Commons Sitting of 27 February 1908

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

ASSASSINATION OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL AND OF THE DUKE OF BRAGANZA.
Mr. SPEAKER acquainted the House that he had received a letter from the Marquis Soveral, which he read to the House as followeth:—
Portuguese Legation,
February, 26th, 1908.
Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that I am directed by His Faithful Majesty's Government to convey to the Members of the House of Commons the sincere appreciation and thanks of my Government for the kind and sympathetic expressions of condolence passed by them on the lamentable occasion of the death of my August Sovereign, His late Majesty the King of Portugal and the Algarves, K.G., and His Royal Highness the late Crown Prince of Portugal, K.G.
I have the honour to request that you will be so good as to bring these expressions of sincere appreciation of my Government before the House of Commons.
I have the honour to be,
with the highest consideration,
Sir,
Your most obedient,
humble Servant,
SOVERAL.
The Right Hon.
The Speaker,
Etc., etc., etc.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Madras Railway Company (Purchase) Bill.—Reported, with Amendments [Title amended]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Private Bills (Standing Order 62 complied with)—
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, Standing Order 62 has been complied with, viz.:— North-East London Railway Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
Private Bill Petitions (Standing Orders not complied with).—
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the Petition for the following Bill, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—Camborne Water.
Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
Private Bills [Lords] (Petition for additional Provision) (Standing Orders not complied with).—
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, viz.:—London

19
County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill [Lords].
Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

PETITIONS.
  LICENSED PREMISES (EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN).
  Petitions for legislation; From Blaydon (two); Dover; Hale End; Idle; Leyton; Leytonstone; London; Tonbridge; Walthamstow; and Woodford; to lie upon the Table.
  MORAY FIRTH (ILLEGAL TRAWLING.)
  Two Petitions from Rosehearty, for prevention; to lie upon the Table.
  PAROCHIAL MEDICAL OFFICERS (SCOTLAND).
  Petition of the Scottish Poor Law Medical Officers' Association, for legislation; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour; From Addiscombe; Bakewell; Balham (six); Billinghurst; Blackfriars Road; Blackpool (seventeen); Bow Road; Brighton; Brixton; Burnley; Camberley; Coventry; Dawley; Hants and Isle of Wight; Harrow; Leytonstone; Lower Tooting (two); Metal Bridge; Morecambe; National Unitarian Temperance Association; Poplar (two); Scunthorpe; Staveley; Upper Tooting (three); Wigton; and Worthing; to lie upon the Table.
  WOMEN'S ENFRANCHISEMENT BILL.
  Petitions in favour; From Bristol (three); Heaton Mersey; Manchester; Preston; West Gorton; and Withington and Didsbury; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) (CODE 1908).
  Copy presented, of Code of Regulations for Day Schools, 1908, with Appendices [by Command); to lie upon the Table.

  TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANK.
  Copy presented, of Sixteenth Annual Report of the Proceedings of the Inspec-
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  tion Committee for the year ended 20th November, 1907, with Appendices [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 76.]

  NATIONAL GALLERY (REPORT).
  Copy ordered, "of Report of the Director of the National Gallery for the year 1907, with Appendices." — (Mr. Runciman.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Home Office Factory Inspection Staff.
  MR. H. J. TENNANT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to make any increase in the staff of the Factory Department, either of His Majesty's inspectors, of His Majesty's women inspectors, or of His Majesty's inspectors' assistants; if increases are contemplated in any of these branches of his Department; and whether the general staff of the Home Office will be strengthened.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) During the autumn I made careful inquiry into the work of the Factory Department, and came to the conclusion that a strong case was made out for strengthening considerably both the organisation and the inspecting staff of the Department. A scheme was accordingly prepared and submitted to the Treasury which, subject to a few modifications, has now received their assent. I cannot, within the limits of this Answer, enter into the details of the scheme, but it involves the following very substantial additions to the headquarters and general inspecting staff during the next financial year: the headquarters staff will be strengthened by the addition of a second deputy chief inspector and a second medical inspector; the general inspecting staff by a superintending inspector, sixteen inspectors, eleven inspectors' assistants, and five lady inspectors. Further provision is also made for clerical assistance, both at headquarters and in certain districts where the clerical work is heavy. At the same time I have had under consideration the industrial work of the Home Office proper, and decided that, in view of its great growth,

  21
  the branch of the office which deals with this work should, as soon as possible, be relieved of the other important duties which are now assigned to it, and should devote itself exclusively to administration of industrial law and the study of industrial questions. The Treasury have agreed to an addition to the staff to enable this to be done.

  Fatal Accidents in Scottish Mines.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will furnish a Return of the fatal accidents in mines in Scotland; and what cases of gallantry in the rescue or attempted rescue at personal risk of life have been reported to him since 1st December last.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) These figures are given annually in Part I. of the Mines Annual General Report and Statistics, published by ray Department. In the year 1907, there were 192 fatal accidents in mines in Scotland, resulting in 199 deaths. As regards the second part of the Question, one Scottish case about which the hon. Member has communicated with me, has been brought to my notice since the 1st December last.

  Local Authorities and the Infant Life Protection Act.
  MR. GULLAND: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say how many local authorities in England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, have appointed special inspectors under The Infant Life Protection Act, 1897, and how many have not; how many cases have been registered in each year since the passing of the Act; and, if he cannot at once give this information, whether he will grant a Return.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I have not got this information, but I shall be glad to obtain it and give it as a Return. I will communicate with my hon. friend as to the form the Return should take.

  Temporary Clerks in Belfast Post Office.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General, whether he is aware that for several months past six tem-
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  porary sorting clerks have been employed on full-time duties at the Belfast Office; and when he proposes to have their places, filled by established officers.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) This matter had already been receiving my attention, and I hope that it will be practicable at no distant date to dispense with the temporary force now employed at Belfast. A revision of the force of the Belfast post office is now under consideration and care will be taken, in accordance with the usual practice, to provide for the performance of the duties, as far as possible, by established efficers.

  Depletion of East Bay, Dungeness, of Lug-worms.
  MR. LAURENCE HARDY: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that the French have recently taken large quantities of lugworm, dug from the East Bay, Dungeness, and that arrangements are being made for the exportation of 5,000 lug-worm a a day; whether he is aware that the fishing in Dungeness Bay depends largely on the plentiful supply of lug-worm, which attract the fish and provide ample supplies of bait for the local fishermen; and whether in view of the fact that so large an export will soon exhaust the supply, he will take some measures to check a proceeding so detrimental to the fishing industry.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) We have not received any complaints from local fishermen as to the practices mentioned by the hon. Member, but inquiry will be made into the matter in order to ascertain whether any action can be taken in the interest of the fishing industry.

  Pay of Royal Engineers and the Ordnance Survey Vote.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if it is intended to charge the regimental pay of the companies of Royal Engineers on the Ordnance Survey against the Ordnance Survey Vote; what additional expense will this entail against the Ordnance

  23
  Survey Vote; and if the companies of Royal Engineers employed on the Ordnance Survey could be returned to their military duties, and thereby retain the service of civilians who are being discharged on reduction of establishment.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) It has been decided to defray the regimental pay, &c, of the three companies of Royal Engineers, except for the periods during which they undergo military training, from the Ordnance Survey Vote; and to give effect to this decision a sum of £20,000 has been transferred from the War Office to the Ordnance Survey Estimate for the next financial year. Any alteration in the organisation of the Ordnance Survey in the direction indicated in the concluding paragraph of the Question would be detrimental to the best interests of the Survey and of the public service, and cannot therefore be entertained.

  Wheat Prices.
  MR. FELL: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if the price of 32 s 11 d. per quarter, being the average price of wheat imported into London in 1907, includes landing charges and port dues; and, if not, what is the approximate amount of those charges per quarter.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The p ice quoted does not include charges of the nature referred to. I understand that in the case of wheat in bulk the charge for working out, weighing, and delivering overside into barges amounts to 1s. 9d per ton. The rates for landing, re-weighing, delivery, &c, vary so much, according to place and circumstances of discharge and the period which elapses between the final discharge of parcel and actual delivery, that I cannot give an average figure. The ton may be taken as equivalent to four and two-third quarters.

  Inspection of Weights and Measures
  MR. R. S. STRAUS: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he would state, in reference to Regulation 9 of the Board of Trade Weights and Measures Regulations, 1907, as to how many boroughs and county councils permission has been
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  granted by the Board of Trade to extend the period of inspection from one to two years, either generally or with respect to some part of their area; and whether, in view of the necessity of protecting the interests of the poorer classes of the community, he will consider the advisability, if boroughs are undertaking annual inspection, of refusing to grant any relaxation to county councils in regard to general traders short of annual inspection in so far as towns having a population of 10,000 and upwards are concerned.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) Permission has been granted to thirty-one county councils and to ten town councils to extend in certain cases the period for inspection prescribed by the Weights and Measures Regulations. I quite agree with my hon. friend that an extension of the period of inspection is probably less likely to be required in towns than in country districts, and, while I am not prepared to apply any rigid numerical tests in such cases, I may say that a distinction between urban and rural parts of a county has in certain instances already been made.

  Ambulance Certificates for Scottish Master Mariners and Mates.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if it is contemplated that the St. John Ambulance Association will continue to issue certificates of proficiency in first aid to Scottish candidates for examination as masters and mates at the conclusion of the present course.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The issue by the St. John Ambulance Association of certificates of proficiency in first aid to candidates for examination in Scotland for certificates as master or mate is not contemplated.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the present number of recognised lecturers under the St. Andrew Association in Scotland; and if their services are available at any ports besides Glasgow, Dundee, Leith, and Aberdeen.
  (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) I am not aware what is the present number of recognised lecturers under the St. Andrew Ambulance Association in

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  Scotland. The ports in Scotland at which candidates for certificates as master or mate can be instructed in first aid are those mentioned in the Question.

  The Walker Trustees and Knighthood Fees.
  SIR WILLIAM BULL: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the demand of the Walker Trustees of Edinburgh for a fee of £3 6s 8d from all knights bachelor of the United Kingdom; and, having regard to the fact that all fees for knighthood were abolished in 1902, will he state what steps he proposes to take, if any.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I am aware that the Walker Trustees, as representing the Heritable Usher of Scotland, have applied for the fees in question to those who have received the honour of knighthood; but the Treasury have been advised that the right of the trustees to such fees is confined to the cases of knighthoods conferred upon Scotsmen or upon Englishmen in Scotland.

  Borough Councils and Registration of Births Act.
  MR. REMNANT: To ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether, in reference to The Registration of Births Act, 1907, he is aware that many metropolitan borough councils have passed resolutions adopting the Act, but have not yet obtained the approval of the Local Government Board to their putting the Act in force; and whether he can state how soon this approval will be given, so that the benefits of the Act may be obtained.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) Some questions affecting the administration of the Act generally have had to be considered in connection with these resolutions. The cases will now shortly all be disposed of.
  SIR W. J. COLLINS: To ask the President of the Local Government Board, how many of the local authorities to whom The Notification of Births Act, 1907, is applicable have adopted that Act in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, respectively; and whether the Local Government Board
  26
  has in any case taken action under Clause 3 of the Act, by putting it in force although it has not been adopted by the local authority.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) In England and Wales, with which only I am concerned in this matter, 113 local authorities have adopted the Act. The Answer to the second part of the Question is in the negative.

  Education Authorities and the Provision of Meals.
  SIR W. J. COLLINS: To ask the President of the Board of Education, how many local education authorities have taken action under Clause 1 of The Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, by aiding school canteen committees and, under Clause 3 of the same Act, by defraying the cost of food out of the rates, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I must refer my honourable friend to the Answer given to a similar Question on the 25th instant, of which I will send him a copy.

  Labourers' Plots at Rathdrum and Registration of Title Act.
  MR. MULDOON: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the loss caused to the ratepayers of the Rathdrum Rural District by reason of the omission of the former solicitor to the council to register the plots of land acquired under the Labourers Acts under the Local Registration of Title Act; and whether he will favourably consider a provision being made in the forthcoming Land Bill to remedy the defect.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The matter referred to in the Question is at present the subject of legal proceedings between the council and their former solicitor, and the case is to be heard at the Wicklow Assizes on the 29th instant. While these proceedings are pending it does not seem desirable to consider the question of amending the Law as suggested.

  Horses and Cars for Inspectors of Irish Schools.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether

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  senior district inspectors of national schools in Ireland are allowed to use their own horses and cars when on official duty, and are paid a reasonable mileage rate therefore; whether junior inspectors, who do practically the same kind of work, have been refused the privilege; and, if so, will he explain the reason for this difference in treatment, especially as the Treasury loses thereby, hired horses and cars generally costing more than the mileage allowed to senior and district inspectors when using their own vehicles.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that both senior and junior inspectors of national schools are allowed to use their own horses and cars when travelling on official business, provided that the circumstances of the locality in which they are employed are such as to render this course desirable in the interests of efficient discharge of duty and economy in expenditure, the mileage rate sanctioned by the Treasury being allowed in such cases. Three members of the inspection staff, of whom one is a junior inspector, are at present authorised to use their own horses and cars.

  Irish National School Inspectors.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that there are at least three grades of inspectors of national schools; whether the senior inspectors have any jurisdiction over the district inspectors, and, if so, what is the exact date on which it was first conferred, and the precise terms of the regulation referring to the matter; and whether the district inspectors have any jurisdiction over the junior inspectors, and, if so, what is the exact date on which it was first conferred, and the precise terms of the regulation referring to the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that their inspection staff consists of two chief inspectors, twenty-two senior inspectors, thirty-five district inspectors, seventeen junior inspectors, together with three inspectors of special branches. The chief inspectors have the general direction of the work of the other inspectors. Each senior inspector is responsible for the work of the inspection circuit in his
  28
  charge, and is bound to report neglect of duty, &c., on the part of district or junior inspectors working in his circuit. He can also call on his colleagues in the circuit to assist him in the inspection of certain schools in his particular charge, and in cases of urgency he may instruct one of the other inspectors of the circuit to perform work in a different section of the circuit from his own. The senior inspector is generally responsible for the sufficiency of the work performed by his colleagues in the circuit. There are two sections in each circuit, and the section inspector may be either a district inspector or a junior inspector. A section inspector is primarily and especially responsible for the work of his own section. Should a junior inspector be employed temporarily in assisting a section inspector, he must arrange his duties with the section inspector's concurrence, but there is no general jurisdiction exercised by the district inspectors over junior inspectors. The present arrangement of duties of senior, district, and junior inspectors was made in January 1907.

  Alleged Threats to Tenants on Lord Shaftesbury's Carrickfergus Estate.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware of the action of the Estates Commissioners in regard to certain judicial agricultural tenants on Lord Shaftesbury's Carrickfergus estate in issuing letters threatening that unless they purchased at a reduction of 15 per cent, on second-term rents, or with the bonus over 29¼ years' purchase, they would be excluded from the sales; that a first-term tenant called M'Kaig was also threatened unless he purchased at a reduction of 15 per cent; will he inquire whether the inspector recommended M'Kaig should pay the said price as well as the second-term tenants, and, if not, what did he recommend; is he aware that these tenants petitioned the Estates Commissioners early in January last protesting against the said action and asking for a definite time to consider their threat of exclusion, but that no answer has been received; will he state if this procedure was subscribed to by the three Commissioners unanimously, and, if so, what steps will be taken to remedy their administrative action, having regard to

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  the financial situation involved in the working of the 1903 Land Act; if he will state when the purchase moneys are to be advanced on this estate, also the total number of tenants in the Green-island and Woodburn districts, and of those how many are judicial agricultural and how many lease holders, and what number of each class have signed agreements to purchase and what number have not; if the Commissioners are facilitating the landlord in every way by proposing to grant the bonus on the minority of holdings in the Greenisland and Woodburn separate estate, while the majority of the tenants on this separate estate are being threatened with exclusion unless they pay the price named for holdings; if he is aware that the Greenisland tenants are higher rented than in the other districts where the tenants have purchased; and will he take steps to see that in future the interest of the tenants and the general taxpayers are safeguarded by having the bonus withheld where such indirect pressure is brought to bear on tenants to pay extreme prices.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have not issued any threatening letter in this matter, as suggested. They have informed the solicitors acting for the tenants, who have refused to purchase their holdings at the reduction of 15 per cent. agreed to by other judicial tenants on the estate, that they will not stop the sale of the rest of the estate, containing approximately sixty tenants, all of whom have signed purchase agreements, and whose holdings are either within the zones or afford security for the prices which the Commissioners propose to sanction. It would be contrary to practice to disclose the contents of inspector' reports, which are confidential documents. The Commissioners did, in January last, receive a letter from the solicitors for the tenants who had not agreed to purchase, asking, inter alia, for time for consideration. The solicitors were informed in reply that at any time these tenants came to terms with the vendor the Commissioners were prepared to declare the lands comprised in their holdings an estate. The conclusions communicated to the solicitors were those of the Commissioners, and were arrived at
  30
  with due regard to the provisions of the Act. The purchase money of the holdings agreed to be purchased will be advanced as soon as the owner's title has been proved. The Commissioners are not able to identify the exact portion of the estate described in the Question as the Greenisland and Woodburn districts, but the tenants who have agreed to purchase form the large majority of the total number on this particular property which is known as the Carrickfergus property. The Commissioners are not aware whether or not the tenants referred to as the Greenisland tenants are more highly rented than the tenants in other districts. The Commissioners fully considered the entire matter before coming to a determination. No presure has been brought to bear by the Commissioners on the tenants. The Commissioners are prepared to deal with the matter at any time should the outstanding tenants agree with the owner on the terms of purchase.

  Excess of Births over Deaths in Ireland.
  MR. DUNDAS WHITE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can state what was the estimated excess of births over deaths in Ireland during the year 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry). The excess of births over deaths registered in Ireland during the year 1907 was 24,153. The figures, however, have not been finally revised.

  Poor Law Relief in Ireland.
  MR. HUGH LAW: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he will state the total amount expended in Poor Law relief in Ireland, and also the amounts expended respectively upon actual relief of distress in and out of workhouses, and upon the salaries and emoluments of officials.
  (Answered by Mr. Cherry.) The following table gives the poor relief expenditure for twelve months ending 30th September, 1906, the latest period for

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  which information is published, the main heads of expenditure being given:—

  £

  Cost of indoor relief District schools:—

  456,474

  Cost of maintenance

  7,918

  Boarded-out children:—

  Cost of maintenance

  16,600

  Cost of outdoor relief

  198,337

  Salaries and rations of officers, amount of

  204,307

  Institutions for the blind, etc., and external hospitals:—

  Cost of maintenance of persons sent thereto by the guardians

  21,175

  Medicines, etc., in workhouses:—

  Cost

  10,861

  Other expenses

  125,948

  Total poor relief expenditure

  £1,041,620

  Slings of New Lee Enfield Rifles.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that in the new converted long Lee-Enfield rifle there are no swivel-lugs in front of the magazine, and that consequently the sling cannot be used as an assistance to the firer; and whether, in view of the fact that the use of the sling improves the shooting of almost all users of the rifle, he will give directions that, in the case of all future conversions, the guard-screw in front of the magazine shall either carry a swivel or shall be interchangeable with the swivel-screw on the toe of the butt.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Placing a swivel-lug immediately in front of the magazine when converting the long Lee-Enfield rifle was carefully considered. The conclusion come to was that there was not sufficient advantage to be derived from so doing.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Naval Ratings.
    MR. C. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty when are the new ratings of warrant shipwright, warrant rigger, warrant cox-
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    swain, warrant armourer, warrant steward, warrant writer, warrant cook, etc., to be added to the Navy List of Officers in His Majesty's Fleet.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): The question of extending warrant rank to certain classes of naval ratings is engaging the attention of the Board of Admiralty, but as a decision has not been arrived at, I am not in a position to make any announcement on the subject.

    Naval Mechanicians and Boy Artificers.
    MR. C. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will consider the advisability of the abolition of training establishments for mechanician and boy artificers with a view to providing a source of economy for future Naval Estimates.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I answered a similar Question yesterday in regard to mechanicians, and the same answer applies also to boy artificers.
    MR. BELLAIRS: As this new system is very costly, whereas the one it superseded cost nothing will the right hon. Gentleman give the House an estimate of the cost?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I said yesterday it was not possible to disengage the cost of this from other naval services.

    Royal Naval Reserve Engine Room Artificers.
    MR. C. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many of the Royal Naval Reserve engine-room artificers now enrolled in the Fleet hold Board of Trade certificates as engineers; what position will these men occupy when called upon to serve with the new rating of mechanician; and is it proposed to refuse the services of volunteers who possess this qualification.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The answer to the first Question is sixty-five. In answer to the second Question, these men will occupy the same position as engine-room artificers. The reply to the last Question is in the negative.

    Greenwich Hospital Pensions.
    MR. RIDSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether one of the attractions held out to Mr. S. H. Andrews, a naval pensioner, to re-engage when he did in 1872, was that, in addition to a time-expired pension, he would obtain a Greenwich Hospital pension of 5d a day on attaining the age of fifty-five; whether such pension became due on 8th July, 1899, and has since been withheld; and whether, if the facts are as stated, he will have the grievance remedied.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The age pension can in no circumstances be claimed as a right, and awards must always be limited by the amount of the funds available. Mr. Andrews became eligible in July, 1899, and since then his application has been, and will be, considered with those of other applicants.

    Cost of Coal for the Navy.
    MR. ALDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the amount of coal used by the Navy and its cost per ton on the average in 1906, as compared with the amount used and the cost per ton last year; what is the total additional cost incurred as a result of the rise in the price of coal; and whether the Government have given any consideration to the question of purchasing its own coal mines, with a view to obviating so large an increase in the coal bill of the Navy.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: It has never been the practice, and it is not considered desirable, to publish quantities and prices. The additional cost of coal in 1907 as compared with 1906 was £200,000. The question mentioned in the third paragraph was exhaustively considered in 1901, when the difficulties were found to be insuperable.

    Coastguard Duties.
    MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, in cases where coastguards are to be abolished, if he can state what arrange-
    34
    ments are to be made by the Government as to attendance upon the telegraphic and telephonic communications established for life-saving purposes, the erosion of the foreshores, notice as to vessels in distress or wrecks of same, and all such duties as are now performed by coastguards.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I propose to make a statement on this subject when introducing the Navy Estimates.

    Duke of York's School.
    MR. HART-DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether there be any profit on the removal of the Duke of York's school from Chelsea to Dover; if so, what will be done with the funds so acquired; and whether it is proposed to reduce the number of boys in the school on its removal to Dover.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): The first part of the Question cannot be answered until the disposal of the site has been settled. It is proposed to reduce the number of boys from 550 to 480 in view of the establishment of the Queen Victoria School in Scotland.

    Commissions of the Line.
    MR. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is intended in the future to grant commissions in the Line to officers of the Special Reserve and for the Territorial Army, after competitive examination, in a similar manner to those now existing in connection with the Militia and Imperial Yeomanry.
    MR. HALDANE: With regard to officers of the Special Reserve, the answer is in the affirmative. Whether the same privilege can be extended to officers of the Territorial Force is still under consideration.

    Shannon Bridge Barracks.
    MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the cost to the

    35
    Government in rent and maintenance of the grounds and disused military barracks at Shannon Bridge; how long it is since this barrack was in the occupation of the military; and whether, seeing that most of the barracks along the Shannon have been either surrendered to the landlord or sold, he will consider the advisability of acting similarly with regard to these buildings.
    MR. HALDANE: The site of the barracks which have been occupied by the Royal Irish Constabulary since 1884 is subject to a rent of £9 4s 7½d. per annum. The rent and the cost of maintenance are paid by the Irish Government. The tenure of the barracks by the Royal Irish Constabulary is subject to the condition of re-occupation by the troops if necessary. In the circumstances it is not proposed to surrender or sell the barracks.

    Army Horses.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has any information of the number of horses fit for cavalry work in the United Kingdom, and how does the number of such animals compare with the needs of the Army; and whether any steps are contemplated for encouraging the breeding of horses suitable for the requirements of the Army in Ireland and in other parts of the United Kingdom.
    MR. HALDANE: Without a proper census it is impossible to give exact figures, but from information obtained it may be taken that approximately there are 150,000 riding horses in the United Kingdom. The total number, in addition to existing establishments, of riding horses required to mobilise the expeditionary force and Territorial Force is 59,796 of which 30,770 are required for cavalry alone. As regards the last part of the Question, the question is being fully considered by the Board of Agriculture in concert with the War Office.

    Army Cyclists.
    MR. PARTINGTON: I beg to ask the Seecretary of State for War what is the organization
    36
    proposed for cyclists in the Territorial Army, and if it is proposed to form battalions; how many are to be formed, and what will be their establishment; and what establishment of cyclists the infantry which have cyclist companies-or sections at present will be allowed to retain.
    MR. HALDANE: The General Staff, who attach great importance to having cyclists in the Territorial Force, are of opinion that greater efficiency can be obtained with cyclists when organised and trained as battalions, and not as heretofore in companies or sections-forming part of infantry battalions. Cyclists will therefore be organised in battalions of 8 companies with a headquarter and machine-gun section. There will be 10 cyclists battalions, with an establishment of 22 officers and 532 other ranks, which includes a medical officer and 4 Territorial Medical Corps men. No cyclist companies or sections will be allowed to be retained in the Territorial infantry battalion.

    South African Garrison.
    MR. GODFREY BARING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the four battalions to be withdrawn from South Africa will, on their return, be supernumerary to the expeditionary force as laid down in 1906.
    MR. HALDANE: When the four infantry battalions are withdrawn from South Africa one of them will be utilised to complete the expeditionary force. This will leave three battalions available to increase the infantry allotted to lines of communication for which two battalions-only at present are detailed.

    Punjab Agriculture.
    SIR GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what is the area which has been brought under cultivation during the last ten years in the Punjab by means of irrigation; how many people have settled on this land, and what is the proportion of military pensioners amongst them; what is the

    37
    revenue per cent, on the capital outlay; and what room is there for further similar reclamation of waste land in the Punjab.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY,): In the Irrigation Colonies of the Punjab, to which I presume the Question refers, nearly 2,000,000 acres of waste have been brought under cultivation and irrigation during the last ten years. The population of these colonies now approaches 1,000,000 persons. I am unable to give the proportion of military pensioners. The largest of these reclaimed districts, that of the Chenab Canal, gives a return of over 20 per cent. The others are less profitable. In the Punjab as a whole State-owned irrigation works give a return of nearly 11 per cent. The Irrigation Commission have estimated that, within the next twenty years, 2,600,000 more acres of waste in the Punjab may be reclaimed by canals.

    Emigration from India.
    SIR GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what is the number of people who emigrate from India annually, and how many of them are Mahomedans; what are the countries they chiefly go to; and is the field for emigration at the present time inconveniently restricted.
    MR. MORLEY: Statistics are available only in respect of emigration under contract, which is regulated by the Indian Emigration Act: under this heading the number of emigrants in each of the last two years has been about 21,000. I cannot say what proportion were Mahomedans. The countries receiving most emigrants in recent years have been Natal and Demerara, which have averaged about 4,000 each. The field for emigration under contract to labour is restricted by the Government of India in the interests of the labourers; no restriction, so far as the Government of India, are concerned, is put upon other emigration, and I am not aware of the existence of inconvenience of the kind suggested in the Question.

    Indian Whipping Act.
    SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is now in a position to give any indication of the character or tendency of the Bill for the Amendment of the Whipping Act in India which is under consideration.
    MR. MORLEY: Until the Bill has been introduced, which will be very shortly, I am unable to make any statement.

    Bengal Police Applicants.
    SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the notification in the Eastern Bengal and Assam Gazette of 22nd January, in which Lieutenant D. Cameron, 7th Rajputs, and Lieutenant W. H. Hodgson, 119th Infantry, are appointed to the first grade of assistant superintendents of police; whether during the past forty years and more, no military officer has been appointed to the Bengal police; what are the reasons for this suspension of the ordinary rules of recruitment for the higher ranks of the Indian police service; and whether the regulations providing that vacancies are to be filled up by competition in England and India are no longer in force in Eastern Bengal and Assam.
    MR. MORLEY: In October last, I sanctioned the appointment of three military officers to the Police of Eastern Bengal and Assam, the reason for this exceptional measure being the disturbed condition of the country and the necessity for bringing the Police Establishment at once up to its full strength. The ordinary methods of recruitment remain nevertheless in force for Eastern Bengal and Assam, as well as for other parts of India.

    Handcuffing of Indian Political Prisoners.
    SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has issued orders prohibiting the practice of handcuffing political prisoners in India while under trial; and whether he will take into consideration the further

    39
    question of the treatment of political prisoners after conviction, and direct that they should not be classed with felons and criminals, but treated as misdemeanants.
    MR. MORLEY:I have asked the Government of India to give instructions that prisoners under trial should not be handcuffed unless there is a reasonable expectation that they will use violence, or that an attempt will be made to rescue them. I will consider the question of treatment after conviction; but, as the hon. Member is aware, the only distinction known to Indian law is that between simple and rigorous imprisonment.

    The Zakka Khel.
    MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India in any way had an agreement with the Zakka Khel, giving subsidies to sustain a certain fighting force in the form of militia on the frontier, or for any other purpose; and, if so, what was the annual amount of such subsidies, through whom paid, and whether the last payment was made in full.
    MR. MORLEY: subsidy of £1,360 per annum was granted in 1898 to the Zakka Khel, but not in consideration of any military service. The subsidy is paid direct to the tribe. In June, 1907, in view of the large amount of unpaid fines for past outrages outstanding against the tribe, it was decided to withhold the subsidy.
    MR. O'GRADY: Am I to understand that the subsidy was not paid in full, and that, the tribe taking the matter into their own hands, made forays, and that that was the real cause of this frontier war?
    MR. MORLEY: My hon. friend, if I may say so with perfect courtesy, is wholly mistaken. There is no connection whatever between the subsidy and the frontier war.

    Bombay Riots.
    MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the riot that occurred between two rival sects of Mahomedans at Bombay; whether he can state the actual number of police injured, the number of rioters killed and injured, and the number of non-rioters killed and injured; by whose authority did European officers unconnected with the police fire on the rioters; and whether any steps were taken to safeguard ordinary pedestrians from the effects of firing by police and European officers.
    MR. MORLEY: I have no knowledge of any rioting at Lucknow. I presume the hon. Member had in mind the rioting reported from Bombay on 13th February. Eight police were wounded, three very seriously, while five rioters were killed and five are known to have been wounded. One non-rioter looking on from a house was killed by a stray bullet. No European officer unconnected with the police was present. The police officers who used revolvers did so by order of the Commissioner of Police. As for safeguarding ordinary pedestrians, I hardly see how it is to be expected in the confusion of an angry riot.

    Mr. Churchill's African Tour.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, if the Reports on his recent visit to African Colonies will be laid upon the Table.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): Sir, I have submitted to the Secretary of State a series of reports and communications upon various public matters with which I had an opportunity of becoming personally acquainted in Malta, Cyprus, Northern Somaliland, British East Africa, and Uganda. These reports must be regarded as confidential minutes for the information of my noble friend and certainly could not be published in any form.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: May I ask, if we are not to have the benefit of these reports in any shape or form, and whether the official reports are those which are now appearing in the Strand Magazine?
    MR. CHURCHILL: The reports which I have furnished are regarded as confidential, and will not be published in any form.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I shall raise this question again.

    Disturbances in British East Africa.
    SIR GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, how many of the natives of British East Africa were killed or wounded in the late disturbances; and were there any casualties amongst the King's African Rifles, who were engaged in suppressing them.
    MR. CHURCHILL: No casualties in the King's African Rifles have been reported in the course of the measures taken for the repression of disorder in the Kisii district. Besides Mr. North-cote who was wounded, two policemen and eleven porters were massacred on the occasion of the outbreak, and one friendly native has since been wounded. It is not possible to state with exactness what the losses of the Kisii tribesmen were, as the fighting took place in dense jungle and broken ground. I have seen an estimate which places their loss as high as 160 killed and wounded; but I should think that such a figure is very likely an over estimate. A political officer was on the spot during the operations, and the moment that the first overtures of submission were made by the tribe, all military measures were stopped, and the governor reports that a very good understanding has now been reached. A very large number of cattle were captured by the troops from the Kisii during the operations. These it is proposed to restore to the tribe gradually during the next few months as the pacification of the district proceeds, and also in return for the making of roads
    42
    by the tribesmen under their tribal chiefs, which will add to the future security and accessibility of the country.

    Dinizulu's Trial.
    MR. ELLIS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether, having regard to the fact that the telegram from Mr. Colenso to Dinizulu, urging him to surrender and assured him of fair trial and assistance in his defence, was transmitted through the Colonial Office, any specific steps have been taken by that Department to secure these ends; and, if so, what is their nature.
    MR. CHURCHILLasked for a further postponement as the Governor of Natal was still on tour, and until his return there could be no opportunity of conferring with him.

    Indians in British East Africa.
    SIR GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies how many of His Majesty's Indian subjects are counted in the estimate of the native population of British East Africa; how many of them are soldiers and police; how many are farmers, agricultural labourers, or coolies; and how many are traders or land speculators.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I have no exact figures of the number of British Indians in the East Africa Protectorate, but the number of alien and resident strangers exclusive of Europeans, was given in the Blue-book for the year 1905–1906 as 10,763. I have no information in regard to the number of Indians employed in the various capacities mentioned, except that there are no Indian soldiers in East Africa, though in Uganda there are 200 Indian troops.

    Sir Harry Maclean.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if Kaid Maclean, when released

    43
    by the money provided by the Government, was informed that for the future the Government considered itself free from any responsibility with regard to him.
    THE SECRETAEY OF STATE FOE FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): No communication of this nature was made to Kaid Maclean on his release; but His Majesty's Government do not necessarily admit any responsibility in any such cases, and reserve the right to deal with each according to circumstances.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if Kaid Maclean is a British subject, seeing that he has been for many years past in the service of the Sultan of Morocco.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: Kaid Maclean has not forfeited his British nationality by having taken service under the Sultan of Morocco.
    MR. FELL: But is the responsibility of the Government towards him the same as in the case of any other British subject?
    SIR EDWARD GREY: He has not, I say, forfeited his British nationality.

