Commons Sitting of 6 April 1910

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway Bill [Lords],
Read a second time, and committed.
Belfast Corporation Bill, "to empower the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of the city of Belfast to acquire the undertaking of the Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway Company; and for other purposes,"
Presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
Mallow Urban District Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Mallow Gas Bill,
Reported (Parties do not proceed); Report to lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Petty Officer Ellis (Accident).
  Mr. FALLEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he would consider the case of first-class Petty Officer W. H. Ellis, who, but for an accident which resulted in the loss of a leg, would have been eligible for the Royal Fleet Reserve pension; and if he would endeavour to obtain some compassionate employment for this man?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): This question has already been considered by the Admiralty, as was explained to the hon. Gentleman in reply to his question of 17th March last. I have caused the circumstances to be referred to one of the Navy employment societies with a request that they will use their endeavours if possible to find employment for the man.

  Destroyers (Building).
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked how many of the twenty destroyers of last
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  year's programme were actually laid down on 2nd March last; what was the actual date on which each destroyer was laid down; and at what yard was the work undertaken in each case?
  Mr. McKENNA: All the destroyers of last year's programme were actually laid down before 2nd March last with the exception of the "Fury," which was laid down on the following day, and the "Minstrel" on 11th March. I will circulate the remainder of the information asked for with the Votes and Proceedings. I would remind the Noble Lord that these vessels were all ordered in October of last year, and that the contract dates for completion run from the date of order, and are not affected by the dates of technically laying down. [See Written Answers this date.]
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORD: May I ask the exact date of finishing?
  Mr. McKENNA: Within eighteen months of the date of ordering in October last.

  Japanese Battleships "Aki" and "Satsuma."
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked what were the main and secondary armaments, respectively, of the Japanese battleships "Aki" and "Satsuma;" and whether the Admiralty, in computing the comparative strength of our own and foreign navies in battleships of the "Dreadnought" type, class the "Aki" and "Satsuma" as "Dreadnoughts" or pre-" Dreadnoughts "?
  Mr. McKENNA: The armaments are as follows: "Aki," four 12-inch, twelve 10-inch, eight 6-inch, eight 12-pounder, four machine-guns, five submerged torpedo-tubes; "Satsuma," four 12-inch, twelve 10-inch, twelve 4.7-inch, four 12-pounder, four machine-guns, five submerged torpedo-tubes. For the purpose mentioned in the question, these vessels, owing to their size and powerful armament, are reckoned by the Admiralty as if they were of the "Dreadnought" type.

  Fountain Basin, Portsmouth.
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked how often in a month ships of the "Dreadnought" class could enter the Fountain Basin, Portsmouth; whether Fountain Basin was the only entrance to No. 15 dock; whether No. 15 dock was at present the only one capable of holding a "Dreadnought"; whether the "Dreadnought" was injured the first time she was taken into No. 15 dock; and, if so,

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  whether the accident occurred through there not being enough water for her bilge keels to pass over the entrance to Fountain Basin; and whether No. 15 dock would be capable of taking all ships of the "Dreadnought" class built, building, and projected?
  Mr. McKENNA: The number of days, including Saturdays and Sundays, and night tides, on which it is possible for ships of the "Dreadnought" class to pass Fountain Lake entrance of No. 4 basin averages fourteen and a half days per month at the draught to which the ship is usually lightened for docking. Fountain Lake entrance is the only one at present that will admit ships of the "Dreadnought" class to No. 15 dock. No. 15 dock is at present the only one at Portsmouth capable of holding a "Dreadnought." The "Dreadnought" was not injured the first time she was taken into No. 15 dock. The injury referred to was incurred at the Fountain Lake entrance to No. 4 basin, and the ship had previously been passed three times satisfactorily through this entrance. On this occasion the ship had a slight list and was driven out of the middle line of the entrance by the tide. No. 15 dock will accommodate all ships of the "Dreadnought" class built, building and projected.
  Mr. ARTHUR LEE: Is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to have that answer circulated for the information of officers and others concerned?
  Mr. McKENNA: I will see that it is done.
  Viscount HELMSLEY: May I ask whether that answer does not go to show that if a vessel has a slight list it cannot enter this dock at all?
  Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. If she had a slight list she must be put straight.

  Admiralty Contracts (Sub-letting).
  Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked whether the sub-letting of contracts for labour only is permitted in contracts made on behalf of the Admiralty; whether due inquiries are made in the district where the work was being carried on regarding the condition of local labour; and whether, seeing that so many plasterers were out of employment in the surrounding district, the First Lord of the Admiralty will give instructions that the plastering of the new drawing offices at Keyham shall not be sub-let?
  Mr. McKENNA: It is permissible in works contracts made on behalf of the Admiralty to sub-let portions of the work for labour only, and the Fair Wages Clause applies to such sub-contracts. The answer to the third part of the question is in the negative.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: May I ask whether the Works Department of the Admiralty consider the question of local labour at all, or whether they are satisfied that the work will be well done?
  Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir; they are satisfied that the work will be well done under conditions of labour which satisfy them as suitable. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that if he wishes to turn out one set of men in order to employ another set, the men turned out will then become in due course unemployed.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: May I ask whether it is possible for a contractor to bring labour from Newcastle to Devonport and to ignore altogether that local men are out of work?
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not suppose that any contractor would do anything so foolish as that.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: May I ask whether the Works Department of the Admiralty will see that that is not done?
  Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. I do not find it necessary to see that the Works Department do not do foolish things.

  Royal Dockyard (Storehouse Men).
  Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he would explain to the House in what way the duties of first-grade storehouse men differed from those of second-grade storehouse men; whether there was any store charge known in the Devonport Dockyard as a first-grade charge; whether it was customary in the Royal dockyards when a first-grade storehouse man vacated; his position to appoint a second-grade storehouse man to the post without the second-grade storehouse man necessarily receiving any rise of pay; whether he would consider the advisability of discontinuing the present classification; and whether, in place of remunerating first-grade storehouse men at a minimum wage of 33s. a week rising to a maximum of 39s. per week, and second-grade storehouse men at a minimum wage of 26s. per week rising

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  to a maximum of 32s. per week, he would make the minimum wage for all storehouse men 26s. per week, rising by a uniform rate of 1s. a week annually until the maximum of 39s. be reached?
  Mr. McKENNA: The charges apportioned to the respective storehousemen are allocated by the local naval store officer according to their relative importance, the staff allowed, and the varying circumstances of dockyard work. A classification of charges is consequently not advisable nor practicable. The question of continuing the existing classification of storehousemen has already been considered, and it is not proposed to make any alteration.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to kindly answer the second point, namely, "whether there is any store charge known in the Devon-port Dockyard as a first-grade charge?"
  Mr. McKENNA: I am afraid I could not answer that question off-hand. I regret it is not included in the answer I have given. It is a technical matter of which I have no personal knowledge.

  British Guiana (Administration).
  Mr. POINTERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Mr. A. P. P. Meachey had resigned his seat on the Executive Council of British Guiana; if not, when was the last occasion on which he attended and the number of meetings that had taken place since; and, if he had resigned, whether steps would be taken to appoint a successor, either provisionally or otherwise, representative of labour?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Col. Seely): My hon. Friend, no doubt, refers to Mr. A. P. P. Mackey, who resigned his seat in the Combined Court on 5th of January last owing to ill-health. The Secretary of State is not aware that he has resigned his seat on the Executive Council, and inquiry will be made as regards his attendance at council meetings. In reply to the last part of the question, I must refer to the answer I gave on 10th March.
  Mr. POINTERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he had yet received any information in reply to inquiries as to the possibility of effecting a reduction in the mounted section of
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  the police force of British Guiana, in compliance with the expressed desire of a majority of the members of the British Guiana Legislature; whether he was aware that on an Amendment moved recently to reduce the vote for the mounted police in the British Guiana Legislature the Governor voted against, and then on a tie being declared gave a casting vote against; and whether this action on the part of the Governor in voting twice was correct?
  Colonel SEELY: The Secretary of State has not yet received the Governor's reply to his inquiries, nor has he any official information in regard to the debate on the proposal for the reduction of the mounted police. A Press report of the debate is substantially in accordance with the information of my hon. Friend. The British Guiana Constitution Ordinance of 1891 expressly provides that the Governor or other presiding member shall have an original vote on all questions before the Combined Court, and also a casting vote, if the votes are equally divided.
  Mr. POINTERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention had been drawn to a debate that took place in the British Guiana Legislature on 23rd February last with regard to the number of successful appeals from decisions of the magistrate of the South Essequebo district; and whether steps would be taken to remove from office this magistrate?
  Colonel SEELY: The Secretary of State-has seen a newspaper report of the debate to which my hon. Friend refers. The Governor will no doubt make a recommendation to the Secretary of State if it is necessary to do so.

  Coolie Immigration Committee.
  Mr. POINTERasked the. Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he would give the name, profession, or standing of each of the members of the Committee or Commission recently appointed to consider the question of Coolie Immigration in the Crown Colonies?
  Colonel SEELY: The Committee is composed as follows:—
  The Lord Sanderson, G.C.B., K.C.M.G.,. I.S.O. (Chairman).
  The Lord Sandhurst, P.C., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E.
  Sir George Scott Robertson, K.C.S.I.,. M.P.
  Sir James John Digges La Touche, K.C.S.I., a Member of the Council of India.
  Hugh Bertram Cox, Esq., C.B., Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Colonial Office.
  Wilfrid William Ashley, Esq., M.P.
  Selwyn Howe Fremantle, Esq., of the Indian Civil Service.
  Walter Devonshire Ellis, Esq., of the Colonial Office.
  Mr. Reginald Herbert Griffin, of the Colonial Office, acts as Secretary.
  Mr. POINTERasked where and under what conditions the Committee for the consideration of coolie immigration held its meetings; whether all classes interested, including negroes and coolies, were allowed to give evidence; and whether special facilities had been offered to the latter in order to enable them to give evidence?
  Colonel SEELY: The Committee holds its meetings at the Colonial Office. The evidence of all classes interested has, of course, been accepted and welcomed. A representative of the Trinidad Working Mens' Association and a representative selected by the East Indians in Trinidad to give evidence before the Committee have been heard on their behalf.
  Mr. POINTERasked the terms of reference of the Committee on Coolie Immigration in the Crown Colonies, showing its power or authority; whether it was instructed to go into other matters related to the social conditions of the natives in Jamaica and elsewhere, or simply to confine itself to the indentured labour question; and whether particular care would be taken to ascertain whether there was any connection between the importation of indentured coolie labour and the extensive emigration of the native negro population?
  Colonel SEELY: The terms of reference to the Committee are as follows:— To consider (a) The general question of emigration from India to the Crown Colonies, (b) The particular Colonies in which Indian immigration may be most usefully encouraged. (c) The general advantages to be reaped in each case, (1) by India itself, (2) by each particular Colony. The Secretary of State has not yet received the report of the Committee, but it is understood that in the course of their inquiry they have received evidence.as to the general social condition of the
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  population in the Colonies concerned with coolie immigration and as to any connection which emigration of the native population in such Colonies may bear to the introduction of coolies. The evidence taken by the Committee will be presented to Parliament with the Report.
  Mr. POINTERasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he had received an application from His Excellency the Governor of Trinidad for permission to import 3,200 Indian immigrants during the year 1910–11; and whether, having regard to the prevalence of signs of unrest and dissatisfaction in the island, it was his intention to postpone consent to the application until the Committee on Coolie Immigration in the Crown Colonies had completed its labours and reported?
  Colonel SEELY: The Secretary of State has received an application from the Governor and has approved the importation of the number of immigrants specified in my hon. Friend's question. It would not have been possible to suspend decision as to the number of immigrants required during the year 1910–11 pending the receipt of the report of the Committee on Coolie Immigration.

  Coal Miners' Dispute (Nova Scotia).
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention had been called to an advertisement appearing in British newspapers asking for 1,000 coal miners for the Dominion Coal Company's mines, Nova Scotia; whether he was aware that an industrial dispute between this company and its employés had been in progress for the past nine months and was still unsettled, and that as a consequence the workmen were locked out or on strike; and what action he proposed to take to warn intending emigrants of the facts of the case?
  Colonel SEELY: My attention has not previously been called to the advertisement in question. But the existence of the dispute had been known to the Emigrants Information Office since it began in July last, and reference to it had been made from time to time in the publications issued by that office. In the Canada Circular dated 1st April issued by the Emigrants Information Office a description of the present situation is included, and coal-miners are warned against going to these mines in search of work at the

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  present time. A similar reference is made in a circular which has been sent by the Emigrants Information Office to the Press.

  Somaliland Papers.
  Sir CLEMENT HILLasked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he would now lay upon the Table the further papers, already promised, relating to Somaliland?
  Colonel SEELY: Some further Papers will be laid in due course.

  Slaughter of Natives (Somaliland).
  Sir CLEMENT HILLasked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he had any official information to the effect that the Mullah had slaughtered 800 friendly natives and captured their stock; and whether he would state to the House how many natives under British protection in Somaliland had been killed, and how many head of cattle and what amount of Government stores, rifles, or ammunition in the hands of friendlies had been captured by the Mullah or other hostile raiders since the conclusion of Sir R. Wingate's mission to the Protectorate?
  Colonel SEELY: With regard to the first part of the hon. Member's question, I would refer him to the answer which I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Rugby. With regard to the second part, I have made inquiry of the late Commissioner, who is now in this country, but he is unable to give any estimate, and I think that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain trustworthy information.
  Sir CLEMENT HILL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that statements have been published in a Blue Book that eighty-seven friendly natives have been killed by the Mullah's emissaries, and 7,000 head of live stock have been captured, together with a considerable number of rifles?
  Colonel SEELY: I am not aware of it. That refers to the first part of the question. I have nothing to add to the information which I gave yesterday, because no information has been received.
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: Is it not the case that the military authorities of Somaliland have received reports from the interior of these matters to which my hon. Friend referred?
  Colonel SEELY: I have read out to the House yesterday the whole of the information received.

  Imprisonment of Dinizulu.
  Mr. BYLESasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what reports have the Colonial Office received as to the health of Dinizulu, the ex-King of Zululand; under what conditions was he living in imprisonment; when did his term of confinement expire; and were there any reasons of a personal or political nature why he should not now be released and restored to his people?
  Colonel SEELY: No recent official reports on Dinizulu's health have reached the Colonial Office, but I have no reason to suppose that he is otherwise than well. The conditions of his imprisonment were reported by the Governor in his despatch enclosing the judgment of the Special Court printed in Cd. paper 4585. page 47. The court condemned Dinizulu to four years' imprisonment, to run from 9th December, 1907, with another year on another count, this latter with the option of a fine. Dinizulu has also forfeited his position as Government Induna in Zululand. As I have explained before, the Union Government will be able to review the whole situation, and the Secretary of State does not propose to reopen the question now.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: In view of the work of reconciliation which is going on in South Africa, will the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity of calling this case to the attention of the Union Government with the object of obtaining the release of this man, whose continued imprisonment undoubtedly must cause a great deal of irritation and ill-feeling among the large coloured population?
  Colonel SEELY: We realise fully how desirable it is that the reconciliation of all races in South Africa should proceed, but while I sympathise entirely with the view expressed by my hon. Friend, I doubt whether representations on our part to the Union Government or those who may one day form the Union Government, would at the present moment be desirable. In the first place the Union Government has not yet been formed. It very soon will be, and I am quite sure it will bear in mind the facts that have been stated by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. BYLES: Is there any, at the present time, unrest whatever among the Zulu population?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

  Consular Reports on Foreign Countries.
  Mr. REESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Reports of His Majesty's Consuls regarding the internal condition of the foreign countries in which they are stationed are confidential documents; and, if so, whether any change is proposed as regards their classification in this respect?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The question whether a particular Consular Report should be treated as confidential or not must be decided according to circumstances, and no general rule can be laid down on the subject.
  Mr. REES: Is it proposed to treat as other than confidential the Reports of our Consuls in regard to internal affairs in Turkey and in other European countries?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: That is a particular question which has not yet arisen.

  Bosnia Annexation Conference.
  Mr. LINCOLNasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the proposed conference to consider the situation on the Balkans consequent upon the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria has been definitely abandoned, or whether negotiations are still proceeding among the Powers for the holding of the conference; and will he, in view of the continued tension and restlessness on the Peninsula, use his influence for the early assembling of the conference?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: There is no proposal for a conference now being considered by the Powers, nor does it appear that the present situation requires one.
  Lord BALCARRES: Has the suggestion for the conference been withdrawn by the Foreign Office?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: The circumstances have so altered that the necessity for the conference does not now exist.

  Chingford Nurseries (Italian Labour).
  Captain FABERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state whether his attention has been called to the indenture of a large colony of Italian youths in the new glass nurseries, Whitehall Road, Chingford, on a very low farinaceous diet, and to their
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  conditions of lodging and maintenance, by which working men in search of work on the old nursery rate of wages find themselves undersold; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Masterman): If the hon. and gallant Member can furnish the Secretary of State with information enabling him to discover the Italian colony which he has in mind, my right hon. Friend will look into the matter. The inquiries which he has made so far, though they have extended to all nurseries in the parish of Chingford, have failed to disclose anything of the nature indicated in the question.

  Education Rate (Imprisonment).
  Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he would state the number of persons imprisoned in England in the year 1905 for refusal to pay the Education Rate, and the number imprisoned for refusal to pay the same rate in the year 1909; and would he state if any alteration in the law had taken place between these two dates?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: It is impossible to give this information as there is no legal distinction between persons who go to prison in default of paying a rate levied for education purposes and other rate defaulters. The hon. Member is, no doubt, familiar with the history of the attempts made by the present Government to remedy the Nonconformist grievance by legislation.

  Deaths in County Asylums (Form of Notice).
  Mr. CLYNESasked the Home Secretary if he was aware of the grievance felt by relatives of patients who died in the county asylums, and who had been chargeable to boards of guardians, because of the description pauper patient in the notice of death sent out from the asylums; and whether, having regard to the fact that the full cost of maintenance of many such patients had been met by relatives or friends, he would cause to be eliminated the word pauper from the Form (No. 21) of Notice of Death prescribed in the rules laid down by the Commissioners in Lunacy?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: The terms "Private" and "Pauper" are in common use to mark a necessary distinction, and,

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  as the terms are defined in the Lunacy Acts, they could not be changed without legislation. The Secretary of State may point out that although the whole expenses of "maintenance" (as denned by s. 287 of the Lunacy Act, 1890) of patients classed as "Paupers" are often met by relatives or friends, these "expenses of maintenance" do not include any charge for the cost of the building in which he is housed. If a rent charge were exacted, it would mean a payment of about 4s. or 6s. a week beyond the so-called "maintenance."

  Parliamentary Constituencies (Returns).
  Sir CHARLES DILKEasked whether the figures in the annual Returns of Parliamentary Constituencies (Electors, etc.) and the figures based upon the last Return which had been recently given by the Secretary of State, showed the actual number of persons entitled to vote at Parliamentary elections or far more than that number?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: There is an unknown number of duplicate entries upon the registers which it is impossible to eliminate from the figures. There are, first, the plural voters, who possess two or more votes in different constituencies, all of which they may lawfully exercise; and, in addition to these, there are many cases of duplicate registration in respect of different qualifications in the same constituency, which give the right to only one vote in a Parliamentary election. When discovered at the revision of the lists of voters, duplicate votes of the latter class are either struck out or marked as available for local elections only; but doubtless a considerable number escape observation, and remain upon the register.

  Post Office Holidays (Hoxton).
  Dr. ADDISONasked the Postmaster-General whether men in the engine department at the Post Office works in Mount Pleasant, Hoxton, have had to take their holidays in January, and, if so, on what grounds; whether any of the men have been placed on short time; and, if so, whether he will state the circumstances which have led to this being done at this time of the year?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): As I explained on 23rd March, in reply to the hon. Members for North and South Islington, there
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  has been slackness of work for some time in the Post Office factories and short time has been necessary. Some workmen were allowed at their own request to take a portion of their annual holidays in January as an alternative to short time.

  Post Office Contracts.
  Mr. NEWMANasked whether in contracts for supply of instruments or other goods that may be obtained by firms having establishments abroad as well as in this country, a clause was or was not inserted limiting the whole process of manufacture to the works situated in this country; and what means were at his disposal to see that such a clause was not evaded?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No such clause is inserted in the contracts, but I am giving the matter consideration.

  Telegraphists' Superannuation (Post Office).
  Captain COOPERasked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention had been called to the desire of telegraphists who have served in the Royal Engineers to have that portion of their Army time in which they were actually working under the Post Office included in the assessment of their superannuation allowance; and whether he was prepared to grant them this concession?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: My attention has been called to the matter which I am again bringing under consideration. It has on several occasions in the past been decided that the concession was not one which should be granted.
  Captain COOPER: May I ask if these men are to be penalised because they have served in the Army instead of under the Post Office directly?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It is really a matter for the Treasury's decision rather than my own, but I am not prepared to admit that there is any penalisation.

  Post Office Employés.
  Mr. CHARLES CRAIGasked what considerations, other than cost of living, are taken into account when classifying post-offices for the purpose of fixing the rate of wages of Post Office employés?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Parliamentary Committee on Post Office servants recommended that the classification of

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  Post Offices for the purpose of fixing the scales of pay of the staff should be based primarily upon the volume of work at each office as ascertained by the Post Office, the cost of living, in each locality as a whole, as ascertained by the Board of Trade, being taken into account as a modifying factor. This principle is being acted on.
  Mr. CHARLES CRAIG: I not the fact that the volume of busi in that particular post office can be regulated by having a greater or lesser nu of servants to perform the duties?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No, Sir; the number of Post Office servants must depend upon the business, and not the business upon the Post Office servants.
  Mr. A. F. WHYTE: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken into consideration the cost of living in certain Scottish towns with a view to reclassification in regard to rates of pay?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Whenever a matter is referred to the Board of Trade for consideration, as other matters have been referred during the last few weeks and months, any change is always taken into consideration.
  Mr. WHYTE: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us which class of Scottish towns were taken into consideration?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No; not without notice.

  Postal Sample and Pattern Parcels.
  Mr. CHARLES CRAIGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that small pattern or sample parcels and newspapers are regularly sent from Japan to this country by the Siberian route; whether these parcels and newspapers are carried at the Id. for four ounces rate or at the higher rate; and, if at the lower rate, will he explain why this country cannot obtain the same postal facilities by the Siberian route as the Japanese appear to have obtained?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Samples and printed papers prepaid at the reduced rates are accepted by the Japanese Post Office for transmission by the Siberian route, but not by European post offices (except Russia). I regret that, in the circumstances which I explained in my reply to the hon. Member's question of the 21st ultimo, I am unable at present to provide for sending such articles by this route.

  Boy Messengers (Secondary Education).
  Mr. FRANCEasked whether the Post master-General will consider the possibility of making compulsory secondary education a condition of employment for boy messengers?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I have this proposal under consideration with other suggestions for dealing with the question of the future employment of boy messengers.

  Unestablished Labour (Leeds Post Office).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked whether it is a necessary part of the impending revision at the Leeds office that unestablished labour should be employed continuously during the slack winter season, whilst learners at Leeds are being offered appointments elsewhere; and, if not, whether he will direct that the places which have been filled by season assistants during this period shall be recruited from the male learners at present attached to the Leeds office?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The existing arrangements are temporary pending the settlement of a revision involving several important points to which I have had to give special consideration.

  Irish Mails.
  Captain DONELANasked, with reference to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman to a deputation from Ireland on 31st March, namely, that of the mails carried by the "Lusitania" and "Mauretania" the Irish proportion only amounted to about 10 per cent., while the other 90 per cent, was for Great Britain, is not a large proportion of Continental mail matter included in this 90 per cent.; and, if so, can he state the exact proportion?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The 90 per cent, includes mails for the Continent and elsewhere in transit through this country, as well as mails for all parts of Great Britain. As almost all the mails for the Continent and places abroad have to pass through London, the same considerations apply in regard to the importance of early arrival in London as in the case of those whose destination is England. An analysis of several recent mails brought by the "Lusitania" and "Mauretania" shows that 7 per cent, of mails were for Ireland, 42 per cent, for Great Britain, and 51 per cent, for the Continent and other places abroad
  Captain DONELAN: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, is it not the fact that the proportion of Irish mails is in reality far larger than 10 per cent.?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Yes, as compared with the mails to Great Britain; but compared with the mails despatched to London for delivery elsewhere, and whose early arrival is very necessary, the proportion is only 7 per cent, against 93 per cent.
  Captain DONELAN: Why should Continental mails be included in the comparison between the proportions of Ireland and Great Britain?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Because international obligations rest on the British Post Office to secure the earliest possible expedition in forwarding the mails abroad.

  Wick Post Office.
  Mr. HARMSWORTHasked the right hon. Gentleman if he could see his way to reconsider the decision to close the post-office of Wick at an earlier hour; and, if not, whether he will regard the proposed change as experimental, and will cause an inquiry to be made at the end of, say, six months with the object of reverting to the original hour if the change be proved to be prejudicial to the business interests of the town?
  Mr. MUNROfurther asked whether the proposed restriction of the hours of business in the Wick post-office is in accordance with a policy which is being carried out by the Department generally, or is due to particular circumstances affecting the town of Wick; whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the commercial community there apprehend grave inconvenience and loss as the result of the restriction proposed; whether he has received and considered a memorial from the Provost and magistrates of Wick on the subject; whether, in light of the circumstances there stated, he can see his way to reconsider the proposed change, or, in any event, to limit the proposed restriction of hours of business during the fishing season; whether, if he has decided that some restriction of hours must be made in the meantime, he will regard the change as experimental; and, if it is shown that public inconvenience and loss result from it, will he authorise a return to the hours of business which have obtained in Wick for over thirty years?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It will be convenient to answer these questions together.
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  It is the practice of the Post Office to revise as opportunities offer the hours of business at towns where they are unusually long and where the amount of work transacted is comparatively email, so as to bring each office into line with others of a similar character, and in the case of Wick the steps taken are by no means exceptional. Local circumstances are, however, taken into account, and it was in consideration of such circumstances that it was decided to keep the Wick office open till 9 p.m., instead of 8 p.m., during the summer months. I will cause inquiry to be made as desired by the hon. Members when the new system has been in operation for a time.

  Parish Relief, Bethnal Green.
  Dr. ADDISONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been directed to the case of the death of a child, Edward William Brewer, of Cambridge Circus, Hackney Road, upon whom an inquest was held in the Bethnal Green coroner's court on 25th March ultimo, to the evidence of Police-constable Daniels and Inspector Griggs as to the absence of food in the house and as to the respectability and extreme poverty of the family, and to the statement of the mother that she had applied for parish relief and had been refused help; and, if so, will he state what action he proposes to take?
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): My attention has been directed to this case, and I have made inquiry of the guardians concerning it. I find that no application for relief on behalf of Mrs. Brewer and her children was made since last July.

  Small Holdings.
  Mr. SANDERSasked if the right hon. Gentleman was aware that on 28th February last the Somerset County Council applied to the Board for consent to borrow £14,578 4s. 8d. for the purchase and adaptation of land for small holdings, that on 11th March the Board of Agriculture wrote to the clerk of the Somerset County Council asking for plans and estimates of certain works, the estimated cost of which amounted to £460, that the clerk of the Somerset County Council replied that it was not possible to forward such plans at once, and suggesting that the Local Government Board should defer their consent to the loan for these works rather than the sanction of the larger sum should be

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  delayed; and whether, in view of the difficulty of properly financing small holdings, owing to the delays of the Local Government Board, he will in future adopt the principle of sanctioning those portions of loans for small holdings about which there is no dispute, leaving the disputed portions over for subsequent controversy?
  Mr. BURNS: I am aware of the facts of the case in question. I have no objection, where the local authority desire it, to sanctioning those portions of loans for small holdings about which there is no dispute as soon as the necessary particulars are received, leaving the portions in respct of which such particulars are not available to be dealt with later. The loans to which the hon. Member refers, less the sums required for adaptation, have been sanctioned.
  Sir ALFRED GELDERasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he will obtain a return from the Lindsey County Council showing how many applications have been made for small holdings in the county of Lincoln; and how many of such applications have been granted, together with the acreage in each Parliamentary Division of the county?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Edward Strachey): There have been 586 applications for small holdings made to the Lindsey County Council, of which 492 have been approved. Seventy-nine of the applicants have been, or are about to be, provided with small holdings: sixteen for ninety-one acres in Louth, fifty-three for 931 acres in Horncastle, ten for 233 acres in Gainsborough.

  Export of Horses.
  Mr. GREENWOODasked if the hon. Gentleman can state how many horses valued at £5 and under, and how many valued at above £5 but not exceeding £10, were exported from Great Britain in the year 1909 to Belgium and Holland respectively?
  Sir EDWARD STRACHEY: There were exported to Belgium in the year 1909 1,734 horses, valued at under £5 per head, and 21,328 valued at £5 and under £10 per head. The corresponding figures in the case of Holland were 14,587 and 2,424.

  Cattle Disease (Argentina).
  Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTSasked whether Argentina has been declared free from cattle disease for two years; and, if so,
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  whether, considering the decreasing supply of meat available from the United States and the importance to our population of a constant and cheap supply of good meat, the Board of Agriculture will remove the embargo now placed on the admission of Argentina cattle to the United Kingdom?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: We have been informed by the Argentine Government that no outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has occurred in Argentina since January, 1909. A formal decree declaring the Republic to foe free from the disease was issued on 25th August last. The question of the removal of the existing prohibition is under consideration, but no decision has as yet been arrived at. I am glad to note that the hon. Member is interested in keeping up a constant supply of cheap food apart from any restrictions.
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether, seeing that there has been no disease in the United States during the last two years, as he himself has acknowledged, he will now take off the prohibition against the Argentine?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: There was no prohibition at the time the disease existed.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: May I ask whether it is not the fact that when the State decree was issued declaring the Republic free from the disease it was the decree of interested parties, namely, those who controlled the cattle interest in the Republic, and whether His Majesty's. Government made independent inquiry into the matter?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.
  Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: May I ask whether a decision is likely to be soon arrived at by the Board?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: We shall arrive at it as soon as ever we can.
  Captain CRAIG: Is he aware that there is a plentiful supply of good beef to be had from Ireland?
  Mr. C. BATHURST: May I ask whether, as suggested in the question, it is the fact that the check upon the importation of live cattle does reduce the supply of meat?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: I do not consider that it does.
  Mr. STANIER: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us if notification of that disease in that country is compulsory?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: I must have notice of that question.

  Noxious Weeds (England and Wales).
  Mr. STANIERasked whether the Board proposes to bring in for England and Wales Bills to prevent the spread of noxious weeds, and one to enable the testing of agricultural seed for purity and germination and the publication of results?
  Sir E. STRACHEY: The working of the Weeds and Agricultural Seeds (Ireland) Act is being carefully watched, but the Board do not at present think it necessary to propose legislation on these subjects for England and Wales. They will be glad, however, to consider any representations which may be made to them respecting it by representative agricultural organisations.
  Mr. STANIER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of the agricultural societies desire it?

