Commons Sitting of 8 July 1909

Preamble
Mr. SPEAKER took the chair at a Quarter before Three of the clock.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Great Western Railway (Steam Vessels) Bill [Lords],

Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Lancashire and Yorkshire and North Eastern Railways Bill [Lords],

As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

North Eastern Railway Bill [Lords] (by Order),

SecondReading deferred till Thursday next, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.

Methwold and Feltwell Drainage Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Second Heading deferred till Tuesday next, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.

St. Andrews Water Order Confirmation Bill [Lords],

Read the third time, and passed without Amendment.

Labour Exchanges Bill,

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee C. Bill as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday nest (12thJuly).

LEASEHOLDERS IN TOWNS.— PETITION.
Mr. D. D. SHEEHAN: I beg to present a Petition from the Urban District Council of Macroom (county Cork), as follows:—
"That landlords can now, as hitherto; at the termination of a Building Lease increase the rent of the leaseholders or tenants or capriciously evict them without any compensation whatever, and appropriate the buildings which they (the leaseholders) have erected with their own money, and enjoy the increased value of the buildings, which has been secured by expenditure of rates and taxes paid by the tenants or leaseholders, and to which the landlords have practically contributed
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nothing; and thus the great body f tenants or leaseholders in towns in Ireland, who hold houses or premises which they have built at their own cost, on ground leased from landlords, on comparatively short leases (at the highest rent which the landlords could possibly get for the land) have obtained no protection whatever under the Town Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1906."
The Petition is signed by the Chairman (JOHN O'SHEA) and the Town Clerk (T. MURPHY).

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Persian Affairs.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any further information with regard to the state of affairs in Persia beyond what has appeared in the Press that he can communicate to the House?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): So far as I am aware, no change has taken place in the situation in Persia since my answer of Tuesday, I can only describe the situation as one of confusion and suspense.
  Mr. LYNCHasked whether he could give the House any information as to the progress of affairs in Persia?
  Sir E. GREY: I beg to refer the hon. Member to the answer just given to the question asked by the hon. Member for St. Andrew's Division.
  Mr. LYNCHasked whether the Constitutionalist force in Tabriz have been disarmed by the Russian troops of occupation and prevented from lending any assistance to the troops advancing upon Tehran from Kazvin and Isfahan?
  Sir E. GREY: I have no information to this effect.
  Mr. HART-DAVIESasked whether he can state the terms demanded of the Shah by the leaders of the Constitutionalist forces in the neighbourhood of Tehran; and have these terms been communicated to His Majesty's Government?
  Sir E. GREY: The terms demanded of the Shah by the Sipahdar, the leader of the force advancing from Kazvin, have been reported to His Majesty's Govern-

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  ment by His Majesty's Minister at Tehran, and are as follows:—The Sipahdar himself, with the Sirdar Assad, the leader of the Bakhtiari force, to enter Tehran, each accompanied by 150 troops, to discuss the following points: The evacuation of Persian territory by the troops of neighbouring Powers; the choice of a Cabinet by the local assemblies until the meeting of Parliament; the expulsion from Persia of traitors and of persons whom the people distrust; the disarmament of those who, not belonging to the Army, have recently armed themselves; the complete control of the Army by the Minister of War; the dismissal of the Minister of Telegraphs; and the approval of provincial governors by the local assemblies.
  Mr. HART-DAVIES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if the Bakhtiari tribe are included?
  Sir E. GREY: Yes, apparently it includes both.
  Mr. JOHN DILLON: Have His Majesty's Government declared these demands to be unreasonable?
  Sir E. GREY: No, Sir. As far as we are concerned there were only two of the demands to which we could possibly give any support.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: May I ask if this request would only remove all cur Consular Guard?
  Sir E. GREY: I have given the terms as they are stated, but it is very difficult to say what the terms do mean or do not mean.
  Mr. J. D. REES: May I ask whether these forces, consisting to a large extent, at any rate, of Caucasians, nomad tribes, and disorderly elements have any special title to be called Constitutional forces, as distinguished from those supporting the Shah's Government?
  Mr. FLYNNasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has official information to the effect that in reply to representations made to him by the Russian and British representatives, the Sipahdar, on behalf of the Nationalist Persian party, formulated certain demands, including the evacuation of Persian territory by Russian troops and the formation of a Liberal Cabinet; is he aware that leaders of the popular party have publicly claimed that they have scrupulously respected the lives and property of hon-
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  belligerent Europeans, and intend to continue to do so; is the contemplated advance on Tehran by Russian troops in accordance with the terms of the Anglo-Russian Conventon; and will the Foreign Office undertake that, in any steps which may be taken as absolutely necessary for the protection of Europeans, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of Persia will be rigidly respected?
  Sir E. GREY: As regards the first point in the hon. Member's question, I beg to refer him to the reply just returned to the question asked by the hon. Member for North Hackney. As regards the second point, it is true that certain leading Nationalists at Tehran addressed a letter to His Majesty's Minister containing an assertion of the nature specified. At the same time, the "Constitutionalists" at Kazvin sent telegrams to the foreign Legations at Tehran, implying the possibility of action of a different kind, and the Russian Charged Affaires has also received other letters of a threatening tenour signed by numerous Tehran Nationalists. Perhaps I might summarise the situation in this respect by saying that it consists of satisfactory assurances qualified by occasional menaces. As regards the last two points, the hon. Member is already aware, from statements recently made in this House and from the explicit declaration made by the Russian Government, that an advance on Tehran is contemplated only in the event of there being, in the opinion of the Russian Legation, imminent danger to the lives and property of Europeans there, and that there is no intention on the part of the Russian Government that the Russian troops should be used for any other purpose. There is nothing in what has happened which conflicts with any article of the Anglo-Russian Convention. In answer to the last part of the question, a; no undertaking can be given respecting the future course of events in Persia, I can give no undertaking as to the principles which it may or may not be possible to uphold under stress of circumstances. I have stated the principle to which we desire to adhere.
  Mr. FLYNN: May I ask whether, in reference to the satisfactory assurances which he quotes, that a short time ago the Russian Consul-General, writing to the Sipahdar in March last, said:—
  "Personally I can affirm that up to date the representatives of the Persian nation have made many efforts for the security of the subjects of the Russian Government in Resht, and have behaved towards them with great consideration."

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  That being so, if he were satisfied with the moderation and good conduct of the Persian National troops, what has occurred to involve issues of great danger?
  Sir E. GREY: The statement refers to one date and to one place in Persia. Other things have happened since then, and have happened elsewhere. The Nationalists at Tabriz sent a telegram to the Foreign Legation at Tehran implying the possibility of action. The Russian Chargé d'Affaires at Tehran also received that letter sent by the Persian Nationalist party, and there is a conflict of statement of fact.
  Mr. FLYNN: May I ask whether at the present moment there is not great danger, according to the telegrams published this morning describing Russian troops and artillery crossing the Caspian, of a Russian occupation of Northern Persia, without justification?
  Sir E. GREY: If the chaos and confusion continue in Persia, all sort of contingencies may arise.
  Mr. LYNCH: Is it a fact that the representatives of the two Powers warned the leaders of the Nationalist forces that if they entered Tehran the Russian troops would also enter the city?
  Sir E. GREY: There was a warning given that the surest way to avoid interference from outside was to preserve order. That, I think, is the only definite thing which can be said about the present situation.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Has the Russian Legation by itself, without consultation with the British, a right to march troops on Tehran?
  Sir E. GREY: I practically answered that yesterday by pointing out that these disturbed districts are close to the Russian frontier. If the House will contemplate a similar situation equally close to the Indian frontier, we should reserve to ourselves the right to take whatever steps we considered necessary on our own initiative for the protection of our own interests, and the safety of our subjects and their property.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Am I right in understanding the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Russian Legation have a right, without consultation with the British, to decide when the Russian troops
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  should march on Tehran? I was not referring to outside districts, but to the capital itself.
  Sir E. GREY: The Russian Government have kept me informed of all the steps they contemplated taking. In the case of any place as close to our frontier as Tehran is to the Russian frontier, we should reserve to ourselves liberty of action to take whatever steps we considered necessary for the protection of our own interests, and we cannot deny a similar right to other Powers.

  Steamship "St. Kilda"(Claim for Compensation).
  Mr. BEAUCHAMPasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether now that the Russian Supreme Court had given its decision that the cotton which formed part of the cargo of the ss. "St. Kilda," when she was sunk by the Russian cruiser "Dneiper," on 23rd May, 1905, was absolutely contraband of war, a contention which His Majesty's Government had previously refused to recognise, he would make representations to the Russian Government with a view to compensation being obtained for the owners of the cotton; and, in the event of failure, would he propose that the case should be referred to the Hague Tribunal?
  Sir E. GREY: The Russian Government have already declined, in all shipping cases arising out of the war, to reconsider or to refer to arbitration a matter which had been decided by the Supreme Court at St. Petersburg, and in these circumstances no useful purpose would be served by pressing any individual case.
  Mr. BEAUCHAMP: May I ask whether Count Lamsdorff himself, in September, 1904, pointed out that in cases where the decision of the Court of Appeal might prove unsatisfactory to a foreign Government, there was always recourse to arbitration possible?
  Sir E. GREY: I was not aware of that statement, but I do not question its accuracy. But I must point out that in all cases arising out of a war there is great difficulty in referring them to arbitration, as we ourselves have found in connection with the South African war.
  Lord BALCARRES: Has the Foreign Office abandoned its claims for compensation in this and other outstanding cases?
  Sir E. GREY: In some cases the decision has been favourable. In cases where

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  it has not been favourable, the Russian Government have said that they cannot refer the cases to arbitration. We have had a number of cases arising out of the South African war where we have had to deliver precisely similar replies to other Powers. The situation, therefore, is one of considerable difficulty.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is it not the case that all the German claims have been fully paid more than two years ago?
  Sir E. GREY: That is not the case.

  Fuge Estate, County Cork.
  Mr. FLYNNasked whether the Estates Commissioners had taken any steps recently to secure the untenanted lands on the Fuge estate, Templemary and Garry-duff, near Kilbrin, county Cork, with a view to settling evicted tenants thereon and also of providing suitable allotments for the working labourers of Ballyclough, Kilbrin, and the adjoining district; had their inspectors recently visited these lands; had any offer of purchase been made by the Commissioners; and how did the matter stand at present?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The Estates Commissioners have intimated the price which they would be prepared to advance for the lands of Templemary if formal proceedings for sale were instituted. The owner is not willing to sell at this price. The Commissioners notified their intention of acquiring the other lands referred to in the question under the Evicted Tenants Act, but the owner filed a petition, and the matter is pending.

  Leader Estate, County Cork.
  Mr. FLYNNasked whether the Estates Commissioners could say if the purchase money for the sold portion of the Leader estate, Dromagh, county Cork, had yet been paid over to the landlord; if not, whether, in view of the fact that the purchase agreements were lodged in 1904, steps would be taken to do so without further delay; and whether, in view of the number of deserving evicted tenants in the immediate locality, and the advisability of enlarging the few uneconomic holdings on the estate and of securing suitable allotments for the working labourers of the district, the Commissioners would make an effort to secure the whole, or a considerable portion, of the untenanted land on this estate?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the purchase money of the tenanted portion of this estate has been advanced and that the holdings were vested in the tenants on the 1st instant. The Commissioners are in negotiation with the owner with reference to the untenanted land.
  Mr. FLYNN: Seeing that negotiations for the untenanted land have been going on for three years, will the right hon. Gentleman get the Estates Commissioners to hurry up?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The tenanted portion of the estate has only just been vested in the tenants. The Commissioners will proceed as fast as they can.

  King-Harman-Stafford Estate, County Longford.
  Mr. JOHN PHILLIPSasked when might the evicted tenants Farrell and Heslan, of the King-Harman-Stafford estate, Lisnanagh, county Longford, hope to be reinstated; and what was the reason that they had not been reinstated before this time, as their farms were not of any benefit to the landlord?
  Mr. BIRRELL: These lands are comprised in that portion of this estate which is the subject of proceedings in the Court of the Master of the Rolls, and the Estates Commissioners are in negotiation for their purchase. Until they acquire the lands they have no power to reinstate the former tenants.

  Douglas Estate, County Longford.
  Mr. JOHN PHILLIPSasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he would state when the 395 acres of the Douglas estate, Cloonguish, county Longford, so often promised by the Estates Commissioners, would be finally acquired and divided among the uneconomic holdings around Cloonguish; and could he say when the lands of Corteen or Cartrons, the property of Mr. Levinge, who voluntarily offered these lands to the Commissioners for sub - division for the same class of holding, would be similarly divided?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The lands which the Estates Commissioners are acquiring on the Douglas Estate are being taken compulsorily under the Evicted Tenants Act, and will be allotted to evicted tenants. The Commissioners hope to get possession next month. Proceedings under the

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  Act of 1903 for the sale of the estate referred to in the concluding portion of the question were only instituted last September. The estate will be dealt with in order of priority but its turn has not yet come.

  Irish Land Purchase.
  Mr. VINCENT KENNEDYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he would say how many estates lodged for purchase with the Estates Commissioners were awaiting vesting, owing to the delay or default of the owner in completing title; would he say what was the average and the greatest length of delay; and would he see that this hardship and unfair treatment of the tenants was at once removed?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the vesting of 110 estates is at present stayed as proof of vendor's title is not yet complete. It is not possible to give an approximation of the time the completion of the sales may be delayed owing to difficulties of title which vary according to the peculiar circumstances of the particular case, and the complexity of the title. It is not within my power to remove the difficulties incident to the making of title.

  Labourers (Ireland) Acts (Operation).
  Mr. LUNDONasked how many cottages had been built under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts in each of the following union districts in county Limerick up to and ending 1st May, 1909: Kilmallock, Limerick No. 1, Croom, Tipperary No. 2, and Mitchelstown No. 2.
  Mr. BIRRELL: The number of cottages provided in each of the rural districts named in the question on 31st March, the date to which the Returns are annually made up, was as follows:—Kilmallock. 836; Limerick No. 1, 638; Croom, 310; Tipperary No. 2, 176; Mitchelstown No. 2,102.

  Labourers' Cottages (Limerick).
  Mr. JOYCEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he now had any further information with regard to the action of a section of the members of the Limerick (No. 1) District Council in preventing the erection of the two labourers' cottages at Lisnagry which were passed by the inspector in February, 1908; and whether, owing to the tactics adopted by some members of the
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  district council, the Irish Local Government Board would at once have the Act put in force by ordering the erection of the cottages without delay and hold a full inquiry into all the circumstances connected with this case?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I understand that the rural district council at their meeting on the 3rd instant decided, by 16 votes to 4, to adhere to their resolution abandoning the erection of the two cottages in question. The Local Government Board intend to call the attention of the council to the duty imposed on them by the Labourers Acts of carrying into execution their improvement scheme, as confirmed.
  Mr. JOYCE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these two men are living in hovels unfit for human habitation, and that it is only out of deference to two rich graziers that the erection of these two cottages is not proceeded with?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I cannot answer for the action of the council by 16 votes to 4. All I can do is to call their attention to the fact that there is a statutory duty imposed upon them to carry into execution the scheme as confirmed.
  Mr. JOYCE: I hope the Local Government Board will insist upon their carrying it out.

  Mahony Estate, County Kerry.
  Mr. JOHN MURPHYasked if the Estates Commissioners proposed to proceed with the sale of the estate of Mr. Pierce Gun Mahony at Cordal, county Kerry, while four tenants, one of whom had been evicted, were excluded from the sale, as they were unwilling to agree to the prices demanded; and whether the Commissioners had made any representations to the landlord as to the exclusion of these tenants?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The matter referred to in the first part of the question has not yet come before the Estates Commissioners for consideration. The reply to the concluding part of the question is that as yet the Commissioners have not made any such representations.
  Mr. JOHN MURPHY: As the matter is of serious importance, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to direct the attention of the Estates Commissioners to the fact that four out of 15 tenants on the estate are excluded because they will not agree to the improper prices demanded?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Estates Commissioners are perfectly well aware of all the circumstances of the case.

  Condition of County Clare (Police Strength).
  Mr. HALPINasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention had been drawn to the statement of Mr. Justice Johnston to the grand jury of Clare, on Thursday last, viz., that only a few ordinary cases were to go before them, and that he was happy to have to tell them that none of them were agrarian; and, in view of this statement, would he withdraw the extra police from the county?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have seen a newspaper report of the observations of the learned judge. While I am happy to say there has recently been some improvement in the state of the county, the responsible police authorities do not consider that there are yet sufficient grounds for reducing the police.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has made these inquiries from the police as recently as the judge's charge to the grand jury; if not, whether he will make special inquiries now to ascertain whether, in view of the undoubted peaceable state of the county, it could not be possible, in some measure, at any rate, to relieve the ratepayers of the great burden of the payment of a large force of police that many people consider really unnecessary?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I can assure the hon. Member that I am in constant weekly communication with the police as to the condition of county Clare. Naturally, I am glad to note an improvement, but I think that anybody who is acquainted with the Returns which I have received must recognise that there are still a great many occurrences of a character that necessitates watchfulness. I think it would be premature to remove the police at the present time, but we are watching the situation as a cat watches a mouse.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask whether he will inquire as to whether it would not be possible in some measure to reduce the force of extra police, because undoubtedly the state of the county shows an improvement? If there be an improvement, why should there be that large number of police?
  Captain CRAIG: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, may I ask whether it
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  is not a fact that the leaders of the Nationalist party have stated that if the Irish Land Bill is not put through they will let loose the dogs of war? In view of that statement, will the right hon. Gentleman in the meantime keep the police force at its full strength?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I shall wait until the dogs are loosed! In the meantime, I can only say what I have already said, that we are watching the county with great care, and we shall at the earliest possible moment, and as soon as we think it can safely be done, reduce the number of the police.
  Mr. JOHN O'CONNOR: Is it a fact that the judges at Munster Assizes have been presented with white gloves everywhere they have gone?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am not sure that that is so; but if true, it is a most gratifying circumstance. At the same time it would be idle to disguise the fact that there are occurrences in Ireland—and I dare say in other countries—that do not come before the Assizes at all, therefore you cannot altogether say that there is no occasion for watchfulness on the part of the police simply because these cases are not supported by evidence, and of a kind that can be dealt with at county Assizes.
  Mr. HALPIN: Is it not a fact that at the two last quarter sessions at Kilrush the judge has been presented with white gloves?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Yes, I think the number of white gloves in Ireland is a most gratifying thing.

  Royal Irish Constabulary.
  Mr. T. M. KETTLE (for Mr. Hazleton)asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland on what grounds Steeven's Hospital is selected by the Royal Irish Constabulary for the treatment of constables; whether the hospital enjoys a monopoly among Dublin hospitals for Royal Irish Constabulary patients; what sums per week are deducted from the pay of constabulary patients and handed over to the hospital authorities; and whether he will explain why two patients suffering from tubercular disease of the lungs, one of whom died, were recently accommodated in the common ward, to the danger of all the other patients?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed by the constabulary authorities that Steeven's Hospital is selected for the treatment of

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  constables on the ground of its proximity to the depot, and the desirability of having one hospital where special wards can be set apart and beds kept always available for members of the force. It enjoys a practical monopoly in Dublin for the treatment of constabulary patients. Single men pay 2s. 3d., married men 1s. 4d., and recruits 1s. 10d. per day for treatment in the hospital. One patient, who had tubercular disease of the lungs, was retained for a time in the common ward on the responsibility of the doctor who was attending him, but was removed before his death.
  Mr. KETTLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Inspector-General, according to the code, when considering the fitness of district inspectors for advancement to the rank of county inspector, is bound to inquire whether they have cultivated friendly relations with the gentry in their neighbourhood; whether such relations are found to be helpful to members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in the detection of crime; whether the horse and groom equipment of officers is allowed in order to facilitate them in cultivating such friendly relations; and whether any British police force lays this down as a part of police duty and a qualification for promotion?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed by the constabulary authorities that the code is undergoing revision and that the query referred to has for some years past been modified. The inquiry now made is whether the district inspector has cultivated a friendly, but strictly impartial, intercourse with all classes. This is obviously desirable, but it is not the reason why a horse and groom are allowed to police officers. I am not in a position to say what the qualifications for promotion may be in the various police forces outside Ireland.
  Mr. KETTLE: When is the new code likely to be issued?
  Mr. BIRRELL: It is undergoing revision. I will ascertain when it will be issued, and let the hon. Gentleman know.

  Irish National Schools (Heating and Cleaning).
  Mr. LONSDALEinquired of the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the recommendation of the Armagh standing committee
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  on school attendance that, in view of the difficulty of obtaining a general guarantee from all parts of the country to raise funds to cover one-half of the cost of heating and cleaning the national schools of Ireland, an annual grant should be made to each national school of one-half the amount required for heating and cleaning on condition that the other moiety is raised by the school; and whether he is prepared to consider favourably this suggestion?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have received the resolution referred to. As regards the remainder of the question, I can only refer the hon. Member to my reply to the question on the same subject asked by the hon. Member for East Clare on 29th June last.

  Scottish Education Act (Balance of Fund).
  Mr. JAMES HOPEasked the Lord Advocate whether the balance of the fund under section 15 of the Scottish Education Act, 1908, as distributed according to the Minute now lying upon the Table of the House, would result in an increased grant to the managers of voluntary schools in Scotland of 2s. or more per child in average attendance?
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): Until the distribution has actually taken place and its results are known, it is not possible to give any answer to the hon. Member's question.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland in November last assured the House that the balance would so result?
  Mr. URE: That may be; but the hon. Member desires a specific answer, and that can only be given after the result is known.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: It was on the definite assurance that the opposition was withdrawn?
  Mr. URE: Yes, sir; and I have no doubt the assurance was justified.
  Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the Lord Advocate whether the balance of the fund under section 15 of the Scottish Education Act, 1908, as distributed according to the Minute now lying upon the Table of the House, would result in an increase to the county of Nairn as compared with the average amount that county has received during the last three years; and, if so, how much is the increase?
  Mr. URE: The balance of the fund under Section 15 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, as distributed according to the Minute of 3rd June, 1909, gives an increase of £45 to the county of Nairn, as compared with the average amount that county has received and expended for educational purposes from the same sources during the last three years.

  Buckingham Palace (Memorial Fountain).
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he can state when it is expected that the memorial fountain in front of Buckingham Palace will be completed?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Harcourt): The fountains are already completed. The remainder of the work upon the Queen Victoria Memorial is proceeding. I cannot fix a date for completion; that must depend upon the progress made.

  Mall Archway to Charing Cross.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he can state when the archway on the east side of the Mall leading into Charing Cross will be opened for traffic?
  Mr. HARCOURT: The contract provides for completion of the building at Christmas of this year, and I hope to be able to open the arches shortly after that date; but the possibilities of traffic depend upon the action of the London County Council on the roadway beyond the limits of the park and the new building.

  King's Police Medal.
  Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONinquired of the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can see his way to recommend the institution of a national reward or medal for long and meritorious service in the police force?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Herbert Gladstone): The King has been pleased, on my recommendation, to approve of the establishment of a medal, to be called the King's Police Medal, for the reward of courage and devotion to duty on the part of persons serving in constabulary forces and fire brigades throughout His Majesty's dominions. The Warrant establishing the medal, and the Regulations which His Majesty desires to be followed in making the recommendations for
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  its bestowal, will be gazetted to-morrow; but it may be well to lay emphasis on the fact that the medal is one of honour for special merit, and will not be given for prolonged service alone, but only when that service is specially distinguished by courage or devotion to duty.
  Sir A. WILLIAMSON: Will the length of service be considered, though in different forces?
  Mr. GLADSTONE: Yes, and the application will be to all police forces.
  An HON. MEMBER: "Including Ireland?"

  Royal Society Conversazione (Public Experiment on Bulldog).
  Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a public experiment performed by Dr. Waller on a bulldog at the conversazione of the Royal Society at Burlington House on 12th May last, whereby a leather strap with sharp nails was secured around the dog's neck, his feet being immersed in glass jars containing salts in solution, and the jars being connected by wires with galvanometers; whether, in view of section 6 of the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, which prohibits any exhibition to the general public of experiments on living animals calculated to give pain, he will say whether a licence has been granted to Dr. Waller for the performance of this experiment; whether Burlington House has been registered by the licensee for this purpose under section 7 of the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876; and whether any action has been or is being taken in reference to the matter?
  Mr. GLADSTONE: Yes, Sir; and I have made inquiries. Dr. Waller held no licence for this demonstration, and Burlington House is not registered under section 7 of the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876. I understand the dog stood for some time in water, to which sodium chloride had been added, or, in other words, a little common salt. If my hon. Friend has ever paddled in the sea, he will understand the sensation. The dog—a finely developed bulldog—was neither tied nor muzzled. He wore a leather collar ornamented with brass studs. Had the experiment been painful, the pain no doubt would have been immediately felt by those nearest the dog. There was no sign of this, and I do not propose to take any action.
  Mr. E. GRIFFITH: After that exhibition of humour on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask what was the source of his information that no pain was inflicted upon the dog under the circumstances?
  Mr. GLADSTONE: Oh, yes. I have seen Dr. Waller and have made the acquaintance of the dog, which is accustomed to this sort of thing, and likes standing in the water.
  Mr. VINCENT KENNEDY: What was the object of this exhibition?
  Mr. GLADSTONE: To show the pulsation of the heart, and other interesting matters, in the human body. It was absolutely painless.
  Mr. KENNEDY: Did the right hon. Gentleman receive the assurance of Dr. Waller that the animal was not drugged while the operation was on?
  Mr. GLADSTONE: The thing is absurd. It was a perfectly ordinary demonstration which might be carried out at any moment and in any place without the slightest pain to the dog, and for the edification of those looking on.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the person who furnished him with his jokes that there are Members of this House who regard these experiments on dogs with abhorrence?
  Mr. GLADSTONE: I certainly shall not. The jokes, poor as they are, are mine own!

  Indian Administration (Case of Mr. Lajpat Rai).
  Mr. MACKARNESSasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has any official information that Mr. Lajpat Rai, who was deported in 1907 without charge or trial by the Government of India for alleged sedition, has brought an action against the "Englishman" newspaper of Calcutta for libelling him by alleging that he had been guilty of sedition in that he had tampered with the loyalty of the Indian sepoys, and that Mr. Justice Fletcher, of the Calcutta High Court, after hearing the evidence of Mr. Lajpat Rai, held the statement to be a malicious libel upon him and awarded him damages to the amount of £1,000?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY for INDIA (the Master of Elibank): The Secretary of State has as yet received no official Report on the subject.

  Indian Collection at South Kensington.
  Mr. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Government has arrived at any final decision regarding the disposal of the Indian collection at South Kensington?
  Mr. WALTER RUNCIMAN: I fear that I cannot at present add to the statement made by me to a deputation on 6th May last.

