Commons Sitting of 23 June 1910

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Provisional Order Bills (No Standing Orders applicable),—Mr. Speaker laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:—
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 10) Bill.
Ordered, that the Bill be read a second time upon Monday next.
Provisional Order Bills (Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with),—Mr. Speaker laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, that, in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, namely:—

Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill.

Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 7) Bill.

Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 8) Bill.

Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill.

Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 12) Bill.

Ordered, that the Bills be read a second time upon Monday next.
Shirebrook and District Gas Bill, Read the third time, and passed.
Southend Water Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
City of London (Tithes and Rates) Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Monday next, at a quarter-past Eight of the clock.
Mansfield Railway Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments.

LONDON-(EQUALISATION OF RATES) ACT, 1894 (ACCOUNTS).
Return ordered, "showing, according to the Accounts for the twelve months preceding the 31st day of March, 1910, furnished to the Local Government Board under Section 1 (7) of the London (Equalisation of Rates) Act, 1894,—

(1) The amounts paid during the year out of the Equalisation Fund under the Act to the Councils of Metropolitan Boroughs;

(2) The amount of the expenses incurred during the year by the Councils to whom such payments were made (a) under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891 (including expenses of scavenging streets); (b) in respect of lighting; and (c) in respect of streets (other than the expenses of scavenging); and

(3) The amounts expended during the year by the Councils out of the sums received by them under the Act (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 319, of Session 1909)"—[Mr.Herbert Lewis.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Bacon Curing (Boric Acid).
  Mr. JOYCEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in the complaint made by the firm of W. J. Shaw and Sons, Limerick, as to the treatment of their goods by the Argentine authorities, the said firm emphatically denied that any boric acid had been used in the curing of their hams either now or at any other time, and in corroboration of this pointed to the fact that hundreds of their hams were exported every week to France, a country into which no hams treated in any degree with boric acid would be admitted by the Customs authorities; what action had been taken or would be taken with regard to the consignment of bacon which was not condemned, although previously reported to be so by His Majesty's Consul at Buenos Ayres, and of which the firm could get no account; and would the Foreign Office take some steps to safeguard this important Irish trade in the future?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): I am aware that Messrs. W. J. Shaw and

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  Sons deny that boric acid was used in curing their hams. Had a request for official assistance been made in time, we should have been glad to render all the help in our power. Our Minister at Buenos Ayres would have requested that the hams should be submitted to a second analysis, and I have no doubt that the Argentine authorities would have agreed to this, as they have done in other cases. In this instance, however, the request for official assistance was not received until 30th November, when it was too late, an attempt having been made by the consignees to reintroduce the condemned hams into another Argentine port, and the hams having been destroyed. As regards the bacon, which constituted the principal part of the consignment, our information is that it had not been condemned, and I do not see what ground there can be for official intervention. I have no means of knowing how it was disposed of; that information, it seems to me, can be obtained only by Messrs. Shaw from their consignees. If any information is given me to show that the bacon has not been fairly treated by the Customs authorities, I will give what assistance is possible.
  Mr. JOYCE: Will the Foreign Office take steps to safeguard this important Irish trade?
  Sir E. GREY: Certainly, we will do that; we would have taken steps in this case if the request had been made in time.
  Mr. JOYCE: That was not Messrs. Shaw's fault.
  Sir E. GREY: I gather that there was some want of correspondence between Messrs. Shaw and the consignees, and we could not do anything as we had not the information.

  Egypt (Instructions to His Majesty's Consul-General).
  Mr. DILLONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any fresh instructions had been issued to His Majesty's Consul-General in Egypt; and, if so, whether he would lay the text of such instructions upon the Table of the House?
  Sir E. GREY: Instructions are frequently issued to His Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at Cairo relative to questions of current business as they arise, but it is not the practice to publish them.
  Mr. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform us who is responsible at present for the government of Egypt, because he has answered me several times saying that the Khedive's Ministers are responsible?
  Sir E. GREY: We have always laid it down—and I said it in the Debate the other day—that in regard to general policy and so forth in Egypt, while we are in occupation our advice must be taken.

  Persian Affairs.
  Mr. DILLONasked whether the Governments of England and Russia still adhered to the pledge given to the Government of Persia after the signature of the Anglo-Russian Convention that they would guarantee the absolute integrity and independence of Persia?
  Sir E. GREY: In the Note referred to by the hon. Member the two Governments informed the Persian Government of the agreement arrived at between them to respect the integrity and independence of Persia. They adhere to this undertaking. The two Governments did not guarantee the independence and integrity of Persia.
  Mr. DILLONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he would now state what were the terms on which the Governments of Russia and England offered a loan to the Government of Persia, and the grounds on which the Persian Government refused the offer?
  Sir E. GREY: As the loan has not been made, no useful purpose would be served by making a statement on the subject.

  Tripoli (Protection of Natives).
  Mr. RODEN BUXTON (for Mr. Noel Buxton)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention had been called to the instructions given by the French Government to their Consuls in Tripoli to take under their protection the natives who are brought there from the French Soudan; and whether he would give similar instructions to British Consuls in Tripoli as to the natives who are brought there from Anglo-Egyptian territory?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Government have no knowledge of the instructions referred to as having been issued by the French Government. British Consular officers abroad would afford such assistance and protection as would be right and

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  proper to natives of the Anglo-Egyptian Soudan who were furnished with the usual passports.

  Egyptian Cotton (Report of Commission).
  Mr. ARBUTHNOTasked whether the Commissions appointed to consider the failure of the Egyptian cotton crop were expected to issue their Reports this year?
  Sir E. GREY: I have no reason to suppose that there will be any undue delay in the issue of the Reports. I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Bolton on the 16th instant, from which he will see that I am already making inquiry as to the Reports.

  Estates Commissioners, Ireland (Grant of Land).
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners had awarded Mr. John Coleman, a member of the Limerick County Council, Style Park Mansion and thirty acres of enclosed and wooded demesne land in Bruree; whether Mr. Coleman was already the possessor of a large grazing farm; and what reasons led the Commissioners to grant this additional land to the exclusion of landless men in the neighbourhood?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): Style Park Mansion and about eighty-five acres were advertised by the Estates Commissioners for sale by tender, subject to a land purchase annuity of £55 2s. 6d. Mr. Coleman's tender was the highest, and was accepted by the Estates Commissioners. They understand that he also holds a farm of about sixty acres. The Commissioners, in deciding on the amount of land to be sold with the mansion house, had regard to the fact that the land offered for sale had been previously included in the demesne and comprised plantations which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, should be preserved with the residence. Some 270 acres of land formerly used in connection with the mansion have been divided by the Estates Commissioners into allotments.

  Resident Magistrates, Ireland.
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary how many appointments of resident magistrates were now vacant; whether those vacancies were to be filled up in the near future; and whether he proposed to limit the appointments to members of the staff of the "Freeman's Journal"?
  Mr. BIRRELL: There are at present no vacancies.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed that up to the present no member of the "Freeman" staff has ever been appointed a resident magistrate.
  Captain CRAIG: The right hon. Gentleman has not fallen out with the "Freeman's Journal," has he?

  Agrarian Outrages (Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether he would state the number of agrarian outrages of an indictable character reported throughout Ireland in each of the years 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, and to the end of May, 1910?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The numbers of agrarian crimes of an indictable character, including threatening letters, reported during the period mentioned in the question were 275, 231, 384, 576, and 402, for the years 1905–6–7–8–9, respectively, and 192 for the present year up to the 31st May last.

  Murder of Police-constable, Dublin.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary if he would state the circumstances under which two prisoners named Dermody and Hynes were discharged from custody after the acquittal of Dermody in Dublin on the charge of the murder of Police-constable M'Goldrick; whether he was aware that the Attorney - General announced in court that other charges were pending against these men; and whether he would state the nature of these charges, and why they were not proceeded with?
  Mr. BIRRELL: In addition to the charge of murder against Hynes there remained, after the acquittal of Dermody, outstanding against him and Hynes charges relating to the shooting at the two men Malone and Coady on the same occasion as the murder, though a short time prior to it. On a full consideration of the circumstances the Attorney - General decided not to proceed with the charges undisposed of, inasmuch as there was no evidence available in proof of them, beyond that produced on the trial of Dermody, who was acquitted.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that the night after the discharge of the two prisoners, Dermody and Hynes, charged with the murder of Police-constable M'Goldrick, a crowd assembled on the spot where the constable was murdered, a bonfire was lit, and public rejoicings were indulged in; whether he was aware that Dr. P. J. Quinlan, of Athenry, who gave professional evidence at the trial of Dermody, had since been boycotted and unable to obtain cars in the locality; whether he was aware that on the night of the 10th June shots were fired at a man named Collins when driving to his home at Moyode, and his horse was killed; and whether, in view of the disturbed condition of the districts of Athenry and Craughwell and of certain areas in county Clare, it was intended to take special measures to enforce the law and protect life and property?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Upon the receipt of the news that one of the prisoners indicted for the Craughwell murder had been j acquitted the occasion was celebrated in j the manner stated in the question. An attempt has been made to boycott Dr. Quinlan, who was a Crown witness in the case. As regards Collins, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to a question asked yesterday by the hon. and gallant Member for East Down. The condition of the districts referred to is no doubt very bad, and it has been necessary for that reason to retain a considerable force of extra police in Clare and in the East Riding of county Galway.

  Old. Age Pensions (Ireland).
  Mr. LYNCHasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention had been called to the case of John Hynes, of Kilfenora, (district, Ennis; station, Ennistymon: number in pension officer's register, K 147), whose claim for an old age pension was allowed by the pension committee on 4th September, 1909, disallowed by the Local Government Board in October, 1909, and again allowed by the pension committee on 10th March, 1910; whether he was aware that the total income of John Hynes was £5 per annum, being the reservation of a holding of 15 acres in all now owned by his son; and whether the Local Government Board would favourably consider this case?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Under the agreement referred to the claimant in entitled with his wife to maintenance in a fit and proper
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  manner, and, in the event of dispute, to an annuity of £10 a year to himself and his wife jointly or £5 a year to the survivor, with an allowance of milk, butter and turf and the use of a room. In the circumstances the Local Government Board estimate that the value of the benefits and privileges of maintenance on the farm, which is well stocked and cropped, exceeds £23 12s. 6d. per annum, and they have accordingly allowed a pension of three shillings a week to John Hynes.
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked upon what grounds the decision of the local subcommittee that Thomas Fitzsimons, of Butterstream, Navan, county Meath, was entitled to an old age pension has been reversed by the pension officers?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Local Government Board upheld the appeal of the Pension Officer in this case, and disallowed the claim on the ground that there was no evidence that Fitzsimons had reached the statutory age.

  Cattle-driving (Galway).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether Patrick Kilbey, a known leader of the persons engaged in recent cattle-drives on the Pollock estate, county Galway, has been personally interviewed on several occasions by the local officer of constabulary, who strongly urged him to use his influence with a view to bring about a cessation of further cattle-drives on the property pending the completion of the negotiations for its sale to the Estates Commissioners; whether the district inspector of constabulary obtained from Kilbey a written undertaking that there would be no repetition of the crime provided the negotiations were completed by a specified date; and whether he will communicate to the House the text of this undertaking?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The sale of this estate to the Estates Commissioners was arranged last year and it was understood that the lands would shortly be distributed. The unexpected delays which subsequently occurred appear to have aroused feelings of disappointment and irritation which culminated in the cattle drives of April last. A force of extra police was at once sent to the district to prevent such misconduct. The district inspector at the same time informed Patrick Kilbey of the true position with regard to the sale, pointed out the illegality of the conduct of the people, and requested him to use

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  his known influence to prevent a recurrence of disorder, which he agreed to do. The result of the action of the district inspector has been satisfactory. Mr. Kilbey wrote to the district inspector, but as the letter is marked "private" its contents cannot be stated. The inspector-general informs me that it contained nothing which the district inspector could not properly accept.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Was the district inspector then acting in accordance with instructions received?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir, I think the district inspector was simply acting in accordance with his desire to keep the peace in his own locality.
  Mr. LONSDALE: On his own initiative?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I cannot say; certainly no initiative proceeded from me in the matter.

  National Schools, Ireland (Heating and Sanitary Arrangements).
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that, under various statutes and regulations made by departments in prisons, factories, and workshops, it is compulsory that adequate heating and sanitary arrangements should be made, but that no such regulations exist in respect of national schools; whether the Government consider that the time has arrived when a grant should be made towards the proper heating and cleansing of national schools; whether legislation on the lines of a Bill introduced by the Irish Unionist party will receive the support of the Government, or whether it would be possible to carry out a satisfactory scheme without legislation; if so, will the necessary steps be taken before the ensuing winter; whether he can state if several memorials and other representations have reached the Lord-Lieutenant on the subject; and, if so, can he state the nature of the replies forwarded from the Irish Office?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The facts of the case would appear to be as stated in the first part of the question. I have on several occasions expressed myself as being in favour of the principle embodied in the Bill, to which the hon. and gallant Member refers, and have promised to make representations on the subject to the Treasury as soon as a suitable scheme for the heating and cleaning of the schools has been submitted to me, with the general
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  support of the school managers. I hope that it may be possible to attain the object in view without legislation, and I should be very glad if a scheme for the purpose could be carried into effect before next winter. In the present position of the question it has not been possible, in most cases, to send more than formal acknowledgment of the representations which have been made to the Irish Government on the subject, but replies have been sent to the representatives of school managers of various denominations in the sense of this answer.
  Captain CRAIG: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has yet approached the Treasury on the subject?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Oh, dear, yes, again and again. But we have been waiting for a formal and proper scheme. I think I may say that such a scheme has now been submitted, but it awaits the criticism which it will no doubt receive at the hands of the Treasury. The scheme has only been put forward within the last few days.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman try to get this carried through before next winter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I share with him very strongly the desire to get this matter through before next winter.

  Peace Preservation Act (Ireland).
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether he can state the number of firing outrages reported to the police since the Government removed the Peace Preservation Act from the Statute Book, and the number of such outrages for the corresponding number of years prior to that date; can he say if there is now no restriction even for children acquiring firearms of all descriptions in Ireland; whether licences are taken out, and if the police have any means of ascertaining the number of firearms imported into Ireland since the dropping of the Peace Preservation Act; whether it is intended to introduce legislation in view of the number of outrages that have recently taken place in which firearms were used; and whether he can state the difference in the regulations in respect of the possession of such arms in England and Ireland respectively?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The number of outrages in which firearms were used in each year since 31st December, 1906, the date on which the Peace Preservation Act expired, was as follows:—117 in 1907, 207 in 1908,

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  127 in 1909, and 69 in the first five months of 1910. The number of such outrages in 1906 was 60. The figures for 1904 and 1905 have not been tabulated, and could not be furnished without a careful examination of the records, which would take some little time. There are now no restrictions on the acquisition of firearms in Ireland except those imposed by the Gun Licence Act. The police have no means of ascertaining the number of firearms imported into Ireland. The only difference between England and Ireland in this matter is that the Pistols Act of 1903 does not extend to the latter. As regards the question of legislation, I have nothing at present to add to my reply to a question asked by the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh on the 16th instant.

  Agrarian Outrages (Ireland).
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether he can state the number of persons convicted for agrarian outrages in Ireland during the years 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, and the five months January to May, inclusive, 1910, respectively, stating in each case the number of persons sentenced to terms of imprisonment for the actual commission of such outrages, the number committed in default of giving bail to be of good behaviour, and the number who have given bail?
  Mr. BIRRELL: During the period named 310 persons were convicted for agrarian outrages of indictable character. Of these 144 were sentenced to terms of imprisonment, two were committed in default of finding bail for good behaviour, ninety-two were bound to keep the peace or be of good behaviour (or both), and sixty-eight persons were released on recognisances to come up for judgment when called on. The four remaining persons were released under the First Offenders Act.

  National School Teachers and Civil Rights (Ireland).
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether it is the intention of the Government to press the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland to grant full civil rights to national school teachers so that they may be in the same position as in England and Scotland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: As I stated in my reply to a question asked by the hon. Member for Newry on 14th April last, the Commissioners of National Education do not
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  consider that it would be in the interests of the teachers or the schools to modify still further the rules on the subject which have been considerably relaxed in recent years. The responsibility in the matter rests entirely with the Commissioners, and I have no power to press a different view upon them.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the House be given an opportunity to discuss the question as to whether these teachers should have the same civil rights as the teachers in England and Scotland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I recollect that on more than one occasion this subject has been discussed on the Education, or similar, Vote. I see no reason why it should not be before the House again.
  Captain CRAIG: Is not the opinion universally in favour of giving the teachers civil rights?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I could not say—certainly not universally.

  Department of Agriculture (Ireland).
  Mr. MacVEAGHasked whether the attention of the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture has been called to the number of temporary appointments made in his Department; whether these have been made without competitive examinations; whether many of them have become permanent and have been followed by promotion, to the prejudice of officials who passed the necessary examinations; and whether the duration of temporary appointments will henceforth be specified and adhered to?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The attention of the Vice-President has been called to this matter. Fifteen temporary clerks appointed without competitive examination have been promoted to permanent posts since the establishment of the Department. Of these, twelve were transferred from other offices to the Department at its formation and three were specially appointed during the early stages of its work. In the opinion of the Department none of the promotions referred to were to the prejudice of officials who had passed competitive examinations. The Vice-President does not consider that it would be practicable or equitable to act on the suggestion made in the last part of the question, but he has already stated that the necessity for such temporary appointments has, in his opinion, practically

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  ceased and that no further appointments of the kind will be made save in most exceptional circumstances.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that some distinction ought to be introduced in Government employment in Ireland between the word "temporary" and the word "permanent"?
  Mr. BIRRELL: There is a distinction between the two.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Not in practice; only in theory.

  Board of National Education (Ireland).
  Mr. PATRICK O'BRIEN (for Mr. Kelly)asked whether fifteen vacancies have occurred on the Board of National Education within the past ten years, nine in the period 1901–5 and six in the period 1907–10; whether appointments to these vacancies are in all cases made by the Lord Lieutenant; whether, seeing that three-fourths of the Board have thus been renewed within ten years, the Government can, in effect, disclaim responsibility for the Beard; whether the Government can, by means of these appointments, exercise an effective control over the Board; and whether the Resident Commissioner has a virtual veto over the appointments?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education are appointed by the Lord Lieutenant, and fifteen out of a total of twenty Commissioners have been appointed during the past ten years. The Government has no power to interfere with the Commissioners in the exercise of the powers conferred on them by their charters. The Resident Commissioner has no voice in the appointment of members of the Board.
  Mr. P. O'BRIEN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether His Excellency makes any attempt by consulting the education lists to get members upon this Board who know something of the work that they have to do?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Oh yes; both His Excellency and myself are most anxious to get members of the Board who are acquainted with this work. We do our very best.
  Mr. P. O'BRIEN: In view of the fact that there is a vacancy now, will the right hon. Gentleman select a gentleman for the office who is a practical educationist?
  Mr. BIRRELL: If the hon. Gentleman can tell me what a practical educationist is, I will endeavour to meet his view.
  Mr. P. O'BRIEN: Somebody, to begin with, who is not a retired judge. I would suggest some retired inspector of schools or university professor.

  Estates Commissioners, Ireland (Report).
  Mr. DILLONasked when the Report of the Estates Commissioners will be circulated?
  Mr. BIRRELL: It is expected that this Report will be circulated next month.
  Mr. DILLON: Can the right hon. Gentleman not accelerate the circulation, because there will probably be a Debate upon the matter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I will see what can be done.