  Secondary Schools.
  Mr. NEWDEGATEasked the President of the Board of Education whether, in consequence of the requirement of the Board of Education that local authorities shall provide a certain proportion of free places in secondary schools, the Government will, in view of the increasing burden of local rates, augment the Government Grants for this purpose?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): I think the hon. Member must have misread the history of this requirement. The requirement first appeared in the Regulations for the year 1907–8, and was itself one of the conditions of a considerable increase of grant. Schools which were on the Grant List in the year 1906–7 and preferred not to fulfil the requirement in question were at liberty to continue on the old footing, receiving the lower rate of grant.
  Mr. NEWDEGATEasked whether he will give instructions that for the future, before alterations are made by the Board of Education in regulations concerning secondary schools, those persons directly concerned in the working of these schools shall be previously consulted by the Board, in order to do away with the inconvenience entailed by the Board's present system of issuing regulations without giving power to the different bodies affected to make proper representations to the central Government?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not undervalue the opinion of the local education authorities and other bodies concerned with the work of the secondary schools in the country, and I endeavour by all practicable means to keep in touch with that opinion, which is taken into account in the annual revision of the Regulations. The proposal of the hon. Member would, however, appear to involve the submission of the Board's Regulations in draft for the criticism of, at least, all county and county borough councils, numbering 137, and of the governing bodies of several hundred endowed secondary schools. The Board receive frequent requests that their Regulations may be issued earlier in the year. These requests I am endeavouring to comply with. The only result that I can foresee of the adoption by the Board of the policy advocated by the hon. Member would be that no Regulations would ever reach the point of issue. I am aware that some persons would regard this as a happy consummation, but the Board of Education, unfortunately, cannot so easily shake off their administrative responsibilities.
  Mr. NEWDEGATE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware there is a strong feeling in certain parts of the country, and certainly in the county of Warwick, that all sorts of orders are sent out from the Board of Education without ever consulting the people, who, if I may so with respect, know more about the matters than the Board?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I did not think the people of Warwick had any complaint, but if the hon. Member gives me particulars of any specific complaint in the county I shall be glad to inquire into them.
  Mr. NEWDEGATE: I shall be very glad to do so.

  Training Colleges.
  Mr. LEHMANNasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has come to any decision about the renewal of the modus vivendi in regard to training colleges for the ensuing year?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I understand my hon. Friend's question to refer to Article 8 (d) (i) of the current Regulations for the Training of Teachers for Elementary Schools, which provided, in effect, that one-half of the vacancies in any training college in the year 1909 should be open to candidates irrespective of their religious views. As my hon. Friend is aware, a similar provision was in force as regards

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  vacancies in the year 1908. The experience of these two years has satisfied me that the provision works equitably, and I have, accordingly, decided to continue it in force as regards vacancies in the present year. I am further considering the desirability of indicating in the ensuing issue of the Regulations that the same degree of permanency—and no more— will attach to this provision as to other Articles of the Regulations. Considerable inconvenience is involved in the arrangement hitherto adopted by which candidates are kept in uncertainty from year to year as to the number of places available for them in the colleges to which they desire to be admitted. I am inclined, therefore, to think that the course I have suggested ought to be adopted in the interests of candidates of all denominations.

  Labour Exchanges.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will grant the Return standing in the name of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil for the 5th April?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): I propose to print with the Votes a statement giving certain particulars with regard to the higher appointments under the Labour Exchanges Act, but, as I have already informed my hon. Friend, it is not the custom to publish an official statement as to the qualifications and previous experience of officers appointed to situations in the public service, and I see no reason for departing from the rule in the present instance.
  Mr. SCANLANasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the number of Labour Exchanges and sub-offices of exchanges already opened in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, respectively, under the authority of the recent Act?
  Mr. BUXTON: The number and distribution of the Labour Exchanges and sub-offices actually opened by the Board of Trade under the Labour Exchanges Act, 1909, are as follows: England, eighty-one; Scotland, seven; Ireland, six; Wales, four; making a total of ninety-eight.
  Mr. CLYNES: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information of instances where the local authorities have discouraged the opening of those exchanges?
  Mr. BUXTON: There was one case. If my hon. Friend will give me notice, I
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  will inquire, but as far as I am aware there has been only one case.
  Mr. SCANLANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to a resolution of the Sligo Corporation urging the opening of a bureau or office of the Labour Exchange in Sligo, which is the principal business centre in the West of Ireland; and whether he is now prepared to open an exchange in Sligo?
  Mr. BUXTON: I have received a resolution from the Sligo Corporation to the effect stated. I fear I cannot at present add anything to my answer to a similar question which the hon. Member asked me on 7th March.
  Mr. SCANLAN: In view of the fact that the President of the Board of Trade has stated in answer to Question No. 44 that there are only six Labour Exchanges opened altogether in Ireland, does he not consider Ireland is being neglected in regard to Labour Exchanges by his Department; and I want to know specially if he would consider the advisability of opening at least a sub-office under the Labour Exchanges in Sligo for the convenience of a population of five counties, the workers in which are very much interested in this matter?
  Mr. BUXTON: Amongst an agricultural population Labour Exchanges are not of the same value as they are to industrial populations. Apart from that we must go comparatively slowly in this matter. The whole of the question is of an experimental nature, but I will bear Sligo and other places in mind.
  Mr. SCANLAN: Is it not the case that this slow progress obtains only in regard to Ireland?
  Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON: Not that I am aware of.
  Mr. GWYNN: Can the right hon. Gentleman take any steps to popularise Labour Exchanges in such places as Sligo and Galway, which at present are not touched by the machinery?
  Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON: I should be glad to receive and consider any suggestions from the hon. Member.

  Investments by Public Trustee.
  Mr. ELLIS DAVIESasked the Prime Minister whether, in all cases of depreciation in the value of securities in which the Public Trustee invests trust moneys, the

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  beneficiaries are entitled to be recouped out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom?
  The HON. MEMBERalso asked whether the Consolidated Fund is liable to make good to the persons entitled thereto any depreciation that may take place in the value of the following investments made or held [Cd. 5087] by the Public Trustee: foreign stocks and bonds £165,297 15s. 4d., railways, foreign, £281,609?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I must refer my hon. Friend to Section 7, Sub-section 1, of the Public Trustee Act, which defines the liability of the Consolidated Fund in regard to the responsibilities of the Public Trustee. The answer to his two questions depend upon the proper construction of that section in reference to the facts of each particular case, a matter on which I have no authority to pronounce any opinion.

  Veto Resolutions (Procedure).
  Mr. LEACHasked the Prime Minister whether this House will have an opportunity before the Recess of discussing the attitude of the House of Lords towards the Veto Resolutions?
  The PRIME MINISTER: This is a question I clearly cannot answer before the event.

  Budget, 1909–10.
  Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked the Prime Minister whether, in drafting the text of the Resolution allocating the time that the House shall take to discuss the Budget for last year, he will take into consideration the fact that a number of new Members have been elected to this Parliament for the express purpose of amending that Budget; and whether he will see that sufficient time is provided in the Resolution to enable those Members to recommend to the House alterations in the Budget?
  The PRIME MINISTER: All relevant considerations, including those suggested by the hon. Gentleman, in so far as they are relevant, will be taken into consideration in drawing the terms of the Resolution.
  Mr. YERBURGHasked the Prime Minister whether he has received any information to the effect that certain portions of the Budget are objectionable to the Irish people?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I regret to say that my information shows that there are portions of the Budget which are objected to by persons I think imperfectly informed, not only in Ireland, but also in other parts of the United Kingdom.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Would the right hon. Gentleman inform us what are the concessions, or has he been informed of the concessions?
  Viscount CASTLEREAGH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any negotiations have taken place for the purpose of popularising the Budget?

  Civil Rights (Public Servants).
  Mr. SNOWDENasked the Prime Minister if he has any further statement to make in regard to the conclusions of the Cabinet Committee on the question of civil rights for public servants?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member will no doubt remember that I made a full statement on this matter last October in reply to a question that he addressed to me. The Committee have concluded their deliberations, and I have no further statement to make.

  Income Tax Deducted.
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked the Prime Minister on whose authority the Board of Inland Revenue instructed the Accountant-General of the India Office to deduct Income Tax from the pensions of retired officers?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George): On the authority of His Majesty's Government.
  EARL of RONALDSHAY: Is it not the case that Parliament alone has the right to give this authority, and if that is the case, is it not the fact that these sums of money have been illegally deducted?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: No, they are not illegally deducted.

  President of Local Government Board (Salary).
  Mr. TOBINasked the Prime Minister whether he proposes to take effective measures before the Spring Recess to make the salary of the President of the Local Government Board equal to that of the President of the Board of Trade?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am not able to make a definite announcement at the moment, but perhaps the hon. Member will put his question again in a few days.
  Captain FABER: May I ask if there is any change in the probable date?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I do not think that arises.

  Chain Makers (Wages).
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked whether the Wages Board for the chain-makers of Cradley Heath had fixed wages yet; and, if so, whether it had sanctioned a time rate of 2½d. per hour; whether it was proposed to publish the evidence submitted to the Board, together with its award; and when would the full terms of the award be published?
  Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON: The Chain Trade Board have not yet fixed any minimum rates of wages. But I understand from the chairman that they will shortly give formal notice of certain rates which they propose to fix. A period of three months must then be allowed for objections before the rates are fixed by the Chain Trade Board. The question of what information, if any, shall be published in addition to the proposed rates is one for the determination of the Chain Trade Board.

  Duke of York's School (Valuation).
  Major GASTRELLasked what was the original value of the property of the Duke of York's School which was considered when the decision was taken to remove; and what was the amount of the last valuation?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): It is not desirable at the present moment to make any statement as to the value of the property.

  Scottish Education Officers (Pensions).
  Sir JOHN JARDINE (on behalf of Mr. Watt)asked whether officers other than teachers employed by central institutions, provincial committees for the training of teachers, and county secondary education committees could be pensioned by school boards in Scotland under the new system?
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): Expenditure by the authorities of central institutions, by provincial committees, and by county secondary education committees for the purpose of making a reasonable provision for pensions for officers in their employment other than teachers may be reckoned as part of the approved expenditure of such institutions and
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  bodies for the purposes of Sections 16 and 17 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908. The expenses of such institutions, whether for pensions or for other purposes, are not, of course, chargeable to school boards.

  Army Accounts Department (Assistant Accountants).
  Mr. STEWART (on behalf of Mr. Tobin)asked whether, in consequence of the recent reorganisation of the Army Accounts Department, several second-class assistant accountants in that Department had become supernumerary; whether such accountants were appointed to that Department after competitive examination; whether such accountants, by reason of their high position in the list of successful candidates at such examination, were enabled to choose an appointment in that Department in preference to other Departments; whether such accountants had been offered the alternative either of being transferred to other Departments with loss of seniority, or of being dismissed from the public service; whether the prospects in the Army Accounts Department, at the time of such accountants receiving their appointments, were in fact better than those in the other Departments by reason of there being a larger proportion of appointments of the value of £350 per annum; whether it was imperatively necessary that such accountants should, on being transferred to other Departments, suffer a loss of seniority, and so become junior to men who were placed in a lower position in the list of successful candidates at the same competitive examination, and junior to men who entered the Government service at a later date; whether the Army Council had strongly recommended to the Treasury that such transfer should carry with it no loss of seniority; whether such accountants had performed their duties with thorough efficiency; and whether, under the circumstances, the transfer of such accountants to another Department could be effected without loss of seniority?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The answer to the first two inquiries is in the affirmative. I am unable to give an opinion as to the considerations by which successful candidates are influenced in the selection of appointments. I understand that the number of appointments of the value of £350 per annum was possibly larger in proportion in this Department than in some others, but it is impossible to say whether

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  the prospects were really more favourable. These officers have become redundant owing to a reorganisation of the Army Accounts Department, and in such circumstances the public interest requires that transfers to other Departments should be made. I regret that it is not possible for the Treasury to provide that such transfers in the case of these officers should be made with retention of seniority, as this would give rise to grievances in the Departments affected. The answer to the last inquiry but one is in the affirmative.
  Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether eighteen assistant accountants who entered the Army Accounts Department under the intermediate scheme of open competition were to be dismissed unless they accepted transfer to other Departments on terms involving loss of seniority, whereas, under the recent organisation of the Army Accounts Department, thirty civilians and forty-four officers of the Army Pay Department, who happened to be redundant, were being retained pending absorption in that Department; whether he could see his way so to treat these eighteen accountants that the advantage of their seniority in the public service might be safeguarded to them in any new Department where their service could be availed of; and whether the Army Council recommended that this seniority should be recognised?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: So far as this question is not answered by the reply which I have just given to the hon. and learned Member for Preston, the matters referred to in it belong to the province of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, and I would refer the hon. Member to an answer given by my right hon. Friend on Monday last to the hon. Member for Enfield.
  Mr. STEWART: Will these eighteen gentlemen lose their seniority altogether?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I think the hon. Member will find the facts with regard to these gentlemen in the reply to which I have referred him.

  Tobacco Growing (Development Commission).
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the success attending tobacco-growing in Ireland and the employment the extension of the industry was likely to
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  give, he would favourably consider whether further financial encouragement might be given to the tobacco growers in the future, so that the area under crop might be so increased as to allow small holders to take up tobacco cultivation?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I think that in view of the passage of the Development Act of last Session, this is a matter which should in the first instance be brought before the Development Commission, which I hope will shortly be constituted.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: Are we to understand that the Commissioners will have full power?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Undoubtedly.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Would not a better way of assisting the industry be to abolish or reduce the excise?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: That would be the very worst way.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Why?
  Sir JOHN JARDINE: Will any benefits conceded to Ireland be granted also to tobacco growers in Roxburgh and other parts of Scotland?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have already given a reply to that question to representatives of Scotland. If she puts herself in a position to comply, Scotland will undoubtedly receive exactly the same treatment as Ireland.
  An HON. MEMBER: Will the same consideration be extended to those who are anxious to cultivate the beet-growing industry?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have already answered that question.

  Budget, 1909–10 (Whisky Manufactured in Ireland).
  Captain COOPERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the estimated amount of duty leviable on whisky manufactured in Ireland under the Budget of 1909–10; and what proportion of that amount he expected to be able to collect?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I can give no separate figures for whisky, as distinguished from other home-manufactured spirits; but whatever the amount may be, I expect to collect the whole of it.
  Mr. GEORGE YOUNGER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what the arrears are now?
  MARQUESS Of TULLIBARDINEasked whether the same or equivalent concessions would foe given to Scotland as to Ireland with regard to the Finance Bill of 1909?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: It would be contrary to all precedent for me to answer questions of this kind in anticipation of my financial statement.
  MARQUESS Of TULLIBARDINE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the claims of Scotland in the event of any concessions being made to Ireland?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: It is my duty to consider the claims of every part of the United Kingdom.

  Civil Servants (Deduction of Income Tax).
  Sir HENRY CRAIKasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if a circular was issued by the Treasury on 4th December last, after the suspension of the Budget, to the officer responsible for the payment of Civil Service salaries in Scotland, stating that Income Tax was to be deducted from salaries, and that if objection was taken the matter was to be referred to headquarters; and if at the same lime banks and other large businesses tendering Income Tax: had had their offer refused?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second part in the negative, so far as the Inland Revenue is concerned.
  Sir H. CRAIK: Was notice given to those from whom the tax was deducted that they might object?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Notice is not given to persons of their legal rights.

  Income Tax (Colonial Claims to Exemption).
  Sir HENRY CRAIKasked whether claims of exemption or abatement from Income Tax would be recognised in the case of persons residing in the Colonies who could have claimed such exemption under previous Budgets?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The treatment of Income Tax repayment claims of the character in question for the year 1909–10 will conform to the provisions of the Act imposing the tax for that year.

  Income Tax (Demand for Documents).
  Mr. GEORGE YOUNGERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention had been called to a printed circular addressed to a firm in Glasgow on 19th January last, by the surveyor of taxes of the third district, asking that copies of the company's, accounts be forwarded to him for the year for which these, were last made up, together with a statement of particulars showing how the amount of assessable profits returned was arrived at from the accounts; whether he was aware that this circular further asked that to save trouble in future a copy of these accounts should be sent annually to the surveyor as soon as they were ready; and whether he could state by whose authority this circular was issued?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: My attention had not been called to the circular referred to until the hon. Member forwarded it to me, but I am aware that surveyors in Glasgow and elsewhere issue printed letters to companies requesting to be furnished with copies of accounts and other information as indicated in the question. Such requests are issued by the surveyors, with the knowledge and approval of the Board of Inland Revenue, as tending to the convenience of both taxpayers and officials.
  Mr. GEORGE YOUNGER: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that these circulars, which are being addressed regularly to traders in Glasgow and elsewhere, are naturally accepted by the traders as legalised circulars; and does he not think it a wrong thing that the surveyors of Inland Revenue should send circulars which they have no legal authority to issue, asking for documents which they have no right to demand?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not agree that the surveyors have no right to issue these circulars. They have no right to issue them accompanied by any threat of penalty. I have seen the circular; it is purely a courteous request for information. I should have thought it was to the general interest, seeing that all parties are agreed that the Income Tax must be reimposed, that facilities should be given to enable it to be collected when the time arrives.
  Mr. GEORGE YOUNGER: The important point is that the "courteous request" is always supposed to be reinforced by legal authority.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: After all, it is addressed to intelligent Scotsmen, who know perfectly well that there is no threat of penalty at all. As a rule, when there is a penalty attached, notice is given on the circular itself.
  Mr. GEORGE YOUNGER: Though there is no question of penalty, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the threat generally takes the form of an increased assessment for Income Tax?

  India (Administration of the Law).
  Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked whether the Government of India had yet considered or come to a decision upon the memorial, signed by Lord Hobhouse, Sir Richard Couch, Sir Richard Garth, Sir Charles Sargent, Sir William Markby, Sir John Phear, Sir John Scott, and other distinguished retired chief justices and judges of the High Court, and persons acquainted with the administration of the law in India, suggesting a separation in the judicial and executive functions, presented to the then Secretary of State in 1899, and to which the present Secretary of State called the attention of the Government of India in 1906?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The question is still under the consideration of the Government of India, who have consulted the Governments of the two Bengals regarding a tentative proposal for the complete separation of judicial and executive functions in selected districts by way of experiment. The matter is one of great moment, and has not yet reached a stage at which definite proposals could be laid before the Secretary of State.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Then the paragraph appearing in the papers a few days ago which stated that the Government had come to a decision was incorrect?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The information which I have given to the hon. Gentleman is correct. I have not seen the paragraph in the papers.
  Mr. REES: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that there are an equally large number of equally eminent persons who deprecate the proposed measure, which is intended to impair the position of the district officers, and will the hon. Gentleman duly consider this aspect of the question?
  Mr. MONTAGU: My hon. Friend may rest assured that the consideration I have alluded to will be complete.

  Vinayek D. Savarkar (Charge of Murder).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked whether an assurance will be given that Vinayek D. Savarkar, who is at present under remand on a charge of murder, if taken to India and subsequently found innocent of this charge will, if he desires, be immediately-brought back to England by the Government?
  Mr. MONTAGU: No such assurance can be given. Under Section 8 of the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881, it will be for the Governor of Bombay to consider this point if and when the circumstances suggested by my hon. Friend arise.
  Mr. O'GRADY: In the event of another charge being trumped up against this man will he still be—
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is rather a hypothetical question.

  Departmental Committee on Forestry (Ireland).
  Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he can say when the Government intend to give effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Forestry?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Redmond Barry): As the result of the Report of the Departmental Committee on Forestry a sum of £6,000 was provided in the 'Annual Estimates of the Department of Agriculture for 1909–10, for the purchase by means of annuities under the Irish Land Purchase Acts of suitable areas of woodland and of lands adapted for forestry comprised in estates which are being sold through the Estates Commissioners. This provision enabled the Department to purchase woods at Dundrum, county Tipperary; Camelin, county Wexford; and Aghrane, county Galway. Negotiations for the purchase of a wood near Bailiebore, county Caven, have just been concluded and the Department are in treaty with the Estates Commissioners for the acquisition of other woods. The same provision has been inserted in the Estimates for 1910–11. No further action in the matter is contemplated at present.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is it not a fact that the Report of the Departmental Committee to which the right; hon. Gentleman refers recommended a much greater financial support for the scheme of forestry in Ireland than the amount of £6,000 mentioned by him in the Estimates; and is it

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  the intention of the Government to carry out to any extent the financial scheme recommended by the Committee?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I think the intention and action of the Government in regard to forestry is plainly indicated by the answer I have already given.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask whether it is not a fact that the Departmental Committee mentioned in the question of the hon. Gentleman recommended certain schemes involving an annual expenditure of a considerable sum of money for forestry, and whether it is intended to carry out the financial proposals of the Committee?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: As regards that, I have not the exact particulars of the Report in my mind.

  Dairies, Cowsheds, etc., Order (County Antrim).
  Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will state what is the total annual cost of administering the Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milk Shops Order in the county of Antrim; and is any part of this expenditure paid out of the Imperial Exchequer?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I am informed by the Local Government Board that the cost of administering the Order in county Antrim amounts, so far as fixed salaries of inspecting and registering officers are concerned, to £701 per annum. This does not include the remuneration of a few inspecting officers who are paid by fees or incidental expenses. Half the salary of each veterinary inspector might be recouped from the local taxation account, provided there were an available margin, having regard to the limitation imposed by Section 6 of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1902. This restriction, however, is operative in all the sanitary districts in the county except Ballycastle rural district and Carrickfergus urban district, where there are credit balances of a trifling amount.

  Evicted Tenants Act (Application from Mid-Tipperary).
  Mr. HACKETTasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he can state the number of applications received by the Estates Commissioners under the Evicted Tenants Act, from the Parliamentary Division of Mid-Tipperary; whether he can state the number of cases reinstated in their former holdings, the number of
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  cases noted by the Estates Commissioners as fit to be provided with holdings, and the number of cases at present under consideration; and whether he can state what steps have been taken by the Estates Commissioners to obtain the consent of the new tenants or planters in order to co-operate with the Estates Commissioners in facilitating the reinstatement of the old tenants?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: The Estates Commissioners' Records are not kept by Parliamentary Divisions. The figures for the whole County of Tipperary are as follows: Applications have been received from 781 persons claiming to be evicted tenants or the representatives of such tenants. Four hundred and seventy-four of these applications have been rejected after inquiry, 115 persons have been reinstated or provided with new holdings, and twenty-four have been noted for consideration. The remaining 168 applications were received after the date specified in the Evicted Tenants Act, 1907, and cannot be dealt with under that Act. As regards the last paragraph of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to a question asked by the hon. Member for North-East Cork on the 1st instant.
  Mr. FLAVIN: Why is there such delay in these cases?

  Colonel Hackett's Lands (North Tipperary).
  Mr. HOGANasked whether the Estates Commissioners have made an offer for the lands of the late Colonel Hackett, situate at Lismacrory, North Tipperary; if it was accepted; and, if so, whether he will state when a distribution scheme will be prepared?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: The Estates Commissioners have furnished the owner with an estimate of the price which they are prepared to advance for the purchase of the lands referred to, but no formal proceedings for the sale of the lands have been instituted up to the present.

  NOTICES OF MOTION.
  Mr. J. S. AINSWORTHgave notice of Motion, on this day four weeks, to call attention to matters affecting the Highlands of Scotland, and to move a Resolution thereon.
  Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: Four weeks to-day to call attention to the capture of commerce in time of war, and to move a Resolution thereon.
  Mr. J. H. WHITEHOUSE: Four weeks to-day to call attention to the need for the enfranchisement of women, and to move a Resolution thereon.

BILLS PRESENTED.
The following Bills were presented and read the first time:—
BILLS PRESENTED.
  EDUCATION OF THE BLIND BILL.
  "To provide for the technical education, employment, and maintenance of the Blind," presented by Mr. CLYNES; supported by Mr. Shackleton, Mr. William Thorne, Mr. John Ward, Mr. William Wilson, and Mr. Twist. (To be read a second time upon Wednesday, 20th April.)
  RIGHTS OF WAY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  " To amend the Law as to the Rights of Way in Scotland," presented by Mr. DUNDAS WHITE; supported by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Cleland, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Murray Macdonald, Sir Walter Menzies, Mr. Wilkie, Mr. Cowan, Mr. Ponsonby, Sir John Barran, and Mr. Pringle. (To be read a second time upon Friday, 29th April.)
  FIREARMS (SCOTLAND AND IRELAND) BILL.
  "To regulate the sale of Firearms in Scotland and Ireland," presented by Viscount MORPETH; supported by Mr. Jesse Collings, Sir Francis Lowe, Mr. Parkes, Mr. Steel-Maitland, Mr. Newman, Mr. Watt, and Mr. Middlemore. (To be read a second time upon Monday next.)

SMALL HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND).
Sir MARK STEWARTasked leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law with respect to small holdings in Scotland,
I avail myself of this opportunity of the Ten Minute Rule to introduce this Bill to amend the law with respect to small holdings. A Bill was passed for England on this same subject by the present Government, which was said to have had satisfactory results in some parts of the country, and therefore it was only fair and right that Scotland should meet with the same "treatment. A short time ago the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan asked the Lord Advocate if he could say if any, and, if so, how many, small hold-
448
ings had been acquired under the Act of 1892. The reply of the right hon. Gentleman was that he was not aware of any holdings acquired in Scotland under the Small Holdings Act. The recent Bill of the Government was so unsatisfactory, to say the least of it, to the landlords of Scotland that intelligent farmers and others, among Liberals would not believe it was intended to pass. Their county councils were not neglectful of their duties, and they sent out circulars of inquiry to ask if anyone wanted a small holding. The result was that only few applied, and, generally speaking, they were persons unsuitable in many ways. In my own county some thirty persons applied. Most of them retired when asked what they wanted, and three were left, and they either withdrew or were not found to be a class of persons for whom the Act was intended. In this Bill the county council must provide land for small holdings, and in default of agreement they may buy or take land compulsorily. If they take no action two Commissioners appointed by the Board of Agriculture will be directed to proceed to supply the demand. I ask the House to observe that the Commissioners must be persons with a knowledge of agriculture. They must inquire as to the demand and they must report to the Board. The Board will thereupon forward a scheme to the county council directing them to prepare and draft their scheme. If the county council decline the Commissioners will prepare a scheme which the county council must carry out and failing this being done the Board will do it, and saddle the county council with costs and expenses. Then, with regard to acquisition of land. If it is not given by agreement the county council may hire or buy any land compulsorily, but if so taken the approval of the Board of Agriculture must be obtained. The amount to be paid must be settled by a single arbitrator. All land thus acquired for small holdings may be adapted for sale or letting by erection of suitable buildings, making fences, drainage, occupation roads, etc. The rent or purchase is to be fixed at such reasonable amount as will protect the letting or sale against the Corporation. It must be recollected that the Board of Agriculture is not an independent body, but is responsible to Parliament. No land is to be acquired compulsorily from a farm less than 150 acres in extent occupied by a person who has no interest in another farm, or from a farm under lease on Whit Sunday, 1910.

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A small holding is that which exceeds one acre in extent, and is not more than fifty acres, or than £50 in value. Every county council shall establish a small holdings committee. Let the House observe that under this Bill fair rent and security of tenure is secured. The small holder will be treated as an ordinary small tenant. Present contracts remain untouched, and compulsion is carried out only when necessary. This is a very different thing from Lord Pentland's Bill, under which there was compulsion for all Scotland, with a costly land court. Surely it is better to work with the local authorities who know the wants of their counties well, than with such Commissioners as those appointed under the English Act?
Bill to amend the law with respect to small holdings in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Sir Mark Stewart, Viscount Dalrymple, Mr. Yerburgh, Captain Gilmour, and Mr. Harry Hope. Presented accordingly, and read the first time. (To be read a second time upon Friday, 22nd April.)

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES AND DURATION OF PARLIAMENT.
[PROGRESS, 4TH APRIL.]
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO HOUSES AND DURATION OF PARLIAMENT.

  MONEY BILLS.
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. EMMOTT in the Chair.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  " 1. That it is expedient that the House of Lords be disabled by Law from rejecting or amending a Money Bill, but that any such limitation by Law shall not be taken to diminish or qualify the existing rights and privileges of the House of Commons.
  " For the purpose of this Resolution a Bill shall be considered a Money Bill if, in the opinion of the Speaker, it contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration, or regulation of taxation; charges on the Consolidated Fund or the provision of money by Parliament; Supply; the appropriation, control, or regulation of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; or matters incidental to those subjects or any of them."—[The Prime Minister.]
  The SECRETARY Of STATE for WAR (Mr. Haldane): In the preliminary skir-
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  mishing which has already taken place upon these Resolutions, two points have been taken—one notably by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), who said that the terms of the Resolutions contemplated a revolution, and a revolution which would be regarded as such by every competent authority on constitutional law who was not biassed. The other point on which I shall have to respectfully submit some observations to the Committee, is one which I regard with more encouragement. It was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition when he said that unusual importance, even greater than otherwise would have attached, attached to this proposal, because it was made for a Constitution the essence of which was hitherto unwritten. Well, I agree with him that it is most unfortunate that we should have to introduce at any time a written provision into an unwritten Constitution.
  4.0 P.M.
  I believe that an unwritten Constitution is the best for this country. I believe it would be to our advantage to leave things to develop in accordance with the genius of the nation and the spirit of our forefathers, who, imbued with the traditions of the old common lawyers, never went beyond the situation they had in hand. So it was that the Constitution was statesman-made just as) the law was judge-made, and to my mind it is an unhappy circumstance that we should have to make a departure from that tradition. But what is the cause of that departure, and who is responsible for it? For my part I would willingly have left the House of Lords alone if they would only have observed, not the letter—for there is no letter in an unwritten Constitution—but the spirit of that Constitution. But when a breach is made of the gravity of the breach which was made last winter, and when we have no assurance that that breach will not be repeated, then I say we should be unworthy of the traditions of our forefathers if we did not try to deal with the situation. For more than two centuries in the history of this country it has been an established principle that Aids and Supplies are matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commons House of Parliament. That tradition has been rudely broken, and we should be unworthy of those who went before us and who, on the floor of this House, struggled for the liberties which we believed had been secured for ever, if we did not stand up in

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  defence of those liberties. I regard this Resolution as standing on a special footing, a footing of special importance. It is not merely a question of a legal Veto as applied to general legislation. As regards that Veto, there may be differences of circumstances. It may be right that there should be opportunities of delay and consideration, but when we come to finance we rest our case on a totally different ground, and that is that the House of Commons has, and ought to have, exclusive jurisdiction over these great questions of Supplies and the Votes of the year.
  The first proposition which I submit to the Committee is that the Resolution in truth and in substance merely gives legal form and sanction to a usage of the Constitution which is not only well defined, but which is constitutionally binding. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Andrew's University (Sir R. Finlay) made a very able speech the other day, in which he showed himself far too fine a lawyer to overlook the distinction between legal and constitutional power. He did not contend that because the House of Lords has in connection with Budget Bills and other Bills the legal power to reject that therefore it had the constitutional right. He passed from that point, which was made in the earlier part of the discussion, to the further point that when you examine the precedents they only show that the other Chamber was restricted in the right to alter, but not in the right to reject. That was the proposition of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I quite agree, when you look at these old Resolutions, they are sometimes worded in a very curious fashion. Sometimes they are not very distinct, but, on the whole, if you look at them, you find upon analysis there is not solely that narrow question of alteration, but the much broader question that the House of Lords did not in those days, in the eyes of the House of Commons, have the power to deal in any way with financial business.
  I quite agree that if you take the constitutional literature of that period you find it obscure not only on this, but on many other points. Anybody whose duty it has been to read Lord Coke as much as I have done will find obscurity characteristic of the old common lawyer, and they will find laid down a dislike of abstract principles.
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  It has always been contrary to the custom of our people to lay down abstract principles, and the characteristic of old common lawyers shows that tendency of mind. I am not talking about finance, but about the elementary principles of common law, and you will find them exemplified in Lord Coke. Now I pass to the Resolutions in the Commons Journals, and you find what is meant there indicated. You find, if you look at it, that the House of Commons has stuck firmly to the proposition that there is no power to interfere with what, in modern parlance, is characterised as the Budget of the year by the House of Lords. It was distinctly laid down in such a way as frees it from obscurity that there is only one mode in this, as in other matters, and that is the historical method of searching out reasons for these declarations, and in the light of these reasons say what the conclusion was. If you do that, I maintain that it is perfectly clear that the proposition is nothing short of what I have stated, that the House of Commons has maintained at all times control of what in modern parlance is called the Budget, and the House of Lords has not, and never had, any power to interfere. The struggle for the establishment of that principle rests on higher ground than mere precedent and occupied centuries. It took a very long time before the Commons established their control of the Executive Government and Administration generally. At first the struggle was between King and Commons. The Lords in those early days were, on the whole, inclined to be King's men, rather than on the constitutional side of the controversy. Consequently the controversy was between the Commons and the Lords, the Lords favouring the view that the executive power rested with the King, and whatever control the Commons maintained they exercised through the medium of finance. It is the tracing of the history of that struggle— which, of course, I cannot go into to-day— which is the key to many of these Resolutions. If you want to find the culminating point you may do so in a Resolution in the Commons Journals of 8th April, 1700, repeating the established principle that the exclusive right to deal with Aids and Supplies was in the Commons, and them alone. The Resolution went on:—
  "This is well known to be such a fundamental right of the Commons, that to give reasons for it has been esteemed by our ancestors to be a weakening of the right."

