Commons Sitting of 22 July 1908

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

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ammanford Urban District Council Water Bill [Lords].—As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Liverpool Corporation (Streets and Buildings) Bill.—As amended, considered.
Ordered, that Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—(The Deputy Chairman.)
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.
Crystal Palace Company Bill [Lords]. Read a second time and committed.
Rhymney and Aber Valley Gas and Water Bill [Lords].—Ordered, that Standing Orders 211 and 236 be suspended, and that the Committee of Selection have leave to appoint the Committee on the Bill to sit and proceed forthwith—(The Deputy Chairman.)
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill [Lords]; Falkirk and District Water Order Confirmation Bill [Lords].—Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Lanark Corporation (Extension of Boundaries, etc.) Order Confirmation Bill — Read the third time, and passed.
Glasgow and South Western Railway Order Confirmation Bill [Lords]. — Considered; to be read the third time upon Friday.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill [Lords]; Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill [Lords]; Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No.3) Bill [Lords].— As amended, considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
Tramways Orders Confirmation (No.2) Bill [Lords]. — Considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 4) Bill [Lords].—Ordered, that Standing Orders 211 and 236 be suspended, and that the Committee on unopposed Bills have leave to sit and proceed forthwith..—(The Deputy Chairman.)
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 4) Bill [Lords]. Ordered that it be an instruction to the Committee on the Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 4) Bill [Lords], to insert a clause for providing that the district council shall not from the system of sewerage referred to in the order permit any crude sewage to be discharged into the Bay of Dublin, except between the time of high water and five hours after high water, provided that in case of heavy rain or other emergency the storm water may be discharged at any period of the tide.—(Mr. Nannetti.)
Keighley Corporation Bill [Lords] Reported, with Amendments, from the Police and Sanitary Committee. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to:—Post Office Savings Bank Bill, without Amendment; Padiham Urban District Council Bill; Criccieth Water and Improvement Bill; South-West Suburban Water Bill, with Amendments.
Amendment to Amendments to:— Finchley Urban District Council Bill, without Amendment.
Amendments to:—Pontypridd Water Bill [Lords]; Aire and Calder Navigation, Bill [Lords]; Bognor Gas Light and Coke Company Bill [Lords]; South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to prohibit the importation of the Plumage and Skins of Wild Birds." [Importation of Plumage Prohibition Bill [Lords].
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm: certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Education, under the Education Acts, 1870 to 1907, to enable the councils of the administrative counties of Cornwall, Merioneth, and the West Riding of Yorkshire and the county borough of Swansea, to put in force the Lands Clauses Acts." [Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (Cornwall, etc.) Bill [Lords].
House of Lords (Manuscripts).—That they communicate Copy of the Manuscripts of the House of Lords, Volume IV. (New Series), as desired by this House in their Message of yesterday.
Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (Cornwall, etc.) Bill [Lords].—Read the first time. Referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 338.]

PETITIONS.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Droylsden, in favour, to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Bristol, Ledbury; Peckham Rye; Sandbach Heath; Sheffield (two); and Whellock; to lie upon the Table.
  POOR LAW AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Eastwood, Garvock; Hamilton; Inch; Leith; Mearns; and New Cumnock; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 4071 to 4073 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
  Copy presented, of Colonial Report, No. 566 (Northern Territories of the
  62
  Gold Coast, Annual Report for 1907) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  PUBLIC WORKS (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Seventy-sixth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, with Appendices, for the year ending 31st March, 1908 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT. 1894 (PARISH COUNCIL ELECTIONS, 1907).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 26th August, 1907; Mr. Sinclair]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 247.]

  TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS.
  Return ordered, "for the year ending the 20th day of November, 1907: (1) From each Savings Bank in England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and. the Channel Islands, containing, in columns, the number of such banks; the number of accounts remaining open; the total amount owing to depositors; the total amount invested with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, excluding the Surplus Fund; the balance in the hands of the Treasures; the total amount of the separate Surplus Fund in the hands of the Commissioners; the other assets, including the estimated value of the Bank premises, furniture, etc.; the total assets; the rate of interest paid to depositors on the various amounts of deposit, and the average rate of interest on all accounts, the annual expenses of management, inclusive of all payments and salaries; the rate per cent, per annum on the capital of the Bank for the expenses of management; the average cost of each transaction; the total amount of Government Stock standing to the credit of depositors; and the total number and amount of annuities in course of payment, including in such Return a summary of all such Savings Banks as, under the provisions of the Act 26 Viet, c. 14, or otherwise, have been closed and have transferred their funds, or any part thereof, to the Post Office Savings Bank, showing for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and the United Kingdom the number of such

  63
  Banks, the number and amount of depositors' balances on the 20th day of November previous to date of notice to close; the number and amount of accounts so transferred, and the amount of compensation, if any, made to all or any of the officers of such Banks; and showing in separate columns the particulars relating to such Savings Banks as have been closed during the year; and (2) showing the total number of depositors in Trustee Savings Banks the total number of deposits; the total number of withdrawals; the average amount of each deposit account; the average sums paid in and drawn out; and the total number of persons who Lave deposited in single sums the entire amount allowed to be deposited during the year (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 270, of Session 1907)."—(Sir Frederick Banbury.)

  POOR RELIEF (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy ordered, "of Statement of the amount expended by Boards of Guardians for Poor Relief during the half-year ended Ladyday, 1908; and similar Statement for the half-year ended Michaelmas, 1908 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 309), of Session 1907)."—(Mr. Masterman.)
  LOCAL TAXATION LICENCES, ETC., 1907–8.
  Return ordered, "of the amount received during the year ended the 31st day of March, 1908, in respect of each administrative county and county borough in England and Wales, for Local Taxation Licence Duties, and penalties and forfeitures recovered in respect of such duties, and for other duties and. payments which are directed to be dealt with in the same manner as the Local Taxation Licence Duties (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 298, of Session 1907)."—(Mr. Masterman.)

  LOCAL TAXATION ACCOUNT, 1907–8.
  Return ordered, "showing in respect of the financial year ended the 31st day of March, 1908, the distribution of the moneys paid into the Local Taxation Account in pursuance of the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1888, the Local Taxation (Customs and Ex-
  64
  cise) Act, 1890, the Finance Act, 1894, and other Acts, as amended by the Finance Act, 1907 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 317, of Session 1907)."—(Mr. Masterman.)

  LONDON (EQUALISATION OF RATES) ACT, 1894 (ACCOUNTS UNDER SECTION 1 (7) OF THE ACT).
  Return ordered, "showing, according to the accounts for the twelve months preceding the 31st day of March, 1908, furnished to the Local Government Board under Section 1 (7) of the London (Equalisation of Rates) Act, 1894:—(1) The amounts paid during the year out of the Equalisation Fund under the Act to the Corporation of the City of London and each of the Councils of Metropolitan Boroughs to whom payments out of that fund were made; (2) The amount of the expenses incurred during the year by each of these authorities: (a) Under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891 (including expenses of scavenging streets); (b) in respect of lighting; and (c) in respect of streets (other than the expenses of scavenging); and (3) the amount expended during the year by each such authority out of the sums received by them under the Act (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 318, of Session 1907)."—(Mr. Masterman.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Reduction in Hours of Spinners of American Cotton
  MR. GOULDING: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if the 108½ hours reduction of time to be worked by spinners of American cotton in seven weeks will be shown in the monthly Unemployment Returns as issued by the Board of Trade; and, if not, can he state what is the percentage of lessened employment in the trades affected represented by the reduction in question.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill). Neither short time nor overtime is taken into account in the monthly Returns as to the proportion of trade unionists unemployed. The spinners of American

  65
  cotton directly affected by the arrangement with regard to the working of short time have had their ordinary weekly hours reduced by about 28 per cent. I am making inquiries as to the number of persons affected by the reduction.

  Pay of Saltcoats Postmen.
  MR. COCHRANE: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state what reduction has been made in the salary of postmen employed at the post office, Saltcoats, Ayrshire, in consequence of the new gradation of wages according to the volume of work and the cost of living; and whether any such reduction will affect those at present in the postal service at Saltcoats or will only apply to new entrants.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton). In accordance with the recommendations of the Committee the maximum of the scale of pay of the postmen at Saltcoats, who are in Class 4, is 23s. a week. Existing officers are in no way affected. They will all go to their old maximum. The new scale applies to new entrants only.

  The Provincial Homes Investment Company.
  MR. SCOTT: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the judgment given by Judge Parry in the Manchester County Court on 16th July in reference to the action against the Provincial Homes Investment Company, Limited; and, if so, what action he proposes to take to put a stop to such companies.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill). My attention has been called to the judgment given by Judge Parry in the Manchester County Court, on 16th July in an action brought against the Provincial Homes Investment Company, Limited. The question of these house-purchase companies is at the present time engaging my attention, but the matter requires further consideration before I can tell my hon. friend what action I propose to take with regard to them.

  Fatal Accidents caused by Motor Omnibuses.
  MR. B. S. STRAUS: To ask the Secretary of State
  66
  for the Home Department whether he is aware that two fatal motor-bus accidents have taken place in the Mile End Road since Friday; and whether he can instruct the police to avoid the continuance of this danger by more carefully controlling the motor-bus traffic.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone). A fatal accident occurred in the Mile End Road on the 17th instant, when, owing to the skidding of his bicycle, a man was thrown beneath the wheels of a motor omnibus. In this case the coroner's jury returned a verdict of accidental death and entirely exonerated the driver. On the 18th instant a man fell beneath the wheels of a motor omnibus in the Mile End Road and was killed. The coroner's inquest has yet to be held. The police are paying special attention to omnibus traffic in the East End, but I am advised that no police precautions could have averted these accidents.

  Reduction of British Garrisons Overseas.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON: To ask the Secretary of State for War what circumstances have occurred since Monday, 29th June, involving a substantial reduction of British garrisons overseas to the extent of four battalions of infantry and one regiment of cavalry.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane). The hon. Member's Question is not understood. The decision to reduce the South African garrison by one regiment of cavalry and four battalions of infantry was fully explained in the Memorandum on Army Estimates presented to the House in February.

  Chinese Labourers Repatriated.
  SIR W. J. COLLINS: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the total number of Chinese indentured labourers repatriated from the Transvaal up to 30th June of this year; and what is estimated to be the number that will remain after 30th June, 1909.
  (Answered by Colonel Seely). The number repatriated up to 30th June of this year must be about 40,000, and under the repatriation arrangements

  67
  made by the Transvaal Government, about 5,000 may be expected to remain for repatriation about 30th June, 1909, but it is not possible to give exact figures without consulting the Transvaal Government.

  East African Protectorate Rules.
  SIR C. HILL: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the I Colonies whether the rules printed on page 28 of the recent correspondence relating to affairs in the East African Protectorate [Cd. 4122] are the rules referred to on page 1 of that Paper.; and, if not, whether a copy of those rules can be placed in the Library of the House.
  (Answered by Colonel Seely.) The rules printed on page 28 of Cd. 4122 are the rules referred to on page 1 of that Paper.

  African Protectorate—Ordinances.
  SIR C. HILL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a copy of the complete Ordinances relating to the East Africa, Uganda, Nyasaland, and Somaliland Protectorates up to 30th June, 1908, can be placed in the Library of the House.
  (Answered by Colonel Seely.) I will inquire, and, if (as I gather from the hon. Member's Question) the sets now in the Library of the House are incomplete, I will have them completed.

  Recruiting of Native Labour for East African Protectorate.
  VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state on what grounds the Report of the Board appointed on 24th March to consider the terms under which labour should be recruited by the Government and to inquire into the conditions of the labour supply, has not been published with the other correspondence relating to affairs in the East African Protectorate; and whether he will present the Paper to Parliament as soon as possible, seeing that it has a direct bearing on the Papers already presented.
  (Answered by Colonel Seely.) The Report in question was not included in the
  68
  Papers recently presented to Presented to Parliament because it was only received on 12th June, and as stated in the last paragraph of Lord Crewe's dispatch of that date, his Lordship wished to take time to consider the questions connected with the employment of native labourers. It will be included among other Papers which will be presented to Parliament as soon as possible.

  Government Audit Work.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury why the authorities of the Exchequer and Audit Department refuse to state whether the nominated members of the old Colonial Audit Branch of the Exchequer and Audit Department had to undergo any educational test before being admitted to the branch.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that the present system of auditing the Irish, Public Accounts in London causes duplication of work and waste of public; money, and that Ireland loses £10,000 per annum by having this Irish work done in London, he will further consider the advisability of having this Irish work done in Ireland.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, with reference to the recent amalgamation of the old Colonial Audit Branch with the main establishment of the Exchequer and Audit Department, he will say if up to that time there was any case in which three men or more were simultaneously granted certificates under Clause VII. of the Order in Council of 4th June, 1870 the effect of which was to introduce them into a department on a permanent footing, but with higher emoluments than existing officials of the same rank and service who were employed on the same duties, and who entered the Civil Service by open competition.
  (Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) I have nothing to add to the replies which have been given to the hon. Member on these three Questions.

  Compulsory Retirement of Miss Bradley from the Post Office.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General whether the compulsory retirement of Miss Bradley some months ago was persisted in because of the recommendation of a Post Office female medical officer of minor qualifications, notwithstanding the certificate of a specialist, Sir William Gowers, to the effect that Miss Bradley's ailment was amenable to treatment and that she would probably become quite well again by carrying out his prescription; whether Miss Bradley pressed for an independent medical examination by a doctor to be nominated by the Post Office; and, if so, why her request was not acceded to; and, seeing that Miss Bradley's sick leave during the last five years was not abnormal and that she is now quite well again, will he take steps to reinstate her in her former employment, as is usually done in the case of male Civil servants similarly situated.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have nothing to add to the information which I gave to my hon. friend by letter upon this subject in April last. I must express my great regret that a depreciatory opinion should be expressed in this public manner of a lady medical officer whose high medical skill and attainments are no less obvious to those who know her than her natural kindliness to those members of the staff who become her patients.

  Illegal Trawling in Scotch Waters.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland, in view of the fact that the last Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland shows that last year twenty-six cases of illegal trawling off the coast of Scotland were detected by fishermen, will he state the name of each vessel thus detected, the waters in which she was engaged, and the result of the prosecution in each case.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) I may refer my hon. friend for detailed information as to the cases of illegal trawling detected by fishermen to Appendix L., No. 11, pp. 221–36 of the Board's Report.

  Disorderly Seamen on Steamer "Clam."
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the alleged insubordination of certain Chinese seamen on board of the British steamer "Clam" at the port of South Shields on 8th July, when three Chinese firemen of this vessel were charged with assaulting the serang; whether he is aware that on a previous voyage sixteen Chinese seamen were sent to prison from this same steamer; and whether he will order inquiries to be made as to the causes of the frequent outbreaks on this vessel.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) My attention has been called to the prosecution and conviction at South Shields of three Chinese firemen belonging to the ss. "Clam" for assaulting the serang, and I am also informed that seventeen Chinamen who were members of the crew of this steamship were sentenced to one month's imprisonment at Dartmouth in April last. I understand from the owners that previously to these two cases no trouble was experienced with the crew of the vessel. I am not advised that an investigation is necessary upon the facts before me.

  Expenditure on Tobacco per Head in England and Germany.
  MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the annual average expenditure on tobacco among the working classes of London and Berlin earning various weekly incomes.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) I regret that I am unable to give the hon. Member the information he desires.

  Tube Railways—Fire Precautions.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the risk of suffocation of passengers in the tube railways of London should the wooden sleepers by any accident become ignited, will he communicate with the various companies on the subject.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Board of Trade propose to await the Report of the inquiry of Colonel Yorke and Mr. Trotter into the recent fire on

  71
  the City and South London Railway, before considering what action, if any, is necessary with regard to this and kindred matters.

  Census of Production Act Returns.
  MR. W. BENN: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether, in view of the complicated nature of some of the questions issued to manufacturers under the Census of Production Act, and the practical possibility of answering them correctly, any modifications in the forms issued under that Act are possible.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The general form of the questions issued to manufacturers is, to some extent, determined by the provisions of the Act itself. The forms for particular trades have been in every case prepared after consultation either with special advisory committees or with important firms engaged in the trade. Where, however, any difficulty arises my Department will always be prepared to consider the special circumstances of the case. I shall be glad to afford my hon. friend any further information and assistance in my power if he will call at the Board of Trade.

  The Imprisoned Suffragists.
  MR. HORNIMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that Miss Florence Haig and Miss Joachim were sentenced on 1st July last for an offence committed for political reasons, he will advise their transfer from the second to the first division for the remainder of their term of three months imprisonment; and whether his attention has been called to the legal decision of 1891, quoted in Pitt Cobbett's "Leading Cases on International Law," page 36.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I see no sufficient reason for interference on behalf of these ladies, who can bring their terms of imprisonment to an end at any moment, and, as I have already said, I think it would be unconstitutional for me to advise the use of the Royal prerogative for this purpose. The deci-
  72
  sion quoted by the hon. Member related to offences "of a politicial character" within the meaning of the Extradition Act of 1870, and has no bearing upon the prison treatment of persons sentenced in respect of offences committed in this country.

  Sale of Estate of Sir Arthur Wallace.
  MR. C. MACVEIGH: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the tenants on the estate of Sir Arthur Wallace, situated at Drumbologue, East Donegal, signed purchase agreements in March last and lodged them with the Estates Commissioners; whether he is aware that they and their landlord now desire that the sale of the Drumbologue and Ramelton portion of the estate should be treated as one transaction, the title being the same and all the proofs furnished in the Ramelton part, the sale of which is about, to be completed, apply to both; and whether seeing that the Drumbologue tenants live in a poor congested district and the saving of expense to them and the advantage they will have in the immediate reduction of their annual payments, he will direct the Commissioners to deal with the two portions of the estate as one.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I refer to my Answer to the hon. Member's previous Question of 13th July. The Estates Commissioners cannot, in fairness to other vendors and purchasers, deal with the agreements referred to in the first part of the Question out of the proper order of priority.

  Grant for Mrs. Sheehy of Raheen.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether Mrs. Margaret Sheehy, of Raheen, Croagh, in the county of Limerick, evicted tenant, has yet obtained a grant from the Estates Commissioners to help her to work the evicted farm in which she has been reinstated.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have decided not

  73
  to take any grant in this case, as they are of opinion that Mrs. Sheehy already possesses sufficient live stock.

  Grant for James Reardon of Rathkeale.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether James Reardon, of Blossom Hill, Rathkeale, in the county of Limerick, has yet got a grant to help him to work the holding in which he has been reinstated.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) This case is in the hands of the Estates Commissioners' inspector, and until they have received his Report they cannot say whether or not they will make any grant in the case.

  Evicted Tenants—Cases of Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and Mrs. Hayes.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have taken any action recently to have Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and Mrs. Hayes, both of Aughanish Island, in the county of Limerick, evicted tenants on the property of Lane Joynt, reinstated; and if he can say what objections they have to put the Evicted Tenants Act into operation in these cases, seeing that the land is in the landlord's hands.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) As the hon. Member has already been informed, the Estates Commissioners' offer for the two evicted farms in this case was refused. The owner, however, has now, at the Commissioners' request, instituted formal proceedings for the sale of the entire estate to them, and, if they acquire the property, they will deal with the question of reinstating the evicted tenants named.

  Reinstatement of Mrs. Mary Eagan.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain the cause of delay in the reinstatement of Mrs. Mary Eagan, in her former holding at Caherduggan, on the Nason estate, County Cork, seeing that the landlord has accepted the offer of purchase made by the Estates Com-
  74
  missioners; and when do the Commissioners expect to be in a position to complete the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I refer to my Answer to the hon. Member's previous Question of 11th February. The owner has since instituted proceedings for the sale to the Estates Commissioners of the evicted farms in question, and as soon as the Commissioners receive possession the evicted tenants will be restored.

  Case of Daniel Dorgan.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state whether the Estates Commissioners have had the case of Daniel Dorgan, an evicted tenant on the Madden estate, Mallow, County Cork, under their consideration; and if his reinstatement has been decided upon.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have inquired into the application of the evicted tenant in this case, and have decided to take it into consideration in connection with the allotment of any untenanted land which they may acquire in the locality.

  Territorial Army Quartermaster Sergeants.
  MR. SOARES: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the recent order with regard to quartermaster-sergeants who have joined the Territorial Army has yet been reconsidered; and whether those men are to be allowed to retain the rank they formerly enjoyed in the Volunteers.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This question is still under consideration, but will, I hope, be settled very shortly.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Admiralty China and Earthenware Contracts.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will give the number of the manufacturers on the Admiralty list for the supply of china and earthenware; are the tenders for these goods called for annually, and, if so, when, or

  75
  are they ordered for each warship on fitting out; what firms on the list were asked to tender for the last yearly purchase or the last first class battleship completed; which of these firms actually tendered; had one particular manufacturer's sample moulds to be worked to; and is there any reason to believe that the special sample used restricted competition.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. MCKENNA,): There are about fifteen or sixteen firms who quote for the bulk of the articles of this nature. The articles of china and earthenware in the naval service differ considerably in quality for various services, and are divided into four groups. The contracts for three of the groups are made as a rule once in four or five years. For the fourth group, the contract is made annually, as the requirements are large. For three of the groups, all the firms on the list were asked to tender. For one of the groups of special quality, only five firms were invited to tender. Generally speaking, the usual large proportion of firms have responded to the invitations to tender. One of the five firms stated that they were unable to quote to Admiralty patterns. Otherwise, no suggestion of restriction of competition has been made. The Admiralty exhibits patterns, but firms make their own moulds to correspond therewith. One of the reasons for making contracts over a period of years is to enable firms to recoup themselves for any outlay on moulds. The patterns of one firm may be as good as those of another, but uniformity of pattern in this instance is necessary for the naval service to prevent odd sizes and descriptions of officers' table-ware in use. Replacements have to be made over the world, and the keeping of separate stocks of various patterns is not economical or convenient in the circumstances stated. There should be no difficulty in making the Admiralty pattern.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Nelson was very fond of porcelain and had a special penchant for Wedgwood?

  Naval Officers and Company Directorships.
  MR. H. C. LEA: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can give the House an assurance that the King's Regulations will be altered so as to forbid any officer or man in the British Navy engaging in business.
  MR. MCKENNA: No, Sir.
  MR. H. C. LEA: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at Somerset House the registered address of the Chairman of the firm of J. H. Andrew & Co. (Ltd.) is given as "H.M. Battleship King Edward VII., the Channel Fleet"?
  MR. MCKENNA: My hon. friend asked me that Question the other day, and I think I have replied to it.
  MR. H. C. LEA: Is the House to assume that the Board of Admiralty consider it is conducive to the best interests of the taxpayers of the country that naval officers should engage in business?
  MR. MCKENNA: My hon. friend asked me whether I proposed to make any change in the King's Regulations so as to forbid any officer or man in the British Navy engaging in business. The Board of Admiralty do not propose to make any change.
  MR. H. C. LEA: Are we to assume that the Board of Admiralty consider it conducive to the best interests of the Navy that officers on full pay should engage in business?
  MR. MCKENNA: The hon. Gentleman's Question was as to any officer or man. That Question I have answered.
  MR. H. C. LEA: I will alter my Question to make it refer to any officer on full pay.
  MR. MCKENNA: When my hon. friend has altered his Question, I may give him an altered Answer.

  Cadet Examination Papers.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty

  77
  whether his attention has been called to the unsuitable character of some of the papers set for boys under thirteen years of age who are nominated for cadetships at Osborne; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. MCKENNA: The papers set to the boys selected for the qualifying examination for entry to Osborne are prepared by the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations Board. In the opinion of the Admiralty, there is nothing to warrant the suggestion that they are of an unsuitable character.
  MR. FLYNNasked if one question put to a boy was not to describe the character and appearance of the lady who would make the best wife for a man.
  MR. MCKENNAwas understood to reply that that was not a question set for boys nominated for cadetships. It was a question set for an essay as to what would be the proper line of conduct at an interview.

  Woolwich Common.
  MR. CROOKS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the War Office intend to enclose for their exclusive use about twenty acres of Woolwich Common, which is in the parish of Charlton, in addition to the two acres which he proposes to take for the Royal Army Medical Corps officers' quarters.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): It is intended to fence in a piece of land adjoining the Royal Military Academy and containing about eighteen acres. This land is required for the training of the increased number of cadets at the Royal Military Academy and for affording the necessary facilities for the drill and recreation of the Cadets.
  MR. CROOKS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the extreme local feeling there is about this, and is it not likely to lead to a breach of the law if I it is put into operation?
  MR. HALDANE: I do not think so. The land was purchased by the War Office, and we have always done our utmost to make ourselves agreeable to the public.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: Is not this common land? Have the rights of the commoners been considered?
  MR. HALDANE: The commoners have no rights at all. All that was very carefully considered when we bought the land.
  MR. CROOKS: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to receive a deputation of the borough council, seeing that there are rights of which the War Office does not appear to be aware?
  MR. HALDANE: If the borough council will come provided with funds to make good to the War Office any loss they may sustain, I am always prepared to consider a good pecuniary bargain.
  MR. CROOKS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the public have had undisputed rights over this land for 104 years?
  MR. HALDANE: I am advised that the War Office has a perfect title to the land.

  Shoeburyness Ranges.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what purchase price was paid for 1,760 acres of foreshore at Shoeburyness, purchased in 1906; what was this foreshore assessed at for rating purposes before the purchase; who was the owner of the land; and who at the War Office was responsible for concluding the bargain at this price.
  I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for War what the annual cost to this country is in respect of the supply of water to the barracks at Standerton; how long this charge is to continue; will it continue if there are no troops there; who is responsible for making this contract; and what notice has been taken of his action.
  MR. HALDANE: I must refer my hon. friend to the evidence taken before the Public Accounts Committee which will shortly be in the hands of hon. Members, and as regards Question 64 also to the evidence taken before the Public Accounts Committee in 1907.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: May I ask whether the names of the persons from whom this land was bought appears in the evidence? Is the action of the War Office on this scandal as reported in the evidence defended?
  MR. HALDANE: If the hon. Gentleman had heard my Answer two days ago, he would have known that this occurred before I came into office. But I have looked into the matter and I find that the action taken was most reasonable, and it resulted in a saving of many thousands of pounds to the War Office, as not a shadow of a title could be set out for the Woods and Forests Department.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: But the property was purchased not from the Woods and Forests Department but from a private owner.
  MR. HALDANE: Yes, and as far as I can see the private owner had a perfect right which the Woods and Forests Department refused to contest. We were advised that if it had been contested we should have been landed into an expensive law suit and probably have been defeated.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: The right hon. Gentleman has not stated what the foreshore was assessed at for rating purposes before the purchase?
  MR. HALDANE: I daresay it was something very small, but then what use can be made of land of that kind? We, however, had to get more land for artillery practice, and it was well worth our while paying the comparatively small sum that was asked for it.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I——
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. It is now a quarter to four.

  Government Purchases and Indian Industries.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether any, and if so, what, results proceeded from the appointment of a committee by the Government of India in 1906 to ascertain by local inquiry in what manner greater encouragement might be given to Indian industries in the purchase of Government stores.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): The question is at present under consideration by the Secretary of State.

  Jasdan and Limbdi States.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for India whether he can give the House any information regarding the succession to the Limbdi and Jasdan State and estate in Kathiwar, the action in regard to which of the Government, of India has given rise to complaint on the part of claimants.
  MR. BUCHANAN: As regards the Jasdan succession I have nothing to add to the very full Answer I gave on the subject on the 8th instant. As regards the Limbdi succession, the late Thakore died, leaving no heir, either direct or adopted. In these circumstances the Government of India, on a full consideration of the claims of all the candidates to the Gadi, have selected Dolat Sinji to succeed. It is open to any of the claimants to memorialise the Secretary of State against the decision in accordance with the rules governing petitions in such matters. Any memorial that may be received will, of course, receive the fullest consideration.
  *MR. REES: Has none been received?
  MR. BUCHANAN: I believe not.

  Kankinara Bomb Outrage.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for India whether the India Office has any fresh information concerning the three Europeans who were the victims of the recent bomb outrage at Kankinara; and whether the perpetrator has been arrested.
  MR. BUCHANAN: The Secretary of State has received no further official information since 30th June, when I answered a question on this subject.

  Trinidad Dock and Engineering Company.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is yet in a position to report as to the proceedings re the appointment of a Government director in connection with the Trinidad Dock and Engineering Company, Limited, at a salary of £250 per annum; and, if so, can he state what action the Government intend to take with a view to complying with the wishes of the Finance Committee and the petition signed by about 6,000 residents of Port-of-Spain against the said appointment.
  THE UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel SEELY,): The Secretary of State is addressing a despatch to the officer administering the Government of Trinidad on the subject of the representations of the unofficial members of the legislative council with regard to the appointment referred to. Until the despatch has reached the colony, and been published there he would prefer not to anticipate it by any statement in this House.
  MR. SUMMERBELL:When was the despatch sent?
  COLONEL SEELY: It will very soon reach the colony where, of course, it will have to be considered.

  Dinizulu's Salary.
  MR. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any agreement has now been reached between His Majesty's Government and the Natal Ministry regarding the payment of Dinizulu's salary.
  COLONEL SEELY: No, Sir. I regret that no agreement has so far been arrived at. I made the position of His Majesty's Government clear in answer to a Question yesterday, and correspondence will very shortly be laid.
  MR. RAMSAY MACDONALD: May we assume that, agreement or no agreement, Dinizulu will get his salary?
  COLONEL SEELY: Yes, Sir; the view of the Government is that one side or the other is honourably bound to pay this money, and, in view of the poverty of the prisoner, His Majesty's Government have decided to pay the money forthwith. The question of the allocation of the sum has yet to be decided.

  Liquor Traffic in Southern Nigeria.
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps the Government are taking as to the inquiry into the liquor traffic in Southern Nigeria, suggested by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the deputation from the Native Races Committee on 7th July.
  COLONEL SEELY: The Secretary of State is in communicaton with the Committee as to the inquiry, and in a letter, dated the 18th instant, has invited their suggestions as to the manner in which it should be carried out.
  MR.BELLOC: Will any attempt be made to discover and publish the names of those who profit by this trade?
  COLONEL SEELYasked for notice of the Question.

  Federated Malay States—Revenue Statistics.
  MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State or the Colonies what was the revenue during the last financial year for which the Colonial Office had Reports from land, tin mines, gambling farms, and opium, respectively, in each of the Federated Malay States.
  COLONEL SEELY: The latest figures available are those for 1906. They are —Land: Perak, $467,268; Selangor, $324,910.56; Negri Sembilan, $168,250;Pahang,$78,330. Tin: Perak, $5,433,709; Selangor, $3,357,033; Negri Sembilan.

  83
  $969,193; Pahang, $276,672. Opium: Perak, $1,538,089; Selangor, $944,516; Negri Sembilan, $372,282. I cannot specify the opium revenue in Pahang as the opium farm is let in conjunction with other farms. For the same reason, as I am explaining in answer to my hon. friend's other Questions. I cannot give the amount of the revenue derived from gaming in any of the States.
  MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if the Federated Malay States have no public debt, have large accumulated reserve funds, and have sufficient revenue from other sources than gaming licences to meet current expenditure.
  COLONEL SEELY: My hon. friend's information is correct.

  Children in Gaming and Opium Dens.
  MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that children of the age of from eleven to sixteen years frequent the gaming and opium-dens in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh; and if he will take steps to have the regulations against the admission of children more rigorously carried out.
  COLONEL SEELY: I have no reason to suppose that the regulations are being infringed; but if my hon. friend will supply me with any evidence to show that this is the case, inquiries will be addressed to the High Commissioner.

  Suppression of Licensed Gambling in the Malay States.
  MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if, in view of the desire amongst the better-class Chinese, and the ruin caused to numbers of their poorer fellow-countrymen, he will consider the question of refusing to sanction the continuance of the licensed gambling system after the present leases expire.
  COLONEL SEELY: I understand my hon. friend's Question to refer to the system in force in the Federated Malay States. I do not think that I can usefully add anything to the full statement made in this House by my
  84
  right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade on 3rd December, 1906. While desirous of ultimately putting an end to the system, the Secretary of State agrees with his predecessor that precipitate action would do more harm than good.
  MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Under-Secretaryof State for the Colonies what curtailment has been made in the area in which gambling licences are issued in the Federated Malay States, in accordance with the statement made by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the House last year; and to what extent has the revenue been effected.
  COLONEL SEELY: In so far as Perak and Pahang are concerned, my information extends only to the end of last year. Up to that time no action was possible as the term of the existing farms had not expired. In Selangor the Prohibition of Gaming Enactment was put into force from 1st January last throughout the State, except in some of the larger towns and villages. In the Negri Sembilan the Enactment was put into force in the Coast and Tampin districts on 1st January, 1907, the result being a decrease of 35 per cent, in the public gaming-houses in the State. I am unable to state the effect on the Revenue as the gaming farms are not let separately but in conjunction with other farms.

  Perak and Selangor Gambling Farms.
  MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what rent per month was obtained for the gambling farm in the State of Perak for the three years term ending 1906, and for the restricted area for the three years term ending 1909.
  I beg also to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what rent per month was obtained for the gambling farm in the State of Selangor for the two years term ending 1907, and for the more restricted area for the term ending 1909.
  COLONEL SEELY: I regret that I am unable to give figures in reply to these Questions, as the gaming farms are

  85
  leased in conjunction with other farms and not by themselves.

  Imports of Spirits into Southern Nigeria.
  MR. LEIF JONES: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state what percentage of the value of the total imports into Southern Nigeria during each of the years 1900–1906 is represented by imports of spirits.
  COLONEL SEELY: It has not been possible to make the calculations asked for by my hon. friend within the time available.

  British Indians in Natal.
  SIE WILLIAM BULL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any further information as to the progress of the two Natal Bills, one of which will deprive lawfully resident British-Indians of the right to acquire new trading licences, and the other of which proposes to dispossess established traders of their business licences within the next ten years; and whether he will reassure this House and our Indian fellow-subjects, who are anxiously watching these proceedings, by an expression of his intention to recommend the disallowance of the said measures should they be submitted for Imperial sanction.
  COLONEL SEELY: As I stated in reply to a Question yesterday with regard to one of these Bills, the Secretary of State is in communication with the Natal Government. I would add that his representations cover the other Bill also, but I am not at present in a position to make a further statement.

  British Indians in Southern Rhodesia.
  MR. J. M. ROBEETSON: I beg to ask the Under-secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the passing of the Asiatic Registration Ordinance of Southern Rhodesia, where-under respectable British-Indian traders and others over eight years of age are as a class to be compelled to take out certificates of registration for their identi-
  86
  fication; whether the total Indian population in this vast territory is about 400; and whether he will recommend to the Rhodesian Government the inadvisability of such differential legislation.
  COLONEL SEELY: The Secretary of State is well aware of the objections which may be urged against the Bill, and he is in communication with the High Commissioner, who has been instructed not to assent pending further consideration, and the Bill is not, therefore, in operation.