  Boycotting (Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been directed to the address of the Lord Chief Justice to the grand jury at the Clare Spring Assizes, held at Ennis on 3rd March, 1908, in which he referred to the cases of five families who, although returned as examples of minor boycotting, were compelled to go considerable distances for the necessaries of life, in addition to suffering from other acts of exclusive dealing; whether he will state over what period these families were reported as having been affected by boycotting in this manner; whether they continue to-the present date to be so affected and to be entered on the Returns of minor boycotting; and whether he will give the explanation of the inspector?
  Mr. BIRRELL: These cases first appeared in the boycotting Returns in the autumn of 1907 and continued to be recorded in those Returns up to November last. One case disappeared from the returns in that month, one in January last, and two in May, so that there is now only one case out of the five in which the boycotting continues. As regards the remainder of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to a question on the same subject asked by the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh on 26th October, 1908.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Can the right hon. hon. Gentleman say how many persons in Ireland have now been returned as examples of minor boycotting who have to send a long distance for their supply of food?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Well, other conditions may enter into a definition of minor boycotting than that; but we have proceeded upon a well-known principle, which I have explained to the hon. Gentleman. I do not think there is any doubt as to what they are or that they are not properly enumerated when they occur.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman have them correctly tabulated on the next occasion when he is asked for a Return?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I do not mind explaining what minor boycotting is when I next deal with the matter.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary if he will ascertain from the police authorities in what respects the boycotting of Mr. Clarke, of Holycross, Thurles, was considerably relaxed in April, 1909, so as to warrant his case being classified as one of minor boycotting, which has been denned to consist of petty isolated acts of boycotting as distinguished from organised or sustained boycotting, or when an attempt is made to boycott though the effect is inappreciable; and whether the case has since continued to be returned on the list of minor boycotting?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed by the constabulary authorities that about April, 1909, the boycotting of Mr. Clarke's workmen entirely ceased, and both he and they could obtain necessaries in Holycross. Mr. Clarke could also obtain goods in some shops in Thurles, a town where he had been previously completely boycotted. In these circumstances it was considered that the boycotting had so decreased as to render the case one for the minor category. Boycotting Returns are carefully revised each month, and cases are included, excluded, or moved from one category to another according to the circumstances. In June, 1909, it was found that Mr. Clarke was again considerably boycotted, and his case was then replaced in the category of serious boycotting, and has remained there since.
  Mr. DILLON: Is it not a fact that the boycotting of Mr. Clarke's farm had greatly decreased, and before the late trials in Dublin took place at all?
  Mr. BIRRELL: They had decreased at one time, but not before the beginning of the trial. At the actual moment the trial began the case was still in the category of serious boycotting.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Clarke has now in the house sixteen policemen for the purpose of protecting him?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Yes, Sir, he has that protection.

  Congested Districts Board (Ireland).
  Captain COOPERasked whether Mr. J. W. D. Mitchell has retired from the secretaryship of the Congested Districts Board; and, if so, whether the appointment rendered vacant has yet been filled and by whom?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Mr. Mitchell has retired from the secretaryship of the Congested Districts Board, and Mr. J. E.. O'Brien, assistant secretary, has been appointed to the vacancy.

  Compensation for Malicious Injury (Ireland).
  Captain COOPERasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to a case heard at Claremorris quarter sessions, when Mr. M. J. Dillon was awarded compensation of £32 for the malicious burning of his haggard; and whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the offence?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No arrests have been made in this case. An appeal has been lodged by the Claremorris District Council against the award, and the matter is therefore sub judice.

  Department of Agriculture (Ireland).
  Captain COOPERasked whether any order has been issued forbidding the officials of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction to visit the headquarters of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society in Merrion Square: and, if this is the case, by whose authority the order was issued, and how long it has been in force?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No such order has been issued.

  Shooting Outrage (Ennis, County Clare).
  Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether he can give any information as to a shooting outrage that took place near Ennis, county Clare, on 20th June, at a place called Kilmorrane, when at one o'clock a police patrol found a man named Daly bleeding on the roadside; whether he can state how many gun shots had been fired; what was the nature of the wounds

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  inflicted; whether any and, if so, how many pellets were extracted from the wounds; whether the man has recovered; whether any arrests have been made in connection with the outrage; and what steps have been taken to prevent similar occurrences in the future?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed by the Constabulary authorities that Patrick Daly was fired at and wounded at about 11 p.m. on the 19th inst., while, on his way home from Ennis. Three shots appear to have been fired. Daly is seriously wounded in both legs and in one arm, but is progressing favourably. Twelve pellets have been extracted. The police have not succeeded in making any arrests, but they are doing all that, is possible to prevent further outrages.
  Mr. GERALD ARBUTHNOT: May I ask whether it is a fact that the same man was shot at about a month ago, and if both these outrages were not subsequent to a resolution passed by the United Irish League calling upon his mother to surrender up her farm?
  Mr. BIRRELL: How far the resolution may have led to this I have no knowledge, but the man has been, I believe, the victim of an outrage on another occasion.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman bring these matters before the Cabinet?
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to whether the resolution was passed?
  Mr. BIRRELL: These matters have again and again been before the police— I am not saying in this particular case— and the constabulary have over and over again reported that it is quite impossible for them to say whether there is any connection between these resolutions and the outrages. I can assure the Noble Lord very often in Ireland these resolutions are treated with perfect contempt.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiry whether the resolution was passed?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Oh, yes; I will undoubtedly do so. I should not be at all surprised to find it was.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take some steps to prevent these intimidatory notices?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The hon. Member knows perfectly well the Government has taken several steps, and other Governments before them have taken several steps.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Have they resulted in the suppression of these notices?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir.

  Water-blended Butter (Factories in Ireland).
  Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked how many factories in Ireland were sanctioned by the Agricultural Department for re-working of water-blended butter; and in what counties, towns, or cities were they located?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Department assume that the question refers to the registration of butter factories under the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907. Four such factories—one in the borough of Cork, two in the borough of Limerick, and one in county Wexford—have been registered with the sanction of the Department. The registration of ninety-three other butter factories has been notified to the Department, the Department's sanction not being necessary in these cases.

  Cost of Police, County Meath.
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked the Chief Secretary whether the lands of Spandaw, situate near Kells, county Meath, have been offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners; whether there is at present, and how long, a police hut on the lands; if so, how many policemen reside in it, and at what cost; and whether any portion of their cost will be chargeable to the local rates?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are unable from the information supplied to identify these lands as pending for sale before them. A police hut was established there in July last for the protection of the herds on the farm. Three police are stationed in it, costing about £100 a year each. They form part of the free quota of the county, and consequently no portion of their cost will be chargeable to the local rates.

  Lights on Vehicles Act (Meath County Council).
  Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked the Chief Secretary whether he has received a request from the Meath County Council that Section (4) of the Lights on Vehicles Act, 1907, be amended in certain respects; and what action he proposes to take?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have received a copy of a resolution adopted by the Meath County Council suggesting that the Statute in question should be amended so as to admit of the exemption from its provisions of vehicles carrying hay or straw to market. I am in communication with the Home Office on the subject.

  Federated Malay States (Mortality among Indentured Labourers).
  Mr. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether any, and, if so, what report has been received from India regarding mortality among Tamil coolies in the Federated Malay States and Straits Settlements?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): Correspondence has been received from India on the subject. It shows that on receipt of the Report on Indian Immigration into the Federated Malay States for 1908 the Government of Madras drew attention to the heavy mortality among indentured labourers, and suggested that specially unhealthy estates should be declared unfit for their residence.
  Mr. REES: Was any action subsequently taken by the Secretary of State?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The House will remember that just before the Recess I was able to inform it was being done. It had been stated of course that there is a large number of indentured labourers still there, but the latest information I have is that which I have given the hon. Member. I will make further inquiries.

  Council of Governor-General of India.
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked whether the Hon. J. O. Miller has resigned or has expressed his intention of resigning in the near future his appointment as an ordinary member of the Council of the Governor-General?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State has no official information, but he understands that Mr. Miller has informally expressed his intention to retire from his office shortly.
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked if it is proposed to create a Department of Education in charge of an ordinary member of the Governor-General's Council; and, if so, whether the creation of such a Department will necessitate legislation, giving
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  power to increase the number of ordinary members of the Council of the Governor-General beyond six?
  Mr. MONTAGU: It is premature to make a statement upon this subject; but the reply to the second part of the question is in the negative.
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked the names of the ordinary members of the Council of the Governor-General at present constituted who at the time of their appointment had been for at least ten years in the service of the Crown in India?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The ordinary members who possess the qualification in question are Mr. Miller, Mr. Jenkins, and Mr. Robertson.
  EARL Of RONALDSHAY: If Mr. Miller retires, the first appointment on his retirement will be that of member of the Civil Service who has had at least ten years' experience in India?
  Mr. MONTAGU: Under the Statute three members of the Council must have been in India ten years. If Mr. Miller retires there will only be two, and it will be necessary to appoint a third.

  Removal of Swine Regulations (Scotland).
  Sir JOHN JARDINEasked the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Thomas Nichol, farmer, of Hughsrigg, Dumfriesshire, convicted on 29th April last by two justices, at Hawick, for removing swine from one area to another—that is, between Dumfriesshire and Roxburghshire—without a properly filled-up licence; whether the conviction was based on the mere omission to get inserted by the issuing constable the words "for breeding purposes," opposite an asterisk on a form which contained no information about the asterisk, nor any intimation that on getting the words "for breeding purposes" inserted the licensee might lawfully convey his pig to the place required and bring it back over the area boundary if he did the double journey within six days; whether he will examine the record of the case and communicate with the justices as to the function of the constable in issuing the licence, and if he ought to have inserted the words "for breeding purposes": and whether he will take into consideration the need of having plain directions printed on such removal licences for the guidance of farmers

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  owning swine for breeding purposes who may wish to do the double journey within the six days allowed?
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): My attention has been drawn to the case referred to by my hon. Friend, and further inquiry will be made as to the facts.

  Agricultural Act, 1906 (Scotland) (Single Arbitrator Clause).
  Sir JOHN JARDINEasked the Lord Advocate whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation as regards the single arbitrator Clause of the Agricultural Act of 1906, in view of the decision of the Court of Session in Williamson v. Stewart?
  Mr. URE: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to the hon. Members for Caithness, Inverness-shire, and West Perthshire on the 13th instant.

  Locomotives Drawing Threshing Mills (Local Regulations in Scotland).
  Sir JOHN JARDINEasked whether, in 1907 and 1908, the county councils of Roxburghshire and Berwickshire moved the Secretary for Scotland to authorise bylaws to allow locomotives drawing threshing mills to have studs or spikes in the tyres of their wheels when travelling from place to place on the highways in frosty weather; and, if so, whether the Secretary for Scotland has given any, and what, reply; whether similar recommendations have been made by the directors of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland and of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture; and whether the Secretary for Scotland is aware that under the present law farmers in Roxburghshire are put to inconvenience in not getting the ricks threshed, because if a frost comes on the locomotive cannot bring the threshing mill to the steading?'
  Mr. URE: Proposals of the kind referred to by my hon. Friend were submitted by the county councils mentioned, but, as indicated in the reply given on 31st March last to the hon. Member for Banff, the competent way of dealing with the matter is by an Order of the Secretary for Scotland under Sections 9 and 10 of the Locomotives on Highways Act, 1896, and not by a by-law made by a local authority. I am aware that the matter has been before the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, and the views of that Chamber and of the two county councils referred to will be borne in mind as repre-
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  sentations in favour of the making of an Order under the Act of 1896. But there is at present no sufficient evidence of agreement among the various parties interested to justify the Secretary for Scotland in proceeding to make an Order.

  Agricultural Statistics (Scotland).
  Mr. MacVEAGHasked whether any statistics are available to show the number of families dispossessed in Scotland during the past twenty-five years; the total area devoted to deer forests and sport; and the total number of agricultural holdings in Scotland with a valuation of £10 or under?
  Mr. URE: I am not aware of the existence of any statistics relating to the matter referred to in the first portion of the question. Particulars regarding deer forests are contained in the Returns Nos. 220 and 344 made in 1908. The numbers of occupiers of farms classified according to rental are given in the Return No. 127 of 1907.

  Tuberculosis Animals (Compensation for Destruction of Carcases).
  Sir JOHN JARDINEasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the question of the award of compensation for the destruction of the carcases of animals affected with tuberculosis had yet been decided?
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): The matter would require legislation, and I am not at present in a position to announce any legislation on the subject.
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: Is it not a fact that this disease would long ago have been scheduled under the Contagious Diseases Act if it were not for the reluctance of the local authorities to allow additional burdens to be thrown upon the ratepayers?
  Mr. BURNS: To some extent that is a matter of conjecture.
  Mr. H. A. WATT: Is it a fact that no compensation is paid?
  Mr. BURNS: There is no law requiring local authorities to give compensation. There are two or three instances in which by private Bills some local authorities in certain circumstances are allowed to give compensation.
  Mr. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this hits the dairy farmers very hard?

  Poultry Runs (Rating).
  Mr. LANE-FOXasked the President of the Local Government Board whether a small holding or allotment not exceeding two acres in area, bon â fide used as a poultry run, is exempt under the Public Health Act and The Allotments Rating Exemption Act, 1891; and what instructions, if any, are issued to local authorities by the Board in this matter?
  Mr. BURNS: An allotment within the meaning of the Allotments Rating Exemption Act, 1891, must be cultivated as a garden, or a farm, or partly as a garden and partly as a farm, but whether the definition would include a poultry run is a question which I have no jurisdiction to determine. The Local Government Board issued a circular in 1891 to rating authorities drawing attention to the Act, but they are not empowered to issue any instructions in the matter.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Is it not clear, from reference to the Public Health Act, 1875, which is the principal Act, that a poultry run is included among the kinds of land enjoying partial exemption from rates?
  Mr. LANE-FOX: What action would the right hon. Gentleman advise the owners of such holdings to take when a demand is made for rates?
  Mr. BURNS: The owner of a poultry run has an appeal to the justices and in certain circumstances to the quarter sessions, and probably they may be advised to make that appeal.

  Feeble-minded Females (Detention Powers).
  Mr. BARNSTONasked whether, in view of the continual source of difficulty boards of guardians have in dealing with feeble-minded females, the President of the Local Government Board can see his way to introduce legislation to empower boards of guardians to detain such persons?
  Mr. BURNS: I am aware of the difficulty to which the hon. Member refers. The matter is, however, part of a much larger question, and I am not in a position at the present time to promise legislation dealing with this particular aspect of it.

  Parliamentary Enfranchisement of Women Bill.
  Mr. SHACKLETONasked the Prime Minister if he can see his way to give the House an early opportunity of discussing on Second Reading the Bill for the Parliamentary Enfranchisement of Women?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith):The Government have considered this matter, and recognise that the circumstances of the case are exceptional, from the fact that under the conditions which govern private Members' proposals the House of Commons has never had an adequate opportunity of discussing so momentous a change. They are, therefore, prepared to give time, before the close of the Session, for a full Debate and a Division on the Second Reading of the Bill which has been introduced. In dew of the exigencies of other Parliamentary business, and their own announced decision not to prosecute contentious legislation, they cannot afford any further facilities to the Bill this Session. The Government recognise that the House ought to have opportunities, if that is their deliberate desire, for effectively dealing with the whole question, and the course of the Debate may be expected to throw instructive light on Parliamentary opinion both in regard to this Bill and to other proposals.
  Mr. BARNES: Will the Prime Minister state if he is yet in a position to announce the mind of the Government on the Trade Union Law Amendment Act?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I must have notice of that question.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Does the right hon. Gentleman still adhere to his announced undertaking not to take contentious business during this Session, and is he not aware that this Bill is one of the most contentious Bills that has ever been introduced in the House of Commons?

  King's Statutory Declaration.
  Mr. AGAR-ROBARTESasked the Prime Minister on what date he intends to introduce legislation with reference to the King's Statutory Declaration?
  Mr. PRIMROSEasked whether His Majesty's Government propose to repeal those clauses of the Bill of Rights of 1689 and of the Act of Settlement of 1700 which require every Sovereign of this Kingdom to make either at his coronation or on the first day of the meeting of the first Parliament next after his or her coming to the Crown the Declaration therein referred to, or do they propose in any, and, if so, in what, way to vary the conditions laid down by those Acts, of succession to the Throne; and, in case they do so propose, will he undertake that the constitutional and

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  religious questions thus raised shall, before their final decision, be submitted to the people?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I hope to introduce the Bill referred to next week. It will merely propose to alter the language of the Sovereign's Declaration, and will not vary in any material respect the conditions of succession to the Throne.

  Firearms Legislation.
  Captain CRAIG (for Mr. Charles Craig)asked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to introduce legislation for regulating the possession of firearms; and whether, having regard to the use of such weapons in certain parts of Ireland, he will deal with the matter this Session?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to a question by the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh on 16th June. I may add that the matter is under consideration, but I cannot give any undertaking as to legislation this Session.
  Captain CRAIG: Are any of these very serious firing outrages which have taken place in Ireland brought under the notice of the Cabinet or are they left entirely to the Chief Secretary to deal with?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Cabinet is well aware of the facts.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Is the Cabinet aware of the fact that most of these firing outrages take place in the North of Ireland?
  Captain CRAIG: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a single instance of a firing outrage of the nature I have referred to occurring in the North of Ireland?

  Tare Weights of Waggons.
  Mr. CLOUGHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the incorrect tare weights of waggons used by certain colliery proprietors, which result in coal merchants being supplied with short weight of coal; and whether, in the interest of honest trading, he will introduce legislation so to amend the Weights and Measures Acts as to secure the more frequent and correct tareing of all railway trucks used in the coal trade?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): I am giving the subject to which my hon. Friend calls attention my careful consideration. The
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  matter is full of difficulty, and I have not yet been able to come to a conclusion as to the steps which it may be possible to take.

  Bristol Channel Pilotage.
  Mr. JOYCEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Bristol Corporation, acting as the pilotage authority for the port of Bristol, has committed a breach of Section 599 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, by endorsing the pilotage certificate held by the master of the passenger steamer "Barry" for the purpose of authorising him to pilot the said steamer after a change in her ownership without examining the said master, as required by the said Section; whether he will communicate with the said pilotage authority and point out that if a ship changes owners a pilotage certificate held by the master becomes invalid, and that the master must be examined again before he can be authorised to pilot the ship; and whether full consideration has now been given to this matter, with the view of having the Act of Parliament carried out?
  Mr. BUXTON: I am not prepared to say that the Section in question requires re-examination of a master or mate holding a pilotage certificate in all cases in which the ownership of the ship or ships in respect of which it has been granted, changes. In this particular case, however, I incline to the view that the master should be re-examined, and I have so informed the pilotage authority. As my hon. Friend is aware, the whole question of pilotage is being considered by a Departmental Committee.

  Trade Board (Tailoring Trade, Ireland).
  Captain CRAIGasked for the number of Trade Boards and district trade committees established in Ireland under the Trade Boards Act, 1909, to deal with ready-made and wholesale bespoke tailoring, and the manufacture of juvenile clothing?
  Mr. BUXTON: Regulations under which it is proposed to establish a Trade Board for certain branches of the tailoring trade in Ireland are at present under consideration, and it is hoped that they will be laid before Parliament shortly. The establishment of district trade committees, and the number of such committees, are matters which, under the Trade Boards Act, are for the decision of the Trade Board when formed.

  Home Trade Cargo Ships (Certificated Officers).
  Mr. MUSPRATTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been called to the sinking of the "Kate Thomas," of Liverpool; whether he is aware that the colliding vessel was being navigated as a coasting vessel and had no certificated officer on board; and whether he will introduce legislation to prevent the dangers disclosed in this case?
  Mr. BUXTON: Yes, Sir, my attention has been called to the loss of the "Kate Thomas." The colliding vessel, not being a foreign-going ship or a home trade passenger ship, was not obliged to carry certificated officers. The desirability of requiring home trade cargo ships to carry certificated officers has already engaged the attention of the Board of Trade, and will receive careful consideration at the first opportunity which arises for legislation on the subject.

  Labour Exchange (Wednesbury).
  Mr. BIRD (on behalf of Mr. Norton-Griffiths)asked whether any premises have been secured up to the present for the Wednesbury Labour Exchange; and if he can state approximately the date of opening the same?
  Mr. BUXTON: Premises have been secured at Wednesbury for the purposes of a Labour Exchange. The necessary alterations will be undertaken without delay, but I am unable as yet to state the date of opening.

  Post Office Supervision (London Sub-Districts).
  Mr. WARDLEasked whether the Postmaster-General is now in a position to give a definite reply to the question of the alleged inequalities existing in the supervision of the London sub-district offices?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): The matter is still under consideration. Every effort will be made to bring the inquiries to a conclusion at an early date.
  Mr. WARDLE: How long is it going to take before this matter is settled? It has been under consideration now for two and a-half years.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I hope we shall be able to deal with it very shortly. The matter raises very important questions of principle.