    Mr. Abbott's Ransom.
    MR. FELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the £9,000, part of the ransom paid for Mr. Abbott's release, was recovered from the brigands; and when it got into the hands of the Ottoman Government.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The brigands were captured in August last, and part of the money which had been paid as ransom was then recovered. In December the Court which sentenced the prisoners, ordered that the money recovered should be paid into the Treasury until it should be decided who was the proper person to receive it. Sir N.
    44
    O'Conor has now been instructed to request that it may be paid to His Majesty's Government forthwith.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the £9,000, more or less, recovered by the Turkish Government from brigands for the ransom of the British subject, Mr. Abbott, has been handed over to the British Government, or whether it is still retained by the Turks; and, if so, will he press for the repayment of this sum as an instalment to the British Government.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I have, at present, nothing to add to the answer I have just given to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth. As soon as I hear from Constantinople, I shall be ready to give the information.

    Privileged Cabs.
    MR. WILES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having regard be the petitions sent to him signed by a number of the inhabitants, as well as the local cab-drivers of the district, be will consider the advisability of opening to all cab-drivers Wimbledon Station and the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway side of Clapham Junction.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): These questions ire under consideration, but I am not yet in a position to give a definite reply.

    Census and Franchise.
    MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state approximately the adult male population of the United Kingdom at the end of 1905; the number of persons on the Parliamentary registers of the United Kingdom on 1st January, 1906;

    45
    and the number of persons who voted at the general election, 1906.

    England and Wales.

    Scotland.

    Ireland.

    United Kingdom.

    Estimated adult male population on 1st January, 1906

    9,023,877

    1,205,834

    1,213,466

    11,443,177

    Number of persons on the Parliamentary registers for 1906

    5,824,884

    750,401

    691,423

    7,266,708

    Number of persons on the Parliamentary registers for constituencies in which there were contests at the General Election, 1906

    5,442,774

    742,937

    164,049

    6,349,760

    Number of persons who voted at the General Election, 1906

    4,880,073

    585,691

    135,282

    5,601,046

    Eight Hours (Mines) Bill.
    MR. SMEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can give any indication as to the date or stage of the session when the Second Reading of the Eight Hours (Mines) Bill will be taken.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I hope not later than the end of next month.

    Convent Laundries.
    MR. BEAUMONT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether lie is aware that cases of cruelty and sweating have been proved to be carried on in certain religious institutions recently expelled from France; whether he can inform the House what occupations are carried on by the inmates of these institutions since they have settled in this country; and whether the wages paid them in any way approach the rate of trade union wages; and, if not, what steps he proposes to take.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I am aware of the reports which appeared some years ago in the Press on this subject. I am not in possession of exact information as to the occupations carried on in institutions belonging to the Order mentioned in those reports, but I believe both laundry work and needlework are
    MR. GLADSTONE: The figures will be found in the following table:
    done. I have no information as to the wages paid, if any. All industrial work by inmates of charitable institutions is now brought under regulation by the Factory Act of last year. I am not proposing to take any further steps.
    MR. T. L. CORBETTasked as to a letter written by a bishop declaring that the girls in these institutions now domiciled in England worked longer hours than was allowed by the civil law.
    MR. GLADSTONEasked to be supplied with a copy of the paper.

    Factory Inspection.
    MR. H. J. TENNANT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to make any increase in the staff of the Factory Department, either of His Majesty's inspectors, His Majesty's women inspectors, or His Majesty's inspectors' assistants; if increases are contemplated in any of these branches of his Department; and whether the general staff of the Home Office will be strengthened.
    MR. GLADSTONE: During the autumn I made careful inquiry into the work of the Factory Department, and came to the conclusion that a strong case was made out for strengthening considerably both the organisation and

    47
    the inspecting staff of the Department. A scheme was accordingly prepared and submitted to the Treasury, which, subject to a few modifications, has now received their assent. I cannot within the limits of this Answer enter into the details of the scheme, but it involves the following very substantial additions to the headquarters and general inspecting staff during the next financial year. The headquarters staff will be strengthened by the addition of a second deputy chief inspector and a second medical inspector; the general inspecting staff by a superintending inspector, sixteen inspectors, eleven inspectors' assistants, and five lady inspectors. Further provision is also made for clerical assistance both at headquarters and in certain districts where the clerical work is heavy. At the same time I have had under consideration the industrial work of the Home Office proper, and decided that, in view of its great growth, the branch of the office which deals with this work should as soon as possible be relieved of the other important duties which are now assigned to it, and should devote itself exclusively to administration of industrial law and the study of industrial questions. The Treasury have agreed to an addition to the staff to enable this to be done.
    MR. H. J. TENNANT: Has any decision been come to as to the new part of the Bill relating to religious institutions?
    MR. GLADSTONE: I cannot add anything to what I said last year. A great deal depends on the wishes of the institutions themselves.

    Insurance Gambling.
    MR. JOHN RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the remarks of His Honour Judge Hans Hamilton, at the Blackburn County Court, on Monday, 10th February, 1908, with regard to the gambling in human lives, also remarks of the same Judge on the same subject in the Preston Court, on 22nd October, 1907; whether, in view of the amount of business done by some assurance companies in a class of policy rendered illegal by an Act of
    48
    George III., c. 14, passed some 125 years ago, upon lives where ore person insuring has no insurable interest in the person insured; and whether he will consider the desirability of advising His Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission, in the interests of the industrial classes, to inquire into the way life insurance business is being carried on.
    MR. GLADSTONE: My attention hid not been called to these remarks until the hon. Member kindly sent me a copy of them. I will consider the matter, and communicate upon it with the Treasury, which is the Department primarily concerned.

    Colliery Enginemen's Hours of Labour.
    MR. SNOWDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to the case of Henry Jenkinson, a colliery engineman, who was fined £1 and costs at the Rotherham police court, on the 17th February, for being asleep at his post, in contravention of Special Rule 63, and to the statement of Jenkinson that he had been twenty-eight hours on duty; and whether he will cause inquiry to be made into the accuracy of this statement, and, if it be found to be correct, will he take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to prevent enginemen being worked such long hours without relief.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have made inquiry, and I find that the statement as to Jenkinson's employment is incorrect. He had been employed for nine or ten hours in the morning, then had a rest of six hours, and the offence took place an hour or two after he came back to special duty at 9.45 p.m. He has now admitted that his statement was false, and has apologised. Jenkinson was an underground worker, working a haulage, not a winding, engine, and the Eight Hours Bill, which I have introduced, would apply to him. Quite apart from this case my attention has been drawn to the long hours worked in many cases by colliery enginemen, and I have specially referred the matter to the Royal Commission.

    Usworth Colliery Accident.
    MR. J. W. TAYLOR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to a case of overwinding at Usworth colliery, in the county of Durham, whereby one man was thrown down the pit and killed and several others injured; whether his attention has been drawn to an act of bravery by the onsetter, Moses Howarth, who, by his presence of mind and at great risk, prevented the descending cage, which was full of men, from being thrown into the sump; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    MR. GLADSTONE: As regards the first part of the Question, I obtained a report of the facts as soon as the hon. Member's notice appeared on the Paper. As regards the second part, whenever a case of special personal gallantry in saving, or attempting to save, life, in mines is reported to me, I will give it my full and careful consideration. I submit, however, to my hon. friend that it would not be right for me to answer Questions in this House as to whether a recommendation should, or should not, be made to His Majesty in such a matter.

    Imprisonment for Debt.
    MR. MACLEAN: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to the remarks of Judge Amphlett, K.C., at Birmingham, on Monday last, condemning the imprisonment of a lad of sixteen for a debt of 16s in respect of clothes; and whether he can inform the House if the hope held out by the Lord Chancellor of legislation to remedy the existing evils in connection with imprisonment for debt will be fulfilled this session.
    MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been called to the statement made by Judge Amphlett at the Birmingham County Court on Monday, that he had found a youth of sixteen, who had been earning 12s or 14s a week in a cycle factory, in prison at Worcester for a debt of 16s., in respect of an order given to a traveler
    50
    for clothes; and can he say when it is intended to appoint the projected Committee to consider the existing law of imprisonment for debt.
    MR. GLADSTONE: My attention had not been previously called to the case mentioned, but as I have already stated in answer to a Question in this, House, the Government have decided upon the appointment of a Select Committee on the Imprisonment of Debtors, and this Committee will be appointed in a few days. Pending the Report of that Committee I cannot make any statement as to legislation.

    Children BILL.
    MR. H. J. TENNANTasked the Home Secretary when the Second Reading of the Children Bill would be taken.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I am afraid I cannot say, but I hope to secure an early opportunity for it.

    Ships' Drill with Life Saving Apparatus.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state whether boat drill and testing of life-saving apparatus is fairly ensured by the provision that such proceedings shall be officially logged, or whether there is any reason to believe that on certain ships the injunction is ignored.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY,): I would remind my hon. friend that the section of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1906 to which he refers only came into operation on 1st June last. At present I can only say that I have every reason to think that it is working well and will have a good effect, but the matter is being most carefully watched.

    Dues on Pleasure Yachts.
    MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if the owners of pleasure yachts pay no lighthouse, port, or harbour dues, no fees on engaging or discharging men, that they are allowed to have their stores of dutiable goods free of duty, and that

    51
    merchant vessels only have the latter privilege in restricted measure, and on over-sea voyages; and, if so, would he state whether it is the intention of the Government to restrict in any way the special privileges granted to owners of Yachts.
    MR. KEARLEY: Pleasure yachts, unless they are under five tons register, pay light dues of Is. per ton per annum, and also port and harbour dues, except at a few ports where they are exempted by special Act or otherwise. No engagement or discharge fees are charged to any yacht or other vessel in the United Kingdom. Any such fee chargeable abroad is imposed upon all vessels alike. Owners of pleasure yachts are not allowed to ship dutiable stores free of duty unless the yachts are proceeding on oversea voyages, and such stores may only be shipped then under exactly the same conditions and restrictions as apply in the case of merchant vessels. The use of dutiable stores free of duty in British waters is only allowed in the case of foreign yachts.

    Motor Car Import Statistics.
    MR. HORNIMAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether motor cars leaving or entering Channel and other ports for purposes of private travel appear as though exported and imported, each car appearing under both headings; and, if so, whether means can be taken to render such Returns more accurate by differentiating such cars from true exports and imports, so as to prevent the Inaccurate inflation of the same.
    MR. KEARLEY: Motor cars taken abroad for touring or racing purposes and subsequently brought back to the United Kingdom are not included in the export or import statistics.

    Opium Duties.
    SIR H. COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what is the amount of duty, adjusted in sterling figures, levied by the Customs authorities on every chest of opium exported from India at the ports of the following countries where opium is consumed in the Far East, viz.:
    52
    Ceylon, Siam, Cochin China, Straits Sattlements, Netherlands, India, Natunas Islands, Sarawak, Labuan, the Philippines, Japan, and China.
    MR. KEARLEY: My right hon. friend has asked me to reply to this Question. Opium is free of duty in Siam, the Straits Settlements, Sarawak and Labuan. Its importation is prohibited in Cochin China, and, except so far as regards Government importations, in Japan. The duties levied in the other places mentioned are as follows: Ceylon, 5s 4d per lb.; Netherlands India, 3s 5d per lb.; the Philippines, 7s 7d per lb. on crude opium, 9s 6d per lb. on opium manufactured or prepared; China, 2s 7d per lb. After 1st March next, the importation of opium into the Philippines, except by the Government and for medicinal purposes, will be prohibited. The Board of Trade have no information as regards the Natunas Islands, but presumably the duty would be the same as that stated for Netherlands' India. I understand that a chest of Indian opium weighs about 140 lbs.

    Unemployed Masons in London.
    MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether he is aware that 30 per cent, of the members of the Operative Stone Masons Society are unemployed in London alone; and whether he can hold out any hope that the Government will facilitate the passage of the Unemployed Workmen Bill down for Second Reading on 13th March.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): The society referred, to does not furnish the Board of Trade with figures as to the extent of unemployment amongst its members, and I am not in possession of particulars on the subject. As regards the latter part of the Question, I do not think I can say anything in anticipation of the debate which will take place on the Second Reading of the Bill.

    London Poor Law Infirmaries.
    MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government

    53
    Board whether he is aware that in the two Poor Law infirmaries at South-wark and Camberwell the accommodation is overtaxed, at the Newington infirmary 859 patients having to share accommodation provided for 786, and at Camberwell 862 are crowded into wards having accommodation only for 819; and, if so, whether, having regard to the fact that these inmates are ailing mainly from lack of food arising from unemployment, it is the intention of the Government to give facilities for the passing of the Unemployed Workmen Bill down for Second Reading on 13th March.
    I beg also to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that there is not room for another male inmate in any of the London workhouses without exceeding the certified number, the overcrowding on the men's side of the workhouses of Christchurch, St. George's, Newington, Renfrew Road, and Prince's Road, amounting to 454; whether this state of overcrowding is due to unemployment; and whether it is the intention of the Government to give facilities for the passing of the Unemployed Workmen Bill down for Second Reading on 13th March.
    I beg further to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of the overcrowding in the Lambeth, Southwark, and Camberwell unions, there being 435 in the workhouses above the certified number for which accommodation is provided; whether, in addition to this overcrowding, the three unions named have 672 persons boarded out or temporarily accommodated in other unions; whether this overcrowding and increase of the recipients of pauper relief is due to unemployment; and, if so, whether it is the intention of the Government to give facilities for the passing of the Unemployed Workmen Bill down for Second Reading on 13th March.
    MR. JOHN BURNS: I regret to say that there is some overcrowding in the particular workhouses and infirmaries mentioned in these Questions, although the numbers supplied, to me do not in all cases agree with those given by my hon.
    54
    friend, I may, however, state that, taking together all the workhouses and infirmaries under the London boards of guardians, there are vacant beds for upwards of 900 inmates and some of these would be available for males. As regards the Unemployed Workmen Bill, I would refer to the Answer I have just given to the Question put by my hon. friend the Member for West Wolverhampton.

    Post Office Sanatoria.
    MR. ALDEN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General, whether any financial or other support has been given by his Department to the voluntary scheme which is to provide sanatoria for the Post Office employees suffering from consumption.
    CAPTAIN NORTON (; for Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON): There is no fund at the disposal of my right hon. friend's Department out of which regular financial support could be given to the voluntary scheme referred to by the hon. Member. But he has sanctioned contributions to the building fund of the sanatorium from the accumulated "Fine" funds at certain post offices. The scheme has his sympathy and support, and assistance is afforded to it by means of an arrangement for facilitating the collection of subscriptions of members by deductions from their official salaries, and in other ways.

    Postal Bates to Shanghai.
    MR, HOLT: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, seeing that commercial papers are sent to Shanghai by French and German packets at an estimated cost of 4s 3d and 4s 10d. per pound respectively, and that the estimated cost of forwarding via Siberia, which saves about ten days in transit, is 6s 8d per pound, he will allow commercial papers to be forwarded via Siberia subject to a payment of postage of 50 per cent, higher than that charged on commercial papers forwarded by French and German packets.
    CAPTAIN NORTON: The rates which the hon. Member quotes do not refer to commercial papers, but solely to letters and

    55
    postcards. My right hon. friend sees strong objections to adopting a special rate and so abandoning the uniformity of charge which at present exists in the postal union. He proposed, therefore, to endeavour to secure a reduction in the very high charges made by the East of China Railway Company for the use of the Siberian route.

    Lord Rosebery and Child Patriotism.
    CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been drawn to the action of Lord Rosebery in presenting a number of Union Jacks to young children attending public, elementary schools, and to the speech he made on that occasion; ancl whether he will consider the advisability of having the speech printed and issued by his board to all public elementary schools in the United Kingdom, with a view to promoting and encouraging a patriotic sentiment in the youth of the country.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA,): No, Sir.
    CAPTAIN. J. CRAIG: Has the right hon. Gentleman read the inspiriting words of the noble Lord?
    MR. MCKENNA: Yes, Sir.

    Teachers' Salaries.
    MR. F. E. SMITH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Code contains any conditions as to the rate of salaries payable by a local authority to teachers in public elementary schools; whether he proposes to insert any such conditions in the Code; whether, in the absence of any such conditions in the Code, the requirement of the Education Bill, that voluntary schools which contract out of the national system shall satisfy the conditions of grant imposed upon public elementary schools, will have any application to the payment of equal or sufficient rates of salary to teachers in voluntary schools.
    MR. MCKENNA: The Code does not prescribe any conditions as to the rates of salary payable to teachers, except
    56
    that the salary provided for by the teacher's agreement must not be subject to variation according to the amount of grant payable in respect of the school. I do not propose to insert any new conditions on this point, and having regard to the wide divergence in the scale of salary for teachers, even of the same grade, in different parts of the country, it would be impossible for the Board to prescribe equality or to determine as to the efficiency of salaries. The Board's duty is to see that a proper standard of efficiency is reached, as a condition of the payment of Exchequer grants.

    Non-Provided Schools in Single School Areas.
    LORD R. CECIL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education what is the total number of non-provided schools in England and Wales in single-school areas; which of them are held by trustees upon tight trusts; and to what denominations such schools belong.
    MR. MCKENNA: I am preparing a Return, which will shortly be laid before Parliament, giving the names of all schools in single-school parishes as defined in Clause 3 (6) of the Education Bill. So far as is possible, the Return will indicate the nature of the religious instruction at present given in the school, and whether the school is held on "limited trusts" as defined by the Bill.

    Welsh Agricultural Inspection.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether it is proposed to make Welsh a subject for appointment to the post of agricultural inspector in Wales.
    THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,): We fully recognise the advantage of having in our service a certain, number of inspectors who speak Welsh, and they will naturally be employed in Wales as far as practicable. But the amount and character of the work to be done fluctuates considerably, and it is not possible to lay down any hard and fast rule on the subject. I may say that

    57
    two appointments of Welsh-speaking inspectors have recently been made.

    Sale of Diseased Cattle at Glasgow.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he is aware that cattle dying of tuberculous and other diseases are often disposed for public sale in public yards; that, out of 2,967 carcases condemned in Glasgow as being diseased and unfit for food, not one was condemnel alive; and whether, in view of the danger to life, especially infant life, involved in the spread of disease by meat and milk, he will consider the question of scheduling tuberculosis as a contagious and infectious disease.
    SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: Representations have from time to time been made to us to the effect indicated in the first part of the Question, and I believe that the figures cited by my hon. friend are correct. But the exposure for sale of an animal which is diseased or unfit for the food of man, is an offence under the Public Health Acts which falls to be dealt with by the central and local authorities under those Acts and not by the Board of Agriculture. We have, therefore, no official information on the subject. The suggestion that tuberculosis should be dealt with under the Diseases of Animals Acts has frequently been considered, but it has never hitherto been found feasible to give effect to it. My noble friend is, however, in communication with my right hon. friend, the President of the Local Government Board, on the subject.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: Will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the Local Government Board that the police might well be employed in looking to this matter?

    The Cunard Subsidies.
    MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what are the advantages received by the nation in return for the payment of £150,000 annually as subsidy to the Cunard Line for the steamers "Lusitania" and "Mauretania"; for how
    58
    long a time is this arrangement to continue; and is it possible for the nation to cease making these payments.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): As regards the first part of my hon. friend's Question I must refer him to the agreement made- between His Majesty's late Government and the Cunard Steam Ship Company in 1903, and approved by the House of Commons on 12th August of that year (cd. 1703). The Agreement is expressed to run for twenty years from the date of the first sailing of the "Mauretania." So long as the terms of the Agreement are complied with by the company, His Majesty's Government are, of course, bound by its provisions.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: How much money has been lent or advanced to the Cunard Company for the purposes of these ships?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I think the whole amount provided for under the Agreement.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: How much was it?
    MR. RUNCIMANasked for notice.
    MR. SUMMERBELLwas understood to ask if, in view of the immense amount of the subsidy, the company would be called upon to run these as British ships from British ports.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I do not see how that arises out of the Question on the Paper.
    MR. HOLTasked if the company had satisfied the requirements of the Government in regard to these steamers?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: No final settlement has been arrived at.

    County Magistrates.
    MR. HENRY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give, approximately, the number of county magistrates appointed last year,

    59
    who would not have been eligible to such appointment previous to the passing of the Act of 1906 abolishing the property qualification.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSON,)said he was afraid it would be very difficult for him to get this information; it would be difficult to ask magistrates for details of their personal property, and private means, and if he did ask he was not quite sure the answer would be given.
    MR. HENRY: But before this Act came into force were they not compelled to state their qualification?
    SIR W. ROBSON: Yes, but there is no such requirement now, and I do not know how such a question would be received by the gentleman appointed.

    British South Africa Company.
    MR. B. S. STRAUS: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether he is aware that the British South Africa (Chartered) Company is about to issue fresh capital on purely gambling terms, i.e., they are offering to their shareholders 1,000,000 shares of £1 each at par, notwithstanding that their present market value is about 15s only, but those taking these shares are to be entitled to purchase a like number of shares in two years' time at par and again a similar number at the same price in 1912, which simply means a call on such shares for four years at par; whether he can put a stop to such an apparent gambling transaction, seeing that the company holds a charter from the Government; and, if this does not come under the heading of a lottery or gamble, will he suggest legislation to prevent this kind of thing occurring in the future.
    SIR W. ROBSONwas understood to say that the transaction did not appear to come within the Gaming Act, though it involved some degree of risk to the public in holding out the hope of a contingent profit. Speculation, deplorable though it might be, was not necessarily the same thing as gaming according to the Acts dealing with that practice;
    60
    otherwise many useful commercial transactions would be affected.
    MR. BOTTOMLEYasked whether, having regard to the financial methods adopted by the Chartered Company, the hon. and learned Gentleman would consider the propriety of advising a cancellation of the concession and of placing the Government of Rhodesia under some control free from Stock Exchange influence.
    SIR W. ROBSONsaid that he had no knowledge of the methods adopted by the company.
    MR. BOTTOMLEY: I am surprised at that.

    Perjury in the Birmingham County Court.
    MR. T. F. RICHARDSI beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been called to the statement made by His Honour Judge Bray in saying good-bye to the bar and solicitors at the County Court, Birmingham, recently, in which he said that the amount of perjury committed in the court was deplorable, and previous Judges had complained of it, and he wanted to place it on record that it still prevailed; and whether he intends taking any action in the matter.
    SIR W. ROBSONwas understood to reply that if any cases of perjury were brought under the notice of the Public Prosecutor they would be considered, but he was afraid he could give no general undertaking as to perjury.

    Motor Speed Limits.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he can state how many applications for a speed limit on motors have been received from local authorities; how many have been granted; and how many declined.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): Applications for a speed limit have been received since the Act came into force on 1st January, 1904, from seventy-five local authorities, and in twenty-eight cases orders have been made, while in twenty-seven cases the application has been

    61
    refused, withdrawn, or allowed to lapse, and twenty cases are at present under consideration.

    Illegal Trawling in the Moray Firth.
    MR. SUTHERLAND: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, whether it was owing to insufficient evidence or on other grounds that, out of nineteen vessels reported from July, 1907, to the end of January this year for illegal trawling in the Moray Firth, only one prosecution took place.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The reason why prosecution has not followed detection of trawlers engaged in fishing in the Moray Firth is in many instances that the persons so engaged were not British subjects.

    Convict Joseph Hume.
    MR. ANNAN BRYCE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland in connection with the case of Joseph Hume, sentenced to be executed at Inverness on Wednesday next:—(1) Whether he has received from Inverness a petition for reprieve signed by nearly 4,000 persons—or a sixth of the population—including many prominent citizens. (2) Whether the case for the Crown required that the murder, if committed by Joseph Hume, must have been committed on the evening of 24th September, while several witnesses deposed to their belief in having seen the murdered man on the following day; (3) Whether it is true that, although the verdict was said to be unanimous, the jury were absent from court for a whole hour, whether this long absence was due to some of them having held out for a recommendation to mercy, and only given way on an assurance from the foreman that there was no likelihood of a death sentence being carried out and (4) Whether the evidence having been entirely circumstantial, he is disposed to give favourable consideration to the petition in view of the recent notorious case where reprieve was grantee although the crime had been committee in the presence of witnesses.
    MR. SINCLAIR: I am aware of the strong public interest which this case has aroused; and I can assure my hon.
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    friend that it is now under anxious consideration. The petition to which le refers has been received. I am unable to follow my hon. friend into a discussion of the remaining points now raised by him.

    Mullingar Labourers' Cottages.
    MR. MOORE: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland if he is aware that three men named respectively Hugh Duck, Mike Donnelly, and Michael Coleman, occupiers of labourers' cottages near Rathowen, in the Mullingar Union, under the Labourers Acts, have been served with notices to quit by the Mullingar Rural Council, the offence charged being that they have continued to work for two owners of property who have incurred unpopularity by refusing to sell their land on terms demanded; and if the Local Government Board are prepared to sanction such action of the rural council.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,): I am informed that notices to quit have been served by the Mullingar Rural District Council upon the three men mentioned in the Question, but I have no information as to the grounds of the action of the council other than a newspaper statement that the council did not feel bound to provide cottages for the servants of landlords or their agents. The tenancies of the labourers' cottages referred to are regulated by agreements which enable the council to terminate them after due notice. The Local Government Board have no power to interfere with the action of the council in the matter.
    MR. HAYDEN: Is it not the fact that proceedings have been taken against these men because one of them has not been in occupation of the house for a considerable time, another has not cultivated the plot of land allotted to him, and the third is not an agricultural labourer at all?
    MR. CHERRY: I have no information.
    MR. MOORE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire the reason for this

    63
    action by a so-called public body? Is it not part of a general conspiracy to boycott these men and turn them out on the roadside? Will he take steps to protect them?
    MR. CHERRY: If any evidence is brought before me showing breach of the criminal law I will prosecute.
    CAPTAIN J. CRAIG: Is it necessary for the tenant of one of these cottages to cultivate the ground as a condition of occupation?
    MR. CHERRY: I really do not know what the conditions imposed by the guardians are.

    Galway County Inspectors Report.
    MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, when, in accordance with his undertaking, the Report for the East Riding of Galway, made by the county inspector in the month of October last, will be in the hands of Members.
    MR. CHERRY: The Report in question will he laid upon the Table tomorrow. I should state that, when giving the undertaking referred to in the Question, I omitted to notice that a portion of the Report was of a strictly confidential nature, which cannot be made public without injury to the public service. This portion I propose to omit from the copy laid.

    Royal Irish Constabulary.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Government has come to a decision with regard to the recommendations of the Committee appointed in 1901 to inquire into the position of the Royal Irish Constabulary requiring legislation, and more particularly those dealing with augmentation of pay by length of service.
    MR. CHERRY: Yes, Sir, and it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation on the subject, at the earliest possible opportunity.

    Irish School Building Grant.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNOR,: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland can he state what steps have been taken to use the £40,000 per annum for three years granted in respect of school buildings in Ireland; in how many cases have new school-houses been approved by the Commissioners, and in how many have they advanced money, and, if any, how much; in how many cases have managers submitted special plans, and in how many cases have the Board of Works submitted special plans; has there been any delay in the consideration of the former and in the preparation of the latter; and, if so, what is the cause of the delay; and whether, if there are any arrears in prospective school building, steps will be immediately taken to clear off the same.
    MR. CHERRY: Since the month of April last, when a settlement was arrived at upon the general questions affecting school buildings and grants, new plans for seventeen types of schools and the specifications thereof have been settled between the Commissioners of National Education and the Board of Works. The Commissioners have provisionally approved of the erection of new school-houses in 266 cases, and have sanctioned grants to the amount of £26,571 in fifty-six of these cases. In these latter cases leases of the sites have to be prepared and executed before advances can be made, and the work is being proceeded with as rapidly as possible. The advances are made by the Board of Works by instalments as the work of building proceeds. Since 1st April advances have been made in eighty-three cases, the amount advanced being £3,981. In fifty-four cases special plans have been submitted by managers to the Commissioners of National Education. The Board of Works do not submit special plans, but they prepare and issue to the managers the standard official plans and specifications. No avoidable delay has occurred in the examination and consideration of special plans. Any delay which may have occurred is due to the fact that in very many cases the plans have had to be returned to the managers' architects for revision. Full

    65
    provision has been made in both. Departments for dealing without delay with the work in connection with school building.

    Motor Speed Limits in Ireland.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state how many applications for a speed limit on motors in Ireland have been received from the local authorities; and how many have been granted and how many refused.
    MR. CHERRY: Three applications have been received from county authorities for a speed limit under Section 9 of the Motor Car Act, 1903—one from the Belfast County Borough Council for a speed limit of ten miles an hour, upon which the Local Government Board have not yet adjudicated; and the other two from the county councils of Wicklow and Kildare for speed limits of six and eight miles an hour, respectively. In the two latter cases the Board pointed out that they would be prepared to consider a reduction to ten miles an hour as contemplated by the Section, but these councils have not proceeded further in the matter.

    Fair Rents in County Galway.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a number of tenants in the Mountbellew, county Galway, district have served notices with the object of having fair rent fixed upon their holdings; and will he see that the Sub-Commissioners hold a court there with as little delay as possible.
    MR. CHERRY: The Land Commission inform me that a Sub-Commission sitting for the Mount Bellew district was held last October when all cases which arose prior to 1st September were listed for hearing. Since then only thirteen applications to fix fair rents have been received from that district. A further sitting will be held at as early a date as may be consistent with the claims of other districts, but the Land Commission cannot at present fix a date.

    Necessitous Schools in Ireland.
    MR. N. J. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in the case of schools in necessitous districts or in districts where, owing to local circumstances, it is extremely difficult to obtain funds for educational purposes, there is any provision to empower the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland to award to the managers of such schools grants sufficient to cover the entire cost of the erection of new buildings; and whether buildings so erected may be vested in local trustees.
    MR. CHERRY: In needy and congested districts the Commissioners of National Education may, when in a position to certify that no local aid can reasonably be expected or that a less contribution than one-third will be forthcoming, be empowered to grant a larger proportion of the cost of the erection of new buildings than two-thirds, provided that in the case of localities not officially scheduled as congested districts, the Commissioners of National Education and the Board of Public Works, with the aid of the Local Government Board, agree upon a suitable criterion of poverty for determining what districts should be put in this category. Conferences are being held between representatives of the Boards referred to, but a final decision has not yet been arrived at on the subjects Buildings for which grants in excess of two-thirds of the estimated cost are allowed must be either vested in the Commissioners or leased to trustees for school purposes, the Commissioners being in every case a party to the lease.

    Irish Primary Education Grant.
    MR. N. J. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is in a position to state the amount of the proposed new grant for primary education in Ireland; and whether the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland have yet submitted to the Irish Executive proposals for the allocation of this grant.
    R. CHERRY: My right hon. friend is not yet in a position to make a statement on this subject.

    Irish Teachers' Pension Fund.
    MR. N. J. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is the intention of the executive Government and the Treasury to remedy the financial condition of the Irish Teachers' Pension Fund, as disclosed by the report of the auditors who investigated this fund in 1906; and whether, in the case of any revision of the scale of pensions awarded under this fund, he can give any assurance that these pensions will be substantially increased.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: It is not the intention of the Government to take any steps in the matter at present, but the assets and liabilities of the fund will be carefully watched, and its solvency will be safeguarded. The state of the fund does not permit an increase of the scale of pensions.

    Irish Land Stock.
    MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the disproportionately low price of Irish Guaranteed Land Stock is in some measure due to its lack of a free market and infrequent circulation; and whether the Lord Chancellor of Ireland might influence the Court of Chancery in Ireland, who invest about £500,000 annually, mainly in Consols, to make a practice of ordering investments to be made in Land Stock, a security equally good to all intents, and paying a higher interest.
    MR. T. L. CORBETTasked whether the fall in the price of the Stock was not really due to the attitude of the Government towards Home Rule.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,)As regards the supplementary Question the Stock has been steadily rising in price for some months.
    Guaranteed 2¾ per cent. Stock is included in the list of authorised in vestments for moneys under the control or subject to the Order of the Supreme Court of Judicature, Ireland The selection of the particular investments to be made in each case is within the discretion of the Courts themselves
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    but I will take care that the hon. Member suggestion shall receive consideration in the proper quarter.

    Ireland and the Education Bill.
    MR. KETTLE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to the fact that an additional grant of £1,400,000 per annum is provided for elementary education in England and Wales under the Education Bill lately introduced, and to the need for increased expenditure under this head in Ireland, he will take steps to allocate, by way of equivalent grant or otherwise, a corresponding and adequate grant-in-aid of Irish elementary education.
    MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: To what purpose will the corresponding equivalent grant for Scotland be applied?
    MR. ASQUITH: I do not recognise any question of equivalent grant in either case. The new grant in England will not have effect until the year 1909–10. It would therefore be premature to consider the question on the basis suggested, at present. The requirements of elementary education in Ireland are, however, receiving the most careful consideration of His Majesty's Government upon their own merits.

    Belfast Sub-Post Offices.
    MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he can state under what circumstances the exhibition of a sign showing that telegraph business is conducted at town sub-post offices has been discontinued in Belfast.
    CAPTAIN NORTON (for Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON): It was decided in 1905 to discontinue in general the supply of notice plates indicating the various classes of business transacted at post offices, as it was found that such plates had ceased, except in cases where the circumstances are abnormal, to serve any very useful purpose. Window notices are in use in all offices. Existing plates, however, were to be allowed to remain, and this course, I understand, is followed at Belfast.

    NEW MEMBER SWORN.
    John Lloyd Morgan, esquire, K.C., for the County of Carmarthen (Western Division).
SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES AND CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had nominated the following Members to serve on the three Sanding Committees for the consideratiion of all Public Bills, not relating exclusively to Scotland, which may be committed to a Standing Committee—
SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES AND CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).
  Standing Committee A.
  Mr. Arthur Allen, Sir William Anson, Mr. Ashley, Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Godfrey Baring, Sir John Bethell, Mr. Boland, Mr. Bowerman, Mr. Cave, Sir Frederick Cawley, Mr. Evelyn Cecil, Mr. Clive, Mr. Cobbold, Sir William Collins, Mr. Charles Corbett, Mr. Charles Craig, Mr. David Davies, Mr. Ellis Davies, Mr. Timothy Davies, Mr. Devlin, Mr. Arthur Dewar, Sir Walter Foster, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Goulding, Mr. Gwynne, Mr. William Edwin Harvey, Mr. Holt, Mr. William Hope, Mr. Hudson, Sir John Jardine, Lord John Joicey-Cecil, Mr. William Jones, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Lambton, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Maclaren, Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Lloyd Morgan, Mr. M'Killop, Mr. Morrell, Mr. Nussey, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Parkes, Mr. William Pearce, Dr. Pollard, Mr. Raphael, Sir John Randles, Mr. Walter Rea, Mr. Rendall, Mr. Thomas Richards, Mr. Thomas Frederick Richards, Mr. Ridsdale, Mr. Charles Roberts, Earl of Ronaldshay, Mr. Rose, Mr. Rothschild, Mr. Herbert Samuel, Mr. Seaverns, Colonel Seely, Dr. Shipman, Mr. Smeaton, Mr. Smyth, Mr. Waldron, Mr. Walrond, Mr. John Ward, and Mr. Cathcart Wason.