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  Unfortunately I shall be compelled to offer a few reasons for it to-day. As I have said, the key is to be found in the reasons of the rule, and the character of our Constitution has been increasingly so. For three centuries past the control of the Administration has been placed under the Commons, and the Commons alone. I am quite aware that that has not always been the doctrine of the Constitution. Charles I. intimated that he regarded it as the sole duty of his Parliament to give him information as to government, but that was thrust aside, and progressively it was made perfectly clear that the supreme control of administration lies in the House of Commons. In a passage in Mr. Bagehot's book he says if you want to find, what is not always easy to find, where the sovereignty in a newly elected House of Commons lies; if you want to find the locality of the Sovereign, you find it most distinctly in the House of Commons expressing the policy of the nation; just as in these days the King reigns, but does not govern, and the House of Commons govern, but do not reign.
  That is a principle which is made manifest in various ways. For instance, Ministers in matters of administration, as distinguished from legislation, are not responsible to the Upper House. Resolutions of Censure in the other House do not affect the continuance in office of Ministers, and although we treat them with attention and respect, we are not moved by them. Then, again, when the House of Commons passes a Budget Resolution imposing a tax, until now it has always been possible to collect the duty at once from the date of the Resolution, because it has always been known that the House which passed the Resolution had the power to pass the necessary legislation. It was never contemplated that the other House could reject legislation which is necessary to give legal vitality to a Resolution. That I take to be the explanation of the raising of the taxes which have bean collected under Resolutions The courts have said, and the sole responsible body has intimated its intention to us, that it would be nugatory to prevent that being done which presently will be ratified by virtue of this exclusive authority.
  Between our Constitution and other constitutions there are marked features of contrast, a contrast which it is necessary to bear in mind, because arguments have been adduced against this Resolution based upon precedents drawn from the practice of other nations. The point I
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  make is that the sovereignty is in the popular Chamber, and that is not the case in other countries. The United States of America proceeds-upon a highly different principle, because there the sovereignty is split up. For example, it is not strictly true to say that Congress rules legislation and the President rules administration, although it is sometimes stated. Congress can vote the money for a war and declare war, but the President can carry it on without going back to Congress. President Lincoln exercised that power to carry on the war of 1860. Again, the Constitution cannot be amended without the consent of the State. The whole matter is subject to the review of the Supreme Court in a fashion that shows that in that Constitution the sovereignty is carefully split up. Nor did this happen by accident; it was done by those wise men who founded the Constitution of the United States for the very reason that they wanted to avoid what the example of George III. had placed before their eyes. They wished to see the executive power put under the control of the people of the United States in various ways. The people were to elect the President by one process and the Congress by another process, and they carefully provided that there should be no such control in any one man or any one body as should make it possible for the sort of things to happen which they had seen happen before their eyes. That is the course which has been taken in the United States, and it is not for us to judge whether it is good or whether it is not; it is their way. Something of the sort is true of other countries, but it does not follow that we should go copying foreign institutions. We have got our own Constitution, a Constitution of historic growth.
  If you look at other countries you find, for example, that in France the President is elected for a term, and is to that extent independent of the moods and variations of the French Senate and Chamber. In other countries, as for instance in Prussia, you have an hereditary constitutional power and a Chamber separately elected. But with us the every essence of our Constitution is that Parliament should control its administration, and the very essence of that Parliamentary control is that it should rest with the House of Commons. I come back to that in another form, because there are some important witnesses whose testimony adds greater force to this proposition than would be lent to it by any argument of mine.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: What is the proposition?
  Mr. HALDANE: The proposition is that the complete control of the administration, and consequently of the finances which are required to make that administration effective, rests with the House of Commons. It has been suggested that a different principle obtains in our Colonies. It is very difficult to know what is the state of things in our Colonies. If hon. Members had spent time, as I have in days gone by— I have had to do it officially—in wading through the voluminous precedents connected with Mr. Todd's Parliamentary work on "Parliamentary Government in the Colonies," they would have found the variations of view which prevailed from time to time. There is no condition and no set of precedents which make the British Constitution apply. On the whole, the tendency of the dominions oversea is to approximate more closely to our own Parliamentary practice, but there are some parts of the Dominions of the Crown where even to-day it is by no means clear what are the functions of the Upper Chamber. You therefore cannot draw any argument from any one Colony or Dominion oversea. You must look at the question as a whole, and, if you do, you will find a great deal of conflict. If you pass from generalities and come to details, you will find that this is strictly so, and it arises from the necessity of the situation.
  What would be the position of a Minister in charge of an administrative department if he had to go to another board of directors other than the House of Commons? What is a Ministry? It is a sort of committee appointed by the majority in a newly elected House of Commons. It is nothing else. That House, with a majority who puts them in, can turn them out, and the Ministers look to the House of Commons, and to the House of Commons alone, for the final voice upon their conduct of business. The House of Commons prescribes most elaborate rules, not only for furnishing them with the Supplies necessary for carrying on their Departments, but in restricting them in the use of those Supplies. A Minister's money comes back to the Treasury on 31st March, and he knows that on 1st April he must begin to spend again, and he must get a fresh Supply from the House of Commons. He submits an Estimate in advance, and the House of Commons votes him, on carefully prepared written statements which he puts forward, the money requisite for
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  the year. The House of Commons afterwards directs by a Consolidation Act the amount so granted to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund. Later on in the year, when the Services are completely provided for, an Appropriation Act is passed. It is the Consolidated Fund Act and something more, and it is an Act which provides the various sums granted to the various Services which have to be provided for and which the House of Commons has sanctioned. Then the final step is the step taken in the Budget Act of the year, which raises the taxes necessary to make good the supply. Supposing some other authority had the right to say, "Yes, it is all very well for you to provide money for these Services, but we have a judgment about them too, and we are in a position to say whether the money can be granted or not," how could any Ministry carry on its business? No man can serve two masters, and no agent can look to two boards of directors, both of whom are to sign his cheques, and to one of whom, and one alone, he is responsible. It is the very essence of our Constitution that Ministers should be entitled to look to the House of Commons as the source not only of the Supply voted to them, but of the machinery necessary for raising the money required to make those Supplies good.
  Going behind all those dicta which you find in these Resolutions, and which I think I shall show are pretty clear, the reason of the rule makes everything apparent and frees you from the confusion which you might otherwise have, if you had no guiding principle, because it shows the House of Commons persistently asserted, and at last succeeded in establishing, its right to be the sole and exclusive source of the Aids and Supply for carrying on the Administration of the day. Of course, all this was the outcome of a very long struggle. It did not happen all at once. There was a long period before the Tudors, at the beginning of which the Lords and the Commons assessed themselves, and assessed themselves separately for the aid of the Crown. Ultimately, they came not to assess themselves separately, and the Commons assessed, but there came a period when it had to be decided which was the predominating body in doing so, and, as long ago as 1407, in a document called "The Indemnity of Parliament," well known to historians, in Henry IV.'s time, it was laid down that the Commons granted and the Lords assented. Then came the time of the Tudors, who were very powerful in

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  their control over Parliament and of financial legislation. In the time of the Stuarts there was a long struggle, and after 1688, which may be taken as the commencement of the new period, the present position was established. As long ago as 1628 it was well established that the preamble of a Bill granting Aids and Supply to the Crown should be that: "We, the Commons, have given and granted to your Majesty." The Lords objected to that, and there was a discussion, but they ultimately tacitly agreed, and ever since the Speaker of the House of Commons has presented the Finance Bills to the Sovereign for the Royal Assent. They do not go through the Lords in the same form as other Bills; they come back to the hands of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who presents them for the Royal Assent. That may seem to be a small formality, but all these things are indicative. If you read these Resolutions in the light of the principle which underlies them and the reasons which brought that principle into existence, there is no ambiguity about the language of them all. There was another important precedent in 1640. The Lords thought fit to give an injunction to the Commons in very respectful language that the Commons should proceed with the consideration of Supply first of all, because it was important that the Supply should be provided for. Thereupon the Commons apparently took this much risk and demanded a conference. The Solicitor-General reported that the Lords at that conference had entirely given in, and had stated they
  " would not. meddle with matters of subsidy which belongs naturally and properly to you [the Commons]; no, not to give you, advice therein."
  It is not uninteresting to see what Lord Clarendon said:—
  " This conference was no sooner reported in the House of Commons than their whole temper appeared to be shaken. This had never been infringed or violated or so much as questioned in the worst of times; and that now (in 1640), after so long intermission of Parliament, that all privileges might be forgotten, the House of Peers should begin with an action their ancestors never attempted, administered too much cause of jealousy of something else that was intended, and so, with a unanimous consent, they declared it to be so high a breach of privilege, that they could not proceed on any other matter until they first received satisfaction and reparation from the House of Peers, and which the next day they demanded at a conference."
  He continues:—
  "The Lords were sensible of their error which had been foreseen and dissuaded by many of them. They acknowledged the privilege of the Commons as fully as they demanded it, and hoped they had not broken it by offering their advice to them without mentioning the nature of the Supply, the proportion, or the means of raising it, which they confessed belonged entirely to them."
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  Then we come to 1671, a date on which the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite laid such stress. He said the word in the Resolution of 1671 was "altered," and so it is; but when you look up what the question was about and the Resolution entered in the Commons Journals, you see at once why the word "altered" was used. What was done was merely carrying out the principle laid down in 1640, that the House had nothing to do with these matters of Supply. As a result of this controversy the Commons laid down in their Journals:—
  "That there is a fundamental right in this House alone in Bills of Rates and Impositions on Merchandise as to the matter, the measure and the time."
  That shows perfectly clearly that they claimed in those days complete control over these matters, and that they objected to the alteration, because the alteration was only an example of a larger and broader principle. They made that finally clear in 1678, when they declared that
  "all Aids and Supplies are the sole gift of the Commons."
  That has been the case ever since. There is no instance of a Taxation Bill being rejected before the time of Queen Anne; but, after that, when Bills became more numerous, there are several instances. Eighteen or twenty small Bills were thrown out then, but they were nearly all Bills in which there was some very small question of duty and very large question of principle involved. For example, there was the Bill which the Lords rejected in 1781, described as
  " An Act for providing a reward to Henry Phillips on his making a proper discovery for the use of the public of the composition of his powder for the destruction of insects."
  Then again, in 1790, they rejected a Lottery Bill in the form of a Bill,
  "for granting to His Majesty a certain sum of money to be raised by a lottery."
  I dare not think what, if my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to raise money by a proposal of that nature, would be said. It would involve some very large question of public morals altogether swallowing up any consideration of finance. But if you look at these precedents you will see that they are nearly all of them questions in which some big principle altogether overtops the financial point involved. I prefer to rely on the authority of Sir Erskine May (Lord Farnborough), where he says:—
  "Until the year I860, although the Lords had rejected numerous Bills concerning questions of public policy in which taxation was incidentally involved, they had respected Bills exclusively relating to Supply and Ways and Means."

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  He refers to a Resolution of the House of Commons on 6th July, 1860, and gives as the substance of it that the right of granting Aids and Supplies to the Crown is the Commons alone: that the power of the Lords to reject Bills relating to taxation was justly regarded by the Commons with peculiar jealousy, as affecting the right of the Commons to grant the Supply and provide the Ways and Means for the service of the year, and that
  ' to guard for the future against the undue exercise of that power of the Lords and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over Taxation and Supply, this House has in its own hands the power so to impose and remit taxes and to frame Bills of Supply that the right of the Commons as to the matter manner, measure and time may he preserved inviolate."
  What does that mean? It is plain it means that while some isolated point of taxation incidental to some large measure of policy may legitimately be refused, it was clear in the minds of the House of Commons of that day that it was absolutely in the power of the House to deal with Bills for maintaining the service of the year exclusively, and that they always had it in their power to put a question in that position by including it in their Budget. It is quite true that the majority of the Committee on that occasion did not pronounce in favour of that point, but there is a Minority Report in 1860 which says:—
  " The Committee cannot doubt that the right which the Commons have contended for and maintained is nothing less than an absolute control in determining the expenditure necessary for the service of the Crown and the mode and amount of taxation which shall be imposed on the people."
  It is quite true that only three voted for this—Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright. In all cases the Commons appear to have stuck to their point; sometimes they affected to concede the power to reject, but this appears to have been legal only, like the modern recognition of the Sovereign's legal right of veto. It was confined to a legal power, and it goes back to the old Indemnity of Parliament Bill of 1407, for they stuck to their exclusive power as to quantum, matter, manner, and measure. That shows—looking at the circumstances and language alike—that they considered they had exclusive power over the Supplies of the year. When one considers not only that no Budget Bill had ever been rejected until last year, and when one considers that no Appropriation Bill has ever been rejected, and that Appropriation Bills are as old as the time of Charles II., it does seem that we have coupled with practice and precedent a very
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  strong case indeed for the considerations which I venture to present to the Committee. I am fortified in this by authorities. Here are one or two in support of my view that the suggestion that the Lords should reject was a legal right. I have the view of Lord Chatham in 1765, in which he says:—
  "The taxes are a voluntary grant and gift "f the Commons alone. The concurrence of the Peers and the Crown to the tax is only necessary to clothe it with a. form of law. The gift and grant is in the Commons alone."
  Then I come to a declaration of one of the famous Leaders of the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington, who took a very high constitutional view. The Lords had been invited to reject the Corn Law Bill in 1846. It had been said in the Debate on the Lords that the Vote of the Commons was
  "Inconsistent with the supposed views of the constituents by whom they were elected…. My Lords I think that is not a subject which this House can take into consideration."
  Now I come to more modern times. The late Lord Salisbury, speaking in 1895 on a Debate on the Finance Bill, said:—
  "This House by custom takes no share whatever in the forces by which Governments are displaced or inaugurated, and it takes no share whatever in that which is the most important part of the annual constant business of every legitimate body, the provision of funds by which the Service is to be carried on."
  And lastly I come to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I knew that was coming.
  Mr. HALDANE: The right hon. Gentleman said:—
  "The House of Lords does not interfere with the general financial policy of the country…. We all know that the power of the House of Lords thus limited, and rightly limited as t think, in the sphere of legislation and administration is still further limited by the fact that it cannot touch those Money Bills which, if it, could deal with, no doubt, it could bring the whole executive machinery of the country to a standstill."
  Mr. BALFOUR: Hear, hear.
  Mr. HALDANE: If the right hon. Gentleman says "Hear, hear," how can he defend the present state of things? I have great admiration for his acuteness of mind and his tremendous debating power, but I should like to know how he is going to get out of his position.
  HON. MEMBERS: "Wait and see. "
  Mr. HALDANE: To sum up the whole matter, it seems to me that I have given at any rate some substantial ground for the proposition that this Resolution is, in the first place, declaratory merely, and, in

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  the second place, declaratory of a principle which is essential in a Constitution which, unlike the constitution of foreign countries, subordinates the Executive in the House of Commons alone to the principle of giving the House of Commons the exclusive control of finance. I regret the necessity for putting it down in writing. It is not our fault. I now pass to the Resolution itself. The Resolution contemplates that Money Bills should be defined in the Statute in a narrower sense than is sometimes used. It is confined to the subjects mentioned in the Definition Clause, which excludes the rating question. The second thing it contemplates is that the Speaker should have a statutory position which enables him to exercise judgment upon these matters, and which should preclude the question of party bias or controversy about taxes. The Resolution contemplates that the Money Bill should go to the House of Lords, that it is only to be considered there, and that it should not be amended or rejected. That is the object of the Resolution, and I submit it simply affirms the existing custom and constitution and merely gives it a legal written expression and a legal sanction which are essential to the position to-day. I regret the necessity for that. The custom which we, are trying to establish by this Resolution is essential, and unless it be observed the administration of public business will never emerge properly from the confusion into which it has been thrown. That is what it all comes to.
  Financial legislation stands, and must stand, on a special footing. Other legislation is, in the view which I hold, best carried on with the aid of a revising chamber. I am for two Chambers for general legislation; but the second must be an instrument really fitted for its work, which is to revise, sympathetically, the legislative policy, rather than lay it down. With the Commons House—representing as it does not merely numbers but localities— must remain the initiative and the sovereign power. What those who think as I do desire to see is a Second Chamber which will possess real authority to revise and delay, because it will be a real though second mirror of the mind of the nation. I am not going to argue that afresh—I should not be in order if I did. But that is the principle that underlies the whole scheme which we are presenting to the House, and of which what we are discussing to-day is a part which can only be fully understood in the light
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  of the whole of which it forms a part. The policy is a single policy. It is, in my view, not Veto Resolutions, and then, as a separable part, a reconstituted Second Chamber! It is both. The two form organic parts of one whole. The necessities of a situation which is ruled, not by logic, but by the methods of Parliament, have prescribed the scheme of taking Veto first. The sudden and unexpected action of the House of Lords made imperative rapid action and the preliminary steps which these Resolutions embody. Do not let us on this account fall into the mistake of thinking that we can separate the policy into two independent parts.
  If we do not firmly lay down as the foundation of that policy the abolition of the hereditary principle; if we are silent as to our ideal, if we allow our case to go by default, we shall, when it is too late, find the hereditary principle entrenched by our adversaries behind a so-called reform of the House of Lords. Spine day the swing of the pendulum will place them in power, and that with what is, and will remain even under these Resolutions, while our opponents are in power, the single-Chamber system of to-day. They will claim in the form of a strengthened hereditary Chamber to have made the change which we delayed to make, and they will seek to do two things—to repeal the Veto and by limiting the Prerogative of the Crown to create peers, to destroy our only means of asserting in an extreme case the sovereignty of the people. Therefore, I say let us beware of falling into an obvious snare. Those who think you can get on by leaving the hereditary Chamber alone, and simply placing its powers under a statutory restriction, which can be repealed as readily as it can be enacted, will stumble in the ditch in their desire to avoid the quag. The only secure policy seems to me to keep firm ground and pursue the path which is obvious. The principle of a democratic versus an hereditary basis, and of carrying this principle to its full and practical conclusions, is one too great and too strong in its claim to possess and hold the field, to be displaced even by the accompaniment of any unreal reform. Once launched, it cannot be gone back on or be replaced by anything smaller. Therefore I say our efforts ought not to fall short of this single, indivisible and far-reaching policy. So only shall we entrench ourselves—so only shall we successfully appeal to the nation.
  But whether or not I carry with me all hon. Members in this expression of my

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  own strong conviction, on the terms of this Resolution there is no room for doubt on this side of the House. Even were such a Second Chamber constituted it would not control the Executive and it therefore would not, for the reasons I have given, interfere in finance. This Resolution thus depends on a principle which is true whatever view may be taken on those other matters to which I have referred. You cannot split up the sovereign authority over finance. If you do you paralyse the Executive Government, which can look only to one master—that from which it derives its life and authority. Attempts at checks will always be called for by timid people, but these checks will never be really effective. The history of finance from 1624 to 1678 and from 1861 to 1909 proves that proposition. Moreover, these checks, even if they could be made real, would cost too much. They fail on the balance of the advantages, and they tend to diminish the sense of responsibility of ' Ministers and of this House. I have no fear of revolution or of confiscatory finance, unless the nation has, contrary to the habit of its mind, determined on such a policy. If it did so determine no check could effectively restrain it. If it has not so determined no such legislation will pass. There is an old French saying that "there is someone who is more able than Talleyrand, more able than Napoleon, c'est tout le monde." The people are in the long run greater and wiser than any Minister, or than any Ministry, or than any Parliament. The history of the develoment of our Constitution is the history of that truth. The nation seems to superficial observers to be indifferent to the action of its representatives, yet it does very really observe and attend, and neither Member nor Minister can venture for long to controvert its sovereign will. The real restraining force lies in no Statute and no Chamber of Parliament. It lies in the force which, with us, overbears individuals and caucuses alike—the silent and yet irresistible tide of public opinion, the fashioning force which guides and restrains Parliament, which is the source of all political energy, and the foundation of all sovereignty in the Constitution of the State.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I do not know what reflection will be uppermost in the mind of the Committee after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. There are many reflections which suggest
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  themselves, but I know he introduced a Resolution of so little consequence that the Government thought it could be passed by the House in a day and a half, and he has been forced to occupy more than an hour of our time. And when I say introduced the Resolution, I select my words with care, because he has not explained it. That is a task which still devolves upon some other Minister to perform. There was very much that was interesting in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but if he will permit me to say so, there was much which was obscure. There was much in it as to which I had difficulty in seeing his reason for introducing, and there was a great deal absent from it which I should have thought it was his business to introduce. The passages to which he himself appeared to attach most importance were not absolutely the last observations, but the penultimate observations, which he evidently prepared and delivered with great care and verbal accuracy. They were not germane to this Resolution; they had nothing to do with that which is germane to any Resolution which the Government is moving. They were, on the contrary, a reason for moving the Resolutions which were foreshadowed in the King's Speech, and were foreshadowed in the Prime Minister's declaration, but which are not now produced because hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on one side of the House or the other have told the Government they must not touch them.
  The scheme of the Government, said the Secretary of State for War, is one and indivisible; you cannot separate it. Restriction of the powers of the House of Lords is inseparably connected with its constitutional powers. But this one and indissoluble whole in this organic union has been broken by the Government before it has ever been presented to the consideration of the House, and the two parts of their scheme, the destructive and the constructive, are separated in order that the destructive may be carried, while the constructive are only talked of. The constructive part is retained in the speeches of right hon. Gentlemen to salve the consciences of the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and to save them from that death, and worse than death, which, according to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is to fall, unless the idea of a reformed Second Chamber is adhered to, but except for the purpose of giving these two right hon. Gentlemen a shadow of an excuse

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  for retaining office when the policy to which they are committed is not going to be carried out, and except for the purpose of deceiving the people, who are liable to deception, because they are not able to give the same constant attention that we are obliged to do in this House, the references to reform are not worth the breath with which they are spoken, and will have no more permanent effect upon our legislation. I pass from the reforms, which are talked of by the Government, but which the House of Commons is not allowed to discuss, to the Resolution which the Secretary of State has moved. The right hon. Gentleman said in his opening passages, when he deplored the necessity for putting any part of the Constitution into written language, that for his part, but for the violent action taken by the House of Lords last autumn, he would have been content to leave things as they were. He assents. Then why did he vote for Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Resolutions? The right hon. Gentleman says that it was only the action of the House of Lords of last year that forced him reluctantly to concur in the course which the Government is taking now. Did he not concur in a similar Resolution? What are these Resolutions except Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Resolutions.
  The PRIME MINISTER: This Resolution was never dreamed of by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I am not sure whether I caught his observation, but I understood the Prime Minister to say that these Resolutions were never dreamt of by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
  The PRIME MINISTER: No; I said this Resolution. When Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's Resolution was proposed everyone on both sides of the House, and no one more clearly than the Leader of the Opposition, admitted that a Resolution of this kind dealing with finance was unnecessary.
  Mr. BALFOUR: I have already contradicted that statement more than once. Hon. Gentlemen are perfectly justified in quoting my words, but they are not justified in saying that their interpretation of those words is the correct interpretation.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point He says that the words of the Secretary of State referred only to this Re-
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  solution. The subsequent Resolutions are the Campbell - Bannerman Resolutions over again, but the financial Resolution is a new one. But that is wholly irrelevant to the Secretary of State's point, and though the Secretary of State thinks it is not, that can only be because he has forgotten what his own point was. His own point was that he regretted the necessity for a written Constitution. But for the action of the House of Lords last November he would have been no party to introducing a written Constitution.
  Mr. HALDANE: I was speaking only of this Resolution. Is it likely that I, who had witnessed the rejection of the Plural Voting Bill and half a dozen things last Session, should have said I was content with the action of the House of Lords?
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: That is not what the right hon. Gentleman said. The right hon. Gentleman contends that he was speaking on this Resolution, but I have already pointed out that a good deal of his speech was off the Resolution. But what was it, then, the right hon. Gentleman said? It was that but for the breach of the Constitution last autumn he would have been content to go on as we were. The right hon. Gentleman recognises his words.
  Mr. HALDANE: You cannot take a sentence out of my speech and twist it like that. I was speaking of finance and of this Resolution, and I carefully abstained from going into the wider question.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: No, the right hon. Gentleman was neither speaking of finance nor of this Resolution. He was speaking of written and unwritten constitutions, and he said that but for the breach of the Constitution last autumn by the House of Lords he would have been content to leave things as they were—to leave the Constitution unwritten.
  Mr. HALDANE: The right hon. Gentleman remembers an early passage in my speech. I spoke of the preliminary skirmishing over this Resolution, and not over the other Resolutions.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Was the right hon. Gentleman speaking about the necessity for importing a written Constitution? Was he expressing his regret that a written Constitution should become necessary?
  Mr. HALDANE: This Resolution.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: No, not this Resolution, but a written Constitution. This Resolution imports a written Constitution, but so does the Campbell-Bannerman Resolution three or four years before the breach of the Constitution which now the right hon. Gentleman puts forward as his sole justification. Now what is the breach of the Constitution? It is this. He alleges—and this, I think, is what the major portion of his speech comes to—that the House of Lords had no constitutional right to reject a Finance Bill. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is a distinction between legal right and constitutional right. I do not challenge that point. But he contends that the House of Lords has no constitutional right to reject a Finance Bill. How does he prove that? He prefaces his examination of statements by various statesmen who have dealt with the subject by stating that these old Resolutions are sometimes worded in a very curious fashion, that they are often obscure, and, indeed, that it takes a great deal of skill to read into them the meaning which he wishes them to import. I do not mean to say that he said that, but that is the inference I draw from the language in which he spoke. We have often heard of judge-made law, and sometimes, for a layman, it is difficult to understand how so much law is judge-made. The right hon. Gentleman would adorn the Bench. His knowledge and his talent amply fit him for such n position; but after I have heard him deal with precedents and Resolutions and declarations of this House I tremble to think how the meaning of the House would be perverted and how much judge-made law there would be if he ever occupied a prominent position in our highest courts. He is unable to bring a single clear declaration from any Resolutions of the House of Commons or any of our procedure to prove that the House of Lords have not the right to reject the Budget, and that stands a record in our proceedings, that we have admitted that they have. It would require strong evidence to show, if the language were curious and obscure, as he says, that it was admitted by everybody under cover of that curious and obscure language that the other House had no power to reject Money Bills. How can you twist language which he calls obscure, which on his own contention, from his own point of view, is obscure, but which I think is plain, so as to controvert other language directly in an opposite sense which is perfectly plain.
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  The right hon. Gentleman before he examined any of these precedents tried to fortify his case by preparing the ground with a disquisition on sovereignty. It carried me back to my undergraduate days, when we had lectures on international law and other matters of that kind, and we were questioned as to where sovereignty resided in the Constitution of the United States, or the Constitution of the "United Kingdom, or in other Constitutions. It was very interesting and very relevant in the lecture room, but was it very pertinent to our discussion to-day 1 Did it prove anything? Was it even intended to prove anything? Was it not rather intended to put us in a receptive frame of mind so that by this long and involved disquisition we should really have already been brought to the idea that the case for the House of Commons claim, as now put forward by the Government, was already more than half made before a single precedent was touched or a single really pertinent fact was investigated? I really cannot say that his general claim about sovereignty was either pertinent to the discussion in itself or was very well founded as expounded by him. He used, for instance, this argument. It is clear that the sovereignty of this country resides in the House of Commons, because up to this time taxes have been collected on a mere Resolution of the House of Commons. You can collect taxes in this country on a mere Resolution of the House of Commons to-day. You might be collecting the Income Tax at this moment, and you could and you would be if you had given half a day, or even an hour, to the discussion of the Income Tax Resolutions. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are collecting them from the Civil Service."] That is an act of mere violent authority such as right hon. Gentlemen like to exercise. They have the Civil servants under their control. They say, "We will not take the money from the taxpayer outside. He might refuse to pay, and then to litigate might be a very long and costly proceeding. We will pay our own servants with Income Tax deducted, and we will leave them to litigate, and as it is a very long and costly proceeding they are not likely to do it." I quite agree. They take the tax, but they do not take it under cover of a House of Commons Resolution.
  Mr. HALDANE: We treat ourselves in the same way.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I have not an exalted opinion of the Government,