  British Indians in the Transvaal.
  DR. RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Under-secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government of the Transvaal have passed a new Gold Law; whether his attention has been drawn to Sections 127 and 128 thereof, which deprive coloured persons of their right to acquire mining rights and to reside or trade within the areas of Johannesburg, Boksburg, and Krugersdorp, save in locations specially set apart; whether the term coloured person includes British-Indians lawfully resident within the Colony; whether any provision is made for compensation of such British-Indian merchants and others who are to be thus deprived of their existing rights; and whether he will make friendly representations to the Government of the Transvaal with a view to the elimination or modification of the disabilities above referred to.
  COLONEL SEELY: The attention of the Secretary of State was drawn some time ago to the Bill, and more particularly to the clauses referred to, and he is already in communication with the Transvaal Government on the subject. Pending a reply from the Colonial Government whose attention has again been called to the question I am not in a position to make a statement as to the effect of the Bill.

  Dinizulu's Trial.
  *MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is

  87
  now seven months since Dinizulu was subjected to a secret examination for offences which have never been specifically made known to him; whether he has been kept in prison during the whole time and bail refused to him; whether already more than 100 witnesses have been called against him; and whether, in view of the fact that he is a British subject towards whom the Imperial Government has contracted special obligations, the Secretary of State will represent to the Natal Government the desirability of either putting him upon his trial or setting him at liberty.
  COLONEL SEELY: The facts with regard to this examination as far as they are known to His Majesty's Government and their views on them have been fully published, and I need hardly repeat that they greatly regret the protraction of the proceedings. It is, however, only right to remember that the circumstances and position of the prisoner necessarily put special difficulties in the way of the production of native evidence. I have every reason to hope that the prolonged examination is now coming to a close.
  *MR. MACKARNESS: Is it the view of the Natal Government, although they have examined 100 witnesses, that they have not yet sufficient evidence to frame an indictment?
  COLONEL SEELY: I cannot state what the view of the Natal Government is.
  MR. FLYNN: Has a single witness yet been called for the defence?
  COLONEL SEELY: No, Sir. The arrangement is that all the witnesses for the prosecution are called first at the preliminary inquiry, and no witnesses for the defence are called until the prosecution is closed.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: How many of the 100 witnesses called for the prosecution have been flogged into giving evidence against Dinizulu?
  COLONEL SEELY: I think there is no evidence that any of these 100 witnesses have been subjected to pressure of that kind.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Has the hon. Gentleman seen the statement of Miss Colenso?
  COLONEL SEELY: Yes, I have seen the statement, and I have given the answer that I have given.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the charge has been formulated yet?
  COLONEL SEELY: I regret to say that the charges are not definite, but that is due to the law under which the prosecution is undertaken. It is only fair to the Natal Government to say that this law was handed on to them by us when we gave them self-government.
  MR. BYLES: Has the prisoner had opportunities of obtaining evidence for his defence?
  COLONEL SEELY: Not yet.
  MR. A. DEWAR: Is there no limit to the time the accused can be kept in prison pending trial?
  COLONEL SEELY: In theory, there is no limit to the time during which a prisoner can be kept in confinement during the preliminary examination. But His Majesty's Government are confident that the Government of Natal will see that it would be nothing less than a, public scandal if this native chief were to be detained indefinitely in custody on undefined charges.
  SIR GILBERT PARKER: On what ground does the hon. Gentleman say that no facilities have been afforded by the Government of Natal to Dinizulu for securing evidence?
  COLONEL SEELY: The situation is this: Witnesses for the defence of Dinizulu cannot be obtained from Zululand in the view of the Natal Government—which I should be the last to criticise—so long as martial law continues. The Act of Indemnity which is necessary to conclude martial law was passed yesterday in the Natal House of Commons, and when that is assented to in this House it will be

  89
  possible to get witnesses for the defence from Zululand.
  MR. BELLOC: May I ask—
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order. Any further Questions must be put down.

  Expenditure on Wales.
  *MR. REES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is estimated to be the total expenditure out of the Exchequer, or out of taxes raised by the authority of Parliament, upon purely Welsh purposes in the year 1908–9.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): Materials are not available to enable an estimate to be made of the proportion of the expenditure by Government Departments in England and Wales which is attributable to Welsh purposes.
  *MR. REES: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman arrange that the materials shall be available?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am afraid it would be rather difficult.

  Unemployed Grant.
  MR. BARNES: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Supplementary Estimates will be taken, and when thereafter a grant will be made to meet the requirements of the Glasgow distress committee.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The Supplementary Estimates will be taken before the rising of the House for the autumn recess. When the Vote for expenses under the Unemployed Workmen Act becomes available, applications can be made by the Local Government Boards to the Treasury for issues therefrom as required.

  Stud Tramway System in the Mile End Road.
  SIR JOHN BENN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the accidents in the Mile End Road, London, consequent on the installation by the London County Council
  90
  of a route of electric tramways on the stud system; whether this line was inspected by his Department, and is he aware that the London County Council propose to extend this system to other parts of London; and whether the Board of Trade can take steps to protect the metropolis from the dangers of such extension.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. CHURCHILL,): I am aware that some accidents have occurred on the tramway in question which was inspected on behalf of the Board of Trade before being opened experimentally for traffic. I have no knowledge of any intention on the part of the London County Council to extend the use of the stud system to other parts of London, and no such extension could be carried out without the consent of the Board of Trade.

  Board of Trade Labour Gazette.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state who is responsible for the article appearing in the Board of Trade Labour Gazette for July, entitled Cost of Living in German Towns, which article purports to be a résumé of Paper Cd. 4032.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The Board of Trade are, of course, responsible for articles appearing in their Labour Gazette.
  MR. FELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider this a fair resume of the Report? Has it not been coloured in order to support the case of free trade?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I am sorry to hear that suggestion. I certainly do not think those in charge had any intention of that kind.

  Tenement Dwellings in London and Berlin.
  MR. FELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the average cubical space of two-three, and four-room tenement dwellings hi London and Berlin such as are commonly used by the working classes in

  91
  those cities and referred to in Paper Cd. 4032.
  MR. CHURCHILL: I am not able with the information in my possession to add to the general statement on page XL. of the Report.

  Fenton (Staffs) Vaccination Case.
  MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the death of John Gallimore, 44, Hulse Street, Fenton, Staffordshire, which occurred on 19th December, 1906, was certified to be due to vaccination; whether the case has recently been inquired into by a medical inspector of the Local Government Board; whether a copy of the Report drawn up by the latter is available for the information of the House; and whether the conclusions arrived at by the medical inspector were the same as those of the public vaccinator (who performed the operation, and who attended the deceased during his fatal illness and gave the certificate), namely, that vaccination was the cause of death.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,): I am aware of this case which has recently been investigated by one of the medical inspectors of the Local Government Board. Owing to the death of the public vaccinator, the evidence which the inspector was able to obtain was incomplete, but it went to show that the lymph used was not in fault. Further it appeared that the arm had been improperly treated by the mother, and that the sanitary conditions of the dwellings were very bad. The inspector thought it probable that these circumstances must be, held responsible for the infection of the arm, to which the fatal termintion of the case was attributable. The inspector's report is a confidential document, and is only made for the information of the board.
  *MR. LUPTON: If the infection of the arm was due to the insanitary condition of the dwelling will instructions be given to the public vaccinator only to vaccinate those babes who are in and will be kept
  92
  in houses the sanitation of which is perfect?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: I will bear my hon. friend's suggestion in mind.
  MR. LUPTON: May I ask why, since the vaccine stuff is supplied by the right hon. Gentleman, there is all this secrecy with regard to these reports? Is it because they are likely to have an adverse effect on the public mind?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: My hon. friend seems to ignore the fact that the child's arm had also been improperly treated by the mother. He must bear that in mind.
  MR. LUPTON: Then will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to ensure that mothers shall be properly instructed how to treat arms under these circumstances?
  MR. JOHN BURNS: For many years I have been doing my best in that direction.

  Inter-Departmental Committee on Compulsory Attendance at School.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education, whether the reference to the Inter-Departmental Committee on compulsory attendance at school includes rural as well as urban districts; and, if so, which of the members of the Committee have been appointed on account of their experience of rural education and agriculture.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. RUXCIMAN,): The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. I have no doubt that ample evidence on the rural aspects of the subject will be laid before the Committee, and I feel certain that a Committee which includes Lord Clifford of Chud-leigh is competent to sift and consider such evidence.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of having on the Committee more than

  93
  one Member cognisant with rural education and agriculture?
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I cannot regard the Members of this Committee as being representatives of one particular section. They will hear evidence from all persons extent of the tourist traffic in whose concerned in this question, and will no doubt give a sensible judgment upon it.

  Kenmare Train Service.
  MR BOLAND: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he has made representations to the Great Southern and Western Railway Company with reference to the change of time in the departure of the evening train for Headford Junction to Kenmare; and whether, in view of the fact that this change is resented by the people of Kenmare and surrounding districts, who are compelled to contribute heavily out of their rates to this particualr service, he will arrange that the old time-table shall be adhered to.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): The answer to the first to part of the Question is in the affirmative. The Department are informed by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company that their object in fixing a later hour for the departure of the train form Headford Junction to Kenmare was to have a connection with the 5.30 p.m. train from Rosslare, which gives a service from a number of stations in Ireland as well as from places on the others side of the Channel. The Company further state that on the Kenmare Branch four trains are run each way daily; that these trains are arranged to give as good connections as possible; and that the service is ample having regard to the extent of the traffic, which is very small. The Department have no power to require the former time-table to be reverted to.
  MR. BOLAND: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that thas line has a baronial provided out of the rates?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: That may be, but the Department have no power to compel the Company to change the service.
  MR. BOLAND: What has been the extent of the tourist traffic in whose interest the change has been made?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I cannot say off-hand.

  Londonderry Flax Industry.
  MR. BARRIE: I beg to ask the Vice-President of that Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether the flax seed supplied by the Department to farmers in County Londonderry as prizes for success in growing flax last season has proved to be of a description suitable only for oil production and feeding purposes, quite unsuited for cultivation in Ireland, and of little commercial value; whether the object of giving these prizes was to encourage the growth of flax fibre suitable for linen manufacture; whether, in the circumstances, the Department will consider the advisability of compensating the farmers concerned for the loss which they are now certain to sustain; whether the flax seed in question was bought from firms of repute and with a guarantee of its suitability; and, if so, what action the Department proposes to take against these firms, and will their names be published.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: All the flax seed supplied this year by the Department to farmers in Londonderry and elsewhere in Ulster for prizes under the scheme for encouraging the cultivation of flax was procured from firms of repute who had hitherto supplied satisfactory seed to the Department. Portion of the seed, purchased as Riga Child, from a certain firm this year has unfortunately proved to be an unsuitable variety for Irish purposes, and this firm has been notified that the Department hold them responsible for any loss which may have been incurred. The Department are at present in communication with the farmers concerned as well as with the firm in.

  95
  question, and they do not consider it advisable to make any further statement pending the conclusion of this correspondence.

  Fuge Estate, Templemary, Cork.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have taken any action recently with a view to acquiring the untenanted land on the Fuge estate, Templemary, County Cork; and whether, having regard to the fact that six tenants evicted from the estate are eligible for reinstatement under the Act of 1907, and that the greater part of the land is now used as a rough grazing ranch, the Commissioners will take immediate steps to acquire it.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOE IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): The Estates Commissioners are about to take steps for the compulsory acquirement, under the Evicted Tenants Act, of some 536 acres of land on the estate in question.

  Beardsley Evans Estate, Charleville.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners are now aware of the fact that on the Beardesley Evans estate, Charleville, County Cork, the Messrs. Kincaid, receivers under the Court, gave instructions to their solicitor to proceed against a tenant for the recovery of all rent due, including the running half-gale, contrary to the invariable practice of the estate, as the half-gale in question accrued in times of great scarcity over fifty years ago; and whether, in view of the anxiety of the tenant to purchase on reasonable terms and the fact that the nominal owner receives little or no benefit from the property, the Commissioners will now communicate with the Land Judge with a view to the purchase of this estate.
  MR. BIRRELL: The estate in question is not for sale in the Land Judge's Court and consequently the provisions o Section 7 of the Act of 1903 do not apply to the case. The Estates Com-
  96
  missioners cannot, therefore, make an offer for purchase to the Land Judge.
  MR. FLYNN: Seeing that the Estates Commissioners are of opinion that this sale is desirable, cannot they approach he Land Judges under the section referred to?
  MR. BIRRELL: I believe not.

  Irish Evicted Tenants.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many evicted tenants or descendants of evicted tenants have applied to be reinstated or to be given new holdings under the Acts of 1903 and 1907; and how many have been reinstated or given new farms.
  MR. BIRRELL: The number of applications received by the Estates Commissioners up to 31st May last was 10,199. The number of applicants reinstated or provided with new farms is 1,627.

  Sligo Cattle-Drives.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that Mr. R. A. Duke has had cattle driven off his lands in County Sligo six times since February last; how many persons have been punished in connection with these outrages; and what steps have been taken to put a stop to this state of lawlessness which exists in County Sligo.
  MR. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that Mr. Duke's cattle have been driven off his lands on five occasions since February last. No persons have been made amenable in these cases. A police hut has been established in the locality with the object of preventing the driving of cattle from grazing farms, and the forces of the neighbouring police stations have been strengthened. An additional force of thirty police has been appointed to County Sligo under proclamation.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: In view of the fact that the erection of police huts

  97
  and the bringing in of extra police has proved absolutely useless, will the right hon. Gentleman try and devise other means of putting down these outrages?
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Try martial law.
  MR. MOORE: Were these cases of cattle-driving reported?
  MR. BIRRELL: I cannot say.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that in the months of May and June there were twenty-eight cattle-drives in the County of Sligo in which 919 cattle, exclusive of horses and sheep, were driven, and that no person has been made amenable to justice for any of these outrages; and why none of these drives have been included as outrages on Constabulary Outrage Form No. 38.
  MR. BIRRELL: I am informed by the police authorities that during the months of May and June thirty-three cattle-drives were reported from County Sligo, the number of cattle driven being 941. In two cases persons were arrested and bound to keep the peace. One of the cases was recorded as a serious offence. I have already explained in what circumstances cases of cattle-driving are recorded as serious offences, namely, when malicious injury is inflicted, or when acts calculated to cause terror are committed or personal violence is threatened. Practically all the Sligo cases of cattle-driving took place secretly at night, and there was no evidence that an indictable offence had been committed.

  Kinvarra Outrage.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that three houses in the police sub-district of Kinvarra, County Galway, were fired into on the night of Sunday 12th instant, and that in one of the houses a woman, who was in delicate health, was so terrified by the shots that she now lies in a dangerous condition;
  98
  whether by arrests have been made in connection with these outrages; and what steps the police are taking to deal with the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: The police authorities have reported that on the night of 12th instant, three houses were fired into in the Kilcoglan police district, near Kinvarra. The wife of one of the occupiers has suffered considerably in health as a result of the occurrence, but is now on the road to recovery. The inmates of the houses were in bed asleep, and consequently could not identify the offenders. No arrests have yet been made, but the police are using all possible efforts to discover the guilty persons.
  MR. REDDY: Were not these shots fired on 12th July?
  [No Answers was returned.]

  Judge Ross on Terrorism in Westmeath.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the persons who have for years been renting the grazing farms of Ardglass, County Westmeath, have been so terrorised by the agitation against the letting of grazing lands that they have been afraid to renew their lettings; that when the owner endeavoured to graze his own stock on the land his cattle were driven off the farm on several occasions, the gates were smashed, and walls pulled down, and that, although the police were present when these illegal acts were being committed and reported to the authorities no action was taken and no person proceeded against, and that as a last resort the receiver of the estate had to apply to the Court to attach fifteen persons who formed part of the crowd, and whom the police were able to identify; whether he is aware also that thirteen of these were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment by Mr. Justice Ross; and whether the Government will take steps to ensure that the same justice shall be meted out to those who drive cattle off ordinary farms as is meted out to those who committ this offence on farms which are under the care of the Land Judges or the Court of Chancery.
  MR. BIRRELL: I am informed that the three persons who had held the Ardglass farms on grazing tenancies did not renew their tenancies this year. One of these persons was the agent of the estate. In May last a receiver was appointed over the property by Mr. Justice Ross, and the lands were stocked with cattle. Three policemen have since been quartered in the herd's house on the farm with the object of protecting the cattle. The owner's cattle have not been driven off, but on 20th May, the police came upon a party of men in the act of throwing down part of a boundary wall on the farm. It was dusk at the time, and the police were unable to distinguish the men who were actually committing the damage, but they succeeded in taking the names of a number of the persons. The Government were advised that the evidence available was not sufficient to sustain a prosecution for malicious injury or for unlawful assembly. Mr. Justice Ross has since sentenced thirteen of these persons to imprisonment for contempt of Court. One man has undergone two months' imprisonment upon the prosecution of the police in connection with this estate, and proceedings have been instituted and are pending against twelve men for intimidating the agent and his servants on 12th May and 10th June. Ten of these persons are identical with those sentenced by Mr. Justice Ross.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the remarks of Mr. Justice Ross, one of the Judges of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, made when sentencing certain persons for cattle-driving at Ardglass, County Westmeath, when he delivered it as his opinion that binding over to keep the peace in cattle-driving cases was an imposture, and that it was his duty to inform the Government that their refusal to deal with these cases was regarded as proof that the offenders were acting with the approval of the authorities, and that their leniency was looked on as imbecility, cowardice, and connivance; and whether, in view of the knowledge which Mr. Justice Ross has of agrarian questions, and in view of the steady increase of cattle-driving and other
  100
  forms of lawlessness in Ireland, the Government will adopt the views and carry out the suggestions of Mr. Justice Ross in the matter of dealing with this form of crime.
  MR. BIRRELL: So far as the newspaper reports have enabled me to acquaint myself with the views and suggestions of Mr. Justice Ross, I can only say that the Government are not prepared to adopt those views or to carry out those suggestions.
  MR. MOOREasked if the attention of the right hon. Gentleman had been drawn to similar language used by Mr. Justice Kenny at Galway Assizes.
  MR. BIRRELLsaid he had already answered a Question on the subject.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Is it not the fact that not only Mr. Justice Ross but other Judges have charged juries in the same direction, and that the view of every one of the Judges is—
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now making a speech.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: But the right hon. Gentleman has not answered my Question on the Paper.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The Question has been answered, and whether it has been satisfactory to him or not, the hon. Member is not in order in making a series of statements in the form of further Questions.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Justice Ross acquired his special knowledge on agrarian matters by being legal agent to the Duke of Abercorn and by acting as Crown Counsel in the coercion prosecutions?
  MR. BIRRELL: I am not disposed to hear any words said as to Judge Ross's judicial character.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: The right hon. Gentleman has stated he is not prepared to adopt the Judge's suggestions. Is there any precedent for a

  101
  Judge making suggestions from the Bench to a Cabinet Minister or to the Executive Government on a question of policy?
  *MR. SPEAKER: I believe that Question was put down and struck out.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: If so, I forgot it,
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the remarks of Mr. Justice Ross in the Land Judge's Court, on Friday, 10th July, in reference to the refusal of a person to give up possession of land under the control of the Court, that the case was typical of the general lawlessness prevailing in the country in respect of agrarian matters; that even in cases where persons have no right or claim of any kind they hold the land in defiance of everybody and get the assistance of what is called local feeling, which means a riot; and that, although the police are present, the authorities with their usual ineptitude do nothing, and this state of affairs is getting worse; and what steps he intends to take to put a stop to this condition of lawlessness.
  MR. BIRRELL: I have seen a newspaper report of the remarks of Mr. Justice Ross in the case referred to. The facts of the case are that two brothers named Richard and Edward Kennedy held a farm in the Queen's County as joint tenants. A dispute arose between them as to the working of the farm and litigation in the Land Judge's Court ensued, with the result that Mr. Justice Ross appointed a receiver over the farm and Edward Kennedy was left in possession. On 26th May last, Mr. Pattison, the receiver, called at Stradbally police station, stating that he was going to the Kennedys' farm to remove some old hay, and would like a constable to go with him as he expected that Edward Kennedy would object to the removal of the hay, and he could then report accordingly to Mr. Justice Ross. A constable was sent to the farm with Mr. Pattison. The latter told Edward Kennedy the object of his visit, and
  102
  Kennedy expressed his objection to the removal of the hay, whereupon Mr. Pattison at once withdrew. He made no demand for the possession of the farm. The constable has reported that no violence or threats of any kind were used, and that there was not the slightest semblance of a riot on the occasion. In the circumstances the ineptitude of the police authorities appears to have been inevitable.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware this expression "ineptitude" was used by the Judge from the Bench?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Imprisonment for Contempt of Court.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed, to the fact that Mr. Justice Ross on Tuesday last sentenced sixteen persons to various terms of imprisonment on charges of contempt of Court arising out of the transaction, and in passing sentence admitted that the offences Were themselves trivial, and that he had thought of leaving the matter to the authorities to do their duty under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, but that, under the circumstances, he had come to the conclusion that it was better for him to act himself; and whether, having regard to the fact that a Resolution was passed by this House on 10th March, by 181 votes to sixty-six, declaring that the jurisdiction of the Judges in dealing with contempt is practically arbitrary and unlimited and, especially in view of recent exercises of that jurisdiction in Ireland, calls for the action of Parliament with a view to its definition and duration, and that a measure with that object had been introduced by the Government and has passed the Committee stage, and that there are precedents for the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown in the remission and reduction of sentences for contempt of Court, he will consider the cases of these men with a view to recommending to the Lord-Lieutenant the remission of these, sentences.
  MR. BIRRELL: I am aware that Mr. Justice Ross has committed a number of persons to prison for contempt of Court by trespassing upon lands under the control of the Court and knocking down a wall. In one case the term of imprisonment imposed was six weeks, and. in the remaining cases it was one month. In the debate in March last, my right hon. friend the Attorney-General for Ireland stated that he was not aware of any precedent during the last fifty years for the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown in such cases. I do not propose to make any recommendation to the Lord-Lieutenant in the matter.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILLinquired whether in England a sentence of twelve months for contempt of Court was not remitted, and if the precedent thus set could not be followed in Ireland.
  MR. BIRRELL: In any case where such a sentence has been passed I would be prepared to consider it.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the remarks of Mr. Justice Ross, on Tuesday last in the Land Judge's Court, when, in sentencing fifteen men to imprisonment for a constructive comtempt of Court in tresspassing on lands in the possession of a receiver under the Court, the learned Judge said that the authorities were by neglect to perform their duty turning the Land Court into a Court for the suppression of agrarian crime, and announced the neglect of all proper precaution and the leniency of the Government in leading the offenders to believe that they were acting with the approval of the authorities, and recommending the putting in force of provisions which he named of The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887; and what steps, if any, does the Government propose to take in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: My attention has been called to the remarks attributed in the newspapers to Mr. Justice Ross. The Government do not propose to take any steps in the matter.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Have not the Executive control over Judges who made such charges?
  MR. BIRRELL: I cannot bandy words with the Judges.

  Attack on a Process Server at Kanturk.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received information of an attack upon a civil bill officer at Kanturk, West Cork, by masked and armed men; and whether the assailants were arrested.
  MR. BIRRELL: A process server has alleged that on 15th July two disguised men stopped him on the road near Kanturk and took two writs from his pocket and tore them up; and that they then fired two revolver shots in the air and decamped. The police have no evidence on the subject beyond the process server's allegations, and it is a significant fact that, though the process server passed the police station immediately afterwards, he made no complaint to the police.

  Dangers of Process Servers in Ireland.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the fact that process servers have refused to serve writs for rent in the South and West of Ireland, alleging that their lives would be in danger if they tried to effect service; whether he is aware that Mr. Justice Boyd has made orders substituting service by posting a copy of the writ on the nearest constabulary station; and whether he will take measures to prevent the law being paralysed by the violence of people who refuse to pay their debts.
  MR. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that a few cases have come to their notice in which process servers have refused to serve writs for rent, but it is not the case that process servers generally in the south and West of Ireland have so refused. I understand that in the cases specially referred to, Mr. Justice Boyd directed service by posting the writs outside the nearest police station. The police invariably afford all necessary protection to process servers

  105
  when application is made to them in sufficient time.
  MR. LONSDALE: Do the process servers allege that their lives are endangered when they try to effect service of writs?
  MR. BIRRELL: I cannot say if any process server has made such an allegation.

  Intimidation in Ireland.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the remarks of Lord Justice Fitzgibbon at the Cork Assizes on 16th July; whether the learned Judge called attention to a number of cases of intimidatory attacks upon people in dwelling-houses, for which no person had been brought to trial; and what steps he intends to take in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: I have seen a newspaper report of the remarks attributed to Lord Justice Fitzgibbon. In calling attention to four cases of intimidatory attacks upon dwelling-houses in which offenders have not been brought to justice, the learned Judge is stated to have said that in cases of the kind they found that the police were making inquiries and endeavouring to trace the culprit but could not get evidence. It is obvious that in the absence of evidence, the Government can take no action in these cases. I may mention that the learned Judge also called attention to the fact that there had been a decrease in the number of persons under police protection, and a decrease in the number of derelict evicted farms, and stated that in respect of these matters there was no reason to suppose that Cork was in anything but a satisfactory condition.
  MR. MOORE: May I ask whether the difficulty of procuring evidence is due to the fact that witnesses know they will not receive adequate protection from the law?
  MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir, it is not due to that.

  Irish University Bill.
  SIR PHILIP MAGNUS: I beg to ask the Chief
  106
  Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he proposes to issue to Members of the House prior to the discussion on Report stage of the Irish Universities Bill, as amended in Committee, revised copies of the draft Charters of the Universities and Constituent Colleges embodying the changes consequent on the Committee's Amendments to the Bill.
  MR. BIRRELL: The amended draft Charters were laid on the Table on Monday last. I understand that copies have been circulated this afternoon.

  Alleged Boycotting in Westmeath.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a man named Joseph Carolan, of Ballinalack, county Westmeath, is at present most seriously boycotted, and local shopkeepers are intimidated to such an extent that they refuse to supply him with goods; and what steps, if any, he proposes to take.
  MR. BIRRELL: The Inspector-General informs me that the local police have no reason to believe that Joseph Carolan is boycotted, or that local shopkeepers have refused to supply him with goods.

  Reynell v. Taafe.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is the intention of the Crown to take up the case of Mr. William Cox Reynell, Ballyhug, v. Mr. Michael Taafe, Grange Hall, for abusive language and assault on the 24th June, under the circumstances that certain parties were engaged in a criminal conspiracy by subscribing towards a cattle-driving fund; whether the case has been brought under the notice of the Law Officers of the Crown; and, if not, what steps he proposes to take in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: As I have already informed the hon. Member for Mid Armagh, this matter has been brought to the notice of my right hon. friend the Attorney-General, who will consider whether the facts are such as to warrant a prosecution. The Attorney-General is

  107
  at present prosecuting Sit Assizes, but will deal with the matter upon his return

  Contempt of Courts Bill.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in view of the recent statement of Mr. Justice Ross regarding the ineptitude of the authorities in Dublin Castle in reference to the crime of cattle-driving, boycotting, and other forms of intimidation, it is his intention to proceed further with the Contempt of Courts Bill; and whether he is aware that, if passed, such a measure would seriously interfere with the powers at present possessed by Mr. Justice Ross in dealing with offenders against the law.
  MR. BIRRELL: As regards the remarks of Mr. Justice Ross, I would refer to the answer which I have now given to the Question of the hon. Member for Mid Armagh. It is intended to proceed with the Contempt of Courts Bill. That measure limits the imprisonment which can be imposed for contempt of Court to a term of three months, and limits the fine to one of £500, and it also gives to the person fined or imprisoned a right of appeal. To this extent the measure interferes with the powers for dealing with contempt of Court at present possessed by Mr. Justice Ross.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Was this Bill introduced solely because of the language of Mr. Justice Ross?
  MR. BIRRELL: No, Sir. Everybody knows that the whole subject of contempt of Court has long been before Parliament.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Is it not the fact that this Bill is practically identical with that passed by the late Lord Selborne in the House of Lords in 1883?
  MR. BIRRELL: Certainly.
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Was not the Bill introduced shortly after the hon. Member for North Westmeath was sent to gaol by Judge Ross?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Mr. Ginnell, M.P.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the hon. Member for Westmeath, North, has recently resumed his campaign in favour of cattle-driving in Ireland; whether he is aware that recently at Bal-linalack the hon. Member recommended that there should be no slackening in the movement so long as there was a hazel in the hedges; and whether His Majesty's Government intend to permit hon. Members of this House and other persons to incite the people to drive cattle without taking any action.
  MR. BIRRELL: I was not aware of the fact suggested in the first part of the Question. I understand, however, that at a recent meeting at Ballinalack the hon. Member for North Westmeath used some such language as is attributed to him in the Question. I am told that more than half of the persons present at the meeting were women and children. The Government do not propose to take any notice of this particular speech.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: May I ask whether hon. Members of this House are to be permitted to go over to Ireland and stir up the people in this way?
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: What about the 12th July?
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: May I ask what bearing has the fact that half the crowd were women and children, on the question?
  MR. BIRRELL: It has a bearing as to the effect of the inflammatory language used.

  Cork College Governing Body.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Mr. E. Fitzgerald who recently seconded a motion which conveyed to the Cork County Committee of Technical Instruction a strong objection to impart technical instruction to British soldiers, under the auspices of any sub-committee, under any pretext whatever, and who later

  109
  stated that he did not confine himself to the Navy and Auxiliary Forces only, but intended to preclude Reserves, Militia, and everybody else in the employment of the British Government from the benefits of technical instruction, is the same Mr. E. Fitzgerald who has been nominated by the Crown as one of the first governing body of the constituent college at Cork of the proposed new Roman Catholic University in Dublin; and, if so, is it his intention to remove his name from the list.
  MR. BIRRELL: I understand that the Mr. E. Fitzgerald who seconded the motion in question is the gentleman of that name who has been nominated to the governing body of Cork College. The motion was not adopted as it did not comply with standing orders. I gather that Mr. Fitzgerald objected to the application of the rates to the education of military and naval people. He is reported to have said that it was the duty of the Government to provide such education and that, outside any question of patriotism, he thought it would be unfair to the ratepayers to apply the rates to any such purpose. The fact that Mr. Fitzgerald holds this opinion affords no reason why he should be removed from the governing body of Cork College.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: Are the other members of the governing body of the same class?
  MR. BIRRELL: I do not know of what class Mr. Fitzgerald is.

  Agitation against Land Grabbing.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lora-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a speech recently delivered by a Mr. P. McKenna, of Long-wood, in which he stated that the people were as determined as ever never to cease agitating till every grazier and grabber was driven out of the country; whether he is aware that at the same meeting a Mr. McGuire stated that the Ancient Order of Hibernians were not at that particular meeting as Fenians because there were no Fenians in Ireland, but the Ancient Order of Hibernians
  110
  were as good as ever the Fenians were; and whether he intends to take any action in the matter.
  MR. BIRRELL: My attention had not been called to this matter, but I have now been referred to a newspaper report of the speeches in question. There is no evidence that the speeches are correctly reported, but in any event, the Government do not intend to take any action in the matter.

  Crime in Roscommon.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the statement of Mr. Justice Kenny, when addressing the grand jury at the Roscommon recent Assizes, to the effect that the county of Roscommon was in a state of extreme lawlessness at the present time, that he found four cases of incendiary fires and four of threatening letter writing, in which only one person had been made amenable, that the outrage known as cattle-driving was prevalent in the county, and that a condition of matters existed that caused anxiety to those charged with the peace of the county; and what action, if any, he proposes to take.
  MR. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Answer which I gave to the similar Question put by the hon. Member for Mid. Armagh on Monday last.

  Crime in Westmeath.
  CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the statement made by the right hon. Mr. Justice Gibson that it appeared to him that the state of the county of Westmeath was far from satisfactory, that he understood there were two districts in the county where boycotting existed, but this was not disclosed in the police reports; and if he can state whether there is any uniform system to guide the police in the presentation of their reports to the Judges of Assizes; and, if not, will he take steps to have this done.
  MR. BIRRELL: My attention has been drawn to Mr. Justice Gibson's remarks as reported in the Press. The instructions to county inspectors require them to furnish to each Judge of Assize the Returns, in the prescribed forms, of both serious and minor offences committed in the county since the last Assizes, and the county inspector is also instructed to attend before the Judge and afford him any information or explanation that he may require. In 1904, the existing forms of Return were submitted to the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland with the view of ascertaining whether such Returns would meet the approval of His Majesty's Judges. The Lord Chief Justice expressed approval of these forms, and they have since been consistently used.
  MR. KILBRIDE: When vacancies on the Bench are filled up will the right hon. Gentleman take care that the men are appointed for their professional capacity and not for political rewards?
  [No Answer was returned.]
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon Gentleman aware that this practice of furnishing reports to Judges is utterly unknown in England?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order.

  New Irish Universities.
  SIR PHILIP MAGNUS: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is now able to inform the House as to the titles to be given to the new Universities to be established in Ireland and to the new college in Dublin.
  MR. BIRRELL: I am not yet able to say what the names of the new Universities will be.
  MR. MOORE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state the cause of the delay, as we are now approaching the Third Reading?
  MR. BIRRELL: I certainly would prefer that the senates of the new bodies should be consulted.

  Irish Land Stock.
  MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant the Return on this day's Paper with reference to issues of Irish Land Stock.*
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE,): I have written to the hon. Member suggesting a few alterations in the form of the Return. If he will put on the Paper the amended notice which I have sent him I shall have much pleasure in granting the Return.

  English Land Valuation Bill.
  MR. WEDGWOOD: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he will introduce the Land Valuation Bill for England before the recess, so that it may be printed and distributed to Members.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): No, Sir. The Land Valuation Bill will be introduced when the House resumes after the recess.

PUBLIC PETITION'S COMMITTEE.
Sixth Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table and to be printed.

HOME WORK.
Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence and an Appendix, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 246.]

SWEATED INDUSTRIES BILL.
Reported, without Amendment, from the Select Committee on Home Work.
Report to lie upon the Table.

CRIMINAL APPEAL (AMENDMENT) BILL [LORDS].
Read the first time; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 337.]
* Return of Irish Land Stock Issues under the Irish Land Act, 1903, giving date of issue; amount; price; cash products; deficit; and annual charge on Ireland for 68½ years on deficit at 2¾ per cent.

PREVENTION OF CRIME BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee C.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 248.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No 248.]
Bill, as amended (by the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration to-morrow, and to be printed [Bill 336.]

IMPORTATION OF PLUMAGE PROHIBITION BILL [LORDS].
Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 339.]

EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
Order for Committee read.
*THE UNDERSECRETARY OFSTATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): The Motion that you, Sir, now leave the Chair opens the whole subject of India and its condition. In the scope of a single speech or a single evening it is impossible to cover more than a part of the ground, and I shall, therefore, have to ask the indulgence of the House for the omission of many matters. There is undoubtedly a good deal that is disquieting in the political feeling in parts of India at the present moment, on which I shall have something to say later on. But there is a bright side of the picture also, and the bright side occupies by far the greater part of the canvas. On the financial and economic side I think we can give a good account of the state of India at the present moment. After all, this is primarily and pre-eminently a financial Resolution and a financial debate. In accordance with the obligation put upon us by statute, we lay the accounts for the revenue and expenditure of India on the Table of the House. The accounts submitted embrace three years—the accounts for the year ended March, 1907, the revised Estimate, for the year ended March, 1908, and the Budget Estimates of the current year. With regard to the closed
114
account of 1907, we have a realised surplus of £1,500,000. With regard to the revised Estimates for the year ended March this year, we have a revised estimated surplus of £235,000. I am glad to say that is on the upward move. Our latest news from India leads us to anticipate with a good deal of confidence that that surplus will be more than doubled, and that we shall have about half a million of surplus on the year just ended. With regard to the current year, the Estimate is the Budget Estimate, and subject to all the possible circumstances that may arise, and to the various causes, climatic, political, and other which may bring about some change in the course of the year. We estimate we shall have a surplus of £500,000. These figures as a whole are satisfactory, and they are still more satisfactory if we take a somewhat wider view and recollect that they follow upon continuous surpluses for a considerable number of years past. Therefore if the House will allow me I will deal with the accounts not merely of the last year or two, but of the last five or six years. We have to acknowledge in fairness to the Government of India that they have been able to show these continuous surpluses after bearing the full weight of considerable reductions of taxation and of considerable increases of expenditure. In the two years I am more particularly dealing with, 1907–8 and the current year, we have also to bear the financial burden put upon us by the reduction in land revenue and expenditure on relief works caused by the unfortunate famine that prevails n Northern India. Notwithstanding these strains upon the financial situation, India has been able to show a series of very satisfactory surpluses. I will say few words on the reductions in taxation and increases in expenditure of recent years. In dealing with the former it is only fair that we should extend our view somewhat beyond the two or three years, as the large reduction of expenditure began five years ago, in the year 1903–4, with the first step taken towards the reduction of the salt duty. I should like to compare the state of our finance in the year before that reduction and now. The House is probably aware of what has taken place with regard to the salt duty. There have been three

115
biennial reductions of the salt duty. In 1903–4 we reduced it from 2½ rupees to 2 rupees per maund; in 1905–6 to 1½ rupees per maund; in 1907–8 to 1 rupee per maund. The financial result has been that we have to bear a reduction of our surplus by loss of revenue occasioned by the reduction of the tax by something like three and a quarter millions sterling. That is not all. In the same period there have been other reductions of taxation. There have been remissions of certain land cesses in northern India and other parts of India; and there has also been the raising of the lower limit of income-tax. These various reductions, along with the reduction of the salt duty, will bring the reduction of the surplus to the figure of about four millions sterling. The House will no doubt ask what has been the effect of the reduction of the salt duty. Has the consumer benefited? I think I can give a satisfactory reply. If you take the year before the reduction of the salt duty, 1902–3, the amount of salt which paid duty was, roughly speaking, 36,000,000 maunds. The amount of salt which we estimate will be consumed this year is no less than 47,000,000 maunds, so that you have in seven years an increase in the consumption of salt of more than 25 per cent., a considerably greater rate of increase than that of the population. On the financial side also this reduction stands us in good stead. We have not to face the full deficit of £3,250,000, but only a deficit of about £2,750,000. Everyone is glad to find that this policy of reducing the salt duty has benefited the people we wanted to benefit, that it has benefited both man and beast, cattle as well as human beings, and given them a larger supply of that which is absolutely necessary to their existence and at cheaper prices than before. At present, and in years to come, we have to face a progressive diminution of our opium revenue. This policy has met with general acceptance from a large body of Members of this House. It will probably cost us this year a loss of about £200,000, which will continue for three years certain, and if China fulfils its part of the arrangement it will go on for ten years, and then
116
we shall cease to have the opium revenue at all as a source of revenue. How do we stand with regard to increases of expenditure during the same period? There have been considerable increases of expenditure. "We have been able to find money for these increases and yet show a surplus. The House will remember, four or five years ago, the production of the Police Commission's Report, which contained a somewhat disquieting account of the state of the police service in India. The reform of that service has been taken in hand and largely put through. I believe it has had very beneficial effects, but it has cost a good deal of money. Already, as compared with the year 1903–4, we find we have to spend on the police service an increased sum within the year of £1,400,000. We have also increased our expenditure on education. No doubt some hon. Members do not think we have increased it enough. In proportion to what we were spending before we have increased it by 100 per cent. We have spent double what we did five years ago on this service. We have also largely increased the expenditure on sanitary and medical services, civil works, and various minor services. Anyhow, the total for the police and other services comes to an extra sum of something like £4,000,000 a year. Then there is an increase of our military expenditure. On that subject, of course, the large increase was beginning at the period that we have taken as the starting point. The Kitchener programme was not then introduced, but the military expenditure had begun to rise; but, if you take the figure roughly from me, we have had to meet an increase in those five years of £2,000,000 per annum, owing to the large reorganisation of the military services of India. I have no desire to open any discussion on the merits of the Kitchener scheme. I think there is no doubt among military authorities that Lord Kitchener has largely increased the efficiency of the Army of India. We have also had, I think, clear proof of that in the recent compaigns on the frontier. Whatever opinions hon. Members may have as to the policy of these campaigns, and there are very different views on

117
the subject, everyone will acknowledge that the force was organised and despatched, and did its work with exceedingly great promptitude and energy. The Mohmand Campaign, from start to finish, was completed in three weeks. In the early days, when an expedition of this sort was contemplated, it was put off to the cold weather, and it often took as many months as we have taken weeks. The officers in charge, as every fair-minded man will acknowledge, acting as they did under the instructions of a higher authority, also did their work expeditiously and efficiently; and at the conclusion of the business, the political officers showed equal skill and discretion in what I believe to be the satisfactory arrangements which they made with the frontier tribes, both the Zakka Khel and the Mohmands. I do not think there is the slightest doubt among military authorities of the general good results of the Kitchener re-organisation. To return to the question of finance, with which I am more particularly dealing, hon. Members, if they look at the Memorandum, will see that there has been a decrease since 1906–7 of about £1,000,000 in our military expenditure, and particularly in what is denominated special military expenditure. Since that year, I am happy to be able to announce, we have passed the maximum in regard to the increased expenditure entailed upon us by these reforms. The expenditure is decreasing slowly, and I think it will continue; but in order to be quite fair to the House I ought to state that the decrease in this year, and in the coming year, is not so much due to substantial alterations or cutting down of the programme of Lord Kitchener, as to the spreading over a longer period the execution of the works. I do not mean public works only, but works of organisation. I think we may fairly look forward in the course of the years to come to a slow, but fairly steady, decrease of military expenditure. Hon. Members will see that when added to the other items I have mentioned, we have had to meet an increased expenditure in the past five years of something like £6,000,000 per annum. Yet we have been able, without increasing taxation, to show a
118
surplus every year. There is one point which ought to be noted, that whatever the military expenditure of India has been she has always paid her way from year to year. She has never borrowed a rupee for military works or for any other military purpose, and that I think, shows a good example to this country. As hon. Members are aware, India is the only part of the British Empire that has never received a single sixpence in aid of he military expenditure or works; so far from receiving a single sixpence, she has been made continually to pay to the last sixpence, and very often, I am sorry to say, the Home Government, have been in this respect somewhat of a stepmother to her. I pass to the subject of the famine and its effect on the finances of the year. Of course, the famine has had a considerable effect on the finances of the 1907–8 and the current year. Perhaps the House will take without any explanation from me the figures according to the most recent calculations we have been able to make at the India Office. The figures differ slightly from those given in the Memorandum. In the first place, there is a direct extra expenditure on relief works; in the second place, there is a diminution of revenue, owing to the suspension of land revenue in famine districts. If you will take it from me, according to the best estimate we can make, the amount in the two years that the famine will cost us from these two sources is £3,146,000. There is also a further way in which the famine affects our financial resources, though not so much in regard to the revenue and expenditure of the year. The House is aware that we distribute very large Government advances to the cultivators to tide them over the period of distress, and these sums have, of course, to be met out of the cash balance of the Government of India That has thrown upon us during last year and in the current year the obligation to find a sum of no less than £2,700,000 in round figures. In all, therefore, the strain upon the resources of the Government of India caused by the famine amounts to the sum of £5,800,000. The House would like to know how far we have been able successfully to fight the present famine, and how far we

119
have been able to profit by the experience of our predecessors, and to improve and extend the methods they adopted. There are hon. Members who themselves have taken part in the practical work of famine relief, and, of course, they know a great deal more about the subject than I can ever profess to know or adequately explain. I think they will agree with me that each generation of civilians desire not to take credit to themselves, but to profit by the experience of their predecessors, and we will give all honour to those who are at the present moment engaged in devoting their time and labour to this famine work in Northern India, There are two respects, I think, in which we have improved upon and developed the action of our predecessors. The House knows that all the famines of the past twenty-five years have been succeeded by Commissions of Inquiry, and the Famine Commission Reports of 1880, 1898, and 1901, the last by Sir Antony Mac-donell, have all been most valuable documents, full of most admirable suggestions, and I think, each suceeding Commission his not been slow to learn lessons from it predecessor. One respect in which we have profited by this experience is this, namely, that we have very much more largely than in previous famines, suspended the revenue, and suspended it at a much earlier stage. This famine is most severe in the United Provinces and Central India—but particularly in the United Provinces. At the earliest moment the famine was apprehended, Sir John Hewett set to work at once, and instructed his officials to suspend the land revenue at the earliest moment, and this was done on a very large scale indeed. He also, in consequence of the accumulated experience of the past, issued Government loans to the authorities on a much larger scale, and also at the earliest possible moment. That has had a most admirable effect. There is only one figure I will give to the House—it is this. In the famine of 1896–7, which was also very severe in the United Provinces, the amount of the loans issued was £125,000, whereas in the famine from the year ended 31st March last, in the United Provinces, no less a sum than £1,000,000 has been issued for these loans. And the great merit of that
120
action and of the suspension of the revenue was that they were promptly taken, and taken at the right moment, when they put the cultivators in good heart to meet the troubled times ahead of them. All this, as hon. Gentlemen who have had experience are aware, is of the very highest importance. It is of importance also in another respect. These loans are spent mainly in the purchase of seed, the sinking of wells, embankments, and irrigation expedients. It is clear what the result will be. The cultivator will have in his pocket the power to purchase seed, and he will be in a much more secure position than if he had not the power of purchasing that seed. The result of all that is set out in some detail in the Report we have had from the United Provinces. They have been able to sow a much larger area of cultivated ground than could possibly have been anticipated, or than has ever been sown in famine circumstances before. Officers in the United Provinces have made close calculations of the amount of land that would normally be sowed in the famine districts. I will give only a couple of examples. In two districts of the United Provinces, instead of being able to sow only half the normal area, in consequence of these loans they have been able to sow three-quarters of it. In two other districts they have been able to sow three times more than was anticipated, and in other districts double as much as anticipated. It is clear, therefore, there will be a much larger area, for spring crops, secured than otherwise; would have been done. All this gives an increased amount of labour, it gives fairly high wages for the labourers in ploughing and watering, and that increased demand for labour results in a less expenditure on relief works. The results of what has been done may be summed up in a few words. First and foremost, these loans have put heart into the cultivators at the most important moment. Secondly, they ensure as full an area as possible being cultivated for cold weather crops. Thirdly, employment is given to a large number of people at high rates of wages in irrigating and harvesting those crops, thus keeping them off relief works. Fourthly, they add permanently to the irrigated area. Fifthly, they keep open

121
the ordinary courses of credit usually available. But there is something more. In consequence of what has been done we have had much less of what is one of the most painful experiences of famine, namely, that of a man giving up at the earliest moment, and taking to wandering, with his family, aimlessly through the country, contracting disease and perishing by the way. There has been much less of that sort of experience, and the recent report of Sir John Hewett states that there is much less disease and mortality—less smallpox, less fever, and less cholera. But on the whole there has been much less sickness in the United Provinces, and there has been no rise in mortality equal to what we have seen in previous famines. Sir John Hewett says that in a large number of the districts of the United Provinces the death rate was, in April, well below the normal. Still I do not want to exaggerate the good side of the situation. We received a telegram last night from India stating the exact position in which things were at the present moment. It states that in the United Provinces, relief is still being given in thirty-seven districts; there are 300,000 persons on relief works and 500,000 on gratuitous relief. There is little wandering and little emaciation or signs of distress, and the physical condition of the people is well maintained, though the mortality in some districts is above the normal on account of smallpox and cholera, which were rapidly abating. The monsoon has so far given good rain to the greater part of the, country, and the rainfall over India as a whole from 1st June up to date is exactly normal. Reports received from the Lieutenant-Governor on tour in the United Provinces show that there is at present the prospect of an excellent harvest over an abnormally large area. The prospects of India generally are distinctly favourable though more rain is wanted in the North-West Frontier provinces and part of Madras. There is still, however, time even in those areas for sufficient rain to fall to secure a good harvest, and in the country, as a whole, the conditions are, up to date, satisfactory. On the whole, the Report is a good one, and it does not keep back from the knowledge of the House the two sides of the question. It must
122
be a source of gratification for the House to find that the long-continued efforts and the accumulated experience due to those efforts are having their effect in reducing the inevitable suffering and misery that follow in the wake of scarcity and famine. If we compare the state of things to-day with the condition of affairs thirty or fifty years ago, or still more before British rule began, we cannot fail to recognise that there is no sphere in which British rule has done more to alleviate the condition of the poorest of the peoples of Hindustan than the long-continued efforts for the prevention of famine and the alleviation of its miseries when they arise. I should like to go back to a more pleasing topic, again a financial one. There is the question of the debt. I think that India can show up very well in comparison with other countries in respect of its position as to nonproductive debt. The total debt-charge of India for the non-productive debt amounts to no more than £1,420,000, or just about 3 per cent. of its net revenue. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could imagine that, in this country, he could have in the future a debt-charge amounting to not more than 3 per cent. of his net revenue he would sleep more comfortably at night and would anticipate certain charges that may possibly come upon his revenue with a lighter heart. Anyhow it is satisfactory that there is this light debt charge and that it is diminishing and not increasing. There is also the ordinary test of the yield of the commercial departments of the State and the general state of trade in India. Of both we can give good reports. The commercial departments of the State in India are of great importance, much more important from a revenue point of view than in this country. The railways in the main belong to the State, and they now, after paying all expenses and interest on capital, yield to the Indian Exchequer a net revenue of £2,500,000 per annum as compared with £250,000 five years ago. The irrigation works yield us £750,000 per annum, as opposed to less than £200,000 per annum five years ago. There is no sphere of work in which the Indian Government has engaged which is more satisfactory to contemplate than that of the railway

123
and irrigation work. Hon. Members will have read with interest the report on railway work by Sir James Mackay's Committee which we laid before the House at Whitsuntide, and which shows what our policy in the past has been and what the policy in the future is to be. Everyone will anticipate from the fact that we have adopted the main recommendations of that Report a satisfactory result to our revenue, which in the future will not be worse, but better than at the present time. I have given notice of a Bill for renewing our power of borrowing money for railway, irrigation, and other general purposes, but I have not yet had the opportunity of introducing it. It is a measure, however, that will generally commend itself to the approbation of the House and from it we may expect very excellent results will ensue. Everyone will recognise also that there is no part of our work which reflects more credit on us than the admirable irrigation work, large and small, which has been carried out in recent years. It has been a help to our revenue, tending also to mitigate the conditions of the poorest people in the time of their distress. We intend to go on as we have done only more so in the future in pursuit of that policy. The Customs duties are increasing year after year. We have an increase in the yield of the Customs duties for the five years of £1,030,000 per annum, which is due to the great increase of imports, and that increase may be attributed to the prosperity that was widespread before the present scarcity began, and to the state of inland trade. The figures in connection with exports and imports are probably fairly familiar to Members of the House of Commons for the use they often make of them in other contests, and they are exceedingly satisfactory. The imports of merchandise on private account in the five years have risen from £52,500,000 to £91,000,000—an £increase in imports of 70 per cent. In exports the increase has been from £86,000,000 to £115,500,000, while the volume of trade has risen from £138,500,000 to £206,500,000. The increases have been in all the important articles—such as food and drink, metals, manufactured goods, and cotton. Drink is not the
124
largest of these items by any means in the total of £11,500,000 for articles of food and drink; the largest item is sugar, which yields us £6,000,000 out of the £11,500,000. In the course of the five years metals and manufactured goods have risen from £9,500,000 to £20,000,000, and the value of imported cotton from £20,250,000 to £32,000,000. In exports cotton has gone up in value from £16,000,000 to £24,000,000, but jute beats cotton, of which for the sake of Dundee I am glad, having risen in value from £13,000,000 to £24,000,000, while wheat and tea follow on very well. Perhaps I ought to add that in the past six months there has been some setback, owing partly to the famine, partly owing to the crisis in the United States, and India has suffered as other communities have done. There were difficulties in regard to our Bills which we endeavoured to meet and supplement, I think with success. Any hon. Members will see a good deal about that both in the financial statement and in the Memorandum. I think the account one can give of the economic condition of India is a fairly satisfactory one as judged by any ordinary test. I have endeavoured to take criteria which will test the prosperity as far as possible not only in the upper ranges of wealth, but in the lower ranges as well, and the vast body of population is an agricultural, and a poor population. I have dwelt upon famine and one or two other drawbacks to the situation. There is also plague. Plague has undoubtedly been a terrible calamity in India during the past ten or eleven years. A few days ago several questions were put to me on this subject by hon. Members, and I gave to the House the figures for the current year. They were of a fairly satisfactory character. I am told that some gentlemen who asked me these questions rather demurred to my statement as to the first six months of the present year, and they asked how the figures compared with the first six months of last year month by month. Last year was, of course, an exceptionally bad year—the worst we have had. The mortality in the first six months of 1907 reached 1,061,000; in the six months of the present year the mortality was 110,000 and all through

125
you will find a tenfold decrease in the bad months as well as a great deal more than tenfold in what are called the good months, like June and July. In the telegram which I read a minute or two ago the Viceroy gives us the latest figures, and the total number of deaths in the week ended 11th July in the whole of India amounted only to 435. The House should not, of course, be too hopeful. Although the figures for the first six months are the lowest since 1900, there have been decreases before, and we have been disappointed in their continuation. The large decrease in 1906 was followed by the appalling figures of 1907. We must, therefore, possess our souls in patience, and hope that we are passing by the worst of this dreadful plague. But the Government of India have to battle not only with plague, pestilence, and famine, with battle and murder, but with sedition and privy conspiracy as well. There is, unfortunately, a seditious spirit abroad in some parts of India. It shows itself in the Press and in a general spirit of suspicion and distrust, and, in some cases, of violence and outrage. The last development of it has been the discovery in Calcutta of an organised conspiracy for the production and use of bombs and other murderous instruments of destruction. We do not know, I am sorry to say, how far the ramifications of this conspiracy go. But it is a new and most unpleasing discovery. It is needless to enlarge upon it. It would be useless to exaggerate it or to minimise its importance. But I am convinced that such methods are utterly repugnant to the ideas of Indians and Europeans alike in India; and we are having, and we have already had, from day to day and from week to week assurances upon this subject—hon. Members will have seen one in the newspapers today—assurances of the united support of all sections of the population in stamping out this hateful form of political disease. That we shall do by any and every means at our command. We have already strengthened our powers for this purpose by passing the Explosives Act and the Press Act. Until the present moment no need has arisen for putting the latter of these Acts into operation. We can look at the fact with satisfaction, because it shows so far as it goes—it is but a short
126
time—the deterrent results of this legislation we have passed. [AN HON. MEMBER: No."] I think so far as it goes it does. We cannot be surprised that there is anxiety among Europeans in India, particularly in the outlying districts; but it is anxiety that has bravely been borne. We sitting here on these benches can, and I think ought to, give our tribute of respect to all in India, high and low, non-officials as well as officials, women as well as men and more than men, who possess their souls in fortitude and patience and show no signs of feeble panic or alarm. They trust in us and we shall not fail them. But there are other signs of political discontent and unrest, not outside the pale like the bomb of the anarchist, but serious in their character, and for which it is difficult to devise a remedy. We have got to recognise that a new spirit has come over the political outlook of large numbers of educated Indians. This class may be numbered, not by millions, but by tens or hundreds of thousands; but it is an influential class; and our rule, to be a complete and stable success, should be able to attract that class to our side. Some are frankly hostile to the maintenance of our rule, some are hostile, but not frankly so. The majority, I believe, recognise the advantages obtained and to be obtained under our rule. They know the disasters which would befall them were our rule removed; but many of them, at any rate, are not cordial. Can we bring them really to our side? Can we adapt British rule and British administration to the new ideas that are growing up in India? We may not be able to satisfy all their ideals. But to those who loyally accept the conditions of our rule we want to offer an active and real interest and responsibility in the concerns of their own people. That is the problem that is before us. It is not a simple or a single problem, and we cannot have a simple or a single solution of it. But if we can convince those most interested of the sincerity of our desire to solve it we shall have the assistance of all the moderate sections of the community. I know there are those—and they are gentlemen whose opinion is entitled to every respect—who maintain that, if we were to go back on the partition of Bengal, all would be well, not only in Bengal, but throughout

127
India. I cannot share that view. At any rate, whatever our opinion on that transaction may be, what is most obligatory upon us at the present moment is, in Bengal and elsewhere, and particularly in Bengal, to endeavour to improve the work of administration under existing arrangements, to oil its wheels and to remove the soreness which, undoubtedly, was largely caused by the way in which the division of the province was originally carried out. The Secretary of State for India has shown generally what his aims and intentions are as regards political reforms. His object and that of the Government is to go forward fearlessly on the lines of constitutional progress in such a way as to meet, as far as possible, possible, in the words used by Lord Minto, the Viceroy, the other day, the political aspirations of honest reformers. We should like to be able on this fiftieth anniversary of the assumption of the Government of India by the Crown to take a real step forward. It is not merely constitutional but administrative reform in all its grades that we have in view. We hope to do a great deal in the way of administrative improvement by simplifying and shortening its procedure, by limiting excessive official interference, quite as much in the interest of the official as of the non-official class; and as a guiding principle in all that we do, to endeavour to associate Indians more and more with the practical work of government. It would be unwise and. indeed impossible for me to go more into detail where no detailed scheme has yet been decided upon by us. The House is aware of the position generally in which the question of reform now stands. We are most anxious for speedy progress; but we want to take with us the maximum of consent and of hearty consent, both here and. in India. The opinions of the Local Governments and the other authorities in India on the last proposals submitted to them by the Government of India have all been sent in; but we await the final recommendations upon them of the Government of India. Then there is the Report of the Decentralisation Commission presided over by my hon. friend the Secretary to the Treasury. I think few members of the House realise the time and labour which he and his colleagues devoted to
128
that work. It was a large and important work, and they did not spare themselves. They held eighty sittings and travelled 30,000 miles in the execution of their work; and I believe they have still to extract the essence from something like seven or eight large volumes of evidence laid before them. We anticipate great results from their recommendations. But it is manifest that with the labours they are performing now day after day and week after week it will be two or three months before their Report can be produced, and it is clear that it must be nearly the end of the year before definite decisions can be arrived at by the Secretary of State and the Government which can be announced to Parliament. But the Secretary of State hopes that such a statement will be possible before the autumn session comes to au end. One word of caution before I conclude. These reforms cannot be a panacea for all Indian troubles. Legislation and the machinery of government are not everything. But we believe that these reforms, if carried through, will do something to meet the legitimate desires now unsatisfied of an important class of the community; and it is in that confident hope that we are proceeding with them. But there is another, and humbler, day to day method by which we hope to surmount some of our troubles as our predecessors had surmounted similar difficulties in the past. We can say for ourselves, without flattery, that as a nation we are not daunted by theoretical difficulties which may be presented to us by clever men in an apparently insoluble form. We take things as they come; and we endeavour to find a practical solution for each particular emergency as it arises. The method is not ours. It is as old as Solomon, who told us to ponder the path at our feet and to let our eyes look right on. That has served us in good stead in the past; it will serve us well in the future. After all, the millions of Indian cultivators are the bulk of the Indian people, and if we give them a just rule, if we secure them peace, and—so far as enlightened government can do it—secure them prosperity, we shall do a good work in our generation. I sometimes read with regret disparaging things said of those who are carrying on the work of

129
administration in India. We all have friends engaged in that work; and we know the good they have done and are doing. I am perfectly certain that the younger men of the Indian Civil Service just like their predecessors, in the heroic days, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago, dream dreams and see visions of the grandeur of the work in which they are engaged. Indeed, no one can be associated with the government of India in whatever capacity—as I am here, as we all are, sitting on these benches—without feeling something of the inspiration that it is given to us to help on, in however humble a way, a great achievement and a noble work.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair (for Committee on East Iddia Revenue Accounts)."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
*EARL PERCYsaid that while they must all regret the almost irreparable loss which the House had sustained by the removal of Lord Morley to another place, he was sure they would join in congratulating the right. hon. Gentleman who had just sat down on the ability with which he had discharged the task which he thought had not devolved for some fifteen years on any one holding his office in this House, and which was not rendered more easy by the fact that he was so recently transferred from another position. They would also echo the eulogium which he passed on the skill and success with which the recent expedition on the Indian frontier was organised and carried through —a success all the more remarkable because of the very stringent stipulation laid down by the Government with regard to the speedy evacuation of the territory concerned. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the policy of punitive expeditions was a subject on which people differed in opinion. He did not suppose there was any school of responsible politicians who would seriously contend that the Indian Government could sit with its hands folded and allow outrages to be committed by raiders from beyond our territory within our own borders. If there was any question on the subject of punitive expeditions, it was not whether they should take place, but whether they should or should not be followed by
130
annexation. He thought the attitude of the majority of the frontier tribes during the recent expedition was strong corroborative evidence in favour of maintaining that policy of abstention from intervention in tribal affairs beyond our frontier which was laid down by Lord George Hamilton in his despatch, and which has been adhered to by the present Secretary of State. Perhaps the most disquieting feature of the expedition, and one to which the hon. Gentleman did not allude, was the participation in the operations of a certain number of raiders from Afghan territory, and it was satisfactory to know that in the later stages of the campaign the Ameer of Afghanistan seemed to have taken some steps to control those incursions into our territory, and, perhaps, he might take that opportunity, though it was not a subject which it was desirable to discuss at length, of expressing a hope that the Ameer would before long be able to give us a fresh proof of his goodwill by the announcing his acceptance of the recent Anglo-Russian agreement, which many on that side of the House thought it necessary to criticise in some of its details, but which, so far as regarded Afghanistan itself, had no other object in view than to make it easy for the two coterminous Powers to fulfil their treaty engagements with respect to the integrity and independence of that country.
So far as the purely financial aspect of the present Budget was concerned, he did not imagine that the Government would meet with any serious criticism. The surplus at their disposal, though larger undoubtedly than was anticipated—(and in view of the partial recrudescence of famine in the provinces, it was surprising that there should be any surplus at all)—was not sufficiently large to admit of a further reduction of taxation, and he was not sure that a reduction of taxation had the first claim on an Indian finance Minister. The allocation of the surplus to grants in aid of sanitary administration had met with general approval. Nor when they turned from the purely financial aspect of the question to those larger questions of public policy to which the right hon. Gentleman made passing and eloquent reference in his concluding

131
remarks—the extension of primary education, the enlargement of the legislative councils, the decentralisation of provincial administration—were they in regard to any of these larger questions of policy in a much more favourable position usefully to discuss them than they were last year, for the reason as the right hon. Gentleman had himself said, that neither the House nor the Government themselves were in possession of the results of the inquiries set or, foot in India. Therefore, upon none of those questions did he think that any long and minute discussion was called for. He was not disposed to blame the Government for the delay which had taken place in this matter, because questions of this kind were far too important to be hastily decided, and they had a somewhat unpleasant reminder of the need of proceeding cautiously in these matters, in the fact that in this very year somewhat ominously in which the Secretary of State had announced his intention to take steps in the direction of broadening he basis of the legislative system, the Government of India should have had to go the legislative council in order to ask an increase of their executive authority.
The right hon. Gentleman had said little in regard to the Press Act. He thought the Government was to be congratulated upon taking a step long overdue, and which, if report spoke truly, was unsuccessfully pressed upon the Secretary of State by the Government of India last year. The repeal of Lord Lytton's Press Act had been universally regarded by British opinion in India as a mistake, and although he thought the Unionist Government had to bear a fair share of the blame for not having dealt with the matter themselves in the past, still, in view of the importance of keeping the treatment of Indian questions free so far as possible of the suspicion of party bias, he could not regret himself that it should have fallen to a Liberal Government to redress a mistake for which a Liberal Government was in the first instance responsible. If there was any criticism to be made on the
132
recent Press Act it was that it erred on the side of leniency, and that the definition of sedition was exclusively confined to sedition tending to actual acts of violence. Another criticism which might be made was that the mode of procedure, which involved in every case the direct interposition of the local Government before the magistrates could act, might in times of emergency be found to he somewhat cumbrous and dilatory. At the same time the Government had announced their intention of correcting any defects which experience might reveal in this Act. Lord Minto stated that they intended to supplement it with an Act dealing with the whole question of the supervision of the Press, and it was, at all events, satisfactory to know, as the hon. Gentleman had told them that afternoon, that although no prosecutions had taken place under the Press Act nor the Explosives Act still, they had been effective, and that some of the worst offenders had thought it advisable to close their offices. He hoped the Government would not allow themselves to be deterred from taking any steps necessary in this matter by the very small section of opinion which was constantly proclaiming that we ought to govern India according to. Indian ideas, and then turned round and asked us to extend to the native Press a licence which would not be tolerated by any native Government. If we were to allow matters to drift much longer, we should forfeit, and deservedly forfeit, the respect of the best native opinion in India itself, we should fail in our duty to the rising generation whose minds have been poisoned by the perpetual propaganda of sedition, and further, we should fail in our duty to that small but devoted band of our fellow-countrymen upon the maintenance of whose authority depended not merely their personal safety, but the very existence and continuance of British rule in India.
Assertions had frequently been made regarding the growing feeling of estrangement between the white and the coloured races in India. It was some five years since he was in India, but he did not

133
believe that in that interval events had so far changed that so sweeping a generalisation could be justified. This much was certain, that if anything could produce, not only estrangement, but actual antipathy between the white and coloured races, it would be the identification of the idea of justice to native aspirations with the idea of passive toleration of every form of incitement to disloyalty and crime. But there was another reason why he thought the Government were bound to deal sternly with an agitation of that kind, and it was one to which Lord Minto alluded in his speech in the debate in the Legislative Council. Lord Minto said very truly that whatever might be the determining factors in the present state of unrest, there could be no doubt whatever that the main problem which Indian statesmen had to solve was not a political, but an economic problem, It was quite true that the measures which the Indian Government had passed during the last few years had done a great deal to place the finances of India in the satisfactory position which the right hon. Gentleman had described that afternoon. They had, in fact, placed the finances in a position which might well excite the envy of any Western nation. They had reduced taxation to a point which scarcely left any room for criticism, even by the Leaders of the Congress party. They had wiped out the unremunerative debt, they had established over large parts of India means in the shape of loan banks for freeing the agriculturist from dependence upon the local usurer, and they had set up machinery for assisting the agriculturist by means of advances of capital and remissions of land revenue to tide over a time of stress and emergency.
But the fact remained that India was not so much perhaps a poor country as a country whose economic position was necessarily precarious, because it depended almost exclusively upon a single industry, namely, agriculture, which was exposed to vicissitudes of a kind and frequency to which it was not exposed in any other country in the world. So long as that was the case there must be recurring periods of misery with the inevitable
134
accompaniment of discontent, and it was one of the worst features of the agitation which had now gone on for three or four years, that it must inevitably tend to discourage the free inflow of British capital into India, which was absolutely indispensable if alternative Indian industries were to be developed, and which would be more necessary than ever in the coming years if the Government were to carry out successfully the large borrowing operations which they contemplated in connection with their railway programme. Although the economic problem was distinct from and more important than the political, there was, at all events, one question which vitally concerned both, and that was the question of education. In the speech which the Secretary of State made at the Civil Service Dinner the other day, he mentioned as one of the main causes leading to the present unrest in India, the defective ideal which had inspired our educational system. The same view was expressed by one of the Indian Members on the Legislative Council when he said that what was most needed was not a multiplication of existing primary schools, but the reform of the whole system. He believed that everybody was agreed that sonic reform of the educational system was necessary, but hardly any two were agreed as to the lines on which that reform should proceed. On the one hand, there was a school of thought, represented by some Gentleman in that House, who thought we ought to copy in India all the latest educational ideas of England, that education ought to be free and also compulsory; and, on the other hand, there was a school of thought, according to which the initial blunder lay in ever having introduced into India the English system of education at all. If we had introduced the English system of education in India, he would view its extension with much less misgiving than he did. But the fundamental difficulty of the system in India was that it never bore more than a superficial resemblance to that with which we were familiar, and the conditions under which it was introduced were wholly different from the conditions existing at home, and wholly different from the conditions prevailing in India at

