Commons Sitting of 12 June 1907

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

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Metropolitan Railway (Pension Fund) Bill [Lords]; Sunderland Corporation Bill. —As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
United Methodist Church Bill [Lords] (by Order). —Read a second time, and committed.
Leith Burgh Order Confirmation Bill. "To confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to the Burgh of Leith," presented by Mr. Sinclair; read the first time; and ordered (under Section 9 of the Act) to be read a second time upon Thursday, 20th June, and to be printed. [Bill 231.]
Murphy Grimshaw's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords.] —Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to communicate to this House Copies of the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings, together with Documents deposited, in the case of Murphy Grimshaw's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords], and that the Clerk do carry the said Message.
Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on Divorce Bills, that they do hear Counsel and examine Witnesses for Murphy Grimshaw's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords], and also that they do hear Counsel and examine Witnesses against the Bill, if the parties concerned think fit to be heard by Counsel and produce Witnesses. —(Mr. Attorney-General.)
London County Council (General Powers) Bill. —Reported from the Police and Sanitary Committee, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Barry Railway Bill. —Reported with Amendments [Title amended]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Housing of the Working Classes Acts Amendment Bill. —Second Reading tomorrow.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to: —Brockenhurst Gas Bill, with an Amendment; Boston Spa Gas Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to: Tyne Improvement Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

PETITIONS.
  CONGO FREE STATE.
  Petition from Beeston Hill for protection of the Native Races; to lie upon the Table
  EDUCATION (SPECIAL RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION) BILL.
  Petition from Southport, against; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING ACTS.
  Petition from Southport, for alteration of law; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Ancrum; Hawick; and, Jedburgh; to lie upon the Table.
  PAUPER LUNATICS (COST OF MAINTENANCE).
  Petition from Houghton-le-Spring, for legislation; to lie upon the Table.
  WEEKLY REST DAY BILL.
  Two Petitions from London and other places, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  MERCHANT SHIPPING (TONNAGE DEDUCTION FOR PROPELLING POWER) BILL.
  Petitions against, praying to be heard by counsel: From Bristol Pilots' Association; Cardiff Pilotage Board and Pilots; Gloucester Pilotage Board and Pilots; Newport Pilotage Board and Pilots; Pilots of the Port of Swansea; and, Port Talbot Pilotage Board and Pilots; referred to the Select Committee on the Bill.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRINIDAD.
  Copy presented, of the Panama Isthmian Canal Labour Contract [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TREATY SERIES (No. 15, 1907).
  Copy presented, of International Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field. Signed at Geneva, 16th July, 1906. British Ratification deposited at Berne, 16th April, 1907 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  CHINA (No. 1, 1907).
  Copy presented, of Report by Mr. W. J. Garnett on a Journey through the Provinces of Shantung and Kiangsu, with two Maps [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND BRITISH COLONIES) (MISCELLANEOUS, No. 3, 1907).
  Copy presented, of Reports from His Majesty's Representatives in Foreign Countries and in British Colonies respecting the Application of the Principle of Proportional Representation to Public Elections [Address 18th June, 1906; Mr. John Robertson] [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Report, Annual Series, No. 3821 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PUNJAB LAND COLONISATION BILL.
  Return presented, relative thereto [Address 30th May; Sir Henry Cotton]; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Report of the Proceedings of the Board of Trade up to the 31st December, 1906, and of the Proceedings of the Light Railway Commissioners up to the same date [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 188.]
  NAVAL AND MARINE PAY AND PENSION ACT, 1865.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council of 1st June, 1907, approving a Memorial of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty for sanction to the payment of Special Allowances to Officers selected for the Staff of the War Course College at Portsmouth [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1894.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council of 1st June, 1907, confirming a By-law made by the Boston Pilot Commissioners in substitution for No. 5 of the By-laws approved by Order in Council of 28th November, 1889 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  GREENWICH HOSPITAL ACT, 1865.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council of 1st June, 1907, approving a Memorial of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty for the grant of a Pension to Mr. J. Baker, one of the Masters of the Royal Hospital School, Greenwich [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  FUGITIVE OFFENDERS ACT, 1881.
  Copy presented, of Order in Council of 1st June, 1907, applying the provisions of the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881, to the Territory of Swaziland [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS.
  Copy ordered, "of the Allotments Acts, 1887 and 1890, the Small Holdings Act, 1892, and Sections 9, 10, 11, and 12 of the Local Government Act, 1894."—(Sir Edward Strachey.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 189.]

  EAST INDIA (EXCISE COMMITTEE).
  Address for "Return of Orders of the Government of India on Chapters III. to VI., VII., VIII., and X. of the Report of the Excise Committee." —(Mr. Herbert Roberts.)

  JOINT STOCK COMPANIES.
  Return ordered, "(i.) Of the Companies registered during the year ended the 31st day of December, 1906, which filed a prospectus and to which certificates to commence business have been granted, stating—

  (1) The date of Registration;

  (2) The date of the prospectus;

  (3) The amount of the nominal capital;

  (4) The amount of each share;

  (5) The amount issued or to be issued otherwise than for cash;

  (6) The amount offered for subscription in cash;

  (7) The amount underwritten;

  (8) The commission for under writing;

  (9) The minimum subscription required;

  (10) The amount allotted before commencing business;

  (11) The amounts per share pay able on application and allotment;

  (12) The total directors' share qualification, if any; and

  (13) The date of the certificate to commence business.

  (ii.) Of the Companies registered during the year 1906, which filed a prospectus, but to which certificates to commence business have not been granted, stating
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  the particulars specified in (i.) so far as they are applicable.

  (iii.) Of the Companies registered during the year 1906, which filed a declaration that the Company "does not issue any invitation to the public to subscribe for its shares."

  (iv.) Of the Companies registered during the year 1906, which have not filed a prospectus or a declaration that the Company "does not issue any invitation to the public to subscribe for its shares," and stating the particulars specified in (i.) so far as they are applicable.

  (v.) Of the Companies which were dissolved or struck off the register during the year 1906.

  (vi.) Of the total number of Companies dissolved during the year 1906 (1) by order of the Court; (2) after voluntary liquidation; and (3) pursuant to the provisions of Section 7 of the Companies Act, 1880, and Section 26 of the Companies Act, 1900.

  (vii.) Of the total number and nominal paid-up and considered as paid-up capital of the Companies registered during the year 1906 in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, respectively, distinguishing limited Companies from unlimited, and Companies registered with a nominal capital from Companies registered without such capital.

  (viii.) Of the total number and paid-up capital, including the amounts considered as paid on vendors and other shares, of all Companies having a share capital which were on the register on the 30th day of April, 1907, except such Companies as were in course of liquidation or removal from the register under the provisions of Section 7 of the Companies Act, 1880, and Section 26 of the Companies Act, 1900.

  (ix.) Of the total number and nominal capital of the Companies registered in England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively, in every year since the commencement of the Companies Act, 1862, to 1906, inclusive.

  (x.) Of the fees and capital duty paid in respect of Registered Companies during the year 1906." —(Mr Lloyd- George.)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Costs of Irish Unions and Asylums.
  MR. BOLAND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the total number of inmates in the Irish unions and district asylums, respectively; and can he state the total cost to the country of providing for the same during the last financial year, distinguishing between the two sets of institutions.
  (Answered by Mr.Birrell.) —

  Costs of Irish Unions and Asylums.

    Workhouses.
    It is not possible to state the total number of inmates of workhouses for a year, as admissions only are recorded and the same person may be admitted several times during the year. The daily average numbers of persons relieved during the financial year 1905–6 were as follows —

    In workhouses

    42,906

    In extern hospitals, institutions, and district schools

    1,479

    The following table shows the expenditure of boards of guardians for the same year under the heads specified—

    £

    In-maintenance

    460,016

    Expenses of district, schools

    8,068

    Maintenance in institutions of blind, deaf and dumb, and idiots, and cost of relief in extern hospitals

    19,719

    Salaries and rations

    196,709

    Cost of medicines and medical appliances in workhouses

    10,190

    Superannuation

    20,807

    Repayment of loans

    23,248

    Other Expenses

    134,826

    Total

    £873,583

    Lunatic Asylums.
    The total cost to the country of providing for the inmates of district asylums during the financial year 1905–6 was £520,027 8s. 3d. The daily average number of inmates was 18,967. The
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    figures for the financial year 1906–7 arc not yet available in either case.

  Condition of Road between Ballynahinch and Spa, County Down.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the condition of a public, road between Ballynahinch and Spa, county Down, and to the fact that an application was made to the rural council, and supported by the county surveyor, to have this road steam-rolled, but was refused by the council; and whether, in view of the fact that in the present state of this thoroughfare accidents to vehicles of every description frequently occur, he will cause inquiries to be made with the view of having this road repaired.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board have been informed that the road in question is not in good repair, and that the rural district council have refused the county surveyor's application that the road should be steam-rolled. The Board, however, are unable to take any steps to investigate the matter until they receive an appeal from the Down County Council, under Section 82 of the Local Government Act of 1898, complaining that the rural district council have failed to perform their duty of keeping the road in good condition and repair.

  Purchase of the Manor Shamrock Estate. County Fermanagh.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that three and a half years ago an agreement was made for sale to the tenants on the Manor Shamrock estate, county Fermanagh; that the Estates Commissioners have been collecting from the tenants interest on the purchase money at the rate of 3½ per cent. which they pay over to the agent of the estate, and by him distributed among the owners, thus entailing on them the cost of collection, besides the owners losing all interest on the bonus of 12 per cent. to which they are entitled on the purchase money; and whether, in view of these facts, he can state the cause of delay on the part of the Estates

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  Commissioners in advancing the purchase money.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners are unable, from the particulars given, to identify the estate in question as one in regard to which proceedings are pending before them. If the name and address of the owner should be furnished to them they would have further search made.

  Irish Evicted Tenants—Case of Mrs. Mary O'Dea.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the inspector of the Estates Commissioners has inquired into the case of Mrs. Mary O'Dea, of Farbert Island, who was evicted from her holding at Glin, in the county of Limerick, in the year 1899; and, if so, what action do the Commissioners propose to take in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have fully inquired into Mrs. O'Dea's application and have decided to take no action upon it. The applicant's late husband was not an evicted tenant. He occupied the holding in question under a temporary letting by the Land Judge, and when the property was sold he was afforded an opportunity of purchasing the holding, but failed to take advantage of it. The holding has since been sold under the Land Acts to the present occupiers.

  Be instatement of the Ely Evicted Tenants.
  MR. FFRENCH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the inspector was sent down last January to report with reference to the Ely evicted tenants; and whether anything has since been done to put those tenants back in their homes.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have had an inspection made of the untenanted lands on the Ely estate, but have not yet found it practicable to adopt a scheme for the distribution of the lands, and in the circumstances the Commissioners advised the agent of the estate to let
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  the land for the present season in order to avoid loss. The evicted tenants and others to whom it may eventually be decided to allot holdings will receive due notice of the fact.

  Arrears of Rent on the Faithley Estate.
  MR. FFRENCH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the agent on the Faithley estate, South Wexford, is using the arrears of rent to deter tenants from entering the Land Court; whether he is aware that, in the case of a tenant named P. Bowe, who served an originating notice and who owed only £11 arrears, the agent has threatened proceedings for the recovery of £150; and whether he can, by legislation or otherwise, do anything to protect tenants in the exercise of their legal rights.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Land Commission are unable to identify the case of P. Bowe as one which has come before them. The mere fact that arrears of rent are due does not preclude a tenant from applying to have a fair rent fixed by the Court.

  Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891—The Treasury and Section 2.
  MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury how long it is since the attention of the Treasury has been directed to Section 2 of The Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891; and how soon does he expect that the consultations of the Treasury with the other Departments interested will result in the formulation of rules or regulations to enable the section to be made available by those for whose benefit it was intended.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The hon. Member called attention to this matter by his Question on 22nd April. The Treasury shortly afterwards addressed communications to the other Departments concerned, but have not yet received all the information necessary for a decision.

  Destroyers Available for Service.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many destroyers were in Home waters on the 1st June;

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  and how many of these would have been actually ready for sea at twenty-four hours notice on that date.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) I must refer the right hon. Gentleman to my reply of yesterday to the hon. Member for the Andover Division of Hants. †

  French Owners of Merchant Ships Flying British Flag.
  SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he has any information as to the amount of shipping registered in the United Kingdom and flying the British flag which is owned and controlled by foreign capital.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The Board of Trade have no definite information on the subject to which the hon. Member refers. It is, of course, well known that a considerable amount of tonnage under the British flag is controlled by foreign capital, and also that a considerable amount of tonnage under foreign flags is controlled by British capital.

  Value of British Goods Imported under Preferential Tariffs into Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.
  SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state the value of the goods imported from the United Kingdom into Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa in a recent year which are not subject to import duties under the tariffs at present in force, but which would have been dutiable if imported from a foreign country.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George). The value of the imports into Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa from the United Kingdom of articles which, under the tariffs at present in force, are not subject to duty, but are dutiable if imported from a foreign country, in the latest years for which the information is available in each case were as follows: —

  £

  Canada (year ended 30th June 1906)

  241,000

  New Zealand (1905)

  449,000

  South Africa Customs Union (1906)

  3,655,000

  † See page 1215.
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  The existing Canadian tariff did not come into operation until November last, but the figures given represent the value of the imports which would not have been dutiable if that tariff had been in force during the year 1905–6.

  Repayment to District Councils of Half Salaries of Sanitary Officers.
  MR. STAVELEY-HILL: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can state how many of the 670 rural district councils of England and Wales have, during the last financial year, received from the local taxation account through their county councils one-half of the salaries of their inspectors of nuisances and medical officers of health.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I cannot state the number of cases in which during the last financial year, county councils actually repaid to rural district councils half the salaries of their sanitary officers; but on the 31st March last the number of cases in rural districts in which the officers were acting under conditions entitling the councils of these districts to such repayment was, as regards inspectors of nuisances, 614, and, as regards medical officers of health, 635.

  Committee on Municipal Accounts— Publication of Report.
  MR. STUART SAMUEL: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Departmental Committee on Municipal Accounts have finished their investigations; and when their Report is likely to be published.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I understand that the Committee have nearly completed their labours, and that they hope to be able to send in their complete Report in the course of the next few weeks.

  Loans to Local Authorities for Erection of Schools—Extension of Time for Repayment
  MR. LEVY: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will consider the advisability of meeting the wishes of local authorities desiring

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  an extension of the period for the repayment of loans when the money borrowed is to be, or has been, expended upon the erection of schools, which are obviously intended to last for more than thirty years.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The general practice of the Local Government Board has been to allow a period not exceeding thirty years for the repayment of loans for buildings. I have had occasion to consider the matter, and it does not appear to me that there is any sufficient reason for allowing a longer period in the case of schools.

  Record of Evidence in Criminal Cases
  MR. NIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will issue a circular to recorders and chairmen and deputy-chairmen of quarter sessions, as well as to clerks of the peace, pointing out the desirability of a permanent record of the evidence being made and preserved in all criminal trials, and recommending them at once to make the necessary provision; and whether, if there be an objection to make this recommendation to unpaid chairmen of quarter sessions, he will do so to recorders and others holding office under the Crown upon the nomination of the Secretary of State.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) As the notes taken by chairmen of quarter sessions and recorders are sufficient for their own purposes, I cannot ask them to bear the very considerable expense of having the evidence taken down in shorthand, and at present the law makes no provision for defraying such expenditure from public funds. As I have already said, the matter will be set right by the Criminal Appeal Bill.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  The Colonies and Naval Defence.
  MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the naval contributions of Cape Colony and Natal, amounting to £85,000 a year, are to be spent on the purposes of purely local defence in South
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  Africa; and whether the Colonies in question propose to make any contribution towards the general expenses of the British Navy, which guarantees them against foreign invasion.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee): I am afraid I cannot give my hon. friend any information beyond that which he will find in the Report of the Conference (Cd. 3523), page 479–480. The Admiralty are awaiting the formal communication from the Colonial Governments which may be expected as the result of the discussion.

  Messrs. Kynoch's Contract.
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the rule under which the Admiralty awarded such large contracts to Kynoch, Limited, was the one under which the lowest tender secured the contract; and whether he can state if Kynoch, Limited, have been struck off the list of Admiralty contractors.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: It is not usual, nor is it considered desirable, that information as to prices should be made public. As the whole question of mercuric chloride is under consideration it is premature to make any statement on this subject.

  Civil Training for Soldiers.
  MR. CLYNES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the statements sent to his Department by commanding officers respecting the proposed training of soldiers for employment in civil life contain complaints against trade unions, and will be issued as a Parliamentary document; whether he can state the extent to which officers have attempted to carry out the suggestions made to them on this subject; and whether he can take steps to provide that ex-soldiers shall not be used for forms of civil employment at less than the recognised rates and conditions established by the various workmen's organisations.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY To THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. Buchanan, Perth, E.): In accordance with the promise given in another place on May

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  29th, † a Paper will very shortly be laid on the Table of the House containing a Report on the steps being taken to provide technical instruction to soldiers. These Papers will give the information asked for in the former part of the Question. As regards the latter part of the Question, the employment of soldiers after their return to civil life is subject to the ordinary conditions of labour over which the War Office has no control.

  Volunteer Decorations.
  VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he proposes to make any, and, if so, what, provisions in the case of members of the existing Volunteer forces with many years service, who, being unable to comply with the terms of enlistment in the proposed Territorial Army, or who may be ineligible for such enlistment under any new conditions about to be imposed, are thereby, and without any fault of their own, deprived of the opportunity hitherto held out to them of obtaining in the case of officers the long service decoration, and in the case of men a long service medal.
  MR. BUCHANAN: This matter is not being lost sight of and, while I am not at present in a position to make any definite statement on the subject, I can assure the noble Lord that every consideration will be shown to the cases to which he refers.
  VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: When may an Answer be expected?
  MR. BUCHANAN: I cannot give a definite day.

  Army Rations.
  MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War why, in view of the fact that most of the tinned meat for the Navy is bought from Australia and New Zealand, it is found necessary to buy most of the tinned meat for the Army from the United States of America.
  MR. BUCHANAN: The contracts for the supply of tinned meat for the Army are placed after competition without
  † See (4) Debates, clxxiv., 1064.
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  regard to the country of origin. But in order to extend, if possible, the area of supply an officer has been sent out by the War Office to Australia, New Zealand, and South America, as to the capacity of establishments in these countries entering into the field of competition to supply our needs.
  MR. HUNT: May I ask why British sailors are fed on good British meat while the soldier has the doubtful product of the Chicago stockyard?
  MR. BUCHANAN: I cannot answer for the Navy.

  Cadet Corps.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any moneys voted for Volunteer purposes have been or will be paid over to public schools for the support of cadet corps or instruction of cadets in shooting.
  MR. BUCHANAN: No moneys voted for Volunteer purposes have been or will be paid over to public schools for the support of cadet corps or instruction of cadets in shooting.

  Transvaal Loan
  SIR F. BANBURY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies on what date it is expected that the Transvaal Loan Bill will be discussed in the Transvaal Parliament.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL, Manchester, N.W.): I do not yet know the date.
  SIR F. BANBURY: I presume it will not be introduced into this House until the Bill has been debated in the Transvaal Parliament?
  MR. CHURCHILL: Of course not. It cannot be introduced into this House until it has been passed by the Transvaal Legislature.

  Transvaal Prisons.
  MR. HAROLD COX): I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Return prepared

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  by the Transvaal showing the number of persons of different nationalities confined in Transvaal prisons on 30th June, 1906, states for what offence the prisoners had been sentenced; and, if so, whether he can state what proportion of the total number of British Indians in prison had been sentenced under the Peace Preservation Act for attempting to enter the Colony in order to carry on trade there.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The Return does not give the particulars for which the hon. Member asks, and I have no information as to the number of British Indians imprisoned for contravention of the Peace Preservation Ordinance, but I will inquire.

  Wick Bay Fisheries.
  MR. R. L. HARMSWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that on the 7 th March last the skipper of the "Endeavour" (W.K. 621) reported to the fishery officer at Wick that, whilst five miles S.E. by S. off Wick Bay, their nets came foul of the dan of the Norwegian trawler "Campania," causing the loss of six nets of the "Endeavour"; whether, in anchoring her dan on ground where fishing was going on, the "Campania" violated Article 17 of the North Sea Fisheries Convention of 1882; and whether he proposes to make representations to the Norwegian Government with the view of securing redress for the fishermen for the loss of their nets.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN, Dews-bury; for Sir EDWARD GREY): No, Sir; we have no information on the subject. Norway is not a party to the North Sea Fisheries Convention; but if the hon. Member will supply. full particulars of the complaint, my right hon. friend will be happy to consider the matter.

  Municipal Borrowings in Foreign Countries
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will grant a Return showing the limits placed on municipal borrowing in the different States of the United States, and also in Germany and France and Italy, if any legal limit exists.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: My right hon. friend is advised that the information would not be of sufficient utility to justify its being procured officially and presented to Parliament.

  Income-Tax Forms
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that forms requiring a return of income for 1908 are now being sent out in Scotland by the assessors of taxes by virtue of the powers under Section 30 of The Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1890; and whether, in the event of the proposals in the Finance Bill with regard to differentiation becoming law, a second set of forms will have to be sent out and returned.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. Asquith, Fifeshire, E.): Yes, Sir. The usual forms are now being sent out and supplementary forms will have to be issued, if and when legislative effect is given to the new proposals. It would not be practicable to hang up the whole machinery pending the passing of the Finance Bill.

  Messrs. Kynoch's Contracts
  MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in January, 1905, the Home Office inspectors refused to sanction the manufacture of an explosive now know as Abbcite, at Arklow, Ireland, whilst at the same time giving permission for its manufacture at Kynochton, Essex; if so, will he state what justification the inspectors had for their preference; and can he state on what day was the policy of discrimination in favour of Essex abandoned by the Home Office.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.): This explosive was tested at Woolwich on the 30th December, 1904 and six days later, on 5th January, 1905 a definition of the explosive was sent to Messrs. Kynoch containing conditions that it should be manufactured at the Kynochton factory, because that was the factory at which the sample was made which was actually tested. Six days later, on 11th January, 1905, the firm requested that the definition might

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  be amended so as to permit manufacture at Arklow. His Majesty's inspector thereupon requested the firm to submit a sample of this explosive which had been manufactured at Arklow, in order that they might be satisfied that the manufacture of it was fully understood there. Four days after that, on 16th January, the firm sent in an explanation upon which the Department yielded to their request, and on the 17th they were informed that the definition of the explosive would be so amended as to permit the manufacture at Arklow without any further tests. The consequent formal application to be allowed to manufacture was made by the firm seventeen days later, on 3rd February, 1905. On 9th February a draft amending licence was sent for their observations and was returned by them on the 17th. The licence was signed and sent to the firm on 3rd March, 1905. On 11th February I made an Order putting this explosive, whether made at Arklow or at Kynochton, on the list of explosives permitted to be used in fiery or dusty mines. It will be seen, therefore, that the action of my Department caused no delay whatever in the production of the explosives at Arklow.

  Fish-curing Industry.
  MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to institute any proceedings against firms engaged in the fish-curing trade, in respect to violations of Section 41 of the Factory Act, pending inquiries on the operation of this section; whether he can state how long the inquiry will last before a Report is presented; and whether the Report will be laid upon the Table before the Home Office takes any action inconsequence of the inquiry.
  MR. GLADSTONE: So far as Section 41 is concerned, the inquiry will be confined to the one or two points on which the difficulties referred to in my previous Answer have arisen; as regards any violations of the section that may be reported outside those points, proceedings will, of course, be taken in proper cases. The inquiry will be made during the present season, but I cannot say exactly how long it will take, or when I shall receive the Report of the chief inspector. I will lay the Report on the Table of the
  1410
  House. Any alteration of the terms of Section 41 would, of course, require legislation.

  Railway Companies and Subscriptions.
  MR. TREVELYAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has yet arranged for a heading in the published accounts of railway companies, which will show what subscriptions have been paid by the directors out of the corporate funds.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs): I am proposing, under the powers given by Section 32 of the Rail-way and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, to call upon the railway companies to include in the returns forwarded to the Board of Trade under the Railways Regulation Act, 1871, a statement showing in detail the subscriptions or donations to institutions or associations not under the direct control of the companies, and not for the exclusive benefit of the companies' servants.

  Manufactured Goods.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state what are the principal differences in the character of the articles included under the term of manufactures in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the United States, respectively; to what extent these differences vitiate the comparison of the exports of manufactures from those countries; and what would be the value of the exports of manufactures from the three foreign countries mentioned in a recent year if the classification were uniform, and the same as that of the United Kingdom.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: In both the French and German trade statistics certain articles were excluded from the category of manufactures which are classed as such in this country, the principal of these articles being metals and certain semi-manufactured metal goods, combed and carded wool, and certain building materials; whilst in France thrown silk and oilcake are also excluded, and in Germany crude chemicals. On the other hand, oils are classed in this country as raw materials, and in Germany as manufactures. In the United States,

  1411
  tobacco, which is grouped with articles of food and drink in this country, and timber and lumber, mineral oils and coke, which are classed as raw materials in this country, are classed as manufactured articles. Making allowance for these and other minor differences, it appears that if the classification adopted in this country were adopted in the countries named, the exports in 1905 (the last year for which the figures are available) of manufactures from France would have been, roughly, £126,000,000 sterling instead of £110,000,000 sterling; from, Germany £214,000,000 sterling, instead of £191,000,000 sterling; and from the United States £101,000,000 sterling, instead of £127,000,000 sterling. The exports of manufactures from the United Kingdom in 1905 were £273,000,000.

  Caithness Mail Service.
  MR. R. L. HARMSWORTH: I beg to ask the Postmaster - General if he will state whether the contract for the conveyance of the mails between Wick and Lybster, in the county of Caithness, has been re-let to the present contractor at an increased sum; and if he will explain why the mails; should not be more expeditiously conveyed by rail instead of by road as at present.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar): The contract for the mail service by road between Wick and Helmsdale recently expired; and, although the service was advertised, the railway company were not prepared to submit a tender within the time laid down. As the matter was urgent, it was necessary to accept a tender from the former contractor, at a higher rate, for a service by road; but a separate contract has been made for the Wick and Lybster section in order that, if at any time the railway company made a satisfactory offer, that part of the service could be transferred to them. I am now in communication with the company on the subject.

  Secondary Schools.
  *SIR FRANCIS POWELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education when he intends to submit and cause to be printed and circulated his proposals with reference to secondary
  1412
  schools; and when the revised Code will be printed and circulated.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA, Monmouthshire, N.): I hope both these sets of regulations will be presented next week or the week after.

  Alness River Salmon Fishery.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state what part of the Alness River, Ross - shire, ex adverso a part of the Coul estate, is let for salmon fishings by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to Mr. S. C. Munro for a term of ten years from Martinmas 1900 at a rental of £6 per annum.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: The part of the river included in the letting to Mr. Munro extends up stream on the right or west bank for rather more than half a mile from a point rather less than half a mile above Alness Bridge.

  Irish Fish Brand.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether, seeing that there has now been published the evidence taken at various public meetings in Ireland, held to inquire into the adoption of a brand for Irish-cured fish, he will state when the official Report on the subject will be issued; whether he is aware that the estimated value of herrings presented in Scotland for the Crown brand last year amounted to £493,622, being an increase of £14,517 on that of 1905, although the actual number of barrels branded was considerably less; whether his attention has been called to the Report of the inspector sent to Stettin, Libau, and other continental ports, and in particular to his statement, at page 298 of the Report, that more Crown-branded herrings had been sent to Russia, because the brand was considered as affording a better guarantee than could be obtained in the case of unbranded herrings; and whether these facts will be taken into account in drawing up the Report on the demand put forward for a brand for Irish-cured fish.
  THE ATTORNEY - GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY, Liverpool, Exchange): My hon. friend has asked me

  1413
  to answer this Question for him. The Report referred to is in the hands of the printer, and will, it is hoped, be ready for issue in a week or ten days. The figures given in the Question are those published in the last Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, and are, I believe, correct. It is also stated in the same Report that the proportion of barrels which received the highest brand as compared with those of the lower grades was greater in 1906 than in the previous year, and partly in consequence of this the total money value was greater, although the actual number of barrels branded was less. The Department have considered the interesting Report of the Assistant Inspector of the Scottish Fishery Board referred to, and in the preparation of their inspector's Report on the question of a brand for fish in Ireland account has been taken of the facts that the demand for the Crown brand in Scotland is declining, and that Irish-cured herrings without a Government brand obtained nearly double the price of the highest grade of Scottish Crown - branded herrings in the markets of Germany and of Russia.