  St. George's Catholic School, Nelson.
  Mr. P. O'BRIEN (for Mr. Boland)asked the President of the Board of Education if he can state what has cancelled the Board of Education's approval of St. George's Catholic School, Nelson, as a necessary school for 180 mixed scholars, made 27th May, 1897, and their further approval of this school as necessary for an additional 256 mixed scholars on 24th October, 1900; if he can state when this approval was cancelled; and whether any notice of such cancelling was given to the managers?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): The fact that the plans approved in 1897 and 1900 included accommodation for a mixed school, which was never, in fact, recognised by the Board, could not, in the view of the Board, be regarded as dispensing with the statutory requirements of section 8 of the Act of 1902, and the managers were so informed on 5th February, 1904.
  Mr. P. O'BRIENasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that St. George's Catholic School, Nelson, was returned in the official Report (1903–4) as a mixed and infant school; that His Majesty's inspector signed the time table of this school on 23rd March, 1904, as a mixed school, and examined several times Standards I., II., and III. as such; can he state what fault, if any, has been committed by the managers which caused these approvals to be cancelled; and can he say why this school is being treated differently from other schools built to open as required, as instanced in the cases of St. John's Catholic School, Burnley, and St. Peter's Catholic School, Blackburn?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I cannot find any confirmation of the hon. Member's, first statement in the official records, nor am I able to say now whether his second and third statements are accurate. The managers were, however, fully aware in 1904

  1413
  that the school was only recognised as an infants' school, for they were definitely informed to this effect in December, 1903; February, 1904; and again in July, 1904. The other schools referred to in the last paragraph of the question are not analogous cases, inasmuch as they were both recognised by the Board as mixed and infants' schools prior to the Act of 1902, and no increase in the recognised accommodation has since taken place.

  Judges of Court of Session (Return of Sittings).
  Mr. WATTasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will grant a Return of the sittings of the judges of the Court of Session in the same form as that given in the Civil Judicial Statistics [Cd. 4029] for the Judges of the Chancery Division?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Charles Hobhouse): No materials exist for such a return, but I will consider whether records should be kept to enable a table containing the information desired to be included in the judicial statistics for the earliest year possible.

  Defence of Belfast Lough.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is in contemplation to establish a naval base in Belfast Lough; and whether he is able to make any statement as to arrangements that may be in progress for the defence of the Lough and for the maintenance at Belfast of a naval force for coast defence and the protection of commerce?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): There is no intention of making a naval base in Belfast Lough, which is a commercial harbour. Its defence has been provided for in the general scheme for the defence of all important commercial harbours.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the new graving dock at Belfast is capable of accommodating a "Dreadnought"?
  Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir; but that does not arise out of the question.

  Colonel S. T. Onslow (Retirement from Active List).
  Mr. GODFREY BARING (for Sir Thomas Bramsdon)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state why the name of Colonel G. T. Onslow, Royal
  1414
  Marine Light Infantry, still appears on the active list of the Royal Marines contrary to the King's Regulations, which state that colonels commandant shall be retired at the age of 60 or on expiration of command, and notwithstanding the fact that he completed his appointment as commandant at Chatham in April last?
  Mr. McKENNA: Colonel Onslow's command terminated on 10th April last, but his name has not been removed from the Army List in consequence of his not having been gazetted to the retired list pending decision on a proposal to re-establish a reserved list for colonels.

  Navy (Steam Coal).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what steps have been taken to replenish the stocks of steam coal and create and maintain a reserve for fleet purposes sufficient to preserve the preparedness of the Navy?
  Mr. McKENNA: It is not necessary for any special steps to be taken to replenish the stocks of steam coal at the home ports, as the reserve has never been unduly depleted. The existing arrangements are considered to be sufficient to preserv3 the preparedness of the Navy, but in the interests of the public service it is undesirable to state what the reserve is.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Is it not a fact that in the recent manoeuvres the ships were only allowed to use three-tenths of their boiler power?
  Mr. McKENNA: It is quite true the speed was reduced in anticipation of the possibility that a strike might occur. It was in order to be quite sure that the reserves of coal would be adequate for any emergency that the speed was reduced upon that occasion.

  Railway Amalgamations (Departmental Committee).
  Mr. BOWERMANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that considerable dissatisfaction exists with regard to the composition of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into railway amalgamations, upon which railway interests are strongly represented, but direct representation of railway employés is excluded; and whether he can state why no direct representative of the latter has been appointed to serve on the Committee?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Churchill): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by me in this House to the hon. and gallant Member for the Evesham Division on the 23rd ultimo, of which I am sending him a copy. It will be open to representatives of railway employés to offer themselves as witnesses, and I have no doubt that the Committee will be prepared to hear them.
  Mr. H. A. WATT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware there is a general impression that the Board of Trade and the directors of the railways are over-represented on this Commission, and that the traders and employés are under-represented?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have said I propose to fill any vacancy which will occur on the Committee by the appointment of another trader. The Committee is a very small one. At any rate, my object has been to obtain an authoritative and not a representative Committee.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Is it not a fact that the complaint on the part of the railway employés is that they have no representatives on the Committee, which receives evidence and cross-examines witnesses, while the directors' interests are more than adequately represented?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have placed upon the Committee a representative of labour, and having regard to the small size of the Committee, I think labour is pretty well represented. I chose a practical representative of labour.

  FINANCE BILL.

    PROFESSIONAL ADVISERS.
    Captain CRAIG (for Mr. Leverton Harris)asked the Secretary to the Treasury what persons, other than officials, have been appointed professionally to advise and assist the Government in respect to the Finance Bill; how many of them occupy seats in the Gallery behind Mr. Speaker's chair; what is their status and emoluments; and upon what Votes are their salaries borne?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has temporarily appointed Mr. Adrian Lumley, who has an expert knowledge of valuation, to assist him in regard to Part I. of the Finance Bill. He has also temporarily added two gentlemen (Mr. Davies and Mr. Haw) to his secretarial staff in view of
    1416
    the unusually heavy work thrown upon them by the Bill. These three gentlemen have an official status during the term of their appointment, and are admitted to the Official Gallery when their presence is required by my right hon. Friend. Their salaries will be charged to Treasury Vote, sub-head C, Special Inquiries. The total cost will be about £600.
    Captain CRAIG: May I ask whether this Mr. Lumley was not in the hands of the receiver last December, and whether he is now the adviser to the Government in matters of valuation? [Cries of "Order."]
    Mr. H. BELLOC: On a point of order, may I ask, Mr. Speaker, is it in order for a private Member or any hon. Member of this House to use his position in this House for the purpose of attacking an individual?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I sincerely wish it was not. I am afraid the opportunity is often made use of by Members to attack outsiders. I deprecate such a course very strongly, but I have no power, unfortunately, to stop it.

    ROYALTY IN THE COALFIELDS.
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has any official Reports showing that 1s. 2d. per ton is typical of the amount of royalty and way leave; and, if not, what is the average royalty paid per ton in the main coalfields of Wales, Yorkshire, and Durham?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George): I have no official Reports on this subject. In the case of the mine to which I referred in my speech on the second reading of the Finance Bill, the amount of the royalty was 1s. 2d., but I understand from the mine owners that this is higher than the average royalty in the United Kingdom, and that in the case I quoted there are special reasons why the royalty ran up to 1s. 2d. per ton. I regret that I am unable to give the information asked for in the second part of the hon. Member's question.
    Mr. LANE-FOX: Am I to understand that the instance quoted in the House by the right hon. Gentleman was an extreme case and not, as suggested, an ordinary one!
    Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am afraid it was an extreme case. I understand from the mine owners it does not represent the average royalty which is charged.
    Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: Is it not a fact that the average royalty is about sixpence?
    Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: That I would lather not answer; I have no official information. Probably the hon. Member knows as well as I do what the average is.

    GERMAN INCOME TAX (NON-RESIDENTS' LIABILITY).
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether non-residents in Germany pay Income Tax on incomes derived from securities lodged with a German bank if they are not also possessed of property in land in Germany?
    Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: It would appear from the provisions of the Prussian Income Tax law that Prussian subjects who have no domicile in Prussia and reside in one of the other Confederate States, who with a domicile in Prussia, have an official domicile in another German Confederate State, and who, without a domicile in Prussia, have permanently resided abroad for more than two years, are excepted from liability to the tax.

  Banking Trade (Ireland).
  Mr. FLYNNasked the right hon. Gentleman whether his attention has been called to the circumstances connected with the banking trade of Ireland, in respect to the authorised circulation and issue of bank notes; is he aware that a return of the averages for the four weeks ending 14th November, 1908, disclosed the fact that the authorised circulation of the Bank of Ireland being £3,738,428, the actual amount of notes issued was only £3,004,150, or £734,278 less than its power of issue; that the Provincial Bank's authorised circulation being £927,667, its actual issue was only £808,389, or £119,278 less than its power of issue, whilst on the other hand the National Bank, with an authorised circulation of £852,269, had an actual issue of £1,386,411, showing an excess issue of £534,142, the Ulster Bank, with an authorised circulation of £311,079, had an issue of £1,090,941, showing an excess issue of £779,862, and the Northern Bank, with an authorised circulation of £243,440, had an issue of £616,239, or an excess issue of £372,999, and similar excess issues above the authorised circulation prevailed in regard to other Ulster banks; and whether, in view of the fact that the authorised issues were fixed for Ireland and Scotland by an Act of 1845–6, and to the altered and in most part extended business and bank-
  1418
  ing operations since that period, steps will be taken to adjust more equitably the basis of authorised note issue and its extension to the Royal, the Munster and Leinster, the Hibernian, and other joint stock banks founded and conducted on safe commercial principles?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The hon. Member appears to have overlooked the fact that, in addition to the circulation authorised by certificate, the banks in question have authority to issue notes against coin. His figures of "authorised issue" take account only of the circulation authorised by certificate, and, as in point of fact, the apparent excesses during the period in question were in all cases more than covered by coin held at the respective head offices of the banks, there was in no case any excess over the total authorised circulation, and no alteration of the law appears to be called for.
  Mr. FLYNN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in 1845, when Sir Robert Peel was dealing with this question, there were eight banks of issue in Ireland, and now there are only six, notwithstanding the extraordinary increase in the banking business during the past 70 years? Can the Chancellor of the Exchequer give us any hope that when he is relieved of the pressure of the Budget business he will give his attention to this matter?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I must have notice of this question, because it will involve an inquiry into the circumstances of 1845.
  Mr. FLYNN: What about the second part of my question?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: At any rate, the Budget will give me some time for consideration.

  Naval Loans.
  Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, with a view to meeting financial difficulties, he is now prepared to consider the desirability of a naval loan, with a sinking fund or funds, spread over the probable life of each vessel?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I regret that I am unable to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member.

  Increment Duty (Office Leases).
  Mr. LANE FOXasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the lease of offices

  1419
  or other rooms on the ground floor of a building will constitute an interest in the land subject to Increment Duty under the Financs Bill, whereas the lease of rooms on the upper floors would not be subject to such duty?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: No distinction will be drawn between offices, etc., on the ground floor and other floors of a building when let separately from the site.

  Territorial Forces (Units of Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry).
  Sir ROBERT HOBARTasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state the number of units of the Territorial Forces, giving artillery, cavalry, and infantry separately, which were on 1st July last at their full established strength; and the number of units with under 75 per cent. of their establishment on the same date?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. F. D. Acland): The number of units of the Territorial Force which were up to their full established strength of non-commissioned officers and men on 1st July last were as follows:—

  Yeomanry

  25

  Artillery (including 21 ammunition columns)

  86

  Infantry

  16

  The number of units which were under 75 per cent. of their establishment of noncommissioned officers and men on the same date were as follows:—

  Yeomanry

  1

  Artillery (including 27 ammunition columns)

  48

  Infantry

  31

  Mr. RICHARDSONasked the Secretary of State for War whether it is intended to give any recognition to the rifle battalions of the Territorial Force which are up to the strength entitling the line battalions to receive colours, but which, because they were rifle battalions, were not included in the ceremony at Windsor?
  Mr. ACLAND: The reply is in the negative, as I have already stated in reply to a similar question of the hon. Member for the New Forest on the 10th ult.

  Small Holdings (Suffolk).
  Mr. GEORGE ROBERTSasked the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board
  1420
  of Agriculture, whether he can state the number of persons in the village of Wenhaston, Suffolk, who have applied for land under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act; how much land is thus applied for; the number of applicants for whom land has been provided, and the amount thereof; and whether the Board still has the matter under consideration, and what action is being taken or contemplated?
  The TREASURER of the HOUSEHOLD (Sir E. Strachey): Four applications for 58½ acres in all were received, and two of them for a total of 20 acres were approved. The county council are now endeavouring to acquire the land necessary to satisfy this demand.

  Margarine (Fancy Names).
  Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) how many fancy names for margarine have been approved and registered in Ireland by the Department under the Butter and Margarine Act, 1906; and how does the total number compare with the number approved by the English Board of Agriculture as at 31st May last?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Cherry): The number of names of margarine approved by the Department up to 31st May, 1909, under the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907, was 324. I have no information as to the number of names approved by the English Board of Agriculture.

  Irish Agricultura I Department (Report).
  Mr. C. H. CORBETT (for Mr. Hugh Barrie)asked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he is aware that the Report of the Department for 1907–8 was presented to the House on 15th December, 1908, and that it was only available on the 6th instant and bears date of 20th May, 1909: and will he explain how this took place, and take steps to prevent the Report for 1908–9 being similarly presented fully six months before it is available for reference by Members?
  Mr. CHERRY: I beg to refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his question of 23rd June on the subject. The delay referred to was unforeseen, and is not likely to recur.

  Nucleus Crew Ships (Cost).
  Mr. GRETTON: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if fully-manned

  1421
  ships cost more per diem than nucleus crew ships; and, if so, will he state the approximate cost of the three naval reviews this year, including the charges incurred for the time spent in assembling and dispersing the fleets?
  Mr. McKENNA: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. There is no relation between the first part of the question and the second, and it is not possible to say what is the additional cost, if any, of the assembly of the fleet at Spithead in June, in the Thames in July, and at the review at Spithead on 31st July. If there is any additional cost it would be small.

  The Prime Minister and the Suffragettes.
  Mr. T. M. KETTLE: I desire to ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware that eight ladies have been waiting at the entrance to St. Stephen's Hall since Monday last during the sittings of this House for the purpose of presenting him with a petition; whether he thinks their demeanour has not been of a perfectly orderly character, and whether he does not think it wise to recognise this evidence of their sincerity and patience by granting them the interview to which they appear to attach so much importance?
  Mr. KEIRHARDIE: In the event of the Prime Minister being unable to receive these ladies this day, I would like to ask whether he will appoint a day on which he would receive them?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I am told the facts are as stated, although I have no personal knowledge of it. I am most anxious to show no discourtesy to these ladies, and I have taken care to intimate to them that the reason why I cannot receive them is, as I have often stated, that I do not think the public interest would be promoted by such an interview as they request.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his determination not to receive this deputation, in view of the fact that the request is such a reasonable one, and he has been in the habit of receiving deputations on all sorts of subjects?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have received a deputation on this subject, and I have stated perfectly clearly my own views and the views of the Government, to which I have nothing to add.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman has not received any deputation on this subject since he became Prime Minister?
  The PRIME MINISTER: That is so, but I received a deputation on this subject when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and they know perfectly well what took place then.
  Mr. KETTLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that hon. Members of this House are being deprived of their ordinary right of introducing strangers on account of his action?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.
  Mr. JOHN O'CONNOR (Kildare, N.): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at two o'clock this morning he passed through the sentries of these women without being recognised?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I think the hon. Member must put that question to the ladies themselves.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD: Will the Prime Minister inform the House as to the course of business next week?
The PRIME MINISTER: On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next we shall take the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill.
On Thursday, Supply—(the Board of Education, Class IV., Vote 1).
On Friday we shall take the third reading of the Trade Boards Bill, the Public Works Loans Bill (Committee), the Superannuation (Allowances and Gratuities)— money Resolution—and the second reading of the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill.
Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD: When will the further proceedings be taken on the Irish Land Bill?
The PRIME MINISTER: Not next week.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state when the Indian Budget will be taken?
The PRIME MINISTER: I am unable to fix the precise date, but it will not be unduly delayed.
Dr. RUTHERFORD: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House when the Foreign Office Vote will be taken?
The PRIME MINISTER: Probably on the Thursday of the following week, 22nd July.
Mr. LONSDALE: For the convenience of Irish Members, can the right hon. Gentleman state when the Committee stage of the Irish Land Bill will be proceeded with?
The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot say precisely, but full notice will be given.
Mr. LONSDALE: A week's notice?
The PRIME MINISTER: Yes.

SUPPLY.— [13TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
Considered in Committee.
[MR. CALDWELL, Deputy-Chairman, in the chair.]
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1909–10.— [Progress.]
  CLASS II.—VOTE 27.

    SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND'S OFFICE.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £11,016, be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1910, for the salaries and expenses of the office of His Majesty's Secretary for Scotland and subordinate office, expenses under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1900, and expenses under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, including a grant in aid of the Congested Districts (Scotland) Fund."
    Mr. T. H. COCHRANE: Scotch Members are less fortunate in getting opportunities of calling the attention of the House to matters very largely affecting Scotland than the Members for Ireland in obtaining facilities for discussing Irish questions. They generally get two days in which to raise questions of interest to Ireland, whereas we very rarely succeed in extracting from the Government more than one day in which to state our case. I desire to take this opportunity of calling atten-
    1424
    tion to the deplorable state of things which exists in some of the remote parts of Scotland, in some of those western islands situated up in the Atlantic, which are apt to escape the attention of Members from other parts of the United Kingdom, and I do so in the hope that by some administrative action the Secretary for Scotland (Lord Pentland) may effect some amelioration. If the same state of affairs which exists in those western islands prevailed in one of our Colonies we should have the whole country ringing from one end to the other. The position of some of the inhabitants of these islands is far worse than was the position of those Chinese labourers in compounds in South Africa, which excited such extravagant sympathy from hon. Gentlemen opposite. You have in these islands industrious people to whom the wages paid to the Chinese labourers would be a fortune, and I wish to ask the indulgence of the Committee while I draw some slight attention to the conditions under which they subsist. We find in these islands a wretched condition of poverty; we find uneconomic holdings; I am sorry to say that in some particulars we find a condition of lawlessness, and we find, above all, a supineness on the part of the Government which is most deplorable and unfortunate. The position is one of such unexampled a character and of such extraordinary a nature that I think even Scotch Members hardly realise the position. Probably the only Member in this House who does is the hon. Member for Ross and Cromartie (Mr. Weir), who is constantly brought in touch with the islands. Rates are heavy here, it is true; everyone feels them to be so, but they are negligible compared with the rates which fall upon the unfortunate people in these islands. Let me take three parishes, Barvas, Uig, and Lochs. Whereas in 1885 there was in Barvas a poor rate of 2s. 11d. in the £, at the present time the poor rate is 25s. 3d. in the £, and the total rates laid in that parish amount to 28s. 10d. in the £. In the case of Uig, whereas in 1885 the poor rate was 2s. 3d., in 1908 it had risen to 14s. 6½d., and in 1908 the total rates were 19s. 2½d. In Lochs it has risen in the same way from 4s. 2d. in 1885 to a total now of 25s. 1½d. in the £. I ask the House to consider a state of affairs such as that, rates rising to more than 20s. in the £, to 25s. and falling to the extent of 80 per cent upon one particular proprietor. That proprietor finds himself in this position. He

    1425
    cannot get his rents paid, and he has arrears of £19,000. In one particular parish, Lochs, where he has to pay this enormous rate of over 25s. in the £, his gross rental is £2,899, and he only collects £2,600. He pays parish rates £950, county rates £218, stipend £129, and the total of his occupiers' and county rates amount to £2,196. He has burdens on his estate, interest on mortgage, jointures, and cost of management. All that comes to about £750 a year, so that he is only able to gather in in rents £2,600, and in rates and taxes and burdens he pays out £2,946, or nearly £3,000. He is running his property at a loss. He pays rates, taxes, and burdens, amounting to £2,900, and he only collects rents of £2,600, so that he is £300 to the bad. I think here we get very nearly to the realisation of Mr. Henry George, for by taxing the land you are taking away the whole value of it. The proprietor finds himself absolutely unable to continue to pay these rates; he cannot find the money. He therefore applies to the Government for assistance. If he came from Ireland, or if he belonged to a particular party he would get it; but what is the reply this man who is paying out more than he gets receives? They say, "You must take every possible step by means of legal proceedings or otherwise against Major Mathieson for the recovery of the rates." You cannot get blood out of a stone, and when you have rated a man to the extent that there is more going out than is coming in, what is the use of an attitude such as that taken up by the Government? It is grossly unfair and harsh, and it does not in any sense meet the necessities of the case or relieve the poverty and distress which exist in those islands. How has this come about? It is largely the result of the policy forced on the land-owners in that part of the country. You have broken up farms and divided them amongst crofters. So long as a farm is an ordinary tenancy the rates are levied upon the buildings as well as the land, but the moment you break it up into crofts the crofters' buildings do not bear any rates at all. There is also a fall in the land. You, therefore, by breaking up the farms, reduce the rateable value of the parish. That is the first reason. Another is that the cottars and squatters are unable to find occupation elsewhere. They do not know what else to do or where to go. They are very often tied to the parish by the fact that they speak Gaelic only: being unable to speak any other language, they do not care to
    1426
    go away in search of occupation. The result is that the cottars and squatters themselves come upon the poor rate, and require medical assistance without contributing one penny to the burden of rates that falls upon the other members of the community. Here is a direction in which we may hope for some assistance from the Government. The various grants-in-aid have been falling off in amount of late years. The Lunacy Grant for Scotland is a fixed amount—£115,000—and accordingly, as the number of these unfortunately afflicted persons increases, the individual grant diminishes. Where it used to be 10s. 8½d. it is now 8s. The medical relief grant has fallen from 8s. to 6s., and a reduction has also come about in the police grant. Yet with the diminution of the grants it is required in every parish in Scotland that all children— whether they live in a wealthy and populous part of the country or whether they live in poor and scattered districts—shall be educated up to the same standard. It is impossible to expect some of the poor parishes to bear the burden. Compare the valuations. In one parish it is £44 per head of the population; in another it is only 8s.; yet in both these parishes it is equally obligatory to carry out all the requirements of civilisation to the same extent. In the matter of education the cost is greater in the poor parish than in the rich one, because there are necessarily more schools and more teachers are required. A strong case can be made out for special assistance to be given by the Government to these districts. I may take one special case—the farm of Mingulay. There the crofters, who should pay a rent of £51 per year, got into arrears to the amount of £590. Under the aegis of the present Government they came to the conclusion that the payment of rent was very irksome. They went on to Vatersay and settled there without paying any rent at all. The gentleman appointed to investigate this matter, according to a special Report from the Scotch Local Government Board in 1906, said:—
    "I am satisfied that the collection of these arrears has not been gone about with sufficient firmness."
    The island of Mingulay, where neither rent nor rates has been paid for some years, gets the same benefit from the rates to which it has not contributed one farthing as other parishes which have paid—it gets the same benefit in such matters as education, school buildings, poor relief, and vaccination. The sheriff who made the inquiry thought that an example, even

    1427
    at considerable cost, might be made of the recalcitrant ratepayers there with benefit. But the Secretary for Scotland writes and threatens the utmost rigours of the law against the landlord who has paid his rates up to date. It amounts to this—that the man who has paid the rates for years is to be proceeded against to recover the utmost farthing, while no steps are to be taken to exact anything from the crofters, who pay neither rent nor rates. True, it is the landlord has got only one vote, whereas each crofter has a vote, and almost the only inference possible arises on that fact. I hope, and believe, however, that the House of Commons still has the same sense of justice remaining to it, and will not recognise a right on the part of right hon. gentlemen opposite, while they are in authority, to treat with harshness and injustice one individual because he happens to be a landlord, and with undue leniency other individuals whose support at the polls they may hope to receive. Take the case of Dalbeg. Here you have a landlord paying rates on one hand, and the crofters paying none on the other. Surely the landlord has some right to claim protection from the right hon. Gentleman in the exercise of his undoubted rights as a citizen. But what happened in the case of the Dalbeg Farm, let by Major Mathieson to a respectable tenant who was paying his rent regularly? There took place a raid. Six raiders invaded the farm, built houses, dug up the ground, planted potatoes, and took forage from the farm. The Secretary for Scotland sent a telegram to Major Mathieson in these terms:—
    "Regret to learn from chief constable that six men have seized land and are planting potatoes at Dalbeg. Presume you will take necessary action to protect your interests. Have wired urging immediate withdrawal."
    Could a weaker or more cruel telegram have been sent to a man who pays his rates, and who was entitled to protection from the right hon. Gentleman? My friend, Major Mathieson, acted on the advice of the Secretary for Scotland; he took out cases of interdict, and a young barrister of only six years' standing was sent down to inquire into those cases—a very difficult and delicate mission. He heard the case. He asked these men, "Do you intend to desist from this illegal action?" The answer was, "We do not; we mean to stay here," and thereupon this representative of the law imposed upon the offenders a penalty of 10s. or seven days' imprisonment! Last year the
    1428
    right hon. Gentleman passed the Crofters Grazing Act, and one of the clauses of that provides that if a crofter puts on the common grazing one heifer or pony in excess of the number to which he is entitled, he shall be liable to a penalty of 40s., and 5s. in addition for every day the animal remains on the common grazing. Here those raiders come down to a farm, take possession, dig up the ground, build houses, and rob the farmer of his undoubted rights, and the only punishment inflicted upon them is a 10s. fine or seven days' imprisonment. I think I have made it clear that in the interests of the crofters themselves such a state of things should not be allowed to continue, because, after all, this lawlessness is spreading from day to day. The inaction of the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary for Scotland is encouraging them, as the right hon. Gentleman must be aware—no one better —to bring about this threatening state of affairs, which is partly due to poverty and inability to pay the rates, but is chiefly because they are not taught to struggle for themselves and to make their way, and are encouraged by the Secretary of Scotland and the right hon. Gentleman to believe that if they only persist in their practices a nice croft will be found for them in another part of Scotland. This question must, however, be faced. It is not as if, in the case of this particular landlord, anything could be said against him, and the Secretary for Scotland, speaking quite recently on this subject, said that this particular gentleman to whom I refer is a considerate and kindly landlord, who lived among his people and was deservedly popular. In the case of the prosecution, threatened by the right hon. Gentleman against the landlord, who was unable to pay his rates, it could not be of any value; you cannot get blood out of a stone, and if you sold him up to-morrow what better position would you be in? You would not have solved this difficulty, and you would put yourselves in a greater one. The bankruptcy of the landlord would be no cure, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is possible for him to use his influence to see that some assistance is given in regard to these burdensome rates until legislation is effective to produce a permanent remedy.
    I venture to deal with one further branch of this subject. I pointed out how the lawlessness had been regarded at Dalbeg, and it is the growth of the same lawlessness which is encouraged by the Government at Vatersay. It is exactly the same

