. Gentleman belonged sent down gun-boats and Marines to the Highlands to shoot down the people who could not pay impossible rents and rates. For many years he had appealed to the Party opposite to do something for the Highland people, without success, and now the right hon. Gentleman told the House that the landlord should have the right to make the best use he could of the land, which meant evicting the tenants and turning the holdings into deer forests. Why should such care be taken of the welfare of the landlord? A man whose property consisted of stocks and shares had not this care taken of his interests. Bills which seriously affected them were brought into the House and passed, but there was this everlasting anxiety for the interests of the landlord, that he should be protected and cared for. Thus the proposal of the Conservative Party that the landlords should be bought out. If that was desirable they might be bought out at a later stage. That was a matter which could at any time be considered. It had been said that the Land Court would fail. He did not believe it. It had not failed in the case of the Crofters Commission which had been running for twenty-one years. It was further said that if it failed the landlord would be impoverished. On the contrary, if any of these holdings were vacated the land-
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lord would be left a good deal bettor off than before. The land would be bettor tilled and cared for than before the man was settled on the holding under this Bill. When he went to the Highlands he marvelled at the number of new houses, not built by the landlords, but by the people themselves. Was not the landlord better off in that respect? In the Island of Lewis alone there had been nearly £50,000 worth of improvements made entirely through the energy and thrift of the people themselves. The right hon. Gentleman said "trust the landlords." The people in the Highlands for a good many years had weighed the landlords in the balance, and found them wanting. The right hon. Gentleman said "trust the good landlords." They might trust the good landlords; it was the bad ones that could not be trusted; the men who had blasted and blighted so many homes in the Highlands of Scotland. He would not trust any of them, and he was glad to see the Government were moving, if not entirely in the way he would like, at leastin the right direction. He had pointed out that fixity of tenure would encourage men to make their homes in every way bettor. Let the lowlands of Scotland have the benefit of the Act, but it should not be given to them at the expense of the Highlands. It was because Members of the Government did not understand the Highland question that ho wished them to go to the Highlands and see the condition of things for themselves. [OPPOSITION cheers.] It was all very well for hon. Members opposite to cheer, but their Party was infinitely worse in that respect. He foresaw that the Highlands under this Bill were going to lose in order that the lowlands might benefit. He wished for the Bill, but there should be special clauses for the Highlands separate and apart from those for the lowlands. The Government had, however, climbed down at the bidding of the landlords. Last year's Bill was moregenerous, and he would like to know why the Government this year had departed from the policy they adopted last year. He was sorry that they had not stuck to their guns. The hon. Gentleman, the Solicitor-General for Scotland referring to the financial provisions of the Bill said, "Ye maun creep before ye gang." He quite agreed, but they should see that they had the strength of limb with which to creep. Financially

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there was no strength in the Bill even to creep. What could be done with £65,000 for the whole of Scotland? He hoped that the Secretary for Scotland would put his foot down and keep it down until the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stumped up sufficient money for Scotland's needs. They could always get money for England. The other day the Secretary for War in the jauntiest, lightest, and sprightliest manner said he would give £150,000 more for the Volunteers. Why did not the Secretary for Scotland do better than he did with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The hon. Members for Leith Burghs had pleaded for afforestation? Nobody wanted to prevent the landlords from planting trees on their land, but the landlords wanted the Government to provide the money. There was nothing to prevent landlords planting trees if they wanted them, but they could not expect the British tax-payer to do everything. As to the status of farm servants, he held that they would have a better status if they had their own holdings—like the crofters, who prior to the Crofters Act were often timid and afraid when they saw the factor approaching; now they were fearless and independent of both landlord and factor, so long as they paid the rent fixed by the Land Court. In like manner farm servants when in possession of small holdings would improve their status, till they, too, would be independent. The hon. Member had said they should wait for the English Bill. No; they had waited long enough, indeed far too long; and they wanted this Bill to go into Committee without delay. The factors were now at work carrying out evictions before this Bill passed into law. Objection was also taken to the Central Authority, and it was suggested that these matters should be settled by the local authorities. But his experience was that the people were too poor to leave their homes for three or four days in order to attend county council meetings; moreover they could not afford the time. He preferred the Central Authority. He looked at the work of the Crofters Commission, and he was satisfied that if the Land Court did its work as well it would be a perfect god-send to the small landholder. If the right men were chosen for the Land Court the scheme would work all right; if they got the wrong men, then the whole