  Prosecutions for Unlawful Assembly.
  MR. MOORE: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether the Crown will take any further action in the case of a charge of unlawful assembly preferred against certain persons at the last Castlereagh Petty Sessions, on the hearing of which the Bench refused to grant an adjournment to enable the Crown solicitor—whose absence appeared to be due to the action of those engaged for the defence—to be present, proceeded with the hearing of the charge in the absence of this official, and refused, notwithstanding the clear prima facie case made out by the prosecution, to take information and return the accused for trial; and whether, having authorised the prosecution, he intends to send up a Bill to the grand jury at the forthcoming assizes.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg also to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the observations of Mr. Heverin, solicitor, on Thursday last, in court, at Ballintubber, county Roscommon, when he stated that the
  1414
  people of Roscommon were not lawless, although they had been described as such by carrion crows, and that they had it on the authority of Lord Denman, a member of the Government, that cattle driving was not a serious offence, and that thereupon the accused were acquitted; what action, if any, he proposes to take; and will he send up a Bill to the grand jury at the forthcoming Roscommon Assizes.
  MR. CHERRY: I can answer this and the following Question together. The facts are that summonses were issued against certain persons charging them with unlawful assembly, as stated in the Questions. These summonses would in ordinary course have come on for hearing at the last Ballintubber Petty Sessions, held on Thursday last, the 6th instant, and the Crown solicitor was prepared to attend, and had made arrangements for all the Crown witnesses to do so. On Wednesday morning, however, Mr. Heverin, solicitor for the accused parties, telegraphed to him asking him to consent to an adjournment to the next petty sessions. To this request the Crown solicitor, acting under instructions from the Government, consented. The district inspector in charge of the case was then at once informed of the adjournment which had been agreed upon, and told that he need not have the principal witnesses for the Crown in attendance. Late on that evening the solicitor for the accused telegraphed withdrawing his request for an adjournment, but it was then too late to alter the arrangements which had been made. On the following day an application for an adjournment was made by the district inspector. The solicitor for the accused persons opposed this application, although he had himself asked the Crown to consent to it on the morning before. The magistrates refused the application for an adjournment, and the case was heard in the absence of the Crown solicitor and of the principal Crown witnesses. In these circumstances the magistrates refused to receive information. The evidence in the case has since been submitted to me, and I have directed that a bill against the defendants shall be sent up to the grand jury at the next assizes, as I do not think that the decision of the magistrates under the circumstances can be accepted as conclusive. I have no information as to the

  1415
  observations which may have been made by the solicitor for the defendants.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that either he or the Solicitor-General will prosecute in one of these cases so as to show that the Government are firm in their determination to suppress these raids?
  MR. CHERRY: I will consider that.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether, in cases where justices, for improper motives or owing to intimidation, refuse information in clear cases of unlawful assembly, it is his intention to exercise his power of sending up bills of indictment to grand juries against the offenders; and whether he has in any case hitherto exercised this power.
  MR. CHERRY: I have no means of ascertaining the motives which actuate justices in their decisions, nor am I aware that they have been subjected to intimidation in any case. In deciding whether or not I shall send up bills of indictment to grand juries where justices have refused informations I am guided entirely by the evidence available, and not by any speculations as to the motives which actuated the justices.
  MR. FLYNN: Surely the right hon. Gentleman does not intend to send these cases direct to the Court of Appeal?
  MR. CHERRY: Certainly not. The proper tribunal is a Judge and jury.

  Labourers (Ireland) Act Loans
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can say when he intends to introduce the measure amending the Public Works Loans Act to enable the district councils in Ireland that borrowed money to put the Labourers (Ireland) Act in force previous to the passing of the Act of 1906, to pay back the amount of the outstanding loans on the same terms as acquired by the district councils in Ireland under the 1906 Act.
  MR. ASQUITH: I hope to be able to introduce a clause dealing with this matter in the Public Works Loans Bill of this year.

  Irish Lists of Voters and Jurors.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Local Government Board auditors find that the work connected with the preparation of lists of voters and jurors is more expensive and less efficiently performed by county officers than it was, prior to 1899, by union officers; is he aware that complaints on this subject are numerous, and that many boards of guardians and district councils have adopted resolutions calling for the repeal of Section 83 (7) of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898; and whether he will give favourable consideration to this suggestion.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.): The auditors of the Local Government Board have not made any representation to the effect suggested in the first part of the Question. In the opinion of the Board there are no grounds for supposing that the work is less efficiently performed by county officers, though no doubt there has been some increase in the cost owing to the increase in the work caused by the preparation of the list of local government electors. Some resolutions to the effect mentioned have been received, but there does not appear to be any sufficient reason for repealing the provision referred to. The persons who are in the best position to prepare the voters' and jurors' lists are the officials who prepare the rate-books, namely, the county secretaries.

  Irish Poor Law Commission Report
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received from local authorities in Ireland resolutions approving of some of the recommendations of the Irish Poor Law Commission; and whether, in view of the unanimity of those resolutions on the points with which they deal, he can promise legislation next session on this subject.
  MR. BIRRELL: Resolutions to the effect mentioned have been received. As to the possibility of legislation, I would refer to my Answer to the Question put by the hon. Member for South Sligo on 6th May. †
  † See (4) Debates, clxxiii., 1314.

  Labourers (Ireland) Act.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Local Government Board for Ireland have appointed any additional inspectors in connection with the working of the Labourers Acts; if so, what qualifications do they require; was the fitness of each ascertained by competitive examination; were clerks and assistant clerks of rural district councils, having practical knowledge of the working of the Acts, afforded an opportunity of competing for these appointments; if not, can he say why; and will they be afforded such opportunity in future.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board have appointed three additional inspectors for duty in connection with the Labourers Acts. No competitive examination was held. As to the remainder of the Question, I would refer to the Answer which I gave to the similar Question put by the hon. Member for North Leitrim on 17th April, †
  MR. KILBRIDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say who are the additional inspectors?
  MR. BIRRELL: I have not got the names.
  MR. GINNELL: How were they appointed—on whose recommendation?
  MR. BIRRELL: The appointments were open to any person who chose to apply and the Commissioners examined the applications, made selections from them, and submitted the names.

  Bann and Lough Neagh Drainage.
  *MR. MEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the total cost, for salary and travelling expenses respectively, of Mr. J. D. Bell, while engaged in the inspection and valuing of the Bann and Lough Neagh drainage district; and what is the total amount of money given as a free grant for the drainage of the Bann.
  MR. BIRRELL: The cost referred to in the first part of the Question has not
  † See (4) Debates, clxxii., 941.
  1418
  yet been fully ascertained. No free grant has been given for the drainage of the Bann; the matter has not yet been determined.
  *MR. MEEHAN: Was not £139,000 advanced for the drainage of the Bann, and not a shilling can be got to relieve the people in the valley of the Barrow?
  MR. BIRRELL: There has been a fresh Report, and the whole question must be reconsidered.
  MR. MOONEY: Have there not been three separate sums for travelling expenses this year at the rate of £45 per month?
  MR. BIRRELL: I cannot say.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Has not the £139,000 advanced for the drainage of the Bann been long since repaid to the Treasury?
  MR. BIRRELL: I should like notice of that.

  Drainage of the Barrow.
  MR. MEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the Report of the county surveyor of Queen's County, stating that, during the month of September last, serious injury was caused by floods from the Barrow to the road and a portion of the embankment above Tinnahinch Bridge, and suggesting that, with a view to avoiding the danger of damage in this locality caused by floods, the river course, which has silted up below the bridge, should be cleared and widened for some distance down the stream, and stating that, by the advice of the Local Government Board, the question was brought under the notice of the Arterial Drainage Commission; whether he is aware that the county council have no authority to provide a remedy; and will he say what steps he purposes to take in the matter.
  I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord - Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received copies of resolutions adopted at a public meeting held at Portarlington on 30th May, 1907, for the purpose of promoting the drainage of the

  1419
  River Barrow; whether he is aware that the Arterial Drainage Commissioners, in their Report dated 23rd February, 1907, stated, in reference to this river, that the basin of the Upper Barrow suffered more from floods than any other part of Ireland, and that the condition of the district might be described as deplorable, and that the case of this river differed from others in Ireland once similarly circumstanced, in that no expenditure by the State had ever taken place, although the task of clearing the main outfall was manifestly far beyond the reach of private enterprise; and whether he proposes to take any steps to provide a scheme of drainage for the flooded area of the River Barrow.
  MR. BIRRELL: I will answer these two Questions together. My predecessor received from the hon. Member the Report of the county surveyor referred to, and subsequently made a communication to the hon. Member on the subject. I have received the resolutions passed at the meeting held at Portarlington. The observations of the Arterial Drainage Commission as to the River Barrow are correctly quoted in the Question. I have already informed the hon. Member that before deciding upon legislation in respect of arterial drainage it will be necessary to consider the recommendations of the Commission as a whole. This will obviously take a considerable time, and meanwhile it would not be practicable to consider the question of undertaking a drainage scheme for the Barrow, or any other particular river.
  *MR. MEEHAN: asked if there were not four towns in this flooded area with a total population of 11,000, without any suitable drainage or water supply, or the possibility of providing either, and could no remedy be applied to safeguard the property and lives of the people.
  MR. BIRRELL: We really must consider the question as a whole.
  MR. FLYNN: Has not the right hon. Gentleman realised that if Ireland had a system of Home Rule these things would have been remedied long since?
  MR. BIRRELL: I think that is most likely.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: In view of the dropping of the Irish Council Bill will the right hon. Gentleman introduce a drainage Bill for Ireland?
  *MR. MEEHAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that during his term of office any effort will be made to provide a remedy for an evil admitted to exist for half a century, which is increasing every year and which is ruining the health of the people and is a daily menace to their lives and property.
  MR. BIRRELL: I can give no assurance.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: No, you only drain Ireland of public money.

  Irish Police Distribution.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now state what is the number of constabulary stations throughout the whole of Ireland from which men have been withdrawn to the extent, respectively, of one, two, and three men, and upwards, for the purpose of augmenting the ordinary police establishment of districts which are at present in a state of disturbance.
  MR. BIRRELL: I beg to refer to my Answer to the similar Question of the right hon. Member for South Dublin on 30th May. † The figures which I then gave apply to the whole of Ireland, and there has since been no change.

  Imprisonment in Default of Sureties for Good Behaviour.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what was the number of persons who were called upon, during the twelve months ended 31st May, 1907, to enter into sureties to be of good behaviour under the Act of Edward III., or to be of good behaviour and to keep the peace under the combined authorities of that Act and the Magistrates Commission, in cases arising out of boycotting,
  † See (4) Debates, clxxv., 49.

  1421
  intimidation, and other offences connected with the agrarian movement in Ireland; how many such persons gave the requisite sureties; and how many were committed to prison in default.
  MR. BIRRELL: During the twelve months ending 31st May last, summonses were issued against eighty-seven persons, requiring them to show cause why they should not be required to find sureties for the peace or good behaviour, in connection with cases of the nature referred to in the Question. In forty-nine of these cases the magistrates made the order applied for, and in thirty-eight cases they declined to do so. Of the forty-nine persons required to find sureties, twenty-four did so, and the remaining twenty-five refused and were committed to gaol.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked if the right hon. Gentleman was aware that Chief Baron Palles in giving judgment in Dr. Tanner's case regretted that the power of sending to gaol, in default of giving sureties, men who had committed no offence was exercised, stating that it was an anomaly in the law, and also if he was aware that the present Attorney-General for England had characterised the exercise of such a power by Irish resident magistrates as an unjustifiable abuse of power.
  MR. MOORE: On a point of order, may I ask if an hon. Member is entitled to put a question of this nature on the Paper without first submitting it to you, Sir?
  MR. SPEAKER: It happens that this Question was submitted to me.
  MR. BIRRELL: I am acquainted with the observations of Chief Baron Palles, but I have not had the advantage of reading those of the Attorney-General.

  Mansfield Estate, county Donegal
  MR. C. MACVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state what is the cause of the delay in completing the sale to the tenants on the Mansfield estate, near Killygordon, county Donegal, who signed agreements to purchase their holdings two years ago, and are still paying the old rent to the
  1422
  receiver without reducing the period of, their instalments payable to the Estates Commissioners; and will he say when the sale will be completed.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that there has been no, undue delay in dealing with this estate, the purchase agreements in respect of which were lodged in July, 1905. The advances applied for have recently been sanctioned, and the sale will now be completed as soon as possible.

  Thomastown Grazing Farm Dispute.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in reference to the cattle drive which took place on the estate of Mr. Valentine Ryan at Thomastown, near Birr, King's County, on 27th May, the authorities were aware that the holders of the grass farms, John Gill, James Grennan, and Michael Hackett, had been written to by the Killyon Branch of the United Irish League to surrender these lands; if so, why adequate means were not adopted to prevent the forcible removal of the stock; and whether, seeing that the stock on these lands have been replaced, he will see that sufficient protection is afforded to prevent a repetition of the outrage.
  MR. BIRRELL: The police authorities were aware that the three men named, as well as some twenty others in the district, had received letters requesting them to surrender their farms. These letters purported to come from the local branch of the United Irish League. My Answer to the hon. Member's succeeding Question deals with the matter of protecting grazing farms generally. In this particular case it was impossible to keep a large force of police stationed on every farm.

  Cattle Driving in East Galway
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the cattle-driving conspiracy has extended to East Galway, and that holders of grass lands on the estate of Sir Henry Burke have been forced to surrender to the pressure of the United Irish League; and whether he has any official information showing that this is due to inadequate police protection.
  MR. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that several cases of driving cattle off grazing farms have occurred in East Galway, and that with one exception the holders of grass farms on Sir Henry Burke's estate have surrendered the farms. These persons have refused to make any statement to the police as to their reason for surrendering the farms, and the police have no evidence that such surrender was due to pressure from the United Irish League. The police authorities have afforded all possible protection to the holders of grazing farms, and have in many cases succeeded in preventing cattle drives. It must be understood that police effort is but an adjunct to the primary duty of an owner to provide for the safety of his property. The Inspector-General informs me that hitherto the owners of cattle have done practically nothing to protect the farms. The police will continue to afford all the protection within their power, but it is obviously impossible to place a large force of police on every one of the numerous grazing farms in the country.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIGasked the right hon. Gentleman if he would inform the House what the Inspector-General of Police expected each individual owner of farms of this kind to do to protect his property.
  MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir, but I think the Inspector-General is perfectly justified in pointing out that it is the duty of the people in Ireland or elsewhere to take the ordinary steps to protect their own property.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: This is a most important matter. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to indicate what protective measures he would expect them to take. Does he expect them to build a wall ten or twelve feet high?
  MR. BIRRELL: To take the ordinary steps which owners of property take everywhere else.
  MR. JOHN ROCHE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not a fact that a considerable portion of this property is scheduled as a congested area, and whether Sir Henry Burke has not demanded twenty-six-and-a-quarter years purchase from the tenants
  1424
  in that scheduled area? And is not that really the cause of the whole trouble?
  MR. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman state what are the ordinary steps which landlords are to take to protect their property?
  [No Answer was returned.]
  MR PIKE PEASE: In view of the importance of this Question, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the opinion of the Irish Office, this is a serious crime in itself?
  [No Answer was returned.]
  MR. KILBRIDE: Is not the main reason for these people surrending their grass farms due to the statements made repeatedly in 1903 from the then Government Bench that one of the objects of the Land Act of that year was the redistribution of the grazing ranches?
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: I desire to ask very seriously what the Chief Secretary for Ireland really means by using this phrase—and a very remarkable phrase I think it is—[Order, order.]
  *MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member has any further Question, will he put it down? He is not entitled to interpolate these observations.

  Judge Wakeley on the Condition of County Roscommon.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the remark of Judge Wakeley, at Boyle quarter sessions on 5th June, that the present condition of county Roscommon was deplorable and not what one would expect to find in a civilised country; and what means he intends to take to re-establish peace and tranquility in this disturbed area.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: May I at the same time ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the statement of His Honour Judge Wakeley, at Boyle quarter sessions, on the 4th June last, that the present condition of the county of Roscommon was deplorable, and not

  1425
  what one would expect to find in a civilised country; what action, if any, the Government intend to take; and if this county is now in a peaceful condition.
  MR. BIRRELL: I have read a newspaper report of the learned Judge's remarks which seem to have had reference to cases of driving cattle off grazing farms in county Roscommon. In all such cases, in which evidence has been forthcoming, the ringleaders have been prosecuted. The police force of the county has been strengthened by the addition of 135 men, and is now regarded as adequate. This Answer applies to the Question of the hon. Member for East Down.
  MR. MOORE: In how many cases have there been prosecutions of ring-leaders?
  MR. BIRRELL: I must ask for notice of that Question.

  Ballina Gaelic League Demonstration.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that at a Gaelic League demonstration at Ballina, on Sunday, 2nd June, Mr. P. O'Donellan said the Irish people were not in a position to face England on the field of battle, but while they were waiting for that not far distant date they should boycott everything English, from the Lord-Lieutenant down to the meanest menial and spy in his service; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: My attention has only now been called to a newspaper report of the speech referred to. The Question does not seem to me to convey a correct impression of the tenor of the speech. Its general purport is contained in an extract which I will venture to read—"Last year the Irish people spent over £13,000,000 on drink, and out of the duty collected on the drink bill principally the English Government was paying her officials, from the Lord-Lieutenant down to the meanest menial, and to the spy in her service. Why should they not reduce the drink bill by one half, because it would not be too much to ask any man taking two bottles of stout in the day to reduce it to one, not for the
  1426
  sake of any man, but for the sake of Ireland? Were they going to continue to spend £25,000,000 on foreign manufactures while they were begging from Sir Henry Robinson and others for grants for unions? In concluding an eloquent speech Mr. O'Donellan asked the people to become temperate and self-reliant until they realised their fondest aspirations."
  MR. LONSDALE: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that Mr. P. O'Donellan said the Irish people were not in a position to face England on the field of battle, but while they were waiting for that not far distant date they should boycott everything English, from the Lord-Lieutenant down to the meanest menial and spy in his service
  MR. J. DEVLIN: Was any reference made in that speech to English margarine?
  MR. LONSDALE: I must press for an Answer to my very distinct Question.
  MR. BIRRELL: The extract I have read is, I think, an answer.
  MR. KILBRIDE: How much of the. £13,000,000 referred to in the speech was spent in Belfast?
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that at a Gaelic League demonstration at Ballina on Sunday, 2nd June, at which speeches in favour of boycotting were made, a recitation was given by a national school teacher; and whether it is in accordance with the rules of the National Commissioners of Education that teachers should take part in such political demonstrations.
  MR. BIRRELL: The attendance of national school teachers at meetings held for political purposes is prohibited by the rules of the Commissioners of National Education, but I have no information as to whether the meeting referred to in the Question was a political meeting The Commissioners, however, inform me that they are at present investigating the case.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is aware that Mr. Thomson, a teacher, recently made a

  1427
  political speech at a Unionist demonstration in Belfast presided over by Lord Londonderry?
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must really give notice of these Questions. It is impossible for the Chief Secretary for Ireland to carry all these speeches in his mind.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Gaelic League is strictly non-political?
  MR. BIRRELL: I have always been told so.
  MR. SLOAN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is not the fact that the National Commissioners of Education in Ireland suspended, pro tem., while the Irish Council Bill was under consideration, the rule with regard to school teachers taking part in meetings?
  MR. BIRRELL: I must ask for notice of that Question.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: Did not the right hon. Gentleman promise in this House that school teachers should enjoy in this matter the same rights and privileges as all other citizens?
  MR. BIRRELL: Yes, Sir, I did. And I also did my best to induce the National Commissioners to alter the rule.
  MR. MOORE: Was not Mr. Thomson allowed to attend this meeting under a special licence from Dr. Starkey?
  MR. BIRRELL: I am not aware.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: May I ask if it is necessary for an Irish National teacher to get specific leave to address a Unionist demonstration, and will all teachers in Ireland be allowed the same right and privilege as Mr. Thomson?
  MR. BIRRELL: Under the rule a teacher is not entitled to address political meetings, and so long as the rule stands the teachers must submit to it.
  MR. SLOAN: May I further ask —
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! A large number of supplementary Questions
  1428
  have already been asked, and it is only fair to other hon. Members who have Questions on the Paper that this should cease. If hon. Members desire to put further Questions they must put them on the Paper.
  MR. MURPHY: Having regard to the fact that teachers are allowed to attend meetings in England, will the right hon. Gentleman —
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order ! The hon. Member must give notice of that Question in the usual way.

  King's County Evicted Tenants.
  SIR WALTER NUGENT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Estates Commissioners for Ireland have signified their intention of transplanting evicted tenants from King's County to the lands of Raheenshane, Cloncullen, and Spitteltown, situated near Tyrrellspass, in the county of West-meath, notwithstanding the fact that there are evicted tenants in the immediate neighbourhood, one of whom was evicted from one of the farms in question; and if he will instruct the Commissioners not to make such a transfer, but to reinstate the local evicted tenants on the lands in question.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissions are negotiating for the purchase of the estate of R. White, which is situate in the town lands mentioned in the Question, but will not settle a scheme for the distribution of the lands until the negotiations are complete. If the Commissioners should succeed in acquiring the property, they will consider the claims of local evicted tenants.

  Farrigans (Donegal) Evicted Tenant
  MR. C. MACVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the attention of the Estates Commissioners has been called to the case of Mrs. Mary M'Cool, widow of John M'Cool, who was evicted from his farm in the townland of Farrigans, on the Hayes estate, near Stranorlar, county Donegal, for non-payment of rent; if so, can he say why some person, said to be representing the Estates Commissioners, who was on the estate last week, would take no notice of the claim of Mrs.

  1429
  M'Cool; and whether he will direct the Commissioners to send down an inspector to inquire into her claim and see that the sale of the estate is not completed until the widow is reinstated or compensated for the loss of her farm.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have fully investigated Mrs. M'Cools application, and have ascertained that upwards of seventeen years ago the applicant's late husband surrendered the farm to his brother, who is still the tenant. The Commissioners have, therefore, decided to take no action in the matter.

  Instruction in Irish
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the fact that extra fees for the teaching of Irish have been restored, he will restore the fees for the teaching of mathematics, so as to deal justly with those districts in which mathematics is as essential as Gaelic, and especially as teachers have been informed, when asking an increase of income, that it could be supplemented by teaching extra subjects.
  MR. BIRRELL: The question of extra fees for mathematics is at present under consideration.

  School Teachers' Salaries.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland the average annual salary and emoluments of national school teachers of the various classes and grades in Ireland; and whether, for the sake of comparison, he can furnish similar particulars for England, including Wales, and Scotland, respectively.
  MR. BIRRELL: In the year 1904, the last for which figures are available, the average income of principal teachers in Irish national schools was £105 4s. 9d. for men and £84 11s. 6d. for women, and the average income of assistants was £73 13s. 10d. for men and £58 7s. 9d. for women. For information as to the corresponding figures for England and Scotland I must refer the hon. Member to the Ministers representing the Departments concerned

  Dromagh Untenanted Lands.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have recently received any further application respecting the sale of the untenanted lands on the estate of Mr. William N. Leader, of Dromagh, county Cork; has any proposal been made to exclude the townland of Dysart from the proposed sale, and, if so, on what grounds; and whether the Commissioners will refuse to sanction the purchase of these lands unless the circumstances and needs of the locality are taken into consideration and reasonable provision made for the restoration of evicted tenants, the enlargement of uneconomic holdings, and the applotment of suitable holdings amongst the deserving labourers of the district.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received no further communication from the owner in this case. The owner proposes to exclude a portion of the townland of Dysart from the sale, upon the ground that he himself is using 352 acres of the land, and only receives a head rent out of the remaining 239 acres. As I informed the hon. Member on 27th February, the Commissioners will, before sanctioning the sale, make full inquiries as to the wants and circumstances of people in the neighbourhood.

  Athenry Sheep and Cattle Raids.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the same day that Mr. Persse's farm was cleared of sheep and cattle the farm of Mr. Palmer, near Athenry, was also cleared; and, seeing that a movement is on foot to raid another farm of Mr. Persse's at Boyhill, near Athenry, what steps are being taken to deal with this state of lawlessness.
  I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on 28th May a crowd of about 150 men invaded the grass farm of Rathreddy, near Athenry, now held by Mr. Burton Persse, J.P., where they found two herds shearing Mr. Persse's sheep, and that the crowd tore up the fleeces and scattered the wool

  1431
  over the fields, and drove the sheep and cattle on to the high road; will he say how many police were present during the proceedings, and how many arrests were made; and has he any official information showing that the fact that Mr. Persse did his duty as a magistrate in deciding for the conviction of certain persons charged with clearing grass farms at Castle Ellen and Elphin was publicly proclaimed in the district as the reason for the outrage.
  MR. BIRRELL: On 28th May a crowd of about 100 persons drove cattle from Mr. Palmer's farm and sheep from Mr. Persse's farm on to the public road. It is, however, not the fact that the crowd tore up the fleeces and scattered the wool. Two policemen were present. No arrests were made, but proceedings have been instituted against five men whom the police identified, and these proceedings are now pending. Mr. Persse was one of the bench of magistrates at Athenry who returned certain defendants for trial upon a charge of unlawful assembly and intimidation. This gentleman's farm at Boyhill is being constantly protected by three policemen, and arrangements have been made for speedy communication with Athenry to obtain assistance if necessary. The farm is within a mile of Athenry Police Station.

  Irish Land Purchase.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will say what sum of money was allocated under Section 38 of 3 Edward 7, cap. 37, for the portion of the financial year ending 31st March, 1904, during which the aforesaid Act was in operation; and will he say whether the entire £50,000, as provided in the section referred to, has been paid into the Irish Land Purchase Fund each year since?
  MR. BIRRELL: Under the section quoted, the sum of £50,000 was paid from the Ireland Development Grant to the Irish Land Purchase Fund for the financial year ending 31st March, 1904, and a like sum has been paid in each succeeding year.

  Ballintubber Raid—Lord Denman's Speech.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant
  1432
  of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the proceedings at Ballintubber, on Thursday last, at the hearing of a charge against twelve men of having driven cattle off a farm; whether he is aware that no evidence was called to controvert the police evidence connecting the accused men with the offence, but the solicitor for the defence asserted that they had it on the authority of Lord Denman that the people of Ireland had reason for what they were doing; whether he is aware that three of the four magistrates on the bench refused an information, and that the fourth magistrate was a resident magistrate; whether he has made any report upon the case; and whether it is intended to take further proceedings in this case.
  MR. BIRRELL: It is the fact that in the case referred to the majority of the magistrates refused to receive informations. The evidence in the case has been submitted to my right hon. friend the Attorney-General for Ireland, who has directed that a Bill against the defendants shall be sent up to the Grand Jury at the next assizes. The case, therefore, is still sub judice, and I do not propose to discuss the nature of the evidence or the proceedings which took place before the magistrates.