    1429
    question. Last year's Debates went fully into this question, and it is almost the only time in my recollection that these discussions had an immediate and surprising result. After the Vote it was perhaps better for the Secretary for Scotland frankly to acknowledge that he was in the wrong, and to entirely reverse the policy which he had previously laid down. It would have been well if in the publication of some of the correspondence the Secretary for Scotland had published the whole of it; but there were one or two letters which were suppressed in the correspondence which was laid before this House. Perhaps it is unnecessary for me to allude to that on this occasion beyond saying that it was clearly shown that the remonstrance of hon. Members on this side of the House had not been without effect, when the Secretary of Scotland completely reverses that non possumus policy, which he had pursued before. The right hon. Gentleman before that Debate did not consider it necessary to have any inquiry as to the suitability of Vatersay for crofters. After that he sent and had a special Re-port made as to the suitability of Vatersay. Why has that report not been placed upon the Table of the House? I venture to say that by not doing that the right hon. Gentleman is committing an illegality. The Crofters Commission were called upon to make a special Report, and they made an exhaustive one as to the condition of Vatersay, which was sent to the Secretary for Scotland. Both the Crofters Act and the Congested Districts Act distinctly provide for Reports. In the Act of 1897 it is laid down: "The Congested Districts Board shall once in every year make a Report to the Secretary for Scotland on their proceedings under this Act, and every such Report shall be forthwith presented to Parliament," while under the Crofters Act of 1886 it is provided: "The Crofters Commission shall once in every year after the year 1886 make a Report to the Secretary for Scotland as to their proceedings under the Act, and every such Report shall be presented to Parliament." I asked the right hon. Gentleman, under the terms of the statute, to present that Report to Parliament, but he declined to do so, and he has given me no reason. I am obliged to draw my own inferences, and I am obliged to think that this special Report as to the condition of Vatersay was of such a damaging character that the right hon. Gentleman has not ventured to lay it. I am obliged to fall
    1430
    back upon other independent information. There have been two most important reports prepared for the Inverness-shire County Council, and one of those paints a picture of Vatersay in the clearest of colours, and I would ask the Committee to bear with me so far as to let me read what was said in his annual report for 1908 by an impartial person, Dr. Macdonald, county medical officer of health for Inverness-shire. He said:—
    "Vatersay.—Having been informed that it was proposed to settle sixty crofters in Vatersay, I visited the island on two occasions during the year, with regard to the available water supply. Assuming that there are five on an average to each family, this would mean a population of 800 people. The island, like others in the Hebrides, is composed of gneiss, an Archaen rock, which rises in two or three ranges, with low-lying areas between. Those ranges are completely bare on the top and are smooth and rounded, due to glacial action. The lower part of their slopes and the low-lying ground are covered, generally speaking, with a very thin layer of soil. Near the farm house, where there are at present about twenty houses, there is a considerable extent of sand covered with grass. Twenty-eight possible sources of water supply were pointed out to me. Seventeen of those were so-called 'wells.' One was a loch (Loch Uidh), and eight were streams. Of the remainder, one arose in the sandy ground not far from the present new settlement, and the other arose over the ridge from this. I examined all these supplies in the month of August after a period of dry weather. Of the 'wells' of which one or two were in use, only about ten were worth considering for a moment. They were simply holes in the ground, open for the most part to pollution, and were used as dip wells. The total overflow from them was very small. Some had no overflow, and contained stagnant water. The loch, which is on the top of a hill contained water which was very small in amount, very dirty in appearance, and seemed quite unfit for domestic use. The streams were on the whole mere trickles, but I was informed that one or two are permanent. The nature of the geological formation of the island does not lend itself to the retention of water for any length of time. The soil is of little depth, forming a thin covering over the underlying rock, and its porosity allows water to drain away from it very readily. At the time of inspection it. looked as if other ten days or so of dry weather would have dried up most of these supplies. As regards the wells, even although the supply were plentiful the water was in practically all instances so obviously of purely surface origin and open to contamination that protection of the well holes would be of little avail owing to the water being polluted before entering them. If sixty families are placed on this island it is quite clear that all those wells will be further polluted by the drainage from cultivated land, and probably also from houses and manure heaps, There was nothing of the nature of springs on the island so far as could be ascertained."
    That is a picture of what the right hon. Gentleman has done. He was warned by Lady Gordon Cathcart that there was not a sufficient water supply, and that the soil of this island was barren, and he sent 60 crofter families there, received a Report which ought to have been published in this House, and was afraid to lay it. I venture to say that if he had a case to submit to this House, to show that the report of the medical officer of health which I have quoted, supported by another report from a civil engineer, also sent by the county council, was incorrect, he would have

    1431
    produced it. It rests with the right hon. Gentleman, in defence of his policy, to clear up these doubts and show that this medical officer of health and this civil engineer who supported him are wrong. Otherwise we are spending money like water upon a useless project. £10,000 has been taken from the Congested Districts Board and expended in this island, and the right hon. Gentleman had no more right to take that sum of money from the Board than I have. It was always held that the Congested Districts Board had never permission to purchase land except for the purpose of immediate resale. There is no power or authority under their Act to purchase land and let it out to tenants, such as is contemplated here, and, in addition to that, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes for confirmation, let him look at the Small Land-holders Bill, and he will see a clause inserted giving the power to the Congested Districts Board to let out for tenancy purchased land. If the Congested Districts Board had the power to purchase land and let it, it would be unnecessary to insert such a clause in that Act, which we discussed at such length.
    The troubles at Vatersay are not yet at an end. These crofters, some of them raiders, have an undoubted claim to consideration, political or otherwise, at the hands of His Majesty's Government; but how are they to be considered and how are the others to be satisfied. What did the right hon. Gentleman do? He went into a gambling transaction of the grossest character—he had a raffle with these crofters. Heavens! I wonder what the Nonconformists on his side would think! Crofts were to be distributed to every man by chance or lot drawn by the Secretary for Scotland. And what happened? Some of the crofters have not been benefited by the raffle, and they refuse to leave, and they write a letter to the Secretary for Scotland refusing to go. Here is a letter of 19th June, 1909:—
    "We beg to say that we will retain possession of the holdings which rightfully belong to us, and we beg your Lordship kindly to direct the Congested Districts Board to immediately withdraw their policy of fixing tenants on Vatersay, otherwise we will be obliged to lay violent hands on the intruders. It is self-defence, and we cannot be so cowardly as to let our children starve, without doing our best to stand up for our rights.
    "Should your Lordship fail to restrain the despotic ruling of the Board we shall be compelled to call into question your Lordship's right to interfere between Lady Gordon Cathcart and us. The Vatersay question is not yet settled, my Lord."
    Here is Lady Gordon Cathcart who was held up to execration by the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman in office as a
    1432
    land-owner who was unfortunate in her relations with her tenants, and these raiders say they shall question his lordship's right to interfere between Lady Gordon Cathcart and themselves, and they regard her as their friend, who has every right to be considered.
    I think I have drawn to the Committee a quite fair and unbiassed picture of the unfortunate condition in which the Western Highlands exist owing to the condition of the land and the neglect of the Government. They have been guilty of extreme harshness towards one class of the community, and of want of forethought and extraordinary vacillation, and a policy of plunder which in the words of their own friends, the raiders, will prevent the question of Vatersay from being settled for many years to come.
    Mr. CATHCART WASON: The right hon. Gentleman has given us a most distressing account of the affairs of the Lewis. He has not been quite fair to the predecessors of the present Government in certain respects, especially with regard to the purchase of land for these persons. Prior to the present Government coming into office large estates were purchased and let out to the crofters on the very best terms. They were not sold as suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. COCHRANE: They were purchased with the object of being sold, and they sold them as far as they could go. The rest of the properties were held, I believe, illegally.
    Mr. CATHCART WASON: As far as I recollect there was only one case of purchase by the Congested Districts Board in Sutherland shire, which was sold, and the other and much larger estate was not even attempted to be sold, but was simply divided up among the crofters. It was a most unfair thing of the right hon. Gentleman to lay the whole blame for the present transactions, and the congestion of the Lewis on the present Government. This is no new thing. It has been in existence now for far longer than many of us like to think, and it is only since public light and opinion has been thrown upon the condition of the people in these islands that we are brought face to face with the difficulties of dealing with them. The Crofters Act was passed very largely at the instigation of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and very greatly to their credit, to deal with the most terrible condition of affairs which existed in the Western

    1433
    Highlands and other parts of Scotland at that time. Those who know the districts have always given to the party opposite every credit possible for the passing of the Act. Speech after speech has been made by right hon. Gentlemen and their friends praising the effect of the Crofters Act, and now we have districts, which were formerly more or less depopulated, in which the people are well-housed, and spend their money in building and improving their homes, and generally the Act has been one of great benefit to the people. But the position in the Lewis is one which it is almost impossible for us with the information at our disposal and without legislation to deal with properly. The right hon. Gentleman blames the Government for having adopted a certain course with regard to the squatters on Vatersay, and for having gone in for a large gambling transaction. Surely that is a very unfair remark. What would be a better way of distributing this land among the large number of men who want it? In New Zealand, where we have advanced land legislation, exactly the same procedure is adopted where there are more applicants for certain parts of land than for others. It is taken by lot, and no one has ever called that a gambling transaction.
    The right hon. Gentleman has not given the Government credit for what they have done. No doubt in the Lewis rates are very high and also in some districts in Shetland and the Orkneys, but a great deal of good has been done in the last few years. On the other hand, an enormous sum has come into the island in the way of old age pensions, and I do not believe at this moment the islanders are in anything like so bad a state as they were before the passing of the Act. In the district which I represent it has made all the difference in the world. The Crofters are poor, and the circumstances under which they live are squalid and miserable, but that is nothing like the misery and poverty and degradation that there is within a stone's throw of the House of Commons. Almost every night going home within a stone's throw of this Chamber one comes upon long strings of men waiting to get a little temporary shelter from charitable institutions. But London Members do not come and make complaints to the Government of neglecting these people and doing nothing for them, and acting in a manner subversive of all society and all Christianity. They do what they can, and I have no doubt
    1434
    that the present Government are doing their be3t. We never made any attack on the late Government, except that they did not try to pass necessary legislation, and we have been equally condemnatory of the present Government for not having passed legislation. Both parties are alike to blame, possibly because both saw the difficulties of the situation. It is an exceedingly difficult question, and the landlord may be everything that he has been described as being, but here is the case of a poor island, only numbering some 46 families, and a small pier is almost the necessity of their life. They have been agitating for it for longer years back than I care to think. After the greatest difficulty, they got Lord Dunedin, the then Scotch Secretary, to take an interest in the matter, and he sent the Assistant-Secretary to report upon it. Ho saw how the people lived, and saw the difficulties they had in getting their little produce from the island, and the necessities of life into it, and he reported in a very favourable sense to the Congested Districts Board. The islanders raised subscriptions and obtained the necessary quota that the Congested Districts Boad required to enable them to construct the pier, and the county council, to their great honour, agreed to undertake the work. Everything was settled, but at the very last moment, when the works were ready to be gone on with, the landlord refused to grant a site. Could any act be more despicable?
    I think in the interests of my Constituents I am fully justified in bringing before the Secretary for Scotland the position of the Order for restoring and developing the oyster fishery at Finstown. Orkney. The Secretary for Scotland is fully aware that the Scotch Fishery Board have for years past used every endeavour to get the local authorities to take the matter in hand, and without success. The first proposal I made to the Scotch Fishery Board was that the control of the fishery should be granted to an association to develop and work solely for the public good. That proposal was not received with favour, and I then obtained the best expert advice procurable on the prospects of the fishery, which fully bore out the opinion I had formed myself, and I then suggested to a few gentlemen of position in the county that they should apply for an Order, and, if successful, that a public company should be formed. I was always willing to support the proposal financially as far as I could afford,

    1435
    and did not desire anything further; but it was urged on me that in the public interests, and having no personal interests in the matter, I should remain in the association until a public company would be formed, and the strongest pledges were given that the members of the association, in the formation of a company, would not stand in any better position than any of the public of Orkney who wished to participate in a scheme which was only promoted for the good of the community. Opposition was roused by one person, who apparently thought he had some special claim to undertake the work, and made proposals to the Fishery Board, I understand, offering to be responsible for a large sum of money should his proposal be accepted. The Fishery Board having held an exhaustive inquiry, decided that the association of which I was a member should be granted a lease of the Fishery, and a Provisional Order was introduced by the Secretary for Scotland to give effect to the recommendation of the Scottish Fishery Board. Immediately the wildest statements were set on foot, and every effort made to prejudice the mind of the Secretary for Scotland against proceeding with the Order. It was alleged that 3,000 fishermen would be deprived of their living if the Order was passed, and there was not a shadow of foundation for the statement. It was alleged that the town council of Kirkwall had petitioned against the Order, and I never was more surprised than when the Secretary for Scotland told me they had done so. Petitions, I understand, have since been sent to the Secretary for Scotland, urging that the Order should be passed. The Secretary for Scotland must know that in such a constituency as I have the honour to represent, the land and sea are practically all we have to look to, and I am sure the House will agree that I am fully justified in asking him to send a special Commissioner to report to him on the whole matter, and whether it is or is not advisable that in some form or other the Fishery should be placed under control, protected and restricted. I believe if this were done not only would it gain by securing an oyster free from all possibility of disease, but that during the next few years employment would be afforded in a district where there is now practically none.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: I am not going to fellow the hon. Member (Mr. Cathcart Wason) into the interesting discussion of
    1436
    the Oyster Fishery question. I hope success will attend the efforts which are being made in that matter by himself and others for the benefit of the world at large. I cannot congratulate the Government upon the ardency and enthusiasm of the defence the hon. Member offered when dealing with the charge brought against them by my hon. Friend (Mr. Cochrane). It appeared to me that the basis on which he rested his defence was rather contradictory, for at one moment he spoke as if he recognised the burden of the heavy rates which fall on the small crofters, though not to any extent at all on proprietors, but when I listened a little longer I found him telling us that the state of things in the Lews was not so bad after all, that we could find far greater distress close at hand, and that if we considered everything the people of the Lews were really as well as they possibly could be in the best of all possible worlds.
    Mr. CATHCART WASON: I did not say so.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: I am only giving what appeared to me to be the effect of the words used by the hon. Member. His argument was that there was some excuse for the Government doing nothing in view of the circumstances of the people. I think there is a great deal requiring to be done for these Highlanders, and I only wish that the attention of a larger number of the constituents whom we represent was directed to the problem that is now being worked out in the Lews, and to the consequences that are certain to follow the present methods of dealing with that problem—consequences which will extend far beyond the borders of the Lews. I think we are justified in drawing certain inferences from the action of the Government and some of their extreme followers. In a tone of apology, the hon. Member said that the present Government were really not so bad after all, for if they have not done very much they were only following the example of their predecessors, who had not done much. He suggested that the Unionist Government were no better than those whom we have been abusing for their inertia all these years. I deny that that is true. The previous Government did a great deal for the Lews. I know that from personal knowledge, for I was an agent in the transactions from 1884 onwards. Immense help was given to the rates in the Lews by money which was absolutely handed out from the Treasury where absolute necessity for

    1437
    assistance was proved. I should like the Committee to remember the theory on which the late Lord Goschen proceeded when he made the grant. He said to me: "I am not going to lay down rules which can be made the foundation of serious encroachments on the Treasury. It is your business to find out where the shoe pinches in regard to the Education Grant, what are the difficulties, and how much is wanted in each case, and then you can come to me and ask money, and we will see whether it can be granted." Every case was separately examined, and Lord Goschen himself took a most unusual personal interest in the investigation of all these cases and in the application of the remedies fitted to meet them. In 1886 or 1887 the school boards actually placed their resignations in our hands and gave notice to the school masters that they must close the schools. Out of that situation we had to find our way, and we did find a way out in 1887 and 1888. It has been said by the hon. Member that there has been no amendment of the Crofters Act. I was surprised to hear that from the hon. Member, for I remember, in the Committee upstairs on the Land Tenure Bill, there was no one more urgent in pressing on the present Secretary for Scotland the necessity for dealing with the peculiar problem of the Highland and Islands. We gladly supported and followed him in urging the Secretary for Scotland to deal with that special problem separately, and not to tack it on to the far larger problem of the whole agricultural legislation for the Lowlands of Scotland. No one took a more prominent part in urging that course, the adoption of which was prevented only by the impenetrable obstinacy of the Secretary for Scotland. We have been told that certain things have been done to improve the position of the people. It has been said that we are now paying them old age pensions. We are not dealing with old age pensions now. Is the fact that old age pension are being given any reason why lawlessness should be encouraged on the part of those who are receiving pensions, or who expect to receive them? Is it any answer to a landlord who finds himself forced to pay a large amount in rates to say, "Oh, really, things are not so bad. The tenants have been given old age pensions." Really that is to reduce Parliamentary argument to an absurdity.
    I come to the question on which we arraign the Secretary for Scotland. We
    1438
    assert without fear of contradiction that his action will lead, and, indeed, it has already led, to serious consequences elsse-where. These consequences will spread still wider before we see the end of them unless he reconsiders his action. First of all, Vatersay was seized absolutely lawlessly by a certain number of people.
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: The landlady has not been there for 30 years.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: The Secretary for Scotland admitted that the land had been illegally seized, but he refused any help. He told Lady Gordon Cathcart and her advisers that it was their business to protect their farms. The situation became worse and worse. It should be remembered that it was not Lady Cathcart alone who was injured. The tenant who had stocked the land was also injured through his ground being occupied by those illegal invaders. Neither he nor Lady Cathcart got any assistance whatever. The hon. Member for South Donegal (Mr. Swift MacNeill) has stated that Lady Gordon Cathcart had not been in the island for 30 years. It is not 30 years since I paid my first visit to the island, and I know she was there then. I know she has been looked upon as an ideal landlady in many respects. Those who have come in contact with her esteem her as a kind and considerate landlady. Lady Gordon Cathcart proceeded with other proposals. The only suggestion made by the Secretary for Scotland to her was "break up your farmers' holding and allot it in small holdings among these crofters who have seized it, and that will perhaps appease them. It will be satisfactory to those who broke the law, and on these terms perhaps peace will come." Peace did not come on these terms. Lady Cathcart refused to take the responsibility of planting 60 small holders, with their families, on an island that was incapable of supporting them in healthy, human conditions. The suggestion was made. "Purchase the island if you like," and the answer was, "We cannot purchase; it is impossible for the Congested Districts Board to purchase the island and hire it out to the tenants." That was the firm conviction of the Secretary for Scotland, presumably based on the advice of his legal advisers. Yet immediately this is done, the Secretary for Scotland makes a complete volte face. He purchases the island, and in spite of the warning addressed to him, at a price—£6,700.
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Thirty and a-half years' purchase.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: At a price which cannot possibly be returned in any rent which these crofters can fairly pay. I would be glad of old age pensions or any other help you think necessary to these people if they are in a state of poverty, but I do think, and a great many people will agree with me, that the worst economic way possible to help these people is to give into their hands something that has been purchased at this large expenditure of public money for which no return of any considerable amount at all can ever be expected, to set them up in what are uneconomic holdings, that even, if they paid no rent for it at all, can never return a decent livelihood for themselves and their families, and to expend upon them in this way far more than you expended upon any of your paupers under old age pensions elsewhere And behind all this to hold out the bait to them, "Break the law, and you will perhaps get something more." That is the real danger of the action of the Secretary for Scotland. Hitherto, surely all parties in the State or Government have been at one in this, that the law first must be made to be respected and obeyed, and only after that is done shall we try to help you in the best way we can. That is the principle and the vital maxim of all Government, which has now been deserted by the Secretary for Scotland and his advisers, who have wobbled in a bewildering maze of varying action, in which no consistent principle whatever can be found except this: "We must be tender to the law-breaker; we must endeavour to carry the full extent of public opinion with us in punishment"— public opinion in the Island of Vatersay! Is it the public opinion of this estate of law-breakers who constitute the inhabitants who are to support their own punishment? If you wait until you find public opinion among the community of those who have broken the law in favour of themselves being punished, you will wait a long time until you put the law into operation at all. It is on this ground of condoning a breach of the law, of want of true principle and consistent action, that I blame and arraign the Secretary for Scotland; and we believe that this is an indication of a spirit which would spread much wider than the isolated and distant island in which it has appeared. There is one thing more for which I blame the Secretary for Scotland. I blame him for
    1440
    setting these people on that island without an adequate provision for their healthy life. We have been told by thoroughly competent professional advisers that the water supply cannot be obtained in that island without being brought two miles across the sea from another island at enormous expense, and that to rely upon any other source of supply would be extremely dangerous and probably lead to an epidemic. The Noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland has had a Report which we have not seen. We know he has not acted on the advice of those legal advisers whose reports have been published, and whose warnings are known. We want to know whether that Report which he has contradicts those professional reports which we have before us, which is—that the supply is inadequate and cannot be made adequate without being brought from the large island? What inference can we draw from his refusal to produce the Report except this: that the Report, to a certain extent, supports, or at least does not contradict, the reports of the experts which we have already got? If it does contradict it, we have a right to know that and to see it; if it does not contradict it, then the Secretary for Scotland and his advisers are taking very serious responsibility upon themselves in encouraging the planting of these 60 families upon a spot where adequate provision cannot be made for the healthy wants of life. And if an epidemic ensues and lives are lost the responsibility resting upon the Secretary for Scotland and his advisers will be heavier than I dare to contemplate. For these reasons I join thoroughly in the indictment made by my hon. Friend below me (Mr. Cochrane), and I trust that we may have some more stirring and thorough vindication of the Government than we have had from the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Cathcart Wason).
    Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: I think I am justified in directing the attention of this House to the condition of this island of Barra and Vatersay, and in doing so I will refer to those things which I have seen myself. The history of these islands looks extremely like the history of the West of Ireland in some of its most disastrous periods. This island of Vatersay and Barra, which you call the Barra estate was for many generations until 1838 under a really paternal government. They kept up the old Highland government in Barra until 1838, when the last laird of Barra sold it to a gentleman named Gordon. Imme-

    1441
    diately the old kindly feudal relationship between the chief of the island and his people ceased, and it became a matter of very strong contract, and then there resulted a state of things which reminds one of the worst period of the great Irish disturbances in 1848. I was brought myself when I was there to a place where we were told that bulldogs had actually tracked the people in order to put them on the emigrant ships when Colonel Gordon was clearing the island in 1858. The population of that island was reduced to something like half what it had been. The island of Vatersay, where now the illegal people are, was at that time actually cleared. It was altogether swept of inhabitants by the Crowbar Brigade. Some of these who were not deported to American emigrant ships took refuge on the extreme end of the West of Barra, where they remained not as crofters, but as squatters, and I was informed it was the descendants of these very people whose grandfathers were expelled from Vatersay who, having no land, had been obliged to subsist on the precarious harvest of the sea. They then, driven to desperation by the failure of the fishing crop and by the disease and destruction to which they were subject, did go on to Vatersay and break the law by taking back the old homes of their fathers. The circumstances of that are very interesting, because it shows exactly the condition of affairs in Scotland. "Mackenzie's Clearances" is a book that ought to be read by everyone, and especially by every Scotsman The stories of the atrocities therein related baffle description and could not be believed even by Irishmen if the writer did not give chapter and authority for them all.
    But these people in Barra live in what is undoubtedly a congested place. It is congested in the same way as the West of Ireland. There are too many people in it to support the population, and the holdings, even the crofters' holdings, are uneconomic. But side by side with them, until the raid took place in Vatersay, it was all in possession of a single tenant. Side by side with them and in Barra you saw large tracts of land in the possession of one person. These poor people, after 25 years, agitated and agitated to get economic holdings and to get some small patch of land where they could subsist in decent comfort with their earnings from the sea. It is interesting perhaps to me as an Irishman, and it is an incident in his life which has not yet been recorded, that it was Michael Davitt who, in 1882, at a
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    great meeting at Inverness, drew attention to the question of the crofters, and it is to that great and good man, under the blessing of God, that these poor men owe the first Crofters Act, which laid the foundation at all events of future movements. Although I am a Protestant myself, perhaps it lends additional interest to what I say as an Irishman to state that these people are mainly Catholics. They speak the Gaelic language and there is in this far-away district in Scotland, 90 miles from the mainland, a purely paternal government, so far as the priest is concerned There is no drunkenness; there is only one public-house; there is only one policeman, except in the fishing season, when the police force is augmented by two. There are only three policemen in this large island and likewise on the estate, because the estate of Barra consists of Barra itself and five or six other small islands. The moment the District Council Bill came in, or rather, before that when there was the Deer Forest Commission, the Deer Forest Commissioners went to this island of Vatersay and said it would be a perfect island for small economic holdings. Lady Cathcart refused to give it. She absolutely refused, until next there came the establishment of the county council and the urban councils.
    The urban council petitioned the county council that there should be a re-distribution of holdings in the island, and the county council sent a deputation to the Commissioners, who investigated the whole of the circumstances, and said the island, so far as they could see, was very suitable for the distribution of small holdings. Nothing was done for ten years, and these people took possession of the land. They may not have been justified in doing that, but they were morally justified at the bar of public opinion and in the judgment of every just court in seeking to save themselves and their children from destruction. Let us consider the rights of the landlord in this case as compared with the rights of the people. The last heir to Barra sold the whole estate for £24,000 in 1838. General Gordon bought it, and he then literally devastated the country, burning the people's homes. What occurred? He had a son, who married Lady Gordon Cathcart. He died, and Lady Gordon Cathcart came into possession of the property, and for 30 years that lady has never been there; her whole occupation has been that of taking rent. Hon. Members talk about the difficulties of obtaining water in Vatersay. The difficulty

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    has been experienced in reference to Barra. Out of 10 tenants no fewer than seven had typhoid fever in the miserable dens of houses which they occupied, and of these seven, five died. There is one water supply paid for by Lady Cathcart, and every cottar has to pay 10s., and in some cases 15s., per year for the water. Under these circumstances we say that, right or wrong in point of law, these people had the duty to themselves and to their children to endeavour to preserve their lives, and when they saw this land, which once belonged to their forefathers, simply given to others, they said they would take it and leave the consequences to God. Their doing so made a profound impression. They acted against the law, and they went to prison. Their cause was taken up by others, and undoubtedly an effort was then made to purchase the land. One of the most ungenerous attacks made on the Government is that with reference to the extreme cost of the purchase to the public. The cost is very great, but it is very interesting to learn that for 600 acres of this land in Vatersay Lady Cathcart got 100 years' purchase. The island has been obtained at 30½ years' purchase; and now the complaint is that the inhabitants have not water. How much Lady Cathcart cares about the accommodation or comfort, or even the health of these people, in Barra. This is altogether a pretence. These people had justice and right on their side in seizing the land. It is an absurd pretence to think of any equity in reference to landlords who never spent one farthing there, who are there through accidental circumstances, and who, having got. a large sum of public money, say, "Oh, the poor tenants!" The thing is a pretence. Having gone so far with the Government, here I draw the line. The Solicitor-General for Scotland, so far back as the 25th June last year, made a speech with every word of which I agree. I will only quote a few words of it. He said—
    "In 1857 these men were evicted and sent from Barra. These men still consider they were morally right to go back to what they thought was their home. Hon. Members opposite will admit there is a law of dual ownership in these parts."
    I think that is the pith of his speech, and I am sure that he will not in the slightest degree depart from it. These families having settled there, the question was about the redistribution of the land. They made a very strong representation to the Congested Districts Board. They said that the men who had squatted
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    on the land and who had borne the burden and heat of the day were in many cases not to be confirmed in their holdings, while, on the contrary, the Commissioners had given those holdings to young men in an equitable way, and, as regarded the best and most cultivated part of the land, they had given undue preference to well-to-do people who would be certain to pay the rent. We have paid an enormous sum for the island to the absentee landlord, Lady Cathcart, and therefore an endeavour is being made to try to recoup the public out of revenue. That should not be done. This purchase was made in order to increase the number of economic holdings. The aim of the Congested Districts Board in Scotland is not that of a mercantile transaction. The policy is aimed at rooting the people in the soil. The very persons who seized the land and went to prison are now to be ousted from these holdings altogether, and the whole of those holdings are to be redistributed among other people—a course which arouses friction and jealousy. I have a statement which was sent to me only a few days ago, and, as it bears upon the present discussion, I may be allowed to read it. It is dated Vatersay, Barra, 24th June:—
    "We beg to draw your attention to the state to which the Congested Districts Board have reduced Vatersay, by their attempt to dispossess several of us who have been in possession of holdings for over two years, and introducing single men and others from the mainland, who are not a whit more suitable as tenants, to take their places.
    "As far as can be seen the Board have no other reason for pursuing this course than a hostile spirit towards the poor souls whose extreme poverty compelled them to settle here at first.
    "It may be noted that the Board showed the same vindictiveness towards the most notable agitators everywhere in the Highlands where they acquired and and made a special display of this spirit in Barra in 1901, but nowhere was this policy so shockingly revealed as in the case of Vatersay, where evictions from their holdings are to be the preliminary blessings of the very people for whose benefit the public believe the island was acquired. Any fair-minded person can easily imagine the despair to which these poor souls are driven by the Board's policy, after building houses, cultivating, fencing, and otherwise improving the land.
    "We have sent a petition to Lord Pentland, signed by all the accepted squatters, praying the Government to send a competent, impartial tribunal to Vatersay to compare the qualifications of those rejected against the qualifications of those imported from the mainland by the Board. Also to go over the ground, with the members of the Board and a committee selected from the people, to submit to the judge or judges the plan of holdings desired by the Board and that desired by the people.
    "If this were done there would be no trouble whatever, for the men will certainly accept the decision of the judge as final.
    "We would suggest Sheriff Wilson, whose uprightness we have seen before, or the Solicitor-General, to whom we owe everlasting indebtedness."
    I hope I have effectively put the case of these poor people who sought to get back