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  but I did not suppose they paid their own salaries in full without deducting the tax. I never should have suggested that. As a matter of fact, you could collect taxation on a Resolution of the House of Commons to-morrow, you ought to be collecting it today on such a Resolution, and it is mere wilfulness and pride that prevents you from doing it, and costs the country so much money in consequence. In this matter a Resolution has no permanent force unless it be embodied in a Bill, and unless that Bill passes through all its stages in both Houses. And the effect of the rejection of the Bill in the House of Lords is exactly the same as the rejection of the Bill in our House. We have had experience of it. The right hon. Gentleman talks as if no tax had ever been rejected by Parliament before which had prior to its sanction by Act of Parliament been collected on the strength of a Resolution. He has only to go back to 1885, when the Budget of Mr. Gladstone's Government was defeated in this House, and the taxation collected on a Resolution had to be refunded by those from whom it had been taken. Did that invalidate collection by Resolution? Did it produce a deadlock? No. Because the men of those times did not mean to have a deadlock, and there would be no financial deadlock at this moment unless the Government had studied to create one. This reference to Resolutions, and the little value that the right hon. Gentleman attaches to them when he deals with finance, throws some light upon the value which we ought to attach to the Resolutions which we are now considering. When we were discussing the Budget Resolutions last year, Ministers complained bitterly that we spent so much time. When we pointed out that the Resolutions were very extreme they said, as the right hon. Gentleman said just now, "The Resolutions say that, but we do not mean that. These Resolutions are only to found a Bill upon, and they can be restricted and limited in any respect you wish when the Bill comes before you." Let us remember that these Resolutions commit this House to nothing. They only cause Ministers to produce a Bill. They do not even commit Ministers to proceed with the Bill, and I understand, from what the Prime Minister said yesterday, that he does not intend to do so. I wish he would tell us what he intends to do. On 21st February, in the Debate on the Address, he said:—
  ''We propose to proceed in the first instance by Resolutions—Resolutions, I need not say, to be em-
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  bodied and earned into law in a Bill of which they will form the foundations, and embodied and carried through this House in that Bill in the course of the present. Session."
  The right hon. Gentleman told us, I think, within a week of that day, and he has repeated it since, that the Government have changed their policy in one respect and one respect only. He said they now intended to send the Resolutions up to the House of Lords. He repeatedly said that was the only change. When did the right hon. Gentleman decide not to proceed with the Bill unless the House of Lords passed the Resolutions?
  The PRIME MINISTER: On 28th February.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I shall take the statement which was made on 28th February. That was the speech in which he said this was the only change which had been made in the policy of the Government since 21st February. He said he meant to send the Resolutions up to the House of Lords. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will explain that when the time comes.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I will.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I quite accept that.
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not expect me to interrupt him by making an explanation now.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I think it is for the convenience of both sides of the House that the right hon. Gentleman should make it in his own time. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman will explain why this change took place in the Government's intentions, why he told the House on 28th February that there was one change, and one change only, which did not concern this House at all, but the other place, namely, as to the presentation of the Resolutions in the other place, and why he left us in ignorance as to the vital change in our own procedure, namely, that unless the House of Lords passed the Resolutions he did hot intend to proceed with a Bill in this House.
  I return to the speech of the Secretary of State for War. He showed, according to his view, that sovereignty rested in the House of Commons. Put in popular language I suppose that is a statement which all of us will concur in, namely, that if the representatives of the people clearly and evidently express the settled will of the

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  people what they do must prevail. No check can stop it; no safeguards can prevent it; no Second Chamber can prevent it. Once the will of the people is clear under our present system the will of the people does prevail, and that is all that is meant by the right hon. Gentleman's argument that sovereignty rests in this House. What more do you want? [Laughter.] Yes, what more do you want? I know perfectly well that that is what you wish to call the attention of the country to. [Cheers.] It is admitted by your cheers that once the will of the country is clear it must prevail, that no Second Chamber can stop it, and that no check or safeguards can prevent it. What more do you want? What you want is to carry things upon which the will of the country is not clear. Your complaint is not that the House of Lords rejects a Bill which represents the settled or clear will of the people, but that it declines to pass a Bill upon which the mind of the people is not yet clear. The more unpopular the Bill is, and the less likely it is to commend itself to the people, the greater the grievance felt by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I observed in an able organ, the "Westminster Gazette," a little time ago this argument put in reference to the Licensing Bill. That journal admitted—and we have heard the same admission quoted from speeches of hon. Members on the other side of the House— that the Licensing Bill was not a popular Bill, though they thought it a good Temperance Bill. Then they said it was the business of the House of Lords to facilitate the passage of that Bill which was unpopular so that a reform which the people want might be carried. That is the difference between the Government and ourselves.
  It is not a question as to whether the will of the people should prevail. We do not deny that the will of the people should prevail. We wish it to prevail. We are the creatures of the will of the people as much as any other body in the House. We draw our strength from the people. We are content to appeal to them and to abide by their judgment when it is deliberately given. The people have a right to be consulted on great issues on which they have never expressed an opinion, and your claim to be a democratically-governed country is a farce unless you are prepared to recognise that right of the people, and to have some security in the Constitution that that right shall be ob-
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  served. That observation applies not merely to the finance Resolution, but to the whole scope of the Government Resolutions. It applies equally to both the first and second Resolutions, but the Secretary of State for War raises a special claim for the first Resolution. I rather gathered from the tone of his speech that personally he did not very much care about the Second Resolution, and that it was the first on which he found it easier to make his stand and to make his speech. I am not going through all the precedents to which he alluded. They were examined every one of them, by my right hon. and learned Friend (Sir R. Finlay) the other day, and nothing that the Secretary of State for War said has in any way shaken the case which he made out. The right hon. Gentleman flitted from precedent to precedent, from the fourteenth century to the eighteenth century, and back again into the sixteenth century, till neither he nor we seemed to know what century we were in. But he did not deal exhaustively with any precedent, and he did not set to work to disprove in any particular instance the case which had been made out by my right hon. and learned Friend. The Secretary of State for War flatters himself that he disproved the case as regards 1671. I am willing to take him on that particular precedent. What happened? There was a conference between the two Houses. The Lords stated their reasons and the Commons stated theirs. The Lords alleged that there was to be a check and balance in the Constitution between the two Chambers, and the Commons admitted: "Your Lordships have a negative voice to the whole." That is the precedent of 1671 which the Secretary of State for War chooses from among those he mentioned as conclusive in his favour.
  Mr. HALDANE: Later on in the same period the Commons said that they would not assent to the Lords' power to interfere in any way.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman has persuaded himself, but I think he will find it difficult to persuade other men that the meaning which he tries to import into the Commons' language is the meaning the Commons intended to convey. Nowhere does he find a clear and distinct statement of the case as he wishes to put it, and we can point again and again to conclusive statements by the Commons against the case as he wishes to put it. It is not merely in

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  1671 the view was expressed about negative to the whole. Coming to 1860, the latest occasion, was there any denial on the part of the Commons in that year of the right of the Lords to negative the whole? The Secretary of State for War read an observation from Lord John Russell. May I read another. In 1862 Lord John Russell said:—
  " The Noble Earl (Earl Derby) says that the House of Commons has the right to include all the Supplies of the year in one Bill, and that your Lordships can, if you please, reject that Bill. There can be no doubt respecting these two positions-the right of the Commons to include all the Supplies of the year in one Bill and the right of the Lords to reject the Bill."
  Mr. HALDANE: The legal right.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: He did not say the legal right. He said the right.
  Mr. HALDANE: Lord John Russell concurred in the Minority Report in which they negative everything but the legal right.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I prefer Lord John Russell speaking for himself to Lord John Russell concurring in a Minority Report, when I have not myself read the Report. I have known other right hon. Gentlemen concur in a great deal which I do not think exactly represented their own opinions. The Secretary of State for War concurs in these Resolutions. He concurs in the action of the Government in separating reform from the Veto; but speaking for himself in the concluding passages of his speech, he repeated in almost equally strong and impressive language the declaration of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that the two questions are inseparably connected. I prefer the man speaking for himself to the man concurring in what may be said by others. And Mr. Gladstone, who was again cited by the right hon. Gentleman, the protagonist of that struggle, himself never put the Claim of the Commons where the Secretary for State tries to put it.
  Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: He did.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: He never did. He recognised the right of the House of Lords to reject the. Bill.
  Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: He did not.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: And not only that, but he strongly advised that the right to amend a Finance Bill should be preserved. He said that the time might
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  come when it would be important that that right should be exercised as a defence against tacking; and to say that Mr. Gladstone, when he went so far as to assert the right of the House of Lords to amend and to express the hope that the right to amend should be preserved—a right which is by far the more doubtful of the two rights— denied the right to reject, is absurd. But suppose he admitted the right to amend only. This Resolution does not allow the right to amend. This Resolution goes beyond what even Mr. Gladstone asked, and is an assertion of the Commons rights to restriction on the House of Lords beyond any put forward by responsible people at that time. The other authorities which the right hon. Gentleman cited had, I think, all been cited previously, and all dealt with seriatim by my colleagues and friends in this House. The right hon. Gentleman, I think, has not been a very constant attendant at these Debates.
  Mr. HALDANE: I have read them.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Then the right hon. Gentleman was at very little trouble to find quotations from the speeches. The hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) had with signal success vindicated Lord Salisbury against the allegation made against him that he had given up the right of the House of Lords to reject a Finance Bill, and had shown how absolutely incompatible that idea was with the whole tone and argument of the speech from which that single passage was taken. If the right hon. Gentleman had followed the controversy he would have seen that the quotation from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was used not once or twice, but half a dozen times; and as my right hon. Friend has already dealt with that, I am not going to refute an argument which has been already once or twice refuted on that point. I assert that after this Debate which we have had during the last few days it is clearer than it was before that the constitutional right of the House of Lords to reject a Money Bill, if they thought fit, is one which has never been disputed by any competent authority until the present dispute, and has been admitted by this House repeatedly on every or nearly every occasion on which the two Houses have come into conflict on matters of finance. It is a right which admittedly cannot be exercised without some inconvenience, and which is not to be exercised

  475
  lightly or without just cause. I venture to say that to destroy that right on no good cause shown is to destroy one of the greatest safeguards against oppression and one of the most necessary checks on the tyranny of a majority in this House which has not a majority in the country that any of us can conceive. The right hon. Gentleman says that this power has never been exercised. Is that a sufficient reason for assuming that the power does not exist? Let us consider. We need not go further back than the reign of Queen Anne. She is dead, as the right hon. Gentleman previously mentioned. He admits that since that time several Money Bills have been rejected in another place, but he says that that was in cases where the tax was insignificant in amount, but the principle involved was very important. He said that in all these cases there was a small tax but a large principle, and he said later that there was some principle which overtopped the tax. Is he quite sure that that was not the case with the last Budget? The right hon. Gentleman does not challenge the right of the House of Lords to reject a Lottery Bill where the object of the Lottery Bill is to raise revenue. He considers—and it is rather curious— that, though apparently a perverted and mischievous House of Commons has done its best to pervert the morals of the people, a non-representative hereditary Second Chamber can reject the measure. When the right hon. Gentleman thinks that the principle overtops the tax he does not complain of the House of Lords rejecting a Bill. Looking at his own Bill, what about the valuation of agricultural land? There is a big principle underlying that. How much tax is there to follow? There is a big principle underlying the whole of the Land Tax, the principle of whether we shall nationalise the land—whether we shall take a step in that direction. That is why hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway like it. That is why, as one of them has told us, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed it. How much revenue would that raise— £50,000?
  Mr. POINTER: It will grow.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Did not the principle overtop the tax? Was not there a very large principle and a very little tax in that case? Could you have an instance more clearly coming
  476
  under the definition of the Secretary of State himself of cases in which the House of Lords are clearly entitled to reject a' proposal? Then he says it did not stand alone: it was the whole finance of the year that was rejected, and not any particular tax. The Prime Minister. I noticed by his cheer, attaches great importance to that subject. The whole finance of the year was put into one Bill, in order to make it difficult for the House of Lords to reject it, in order to make difficult the legal and constitutional right which was admitted by that very fact. If it were not admitted, as the Prime Minister said, the Commons would not have thought it necessary to put all the finance of the year into one Bill. They would have simply said: "We will make as many Bills as we choose. We will go on in our old accustomed way, and you shall pass them because you have no constitutional right to reject them." They did not say that. They said that the power to reject is still regarded with suspicion or jealousy. They did not say there is no power to reject, but that the exercise of the power is to be regarded with peculiar jealousy. Of course it is and always will be. Admittedly, it is not a power to be lightly exercised. In order that it shall not be lightly exercised but only on the gravest cause shown, and only in great emergencies, the House of Commons at that time decided to combine all the finances in one Bill, in order to make the exercise of the power more difficult, but not to make it impossible. Then the right hon. Gentleman says, "Now that you have it in one Bill there is no precedent for its rejection." There could not be a precedent before 1861, because 1861 is the first time in which that was done.
  Mr. HALDANE: In 1785.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: It was the first time it was established as a regular practice. It may have been in the finance of any particular year convenient; or owing to the nature of the finance, that is to say because they only needed to deal with a portion of it, they may have required only one Bill in previous years. But the regular union of the whole finance of the year in one Bill only began in 1861. Are you prepared to assert that a right which was recognised by the Commons in 1861 dies before 1910. because it has not been exercised in the mean time, that right being a right which by common accord of all parties is only

  477
  to be used on the rarest occasions and on the gravest provocations? Do you want the House of Lords to reject the Finance Bill once a year in order to retain their rights, just as a landowner shuts a right of way once a year to preserve himself against encroachment? Of course they do not. They wait for the grave emergency which it was foreseen was possible, though probably everybody hoped it would never occur; and it is only when that grave emergency occurs that they do exercise their undoubted rights. How far will the Government carry the argument that a right which is not used for sixty years ceases to exist—a right which they confess is a legal right, but which they say is not constitutional? When was the right of the Crown to create peers in order to make a majority in the House of Lords last used? Was it within sixty years? It was not within one hundred years. [Hon. Members: "Yes."]
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: 1832 and 1711.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: This is not a history class; but if the hon. Member will read any history of the time he will see that is not so.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: The threat was used.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: It has not been used for sixty years or one hundred years. It has not been used for very nearly two hundred years. If sixty years is sufficient to extinguish one constitutional right the Government must consider whether another constitutional right which has not been used for nearly 200 years is still in existence, and can be fairly appealed to by them. For my part, though I think that the Constitution is clear on these Resolutions, I attach quite as much importance to their practical bearing on our affairs to-day as to their historical origin and justification. I wish that the right hon. Gentleman had told us a little more about the Resolution itself. The second Resolution we shall come to later. What does this Resolution mean? The right hon. Gentleman says it means, though it is not stated in the Resolution, that Money Bills, as defined in the Resolution, should go to the House of Lords. I wonder why? They are not to be altered, they are not to be amended, they are not to be rejected; a Vote upon them is null and of no effect. Why are they sent to the House of Lords at all? Why do the Gov-
  478
  ernment in their projects for dealing with the House of Lords multiply sham on sham instead of proceeding boldly with their work of destruction. Upon my word, I much prefer the attitude of hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, who frankly admit that they do not want the House of Lords, that they do not mean it to have any power, and therefore feel it to be a useless encumbrance. I have a great deal more sympathy with their view, which is, at any rate, plain and frank, than I have with the attitude of the Government, which appears to me obscure, hesitating, and deceptive. I wish the right hon. Gentleman had explained a little more fully what the Government mean by this Resolution. I thought that that was what he rose to do. He said that the case for the Resolution had been stated in the two or three days' Debate which preceded this Debate, and that we are now to come to the Resolution itself. But the right hon. Gentleman never got to the Resolution—I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon, that is not verbally accurate. He did get to the Resolution, but only to look at it and to leave it. He devoted only about two minutes to this problem, to the meaning of the Resolution, out of his hour-long speech. He says the Resolution is intended to restrict the meaning of Money Bills more closely than we do in ordinary parlance. For instance, a Money Bill under this Resolution he says will not include any Bill dealing with rating. I do not see that in the Resolution itself; I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would point it out to me. What I do see is that fourteen settled subjects are enumerated, each of which would constitute a Money Bill separately, and all of which together would constitute a Money Bill. Then, as if that were not sufficient, there is added these words, "or matters incidental to those subjects or any of them." When you have defined as a Money Bill, to be dealt with only by this House, and passed on the sole authority of this House, provisions dealing with the "imposition, repeal, remission, alteration, or regulation of taxation; charges on the Consolidated Fund or the provision of money by Parliament; Supply; the appropriation, control, or regulation of public money, the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; or matters incidental to those subjects or any of them," I should have thought that would have dealt with nine-tenths of the legislation likely to come before the House of Commons in the course of the next few years. But some doubt exists upon this

  479
  matter. Some high constitutional authorities take a different view. The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles), for instance, has examined this Resolution with some care, and his views on this matter are not to be lightly set aside. I wish the right hon. Gentleman had referred to them. The hon. Member for King's Lynn has studied the Resolution, and whilst I believe he thought it went too far in some respects, he observed we have passed two Bills this Session which in popular estimation would be considered Money Bills, but to neither of which did he think this Resolution would apply. One was the Consolidated Fund Bill, and the other the East India Loans Bill. Do the Government mean the Resolution to apply to these two Bills or not? I know charges on the Consolidated Funds are mentioned, but would the Resolution apply to those Bills, or would it not? Are there not matters in those Bills not incidental to the subject of them, and, therefore, are sufficient to take them outside the Resolution. Before we go on with the Resolution, we must have some explanation from the Government with regard to what the Resolution really means, and what its scope is. The hon. Member for King's Lynn went on to say that even the Budget itself last year would not be a money Bill under this Resolution. I very much agree with him. Is that the view of the Government, or is it not? Do they mean the Budget Bill should come under the Resolution, or do they not? Of course they do. The quarrel arose out of the rejection of the Budget, and it is in order to be able to pass things incidental to finance which in their essence, nature and motive, are not financial, that the Government is now seeking to change the Constitution. It is because by that means you can establish single-Chamber tyranny, it is because by that means you can carry out by a majority of this House, however obtained and however little representative of the real opinion of the country, the most fundamental changes as regards property, as regards industry, as regards the whole social and national life, that I protest against the passing of a Resolution of this kind, to which I shall continue to offer, or to any Bill that may be founded upon it, all the opposition in my power.
  Mr. GEORGE GREENWOOD: I cannot help thinking that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are entitled to a large
  480
  measure of our sympathy, and to a good deal of our commiseration, because they are condemned, by the exigencies of the situation, to argue in derogation of the rights and privileges of the House of Commons; indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that you are in reality advocating the humiliation and degradation of this House. For what will happen if this Resolution is not carried into effect? If it be not carried into law, the House of Lords will have made good their claim to reject a Finance Bill whenever they please. What will be the result of that? The result will be that they will be able to force a dissolution whenever they please, or whenever, of course, a Liberal Government was in power. We know that they would not do so when a Tory Government was in power. Having that power to force a dissolution whenever they pleased, by that method they would usurp the Prerogative of the Crown to dissolve Parliament, and they would virtually repeal the Septennial Act. What is the use of a Septennial Act, or a Quinquennial or a Triennial Act, or any Act to limit the length of Parliament, if the House of Lords, whenever they pleased, by the simple expedient of rejecting the Budget, could compel an appeal to the people, because no Government can be carried on unless the taxes are levied? I have heard in the course of these Debates the claim made openly by the Leader of the Opposition and hon. and right hon. Gentleman opposite that the Lords have the right now to force a dissolution, and to refer a measure to the people whenever they like. I do not think it will be denied that the claim is now made that the Lords have the right to exercise a sort of referendum to the people whenever they choose to say that measures have not been adequately considered by the people. Appeal has been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), and also by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bonar Law), to the authority of Mr. Gladstone. What would Mr. Gladstone have said, and what was his view of this claim made by the House of Lords, to refer measures passed by the House of Commons to the people whenever they please. With the House's permission I will read what Mr. Gladstone said at Edinburgh in the year 1893. He was then speaking of certain pleas which had been made to justify the House of Lords, or to excuse them in throwing out the Home Rule Bill.
  The CHAIRMAN: I do not quite see how this bears on the Resolution before the House, which deals with financial measures.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I put it in this way. The claim is made, by the rejection of the Budget, that the Lords can force a dissolution and refer the question to the people. I wanted to give Mr. Gladstone's opinion upon that claim, and to state what Mr. Gladstone said—I was coming to the question of the Budget—namely, that it would be outrageous that the Lords should have the power of forcing a dissolution. Mr. Gladstone said:—
  " But there is a third plea, and that is that the House of Lords is entitled, and indeed. I think they say bound by their duty, to require reference to the people to be made by a dissolution. Now, my first observation upon that is this. It is not the doctrine of the Constitution. The Constitution provides that if a responsible Ministry advises a dissolution there ought to be a dissolution at the risk of the responsible Ministry; and they know that if the House of Commons passes an address for a dissolution its vote is strong enough to bring about a dissolution, and dissolutions have been repeatedly brought about by the vote of the House of Commons. But there is no such thing upon record in any period of our history as a dissolution brought about by a vote of the House of Lords; and not only is it a gross and monstrous innovation, but an odious new-fangled doctrine, and of those odious and new-fangled doctrines no men are fonder than the modern Tories, except another class, the modern Unionists. They are fond of these new-fangled doctrines; but in addition to its being a new-fangled doctrine of allowing the House of Lords to have the prerogative of bringing about a dissolution, it is nothing less than high treason if this is to continue to be a self-governing country, because the House of Lords would regulate every matter where it chooses to take up a question, and would at the same time regulate the course of public business."
  6.0 P.M.
  Mr. Gladstone's authority is, I think, admitted on all sides of the House, and the quotation I have read shows clearly that he entirely repudiates the arrogant claim, as we call it, of the House of Lords to force a dissolution. I come to what Mr. Gladstone said in regard to Finance. I do not know where the quotation was taken from, nor exactly on what occasion it was that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire said that Mr. Gladstone had laid it down that the House of Lords had the right of rejecting a Budget Bill to guard against certain contingencies, but I know what Mr. Gladstone did say at Edinburgh, in 1893. He was speaking then of the rejection by the Lords of the Bill to repeal the paper duties, and he was giving an account of what he did then to circumvent the action of the Lords. He said:—
  "The House of Commons had got then into the habit of sending to the House of Lords separately its financial proposals."
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  We know that at a prior period the House of Commons had sent up the financial proposals in the form of a Budget, but they had dropped that apparently. Mr. Gladstone continued:—
  "The consequence was that those proposals, taken one by one, were at the mercy of the House of Lords. The House of Commons adopted a remedy beautifully simple. They determined to combine for the future all their financial proposals in one Bill, and any Assembly that threw out that Bill would have stopped Supplies and deranged the whole services of the country. They knew very well that the House of Lords was not likely to enter upon a proceeding so obviously quixotic."
  He did not use the word "unconstitutional" I admit.
  "Since the year 1861 all the financial proposals have been joined in one Finance Bill."
  Let the House mark what followed:—
  " The consequence has been that the House of Lords, during these two-and-thirty years, has been totally and absolutely excluded from all influence whatever upon the finances of the country."
  But Mr. Gladstone did think it might be possible for the House of Lords in some curious manner nevertheless to reject a Finance Bill. I would like to point out the vast difference there is between rejecting a Bill like the Bill to remit the Paper Duty and the claim to reject the Bill for Supplies far the year. By the Bill the House of Lords rejected in 1860 they did not refuse Supplies. On the contrary, they refused to be allowed to be taken off, and very characteristically, an extremely odious tax. How very different it is when they raise the claim to refuse the whole Supplies in the Finance Bill. Mr. Gladstone never for one moment, although he only uses the word "quixotic," contemplated that the Lords could do anything so outrageous as to reject a Budget. He says further on:—
  " Gentlemen, if it should ever happen in the vicissitudes and complications of political affairs that the House of Lords, by some accidental or collateral process‥‥"
  He never contemplated this frontal attack, he never dreamed that they would reject a Finance Bill. He continued:—
  " Should be the means of bringing about a Dissolution, you may depend upon it that the people will not consider the question of Irish Government alone, but will mix up with it another question on which the Lords may bitterly, when too late, lament they ever raised the issue."
  It seems to me that to quote Mr. Gladstone as though he would have given the sanction of his great name to the rejection by the Lords of the Supplies of the year shows at any rate a large amount of audacity on the part of hon. Members who do so. It is perfectly true he does not actually say it would be unconstitutional.

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  He does not even use the word "unconstitutional." He said he would not anticipate the Lords would do anything so quixotic as to reject the Supplies for the year, and, as shown by the sentence I have just read, he never entertained the idea that Lord Lansdowne, for instance, desired to play the part of the Knight of Salamanca, or Lord Halsbury to appear in the rôle of Sancho Panza. He thought it absolutely impossible that the Lords would have ever taken this outrageous course. But they have done so—they have asserted their legal right. None can say that the legal right does not exist. This Resolution says that their legal right should be taken away from them, and that for all future time they should be debarred by law from exercising that legal right which, as we say, is an outrage on the Constitution.
  How is that law to be carried into effect? As a humble Member of this House, having given a great deal of attention to this question for a good many years, I can only say that I do most sincerely hope, and I believe a great many Liberals and Radicals think with me upon this question, that if these Resolutions are rejected by the Lords, then at any rate the Government will not hesitate to resort once more to the precedent of 1832. I say, Why not? The last election was fought upon this issue. I put it into my address as the one great and supreme issue, the question of Peers and People. I told my agent to head every bill with the question of Peers and People, and I never made any speech without devoting the first part of it to the quarrel of the Peers and the People. Therefore I say the election was fought on that issue. I venture to say that the Government in one respect are in a better position than were Lord Grey and Lord Brougham in the year 1832, because in 1832 the peers had done nothing unconstitutional. They had merely rejected a Franchise Bill. We as Radicals and Liberals should entirely object to ask for the exercise of the Royal Prerogative in ordinary measures of legislation, but the case is very different when you ask that Prerogative to be exercised in order to limit for all time the powers of the Peers in order to clip their wings and to extract their fangs. Then I think no Liberal in this House can have any abjection to that Prerogative being exercised. It has been said that even in those days there were very grave doubts as to
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  whether Lord Grey would have carried his threat into execution. I know that Lord Brougham, in his "Constitutional History," written thirty years afterwards, shakes his head in a most portentous manner, and asks himself if Lord Lyndhurst had not run away whether they would have resorted to such a strong measure as that. But Lord Campbell, who wrote the "Life of Lord Brougham," says he has not the slightest doubt whatever that if Lord Lyndhurst had not given way that Lord Grey would have created those peers, and that there was a list of fifty, including sons of peers and elderly gentlemen and bachelors not likely to have a family, ready to be created. I find that Lord Brougham, in his "Constitutional History" cites the precedent of Queen Anne's time, and states that the Prerogative has upon several occasions been exercised, referring to the fact that Lord Oxford carried a question of importance by the sudden creation of twelve peers, in the reign of Queen Anne. I know that the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) tells us Lord Oxford was impeached for that. As a matter of fact he was not impeached for that. There was an article of impeachment concerning that, but nobody cared twopence about that. What Oxford and Bolingbroke were impeached for was for high treason, and the high treason alleged was that they had wished to secure the city of Tournai for the French people. The whole thing collapsed; and we know that they never were impeached. Therefore that is a perfectly good precedent as well as the precedent of 1832. So far as the Liberals are concerned, I do not see why we should have the slightest objection to that course being taken. On the contrary, I think there is a most urgent wish amongst the rank and file of Liberals and Radicals throughout the country that if these Resolutions are rejected there should be a Bill, no doubt, drafted, but why should not the Government then take that Bill limiting the Veto of the Lords to the Sovereign and ask for assurances that if that Bill is carried through this House—
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now discussing the general question, which is not in order on this Resolution.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I will not pursue it further if it is not in order. I was trying to show the means whereby this Resolution ought to be carried into law, and the Resolution states that the Veto of the House of Lords with regard to finance ought to be

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  limited by law. I was indicating the way in which we hope that may be secured. I know it is said, and I have seen it said in the Press that there is an air of unreality over these proceedings. I find that the Tories in the newspapers speak of these Resolutions as if they were unreal, and they have been described on the other side as a farce. They speak of the speech of the Prime Minister as being merely "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." If they choose to lay that flattering unction to their souls, we need not grudge it them; but I think that as time goes on it will be found that there is a great deal of reality, and somewhat grim reality, in these proceedings. It will be found that this issue is a very real one, that this fight having been joined must be fought to a finish, and that this beacon, having been once kindled, will never be extinguished until it has lighted to victory one party or the other. I think it requires very little prescience to see, as between Commons, on the one hand, and Coronets, on the other, upon which side that victory must ultimately rest.
  Sir ALFRED CRIPPS: I wish to comment upon certain constitutional matters referred to by the Minister for War. In the first place, concerning the difference between what is called legal right and constitutional right, there has been some misapprehension as to the real importance of the legal right. I am not aware of any legal right involved except that of the taxpayer, that no tax can be taken out of his pocket without the assent and concurrence of the three estates of the Realm. The legal right means that at the present time the taxpayer has that security, whereas, if this Resolution is passed, he will not have it in the future. As I understand, without going into detail, the great constitutional struggle in the past, from the time of Henry IV., through Tudor and Stuart times, and even at a more recent date, has been the struggle of the taxpayer that money shall not be taken out of his pocket except under the authority of a Statute sanctioned by the three estates of the Realm. In my opinion, from that point of view, we are taking a reactionary position by depriving the taxpayer of the very great security which he now has before anything can be taken from him for public or national purposes. Why should that security be taken away? Every word of the speech of the Minister for War, I
  486
  should say, showed the importance of retaining that security as it at present exists. I am not going into a discussion as to the use by philosophers of the term "sovereignty." I think the right hon. Gentleman was sufficiently accurate in his statement that the virtue of sovereignty exists in this House at the present time. But that is not an argument for extending our powers. In my view it would be a strong argument for maintaining the limitations which now exist. I think I shall carry the right hon. Gentleman with me in saying that in this respect the history of the matter in the past is a struggle on the part of the person charged with the payment against the aggressions of the Executive or Sovereign power. As to precedents, although I speak from a constitutional lawyer's point of view, I do not think that old precedents have much to do with our immediate discussion. Many of those precedents are, in my opinion, quite inapplicable to modern times. I will not quote a single precedent earlier than the year 1832, because in that year the relations between the two Houses were in substance entirely altered. But if we look back, not merely to the question of privilege between the two Houses, which is a comparatively unimportant point, but to the substance of the matter and see what the struggle was, it will be found that it was mainly based on the principle that no taxpayer shall be deprived of his money for public or national purposes without the tax having been sanctioned by an Act of Parliament passed by the three estates of the realm.
  I do not want to discuss what is meant in this discussion by the Veto of the Crown. We all agree that the Crown in exercising its Veto follows the advice of the Prime Minister, who must have the support of a majority in this House. Therefore the Veto of the Crown and the Veto of this House as regards, at any rate, matters of finance, are very much the same. But the House of Lords is independent. It is the one independent body at this moment protecting the taxpayer against the aggressions—the sometimes extravagant aggressions—which we find practised from time to time in this House. This House, as a whole, is not an Assembly which concerns itself minutely with economy in matters of taxation. Indeed, one might say exactly the contrary, and that the tendency in modern times is for the influence of this House to be towards the increase of taxation in many directions. I am not saying that that is wrong. I realise as much as many people that with the great multi-