  District Council Chairman and Magisterial Functions.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Kilmore branch of the United Irish League have passed a resolution calling upon the chairman of the Carrick-on-Shannon Rural District Council to resign his position on the ground that he declined to obey the summons of the League to adjudicate as a magistrate in the recent agrarian prosecutions at Hill Street; and what action he proposes to take to secure the proper administration of justice in that district.
  MR. BIRRELL: I have no information in this matter beyond the fact that a newspaper report to the effect mentioned in the first part of the Question has appeared. I have no reason to suppose that the proper administration of justice will be affected by any such resolution.

  Fees for Instruction in Irish.
  MR. GWYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the new scale of fees for Irish will be made applicable to the year ending June, 1907.
  MR. BIRRELL: The new scale of fees for teaching Irish will come into operation on 1st July next. I regret that it has not been found possible to apply the new scale to the current school year.
  MR. BOLAND: What will be the amount of money required to pay the fees this year?
  MR. BIRRELL: I cannot give the exact figures.
  MR. LONSDALE: Has the right hon. Gentleman obtained any guarantee that instruction in Irish will not be used as a means of teaching sedition?
  MR. J. DEVLIN: And will premiums be given to teach Ulster Tory Members to speak English?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Irish Evicted Tenants Return.
  MR. MOORE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will grant the Return moved for by the Member for North Armagh, relating to evicted tenants in Ireland†so that independent inquiry may be made on behalf of parties interested into the merits of the several cases.
  MR. BIRRELL: I propose to lay upon the Table in the course of a few days a Report prepared by the Estates Commissioners showing the result of their investigation of the cases of evicted tenants. This Report, however, will not contain particulars of individual cases, and a Return of such cases cannot be given. It must be obvious that no good purpose could be served by furnishing material for the purpose of enabling
  † Return of the evicted tenants whose applications have been recognised by the Estates Commissioners as deserving reinstatement showing (a) their names and descriptions; (b) the counties and holdings from which they have been evicted; (c) the date of such eviction; and (d) the amount of rent due at the date of such eviction.
  1434
  independent inquiry to be made by interested persons into the thousands of cases investigated by the Commissioners.

  Irish Fishery Rights.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether under the Land Act of 1903, when estates are being purchased on which there are fishery rights, the claims of fishermen who have been tenants of such fisheries, either as tenants under lease or from year to year, and where such tenancies have been held for a great number of years, in some cases for more than a century, will be duly considered with a view to the purchase of such fisheries on behalf of the fishermen, or, failing such purchase, that their rights will be safeguarded either by granting them a lease or giving them a yearly title, which cannot be disturbed, at a reasonable rent; and whether the attention of the Irish Department of Fisheries and the Land Purchase Commissioners will be called to all such cases and an inquiry held into them if required.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Land Commission inform me that no case appears to have arisen such as is referred to in the Question. The 99th Section of the Act of 1903 provides that the Act shall not affect sporting rights which are not in the possession or enjoyment of the vendor at the time of sale; and the expression "sporting rights" includes fishery rights. If any question relating to fishery rights should arise in connection with the sale of an estate, the Land Commission will consider the matter in connection with the section quoted and Section 13 of the Act.

  Irish Evicted Tenants—Case of Mrs. Scully.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the case of Mrs. Scully, a widow with a large family, who was evicted with her husband, who then lived, from a farm at Kilbreedy, county Limerick, in 1895; will he inquire if her late husband made a claim for a farm on the Mount Shannon estate at Annacoty, county Limerick; whether, on 28th January, 1905, he was present when an inspector from the Estates Commissioners attended

  1435
  for the purpose of marking out the farms on this estate, and drew Lot 1, a farm of about 37 acres; that the farms were drawn by lot on that date, and, her husband having died in October of that year, she got no notice of any further distribution; and whether, under those circumstances, special attention will be given to the claim of this woman.
  MR BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that Daniel Scully, the evicted tenant referred to in the Question, applied for a holding on the Mount Shannon estate. As the number of evicted tenants who had applied for farms was largely in excess of the possible number of holdings to be allotted, the inspector, at an early stage of the negotiations for purchase, allowed the applicants to draw lots for the sixteen separate holdings into which it was then proposed to divide the estate, in order that the Commissioners might know whether the applicants would take the holdings which might be offered to them if the estate were purchased. The purchase was not completed until two years later, and the estate was then divided into twelve lots only. Scully had died in the meantime. The Commissioners fully considered Mrs. Scully's claim, but did not select her as being one of the most suitable of the applicants for the holdings.
  Mr. JOYCE: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of my question?
  MR. BIRRELL: It is rather difficult to see what special attention can be given to this woman. The Commissioners came to the conclusion she was not the most suitable applicant for this farm.
  MR. JOYCE: They might give her another farm.

  Instructions to the Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any orders have been issued to the Royal Irish Constabulary debarring them from making arrests or taking prompt proceedings against offenders in eases of intimidation, riot, affrays, or unlawful assemblies in connection with the grazing
  1436
  agitation or other agrarian disturbances; whether, in dealing with such offences, the police are prohibited from acting on their own responsibility, and are required to report all such cases and to await the instructions of Government before any action can be taken; and, if so, in view of the delay caused by obedience to such instructions and the injury to the maintenance of order in the disturbed localities, he proposes to withdraw such instructions.
  MR. BIRRELL: It would be entirely contrary to practice to state the nature of instructions issued to the Royal Irish Constabulary. In order, however, to avoid misconception, I may say that the police have full authority to arrest persons guilty of acts of violence; but, in accordance with long established practice, they report to headquarters the facts in cases of the nature referred to in which violence has not been used, in order that the sufficiency of the evidence and the nature of the proceedings to be taken may be considered. There is no intention of altering the practice.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Is the driving of another man's cattle out of his field on to the high road an act of violence?
  MR. BIRRELL: The police stop it; whenever they can.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Have they made a single arrest in any of these cases?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Sir Henry Burke's Galway Estate.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the cattle on the holding of a small farmer called Donnelly, on Sir Henry Burke's estate, East Galway, were driven off in the presence of a body of police; and if the Government are prepared to treat this as a serious offence.
  MR. BIRRELL: Mr. Donnelly's cattle were driven off his farm on 30th May. Four policemen were present, but they were unable to prevent the offence Proceedings have been directed against those offenders who can be identified, with the object of having them bound to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Will one of the Law Officers of the Crown prosecute in these cases to show the perpetrators of the outrage the determination of the Government to stop them?
  MR. BIRRELL: The Government are doing all they can to stop them.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: And that is nothing at all.

  Mr. Charles Clarke's Thurles Farm.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the cattle on the property. of Mr. Charles Clarke, Graiguenoe, Holy Cross Thurles, are now guarded by police to prevent them being driven off; and if this district is in a satisfactory condition.
  MR. BIRRELL: Mr. Clarke's farm is frequently visited by police patrols with the object of preventing interference with the cattle on it. Mr. Clarke himself does not live on the farm. The district of Holy Cross is reported to be in a fairly satisfactory condition.

  Ballintubber Prosecution—Magistrates' Jurisdiction.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that at a recent prosecution at Ballintubbor, county Sligo, when the defendants were acquitted, one of the justices, Mr. Hanley, who attended, lives in a different petty sessions district about fourteen miles away, and that Mr Rorke, another of the same justices, lives in a different petty sessions district ten miles away from Ballintubber; if he will report this conduct to the Lord Chancellor, or what action he proposes to take.
  MR. BIRRELL: The circumstances referred to in the Question have been brought to the notice of the Lord Chancellor, who is at present in communication with the magistrates concerned in reference to it.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Have other similar cases occurred?
  MR. BIRRELL: Yes, several.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: A large number. Has the Lord Chancellor come to a decision in any case brought to his notice?
  MR. BIRRELL: I cannot say.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: May we expect an Answer before the Prorogation?
  MR. BIRRELL: I hope so.

  Larne School House.
  COLONEL McCALMONT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how long have the negotiations between the parishioners of Larne, the National Board of Education, and the Board of Works been going on for a grant for a now school house at Larne, county Antrim; how often has the present school house been condemned as insanitary and with insufficient accommodation for the school children; what threats have been made to the rector by the urban council, calling upon him to abolish the nuisance at once; how can the matter be dealt with when the Board of Works refuse to grant an advance of the necessary money; and will he give directions to the Board of Works to take the matter in hand at once and not drop it till the grant is made and the urban council of Larne satisfied.
  MR. BIRRELL: The formal application for a grant in this case was made on 17th February, 1905. It is admittedly the fact that the existing school house is unsuitable and does not afford sufficient accommodation for the pupils in attendance. The delay in dealing with this and similar cases has been due to the necessity of revising the building plans and settling the scale of grants for school buildings generally. An agreement upon these points has been reached, but some details as to the plans remain to be worked out. The matter is being pressed forward, and the Board of Works expect to be in a position very shortly to authorise the manager to proceed with the erection of a new school house in this case.

  Benmore Farm Raid.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware

  1439
  that 130 sheep and lambs were driven off the farm of Thomas Corcoran, Benmore, county Galway, on 2nd July; that Corcoran took this farm from the Congested districts Board in November, 1906, against the wishes and directions of the Bullaun branch of the United Irish League; and that this fact is attributed as the reason for the outrage; and what steps are being taken.
  MR. BIRRELL: On the 3rd instant ninety-three sheep and cattle were driven off Corcoran's farm. The animals were recovered and put back on the farm on the same day. The police have no knowledge that Corcoran took the farm contrary to the wishes of the United Irish League, or that this was the reason for driving off the cattle. The offenders in the case are not known. The police are paying attention to the farm.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: How many arrests have been made in the area of which this district is the centre?
  MR. BIRRELL: I am afraid I cannot say.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: Beyond paying attention to the farm, are the police endeavouring to find the culprits?
  MR. BIRRELL: The police are doing their duty.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: I ask whether the police are trying to find the culprits?
  MR. BIRRELL: That would be doing their duty.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT: I am very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that.

  Killescragh Raid.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the night of 2nd June over 100 sheep and thirty-five cattle, the property of Mat Bowes, of Loughrea, were driven off his farm at Killescragh on to the public road; whether he is aware that this farm was offered by the landlord for sale to his tenants in 1904 and the offer
  1440
  was refused by them; and what steps are being taken to protect this farm.
  MR. BIRRELL: The police have been informed that on the date mentioned Mr. Bowes' sheep and cattle were driven off his farm on to the public road, and were at once put back by the herd. There is no evidence against the offenders. I have no information that the farm was offered by the landlord for sale to the tenants. The police are protecting the farm by means of patrols.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: May I ask whether, in view of the widespread lawlessness clearly indicated by the Answers to several Questions, the right hon. Gentleman or his advisors have yet considered the question of using the other powers which they possess to stamp out these outrages?
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that Question.

  Kiltulla Farm Raid.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the night of the 2nd instant Mr. Frank Shawe Taylor's farm at Kiltulla, county Galway, was raided and the cattle and sheep driven all over the country; whether he is aware that this farm was bought by Mr. Shawe Taylor under the Ashbourne Acts some years ago; and, seeing that eight other farms in the same parish were raided on the same night, and in view of the rapidly increasing number of cases of cattle driving, whether he will consider the desirability of framing rules directing the Estates Commissioners not to sell holdings on estates where intimidation exists.
  MR. BIRRELL: On the morning of the 3rd instant the cattle were driven off the farms of Mr. Shawe Taylor and five other persons in the locality referred to. It is the fact that Mr. Shawe Taylor purchased his farm under the Ashbourne Acts. As regards the latter part of the Question, I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the Question of the hon. Member for the Oswestry Division on 14th May, † which reply I have since repeated on several occasions.
  † See (4) Debates, clxxiv., 800.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: May I ask if it is not a fact that another member of the Government has indicated that action is about to be taken by the Estates Commissioners in the direction of refusing to make sales of these farms to persons who have taken part in these unlawful assemblies?
  *MR. SPEAKER: That is a Question of which notice should be given.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I ask whether, in any of the so-called cattle raiding cases, any person, or, indeed, any of the cattle, has received the slightest injury?
  MR. BIRRELL: I would rather not go into that, but I am very glad to think that the cattle have not received injury.
  MR. KILBRIDE: How many asses and donkeys have been driven off?

  Dromard Untenanted Land
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have received a resolution from the Croagh branch of the United Irish League, in the county of Limerick, asking them to give some of the untenanted lands on the Brown estate at Dromard, which have been purchased by them, to Mrs. O'Grady and T. Ahern, both of whom are tenants of uneconomic holdings on the estate; and, if so, what action do they propose to take in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received the resolution referred to, but owing to the absence of particulars have been unable to identify the estate to which it is meant to refer.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire?
  MR. BIRRELL: They must first have particulars to enable them to identify the estate.

  Lord Denman's Speech.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to a statement of
  1442
  Lord Denman,†a member of His Majesty's Government, made with reference to cattle raiding, that the people of Ireland had reason for what they were doing, and to another statement of the same noble Lord that cattle raiding was not a crime of a serious nature; whether he is aware that within two days of Lord Denman's speech counsel for several persons indicted for driving cattle at Tohenagh, county Roscommon, pleaded these statements in defence of the prisoners; and whether he has given any instructions to Crown prosecutors in Ireland to treat offences of this kind as venial.
  MR. BIRRELL: It would be quite irregular to discuss, by way of Question and Answer in this House, a statement made by a member of His Majesty's Government in another place. I may, however, say that the remarks quoted in the Question taken from their context convey a very wrong impression of what the noble Lord said on the occasion. The Answer to the concluding part of the Question is in the negative.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered that portion of the Question which deals with cattle driving at Tohenagh.
  MR. BIRRELL: I believe it is a fact that the solicitor for the defence made some reference to the speech delivered in another place, but I have no control over him.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Did not the solicitor take the same view of that statement as we do?
  MR. BIRRELL: I think it is possible.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: It is true.

  Ballintubber Cattle Raid.
  MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now state what steps have been taken against the seventy-five employees of the Estates Commissioners and the thirty employees of the Congested Districts Board who were engaged in cattle driving near Ballintubber on the 10th ultimo; and whether he will give orders that these
  † See (4) Debates, clxxv., 450.

  1443
  men are not to be employed again by the above-mentioned authorities.
  MR. BIRRELL: I refer to my former Answer to a Question on this subject in which I stated that the employees referred to were members of a crowd some of whom drove cattle off the farm. I have no information that the particular men were actually engaged in driving off the cattle. Both the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board have given instructions that their employees should be cautioned against taking part in any such practices. The men in question are daily labourers temporarily employed.

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON: reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A (added in respect of the Incest Bill): Mr. Russell Rea; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Incest Bill): Mr. Walter Rea.
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON:further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (in respect of the Vaccination Bill): Sir John Benn; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Vaccination Bill): Mr. Bright.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

  PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE.
  Third Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed

  HOME WORK.
  Ordered, That Mr. William Redmond be discharged from the Select Committee on Home Work.
  Ordered, That Mr Hugh Law be added to the Committee.—(Mr. Whiteley.)

  TELEGRAPH [MONEY.]
  Resolution reported; "That it is expedient to authorise the issue, out of the Consolidated Fund, of any sums not exceeding in the whole£6,000,000 for
  1444
  the purpose of the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1906, and to apply the provisions of The Telegraph Act, 1892, to the raising of such sums."
  Resolution agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Sydney Buxton and M r. Runciman.

  TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL.
  "To provide for raising further money for the purpose of the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1906," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 232.]

  SMALL HOLDINGS AND ALLOTMENTS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  *MR. CHAPLINsaid: Some years ago it was my fortune to introduce a Bill on the same subject as that which we are about to discuss this afternoon, viz.: the question of small holdings. At that time I was followed in the debate by the father of the right hon. Gentleman who to-day is in charge of this measure, in terms and in kindly language which it is a pleasure to mo to recall even at this day, and to me, at all events, it is a pleasing and grateful coincidence that, standing in the same place and speaking from the same bench as his father did on that occasion, it is now my privilege to offer my warmest congratulations to the son upon the marked ability and skill with which he has presented his scheme of land legislation to this House. I desire to add this: that in the great object which he has in view, and which I take to be the arrest, if it be possible by legislation, of that distressing and prolonged exodus of the rural population from the country districts to the towns, he will find my colleagues and myself, and gentleman genererally in this part of the House, in hearty concurrence with him, whatever we may think of some of the methods and the machinery by which he seeks

  1445
  to accomplish this most desirable end. The right hon. Gentleman thinks that there may naturally and properly be difference of opinion as to the cause of the decline in our agricultural population. I agree with him so far that there is undoubtedly more than one cause which has contributed to it. The Prime Minister, however, in a very curious and remarkable speech made in London on 22nd April, seems to be of opinion that in some kind of way, which he did not explain, we on this side of the House are responsible for it, seeing that the Unionist Party had been in power for twenty years, during which time we had had the exclusive control of the agricultural situation, and a sorry performance it was, so he said, which we had produced. But does not the Prime Minister know what is really the main cause of this decline? I am sorry he is not present to-day, but in his absence, and if he does not know the real cause, and if his view is the view of many of his Party, perhaps I may be allowed to throw a little light on the subject. I propose to do so from two sources, both of which I am sure must be acceptable to hon. Members opposite. For one is a single short sentence from the Report of the last Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression appointed by a cabinet of which ho was a member and of which Mr. Gladstone himself was the head. The other is information supplied by the present Minister of Agriculture and presented to both Houses of Parliament during the closing months of last year. As regards the Commission, if hon. Gentlemen care to look at the Report they will find in one of its final clauses a passage which it is worth while to remember to-day because it hears so directly on rural depopulation, and ten years ago it offered a serious warning to Parliament and to the country, of what we had to look forward to in that direction in future. The passage was as follows—
  "The grave situation we have described, affecting no inconsiderable part of Great Britain, is due to a long continued fall in prices. This fall is attributed by the great majority of the witnesses to foreign competition. … So far then as the maintenance of this competition involves the continued depreciation of agricultural values, we must look forward to a further reduction of the area of British land susceptible of profitable arable cultivation, together with a corresponding contraction of
  1446
  our production and a diminution of our rural population."
  That was the forecast of Mr. Gladstone's Commission, consisting of sixteen members of whom no fewer than fourteen signed the sentence I quote; and a Commission, remember, on which there was a large majority of members holding the views and opinions generally of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. Now I come to the evidence published by the present Minister of Agriculture, Lord Carrington, towards the end of last session. It is still more remarkable and still more important, because it is really the latest evidence we have on the subject, and it will be no waste of time to spend a few moments upon it, because it bears so directly upon every one of the most important questions which will arise under this Bill. It was collected by Mr. Rew, through the official correspondents of that Board, in every part of the country. It is not too much to say that Mr. Rew is one of the ablest and most experienced officials of the Board of Agriculture and in the long list of names of their correspondents you will find included those of almost every agriculturist of eminence and distinction, and knowledge in the Kingdom. What is the outcome of the information put before us by the President of the Board of Agriculture? It is as follows: in March of last year a circular was issued by the Board of Agriculture to their correspondents throughout the country containing five questions upon which they desired information, and it is to two of these questions and the replies to them, bearing directly upon the decline of the rural population, that I desire to direct the attention of the House. The first of the two was as follows—
  " What, in your opinion, are the immediate causes of the decline in the agricultural population, naming them in order of importance, in your district?"
  Taking the replies for England and Wales, with which this Bill is alone concerned, what do I find? I have made an analysis of them, and putting aside Middlesex and London, what they show is as follows: that out of forty-one counties in England, with two exceptions they all of them put as the first and the main cause of depopulation—
  "The great fall in prices, with the consequent conversion of arable land into grass,"

  1447
  this conversion again being due to the necessity of reducing the labour bill to the smallest dimensions, from the absolute want of means wherewith to pay wages. The two exceptions are, first, the Isle of Ely, and secondly, the East Riding of Yorkshire. I may mention that the Isle of Ely is exceedingly fertile, and specially suited to market gardening, which employs a great deal of labour, and naturally accounts for the population not declining. In the East Riding of Yorkshire the reason is different, for there a number of very young boys, too young really to be employed, are engaged instead of grown up men; they become discontented with their work, and leave their places almost on the first opportunity. As to Wales, out of eleven counties in the Principality seven assign the same causes as in England, but one of them puts the attractions of the town first, and the other the lack of cottages. The other four give various reasons, not of any special importance. If these replies are to be trusted at all, then I hope some friends will convey my question to the Prime Minister. Does the right hon. Gentleman still wish to imply that we on this side of the House are responsible for the main and principal cause of the rural decline? If he does, does he think that we ought to have done something to remove the main cause of it, by trying to raise the prices of agricultural produce? I pass to the second question, which is more specific in its terms—
  "Is there any difficulty in obtaining land for small holdings or allotments, and, if so, is this difficulty attributed in any way to the decline of the rural population?"
  Now, I take the question of small holdings first. It is not very easy to make any perfectly accurate summary, in this case, because the answers to the question are not always direct; but I have done my best, and I think I shall be pretty near the mark when I say that in forty-eight counties in England and Wales there are five which say there is difficulty in getting land for small holdings; ten where it is not apparent; seventeen more who maintain that the difficulty is not in getting the land, but in providing the buildings; and ten who say there is little demand. If you add the last three together, there are thirty-four counties in which you may say that there is practically no difficulty in getting the
  1448
  necessary land. The remainder do not give answers which furnish a reply to the question. Now I come to the question of allotments, and here I have to point out that out of forty three counties in England, while there is no response to the question from five of those counties, the remaining thirty-eight, with one single exception, viz., the East Riding of Yorkshire, reply that there is no difficulty in obtaining land for the purpose. And when I go on to Wales, four out of the eleven counties in Wales say there is no difficulty in getting land, and three that the difficulty is not in the land but in providing the buildings. Of the remaining four, two say the difficulty is great, one says it is not always easy, and the fourth does not answer the question. In view of these replies, and of the statement of the Prime Minister on the 22nd April last, that in district after district all over the country the demand for land for the purposes of use and labour was met with a blank denial, we are placed in a serious difficulty, because the statements of the Prime Minister and the evidence quoted are in absolute conflict. When I first read the speech, I asked myself, "But where is the proof of it?" I want to ask this question, Was he aware of this report I Had it been put before him when he made this statement? If it was not, I think he was very badly treated by his Minister of Agriculture. But if it was, I want to ask this question, How is he going to reconcile the statement he made on that occasion with the precise and elaborate information contained in this Report and published only last year? How is he going to reconcile these two statements, unless he is prepared to say that this information is wholly misleading? I pass from that to say this: having looked at this evidence myself, and having examined it with the greatest possible care, it seems to me clear, unless it can be disputed, that the Prime Minister has not a leg to stand on in respect of the statement which he made on that occasion. It is in absolute contradiction of the whole of this information we have before us; and we have the right to ask, and we shall claim to be told before this debate comes to an end, how he attempts to reconcile his statement with the evidence supplied by his own Minister of Agriculture. We have the more right

  1449
  to demand it, because the House will remember, or those who have studied his speech with as much care as I have done will remember, that it was on those statements that the right hon. Gentleman founded his demand for that coercion, for that particular form of compulsion, which was to be so severe, and also to be as swift and as extensive as could be contrived. And all this is to be done because "the demand for land for the purpose of use and labour has met with nothing but blank denials." Purposes of use and labour! There is no kind of land which affords so much labour as land for allotments, because it is mainly done by the spade; that is a fact which no one acquainted with this question can put on one side; you cannot ignore it; yet it was in the face of information of this kind, which ho ought to have had before him on the Table at the time he was speaking, that the Prime Minister chose to make this attack on the Party which is on this side of the House, and to make this unfounded demand for a severer form of compulsion than we have ever known before in this country. In the same breath almost, the Minister for Agriculture tells us something which I do not remember to have heard mentioned before, that in more than half of the counties in England, allotments are being given up; there are more allotments in existence already than there are people to take them. Many of them have gone out of cultivation altogether; some of them, the Report says, are growing nothing but weeds at the present moment, and others again are merged in the farms from which they were originally taken. Surely that is a very remarkable position of affairs. It is still more remarkable that it has been wholly ignored by the Prime Minister and by every one of his colleagues in the Government up to the present time; so much so that until I had a prospect of coming back to the House of Commons and began to look up the information on the subject, I was totally unaware of it, and I can honestly say that I became aware of it rather to my surprise, and very greatly indeed to my regret—regret for this reason: that it is exceedingly ominous for the future of this Bill, because the policy of the Government is exactly to-day, so far as I am able to follow it, on the same lines as the policy
  1450
  of the Bill of 1894, which adopted compulsory hiring for allotments, which extended allotments from one acre to four, and practically made them small holdings; for allotments of four acres to all intents and purposes are small holdings. And it is these hired allotments which now already are being given up. I agree most warmly with my right hon. friend, if I may be permitted so to address him, in his desire to arrest this terrible decline of the rural population. That was also the object of the Bill of 1892. But I am very far from thinking that my right hon. friend is going the right way to work. The earlier Bill sought to add largely to the number of owners of land in this country, and on terms which were favourable in themselves, though I have reason to think, since then, that those terms might have been made more favourable still, and with very considerable advantage. And in order to give them every inducement to do the best that they could, both for the land and for themselves, the actual ownership and the possession of land was made the principle of the Bill; and we also invoked what is called the "Magic of Property," which has done such wonders in so many parts of the world as the best chance of ensuring success. For this, we had as our guide the experience, not only of the numerous yeomen, the statesmen as they are called in the north of England, and the very large number of freeholders, who formerly flourished in our own country; we had also that vast peasant proprietary which exists now, and which still continues to flourish in large numbers, in almost every country on the continent of Europe. But in the Bill which is now before us you proceed upon wholly different lines. You seek to create a vast army of tenants, not of owners of land. [MINISTERIAL cheers.] Yes, and tenants holding farms—I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite will be prepared to cheer so vehemently what I am going to say—not from a landlord, which they greatly prefer, but from a middleman, which all experience in the old days in Ireland and elsewhere has taught us is the most pernicious form of tenure in the world; and that is really one of the main distinctions between the Bill of 1892 and the Bill to-day. I do most earnestly hope, in the

  1451
  interests of the Bill itself, that some modifications in this respect will be accepted in the course of our discussions. Why you do this I cannot conceive unless it be this, that if the experiment fails, as fail I believe it will upon your lines, the failure will be at the cost of the rates, instead of Imperial funds. And yet your justification for your policy is that it is a great national object, and if that be so, then the cost of those experiments, if cost there be, should fall on national funds. I know it is said that the Bill of 1892 was a failure—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Hear, hear!"] —and in a sense so it was, but from no fault of its own. What happened was this: the Bill came into operation at the end of the year 1892, and before we had had time to turn round, before the Bill had had time to come into operation, a new Government came into power, and the first thing they did was to supersede the operation of this Bill by introducing another for compulsory hiring, and by which holdings up to four acres could be acquired by hire. At first the new system was exceedingly popular, and the hired allotments were eagerly sought for. The new tenants got everything out of the land that they could, and a very good time they had to begin with, quite forgetting, however, that what they took out of the land at some time or other must be put back again somehow if it was to continue productive in future, and with the result that we have already learnt from the Board's information that in half the counties of England hired allotments are being now given up, and there are more allotments than people to take them. On the other hand, I claim this for the Bill of 1892. We have every reason to believe that, but for its supersession by the Act of 1894, it would have had far more effect than it did; and secondly, that where it came into operation, before the passing of that Act, it proved to be highly successful, and went far to show how the problem could be solved. What happened in the short interval between the two Bills was this: The Returns for the year 1895 show that in the two years before the passing of the Act of 1894, eight county councils in England took action under the Bill of 1892. The evidence given in regard to small holdings shows that after the Bill of 1894 came into operation twelve years ago only one of the county councils
  1452
  in England have acquired more land since then. But 700 acres have been acquired under that Act, and I will give the House an illustration showing the success of the measure. I was supplied with this in-information just before I came to the House to-day. At Catshill, a little village in the parish of North Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, there was a little colony of people whose industry was making hand nails. Some time ago they were very hard hit by competition and their industry was destroyed, and they had to look for a new means of livelihood. In their distress they petitioned the county council of Worcestershire to get them land for small holdings under the Act. The Worcestershire County Council bought 147 acres of land, and it was divided amongst these people, and all the information at my disposal at the present time goes to show that this little colony of people, who would otherwise have been ruined by the loss of their industry, are now nourishing, because they were supplied with small holdings which are now their own property. That is a hopeful, and, I think, a delightful illustration that there is some possibility of doing some real good in this direction if we only proceed by the right, the wisest, and the best means. And now, if the House will bear with me still, I want for a moment to turn to the machinery and the methods by which the right hon. Gentleman gives effect to this scheme. Take Clause 1 to begin with. This clause enables the Board of Agriculture to appoint two or more Commissioners, and other officials with powers which are exceptional and, for this purpose, entirely novel. Their first duty will be to ascertain what demand there is for small holdings in the several counties of England and Wales, and how far that demand can be reasonably satisfied. It provides that—
  " the council of any county, borough, district or parish may make representations to the Commissioners,"
  and must furnish them with all information. The Commissioners are to report their information to any council which is affected, and to say if they think it desirable that a scheme should be made. If they report that it is, then the council is to draft one or more schemes to give effect to the report, but if they fail what is to happen? If they fail, then

