Commons Sitting of 26 March 1908

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

  PRIVATE BILLS (STANDING ORDERS 66 AND 67 NOT COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Beading thereof, Standing Order 66 and 67 have not been complied with, viz.:—
  Ards and Bangor Railways Bill.—Ordered, that the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
  Finchley Urban District Council Bill.—As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Dublin Corporation (Various Powers) Bill (by Order).—Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.—Bill withdrawn.
  Draycott Gas Bill.—Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Great Eastern Railway (General Powers) Bill; Dartford Gas Bill; Wishaw Burgh Electricity, &c., Bill.—Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Finsbury Park, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: From Grays; Salisbury; Tetbury; Weymouth; and Wishaw; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Aberdeen; Ainsdale; Batley; London; Lostwithiel; Manchester; North Shields; and South-sea; to lie upon the Table.

  MORAY FIRTH (ILLEGAL TRAWLING).
  Petitions for prevention: From Buckie; Gardenstown; and Portessie; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petitions in favour: From Nantwich; and Wood Green; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of List of Public Elementary Schools and Certified Efficient Schools in Wales and Monmouthshire on 1st August 1907 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NATIONAL SCHOOLS (IRELAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 24th February; Mr. Barrie]; to lie upon the Table.
  COURT OF PROBATE DIVISION (HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE) (IRELAND).
  Annual Account presented, of Receipts and Disbursements for the year ended 31st December 1907 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Copy presented, of correspondence relating to the Recruitment of Labour in the Nyasaland Protectorate for the Transvaal and Southern Rhodesia Mines [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LUNACY (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of General Rules for the management of the Edinburgh District Asylum at Bangour [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Oral Answers to Questions
  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

    Belfast Telegraphic Delays.
    MR. BARRIE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether a recent rearrangement of internal work in the Belfast post office has led to delay and considerable inaccuracy in the transmission of press and other telegrams; and, if so, whether he will reconsider the new arrangement under which the staff are required to take part-duty only in telegraphic work and the remainder in ordinary postal work; and whether it is
    1540
    customary in important offices such as Belfast to have a full staff of expert telegraphists on duty during the hours in which pressure of messages usually occurs.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The hon. Member has been misinformed. I am assured that there is no foundation for the statement that there has been delay or error in the transmission of telegrams at Belfast. Under the new arrangement which came into force on the 4th instant, the staff are not required "to take part duty only in telegraphic work and the remainder in ordinary postal work"; but on the contrary, telegraph staff have been employed on telegraph duties only and postal staff on postal duties only. A sufficient staff of expert telegraphists is on duty at Belfast at all periods of the day.

    Kilcornan Evicted Farm.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say what is the cause of delay on the part of; the Estates Commissioners in reinstating Mrs. Scully in the farm from which her husband, Daniel Scully, deceased, of Kilbreody, Kilcornan, in the County of: Limerick, was evicted by the Reverend John T. Waller.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) In December, 1903, the Estates Commissioners received an application for reinstatement from Daniel Scully. Their inspector reported, in April 1907, that Scully had since died and that his family could not be traced, but it was subsequently ascertained that Mrs. Scully and a daughtor were living in Limerick. The Commissioners have been negotiating for the purchase of the holding, and have now been informed that the Reverend J. T. Waller is willing to accept their estimated price.

    Coolcappa Untenanted Lands.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have entered into negotiations for the purchase of the untenanted lands at Mount Henry, Coolcappa, in the County of Limerick, on the Delmege property; and, if so, with what result.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners have furnished to the

    1541
    owner a preliminary estimate of the price they would be prepared to offer for the untenanted lands in question, but the owner has not yet replied to the offer.

    Shanagolden Untenanted Lands.
    Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can say whether the Estates Commissioners have entered into negotiations with Colonel Dickson for the for the purchase of his untenanted lands at Creeves, Shanagolden, in the County of Limerick; and, if so, whether any agreement has been arrived at.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estate Commissioners are negotiating with Colonel W. D. Dickson for the purchase of about 286 acres of untenanted land in the townland of Lackanagoneeny; but the lands of Creeves do not appear to be included in the property offered for sale.

    Bourse Gambling.
    MR. FIELD: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether, in addition to the particulars of the various foreign governments' legislative measures against bourse gambling, he will also obtain a copy of the Egyptian Bourse Bill, as assented to by the Powers, which has lately become law in Egypt, as well as the particulars of the special Anti-Option Bill in the United States, as prepared by Congressman Hepburn, and lay the same upon the Table of the House.
    (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) Steps are being taken to procure copies of the legislative measures to which the hon. Member refers.

    Redirection of Lodgers' Letters.
    MR. ROWLANDS: To ask the Postmaster-General, whether he can now consider the possibility of authorising the redirection of letters of lodgers in cases where the person has given notice to the Post Office on his removal that he will be prepared to pay a fee for the redirection and delivery of his letters at the new address.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) This question has recently been carefully considered; but in view of the practical difficulties which present themselves, I
    1542
    regret that I do not see my way to extend to lodgers the privilege of redirection even on payment of a fee.

    Post Office Telegraph Overseers.
    MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether a circular has been issued to surveyors instructing them to reduce the positions of overseers in the telegraph department, and suggesing that the Secretary of the Post Office is prepared to abolish all such appointments created by the Stanley revision; and if the circular has been published with his knowledge and sanction.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) No such circular has been issued.

    Indian Public Companies.
    MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India propose to introduce any legislation similar in character to that of the English Companies Act of 1907.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Money.) No such proposal has been submitted to me. The Indian Government may be disposed to wait until the Law of this country on the subject of joint stock companies has been consolidated in a single statute before they deal with the question.

    Indian Garrison.
    MR. BEES: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Royal Commission which sat shortly after the Mutiny, to consider the question of the forces necessary for the protection of India, advised that 80,000 British troops were required; and whether that number has ever been reached, or is at present serving in the Empire.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Money.) My hon. friend has correctly stated the advice of the Royal Commission. The figure 80,000 has never been reached. The latest Returns from India show a strength of about 75,000 officers and men.

    Indian Immigration.
    MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government

    1543
    of India has given due effect to his instructions to make widely known in India the circumstances in respect of Indian immigration which at present obtain in Canada; and whether, if necessary, he will supplement these instructions, in view of the fact that British-Indian subjects still continue to arrive in Canada, where their reception is unsatisfactory.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) The Government of India have made the facts widely known, and have taken special steps to warn intending emigrants The whole subject is receiving my careful attention.

    Kushtia—Attempted Assassination of Mr. Hickinbotham.
    MR. REES: To ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he can give the House any information regarding the attempted assassination early in this month by a Bengali of Mr. Hickinbotham, of the Church Missionary Society, at Kushtia; and whether he will make inquiries if this act was prompted or encouraged by the boycott and Swadeshi movement in Bengal.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) I have no information on the subject beyond what I have seen in the newspapers regarding the lamentable occurrence. I see at present no sufficient ground for making the inquiry suggested.

    Rates for Butter, Bacon, and Eggs by Goods Train.

    From Tralee to

    Butter.

    Bacon.

    Eggs.

    Viâ Dublin.

    ViâCork or Water-ford.

    Viâ Dublin and Liverpool Screw Steam Packet Company or Tedcastle Company.

    Viâ Cork or Waterford.

    By other routes.

    Viâ Dublin.

    Viâ Cork or Waterford.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Owner's risk. Per ton.

    Company's risk. Per ton.

    Owner's Risk. Per ton.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    Liverpool

    33

    4

    30

    0

    17

    6

    15

    10

    25

    10

    45

    0

    40

    10

    40

    10

    35

    10

    in boxes, Viâ Water-ford, 12 s.

    All the above rates with Liverpool are station to station.

    Trawlers in the Moray Firth.
    CAPTAIN WARING: To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that trawlers now trawl for herring, and that this will cause considerable damage to the nets and lines of the coast fishermen, especially in enclosed areas such as the Moray Firth; and whether he proposes to take any action further to protect the line-fishing industry.
    (Ansivered by Mr. Sinclair.) I understand that the method of fishing for herring described by my hon. friend has on occasion been adopted. The owners of nets and lines will have claim for compensation in the event of injury. It is not in my power to take action so as to interfere with a method of fishing which is not illegal.

    Tralee Railway Goods Rates.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), what are the rates charged by passenger and goods trains for butter, bacon, and eggs from Tralee to London Manchester, and Liverpool; what is the value of each of those commodities imported yearly into England from foreign countries; and what is the value of the imports from Ireland.
    (Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) The rates asked for are as follows—

    Rates for Butter, Bacon, and Eggs by Goods Train.

    From Tralee to

    Butter (viâ Dublin, Cork, or Waterford).

    Bacon (viâ Dublin, Cork, or Waterford).

    Eggs (viâ Dublin, Coik, or Waterford).

    Carted, per ton. Company's risk.

    Carted per ton. Company's risk.

    Carted per ton. Company's risk.

    Carted per ton. Owner's risk.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    Manchester

    40

    0

    40

    0

    57

    6

    50

    0

    London

    38

    0

    36

    4

    61

    4

    53

    0

    Rates for Butter, Bacon, and Eggs by Passenger Train.

    From Tralee to

    Butter

    Eggs

    Bacon

    Company's risk Per cwt

    Owner's risk Per cwt

    Company's risk Per cwt

    Owner's risk Per cwt

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    Liverpool

    4

    5

    3

    9

    4

    5

    3

    9

    Bacon is not usually carried by passenger train, but if a consignment was so forwarded the charge would be at the ordinary parcel's scale of 1d. per pound at the company's risk or ⅝ of a 1d. at owner's risk, i.e. say, 9s. id. per cwt. (company's risk), 5s. 10 d. per cwt. (owner's risk).

    Manchester

    5

    5

    4

    8

    5

    5

    4

    9

    London

    7

    6

    4

    8

    7

    6

    5

    0

    The above rates are subject to a minimum charge as for 1 cwt. There is no precise information as to the value of the yearly imports of these commodities from foreign countries into England. The estimated values of the imports into Great Britain from foreign countries in 1906 are—

    £

    Butter

    23,195,121

    Bacon

    12,543,791

    Eggs

    7,060,856

    The estimated values of the exports of these commodities from Ireland to Great Britain in 1906 are—

    £

    Butter

    3,585,120

    Bacon

    1,877,115

    Eggs

    2,727,410

    Ballylongford Untenanted Lands.
    MR. FLAVIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. J. D. Crosbie, of Ballyheigue, has offered his untenanted lands situate near Ballylongford, County Kerry, for sale to the Estates Commissioners; whether the lands have been inspected; and, if so, with what result.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrett.) Mr. Crosbie has not offered for sale to the Estate Commissioners the untenanted land referred to in the Question.

    Irish Export Statistics.
    MR. GWYNN: To ask the Vice President of the Department of

    1547
    Agriculture (Ireland) if he can state the annual total of Ireland's export trade in cattle, bacon, eggs, poultry, and butter, respectively, for the past three years.

    1904.

    1905.

    1906.

    £

    £

    £

    Cattle

    9,312,736

    8,928,253

    9,146,915

    Bacon, hams, and pork

    2,288,121

    2,349,039

    2,502,870

    Eggs

    2,205,526

    2,515,611

    2,727,410

    Poultry*

    645,358

    696,923

    725,441

    Butter

    3,195,015

    3,357,666

    3,585,120

    * The exports of feathers from Ireland for those years has been:—

    1904

    £36,888

    1905

    £53,988

    1906

    £59,064

    The figures for 1907 are not yet available.

    British Postal Agencies in China.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATON: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government of Hong Kong is saddled with the financial as well as the administrative responsibility of carrying on British postal agencies at the principal treaty ports of China; whether the British Government will in future share these expenses and losses, in view of the fact that Great Britain shares the profits from these services; whether the British community at Tientsin have been required to guarantee 7,500 dollars, the estimated loss on the working of the British postal agency at Tientsin during 1908; and whether the 7,500 dollars is treated as revenue in the Hong Kong Government accounts, the Colonial Government being required to pay upon it the 20 per cent. military contribution, notwithstanding that it represents a loss.
    (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) The Hong Kong Government has for many years carried on the British postal agencies in China, and has hitherto derived from them a profit in which the British Government has not shared. As will be seen from Sub-head D. of the Post Office Estimates, it received a Grant of £810 per annum
    1548
    (Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) The value of these exports from Ireland in each of the years 1904, 1905, and 1906, are as follows—
    from the British Government in respect of them, out of which £100 represents an allowance to the Colonial Postmaster-General for increased responsibility. The British Municipal Council at Tientsin have guaranteed a sum of $7,500 to meet the anticipated deficit on the agency of that port during 1908, and under present arrangements any sum so paid would be treated as revenue for the purpose of assessing the Hong Kong military contribution. As I informed the hon. Member for Stretford on 12th March, the question of the maintenance of these agencies is, however, under consideration.

    British and Indian Armies.
    SIR H. COTTON: To ask the Secretary of State for India what was the effective strength in number of the British and Native Army in India, including officers, during the following years: 1856–7, 1862–3, 1867–8, 1870–1, 1878–9, 1883–4, 1886–7, 1897–8, 1900–1, 1901–2, 1902–3, 1903–4, 1904–5, 1905–6, 1906–7, and 1907–8.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) For the first eight years referred to, the only figures available are those of the

    1549
    established strength of the Army in India. They are as follows—

    British.

    Native.

    1856

    45,104

    235,221

    1857

    45,522

    232,224

    1862

    78,174

    125,913

    1863

    76,085

    121,775

    1867

    65,467

    117,681

    1868

    61,897

    119,169

    1870

    56,954

    128,600

    1871

    58,368

    127,520

    1878–9

    64,726

    124,871

    1883–4

    63,065

    126,019

    1886–7

    73,582

    134,492

    1897–8

    76,376

    143,190

    These figures do not include the Hyderabad contingent (about 8,600 men). It is believed that for each of these years the actual strength was approximately equal to the established strength. In 1st April in each of the following years the actual strength was as follows—

    British.

    Native.

    1900–1

    63,581

    149,358

    1901–2

    62,999

    134,491

    1902–3

    59,497

    143,617

    1903–4

    74,709

    147,876

    1904–5

    74,872

    147,916

    1905–6

    77,268

    149,505

    1906–7

    75,814

    151,725

    1907–8

    76,019

    152,411

    These figures include the Hyderabad contingent up to the time of its abolition (about 1902–3), and since that date the units which have taken its place. The actual strength for the earlier of these years was considerably less than the established strength owing to the absence of troops in South Africa, China, and Somaliland.

    Navy Engine-Room Department.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the numbers of officers and men of the Engine-room department borne on 31st March, 1876 and on 31st March, 1908, respectively.
    (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The number of officers and men of the engine-room department borne on the 31st March, 1876 was 5,118; the number
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    likely to be borne on 31st instant cannot be stated with precision, but the latest returns available give a total of 35,849.
    MR. WEDGWOOD: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the Report of Admiral Sir Cooper Key's Committee, made in 1876, to the effect that, in view of the number of the engine-room staff and the extent of the chief engineers' duties, engineer officers should in future be classed with the military or executive branch of the Navy; and whether, in view of the increase in the numbers of the engine-room staff and engineers' duties since 1876, he proposes to deal with this question of the status of engineers during the current Session of Parliament.
    (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson). My attention has been called to this Report, but I can add nothing at present to the statement which I made in reply to my hon. friend on 10th March.

    Irish Travelling Post Offices.
    MR. FIELD: To ask the Postmaster-General, whether he has received an application from the staff of the Great Southern and Western travelling post office, Ireland, that the sorting carriages might be heated during the winter months, and also for improved lavatory accommodation; whether he is aware that during the cold weather considerable suffering is experienced, that the heating apparatus runs under and not through the vehicles, and that the necessary alterations of fittings could be easily made; and whether he is prepared to accede to the request of the memoralists.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have received the application referred to. The Post Office has been in communication with the railway company as regards the provision of heating apparatus in these mail carriages, and I have given instructions for a further letter to be sent to them on the subject. I will consider the application for washing accommodation.

    London Postal Sorters.
    MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask the Postmaster-General if it is with his knowledge that

    1551
    members of the sorting staff in the London postal service, who cannot possibly benefit from the new scales of pay resulting from the Hobhouse Report. are being supplied with forms requesting them to sign in favour of being placed on the new scales or remaining under the old scales; if so, what is the object of seeking such information; and, seeing this action is calculated to create much misunderstanding he will give instructions for the withdrawal of the forms.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have received a communication from the Fawcett Association, representing the London sorting staff, on this subject, which I have answered.

    Seaham Harbour Postal Facilities.
    MR. LAMBTON: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware of the inconvenience caused to the inhabitants and shipping trade of Seaham Harbour by the refusal of the Post Office to provide facilities for despatch of letters from that town after 8.15 p.m.; and whether he can arrange that one pillar-box in a central position shall be cleared as late as possible.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Under existing arrangements letters may be posted in the letter box at the Seaham Colliery station up to 10.25 p.m. for despatch to Sunderland the same night. I regret that the cost of providing further facilities would not be justified.

    Sanitation at the Seaside.
    MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in the case of the sanitary authorities of popular seaside and health resorts who have applied for orders under the Public Health Act, 1907, he will issue such orders without delay, in order that the sanitary authorities in question may secure the advantages of the Act before the summer season commences.
    (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I am desirous that the several cases should be dealt with as early as practicable, and I will bear in mind the point to which the hon. Member refers; but the preliminary investigations necessary in each
    1552
    individual case, as well as the statutory requirements which have to be complied with, make it impossible to issue the orders with great rapidity.

    Imports of Peat-Moss Litter.
    MR. RIDSDALE: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has considered the desirability of prohibiting the importation of peat-moss litter from Holland; and whether, if fine moss is used for feeding purposes, as the basis of molassine meal, this material also has been the subject of consideration.
    (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The Board have very fully considered the advisability of prohibiting the importation of both the articles to which my hon. friend refers, and they are satisfied that there is no necessity for doing so.
    MR. MOORE: To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), if he is aware that the weekly imports of peat-moss litter into Belfast from the Continent amount to seventy-five tons: if he has any official information showing that large shipments are at present on the way to this country; and whether, considering the prevalence of cattle disease on the Continent, he will take steps to prohibit such importation.
    (Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) The Department have no information regarding the pending shipments referred to in this Question, but they are aware that there is a considerable import trade in foreign peat-moss litter into Belfast. The question of such imports has recently been carefully considered, and, as at present advised, the Department do not see that adequate grounds exist for subjecting the importation of litter made from peat-moss (the preparation of which takes place under conditions which appear to be very different from those applicable to hay and straw) to any restrictions under the Diseases of Animals Acts.

    Burnfoot Prosecution for Cruelty to Cattle.
    MR. SLOAN: To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture

    1553
    (Ireland), if his attention has been called to several cases tried on the 20th instant at Burnfoot petty sessions on the charge of cruelty to cattle; if he is aware that a number of cattle were shipped, by steamer for Fahan, and, in order to get them landed, a gangway was made up with planks and the animals forced over into the sea, and some of them had to be dragged ashore by means of a rope and landed in an exhausted condition; and if he will make inquiry into the matter in order that arrangements may be made that the unshipping of cattle in this place may be carried out in a humane manner.
    (Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) The Department have seen a newspaper report respecting these cases. The place where they occurred appears, owing to the movement of sand, to have become unsuitable for disembarking cattle in certain conditions of the tide. The Department are arranging to have the circumstances fully looked into.

    Great Southern and Western Railway Dispute.
    MR. KENDAL O'BRIEN: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, has the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland yet signified their agreement to the terms of the late railway dispute; and, if so, when and how will their conciliation board be formed, and will representation on the same board be provided for employees on behalf of railway officers' associations such as stationmasters and clerks.
    (Answered by Mr. Kearley.) The Great Southern and Western Railway Company have expressed their willingness to adopt a scheme for conciliation boards on the lines of that agreed to for British railways generally, and the Board of Trade are awaiting the proposals of the company as to the details to be arranged for their line.

    Harrow Schools.
    MR. GIBB: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that an experimental school system has been imposed by the education committee of the Middlesex County Council upon the
    1554
    Harrow elementary school district against the advice of the Harrow school managers, and against the desire of the parents and ratepayers of the said district, as expressed at a public meeting and embodied in a petition to the Middlesex education committee; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I have been informed by the local education authority that they propose to take the opportunity of the opening of the new council school at Vaughan Road, Harrow, to rearrange the schools in the district, and to restrict the Greenhill boys' and girls' departments to Standards V. and upwards, keeping the Wealdstone Bridge School and the Vaughan Road School as lower standard schools. The object appears to be to grade the schools with a view to bringing the older and more advanced scholars into one school in which arrangements could be made for their more efficient instruction. The reorganisation is within the competence of the authority, and has been approved by the Board subject to its reconsideration should the experiment prove unsuccessful.

    Income-Tax.
    MR. W. T. WILSON: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that, although he has intimated to surveyors of taxes that in all cases where the omission of bonuses from income-tax Returns have been made under the bona fide belief that they were exempt, and that no demand was to be made for back tax, and if any had been received it must be returned, some surveyors of taxes are demanding the back tax and compelling its payment; and whether he will, under the circumstances, again communicate with the Inland Revenue authorities with the object of securing equitable treatment to all those who were bona fide of the opinion that a bonus on wages was exempt from the tax.
    (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The instruction given to the surveyors of taxes in this matter have, so far as the Board of Inland Revenue are aware, been strictly adhered to. But, if the hon. Member has any particular case in

    1555
    mind and will furnish me with details, inquiry shall be made.

    Kilbrin Evicted Tenant.
    MR. FLYNN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have yet taken any steps towards securing the reinstatement of Timothy O'Donovan, who was evicted from his holding on the Barry estate, Ballyvoe, Kilbrin, County Cork; are the Commissioners aware that this holding was visited in May, 1907, by Mr. Inspector Byrne; and whether, as the holding is now in the landlord's hands, the Commissioners will avail themselves of their powers under the Act of 1907 to procure the restoration of this tenant.
    (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners had the former holding of Timothy O'Donovan inspected in May last, and have decided that the evicted tenant's widow is a suitable person to work a farm. The Commissioners will in due course consider whether the case is one for the application of their powers under the Evicted Tenants Act.

    Funerals of Indian and Crimean Veterans.
    MR. SLOAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Roland Crocker, trooper of the 11th Hussars, who died a short time ago in Kensington Workhouse Infirmary, and was proved by papers found in his possession to have been one of the Six Hundred at Balaclava, was buried with full military honours, a party of men from his old regiment, attending; and, if so, will the same concession apply to the Indian and Crimean veterans who reside in Belfast and neighbourhood.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The pensioner named in the Question was not buried with military honours, but the loan of a gun-carriage which was in the custody of the Army Service Corps at Kensington Barracks was sanctioned for his funeral. A few men of the 11th Hussars who were on furlough in London and a few men of the Army Service Corps voluntarily attended the funeral. Neither officers nor men who
    1556
    are not on the active list are entitled to a military funeral, but, as in the above case, there is no objection to a semi-military funeral being arranged privately, provided that no expense to the public is incurred.

    Sub-Target Rifle Machine Trials.
    SIR CLEMENT HILL: To ask the Secretary of State for War what has been the result of the Army trials of the sub-target rifle machine which were begun in 1906; and whether any such machine is now being officially used.
    (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) There have been no official trials of this machine. In 1906 Reports were called for as to experience gained with some privately owned machines and these were favourable. It has now, however, been arranged to give a trial to a new and far cheaper design which is being manufactured. Only eight machines were purchased out of public funds.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Destruction of Cordite.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, in reference to the refusal of the Board to state the amount and value of the large quantity of cordite which has been destroyed because of the presence of mercuric chloride, whether the Board have furnished, or propose to furnish, the Auditor-General with the information; and whether the reserves of ammunition were at once brought up to compensate for these unexpected losses.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): No cordite has been destroyed because it contained mercuric chloride.
    MR. BELLAIRS: Was it then because it had deteriorated?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Yes, on account of age.

    Stock of Cordite.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the cordite which has

    1557
    been destroyed since 1st January 1907, either because of deterioration or because of the presence of mercuric chloride, has been replaced; and whether the present stock of cordite is as largo as it was on 1st January, 1907.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: It is not desirable in the public interest to give any detailed information as to the stock of cordite, but it is at least as large as on the 1st January, 1907.

    Norwegian Granite for Haulbowline Works.
    MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state from whence the granite for use in the new works at Haulbowline is being obtained; and whether any of the granite to be used is foreign granite.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The contractors have informed the Admiralty that they are obtaining the granite from Norwegian quarries.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the very finest granite is to be obtained in Great Britain, and that, if the Government had secured the granite in Great Britain, the wages would have been spent on working people in our own country?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I believe very good granite is to be obtained in this country.
    MR. WATT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the contractor is a strong tariff reformer?
    MR. REMNANT: What was the difference in price between the Norwegian and the British contracts?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: There were alternative contracts for Irish limestone and granite. The difference was about 20 per cent. in the favour of the granite.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the difference in price between the granite to be obtained in this country and foreign granite?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONasked for notice of the Question.
    CAPTAIN DONELAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the best limestone in Ireland is procurable in the immediate vicinity of Haulbowline?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I believe so.
    MR. REMNANT: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us the difference in the wages paid the Norwegian worker?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: No, Sir, I cannot.
    MR. STANLEY WILSON: You ought to know.

    Consumptive Soldiers.
    COLONEL LOCK WOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what stops (if any) are or will be taken to carry out the recommendations of the special War Office Committee with regard to soldiers suffering from tuberculosis and making provision for their reception into suitable sanatoria, and thus prevent the spread amongst the civilian population in their own homes of a disease which is killing off some 40,000 of our population annually.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): Will the hon. and gallant Member kindly refer to my replies to previous Questions on this subject put by the hon. Member for Sunderland on the 18th February, and the hon. Member for the Abercrom-by division of Liverpool on the 2nd instant, to which at present I have nothing to add.

    New Forest Manœuvres.
    SIR ROBERT HOBART: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is proposed to authorise by Order in Council large military manœuvres in the New Forest during the coming autumn; whether his attention has been drawn to the provisions of The Military Manœuvres Act, 1897, especially to Section 1 (2) which requires six months' notice to the county district and parish councils, wholly or partly within the specified limits, and in

    1559
    the case of the New Forest to the Court of Verderers, with three months notice, to be advertised in two local newspapers before the Order comes into force, together with an address from each House of Parliament to His Majesty, praying that the Order may be made; and further to inquire whether the term authorised forces in the Military Manœuvres Act applies to the Territorial Forces equally with the Regular Forces of the Crown.
    MR. HALDANE: It is not proposed to make use of the Military Manœuvres Act in the New Forest in 1908. The General Officer Commanding in-Chief Southern Command has arranged in a friendly fashion with the Office of Woods and Forests for permission to hold manœuvres in and about the New Forest in the autumn, a plan which is much preferable to the costly and clumsy one of resorting to compulsory powers. As regards the last part of the Question the phrase "authorised forces" applies to the Territorial Forces as well as the Regular Forces.
    SIR ROBERT HOBARTasked whether permission had been obtained from the Court of Verderers.
    MR. HALDANEasked that the Question should be put down.
    MR. ASHLEYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman had ascertained whether the manœuvres were viewed with favour by those who had common or grazing rights.
    MR. HALDANEsaid he assumed so, otherwise permission would not be given.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Is it not the fact that the hon. Member for the New Forest is the chief holder of these rights?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Cordite and Mercuric Chloride.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Report of Lord Rayleigh's Committee bore out the conclusion of his expert advisers, as stated by him in the debate on 11th June, 1907, that there was no excuse for using mercuric chloride as an antiseptic in cordite, and that the only purpose for which mercuric chloride
    1560
    could be added to cordite was to mask the heat test.
    MR. HALDANE: As I have already explained to the House, the investigation of the question of the use of mercury in the manufacture of cordite was not referred to the Conference under the presidency of Lord Rayleigh.
    MR. BELLAIRSasked whether his right hon. friend was aware that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had just said that the Committee unanimously recommended that the blasting explosive which contained mercuric chloride should be destroyed; and was there any inherent difference between cordite and blasting explosives in the matter.
    MR. HALDANE: We decided this question for ourselves; we had our own specifications.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Has all the cordite containing mercuric chloride held by the War Office been destroyed?
    MR. HALDANE: I imagine so.
    LORD R. CECILasked why it was that the cordite belonging to the War Office which contained mercuric chloride had been destroyed on that ground, while cordite belonging to the Admiralty which contained mercuric chloride had not been destroyed on that ground.
    MR. HALDANEsaid that the War Office had it in their specifications that mercuric chloride and such things were not to be put in, and where they were put in they rejected the cordite. The Question should be put down.
    AN HON. MEMBER: Is it not the fact that many experts hold that mercuric chloride adds to rather than detracts from the stability of chloride?
    MR. HALDANE: I am not aware of that.
    MR. LEA: What was the value of the cordite destroyed by the War Office?
    MR. HALDANEasked for notice.