  Post Office Clerkships (Supplementary Establishment).
  Mr. LAWSONasked the Postmaster-General what action he proposed to take to meet the case of those officers in his department who prepared themselves for the limited competition for clerkships on the supplementary establishment, expected to have been held in September, 1909, but now suspended without previous notice; whether these officers were in any way so informed; whether he proposes to secure any extension of the age limit in order that these officers who were qualified for such examination may compete in the open Civil Service competitions which serve to recruit the force in other branches of the Post Office; and, if not, whether any preference will be given in considering applications for writers' duties or other similar appointments to such officers, subject to it being proved that they had fully qualified themselves?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The temporary suspension of the competitions for clerkships on the supplementary establishment results from a recent revision under which the numbers of that establishment have been reduced; and it was not possible to issue any notice respecting the competition until it was known that the recommendations would be approved. I am sorry that a number of officers have been disappointed of the opportunity of competing, but in all Civil Service competitions fluctuations are unavoidable, and I should not be justified in attempting to obtain an extension of age in respect of these particular competitions, which could not be granted in respect of much wider competitions.

  Post Office Telegraphists (Home Service).
  Sir ALFRED GELDERasked whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been called to the fact that capable telegraphists who have returned from postal service in South Africa, owing to retrenchment or other reasons, can only be reestablished in the Home Service on the wage scale paid to clerks of twenty-one years of age; and whether, in view of the fact that these officers are usually between thirty and forty years of age, and have no other source of income, he will make representations to the Treasury, with a view to the payment of a scale more commensurate with their age and service?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I do not think any advantage would result from

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  further representations on this subject, the rule having been definitely laid down that reappointment to the Home Service can only be allowed under the conditions applicable to new employment. On leaving the Colonial Service officers are usually awarded a pension, which they may receive concurrently with their salary on reinstatement in the Home Service

  Dundee Telegraph Office (Unpaid Learners).
  Mr. WILKIEasked whether, up to the middle of May, 1910, unpaid learners were being used in the Dundee telegraph office to send and receive public messages; whether they are now being paid 12s. per week; whether, in consequence of cheap or unpaid labour being employed in the instrument room, telegraphists of many years' experience are systematically listed for sorting duties, causing many extra late and night duties for the remainder of the male telegraph staff; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made with a view to an early remedy?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am making inquiries on this subject.

  Remission of Sentences (King's Accession).
  Captain TRYON (for Mr. Goulding)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the total number of years remitted, as a result of the Gracious Order for remission of sentences on prisoners on His Majesty's Accession?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Masterman): The total number of years remitted is approximately 500.

  King Edward's Lying-in-State (Police Extra Pay).
  Mr. WILESasked if the Home Secretary's attention had been called to the fact that forty-two police constables and two sergeants have received extra pay for the overtime caused by the lying-in-state of His late Majesty King Edward VII. in Westminster Hall, but that twenty-one police constables and a chief inspector who served the same extra hours have up to the present received no special financial consideration; and, if so, will he state why the extra pay has not been granted?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes, Sir. After consideration of further facts which have been brought to his knowledge, the Com-
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  missioner of Police, with the concurrence of my right hon. Friend, has arranged to extend the benefits of the extra pay to all the police officers stationed in the Houses of Parliament.

  Mines Inspectors (South Wales).
  Mr. EDGAR JONESasked whether the Home Secretary can state the new arrangements for the inspection of mines in South Wales; the names of the various grades of inspectors; the towns at which they will reside; which of the inspectors have a competent knowledge of the Welsh language; and whether the divisional inspector would take charge of the inquiries usually made by the Home Office immediately after an explosion or similar disaster?
  Mr. MASTERMAN: Particulars of the new arrangement of the mines inspection districts, which follows the scheme recommended by the Royal Commission on Mines, were published in the newspapers last April. The names and residential towns of the different grades of inspectors in South Wales are as follows:—Divisional inspector, W. N. Atkinson (Bridgend for the present, he will remove later to Cardiff); senior inspectors, J. Dyer Lewis (Swansea), F. J. Trump (Cardiff), F. N. White (Newport); junior inspectors, A. Pearson (Bridgend), T. S. Davies (Cardiff), J. M. Carey (Newport). Mr. Atkinson does not speak Welsh. Mr. Davies, who was transferred from the Southern District on the transference of Monmouthshire (there being no other Welsh-speaking junior), has some knowledge of Welsh. All the other inspectors named have a competent knowledge of the Welsh language. The divisional inspector, who is perhaps, of all the inspectors in the United Kingdom, the one with the greatest expert knowledge in regard to explosions, would, of course, take charge of the inquiries which would follow any serious accident, but he would always have the assistance of one or more of the inspectors who act under him.

  Excise Licences (Dundee).
  Mr. WILKIEasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury upon what grounds and under what statute the Excise authorities refuse to supply to the Dundee and district branch of the Scottish Association of Watchmakers and Jewellers a list of all the parties in the said district who are holders of an Excise licence required by the Plate Licences Acts?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): The Board of Customs and Excise are under no obligation to furnish lists of holders of plate licences to private traders or to trading associations. They have expressed their willingness to aid the Central Scottish Association of Watchmakers and Jewellers in their desire to suppress unlicensed competition by furnishing them from time to time, on application to the Board, with information as to whether licences are held in particular cases in which illegal trading is suspected. But they do not think it advisable to furnish local branches of the association at Dundee or elsewhere with lists of local licence holders. Such lists, while involving considerable time and labour in their preparation, would serve no useful purpose unless kept constantly corrected up to date, owing to the opening of new premises and changes which are of frequent occurrence in the ownership of existing businesses.

  Surveyors of Taxes (Examinations for Clerkships).
  Mr. WATTasked whether examinations for clerkships to surveyors of taxes are still being held throughout the country; whether each candidate is charged 10s. for the privilege of sitting at these examinations; whether there is already a long list of men who have passed such examinations for whom there are no appointments; and, if so, whether he will instruct that this practice of examining and charging will be discontinued meantime?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: No examination for clerkships to surveyors of taxes are being held as suggested by the hon. Member, and consequently the remainder of the question does not arise.

  Board of Education (Grants).
  Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the President of the Board of Education whether, having regard to the fact that the Board of Education are enabled, under Chapters of their regulations for technical schools, etc., to make Grants to university colleges and universities with respect to that part of their work which is concerned with engineering and other technical subjects, and that the colleges and universtities also receive a Treasury grant applicable to their work generally, and further that it is undesirable in the interests of university education to distinguish administratively the engineering and technological faculty from other faculties by special conditions of financial help, the Government will con-
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  sent to arrangements being made for unifying these Grants; or, if he considers the matter to require further consideration, whether he, would appoint a Committee to determine the conditions under which the unification of Grants might be effected so as to make the total Government Grants available for university education generally, and to render unnecessary the twofold inspection to which such colleges and universities are now subject as desire to avail themselves of financial aid from the Board of Education in addition to the Treasury Grants?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): I must not be taken as agreeing to the accuracy of what the hon. Member alleges as to overlapping between the Grants from the Treasury and those from the Board of Education in aid of universities and university colleges. I may say, further, that the arrangements in respect of the distribution of both the Grants are not so separate as is implied in the question. The Board of Education has representatives on the Treasury Committee which deals with the Grants; the committee is in constant touch with the Board, and all information is interchanged. Nor have there been any indications of any difficulties arising, as suggested in the question, from the present arrangements for inspections, which do not clash in any respect, but supplement each other. The Government have been considering the question of some increased measure of co-ordination or unification, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have not yet come to any decision. It is not a matter, I think, which would be assisted by the adoption of the course suggested in the last part of the question.

  Towyn Church School, Merionethshire.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GOREasked whether it is the intention of the Board of Education no longer to recognise the Towyn Church school, Merionethshire; if so, for what reasons; and on what date will the recognition cease, and what opportunity will be given for managers to appeal?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Board's reasons for so deciding were that the school appeared to them to be unnecessary in view of the following facts: (1) For the past two Grant years the average attendance has been not more than twenty; (2) ample accommodation is provided in the other schools of the area;

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  (3) the closure of the Church school and the transference of the children into the council schools in the area will make for the economy of the rates, and will serve the interests of secular education. The managers had made full representations to the Board before the Board's decision was taken. The school will be removed from the Annual Grant List on 30th June.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE (for Mr. Bridge-man)asked what is the accommodation and average attendance in the Towyn Church school and council school, respectively, for the month of May, 1910; and whether the Towyn Council school has been condemned by the medical officer of health?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The recognised accommodation in the Towyn Church school is 104. I am informed that the average attendance for the month of May was 57.2. The accommodation in the mixed council school is 164 and in the adjoining infants' council school, in which two classes of the mixed school are taught, 150. I cannot at present state what was the average attendance in these two schools for the month of May, but I understand that in the preceding month it was about 220. I understand that the medical officer of health some time ago called attention to certain defects in the premises of the mixed school, which the local education authority are taking steps to remedy. He has not at any period condemned the school so far as I am aware.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there is any other accommodation in the district for children requiring education in the principles of the Church of England, or whether they will be totally deprived of the facility?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I cannot say whether they will be totally deprived. I can only say in Towyn itself there has been a Church school, with an average attendance of under twenty, and there is a Council school where at present the attendance is 220.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: What provision is there for the education of those twenty?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Has not the attendance in the Church school improved?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I said the attendance in the month of May was 57.2, and in the two previous grant years it was under twenty.
  Lord HUGH CECIL: Does not that show that the attendance is gradually increasing?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I think the Noble Lord is as capable as I am of knowing that fifty-seven is more than twenty.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Church of England is growing very rapidly in Towyn?
  Sir WILLIAM ANSON: Does 30th June mean this day week, and, if so, what notice has been given to the managers of the intention to close the school?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, 30th June does mean this day week. The notice was given to the managers some little time ago. I cannot say exactly when, but about four or five weeks ago.

  Duke of York's School (Chelsea Site).
  Lord ALEXANDER THYNNEasked the First Commissioner of Works whether any arrangement had been arrived at between the War Department and the Office of Works whereby the site and premises of the Duke of York's School will be transferred for the use of the Territorial Force; and whether it is still proposed to sell any portion of the site for building or other purposes?
  Mr. HOAREalso asked the Secretary of State for War if he could make any statement as to his proposals relative to the disposal of the site of the Duke of York's School?
  The SECRETARY Of STATE for WAR (Mr. Haldane): It has been decided that the site and premises of the Duke of York's School shall be purchased by the War Department. It is proposed that the whole site and premises shall be devoted to military purposes in connection with the Territorial Force. It is not intended that any part of the site or premises shall be sold for building or other purposes.
  Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: Are we to understand it is not the intention of the War Department to erect any further buildings on this site?
  Mr. HALDANE: I should not like to say that, because we may have to erect some accommodation for the Territorial Force, probably in substitution for the buildings subsisting now. What the hon. Member means is whether we intend to keep a large open space there, and we do intend to do so.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Is it proposed to get any contribution from the owners of the surrounding sites?
  Mr. HALDANE: No. It is an open space now, but I should be glad to think the Territorial Force would send up the value of property all round.
  Lord BALCARRES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether a Supplementary Estimate will be required, and when it will be taken?
  Mr. HALDANE: I cannot say.
  Lord BALCARRES: Will not a Supplementary Estimate be required for the new buildings?
  Mr. HALDANE: I do not think it will be, but if it is due notice will be given.

  Royal Marines.
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that during the firing in the recent gun layers' tests the Royal Marines guns' crews in the "Temeraire" and other battleships made a remarkable record of shooting; whether he can give an assurance to the House that there will be no further reduction of this valuable and efficient corps; and whether the Board of Admiralty will modify the new scheme of providing officers for the Royal Marines to the extent of continuing the direct entry of Royal Marine officers into that force?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I would remind the Noble and Gallant Lord of my answer to a previous question of a similar kind, to the effect that the numbers in Vote A, which specifically includes the Royal Marines, are settled each year with the Navy Estimates. The numbers for the current year have already been settled by this House. With regard to the last part of the question I understand the modification which the Noble and Gallant Lord suggests to mean that officers for the corps of Royal Marines should be entered direct, as well as under the new scheme of entry and training. This is not a matter which calls for immediate action, as under the new scheme officers will not specialise as lieutenants (M) until 1913. Should it appear, however, at any time that the provision of the requisite number
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  of marine officers called for such a step, the Admiralty would, of course, consider it.

  Butter and Margarine Act, 1906.
  Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture how many cases of alleged fraud the Department has initiated prosecutions under the Butter and Margarine Act, 1906, during 1909s and with what result?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir E. Strachey): No prosecution under the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907, has as yet been initiated by the Board.

  Surveyors of Taxes.
  Mr. WATTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether surveyors of taxes have power to compel delivery of copies of balance sheets for four years back, and especially after these same surveyors have approved of duly audited accounts for these years; is he aware that this demand is frequently made by his Department in the West of Scotland; and, if so, will he see that the practice is no longer permitted?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): In answer to the first part of the question I may refer to my answers to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, on 19th May, 1908, and to the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs on 29th March, 1910. As regards the second part of the question, I am not aware that such demands are made, and the third part does not therefore arise. But, if my hon. Friend will -be so good as to furnish me with specific details of any case I will cause inquiry to be made.

  FINANCE ACT, 1909⤓10.

    SPIRIT AND ALLIED TRADES.
    Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked the number of persons engaged in the manufacture of spirits and other trades dependent for their existence on its prosperity; and the estimate of the total number of people likely to be disemployed in the allied trades if the output of spirits was reduced by one-third?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The number of persons of all ages occupied in distilleries in the United Kingdom according to the Census reports for 1901 was 3,677. These figures include employers as well as workpeople, and in the case of Ireland only maltsters are included. Data are not

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    available as to the number of persons engaged in other trades dependent for their existence on the prosperity of the manufacture of spirits. As regards the last part of the question, the answer is in the negative.
    Mr. PATRICK WHITEasked how many working distilleries there were in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, respectively, in the year 1908; and the number in each country which are now active?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The number of distilleries which worked during the year ended 30th September, 1908, and 30th September, 1909, respectively, in each of the three countries, was as follows:—

    Year ended 30th Sept., 1908

    Year ended 30th Sept., 1908

    England

    8

    8

    Scotland

    132

    142

    Ireland

    26

    26

    Information is not available as to the number of distilleries active at the present time, and inquiries would have to be made before the figures could be given.
    Mr. PATRICK WHITE: The right hon. Gentleman has not given the figures for Wales?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The only distillery ever set up in Wales is closed.

    TRANSF'ER OF LEASEHOLD PROPERTY.
    Mr. SANDERSasked why exemption from the increased Stamp Duty is refused in the case of transfers of leasehold property under £500 in value?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: A transfer of leasehold property under £500 in value is (if first executed after the commencement of the Finance (1909–10) Act) not liable to the increased Stamp Duty, provided the conveyance contains a certificate such as is mentioned in Section 73 of the Act.

    Masquerading as an Officer of Dragoon Guards.
    Colonel CALLEYasked the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to the fact that a person masquerading as an officer of Dragoon Guards was seen drunk in the streets and also at Waterloo Station on the occasion of His Majesty the late King's funeral; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
    Mr. HALDANE: Steps are being taken to discover the individual, and it is hoped that in a few days his identity will be established, when suitable action will be taken.

    Military Officers and Political Gatherings.
    Mr. MacVEAGHasked whether officers are allowed to attend in military uniform political gatherings; and, if not, whether suitable notice will be taken of the action of Lord Compton in so attending a gathering of the Conservative Club at Prince's Hall, Brentford, in April?
    Mr. HALDANE: the first part of the question the reply is in the negative. As regards the rest of the question, inquiries are being made into the matter.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: When the right hon. Gentleman is making his inquiries, will he accept from me a copy of the local Tory newspaper, which states that the Noble Lord did attend in his uniform, and took his turn in the programme between a marionette performance and a comic singer?

    Yeomanry Drill Book.
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked when the Yeomanry drill book promised by him will be issued?
    Mr. HALDANE: The question of the issue of a manual of drill and training for the Yeomanry is under consideration.

    Drogheda Military Bread Contracts.
    Mr. NOLANasked the Secretary for War the name of the firm of bakers which supplies bread to the troops in the military district of Drogheda, in Ireland; and whether the firm in question pays the trade union rate of wages and complies with the trade union regulations with regard to the proportion of boy workers to adults?
    Mr. HALDANE: The current contract for the supply of bread to the troops in the Drogheda Sub-district is held by Messrs. Galbraith, of Drogheda. The contract contains the usual Fair Wages Clause, which the firm have of course agreed to observe, with the other conditions of their covenant. Should any specific complaints be received of infringement of the terms of the Clause full inquiry shall be made.
    Mr. NOLAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman received any complaint from the secretary of the local bakers' association en this point, and, if so, will he inquire into it?
    Mr. HALDANE: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice. I am not aware that any such complaint has been made.

    Belturbet Barracks, County Cavan.
    Mr. LONSDALEasked if the military barracks at Belturbet, county Cavan, are at present in perfect repair and fit for the reception of troops, and are now and have been vacant for some two years; whether it is intended to spend a large sum of money on the military barracks at Cavan, within a distance of ten miles, to provide accommodation for troops which already exists at Belturbet without further expenditure; whether a memorial has been presented from inhabitants at Belturbet and district asking that troops may be quartered there; and what reply has been sent to the memorial?
    Mr. HALDANE: Will the hon. Member kindly refer to a reply which I gave to a question on this subject put by the hon. Member for the West Division of Cavan on the 14th instant. As I then explained, the barracks at Belturbet have been dismantled and considerable expenditure would be necessary to fit them for the accommodation of troops.

    Military Duties at Youghal.
    Captain COOPERasked whether any of the men of the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry at Youghal have been obliged to do musketry on a Sunday; and, if this is the case, whether it is intended as a punishment; and whether steps will be taken to see that the men are permitted to enjoy their Sunday holiday undisturbed?
    Mr. HALDANE: The 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry are at Fermoy, and four companies of the 2nd Battalion Highland Light Infantry are at Youghal. If the hon. and gallant Member will inform me to which regiment he refers I will make inquiry.

    Army Horses (Registration Officials).
    Lord ALEXANDER THYNNEasked the Secretary for War whether he has under consideration a scheme for the enumeration or registration, for military purposes, of all horses in civilian ownership; and whether he is in a position to indicate the approximate range of salary to be paid to the officials engaged on such work?
    Mr. HALDANE: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The reply to the second part of the question is that it is not considered necessary to employ special salaried officials for the work of classifying the police Census, but
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    a scale of salaries which it is proposed to pay on mobilisation to the persons who will then be actually engaged in the work of collecting horses has been submitted to county associations for their remarks.
    Mr. SANDERS: When is this scheme likely to get beyond the stage of consideration?
    Mr. HALDANE: A great deal of progress has been made with it. The hon. Member must remember that this has to go through the Quartermaster-General's department in order to make the necessary arrangements with the Commander-in-Chief.
    Mr. LAWSON: Is this new scheme for the registration of horses to be issued to the Territorial Associations, and have any registration officers been appointed?
    Mr. HALDANE: No. This is the scheme which was discussed on the Estimates. We have not yet got to the stage of appointing registration officers. It is taking its course, and we shall at the proper time consult the associations on the point of the work to be done.

    Government Workmen (Advisory Committee).
    Mr. GLANVILLEasked whether the Advisory Committee on Government Workmen has been augmented; is there any workman on the Committee; is it proposed to place any Government workman or other workman on the Committee; will the Committee report, and when; and if the guaranteed minimum wage of 23s. weekly for men employed at Woolwich Arsenal was paid to all the men for the week during which the late King's funeral took place, notwithstanding the Arsenal being closed on the Friday and Saturday?
    Mr. HALDANE: It is not proposed to enlarge the Fair Wages Advisory Committee in the direction indicated, but I understand that the Committee propose to take oral evidence from workpeople and others on the questions referred to it, whenever it appears necessary or desirable to do so. The Committee will report to the Department consulting it on each question as it arises and I think that we may rely upon it to tender its advice with the least possible delay. In reply to the last part of the question, the men were paid for the day of the funeral and worked up to the time lost on the Saturday during the following week, thereby receiving the minimum of 46s. for the two weeks taken together.