  1453
  the Commissioners are to prepare one themselves, for which they are given the widest powers under Clause 32. If the council objects the Commissioners are to hold an inquiry, not necessarily local; and after inquiry they may settle or annul any scheme. If they decide to proceed with a scheme, it is the duty of the county council to carry it out, and if the Council are in default the Commissioners are to carry it out for themselves, and all the expenses are to be repaid by the offending council, and recoverable as a debt from the Crown. [MINISTERIAL cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer that statement, and they seem to think it a very satisfactory mode of procedure. Now, I believe this is as accurate a description as can be given in a few words of the powers of the Commissioners, and there is, I fancy, outside of this House, whatever may be the case within its walls at present, a very general idea all over the country that this is what may be called a pretty strong order. People are beginning to rub their eyes and can hardly believe it. I will give the House a simple illustration of what might happen under these provisions. Clause 18, subsection 1, of the Small Holdings Act of 1902, which remains operative even now, provides as follows: —
  "A county council shall not acquire land under this Act save at such price that, in the opinion of the council, all expenses incurred by the council in relation to the land will be recouped out of the purchase money for the land sold by the council, or in the case of land let out of the rent, and shall fix the purchase money or rent at such reasonable amount as will, in their opinion, guard them against loss."
  The county council acting under this clause and in the exercise of their judgment think they will be unable to make both ends meet, and decline to acquire the land or to proceed with the scheme. The Commissioners take a different view. They may say," We disagree with you, the evidence does not warrant your belief. We think we know what is wanted better than you do and you must proceed with the scheme, and unless you do so we shall put in somebody else to do it instead." But the county council, remember, is a body elected on the widest suffrage, and who represent presumably therefore the views of the ratepayers, on whom the burden will fall. That is the position, and I ask my right hon. friend does he really
  1454
  think that it is a practical or workable scheme? If he does, I do not, and I ask the House frankly, and with all absence of Party feeling, whether this is machinery which can be considered as either practical or desirable, or of a kind that Parliament ought to enact in its present form? I am unwilling to spend more time upon it, and I find it hard to believe that it has the sanction of the Local Government Board, who must be aware of the unhappy results of this kind of coercion on a former occasion. But it will be news, I am sure, to the great majority of the House, and I will tell them about it. These powers are not by any means new. They have been in existence for a great number of years. In the old Sanitary Act of 1866, powers were given to the Secretary of State to take measures of this kind where the local authority was in default with regard to the provision of sewers or of water supply, or with regard to matters gravely affecting the health of the people. The only experience we have of their working is most unsatisfactory. The ease is set out in the Public Works Loans Act in 1878; and I am going to state to the House what occurred on that occasion—the only occasion—when these powers were ever put in force in this country. The sewer authority at Epping in 1878 was declared to be in default in not providing proper sewerage and water supply. The Secretary of State, just as my right hon. friend might do next year if he carries his Bill, put into force the powers at his disposal, and he appointed a person to do the work for him, directing that the cost should be charged on the local authority. He did the work, borrowing£11,900 for the purpose from the Local Loans Commissioners to begin with; and demanding repayment from the local authority. Well, the local authority told him to go somewhere. The local authority declined to pay anything of the kind. The next step was to take proceedings to make them. After a great deal of wrangling and many attempts and trials at settlement between the two parties it ended in this way. The Treasury had to take as a coin-promise £5,000 for the debt, and to make good the remainder of£6,900 themselves. From that day to this, and they wore good judges, no Government Department has ever attempted to used these powers again. It is not an agreeable prospect for my right hon. friend,

  1455
  and I certainly shall not envy him whenever he seeks to force this scheme on the county councils against their will. There are still one or two points of importance with which, I think, I ought to deal. This Bill proposes to give powers for compulsion of the most extreme kind in regard to the purchase as well as the hire of land. I know of course that there are precedents again and again for the taking of land by compulsion, but compulsion of this kind ought not to be practised unless in the first place you show that there is necessity for it, and in the second place that when land is forcibly taken against the will of the owner, you are bound to make him fair and full compensation. But in both these respects you have failed. Unless the report of Mr. Rew to the Board of Agriculture is wrong and misleading, I have shown that necessity cannot be alleged. And I fail to discover where and how in various cases you provide for compensation. As to purchase, how-ever, I am of opinion that there is so much land in the market at the present time that you will find land ready for you to purchase whether you have in the Bill this clause for compulsion or not, and I do not think myself, wrong though it is, that it is likely to make any very great difference. But the case of leasing is entirely different. If you take a man's land against his will the least you can do is to pay him for it. He has a right to ask for it, and there are a whole variety of different grounds in respect of which I can see that the landlord is likely to be placed in a position of great difficulty unless you adopt this course. Take the case of land which is mortgaged. I foresee the possibility of great difficulties for the owner. The mortgagee may be dissatisfied with the position; he may think that land on which he has a charge, acquired by hire for the purpose of being cut up into small holdings, and which may perhaps be returned in a dilapidated condition a few years hence, is a security which, to say the least of it, is not satisfactory. He calls in the mortgagee, and if he should be impecunious, you may land him in bankruptcy and nothing else very soon. But, apart from that altogether, I submit another case which I think hon. Members will admit I have very good reasons for bringing before them. Take the case of a parish belonging to a single owner, and there are scores of such
  1456
  parishes all over the country. Perhaps a large part is let to a first-rate, tenant who is doing his farming as well as it is possible for him to do it. A half, or perhaps a quarter, of the land is extra good, and exactly suited for small holdings. You want this quarter or half of his farm, and in due course you give him notice to quit. You take it through your Commissioners if the county council refuse on compulsory hire, giving the tenant notice to quit; and the tenant who loses the best part of his land gives up his farm in consequence. I know of hundreds of cases where this would be almost certain to happen, because you must remember that there are hundreds and thousands of tenants throughout England to-day to whom the margin of profit is exceedingly small, even after rents have been reduced to the lowest possible ebb. I have offered great farms myself free of rent altogether without being able to find tenants for them—farms on which I have spent a great deal of money. The margin of profit is so small that nothing is more probable than that if a tenant is deprived of the best of his land he will give up the rest, and thereby you put the landlord in a position where he is not likely to find any tenant at all for the residue. What are you going to do for these people? My right hon. friend said—
  "I hope we shall not have any cheap declamation about confiscation."
  So do I, and I hope still more that we shall not have cause for it. But you must remember this, that if you place the landlord and the farmer in the position which I have described, unless you make him full compensation I do not think you can easily escape the charge of confiscation. Well, what are you going to do either for the one or the other? As regards the tenant to whom you have given notice to quit, are you going to pay him compensation for all his improvements? Are you going to give him, besides, compensation for disturbance and arbitrary eviction, about which you made such a fuss, and about which you carried a measure into law only last session? I can find nothing anywhere in the Bill which provides for it. I hope my right hon. friend will give us further information on this subject. I have searched the Bill again and again on this point, and latterly with the aid

  1457
  of an expert, and neither of us has been able to find any provision by which compensation is enacted by the Bill in any form or shape in a case like this. The only reference to it at all is an incidental reference to compensation in one of the schedules of the Bill. This is a point on which I really do think we are entitled to have the fullest explanation from my right hon. friend. Unless I am wholly mistaken, after what I have put before the House on this particular branch of the question, I hope to be assured that he will remedy this part of the Bill during its passage through Committee. Again, the land you have taken will probably be, and I will suppose that it is, partly arable and partly grass. I see no provisions in the Bill whatever against the breaking up of the grass land. Is it intended that there should be provisions against that, and if the grass land is broken up, and its value is therefore diminished by more than a half, perhaps by three-quarters, in the event of its being returned to the landlord, are you or are you not going to make compensation? At the end of the lease the best will have been taken out of the land, like the numerous cases of allotments of which we hear now. Nobody else is willing to take it, and the council decline to renew the lease. Do you compensate the owner for the injury done to his land, and if not, why not? And if you do, where is it provided? If it is not provided, and if, when you return it, the land is less in value than when you took it, then unless you give to the owner fair compensation you cannot escape the charge of confiscation. But suppose that I wrongly interpret the Bill, and that you intend in such a case to make compensation, from what source is it to come? Is it to come from the rates? If it is, why everyone knows that the burden of the rates ultimately falls on the land, and the owner will simply be paying his own compensation out of one pocket into the other. There are two other points only with which I wish to deal; the equipment of the small holdings and the provision of buildings. I understand that the Government are prepared to help the tenants in these respects, if I understand the Bill aright, out of a fund to be placed by the Treasury in the Bank of England. But if you are going to do this, may I not suggest to my right hon.
  1458
  friend that surely it would be better to make the tenant the owner at once and to give him the advantages enjoyed by the Irish tenant to-day. The Irish tenants are no more entitled to the advantage than the tenants of England that the payment of rent or instalments, if you like, should include principal and interest, and that at the end of a certain number of years they should find the land their own. I make the suggestion to my right hon. friend, and I hope he may think it worthy of consideration. There is another matter, small perhaps, but not unimportant. I find in Clause 11 that a county council may relax the condition imposed by Section 9 of the Small Holdings Act of 1892 that not more than one dwelling-house shall be erected, if, in their opinion, such would increase the value of the holding for other than agricultural purposes. That raises serious considerations. I have in my mind abuses which arose in certain. parts of the country from too many houses being erected on the laud. In my own county in former days we used to have thousands of small freeholders living on the land, where these conditions sometimes prevailed. I am somewhat afraid that if Section 9 of the Small Holdings Act were to be repealed or relaxed, and still more, if Section 19 of this Bill, which allows the erection of more than one dwelling-house on 5 acres of land, is not amended we may run the risk of creating in England congested districts from which we have suffered so much in the past, and suffer still, both in Ireland and in Scotland as well. There are numerous other details in the Bill which it might be desirable to mention, but I feel I have already spoken too long. [Cries of "No."] I have endeavoured to deal with what appeared to me some of the more essential points in connection with the Bill, and not, I hope, with any undue hostility with regard to it. On the contrary, no one would rejoice more than myself to see a really workable and practical measure passed by this House on the question of small holdings. I hope that we on this side of the House may be met in a similar spirit on the Government side of the House. This ought to be regarded as a non-Party question. We are confronted with a grave national condition and that can only be removed by proceeding in dealing

  1459
  with it with the utmost possible caution and care if we are not to make the case worse. We hope we shall be met frankly and fairly by suitable concessions, but should we be disappointed in that respect when we come to the close of the discussion of the clauses in Committee, it will be our duty to reserve to ourselves the right to take any course we think fit with respect to the Bill in its future stages. I thank the House for the patience and attention with which they have listened to all I have said on this question, and I should like to say this in conclusion. I have sometimes heard hard things said of this House of Commons. I can only speak of my own experience, and though I hope I am not given to speaking too much of myself—I hope I may be allowed to add this—that since my return to it, from hon. Gentlemen in all quarters of the House, on that side, quite as much as on this, I have met with a kindness and generosity which I have never known equalled and which I can never forget as long as I live.
  *THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT, Lancashire, Rossendale): I think I shall represent the general feelings of the House if I congratulate them upon the ability and the eloquence of the new recruit who has shown in his maiden speech such obvious capacity both to charm and to instruct in our debates. But, to drop the maiden metaphor, I hope I shall be allowed to say how glad his friends are—and I would say his foes, too, but he has none—to welcome him back to the arena where for so many years he has adorned the proceedings of this House. At the risk of sacrificing any advantage which might be mine by waiting to speak at a later period of the debate, I cannot abstain from the temptation to follow the right hon. Gentleman immediately since he has reminded me of the incident of 1892, when the individual who replied to him on small holdings was one whoso name I bear. Indeed, it is no sacrifice on my part to speak thus early, because I have associated with me on this Bill so many colleagues who are far better fitted than I am to deal with matters which may subsequently arise in our debates. But I think that it may not be in convenient or distasteful to the House if I deal immediately with some of the main criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman
  1460
  speaking on behalf of the Opposition, and of the general arguments for and against this Bill which have developed, both within and without the House, since it was introduced. I hope the speech to which we have just listened does not mean that that bench are willing to wound but yet afraid to strike. I trust that the perennial stream of the right hon. Gentleman's eloquence will not How for ever between the rustic and the land which he seeks to reach. I should be very sorry if we had to say in the future—
  "Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille
  Labitur et labetur in omne volubil s; ævun."
  But His Majesty's Government have no reason, and no desire, to complain of general reception which has been accorded to this Bill in almost every quarter of the House. It is true that there are a few, like the right hon. Gentleman himself, who disbelieve in the demand for small holdings—[Mr. CHAPLIN: "No"]—who disbelieve in the unsatisfied demand for small holdings, and who assert that where small holdings are required they can easily be obtained. That is not my experience or my information. But we need not fall out over a matter purely of opinion. Where the hand is not wanted this Bill will not operate. Where it can easily be obtained compulsion will be unnecessary and will not be used. But where the land is required and is unobtainable, the compulsion in this Bill will operate, I believe, with perfect justice to those who are constrained to part with the land, and, I hope, with as little special cost as may be to those who desire, and who, I think, are entitled to occupy it. I do not think it is necessary or desirable that I should follow the right hon. Gentleman into those detailed inquiries as to the justification of the belief in a land-hunger to which we were invited by distinguished gentlemen in another place, and which, when supplied to them, caused them such acute annoyance and led to such profuse arguments, but to no useful result. I do not think it is necessary to my case that I should prove, what I honestly believe, that there is a large, widespread desire and demand for the occupation of small parcels of agricultural land. In my opinion, the Act of 1892 has been a ludicrous and pathetic failure. [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] I do not

  1461
  expect hon. Gentlemen opposite, especially not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon, to agree with me. He would be a most unnatural parent, and a most unusual politician, if ho disbelieved in his own measure. [An HON. MEMBER: It was Collings.] I think a white sheet would be ill-suited either to the character or the record of the right hon. Member for Bordesley. But, believing as I do that this Act has been a failure—mainly from three causes, first, the absence of compulsion; secondly, the want of provisions for hiring; and thirdly, the practical insistence on sale to small holders—I think, taking human nature for what it is, it is most improbable that a man who felt a genuine and ardent desire for the occupation of a small holding should have undertaken what would seem to be the hopeless, almost the ludicrous farce, of appealing to perhaps unfriendly authorities for facilities which he had little chance of securing. I believe, however, that this Bill will act upon the latent and suppressed demand just as the thaw acted upon the frozen horn of Munchausen, and that the silent wish will become the vocal request. If it fails to act in that way—though I, personally, should be deeply disappointed—nobody will be any the worse for it. The county councils will have omitted to act, these terrible Commissioners will have made their inquiries, and will have met with a blank denial of a demand, no action will have been taken, peace and lethargy will rule supreme, depopulation will continue, the land may go out of cultivation, the country gentleman will be undisturbed, and game will be preserved. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh." That is a picture which much people draw of what a patriot ought to desire. But I admit that to a Little Englander like myself there is some attraction in the little culture. If we can produce it we will, but we will only provide for it on economic conditions. I have not made, and I shall not make, any proposals for coddling or for forcing an industry which cannot economically stand alone without State grants, or, what comes to the same thing as State grants, contributions by the general taxpayer out of duties upon imported produce. If small holdings cannot exist without protection, as the right hon. Gentleman would wish to believe, I would not raise my hand to bring them into
  1462
  being. But seeing, as I do, that the importation of articles of consumption, articles specially fitted for production by small holders, has greatly increased of late years, and seeing that this importation has been growing at increasing and not at decreasing prices, I am driven to the conclusion that the growth of these imports is not owing to the low price of the foreign competitive supply, but from the lack of production at home. And, therefore, surely we have got what any economist would desire—a want which we ourselves can supply if Parliament will provide the vehicle for its production. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley and some of his friends object that our Bill makes no further provision for the sale of small holdings to the occupier. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly consistent in his remonstrance, because I remember that, during the debates on the Bill of 1892, he took strong objection that the provisions for purchase were illusory and unsatisfactory, owing to the amount of the initial instalment which was demanded from a small holder as soon as the preliminaries had been completed. So much was he impressed with the financial difficulties and disadvantages of purchase in its early stages that he wanted to reduce that initial instalment to so minute a sum as to leave the transaction only one of purchase in name. And in the proposals of the Bill which, I think, he recently introduced into the House the instalment is so small that it was pointed out by some hon. Gentlemen during the First Reading that the occupier would not become the actual owner of the small holding in less than sixty-eight and a half years.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: After the agreement was signed he would become immediately the absolute owner, subject to the yearly instalments.
  *MR. HARCOURT: I know that legally he becomes the owner, but he is not in full possession of the land until he has paid the final instalment. But I admit that, from his past record, the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to object to our Bill now, just as he objected to the Bill of the Conservative Government fifteen years ago. I will deal with the principle of his objection in a few minutes.

  1463
  But surely it does not He in the mouth of those who sit near him, the right hon. Gentlemen the Members for Wimbledon, South Dublin, and the City of London, to urge such objections. They began to develop their interest in the Parliamentary provision of small holdings just on the eve of the general election of 1892. They publicly developed it then. The prospect of a dissolution may have had a stimulating effect on their policy. The country was peppered with their perorations. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon—he then represented an agricultural constituency—attended all over the country conferences of labourers and farmers, at which he received a good deal of interesting and some startling information. He drew a glowing picture of what his Bill was going to do for the country. At one of those conferences he said its object was by legislation to bring about a wider distribution of the land amongst the people, and to attach more closely to the soil those who extracted from it what it grew, and to whose exertions the wealth it yielded was primarily owing. I hope, Sir, that the right hon. Gentleman's transfer to the suburbs has not killed his ardour for his former friends. At the same conference he expressed no fear of any charge which might be entailed upon the rates by those proposals. He said—
  "A charge of Id. on the rates would give the county councils of the country a borrowing power for the purposes of the Bill of£10,000,000. [Mr. CHAPLIN: I said that in the House here.] Surely£10,000,000 was sufficient to begin with."
  Yes, it seemed amply sufficient a bait for a general election. But how much of that power does the House think has been exercised, and by how many councils in the fifteen years that have elapsed? Exactly three county councils have exercised those powers, and in the aggregate to the amount of£16,000.
  MR. CHAPLIN: The number was eight in the first two years. I stated so just now.
  *MR. HARCOURT: I know, but I think the right hon. Gentleman was directing his mind, or at all events he was using an extract which was directed to a different set of facts. I was stating the facts as to the amount of money which was raised by loan by the county
  1464
  councils, and I believe the officials who supplied me with the facts are accurately informed. But at some of these conferences the right hon. Gentleman was mot with a demand for hiring of small holdings in place of purchase, and I am glad to think that he saw no objection to that in principle. He said at one of these conferences—
  "The object of the Government was to give a poor man the opportunity of hiring a small holding to begin with, and if he was industrious for a certain number of years he was gradually to be able to purchase his holding."
  I suppose if he was not industrious he would remain the tenant of the county council for life. But I know that the power of letting under the right hon. Gentleman's Bill was limited to fifteen acres, and I fully admit that the main object of that Bill, though not the whole of it, was the sale of the land to the small holder. He believed that there was a demand for purchase. He asserted that the provisions of his Bill were ample for the purpose, and I have no doubt he thinks so still. He and his Government resisted the blandishments of the Member for Bordesley and the Member for West Birmingham, who wanted to enlarge the scope of that Bill. They maintained that there was plenty of land available at a fair price, that no compulsion was necessary, that they imposed a charge of ten millions on the rates, that the financial provisions were easy and equitable, that the labourer was anxious to devote to purchase the gold which he had hoarded out of his weekly wages, and that if the then Member for Sleaford was allowed his way there was going to be a new heaven and a new earth. But what, then, have they to complain of now? It is true that many of us—I am one of them—believe that that Act has been a failure, I am quite sure that our opinion will have no effect in convincing the right hon. Gentleman of the insufficiency of his measure. If he regards its provisions for purchase as ample and sufficient I fail to see what ground he has for complaint now. We leave the whole of those provisions, for what they are worth, untouched by our proposal. The right hon. Gentleman and his Government thought that compulsion was unnecessary and undesirable for the acquisition of land which was to be sold outright to small holders. Well, I do not say I

  1465
  do not agree with him. No compulsory powers are included in our Bill for such a purpose. Our compulsion is directed to the acquisition of land by local authorities and public bodies, and we leave to the county councils the same powers which the right hon. Gentleman gave them to acquire land by agreement for the purpose of re-sale to small holders. In the same way the right hon. Gentle-man thought the proper proportion of the purchase money to be paid immediately by the small holder should be one-fifth, or 20 per cent. of the price. In that figure he was at variance with the Member for Bordesley; but the Government of the day insisted upon their opinion and carried it to the test of a division. Well, again we leave those provisions absolutely untouched. The whole machinery for the purchase of the land by county councils for re-sale is left as it was fifteen years ago. But if hon. Gentlemen opposite believe, as they always have done, that this is all that is required or demanded by the people, surely they ought to be amply satisfied with our non-interference with their methods. It is true that we do nothing to extend or facilitate the machinery for that class of sale. But then the late Government never thought it desirable or necessary to do so in the whole of the ten years that they held office after the passing of that Bill. Our Bill is directed, in amending theirs, to the extension of small holdings by lease and by tenancy, but not by sale, and, from a long experience of the failure of the old method, we believe that it is by these means that the extension will be most easily and most economically made. If I thought that under the Act of 1892 there was likely to be a large amount of purchase by tenants in the future I should be inclined to limit rather than to extend the facilities for that purpose, so convinced am I that, for a great national purpose such as this, tenancy under a public authority, and the acquisition of land by that authority, is the most satisfactory solution of the question. The right hon. Gentleman has gone so fully into the question of the value of ownership of land that he will perhaps forgive me if I follow him in that matter. I think there are many overwhelming reasons against the absolute sale of land to a small holder—land which has been acquired by State
  1466
  credit, and on local security for a definite object and use. That object is to fix upon the soil men who will be devoted to its culture, men who will be entitled to the profits arising from its cultivation and from any improvements which they may make upon the land. They will not, I think, be entitled to those subsidiary and collateral accretions of value which arise from other circumstances unconnected with their occupation and their labour. These values, if any, belong, in my opinion, to the local authorities who will have purchased the land, and who, after eighty years, will come into the absolute fee simple of it at no expense to themselves. That land will be an asset and reward to them for any trouble that they may have been put to in the matter; that land will become an ultimate contributor in relief of the rates of the districts by which it has boon purchased. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley has always really been more impressed with the dangers of the absolute sale of land than he has been prepared to admit, because in all his proposals for creating what he chooses to call ownership he has put forward provisions for a grave limitation of that ownership and restrictions upon the fee simple. The rights of sale have been limited; the rights of division and of devise have been restricted; and even the method of enjoyment has been prescribed. Many of these provisions were ultimately incorporated, no doubt at his instance, in the Act of 1892; but, though they probably represented his opinions, they did not reflect the real opinion of the Government which was responsible for that measure on the question of owner-ship. Sir Richard Webster, then the Attorney-General of the Government, who was assisting the right hon. Gentleman opposite in the conduct of the Bill, used these words—
  "When the purchaser comes with his purchase money and says 'make me a free holder,' no restrictions ought to be imposed upon his ownership. It will not do always to keep these small peasant proprietors in leading strings. When the money has been paid, we fail to see why all restrictions on the ownership should not be removed. When the peasant proprietor has become the absolute owner, lie should be left unfettered and unshackled to deal with the land as he likes."
  Yet the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley and his friends

  1467
  managed to impose many of these restrictions in the Act of 1892. But let the House mark this: they provided at the same time that the price to be paid to the landlord should be the full value of an unlimited freehold. The new owners were to receive and were to be satisfied with something of considerably less value, because of these limitations, than that for which they were compelled to pay. I do not believe that if there were ever to be a largo scheme of sale of land to small owners you would be able to maintain those restrictions. Nor do I believe that unless there were to be with it a system of State grants in aid you would ever induce the small holders to purchase on such terms. Therefore, I must be allowed, in arguing against a policy of sale, to assume that eventually it would have to be an absolute sale, and not that travesty of ownership which the right hon. Gentleman the member for Bordesley wishes to set up, and with which he thinks he would be able to satisfy the purchasers. My objections to the sales of small holdings are broadly these. I believe a small freeholder would probably be tempted by a present and immediate profit to sell his newly acquired small holding for purposes other than those of agriculture. That, of course, would be contrary to the policy by which it had been created; and by such sale he might introduce some undesirable and most incongruous elements into the small-holding area which might deteriorate the value of the other holdings. Or ho might sell his holding, even for the purposes of agriculture, to some foolish purchaser at a greatly enhanced price, and the new owner would fail altogether to make the holding pay any return upon the purchase-money. Surely it is impolitic to mulct the class of man for whom these holdings are intended by a capital sum, however small, just at the moment when he requires every penny ho possesses most urgently for the stocking and cultivation of the land he has entered upon. But there is another objection, slightly further removed, but still, I think, equally vital, and that is that absolute ownership is the "open sesame" to the moneylender and the Gombeen man. Under this system facilities are provided for the creation of mortgages and charges; under this system the astute moneylender or small capitalist may gradually become the landlord of a largo number of small
  1468
  holdings and then proceed to let them out at rents screwed up to the uttermost farthing. This has boon the actual experience recently of some philanthropists who have created garden suburbs on the basis of sale. They have found themselves compelled to repurchase at increased prices the houses which they themselves had erected in order to rescue them from the speculative hands into which they have fallen, and in order to restart the experiment upon the proper basis of leasing. There are even other dangers which ought to be foreseen, because they must arise under absolute ownership. It may be that at the death of one of those owners there will be a division of the holding by sale in such a way as to render the divided remnants incapable of supporting their new possessors. Or charges may be created for the widow or daughter upon land which is left to a son, charges which he may be unable to realise after retaining a bare subsistence for himself and for his family. There is, of course, again, the commoner case of the intestacy of the dead owner. After the death intestate of the ordinary farm labourer or small fanner probably no difficulty arises. His goods and chattels and his money, if ho has any, are easily divided in pretty fair proportion amongst his relatives without much interference from the Probate Registry. But on the death of an intestate small owner of land different conditions altogether apply. The State's undertaking the distribution of real estate in intestacy brings into operation the provisions of the law of primogeniture, and a totally different distribution, to the exclusion of all except the eldest of the children. This may load to a very grave injustice in those cases which occur perhaps often or than we desire to admit, where the eldest, and sometimes the only, child is illegitimate. But there is another argument, I think, against individual ownership of particular plots of land. The whole idea of this Bill is that it should be a progressive ladder of advancement. Nobody supposes that a labourer fresh from the plough would be competent, or willing, or financially capable of cultivating a holding of fifty acres. The ladder of agricultural advancement must be ascended rung by rung. But the man who has proved his capacity and success on five acres may surely hope at no long interval