    Fife Garrison Artillery Militia.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether reductions are to be made in the permanent staff of the Fife Royal Garrison Artillery Militia when it is formed into Field Artillery Special Reserve; what course will be taken with those members of the permanent staff who will lose their present appointments; and whether, considering the fact that they are mostly married men, warning may be given them before April to enable them to give notice to give up their houses.
    MR. HALDANE: Some reductions will have to be made in the permanent staff, but they will not take place until after the annual training. Every endeavour will be made to avoid hardships as far as possible by giving sufficient warning. Those who are reduced will be absorbed in Royal Garrison Artillery units of the Territorial Force, or in Royal Garrison Artillery.
    MR. ARNOLD FORSTER: By what proportion will the permanent staff be reduced?
    MR. HALDANE: I cannot say at present.

    Army Quartermasters and Riding Masters.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in consideration of the long service and good conduct entailed by those who have risen from the ranks to the position of quartermaster and riding-master in His Majesty's Army, he will consider the advisability of amending the regulations to ensure them substantive rank instead of honorary rank, quicker promotion from the rank of lieutenant, and a higher rate of retired pay.
    MR. HALDANE: It is not considered that the duties of a quartermaster necessitates the grant of substantive rank, as his appointment as such is held to give him all the authority he requires, and his work during his whole period of service as such is practically the same. As regards promotion the steps of honorary
    1562
    rank may be regarded as corresponding to the average rate of promotion in the case of officers holding substantive rank. As regards retired pay, as I fully explained in my reply to a Question put by the hon. Member for the Newmarket Division of Cambridgeshire on the 19th February, it has not been thought right to make any increase.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I cannot agree that the average rate of promotion corresponds in the two cases. It is very different.

    Army Pensions.
    CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of making it obligatory for boards of guardians to distribute pensions to old soldiers instead of optional, as at present proposed.
    MR. HALDANE: The War Office has no power to make it obligatory for boards of guardians to distribute soldiers pensions. In exceptional cases where pensioners frequently become inmates of workhouses, payment is made weekly by the guardians, but any attempt to make this custom of general application would be strongly resented by the pensioners. I do not, therefore, propose to adopt the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion.

    Yeomanry and the Territorial Army.
    SIR J. DICKSON-POYNDER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it will be obligatory on all the Yeomanry when joining the Territorial Army to engage for a term of four years; and whether he will issue an Order to enable those yeomen who have already served in the force, whose engagement expires after 1st April and who desire to join the Territorial Army, to engage for one year instead of four years.
    MR. HALDANE: As I have previously explained to the House, yeomen, if enrolled before the 18th August, 1901, who have not since come under the Militia and Yeomanry Act, 1901, may either serve for one year from the 31st March, 1908, or sign for the full period of four years. Those serving under the Act of 1901 may elect either to serve for the

    1563
    term required to complete their present period of engagement, re-engagement or re-enlistment, or to sign for the full period of four years.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEYasked if a man enlisted under the Act of 1901 had already served three years he would have to bind himself to serve in the Territorial Army for another four years?
    MR. HALDANEasked for notice.

    Cakijanu, the Zulu.
    MR. GREENWOOD: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Zulu, Cakijana, for whose apprehension £100 reward was offered, and who is alleged to be the most important of the witnesses wanted against Dinizulu, surrendered voluntarily to the Commissioner of Police of Natal upon the advice of Miss Colenso; whether he protested his own innocence and that of Dinizulu, and begged the protection of the Governor against the application of martial law in his case; whether, notwithstanding this, he was sent back to Nkandhla, where martial law is in force; whether he has been, or is to be, tried under martial law; and whether any, and, if so, what punishment has been inflicted upon him?
    THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): I have no official information on the subject of the Question, but I would remind the hon. Member that the Natal Government has repudiated the suggestion that they had, at any time, the intention of trying Dinizulu himself by court-martial, and I cannot think that they would contemplate such a proceeding in the case of Cakijana.

    Colonial Crown Agents' Office Administration.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Secretary of State has yet appointed a Committee to inquire into and report upon the constitution, administration, and internal management of the office of the Crown Agents for the Colonies, as promised; and, if so, whether he has any objection to give the names of the
    1564
    members of the Committee and the terms of reference.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; but the Secretary of State has made considerable progress in that direction, and I hope that before long it may be possible to make a statement.

    St. Helena.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that the inhabitants of St. Helena, numbering about 5,000, have only one medical man to attend to their needs, he will consider the advisability of appointing an assistant Colonial surgeon.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The number of inhabitants of St. Helena at the last census in May, 1901, was 3,342, not 5,000, and there is reason to believe that the number has been reduced since that date. The question of appointing an assistant Colonial surgeon has been considered on several occasions, but it has not been found advisable to do so. There is an official hospital, with a staff of trained nurses, to supplement the services of the Colonial surgeon.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the doctor now in charge has met with an accident and that the people are consequently doctorless?
    MR. CHURCHILL: I have not heard that.

    Deportation of Sick Chinese from the Transvaal.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can say how many Chinese labourers have been deported to China, under Section 26 of the Transvaal Ordinance, 1904, on account of disease and physical infirmity; and how far the effect of this section has been taken into account in arriving at the comparative rates of mortality of the Chinese and Kaffirs working in the gold mines.
    *MR. CHURCHILL: I understand that the total number of Chinese repatriated up to date as physically unfit is 4,783. The figures of mortality show only deaths

    1565
    on the Rand, and deaths either of Chinese or Kaffirs, who have left the Rand are not included.
    MR. MACKAENESS: Are Kaffirs deported in the same way?
    *MR. CHURCHILL: There is no law providing for it as in the case of the Chinese.

    Repatriation of Chinese.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state the number of Chinese labourers repatriated from the Transvaal mines in the month of February, and the number of Kaffirs waiting to take their places; and whether he is aware of any complaints having been made by the mine owners of the inadequacy of the supply of native labour?
    MR. CHURCHILL: 3,037 Chinese were repatriated in February, and the net gain of natives during the month was 7,641. The native recruiting returns have latterly made a record, and I am not aware that complaints of the inadequacy of the supply are at present being made.

    The Algeciras Convention.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government has been approached by any foreign Power with a view to the denunciation or modification of the Algeciras Convention.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): The answer is in the negative.

    Mecca Pilgrims.
    MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps have been taken by the Egyptian Government to secure the safe return to the coast of the large body of Egyptian subjects who have undertaken the pilgrimage to Mecca.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The measures taken by the Egyptian Government for the protection of Egyptian pilgrims to Mecca were revised in 1906. The honourable Member will find details on
    1566
    the subject in Lord Cromer's last we published Annual Reports (Egypt No. 1 [1906] page 66, and Egypt No. 1 [1907] page 78). His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Constantinople has reported that, in consequence of a recent attack on the caravan by Arabs, the Grand Vizier has instructed the Vali of the Hedjaz and Kiazim Pasha, who is in charge of the Hedjaz Railway Works, to take the necessary steps to ensure the safe return of the pilgrims.

    Panama Labour.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the Report upon Panama Labour will be in the hands of Members.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The Report will be in the hands of Members in a few days.

    Cotton Cultivation in Egypt.
    MR. J. M. ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a Commission has been appointed by the Egyptian Government to examine the question of the recent and present state of cotton cultivation in Egypt; whether the members appointed are respectively the English directors of the Survey Department and the Ministry of Finance, and the English secretary of the Khedivial Society of Agriculture; and whether it is intended to appoint on the Commission any native landholders engaged in cotton cultivation and any scientific experts.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I have received no official information on the subject, but I will make inquiry.

    Cordite Dispute with Messrs Kynoch.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the fact that much correspondence ensued with Messrs. Kynoch subsequent to the announcement of the terms of the settlement on 26th June, 1907, whether he will state in what way the settlement was modified through the correspondence; and whether the correspondence and the final terms of the settlement can be published.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): The terms of

    1567
    settlement were not modified in any respect, and remain the same as I stated in the House on the 3rd of last July. The correspondence which has passed between Messrs, Kynoch and the Home Department related to the carrying out of the terms of the settlement, particularly to the question which of the blasting explosives under seizure contained mercuric chloride, and to the release from seizure of those explosives which did not contain that ingredient; also to the reassembly of the conference under the chairmanship of Lord Rayleigh. That conference re-assembled on the 25th of last month, and unanimously recommended that the blasting explosive containing mercuric chloride should be destroyed. In these circumstances, no useful purpose would be served by publishing the correspondence.

    Privileged Cabs at London Railway Stations.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many railway stations within the metropolitan area have remained closed to cab drivers under the provisions of the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act, 1907.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Orders made under Section 2 of the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act, 1907, have exempted from the operation of that section all stations except the terminal stations of the various railway companies, and the London and South Western stations at Vauxhall and Clapham Junction. This is in accordance with the clear understanding arrived at when the Bill was before Parliament that suburban stations would not as a rule be dealt with under the section.

    The "All Red" Route.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when the Committee appointed to consider the All Red Route reported to the Government; and if he will lay the Report or such portion of it as may be published without prejudice to the public interest.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY,): No report has yet been made by the informal Committee
    1568
    referred to. The Committee have not as yet received any formal proposals from the Dominions interested.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Can the hon. Gentleman say when the Committee is likely to report?
    MR. KEARLEY: No, Sir.

    Automatic Couplings.
    MR. MADDISON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Railway Employment Safety Appliance Committee has had any trials of automatic couplings or made any report on them, and, if it has expressed any view throwing doubt on their value as safety-appliances, on what evidence it is based.
    MR. KEARLEY: The Committee which consists of Colonel Yorke, my hon. friend the Member for Derby, and Mr. Turnbull of the London and North Western Railway were asked to consider whether it was advisable that investigations and experiments should be undertaken in regard to automatic couplings, and they reported after very full consideration that it appeared to be impracticable to fit such appliances to existing waggon stock and that consequently any extensive tests of automatic couplers under present conditions would be of no value. The Committee's Report will be presented when they have concluded their investigations.
    MR. MADDISON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has refused to appoint a juror on the Italian Committee which is to conduct trials of automatic couplers; and, if so, whether he will reconsider his decision, seeing that the use of automatic couplings in the United States has shown that they have been the means of considerable saving of life and limb.
    MR. KEARLEY: His Majesty's Government have received no invitation to nominate a juror on this Committee.

    Scarlet Fever in London.
    MR. REMNANT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board what action he proposes to take relative to the resolution unanimously

    1569
    passed by the managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District on the 7th December, 1907, and supported by the Corporation of the City of London and generally by the borough councils and boards of guardians of the metropolis, asking the Local Government Board, in view of the continued prevalence of scarlet fever, notwithstanding the extensive isolation accommodation which has been provided, to cause an inquiry to be instituted into the cause of the disease; and whether any, and, if so, What, further means can be adopted for its prevention
    *THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Dr. MACNAMARA,): My right hon. friend has received the resolution referred to, which has been supported by various borough councils and boards of guardians. He is giving consideration to the subject, but has not yet arrived at a decision with regard to it.
    MR. REMNANT: When is a decision likely to be arrived at?
    *DR. MACNAMARA: I will put the Question to my right hon. friend.

    Danish Bacon and Lard.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, as a result of the fining of Alexander Poison, manager of the Albion Bacon Curing Factory at Holbeck, Denmark, for melting lard derived from diseased animals, his attention has been called to the action of the Danish Minister of Agriculture in concealing the fact that one of the directors had been fined for practices which might injure the reputation of Danish produce on the English market; and whether, in view of the fact that the managers of all the Danish co-operative slaughter-houses met at Copenhagen on 23rd March condemned the management of the Albion factory and expressed a wish to secure more effective control over bacon and other meat exported from Denmark, he will state what steps he proposes to take to safeguard the interests of consumers in this country pending the introduction of more effective control by legislation in Denmark.
    DR. MACNAMARA: My right hon. friend has seen the statements in The Times with regard to the matters referred to in the Question. He does not think any special action is necessary at the present time as regards the importation of bacon and meat from Denmark, but he has in preparation regulations dealing generally with the measures to be taken for the prevention of danger to health from the importation of foreign meat.
    MR. BOLAND: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a Bill has been introduced into the Danish legislature to deal with this matter, thereby admitting that the present control is ineffective?
    DR. MACNAMARA: I am not aware of that.

    Postage to Morocco.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that Great Britain possesses some 50 per cent. of the trade, he will consider the advisability of reducing the postage between Morocco and this country to 1d. per ounce, as is the case in respect of letters posted between Morocco, Spain, Germany, and France.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (M. SYDNEY BUXTON,): The question of reducing the rate of postage upon letters passing between the British postal agencies in Morocco and this country is now under my consideration.

    Newfoundland Newspaper Rates.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he will consider the advisability of reducing the rate of postage on newspapers and periodicals sent from the United Kingdom to Newfoundland to 1d. per pound, thus establishing the same rate as applies in the case of newspapers and periodicals sent from this country to Canada.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The reduction of postage on magazines and periodicals to Canada was based on the very special and peculiar position occupied by that Dominion, as the result of which British periodicals were unable to obtain a footing in Canada, their places

    1571
    being taken by publications from the United States. These conditions, as far as I am aware, do not prevail in Newfoundland. The rate on newspapers from the United States to Newfoundland is, according to the latest information available, the usual Postal Union rate, identically the same as the rate from Great Britain to Newfoundland. There does not appear, therefore, any reason for extending the Canadian Magazine Post to Newfoundland.

    Castle Morton Schoolroom.
    MR. ESSEX: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been called to a Primrose League concert and smoking political meeting held about a fortnight ago in the schoolroom of Castle Morton, Worcestershire, the vicar of the parish in the chair; whether he is aware that an off-license permitted the sale of refreshments on the school premises to many lads and other persons who were present; and whether he is taking or has taken any action in the matter.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA,): Yes, Sir. This school is a church school, the trustees of which are the Bishop and Archdeacon of Worcester and the Vicar of Longdon. I am not at present aware of the precise provisions of the trust or of the degree of responsibility of the trustees, but I have very little doubt that the use of the premises for the purposes mentioned, accompanied by the sale of intoxicating liquor, is not permissible under the terms of the deed.
    MR. ESSEX: Has the right hon. Gentleman satisfied himself that the permission was legally given?
    MR. McKENNA: I had nothing to do with the legality of the permission. The point of the Question is as to the permissible nature of this use of a trust building. I do not think it was permissible.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Has the right hon. Gentleman inquired if the facts are as alleged?
    MR. McKENNA: I have been informed they are.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: By whom?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    The Imperial College of Science.
    MR. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he has received any representation from the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions regarding the composition of the governing body of the Imperial College of Science and Technology indicating that in the opinion of these teachers the present constitution of the governing body of this college separated its work from existing technical institutions, and whether he proposes to settle immediately if the college is to be an independent foundation or part of the London University.
    MR. McKENNA: Yes, Sir. I received representations to that effect on the 4th February last. I have pointed out to the association that thirty out of the thirty-nine members of the governing body are nominated either by technical societies or by other bodies specially interested in technical education. With regard to the last paragraph, I must refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave him on the 2nd inst.

    Medical Inspection of Irish School Children.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether it is intended that the special grant for medical inspection and other purposes which he has stated he is prepared to recommend the Treasury to extend to elementary schools in England and Wales will be available for provided as well as non-provided schools; and whether the grant to provided schools would be affected by the passage of the Education Bill into law.
    MR. MCKENNA: The statement which the hon. Member quotes was inaccurately reported. I informed a deputation that I could not undertake to recommend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a special grant for medical inspection or to approach him

    1573
    with a view to obtaining any increase of grant for the ensuing year.

    Teachers' Registration Council.
    MR. A. ALLEN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the staff of the Teachers' Registration Council will be taken over by the new council when it is appointed; and, if not, whether any, and, if so, what, employment can be found for the members of the staff.
    MR. McKENNA: It will rest with the new council to decide what officers they will employ. The question of finding some temporary employment in connection with the Board of Education is now under consideration.
    MR. A. ALLEN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Teachers' Registration Council has been dissolved; and, if so, when the new council is to be appointed.
    MR. McKENNA: The existing council will be dissolved under the Order in Council on the 31st inst. With regard to the last paragraph, I must refer my hon. friend to the Answer which I gave yesterday to the hon. Baronet the Member for Oxford University.

    Marble Arch Improvement.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works what sum is allotted in Class 1 of the Estimates, 1908–9, for the alterations now being carried out at Marble Arch.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. HARCOURT,): No definite sum is allotted for this service in the Estimate for 1908–9. The cost will be met partly out of money available on the current year's Vote, and partly on the Vote for 1908–9, under Subhead F. Maintenance.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say to what sum the cost will amount?
    MR. HARCOURT: I cannot say. I am working with the London County Council, and I cannot say how the cost will be divided between us.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman determine it or the County Council?
    MR. HARCOURT: It will be easily determined by the line taken by the new fences of the park—on our side it will be our expense; on the other the County Council's.

    Imports of Foreign Straw.
    MR. WHITEHEAD: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he can see his way to include foreign straw used for packing and foreign peat-moss in the Order prohibiting import, having regard to the fact that both those articles are used for litter, and that peat-moss is imported from places where there is foot-and-mouth disease.
    *MR. J. A. PEASE (for Sir EDWARD STRACHEY): The Board do not see their way to adopt the suggestion of my hon. friend. They are satisfied that it would not be practicable to prohibit the introduction of straw used in packing, and in the case of peat-moss litter the manner in which that article is prepared for use renders it extremely improbable, if not impossible, that foot-and-mouth disease can be introduced thereby.
    MR. COURTHOPE: Will the Government consider the possibility of preventing the sale of this packing straw.
    *MR. J. A. PEASE: We have considered that fully and have come to the conclusion that it would be absolutely impossible to watch the course of this packing straw in all cases, and to have it destroyed.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Is not its importation prohibited in Ireland?
    *MR. J. A. PEASE: Not to my knowledge.

    Tobacco Growing in Scotland.
    MR. COCHRANE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, under what statute has the Treasury authority to issue permits for the growth of tobacco in Scotland; how much land might any individual cultivate with tobacco under such a permit; would the

    1575
    permit authorise the selling of the produce; and what amount of Excise Duty would be chargeable.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): In the form which the hon. Member has given to this Question I can only make him the same reply as on Monday last. I understand, however, that he intends to refer to the permission which had been given by successive Governments for several years previously to the passing of the Irish Tobacco Act, 1907, to grow tobacco for experimental purposes in Ireland. For these purposes the area under cultivation was limited to 109 acres and as a matter of fact no individual cultivated more than twenty acres. In these circumstances it was unnecessary to prohibit the sale of the produce. No Excise Duty was charged, but the growers agreed to make a payment equal to the Customs Duty on the amount of tobacco grown with a promise of refund of one third subsequently. His Majesty's Government are prepared to allow similar facilities for experimentation in Scotland under similar conditions.
    MR. COCHRANE: The point is under what statute the sanction is given?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I believe the action taken by our predecessors was executive action.

    Mail Service Contracts.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, when it is proposed to discuss the mail service contracts.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I am unable to say at present.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Will the Government give ample opportunity for the discussion?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: That Question should be addressed to the Leader of the House.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Will the hon. Gentleman make representations in the proper quarter to secure that we have ample opportunity?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Unlicensed Money Lending.
    MR. CARR-GOMM: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General, whether his attention has been called to the evidence given at the inquest on the body of a woman who committed suicide at 52, Gainsford Street, S.E., on 11th January, and especially to the evidence of a woman moneylender from whom the deceased had borrowed money, and who confessed to being unlicensed although engaged in lending money about the district; whether this case was brought to the notice of the Public Prosecutor; and, if so, on what grounds he refused to take action.
    THE ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSON,): The Public Prosecutor has inquired into this case, but there is no evidence in existence or apparently obtainable which would justify him in charging the woman as a moneylender within the meaning of the Act.

    Foriegn Trawlers in the North Sea.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, in view of the decision in the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, some time since, will he state why foreign trawlers detected trawling in the Moray Firth are no longer prosecuted.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: At the same time may I ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that to carry out the decision of the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland, and prosecute all foreign trawlers fishing outside the three mile limits in the Moray Firth would constitute a breach of International Law; whether he has been informed that that is the opinion of the Foreign Office; and whether he will immediately take steps to withdraw the British cruisers which at present protect these fishing grounds for the exclusive use and advantage of foreigners, and remove restrictions which prevent British fishermen from trawling in these waters.
    MR. MORTON: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Government propose to take any steps to compel the trawlers which are engaged in illegal trawling around the coasts of Scotland to obey the law; and

    1577
    whether he is aware that the rich companies and trusts are allowed to carry on this illegal trawling with impunity and thus deprive the fishermen of their means of livelihood.
    SIR ARTHUR BIGNOLD: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether trawling vessels of foreign countries fishing within the limits of the Moray Firth, but more than three miles from low-water mark therein, are immune from prosecution, or whether the law as laid down by the Justiciary Appeal Court of Scotland in July 1906 is now enforceable.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): The Government, for reasons of International comity, are not prepared to instruct proceedings against foreign trawlers engaged in trawling outside the limit of territorial waters recognised by international convention. I am, however, in communication with the other Government Departments concerned, with a view to the formulation of proposals for submission to other Powers at the earliest possible date.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTYasked whether there were not a thousand miles in the Moray Firth outside the three miles limit, which were not under the control of the Department, but which the Government were policing with British ships at the expense of the taxpayers; and whether the right hon. Gentleman would take steps to remove these restrictions and give British fishermen the same opportunities as foreign fishermen enjoyed.
    MR. SINCLAIR: It is the duty of British subjects to obey the law.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: Does the right hon. Gentleman imply that British fishermen do not obey the law?
    MR. WEIR: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that—
    MR. STANLEY WILSON: He will not answer it.
    MR. WEIR: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the first consideration to
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    the needs of line fishermen as against the trawlers?
    MR. STANLEY WILSON: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman is in favour of giving preferential treatment to foreigners?
    [No Answer was given.]
    MR. WEIRagain asked whether the first consideration would be given to the line fishermen rather than to the trawlers.
    MR. COURTHOPEasked whether the Government would consider the advisability of a change in the law.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The Government will, of course, bear such considerations in mind, and in reply to the hon. Member for Ross-shire, I can assure him that the consideration he mentions is present to the mind of the Government.
    MR. ASHLEY: Are we to understand that the Government recognise the right of trawlers flying a foreign flag to fish outside the three-mile limit without let or hindrance?
    MR. SINCLAIR: That is fully covered by the Answer to the Question on the Paper.
    MR. WATT: Is it the case as alleged that the opinion of the Lord Chancellor is enabling the Government to over-ride the unanimous opinion of the Court of Session?
    *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had bettor put that Question clown.

    Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the fact that the Small Landholders (Scotland) Bill has been rejected by the Lords, will he state what steps the Government propose to take to meet the land hunger and distress in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The responsibility for the rejection of this Bill does not lie with the Government. They are very sensible of the vital importance of the subject, an importance which has in no degree decreased, but I have no statement to make at present.
    MR. WEIR: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that there is acute distress in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and that the Bill which was brought in was an impossible Bill to pass? Is the right hon. Gentleman also not aware that the conditions in the Highlands are totally different from those in the Lowlands?
    MR. SINCLAIR: I am aware of the fact, but I am not able to follow my hon. friend into a discussion of that nature.
    VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Government intend to support in this House another Bill dealing with that subject which has been introduced by a noble Lord in the House of Lords?
    MR. SINCLAIR: That question will arise when the circumstance occurs to which the noble Lord refers.
    MR. AINSWORTH: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of increasing the powers of the Congested Districts Board of Scotland by legislation so as to enable them to deal with the question of small holdings by hiring or purchasing land for the whole of Scotland?
    MR. SINCLAIRasked for notice of that Question.

    Scottish Congestion and Migration.
    MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the Congested Districts Board have yet framed a scheme for the encouragement of migration to the mainland; and, if not will he explain the cause of the delay.
    MR. SINCLAIR: Until the information referred to in my Answer to my hon. friend's Question on the 11th instant has been received I am unable to make any further statement.

    Campbeltown Sheriff's Judgment on Trawling.
    MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that, in a case of illegal trawling tried at Campbeltown, Argyllshire, on the 4th of September, 1907, the sheriff said that, from a tolerable experience
    1580
    of convictions of those who have been guilty of transgressing the law as to otter trawling, he thought that until Parliament saw fit to permit the imposition of some much more drastic punishment than the limit which at present the Courts have power to inflict, and the provision of more adequate means for the detection and capture of offenders, such as more and faster cruisers, little can be done effectively to prevent illegal trawling and the ultimate ruin of the entire fishing industry, that the punishment which at present it is in the power of the Courts to inflict was wholly inadequate to prevent the infraction of the law, and that the number and the speed of the protective vessels at present at the disposal of the Fishery Board was wholly incommensurate with the necessities of the case; and whether, under those circumstances, he will take steps to vindicate the law and to compel these illegal trawlers to obey the law.
    MR. SINCLAIR: Regarding the earlier part of this Question I can only refer my hon. friend to the reply given him on the 24th instant. The protective vessels are rendering efficient service in the vindication of the law, and it is owing to financial considerations that the number has not been further increased.

    Scottish Herring Fishery.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether in view of the failure of the herring fishery on the West Coast of Shetland since the killing of whales commenced and operations consequent, and the apprehension that still wider-spread disaster will ensue, he will take precautions to protect the inshore fisheries from the depredations of trawlers.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The fishery cruisers have instructions to secure the purpose indicated by my hon. friend.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: Will the right hon. Gentleman take some steps to secure that persons caught destroying the fishery shall be punished?
    MR. SINCLAIR: I do not quite understand the bearing of that Question. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put it down.

    Convictions for Illegal Trawling.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that the efforts of the Orkney and Shetland Vigilance Association to secure conviction of trawlers engaged in destroying the inshore fisheries have been attended with some measure of success; and if the Government would consider whether the offering of a reward for the conviction of offenders would have a salutary effect.
    MR. SINCLAIR: I accept the information given in the earlier part of the Question from my hon. friend. The offer of a reward by the Government for the conviction of offenders is not a course of action which I can see my way to adopt.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: Then are we to understand the Scottish Department admits that there are spies all round the coasts of Scotland?
    MR. SINCLAIR: No, Sir.

    Grimsby Trawlers in the Moray Firth.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that most of the so-called foreign trawlers in the Moray Firth are owned in Grimsby, and are placed under the Norwegian flag in order to evade the laws of this Country, and thus unfairly to fish in waters prohibited to their fellow countrymen; and, seeing that the International Fisheries Conference at Christiana in 1901, at which the representatives of Norway were present, unanimously passed a resolution to the effect that in distinct areas of the sea, as for example the Moray Firth, in which any Government have undertaken scientific experiments in the interests of the fisheries, and in which the success of the experiments is being hindered by the operations of trawlers, it is to be desired that measures be adopted for the removal of such hindrances, whether the Government will make a friendly representation to the Norwegian Government with regard to adoption of measures for the removal of the hindrances above referred to?
    MR. SINCLAIR: I understand the facts to be as stated in the first part of my hon. friend's Question. The
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    remainder is covered by the general reply which I have just given on this subject.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: Will the right hon. Gentleman publish a return showing the number of vessels British owned but sailing under the Norwegian flag?
    MR. SINCLAIR: If the hon. Gentleman will put down that Question I will consider it.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: This is an unfair charge on some of my constituents.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: Is the hon. Member for Grimsby not himself interested?
    *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGHTY: That is an insinuation which——
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order, I did not allow the question so I cannot permit the reply.

    Clyde Herring Fishery.
    MR. AINSWORTH: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware of the damage caused to the herring fishery in the Clyde by the use of the seine net during the spawning season; whether he is aware that by the use of this net spawning fish are caught which would otherwise escape, and when caught are only of small market value, while other fish are destroyed which have no market value at the time; and whether he will cause inquiry to be made as to the advantage of establishing a close time for the some net from 1st February to 15th May in each year.
    MR. SINCLAIR: The matter referred to by my hon. friend has already been the subject of prolonged inquiry and the conclusions drawn there from do not tend to establish the theory that this mode of fishing conducted in waters suitable thereto is necessarily injurious.
    MR. AINSWORTH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that all public opinion, with one exception, is in favour of a close time for the seine net?
    MR. SINCLAIR: I will accept it.
    MR. WATT: Will the right hon. Gentleman institute an inquiry either by the Fishery Board or by a separate Commission into the opinions held by fishermen on the Clyde?
    MR. SINCLAIR: A prolonged inquiry has already taken place on this very subject, and in my opinion there is no necessity to institute a further inquiry.
    MR. H. J. TENNANT.What was the nature of the inquiry?
    MR. SINCLAIRasked for notice.

    Tralee Goods Rates.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), what are the rates charged by passenger and goods trains for butter, bacon, and eggs from Tralee to London, Manchester and Liverpool; what is the value of each of those commodities imported yearly into England from Foreign countries; and what is the value of the imports from Ireland.
    THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT or AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,): The Answer to my hon. friend's Question involves a tabular statement which will be more readily understood if published in the Votes to-night, which I propose to do.