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    to the land of their forefathers, and to save their children and themselves from destruction; and in bringing forward their case and intervening in a Scotch Debate I have been actuated not merely by a sense of justice, but one of sentiment in regard to a people with whom in past generations my forbears were intimately associated.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I understood the hon. Member to assert that Lady Cathcart had never spent anything for the good of her people in the island, particularly in Barra. I do not know whether the hon. Member is aware of all the facts. I think if he was he would never have made a statement of that kind. It is a thousand pities that statements of such a nature should be made in this House, because they go throughout the country and create feelings of bitterness and discontent, and breed bad blood between landlord and tenant and between rich and poor. The pity is all the greater when such statements are contrary to the actual facts, and I think it was not only a great pity but very wrong to make such statements. Having said that, I leave the hon. Gentleman alone. The Member for Orkney and Shetland said that the Secretary of State for Scotland was made to look after Scotch interests, and that we have a right to see that he does so. There are various Members here who, I am sure, have a bone to pick with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am one of them. The right hon. Gentleman is an old comrade of mine, and I hope we will always remain good friends. I do not think that the recent legislations and arrangements which have been gone into in Vatersay reflect much credit on the Scotch Office. There was a volte face in the middle of the arrangement. First nothing on earth would persuade the Government to buy the island, and then when it got into such a state that it was absolutely impossible to go either forward or backward they had to produce the money to buy it, and try to put things right. The result of the whole of these arrangements is that the state of Vatersay at this moment is, if possible, worse than it was before. We have been promised that the people of the Vatersay should have good water, good education, sanitation, and so on. What have they got now? They have got a population too large for the island. The raiders, who took the island, refused to leave it. The water supply was proved insufficient. That fact is known to the Government, and certainly Lady Gordon Cath-
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    cart's agents informed the Government that the water was insufficient and insanitary, and now the Government are in a dilemma that it will take them all their time to get out of. Whatever the result may be, I am afraid we will see a good deal of money badly spent, and a great deal of bad blood, discontent, and trouble arising simply because the Government was not bold enough to grasp the nettle two years ago, when they might have put things in far better order than they can do now.
    With regard to Lewis, I think it is very hard on the landlord that he has to face a rate of 25s. in the £. It has been hard enough in the past for Highland landlords to face their rates, but with the effects of the new Budget I do not know how any of them will do so. If the proprietor of Lewis is obliged to pay those rates, and if he is proceeded against with the utmost rigour of the law, I think that a great hardship will be dealt out to a man, who, through no fault of his own, is charged with a burden that he cannot carry. He has really done his best for the people in the island. Anyone who has been to Lewis will acknowledge, that although much remains to be done, the family who are at present proprietors of Lewis have done a great deal for the island. I believe if it were not for the fact that the grandfather of the present proprietor had done so much for the island and had got so many people to come there, workmen and artificers, whose families have increased that there never would have been the trouble there is now.
    I do not think it ought to lie with the private Member of this House to have to see justice done with regard to the fishermen of our coasts. When His Majesty's fleet is ordered to ride upon the waters of our firths and inlets the Fleet is welcome wherever it wants to go, and it is quite right that it should go wherever it is sent. I do think, though, that when the Fleet rides through fishermen's nets and destroys fishing, fires guns when the herring are there, and spoils the trade of our poor fishermen, that it lies with the Secretary for Scotland and his deputy to apply to the Admiralty and have such measures taken as would prevent the trouble complained of. It would not be a very difficult thing, and there is no doubt that if the Secretary for Scotland went to the Admiralty and saw the First Lord he could put the matter right a great deal better than I could, or than any of the private Members who work so hard to get

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    justice done. I am bound to say that the Admiralty have met us in a generous and fair spirit. They pay compensation for harm done, and I should be the last to be ungrateful for what they have done. I think, however, if the Secretary for Scotland would take up and champion some of these matters it would be of great advantage, and that it is his business to do so, more than it is that of the private Members to see justice done with regard to harbour and lights and all maritime matters such as affect the constituencies of those Members who have to do with the sea.
    I trust what has been said will be taken into consideration, and that the affairs of Scotland will not be neglected, as I fear they have been neglected heretofore. Here we have to-day, after three days of very strenuous work, with all the Members almost tired out, only about a dozen or so of Scottish Members on the Government side. We have only one day to discuss Scottish matters, and the English Members are too tired to come and hear what is being said. They know very little about Scotland, and they do not come to learn because they have to go away and sleep after all the hard work. I think more consideration might be paid to Scottish matters and Scottish Members, and I think we should all unite in seeing that that is done.
    Sir JOHN DEWAR: I do not think the present condition of Vatersay Island is satisfactory, and to some extent in this matter I have a complaint against the Government. I cannot see, however, that hon. Members on the opposite side can have the same complaint. My complaint is that they have bought this island, and the other side constantly said, If you want to deal with this island, why do you not buy it Now that they have done so I do not think that it lies in the mouths of the Opposition to complain of what the Government have done. The hon. Member opposite has given a clear and succinct description of the men on the island, who are the direct descendants of the crofters of 50 years ago. They were evicted legally, no doubt, but at the same time it was a monstrous injustice. Anything that was done then was a greater injustice than anything done by the descendants of those men, who were again seeking to get an opportunity of making a living for themselves. I believe those parts of Scotland need special treatment.
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    I am quite convinced that every acre of land in those districts should be in the hands of small holders. They used to be occupied by small holders, but the people were cleared off so that the landlord might have a sheep farm, and so improve his farm. He had the right to do so then, but nowadays he would not have the same right to do so. Many of the settlers were cleared off the holdings, driven to the coast, and turned into cottars. These men now are thus the descendants of crofters who were deliberately made cottars. Kelp making was their only industry, and is soon as that failed they became miserably poor. Their condition from the point of view of sanitation and from the economic point of view was deplorable. They nave been struggling for twenty or thirty years to get back to those holdings which their forefathers occupied. They have exhausted all constitutional means. They petitioned the landlords, the county and parish councils, and they even sent a land reformer to the House of Commons. It was only when Parliament deliberately neglected and refused to pass an Act of Parliament, which would rectify this injustice, that they took the law into their own hands. I am sorry that they did so. The present condition of those islands is an extremely critical one, and I would earnestly ask the Government to give special attention to this case, and to deal specially with these islands. The hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Swift MacNeill) mentioned that the Government having bought those islands, there is accommodation for a certain number of settlers, but that there are more settlers than there are holdings for. The Government sent the Congested Districts Board to regulate the settlement. Rightly or wrongly, the Congested Districts Board has lost the confidence of the people, not only there but in other places. It would be more desirable that the people should have confidence in those with whom they have to deal. The people of the islands petitioned that someone should be sent to consider their case. I do not suggest that the Solicitor-General or anybody in particular should be sent, but I do say that a little consideration ought to be given to these people's complaints.
    The reason of the complaint is rather remarkable. It arises from this. There were a certain number of raiders who suffered for their indiscretion in taking possession of the land, and they were imprisoned in Calton Gaol. Some of those men who suffered have not got holdings.

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    To the ordinary outsider it does seem hard lines that the men who drew attention to the grievances under which these people suffered should not have got some consideration. I am bound to say, as an impartial observer, I think it is a matter which the Government ought to consider, and whether they would not ask the Congested Districts Board to give the reasons which compelled them to take the action they did. It may be possible that these men were not suitable tenants. I do not know, but I think it would be only reasonable that they should be satisfied of the reasons which actuated the Congested Districts Board in selecting other tenants. The applications of those raiders who have been refused holdings is supported by every one of those who suffered with them in Galton Gaol. I would plead that this case should be considered favourably by the Government again.
    Something was said about the present proprietor. I join with the hon. and gallant Member (Major Anstruther-Gray) in stating that it is an entire misapprehension to say that Lady Gordon Cathcart has not been a most kind, considerate, and a benevolent proprietress, who has done a great deal. That does not excuse or justify the management of the estate. The grievance is really this: That while a great deal has been done by the estate to make a fishing centre, they at the same time refused to give land for fishermen's huts in the neighbourhood. The estate gave some 40 grazing lands on the hills, but they refused to give sites for houses. The people under those circumstances were compelled to live under conditions which incurred the censure of the Scottish authorities. It was on that occasion that the county council, having been pressed to take those holdings compulsorily, sent a deputation to inquire into the condition of affairs. That deputation reported unanimously that land should be taken for those fishermen's allotments. We heard the condemnation of Vatersay as a site for crofters, but that deputation recommended it, and it was recommended by a Commission subsequently. I think before we condemn these crofters we should keep these facts in view. It is a remarkable thing that there seems to be no difficulty in getting holdings by agreement in other parts of these islands, while in Vatersay there is the greatest difficulty in the world. Now that the Government have bought the island, they should be helped to make as good a job of it as possible. We should help the Government to make as
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    good a job of this as possible, and I believe a satisfactory solution will be found. The Government may possibly drop a great deal of money on the transaction, but it will provide 50 or 60 happy homes, where contented and prosperous families will be raised for the good of the State.
    I have already said that the Congested Districts Board have lost the confidence of the people. My complaint against the Government is that they ought to have dealt with this matter long ago. It is true they had a proposal which was not carried into effect through the action of another place. I have often described the operations of the Board as ludicrous. They very seldom have a meeting, but send round Minutes to each other for approval. I think a very much better Board would be a small body, paid a sufficient salary, to go about and take an active interest in the business. I think that is more necessary now than ever. The Congested Districts Board ought to be reformed upon the lines I have suggested; it would then be of enormous benefit to Scotland. I had a case the other day of an estate in North Harris, where certain crofters applied for a grant for fencing materials, which would have been an enormous advantage to the settlement. The crofters understood that the grant was to be made on condition that they themselves erected the fences. I was astounded to hear that the Congested Districts Board had refused the grant because the rents of the crofters were so small that the demand for fencing materials amounted to five years' rent. That I consider was all the more reason why the grant should have been made, as it would be absurd to expect tenants to pay the equivalent of five years' rent to fence their farms. But that is merely a small incident, showing how very ineffective the Congested Districts Board is for carrying out the work with which it has been entrusted. I strongly urge the Government to undertake the reform of this Board on such lines that it will not be an unpaid body or have a secretary who can devote only a small part of his time to the work. It ought to be composed of men who know the district, are accustomed to the work, and are in sympathy with the aspirations of the people.
    Mr. SCOTT-DICKSON: I agree entirely with the remark of the hon. Member or Inverness (Sir John Dewar) that not much good is to be gained by going back into

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    the history of the island we are now considering. What we are more concerned with is the present state of things, and what can be done in the immediate future to remedy it. It is not for me to enter upon any defence of Lady Gordon Cathcart; but, in view of some of the things which have been said to-day, it is very curious to note that in the course of last year, when the Government had taken up the position that they did not believe in the policy of purchasing Vatersay, one of the main reasons they gave was that if the Government were to purchase they would relieve Lady Gordon Cathcart of all interest in and responsibility for the island, and the welfare of the persons who have come from the Barra Estate thereto. That does not seem in the least consistent with the view that Lady Gordon Cathcart was other than a landlord who desired to do her best for those on her land, and whose desire to do that was thoroughly well recognised by the Government of the day—the same Government as is now in office. But that is not the matter before the Committee at present. I do not desire to be as hard on the Congested Districts Board as the hon. Member for Inverness has been. He spoke of it more than once as having lost the confidence of the people, as conducting its business in a ludicrous fashion, and as being guilty of inequity. All that may be quite true, but so far as I am concerned I think there has been a want of consistency in the policy, I do not say of the Congested Districts Board, but of the Secretary for Scotland. Even in the discussion to-day we have had references made to the fact that, as regards Vatersay, first of all, they would not buy and then they would buy. I think the hon. Member for Inverness has hardly done justice to those of us on this side of the House. We have not complained of the Government for having bousrht; what we have complained about the Government is for not knowing their own mind. I could understand their course if by negotiation they had reduced the price; but the price went up.
    The first point I make is that we want some consistency in the policy followed in the administration of this island. So far as the papers I have seen go, I do not think the Congested Districts Board are to blame, but the Minister, the Vote for whose salary we are now considering. As another instance of the vacillation which has been shown in the administration of these parts, I may remind the Committee that down
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    to this year it was understood, and consistently acted upon, that the Congested Districts Board had no power to purchase and hold land, but that they must purchase and give the land out. But now, I do not know for what reason—I trust the Lord Advocate will explain—that view has been given up, although so recently as last year several crofters expressed their desire to the Board to become tenants instead of purchasers, and the only reply they could get was that it was not competent for the Board, under the powers of the Act, to adopt such a course. Now we find, without any reason given, except that a change of view has taken place, that that policy has been adopted. That shows a want of consistency, which has a very serious effect so far as the proper management of this island is concerned. I do not find that the present administration of the Congested Districts Board is regarded as being any better by those immediately concerned than that of Lady Gordon Cathcart. I hesitate to make myself responsible for it, but reference has been made to a petition printed in the newspapers from certain of the "raiders" who took possession of Vatersay, and the language there used with regard to the Congested Districts Board is much more homely, and a great deal more severe than the language used by the hon. Member for Inverness. Lady Gordon Cathcart was never condemned more strongly than the Congested Districts Board is by these people. I do not understand the ground of their complaint altogether, because, as I understood an answer given by the Lord Advocate, there had been a principle adopted for selecting those who were to get possession of the crofts in Vatersay, and the Board were considering the merits of the different cases. But these men say—I do not know whether it is true or not—in documents which have appeared in the public papers, with their names appended, that there was no such principle adopted, but that the matter was decided by ballot.
    Sir JOHN DEWAR: I think the crofters were selected, and then they balloted for the allocation of the crofts.
    Mr. SCOTT-DICKSON: The procedure adopted seems to be not only illegal, but, if I may borrow a term used by the hon. Member for Inverness, a "ludicrous" way of administering an estate which really requires careful consideration. I can quite understand, if that is the mode in which this estate is administered under its new proprietors, that those who have not been

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    successful in getting crofts consider themselves grievously ill-treated, and that they do not get their cases considered on their merits. To submit such questions to the fortune of the ballot does not appear to me to be a wise method of administering an estate, or one calculated to inspire confidence in any of the people concerned— either in the general taxpayer who has to find the money or in those who are resident on the estates.
    As to the question of the sanitary condition of Vatersay, there is a great deal to be said for the view that the island at present has more familites upon it than it can under any circumstances support. Personally, I do not know whether that is so or not, but there is a great deal to lend countenance to that view. The Government have been well warned all along that one of the necessities of this island was a good water supply. According to the report of the medical officer for Inverness, who is well entitled to give an opinion on such a matter, it is not possible upon the island to get a sufficiency of water for those who are there. The Government, as I understand, propose that this important question of water supply shall be dealt with by taking advantage of the natural springs on the island. But those are the very sources of supply which the medical officer of health condemns as in-sanitary. If the place is to be properly administered, not only must the crofters or the people who are there get suitable holdings, but they must get what is necessary to enable them to have sanitary possession of them; and one of the first needs in that respect is a proper water supply. There has never been any satisfactory answer given on this point. The condition of things is stated by a responsible official of the county to be such that, without getting water from outside, you cannot get proper sanitary conditions. The Government say that they have a Report to the contrary, but we have never seen it, and at present, so far as public knowledge goes, the state of things in the matter of water supply is exceedingly unsatisfactory, and goes a long way to justify the view that there is no complete confidence in the Congested Districts Board. There is one other matter I should like to say a word about, that is the question of the enormous burden of the rates. I am not here as an advocate for the landlord, but anyone who looks at the figures must see that the burden of the rates upon these islands is out of question. The community cannot possibly stand it. I
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    am not making the matter a complaint against the present Government, because the same difficulty arose when the party in Opposition were in office. But the reason for the heavy burden is that the Government require the same amount of education, of public health, and of general administration from these outlying districts as from the bigger districts. They cannot bear it; they have not got the rental to make it possible. As has been pointed out, not only do you exact the same conditions, but in exacting the same conditions you are bearing far more harshly upon these poor, sparsely populated districts than upon larger centres. The result is that the burden of the rate is unquestionably such that the district cannot possibly stand it. It is all very well for the Government to say, "We will give some temporary assistance," but at the same time they insist upon the exact rates being received in full front the landlord, and I say it is not fair to the landlord not to the tenant. May I remind the Committee that this matter was dealt with in a Memorandum by Mr. Maxwell, a very capable official of the Local Government Board of Scotland. In that Memorandum which he prepared, and which was signed so lately as April, 1906—so that there has been plenty of time to consider it—he said:—
    "In all the Lews parishes, owing to an irregular method of levying the rates, the owners have paid more than their due share of the assessments, and the occupiers have paid a correspondingly smaller amount. Accordingly the owner's rate per £ in I905 should have been less and the occupier's rate per £ greater than that imposed. But on account of the smaller assessable rental of occupiers the addition to the occupier's rate per £ would have been considerably greater than the reduction in the owner's rate."
    These observations are equally applicable to the whole of the area we are considering. Mr. Maxwell proceeds:—
    "That for the purpose of equalising local burdens of a national or onerous nature, the scheme contained in the separate recommendations of Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Lord Blair Balfour to the Final Report for Scotland of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation is the best hitherto suggested for Scotland. A less effective measure, but one capable of being more immediately applied to the Lews parishes, is the relief of the burden of pauper lunacy and possibly also, of the capital outlay on the new poor-house."
    I am not referring to these Reports at all in order to make capital out of the matter, but for the purpose of showing that the question ought to have been taken up and dealt with in view of the Reports having been submitted in 1006. I feel that is a difficult question, but these Reports were pot on a Commission made by the late Government, though the Reports

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    themselves were not obtained until a change of Government took place. I do press as strongly as any Member who is more immediately concerned than I am that the time has come when the Government ought to take up this question of these excessive rates and deal with it. The amount of money involved would be very small, and it would mean an enormous difference to the comfort and happiness of the people. It is really more with that view than with a view of criticism that I have risen. I think the question is ripe for consideration, and I think it ought to be considered and dealt with. The sympathetic consideration—which I am certain the right hon. Gentleman will give the matter—and a very little expenditure of money would ameliorate the condition in this matter of these people.
    Mr. J. G. WEIR: I would like to express my thanks to the hon. Member for Inverness (Sir John Dewar), and also to the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Swift MacNeill) for their contributions to this Debate. I am also very thankful to the hon. Member for Ayrshire (Mr. Cochrane) for his references. He complained of the Government, and I have risen to complain of the Government too. I could only wish that more Scottish Members would take an interest in Highland questions. Now, Sir, the landlords have been battening on the poor crofter tenants for several generations. The crofters have been cleared off. The hon. Member inquired what is the cause of their poverty. It is because the landlords have cleared the people out for the purpose of enlarging the farms or creating deer forests. And the Government, I regret to say, have taken no steps at all against the creation of these deer forests or the clearing out of the people for the benefit of a few sportsmen. In the island of Lewis referred to there is one farm six square miles in extent. Many parts of that farm in days gone by were occupied by crofters, and I am not at all surprised that to-day the descendants of those crofters take up the position that they do in regard to the land; and I again say I regret it very much that the Government has taken no action. It is not that the attention of the Secretary for Scotland has not been called to the matter, for during his four years of office the matter has again and again been brought under his notice. The reply has been that the matter was "being considered" or "will be considered." He
    1456
    has been considering the question now for four years. We want to know the result of that consideration. I am intensely disappointed that he is not here to-day, and that he has escaped to another place—fled from this House! That sort of thing is not to be accepted from a Liberal Government. The last Government had the Secretary for Scotland always in the House of Lords, but it should be different with a Liberal Government. The Liberal Government ought to have its Chief officers in this House, especially the Secretary for Scotland. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a previous Secretary for Scotland, said that the Secretary for Scotland was responsible to Parliament directly or indirectly for the administration of the Congested Districts Board, the Local Government Board, the Fisheries Board, the Scottish Education Department, and other Scottish Boards.
    Mr. COCHRANE: Are you not quoting from Mr. Sinclair, and not Lord Balfour?
    Mr. WEIR: No; the date of the extract I am referring to is December, 1902. I repeat that I think that the Liberal Government should see that the Secretary for Scotland is in this House. I am only sorry the Prime Minister is not here, or I would have made the complaint to him. We have to take our information through the Lord Advocate. No doubt the Lord Advocate is anxious to do his best in every way, but he speaks as through a conduit pipe. However anxious the right hon. Gentleman may be to deal with Highland questions, he does not know the points. It is not very long since the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate were at variance, one holding one opinion that the matter in question should be referred to the Congested Districts Board, and the other the converse. I should like to know whether that difference of opinion as to holding land by the Congested Districts Board has been settled, and whether the Secretary for Scotland has accepted the view of the Lord Advocate or the Lord Advocate accepted the view of the Secretary for Scotland. Reference has been made by the hon. Member for Ayrshire to the Report of the medical officer for Inverness-shire. I cannot understand why the Government refrain from giving that Report to this House. I hope hon. Gentleman opposite, and also hon. Members on this side of the House, will insist upon that docu-

    1457
    ment being produced. It is becoming a practice to withhold Reports which ought to be put before the Members of this House, and so before the public. If everything is straightforward, and if the water in the island is good, let us have it. If it is bad, also let us have it. The taxpayer pays for the Report, and we are entitled to have it. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will inform the Secretary for Scotland that the document ought to be forthcoming and not held back. I join most heartily with other hon. Members for Scotland in the complaints which they have made. I consider that the Secretary for Scotland has grossly neglected the affairs of the Highlands, and especially the Western Highlands In this matter I take no side, and I know no party politics. What we want is to ameliorate the condition of the people; and I am very glad that hon. Members opposite are making themselves acquainted with the facts. I hope that in future the people will be considered as well as the landlords. The landlords for generations past have driven out the poor crofters, and have inflicted upon those of them that remained poverty, wretchedness and misery. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland speaks of Members, and of a particular Member, by whom he means, I suppose, myself, coming here and making complaints about the poverty in their constituencies. For my part, I say that that is simply my duty. If reform is needed, if better administration is called for, it is the duty of every Member of Parliament to bring these grievances before the House. I feel it to be my duty, and so long as I remain a Member of this House I shall continue to do so; and I only regret that the Member for the Orkney and Shetland Islands has so far forgotten that this is the first duty of a Member of Parliament.
    The hon. Member also referred to legislation. We cannot talk about legislation in a Debate like this, and I do not intend to deal with that subject. The hon. Member said legislation is wanted. We have been trying to get legislation for years past. I say now that it is better to secure proper administration by the Congested Districts Board. The administration by that Board is a disgrace to any country. An hon. Member stated that it is not a paid Board. Years ago I called attention to that fact. The Congested Districts Board should consist of paid members. You can only get efficient service in this, as in everything else, if you are ready to pay
    1458
    for it. There ought to be a secretary to the Board who would give the whole of his attention to the work. The work is growing, and the secretary to the Board, who is a clerk of the Exchequer Office in Edinburgh at a salary of £600 a year, has to divide his attention between the Congested Districts Board and the work of the Exchequer Office. I believe his allowances are £250 a year.
    Mr. CONOR O'KELLY: £150 a year.
    Mr. WEIR: I understand that he spends that sum out of his salary for the purpose of getting some assistance. I wonder does he get assistance, or is there some sweating system going on? I called attention to this matter years ago, and I call attention to it again to-day. I say it would be far better that we have a Secretary to do the work of the Board, and that work only, and not to hand the work over to be carried on by a clerk and part of it by an official. That is not a proper business system to adopt. I want to have the administration of the Board properly carried out. It is extremely unsatisfactory at the present time. A year ago Lord Pent-land said he was in communication with the Board in reference to matters of administration. There are 20,000 acres of farm land not under lease in the island of Lewis, and in November, 1908, the proprietor declined to break up farms into crofter holdings on the ground of increasing the rates. This matter was brought under the notice of the Secretary for Scotland, and time and again we nave got the same reply, "The matter is under consideration." Why are we not told the result? If these 20,000 acres had been made part of a land scheme there would have been no compensation to pay, as there were in Vatersay, where the farms were held under a lease, and where the Congested Districts Board had to pay compensation according. There would have been no compensation to pay in this instance, because the land is not held under a lease; and the condition of the landless people in the island of Lewis might have been vastly improved.
    On June 6th last year Lord Pentland said he would be glad to co-operate with the proprietor. I ask: has Lord Pentland submitted any practical scheme—such as obtaining land for new holdings? I can never get any accurate or definite information. The right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate is a great adept in giving replies, but they are always of a most

    1459
    unsatisfactory and evasive character. I can only suppose that they are replies written out for him, not by Lord Pentland, but by some office boy or junior who knows nothing about the matter. It is not fair to the House, or to the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate, that answers of an evasive character should be given to straightforward and honest questions. I ask, Has any practical scheme yet been brought forward? I know the problem is a difficult one. But what is the Secretary for Scotland paid for? It is part of his work, and if he is not capable of doing it let him clear out and let someone else do the work. I do not object to his £2,000 a year or £5,000 a year, but let us have the work done. Four years have passed since he took up office, and yet he has practically no scheme; he says he can do nothing.
    When I found that was the case I approached the Prime Minister. In October, 1904, he made a speech in Inverness, and he stated in that speech that the Highland people required special attention. Five years have gone by; the Prime Minister has slid out; he has forgotten his first love; he says he has full confidence in the Scottish Office. I am sorry for the Highlanders, and I am sorry for the candidates who have to come before Scottish constituencies. If Ministers have forgotten their promises, do they expect that the people are to stand idly by and forget all about these promises having been made? There are in the island of Lewis 1,500 landless cottars, and these, with their wives and children, make up something like 7,500 souls—25 per cent. of the population of the island. The Secretary for Scotland is the head and the chief of the Congested Districts Board. He appears to me to have confined his attention specially to one county—namely, Inverness-shire. In reply to a question of 27th April this year I was informed that a certain large sum had been spent upon the land scheme. How much was spent in Ross-shire? The amount spent there was £10,800, but £159,829 fell to Inverness-shire. That is not fair administration; it is most unfair administration, especially in view of the urgent demands for Ross-shire.
    What has the Congested Districts Board done for Ross-shire? While 41,963 acres of land were provided for the people of Inverness-shire, for new holdings, only 239 acres were provided for Ross-shire.
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    Both counties are about the same size. But the congestion and the difficulty is more serious in Ross than in the other, yet Ross only received 239 acres, while Inverness-shire got over 41,000 acres. The Secretary for Scotland, in a letter which he sent me on 27th May this year, said the great merit of the Crofters Act is that it has placed the Highlanders in a position which will encourage the people to help themselves. Hence, he said, the prosperity and well-being of the people depended primarily and mainly upon the exertions they put forward in developing the resources of the island and cultivating the land. What a mockery to tell the people of the island of Lewis to cultivate the land. They have no land. That is exactly what they want. The Congested Districts Board only provides 239 acres. The Secretary for Scotland tells the people to cultivate the land. He practically tells them to break the law, and to break up the farms and to dig up the land. It is the Secretary, and not these misguided people, who breaks the law by telling the people to cultivate land which they have not got. I urge the Lord Advocate to impress that upon the Secretary for Scotland. I was told yesterday that there was no application by the cottars for relief. Do you want to make paupers of them? I am most anxious that they should not be made paupers of. The Secretary for Scotland has been in office for the last four years, and, although we expected that when the Liberal Government came into power something would be done, nothing has been done up to now in Ross-shire. They practically pour all the money into one county. The state of things is even worse in the island of Lewis, and yet not a single acre has been provided there by the present Secretary for Scotland. No wonder there are complaints. Let us have the administration as perfect as possible, but it cannot be said that the administration of Lord Pentland is either fair or just when 50,000 acres are provided for one particular county, whilst in the adjoining county not a single acre is provided. There ought to be a fairer administration of the funds, and the poor districts in every county where there is congestion ought to be considered. Why are they not considered? It is not because they have been disloyal. I have done everything I can to induce them to observe the law and adopt constitutional means, and they have sent numerous memorials to the Scottish