    Cordite Supplies.
    Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked whether a considerable quantity of cordite has been refused from the contractors during the past twelve months on account of failure to pass the necessary tests; and whether, in consequence, there is a prospect of deficiency in the supply and reserve of that explosive in the future?
    Mr. HALDANE: There has been a certain amount rejected during the past twelve months, but it is not abnormal, and I do not anticipate any deficiency in supply or reserve.
    Lord C. BERESFORD: Has any cordite been accepted under conditions other than that of test?
    Mr. HALDANE: Not so far as I am aware, but if the Noble Lord has reason to think otherwise and will give me notice I will make inquiry.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Perhaps the Prime Minister can tell us how he proposes to allocate Parliamentary time in the course of next week.
The PRIME MINISTER: To-morrow (Friday) we propose to take the Small Holdings (No. 3) Bill (Committee); the Census (Great Britain) Bill (Committee); the Aldermen in Municipal Boroughs Bill (Committee); and the County Common Juries Bill (Committee), as well as the Ardrossan Mail Contract.
As regards next week—on Monday, we shall take the Army Estimates and the Salary of the Secretary of State for War.
On Tuesday, I hope to introduce a Bill to alter the form of Declaration on the Accession of the Sovereign, after which we shall proceed with the Committee Stage of the Census (Ireland) Bill, and with other small Bills.
On Wednesday, we propose to take the Colonial Office Vote.
On Thursday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will introduce the Budget.
Friday will be given to the consideration of the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, after which we shall hope to make progress with some small Bills.
Mr. BALFOUR: To elucidate the answer given by the Prime Minister, may I ask if he proposes to introduce the Bill
506
altering the King's Declaration under the Ten Minutes' Rule, or will he allow a general discussion on its introduction?
The PRIME MINISTER: I do not think it should be introduced under the Ten Minutes' Rule.
Mr. GIBSON BOWLES: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been called to the introduction to-day, by presentation, of a Bill dealing with an extremely important subject—the Naval Prize Bill? Can we have an assurance that very considerable and ample notice may be given of the Second Reading, as the Bill, I am afraid, is likely to prove rather contentious?
The PRIME MINISTER: Ample notice shall be given.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: When is the Indian Budget likely to be introduced?
The PRIME MINISTER: I must ask for notice of that question.
Lord HUGH CECIL: Will the Education Estimates be put down on an early day?
The PRIME MINISTER: I will inquire through the usual channel what Votes it is desired to take early.
Mr. DILLON: When will the Foreign Office Vote be put down?
The PRIME MINISTER: I will defer answering that question till next week.
Mr. SNOWDEN: When will the Parliamentary Enfranchisement of Women's Bill, for which time has been promised, be taken?
The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot say.
Mr. SNOWDEN: Will it be on an early day?
The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.
One other Member took and subscribed the Oath.

BILLS PRESENTED.
  NAVAL PRIZE BILL.
  "To consolidate, with Amendments, the enactments relating to Naval Prize of War," presented by Secretary Sir EDWARD GREY; supported by Mr. McKenna, Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Solicitor-General, and Mr. McKinnon Wood; to be read a second time upon; Tuesday, 5th July.
  LABOUR EXCHANGES (ALIENS) BILL.
  "To secure that the Labour Exchanges, established in pursuance of the Labour Exchanges Act, 1909, shall not provide an additional incentive to Aliens to enter the United Kingdom," presented by Mr. GIBBS; supported by Mr. Bridgeman, Mr. Hicks Beach, Mr. Rice, and Mr. Agnew; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 29th June.

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1910–11.
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. EMMOTT in the Chair.]
(In the Committee.)

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1910–11.

  POST OFFICE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "'That a sum, not exceeding £12,128,256, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during "the year ending on 31st March, 1911, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Post Office, including Telegraphs and Telephones."
  [NOTE.—£7,700,000 has been voted on account.]
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr Herbert Samuel): The total sum to which I shall have this year to ask the sanction of the House of Commons very nearly touches the figure of £20,000,000. This sum shows a most rapid increase on the corresponding figures of a not very remote period. Fifteen years ago the Post Office Estimates amounted to about £10,000,000. They have doubled in that period. Fortunately the receipts have nearly doubled also, and the profits of the Post Office remain about the same as they were fifteen or sixteen years ago. The large figures with which we have now to deal correspond with an almost overwhelmingly vast total of work performed, and to one who, like myself, comes newly to the office of Postmaster-General the vast-ness and the complexity of the work and the organisation is very striking. The Post Office deals with letters and with halfpenny packets to the number of 15,000,000, not every year or every month or every week, but every day. We handle about a quarter of a million telegrams daily, and every day of the year the Post
  508
  Office transmits money orders and postal orders to the extent of about a quarter of a million pounds. All these figures year by year are constantly expanding, and the work in every direction shows rapid growth. During the year that has passed the telephone business of the Post Office, for example, has shown considerable expansion, 123 new exchanges having been opened. The number of subscribers to the Post Office system has increased by 12 per cent., and the number of conversations on the trunk lines has increased by 15 per cent. We look forward, of course, at a very early date to taking over the whole of the vast enterprise of the National Telephone Company, and arrangements are now being rapidly pushed forward in order to facilitate that transfer at the end of next year. Two Departmental Committees are at work within the Post Office, one dealing with the question of telephone plant, and the other dealing with many details of the important questions arising from the transfer of the staff of the telephone company to the Post Office. Arrangements are also proceeding for taking a joint inventory—an inventory jointly by the company and the Post Office—of the plant of the company. Every step within our power is now being taken in order to secure that the transfer, when it comes— one of the most gigantic industrial operations that this country will ever have known—that the transfer, when it comes, will be effected with the utmost smoothness.
  Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that subject, can he tell us anything about the financial arrangements that will be necessary?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: A Bill, of course, will be required for the purpose. It is not intended as at present advised to introduce that Bill this year. It will be introduced next Session, and that will be the moment when it will be necessary to consider the question of finance, but it is anticipated that the terms of the transfer will be in accordance with the agreement, and I have very small hope that those terms can be settled otherwise than by arbitration, as provided for in the agreement entered into by the late Government. The system of wireless telegraphy provided by the Post Office also shows very rapid progress and extension. One of the many instances of enterprise which made the administration of my predecessor

  509
  noteworthy was the purchase last autumn of the wireless telegraphy stations around the coast belonging to the Marconi Company and to Lloyds. That purchase by the Post Office has been amply justified by the results. These wireless stations are working with complete success, and the Committee will be glad to know that within the last three months the number of messages sent and received has doubled, showing that the services of these wireless stations are appreciated by the shipowners. I am now holding an inquiry as to the distribution of these stations round the coast and as to the desirability of opening new ones in places such as Newcastle, and that district, where stations are not at present in existence, and I hope before long to have a complete ring of stations all round the coast of Great Britain and parts of Ireland, which will be, I believe, of great service to the shipowners. Shipowners, therefore, would be well advised to proceed as rapidly as may be with the equipment of their vessels, for I feel convinced that when this system is established completely round the whole of our coasts it will be found of the greatest possible value to them in their business operations; it will be found of service to their passengers where they carry passengers, and, of course, it would be indispensable for summoning assistance to vessels on our coasts which are in distress.
  The telegraphs also at last, after several years of decline, begin to show some expansion, and the figures of telegraph receipts, which have suffered in recent years from the competition of telephones, now begin to show revival. The Post Office has spent two millions in laying down underground cables in various parts of the country to protect our telegraphic communications from interruptions by storm, and that work is being continued, a considerable sum being taken in this year's Estimates for the further extension and completion of the underground telegraphic service. An interesting experiment will shortly be tried in connection with the Savings Bank. At the suggestion of the Controller I propose to render available to the public money-boxes or home safes, as they are called, which would-be depositers would keep in their homes, and in which they can accumulate very small savings. The depositor will have the box and the Post Office will keep the key, and I trust I may be able to earn some of the merit which belongs to those who save
  510
  uncertain virtue from temptation. The experience of the trustee savings banks and other savings banks abroad has been that these home safes do promote thrift and do cause money to be saved which otherwise would be spent. Further, it is a convenience in the administration, because it leads the deposits to be made in larger accumulated sums instead of with greater frequency and in smaller amounts.
  4.0 P.M.
  The Post Office is placing its services, as it is always ready to do, at the disposal of other Departments, and experiments are about to be made in the use of the post offices in the smaller towns as agencies for Labour Exchanges. There are, of course, many places which are not large enough to warrant the establishment of a separate Labour Exchange, but, as an experiment, in a certain number of these places the post office is to be available for workmen and employers for transmitting their applications for situations or for workpeople and for the notification of any vacancies which may exist.
  The payment of old age pensions through the Post Office is proceeding smoothly and with rare complaint. In a score of different directions in recent years the Post Office has come more and more closely into relations with the lives of the people from childhood up to old age, and it is not surprising that recently a young mother entered a post office, and, asking for the registration counter, desired that her infant, whom she presented, should be registered there. I wish it were possible in the early days of my tenure of the office of Postmaster-General to be able to confer what I am sure would be a great boon to the country in the extension of our system of penny postage. Cheap post and telegraph rates for international purposes are, of course, of the greatest possible value in assisting commerce, in promoting social intercourse, and in fostering international goodwill, and the value of the cheap postal and telegraph services which are rendered by the Post Offices of the world to the various nations of the world can, perhaps, only be fully appreciated if one imagines them absent. Imagine the whole of our international postal and telegraph system destroyed or non-existent; imagine that the nations had never brought it into being, and one realises what the value of our postal and telegraph system is to our commerce, to the spread of the knowledge of the world among the peoples of the world, and in helping the nations to be less separate and less hostile. Per contra, one

  511
  can estimate from that the high value of further extensions of cheap postal and telegraph rates between the different countries of the world. As a matter of fact, more than half the letters which leave this country every year go to other countries with which we already have a penny postage rate; and I am sure all of us must feel sympathy with the efforts of the hon. Member (Mr. Henniker Heaton) and those who act with him in season and out of season, with a zeal which we must all admire, to extend our system of international penny postage.
  But the zeal of the hon. Member sometimes takes too little account of facts and figures. His case rests upon these suppositions—that we can establish a system of penny postage on the Continent with France alone; that the loss would be very small in the first instance; that it would soon be recouped by a large extension of postage with France, which would involve no additional expense; and that in any case, even if the loss be considerable, we ought not to reject the offer which he tells us the French are only too eager to make. As a matter of fact, the immediate loss of revenue, if penny postage were established with France alone, would be £95,000; but I do not think it possible for this question to be considered as though it related only to an arrangement between ourselves and one country upon the Continent, although with that country we are, it is true, bound by special ties of friendship. Our correspondence with Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland is very large, and our trade also. Our correspondence with Germany is equal to our correspondence with France, and our trade with Germany is larger. The hon. Member is always emphasising the anomalies of the present system. Eleven thousand miles from London to Fiji, he says, one penny; twenty-one miles, from Dover to Calais, 2½d. For my own part, I feel quite unmoved by these quotations of anomalies. The whole system of penny postage in itself rejects the idea of distance being the basis on which charges should rest, and the Imperial penny postage, of which he was long the advocate, which enables you to send messages for 11,000 miles for a penny, is in itself an absurd anomaly when you consider that it costs a penny to send a letter from Westminster to the Strand.
  Mr. HENNIKER HEATON: The right hon. Gentleman has lost nothing by Imperial penny postage.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The present cost of Imperial penny postage is £155,000 a year loss, and it increases as our correspondence increases. Before Imperial penny postage was established, every year, on the average, the postage to the outlying parts of the Empire increased by five per cent. per annum. Since Imperial penny postage our correspondence has increased by nine per cent. per annum, showing an increase of only four per cent. per annum since the introduction of penny postage, and on each letter, on an average, there is a loss, and the more our correspondence increases, the heavier the loss will be. It is well worth paying, in my opinion. We cannot regard these matters solely from the commercial point of view, and for political reasons, and for the sake of promoting the unification of the Empire, I think the expenditure involved is fully justified.
  Mr. HENNIKER HEATON: The loss under your predecessor was £165,000, now it is £155,000.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: There are always anomalies, and must necessarily be anomalies, in the rates of postage once you have surrendered the principal which prevailed before the time of Rowland Hill, and have adopted the rule that there should be uniform rates and not rates varying on a scale according to distance. Mark the anomaly which the hon. Member and his friends now propose to create. They say a penny from the West of Ireland to the Pyrenees —the furthest point of the United Kingdom to the furthest point of France— and 2½d. is still to be the rate from Dover to Ostend, or from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. I am quite sure that an arrangement of that kind could not be permanent. It might be established in the first instance, but it could not be long maintained if our other neighbours desired to share the penny postage system. An extension to Germany would double the loss, and an extension to the other countries of Europe would give a total loss per annum of about £400,000. This sum could not be quickly recouped. It would gradually diminish year by year, but there would be left a very small margin of profit on the interchange of correspondence between ourselves and other European countries. It is a profound delusion to believe that the increase of correspondence does not mean an increase of expenditure by the Post Office. The hon. Member (Mr. Henniker Heaton) says:

  513
  "15,000,000 letters to France. What is that? A mere drop in the ocean, merely equal to your post for one day." But each dose of 15,000,000 letters means immediately, or in the near future, very nearly a pro rata increase in the expenditure. The charges to the Post Office of the railway and shipping companies, especially the railway companies, for the carriage of mails, vary very closely with the increased weight that they have to carry. The South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company for example twenty years ago received less than half what they now receive in annual subventions from the Post Office, because of the less weight of the mails compared to what it is now. The cost of the carriage of mails across London varies precisely in proportion to the number and weight of mail bags carried, and the sorting staff is adjusted with the utmost nicety to the work it has to do. Therefore, in all these directions, as fast as you increase your correspondence so you increase your expenses, and it would be absurd to suppose that all the increased traffic which the cheap postage rate would bring, means so much more revenue to the Post Office without a closely corresponding expenditure.
  In the last five years concessions to the staff on one hand and to the public on the other have cost the Post Office over a £1,000,000 per annum. In 1906 there was a reduction of parcel post rates costing £60,000. In the same year a reduction of postal order charges cost £40,000. In 1907 a reduction in the foreign and Colonial rates cost £190,000. In 1908 penny postage with the United States cost £136,000, though this is slowly being recouped—a total, with other minor concessions, of £499,000—and the result of the Stanley and Hobhouse Revisions of the remuneration of the staff involved a further expenditure of £670,000 a year. There has been, of course, some increase of business and some increase of profit following on that growth of business, but the fact remains that the net surplus of the Post Office which is payable to the Exchequer has been reduced in the last five years by very close upon £1,000,000 per annum, or about 25 per cent. In spite of these large expenses in the past, since now trade shows signs of rapid revival, and if the Post Office Revenue expanded this year, I will not conceal from the Committee the fact that I personally should have been prepared to go to the
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  Chancellor of the Exchequer and make proposals to him for further facilities for the public. I am not in a position to say what reception those proposals would have met with. But before doing so it was necessary to ascertain whether it was really the case, as has frequently been stated, that the French Government in this matter of penny postage were only waiting for advances to be made from this side of the Channel in order to accept the proposal.
  The hon. Baronet (Sir Edward Sassoon) spoke, in a question which he addressed to the Prime Minister lately, of the declared readiness of the French Government to assent to penny postage. The hon. Member (Mr. Henniker Heaton) has made it clear-that he, for one, believes very firmly that the French Government are very ready to enter into an arrangement of this character. I was recently in Paris, and although I was not in a position to make any formal representations to the French Government I took the opportunity of going to see M. Millerand, who combines the office of Minister of Public Works with that of Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and I discussed the matter with him. M. Millerand heard, with much surprise, of the statement that had been made by hon. Members opposite in Parliament as to the attitude of the French Government, and declared that on no occasion had he authorised any such statement to be made. He sympathise cordially with my views as to the desirability of facilitating, by the cheapest rates that circumstances allowed, inter-communication between our two countries; but he pointed out that recently France had reduced her rate on domestic postage in the provinces from fifteen to ten centimes, that, in common with the other countries of the International Postal Union, she had lately raised the weight of letters which could be sent for twenty-five centimes abroad, and had also lowered the charges on other letters in her foreign correspondence, and these changes had caused a very considerable diminution of the French Postal Revenue. In these circumstances he assured me that his Government could not see their way, at all events for the time being, to consider the question of a further reduction of rates for foreign postage, and he gave me leave to make clear in this country what the attitude of his Government was. So much interest is taken in this question

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  in this House, and also in Chambers of Commerce and in other quarters outside the House, that I think it my duty to tell the Committee precisely how the matter stands and to express my regret that, for the time being, this reform, which everyone regards as a very desirable one, must necessarily remain in abeyance.
  I turn now to another group of questions in which many hon. Members take a keen and constant and. legitimate interest—questions affecting the well-being of the staff. The relations between the Postmaster-General and the staff entered upon a new phase when my right hon. Friend and predecessor, with great courage and, I am convinced, with great wisdom, officially recognised the associations of the staff and entered into direct communication with them. The policy of my right lion. Friend has my whole-hearted sympathy. I think it is impossible to expect in. a vast service such as the Post Office, which has in its employment over 200,000 men and women, working under conditions of employment of infinite variety, that there will be no grievances, and no legitimate grievances. It is impossible to expect or imagine that their conditions of work are incapable of improvement, and for my own part I find it is of the greatest possible advantage to discuss round a table with the representatives of the trade unions, who are usually men of much ability, questions on which they are experts, and on which they are able to throw much useful light. I have so far received fifteen deputations representing different branches of the staff, and as those interviews usually last two to three hours, and are preceded and followed by much correspondence, it enables many points of detail—a large proportion of them arise out of the interpretation of the Hobhouse Report—closely affecting the comfort and well-being of the staff, to be discussed thoroughly, and with advantage to the staff and not less to the Postmaster-General.
  I have carried a step further the recognition of the associations. The step taken by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Buxton) was declared to be experimental, and the associations were limited to cases affecting classes in the employment in respect of the representations they had to make to the Postmaster-General. Individual cases were excluded from their correspondence with the Postmaster-General, and for some time past the: associations have asked to be allowed
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  to represent the grievances of individual members, and to call the attention of the Postmaster-General equally to individual cases where it was represented that further inquiry was needed. After carefully considering that request with my advisers, and after anxious consideration on my own part, I thought it was wise, and, indeed, beneficial, to make this extension except in matters of promotion. I hold strongly that the selection of individual men for the higher posts in the Post Office must remain with the Postmaster-General alone, and on that subject he cannot receive representations from the trade unions of the staff. But in other cases of individual grievances I have extended the principle of the recognition of the associations, and so far am happy to say that the extension has given rise to no evil, and is working very smoothly. The direct and continuous communication between the organisations of the employés and the Postmaster-General has, I trust, relieved Members of Parliament of many difficult cases to which otherwise their attention would have been drawn by their constituents. It has, I am convinced, introduced better relations between the Department and the employés. There has been, I regret to say, some delay in dealing with memorials from the associations, which have been numerous, but steps have been taken to reduce these delays to a minimum.
  With respect to the workpeople employed by contractors, the new Fair Wages Clause sanctioned by the House of Commons is, of course, being inserted in all new contracts with the Post Office. We have an inspector continually at work, devoting his whole time to inspecting the conditions of employment of the workpeople in the employment of contractors who are working for the Post Office, and seeing that the terms of their contracts are properly observed. He insists upon the most rigid observance of the fair wages conditions. It is right that that should be done on behalf of the Government, not only in the interest of labour—and that, of course, is a matter of prime importance— but also in justice to fair employers, who have a right to claim that they should be safeguarded against the illegitimate competition of rivals who may be less scrupulous than themselves. I have every reason to hope and believe that the Post Office is now on the way to become, if it has not already become, free from the reproach that the Government is maintaining in its