    Frauds on Irish Industries.
    MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), whether his attention has been called to the prosecution and conviction of a trader at Hawick, on the 16th instant, who was charged at the instance of the Board of Trade with selling shoddy cloth as Scottish tweed, and sentenced to a month's imprisonment, is the Department aware that frauds of a similar character in respect to Irish products, such as bacon and hams, and Irish manufactures, such as tweeds, linen and lace, are perpetrated in Great Britain; what steps, if any, are being taken by the Department to check these fraudulent practices; and whether the protection
    1584
    of Irish industries against illegitimate competition, British and foreign, is allowed to devolve solely on the Irish Industrial Development Association.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Department have seen a report of the case mentioned in the Question. They are aware that fraudulent transactions in respect of Irish products of various kinds take place in Great Britain. The Department have officers stationed in Great Britain, whose principal duties are concerned with the detection of frauds in connection with the sale of articles of Irish agricultural produce; and through the instrumentality of these officers several prosecutions have been successfully instituted against offenders for the sale of foreign eggs as Irish, of margarine as Irish butter, and of factory butter as creamery. Other cases are at present pending. The Department cannot expend their funds in proceedings under the Merchandise Marks Acts for the prevention of frauds affecting Irish industries generally. The Board of Trade are empowered to take proceedings under those Acts in cases affecting the general interests of a trade; and the Department are prepared to submit to the Board, for such action as they may think desirable, any cases of the kind which may come under their notice. The Department are aware of the action of the Irish Industrial Development Association in this respect, and consider that much of this work can be most effectively done by such an agency which represents the traders themselves.
    MR. FLYNN: Cannot the Department in addition to appointing inspectors for agriculture appoint inspectors in connection with Irish manufactures?
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: No, Sir.
    MR. R. DUNCAN: Has the Irish Industrial Development Association taken part in electioneering?
    [No Answer was returned.]
    *MR. CHARLES CRAIG: Have the officers of the Department instructions to take proceedings in connection with frauds in regard to linen

    1585
    sold as Irish hand-loom made when it is machine made?
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked for notice.

    Irish Exports.
    MR. GWYNN: I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), if he can state the annual total of Ireland's export trade in cattle, bacon, eggs, poultry, and butter, respectively, for the past three years.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Answer to my hon. friend's Question involves a tabular statement which will be more readily understood if published in the Votes to-night, which I propose to do.

    Case of Minnie Walsh.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he intends to issue a nolle prosequi in the case of Minnie Walsh.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,): Yes, Sir.

    Firies Outrage.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the 17th instant a man named Daniel Moynihan, when driving on an outside car from Killarney towards Firies, was attacked by three disguised men, two of whom were armed, and robbed of certain papers, and that he was threatened not to show himself in that neighbourhood again; what arrests have been made; and what sentences have been passed.
    MR. CHERRY: Daniel Moynihan has given information to the police to the effect stated in the Question, and the local police are now engaged in investigating the matter. No arrests have been made up to the present.

    Ballingar Outrage.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any arrests have been made in connection with the outrage committed on a herd named Patrick
    1586
    Collins, Ballingar, Woodford, Comity Galway, on 8th February last, when he and his family were attacked in their house by armed men and his wife shot in the face; and is Collins employed by a Mr. Lewis, who has been severely boycotted lately by the United Irish League, which is making a fierce effort to terrify his employees into leaving him.
    MR. CHERRY: No arrests have been made in this case. Four shots were fired at the house. Two of them struck the outside wall, but the others broke the glass in a window, and some of the pellets struck Mrs. Collins in the face and neck. I am glad to say that she was not seriously injured. Collins is in the employment of Mr. Lewis, who is boycotted.

    Woodford Outrage.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that John Minogue, whose house was fired into on the night of the 3rd instant, in the neighbourhood of Woodford, in the County of Galway, had previously been intimidated by shouting, groaning, and the blowing of horns, because he was in the employment of Mr. Lewis; that he was summoned before the Abbey branch of the United Irish League, and was allowed one month to clear out of his then occupation; if he is aware that at the time the outrage took place Minogue was on his way to attend a meeting of the League to ask permission to keep on his herding, and if on the day following the outrage Minogue gave up his employment; that the house of another herd on the Lewis estate within a short distance of Minogue's was fired into about six weeks before and his wife injured; will he say if the police are now aware of any reason for the firing into Monogue's house; and would he lay upon the Table of the House the report of the local police upon the subject.
    MR. CHERRY: The police authorities inform me that Minogue has never complained of having been shouted or groaned at. He states that he was summoned before the United Irish League, and that he was on his way to attend a meeting of the league at the time when his house was fired into. No meeting, however,

    1587
    was held. Minogue was a herd in the employment of Mr. Lewis, and he gave up his employment on the following day. I stated in reply to the last Question that on 8th February the house of another herd named Collins was fired into and his wife injured. It would be quite irregular to state the suspicions of the police as to the motives for offences. In this ease, I am informed, there is more than one possible motive. The reply to the concluding inquiry is in the negative.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: Does the right hon. Gentleman imply that this man had no objection to his house being fired into?
    MR. CHERRY: I said he had never complained of being shouted at or groaned at.

    Westmeath Cattle Drive.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that an extensive cattle-drive took place on the 17th instant, when over 100 head of cattle and sheep were removed off the lands of Lackan, Fulmorth, and Soho, Multyfarnham, county Westmeath; whether the police have assigned any reason for the outrage; how many persons have been arrested in connection with it; and what sentences were passed.
    MR. CHERRY: The facts are substantially as stated. I cannot state the surmises of the police as to the reason for driving off the cattle, No arrests have been made in the case.

    Outrage on the Butler Estate.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can give the House any information about the outrage which was committed on or about the 12th instant, when the house of a farmer named Moroney on the Butler estate, County Clare, was attacked by moonlighters, and a regular fusilade of guns and revolver shots fired through the windows; can he state if the police have made any arrests; and, if so, what sentences have been passed on those moonlighters.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: I suppose we shall get the same reply.
    MR. CHERRY: On the evening of 28th February several revolver and gun shots were fired outside the house of Michael Moroney, at a distance of about 20 yards from the house. Three pellets of shot entered one of the windows. The offenders were not seen, and the police have not been able to obtain evidence of their identity. No arrests, therefore, have been made. [Ironical OPPOSITION cheers.] It seems to give hon. Members great pleasure that no evidence was obtained by the police.

    Derrymore Outrage.
    CAPTAIN CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can give the House any information about the outrage which was committed on the 12th instant, when the house of a farmer named Murphy, near Derrymore, County Clare, was raided by a party of moonlighters, who fired about a dozen shots from guns and revolvers; can he state if the police have made any arrests; and, if so, what sentences have been passed on the moonlighters.
    MR. CHERRY: On the evening of 3rd March seven or eight revolver and gun-shots were fired into and about the house of Patrick Murphy, breaking the glass in the kitchen window, but doing no other damage. It is stated that the occupants saw several men running away, but could not identify them. No arrests have been made.
    MR. T. L. CORBETTasked the right hon. and learned Gentleman when the last arrest was made for this kind of offence.
    MR. CHERRY: I really could not say, but if the hon. Member will put down a Question I will inquire.

    Warden Estate Evicted Tenants.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the Estates Commissioners propose to acquire under the provisions of the Evicted Tenants Act, the six evicted untenanted farms on the unsold portion of the Warden estate,

    1589
    near Sneem, County Kerry, seeing that the evicted tenants are ready to occupy them.
    MR. CHERRY: The Estates Commissioners inform me that there are only three evicted tenants from the Warden estate for whom the Commissioners intend to provide holdings if possible. In one of these cases, the evicted farm is in the occupation of another tenant. In the two remaining cases the Commissioners have not yet considered the question of compulsorily acquiring the holdings.

    Ventry Estate.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, when the Congested Districts Board will be prepared to resume the negotiations for the purchase of the Ventry estate; and whether, seeing that legal proceedings are pending for the recovery of rent and due solely to the refusal of the Board to complete the sale, the Board will direct its inspector to visit the estate at once.
    MR. CHERRY: In the present state of the funds of the Congested Districts Board, no date can be fixed at which negotiations for the purchase of Lord Ventry's estate can be resumed.
    MR. DILLON: Did not the Chief Secretary in the debate promise the purchase should be carried out?
    MR. CHERRYasked for notice.

    Cootehill Labourers' Cottages.
    MR. McKEAN: I beg-to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he can state on what evidence the Local Government Board inspector who recently held an inquiry in Cootehill as to a scheme for providing labourers' cottages in the Cootehill Rural District No. 2, decided that the lands of Sydney Jackson, Esquire, were demesne lands, in view of the fact that at the aforesaid inquiry it was proved that a fair rent had been fixed on the said lands; and whether, under the circumstances, the Local Government Board intend to take any steps to provide the applicants under the labourers
    1590
    scheme with sites for cottages and allotments of land, more particularly as the houses in which the applicants at present live have been condemned on two occasions by the medical officer of the district.
    MR. CHERRY: The application for labourers' cottages on Mr. Jackson's lands was disallowed by the inspector on the ground that the lands were demesne lands. The lands are shown as desmesne on the ordnance survey maps, and evidence to the same effect was given on Mr. Jackson's behalf. No evidence to the contrary was given, nor was any statement made that a fair rent had been fixed on the lands. It is for the rural district council and not for the Local Government Board to take steps to provide the applicants with cottages on other lands.
    MR. McKEAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire further; I am informed that a fair rent has been fixed?
    MR. CHERRY: I do not think that would alter the decision of the inspector. I am afraid after the Report, the Government had no power to deal otherwise with the matter.
    MR. McKEAN: Is it intended to take steps to provide any cottages for these labourers?
    MR. CHERRY: If the district council neglect their duty the Local Government Board may compel them to do it.
    MR. McKEAN: Yes, but——
    *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better resume this debate another day.

    Galway Outrage.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at the late assizes held at Galway a man named Michael Mahon applied for compensation for the malicious burning of his House; that Mahon swore that a threatening notice was posted upon his door a few nights before application was heard stating that if he went to Galway he was doomed,

    1591
    and also having a picture of a coffin drawn upon it; whether the police at the trial proved to the satisfaction of the Judge that the notice was written by Mahon; and will he say what action the Crown intend to take in the matter.
    MR. CHERRY: The facts are substantially as stated in the Question, but I have no information as to whether the Judge expressed himself as being satisfied that the threatening notice was written by Mahon himself. The question as to what action, if any, should, be taken in the matter is under consideration.

    Dublin Port Dues.
    MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what are the port dues now charged in Dublin on such vessels as the steamers of the London and North Western Railway Company; and what are the analogous dues charged on vessels moored at Carlisle Pier, Kingstown.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I am informed that the port dues now charged in Dublin on the steamers of the London and North-Western Railway Company are at the rate of 5½d. per ton on one-half the gross tonnage. This charge amounts to about £21. 6s. 8d. per trip for each of the Company's four passenger steamers. The Company, however, contend, I understand, that they have power to compound annually for these charges by the payment in respect of each ship of a lump sum equivalent to the dues chargeable upon six trips. The dues charged for the mail steamers which are the only steamers now using Carlisle Pier, Kingstown, are at the rate of 5s. per trip, but these are payable throughout the year.
    MR. CLANCY: Am I right in assuming that the charges in Dublin for some years of the London and North Western Railway will amount to about £5,000 a year and that by going to Kingstown does the Government propose to permit them to do it on 5s. each trip?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I have no means of ascertaining the first figure quoted, and I shall not be able to give specific
    1592
    information until the case shortly to be tried has been decided.
    MR. CLANCY: Is not the case which is sub judice a totally different matter and dealing with the question whether the company of steamers have a right to go at all to the Carlisle Pier? This being the case, is not the Government actually paying the London and North Western Railway Company some £5,000 a year for the benefit of the English and Scottish services at the expense of the Port of Dublin.
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I think the hon. Member refers to an entirely different case. I referred to a case likely to come on shortly between the London and North Western Railway Company and the Dublin Port and Harbour Board.

    Licensing Compensation.
    MR. MACKARNESS: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is in a position to state to what extent the amount of compensation money payable to the holders of licences suppressed under the new Licensing Bill will be increased as compared with the amount they have hitherto received under The Licensing Act, 1904.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF the EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,): Hitherto the licence-holder's interest in the premises has not been calculated separately in arriving at the total compensation money payable. When the value of the licence has been arrived at as provided by the Act of 1904, the compensation has been divided in such proportions as between the licence-holder and the other parties interested as the Compensation Authority thought fit. It appears that in 1907 the average payment to a licence-holder was between £90 and £100 out of an average payment from the Compensation Funds of £921 per licence. The actual payments to the licence-holders varied very widely on either side of that average. Under the Bill, the compensation for the licence-holder is to be calculated separately from the compensation for the owners of the licensed premises, and is to be such sum as the Inland Revenue think just for "loss of business having

    1593
    regard to his conduct and the length of time during which he has been the holder of the licence." It is impossible to say definitely beforehand what sums will in any given case or even on the average be awarded, though they may certainly be expected to be considerably larger than the payments hitherto.

    Government Licensed Property.
    *CAPTAIN FABER: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, under the new Licensing Act, it is intended that the Government shall make provision for the extinction at the end of the time limit of any licences they may hold.
    MR. ASQUITH: I am not aware that the Government hold any licences, though certain Government Departments are no doubt in possession of interests in licensed premises. It will be for these Departments to consider what provision (if any) should be set aside against depreciation in the market value of such property as they do with respect to depreciation in other property for the management of which they are responsible.
    *CAPTAIN FABER: Would there have to be a sinking fund in the case of property already belonging to the Department?
    MR. ASQUITH: I have answered that Question.
    *CAPTAIN FABER: If the houses already belong to different Departments, how can there be a sinking fund?
    MR. ASQUITH: I do not understand that Question.
    *CAPTAIN FABER: I will try and explain——
    *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better give notice.

    Scottish Advocates.
    MR. WATT: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the facts that advocates in Scotland pay £50 stamp duty on being called to the Bar,
    1594
    and that solicitors there pay a similar sum on their admission, but that the latter branch of the profession are called upon annually to pay a further sum as licence duty to enable them to practice; whether he is aware that advocates have the privilege of pleading in inferior Courts while solicitors cannot plead in the Supreme Courts; and whether, in view of the fact that as a class advocates are better able to pay than solicitors, he will equalise the payments of the two branches of the profession.
    MR. ASQUITH: It is the fact that solicitors are required to take out an annual certificate to practice, and that such certificate is liable to a stamp duty, while in the case of barristers or advocates no such annual stamped certificate is necessary. The law is the same in this respect in England, Scotland and Ireland. The duties and privileges of the two branches of the profession are dissimilar, and there seems no good reason for equalising these payments by way of taxation.

RIGHTS OF PRIVATE MEMBERS.
MR. JESSE COLLINGSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the early adjournment on the preceding night was not an unprecedented proceeding and au infringement of the rights of private Members, for whom Tuesday and Wednesday nights were specially reserved.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. GEORGE WHITELEY,)said that under the circumstances it would have been unfair and inconvenient to Members if private Members' Bills in which they were interested had been taken while they were in ignorance of the fact that these particular measures were to be discussed. Moreover, he thought the adjournment was moved with the general agreement of the House.
MR. JESSE COLLINGSpointed out that some hours before eight o'clock arrangements were made to discuss the Small Holdings Bill, and several Members remained in the House for that purpose.
MR. GEORGE WHITELEYexpressed regret that the right hon. Gentleman's Bill did not come before the House, but repeated that there was a general feeling that the House should adjourn.
MR. JESSE COLLINGS: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if under the circumstances he will give facilities for this Bill?
MR. ASQUITH: I am afraid I could not give any such undertaking. The adjournment appears to have been assented to without a division.
LORD R. CECIL: Did not this difficulty arise from the unfortunate operation of the rule against anticipation, and will the right hon. Gentleman give an opportunity for the discussion of the Amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.
MR. ASQUITH: That may be so, and I am as anxious as anybody to see the new Standing Order passed, but the noble Lord knows on what condition only that can be done.
COLONEL SEELY: From what quarter of the House does the opposition to it emanate?
MR. ASQUITH: That will be seen on reference to the Order Paper.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. A. J. BALFOURasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the course of business would be next week, and whether he could give any indication of the time when the Second Reading of the Licensing Bill and the Miners (Eight Hours) Bill would be taken.
MR. ASQUITH: Monday is already appropriated to the Home Rule Motion. On Tuesday the Chief Secretary for Ireland will introduce the Irish University Bill. On Wednesday the first order will be the Committee stage of the Prosecution of Offences (Amendment) Bill, which must be got through before Easter; and the next order will be the Second Reading of the Housing Bill
1596
I cannot yet say what Supply will be taken on Thursday. The Second Reading of the Licensing Bill will be taken on Monday week, 6th April. I am unable to make any statement in regard to the Miners (Eight Hours) Bill.
MR. STANLEY WILSON: The Licensing Bill had better be dropped after Peckham.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A (in respect of the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Bill): Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Secretary Gladstone, and. Mr. Herbert Samuel; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Bill) Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor-General for Ireland, and Mr. Birrell.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee: That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Bill): Mr. Clancy, Mr. William O'Brien, Mr. Healy, Mr. Nannetti, Mr. John Redmond, Mr. Hayden, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Field, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Glover, Mr. Summerbell, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Guinness, Mr. Lonsdale, and Mr. Barrie.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to: Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, without Amendment.
NEW BILLS.

  HOUSING, TOWN PLANNING, ETC., BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Housing of the Working Classes, to provide for the making of Town Planning schemes, and to make further provision with respect to the appointment and

  1597
  duties of county Medical Officers of Health," presented by Mr. Burns; supported by Dr. Macnamara; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 178.]

  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.
  "To amend The Friendly Societies Act, 1896." presented by Mr. Runciman; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 179.]
  LICENSING (SCOTLAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To provide for the later opening in the man ling of premises licensed for the sale of excisable liquors in Scotland," presented by Mr. Findiay; supported by Mr. Cameron Corbett, Mr. Robert Balfour, Mr. Cross, Mr. Gulland, Mr. M'Galium, Mr. Sutherland, and Mr. Wilkie; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 8th April, and to be printed.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND.)
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,)in asking leave to introduce a Bill to amend the laws relating to education in Scotland, said: The existing system of education in Scotland has been regarded with general satisfaction, but even the most perfect system must require, as time goes on, adjustment to new needs and new conditions, in this case the necessity for these adaptations is somewhat urgent. During the last eight years, five Bills have been introduced by successive Governments to meet the requirements of Scottish education—four Bills in the Commons and one in the Lords. Every one of these Bills has failed to become law, the last of them being the Bill of last year, of which the present Bill is a development. It may be said therefore that the object of the Bill as a whole, is not to recast the system of education but to supplement it. In the first place, it will not disturb the existing areas. We leave the parish school boards with their present powers, and we leave the existing secondary education committees, which are to be found in every county and in some large boroughs, with their powers as at present. The Act of 1872 and subsequent legislation
1598
placed no limit on the powers of school boards in Scotland in regard to the provision of education, and when I say education that includes secondary education as well as what is known in England as elementary education. This Bill in no sense curtails or abridges the full powers in this respect which the school boards in Scotland possess at present. Nothing is taken away from them, and in the fututre, as in the past, the system will rest upon what has been proved to be a secure foundation. Time, however, has shown the necessity for organising and strengthening the present provision for secondary education, and for this we now provide. As the House is aware, money is actually voted every year for the purpose of Scottish education under the Code. These grants are paid direct to the school boards, and they will continue to be so paid and they are not touched by the proposals in this Bid. The first step which this Bill takes towards more adequate provision for secondary education is to establish an Education (Scotland) Fund, into which in future will be paid ail local taxation monies now intercepted and applied for the purposes of education in Scotland. This fund will therefore contain £60,000 available for secondary education under the Act of 1892, the residue grant of 1890, the agricultural rating relief grant of 1897, two sums set aside under the Act of 1892, and lastly the general aid grant, which was given to Scotland as an equivalent in respect of the English Education Act of 1902. These monies will in future be pooled together in the Education (Scotland) Fund, which, though varying slightly from time to time, will amount to something like £350,000 per annum. As to the application of this fund, in the first place it will meet certain general charges—certain prior charges—of a national character, which cannot properly be made in any locality, viz., claims from universities and central institutions such as technical colleges, agricultural colleges, and the like. These prior claims having been discharged the remaining sum will be distributed, according to their share, to the secondary education authorities. In this distribution a new principle will be applied. The existing principle of distribution, which is simply

1599
on the basis of population, obviously docs not do justice to the poorer localities. A new principle of distribution is therefore proposed—population qualified by two other considerations, viz., by the cost of education in each district and by the assessable revenue in each district calculated per head of the population. The secondary education committees, being thus placed in possession of their resources, have in their turn to meet certain general charges of a local character, charges which are general to their district—the provision of other kinds of education—which cannot properly be within the compass of the secondary school boards. Again, these prior charges having been met, the balance remaining will be distributed to school boards and to managers of voluntary schools on the same principle which I have described, which will in this case be applied to the parishes. By the establishment of the application of this new principle the House will see that this scheme regards the system as a whole. The ratepayers and the parish school boards will continue to be as they have been the foundation of the system, and they will be, as they have been, the custodians of education within their district, but in future, to a greater degree than in the past, what is spent on secondary education and what is spent on higher education will be a matter of direct concern, or at any rate of real concern, to every ratepayer in every school board district. There have been criticisms from two different sources on the existing areas, and they have contributed to the opinion which was held by some in favour of an alteration of the areas. This Bill endeavours to meet those criticisms. In the first place it is said that school boards which maintain secondary schools of which advantage is taken by people residing in neighbouring districts are unfairly treated by the present system. School board centers like Perth, or Galashiels, or Montrose, for instance, have gone in at great expense for the establishment of secondary schools. Other districts send pupils to such schools, and it is urged that it would be only fair that these districts should contribute in a larger share than they
1600
can at present to the expense of establishing or of maintaining such institutions. The grievance lies in the fact that towards the expenditure of such a school board in this respect, no adequate provision is made by the neighbouring districts. This Bill provides that such contribution shall be made, and any school board which provides secondary education will receive from the Secondary Education Committee payment charged upon the rates in respect of children coming from the districts of other school boards who receive education at this center. There is one further provision on this point—that a school board providing secondary education for children other than its own shall receive half of the excess of the cost to the rates of such provision over a certain fixed rate. These provisions, it is hoped, will act as additional make-weights in the in terests of justice in this matter, and so far as the school authorities are concerned, I believe the difficulty is met. Another source of criticism of existing areas lies in the position of the teachers. For the reason I mentioned last year provisions similar to those in the Bill of last year, in regard to teachers, are to be found in this Bill—provisions namely, restoring the school boards' discretion in giving allowances to teachers in cases of disablement and of retirement. Further, let me mention that the practice has grown up in localities in Scotland in cases of a threatened dismissal of teachers of invoking the intervention of the Scottish Education Department. Persons on their own initiative through a Member of Parliament have by petition approached the Department. The Department in such cases has repeatedly refused to intervene. On the other hand, it has in some cases intervened, and by persuasion and correspondence, and sometimes by the employment of one of its own officers as a mediator in the matter, has succeeded in adjusting such disputes. A provision is contained in this Bill regularising this procedure, and in the event of a petition being presented to the Department by not less than thirty parents or guardians of children in attendance at the school, or by one-half of the parents or guardians, whichever number is the smaller, praying

1601
for an inquiry into the reasons for the proposed dismissal of the teacher, the Department may make such inquiry. Pending such inquiry, the dismissal of the teacher is not to take effect, nor is it to take effect without the consent of the Department. This provision, of course, in no way affects the power of the school board summarily to suspend any teacher in its employment from the the execution of his duties. The Bill also contains additional provision for the continuation of education beyond the school age of fourteen. It lays apon the school boards the duty of making provision for continuation classes, and gives them power to make bye-laws requiring the attendance of young persons under the age of seventeen at these classes. In other directions it gives increased powers to school boards, powers in regard to medical inspection, which the House will recollect were given to English school authorities by legislation last year. Neglect to feed or clothe or keep clean a child is made an offence by the Bill under the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, and with regard to the feeding of school children the Bill puts the responsibility in the first place upon the parent. If the parent or guardian is found to be at fault, he is liable to punishment. If not at fault the duty of making provision for the child is laid, not upon the parish council as in last year's Bill, but upon the school board, and upon the school board is laid the responsibility of making-such temporary provision as is necessary during the inquiry. The cumulative vote is abolished, and the school board franchise is assimilated to the Parliamentary franchise. These are the main
provisions of the Bill, which I may observe, is essentially a Committee Bill. It disturbs nothing, it destroys nothing, but it builds round the existing system in Scotland, which it aims at strengthening, and I trust it will be so regarded in all quarters of the House.
Motion made, and Question, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Laws relating to Education in Scotland; and for other purposes connected therewith," put, and agreed to. Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Sinclair, the Lord Advocate and Mr. Solicitor-General for Scotland.
Education (Scotland) Bill, "To amend the Laws relating to Education in Scotland; and for other purposes connected therewith," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 181.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).
Ordered, "That the proceedings on the Resolution relating to Prosecution of Offences (Amendment) [Expenses] have precedence this day of the Business of Supply."—(Mr. Asquith.)
Motion made, and Question put, "That the Proceedings on the Business of Supply, if under discussion at Eleven o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—(Mr. Asquith.)
The House divided:—Ayes, 281; Noes, 62. (Division List No. 54.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Barnes, G. N.

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Burke, E. Haviland.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Beauchamp, E.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Bellairs, Carlyon

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

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

Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

Byles, William Pollard

Ambrose, Robert

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

Black, Arthur W.

Causton, Rt Hn. Richard Knight

Astbury, John Meir

Boland, John

Cawley, Sir Frederick

Atherley-Jones, L.

Bottomley, Horatio

Chance, Frederick William

Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.

Boulton, A. C. F.

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Bowerman, C. W.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Barker, John

Brace, William

Clancy, John Joseph

Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

Bramsdon, T. A.

Clynes, J. R.

Barnard, E. B.

Bryce, J. Annan

Cobbold, Felix Thornley

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Idris, T. H. W.

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

Illingworth, Percy H.

Nuttall, Harry

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Jackson, R. S.

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

Cooper, G. J.

Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

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

Jardine, Sir J.

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Jenkins, J.

O'Doherty, Philip

Cowan, W. H.

Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

O'Dowd, John

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

Crean, Eugene

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

O'Malley, William

Cullinan, J.

Jowett, F. W.

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Curran, Peter Francis

Joyce, Michael

Parker, James (Halifax)

Dalziel, James Henry

Kearley, Hudson E.

Partington, Oswald

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

Kekewich, Sir George

Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

Delany, William

Kennedy, Vincent Paul

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Devlin, Joseph

Kettle, Thomas Michael

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Kilbride, Denis

Pirie, Duncan V.

Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N

King, Alfred John (Knutsford

Power, Patrick Joseph

Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Laidlaw, Robert

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

Dillon, John

Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster

Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

Donelan, Captain A.

Lambert, George

Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.

Duckworth, James

Lamont, Norman

Pullar, Sir Robert

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

Raphael, Herbert H.

Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro)

Elibank, Master of

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Erskine, David C.

Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E

Redmond, William (Clare)

Esmoude, Sir Thomas

Lehmann, R. C.

Rees, J. D.

Essex, R. W.

Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

Ridsdale, E. A.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Levy, Sir Maurice

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Evans, Sir Samuel T.

Lewis, John Herbert

Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee

Everett, R. Lacey

Lough, Thomas

Robertson, Sir G Scott (Bradf'rd

Fenwick, Charles

Lundon, W.

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Ferens, T. R.

Lupton, Arnold

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

Lyell, Charles Henry

Roche, Augustine (Cork)

Ffrench, Peter

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Roche, John (Galway, East)

Findlay, Alexander

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs

Roe, Sir Thomas

Flynn, James Christopher

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Rogers, F. E. Newman

Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Rowlands, J.

Freeman-Thomas, Freeman

Macpherson, J. T.

Runciman, Walter

Furness, Sir Christopher

MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

Russell, T. W.

Gill, James (Harrow)

MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E)

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

M'Callum, John M.

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.)

M'Crae, George

Scott, A. H (Ashton under Lyne

Glendinning, R. G.

M'Kean, John

Sears, J. E.

Grant, Corrie

M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Seely, Colonel

Grayson, Albert Victor

M'Killop, W.

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

Gulland, John W.

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

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Gwyun, Stephen Lucius

M'Micking, Major G.

Sheehy, David

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

Maddison, Frederick

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Hall, Frederick

Mallet, Charles E.

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Halpin, J.

Markham, Arthur Basil

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

Marnham, F. J.

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

Hart Davies, T.

Massie, J.

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Masterman, C. F. G.

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

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

Meagher, Michael

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Haworth, Arthur A.

Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Hayden, John Patrick

Meehan, Patrick A.(Queen's Co

Summerbell, T.

Hazel, Dr. A. E.

Menzies, Walter

Tonnant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

Hazleton, Richard

Micklem, Nathaniel

Thomasson, Franklin

Healy, Timothy Michael

Montagu, E. S.

Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.

Helme, Norval Watson

Mooney, J. J.

Torrance, Sir A. M.

Henry, Charles S.

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Toulmin, George

Herbert T. Arnold (Wycombe)

Murnaghan, George

Verney, F. W.

Higham, John Sharp

Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

Villiers, Ernest Amherst

Hobart, Sir Robert

Murray, James

Vivian, Henry

Hodge, John

Myer, Horatio

Wadsworth, J.

Hogan, Michael

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Walsh, Stephen

Hooper, A. G.

Napier, T. B.

Walters, John Tudor

Horridge, Thomas Gardner

Nicholls, George

Walton, Joseph

Hudson, Walter

Nolan, Joseph

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent

Hyde, Clarendon

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Wardle, George J.