135
the present time. In England, from the outset, in both State and voluntary schools, primary education was associated with religious teaching in one form or another, and to this day the opposition excited by any proposal to banish religious teaching from the schools, was due to the widespread conviction that education divorced from religious teaching was not merely defective in itself but might have an actually subversive effect on character and hardly deserved to be called education at all. In India the conditions were wholly different. There we had grafted on to a system that for centuries had been religious and nothing else, another system which, because it maintained an attitude of strict neutrality to every form of religion, tended to detach the people from ancient traditions or beliefs, and did not attempt to supply any alternative basis of religious or moral training, which could fit them for political or administrative responsibility. That this had given rise to a serious state of things was illustrated in "The Moral and Material Progress of India." The Tikka Sahib of Nabha in the Viceroy's Council said—
"Primary education is an admitted necessity for the country. I have read with much pleasure Your Excellency's speech in reply to the address of the orthodox Hindu community, in which you stated that you saw no objection to the institution of denominational hostels. I am strongly of opinion that the religions of India ought to be maintained, and this can only be done by a system of denominational education. I am of opinion that even the Chiefs' College at Lahore is unfit for the education of Sikhs of position. In this connection I would beg to point to the deplorable ignorance of the religious systems of the country generally possessed by English officials in India."
He would read one or two extracts from the Reports on "Moral and Material Progress of India." In the United Provinces—
"The continuous decline in the number of private schools was to be regretted. Five years ago they numbered 6,071, attended by 84,278 pupils; now they numbered only 4,570, with attendance of 69,277."
In the Central Provinces—
"The education of Mahomedans made slow progress, owing to the importance attached by them to religious education, and, consequently, to the necessity for separate schools."
The influence of the masters, it was stated, was not so strong as it should be, and there were outbreaks of dis-
136
order owing to political influences. It did not appear that the influence of masters was as strong as it should be, their interest in the boys not always extending beyond the mere teaching class. From the North-West Frontier Province the report was even more striking. It began with quite a sanguine observation upon "steady progress in every direction," and the statement that—
"the old private village schools in which instruction goes little further than the teaching of religions books by note are now declining in popular favour and the people are learning to appreciate the more intelligent education offered by the Government schools."
But as one of the results of "intelligent appreciation" it was stated that—
"Although the attendance of Hindus showed an increase of 24 per cent., that of Mahomedans, who at the 1901 Census were more than 92 per cent, of the population, showed a small decline."
That, he submitted, showed a very serious state of things. It was very difficult to know how the difficulty was to be met, but surely it must be obvious that this had a very direct bearing when they were considering the widespread extension of elementary education. He did not suggest for a moment that the State should abandon its attitude of neutrality towards the various religions, and still less that the State could discover any form of dogma common to all the various beliefs of that great continent; but the inference he drew from those premises was that the State could not hope to play in India the same active propagandist part in regard to primary education as in this country, but ought to direct its efforts to stimulating native denominational schools. The Indian system differed again from the English on the utilitarian side. In England, whatever its defects might be, our system of education was regarded as a preparation for an industrial career. In India almost the only industry was agriculture, but the system did nothing to qualify the people for that calling, and any special aptitude which it imparted found no outlet except in the law or in Government employment. That, he thought, was a real grievance and danger, for it lent colour to the assertions often made by agitators in India that the British Government did little to help the pepole

137
to participate in the benefits that night follow the development of industrial resources. It was now seven years since a conference at Simla went into all the phases of Indian education,primary,secondary, and technical, and passed an enormous number of resolutions, upon which it was expected prompt action would be taken. Into the details of these he would not enter; they would be more appropriate to the Resolution which would presently he moved, but he mentioned one or two. They dealt with the neglect of the study of the vernacular, recommending that it should be carried on throughout the school course up to the University. They recommended that inspection should he substituted for examinations, and the results of such inspection accepted as passports to the Universities and Government employment; that in secondary schools a modern side should prepare pupils for a commercial career; that relations should be established by the school authorities with chambers of commerce and employers; and, lastly, the subject of technical education was dealt with in a valuable Report by Sir Edward Buck, who suggested the erection of six industrial institutes for the different provinces connected with special local industries, the introduction of a system of apprenticeship in workshops under the supervision of Europeans in connection with technical schools and the training of village schoolmasters in the principles of agriculture. Were we really making substantial progress in any of these directions? The Tikka Sahib of Nabha, in his address at the Viceroy's Council to which he had referred, said—
"As far as I can see, these primary school are opened mostly for the benefit of the agricultural population, but I am afraid that the agricultural classes are not fully benefited by them. With a little more expense and forethought it might be possible to adapt these schools to the requirements of the villagers. As a first step the scope of the work of these schools should be defined; and they should be raised to such a position as to enable them to teach something useful to the agriculturists. In the first place, an attempt should be made to instruct the pupils in reading, writing, and arithmetic in their own language, not as it is done now in Urdu, which is a foreign language. The result is that after three or four years study they hardly understand the meaning of the words they read or repeat. Education to be of any real advantage must be given first in the
138
easiest language to learn; and could there be any language easier to learn than one's mother tongue? So primary education in the Punjab ought to be given through the Punjabi only, and in the characters peculiar to that language. When the Government has recognised a knowledge of Punjabi as a desideratum for the British military and evil officers, it is very strange indeed that the Educational Department should have forced on the poor Punjabis the necessity to forget their own vernacular for the camp language of the Mughal Emperors, which is not a general household language in India. Then, again, books should be specially compiled containing useful information in simple and colloquial language about agriculture, sanitation, manure and cattle. The schoolmaster should be a man who knows something about cattle diseases and practical farming, so that he may be able to attract the attention of the villagers and win their respect by his knowledge of the very subjects which they pride themselves on knowing better than anyone else. It would be far better to have fewer schools doing really useful and practical work than to open many lower primary places of instruction which serve no useful purpose."
So far as he was aware few steps had been taken to carry out the reforms suggested and the whole reforming energy of the Government seemed to have been directed to the Universities. Of course the Government might plead that they had considerably increased expenditure on education, and their financial resources would not allow more liberality. The increase had taken place on a very low scale of expenditure; the total amount was almost insignificant, and he could not accept the financial argument as sufficient excuse. After all, we in this country were embarking on an expenditure of some £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 lightheartedly without making any provision for it, and on an object which, however much the House might sympathise with it, could not be described as remunerative. How could they ask the Indian to believe that his own Government., which in the last three or four years had sacrificed three or four millions of revenue from the salt duty and opium, and which intended to borrow 100 millions in eight years for railways, could not find money enough to spend on the development of technical education, which was of such vital importance if the people of India were to be prepared to take their proper part in the development of industries, and which might legitimately be described

139
as a most remunerative form of expenditure? With regard to the general administration of education, he could not help thinking they would never get any real enthusiasm or progress until that administration was reformed. If he remembered rightly, Lord Curzon had laid great stress on the absurdity of treating educational matters in India as a mere province of the work of the Home Department. There was now a Director-General of Education, but it was still the fact that, not only was there no Member for Education in the Viceroy's Council, but the Director-General, if he wished to bring any educational matter before the Member who represented the Home Department, had to do so through the ordinary machinery of the office. He thought that, if there was not to be a Member on the Council directly representative of and responsible for education, the Director-General ought to be given the same right and privilege of free access to the Viceroy which was proposed to be given to the President of the Railway Board. Leaving education, he would like to say a word on another subject. Lord Morley had alluded, as a contributory cause of the unrest, to the increasing complexity of our administrative system, which allowed less and less personal contact between the population at large and the officials appointed to look after their interests. Personally, he would welcome decentralisation, though it was rather difficult to discuss it in the abstract apart from detailed proposals; but, personally, he believed it to be a good thing if it led to closer correspondence between the individuals and the population among whom they worked, even it if resulted in a slight diminution of efficiency. After all, Oriental populations had been accustomed for centuries to personal rule, and he thought that personal rule, even if comparatively inefficient, was better than administration carried on by the machinnery of Government Departments. But he hoped the Government would not confine their attention to the mere freeing of the provincial Government and individual officials from undue interference from headquarters. He hoped they would see the expediency of diminishing the excessive burden of responsibility
140
now thrown on individuals. He was glad to see that the Government had announced their intention of giving to the local government greater powers of making appointments without referring home every case for approval. If the statement of Sir Bampfylde Fuller was correct, that there were many districts in which a single executive officer was supposed to look after a population of 1,000,000 souls, and an area of 10,000 square miles, he thought there was great force in his contention that there was room not only for an increase of appointments, but for a further subdivision of administrative areas, for which they had a precedent in the separation of the Frontier Province from the Punjab, and which would have the advantage of throwing open a larger number of administrative appointments which natives might fill. He wished to allude briefly to one other question upon which he understood the Government were contemplating, if they had not already sanctioned, a new departure, and on which he felt unable to congratulate them, namely, the policy of the separation of judicial from executive functions in Bengal. Ideally he had no doubt, considering the question purely in the abstract and apart from Indian traditions, everyone would agree that it was not desirable to combine these two functions in the same hands, and that separation would have the incidental advantage of enabling the district officer to pay more attention to his administrative duties. But it was not contended that the existing system had led to any grave abuse, and British official opinion in India had always been strongly against the change on the ground that to take away judicial powers from the executive officer would very seriously impair the respect for his authority. That was still the opinion both of the provincial Governments and of high judicial officers to whom the question had been referred by the Government, and in defiance of their opinion this step had been taken, and taken in the province of Bengal where respect for administrative authority seemed already to have sunk to a somewhat dangerously low point. As he understood it from a perusal of Sir Harvey Adamsons' speech in the Viceroy's Council, the main reason that had

141
influenced the Government in taking this step was the argument that, in a province where the agitators were constantly impugning the judicial impartiality of the district magistrates, their executive authority was likely to be increased rather than impaired by the removal of that suspicion, however groundless it might be. That was no doubt an argument which carried some weight, though, obviously, the validity of it depended on the extent to which the concession the Government contemplated was really likely to meet the demands the agitators were making. As he understood the scheme outlined by Sir Harvey Adamson, it proposed to leave the judicial officer under the control of the Divisional Commissioner and, in those circumstances, those who protested against the combination of the two functions being in the same hands might still contend that the judiciary was subject to the control and influence of the Administration. He did not wish to take the responsibility of saying that the decision of the Government was a wrong one; but he did think they would have clone better not to have made the announcement in India or thrown down the scheme fog general criticism until they were prepared to announce their decision in the House and to state the grounds on which they had acted. The reform was not an urgent one, it would he very costly, and it might well have been postponed in favour of other reforms, such as that of education, which might not bulk so largely in the speeches of political agitators, but which, he believed, would be of more material advantage to the great body of the population.
*MR. REES, in moving "That this House, while it recognises that the reforms now under the consideration of the Government of India are suitable and sufficient in respect of questions with which they deal, is of opinion that the educational system in India stands in urgent need of reform," said he agreed with all the noble Lord had said with regard to the separation of the judicial and executive functions, at any rate as to the merits of that question. He joined in the congratulations to his right hon. friend the Under-Secretary, not only
142
as to the statement which he had made, but also that he had been able on this occasion to be present to make it. His right hon. friend was able to repeat what a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, had said in this House with regard to the finances of India, and that was that not only were the finances of India in a more satisfactory condition but they were much better administered than the finances of this country. He rejoiced that the right hon. Gentleman had been able to congratulate the House on the speedy termination of the military operations on the frontiers and upon the subsidence of the plague, although he thought the epithet of appalling which the hon. Gentleman had used with regard to the mortality might have been reserved for the deaths from the far greater scourge of malaria. By making a hasty calculation on the spur of the moment, he made out that the mortality from plague had fallen from one-third of 1 per cent. last year to one-thirtieth of 1 per cent. this year, and that it was about one-sixtieth of the mortality from malaria. He advised his right hon. friend not to be in too great a hurry to accept the assurance of the Chinese Government as to the opium traffic, because similar assurances had been given at any time during these twenty-five years, and although everybody would like to see the opium traffic done away with, no one would wish to see it simply transferred from the Indian ryot to the Chinese cultivator, to the detriment of the former, who would have to pay the Bill. He confessed he was glad the accident of the ballot had laid upon him the duty of moving this Amendment, because, while he thought there should be no division in this House on any Indian subject, if an Amendment was to be moved, it was well that it should proceed from one who at any rate endeavoured to represent the views of the peoples of India and of his fellow countrymen in India, and who did not mistake the voice of one class, of one people, of one part, of one province, for the voice of the multitudes which inhabit our Indian Empire. It was in exact accordance with his view of the absolute necessity of maintaining the salutary rule that India was outside party politics that this

143
Motion would, he hoped, be seconded by the hon. Baronet the Member for West Edinburgh, who himself had had no little experience of, and no small reputation in, Indian administration. A terrible responsibility attached to those who dragged India into party strife, which should be confined strictly to our domestic affairs. He must begin by reminding the House that there was no such country as India, and there was no such people as the Indians, and it was no more correct to talk of the people of India than it would be to talk of the people of Europe. Nor, in spite of a general similarity in the standards of administration in India, resulting from British supremacy, was there any more resemblance between different races in India than between different races in Europe. These simple, elementary facts were industriously concealed from the people of Britain by the propagandist agitators of the English branch of the Indian Congress, which maintained in England a newspaper, little known in this country, but a very active agent in the dissemination throughout the vernacular Press in India of everything which could possibly, by any ingenuity, be twisted to the disadvantage of the British administration. It also contained much original news and only the readers of Mr. Cotton's paper realised that the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Nottingham only differed as one star differeth from another star in glory. These considerations were vital to the true estimation of the reforms now under consideration, and it was feared that, elementary as they were, they were little appreciated in this country. There were, of course, bodies in existence which enlightened, or affected to enlighten, folks at home on Indian affairs. There was, for instance, the so-called Indian Parliamentary Committee. Anyone who said he was interested in India could belong to this body, there was no subscription, and, as there were nearly 200 Members of Parliament on its list, it might appear to be an association of great weight. As a matter of fact, its meetings were generally attended by only a few extreme politicians of the Congress party, and one or two Labour Members, though in the present Parliament two or three had usually been gathered together of
144
a different faith, so that the proceedings of the Camarilla had never been able to claim the lofty attribute of unanimity. Half - a - dozen members attended the meeting held for the purpose of deciding upon a subject for the ballot on this debate. The result of their deliberations was found in the Motions on the Paper which stood in the names of the hon. Members for Brentford and Merthyr Tydvil.
*MR. KEIR HARDIE: That is not so.
*MR. REESsaid it was the same in spirit. It was sufficient to say that it was hardly imaginable that anything more unpalatable to the peoples of India—who. had one, and perhaps only one, thing in common, namely, strong caste distinctions—could be conceived than a Resolution that: "The people of all grades should be associated with the Government of the country." As the hon. Member for East Nottingham truly remarked in a book called "New India"—
"The basis of internal order in India is a patrician aristocracy of indigenous growth, trained to control and lead the lower orders."
This undemocratic expression was, of course, that of the hon. Member. The one thing they did know about the Indian masses was that they were conservative to the core, and that caste had always prevented the fusion of races into nations. The hon. Member for Brentford was one of a little band. who spent in India the fateful period of three weeks, to which some peculiar significance appeared to attach. It was the chosen length for honeymoons, and, if popular novelists might be believed, for experiences in which the staider pleasures of the honeymoon were anticipated. It was therefore a period which seemed expressly suited for a delirious, political debauch. However, it was pretty clear that the hon. Member for Brentford should be exempted from the charge of taking his own Amendment seriously. He made it obvious from a speech he delivered earlier in the session that instead of joining the ranks of the peripatetic politicians, who out of the profundity of unacquaintance criticised an administration which they had had no opportunity of understanding,

145
his intention was to give the cause of law and order that peculiarly subtle and effective form of support which consisted of making a transparently unsustainable attack upon an institution the merits of which it was desired to bring out into stronger relief. His own Motion expressed appreciation of the reforms now under the consideration of the Government of India, but called for further reform in the educational system of that Empire. One reform which the Government of India should adopt was that of making known elementary facts regarding itself in these islands inside and outside the House of Commons. Only those who had been engaged in that difficult, thankless, and unappreciated task had the faintest conception of the extent to which the minds of the people of this country had been poisoned against their fellow-countrymen in India. True, agitators had been busily occupied, but were we not to blame for ignoring the fact that it was not enough to make our rule good, but that we must make those subjected to it and those responsible for it alike feel that it was good? In the Old Kent Road it was an article of faith that the British Indian official starved the Indians, and no one could be surprised that this should be so when hon. Members of this House asked questions, the underlying suggestions of which were that the British Army in India made away with the wounded and ignored flags of truce, and" that the Government invented plague, oppressed innocent journalists, strained the law in favour of Europeans and against the natives, indulged in wanton warfare on the frontier, and outraged administrative decency in all directions. It was of course, true that any Government was fair game in the House of Commons including apparently the Governments of friendly and independent Powers, but it was not true that the results of those attacks, proceeding from those who did, and from those who did not, know better, were otherwise than deplorable and disastrous. It was the effect in India they had to consider. The Government of India and the India Office should organise, or should encourage the organisation of, the refutation of the calumnies sown broadcast
146
against our administration. What could an audience think when a gentleman, who was entrusted with the charge of a province, a small one it was true, but still a province, informed them that: "The attitude of the English towards the Indians was harsh, and that justice between man and man in India was far from being fairly administered," and concealed the fact of which they were of course entirely unaware, that, with rare exceptions, justice in India was administered to natives by natives? What opinion could such an audience form of the elementary features of our rule in the East when the same gentleman informed it that "coloured races became demoralised when white people came into contact with them," and concealed the fact that he himself continued to take part in what he now regarded as organised oppression, until he had exhausted all possibilities of further promotion? What a lesson in race solidarity, in discipline and good feeling, was afforded by communications front a retired Civil servant., now a Member of that House, to a leading Bengal agitator, who had been dismissed for misconduct from the same Civil Service, urging him to keep on agitating till the Secretary of State yielded in regard to the so-called partition of Bengal—a province five times the size of Scotland, with twice the population of the United Kingdom! What was to be said of the elementary ethics of politics when an ex-Chief Commissioner was quoted in the Press as saying: "We have bred a gang of seditious youths, who have been goaded into bomb-throwing by the infliction of floggings for political offences," and never repudiated those words though it was known that no youths had been so treated? What vain and mischievous aspirations were not encouraged when a Member of Parliament, who was the Leader of of a Party, the hon. Member for Merthyr, before proceeding to India announced that—
"We hold down the natives in the bondage of subjection, and I may be able to let a light in on the dark places of Indian Government."
Had he known anything of the men he was addressing, he would have realised

147
that a less broad hint would have been all sufficient. He had also said—
"He would have but a short time, but with the aid of friends he hoped to turn it to good account."
He was determined to dot the i's and cross the t's; and so was led about Bengal with a garland around his neck, a sacrifice at the altar of privilege, wholly unaware, for he was necessarily tongue-tied and blind-folded, that he saw nothing and heard nothing but the ease of the classes, the upper classes of Bengal, who were of a very different mind from the masses of the inhabitants of that province. There was, of course, one great difference between the Socialist and Labour "friends of India," and the retired official "friends of India" who "had returned and considered all the oppressions that were done under the sun, and beheld the tears of such a; were oppressed and had no comforter, while on the side of their oppressors was power." The one set of "friends" knew what it was doing, and the other probably did not. It was astonishing, however, that their Socialist allies did not ask the ex-Indian officials why they continued so long to be parties to an oppression, the iniquities of which dawned upon them with their retirement. For his part he said it was an abuse on the part of ex-officials to use a mandate obtained from the electorate upon domestic issues for the purpose of vilifying the Government in the service of which they passed their lives, and from which they drew a pension. Some hon. Members without going to India absorbed the spirit of the East with more or less completeness. The hon. Member for East Leeds, for instance, who took an active part in the discussion of Indian questions, had studied the doctrine of reincarnation, and he now knew that his fellow-countrymen though born good like himself, though continuing to be virtuous like himself till they proceeded to the East for their life's work, no sooner arrived in India than they were born again bad, and continued to get worse, till the day of their death Could it indeed be necessary for our Government in India to pay three-fourths of the cost of the education of every graduate, when this
148
class possessed such supreme political talent as to persuade the Socialists of England that liberty, equality, and fraternity were invented by the Brahmin of Bengal and Poona, and that landlords, lawyers, and journalists, who would like to govern the lower castes and classes without our impartial supervision, occupied the same position in Bengal as the Labour Members of Parliament occupied in England? Surely to the reforms now under consideration by the Government of India should be added some provision for the systematic refutation of the monumental misrepresentation of which it was itself the apparently helpless and heedless subject. The present was not the occasion for any survey of the history of education in India, but it might be remarked that Oriental ideas on this subject had no resemblance whatever to those which obtained in Great Britain, and in the advanced countries of Europe. Under the Hindus higher instruction was strictly confined to the upper castes and classes, and under the Mahomedans was inseparably connected with mosques and shrines. Early in the nineteenth century, when a knowledge of English became a marketable acquirement, missionaries and philanthropists brought pressure to bear on the Government of India in favour of popular education. Two parties arose, those who contended that the knowledge and science of the Western world should be conveyed to the natives by means of English, and those who held that the vernacular education should be supplemented by the study of the classical languages of the East. The Anglicists won, under the leadership of Lord Macaulay, who so little knew what he was doing that he prophesied that as a result of the adoption of his system there would not be a single idolater—the word, of course, was Macaulay's—among the respectable classes in Bengal after a lapse of thirty years. There were others however who did know what they were doing. Sir Thomas Munro regarded—
"An unrestricted Press in India as incompatible with the character of British rule."
Lord William Bentinck thought it
"Essential that the Indian Press should be kept under the most rigid control."

149
Sir John Malcolm wrote—
"The Brahmins and civil classes have for ages been the nominal servants and the real masters of the turbulent, bold, and superstitious military tribes, and when we consider what they have lost by the introduction and extension of our dominion, it would be folly to expect that they should not wish to subvert it. We could give to the Brahmins and others of the instructed classes no weapon which they would know better how to use against us than a free Press, which they would use to corrupt out native soldiery."
Macolm knew, Macaulay theorised. He would not willingly raise any subject relating to India to which a party character might be given in the House, but since it was hopeless to expect the self-styled friends of India, the representatives of the classes to whom Malcolm referred, wholly to abstain from dealing with subjects which almost exclusively engaged the attention of the particular organisation they represented, he had put down an Amendment, which would not exclude speeches upon such subjects, but under cover of which at any rate the frontier policy of Afghanistan would be left alone. Enough, and more than enough, had been said on this subject during the last of a course of lectures, which was being delivered by a noble Lord from Ireland in another place, and he sincerely hoped, for his part, that that matter would be left where the noble Viscount, the Secretary of State, left it in that House. Among the many vernacular papers which reached him weekly, in one of the Congress organs it was written—
"No Minister ever held a stronger position than Mr. Morley holds to-day. He is for the moment more powerful than the most despotic monarch. His methods of administration receive the support alike of Liberal and Conservative Members."
That was the case, and he deeply regretted that the Amendments on the Paper, with two or three exceptions, and the speeches made in support of them, would be published broadcast in the vernacular Press, and would tend to, and would be intended to, obscure and conceal what was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The reforms which the Government of India had proposed, and Lord Morley had approved, were now under consideration in India, not only by the
150
Government but by an infinite number of other official and non-official, private and public, associations and individuals. They were well calculated not only to broaden the basis upon which our rule rested, but to enlist the sympathies of the agricultural element, and of the aristocracy of the country, to which all classes were passionately attached, except that which consisted of agitators and anarchists. It was also necessary in a country needing capital above all things to enlist the sympathies of the capitalist. The hon. Member for East Nottingham wrote in "New India"—
"The lower orders stand in urgent need of an aristocracy above them. The prosperity of every country requires that there should exist within it, not only a proletariat, the great body of the people who devote themselves to labour but also a class of capitalists, which provides the funds which enable labour to become productive. It is only under the fertilising influence of capital that labour is productive."
He wondered what the hon. Member for Leicester and his friends thought of that, they who regarded capital as "the enemy." The alliance in that House of Gentlemen holding these views with the Labour and Socialist Party was almost as strange as the tie between the representatives of the classes in India and the representatives of the masses in Britain, and both connections showed that agitation, like misery, "acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows." The nature of these proposed reforms had been fully explained in that House, Reports upon them from India had not yet been received, and it did not seem necessary on the present occasion to do more than point out that when any measures such as these, indeed when any legislative measures were under consideration, representatives of every possible class were consulted, and their opinions were carefully weighed. The suggestion that legislation was the outcome of the mere fiat of what the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean would call "a white oligarchy" was entirely unjustified, and the real cause of offence in the minds of the Babus was that others were taken into the confidence of Government, besides lawyers, journalists and the like classes, who enjoyed such undue influence that the people had

151
commenced to call our rule by the contemptuous name of the pleaders' paradise, or the lawyers' kingdom. There should be plain speaking in and out of Parliament as regarded the so-called moderate and extreme parties in the Congress. Both were now committed directly or indirectly, openly or secretly, to an endeavour to terminate our rule in India. The Congress had shifted its ground, and our educational system should distinguish between friends and foes. Still the Congress was nowhere more strongly denounced and ridiculed than in. Bengal journals like the Amrita Bazaar Patrika and the Telegraph, and it found complete acceptance nowhere but in certain circles in England. The so-called moderate agitators, Mr. Gokhale and Mr. Dutt, were now rated by the Socialist Mr. Hy adman for facing both ways. The latter authority fairly said that he had heard Mr. Gokhale in the East End of London deliver a speech as vehement and anti-British as any article in the vernacular Press, and he added that these two gentlemen were extremely anxious to prove to the British public that their cherished private views, which they kept diplomatically to themselves for the present, were held only by a contemptible minority in India, and that organised sedition did not exist. But at the so-called "India House" at Highgate, the whole company, moderate and extremist, cheered the sentiment "loyalty to England means treachery to India." Mr. Gokhale said—
"We are shut out of all posts of trust and confidence."
Yet Mr. Gokhale well knew there was no single office in Bengal except the lieutenant-governorship, which had not been, and might not again be filled by natives, and his friend Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal more candidly and truthfully said—
"We govern India now. What use then have we for the English?"
None. It was the British Army they wanted. Babu rule protected by British bayonets, and paid for by British taxpayers. What a. truly democratic ideal! One respect in which the reforms under consideration were defective was that they did not provide for a Press law. No measure was so necessary as a Press law such as existed in India in the days of Lord
152
Lytton, and was repealed by Lord Ripon, with the help of so good a Liberal as Lord Cromer, who had since repented, recanted, and expressed his conviction that an unbridled and licentious Press was incompatible with the safety of our rule. To turn from these reforms to education; after 1854 Departments of Public Instruction, Universities, and Training Colleges were introduced into India, Elementary vernacular schools were multiplied, and the system of grants-in-aid was adopted, which was not altered in essentials by the Commission of 1882, and survived to the present day. At the last Census, ninety-eight in 1,000 males and seven in 1,000 females, were able to read and write. Those who compared our Oriental Empire with an English parish might comment upon the small proportion of educated people, but those to whom was vouchsafed the knowledge that the whole world could not be judged by-British standards, and managed on British lines, would contrast the educational conditions of our Indian Empire with those of other parts of Asia, whether or not under European rule, and would realise how great was the work which had been done. Even in the Indian peninsula where the peace enforced by the British had enabled Native States to pursue the path of education, the figures were, with some conspicuous exceptions, not nearly so satisfactory as in British territory. The statistics incidentally exposed the falsity of the claim of the 1,000,000 who could speak English to represent the 299,000,000 who could not. It was found by the Indian Universities Commission that the acquirements of Indian graduates were to a great extent inadequate and superficial, and that they lived during their University course in lodgings with admittedly unsatisfactory results. We had since learnt how the shortcomings of this system made these youths, thus gathered together without control or - cohesion, the easy prey of the agitator, and the Government of India had been driven in self-defence to take steps to enforce discipline amongst the student class, ever "cereus in vitium flecti." The hostel system, a rough approximation to the boarding houses of our public schools, or rather to the licensed lodging-houses of our Universities, was now encouraged, but it was clear that further steps were

153
necessary before the students at Indian Universities would be efficiently protected from being debauched by agitators, who led them along the same path which had caused students in Russia to be a thorn in the side of their Government, and too often a disgrace to their country. There were, of course, chiefs' colleges, technical, industrial, arts, engineering, medical, agricultural, veterinary, and normal colleges and schools. Everything was represented in the complex educational system of India, but as the State maintained a position of strict religious neutrality, no religious instruction whatever was given in Government schools, while private institutions, provided that their secular instruction was satisfactory, might teach any religion whatsoever wholly unchecked. In 1888 the important question of moral training was considered, and suitable text books, physical training, and sports were recommended as an antidote to the want of reverence, of respect, and of religious obedience, which were promoted by merely secular education. Efforts were made to prescribe the selection of suitable text books, but the great evils existing were hardly scotched, certainly not killed. Our education continued to be altogether too literary in character for men who had to make their own living. The East India Railway, by taking young natives of India into their carriage and wagon works for training as mechanics, did more good than many colleges. Lord Curzon, who was always ready to grasp the nettle, and from the very comprehensive and hostile criticisms upon whom so often made in that House he wholly dissociated himself, well knowing the cost, dared to uphold the cause of the vernacular languages, the sole resource of all but a small minority, which were generally neglected in the pursuit of the -more marketable English. More, he encouraged primary education, for which the class who were now so closely associated with hon. Members on the Labour benches, had no use, in which they took no interest, and expenditure upon which they denounced. He introduced important reforms into the training colleges, and into primary and industrial schools, and in encouraging the Universities to control the instruction given in colleges and to keep up the standards
154
he became the subject of obloquy and hatred to those interested in institutions, whose object it was to turn Out the largest number of graduates without regard to the standard which they attained. The weaker colleges were at once the preserve of the Babu class, and the breeding ground of anarchists and agitators. Lord Curzon, having given power to the Universities to set their house in order, and to stiffen the standards to something approaching a passable pitch, committees of Universities now perambulated the country for the purpose of inspecting the colleges and of discovering which was not very difficult, their weak points. It was, however, certain that the standards in these institutions needed to be still further raised. But, after all, the chief of the many and great defects of our educational system was that it (lid not provide, and could not provide, any kind of religious teaching, and thus tended inevitably to destroy the respect for authority which was naturally inherent in the Hindu mind. That which young Oxford or Cambridge read and rightly regarded as the mere opinion of the individual writer, young India took as dogma, or, as they said, as a "Shasanam, which came down from Heaven." A seditious print, known as the Indian Sociologist, which in this refuge for conspirators had so far, to his great regret, escaped the attention of the public prosecutor, gave at the head of each issue a text from Mr. Herbert Spencer—
"Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man. Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative. Non-resistance hurts both altruism and egoism."
This was the kind of pernicious stuff upon which young India fastened and fed. It was true the Government could not teach religion in its schools, but it could encourage, and should encourage, what we would in this country for want of a suitable expression describe as "denominational" institutions. The peoples of India themselves realised that education without religion was dead sea fruit. Proofs of their faith in this behalf were found in the existence of the Mahomedan Anglo-Oriental College at Alighur, the Central Hindu College at Benares, the Khalsa College of the Sikhs,

155
and the Arya Vedic and Islamic Colleges of the Punjab. It was, of course, impossible now to put the clock back, and in respect of higher education, at any rate to exalt the Orientalists above the Anglicists. But they should build upon existing lines and follow indigenous leads. Indeed this would be good policy even apart from the crying needs of the educational system. The radical fault of these colleges namely the absence of moral teaching, and of the inculcation of standards of duty, was not present in institutions of indigenous growth, nor did they find them hurling Mr. Spencer's precious dogmas to the hungry student, or Burke's Speeches on American Independence, or Mill's "Liberty" without Stephen's crushing rejoinder, nor did they deal in philosophy of a class which, of doubtful advantage on the banks of the Cam and the Isis, was downright mischievous on the margin of the Ganges. The Government should also have greater control over the text books which Universities now prescribed for colleges, and for the upper classes in secondary schools. The text books of history might with advantage be amended so as to shew that the small armies which won India were always supported by a great Navy, and that England's position in this respect was till now at any rate unimpaired. They might also teach the elementary truth that everywhere representative institutions originated in the extension of aristocratic and oligarchic privileges, and that this stage had necessarily to be passed, and that to ignore experience and to force the pace was to place power in the hands of classes full of prejudice against the poorer and the lower castes and classes, who were freely credited with ideas of which they never dreamt, and with a desire for that of which they never heard. India, governed according to native ideas, was the India of the rule of caste, birth, wealth, and strength. Some competent authorities thought more good could be done by rewarding good colleges for taking proper care of moral training, physical fitness, coporate life and true traditions. By these means the competition in such respects would be set up amongst
156
the pick of the colleges. It would be easy to reward them by choosing from the best the fortunate graduates to whom the Government appointments were given, now that the craze for competitive examination had happily given way to a more true appreciation of its worth. It was indeed all-important that Indian students should be placed under proper supervision, and since they were generally out-boarders, that some such system as the Bishop of Hereford, when headmaster, introduced into Clifton, should be established, and the tutors should have information regarding the status, antecedents, and character of their students, who now paraded Bande Mataram badges in school and college classes. Grants to aided colleges should not be given in cases where false concocted history was taught, for it was madness to subsidise institutions which aimed at the overthrow of British rule. These grants-in-aid, moreover, should be distributed so that different classes of the community might benefit, and most of the money should not go as it now did to managers, who confined instruction to one caste. Similarly, in our Government colleges and high schools the limited space should be allotted to representatives of all classes. Everyone must sympathise with a master in preferring to teach the high-bred, handsome, and intensely intelligent Brahmin youths, but it was their business to see that other classes got their share. It would not do to be democratic at home, and more aristocratic than the aristocrats abroad. Nothing indeed was so important as primary education, so needful for the masses, so unpopular with the classes, and a larger proportion of the total expenditure on education should be devoted to this head, and the number's of inspectors of this class of schools increased. Seeing the importance moreover of the character of their public servants, and of the atmosphere in which they were brought up, it would be well that there should be a Government college on the same lines mutatis mutandis as the old Haileybury, with residential quarters attached, in which selected candidates for the Government service should spend a year or two, undergoing special training at the hands of a good European staff. Not the least important among the reforms,

157
Government could, and should, effect was insistence upon a far higher standard of colloquial knowledge of the languages on the part of district officers. The Babu class spoke perfect English, the English official could not without an effort find non-English speaking natives with whom to talk, and his immediate subordinates would isolate him in his own district unless he persisted and insisted on breaking free from his bonds. It was not necessarily in his interests or in those of the people for whose welfare he was responsible, that his Babus made themselves the sole medium of communication. As Sir James La Touche, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces, lately said, the less advanced, or the less: English-speaking, the population, the better and the closer to the people was the administration. He might also quote the Superintendent of Municipal Schools in Bombay, an Indian gentleman, who said—
"The Indian graduate does not command much influence among the masses of his country— own and does not represent them,"
though he was himself far from thinking this class a negligible quantity; his opinion, indeed, was of the contrary description. It would be evident from these suggestions, that he concurred with the views expressed by all the provincial governments after consulting the beet authorities, official and non - official, throughout the country, to the effect that it would be a great mistake to abolish the fees charged in Government primary schools, and to pay in respect of private schools of the same class a subvention equal in amount to the abolished fees. Primary education could be helped by multiplying primary schools, not by making those existing free. The amount of money available was necessarily limited, and it should be devoted if possible to providing a primary school in every village. He did not know that there was, so far, even in the craze for the introduction of impossible institutions into India, a serious intention to try compulsory education. Nor was there any apparent reason why the Government should pay three-quarters of the cost of a graduate's education, or why graduates should be turned out from Government Colleges at a paltry cost of £6 and £3 a year for fees in first and
158
second grade colleges respectively. The proposal to initiate a class of indigenous institutions, which for want of a suitable adjective he had described as denominational, might meet with some objection from the more narrow-minded members of the school which thought the British Indian Empire should be treated like an English parish, and regarded British methods of administration as suitable alike to the New Hebrides and the Old Hebrides, to New and to Old South Wales, to the North, South, East and West of the round world; but there were signs that the missionaries at any rate had passed this stage, and saw that the destruction of the faiths of the people, and the manufacture of faithless, discontented, and half-educated graduates, was the ruin and not the salvation of the country. At the Pan-Anglican Congress a bishop was reported to have said that they should not be in such a hurry to convert the people, and destroy their own religions, from which it was evident that great advances in the realm of reason and tolerance had been made since the days in which the Government of India was forced against its better judgment, by the Government at home at the pressure of public opinion, to divest itself of religious endowments, which had been administered by its predecessors in India, and which had subsequently been final-administered by private bodies, to the annoyance and indignation of the communities concerned. Unfortunately those who loved English education best hated the English most, and the Government evoked a spirit that they did not even attempt to control or direct. They took the educated Indian away from pundit and priest, freed him from authority, his god for thousands of generations, and then left him to wallow amongst Anarchists, Nihilists, sedition - mongers and the like company, until he found his own, and too often a very low, level. Not only might the steps suggested in respect of education be taken with advantage, but in this and in other respects the Government should renounce the policy of alienating friends in a vain effort to conciliate enemies. This was habitually carried to such an extent as to endanger the good relations so essential between the Government and the