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  own employment a sweating system which in private employment Parliament and the Government are anxious to suppress.
  There have been some difficulties in respect of employment in the factories belonging to the Post Office. The character of the work there has been changing in recent years. Telegraphy has been giving way to telephony, and a great number of the processes are different from what they were formerly. French polishing, which was carried on on a large scale by hand, is now being done by machinery, and there are many changes in the industrial conditions closely affecting those factories. Very often the cost of production is somewhat high. I have, however, been doing my best to avoid discharges from the factories, and we have lately made it a rule that where discharges are indispensable the men who have been a long time in the service of the Post Office and are still efficient should not be selected for those discharges, and that it should be the youngest men with the shortest service who will be most likely to get employment elsewhere. I have appointed a Departmental Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General (Captain Norton) is chairman, to investigate with officers of my staff the whole of the conditions of production in the Post Office factories with the view to their being placed on a more satisfactory footing. Another Committee has been appointed in the last few weeks to investigate the question of telegraphists' cramp—a technical Committee presided over by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Border Burghs (Sir John Barran). I have long thought that it was a reproach to any industry that the workers in that industry should be exposed by its processes to the contraction of diseases peculiar to that trade. As chairman of the Departmental Committee of the Home Office on Industrial Diseases I was instrumental in having telegraphists' cramp scheduled as entitling sufferers to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and now that I am myself at the Post Office I am eager to adopt any means that science can devise in order to provide what is far better than either compensation or cure for disease of that character, and that is prevention of its occurrence.
  With respect to the girl operators in the telephone exchanges there have lately been sensational statements in the Press as to the effect upon their physique of the employment in which they are engaged.
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  Grossly-exaggerated figures have been published, which, on inquiry, prove to require to be divided by two or three, or even by ten, in order to give a fair picture of the facts. But the truth remains that the work of the telephone operator is of a character that does impose a certain strain upon the nervous organisation. My right hon. Friend, some months ago, set on foot a medical inquiry into the conditions of employment in the telephone exchanges. That inquiry was conducted by the second medical officer of the Post Office and the principal female medical officer. The inquiry is now completed, and the report of the committee reached me two days ago. The investigators visited a number of telephone exchanges and examined 250 of the operators, and in their report they make a number of suggestions for improvements in the allocation of hours, in the intervals for meals and rest, and they express the hope, that some improvements may be devised in the instruments they use, and so forth. I have given instructions that the recommendations in this Report shall be regarded as matters of urgency, and I hope in the near future to be able to effect any improvements that may be found by the medical officers and my technical advisers to be practicable in that branch of the work of the Post Office.
  I turn, lastly, to another matter, in which I know this House, as a whole, takes a close interest, which I fully share, and that is the conditions of employment of the boy messengers. The present position is, to my mind, by no means satisfactory. There are 15,400 boys employed by the Post Office, and at the age of sixteen three out of four of these boys are discharged without any training that really fits them to secure skilled or permanent employment. The boy messengers of the Post Office have the advantage, it is true, of being subject to discipline, but their work is not of a character which trains them in habits of steady and sustained application, and it is not of a character which fits them to engage in any skilled employment outside the Post Office. I have long felt that it is among the children that lies the best hope of social reform. We of this generation have the duty cast upon us of coping as best we can with the social evils affecting our body politic and of providing as best we can cures for them. But we have cast upon us also the still higher duty of saving, if we can, the next generation from being face4 by those social evils at all. I am sure the House will be glad if the Post

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  Office should no longer withdraw from among the boys of the nation this vast number, and absorb two of the best years of their lives and then turn them into the general labour market unfitted for any skilled or permanent employment. The facts of the case are as follows. The total number of boys is 15,400. Of these 6,700 each year cease to be employed as messengers. Their services are no longer required. Of the 6,700 about 700 are dismissed because their character or physique is not very satisfactory. A certain number yield too often to the wayward impulses of youth. I came across the other day an official reply of a telegraph boy, who, having misconducted himself on several occasions, was asked for a written explanation, and he replied, with much simplicity and, perhaps, some little pathos, "I have tried very hard to behave myself, but find I cannot do so." There are a certain number of boys of that type. There remain 6,000 against whose qualifications there is nothing to be said, and the natural question arises, Why not employ these boys as adults in the Post Office instead of discharging a large proportion? Already 1,600 are employed as postmen and in other capacities. They are kept on until the age of eighteen as messengers, and at eighteen they are employed, as a rule, as postmen. Almost all the other vacancies on the staff of postmen and porters are filled now by ex-soldiers and ex-sailors. There are 1,300 old soldiers and sailors engaged in the Post Office annually, in accordance with an arrangement which was entered into by the late Government about ten years or more ago. It would go very far to solve the problem if these posts were taken away from the old soldiers and sailors and given to the messenger boys, but that is a course I am unwilling to adopt. Not only has the old soldier or sailor a claim on the State not inferior to that of the messenger boy, but his difficulty in finding employment is greater than that of the messenger boy, because he is more advanced in life and finds it more difficult to get regular occupation. Therefore, I should be very unwilling to suggest to my colleagues in the Government that the present arrangement, by which half the postmen's and porters' places go to messengers and the other half go to ex-soldiers and sailors, should be discontinued or modified.
  After deducting the 1,600 messengers who now find employment in the Post Office when they reach the age of eighteen,
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  there remain 4,400 for whom no employment at present is found in the Government service. There are three directions, in which this evil—for it is a great evil— can be remedied: by reducing the number of boys employed, by finding more posts for them in Government employment, and by fitting them for such outside employment as can be secured for them. In order to work out the details of these various suggestions, I have appointed another Departmental Committee, which is presided over by the Secretary for the Post Office, Sir Matthew Nathan, 'who fully shares my interest in this question. My hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds (Mr. T. E. Harvey) is a member, and there are representatives of the Education Department and other officers of the Post Office. That committee has been working with great energy and is throwing a great deal of light on various aspects of the problem. Already certain points have become clear. First, the Post Office can economise a very appreciable portion of the existing boy labour which is employed. I think it is better to reduce the number of boys employed as far as possible than to employ a larger number and subsequently dismiss them. Of course, Post Office employment offers to parents considerable temptations. The wages are high; it is very respectable employment; and there is a prospect that one out of four boys will obtain permanent employment in the Post Office. Therefore they are often induced by these reasons to send the boys to the Post Office because there is a demand for boy labour there, instead of putting them to some skilled trade, which would provide them with a permanent occupation in life. I therefore desire, if possible, to decrease the number of boys so as to avoid dismissals. It is much easier to find places in the post office for girls than for boys, because they are needed as telephonists and in other capacities. It has been suggested that a great deal of the outdoor work of the boy messengers might be done by girls. That suggestion I have rejected, for I consider that the girls engaged in such occupations would be exposed to dangers and temptations from which at so early an age they ought to be protected. But there are some hundreds of indoor boy messengers employed in the great buildings of the Post Office in which a female staff is already employed, and their places, I think, might gradually be taken by a corresponding number or—for possibly we may be able to dispense with a small

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  proportion—by a certain number of girl messengers. Then, again, it is possible that we may be able to make use to a larger extent than now of the system of pneumatic tubes for despatching messages and sending telegrams from place to place, and in addition certain classes of telegrams might be delivered, with the consent of subscribers, by telephone, thus economising boy labour, the written telegraphic message being forwarded as a confirmation by the next post.
  I hope by these means we shall be able to reduce by 1,000 or possibly more the number of boy messengers at present employed. There are a few hundred posts which might possibly be given to boy messengers in the Post Office, and which are not at present given to them. I have endeavoured to enlist the sympathy also of my colleagues in the War Office and the Admiralty, and I hope that some hundreds of boys may be absorbed by those Services, possibly in the Royal Engineers and possibly also as wireless telegraph operators to a larger extent than now upon our ships. It is not contemplated that they shall be transferred in the ordinary way to the rank and file of the Army or Navy, but there are special posts which might suit the boys themselves, and, if so, I desire that they should be given an opportunity of obtaining them. In these ways we hope that we may be able to increase by 50 per cent. the number of posts provided for the boys in Government employment. There will remain, however, still a considerable margin unprovided for, and into that aspect of the case the Committee is prosecuting its researches with great industry. There are already in the various large towns and in some of the smaller towns excellent institutes provided by the Post Office for the use of boy messengers. They are partly of a recreative character and partly educational and with great devotion are voluntarily managed by senior officers of the staff. Many boys, with the assistance of these institutes, are now able to find employment in outside occupations, but I am afraid that many of the posts given to them are not posts which have any prospect of permanency. Boys also are now encouraged to attend local continuation schools, and half of the fees of those schools are paid by the institutes. Along similar lines I hope that further development may take place, and that boys may more and more be made to fit themselves for outside employment if it is found impossible to absorb them all in the Post Office. But the
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  Committee are here again giving their close attention to the possibility of keeping a certain proportion of the boys to a somewhat higher age, and enabling them to do other work in the Post Office in the meanwhile. All these plans will take time to develop, and to reach their full effect, and I should like to make clear to-day that parents should not assume from what has been said that in the future we can guarantee a permanent career for all boys who enter the Post Office service. But I do feel very strongly that the Department should not rest content until they are able to secure that every boy of good character and physique who enters their service should be secured an opportunity either in the Government service or out of it, of obtaining permanent and useful employment. Towards that end we are now actively working.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May I ask will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the arrangement under which half the places in the Post Office are reserved for ex-soldiers and sailors is a matter which would be considered by the Committee that had been appointed?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No, it is not within the reference to the Committee. It is a matter of general policy, and not of Departmental policy, and for the reasons that I have already expressed the Government do not see their way to terminate an arrangement which I am sure is of the greatest possible benefit to large numbers of men who have rendered valuable services to their country in the Army and Navy. Very many plans on other subjects are now being developed in this busy Department which are not, however, ripe to be laid before Parliament. All of them are inspired by those two sentiments which must always animate a Postmaster-General, a desire to maintain and develop for the public a cheap and efficient service, and to secure for the staff healthy and just conditions of employment.
  Mr. STAVELEY-HILL: Whatever criticism one may have to pass on certain portions of the administration of the Post Office, I am quite certain that all who have listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate its interesting character and its lucidity. Those Members of the Committee who were in the last Parliament will remember that ever since 1907, the date of the publication of the Hobhouse Report, on the discussion of the Post Office Estimates, we have dealt with that Report more or less in detail. It

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  is not my intention to-day to deal in detail with that Report, nor to give illustrations of the prices of commodities and of food in various towns as examples of how hardly that Report works out. Those who have given to me their views represent not one class of the Post Office Service, but the whole class, and they do not desire in any way to criticise the Hob-house Report itself. They have to abide by that; and, though they may not like it, they are compelled to abide by it. But what they say is, and what I venture to point out to the Committee, that it is not the effect of the Report, but the interpretation which is being given to it by the Post Office which they do not like, and which, I venture to suggest, does not correspond with the meaning that was put upon the Report. Prior to the Report of the. Hobhouse Commission the salaries of postal clerks were fixed on the volume of work. The Committee recommended this, plus the cost of living, and many offices have been left without any increase, and in some cases they have been actually reduced. Prior also to the Report of that Committee the postmen's wages were fixed by cost of living, and the Committee recommended the unit of work as well, and yet 900 offices have been reduced. When one looks at the Report of the Committee one cannot but come to the conclusion that there has been some misinterpretation by the Post Office in their reading of the recommendations of the Committee.
  In paragraph 258 the Committee say: "They have very carefully considered the evidence tendered to them by Mr. Wilson Fox, of the Board of Trade, in explanation of the inquiry by that Department into the rents of working-class dwellings and the prices of commodities and rates of wages in seventy-one towns. They are of opinion that it is both desirable and possible to have a satisfactory classification of the various towns and districts in the United Kingdom for the purpose of assigning to each its proper standard of wages. They recommend that any resulting classification by the Post Office should be based upon the volume of work as ascertained by them, plus the cost of living in the locality as a whole, as ascertained by the Board of Trade." That is a paragraph to which I would draw attention as not having been properly carried out. Had it been properly carried out then the salaries would have been graded in an equitable
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  way, and the salaries would have been increased in all departments, except Class 1, which was not recommended for a rise in salary. What is the result at the present time of this interpretation? It is more or less chaos. Sorting clerks and postmen are entered in different classes in their respective wage scale, although the Committee recommend that they should be in corresponding classes; and also, as between adjoining towns, there are disparaties, and in a few cases—I believe this is not common—there are disparaties of 9s. per week in Belfast and places adjoining Belfast, whilst a difference of Vs. or 5s. is common in Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. The paragraph which I have read to the Committee says that wages shall be based on the volume of work, plus the cost of living in each locality as a whole. Had that been carried out, the wages of every postal and telegraphic official would be higher. The Post Office have avoided that by not paying any attention to the word "plus," but have altered it to "modified." In proof of that, I refer to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who then occupied the position of Postmaster-General, on 16th July, 1908. In that speech he said:—
  "Classification should depend on two elements—first on the units of work: and. secondly, that Visit should be where necessary, modified by the cost of living."
  The Post Office could not carry out this interpretation, and the Postmaster-General had perforce to grant a somewhat different classification, otherwise the wages of almost the whole of them would have been reduced. When I looked to see what was the intention of the Committee on the one side, and the result of its interpretation by the Postmaster-General on the other, I examined speeches made in this House by some Members of the Committee. Five of them, two no longer in the House, and three still here, who made speeches last year or before on this very subject, showed quite clearly that their intention was to raise the wages generally. No Member of the Committee ever raised any dissentient voice. But the Department have acted, I suggest, contrary to what was intended by Members who were parties to the Report in reference to adding the cost of living in each locality as a whole, and they have also largely ignored the recommendation concerning the unit of work. The Department, I think, does not give sufficient credit for work in sub-offices. In many towns, such as Stoke-on-Trent, Teignmouth, and other places, the

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  sub-offices do more work than the head office does. Had their work been brought into computation then the wages must have increased in each case. The Post Office in computing the units of work not only ignored the volume of work done by the sub-offices, but where there was a possibility of doing so that volume has been artificially reduced. There are places like Crewe, Stafford, Rugby, and other great railway centres where hundreds of men are employed, both indoors and out of doors, on thousands of bags of correspondence, but no credit is given in respect of that work. In the Telegraph Department there are many thousands of service telegrams. Departmental telegrams are not reckoned as of any value, although the Committee will see that they cause as much work and give as much trouble as any form of departmental duty. I have endeavoured as shortly as I can, and without going into any unnecessary details, to show the Committee how, in my humble judgment, and that of many in the Post Office, this Report of the Hobhouse Committee has not been interpreted in the proper spirit. I have put down a Motion for a reduction of the Vote in the hope that I shall get from the right hon. Gentleman or the Assistant Postmaster-General a sympathetic answer, but I have no desire to take up the time of the Committee or to put it to the trouble of a Division. It is in the sincere hope that these difficulties to which I have referred and these injustices to a large number of persons may be dealt with that I have ventured to bring them to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. THOMAS WILES: I think Members on both sides of the House will congratulate the Postmaster-General and his immediate predecessor on the commercial and financial success of last year's work in the Post Office. I think we should all congratulate him on the improvements he has made in efficiency, for many of us have given him, perhaps, a good deal of trouble in bringing to his attention the various grievances that must necessarily arise in such an enormous Department as that which is under his control. Before I refer to some grievances I should like to make a little suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman with reference to the selling of stamps. Many Members of the House and others often buy their stamps in shilling, two-shilling, and half-crown books, and upon each book there is a small charge. From the business point of view I would suggest to the Post Office that they should
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  have shilling, half-crown, and five-shilling books, and not charge anything for the book. I think it could be made to pay with advertisements in the book, and in which could be put postal information. I am sure, besides, that a number of the stamps sold in that way would never be used. I am certain that it is the experience of railway companies, in reference to return tickets, that it is best to sell them cheaply because so many return halves are lost. If my right hon. Friend would consider my proposal I believe he will find that it will be really a convenience to the public and also prove a paying system to the Post Office. I should also like to thank my right hon. Friend for the way in which he dealt a few weeks ago with a number of men who were discharged from the gutta-percha works. I believe those works are almost closed, because of some other invention which renders the use of gutta-percha no longer necessary. Men have been engaged in those works for many years, some of them twenty-five or thirty years, and they have not been on the established staff. I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for having found places for these men in other branches of his Department.
  Last year I referred to the question of Sunday delivery in the country. It seems to me that where great towns in England —London, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, and thirty or forty other large towns of the United Kingdom—do without a Sunday delivery of letters, it would be perfectly easy, and hardly any inconvenience would be felt if the Postmaster-General could see his way to giving a free Sunday to postmen all over the country. In rural districts the postman has often on a Sunday morning to go perhaps two or three miles to deliver a single circular or some communication in a halfpenny wrapper, perhaps a prospectus about a rubber company or something from a money-lender, or may be an account rendered. I feel that if great towns can do without a Sunday delivery, the Postmaster-General might—as the Home Secretary has done in giving one day's rest to the police—see his way to giving rest on Sunday to postmen in the country. Last year, when I mentioned this on the Postal Estimates, the President of the Board of Trade, who was then Postmaster-General, did reduce by half an hour the time during which post offices in the country are open on Sunday mornings. The hours used to be from eight o'clock to ten o'clock, and the right hon.

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  Gentleman altered that time from 8.30 to ten o'clock in the morning. I think postmasters in the country would rather get up earlier, and that the office should be closed at 9.30 in the morning, and I think if the right hon. Gentleman could reduce the time of opening by another half hour the reduced time would be found adequate for the sending of telegrams and the transactions of a little extra post office business on the Sunday mornings. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will give his consideration to the question of Sunday deliveries and also the case of the postmasters in the country as to Sunday opening. I desire also to bring under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the question of sub-postmasters. Under the Hobhouse Committee's Report a new system of paying the sub-postmasters was adopted. I think there are something like 22,000 sub-postmasters in the country. The new system proposed to give them all an advantage, but while it gave an advantage to 19,000 sub-postmasters to the other 3,000 it was a disadvantage. I can give the right hon. Gentleman one or two cases. There is one case in the country where the sub-postmaster is in, receipt of £320 a year gross, out of which he is paying for the services of three assistants and £75 a year for rent, rates and taxes, besides devoting the whole of his time to the Post Office service. If he had remained under the old scale his remuneration would have continued to increase according to the growth of the business of his office, while under the new unit scale he gets no increase of pay until the work of his office has grown by more than 50 per cent. This means that as the work of the office increases the sub-postmaster has to provide more and more assistance, so that personally as his work grows he gets less and less for his own services. There is a case in London where the amount paid is £494, out of which the sub-postmaster has to pay the wages of six assistants. The office occupies highly rented premises in the West End of London, and before any increase can be obtained under the new scale the work of the office must have grown by 84 per cent. There are two or three thousand of these cases affected by the Hobhouse Committee's scheme. I think some method or system might be found Ly which the sub-postmaster's assistants could be dealt with.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: What is their time?
  Mr. WILES: They are full-time assistants. I can give the names of the offices. I think perhaps in the case of these sub-postmasters the system might be revised, or they might have the option of going back to the old scale. If they had the option of going back to the old scale it would be better for them than is the case under the recommendation of the Hobhouse Committee. Therefore I suggest to the Postmaster-General that these officers should be afforded an opportunity of having their case thoroughly reconsidered, because it seems rather hard that 19,000 men should get an advantage, while 3,000 who are in unusual circumstances should derive no advantage whatever from the Hobhouse Committee's scheme. Then I should like to say a word or two about the London telegraphists. It will be remembered that in 1881 and up to 1890 an advertisement was issued to London telegraphists informing them that they might enter the Post Office service with the hope of receiving a salary that would rise to a maximum of £190 a year. The advertisement set forth the general conditions of service, and it concluded with these words: "With the prospect of attaining to £190 a year." After 1890 this advertisement was withdrawn, so that no more men entered the telegraph service with that prospect put before them; but the men who entered the service in consequence of the advertisement which appeared from 1881 to 1890, are still there, but they have not attained to the maximum which was promised, and they rightly regard that as a breach of faith by the Department. The advertisement induced them to enter the service in the hope and belief that they would receive the maximum, but the highest amount which any of them has attained to is £169 10s. 10d. per annum. I believe that is the highest amount paid. This question has been brought up many times. My hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General, I believe, brought it forward; it was before the Tweedmouth Committee in 1895, and before the Norfolk-Hanbury Conference in 1897. The Committee appointed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), who was Postmaster-General, also had the question before it, and it was brought up in the time of Lord Stanley, who was Postmaster-General. The claim was ignored,