1604

1605

Waring, Walter

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Whitehead, Rowland

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

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

Winfrey, R.

Watt, Henry A.

Wiles, Thomas

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Weir, James Galloway

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

Whitbread, Howard

Williamson, A.

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

NOES.

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

Anstruther-Gray, Major

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Mason, James F. (Windsor)

Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O

Craik, Sir Henry

Morpeth, Viscount

Ashley, W. W.

Cross, Alexander

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

Balcarres, Lord

Doughty, Sir George

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers.

Ratcliff, Major R. F.

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Du Cros, Arthur Philip

Remnant, James Farquharson

Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester

Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.

Faldell, Sir T. George

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Fell, Arthur

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Forster, Henry William

Starkey, John R.

Brotherton, Edward Allen

Gardner, Ernest

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Carlile, E. Hildred

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Castlereagh, Viscount

Glover, Thomas

Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Thornton, Percy M.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn J. A.(Worc

Hay, Hon. Claude George

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

Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham

Helmsley, Viscount

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Cochrane, Hon. Taos. H. A. E.

Kimber, Sir Henry

Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia.

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

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

Courthope, G. Loyd

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

PROSECUTION OF OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) [EXPENSES].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the chair.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment out or moneys provided by Parliament of the salaries and remuneration of the Director of Public Prosecutions and assistant directors appointed under any Act of the present session to amend the Prosecution of Offences Acts, 1879 and 1884, and of the Expenses incurred in pursuance of such Act."—(Mr. Attorney-General.)
SIR F. BANBURY SIR F. BANBURY (City of London) moved to add at the end of the Resolution the words "such salaries not to exceed £4,000 in all." He said that he was going to advance arguments which he was sure would appeal to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was extremely difficult to discuss the Resolution when its terms were not on the Paper, and when probably only the hon. and learned Member in charge of the Resolution
1606
and himself had seen them. He thought everyone would admit that it was very inconvenient that such a Motion involving the expenditure of money should not be placed upon the Paper. That was no new thing, as the House had for some years objected to that form of procedure. In 1904 the hon. Member for Halifax, who now adorned the front bench, said that an Agenda Paper was of no value unless it contained the business that was going to be done, and in that view he was backed up by the Postmaster-General who spoke of the in-advisability of not allowing the House to know the terms of the Motion. It had been the custom of the House to bring forward Motions in this way, but he thought that when "the gilded duffers" as they were called by the President of the Board of Trade, were done away with, and the Party of all the talents and capabilities were put in their place, the first thing they would do would be to allow the House to know what was to be discussed. He was surprised to find that that had not been done in this case. Last year they pointed out the inconvenience of voting money in this way, and they asked the Government to be consistent

1607
with the statements and the speeches they made in 1904 and again in 1905, but it appeared that they had spoken in vain. Nothing had been done in that direction, and they were once more confronted with a Motion the terms of which were not on the Paper. On the Second Reading of the Bill he asked a question about the expenses, and he was told that the proper place to discuss them was in Committee on the Resolution, and consequently he reserved his remarks until the present occasion. The terms of the Motion not only included the money to be voted for the payment of the salaries of the director and assistant directors, but also the expenses to be incurred by the new Department. He did not wish to put a limit to the expenses of the new Department, because he knew it would be impossible to estimate exactly what those expenses would be. The hon. and learned Gentleman thought they would be large and that the department would transact a considerable amount of business. It was no use when setting up a new department to prevent it doing the work which it was set up to perform, and he recognised that it would be quite impossible for the hon. and learned Gentleman to say exactly what the expenses would be. Consequently he had not alluded to those expenses in his Amendment. All he proposed was to limit the salaries. He had net limited the salary of the director himself, but what he had done was to put down a lump sum which could be applied to the salary of the Director of Prosecutions and to the salaries of the assistant directors. The sum he had put down was £4,000, and he did not think that was too small a sum. It would not be well in the initial stages to overload the Department with a number of fixed head officials whom it would be difficult to get rid of if it was found that the expectations of the two hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite were not realised, and if the business turned out not so heavy and excessive as was anticipated. If it was found necessary to appoint more assistant directors than the amount he had put down would permit, surely it would not be necessary to appoint them until next year. The new Department would not have any work to do until next month,
1608
and it would always be within the power of the Government to provide for an additional sum upon the Vote. He wished to point out to the Government that the Amendment, which had for its object to fix the sum voted, was identical with an Amendment moved on 8th June, 1904, supported by the hon. Member for Halifax, the Postmaster-General, the President of the Board of Trade, and the President of the Board of Education. The majority of those he had referred to had since been rewarded by being placed upon the Treasury Bench; he did not know whether that reward was in consequence of the action they took upon the date he had quoted. He specially appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who had a perfectly unbiassed mind on this question. If the Government had rewarded those to whom he had alluded by putting them on the Treasury Bench it followed that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland ought to support this Amendment. The hon. and learned Gentleman was also one of those who voted on that occasion, and, therefore, he claimed his support in the division. He thought he had said enough to show that it was an excellent Amendment which should receive the support of all the Members of the Government who desired to be consistent, and he was sure they all did. He begged to move.
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Question to add the words 'such salaries not to exceed four thousand pounds in all.' "—(Sir Frederick Banbury.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
MR. CLAUDE HAYin supporting the Motion, thought he could ask the co-operation of the Nationalist Members from Ireland, for on an occasion when the present Leader of the Opposition was in office and he submitted a similar Resolution in regard to the Chief Secretary's Office, they objected to it because details were not given. The objection raised on the present occasion was still better founded, because when the Prosecution of Offences Bill was before the House two days ago for

1609
Second Reading they asked the Attorney-General and the' Solicitor-General for some general indication of the amount of money which would have to be expended under the powers proposed to be conferred by the Bill, but they were put off at that stage of the proceedings without getting the information they desired. He supposed that was because the law officers had not the remotest idea what the expenditure was to be. He now asked the Government to state definitely, chapter and verse, the amount of money involved, the number of persons to be appointed, and, in short, the amount of legal patronage which would be in their hands under the measure. They all desired to see the offices of the Solicitor to the Treasury and the Public Prosecutor well manned and the duties well carried out, but au important question of principle was involved, as was shown by the attitude assumed only a few years ago when the Opposition Benches were occupied by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen now on the Treasury Bench. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who took part in the debate in June, 1901, reminded the House that on a former occasion it took two or three days to get a Resolution of this character through the House of Commons because of the importance which the Irish Members attached to the principle involved. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took strong exception to any Resolution of that character being submitted to the House without the amount of money involved being made known fully in detail. The Secretary to the Treasury, who ought to be the guardian of the Treasury, was very emphatic on the subject, and the Postmaster-General made two speeches denouncing in unmeasured terms the action of the then Government in submitting to the House of Commons a proposal which did not even appear on the Notice Paper. The Secretary to the Admiralty took part in the debate and assumed a similar attitude of opposition to the way in which the proposal had been brought forward. In these days, when they were supposed to have a Government pledged to economy, he believed the public would greatly resent the idea of giving a blank cheque to any Minister or to any public officer under the control of a responsible Minister
1610
in order that an unknown number of fresh appointments should be made, and an unknown amount of money expended in legal patronage. He would remind the House that in 1884 one of the most powerful Committees ever appointed by the House of Commons investigated the whole subject of the organisation of the Department of the Solicitor to the Treasury and the Director of Public Prosecutions. That Committee differed in toto from the conclusions at which the Government had arrived. That might appear a small matter to the Liberal Party, but he could assure them that the day was not far distant when the subject to which the Resolution referred would be one of immediate interest in all their constituencies. If they were indifferent to the expenditure of public money, they would have to pay heavily for that neglect when they again sought the suffrages of their constituents.
MR. EVELYN CECILsaid his hon. friend was perfectly right to move the Amendment if only for the purpose of giving hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench the opportunity of explaining their position. Many of the members and supporters of the Government were strongly in favour of a different course of action from that now adopted when the Expenses Resolution with regard to aliens was discussed on 8th June, 1904. The debate which took place on that occasion was exceedingly interesting. The comments then of the Secretary to the Treasury, the Postmaster-General, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the hon. Member for Halifax, and the President of the Board of Education, applied also to the present Resolution. The Opposition desired to know precisely what expenses were to be incurred, how many officials were to be appointed, and whether an Estimate had been submitted to the Treasury. They were entitled to ask how far hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench intended to conform on the present occasion to the attitude they took up in June, 1904. It was on those grounds that he thought hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite should have an opportunity of explaining their attitude in regard to this matter.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSOX,), who was indistinctly heard, was understood to say that he was far from denying that the point raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite was important, but he did not think that the illustration was very pertinent. On the occasion referred to additional information was asked for as to what would be the increase of the staff of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and that information could have been given without possibility of doubt. In this case they were dealing with an entirely unknown quantity. They were dealing with the approach of the operation of the Criminal Appeal Act, which had introduced a novel principle into our criminal jurisprudence, and the precise limits and the amount of work which that Act would throw upon the Department was not known. Hon. Members said that the Government should let them know what their present proposals were in regard to the increase of the staff of the Solicitor to the Treasury. He was in a position to tell them that, and he could also give a very close approximate idea of what the annual cost would be. Of course, it was impossible to say what ultimately the cost would be, and that was why the Government could not accept the Amendment, because it so limited their action that they could not appoint another clerk without the obligation of applying for a fresh Money Resolution before it could be obtained in Committee of Supply.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid that that was not the case, because the Amendment applied only to the Director and Assistant-Directors of Public Prosecutions. It did not apply to the clerics or the ordinary expenses of the Department. The Government could put a limit to the number of Assistant Directors.
SIR W. ROBSONsaid he was not dealing with the specified number of clerks, but with the principles. He would explain what the present staff was and how far it was proposed to increase the staff of the Director of Public Prosecutions. There was in that branch of the Department one assistant solicitor who acted as Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, two chief clerks, one first
1612
class clerk, two assistant chief clerks, five professional clerks—that was, clerks who were not necessarily qualified solicitors, but who had from experience some knowledge of legal forms. They proposed to commence simply with a new Director, who would be the head of the Department.
SIR F. BANBURYasked what his salary was to be?
SIR W. ROBSONsaid he would like to be a little reticent as to that. The salaries of the heads of departments ranged from £1,800 to £2,500; and if they desired to have a Director who should have legal experience—a man of position and importance and competent to deal with a post of this kind, they must get a man who had had a considerable practice. Experience meant practice. If the distinguished gentleman who had been invited to serve accepted the post, it would be at a considerable sacrifice of income to himself. They could scarcely expect to obtain the services of a professional man with a large practice except at considerable cost. Within the range he had mentioned he could rot promise the House that they should get a professional man at a cheaper salary. So much for the new Director. Below him they would commence with three new professional clerks and some additional shorthand, and copying clerks.
SIR F. BANBURY: No assistant directors?
SIR W. ROBSONsaid that they had already an assistant - director on the staff. They were taking over the present staff, which consisted of eleven men, not including the existing head, but including the assistant chief clerk, first-class clerk and assistant professional clerks. These were all to be retained. It was proposed to add to them a new Director, three more professional clerks and some additional shorthand and copying clerks.
SIR F. BANBURYasked what were the salaries of the clerks.
SIR W. ROBSONsaid he had not inquired into that. They were of a

1613
well-known class. He thought that the hon. Baronet, who was a man of sound business experience, would admit that that was a very proper staff, and the salary he had indicated was a very proper sum. What was desired, however, was that the Government should not have any limitation of number of staff or money, because the work might come very suddenly and they might find the Department placed in a difficulty in an emergency in which they would have to employ a staff on a larger scale. The intention of the Government was to make the initial expense on a modest scale. For some little time he hoped to retain the assistance of Lord Desart. The new Director would be appointed without any suggestion or suspicion of political interest—a purely professional man. It had been said that possibly they might save au Assistant Director on the Civil side by appointing the present Assistant Director as the new Director on the criminal side. Of course, the appointment of the new Director would be a very great relief to the present Director, who would have more time on his hands than at present. He could not lay too much stress upon that, because, speaking for himself, he knew the enormous increase that had taken place in the amount of work in the Department in connection with the business of the Admiralty and the Education Board. Therefore, he did not think there would be very much saving on the Civil side. In regard to another point raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite, it was thought desirable in 1879 to appoint a Director of Public Prosecutions in order not to leave the initiative in criminal prosecutions always in private hands. The system of criminal prosecution in this country did not compare favourably with that in some Continental countries. Sir John Maule was the first Director of Prosecutions appointed, but all he did—whether it was all he was bound to do was another matter—was to decide what cases were fit to be dealt with by a Public Prosecutor, and having decided that he proceeded forthwith to send the papers to a practising solicitor. That went on for five years, but it was found not to be very satisfactory, and then came the appointment of the Committee of 1884, with whose
1614
Report he was not disposed to quarrel. As he had pointed out, there had been an immense increase in the work of the Civil branch of the Department within the last few years. The work of the Charity Commissioners had also been put on the Solicitor to the Treasury; and when he came into office he was surprised at the amount of important and detailed work which came before the Department. A few years back a step was taken by the late Government in the interests of economy in regard to the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the arrangements in regard to which were found not to be very satisfactory. Therefore they established a branch of this office at the Law Courts and a great deal of work was carried out there. All these things taken together made the situation very different from what it was in 1884. He did not complain of the criticism as unjust, but after all it was one which could be met by a fair explanation, and he hoped the House would negative the Amendment and allow the Government to obtain the Resolution.
SIR F. BANBURYsaid the hon. and learned Gentleman had made an extremely able and temperate speech, but he was careful with his astuteness and knowledge of the Law Courts not to allude to the first question he asked him, which was one of the most important points of his speech. He had asked him why it was that he himself and other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House had in 1904 drawn attention to the fact that these Motions were not put on the Paper, but were left at the desk in the clerks' hands. Under such circumstances, unless one knew the ropes he was perfectly unable to know what was going on, and consequently he could not draw the attention of the House to it. He had asked the hon. and learned Gentleman why he had allowed that course to be pursued on that occasion, and whether in the future he would take care to see that, as far as he was concerned, it should not happen again. He did not ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to bind the whole Government, but he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to be present in view

1615
of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman took the very line that he was taking, in a speech made in 1904 on the subject. He supposed the hon. and learned Gentleman, not having an answer to his question, brushed the matter aside and gave them an extremely interesting speech to take off their attention, hoping that that would cause them to forget the Question that had been put; but having some little experience of legal gentlemen he was always exceedingly careful to see that they did not get the better of him, and therefore he watched the hon. and learned Member to see whether he answered his Question. As he had not done so, perhaps he would answer it now. He did not think the hon. and learned Gentleman had given any reason why his Amendment should not be accepted. It provided that until next year, so far as Directors and Assistant-Directors were concerned, the amount should not exceed £4,000 in all. But the hon. and learned Gentleman, instead of dealing with that point, gave them a long and interesting resume of how the clerks were to be appointed, what they would have to do, and where they would come from. He said, however, that there would be only one Director and Assistant-Director, but if the work was heavy they might have to appoint a larger staff, and it would not be desirable to stop the work, if Parliament was not sitting, by not appointing additional clerks. But his Amendment dealt with that point. The hon. and learned Gentleman might appoint fifty or sixty additional clerks so long as he only appointed one Director and Assistant Director, and he thought the sum as limited by his Amendment was ample. If it was necessary, not only to have another staff, but to have another Director and Assistant Director, they could increase the number of the latter next year, and if the hon. and learned Gentleman did not accept the Amendment he must divide the Committee upon it. He was quite certain that the hon. and learned Gentleman would do his best to carry out the intentions of the Government, as approved by Parliament. The intentions of the Government might be all very well, but they were sometimes changed, and circumstances over which they had no control compelled them to do sometimes that which they did not
1616
like to do. Therefore, it was not enough to say that it was the intention of the Government to do so-and-so, and they ought to put some limit on the expenditure which the House was going to sanction. He did not think it would be desirable to limit the expenditure in the office as a whole, but he did think it would be possible to limit it in regard to the salaries given to the Director and Assistant-Director. It was one of the charges made against them at the last election that the control of the House of Commons over the expenditure was departing, and that it was going into the hands of the Cabinet; and it was said that if the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite came into power they would revive that control. That was exactly what he was trying to do. He moved the Amendment in no hostile spirit, but he thought they ought to know what they were going to spend in the coming year.
SIR W. ROBSONwas understood to say that, with regard to the first Question of the hon. Baronet, it related to some question of Parliamentary procedure, and he had humbly to confess that he knew nothing of that subject. As far as Parliamentary procedure was concerned he consulted his right hon. friends who were much better able than he was to deal with matters of that sort.
SIR F. BANBURYasked if the hon. and learned Gentleman would reply to his Question?
SIR W. ROBSONsaid, as he understood the hon. Baronet required a pledge that in future some Parliamentary offence should not be repeated, all he could say was that he would endeavour to ascertain what that Parliamentary offence was, and as far as he could he would endeavour not to repeat it. Prom the hon. Baronet's remarks it appeared that he did not read the Resolution in the sense in which he saw it was taken. It related to expenditure which might be resorted to in regard to salaries, and the hon. Gentleman said that certain salaries should not exceed £4,000. He would point out, however, that under the scheme of the Government, so far as additional expenditure was concerned,

1617
£4,000 would be very much in excess of what they desired. He, therefore, did not want to give a pledge beyond the necessities of the case. The Treasury were very vigilant on the matter of departmental increases of staff, and that, was, in the view of the Government, a sufficient reason for not accepting the Amendment.
MR. CLAUDE HAYsaid the last remark which had fallen from the hon. and learned Member was not encouraging as showing any inclination to meet the very clear case which had been advanced from that side of the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman thought the Amendment of his hon. friend was not sufficiently drastic, but he would have great pleasure, if the present Amendment were rejected, in moving to limit the salaries to £3,000, and then perhaps he would be carrying out the intentions of the Attorney-General. He rose chiefly to call attention to what he considered was a very serious matter, viz., a question of Parliamentary practice, affecting public expenditure at large, in reference to which the hon. and learned Gentleman could not give them any assurance or indication of what the Government intended to do in the future. It was to be regretted—indeed, it almost amounted to a scandal—that no Cabinet Minister was on the Ministerial Bench to deal with a matter affecting the Government as a whole. The case was made even more serious by the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the guardian of the public purse, himself supported the cause which they were advocating that afternoon, and voted, no longer than four years ago, in support of the view he was now bringing forward. It was treating the House of Commons with the greatest discourtesy for Cabinet Ministers not to be present to explain the reasons for their change of policy; they simply ran away and hid themselves behind Mr. Speaker's Chair. He hoped his hon. friend would carry the Amendment to a division.
CAPTAIN CRAIGthought after what had fallen from the Attorney-General, it was obvious that the Bill was going to be a very
1618
expensive affair to the country, and that it would cost much more than was anticipated. He thought that, in view of the quotations from the speeches of distinguished Gentlemen opposite, in regard to the bringing forward of Money Resolutions, they had been treated with very scant courtesy. Surely it was not too much to demand that the hon. and learned Gentleman should have carefully thought out the details of what would be necessary when the Bill became law, for the first year at all events. It was not fair that the Government should attempt to smuggle through a large Estimate like this, that they should ask for a blank cheque on the Exchequer, without a single member of the Committee having the slightest knowledge of it. Debates had taken place on kindred subjects before and the present Financial Secretary on a similar Vote, in 1904 said—
"The Committee had no information as to whether it was meant to add a typewriter or an office boy to the office now under discussion."
The question now was of much greater importance. It was the question of the cost of a Director of Public Prosecutions and certain Assistant Directors to carry out the provisions of the Bill. Surely it was not too much to ask that some member of the Government should put a limit on the sum the Committee was asked to vote. Surely it was not too much to ask the Government to say that the cost of working the Act this year should not exceed £30,000 or £40,000. The complaint was that there was no limit put upon the Vote now asked for. The Attorney-General had appealed to the Committee not to press for a precise limit, but it would not be going too far to say that the salary of the Director of Public Prosecutions should be for this year £4,000. It could always be revised if it was found that he had more work to do than was at present anticipated. But no assurance was held out that the Government would guarantee that for twelve months the cost should not exceed a certain amount. He objected to the indefinite manner in which the Government without any notice attempted to smuggle large Votes through the House without putting

1619
them on the Paper, and as a protest he should certainly support the junior Member for the City of London in the lobby.
Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 49: Noes, 273. (Division List No. 55.)
Resolved, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the salaries and remuneration of the Director of Public Prosecutions and assistant directors appointed under any Act of the present session to amend the Prosecution of Offences Acts, 1879 and 1884, and of the Expenses incurred in pursuance of such Act."
Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

SUPPLY.

  (CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES.)
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. SPEAKER do now leave the Chair."
  MR. KETTLE, in moving, 'That the cost of administration in Ireland is excessive, is unduly burdensome to the people of that country, and is steadily increasing; that the expenditure is not

  1623
  subject to Irish control and is not allocated or administered in such a way as to promote efficiency in government or national well-being; that, so far from alleviating the injury inflicted on Ireland by over-taxation, this waste of her resources on certain services tends rather to aggravate it; and that this condition of affairs constitutes an intolerable grievance and demands the immediate attention of Parliament," said the subject was one which had many recommendations to the attention of the House, though it could not lay claim to novelty. The wasteful expenditure on Irish administration was admitted, but so far not amended, and the taxation of Ireland had formed the subject of many debates in that House. As long ago as 1840, the matter of extravagance in Irish government was first raised by O'Council, and from that day to this there had been a long succession of vigorous and entirely futile protests from those benches. The subject was one of enormous gravity, going down to the root of Irish decay and discontent. It had been said that his Motion was the money argument for Home Rule. The education question in Ireland, the political condition of the country, and the excessive cost of administration were three questions which together formed one subject of the deepest significance. The present Motion was swallowed up in the Motion of his hon. friend the Member for Waterford to be moved on Monday; and for that reason, and for the technical reason of procedure, which the House would not fail to understand, he might state that the purpose of this proposition was to ventilate the subject and to bring the facts connected with it under discussion, though Members on those benches did not intend to proceed to a division. The Motion on the Paper did not put the whole money argument in favour of Home Rule; it put only half of it. The whole money argument included the question of the incidence of taxation in Ireland. This Motion dealt primarily with expenditure in Ireland and dealt only with taxation in relation to expenditure in the same way as the obverse side of a penny was related to the reverse side. Happily in that House it
  1624
  was not necessary to engage in any sort of historical reference. That had been done in a masterly fashion in a document with which he supposed those interested in Irish subjects were thoroughly conversant—he referred to the Report of the Commission on the Financial Relations of England and Ireland, appointed by the last Liberal Government. He did not propose to discuss any of the findings of the Commission. But there were one or two facts which he thought ought to be very briefly noted, for this reason. Many people in Ireland had thought that the effect of the Report would be to awaken and restore activity to the conscience of England. But the conscience of England, he was sorry to say, in regard to Irish finance had apparently discovered some soporific of which they would all like to learn the secret. At any rate, the conscience of England had not been awakened by the Report. Substantially the findings of the Commission were there, that from the date of the amalgamation of the Irish and English Exchequers down to the date of the Commission, the taxation per head of the population in England had been reduced by 11 per cent., while the taxation per head of the population of Ireland had been increased by 170 per cent. They found, in the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, used in 1897, that the real fact was that Ireland was over-taxed to the extent of £2,500,000 a year, though the actual figure was much closer to £2,725,000. If they accepted the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and it could not be controverted—they would find that at the date of the Commission the accumulated conscience money due by England to Ireland touched a figure somewhere between £400,000,000 and. £410,000,000. He had said that in Ireland, and in England also, many assumed that the Report which brought to light facts of which many public men might before have been ignorant without any grave discredit to themselves, would have marked the beginning of a new epoch in Irish finance. They assumed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he came to budget for Irish expenditure, would have made the Report his study not by day only, but would have slept with it under his

  1625
  pillow at night. The only thing he had clone effectively with it was to fall asleep on it. So far from things having improved in reference to extravagant government in Ireland, they had gone back enormously since the Commission reported in 1894. Since then the cost of home government in Ireland had been increased by £2,062,239. The home government in Ireland, since the facts contained in the Report were brought to light, had increased from £1 4s. 6d. per head of the population to £1 15s. The total cost of all services in Ireland had increased by £1,799,655. The population in the meantime had fallen by 192,000. As a test of whether the country was advancing or not, they took the yield of income-tax per 1d. in the £, and they found that the yield was almost precisely to-day what it was in 1894, whereas in both England and Scotland it had increased by somewhere about 50 per cent. These facts showed how the Report of the Financial Relations Commission had awakened the conscience of England. Let him take another item of curious significance. Let him take the figures showing what was called their Imperial contribution, or, as he should prefer to put it, what it cost them to be associated with this Empire of which they formed part. The Imperial contribution had fallen from £2,073,984 in 1894 to £1,811,500 in 1906–7. The Annual Return from which the figures were taken was, he thought, the most thoroughly separatist document to be found amongst the publications of that House. If there was one thing that the Act of Union made clear, it was that in future arrangements there should be no discrimination with regard to expenditure between either of the contracting parties, Great Britain and Ireland. The formula of the Act of Union was that Great Britain and Ireland should enter into this Union, and that in future there would be taken from each country by way of taxation in accordance with its taxable capacity and that there should be given to each country in accordance with its administrative needs. There were to be no exemptions and abatements with regard to taxation, so far as Ireland and Scotland were concerned,
  1626
  and there was to be no discrimination whatever with regard to the cost of administrative services that might be regarded as Irish, those that might be regarded as English, and those that might be regarded as Imperial. Therefore this Annual Return afforded an interesting illustration of a fact that was not indeed new to any of them, that the Act of Union had two things against it—first, that it was carried, and, secondly, that it had never been carried out. But let him take the item of Imperial expenditure—the Irish contribution to the Army, the Navy, and the diplomatic establishment. He had pointed out the grave objection in principle to the separation of Imperial expenditure in the Return, but there were much graver objections than that. There was a grave and fatal objection to the amount. Last year the contribution of Ireland to Imperial services—and he thought this contribution was a good test of the cost and expenditure of home government—was less than £2,000,000. In 1859 it was more than £5,000,000. In 1869 it was £4,000,000, and in 1879, £3,000,000, though taxation was steadily increasing. So voracious was the appetite of Dublin Castle that it had eaten up the entire increase of taxation, and if matters went on on this basis much longer—not that he should regret the eventuality—England and the Empire would be running Ireland at a loss. He had said that in regard to the item of £1,811,500 which was to be found in the Appropriation Account of 1906–7 there were grave objections and grave mistakes. In the first place, the entire cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which was regulated by Imperial and not Irish policy and ideas, was returned as expenditure for the benefit of Ireland. He could appeal to much higher authority than he could lay claim to be for saying that a large portion of the £1,300,000 at present expended on the Irish police ought to be set down as a contribution to the expenses of the Empire. Sir Edward Hamilton when questioned before the Financial Relations Commission on the point said, and it had never been disputed, that part of the police charge in Ireland might be considered an Imperial charge

  1627
  Then in reply to a further question he said—
  "I think it would be fair to transfer £600,000 of the change from the Irish to the Imperial Parliament."
  That was the situation in 1894. He saw in the Returns which were issued from year to year that at least £1,000,000 to £1,350,000 ought to be set down as the contribution by Ireland to Imperial services, and her actual contribution was closer to £3,000,000 than to £1,800,000. But he did not want to discuss that matter in any detail. The Returns proceeded to show, according to the fashion in which they were arranged, Ireland's contribution to what were spoken of and understood in that sense as expenses of Empire, at something less than 2 per cent. of the total cost of these services. If they took £3,000,000, it, with her actual contribution percentage, was up to about 5 per cent. of the other services. For that burden borne by the people of Ireland what did Ireland get? What was the Empire worth to them? Empire meant an Army. The Army in these humanitarian days was not to be employed for the purpose of making war, but only for the purpose of resisting invasion. Would any invader be more terrible, more fatal to their prosperity than a Government which in fifty years had reduced her population by half? Then again in these humanitarian days the Navy was not to be employed for the purpose of making war, but only as an insurance on sea-borne commerce A hundred years of the Act of Union and sixty years of free trade had left Ire and no sea-borne commerce. A third benefit which they were supposed to get in return for their contribution to the expenses of Empire was that they could employ Imperial credit when they had large national transactions to carry through. They saw the value of Imperial credit when as a result of that extremely immoral and, what was still more important for them, expensive war in South Africa, Consols and Land Stock had run down to 87 per cent. The benefit which they secured from the tottering and falling credit of the Empire at that time was that they put Land Stock on the market and paid the fourteen points difference out of the pockets of the Irish taxpayers. So much with
  1628
  regard to that portion of the burden of government laid upon the people of Ireland at present which represented the cost and expenses of Empire. The main subject of discussion was with regard to home government. They complained of three points with regard to home government. They complained of the amount spent on home government and of the allocation and administration of that amount. They in Ireland had never had any desire or ambition for cheap government simply as such. Just as according to the old story when a traveller came to a place where he saw a gallows erected he knew he was in a civilised country, so progressive government was to a large extent marked by increase in taxation. Some Governments would be cheap at any price, and Governments such as existed in Ireland would be dear at any price. Their complaint had always been that too much money was spent on the government of Ireland as a whole, and that if they reduced the amount by from 30 to 50 per cent., redistributed it, and brought their administrative house into order, they could get all their services more properly and efficiently discharged than under the present system. So far were they from desiring to reduce the amount expended on such services as education and agriculture that they would gladly take £500,000 or £1,000,000 from the other Irish services and transfer the money to education and to the development of the Department of Agriculture. He did not think he was going beyond the bounds of reason, or of political sense, in saying that under an Irish Government these would be the two most important services in the entire economy of the nation. What they complained of was that too much money was spent on the wrong things and not enough on the right things. Every agency that had for its function to repress the people, to keep them in what was humorously called order, was financed to the full, overstaffed and over-salaried. Every agency such as education and agriculture, which had for its purpose to build up the material and moral prosperity of the country, was under-staffed, and as far as salaries went absolutely starved. They called at once for a reduction of