    1461
    Office and to Members of the Government. No wonder, when they are ignored, these men get exasperated. Who are these men? They are not the riff-raff, but they are men who have been in the Army and Naval Reserve men, and I cannot, for the life of me, see why the Government are so blind as to shut their eyes to the advisability of keeping these men on the land. Where can you find a finer set of men than these Highlanders. I regret to say that in this matter, from the Prime Minister downwards, you shun them, and you can do nothing for them. The Secretary for Scotland says he cannot solve this problem. I know this is a troublesome question, but what are the Secretary for Scotland and his colleagues there for? Every year the position of these men is getting worse. The Government find time to discuss the Budget and all sorts of matters, and why cannot they see to this question as well? This is the one thing they should see to, and if the Secretary for Scotland is not capable of dealing with this problem then the Prime Minister had better find some one else who will do the work. Let the work be done, and if the Secretary for Scotland has not enough money let him ask the Prime Minister for more.
    Some years ago a scheme of migration from Lewis to the mainland was brought forward, and Lord Pentland promised that he would consider it. A correspondent wrote to me stating that he could furnish 120 names of cottars, fine sterling fellows who would make good citizens, and all they wanted was access to the land. Under this scheme they were prepared to go to any part of the island of Lewis, or on the mainland. I asked questions upon this matter, and I was continually put off by the Secretary for Scotland. After nearly four years delay I was told by the Secretary for Scotland that he did not think the scheme was workable. Is the right hon. Gentleman waiting for a general election to come along? I think it is very unfair to treat the Highlanders in that way. The Scottish office at first were favourable to this scheme of migration, but after the lapse of four years they suddenly abandoned the scheme. This is very discouraging and it is no wonder I am compelled to adopt the only means I can of calling the attention of the Government to this matter. On the 21st of last month, in reply to a question dealing with the problem in the island of Lewis, he said he could not expound a policy within the limits of a Parliamentary question and answer across
    1462
    the floor of the House. Can he expound that policy now? I hope the Solicitor-General for Scotland or his colleague will give me a reply to that question, because it is an urgent matter, and a very serious one for the people living in the island of Lewis. I want to stay the spread of disaffection which exists there and stop these men breaking the law, and I hope the Prime Minister, who has such confidence in the Scottish Office, will give this matter some attention. What has the Government done during the four years they have been in office? Why have the crofters not been put upon the land? In the case of one estate there is nearly £80,000 lying dead and unproductive. Is that good management? I think the men responsible ought to be bundled out of office neck and crop, and it is high time the Board was reconstituted. The petitions which have been sent to the Prime Minister and other Ministers ought to receive more attention. These poor Dalbeg cottars are homeless, and they ought not to be dependent upon the charity of newspapers, such as the "People's Journal," which came forward not long ago and sent a supply of meal to the starving families of these men and got a fund together to help them. Probably these men will be sent back to prison, and surely it is time this kind of thing was stopped? I remember in the year 1884 and 1885, when gunboats were sent to one part of Scotland by Sir William Harcourt. A great show of force was made upon that occasion, and the result of it all was that the people got the Crofters Act. These landless people have a real grievance, and I hope the Lord Advocate will give it his attention, and that we shall have done with this everlasting considering of the question. The sands of the present Government are running out, and I do not want to have to go on the platform and say the Liberal Government have grossly neglected, as they have during the time they have been in office, the affairs of the Highlands. If we cannot get legislation, let us at any rate have better administration by the Congested Districts Board and a fairer and more equitable distribution of the money of that Board.
    Mr. J. S. AINSWORTH: Before we have the Lord Advocate's reply I should like the House to appreciate that the land question in the Highlands is not confined to Vatersay. The whole question resolves itself into the enlargement of holdings to,

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    make them economic and the creation of new holdings. It arises in the Highlands every day and affects absolutely the future welfare of the population, and in the best interests of the Empire it should be dealt with. There is at present no machinery by which these questions can be dealt with, and what you want is someone with authority who can go down and make reasonable terms with the landlord. If you want him to co-operate with the people locally, he must have authority, and he must have funds at his back to give compensation if compensation should be wanted. We have in Scotland the germs of the machinery to do the great part of what we want in the Crofter Commission, but it has no power to spend money and no power to deal with the proprietor. The Congested Districts Board is the only Board which has power, and their power is strictly confined. What we have got to do is to make the Congested Districts Board a paid Board, and give them efficient machinery and more money. I should have thought it would have been an extremely simple thing to bring the existing machinery and power up to date, so that they could deal with cases as they arise. You have only got to make the Congested Districts Board the proprietor of the land they purchase and they can then raise money on that. I took the opportunity the other day of putting a question to the Lord Advocate on another subject. I asked him whether the Government would consider the advisability of establishing a Board of Agriculture and Fishery for Scotland with a Vice-President sitting in Parliament. That would enable you to deal with an enormous number of these Scotch questions which are practically outside the scope of the Secretary for Scotland, whose time in the nature of things is largely taken up with other matters. If we had either a Board of Agriculture of our own, with a Vice-President in the House or a Vice-President under the existing Board of Agriculture, we should then have someone to whom we could refer on questions of this kind. It is said the matter is under consideration, but I should be extremely glad if the Lord Advocate could give us some information on the matter, which so vitally affects the crofters. I think it is rather hard that Ireland should have a much larger number of representatives in the Government than Scotland. Ireland have five representatives in Parliament, and we have only the
    1464
    Secretary and the Law Officers. Everyone knows the splendid work the Board of Agriculture is doing in Ireland, and must agree that it is a hardship that there is not some Board of the same kind acting for Scotland. I hope when the right hon. Gentleman replies he will be able to give us some hope on these matters, so that when land questions in the Highland counties arise they may be conveniently dealt with in this House. I am extremely pleased, and I think we may congratulate ourselves to-day, that the gravity and importance of these questions are acknowledged on both sides of the House. We have had a most sympathetic speech from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Scott-Dickson), and I am perfectly sure if the Government take up the question they will have the assistance and support of all the Members for Scotland in all parts of the House.
    The LORD ADVOCATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Alexander Ure): Anyone listening to the perorations of the two hon. Gentlemen opposite, the Member for North Ayrshire (Mr. Cochrane) and the Member for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Sir Henry Craik), would think that the Outer Hebrides were seething with lawless violence, stimulated and excited by a wicked Government, whose only desire was to harass and oppress benevolent landlords. Nothing is further from the truth. The Outer Hebrides are not seething with lawless violence at present, and they have not been at any time during the past year. Difficulties exist there, but they are not the creation of this Government or of any Government. They are necessarily incident to the conditions under which the people live—a congested population and a poverty-stricken land. There you have the whole problem in a nutshell. These difficulties, however, which confront us are rendered none the easier by speeches such as we have listened to by the two hon. Members. They seem positively to gloat over the embarrassment which the Government may feel in the administration of Vatersay. How entirely different was the tone and temper of the speech of the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Scott-Dickson). He understands the difficulty of the situation. He has himself been concerned in the administration of the Outer Hebrides. I say without hesitation that I entirely share the view which he has expressed with regard to the rating system. What is the remedy? I do not think any

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    remedy was suggested, but we all know that in the year 1901, after a very prolonged and patient inquiry, the late Secretary for Scotland, backed by one or two men of great skill and knowledge, put forward as a remedy for the undoubtedly heavy pressure of the rate in the Outer Hebrides a system of subventions, which I, for my part, so far as I have been able to study it, approve. I see at the present moment no other method by which a reform can be achieved than that made out in the Memorandum signed by Lord Balfour of Burleigh. I gather that that view is shared by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Scott-Dickson), and that it will be the duty of any Government at a very early date to take seriously in hand the question of a radical reform in the rating system in the Outer Hebrides. One would suppose, from the speeches which have been delivered to-night, that it was the business of the Central Government to recover rates from the landlord and tenant, and that we were pressing with undue hardship on the great landlords, and at the same time encouraging the small tenants to refuse to pay their rates altogether. We have no duty upon us to recover rates. That is a duty which lies entirely in the hands of the local authority, and the Central Government can only bid the local authority to carry out their duties to the best of their ability and with impartiality. When the hon. Member for North Ayrshire (Mr. Cochrane) speaks of the harshness and injustice of the Government towards the proprietors, what proof does he offer to show that the Government in any way acted arbitrarily or harshly towards the proprietors in the Hebrides? All the hon. Member could say was when the Secretary for Scotland was informed there was to be an incursion on Dalbeg farm, my Noble Friend at once telegraphed his deep regret at hearing such a thing was about to take place, and his hope that Major Mathieson would exercise his undoubted right to protect himself. The hon. Member further complained that when the trespass did take place an inexperienced judge was sent to try the men, and that a very modest and almost contemptible punishment was inflicted. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire must know very well that the local judge was unable to act in this case. But he exercised great care in the selection of a gentleman of experience and training in the law?
    Mr. COCHRANE: Five years' experience!
    Mr. URE: Surely five years' experience is adequate to enable a man to administer justice in these local courts. At any rate the selection was made with my approval, and I see no reason to doubt that the punishment inflicted was appropriate. In the case of Vatersay, the Government is charged with refusing to assist the landed proprietor there who wanted that the cases should be presented to the court in a form which would have enabled the infliction of a heavier punishment. I wonder how the hon. Member for North Ayrshire reconciles the charge he makes to-day with the charge he made a year ago. It seems to me hon. Members are very eager to have these people punished as criminals, and they are consequently very reckless in the statements they make.
    Mr. COCHRANE: May I call attention to the particular circumstances to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has paid no attention. When the substitute of the sheriff was giving judgment he asked the raiders whether they intended to persist in their contumacy, or whether they would leave the island! One and all returned the answer that they intended to remain there, in spite of the court, and, after that, I cannot help considering that a fine of 10s. was an inadequate penalty.
    Mr. URE: The hon. Member knows quite well that the punishment might be repeated as often as the offence was committed. Does he say that since the trial and since the punishment was inflicted these men are still on the farm? As far as I am aware they have left the farm, and the punishment has been quite effective. I now turn to Vatersay, around which most of the storm rages. My noble Friend has been accused of performing a volte face in the second Debate which took place in this House on 25th June last year. I do not think that charge is well founded. I desire to use language of strict moderation. I desire to say nothing to intensify the difficulty which surrounds the matter. I desire to say nothing to excite any ill-feeling which it is absolutely necessary we should avoid, if we are to have a satisfactory settlement of this dispute. It was by chance that I played a very humble and subordinate part in this matter at a very critical moment, and my relations with the proprietor of the island were friendly. Our communications with one another were frank and open, and, so far as I am concerned, the proprietor dis-

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    played deep anxiety for the welfare of the tenants. I do not seek to challenge too strongly the construction put upon certain words and phrases. I do not seek to attribute any sort of bad faith to anybody. I believe in the good faith and honesty of both sides, and I believe, too, that the misunderstanding which arose was due to no fault on the part of either one or the other. What was it induced these men to go to Barra in 1906–7? The Sheriff said that they were respectable, reasonable and intelligent, and it may be equally true that they believed they had some proper claim there, because their ancestors had lived on the island for many generations and they had never abandoned their claim to the land. The fact was they took possession of the very site on which their ancestors had lived. That may be all perfectly true, but none the less the men were lawbreakers. These facts afford no answer whatever to the charge that they unlawfully occupied the island. The question arose, what is the proper remedy? The hon. Member for Glasgow University (Sir Henry Craik) complained with great vigour that the Government refused to give the smallest assistance to the proprietor. What assistance does he think the Government ought to have given under these circumstances? Does he say we ought to have sent a gunboat, or the military, or a large force of police? What does he think we ought to have done? What was it the proprietor asked of the Government? The only assistance he asked at the time was that we should institute criminal proceedings against these people, and that we should be them before a local court where they might be committed for 14 days. My predecessor refused to sanction criminal proceedings, because these men were not criminals, and I concur in that view. In taking that course he was following strictly the example set by his predecessors in office under both Liberal and Conservative Administrations, who had always refused absolutely to sanction criminal proceedings in cases such as this. In only one instance, as far as I am aware, was there an exception made to the rule, invariably followed, never to treat a mere act of trespass, unaccompanied by violence, as more than a civil offence, for which the proprietor has a civil remedy. I ask the Committee if it was desirable to read the men a lesson; was it not far better to adopt a civil procedure with all the deliberate magisterial solemnity that charac-
    1468
    terises proceedings in a High Court, than to bring them up as criminals in a local court?
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: You got them 60 days instead of 14.
    Mr. URE: Does the hon. Member really think it would have been better to have taken these men before the local court when the Civil Courts of Scotland are open to every proprietor? Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Anstruther-Gray) think the law would have been better vindicated by proceedings in the local court?
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Yes.
    Mr. URE: Well, I do not, Lady Cathcart was not vindictive; she did not desire to press her rights to the extreme, and my Noble Friend saw, as well as his predecessor, that if we were to find a remedy we must find some means of settling these people down upon the land. They were living in the Congested Districts, and you may agree or disagree as to whether there was room which would enable them to live under moderately comfortable conditions, but it was perfectly certain that a remedy must be found. Lady Cathcart was fully alive to that, in common with the Government of the day. The Sheriff pointed out that if you went on prosecuting them for breach of the interdict, to have these people punished for contempt of court, and punishment was inflicted, you would be exactly where you were at the commencement. Hon. Members opposite forget that no Government and no proprietor has a right to deport grown-up men and women from one part of the country to another unless as criminals. We were dealing with people who had a right to live there. That is the difficulty, and Lady Cathcart was as alive to it as we were. The second course was that she should break up Vatersay into small holdings, and let the people become her tenants; and the third course was that the Government should buy the island and settle the people as purchasers or tenants. Negotiations were opened up between the Government and Lady Cathcart, who had no desire to press her legal rights in the matter, and those negotiations broke down, for reasons which it would be idle now for me to repeat, as they would serve no good purpose and only cause anger and recrimination if I went into the details. Suffice to say that they broke down, and Lady

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    Cathcart sent in her application for breach of the interdict, and the men were sent to prison for two months.
    During the period that they were enjoying imprisonment, and before the term of imprisonment expired, negotiations were once more opened, and a very important interview took place between myself on the one hand and Lady Cathcart and her agent on the other hand on the 17th June; that was about three weeks or more after the Debate in this House. As the result of that interview both parties understood that they had come to a settlement. Very reluctantly and very unwillingly Lady Cathcart agreed that the island should be broken up into small holdings, and that there should exist between her and the tenants the relation of landlord and tenant, as defined by the Crofters Act. Both parties thought they had come to a settlement on those lines. Neither had the least reason to believe that the other misunderstood what was agreed, and each of us trusted the other, with the result that everybody knows. It is said that Lady Cathcart believed that the Government had agreed to guarantee the rents for these people for all time and under all circumstances. The Government, on the other hand, believed they had come to no such arrangement, but that they had only agreed to pay to Lady Cathcart the loss which she should incur, that was directly attributable to the change from a single tenancy with one man to a number of tenancies with a large number of people. Let the Committee understand exactly what that suggestion of Lady Cathcart means. It means neither more nor less than this, that the Government, without any of the rights of ownership, were asked to assume the responsibilities and obligations and all the risks of ownership. Of course that is an impossible position. It is plain that a Government could not consent to a condition of that kind. It is plain that we never could consent to be the guarantors for rent for all time and under all conditions. See what the effect would be. If one of these tenants was unwilling to pay his rent, or could not pay his Tent, then Lady Cathcart would come to the Government and ask them to pay. She had rights under the Crofters Act, which she could have exercised, but she was under no obligation to exercise her rights, and she could come to the Government and say, "That man has not paid his rent, and you must do so"; and on the other hand there would be very little
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    stimulus to the tenants to perform their obligations if they knew that the Government were going to fulfil their obligations for them. The position of the Government would be an impossible one; we should be deprived of all the rights but have all the risks.
    Complaints have been made that we have no written note of the terms of our bargain. I agree that it would have been well to have had a written note of it, but I cannot agree with hon. Members opposite who ask why. In the first place, neither of us had any reason but to think that we thoroughly understood, and we had no reason to suppose that any dispute would arise, and if there had been a written record it would have contained nothing more than that the Government agreed to relieve Lady Cathcart of the direct risk of loss due to the change of responsibility from one tenant—a grazing tenant—to a number of small holders. Those were the very terms of the answer given in this House to the hon. Member for Inverness, who a few days after asked the Secretary for Scot-land what were the terms of the bargain? Those were the words which my Noble Friend used, and are the words which would have been found in any written record. If we had kept a written record in those terms it would not have prevented misunderstanding, because the question arose as to pecuniary loss, which we understood to mean that, if there was any reduction of rent, then the Government should take the burden; and if the holdings were thrown back upon the landowner then the Government should bear the loss. A very different construction was put upon it by Lady Cathcart, who said we were bound to pay every penny of the rent. Do hon. Members think that would be a reasonable or serious bargain that we should deprive ourselves of all rights of an owner and undertake to take all the risks?
    Mr. MEYSEY-THOMPSON: This partition was made not for the convenience of Lady Cathcart, but because the Government wished to establish these small holdings on the islands, and therefore Lady Cathcart asked that she should be guaranteed against any pecuniary loss, and that is what she understood.
    Mr. URE: The hon. Member is quite wrong—absolutely wrong—for the most obvious reason that the Government would, of course, have taken rather the

    1471
    course which Lady Cathcart, to do her justice, most honestly pressed upon them, that they should become the purchaser. If they were to become guarantors of the rent it is plain to any ignorant man that the Government could not step in and play the part of owner, and at the same time guarantee the rent, but let me say in my own justification that no man who reads the letters which preceded this, and no man who reads the answers of the Secretary for Scotland given to the hon. Member for Inverness, can doubt that it was the intention of the Government, at all events, merely to become responsible for the loss which was directly attributable to the change of occupiers. Will the Committee allow me to read what was put forward at the time the negotiations were entered upon in 1907—that is to say, the negotiations which were unfortunately broken off? The agent for the proprietor wrote that the letting of the holding shall be fixed under the Crofters Act
    "and the Board shall compensate Lady Cathcart for any loss in rent that may be sustained by the change, whether through the rent being reduced or the new holdings not being occupied."
    That was, I understood, to be the bargain on 17th June, and I have no reason to think that there was any change on 4th November, 1907, when the Secretary for Scotland set out with great care what he believed to be the arrangement then come to. He states in distinct terms:—
    "Upon the extent of land to be newly occupied will depend the loss of letting value of the farm for which compensation will be paid by the Congested Districts Board."
    And again:—
    "On the question of compensation for loss of letting value. Mr. Sinclair thinks the terms of his letter of the 4th instant are clear."
    Again, on 14th November:—
    "Mr. Sinclair desires me to remind you that having regard to any loss of letting value an undertaking has already been given."
    Finally, on 8th July, 1908, nine days before the interview, the Under-Secretary for Scotland writes to Lady Cathcart:—
    "As has been the intention throughout, the compensation to be paid for loss of letting value will be in respect of the full estate and not merely of that part of it which is actually occupied by new settlers."
    That makes it perfectly plain that what we were thinking about and what Lady Cathcart was thinking about when she spoke of pecuniary compensation for loss, was loss directly attributable to change of occupancy from one large holder to a number of small holders. There is no passage that anyone can point to in the whole of that correspondence which will suggest the smallest change of view on the part of
    1472
    Lady Cathcart and her agents in regard to the extent of the pecuniary responsibility the Government is willing to under take. A misunderstanding subsequently arose, and Lady Cathcart and her agent subsequently said the understanding was that we were to guarantee the rent of all these people. The Government could not consent to any such unlimited liability, whilst all the time it was deprived of the lights of a landlord, and, accordingly, very unwillingly, they agreed to purchase the island, but only as a last resort. From the first Lady Cathcart's view was that the Government should purchase the island. The view of the Government on the other hand was that it was much better that Lady Cathcart should remain proprietress of the island, and to that we adhered up to the last. I do not in the least regret that an attempt was made to effect a settlement on the terms proposed by my Noble Friend, and, as I believed at the time, finally arranged by myself. I bitterly regret that that settlement broke down, for I believe, with the authority and influence which Lady Cathcart had with her tenants, and with the respect with which I know she was regarded by her tenants, and with the feeling which they, no doubt, entertained at that time that she had acted magnanimously towards them, it was much more likely that we should have a permanent, enduring, and peaceful settlement of the difficulties if she had remained in the position of proprietress. But that was not to be, and we reluctantly purchased this island and five adjoining islands, to the extent of about 3.500 acres, for £6,200. The price was adjusted by the agents for the Congested Districts Board on the one hand and the agents for Lady Cathcart on the other, each no doubt doing their best to effect a good bargain for their principals. Sixty holdings have been carved out, and the Congested Districts Board have not only marked out the whole of it but have selected those who are to occupy the holdings, and their selection of those occupants was made entirely with regard to their fitness to cultivate and their capacity to equip the holdings. They discharged their duty with very great impartiality. The fact that men had been in illegal occupancy of the island beforehand wars neither regarded as a qualification nor a disqualification for receiving holdings.
    It was stated by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Scott-Dickson) that resort had been had to a raffle or ballot. That

    1473
    may be so, but just observe for what purpose. The holdings having been marked out, and the occupants selected, it was reasonable and fair that the holdings which each man was to have should be decided by raffle or ballot. It would have been outrageous to select your men by ballot, or to have resorted to a raffle for the purpose of fixing the holdings upon the island, but once you had selected your holding's and your men on a sound principle, there is nothing one could find fault with in resorting to a raffle for the purpose of enabling each man to be placed upon his holding.
    An HON. MEMBER: Is it not a fact that certain squatters were refused because they had taken an active part in seizing the land?
    Mr. URE: No, that is not so. I inquired very carefully into that. Hon. Members on this side have challenged the action of the Congested Districts Board in planting men there because they had not been in illegal occupancy, and hon. Members opposite have challenged it, alleging that the reason was that they were in illegal occupancy. I think the Congested Districts Board did right in disregarding the question altogether and deciding entirely on the merits of each man.
    Then, say hon. Members opposite, when you come to settle down you will find that you have not an adequate water supply. The water supply at present is not ideal. I agree that the sanitary inspector has condemned it in certain particulars, but the Congested Districts Board are advised by skilled experts of their own, who tell them that by a judicious expenditure of £400 you will be able to give an adequate and suitable water supply.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: Does the Report laid before the Congested Districts Board contradict the Report of the two experts?
    Mr. URE: There is no Report in the sense that the hon. Member means. A servant of the Congested Districts Board tells the Board what his opinion as an expert is upon the water supply. That is not a Report.
    Mr. COCHRANE: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the Report of the Crofters Commission? It says:—
    "In August, at the request of the Secretary for Scotland, we visited the Island of Vatersay, in the parish of Barra, in the county of Inverness, for the purpose of making a report on the same for the information of the Scottish Office and the Congested Districts Commissioners… The results of our inquiries have been embodied in an exhaustive report which we forwarded to the proper quarter at the time."
    1474
    We want to see that Report, to which we consider we are absolutely entitled under the Act setting up the Congested Districts Board and the Crofters Commission. Clause 9 says: "All Reports to the Secretary for Scotland must be laid on the Table of the House." I ask why this is not laid?
    Mr. URE: The hon. Member is under a total misapprehension. Section 9 reads: "The Commissioners shall once in every year make a Report to the Secretary for Scotland on the proceedings under this Act, and every such Report shall be forthwith presented to Parliament." There is no statutory foundation whatever for asking for the production of this Report.
    Mr. COCHRANE: All precedent is against the right hon. Gentleman. In the Congested Districts Board Report of 31st March, 1903, Lord Balfour of Burleigh asked the Crofter Commission in the autumn of 1902 to make a Report on the Lews. This was done, and the Report was circulated in the Blue Book. I can quote various other precedents of the same character, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to produce this Report to which the House is entitled.
    Mr. URE: The hon. Gentleman has entirely changed his ground. He says, in the first place, we are committing a breach of the statute in not producing a certain Report. When he sees that we are committing no breach whatever——
    Mr. COCHRANE: I think my precedent establishes that it is a breach. As I read the statute the right hon. Gentleman is compelled to present a Report. I then quoted an exact precedent to show that in similar cases reports have been produced, and it lies with him to show his reason for not producing this Report. the has to make out his case why he refuses to issue the Report when I have challenged him with the facts, and have given him a statement made by the medical officer of health, and asked him to state plainly whether that Report, voluminous as it is, agrees or disagrees with the medical officer's Report, and whether he will now place it before the House.
    Mr. URE: What the hon. Member read referred to the annual Report of the Congested Districts Board.
    Mr. COCHRANE: Why not produce it?
    Mr. URE: Because the hon. Member will not allow me to proceed. He insists that