  1469
  to progress to a holding of ten, twenty, or thirty acres. But if you compel him to be the purchaser of his first holding, surely you inflict upon him two permanent disadvantages. In the first place, the initial price which you exact may compel him to take a smaller holding than he might otherwise have been able to lease, to stock, and to cultivate. Secondly, you tie him to that unduly small holding until he is able to find some purchaser who will pay him the full price for the land and for all the improvements which he has made on it, in order that he may be able to move into a larger farm which he may then be well able to manage. I want under this Bill to see a constant succession of small men climbing the ladder of self-help and self-reliance, and I believe that for that ladder occupancy is the surest footing. I think there is no advantage either to the country or to the State in a further creation of these freeholds, artificially and elaborately limited, which have been advocated by some hon. Gentlemen opposite. I know some people, as the right hon. Gentleman himself said, attach great importance to the magic of property. But in spite of the interjection of the right hon. Gentleman just now, I do not think that under his latest and limited proposals, or under his Bill, a so-called owner would feel any magic during the course of his whole life. I would put against the magic of property the magic of prosperity. I believe that may be more quickly and more easily attained under tenancy than under ownership. Where prosperity has resulted from occupation, thon ownership, if it is true that so much land is available, is not unlikely to be attained where it is desired without the assistance of the State. If we for the present afford opportunity and training for prosperity and for comparative wealth, I think those who have acquired it will probably be able to take care of themselves. But I think hon. Gentlemen opposite would be wise not to press too far their argument in favour of the magic of ownership and the worth-lessness of cultivating tenancies. The general principle, as they enunciate it, would apply, of course, to holdings of whatever acreage, whether large or small. There is no magic in the limitation of our Bill to fifty acres. If they believe in that principle, what, may I ask, are they going
  1470
  to say to their farming tenants? Are they going to tell them that they are being ruined by the fact of being tenants? Are they going to suggest to them that they should insist upon the absolute ownership of the farms which they are cultivating? I think their arguments have a wider application than they anticipate, and I think they will do wisely to hesitate before they press them too far, unless, of course, they are prepared to support proposals for the enfranchisement of farm leaseholds all over the country irrespective of size. Some doubt has been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman who preceded me, and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin on the First Reading, as to the cost and the manner of the equipment of the small holdings. I wish at once to relieve their minds on these matters. The provisions that we have made are precisely those of the Act of 1892, which apply to small holdings leased as well as to small holdings sold. The powers are the same; the terms of the loan for equipment are the same. Under that Act it was applied to every species of equipment—fencing, roads, water-supply, the building of cottages, and the adaptation of buildings. I will tell the House what the right hon. Gentleman said on the question of equipment when he was conducting his Bill in 1892. He said—
  "Where the provision of buildings by the small holder would so encroach upon his capital as seriously to cripple him in the cultivation of his holding, we think it right to make provision by which the local authority may provide buildings themselves as part of the agreement for the sale or letting of the holding; and I do not see how the local authority can escape from the burden of providing the necessary buildings themselves."
  I hope that is satisfactory to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, who was much agitated on this subject on the night of the First Heading, and who had not quite recovered from his agitation when he spoke at Exeter a few days later. But as Secretary to the Local Government Board, which the right hon. Gentleman was in the year 1892, I have no doubt that he bore, and that he will still assume, a special responsibility for the loans clauses of the Bill of that year, clauses which must have boon decided and advised upon by his own Department. Therefore I shall claim him as a special supporter of these provisions, which, by his advice and authority

  1471
  were included in the Act of 1892, and from which we see no reason to depart to-day. I am quite sure, knowing the right hon. Gentleman as I do, that he would not have assented to provisions which he considered economically unsound, or allow proposals to be put forward which he thought would be administratively ineffective; and least of all would he impose upon county councils, whose champion—["No"]—well, whose defender he has always been, liabilities which he thought too onerous, or which he believed they could not or ought not to perform. Therefore, I am entitled, I think, to assume that he and his friends, or at all events all those who were members of the Government of 1886 to 1892, wore and are convinced that county councils can easily and readily fulfil the obligation for providing the equipment for small holdings. Since they acquired those powers we have seen nothing in the years that have elapsed, or in the experience the county councils have since acquired, to make us think that the capacity they then possessed has been impaired. But I would like to guard myself and the House, and, if possible, the public outside, against rushing to the conclusion that this Bill is going to entail or produce enormous building operations all over the country. I hope that people will not believe that my noble friend Lord Carrington is going to wave a wand, and that the land will at once blossom with bricks and mortar. Progress under this Bill, as under most others, is likely to be moderate in pace at first. But we have much leeway to make up. Our first duty, and first necessity, I think, is to attach moderate parcels of land to dwellings which are already in existence, whoso occupants are ready and anxious for their acquisition, and much of the moderate equipment that will be required, I think, will be found either by the tenants themselves or by those co-operative and other associations which we are anxious to foster and encourage. It is hopeless, I suppose, to expect that I shall escape from those lurid pictures of inflated loans which are to be inflicted upon hapless county councils for these objects. These are the stalking-horses of debate, and I know them well. They remind me of my old friend of last year—the workman plural voter—who was always exercising votes which he did not possess, and receiving frequent sentences of two
  1472
  years' hard labour for his inadvertence. These things serve to relieve the tedium of the dinner-hour or a dull day in Committee, but they are not business, and I hope the House and the country will not allow themselves to be obsessed by fears of extravagant absurdities which are most unlikely to occur. In relation to the loans which are to be made for this purpose, I should like to point out the great advantage given under our Bill to county councils and to tenants as compared with the Bill of 1892. The term for repayment of the loans for the purchase of land under the Bill of 1892 was fifty years. Under this Bill we extend that term to eighty years. I daresay that previously the shorter term was justified where purchase was only for resale to individuals. But in this case the purchase is for the ultimate benefit of the State, as represented by the local authorities. Perhaps the House docs not realise, or those unacquainted with actuarial tables do not realise, the enormous saving by the difference between these two terms. I will assume, for the purposes of illustration, that the price of an acre of land is £33 6s. 8d. (one-third of £100). The sinking fund required to repay the purchase money for that acre of land if it had to be repaid in fifty years was an annual payment of 5s. Id., but if spread over a period of eighty years the annual payment would be only 1s. 7d. It sounds almost too good to be true, but it is a fact. It is one of the beauties and mysteries of compound interest which I decline to explain, but which I gratefully accept. I believe that the lowering of the terms of purchase to county councils, and the absence of the initial payment made necessary on resale, will enable the local authority to strike an inclusive and covering rent which their tenants will easily be able to pay, even with a margin over for a reserve fund for contingencies. This has been the experience of those admirable associations formed throughout the country which have found no difficulty in recovering from their tenants on equitable terms instalments in the nature of a reasonable rent to cover purchase, equipment, and management. Of course the rent of the tenants can be still further reduced if the local authority elects to hire rather than buy the land, for then the tenants would only pay the bare rent, and the sinking fund would not be charged. But then the county

  1473
  council must accept, of course, the contingent liability if they were to surrender the land at the end of their term of lease in a depreciated condition, and they would not come into the ultimate possession of the fee-simple. Of course, it is quite obvious that the landlord is entitled to the fullest possible compensation for any deterioration that has taken place in the land, and the county council, as the intermediate landlord, are in a position, by the conditions of the tenancy, to prevent that deterioration. Then the right hon. Gentleman took some objection to the compulsory hiring clauses in this Bill, although the system had been already authorised.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Before the right hon. Gentleman passes to his next point, may I ask upon what rate of interest he based the calculations he has just given?
  MR. HARCOURT: The rate of interest is 3½ per cent. The right hon. Gentleman objected to the compulsory hiring clauses in this Bill, although they have been already authorised by both Houses of Parliament for the purposes of allotments. In the First Reading debate, some hon. Member suggested that Parliament had no right to dictate to a man what should be the nature of his investments. I do not think it is necessary to discuss that ethical proposition, because we do not mean to do anything of the kind. Ex hypothesi, the investment is already in land, and in nine cases out of ten it is already let to a tenant, and where it is not the landlord (in my experience) heartily wishes it were. Under this Bill there will be no interference with a landlord's freedom, assuming that, under trusts, settlements, and entails, ho already has any. He can sell his land subject to a lease to a local authority, just as he could sell his land which is subject to a lease to a private individual. Under the former case, I think he would be likely to get a better price, because, for the first time in his experience, ho will be receiving a guaranteed rent for a term of years secured upon the whole of the county rate subject to equitable terms as to improvements and depreciation from a permanently solvent authority, and with power for the resumption of the land
  1474
  whenever he requires it for purposes other than those of agriculture. I do not think these are bad terms for the mortgagee. While I regard these conditions for hiring as necessary to enable us to obtain a fair temporary rent for urban land, while I think they are fair and just in the interest of the expansion of the towns, and equitable both for the tenant and for the community, I do think that we have given to the landlord terms in this matter which any trading company would be glad and grateful to secure. There has been some hostile comment made by the right hon. Gentleman as to the provisions by which the Commissioners under certain circumstances are empowered to supplement the inaction of the county council. I should like to point out that these proceedings, if any, are only to be taken by the authority of the Board of Agriculture, and that this is one of the strongest reasons for not setting up an outside and an independent Commission. The Minister for Agriculture is always a member of the Government, and the Government is, or always ought to be, the servant and creature of the House of Commons. Therefore, this power of supplementary action is really inherent in, and dependent upon, the House of Commons, by whom, under the special provisions of this Bill, the salaries of these Commissioners have to be voted annually. On the First Reading of this Bill the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, with that Party acumen which seldom fails him, thought he had discovered some democratic lapse in our proposals. He insinuated that we attempted to override the carefully considered decision of a county council. I imagine that, on second thoughts, he has discovered that we propose to do nothing of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon has already reminded his colleagues that there is nothing new and nothing revolutionary in the proposals we have made. The right hon. Member for South Dublin must have forgotten the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, which he himself conducted through this House in 1899. In that Act precisely similar powers were given, not to one, but to two Departments of State—namely, to the Board of Agriculture and to the Local Government Board, to declare local authorities in default, to appoint officers to do their duties, and to

  1475
  charge the whole expense against the defaulting authority. What was it the right hon. Gentleman said on the First Reading of this Bill? He said—
  "By this Bill a county council, having care-folly considered the question, and having done everything which is necessary, short of providing the small holdings, is to be overridden by the central department."
  Does the right hon. Gentleman, and do any of his friends, seriously believe that under circumstances in which a county council has seriously considered the matter, they are the least likely to be overridden by a Minister and a Government subject to the control of Parliament? The right hon. Gentleman's premiss makes the suggestion impossible. He assumes that the county council have carefully considered the matter. If they have done so, and if they have decided in the negative, I suppose it is fair to assume they have arrived at their conclusions on the ground that they cannot discover any local demand, or that, if there is a demand, the soil and the surrounding circumstances make it unsuitable for the purpose, or that the value and special circumstances of the land make it impossible for them to buy or hire it at such a price that they could hereafter charge an economic rent. Such grounds for a decision would, of course, be submitted by the county council to the Board of Agriculture, and I can imagine few cases in which such a conclusion reasonably arrived at would ever be regarded as insufficient. Surely this is exactly one of those cases which is met by the power we have given of setting up experimental small holdings by the Board of Agriculture in order to prove their feasibility in a district. But the right hon. Gentleman knows, and knew very well, that these alternative powers of the Board and of the Commissioners were not directed, and were not intended to operate against councils which had carefully considered the question, but are directed against those who for one reason or another have declined altogether carefully to consider the question at all. It is idle to deny that such councils do exist. I do not say that in some cases their inaction has not arisen from perfectly reasonable motives; I believe that many of them share my opinion of the futility of the Act of 1892. I dare say there are others who have discovered that there is no demand or capacity for the
  1476
  absolute purchase of holdings. Again, others may reasonably have been deterred by the cumbrous machinery and the absence of compulsion in the Act of 1892, and a few I fear there are who have deliberately set their faces against small holdings as a policy, and have abstained from any attempt either to discover or to stimulate such a demand. For all these evils our Bill supplies a cure. We give to those county councils a simple, efficient, and economical procedure. Where they are not able, or where they will not attempt to discover a demand, the Commissioners will do the work for them. Even then I hope that these alternative powers of the Commissioners will seldom if ever have to be used, for I believe that in this, as in other parts of the Bill, the compulsion provided will insensibly produce voluntary action. I hope that many now inactive councils will be spurred and encouraged into activity by the great facilities with which we are providing thorn. It has been said that-bureaucratic interference with a popularly elected body is an illiberal proposal; as a general proposition I should not think of disputing that statement. But where the so-called bureaucratic interference depends on a Minister responsible to Parliament I think the case is a little different, especially where, as I have shown, there is practically no danger that these powers will be exercised where the councils are popularly representative as well as popularly elected. But can it be said, is it believed, that to-day most of those councils are representative of their constituents' opinions on this matter? I think not. The possibility in the past of obtaining small holdings has been so slight that county council contests have not turned to any great degree upon this question. I hope that one of the effects of this Bill will be in the future to direct the minds both of candidates and electors of those councils more closely to this matter, and I think it probable in the future that the county councils will find themselves much more representative in the matter of small holdings than they have been in the past. This, I think, will be an advantage both to the councils and to the counties, and I am quite sure it will relieve the right hon. Gentleman's mind from any uneasiness he might feel as to any interference in the future with their more fully instructed discretion. Some comment

  1477
  has been made by the right hon. Member for South Dublin as to the alleged inconsistency of treatment between this and the Scottish Bill. I do not myself see or admit that inconsistency, but I must decline altogether to be drawn by the right hon. Gentleman into his border raids. I am quite sure he is too good a sportsman to want to chock my run by dragging a Finnan haddock across the scent. I observe, too, on the part of the right hon. Gentleman a desire to revive Lord Randolph Churchill's celebrated phrase, which I think never developed into a policy, of similarity and simultaneity. [An HON. MEMBER: That was for Ireland.] Yes, the last place to which the right hon. Gentleman would be willing to apply it to-day. As regards Scotland, we are doing what we can, though it is slow work, to attain simultaneity; but, as to similarity, surely it would be absurd if we had applied our Bill to agrarian conditions of soil, custom, and tenure which are wholly dissimilar. But, as I have said, I must decline to be drawn into these extraneous, and, I should think, almost, disorderly discussions. My business is to defend and explain to the best of my ability the proposals which we have put forward for the solution of the English problem. I am quite sure the Scottish side will be ably and adequately argued by those in charge of that Bill. I know that there is a feeling abroad, I hope it is not widely diffused, that this Bill gives an insufficient security of tenure to the small holder. I do not myself believe that that will be the case; if I did I should certainly have made other provisions to that end. I believe that the tenure direct from a popularly elected body will in itself be a sufficient security, and even more I think will this be the case when the subcommittee of managers of the small holdings is composed, as we suggest in Clause 31, partly of the parish councillors and of other people intimately acquainted with the needs and requirements of the locality in which they are to act. That certainly is a landlord to which if I were a tenant I should not hesitate to entrust my security; but it should also be observed that under Clause 10 the terms and conditions of the letting of small holdings arc to be settled by rules jointly made by the county council and the Board of Agriculture. That, I think, gives a valuable elasticity of adaptation
  1478
  to the varying needs and custom of different parts of the country. I think this is capable, properly handled, of giving considerable additional security, and I am quite sure that it will be more useful than any hide-bound or statutory provision. But the House must not forget that in January, 1909, there will come into operation the Agricultural Holdings Bill of last year, which gives a considerable increase of security to the tenant of any landlord, be he a public body or a private individual. I do not think it will be wise at this moment in England to propose to give to certain selected tenants an additional security which we are not offering to others. But whenever Parliament is able and willing to deal with land tenure generally in England and Wales on more advanced lines, then, of course, all small holders ought to share in the advantages equally with others. I shall be very willing to consider any proposals in this matter which may be put before me. But those proposals must be limited by certain absolute restrictions which I consider of great importance. Any suggestion for further security of tenure should not allow or enable the creation of debts, charges, or mortgages to be secured on the holding, nor should it include any power of settlement or devise such as would enable an expectant heir to raise money on his expectations. Nor should there be such powers of sale or transfer as would create a saleable tenant right, as apart from compensation for his improvements to which he is entitled. These are strict limitations, but as at present advised I think they are essential in order to avoid the evils we have seen elsewhere. On this, as on other questions alluded to, I hope to keep a perfectly open mind for suggestions in Committee, but again with this reservation, that any suggestions which I am favourably to consider must be intended to enlarge the usefulness and strengthen the machinery of the Bill. Any proposal for its reduction or limitation will receive only short shrift at my hands. Though I do not for a moment say that the Bill cannot be improved, f regard the machinery which we have provided as the minimum that is necessary for the purpose, and on that ground I should oppose any proposal to modify or to weaken it. I see the junior Member for the City has on the Paper a

  1479
  Motion for the rejection of this Bill, but I imagine from the language held by the right hon. Member for Wimbledon that on this occasion the hon. Baronet does not fully represent the views of the Party which he so often loads. I do not believe that it is in his spirit that most of his friends wish to meet the proposals we have put forward—proposals which are, I think, just in conception, reasonable in machinery, and which I am certain will be effective in operation. Provisions are made in this Bill for the furtherance of co-operation in the country. I want to foster co-operation, not only in the country, but in this House. I want to weave every fibre of feeling, every strand of sentiment such as the right hon. Gentleman has alluded to, into a cable which may anchor to the soil the toilers and tillers of our land.
  *MR. J. F. MASONsaid that upon this measure their differences were solely as to the methods to be adopted to bring about the result which they all desired to see. That the depopulation evil had attained very serious dimensions in the last half century everybody in the House would be ready to admit. During the last twenty-five years there had been a reduction of some 30 per cent. or of about.300,000 in the men employed in agricultural pursuits. He thought it was desirable to inquire what were the causes which had induced so many people to leave the country districts. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the attractions of the town and the attraction of the music halls, but he ventured to say that it would be found that the most powerful causes of rural depopulation were pressure from within rather than attractions from without. He ascribed this depopulation principally to two causes—the perfection of agricultural machinery and the laying down of arable land in grass. Ho found that thirty years ago it required three and a half days labour to turn every acre of grass into hay. Now, owing to the more perfect machinery, a day and a half was sufficient for the same amount of work. This represented a loss to labour of two days for every acre of land, and as there were 7,000,000 acres under grass, the total loss to labour was 14,000,000 days, which at the rate of 300 working days in the year meant the non employment of.50,000 men. Applying the same
  1480
  argument to arable land, of which there were 9,000,000 acres, the loss of another 60,000 men was accounted for. During the same thirty years arable land had diminished by 3,000,000 acres. Calculating the loss to labour for every acre of land put into grass at 15s. per acre, the total loss amounted to£2,250,000, which, divided by the average agriculture wage accounted for another 56,000 men. He held that he had been able to account for 166,000 men, or more than half of the total diminution by two causes which the Bill in no way professed to touch. He further pointed out that that loss of 166,000 men by no moans represented the whole loss of agricultural population. They might take it that that number represented, taking the ordinary average family, 830,000 persons, and if they added to that 10 per cent. as representing the tradesmen who served them, the total worked out to about a million persons reduced in the agricultural population of the country by causes which the Bill in no way affected. Ho was prepared to admit that the proposal before the House to create small holdings by the use of public money was a distinct factor in the problem, but it was a factor which must necessarily be combined with other measures for the improvement of agricultural conditions as a whole. He admitted, and fully believed, that there were certain classes of small holdings which were economically sound, and if attention was paid principally to those classes the movement ought to be made a success. He believed thoroughly in the eases of intensive cultivation of small holdings—that was to say, where small holdings were to be used for market gardening and such like purposes. He also believed that small holdings would be successful where they were occupied by men who had other employments or other trades, but where it was proposed to plant on the land men whose solo occupation was that of a small holder, and whose sole source of revenue was to be derived from a small holding, he thought those men would find it exceedingly difficult to compete with larger farmers who, on account of the size of their farms, were able to apply machinery to a great many operations which the small holder had to do by horses or even by hand labour. He thought other measures were necessary to accompany that attempt to create

  1481
  small holdings, and among the other measures ho would take such proposals as dealing vigorously with the question of the burdens on the land. Something must be done to improve the conditions of agriculture generally throughout the country if the creation of small holdings was to be a success. Instead of endeavouring on all possible occasions to increase the burdens on land, surely they would be wise in endeavouring to relieve thorn somewhat. They must also endeavour to facilitate and cheapen the sale and conveyance of land, which were both hampered at the present moment by most cumbrous machinery. He welcomed with great satisfaction the proposal in the Bill to encourage cooperation. He believed that very much might be done by encouraging a system of co-operation, both for dealing with the sale and purchase of agricultural products and necessities, and also in connection with transport. The question of transport was in itself a field of immense possibility, and they might do a great deal to facilitate the agricultural industry in the country if they would attempt to organise, ho would not say transport by railway only—although a great deal might be done in improving that—but by turning to account a system of waggon service, or motor waggon service, throughout the more distant areas of the agricultural industry. Those services would be feeders to the railways, and enable farmers to get their supplies, and also to got rid of their produce, in a more satisfactory manner than they were able to do now. If the movement for small holdings was to succeed they must take care that above all things the holdings did not get split up into too small parts. Ho did not say that that was likely to be an immediate result, but ho would point out that in France, which was so often quoted as a country of small holdings, the community had suffered from agricultural depopulation also. He had been trying to find out what were the causes which in France had contributed to rural depopulation. He had studied with some interest a book written on this subject by a former Prime Minister of France, who attributed the want of success there to the fact that small holdings had become sub-divided owing to the law of the country on the death of the owners. The result was that very small holdings wore so thickly studded
  1482
  over the country that there was no work to be found for the people, and they were unable to live on the holdings or to find other means of living in their neighbourhoods. If in this country they dealt only with the subject of intensive cultivation of holdings occupied for the purpose of market gardening, he thought that they would find a limit in their numbers would be absolutely necessary to their success, In districts where special forms of cultivation were taking place—he referred, for example, to the cultivation of celery in Lincolnshire—the growers of these products wore already finding the value decreasing owing to the number of people engaged in the same pursuit. He ventured to say that if the areas devoted to special forms of cultivation were to be indefinitely increased in size, the results would no longer be as satisfactory as they wore to-day. It was also necessary to take precautions in the case of allotments that they should not fall too easily into the hands of a few individuals. He had found on his own property a rather interesting case bearing on the subject. In a village near which he lived three small fields were let in the shape of allotments. These fields consisted of fifteen and a quarter, seven, and four and a half acres, making in all about twenty-seven acres. Ho found after some years that ton and a half acres had gradually come into the hands of one man, and that none of the others had an allotment of more than three-quarters of an acre. That man was very industrious and did very well with his land. In the case of one of these small fields, which was originally lot as arable, the tenant had turned it down to grass in order to use it for grazing. Not only therefore had the allotment area which was formerly available been concentrated into a very small number of hands, but land which was intended to be used as arable had been turned down to grass, which was less advantageous for the purpose of keeping the people on the soil than land in an arable form. Supposing that small holdings were the most important factor in the problem, he thought it was interesting to ask how far such holdings did already exist in the country. There seemed to be a feeling that the number was very small as compared with the number in other countries. The number of small holdings of from one to fifty acres in this country

  1483
  was 67 per cent. of the whole. The number of small holdings in Germany of from one-fortieth of an acre to fifty acres was 94 per cent of the whole. But a fortieth was a very moderate size for a small allotment, and if they took into consideration the difference which this involved they found that the percentage in Germany corresponded to 90 per cent in England. In creating small holdings it was important to bear in mind that there would be very little chance of success if it was attempted to make them on land which had already been thrown out of cultivation because it did not pay in the past. It was quite evident that when they were formed it should be done on good land, and under favourable conditions. When the local authority took land it would have to be good land, and they would have to pay the landlord what would be a fair rent. He would assume for the sake of argument that the landlord now got £1 per acre. The local authority had to equip the holdings with a variety of buildings, provide fencing, and so forth. He ventured to think that before the small holder got in, his rent would be double that which the landlord had been getting. If the small holder could afford to pay something like double the rent which the landlords now received, why had not landlords from economic and selfish reasons created these small holdings? It was in some cases because they had not the money, but he thought that in a great many more cases it was because they did not believe that those holdings were economically sound, and that they would be taken up and occupied. But whether or not the landlords were right in so thinking, if public bodies were to step in where landlords feared to tread, there was not the slightest doubt that the public bodies which did the work must, to put it in the mildest way, face the possibility of considerable failure. It seemed to him that there could be no absolute certainty of success. There would be many cases of success, and many cases of failure. There were three points which stood out quite plainly. One was that the creation of small holdings was not the only factor in the problem; the second was that the creation of small holdings was distinctly experimental, and the third was that the experiment was going
  1484
  to be tried in the interest of the State. But who was to pay for the failures? Not the State, according to the Bill. The first to pay would be the tenant farmers now in occupation of the land. That fixity of tenure, which the Government was so anxious to give them last year, was now to be taken away. They must either lose possibly the best field on the farm or throw up their farms altogether and go elsewhere. It might be said that there were plenty of farms open to them, but he ventured to think that that was entirely against the spirit which animated hon. Gentlemen opposite last year when they argued that the farmer should have fixity of tenure. The second class to pay for the experiment would be the landlords, whose land would be returned to them in case of failure. He might be required to pay compensation for the improvements made in equipping the land for small holdings; and yet his only course, after the failure of the small holding, would be to reconvert the land into a large farm, on which the "improvements" would be an encumbrance. If the scheme were a success, it was quite evident that the local authority would demand at the end of the fourteen years that the lease should be renewed; but if they were a failure the land would be naturally abandoned by the local authority. Under Clause 30, subsection (2), the compensation to be paid by the landlord to a county council for improvements was to depend on the decision of the arbiter or valuer. But it was quite possible that the valuer would say that the improvements, such as buildings and fences, ought to be paid for by the landlord. He ventured to think that the very fact that the land had been given up because the scheme of small holdings was a failure, would force the landlord to turn his land again into big farms, and that the buildings and fences would no longer be improvements, and, therefore, the landlords would be in the position of having to pay for improvements which were made for one purpose, but which were no improvements for another purpose. In addition to that there was the question of compensation for deterioration of the land under the small holdings. He, however, understood from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that that point was satisfactorily dealt with in other sections of the Bill. He