  487
  plicity of modern social requirements it is almost essential to have a large public expenditure. I do not find any fault with that at all. But when you come to the question now under consideration, namely, whether you shall take away the only safeguard of the subject, which is the necessity of the concurrence of the Second Chamber before taxation can be levied, I say, most earnestly, that you can hardly have a greater interference with what in the history of our Constitution has been the test, and touchstone of liberty and freedom than to place the subject at the mercy of this House alone, with its chance majority, and take away the protection which he at present enjoys. The Minister for War spoke of the "silent voice of the people." Where I join issue with his argument is on this point. Without the protection and security of the Second Chamber, which at any rate ought to be in reserve, we do not have in matters of taxation the considered opinion of the people. We merely have the voice of a majority, or, as I should put it, the ukase of the Cabinet, which the majority of this House supports for the time being. Has anyone ever heard of the House of Commons as a House bringing forward a proposal of taxation? We have heard a good deal about the initiative of the House of Commons, and about voluntary Grants, which are not applicable to modern conditions. But what is the present procedure? Members of this House are under a special disability in matters of finance. No one except a Minister of the Crown can bring forward a proposal for taxation. What we really have in matters of finance is not an expression of views of this House in the sense of representing the views of the people. We have a proposal brought forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a Member of the Ministry. No Member can bring forward any other proposal, and the question is always whether the majority will accept the proposal so brought forward or not. It is Cabinet Government in the extremest form. Originally this provision was introduced for purposes of economy. It was thought that if Members could get up and propose individuality to impose taxation upon the public, a greater amount would be voted than was consistent with the public good or national prosperity. This House, therefore, so far as its Members are concerned, is under a special disability as regards finance. All we have is the ukase put forward by the Ministry or Cabinet for the time being, and that
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  Ministry or Cabinet can, owing to the conditions of party Government, save in the most exceptional cases, rely on obtaining, not even the considered assent of the majority, but an assent secured by the use of party methods. Is that a satisfactory condition?
  I agree with what the Minister for War said as regards the unwritten Constitution. He said that it was statesman-made. I hope it will not be statesman-unmade. I willingly apply to him the epithet "statesman"; I do not wish in a matter of this kind to introduce any element of personal controversy. The great fault of an unwritten Constitution is the ease with which a mere majority can intervene and alter it in most material and vital respects. But I believe the argument of the right hon. Gentleman could well be turned against him. If you have a written Constitution, such as you have in the United States, there are safeguards against its alteration from time to time. You require a specified majority, and you have to overcome the special protection provided. So far as we are concerned, we have no such protection. The only protection we have is the good sense of this House, and the good sense of statesmen and parties on both sides. I protest most -strongly against an amendment of the unwritten Constitution being introduced, not in response to a demand from the House at large, which was always the case in old days when constitutional Resolutions were passed and adopted, but in response merely to a demand made by a majority under special conditions, such as obtained during the late General Election, and are obtaining in the House at the present time. One may, I should have thought, say that it has been made quite clear, following the controversy of 1860, that the power of rejection of Money Bills is in the House of Lords. Of course, no one doubts that legally they have a right to reject, but I mean constitutionally or conventionally. It is quite impossible to say, as has already been pointed out, that if that right existed and was recognised in 1860—I need not go back to earlier precedents—that any non-user since that time can have affected that right either conventionally or constitutionally. Indeed, I would go further. If a great body, such as the House of Lords or the House of Commons, have duties imposed upon them in the public or national interest I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman would say that it is even capable or possible that they could

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  lose them by mere non-user. But non-user does not exist in this case. In 1860 there were thirty-six precedents introduced in Finance or Money Bills voted in the House of Lords. One knows if you take out particular speeches of particular Ministers or particular statesmen you will find special passages seeming to support the opposite but the result of the discussion then in the House of Commons was, I believe, a unanimous Resolution affirming and sanctioning the claim of the House of Lords not to amend or to alter Money Bills, but to reject them as a whole. I should have thought after what took place in 1860 the question of constitutional or conventional limitations would not have arisen. I beg to say, in answer to the right hon. Gentleman, that what was done in the reign of Henry IV. affects me very little at the present time. It matters little, too, what happened in revolutionary periods in England or when matters had settled down again. It has no great bearing upon present questions. For this reason: the whole political atmosphere has altered entirely since those days. In those days there was a struggle by this House in order to obtain what the right hon. Gentleman called "virtual sovereignty." The House of Commons wanted to be assured of the control of the purse. The position is altered.
  You have got virtual sovereignty, and what we have to struggle for is against the despotism to which we may be subjected if the absolute power of the purse is given to the same body which has the virtual sovereignty as regards the Executive at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, I am sure, will follow me in this, that those old contests were between the House of Commons and the Executive. However far we go back—it was always occurring—the Executive authority pressing its rights, on the one side, as against the House of Commons, who were the representative body, on the other. It was in that contest, and in the course of that contest, that the House of Commons said: "In order that we may have the sovereignty or that portion of the sovereignty to which we are entitled, we must have the power of finance to which we are making claim." One appreciates that position. The argument tells exactly the opposite way at the present time. I think the taxpayer ought to have some security against the executive power and the sovereignty which are now consoli-
  490
  dated and possessed by Members of this House. I approach this point of view, as I say, not on the privilege of this House or on the privilege of the House of Lords in this matter—privileges are an old discussion, which have really very little vital interest under modern conditions. I approach the matter from the point of view of the subject or the taxpayer. I say at the present time that the subject or the taxpayer has security that no tax or rate collector can call upon him without showing his authority, given by Statute, and confirmed by the three estates of the Realm. What is this House of Commons doing at the present time? It is taking away these securities which our forefathers fought and suffered for.
  That is the whole question? In the old days the question was whether the Executive power should impose the taxation in its own right, or whether the subject was protected, because before any taxation could be levied it was necessary to pass an Act of Parliament and to have Statutory power. We shall have the same difficulties arising again, because I myself look with alarm on what has been called "the corrupting influence of irresponsibility" so-called by Mill, which this House is claiming for itself at the present time. I have been dealing so far with the case which is put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for War. When we look to the future, what is the real outlook 1 Does anyone here doubt that in the future the most important questions from every point of view will be questions which raise financial considerations and financial issues? Look where you like into these constitutional authorities which have been quoted. Take Mr. Bagehot, whom we all read, and who was quoted by the Prime Minister. What does he say? "You cannot draw distinctions in modern times between financial power and ordinary legislative power." That is one of the old metaphysical distinctions, if I may put it so, of the time when politics dealt with different matters to what they do at the present day. Why should this House be infallible in matters of finance as distinct from other questions of legislation? In whatever direction we look I do not think we can shut our eyes to the fact that in the future the most important questions which will come before this House will necessarily be matters of finance. No one has ever denied that the initiative exists in this House. No one has ever denied the powers which have been claimed for this House so long

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  as the powers of rejection is left to the House of Lords. I do not know whether—an hon. Gentleman opposite laughs; I do not know if he intends in any sense to refute what I am saying? Does he deny, or does anyone deny, the power of initiation in this House?
  The only claim made for the House of Lords is the power of rejection. They ought to have that power in order to protect the taxpayer and" the subject. That is the point of view from which I look at the matter, much more than the question of privilege as between the two Houses. They ought to have it, because in the future questions of finance will be of primary importance, and ought to be decided, not by a chance majority of this House, but by the considered will of the people exercised in a regular and constitutional way.
  Mr. F. G. HINDLE: In rising to speak for the first time I ask the indulgence of the House, and I propose to be brief. I understand that the Resolution before the House proposes to deal with the question as to whether the claim of the House of Lords to reject Finance Bills is one which ought to be resisted. The proposal of the Government is, as I understand it, that they are simply restoring that control over finance which this House has always exercised. On the other hand, the House of Lords claim the power to reject Finance Bills, but only, as it has been put on several occasions, in cases of great emergency. I do not propose to go into the authorities which have been cited on both sides in this matter. I rather fall in with the views expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down, that we are more concerned with what is expedient at present than what has, perhaps, been the case in the past. At all events, one thing is clear: that in the past the House of Lords have never really exercised this power which they now claim. This country has been governed under our present Constitution for more than 200 years without the actual exercise of this power, and it is certainly a novelty at the present time of day to introduce it as an actual practical working part of the Constitution. Certainly for 200 years if, indeed, ever in the history of this country, we have not seen any Finance Bill embodying all the money which might be provided for the service of the year rejected by the House of Lords. Since 1860
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  we have never seen even a single tax either rejected or amended. The Lords have now seized this power. The question is, How are we to deal with the situation?
  We may be told that the power is only to be used in case of emergency. But who are to be the judges of that emergency? If the Lords themselves are to be the judges it simply amounts to this, that they can put this power into actual practice whenever it seems to them to be expedient to do so. Opinions may well differ upon a question of that kind. We have seen that in 1846 the Duke of Wellington, who was then leading the House of Lords, did not consider that such a question as the drastic alteration in the fiscal system of the country as the repeal of the Corn Laws and the introduction of Free Trade was an emergency great enough to call into use this power of the House of Lords. We have also seen that when Mr. Gladstone introduced his Succession Duties—duties equally as odious to the House of Lords as any of the Land Taxes proposed by the Budget—that even then it was not considered that an emergency had arisen such as to call for the exercise of this power. The same argument applies to the Bill introduced by Sir William Harcourt in 1894, providing for the imposition of the Death Duties. Under these circumstances, I consider that the claim of the House of Lords to force a right of this kind practically amounts to enforcing it whenever it pleases. We have already heard that this necessarily involves a right on their part to compel a dissolution whenever they please. This seems to me to be really one of the most serious aspects of the question. Unquestionably, if the Lords have the power to send this House back to the constituencies whenever it pleases them, they would be usurping the Prerogative which has always been considered one of the most ancient and valuable Prerogatives of the Crown. We have heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down that the Prerogatives of the Crown have now, to use the words of a great constitutional authority, become the privileges of the people. Any way in which the Prerogatives of the Crown are lessened practically lessens the authority of this House, which controls the Minister who wields these Prerogatives by his advice as a responsible Minister of the Crown. Therefore, I think we are bound to resist to the utmost any power which can be assumed by the House of Lords which would interfere and give them the power of dissolution. To

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  give a power of dissolving this House whenever it pleases to the House of Lords to choose the exact moment which seems to them most fit in order to bring their political friends back to power, is to give them an advantage which is almost like allowing an opponent to choose the trumps in a game of cards. It is a power which handicaps most seriously the party which is opposed to the House of Lords. We all know that if the psychological moment is taken there is always a time in the lifetime of every Parliament when it would be to its detriment to go to the country. An hon. Member on the other side said yesterday that rather than trust the majority of this House he would trust the despotic power of a king like Charles I., because, in the first place, he was a more picturesque personality, and in the second place, because he had only one head and one neck. I would also rather trust a despotic hereditary king like Charles I. with arbitrary powers than I would trust an hereditary but irresponsible House of Lords. A hereditary and despotic king would not have the same personal interest in financial matters of taxation that Members of the House of Lords, who represent only one class in the community, have. For my part I would as soon trust the financial control of this kind to any 600 men whom I might find walking down the street. In them you would certainly get a few Liberals and Tories, rich men and poor men, men of all classes of religion, and certainly I think you will get a far better sample in that rough and tumble gathering of the average of the community than you would get in the House of Lords. We are told that if we deprive the House of Lords of this Chamber of their own it would be a case of taxation without representation. I do not know. They have no votes at the present time for Members of this House, but they have influence upon the election of Members of this House.
  I heard an hon. Member on the other side only two or three days ago tall us, with a great flourish, that in the Division in the Southern part of England which he represents he got I do not know how many Noble Lords upon his side. They were swarming all over the place, and he told us, with great satisfaction, he considered he owed his election to that. How after that can we be told that Members of the House of Lords have no representation in this House 1 More than that. If so happened that in the very first hours

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  of the assembling of this Parliament a most valuable privilege was given to the Members of the House of Lords which they had not had for many hundreds of years. In. the future they can take a more active part in the election of Members to this House. I confess that as a new Member. I was not perfectly sensible at the time of what exactly was being done when this privilege was accorded to the Lords. I did not realise that we were to be deprived of the opportunity of voting upon that question until the matter was practically decided between the two Front Benches. I feel it is a valuable privilege, and I heard it declared so a few days after in the House of Lords. One of the Noble Lords pointed out, with great force and truth, that although the peers had interfered at the election on previous occasions, although they had gone about and made speeches, it was always before the time the writs were issued, when the electors were by no means disposed to listen to arguments and they were by no means so interested in political questions as they were at the time of the heat of the contest. Therefore he advised his brother peers to take full advantage of this privilege given them by the House of Commons, and he urged that in future they should bring to bear upon elections for the House of Commons the great influence their ample possessions and their social positions in the country, enabled them to exercise with the electors. I think that, having received that privilege, it would be very unjust and unfair that they should also be allowed to have absolute power practically over finance.
  I support the Government proposals, first, because I am sent here expressly to do so. I have come here, I might almost say, for nothing else. It was practically the only question which was debated in my Constituency. I represent a Lancashire constituency with 18,000 electors containing an intelligent artisan population whose opinions upon this question are as much entitled to respect as any other constituents in the country. We have no fewer than 4,000 to 5,000 freehold workmen who own their own houses, and sometimes one or two more. They take an intelligent interest in this question, and follow the Debates in this House; and at the meetings that took place there this was the one question above all others that interested them. They realised that the question at issue was whether they were any longer to remain a self-governing country, and upon that issue, for the first

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  time in twenty-five years, they gave us a majority where there had always been a Tory majority. I came therefore to speak on behalf of that constituency, and I know the same applies to many other constituencies. I conclude by saying that I do hope the Prime Minister and the Cabinet will persevere with this measure, and will carry it on with enthusiasm and good heart. If they do they may rely, I assure them, on the enthusiastic support of the great mass of the industrial population of the North of England and upon the great mass of the population in the swarming hives of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
  Sir WILLIAM ANSON: As this may be the only time or occasion upon which the House of Commons will be allowed to discuss the most important matters in this Resolution I desire to say a few words. This Resolution proposes to do three things. It proposes to take away from the House of Lords a right which the House of Lords has always held, it proposes to confer upon this House a right which it does not possess, and it proposes to impose duties upon Mr. Speaker that will entirely alter the character of his exalted office. Speaking of the first of those rights, it is impossible to avoid reference to the mode in which the Question has been discussed inside the House and outside the House. The House of Lords possesses rights which have been denied by many persons, including the Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for St. Andrew's University {Sir Robert Finlay) complained, and I think very justly, that the Prime Minister, speaking at Birmingham, asserted that the noninterference of the Lords in finance, was an inviolable custom unbroken for a period of 300 years. I must express my entire concurrence with my right hon. Friend that language of that sort used by the Prime Minister would be repeated upon thousands of platforms, and made to convey an altogether false impression of the right of the House of Lords which we now propose to take away—a right they exercise, and rightly exercised last year. My right hon. Friend told us that so far from this custom having been an inviolable custom, this House in 1671 admitted the right of the House of Lords to reject a Money Bill, and that the House of Lords had exercised that right. The Attorney-General replied and referred to the precedents of 1628 and 1640, and he went on to say that in 1628 the right
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  of the Lords to assent to a Money Bill had been struck out of the preamble.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (.Sir William Robson): What I said was that the words in the Preamble which expressed the assent of the Lords to a grant of the Commons were struck out. The consent of the Lords to the Bill before it became law is a very different thing.
  Sir WILLIAM ANSON: The right hon. Gentleman said:—
  " Still they claimed a right to assent to the Grant. In 1628 Coke, Glanville and Sheldon, and a strong Committee of the House of Commons were appointed to draft a new Preamble and they struck out those words which expressed the assent of the Lords to a Grant of the Commons. If anybody will take the trouble to read the Preamble of the Finance Bill of last year they will see they are expressly excluded from any share in the Grant."
  Up to 1625 the Lords had appeared in the preamble to the Bill as parties to the Grant, and in 1625 the Commons struck this out of the preamble. What happened in 1628 had nothing to do with the question of assent or rejection. In 1628 the Lords pointed out that, contrary to precedent, the Commons had altered the preamble, and the Commons appointed this distinguished1 Committee to explain that they were only carrying out what had always been intended and that the Grant was the Grant of the House of Commons agreed to by the Lords. That was all that happened, in 1628. It was merely making the form of the Subsidy Bill correspond with the arrangement made in the reign of Henry IV., when the Commons were much disturbed because the Lords discussed the question of Supply over their heads, and they said if things went on like that there would probably be no Supply at all, and then this arrangement was made. The Commons should make the Grant and the Lords agreed to the Grant; until the House of Lords agreed, and not till then, was the Bill to become law, and the Grant was to be communicated to the King by the Spokesman of the Commons. That is what has been done to the present day. The House of Commons initiates the Grant, the Grant goes up to the Lords, and they have the right to assent to it or to reject it, the Appropriation Bill which places the money at the disposal of the Crown is brought here by the Clerk, it is taken to the Bar of the House of Lords, handed to the Clerk of Parliament, and receives the Royal Assent. That is all that happened in 1628. Immemorial custom was

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  expressed in the preamble. What happened in 16401 The House of Lords took the strange course of sending down to the House of Commons a message that it would be desirable at once to proceed with Supply before other business. The Commons declined to do so, and the Lords withdrew their request with something like an apology.
  7.0 P.M.
  Then the Lords claim a right that they have never given up, namely, the right to amend, and we have always questioned that right. The Attorney-General suggested that in 1671, when this question of amendment was raised, this House, through its Attorney-General, admitted the right to reject a Bill, merely in order to pass on to the matter then in dispute, namely, the right to amend. He tried to show that the admission was of the existence of a bare legal right, and that it was unimportant. That is not what happened in 1671; the constitutional question was raised by the Lords that the two Houses were respectively checks upon one another, and that they would cease to be so if the House of Lords gave up the power of amendment, and the Commons answered: "So they are still, for your Lordships have a negative to the whole." As for the precedents cited in 1860, the Attorney-General has told us that the Lords possessed a right to regulate trade, and that the cases of Money Bills amended or rejected by them could be explained on that ground. But, in truth, they did not come into the finance scheme for the year. They were, as the Secretary of State for War described them, Bills in which there was very little finance and a good deal of principle. I wish to say another word in regard to the Attorney-General's argument last evening, and I do so because this is the only discussion we shall have, and Ministers may go about the country repeating his statement to the disadvantage of the House of Lords. The Attorney-General said that the House of Lords, although it was very regardless of custom when it ran against its own interests, was always ready to insist upon custom where it was to its advantage, and he cited the Wensleydale case, in which he asserted that the House of Lords set up a custom of not more" than 200 years. When the Attorney-General says that, it looks as though he was making up his history as he went along, and I defy him to find even an arguable instance for 400 years back.
  Sir W. ROBSON: I said I was not sure of the length of time. I mentioned 200 years as being within my recollection, but I was uncertain without having had an opportunity of verifying originals. I did not anticipate I should have had to follow that precise argument, and I was not sure of the precise number of years.
  Sir W. ANSON: Then I think it would have been better if the Attorney-General had not touched the subject at all, because he suggested that the House of Lords was eager and ready to set up custom when it suited the interest of that House, although they were regardless of it when it ran against their interest. I will defy him to find even an arguable case of a life peer, who was a lord of Parliament as such, for 400 years before the Wensleydale case; and the highest authority on our mediæval history, the late Bishop Stubbs, said that it was doubtful if any authentic case of such a peerage existed. Now we come to 1860 when Mr. Gladstone proposed to repeal the Paper Duty, and he budgetted for a loss of £750 on account of that repeal. The House of Lords, however, said that that duty should not be repealed, and they took this action based upon their undoubted right to reject a Money Bill. Did the House of Commons persist in that tax? Certainly not, because they acted as if they had admitted the right. All they said was that this was a privilege which was seldom used, and one which was regarded with peculiar jealousy; but the right was not insisted upon. But Mr. Gladstone said rather more than that, for he stated that the House of Lords had the power of amendment. In the following year all the taxes of the year were put into one Bill, and there was a good deal of discussion upon this novel procedure, because it was held that it was an invasion of the right of the Lords to reject. This is what Mr. Gladstone said:—
  " The House of Lords has never given up the power of amendment, and I must say that I think they are perfectly right in declining to record against themselves this or any such limitation of their privileges, because cases might arise in which, from the illegitimate incorporation of elements not financial into financial measures, it might be wise and just for the Lords to fall back upon the assertion of the whole breadth of their privileges, according to the largest version they have taken of them."
  Did the Budget and the circumstances of last year make it wise and just for the Lords to fall back upon the whole breadth of their privileges? I think the Attorney-General cited Lord St. Aldwyn as an authority for the statement that there was

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  nothing in the Finance Bill that could be reasonably construed into anything but finance. Lord St. Aldwyn is an authority to whose opinion I would readily bow, but I prefer the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his own Bill to the opinion of Lord St. Aldwyn. I propose to read two extracts not from speeches made on the platform, but from an article written by the right hon. Gentleman which appeared in the "Nation." He wrote:—
  " A proposal, or rather a series of proposals, which embodies much of the Liberal plan for dealing with the social problems which confront statesmenship throughout the world. The new State valuation must be the basis of all plans of communal purchase. On this basis municipalities ought to buy the land which is essential to the development of their towns. And the State would also buy up the land necessary to the policy of recreating rural life in England."
  Here we have set before us as an element in the Finance Bill measures which point to a scheme for nationalising or municipalising the land of the country, and I maintain that the Lords were right in giving the country the opportunity of pronouncing on this policy. I shall be told that the Land Tax and Income Tax Acts created a great number of officials whose duty it is to collect those Taxes. My contention is that those persons, having been appointed for no other purpose than to collect the Revenue, did not embody any policy, and that there was no lurking behind the Land Tax and the Income Tax the idea of taxing anybody out of existence to enable the State and local authorities to acquire land and to take it out of private ownership and put it into the hands of municipalities and the State. I maintain that this is a case of a Budget in which matters not financial were incorporated into a Finance Bill, and I think it was wise and just for the Lords to fall back upon their full powers to give the people of this country an opportunity of saying whether they did or did not approve of the policy contained in the Budget.
  To pass to the next great change which the Resolution contemplates, we are to determine, through our chief officer, what is a Finance Bill and what is not, and, if it is determined to be a Finance Bill, the Lords are to have no opportunity of touching it in any way. The House of Lords are to be disabled by law from rejecting or amending a Money Bill. I suppose that means—and I have no doubt that it will be contended that it means—
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  they must not hold it up. That is an extension of the privileges of this House. When our privileges have touched upon private rights the Courts have always been strenuous in contesting their extension. Where they touch the other House, a trial of strength arises in which one House sets up its right against the other House. But this privilege which we now claim touches the rights of the general public; it touches the right of the general public to have some knowledge of the policy which may be embodied in a Finance Bill and some voice in its practical application. Finance, as was pointed out by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) and by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. James Hope), is, in the words of the Prime Minister, a very flexible weapon. It may include a great deal which is ostensibly finance, but which really affects great social changes in the country. The public is to be disabled, if the House of Commons so pleases, from having any chance of an appeal to it as to the propriety of the changes which may be embodied in the Finance Bill. We are to determine what Bills are Finance Bills and what Bills are not.
  There is another class of Bills to which attention has not been directed. The hon. and learned Member for Kingston gave us an opportunity of seeing how we might have a Finance Bill which might disestablish the Church or which might nationalise the railways. I will take another case. The House of Commons has in other branches of legsilation shown itself extremely jealous of; its privileges. If the House of Lords put in Amendments to a Bill which is not a Finance Bill, but which may in some way or other be a charge upon the people, those Amendments are not—I think unfortunately—discussed here upon their merits. Someone asks whether they touch our privileges. Mr. Speaker says they do, and whether the Amendment is a good or a bad one, this House puts it aside without discussion.
  Mr. GIBSON BOWLES: In the case of the Asylums Officers Bill last November this House did not put aside the Amendments of the House of Lords. It accepted thirty of them, although they touched upon finance and were "privilege" Amendments.
  Sir W. ANSON: I am obliged to the hon. Member, and I am glad to hear that this House did waive its privileges in a

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  matter where it was undoubtedly to the advantage of the public that it should waive them. There were other occasions when it declined to waive them, and when I think it would have been to the advantage of the public that they should have waived them. I would ask whether the Education Bills of 1902 and 1906 might not, under this Resolution, have been entirely excluded from the consideration of the Lords. In 1902 Lord Davey, a great legal authority, seriously argued, inasmuch as the main purpose of the Bill was the allocation of a Grant whether from the Treasury or from the rates to certain schools, whether that really did not permeate the whole Bill in such a way as to take it out of the cognisance of the Lords altogether. The Duke of Devonshire said he thought not. The House of Lords went on to make certain Amendments, the Bill came down here, and, with the exception of one Amendment, this House raised no difficulty. The matter was again seriously argued in 1906. Mr. Speaker then ruled that the Lords were not excluded from discussing and amending the Education Bill of that year, but, as this House is now very much in the way of extending its privileges, it is quite possible that not merely might the Finance Bill be made to include matters not financial, but a Bill not a Financial Bill might also be regarded, under the ruling of some future Speaker, as containing matter which takes it out of the cognisance of the-House of Lords.
  There is this other question. The guillotine works very freely in these modern times. Many Bills which pass through this House go up to the other place with large portions of them wholly undiscussed. I admit that the Budget of last year was very fully discussed, but it might not be so always. This appetite for power grows with its satisfaction, and, when this House has acquired exclusive control over Finance, and when the Government has got a majority with which it can deal as it pleases, it may be possible that the guillotine which was withheld from the Finance Bill last year will come into brisk operation. That would preclude proper discussion in this House. What would be the object of the House of Lords, with its powers limited and restrained as is proposed by this Resolution, discussing the Bill? What self-respecting people will take part in a sort of debating society discussion as to the merits or demerits of a Finance Bill? The guillotine would prevent discussion in this House, and discus-
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  sion in the other House would be useless. What opportunity, therefore, will the people have of knowing what their representatives are doing in the all-important question of finance? The privileges of this House have been misused in the past. When we had a single-Chamber Government, the arbitrariness of the House of Commons revolted the people. We know there have been times since then, in the eighteenth century, when the privileges of this House were used in a way which invaded private rights. We are now pursuing the same path. We are claiming powers which we have not possessed hitherto. We are going in the next Resolution to claim all practical control over all legislation of every sort, and in finance we are going to exclude the other House even from the opportunity of discussion.
  Lastly, we come to the mode in which this Resolution affects the position of Mr. Speaker. The impartiality of the Speaker has been the admiration of all constitutional students. That a man who belongs to, and has worked with one of the two great parties of the State, should, when placed in the Speaker's chair, be so judicial and impartial that neither side ever questions his decisions, is, I think, a monument to the character of our public life. But that has not always been so. The Speaker's impartiality is a development of the last 150 or 160 years. Until the eighteenth century the Speaker was the nominee of the Crown, and very frequently held a Government office in addition to the Speaker's chair. What are we doing now? We are making a written Constitution. The Secretary of State for War admitted it. We are putting our Constitution in writing. States, which have a written Constitution usually leave it to the highest court to interpret their Constitution. We are proposing that our own officer—a man chosen by one of the two great parties in the State— should be the man to interpret our Constitution in a matter in which this House is extremely interested, and in which one party will be predominately interested in his giving a decision one way.
  I claim we are not only depriving the other House of the rights it possesses and' arrogating to ourselves privileges which are very liable to be misused, but we are assigning to our great officer, to an office which has hitherto been the pride of the House, duties which it is almost impossible for him to discharge without some derogation from that character of impar-

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  tiality which the Chair has hitherto always enjoyed. I have learned to admire our Constitution because of its adaptability in the hands of public-spirited and capable men to the changing needs of successive generations; but what we are proposing to do now is to stereotype in a legislative form the ambitions of this House, to acquire these privileges, to retain them, and to injure the character of the Speaker's chair by the duties which you impose upon him. After all, who exercises the powers of this House? It is the Government of the day, and it is to the Government of the day that you are assigning these powers. There can be no question that when the House of Commons assumes rights it assumes them for the benefit of the Government of the time, and you are creating this oligarchy not merely in general legislation, but in the all-important matter of finance. I believe, if these Veto Resolutions become a part of our law and a part of our Constitution, we shall live to regret it.
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir William Robson): We are always glad to hear the hon. Baronet upon any question of constitutional law, but he has used some very strong language about those who have preceded him in the Debate. He charged me with making up my history as I went along, and said I perverted facts, and that my remarks had very slight foundation in history. Let me take the first instance which he gave of my inaccuracy. He said I have attached undue importance to the events of 1628. He rather supported, as I understood, the proposition of the right hon. and learned Member for the Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities (Sir Robert Finlay) that what took place in that year was of slight and trivial importance, and that anyone who attempted to give it a significance was perverting history. Before dealing with that year let me go back to another date mentioned by the hon. Baronet. The first important struggle between the Commons and the Lords in relation to finance took place, as the hon. Baronet has reminded us, in 1407. The Lords then assumed to intermeddle with the initiative of financial proposals. The Commons were greatly disturbed, to use the language recorded at the time, and they protested that the Lords had no right to meddle. They made a grievance of it. That grievance reached the ears of
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  the King, and the King, to relieve their anxiety, laid down by virtue of his Prerogative, a rule which thereafter prevailed, that the Lords and Commons should assent before the Grant was made to the King, but that the Commons should make their own Grant, and that they should do so without the interference or control of the Lords, but when the Lords had assented to the Grant then it should be laid before the King. Now that Act of Indemnity of the Lords and Commons w as intended as a relief to the Commons; it was intended as a concession to the Commons, and it has since been made the basis of the claim on the part of the Lords to a right of rejection. As a result of long controversy the Preamble of Bills containing Supply had a very different form from that which obtains now. The Lords are mentioned in the Preamble; they were first mentioned as assenting to the Grant; they were afterwards mentioned as consenting to the Bill. That prevailed for a considerable time, but always with the protest of the Commons. It protested occasionally and sometimes effectively. In 1628 the Commons altered the Preamble of the Bill. The hon. Baronet speaks of that as if it were some trifle which nobody noticed at the time. I cannot imagine such a distinguished authority putting forword such an extraordinary suggestion. It was the subject of great controversy at the time, and that controversy resulted in the appointment of a Committee which contained three of the greatest men that then adorned political life in England—Coke, Selden, and Glanville. They decided in a manner hostile to the claims of the Lords. Their decision was accepted as being hostile. It was to the effect that the Lords had no right to assent to the Grant, and that all they had a right to do was to consent to the Bill. It was not the Lords who made the Grant. The Commons granted, and the Lords assented to the Grant. Those words will be found in the preamble of the Act of 1363. They reported that the House of Commons preamble should be altered so as to strike out the assent to the Grant altogether, and leave only the consent to the Bill—a most important distinction, which was really in the mind of Lord Chatham when, as Mr. Pitt, in this House he spoke of the significance of the Lords passing a Money Bill. He said they could only give consent to the Bill. They did not assent to the Grant, because the Grant is the money of the Commons alone.