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    I have committed a breach of a statutory duty, and I am showing him that I have not. An interim Report was made by the Crofters' Commission to the Secretary for Scotland with reference to a piece of property which belongs to the Congested Districts Board, and it is entirely a matter in the discretion of my Noble Friend to Table that Report or not, as he thinks fit. I think he wisely exercises his discretion in not Tabling it until he has the complete Report on the whole subject. My hon. Friend surely knows that an expert of the Board had advised that a certain expenditure of some £400 should be made, and when it is made we have absolute assurance that the supply of water on Vatersay will be as good, if not better, than on any one of the other islands. Surely the Committee may trust the expert advisers of the Board not to lead them astray on a question of this kind, and surely the Committee will believe that when the Congested Districts Board have taken the responsibility of settling 60 people on the island they will not be blind to the obligation of obtaining adequate sanitary conditions. It is very extraordinary that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire upbraids us for exacting full payment of the rates from landed proprietors in the outer Hebrides, when he knows that the reason for these rates being so high is that we insist, rightly as he and his colleagues admit, upon the standards of sanitation, education, and the rest, being maintained there which are maintained in other parts of Scotland. At the same time he now seeks to accuse us of failing to come up to those high standards in this particular item, whereas the result of embarking upon such an expenditure as is suggested by him, namely, for bringing water from the adjoining island would be——
    Mr. COCHRANE: I never suggested that.
    Mr. URE: Well, that is the alternative suggestion. What does the hon. Gentleman suggest? Does he say that we ought not to have purchased the island?
    Mr. COCHRANE: My contention was that Lady Cathcart was right when she warned the Secretary for Scotland that it was not suitable for a settlement. In spite of that the Government purchased the island, and the responsibility must rest with them to see that a suitable water
    1476
    supply is provided, and that the inhabitants live under suitable sanitary conditions.
    Mr. URE: I give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that they will live under proper sanitary conditions, and that they will receive a proper water supply. Lady Cathcart was satisfied at the time we made the purchase that a proper water supply could be secured. At any rate, we shall see that the inhabitants of the island are provided with a proper water supply. That is the situation as it at present exists. I hope the Committee will not entertain extreme views on one side or the other with respect to the prospect of the settlement. It is very easy to exaggerate the gloominess of the prospect, and it is easy also to exaggerate the possible success of the prospect. Let us neither take one extreme nor the other. Let the Committee await the development of results which time and experience alone can reveal, and which will be good or evil according as we address ourselves with industry, ability, and skill, to the cultivation of the island.
    I have a letter from the hon. Member for Inverness stating that the Congested Districts Board does not enjoy the full confidence of his constituents. I think the same view was expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty. We do not say that the Congested Districts Board is an ideal form of administration. If we had thought so we should never have brought forward the project which was foreshadowed in the Land Tenure Bill. The changes we proposed to effect in the law applied to the whole of Scotland, including the Hebrides. That measure expressed the considered opinion of the Government on the subject. Do not let us be unjust to the Congested Districts Board. If hon. Members will take the trouble to look through the Report which has been presented of the work of the Board during the past year, they will find that many useful enterprises have been undertaken, that many new settlements have been effected, that large sums of money have been expended in road making in the Outer Hebrides, and that large sums have been promised to various districts not only for the making of roads but for the making of piers and harbours. The Board has done its best to encourage the apprenticeship of youths to trades. I am sorry that its efforts to induce lads to go into the mercantile marine have not been very successful, but

    1477
    its effort to apprentice lads to useful trades —youths who would otherwise have grown up idle—have met with considerable success. In view of the difficulties confronting the Board on every side in the Western Islands, my Noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland thought that the best means of dealing with the situation was to appoint a strong Commission to inquire into the whole question. That Commission, which is at present sitting, is presided over by one who knows as well as any man the conditions of the Outer Hebrides. I mean my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness. In other respects the Board has not been idle. It has done its best to promote education in agricultural methods, the breeding and keeping of poultry, and education in small culture. These seem small and humble matters, but upon the attention which is given to these matters depends to a larger extent than we can possibly conceive the prosperity of the islands. I have been asked for a certain assurance by the hon. Member for Argyllshire with regard to the reconstitution of the Land Board. I can only say, as I think the Prime Minister has said, that the policy of the Government in that regard is embodied in a Bill, and that we hope by means of the measure introduced not long ago in another place to effect a very considerable change in the administration of agriculture in Scotland.
    Sir HENRY CRAIK: With regard to the question as to whether there has been an exaggeration of the number of years' purchase in connection with the acquisition of the Island of Vatersay, may I point out that the agent who acted for the Congested Districts Board puts the price at 20 years' purchase of the net rental of the farm, 10 years' purchase of the net rental of the shooting, and one year's purchase added, making in all 31 years?
    Mr. URE: I think my hon. Friend is quite correct in the figures he has given. My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland has asked whether the Government can do anything to further the scheme which he has so much at heart in regard to the oyster industry at Kirkwall. All I can say is that we shall inquire into the feasibility of that scheme. The hon. Member knows that there is a great deal of difference of opinion prevailing on these subjects. This is the information, at all events, that has reached me. He knows that the first Order passed has been withdrawn, and that a second Order was suggested; but in order that
    1478
    the second Order may be successfully promoted, I am afraid that evidence will require to be given again, and that will involve large expense. I would suggest that I should give instructions to the Fishery Board to send a competent officer to Kirkwall to inquire into the whole circumstances of the case, and to report whether the scheme is feasible, and whether or not it can be carried out at a reasonable cost.
    Mr. A. C. MORTON: I confess that I am exceedingly disappointed with the Lord Advocate's views, for we fully expected that he would tell us why the Government said one day that they could not buy the Island of Vatersay, and next day bought it. We may be desirous to apply the system of purchase to other parts of the crofting districts, and, therefore, I should have been glad if the Lord Advocate had given us some information as to what the Congested Districts Board will do in future. We have a very bad case in Sutherland in connection with some land which was purchased by the late Government. They paid too much for the land, and the consequence is that the small holders have been in trouble ever since. A great many of them have already been ruined. They have applied to the Scottish Office to have their case taken into consideration. They wish to be made tenants of the Government instead of purchasers of the land. They have been told that nothing can be done, and I want to know why, if it could be done in the case of Vatersay, it cannot be done in Strath-naver. I hope that either the Lord Advocate or the Solicitor-General will tell us how the law of the matter stands, and how we can apply it in future so that all parts of the crofting district shall be treated alike, and that there shall be no favouritism to one district, landlady, or landlord. I want to know why the report of some officers in regard to the sanitary state of Vatersay cannot be produced. That Report is paid for by public money, and it is obtained for public purposes. Why should it be concealed? What the Government have to bear in mind is that it is always thought, when they conceal a Re-port of this sort, it is against themselves, or that there is something in it which they want to conceal from the public. They can put themselves right by producing what is really a public Report, which should be available for the use of the public generally. I hope we shall have some explanation with regard to that, and that the Report will in due course be produced.

    1479
    The Lord Advocate said he thought that he had answered everything that had been brought forward to date. I take it that the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General are here to-day as representing the Government. At any rate, there is nobody else here if they do not represent the Government. He did not reply at all to the question with regard to the Secretary for Scotland sitting in this House. We are certainly entitled to know why the Secretary for Scotland does not sit here to look after Scotland's business. And if the Lord Advocate or the Solicitor-General cannot reply to that question, then we should have the Prime Minister here, and let him reply to it. Nothing is more dangerous for a Government than to shirk answering questions of that sort. It is well understood now that a gentleman in the position of the Secretary for Scotland ought to be where we could put questions to him and get replies, or bring influence to bear on him with regard to the local government of Scotland. This ought not to be a mere party question, for it is a question of administration. What we want in Scotland is what we have not got now— that is, good administration. It is not enough to have good laws unless you get good administration. I remember a saying of the late Mr. Gladstone, with regard to Ireland especially, that good administration is quite as necessary as good laws. We cannot blame the Government for not giving legislation, but we can blame them for not administering what laws we have got in the best interest of the people. I hope, therefore, we shall have some explanation of why the Secretary for Scotland is not here. We were told in the papers—we do not get much information anywhere else—that he was trying to strengthen Scottish business in the House of Lords. I hope he will do it. but we want him here all the same.
    We have got about 60 out of the 72 Scottish Members in this House who are supposed to be Liberals. They are all very liberal, I admit. Some of them voted against our Land Bills. Those are the men who, as a rule, get rewarded. I suppose they know their book pretty well. But we have got 60 Liberals out of the 72, and I have no recollection up to the present of the Secretary for Scotland ever consulting the Liberal Members as to what they would like in representing their constituents with regard to the government of Scotland. I may say that it does not appear to me to be fair or proper, or that
    1480
    you are likely thereby to get the best possible government you can in the country out of existing laws. I am not blaming the Government for not passing a Land Bill, although I have no doubt it is their business as administrators to introduce it. We have rather to complain that they have refused to accept land reform in regard to the Highlands when it was offered in the House of Lords, and therefore it makes the case rather weak to charge the Tory party with having done all the misdeeds. I heard the Member for Inverness-shire (Sir J. A. Dewar) complain very strongly about the Congested Districts Board. I have a right to complain about that Board, but I doubt whether he has any such right, because, according to the statement we have had here to-day, and in answer to questions before this House, Inverness-shire has got very nearly the entire of the money that the Congested Districts Board had to spend; and we, both in Sutherlandshire and other counties, complained strongly of the attitude of the Government as representing that Board in allowing nearly all their money to go to one county, and in refusing to help in other places, and I would like to have some explanation of it. The Lord Advocate never touched that question at all, though it was strongly and categorically brought before the Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. J. Weir). I hope that the Solicitor-General will show a little more liberality in the matter, and tell us something about it. This money is voted by Parliament to be distributed fairly over the congested districts. I want to know why it nearly all goes into one particular district, and why the others are entirely neglected?
    We have been asking in Sutherland shire for some improvements in piers and lights for the benefit of the fishing trade, and above all for the safety of life and limb, and we get nothing. So far as Sutherland is concerned, we get less now than we got under the Tory Government. The Tory Government just before the election gave us some steamboats. Some people said they were election steamboats. But if the Liberal Government had done their duty they would have completed the work and equipped the steamboats which we had got. But when the Liberal Government came into power it took these boats away. It refused to do anything whatever in the matter. As far as I know, up to the present we have not got a pennyworth from this Congested Districts Board during the whole time that the present Government

    1481
    has been in power. I am glad to admit that we have got something from a Department which is not under the Scottish Office. The Postmaster-General, I am only anxious to admit, has done something for us. He has improved the postal arrangements and the telegraph arrangements, and we meet from him sympathy and goodwill in carrying out improvements for the benefit of the people. I should like to see the Scottish Office follow the example of the Postmaster-General, and instead of merely looking after their own official affairs do something for the people, and, above all, see that in the expenditure of this public money there is no favouritism. No doubt something has been done in regard to education for the benefit of the people. It is very unfortunate that we have not got the Secretary for Scotland here. We do not want to blame the Lord Advocate or Solicitor-General for Scotland, because we know that it is not their business. All they can possibly do is to come here and tell us what somebody had told them outside. They take no responsibility, and know nothing about the matter. But it is exceedingly unfortunate for us that we have not got the people who are responsible for this work. Now I want to know why we cannot have from this Congested Districts Board or from some other Boards some grants to improve the piers to enable fishermen to carry on their dangerous business with the best safety that it is possible to give?
    Up to the present we have got nothing, and I suppose we are not likely to get anything. All we are told is that we have got old age pensions. I do not see what that has got to do with the matter. We want other improvements besides old age pensions, and you must not forget that if we have got old age pensions it is the people who are giving that to the old people, and it is the people who are to pay for it. As far as that is concerned, I hold one side about as guilty as the other with regard to old age pensions; and, at any rate, both sides to a very large extent voted for that law, and I hope, of course, that it will be very useful to the old people and prevent many of them being driven to the workhouse. But we have heard a great deal to-day about rates, and there is no doubt, with the School Board rate added, which becomes higher and higher every year, that the rates are excessively high, and that when you come to the districts where the population is scattered and where they have so many
    1482
    miles of main roads to attend to, it is practically impossible to meet them out of the rates. In the county of Sutherland we have about 160 miles of main roads, besides other roads, and out of the rates it is practically impossible to keep them in order, and especially to make them fit for the use of motors such as we have at the present moment. We have applied over and over again to the Government to do something to help us. Up to the present they have refused to do anything. They have said that something is going to be done by and by—something in the Budget. What I am afraid of is that very little of that money will get as far as my Constituents 700 miles away; therefore I want to ask the Congested Districts Board to do what they are doing in some districts, that is, to give money for main roads. I heard the Lord Advocate a few minutes ago boasting that the Congested Districts Board had given money for main roads or other roads. It has not given it in Sutherland shire, which has as much right to it as any other county, and I want to know why we do not get a share of the money for these roads.
    It is suggested by some people to-day that the only possible way of getting justice here is to rise up and break the law just like the people of Vatersay, and that the Government will then do something, but that until then the Government will not do anything. That is a very unfortunate state of affairs that law-abiding people, especially like the Highland population, because no part of the United Kingdom is so law abiding as the Highland counties— in fact, practically, we do without police altogether—and in those law-abiding counties it is a very shocking state of things if it is to be suggested to us by the Government themselves that the only possible way to get justice in this country is by breaking the law in some way or other. I should like to do justice without that. I do not know that I am quite prepared to do justice to the landlords in all cases, because that might mean hanging them or guillotining them as we do with Bills in this House, but I should like to see in a country like this that we should be able to get all necessary reforms carried out without it being necessary before they could be obtained that the law should be broken by somebody. I was very sorry to see in the papers the other day a correspondence between my hon. Friend the Member for Boss and Cromarty and various other parties, including the Prime Minister, with regard to the Government of Scotland.

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    The Prime Minister, who ought to represent the Government, does not interfere as a Scotch Member with regard to the Scotch Office. He leaves it to its discretion. It is that discretion I want to upset, for it has done us no good whatever, and we certainly have the right to ask the Prime Minister, as a Scottish Member, and also the Scottish Members of the Government, that they will see that Scotland, which after all is to some extent the very best part of the United Kingdom, is not neglected as it has been in respect of administration. The Lord Advocate has not attempted to answer the various questions put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Weir) and by myself, but I suppose he knows that he could vote us down and that he need not take any notice of us. I am sure that is wrong, morally and in every other way. I am not sure, however, that it is wise; I am not at all certain that the Government are not losing their popularity in Scotland, compared with what it was in 1906, because of the way in which they are neglecting Scottish administration. I could mention a dozen cases where the people are neglected, and where the Government apparently trust too much to their two or three hundred majority.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: This is the Vote for the salary of the Secretary for Scotland, and he is not responsible for the Government generally.
    Mr. MORTON: I do not want to make it so, but I should like to make the Government responsible for Scotland. I should like to ask, under these circumstances, whether the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General for Scotland do not represent the Government here to-day I suppose I am right.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: They do represent the Government, but they represent it with reference to the office of the Secretary for Scotland; they do not represent the Government generally outside of this Vote.
    Mr. MORTON: I do not want by any means to go outside the government of Scotland.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Vote.
    Mr. MORTON: I do not want to go outside the Vote, nor outside the administration coming under the Secretary for Scotland. I do say that we should get the very best we can for our money. I do
    1484
    not wish to overstrain the matter, but it is unfortunate that the Government, as they will find out to their cost, should neglect Scotland in the matter of administration. We know what they do in such a case as that of Vatersay, but we should like to see them do the same thing elsewhere, without finding it necessary to do it under compulsion. I hope the Lord Advocate will be induced before we get rid of this Vote to reply to some of the matters which he has not yet answered. I hope at any rate he will tell us why we have not got the Secretary for Scotland here, because that is a very special matter. Before we vote his salary it is very desirable that we should know where he is himself, and what he is doing. Everybody knows all over the world the loyal way in which the Liberal Members from Scotland have supported the Government, and if we ask now for some little consideration in regard to local government in Scotland, I think we ought to receive it. I am sure if the Government will turn their attention to these matters to which I and others have alluded it will not only be for the good of the country, but it will be good for themselves as a Government, and obviate the necessity of our complaining as we have to do. I hope in future that those who represent the Government will give us more time to discuss the local affairs of Scotland than we have had in the past. One of the complaints I should like to make to the Secretary for Scotland and to the Prime Minister, if they were here, is that during the four years of this Parliament we have never had the Law Officers Vote before us at all. I myself have desired to make a series of complaints against the department of the Law Officers, but we are guillotined out of existence, and we have no opportunity to bring these matters forward. I appeal to the Secretary for Scotland, wherever he is, to see that in future we get an adequate opportunity of discussing these Votes.
    Mr. J. P. BOLAND: We have had a discussion purely on the Congested Districts Board, under the Vote for the Secretary for Scotland's salary. I wash to touch upon another question.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I understand the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise the question of education. That subject arises on the third Vote.
    Mr. MORTON: Are we to get no reply at all from the Lord Advocate or from the

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    Solicitor-General for Scotland? It is exceedingly unusual that they should not reply to these questions. I hope they will reply.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Probably the Minister thinks that the reply he has already made is sufficient.
    Mr. MORTON: He has made no reply to my observations, nor has he made any reply to the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty. If the right hon. Gentleman wanted to make only one reply he should have given us an opportunity of putting to him the various points we desired to raise before making his reply.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I did not observe any of the hon Member's questions that were not referred to in the right hon. Gentleman's speech.
    Mr. WEIR: My hon. Friend is entitled to some reply on the points he has made. I happened to be out for a few minutes when the right hon. Gentleman made his reply, and I am now informed that he made no answer to the question I put. I should be glad to have some reply on those points. I wish to know whether the views of the Secretary of Scotland and the Lord Advocate with regard to the purchase of the island are antagonistic, or has the Lord Advocate changed his views? Another point on which I ask for information was that relating to the 20,000 acres of land in Lewis which is not under lease. I want to know what is to become of it. Has the right hon. Gentleman had any communication with the proprietor about it. I also call attention to the fact that on 6th July Lord Pentland went over the island and suggested a practical scheme of leasing land for new holdings. I further pointed out that the Secretary of the Congested Districts Board was too much in Edinburgh, and that the Board should have a secretary who would devote the whole of his time to the work. I have noticed before that to abstain from replying does not eventually pay the Government. After four years' consideration Lord Pentland, who was in favour of a scheme of migration, has suddenly changed his mind.
    The CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The hon. Member is now referring to points on which the Lord Advocate has already given a reply.
    Mr. WEIR: I am very glad to hear it. I understood from my hon. Friend the
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    Member for Sutherlandshire that no reply was given. I am very glad to hear from you, Sir, that those points have been answered. No notice, however, has been taken of the points put forward by the hon. Member for Sutherland shire. I do not think it is fair treatment of any Member of this House for a Minister to remain silent and take no notice whatever, as if you were speaking to a piece of wood.
    Mr. URE: I did not observe the hon. Member for Sutherland shire rise at the time, or I should not have replied then. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for Ross raised, there was, as he knows, a change of policy on the part of the Congested Districts Board. Up till last year the Congested Districts Board proceeded on the assumption that they were not entitled to purchase and hold land and let it to crofters. That difficulty arose with regard to Vatersay when the Secretary for Scotland found that there was no other means of settling that difficulty except by purchasing the island. He asked the opinion of the Law Officers with regard to the power of the Congested Districts Board to hold land and to let it out to the crofters. My predecessor in office considered the question carefully, examined the Act of Parliament, and came to the conclusion that the Congested Districts Board had the power under the Statute of 1897 to purchase land, hold land, and let it out in small holdings. Until he gave that opinion, that question, so far as I am aware, had never been considered by the Law Officers. I hope that is a complete answer to the question. With regard to Lewis: The Congested Districts Board have no powers of compulsory purchase, and unless the proprietors are willing to break up their land into small holdings, it is impossible for the Congested Districts Board to force that operation on them. They have done their best, but unless proprietors meet them it is impossible for them to divide up the land to the extent which it has been done in other parts.
    Mr. WEIR: That was not done by this Government. It was done by the last Government.
    Mr. URE: I did not say it was. I said the Congested Districts Board had done their best to get land split up, and it is owing to no unwillingness on their part that they have not been able to do so. The hon. Member for Sutherland asked why it was the Secretary for Scotland was not here. He has gone to another place.
    Mr. MORTON: I thank the Lord Advocate for his courtesy in replying. There is one question that he has not answered: I asked whether he would not see that this money was fairly divided amongst the other counties, which were as much entitled to it as Inverness.
    Mr. WEIR: I would like to ask whether the Secretary for Scotland has any policy or proposes to formulate any, to deal with the case of these landless cottars in the island of Lewis?
    Mr. URE: He embodied the policy in the Bill, which was rejected, and which still remains the policy of the Government.
    Mr. MORTON: I would ask the Lord Advocate whether he would use his influence with the Secretary for Scotland to see that Inverness does not get all the money, but that other counties have a fair share. I know the money is limited, but that is no reason why it should all go to one county.
    Mr. URE: The Congested Districts Board acquire land in other counties when they can, but unless proprietors are willing it is impossible for the Board to force them.
    Question put, and agreed to.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND).—VOTE 31.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £10,535 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1910, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board for Scotland."
Mr. G. N. BARNES: I feel it to be my duty to direct the attention of the House to another matter which comes under the administration of the Local Government Board, which is not altogether unrelated to the Question the House has just been discussing. I refer to the Question of the unemployed. That is a question, as I have said both here and elsewhere, which in my judgment transcends all other questions so far as the interests of the working people are concerned, and which I suggest has not been dealt with adequately by the Local Government Board. I do not suggest for one moment that the Local Government Board can, as a matter
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of administration, deal with this question adequately so far as the solution of it is concerned, but I do think that they might have dealt in a more sympathetic way than has been done, and that they might have dealt with it in such a way as at all events to lessen the distress arising from unemployment in Scotland, and to give the authorities which have been set up under the Unemployed Workmen's Act of 1905 the assistance which I think is their due. In raising this question, or attempting to raise it, some few weeks ago, I was ruled out of order, but I remember that on that occasion—the occasion of the Vote for the Local Government Board of England—the President of the Local Government Board of England stated that he had dealt with all the applications that had been made to him by the Distress Committees in England, to the satisfaction of those bodies in the sense that they were granted all the money for which those bodies asked. I am sorry that that cannot be said of the Local Government Board for Scotland. The Scottish Board has dealt with the distress committee at Glasgow, for instance, unsatisfactorily and unsympathetically, not only during the last year, but during the whole three years the present Government has been in office. Why is it that the distress committees of Scotland cannot be dealt with so satisfactorily by the Local Government Board of Scotland as the distress committees in England have been dealt with by the English Board? I cannot believe that it is because the distress committees in Scotland are more unreasonable than the distress committees in England. I suggest that the need in Scotland, and especially in Glasgow—for which I speak more particularly—has been greater than the need elsewhere; but that need has not been recognised and dealt with as we should like to see it dealt with now, and as we think it ought to have been dealt with before.
Let me say a word on the Act and the interpretation put upon it recently in contradistinction to the interpretation of two years ago. I suggest that there is nothing seasonal about the Act. It does not lay down that distress committees shall deal with unemployment only during the winter time. That interpretation has been given to it recently, but it is not in the Act. It ought to be apparent to any man that unemployment if it exists in the summertime is just as calculated to create distress as in the winter-time—modified, of course, by the more moderate weather. But when

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a man is out of work in the summer-time the rent man comes for the rent, and the children have to be fed just the same as in the winter. Moreover, we are now, I hope, at the fag end of a severe industrial depression, which has put to the test the staying powers of thousands of workmen throughout the industrial centres of the country, and inasmuch as there are workmen now who have been out of work for a longer period than perhaps was the case a year and a half ago in the depth of winter, I suggest that the need at the present time, from that point of view, is more acute than it was two winters back. As an example, I put forward the claim which Glasgow has made for the consideration of the Government. Two or three weeks ago, having found it impossible to deal with the Local Government Board in Scotland, a deputation came here and put before the Secretary for Scotland the very reasonable claim that they should have sufficient money granted to enable them to carry on the work which they had been carrying on for some considerable time, and in connection with which they had been able to supply work to 700, 800, or 900 men, the number varying with the circumstances of the time. That request was refused. They were told that the Act was a seasonal Act, and that it would be suspended during the summer weather—at all events, they should try it, and the Government would wait and see what happened. Within a very few days something did happen. The unemployed of Glasgow got out of hand, and forced their way into the town hall in spite of the police and other authorities. For my part—and I am sure I speak for all my fellow Members for Glasgow—we do not want a recurrence of that sort of thing; but we want more sympathetic consideration by the Government so as to prevent its taking place again. It may be said that Glasgow has had more money during the last year than other industrial centres in Scotland, and that therefore her needs have been generously met. That may be so: I am not denying that it is so. But Glasgow's needs have been greater than the needs elsewhere, and Glasgow has not been dealt with in a manner appropriate to those needs. As proof of that, I would remind the Lord Advocate of a Report issued within the last few days by the Poor Law authorities of Glasgow, in which it is pointed out that the number of people in the poor-houses of the Glasgow area have increased during the last year by no less than 344. Moreover, so
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acute is the present distress in Glasgow that the poor rate has had to be raised, and the statement is on record from the distress committee that large numbers of the men who had applied for assistance and registered their names as unemployed, when the committee made inquiry with regard to them, had disappeared, having been evicted from their houses, and had found asylum in the poor-houses. That is a striking illustration, and, to my mind, a convincing proof of the present acute and abnormal distress in Glasgow.
Then take the unemployed figures themselves, in connection with the contention that the Act is a seasonal Act. In February, 1907, the Glasgow Distress Committee were expressly reminded that the Act was not a seasonal Act, that their duties did not end with the advent of spring, and that they had to make application with a view to providing for the whole summer. The number of unemployed, as given by the Board of Trade figures in regard to the trade unions was at that time 4.2 percent. Since then the figures have fluctuated a little, but, on the whole, they have gone from bad to worse, until taking the whole country they were 7.9 at the end of May, or just about double what they were in February, 1907, when the distress committee were told that they were not to stop their proceedings because of the advent of spring. The position at Glasgow, however, is much worse than is indicated by the figures for the whole of the country. The recent deputation to the Secretary for Scotland submitted figures of a most alarming character in regard to Glasgow, indicating that the eight per cent. for the whole of the country was absolutely doubled in Glasgow. There is no mistake in these figures, because they are collected carefully from the trade unions in the Glasgow area. We have a number of tables, first of all, from 30 local trade unions, showing, not eight per cent., but an average of 16.7 per cent. of unemployed. Other unions are given even worse than that, where the percentage comes out at something like 19. I have made inquiry in regard to my own trade of engineering, and I find that the figures at the end of June are actually worse than those I have just given, and that instead of 742 men out of work at the end of May, we have 800 men out of work at the end of June. And, further, another fact which comas out of these difficulties is this: If you take what may be called the primary employments in the engineering and shipbuilding industries of Glasgow, and upon which the

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city largely depends, you will find the striking fact that in the pattern-making, for instance, and in the moulding—specially represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson)—that the average of the unemployed in the month of June, at midsummer, was actually 19 per cent. So far as I see, these figures show exceptional distress in Glasgow and the Glasgow area over other parts of the country. The figures in regard to the primary occupations show that unemployment is not likely to be very much better in the immediate future. Another word with regard to the plea which, I understand, has been set up by the Scottish Office in regard to inactivity. It has been said, and with some show of reason, that there are a large number of men out of work in Glasgow—many thousands, in fact—and that the number dealt with by the distress committee is a relatively small one. It is therefore said that these 700 or 800 men—or whatever the number may exactly be—dealt with by the distress committee at any one time are simply men who stick like limpets to the rock of the distress committee, and are not going to let go while they are provided for. I say there is absolutely nothing in that. It is proved by the figures submitted to the Scottish Office only two or three weeks ago. What do we find in the official figures? We find that the men dealt with during the spring of this year, to the number of no less than 14,000 of the applicants, were men who did not apply last year. We find, when we come to analyse those 14,000 men, this further somewhat striking fact, that of them no less than 10,000 were those who had applied for the first time to that or any other local authority to be relieved from distress through lack of employment. The fact indicates that the men you are now dealing with are men who have found themselves in a difficult position owing to the long-continued depression. Many of them, as the figures show, are not the ordinary labouring man who goes to the distress committee because he is in necessitous circumstances as soon as he gets out of work. Many of these men are tradesmen who, two or three years ago, would have scorned the idea of going to any distress committee, but who, owing to stress of circumstances, now have been obliged to go to this local authority for the first time in their lives. It shows, therefore, the extreme need of a more liberal and sympathetic considera-
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tion than hitherto given to the demands of Glasgow.
Just another word as to the effort made by the Glasgow Corporation through the distress committee, and which has not been met in the way I think it ought to have been met. I refer to the effort to employ the men nearer to the city than at Palace Rigg, which is some 12 or 13 miles out of Glasgow. Having regard to the fact that the fares of the men totalled up to a large sum, efforts were made by the Glasgow Corporation to provide work nearer home. After a great deal of negotiation they fixed upon some land immediately on the borders of Glasgow, and proposed to buy it for the purpose of raising food products. This ought to have been looked at sympathetically by the Local Government Board. As a matter of fact, when application was made, and the Board were expressly told for what purpose the money was applied for, the corporation were encouraged to go on, and they did go on. Then, after two or three months' delay, after various letters had passed between the parties, it was found, forsooth, in November of last year, by the Local Government Board, who came down upon the distress committee, that the work could not be sanctioned because it was an industrial undertaking. We all know the extreme danger of all these relief works. We are not at all unmindful of the fact that most are uneconomic; many of them compete with ordinary labour in the ordinary market. But a great deal of that work has been sanctioned by the Local Government Board, and carried out. I do not defend the relief works of this sort which produce for the market. I do not like them. But I want to say, with regard to this particular work, that the distress committee had made careful inquiry and careful provision whereby the stuff raised from the land would not come into competition with the produce raised in the immediate neighbourhood. On the other hand, the produce raised was to be of such a character as would have prevented the importation from foreign countries of produce which constantly passes that particular area into the city of Glasgow, and is sold there every day. Having regard to that fact, I think the effort has not met with that sympathetic consideration by the Local Government Board that those concerned had a right to expect.
A word with regard to another matter of a more general character, but having special reference to Glasgow and the Glasgow area. There has been something said