  1485
  would like to say that where the valuer went so far as to say that those improvements on the small holdings were not improvements in the real sense of the word, and where, therefore, the landlord should not be called upon to pay compensation to the county council for buildings and fences, even then the landlord would, if he wanted to turn the land again into a large farm, be compelled to remove the buildings and fences, and the cost of that would be no small amount. The great difficulty in regard to the Bill was the question of forced hiring. There was no objection on the part of landlords to hiring by agreement; but if compulsion was to be applied at all it could only be rationally and justly applied in the shape of purchase. Any system of forced hiring would be neither satisfactory nor just. The right hon. Gentleman said that they ought not to use the word "confiscation." He was quite willing to admit that the application of the word "confiscation" was not terminologically exact; but he preferred confiscation to a system of forced hiring with the ultimate risks it involved. The whole principle of compulsory hiring had been strongly condemned by the Departmental Committee as leading to the dual ownership which had been so detrimental to agricultural prosperity in Ireland. There was a third class of people who were to be called upon to pay the expense of this experiment, and that was the ratepayers. It seemed to him that under Clause 30, subsection (2), it was conceivable that a valuer who took a favourable view of the landlord's interest might at the end of a lease not condemn the landlord to pay any compensation for improvements, on the ground that the improvements were not valuable for the purposes of a big farm, and the county council would then have to pay the compensation to the small holders at market garden rates and receive nothing in return. That would saddle the ratepayers with a very serious burden. He regretted most sincerely that the right hon. Gentleman objected so much to making the small holders the owners of their holdings. He could not understand how that objection arose. He himself believed in the saying that if you gave a man the ownership of a rock he would make it a garden. He had always been of opinion that the soil in this country was
  1486
  held in too few hands, and he would like to see the number of owners of land considerably increased. The right hon. Gentleman had said that if the land became the absolute property of a small holder it might be used for some other purpose than agriculture, such, he supposed, as the manufacture of some disagreeable chemicals or a slaughter-house. But in that case the neighbours would have their remedy in complaining of that as a nuisance. And in the case of tenants dying intestate, he could not see why a small holding could not be quite as saleable as any other form of property. The best argument against purchase was that the man who wished a small holding would have to sink his capital in purchase. Again, if there was any desire on the part of big farmers to become owners of their farms, and be put in the same position as the small holders, he did not think that the landlords would by any moans stand in their way. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he would welcome compulsion if applied to himself; but from his knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman as a neighbour he believed that no compulsion was necessary to make him do what he believed to be right. Ho could not help thinking that if the right hon. Gentleman had not already created small holdings, it was because he was not convinced of their economic soundness. As to Clause 19, which dealt with building on allotments, ho asked whether under that provision the local authority could acquire a piece of land for allotments and then erect a number of cottages for the purpose of forming a village? Clause 24 provided for a revaluation of the rents every fourteen years, but he thought that that provision would encourage bad farming. Then, in the case of home farms in the hands of the landlord, could those be touched under the Bill! That was a matter which interested him personally, because he had a very considerable amount of land in his own hands for the purpose of making agricultural experiments, which might take from seven to ten years to carry out. If that land was taken from him the results of his experiments would be lost, and a loss might accrue to the community at large. There would be under the Bill failures as well as successes, and the public generally, and not a particular class, should pay for those failures.
  MR. BILLSONsaid he was exceedingly anxious that small holdings should be set up. He thought that the Act of 1892 had considerably handicapped small holdings. Under that Act there was no compulsion, and a person who wanted to buy land had to put down a large sum by way of deposit. The Worcester County Council was the only one which had succeeded under that Act. That county council took up the matter in a patriotic way and insisted on carrying it through. Their example should be followed by others. As to the contention of the Opposition that nobody wanted small holdings and allotments, his experience had proved to him that that demand did in reality exist. What they had to do was to make a bridge between the people who wanted to get on the land and the land which they wanted to get. Therefore he put in the forefront of the Bill the appointment of the Commission. He had always felt that the village people did not actually know whether they could get land or not. Inquiries had been made in the villages as to whether there was a demand for small holdings and allotments. Those inquiries had been directed to the parish council, and the reply usually was that the council did not know of any such demand. No doubt that was true, because the members of the council were mostly farmers, and their labourers would be very reluctant to tell their employers that they wore looking out for allotments. But if once it was brought home to the villagers that they were likely to get allotments there would be heard a great deal more about their being wanted. It must either be left to the natural growth of the desire for allotments or additional pressure must be brought to bear by the appointment of the proposed Commission. The right hon. Member for Bordesley had made a striking analogy between the progress of education and the progress of these small holdings, and had pointed out that there would have been no public education if it had not been made a national matter; but so soon as they appointed school boards, applied compulsion, and gave free education, they made education flourish. Then they came to the question of whether the small holders were to be tenants or owners. The hon. Member for Windsor had said that he did not see why the Government should object to
  1488
  ownership; but the reasons given by the right hon. Member for Rossendale were perfectly satisfactory. The difficulty was that if the small owner acquired his land and the neighbouring landlord wanted to buy it the small holder would get no peace. In that way they would see the allotments and small holdings going back again into the hands of the landlord. He was strongly in favour of tenancy as against ownership, but he wanted tenancy under which a man would have security in his holding. There was a great deal of sentiment in these matters, and unless they could tell a man definitely and accurately that he was going to have the land so long as he observed the conditions of his tenancy, he did not think they would produce a feeling of satisfaction and contentment. They had a very good precedent in the Scottish Crofters Act, which had proved a magnificent success, and was a strong argument in favour of tenancy instead of ownership. When that Act was set side by side with the Act of 1892 which established ownership they must conclude that the balance of advantage was certainly on the side of tenancy. But if they were to have tenancies they ought to have them on the same terms as the Scottish crofters. It had been said that fixity of tenure was in the nature of dual ownership, because it gave the right of sale. He would give the small holder the power, which the Scottish crofter had, to bequeath his interest in the land to any one person. That was an arrangement known in many businesses, and would be perfectly satisfactory. If they adopted that principle it would go a long way towards making the Bill a success, because if the boys who were growing up knew they were going to have a share in the land, there could be no greater incentive to make them content to stay on the land. How many Members who represented country constituencies were aware that a great part of their correspondence came from parents asking them to try and get situations in town for their children? They must get rid of all that. They heard a great deal of the necessity of giving full and fair compensation for the land that was taken, but he was quite sure that the experience of most Members was that when land was taken by a public authority from a private individual the private

  1489
  individual generally got more than the land was worth. He was much disappointed that, although in the hiring clause there was a provision that the valuer should take into account the assessment of the land for the rates, there was no such provision in the purchase clause. They ought to be very careful to see that a proper assessment was taken, and then when the valuer had to fix the price for the land to be taken he would be able to see the amount at which it was assessed, and take that into account in both cases. If that provision in the Bill led, as he hoped it would, to the adoption of the principle of assessing land at the real capital value, there would be less difficulty in providing for the proper purchase price being given. He saw a Motion on the Paper regretting that a Valuation Bill was not passed at the same time as this Bill. Ho thought that if this Bill was passed it would give an impetus to a Valuation Bill, and land would be purchased in a more satisfactory manner. It was clear that the House was going to give the Bill a Second Beading, and that the difficulty would come when they got into Committee. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give careful attention to the suggestions regarding security of tenure. He thought that by passing this Bill they would do something to get the people more closely in touch with the land, and in that way greater prosperity would be secured for them.
  COLONEL LOCK WOODsaid it was rather a disagreeable thing for one who had been a believer in small holdings all his life to have to say plainly and frankly that in his opinion the objections to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman were so strong that it was all he could do to bring himself to vote for the Second Reading. His right hon. friend the Member for Wimbledon had already indicated the line which their action would take, but that line when taken could not remove the two objections which ho thought were inherent in the Bill. One was the system of hiring. He objected to the hiring of the land instead of purchase, and also to the overriding of the decision of the county councils. The idea was that county councils, when elected, should be able to deal with things with which they were intimately acquainted. He had no doubt whatever
  1490
  that the various county councils were acquainted with the demand for small holdings in the district they represented. The system of small holdings was no new idea. It had been carried on more or less for many years past, and the fact that it had not been successful in many cases had not been the fault of those who lot the small holdings, but of the state of agriculture generally, or of the individuals who occupied the holdings. So much had it been in his mind that the moment he became possessed of the little land ho had, and which he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would leave him, it was his idea at once to create a few small holdings with which he could experiment. One would have thought that his property, being within twelve miles of Whitechapel, would have been singularly adapted to small holdings, having regard to the fact that it was close to a good market. But he regretted to say that except in the case where the occupier had an adjunct business the experiment had seldom succeeded. He had one case in his mind. When he anxiously inquired of his agent on the approach of rent day what arrears there were, he was told that the only tenant in arrear was a small holder whom he himself had deliberately chosen for the holding—a man whoso rent had boon twice wiped off in the hope that he would finally succeed. The demand for small holdings was limited to the number of men who believed they were going to make a living out of thorn, and oven that number must be again diminished by those who, after trying it for a short time, gave it up. An hon. Member opposite had recently graphically described how the small holder began with a pig, and how he bred more pigs, and so went on to prosperity. But he would point out that the loss of the mother pig by death disposed of all chance of success of the small holder, and that then the hat went round to the other farmers to enable him to get another pig. Another point was this: were owners of land adjoining large centres of population to be subjected to the experiment of providing small holdings for those in the towns who wished to have them I Was compulsion to be placed upon the landlord to supply small holdings for those who came from a distance or only those in the locality '? Because if it was, that opened up rather

  1491
  a dark prospect so far as he was concerned. There were 5,000,000 of people in London, and if he was to be compelled to divide his land up into 5,000,000 small holdings there would be a very poor chance for him as well as the 5,000,000 of people who were to get the holdings. If therefore anybody who came out of the towns could compulsorily hire a small holding he would say that the landlord of the estate was going to be subjected to very unfair pressure. He had a list of twenty-three small holdings in a largish estate in the North. The holdings varied from twelve acres down to three; but out of those successful holders there was not one who had not an adjunct business which enabled him to make his living and pay his rent. If they deprived these small holders of their other businesses he doubted whether they would ever make such a profit as would enable them to pay their rent. Then with regard to the cost of the equipment of the land. He put the minimum cost for the equipment of five acres of land at £500, taking the cost of the house at £200, the outbuildings £100, and the fences, water supply, roads, &c., £200. The tenant would find himself in such a position that he would have to pay more rent than those around him, and he would be utterly unable to meet the charges. His hon. friend had alluded to the very important point of carving a piece out of a tenant farmer's land—perhaps a man who held 500 or 600 acres—in order to induce men to take up ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty acres of land. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman said there was a clause in the Bill which gave compensation to that tenant farmer for the loss of his land. There were many farmers holding 400 or 500 acres who were just able to make a margin of profit from probably some few acres suited to small culture; and if they deprived such a farmer of that land which paid and his chance of making a small margin of profit, was no compensation at all to be paid to him t These were a few objections he had to the Bill. His main objections were to compulsory hiring instead of compulsory purchase, and the overriding of the decisions of the county councils by Commissioners sent down from London. He knew perfectly well that those Commissioners would be gentlemen admirably suited to their work, and that they would endeavour to
  1492
  be strictly impartial; but he did not think it was a right principle to override those who had been elected by the ratepayers of the county, who would have to bear the brunt of the burden. He was sorry to say a word against any system of small holdings, for he had always cherished the belief that much might be done by it, but he thought that the Bill was disfigured by these blots, and it would be with the greatest difficulty that he could bring himself to vote in favour of the measure
  MR. GUESTsaid he was not sure that the argument of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was conclusive against the possibility of small holdings being made a success. The right hon. Member had referred to one of those well-meant efforts which had been made in the past by which casual and isolated small holdings had been created. It seemed to him that the possibility of the success of small holdings rested on the foundation of the small holders acting on co-operative principles. Until the system of cultivation was improved, until they had learned to join together for co-operative marketing and the co-operative purchasing of manure and so forth, he did not think the small holders were likely to do very well. They were really approaching the question in a new way; they were trying to set their house in order; they were looking to what had been done abroad, in Denmark and Belgium, for instance, countries that had no protective tariff, in order to see whether they could bring about at home similar results by similar methods. From the point of view of a landowner, he could not help regarding the Bill as adequate for its purpose, and it had the additional advantage of being unprovocative of those on whose toes it might tread. The depopulation of the country districts was becoming so serious that, unless something was done they would really be face to face with a situation in which the whole agricultural fabric must collapse. There could be no doubt in the minds of those who had made some experiment in the matter as to the reality of the demand for small holdings. Anybody who cut up a farm for the purpose of small holdings would be overwhelmed with applications from people all over the country, who were only too anxious for an opportunity to make a living on the land. It was not

  1493
  merely the best land they wanted; small holders positively applied for poor land, the main object being to get land cheaply, and not to acquire good land at a high price. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon had referred to the supply of food to this country in time of war; well, let them turn their attention to the establishment of small holdings. He thought the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had been fortunate in this connection—in appointing two local authorities to deal with the problem, because there was in reality a double problem to solve. There was in the first place the actual colonisation of the land, forming men into colonies where the co-operative principle might be adopted and developed. There was also the village problem, that of giving the labourer who had a cottage in the village some share in the land. It was obvious that the parish council were much better judges of that subordinate and secondary object than the county council could possibly be, and he thought it very fortunate that the right hon. Gentleman had called both bodies to his assistance. It seemed to him that the sanction which the Bill received from the Board of Agriculture carefully blended centralisation and local autonomy. He could not understand the position of any landlord who regarded the compulsory powers which a local authority might exorcise, or the compulsion which the Board of Agriculture might bring to bear upon refractory local authorities, as in the least dangerous to the interests of property. He congratulated his right hon. friend on the almost uncanny ingenuity with which he had overcome the extremely difficult question of the future value of the land. His proposal that landowners should be able to take back the land for building or industrial purposes overcame one of the most serious difficulties which local authorities had to contend with, because it must be obvious to anyone that proximity to a market, to a centre of population, was one of the strongest reasons for selecting a site for small holdings, and if the local authority had to consider the price which they would have to pay for the prospective building value, they would in many cases be obliged to go further away from the centre of population, which would increase the difficulty of communication between the colony and the town, which would be
  1494
  the natural market. The fact was that the Bill would not be challenged on the principles which it contained, but upon the application of those principles, and it was in that respect that he thought they ought to turn their attention a little more closely to some of the details of the measure. He himself was absolutely sanguine of the success of the undertaking. He knew that there were many individuals who were not by any means hostile to the general principle of the Bill, and who wished it well, but who did not share his optimism. He knew there would be considerable difficulties to overcome; there were many prejudices to conquer before a successful solution could be found. They would be told, and ho thought with truth, that the essential thing for the success of small holdings was that the small holder should be able to compete successfully with the foreigner in the market. It would be pointed out, and again he thought with truth, that it was not sufficient for the small holder to compete successfully in perishable articles, such as eggs and milk alone, without which a small holding would not have any economic life, but he must be able to compete in the market against the foreign producer of almost every kind of agricultural produce, with the exception, perhaps, of corn and meat. They would be told that one of the great difficulties in the way of doing that was the burdens which at present rested upon the land. Rates, taxes, and tithes no doubt pressed very heavily upon all land, and would not press any less heavily upon the small holder. Then there was the question of railway rates. They would be told how difficult it was for the small holder or individual farmer to get anything like the terms from railway companies which foreign producers on a large scale were able to obtain. Then allusion would be made to the injustice occasioned to the tenant turned out on to his small holding without the provision of cottages, and without education in a better form of culture. He thought that these were all real difficulties which would have to be met; and what he wanted to urge upon the Government was that they should treat very seriously the powers taken under Clause 14, by which the Board of Agriculture could take land voluntarily for the purpose of making experiments. Before the Board of Agriculture was able

  1495
  to bring pressure to bear on the local authority, it would have to do two things. In the first place, it would have to learn a great deal, and in the second place it would have to demonstrate. He desired to speak with great respect of the Board of Agriculture, but he claimed that at present there was no authoritative or official view as to the best method of running the small holdings system. They would have to learn, and they would have to demonstrate. He would like to see the Board of Agriculture buy a considerable area of land, and put up small holdings, selecting the small holders whom they placed on the land. When they had done that they would be; able to study the best method of co-operation. When they had done that they would be able to discover the best methods for production and purchase and cultivation. A great deal depended upon the way small holdings were worked. A great many people thought that if they could only get on the land they would be sure to succeed, but in practice he was afraid that having once failed at other trades they would not be likely to make a success of agriculture. Whatever his right hon. friend might say as to the country not being willing to go in for bricks and mortar, unless they were able to provide better housing accommodation they would not get very far in the direction of interesting small holders in the soil. In regard to the provision of cottages some system of standardisation would do much towards reducing the price, and a great advance must be made in that direction. As to half-timers it had been stated that it was impossible for a small holder to make a living without some other business. Some experiment on the line of half-timers would not be a bad idea in connection with a small colony of small holders, and that was what ho hoped the Government would do. That would not preclude local authorities from making a start on their own account, but knowing as he did their distrust and doubt as to the economic success of this scheme, and seeing the position they occupied as trustees of public money, he thought it was very desirable that the Board of Agriculture, should be in a position to demonstrate conclusively both to local authorities and to individual landowners the feasibility of the scheme now proposed. He did not think it
  1496
  was possible to exaggerate the serious character of the proposals they were discussing. If they were successful they would open up an entirely new era in the agricultural life of the country. He hoped they would be careful to proceed upon such lines as would ensure that the start they were now making would not be discredited by anything like a failure. The spectacle of rural life in England at the present time could only be properly described as deplorable. The land of England did not afford the means of livelihood to the cultivator of the soil, nor did it pay the landowner. The system of agriculture was one which neglected the profitable for the traditional, and they had hardly made any advance in the general conception of agriculture since the days of the Corn Laws. Landlords had tried to meet the difficulty by increasing the size of their holdings and making the same buildings do the work for a larger area. The farmer, whose principal concern was with the weekly pay sheet, had gradually converted arable into pasture land. The result was that agriculture was in a most depressed condition, the land did not produce enough to carry the tenant, the farmer and the landlord, landowners were impoverished, the demand for labour was diminishing, and the rural exodus went on. The reason was that the land was under two classes—one class rich enough to regard more the pleasure to be derived from an estate than its productivity, and the other a class too small and with insufficient capital to make experiments. Unless they put their house in order there was not much hope for agriculture in the future. If Denmark had not put their house in order thirty or forty years ago when they were faced with the same agricultural problems, that country would have boon ruined. This country in the past had been rich enough to treat agriculture with disregard and contempt. He did not believe there was anything in the soil or climate, or in the character of the rural population of England which differentiated them from the experience of Northern Europe. If they could make small holdings a success in Denmark and Belgium, why could they not do it in this country? The Bill contained the sort of compulsion and encouragement which were needed, and he believed it proceeded on the right lines and would meet

  1497
  with success. If it did succeed it would be enormously to the advantage not only of the peasantry who lived upon the soil, but of the landowner and the community as a whole.
  *SIR BERKELEY SHEFFIELDsaid lie wished to preface his remarks by an appeal to the House to extend to him that kindness and consideration which was invariably shown to those hon. Members who rose to address the House for the first time. As a representative of a largo agricultural constituency, where there was a very real and earnest desire for small holdings, ho was the last to offer to this measure any hostility whatsoever. In the Isle of Axholme and in the district round the town of Boston, which were not in his constituency, there was absolute proof of the success of small holdings. He thought, however, that the Bill was open to criticism because it might create an artificial demand for these holdings and plunge the county councils into experiments of which he doubted the economic soundness, and the cost of which in the end the ratepayers would have to bear. Surely the rate-payers had a right to use their own discretion through their representatives on the county council as to the risk they should incur in making these experiments. If the experiments were to be made by the county councils or in co-operation with credit banks they would be more fittingly undertaken by the Board of Agriculture at the expense of the taxpayer than by the county councils at the expense of the ratepayer. On a neighbouring estate to his own the system of credit banks has proved an enormous success. He knew a man who started life as a labourer and by the aid of a credit bank ho became first a small holder and then a large farmer. Before entering any further into details he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman to whom buildings, erected on land compulsorily hired, would belong when the term of hiring ended. Would they belong to the county council, or would the landlord have to buy at a valuation the buildings erected upon land compulsorily hired from him? It would be a little hard if the landlord had to take over buildings which were likely to prove of absolutely no value to him. Was the largo farmer who was cultivating a largo acreage
  1498
  and making it pay, whose land was taken by the county council for the purposes of the Act, to be compensated as well as the landlord? If so, compensation would reach a very large sum indeed. Let them take the case of a largo sheep or cattle breeder. If for some reason it should seem fit to the local authority to take away some of his land, they might very easily destroy the whole of that farm and deprive the farmer of his livelihood in that district. They might require that man's land merely from the fact that he happened to be a large farmer, or owing to his having improved the land of that farm they might cast longing and envious eyes upon the same and determine to seize it. There was a largo farmer in North Lincolnshire, a gentleman named Dudding, who sold every year the produce of his flocks, which were sent to nearly every country in the world. Would it be possible for the county council to take part of Mr. Dudding's land, which he was able to keep in such a flourishing condition, and destroy his livelihood in that district? He was perfectly certain that no local authority in the district would ever want to take away land from such a man, but there remained the Commissioners representing the Board of Agriculture in London who were to employ towards the local authority the method usually employed by the gipsy horse coper. They were there with the express object of giving ginger to the local authority. Some clause should be inserted in the Bill to safeguard the interests of gentlemen like Mr. Dudding. The House of Commons ought to be most careful in dealing with Land Bills to see that they did not destroy or interfere with large farms carried on by large breeders. He thought they ought to be very careful how they interfered to break up large farms which were now being carried on successfully. In the case of a large breeder of cattle, the county council, by taking away from him some of his land, might destroy the value of the whole of his farm and destroy his livelihood in that district. He wished to know who proposed to do the drainage for the small holder. Would it be the small holder himself, the local authority, or the landlord? Who would provide the fencing, look after and superintend the proper

  1499
  farming of the land, and see that everything was not taken out of the land and nothing put in? Who, in short, would see to it that the tenant was not depreciating either his land or his buildings? He doubted whether the friendly feeling which so happily did exist between landlords and tenants would be encouraged by the measure. No longer would a helping hand in the way of abatement of rent be extended to the tenant; no longer would a helping hand in the way of fencing be allowed him. All sentiment would be done away with when a stranger was forced on the land. There were also many local considerations which were bound to have a large influence in those localities. In Lincolnshire there was what is known as "warping." That cost about£80 per acre. Who was going to do the warping in future? Was it the landlord or the local authority? If the landlord, why should he do it when he knew very well that after improving the land it would be very likely seized upon by the local authority for compulsory hire or compulsory purchase? The Bill might be looked upon as an experiment. They all felt it was one which should be made. Their only object, after all, was to ameliorate the condition of a large number of their fellow subjects and to bring more people on to the land, or if not that, to retain more people in the rural districts and to increase the produce of the soil. If success was to ensue from this measure nothing would prejudice it more than that one side should endeavour to make political capital out of it while it lasted. On the other hand, he thought both sides should co-operate so as to be able to bring to a happy conclusion this very great question. There was, however, a Bill now before the House promoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bordesley division, agreeing in the main principles with this measure but differing from it in the fact that no compulsory powers were called to their aid at all, but at the same time allowing facilities to be given to the small holder to purchase his holding and become the owner. He knew that the First Commissioner of Works had used very lucid arguments against peasant proprietorships in England, but surely a man had more pleasure and incentive in working when he knew that the land he was
  1500
  trying to improve would in the end become his own. Under the hiring system, as proposed in this measure, not a rood of land would ever come to the tiller of the soil, who had sweated so long to improve it. The county council could secure fixity of tenure, but no such fixity of tenure would ever be so effective as the sense of entire ownership. How could they expect that a small holder could make his holding pay when they considered what he had to expend before he could place a halfpenny in his own pocket? He had his rent, repayment of expenses to the local authority, cost of equipment, and had also to be prepared to make good the loss resulting from bad seasons. Did the Government say that the landlord was to be docked of the price that should be paid to him by the local authority, so that the local authority and the tenant might be insured against the cost they had made? The examples of France, Germany and Denmark had been brought forward and compared with our own system of land tenure. In the case of Denmark the success of the people was due to the purchase of their small holdings, and not to compulsory hiring. It was invidious to compare foreign countries with our own, because differences in climate and in individual habits could not be reconciled, nor could the conditions under which they laboured be compared with our own, because- they had different tariffs from our own. As was aptly remarked in The Times the other day—
  "A very common error is to attribute greater success to Danish than to British farming. Only those acquainted with the actual condition of things in the two countries can possibly entertain this idea. Compared with what it once was, Danish farming has undoubtedly improved and become more prosperous; but the Danish standard of prosperity is very different from ours, and even our agricultural labourers would not envy the lot of the average Danish small farmer. There is a striking difference between the two peoples in the bare necessities of life. What the Danish small farmers can and do live on and are satisfied with would be sneered at by the humblest labourer in this country. There is a good deal of truth in the assertion of a recent writer on the subject that ' the produce which the Danish small farmer grows on his holding is too good to be used as his own food, so he sells it and buys cheaper food. What the holder in this country grows is not good enough for him, so he sells it at a low price and buys more expensive commodities to feed himself and his family.' "
  In conclusion he said he differed entirely from the First Commissioner of Works

  1501
  on the subject of small allotments. He had bad a good deal of experience on his own estate in regard to small allotments, and he was perfectly certain that no single man, if he had got other work to do, could find it lucrative to have a small allotment of more than one acre. He had never found a man who was able to cultivate, and to make it a lucrative business as well, more than one acre at a time, if he had not other work to do besides. He differed entirely from the hon. Member who thought there would be an enormous demand for small allotments of five acres. He hoped, however, that the question would now be thrashed out, that a happy conclusion would be reached, and that the depopulation of the rural districts would cease altogether. He thanked the House for the indulgence accorded to him in addressing them for the first time.
  MR. ROGERScongratulated the First Commissioner of Works on the fact that this Bill had been brought forward. He thought it was a reasonable and practical measure, and that it would go a long way to satisfy the land hunger and the demand for small holdings which existed in many districts. The Bill was distinct from all former measures of the kind. All previous Acts of Parliament dealing with the acquisition of land had been permissive, and that explained the small extent to which advantage had been taken of them. This Bill was mandatory. It made it compulsory on the local authorities to consider the needs and the interests of their districts in relation to allotments and smallholdings. It practically made the creation of small holdings and allotments as much a-normal function of the local authority as the repair of roads and the provision of education. For the first time they were making it a part of the duty of a Government Department to see that the local authority made a provision of land and small holdings. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would the disposed to agree with him that£100,000 was rather a small sum with which to start the scheme, and he hoped that it was only an earnest of what would be done in future years. He was very glad indeed to welcome
  1502
  that part of the Bill which provided for co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the local authority. The more one studied the question the more one realised the variation of the conditions of agriculture in various parts of the country. He was certain that in some districts there would be a demand for grass land, in other districts a demand for corn land, in other districts a demand for land on which to grow fruit and vegetables, and in still other cases a demand for a small holding by a man who spent the winter in working in the woods to supplement what he derived from his small holding. Therefore, the county council, with the security of the county rates, must make provision for these different kinds of small holding's, and they must have the assistance of the parish council, who had an intimate knowledge of the needs of their own district and the character of the applicants. He believed that the latter was a very important point. The provision which excited the most criticism was that giving power to the Commissioners, in the last resort, to take over the powers of the county council, and provide the necessary allotments, charging the cost to the county council. That was a power which he imagined would be very rarely exercised, but its existence would act as a stimulus to the local authority to do the work themselves rather than to be set aside by the Commissioners. Moreover, it was simply securing to the Board of Agricultural the same kind of power which the Local Government Board already possessed to supply water and drainage to a district when the local authority neglected its duty. In the latter case it could only be done after full public inquiry, at which the local authority was represented; in the former case there would be full public inquiry as to whether there was a demand for small holdings, whether that demand could be reasonably satisfied and whether the character of the tenants was satisfactory. He thought that if the local authority, when all the preliminary inquiries were made, still refused to acquire the laud for small holdings and allotments, there would be a very strong case for the Agricultural Department taking over the powers of the