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  It is their own money, and they give it. The Lords do not assent to the Grant; all that they do is to co-operate in giving that Grant in a legal form. It was in 1628 that Coke, Selden, and Glanville reported and said that, although the Lords assented to the Grant, they became parties to the Bill only in order that the law courts might act on it. How anybody can say that what took place in 1628 was unimportant passes my comprehension. The hon. Member for the Edinburgh University made a curious charge against the Prime Minister because of his reference to the events of 1628. The hon. Baronet said that in 1671 there was a time when the Lords had a right to reject these Bills. We have not denied that as a matter of law the House of Lords is technically entitled to refuse assent to a Bill. We have no remedy for that, and, as Lord Palmerston pointed out in 1860, if a Bill is sent up there and comes back again there are no means by which we can remedy that which we believe to be a grievance. But it is a technical right only. May I deal with the question of what is legal and what is constitutional? I quite expected the hon. Member would have dealt with that point, and there is some significance in his omitting to do so, for I do not believe there is a greater authority on the subject. Let me take another great authority. What did Lord Lyndhurst say in the Wensleydale case? He was dealing with a claim put forward on the part of the Government of the day relative to the right of the Crown to appoint life peers. There was no doubt whatever that the Crown had appointed a life peer, but the hon. Baronet said no life peer had ever sat in the House, and he said it on the authority of Lord Bishop Stubbs, whom I should not like to contradict or qualify without very careful or minute research. The statement surprises me because I have been looking at instances where persons already peers and already sitting in the House have had life peerages conferred upon them. Yet the hon. Baronet stated that no life peers had sat in the House.
  Sir WILLIAM ANSON: No life peers have sat in the House in virtue of the patent limiting the peerage to the term of life.
  Sir WILLIAM ROBSON: That is an additional qualification. I am not quite sure Bishop Stubbs is right when he says that no peer has sat in the House by virtue of his life peerage. I want the House to
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  understand exactly what the controversy was. Is it constitutional for the Crown to exercise its legal right of appointing life peers? Nobody denied that the Crown had the right. Lord Lyndhurst said about that:—
  "The Crown may legally appoint a peer for life. Assuming that to be the case, it does not follow that every exercise of such a prerogative is consistent with the principles of the Constitution. The Sovereign may, if he thinks proper, by his Prerogative, create 100 peers, with descendible qualities, in the course of a day. That would be consistent with the Prerogative and strictly legal, but everybody must feel and everybody must know that such an exercise of the undoubted privilege of the Crown would be a flagrant violation of the principles of the Constitution."
  In other words, here is admittedly a legal right denounced by a great Tory lawyer as being grossly unconstitutional. That is all important in our discussion. You may have a legal right to throw out a Bill; you may have a legal right, but it may be wrong and foolish to exercise it. In another part of his speech Lord Lyndhurst goes on to speak of usage as being the true basis of our Constitution. I think he said not only had the Lords the legal right, but by mere constitutional custom that legal right continually asserted in an Act of Parliament might be one which, nevertheless, it was not proper to exercise. In other words, the constitutional law may be merely supplementary to the technical law of the court, or may absolutely supersede it. Therefore, when the Lords undertook to reject the Finance Bill they had to show not merely legal right, but legal right which they are entitled to exercise, but also a right in accordance with the constitutional usage of the country. Admittedly they could not show it. They cannot show it because if they had been able to do so they would have shown it in the course of this Debate. They have not cited one single precedent to justify their action. The hon. Baronet, dealing with the Bill of 1860, as the nearest case in point of a Bill in which the Lords proposed to interfere with the necessary financial arrangements of the country. May I point out they exercise a general Veto on legislation, they claim to control the trade, or share it with this House, whether the trade was being controlled or taxed in other ways. They claim to be entitled to have a voice in all these matters because we are entitled. They made regulations for the commerce of the country, but they never said we are entitled to interfere or share with you in Supply. In other words, although they did occasionally interfere with some small Bills which had the form of Money Bills, they did not do so on finan-

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  cial grounds. They left the complete control of finance to the Commons. It is therefore advisable to bear in mind the distinction between Money Bills and Finance Bills. So far as finance is concerned, the Lords have never claimed to interfere, and they never have interfered, but they have simply dealt with some few Bills, which, although they touched upon taxation, were not primarily for the purpose of raising revenue, but were for some distinct and other puropse. I think if that is borne in mind, in addition to the fact of what took place in I860, hon. Members will see the distinction. In the year 1860 there was, as the hon. Baronet has pointed out, a reference to the alleged right of rejection by the House of Peers, and the second Resolution of Lord Palmerston dealt with that right. He said it was one which had been exercised in certain cases, but which the Commons regarded with peculiar jealousy. He did not deny that the Lords might have the power of rejecting Money Bills, but what did that refer to? That was upon the assumption that the Lords had no right to reject the Finance Bill. He recognised that which I have just laid down as a perfectly clear proposition, namely, that the general right of Veto possessed by the House of Lords, wholly irrespective of finance, might extend and might have extended to some Bills, nevertheless, which were concerned with taxation, but he never admitted any more than I have admitted; and he went on to say that the Commons have always regarded that power on the part of the House of Lords with peculiar jealousy. The exact words which he used were cryptic words, and puzzled the Parliament of that day, and I daresay will puzzle Parliament now. He said:—
  "That although the Lords have exercised the power to reject Bills of several descriptions referring to taxing by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by them has not been frequent, and is justly regarded by this House with peculiar jealousy as affecting the lights of the Commons to grant Supplies and to provide the "Ways and Means for the service of the year "
  And he went on to say that the House required for the future to prevent the undue exercise of that power by the Lords and to secure to the Commons their rights in regard to taxation and Supply and had in its own hands powers with regard to them. What did that mean? It meant we can very easily deprive you of any right to touch any Bill relating to taxation if we make it part of
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  a purely financial scheme dealing with the Supplies for the year, because no controversy arises whether the Budget as a Bill is financial or not. As long as these measures were sent up as separate measures, like the Paper Duty, the Lords were able to say: "Oh, we may reject this Bill because, although it deals with taxation, it also deals with a great object of public policy, and therefore it comes under our general Veto and therefore we are not prevented from dealing with it by the Resolution of the House of Commons." The House of Commons by their third Resolution in effect said we will stop this argument, we will put these Bills together so as to make them a purely financial scheme.
  Sir ROBERT FINLAY: What they were trying to do was to make it difficult for the House of Lords to exercise their admitted right.
  Sir WILLIAM ROBSON: The hon. Gentleman said that in his speech, but I think it is wholly without authority and wholly inaccurate. He has an idea that what was the meaning of that Resolution was to intimidate the House of Lords, and I say there is no ground whatever disclosed by the Debate in the House of Lords for that assertion, and it is negatived by what Lord Granville, who was a most important person at that time, said. It was resolved to make these Bills part of a purely financial scheme, and that was the reason why all the Bills were embodied in a single Budget Bill and why since that time we have had single Budget Bills. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion, which, no doubt, will be shared by hon. Gentlemen opposite, that all the Commons were thinking of was an intimidatory measure, but that was not the opinion expressed at that time and is not the opinion which will be gathered from a consideration of the Debate. There is no expression of opinion to that effect by the Government who framed the Resolutions, and no expression of that kind by those who were best acquainted with the meaning of them. Let me take the next point raised by the hon. Baronet, and here, again, I think his silence is much more expressive than his speech. He charges the Chancellor of the Exchequer with "tacking" in his Budget, or, although he may not have "tacked," with making his Budget the basis of policy. He says that is wrong, and you cannot make your Budget in that way.
  Sir W. ANSON: I stated that matters which are not properly financial were introduced into a Finance Bill. I used the word "financial."
  Sir W. ROBSON: I should like the hon. Baronet to say what matter in a Finance Bill is not financial. There is no need of anything in a Finance Bill to secure anything which is not essential to finance. Had there been, Mr. Speaker would have stopped it. But we have had to wait for the hon. Baronet to point out a case of "tacking," when the "tacking" would have been beyond the scope of the Bill, and the Orders of this House would have been sufficient to deal with such a case without the Orders of the other House. There is nothing in the Bill which can be called "tacking" by any stretch of the imagination. Then the hon. Baronet went on to accuse my right hon. Friend of making the Budget the basis of policy. He said, "You have a policy here which might lead to the municipalisation or nationalisation of the land."
  Sir W. ANSON: I must call the attention of the hon. and learned Attorney-General to the fact that I never condemned the Chancellor of the Exchequer for anything he did. I only said, in the words of Mr. Gladstone, that his Budget was of such a character that it justified the Lords in exercising their undoubted right.
  Sir W. ROBSON: Then I am a little at a loss to remember what all his observations were about when he was speaking of the basis of a policy. I do not know what they were about now, and, therefore, they need no answer. But I must say I wondered rather when he was condemning a Budget which embraces objects more than financial—
  Sir W. ANSON: I did not condemn the Budget.
  Sir W. ROBSON: You complained that the Budget contained objects other than financial objects.
  Sir W. ANSON: I never complained. I was not going into the merits of the Budget excepting so far as they affected the rights of the Lords.
  Sir W. ROBSON: I suppose the hon. Baronet means that when the Lords rejected it there was something wrong with regard to it, because I suppose we are not to believe that he blames the Lords for rejecting the Budget with which he has no
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  complaint. I think I am entitled to say that he certainly did make observations against this Budget, on the ground that it was a basis of policy, and that is a ground of objection in regard to which he ought to have dealt with my observations to the House on a previous occasion, and he ought to have answered my own defence of the Budget in that regard. I say if it was wrong to make a Liberal Budget the basis of policy, it is wrong to make a Conservative Budget of that nature, and yet we are told that Conservative Budgets are to be framed in order to give Colonial Preference. Why did not the right hon. Baronet deal with that when he was handling this particular part of the subject? He spoke of the power of amendment possessed by the Lords, which, he said, he found referred to in every constitutional authority.
  Sir W. ANSON: I quoted Mr. Gladstone.
  Sir W. ROBSON: The hon. Gentleman quoted Mr. Gladstone with approval.
  Sir W. ANSON: I did not express any opinion. I quoted Mr. Gladstone.
  Sir W. ROBSON: If the hon. Baronet quoted Mr. Gladstone but expressed no opinion, and apparently now is a little diffident to tell us whether he approves of Mr. Gladstone or not—if he was just making an interesting reference to Mr. Gladstone, and never intended to express or convey any opinion whatever, then I do not think I shall trouble about answering that point further. The next point he made had reference to the hon. Member behind me, the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles). He spoke justifying the power of amendment by the Lords, and my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn helped him out, and said not long ago there was actually an acceptance by this House of thirty-six Amendments by the Lords in a Bill. Nobody has denied that the House of Lords made and frequently has made suggestions to the House of Commons which the latter has accepted, but a waiver of a privilege properly understood confirms that privilege. Amendments are submitted to this House by the Lords which are never insisted upon, and to-night on the Order Paper we have a Bill in which the Lords desire to suggest certain changes. What did they do? They did not make the amendment in the Bill, but they put the words in brackets, and suggested that the House of Commons

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  should insert them in Committee. That is an assertion of our privilege to-day. It is a suggestion on their part, and yet the hon. Baronet gets up here to-day as a constitutional authority and has not troubled to consider such a case where we have accepted Amendments from the Lords in the way of a mere suggestion. That very strongly affirms and confirms our privileges. I must make one protest against the habit of hon. Members in making inconsistent and not very accurate charges against the House of which they are Members. We had two such speeches to-night, in one of which complaint was made of the despotism of the House of Commons, and the hon. Member spoke of the country as being under the heel of the House of Commons. This is, from one point of view, said to be an assembly of tyrants, a committee of public safety, and one Member called it a junta. Then another point of view was that of the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil), who tells us that we are not a deliberative assembly, and we are for ever cowed by our terror of our constituents. I wish hon. Members opposite would make up their minds which of these views is correct—whether we are a despotic Chamber or are afraid of our constituents. One or the other, we may be; we cannot be both.
  8.0 P.M.
  Sir JOHN ROLLESTON: It has been frequently mentioned in the course of the discussion, somewhat superfluously, I think, that this House is what the democracy makes it. I am sure that that part of the democracy which I represent would wish me to say how heartily they support the Leader of the Opposition in his expressed intention to oppose this and the other Resolutions at all points. The Solicitor-General last week said he was quite sure that this matter of the Second Chamber was mentioned and fully explained during the candidature of every Member on this side of the House. I, too, may say that the question was brought forward prominently by every Member on this side, and was made a leading point in their speeches and their addresses. In my own case certainly it was so, and I am, therefore, able to say that the opinion of the majority of the people in my Constituency was that the Second Chamber had deserved well of the country, and that although some reform of its constitution might perhaps be desirable, still,
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  there was no hurry about it, inasmuch as the House of Lords never in practice refused legislation which was the clearly ascertained desire of the people. Indeed, I found further that the Chamber was regarded with feelings of the most profound gratitude for having delayed, even for a few months, the passage of the financial proposals of last year. I, therefore, am opposed to the Resolutions, but I think this would be a convenient opportunity, and it would tend to a much clearer perception of the great issue which is at stake, if the Government were to explain more fully what in their opinion may legitimately be included in a Finance Bill. We have been accustomed to believe that the Finance Bill proper was to make provision for the revenues for the service of the year, and one was naturally rather shocked last year to see proposals brought forward to create a large staff of valuers to value all the land in the country, at a cost of millions of money, not to produce revenue from the great bulk of that land, which is agricultural, but only from a small part of it which might be held to have prospective value, because something might perhaps happen which had not yet happened. I wish to inquire if we are likely to have regarded as finance in future such grotesque excursions into novel and experimental legislation as these, and with which the Second Chamber is to have no power to deal. If so no better argument can be produced against the Resolutions.
  The Trades Disputes Bill has been mentioned in connection with the case against the House of Lords. I had a peculiar experience in regard to that Bill. I knew that the trades unions were very much in earnest in passing it. When it was brought forward some four years ago, I was contesting a seat in a Midland constituency. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite a few weeks previously had gone about the country explaining that they could not accept the Bill of the Labour party, but that they would introduce a Trade Disputes Bill of their own if returned to power. They were returned to power, and on the Wednesday of the concluding week of the Election, the poll being fixed for Friday, the Attorney-General came down to this House and, in a speech of great length and lucidity, explained how he could not accept the Bill of the Labour party, but that he had produced a Bill which he hoped would be acceptable. This was not well received in the constituency. It raised a commotion. The democracy, which was usually

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  accepted locally as meaning the supporters of Members opposite, was very much upset, and one thousand men from one large factory met and expressed their intention of voting for the Tory candidate if the Government Bill was persevered with, and a report was made to headquarters in hot haste that unless something was done quickly an impregnable Liberal fortress might have to be surrendered. Our hopes were raised of winning the Election, but they were soon shattered, because on the day of our polling the Prime Minister gave away everything that his Law Officer had said, and promised the Bill of the Labour party. I thought it was rather greedy of the Government, considering the huge majority at their back, that they should make such a vast difference for the sake of one Liberal seat.
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now discussing a question which does not arise on the Financial Veto.
  Sir JOHN ROLLESTON: Everyone knew how much in earnest the Labour party were about the Bill; the whole country knew it, and the House of Lords knew it, and whether they liked it or not, and there was no evidence that I know of that they did not like it—
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member knows he is out of order. He should not continue to discuss the matter.
  Sir JOHN ROLLESTON: I am sure I am obeying the mandate of the democracy which I represent in voting against the Resolution.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: We have listened to-day to an exceedingly interesting Debate upon a very interesting historical subject, whether this House did something in 1407 or did not do it, and whether it supplemented the 1407 action by effective action in 1628 or whether it did not do it. I should like to remind the learned Gentlemen who have been taking part in this discussion that at the present moment this Committee is considering a pressing political question. These precedents are very interesting for a lecture room at Oxford or the London University, and, properly subordinated to the subject under discussion, they are also very important to this Committee, but I do not care what happened in 1628 or in 1407. I am only interested in that subject in the same way that I am interested in the story why and how Charles I. happened once
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  upon a time to lose his head. What we are interested in at the moment is this: Is the present position regarding Money Bills, or rather the claims that the House of Lords makes in respect to Money Bills, a position which this House can accept? As a matter of fact, the whole of our Constitution consists of a series of precedents. Were it not for that, there would be no Constitution at all, the King would still be the supreme governing authority and the supreme judicial authority, and in his own hands and in his own person would rest all the power associated with the Government of this country. We have made from time to time precedents of our own. The history of the Constitution is a series of introductions of precedents and introductions of actions which, up till the time they were introduced, had never been the subject of precedent at all. All we have to consider is, has that time come in respect to the power that the House of Lords asks to exercise regarding Money Bills?
  There is one subsidiary question that I think might be considered. The Attorney-General has stated that if the Government of the day tried the method of tacking, the Speaker himself, armed with simply his present powers, would refuse to allow the tacking to come into operation, because it was inconsistent with the title of the Bill. I do not know whether that is a sound argument or not. It may be sound or it may be unsound. All I am concerned with is that the Attorney-General has offered it as a serious argument. If that argument is sound, it would be quite unnecessary to pass the Resolution in its present form, because that provision relating to the Speaker, according to the Attorney-General, is at present part of the operative Rules of this House. The right hon. Baronet (Sir William Anson) tried to make us frightened of the enormous change that is going to take place if this Resolution is passed and becomes operative by Statute. As a matter of fact, the Speaker now apparently has the right to say that certain Clauses introduced into a Finance Bill, which are not essentially Clauses for the levying of the necessary revenue, must be ruled out of order, because they are not in accordance with the title of the Rill. All the power given him by this Bill is precisely that power. The Speaker cannot, unless we alter the Rules of the House, accept as being in order any provision incidental or otherwise to a Finance Bill which is not properly included in the

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  title of the Bill. Although this is part— and I object to it in that respect—of a written Constitution, I think it is very much better that the judicial authority that should carry this written Constitution into operation and should guard it, should be an officer of this House, and not judges outside this House. We are not bound to go the whole hog in this respect. If the time has come when the ordinary operations of what one might call Parliamentary etiquette fail to preserve the House from mere partisan fights across the floor, and certain privileges of this House require to be maintained and guarded by statute, surely it is very much better that those statutory provisions should be interpreted by an officer of this House in touch with the life of the House than by men outside, however great their eminence, who are not in touch with the public life of the country. That is the great objection to the Supreme Court of the United States being the supreme authority in certain parts of the Constitution.
  And, it being a Quarter-past Eight of the clock, further proceeding was postponed, without Question put, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 4.
  Committee to sit again to-morrow (Thursday).

FOREIGN TARIFFS AND HOME INDUSTRY.
Mr. HAMILTON BENNrose to call attention to the effect of hostile tariffs on industry and employment in the United Kingdom; and to move, "That, in the opinion of this House, the tariffs of foreign countries have tended to hinder the development of the trade and industry of the United Kingdom, to aggravate unemployment and distress throughout the country, and to affect prejudicially the commercial and other relations between the various parts of the Empire; and that an alteration of our present fiscal system is urgently needed to secure greater facilities for exports to tariff-protected countries, to diminish unemployment, and to establish reciprocal preference within the Empire."
The slip of the tongue which caused so much good-natured amusement when I gave notice of this Resolution was, in fact, rather a happy one, because "revolution" is really the right description of the policy which we advocate, a revolution in the
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mental attitude of the people and of the State, a revolution in our relations towards the Empire and an entire abandonment of the policy of laissez-faire. The greater part of my life has been spent in business which has taken me about the world. Year by year I have had to go to the principal countries of Europe, to America and to the United States, and that business itself is not affected by tariffs. Therefore I may claim to be unprejudiced in regard to this question. In fact, I may say that my prejudices to begin with were entirely on the other side. In company with most Members of this House, I was proud to believe that the British Constitution and British Free Trade were the bulwarks of civilisation, but facts, examined on the spot, the conditions of trade in foreign countries, and my opportunities of discussing this question with foreigners themselves, led me to change my opinion with regard to the blessings of Free Trade. Indeed, it was soon borne in upon me that the only answer to the movement which we see around us is an alteration, and drastic alteration, of our fiscal system. Our supremacy as an industrial manufacturing country is being challenged by the alterations which have been made in the fiscal systems of other countries, and our existence as manufacturers in certain branches of trade is at stake. I fully appreciate that to arrive at the alteration we desire requires a revolution in the mental attitude of many people in this country, and especially of the Government. I think that our politicians in the past have been very much disposed to look upon commerce with a sort of contempt. They have not treated it as being something worthy of serious study or consideration. Our Board of Trade has been a veritable Cinderalla among the Government Departments. Its position, until quite recently, has been shown by its chief receiving less than half the salary accorded to the holders of other posts in the Government, but I recognise that the position of a Government Department may be altered or raised by the Minister who occupies the position of chief. This was the case with regard to the Colonial Office when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham occupied it. Since his time that office has been one of the most desired offices under the Government. I might also, pay a tribute to the present Chancellor of the Exchequer who, during his occupancy of the office of President of the Board of Trade, overhauled the shipping laws and the patent laws, and thereby secured the

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enthusiastic support of Members on this side of the House. We recognise that what he did then was a courageous abandonment of his fiscal principles, because these laws in many cases were more favourable to foreigners than to Britishers.
I think that in the past, in regard to international trade at all events, our politicians and our leaders have taken up an attitude of singular detachment when other Governments have stepped actively into the arena and given their support in every way possible to their traders. Our leaders have merely shrugged their shoulders, and seemed surprised that any Government should so far demean itself, shall I say, by entering upon affairs which were entirely, in their opinion, outside the sphere of Governmental action. Owing to Britishers' aptitude for commerce, our insular position, our advantages in iron and coal, and our great Colonial possessions, we have secured, and have for a long time possessed, a commanding position in the world's commercial affairs. To wrest this from us has been the earnest desire of our commercial rivals, and in that they have the support of their Governments. They have called to their aid the best intellects and the keenest business acumen to be found among them, and they have by common consent evolved a policy for national development based upon tariffs. This policy, I believe, commends itself also to the Irish Nationalist party, because I noticed in the early days of the Session their spokesman indicated that they desired such a measure of Home Rule as would give them fiscal autonomy, realising no doubt that a nation can only develop itself to the full by a well-considered financial policy. But I think the best and brightest intellects of this country have devoted themselves to party strife.
The Prime Minister last week said that when his party was in power, the greater part of their time was taken up trying to undo the legislation of their predecessors. A Radical Government never knows when to leave well enough alone. The leader of the body to which I have the honour to belong, on that same day complained of the amount of time which was wasted in barren, fruitless, if not harmful discussion of constitutional questions, discussions which did nothing to relieve poverty, mitigate unemployment, Assist commerce or consolidate the Empire. I think these words may very well be the watchword in future of the Unionist party.
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But there is a very great difference between the attitude of the British Government and that of the German Government. This was borne in on me very forcibly four years ago when, after the Baring crisis, I had to go to South America, to Buenos Ayres, to try to recover a considerable sum of money from a provincial Government. The greater part of the money was British money, but one-fifth of it belonged to a German House. I had the best recommendation to the British Minister, which I presented in due course, and I was very kindly received. He explained to me that it would be entirely contrary to the nature of our system if he was to take any part whatever in commercial affairs. To my surprise, within three or four days I received a call from the German Minister to ask me in what way he could be of assistance in the matter I had in hand, and the success of my mission on that occasion was very largely due to the assistance which I received from the German Minister. But that is only an isolated case. I might refer to another instance also in Argentina, where, a short time ago the Government of that country wanted to buy field guns to the value of half a million sterling. English, German and French firms were competing for the order. A trial was made of the guns and the British guns passed the test in the most satisfactory manner. In fact, they were declared to be the best. In addition, the price of the British guns was less. But the British firm did not get the order. I am told that the German Minister informed the Argentine representative that His High Imperial Majesty would be glad if the order was given to Germany, and hinted that certain reductions might be made on the German tariff in favour of Argentina if the order went that way. The result, however, was that half a million of Argentine money went to Germany instead of Great Britain. Of course, the British Minister would not think of interfering in such a matter.
But this is not an isolated case by any means. To-day the Argentine Government are building several railways, and I believe that England is the only country that is not getting a part of the order, although I am sure it is well known to this House that Britain is well able not only in point of quality and construction, but also in point of price, to compete for any such orders. But I am especially concerned to-night to point out the injury which is done to British trade by hostile tariffs. I know that our theorists will say

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that tariffs are most harmful to the people who employ them. To that I would reply, Have tariffs hurt Germany or France or the United States? If they were so patently harmful, why have the people of such democratic countries as France and the United States not abolished them long ago? But I think that so-called Free Traders do not really examine these questions upon the spot or make careful inquiries as to the operation of tariffs in the countries in which they exist. They always strike me as being so intellectually arrogant that they would not imagine for a moment that it can be possible that they can be wrong in regard to their theories. This morning I received a letter from a man in the City, who, I believe, is generally rognised as one of the brightest men in the City of London. He for many years —in fact, all the time that I have known him—has been a strong Free Trader. But this morning, in a letter received from him, he says that he has just returned from Germany, where he has been making a special study of this question, and that he is now quite prepared to believe that my point of view is correct. I shall be pleased to supply his name to any hon. Member opposite who wishes to know it.
But commercial men generally do not deny the evil effects of foreign tariffs upon our trade. This was clearly shown in the speeches made at the meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce recently, where, as no doubt the hon. Member for Sunderland will tell the House, some fifty-one chambers of commerce voted in favour of a change in our fiscal policy, as against twelve who opposed it. I know it was said that a great many chambers of commerce were neutral on that occasion, and I will tell the House why. It was because an attempt was made in the London Chamber of Commerce to prevent any vote being taken on it on the ground that it was now a political question and it was not fair to gentlemen who differed on political questions to have it brought into commercial questions. That was the way in which this question has been dealt with by many of the chambers of commerce in this country. But I would like, if I may be allowed, to quote from the speeches of some of our leading politicians with regard to this question of hostile tariffs. The Prime Minister has always been very consistent in asserting the damage done to us by
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foreign tariffs. So far back as 1894 he said:—
" British trade in these days carries on its operations under great, formidable, and increasing difficulties."
And he goes on to say what these difficulties are:—
''The wall of tariff which excludes us from foreign markets every day is becoming higher and higher, and side by side with these hostile, aggressive manifestations we find every day that in activity, industrial energy and industrial equipment, our rivals became keener."
In 1900, speaking at Leeds, he declared that there was not the slightest doubt in the mind of anyone that in the international markets we are fighting for our trade with all our available strength. These speeches were made before the Tariff Reform controversy was launched. But in October, 1903, in one of the speeches in which he met or tried to meet the warning of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain), he said:—
" We have seen industries in which we ought to have maintained our supremacy falling behind, and in some cases entirely taken away from us by our competitors.''
Notice particularly the phrase as to "the maintenance of our supremacy." The Chancellor of the Exchequer is quite as emphatic in his speech before the Imperial Conference:—
"Germany, France, and other countries wanted to build their industries within this wall of tariffs and they undoubtedly managed to exclude our goods to a very large extent. I think Mr. Chamberlain was quite right, that our trade with protected countries has gone down."
I might quote many other speeches-made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but we have much more conclusive evidence in trade returns of our own and other countries, and I propose to base this part of my argument on the Memorandum issued by the Tariff Reform Commission last year. The figures have not been impugned by anyone. The first of them relate to exports and manufactures from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States to France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Holland, and Belgium, the principal protected markets. To these we exported £37,000,000 worth of manufactures in 1895, and £54,000,000 in 1907. Germany exported of the same articles, £43,000,000 in 1895, and £96,000,000 in 1907. [An HON. MEMBER: "What articles?"] Practically the whole list of manufactured articles given by the Board of Trade. During the same period the United States increased their exports from £6,000,000 in 1895 to £29,000,000 in 1907; that is to say, in a period of twelve years British exports to these markets grew by £17,000,000, Ger-

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man by £53,000,000, and American by £23,000,000. A closer examination of the figures shows that while the British increase was mostly during the boom period of 1897, the increase of Germany and the United States was a steady increase. I think these figures are extremely significant. If tariffs hamper and obstruct exports it is very remarkable that the exports of these tariff-protected countries show greater expansiveness than our own. It is sometimes said, in fact it was said quite recently, that the German expansion was due to her position. That might perhaps be considered a good argument if it were not for the increase we have in the United States, which certainly cannot be said to be in as good a position as Great Britain in regard to these particular protected markets. It will be noticed that America's increase was fivefold. The value of these commercial treaties is well illustrated in the case of Germany. About 1892, under the leadership of Caprivi, Germany negotiated a series of treaties with States in Europe, and the influence of these treaties on German trade was that, whereas in the three years 1890–2, before the treaties came into force, their average exports were £46,500,000, during the treaty period from 1903 to 1909 she increased her exports to these countries to £95,500,000—that is to say, an increase of £49,000,000, or 100 per cent., in the same period that British exports had increased only by £12,000,000.
I think the conclusion to be drawn from those figures is that the English exports have less power of penetrating or overleaping foreign tariffs than those of Germany. The fact is every country in revising her tariffs has to consider the effect upon other countries that have tariffs. Germany, for instance, has to regard the power of Austria or France or even Canada to retaliate if the tariffs are altered in such a manner as to affect their existing arrangements. We, on the other hand, are absolutely powerless; we advertise to the world that we will take no action, no matter what they do. I am told that one of our diplomatists who was recently engaged in trying to improve our situation in regard to an alteration of tariff said that the result of his experience to try and alter a hostile tariff with free imports was like going into battle with an umbrella against a pom-pom. It is we who are still wielding the umbrella, while all the time we have in our back yard the biggest quick-firing gun in the whole world. To say that we cannot alter our tariffs, we
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who are the biggest buyers in the world, purchasing £600,000,000 of goods in the year, and exporting only £450,000,000, to say with a balance like that in our favour, that we cannot make terms with the world, is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in my life. Hon. Gentlemen opposite take much comfort to themselves from the blessed words, "most favoured nation clause." I do not like to speak disrespectfully of so comforting a phrase, but I must say that I think it is a very much over-rated blessing. In former days, when there were large groups of articles dealt with, the most favoured nation clause did help us to a great extent. The favour given to one country very often extended to ourselves. Most tariffs to-day have become very much more highly specialised, and the tariff officials of other countries have learned how to give concessions to country A, which under the most favoured nation clause should be given to country B, but owing to this specialisation they are able to give a concession to country A; which would have no value whatever to country B. We have had a good many instances of that kind of thing. I dare-say my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Manchester will refer to cotton, and perhaps he will tell us whether it is not the fact that in connection with the German tariff of 1906 the lower counts of cotton received a reduction of duty owing to representations from Russia, while to compensate that they raised the duty on the higher counts of cotton which Great Britain supplied, with the result that Russia got a reduction of duty on exports amounting to 6,000,000 marks, and we had to pay the higher duty on our exports amounting to 34,000,000 marks. Russia was able to get a reduction which suited her, and this had to be paid for by adding to what Britain had to pay. I think that, in reply to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire last year, the Foreign Secretary gave some information with regard to the duty at that time being paid upon British spirits in America. I think that that has now been altered. At that time we were paying on British spirits 50 per cent, higher duty than was on the spirits of other countries. It was stated that America claimed that she was able to give this differential duty on account of reciprocal concessions which she received from other countries.
Taking a general view of trade, I think that the way that hostile tariffs have