  1629
  the total amount spent on Irish government and for a redistribution of the cost of the repressive services in favour of services of development. That was the position they had always taken up. He wished the House clearly to understand that every single penny of expenditure on Irish government was Irish money. He thought the mind of the House had been confused, certainly the mind of the public outside had been confused, by these perpetual references to Irish grants and exchequer contributions. In regard to this question it was well to understand the process at the outset. What happened was simply that the Treasury drained the Irish taxes into her reservoir, retained much of the contribution for Imperial services, and returned the rest for Irish services. Every penny, every fraction of the money, was derived from Irish sources, and its expenditure could not be properly managed until it was made subject to Irish control. He would also deal with another argument mentioned in the first clause of the Motion, of which much was heard. It was probably the most fantastic argument ever employed. In reply to the Report of the Royal Commission it was sometimes said that excessive expenditure in Ireland was a set-off against over-taxation. Then it was discreetly conveyed that this extravagant amount all came from the pockets of the British taxpayer. That set-off argument, that contention that amends could be made for over-taxation by over-expenditure, was perhaps the most fantastic of the many fantastic arguments employed on this subject. It was tantamount to saying: "Yes, it is true I get your money from you by the methods of the thief, but then I make amends by spending it after the fashion of the profligate." That was the conclusive answer. Another point which nobody seemed to have raised was that this was accounted for a good deal by the Treasury policy. The Treasury, however, was not able to ignore that Report in arranging its Estimates and controlling this expenditure. It attempted to meet it in this way. It was said that in 1894 the Commission reported that they were paying one-eleventh of the total cost of government in this country, while the taxable capacity of
  1630
  Ireland was estimated as being not more than one-twentieth. Now the Treasury replied: "Yes, but in 1906–7 you have not been paying one-eleventh, but only one-fourteenth or one-fifteenth." That was perfectly true. He would like for a moment to contrast the progress of the population and wealth made by England and Scotland with the decline of Ireland since 1894. Since the date of the Commission the United Kingdom had grown in population considerably more than the entire population of Ireland. They frequently heard in fiscal discussions that England had advanced in wealth and prosperity in a fashion entirely unprecedented. Ireland, however, during the same period had fallen in population by 200,000, whilst the yield of the income-tax had not only not advanced, but had only been maintained at the figure at which it stood in 1894. The Act of Union prescribed that the expenditure should be in proportion not to Ireland's contribution, but to her needs. A good test would be that when the expenditure of a country exceeded a certain definite proportion the total national income of that country was over-governed, or the Government was over-financed. Obviously, the best means of arriving at a conclusion was to take the government of Ireland and compare it with that of Scotland and England, and it might also be useful to compare it with some small European nations. Comparing the figures for Ireland with those for England, they would find at this moment that England was spending one-forty-second part of her total national income, whilst Ireland was found to spend one-eighth or one-ninth of her total national income. According to the book published by the hon. Member for N. Paddington, between £70,000,000 and £75,000,000 per annum represented the national income of Ireland, whilst £1,700,000,000 to £1,800,000,000 represented the income of England. Deducting a subsistence allowance of £12 per head of the population and taking what was left as the taxable margin of the national income, it left a margin of £3 per head in Ireland and £30 per head in England. Of that £3 in Ireland £2 was taken in national and £1 in local taxation. Those were the salient and sterling

  1631
  facts which confronted them upon this question. Every penny of the sums they were discussing was Irish money drawn from Irish sources. Upon whom in Ireland did the burden of this extravagant government fall? It fell on the weakest shoulders. It should be remembered that in England they raised the revenue as to 50 per cent. by direct taxation and as to 50 per cent. by indirect taxation, but in Ireland the proportion was 73 per cent. indirect and 27 per cent. direct taxation. That meant that in Ireland they were compelled to pay what it had been stated would never be tolerated in this country, namely, food taxes. The man in Ireland who bore the cost of this extravagant government was the indirect taxpayer, such as the small farmer and the agricultural labourer. Mr. Wilson Fox had conducted an exhaustive inquiry into the wages of the agricultural population of the three kingdoms. He found that the average weekly wage of the agricultural labourer in England was 18s. 3d; in Wales, 17s. 3d.; in Scotland, 19s. 3d.; and in Ireland, 10s. 11d. It was County Mayo and places like that that were bearing the burden of this extravagant government. The average wage of the labourer in County Mayo at this moment was 8s. 9d. a week. He had said that the cost of government of a country, whatever else it might be determined by, was determined in large part by the resources and taxable margin of the income of its inhabitants. What was the position of the inhabitants of the congested districts in the West? Let him read from the evidence given by Mr. W. L. Micks before the Railway Commission—
  "There are two classes of people in the congested districts, namely, the poor and the destitute. Nearly all the inhabitants are on one dead level of poverty."
  Their dietary was almost vegetable. They had one meal a day. A little salt fish, or a small piece of coarse American bacon as a sort of relish with their food, but the majority of the people had nothing but vegetables, Indian meal, porridge, potatoes and bread baked by themselves. They also drank tea to a large extent. With 73 per cent. of the cost of Irish government paid by indirect taxation—that was the man who was bearing the
  1632
  burden of government in Ireland. There was no tax on meat in Ireland. They were told that never in England would there be a tax on meat. That did not matter to the inhabitant of the congested district, who did not eat meat, because he could not afford it. He found tea and sugar the prime necessity of his life, and Ireland paid about £605,000 on those articles towards the cost of Irish administration. Tobacco was another necessity of his life, and from tobacco they derived £1,500,000 of the cost of the same administration. They had always protested from the Nationalist benches that those engaged in educational work in Ireland were under-salaried and that education was practically starved. He was aware that the moment one touched upon the subject of education one naturally fell into the morass of equivalent grants. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had repudiated the principle of equivalent grants, but although the right hon. Gentleman had rejected that principle as fallacious and misleading it had been employed by the Treasury in arranging the probate duty and the local taxation account. He was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover in his place, because he might lay claim to being the parent of the most remarkable kind of equivalent grant, that so-called equivalent grant out of which Irish education was paid for, which was started in 1902. At that time something like £1,400,000 was given to help education in England, and £185,000 to Ireland. In the interval that £1,400,000 had almost doubled in England, and the amount for Scotland had nearly been doubled, but in Ireland the amount remained at £185,000. In the first place it was not equivalent, in the second place it was not devoted to education, and in the third place it at present suffered from the Irish and still more fatal disease of non-existence. Part of it was swallowed up in the morass of the Land Act for Ireland, and another part was employed by the Board of Works. The principle of equivalent grants having been abandoned in regard to education, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was driven back on the Act of Union, and that was that Ireland should get as much as it needed. He supposed he might assume that the needs of Ireland in regard to education were not less than

  1633
  those of England, or Scotland, and that the power of Ireland to supply those needs out of local resources were not larger than that of England or Scotland. The figures showed a sinister contrast between the three countries. He wished to say a word in passing in regard to the other two branches of education in Ireland. As to University education he would only say that he hoped that within a very few days Ireland was going to get what she wanted. The wise Government which ordered all things in Ireland prescribed that £45,000 more should be spent every year on the policing of the City of Dublin alone, than on the entire fabric of University education. For the purposes of secondary education in Ireland not one penny came by way of Parliamentary Vote. Secondary education in Ireland had never been discussed in the House on the Estimates. The Board which controlled secondary education had two incomes—a fixed income derived from the Irish church surplus, which was, of course, an exclusively Irish fund, and a fluctuating in come derived from the yield of the local taxation account. The House, which had had recent experience of the influence of beer and Christianity, would be prepared to find associated in Ireland education and whisky. The fluctuating income of the Intermediate Board did not depend on the number of students or the educational needs. It depended on the amount of whisky consumed in Ireland. It laid on the Irish parent the duty of getting drunk on Saturday night, in order that there might be money to educate his children on Monday morning. There was no Parliamentary Vote for Irish secondary education. For English secondary education there was voted £802,000, and for Scottish secondary education £159,500. In regard to primary education, the figures showed the most striking contrast. For the current year, the Estimate for England was £13,594,150; for Scotland, £2,048,557, and for Ireland, £1,408,360, the amount per head of the population being 8s. 8d. for Scotland, 7s. 10½d. for England, and 6s. 5d. for Ireland. On the basis of so much per head of the population, Ireland should have £500,000 more, in order to bring the Estimate up
  1634
  to a level with that for Scotland, and £320,000 more to bring it up to the English level. A striking feature in connection with education in this country had been the growing willingness of the people to spend money on education. The figures showed that between 1900 and 1907 the money voted for primary education had increased 43 per cent. for England and 51 per cent. for Scotland, while for Ireland the increase had only been 1½ per cent. In the face of these figures he was surely justified in stating that the service of education in Ireland was starved. That was the Treasury side. Now let them take the teaching side. Was there any reason why teachers should be less well paid in Ireland? He saw none. The payment of male teachers in England worked out at an average of £160; in Scotland £179; in Ireland only £102. For women, the average was: England, £109; Scotland, £109; Ireland, £82. Then let them take the point of view of the child. He was sorry not to see present any of the Unionist Members for Ulster to take an interest in this discussion. He would refer to the Report of the National Board, 1906, in which would be found the statements of Mr. Kelly, the senior inspector of the Belfast district. In that Report Mr. Kelly said it was a fact that the prosperous and progressive City of Belfast was the most backward part of the British Empire in the matter of school accommodation. He was sorry that the Member for East Down, who was so anxious to float the Union Jack upon the national schools in order to warm the patriotism of the children, should not be present to co-operate with them in getting more money to buy fuel to keep the children's feet warm. Mr. Kelly concluded by referring to the Report of the sub-inspector of his district. Let it be remembered that this was four years after the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, in dealing with the Benevolent Grant, had said that £185,000 a year was more than Ireland could usefully spend upon that subject. The sub-inspector wrote that in several schools in Belfast the class-rooms were not heated at all; the cloak-rooms, porches, and passages were occasionally used as class-rooms, and were not, of course, heated, In one cloak-room, where

  1635
  there was accommodation for 28 children he found 56, in another with accommodation for 26 he found 67, in another with accommodation for 34 there were 70, and in another with accommodation for 84 there were 174 children. In an entire school he found accommodation for 209, the actual number of children in attendance being 401. In another school he found 62 children working in a room 16 feet by 17 feet 6 inches, and he added that in that case he wrote to the manager, pointing out that the Black Hole of Calcutta, in which there had been 146 persons was a room 28 feet by 20 feet. If he had made the calculation he would have found that the persons in the Black Hole got 50 per cent. more air-space than the persons in the school in Belfast, but the Inspector pointed out that the only difference was that the poisoning in the latter case was a little slower, but none the less certain. Yet the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover had said that more than the amount referred to could not be usefully used.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid that his position then and now was that the equivalent grant and the money paid for the education of children ought not to be diverted to purposes that should properly be met out of building grants.
  MR. KETTLEsaid it would certainly be admitted that the right hon. Gentleman had worked for the advancement of Ireland in various ways, and they much regretted that a certain development of Unionist policy relegated him after a brief interval to unofficial obscurity and set in his place a representative with the most reactionary ideas that ever congregated in an English brain. He turned to consider the general vices which marked Irish administration as a whole. The object of administration was to get money used for the purposes for which it was voted and at the same time to secure that as little as possible should adhere to the transmitting hands of officials. The fundamental vice of the administration in Ireland was that there were, as everybody knew, two Civil Services—a permanent Civil Service and a casual, peripatetie service,
  1636
  a system of fixed and wandering stars. The permanent Civil Service was recruited by competitive examination and the members of it were generally kept in obscure positions. The peripatetic was composed to a large extent of gentlemen, who were what was known as well connected, who had friends at the Castle who could bring influence to bear, and whose only qualification was, in the words of a famous letter read in that House, that they could be trusted not to sell the pass and not to forget their friends. These gentlemen were, as every head of a department knew, always looking for something to inspect. It did not matter very much what it was as long as they got two guineas a day and subsistance money. They were prepared to inspect anything from seed potatoes to guipure lace. That Civil Service had to be provided before the other was attended to, and anyone who was well acquainted with administration in Ireland would agree with him that, in a very large number of cases, they had a deliberate duplication of offices so that occupations might be found for certain gentlemen. Even the Manure Department, over which the Member for South Tyrone presided, was not free from this vice, which, of course, the right hon Gentleman had inherited from his predecessors. Let them compare Ireland with Scotland, the population of the two countries being pretty much the same. Scotland, which had a more complex industrial population naturally calling for more expensive government than Ireland, had for reasons in no way discreditable to it to deal with a larger volume of crime. With the same population as Scotland and less crime, Ireland, with the children of Belfast sitting four deep on the staircase, spent on law and police £3 for every £1 spent in the case of Scotland. He would take a significant figure which would illustrate the matter still more. The Report of the Commissioners for Inland Revenue for 1906 showed, in the case of Scotland, that the number of officials assessed for income tax was 963. In Ireland it was 4,539. The gross income of the officials assessed was, in Scotland, £311,694; in Ireland, £1,412,520, or more than four and a half times the amount spent in Scotland, where there was the same

  1637
  population and less to do. For every £1 spent by the State in England on education 17s. went to education and 3s. to office expenses. In the case of Scotland 16s. 2d. went to education and 3s. 10d. to office expenses. For every £1 spent in Ireland only 13s. 6d. went to education and 6s. 6d. was spent on office expenses. With regard to the judicial establishment he was not failing in proper respect for the Judges, for they had always been proud in Ireland, especially those who were members of the legal profession, that the, Irish Bench had been adorned by some of the most powerful and subtle legal intellects of which there was record in the history of English law.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The salaries of the Judges are not borne on the Estimates. It is only matters which are on the Estimates which the hon. Member can discuss.
  MR. KETTLEsaid that only the Irish County Court Judges' salaries were on the Parliamentary Vote and perhaps they were not worth discussing. Let him, however, give the House the figures of the Prisons Boards in Scotland and Ireland. There were two reasons for this; first, because the two Boards did precisely the same work, and secondly, they did it under precisely the same Acts. He knew that hon. Gentlemen above the gangway thought he was going to gratify their well-known appetite for statistics of crime. In Scotland the average daily number of prisoners under the charge of the Prisons Board in 1906 was 2,906, and in Ireland 2,541. The cost of the Irish Prisons Board was £107,012; and of the Scottish, £87,139. The explanation was given in the third column of the Report, which stated that the number of convicts under the charge of the Prisons Board in Scotland was 2,906 and the attendants 454; in Ireland the number of convicts under the Prisons Board was 2,541 and the attendants 628. Then let them take the case of pensions in the Police Force. In Ireland they were paying very much more than in Scotland for the ghosts, or rather the retired members of the Force. If the Police Estimates were looked at it would be found that the pensions to the Royal Irish Constabulary amounted to 50 per cent
  1638
  of their actual pay; and that the pensions of the Dublin Metropolitan Police amounted to 30 per cent. of their actual pay. He would be asked: What do you suggest should be done? Well, their cardinal suggestion was that the money allocated to the service of Ireland should be bettor distributed. Economies should be made in the police and judicial establishments, which were the last surviving relic of twenty years of resolute government. When that policy of resolute government was replaced by another system, that costly relic ought to go by the board. When Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill in 1886 he foresaw the development of Irish expenditure. Mr. Gladstone said—
  "I will state one other striking fact with regard to Irish expenditure. The House would like to know what an amount has been going on—and is at this moment going on—of what I may call a waste of public money, demoralising in its influence upon both countries. The civil charges per capita at the moment are, in Great Britain, 8s. 2d. per head, and in Ireland, 16s. They have increased in Ireland in the last fifteen years by 63 per cent. and my belief is that if the present legislative and administrative systems be maintained you must make up your minds to a continual; never-ending, and never-to-be limited augmentation."
  When Mr. Gladstone spoke the Civil Government charges in Ireland were 16s. per head; they now amounted to 28s. 5d. The augmentation went on and they believed now, and always did believe, that they could not have clean, cheap, and effective administration in Ireland until they brought that administration under the control of a democratic. Assembly. They believed that the evils resulted from the fact that the political center of Ireland was not in Dublin, but at Whitehall. They were asked: What is your remedy? His answer was that the proper remedy would be found in the Motion to be made by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford on; Monday next. He begged to move.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLYformally seconded the Motion.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words the cost of Administration in Ireland is excessive, is unduly burdensome to the people of that country, and is steadily increasing; that the expenditure is not subject to Irish control and is not allocated or administered in such a

  1639
  way as to promote efficiency in government or national well-being; that, so far from alleviating the injury inflicted on Ireland by overtaxation, this waste of her resources on certain services tends rather to aggravate it; and that this condition of affairs constitutes an intolerable grievance and demands the immediate attention of Parliament,'—(Mr. Kettle,)—instead thereof."
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  *THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,)said his hon. friend and colleague in the representation of Tyrone had stated that the question was not a novel one. He (Mr. Russell) had spoken on this subject more than once from below the gangway, and if any hon. Member would read the Resolution paragraph by paragraph he did not believe there was one who knew anything about Ireland who would traverse a single statement in it. Something, he admitted, might be said in explanation of many things, some things might be modified, but speaking as an Irish Minister responsible for one of the great Departments and speaking as an Irish Member who had given long and anxious consideration to the question, he stated that in his opinion the Resolution was substantially accurate and could not be doubted. Let them see how matters actually stood on the Estimates. There were two classes—the one productive expenditure and the other what he would call executive expenditure. He would take two great Departments and contrast them with two others. He would take his own Department first, and then he would take the Irish Land Commission, and contrast them with the Estimate for Law and Justice, and the House would see not only the difference, but the tremendous difficulty there was in dealing with this question. His Department was responsible for an expenditure of £400,000 per annum. £215,000 was on the Estimates, the remainder belonged to the endowment fund. But he should say that £149,000 of the Department Vote simply passed through its hands to other Departments. He would say that the charge for salaries and executive officers in connection with the Department was not over
  1640
  £65,000, although the total Vote on the Estimate was £215,000. But he claimed that the £400,000 was almost entirely productive and beneficial to the country. For instance, 750,000 head of cattle were annually shipped to Great Britain, and the large dealers who purchased these were unanimous in their testimony as to the great improvement of recent years that had been effected in Irish cattle. It was only reasonable to suppose that the improvement represented £1 per head. Anything less would not be noticeable. But if they put it at 10s. they had an increase of £375,000 per annum, at least three times the whole agricultural expenditure of the Department. Then what was the result of the agricultural instruction provided? There was now being carried out a most complete series of experiments in manuring and treatment of crops. Definite information was provided and widely disseminated to the farmers, who thereby know what and how to buy, what they were to pay, and how they were to use it. An enormous increase in the use of fertilisers was to be attributed directly to this work. Much had been made of the probable injury that would be done to the cattle trade of Ireland by the breaking up of the grass lands into small farms, but few people realised that the value of eggs, butter, and poultry, produced by small farmers, exceeded the total sum derived from the export of cattle—generally the business of large grazlers. This was due directly to the county committee schemes and to the direct work of the Department in developing and improving. He claimed that that was almost entirely of a productive character, and that the charge of something like £60,000 for salaries, etc., was not a large sum and was not misspent. If the work of the Department was to go on, technical education to be extended, and county committees supported as they ought to be, it was more and not less money that would be required. The Land Commission was another of those Departments of the State which involved a heavy expenditure, close upon £300,000 this year. He had heard complaints of the enormous sums spent by the Commission upon all sorts of work He asked was that fair? What was the Land Commission doing? It was very important

  1641
  to remember that the Land Commission was carrying out duties set by Parliament which involved practically resettling the whole country. It was changing the ownership of land throughout the whole of Ireland. Surely that was productive expenditure, and surely those were things which could not be done except in detail, which would require a great deal of time and a great deal of money. There was no doubt about it that the expenditure on these Departments was heavy and costly, but where that expenditure was useful and productive the House ought not to interfere, it ought to say that these Departments should be aided with money to carry on the work as quickly as it could be done. He came to a class of department of a very different kind, and he claimed the attention of the House to it because here it was that he thought real work could be done. He would take the Department of what was called Law and Justice. He summarised the Estimates, and found that the Supreme Court of Justice cost £103,446, and to that of course must be added about £76,000 for the salaries of Judges, which they could not discuss there; County Courts cost £110,475, pensions and salaries, £35,147, and resident magistrates £43,645. There they had an expenditure of £368,742 upon law and justice. Let them contrast that with Scotland, where the population was practically the same, although as far as criminal tendencies were concerned he should say that the great manufacturing centers such as were found in Lanarkshire would have a greater tendency towards crime than the agricultural districts of Ireland. What was the entire cost of Scottish law and justice? He took the Court of Session, the sheriff courts as representing the work of the Irish County Courts, and the entire cost in Scotland amounted to £202,608, or £150,000 less than law and justice cost in Ireland. He ventured to say with some experience of both countries that the law which the Scottish people got for their money was quite as sound, impartial, and pure as that which Ireland obtained. The only difference was that the Scottish paid £202,000 for their law and justice, whereas the Irish people paid £368,000, although the population was precisely the same. He thought something might
  1642
  be done in regard to that, though he admitted it was difficult to do it. For the present he contented himself with drawing the contrast. He took next the police. There was no counterpart for the Irish police in Scotland or in England. The Royal Irish Constabulary according to the Estimate cost £1,354,902, and to that must be added £96,632, the cost of the Metropolitan police, making a total of £1,451,534 for the police in Ireland. Hon. Gentlemen would not find in the Scottish Estimates a charge for the Scottish police, for this reason, that it was a local charge, and was locally managed. But picking out the sums from the various accounts of the counties it was a strange thing to find that 4,500,000 Scottish people were policed at a charge of £600,000, but that it took £1,500,000 to do the same work in Ireland. It was enough to state a fact like that to show that something was radically wrong, and that the hon. Member for East Tyrone was right in making his complaint. £1,430,818 was spent on primary education in Ireland less than the amount spent on police. That was intolerable. Education required more and not less. Under the present system under which it was spent there was probably great waste; there was certainly universal dissatisfaction, too many small schools, and inefficiency. What the House and the Government ought to feel was that those services which were productive should be helped and encouraged, whilst the others should have less expenditure made upon them. How was that to be done? Compared with Great Britain, Ireland was a poor country. She had not the natural resources of either Scotland or England. He was not making what was called in Ireland a "poor mouth," because he thought there were compensations. But they in Ireland had not the regulation of their own household. That was done for them, and all the expenditure was voted upon other people's ideas of what Ireland required. Ireland in a sense was a poor country forced to live beyond its means, and the result was inevitable. Why should the expenditure be upon such a gigantic scale? It was all because of a wasteful and wicked system of government. But let any

  1643
  Chief Secretary venture upon a discovery. Let him say: "I shall not sanction £1,500,000 for police in a country which in ordinary times is practically crimeless; I shall not sanction £350,000 for what you call law and justice; I will not spend large sums of money in Ireland which have no counterpart in Scotland and England; I will bring the services of the country within reasonable limits." In that case what would happen? The Chief Secretary would not be able to do very much. The average life of a Chief Secretary was two years and three months. He had seen sixteen Chief Secretaries since he began to take a part in public affairs in Ireland. The Chief Secretary would be gone long before the officials let him do much. The right hon. Member for Dover was a splendid example. He went to Ireland with the very best of intentions—[A NATIONALIST MEMBER: They all do.]—and he proceeded to put them into force, and to reduce the police and resident magistrates, or at any rate, to make arrangements for doing so. But when he went he was succeeded by another who filled up the vacancies; and what was called the "garrison" loudly applauded him as they stepped into the vacant offices. So the thing went round and round like a horse in a bark mill. Something might occur in the west to give trouble, or what was called the rash might come out badly in the north; the police would then be overworked and the resident magistrates unable to cope with the trouble. There would then be others appointed "temporarily," but no man ever so appointed really believed he was appointed temporarily. Temporary men in six months applied to be made pensionable officers. It was perfectly impossible for any Chief Secretary, no matter what his intentions were, to make any impression upon this business from the English side of the water. He had been twenty-two years in the House, and the thing had gone on all that time because no Chief Secretary could deal with it. Officials had become a great class in Ireland; there were thousands of them, and their influence was felt everywhere. They were largely of one class, one creed, and one party—and if any man dared to lay hands upon what they considered their
  1644
  rights, that man was doomed. That sort of devil did not go out by prayer and fasting. It would not go out by fine intentions; it would have to be dealt with by Irishmen, on their own soil and in their own way. He had to point out to Englishmen another difficulty in this matter. Who had any interest in economy in Ireland? The revenue Ireland paid last year was £9,490,000; that was the sum taken out of the country in revenue. The expenditure in Ireland was £7,678,500, leaving a balance in favour of Ireland of £1,811,500. That was the Imperial contribution. Thus if Ireland reduced her expenditure the money so saved went to increase the Imperial contribution—Ireland got no benefit from such saving. That was a wicked system. No one in Ireland had any interest in economy. There was a perfect hopelessness of doing anything. No Chief Secretary could do anything because he was there to-day and gone to-morrow. There was no encouragement for economy in Ireland itself, because the people thought it was better to have money spent in Ireland than to save it to swell the Imperial contribution. Long study of this question had driven him to the conclusion that the whole thing was hopeless, and it was impossible for England to make any impression upon it. That was why he had supported the Irish Council Bill, because he thought it would give Irishmen themselves a grip upon expenditure in the great Departments. Until that was done by Irishmen in Ireland the remedy would never be effected.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I should not have intervened in this debate but for what has fallen from the hon. Gentleman. As an Irish Member I should like to see reductions of expenditure if they could be secured in Parliament. I should not have risen, as I said, if it had not been for the extraordinary speech to which we have listened from the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture. I am not going to say anything about the action of a Minister, a Member of the Government, who gets up and makes by inference and by suggestion, an attack on all those who have sat on that bench before, and pretends to make a straightforward declaration

  1645
  to the House as to the action of others, while he carefully, and for purposes of his own, ignores the action of the Government of which he is now a Member—misrepresents the action of myself when I was Chief Secretary, and makes a comparison between my right hon. friend the Member for Dover and myself, which, if it means anything, means that I departed from the arrangement at which my right hon. friend had arrived, and broke that promise which he had made to Parliament. I did nothing of the kind. The Vice-President says that my right hon. friend, amongst other economies, effected a reduction in the police, and he wound up by saying that no Irish Minister could make economies because he was not permitted. Having said that my right hon. friend had effected an economy by reducing the police, he charged me with having departed from that economy. It was convenient for him for the moment to forget—I do not think he has forgotten—that, whatever may have been my sins, I left the police at the statutory number. One of the earliest actions of the Government of which he himself is a Member, was to increase that number. Why? Because the hon. Gentleman tells us in his particularly picturesque language, that the "rash" had broken out in the west.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: No, no; in the north.
  MR. WALTER LONG: Oh, in the north! But according to the statement made by the hon. Gentleman's own chief, the increase of the police was in consequence of troubles, not in the north, but in the west. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman cannot ride off on that. But now the hon. Gentleman in his changed position tells us about an outbreak of the rash. Is there a man in this House or out of it, who has been more eloquent or more frequent in his descriptions of disturbances and trouble in Ireland than the hon. Gentleman? Now that he finds it desirable to make peace with the National representatives of Ireland he forgets his speeches of the past, and says the increase of police is in consequence of an outbreak of rash.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The right hon. Gentleman must please remember that I stated that the trouble arose in the west, and the rash broke out in the north.
  MR. WALTER LONG: The right hon. Gentleman also accused me of departing from my right hon. friend the Member for Dover's promise as to the resident magistrates. What about the Government of the right hon. Gentleman? Unless I am mistaken, a resident magistrate has been appointed since the Government came into office. I believe I am right in saying that the appointment that I made was to a resident magistrateship vacant within the conditions laid down by the right hon. Member for Dover, and I did not go beyond them. But what of this immaculate Government, who by their spokesmen accept every word uttered by the hon. Member who moved this Motion, and who have not a word to say in defence of those who held office before them, and who belonged to the same Party? Since they came into office they have done that which we deliberately de lined to do. They have filled up a vacant judgeship, a much larger matter from the point of view of finance than the appointment of a resident magistrate or an increase of the police; and they did that in defiance of the fact that we had made this arrangement with Parliament. We introduced a Bill which was not passed, having for its object the reduction of the number of Judges, and we declined ourselves to make a new appointment, because we were debarred from doing so by the arrangement made with Parliament. Yet, in face of these facts, every one of which was known to the hon. Gentleman when he rose in order to score a petty party point, in order, if possible, to do some injury to a single individual, he chose to try and draw this distinction between my right hon. friend and myself, and he chose in doing that grossly to misrepresent the facts as to my administration in Ireland. Now, the hon. Gentleman accepted the whole of the Motion from below the gangway. It is perfectly true that there are some questions, however keenly we may be divided on party politics, or on great matters of controversy, upon which we