  1503
  local authority. The need of that provision would be acknowledged by all who had had experience of the working of the Act of 1892. He knew of a case where there was a reasonable demand for allotments and a number of men willing to take them up, but the scheme was stopped for two reasons: first, there was a strong bias in the Act of 1892 in favour of the landlord, while the tenants did not wish to buy, but to hire; and, secondly, if the county council wanted to buy, the price asked for the land was far too high. He thought that compulsory powers for the acquisition of land for small holdings and allotments were necessary. One reason was that prohibitive prices were asked by many landlords. Hon. Members opposite always spoke as if every landlord was a resident on his own estate. He would be the last to deny that the landlords of England had as much public spirit as any other class, but compulsory powers for purchase or hiring were necessary to deal with investment land, with land of absentee proprietors, with land belonging to Universities, colleges, and charities, the agents managing these estates being always reluctant to sell land for allotments. The power under the Act of 1894, which enabled parish councils to hire land, had worked exceedingly well. 20,000 acres had been obtained, and less than 300 by compulsion. The mere fact that compulsory powers were in the Act would induce the hard landlords, and more particularly agents, to come to an agreement to let their land. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that there was a great demand for land with proper security of tenure, compensation for improvements, and a fair rent. His chief objection to purchase was that he did not want to tie a man down all his life to three or four acres. His experience was that a man who got three or four acres of land at a fair rent, provided he was sober, industrious, and hard working, would soon want to enlarge his holding to ten acres, and ten years afterwards he would want a still larger holding. To compel him to purchase three or four acres would prevent him making any advance up the ladder of prosperity. He himself had a tenant who had started with three acres, next
  1504
  he obtained ten acres, and lately he had taken a farm of 100 acres. He insisted that they ought not to put any kind of check whatever on that kind of advance from the position of a wage-earning agricultural labourer to that of a farmer. He believed that there would be complete security of tenure of land held from the county council. There would be no desire to turn out a tenant who was working his land well. A strong public feeling would be excited against a county council if a tenant of a small holding was evicted for any trifling reason, provided the man was cultivating the land in a proper manner. As to the finance of the Bill, he knew that the right hon. Gentleman was providing for a Treasury Grant for the preliminary expenses. It was of vital importance in starting a scheme of this sort that the first cost should be as low as possible. Land must be obtained at the fair agricultural value and the difference between what that land would let for as a large farm and the rent which the small holder was willing to pay for it was the margin they had to enable them to equip the holding. Therefore it was of the utmost importance that the initial cost of obtaining the land and the cost of the laud itself should be kept as low as possible. The question of equipment was of very great importance, but he thought that it was being held up to view as a bogey and was a good deal over estimated when they were examining what would happen under this Bill. In the first place, it by no means followed that the demand for holdings under the Bill would be a demand for holdings which necessitated improvements. There were some men living in cottages with small buildings behind them who were exceedingly anxious to obtain land for cultivation, and who did not desire that the land should be equipped with buildings, and still less that, a cottage should be erected. In a case he knew of a crown farm of 250 acres was, owing to the sympathy of the present Board of Agriculture with this movement, being let to the parish council and sublet by them to tenants. They had got on that farm sixty-five tenants, and not one single penny had been spent by the Crown in adapting and equipping the farm for the

  1505
  purpose. The county council pegged out the claims, the men stepped in, and they were working to-day with every chance of success and without any necessity for any expenditure on the part of the Crown for the adaptation of the farm. He felt that that experience would be repeated under this Bill, and that the demand for a subsidiary holding would come from the men who already had a home and some kind of buildings attached to it. There was one criticism which he should like to make. The Bill altered the definition of a small holding in the Act of 1892, under which a small holding was anything exceeding one acre and going up to fifty acres or a rental of£50. Under this Bill it was anything over five acres and up to fifty acres or a rental of£50. He saw some danger under this change that some part of the demand for land would not be collected, sifted, and focussed as he thought it was intended that it should be. The Commission Clause made it mandatory on the Commissioners to make inquiry and to ascertain the extent to which there was a demand, either actual or prospective, for small holdings in the several counties, and, if there was a demand for holdings of less than five acres in size, it seemed to him it would not come under the cognisance of the Commissioners and would not be taken into account by them. He thought it would be the greatest injustice if anything under five acres was not treated as a small holding and the possessor did not receive the assistance and support which was given under this Bill to those of a larger character. It was in the case of these small holdings under five acres where intensive cultivation could be tried and where strawberries and other fruit could be grown, and it was just that kind of small holding that it was extremely important to encourage. At present, as he understood it, under the Bill the preliminary expenses which might be recovered from the Treasury did not apply to allotments under five acres, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way during the passage of the Bill through Committee to take away the obstacles and enable the same machinery to be used for holdings below five acres as was avail- able in the case, of the larger holdings. That represented the only real criticism
  1506
  he had to make on the machinery of the Bill. He believed that on the whole it was an exceedingly reasonable, practicable, and workable Bill. If the. county councils and the Commissioners representing the Board of Agriculture were agreed to co-operate and work together they could make a great success of the provisions of the Bill, in which he saw a very considerable hope for the country side of England, and for that which had always seemed to him the most neglected asset of the British Empire—the agricultural land of this country.
  *MR. STARKEYsaid it was impossible for anyone interested in the agricultural industry not to look favourably upon any proposal which would increase the number of those engaged in that industry, and therefore they must feel that any measure such as a Small Holdings Bill would undoubtedly be of advantage to the agricultural community. But there were difficulties in the way of providing such holding, and the only proper method of looking at the question was to examine it from all sides and find out where the difficulties existed. Therefore they had to ask themselves from what point of view they should approach the consideration of the proposal. Should they look at it from the theoretical and sentimental point of view, or from the practical and commercial? They should collect all the facts and bring them under impartial review. The Government the other day produced a Paper in which was collected the evidence which had been given in favour of this particular Bill. But unfortunately they only dealt with one side of the question, and on reading that Paper he was very much astonished to find that the evidence only went in one direction. Then he turned to the county in which he was interested, Nottinghamshire, and he found the document did not give a full account of the evidence which had been given in that county. He would like to quote an extract from the summary of replies to questions which was given in the document with regard to Nottingham, because he thought it was applicable to many other counties—
  "There is a keen competition for small holdings of ten to forty acres and they command

  1507
  very often a higher rent than is justified by the profit to be got out of them except where situated close to a town. There are not sufficient of these small farms to satisfy the demand."
  He had not the advantage of a Government brief to refer to, and he was able to find only one reference to this matter, and that was in the Report on the decline in the agricultural population. There he found the same quotation made, but it was given by a witness who also added that the cost of putting up buildings to start such holdings would be very great. That, to his mind, was the whole crux of the matter, the cost of the buildings. He had no doubt that in very many places these buildings would have been put up long ago had it been likely that small holdings would be remunerative. Therefore they must assume that in many cases where they were demanded they were not likely to be a commercial success. It was a common fallacy to suppose that if a farm of 200 acres was let for£200, and it was split up into four farms of fifty acres, each of these farms could be let proportionately for the same price. But it was not so, because of the cost of the buildings, which would add materially to the rent which would have to be charged. Supposing£500 was a necessary sum to equip these small holdings. There would be three sets of houses and buildings to erect, and the original farm-house and buildings would be in the nature of a white elephant. In consequence of that cost it would be necessary to add at least£20 to the rent, so that it would be£70 instead of£50. In that case, when people knew what the actual rent was to be, would there be the same demand as previously? A farm was a mixture of good and bad land, and a vast proportion of the rent was applicable to the buildings, and if they took away one portion of a farm it might be very difficult to let the other portions. Therefore he thought it was very desirable that regulations should be inserted in the Bill, so that where damage was done to a farm by splitting it up into small holdings there should be no doubt that compensation would be paid. If it was a national necessity that something should be done to stop rural depopulation it was a national obligation that the State should pay for it. This Bill, however, seemed to shuffle
  1508
  off the responsibility from the State on to the shoulders of the land owners and the county councils. Agriculture, unfortunately, had not been represented in that House in proportion to the numbers employed in it, and therefore they had suffered in many ways, and many unfair burdens had been placed upon the industry. They paid out of all proportion for maintaining the roads, and, with regard to education, they had to pay for educating the children who, when they were educated, left the rural district because their education was not of such a character as fitted them for agricultural life, and they therefore lost the advantages of their services in the country, although they had had the expense of training them. He was afraid that by this Bill another obligation was going to be thrown upon the agricultural community, because if the county council incurred any bad debts, or if their schemes were not a success, it would fall upon the county to make good the deficiency. It seemed to him that the people of this country had become quite demoralised, and to a certain extent the Government had been affected, because for years they had eaten wheat which had been grown at less than the cost of production, and now they resented people leaving the land because they were not content to grow wheat any longer under cost price. What this Bill proposed to do, however, was to put an extra burden upon those who did remain upon the land in order to bring the other people back again. That did not seem to him to be sound. He had often heard of "robbing Peter to pay Paul," but he had never heard of robbing Peter in order to confer some benefit upon him. The county councils were popularly elected bodies, and it seemed to him that it was an extraordinary thing to override their decisions as this Bill proposed to do. They were in full touch with their districts, and if after full inquiry they came to the conclusion that there was no need for small holdings in their neighbourhood it was a hard thing that the Commissioners should come down and insist upon their spending money which they considered to be unnecessary. By so doing they would increase the rates, which had to be paid by

  1509
  tenant farmers and agricultural labourers and by everybody who was either directly or indirectly a ratepayer. The hon. Member for Dumfriesshire had written a pamphlet entitled "A Plea for Small Holdings," and had instanced what had taken place on the continent; how the land had been improved by reason of the inducement which ownership gave to men to work. In conclusion the hon. Member quoted a passage from Arthur Young—
  "Give a man secure possession of a bleak rook and be will turn it into a. garden; give him a nine years lease of a garden and he will convert it into a desert."
  What was going to happen to these persons who were to be tenants of the county council? Were they going to convert their holdings into deserts? If so, they would only be fit in the end for a municipal golf course or some such purpose. The Bill seemed to him to fail in two respects. It lacked any provision for the equipment of the land as a small holding, and it contained the principle of compulsory hiring which left the tenant a tenant still.
  *MR. BOULTONsaid the supporters of the Government welcomed the very friendly spirit which had been shown to the Bill by the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite. But when those speeches developed they showed that although hon. Gentlemen agreed with the spirit of the Bill they endeavoured to raise many obstacles against its being put into operation. When, however, those obstacles were examined it was found that some had been much exaggerated whilst others did not exist at all. It had been said that the children in the country districts were so educated that they would not stay in the country. He did not blame them, because one of the first effects of education was to make a man look forward to something more than poverty or the workhouse in his old age. Under the English system of land tenure this was the future of the agricultural labourer, and he was glad the Government was going to make a change and give these men a chance to get land of their own. The two objections which had been made generally against the Bill were, first, that
  1510
  the existing machinery for providing allotments and small holdings was sufficient, and, secondly, that the landlords of the country were willing under the present conditions to provide allotments and small holdings voluntarily. He would point out, however, that the Act of 1887 was a voluntary Act, and contained no provisions for the compulsory purchase or hire of land. Further, that it limited the allotment to one acre, and only those who came under the legal definition of the term "labourer" were entitled to secure an allotment. That Act was not effective, because the absence of compulsory powers made it difficult for the urban or county councils to secure the land. There was another Act, the Local Government Act of 1894, which contained compulsory powers, but there was nothing to compel the local authority to put the Act into operation. In his division in February, 1906, Lord de Ramsey, the largest landowner in the county, gave notice to quit to a large number of allotment holders. Those men formed themselves into an organisation and petitioned the district council to put into force the compulsory powers of the Act of 1894. This the district council would not do, but put into force the Act of 1887. The Ramsey Urban District Council then approached Lord de Ramsey and asked him for land for allotments, but, as the Council were acting under the voluntary Act they had no power, even if they wished to bargain with Lord de Ramsey for the land on the best terms possible, and the result was that when the Council obtained the land from Lord de Ramsey it was at an increased rent which cost the men about 1 per acre more than they had paid before. Many of the men refused to take up the allotments on the ground that they could not afford to pay the increased price. That showed how ineffective a voluntary Act was. He welcomed the power given to the Board of Agriculture to deal with organisations. When that organisation of allotment holders was formed in Ramsey they made an offer to Lord de Ramsey to take the land which had before been let in allotments; to pay the rent en bloc, in advance, and then to sublet it in allotments. That offer was refused, because Lord de Ramsey would not deal

  1511
  with anybody but the district council. The organisation then appealed to the county council, which they had power to do under the Act, to obtain for them allotments. This the county council could only do when the district council had refused to provide them on reasonable terms. The county council were willing to take the matter up, but refused to do so until the Local Government Board had defined what were "reasonable terms" The Local Government Board held, wrongly, he thought, that "reasonable terms" had nothing to do with the rent. The men then petitioned the county council to put into force the Small Holdings Act, which was another voluntary Act. The county council were very sympathetic, and after holding a public inquiry and satisfying themselves that a demand existed, advertised in the local papers and failed to obtain a single acre. The fact was that in Huntingdonshire the landlords would not sell. That showed the ineffective character of the present law. With compulsory powers the county council could have taken the land and satisfied the aspirations of these men, but owing to the lack of compulsory powers the men had to give up all hope of becoming small farmers, and many were now going out of the country. He was glad to think that the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman was going to alter that and place compulsory powers in the hands of the district and county councils, and that behind that, power was to be given to the Board of Agriculture to act. It was very necessary that the Board of Agriculture should have these powers, as the conduct of the Ramsey Urban District Council proved when it refused to put into operation the compulsory and effective Act of 1894, and insisted on putting into operation the voluntary Act which was almost useless. Unless these powers were given and the Board of Agriculture was willing to act where the local authority would not, the Bill would not be worth much. But if the Board was given the power to act where the local authority would not put the Act into operation the Bill would have a good result. Under this Bill, in a case such as the Ramsey one the Board of Agriculture would be able to act if the urban council refused to do their
  1512
  duty, or the Board of Agriculture could act independently of the Council and directly through the men's organisations. For that reason he welcomed the Bill most earnestly, and hoped the Government would push it forward, overcoming every obstacle which was placed in its way, so that before long there might be a law which would stop the continual drain from the rural districts and prevent the emigration which was now going on of the best men in the country.
  *SIR FRANCIS POWELLhoped that he might be allowed to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill on the conciliatory tone of his speech, and he would be much obliged to him for his attention on a matter which had not yet been raised in the debate, and one of very great importance. It was very necessary, before the Bill left the House, that careful consideration should be given by the right hon. Gentleman to the great question of mineral rights. It was very probable, indeed certain, that in the districts where minerals abounded, there would be allotments and small holdings. In mining districts it was by no means uncommon, in fact it was a very common thing, to lease minerals without giving the lessee any power to break the surface at a given plot. He reached the mines by sinking at a considerable distance, and that plot remained entirely untouched on the surface. He thought that there ought to be some careful reservation of mineral rights, because the object of the Bill for small holdings was equally accomplished, although the access to the minerals below continued as a foretime. Then there was the question of severance. If they had a coalfield, and they interrupted the coalfield by a small holder-ship such as might occur under this Bill, they would be most seriously injuring a most important interest. He did not know in what way the question could be dealt with when they came to the details, but he had had a conversation with some gentlemen who were thoroughly acquainted with the mining industry, and it was after consultation with them that he ventured at that early stage of the Bill, in a brief manner but very anxious spirit, to submit the

  1513
  point to the consideration of the Government. In the Act of 1892, dealing with this subject, commonly called the Parish Councils Act, they dealt mostly, if not altogether, with agreements, and under an agreement they might place in the contract any condition they pleased; but under this Bill they proposed to proceed by compulsion, and that being the case it was of very great importance indeed that the Bill should be so modified at a later stage that the minerals might be carefully safeguarded. He need not call the attention of the House of Commons to the importance of mineral rights. Upon the coalfields of the country depended in large measure the national prosperity, and he submitted that the point which he had raised required the careful consideration and reflection of the Government.
  MR. SILCOCKsaid he desired to support the Second Reading of the Bill. In that part of the country which he represented, depopulation had been going on for the last twenty years, and had been as great as in any part of the country. According to the Census of 1881 there were 28,000 agricultural labourers in Somersetshire, but in 1901, twenty years later, they numbered only 17,000. Such figures must make one pause, and feel that the subject was one of the greatest importance and justified the action of the Government. It had been suggested that the depopulation was caused by the laying down of arable land to pasture, owing to the reduction in prices, and that therefore a measure of the kind under discussion would not meet the difficulty. In his district there was a wood of 150 acres, where at the time of the Tithe Commutation Act there was a small hamlet, and the villagers cultivated their holdings. Those were now simply a wood. Reference had been made by the right hon. Member for Wimbledon to the Report published last year on agricultural depopulation, in order to justify his view that it was not the want of small holdings, but the decline in value which had caused depopulation. But if the Report were examined it would be found that the demand for small holdings which could not be satisfied was mentioned as a
  1514
  reason why so many people had left the country districts. One other reason mentioned was the lack of adequate cottage accommodation. The Report said—
  "Among the specific causes of discontent, a deficiency of adequate or satisfactory housing accommodation is reported from about thirty counties. The details, where given, may be referred to, but speaking generally, there is evidence, not only—or perhaps it should be said not so much—of an actual scarcity of cottages, though this is mentioned in some cases, as of a lack of cottages which satisfy the more exigent requirements of the labourers in these times, or comply with the demands of vigilant sanitary authorities."
  The Report also spoke of—
  ''the lack of an incentive to agricultural labourers to remain on the land, and of any reasonable prospect in life, and it is mentioned that in some districts, particularly in Scotland, many of the best men have been attracted to the Colonies, where their energies may find wider scope."
  If they were to have any advancement some means must be found to satisfy the desire for land. The Report spoke of the desire for land, a desire which had not been met in many parts of the country. He thought there were j many Members of the House who must know of cases where a great demand for small holdings had arisen when a large farm was cut up, and that a very keen competition took place for these holdings, while as a large farm the land could hardly be let at all. That happened especially in the neighbourhood of towns. The Report said—
  "The majority of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture, however, report that there is a demand for small holdings, which is not satisfied for reasons which many of them specify. The belief that their provision would tend to keep people on the land is expressed in many reports. One correspondent puts the case succinctly: 'It is absolutely necessary that those employed in farm work shall have a prospect of rising by their own thrift and perseverance; for this purpose there should be cottages without land for the older people, cottages with gardens and allotments, and also small holdings from ten to fifty acres.'"
  He thought that was a striking reason for the introduction and passing of this measure, which was, in the words used by the Prime Minister when he spoke last month in the City of London—
  "To enable the peasantry to lift up their heads and call their souls their own by giving them some little foothold when they will no longer be tied men but free."

  1515
  They all knew that in many country districts men could not be regarded as free in the exercise of their opinions. Oftentimes if a labourer made himself obnoxious he was compelled to leave the district altogether. So long as men had no security of tenure and could be turned out of their holdings because their opinions were not agreeable to their landlord, they could not be expected to have that independence of character which it was desirable all Englishmen should possess. It was for that reason that he so strongly desired the passage of the Bill. If a man had a small plot of land he felt that he was secure. It had been objected that the Bill would not bring men back to the land. But if they could keep the men on the land, they would do a good deal to stop the rapid de-population which had been going on. It had been stated that the Bill would not enable them to compete with the vast prairies of the United States and Canada, He did not imagine that the Government for one minute thought they were going to enable men to compete in the production of wheat with those vast areas. They did, however, believe that these small holdings would be used to produce fruit, vegetables, poultry, and such things. It was said that the Bill did not provide so much for the purchase of land as for creating tenancies, Many of them felt that it was far better that a man should be able to rent land with proper security of tenure than be compelled to purchase. The present hunger for land was so great that men put themselves to the greatest inconvenience to find money enough to purchase the land, and then they found that they had not sufficient money left to work the land properly. If they could give these men security of tenure, in the majority of cases it would be better that they should be tenants than be compelled to purchase. Feeling that the measure would be for the good of the country, he had no hesitation in supporting it. It would induce men to remain in the country districts, and that would help to maintain and improve the physique of the race, which had deteriorated so rapidly in the slums of the great cities and towns. By enabling men to acquire small holdings j they would also foster that independence of character which they so much desired.
  1516
  For these reasons he intended to support the Bill.
  MR. HUNTsaid the hon. Member who had just sat down had stated that a great deal of political pressure was often put upon agricultural labourers, and that that caused great inconvenience. He would like to tell the hon. Member that in his opinion there was in reality a good deal more pressure put by Nonconformists upon their co-religionists than was put upon labourers by the landlords or by the Church of England party. It had also been stated that there was a great want of cottages for labourers in the country districts. He did not know whether the hon. Member knew anything about the country or not. but he would like to point out to him that they could not build a labourer's cottage in most parts of the country for less than£200, and besides that they had to find often a quarter of an acre of land outside the actual building, as well as a water supply and fences. About his part of the country labourers' cottages were rented at not more than£5 a year, which included rates and taxes, and that would pay about 2½ per cent. interest on the capital. In addition, the landlord had to do all the repairs, and there was always something going wrong. It was quite easy to spend a year's rent in doing some small repairs. That was the reason why there were not more agricultural labourers' cottages erected in the country. They could not expect, people to build cottages when they knew they could not get more than 2 per cent. interest on their money. He agreed that there was a great, want of small holdings in the country, and he was anxious to do all he could to keep the people in the country districts. He also agreed that smallholders cultivated the land better than the big farmers, and got more out of it. He could not, however, go much further than that. At the present time the labourer in the country had no chance of rising, and that was why he went into the town. The farmers in his part told him that with their harvest money the labourers earned about£1 a week. A man who had a wife and family to support would not be able to save much out of£1 a week. He was aware that with that wage they were

  1517
  better off than a great many people in the town, but they had no chance of getting on in the world. What they wanted was small holdings from three up to twenty-five or even fifty acres, but how were they going to get them? He was opposed to this Bill, because it was so frightfully complicated; it was impossible for it to do any good to any considerable number of persons except lawyers. He believed it would be very expensive and quite unworkable. The tenants would have two landlords and some of their buildings would belong to one and some to the other, and the same state of things would 'obtain in regard to repairs. What a man wanted was to have a small holding from a man he knew, and then he felt safe and was able to get on. That was what they could not provide under the present Bill. Unless a landlord had money which he could use for philanthropic purposes he could not afford to cut a big farm up into small holdings. If the Government desired to experiment in the creation of small holdings let them buy up farms altogether, because if they bought a part of a farm they would upset the working of that farm and cause tremendous friction in the countryside. He agreed that allotments of an acre ought to be provided by compulsion where they were wanted. If the Government would buy the farms outright and divide them up the tenants would be encouraged to become thrifty and save money, so as to be able eventually to buy their holdings out and out. That was the only solution of the question. The Government ought to buy farms in the most favourable district they could in order to try small holdings and if they failed they could give them up, and the experiment would not cost a great deal of money. He did not wish to say anything against Lord Carrington's experiment in small holdings and allotments, but the hon. Member for Norfolk appeared to think they had all been a great success. They had not, however, been tried long enough to prove that they had been successful, and consequently they must up to the present be treated as an experiment. He himself went down into Lincolnshire to sec some of Lord Carrington's small holdings and allotments, and he found a good many of them had been given up
  1518
  by the men because they found that they did not pay. It was only fair to say that those allotments were about a mile and a half away from the town, and that fact was considerably against them. The land he alluded to was especially suitable for small holdings, because it was very good land and was worked quite easily with one small horse. There were no hen houses at all, and no accommodation for the breeding of pigs. Hon. Members who knew about stock farms were aware that a pig was a far more profitable animal than a cow. He considered that one necessity of a small holding was to have a place for the breeding of pigs. Speaking of Lord Carrington's small holdings experiment in Lincolnshire from personal observation and inquiry, he said it was a very great question whether it was going to be a success or not. The arrangement was that Lord Carrington let the land to a syndicate and built houses for small holdings. He charged 4° per cent. for the money, and for three years he did the painting and repairing. The syndicate charged the tenants£10 for their houses and paid the rates and taxes. That was not a financially sound plan, because, to put it roughly, while the syndicate were getting 3 per cent. They were paying all the time 4½ per cent. The buildings were of wood and did not seem to be either durable or commodious. The Prime Minister had spoken in favour of the creation of small holdings, but he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that on his own estate at Belmont there were formerly six holdings, while now there were only two. He believed that but for an accident it would now have consisted of only one holding. He thought the right hon. Gentleman who laid down the law about these things ought to play the game himself. If the Government wanted to give these allotment holders and smallholders a fair chance, either they must take off all the taxation from the land, or they must put an equal import tax on the imported agricultural produce which at present paid nothing whatever towards rates and taxes. Imported agricultural produce was now in a privileged position. It got a preference or a bounty which ours did not get. Revenue had to be got from somewhere, but under our present

  1519
  system foreign imports did not pay their share of taxation. Therefore we were giving State aid to foreign producers. Free traders could not get out of that fact. The taxation which he advocated on imports was not protection at all; it was only equalisation of taxation. Until our fiscal system was altered, people would find it very difficult to make a living on the land. He was now speaking only for himself. He should be quite willing that rents should not be increased on agricultural land for, say, fifteen or twenty years while the experiment of putting equal taxation on foreign and home produce was being tried. The Government proposed by this Bill to get the people back on to the land, but the policy which was very much misnamed free trade had had the effect of drawing the best blood from the country districts into the towns and cities. While the workhouses were filled with poor people, and miles of slums were crowded with starving citizens, there were millions of acres of good land derelict in the heart of the Empire. Was not that the result of our present policy? The people could only be got back to the land by the reversal of that policy. They might tinker with the land laws until they were tired of it, but the economic conditions of which they complained were due to a policy which prevented the people of this country from having justice and fair play.
  *MR. ELLIS DAVIESsaid he had no intention of going into all the points which had been dealt with in the discussion, but, in reference to the principle underlying the Bill, it seemed to him there were two questions involved—first of all, whether the county council should buy or lease land, and whether, after buying or leasing, they should resell or lease it to the occupiers. The principle involved in the Bill was the right one. He was satisfied, from the argument advanced by the right hon. Gentleman, that it would not be possible for the county council to do other than let the land to the occupying tenant. Another aspect, which was a rather serious one, was that the system of small holdings was already in existence in Wales to a certain extent. Seventy per cent. of the holdings in Wales at present were less than 50 acres in extent. He
  1520
  was sorry to confess what he thought would be rather a startling fact to a large number of Members of the House, that the tenant farmers in Wales, notwithstanding the small holdings, were in dire circumstances, and, in many cases, extreme poverty. Their experience in Wales was unfortunately not such as to warrant the assumption that the creation of small holdings would prevent depopulation. There were several reasons which had led to the present state of things. For instance, the Welsh small holder had neither fixity of tenure nor guarantee for improvements, and he had no capital. The fact that the Welsh tenants had no fixity of tenure prevented them from putting the land to the best use, as in the past they had often seen the tenant, after putting his capital and labour in the land, having to buy back his own improvements in the auction room. The Welsh tenants were not satisfied with the last Land Tenure Act, as it gave neither fixity of tenure nor a fair scale of compensation for improvements. Another drawback to the position of the tenant farmers in Wales was the want of capital, and when they went to the bank and asked for a loan on the security of their stock, they could not obtain the money except on ruinous terms owing to the changeable and fluctuating nature of their only security. He was glad that all these three points were dealt with in the Bill, which would place the occupying tenant who came under it in an infinitely superior position to that of the present small holder. But no county council in Wales, even those in which there was an overwhelming Liberal majority, would be disposed to advance money on the guarantee of a small farmer. He submitted, therefore, that it was essential that the guarantee should be given, not by the county council, but by the State. He wished to express the profound disappointment of the Welsh tenant farmers that existing small holders were not to have the benefits which were secured by the Bill for new holders. In the whole of Wales, 69 per cent. and, in his own constituency, no less than 82 per cent. of the tenant farmers occupied holdings of less than 50 acres. Although the position of the tenant farmers in Wales had been made the subject of inquiry for more than