  Standing Committee B.
  Mr. Akers-Douglas, Mr. Beauchamp, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Black, Mr. Bridgeman, Mr. Bright, Mr. Burns, Mr. Butcher, Mr. Byles, Viscount Castlereagh, Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. Cleland, Mr. Cochrane, Dr. Cooper, Sir Edwin Cornwall, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr. Courthope, Mr. Cowan, Mr. Curran, Mr. Ferens, Mr. Flynn, Mr.
  70
  Gill, Mr. Haddock, Mr. Leverton Harris, Mr. George Hardy, Mr. Harwood, Mr. James Haslam, Mr. Lewis Haslam, Mr. Hazleton, Colonel Sir Ivor Herbert, Mr. Higham, Mr. William Johnson, Mr. William Jones, Mr. Kelley, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kettle, Sir Henry Kimber, Mr. Lane-Cox, Sir Joseph Leese, Sir Maurice Levy, Sir Francis Lowe, Dr. Macnamara, Mr. M'Arthur, Mr. Meehan, Mr. Mond, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Murray, Mr. Nannetti, Mr. Nicholls, Mr. Nolan, Mr. Paulton, Sir Francis Powell, Mr. Charles Price, Mr. Rainy, Mr. John Robertson, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Soares, Mr. Solicitor-General, Mr. Austin Taylor, Mr. Theodore Taylor, Mr. David Alfred Thomas, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Walton, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Llewelyn Williams, Mr. Wiles, and Mr. Wyndham.

  Standing Committee C.
  Mr. William Abraham, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Alden, Mr. Harmood-Banner, Mr. Barran, Mr. Beckett, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Brace, Mr. Bramsdon, Mr. Branch, Mr. Carlile, Mr. Cave, Mr. Cheetham, Mr. Herbert Craig, Sir William Cremer, Mr. Cullinan, Mr. Hart-Davies, Mr. Dickinson, Sir Frederick Dixon-Hartland, Mr. Duckworth, Mr. James Duncan, Mr. Clement Edwards, Sir Frank Edwards, Mr. Denison Faber, Mr. Findlay, Mr. Harrison-Broadley, Mr. Haydan, Mr. Healy, Mr. Howard, Mr. Kearley, Mr. Lehmann, Mr. Lloyd-George, Mr. Long, Mr. Lynch, Sir Philip Magnus, Major M'Micking, Mr. Jeremiah MacVeagh, Viscount Morpeth, Mr. John Murphy, Mr. Myer, Mr. Napier, Mr. O'Grady, Earl Percy, Mr. Pickersgill, Mr. William Priestley, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Rees, Sir George Scott Robertson, Dr. Rutherford, Mr. Abel Smith, Mr. Seddon, Mr. Soames, Sir Edward Strachey, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Verney, Mr. Vivian, Mr. Walker, Mr. Warner, Sir George White, Mr. Whitehead, Mr. Osmond Williams, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, Mr. Wills, Mr. Tyson Wilson, and Mr. Young.

  Scottish Standing Committee.
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON further reported, That the following Members representing Scottish Constituencies are appointed to serve on the Standing Committee for the consideration

  71
  of all Public Bills relating exclusively to Scotland and committed to a Standing Committee:—The Lord Advocate, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Robert Balfour, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Beale, Sir Arthur Bignold, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Caldwell, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Cle-land, Sir Thomas Glen-Coats, Mr. Cochrane, Mr. Cameron Corbett, Sir Henry Craik, Mr. Crombie, Mr. Cross, Lord Dalmeny, Viscount Dalrymple, Mr. Dalziel, Mr. Arthur Dewar, Sir John Dewar, Mr. Robert Duncan, the Master of Elibank, Mr. Erskine, Mr. Esslemont, Mr. Munro Ferguson, Mr. Findlay, Major Anstruther-Gray, Mr. Gulland, Mr. Secretary Haldane, Mr. Leicester Harmsworth, Mr. John Henderson, Mr. John Deans Hope, Sir John Jardine, Mr. Laidlaw, Mr. Lamont, Mr. Murray Macdonald, Mr. M'Callum, Mr. M'Crae, Sir Lewis M'lver, Major M'Micking, Mr. Menzies, Mr. Molteno, Mr. Secretary Morley, Mr. James Murray, Mr. Morton, Mr. Pirie, Mr. Charles Price, Sir Robert Pullar, Dr. Rainy, Mr. Edmund Robertson, Mr. Sinclair, Mr. Smeaton, Mr. Halley Stewart, Mr. Solicitor-General for Scotland, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Tennant, Mr. Mitchell-Thomson, Sir Andrew Torrance, Sir John Batty Tuke, Captain Waring, Mr. Cathcart Wason, Mr. Eugene Wason, Mr. Watt, Mr. Weir, Mr. Dundas White, Mr. Wilkie, Mr.Williamson, Mr. M'Kinnon Wood, and Mr. Younger.

  Chairmen's Panel.
  Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON further reported from the Committee, That they had selected the following Eight Members to be the Chairmen's Panel, and to serve as Chairmen of the Four Standing Committees to be appointed under Standing Order No. 47:— Sir Francis Channing, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. Laurence Hardy, Sir William Holland, Sir David Brynmor Jones, Mr. Stuart-Wortley, Mr. Eugene Wason, and Mr. John William Wilson.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

  ECCLESIASTICAL ASSESSMENTS (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading upon Monday 6th April read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

NEW BILLS.
  HYPOTHEC ABOLITION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To abolish the landlords' right of Hypothec for rent in Scotland," presented by Mr. Dundas White; supported by Mr. Crombie, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Murray Macdonald, Mr. Findlay, Mr. Smeaton, Mr. Cleland, Mr. Wilkie, Mr. Gulland, Mr. Watt, Mr. M'Callum, and Mr. Charles Price; to be read a second time upon Monday, 6th April, and to be printed, [Bill 125.]
  FACTORS ACT (1889) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Factors Act, 1889," presented by Mr. Dundas White; supported by Mr. M'Crae, Mr. Younger, Mr. Beale, Mr. M'Callum, and Mr. Smeaton; to be read a second time upon Monday, 6th April, and to be printed. [Bill 126.]
  INCEST BILL.
  "To provide for the punishment of Incest," presented by Colonel Lockwood; supported by Sir John Kennaway, Mr. Crossley, Mr. Henry Wilson, Mr. Goddard Clarke, Mr. Maclean, Mr. John Wilson, and Mr. George Hardy; to be read a. second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 127.]
  PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICERS BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the qualification and tenure of office of Medical Officers of Health; and for other purposes," presented by Sir Walter Foster; supported by Sir John Tuke, Sir Francis Sharpe Powell, and Mr. Cooper; to be read a second time upon Thursday, 12th March, and to be printed. [Bill 128.]
  EDUCATION BILL.
  "To provide for more effectual public control in regard to Education in England and Wales," presented by Mr. Verney; supported by Sir Francis Channing, Sir George White, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Morrell; to be read a second time to-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 129.]

  MERCHANDISE MARKS (No. 2) BILL.
  "To amend Section 16 of the Merchandise Marks Acts, 1887," presented by Mr. Claude Hay; supported by

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  Major Coates, Mr. Goulding, Mr. Remnant, and Sir Howard Vincent; to be read a second time to-morrow, and to he printed. [Bill 130.]

  CHARACTER NOTE BILL.
  "To make it compulsory upon employers to supply a Reference Note to a person leaving their employment and desiring one," presented by Mr. Ball; supported by Mr. Thomas Frederick Richards, Mr. Seddon, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. Wardle; to be read a second time upon Friday, 27th March, and to be printed. [Bill 131.]
  LICENSING ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Licensing Act, 1872, and The Habitual Drunkards' Act, 1879," present by the Marquess of Hamilton; supported by Mr. Fetherstonhaugh, Mr. Barrie, and Mr. Moore; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 132.]
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).
  Ordered, That the proceedings on the Licensing Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (LICENSING BILL.)
  Ordered, That the proceedings on the Licensing Bill, if under discussion when the Business is postponed, be resumed and proceeded with, though opposed, after the interruption of Business.—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

  LICENSING BILL.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH, Fifeshire, E.),in asking leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906, said: Although I am afraid it may be my duty to occupy the attention, and perhaps to exhaust the patience, of the House by a somewhat detailed explanation of the provisions of a necessarily complicated measure, I must—and I think in the long run it will prove a saving of time—preface what I have to say with one or two observations of a more general character. I shall not on
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  this occasion dwell on the magnitude and gravity of the evils which, by universal admission, confront us in the sphere which will be dealt with by this Bill, nor, except incidentally, on the inadequacy of the attempts which Parliament has made in recent years to provide a remedy. Everybody who is interested in social progress, in whatever quarter of the House he may sit, will, I am certain, agree with His Majesty's Government that effective reform of our licensing laws is now long overdue. What do we mean by effective reform? In the opinion of the Government, reform, to be effective, must aim at the attainment—and its success will be judged by the measure in which it effects the attainment—of two main purposes. The first is an immediate and a progressive reduction in the excessive facilities which are now allowed for the retail sale of intoxicating drinks. The second—not less important though, perhaps, less easy of attainment—is the gradual but complete recovery, with due regard for existing interests, by the State of its dominion over and its property in a monopoly which has been improvidently allowed to slide out of its control. Upon the latter of those two points so much misapprehension still prevails that, although I may seem to be reiterating that which is familiar, I will, nevertheless, venture at the outset to restate one or two elementary propositions. By the Statute law of this country ever since, at any rate, the reign of Edward VI. no one has been able to set up or to carry on the retail sale of intoxicating drink except with the express permission and licence of the State. The power of granting that permission was always vested, until the Act of 1904, in the local justices, who had knowledge of local conditions, and who might be supposed more or less at any rate, to represent local opinion and local sentiment. The justices, in the exercise of an unfettered discretion, could multiply the grant of licences at their will; and again, until the Act of 1904, in the exercise of the same discretion and the like freedom they could refuse to renew licences which they had previously granted. So; far as my knowledge goes, there was no case in the annals of bur law over now more than three centuries and a half in

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  which any court has assumed to compel a body of justices against whom there was no charge of corruption and dishonesty to regrant a licence which, in their discretion, they had refused to renew. That is the law of England, and always has been the law of England — plain, simple, indisputable, and, at this time of day, not by any competent authority disputed. How, then, has that which we are accustomed to call the monopoly value in licenses in private hands come into existence and been allowed to grow up? How have these enormous values, which I see variously estimated—though I am not disposed to accept any of the estimates myself—at from 100 to 150, or even 170 millions sterling-—some people say even more—how have these enormous values been allowed to come into existence? The answer is very simple. The State has received nothing, unless, indeed, the very small licence duty that is exacted from the owners of licences of public -houses can be regarded as anything— and, as everybody knows, it is a mere drop in the ocean. The State has received nothing, or nothing that can be described as in any sense a substantial or even partial equivalent for the monopoly value with which it has parted. What the monopoly value really means is this, when it comes to be analysed. It means what people have been ready to pay, not for a right—there never was any right—but for an expectation, or to speak with strict accuracy, for a double expectation. What do I mean by a double expectation? I mean, in the first place, the expectation that licences once granted would, in the absence of misconduct, be periodically and indefinitely renewed; and, in the next place, an expectation that the justices would not allow elective competition with those to whom they had once granted it. I say—and it is most important that this should be clearly understood and laid down at the very opening of our debates—that those were mere expectations. As regards the first of them the justices, as I have said, might and very often did—the law has been administered at one time with greater stringency and at another time with greater laxity—but the justices might and very often did, refuse to renew a
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  licence without any suggestion of misconduct on the part of the licensee. And as to the second expectation, it is also true that the justices could establish and sometimes they did establish, as in the well-known case of the licensing bench at Liverpool, complete free trade in drink within the area of their licensing jurisdiction. It follows that in either case, without any violation of the law, without inflicting any wrong for which any single human being could seek any legal redress, either or both of the expectations upon which the monopoly value rests might be frustrated, and the whole fabric of the monopoly value itself brought down to the ground. I will just notice in passing—not to deal with it in detail—an argument often put forward and as often refuted, that the State by levying death duties upon the value of licences, as though they were perpetually renewable, has given some implied recognition to an assumed right of property which the law has never created or acknowledged. Well, that argument rests upon a fallacy of the most obvious description. When a man dies and when the State takes toll of his property it takes everything of which he died possessed, considers what is its market value, and exacts the toll upon it. Very often his property is of a highly speculative nature. It may consist of a licence. It may consist of a racehorse. The question, and the only question for the State when it is levying death duties is, what anybody in the market will give either for the one or the other. And 'it no more guarantees when it takes 10 per cent, or whatever the percentage may be of the market value of a licence, that that licence will last for ever than when it takes a corresponding proportion of the value of a racehorse it guarantees that the horse will live to fulfil its engagements and satisfy the anticipations of its-trainers. But it is not necessary to labour this point, because we have before us the legislation of 1904, and if it could have been alleged with any show of reason or even of plausibility that for the State to withdraw from the holder of a licence the renewal of that licence at the end of the term, was for the State: to take away a right of property upon whom would that burden of

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  compensation have been thrown? Obviously upon the State. When we emancipated the slaves, one of the most nefarious and discreditable forms of property the English law has ever recognised, this House did not hesitate to vote public money for the purpose. When a Conservative Government, the traditional and hereditary protectors of the doctrine of property, came to reduce licenses, upon whom did they throw the burden of compensation? Not upon the community, but upon the trade. I think it is necessary to lay down these propositions in the plainest possible terms. I want to deal with this matter, if I can, not controversially. [OPPOSITION laughter.] I have not said anything hitherto which anyone acquainted with the history and law of the subject can describe as controversial—I want to deal with it, not controversially, but in a fair, and, as far as possible, in a judicial manner. The law being perfectly plain, as I have tried to define it, interests have been allowed to grow up outside the domain of the law, interests created, or at any rate fostered, by expectations which for so many years were so widely entertained, and, I will add, so commonly realised, and it is impossible for any statesman who has to deal with the matter now to ignore them or to leave them out of account.
  Now, Sir, having made that preliminary statement as to the nature of the problem with which we have to deal, I will ask the House, and I am afraid I must make some draft upon its patience, to accompany me while I proceed step by step to show how the Government propose to act in the matter. I said a few minutes ago that the first thing is effective reform of our licensing laws based upon the necessity for immediate and progressive reduction in the facilities for the sale of drink and the provision of some really practical means of bringing that about. How do we stand in regard to that matter? On 1st January of the present year there were in England and Wales 95,700 on-licenses, or a proportion of 27·62 per 10,000 of the population. That figure compares with 99,478 on-licences, or 29·13 per 10,000 of the population, on 1st January, 1905, and shows, there-
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  fore, a substantial diminution in those three years. [OPPOSITION cheers.] I say so—a substantial diminution. But the diminution began before 1905. Indeed, all of us who followed the debate? in 1904 know that the fact that what is called the trade was becoming alarmed at the reviving and formidable activity of the licensing justices in exercising their discretion to get rid of redundant licenses was one of the main causes of the Licensing Act of 1904. I agree that the process of reduction has been accelerated by the provisions of the Act of 1904, but it is wholly inadequate to the needs of the case, and I beg the House to note, if you have regard to all the conditions which surround the case, that it is on the whole more likely to diminish than to grow. Why do I say that? In the year 1907 1,716 licences were extinguished, and the holders were entitled under the Act of 1904 to compensation. The average cost to the compensation fund per licence was £919. The total compensation levied for the year was £1,099,000, which, at that cost of £919 per licence, would only have paid for the extinction of 1,194 licences. The justices were only able to make the reduction which they did— something like 500 or 600 more than the compensation levied for the year would have provided for—by the fact that there was a balance in hand from the fund for the previous year. If you add to that the facts that the smallest and cheapest houses have really been the victims in these first two or three years and that the survivors to some extent—I do not say to what extent— have been raised in value, that there are at this moment thirteen compensation areas in which the maximum levy is not raised and six compensation areas in which no levy is made at all, and, lastly, that you have no guarantee whatever that the licensing authorities who are acting now will continue to show the same rate of activity in the years that are to come, I venture to say you may well look forward with apprehension lest the rate of reduction, inadequate as I believe it to be even now, should slacken in the future. In view of these facts, the Government propose in this Bill—this is the first clause of the Bill— to provide for the

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  compulsory reduction within a specified period of a number of on-licences in the country on a uniform scale operating throughout the country and based mainly on the ratio between licences and population. We have taken as our general guide in fixing that ratio the recommendations of the minority Report of Lord Peel's Commission. That Report recommended that the statutory maximum should be one on-licence to every 750 people in towns, and one on-licence to every 400 people in the country. Now, Sir, when you come to work that out in practice, as we have tried to do, you will find the distinction between town and country is almost as difficult to draw as the impalpable boundary line that separates day from night. When you look at social and economic conditions, it does not follow with anything like strictness the technical division between urban and rural areas, and a sudden jump, whether it be a jump upward or a jump downward, when there is little difference in the actual condition of the locality, is a thing that it is quite impossible to justify. We have given a great deal of thought and attention to the subject, and after much inquiry, and examining the test results in a number of sample cases, we have adopted as the basis of our scale density of population—in other words, the number of people per acre. I will show the House how that works out. We begin with the density—whether it be in a rural parish or an urban area it does not matter for this purpose—of two persons or less per acre. Where that state o: things exists we propose that on-licences should not exceed one for 400 persons That covers practically the whole of what are commonly called the rural districts of the country. Our next step is between two persons and twenty-five persons per acre. Where that condition of population exists we propose that the maximum shall be one to 500. It will be found in practice that that cover the great bulk of some urban parishes and districts. The next step in the scale —and the three minor stages cove practically the same class of population —as between 25 and 50, one to 600 between 50 and 75, one to 700; and between 75 and 100, one to 800. These three stages, which, as the House sees
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  go from 25 per acre to 100 per acre, comprise the ordinary town areas. Therefore, in an ordinary town you have a statutory maximum of from one to 600 to one to 800. Then you get to the highest stage in the scale 100 to 200 persons per acre, one licence to 900, and over 200 persons per acre, one licence o 1,000. Those are the poorer and crowded quarters of the great cities of the country. That, Sir, is, after a great deal of consideration, the best practical method that we have been able to discover of applying the principle laid own—which we have accepted—in the minority Report of the Peel Commission. We quite recognise, and the Bill reognises, that in the otherwise rigid application of that scale you must allow a certain amount of latitude to meet certain special conditions of common occurrence. Let mo point out to the House by way of illustration what I mean. First of all, where the number of licensed premises in a parish or area does not exceed two, and it does not seem expedient for the licensing authority to reduce it to one, which would give a monopoly to that one particular public-house, no reduction need necessarily take place. Next, where there are two or three scattered hamlets which are technically and legally within the area of a single parish, or where, as sometimes happens, there is an isolated roadside public house, we would allow the authorities to make special conditions applicable to that case. Again and this is important, because it is of wider application, in the case of premises that have an on-licence, but have been constructed and are intended to be used in good faith for purposes for which an on-licence is merely an auxiliary, a restaurant, a railway refreshment room, or some classes of hotels, we allow exception from the strict application of the proportionate scale. Finally, and perhaps this is the most important of all, we have to deal with places whose normal and resident population is no index of their real requirements. That may be so in two cases. First, there are places resorted to only in special seasons by holiday makers and seekers after rest, like seaside places; and, secondly, there are the business quarters of great towns, like the City of London,

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  where the day population is very considerable, while the night population is relatively very small. I find in the Market Hall Ward of Birmingham that the strict application of our scale would require the suppression of no less than 141 out of 158 licences. In the central ward of Cardiff, our scale would require the suppression of no less than eighty-five out of 108. In the Market Ward of Nottingham it would require the extinction of sixty-nine licences out of seventy. These are obviously places that require exceptional treatment, and accordingly the rigid application of the proportion or ratio will be allowed in these cases to be mitigated or modified by the licensing authorities. The general result will be this—that applying the scale with due allowance for the modifications I have indicated—the House will take this as a mere rough approximation—we estimate it will lead to the suppression within the specified term of from 30,000 to 32,000 on-licences, or in other words to more than one-third of the whole. It will be the duty of every licensing authority to prepare by the early date named in the Act a scheme for carrying out the statutory reduction according to the ratio I have described in their own district. The scheme so prepared by the licensing authority will show the effect, in the way of reduction, of the application of the scale to each area within their district, and it will provide for a reasonable distribution of the reductions over the whole of the statutory period. As schemes of this kind must be more or less tentative and experimental, the widest powers are given the licensing authority to revise their schemes from time to time. These schemes, whether original schemes or revised schemes, will be submitted for approval, not on grounds of policy, but on grounds of finance, to a central Licensing Commission, in whom, as I will presently explain, the compensation fund will be vested. Assume that a scheme has been prepared, submitted, and approved, as, of course, it will be if the financial exigencies of the case allow, it will then be the duty of the licensing authority to give effect to it by selecting the particular licences to be extinguished. We leave the selection entirely in their hands. In
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  order to provide for the possible case of licensing authorities making default, either in preparing a scheme or in carrying it out, or in the selection of the licences to be suppressed, we provide that the Licensing Commission can act in their stead.
  The next point is one of very great moment. Reduction according to the statutory scale is a duty which the licensing authorities are compelled to perform. But their performance of that duty is not to affect their power, during the period of reduction, to extinguish licences still further, subject, of course, in cases where extinction involves compensation, to the sufficiency of the compensation fund. That power we call in the Bill the power of optional reduction. It is a power vested in the authority in addition to its statutory duty. We restore in this Bill—reversing the policy in this respect of the Act of 1904—we restore to the licensing authority the discretion which was taken away from it by that Act with regard to the refusal, renewal, and transfer of all existing on-licences, and we repeal the provision in the 1904 Act vesting such power in the quarter sessions. As I pointed out a few moments ago, until 1904 the local licensing justices have always been regarded as the proper persons to deal with these matters, and we think this power ought never to have been taken away from them.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Subject to compensation?
  MR. ASQUITH: During the compensation period. We add a special provision which we propose to make with regard to Wales, where opinion in these matters is more advanced and more ripe than in England generally. It is proposed in Wales—and for this purpose Wales will include Monmouthshire—to give by vote to parochial electors in a licensing district power to declare by a direct vote whether a reduction of licences beyond the statutory amount should be made, and upon an affirmative vote the Commission will authorise such further reduction provided during the statutory period that the existing levy gives sufficient funds for the purpose.

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  Now I come to the question of compensation for licences suppressed, and I use the word with a caveat, because it does not accurately express what I mean— but licences which are suppressed on the ground of redundancy during the statutory period, whether compulsorily under the scale or in the exercise of the further power which I have just described as optional reduction, will be compensated for. We propose to make no change in the source from which the compensation money is to be derived. The compensation money will continue to be raised as under the Act of 1904 by a levy from what is called "the trade." But it follows from our decision to make reduction compulsory and uniform, which it is not under the existing system, that the area of the levy should cover the whole of England and Wales, that the whole of the authorised levy should every year be raised, and that the fund should become a national fund and should be vested in the central authority, the Licensing Commission. For the purposes of the levy we adopt prima facie the scale of charges in the schedule of the Act of 1904, subject to one or two qualifications which I will proceed to enumerate. In the first place, the annual value of the premises is for the future to be taken as the annual value given for the purpose of Schedule A of the income-tax. In the next place, power is given to the Licensing Commission to raise the charges subject to their being graduated in the same proportion as the rates shown in the scale, but to raise them only for the purpose of compulsory suppression, not for the purposes of optional, for reasons which will soon appear. That is a power which probably will not require to be exercised. Again, the Licensing Commission are not to sanction an optional reduction if it would involve raising the rates in the scale. The Licensing Commission can borrow on the security of the compensation fund, and they are to exercise their powers under the Act so that, so far as possible, the assets and liabilities of the fund may balance at the end of the reduction period.
  I come now to the much more important point—namely, the amount of compensation to be paid. It is when we come to deal with the great
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  problem of fixing the amount of compensation that we find ourselves compelled to part company from the Act of 1904, and still more widely from the judicial interpretation which has been put upon that Act—an interpretation contrary to the intentions of the framers of that Act and of Parliament—in what is commonly known as the Kennedy judgment. What is the provision in Section 2 of the 1904 Act? Substantially it says that the amount of compensation payable must be a sum equal to the difference between the value of the licensed premises and the value which the premises would bear if not licensed. The Inland Revenue, when the Act first came into operation, proceeded to deal with the cases generally that came before them on what, I venture to think, was the natural construction of those words. They estimated what, would be the annual value of the premises with the licence and the value of the same premises without the licence; then they subtracted the one sum from the other, and multiplied the result by the number of years purchase. But the Act of 1904 gave what was in fact a freehold interest to the licence-holder, as though he was entitled to the perpetual renewal of his licence. I pause here to point out that the very fact that in our scheme we adopt a reduction period, a term of years during which, and during which alone, compensation is paid, as a necessary corollary it involves a modification, even if the Act of 1904 had been strictly interpreted. It follows as a necessary incident of our scheme that the amount payable as compensation shall only be such a sum as will purchase with interest of course— at the proper rate, 4 per cent.—an immediate annuity for the unexpired years of the reduction period and equal in amount to the annual value of the-licence. We add to that a further sum, and this is very important. I think the interests of the tenant, of the actual licence-holder, the man who is carrying on a public-house were very insufficiently considered. The licence-holder got very little out of the compensation; the great bulk of it has gone into other pockets. We add, and we keep this separate throughout, both in the assessment and in the payment of compensation, such a sum as the Commissioners of Inland

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  Revenue may think just to add, as compensation for the licence-holder's loss of business.
  Now I come to the crucial point— what is to be taken as the annual value of the licence. We are going to ask Parliament to go back to what we believe to have been the intention of the Act of 1904, and what, whether it was the intention of the framers of that Act or not, ought to be the rule of common sense and common justice. What is the problem? The licensing justices give to a particular house, in a particular street, a privilege which no other house in that street can acquire, without their consent, of becoming the scene, day and night, of the retail sale of intoxicating liquor. The house next door—precisely similar in structure, having cost the builder the same, standing upon land of exactly equal value, and therefore, before the licence was granted, let presumably at the same rent—is occupied by a grocer or butcher, or whatever tradesman it may be. The problem to be solved is this. What is the additional rent which a person would pay for the house with the privilege of the licence as compared with the rent which he would pay for the house next door, carrying on in that house an unlicensed trade, and not enhanced, therefore, in value by a monopoly price? That is the problem. It is a problem which can be solved with the greatest possible ease when you are dealing with a free house, a house that is to say, which is let to the publican at a rack rent, because you have only got to compare the rent which he pays with the rent which his neighbour pays for the unlicensed premises in immediate contiguity, to find out the additional monopoly value given by the possession of the licence. The difficulty, of course, comes in when you are dealing with the tied house, because, as everybody who is familiar with these matters knows, the rent or so-called rent, which is exacted by the brewer or distiller from the tenant —again I must say the so-called tenant —of the tied house, is a rent which in the majority of cases, at any rate, bears no relation whatsoever to the actual value of the premises. Where the brewer comes in and makes his profit is in invoicing his goods—the only goods
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  which this tenant, sitting, as it appears, at a very moderate rent, is allowed to dispose of—at a far higher price than the same class of goods, or perhaps better class of goods are supplied for to the tenant of a free house. Therefore, it is quite clear that, in the case of the tied house, the rent actually paid is not a criterion of the monopoly value, and you must find out what the monopoly value is, as every rating authority in the country does, by having some reference to the business which is done in the house. Yes, but the business done by whom? The business done by the occupier of the house; and the fundamental vice—if I may use such an expression in speaking of the judgment of a learned Judge—what seems to us to be fallacy of the Kennedy judgment, which reversed the whole practice of the Inland Revenue Department, and which added to the sum payable for compensation in the case of these tied houses 50 or sometimes-100 per cent.—consisted in taking into account, not the profit made by the trade retailer, but the profit made by the manufacturer in regard to the drink which he supplied to the house. In other words, you have to deal with the house not as though it were a place simply of retail trade, but you have to consider also its value as an outlet for the wholesale business firms, and for the trade in which they were themselves engaged. And the result is most striking. In the first place, it has vastly inflated the figures which are given by way of compensation, and it has established a most inequitable and indefensible distinction between tied houses on the one side and free houses on the other. It is possible under the law, as laid down in this judgment, and necessarily followed by the Inland Revenue, for the owner of a tied house to get half as much again, and sometimes twice as much, in the shape of compensation as is got by the owner of a free house. Well, we do not think that, that is right, because in addition to its obvious injustice it gives an encouragement to the tied house system, which in our opinion is contrary to public policy. We are going to provide—this will be the rule laid down in the Bill—that the annual value of the licence is to be taken to be the sum by which the actual annual value of the licensed premises,

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  adopted for Schedule A. of the income-tax, exceeds the amount which the Commissioners of Inland Revenue determined would be that annual value if the premises were not licensed. That is a perfectly simple rule which the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are thoroughly capable of applying for themselves, and it avoids the expense and complication of a special enquiry ad hoc, in regard to each particular case which arises; and we propose that in regard to it there shall be no appeal to a Court of Law, and that the decision of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue shall be final.
  I come now to the question of the length of the statutory period, or what is commonly called the time limit. The question of the expediency of laying down a time limit is a question which formed the subject of frequent and anxious debate in the last Parliament. The Government of the day, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite, notwithstanding our insistence, and notwithstanding an Amendment moved in the same sense by the Archbishop of Canterbury in another place, refused to insert any time limit in their Bill. Now I should like to quote one or two things that were said in the course of those debates. I quote one passage, a remarkable passage, from a speech of a supporter of that Bill, who is unfortunately no longer in this House, and whose lofty eloquence and great Parliamentary ability those of us who were in the last Parliament miss almost every day—I mean Lord Hugh Cecil. He said—
  "This Bill did not interfere in the least with the future right of Parliament to set up whatever time limit it might think proper under which licences might cease altogether, after due notice given."
  And I find that in another place—I am glad to be able to quote him—my noble friend Lord Rosebery used these very remarkable words, words which I entirely adopt—
  "I do not care what your limit is, but I am certain of this, that the only way in which you will ever achieve a real temperance reform is by fixing a date at the expiration of which all interest in the licences shall be held to be exhausted, and the nation will then resume its claim, its absolute dominion, over the interests which have been created at the expense of the State and no other than the State."
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  The notion put forward frequently in records of those debates that a time limit was inconsistent with the payment of compensation by the trade during that time limit was, I think, over and over again exploded. I quite admit that the enactment of the time limit involves a double insurance on the part of the trade—an insurance, that is to say, in regard to the risk of being extinguished during the currency of the time limit and an insurance against the general and universal change which will take place when the time limit has come to an end. Before I mention the length of the time limit, I would like to mention one or two facts. Everyone interested in the trade has known, at any rate since the celebrated case of "Sharpe v. Wakefield," which laid down no new principle, but which made notorious and a matter of common knowledge that which had for three centuries been the law—everyone has known since that case was decided, now nearly twenty years ago, that the prospect of continuous renewal was no more than an expectation, not founded on any legal title, and in no way guaranteed by the State. But further, since the debates on the Bill of 1904, everyone has known that the expectation of perpetuity was certain not to be realised, that the imposition of some time limit was inevitable, and that the only question was how soon it would be imposed and what would be its duration. What inference do I draw from these two facts? Why this, that for the best part of twenty years probably, and for the best part of four years certainly, every prudent trader engaged in this traffic has been, or ought to have been, setting his house in order by insurance, and, as many of them have done, by strengthening his reserve fund. To us who sit on this side of the House—more particularly those of us who took part, as I and many of my friends did, in the strenuous opposition to the Bill of 1904 — it is a matter not only of justice and expediency, but of political honour that there should be a time limit. We pledged ourselves to it then, and we pledged ourselves to it again at the time of the General Election, and we had then, as I believe we have now, in support of the proposal for a time limit, the

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  sympathy and the active advocacy of every temperance organisation, even the most conservative, including, if I remember rightly, the bishops of the Upper House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. The question now is not whether a time limit shall be imposed, but what shall be its duration. However that question is decided I may say two things about it. Most certainly the decision will not please everybody, it is probable that it will not please anybody. On the one hand, whatever the duration we prescribe for the time limit, we shall be charged, I daresay to-night, and quite certainly to-morrow morning, with confiscation and spoliation. On the other hand, however short our time limit may be, I am not sure we shall escape the criticism of some of my hon. friends behind me that we are showing an over-tender regard for interests whose antecedents are doubtful and whose title is precarious. It is a very difficult situation. In a difficult situation it is generally desirable, if you can, to found yourself on some principle that will stand the test both of common sense and common justice. If I may recall to the recollection of the House for a moment the exposition I endeavoured to give of the real condition of the problem in the early sentences of my speech, what, having regard to the legal situation on the one side and to the up-growth of these expectations and interests on the other, is the principle we ought to adopt? I say, then, that your time limit should be as long as and not longer than the time which will suffice for a prudent trader who has carried and is carrying on his business with due regard to its special character and its peculiar risks to make adequate provision against the disappearance at the close of the time limit of that part of his profits which is to be attributed to the monopoly value of his licence. I say it ought to be as long as that, because, though there is no question of legal title, there has grown up, as I have shown, a claim for equitable consideration which I think the State ought not to, and cannot, ignore. I say it ought to be no longer than that, because at the earliest possible moment compatible with equitable regard for existing interests the State ought on
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  every ground of policy to recover posession of the monopoly value which it ought never to have parted with. Well, after much consideration, we have come to the conclusion that these conditions will be satisfied by a term of fourteen years. The community will at the expiration of that term recover complete dominion over licences and unfettered freedom of dealing with them, and in that unfettered freedom I include the power of the locality by a popular vote to deal either by way of prohibition or reduction with the state of things for the future.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: This is a very important point, and perhaps the House would like to have it made clear. Does the right hon. Gentleman provide in his Bill for the establishment of local option?
  MR. ASQUITHYes, Sir, local option as regards either prohibition or reduction, but we do not and, indeed, it would be impossible at this moment to lay down the precise conditions, the machinery, procedure, and so forth, subject to which, fourteen years hence, that right ought to be exercised. But the right itself is clearly stated in the Bill.
  As regards authorities. Under the Act of 1904 counties and county boroughs were taken as the compensation areas. Now that we make the area not local but national, we must create a central authority, and accordingly we substitute for quarter sessions and borough justices a Licensing Commission. The Commission will consist of three persons—the Chairman and two other Commissioners appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the Home Secretary. Their powers will continue in force until the end of the reduction period and may, if necessary, be continued by Order in Council. The expenses of the Commission will be paid out of the compensation fund. I do not think it will be a very serious charge. As regards the licensing authorities, a much more difficult question arises—a question which deserves and has received much consideration—namely, whether the local licensing authority shall be wholly or in part, directly or indirectly, elective. Personally I confess I was very strongly