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  and the Tweedmouth and Norfolk-Hanbury Committees expressed the view that £160 a year was sufficient remuneration for a telegraphist.
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  It seems to me that those men who entered the service under that advertisement should be considered. It may be said that they can rise to a higher class, but I think the Postmaster-General will find in connection with the telegraph department, that between 1880 and 1890, when that advertisement was in force, no man ever reached a higher class. There is a senior man in the department forty-five years of age who has been there nearly thirty years, and he is 120th on the promotion list. There have been, during last year, only five telegraphists raised to the higher standard in the Central Telegraph Office. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us what the prospects really are of the London telegraphists, and if he will extend the advantages promised by the advertisement, to which I have referred, I am sure that the London telegraphists will look upon him as having solved a great problem.
  I desire to draw his attention to another class, and that is the large number of un-established men in the stores department, the engineering department, and the factories. It has often been boasted that the Government should be model employers. May I say that they are not yet model employers as far as those departments are concerned. I think there are nearly 4,000 men in the engineering department, many of them there for years upon years, and yet they never can get on to the establishment. I suggest that a model employer would place those men on the establishment. They are regular workers, and are spending the best years of their lives in working in those departments. They should have the advantage, which practically every other department in the Post Office has, of being placed on the establishment. There is another class which I have spoken about previously in these Debates, and a class which I think has the strongest claim of any of the classes for revision, because somehow they have always been overlooked. I refer to the postal porters. They are a class of men employed only in London to the number of about 1,200, with the addition of a few who go with the mail vans to different parts of the country. This class of worker has not had his maximum raised since 1882, nearly thirty years ago, when he got an increase from 27s. to 30s. It is quite true that at the Hobhouse
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  Committee these men put their case, and very excellently, before the Committee, and they got their minimum raised. But the older men have but little to hope for. They have few chances of getting into a higher grade, and for thirty years, unlike any other department, they have not had their maximum touched. They are men who have to live near their work in zone I, where rent has increased and rates since 1882, while the requirements of living a decent. civilised life are far greater than then.
  In addition, the duties they have to perform now are far heavier than they were before. Originally, they only transferred mails in bulk from one place to another— and a very dirty job I can assure my right hon. Friend, because the mailbags are still dirty, although carried by motor cars and trains. They have also more responsible and intelligent work, such as sorting and stamping, and from time to time they have a large amount of money and very valuable merchandise in their charge. They receive no Christmas boxes, and they get no share of the Christmas boxes which are given to other classes. Time after time these men have memorialised, in a respectful and proper way to the Postmaster-General. I trust that the Postmaster-General may see his way to give these men a better chance. Another matter I may mention is that the postmen in five of the London offices, under the Hobhouse Reports, were unfortunate enough, through the zone system, to get their maximum reduced. There are five or six of those offices in the South-Eastern part of London, where the maximum has gone down from 34s. to 32s., and from 32s. to 30s. I think it is time, perhaps, that the right hon. Gentleman should reconsider that zone system and have a fresh map made, and ascertain through the Board of Trade the cost of living in the different districts. I hope, if possible, he may be able to remedy the grievances of those men who happen to live or work in those unfortunate places. I ask his attention to the various matters I have mentioned and trust that he may during his term of office give the postmen one day's rest in seven by doing away with the Sunday delivery.
  Mr. HENNIKER HEATON: During the last quarter of a century I have had a good many dealings with the British Post Office, and after the speech of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General I say it is just as parochial as it was twenty-five

  531
  years ago. In the year 1898 a great conference was held in London to promote the establishment of Imperial penny postage. It sat for three weeks, and for twenty-one days the then Postmaster-General strongly opposed the proposal. To-day we have the great happiness of having in these Debates the then Postmaster-General of Canada who proposed Imperial penny postage. It is curious, after listening to the right hon. Gentleman stating that he could not afford penny postage to France, to remember what occurred in 1898. The then Postmaster-General, after saying they could not afford imperial penny postage, put up the Secretary to the Post Office to agree to two penny postage, but on the twenty-first day the Postmaster-General, to the horror of those who were opposed to the proposal, voted for Imperial penny postage, after getting all the delegates from the Post Office to speak against it in the strongest possible manner and endeavouring to influence delegates from the Colonies against it. In view of that instance where the Government ordered the Postmaster-General to vote for Imperial penny postage, I do not despair of our able and new Postmaster-General taking up a different line within a year. In my experience all the declarations of the Postmasters-General against great reforms have always ended in the Postmasters-General giving in. What are the facts to-day 1 A few months ago, led by the Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Sassoon), we waited on the Postmaster-General and asked him to establish penny postage in France. He said he was favourable but he had not the money. I gave him evidence that the French Government were in favour of it. The Postmaster-General visited France and the Postmaster-General of France with great courtesy told my right hon. Friend that he was against penny postage and, falling in with his views, said he could not afford it.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: That is not at all what happened.
  Mr. HENNIKER HEATON: It is what was described but I can tell him that the Members of the French Government are entirely in favour of penny postage. I informed the Postmaster-General that if he would allow me to go over to France I would bring him back the consent of that Government to penny postage in forty-eight hours. The right hon. Gentleman
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  said "No" to that, but that the replies would be very interesting. The Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Sassoon), a great financier, came forward to help us, and put forward a scheme for the supply of the money for carrying out penny postage to France. What answer has the right hon. Gentleman to give to that? Why did he not receive that offer? If the right hon. Gentleman really intends to establish a penny postage with France we can put a scheme before him which will cost him nothing. What occurred in the case of America? I desired to get penny postage to America. I was told through the officials that the American Government did not want it. I went over to America and got the consent of the Government there, but it was only by getting large, monetary securities and guarantees that the English Government agreed to penny postage to America. I have got the whole of the correspondence and letters on that matter, and they are extraordinarily interesting. I do implore the right hon. Gentleman to appoint a small committee of financial gentlemen, led by the hon. Member for Hythe, to provide the necessary capital to meet any cost, although it is expected that that would disappear in three years. The right hon. Gentleman says there are fifteen million letters going to France every year. But what is that in the three thousand million letters we deal with annually, or what is that compared with the increase during the last ten year of one hundred million letters annually. The fifteen million letters sent to France are but a drop in the ocean.
  What is the state of matters to-day? A more ridiculous condition of affairs does not exist on the face of the earth. There is a distance of twenty-one miles between Dover and Calais, with 40,000,000 people desiring to correspond, but the postage is 2½d., and the Postmaster-General will not raise a finger in the endeavour to make the communication as cheap as it is to America. The French Government themselves have established an Imperial penny postage, as they send letters to the Society Islands, a distance of 12,000 miles, for a penny. We send letters to Australia, also 12,000 miles, for a penny. The two countries march side by side in this respect, and yet for a distance of twenty-one miles they decline to make this arrangement. Here is another ridiculous state of affairs, showing how parochial the Postmaster-General is. The day before yesterday a ship arrived at Southampton from America with 100,000 letters

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  for Berlin, and a few thousand letters were put on at Southampton also for Berlin, but the latter had to pay 2½d. New Zealand is a specially advanced Colony, which is very popular in this country. It is a small Colony, with a million people and a small revenue, and yet New Zealand has established universal penny postage with all the nations of the earth. To-day you pay a penny in New Zealand to send a letter to Italy. From here the postage is 2½d. It is a disgrace to us. From New Zealand to Servia the postage is a penny; from here it is 2½d. The arguments in favour of penny postage with France are overwhelming. If my right hon. Friend is not satisfied that the French Government will accede to his request and reciprocate, he can still arrange to send letters to France for a penny, as we do to Australia, although the return letters are charged twopence. If the Postmaster-General wishes to earn renown in his office by establishing penny postage with France, he can do it to-morrow. The Postmaster-General of Canada had a l½d. postage from Canada to the United States, while it was a penny from the United States to Canada. He came here and moved, in the face of the opposition of England, a resolution in favour of penny postage for the British Empire; it was consented to by the Cape of Good Hope, and carried. The Postmaster-General obeyed his officials. In that he did what most politicians ought to do. The officials of this country are the highest-minded and most honorable men I ever met, but they are slow and very difficult to move. Their progres sometimes is not so fast as the public desire. I ask my friends not to abandon hope. I have no doubt the hon. Member for Hythe will call us together to see the Postmaster-General and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to get over the money difficulty—which can be got over in a month, if only the right hon. Gentleman will give us power to arrange the matter. I have just spent three weeks in France, and I am assured that the French Government will be agreeable. If, instead of saying he is interested in what the French Government do the Postmaster-General will trust me to convey the message that he is favourable, and that he will agree if we can get over the opposition of the French Government I am assured that the matter can be arranged.
  There are a few minor matters to which I wish to refer. We shall never be a great Empire until we can communicate by tele-
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  graph as cheaply with New Zealand as we can with Ireland. If the Postmaster-General desires to serve his country, he will look at the facts and figures which I can place before him, and set to work to reduce the cost of cable communication with every part of the British Empire. I can send a telegram to Australia (8,000 miles) at sixteen words for a shilling; but from here to India—not more than 4,000 miles—the charge is 2s. a word; that is, 32s., for what can be done, in the case of Australia, for a shilling. Land cables can be constructed at a fifth of the cost of submarine cables, and if the right hon. Gentleman would arrange with foreign Governments, he would be able to communicate with India at an enormous reduction on the present rate. Will the right hon. Gentleman appoint a Committee of business men to see what can be done to reduce telegraph rates to the Continent to Id. a word, and to reduce considerably the rate to India? The present rates are for the millionaire; we want the telegraph throughout the world to be for the million. I can live only for about seventy years, and it takes three months to write to Australia and receive a reply. That is too long a period for my time of life. If the rates were only fair I could telegraph to Australia and get a reply in three hours. By taking up the question of telegraphic as well as postal communication and dealing with the matter properly my right hon. Friend would redeem himself from the charge of being a parochial Postmaster-General, and become an Imperial Postmaster-General.
  Reference has been made to the Sunday delivery of letters. A great many people want a Sunday delivery in London. I am not in favour of making the Sunday delivery general, but for special letters on matters of life and death or other matters of importance an express threepenny delivery in London, with a special stamp for such delivery, would enormously increase the revenue and be greatly appreciated by the public. It is not generally known that we have a Sunday delivery in London, although not as cheap as I suggest. A person in any part of England, by paying from 6d. to Is. 6d., according to the part of London to which the letter is addressed, can now ensure delivery on Sunday. I suggest, however, that a Sunday delivery at the rate of 3d. per letter would be very acceptable to the people. Another point is with reference to postcards. This is the only country in the world where postcards

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  are not sold at their face value. At Gibraltar the other day I bought a halfpenny postcard for a halfpenny. The Post Office sell the penny postcards for a penny; but why do they wring pence from the poor by charging three farthings for halfpenny postcards? Ours is the greatest Post Office in the world, but it is undoubtedly the meanest. If a trader brings a million postcards and asks, "Will you stamp them at a halfpenny each?" the reply is, "Oh, no; I must make a charge for stamping them." That is the regulation. If my right hon. Friend will consent to sell halfpenny postcards at their face value he will earn the gratitude of millions of poor people. Further, this is the only country in the world that has not a Government printing office. Why do not the Government have in connection with the General Post Office a great printing office to print their stamps and do work of that kind? In consequence of their not having such an office the Post Office pay much more for their postage stamps than any other country. An enormous sum of money would be saved by the establishment of a Government printing office. The first Committee On which I sat when I entered Parliament was one to inquire into certain printing contracts, and within a fortnight the contractors said they would take £40,000 a year off their contracts. That is the state of matters. Anyone can go and test the figures in the Library. They took £40,000 a year less for their printing of the stamps. Facts like that from an eminent firm ought to arouse the attention of the Postmaster-General to the necessity for establishing a Government printing office. Let me touch upon another matter which is a great annoyance. The first clause, I think, in the Postmaster-General's law is that "he shall not be responsible for any robbery or any loss by the public due to a blunder or mistake made by his subordinates." If Carter, Paterson and Company did that sort of thing the general public would drop them in a week. I have the case of a gentleman who, on 1st June, posted a letter in which was enclosed 5s. worth of postage stamps. These were found in the possession of the postman, who was arrested for stealing the letter. The reply of the Postmaster-General to the gentleman, who wanted his 5s. back, was that, although the Postmaster-General regretted to say that there was evidently little doubt that the missing postage
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  stamps were stolen by the postman in question, still, as the writer would be aware, in respect of the loss of any postal packets the Postmaster-General was protected by law against any liability. The Postmaster-General expressed himself sorry for the loss sustained by the writer, but concluded that he was precluded from giving any compensation. I do not know how to characterise a thing of that kind. The Postmaster-General had found that the postal stamps had been taken, but pleaded that under the law he was not responsible. There was another case of a letter-telegram sent to a ship at Rangoon, in connection with a ship's coaling transaction, and by a mistake £3,000 loss was sustained. The parties concerned sued one another. The Postmaster-General and his legal adviser were present in court, and explained that they had nothing whatever to do with the matter. "Certainly," said the Postmaster-General, "my office has blundered, but here is the law protecting me." Just imagine a thing of that sort! I think something ought to be done in a case like this, some protection given to the public, and the Post Office made responsible like common carriers for goods lost by postmen.
  There is a little thing here. It is incredible that the Post Office should be so mean, but they issue a reply-telegram form which is only available for two months. You have to pay 6d. for it, or 2s. whichever the case may be. If you do not use that reply-telegram within the two months it is useless, the money is confiscated, and the person concerned has no redress. I have had hundreds sent to me. These reply-telegrams ought to be made available not for two months only, but for a year. For years we fought for postal orders. These are not cashed now after a certain time except by the payment of an extra additional rate. I think in five years a postal order exhausts itself. After a hard fight the Postmaster-General agreed to issue these postal orders. One other matter which interests some thousands of people, and that is the parcels rates that exist between this country and the Colonies. Here is another instance of the small parochial spirit. For years there was not a man at the Post Office who had seen any country but France. We never had a commercial man in the Post Office in those years; perhaps now there is one! Some time ago I asked the Postmaster-General
  "whether he was aware that parcels sent by parcel post from this country to Germany and Denmark cost, for carriage 2s., whilst similar parcels from Germany

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  and Denmark to this country cost only ls.5d., whether he was aware that from Switzerland, in the centre of. Europe, a parcel to Norway costs 1s. 5d., whilst a similar parcel from this country to Norway costs Is., or nearly 50 per cent. More; whether he was aware that a parcel from Switzerland to this country costs Is. 10d., and vice versa 2s. 6d.; whether the latest agreement with Japan provides for a cost of 4s., where Germany only pays 2s. 7d.: whether he was aware that German postal rates for parcels to seventeen European countries are only half of the average cost from this country?"
  These are facts or they are not facts. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that they were facts, and then made the usual extremely dexterous answer which rendered the matter useless to meet. There is not a great merchant in the City but has written hundreds of letters and appealed in vain for a change.
  These are only a few matters, but they are a few which irritate the people, and they justify what I have just said of this greatest and meanest Post Office in the world. It is only fair for me to add that we have made great efforts, and that we are the most honourable Post Office in the world. We have officials of high standing and great honour, and there is less dishonesty in our Post Office than in any other. Another matter I should like to refer to is that I should like to see the small books of stamps sold, as in Switzerland, at their face value. There is just one other little comfort that travellers might be given, and which I find in every other country except our own. If the Postmaster-General will grant what I ask he will confer a great favour upon the travelling public. That is to put letter-boxes on regular through trains. Under this arrangement there could be letter-carriers at the various stations who could empty the boxes when the trains arrive. At present, if one wants to send a parcel off quickly, one has to rush to a railway station, pay 2d. or 3d. extra, then it has to be sent on by the guard. Let me conclude by saying that I am very grateful to the House for their indulgence to me and for all their kindness to me for the last twenty-five years. This is the last speech that I will make within these walls.
  Dr. ADDISON: I would like to associate myself with what the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Islington (Mr. Wiles) has said in recognising the most sympathetic manner in which the Postmaster-General has dealt with the matters which have come before him in his Department. I should like also to associate myself with one or two matters mentioned by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South
  538
  Islington referred to the postmen who in many districts have to go many miles to deliver a few letters on Sunday. I cannot but think that, seeing there are many of us who manage to dispense with our letters on the Sunday, the people in these country districts can do the same. I am sure it will be a very great boon to those who have to tramp many miles in the country districts on the Sundays; I believe myself that such delivery is quite unnecessary. In regard to the post cards it will be a very great convenience if they can be sold at their face value. However, the matters which I should like to bring to the attention of the Postmaster-General are two. Before I come to them I should like, on behalf of some of the postal employés at Mount Pleasant, to express thanks to the Postmaster-General for the very sympathetic attention which he gave some time ago to the representations which were made on their behalf, and which have resulted in the removal of some of their grievences. I feel sure that in the matters I now mention that they will receive the same sympathetic attention. My friend the hon. Member for South Islington referred to the condition of the postal porters in the London area. I would like also to add a word on their behalf. I have a large number of these men living in my Constituency, and perhaps it is for that reason that one is more particularly familiar with their state. In 1882 their wages were fixed at the maximum of 30s. per week. That is a long time since. The work of these men altered to a very considerable extent from that time until the sitting of the Hobhouse Committee. There are many respects in which I think they can fairly claim to be regarded as more skilled officers than they were looked upon when their wages were fixed at 30s. The point which I should like to impress upon the Postmaster-General is that he would allow these men to come before him as a deputation to state their case in regard to the maximum wage. It is alleged—and I myself, although I have read the Hob-house Report on the matter, am not able to express any definite opinion—that their case in regard to the change in duties as affecting the maximum wage was not as fully put before the Committee as they think it deserved to be. There are certain matters which concern the point which seem to some extent to warrant their statements. Before I refer to that I would like to point out that these men have to live in the central London area, and 30s.

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  per week is the most they can ever hope to receive. The lady telephonists, for instance, have as a maximum, and they are unmarried, 28s. per week. These men are mostly the fathers of families with considerable responsibilities resting upon them, and I think they have certainly a very great claim. When their maximum was fixed at 30s. per week they were not, for instance, allowed to handle loose correspondence—they only dealt with closed newspaper vans, and so on. Their cleaning work is now taken by unestablished men who receive 24s. a week, and the fact that these cleaning duties are taken away indicates that more responsible work is now being done by those men. I press upon the Postmaster-General the desirability of receiving these men in deputation, and of letting them state their own case. On 19th December, 1907, a deputation from these men was received by the late Postmaster-General, but, unfortunately, there was some misapprehension as to the preliminary correspondence, because he did not find himself able to discuss with the deputation matters of the alteration of the maximum wage. I should be very glad if the Postmaster-General would consent to receive a deputation of the men upon this specific question. With regard to the cost of living, I see by a report on wholesale and retail prices that in 1882 prices were higher than for many years after, but if you look at the index of prices for the last ten years, as given by Mr. Salvey, you will see that in 1897 the index of prices as compared with the standard of 100 was of 80.5, and in 1907 it was 103.9. That is to say, the cost of the living of these men has materially increased; it has increased by over 20 per cent. during the last twelve years; and we know, of course, that as these figures only reached to the year 1907 there has been a very considerable increase in the cost of food since then— larger than even during the last twelve years. I have a statement from the family of a man employed as a postal porter, in which he gives, so far as it could be ascertained by the help of his wife, the increase in prices in certain commodities during the last four or five years. I need not read them to the House, but we all know that bread and beef and bacon and sugar, unfortunately, and many other articles, have increased in price.
  Moreover, these men have to live in a somewhat limited area, and we are told that the more satisfactory dwellings, with
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  certain exceptions, are beyond this area, and in this limited area they have very often to put up with very unsatisfactory dwellings. We hope to see a great improvement in that respect, but nevertheless the rents of these dwellings within the limited area have certainly increased at least Is. a week. I think, therefore, that the increase in the cost of living and the increased duties which these men have to perform fully warrant an alteration in their case. They are engaged in distinctly responsible duties, yet they have nothing more to look for than 30s. a week. I think their case wants reviewing, and I earnestly ask the Postmaster-General to receive a deputation of the men upon these specific points, and if he can raise their maximum salary it will be all the better.
  There is one other matter, appertaining to drivers and mailmen employed by contractors, to which I should like to refer. I really think, from a very intimate knowledge of these men, that there is no class of labourers in London that works under more disadvantageous conditions than carmen. They have to leave their homes very early, and they do not get back again until late at night. And, indeed, that is why some of us would like an extension of the polling hours on polling days. I know in my own division there are some 600 carmen, and more than 400 of them could nor, possibly get home in time to vote, and that is a very serious fact, and shows that they have long hours of labour. There are many casual men taken on at certain times in the day by the mail-van contractors, and these men have to go and wait about to look after jobs, and when they get a job I am sorry to say that certain contractors employ them at only 4d. an hour. That is a wage with which the Postmaster-General, I am quite sure, if he looks into the matter, will be very much dissatisfied, and although it does not come directly within the supervision of the Postmaster-General, nevertheless it deserves close investigation.
  As a matter of fact I had investigated this morning the actual condition of one of the men employed in these circumstances. I will give one specific case, which is often more illuminating than a very large number of figures. The particular man whose case I take—I do not give his name and address to the House, but I will give them to the Postmaster-General if he wishes— was employed for twenty-seven years by a large firm of contractors, but as the staff was being reduced he was dispensed with, I suppose because of his age. He then

  541
  became an odd man with a firm of contractors for mail drivers to the Post Office, and he receives when he gets a job 4d. per hour. The other day he got the sack, unfortunately, because of some accident to a horse. This man has a wife and seven children, of whom one boy earns 10s. a week on a van. He is evidently entering upon the same miserable work as his father. This man has six children, therefore, under fourteen, and the mother is in bed with a baby aged five days. This particular case was investigated this morning because one of the children required a pair of spectacles. Here is an interesting revelation of family history arising in connection with the examination of school children. This particular child had been ordered spectacles three years ago at a cost of 2s. 9d., but the 2s. 9d. proved a deterrent, and in consequence of not being able to afford the 2s. 9d. the child had to go without spectacles for three years. This is a family depending upon Government employment of a casual kind. All they have apart from what the man can earn is the wage of this boy who gets 10s. a week. I feel very strongly that a thorough consideration by a competent Committee of this whole question would certainly devise a more satisfactory arrangement than that. I hop 3, seeing the great competency of the Post Office in many departments, that the time is not far distant when they will employ their own drivers, and not give the work to outside contractors. I am satisfied, seeing the sympathetic attention which the Postmaster-General has given to other cases, he will give the same to this. I commend, therefore, to the right hon. Gentleman's notice these two cases—the men working for contractors and the case of the porters, and I ask him to receive a deputation from the latter, and if he does so, I am sure he will give their case sympathetic consideration.
  Sir EDWARD SASSOON: I cordially agree with what has been said by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, as regards the somewhat unsatisfactory condition of the mail drivers and carmen. I know, in my own Constituency, several complaints have been made which it has been my duty to bring to the attention of the Post Office from time to time. But I must confess that those complaints have been very favourably considered, and most of the grievances under which those people suffered have now, I understand, been very largely mitigated if not altogether removed. I venture to join in the expressions that have fallen from speakers
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  on both sides of the House as to the lucid clearness and businesslike precision of the statement made to the Committee by the Postmaster-General, and therefore, although I have been delinquent enough to put down a Motion for the reduction of his salary by £100, I can assure him I am not animated with feelings of the slightest hostility towards him, nor do I fail to appreciate the very good and effective work which his Department has done since he has succeeded to it. I also appreciate the fact that he has succeeded to a position the labours and the duties of which are of great magnitude and complexity, and are increasing every day, and I am the last person in the world to be at all captious or fault-finding with the right hon. Gentleman. I should like, in passing, to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has looked into the matter of the despatch of mails from here to France by the circuitous route of Dover and Calais, instead of the natural and proper and shortest route of Folkestone to Boulogne? No doubt the hon. Gentleman the Assistant Postmaster-General (Captain Norton) will be able to throw some light upon this rather important matter.
  I was interested to observe the curious way in which the estimates of possible loss consequent upon the reduction of postal rates increase when made by officials of the Post Office. I remember last year, when I had the honour of introducing a deputation to the Prime Minister upon this subject, he assured us that the possible initial loss would at the outset be £82,000, then it was increased from £82,000 to £85,000, and this afternoon the right hon. Gentleman told us that the total loss would be £95,000, so these losses grow like mushrooms. I do not understand on what basis these estimates are made.
  There is another rather important point, and that is in regard to the recommendation made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) last year. He advocated the establishment of a Departmental board to which would be remitted all grievances and all the different matters that require remedy on the part of the staff of the Post Office. I think that is a most excellent suggestion, because it would remove all those invidious complaints that are made to Members of this House, and which they themselves are unable to remedy, and it would considerably lighten the work of the responsible Ministers of this House.