159
European population, official and nonofficial, such as planters and merchants, who were most valuable allies of the administration, and a very present help in time of trouble. Two men and a. boy, or rather two boys and a man in Bengal or Madras, calling themselves by the great name of a Mahajana Sabah or an Indian Association would count for more than 230 loyal English planters, who expressed their views pretty freely when gathered together, but never agitated, and were always true to their salt. It was within the power of the Government of India, as it was within the power of no other body, to give object lessons by rewarding loyalty, so that never again should the saying be current, as it was now and long had been in India, that loyalty did not pay, and that its recognition was deprecated as likely to offend those of another school. Every Viceroy in turn thought it had been left for him to conciliate the babus and agitators, and each one in turn left India a sadder and a wiser man. The natives did not understand a power which was not manifested, and a ruler who stooped to expostulation, extenuation, and explanation, as far as they were concerned, had already abdicated. It was widely held amongst Indian princes, who were undoubtedly loyal to British rule, that even the reforms now under consideration had better have been withheld until the agitators had desisted from inciting their dupes to bomb-throwing and the like outrages. But if the reforms were in themselves good, they were twice good if quickly given, and being what they were he for one would give them at once. Certainly they went as far as was wise at a time when those who demanded reform on behalf of the peoples of India, which they could not prove they represented, continued to denounce British rule, and to palliate if not to applaud the murderous outrages committed by half-educated youths, who were their dupes and their supporters. Whether further advances would be necessary, and at what time, could under present circumstances only be the subject of sterile speculation. It was, however, folly to ignore the fact that the system of election was unpleasing to the people of India, and that men of good class would not submit themselves to the
160
votes of all and sundry, by no means believing that one man was as good as another. Representation in India meant the due recognition of the principle of aristocracy. Happily it was far from being the truth that educated Indians as such were unfriendly to the British, or that the Brahmins, the hereditary and inevitable leaders of the non-Mahomedan people of India, were generally opposed to British rule, but it was the case that only those who had been educated in Western fashion were hostile to our Government, and it was the fact that this movement, like all others, was led by the Brahmins who predominated among, and who dominated, the English-educated class. The Mahomedans, of course, were on a different footing. They were united, had one religion and no caste, and so counted far and away beyond their numbers. Strong control should be kept over the Brahmin directors of schools and colleges, for they inevitably favoured their own caste, no doubt incomparably the best scholars, and cut out other classes, which had at least an equal claim on the administration. Another necessary measure was to train princes so that they should love to stay amongst their own people, instead of living their lives in Europe, the more fitted to which they became, the less suited they were to do their duty in that state of life to which they were called. Nor was it possible to omit the necessity for the establishment of some measures of control over Indians at Oxford and Cambridge, where little hot-beds of sedition were established such as flourished unchecked in London, with the inevitable newspaper to spread the poison abroad. It was almost incredible that meetings should be held without objection in Hampstead" in commemoration of the glorious Mutiny," and that a grossly seditious newspaper forbidden ingress into India should be published without let or hindrance in London. The present Government which had appointed many Commissions might be urged to appoint one more, to report on the political effects of our system of education, and to suggest remedies for its many and great defects. Surely our sanity would be seriously questioned if we went on manufacturing half-educated enemies. It became all true friends of India to acknowledge the great advances

161
made already in the appointments of educationists eminent in British India and in native States, Mr. Theodore Morison and Mr. Syed Hussein Bilgrami to the Council at the India office, but such radical reform as was needed would never be effected unless upon the strong Report of a strong Commission, none of whose members had alternately praised and blamed the British Government according as either attitude suited their present plans. There was, indeed, need for reform, and without giving way to alarm, for which as yet there was no occasion, we should do well to remember that—
"The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain."
He begged to move.
*SIR HENRY CRAIKin seconding the Amendment, said he did not claim the knowledge of India which was possessed by the hon. Member for the Montgomery Boroughs. He did not arrogate to himself that he had mastered all the problems of Indian government, although he had paid a short visit to our Eastern Empire, but he knew something of those problems from long and intimate correspondence with people who were acquainted with the conditions and circumstances of India. He did not mean to dwell at length on the polemical aspects of this question, which were discussed by the mover of the Amendment in the first part of his speech. On that side of the House they felt that the whole country was in-bebted to the Secretary of State for India for having maintained, in spite of temptation to the contrary from many of the extreme Members of his own Party, that attitude which perhaps had saved India from a great calamity. He felt, however, that he could not assent even to the earlier part of the Amendment if it obliged them, quickly and without careful consideration, to carry out even moderate reforms if those reforms were to be given as concessions to violence, conspiracy, or assassination. There was a danger that that interpretation might be placed upon concessions by a large section of people in India, and that made one hesitate to adopt without careful reservation the earlier part of the
162
Amendment. There was another consideration which it would be well not to leave out of account. There were as many natives of India who were liable to be alarmed by reforms too easily conceded as there were within our own country. He had talked over and over again with natives who were more ready to see the evils involved in undue concessions than even he himself was. Let the House remember that all India did not consist of Babus and their representatives. There were vast numbers whose loyalty was not a mere negative quantity, or not a quantity which could be calculated upon indefinitely. They had constantly supported us in the face of constant discouragement. There was nothing that struck one more in travelling about certain parts of India than the fact that many of the native races were alarmed lest the landmarks of their country and the traditions, habits, and customs to which they were profoundly attached might be impaired, if not entirely abolished, by these political reforms. Some members of the Indian population who were most articulate had learned the methods of Western politics, and the tricks by which a small party was made to appear a large one; but they did not alter the profoundly conservative views of many of our best friends amongst the native races. His chief object in seconding the Amendment was to refer to the question in which he was specially interested, namely, educational reform in India. He did not think that in Indian official circles any opinion was more prevalent or more universal than that a reform in education was imperatively required. To a great extent he attributed this not to a lack of enthusiasm on our part, not to the backwardness of any authority in India, not to any desire to crush out the intelligence of the native races, and so make them more subservient. Such a figment of the imagination did not exist among the responsible rulers of India, but he thought that much of our educational machinery in India for the last fifty years had been mistaken, and that many of the mistakes still existed. They were too ready originally to adopt the latest fads and ideas and the freshest contrivances, believing that they would last to the end of time, and to plant them

163
wholesale upon India. Competitive examinations and the pursuit of University degrees gave them the idea that a University was only a place for conferring degrees. That was the last possible attribute which he should like to attach to a University, and for his part he would not he sorry to see an M.A. degree conferred on every child six weeks old, so that they might be done with the superstition that degree granting was the only function of a University. That idea had impressed itself on the people of India. We forgot that while Indians adopted our habits, they did not move forward with the quickness and readiness which we did in the matter of reforms. They had got embedded in their minds that book-learning and competitive examinations were the be all and the end all of everything. That idea exercised a thraldom over the mind of the native which it never attained with us. Even in our wildest vagaries it had never obtained here. We forgot also that we had made mistakes before, and that we might be making mistakes now. The hon. Member for the Montgomery Boroughs had spoken of the opinion that there should be free and compulsory education as one held by none but a few extremists. That was not his own experience. That was not only an idea indulged in by a few extremists. He had repeatedly heard those who professed to be leaders of the Reform Party in Bengal express their adherence to that idea. He thought there was nothing more mad than the fiction that free and compulsory education in India would advance education there, because such a system had been introduced in this country a few years ago. It was mere midsummer madness. It was all very well for the Babu to urge that such a system should be adopted, but did they think that the agriculturists of the Punjab would accept compulsory education? The other day when talking to a leading Indian Gentleman he asked whether, in his opinion, compulsory education would prove altogether acceptable to the native agriculturists. "Oh, yes," he said, "they would have to accept it whether they liked it or not." But who would be responsible for enforcing it? The burden would lie on the much-abused
164
English official. He did not think his hon. friend the Member for Nottingham would be ready to face the music in connection with the difficulty of making education compulsory to the millions of agriculturists in India. We had sometimes forgotten the multitude of races with which we had to deal in India, and how a system of education suitable for one might be entirely unfitted for another. We had introduced a system of education which was predominantly literary which was largely, founded on modern philosophy in absolute contrast to all the ideas with which the thought of India had moved for centuries. We had introduced what we called political science, which meant a number of theoretical books upon the constitution, which were understood in Western countries, but which, unfortunately, were almost all of one type. Students read these books in our own Universities, and there was no harm done. They read them as only the expression of one side, and not as axioms. That was not the case in India. The natives read these books as if they were mathematical truths incapable of being controverted, while at the same time they assimilated our ideas and used them for their own objects and in their own ways in political agitation and controversy. There was one special characteristic in which the native races were divergent from the Western. Was it not the case that we were more or less religious on principle, by teaching, by tradition, by one's sense of duty; and, after all, were we not as a nation fundamentally secular in our minds by the force of environment? The absolute opposite was the case with the native races. Some individuals might, if they thought it better in order to affect advanced opinion set aside the predominant religion. He had found among the agitators in Bengal that the old religion of their race was spoken of with a shrug of the shoulders and as if that was a matter for the lower and not the educated classes. But, however that might be, it applied to a very small number of the inhabitants of India. It was not the case with the vast mass of the people, who were, by instinct and not like us by principle, down to the finest fibre of their being, religious. It was the first motive which dominated their

165
lives; and if we attempted to found their moral education on any other basis we were building, so far as the native races were concerned, on sand. They could not understand what was meant by all our Cowper-Temple clauses. They believed in, the religion handed down to them for long centuries, which was part of their bone and ran in their blood. They believed in no other. It was all very well for some people to say that we could not adopt any attitude except a neutral one in regard to religion, and to dismiss the subject with that remark. He was inclined to say that that was a piece of cant. Why should we divide ourselves from what was the dominant influence of the lives of these native races if we wished to get hold of them? We should never get at the root of the minds of the natives if in their education morals were divorced from religion. Over and over again leading gentlemen of the great races of India had expressed to him, not only during his short visit to India, but over a long series of years, their dislike of this divorce of religion from their schools. He had no wish, if it were found difficult for the authorities, that these should themselves introduce the teaching of religion in the schools. But let the authorities ally themselves with those who would. Let them have open doors to the teachers of religion. The only alternative was to encourage those private schools, those free schools to which the noble Lord had referred and in regard to which he had read some words paragraph denouncing them as the remnants of a bygone system. He took exactly the opposite view from that taken in the words quoted. It was a lesson even for us at home, where we saw the effect produced by a system which necessarily divorced education from religious teaching. There was another aspect of education to which he wished to refer. By all means let us make our education better. But let us not be subject to a traditional superstition in regard to it. He could assure the House that the superstition did not largely prevail amongst those responsible for educational administration; but the public at large and those who spoke on platforms were far too apt to speak as if education consisted solely of
166
reading, writing, and arithmetic. For himself, the more he had to do with education the more he was inclined to regard that as a small part of it. What he looked to was the more vivifying and fructifying elements. We must make our education for the future more practical, but let us not introduce the jargon of technical education with all its jaw-breaking terms. We had ourselves fallen under a sort of tyranny of that kind. We had various classes of schools—higher grade schools, industrial schools, schools of applied science—till we hardly knew where we were. We forgot the real germ of truth that lay at the bottom of the whole thing—that we must make the pupils in our elementary schools here, as well as in India, understand somehow that what they were being taught had some practical effect on their lives. He was not very anxious, nor did he see that salvation lay that way, to establish a few technical colleges. We knew what that meant. It would just lead to the training of a few men to whom the be-all and end-all of their life was to qualify themselves for some Government appointment. That was one of the banes of India at present. By all means have these technical colleges where they were wanted for special purposes; but we should not imagine that by building up that kind of technical education we were forming anything but the apex of our educational pyramid. We must lay our foundation more widely and deeper down. He would rather aim at a technical education in the elementary schools. We could teach the children of the native races of India first of all the dignity of work. That was a novelty to the Eastern mind. We could teach them in the great agricultural districts, which formed the hardest problem with which we had to deal in India, that nature was not, merely a series of antagonistic, hostile, supernatural powers, such as it appeared to the mind in these vast silent territories. We could teach them that it was a force of which they might make an ally, from which they could draw the best of all its resources; that it might become their best helper and co-operator, their familia associate all their life long. We might try that, and then we

167
should get hold of the practical side of agricultural schools. But, above all, we should not forget the conditions with which we had to deal. We must not attempt to mix together in those schools these different races, a practice so much complained of by those who endeavoured to reach native opinion. We had broadened the schools so much that the parents did not find them a fitting training-place for their children. It must be remembered that we were in India dealing with races profoundly aristocratic, however distasteful that word might be to hon. Members below the gangway. We could not force democratic views upon races which were of that temperament. We could not reach them by breaking their traditions as to the conditions which divided class from class. To attempt to do so would only make the schools unfamiliar places which they only thought of as the first step in that career of artificial training, to be followed up by other weary steps to examination, and finally, to end in divorce from those of their own race. Let them he given, above all, something that would help them out of the official service in their own country districts. Let them be helped to seek the alliance of those who represented the different nations in the country. Let not their educational efforts be associated with the notion that the schools could be framed in accordance with ideas that would be satisfactory to the Nonconformist conscience. Let them be taught above all, that British rule maintained its proudest boast of administering absolute, impartial, unbiassed justice between the different classes, races, and religious convictions that came under our sway. That was the problem we had to face in India, and we could only face it by seeking an alliance with all that was best and most characteristic in the native races.
Amendment proposed,—
"To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words this House, while it recognises that the reforms now under the consideration of the Government of India are suitable and sufficient in respect of questions with which they deal, is of opinion that the educational system in India stands in urgent need of reform.'—(Mr. Rees,)—instead thereof."
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
*MR. ELLIS, congratulated his right hon. friend the Under-Secretary upon his statement, to which the House had listened with much pleasure. As an old political comrade he congratulated him on his appearance at the Table. He was a master of Indian finance, and when a few years ago he was in a position of responsibility on the Royal Commission, he had waged war on behalf of the Indian taxpayer and had come out triumphant. Very satisfactory was the statement, so far as the figures were concerned. The right hon. Gentleman had shown them surpluses year after year, not multiplied as the result of under-estimates, but the result of natural growth of the prosperity of the country. Very pleased he was to hear the statement in reference to opium. Last year the noble Lord the Member for Kensington spoke of the premature action of the Government in regard to opium, and drew a lurid picture of what might happen; but it was gratifying to find that there was reduction in the area under poppy cultivation, and promise of further reduction, in accordance with the "accepted policy" of helping the Chinese Government in efforts to extinguish the opium habit among their people. This was the first time "accepted policy" had appeared in official papers and it marked a great advance. So long as the present Government remained in power those words would stand. The reduction in the salt tax was a measure of humanity for the poor ryot who had suffered much from the high price of salt for many years, and everyone must rejoice that the policy of reduction had been exceedingly successful, owing to increased consumption. He had heard the reference to the Police Commission with great interest. There was hardly any part of the Indian administrative system which required to be more carefully watched and needed more thorough reform. He hoped it would receive very drastic treatment. The Report of the Commission respecting the Indian Police was not very pleasant reading, and he was satisfied that a great deal required to be

169
done to improve the morals of the police in India. Nothing was more important for the welfare of India than the development of railways and irrigation works, and he was delighted to hear his right hon. friend say that he proposed to introduce a Bill for the further advancement of the railway system. The Report of the Committee on Indian railways would well repay hon. Members for its perusal. The first thing they found was that the railway system in India was in a state of chaos. That was the result, one of the many unfortunate results, of what he would term the Curzon regime. Lord Curzon thought fit to create a new railway board, which was exactly like the fifth wheel of a coach. The Committee appointed to consider the railway system of India, in a most exhaustive Report, had pointed out how the creation of this new railway board had really denuded the railway system of India of responsibility,and that the state of the whole thing was that of confusion worse confounded. It was to be hoped that the carrying out of their recommendations would put an end to this. He believed that the two things which lay at the root of the prosperity of India were a well developed railway system and irrigation. The Amendment just put from the Chair really embraced two things. In so far as it invited the House to declare that the educational system of India stood in urgent need of reform he was inclined to agree with it; and the system might be remodelled on the lines indicated by the hon. Member, why had just sat down, and directed to the building up of character and training the intelligence for the affairs of life. The present system was too much an attempt to develope the intellectual faculties and did not sufficiently build up character. There was no man snore capable of dealing with this subject than the present Secretary of State. When the Resolution declared that the reforms under consideration were suitable and sufficient, he confessed, before he gave his assent to that, he would like to see what the reforms were. Hon. Members who had listened to what had taken place the other day, or who had read the speeches, would realise that there was a grave situation to deal with in India; but that must not deter
170
them from holding fast to the only clue out of the difficulty. Speaking at this time last year, Lord Morley, then Mr. Morley, used these words—
"Criticism on the attitude of Lord Minto and His Majesty's Government leaves out of account the fact that Lord Minto did not come quite into a haven of serenity and peace."
No one in that Assembly at present knew that so well as he himself did. He had said last year, that the Secretary of State would have been better advised if he had a little more lifted the curtain and taken the public into his confidence, and he was of that opinion still. The Government two years ago found a state of things internally in India which formed a heritage to which few viceroys had succeeded. The reason for that, if anybody wanted to know it, he would find by going into the library and reading the speech of Lord Curzon, made in the House of Lords, the other day. He who read it would see the spirit out of which these difficulties arose. Mr. Morley went on to say—
"Our policy was to compose the unexampled conditions of the controversy and confusion by which we were faced."
A situation had been created which required very grave and patient handling, and the country owed a great deal to the firmness, patience, and sympathy of Lord Morley when he went to the India Office. He did not put himself into the hands of the chief officials as other Liberals had sometimes done when they went to the India Office. That was all he thought that he need say. The situation was grave. It called for a very cool head, a firm and even temper, but, above all, a courageous adherence to the principles of reform. He had read with the greatest delight these words of Lord Minto—
"No anarchical crime will deter me from endeavouring to meet as best I can the political aspirations of honest reformers."
That was very fine language for, a man in his position, for they knew what it was for a Governor-General in Simla and in Calcutta to say those words before those by whom he was surrounded. Lord Minto might fairly be compared for coolness of head, tenacity of purpose and warm sympathies with a great people, to his great predecessor who, to his

171
immortal honour, earned the sobriquet of "Clemency Canning." To a certain extent this discussion on reforms was a little premature that evening. In order to obtain full information they wanted the Report of the Hobhouse Commission, and the views both of the Government of India and the India Office. He earnestly hoped that the Report would be circulated during the autumn session, and that they would then be afforded an opportunity of going into the whole matter thoroughly. It had always seemed to him of far more importance that the head of the ship should be turned in the right direction than that the speed at which it travelled should be high. It had been turned in a very different direction directly Lord Morley took his present position on 11th December, 1905. They knew Lord Morley's mind; he was sure that neither he nor his efficient Under-Secretary would swerve in any shape or degree with reference to the direction in which the ship should continue to be directed. That being so, ho was certain they might rely on the earnest and whole-hearted support of the House and the country.
*MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid he had listened with some satisfaction to the speech of the Under-Secretary for India. The surplus which he had been able to declare in connection with the Budget indicated that so far as the financal state of the Government of India was concerned all appeared to be well. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the military expenditure as one of the items which had been growing in India, and it was only a very modified hope that he had held out that it would be reduced. During the last eight years the military expenditure accounted for in the Indian Budget had gone up from just over £14,000,000 to £20,750,000—an increase of £6,500,000 during that period. That in itself was a very serious item, and, if he might be allowed to express an opinion, not a little of the growing unrest in India was due to the growth of the spirit of militarism, as represented in the Budget by the growing expenditure on the Army. But there was one item which the Under-Secretary had not referred to, and which was not dealt with in
172
these accounts, but was one on which the right hon. Gentleman was perhaps able to give them some information. Each native state of India incurred a not inconsiderable yearly expenditure for Imperial purposes. There was what was called the Military Transport Corps maintained exclusively out of native state funds for the exclusive use of the Imperial Government. In addition there were the Imperial Lancers, maintained by the native states in the same way and for the same purpose. He had had an opportunity of learning that this new form of impost was resented very strongly in at least some of the most progressive native states. It had its origin — this was his information — in a good-natured offer on behalf of one of the native rulers at a time when there was threatened trouble with Russia, and what was then a voluntary offer of help on his part to the Imperial Government had become practically a compulsory charge on those native states for all time to come. It hampered these native states seriously in ninny directions; and he would express the hope that now that the menace, or alleged menace from Russia, which had been used up to the present in regard to the safety of India had been removed, this impost upon the native states of India would shortly be dispensed with. Then in regard to education. It was a great satisfaction, he was sure, to everyone to find that the expenditure upon education this year or in the year coining was shown by the Budget to have increased. The increase however was far from being sufficient to meet the requirements of the case. The most that could be said for it was that it was a step in the right direction. The educational needs of India were very great, and what was further, the desire for education was very great among the Indian roots. One of the sights which he never failed to see when he was visiting the villages away from the big towns, was the local village school, and it was most gratifying to him to find that, although the parents of the children were charged fees which, considering their position, were considerable, yet those fees were paid cheerfully. The children would go four or five miles in a morning to attend school. And there were some

173
cases in which the village schoolmaster out of his fifteen rupees monthly salary would pay the fees of children whose parents were too poor to pay them themselves, in order to enable the children to get the advantages of the education afforded. Under these circumstances he thought that the Government would do well to be a little more generous in its expenditure upon education and educational requirements. He would not enter upon the question of the quality of the education given, further than to say that he agreed in toto with the criticisms which had been offered as to its exclusively literary character. That criticism, by the way, applied to our own country as well as to India. Unquestionably there was a greater need in India for a more all-round education than was at present given. One of the very pathetic sides of India was to be seen in its decaying hand industries. With a little encouragement from the Government, and with a little stimulus to education they might preserve most of these hand industries which represented a phase of the people's life which should not be allowed to die. It was matter to him for regret that the handloom was being superseded by machinery. He had previously referred to what was being done for education in the State of Mysore, and the taunt was thrown across the floor at him that Mysore owed its advanced state to its fifty years of tuition under British rule. As it happened, the State of Baroda which was never under British rule, was even more advanced, educationally, than was Mysore itself. In Mysore, free compulsory education had been promised, and would shortly come into effect. But in Baroda, not only was education free and compulsory, but the educational needs of the pariah children were attended to, and the Government in Baroda set apart a certain proportion of its civil appointments for the exclusive use of children of pariah parents educated in the State schools. A native State, able to do that, set an example which the British Government could well afford to follow. Surely if we held India for the good of the Indian people we should not be content to lag behind a small native State. He was very interested in the remarks about famine,
174
and he would like to take that opportunity of heartily and cordially endorsing what the Under-Secretary had said about the humane activities and the practical work that was being done by Sir John Hewitt, the Governor of the United Provinces, whose work was of a kind which marked him out as one of the type of men whom India needed to develop it along higher lines. But while that was true of the United Provinces and of famine, there was still much requiring to be done to break down the ravages which plague and disease in its various forms was increasingly making. An alarming feature of the outbreak of plague and cholera in recent years had been its continuity, and its increasing virulence. He was delighted to learn that there was this year a very heavy reduction in the death rate and he prayed it might continue, and that at length the disease had be in mastered. But the fact remained, that for the last decade of the last century the average death rate from this preventible cause was over a million a year, and during the seven years which had elapsed of the present century the death-rate had averaged more than 1,000,000 a year. That was a very serious state of affairs. At Poona he found the disease was being grappled with because, in spite of the opposition of one of the chief officials of the district, the authorities had called into co-operation a native committee to assist them in dealing with the plague and the remedies for it. Beneficial results were accruing, and the example was one which could be recommended to other parts of India. They heard much of the causes of the unrest in India, but the real cause, though there were others which had contributed, had been the hope deferred of the native Indians. Time and time again they had had legislation passed and reforms promised, and some reforms the Viceroy or the Provincial Governor had done what he could to inaugurate. But over and over again the promise which had looked so fair to the eye had been blasted to the hope, and as a consequence they had this gathering volume of unrest in India culminating in those recent acts which every friend of India must deplore, connected with bomb outrages. If the India Office, with, he hoped, the full ap-

175
proval and sympathetic support of the Indian Government, was determined to limit the excessive official interference with the natives, to associate Indians more and more with the administration of the country, and generally, both legislatively and administratively, to bring the people more into touch with Indian affairs, unquestionably the dawn of a new and brighter era was about to break in that distracted country. The mover of the Motion had played the part of a Mahatma in professing to know the future, and had expressed approval of reforms which had not yet been formulated. In so far as they had been formulated they were not of a kind which either the Liberal or the Labour side of the House could by any possibility accept with satisfaction. They were in most respects quite reactionary.
He hoped he would be in order in referring to a personal matter. The hon. Member who moved the Motion was good enough to refer to him and others in a way that had been common since his visit to India by persons in more or less official and high positions. He was not the only Member of the House who had assumed that certain things alleged to have been said by himself were necessarily correct because they had appeared in the Press. On two separate occasions Lord Cromer in another place had referred to statements attributed to him, and Lord Curzon had seemed on a recent occasion to be referring to the same thing. A good deal of sympathy had been expended on those Indian officials who were likely to be misrepresented and abused without cause by the native Press and by wandering agitators in India. More harm, however, was done to the cause of British rule in India by the unsympathetic, cavilling spirit represented in the speech of the hon. Member who moved this Motion, and by the régime of Lord Curzon, than by all the seditious writings and all the native Press put together. Calcutta one morning was astonished to find that he had been preaching sedition in India and libelling the Anglo-Indian officials. Calcutta itself knew nothing about it, and until the news was telegraphed out from London neither the officials in Calcutta nor the able journalists who conducted
176
the Anglo-Indian Press were aware of what he was supposed to have been doing. What was the statement which appeared to set the heather on fire, not only in Great Britain, but as he subsequently discovered, all round the British Empire? The Times in a leading article on October 2nd, 1907, stated that—
"The Bengali newspapers assert that he has declared the condition of Eastern Bengal to be worse than that of Russia, and that the atrocities which officials commit there woul caused more horror in this country, were they known, than the Turkish outrages country, Armenia."
The Pressman who sent the cable home was challenged on the spot by five of his brother journalists, all Englishmen, and two of them English Conservatives, to produce his authority for the statement. He was unable to do so. The statement was a pure concoction. The man who made it had such a reputation for misleading the public at home concerning affairs in India that several of his brother journalists in Calcutta, prior to this incident, sent a warning note to the editors of papers here to be on their guard against statements emanating from him. One or two of the newspapers had the decency and the good taste to apologise for having assumed the statement to be true. But despite that, although every schoolboy who took an interest in politics was aware that the statement was a fabrication, hon. Members of that House, and still more remarkable numbers in another place, were not above accepting the unsupported testimony of this one discredited journalist and placing it against all the responsible authorities and journalists in Calcutta and other parts of India. He was prepared to abide by what the Viceroy said in regard to his general conduct. He was not troubled about a personal matter concerning his own reputation, but when his alleged sayings were used to prejudice people at home against the people of India he thought it necessary to make the truth known.
There was one aspect of the revenue which was to him a matter of great satisfaction and that was the decrease in the revenue from opium. At the same time there was a danger that the prohibition of the use of opium might encourage the use of other drugs of a

177
more dangerous character. At Singapore he visited an opium den, and he saw subsequently morphia victims who were literally covered with sores from head to foot, and this was a far more pitiable spectacle than that which was presented by the users of opium. Therefore, it was necessary that they should be on their guard to see that in suppressing the one evil they did not create even a greater one. Another point he wished to refer to was the increase in the revenue from the sale of liquor. During the past ten years the increase had been £5,000,000, and that increase appeared to be still going on. It had been said that this was a proof of the prosperity of the Indian people, but he would like a little further explanation on that point. As a rule people did riot drink to excess when they were comfortably off and well-to-do. It was when they were miserable that they tried to drown their sorrows in liquor, and it would be found that those villages of India where the local toddy shops carried on the most successful trade in liquor were those in which poverty and destitution were without parallel in any part of the world. He would quote to the House some figures which had been supplied to him by a gentleman, Rev. Herbert Anderson, who was at the head of a deputation which waited upon him in Calcutta, and who was the president of the temperance association there. These figures dealt with Bengal exclusively, and they showed that the revenue from the sale of spirits and liquors for the year 1905–6 was £1,100,000, and that was an increase of £73,000 over the preceding year. The last published accounts for the year 1906–7 showed an increase in the sale of liquor of over £48,000. That state of things in a nation where the use of intoxicating liquors was condemned by all forms of religion was very serious. He agreed with the suggestion made by Mr. Anderson that one necessary step to take to have this evil kept in check was to separate the revenue from the licensing function. At the present time they were both in one Department, and, without maligning anyone, he thought he might say that it naturally followed that the revenue officer was likely to be more active in extorting revenue than in acting as a temperance
178
reformer anxious to keep down drunkenness. He thought the separation of those two departments would go a long way towards removing the pressure, which was brought to bear in various ways to increase the sale of liquor in India in order to increase the revenue. That was a matter which demanded the serious attention of the Government both in this country and in India and one which he hoped would not be overlooked. Now he came to the reforms which were in process of being elaborated. The need for reforms in India was a question which was no longer in dispute. Those who had followed the debate in another place would see that their Lordships were practically unanimous in saying that reforms of some kind were imperatively needed in India. Perhaps he might be allowed to say a word or two upon what he considered was a very important cause of the unrest prevailing in India; he referred to the partition of Bengal. It was admitted that much of that unrest was due to the way in which the partition was brought about, and in this connection he remarked that not the least interesting incident in the recent debate in another, place was the way in which everybody tried to evade responsibility for the partition. Lord Curzon quoted a telegram showing how the partition was forced upon him by the India Office, and the representative of the India Office replied that Lord Curzon insisted upon it, and the India Office agreed to it in order to humour him. The point he wished to make was that some reform was necessary in connection with the partition of Bengal. The particular form of partition which had been made was not only opposed by the Hindoo population of Bengal but also from its inception by the Mahomedan population and by the civil authorities from the Governor downwards. Surely there was at least a case for inquiry here. The present partition, geographically and otherwise, was not the best, and as to this point there was no dispute. The only justification put forward for it was that it gave to the Mahomedan population a sphere of influence in Eastern Bengal, that the Mahomedan people were now in a majority under the partition, and that to interfere with the existing partition

179
might take away from them, that majority. But surely the Government of India was not to be driven to the necessity of offending the Hindu population hi order to maintain the Mahomedans in a majority. He would appeal with all the power at his command to the Secretary of State for India not to consider this question a closed book. If partition was an accomplished fact, at least they should see to it that the boundaries were so adjusted as not to give unnecessary cause of offence to a great number of loyal and law-abiding people. In regard to the reforms themselves, he had arrived at the conclusion that no matter what was done for India there could be no real pacification, no allaying of discontent, no breaking down of the barrier rising between European and Asiatic, until the people of India had some effective form of self-government. In the Civil departments the more highly paid positions were practically closed against the natives. The hon. Member for Montgomery had said that in Bengal there was no position which could not be held by a native.
*MR. REES: I said which had not been held and could not be held again.
*MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid there was not a single native employed in the salt department with a salary over 800 rupees a month. The higher positions were all reserved for Europeans. In the Customs Department the line was drawn at 700 rupees.
MR. REESindicated dissent.
*MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid the figures he was quoting were given by a native member of the Viceroy's Council in the Budget debate in 1905. That speech was made in the presence of the Viceroy himself and his officials, and as far as he could ascertain no one had controverted it. In the Public Works Department it was 1,200 rupees. The natives of India were barred from these higher positions. Formerly the natives came here and sat for examination with the view to obtaining these positions, but the number appointed was so very small that they longer troubled to come. They
180
asked that simultaneous examinations should be held in India and in England. There was one reform which he would suggest as thoroughly practicable, and he thought it was one with which most members would be inclined to sympathise. There were two branches of the Civil Service in India—the Provincial and the Imperial. The lower paid positions belonged to the former and the higher paid to the latter. Surely it would be possible to adopt a system whereby the Provincial Civil servants might, after a certain number of years service, and after proving that they were qualified, rise to the higher service. That would give young men who were capable administrators something to look forward to. At present they knew that once they had entered the Provincial service, the higher service was closed to them for all time coining. That was a question which might be considered by the India Office. In regard to the legislative department, he suggested that the whole system by which members were appointed to the various councils should be reformed. The Under-Secretary had ref erred to the growing cost to the people of official charges. It was a well-known fact that the Law Courts were becoming one of the most grievous burdens with which the people of India were afflicted. He was casting no reflection on the Courts; he was stating a fact which everybody knew in India. The habit of going to law had become so prevalent, and the law's delays so costly, that the obtaining of justice in India had become a serious matter. Under the old condition of things each village had its own council. These councils still existed in some villages. He suggested a restoration of the old village council, that it should be popularly elected and entrusted with certain well-defined powers in the trial of civil cases up to a certain amount in small petty disputes. These councils should also have the control of the village school of irrigation, grazing lands, and woods and forests within their borders. The charges for woods, grazing lands, fishing licences, and this, that, and the other charge, did not exist until a few years ago. These charges were grievous in themselves, but it sometimes happened that a piece of land which had