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affected us mostly is that in other countries they are able to manufacture in larger quantities and with greater safety, and that they can run their works at full time, relying on the fact that if trade in their own country falls off they can dump their surplus on to us. If they have to take a lower price for that surplus, they still have a very fair average price for their total output. Our manufacturers, on the other hand, are in this position, that they can only rely upon such orders as come their way, and on such orders as they can get in England or abroad in competition with all the world, and they must shut down if they do not obtain sufficient orders, because there is no country into which they can dump owing to hostile tariffs. That has been particularly marked in connection with the iron and steel trades. Twenty-five years ago there were thirteen Bessemer steel plants in this country, turning out 1,500,000 steel ingots. To-day four have been scrapped, one has been shut down, so that that there are only eight of those works now running. In the same period Germany has increased her output of steel ingots very largely. Twenty-five years ago she had only eight such plants, turning out a million tons, while to-day she has twenty-seven, turning out 7,500,000 tons, or an increase of over seven times in twenty-five years. While we have shown no expansion in that trade, the German expansion has been very marked. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are the royalties the same? "] I know it will be said that the German ores are very suitable, or more suitable, for this particular form of Bessemer steel, but if their ores are very good, which I do not deny, they are very much further away from their coke, and a very long distance away from their seaboard. I believe I am perfectly accurate —and I will be supported by everybody who knows—that there is no place in Germany as suitable for the production of Bessemer ore as Cleveland. Yet, while we had four there twenty-five years ago, we have only two to-day. Our manufacturers of iron and steel have increased, but not in proportion to those of Germany. In the twelve years, from 1895 to 1907, to the same market I spoke of a little time ago, the English increase was from 10,500,000 to 12,000,000, while that of Germany was from 7,000,000 to 20,000,000. In machinery the British increase was from 8,000,000 to 12,000,000, and that of Germany from 3,250,000 to
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16,250,000. In the thirteen years German exports have grown five times over, or 500 per cent., while ours have grown only 50 per cent.
Those effects have been produced by the series of tariffs which, as I have pointed out, came into existence about 1892; but there has been a series of quiet reconstruction of tariffs during the past few years. In 1902 Germany reconstructed her tariff, and from that to 1906 she negotiated treaties with all the important central European States. In 1909 Germany adopted the new Paine Tariff, which came into force last August. By it she has already obtained concessions from Canada, which may ultimately prove very unfortunate for us. France has now put the coping-stone on her tariff of 1891, which has stood her in such good stead, and Japan is getting ready to change her tariff as soon as her present treaties will permit. Indeed, if we could draw a map in which the heights of the tariffs corresponded to the peaks you would find that the peaks everywhere have grown higher and that the valleys tend to disappear. The configuration of the map would be that of a high plateau. The position to-day is that It is getting harder and harder for our manufacturers to climb the sides of that plateau to maintain the trade which they had formerly, while entrenched on that plateau is the foreign manufacturer, helped by bounties, by rebates, and by all kinds of assistance from his Government to compete with us in every neutral market, and even to harry us in our own home unprotected markets. I will give one instance of the competition we have to meet in this country, although I could quote many others. Some few years ago there was a large order for colliery machinery electrical plant, and no trade has ever had a harder fight for existence than the British manufacturers of electrical plant. There was a large order for this machinery in the market. The Allgemeine-Gesellschaft did not think it wise to put in a price, but they telegraphed on the day that the order was to be placed saying, "We will take the order according to specifications at 10 per cent, below the lowest British tender."
9.0 P.M.
A similar instance has taken place in the last few days. Is it to be supposed that, if they were successful in closing the British works, and dispersing the highly-trained labour required for such an industry we should get our electrical machinery cheap? No. I think we may count upon it that we should have to pay full prices when our works were closed. I know a case

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where some works, having to face competition of that kind for two years, and finally finding it impossible to compete against it, made arrangements with the Germans to sell their goods on commission. That may be all very well for the manufacturer, but how about the workmen when they are thrown out of employment? The question of unemployment is so well understood in this House that I need not dwell upon it. We all recognise the great evil under which we are suffering. But my conception of our industrial system is not that of a heterogeneous body of merchants or manufacturers turning out goods irrespective of the demand—it is rather that of a delicately-balanced mechanism, organised to supply all the demands likely to be made upon it from various parts of the world. There is an expected demand for cotton in the Far East, for machinery or railway material in South America, for lace goods or textile machinery on the Continent. English capital is invested, plant is erected, men and women are trained in just sufficient numbers to supply that anticipated demand. Suddenly there is a new treaty between two States, say, Roumania and Germany. Roumania is now able to buy from Germany at prices more favourable, goods which she formerly bought from England. Or, supposing she formerly bought them from a third country, France, the result is just the same. France then has a surplus supply of goods which she can sell best in England on account of our fiscal system. The result to British workmen is the same: there is a cessation of the demand for British goods. The equilibrium which before existed is destroyed; a certain amount of capital is lost; and a certain number of men are thrown out of employment. In course of time a new equilibrium will be established, but in the meantime the capital has been lost, and the men are out of employment and in distress. These men may or may not eventually be taken on again, or find other employment, but they are not as efficient in their new work as they were in their old employment, and there has been an economic loss.
If we changed our fiscal system and adopted a system more applicable to present-day needs, we could bring about a considerable alteration in these difficulties. We could at all events penalise any change prejudicial to our existing interests. We could minimise the evil effects of dumping. We could engage in and conclude commercial treaties, which, at all events, would
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ensure to us the maintenance of foreign tariff conditions at a certain level for a certain period of time. This in itself would give our work people greater continuity of employment, greater security in their job, and would give manufacturers greater confidence in investing capital in British enterprises. I have no doubt that the Mover of the Amendment will point out that the total figures of our export trade show that business is flourishing with us. As a business man I am not satisfied that we should lose any trade which we are capable of maintaining. A business man as a rule looks more to his losses than to his profits. He knows that the profits will take care of themselves. It is the leaks that have to be looked after. I am not at all satisfied that we should lose any trade in which we are specially fitted to be supreme. But the increases in our total export trade are due to increases in neutral and Colonial markets, and in the latter case due to preferences which our Colonies have voluntarily given us. I know it is the habit to speak slightingly of those preferences, but our rivals are extremely anxious to have them. They appreciate to the full how much they mean. Large works are being erected at present at Barking in Essex by the great Swedish match, combine, the directors of which have openly stated in the newspapers that they were obliged to build those works in England in order to get the benefit of the preference given to England by our Colonies. There are other instances of the same kind. I have with me a circular from one of the large candle factories in Antwerp offering their customers a reduction of 10d. per hundred lbs., the equivalent of the British preference in South Africa. Instances of that kind are numerous. Let me warn hon. Gentlemen opposite that if they do not take advantage of the preferences now offered them they may lose them. Although our Colonies have not a very large population at the present time, it is too much to suppose that before many years are past the population of those countries will have grown to a very great extent? I think we may reasonably look forward to a Colonial population of at least 50,000,000. Unless the people, who govern this country, cut loose from abstract theories, and get busy with realities, we shall certainly lose the opportunities which we now have. I would conclude with some remarkable words attributed to the German Emperor. Whether he is correctly reported or not I cannot say, but at

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all events they fully express my sentiments, and the views of many people in this country. Those words are:—
" Never in the course of my reading have I seen such boundless potentialities as those of the British Empire, or rulers more indifferent to their utilisation."
I beg to move.
Mr. SAMUEL STOREY: I beg to second the Motion. If my hon. Friend needed any justification, outside the intrinsic merits of the question, for bringing it again before us so soon after it had been debated, I think it might be found in the latest extra-Parliamentary utterance of one of the soberest and most reliable of the Ministers—my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. Probably he cannot engage himself with internal matters much, but at the Queen's Hall he said:—
"I do not want for a moment to belittle the question of unemployment, or to suggest that it does not deserve the gravest consideration."
I am most grateful for this rather belated sign of grace, for, unless I am misinformed, what else was done in the last House of Commons but to belittle the question of unemployment? Did you not slay and bury Tariff Reform in the early days of the Session, and when you had done that did you, in four years, show any practical conclusion, any method, any remedy for the admitted unemployment? Did you in all the four years show us any results from your gravest consideration? Even in that speech—I do not want to leave my right hon. Friend—the old Adam appears. My right hon. Friend said that we had presented our case as to unemployment in the great industrial centres and they had rejected us and our pleas. He said that in the late election—
"Where argument decides the question. Free Trade has won; where prejudice decides it. there is the stronghold of Tariff; Reform."'
Truly, if my right hon. Friend were here, would he be quite sure that even in the industrial centres that they have objected to our method. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] It is undoubted that you have got a majority by a small number of Members in the industrial centres. But even if you take Lancashire—that much belauded Lancashire—the Liberal increase of votes was 9,000, I believe, and the Tariff Reform increase of votes was 60,000.
Mr. ARNOLD ROWNTREE: Do you count Lord Robert Cecil?
Mr. SAMUEL STOREY: We both know the North, which I come from, the extreme North—the ignorant North.
An HON. MEMBER: Newcastle?
Mr. SAMUEL STOREY: Yes, in the counties of Durham and Northumberland it is quite true we did very badly in Members. But hon. Members had better please remember the Liberal vote increased by 10 per cent., and the Tariff Reform vote in those two counties increased by very nearly 50 per cent. Even in Newcastle, which the hon. Member mentioned just now, does he really believe that Newcastle for the sacred cause of Free Trade, returned a Liberal and a Socialist at the last election? Why, Sir, my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford—he is not here, but I will let the House, the Liberal party, into a secret. The hon. Member for Waterford can return either two Conservatives or two Liberals for Newcastle at any time he likes. So do not let hon. Members opposite draw too sweet a conclusion from the fact that at the last election we came off second best in the industrial centres. One engagement is not a war. At the first engagement we deprived you of 100 seats. Whenever you give us a chance we will do better next time. We are here to-night no longer like a remnant in the last Parliament, to be laughed at, and to be voted down. We are here in equal numbers with you. We are here not as meek defendants in an action, but we are here as accusers, as plaintiffs. We ask you what you have done to remedy the admitted unemployment in this country? We allege that there is unemployment of a kind, type, measure, that never has been known in this country before. We allege that. Many of you admit it. But whether you admit it to the full or not all agree that there is a state of unemployment which is a menace to the prosperity of the country.
An HON. MEMBER: Give us facts.
Mr. SAMUEL STOREY: I have a reserve of facts. That voice seemed to come from hon. Gentlemen of the Labour party. I will reserve what facts I have to offer until I make some observations about them and to them a little later. We allege that our present fiscal system, in its double attitude of powerlessness to help us in foreign markets, and in its absolute liberty to foreigners to send their goods to our markets—that this is the main cause of the unemployment that unhappily exists. After six years' conflict, during which many misapprehensions have been removed, many prejudices, I hope, allayed, and many new facts made apparent, there are some things now which are common ground between the two sides. Every-

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body admits that production at home and foreign trade are inter-dependent. There cannot be foreign trade unless there be production at home. If there be no increase of production at home there will not be increase of foreign trade, or vice versa. We say, we put it to the House to-night, that the key to the whole question is not our power to produce at home. That we have against the world. The key to the whole question is the question of markets for our goods. We see that our markets are curtailed— that is not denied—the markets are absolutely shut against us. [An HON. MEMBER: "Which?"] What is the use of asking "which." The hon. Member can easily interrupt an argument in that way. Let him wait until I am done. I am putting general points now. How much silk do we send to America? Neither we nor America have the raw material. We are obliged to get it from more happily-circumstanced countries. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many tin-plates does America send here?"] I do not know how many tin-plates they send here, but I recognise that the Gentleman who makes that interruption is not much accustomed to close debating. We are equally circumstanced in regard to the manufacture of silk. What was the amount of raw silk that we imported into this country for use in the last year for which I have seen the figures? One and a quarter million pounds. Twenty-five years ago America had not a silk manufacture of any kind. She put up the duties twenty years ago. What is the amount of silk which America imported to be used for her manufactures during the last year? Seventeen million pounds. How is it that her production has grown and ours has not? Can anybody resist the conclusion that it is because she applies a measure of business common-sense to her national arrangements, so as to provide that her population shall have the making of her silk, and not anybody else. I am sorry I have been drawn away from my main point. I was making an indictment against the Government, and especially against the Board of Trade. I have to ask two questions.
Does our present fiscal system in the double aspect of admitting goods here and as incompetent to prevent, or mitigate tariffs abroad, injure production and -deprive us of markets and cause unemployment? That is a very simple question. The second question I would ask is. Is there any remedy possible for the state of things under our present system? If I had asked that first question, say five
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years ago, I am conscious that I would have to stand here and ask the House to be good enough to listen to me while I put in figures and combinations of figures and facts to prove my case. But, thanks to the independent inquiry of many persons—and I humbly say I have made independent inquiry myself, and, I will add, in answer to the jibes which were levelled a little while ago at the mention of the Tariff Commission—facts and circumstances have been brought so prominently before the public that it is hon. Gentlemen's own fault if they do not understand the conclusion to which these facts and figures point. I do not need to answer the question at all. That is the beauty of discussion. After long discussion, Gentlemen who did not understand one another's point of view at first, and who thought they differed upon many questions upon which really they did not differ at all, come to understand one another. I do not need to argue the question now, because I can put my right hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench into the witness-box and accept them as my witnesses, and after they have given their evidence, argument between the two sides is no longer necessary. I should summon my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer into the box. When he was at the Board of Trade—and it was an evil day, I think, for himself, and, speaking personally, it was an evil day in my eyes that he ever left the Board of Trade—when he was at the Board of Trade he made this statement in this House:—
" I am not afraid of foreign competition as long us British trade is free from impossible conditions abroad and from an equally stupid tariff system at home. Many British industries have been completely wiped out by privileges conceded by our institutions to foreigners."
The right hon. Gentleman made that speech when he was introducing the Patent Act. It would take too long to go into what the Patent Act was, but what was its basis and purpose? Advantages were given to patentees by our laws which were, a disadvantage to the British manufacturer. Power was given to manufacturers abroad by patents granted by British law with free sale in this country, to the disadvantage of British workmen, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer put an end to that. In other words, he defined that the real purpose of sensible government was to make its laws and fiscal arrangements such that they would help and encourage British manufacturers and British goods. Free import of goods

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manufactured abroad by foreign workmen is an advantage to the foreigners, given under our laws. Therefore I do not think that I need argue the point that tariffs, in the opinion of some Members of the Government, do injure British manufacture and British trade. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is a case even more in point. In his office he has had a great deal too much to do with tariffs lately. He had not well got into the saddle when he had the new German tariff, and after that the mid-European tariffs, and after that the Italian, and after the Italian the Spanish, and after the Spanish the French, and after the French the American. What did he do in each case? At the request and upon the representations of the manufacturing and trading interests of this country he immediately applied that they should be modified and made more advantageous to this country. I do not think my right hon. Friend made these official requests from the Foreign Office with his tongue in his cheek. He made them seriously. He believed, as the manufacturers and the members of the various chambers of commerce did, that those tariffs were a disadvantage to British trade and British employment, and he made them in good faith. He made those representations, and what advantage did he gain? All those Foreign Ministers listened to him with a pleasant smile and answered him in most graceful letters, but the sum total of the whole proceeding was that these additional disadvantages to the manufacturers engaged in British trade remain, and the British Ministry, with the best intentions, are under our present fiscal system incapable of doing anything to remedy this state of things. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about France?"] If hon. Members interrupt me I shall never get done; but I may say that in Franco there are peculiar political reasons why France made certain concessions. We happen to be on good terms with France, but unhappily our relations with other nations are not so agreeable, and we cannot expect to get the same consideration. I think I have established my position that it is unnecessary any longer to argue that tariffs and bounties and all those other arrangements for benefiting foreign trades at our expense are a disadvantage to this country, and that we have no power to remedy this under our present system. An hon. Member opposite (Sir George Kemp) is going to move an Amendment to this Resolution. I am very grateful that that task has fallen
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into the hands of a business man. I do not want to hurt their amour proper, but if the Treasury Bench had contained one business man and one manufacturer who in his own person had to test his ability to compete against foreign tariffs, I do not think it would have remained in that position of dense ignorance on this subject which is the case at the present time. I am grateful that to-night the Amendment has not been put into the hands of the hon. Member for Swansea Town (Mr. Mond), because he has gene-ally been put in the forefront of the battle —I suppose on the ground that, having a patent which renders him invulnerable, and having territorial zones within which his competitors are bound not to compete with him, it is felt we should be better in the hands of a business man who does not fall within the category I have mentioned. The hon. Member for North-West Manchester has set down an Amendment to our Motion. It is a long one, but I will just quote the operative part. He is going to move to insert the words, "The proper method of fighting hostile tariffs is by the maintenance of free imports." That, of course, is the main point of his Amendment. May I for a moment speak as one business man to another to the hon. Member for North-West Manchester? Supposing he and I are in competition as manufacturers, and I go to him and say, "We have each customers of our own and also customers in common. I am glad to inform you that my Government has made such arrangements that in future you will not be able to sell goods to my customers, and my Government has also made such contributions to me in the way of bounties and cheap rates and so forth that I shall have an advantage over you in selling goods to our common customers." I say to the hon. Member, "You still give me full and untrammelled leave to sell to your customers whilst you are prevented from selling to mine." Let me put that very clearly, as if we were business men sitting in our offices. If I had the Government behind me preventing my hon. Friend from selling to my customers and giving me advantages in selling to his, would he really say that the best way he could act was just to continue to me that right to sell to his customers? What is true between two business men is equally true between two countries. I do not think under such circumstances my hon. Friend would be satisfied. On the contrary, he would say, "You are getting, through the common-sense, wisdom, and

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practical arrangement of your State, an advantage over me in my markets; I will go to my Government and say, ' I wish to goodness you would be as sensible as that other Government and give me similar advantages over him in his market.' "
I was misinformed as to the hon. Member who moves this Amendment, and I intended to make some special reference to the cotton trade, but as I understand I am on the wrong track I will not go into that matter at the present moment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."] I am really very good-tempered and willing to oblige everybody, but there is a limit to my powers and to the patience of the House, and there is something else I want to say. I will put down in a definite sentence what we state. We assert that chronic unemployment of hundreds and thousands is the most dangerous social phenomenon of our time, a menace to national prosperity and to the individual well-being of the masses. We say to you that you reject our remedy. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not the one."] Very well, then, what is yours? [An HON. MEMBER: "Insurance."] I believe the time has come now when there is no longer a question in this country as to whether Tariff Reform will be passed or not—the only question that remains now is what party, and what combination of parties, will carry it out.
Everybody knows I have been a Member of the Liberal party. I was a Member of it long before many hon. Members opposite were born. I left it on this question with many regrets and much sorrow. I have been too closely associated with them for too many years not to feel it. My sorrow has been increased by the fact that all my old associates without exception have treated me with great kindness and consideration. They did me the honour to think that I was honest although mistaken, and I do them the honour to say that they are honest, but they have forgotten their own principles. When was there a reform ever proposed during the last fifty years that the Liberal party, the innovating party, was not at the bottom of it? Is this a reform? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, a reaction."] What is reaction? It is a return to an old and discarded system. Then, what is Home Rule? Is that reform, or is it reaction? It is a return to an old and discarded state of things. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] My hon. Friends who say "no" do not know history. It is not sufficient to say it is not a reform but reaction. We say it is a reform, and we believe we can
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establish the point. I ask why is not the Liberal party in this reform too as in other reforms? I am not going to stand in sackcloth and ashes before this House as a base deserting Liberal. I am going boldly to say that I am propounding a real Liberal principle I have known for forty years. What is that Liberal principle? [An HON. MEMBER: "Free Trade."] No. The Liberal political principle has always-been to adapt its policy to the circumstances of the time: first, to oppose a reform, and then by and bye to accept it. I was reading in my enforced leisure, when I was more happily employed than when I first came to this House, the report of the Debates on the repeal of the Corn Laws, and I happened to read what Lord John Russell said in this House in 1842, speaking as the Leader of the Liberal party. He said:—
" The repeal of the Corn Laws would be mischievous, absurd, impracticable, and unnecessary, and must be opposed by the Liberal party."
Four years afterwards the whole of the Liberal party voted for the repeal of the Corn Laws. I am not complaining of the Liberal party for that. I tell them, if they will allow me, that that is the cardinal principle of the action of the party, both as it has been in my life and as it was before I was born. I am not, therefore, put about by hearing the wild, strong, and fierce language of vituperation and abuse that is used against Tariff Reform and Tariff Reformers. That is all in the game. I am perfectly certain that within a very little time the Liberal party will reassert its old principle of action and will vote in support of Tariff Reform. If it does, I do-not know what promises I, in my detached position might be able to give them.
I have come to this House, the only Liberal Tariff Reformer, the only one who was selected by a Tariff Reform committee composed of both Liberals and Conservatives; the only one who fought as an independent Tariff Reformer, and I am here to tell the House that, in my judgment, all your petty squabbles about constitutional changes are not worth considering when you have to take into account the enormous amount of unemployment, of misery, and of degradation, the failing in our manufactures, the failing in the production of our land and in the employment on our land. These things are all infinitely more important than the ploughing of the constitutional sands which the Liberal party has unfortunately adopted once again. We have the honour to have in this House a Labour party. The Labour party

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claims to represent organised labour in the country. I think they pitch their claims a little too high. I think they can fairly say that they represent a certain class of labour opinion in the country.
Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON: Organised labour.
Mr. STOREY: I come from Sunderland, and we have organised labour there. Six-sevenths of my electors are workmen, and yet I am here. The claim of the Labour Members is pitched too high. They do not even represent organised labour.
Mr. SEDDON: Who does?
Mr. STOREY: You represent some, and we represent others. You over-estimate your position when you say you represent organised labour. The Leader of the Labour party for many years was prominently connected with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Can he or any man say that they represent the opinion of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers? I know the members of that society count for a hundred thousand in the Labour party, but when the ballot was taken in regard to joining the Labour party how many voted? There were 6,000 votes in favour, 2,000 against, and 80,000 did not vote at all! I can give you similar cases. I might cite the case of the Society of Railway Servants, but one illustration is enough for my purpose. I only want to make it clear that, although hon. Members have an undoubted right to say that they represent a very large body of organised labour, it is nothing more than that. It was stated on one occasion that every Labour Member in the House was opposed to Tariff Reform. Is that a wonderful fact? I do not think it is, because, although every Labour Member may be opposed to Tariff Reform, that does not apply to every member of the organised societies. Having made that statement, may I say to hon. Members, many of whom I number among my personal friends, there is nobody in this country who knows the state of unemployment better than they do. They know it far better than Members on either side of this House. They know what has happened during the past years; they know it is not a temporary phase we are passing through, but that it is a chronic, permanent, growing, and oppressive burden on their unions. Think of the terror of the unhappy man who wanders over the country and cannot find work, the misery to
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his wife and children. Hon. Members know all that; they know that the present state of things is intolerable, and they ought to say to the Liberal party, "Nothing you propose is worth while in order to improve the condition of things," and then they ought to say to us, "We will not scoff at you"—and there was scoffing to-night—"but we will take up the study of the question you put before us." Will you consent to meet me and be my pupils in that respect? The trades unions of this country are a little over a million strong, and they pay out-of-work benefits. What a blessing that has been to many! These payments averaged under a quarter of a million a year, but they have steadily grown, and I think I heard from the President of the Board of Trade that in the year 1908 they had gone up to one million pounds. I only wish there were more Members of the Government here to listen to these figures. Will the House allow me to read them out for a few years? Just over ten years ago the total out-of-work benefit pay was £233,000, and the figures for the following years were £184,000, £261,000, £325,000, £420,000, £516,000, £654,000, £522,000, £424,000, £455,000, and in 1908 1,000,000 sterling. What it will be for 1909 I do not know. The Government may know. I have been amazed at the want of seriousness on the part of the Board of Trade in dealing with the question of the unemployed in this country. I am not referring particularly to the new President of that Board. He has only just started in the office, and we ought to give him time to find out the facts, but there are some Members of the Government who seem rather to pride themselves on the fact that the unemployed list has fallen to nearly 6 per cent. What about Germany's 2 per cent.?
Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: The figures are non-comparable.
Mr. STOREY: The figures are non-comparable. I have read that cryptic sentence again and again. What does it mean? If they were made comparable would it be to the advantage of this country or to that of Germany? I know which, if only the figures were adjusted. The figures in Germany are made up from figures relating to nearly 1,400,000 trade unionists, two-thirds of the German trade unionists. They are made up in connection with State insurance, and when a man is out of work he is not struck out of the list, from which the unemployed are made out,

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although he is on the pension list or out of work. He is counted, and the German figures show that man as being out of employment. What is the case in England? If I am wrong I shall be set right presently, but when in regard to England we ask the Board of Trade to tell us not merely how many are returned as out of work, but how many members have fallen out of the unions because they cannot pay their subscriptions, the reply is that the Board cannot furnish the information. I can get it for myself. It may be found either in the reports of the trade unions or in their books. I have the report of not one of the smallest, but of one of the largest trade unions—the Carpenters and Joiners—and here is the fact: At the beginning of last year they had 62,000 members, but at the end of the year they had only 58,000. What became of those 4,000. Some of them died, some of them no doubt are blacklegs, as they are called, but the great bulk fell out because they could not pay their subscriptions, and were struck off the list of members. An hon. Member shakes his head, but I can tell him that in one quarter in this society 1,300 men fell out or were struck off the list, and when they returned their unemployed as 9 per cent, only, all these men who were unemployed, but who had ceased to be members because they could not pay their subscriptions, were not counted, or the percentage of unemployed would have been 14 per cent. I say the Labour Members know the facts, and many more facts that I could produce if I had time; but in the case of unemployment I am charging them with knowing the cause and not acting upon it. And I say, with good temper and with a good spirit, that they arc deliberately in that case not doing what is proper and good for the trade unionists. They know the cause: it is foreign tariffs and free imports. Why did a deputation go the other day to ask the Government to establish a factory in England in order to give work to people in this country instead of sending orders abroad? Then why did another deputation go to another Minister later on to appeal to him to alter certain laws in regard to America, so that books should no longer be printed over there for consumption in England while compositors stood idle in London? They know the facts, and that is my charge against them. At any rate I have done this. I have put some views before the House which I think have not been put quite so plainly
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before. To show that the Labour Members-know the cause, I will, for instance, read a very short extract from a speech by Mr. Will Crooks, who was a Member of this House, and I hope may be again. He said:—
" I am in favour of keeping everything we can in the hands of our own manufacturers and our own workpeople, and I regard every pound's worth of work going to a foreign country as a pound's worth of work which we ought to keep to ourselves."
My hon. Friend the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Arthur Henderson) also said this:—
"I am not a blind worshipper of cheapness as that doctrine can easily be carried too far. Cheapness is not everything, we must have regard to the provision of work for our own people.''
Another Labour Member, the hon. Member for East Leeds (Mr. J. O'Grady) said:—
" I do not want to see orders going abroad which rob working people of the wages which they have a right to earn."
Again, the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Stephen Walsh) said:—
" In sending these orders abroad, you may be breaking up homes and even gambling with human life. You may be buying cheapness very dearly indeed, if for some paltry saving, which in the long run is no economy at all you are throwing Englishmen out of employment and entailing untold misery on themselves, their wives and families."
10.0 P.M.
Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON: On a point of Order, Sir. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that these quotations were made in reply to interviews on a specific question, namely, the question of work being done at Woolwich.
Mr. STOREY: I was perfectly aware of the fact. But what is the point that all these quotations aim at? It is that owing to the Government giving orders abroad, which might have been given at home, work and wages are lost to Englishmen. If that be true about the few miserable orders that the Government must give, how much more true about all the general orders that are going abroad. In conclusion, I will only ask, why is it that Labour Members object to Tariff Reform, which would have the effect of providing work in England for our working people. I have only heard two reasons, and will give you one, which is, that we Tariff Eeformers—it is a matter of prejudice—that we Tariff Reformers are a band of greedy manufacturers who are only scheming this plan in order to put money and profits into our own pockets. Grant that it will put money into manufacturers' pockets, as I believe it will—I am not one, and I may say that freely, and I am not a landlord either, so

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it will not benefit me—will hon. Members opposite tell me when is it that work is best to be got and wages are most regular and highest? Is it not when manufacturers are busy and trade prospers? If it does benefit these greedy men would it not benefit the workmen also?
The other objection I have heard made by working men—and I think some even of the Labour Members may entertain these opinions—is that in protected countries wages are smaller and hours longer, and they fear that that may be the effect in this country. The cost of living may be higher but I should dispute that. If it be true that wages are lower and hours longer can they name one country where, under Protection, wages have not increased and hours fallen, and, further, if wages be smaller and hours longer is that not an all-powerful reason why you should, as protectionists of labour, set yourself against admitting the goods which these men make? If I brought a thousand Belgians into this country to work here all the power of the trade unions would be invoked to put an end to the experiment. A universal strike would be decreed. Every effort would be made to prevent it. Would not the unrestricted import of foreign -cheap labour be a move against trade unions and trade union principles? Would you not do everything to prevent it? What difference does the silver streak of sea make if the goods made by such labour are sent here? I told the Liberal party that I had indulged the hope that they might nave the honour and glory of carrying Tariff Reform for this country. They have lost their chance. They are wandering in the wilderness of constitutional change once again. In my opinion, the settlement of the question will not come from this party alone. Free Trade was carried in this country by a combination of parties. I believe that the repeal of our present fiscal system and the creation of a better one will be brought about by a combination of Tariff Reformers of all shades of political opinion and by the conjoint action of the Trades Unions of this country.
Sir GEORGE KEMPmoved to leave out from the word "House" to the end of the Question, and to insert instead thereof the words, "the proper method of fighting hostile tariffs is by the maintenance of free imports, and any alteration of the present fiscal system which involves the abandonment of the.principle of taxation for revenue purposes
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only and necessitates the imposition of protective taxes on corn, meat, dairy produce, and the raw materials of any industry, would increase unemployment and be disastrous to the commerce and prosperity of the United Kingdom."
The hon. Member who moved the Resolution said most of us on this side spoke on the question of Free Trade in a tone of intellectual arrogance. None of my friends have ever called me intellectual, and I hope none of my Friends opposite will after to-night call me arrogant. I should have risen to move the Amendment with greater pleasure had I known that it would be supported by Members on both sides. I only have to carry my mind back a short ten years when if I had moved an Amendment similar to this I should have had no lack of supporters not only on this side of the House, but on that also, and I should have had the approval of the majority of the Front Bench opposite. I must content myself with the probable approval of the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil), who is not here to-night. I do not know whether I shall be arrogant in suggesting that I might have the possible approval also of the Leader of the Opposition. There has been a sudden conversion during these few years of the whole of the party. [Cheers.] Hon. Members opposite cheer because I said a sudden conversion. I hope it will be not only sudden, but transitory. If that is the complexion of the House of Commons I am glad to say it is not the complexion of the Constituency that I sit for, nor of the whole of the North of England, and the large trading constituencies, with some exceptions. On some points the Mover of the Resolution is at one with me. He is at one with me partially as to the detrimental character of tariffs. It has been said that the quality of mercy is twice blessed. I should like to parody that, and say that the character of tariffs is twice-cursed. They are a curse to those who impose them and to those against whom they are imposed. Not so entirely a curse as one might imagine from the arguments which are advanced on behalf of them from the other side, because we must not forget that the tariffs imposed by other countries are penalising to themselves. They penalise themselves, they raise the cost of production for foreign protected countries, and thereby they enable this country to compete with success in the neutral markets of the world.
I had hoped that we should have had from the Mover and Seconder some