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  6.0 P.M.
  I would like to know whether any effect has been given to the recommendations of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire with regard to the appointment of a Departmental Board. As to the reduction of the postal rate to France, the Postmaster-General used the usual stereotyped objection to the granting of that reform. He said there would be financial difficulties of an insuperable character, and he also told us that if we gave that concession to France it would be impossible to withhold it from Germany, Belgium, and Holland. We have not yet heard that those other countries have moved in the matter at all, and when they do ask for it that will be the time to consider it. Germany, Belgium, and Holland are able to confront a possible loss on postal reductions, and surely this country is sufficiently imbued with the advantages of an extension of postal facilities to afford some loss for a small number of years. The French Post Office through their Government, have unofficially given us to understand that they will be ready to consider the question of this reduction in a friendly spirit, and they are willing to confer with us as to the ways and means of bringing about this reform. The hon. Member for Canterbury has shown that he is possessed of a superabundance of knowledge on these questions which enables him to jog successive Postmaster-Generals, and he has assisted to bring to fruition some of the most beneficent schemes of postal reform. The hon. Member struck a pathetic note at the end of his speech when he told us that this would be the last time he would be able to address the House upon postal matters. I regret it very much, and I am sure that regret will be shared by a great many other hon. Members. I have seen the Minister of Commerce and the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in France unofficially, and they assured me that the Government would be perfectly willing to grant any possible loss on a postal reduction if they knew the British Post Office would be ready to meet them half-way in the matter.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: When was this?
  Sir E. SASSOON: Three years ago. I know that since then the Budget has attained enormous proportions, and naturally the French Government are going in for economy. Therefore I am not surprised at what the Postmaster-General has
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  told us. I know that in France two Bills-embodying a reduction in the postal rates were tabled in the Chamber of Deputies by an ex-Minister of Commerce and by a very prominent French deputy. These Bills had the countenance and support of the Government of the day, but owing to the cold-water douche thrown upon it by the present President of the Board of Trade both those Bills were withdrawn. It is not encouraging for France to proceed with postal reforms when this country shows no inclination to meet them halfway. It is all very well for the Postmaster-General to raise the objection of there being a financial difficulty, but what are the facts? The Post Office in this country shows a clear revenue to the Treasury of something like £4,000,000 sterling every year. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman, with such a resourceful colleague as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would have been able to extract from the Treasury the necessary sinews of war. There should be no difficulty about this matter in the case of a huge mechanism like the Post Office. It seems to be now a question of wringing more money out of the taxpayers of this country and those who have to resort to the Post Office for the transaction of their business. As to the increase in the emoluments for the service contained in the Estimates, no doubt the worth of the Post Office people is increasing every day, and they are worthy of the increased financial support which the right hon. Gentleman is giving them. But where does the public come in? It has always been an axiom well recognised that where the staff and the service received financial recognition, the general run of the public should also be allowed to participate in the benefits of increased business and the increased revenue produced. I would like the Postmaster-General to remember that this reduction of the French postal rate is not demanded only by a very small knot of people on this side of the House, and if he would look over the list of Members of the last Parliament who have expressed a very decided amount of sympathy with this reform he would be convinced of the extent and scope of the sources from which that sympathy was derived. All I would impress upon the Post Office and the Government is that the inherent obviousness of this claim has gained by recent occurrences which have brought us into friendly intercourse with the French people, and this fact makes the concession

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  of this postal reduction overwhelmingly opportune and necessary. The 80,000,000 of people who inhabit the two countries concerned must regret that a little strip of water a few odd miles wide should be allowed to operate as a bar and hindrance dividing these two peoples, and impeding and handicapping their commercial intercourse. Yet nothing has been done, and nothing appears likely to be done in order to put a stop to this scandalous state of things. In connection with a recent deputation I suggested to the Postmaster-General some means of overcoming the financial difficulties in regard to this reduction. I told the right hon. Gentleman that he might resort to annuities spread over twenty-five years in order not to place any undue burden upon the people who will get the benefit, but also other people, the idea being that the burden should be spread over a certain number of years so that it should not fall upon a short period of two or three years. I think that would be a very practical solution and one which does not offend the canon of any financial law. I know the right hon. Gentleman scouted my proposal at the time, but he seems to forget that this reform would be a very productive affair. Does he not believe that if the postal rate between England and France was reduced that the rate of expansion and productivity in regard to our transactions with France would be so enormous as to enable him to recoup in a very few years any possible loss which might occur? I think it would be found that the loss to the Post Office at first would be infinitesimal. This little burden is vexatious, and a most irksome charge upon those who transact business with the French people. I have had some experience in connection with obtaining reforms of this sort in regard to cables. I know at the time that the companies interested in cables said a reduction of their rates was quite impossible, and hon. Members know what happened. With regard to Imperial penny postage, Sir William Harcourt estimated the loss at £1,000,000 sterling.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Post Office dispute that.
  Sir E. SASSOON: At any rate it was nearer £600,000 than £150,000. The right hon. Gentleman told us to-day that it was £150,000. Consider for a moment the reduction of rates in the United States. It is working all right there, and business is extending by leaps and bounds. I think the Postmaster-General ought to take
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  courage at that result. We do not want any piecemeal reform, and we do not want a reduction of twopence. We know if you reduce the rate by one halfpenny now the whole question would be shelved and burked for a whole generation. I entreat the right hon. Gentleman to leave aside those sinister forebodings, and that sterilising influence which comes over a Minister in the atmosphere of a bureaucrat. I do not believe any difficulty will be found in inducing the Treasury to grant the necessary funds based upon annuities extending over twenty-five years, and in that case the whole trick would be done. The right hon. Gentleman must remember that there is a vast mass of ignorance among the proletariat of both countries, and it is mainly and principally owing tc the fact that the rates of postal communication are so exorbitant to poor people that there is not that amount of communication passing between the two countries there should be. If the Postmaster-General would take this matter in hand and could bring it to a successful issue, he would do an enormous amount of good in producing an era of lasting peace between these two great and enlightened nations.
  Mr. BENTHAM: I associate myself with the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton) in saying that we have the greatest postal system in the world, and I believe there have been a large number of wrongs put right in the postal service; but I believe also that there are more grievances which, if brought to the notice of the Postmaster-General, will eventually be put right. It is with that idea that I wish to draw his attention to one or two matters. Some of my Constituents who are in the Postal Service have had the misfortune to have had their maximum rate of pay— never very enormous—reduced. Before 1st January, 1908, the maximum rate for postmen in the Gainsborough Division was 24s. per week. It is now 23s. per week for the same class of work. I know those who are getting 24s. will continue to do so, but all those to come after will only receive 23s. Nobody likes his salary, or the prospects of his salary, reduced. I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman has ever had his reduced, and I have never had mine reduced; but I am given to understand that it is an exceedingly unpleasant proceeding. These men are picked men. They are bound to be honest and straightforward, and we have to rely on them to a great extent. When they come in at eighteen years of

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  age they get 16s. I do not think there is very much to find fault with there, but when they attain their majority they only get 21s., and they have to look forward to a maximum rate of 23s. per week. Living is dearer than five years ago, and it is rather hard on those who are coming along that they should have their prospective maximum salary made only 23s. per week, whereas previously it was 24s. per week. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will notice these cases—there are many more of them throughout the country—and restore the maximum rate to what it was originally. That would remove a very large amount of discontent, but even then the salary would be extremely moderate.
  The right hon. Gentleman said he had a small Departmental or Medical Commission with regard to the diseases which might occur among telephone workers. Will he be able to circulate that report, or place it on the Table of the House, so that the House may have an opportunity of seeing it? I feel it would be most interesting. Some time in 1911 we propose, I understand, to take over the National Telephone Service. I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would say something about that. It is generally understood we are going to take over this service, but whether we are really going to take it over I very much doubt. It is a matter of very great national importance, and I shall be glad if the right hon. Gentleman will say what he intends to do. I am associated with one of the municipalities which have taken their courage in both hands, and have most successfully instituted a telephone undertaking. The City of Hull, at the direct instigation of the postal authorities, under the Postmaster-Generalship of one who everybody in this House will remember, and will say was one of the greatest Postmasters-General we ever had, Mr. Hanbury, instituted a telephone system to the great benefit of themselves and everybody concerned, saving the city £16,000 a year. It is the best telephone service I have ever had anything to do with, not excepting that of London. We want to be left alone, and we will continue to pay the Postmaster-General a royalty of £2,000, which he never earns, and to which, from one standpoint, he has no right—we are quite willing to pay that hush money if we are only left alone, so that we can continue the beneficent work we have been doing in that city for some years.
  Mr. NEWMAN: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £50 in respect of the salary of the Postmaster-General.
  I do not move to reduce the salary of the Postmaster-General by £50 in any spirit of malice. I have to do it in order to call attention to one or two facts. I hope the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that. I wish to draw attention to certain facts in connection with the placing of contracts for stores for the postal telegraph and telephone services. The Post Office, like the two big sister Services, the Army and Navy, has factories under its direct control. At Mount Pleasant and Holloway there are factories for producing the stores for use in the postal service, and it is the endeavour of the Postmaster-General, as it is of the heads of the other great Departments, to retain sufficient work at those factories to keep the staff permanently employed. It is, I know, also their endeavour to make those factories model employers of labour. That is not always very easy.
  There have recently been deputations, speeches on both sides of the House, and also demonstrations, tending to show that the employés at the Army factories at Enfield and Woolwich do not regard themselves as being treated as they ought to be treated by the State as a model employer of labour. I do not pretend to have the same knowledge of the conditions of employment at Mount Pleasant and Holloway as I have of the conditions at Enfield, but the information I have leads me to believe that the Postmaster-General is a model employer of labour, and that the conditions there are model conditions except in one great and vital particular. Lately the right hon. Gentleman have not been able to retain a sufficient amount of work for the staff employed there, with the inevitable consequence that numbers of men have had to be dismissed. He told us in his opening speech that he is as careful as he can be to send away men who have not been employed there very long; but I have reason to know that a few days ago a man who has served a little over twenty years was dismissed from Mount Pleasant. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Buxton), in 1906, claimed that he had done something more than to make Mount Pleasant a model factory He claimed that as the conditions of labour at Mount Pleasant were model conditions, so the conditions of labour at the factories and workshops against which Mount Pleasant and Holloway were to be asked

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  to compete should also be model conditions, and that before any firm was allowed to obtain a contract the Government should endeavour to secure, as far as possible, that that firm employed labour under the best possible conditions.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that, of course, was a somewhat difficult and onerous task, and in one or two instances he had had to call the attention of firms to which he had given contracts to certain points regarding their treatment of their hands. In one case, at any rate, he directed that a certain firm should be struck off the list of those to be employed by the Post Office altogether. He said that to aid the Post Office in this task he had appointed an inspector, with a roving commission, to go about inquiring into the conditions of labour of the firms doing Post Office work, and to see that the firms who had Post Office contracts employed labour under fair conditions. I have reason to believe that that inspector has done his duty to the best of his ability, and the present Postmaster-General, I believe, has extended this system, and has now almost a sub-branch of the stores department. It is the duty of these men to go about and put those firms who are endeavouring to get on the list of Post Office contractors through their paces, and to see that they employ men under fair conditions of labour. They are asked to do that, but they have to do something more, because the contract notes provide that the work shall be executed at a specified place. Take, for example, a great firm in my Division of Ponder's End. Supposing the Ediswan Company got a contract under the Post Office, they would have placed in their contract note words to the effect that the work is to be executed at Ponder's End, Middlesex, by the Ediswan Company. It is easy to see, if you have in this body of inspectors men of probity and resource, you may have full confidence that the proper conditions are carried out, and while I am convinced that the men who have been appointed are men of probity I do think we want something more. My suggestion is that they should have practical experience. They ought to have practical experience of factory life. They ought to have some knowledge of the process of manufacture, otherwise they cannot efficiently perform their duties. I regret to say that these inspectors do lack this experience. They are, I am informed, splendid clerks, but they are not practical men, and therefore they
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  are open to be hoodwinked in many important particulars. They may go down and inspect a factory. They will be received by the manager and they will be given a cup of tea, but they will not be in the position to ask the vital questions which a practical man would ask if he were sent down by the inspector of factories. Let me take another case, that of works specified to be done at a certain factory. I fear that contracts are gained by certain firms who, as a matter of fact, do not execute the work in this country. They are firms with branches abroad. They get the contracts in England, but, as a matter of fact, the work is done abroad, and it is perfectly obvious that that may be so unless the inspector is in a position to test it. Take again the Ediswan Company. Supposing they contract to manufacture so many hundreds of electric lamps. They have worked abroad, and it is very easy to understand that the work may be done abroad by sweated labour, but that something may be done to it in this country in order to get it passed by the inspectors as having been done here and unless these men are absolutely experts they cannot tell whether the work has been executed abroad or not. Therein it is possible to see the injustice which is done to firms in this country. I am convinced that the Postmaster-General will agree with me on this point. Last night the hon. Member for King's Lynn, who was supporting the Front Bench on the question of the Super-tax, spoke of the lunatic finance of Tariff Reformers. As a humble dweller on the back benches, may I, as a Tariff Reformer, appeal to the Postmaster-General to give an intelligent form to contracts, so that English labour may have fair play, and work which is specified to be done in England shall be carried out in this country. I am convinced that the right hon. Gentleman will be only too glad to carry out this, and to have really practical men appointed to overlook this work. As a matter of fact, I understand that during the last few weeks a really practical man has been appointed to this particular branch to help the inspectors in their duty, and I simply ask that practical men shall be the rule and not the exception.
  Mr. BOWERMAN: I desire to raise four points. The first is with regard to postmen being called upon to do duties hitherto well recognised as the duties of sorters. That, I understand, is carried;

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  on to a somewhat large extent, the result being that while everybody wants to see these men advance, they are being paid at a lower rate than the recognised payment of sorters. The result is a strong feeling of unrest among the men, and 1 would submit to the Postmaster-General that he should give consideration to this point, and if anything can be done to allay that unrest and put the matter on a better basis than at present, it will afford great satisfaction to the men concerned. My second point is with regard to the night duty of sorters. It appears they come on at midnight on special conditions as to payment, and at six o'clock in the morning they revert to the ordinary terms of wage. I want to submit to this Committee that if a man works from midnight until six o'clock in the morning, there is no reason why at a later hour his labours should be valued at a lower rate. Why after six o'clock should they be put on the lower scale? Their work cannot be less valuable. The men feel that they have not been treated quite as they ought to be in this respect, and I respectfully submit the point to the attention of the Postmaster-General. The third point I will put in the form of a conundrum. It is, When does temporary employment cease to be temporary employment? The unestablished system means casual labour. In many cases men are employed two years and upwards and still continue to be treated as temporarily and casually employed. I submit that there ought to be a termination of the period of temporary and casual employment, and that some line should be drawn at which a man should become a permanent hand and be placed on the establishment.
  I will not go into the figures with which I have been supplied, but I would deal with one department only—the engineers and stores. In the engineering department 86 per cent. of the men are unestablished. In the stores department, 72 per cent. of the men are unestablished, or, in other words, are temporarily employed. In the factories department 93½ per cent. of the men are on the unestablished list. The result is that they are deprived of certain advantages which the established men get. Many of these men have been employed from ten to twenty years. In the engineering department eighty-eight men have been in the service more than twenty years. In the stores department seventeen men have served beyond that
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  period, and in the factories department fifty-eight men have put in more than twenty years service. Thus 163 men are temporarily employed who have put in upwards of twenty years service. Is it a matter of surprise that these men should feel they have not been quite fairly treated? I hope the right hon. Gentleman will look into this matter and give it his favourable consideration. I had the advantage of introducing a deputation to the right hon. Gentleman a few months ago, and he treated it very sympathetically. As a rule, Ministers are sympathetic, but their sympathy does not always take a practical form. In this case, however, the right hon. Gentleman did extend to the deputation practical sympathy, and I therefore express my hope that at the earliest possible moment he will deal with the points which were placed before him, and that he will meet the views which were expressed.
  EARL of RONALDSHAY: The Postmaster-General took some credit to himself for relieving hon. Members of this House of a very considerable amount of correspondence with their constituents with regard to postal questions. He was, to a certain extent, justified in doing so, but I do not think, at the same time, he has entirely got rid of the difficulty. My experience, in the course of the last General Election, was that Post Office servants in the neighbourhood of my Constituency suffer under an inordinate amount of grievances, and grievances which equally appear to affect Civil servants throughout the country. I have four points which I should like to bring under the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. In the first place, I want to say a word on behalf of postal porters. The hon. Member for South Islington has already had something to say in regard to them. The grievance is that for thirty years past they have had no revision of their salaries; their duties have increased, but their wages have not gone up. For some reason or other they seem to have escaped the attention of the various Committees which have, from time to time, sat upon Post Office questions. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give his very best consideration to this class.
  My second point is in regard to telegraphists. Their case also was mentioned by the hon. Member for South Islington, and I want to say a word on behalf of those who joined the service in answer to a circular sent out by the Civil Service Commissioners between 1881 and 1890, which contained the promise that they should have