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  predisposed in favour of the introduction of an elective element; but there is grave objection to it. It would almost certainly tend to make local elections for general administrative purposes turn on a single issue which was not relevant to them. That is a very grave evil, and when you take that into account and remember further that the first duty imposed on the justices will be to bring about the statutory reduction in their district, as they are bound to do, there seems less reason than there otherwise would have been for making them directly responsible to the ratepayers, and, on the whole—I confess not without doubt—we have come to the contusion it would be best to retain the licensing jurisdiction in the hands of the justices. We have, however, made some not unimportant changes in the large boroughs. A large borough for this purpose means any borough with a separate commission of the peace, which is a county borough, or which has a population of over 25,000. In such boroughs the licensing justices will exercise their powers through the borough licensing committee appointed under the Act of 1872, seven being substituted for three as the minimum number of the committee. In all such boroughs, whether county boroughs or not, there will be set up an appeal authority. In quarter sessions boroughs it will consist of the Recorder and four justices chosen for the purpose by the whole body of justices, and in a large borough not having a separate quarter sessions and, therefore, no Recorder, it will consist of the mayor and four justices appointed by the whole body of justices. A member of the appeal authority will be incapable of acting as a member of the licensing committee. The powers of the appeal authority will be twofold—first, the power of confirming new licences granted by the licensing justices; and, secondly— and this is important—exclusive jurisdiction in appeals against refusal to renew of transfer licences. Such appeals in large boroughs will no longer go to quarter sessions. Licensing justices may pay to their clerk, in addition to his salary, such remuneration as they think fit for special work performed in connection with the Act. Finally, under this head, we remove a grievance which has
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  sometimes operated very harshly, by providing that in cases where the decision of the licensing justices has been appealed against, whether by mandamus, certiorari, prohibition or otherwise, the Court shall direct the local treasurer to pay to the justices a sum sufficient to indemnify them for all costs properly incurred and not recoverable.
  Now I come to a totally different topic—namely, new licences. As regards new licences, the Act of 1904 contained in its fourth section what I consider a most invaluable enactment— that which secures to the public the monopoly value in the case of new licences. Experience shows that that provision needs amendment in two particulars— first, payment for any year in respect to monopoly value ought not to exceed, and we propose it shall not exceed, the licence value for the year as estimated by the justices. I have a large number of cases here, which I could quote if necessary, in which a very considerable lump sum of money has been paid down as a condition of the grant of new licences, and when that is the case, obviously, however you like to describe it, it fetters the discretion of the authority in years to come. It is much better, we think— and most of the licensing benches agree— that we should provide, as we do, that for any year the payment is not to exceed the licence value for that year; and, secondly—a very important provision— we propose as a condition for securing the monopoly value to provide for the revision of the payment on the renewal of the licence either annually or periodically. It is impossible very often prospectively to estimate what the monopoly value of a new licence will be. In regard to this question of new licences, we introduce at once a new machinery altogether. There is no question here of frustrated expectations or compensation. The monopoly value is declared by the Act of 1904 to belong to the community, and the possibility of the upgrowth of parasitic interests is effectively prevented. It is, in our opinion, not sufficient that the public should be secured in the enjoyment of the monopoly value of any new licence the justices may think fit to grant. We think the people of the locality ought further in such case to

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  have the power of saying, just as the owner of the soil if he pleases may say, that no new licences shall be granted at all. Our Bill by its second clause confers this power on the parochial electors in every licensing district. Upon a requisition signed by not less than one-tenth a poll may be taken on a resolution prohibiting the grant of new licences, and that resolution may be carried by a simple majority. It remains in force until revoked by a rescinding resolution, similarly required and similarly carried.
  AN HON. MEMBER: At what Interval?
  MR. ASQUITH: Three years. Where a poll has been taken on either a prohibitory or a rescinding resolution a further poll is not to be taken until the expiration of three years. Powers a re given to the Local Government Board to regulate procedure in regard to such resolutions, and to apply to them the enactments relating to Parliamentary or local government elections. While the prohibitory resolution is in force no new licences, In the ordinary sense, on or off, may be granted in the district. This will not prevent the licensing justices dealing with business premises constructed, fitted, and intended to be used in good faith for any purpose to which the holding of an on-licence is merely auxiliary. We shall grant for the first time electors the power of saying whether or not no new off- or on-licences shall be given. That I believe to be a valuable and necessary provision. No one can contend that this interferes with any interest either equitable or otherwise, and there is no reason, why it should not come into force at the earliest possible moment.
  Now I will say a word with regard to off-licences. The statutory reduction does not apply to off-licences. We propose to repeal the exceptions allowed in Section 10 of the Act of 1902 in the case of spirit dealers and wine merchants and to provide that a justice's licence should be required for every Excise licence for retail and consumption off the premises. In regard to new off licences, we propose that they should be brought under the provisions o: Section 4 of the Act of 1904, and should
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  also be subject to the power of prohibition vested in the inhabitants of 'the district. Further, we apply Section 22 of the Act of 1874 in regard to provisional licences to premises to be constructed for off consumption.
  I come now to deal with the still more important matter of registered clubs. Between 1st January, 1904, and 1st January, 1907, the number of registered clubs—clubs in which intoxicating liquors could be supplied— increased from 6,371 to 6,907, and after the expiration of another year they have probably reached the number of 7,110. I need hardly say that there is no intention on the part of the Government to interfere with the freedom of the bona fide club. I need hardly say also that all clubs in which liquor is supplied, whether to the rich or the less fortunate in the community, stand on precisely the same footing. Under the Act of 1902 such clubs already require to be registered, and any club may be struck off the register which is not conducted in good faith or where certain objectionable practices or specified acts are proved to be committed on the premises. We propose to strengthen the law by providing that the registration of such clubs should be annually renewed to afford an opportunity for notice of objection to be submitted and considered by the licensing justices. That sounds at first sight an annoying provision; but since I have had this matter in hand in the last few weeks and months, there have been brought to my notice cases in which the suppression of a licence under the right hon. Gentleman's Act of 1904 has been followed by the upgrowth of clubs, not in the same premises, but next door, carrying on the same business, often tied, to the same brewer, who is financing the whole affair, and frequented by the same class of persons. No licence duty is paid, and there is no restriction as to hours. The place is occupied during the whole of Sunday, sometimes in betting and gambling, as well as in drinking, and there is no effective police supervision. That is a monstrous evil. It is a bad thing in the interests of the community, and thoroughly unfair in the interests of the trade. I can understand the indignation, the perfectly legitimate indignation, which is felt by

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  those who are interested in the trade and have contributed compensation to the levy fund for the suppression of publichouses, and yet see that the moment one of these institutions is suppressed, its place is taken by a club carrying on the same business. I might almost here appeal for the unanimous support of all sections of opinion in the House with regard to this question, anxious and eager as we are not to interfere with the bona-fide club. But this provision for the registration of clubs being annually renewed is urgently needed. If an objection is made on the ground that a club is used mainly as a drinking resort, or on any ground specified in the Act of 1902, and it is upheld by the justices, they may make an order directing that the premises shall not be used for the same purposes any time during the next five years. This order is subject to appeal. To secure an enforcement of the law we propose that power should be given to any chief constable, inspector, or superintendent of police, or an officer of superior rank specially authorised by the chief constable to enter and inspect the premises of any registered club. That is a provision to be applied to all registered clubs alike— in Pall-mall and St. James's Street as elsewhere. The conditions are carefully framed so as to prevent any possibility of offence or any legitimate cause of irritation. We are dealing with an admitted and growing evil. Anxious as I am from the point of view of both sides not to interfere with political and working men's clubs, with bona fide institutions to promote social intercourse and political and economic discussions, we cannot fail to recognise that under the guise of clubs there are springing up in this country a set of ill-regulated public houses, and that it is quite time the law stepped in.
  There is one other serious provision in the Bill to which we attach the greatest importance. I classify them under the general head of conditions. Experience has shown various abuses in connection with the use of licensed premises which, apart from any question of compensation or monopoly value, ought to be dealt with in one of two ways or by both—either by increasing the stringency of the
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  general law or by reviving and enlarging the powers of the licensing justices attached to the conditions relating to the renewal of the licence. I will take the first question—namely, that of the Sunday opening of public houses. We propose to apply the Welsh Sunday Closing Act to Monmouthshire, but we do not believe that public opinion in England is ripe for a measure of universal compulsory Sunday closing. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the hours during which public houses are open on Sunday are, as a rule, excessive, in the interests both of the persons engaged in the trade and of the community at large. Both the majority and the minority of the Peel Commission were of opinion that a case was made out in this respect for further curtailment. We propose that outside the metropolis, where the state of things is quite exceptional, no public-house should be open on Sunday more than one hour in the middle of the day or more than two hours in the evening. Further, the justices are empowered to attach as a condition to the renewal of the licence any particulars either of total prohibition or of further restriction on the sale of liquor in particular premises on Sunday. Where the justices attach that condition and convert a licence practically into a six days licence, the Bill provides that the licence-duty shall be reduced by one-seventh. [An HON. MEMBER: Any compensation?] No compensation.
  Another evil of a cognate character arises in connection with the definition of the bona fide traveller. At present under Section 10 of the Act of 1874 a person satisfies the definition if he has spent the previous night three miles away. We propose—again following the recommendations of the Peel Commission—to substitute six miles for three miles in all cases. ["Oh, oh,"] Here, again, we empower the justices to attach by way of condition to the renewal of the licence any further restrictions in regard to particular premises in this respect that seems to them to be reasonable. There are cases where some such restrictions might be reasonable.
  There are a number of other matters which require elasticity in their treatment

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  and as to which, therefore, while making no change in the general law, we give the widest discretion, subject to due notice to the owner and to appeal, for the justices to attach conditions to the renewal of licences. First, as to the exclusion of children from the bars of licensed premises. I will read the proposed clause—
  "In the case of any licensed premises to which this section is applied, the holder of the licence shall not allow a child to be at any time in the bar of the licensed premises except during the hours of closing. On the grant a renewal of licences in respect of premises other than railway refreshment-rooms, etc, the licensing justices may order that this section shall be applied to those premises, and may, for the purpose of the operation of the order in those premises, fix any limit of age under which a child shall be deemed to be a child."
  That gives considerable latitude for local conditions, and no doubt, as a rule, the justices will fix a sufficiently high age to prevent this terrible and growing evil of keeping young children in bars. Next, we propose to give the justices power to make conditions as to the employment of women or children on the licensed premises, as to the arrangement of any part of the premises open to the public, as to any access to them, as to the supplying to any person of the measure of liquor exceeding that asked for, as to the closing of the premises at specified hours on particular days, and as to closing the premises completely or for a specified time on polling days, during Parliamentary or municipal elections. If the holder of the licence makes default in any of the conditions so attached to it the justices may, on the next application for its renewal, refuse renewal, and refuse it without compensation. There are a number of other minor provisions in the Bill dealing with special branches of the law which I am sure, after the length at which I have detained the House, I shall be excused if I pass over. I have explained as clearly as I can the main provisions of the Bill; and, whatever be its merits or demerits, the House will see that it is a large and comprehensive scheme. All its provisions are directed, and directed solely, to securing the two objects which I indicated at the outset—first, an immediate improvement, not only by the reduction of licences, in the conditions under which this traffic is
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  now carried on; and, secondly, the ultimate recovery by the State of complete dominion of its property and freedom of action. The Bill is not conceived, I say once again, in a spirit of vindictiveness or hostility to any particular interest. It is not proposed by us at this moment as incapable of amendment. We invite criticism upon it and, as long as that criticism is honest— and by "honest" I mean loyal to the general and governing purposes of the scheme—we shall welcome it; and, if we are convinced of its justice, we shall be ready to defer to it. I beg to move.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Licensing Aces, 1828 to 1906."—(Mr. Asquith.)
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Nobody is likely to complain of the length of the speech which the right hon. Gentleman has just delivered. He had to deal with an extremely complicated measure. He has dealt with it not only with admirable lucidity, but, as I think, with great conciseness and a mastery of the art of compression, which is not always easy for those who have to deal with great and complex subjects of legislation to exhibit when they are explaining their proposals to the House. I shall have no excuse for trespassing at great length on the time of the House, and do not intend to-do so on the present occasion. Manifestly the great mass of the questions with which the right hon. Gentleman dealt are more questions which we shall have to discuss on the Committee and the subsequent stages; they do not touch the fundamental and main principles, and it is those to which I shall address myself. I am quite ready to give the right hon. Gentleman credit—a kind of credit which he has in past times been very reluctant to bestow upon his political opponents— that in bringing forward this measure he is endeavouring to further the great cause of temperance. I agree with him that no greater cause exists. I agree with him that among all the social evils which meet us in every walk of life, every sphere of activity, the greatest of all the evils is the evil of intemperance. But let

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  it be remembered—as a general observation which I am sure must have been present to many minds while the right hon. Gentleman was speaking—that what this House or any Legislature can do to deal with vice—for intemperance is a vice—is relatively unimportant. It can aid, but it can do no more than aid, those other great social forces exercised by the preacher, lay or clerical, exercised by public opinion, by the changed and, as I believe, the improving views on this subject which are gradually dominating all classes of the community. All we can do in our capacity as legislators is to aid these other great and fructifying forces upon which we must in the main rely for any great and beneficial change in the habits of our countrymen. And, therefore, the question that we have to ask is not whether a measure of this kind is going to produce some enormous advance in the practice of temperance, I doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman himself supposes it. I was one of the authors of a Bill, much abused, which at all events, it is admitted, has had the effect while in operation of largely diminishing the number of licences, and that was the object of it. And in connection with it I at the time and have since examined what statistical evidence or scientific proof can be adduced that there is any clear and close connection between the number of licences in any district and the temperance of that district, and I think everybody who has endeavoured to carry out the investigations of which I speak will come to my conclusion, namely, that it is very hard indeed to trace that close connection, and that, since it is hard to prove it, we should be rash indeed to base upon any scheme which merely had in view the reduction of licences any too high hopes of any amelioration in the morals of the community in respect of intemperance or excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks Therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman tells us that his two great objects are to diminish the number of licences and to give to the community the monopoly value of them, I have to observe that the first of those objects is one which, desirable as I quite agree it is, is not one upon which we ought to build too great hopes, and that the other is merely
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  a financial rather than an ethical matter. We have given in the past by reckless legislation this monopoly value; we have created this vast amount of property; we should, I agree, cease to create it; but we should deal with it, where it has been created, in a spirit of fairness and equity. But the control of the community over this monopoly value is after all not an ethical, but a financial question, and it therefore falls into a much lower category in importance, and appeals to much humbler motives than the larger issues to which the cause of temperance so rightly and so properly appeals. With this preface I ask the House to consider what the Government's plan really is. The right hon. Gentleman is going, as I understand, it, to make an enormous reduction in licences, and he is going to do it by destroying what is now the legal, practical, and equitable property of a large and, as far as I am aware, a not undeserving class of the community. I do not think that can be right, even if some great moral end is to be gained by it or appears to be likely to be gained by it; because I do not think that morality can be founded upon immorality, or that you are likely really to advance any great cause, whatever it may be, by basing your whole apparatus upon a foundation of injustice. You are not going to advance any great cause in the sense in which I am speaking. I wish I could believe you were. At all events, it would be a consolation, if the Bill passes in its present form, for the injustice which I think it is going to inflict on a minority of the population to feel that the majority of the population were being substantially and practically relieved of a temptation to which they are now subjected, and that we might look forward to an entirely different spirit pervading our whole population with regard to temperance. But if the Bill passes in its present shape there is no such prospect, and the right hon. Gentleman does not pretend that there is such a prospect, and not one word in his speech suggested that he entertained these vain and illusory hopes. What we have to reflect is that, for no great moral object, with no prospect of some enormous improvement in the morals of our people, you are going to commit what I

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  shall show in a moment to be a gross injustice to a small part of the community; and I am not sure, when I come to discuss another part of his scheme, whether I cannot show that even such machinery as the right hon. Gentleman has in view for dimiaishing drunkenness is not going to break down under the growth of clubs with which this Bill deals, but with which it certainly does, not deal in a manner from the temperance point of view which is likely to be effective. I have said that this Bill is, on the face of it, going to inflict great hardship and injustice on a certain class of people. I listened with some pain, I admit, to the exultant cheers with which hon. Gentlemen opposite greeted every proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer which had for its object the injury of existing licence-holders—[An HON. MEMBER: Not licence-holders, but brewers.]— the owners of property connected with licences, whether they be shareholders in breweries, or publicans managing public-houses. I am not a shareholder in a brewery, but I believe that the shareholders are a most respectable class. They are certainly a widely diffused class, and I have no reason to believe that they are less reputable citizens than the shareholders in any other industrial concern. At all events, I think this House owes them an equal meed of justice to that which it would exercise in favour of any class in the kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman went into a long legal disquisition, admirably stated, with regard to the statute law governing the sale of intoxicating liquor in this country. I have not a word to say against that legal disquisition. No man is a greater master of the law, and no man in this House is better qualified to expound it than the right hon. Gentle man. But we have to deal, not with statute law, but with admitted equities We have to deal with what is treated by every class in the community at the present time as property, saleable, ex- changeable, taxable, rateable property which has to bear all the public incidence of property, property which can be ex-changed, which can be bought, in the open market, and which has a market price. The right hon. Gentleman know perfectly well, and has never denied that the Inland Revenue of which he
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  is the head, exacts from the estate of those who have property in licensed buildings a proportion not based upon the vaule which he is going to give compensation for, but based on the market value of the property. The right hon. Gentleman has invented a new scale by which this property is to be estimated. He does not pretend for a moment that the scale which he proposes as legislator is the same scale on which le is acting as administrator. He does not for a moment pretend that any licence-holder under this Bill is going to retain the amount of property from which every day he is extracting a tax in his capacity of Chancellor of the Exchequer. I frankly admit I am wholly unable to explain or understand the ethical basis of that proposition. I believe that my right hon. and learned friend beside me can expound it much better than I can. I was told the other day—I am not going into the figures—of a case in which the Secretary of State for War got an enormous price— for the country—by the sale of licensed premises. I cannot conceive that the value of those premises will, after this Bill, and on the scale which the right hon. Gentleman is going to put upon them, sink from the sum which the right hon. Gentleman as administrator obtained for them to the level which the right hon. Gentleman as legislator thinks ought to be given for them. How are you going to find any equitable theory on which a transaction like that is based? There is no such theory. Observe, if I understand the right hon. Gentleman rightly, what the Government are going to do is to inflict the following hardships on the existing owner of licensed property:— You are, first of all, going to put all the compensation levy, not into the hands of quarter sessions or of the local authority, but into the hands of the central authority. The result of that will be that those who have paid the compensation in consequence of which the houses in a district have diminished will not gain by that diminution. The gain will or may go to some far distant part of the country, and one of the sets-off against the compensation levy will be taken away from existing owners of licensed premises. The second hardship is that you are going, as I understand the

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  proposition of the right hon. Gentleman, to value this property upon a wholly new and, as I think, an entirely arbitrary valuation. I admit that the whole subject is full of technical difficulties, and if I were to embark on an elaborate discussion of the relations of tied houses to brewers, and how that affected rent and valuation, I might puzzle the House, but I do not think I should enlighten them. But I will put a quite simple case to the right hon. Gentleman and those who approve of this Bill, which, I think, will illustrate my point as to the inequitable character of the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of this property. Let us not consider the case of the tied house at all, but of a free house, of the man who owns the licence of premises where he has liberty to buy from whom he likes. You are going, as I understand the matter, to estimate the value of his property upon methods which are far removed, and which will give totally different results from any plan on which either the Inland Revenue would proceed in taxing his property for death duties or others would act in estimating the capital value of the property for purchase. You are not going to try to get the market value; you are not aiming at paying the man back a sum equal to that which he would get in the market. We spent yesterday in discussing, under the guillotine, the question of substituting for all rating purposes in Scotland the capitalised value of some things of which it is very difficult to get at the capitalised value. Here, you are going to deal with what ought to be capitalised value, and it is quite easy to get at it. But you refuse to get at it in the only fair way by estimating what a purchaser would give in a free market, if the thing were put for sale, before this legislation was brought in or threatened. That is the fair value. Anything short of that is robbery, and I cannot believe that it is right or honest of this House to make themselves collaborators in a scheme which, under various specious names, is no less than a plan for diminishing the number of licences by depriving a lot of innocent victims of property to which they have an equitable title. There is a third grievance produced by this Bill, and I am not sure it is not the most serious of all. The right hon.
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  Gentleman is going to have a time-limit. He turned round to his followers and said, in impassioned and eloquent terms, that it was a matter of honour with his colleagues and himself to impose a time-limit. In other words, they made so many speeches in favour of a time-limit in 1904 that, whether a time-limit were just or unjust, it was quite impossible for them to avoid imposing it. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's difficulty. I think it would have been rather hard on him to swallow everything he said on the subject in the impassioned debates which took place three or four years ago, and I suppose he is almost driven to adopt some form of time-limit in regard to his own consistency, if not in regard to the equities of the case. But observe how you are going to work the time-limit. You are going to say that, at the end of fourteen years, a whole class of property now in existence shall cease to exist. You are going to say that, during that fourteen years the owners of the property are to spend annually the sum of money settled under the Act of 1904, known as the compensation levy, and that, in addition, they are to pay a second insurance for themselves which is to be on such a scale that at the end of the fourteen years the whole of their property is to be returned to them in the form of insurance. That seems to me to be a grotesque proposal. Under the name of insurance you are going to require a man or a company so to deprive himself or themselves of his or their annual income that practical bankruptcy must stare him or them in the face. I do not see how you can possibly justify that. Take the case of a man who has, since 1904, been paying compensation. He owns, we will say, a house which is admirably conducted, and which is, probably, the last house which the magistrates are likely to interfere with or to destroy. That man will now have to go on paying up to the fourteenth year all the compensation levy by which his fellows in the trade are to be compensated when their licences are removed, and, at the end of his time, he is either to be beggared, to be turned out in the world without a shilling, or else he has to deprive himself of what must be the bare necessaries of life in order that, within he fourteen years, he may pay,

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  not merely the existing compensation, but the new insurance which is to equal the whole present value of his property. There is no use in quoting bishops to me in a matter of that kind. It surely is a really quite plain matter of common financial equity. It is a perfectly simple case of not depriving a man of that which he owns under the name of compelling him to insure. You call it insurance. It is robbery, and I do not see what dexterity will get over that. I have never supposed for a moment, nor did the other authors of the Act of 1904 suppose, that the owners of licensed property had a freehold in that particular property, and I can quite conceive that after a term of years, during which there was no disturbance, you might say: "You have had time to insure, you have had a security of tenure which is less than freehold, and we gave you ample time in which to make the necessary provision for the moment at which the State will resume the licence." But that is not the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. The Government are, in the first place, proposing a period which is preposterously short—[MINISTERIAL Cries of "No.,"]— and, in the second place, they are requiring the unhappy man not merely to insure against the extinction of his own licence, but to insure against the extinction of that of everybody else—a double insurance which seems to me to be absolutely outside any conceivable defence upon broad grounds of justice or of equity. I turn from that to what seems to me an even more important aspect of the case. I do not know whether the House was as much impressed as I was by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that, as soon as, or soon after, licences were suppressed under the Act of 1904, clubs sprung up to take their place. The right hon. Gentleman told us the two great objects of this measure were the reduction of facilities and the recovery of control. How are you going to reduce facilities if you are going to leave it free to any body of persons in this country, when you have deprived them of the power of going into licensed premises, to form themselves into a club? The right hon. Gentleman is going to introduce a very excellent provision by which any club in which
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  there is gross drunkenness or immorality may be suppressed. Well, that is quite right. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks anything is to be gained by it, send in your inspectors. For my part I do not object to his sending an inspector, even in uniform, into the clubs both in Pall Mall and in the country. I do not think anybody has a right to have their feelings offended, nor do I think their feelings would be offended. But that is not the real difficulty. The real difficulty is that many public-houses are not merely places where people get alcoholic stimulants; they are places where people also get an opportunity of smoking their pipes and enjoying the society of their friends as well as having their glass of beer—perfectly innocent amusements. Very well, you do by this Bill deprive the classes that use public- houses of the power of obtaining those perfectly legitimate social enjoyments in the public-house. They immediately start a club, by which the want which you have caused may be supplied. That is perfectly legitimate. That is not a bogus club, it is a perfectly respectable and proper club. Men meet together and they say: "Very well, the public-house that we have frequented has been suppressed. Let us form a club. We. do not want to encourage intoxication; but we are prevented from playing innocent games at the public -house "[laughter]—there are innocent games at the public-house—" but at a club we shall be able to play what games we like. We were turned out of the public-house at 10 o'clock, or whatever the hour is; nobody will be able to turn us out of a club. A wise Legislature has decided that we should only go on Sundays to a public-house to obtain a glass of beer for an hour in the afternoon and two hours in the evening, except in Wales; let us start a club where, if we desire it, we may have Sunday entertainments, innocent entertainments, undisturbed by police, adorned perhaps by the occasional presence of a sergeant in plain clothes, but otherwise unimpeded and untrammelled." How are you going to prevent that sort of club? I was convinced before, but I am doubly convinced by the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the only result of carrying too far this policy of diminishing the

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  number of licences will be not that you will diminish the amount of alcoholic liquor which is consumed, but that you will diminish the amount of alcoholic liquor which is consumed under conditions which are subject to law and the perpetual supervision of the guardians of the law, and where you have a control which, sergeant or no sergeant, you will never be able to get for a working man's or any other club in this country. Does anybody think that the picture I have drawn is exaggerated? Well, have not I got the justification for it in the right hon. Gentleman's own Bill? He told us that even under the Act of 1904, the limited effect of which (though I should have thought it was a considerable effect), is the subject of derisory attack by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite—that Act which only abolished 1,400 licences in the year— very well, even under that Act, small as has been its effects in the opinion of its critics, these clubs have sprung up. That is admitted by the Government. Have they shown in the description of their own Bill the smallest indication that they are going to provide any safeguards against that process going on? They not only provide no safeguards, but they know that it is not possible to provide safeguards. They know as well as I do that men will not submit to these interferences. The idea of telling Englishmen that they may not hire premises to form a club and do in the poorer districts of the country what their richer brethren are allowed to do every day in the rich districts—why, it is ridiculous. Therefore I say that even the limited temperance effects which part of this Bill might be supposed to produce would be more than counteracted by the augmentation of the unlicensed premises which it does nothing to diminish or control. The two objects which the right hon. Gentleman sets out to pursue he himself is defeating. He tells us he is going to reduce facilities, and it merely turns out that he is going to destroy a great many quite innocent licence-holders. That does not mean that he is going to reduce the amount of facilities which citizens of this country have for obtaining liquor. He tells us he is going to recover the control of the licensed trade; but nobody can
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  recover the control of that part of the liquor trade in which the consumption takes place not upon licensed premises but upon premises belonging to clubs. The second part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech exposes the hollow fallacy of the first part, and we are thus left in this unhappy position, that the Government, in consequence of their many speeches and pledges, are driven to bring in a Bill which violates what I regard as in many respects the fundamental equities which should govern our legislative proposals. That is in itself a great evil. But when we ask what compensating advantages the authors of these predatory proposals have to offer us, it turns out that you are not going to diminish the amount of liquor consumed, you are going to transfer the consumption of that liquor from premises over which the magistrates and the police have control to premises over which they have no control. That is a deplorable result, which certainly will not conduce to temperance: and I believe that this Bill is neither honest as regards the property of the licence-holders, nor is it likely to be effective in the great cause in which it is nominally introduced.
  SIR THOMAS WHITTAKER: I desire in the first place to thank very warmly the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government for the Bill which they have introduced. It is a very comprehensive Bill, it is a courageous Bill, and it is a Bill which will obtain the support of all lovers of temperance in the country. I will dwell very briefly on some of its provisions before I venture to reply to the right hon. Gentleman the leader of the Opposition. The principle of this Bill the right hon. Gentleman told the House covered two points. The first was to secure a great reduction in the facilities for the supply of intoxicating drinks, and secondly, and in my judgment mainly, to recover for the nation full control of its own licences in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquors. No one can expect, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us that he does not expect to satisfy everybody, and on one or two points of detail I would that the Bill

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  were different; but whether he will satisfy everybody or not, I am prepared to say that, taking the Bill as a whole, it satisfies me. It does not do all I should like to see done, but I hope that I recognise a genuine, a bold, and a courageous effort to deal with one of the most difficult of our modern social problems. May I say one word about the time-limit of fourteen years, which is much longer than some of us want, but I am willing to wait fourteen years, which is a long time in the life of an individual, but a short time in the life of a nation? I am prepared to wait fourteen years to get control of the licensed trade, rather than by rejecting it run the risk of prolonging the period of delay in legislating and then have to accept a still longer time-limit. With regard to the question of the licensing authority the Government have come to the decision that they will leave the authority in the hands of the justices. That is a point upon which you will find there is a considerable difference of opinion in various parts of the country, and that opinion varies very much according to the way in which the law is administered in the locality in which people live. You will find that in some cases the bench will be the best authority, and in other cases representatives of the local council would be more satisfactory. I do welcome very much indeed the extension, of self-governing powers in this matter of compensation from county boroughs to non-county boroughs with a population of 25,000 and upwards. There are a number of non-county boroughs in this country where the compensation levied is as large as it is in some counties, and this provision will free them from the incubus of quarter sessions, which have hung like a millstone round their necks when they are endeavouring to administer the licensing law. Then the power to give a veto on new licenses is a principle which some of us have fought for very long. We recognise the difficulty which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has found in doing everything in the direction which we desire, during the period of this time limit, but there can be no objection to giving the people of tie district power to say that they do not want any additional licences. Just a word about clubs. We hear a
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  great deal from the members of the liquor trade about clubs, but the first thing I ask when the brewers talk about clubs is, who supplies the clubs as well as the public-houses? Who finance these clubs and then complain that they are the bane of their existence? In the Grand Committee of 1902, when some of us on this side of the House desired to strengthen the regulation of clubs, who was it who fought us? It was the members of the liquor trade and the brewers. In the City of Bradford there are 276 fully licensed houses and 160 clubs. A point which was not touched on—I recognise its difficulty—and which seems to be important, is the entertainments given by these clubs and the admission of visitors. Anybody who reads the club papers will see that in many of them on Sunday twice a day, and sometimes three times a day, there are music-hall or theatrical entertainments. Two or three times a week also there are these entertainments and free visiting among the members of the union. A charge of 1d. or 2d is made for programmes, which merely means that charge for admission, and drink is freely sold. We have now two points of policy on which there is widespread agreement—one, that it is undesirable that liquor should be sold in music halls, and, two, that it is undesirable that music licences should be granted to public-houses; but here you have the clubs with these entertainments going on and liquor being freely sold and this free visiting. That is a very serious matter. With regard to the Sunday closing, I could have wished that the Government had seen their way to have gone somewhat further. We are to have a reduction in the hours of selling and power is to be given to the local justices to close public houses in their locality. They need only allow one or two to be open, I wish it had been the other way, and I earnestly plead now that it may be so—that the law should not allow them to be open but should compel them to close, giving power to the justices to allow one or two of them to open. The result then would be very different. But these are minor criticisms. I regard the measure as a great measure, and I hope we shall be found in most hearty and earnest support of it.