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clearer light as to the remedy by which they propose to deal with the evil of which they have spoken. I should have been glad to hear whether there was a new authorised or unauthorised programme, and whether it came from London or from Birmingham, but we have had no light or leading on the question at all. We have had various details put before us with regard to the disadvantages under which we suffer, but we have had no light as to the remedy which is proposed. I suppose, however, that I am right in understanding that the remedy proposed by the Mover is the remedy proposed by the Tariff Reform Commission, and I suppose one of the principal items of that remedy is food taxation. We have not heard a word about food taxation tonight, although these reciprocal preferences to which reference is made in the Resolution cannot be carried out unless we have food taxation. Nor did I hear a word about food taxation in the election I have just been through, unless it was an involuntary expression. We were not sufficiently fortunate in the North of England to have that wealth of Tariff Reform literature which referred to the millions of pounds of beef and other foodstuffs brought into this country to the detriment of the farmers. We never heard a word about that in the North of England, and we have not heard a. word about it to-night. We heard, it is true, in the course of the Debate on the Address, a speech by the Leader of the Opposition in which he said it was a matter of economic speculation whether the price of corn would increase or not. Well, I speak to business men to-night, and I say that I have always felt it to be a business principle that wise men do not speculate about the necessities of life. It is only foolish men who speculate on such matters, and therefore it is a dangerous thing to initiate a change in the fiscal system of this country if one of the principal items is a matter of speculation even to the Leader—I suppose he is the Leader—of the Tariff Reform movement. Of course, I know that there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of this question,.and that we have to balance the advantages against the disadvantages, I should have liked, had time permitted to-night, to go into the question of food taxation, but I cannot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Go on."] I would say then, with regard to food taxation, which is necessary to this system, that it is a question of speculation as to whether those who will benefit by the reciprocal taxation in our Colonies really
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want the preference on food taxes which we are asked to give. After the election of 1906 I venture to think that they did not. The Minister of Agriculture in Canada, Mr. Fisher, a farmer himself, speaking to farmers in Canada, said that they did not require it in Canada. He further said:—
" The farmers in Canada want no preference in the English market, England has not adopted preference, and I think she did right. That would mean the obstruction of her own trade, increased taxation, and the entering into the complicated problem of a protective policy. It would in England's case be a radical change for the worse."
That is the view of the Minister of Agriculture in Canada. I would suggest to this House that it is then a very doubtful and speculative policy to give a preference of tins kind to an unwilling recipient. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Am I correct or not in that contention? I say it is a very speculative question whether it is a good thing to give a questionable benefit of this kind to an unwilling recipient when such preference is given to the detriment of the working classes of this country. It affects not only the working classes, but it affects particularly the poorest part of the working classes, because it is a matter of official investigation that the lower you get down in the scale the lower the wages of the man are, the more he consumes of bread. Therefore if you put a tax on bread it falls most heavily on those who earn least. It is an inverted Income Tax. In fact, you might say it is a question of a Super-tax on the whole of our population. On the question of reciprocal preference you have to balance the advantages on one side against the disadvantages on the other. I have no doubt that that is the case in most trades in this country, but I am going to speak of a trade in which the advantages are nil, and the disadvantages comprise the whole of the result of such a system of fiscal reform as is suggested by the hon. Mover of this Motion. I wish to speak of a trade which more particularly interests the Division for which I sit—I mean the cotton trade.
I do not think that hon. Members opposite entirely appreciate the magnitude of the interests comprised in the cotton trade, because those with whom I have spoken have said to me, "In advancing the question of the cotton trade you are advancing the interests of one trade only, and if Tariff Reform is going to benefit the whole nation it is selfish to put the interests of one trade against those of the people as a whole." I want to put a few

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facts before hon. Members opposite who are not directly connected with the cotton trade to show what a large section of the community the cotton trade affects. The actual number of people engaged in the cotton trade is very nearly 600,000. But that only includes those who are directly engaged in the cotton trade itself. There are in addition vast numbers of people engaged in subsidiary trades which depend on the cotton trade. There are the building trades, the making of cement, the leather trades, the machinery trades, and other trades which it is not necessary to mention to-night. If you take into consideration those trades which depend on the cotton trade it has been computed on expert authority that there are no fewer than 3,000,000 people engaged in the cotton trade and the subsidiary trades. That is a very serious proportion of the whole population of this country. And I have not done when I have mentioned those, because those 3,000,000 and those who are dependent on them form the best market in England for the farming interest; and owing to the ready market for agricultural produce which they provide for the farmers the value of the land is greatly increased. If anything be done to hurt or to diminish in any way the cotton trade that means that the land on which the warehouses and mills are erected goes down in value. It means that the land contiguous, the farming land, also goes down in value.
We have heard a great deal about the Socialism, the piracy, and the robbery involved in the Budget. If action is taken which materially damages the interests of the cotton trade, the damage done to the landed interest in connection with that trade would be ten times as much. May I put another point with regard to the cotton trade? The exports of the cotton trade to foreign countries are equal to no less than a quarter of the whole exports of this country. You can hardly call it a sectional interest, and I hope that hon. Members opposite will not think it is arrogant on my part to put before them, as far as I can, the magnitude of the cotton trade interests. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to hear that they agree with that, but I am astonished that they agree, because the Leader of the Opposition came down to Manchester in November and made a speech with regard to the cotton trade. It is hardly for me to say that his speech showed an
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absolute misconception of the magnitude of the cotton trade. Far be it from me to say that, but I do say that the view taken by the right hon. Gentleman of the industry was regarded by those engaged in it simply with wide-eyed amazement that he should so entirely misconceive what the facts of the case were. The right hon. Gentleman said:—
" Who are these competitors of the cotton industry? What are those nations against whom we can only just hold our own, and against whom we shall no longer be able to hold our own by any form of Import Duty, of balanced Import Duty. Who are they? Protected countries—"
There were great cheers when he said that in Manchester, but not from the cotton trade.
" which have an import tariff that I certainly do not recommend this or any other country to adopt."
You might think from a speech of that kind that the cotton trade was struggling hard to just hold its own against foreign competitors. You might very reasonably think that the cotton trade of the world was divided into equal portions and that Germany had one little portion, England another, and America another. What is the fact? The fact is that England has the lion's share of the whole cotton trade of the world, while Germany, France, and the United States of America only have a small portion. Compared by their exports of cotton goods, together they have only a little more than a third of the exports of the United Kingdom. So that we are not struggling just to hold our own; we are struggling to hold a miraculous supremacy over the whole of the rest of the world. The right hon. Gentleman said our competitors are increasing more quickly than we are. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear.] I am glad to hear that cheer from hon. Gentlemen opposite; I am glad to hear that we have some supporters among them of that contention. Let us look to the actual figures. We find that England between 1900 and 1908 increased her exports of cotton yarns and manufactures by over £25,000,000. Germany made also an increase of £5,500,000. I do not hear the same cheer now. [An HON. MEMBER: ''From what?"] France, an increase of £4,500,000. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is the percentage?"] I have got one more instance which I have no doubt hon. Gentlemen opposite will cheer even more, and that is that of the United States of America, which were sufficiently fortunate to secure a decrease of £400,000. Those are the actual figures.
Mr. STOREY: Is that of foreign trade or production?
Sir G. KEMP: I am referring to exports of cotton. If necessary I can refer to the exports of cotton piece goods. I think for the purpose of the argument the figures I have given are sufficient. I will take, as is suggested by an hon. Member, Germany alone. In the period from 1900 to 1908 the English increase of cotton exports, yarn and manufactures, was £6,000,000 more than the whole of the German trade put together. That is not altogether unsatisfactory, I venture to think, and such a state of trade as that does not warrant the phrase of the Leader of the Opposition that we are only just holding our own with foreign competitors. That is only one criterion by which to judge the cotton trade, but we must not judge it by one alone. I will take another, which I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite will admit to be also a good one, and that is that of spindlage. The spindlage of the whole world amounts to something like 130 millions, and in England we have fifty-three million spindles, or nearly eleven million spindles more than France, Germany, and the United States put together. I see that those are figures which make hon. Members opposite yawn. I do not wonder. They do not make us yawn in Lancashire, because we are awake, and because we know the value of our trade we fight for our trade. It is because of that that Lancashire has given the answer which she gave with regard to Free Trade at the last election. [An HON. MEMBER: "Wait and see."] We have waited, and we have seen and I think what we have seen, and what I have shown to hon. Members and right hon. Members opposite, is a sufficient proof that under the fiscal system which we enjoy at present the cotton trade of England has nothing to complain of, and would do worse if it exchanged its cheap production, by which it has achieved its present position, in favour of a system of Protection. Why has this country been able to get this great supremacy over all the other countries? The one reason above all others is because it has been able to buy in the cheapest market. The cotton industry is one which depends on the purchase of a great many materials which are raw materials, semi-manufactured materials, and wholly-manufactured materials. Some of those materials are cement, timber, and leather. We know that those things are to be taxed, although we do not hear much about that now. I presume I am
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right in thinking that the party opposite gave a pledge at Bermondsey that leather would be taxed. I do not think I shall be unfairly stating the case if I say that all these articles, used in the equipment and in the running of a mill, will, if hon. Gentlemen opposite have their way, be subject to an average tax of, say, 5 per cent. [Several MEMBERS: "10 per cent."] I want to be very moderate, and to put the lowest estimate. What is the result of our buying in the cheapest market? It is that in England we can equiq a mill at half the price per spindle necessary in the United States. That means that if you have a company running 260,000 spindles the standing charges for interest and depreciation on the initial cost in England would be £32,000, and in the United States £65,000. That is what they have to start with. Then they have all the running charges to keep the mill going. [An HON. MEMBER: "Higher wages."] I will come to wages in a moment. Owing to our system, by which we can equip and run a mill more cheaply, we had in the year 1907—which for purposes of comparison with other countries will do as well as any other—an export trade of £110,000,000, while that of Germany, France, and the United States put together was only £44,000,000. What becomes of the argument that high tariffs are means by which you can beat down tariffs? If that is the case, how is it that these protected countries have not been able to beat down the tariffs of other countries so far as the cotton trade is concerned, and to get a better comparison with the cotton trade of Great Britain?
What has the cotton trade to gain by reciprocal preferences? The argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite is that, although the population of the Colonies is comparatively small, in time the population will increase, and the value of these reciprocal preferences will grow. What the cotton trade has to look at is the actual value of our trade with foreign countries, with India, and with the Colonies apart from India. Here are the figures. In 1907 our exports of cotton goods to foreign countries were £67,000,000, to India £27,000,000, and to the Colonies other than India only £16,000,000. In other words, we are to risk the £94,000,000 which we send to foreign counties and India in order to gain a slight preference in connection with the £16,000,000. That if. not good business. Any preference on the £16,000,000 would be comparatively insignificant so far as Lancashire is con-

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cerned. As to our £27,000,000 exports to India, in that market, open to all the other countries who compete with us in the cotton industry, we get more than 90 per cent, of the whole trade. If we changed our fiscal system and adopted a system of protective tariffs, as suggested by hon. Gentlemen opposite, what would happen to our Indian trade? It is common knowledge that for the last twenty years the manufacturers of India have asked to be allowed to put on protective tariffs against the cotton manufacturers of this country. We have not allowed it. I am very glad the right hon. Gentleman opposite entirely agrees to that. Why have we not allowed it? Because we have said that if the fiscal system which we enjoy here in England is best for us it is also best for India. Hon. Gentlemen opposite disagree from that. Then on what ground have we not allowed India to put on a tariff against our goods? On what ground have we refused the Indian manufacturers the right to put a tariff on as against Lancashire manufacturers if it has not been because we thought that the fiscal system that was good for us was also good for India? That is the dilemma that has been put over and over again in Lancashire, and has never been answered by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The question I ask now is—and I should have liked the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition here to answer it—he did not answer it at Manchester— "Are you going to allow India to put a tax, as she wishes to put it, on the cotton goods going into India; if not, what are you going to do?" Are you going to say, as has been said, "We won India by the sword, and we are going to keep it by the sword, and they can say what they like." You can say we are going to protect our trade in that way. Or, if you allow India to put a tax on cotton goods, you are going to damage one of the best markets of Lancashire.
I think we have a right to have an answer to that question from the Front Opposition Bench. Are they if we change our fiscal system going to allow India to put this tax on or are they not?
HON. MEMBERS: "Wait and see."
Sir G. KEMP: In other trades, agriculture or anything else, there may be a divergence of opinion as to whether or not Tariff Reform is a good thing for this country. But the cotton trade stands by itself. There is practical unanimity in the
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cotton trade; masters and men alike are agreed that if any general system of tariffs is imposed in this country it spells ruin for the cotton trade of Lancashire. That is the view of the employers and that is the view of the workmen. This view was embodied in a resolution when the first Tariff Reform proposals were brought before the country, and that resolution, passed practically with unanimity, was to this effect:—
" That this Conference of the Cotton Employés Parliamentary Association and the United Textile Factory Workers Association, representing the whole cotton trade as employers and operatives, firmly convinced that the great' cotton industry of the United Kingdom owes its pre-eminence to, and can only the maintained by, the policy of Free Trade, pledges itself to oppose to the utmost of its power any proposals. which by imposing a tax upon food and raw material, and so raising the cost of production and living, will cripple it in its already severe struggle to uphold its position in foreign markets, by which 80 per cent, of its productions are absorbed."
That is the view of the whole of the cotton trade of masters and men throughout this country. If the Resolution of my hon. Friend were carried, it would mean a serious check to this great industry which employs, directly and indirectly, so many millions of people. We believe that if we deviate from our present fiscal system, if we agree to the policy of which a necessity is to put a tax upon food, the amount of food coming into this country will be decreased, and the amount of food consumed in this country will be decreased, and the general physique of this country would be diminished on that account. And we believe that taxes upon general imports, whether semi-manufactured or manufactured, will tend to restrict trade in this country and will cause an increase of unemployment, and would be to the detriment of the country. In the past we nave-won in neutral markets, because we have been free from fiscal fetters we have been able to beat other nations in the world for this reason, and now, at a time when protected countries, and especially organised labour in protected countries, are beginning to see that the protected system is not only bad fiscally, but from the social side as well, it seems to me extraordinarily inexpedient to consider making such a change, and when also we are asked to change our fiscal system for one in which some of the most important points, according to its own supporters, are matters of economic speculation. That is a policy which we believe,. if it did not tend to the absolute destruction, would, at any rate, tend to the serious diminution of our trade and the general prosperity of the country.
Mr. J. A. SIMON: The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Samuel Storey) seemed to desire the opinion of a business man upon some of the matters on which he spoke to-night. I think we may fairly claim that, so far as a Manchester business man has a right to speak about the cotton trade, the House of Commons has heard that opinion now. I do not, of course profess, to have any such claim to speak upon the subject, but I should like to make one or two general observations upon the Debate. We had two speeches— I make no question about the time they occupied, as the cause they had to advocate needs time—which were supposed to be a justification for these fiscal proposals which are pre-eminently associated with the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain); but neither of those Gentlemen in their speeches, from beginning to end, thought it safe to mention that it was any part of their policy to put taxes upon corn, beef, butter, or dairy produce. When that little omission is pointed out, some hon. Members on the back benches on the other side reply by interrupting my hon. Friend and saying, "We have taxes upon food now." Do they really suppose that that particular form of remark serves any purpose except at a Tory village meeting t Let me point out to hon. Gentlemen who imagine that that retort has any force —and I am sure they would not use it except they thought it had force—how the matter stands. In the ten years 1895–1905, when the last Conservative Government was in power, there was an increase of taxes upon food to the amount, of £8,500,000 sterling. There was an increase of the taxes upon tea, and there was an imposition of high taxes upon sugar. Since 1906 there has been a reduction, if I recollect rightly, of something like £4,750,000 in these import taxes upon food. Do I understand hon. Gentlemen opposite to resent the reduction of that taxation, or do they approve of it? If they approve of the reduction of taxes on food such as tea and sugar, then where was the point of the interruption by an hon. Gentleman opposite who said, "You have taxes upon food already." The simple position is this. We on this side of the House stand for the reduction and the abolition of all taxes on food. What do you stand for? [An HON. MEMBER: "Honesty."] If you compare the position of the system of taxation which obtains in Germany, which is alternately your model and your bogey, you will find that in every single instance,
550
except one, the taxes on food in this country are just as great, and in most cases greater than in the German Empire. Not only this, but a great list of articles which are not taxed in this country are taxed in Germany. The Amendment which my hon. Friend has moved puts together, and rightly puts together, the proposals, on the one hand, to put duties on corn, meat, and dairy produce, and on the other hand, proposals to put taxes on raw materials. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Let me see if I rightly understand the argument in favour of taxes on food. Hon. Members opposite are anxious to say that they do not mean to tax raw material, but they try to justify taxes on imported meat from the Argentine by saying that it will not increase the price of beef or mutton. [An HON. MEMBER: "Honesty."] They tell us they can use an argument by which you can put duties on carcases, on beef and mutton, and yet there will be nothing more to pay on the part of those who buy beef and mutton in this country. What does this argument show unless it proves that the skin which is on the outside of the carcase of the ox, that the wool which grows on the back of the sheep, can equally be taxed by an import duty on hides, and this without anything further for us to pay. If it be true that putting a duty upon mutton coming from the Argentine is going so to encourage the sheep of Australia that it will bring forth there thousands and tens of thousands in the streets of Melbourne, are all those extra sheep to have no wool on their back? Can anyone here, or at any time, produce an argument to justify the imposition of a tax on food which does not by the same process justify a tax on the very things which hon. Gentlemen opposite are the first to repudiate, namely, a tax on raw material? When one considers that hon. Gentlemen opposite justify this system because it is said to be so scientific, I begin to want to know where the science comes in. It is part of their theory that if you put an important duty upon an article imported into a country, and it is used in the manufacture of commodities which are re-exported, the State should pay back the duty to the manufacturer who has used it. Why? If we import leather from abroad, which is to be taxed under your system, and the Leicester boot manufacturer makes his boots out of that leather, why are you going to give him back the duty if he exports those boots? Why, unless it be the fact that it is the

551
man who buys the leather in this country, who pays the duty? The real truth is that if hon. Gentlemen who imagine that Tariff Reform is a scientific system would consider the way in which it works out in that example, they would find this: Their own system amounts to nothing more than a bounty which they wish to pay to manufacturers who use foreign imported leather. If the Leicester boot manufacturer makes his boots out of English leather, and then, under your system, exports the boots, he is to get no rebate, he is to lump it and get no bounty; but, if he makes his boots out of leather, dumped leather, then, forsooth, though the foreigner paid the tax on the leather, he is to get the State to give him a rebate. Such is the scientific basis of Tariff Reform. At one moment its votaries are going to raise large sums by taxing the foreigner, and the next moment they are going to impose duties which are going to keep the foreigner from sending goods into this country, and they actually believe sensible people are going to imagine those things are sense. At one moment they take an argument which goes to show that a tax on food can be imposed without increasing the price of food by one farthing, and the next moment they fall over one another in their anxiety to assure the people of England that nothing will ever induce them to tax raw materials. One minute they tell us their system is a system by which they are going to confer great benefits on the Colonies and tie them more closely to the Mother Country, and the next minute they tell us that their system is to be a system by which 2s. is to be clapped
on foreign corn to be paid by the foreigner, and 1s. on Colonial corn, to be paid—by whom? One minute they tell us they have got a system which is not only not going to increase the price of commodities, but which it is expected will make it easier for the poor people in this country to buy the goods they want; and the next minute the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Henry Chaplin) is telling the farmers of his constituency if he has any, that, if they will only support Tariff Reform, undoubtedly the price of corn will rise. This system may have its merits, but do not let it be claimed that it has any merits as a scientific system. Let us realise that in this country we have enjoyed, and still enjoy, a preeminence in trade, and, as the hon. Member who moved the Amendment said, it can only be prejudiced by such a bogus recipe of prosperity. We have certain peculiar advantages in this country. We have got an enterprising people and an hereditary House of Lords. We have very uncertain weather, and we have Free Trade. Unless hon. Gentlemen think that any of those other things are the cause of our prosperity, I submit that the argument is overwhelming for continuing to preserve our system of Free Trade.
Mr. HAMILTON BENNrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
Debate resumed.
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 202; Noes, 235.

Division No: 21.]

AYES.

[11.2 p.m.

Adam, Major W. A.

Boyton, J.

Collings, Rt. Hon. J. (Birmingham)

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Brackenbury, Henry Langton

Cooper, Capt. Bryan (Dublin, S.)

Arbuthnot, G. A.

Brassey, Capt. R. B. (Banbury)

Cooper, R. A. (Walsall)

Archer-Shee, Major M.

Brassey, H L. C. (N'thamptonshire, N.)

Courthope, G. Loyd

Bagot, Colonel J.

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.)

Baird, J. L.

Brunskill, G. F.

Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.)

Bulf, Sir William James

Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

Balcarres, Lord

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Craik, Sir Henry

Baldwin, Stanley

Butcher, S. Henry (Cambridge Univ.)

Dairymple, Viscount

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.)

Calley, Colonel T. C. P.

Dixon, C. H.

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Banner, John 3. Harmood-

Carllie, E. Hildred

Duncannon, Viscount

Baring, Captain Hon. G.

Castlereagh, Viscount

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Barnston, H.

Cator, John

Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

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

Cave, George

Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.)

Bathurst, Charles (Wilton)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Falle, B. G.

Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

Chaloner, Colonel R. W. G.

Fell, Arthur

Beckett, Hon. W. Gervase

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)

Finlay, Sir Robert

Benn, I. H. (Greenwich)

Chambers, J.

Fisher, W. Hayes

Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish

Clay, Captain H. Spender

Fitzroy, Hon. E. A.

Beresford, Lord C.

Clive, Percy Archer

Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

Bird, A.

Coates, Major E. F.

Fleming, Valentine

Boyle, W. L. (Norfolk, Mid)

Colefax, H. A.

Fletcher, J. S.

Forster, Henry William

Knight, Capt. E. A.

Rothschild, Lionel de

Foster, J. K. (Coventry)

Lane-Fox, G. R.

Royds, Edmund

Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S.W.)

Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwlch)

Rutherford, Watson

Gardner, Ernest

Lawson, Hon. Harry

Salter, Arthur Clavell

Gastrell, Major W. H.

Lee, Arthur H.

Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

Gibbs. G. A.

Lewisham, Viscount

Sanders, Robert A.

Gilmour, Captain J.

Liewelyn, Major Venables

Sanderson, Lancelot

Goldman, C. S.

Lloyd, G. A.

Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

Goldsmith, Frank

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

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. T. M. (Bootle)

Gooch, Henry Cubitt

Lockyer-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Stanier, Beville

Gordon, J.

Lockyer-Lampson O. (Ramsay)

Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk)

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Grant, J. A.

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Starkey, John R.

Guinness, Hon. W. E.

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (Hanover Sq.)

Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire)

Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Haddock, George B.

Mackinder, H. J.

Stewart, Gershom (Ches., Wirral)

Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

M'Arthur, Charles

Stewart, Sir M'T. (Kirkcudbright)

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Mason, J. F.

Storey, Samuel

Hamersley, A. St. George

Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

Strauss, A.

Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)

Mitchell, William Foot

Sykes, Alan John

Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)

Moore, William

Terrell, G. (Wilts, N.W.)

Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford)

Morpeth, Viscount

Terrell, H. (Gloucester)

Harris, F. L. (Stepney)

Morrison, Captain J. A.

Thompson, Robert

Harris, H. P. (Paddington, S.)

Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

Thynne, Lord A.

Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

Mount, William Arthur

Tobin, Alfred Aspinall

Helmsley, Viscount

Newdegate, F. A.

Tryon, George Clement

Henderson, H. (Berks, Abingdon)

Newman, John R. P.

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Hickmann, Col. T.

Newton, Harry Kottingham

Verrall, George Henry

Hill, Sir Clement

Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Hills, J. W.

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid.)

Ward, Arnold (Herts, Watford)

Hoare, S. J. G.

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

Hohler, G. F.

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Paget, Almeric Hugh

White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

Horner, A. L.

Peto, Basil Edward

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claude

Houston, Robert Paterson

Pollock, Ernest Murray

Willoug by de Eresby, Lord

Hme-Williams, W. E.

Pretyman, E. G.

Winterton, Earl

Hunt, Rowland

Proby, Colonel Douglas James

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Hunter, Sir C. R. (Bath)

Randles, Sir John Scurrah

Worthington-Evans, L. (Colchester)

Jackson, Sir J. (Devonport)

Rankin, Sir James

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

Jackson, John A. (Whitehaven)

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Jessel, Captain H. M.

Rawson, Colonel R. H.

Younger, George (Ayr Burghs)

Kerr-Smiley, Peter

Rice, Hon. W.

Kerry, Earl of

Ridley, Samuel Forde

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir

Keswick, William

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Eccleshall)

A. Acland-Hood and Viscount

King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

Rolleston, Sir John

Valentfa.

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Ronaldshay, Earl of

NOES.

Abraham, William

Channing, Sir Francis Allston

Glover, Thomas

Adkins, W. Ryland D.

Chapple, W. A.

Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

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

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston, S.

Greenwood, G. G.

Agnew, George William

Clough, William

Grenfell, Cecil Alfred

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Clynes, J. R.

Gulland, John William

Allen, Charles P.

Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.)

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

Anderson, A.

Corbett, A. C. (Tradeston)

Hall, Frederick (Normanton)

Armitage, R.

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Hancock, J. G.

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

Crawshay-Wllliams, Eliot

Harmsworth, R. L.

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Crosfield, A. H.

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Barclay, Sir T.

Daiziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

Harvey, E. T. (Leeds, W.)

Barlow, Sir John E.

Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

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

Barnes, G. N.

Davies, E. William (Eif on)

Harwood, George

Barran, Sir J. (Hawick)

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

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Barran, Rowland Hirst (Leeds, N.)

Dawes, J. A.

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Barton, A. W.

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Haworth, Arthur A.

Beale, W. P.

Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness)

Hayward, Evan

Benn, W (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)

Duncan, C. (Barrow-In-Furness)

Helme, Norval Watson

Bentham, G. J.

Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

Bethell, Sir J. H.

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

Bowerman, C. W.

Edwards, Enoch

Henry, Charles S.

Bowles, T. Gibson

Elverston, H.

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor

Brigg, Sir John

Esslemont, George Birnie

Higham, John Sharp

Brocklehurst, W. B.

Falconer, J.

Hindle, F. G.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Fenwick, Charles

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

Hodge, John

Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)

France. G. A.

Holt, Richard Durning

Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

Gibbins, F. W.

Hooper, A. G.

Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

Gibson, James P.

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)

Gill, A. H.

Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

Chancellor, H. G.

Glanville, H. J.

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Hudson, Walter

Ogden, Fred

Tennant, Harold John

Hughes, S. L.

O'Grady, James

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Hunter, W. (Govan)

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Illingworth, Percy H.

Parker, James (Halifax)

Thomas, J. H. (Derby)

Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

Pearce, William

Thorne, William (West Ham)

Johnson, W.

Pearson, Weetman H. M.

Toulmin, George

Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A.

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Pointer, Joseph

Verney, F. W.

Jowett, F. W.

Pollard, Sir George H.

Vivian, Henry

Kemp, Sir G.

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Wadsworth, J.

King, I. (Somerset, N.)

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

Lambert, George

Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

Walsh, Stephen

Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

Primrose, Hon. Neil James

Walters, John Tudor.

Leach, Charles

Pringle, William M. R.

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Lehmann, R. C.

Radford, G. H.

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Levy, Sir Maurice

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Wardle, George J.

Lewis, John Herbert

Rainy, A. Rolland

Waring, Walter

Lincoln, Ignatius T. T.

Raphael, Herbert H.

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Rea, Walter Russell

Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

Low, Sir F. (Norwich)

Rees, J. D.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Rendall, Athelstan

Waterlow, D. S.

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

Watt, Henry A.

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

M'Callum, John M.

Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

M'Laren, Rt. Hon. Sir C. B. (Leics.)

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Whitehouse, John Howard

M'Laren, F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding)

Robinson, S.

Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

Markham, Arthur Basil

Robson, Sir William Snowdon

Wiles, Thomas

Marks, G. Croydon

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Williams, A. N. (Plymouth)

Martin, J.

Roe, Sir Thomas

Williams, P. (Middlesborough)

Masterman, C. F. G.

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Williams, W. Liewelyn (Carmarthen)

Middlebrook, William

Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

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

Millar, J. D.

Samuel, J. (Stockton)

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

Molteno, Percy Alport

Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Mond, Alfred Moritz

Schwann, Sir C. E.

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

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

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

Wilson, T. F. (Lanark, N.E.)

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Seddon, J.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

Seely, Col., Right Hon. J. E. B.

Wing, Thomas Henry

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Shackleton, David James

Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

Munro, R.

Simon, John Allsebrook

Young, W. (Perthshire, E.)

Murray, Captain Hon. A. C.

Soares, Ernest J.

Yoxall, Sir James Henry

Muspratt, M.

Spicer, Sir Albert

Neilson, Francis

Summers. James Woolley

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

Sutherland, J. E.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Norton, Capt. Cecil W.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Master of Elibank and Mr. Fuller.

Nuttall, Harry

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Question, "That the proper method of fighting hostile tariffs is by the maintenance of free imports, and any alteration of the present fiscal system which involves the abandonment of the principle of taxation for revenue purposes only and necessitates the imposition of protective taxes on corn, meat, dairy produce, and the raw materials of any industry, would increase unemployment, and be disastrous to the commerce and prosperity of the United Kingdom," put, and agreed to.

PUBLICATIONS AND OFFICIAL REPORT.
Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to examine the Publications printed by order of this House or presented to it through Public Departments, and to call attention to any case in which unnecessary expense has been incurred; and also to assist Mr. Speaker in the arrangements for the Official Report of Debates:
That Mr. Arkwright, Mr. Charles Bathurst, Mr. Bowerman, Mr. Cleland, Mr. Ernest Jardine, Mr. William Jones, Mr. Lehmann, Mr. MacVeagh, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Toulmin, and Mr. Wheler be Members of the Committee:
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:
That Three be the quorum.—[Master of Elibank.]

WATER SUPPLIES PROTECTION BILL.
Ordered, That the Lords Message [23rd March] communicating a Resolution relating to the Water Supplies Bill be now considered:
Lords Message considered accordingly.
That this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution.—[Master of Elibank,]
Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

LICENSING (CONSOLIDATION) BILL.
Ordered, That the Lards Message [4th April] relating to the expediency of committing the Licensing (Consolidation) Bill to a Joint Committee be now considered:
That the Licensing (Consolidation) Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Five Members, to be joined with a like number of Lords:
That the Committee do consist of Mr. Cave, Mr. Hindle, Mr. Charles Roberts, Mr. Simon, and Mr. George Younger:
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records:
That Three be the quorum.—[Master of Elibank.]
MASTER Of ELIBANKmoved "That this House do now adjourn."
Motion agreed to.
Adjourned at Twenty-three minutes after Eleven of the clock.