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business would be an utter failure. Let them get the right men, good, straightforward, honest, and experienced men, who would hold the balance evenly between landlord and tenant, and then he believed the Land Court would be in no way exotic, as his hon. friend had said. He was glad that compulsory powers were to be taken, and that a Land Court would be established which, like the Crofters Commissioners, would hold the balance fairly between landlord and tenant. A good many Amendments to the Bill would have to be introduced and carried before it could meet the requirements of the Highlands. What had Scotland to do with an English Bill? England was the predominant partner, and she could take care of herself. Some attempt should be made to deal with the case of persons living around boroughs. Then it was asked, why restrict the rental to £50? The answer was that to introduce into the Bill large farmers who had rents over £50 and some up to £1,000 and £2,000 a year, would break the back of the Bill. This measure did not set up dual ownership; the landlord would retain all his rights; the tenant would have to pay his rent, or he would be cleared out. The landlord would not be despoiled of his rent, and under the Bill he would get it with greater regularity. What more could he want? The landlord wanted territorial power; he wanted to look down from the height of his castle and say—"These thousands of people are mine as well as the broad acres." But all that was of the long ago. The day for serfdom had gone by. He had been too long in the House to trust any Government. When the Bill was introduced he did not join in the discussion, but preferred to wait till he had seen, read, and inwardly digested it, and he must say that now he had seen it he was somewhat disappointed. There had been too much bubbling over with gratitude before any mercies had been granted. He preferred to wait, and show his gratitude when he saw what he had to be grateful for. He had expected a measure of a more democratic character from the Government now in power. He was sorry the Government had not stuck to their guns. He was disappointed with their proposals. Indifference was shown to the conditions in the Highlands, and

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allowance was not made for the fact that the people brought the land into cultivation from the bog, drained and fenced it, and erected the buildings, whereas in the lowlands all this was done by the landlords. The Lord-Advocate went to Inverness last autumn, where he made a brilliant speech on the Small Holders Bill. In that speech he said that a claim, backed by the highest, skilled advice, had steadily proceeded; from the crofting districts, and that claim ought not, with a powerful Liberal Government in power, to be allowed any longer to go unheeded. The claim he alluded to was that the benefits of the Crofters Act should be extended forth with to the leaseholders. In 1899 the Lord-Advocate said—
"What is the situation? You have men holding land side by side under the same climatic and other conditions, under the same landlord, with the same hardships, the same set of circumstances, where the improvements on the holding have been similarly made by the tenant. One of f these tenant has conferred upon him fair rent, fixity of tenure, and other securities; but the other tenant, the leaseholder, has none of these advantages."
What had the leaseholders done? Why had the Government run away from their former convictions? Every Liberal elector who recalled what had been said in past years by the present Lord-Advocate, would be painfully surprised to find that the benefits of the Bill were not to be extended to leaseholders until the expiration of their present leases, He hoped the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary for Scotland would consider seriously the advisability of going back to the conditions provided under the Bill of last year, and not show the white feather with such a magnificent majority behind them. The leaseholders should get the benefit of the Act directly it became law. He noticed that the new landholders had to be persons with sufficient ability to carry on the holding. What was meant by ability in this case? Why did they not define it? He thought it should be more clearly expressed, there being at present too much ambiguity. Were only those who were preferred by the landlord to get holdings? He did not expect a democratic Government to give that; power of selection. Had not the land-
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lords "bossed" long enough? He knew many cases where people had suffered on account of their political opinions. They should prevent any landlord saying that he would not have a certain man simply because he had expressed opinions of which he did not approve. He did not expect a democratic Government to truckle to the landlords in the way proposed. Clause 7 provided that, except by agreement a new holder should not be registered—
"(a) In respect of any land being or forming part of a farm not exceeding 150 acres occupied by a person who has no interest in any other farm; or (b) in respect of any land being or forming part of a farm occupied subject to a lease which was in force at Whitsunday, nineteen hundred and six, so long as the lease remains in force."