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  Now if I might say a word or two in reply to the criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, he seems to think we shall be able to do very little by Act of Parliament. In Ireland, Scotland, and Wales we have been able to do something by Sunday closing. If there was a sober man in those countries on Sunday last who would have been drunk but for Sunday closing, that man was made sober by by Act of Parliament. He says that we can do but little. If we can do but little, let\is do what we can. The Majority Report of the Royal Commission dealing with this point slid—
  "It is undeniable that a gigantic evil remains to be remedied, and hardly any sacrifice would be too great which would result in a marked diminution of this national degradation."
  If we are to take the right hon. Gentleman as the spokesman of the trade, I am afraid there will not be much sacrifice. Even the liquor trade themselves recognise this evil. They speak of the "Temptation inseparable from the trade in intoxicating liquor." Does not that mean that the facility itself is a temptation to the people? They themselves recommended a reduction of a number of public houses and set themselves to work out a scale of compensation. Though we are told we can do but little, we want to go further and do more in the way of reductions. We want largely to revise the Act of 1904. That Act gives a vested interest that did not exist before. The right hon. Gentleman said he recognised that a licence was not a freehold. It certainly is not if it can be taken away for misconduct, but the Act of 1904 practically makes it so. I noticed last week in the Telegraph, which usually sets itself up to defend the liquor trade, that they said, in reference to that Act, that the effect of the Act is to create a vested interest in licences. It put the trade in a much stronger position than before. It did that with great injustice to the nation. We cannot have complete control of the licences unless we get complete possession of them, and by giving the holder a right to claim compensation the Act created a dual ownership in them. We cannot do as we wish until we get complete possession, and in order that we may do that
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  compensation must entirely cease. We do not wish to do an. injustice to anybody. We wish to secure the interests of temperance, and we must in this matter satisfy the public. The right hon. Gentleman objects very much indeed to the resumption of any of these licences at the end of the time limit. He acknowledges, and no one more than he, the folly of the arrangement under which we gave an extremely valuable monopoly to a limited number of individuals for an absurdly small payment. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the folly of the legislation which allowed these interests to grow up, and said we ought to do our best to prevent them growing up in the future. But surely we must go further than that! We must recover the value of the monopoly. That is the object of this Bill. If that be not done the position will grow worse and worse. As you decrease the licences the value of the remaining ones increases. They must become more valuable the fewer they are. If these licences are really the property of the licence holders, under what plea of justice do you make a levy for compensation? It is adding insult to injury to make a man pay money to compensate himself for the loss of his own property. Therefore by that alone you recognise that the licences are not the property of these men. The licence is not their property. It is an expectation. The other day the trade published a manifesto in the papers in which they said—
  "What we have always relied on is not the right to renewal… We relied on the expectation of renewal."
  If that is true, that at once gets rid of the property claim. It is a speculation —you put money into an expectation. Lord Selborne said it was a locus standi for renewal. All that implies that it might be refused. I now pass to this point, that all these good people who have put their money into the liquor trade have put it in on expectation. That is not new law. Eighty years ago Lord Brougham declared the position as clearly as it could be stated. The nation has been made aware that these licences are subject to refusal at the end of any year, and it was with that full knowledge that people put their money into the trade. I looked up the figures in a recent Stock

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  Exchange Year Book and I found 360 brewery and distillery companies given in the volume. Of those 360, 345 were registered and put before the public after the year 1882, that is the year of the decision of the "Over Darwen" case—that well-known case which made it perfectly clear to everybody that these licences were subject to refusal at the end of any year. It was in that year that a letter appeared in one of the trade papers writted by Mr. Nash, counsel to the liquor trade. In that letter, Mr. Nash said—
  "I am sorry to say, having looked into this question most exhaustively and compared notes with many of my brethern well-versed in these matters, that there cannot be the smallest doubt that in the strict sense no such thing as a vested interest exists and that, subject to appeal, the magistrates can refuse to renew the licence of the largest, most useful and best-conducted hotel in England. I daresay this will stagger many owners, but it is high time that the trade fully realised their position and did not remain an instant in a state of false security."
  It was after that knowledge that 345 out of 360 brewery and distillery companies were registered and went to the public for their capital. Therefore I say that the people who put their money into them did it with the full knowledge of the position and that they are not entitled to so much sympathy as they now ask for. When we see documents such as have been circulated in the House to-day are we to understand that these men—these bankers, trustees, directors— of trust companies and the rest—deliberately invested the funds in their charge in debentures in these concerns and during all this time have not adopted the precaution of creating a sinking fund or writing down the value of these properties? If so, they have been guilty of negligence and unpardonable recklessness, and there has not been ordinary commercial prudence in dealing with an investment of that kind. I know that some gentlemen have invested their own money in this way, but it is a speculation all the same. You are at liberty to put your own money into it no doubt, but you are not at liberty to invite other people to put their money in without telling them that half, two-thirds, or three-fourths of the security depends on an annual licence. You are not justified in asking people to put money in unless you can protect their interest by
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  setting up a sinking fund, and I think that the time allowed to enable that to-be effected is substantial, liberal, generous and reasonable. The right hon. Gentleman cannot understand the reason abler ness of the proposal under which the owner of a licensed property is to-pay towards the levy for compensation, and also to set up a sinking fund. But it is an ordinary every-day occurrence. Any man who owns a leasehold house in London, for instance, knows that at the end of a certain time the lease will fall in, and the property will pass from him. If he is a prudent man, he sets up a sinking fund during the time of the lease, and he also insures against fire. It is the same with a ship. Any man with a ship sets up a sinking fund against the time when the ship will-be practically of no value, and he also-insures against risk of loss. Under the-time limit, we give to the trade a definite fixed period during which the holder will be in the full enjoyment of the licence, and he can set up a sinking fund to redeem the value of the licence; the compensation contribution is merely an insurance to protect him in case of the loss of the licence during the currency of the time limit. It seems to me quite a reasonable proposal. Another important point is that the reduction of the number of houses will add to the value of the remaining houses, and practically the sinking fund would do almost alone for what they want. A house sells, say, a thousand pounds' worth of liquor. The gross profit upon that is about £400, and the net profit about £200. Take an area in which there are twelve of these houses, each making a net profit of £200. That gives £2,400. Supposing you abolish three of the houses, reducing the number to nine. These nine may make £200 each as before—£1,800; but it is probable that two-thirds of the trade which had been done in the other three houses would go to the remaining nine houses. Two-thirds of the gross profits of those three houses had been £800, and practically that additional trade would go to the remaining nine houses without extra cost of working; that is to say that the gross profit of the three houses would practically be the net profit of the nine houses, and that additional trade would be done by these nine houses without extra working expenses. Therefore, if the gross profit of the three houses is added to the £1,800

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  of the nine houses you have a profit from these nine houses of £2,600. They would be making more profit in those nine houses than they did in them when there were twelve houses. ["No!"] Well, answer it then. Deal with it. They even make more profit in the nine houses than in the twelve because of the reduction of working expenses, and that would go a long way to help them to provide the compensation. Then the right hon. Gentleman objects to this fund toeing made national, because it would be used to compensate for licences that are removed in areas where those who make the payments receive no benefit. That is what takes place now. The compensation fund of the right hon. Gentleman is levied over quarter sessions areas, and quarter sessions areas are often counties. They pay to this compensation fund in all parts of the county without any reference to the fact that there will be no reduction of houses in some parts of the areas from which the payments are derived. Many owners of public-houses pay to this levy without any reduction taking place in their particular locality. The fact is that it is recognised that this is an arrangement for the whole trade—a kind of compulsory insurance, and there is no difference in that respect in the arrangement now proposed. They pay the levy whether or not there be a reduction in their locality, and they will do the same under the arrangements of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman made a -very useful admission in accepting the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement -of the law. The right hon. Gentleman's statement of the law was wonderfully clear, and seemed to me to be exceedingly powerful—the absolute legal right of the nation to do what it likes with its own licences. The right hon. Gentleman admits that. Then he comes to what he is pleased to call equity and rights of property. But can a man have a right of property in expectation and not in law? An expectation cannot be a permanency. An expectation is capable of being liquidated by a term of years. That is what the Bill proposes to do. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer dealt with the question of the death duties. The Inland Revenue levies the death duties upon the market value of the estate at the time of death. It does not in any sense or in any way go into the question of the wisdom or
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  justice of that method. People put a value on all kinds of things—race horses, old china, pictures, licences, but the Inland Revenue does not go into the reasonableness or permanence of that value; it takes the market value. If people put an extravagant value on the expectation of the renewal of a licence, the duty is levied upon it. But it does not mean that the Inland Revenue justifies that value. In 1895, British South Africa shares (Rhodesia) were sold at £9, and death duties would be paid on £9 if anyone holding them died at the time they were at that price. To-day they stand at 14s 6d By charging death duties on £9 the Inland Revenue did not in the least indicate that the shares would stop at that value, still less did they indicate that they would refund if they went down. They took them at their market price. But the Leader of the Opposition thinks it very wrong indeed that these licences should be compensated on the value at which they are taxed, and he thinks that it would be wrong to tax them at their market value. The annual value of the premises should be a fair representation of the market value of those premises, the market selling price. The community is being defrauded. The fact is that a number of houses are not paying a fair amount of rates and taxes. They have not been properly assessed. If they were properly assessed, the basis which the right hon. Gentleman suggests would provide a fair and equitable estimate of value and compensation. I expect that we shall have a very curious anomaly when this Bill is passed, as I hope it will be. We shall have owners of public-house property going to the public assessment authorities and wanting them to put up the assessments. We have had this year, and the Return giving full particulars will be published within a day or two, the case of a public-house in the city of London the licence of which was refused, and in regard to which the owner was awarded 100 years' purchase on the gross assessment to property tax. In other cases sixty, seventy, and eighty years' purchase was given, while the owner still has the property. He loses the licence and he is compensated for it a hundred times the annual value at which the whole lot has been assessed. Then there was a case where

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  the house was assessed at £68, and in which the owner got £7,700 compensation for the licence alone, and he is still left with his property. I say that the public are being defrauded. These people have not been paying their fair share of the rates and taxes, and because they have not been doing that, their property has a higher market value. It seems to me that the robbery is rather the other way. I want to renew my thanks to the Government. When Sir William Harcourt introduced his Bill, now more years ago than some of us care to remember, he said he was aware that he was venturing on a sea the shores of which were strewn with many wrecks. An old official of this House some time ago told me that his experience had shown him that the most dangerous subjects for a Government to touch were drink and religion. This Government has enough courage to touch both of them. We have got a strong Government. [OPPOSITION laughter.] Yes, and it takes a strong Government to have the courage to do this. We have had strong Governments who have bowed the knee to the liquor trade. This Government does not do that. It is a strong and courageous Government; and I venture to appeal to the temperance people of this country, to the Liberal Party of this country, and to the Labour men of this country, to support them in taking a substantial step towards removing a gigantic evil which is a national degradation.
  MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: I think that when we are brought face to face with this question one may be permitted to express the hope that as far as possible it may be considered free from the spirit of partisanship. It seems to me that a measure dealing with this great social problem ought to be considered as dispassionately and fairly as ever we possibly can consider it, having regard to the relationship of this great question to the whole nation. Keeping that view before me, I desire to offer my sincere congratulations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government for what I conceive to be a legitimate attempt to deal with a very difficult problem. Taking the scheme as a whole, I do not know that during
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  the time I have been associated with the House I ever heard a scheme unfolded which gave me such general satisfaction. I congratulate him in the first place upon the application of the principle of trusting the localities themselves, a question upon which those associated with the Labour Party feel strongly. Far too long in connection with licensing have the people who were most affected by the licences been ignored. There has existed for a long time a power resting with the individual in the case of the landlord to veto licences on his estate, but so far as the great wage-earning section of the population is concerned, they have been exposed continuously to the danger of the licensing authority placing licences even in redundancy in their areas, and exposing them to all the danger that that involves. I recently pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman on a deputation on the subject that during the last twenty-five years there had been tremendous improvements in connection with the life of a great number of the wage-earners of the country. They had taken advantage of increased facilities of transit, they had gone to live in entirely new districts. Many of them had put into practice that spirit of thrift that is constantly being preached to working men, and through building societies and other agencies they had become the owners of their own little property in the shape of the cottage in which they reside. But what have we found from experience % As soon as these new districts have become sufficiently populated the working men who have made this investment have been subjected at the hands of the licensing justices to an entirely unjustifiable lack of consideration, and at the instigation of some brewery company licences have been planted down in the midst of this new property, exposing the families living there on to social and moral deterioration and the property to depreciation in value. Therefore, I congratulate the Government that they have had the courage to recognise the value of trusting the people in the localities with a direct vote upon the issue of new licences. I hope I am right in concluding that the principle of the veto will appiy to all licences immediately

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  after the expiration of the time limit. If that is so, on that particular point it increases my satisfaction. I believe no truer word was ever uttered than when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said—
  "The attempt to deal with this subject for the people and without the people has been a conspicuous failure. Acts have been passed, tried and thrown aside, and the evil remains unabated. I do not wonder that good and earnest men should despair in the presence of the persistent continuance of the evil, of being able to find any successful remedy; but when statesmen have only made matters worse, and Parliament has legislated to no purpose, I am still sanguine that the people themselves, if wholly trusted, would do something to mitigate the plague and stay its ravages."
  I think the Government have chosen the right line in applying the principle of the veto to new licences and to all licences at the expiration of the time limit. I think the Leader of the Opposition deplored the fact that the Government had selected so short a period as the time-limit. I deplore the fact that so long a period has been chosen. The right hon. Gentleman's speech seemed to run upon the assumption that this position which was going to be dealt with had been practically for all time as his Bill of 1904 created it. The position that he created in 1904, however, was one which had never obtained in the whole history of licensing in this country. Those of us who may be found generally supporting this measure are not alone in holding the opinion that that was an entirely new principle. I should like to quote one opinion from an organ of the Press generally very loyal to the Conservative Party, the Pall Mall Gazette, which at the time that Bill was before Parliament aaid—
  "Neither Mr. Balfour nor any other authority has been able to disprove the obvious fact that the Bill as it now stands will give the publican a vested interest which he has never possessed in law, in equity, or in the calculations of the trade."
  There is at any rate one opinion that ought to have some weight with the supporters of the right hon. Gentlemen. May I further show, in order to prove what has really been practically for all time, until his Act passed, the legal
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  position. As far back as 1828, Lord Brougham declared—
  "The justices have everything at their absolute discretion, and no one has any control over them in these matters. It is in their absolute power to give a licence to one of the most unfit persons possible, and it is in their power to refuse a licence to one of the most fit persons possible. They may continue a licence to some person who has had it for a twelvemonth and during that time has made his house a nuisance to the whole of the neighbourhood, or they may take away the licence from a house to which it has been attached for a century and which has not only been attended by no evil but has been productive of great public benefit."
  Then further repeated attempts have been made in the Law Courts to alter this legal position. In the Darwen case which dealt with the tenure of off-licences, Mr. Justice Field said—
  "The Legislature recognises no vested right at all in any holder of a licence. Every licence is a new licence, although granted to a man who has had one before, for it is only granted for one year."
  Mr. Justice Stephen concurred, and said—
  "The justices can either refuse or confirm these certificates on any ground they like, and whether the application is for a new certificate or made for the twentieth time, and whether the applicant is of unblemished character, as in this case, or of bad character."
  These legal opinions have been upheld in every case that has been brought for the purpose of upsetting the law, and it has been clearly and thoroughly established that there was nothing more than the mere right of expectation of having the licence renewed right up till the passing of the Act of 1904. Keeping that in mind, surely to be told that a time limit of fourteen years is too short appears to me to be carrying the argument altogether too far. We who think fourteen years rather too long have more argument in our favour than have those who object to the time limit as being too short. Then I congratulate the Government for having been sufficiently able to deal with the question of clubs. Everybody knows, especially those who move in great industrial centres, that this evil has been growing during the last few years at a tremendous rate. I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that any legislation must apply equally to the clubs of the rich as to those who are not so rich. On

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  this point I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, one question. I did not quite understand whether the clubs are to be allowed to enjoy unfettered liberty as to the hours of opening.
  MR. ASQUITH: The Bill as it is drawn at present does not contain any provisions as to the hours of closing. In regard to the whole of this matter I am very open to suggestion.
  MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that observation. It seems to me that it is almost useless to attempt to remedy the evils associated with club life as many of us know it to-day if there is to be this full discretion as to the hours of opening and closing. In fact, in many cases I do not know that it comes to be a question of opening, because I doubt whether they are ever really closed, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will very seriously consider this. His provisions for dealing with the clubs seem to me to be based very largely upon a desire to remove an injustice from the licence holder. If that be so, if the licensed holder is restricted in his hours of sale we are not doing anything like full justice if we allow the club unlimited hours. The right hon. Gentleman must recognise the point of my argument that he ought to do justice to a fuller extent than he hinted in his speech. Another observation which I should like to submit to the right hon. Gentleman is this: He gave us to understand that so far as the Metropolis is concerned there is to be no difference in the hours in regard to Sunday sale. Do I understand from that that any restrictions which he is going to impose against clubs will also apply to the whole of the clubs in the Metropolis.
  MR. ASQUITH: Oh, yes.
  MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: There again that will mean that there will be a differentiation if he accepts my suggestion about the restriction of the hours of the clubs in the country, and there will be too wide a distinction between the provisions as applied to clubs in the country and clubs in London. If he restricts the hours of the clubs in the country,
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  they would I suppose be restricted on S. in day; at least I should sincerely hope so. Then we should have that listinction between the hours that clubs can open on Sundays and the hours they would open in London.
  MR. ASQUITH: Perhaps I had better mike the point clear in order to avoid a misapprehension. We propose to alter the general law on Sunday as regards the whole of the country, giving the magistrates certain discretionary powers.
  MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: Again I have to thank the right hon. Gentleman. I was anxious to get this point made clear. I am pleased to learn that the powers to be given to the justices are to apply to the Metropolis. That was one of the most disappointing parts of the speech, when I heard him say that no difference was to be made in the hours of opening and closing as they obtained in this great Metropolis. During the few years I have lived in London, I have learned a great deal, in fact I have learned more than I ever did before upon this question, and I must say that if there is a place that appears to me to have an unanswerable case for curtailment of hours on Sundays, it is this great Metropolis. I saw within half an hour at the "Elephant and Castle" more people go in for liquor during the opening hours of Sunday than I have ever seen in any single week before during the whole of my life. The more you go about London, whether at midday or evening on Sunday, the more evidence you can find of a strong case being made out for a reduction of the hours of opening on Sunday. I regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has had to admit that in this England of ours we are not as far advanced as the country from which I came. I do not agree with the statement made with regard to Scotland as to increased drinking there. From what I know of it, I believe that Sunday closing has been to that country as it has been to Ireland and "Wales, an immense benefit. I only wish that the Government had gone the whole hog and given us entire Sunday closing. It is, however, a satisfaction to know that we can use all our influence with our local authorities, and if the local

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  authorities are at all in earnest it will not be long before a great limitation, if not an entire closing, of public-houses takes place in many districts. In regard to the children, I was not quite clear as to whether in the Bill any age at all had been fixed at which children could be taken into a public bar and supplied with liquor.
  MR. ASQUITH: No.
  MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: Then that is a source of regret to me, for I believe there is no subject upon which there is in this country to-day such a volume of opinion in favour of restriction and a limitation of age—say the age of sixteen—at which children shall not be permitted, either to receive liquor in the bar or to enter a public bar, or that part of the public bar where liquor is usually supplied. I believe there would be an almost unanimous note of congratulation to the Government, if they could see their way clearly to accept an Amendment stipulating that sixteen should be the age limit. I venture to express the hope that before the remaining stages of this Bill have been got through, the right hon. Gentleman will be willing to receive an Amendment on this point on the lines I have indicated, because unless we make up our minds to protect the children from the demoralising atmosphere of many of our drinking bars—and I say this, having read recently those terrible facts brought to light by Mr. G. R. Sims—the probabilities are that in years to come we shall have to deplore much of the evil we deplore today, which arises from the sale of intoxicating liquors. In conclusion, let me say that I am delighted that the Government have given us what I would venture to call a comprehensive measure. I hope there will be no weakening of the main principle; if anything, let us strengthen the Bill. I was a little surprised to hear from the Leader of the Opposition that we could not do much good by legislation of this character. What we can do, however, is to lay down such conditions as will prevent a tremendous amount of harm being done.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: I regret that I must dissociate myself from the hon. Member who has just sat down and the hon. Member who preceded him in felicitating the Government upon the measure they have today introduced to the notice of the House. I will preface my observations with the hope that it may not be assumed that because any Member of this House, more especially if he happens to sit on this side, entertains that view, he therefore is in any way lacking in the enthusiasm or the interest of the most earnest temperance reformer. There is a fundamental difference between us on the question of method. I find there is a certain party in this House which stands aghast at the magnitude of the drink evil, and confessing itself helpless to grapple with it, deifies the State, canonises the Government, and prostrates itself before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and asks him to endeavour to accomplish by Act of Parliament something which only human and social evolution can do. That being my view, I am amazed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer on behalf of the Government should respond to such an appeal. I am surprised that with all the great financial and social problems with which he has to deal, and pledged as he is up to the hilt to raise more funds for all kinds of pressing social need, he should now deliberately tamper with his principal source of revenue, and abandon that which I hold to be the legitimate symbol of his office, the rake of the croupier, for the crook of the Good Shepherd. However that character may become him in his private capacity it is certainly out of place in his official character. I now venture to ask him with great respect, and I would also ask any hon. Member who supports this Bill, one or two simple questions, to which I think I am entitled to receive an answer. Why is this' Bill introduced? Is the evil of intemperance on the increase? Is the consumption of alcoholic drink on the increase? Has there been any increase in the number of licences granted? Is there any increase of crime attributable in any way to drink? If none of these questions can be answered: in the affirmative, then the substratum

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  of this measure has gone. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] If it be the fact that intemperance in this country is an ever lessening evil, if the licences are being automatically reduced, and if the class of crime attributed to drink is decreasing, (except in. those districts which enjoy the blessing of prohibition legislation) if all this be true, then the foundation of the Bill is gone. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer says the two - fold object of this Bill is a reduction in licences and the resumption of State control. ["Hear, hear!"] An hon. Member says "Hear, hear," but I would like to remind him what the late Mr. Gladstone said upon the matter. Speaking of the reduction of licences Mr. Gladstone said—
  "If the reduction of licences aspires to the honour of a remedy, it seems to me that it is little less than an imposture."
  That is the dictum of the late Leader of the Liberal Party and I leave my hon. friend who interrupted me to reconcile it with the first principle upon which this Bill is based. As regards the resumption of control, if I understand the English language at all I am at a loss to understand how the State can resume the ownership of something which it never possessed. I also want to know how certain Members of this House who regard the drinking habit as the greatest curse in the world are going to reconcile themselves to a position which arises under this Bill when every man in this House and every citizen of this country will become a licensed victualler and an owner of licensed premises. For myself I decline to take any such responsibility. It is quite enough for me that the law entails upon me a certain responsibility in regard to the internal affairs of the Church of England, and whilst I object to be made sober by Act of Parliament I also object to being made a licensed victualler by Act of Parliament. I am going to make myself responsible for a comprehensive statement, and then I will leave my hon. friends to dispute it. So far as the whole history of restrictive legislation goes there is no part of God's earth to which any hon. Member can point to-day and say "Here it has done good." Take general statistics of drunkenness. If you take Ireland it
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  is 18 per 1,000; Scotland, 10 per 1,000; Wales, 10 per 1,000, and England 6 per 1,000. A few weeks ago a meeting of' the City Council of Glasgow was held for the purpose of considering "the recent large increase of drunkenness." While in England drunkenness has been steadily decreasing, in Scotland and Wales it has been steadily increasing. These are facts vouched for by official documents in the possession of every Member of the House. [Cries of "No!"] Will any hon. Member get up and say in what respect I have misrepresented the facts? The "Licensing statistics of England, Scotland and Wales" are my authority for these statements. They show that in 1901 there were 13,500 convictions in Glasgow; in 1905, 15,000; and in 1906, 20,000. These figures if they tell you anything tell you that you cannot by a mere reduction of drinking facilities reduce drunkenness and that you must trust in the wisdom of what was said by Mr. Gladstone that a reduction of licences is an imposture if it aspire to the dignity of a remedy. I observed that the other day a speech was delivered by a great American whisky mignate—the chairman, indeed, of the great whisky Trust. He was addressing the shareholders, and referring to the great extension of prohibition areas he said that it would make no difference to the whisky trade; that men would have liquor if they wanted it, and that it is only the area of distribution which will be altered by legislation. Then I observe, coming nearer home, that the chairman of the Preston bench of magistrates asked the chief constable whether he could explain why it was that with a continual reduction of licenses in that town drinking was going up. The chief constable could give no explanation except that the weather had been rather unsettled of late. Speaking therefore from the argument of experience, I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if it be a fact that in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, the drink statistics compare every year more unfavourably with those of England if it be a fact that prohibition legislation has never lessened the consumption of alcoholic liquor—then at least to dismiss the theory that the reduction of licences is a remedy. Leaving that point I wish to

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  ask one or two questions. We are told that a fourteen years limit is to give sufficient time to everybody engaged in the trade to make provision for the ultimate loss of his property. I thought that one object of the Bill was materially to lessen the consumption of drink. In fact if the Bill is to have any effect at all in the course of the fourteen years the drink evil ought to have disappeared altogether. If its effect is to be that, what is the good of telling the licensed dealer: "We are taking away your trade on the one hand, and on the other, if you be a prudent man you will be able to save sufficient to compensate yourself." I am told that there has never been property in a licence. I am told it has been only a matter of "expectancy." I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether property in this country does not rest upon the foundation of "expectancy"—the expectation that there will be no alteration in the fundamental basis of the law. What does a reversion rest on but expectancy, not only of the death of the life tenant but of the sanctity of contract, and the justice of our laws? What does a solicitor rely on for his annual Certificate except the expectancy that if he is honest and respectable—and some solicitors I have heard are neither—he will get his Certificate renewed as a matter of right? Having read the judgment in the case of Sharpe v. Wakefield I have to say that I do not agree with the construction put upon it by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was swallowed by the hon. Member for the Spen Valley Division as such a grand exposition of it—from his own particular point of view. To my mind it decided the opposite. The judges said that there had grown up such an expectancy of renewal that the justices were bound to exercise "judicial discretion" before taking away a licence. That strengthened rather than weakened the contention of the licensed victualler that he should have his position recognised. If we look at it from another point of view we find the Chancellor bf the Exchequer saying that in charging death duties on licensed property, we must have regard only to the market value of the day. The right hon.
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  Gentleman gave the instance of an unfortunate man who might die possessed of a racehorse. The animal was taxed up to its full market value although there was no assurance that it would fulfil the expectation of the trainer, or (what is more to the point) the secret intentions of its owner. I confess if I had any prospect of impending dissolution, and that having the misfortune to possess a few quadrupeds courteously called racehorses and if there was any chance of the Government stepping in and saying: "We will resume possession of the racehorses, for all horses originally belonged to the State," I think I would enact that the poor animals should be taken to a convenient place and shot, and thus put both them and my heirs out of their misery and suspense. Every licensed victualler has invested his money in the belief that this expectancy was a real thing. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has said that surely the shareholders and general investors in licensed property were worthy of some consideration. A few days ago I visited the joint stock registry of this country. I have taken out these sheets of names and addresses of ministers of religion of all denominations, mainly ministers of the Established Church I admit, who, believing in the permanency of that expectation, have invested some of their hard-earned savings in licensed and brewery property. Here are the names of 1,280 ministers of religion whose little all is to-day represented by their shares in breweries and other licensed undertakings. If any hon. Member is anxious to know the particular inclination of his rector in these matters, he may have full access to these sheets. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also referred in a casual sort of way to the fact that there may be £100,000,000 or £150,000,000 invested in the licensing trade. I would say that there are £300,000,000 invested in it. There is £100,000,000 in mortgages and debentures stock alone, and I could produce a list of names showing that they are held largely by widows and in trust on behalf of minors throughout the country. The hon. Member for the Spen Valley Division may say that the shareholders had invested their money in these concerns

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  with their eyes open. I have looked at the prospectuses of a number of the undertakings and I venture to say that not one contains a special clause calling attention to the decision in the cases to which he referred. Leaving the time limit may I say a word about the extraordinary proposal in relation to Sunday closing? If there is one aspect of licensing legislation which has been the most dismal of all failures it is the attempt to deal with Sunday closing. An hon. Member has said that he did not admit that in Scotland it had been a failure. If he will refer to the statistics, he will alter his view in relation to arrests for drunkenness on Sundays. I asked the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary a few days ago to give me information as to arrests in the Metropolitan district for drunkenness. In round figures the arrests were: On Saturday, 4,000; on Monday, 2,000; and on Sunday, 946. With all the facilities for drinking on Sunday, when working-men had time on their hands, there were only 946 arrests. [An HON. MEMBER: There are less hours on Sunday.] The hon. Member seems to forget that some working-men really do go to work on week-days. On Sunday in London working-men have six or seven hours absolutely available to do nothing but drink, and yet on ordinary week-days when they have their working hours intervening, there is the immense disparity in arrests which I have pointed out. If the object of the Bill is to promote temperance, why does not the Government introduce two clauses—one to close the public-houses on Saturday and the other to close them on Monday? As it stands, one is led to suspect that it is a Church and Chapel Relief Bill as regards closing of public-houses on Sunday. I am encouraged to take that view when I read a dismal moan by the hon. Member for Finsbury in which he points out that of the 6,000,000 of people in London no more than 15 per cent. of them attend places of worship. The number of places of worship, he tells us, is 4,000, and the average attendance is 194; while the number of public-houses is 14,000 and these have a daily attendance of many hundreds if not thousands. And then the hon. Member goes on to urge that legislation for
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  Sunday closing should be introduced. I also find a paper called the Christian, which I do not pretend to take in or read regularly, bemoaning that "the result of the recent Welsh revival has now disappeared owing to the popularity of licensed premises." In view of the fact that there is on Saturday four times and on Monday twice as much drunkenness as on Sunday, why has the Chancellor of the Exchequer singled out the Sabbath Day in this Bill for closing? And where has Sunday closing anywhere in any way diminished the evils of intemperance? Turning to the question of Clubs, I confess that I feel very strongly on that subject. I listened with real amazement to the unfolding of the right hon. Gentleman's plan. I remember that the Prime Minister attributed the death of the late Government to an over indulgence in tactics; but I cannot help feeling that a total abstinence from tactics will prove equally fatal. Tactics! Why, Mr. Speaker, the present Government is throwing them to the winds. The licensed trade as a body always has been, is, and probably always will be, the enemy of the Liberal Party. But hitherto that Party has been able to rely to a large degree upon the counteracting and counterbalancing influence of the working men's clubs of the country. Now they are to be flouted and insulted. Surely the proposal to allow an ununiformed police officer to enter a working men's club to see whether the members are misconducting themselves or are guilty of improper practices is an overdose of tactics of the stupidest kind. [An HON. MEMBER: All clubs are to be treated alike.] My acute friend below me reminds me that this measure is to apply equally to all clubs whether working men's clubs or clubs in Pall Mall. I wonder if this Bill becomes law what he would say if he met a plain clothes constable in his club every night. Sir, since I heard that specious argument I confess that I have been wondering what is the Parliamentary phrase for "spoof?" I have been unable to find an answer to the query, and I have come to the conclusion therefore that the proper phrase to use is that the right hon. Gentleman has been "pulling our legs." The hon. Gentleman who speaks for the Labour Party spoke as if working-men went into their clubs solely for the purpose of

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  getting drunk. I always understood that before joining a club, even a working man's club, the applicant had to give satisfactory references. [Cries of "No."] I only speak from my own experience. That, at all events, is the rule in South Hackney. And if a policeman is to be allowed to enter a club in this manner it is a monstrous invasion of the liberty of the subject; and from the point of view of tactics it is one of the most foolish, things that the Government has done during its career. Looking it the general provisions of the Bill it has to be remembered that the reduction of licences can never have and never had the effect of producing a reduction of the drink consumed; and, secondly, that the State had never the right to claim the property of licences. I know I shall be told to-morrow by my friends that I always oppose licensing reform and temperance legislation. I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary for the Colonies paying the hon. Member for Preston the magnificent compliment that he had an intellectual predilection for unfashionable causes. I am quite prepared to be put in that category. I, however, repudiate the suggestion that I am not desirous to do everything I can to alleviate and diminish this great evil of intemperance. But all statistics point against the proposals in the Bill as dangerous and useless. That is not all. I think it was the First Commissioner of Works who told a deputation that they should take what they could get now. They might not be able to obtain all they desired in a single session, but the more they could get now the more support they would get for a more drastic measure in a future session." The Prime Minister himself said that we should pave the way for "effecting in after years those reforms which temperance workers had at heart." Therefore this Bill is only the beginning of a policy of drastic restriction. I regard this measure as indicating the drift of the Liberal Party on to the rocks. The First Commissioner has denied that the Local Veto Bill of 1895 was the cause of the utter annihilation of the Liberal Party. May I say that at that time he was a very young man and had probably not contracted what the Leader of the Opposition would describe as the
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  bad habit of reading the newspapers. But if he will refer to the papers of those days he will find that of fifty odd Liberal candidates for election who were then successful forty-six said that they had managed to win even despite-the disadvantages of Sir William. Harcourt's Bill; and of 136 unsuccessful candidates 130 attributed their defeat to that particular measure. The late Sir William Harcourt himself lost his seat on that occasion, as did Mr. Caine, whilst Sir Wilfred Lawson, only just managed to keep his seat. I say that the Government are therefore by introducing this Bill getting on very dangerous ground. If I thought that any provision in the Bill would reduce by one iota the evil of intemperance I would sit up night and day and devote myself heart and soul to furthering the passage of the measure. Although temperance reformers will not give me credit for it; I am as keen as-they on the subject. It is not those who talk most about temperance who are-most interested in it. It is not necessarily those who obtain a reputation for being great temperance agitators who do-the best for the temperance cause. While I honour every earnest man who takes a deep interest intemperance—my honest conviction is that there is an even greater asset even than temperance—especially when made by Act of Parliament, and that is the robust manhood and sturdy independence of a self-reliant people.
  MR. F. E. SMITH: In spite of the speech of the hon. Gentleman, I confess that I do not share his surprise or indignation at the nature of the proposal which the Government have submitted to the House. The real fact is that any one who read the speeches which were made by the Leaders of the Opposition at the time my right hon. friend introduced the last Licensing Bill would have been able to forecast with accuracy what the nature of the plan of the present Government would be in regard to licensing reform. The Opposition of that day founded themselves upon certain facts and certain inferences which they drew from these facts. I maintain that every, fact and every inference drawn from the facts has been