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already with regard to the work of the Congested Districts Board. I want to guard myself against saying anything that might be construed into lack of sympathy with the work of that Board. I know there are some areas in the Highlands of Scotland which are not sufficiently large for the people to live in, and it is therefore, I suppose, necessary for the Congested District Board to make some arrangements whereby the population may be spread out. But surely the very last place they ought to be spread out to is Glasgow—the very last place, industrial centres like Glasgow and Dundee! These places are congested areas in themselves, and the only justification for sending people from a congested area into Glasgow would be that there was a demand for their labour in Glasgow. There has been no demand in Glasgow for labour that Glasgow, for a considerable time, could not itself amply supply. At the same time, we have the singular anomaly that, while men are actually contracting from Glasgow for work in the shipyards of Eastern Austria to build ships to compete against Glasgow-built ships, we have boys serving their apprenticeship on the Clyde, and, being assisted by public money, brought up to trades with the full knowledge that after they have served their apprenticeship the only prospect for them is to be relieved in this miserable manner by the distress committee, or obliged to contract for their labour at Trieste or somewhere out of the country. That is, I suggest, the last way in which a Congested Districts Board can deal effectively with the wants of these people in the congested areas. I suggest that some more reasonable method might be found. For instance, the mercantile marine seems to me almost an ideal occupation for those people. Reared, as they have been, in the open air, many of them accustomed to getting their living on the sea shore, some accustomed to getting their living by fishing, it does seem to me that the mercantile marine is a good occupation for them, and I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, so far as he has any influence with the Congested Districts Board, to use it with the view to placing as many of these lads as possible on board ship, and thereby enabling them to earn their living in a way appropriate to their rearing, and to the needs of the country. Then something might be done also by the Agricultural Departments, or some other Department, to place some of these young people somewhere between the extreme Northern Highlands and Glas-
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gow, whereby they may be able to get their living on the land to which many of them have been accustomed. To turn to Glasgow itself, just let me read a telegram I received only an hour or two ago from the town clerk of Glasgow. Probably many of my colleagues have also received the same telegram.
"The Corporation of Glasgow at meeting to-day unanimously resolved—Corporation earnestly urge the Government to make some immediate provision for the relief of the deserving and the unemployed under the control of the distress committee."
Let me just add a word in the way of appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate to deal a little more sympathetically than he has yet done with this distress committee, and with the needs of the City of Glasgow. From my knowledge of that city, and of the industrial conditions prevailing throughout the length and breadth of the engineering and shipbuilding industry, I can assure him the needs of Glasgow have never been so great as at the present moment, right away from the time of the Bank failure many years ago. I think the condition of things in Glasgow, and in the shipbuilding areas, and in the general shipping of Scotland, has not been equalled in my time. We have a number of men unemployed, whose patience, I venture to say, has been marvellous in the last two or three years. I appeal to him not to put that patience to a more severe test, but to come to the aid of those men, and to help them by giving some promise that local money spent now will be made up from the money which will probably be granted next month or the month after for the necessities of the coming winter. I have been asked to say a few words in regard to another matter. It seems that in Aberdeen there have been some works going on in connection with the extension of the harbour there, and I am afraid that this work, not work of relief character, but work that ought to be done in the ordinary way, and which I believe is absolutely necessary, is being done under the conditions of the distress committee. As a matter of fact, a question was already asked on the 29th of June by the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Keir Hardie) in reference to this matter, and the Lord Advocate replied that the Board would certainly disapprove of any proposal which would have the effect of displacing any ordinary labour, and the Harbour Commissioners stated that their scheme would not have that effect. Might I direct the attention of the Lord Advocate to the minute of the sub-committee of the Harbour Commissioners, which was accepted by the

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Harbour Commission, and which shows that this was just the intention. One of the clauses is this:—
"If unemployed labour is used it can best be introduced by displacing the present workman gradually, and making a careful selection of men for the special work to be done, and by keeping them in the employment of the Commissioners for the full period allowed (12 weeks). When the men are employed on ordinary labouring work, such as the excavation of soil, they may be replaced by others every fortnight or three weeks, as desired."
I have a letter here indicating that that is just exactly what has taken place, and I suggest that it is very unfair to the workmen of Aberdeen that it should take place. A correspondent of mine, who is a Member of the distress committee, says:—
"I may also inform you that men procured through the labour exchange and distress committee register have been taken on at this work. A careful selection has also been made and no man over 40 years of age has been taken on by those authorised to engage the men, and I have it on the authority of the men employed that the rate of wages paid them was 4d. per hour, or 18s. per week. This statement was also verified by the clerk of the distress committee, when the question was put to him at a meeting of the applications committee, held on Thursday, the 23rd of June. The rate of wages is what the distress committee paid for relief work at the corporation quarries for breaking stones when distress was at its worst during the winter months."
I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman it is very unfair, as it has the effect of utilising the distress committee and the machinery of the Unemployed Workmen's Act of 1905, not for the legitimate purpose of the distress committee, but for something having an injurious effect upon the standards of living of the Aberdeen workmen. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to say that this is not the purpose of the distress committee, and to see that the distress committee and the unemployed register and the other machinery of the Act of 1905 are not prostituted for this purpose, and are only used for the purposes for which the Act was intended to apply.
Mr. J. W. CLELAND: I desire to associate myself in the fullest possible way with the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division in his description of the present state of affairs in the city. I also desire to put the case of the distress committee and the case of the unemployed in Glasgow, because, after all, they are one and the same, in the most temperate language I can, although it is difficult for any Member who represents that city, and particularly difficult for one who happens to be a native of that city, and who is compelled day after day to pass through some of its streets and to meet hour by hour respectable people out of work, some of them
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practically starving, at their wits' end to know what to do; it is particularly difficult in such circumstances to view that problem with the same calm judicial aspect which should prevail in this House. What is the problem? I will restate in one sentence what my colleague has said. What is the problem which concerns us in Glasgow to-day with regard to our trade unions? A most careful and accurate census has been taken, and, out of thirty which pay idle benefit, with 24,900 members, over 4,000 are idle, or over 16 per cent. In the case of another 12 trade unions, who do not pay idle benefit, with a membership of 15,800, there are 1,790 unemployed, or slightly over 30 per cent. The total of trade union members works out that out of 30,000 you have always 6,000 idle, which is over 19 per cent. That, I think, in itself constitutes a claim on the part of Glasgow for exceptional treatment. I can say this on the authority of the "Board of Trade Gazette," because —on trade union figures—they give as the average for unemployment over the whole of the United Kingdom 7.9 per cent., whereas it is almost 20 per cent. in Glasgow to-day, and yet we are continually put off with the plea that we are getting the same percentage as other places. So far as these figures are concerned, they do not touch that vast mass of unorganised labour in Glasgow connected with the building trade. I do not wish to use the language of exaggeration, but at the present moment—within the city of Glasgow —I do not think there are less than 50,000 working men unemployed, and many of them have been unemployed for many weeks.
I will take the building trade. The average earnings for the 13 years up to 31st March, 1906, was £1,749,000. Taking the years 1907 to 1908, it works out at only £800,000, or rather less than one-half. In addition to that, over £36,000 subscribed to the Lord Provost's fund had been exhausted some few days ago. Various charges have been brought against the Glasgow Distress Committee. I am not here to say that that committee is perfect, because I know that no human institution is perfect. I do however, desire, to say that I think the Glasgow Distress Committee are a body of men representing every shade of opinion, political and religious, who, in a time of great difficulty and stress, conscientiously and seriously tried to grapple with that problem which, so far as Glasgow is concerned, is absolutely unprecedented in its magnitude.

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We have been told that they have employed time and again men who came merely to get a little money, went away, drank it, and then came back again. Taking the number of applicants for the year 1908, they number 7,900. Taking the number of applicants up to 15th May, 22,900 applied for relief, which is surely a very startling increase in this industrial area. Of those 22,900 over 10,000 applied for the first time, and when the distress committee instituted its inquiry they found that over 5,000 of these men had been working continuously in their last place of employment. I have been a member of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London, and for a number of years I was a member of the London County Council. We used to employ a considerable number of unemployed. Having made a very close and minute personal investigation into some of the charges which have been made against the Glasgow Distress Committee, I say unhesitatingly that what they have done will bear more than favourable comparison with many other distress committees.
Last year we had much the same trouble, although the problem, acute as it was then, was nothing like what it is to-day. This year the distress committee applied for £18,000 to carry them on to the end of September, and they gave chapter and verse, and justified the expenditure of every penny piece. Unfortunately, the Local Government Board have, without rhyme or reason, reduced that £18,000 to £5,250. It was not a question of there not being funds sufficient, because out of the £300,000 granted by Parliament to solve this problem there is a substantial balance, and the Prime Minister has stated that if £300,000 was not sufficient it would be increased. Of that £300,000 voted by Parliament £18,000 had been retained by the Treasury on 31st March, and yet our appeal was reduced to a figure which is a mere mockery and a sham. The distress committee had an interview with Lord Pentland, but it was most unsatisfactory. Later on we asked to see the Prime Minister, but the right hon. Gentleman declined to receive a deputation. I can only express my sincere regret that he thought fit to take that course.
The Lord Advocate is here to answer for the Scottish Office, and I want to put to him one or two questions. I want to know what is the policy of the Government with regard to this problem of unemployment in the industrial districts of Scotland where it is most acute. The English Local
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Government Board and its President made a boast that they had given every penny-piece they were asked for by the various distress committees throughout England. Why are we constantly being treated differently in Scotland? Why are our demands being put down without rhyme or reason? Is it the policy of the Government to administer the Act in one way in England and in another way in Scotland, or is it their policy to drive these unfortunate men into the workhouse? If so, I may say that they are succeeding. During the last year the increase in the inhabitants of the workhouses in Glasgow is 344, and the local authority is now facing the necessity of erecting one or two additional workhouses. Is that the policy of the Government? Is it economical? Is it wise to crush out of those poor people the last remnant of manliness they may have, and thus drive out all that self-respect which used to be the pride of the Scotch race. Is it the policy of the Government to provoke trouble? Last year they adopted much the same policy. Distress committees transgressed some technical rule of the Treasury and, therefore, nothing could be done. On this occasion, however, I make an appeal to the Secretary for Scotland to give me a sympathetic reply. A little later, the Members of the Committee will recollect, there was something in the nature of serious riots in Glasgow, and then something was done. Is it the policy of the Government—surely a most unwise and short-sighted policy for any Government to pursue—to teach people that when their demands are reasonably and temperately put forward they will not be listened 1o, but that the moment disorder and violence ensues then they have only to ask and their request will be granted? I cannot believe that that will be the policy of the Local Government Board, and yet I say, with all sense of responsibility, knowing the state of feeling in Glasgow to-day, knowing what is happening and what happened a few days ago, and recollecting what happened last year, that I very much fear the patience of many of those poor people is rapidly becoming exhausted, and I look with hope and confidence to the Lord Advocate to make such a statement to-night as will show them that, although apparently the official mind has been unsympathetic, their needs will receive some consideration at the hands of the Government. We are told it is not the policy that relief works should be carried on in the summer. What is the test you are

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going to apply for the necessity of relief works? Is it a seasonal test? Is it a test of the number of people who happen to be out of work and the length of time they have been unemployed? Surely nothing would be more unwise than a seasonal test. A man is not less hungry because it happens to be warm and not cold, and a man does not feel the necessity less when he contemplates his wife and children starving simply because it happens to be July and the sun is shining. This was the policy foreshadowed in the circular issued by the Scotch Local Government Board some time ago. I appeal to the Government not to lay down the hard and fast rule that nothing will be given simply because the season is summer; rather let them apply the wiser and more humane test of what the needs of the locality are. I do not wish to over-colour the picture, but I wish I could take some of the officials of Dover House into the East of Glasgow and show them the pictures of suffering and misery there. I am certain of this, the official reply would then be very much different in the future from what it has been in the past.
Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I do most earnestly urge the Government to look into the very great and appalling distress that at this time prevails in Glasgow. I do not think I need enlarge on it. We have heard two most eloquent speeches from hon. Members who are better able to speak of Glasgow even than I am, although I have some connection with the city, and I claim to know something about it. The fact that there is something like 19 per cent. of men out of employment among the general trades speaks for itself. The distress is far greater than in England, and the need is far greater. The whole building trade, the shipping trade, the engineering trade, and trade generally, I may say, in Glasgow is almost at a standstill. Men are afraid to buy, afraid to sell, afraid to build, and afraid to spend. There never has been such a slump, certainly not in my recollection, and I remember the days when the Glasgow Bank broke. That is the only time which will compare with the distress which now prevails. The Scotch people, and I am speaking to a majority of Scotchmen, are a patient race, but there is a limit to their patience, and, if they are pressed too far, they will make their voice heard in no uncertain tone, and I most earnestly urge and supplicate the Govern-
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ment to look into this matter before more harm comes.
Mr. C. E. PRICE: I have not the slightest desire to stand long between the Committee and the Lord Advocate, more particularly because what I wish to say is rather on the lines of what has been so ably said by the hon. Member for Glasgow. It has reference to the dispute which has arisen between the Town Council and the Distress Committee in Edinburgh. The amount of money which was allocated to the use of the Distress Committee was not anything like what was anticipated. A promise was given that whatever was locally raised so the amount would be which was granted by the Local Government Board. It was a matter of very great surprise to find that notwithstanding that promise a certain proportion of the fund, I think £18,000, was handed back to the Treasury. It seems to me that in view of the fact that in Edinburgh there was raised relatively a much larger sum locally than in other districts in Scotland, it was a great pity that the Government promise was not fulfilled and that a larger amount was not granted. I understand that one of the difficulties in the way has been that there has been a dispute between the Town Council and the Distress Committee, and that there is a case coming before the Quarter Sessions. It is just possible that until that case has been decided the Local Government Board may not be able to take decisive action in the matter. It has been a matter of very great disappointment to the Distress Committee that the matter has been allowed to stand as it is.
Mr. SCOTT-DICKSON: I confess I feel myself in considerable difficulty in speaking on this question. The vote before the Committee is for the Local Government Board of Scotland, and of course the question we are now considering can only be raised as one of administration. The Local Government Board, of course, has to work under the conditions which are laid down by the policy of the Government of the day. I associate myself entirely with the view expressed by the hon. Members who represent divisions in Glasgow, and who have spoken so far as their needs of Glasgow are concerned, but I hope the Committee will not regard the question as one affecting Glasgow alone. I think the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh who has spoken, certainly knows, as I do, the needs of Edinburgh, too, and it undoubtedly affects Dundee. I am sorry

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there is not a representative of Dundee present as one would expect. There is the hon. Member who sits below the Gangway, and there is a greater than he who might have been here on an occasion when the needs of the labouring classes of Dundee are in question. His efforts in enforcing the position we take up might have had much more influence with the Government than any we can expect to make. I am quite certain the question of unemployment is not one that relates solely either to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, or even to large centres only. It is spread over a much wider area. The policy which the Government have decided to carry out is one which suits us on this side of the House exceedingly well, and, so far as I am personally concerned, I trust they will continue it; but I do not think it is a wise or a proper policy in the interests of those who are more directly concerned in the men out of employment. The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) referred to the fact that there are only two alternatives before the apprentices in the trade to which he referred, and for which he is well entitled to speak, when they have gone through their apprenticeship and have become full-fledged tradesmen. They must either apply to the distress committee, or go abroad to get employment. The hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Mr. Cleland) drew attention to the distress in the building trade, but I do not know that any other trade is better off than that at present. While we are criticising the Local Government Board we have to remember that they must work under the limitations imposed upon them by the policy of the Government. I confess I have the greatest sympathy with the Board. They have but a limited amount of money to dispose of. I have never been able to understand why out of that small amount it was found necessary not to expend £18,000. But the question we have to consider is whether, under existing conditions, the best is being made of the efforts for the relief of the distress arising from the enormous amount of unemployment in the country. No doubt, so far as the discussion has gone at present, the voice of Glasgow has been predominant, but, after all, that is only indicative of the unemployment which prevails in many other districts. The hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division wanted to know whether the policy of the Government was to increase the number of workhouses or to provoke trouble. I
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am perfectly sure it is neither one nor the other, but I do think the Government are not adequately facing this question of unemployment. They are not taking means, not to relieve it temporarily, but to reduce it permanently in such a way as to prevent its constant and persistent recurrence, with worse effects and increasing demands for relief and for remedial measures. I associate myself entirely, so far as Glasgow is concerned, with the views submitted by the hon. Members that have spoken (Mr. Barnes and Mr. Cleland), but the questions we can raise upon the Vote now before the Committee—the Vote for the Local Government Board—is far too circumscribed as to enable us to arrive at any reasonable, proper, or just judgment as to how the matter is to be dealt with. I am quite aware that the action of the distress committees in Glasgow and Edinburgh have been the subject of very severe criticisms. But, while different views are taken as to some of the measures they have adopted, I must say I have been exceedingly struck by the telegram received by many Members of this House from the Glasgow Corporation this afternoon. It certainly deserves the consideration of this Committee They ask that Parliament shall make some immediate supplementary provision for the relief of the deserving unemployed, and a request such as that, coming from a great corporation, calls for not merely sympathy, but practical sympathy. The question is— what are the Government going to do? I confess, so far as I understand the position, I rather sympathise with the Local Government Board, and rather than vote for the Motion to reduce the Vote I would pass a vote of sympathy with that Board, because they are compelled to work under impossible conditions.
The situation is one which urgently calls for some declaration by the Government as to what practical measures they are going to propose. I am aware it is said that Glasgow received more than, on a fair division, it is entitled to. That may be so, but the fact remains that Glasgow has not received anything like sufficient to meet the difficulties that have to be dealt with. I venture to think that the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Price) will say the same of that City, and I have no doubt that, if the President of the Board of Trade were here, he would make a similar declaration in regard to Dundee. These four large communities are not exclusively places where the results of this tremendous evil of unemployment

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are being experienced; they are representative not only of other communities in Scotland and of large districts in Lanarkshire, which cannot be called urban, but also of large districts in England as well. The point I want to make is—have the Government anything practical to propose? I am not entitled, of course, to go into that matter. But I should like the Committee to be told if they have any particular and really effective solution to put forward. Of course, I do not know what the Government solution is to be. I know what my own would be.
Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON: Yours would not cure the evil.
Mr. SCOTT-DICKSON: It cannot be worse. I think, and at any rate hon. Members below the Gangway who laugh will agree with me that the present condition of things is eminently unsatisfactory. What is asked by serious people is, what are the Government going to do to try to ameliorate the condition of things, which I do not think has been depicted in any too lurid colours by those who have preceded me? At the present moment things are bad, and they are not likely to get better, but likely to get worse. At any rate, it is high time that we knew what the position of the Government is. If the present policy is persisted in there will be trouble, and that shows how immediate and urgent the necessity is. I urge this question upon the attention of the Government with the most unselfish motive, because I think the present position of things is serving those with whom I am politically associated uncommonly well; but I would ask the Government whether they have a remedy, and if they have to state what it is, and to take some immediate steps to remedy what is undoubtedly a most regrettable state of affairs.
Mr. H. A. WATT: I desire to associate myself with the three Members for Glasgow, who have already spoken on this subject, and have, indeed, so admirably put the case to the Committee that it would be very unwise of me if I repeated the case they made, even if I were able to do so. The facts to which I want to allude are these. Firstly, that the position of the unemployed in Glasgow is a very serious one; and, secondly, that there is no improvement showing in the condition of the unemployed in Glasgow. On the contrary, it is worse than it was when
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the interview took place with the Secretary for Scotland two or three weeks ago. If the Government are not in a position to grant money at the present time to the distress committees of Glasgow and Scotland, I think those committees will be satisfied with a promise that any disbursements made at the present time and at the present serious juncture will be replaced by the Government at a later date.
Mr. A. R. RAINY: I wish to associate myself with what has been said about the amount of distress in this district. Unfortunately for Glasgow the chief industry is intermixed with all the other industries, and, therefore, it is not the ordinary case where a group of industries are suffering and others, which are not affected, come to their relief. The consequence is that a burden is thrown upon private charity, which it is totally unable to meet, although there has been extraordinary generosity displayed By those who have endeavoured to meet the necessities of the case. The Government have a scheme in their mind connected with the whole of the organisation of the Poor Law, but we want help now. I went down the Clyde the other day and it was pitiable to see the number of empty shipyards, although there were some yards with Government contracts who were relieving the necessities of the position to some extent. I do not think I should be doing justice to those whom I represent if I did not press upon the Government that in the cause of common humanity something should be done under present circumstances to relieve the situation, which is almost deplorable.
Mr. URE: It did not require the speeches of the various hon. Members who have spoken to convince me of the acuteness of the distress in my native city. As a Member of the Local Government Board during the whole period of the distress, I am extremely familiar with all its conditions, and I recognise that the position of Glasgow is exceptional. The distress has been most deeply felt in those communities in which the leading industries are ship building and house building. Glasgow has been exceptionally treated, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to remember the conditions under which the Local Government Board does its work. He did not mention what those conditions are, but let me remind the Committee that they are the conditions laid down by the Government of which he was a Member; they are the application of the remedy

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which the Government, of which he was a Member, thought was appropriate. Those are the only proposals which were ever at any time put forward by the party opposite for the relief of unemployment, except the proposal to tax ourselves into prosperity and make everything cheap by making it scarce. What are the conditions under which the distress committees work? They are only to be allowed to give relief by providing work and paying wages, and they are only entitled to draw from the rates for certain very limited purposes. They are to entirely rely upon voluntary subscriptions for the purpose of paying wages. Those are the conditions deliberately laid down by the party opposite as the only conditions on which they would set up distress committees throughout the country.
I need scarcely say that that was not our remedy for unemployment, but we have taken the remedy which we found in our hands, and we have administered it loyally, and with the earnest desire to give it its most efficient result, and the Government of which I am a Member, unlike the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member, which framed this machine, have supplied the steam and made it work by supplying money, hard cash down upon the nail. His Government never dreamt of such a thing; they never dreamt that you should go elsewhere than to the citizens' pockets for the purpose of dealing with unemployment. The question before the Committee is, as to the administration of funds which this Government has provided, and which are to be used exclusively as a voluntary subscription. Do not let it be forgotten that it is a voluntary subscription from the Central Government that these distress committees are administering. Let me take the case of Glasgow, which has been most prominently before us. Glasgow in September last informed the Local Government Board that distress would be extremely acute in the coming winter and so widespread that it would be totally impossible for the distress committee alone to cope with it. They represented to the Department that the request for voluntary subscriptions would be generously met with, but that every penny which was subscribed would be required for the relief of necessities to which the work of Distress Committees did not extend. On receiving that assurance, the Local Government Board for Scotland, which was in full sympathy with Glasgow, undertook that they would, with money supplied from the Treasury, keep the distress work going which
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the Distress Committee of Glasgow had then in hand, and that there would be no necessity to resort to the pockets of the citizens for the purpose of carrying on distress committee work in Glasgow. That was not an unsympathetic way in which to meet the demands of the distress committee. Glasgow did receive exceptional treatment when that undertaking was given, and it was not only given, but loyally carried out. Throughout the autumn and winter the distress committee received grants of money from the Treasury for the purpose of keeping the work going. You cannot expect even to make both ends meet, much less to make a profit, in carrying on distress work; but I have no doubt whatever that the Committee did its very best with the material in hand. They had an extremely difficult task to perform, and I have no criticism to make on the way they performed it. Until 15th May the Local Government Board, by grants from the Treasury, kept the work in full swing. The Local Government Board informed the distress committee that it was not the policy of the Government to apply money from headquarters to keep the Distress Committee's work going throughout the whole of the summer. They did not regard the work of the distress committee as seasonal work, but they did say that while the distress committees were to remain in existence throughout the year and discharge their duty, the Central Government did not think it would be advisable or expedient that they should have grants from the central fund to keep up the work, and though men are hungry in warm weather, everyone recognises that the conditions of employment are different in summer from what they are in winter, and it was not an unwise policy for the Government to lay down that the distress committees, while supplied during the winter with funds from the Central Department should during the summer, if they found it necessary to continue their work, of which they were to be the sole judges, carry on the work as the Act intended it should be carried on, as the party opposite determined that it should be carried on, and as they deliberately resolved that it was right to carry it on, with voluntary subscriptions. Down to 15th May the work was kept going, and so was the municipal work in connection with the Edinburgh Distress Committee—work which was admirably done by a distress committee which was altogether unexceptionable in its methods,

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and most efficient we thought. But from 15th May onwards we let both distress committees understand that whilst money from the central fund would be forthcoming to keep the Colonists there, that is to say, the men who were resident in the place, and in full swing, they must look to sources which the Act of Parliament provided for the money necessary if they found it necessary to carry on the work at full swing.
Mr. C. E. PRICE: May I ask whether, whilst it was the fact that they were to rely on local subscriptions to raise certain funds to meet certain expenses, they were to receive an equal amount in order that they might carry on the work?
Mr. URE: No, the assurance was given by the Prime Minister that subscriptions from the various localities would certainly be taken into consideration when grants were made, and so they were.
Mr. C. E. PRICE: Where they raised the most they got the least.
Mr. URE: No. I know the view that Edinburgh held on that subject, but they were wrong there. They had forgotten entirely that the case of Glasgow was exceptional, and Glasgow collected an enormous sum of money from voluntary subscriptions but kept it separate, inasmuch as Glasgow assured the Local Government Board at the commencement of the winter that every penny that the citizens subscribed would be required for purposes to which the distress committee could not, acting under the limitations, apply it. That was the reason why Edinburgh was dissatisfied. They did not understand the arrangement which had been made with Glasgow, and the very large draft which had been made on the pockets of the citizens of Glasgow for the purpose of accomplishing work altogether outside the range of the distress committee's operations. That was the position of matters in June. The distress committee in Glasgow found that, instead of employment becoming rife, unemployment was becoming rife, and they accordingly represented to the Secretary for Scotland that additional money was required. The Secretary for Scotland had no funds at his disposal, and it is altogether a mistake to suppose that the sum of £18,000 had passed back into the hands of the Treasury at the end of the year. In point of fact, it never emerged from the Treasury and
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never was in the hands of the Local Government Board. The money had never left the Treasury, and to the extent of £18,000 money which undoubtedly might have been available was not made available. It was not because the Government proposed to treat England differently from Scotland. We treated both countries alike.
My hon. Friend says the President of the Local Government Board took credit to himself for not having refused the demand of any one of the Distress Committees in England and Wales, but he failed to observe that what the President of the Local Government Board meant was that down to the end of the year all that they had asked to supply their needs for that period was given just as it was given to the distress committees in Scotland. The complaint which the Distress Committee in Glasgow now make is not that they would have all their needs supplied, like the English distress committees, to the end of the year, but that the Government refused to give them a grant in advance for work to be done during the summer. The Members for Glasgow have asked me if I can offer any assurance that money spent during the summer will be taken into consideration. I am not in a position to say if the money spent during the summer will be taken into consideration if a Government grant is again voted. I am not in a position to offer an assurance of the kind, but I am in a position to offer some gratuitous advice to the distress committee. That advice is: Let them remain in a saddle, let them perform their functions with care and frugality, let them expend what they deem to be absolutely necessary throughout the summer, and no more, and when a Vote of money is granted, as is inevitable, for this special purpose of supplying the needs of the distress committees, let the distress committee of Glasgow come and, with its accounts properly audited, demonstrate to the Government that they have been compelled—I use no less strong word—to expend this money for the relief of immediate distress, and I should think that the matter will meet with very favourable consideration from the Government. My right hon. and learned Friend asked me: What is your immediate remedy for unemployment? If I were to give a complete answer to that question I should be as completely out of order as he was in asking the question. All we are concerned with is the question: What money is the Local Government Board going to give?