Why not make land which was under lease at once available for new holdings and the enlargement of holdings? If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury bench were cognisant of the state of matters in the Hebrides and the western parts of the mainland, they would never insert such clauses as the foregoing. A man who had a £50 holding was a prince among men who had holdings rented at £4 or £5 a year. He did not complain of that provision so far as the south of Scotland was concerned, but they could not afford to apply it in the Hebrides. It would shut out a large number of people in the surrounding districts who wanted land. The limit should not be more than £30 in congested areas. He would like to know what power was to be given to acquire land now devoted to deer forests and grazing. The Bill was extremely vague on that point. So far as he could see it would be competent for the Land Court to say that these lands were not available. There was no provision in the Bill which would prevent the extension of deer forests. Every highlander expected the Government to stop the extension of deer forests. Would they givepower to the Land Court to prevent such extension? He should like to know what was going to happen in the case of a deer forest with a farm attached to it under lease. If a landlord let a deer forest with a farm

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attached to it on lease, apparently the Land Court could not under this Bill touch an acre of the deer forest. There were now 3,000,000 acres of land used as deer forests in the Highland crofting counties alone, and it was high time that this extension of deer forests should stop. If not stopped by a Liberal Government, it would never be stopped by a Tory Government. He hoped the Government would see that deer forests were broken up to provide land for the people. In some parts of the Highlands the glebe lands were really large farms. That was unfair to people in congested areas. These glebe lands were excluded from the scope of the Bill. He did not object to a minister having a fair share of land, but if he wanted to be a farmer let him go and be a farmer. If he remained a minister let him attend to the spiritual welfare of the people. He was glad powers were given under the Bill to erect dwelling houses in the congested districts. But how were they they to do that with £35,000? In the Island of Lewis there were hundreds of the most insanitary houses on the face of the earth. That was denied by the local authorities in the districts, but it was a fact, and he invited hon. Gentlemen to go and see the houses for themselves, or read the report of Dr. Dittmar, the medical inspector for the Local Government Board for Scotland. Under the Bill eight Commissioners would be appointed, and why were the salaries of the five Land Court Commissioners stated, and nothing fixed in regard to the salaries of the Agricultural Commissioners? Were they to receive £500 or £1,000 a year? Then out of the eight Gentlemen, only one was required to understand Gaelic. There ought to be at least two Gaelic-speaking Commissioners. Was the Chairman of the Land Court to be a lawyer, or some fossil brought in from some other Department? What vas wanted was a man like Sheriff Brand, who was Chairman of the Crofters Commission for twenty years. Every Liberal elector who recalled what had been said
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in past years by the present Lord-Advocate would be painfullysurprised to find that the benefits of the Bill were not to be extended to leaseholders until the expiration of their leases. The Secretary for Scotland had assured him that provision would be made in the Bill for the fencing of deer forests, so that crofters, crops might be protected from doer, but nothing had been done. [Laughter.] It was all very well for the Solicitor-General for Scotland to laugh; but this was a very serious matter for the poor crofter. He wanted to know why the promises many times made had not been fulfilled in drafting the Bill. When right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench sat on the other side of the House they agreed with him, and said they were going to do wonders when they got into power. He would do the best he could in Committee to improve the Bill. Most of the highland Members knew that what he proposed to do was right. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Government, and he wanted them to do what was right, and not to jib. Unfortunately, they did not know the Hebrides and the general needs of the Highlands. It was not pleasant to talk against one's own Party, but he was going to vote for the Bill, and he hoped that right hon. Gentlemen would not forget their promises and pledges.
MR. COCHRANEsaid that like several Members on the other side of the House who preceded him the hon. Member who had just sat down had delivered his soul to the effect that he did not like the Bill, but like a good sound Liberal intended to vote for it. He thought it was rather a remarkable fact that of all the hon. Members who had spoken from the benches opposite there was not a single one who advocated the whole of the Bill. One of the principal points in the speeches had been a desire to arrest depopulation in rural districts, and if this Bill had been a well-considered scheme, calculated to retain upon the soil a larger population,

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it would have found a wide measure of support from the Unionist Party. A Return had been issued a few days ago relating to small holdings in Scotland. It would be found from that Return that 70 per cent. of the farms in Scotland were under £50, rental and that out of 89,000 occupiers 62,000 were under this figure of rental. Was there any reason in face of these facts why the Prime Minister should say that the claim for small holdings had been met by a "blank denial "? On the contrary, the landlords had recognised their duty, and had been able to meet the necessities of the case by providing small holdings. The Government now proposed to apply the Crofters Acts to the whole of Scotland. The Government appeared to go back to the principle in force in ancient days, and to provide the same remedy for all diseases. Bleeding was the universal remedy in old days for all diseases whether a man was suffering from a plethora of blood or from anæmia; and it seemed to him that the Government said to themselves whenever they saw a landlord, "Let us bleed him." That was the sole policy they had to bring forward for the welfare of the agricultural classes, regardless of the essential difference that existed between the Highlands and the Lowlands in regard to the tenure of land. In the Highlands the crofters were liable to be dispossessed at forty days notice and had no security of tenure, and to apply the same kind of remedial legislation to other puts of Scotland where the leasehold system gave absolute security during the currency of the lease and the Agricultural Holdings Act gave compensation for unexhausted improvements at the expiry of the lease, was absurd. The Secretary for Scotland commenced his speech by saying that there were two alternatives which might be adopted by the Government. One was the system of purchase, which was a perfectly fair one to be adopted by any Government, because thon they would experiment at their own cost and