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  proved by the experience of the last three years to have had no foundation at all. We have had the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in introducing the Bill, saying that, without putting precise figures, he would take £100,000,000 as representing the capital value of the licences of the country. An hon. Member opposite put forward as an alternative figure £300,000,000. But will it be believed that the present Lord Chancellor, at the time of the introduction of the last Bill, said that—
  "If the discretion of the justices is to be limited, if compensation is to be provided for licences to be suppressed, as this Bill proposes, the value of all the licences proper which is estimated to-day at £300,000,000, and which I believe to be below the mark, would be £600,000,000 the day after the Bill is passed."
  Is there any man sitting on that side of the House who will get up and say that the whole case on which that prediction was based has not been completely falsified by the events? The extraordinary statements that the value of brewery companies was to be so increased by the compensation to be given that it would be doubled in a comparatively short time have also been falsified. The hon. Member for Spen Valley spent his time in a disinterested and noble eulogy on His Majesty's Government which must have been very gratifying to them. The hon. Gentleman said in the debate on the last Bill that he put the value of licences at £150,000,000.
  SIR THOMAS WHITTAKER: I did not.
  MR. F. E. SMITH: I took it that the hon. Member stated so in the debate, and I will give him my authority, but of course if he says he did not, I accept his statement. A few days ago, however, the hon. Gentleman, writing to The Times, put the present value at £100,000,000, and I must take that statement. I venture to lay before the House a proposition which everyone will accept. There has been, during these few years in which we have had an opportunity of testing the Act of my right hon. friend, one tendency, and that is that instead of increasing the value of licensed property—I do not say by reason of the Act but subsequent to the Act—the securities have depreciated enormously in value, and far more rapidly
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  than any other class of security. At the present moment no expert valuer will come forward, nor can any temperance reformer cite one who will, and deny that there has been a great depreciation of the value of licenses since the time when my right hon. friend introduced his Bill. I refer the House to a quite impartial organ, the Statist, which gave statistics on this question. It took seventy-eight typical companies as fairly representing the largest and most prosperous brewery companies in the Kingdom, and it found they had a total capital of £90,000,000. Of this £41,000,000 were debentures, £25,000,000 were preference shares, and £23.000,000 ordinary shares. The net profit on that total sum of £90,000,000 was £3,556,000, the return varying between 5 and 9 per cent., a very considerably lower interest than the interest which was shown in respect of the same companies in the previous five years. If it is true that we wantonly introduced a Bill which has endowed the brewers, will anyone in the course of this debate inform us why every brewery security has depreciated, and why the total value of licenses is smaller than it was at the time that so-called Endowment Bill was introduced? That is not consistent with the case put forward in the House and in the country at the time when the last Bill was introduced. But that was not the only prediction by which that Bill was opposed. We were also told on every platform and in this House that the Bill which we were introducing would not have the effect of diminishing the number of licences. We do not hear much to-night of that, although I do not fail to observe that many of the same hon. Members are still in the House. So vehement was the protest which was raised on those Benches that my right hon. friend was actually interrupted in the course of his speech, as the pages of Hansard will show, when he ventured to predict that the result of his Bill would be enormously to increase the speed with which licences were reduced. He was received with such dissent from those benches that he had to ask the indulgence of hon. Gentlemen opposite to be allowed to proceed. What are the facts? They deserve

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  a little more attention than the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any other speaker has given them. During the eight years before the Act, the average reduction of licenses was 218. That was all that could be done by temperance reform up to then, and I might even go a little further and point to the action of the liberal Party who had an opportunity of showing whether they knew any better method of reducing licenses, but did not avail themselves of it. I have given the figures of the new licenses which were granted before the Act. Take the eight years before the Act was passed, there were 218 new licenses granted. I take the three years since the Act, and the annual average was fifty-six. So far at any rate the temperance measure introduced by my right hon. friend very considerably reduced the number of new licences granted, and for the first time in our history of this question secured the monopoly value to the State without injury to anyone. Now let us take the case as far as the renewals of old licences are concerned. From 1894 to 1902 the average annual reduction of old licences of all kinds was 296, but from 1902 to 1904 the annual reduction was 644. The Chancellor of the Exchequer founded some observations upon that circumstance and said that the licensing justices were then beginning to show for the first time that they were prepared to refuse the renewal of licences on the ground that they were not required by the neighbourhood.
  MR. ASQUITH: I said it was one of the reasons for introducing the Bill.
  MR. F. E. SMITH: I by no means dissent from that, and may I venture to remind the hon. Member of another reason for introducing the Bill, and that was that representations were made to the Government by no less than 100 licensing benches in the country that they found themselves in this position, that while there was the sense of injustice which prevailed, it would be quite impossible for them to continue to refuse licences which had been granted in the well-founded expectation of renewals. I take the figures for the two years 1903 and 1904, and the re-
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  ductions then ware 644. I then take altogether the averages from 1894 to 1904, which gives the House a ten years average and shows what you could do before my right hon. friend took the matter in hand. In these ten years the average reduction was 359. What are the figures since this Brewers Endowment Act, which, according to hon. Members opposite, struck the deepest blow at the heart of temperance? The figures since the Act, for 1905 and 1906, for those two years show an average of 1,305; while in 1907 there were 1,507 licences which were refused renewal. That compares favourably with anything the temperance party and previous temperance reformers had been able to do. Who says that that was not a Bill in the direction of temperance? I followed the speech of the right hon. Gentleman with all the care that I was capable of giving to it, and I very much wish that he or someone else will tell us in figures what is the estimate of their desirable annual reductions in these licences. Does he think that 1,500 licences a year is an adequate and satisfactory reduction in the number of licences.
  MR. ASQUITH: Yes.
  MR. F. E. SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman assents. Let me consider that view with reference to the total number of licences in this country. The right hon. Gentleman said that there were 95,000 licences in this country. We do not share the right hon. Gentleman's prediction, which is not founded upon facts, that the diminution in the number of licences will not be sustained. Such predictions are of very little weight with us, as the right hon. Gentleman was one of those who told us that our Bill would produce no diminution at all. We are faced with the fact that there are 95,000 licences in this country. If reduction is made at the rate of 1,500 a year, in twenty years, a very fleeting period as the hon. Member for Spen Valley has reminded us in the social evolution of the nation, 30,000 licences will have disappeared. That is to say one-third of the total number of licences in the country will go in twenty years without injury to anyone. I need not

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  remind the hon. Gentleman of what the result would be at the end of forty years, but if the process was automatic the necessity would arise in time for creating new licences all over England. I now come to consider what is after all the Achilles heel of this Bill. The Government have bound themselves and their followers to one solution only of the temperance problem, and their solution is that if you reduce the facilities for obtaining drink you will at least to some extent have solved the drink problem. I am doing no injustice to the Government when I say that that is the position of the Liberal Party. That position demands one conditional precedent before you can even say that you are giving it a fair trial, and that is that you should draw no sort of distinction between the nature of the premises to which these facilities are extended. Is the legislation likely to succeed in diminishing the number of premises in the country on which drink can be obtained? I do not think anyone in the house will get up and say that if the Government are driven to admit that side by side with the reduction of licences there has gone on in the past, and is likely to go on in the future, an increase in the number of clubs, on their own theory this legislation will be a failure. We, however, have never pinned ourselves to this as the one supreme method for dealing with the licensing problem. We have never pinned ourselves to the idea that you must deal with clubs in Pall Mall and with working men's clubs. It is not our panacea, but it is yours, and if after this Bill you have made no progress in reducing the number of clubs in which drink can be obtained, then your Bill will not be worth the paper it is written upon. What has the Government done in regard to the reduction of clubs? When I listened to the heroic words with which the right hon. Gentleman heralded the proposals of the Government, I thought here at last we have a strong man; here at last we have one who has the resolution to wrestle with a great problem. The right hon. Gentleman reminded us of what he said outside the House, that it was idle to effect or try to effect temperance reforms by preventing the sale of intoxicating liquor on licensed pre-
  138
  mises if you continue to afford facilities for drinking in clubs. What is his remedy?His only remedy is that he is going to make the registration of these clubs annual instead of being made once and for all. I am sure that no more futile method of dealing with clubs was ever put forward. What a disappointment this will be to those who desire that something effective should be done to limit the drinking facilities afforded by clubs. What was said when the 1904 Bill was introduced by the late Lord Ritchie—or Mr. Ritchie as he then was—when Members of the House made suggestions in regard to this annual registration. Mr. Ritchie said—
  "We regard registration as almost purely ministerial. I do not think it would be right at all to say that the registration should not take place until the registering authority was convinced by re-inspection that the club was a club properly conducted. It would be almost giving to the club a licence, which is not what we desire to give. We regard registration as almost purely ministerial."
  So that what the right hon. Gentleman has done is to cause the Pall Mall and other clubs once a year to do a purely formal act of registration, which gives no one any control over them and gives no guarantee that their number will not be multiplied. That is a great revolution. Mark what the position is. The whole Liberal position is that you cannot deal with the drink traffic unless you suppress the places in which drink can be obtained. What is the position between the club and the public-house to-day? Public-houses pay a very largo licence duty. That is point number one. Clubs pay a registration fee of five shillings. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will make them pay a fee of five shillings every year.
  MR. ASQUITH: I am considering that.
  MR. F. E. SMITH: All I will say is that that fiscal change will really represent the value of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals. In the second place, public-houses contribute to the compensation fund, but clubs do not. Lastly, licensed premises are licensed by the justices who see that they are suitable and are also subject to constant police supervision, which clubs are not. The Government is going to leave these clubs in every town in England, and they may

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  grow up next door to the licensed premises which you are going unjustly to suppress. They are to be allowed to grow up without restriction, except the trivial change which the right hon. Gentleman is making.
  MR. ASQUITH: It is not a trivial one. The hon. Gentleman did not do me the honour of listening to my statement. The object of the annual renewal of registration is not merely to go through a repetition of what is purely ministerial. That would be pure folly. The object of the annual registration is to enable anybody to come forward who is so minded and raise an objection to the registration being renewed, amongst other grounds, on that of the premises being mainly used as a drinking club.
  MR. F. E. SMITH: I was not saying anything about misconduct or drunkenness. It is so wonderful that the right hon. Gentleman should not perceive the nature of the case which I am trying to make against him. I am not suggesting that there is a case for saying that every one of these clubs is a drinking club. That is not the case. Many of these public-houses which are being suppressed are also not drinking shops. The case which is being made against the right hon. Gentleman is this, that he comes before the House of Commons and the country and says: "We are going at last to effect temperance reform, and the way we are going to do it is not merely by closing drinking shops, but also perfectly reputable licensed premises, where drink can be obtained under respectable conditions." Side by side with that he will permit the survival and sanction the creation of other clubs where all the people who were previous drinking in the public houses can go and obtain as much drink as they want. The right hon. Gentleman does not even deal with that proposition when he says that any person can come forward and say that they are drinking clubs. I am not saying that they are drinking shops, but I say that they are clubs in which drink can be obtained. The right hon. Gentleman has prepared an elaborate scheme which will cause the greatest injustice and hardship and sense of rankling throughout the country when he permits of the survival
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  of institutions in which drink can be obtained with the same freedom as it can in the public-house. May I say a word about the time limit? I gather that every Member on that side of the House has rather marvelled at the moderation of the Government in allowing the licensed victuallers so long a period of time. The hon. Member for Spen Valley has indicated what his view is of how this time limit may be made effective for the purpose of securing full compensation by the publican. He suggested the other day, in a letter to The Times, that the publican by affecting the quality of his beer, might be able to effect economies which would protect him against such a time limit. If the hon. Member will come to my constituency and recommend this particular argument, that the publican should practically extend the time limit by watering his beer, my constituency will listen to him with very great interest, and no doubt other constituencies will also do so. What is surprising in the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman is that he has not given the slightest evidence that he has based this time limit on any actuarial basis at all, when surely from the beginning to the end of the problem it is actuarial. One cannot judge of the reasonableness of the figures brought forward by theories or prejudice, but you test their application in relation to representative companies, and see whether such proposals would or would not be unduly oppressive to the individuals who are either members of a partnership or a company. I have taken some little trouble to obtain some figures, which will, I think, astonish some hon. Members of the House who would like a short time limit, because they show what very remarkable consequences will follow from it. The figures which I give to the House show the annual amount required to be set aside, taking the rate of interest at four per cent., in order to provide the estimated value attaching to the licences in the event of a time limit, first of ten, then of fifteen, and then of twenty years. I think it better to take three figures, because the Government only deals with one, and because if this Bill gets any further I think the time limit will have to undergo considerable modification. This statement that I have deals with fifteen representative companies, and I am quite prepared to give privately to any hon. Member, the names of the

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  companies and the figures and calculations which I now offer to the House. I hope the House, however, will take it from me that they are fifteen of the largest, most reputable, and best known brewery companies in London and the provinces, and I want to know how the time limit such as is proposed in the present Bill will work out in regard to the companies and to the small investors who have taken an interest in them. Taking the whole of the profits of these fifteen companies, the net result is £1,227,123 and ths figure, it should be noted, is arrived at before deducting the compulsory levy to the compensation fund, because it was assumed that this levy would not continue to be raised during the currency of the time run, at all events not at the full rate. Deducting from this aggregate profit of £1,227,123 the annual sum required to be set aside to provide for the estimated value attaching to the licences, on a ten years basis the whole profit would be exhausted and leave a loss of £615,907. On a fifteen years basis the profit left would be £122,047, and on a twenty years basis the profit left would be £484,039. The sums distributed in dividends by the fifteen companies during the past year were approximately, on preference shares, £645,274, on ordinary shares £424,631, making a total of £1,069,905. It follows, therefore, that upon a limit of ten years, there would be no dividend to the preference or ordinary shareholders, and there would be a deficiency of £615,907 in the payment of debenture interest. Upon a limit of fifteen years the preference shareholders would receive less than one-fifth of the dividends distributed during the past year, and the ordinary shareholders would receive nothing. Upon a limit of twenty years the preference shareholders would receive about three-fourths of the dividends distributed during the past year, and the ordinary shareholders would receive nothing. I will take the figures of an individual company, and I hope the House will not think them uninstructive. The profit, including compensation levy, is, say £125,000. Upon a ten years basis the whole profit would be exhausted and leave a loss of £107,552. Upon a fifteen years basis the whole profit would be exhausted and leave a loss of £14,438. Upon a twenty years basis there would
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  be a balance of profit of £31,238. What is the position 1 It will be observed that upon a limit of ten or fifteen years, the debenture holders would go without their interest, and upon a limit of twenty, the preference shareholders would receive about one-half the dividend distributed during the past year, and the ordinary shareholders would receive nothing as against three and a quarter per cent, last year. I venture to ask the House to consider whether in view of those figures they will be able to commend the time limit to the people of this country. The Government should consider how they are going to recommend their proposals and justify them to the small shareholders— poor people who have invested in licensed securities with the same well guaranteed confidence as they invested in railway securities. [" Oh."] If that is challenged, let hon. Gentlemen carry the quarrel to the country, and we will be prepared to meet them on the clearly defined issue of whether there is some special right entitling the Government to deal with investors in debenture stock in licensed securities in a different way from investors in railway securities. That is a quarrel clearly defined, and let them carry it to the country. What is the result of this time limit? Temperance reformers for years have been urging the importance of licensees being men of respectable character, and of the buildings being maintained in a sanitary condition of the highest efficiency. Nobody therefore can say anything against the licensees or their respectability, or the suitability of the premises in which they carry on business. Now by their time limit they are going to give no one any interest in maintaining the character of the licensee or the suitability of the building. I am reminded of a statement made by John Stuart Mill, who was quoted with approval from those benches last night. He says—
  "The limitation of beer and spirit-houses, with the express purpose of rendering them difficult of access, is suited only to a state of society in which the labouring classes are treated as children or savages."
  Hon. Gentlemen have listened in one week to the introduction of two highly controversial Bills, and now the Government have introduced a Bill in which they treat the working classes as children or savages. Let me read to them four

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  lines, which may be useful, from the poet Gray—
  "Alas, regardless of their doom,
  The little victims play;
  No sense have they of ills to come,
  Nor care beyond to-day."
  MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: I desire to express my thanks to the Government for a Bill which, whatever we may think about it in detail, is undoubtedly an act of courageous statesmanship, deserving of our admiration. I would add that it has received the necessary complement of a good Licensing Bill—the opposition of the Member for South Hackney. Before I deal with the Bill, I should like to attempt some reply to the interesting speech to which we have just listened. The hon. Member quoted John Stuart Mill. I would remind him that John Stuart Mill, when he stood for Westminster, said that public-houses were so often public nuisances that he would support measures to make them as few and as little conspicuous as possible; and he did so. Perhaps I might remind the hon. Member of another thing said by John Stuart Mill, which, I think, is applicable to the question before us. He said that, when you are in the presence of great evils, small reforms do not produce small results, they produce no results at all. If, therefore, some hon. Members think this Bill contains large and far-reaching remedies, I say that powerful remedies are really required. The Licensing Commission reported that we remained in the presence of a gigantic evil, and that hardly any sacrifice could be too great which would result in a diminution of a national degradation. What were the hon. Member's points? He had three. First, that we had miscalculated the effect of the Bill of 1904; secondly, that the time limit of fourteen years was unjust; and, thirdly, that the good done by the Bill would be destroyed by the institution of clubs. It has been urged that Government action is powerless to promote temperance. The hon. Member for South Hackney challenged me to name any single case where the diminution of facilities for drinking had remedied the evils. There are dozens of cases which could be quoted both in this country and outside it. Let him read the story of Norway and Canada. Let him go, if he wishes, to Liverpool and see what has been done there by the diminution of facilities, where
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  drunkenness was reduced by half by the well judged action of the magistrates there. If he wants further evidence, let him look into the judicial statistics just published. Since 1903 there has been a reduction in drunkenness, not a great reduction, but a reduction at least as great as one would expect from the small diminution in licences yet accomplished. There has been a marked reduction too in the number of cases of permitting drunkenness. All this betokens that a. restrictive policy since 1903 has had a good effect upon the conduct of the trade. I believe it is within the power of Parliament, if it chooses, and if it has the courage to use the proper remedies, greatly to mitigate the existing evils. At all events the Licensing Commission had no doubt about it. They proposed elaborate remedies, a long list of detailed proposals which have been largely incorporated by the Government in their Bill-Then we were told we had miscalculated the amount of reductions under the Act of 1904. It is entirely misleading to compare the reduction effected within the last ten years. I know something about the movement for the reduction of licences which has been, going on. It did not begin till 1903. The whole movement was held up by the Licensing Commission. The Licensing Benches were implored to hold their hands until the Commission had reported, and, when it had reported, they were then implored to take no steps until the Government had legislated. It was not till 1902 that the Bill of Mr. Ritchie was passed, and it left over the problem of reduction. The Licensing Benches, finding that this House took no part in the matter, took up the task. They were not encouraged by the Government; they were severely lectured and reprimanded. During the two years 1903 and 1904 the Inland Revenue returns show that there was a, gross diminution of 2,088 on licenses of all kinds. In the debates of 1904 Members of the Unionist Government prophesied that under their Bill there would be a reduction of 2,500 on licences a year. Not half that diminution has-been realised. After all, we have not to-deal with the merely historical and statistical question whether the reduction in the three years after the Act has been quicker than in the two years before it. There has been

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  no appreciable quickening, although a slight acceleration has taken place. The real question is whether under the Act of 1904, you can get any reduction at all adequate to the interests of the nation. We are limited by the Act to a timid, niggardly, partial, and tentative reduction. I am glad to think that the Government is going to hasten the progress of reduction, but I do not think it is going to hasten it very much. Apparently, we are going to get rid of some 30,000 licences in twenty years. That is about 2,300 a year. In 1904, we were promised a reduction of 2,500 a year. The present amending Bill, so far as the reduction scheme is concerned, is only going to do compulsorily what the enthusiasts among the late Government thought the Bill of 1904 would do. It is not a stiff reduction which we are going to get after all. Then the hon. Member stated that the time limit was far too short. Of course, it is utterly impossible to appreciate the figures which he threw at the House, but I should be extremely grateful to accept his invitation to see them. What about these companies' reserves and their capitalisation? I want to know something about their history. There is, for instance, one brewery company which I could quote where the reserves are higher at the present time than its debenture stock. When I alluded to the fact that Guinness' Reserves stood at £2,900,000 at the present moment, and Bass' at £1,460,000, an hon. Member wrote to the Press to say that Guinness' and Bass' would be "utterly unaffected," or, at all events, "not hardly hit" by the time limit. If you will look through the reserves of the brewery companies, you will see that very largely the companies have already safeguarded their own position. It has been asked whether the monopoly value stands at £100,000,000 or £300,000,000. Three hundred million pounds is the sum claimed to be invested in the trade, including site, structure, breweries, stock in trade, and all the rest; and £100,000,000 is the estimate, which is merely approximate, of the monopoly value of the licences apart from site, structure, stock in trade, etc. It does not matter to us for a moment what this monopoly value actually, is, because, thanks to Mr.
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  Justice Kennedy's judgment, we know that the value is ten years' purchase of the wholesale profits made in the premises concerned. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that Mr. Justice Kennedy's judgment gives an exaggerated value to the trade. That is indeed the case. Ten years' purchase of the profits is equivalent to the price with interest of an annuity running for fourteen years. Therefore, taking the market value under the Act of 1904, and Mr. Justice Kennedy's judgment at its face value, what the Government is proposing to give is a commutation of the extreme measure of value, which liquor sellers can claim. It seems to us, therefore, that the time limit is more than is necessary to grant. For Liberal statesmen in 1904 declared that the Act of 1904 had no moral validity, and we decline to accept the Kennedy judgment as a fair measure of value. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated; that he had an open mind on this subject, and would welcome criticism. I am not, therefore, failing in any recognition of the value of the Bill in making some criticism. I hope he will be able to see his way to shorten the time limit; because, I believe, he has gone to the extreme limit. If you give one day longer than fourteen years, you are giving more than the liquor sellers are getting at the present time. You are raising the amount of compensation that will have to be paid on the suppression of licenses and pro tanto crippling the power of the State to carry through this diminution. That is my answer when these figures are brought forward. I believe this time limit is as far as you can go, and I believe it has gone too far.
  And, it being a quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being private business set down by direction of the CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  BELFAST CORPORATION BILL (BY ORDER).
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. J. DEVLINsaid he rose to discharge what he regarded as an obvious public duty to his constituency— to move the rejection of this Bill. He had consistently supported measures of municipal enterprise that tended to a public ownership, and he hoped the House would not misunderstand his attitude. He opposed this Bill in the interests of a large and important section of the community in Belfast who regarded it as an attempt to secure Parliamentary sanction for a gross and flagrant job. The property for which the Corporation proposed to pay £60,000 consisted of a single line of tramway, from the foot of Cave Hill near Belfast to Whitewell. It had been known as the road to heaven, because so few people travelled that way. There had been no demand on the part of the residents in the locality for an extension of the line nor any appeal from any section of the citizens for its developement, and the transaction for which the sanction of Parliament was asked was merely inspired by a combination of interested municipal agents and the British Electric Traction Company. The Company owning the tramway was established in 1881, with a nominal capital of £27,000, of which £15,000 was issued in £1 ordinary shares. It was a single line, and the cars were drawn by horse traction. It was largely a wealthy and residential locality which had no attractions for working people. In 1900, the tramway company entered into an agreement with the British Electric Traction Company, which had not so long ago acquired some notoriety in Great Britain, and had been the subject of discussion in that House. It undertook to find the money for the electrification of the system and insisted on the tramway promoting a Bill, on the original capital being increased from £27,000 to £67,000, the issued 15,000 ordinary shares being converted into sixty-two preference shares, and on an issue of 45,000 ordinary £1 shares. Section B. of the agreement read—
  "The tramway company shall as and when required by the British Electric Traction Co. enter into contracts with the British Electric Traction Co. or as the British Electric Traction Co. shall in writing direct for the reconstruction and electrical equipment of the tramway."
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  Section C. compelled the Cave Hill Tramway Company to pay the British Electric Traction Company all moneys provided and costs incurred or charges in their books for time and expense of their staff while engaged in reconstruction work and in addition 10 per cent, of their services as and when required. In the balance sheet of the tramway company for 1906 it was stated that the capital outlay on the old line was £13,523 odd, and that the total expenditure on reconstruction of the permanent way, the electrical equipment of the line, the erection of car-shed and depot, and the obtaining of Parliamentary powers, was £54,639 odd. Why the capital outlay on the old line was set down as an asset was not easy to understand, because it had disappeared, cars and all. The stated cost of electrification was £14,639 in excess of the cost, as stated by the town clerk. It was a single line, three and a quarter miles long. The cost of electrification as set forth in the balance sheet worked out at £16,612 per mile. According to an official return for 1903–4, the average capital expenditure per mile was £11,780, or £5,032 less than the alleged cost of this tramway. The line ran along a level road where there was comparatively little traffic, and through a district which was sparsely populated. He was not an expert in tramway construction, but he put it to the commonsense of the House, whether it was reasonable that it should cost over 50 per cent, more to construct this line than it cost to construct a similar line in any of the great populous centres of great Britain. It was also to be noted that this was not for construction, for the line was already there, but for alteration and electrification. That was one of the reasons why he said the price of £60,000 was exorbitant and why he was opposed to a transaction by which the British Electric Traction Company, or J. C. White & Co., who had carried out the work of electrification, were to extort an exorbitant price, even with the consent of the majority of the corporation, one of whose members was actually a shareholder in the tramway company itself, and the manager of whose trams was until 1904 chairman of the company whose property it was now sought to acquire. A curious thing about

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  the balance sheet of the tramway company was that only £91 2s 5d was charged for debenture interest, whereas the interest on £13,000 debentures at 4½ per cent. would be £500. He suggested that this point should be elucidated for the information of the ratepayers of Belfast, who had been most mysteriously dealt with in connection with this transaction. In addition to the tramway the corporation proposed to acquire some 32 acres of land at the Whitewell end of the line on which the company's car-sheds had been built, and which were subject to a rent charge of £130 per annum under the agreement. The total amount set down opposite "rent" in 1906 was £117 17s 5d.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Reading.
  MR. J. DEVLINsaid it was perfectly true that he was reading, as one must necessarily do in dealing with figures. He could not only write a speech, but could read one, unlike the hon. Member, who recently came down with a written-out speech, and had not the privilege of delivering it to an expectant House. He would not have the slightest objection in the world if those hon. Gentlemen who were so hypercritical in regard to accurately prepared statements would read their speeches to the House, and then they would not so often be the laughing stock of the world. He would be delighted to see hon. Gentlemen turn over a new leaf, because their inaccuracy in statement and their attempts from time to time to misrepresent the cause of truth had become so remarkable that he was told there was a canvass made to keep them away from the debate lest they should spoil the chances of the Bill. He took it that what he had said included all rents whatever, and they were brought face to face with the extraordinary fact that whilst the total of all the rents payable by the company at present was only £117 17s 3d, the corporation agreed to take over not the whole but only 32 acres of the worst land held by the company, and they had a rent charge of over £13 a year more than the company paid for the whole of the lands at present in their possession. The land which the corporation proposed to
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  acquire had been described as heaps of shingle and quarry refuse of no commercial value. This Bill did not propose to take over the rolling stock of the company which was represented by nine cars, nor the buildings, stables, horses, harness and vehicles which were set out in the balance sheet at a value of £1,368 odd. The Bill did not propose, further, to take over the recreation ground, and this was one of the most important and vital points in his impeachment of the whole policy which had dictated the arrangement and which it was proposed to obtain Parliamentary sanction for. The recreation ground which they had allowed to be retained in the hands of the British Electric Traction Company was what attracted people from Belfast, and that was the only thing that could make the tramway successful. That company retained the recreation ground and it would blackmail the Corporation of Belfast. This was another part of the indecent transaction. The Corporation proposed to tax the ratepayers now to the extent of £60,000 and ultimately at least to the extent of £100,000. Why? In order to provide customers for the recreation ground and the refreshment rooms owned by the company, because, as he had already told the House, the line was of no possible use to Belfast without the recreation ground. Perhaps one of the Unionist Members for Belfast would explain why they did not secure this recreation ground, and why they allowed the British Electric Traction Company to retain it. It had been charged against him that his opposition was purely factious and vindictive. He absolutely denied that charge. He would not sanction anywhere what he called a "scandalous job" but he was ready and willing to agree to a fair and just bargain as between the ratepayers and tramway company. He had proposed this compromise, that for the purchase of the tramway with the recreation ground and the refreshment room thrown in the price should be £40,000. That was not his own valuation, but the valuation put upon the property by the Belfast Corporation surveyor and by the Corporation tramway manager. He submitted to the House that for a bankrupt concern with an overdraft of £262 odd and a balance in hand of only £1 13s. 11d.,

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  as set forth in the balance sheet, the compromise he had suggested was of a most generous character. He had made that ofEer a fortnight ago, and the Unionist Press in Belfast had sedulously and consistently prevented the citizens hearing his side of the question and that of the Progressive Party in Belfast. That Unionist Press suggested to the tramway company that they should not take a single farthing less than had been oifered. The fact was that the Unionist reactionary Press in Belfast was more anxious to preserve the interests of the British Electric Traction Company than that company itself. The hon. Member for South Belfast made a canvass in the interests of the Bill and declared that the plebiscite was in its favour. There was no urgency for the Bill. The only argument as to urgency arose from the fact that the tramway company promoted the Bill in order to obtain powers to run their cars to the centre of Belfast. The House was asked to believe that the' great and wealthy Corporation of Belfast was terrified at the threat on the part of a concern, which had an overdraft of £262 odd at the bank and only £ 1 13s 6d cash in hand. The idea of the Corporation of Belfast being intimidated by such a proposal was absurd. One of the considerations put forward in favour of the purchase of this tramway was that the tramway company hid withdrawn their Bill on the understanding that the Corporation was to pay them £60,000, and that the company had threatened if the Corporation did not come to terms with them to promote a Bill and then Parliament would give them powers which would wreek the whole civic tramways enterprise in Belfast. They were the friends ef civic progress, the agents, of unsuccessful enterprise, and the supporters of everything that made for democratic progress, but they could not understand what was the meaning of all this! There was something behind it all; the whole proceeding was sinister from beginning to end. The British Electric Traction Company was behind the tramway company in this matter. The Electric Traction Company, whose £10 shares fed recently been quoted at 27s 6d, would hardly be inclined to throw
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  money away applying for powers to run tramways in opposition to the Corporation of Belfast. Therefore, the argument as to urgency fell entirely to the ground. The Corporation had agreed to pay all the expenses of promoting the Bill. The £00,000 became payable one month after the passing of the Bill. If it was a fair and just transaction, why was the question of price not submitted to arbitration before a fair and impartial tribunal? That was a simple way out of the difficulty. The main argument in favour of this Bill was that at a plebiscite recently taken, a majority of the ratepayers had voted in its favour. He denied that that plebiscite was properly taken, and he also denied that a majority of the ratepayers were in favour of the Bill. He would point out to the House what occurred at the meeting called to consider this measure. A majority of two to one opposed the Bill and voted against it. This Bill which they were asking Parliament to sanction was an outrage on a large section of the ratepayers. Members of the Corporation had also protested, and Councillor Corley, one of the most careful and experienced members, gave it as his opinion that the Corporation were making one of the worst bargains they had made for thirty years. The manager of the Corporation tramways was understood to have said that it would cost £40,000 to double the line, and Councillor Corley denounced that as absurd in view of the vast population of the district. The Bill was not for the development of the outlying districts of Belfast, or to assist in taking the people out to breathe the sweet fresh air of the country. The passengers would be dumped down outside, not the recreation ground, but the large public-houses. Councillor James Johnson, President of the West Belfast Unionist Association, who voted for the purchase, said he thought that though they were all agreed that they were paying too much, yet it was as well to acquire the line. He supposed there was not a city in the world that was more bleak and barren for the great body of the workers than Belfast, nor so bereft of open spaces, and here, in an outlying district for some sinister purpose, they were asked to spend £60,000 now, and £40,000 in the future, for the

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  purpose of satisfying the British Electric Traction Company. The arguments against the proposal had not been answered. On the division they were voted down by a purely party vote. The tramways would be useless when, acquired, until another £40,000 had been spent on doubling the line, and no doubt, if the contract were given to Messrs. White & Co., the £40,000 would run to £60,000 before the thing was completed. The scheme was open to the gravest suspicion, if it were not an outrage and a scandalous and indefensible piece of jobbery. The only point in favour of the Bill was the question of the plebiscite. There had not been a single meeting of any section of the citizens in the area covered by the tramway line, which had passed a single resolution in favour of the Bill, with the exception of the Belfast Conservative Association.
  MR. SLOAN: The residents in Antrim road passed a resolution in favour of it.
  MR. J. DEVLINsaid there were only four of them present at the meeting. If there was such a tremendous interest in the Bill, surely the Belfast Conservative Association could have whipped up more than four or five people at their meeting. If they voted against this proposal the Empire would go down. That was one of the chief arguments adduced in the local Tory Press. Leading Conservative shopkeepers in Belfast had written to him stating that they were sending communications on the subject, as the local Tory Press would not publish their letters. Belfast Trades Council had issued a manifesto against the Bill; it had been condemned by an association representing one of the largest groups of ratepayers in the city and by others. He asked the hon. Member for South Antrim if Mr. H. L. Grant was a Socialist? They were Socialists because they were opposed to the Bill. Was not Mr. Grant one of the most seasoned Tories in Belfast? In addition to being a seasoned Tory, he was an eminently able business man. He had commented unfavourably on the general transaction, remarking that the result of the vote was a very poor compliment to those who were responsible
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  for the purchase. In order to silence criticism and to smother any dissatisfaction with the Bill, when the necessary advertisements for the purpose of having the Bill legally presented were given out to the newspapers, they were given out, at least in the case of some newspapers, with the condition attached that, unless the Bill was passed into law, no money would be paid for the advertisements. He thought he was within his right as a Member of that House in denouncing that as one of the most bare-faced attempts on record to cover up, by bribery and intimidation, the Press of the city, which should have left its columns open and impartial for the citizens to discuss the matters that vitally affected the ratepayers. Yet he had been told—not by Nationalists, Socialists, Labour men, or Liberals—but by leading Conservatives that they were not allowed to insert argumentative communications against this Bill in the local Tory Press. He now knew the reason why they would not publish these communications. He was himself connected with a paper in Belfast, which, although the least wealthy of all the newspapers in that city, would have regarded that offer as an incitement to public dishonesty. The issue was a mere party issue; the Unionist Party and the local wire-pullers made it so. Party spirit rose higher in Belfast than in any other community in the United Kingdom, but, nevertheless, the majority for the scheme was not a very large one. The opposition to it was not altogether well organised, yet out of the total number of voters entitled to take part in the plebiscite, 67,000, only 54,000 actually voted and 24,733 balloted in favour of the scheme, and 12,573 against. That was to say, the scheme could only command the support of less than a third of the electors. The manner of taking the vote was also open to grave censure 13,000; voters were unaccounted for, and he himself had in his possession a large number of voting papers marked against the scheme which had never been collected, and he knew that hundreds of them were left at the wrong houses. He had also been informed that the method of counting the votes was most irregular and that no one was present representing the opposition, while the president and other officials at the