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It is an open secret that a temporary additional grant of money before the Session comes to an end must be voted if unemployment continues, and it looks very much as if it will continue, although not I hope, with the same acuteness at at present. I do not put that forward as more than a mere temporary arrangement, I am not a believer in this Act of Parliament as a means of relieving distress. I am in favour of the more comprehensive method, which has been fully sketched out by two of my colleagues on this Bench, and I do not need further to refer to it.
In regard to the distress committee of Edinburgh, I have to say that their administration was good. They mingled the policy of contributions from the citizens with contribution from the central fund. They used both funds for the purpose of keeping their works going, and they found it necessary to give these up at the middle of September. Of course, Edinburgh thought it a hard case that they should not have from the central fund all the money necessary to keep the works going. It was impossible that they could have it, administering the money as they did. There was no fault with the administration, but for reasons of their own they mingled the two funds, and it was clear when it came to an end, following the policy pursued in every other case in the United Kingdom, it was impossible to give them a grant which would be sufficient to repay what they had expended out of the voluntary fund. I hope that in the coming year they will pursue a different policy, having learned a lesson from the experience of the past year.
Mr. PRICE: What I want to bring under the notice of the hon. and learned Gentleman is that Edinburgh raised between £12,000 and £13,000 by voluntary subscriptions. A promise was made by the Prime Minister that if they raised an amount by voluntary subscription they would get the same amount from the Central Fund. It was on that basis that they went forward with their works. The amount given by the Local Government Board was something between £3,000 and £4,000, and the result was that they had between £9,000 and £10,000 less than anticipated. May I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman what is the position of the case which has been raised in the Court of Session?
Mr. URE: My hon. Friend is under a total misapprehension if he supposed, or if the distress committee supposed, that they would receive from the Government
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penny for penny of the voluntary subscriptions. I may remind the Committee that there was a difference between the corporation and the distress committee with regard to the payment of the money necessary to defray the railway fares of certain unemployed men. It amounted to a considerable sum, and the question whether or not the distress committee was entitled to raise it out of the rates or whether they were bound to pay it out of the voluntary contributions. The corporation of Edinburgh refused to raise the money out of the rates, and the distress committee, on the other hand, held that they were well entitled to take the money out of the rates. That has been disputed, and the question has been referred, in a friendly case, to the Court of Session. It is set down for hearing on the 14th of this month.
In regard to Aberdeen, I have to state that in the beginning of January a grant was asked by the Aberdeen Harbour Commissioners. Certain conditions were stipulated, and, these conditions not being complied with, a grant was not made, Subsequently, and not long ago, the Aberdeen Harbour Commissioners made application again, and that also has not been conceded. My hon. Friend may take it from me that the Local Government Board will see that no money is granted by them, and that no money over which they have any control will be expended for the purpose of depressing the rate of wages. We recognise how wrong is the principle which the Aberdeen Harbour Commissioners are said to have adopted. I do not say whether they have done so or not. We recognise how wrong is the principle of using these funds on what otherwise ordinary workmen would be employed at ordinary rates of wages. The Local Government Board will give no countenance to anything of that sort, and will give no grant, if they have reason to believe that the money is to be so employed.
Mr. BARNES: So far the Lord Advocate's answer is quite satisfactory. It seems to be admitted that men are being employed at less than the standard rate of wages. Does the Local Government Board disapprove of that?
Mr. URE: The Local Government Board entirely disapprove of it.
Sir J. H. DALZIEL: I should like to elucidate the exact import of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. Two points of interest have been raised

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to-night. In the first place, we have been able to consider whether or not unemployment in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland is of an acute and exceptional character. I think the Committee are unanimous that the position is pressing and urgent, and that further and exceptional steps are required to deal with it.
The other point which has been raised is whether the Government have been as sympathetic with regard to the pressing part of the situation as they might have been. I am bound to say I think the Government have not been as sympathetic and alive to matters in Scotland with reference to unemployment as they ought to have been. I cannot for the life of me understand the position of a Minister responsible for the administration of Scotland knowing that £18,000 was waiting for him in the English Treasury and refusing to ask for it. That is the sort of offence against a Scotchman which is absolutely unforgiveable. A moment when the situation was of such a pressing character with regard to unemployment was not the occasion for standing on the mere technical view of the matter. You can lay down rules, but you can alter rules. I venture to say that a simple amendment of the law in regard to this particular Bill, which was passed unanimously by this House, would have altered the whole situation. I hope, as we know the Lord Advocate to be so sympathetic, that something will be done. We must acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman has shown extreme sympathy to-night with what I may say is the view of the whole Committee. You have the telegram from the Corporation of Glasgow that the situation is such that it cannot be set aside. They are responsible for the good government of the city of Glasgow. They unanimously declare that the situation is of such a character that some exceptional steps must be taken by the Government of the day. The Government of the day accept a grave responsibility if they do not take extreme and prompt action with regard to the matter. I would like to know exactly what the statement of the Lord Advocate means in regard to the future. It was certainly a sympathetic statement, and I believe as far as Glasgow is concerned, as I understood, it amounted to saying to the distress committee, "Go on working in a frugal manner for the advantage of the unemployed of Glasgow; make out your accounts; come at a later period and we will grant you relief.
Mr. SCOTT-DICKSON: I did not understand that.
Sir J. H. DALZIEL: If it does not mean that it means nothing at all. You cannot have a situation that the Distress Committee is to meet and discuss things and go on from day to day and incur liabilities, and not know whether or not they are going to be met at a later period. You can have all the sympathy you like, but unless you can give a certain pledge that that bill will be met when it is presented to this House, I am afraid you will get no Committee to incur the responsibility which is expected of them in that regard. I might suggest to the Lord Advocate a simple way out of the situation. Why wait until the end of the year? Why not bring forward before the Committee in view of the special circumstances a demand for a special grant? At the present time Glasgow has a special case. In my opinion there is no comparison with it in any other part of Scotland or England. Why not come forward at the present time and ask for a special inquiry in view of the exceptional circumstances. Then the Committee would know exactly where it stood, and it would do away at once with the anxiety which would otherwise prevail. I hope before the Debate closes that the Lord Advocate will be good enough to undertake to use his influence with the Treasury and Government in order that that special action may be taken.
Mr. T. H. COCHRANE: I venture to say that there is as great distress throughout other parts of Scotland as in the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, although they are not able to give the same articulate expression to their feelings. What position do we find ourselves in? It appears to me that a sum of over £18,000 was voted by Parliament for the purposes of the distress committee, and no application appears to have been made by the representatives of Scotland on the Government side to acquire this sum of £18,000 for Scotland. I notice some inarticulate contradiction from my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate, who says that some application was made. The Prime Minister represents a Scotch constituency, and has found an asylum in Scotland, and a home in Scotland; and you have the Lord Advocate, the Secretary of State for War, and the Lord Chancellor, and I do not know how many other Scotch representatives. They jostle one another on every day except when Scotch Estimates are under discussion. They are all here when measures are under dis-

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cussion, from which they can obtain some political advantage, but when the interests of Scotland are under discussion those benches are occupied only by the no doubt capable figures of the Lord Advocate and his newly-appointed assistant. Why did they not make some effort to get this £18,000 for Scotland? What happened to it? It was practically thrown into the sea. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, unexpended balances go to reduce the National Debt. What effect will £18,000 have in reducing the National Debt which goes up by millions every year? That £18,000, had it been applied to reducing the distress in Scotland, might have done some good. But owing to the slackness of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, or owing to the lack of earnestness in laying the applications before the Prime Minister, that money has been lost for purposes for which it would have been extremely useful. The Lord Advocate says "our limitations are obvious. We are limited by Bills brought in and passed by the Tory party. We are bound down and tied by the restrictions of that Bill, and I regret that we can do no more." What are the facts of the case? The Tory or Unionist party are the only party to take any practical steps whatever to deal with unemployment through distress committees.
An HON. MEMBER: "You gave us no money."
Mr. COCHRANE: It is not the question of money the right hon. Gentleman is inquiring into. It is the machinery. He says: "We have to work with the Tory machinery, this antiquated useless machinery set up by the Tory party." He is not complaining of the money. He can give more money to-morrow if he chooses to do so. Though the right hon. Gentleman says that the machinery is bad, yet, after all, the Bill has not been altogether condemned by hon. Members below the Gangway. I have heard them candidly acknowledge that the Bill was a step in advance, and has done a great deal of good in relieving distress. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite says the machinery is bad. If so, why have they not altered it? What did they do in 1906? They introduced a Bill in that year to amend the Unemployed Workmen Act. Why have they not proceeded with it? For the same reason that they did not get the £18,000. They mentioned a Bill in the King's Speech, and then they twit us with having passed a measure which was an experi-
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mental one, and which was passed before the Radical Government had made trade so bad and so depressed that unemployment assumed the acute aspect that it possesses at the present moment. When we passed the Unemployment Act it looked to us as if unemployment was only a passing phase with which we were dealing, and that as we gathered experience we might from time to time amend the measure and make it better. This Government, which came in to set everything right, introduced a Bill in dummy, and they have done nothing else, but yet have the audacity to twit us with what we have done. I have been led into these remarks by what I consider the very unfair attack made on the Unionist party by the Lord Advocate, who says that all his sympathies are with the unemployed throughout the country. He said that he sympathised with the Glasgow Distress Committee, who were doing their best, and what he advised them to do was this, to go on with their noble work and come to Parliament, and if they made out a good case Parliament, he hoped, would give them something.
Mr. UREdissented.
Mr. COCHRANE: Am I misinterpreting the right hon. Gentleman?
Mr. URE: I never invited them to come to Parliament.
Mr. COCHRANE: The right hon. Gentleman told them to make a clear statement to the Local Government Board as to how they are to apply their money, and he added that if they did that he thought something ought to be done, but he could give no pledge. What has the Distress Committee of Glasgow to do? They are responsible business men, who know what is what, and they have incurred considerable liability. Money must be found somewhere. The Lord Advocate says, "Go on with your work." How are they to go on with their work? Are they to go to the bank and ask for money? And on what responsibility? On the vague statement of the Lord Advocate in the House that the question will be considered? I see no reason why the Prime Minister should always be absent from this House. Had he been here during this Scottish Debate, on a subject of the greatest interest at the present moment to a large section of the population in the position of the un-employed, he could—on behalf of the Government — have given a definite pledge, and if the Committee had spent a certain amount of money, and it was

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thought it had been properly expended, then the Government could see that they suffered no harm. But the Glasgow Committee, who have done a great deal already to find the money, are invited to incur the liability on the vague statement of the Lord Advocate that he thinks if they do so, they would make out a deserving case for consideration, though he gave no pledge. The last thing I would wish to do would be to in any way attribute words to the right hon. Gentleman which are not justified. I think I have made an accurate statement of what the Lord Advocate has said, and I think it was one of the most unsatisfactory and weakest statements on a question of this magnitude that could possibly be laid before us.
Mr. A. C. MORTON: I heartily agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in what he said as to the absence of Scottish representatives on the Front Bench when Scottish questions are being discussed. The right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate advised the Committee to work, but there is no money. That is of no good. There is no doubt at all on the part of any Member who has studied the matter that Scotland is not fairly treated with regard to supplies. She does not get her fair share of the equivalent grant. I see that local government in Scotland costs £16,000 per annum, while in Ireland it costs £80,000, five times as much. The Local Government Board in Scotland have not got sufficient force to carry on their work properly. I cannot accuse the Government offices in Scotland of extravagance, and no doubt it is largely because of their economy that they have suffered in the matter of supplies. They have suffered because they are economical, and they are deprived of what they ought to have. I should like to know why Scotland should only get £16,000 a year for local government while Ireland should have as much as £80,000. Whatever part of the United Kingdom we happen to represent we cannot help taking an interest in such a place as the City of Glasgow, a place of which the Empire has cause to be proud. We are bound to take an interest in its welfare, and it really becomes important to know why the £18,000 voted for this purpose has been allowed to slip away somewhere else. My hon. Friend, the Member for the Black-friars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), rather accused the Congested Districts
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Board of having expended money on boys and girls in the North in teaching them a trade and to earn a living.
Mr. BARNES: I said nothing of the sort. I would not object to any public authority spending a great deal more money than they are doing now on education. My point was that they were spending money in shifting boys from one congested area into another.
Mr. MORTON: I do not know why they shifted from one area into another. The only way we can do with young people in the North is——
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The question to which the hon. Member is referring has been disposed of, and the Vote passed.
Mr. MORTON: I trust the Government will endeavour to settle this unemployed question in some way, so that it may not become a scandal to the Government of this country.
Mr. HUGH BARRIE: It is altogether an unusual state of affairs at the height of the summer to find a distress committee of the great corporation of Glasgow making a special appeal to the Government to enable them to meet some portion of the great expense falling on that corporation in connection with unemployment. I am not concerned to follow the Lord Advocate in the reflections he made on the political party to which I belong as regards the responsibility for the meaure under which these distress committees exist. The seriousness of the position of affairs in Glasgow is not only causing concern to the corporation but to many thoughtful citizens quite outside the corporation. I hope that the unanimity which has prevailed this evening in dealing with this matter will have such an effect that although the Lord Advocate used most careful language, I hope the corporation will interpret that language as meant to encourage them to go on with the work which they are at present responsible for, and which they are conducting with the most economy, and with a full reliance that when the time comes for the encouragement to which the Lord Advocate referred that it shall take the shape of the necessary amount of a grant. It is impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of the state of affairs at present existing in the great city of Glasgow. I hope the Government are fully impressed with the seriousness of the problem.
Mr. W. P. BEALE: I was very much impressed with the obvious difficulty of the Lord Advocate in making anything like a general promise. The question that has arisen has been accentuated by the telegram coming from the city of Glasgow. It has been quoted as if it were desirable, and I think it is desirable, that special steps should be taken as to Glasgow. But in that event special difficulties may arise as to other places. My colleague in the representation of Ayrshire (Mr. T. Cochrane) stated that Glasgow is not the only place where distress of this kind might and did arise. That is the case, and the distress is quite equal in other places to that which has arisen in Glasgow. I wish the Glasgow case met, but if you are going to grant money for this purpose you will have difficulties raised by the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. H. Cox), by the "Spectator," and by inspired philosophers of that calibre. I can quite understand that the Lord Advocate sees a difficulty in making a definite promise. I want to see the Scottish Department take a strong part, and to be supported by all the Scottish Members in dealing with this unemployment question generally. I regret there were not more Scottish votes when the occasion did offer. Although there were many possible reasons for not voting in favour of a particular Bill, yet this subject is a serious one. I am glad the question has been raised even in this way; but I look for a solution in a form—which I hope the Scotch Office will do their best to back up—which will meet the needs of the United Kingdom, and not of Glasgow alone.
Mr. C. E. PRICE: The Lord Advocate said that the difficulties between the Edinburgh Distress Committee and the Local Government Board have arisen through a misunderstanding. I shall not attempt to allocate the blame as between one side and the other. The point is that the Edinburgh Distress Committee has been left in a very difficult position, and it is important that there should be no misunderstanding now as to the attitude of the Government with regard to expenditure which may be entered into in the future. Assuming that the distress committees go forward and spend money, upon what basis are they to do so, where are they to look to meet the obligation, and what will be the position of the Government in regard to any expenditure that may be incurred?
Mr. WEIR: I feel very strongly indeed this loss of £18,000 through sheer carelessness. Scotland, with its many thousands of suffering poor, ought to have had the benefit of that money. The Lord Advocate can make no definite statement on the matter. He will have to go to the Secretary for Scotland, and then to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister ought to have been here; he could have given a promise. An hon. Member opposite expressed a hope that, after the statement of the Lord Advocate, something would be done for the unemployed. I have not much faith in these half pledges, or, indeed, in any pledge at all; I have known so many of them to be broken. Therefore the semi-pledge or sympathetic statement of the Lord Advocate is no comfort to me. Thousands of poor fellows, driven from the northern parts of Scotland, are going about the streets of Glasgow starving, and this £18,000, which might have provided employment for them, has been thrown away. I feel that loss very keenly, but I feel even more keenly the absence of so many Scotch Members, especially on the Front Bench, from the Debate to-night. Why are they not here? Why is the Prime Minister, a Scottish Member, enjoying himself elsewhere?
Sir J. H. DALZIEL: Before, the decision is taken, I hope the Lord Advocate will not consider that we are undulypressing him if we ask him whether he cannot see his way to reply to the questions addressed to him. This has been a very useful and interesting Debate, but its ultimate importance will depend to a large extent upon whether any effective result is going to take place in Scotland. So far as I judge the Debate to-night, unless we have a little clearer statement from the Lord Advocate, I fear that no good result will take place in Glasgow or elsewhere. My hon. Friend has spoken with regard to misunderstandings in the past. Let us have no misunderstandings in the future. In the interests of the unemployed I would ask the Lord Advocate whether he can make the situation a little clearer than it has been left?
Mr. SCOTT-DICKSON: I do not think after the discussion we have had to-night, that we ought to allow this matter to stand where it is. We ought to have a clear view of the position as to whether the Lord Advocate can give the pledges or not. To endeavour to attain this object I beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £100.
Mr. URE: I thought I had made it quite clear that it was not in my power to offer any pledges, and I do not think it is quite fair that the Committee should press me for one.
An HON. MEMBER: "Why are you here?"
Mr. URE: The hon. Member should really——
Another HON. MEMBER: "Somebody ought to be here!"
Mr. JOSEPH POINTER: Is it unfair to suggest that the Prime Minister ought to be in his place after the complaint by the Lord Advocate that we are asking him something that he cannot do, but the Prime Minister can?
Mr. URE: That is an unfair reflection upon the Prime Minister. I do not think it would be fair to ask him to offer a pledge beforehand. As regards Glasgow, it is not, I think, altogether unfair to suggest that at least during the summer months the distress committee should appeal to the citizens for contributions sufficient to enable them to carry on their work. If the distress is as acute and the committee as efficient as I hope the citizens think, if its work is as useful as we believe, it is not surely asking too much that the distress committee should invite the city to help them in the manner I have described with this essential work. I would suggest that the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow should put himself into communication with the distress committee. In regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh, I say the time has not come to make arrangements. When the time comes, when the distress committee and the Local Government Board meet at the commencement of their year, which will be in September or October, I hope the distress committee will put the case fairly before the Local Government Board, as the Glasgow Committee did, and point out to the Board that the citizens are generous, and that their generosity will be required for the purposes of meeting the objects which the Committee have in view. Let them put the case fairly before the Local Government Board, and press the Board as the Glasgow Committee did, and come to a definite understanding at the commencement of the winter. But it would be premature at the present moment for me, who am not a Member of the Local Government Board, to consider a question which is
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singularly appropriate for consideration between the Local Government Board and the distress committee.
Mr. A. C. MORTON: The Lord Advocate does not seem to understand how sincerely we deplore the loss of this £18,000.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The question of the £18,000 has been referred to repeatedly by speakers, and I think that question must now be regarded as settled.
Mr. MORTON: On a point of order, we have had no answer. What we want to know is why the Prime Minister does not come here to deal with this question?
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That also has been settled.
Sir J. DALZIEL: I do not think we desired to censure the Lord Advocate by pressing him for a pledge. No discourtesy was intended to the right hon. Gentleman. We know if he could give a pledge he would have given it, and save the time of the Committee. I do not blame him for that, but I blame the Secretary for Scotland, in view of the alarming state of affairs, for not equipping the right hon. Gentleman with authority to promise a definite grant if the Committee so desired. I do not think we would have been asking too much of the Noble Lord if he had been within the precincts of the Committee, where he might have been consulted by the Lord Advocate.
Mr. A. C. MORTON: Without alluding to the £18,000, I want to emphasise the fact that somebody ought to be here to represent the Secretary for Scotland——
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That also has been referred to.
Mr. WEIR: Has not the Motion to reduce the Vote been already moved by the hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Mr. Cleland) on this side of the House?
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: No; the hon. Member did not move it, and it was moved from the Front Opposition Bench.
Mr. URE: Let the Committee not misunderstand. I stated I was not in a position to give a definite pledge, but I intended to express myself as entirely in favour of the view that all distress committees' expenditure during the summertime should be most favourably considered by the Government when the grants come to be considered; and I gave an

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assurance, as far as my personal influence goes, it shall go to secure that none of the distress committees shall be out of pocket for moneys prudently and wisely spent.
Mr. H. A. WATT: Is it not the case that the hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division—
Mr. WEIR: I have a few other matter to which I wish to call attention. It is not the first time I have called attention to them, and I charged the Government with gross neglect. I hold in my hand Dr. Dittmar's Report, published in 1905. I shall always be grateful to the late Lord Advocate for that Report, because it shows up a state of affairs in the island of Lewis which is disgraceful in any civilised country. The Report says that with the exception of six, all the 120 houses in the township of Brager are uninhabitable. The population of that township was 704. My complaint is that during all these years no effort has been made to put these things right. The only good houses in the township are built of stone and lime. In another township, with a population of 347, Dr. Dittmar says the houses are grossly insanitary and could be certified as a nuisance under the Public Health Act. Apparently nothing is to be done in Lewis. Years go by and nothing is done. What arrangements have been made to secure sanitary sites? The medical officer for Lewis has for years urged that sanitary sites for houses should be provided. Has any effort been made in that direction? Has the landlord been approached? There are many parts of the island which would provide sanitary sites, yet I believe not a
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: No; it is not the case.
Question put, "That a sum not exceeding £10,435 be granted for the said Service."
The Committee divided: Ayes, 5; Noes, 46.

Division No. 259.]

AYES.

[10.35 p.m.

Anstruther-Gray, Major

Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Scott-Dickson and Mr. Cleland.

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

Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

NOES.

Armitage, R.

Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh.)

Richardson, A.

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Laidlaw, Robert

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Lamont, Norman

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Barnard, E. B.

Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Seddon, J.

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Lynch, H. B.

Shackleton, David James

Beale, W. P

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

Bowerman, C W.

Menzies, Sir Walter

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Bryce, J. Annan

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

Watt, Henry A.

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Weir, James Galloway

Causton, Rt. Hon. Richard Knight

Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)

White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

Wilkie, Alexander

Dalziel, Sir James Henry

Nuttall, Harry

Williamson, Sir A.

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Pointer, J.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)

Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

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

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Fuller and Mr. Whitley.

Glendinning, R. G.

Rainy, A. Rolland

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

single one has been secured. We are often told that the District Committee has no money, but is that a justification for subjecting the population of the island to all kinds of fevers and to the loss of education through the closing of the schools? This would not be accepted as an excuse if the place were within easy reach of London; tout it is 750 miles away, and so the people can starve and die, in insanitary dwellings because no one except the landlord and his agent goes near them. I have visited many parts of the world, but I have never seen such terrible places as are to be found in Lewis—insanitary, without drainage and without water—surface water supply only. The District Committee have no money to dig wells, we are told, and when I put a question on this subject a year or two ago I was informed that there was plenty of water in the highlands. I think it was the most cold blooded reply I ever had. I suppose there is plenty of water in the sea, but it would not supply water for the population. In future, will the Local Government Board act in these cases as they would do in England? If there are difficulties of the kind encountered here, there is an immediate inquiry, and the matter is not allowed to go on year after year. The medical officer

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refers to the matter in his Report again and again, but nothing is done. Years go by, and still the Local Government Board simply do nothing, and the result is that there are fever outbreaks, the schools are closed, and the children are deprived of their educational opportunities. That is a very serious matter. The medical officer of health makes various suggestions in his report about sanitary matters, education, drainage schemes, and the supply of water, but these administrative matters which could be dealt with if the Local Government Board took the trouble are not dealt with. The medical officer has declared that some of the houses at Aignish, Lewis, built during the last three or four years, are practically uninhabitable owing to smoke and damp, and I, when I went over the houses myself, never saw such desolate places in my life. If this sort of thing is going on with houses recently built, what about the other houses? An indication can be got from a Report, for which I shall ever feel grateful to the ex-Lord Advocate. I should never have got it from the present Secretary for Scotland. The water pours in in pailfuls during storms, and these things are not attended to. The medical inspector refers to the infectious diseases hospital and the ambulance—no rubber tyres on it. That is a very small expense for an ambulance which may have to take persons for 45 miles from Stornoway. It is no joke for the poor inmate, racked with pain, to be jolted along the roads. I know whether a house is sanitary or insanitary, and if I knew nothing about it I have this Report of the medical inspector to the Local Government Board for Scotland, a most able and conscientious man. Not the slightest attention has been paid to any of his recommendations.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again on Monday next.

POST OFFICE (LOTTERIES AND OBSCENE MATTER) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. BEALE: This Bill was drawn after considerable consultation with the Post Office. It gives power, if the Postmaster-General gets evidence from circulars and advertisements that they are from lottery agents to examine the letters. The Bill has been extended to the examination of letters
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containing obscene matter also. It is supported on both sides of the House, and I have received communications from all over the country — especially from those engaged in the work of education—hoping that the Bill will be passed.
Objection taken; Second Reading deferred.

HIGH COURT (KING'S BENCH DIVISION).
Ordered, "That the Lords Message of 7th July relating to the High Court of Justice (King's Bench Division) be considered:
"That a Select Committee of five Members be appointed, to be joined with a like number of Lords, to consider the state of business in the King's Bench Division of the High Court and report thereon, and whether any increase is desirable in the number of judges of that division, and to make such recommendations as they see fit:
"That a Message be sent to the Lords to acquaint them therewith:
"That Mr. Akers-Douglas, Mr. Ellis, Sir John Kennaway, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Thomas Whittaker be Members of the Committee:
"That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:
"That three be the quorum."—[Mr. Joseph Pease.]
Adjourned at Eight minutes after Eleven o'clock.