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their own risk. The right hon. Gentleman rejected that idea on the ground that it would be too costly. He said he preferred on the contrary the condition which he called fixity of tenure, which was a form, "more or less, of dual ownership." The right hon. Gentleman saw no "injustice in establishing such a system in Scotland where the landlords made all the improvements." The right hon. Gentleman said the landlord would have under the system proposed a better security for his rent. But was that the only tie between landlord and tenant? What about good feeling? Was the landlord to have no power of choosing between a good and a bad tenant? Was there no possibility that there might be a tenant whose character was such that it might not be desirable to associate him with an estate? Was that not a privilege which a fair and right-minded landlord was entitled to exercise? The landlord was acquainted with the circumstances of the district and the private character of every individual who might be an applicant for a tenancy. Yet the matter was to be decided by the Agricultural Commission, strangers to the locality and without that knowledge of the private character of applicants for tenancies which the landlord possessed, though it was of vital importance to the landlord that his tenants should be men of good character. When the Prime Minister was challenged to produce evidence of his statement that the demand for land had been met by a blank denial he referred to a Report of 1895. There was a Report, dated last year only, which put a very different complexion on the case, a Report of the Board of Agriculture on the decline of the agricultural population. If they took almost any county in Scotland they would find that the Report of the Board of Agriculture gave the reason for the decline of the population.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, that if the hon. Gentleman referred to him, he might say that he was referring

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to England much more than to Scotland, speaking, as he did, in London. But he was very much mistaken if the very Report mentioned by the hon. Gentleman did not amply bear out the statements he had made. He had not examined it himself very closely since this little controversy began, but he believed that it would bear out everything he had said.
MR. COCHRANEsaid that, if time had allowed, he would have read the Report of the Commissioners. In the majority of cases the general tenor of the Report was contrary to the expression used by the Prime Minister that there was a "demand which was met by blank denial." On the contrary, the falling off in small holdings in Scotland was due to low prices, to the employment of labour-saving machinery, and to all those economic causes with which every hon. Member wasfamiliar. These did not in any way bear out the views put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. As to the demand for small holdings, the returns showed that there was a great decline. In the debates last year the hon. Gentleman who represented the Board of Agriculture, and who was not now present, spoke of the hard-headed Scotsmen whose opinion carried so much weight with the Government. Well, these hard-headed Scotsmen had held another meeting of the Chamber of Agriculture in Edinburgh, in the last few days, and they had before them the Bill promoted by His Majesty's Government. That conference of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, which claimed to represent 18,000 of the tenant-farmers in Scotland, was presided over by the hon. Member for Argyllshire, so that at any rate that body could not be accused of being unduly Conservative, seeing that it was presided over by so good a Liberal. The conference gave a long consideration to the Bill, and passed a resolution to the i effect that the conference disapproved of j the Bill in respect of its not being calculated to attain its object, and that it would create a state of unsettlement between owners and tenants.
MR. AINSWORTHsaid that as the hon. Gentleman had referred to him personally he hoped that he might be allowed to explain. The Chamber was an entirely non-political body, and as he happened to be president for the year, he took the chair at the conference. The conference by its resolution expressed itself thoroughly in favour of small holdings, but only regretted that the machinery provided by the Bill did not, in their judgment, carry out its object.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. The hon. Gentleman's explanation is exceeding the limits of a personal one.
MR. COCHRANEsaid the last thing he would have suggested was that the Chamber of Agriculture was entirely associated with one Party, and the remarks of the hon. Member clearly went to prove that the Chamber was composed of both Parties; and, therefore, the resolution of that body had clearly its weight multiplied three-fold by the explanation of the hon. Member who presided. The right hon. Gentleman, the Lord Advocate, had found fault, in his speech on the First Reading of the Bill, with evictions; he desired that this Bill should be introduced in order to do away with what he called the "arbitrary power of eviction.'' He supposed that the right hon. Gentleman, when he came to speak, would give some instances of a general character, and not confined to individual instances, as to any wholesale evictions which had recently taken place.
And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

IRISH TOBACCO BILL.
Read the third time, and passed.
Adjourned at six minutes after Eleven o'clock.