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  counting were notorious partisans for the scheme. It was, he contended, an insult to the dignity of the House of Commons for the Corporation of Belfast to come there in support of a scheme on the strength of the result of that plebiscite. If such a thing had occurred in Great Britain, Parliament would have marked its indignation in the most unmistakable manner towards those responsible for the proceedings he had described; but the majority in the Belfast Corporation had long been accustomed to do what they pleased. He trusted that in this instance the Corporation would find out that they had overshot the mark, and that they had mistaken the composition of this great Assembly. He asked the House to reject the Bill, and if that were done he was sure a compromise would be arrived at by which the London Electric Traction Company would accept £40,000 for an undertaking which was worth only £20,000, and the Corporation would be able to obtain the recreation ground which was the only thing that made the tramway- worth anything to the city. The alternative was for the Corporation to introduce a Bill for the compulsory purchase of the tramway, the price to be fixed by arbitration. He would support that. At all events, he trusted the House of Commons would vote against this Bill in the interests of civic purity and sound municipal administration and also in the interests of the citizens of Belfast who were already over-burdened with rates. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
  MR. MULDOONseconded the Amendment. This was not the first time that what was popularly known in Ireland as a "job" had taken the shape of a private Bill brought before Parliament, and where the game itself was not included in the sections of the measure but was hidden away in a schedule in order to be foisted on the House. He wished to make it clear that they on the Irish Benches supported the proposition that all - public utilities like electric lighting, water supply, gas, and tramways, should be managed by the local authority. It was because that in this particular instance the Corporation of Belfast had made a bad bargain which could not
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  stand the light of day that they asked the House of Commons to make an exception to their well known rule. It was usual where a corporation wished to acquire an existing undertaking that it should be done only by Act of Parliament. As trustees for the ratepayers the corporation mustshowthatthebargain they had entered into was a fair one, and that was a proposition in reference to this Bill upon which nobody would be able to satisfy the House of Commons. It did not appear from any information supplied to hon. Members, or from the Bill itself, that there was any valuation of this company's undertaking before the Belfast Corporation offered £60,000 for it. Nor had any accountant investigated the books of the company to ascertain whether the company had earned anything until they had struck this bargain. In fact, the Belfast Corporation had entered into the bargain without any inquiry at all. It was natural that when the Belfast Corporation had extended the boundaries of the city they should include-the area served by the Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway Company; but what they should have done was to promote a Bill in Parliament for the compulsory acquisition of that company's undertaking at an equitable price to be ascertained by arbitration. That, however, was not the course pursued by the corporation. The Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway had been running their line, three-and-a-half miles in length, since 1881. The company had been the subject of no less than four local Acts of Parliament previous to the present Bill being introduced. The company had never paid a dividend, and there was no suggestion that it ever had the capacity to earn anything. That was the company for whose undertaking the Corporation of Belfast without any inquiry had agreed to pay £60,000. When the Corporation in the course of its career arranged to extend the boundaries of Belfast, a syndicate from the Strand, London, the British Electric Traction Company, came on the scene and took possession of the Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway Company by the head and shoulders. A syndicate, as everyone knew, was a combination of philanthropists, who took up bankrupt concerns for the purpose of rendering them disinterested service If

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  he was told that this transaction was a bona-fide one and that the Belfast Corporation was dealing not with a syndicate of philanthropists but with the tramway company, he would ask those who put forward that suggestion to look at one clause in the Bill, which was expressed in ingenious and legal terms, though perhaps capable of interpretation in English—
  "The receipt of the Cavehill Company shall be a sufficient discharge to the Corporation for any purchase or other moneys paid to the Cavehill Company by the Corporation under or in pursuance of the scheduled agreement, notwithstanding the existence of any mortgage, debenture charge, or other incumbrance affecting the undertaking of the Cavehill Company or any part thereof, or affecting the tramways or other property agreed to be surrendered or sold to the Corporation by the scheduled agreement or any part thereof respectively, provided always that nothing herein contained shall prejudice or affect any rights or claims of any mortgage debenture holder or other incumbrancer of the Cavehill Company against any such moneys."
  That was to say that, although they were nominally dealing with the Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway Company, the real company with whom they were dealing was the syndicate in the Strand, who were going to put this £60,000 in their own pocket. What he said was that there had been no inquiry of any kind into this undertaking; that the bargain was an improvident one — and this was the salient feature of their opposition— which could not be sustained by any speaker in support of the Bill, and the House of Commons ought not to carry it out. It was said that the Resolution was approved by the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but he might say at once it was a purely formal matter. The Chief Secretary consented to its being thrashed out, but he had given no assent in the formal way that was suggested. This House was asked to ratify and make legal an agreement which was null and void ab initio, absolutely illegal, and would have to be abandoned unless the House supported it. One material point in their opposition was the fact that there was something sinister in this transaction, that the syndicate was found getting its claw on to this company which the Corporation of Belfast ought to have stepped in and bought out, and not allowed the middleman to get in. The price to be paid was three or four times as much as would be paid in England for the same
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  mileage. While they took their stand on the improvident and fraudulent nature of the bargain which had been struck, the Corporation of Belfast had supplied Members with a statement in order that they might support the Bill in this House. Would it be believed that not a word of explanation had been given as to the reason for the payment of £60,000 for three miles of tramway. It was not suggested in this statement that there-was any valuation by an independent man. No single idea was put forward in favour of this thing except that a, plebiscite of the people of Belfast was taken. Under these circumstances that had a most sinister meaning, and the House of Commons ought not to ratify it or pass this Bill.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months." (Mr. Devlin.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. WOLFFsaid he and the hon. Member for West Belfast had been in this House for many years, and during the whole of that time they had seen a great many Bills brought in for Belfast, but whether they were-brought in by the Corporation or the Harbour Board or the Water Board, the hon. Member had opposed them all.
  MR. J. DEVLINsaid he had never opposed any Bill that came into this-House proposed either by the Harbour Board or the Water Board.
  MR. WOLFFsaid he apologised if her had misrepresented the hon. Member, but that was his impression. No Bill had been brought in by the Corporation that had not been opposed by the hon. Member. This Bill was opposed on the ground that the sum that the Corporation was prepared to give for the-tramways was excessive. It was also said that the plebiscite was not a fair and. straightforward one. Then the hon. Member for East Tyrone, who seconded the rejection, talked about the fraudulent bargain, though perhaps he did not quite mean what he said. Under these circumstances, he might be allowed to state to the House something about the origin of

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  this tramway. It was built in 1888 from the boundary of Belfast, and went three and a half miles along the road skirting Cavehill on the one side, and on the other it went to a place called Glengormley. In 1896 the Corporation got a Bill which extended their boundaries very much, and a mile and a half of the tramway which had been outside the boundary was brought within it. In 1902, the Electric Traction Company got hold of the line by some financial arrangement, some exchange of shares, and obtained power to electrify it. This was strongly opposed by the Belfast Corporation who had always desired to get the line into their own system, half of it being already within their boundary. They went so far as to offer £20,000 for a line which only cost £13,000 to build in order to get it in their own control. They did not, however, succeed, and the company got the right to electrify the line. From that time on there were constant negotiations on the part of the Corporation to get the line, and on the part of the company to sell it. It was very doubtful if the company would have electrified the line at all except chat they hoped to run trams over the Corporation line. Not having succeeded in that they worked the line from Chichester Park to Glengormley, and everbody knew that it was impossible to make a line of trams three and a half miles long pay with only a twenty minutes service. The line which ran up to Chichester Park from the centre of Belfast was one of the best paying parts of the Belfast system. That had a two-and-a-half minutes service; but it stopped at Chichester Park, when the Cavehill and White well tramway ran a twenty minutes' service. It was not to be expected that the people would build houses on the land between Chichester Park and Cavehill when there was only a tram every twenty minutes; but if a tram went from the centre of Belfast Tight through every two and-a-half minutes many houses would be erected. The hon. Member for West Belfast thought that £60,000 would be an excessive price to pay for this line, but the annual cost would only be £6,150 That was the amount which would pay the interest and principal for thirty years, at the end of which time the line would be free of all charge. The last balance sheet of the Cavehill and
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  Whitewell tramways showed a profit of £1,100, and if that profit was made on a twenty minutes service and the Corporation put on a five minutes service it was quite evident that a very much larger profit would be made, and the establishment charges would at once be removed, because the offices of the present company would be done away with, and the work done in the offices of the Belfast Corporation. The hon. Member for West Belfast had stated that nobody cared about this transaction, and that no meetings had been held in its favour. On the contrary, meetings had been held throughout Belfast and the necessary resolution carried by the statutory majority. The opposition to any great extent came from the liquor trade, and it was a very common thing that almost all the public houses in Belfast were owned by Nationalist Catholics. The strong point in the case for the Bill was the plebiscite. The hon. Member for West Belfast had endeavoured to throw doubts on its fairness. He (Mr. Wolff) had never heard any doubt expressed before. The papers were delivered by the police, who did not care twopence about the politics of any man, and were collected and returned by them. The proportion of those who did not vote—12,265 out of a total of 64,800 ratepayers—was a large one, it was true, but in every large town there was always a considerable section of the community who did not take any interest whatever in municipal affairs. There voted in favour of the Bill 24,700 ratepayers and against it 12,570, and under these circumstances it was non-sense to say that there had not been fair play. Everybody in Belfast knew perfectly well the price that was going to be paid, and the question was, could the Corporation have got the tramway for less? He did not himself think that too much had been paid. The Corporation might have been wrong in the way they had gone about the business, but in any case their action had been thoroughly approved by the majority of the electors. One of the great principles of the Liberal and Labour Parties was that the will of the majority must prevail. He hoped they would stick to that principle when it came to voting on this Bill, and that they would vote in favour of what the majority of the people of Belfast had determined should be done.
  MR. MOONEYsaid the hon. member who had just spoken, and who was the official spokesman for the Bill, had told them that if the Corporation had made a mistake Belfast had approved of it. If Belfast had approved of it that was no reason why that House should do so, and it was because they said that Belfast had made a mistake that the opponents of the Bill asked the House to reject it. If this was a measure for giving the municipal authorities of Belfast the control of the traction powers inside the City area, he did not think that any member of the Party to which he belonged would oppose it. But it was nothing of the kind. It was in their opinion a deliberate attempt by a Corporation of which they knew a good deal, to blackmail the ratepayers of the city of Belfast. It was a Bill ostensibly to ratify an agreement between the Cavehill Tramways Company and the Belfast Corporation. It was nothing of the kind. The real parties were the Belfast Corporation and the British Electric Traction Company. The Cavehill Tramways Company, Limited, had never paid a dividend. Some years ago it went to the British Electric Traction Company when there might have been a chance of its being acquired at a proper price, and the latter company took forty thousand pounds worth of debentures in the undertaking. It was said that was a free bargain. The Corporation argued that if they did not agree to the Bill the British Electric Traction Company would go to the House of Commons and obtain powers to run trams in the City; therefore they must give a fancy price. Was that the hon. Gentleman's idea of a free bargain? The price to be paid was £60,000. What were the Corporation going to get for this— the capital outlay on the old line as reconstructed was £13,500. Why that should be taken as an asset he was at a loss to understand. The next thing they got was the expenditure on reconstruction of the permanent way, the electrical equipment of the line, erection of car shed and depot, and the cost of Parliamentary powers, which was placed at £54,600. His hon. friend had already dealt with the average cost per mile of equipping a single line of tramways in this country, and had shown how excessive was the sum of £54,000, but the Belfast Corporation did not even go to the trouble of making sure when they
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  made statements in that House that they did not issue public documents contradicting those statements, because the Town Clerk of Belfast had furnished to the Chief Secretary for Ireland information on those figures, and this was what the Chief Secretary said on the 10th inst., in that House. He said the Town Clerk of Belfast had told him that the last balance sheet of the company showed a capital outlay on the old line of £13,500, but the cost of reconstruction and electrification had been estimated at over £40,000, in addition to the £13,500 paid for the old horse line. It was a curious thing that if they added the £40,000 to the £13,500 they got practically the figure of £54,639. They were therefore charging for the old line twice over. The Belfast Corporation were not, however, even going to get that, because the expense of issuing debentures was put down as an asset. He had yet to learn that that expense was a valuable asset to any company. There were also freehold lands put down as an asset. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had talked a good deal about the advantage which would accrue to the workers of the city by being able to get out to Glengormley. In the appeal issued by the promoters of the Bill and sent to every Member of the House, it was stated that the acquisition of the line by the Corporation would not only provide accommodation for those citizens beyond the terminus of the Corporation system, but would afford facilities for the population to get out to the suburbs. Then why not buy the Glengormley Gardens? The property of the company was a line three miles long, run out to those public gardens, which were also the property of the company. They were part of those extraordinary assets going to make up the £60,000, but the British Electric Traction Company deliberately cut them out of the bargain with the Corporation. The deliberate intention of the appeal was that if the tramway was taken over by the Corporation it would provide facilities for the working classes to get out there, and that was deliberately misleading. The opposition would never have been heard of if the British Electric Traction Company had agreed to go to arbitration for a fair price and allowed the public gardens to remain open. Under the Bill, if passed, the gardens would be closed, and the public would have no right of admittance.

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  When they had spent the ratepayers' money on the trams going out to those gardens, which were valued at £2,000, the company would say to the Corporation, "You can have these grounds, but you will pay our price for them." It was a ridiculous argument. It was not often that such a strong step was taken as moving the rejection of a Bill of that kind on Second Reading; it had always been the habit of that House to declare that such Bills should go to a Committee upstairs. He hoped that the Chairman of Ways and Means would not take the usual course that night, for this was a most unusual Bill. He had had some experience of Private Bill Committees upstairs, and knew the careful attention and scrutiny they gave to such Bills, but this was sued a carefully framed Bill that under the Standing Orders of the House no single opponent of the Bill could be heard upstairs against it, and they were debarred under the Standing Orders from appearing before that Committee. He hoped therefore the House would reject the measure. This was really a corrupt bargain, detrimental to the interests of the ratepayers. Because the Corporation had not agreed to go before an independent tribunal, he asked the House to teach the Corporation a lesson by throwing out the Bill.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS (Mr. EMMOTT)said he rose with reluctance to intervene in the debate. He did not know the place nor the cost of constructing a tramway line; he did not know any of the things that he ought to know in order to form an opinion as to whether the Bill ought to have a Second Roading on its real merits or not. Therefore, he was afraid he must say that, having listened very carefully to the debate, he did not see that any question had been raised which could not better be considered in Committee, by the right kind of Committee, than it could possibly be done on the floor of the House. After all, whether the price to be given for those tramways should be thirty, or forty, or sixty thousand pounds they could not decide intelligently there. Therefore, it seemed to him distinctly to be one of those questions that ought to go to a Committee upstairs. But he said again that he thought that it ought to be the right kind of Committee. His hon. friend the
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  Member for Newry had said correctly that in the ordinary course, this being technically an unopposed Bill, it would go to the Unopposed Bill Committee.
  MR. MOONEY: I said that we who are opposing this Bill could not appear before the Committee, because the ratepayers of a city could not appear against the Corporate Seal.
  MR. EMMOTTsaid he was coming to that point. The hon. Member was a very valuable member of the Unopposed Bills Committee and would probably agree that in a Bill of this kind, where there was any sort of ground for supposing that an improper bargain had been made and where a considerable section of the ratepayers were opposed to confirming that bargain, the Unopposed Bills Committee was not a very satisfactory tribunal. In that Committee they heard only one side, and that the side of those who were in favour of the Bill, and except by cross-questioning those who came before them to make an ex parte statement they could not get at the objections that would be raised by the opponents. That being the case, what other course was there that he could suggest to the House? He must honestly say that he hoped the Bill would be read a second time, for this reason, that it would be most unusual to throw such a Bill out on its Second Reading. If there was anything wrong with it, it would be better to throw it out at a later stage. Such a course as throwing it out now might lead to reprisals, and reprisals in those matters often cut very deep, their effect lasted for a long time, and caused a very great deal of inconvenience, to that House, because they took up so much time in being discussed on the floor of the House. He thought it would be his duty to report to the House that the Bill should go to an Opposed Bill Committee, but if it did, as things were, the hon. Member for Newry was right in saying that the opponents of the Bill could not appear. There was, however, a way of getting over that. The House could pass a resolution, and had done so in similar cases, that petitioners presenting a petition so many days before the Committee met should be heard, and so far as he was concerned he should not oppose any Motion of that kind, and if it would lead to general

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  agreement he would be ready to promise to move it. He did not see that he could add anything of use by protracting his remarks, and his suggestion was offered in the interests of peace.
  MR. SLOANsaid that after the statement of the Chairman of Ways and Means, it was hardly necessary for him to go into details in favour of the Bill, but there were one or two items in the speech of the hon. Member for West Belfast which he thought required attention. So far as he was concerned, in the few years he had been in the House, he had consistently voted for municipalisation, whether in Ireland or out of it, and on this question he was thoroughly convinced that not only the Corporation of Belfast, but the citizens of Belfast, by an overwhelming majority, were in favour of the transaction proposed in the Bill. He would support any Bill for the good of the people he represented. The licensed victuallers were the only people who had made any public statement in opposition to the Bill. When the promotion of the Bill was before the Corporation not a single Labour Member opposed it. In so far as the Belfast Corporation was concerned they had nothing to fear from any public investigation that might be made in reference to the Bill. It was unfortunate that sometimes in municipal affairs, politics seemed to take a more prominent position than the welfare of the citizens themselves. He had done his humble part to try to remove that spirit by his own action and speeches, but there were six members in the Corporation who attended a meeting which was being held for the purpose of the promotion of the Bill, and they opposed the Bill simply because there was a street in which they were interested, and which they wanted widening, and the Corporation could not see their way at that particular time to accede to their request; they opposed the promotion of the Bill in consequence. After their amendment was rejected by forty-two to six, they allowed the original resolution to promote the Bill to pass without a division. It was a hardship to municipalities to think that the ratepayers' money was to be spent in the promotion of Bills which were undoubtedly in the interests of the citizens and that solid arguments should
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  be ignored and thrown to the winds. He knew every inch of the tramway line in question, and he knew the advantages, that the citizens of this particular district would obtain from its construction. When they had a private company they paid 2d and 3d for a journey, but since municipalising and electrifying, the Corporation had been able through its managers to give a penny service to every part of the city. He had not the slightest doubt that the citizens of this district as time went on would be the very first to cry out against being compelled to stand fifteen or twenty minutes on a damp bleak night waiting for a Cavehill tram to come. Apart from that there were facilities by means of the Bill for the working class community to get out in thousands to the country for fresh air. There had not been a single meeting or letter of protest. A great many assertions had been made about a plebiscite, and they had been told about the marking of papers in a different way from what the people wanted. But he had been told himself that the West Belfast Nationalist organisation agents had gone round, got the papers, and marked them. But this was a question on which it did not matter what political parties said. The Corporation had decided more than once in favour of purchasing the tramways, and they could not have done so unless they had the support of the people. The Corporation was divided when the historic meeting took place, but a plebicsite was taken and 24,000 voted in favour, 12,000 against, 15,000 papers were returned blank, and 400 were sent with the wrong names. Surely that was a strong case. He was not considering the Corporation in this matter. He had never heard of the British Electric Traction Company to any advantage in his life, and he knew the hostility to it. He was not concerned with the Company. He was concerned about the people of Belfast, and he declared that it was unfair in an off-handed manner and without any consideration or justification to throw Out the Bill to gratify the only public body that had made any opposition to the Bill—the licensed victuallers. He appealed to the House to look at this from a distinctly municipal point of view, and to give them the opportunity of preventing any possibility of running powers being sought for

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  over the municipal lines. They might not always have a democratic Parliament, and at some future time running powers might be canvassed for. This very company had got a Bill passed in opposition to the Corporation and last year they had made application for running powers. He looked upon this as a very serious and gross interference with the right of municipalities, which might be a continual annoyance and worry to the citizens for some years to come.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: Home Rule.
  MR. SLOANsaid he did not know what the interruption meant unless the hon. Member was as interested in the British Electric Traction Company as he was in Sunday closing. If he thought the British Electric Traction Company was playing a game or that there was any jobbery he would stand up and oppose it with any Labour man or Nationalist. He had never refused to associate himself with any man because of his politics in that which he thought was for the benefit of the people. He believed this was for the benefit of the people of Belfast and that the Corporation were right. It was affirmed by a vast majority of the citizens and was opposed by a great interest which indeed had no love for him while he had no particular love for their trade either. He asked the House to consider the advisability of adopting the suggestion of the Chairman of Ways and Means. The Corporation would have no objection to the fullest inquiry. They had nothing to hide, and in that debate they hardly had anything to defend. The Bill spoke for itself. There had been no real argument against it, though there had been some assertions with regard to blackmailing which were uncalled for. He hoped the question would be settled free from partisanship and prejudice.
  MR. WOLFFsaid the promoters of the Bill would be most happy to accept the suggestion of the Chairman of Ways and Means. If the Bill were read a second time they would be glad to appear before the Committee and show that the bargain they had made was a fair one.
  MR. ANNAN BRYCEsaid he would appeal to Members opposite whether a matter of this kind
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  should be made a party question. He had a great many friends who were Home Rulers and Liberals in Belfast, and if the House decided against the Bill it would embitter the relations between the parties.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: May I point out that the hon. Gentleman was not here to-listen to the discussion.
  MR. ANNAN BRYCEsaid that one-might know something about the matter though one had not heard the debate. Gentlemen below the gangway opposite knew perfectly well what his opinions were in regard to their main policy, and that he was absolutely in sympathy with them. Therefore it was that he deprecated the introduction of party feeling on the Second Reading of a Bill of this kind.
  MR. SCOTTthought that an English Member who knew something about tramways might be allowed to say a word or two upon this Bill. For a tram line three-and-a-half miles long that could only support a twenty minutes service, it was preposterous to pay close upon £18,000 per mile. The hon. Member for South Belfast had told them that they ought to respect the expenditure of the ratepayers' money. No one did that more than he did, but he wished to point out that there was no company which had cost the ratepayers more money than the British Electric Traction Company, because other municipalities had been placed by this company in precisely the same position as Belfast, The people of Belfast had not been allowed to vote freely on this matter.
  MR. SLOANsaid the hon. Member was quite in error in making an insinuation of that kind.
  MR. SCOTTsaid it had been stated that the people of Belfast believed that the British Electric Traction Company, which was a powerful body with great capitalists behind it, could seek powers to acquire a competitive service. That, however, was not so, because if Parliament granted this company running powers, conditions would be imposed, to protect the Corporation. What he protested against was that municipalities should be humbugged with these associations coming on their border ground and

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  acquiring these interests, not with the object of serving the public, but simply in order to squeeze from municipalities exorbitant prices for their undertakings.
  MR. JAMES PARKERsaid in regard to this measure he agreed with the views expressed in the speeches of hon. Members below the Gangway. Nobody who had paid any attention to the Bill before the House or the balance sheet about which they had heard something in the debate would go into the Lobby and vote for the Second Reading of this Bill. This Bill was neither more nor less than the giving of a large sum of money to a company which was notorious for opposing municipal undertakings and putting the ratepayers to great expense. He was much interested in the speech of the hon. Member for East Belfast and the figures
  he had placed before the House. Whether hon. Members were in favour of or opposed to municipal enterprise, he would ask them was there any justification for handing the powers of Parliament to a body which was using those powers, not to help, but to injure municipal enterprises. In West Ham they only paid £5,000 per mile for a double tramway track, whereas in this case the city of Belfast were proposing to pay over £18,000 per mile for a single track. But that did not end the story. Before that track could be used by the Belfast Corporation probably another £40,000 would be spent.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 130; Noes, 176. (Division List No. 27.)

  AYES.

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Craik, Sir Henry

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Armitage, R.

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  Astbury, John Meir

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Moore, William

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Doughty, Sir George

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Gov'n

  Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Emmott, Alfred

  Nicholson, Charles N.(D'nc'st'r)

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Evans, Sir Samuel T.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Barker, John

  Everett, R. Lacey

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torens

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Fell, Arthur

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Barrie, H.T.(Londonderry, N.)

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

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

  Barry, Redmond J.(Tyrone, N.)

  Forster, Henry William

  Price, Robert John(Norfolk, E.)

  Beale, W. P.

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Black, Arthur W.

  Gretton, John

  Robinson, S.

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Rose, Charles Day

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Russell, T. W.

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

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

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J.T(Cheshire)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D.

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Higham, John Sharp

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hills, J. W.

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Cave, George

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C.W.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Smith, F.E.(Liverpool, Walton)

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Hunt, Rowland

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Cecil, Lord R.(Marylebone, E.)

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Starkey, John R.

  Churchill Rt. Hn. Winston S.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Clough, William

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lee, Arthur H.(Hants, Fareham

  Valentia, Viscount

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

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Verney, F. W.

  Cory, Sir Clifford John

  Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Waring, Walter

  Cox, Harold

  Lupton, Arnold

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Craig, Captain James(Down, E.)

  Maclean, Donald

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestershire, N.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Whiteley, Rt. Hn. G.(York, W.R.

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

  Mr. Wolff and Mr. George

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)

  Younger, George

  Clark.

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

  Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  O'Malley, William

  Ambrose, Robert

  Hodge, John

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.)

  Hogan, Michael

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Baring, Godfrey(Isle of Wight)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs Leek)

  Barnard, E. B.

  Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset, N.

  Pease, J.A (Saffron Walden)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hudson, Walter

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Benn, W.(T'w'r Hamlets, S.Geo.

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Bennett, E. N.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Radford, G. H.

  Boland, John

  Jenkins, J.

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Bottomley, Horatio

  Johnston, John (Gateshead)

  Reddy, M.

  Brace, William

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Jowett, F. W.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Joyce, Michael

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Richards, T.F.(Wolverh'mp'tn)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Kelley, George D.

  Richardson, A.

  Cameron, Robert

  Kettle, Thomas Michael

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott(Bradfrd)

  Clynes, J. R.

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwi'h)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Rowlands, J.

  Cooper, G. J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Rutherford, V. R. (Brentford)

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Seddon, J.

  Cremer, Sir William Randal

  Macdonald, J.M.(Falkirk B'ghs)

  Seely, Colonel

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Mackarness, Frederick C.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Crossley, William J.

  Mcpherson, J. T.

  Snowden, P.

  Cullinan, J.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Stanley, Albert(Staffs, N.W.)

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Mac Veagh, Charles (Donegal, E.

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  M'Crae, George

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  M'Kean, John

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Summerbell, T.

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  M'Killop, W.

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

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

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Maddison, Frederick

  Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr)

  Duckworth, James

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset)

  Duffy, William J.

  Mansfield, H. Rendall(Lincoln)

  Thorne, William

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Meagher, Michael

  Walsh, Stephen

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Middlebrook, William

  Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent).

  Erskine, David C.

  Mond, A.

  Wardle, George J.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Mooney, J. J.

  Watt, Henry A.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Muldoon, John

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)

  Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Murray, James

  Wiles, Thomas

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Myer, Horatio

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Glover, Thomas

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Williamson, A.

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Nicholls, George

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R,)

  Gulland, John W.

  Nolan, Joseph

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

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

  Hall, Frederick

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Halpin, J.

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Harvey, W. E.(Derbyshire, N.E.

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Mr. Devlin and Mr. Scott.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  O'Grady, J.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Second Reading put off for six months.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Postponed Proceeding on Question, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906," resumed.
  Question again proposed.
  MR. CHARLES ROBERTS,continuing his speech, said: I wish very briefly to conclude my argument on the time limit. Fourteen years is a long tunnel, even though there is daylight at the end of it. Any extension of the term proposed by the Bill would really be an endowment of the brewers. May I refer to the attack which has been made on the Bill with reference to clubs? It has been said that the whole value of the Bill in reducing facilities for drinking will be counteracted by its weakness in dealing with clubs. I believe that the Government has seized the central and essential point in dealing with clubs. They might have gone further, but in handing over the question of the annual registration of clubs to the discretion of the licensing authority I believe the real step will be taken to check the multiplication of bogus clubs. We have seen before the value of this discretion in stopping the multiplication of grocers' licences. This provision will enable the justices to distinguish between the legitimate club and the bogus club which is started with the intention of wrecking the reduction movement or of paralysing the plan of No-licence. I wish, then, to thank the Government most cordially for the Bill. I know that there are points in it which may be regarded as shortcomings. It is not the whole loaf, but it is all good bread. It seems to me that in regard to election day closing they might have made that obligatory instead of permissive. I do not wish, however, on the First Reading to go into criticisms of detailed points. We shall hope that the Bill will be strengthened. I want to thank the Government for what is not in the Bill as well as for what is in it. On some points they might have followed devious and perilous ways. We have not got the position which faced us when Mr. Bruce's Bill was introduced. That Bill, along with many good points, proposed some most objectionable and dangerous changes, which have quite passed out of public memory. Hence at that time a most difficult and embarrassing decision faced the party of temperance reform. If the Bill does not on some points go far enough I am sure it is one which offers real and substantial advantages. I wish specially to thank the Government for having given to us the power of local option in regard to licences.
  174
  I understand that we get under the Bill that power at once over new licences, and though we shall have to wait long for it, in the end we get the power of local option over all licences. That is the fighting issue of temperance reform all over the world. I hope the temperance forces will concentrate for the purpose of supporting and strengthening this Bill. We know quite well that it will be made the subject of party attack. Hon. Members on the other side would have attacked it just as much if the Bill had been weaker. The Bill is worth fighting for, and I hope the Government will stand to their guns against all opposition. I hope the House will allow me to say one word of thanks to the Prime Minister for his action in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman has crowned a life of steadfast fidelity to temperance reform by his act of signal courage in producing this Bill. Temperance reformers will not forget to whose decision it is due that at last a door is opened for the deliverance of the country from a great social evil.
  MR. YOUNGER: I have, I think, a certain title to intervene at this stage in the discussion. I am the only member of Lord Peel's Commission sitting on this side of the House. If I had not intended to speak to-night I should certainly have done so on account of the scant courtesy which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has paid to that Commission. I may not be regarded as perfectly free from a certain amount of prejudice on this question. I belong to the trade. I am a brewer, and although my interests are—[An HON. MEMBER: You should be in the House of Lords] —I shall look forward to the day when my hon. friend will interrupt me there— I think I should perfectly frankly say that while my interests, and the interests of my firm, are predominantly Scottish we have certain English interests which will be affected by this Bill. At the same time, I am sorry not to be in the position of the hon. Member for Lincoln of being able to thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for this measure. It is a very much more drastic Bill than I thought it would be. I hardly believe that the right hon. Gentleman expects it to pass in its present form, and I am perfectly certain that if it does it will create a financial

  175
  cataclysm on the Stock Exchange which will react on other interests than those of the brewing trade. The fact of the matter is this: I do not suppose there is a single brewing concern of any consequence in England, having a large debenture issue, which would not find itself, within a very short period of the passing of the Bill, in the hands of the Official Receiver by means of the change in the quality of the debenture holder's security. That may seem to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite a very small matter. It appears to me to be an extremely serious one, and I am bound to say that I was astonished at the light-hearted and casual fashion in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer dealt with the question to-day. As to the possibility which the right hon. Gentleman foreshadowed of the brewing companies being perfectly able, in the short time he was inclined to give, to insure the enormous interest they have in licensed properties, I do not intend to go deeply into the question. It has been spoken to with great ability already, and it will be discussed by my right hon. friend later on. I enter now as moderate but as strong a protest as I can against what I believe to be the extremely unfair proposals of the Bill. My hon. and learned friend the Member for the Walton Division produced certain figures which I think were not acceptable—certainly they were not accepted—to the other side. These figures I am authorised to say were provided by Mr. Peat, whose name I have only to mention to make the House realise that they were serious and sound figures. If hon. Gentlemen do not care to accept these figures, they have the recent letters of Mr. Edward North Buxton, once a Member of this House, and a member of the Licensing Commission. He stated in letters to The Times what the position of his firm would be if an illusory period were granted during which compensation was to be given and a levy continued. I think he stated in these letters that the balance of his profits amounted only to £64,000 a year, after paying fixed debenture charges, and that is under management by the existing partners of the concern. The House will see that with a fourteen years time limit and a concurrent levy it certainly is not possible that the whole of that money could provide what is required. The right hon. Gentleman is treading on rather
  176
  dangerous ground in believing that this levy will continue to be paid. Does he suppose that these firms will remain solvent? Does he think that the profits now being made will continue to be made? Of course they will not. The whole thing will be gone. There will be a condition of affairs created which will disturb the credit of all those persons. The interest of those who so well manage these concerns will be taken away and in that case such profits will cease to be made. I would like to ask if there is the slightest sign of this Bill being a temperance measure. How will the consumer fare under it? All I can say is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will risk the loss of his revenue while the consumer who wants a good glass of beer will get no "forrarder" on the beer which will be supplied under it if it be watered as the hon. Member for the Spen Valley suggests. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there could be no temperance reform more likely to do good than the encouragement under a new licensing system of the improvement of the condition of the houses. I am one of those who think that the policy of most of the licensing magistrates has been very foolish in the restrictions which they have placed in the way of the licensed holders being encouraged to make their houses more like a French café than a mere drinking bar or saloon. Surely, if after fourteen years the whole of the interest of the licence-holder in his house is to disappear, that will neither induce him to carry on his business in the careful way I have indicated, or to incur further expenditure in the improvement of his premises. Again, how does the right hon. Gentleman expect to get all the money he wants? And what is the chance of the consumer having his beer or whiskey at a reasonable price? Prices under the right hon. Gentleman's proposal must go up, and that is not likely to make him a popular Minister or his Government a popular Government. After all, people have got used to paying 1½. a glass for their beer. They will not like it if they have to pay 2d., and they will bless the right hon. Gentleman still less if there is some water added to it. In the speeches which have been made by the right hon. Gentleman and others who followed him,