  1647
  may speak without reserve, and I hope that will ever be so in this House. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion did so in a speech of rare ability and great interest, and I do not hesitate to say that he made, as others have made before him, a clear case for making an examination into those allegations in regard to the cost of government in Ireland and in regard to the incidence of the cost as between the Imperial Exchequer and the Exchequer of Ireland alone. The hon. Member said that the Motion involved part of their Motion to be moved on Monday next, and he said quite distinctly that no promise of economy—no putting on of the white sheet as the hon. Gentleman opposite has done tonight, by disavowing the action of his predecessors as well as of his own Government—will satisfy them; nothing-will satisfy them except the transference of power from this Government to another in Ireland. What was the answer to the hon. Gentleman? We thought he was going to leave that part of the Resolution untouched, but we were mistaken. The hon. Gentleman has never tired telling the House and Ireland that, although he has seen fit to join another Party, and has left the Party with which he had worked so long, it did not mean that he was identified in any way with the cause of Home Rule. Can he say that after the declaration he has made here to-night? Has he offered the smallest opposition to the explicit and definite declaration of the hon. Gentleman below the gangway, representing as he does the views he and his Party have always held? What interpretation does his language bear? If it does not mean that these matters are to be transferred to an Irish Parliament it has no meaning at all. Therefore, all these assertions and declarations which we have heard in this House and in Ireland, have been entirely obliterated by the definite statement made now, and we know he is prepared no longer to resist that great fundamental change in the government of Ireland which he resisted so long, and to which many of us believed he was not yet converted, although he had seen fit to join the present Government. It is not possible now to discuss
  1648
  the larger question opened up by the Motion and in a lesser degree by the hon. Gentleman; but I confess I regret very much that the Government has thought it necessary to put up to represent them on this occasion a Minister who has embittered what has been a non-controversial debate—a debate extremely interesting and in which any hon. Member could have taken part irrespective of the part he takes in public affairs, short only of the change from Imperial to Irish control, without embarking upon any of those personal attacks which the hon. Gentleman has thought it necessary to make in order to establish his case. I should not have risen if it had not been for the charges made by the hon. Gentleman, charges for which there is not a shadow of foundation, and charges which as a Member of the Government he ought not to have made, because he is in possession of the information I have now given to the House. I profoundly regret that we should have witnessed this spectacle of a Minister who, in his desire to join hands with those who support his Government, thinks it necessary to traduce those who are opposed to him, and who differ from him, not only in politics, but also in this, that they are consistent, whereas he is remarkable for his inconsistency.
  MR. FLYNNsaid, in regard to the Motion so ably laid before the House by his hon. friend, there was no excuse for a Member of the Front Bench saying that they could find no way to reduce the expenditure, and it was equally futile for the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken to use the tu quoque argument, and say: "If we are fat, you are also." The right hon. Gentleman would excuse him if he said that he ought not to be excited by any burning desire for retrenchment in Ireland, seeing that he represented a constituency near Dublin Castle, called "Dublin Castle by the Sea," because, in that constituency the voters were very largely composed of those who were intimately concerned in the perpetuation of the system of extravagance and corruption which had been so strongly denounced that afternoon. The main argument used on the other side was this: "We grant that large

  1649
  sums of money are raised in Ireland, we grant that government in Ireland is costly, we grant that Ireland in proportion to her taxable capacity is overtaxed, but we have to set-off against that the extraordinary amount of money that is spent in Ireland. Look what a large amount of money is spent on law, justice, police, Local Government Boards, and all the other great Departments with which you are blessed in Ireland." But that was a very strange argument to use, that over-taxation was compensated for by extravagant expenditure. The extraordinary anomaly was that the more Ireland was taxed the less money went to the tax gatherer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that that was due to the extravagant cost of Civil government in Ireland. He would give a few figures to the House in corroboration of that view. He would take five periods—1819, when the Exchequers were amalgamated, and then the periods of twenty years, 1849 to 1869–70, then 1889–90, and the present financial year. The estimated true revenue of Ireland in 1829 was £5,264,000. The percentage of Ireland's revenue to that of Great Britain was 10·4, and the contribution per head was 15s. 5d. In 1849 after the disastrous famine the estimated true revenue was £4,867,000, the percentage 9·4, and the amount per head 14s. 9d. Twenty years later the revenue, still rising, was £7,426,000, the percentage 10·7, and the cost per head £1 7s. 9d. In 1889–1890 the amount raised was £7,734,000, the percentage 9·1, and the amount per head £1 12s. 6d.; and in the last financial year for which they had figures, 1906–1907, the amount raised was £9,490,000, the percentage 6·8, and the amount per head £2 3s. 3d. Ireland's contribution had doubled in the past sixty years. To take the figures as given a few months ago by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reply to a question by his hon. friend who had moved the Motion, the increase of the tax revenue within the past ten years had been from £7,144,000 to £8,274,000 or £1,130,000, and the percentage had fallen from 7·9 to 6·9, compared with Great Britain. The obvious conclusion was that the more Ireland paid in tax revenue the less the injustice of over-taxation, because of the inflated expenditure of Great Britain, and the more
  1650
  she paid in taxation the less she contributed to Imperial expenditure, because of the cost of Irish services. In other words the candle was being burnt at both ends. Ireland was paying more year after year, owing to the demands made upon her, and to the increase in British expenditure, but owing to the still greater increase of the costly system of administration in Ireland, that was more than counterbalanced by the increase in the expenditure, and while Ireland paid more and more as the years rolled by she contributed less and less towards the Imperial expenditure of the country. That had a double disadvantage. Ireland was expanding more and getting less in return. It might be said that a good deal of this increase was automatic, but this thing must be tackled in a radical manner and little peddling reforms here and there would do little. In order to tackle it in a proper way they must tackle the system which gave rise to these gross abuses and extraordinary anomalies. Lord Farrer and his colleagues on the Financial Relations Commission acknowledged this, and said—
  "We are of opinion that the excessive expenditure of Ireland which we have described, although it may be no justification for the excessive taxation of Ireland, is at once a pecuniary loss to the taxpayers of Great Britain and the cause of demoralisation to Ireland."
  Even the Tory Government in 1906, which did not accept the findings of the Commission, proposed to appoint a fresh Commission, and in the reference to it acknowledged that there was a very strong case made out. The Commission was to inquire how the expenditure on Irish local services for which the State wholly, or in part, provided compared with corresponding expenditure in England and Scotland, and whether such expenditure might with advantage be adjusted or reduced. With regard to the very important point whether the injustice of over-taxing Ireland was compensated for by expending extravagant sums on administration by keeping up these over-manned and over-salaried offices, let him quote a very distinguished member of the Conservative Party.
  Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House

  1651
  counted and forty, Members being found present,
  MR. FLYNN, continuing, said he was endeavouring to prove the cruelty of the position and that by the system of undiscerning and indiscriminate taxation—by what was called identical taxation—they forced Ireland to bear taxation upon the same basis as England, altogether ignoring the fact that Ireland's proportion of indirect taxation was 50 per cent. as compared with about 23 per cent. or 24 per cent. for Great Britain. The mischief was twofold. In the first place over-taxed Ireland received a very much larger amount of money than would be required under normal circumstances, and they had to levy increased taxes year after year to meet increased military and naval expenditure. Even when military exigencies were over and they came to times of peace the taxation had to be retained at a high level, and by the system of identical taxation taxation was forced up year after year and decade after decade. But simultaneously with that there went on this automatic increase in the cost of Irish establishments, Ireland losing all the time and the Imperial Treasury gaining nothing as far as they were concerned, because the percentage of Ireland's revenue to that of Great Britain had fallen from 9·4 sixty years ago to 6·8. With regard to the argument of excessive expenditure with which this Motion dealt he was about to quote Sir Edward Clarke, who, speaking on a Motion on the broader question of the general financial relations, said—
  "They tried to spend the taxation as if it did not matter how large was the tax imposed, so long as they spent it upon the population where it was raised. According to that theory they would be doing Ireland, in her poverty and trouble, no harm at all, if they were to impose £3,000,000 more taxation per annum upon her, always provided they doubled the number of her police, gave her more Judges, and for the special benefit of the landlords, an army of assistant Commissioners."
  It was quite obvious that if this system of extravagance in administration was to be held as justification for overtaxation it did not matter what they drew for Ireland. It did not matter how the taxation was increased, either direct or indirect, if they handed it
  1652
  back in this form. All they had to do was to double the number of police, put some more Judges there, and fill up more Dublin Castle appointments, and, hey prestol the thing was done to the satisfaction of everybody except Ireland, certainly to the satisfaction of the Treasury. But the real tragedy as regarded Ireland was that such a large proportion of the expenditure should be of an unproductive kind, or worse than unproductive if he could find an adjective to describe it, compared with the productive portion. Was it not something tragic after 100 years of the Union, in the twentieth century, to find this large amount for law, for police and for Judges, though the Judges' salaries were charged on the Consolidated Fund? In the matter of book-keeping they were entitled to bring in everything which was put down by the Treasury as a separate Irish service. It was an intolerable state of things to find that half the available revenue was devoted to unproductive services. There was no more painful thing than the average Irish Member having to approach successive Chief Secretaries or Secretaries to the Treasury or Chancellors of the Exchequer, either by deputation in Dublin or at that House or across the floor to get better terms and conditions for the educational needs of the country, for the development of agriculture, and for the building up and improvement of those industries which were largely crushed out by the bigotry of Parliaments that had preceded this; and there was nothing more humiliating than to have to come to the House and ask for what was after all their own money that was being spent on that corrupt and extravagant administration. He knew no better trial than, that which Irish Members experienced when during the recess they attended congresses of the national teachers and other bodies in Ireland, all of whom cried out for better conditions and pointed out the niggardly manner in which the country was treated by the Treasury. Yet the average Irish Member was powerless in the matter except to complain of the wretched system of finance. He admitted that the Congested Districts Board had received in the past considerable sums of money, but all that was as a drop in, the ocean compared with

  1653
  the amount of beneficial work they could have done had they had more money. But the operations of that Board had been sharply and suddenly brought to a standstill. The Chief Secretary had told them that the reason was want of money. The only Department in which there seemed to be no lack of money was that which dealt with those things which were unproductive and did nothing whatever towards developing the intellect or improving the moral and material resources of the nation. He noted the absence of the Ulster Members from the debate. It was very sad to think that there was only one branch of Irish subjects which seemed to interest them, and that was the police news of the country. The Police Gazette was the only class of literature they seemed to study. The subject the House was now discussing was absolutely non-controversial, or should at any rate be so, and it was non-political. Ten years ago the Ulster Members under the leadership of Colonel Saunderson, joined with the Nationalist representatives in making a strong representation with regard to the financial relations between the two countries. Times were changed, but matters had not improved. The duty of the Irish representatives was clear; they must keep on protesting against the excessive cost of administration of which the Motion complained. He had heard it suggested that changes which might be made in the Irish police would increase the Constabulary Vote. He would resist strenuously, as he hoped the Nationalist Party would, any idea of increasing the cost of administration of the Irish police. Not that they were overpaid, but if there was to be a revision it should be a revision that embodied common-sense as well as economy, and should be brought about by revising the salaries of the higher officers and the large establishment charges rather than by increasing the sum total of the Vote. The figures the hon. Member for East Tyrone had given contrasting Scotland and Ireland were most striking, and if he had had time to contrast the charges with those for law and police in Belgium and Germany he would have found that they proved that the Irish system was the most costly in any civilised country. Nay, he would not be surprised if it was
  1654
  found that the whole Russian autocracy, with its utter disregard for the people was carried on much more cheaply and much more to the satisfaction of the people. The Irish Members would never accept the uneconomic, vicious doctrine that they counterbalanced and gave an equivalent to what Ireland claimed to be the gross over-taxation of the country by an extravagant system of administration, which was ruinous to the country, developed none of its best interests, and produced very little good to the Imperial Treasury.
  *MR. BARRIErepudiated the idea that the present Ulster Members had gone back on the views held by the Ulster Members ten years ago. With regard to the contrast drawn between Ireland and Scotland, the heavy expense in Ireland had arisen largely from the operations of the United Irish League so far as the administration of the police was concerned. In Ireland the United Irish League ruled in opposition to the King's Law in several counties. [Cries of "No"]. In Scotland if the League still had a few branches, it did not dare to usurp the law and hold its Courts and execute punishments. Under those circumstances it was little wonder that Scotland had been able to have an effective police force at much less cost. He was pleased to hear the hon. Member for East Tyrone say, when referring to the Agriculture and Technical Instruction Department, that there was no extravagance there, and that he would gladly see another £500,000 or even £1,000,000 devoted to the beneficent work of that Department. The Member for South Tyrone had also spoken of the value of the work of the Agricultural and Technical Instruction Department. But what was the attitude of Nationalist leaders to that Department? They found the hon. and learned Member for Waterford describing the Department as an insidious attempt to divert the friends of Ireland from the Nationalist movement, while the Member for East Mayo said that the Department was from top to bottom a machine to burst up and destroy the Nationalist movement

  1655
  For himself, he endorsed what the Vice-President had said of his own Department, and was glad that its work was increasingly valued in Ireland, and that last year the amount raised by voluntary taxation to secure the grants from the Department was almost £60,000. That sum, coming from every county in Ireland, showed how much out of sympathy with the Nationalist Leaders' views on the matter the people of Ireland were. The Member for East Tyrone had referred to the income-tax figures in Ireland as showing no expansion, but he suggested that there was a simple explanation of that. Since the present Government came into power investors preferred to make their investments out of Ireland rather than in it. On the eve of the previous Home Rule Bill there was a very sharp shrinkage in all Irish securities, and again during the past two years a similar shrinkage had occurred. Investors as a rule were sagacious and prudent people; and they could hardly be blamed if under present circumstances they preferred to invest their money on this side of St. George's Channel. The Member for East Tyrone had said that there was a time coming when Ireland would be run at a loss to the Empire. He did not share in that prophecy, because in spite of the strong influence of the League Ireland was making progress. The increase in the amount of deposits in the Savings Banks from £5,000,000 in 1886 to £13,000,000 in 1906 was satisfactory, and so were the figures with regard to the growing resources of railways, and the amount of goods carried by them. These facts he thought disposed of the suggestion that Ireland was being trodden down by the pressure of taxation. It-had been admitted even by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford that if in the last ten years taxation had risen by £2,000,000 the various grants-in-aid had been swollen by almost exactly the same figure, so that, without expressing an opinion on the position as it was ten years ago, at any rate they could console themselves with the reflection that it was not worse now than ten years ago. He was sorry that the Vice-President of the Agricultural Department had introduced a bitter and controversial element into the matter, because he saw no reason why there should
  1656
  be political controversy in introducing a reasonable and moderate reform of Irish Departments, if real economy would result. The hon. Member's speech seemed to mark another milestone on his way to a seat on the Nationalist benches. He was surprised that, considering the hon. Member's experience, and his recent transfer from one Party to another, he should have endeavoured to make political capital by an attack on Unionists in this matter. It was altogether gratuitous and uncalled for, and not what they had a right to expect from the Government Fro Bench. The Vice-President had said he would be glad to have more money for his Department, and it was worth all it was costing. He was not disposed to differ, but it was clear there was no saving to be expected there. As to primary education they all agreed it was inefficient, that there were too many schools, and that teachers were not remunerated as they should be. The Government were full of compassion and sympathy, though they would only promise the disappointing new grant of £40,000 a year for three years. There again there was no hope of, education. It came to this, that in three out of the four Departments which had been enlarged upon in the debate it was admitted on all sides of the House that no radical economy could be expected. On the contrary, more money was called for, and the only item which looked large to the average Englishman and Scotsman was the cost of the Judges, stipendiaries, and police. Let it not be forgotten that the present Government added to the Judicial Bench in violation of an understanding existing in the last Parliament. The Vice-President of the Agricultural Department had told them that there were thousands of officials in Ireland, and thousands of suppliants more for office.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I know that.
  *MR. BARRIEsaid he understood that from South Tyrone there had been a steady procession of eligible men to Dublin trying to emphasise and bring home their claims.
  MR. J. MACVEAGH: There are a few from North Deny if you only knew it.
  *MR. BARRIEsaid the supporters of the Vice-President in North Derry were not very numerous, but there too each and all of them considered that they were highly qualified for every well-paid office and every honour of a more or less high degree. He could only say that many expectations had been disappointed both in South Tyrone and possibly in North Derry. But that was not the point. What he wanted to emphasise was that where they had a system of this kind they would always have plenty of a plicants who considered their qualifications were up to the mark. He did not think the hon. Member for South Tyrone was at all backward in that little weakness himself. He only wished he could join with hon. Members below the gangway in saying that the present time was opportune for attempting a reduction in the cost of preserving law and order in Ireland, but there was not au honest man sitting even on the Radical Benches who could say that the time was ripe for doing that. So far as other and less controversial matters were concerned, however, he would heartily join his friends below the gangway, and he thought he could also speak for his colleagues, in any arrangement which would make for economy in the public services. He hoped the time would come—it was not likely to come immediately in view of the forthcoming debate whose shadow was over the House—when all Irish representatives in the House might be able to gather at a round table conference and consider what substantial economies might be effected with great benefit to all concerned.
  MR. MOONEYsaid he had listened with great pleasure to the speech of the hon. Gentleman as he had done on many former occasions. He was glad to bear the hon. Gentleman acknowledge himself in his true colours as an Irish-Scotsman, but he did not think they could get much light from a distinguished Scotsman on the conduct of Irish affairs. The right hon. Gentleman who sat for South Dublin had accused the hon. Member who represented the Agricultural Department of apostasy, and with importing into the debate a party spirit. The hon. Member for North Londonderry had also lamented that
  1658
  a tone of party had been imported into the discussion. He would have been very glad to join with the right hon. Member for South Dublin, and the distinguished Scotsman from North Derry, if this had not been made a party question; but a party meeting of the colleagues of those hon. Members had been held last week, and it was then decided that the Resolution before the House should be considered in a party spirit, and that the Orange Members would have no part or lot in the Resolution, which they declared was only a means to an end, and must be opposed. Hon. Gentlemen above the gangway must have very short memories, therefore, about what had passed at their own meeting when they charged the hon. Member for South Tyrone with giving a party tone to the debate.
  MR. LONSDALE: There was no such resolution passed.
  MR. MOONEYsaid he would accept the hon. Gentleman's disclaimer so far as the hon. Gentleman was personally concerned; but the hon. Member had been misled, because the organ which officially published all the discussions which took place at the meetings of the Irish Unionists, the Pall Mall Gazette, gave chapter and verse for what had taken place at this particular meeting, and the resolution which had been passed at it; and no contradiction of that report had yet appeared in the same or any other journal. He thought that on a question like that before the House the hon. Gentleman might have found time, when not trying to trace bogus outrages in Ireland, to read the paper. If he had done so he would not have said that no such resolution had been passed. The Vice-President of the Agricultural Department had, he thought, made a most interesting and courageous speech when he talked about the Imperial contributions of Ireland to England. For himself, he spoke as one of those who would gladly see the cost of government in Ireland go on and on until the Imperial contribution went down to an even lower rate than it was to-day; because if they were to make immediate savings in any great spending department in Ireland, the result would

  1659
  not be for the benefit of the taxpayer in Ireland, but would add to the contributions to the British Treasury. Everyone knew that the Imperial Exchequer derived more in proportion from the Irish taxpayer than from the taxpayers of either England or Scotland. He remembered that in the last Parliament when the light hon. Member for Dover proposed that the money which might be saved in certain departments in Ireland should be put to a fund for the benefit of Ireland, the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, with that eloquence which they were accustomed to hear from him, said that that would be scandalous, and that the savings should be handed on to the British Treasury. He did not think that the hon. Member for South. Tyrone was entirely free in this respect in regard to the department over which he presded. An Act was passed providing that the balance of any grant which might be made by Parliament for the use of his Department, unexpended at the end of the financial year, should not be sent to the British Treasury, but should be earmarked for the benefit of Ireland. The hon. Gentleman's predecessor interpreted that Act in another way, and instead of the grant being an advantage to Ireland, it had been a disadvantage. The hon. Gentleman's predecessor seized the opportunity of starving the industries which ought to have been encouraged by the grant, broke the promises given by the Department, and accumulated a fund which he held was absolutely illegal and had never been contemplated by the House. The hon. Gentleman's predecessor in order to induce the urban authorities in Ireland to start a system of technical education promised that if they would make a rate for that purpose, he would out of the funds of the Department make an equivalent grant to the amount raised by the urban authorities. All over Ireland the urban authorities embarked on an expenditure for technical education and struck a rate. The first year the grant was made to the urban authorities towards the cost of erecting technical schools, but in the following-year, after the urban authorities had again struck a rate and applied for the equivalent grant out of the monies
  1660
  voted by this House, the hon. Gentleman's predecessor said: "Oh no; we won't give you the money this year for technical education; we require it for something else."
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he thought his hon. friend was mistaken. The grant for technical education was £55,000, and that sum was distributed amongst the urban authorities; and it was so distributed now.
  MR. MOONEYsaid that the hon. Gentleman's predecessor sent round to the local authorities in Ireland a circulare in which he said that the technical education committees must manage to do without the grant that year as he was not in a position to help him; although he had formerly promised that if the local authorities established a rate for technical education he would give them an equivalent grant.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Up to the amount sanctioned by Parliament
  MR. MOONEYsaid he did not think-that that was mentioned in the circular. In numberless cases the urban authorities did strike a rate, and the first year they did get an equivalent grant from the Department; but in the next year, after having again struck the rate and entered into contracts which they could not break, they were told that they could not get the money, which went to a special fund amounting to £500,000.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that that was not so. During the first two years it was found impossible to spend all the money which Parliament had voted, and the sums so accumulated were put together and constituted a reserve fund.
  MR. MOONEYsaid that no doubt the hon. Gentleman had more knowledge of the working of the Department than he had, but he did not think he was right on the question of fact, because week after week, and day after day, he questioned Mr. Pryce on this subject, and that right hon. Gentleman had to admit that there was a great discrepancy between the figures supplied to him and the figures published in the official Return. The answers of

  1661
  Mr. Bryce went to show that there was now being built up, under a system which had no legal sanction, a reserve fund for the Department which was never contemplated by the House. The hon. Gentleman talked about savings upon the Judiciary, the, Laud Commission, and other Departments, but he was not going to support savings unless they went into Irish funds and not into Imperial funds. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin had made a vehement attack upon the hon. Member for South Tyrone with regard to the charge the latter made against him as to the filling up of vaancies in the Judiciary. He was not concerned to defend the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who was quite able to do that for himself, but if anybody turned up the list of appointments made during the regime of the right hon. Gentleman they would see that every single statement made by the hon. Member for South Tyrone was accurate. He could only attribute the heat which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin brought into the debate to the fact that he had had so many tariff reform figures in his head, which were curious figures, that he absolutely forgot the figures in regard to the persons he had appointed during the time he was Chief Secretary for Ireland. He thought it was a curious point that, upon a question which the hon. Member for Derry said united Ireland, there were only two stalwart representatives of Ulster present. If it had been a question of whether Lord Ashtown had been amply compensated for the alleged outrage which took place at his lodge, the whole of the Party would have been present. He thought very little of a Party which, thinking that something advantageous was proposed which they ought to support, failed to support it, because some individual made a speech which upset their dignity, as he supposed he ought to say, but he did not like using such a word as applied to the Ulster Uniemist Party.
  *MR. J. F. MASONsaid the resolution before the House expressed the opinion that the cost of administration in Ireland was excessive, and that reduction would result if it were subject to Irish control, which meant
  1662
  Nationalist control. He quite admitted that there were a great many points in the administration of Ireland which were very costly. To begin with, there was one item due to the multiplicity of officials, because of the large number of exceptional Acts which applied to Ireland, such as Land Acts, Land Purchase Acts, Labourers Dwellings Acts, and Congested Districts legislation, all of which were worked by a large number of officials, with such an amount of overlapping as must cost a considerable amount of money. He might point out that the greater part of this expenditure, especially under the Land Acts, was borne by taxation, of which England paid a very large share, whereas with the cost of the English Land Acts the whole expenditure was paid by Englishmen through rates. The Land Purchase Act, which was going to cost £112,000,000, would be paid as to eight-tenths of it by Englishmen. [Cries of "No."]
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that was just the difficulty that Irishmen had to meet in the House, but he had pointed out that the gross revenue paid by Ireland last year was £9,000,000, and the gross expenditure in Ireland about £7,000,000, and that, in fact, after paying every penny of expenditure out of Irish taxation, the result was that £1,800,000 went for Imperial purposes. Therefore, it was wrong to say that England paid anything of the kind, as far as administration was concerned.
  AN HON. MEMBER: But what about the Army and Navy?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: That is Imperial contribution.
  *MR. J. F. MASON: The point I made was as regards the Land Purchase Act, which is going to cost £112,000,000.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Then the hon. Member is out of order, because it is administration that we are discussing now.
  *MR. J. F. MASONsaid he was stating that that was the expenditure which

  1663
  fell upon them under the Act, and he said that it fell very largely upon English shoulders. [NATIONALIST Cries of "No."] The Vice-President of the Irish Board of Agriculture had proceeded to say that law and justice cost more in Ireland than in Scotland, with a more or less identical population. That was so, but, after all, the large expenditure on police in Ireland, as compared with Scotland, was to a great extent due to the agrarian movement and to the difficulty of protecting a large number of people in their ordinary avocations. A great number of the police were at this moment engaged in protecting men whose lives were not otherwise safe. Not only so; but the Nationalist Members themselves were in need of being protected by the police. The Leader of the Nationalist Party himself last September was protected by the police when he went to the Mansion House, and the Lord Mayor of Dublin called in thirty policemen to keep order in the assembly. After all, too, there was a per contra in regard to the support which Ireland received from the United Kingdom. In thirty years Ireland had had £135,000,000 of money from the British Exchequer. What would have been the position if Ireland had had to raise that money from her own resources? Would they have been able to raise that money as cheaply as they could with British security? Had not British security been a valuable asset to Ireland in the past? He said that the Union had saved Ireland far more money than it had ever cost her. After all, however, there were opportunities for economy in the administration of Irish affairs, and he ventured to think that if there were more firmness in the executive and the Government were less squeezable by hon. Members below the gangway, there would be less uncertainty and turbulence, and great saving might be effected. That uncertainty in Ireland cost a large amount of money, not only for the police, but for the disturbance of the trade and industry of the country. Trade and industry would thrive if there were more certainty in the application of the law. The Irish people had done a good deal to endanger their most useful trades, those of agriculture end cattle raising, and he thought that the
  1664
  root cause of the difficulty in administering Irish affairs was that Ireland was now governed by a Ministry, many members of which did not believe in the system they were called upon to administer; they did not believe in the Union, or only half believed in it, and the consequence was that there was an amount of indecision and vacillation which accounted for much of the expenditure of the country. But were there prospects of more economy under a Nationalist rule than there were under the present rule? He thought they might get an object lesson from the way in which economy was displayed by the Nationalist municipality of Dublin. The Sinn Fein of 14th March, 1908, said—
  "On a city, one-fourth of whose population suffer from acute distress each winter, £7,600 a year has been levied by the Bill-promoters and their allies, for a dozen years past, and £2,000 a year added to the salaries of overpaid officials, under whose administration the debt of the City has risen to £2,750,000, and the rates stand at over 10s. in the £, paralysing industry, and thus throwing men and women out of employment and into the workhouse. Of that 10s. in the £ levied on the direct ratepayer by the Corporation, and levied in rent on the indirect ratepayer, only 1s. 6d. is now available for the upkeep of the City. The remainder goes to pay the interest on the enormous debt which burdens the City, to pay for the pauperism which the debt largely causes, to pay for a police force over which the citizens are denied any control, and to pay salaries to officials at a rate which wealthy England does not pay. The town clerk of Dublin, a City of 300,000 people, draws a salary of £2,100 a year. The clerk of the London County Council, governing an area with 6,000,000 people, has a salary of £2,000 a year. If he were paid at the rate the town clerk of Dublin is paid, his salary would approach £50,000 a year."
  That was the sort of economy they would have to look for if Ireland were governed by the Nationalist Party.
  MR. T. L. CORBETTsaid that his hon. friend had been taunted with being a Scotsman sitting for an Irish constituency. If the hon. Member for Newry was an average Irishman it would be an excellent thing for the House if there were a few more Scotsmen representing Ulster. The Vice-President of the Agricultural Department of Ireland had introduced into the debate a very violent and bitter tone. He had succeeded a man absolutely single-minded in his Department: a man who shut out politics from it altogether and who had never