181
been from time immemorial grazing land was suddenly declared to be forest land by the Imperial Government, and people whose cattle strayed on the land were fined for trespass. If these lands were placed under the village council the people would have a real interest in the administration of their own affairs. He had been blamed for saving, but he repeated here, that the ryots of India in intelligence and in capacity for looking after their own affairs would compare favourably with our agricultural population at home. They had no book learning, they did not know much about Western science, but in all that affected themselves they had a shrewd practical knowledge which reminded him of the Scottish farmer at his best. They could be quite safely trusted with those things. From those village councils they could elect district councils, and the districts councils in turn could elect the provincial councils. In this way the whole superstructure of Indian administration would rest upon popular election, and the people would be given a real control over their affairs. At present the provincial councils were practically passive, they had no power to move amendments on the Budget. Provided that enlarged powers were given to the provincial councils, the young men of India who were imbibing our Western ideas would have an outlet for their energies and scope for the exercise of their ability which would keep them out of the way of wandering agitators and other pestilent and pestiferous persons.
*MR. REESasked what the hon. Member would do in the event of the Government being defeated in a provincial council.
*MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid he was not proposing that the Government should he left in a minority on the provincial councils. He would be prepared to give the Government a small majority, though there should be freedom in the council to move amendments on the Budget and to deal with other questions. It was on these lines that he ventured to hope that the reforms, when they came to be hammered out, would take shape. It had been said that owing to the diversity of castes and creeds they could not have popular elections. He denied that statement. At the present time in
182
Bengal three-fourths of the members of the local council were elected by popular vote. In Bombay one-half of the members, and in Madras the whole of the members, were nominated. In all the big cities and towns of India there were popularly - elected town councils.
*MR. REES: Of lawyers.
*MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that that did not matter; they were elected by a popular vote. If the hon. Member was going to say that lawyers were not fit to represent the common people, there was some reforming to be done in the House of Commons. He could quote a number of cases to show that people of different castes and creeds could unite at elections to secure the return of certain members. He would give one illustration. The city of Benares was the holy city of the Hindus, and the facts he was about to state were made on the authority of the town clerk, who was himself a native Christian. In that city there was not a single ward in which the Mahomedans had a majority of electors. There were nineteen members elected by popular vote to serve on the council. Of that number twelve were Hindus and seven were Mahomedans. The same thing was found all over the country. In Madras a provincial member was being elected when he was there. Madras was a Hindu province, 83 per cent. of its people being Hindus, The Hindu organisation brought forward a Mahomodan gentleman who was subsequently elected to represent them. The talk about caste and creed was greatly exaggerated, and if it was desired to break down caste prejudices the best method was to give the people some form of popular representation in regard to which they would be compelled to work together for the common good. The present moment was doubly serious for this country in connection with India from every point of view. It was not merely that unrest was growing in India; unrest was growing throughout the whole of the East. There was trouble in Turkey and Persia, there was the great awakening in Japan, and there was the development taking place in China. India, after all, had more affinity with the East than with the West, despite 150 years of European occupation. The Hindus and Mahomedans with whom he came in

183
contact were kindly well-intentioned people. The Hindu o in particular were very much maligned, but if they had one fault greater than another it was their submissive loyalty. Those natives who were kindly affectioned, well-meaning, responsive to sympathy, having no higher ambition in life than to live loyal under the British Flag, were being treated as pariahs. We had responsibilities not only to the people of India, but also in the face of Europe; for if unrest was spread throughout India a conflagration might one day break out in China, Japan, and even nearer home, which would set India ablaze and burn up the last vestige of British rule. The people there would be loyal if they felt that their grievances were being acknowledged and redressed; but repression of legitimate reforms and a denial or postponement of what they had been led by proclamations by the Crown, by the promises of Ministers, and by speeches in their midst to believe were their rights as British subjects, would produce that feeling of hopeless despair which bred discontent and disloyalty and menaced the unity of the Indian Empire.
MR. MACCAWsaid that, as one who had spent some years in India, he would like to say a few words in this debate. In the first place he desired to record, in common with previous speakers, and indeed with all who had any interest in the greatest of all our Dependencies, how much he deplored the present condition of affairs in certain parts of that country, and the attitude of a certain, though he would fain believe only a small portion, of our native fellow-subjects. The feeling of unrest which undoubtedly existed had arisen from various causes, for most of which we, as the ruling race, could not he held accountable; but there were others which he thought were the direct and logical outcome of our own deliberate acts. He might take the question of education, for instance, which was now under discussion. When we decided, many years ago now, to establish a system of higher education in India, he wondered if it ever entered into the mind; of those responsible what, as time went on, was likely to be the result of their action. He did not think that even the most it far-seeing amongst them could have
184
anticipated the situation which now existed, and which was growing more acute day by day. The result of that system was that all the large towns of India were flooded with young men, educated up to a certain standard, by an education which had the effect of confirming them in their belief, though no doubt unintentionally so, that manual labour was degrading, and which quite unfitted them for earning their livelihood by the means which their fathers and forefathers adopted, with the consequence that their ambitions and thoughts were wholly turned, either towards the learned professions or to Government employment. The opportunities in both these walks in life were of necessity limited, with the result that numbers of educated and to some extent qualified men were thrown on the world without occupation of any kind, a sure hotbed of trouble in any country. The list was being added to year by year, and the position was undoubtedly becoming a somewhat serious one in this respect. Naturally these idle men became more or less discontented with their lot, and he was afraid in many cases harboured resentment against those who, quite unintentionally, had placed them in the anomalous position which they occupied. What was to be the remedy for this state of affairs, it was somewhat difficult to formulate. The suggestion had been put forward that the opportunities for University education should be very materially curtailed, but he did not believe that that idea would commend itself to many thinking men of the present day. One of the most important of our many duties in India was to see that our fellow-subjects there had placed at their disposal freely and lavishly all that Western knowledge could impart, and he trusted that this would be recognised so long as England remained the paramount power in the government of that country. He had no claims beyond those of an ordinary observer to speak on the subject of education, but he thought the general consensus of opinion appeared to be that our whole system there had been, and still was, far too much of a literary, As opposed to a practical character, and in this direction he thought most people were agreed a great change was required.

185
Technical instruction must receive much greater attention than had been the case in the past. In improved methods of agriculture alone a vast field lay open to the educated Indian, and there were few crops now being produced which could not be doubled and trebled in quantity and value, were recognised systems of scientific cultivation to be applied. In this work, occupations might be found for thousands of young men who, under the present system of education, had no career open to them beyond a struggle for existence in the overcrowded sphere of Government employment. With the aspirations of educated Indians to the fullest share possible in the Government of their country, he had nothing but the warmest sympathy, but even the most sympathetic mind must see beyond question that there were limits in this direction. So long as England remained responsible to India as a whole for the great trust which she had undertaken, the supreme control of affairs must remain vested in men of English race. The vast interests committed to her care were so complex and so varied, and at times so conflicting, in their character, that none but most impartial administrators could be considered as qualified to do them proper justice. This consideration alone, even if there were no others, which lie was far from saying, must effectively dominate the situation for very many years to come. At the same time there was, lie thought, a strong desire on all sides amongst Europeans in India, that capable natives should be associated as much as possible with the Government of that country. A great deal had already been done in this direction, but it was generally recognised that the time had come when a further step forward might be taken, and the Government scheme which was at present under consideration for the enlargement of the Imperial and Provincial Councils was awaited with a considerable amount of expectation, although it was felt than any advances of this nature must be gradual and in no sense revolutionary. He thought it was incumbent on all Members of the House to refrain from saying one word which might have the effect of aggravating the condition of affairs out there at the present moment, a position full
186
of the gravest anxiety, but he was only stating what was common knowledge when he said that all well-wishers of India, both native and European, would join in condemning in the strongest possible manner the spirit of disorder which had been manifesting itself in certain quarters during the past twelve or eighteen months, culminating in the dastardly outrages which had been perpetrated quite recently. There could, he thought, be no two opinions worthy the attention of any right-minded man, as to the imperative course open to any Government when called upon to deal, with a state of affairs such as had been shown to exist. Law and order must be maintained at all hazards and at all risks, and. whether the offences were incitement to disorder, or disorder itself, the punishment must be equally swift and sure. The two measures recently passed by the. Government of India for the suppression of bomb, manufactures, and the more effective control of the Press, had not been placed on the Statute-book one moment too soon; indeed, there was a strong feeling amongst many well qualified to judge that the latter measure had been far too long delayed, and that if the incitements to outrage and other evils which existed had been dealt with strongly in their earlier stages, they would long ere this have been effectually stamped out. Liberty was not licence, and both the liberty of the Press and the liberty of the subject were seriously imperilled when anarchy was permitted to spread rampant throughout the land. He rejoiced to see that many of the well-known and leading native gentlemen had spoken out with no uncertain sound on this question, and were giving the Government their full support. One of the great dangers to be apprehended, if the lawlessness which at present existed were not put down with a strong hand, was the effect it would have on the trade and internal development of the country. In commercial circles in London the difficulty of raising capital for investment in Indian industrial enterprises had long been recognised. This, he thought, had its origin in the times when the flunctuations in rates of exchange between India and England were violent and extreme, and men who

187
sent money out to India could form no accurate idea as to what rate it would be returned. Thanks to the wise measures taken by the Government of India, some few years ago, a much more stable condition of exchange had of late been established, though the effects of the old feeling of insecurity had not yet entirely passed, away in some financial quarters. Another cause which had contributed in no small degree to keep British capital from flowing towards India, was the very unsympathetic attitude adopted by the Government of India towards all commercial undertakings. The long delay on the part of the Government in' answering correspondence, and the mass of red tape formalities which had to be gone through, before any permission could be obtained to do anything towards opening up the country, so disgusted the enterprising capitalist that he entirely refused to have anything to do with the place, and became willing to lend his money for investment in any part of the globe rather than India. The fact was that up till quite recently there was no one connected with the Indian Government who had the slightest knowledge of commercial matters, and merchants were in a sense tolerated rather than encouraged. The appointment of a commercial member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, initiated a year or two ago by Lord Curzon, was decidedly a step in the right direction, as indicating that the Government of India were abandoning their former position of aloofness, and that they now recognised the responsibility which was on them to foster trade in every possible manner. It was to be hoped that some arrangement would be come to by which frequent changes in the holding of this office would be avoided, so that the member might always be well in touch with all the commercial requirements of the country. This improvement in the attitude of the Indian Government towards trade generally must, if continued, have ere long a good effect on the minds of British capitalists, but he would like to utter and emphasise a warning that if the idea was allowed to get abroad that law and order and security of property were not being rigorously maintained, the better financial feeling which was
188
being gradually built up would rapidly be swept away, and the development of India retarded for years to come. One of the most important of all the matters engaging the attention at the present time of those interested in India was the question of railways. It was one which affected the whole country and everyone living in the country. Rapid and cheap means of transport were a necessity in any country, and more particularly so in a vast area like India, where distances were so great and where the material transported was for the most part of small value, compared to its bulk. The pressing need at the moment was not so much the opening out of new lines, though this was, of course, a matter that must be steadily pursued, but the proper equipment of lines which already existed. For years past the outcry had been great against the immense dislocation of trade which occurred season after season, in consequence of the shortness of rolling stock available for moving the produce of the country. To his own knowledge the coal trade of Bengal, which had come rapidly to the front of late years, and which was capable of infinite expansion if properly encouraged, was being most seriously retarded by the want of waggons to transport the coal from the mines in the interior to the places of consumption or ports of shipment. Continual protests were being made in the Viceroy's Council, at meetings of Chambers of Commerce, and by private representation, but all with no effect, and the state of affairs at the moment was as bad as, if not worse than; it had ever been. The general system of management seemed to be at fault. He did not mean the individual management of the lines themselves, for in most cases this seemed to be quite efficient, those in charge being a really capable and hard working body of men, but the general system of control, which was exercised by the Government itself, seriously needed revision. A few years ago, in consequence of severe criticism, a railway board, composed of experts, was established at headquarters and great things were at first expected of it, but greater still had been the disappointment. The true explanation he believed was that it

189
had never had any real power, and those composing the board had always been kept too much in a subordinate position. The magnitude of the interest in railways was such as to warrant its being made into a separate Department of Government, with a free hand and a seat on the Viceroy's Executive Council being given to the chairman of the board. If this were done and full provision made in each year's Budget for railway requirements, there would then be some probability of the urgent needs of the mercantile community and of the country receiving that satisfaction which had been so long denied to them. This was a matter which he desired to bring most strongly to the attention of the Secretary of State. But all the arrangements which the skill of man could devise were of little value to India, unless backed up by favourable climatic conditions. The one great requisite essential to make the land prosperous, and the bulk of its people happy and contented was a plentiful supply of rain, properly distributed, and falling in its appointed season. This was all that was really necessary to secure a bountiful harvest, and with a full yield of food crops the country could never be considered as poor. He rejoiced to see that so far this season the progress of the monsoon had been satisfactory, and he trusted that its continuance would soon drive from the land that gaunt spectre of famine which had been threatening some parts of the country for so many months past. With a plentiful supply of food, and freedom from turnmoil and unrest, the future of India could only be considered as full of hope and promise.
*SIR HERBERT ROBERTSsaid he had listened with great pleasure to the hon. Gentleman who had shown his knowledge of the wants of India, and also his sympathy with the legitimate aspirations of the people there. The hon. Member for Merthyr had referred to the alarming increase of revenue derived from the consumption of liquor in India. That subject had been noticed by those interested in India for many years. A deputation of Members of Parliament
190
and others interested in the subject waited on the Secretary of State for India in August last, and the Memorandum had been forwarded to the Indian Government on the subject. He hoped the answer of the Indian Government would soon arrive and that the Government would be prepared to lay it upon the Table of the House. Everybody would recognise that the discussions on Indian affairs were far too limited in the House, but until some scheme of devolution of the business of the House was brought into operation he was afraid more time would not be able to be given to then. It was a gratifying sign that more interest was taken in the House in Indian matters than used to be the case. In certain quarters it was thought that the discus don of Indian affairs in the House of Commons was injurious to the Government of India, but so long as we lived under a democratic form of Government it was inevitable that the House of Commons should take interest in all matters relating to India. In his opinion nothing but good could come from discussions conducted in the spirit in which the debate that day had been carried on in relation to Indian affairs. The House of Commons had shown a true instinct in relation to the critical state of affairs in India in the various matters that had been brought before it in the debate. He would like to join hon. Members, especially the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe, in the expression of their sense of admiration of the way in which the Secretary of State for India had in face of enormous difficulties pursued his way in Indian affairs. The noble Lord had moved forward necessarily slowly but steadily towards the goal he set before him when he took upon himself the responsibility of administering the affairs of that Empire. He had done it in such a way as to merit the confidence of both sides of the House. When the time came to write the history of his administration it would be seen how deeply the noble Lord's mind had been written on the life of the future of India. At present we were in the midst of what was called a crisis and it was our present duty to consider what our action should he. The last twenty years had been an interesting epoch in the history of India. In the preliminary parts of the circular

191
issued by the Government of Simla it was pointed out that everything was changed in India; that education had taken great strides forward, and that the number of scholars now learning English had been doubled. Those who had studied the history of India would have come to the conclusion that India had been accustomed during centuries to be governed by a small number of people whose intellect and culture fitted them for that purpose, and he ventured to submit that history would repeat itself in the growing power of educated India of to-day. The Secretary of State, in a speech delivered a short time ago, referred to the existence in India of two parties—the moderate party and the extreme party. He thought it would be more correct to say that there were three parties connected with political agitation in India. At the beginning of the twenty years period referred to, there was only one -arty pledged to constitutional methods in India; but, owing to the delay in securing reforms, another party grew up, and the movement in connection with this second party was stimulated by the partition of Bengal and all those things which were generally referred to under the term "the Curzon regime." Then came the third party of physical force and outrage.
MR. PATRICK WHITE: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I beg to call your attention to the fact that there are not forty Members present.
*Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot move for a "count" between the hours of eight-fifteen and nine-fifteen.
*SIR HERBERT ROBERTSsaid that he and all who cared for the welfare of India deplored the outrages and deeds of violence perpetrated in India, and were prepared to do everything that was possible to support the Government in rutting down with a firm hand all the symptoms of violence and outrage. He believed that all the constitutional leaders of the Reform movement in India were with them in a determination to do everything to support the Government in stamping out these deplorable symp-
192
toms and in restoring peace and confidence. In reference to the main principles of the reforms produced by the Government, they had long been expected and were overdue. They all knew the difficulty in connection with the machinery and the Government of India which made progress necessarily slow. He attached great importance to the Decentralisation Commission, and he was pleased to hear the Under-Secretary say that the Report would be presented in two or three months and that the Secretary of State for India hoped that before the end of the autumn session he would be in a position to announce the decision of the Government upon the important reform proposals. The Secretary of State himself had outlined the direction in which the reforms would travel. These were his words—
"They will be steps which shall do two or three important or even momentous things in the history of India."
He summarised the two directions in which reform would travel under the following heads—
"(1) Anministration improvements. (2) We shall, I hope and feel confident, do something to give the population of India in all their grades some form and authorised opportunity of handling some of their own affairs."
He had no doubt it would be found when the reform proposals were laid before Parliament that, on the executive side, they would be in the direction of the election of some Indian on the councils, and, on the legislative side, in the direction of the grant of larger representation of Indians by their election on the legislative councils and the granting to those councils of wider functions in finance, etc. He desired to express his sense of the grave condition of affairs in India. On the one side there were elements in the situation there quite new to our experience as governors of the country. On the other side, there were some hopeful signs. They had in the Secretary of State a man of the temperament, courage, and ability he had already described, and they had a firm, courageous, and sympathetic Viceroy, and one who would make his term of office memorable in many ways in the Indian administration. But more than that, they had the fact that the most experienced administrators

193
in India recognised the desirability of moving along the road of reform, and to his mind that was one of the most important factors in the present situation. The evident remedy, in his opinion, for the elements of danger in the Indian situation lay in an endeavour to establish closer unity between those who ruled and those who were ruled in India. Personally, he thought the dark clouds on the horizon would pass away, and he had a firm belief that another chapter could be and would be written in the history of British statesmanship in the administration of the Indian Empire.
MR. HART-DAVIESsaid he would like to add his humble tribute to the skill, clearness, and lucidity with which the statement on the Indian Budget was produced by the Under-Secretary. Having himself had a long connection with India, he listened to the right hon. Gentleman's statement with enormous interest; and kept wondering what an extraordinary, wonderful machine the Indian Government was. He had never been one of those who had tried to decry the Indian Government or the service to which he used to have the honour to belong. He thought it a very great, a high-minded, an honest, and an incorruptible Government, which had done a great work for India; but, when listening to all the good things the Under-Secretary had to reveal in his Budget—how taxation had been reduced, how communication had been developed, how the country, in fact, was advancing in every way, how plague and famine had been successfully coped with, and then how at the end of it all there was profound unrest and discontent all over the country—he could not help wondering why the excellence of our administration in India had ended in the dissatisfaction of the people. He believed the root reason was to be found in our failure to appreciate the peculiar national characteristics of the Indian people. With us, material objects always seemed to have a wider share in our range of ideas than those which he might call the ideal. We had never been able to understand the spiritual aspects of the problem, and that, after all, was the reason of our failure in connection with Ireland. We had never been able to
194
understand what the Irish people thought-about; and, in like manner, he thought we had failed to understand what the Indian people thought about. Irrigation works and protection against famine and plague were all very well, but they did not make up for certain spiritual desires there were in every people and more especially in the people of India. He was sure that it must conic as a great shock to anyone who knew anything about India and her people that there was this unrest and dissatisfaction. He did not know any people more easy to get on with and to manage or who responded more readily to sympathy, and to hear that they were in a state of dissatisfaction with the Government seemed to come upon them something like a blow. What was the cause of it? It was partly want of sympathy and partly because for two years a spirit of unrest had been gradually growing. If twenty-five years ago we had only gone on with the policy of local self-government and had attached to ourselves that body of educated native opinion which was found in the National Congress—an extremely valuable and learned body—and had fell: wed their advice, looking upon them as a kind of branch of the Government of India, we should have avoid al many mistakes which we had made. There was no doubt a large amount of unrest in China, Turkey, Persia, and in fact all over Asia, and, of course, pit had greatly affected India. The main cause, however, was our failure to understand the people's spiritual desires. We had given them a Western education, and had put Western ideas of freedom and self-government into their heads; but we had not been able to satisfy them in any way. The old regime had gone on. They could not see any difference, and at last a spirit of hopelessness had settled upon the educated people of India. They looked on the pledges that had been given that all subjects of the Crown should have an equal share in the country as having been broken, a feeling of despair had come over them, and it took a form which they all deeply regretted and particular forms of which they looked upon with abhorrence. If they had only gone on with the local self-government which Lord Ripon began they might have had a new India by this time. It.

195
was true they had district boards and they had to this day languished in a kind of way. It was said the people had a complete want of interest in them. But in the Bombay Presidency the average area of the jurisdiction of each of these boards was 440 square miles. The average income each board had to spend was £415, which was not a large sum. One-third of it went in education over which the district boards had no authority at all, and a good deal more went in roads in which also they had no interest. Four-sevenths of the boards were nominated and not elected at all, and it worked out in the end that each really elected member had about 10s.a year for the area of a square mile to superintend. Under those circumstances they could not be expected to take an interest in the work. The whole thing was a farce. That was a thing that ought to be altered, and although the Under-Secretary for India very wisely would not be drawn into any hint as to what the reforms were going to be, as he was in a position of rather greater freedom and less responsibility perhaps he might make a few suggestions. One was that the natives should be on the executive councils. That, he thought, was adumbrated by Lord Morley the other day as an extremely possible reform, and he hoped it would be carried out. There ought to be some system of election to the councils. He did not see why each district should not return one member on the Council of the Presidency. He was greatly struck with the speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr, and he believed the plan he adumbrated of rising from the village community right up to the Council for the whole Presidency through various stages of election would be a feasible policy, and he did not see why something like it at all events should not be carried out. All the district officers had a great deal of writing to do, and had not time really to go about in the villages and make the acquaintance of people as they ought to do. If all these matters connected with public works were taken off their shoulders and put into the hands of district associations, it would give them more time to do their work and would interest people in the development of the country. They might at first make mistakes, but it was only by making mistakes that they learned how
196
to administer. After all, our own history showed that the beginning of self-government in the widest possible sense was in the self-government of the village, and that eventually led to the fullest grant of local self-government it was possible for any nation to have. He hoped that that would be one of the reforms that the right hon. Gentleman would take into consideration. Then there were many minor reforms which ought to be possible—to move amendments to the budget, and to call attention to administrative acts, for instance. He did not believe there would ever be real peace in India if that ill-omened partition of Bengal was not in some way modified or done away with altogether. It was arranged in 1833 that Bengal was to have a Governor in Council, and he believed no further Act would be necessary in order to establish a Governor in Council. The Lieutenant-Governors were only put in as a kind of stop-gap until a Governor in Council was appointed. That would be a way out of the difficulty into which we had got. All they would have to do would be to go back to the original scheme of having a Governor in Council for the whole of Bengal, with various authorities for the outlying provinces, such as Assam, in the shape of Chief Commissioners. It was an infinite pity that when the Liberals first came into power the occasion was not taken to modify the partition. It was with extreme reluctance that he said a single word of criticism of Lord Morley. He had done a very great work for India and he hoped he would do still greater work in the future. The partition of Bengal was only an act of administrative convenience. There was no moral principle involved in it. There was nothing to connect it with the existence of the British Empire in India. It had nothing to do with any question of high policy, and the question of British amour propre ought not to he involved in it at all. If it was altered it would be a message of peace to the people of India; it would show that we took their wishes into consideration and did not wish to ride roughshod in any way over their aspirations, and with other reforms this evil chapter of unrest and dissatisfaction in India, which he deplored o as much as anyone could, would be finally closed and they would go back to their

197
old status of sympathy and affection between English and Indians which used to exist and which he hoped would exist again when these ominous clouds had passed away.
*MR. GWYNNthought he was the first who had spoken in the debate without first-hand knowledge of India, but it was because they had in Ireland some experience of what it meant to be governed by an assembly that was foreign to them. In listening to the utterances of the hon. Member for Montgomery Boroughs, he thought he was listening to the kind of opinions that he was so familiar with from the Ulster Unionists contingent. Yet the speech of the one Irish Unionist who intervened was more liberal and more in harmony with their ideas as to what was meant by the value of education than that of the hon. Member who spoke with all the authority of long experience of official life, and whose speech made such a contrast to the utterance of the supposed violent agitator which was delivered from the Labour benches. The House, he was sure, would have considered which of those speeches was more likely to bring peace in India, and which was more likely to create irritation and discontent. The Amendment which they were discussing raised the question of education. Was it not a strange thing that they should have the pretension to decide what the people of India should be taught and how they should be taught—to decide upon the education of persons divided from us by half the world, strange to us in speech and in religion. They might ask themselves in what sense they were going to determine their education. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rushcliffe said the ship's head had been turned in a new direction. By what star was that course set? What was the ideal that was to govern the education that they proposed to give to the people of India? Did they simply wish to maintain India as a place that provided an honourable and well-paid career for the sons of the professional classes and as a field for trade that they could not only keep free for themselves, but which they could regulate and in which they could tax the home products of British India in such a
198
way that cheap Indian products should not have advantage over Manchester cottons? If in governing India they were actuated by the old notion of the relation of the mother State to its Colonies—the idea of the eighteenth century—he did not know that all the denunciation that had been heaped upon the present system of education had any real justification. He was not sure that the education which had been given under the wise guidance of England to British India had not been the very best education in the world to keep British India in a perpetual state of subserviency. The effect of that education had been to divorce the people of India from their religion, and from the whole tradition of their moral life. Judging from the Irish standpoint he was quite familiar with the kind of education which had been laid out for India, and that kind of education was calculated to kill in the people the spirit of resistance. Was that the idea with which they desired to educate the people of India? He quite understood the idea put forward by the hon. Member of Montgomery Boroughs, which was to avoid producing the agitator and. produce the loyal man at all cost. He knew full well the loyal man in Ireland and the kind of education that had produced him. He would like to know what was the ultimate intention of the Liberals of to-day with regard to education in India. Did they regard the present state of affairs with satisfaction? Did they believe that the predominance of an alien race was the thing to be maintained in perpetuity? He blew that the average English Liberal regarded himself as a trustee of freedom in India, and he hoped that they were educating the Indian people to be some day free, although he was convinced that it would not be safe now to grant freedom to the people of India because there was a danger that they would be at each other's throat. He did not know that freedom would be so great a danger to the people of India, and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil evidently regarded that danger as being wholly exaggerated and fictitious. If the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil was right he did not think Liberals could salve their consciences in that way because they professed to believe in the

199
principles of nationality and development on the lines of racial freedom. If there was no such duty placed upon England as that of keeping the people of India from cutting each other's throat, in what sense were they to guide the education of India? It was true that there was no Indian nation, strictly speaking, but where were the nations that were once there? All through British India there was one common denomination, and that was the common subservience of the people. In framing their conception of what the Indian people ought to learn, were they to teach them with a view to keeping them in continual subservience, or were they going to educate them to become some day people that might be either friendly or hostile to this Empire, but, at least, they would be free people. That was, after all, an urgent question. Let them take the facts as they found them. Let them take the most brilliant book ever written about British India, and they would find in it, from beginning to end, a glorification of the spy. Was that the highest ideal of India from the British point of view? Was there no other ideal that could be set before the people of India than that of abandoning their own loyalty and their own religion, and taking upon themselves the service of the British Empire? The responsibly for what was being done in India to-day came home to all Members of this House. What was their hope and fear in regard to India? Was it their hope, was it their fear, that India some day might be free? [An HON. MEMBER: Yes.] That was a question he put to the Party opposite, and he hoped someone would answer it.
*SIR HENRY KIMBERsaid the subject upon which he wished to make a few remarks was that of the great railway asset of India. He wished to associate himself with the congratulations of the noble Lord on the front bench in regard to the statement which the Under-Secretary for India had been able to make. He regretted that the right hon. Member had not been able to acid some more material to that which he placed before them in regard to the railways. They had all read the financial Memorandum, and he only understood the right hon. Gentleman to say among other good things
200
that they were proposing to take into consideration the recommendations of Sir James MacKay's Report upon Railways. From the financial statement which had been put before them it would be seen that the revenue of India was £50,000,000 a year, and that did not include the revenue derived from this great asset of the railway, which was £30,000,000 more. That arose from the fact that the mode of keeping the accounts of the railways had been altered for the better, the net revenue only of the railways being brought into the general account instead of the gross receipts being put on one side and the expenditure upon the other. There were 30,000 miles of railway in India, for which £253,000,000 of capital had been raised on the credit of the Secretary of State in England, the benefit of which had been given to the people of India. The revenue derived from that capital paid about 5½ per cent. upon it after allowing for all the expenses of working and all other charges. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that the net receipts after paying interest were £2,500,000, and lie thought he had rather understated the figures, because there was a large portion of the capital raised under the aegis of the companies which were now practically nonexistent and which had largely been paid off by means of annuities, which included the capital as well as interest, cad this amounted to about £750,000, which made a sum considerably over £3,000,000 as the net profit derived from this great asset of the railways by the Government of India for the benefit of the Indian Exchequer. All that profit had been derived from British capital and it had gone in relief of the taxpayers of India. The whole of that capital had been raised, with small exceptions, upon the credit of the Secretary of State for India on behalf of the British Government. If India no longer remained ours, the consideration of the security of that debt of £250,000,000 would be a very serious matter. This railway capital was in part raised by companies, with the guarantee of the Secretary of State, some fifty years ago, beginning at 5 per cent., and until the year 1900 the railways of India were carried on with a deficit remaining to the charge of the Indian Government. From the year 1900 to the present time, after

201
allowing for interest, those railways had yielded a very considerable surplus, which had been growing every year until it had now reached about £2,500,000. Many of theIndian railways paid interest varying between 7 and 9 per cent., and in two cases they paid 12 per cent, and 10 per cent. The railway which paid 7 per cent. was the one with which he had to do and over which he had presided for many years, and that railway could now, if permitted, raise capital without the assistance of the guarantee of the Government of India. Fifty years ago it was necessary to give a Government guarantee because money could not be raised without it. When in India last year he had the pleasure of conferring with the Minister of Finance on the subject, and he made a suggestion which was favourably received. If the Secretary of State for India had to look after all this capital, it followed that the Government of India had to bring into its budgets every year the whole of the railway finance. They had to take into account in the ordinary Budget the provision of the means for new construction and further capital outlays on open lines, and the consequence was that very great delay necessarily occurred through the fault of no one, but simply through the fault of the system, and progress could not made. The money available under the programme of the Indian Government was £10,000,000 a year for the whole of the Indian railways, and that was scarcely sufficient for equipment with the necessary rolling stock for the normal increase of passengers and goods and merchandise offered for transit and improvements of open lines. It was admitted on all hands that that was a state of things which ought to be remedied. His proposition was supported by two eminent Indian officials of experience who were directors at this moment of other companies. He would like to be informed by the Under-Secretary, if convenient, whether the recommendations which had been made on this subject had been adopted. It would be of interest to the House and also to the money market of this country to know whether the proposition as to the raising of capital without the guarantee of the Secretary of State had been,
202
or was likely to be, adopted. It seemed to him that it was plain that a company which was paying so large a percentage on the whole of their capital ought to be able to raise money in London or in India without the assistance of any guarantee at all. There was another convenience which would result from the adoption of this plan. The interest which the Secretary of State had in the railways could be put in the form of stock, and some of it could be taken up by the native princes of India. He knew that some of them desired to take an interest in the railways, they kne—that the undertakings were earning good interest on the capital employed. The railways were improving the revenue from the lands they possessed, and they had expressed the hope that they would be enabled to acquire an interest in them. One other point he would like to mention. Great credit was due to the Civil servants who were performing most beneficial work in connection with irrigation in India. These officers in the Punjab were carrying out works in districts where there was not a white man within a day's march. The circumstances of their employment were such that they could not take their wives or sisters to the places. He believed they were not sufficiently paid. The pay was supposed to be good enough to attract them as young men to the service, but looking to the enormous advantage which the work in which they were engaged brought to the finances of India he thought they deserved a more ample reward than they at present received.
SIR GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSONsaid the hon. Member for Galway had suggested that our system of education in India was designed mainly to render the people of India subservient and obedient, so that they might be the more easily controlled by the dominant power. On the other hand, they had lately heard great fear expressed everywhere that by our system of education the exact reverse of that was being brought about. There were conflicting opinions, and he fancied that his hon. friend was in a small minority. What were we doing in relation to the question of education in India?