  1521
  twenty years, the last time by the Commission of which Lord Carrington was Chairman—and which made the strongest recommendations in regard to the amendment of the land laws in the Principality—there was nothing in this Bill to mitigate or improve, in any shape or form, the lot of the existing small holders in Wales, and yet he submitted to the House that even under the Bill in its present form existing small holders were included. He put it that it was open for a friendly county council to acquire a whole parish, including some small farms, for the purposes of the Bill, and to re-let the small farms to the present tenants, but if such a proceeding was not within the purview of the Bill the scheme would no doubt be negatived by the Board of Agriculture under Clause 3. Moreover, the position of the existing tenant farmers of Wales under the Bill would be inconsistent with the attitude which the Government had taken in this House so recently as February last. The Secretary for Scotland then deplored the rural depopulation, and said that it was necessary to put an end to it, and to improve the conditions of the tenant farmers. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that, in order to improve the conditions of things, they must give security of tenure to existing holders, and not to future holders alone; and that it would be mere folly to spend Government money in creating new holdings before justice was done to the existing holders. What had happened to make what was folly in February legislative wisdom in June? They might be told that there would be an objection on the part of the landlord to extend the provisions of the Bill to existing small tenants. Why? For his own part he thought the landowner would much sooner sell a small rather than a large farm. In the first place he would get a better price, and on small farms there would be no game, because the small tenant's son was generally an expert poacher. Under the Bill the Government relied on the county council's hiring rather than purchasing land. As a member of a county council he expressed the opinion that these local authorities would not be disposed to advance money for the erection of buildings on land which belonged to a third party, and for that
  1522
  reason the county councils would be compelled to buy the land, but small holdings would be a delusion unless they could be obtained at a fair price. There was no provision in the Bill by which county councils could acquire land on terms which would enable them to let it to tenants at an economic rent, and it was therefore necessary that provision should be made, either in this or another measure, for a fair valuation by which the price to be paid would bear some relation to the rateable value of the land.
  MR. HEMMERDEsaid he wished to identify himself with the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, both upon the Welsh aspect of the Bill and upon the more important aspect of the measure which touched the question of valuation. The hon. Gentleman had pointed out that, so far as Wales was concerned, the Bill was profoundly unsatisfactory, and that was the case. Wales was a country of small holders, and although this proposal would do something to create more small holders in that country, it would do nothing for the small holder who was at present righting a hard fight for existence. It was quite clear that the, Bill was not drafted with a view to the Welsh position, but he did not know why, because, after all, there had been a Report of a Royal Commission upon the condition of land in Wales presented some time ago, and one might have hoped that the particular case of Wales, with its multitude of small holders, would have engaged the attention of His Majesty's Government. But somehow or other it seemed to have escaped their notice, and that was all the more surprising as the Scottish Bill did deal with small holders. It was a strange thing, therefore, that the case of Wales was not dealt with. What was the position of the Welsh small holder? The Bill would reproduce the state of things which they had seen in Ireland, where, on one side of the road a holding would be held on such terms as would enable the tenant to purchase in a certain number of years by paying instalments which took the place of rent; but the man on the other side of the road would be paying a rent which exceeded the instalments, without any chance of getting any interest in his holding or of

  1523
  purchasing it. It was not in human nature that a man who had been on a holding for years, and whose family had occupied it for generations, should see another man brought under these conditions and given fixity of tenure and not feel aggrieved. He was certain that the Bill could be altered by a few words so as to deal with the case of the existing small holders in Wales. He wanted to emphasise this in another way. Out of 65,000 holders in Wales he thought there were 48,000 who held farms under 50 acres in extent, and the effect of the Bill would be to create a great and artificial demand for small holdings in Wales. That demand would send up the price, and so far from doing any good to the existing small tenant he might find that he was unable to continue in his holding because of the demand created by the Bill and the higher price obtainable. That was obviously a situation which the Government would have to face if they were going to create this great demand. That led him to the second point he had to make, and that was on the question of valuation, He heard the Prime Minister speak on this j subject the other day, and after hearing his words he was at a loss to understand the present Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said—
  "The bridge between town and country will be furnished by a Bill which will, I hope, be passed into law during the present session as the Valuation Bill. I cannot say that valuation is a very exciting word—though it appears to have a mesmeric effect on you here—but in providing, as we propose to do. for making a separate valuation of the land, apart from the buildings upon it, we are preparing the way for reform in the rating system in our urban areas, and we shall, at the same time, very much simplify the process of public acquisition of land by establishing a record of how much of its value is due to public improvements. That is an indispensable preliminary step"
  Why had not that indispensable preliminary step been taken? Then, again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer early last year, speaking on behalf of the Government to the municipal authorities, said—
  "We are all agreed that valuation is the preliminary step, and the Government desire to have time to consider the best way of giving effect to the principle of taxing land values."
  Valuation, therefore, being said to be a preliminary step, why was not the
  1524
  Valuation Bill which they wanted brought forward? It was suggested that it might follow sooner or later; but he would suggest that it should follow sooner. Without a proper system of valuation, and without a proper system of rating based upon that valuation, the Government were not going to do very much by this Bill. How were they going to focus the demand for small holdings? The people could apply for them through a parish council meeting, but in a good many parts of the country not very much would be said in such meetings about small holdings. If they did not act through the parish council meeting those who desired small holdings could apply to the county council sub-committee; but there were a great many counties where tenants would not apply to that body. Failing these two courses the tenants could apply to the Commissioners, but they would always have the fear that if they did so the officials of the county would be consulted, in which case they might just as well apply to the parish council or the sub-committee of the county council. Of these three procedures the only one that would be satisfactory would be the direct appeal to the Board of Agriculture. It was obvious to those who moved about in agricultural centres that the process of providing willing buyers or rather willing leaseholders for small holdings was a very difficult process indeed; they not only wanted to supply people who were willing to take the land, but people who were willing to sell, and those who wanted a Valuation Bill did so because without one they could not create that willingness to sell or lease by the landlord. That could only be done by some system of valuing and rating the site value. Let him take the case of Blairgowrie in Scotland. There they had pasture land at£1 an acre, and certain young men who wanted to start a fruit farm got it at£2 an acre. After they had made that fruit farm succeed they were offered neighbouring land of precisely similar value at£10 an acre Let the House imagine that sort of thing happening in this country if this Bill were passed without a Valuation Bill. In Denmark and other countries they were finding that the successful cultivation

  1525
  of small holdings was bringing about its own ruin, and a system of valuation was necessary to protect prospective small holders against the greed of the land speculator. He knew a case where a labourer had a few acres at 65s. an acre, and twenty years ago the land would have fetched 10s., and eighteen months ago 40s. He wanted to know at what price that land was to be purchased or hired—at 65s. or 10s. an acre? Valuation was of vital importance, and yet the House was to spend its time in discussing other measures, such as the Patents Bill, while the Valuation Bill was shelved for another year or two. To hire or purchase the value must be put on a proper basis, and nothing in the Bill provided for that. We ought to profit by the mistakes of Denmark, Belgium, and Holland, and he hoped land reformers on both sides would emphasise the importance of valuation, and point out that the Bill which was the essence of their policy should not be delayed. There were two matters which he wished to emphasis, first the inclusion of the present small holders in Wales in the benefits of the Bill, and, secondly, that at the first opportunity a Valuation Bill should be brought in. That and this Bill were the only things that could make a success of small holdings. Such a Bill was necessary, because otherwise there was no security that the tenant would reap the benefit. They had to consider, not only the creation of small holdings, but also the people who were to become small holders. They wanted to see that what the small holder put into the land should be his; that he would not be rack-rented, and that the constant demand for small holdings should not force up his rent year after year. Those were the things they wanted to see, but those things this Bill did not give, and so far as he was concerned he could only support the Bill on the understanding that they had some sort of assurance that in the near future it would be put on a proper basis by the indispensable preliminary of a Valuation Bill.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I do not wonder that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down should have indulged in many expressions of regret at the policy of the Government in
  1526
  regard to the land. I do not wonder that he and his friends should have-found themselves in some difficulty as to what the policy of the Government on the land question really is. The right hon. Gentleman in his interesting speech said he could not enter into any comparison between English and Scottish land legislation because it would, he thought, have been out of order. I think he will find later on that it was not only not out of order, but that anyone who desires to take a practical part in this debate must draw those comparisons. Students of the land legislation of this country during the last fifty years must stand aghast at the present situation. There has been legislation of all kinds—Irish land legislation, which began by adopting a method which we on this side of the House held then and have proved since to be impracticable unless accompanied by the buying out of one of the two parties. We have had legislation in connection with small holdings and allotments; legislation with regard to the tenure of land in England, and quite recently Scottish legislation. For my part I do not regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not adopted the Scottish practice for this Bill. To what are we driven? We have the Irish legislation, from which apparently the Government have learnt nothing, and now they are trying to deal with the same question in England and Scotland; to deal with the same people and the same class of land, the same difficulties and the same system of agriculture; and yet they apply a totally different system, which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to justify by the most remarkable and perhaps most interesting, but at the same time the most disappointing, of all expedients. For his justification he falls back on the precedents of those with whom he disagrees and of whose policy he disapproves, and which he and his friends when they sat in Opposition strove to defeat. He did not attempt to give any reasons for his belief that this remarkable policy would succeed. All he did was to dwell upon the desirability of extending small holdings. The reason we who oppose the Government take the line, which the Government very seldom took when they were in

  1527
  Opposition, of not opposing this measure is that the object of the Bill is to extend small holdings, and to make the occupation of the land a matter of more general concern than it is now. The question is whether the Government are going on the right lines. The hon. Member for Denbighshire disapproves of the Government scheme because, first, it does not render the sale of the land simple, and, secondly, because it renders the position of the owner of the land impossible. We hold that if the Government are really going to deal with the question of the depopulation of the rural districts and set up small holdings, not only on an economic basis, but on one that shall yield a benefit to those who occupy them, they must proceed on the lines of ownership, and provide machinery by which they can help and almost guide those they are going to put on the land. There is very little in this Bill that proposes anything of the kind. It has often been said that in Ireland the Government have a great object-lesson. I know well how difficult it is to refer to the Irish question without getting on the more controversial side of it, and in what I am about to say I am most anxious to avoid anything connected with Irish controversy. The speeches made upon this question, with the exception of one remark made by the right hon. Gentleman, have so far avoided anything in the shape of controversy. But the right hon. Gentleman made one remark which was unworthy of him or anyone in his position as a landowner who all his life has been interested in the land. The right hon. Gentleman said there were those among the country gentry who would be perfectly willing to see this land hunger go on in its present unsatisfactory condition so long as they could preserve their game. The right hon. Gentleman is not wanting in the power of speech and argument, he has a good cause, and I do not think it was necessary to fall back on such an argument as that, which has no confirmation in fact. If the right hon. Gentleman with his experience of the land has made himself acquainted with the practice of the country he must know perfectly well that, though there may be rural populations with an insufficient number of small holdings, the
  1528
  landowners as a rule have done their best and their duty in the matter at a great sacrifice to themselves. With that one exception the speeches on this question have taken a line which I rejoice to see. Very little has been heard in them of those old pointless and baseless attacks on landlords. On the contrary, the whole of the criticisms have been directed to the system. If the system is definitely shown to have broken down it is necessary first to find something to take its place. Secondly, the Government must show that the new system proposed is likely to be successful. The criticism of right hon. Gentlemen has been of a friendly character, but if it means anything at all it means that this scheme is not likely to be more successful than any other which preceded it. The Government wish to increase the number of people carrying on a profitable business on the land, and they propose to do that by machinery to which I will refer later. What the right hon. Gentleman opposite overlooked was this, that the Government are going to make a revolution in this country in regard to the cultivation of the land. That is what it means. It is not a question of occupation or ownership, but of cultivation. The question is, is the land going to be cultivated in a better and more profitable manner than it is at present? If you can prove that under your new methods you are going to improve the cultivation of the land, then no one is entitled to attack you. on behalf of the landlords, so long as you treat the landlords fairly. Whatever may be the faults of landlords and large farmers, nobody can contest the proposition that, in regard to the cultivation of land, they have been pioneers, and have made great experiments which have frequently been followed by smaller men, and that without them these experiments would never have been made. You condemn the agriculture of to-day; you say that the land does not produce what it ought to produce; but how much would have beer, produced if it had not been for the example of the landowners and the larger farmers? If your experiment means anything it means that you intend, not merely to set up here and there small owners, but practically to make

  1529
  small holdings the rule instead of the exception. Very well; if that is your intention you cannot do it; the number of your acres is limited, the amount of laud available for the purpose is still more limited; because if a man has a large farm he can afford to take the good with the bad, he can afford to take the average cost of the land. He may occupy a farm of 600, 1,000, or 1,500 acres, but I will guarantee that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, two-thirds of the land is indifferent, and only one-third of it is such as the farmer cares to have. You must take these big farms; you cannot get small holdings without them. Are you going to take the good land and leave the bad? If you take the good land you may injure; the farmer; if you take the bad land the small holders will not thank you, and you will put them in a position which it will be impossible for them to occupy. Therefore, you cannot carry out this policy in the wholesale fashion which has been suggested, and which I believe many hon. Gentlemen opposite have at heart. I believe that they do think that by some change in the land system they can bring into existence a large body of small holders who are to replace the present class of tenant farmers. I ask the House to learn from the experience of small holdings in Ireland; it is never too late to learn. We have discussed this question often and often. I have spent my life on the land; I have had now nearly forty years practical experience of land, management and cultivation; and I know that however many years a man may have spent on the land in trying to solve this problem there is still a great deal for him to learn in connection with it. Surely if that is true of a man who has been all his life on the land, how much more true is it of those who have only looked upon the subject from a theoretical point of view? I am not now thinking of political difficulties in connection with the land; I am thinking of the object which I believe the House has in view, namely, the improvement of the land system of the country from the point of view of the community and the productivity of the land. I say that from the situation in Ireland you have a good deal to learn: and if you deliberately set yourselves to create a
  1530
  large number of small holdings, you will got rid of many of those who are the pioneers and guides, and you must in common fairness help the small holders by giving them assistance, not through State aid or anything of that kind, but by developing those institutions to which reference has been made to- night, especially in the speech of the hon. Member for Cardiff, who dealt with an aspect of this question in terms with which I agree, although I entirely disagree with the. rest of his speech. It is said that because we hold these views we are pessimistic, that we grumble and throw cold water on this scheme. We do nothing of the kind. We say the things we believe to be best, and we give reasons why the Government should proceed cautiously, and why they should not adopt the line laid down by the right hon. Gentleman, namely, that they will be extremely rigid in their consideration of Amendments. I do not quite know where the Government are bringing us to. We are getting a rather interesting development of our Parliamentary history. This is a Liberal Government, I believe; I am not quite sure about it; they generally call themselves a democratic Government; if there were time it would be rather interesting to ascertain what is meant by those two words. It is interesting that, under the control of a Liberal-Democratic-Progressive Government, we find two things. One is that the opportunities of the House to discuss openly and freely and without check, that is immoderate check, the provisions of a Bill are to be destroyed, because such provisions are no longer to be discussed in the House, but are to be discussed under conditions which are rather peculiar. Further than that, from the announcement of the right hon. Gentleman to-night, no Amendments are to be considered unless they are exactly in line with the views of the right hon. Gentleman himself" and of those who are responsible for the Bill.
  *MR. HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman will forgive my interrupting him. All I said was that the Amendments which I should favourably consider would be those for the strengthening and enlargement of the measure, not for its limitation.
  MR. WALTER LONG: Very well then, if that means that so long as the Amendment is likely to make the Bill more workable than it is at present—["No"]—Oh, it does not mean that? However, so long as it means that we may have opportunities of pressing on the Government what we regard as useful alternatives, practical alternatives, I do not find fault with the suggestion. But if that is the meaning, then I confess that I do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman introduced the remark into his speech, because we always understand that the Government stands by the main provisions of its Bill. I understand that if we can make alternative suggestions they will be considered by the Government, and in that respect I hope our opportunities will not be curtailed. My right lion, friend has laid stress upon two details of the Bill to which we objected—first, the system of tenancy instead of ownership; secondly, the interference of a central department. I will take the latter question first. It has been claimed that a precedent was furnished by a Bill passed by the Conservative Party which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends fought with all the energy they could command, and fought on this particular point. They fought the Bill on the ground that it interfered with the rights and powers of the local authority. But how far is this a precedent? What is the right hon. Gentleman proposing? He proposes to give extended powers to county councils, and then, in addition, to give the central department of the Board of Agriculture powers of control over the county councils. I should be the last man to say anything disrespectful of the Board of Agriculture. I have served six very happy years there myself and I have many friends there, and I happen to know how well they do their duty. I think those officials may be thoroughly trusted, although they may occasionally have erratic people at their head. I do not complain of the Department, because if the President of the Board of Agriculture is guilty of eccentric conduct we can bring him to book in the House; but the Government are appointing Commissioners, who will have very wide powers. They are to go about, not to inquire into alleged demands or to
  1532
  report on the existing condition of things, but, as an hon. Gentleman opposite said, to stimulate the desire for small holdings. They are to go to these men and say, "Would you like to have a small holding?" Surely that is not the business of a Government. It is a new departure altogether, and for the right hon. Gentleman to rest himself on the Food and Drugs Act is astounding. Under that Act the inspectors are appointed to perform a duty which the local authorities dislike because it involves them in the prosecution of friends and neighbours. But these Commissioners, if they choose, can put on the county council the duty, not merely of raising a loan, but also of carrying on this operation after it has been begun. The hon. Member for Cardiff says there is a marvellous combination of central and local administration because you would have central control and local initiative. That is just what you have not got. The initiative is left with the Commissioners, and the local authorities may be holding inquiries at the same time. There are two controls going on at the same time. The right hon. Gentleman justifies it because he says the late Government have done the same thing in the Food and Drugs Acts; but why does he come to us for help? Does he not recollect what took place last session on the Education Bill? Surely a precedent from his own side should weigh more with him. A great controversy arose on that Bill over the power of the local authority to deal with what were called Clause 4 schools. Cannot the Government be consistent for two sessions? Last session that Bill stated that the local authority might do certain things. They proposed that, Parliament having fixed the conditions, the local authority should be called upon to carry them out. But the present Chief Secretary for Ireland has expressed in forcible terms the difficulty which the most powerful Board of Education would have in dealing with a recalcitrant local authority. He said, and I commend his words to the First Commissioner of Works, that—
  "It would have brought us, I am certain, into conflict with the local authority, and I have already had grievous experience of the disad-

  1533
  vantages to even the Board of Education of coming into conflict with the local authorities."
  I have never been a member of the county council for my own county, but I venture to say that if in my own county of Wiltshire the county council decided not to create small holdings, and the Board of Agriculture attempted to force them to do what they were not prepared to do, there would be such interesting scenes as would make the position of the Minister a very disagreeable one. I will undertake to say that that would be the case while we are represented by hon. Gentlemen who sit on that side of the House. I am convinced that, whatever their politics, they would not support the Government of the day in any attempt to coerce the county council of their county. I believe that would be the case in regard to every county. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of a county having "seriously considered" the question. What authority is to decide whether a county council has or has not "seriously considered" the question of small holdings?
  *MR. HARCOURT: The President of the Board of Agriculture.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The right hon. Gentleman says it is the President of the Board of Agriculture. It may be so in his intention, but it is not stated in the Bill. According to the Bill the Commissioners are to go about the country to do certain work. They are not to go under the direction of the Board of Agriculture.
  *MR. HARCOURTindicated dissent.
  MR. WALTER LONG: Then are we to understand that in any inquiries they make they are not to go anywhere except under the express authority of the Board of Agriculture?
  *MR. HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman was speaking about the
  1534
  action to be taken eventually. Of course, it is their duty to inquire everywhere and discover what should be done, but action after these inquiries can only be taken under the authority of the Board of Agriculture.
  MR. WALTER LONG: This is a most important part of the question. What I was asking the right hon. Gentleman was whether these Commissioners are to be free. Nay more, is it not to be their duty when appointed to go about the country where they please making inquiries and making reports on schemes? Is this right or is it not? It appears to me to be clear that they will do this free from the authority of the central department. It is only when their inquiries are to be translated into action that the central authority will be called in. They are to be given a free hand to make their inquiries, to make their suggestions, and to draw up schemes. We are told that they have no right of action except with the consent of the head of the department. Upon what authority, information, or evidence is the head of the department going to check them and say that their reports are not to be considered and acted upon? What other opportunity has the head of the department of ascertaining what the view of the locality is? It seems to me that these Commissioners are either going to have real powers which may be very mischievous, or else they will hold a series of inquiries which will upset districts, annoy county councils, owners, and occupiers, and end in nothing. When county councils realise the effect of the Bill the position of those who are responsible for it will not be altogether pleasant. The rate I assume will be a county rate; it will not be levied over a portion of the county only, and it will be interesting for the constituents of Members opposite to consider whether they, dwelling in towns, should contribute towards the setting up upon a small holding of a milkman or ploughmen in a

  1535
  distant part of the county. The right hon. Gentleman has not given many reasons to justify his opposition to ownership. He gave two reasons, I admit. He said that people were in the habit of dying without making wills and that there was a difficulty in dealing with intestate estates, and another reason was that some people might fall into the hand of the moneylender and gombeen man. If these are the two most serious difficulties in dealing with ownership, I confess that I do not think they ought to stand in the way of our making a man the owner. These are not the objections. Everybody in the House who has been a party to our debates knows perfectly well what the objections of the Government are and why they dare not adopt the principle of ownership. The right hon. Gentleman is full of democratic ideas, but when he talks about mortgage difficulties and gives his views of ownership he cannot have forgotten those views upon which his Party founded their Irish legislation. The real reason is that the Government have a variety of parties to please. Of course it would not do for the Government to adopt a policy of purchase as long as they wished to keep on good terms with those who propose to put a special tax on ownership. It is easy to put a special tax on ownership so long as the owners like dukes and earls are in a minority. But when the dukes and earls have all been disposed of, and supplanted by small holders, what becomes of the schemes for differential taxation in favour of the occupier as against the owner? The real reason why the Government cannot adopt this policy of ownership is that they fear lest they should have at their throats that section of their supporters which refuses to admit any extension of the principle of individual ownership. This atrocious system of leasing ought not to have been extended to large holdings in a country like this where the amount of land is limited. The scheme of the
  1536
  Bill reserves to the local authority all the advantages in case of improvement, and leaves to the owner all the losses in case of deterioration of the holding. The Government are taking a disastrous step in abandoning the principle of ownership, and they will find that they are wrong. I think they will find, when they put the question to those who are to be the small holders of the future, "Do you wish to become small holders on the basis of ownership or occupation?" in 90 per cent. of the cases the reply will be in favour of ownership.
  MR. MASTERMANsaid that was against all the evidence before the Committee in regard to small holdings.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I do not at all agree with the hon. Gentleman. But supposing I am wrong, although the question was put before the people in the county of Rutland and there was no conversion there to the principle of hiring and leasing instead of ownership. If this Bill results, as hon. Gentlemen opposite hope, in effecting a radical change in the land system of the country, in generally altering the conditions under which land is held and occupied, then I ask the Government to pause and consider whether they really believe that a man would prefer to be a tenant under a local authority, to whom he cannot appeal, as tenants appeal to their landlords, for guidance and help in difficult times, rather than the owner of his own holding, getting out of it everything he puts into it to-day and to-morrow. It is really idle to argue it. If we are going to set up small holdings and extend them in a way that is really going to benefit the community, we ought to rest on ownership and not on occupation. We do not claim, either on the part of the landowner or of the large farmer, that they enjoy Divine rights of which they ought not to be deprived. But, at all events,

  1537
  credit ought to be given for the part they have played hitherto, and they ought to be treated fairly in any change that is made. I and my friends say that the Government will be rash and foolish in the extreme if they break down the existing system which has existed for centuries without being satisfied that the one they are going to put in its place is likely to be more successful to those immediately concerned and more beneficial to the community at large.
  THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY, Somersetshire, S.): It is difficult to know what is the real position of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. The right hon. Gentleman said that he-approves of the creation of small holdings, but he does not think this Bill would be of any advantage in increasing small holdings. Then the right hon. Gentle-man stated that this scheme was not more likely to succeed than any other scheme. But the great difference between the present Bill and other schemes, such as the Acts of 1874 and 1892, is that it is compulsory, and not permissive. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill would not improve the cultivation of the land, that where large holdings have been a failure small holdings would not be a success. There are, however, cases in which large holdings have failed and small holdings have succeeded. The Government have experience on this matter. A big farm in the hands of the Crown for two years was a dead loss to the Crown, but was let at a profit immediately when cut up into small holdings. The Woods and Forests split up the farm, or rather the gentleman to whom they let it did, into small holdings which enabled him to pay a rent of£700 a year, and also interest on equipping the small holdings. That shows that large farms can be split up with success. And the experience was that the small holdings were farmed just
  1538
  as well as the large holding. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon seemed to think that the creation of small holdings would result in the creation of a great number of bad farmers; but I believe if you compare the one class with the other you will find the small holders are quite as good farmers as the large. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the way in which we were likely to go to ruin in this matter. But what this Bill is going to do is to put right the mistakes of the fifties and sixties and seventies. Great mistakes were made in the West of England and other parts by farms being added to farms until the holdings became an unreasonable size. This Bill is to remedy those mistakes and to increase the number of small holdings. One hon. Member said it could be done by the landlords themselves, and that if they did not do it they had good reason for it. The fact is the landlords have not the money to spend on the equipment of small holdings. and where they have it tenants for life only do not like to take the possible risk. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the impropriety and indignity of coercing the county councils into dealing with this question, and he repudiated the idea that there was any precedent for such a thing in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act. There is a precedent not only in that Act, but also in the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I did not say there was no precedent. I have been at the Board of Agriculture and have had to take action.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Then we are in agreement that the county councils are liable to be coerced if they do not carry out those duties which Parliament decides they ought to undertake If the right hon. Gentleman had spent as much time as I have on local bodies, he would know perfectly well that these

  1539
  local authorities are constantly being called to account by the central authority. There is not the slightest idea of insulting the county councils by calling them to account. I feel sure they will work amicably with the Board of Agriculture in this matter, and there is not the slightest reason to suppose that if the county council, having gone into the question of whether allotments were wanted, and having made reasonable inquiries, represented to the Board of Agriculture that they were not wanted, the Board would override them. The Board would most likely make experiments in these cases, but those experiments would be made, not at the expense of the rates, but at the expense of the fund placed at the disposal of the Board. Then I would remind the House that there is to be a public inquiry at which the county council has a right to be heard, and their objections considered by the Board. These Commissioners will be civil servants, and therefore responsible to the Board of Agriculture and the Board to this House. Hence it is impossible for any injustice to be done to the county councils in the matter. Then there is the fear expressed by hon. Members opposite that, there might be a great increase in the rates in consequence of the schemes of the Commissioners. I am certain that no county council will adopt a reckless scheme calculated to increase the rates, and I am sure the Board of Agriculture will not force such a scheme upon an unwilling council. Then there is the question of ownership. The right hon. Member for the Bordesley Division talks of this question as if the Act of 1892 did not exist. That Act will still exist. It is not repealed by this Bill, and if the small holder prefers to become an owner instead of being a tenant of the county council he will have the opportunity of becoming so. The thing which the right hon. Gentleman seems to object to is that this Bill gives alternatives to the Act of 1892 if it
  1540
  becomes law, which it will as far as this House is concerned. It is a mistake, therefore, to say that this Bill only given an opportunity to a man to become a tenant, because whilst it gives these alternatives it takes nothing away from the existing Act. With regard to the question put forward by the hon. Member for Denbighshire, who said the valuation should come first, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that a valuation Bill will come. As regards our own Bill, it is so drafted that when it does come these provisions can be easily applied. The hon. Gentleman complained that this Bill did not meet the wants of Wales. That is simply because in Wales there are so many small holders that this Bill is not required as it is in England. It does not. profess to be a Land Tenure Bill, but a Bill to provide land for landless men. The reason the Bill does not do much for Wales is because Wales has so many small holdings. But if there is a demand in Wales for small holdings this Bill will, as in England, satisfy the demand. It is impossible for me to reply further owing to the short time left me by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin therefore I will end by saying that this Bill will be fair and just, I believe, to the ratepayers and the farmers who have to give up land.
  Motion made, and Question "That the debate be now adjourned"—(Mr. George. Roberts) —put, and agreed to.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.
  [NEW WRIT.]
  New Writ for the County of Monaghan (North Monaghan), in the room of Patrick O'Hare, esquire (Manor of Northstead) —(Mr. Patrick O'Brien.)
  Adjourned at five minutes after-Eleven o'clock