  177
  there was an extraordinary omission. I suppose that of the 95,000 licences which still exist in England, something like one-third represent the ante-1869 beer houses. When the Act of 1904 was passed, those houses had a statutory right to a renewal of their licences. They could not be taken away except on certain grounds. But the owners and holders of these licences agreed to come under the provisions and scope of the 1904 Act, because they were to be protected by its compensation clauses against the withdrawal of their licences. Why does the right hon. Gentleman place those licences now in the same position as other licences? I say that this action of the Government is in the nature of a gross breach of Parliamentary faith, and hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to bear that in mind. The hon. Member for Lincoln thought he had made an excellent point by saying that in estimating the compensation payable to those ante-1869 beer house the Court only added one year's extra purchase money over and above the number of years purchase money allowed for on-licences. But instead of making a good point from his own standpoint, does the hon. Gentleman not see that he was making an extremely bad one? If a licence having a statutory right to renewal is only supposed to be worth not more than one year's purchase money more than an on-licence the Court showed that it thought that, the expectation of renewal in the one case was nearly as good as the certainty of renewal in the other. At any rate that is how, I think, the Court understood the matter and' most people will agree. My right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition alluded in the course of his speech to the sale of a licensed house to which the Government was a party. The War Office sold a licensed house in Portsmouth in the month of July last for £10,000, and the valuer who valued that house for the War Office valued the house without the licence at £2,500. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman thinks after this Bill is read to-morrow, and if it passes into an Act, that that house will be worth £10,000; and if he does not, does he think it quite fair for the Government to sell the house at that rate within a few months of
  178
  the introduction of this Bill and in the knowledge of their intentions? I have heard of directors being severely taken to task for selling shares in a company when they knew that there was to be a poor dividend; but is this not a much worse case? The right hon. Gentleman is not content with hitting the unfortunate trader by granting him such a short limit, he has also seriously penalized him in order to increase the rate of reduction of licences. He changes the system of valuation in such a way as to enable him with the same levy to reduce a very much larger number of houses, so that in every way the unfortunate trader is put in the position of being wholly unable to meet the extra insurance money. There cannot be any question about that fact. The question of annual rental is a very different thing from the question of annual profits; and the loss under that head alone in the case of many companies will be so great that even if they were able to set aside from profits money to provide for insurance, that would preclude them from paying any dividend. I have only another word to say, and that is that, so far as I can judge, there seemed a desire on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends to "play up" to the publican. Brewers are horrible persons in the estimation of some people, as was shown by the ironical cheers with which any reference to them was received. Just as Lord Rosebery the other day said that a noble Lord had the "airy grace of a butterfly," and then immediately after added: "a butterfly with a pin through it," so it struck me and many Members around me that, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer was playing up to the publican, he was putting three pins through him! I do not think that the publican will thank the right hon. Gentleman for this Bill any more than will the brewer. I was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he would welcome criticism of the Bill, and would not resist any fair Amendment to it. I hope that as the result of debates in this House and of opinion in the country the Bill will be largely modified, and made more acceptable to the trade, which I consider for my part is a necessary and a perfectly respectable one. I trust that in its defence I have not used any extreme expressions,

  179
  and I honestly say that if the right hon. Gentleman thinks that his Bill as at present drafted is fair and reasonable, there will not amongst the whole of the licensed trade of this country be found a single soul who will agree with him.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I think I may be allowed to express on my own behalf and that of my colleagues and of the great majority of the people of Wales our great satisfaction with the Bill introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and our gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for the provision he has made in it for the special needs of Wales. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has admitted that the position of Wales in regard to licensing and Sunday closing is different from that of England, and it is very gratifying to us that he has recognised that fact in his Bill. For many years past the people of Wales have pressed for two outstanding reforms. One is that Monmouthshire should be included in the Welsh Sunday Closing Act, and the other is that immediate recognition should be given to the principle of popular control in the granting of licences. Both these reforms find a place in the Bill. I would like to say in regard to the extension of the Sunday closing area that that reform will be the means of conferring a benefit on the counties of Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, and of meeting one of the worst evils in the border districts. With reference to the other point, the recognition of the principle of popular control, I desire again to express our great appreciation of the Government's action, and of the proposal which is included in the Bill in that respect. I feel sure that this provision will be very welcome in the Principality. It will afford the people of Wales an opportunity of testing the principle of local control during the running of the time limit, and I feel sure with regard to the funds at the disposal of the licensing authority for this further reduction, there will be sufficient money to bring about at all events a substantial reduction beyond that authorised by the machinery of the Bill. I have only further to say that I look upon this as a great Bill, and as a great effective, comprehensive, and
  180
  equitable scheme for dealing with some of the most urgent evils that now exist in our licensing system There is one fact which I think will enable the Government to pass it into law, and that is that there is now in the country a settled feeling that something must be done to reduce the gigantic evil of intemperance in the country. This is a courageous and honest attempt on the part of the Government to grapple with that evil. We may hope that this will enable us to lift the question out of Party politics and make it a national question. I thank the Government for the special provisions of the Bill relating to Wales, and I have no doubt that if this great measure passes into law it will strengthen not only the physique but the mental and moral courage of the nation.
  SIR E. CARSON: As I listened to-day—as I did very attentively, as one who took part in the last legislation upon this subject in 1904, when I had the honour to hold the position of Solicitor-General—to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as he unravelled, with the lucidity of which he is such a master, the details of his Bill, and more and more showed his determination almost to strip away the last garment of the trade, I could not avoid asking myself whether, having regard to the serious nature of his proposals, we were to consider this really as a genuine Bill, or whether it was a move in the game of tactics in their campaign against the House of Lords. A great deal is said about that terrible class of people called brewers, who next, I think, to the Irish landlords-are about the worst class of people with which the Legislature has to deal. But after all, what are the brewers? There are thousands, almost millions of innocent investors who upon the faith of legislation by Parliament have invested their money, not in a speculative, but in a perfectly proper and well recognised security-Therefore when you talk of brewers do not imagine you are dealing with two or three individuals; you are dealing with millions of people, and in many cases with the savings of a lifetime. When those who have invested their money in these securities come to realise what

  181
  is included in this Bill, and the million and a half employees also come to realise it, the one class will know that they have been stripped of their property, and the other that they are going to be stripped of their employment. That is a course which I do not think even the Chancellor of the Exchequer can have entered upon with a light heart, and I certainly think he might have given us some very much better reasons, if he had them, for engaging in a campaign of this kind. The sole basis of his speech and of all his proposals was the old controversy as to what was the exact legal interest which the owner of a licensed house had in his licence. That is a very old phrase. We have argued it many times here across the floor of the House, but I venture to say that it is not a question of the construction of an Act of Parliament. It is a question of hard and actual facts as to the real nature of that expectancy, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer called it, and how it has been treated not merely in regard to the matter of licensing, but as an ordinary commodity in the market. It is idle to tell me that because by the construction of an Act of Parliament a discretion is given to justices in regard to licensing, in the same way as in regard to other matters which have been looked upon as a continuing and vested interest and have been so dealt with—it is idle to tell me that that can be got rid of by a decision of a Court, no matter how high that Court may be. But I would remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in that case to which he referred of Sharpe v. Wakefield—I really apologise for going into these matters, but they have been put at the root of the case by the right hon. Gentleman himself—I would remind him that in giving judgment in that case the Lord Chancellor, while admitting that the justices had a discretion, said—
  "The legislature has given credit to the magistrates for exercising a judicial discretion that they will fairly decide the questions submitted to them, and not by an evasive attempt to repeal the law which permits public-houses to exist, or to evade it, avoiding a clear exposition of the reasons upon which they act."
  That means that where an Act of Parliament has laid down certain definite considerations upon which these renewals, may take place, unless the
  182
  magistrates see clear and real reasons why they should go outside these conditions they ought to proceed to renew these licences as they have done for more than a century. If anyone wants anything further I wish hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have to consider this very serious subject would take the trouble which I have done more than once to read a little of its history, which they will find stated in no biassed way in a little book produced by Mr. Sidney Webb, who at all events cannot be said to be a partisan of the political party to which I belong. He draws attention to the fact that as far back as 1816 a Committee appointed by the then House of Commons, and appointed because there was a revulsion of feeling against the drastic and stringent measures taken by the magistrates in reference to the subject of this discussion, reported to this House—
  "Your Committee think it by no means clear that the legislature ever contemplated that magistrates would assume power to consider old licences as new ones, or that they should be able to deprive at their own will, persons of their property to which long enjoyment has given them a right, and upon which the living of themselves and their families depends."
  MR. ASQUITH: Did Parliament take action on that?
  SIR E. CARSON: Yes, Parliament took this action on that. They allowed a free trade in beer licences. That is the whole origin of the ante-beer licences in 1869.
  AN HON. MEMBER: There is a vested interest in the ante-1869 licences.
  SIR E. CARSON: But the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not take any notice of the vested interest in the ante-1869 beer licences. All this talk of the vested interest has nothing to do with the case. It is merely a peg for the right hon. Gentleman to hang his hat upon, because whether there is a vested interest in a beer licence or whether there is not, he intends to sweep them all into one net. Why, then, bring in all this talk about the question of vested interests at all? It has no real foundation, although it is the only argument put forward by the

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  right hon. Gentleman in favour of bringing in this Bill. But it has nothing whatever to do with the arguments with which he tries to support this Bill. He draws no distinction between the case in which there is a vested interest and that in which there is not. I therefore dispute entirely the basis upon which the right hon. Gentleman frames his argument. The next point which the right hon. Gentleman took was our Act of 1904. He said it had been too slow. At all events, it had the merit of being the only Bill brought forward by either Party for thirty years which had had the effect of decreasing the number of public houses. Whatever effect it might have upon temperance, it reduced the number of new licences from 215 per annum to about fifty-five or thereabouts, and it decreased the number of licensed houses in the three years at the rate of about 1,200 a year. It has done that while for the last two years the Government has been trying to impair the usefulness of that measure. Why do I say that? I say that because we gave powers in 1904 to borrow money on the security of the compensation fund, with a view to an immediate greater reduction; with a view that redundant houses might be immediately suppressed. But when an application was made to the Home Office during the tenure of the present Government to borrow money in order to close up a larger number of houses, the applicants were told that they could not be allowed to borrow for more than one year. So that with a view to making a case in this matter the Government have actually impeded the operation of an Act of Parliament. It is no use for the right hon. Gentleman to shake his head, because it is the fact. Let him get up after me and deny it. I say to have an Act impeded in its operation in that way for party purposes is a disgrace to an Administration which is put into power for the purpose of administering the law as it exists. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that he is going to impose this time limit. I think he has given very little reason for doing so. He said we had to consider this question of time-limit. We considered the question of the time limit when we were passing the Act of 1904. I said then, and I say now, and I believe the House thought
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  then, and I believe it is a fact now as it was then, that a time limit is absolutely inconsistent with the idea of an insurance such as is set up under this Bill. Just examine it for a moment. I can understand its being said to a man who had merely the expectancy which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer says he has, "We give you notice that at the end of fourteen years we will close your house, but we will take care that you are not turned out." You can say to the tenant: "You have made improvements, you are liable to be turned out, but we will give you fourteen years in order that you may compensate yourself for the improvements you have made." But if you tell this man during all those years he must compensate himself, and then suddenly suppress his house, the whole thing is a farce. Look at the absurdity to which you are driven the moment you apply a time limit to such a case. The first thing that results is that the longer a man resides the less he gets. Let us see how it works out. If a man's house is taken in the first year, he has paid a years insurance and gets the value of his house based on a fourteen years purchase; if he has paid fourteen years insurance and his house is taken he gets the value of his house on one year's purchase. Was there ever anything more ridiculous than an insurance on that basis! But at the end of the time if he has not the good luck to have had his property taken from him before, he loses not merely his house but his insurance as well. That is a very satisfactory way of insuring property is it not? But that is not the end of the effect of this time limit coupled with the compulsory powers conferred on the magistrates, in fact, as I understand it—it is not very easy to follow a complicated Bill of this kind—the magistrates are to be bound, whether they think it expedient for the neighbourhood and for the benefit of the people or not, to reduce a certain number of houses per year. Very well, the Government have not much trust in the magistrates anyway. How many houses are to be reduced per year? Two thousand three hundred. Let us have no delusion over this. Where is the money to come from? The right hon. Gentleman says: "We are going to take the same

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  scale of compensation as under your Act." Do not let anybody in the trade be deceived by that. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows perfectly well the money will not go nearly far enough.
  MR. ASQUITH: It will go far enough.
  SIR EDWARD CARSON: The Chancellor of the Exchequer is too sanguine. He must be thinking of the personnel of the Commission he is going to appoint. Probably, the Chairman will be the hon. Member for the Spen Valley and one of the other two gentlemen will probably be the Chairman of the United Kingdom Alliance. No doubt he can get a most excellent tribunal for the purpose of carrying out what he says will be the fact that there shall be sufficient money under the circumstances. If up to the present time, when, of course, the worst class of houses have been dealt with, you have only been able to reduce about 1,200 a year out of the sum available, how can it be that you will be able to deal with more expensive public-houses, taking away 2,300 a year with the money which will be available? The right hon. Gentleman knows it perfectly well, or he would not have put in the Bill the power to increase the compensation money. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman who is to regulate that? Is it the Commission, with the hon. Member for the Spen Valley, as Chairman? It would be far better to do it openly in the House of Commons and regulate the price to be paid from year to year. There is another matter. As I understand the Bill, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman, when a district has been cleared, when you have got your £750 for the acre, or your 3 acres to the cow, or whatever it may be— when you have got your land cleared of excessive public-houses, then the remaining public-houses there are to go on contributing. The man in Sussex is to contribute towards the reduction of public-houses in York after the houses in Sussex have been sufficiently reduced. Well, I hope the man in Sussex will remember that when he comes to consider the just and equitable and judicial provisions of this Bill which the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought in, in such a judicial frame of mind this afternoon. Under the Bill, at the end of the time
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  limit, the licensed trader loses his premises and his insurance. "Oh, but," says the right hon. Gentleman, "you. can have a second insurance. You can insure against what will happen at the end of fourteen years." The right hon. Gentleman has not told us what is going to happen at the end of fourteen years. Although he calls it an insurance, what he really means is that you must make a sinking fund. Will the right hon. Gentleman lay upon the Table of the House his calculations, taking specimens of various houses in. various districts, and tell us what it will cost to provide this sinking fund? I venture to think he will not. These calculations have been referred to by the hon. Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool. I have seen those figures. I do not, of course, vouch for the accuracy of them, but if they are anything like right you must, in order to put by a sinking fund to purchase or make good at the end what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is taking away, begin next year and starve your debenture holders, not to talk of preference and ordinary shareholders who are gone entirely the moment this Bill is passed. And what is more: Will any of these people who own shares in the trade be able in the meantime to raise a shilling of the capital required for the extension or keeping up other various businesses? Who would lend a brass farthing on such a security? The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that if the interest falls into arrears, the debenture holders in their own protection will have to enter and take possession of the premises; if there is even a prospect of it falling into arrear, they will have the right to do so. The whole trade, by this Bill, must be thrown into a state of financial anarchy. Anybody who looks at the Bill fairly and considers the proposals must come to the conclusion that every shilling that is invested in it—and there are millions—is in jeopardy of being lost. Why is it that this time limit is put in at all? The right hon. Gentleman says: "It is because I have my political honour to think of." What does it matter to all these debenture holders, to the millions of people who have put the savings of their lifetime in this security under the sanction of the law,

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  and to the 1,500,000 employees in these various businesses? He has his political honour to think of, and the pledges he gave when in Opposition! He stated of Lord Hugh Cecil—and nobody has a greater respect for the noble Lord than I have—said that the Bill of 1904 did not prevent Parliament setting up a time limit. He was quite right: nothing in an Act cam prevent Parliament doing anything afterwards; and, just as the Bill of 1904 did not prevent Parliament setting up a time limit, or having it proposed, at all events, so the Bill of 1908, if it ever passes, cannot prevent Parliaments in years to come from striking out the time limit. The right hon. Gentleman talks of political honour in relation to what he said when in Opposition. What does he think of the political honour of those who passed the Bill of 1904, and of the course that they ought to take if the arrangement made and the moderate compromise effected ate set aside? What would he think of the political honour of those who were engaged in the process of forming that Bill and in pressing it upon the House if they were to abandon those who were led to invest their money upon the compromise come to at that time? The right hon. Gentleman says we gave notice, and that that is the reason why he has a right to confiscate all this property of these various people. Fortunately we are legislating for fourteen years hence. I know the right hon. Gentleman probably thinks that, small minority as we are, we never have a chance of coming again into power. But at all events he will, I hope, give us credit for having as much honour as he has. There is at all events, time before those who are concerned in the effects of this time limit, and I have no doubt they will take advantage of the opportunity between this and fourteen years hence to try to have the matter regulated. Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that any attempt of this kind so far from being a settlement is absolutely an unsettlement of the whole matter of Does he not see that people, in reference to this matter, will be fighting for their very existence, and once you have raised the question in this form, in which it is to affect millions of innocent people, it will be many long years before you
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  can expect them to leave this question outside their political contests. Above all things, the right hon. Gentleman has said he is not in this Bill going to determine what is to happen at the end of fourteen years. At least he gave a general indication that it would be left to local option or something of that kind, and he said how that local option was to be exercised, but it would have to be done in a future Bill. At all events, there is a fair field for fourteen years for the publican and the trade to keep agitating and to keep this as a dominant factor in politics before those who are seriously concerned in this matter, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that if I was not concerned with the rights of property and with the rights of those who have just as good reason to ask for protection as any individual in this House, there is nothing I should hail with greater joy if I were a mere politician than the fact that you have produced a Bill which will arouse a feeling amongst those affected which I think you little contemplate. And after all, have you any great confidence in your own Bill, that having inflicted these hardships it is going to raise any great accretion of strength to those who are so much engaged in this temperance movement? You, by your own admission, have shown that, at the best, as you suppress these licensed houses from time to time, you will only turn the channel into these clubs which the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us have been growing so rapidly in recent years. Yes, and the right hon. Gentleman makes no serious effort to deal with them. He knows as well as I do what a network of these clubs there is. Has he considered the question of the affiliated clubs—the thousands of clubs affiliated to the central club, and how as you pass from one town into another you are able, by merely writing down your name and stating that you are a member in another town, to enjoy all the privileges of the club and the convenience of getting such liquor as you may require? I read somewhere, and I believe it is true, though I do not vouch for it, that these affiliated clubs have actually made arrangements with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the sale of intoxicating liquors in any of the-

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  affiliated clubs to a member of any one club is not to be a breach of the rules and regulations of the club so as to prevent it from continuing to be registered as a club. The truth of the matter is that there is very little of temperance in the Bill at all. The provision that opposition can be made to the renewal of the registration of the club is founded on an absolutely farcical proceeding. What is it? That a policeman without uniform is to be at liberty to walk round the club occasionally, and I suppose is to go and give the evidence on which the registration is to be opposed. How is he to do it? Is he to look at the countenance of each man he sees reclining in a chair or on a sofa or perhaps smell his breath, and the usual matters we see in the police court from time to time? This man is to go round the clubs, and come up at the end of the year and tell you: "You ought not to renew the licence of this club, because I have been two or three times a year and I can assure you it is nothing more or less than a drinking shop." It is not in the least necessary that they should be disreputable drinking shops at all. They may be perfectly properly conducted clubs, just as the public houses that you put an end to may have been perfectly properly conducted public houses. What is your remedy then? Where does your temperance come in? If a properly conducted public house is turned into a properly conducted club, what is the difference as regards temperance? The only difference is that in the public-house there is some supervision, and that the club is free from licensing duties and various other charges which are paid to the Exchequer. I believe, looking at the history of this subject, if your Bill were to pass to-morrow, it would cause a reaction as regards this question, which would lead in a very short time either to the Bill's repeal or its modification. What do you find in the whole history of this question? You find in the
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  eighteenth century magistrates taking great powers upon themselves, trying local option, trying the putting down of public-houses, trying to prevent in every way the sale of beer and other intoxicating liquors, and then in 1816 a great reaction of feeling coming over the country at these magistrates interfering with the liberty of a people who thought they had no right to interfere. And then you find the legislation going entirely in the other direction in consequence of that reaction, and that instead of these restrictions there was established an absolutely free trade in beer which led to the ante-1869 beerhouses being called into existence. You find by degrees as time went on, according as the wave went one way or the other, one year a number of licences taken away, and then an outcry, and then for a few years little or nothing done in the way of suppression of licences. And so you will find, if you pass an extreme, extravagant, drastic, and confiscatory measure such as this, a revulsion of feeling upon the part of this country which will drive back this question which has been going on steadily for years past, with consequences that temperance advocates little understand. This is not the time to go into the more minute details of the Bill, but I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion for what it is worth, that a more mischievous and a more confiscatory Bill has seldom been presented to Parliament
  THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir SAMUEL EVANS,): It has always been the case that whenever any interests of a private character are attacked for the benefit of the community at large it is the experience of the House of Commons that lugubrious and dark pictures are drawn, but those pictures are always falsified in the working of the measure. Up to the speech which has just been made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite the criticism which has been directed towards the Bill

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  of the Government, introduced in such a masterly speech by my right hon. friend, has been such that the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have no reason to complain of it at all. The speech of the right hon. and learned Member opposite was made solely on behalf of the trade; and when in a few short sentences he approached the question of temperance, the good of the people, and the welfare of the community, his criticism consisted of a mere statement that the Bill was a mischievous and confiscatory measure. The Government have brought this Bill forward in the interests of temperance, and it would be the worst possible tactics in introducing a measure with that object to bring in a Bill which would deserve such criticism as that which has been directed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in the last few phrases of his speech. I deny that this is an extreme, extravagant, or confiscatory measure. The Government are dealing with the interests of the community as well as with those of the trade, and the object they have in view is to make a fair and equitable adjustment between the rights of the trade and the rights of the community. Prophecies have been made as to the result to the Government (in case an appeal were made to the country) of having introduced a measure of this kind. I do not think that considerations of that sort ought to affect the Government in dealing with their legislation. We have to consider what is right and best for the country' at large, and if the consequences are that we shall be overwhelmed in disaster, and that the Party to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman belongs will come in and repeal this Bill which we are going to pass into an Act, so much the worse for the Liberal Party, but if such should be the result, we should meet disaster in a good cause. The first principle of the Bill is that there is to be a gradual reduction of licences, the effect of which will be to promote the cause of temper-
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  ance. The difference between the Act of 1904 and the present measure is that by this Bill there will be uniformity in reduction over the whole country: that the reduction will be gradual, and that it will be compulsory. With these exceptions we have followed the plan of the Act of 1904. We believe that it is absolutely essential for the good of the country that there should be not only a reduction but a reduction on a large scale.
  SIR EDWARD CARSON: But we had no time limit.
  SIR SAMUEL EVANS: That is another and a different matter: but we have followed the Act of 1904 in adopting the plan of reduction as a means towards promoting temperance. The second principle of the Bill is that the State should after the reduction period resume the control of the licences which it has granted. If notice is required to the trade, they have had notice for many years that the time might come when the State would assume the full control of the right to grant licences, and should intercept the monopoly value of such licences. The time limit has been commented upon by the right hon. Gentleman, and he said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought it necessary in order to keep his word and to live up to his standard of political honour to deal with this question upon this basis. Quite true; and similarly the right hon. Gentleman and his Party find it necessary to preserve their political honour by threatening to recede from this principle. We have not been driven as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said to bring in this Bill: we have introduced it because we believe in it; but would it have been right, would anybody have thought anything of us if after professing opinions in opposition and giving pledges at the election, when we came to legislate we did not carry out our principles? We are not alone

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  in this matter. Fortunately, in regard to the time limit we have the assistance, among others, of the bishops of the Church of England. The Leader of the Opposition does not like the opinions of bishops on this question.
  MR. BOTTOMLEY: Hear, Hear!
  SIR SAMUEL EVANS: I make a present of the support of the hon. Member for South Hackney to the Party opposite. The Leader of the Opposition said it was no use quoting bishops on this matter, because it was a matter of plain, common, financial equity, and, in his view, so far from the principles of this Bill being properly described as equitable, they were confiscatory and predatory, and that we are guilty of robbery in proposing such a Bill to the House. Such language proves nothing, and does not helpto a right decision. With regard to clubs, the Leader of the Opposition said that we were doing hardly anything to stop the evils which arose out of them. We are not proposing to do anything in regard to bona fide clubs. We are proposing to deal with clubs which are mainly used for drinking purposes. We want to stop the practice of opening as a club premises next door to, or in the same street as, a public-house which has been closed. That is not a case of working men starting a club. It is not a question of interfering with the liberty of working men, but of dealing with the licences of brewers. It is well within the experience of everybody who knows about this matter that the evils with which we are dealing arise from the action of brewers in starting a club when public-house premises have been closed up. We intend to do something to check these evils. I can promise the right hon. Gentleman opposite and the Party to which he belongs that if they will give us a helping hand in strengthening the provisions of the Bill for dealing with the admitted
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  evils of drinking clubs, we shall receive with the heartiest welcome any assistance they give us. We ask the help, sympathy, and support of the right hon. Gentleman towards that end, and we will give the right hon. Gentleman our gratitude for doing what he can to assist us in this object. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the pre-1869 beerhouses. I should like to remind him and the House that the change in the law in regard to these houses was carried out by the Party to which he belongs, and he cannot accuse us of being confiscatory in regard to them, seeing that in 1904 they were put by him and his party on the same footing as other licences.
  MR. YOUNGER: They were dealt with under a guarantee of full compensation if the licences were withdrawn.
  SIR SAMUEL EVANS: I attended the debates in 1904 pretty regularly; I heard and know nothing of a deal inside the trade, but I am perfectly certain that there was no deal in the House of Commons on that matter. There is one other principle of the Bill which has hardly had any opposition at all directed to it in the course of this evening, and if that be a presage of what is going to happen during future discussions on the Bill, we shall be very glad that we have introduced into this Bill the principle of local veto with regard to new licences. I have listened to every speech in the discussion to-night, and there has been no speech in disapproval of the introduction for the first time for many years past of the principle of local veto with regard to new licences. At the end of the period of fourteen years all the public-houses will be regarded as new licensed houses. The right hon. Gentleman drew a picture of the trade being stripped of all its garments. We have left it decently clothed for a period of fourteen years: and after that there will be scores of thousands of licensed premises still existing; the most respectable kind will be left in the field, all

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  the others which have been extinguished having been compensated for according to the proper annual value of the premises and the time still to run. At the expiration of the fourteen years what will happen is that those people who have conducted licensed premises properly, and in a way to commend their conduct to the magistrates, will still have their licences granted to them; but the monopoly value will no longer be given to those people. We have heard to-night about a profit of £8,000 being recently made by the grant of a licence. I have seen coming into Brewster Sessions a man who had spent £1,200 or £1,400 upon a house obtaining a licence which made it at once worth £8,000 or £9,000. I think when we are considering the proper adjustment between the various interests, the trade on the one hand and the community on the other, we have a right to look back and ask what has become of the millions of money which really ought to belong to the State, and which has been pocketed by individuals and companies. It is an abuse of language, when the State is only asking for the monopoly value of the licences at the end of fourteen years, to call that robbery. We are told that we shall be punished for having given effect to our political convictions in proposing this measure to the House. It has been said that fourteen years is not a long time in the history of a nation. It is not a very long time in the history of a human being. Many of us have been Members of this House for fourteen years, and I hope there are many who will be Members fourteen years hence, and who may see the end of the reduction period and the beginning of a better system of dealing with licences. I feel perfectly confident that after this measure, improved in details possibly in Committee, has become an Act, and after it has been carefully worked by the wisdom and co-operation of all persons who will have the working of it, and when we have seen the effect at the end of fourteen years, we who take part in the passing of the measure will be glad of what we have done, and Mem-
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  bers on the other side who oppose it will regret the opposition which they may now be prepared to offer.
  MR. BARNARD: The Solicitor-General has stated that at the end of the time limit those licence holders who have by their conduct commended themselves to the magistrates will have fair consideration. I would like the House to compare that statement with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his speech earlier in the day. The right hon. Gentleman said that when the time limit was reached complete dominion and unfettered freedom would come back to the State. I want to understand exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer means by that, because I have here a quotation from a speech which the right hon. Gentleman delivered on 29th July, 1904, on the Licensing Bill of that year. He said—
  "As I have said, any logical system of compensation will make it a diminishing, contribution, so that in the later years it will be almost nothing. But, apart from that, I say the publican will have got a quid fro quo."
  "In the first place, if the Act is to succeed in what is said to be its main purpose—namely the reduction of redundant licences—it is quite clear that at the end of the period, if reasonably long—say fourteen years—there will be such a reduction in these licences that redundancy will be a rare thing, and, of course, as redundancy ceases the risk to the publican of losing his licence is small, and it is a risk that could be insured to-morrow in any insurance company in the country. Moreover, the reduction in the amount and stress of competition must surely enhance the value of licences, not only at the end of the period but during the whole period that the process of reduction is going on. I find that, even without any change in the law, between 1900 and 1903 the number of on-licences in London decreased by 7 per cent, although both the population and the consumption of alcohol largely increased in those years; and it is obvious that there must be a greatly enhanced value in the licensed premises which remain.
  I put it to the House, if that is the case, it seems to carry out the idea expressed by the Home Secretary in a speech delivered at Leeds, and also in a speech by the late Attorney-General, which showed—they were talking prior to the election of 1906—that when this period

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  of the time limit—or whatever you may call it—ceased, there would be something coming to those who had been paying into the compensation fund. When we are told that within fourteen years there are to be something like 30,000 licences taken away, I ask whether it is not a reasonable thing to demand that some complete explanation should be given to us as to the effect upon those licences which are left. Then, I want to know the meaning of "complete dominion" and "unfettered freedom." I understand that the unfettered freedom means that we are to give back to the justices the right which they had before the Act of 1904, to give a licence at their discretion. But I do not understand that that in any way deals with two other points in the Act of 1904, and which the right hon. Gentleman never touched upon in his speech. The Act of 1904 dealt deliberately with the ante-1869 beer-houses. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not even name them, and did not deal with them in any way whatever. There were 30,000 of these beer-houses, the owners of which possessed a vested interest in the licences, subject to four conditions which I need not repeat. The Act of 1904 brought forward by a Conservative Government took away from them that right. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Divide."] I will not argue whether that was correct or not, but I say that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer brings forward to-night a measure which seeks to alter the Act of 1904 in a way which favours his own views, the right hon. Gentleman ought to have referred to those features of that Act of 1904 which do not meet his views. I would have liked to have heard him speak of those parts which took away absolutely the vested rights in the ante-1869 beer-house licences, and in the grocers' licences. [Renewed cries of "Divide."] It is all very fine for hon. Members to cry "Divide," but it is rather hard on me. I do not speak often, and when I want to put one or
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  two points to the House, and when I happen to be in the very singular position that the National Trade Defence Association openly opposed me, whilst I never answered, any of the questions or gave any pledge to a0ny Temperance organisation—I think I may be allowed to proceed. What I was trying to bring out was that it seems to me to be extremely hard that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should single out this particular trade for what I regard as exceptional treatment. I will put it in this way: We have all sorts of taxation and different varieties of taxation. There were eight different war taxes put on during the South African War. Four of them have been got rid of, and the four which remain press distinctly on the licensing trade. I could further illustrate my meaning by showing that this particular trade has, in my opinion, been very badly treated in the Bill introduced by the right hon. Gentleman. It is sufficient for my purpose to have emphasised what I have tried to put forward. [Cries of "Divide."] I do not want to weary the House of Commons at this hour of the morning, and I know that it is very unpleasant for some of my friends who seem to imagine that on temperance legislation everybody should agree with them, and that we have got to swallow the whole lot offered us. That is not my view at all. I only wanted to make it clear that there are a great many points in this Bill which I most respectfully deprecate and shall oppose. In regard to the clubs, I, personally, wish that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone much further, as I am of opinion that it is altogether unfair that he should allow them to go on competing as they do with the public-houses. Whether the policeman goes in plain clothes or uniform, I do not care, but I would rather that the right hon. Gentleman sent a tax gatherer to levy upon the clubs in the same way as he does upon the public houses. I will go even a

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  step further than that. If it is right that the right hon. Gentleman should by these drastic provisions in regard to public-houses seek to reduce them by some 30,000, I think that he ought at the same time to remember that those who hold grocers' licences will in the main be the gainers by this legislation, and that he ought to levy upon them in the same way. It appears to me that the fourteen years limit will in no way enable the ordinary holders of licences to meet their liabilities or to accommodate themselves to the situation. I have, moreover, a variety of authorities which show that we had no right to imagine or to expect, when we agreed to Lord Peel's Report, that at the end of the time limit rights were to be taken away from the people who were their possessors. This is, to my mind, a very serious matter, and I feel bound to get up and record my opinion that the measure brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman contains very many enormous dangers, and I am very glad that he concluded his speech by saying that it was open to amendment.
  MR. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD: I promise only to take two minutes before we go to a division, but I want to put before the House a matter which goes to the root of the Bill. My point is this, that I am one of those who believe that the true cause of temperance and sobriety would best be served if all the public-houses in the kingdom were made airy in summer, well ventilated, well lighted, well warmed in winter, provided with tables and chairs, newspapers, games and music; in short, if they were made respectable. I believe the effect would be that, as environment has a great deal to do with a person's conduct, you would have respectable behaviour, less drunkenness and less excess, if all the licensed houses were so altered and so made comfortable and respectable. Unfortunately the Legislature and the bench
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  of magistrates following it, have conspired together to make the licensed house to-day so small and dirty as to render it impossible decently to conduct business in it. The result is that the public slink in at side doors, and you have drunkenness and no respectable behaviour. Therefore, I believe, that in the interests of sobriety and temperance, it is necessary to get these alterations in the houses that supply necessaries to the people—for they are necessaries to a certain number of people. I say that if that money is compulsorily spent upon licensed houses it will be in the interests of sobriety and temperance. But it may be said, "Where is the money to come from?" and under a time limit of fourteen years nobody will find a sixpence to carry out any such reforms. The Act of 1904 missed the same point and was in the same stupid form as this, which is a blow at temperance, the liberties of the people, and the interests of the public. It is the worst blow that I have seen struck since I have been a Member of this House.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequar, Mr. Secretary Gladstone, Mr. Lloyd-George, Mr. McKenna, Mr. Solicitor-General, and Mr. Herbert Samuel.

  LICENSING BILL.
  "To amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday, 9th March, and to be printed. [Bill 133.]

  LAW OF DISTRESS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
  And, it being after half-past Eleven of the Clock on Thursday evening, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Twenty minutes after Twelve o'clock.