  1665
  shown that bitter and controversial spirit in the debates. The hon. Member had said that the cost of police in Scotland was £500,000 and that in Ireland it was three times as great. Then he had asked in tragic tones "What does it mean." He remembered an occasion when the hon. Gentleman, who then professed a different political, faith was saved from an attack by an angry mob and knew the need for effective police and stringent administration of the law in Ireland. The hon. Member had made a rather hopeless and despairing speech declaring that before any hope for Ireland was reached Chief Secretaries would come and go. He gave his right hon. friend a year and a half to remain, and he then said he would leave the country without having solved these questions. Of one thing they might be quite certain—that whatever happened the hon. Gentleman would not depart. Whatever Party was in power they would always find him on the Treasury bench drawing the emoluments. The hon. Member had taunted Ulster Members with not being present at the debate, but Ulster Members he ventured to say did more without being paid for it than the hon. Member had ever done. When a short time ago a Committee was ordered the hon. Member himself was one of the absentees and did not come into the House. The taunt which he threw out was not deserved by the Members of the Ulster Party.
  MR. J. P. FARRELLsaid there were two points in one of the speeches made from above the gangway which struck him as confuting each other in their argument. The hon. Member for North Derry had spoken of the want of confidence of the people of Ireland and their investing their savings in this country rather than their own, and he had taunted the the Nationalist Members with the fact that the Irish people were investing their money on this side of the Channel and not in Ireland. In the next breath, the hon. Member had declared that the deposits in the Savings Banks and Joint Stock Banks were millions more than they were ten years ago. That completely refuted the argument that there was any lack of confidence among the people of Ireland, and proved conclusively that under this or any other Government the people of Ireland know their own business
  1666
  and attended to it, and that they were not losing prosperity as was alleged to be the case in consequence of the agitation now going on in the country. He rose principally to call attention to the cost of primary education in Ireland. Figures and tables had been read to show the amounts expended upon the police, law charges, and other expenses of Civil administration in Ireland. It was a most extraordinary thing that the amount spent on police was almost equal to that spent on education. The hon. Member for North Derry had referred to the speeches made by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, and the hon. Member for East Mayo, commenting adversely on the work done by the technical instruction department, had suggested that as public bodies were working the scheme of technical education those hon. Members did not represent the views of Ireland in their speeches. The work itself might be such as to commend itself to the people of the country, but so far the operations of the Department in Ireland had been disappointing, and there was much to be done. The Vice-President of that Department had his work cut out to undo the mischief which had been done by his predecessors in Ireland. The country people of Ireland had no confidence whatever in the work of the Department—neither as to the ability nor as to the scheme—which had done nothing permanent for the benefit of the people. The hon. Gentleman had spoken of a reserve fund of £340,000. There should be no reserve fund, there was plenty of scope for the work.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I am engaged in dissipating it.
  MR. J. P. FARRELLsaid that the charges of the hon. Member for North Derry therefore fell to the ground so far as Ireland was concerned. In his opinion the best thing the Government could do would be largely to increase the Estimates for primary education in Ireland, and to turn the minds of the teachers in Ireland to the imparting of better knowledge to the people. Forestry, gardening, and agriculture should be as much matters to be imparted by the teachers as the lengths of rivers and names of foreign countries which these people were never likely to see, In that way primary

  1667
  education might be made useful to Ireland.
  VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGHsaid he rose in the hope of eliciting something from the Treasury bench that might obviate the extravagant expenditure in Ireland. He did not wish to import party feeling into the debate, because it was a matter of too much importance to be discussed as a party question. Everybody would agree that it was desirable to put a stop to the present extravagant and lavish expenditure in Ireland. He agreed up to a certain point with the mover of the Motion, but he had to take a divergent opinion with regard to the latter portion of his speech, because the hon. Member maintained that Home Rule was the only remedy by which the difficulty would be entirely removed. When the hon. Member for North Tyrone made his speech, however, he endeavoured wherever he could to raise all that political animosity which Unionist Members had striven to allay. Instead of endeavouring to suggest anything that might be done, the hon. Member had said he looked on the matter as absolutely hopeless, and hurled recriminations at his predecessors. They had heard that the Motion was an argument for Home Rule, but he was convinced that it was the strongest argument against it, because when the government of Ireland was handed over to the people of Ireland, if ever it was, it should be handed over as a going concern and not in the condition in which as he understood it was at the present time. With regard to economy he was in entire agreement with the mover of the Motion. As to the second part of the Motion, which stated that the expenditure was not distributed in such a way as to promote national well-being, he regretted that he could not express himself as in agreement with it, because although it was true that the money was voted by Parliament, the Estimates were proposed by Irishmen, the money was apportioned by Irishmen, and what was more the work which was paid for by this money was done by Irishmen. The hon. Gentleman who proposed the Motion complained that too much money was spent. After all, the people who benefited by the expenditure
  1668
  were the Irish. He maintained that it was the duty of any Government in power, where money was too lavishly spent in Ireland, to suggest some plan, or do something, to redress the wrong. But until now the only solution put forward had been that mentioned by the mover of the Resolution, namely, that if there were Home Rule in Ireland all these difficulties and evils would disappear. With regard to the question of taxation, it was true that it had increased in Ireland, but it was equally true that it had increased everywhere else. He thought that they must all admit that taxation would go on increasing instead of decreasing, but they must also take into consideration the wealth of the country, which had also increased. The railway receipts had increased by something like 25 per cent., and deposits in joint stock and savings banks had increased to a very large extent. It was obvious, if taxation had increased, as they knew perfectly well it had, and would increase in the future, that they should set off, on the other side, the wealth of the country, which had increased constantly in proportion to the taxation to be borne. In reference to the decrease of population referred to by the hon. Member below the gangway, and so constantly lamented, he was one of those who believed that at the present moment Ireland was overpopulated. ["Oh."] He regretted it very much, but he did not think that Ireland was at present in a condition to maintain a larger population than it had now. He was very sorry for it. But the population which had disappeared from Ireland was not to a great extent the population which they could look to as contributors to the Exchequer; it was rather the population which would have been more or less a charge on the Exchequer, and that would have been a disadvantage to the country. From the various speeches which they had heard one would imagine that England had been the gainer by that. He could not see that argument at all. It was a long time since England could be looked upon in any sense as having injured Ireland. He entirely agreed that in years gone by the policy of England was not calculated to do Ireland any good; in fact,

  1669
  it did Ireland a very great deal of harm. But since those days England had certainly wiped out any deficiency in that respect, and all that had been done by England in the recent past had been for the benefit of Ireland. When they looked to the large sums of money advanced, with the credit of England at the back of it, he for one could not understand why hon. Gentlemen were so anxious to have everything in their own hands, because it meant that once they established Home Rule in Ireland that credit, from which they extracted so much benefit at the present moment, would be gone for ever. There was also the question of primary education, on which the expenditure was certainly extravagant and of an unjustifiable character. By extravagant he meant that the number of schools in Ireland was far greater for a smaller number of children, than was the case in Scotland. It seemed extraordinary that when there was lack of efficiency in primary education, they should hear so much clamour on all sides for secondary education in Ireland. One of the solutions, besides the redistribution of money which the hon. Member proposed, was that the Royal Irish Constabulary should be reduced, and it was pointed out, in support of that proposal, that there was less crime in Ireland. It was perfectly true that there was less crime in Ireland, but he did not suppose that he would be entirely wrong if he drew from that the analogy that the less crime in Ireland was in proportion to the large force of Irish Constabulary maintained. He, however, did not want to draw that analogy at all. But they must remember that the Royal Irish Constabulary were also employed as excise officers, and it was also, perhaps, a very curious coincidence that the force had been increased in numbers by the present executive. He did not believe in the conclusion at which the mover of the Resolution had arrived, that the removal of all the difficulties of which they complained would be effected by the granting of Home Rule. He did not believe that that would prove a solution in any sense; but he did think that if the Government set themselves to discover—and he appealed to them to do so—how it was that a great deal of the money was allocated in an extravagant and
  1670
  useless manner, they would be able to remedy the present state of affairs in Ireland by causing it to be expended in a manner advantageous to that country.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid the speech of the noble Lord was a speech which filled countrymen of his with curiously mingled feelings. There were parts of it which showed a certain amount of sympathy and natural feeling, and others which betrayed a state of invincible ignorance. They had heard from the hon. Member for East Tyrone as powerful an indictment of British government in Ireland as had ever been uttered in that House. Out of many passages he singled one which attracted his attention and moved his feelings. It was the passage which the hon. Member quoted from the Education Inspector's Report, which described a school in the north of Ireland, he believed in. Belfast, where there was rather less air space than in the Black Hole of Calcutta. Yet, in face of that, the noble Lord said that the chief fault of the primary education system in Ireland was its extravagance. That was the first example of invincible ignorance. He did not know anything more tragic in history than the emigration from Ireland. With a population reduced by one-half in half a century, with all the misery and suffering which exile meant to an Irishman, the noble Lord got up and said the work had not been sufficiently completed, and that Ireland was not yet sufficiently empty. He was like the famous divine, who said that Ireland was a delightful country except for its people. It made him sad to think that a young Irishman, who might be serving his country—he would not say like his ancestors, because that might be treading on delicate ground—could only say that the remedy he had to offer was the further depletion of a population which already in half a century had been diminished by one-half. The noble Lord had said also that the Estimates were made by Irishmen, spent by Irishmen, and, he suggested, voted by Irishmen. Let him look at the House. Who, if the Motion were divided upon, would vote on the question of the expenditure in Ireland? Was it the Irishmen, was it

  1671
  even the Englishmen who had listened to the debate? No; the division lobbies would be crowded by a majority of Englishmen who had not listened to a single word of the speeches. He must express his profound regret that more English Members were not present at the debate. He did not want to complain on that point, but as Englishmen were, in the main, the people responsible for the government of Ireland, and as most of them, by the circumstances of their lives and conditions, knew little of the state of Ireland, they might at least inform their minds in regard to the country they had to govern by listening to such an instructive debate as that now proceeding. He noted also the absence of the Ulster Members. He dared say, in view of the Motion to be debated on Monday, these Gentlemen had other and more agreeable occupations to divert their attention from that House. But if the debate had been on the question, not of saving, but of coercing Ireland, the Unionist benches would have been crowded by an excited and enthusiastic; audience, ready to contribute their share towards the disparagement of the character of the country. What had been proved that evening? He put it to the Chief Secretary that they could have alien government which was cheap and efficient. There were portions of the British Empire where alien government was cheap and still efficient, and there were other parts of the world where alien government was cheap and efficient. He did not know of a more successful Government in the world than the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria, whose administration had certainly been both cheap and efficient. He was not sure whether a large number of Englishmen were of opinion that, though the government of England in Ireland might be unpopular and might be called alien, still it had the distinguishing marks of purity, cheapness and efficiency, which they regarded as belonging to British government in all parts of the world. The curious thing was that government in Ireland was dear, corrupt, and inefficient. The intelligence of the Irish people was admitted by every other race in the world. He could speak with
  1672
  some feeling and experience on this subject. When he was a young student in Galway College he saw a sight which could be seen in no part of the British dominions outside Ireland and Scotland. He saw the children of the poorest of the poor, the sons of laundresses, getting education as medical men and going out into the world and getting positions in which they could earn an excellent living. That showed the necessity of education for the people of Ireland. Yet in face of that they had the tragic feature of schools without fires, children without air, teachers without adequate salaries. They had education in a lower and meaner and less endowed position in a country that had only education to look to than in any other part of the British dominions, and side by side with the poor tireless school house was a white-washed, opulent, well paid police barracks. That was not the only tragic contrast of Irish life. In the eighteenth century when there was an Irish Parliament—he heard an hon. Gentleman above the gangway repeat the words "eighteenth century" by which he assumed he meant he was going a long way back to find a grievance for Ireland. The fact was that they were still governed in Ireland on eighteenth century methods.
  SIR F. BANBURY: I am not sure that I should not like to see England governed in the same way.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid that now they knew where they were. The only fault he had to find with that expression of opinion by the hon. Baronet was that he did not take the opportunity of revealing it on the platform at Peckham during the recent election. He was sure it would have helped the electors of what was once his constituency to a proper appreciation of Moderate and Tory policy. What he was saying was that in the eighteenth century there was a financial arrangement by which any job that was too crude for even eighteenth century England, the paradise of the hon. Baronet, should be put upon Ireland. If a bishop not considered sufficiently worthy for high prelatical position in England had to be provided for, he was sent to Ireland. If an official not sufficiently free from the then rather prevalent taint of peculation

  1673
  was too corrupt even for eighteenth century England—too strong for the digestion of England—he was sent to Ireland. Nay, if members of the fair sex whose career had been adventurous rather than edifying were found rather too unacceptable claimants for the bounty of the treasury of England, they were placed upon the exchequer of Ireland. That was the eighteenth century system in Ireland which the hon. Baronet would like to see extended to modern England.
  SIR F. BANBURY: In the City of London we have no experience of ladies of that kind.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid they all knew that the City of London was absolutely free from the taint or even the suspicion of any dealings not in absolute accordance with the Ten Commandments. But what was the twentieth century system? Now gentlemen of good family and defective intelligence found themselves without anything to do. A job was immediately found for them in the official hierarchy of Ireland. There were two twin instruments of government in Ireland, and he was not certain that he did not dislike the second more than the first. The first was repression by superior force. The second, and to some extent the more effective, was the corruption of the intellect of Ireland. He was not allowed to discuss the salaries of some of the high officials in Ireland, notably, of the Judges. If he was he would be compelled to call the attention of the House to the fact that whereas in England elevation to the Bench nearly always meant to a barrister a diminution of income, in Ireland it nearly always meant an augmentation, sometimes the doubling of his income. Going all through the course of official life in Ireland they found the same thing—innumerable cases of bloated salaries and of the hideous temptation that a rich country could offer to a poor country, with the additional wrong that the money and the bribe were given, not from the purse of the rich nation, but from the purse of the poor impoverished nation. As the hon. Member for East Tyrone had pointed out, the money thus extravagantly spent was not English money. It was Irish money. If it were English money
  1674
  it would be at least an excuse that it came from a rich country and in some respects at least from the richer classes. The aggravation of the evil was that the expenditure came not only from the poor country but from the poorest of the poor in the poor country, because indirect taxation in Ireland bore a proportion to direct taxation almost the converse of the proportion in England. In England the taxation was to a large extent paid by the rich. In Ireland it was paid to the extent of 73 per cent. by the poor. One of the things they constantly heard about Ireland was that the poor people drank too much tea, and so they did. Too much tea was drunk among the poor in all parts of the world. They drank too much tea in Whitechapel, in St. Giles's, and in parts of Glasgow. Why did they do it? Because tea was food, and the over consumption of tea was a proof not of the extravagance of the poor but of the poverty of the poor, who sought in tea not only the stimulus that it gave but the food for which it was a substitute; and when they put these two pictures into juxtaposition—the official in Dublin paying an occasional visit to the office of the Board of Agriculture and spending the remainder of the day in a charitable discussion of the affairs of Ireland in the smoking-room of the Kildare Street Club—the unnecessary and the over-paid on the one side, and the poverty-stricken peasant of Mayo on the other, who was paying for them, they had as strong a condemnation of English rule in Ireland as they could have of the rule of any country. What was the remedy? The noble Lord proposed that they should have an investigation. He must note, and he commended it to the attention of the Chief Secretary as a significant fact in the debate, that all parties who had been represented had agreed that the expenditure of Ireland was excessive. That was an important fact. He thought it extravagant and wasteful. If he was not mistaken it was the first time they had had the fact admitted by the universal assent of all parties in Ireland. If the expenditure in Ireland was wasteful and extravagant they must find a remedy. What was the remedy—investigation by a new Royal Commission? Let them not talk to Irishmen about a Royal Commission upon Irish expenditure. They had had their experience on that subject

  1675
  More than a dozen years ago a Royal Commission consisting of Englishmen had come to the conclusion that Ireland was overtaxed by £3,250,000 a year, and the only result was that over-taxation had increased and gone on ever since that day. So they did not want any more Royal Commissions. They knew that their verdicts were ignored by Parliament. What was the use of reducing expenditure in Ireland? As the hon. Member for South Tyrone had said, it was Ireland's loss for England's gain. Their complaint, let it be observed, was not so much that England gained and Ireland lost by this old system, but that both England and Ireland lost, because whenever the taxation of the United Kingdom was increased, England did not gain anything by it, for if there was £1,000,000 increase on the Imperial taxation there was £2,000,000 increase on Irish taxation. There was only one remedy for it. They must give the expenditure of Irish money and the economising of Irish money to the Irishmen concerned. They alone would have the necessary interest, knowledge, and responsibility, and until that day came he regarded as futile and absurd any other means of bringing the condition of Ireland into that of a really well-governed country.
  *MR. VERNEYsaid there was one point which struck him in the remarks of the last speaker. He referred to education, and he thought that the hon. Member would perhaps have indicated some practical reform, and have made some reference to a country where there were many Irishmen at the present moment—he referred to the United States and Canada, where they had adopted for education a consolidation scheme in connection with their schools, which was doing an enormous amount of good, and which might be applied with advantage to this country. What he alluded to was the system of consolidation of schools in Massachusetts and in Canada, whereby the children were reaping all the advantages of large schools with a great economy of labour and a diminution of expense. The organising secretary for the county of Buckinghamshire had lately returned from the United States and Canada full of the scheme in operation there. That system was giving to the teachers the greatest
  1676
  opportunity for the use of their powers in encouraging their pupils, and providing the children with those opportunities which could alone be given in big schools: beautiful buildings, and splendid playgrounds, with all the advantages of co-operation and consolidation which had been so marvellously shown in Ireland in quite another held of operation. As Ireland had taken the lead and taught them a lesson in agricultural consolidation and co-operation, so in education also it was possible that she might teach them a lesson. In a country which was sparsely populated, and where the advantages of consolidation and co-operation in educational matters would have such valuable results, was it not possible that the ability, the imaginative power, and the power of creation in the sister isle would rapidly bring the educational system of Ireland to an entirely different level from that at which it stood to-day? He hoped to see the principle of co-operation and consolidation applied in Ireland. Although £70,000 a year was spent in Massachusetts in couveying childrenback-wards and forwards to the large schools, yet economy and actual reduction of expenditure had been produced by the system, and that was something which the Americans and the Canadians themselves had hardly anticipated. Those facts and figures might be confirmed and thoroughly proved and tested, and the success of that system would shortly be common knowledge. He knew nothing of the political question as it affected agricultural advance in Ireland, but he knew that in England they were often pointing to the Irish power of combination for the purpose of inspiring the English people in the same direction. He hoped that during the coming years they would be able in this country to do as much in the way of consolidating and co-operating their agricultural and educational systems to the advantage of the whole community as had undoubtedly been done by their Irish brethren across the seas.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): I am sure no one will deny that the subject brought forward by the Resolution is one of great importance, and it was introduced in a speech of remarkable

  1677
  ability, which fully deserved the encomium generously passed upon it by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin. The Chief Secretaries for Ireland have not cut a very heroic figure in this debate, and the House has been assured that two or three months is quite sufficient to have exhausted all their vitality. We are also given to understand that they are capable of nothing except occasional jobs. I am the last man in the world to magnify my office; I would much rather be put under a microscope than exposed to a magnifying glass. But as I have ten living predecessors, I am bound to say on their behalf that, after all, during the short period in which they hold office they are not altogether left alone, and that at all events there are persons in Ireland who think them of quite sufficient importance to pay very marked attention to them, and even occasionally to ask something of them. It is a little difficult to separate this Resolution into its component parts. In the middle of the Resolution there is wedged in a good substantial bit of Home Rule, and with that part of the Resolution I entirely concur, for I at all events have no difficulty in that matter. With regard to some of the other questions raised, a little investigation might perhaps reveal that the case of the Irish administration is not quite so bad as is made out. I am satisfied that no person, to whatever party he belongs, will maintain that the mode of Irish administration is a good and sound one, that it is efficient and economical, or that it gives any real satisfaction to any portion of the Irish people. Nobody likes it or has much confidence in it, and no person who has been called on to administer it has ever really spoken a good word for it. Some may say that it is better than Home Rule, but it is rather a lamentable state of things that after all these years of the Union the most that anybody can say for the administration is that it is not efficient, that it is extravagant, and does not give satisfaction, but that it is at all events better than it would be if the task of spending their own money were entrusted to the people themselves. The hon. Member for East Tyrone pleaded for clean, honest, and efficient administration. Surely that is what we all long and look for, but we certainly
  1678
  have not yet got it, at all events on the economical side, and we are at a loss to know how the resources of Ireland should best be ministered to and husbanded. It has been said that there are some cheerful symptoms. I am glad to think that even the cattle trade is thriving. I am glad to believe that the deposits in banks are increasing, although that is not a very good sign of commercial prosperity. If people can do nothing better with their money than put it into a bank at a very low rate of interest in order to allow the bank and their shareholders to earn some 15 or 16 per cent., that cannot be taken as proof of commercial prosperity, but rather of the lack of investment for people who have been able to save a little money. Quite irrespective of those features, we have only to look at the Revenue Returns to see how poor is the country. The total revenues collected for 1906–7 are £11,399,000, of which £8,000,000 is derived from Customs and Excise. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool has drawn attention to he fact that the poor in Ireland drink large quantities of tea, and smoke many ounces of tobacco. That, in my opinion, is proof of the inadequacy of their sustenance and not of the extravangance of their taste. The income-tax which produces in England over £28,000,000, produces in Ireland only £999,000. Therefore, we have in Ireland a country whose revenue is derived from indirect taxation upon articles which must be described as articles not of luxury, but of prime necessity. In these circumstances it is perfectly fair to say, whatever hon. Members may allege to the contrary, that Ireland, being a poor country, unhappily for her economic peace of mind—whatever political benefits she may delive—is damnified by being so closely associated with a country of such expensive tastes as England. I know of nothing in private life moredisadvan-rageous to a poor man than to have rich relatives. I am a poor man, but I am glad to say I have no rich relatives, and consequently I have been able to fix my own habits and live my own fife. A poor man with rich relatives feels bound, especially if he be of a sanguine disposition, to launch into extravagances wholly destructive of his peace of mind and

  1679
  calculated to drive him into the Bankruptcy Court. A rich relative makes you a present of a motor-car, saying it is charming to run down to Brighton, to lunch at the Hotel Métropole, and to get back in time for dinner. But you soon find that a few such runs and a few such luncheons, and the expenses of chauffeur and petrol, and things of that kind—not to speak of dangers by the way—are sufficient in twelve months to wholly upset your standard of life and destroy your peace of mind. Therefore, hon. Gentlemen from Ireland are perfectly justified in saying, "We cannot see the advantage of being called upon to contribute such heavy taxation for purposes which do us no particular good. They might do us good if we were as rich as you are, but if you are not prepared to supplement us we object very much to be taxed on the same footing as yourselves. We do not want such things. We are unable to share in these heavy expenses; and consequently we have to deny ourselves these glories which are so dear to the British mind." That is a perfectly fair and legitimate argument. Therefore, if you put this question upon general grounds, I think there is a good deal to be said for many of the terms of the Resolution.
  But when we come to criticise the details, when we call attention, for example, to the excessive cost of the administration of the various Departments for which I am responsible, there are a few facts which ought not to be overlooked. Take the case of the Local Government Board. Sometimes the figures of the Local Government Board are compared with that of the corresponding Board in England, but you must remember that in Ireland you have assigned to the Local Government Board all the work—the most important and beneficial work—connected with your labourers' cottages and medical charities Acts. The work in connection with the provision of labourers' cottages and the administration of the Medical Charities Act take £34,000 out of the £82,000 which is the cost of that Department. I do not think anybody will dispute that the Labourers Act has been enormously beneficial to Ireland. I know of nothing in my experiences of Ireland which gives me more profound
  1680
  satisfaction than the springing up all over the country of these admirable cottages. I have also noticed that the Irish people, who have very often been accused of living in a sort of heathenish state, have already shown a taste for cottage decoration, and for cleanly and even beautiful homes, which is calculated to make every right-thinking man very joyful. But these labourers' cottages cost money, largely owing to legal expenses, which are the curse of every country. The district councils have to make bargains for the purchase of the land. The land has to be inspected, and consequently the army of inspectors which is the despair of all economists, has had to be very largely increased. If we would act in the spirit of the revolution which was the outcome of that century so dear to the heart of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, we could do things more economically. But in Ireland we are a people of law and order. There is more respect shown for property in Ireland than in many other parts of the Empire. You can get nothing in Ireland without paying for it—aye, without paying through the nose for it. As President of the Local Government Board, I know, and it is my duty to know, the price that has to be paid for every acre of land upon which a cottage is built; and I say it is an extravagant price, and a price which ought to be most gratifying to the mind of the Member for the City of London who likes everybody to be paid for what he has to sell. He may rest perfectly assured that everybody in Ireland who parts with his property is being paid its full value, and rather more than its full value. But, as I was saying, it is only fair to remember that this Local Government Board has imposed upon it the task of working the Labourers Act at a cost of £26,500 a year, and it is not to be blamed for having been obliged to increase this army of inspectors. We do not want this army of inspectors, but as my hon. friend has already pointed out, you cannot build 20,000 labourers' cottages on little bits of land scattered all over Ireland without inspection, without a great deal of the red tape which we all, at the bottom of our hearts, deplore, but from which none of us are able to extricate ourselves.