203
It seemed to him that what we had been mainly accomplishing unconsciously, was to provide ourselves with a sufficient supply of clerks and subordinate officials for the large requirements of the whole of the great Empire of India. That seemed to him at first sight what had really been done. The system we had adopted had also been the cause of an immense amount of the present unrest in India. It had added considerably to that unrest owing to two different circumstances. First there was a general wave of emotion and of curious sentiment which had spread all over Asia, analogous somewhat to the flood which spread over Europe in 1848. That undoubtedly had had a great effect on the question of unrest in India. It had undoubtedly been increased by the successes of the Japanese against the Russians, and of the Eastern against the Western. It had raised hopes—false hopes he believed—throughout many of the Eastern nations that the East would. in the future be the peer or the conqueror of the West. That was one of the causes of unrest. The next was the very question of education which they had been discussing. We had educated a largo number of people to supply our own demands for clerkships in subordinate positions in India, and there was a large reserve of that educated class. Though the class itself was a very limited one in relation to the whole population, it was very powerful from the fact that they had got education. There being a large surplus of educated young men, many of them, of course, utterly failed to obtain the appointments for which they had striven to qualify themselves, and consequently they were discontented, and eventually they played the role of unemployed men wherever they wore. They either submitted in a sort of heartbroken despair or were rendered furious with anger against fate, which in their case was synonymous with British Government in India. That was really one of the main causes of unrest in India. Another particular reason was the nature of the education given to the Indian. It was most specially a literary education. It was not professional, industrial or technical, and consequently; when a man did not got an appointment he; was rendered hopeless, and he gradually
204
fell back into the position of the agitator. He might be asked what was the remedy? Well, the first thing they ought to do was to acknowledge the cause. If that was admitted to be the cause, he did not think there would be very much trouble eventually in finding a remedy. He wished to impress on the House his belief that what he had stated was the main cause of the unrest in India. The position was very serious and very critical, and it might have been dangerous but for the quiet firmness and excellent strength of officials both here and in India. He thought those men had observed that the first requirement of Government, especially in India, was the power of reticence. They were working silently; there was no declamatory speech; they did not go in for perorations. That was one thing, if not the chief thing, which had rendered the present troubled and critical time in India otherwise than dangerous. Of course, there always must be very great trouble in reconciling the people of India to the rule of a Western people. Some of these causes were permanent in their nature and some more or less ephemeral. He thought the wave of emotion in India had now reached its flood mark, and was about to subside; but there were other important causes which they might trace and deal with. They had always been there, and so far as he could see they would always remain. First of all, there was that curious but absolutely certain difference in manners, customs, and religion which peculiarly distinguished the East from the West, and which was carried into detail in such an extraordinary way that it actually became physical. There was in India a physical distaste of the East with the West; that could not be doubted. It was the same in China. A Chinaman disliked service with a Western, for the curious physical reason that he could not stand the odour of the Western. He attributed it to too much indulgence of the Western in animal food. Such things raised racial prejudices. He knew it was a delicate subject to touch upon; but one might mention a similar circumstance with which possibly they were all familiar in this country. He referred more particularly to the question of the Jews. It had been said that every country got the Jews which that

205
country deserved. When they said that they paid a high compliment to themselves. But there was always a great difficulty in the way of friendly assimilation between the Jews and ourselves; and the chief difficulty had been really some question of ceremonial purity—some idea on the part of this race which originally came from the East. The same thing happened in India at the present day. He had been much struck by the impressive and thoughtful speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, and lie might say how pleased he was to hear his repudiation of the slander of which he complained. It must have been a terrible thing to any Member of the British House of Commons that, at such a critical time, utterances of such a slanderous character should be attributed to him, and they were all glad that he was free from these imputations. The hon. Gentleman might not have been long enough in India to find out this peculiar repugnancy of the natives of India to Western men; but it was one of the main and permanent causes of the general dislike of the Eastern to the Western. It was very strong; it had always existed, and it must be faced. But allowing for all this, and for many other causes which he did not desire to enter into at the moment, it was interesting to give one's opinion as to what the immediate future of India might be. He was extremely optimistic about it, as the House might have gathered from what he had said. He believed that the main trouble was subsiding; that now, owing to the admirable strength and calmness displayed by the Viceroy and the officials at home and in India—owing to the strength with which they had been able to say that nothing in the way of those mad efforts and the detestable tactics of agitators should deter them for one single instant from proceeding with reform—they might be hopeful for the future. About eighteen months ago he was asked his opinion of what was going to happen in India, and he ventured on a prediction which had been happily disproved. He said that the great trouble was that the feeling of unrest in some places might lead to isolated outrages, and worst of all, that some
206
unfortunate, unhappy Englishwomen might stiffer, following which there might arise the greatest danger of a a white panic. That latter he had always looked upon with the greatest dread. Curiously enough the outrages had occurred, but there had not been the slightest suspicion of anything like a white panic. It had been obviated by the calmness and courage of every white person in India, and by the admirable behaviour of the Viceroy and his Government. That was the reason why he thought they might look forward to the immediate future of India with distinct hope. He thought they were suffering now from a little too much government in India. The people in India were accustomed to look upon their Viceroy as one who was placed in a singularly elevated and isolated position, surrounded by all the parapharnalia of State, and he thought they had been a little surprised and perhaps disturbed, to see an official so highly placed come down from his exalted position and employ himself principally in working and driving forward the engine of State. He thought that one might fail altogether by being over-energetic in a particular occupation. One might steam up the engine to an extreme point of efficiency, but the strains might become too great, and the engine would suffer languor: in its Movements. Still worse, this highly placed official, this almost mysteriously apart man, had before all the people of India come down to be a kind of protagonist in what almost amounted -to a party fight with his own subordinates in which he had been practically worsted. He thought that might well be understood by the people of India as a curious overturning of the natural conditions of things, and lead them to believe that there was now a chance for an agitator of any sort. He would like to say how he disagreed with the noble Lord the Member for Kensington in one particular about, education. He thought that the noble Lord seemed to refer to the fact that in the schools they depended a good deal upon denominational teaching, and that, the natives who attended them lost their religion. His experience led him to believe that that was quite illusory. In the great

207
missionary schools which were largely attended by natives, because the education received there was very good, the missionaries insisted on reading a chapter of the Bible, but he was right in saying that hardly any child ever changed his religion from Hindooism to Christianity.
EARL PERCYsaid he was not referring to missionary schools, but to State schools where there was no religion taught at all.
SIR GEORGE SCOTT ROBERTSONsaid the same thing would apply in other schools; but even where they tried to change the religion of the children that was not effected. The head of one big college had explained to him that he not know of any one instance of the change of religion of a child. He asked the gentleman how it was that the missionaries were able to continue their work under these circumstances; and the reply was that they believed that in the end their good work would tell. He himself sincerely believed that the future of India was full of hope, and that for the various reasons he had described. He did not for a moment believe that India was at all prepared for what we considered to be democratic institutions, and he was very glad to hear the remarks of the junior Member for Merthyr Tydvil on that point, and that in that hon. Member's opinion the Government should always have a majority of non-elected members on the provincial councils. We had a distinct mission in India. Although it might be that the education we were providing in India made the people at present harder to govern, it would be the meanest policy possible for us to cease giving that education merely on that account. He congratulated the Under-Secretary on the favourable statement he had been able to give on the Indian accounts; and he was sure that every person in the House and in the country at large was firmly persuaded of the excellence of the Government of India as conducted by Lord Morley and the Under-Secretary of State. There was one point not raised in the debate, the terrible old fallacy that India could never be governed by demo-
208
cracy. He supposed that that fallacy had passed away for ever. If anybody believed that it was equivalent to saying we were throwing up India in despair, but if it was looked at for a moment and regard was had to who had been the strongest Secretaries for India the names of Lord Morley and Sir Henry Fowler would be admitted to be amongst them, and if democracy was able to produce men of that calibre then it showed that India was able to be governed by democracy.
*SIR H. COTTONassociated himself with the previous speakers in congratulating the Under-Secretary of State on the statement that he had made. He had made it in a manner which convinced hon. Members that he compared not unfavourably with his illustrious chief. On behalf of those Members of the House who had served in India lie thanked the right hon. Gentleman for his invariable courtesy and above ill for his accessibility, which was a great virtue in an official. He had heard many of the observations which had been made with regard to the educational system in India, with feelings of amazement. When he took a broad view of the matter the one feeling that predominated in his mind was that of pride and exultation that England should have been able to work out so grand a system with such magnificent results. It could not be a very bad system which enabled foreigners speaking another language and living thousands of miles away to come to this country and compete with the cream of our own youth in our universities and beat them at their own tests. Within ten years there had been two senior wranglers at Cambridge, who were natives of India. The great bulk of the carping criticism which had been heard that afternoon on the educational system of India was wholly misplaced. The question of unrest in India had been discussed from various points of view, but if he might say so respectfully, none of the speeches made, not even that of the hon. Member for Merthyr, had really gone to the root of the matter. It was not merely a question of reform. We might grant concessions—nobody knew what they were at present, but it might be

209
assumed that they were good, beneficial, and in the interests of the Indian people—but concessions and reforms such as were contemplated would not allay the discontent and unrest which were now so strongly seen in India. The real cause of that discontent and unrest lay in the spirit and policy of our administration and until that was changed they would not remove this discontent. The great question was, were we to govern India through, by, and in conformity with the wishes of the people, or to govern them as we were doing at present. entirely irrespective of and too often in direct opposition to, their wishes. Although he had a very high admiration for the late Viceroy of India, whose great qualities, all who knew him must recognise, he could not but admit that upon Lord Curzon rested in a large measure the responsibility for governing India irrespective of, and too often against, the wishes of the people. The climax of that policy was reached when he determined upon the partition of Bengal, which was one of the greatest errors, and one of the most profound blunders that were ever committed by the alien governors of a foreign country. But what was the real wrong? It was that it was an administrative act carried out in direct opposition to the wishes of the people affected. Thousands of meetings had been held to protest against it, and there had not been the faintest recognition of them by this country. Petitions of protest and telegrams innumerable had been sent to the Government of India, and to the Secretary of State, but they had been ignored. This defiance of popular opinion was the main cause of the discontent. When he left the Province of Bengal six years ago there was hardly a word heard of unrest and it was solely due to the policy of the Government that it had arisen. Bengal was the most important province of India, and what Bengal thought to-day, the rest of India generally thought to morrow. But what had been done to soothe matters in other provinces? Let them look at Madras. Gentlemen of position in that province had been prosecuted for sedition, and the Courts had sentenced them to transportation for life. That was a monstrous thing. What was the result of sentences of that
210
kind? It was that they drove the peaceable citizens of Madras into the ssme degree of irritation and unrest as existed in Bengal. It was the same in Bombay. The most influential citizen of Bombay was being now proceeded against for sedition, and it would be improper under the circumstances to comment upon the proceedings, but he thought that to seize the present moment to prosecute the most popular man in Bombay was simply suicidal. If the Government wanted to create discontent and unrest in Bombay they had certainly adopted the very best means of attaining their object. As to the violence of the Indian Press it was no doubt very bad in some cases, but he was bound to say there was considerable justification for it in the language used by our own Anglo-Indian Press of India. He had seen articles calling the most distinguished natives of India polecats and cowards, and some of the papers even appealed to the authorities to flog the Congress leaders. What was the remedy? That was the real question. We were face to face with a situation of extraordinary difficulty; and nothing short of a reconstructed form of Indian Government would meet the case. He noticed that in a speech in the House of Lords the other day, Lord Morley referred to this question. He said—
"For my part, I have no ambition to under take such a task.'
He might have no ambition to undertake the task, but unless he faced the great problem of reconstructing the form of Indian government, neither he nor the Government he represented would ever get to the bottom of the unrest and discontent. What was the present form of Government? It was administration through the Indian Civil Service. He knew something of the Indian Civil Service; probably no man in England knew more than himself. Both his father and grandfather served thirty years in the Service; he was cradled in it and rose from the lowest to the highest place, becoming a Governor of a province, and served thirty-five years in it; and he had a son now serving in it. His family connection with the Service therefore extended considerably over 100 years, and he ought to know

211
something about it. The Service had done magnificent work— in the past; it was a splendid Service, and he was proud to have belonged to it; but, like other great institutions, it had had its day, and the time had come when it Was bound to pass away and make room for an improved, altered, and more representative system of government. The Indian Civil Service was consistent only with absolute autocracy and a bureaucratic form of rule. It was really suited only to the government of a people by foreigners. The time had come when it was necessary to review the position which the march of events had rendered untenable, and the Government would have to consider in some way or another this large question of the reconstruction of the Indian Civil Service. All judicial o appointments—he was speaking generally and not in regard to backward tracts—should be taken away from that service, and o should be held exclusively by those who were trained in the knowledge and practice of the law. Judicial duties should no longer be left in the hands of officers who were wholly executive in their training and habits. That was one great change which would have to be effected, and we should also have to adopt a more popular and representative form of executive administration. At the time the Civil Service was organised it was felt, and rightly felt that India must be governed on an autocratic, one-man-rule method. We had got beyond that now, and expected Liberal statesmen, when they were responsible for the affairs of India to look at o the question from an altered point of view. Did hon. Members believe that any form of administration of a country could be permanent when it was in the hands of a small number of foreign emigrants, pilgrims and strangers who v ere continually coming and going, and who, while in India, were in a state of isolation in religion, ideas, and manners front the people of the country? We could no longer continue to govern India on lines suited only to a slavish and ignorant population. And yet that was what we were endeavouring to do when we declined to face the problem of reconstructing a form of administration which was established more than 100 years
212
and which the course of events had rendered altogether inappropriate to the present time. He could conceive no more ignoble and unworthy policy than that a great Power like England should avowedly continue to govern the Indian people with the deliberate intention of holding them in perpetual subjection and with the set purpose of preventing their advance to freedom. That he laid down as a broad principle, which ought to meet with general acceptance on a Liberal Front Bench. But when they came to discuss the problem of the future of India they were met as Lord Morley met them in a speech he once made by saying: "You are crying for the moon." Even Lord Courtney, good friend to India as he was, had suggested that these were mere idle dreams. And yet these things were not idle dreams in the eyes of the people of India. We had imparted our Western ideas to them; they had learnt from us the conception of freedom; and, when they were trying to develop it and work it out, instead of co-operating with them and assisting and encouraging them so as to bridge over the disturbance which must inevitably exist in any change in the form of Government, we resorted to coercion and transportation, sometime, even without trial. These remedies would never meet the existing situation, and that was why he urged that a Committee of the House should be appointed in order to consider these wide questions, to take evidence from all points of view, and to advise the English nation on the course which should be followed. The present moment in India was critical. There was no doubt about that. So far from our difficulties being over we were only on the threshold of them, and what might happen in the future depended entirely on the wisdom, sagacity, and Liberalism with which this crisis might be met by the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary.
MR. BUCHANANsaid the debate, had travelled over a considerable area and many most interesting speeches had been made, but he did not think it was incumbent on him to reply in detail to them. He had occupied a great deal of time already, and he did not think it would be fair if he were to occupy much of it now. He had listened

213
to all the speeches with great interest and they had been most suggestive, and he hoped they would be helpful to the Secretary of State in the difficult task that lay before him. He confessed there were some things in the speech of his hon. friend the Member for East Nottingham which would not exactly make their task easier, because he must really recognise, as other speakers had, that they could only go gradually in advance. They had shown their willingness to do that, and he hoped that, when their scheme was produced, the fair mind of Members and of his hon. friend himself would acknowledge that they were endeavouring to take a real step in advance. He could not help thinking, whilst his hon. friend was speaking, that perhaps some of the sentiments to which he gave expression would not render a gradual and somewhat limited advance in the first stages as acceptable as it otherwise might have been. But he welcomed the statements made by other hon. Members. They had had an interesting speech from the hon. Member for Bradford, which was full of suggestive ideas, and they had had an interesting speech from the hon. Member for Merthyr, and although he did not profess that they would be able to agree with the proposals in detail made by the hon. Member. they were practical proposals put forward in a practical way. They had them under his name in the dossier at the India Office, and they were prepared to consider them in detail with other practical and substantial proposals which he had from time to time thought right to put his name to. The general point raised had been the question of education. As he had said in his opening remarks, they did not spend so much money on education as they would like to, but the amount had increased and was increasing. Instead of the figure being something like £1,600,000, they really spent out of public funds in India more like £2,600,000, and they were progressing in that direction. Action had been taken upon the Report of the Commission referred to, and they had been doing a certain amount with regard to technical and agricultural education, and, he hoped, the v would be able to do more with regard to vernacular education. Technical edu-
214
cation was rather a difficult matter. It was an expensive form of education to start, and he was bound to state from information he had obtained that some of their efforts had not been wholly successful and acceptable to those for whose benefit they had been intended. They hoped, however, that the difficulties might be obviated by arrangements better suited to the desires and occupations of the different localities in India. They were very much alive to all the suggestions which had been made with regard to education, and particularly to the suggested improvements in administration. Principally on financial grounds they could not undertake largely to increase the amount of money they could afford to spend upon education in the future. It was one of the subjects, certainly, Lord Morley had very really at heart, and he hoped to make very substantial progress during the time he remained in office. Although the debate on the Amendment had been exceedingly wide there were hon. Members who wished to speak on other subjects which would not be in order on this Amendments In order that they might have that opportunity it was desirable that the discussion on the Amendment should come to a conclusion so that the remainder of the time at their disposal might be devoted to other subjects.
*MR. C. J. O'DONNELLsaid that the debate was a distinct improvement upon previous debates, for there had been exhibited a real desire to approach the question of the Government of India in a sincerely sympathetic spirit. He did not wish to refer to the criticisms which had been passed upon a few Indian representative members of the Indian Civil Service, but he thought he was justified in protesting against the language used in another place by a distinguished nobleman who once held the position of Viceroy.
*MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Member that it was contrary to custom to answer in the House of Commons speeches made in another place.
*MR. C. J. O'DONNELLsaid that under the circumstances he would not pursue

215
that subject. He wished, however, to associate himself with what had fallen from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil, whose able speech had shown the utmost toleration, and he felt sure that the feeling of the House generally was that the hon. Member had been most grossly maligned. He had been maligned himself, but perhaps in a less degree. His name had also been associated with the Extremists in India, but his own opinion was that Extremists, either in India or Ireland, were a positive danger to reform and good Government. He wished to associate himself with the appeal which had been made to the India Office to re-consider the partition of Bengal. On this subject he had always spoken with the utmost moderation, as he absolutely recognised that there was a very strong case in favour of the partition which was considered necessary in order to help the Government to carry out its duties. But admitting that, he could not understand why the India Office sat on its heels and refused to recognise that a great protest had been made. Those who protested were absolutely loyal subjects and embraced some of the greatest and most distinguished natives of India. The men who pressed this matter most on the Government were the territorial aristocracy. Three of the most distinguished men in Bengal who were behind this protest were refused a hearing at Calcutta, and that he could not understand. The eminent officials at the India Office were the salt of the Indian Civil Service, and why a body of that sort should refuse to listen to the arguments of, the Bengali people passed his understanding. He begged the House to use the influence it possessed to press the India Office to smooth this matter over and arrange the partition ii such a way as to obviate the breaking up of the Bengali people. He would not enter into any elaborate argument in regard to this partition. When 45,000,000 of people spoke the same language it was a considerable argument in favour of their ancient rights to be called a nation. Bengal was a ration, and the people there had spoken the language for centuries; as long as the English people had spoken English. The only claim they made was to be allowed to keep the o Bengali-s eaking
216
districts under one governor. It was a reasonable request. During the past three years much wrong had been done and much bitterness had been aroused, and he believed that the feeling against British government would go on as long as we insisted on this partition. He was ready to say that British Government in India was an absolute necessity for the civilisation of India. He could not express his opinion too strongly as to the necessity of giving the Government every possible form of support when it had to deal with such crimes as had recently been committed, but if the Government of India was to receive that support from the people of India the only way to justify our rule was by listening to the reasonable demands of the people of that courtly and by doing justice without too much regard for the amour proper of officials.
*MR. LUPTONsaid he would like to join in the appeal which had been made by hon. Members in regard to the partition of Bengal. It must seem exceedingly strange to the people of India that we in this country should take so much interest in their education. There could be no doubt that in all of the more essential matters of education the people of India were 1,000 years ahead of the British. He had recently seen a description of a University in India, which flourished about 1,500 years ago, where there were 100 lecture pulpits from which 100 professors could simultaneously address the 10,000 students who were there assembled. He was not sure that the education there given was such as was suited for a conquering people. He rather thought there was some truth in the remark of a Scottish sergeant, who was with the British Army when it was conquering Upper Burmah. Referring to the Buddhist priests, who would not fight nor ask the people to fight because they considered it wrong to kill, be said "They are no use." The Hindoos were ahead of us in the more important parts of education, religion, and philosophy, but for a conquering nation it was more important to know how to shoot and to fight, how to lie and steal. With regard to the quality of our rule in India, one test of Government was the death-rate. In the year 1884–5 the death-rate was

217
26 per 1,000, and in 1904–5 it was 35 per 1,000, an increase of over 40 per cent. in a period of twenty years.
*MR. REES: That was because the earlier statistics were not accurate.
*MR. LUPTONsaid that was what was always stated when statistics were inconvenient. The Civil Service in India were quite capable of collecting statistics twenty years ago. The death-rate in India had increased owing to a state of things which was hardly a credit to this country. Many people there had not money to buy food. Tha extra Assistant Commissioner of Ferozeporo reported that men in many of the villages do not get food for two meals in twenty-four hours. In the province of Agra, and Oudh, the Collector of Etawa wrote—
"The united earnings of a man, his wife and two children cannot be put at more than 4s. a month. This income will enable the family to have one fairly good meal a day."
The Collector of Banda wrote—
"A very large number of the lower classes of the population clearly demonstrate by the poorness of their physique that they are habitually half-starved, or have been in early years exposed to the seventies of a famine."
The Commissioner of Fyzabad quoted Mr. Bennett's statement that—
"It is not until he has gone into these subjects in detail that a man can fully appreciate how terribly thin the line is which divides large masses of people from absolute nakedness and starvation."
and the Commissioner added—
"I believe that remark is true of every district of Oudh."
The same Commissioner wrote—
"It has been calculated that about sixty per cent. of the entire native population are sunk in such abject poverty that unless the small earnings of child-labour are added to time small general stock by which the family is kept alive, some of the members would starve."
He could give quotation after quotation from Indian officials to the effect that the people had not enough to live upon. The plague, of which they had heard so much, was only a symptom of a state of things in India which was hardly creditable to our Government. The first thing a good Government should do was to see that its people were well-fed and not half-starved; and how could the people be well-fed when the income of the natives over great parts of India was only ½d.
218
per day? That was the glorious Empire in India which the House was asked to uphold. In his opinion, the sooner a Government which was unable to support its people came to an end the better. The reason was that the crops raised by the people of India were not sufficient and that production was going down. In the Central Provinces the produce per acre was only 372 lbs. per annum, whereas the Government estimate was 600 lbs. In Berar, for nine years ending 1900, the average product of wheat per annum was only 144½ per acre as against 2,000 lbs. in England. Here they had proof that India was not in a condition sufficient to support the people. The reason for that was that the taxes extorted from the people were excessive, and accordingly they went to the money lender, and the money lender compelled them to sell their grain at once and at a low price. The consequence was that they could not get stock to manure the land, the land got worse, the people became poorer, and when a failure of rain came they had to starve. All that was done for the sake of maintaining great armaments in India. It had been said that India was lightly taxed, but the taxation had greatly increased in twenty years. The Indian Budget for 1887–8 showed that the amount of revenue to be raised was 774,000,000 rupees, whereas the estimate for 1907–8 was 1,116,000,000 rupees, or an increase in twenty years of 44 per. cent., and a great part of that extra taxation had been got out of the land. If the revenue from land was taken, the figure for 1887–8 was, in round numbers, 229,000,000 rupees; whereas in 1907–8 it amounted to 304,000,000 rupees, or an increase of 32 per cent. If, however, instead of taking the land revenue alone, the items of irrigation and forests were added, the total revenue from the soil in 1887–8 was 246,000,000 rupees, and in 1907–8, 383,000,000 rupees, showing an increase of 55 per cent. He would now consider what this money raised from the poor people of India was spent upon. In 1887–8 the Army, including expenditure on military works, coat India 205,000,000 rupees; in 1907–8 it had increased to 309,000,000 rupees, an increase of 50 per cent. The great bugbear of Russia no longer existed, and there

219
was no justification whatever of such a terrible increase in expenditure on armaments. But take the expenditure on salaries and the expenses of o the Civil Department. That was o in. 1887–8, 250,000,000 rupees, contrasted with 379,000,000 rupees in 1907–8, or an increase of 51 per cent.. The total expenditure on the Civil Service, collection, pensions, and Army had increased from 455,000,000 rupees in 1887–8, to 688,000,000 rupees in 1907–8, an increase of 51 per cent. The Hindoo got Very little benefit from all that. He would compare the expenditure in India with the expenditure in England to show how the former told on the poor. The total income of the entire population of India was estimated by Digby at £284,000,000 a year. It was calculated that the income of the people of the United Kingdom was £1,800,000,000, or More than six times as much. If we spent on our Army, Navy, and Civil Service in proportion to our wealth, what was spent in India, we would spend £275,000,000 instead of £94,000,000. There was no wonder that there was unrest in India. It seemed to him that the House should calmly consider whether it intended to bleed India white, and go on taking from the poor Indian people those taxes from which they got no return. It would be very easy to reduce the taxation in India if native instead of European servants and administrators were employed. The wages of a European were forty times those of a Hindoo, and there was, therefore, no wonder that India was being ruined. The rupee had come down in twenty years, but the price of wheat, the chief product of the India ryot, had come clown in like ratio, and the ryots had to pay 11 rupees for every rupee they paid in taxation twenty years ago. He would not go further into this, as he thought he had said quite enough to show that the case of India required serious recoil-Aeration. The plagues and famines would never be got rid of until this extravagant expenditure on the Army and Civil Services was stopped, and taxation was also stopped altogether in the poor districts for some five years or so, in order that the cultivators of India might recover. They were the hardest worked and most industrious people
220
in the world, and if some hope was given to them that what they earned would go to them and their family, in that way India might in twenty years again become a prosperous country. At present our rule did no good to India. India had been called a rich country and was until we went there and destroyed their manufactures and their, shipping. We had done this by laws deliberately passed to bring that about. We were now destroying their agriculture, their last resource, by excessive taxation, and it would be a disgrace to this country and to the party to which he belonged if they did not, now that they were in power, take the opportunity of trying to stop the ruin of India and of the people who, for a time, were committed to our care in that country.
Question "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
Main Question again proposed.
MR. MACLEANrose to call attention to the Motion standing in his name dealing with the condition of the church accommodation for soldiers of the Anglican community in India. It raised, he said, a question of national importance. The difficulty arose in this way. In 1860 certain Regulations were made by the Government of India for the provision of churches for British troops in India, and under Rule 3 a church was provided for the Roman Catholic and for the Protestant communities in the Army. That rule laid down that the word "Protestant" should include Weslevans, Presbyterians, and other denominations. It was understood that there should not be more than one Protestant church provided, and certain regulations were drawn up, but under this rule that church was to be under the control of the authority of the Anglican Church in India. For thirty years that rule had never been acquiesced in by the Scottish Church authority. It met with a certain sense of satisfaction because it was interpreted in a tolerant spirit. But a change came over the tolerant attitude in 1897, and certain revised rules were contemplated to provide that in the event of any dispute

221
with regard to the use of the church, so far as the military authorities were concerned the final appeal should be to the Commander-in-Chief of the station. If the question of want of accommodation in Protestant churches for these Protestant communities had been left to the military or the Civil authority no difficulty would have arisen, but the decision was left to the ecclesiastical authorities, and in spite of all the efforts of the Civil Government there the difficulty had remained persistent. Some of the hard-ships which the Scottish regiments had to suffer with regard to this were very great. They had no church set apart for the Scottish chaplain, and frequently had to worship in the-school-room or music hall where the remains of the last night's entertainment had been left, which did not tend to a spirit of reverence. The position was that the Scottish regiments sent to India had to pivot around Presbyterian places of worship except in cases of military emergency. What was the result? He mentioned the glaring case of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders. For years they had been near the frontier expecting to take their place in the recent war. When they were at Peshawar they were ordered to march to the front. Subsequently they received an order to go back to Calcutta, where they now were, and the Manchester regiment was moved right up to the north to take the place of the Gordon Highlanders. Everybody would agree that that was extremely hard lines on the Gordon Highlanders, who had been waiting on the Frontier o take their proper part in the campaign. What was the consequence? The Gordon Highlanders were in Calcutta to-day and were not in a state of mutiny, hut of great unrest and discontent, on account of the hardships imposed on them owing to the uncharitable action of the Anglican authorities in India. The regulations enforced were ridiculous. The idea that Scottish regiments were to pivot around such meagre provision as might be made for Presbyterians, while other regiments coming many years later could be moved about the whole of India in accordance with military necessity, was enough to break the heart of any soldier in any regiment in the British Army. He ventured to hope that whatever might be the difficulties in the way
222
of the Secretary of State he would see that for the future the Government building set apart for religious worship should not be consecrated to the use of any one denomination, but should be open and free to all in the. British Army. So long as such churches were claimed for one denomination they should be kept at the sole expense of that denomination. He hoped a common-sense opinion would prevail upon those who were at present standing in the way of a reasonable settlement of a most irritating problem.
*MR. EUGENE WASONsaid that the Scottish Members, believed that the Scottish regiments were under a, great disadvantage at the present time because they were not sent to places to which otherwise they would be sent as there was no place there in which they could worship. They had no wish to make any complaint against the Anglican Church except to say that these were Government churches, and that Presbyterian services ought to be allowed to be conducted in them. But the Anglican authorities had gone further than not providing facilities, they had actually when they had allowed Presbyterians to worship in these churches, forbidden the ministers of the Scottish churches to administer the Communion there. That was a great insult. These churches were built by the Government out of public, money and the clergy were mostly paid by public money. As these churches were maintained and supported by public money they ought to be as free for the administration of the Presbyterian Communion as the administration of the Anglican Communions. They did not quarrel with either the Anglicans or the Roman Catholics, but they did say that for the Scottish troops to be kept at Calcutta and not given the same chance as other regiments, because there was not a Presbyterian church in a district to which otherwise they would be sent, was a grievance under which they ought not to be, allowed to suffer. At the present time the Scottish regiments were being unfairly treated because they were kept in places where there was not a Presbyterian church. If in other places they were allowed to worship in the same

223
churches as the other denominations they would have the same chances as other regiments.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid it was stated in the White Paper recently issued that this was a question between the Church of Scotland and the Government on one hand, and the Church of England and the Government on the other; but all the churches in Scotland had the same interest in the matter as the Church of Scotland, and the whole of Scotland was unanimous and felt very deeply upon the point. He quite recognised that the scandal attending the consecration of churches in India would, under the Secretary of State's despatch, now cease, but he did not think the suggested remedy would be accepted as such, either by Scotland or by Scotsmen in the Army. The official papers referred to six or seven Scottish Infantry battalions, but they by no means represented all the Scottish soldiers in India. The artillery was very largely recruited in Scotland and in many of the cavalry and other regiments they found a large proportion of Scotsmen. They had to consider not six or seven Scottish battalions, but the Presbyterians in the Army, and he ventured to say other Protestants who were probably even a larger proportion of the Army. The present system under which the Anglican bishop or chaplain had the right to prohibit services of any other denomination in churches erected by the Government of India was intolerable. It had been worked without much Christian feeling, and they would never consent to the present arrangement. It was proposed in the last despatch that a Scottish regiment should be concentrated where there was an unconsecrated church. That was extremely unsatisfactory. Those who went into the military service wanted to go where there was likely to be work, and in many of the frontier places they would not find an unconsecrated place of worship, and again the unconsecrated places often compared unfavourably with the consecrated places of worship. It was not quite fair to call upon the people of India to provide churches for every variety of Christianity that happened to be represented in India, and the principle that there should be one Protestant
224
Church in each station was the soundest. They therefore asked and expected that Protestants who did not happen to be Anglicans should be allowed to hold their services, solemnise marriages, baptisms, and the sacraments in the churches provided by the Government, and that no Government grant should be given to such churches from which they were excluded. It was not a matter which could be left to the discretion of the bishops of the Anglican Church; it was not from them that they sought their rights; they sought them from the Government.
MR. C. E. PRICEsaid that very strong feeling on the subject had been roused in Scotland, and he scarcely thought the Secretary of State had realised the strength of that feeling, or he would not have issued the report or suggestion referred to. He noticed the other day that in reply to a question the Under-Secretary referred to these Protestants as Nonconformists.
MR. BUCHANAN: I never used that word.
MR. C. E. PRICEsaid he did not catch the expression himself, but it appeared in the report of the right hon. Gentleman's Answer. He might have used it unwittingly.
MR. BUCHANAN: Never; it must be a mistake of the reporters.
MR. C. E. PRICEsaid he was aware that the right hon. Gentleman might say they intended to make provision for all Presbyterian soldiers in the different stations in India, but that would not meet the case. There were other soldiers beside Presbyterians, and the only way in which they could meet the difficulty was to allow all denominations to use the churches. He, therefore, suggested that no further grant should be made to the churches, either for capital expenditure or maintenance, unless they had an assurance that they would be open to the various denominations represented by the soldiers. It was nothing short of a scandal that they should place an annual charge for the churches upon the people of India, why

225
were of an entirely different religion. If there was to be any charge, it should be placed upon this country, or, on the other hand, they should rely upon the Christian communities to support their own churches.
MR. BUCHANANsaid he quite agreed with his colleagues from Scotland that Scotland and Scottish soldiers had a grievance, and he shared their natural feeling with regard to the action taken by the officials of the Anglican Church; but they must look at the facts. There was one sentence in the White Paper which was not read by the hon. Member for Bath, and to which no one else had paid any regard. It was the kernel of the whole matter. When the difficulty arose, and it became serious, the Secretary of State in 1899, Lord George Hamilton, took the legal opinions of Mr. Cohen and two other authorities and had it confirmed by the opinion of law officers of the Crown. Their opinion was that under the form in which permission was given by the Government of India to consecrate the churches, the bishops had sole control over them. They had got the right side of the law. The present position of affairs was that when this grievance arose they took the best course available, and found out what the grievance was. They found out that the best side of the law was with the church authorities. What was to be done? Surely the best course was that in future from that time onwards no church which was built out of the revenues of India should be allowed to be consecrated, so that this difficulty could not occur in the future in any church built out of the revenues of India after 1899. In that matter he thought they had done their best. The Government had endeavoured at the principal stations in India to supply facilities for Presbyterian soldiers to worship at their own churches, and that surely was the desire of Scottish Members. He thought Scottish soldiers should have proper facilities for attending the Scottish Church. [An HON. MEMBER: What about the Wesleyans?] Surely hon. Members did not propose that they should go back upon the agreement they had made with the authorities of those consecrated buildings. How
226
could they possibly do that? They had observed that agreement for five years, and it was a binding arrangement. As he had already said the authorities of the church had the best side of the law, and how could they alter that state of things by putting pressure upon the Government of India? Personally he was not in favour of altering the law so as to upset what had been done before 1899, because he did not think that would be fair. The Government were doing everything in their power to supply this want and remedy the difficulty which has occurred by building other churches at the principal stations.
*MR. MORTONsaid the reply which had just been given was not at all satisfactory. They were very much astonished to find that one particular Church had an exclusive right to use buildings provided by public money. He thought that was most unfair. A great many things had been legally done in this country which were unfair, but that did not mean that they should continue for ever, and the argument used in this connection by the right hon. Gentleman was in his opinion nonsense. Why did they disestablish the Irish Church, if they could not alter something which had legally been done? The House ought to insist upon having fair play to all sects in India. He appealed to the Under-Secretary for India to see that justice was done to the Presbyterians, and he hoped the law would be altered so as to permit all buildings built and maintained by public money to be used by all religious sects. They might be told that the Episcopalian Church was so powerful that the Government dare not go against them, but that was not the opinion of the people of Scotland or England. There was a very strong feeling about this matter, and the sooner the right hon. Gentleman gave way to it the better it would be for himself and the Indian Government, and for everybody else concerned. The right hon. Gentleman acknowledged that it was wrong and that it was an injustice. Therefore, let them have justice done to all the people, and let the Government understand that they must not favour the Episcopalian Church more than any other church. This matter could not

227
rest as it was. The right hon. Gentle- man congratulated himself on the fact that they could not take a division now; if they could have done so his tone would have been very different, but he might clearly understand that the injustice complained of must be speedily remedied.
MR. DUNDAS WHITEsaid it was perfectly clear that the English law affecting the consecration of buildings did not apply in British India. The Under-Secretary for India had referred to some legal opinion, but unfortunately, no details were given. The difficulty in this matter had arisen from the supineness of the Government of India. The complaint was that the Government ought never to have given such a guarantee as that which had been referred to. o He could appreciate the difficulties which had arisen in consequence of that, and he could appreciate also what the hon. Gentleman had said about no further church being consecrated; but when he turned up the despatch he found it stated in general terms that no church was in future to be consecrated for the Church of England except where church accommodation had been set apart for those of other creeds. He did not consider that that went far enough. He considered that where churches were built with Government money an exclusive right should not be given to any particular denomination. It seemed to him that so far as existing churches were concerned public money ought not to be given unless the Government were to have the control of them. He hoped the Under-Secretary would be able to give a satisfactory answer on that point.
MR. BRIGHTsaid he wished to speak on behalf of Nonconformists who might be with the Army in India. It was a monstrous condition of things that churches that had been built from the monies of others in India and also from the Indian Exchequer should be devoted to the use of any particular sect. He was not at all content to hear that Presbyterians were to be provided for in the future throughout India. Wesleyans and other Noncon-formists had just as much right to be
228
regarded as Presbyterians, and there should be no unfair discrimination on behalf of the Anglican Church. Surely, it was in the power of the Government of India to cease to pay sums of money to the churches. He had a strong impression that when the clergy found that the money was not forthcoming they would modify their views. He hoped the Government would be able to take a view which would have some regard for Nonconformists generally.
Main Question put, and agreed to.

EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Resolved, That it appears from the Accounts presented to Parliament that in 1906–7 the Revenue of India amounted to £73,144,554, the expenditure charged against Revenue to £71,555,179, and the Capital Expenditure not charged to Revenue to £8,712,668.—(Mr. Buchanan.)
Resolution to be reported.

GRAND JURY (IRELAND) ACT (1836) AMENDMENT BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 1:
CAPTAIN CRAIG CAPTAIN CRAIG moved an Amendment to insert at the beginning the words, "Subject to the provisions of this Act." He explained that this Amendment was necessary, so that a subsequent Amendment which he intended to move on Clause 2 might be in order. The Amendment he intended to move on subsection (2) of Clause 2 was to insert the words, "not I exceeding one-half of the whole." The effect of that would be to prevent a county council from having to defray more than half of the expenditure involved in works which it might be decided to carry out. He simply wished to ask the Chief Secretary or the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture whether he was willing to insert the

229
words, "not exceeding one-half of the whole." He brought the Amendment forward because everyone knew that on the seaboard the local representatives on the county council had not the same voice as those who represented inland districts in matters of expenditure. Everyone knew the difficulty of getting anything spent out of the rates for the fishing industry or for piers and harbours in Ireland. His Amendment would be in favour of those who are carrying on the fishing industry. When the Bill got its Second Reading on the previous night the Chief Secretary would not say a word in explanation, and the reason why he had put down his Amendment was to try and elicit from him why the Bill was introduced at all. Clause 1 was right enough, because it carried out the wishes of Parliament; but Clause 2 seemed to have been introduced under the influence of a single follower of the Government. He begged to move.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, at the beginning of line 5, to insert the words Subject to the provisions of this Act.'"—(Captain Craig.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,)thought the hon. and gallant Member did not exactly realise what was intended to be done by the Bill. At the present time the expenditure of a county council on a pier or similar work was limited to £300. The Department was willing to contribute a certain sum in aid of what the counties were entitled to spend, but there were some works they could not afford to assist unless the county councils were prepared to give more money than that authorised by the Grand Juries Act. It was to meet this difficulty that the Bill had been introduced. Quite recently the Count) Council of Antrim desired to do some work at Ballintoy. They were bound not to go beyond £300, but the Department had agreed to give £1,000, and the work would be carried out. It was proposed by the Bill that £1,500 should take the place of £300. The remainder of the
230
clause merely dealt with procedure. Under the Grand Juries Act the money had to be paid into the hands of the county treasurer. The clause declared that in the case of the Department giving the money that would not be necessary. The Bill was desired by every maritime county in Ireland.
CAPTAIN CRAIGsaid that last night the Vice-President had stated that the reason £300 was increased to £1,500 was that in the reign of King William IV. £300 meant more than it did now.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: That was a point I put forward.
CAPTAIN CRAIG: The only point.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Oh, no. It was quite true, however, that the cost of labour and material had increased since those days, but the real reason of the Bill was that works were being delayed, and he hoped the House would see its way to rid the county councils of the impediment. He did not see that Members from the North of Ireland or elsewhere had anything to gain by stopping the county councils from spending the rates as they desired.
MR. MOOREsaid that from force of habit the right hon. Gentleman had only stated half the case. He had mentioned the case of Ballintoy in which he had interested himself, but had been unable to get a money grant. Now that the right hon. Gentleman's solitary follower was Member for the division in which Ballintoy was situated it was possible to get a grant. The existing law was that the county council could give £300 and no more, and the Department accordingly had to give £1,000. He thought that was very satisfactory. What would be the position if the Bill passed? The right hon. Gentleman would say that the Department would put down £300 if the county council paid £1,000. There would be few seaboard members on a county council, and would they be able to persuade the other members to give £1,000? It could not be done in the North of Ireland. The real object of the Bill was to allow the Department to put the

231
screw on the county councils, and say: "If you do not find £1,500 as the Bill authorises you, we will not put down £50," knowing perfectly well that it was almost impossible in Ireland to get a county council to make a charge over the whole county for the purpose. The only proper way out of this was what the right hon. Gentleman was trying to avoid. If there was to be a contribution, half should come from the county and the other half from the Department, instead of which the right hon. Gentleman was trying to get the Department a free hand to bleed the county councils for the full £1,500 a year, and if they did not agree the Department would do nothing. In the interests of the fishermen, in whom the right hon. Gentleman had never interested himself until very recently, and of the sea-works along the North Coast of Ireland of which he spoke so sneeringly it was necessary that these piers should be provided, and that the condition should not be imposed on the county councils of providing more than half the whole sum which meant that the Department should provide the other half.
MR. CONOR O'KELLYsaid his experience of seven or eight years of local government was that county councils took a very broad view of all these questions which were brought before them. He remembered that some four or five years ago the county council of his own county unanimously agreed to a liability which represented a large sum in connection with maritime works in the county, although the great majority of the constituencies, owing to their distance from the sea, did not benefit in the least from the proposed maritime works. This Bill was, in his opinion, a very useful measure. On many occasions in his own county they had been considerably hampered by reason of the fact that they could not exceed the limit imposed by the law, and he congratulated the Vice-President of the Agricultural Department upon bringing in this Bill.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 26; Noes, 147. (Division List No. 211.)

AYES.

Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn Sir Alex. F

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

Moore, William

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Percy, Earl

Balcarres, Lord

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Dalrymple, Viscount

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

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

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Thomson, W. Mitchell. (Lanark)

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Gretton, John

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

Carlile, E. Hildred

Hamilton, Marquess of

Cave, George

Hills, J. W.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Captain Craig and Mr. Lonsdale.

Clark, George Smith

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S)

Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham)

MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

NOES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

Bryce, J. Annan

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

Acland, Francis Dyke

Byles, William Pollard

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Esslemont, George Birnie

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Alden, Percy

Cheetham, John Frederick

Everett, R. Lacey

Armitage, R.

Clough, William

Ferens, T. R.

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Fuller, John Michael F.

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. HerbertJohn

Barnes, G. N.

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

Glendinning, R. G.

Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

Crean, Eugene

Glover, Thomas

Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

Crossley, William J.

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

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

Cullinan, J.

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Devlin, Joseph

Griffith, Ellis J.

Boland, John

Donelan, Captain A.

Gulland, John W.

Bowerman, C. W.

Duckworth, James

Gurdon. Rt Hn Sir W. Brampton

Brunuer, J. F. L.(Lancs., Leigh

Duffy, William J.

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

Harcourt, Robert V.(Montrose)

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N)

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Middlebrook, William

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Mond, A.

Roche, John (Galway, East)

Haworth, Arthur A.

Mooney, J. J.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Hazleton, Richard

Morrell, Philip

Russell, T. W.

Healy, Timothy Michael

Morse, L. L.

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Hemmerde, Edward George

Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne

Henry, Charles S.

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

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

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Strachey, Sir Edward

Higham, John Sharp

Nicholls, George

Summerbell, T.

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Hodge, John

Nolan, Joseph

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Holt, Richard Durning

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid

Tennant Sir Edward (Salisbury

Horniman, Emslie John

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Tennant H. J. (Berwickshire)

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

O'Dowd, John

Tomkinson, James

Joyce, Michael

O'Grady, J.

Toulmin, George

Kelley, George D.

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Verney, F. W.

Kettle, Thomas Michael

O'Malley, William

Ward, W.Dudley (Southampt'n

Kilbride, Denis

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan

Levy, Sir Maurice

Parker, James (Halifax)

Whitbread, Howard

Lewis, John Herbert

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Lundon, W.

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Lupton, Arnold

Power, Patrick Joseph

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

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

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

Maclean, Donald

Radford, G. H.

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

Macpherson, J. T.

Redmond, John E.(Waterford)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.

Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Ridsdale, E. A.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.

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

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Roberts, Sir John H.(Denbighs)

Markham, Arthur Basil

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Meagher, Michael

Robinson, S.

Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL MR. T. W. RUSSELL moved a new clause providing that nothing in the Bill should prejudicially affect any right of the Crown, or of Government Departments.
New clause (Saving of rights of the Crown and Government Departments)— (Mr. T. W. Russell)—brought up, and read the first time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
MR. MOOREthought that when; they had the Second Reading of the Bill on Tuesday night, and the Committee stage rushed through at the end of the session on Wednesday night, it was at least the duty of the Government, if there was a new clause, to put it on the Paper in order that the House might see it. Failing that course, the
234
Government might at least have the courtesy to say what the new clause was. He moved to report progress in order that the House might see the new clause on the Paper. The House ought to have the opportunity of considering the new clause, and if the Bill stood over for a day it could do so. He objected on principle to a new clause, which was not on the Paper, being rushed through at that time of night.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report progress; and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Moore.)
MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid the clause simply read: "Nothing in this Act shall affect prejudicially any right, power, or privilege invested in or exercisable by the Crown or any Government Department. "He wished to explain that the clause was not put down because he had not thought it was necessary and inasmuch—
THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Order, order. I must first put the Motion to

235
report progress unless the hon. Member withdraws.
MR. MOOREsaid there had been a recent decision in Ireland in connection with which he would like to consider the
new clause, and he could not withdraw his Motion to report progress.
Question put.
The Committee divided:£Ayes, 26;Noes, 144. (Division List No. 212.

AYES.

Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn Sir Alex. F

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

Percy, Earl

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Balcarres, Lord

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Dalrymple, Viscount

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

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

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

Gretton, John

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

Carlile, E. Hildred

Hamilton, Marquess of

Cave, George

Hills, J. W.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Mr.

Clark, George Smith

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.

Coates, Major E. F.(Lewisham)

MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

Moore and Mr. Lonsdale.

NOES.

Abraham William (Cork N. E.)

Griffith, Ellis J.

Nicholls, George

Acland Francis Dyke

Gulland, John W.

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Gurdon, Rt Hn Sir W. Brampton

Nolan, Joseph

Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Armitage, R.

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

O'Dowd, John

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Haworth, Arthur A.

O'Grady, J.

Barnes, G. N.

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

Hazleton, Richard

O'Malley, William

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

Healy, Timothy Michael

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Hemmerde, Edward George

Parker, James (Halifax)

Boland, John

Henry, Charles S.

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Bowerman, C. W.

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

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

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

Higham, John Sharp

Power, Patrick Joseph

Bryce, J. Annan

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

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

Byles, William Pollard

Hodge, John

Radford, G. H.

Carr-Gomm. H. W.

Holt, Richard Durning

Reddy, M.

Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

Horniman, Emslie John

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th

Cheetham, John Frederick

Jones, Lief (Appleby)

Ridsdale, E. A.

Clough, William

Joyce, Michael

Roberts. G. H. (Norwich)

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Kelley, George D.

Roberts, Sir John H. (Denbighs)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Kettle, Thomas Michael

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Kilbride, Denis

Robinson, S.

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

Levy, Sir Maurice

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Crean, Eugene

Lewis, John Herbert

Roch, Waller F. (Pembroke)

Crossley, William J.

Lundon, W.

Roche, John (Galway, East)

Cullinan, J.

Lupton, Arnold

Roe, Sir Thomas

Devlin, Joseph

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Donelan, Captain A.

Maclean, Donald

Russell, T. W.

Duckworth, James

Macpherson, J. T.

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Duffy, William J.

MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

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

Strachey, Sir Edward

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Summerbell, T.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Markham, Arthur Basil

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Meagher, Michael

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Everett, R. Lacey

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.

Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury

Ferens, T. R.

Middlebrook, William

Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

Fuller, John Michael F.

Mond, A.

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. HerbertJohn

Mooney, J. J.

Tomkinson, James

Glendinning, R. G.

Morse, L. L.

Toulmin, George

Glover, Thomas

Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

Nannatti, Joseph P.

Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Whitbread, Howard

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank.

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

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

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Question put, and agreed to.

Original Question again proposed.
MR. MOOREwished to know from some Member of the Government as the Attorney-General for Ireland was not present to help the House on points of law, whether, under the Grand Jury Acts, the Crown was bound. Perhaps the Minister in charge of the Bill could tell them. If he could not, then they had better wait for the further consideration of the Bill till he could. When they had a new Bill like that they were entitled to know whether it went beyond the Acts which it proposed to amend. He hoped he would receive a reply.
MR. T. M. HEALYasked if he might suggest that the Government should restore to the Orange Party the right to kick the King's Crown into the Boyne.
MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid the Orange Party never had that right.
MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he had already explained that the draughtsman of the Bill considered that the Crown was protected by the Grand Jury Acts, and that all that was done by the Bill was to enlarge the expenditure. It was in order to keep all the security and protection necessary that the clause had been inserted to guard against any mistake.
MR. MOOREsaid that surely if the Crown was bound by the Grand Jury Acts it was not necessary to move that Amendment. He put it to the good sense of the Committee that, if the Parliamentary draughtsman was of opinion that the ground had already been covered by the Grand Jury Act and if it was not the intention of those in charge of the Bill to extend the Grand Jury Act, they should be very careful of the mere ipse dixit of the Treasury. The House ought to have an opportunity to consider the matter, and he would like to know whether advice had been given by any law officer that the Amendment was necessary. It might lead to very far-
238
reaching results. He was as anxious as any other Member of the House to protect the rights of the Crown—but by the new clause so far as they had had an opportunity of considering it (which meant having it read by the Clerk at the Table) not only the rights of the Crown were protected but the rights of any and every Department. He supposed even the Estates Commissioners came into it. The House ought to have had an opportunity to consider the terms of a proposal which might be so very large in its operation. He asked once more, had any legal man of reputation, apart from the Treasury, said the Amendment was necessary? If not, he did not think the Amendment was necessary and the House ought not to proceed with it.
CAPTAIN CRAIGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman had taken into his confidence and consulted the Member for North Antrim on the subject.
Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL MR. T. W. RUSSELL moved a further new clause, the words of which, he said, were taken from the Grand Jury Act and it was desirable that they should be repeated.
Clause read a first time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
MR. WALTER LONGsaid there was obviously no objection to the principle of the clause which the right hon. Gentleman had moved, but he was bound to say that it was unreasonable for hon. Gentlemen opposite who desired as he desired to go to bed, but who having no interest in this legislation expressed their desire to go to bed by shouting "Divide." It was unreasonable and improper to do that when the Government in this legislation were adopting a course which he believed to be without

239
precedent. He ventured to say that when the Unionists were responsible for government, if they had brought in a Bill, read it a second time on Tuesday, moved it in Committee on the following night, and had then on the second night asked the Committee to insert two new clauses, one after the other, neither being on the paper, hon. Gentlemen who were impatient at the attitude taken up by his hon. friends behind him, would, whether they came from below the gangway or from the other side of the House, have offered strenuous resistance to the passage of the Bill and would have criticised the action of the Government in unmistakable terms. He was sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they expressed the views in their minds, would agree with the view he put forward that that was not the way in which public business should be conducted. He did not desire to offer, nor did he suggest his hon. friends would offer, opposition to the passage of a clause which was necessary, but he said that the Government draughtsmen were public servants, paid to do certain duties, and among them to know the work they had got to do and accordingly prepare their Bills. To ask the House in Committee at half-past twelve o'clock in the morning to deal with legislation proposed and brought forward in this slovenly fashion was to insult the House of Commons. He desired to make this protest, not because he wanted to make any personal attack on the Government, but because he felt he was voicing the opinions which would have been expressed by every Member of the House if the Unionists had been responsible and had brought their legislation forward in this way. He never remembered a case like it, and he desired to make the strongest protest against it and to say that if the Government repeated these tactics they would have themselves to thank if proceedings were prolonged far beyond an hour that was reasonable.
MR. BIRRELLquite agreed that it was not unnatural in the cirumstance, to want to know what these two new clauses were about. When they were examined they would be found to be simply clauses saving the interests of the Crown and the purchase of titles
240
under Charter. It very often happened that clauses and considerations of that kind were omitted by the draughtsman because he assumed the rights of the Crown required no special protection or were already protected under the legislation of which the Act was an Amendment. The draughtsmen were not absolutely arbitrary in these matters. Various other persons were entitled to be considered. There were those who advised the Crown, those who advised the Woods and Forests, those concerned with persons, acting under charters, and the words had been put in to secure that no injustice should be done. He quite agreed that it was not desirable to move new clauses in Committee in that way, but these new clauses were of a most innocuous kind. With the general principle which the right hon. Gentleman enunciated, he agreed.
MR. MOOREsaid he had nothing to complain of in the general principle which had been enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman on the front Opposition bench and very fairly accepted by the Chief Secretary. But the argument between the front benches went on the assumption that these new clauses were necessary. He said that when it came to that hour of the night the Committee was entitled to see whether they were necessary or not. The law officers were elsewhere, but he presumed the Minister was posted with their advice, especially in a matter where the draughtsmen were of opinion that these clauses were unnecessary. He pointed out that they had not had any definite answer as to-whether the old Grand Jury Act protected the Crown or not, but at any rate the first new clause protected the Crown, and he wanted to know what was the object of the second new clause which protected the right of people holding by Charter under the Crown. If the Crown was protected all persons claiming under the Crown were equally so. What, therefore, was the necessity of the second new clause? He must protest against the introduction of a clause they had never seen. The other object was to prevent the public general statute which the Bill corrected, interfering with local and personal rights under local and

241
personal statutes. He did not think there was a lawyer in the land who thought that such a Bill as that would interfere with local and personal rights already given by Parliament. It seemed to him quite superfluous, and if it were not introduced by the particular Minister who introduced it at that hour of the night, he would be inclined to let it pass, but knowing the reputation of that Minister, he could not but think there was something behind it.
Agreed to.
Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered this day, and to be printed. [Bill 340.]

EVICTED TENANTS (IRELAND) BILL.
Order for the Second Reading read.
MR. BIRRELLsaid he was glad to think at all events that there could be nothing irregular about this Bill for it came to them from the House of Lords, where it was read a third time without a division. It would be within the recollection of those Members of the House who were present during the debates on the Evicted Tenants Act of last year, that in the House of Lords a proviso was added to one of the provisions of that Bill, providing that no tenant who occupied a farm from which a previous tenant had been evicted should be, if cultivating that farm in a husbandlike manner, obliged even on the payment of compensation to give up his holding. That was put in the Act in the House of Lords on the very creditable ground that no person in these circumstances should be required to leave his holding if he chose to remain in it. The words of the proviso were proposed by Lord Robertson and inserted in the Bill and became law. However, some tenants on Lord Clanricarde's estate were willing to go and had made arrangements to go on payment of compensation by the Estates Commissioners. But the point of law was raised that, having regard to the language of the proviso added in the House of Lords, if the land was being
242
cultivated in a husbandlike manner it was beyond the purview of the Estates Commissioners, and beyond the powers of the Act for that tenant cultivator to be affected and to go. That was not the view taken by the Judge in the Court of first instance, but the Court of Appeal in Ireland, which was the final appeal under the statute, unanimously decided that the learned Judge was wrong, and held that according to the true construction of the proviso, once the farm was being cultivated in a husbandlike manner it was outside the purview of the Act. That matter was brought before the House of Lords by the Bill which he was now moving to have read a second time, and which was intended to carry out the object which both Lord Robertson and Lord. Lansdowne with characteristic fairness at once admitted they had intended the proviso should carry out. The noble Lords both stated when dealing with the Bill that their object had been not to protect the landlord of the land, but to protect the occupier of the land. If the occupier did not want to go and was cultivating his land in a husbandlike manner, he was not to go. So long as that was assured the noble Lords were content, and they therefore allowed the Bill to be read a second time. When the Bill was considered in Committee hi the House of Lords an Amendment was made which, when the Committee stage was taken in the House of Commons, it would be for the Committee to consider. But so far as the general principle of the Bill was concerned, there was complete unity of opinion in the House of Lords, as he hoped there would be in the House of Commons, that the object of the measure was merely to give effect to the legislation of last year. He would, therefore, ask the House to read the Bill a second time, and when they got into Committee they would have an opportunity of discussing the Amendment made to the Bill by the House of Lords
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Birrell.)
MR. WALTER LONGsaid that when the Chief Secretary referred to this

243
question a short time ago, he (Mr. Long) stated on behalf of his friends on the Opposition side of the House that it was impossible for him without notice of the debate, to examine the references which the right hon. Gentleman had then been good enough to give. He, of course, took an early opportunity of reading the debates which took place both in the House of Commons and in another place, and he satisfied himself that the language used in another place, and also by himself and his friends in reference to the Act of last year, had been accurately described by the Chief Secretary. The difficulty it was proposed to deal with in the Bill was one that it was not easy to dismiss in a few sentences, even at that hour of the morning, but he wished to say at once that he and his friends would not offer any opposition to the passage of the Bill on its Second Reading. When they came to the Committee stage they would have to consider the Amendment inserted in another place, and it would be for them to say what their view of it was. What they felt was that the Chief Secretary had stated the view held generally by Unionists in both Houses when the Evicted Tenants Act was passed, namely, that while they expressed grave doubts as to the wisdom of the Government's policy, as to its ultimate success, and as to its effect on the prospects and prosperity of other tenants in Ireland, they admitted that if the evicted tenants question was to be dealt with by legislation, the one thing that ought to be insisted upon by Parliament was that no tenant sitting on a farm and carrying on his business in a decent and proper manner, in accordance with the ordinary rules of good husbandry, ought to be disturbed. While Parliament was then asked to accede to the request to protect the sitting tenant when he wished to remain in his holding, it was quite obvious that it was impossible and unjust to ask that Parliament should say to the tenant who was anxious to go, that he was not to go, because there was some other reason against him doing so. Then came the question, was the tenant in reality anxious to move? That raised a very controversial and difficult question, No doubt allegations could easily be
244
made by both sides as to the undoubted pressure being put on tenants to express their opinion one way or the other. But all that Parliament could ask within the limits of the Bill or within the operations of the Evicted Tenants Act was that the man should assent to his removal to another farm. He regarded the Bill as a necessary complement of the proceedings which occurred in both Houses during the passage of the Evicted Tenants Act. While holding that view, he hoped he would not be considered as committing himself to the acceptance of all the views, from time to time expressed, in regard to the Evicted Tenants Act. He would certainly offer no opposition to the progress of the Bill on the Second Reading, but when it came to the Committee stage, he should suggest that Parliament ought to protect the sitting tenant from injustice and from removal against his will.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.
Order for the Second Reading read.
THE TREASURER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Sir EDWARD STRACHEY, Somerset shire, S.)said that this Bill, which was a Consolidation Bill, had come from the House of Lords, and he hoped it would be given a Second Reading that night. As regarded the Market Gardeners Act, he proposed in Committee to move an Amendment to this effect: "Clause 42, page 20, line 41, at end, to insert, Provided that where such a tenancy was a tenancy from year to year the compensation payable in respect of an improvement comprised in the Third Schedule to this Act shall be such (if any) as could have been claimed if this Act had not been passed." He had put this Amendment down to make it quite clear that it was a Consolidation Bill.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. HICKS BEACHthought that the Amendment would carry out the intention to make this simply a Consolidation Bill, and he would be glad to assist the Government in carrying out their object.

EAST INDIA LOANS (RAILWAY AND IRRIGATION WORKS).
Order for Committee thereupon read, and discharged.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.
Order for the Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
SIR. F. BANBURYsaid he was sorry the Government had brought on this Bill at such a late hour. It was in the ordinary course of events a very important Bill which provided that certain sums of money might be taken from the Consolidation Fund and advanced to local authorities. The Bill was originally introduced in 1875, and. the reason for its introduction was that certain monies should be advanced from the public exchequer to public authorities for certain purposes which were clearly laid down in the Act. The fact was that local authorities had not been able to borrow so cheaply as they wished to do, and it was thought advisable to give them the nation's credit for the purpose of carrying out certain works. The whole object of all the Bills founded on that Act had been to provide money for local purposes. That Bill provided for the raising of £3,700,000, a large sum of money, and it also provided for money to be written off for bad debts in Ireland. He would have liked to have said a few words on that question, but as it was so late he would confine his observations to Clause 6 of the Bill. Clause 6, he would venture to say, was a clause
246
which had never been introduced into a Bill of that sort before since the Local Loans Act was authorised in 1875. Clause 6 extended the purposes for which the Public Works Loan Commissioners were authorised to lend money. He thought the House would be rather astonished to learn that the Clause allowed the Public Works Loan Commissioners to lend money to the Territorial Army. He did not think anyone would advance the argument that the Territorial Army was a public work organised by a local authority. The County Associations in connection with the Territorial Army were formed for certain purposes in connection with national defence, and had really nothing to do with local works or local authorities. He would not at that late hour attempt to consider the question whether it was right to borrow money for the Territorial Army, but he wished to remind the House that in the last Parliament when the Unionist Government borrowed money for the purposes of the Army and for the purposes of the Navy they brought forward separate Bills for the purpose, the Military Works Bill, the Military Loans Bill, and the Navy Works Bill. At that time hon. Gentlemen opposite denounced the Unionist Party for doing that, on the ground that it was not sound finance, as the expenses for national defence ought to be defrayed out of the revenue for the year. Yet now they had the Government of purists bringing forward a clause which enabled them to borrow money for the purposes of the Territorial Army, and instead of bringing it forward in a separate Bill as the Unionist Government had done they put it in a Public Works Loan Bill and brought it forward in the early hours of the morning, after the House had been discussing all day the Indian Budget and other things. He was prepared to say that there were not five men in the House who knew of that clause in the Bill. He had only discovered it himself a short time previously. The clause read—
"The Public Works Loan Commissioners may, in manner provided by the Public Works Loans Act, 1875, as amended by any subsequent enactment, lend any money which may be borrowed for any of the purposes for which a County Association, formed under the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907, is for the time being authorised by the regulations made

247
by the Army Council under Section 4, subsection 1, of that Act to borrow, and may so lend on the security on which the County Associations is similarly authorised to borrow."
Section 4, subsection (1) gave power to borrow money if authorised by the Army Council, but that clause gave power for money to be borrowed for any purpose. It might be used for the men, for the purchase of their uniforms, for the purchase of their ammunition, or for any other purpose, and Parliament would have no control whatever over the purposes for which the money was used. It said in the Bill "in the manner provided by the Public Works Loan Act, 1875." He found in that Act that Clause 9 said that the money might be expended from time to time in making loans for the purposes of any works. Nobody could say that to pay the men and provide them with uniforms was what was known as a public work. The Act laid down that the money must only be expended on works, and therefore it was not right to apply it to other purposes. The first schedule began by saying the works for which the Commissioners might lend money should be docks, harbours, piers, lunatic asylums, fire stations, schoolhouses, waterworks, wash-houses, etc., and it went on—and he believed it was on that that the Secretary to the Treasury would found his argument—or any work on which the Commissioners were authorised to lend money by any Act after the passing of that Act. There was no definition in Clause 6 as to the object for which that money should be advanced. If there was a definition saying that the money should be advanced for drill halls, or rifle ranges, the hon. Gentleman might say he was justified in introducing the clause in that Bill. There was no doubt that the schedule authorised the money to be raised for the purposes of works, but even if the hon. Gentleman would amend Clause 6 so as to prevent the money being used for any purpose other than works he still maintained that a separate Bill should have been introduced, and that the matter should not have been dealt with in a Public Works Loan Bill so that nobody in the House except himself knew that it was in the Bill. The hon. Member for Halifax
248
and the First Lord of the Admiralty, he remembered, took a firm stand on that point when the Unionist Party was in. power, and he hoped they would take an equally firm stand now. He (lid not know of any other Bill of that character containing such a clause as Clause 6. He had reason to believe that the hon. Gentleman was prepared to meet him to a certain extent, and if he would undertake that the money would only be spent on drill halls or rifle ranges, he did not propose, as it was so late, to put the House to the trouble of a division. Still, if there should be any time he reserved his right to criticise the Bill on the Committee stage. If the hon. Gentleman would give the-undertaking he had asked for, he thought the House might allow the Bill a Second Reading.
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE,)said the Bill, as the hon. Baronet had pointed out, with the exception of Clause 6, was the usual Bill which appeared at that time of the year. He thought the hon. Baronet was somewhat unnecessarily alarmed as to the intentions of Clause 6.
SIR F. BANBURYthought the hon. Gentleman would admit that he had been careful to say nothing as to the intentions of the Government. But they might have a bad Government, and they must safeguard themselves against that.
MR. HOBHOUSEsaid he was glad of the acknowledgment of the hon. Baronet as to the excellencies of the present Government. It came as a surprise to him that anyone should think that the Government was prepared to borrow money on loan for the purchase of buttons, or anything of that sort. The object of the clause to which attention had been called was to extend to the Territorial Forces that power of proceeding by way of loan which the auxiliary forces already had. He would be very happy to give to the hon. Baronet the assurance he desired, and he did not think that under the circumstances there should be any further objection to the Second Reading of the Bill.
MR. GRETTONasked what sum was likely to be expended under the Bill on the Territorial Forces. If the hon. Member could not give him an answer then, perhaps he would be able to do so before the Committee stage of the Bill was reached.
MR. HOBHOUSEsaid the sums mentioned in the schedule were very nearly the same as those which were inserted in the Bill last year arid in years before. The sums taken were not to cover specific amounts required, but that the Treasury might have such sums as they thought necessary.
MR. RAWLINSONsaid that even if the assurance which the hon. Baronet had asked for were given, they ought to have a very clear statement from the Government why that method of procedure had been adopted. It was a new proceeding to borrow money in that way. A very similar point had been raised in the year before last. If that principle was extended, instead of coming on the Estimates for a particular loan it could be got under the Public Works Loans Bill, which ought to be reserved for matters which needed no discussion in the House.
MR. T. M. HEALYthought the House was entitled to some explanation with regard to the proposed remission of loans in regard to certain railway companies. There were two clauses in the Bill of a remarkable character, one of which remitted a certain sum of money which he thought the Midland Company had agreed to bear. They ought to have some explanation why an important company like that should get a grant from the Crown equivalent to £17,000. Another loan was equally remarkable—the loan relating to the Fishguard and Rosslare Railway Company. That company was largely under the Great Western of England. He was not objecting to these loans; he was only asking for information, and he was deprecating the suggestion which would hereafter be made by the Treasury, that they had constantly given Irish loans and could not get the money out
250
of Ireland when, as a matter of fact, so far as he could understand, the Treasury were remitting now two sums, one of £17,000 and the other of £7,000, making a total of £24,000, to two railway companies, both of which had very large English connections. They were entitled to know. When this Railway Act was being passed some years ago, when the present Member for East Worcester was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he (Mr. Healy) strongly objected to the Bill. He said—
"You ought to dandle these little Irish companies on your knees instead of breaking them up and selling them in splinters to English companies."
But the Treasury foreclosed on the Irish companies on the pretence that the English Midland was giving them the whole of the debt. Now they found that, instead of the truth being told by the Government, as a matter of fact a sum of £17,000 was still left due and a Bill was brought in, when it was supposed that everybody had forgotten the transaction, to remit the £17,000 due from this English company. The Secretary to the Treasury was new to his office and was not responsible for what was done by the Treasury seven or eight years ago, but their hatred and abhorrence of the Treasury was great, and every Public Works Loans Bill since he had been in that House was a job. He always read every line of a Public Works Loans Bill. They were monuments of Treasury incapacity, and Board of Works (Ireland) incapacity, the gravest of the follies of the English Treasury and the Irish Board of Works. Seven or eight years ago a solemn promise was given that the Midland Company took all the responsibilities of the Limavady Railway. Let them look back to the debates he raised at that time and they would find from the statement of the then Chancellor what a splendid thing he said it was, and how the British public could not be any longer out of their money with these peddling Irish companies. The statement was that the great English company was taking over the whole of the liabilities, and that was the excuse given for breaking up the little Irish line and selling it for a song to the English company. They sold it for the small amount of the

251
mortgage, and the whole of the Irish shareholders were swindled out of then debt. Now, seven years after, a fresh story had to be told. They found that the English company had not taken over the Treasury debt, and they had to bring in a Bill to wipe off this sum of £17,000. The House was entitled to know the reason of that. He would like also to know why £222 was being remitted. £227 had been borrowed and £5 paid off in the course of thirty years. There was a statement made the other day in the House that the Board of Works were continually remitting loans to tenants. He found on looking at the Bill that the remission of loans to landlords amounted to the sum of £250 and the remission of loans to tenants—he was judging by their names—to a sixth of that. These facts should be borne in mind. When Irish Members went to the Treasury and were met with the statement that the Treasury were continually making loans to Ireland which were not paid back, it should be remembered that the persons to whom the Treasury were remitting loans were English railway companies and Irish landlords.
*SIR SAMUEL SCOTTsaid he entirely agreed with the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) with regard to tacking on to this Bill such a clause as Clause 6, though he approved of the object. He would like to ask whether it would be made quite clear that these loans were for permanent works, as otherwise county associations might be misled.
MR. HOBHOUSEsaid he could assure the hon. Baronet that the Treasury would take every care that something in the nature of a permanent asset was provided. He would like to assure the Member for North Louth that the effect of his speech upon him would be that he would scrutinise with the greatest care every possible suggestion in regard to loans from any quarter of Ireland whatever.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Why is this money to be remitted?
MR. HOBHOUSE: I thought that matter would probably come up in Committee. If the House permits me I shall make a statement then. It will be more convenient that I should do it in the Committee stage.
Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.(Mr. Hobhouse.)

EAST INDIA LOANS [RAILWAY AND IRRIGATION WORKS AND GENERAL PURPOSES].
Committee to consider of authorising the Secretary of State in Council of India to raise money in the United Kingdom, on the security of the revenues of India, for the construction, extension, and equipment of Railways in India by State agencies or through the agency of companies, and for the construction of Irrigation Works, and also for General Purposes for the Government of India (King's Recommendation signified), tomorrow.—(Mr. Joseph Pease.)

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION].
Committee to consider of authorising the remission of certain debts due to the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session, to grant money for the purpose of certain Local Loans out of the Local Loans Fund, and for other purposes relating to Local Loans (King's Recommendation signified), to-morrow.— (Mr. Joseph Pease.)
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 10th July, adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned at nine minutes after One o'clock.