  1681
  It is just the same with the Land Commission. It is impossible to carry out the beneficent work contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover without inspection unless you are prepared to act on revolutionary principles, which we all abhor. In changing the land of the country to the occupying tenants you must have an army of inspectors in order to protect property and secure payments and carry out all the details, not of a revolutionary proceeding, but of a quiet City of London proceeding. I regret that they have to be paid, but I am not at all sure that they are paid too much. Their cost totals up to a large figure. They are a terrible burden, and, what is worse even than the burden, they do occasion, in the exercise of their excellent work, great delay, which is a matter of extreme irritation to both landlord and tenant. I know nothing that is more irritating, more endangering to the peace of the country, more injuring to the beneficent work which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover had in view, than the delay which has taken place in carrying out contracts and agreements come to betweeen landlord and tenant. [AN HON. MEMBER: Why do you not find the money?] The money will be found when the work has been done. The delay has not been occasioned by the Treasury refusing the money. I do not say that the Treasury may not have a certain sinister pleasure of late years in seeing the difficulties in our way. Whenever a contract has been completed the Treasury has never yet refused to supply the money. I am explaining these two things—the Labourers Act and the Medical Charities Act—as something which the Local Government Board in England has not got to do, and it is only fair to remember that you mnst deduct a large sum from the Estimate which appear; on our Papers as the charge for this Board.
  I fully appreciate what the hon. Member said about the number of officials in Ireland. I do not think you can get out of the figures that he presented to the House. But at the same time you have got to bear in mind that you are doing things in Ireland which you are not doing to a like extent in Scotland, and which you are not doing at all in England, and that these things
  1682
  cannot be done without employing persons. The Local Government Board have, in this matter of Poor Law relief and the like—I do not know whether it is a good thing or a bad—a much more inquisitorial authority, and a number of multifarious duties which do involve the employment of a great staff of inspectors. I do not think it is altogether fair—in fact, it is most unfair—to say that the administration for which I or any of my predecessors have been responsible is a corrupt administration because of the fact that we had to create and appoint all these officials. I daresay that we have often appointed the wrong people; but, Heaven help us, how could we avoid it? I am quite sure that all my predecessors, as myself, have had only one desire in this matter, and that has been to choose the person who, at all events, would give us the least trouble, and discharge the duties of his office with honesty and efficacy. Though there may be a certain number of lazy and incompetent persons, I do not believe that the number is one fraction larger than the number in England or Scotland My own experience of them is that, although most of them were glad to get the job, and, perhaps, would not have known where-else to get so good a job, once they have got the job, they have devoted their time and their energy, with some exceptions I dare say, to the discharge of their duties. As to salaries, those of the Irish Civil servant are smaller than those of his brother in England, and that sometimes is made a little bit of an Irish grievance. There are clerks in the Office over which I preside who do duties precisely of the same kind as clerks in the English Home Office, for example, and they are not paid anything like the same salaries as their corresponding brothers are here. I really do not think, when you come to deal economically with this thing, although you may be able to reduce, in time, your army of commissioners and inspectors, that you will be able to work much reduction upon their salaries. "Salaries of Judges" is happily out of order. I would like to say a word upon the vexed question of police. I do not know whether the figures have been given to the House precisely in the form I will give them, but I think it will be

  1683
  worth the while of hon. Members to get them into their heads. In England and Wales in 1905–6 the gross total cost of police, including pensions, was £6,043,470; the Exchequer contribution was £2,363,000, £3,000,000 falling on local rates; the total cost per head of population, 3s. 6d.; Exchequer contribution per head of population being 1s. 4d. In Scotland the total cost was £583,347; the Exchequer contribution including contribution to pension fund £219,000; the difference between £219,000 and £583,000 is borne by local contribution; total cost per head of population, 2s. 6d. In Ireland the total cost, including pensions, is £1,460,000; that is all borne by the Exchequer, I agree, out of Irish money; total cost per head of population, 6s. 7d., as compared with the 2s. 6d. for Scotland and 3s. 6d. for England. But then, what am I to say for myself? I am the last person to conceal a retort, particularly when it is so obvious that it could hardly be overlooked by anybody. I appear here as having increased the police force by 400 men. I am glad to say that even that increase brings the force much lower than it was in such bad times as 1883–4, when the number of police was 14,277, whereas now it is 9,900. It is said you ought to be able to get rid in Ireland of this monstrous cost of police, 6s. 7d. per head of the population. If that is put as a question of policy I dare say there is a good deal in it. You may say "Change your policy and you change your cost." But that is not wholly in my power. Being here responsible as Chief Secretary for Ireland, a member of an Administration which is not in a position during this Parliament to deal with any great change of policy in Ireland, I am clearly bound and they are bound to maintain in Ireland such a force of police as is necessary, our policy being what it is, to secure law and order in all parts of Ireland. You ask me why did I increase the force by 400 men. My answer is, because the Irish people took to cattle-driving. The cattle-driving policy in the opinion of some people may be worth the cost of the 400 policemen; but I think no fair-minded man, whatever his politics may be, be he Unionist or Nationalist, can
  1684
  deny that, our policy being what it is, it is very difficult to see how you can reduce this costly police force, things being what they are. I dare say there is a great deal of truth in what was said by the hon. Member who introduced this Motion; that the pension scheme may seem somewhat extravagant; and that Ireland is supporting a considerable number of able-bodied men who have served in this police force. But assuming the police force to be necessary [Cries from the IRISH Benches of "Oh!"]—our policy being what it is—you have to secure to these men fair and reasonable terms and to offer them remuneration sufficient for their needs; and I cannot say—I will not say—that in my judgment the Royal Irish Constabulary are one bit overpaid. In fact, when there was an inquiry some years ago into their circumstances, a report was made advocating certain additions which, so far as they could be carried out administratively, have been carried out, but so far as they required legislation have never been carried out from that day to this. What would our position have been in regard to cattle-driving if we had not employed the police to prevent it, to arrest the perpetrators, and to take part in the peaceful pastoral occupation of restoring bullocks to their owners? I do not think that when you have a Home Rule Government—and I hope that some day, and soon, you will [OPPOSITCON cries of "Oh! oh,"]—well, I may be allowed to express a hope, we may all have our hopes, the hon. Member himself may have hopes of Heaven. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh, oh!"]
  MR. LONSDALE: I only hope I may meet the right hon. Gentleman there.
  MR. BIRRELL: I do not know that there will be many opportunities of knocking up against one's acquaintances there. I was saying that any Government, be it Home Rule or other, is bound to use the police to maintain law and order. You may think, and I hope your expectations may be realised, that you might do this with a smaller, cheaper force than you have now, but the point I am labouring is that we, pursuing our present policy, which we do not at present propose

  1685
  to change, are bound to maintain a sufficient force to meet the exigencies of the situation, and when the exigencies of the situation renders an increase of that force necessary we are bound to make that increase. But all this does not interfere with the moral lesson to be drawn from the fact that after 100 years of union we find it necessary to maintain a police force—a force that might be called by another name—which costs 6s. 7d. per head of the population. Surely that presents for any economist a great field for future operations, but I do not admit that the force can now be substantially reduced, nor am I prepared to admit, having regard to the multifarious duties—I will not stop to read a page or two detailing them, but they are duties quite different from those the police have to discharge in England or Scotland—that their pay or pensions are framed on an extravagant scale. I shall be glad if the opportunity offers, and indeed the obligation will remain on the House, to keep faith with that body of men and to carry out recommendations made on their behalf so many years ago. If that can be accompanied by economy nobody will be more delighted than myself.
  One word on education, a subject near and dear to me. Although Chief Secretaries are mere phantoms of the hour and disappear—as I am reminded every day when I bring down my budget of Answers to Questions in an envelope still bearing the name of my predecessor; it has been thought unnecessary to alter it, no doubt, because of the precarious nature of the tenure—during the time I have been in office I have not been wholly unsuccessful in securing, not an adequate, but substantial, assistance to teachers' salaries. Nobody is more alive than I to the miserable condition of too many of the school houses in Ireland, both in the north and in other parts. Inspectors have told me that, over and over again, after going to a school, the first thing they have done has been to insist on the children going back home, soaked through in scanty clothing, from buildings almost entirely unwarmed, where the teacher was struggling to light a miserable fire with peat brought by the children. I hope before my time is up to make some substantial
  1686
  improvement in this condition of things; but, as to education itself, I do not think I need now trouble the House much with figures except to say that hon. Members below the gangway make a mistake which is often fallen into in their comparisons with Scotland in regard to technical and secondary education. I know it is very difficult to distinguish between them. But you get your educational grant in Ireland, £1,421,971, or 6s. 5½d. per head, and you know little is raised from local rates for educational purposes. In England and Wales the local rates for education are £9,230,000, or 5s. 5½d. per head, and in Scotland £1,000,000 odd, or 4s. 10½d.; in Ireland £26,000, or 1½d. per head. You, therefore, find an insufficient sum out of Irish money spent on primary education. You want it increased, and increased it certainly must be. I do not want to go back on past history, but one of the considerations which induced me to take a favourable view of the Council Bill was that it did supply money which might have been used for great educational reforms in Ireland. But those reforms, undoubtedly, are only postponed a little longer. The point of the speech of the hon. Member who introduced the Motion was that he wanted a distribution, that is to say, he wanted the money taken away from the police and spent on education. A most pious and noble resolution. But for the purposes of this Resolution it would show that all the services are excessively and extravagantly conducted, and I think that would be rather more difficult to show than some hon. Gentlemen below the gangway think.
  MR. KETTLEsaid he had referred to certain services.
  MR. BIRRELL: The hon. Member was clear that far too little money was spent on education and far too much on police. In that, of course, I entirely agree with him, except that I am bound to say that at the present moment, under our present circumstances, I do not think the amount spent on police can be described as excessive, though I quite agree it is not economical. Consequently, money cannot be obtained from that quarter for increasing the educational services. I hope in the

  1687
  Estimates that come to be considered it will be found that, although we have not found it possible to reduce the expenditure, on police, we have been able to increase the expenditure on education. As to the number of officials in Ireland, I cannot deny that it is somewhat alarmingly great in proportion to what obtains in other countries or other parts of the Empire. But against that you have to remember that in Ireland you are carrying on great temporary works, experimental works in a sense, which do of necessity require the employment of a large number of officials. When land purchase, for example, has been carried out, and when the Congested Districts Board has got to the end of its work—no one can exactly determine when that will be—this great army of inspectors will grow beautifully less, and finally, let us trust, dwindle down to the comparatively modest dimensions it assumes in England and Scotland. I fully recognise that the present mode of administration in Ireland, in the language of the Resolution, is little calculated to minister to the well-being of the Irish people. It is an ignominous form of government, ignominous to the Irish themselves and to a very large degree to the Chief Secretary who has to carry on this work. The sooner it is brought to an end the better; the sooner the establishment of Ireland can be made responsible for itself and self-supporting, the better for all concerned. In the meantime some of the services are carried on, I daresay, somewhat lavishly, but I do not think you could prove, even on the closest inquiry, that there was anything approaching to corruption, and I was very sorry that that word was used. I do not think any trace of corruption can be found. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: What about the Secret Service Fund?] I am not sensible of anything that can be called corruption in carrying on the affairs of Ireland. So far as the administration of patronage is concerned, it is always open to great and grave objections, not only in Ireland but in all other countries. But I do not think it is at all just and proper to found any allegation of anything that can be called corruption in Irish affairs. I have no doubt whatever, and I am certainly not ashamed of the
  1688
  faith that is in me or the half-faith that has been in many people who have had anything to do with Irish affairs, that the only solution of this question will be found in a liberal measure of what is compendiously called Home Rule. But at the present moment all I can say is that, though some of the services are somewhat lavish, I do not think that the hon. Member would be able with the closest possible inquiry to make out the whole of his case, or to say that the services of Ireland deserve all the harsh things that have been said about them.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: As previous speakers have said something about myself I may perhaps be permitted to say a few words. I do not wish to import a controversial tone into the debate, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is impossible for a Unionist to rise without dissociating himself entirely from the right hon. Gentleman's concluding observation. The House discusses a question of this kind with marked disadvantage when it is handled by a Chief Secretary who proclaims himself a Home Ruler, and at the same time is precluded from introducing a Home Rule Bill. The Nationalists are Home Rulers, and if they had a majority they would bring in a measure to give effect to their principles. But as Home Rule is excluded from the discussion and also the consideration of the economic condition of Ireland, so far as the right hon. Gentleman is concerned, I hope that I am not adopting a polemical tone if I say that the Chief Secretary, being precluded from being an active Home Ruler, does not make his own task of governing Ireland according to the Union easier by describing the form of government as an ignominious form of government, and by saying that the sooner it is brought to an end the better. What in fact, has the Chief Secretary been able to do recently? To increase the number of the police force and to decrease the amount of money spent by the Congested Districts Board on certain useful functions.
  MR. BIRRELL: I never decreased it.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The right hon. Gentleman said he had decreased it.
  MR. BIRRELLwas understood to say that he pointed out with great regret that the Congested Districts Board had a statutory income, and that it was not sufficient to pay for certain expenditure.
  *MR. WYNDHAM: At all events the funds of the Congested Districts Board have not gone up, and some of the most useful work of the Board, the support of parish committees, has ceased.
  MR. BIRRELL: There is no connection between the two things.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I will take the state of Ireland now. The facts of the situation are such that the right hon. Gentleman ought to try to govern under the limitations which he acknowledges instead of indulging hopes for the future which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends cannot bring any nearer. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Local Government Board and the Land Commission. I do not believe that anyone seriously desires a diminution in the cost of the Local Government Board in Ireland. Certain parts of Ireland are exposed to visitations which necessitate inspectors, and no one advocates less inspection, because without inspection there can be no case brought forward for giving aid where aid is needed. I personally believe that it is not possible to reduce the cost of administration in that Department; and when it comes to the Land Commission, I do not think that anyone will urge that the cost should be cut down at the present moment. But what some persons say is that the Government have recently added to the cost of that Commission and to the number of officials in it without producing any expedition in the process of land purchase. This has led some persons to believe that the Government are not efficiently concerned in pushing forward land purchase at the present time.
  MR. BIRRELL: The right hon. Gentleman forgets the increase necessitated by the evicted tenants.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Some persons think that this is an unnecessary addition which the right hon. Gentleman has made to the burdens which he has to boar already. The two points of the discussion are: Can we effect economies in Irish government? And if we can, can we do something to improve education
  1690
  in Ireland, and to develop its agricultural and industrial resources? We have to exclude the constitutional argument of Home Rule, and we are also precluded from considering the fiscal system. I believe it is true that the taxable capacity of Ireland and the Imperial contribution of Ireland depend more on the kind of taxation you have there than anything else. If you are debarred from discussing the question of Home Rule versus Union, which is specially reserved until Monday next, and practically from considering the present fiscal system, nothing is left in this debate but the question of whether any money which the Government may have at their disposal is to be used to the best advantage for the purpose of improving Irish education, and developing the resources of the country. As the area is so limited it is well to clear the ground inside the limits of that area. If we cannot discuss Home Rule, still less is it wise to shed a tear over the unlamented urn of last year's Council Bill. That also goes by the board. I really do not understand the allusion to that measure by the Vice-President and the Chief Secretary, because all it would have done would have been to add another £600,000 to the cost of administration which is now being imposed on the country. So also I think we may put aside the comparison drawn by the hon. Member between Ireland and such countries as Portugal. Underlying all this there was the Home Rule question. We have to look at Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom. I hope it will always remain so. The right hon. Gentleman has no such desire.
  MR. BIRRELL: I have no desire that Ireland should cease to be an integral part of the United Kingdom.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Taking the situation as it is, and that is what I am suggesting the right hon. Gentleman ought to do, and what we suggest he did not do, the cost of Irish government must be greater relatively to Ireland than the cost of English government. Every part of Ireland demands that there shall be a number of separate departments in Ireland, and that they shall be Irish Departments. There is not, I believe, an Irish Member who would wish that the local government of Ireland

  1691
  should be a part of the English local government. So it is with every other Department. And as there is a reduction on taking a quantity so if you will have separate Departments for the smaller and poorer country the cost must be relatively larger. You cannot escape it. You could economise if you made the Union a logical whole, if you carried it further than it has been carried before, if you made Ireland so many counties in the United Kingdom, with the same Local Government Board. But I believe there is not a single Irishman who desires that, and if you have a separate Local Government Board, Agricultural Department, Prisons Board, and Lunacy Board, the cost of the government of Ireland must be greater relatively than that of England. The cost of governing a country of 4,000,000 inhabitants must be greater than the cost of governing 36,000,000. Then we have to remember that Ireland, in respect of education, unanimously prefers to have schools which suit the views of those who live in the country. That is a costly matter. If you have to suit the views of people whose views diner—a course of which I am in favour—you must have more schools, and then the building grant must be heavy. The cost must be inflated. If you are to have schools which suit the views of the various component parts of the population you will find it very difficult to have a rate in aid of education, and in Ireland there is not a rate in aid of education. That, again, makes the cost of Irish government seem heavier than it really is. There is one argument of the mover of the Motion which really will not hold water. He gives us the amount of money contributed by the Exchequer for this purpose per head of the population. But I think he is aware that in Ireland there is no compulsory provision for education all over Ireland, and the proportion per head for the children is much lower in Ireland than in England or Scotland. Hon. Members have criticised the whole basis of the equivalent grant. What is the basis of the equivalent grant? It is that when a large sum of money is voted in respect of England or Scotland for a new service, a proportionate amount of money shall be voted for Ireland for new services, but not for an automatic
  1692
  increase upon old services, and not certainly for levelling up the standard to what I might call decency in Ireland. There is not an Irish Member who does not desire that the Irish child and Irish teacher should have a better time than they now have. But if you mix up that question with the question of the equivalent grant, the Irish teacher and the Irish child never will have a better time than they have now. You have to say that the Irish child and the Irish teacher are entitled to certain things. If that is assented to, the money has to be found. The question of the equivalent grant is another matter. It turns only on this fact—that, if a considerable sum of money is found for quite new services in one other of the three countries, there is a moral obligation for every Unionist to find a new source of money for some service equally required in Ireland. Therefore, I would ask whether it is true, as the Chief Secretary seems to suggest, that there is no hope for Ireland under Unionism in the field of economic administration and the development of the resources of Ireland. The Unionist Party are the only Party who by their policy are able to give a vote to which they can give effect. It is all very well to say: "I am a Home Ruler, but cannot pass Home Rule." The Unionists can govern Ireland in a manner which is conducive to the interests of Ireland. Looking back on the last twenty years, for the greater part of which the Unionist Party were in power, they have sought to economise on non-productive services in Ireland and to find money for productive services in Ireland. Can not that hope be enlarged? It can if all those, whether they be Ministers sitting on the Front Bench or those hon. Gentlemen below the gangway who have power and influence, use their influence to diminish the causes which inflate the cost of law and police in Ireland. Then, and then only, by that means is it possible to effect economies in the unnecessary and unproductive portions of Irish government.
  AN IRISH MEMBER: If you fulfil the pledges you made in the Land Purchase Bill of 1903 you would remove the cause of the present trouble in Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not wish to go back to the discussions of 1903, but I can say that I have always tried to keep any pledges I have made. If we can diminish the causes which inflate the cost of maintaining law and order, then, under the Unionist regime, which is the regime the right hon. Gentleman had got to administer, undoubtedly there are savings which could be allocated to the Irish Fund for improving new services in Irish education and developing Irish resources. That is the policy of the late Government. Let that be the policy of the present Government until they are in a position to come down to the House and say that their views on Home Rule are practical views, and not views which they can not introduce into this House, which Unionists would always resist and which for the moment are not a part of practical politics.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  SIR F. BANBURYsaid an interesting discussion had taken place upon the Motion but he would like to say a few words on the English question. He wished to draw attention to the matter from the point of view of England. When the Government came into power they informed the House that the new regime was one of economy and efficiency, and he desired to call attention to the way in which the Government had carried out the pledges they gave last session, to show that there had been no economy, and that it was extremely doubtful whether there had been any efficiency. It was quite certain that expenditure had increased without the nation having gained any corresponding advantage. The true definition of economy did not mean that necessary expenditure should be saved, because if that were done it would only need greater expenditure to be incurred in the future. Neither did it consist in cutting down the expenditure required to maintain efficiently a given department either of a business or of the State. The power of administration was not given to everybody. It did not follow at all because a person was able to make a very interesting speech that he was
  1694
  capable of administering; on the contrary, the reverse was often the case. A real token of a good administration was when he produced the same, or possibly better, results, without increasing the amount of money spent. Had the Government succeeded in doing that? It was not for him to allude in any way to the question of the Army and Navy; he would confine himself strictly to the question before the House. It had, in his experience, been the custom for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, before the question was put, to present to the House the Memoranda detailing the general facts of the Estimates before them. On this occasion no such Memoranda had been presented; the Estimates were not even bound up in one volume. Why was it this had not been done? They were told to look forward to a period when the administration, at any rate, of the Government would be done in a businesslike manner; when the "gilded duffers" would disappear, and men of business would take their places. He had failed to observe any change in that direction; on the contrary, he had observed that the facilities they had been accustomed to had been denied them, and that the Estimates were simply thrown at their heads, and they were expected to shut their eyes and accept them. He had taken the trouble to do for himself what the Financial Secretary of the Treasury should have done for them, and he found that in Class I. there was an increase of £160,000, in Class II., an increase of £85,000, in the Revenue Departments an increase of £1,013,000, and in Part III. of the Revenue an increase of £109,000, making a total increase of £1,367,000. This was from the Party of. economy, and was on the Civil Service Estimates—unproductive expenditure—and for a Department which was not an insurance.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. RUNCIMAN,): Has the hon. Baronet included the Post Office?
  SIR F. BANBURYsaid he thought he had, and he was coming to the Post Office afterwards. The increase he had included was £400,000, whereas, according

  1695
  to the statement of the Postmaster-General, within a year the increase would be very nearly £700,000. He therefore thought the interruption of the hon. Gentleman was a little inopportune. There was something to be said on the other side; a case was bad indeed if one could not say something in favour of it. Nobody was quite as bad as they were painted. There was something, but very little, to be said for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. There was a decrease in the Revenue Department No. 4, of £128,000, in No. 5, Revenue Department, of £248,000, in Miscellaneous of £263,000, and in Class 6 of £34,000. Adding these together they arrived at £673,000, and, subtracting that from the sum of £1,367,000, they arrived at a net increase of £694,000, which was arrived at in the following way. Last year there was a miscellaneous vote of £200,000 for the unemployed. That did not appear this year, and was not therefore a decrease. The result was that in that particular Department there was no saving in the ordinary expenditure; on the contrary, he was afraid they might look for a supplementary estimate for a certain sum, whatever it might be, for provision for the unemployed. He was quite certain, if the Government did not bring it forward, the hon. Gentlemen below the gangway would ask them why they did not do so. He therefore maintained that so far as that was concerned the decrease of £200,000 was absolutely illusory. In the Colonial Vote, too, there was a sum last year of £150,000 for the earthquake in Jamaica. That of course, did not appear again in these Estimates, and the saving was not a real saving. It was merely the nonappearance of an item which appeared last year for circumstances which they all hoped would never arise again. There therefore appeared to be a saving of £350,000 which was really nothing of the sort. The real increase, consequently, was something over £1,000,000. And that was not all. He had included an increase of £400,000 in the Post Office, whereas, if his memory was not wrong, the Postmaster-General informed them that the amount of the increase would be very nearly £700,000. He might therefore add another £300,000. He was,
  1696
  however, content to add £200,000, and that made the increase over £1,200,000. But even that was not all. If the Education Bill became law, £1,400,000 would be added to the expenditure, and if they added those two figures together they arrived at a total of £2,680,000. And this was a Government of economy. That was a sufficiently startling indictment if it stood alone, but he was not at all sure that it did stand alone, because last year the Irish Council Bill was brought in which, if it had been carried, would have added £600,000 more. Every step in that direction was going to cost additional money. Again, things were placed upon the rates which ought to come on the Estimates; in arriving at a correct estimate, those also should be taken into account. He had now shown that part of the economy was due to Civil Service Estimates which ought to be increased beyond the present amount by no less than £2,600,000. A reduction had been effected in the expenditure in the administration of the Aliens Act of something like £1,300, by a reduction in the inspectors—the people who did the most important work of the Act. The administration of the Aliens Act had altered so much since the present Government came into power, that he desired to ask whether it was in accordance with Parliamentary precedent, that a Government by its administration should so alter the effect of an Act as to change it entirely from what Parliament intended it to be. True economy was not cutting down expenditure and getting no result out of what was eventually spent. True economy was to cut down the expenditure and produce the same results for the reduced amount spent. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, by his reduction under the Aliens Act, had not only not produced the same result, but had succeeded in producing no result at all, and, at the same time, had diminished the expenditure very slightly.
  MR. RUNCIMAN MR. RUNCIMAN rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 182; Noes, 31. (Division List No. 56.)

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood. Rt. Hn Sir Alex. F.

  Cross, Alexander

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Doughty, Sir George

  Percy, Earl

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Du Cros, Arthur Philip

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Balcarres, Lord

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan)

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

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

  Fell, Arthur

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Forster, Henry William

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Gardner, Ernest

  Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Hills, J. W.

  Thornton, Percy M.

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

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

  Valentia, Viscount

  Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm)

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

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Frederick Banbury and Mr. Claude Hay.

  Craig, Charles Curtis Antrim, S.)

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Glover, Thomas

  Ambrose, Robert

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

  Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Cory, Sir Clifford John

  Grayson, Albert Victor

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Greenwood, G (Peterborough)

  Astbury, John Meir

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Gulland, John W.

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Crean, Eugene

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Crossley, William J.

  Hall, Frederick

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.

  Cullinan, J.

  Halpin, J.

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Harvey, A. G. C (Rochdale)

  Barker, John

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)

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

  Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Barnard, E. B.

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Barnes, G. N.

  Delany, William

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Devlin, Joseph

  Hazleton, Richard

  Beauchamp, E.

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.

  Helme, Norval Watson

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

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Bennett, E. N.

  Dillon, John

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Black, Arthur W.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Boland, John

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Duckworth, James

  Hogan, Michael

  Brace, William

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

  Hooper, A. G.

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Brodie, H. C.

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Hudson, Walter

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Erskine, David C.

  Idris, T. H. W.

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Essex, R. W.

  Jackson, R. S.

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Jacoby, Sir James Alfred

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Evans, Sir Samuel T.

  Jenkins, J.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Everett, P. Lacey

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Cameron, Robert

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Causton, Rt Hn. Richard Knight

  Ferens, T. R.

  Jowett, F. W.

  Cawley, Sir Frederick

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro

  Joyce, Michael

  Chance, Freberick William

  Ffrench, Peter

  Kavanagh, Walter M.

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Findlay, Alexander

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Clynes, J. R.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Kettle, Thomas Michael

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Kilbride, Denis

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Lamont, Norman

  Nuttall, Harry

  Sheehy, David

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Lehmann, R. C.

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  O'Dowd, John

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Spicer, Sir Albert

  Lewis, John Herbert

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  O'Malley, William

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Lough, Thomas

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Lundon, W.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Lupton, Arnold

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Summerbell, T.

  Luttrell, Hugh Pownes

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Thomasson, Franklin

  Lynch, H. B.

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Tomkinson, James

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Torrance, Sir A. M.

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Toulmin, George

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

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

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Macphorson, J. T.

  Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)

  Verney, F. W.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Vivian, Henry

  M'Callum, John M.

  Pullar, Sir Robert

  Wadsworth, J.

  M'Kean, John

  Radford, G. H.

  Walsh, Stephen

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Walton, Joseph

  M'Killop, W.

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro)

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton

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

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Wardle, George J.

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Waring, Walter

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Rees, J. D.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Millet, Charles E.

  Richards, T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n

  Watt, Henry A.

  Marnham, P. J.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Massie, J.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Whitbread, Howard

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Meagher, Michael

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradef'rd

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Meehan, Francis E.(Leitrim, N.)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Whitehead, Rowland.

  Mechan, Patrick A.(Queen's Co.)

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Menzies, Walter

  Roche, Augustine Cork)

  Wiles, Thomas

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Roche, John Galway, East)

  Williams, Osmond Merioneth)

  Montagu, E. S.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Williamson, A.

  Montgomery, H. G.

  Rogers, P. E. Newman

  Wilson, Hon. G. G. Hull, W.)

  Mooney, J. J.

  Rowlands, J.

  Wilson, J. W. Worcestersh. N.)

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Runciman, Walter

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

  Murnaghan, George

  Russell, T. W.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhougiton)

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Murray, James

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Napier, T. B.

  Sears, J. E.

  Nolan, Joseph

  Seely, Colonel

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Original Question put, and agreed to.

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Gulland, John W.

  Murnaghan, George

  Alden, Percy

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Murray, James

  Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)

  Hall, Frederick

  Myer, Horatio

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Harms worth, R. L.(Caithn'ss-sh

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Harvey, A. G. C.(Rochdale)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

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

  Nuttall, Harry

  Balfour, Robert, (Lanark)

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Barker, John

  Hazleton, Richard

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Barnes, G. N.

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Dowd, John

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Helme, Norval Watson

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

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

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Bennett, E. N.

  Henry, Charles S.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Boland, John

  Hodge, John

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Hogan, Michael

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Brigg, John

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Brodie, H. C.

  Hudson, Walter

  Price, G E (Edinb'gh, Central)

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Radford, G. H.

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Rees, J. D.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Jenkins, J.

  Richards, T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Chance, Frederick William

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Jowett, F. W.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

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

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Kilbride, Denis

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Cooper, G. J.

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

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

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Rowlands, J.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Lambert, George

  Runciman, Walter

  Cowan, W. H.

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Russell, T. W.

  Cremer, Sir William Randal

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Crooks, William

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Seely, Colonel

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Crossley, William J.

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Cullinan, J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Curran, Peter Francis

  Lough, Thomas

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

  Lupton, Arnold

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Summerbell, T.

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Bg'hs

  Thomasson, Franklin

  Devlin, Joseph

  Maclean, Donald

  Tomkinson, James

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Toulmin, George

  Dickinson, W. H.(St. Pancras, N.

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Verney, F. W.

  Dillon, John

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Waring, Walter

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Watt, Henry A.

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  M'Killop, W.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Weir, James Galloway

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Mallet, Charles E.

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Ferens, T. R.

  Marnham, F. J.

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Findlay, Alexander

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Williamson, A.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Massie, J.

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Meehan, Francis E.(Leitrim, N.)

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

  Gill, A. H.

  Meehan, Patrick A.(Queen's Co.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Menzies, Walter

  Glover, Thomas

  Mond, A.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

  Montagu, E. S.

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Mooney, J. J.

  NOES.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

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

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Cave, George

  Balcarres, Lord

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  1698

  1699

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Hills, J. W.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Fell, Arthur

  Hunt, Rowland

  Winterton, Earl

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Keswick, William

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield

  Gretton, John

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Guinness, Walter Edward

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Viscount Valentia and Mr. Forster.

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Hill, Sir Clement

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

  Main Question put accordingly, and agreed to.

SUPPLY.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)

SUPPLY.
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
DAYLIGHT SAVING BILL.
Read a second time. Bill committed to a Select Committee.—(Mr. Robert Pearce.)

ADJOURNMENT.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the House do now adjourn."
SIR F. BANBURYsaid he had given notice to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that he would ask him to explain why he had departed from the usual custom and not given them a Memorandum accompanying the Estimates issuing from his Department. He presumed the hon. Gentleman had some explanation to offer and he should be glad to have it.
MR. RUNCIMANsaid he was sorry the hon. Baronet had not been supplied with a Memorandum. As a matter of fact it was completed immediately they compiled the last of the classes in the Civil Service Estimates. It had been ready for well over a week, and he did not know why it had not been circulated. He would see that an advance copy was placed in the hand of the hon. Baronet.
LORD BALCARRESsaid the Memorandum ought to have been in their hands before, and the fact that it had not been supplied would have afforded technical ground for postponing the Motion that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair. He hoped that the Secretary to the Treasury would make inquiries with the view of ascertaining how the error had occurred.
MR. MORTONsaid it was all very well for the Secretary to the Treasury to say that he did not know why the Memorandum had not been circulated, but somebody should be censured for its not having been attended to. The salaries of officials had to be paid whether the work was done or not. It was not fair to withhold information in that way, and then when the Estimates came on for consideration to closure discussion. That was contrary to the usual practice of the House of Commons, and if the Secretary to the Treasury could not get into a better state of mind, he would have something to say on the subject when the hon. Gentleman's salary came on for discussion. The House was entitled to a better explanation than the hon. Gentleman had given.
MR. GRETTONsaid the explanation given to the House in regard to the absence of the Memorandum was not adequate, and those who took an interest in the national finances had a right to feel aggrieved. He associated himself with the protest which had been made.
VISCOUNT HELMSLEYsaid it was unsatisfactory not to have had the Memorandum before. He thought the Secretary to the Treasury had treated the House very cavalierly in the answer he had given.
EARL WINTERTONasked when the Second Beading of the Licensing Bill and the Education Bill would be taken.
Mr. J. A. PEASEsaid his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already informed the House that the Second Beading of the Licensing Bill would be taken on Monday week. No arrangement had been made in regard to the Education Bill up to the present time.
Question put, and agreed to.
Adjourned at twenty-seven minutes after Eleven o'clock.