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  the prospect of reaching to a maximum of £190 a year. That advertisement seems to me to approach very much to a practical illustration of hope deferred making the heart sick, because, although that prospect was held out to them some years ago, I believe that no member of that particular grade has ever succeeded in obtaining that particular maximum yet, and it is somewhat hard that now, under newer regulations, I believe, all possibility of their ever obtaining the maximum of £190 is put an end to. I think that is a very substantial grievance. The third point I want to raise is with regard to the telegraphists in the Central Office and in the London district. Telegraphists in the Central Office have attained to a maximum of 65s. per week, whereas telegraphists in the London district can only attain to a maximum of 62s. We, therefore, have this curious anomaly, that the man who is performing in the Central Office in one part of the City precisely the same duties as a man in another part of the City can attain a maximum of 3s. per week more. In connection with that point I should like to say that the women in that case receive equal treatment both in the Central Office and in the London district, and that appears to be a source of particularly irritating annoyance to the men, and also, if I may say so, seems to be a refutation of the argument of most people who are in favour of women's suffrage, that women are unable to get justice or equality with man without having the vote. In this case they seem to have succeeded a great deal better than the man in securing equal treatment.
  The last point to which I wish to call attention is the case of the employés in the cable room. I understand that in 1905 a special allowance of 2s. 6d. was made by the late Postmaster-General to the employés in the cable room on the ground that they had to have a special knowledge of foreign languages. Subsequent to that a special allowance was recommended in the Report of the Hobhouse Committee I think to all telegraphists over the age of twenty-five upon the attainment of certain qualifications. Surely it was intended in the case of the men employed in the cable room that that special allowance on grounds of technical efficiency should be, in addition to the special allowance of 2s. 6d. granted for proficiency in languages. In practice it has not been taken in that sense, and the result is that a man employed in the cable room who was entitled to the extra sum of 2s. 6d. for his
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  proficiency in languages, and is also entitled to the extra sum of 3s. for certain technical qualifications, does not, as a matter of fact, get the extra total of 5s. 6d., but he only gets an extra total of 3s. That is to say, in his case his proficiency in these technical qualifications only brings him in an addition of 6d., whereas in the case of other individuals who are not employed in the cable room, and who have not his proficiency in languages, they receive the full 3s. That appears to me to constitute a grievance on the part of these gentlemen. That is all I require to draw attention to this afternoon; but, in conclusion, I have a suggestion to make to the Postmaster-General which has been made on many occasions before, and that is that it really might be an immense advantage, both to the employés of the postal service and to the public at large, if it was found possible to set up a board of conciliation similar to those boards which have already been set up by the Board of Trade for adjusting differences between capital and labour. If it was possible to set up a board of that kind, in which the employés in the service would be represented as well as the employers, with, if necessary, an appeal to an impartial arbitrator, that, I think, would surely give satisfaction both to the employés themselves and to the public at large. The question of deciding these grievances, which are felt on the part of the employés of the State, is, and must be, one of very great difficulty and delicacy; and it would, I think, be of advantage to public life, as a whole, if some such proposal as I have ventured, however briefly, to outline could be taken into serious consideration by the Government of the day.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I listened, for my own part, with deep satisfaction to the remarks which fell from the Postmaster-General, especially with regard to the conditions prevailing for the youthful servants of the Post Office. The right hon. Gentleman's office, as Under-Secretary of State, was rendered notable by the work he did in solving certain urgent and pressing problems relating to the young, and in taking up the conditions under which the boys are employed at the Post Office he is carrying on the traditions which we associate with him. I think the Postmaster-General carried the House with him when he spoke of the importance of creating such conditions of labour among the young as would lead to the solution of many of our social problems. I will go further and I will say, and I think

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  in doing so I should be interpreting the spirit of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, that it is the urgen duty of the State to create such conditions of employment as would be an example to the private employer. We can hardly expect the private employer—we can scarcely compel him to lift up to a high standard of action in this matter unless the State similarly attains a high standard of action. With regard to the Post Office, it is notorious that the conditions of labour are most unsatisfactory so far as these relate to the boy messengers, and I am sure we all rejoice that the Postmaster-General has appointed this Committee of Inquiry with a view to bringing to an end this unsatisfactory state of affairs. But I do wish to ask the Committee to consider why it is that this unsatisfactory condition prevails, and I would remind the Committee that it is a modern problem. I think I am right in saying that up to the year 1897 the Post Office did absorb practically the whole of the boys it employed as messengers, and it was in that year that the Cabinet of the day—not the Postmaster-General of the day—decided that half the places which were available for porters and for postmen should be reserved for ex-soldiers and ex-Sailors.
  I should be very sorry to be misunderstood in this connection. I do not for a moment deny that it is the duty of the State to provide for its ex-soldiers and its ex-sailors. It is the duty of the State so to do, but what I do think is a subject for legitimate discussion is whether this particular manner of providing for ex-soldiers and ex-sailors is the best and proper method. I would remind the Committee that this provision is made at the expense of a great number of boys, and it is therefore an uneconomic and wasteful system. It has been called attention to in the Report of the Royal Commission upon the Poor Laws,, and I should like to remind the Committee that one of the appendices of that Report contains a statement on this matter which was made by the then Postmaster-General, now President of the Board of Trade. The then Postmaster-General spoke without enthusiasm of the system under which these places had been reserved for ex-soldiers and ex-sailors. Though he was not at that moment prepared to disturb it, he placed upon record that he had no responsibility and that his predecessor had no responsibility for it, but that this
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  system had caused the problem since the year 1897 What I would beg the Postmaster-General to-day to do is to consider whether it would not be helpful to reopen this question with the Government in order to consider whether there is any better and any alternative way of making provision for ex-soldiers and ex-sailors in place of that which is done at the expense of so much of our best national material. It appears to me that one justification for urging this reconsideration of the question is to be found in the establishment of a national system of Labour Exchanges. Surely ex-soldiers and ex-sailors who have received their training in the Army and in the Navy, and who are suitable for the responsible duties of postmen, are also entirely suitable for other forms of labour in the industrial world, and it seems to me possible that, through the good agency of the Labour Exchanges, the Government might find it possible to make adequate provision for the ex-soldiers and ex-sailors. I do press that at least the matter should be considered, and that we should not regard ourselves as tied to an arrangement made by a past Government. Otherwise it appears to me that it will be a long time before the Committee which has been appointed will find any way in which the Post Office can completely absorb as men the boy messengers. I should like, in conclusion, to make two suggestions which, I think, if carried out, would help forward the solution of "his problem. The Postmaster-General told us that the messengers were encouraged to avail themselves of continuation schools to follow up their training. I would suggest that the time has come when that attendance at continuation schools should be made compulsory on the part of these boy messengers.
  7.0 P.M.
  At some of the large centres there is undoubtedly a large amount of discipline exerted over these boys, and the training, in a measure, is good, but at post offices in the smaller towns and in the suburbs of our big cities there are two or three boys engaged, and during many hours of the day the work is slack, there are few messages to be taken, and the result is that the boys spend a considerable part of the day under little or no discipline, killing time as best they can in a small waiting roam, This is bad for boys, especially when a year or two later they are to be discharged and find employment in the first occupation that comes to hand. I think, compulsory attendance at continuation schools

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  would undoubtedly, apart from giving them further and better education, be valuable training from the standpoint of discipline alone. It would correct these features which are inseparable from their life as messengers. The further suggestion that I desire to make is that while the Postmaster is awaiting the suggestions of the Committee that he has appointed he should try to ensure that the boys who are now annually discharged should be enabled to find work before they are discharged, possibly through the agency of the Labour Exchanges. It appears to me that with this new machinery in hand it might be possible to arrange for possibly the whole of the boys who are going to be discharged to be put in the way, before they are discharged, of finding other employment. I beg the Postmaster-General to recognise that I make these suggestions not, I hope, in a critical spirit, but only in the desire of helping forward the realisation of that system to which I am quite sure he is resolved ultimately to attain.
  Mr. A. STRAUSS: I desire to call the attention of the Postmaster-General to a matter with which he is familiar, and which has caused intense discontent among the London sorters—I mean the inequality of the maximum rate of pay as between the sorting and telegraph departments. There was a report under the Hob-house Committee which recommended that the maximum rate of pay for the telegraph department should be raised to 65s. per week, while the rate of pay for the sorters remains at 62s. Even the Hobhouse Commission was not infallible, and the reasons which they gave for placing sorters at a disadvantage really show that they have not sufficiently considered the subject m all its bearings. This is the recommendation of that Committee:—
  "Taking into consideration the fact that the conditions of service in the Central Telegraph Office are becoming less favourable owing to the altered nature of the work of the office, and the fact that annual leave cannot be granted to telegraphists on such favourable conditions as to sorters, your Committee recommends that the scale of pay of male telegraphists should rise by increments of 2s. 4d. to a maximum of 60s."
  The sorters' maximum, however, remains at 62s. per week. You may therefore say that the Commission gave as their reasons the conditions of service and more particularly the conditions of annual leave. As to the conditions of service, they are rather less favourable than those of the telegraphists. By conditions of service they could only have meant either less chances of promotion or less favourable hours of attendance, for the examination
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  of telegraphists and sorters are identical and they are both drawn from the same class. The chances of promotion are actually less favourable to the sorters than they are for the telegraphists, for in the Central Telegraph Office there is one supervisor to five men, while on the opposite side the proportion is one supervisor to ten men, so that the chances of promotion are certainly about double in the telegraph department what they are in the postal department. As for the hours of attendance, in the Central Telegraph Office there is hardly any night work and no early morning attendance at all. It commences at seven in the morning, while the sorters have to commence their attendance at four o'clock in the morning and a good many work throughout the night. Therefore there only remains that special ground given by the Committee, the case of annual leave. That, of course, may be slightly different as regards the junior side, but as regards the senior men, those who receive a maximum of 65s. a week, they choose their own time. They are not restricted to the winter, but they may choose any period of the year. It is quite evident that the Commission overlooked that fact when they recommended that the telegraphists should rise to 60s. per week and did not extend the same benefit to the sorters. All these facts are well known to the Postmaster-General, who is equally well aware that there is discontent on that point among the London sorters. I myself acknowledge freely that the Postmaster-General is animated by every desire to do justice to the great staff over which he presides, but my complaint is that he is rather fettered too much to these maximum recommendations of the Hobhouse Committee, and I should like him to follow his predecessor, whose weakness in that respect was soon overcome, as is proved in several instances. There are in London 6,097 sorters, but the number of those who receive the maximum is only 1,147—a trifling expenditure as compared with the importance of removing a grievance among such a large number of useful people. I appeal to the Postmaster-General to give the matter favourable consideration and, by altering the rules, to remove the irritation, which is not only justified but is very natural indeed.
  Mr. WALTER REA: I should like to associate myself with the congratulations which have been showered on my right

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  hon. Friend on his well-deserved promotion and also to associate myself in the thanks which have been expressed for the very many improvements which have been introduced in the postal service during the past twelve months. As this is the only occasion in the year when we can make our grievances heard, I should like to allude to one subject on which there is a considerable amount of uneasiness among the commercial classes. I mean the approaching absorption by the Post Office of the National Telephone Company's-affairs. Commerce has no reason to be very grateful to the National Telephone Company, but, on the other hand, we have been able to get some concessions from them so long as it was possible to threaten them with something like competition, j My hon. Friend has given a very striking instance of how competition by the Hull Corporation has saved the ratepayers many thousands a year, and we view with some alarm the prospect of a monopoly which may be carried on, it is true, by the Government nominally for the benefit of the community at large, but which will nevertheless be a Government monopoly, and if carried on on uncommercial lines—as I fear it is at present—will leave us very much worse off j than we are now. We have some reason to be afraid, too, because we notice that the National Telephone Company is gradually stiffening up its rates. I am not sure whether that is with a view to claiming more goodwill, but I feel quite certain that the result is going to be that the unfortunate subscriber and user of the telephones will have to pay for all this j enhanced price, and it makes me very nervous as to whether we shall not have to pay a largely-increased price for the services at our disposal, unless the Post Office take extraordinarily good care that a great deal of the material that is now in use by the Telephone Company is only taken over at scrap prices, unless, indeed, it is thrown upon their hands.
  Although we do not love the National Telephone Company, yet we have no reason to feel very satisfied with the work of the Government telephones. Matters have been put before me which show that the cost of installation of the telephones by the Government is 50 per cent. greater than the cost of the company's. The figures were given in full faith, but if my right hon. Friend says they are not correct I accept his word; but there were some striking figures as to the disparity of the
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  initial cost of the Government telephones and the company's telephones and the corporation telephones, and also, I think, the annual operating expense of the Post Office telephones is very considerably greater than either the Telephone Company's or the corporations, who are working exchanges at the present time. All this has to come out of the consumer, and we sincerely trust that between now and the end of next year, when, we understand, the transfers take place, the Government will take a lesson from some of the great commercial concerns, which are used to having to meet competition, and will treat the user of the telephones in a commercial spirit. We feel that there is some risk that our facilities may not be increased, but diminished, and I find there is some anxiety lest the system, which I believe to be peculiar to the Post Office telephones, should be extended to the national telephones, of having only a day service in some cases, and that we shall be cut off during the night. That is one of the most important facilities which we have from the National Telephone Company, and though I shall be told by the Post Office that it does not pay to keep telephones going during the night, in a great business such as the telephone industry they ought to take the good with the bad, and consider the convenience of customers, rather than take the narrow view of pounds, shillings, and pence. Then we have not been very much encouraged by our experience of the London telephone system since it has been in operation, good as in many respects it is. I suppose it is inevitable in a Government Department, but the commercial user of the telephone is irritated by the amount of red tape with which the whole service is tied up. I will give the Committee an example. Only a week or two ago a useful concession was made in connection with the Post Office telephones. It was that people who had telephones should have their telegraph messages telephoned to their houses. That was a most admirable concession, but the House will be surprised to hear that it works out in such a way that you may not get your telegrams until considerably later than if they were delivered in the ordinary way. A Post Office official rings you up, presumably a clerk, and in the case of a private house he asks whether the person who answers is the person named in the telegram, and if she does not perjure herself the telegram is not delivered until the lady is brought, it may be from bed, to

  561
  get the telegram. This is a bit of red tape that would not be allowed in a commercial concern at any rate. I have to complain of the high-handed way in which telephone officials refuse information. I find the London subscribers seething with discontent over the excesses in charges. I do not suggest that the Post Office authorities are charging anything but the exact amount, but we who are users of the telephone have no means of checking the charges. When we make inquiry we get no satisfaction. We are told that there is a machine which checks it automatically, and that the charge is right. This is not the way a commercial affair should be carried on. We look to the Post Office not to carry on the telephone undertaking in this way. These complaints are easy to make, but difficult to prove or disprove. It is almost impossible for an individual subscriber to the telephone to substantiate to the satisfaction of the Post Office officials the particular complaint he has to make. He may find, when he rings up the Exchange, that it is impossible to get through, and he may find that there was no justification for not putting him through, but unless the subscriber when he starts— and I have done this lately—has his watch in his hand so as to be able to speak definitely to the time when the call is made, the Post Office absolutely refuses to take any trouble to inquire into a complaint. They may give some reason for not getting through, and though the subscriber knows that it is inadequate, he can get no satisfaction. Therefore, this is the only way in which we can bring these things to the notice of the senior officials who really have the power to put them right. That is my excuse for asking the House to listen to what I have said on this not unimportant question, which affects the commercial community very considerably. I am not saying this out of any desire to belittle the great benefit we have received in London from the telephone service. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to see before the end of next year, when we are to take over the National Telephone Company, that the undertaking is so organised that it will be carried on with a larger amount of sympathy towards the users and in a true commercial spirit.
  Mr. SANDERSON: I desire to join in the appeal which has been made to the Postmaster-General with regard to the
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  rate of wages of postmen. I am informed that since the Report of the Select Committee was presented the maximum rate of wages has been reduced. It has been pointed out already that the cost of living has gone up. That is so not only in the towns, but also in the country districts. Further, it has been stated—I am not able to substantiate this, for I do not know whether it is true or not—that some of the Members of that Committee have said that so far from their intention being that the maximum rate of wages should be reduced, their intention was exactly the contrary and that it should be increased. Well, it seems to me, if that be true, there is at all events a case for inquiry and a case for the earnest consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure he will understand that I feel how inconvenient it is for an outsider—one not in the administration—to interfere in any way with the departmental administration. At the same time I would like to say that in the Constituency I have the honour to represent there is a good deal of feeling in regard to this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman will give me an opportunity, I will be glad to give him the instances which have been brought to my notice. I am sure he will recognise that I am not bringing forward this matter in any party spirit whatever, but simply in order that justice may be done and that hard cases may receive consideration.
  I wish to bring to the attention of the Postmaster-General the question of the use of lifts by the postmen in London. Since people in recent years have shown a fancy for living in flats in the huge buildings with which we are so familiar in the large towns, and in London especially, it seems to me that the labour which has been thrown upon postmen has been considerably increased. Hon. Members can imagine what the delivery of letters at these flats means. Some of the buildings are ten or twelve stories in height, and it must be a terrible labour for a postman to have to tramp up these stairs—I do not know how many times a day. In some of these places the postmen are allowed to use the lifts, while in others they are not. I do not suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that any request should be made to the owners of the flats that the postman should be allowed to use the lift and to stop at each storey; but it seems to me that it would not be unreasonable that a postman should be taken up to the top of the building in the lift so that he might deliver letters one storey after another on the way

  563
  down. I think that is a practical suggestion. I brought this matter before the Department not long ago, and I wish to acknowledge the courteous reply which I received from the Postmaster-General. He stated, in effect, that there are some of these places where postmen have the facilities, and that efforts would be made to obtain the same facilities in places where they had not hitherto been given. I would like to know whether those efforts have been successful. I would ask the Postmaster-General not to accede to the request made by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse) with regard to the practise of employing ex-soldiers and sailors. Personally, I hope that no departure will be made from the system of giving consideration to our ex-soldiers and sailors They are men who have given a very important part of their life to the service of their country, and have thereby to a very large extent unfitted themselves for competing in the ordinary labour market. I am quite sure that throughout the length and breadth of the country the opinion of a large body of people is that great Government Departments like the Post Office ought to give consideration to such men. I believe it is also the opinion of a large body of the Members of this House that the present system should be continued.
  Mr. S. COLLINS: I should like to associate myself with the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe in the eloquent tribute he paid to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton), who has devoted many years to successful efforts in bringing about postal reform, and I am sure we all hope that he may be in the House to see crowned with success the effort he is making for the establishment of penny postage with our neighbours across the Channel. I thank the Postmaster-General for the sympathetic way in which he referred to the young life in the Service of which he is the head. When he referred to the boy messenger who stated how hard it was to behave and that he could not do it, some of us sympathised with that boy and remembered that we had somewhat similar experiences ourselves. I hope the boy will read the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and that it will help him to lead a better life. I hope the Department will do something to provide good moral education to assist the boys in the Service. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able to devise some
  564
  scheme for that purpose. Many of the boys come from very poor homes where they have very little inducement or encouragement to lead a good life. Perhaps something could be done by the Department to help and encourage them to employ their evening hours in a profitable way, so that they would be able in after life to look back with pleasure and pride to the work they did in the Post Office. I should like also to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the importance of his giving attention to the cases of the telegraphic clerks, as referred to this afternoon by several hon. Members, and I would respectfully ask him to bear in mind that they were recruited in the same way, they passed through the same school, and they were sent indifferently to the London districts or to the Central Telegraph Office. For thirty years the pay and prospects of London men have been similar—at whatever office they were stationed—and to set aside this precedent seems to inflict a grave injustice. Then a reconsideration is urgently necessary not only of what is actually Metropolitan area, but also of the fact that the maximum wages now paid to the indoor staffs varying from 52s. at Woolwich, Croydon, Kingston, Richmond, etc., to 48s. at Ilford, and 44s. at Brentford, are not in accordance with the wages paid in the London postal area, considering that these offices form a part of one continuous town, and that the cost of living is not affected by their being counted as provincial offices. And may I also lay stress upon the need of giving attention to the grievances set forth by the hon. Member for South Islington in the cases of the New Cross and Kenning-ton districts, and also to the hardships of the carmen, a class of men often the most poorly paid and hardest worked. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will give all these cases his most earnest and careful consideration.
  Mr. FORDE RIDLEY: I should like to ask the Postmaster-General for some information as to what system the Post Office proceeds on in deciding the classification of the various offices, I mean, in particular, in reference to towns which are contiguous or continuous. I happen to represent in the city of Rochester a city which is a continuation of and is connected with the town of Chatham. Those two towns are virtually one and the same, yet the rate of pay in both is entirely different. I approached the right hon. Gentleman, and was greatly obliged for the

  565
  courteous reply which he sent to the letter that I addressed him. The point which 1 wish to raise is that if there are certain towns which are continuous, and where, because they are continuous, a certain uniform rate is paid, why should not this apply to all towns equally situated throughout the country? We have in the towns of Plymouth and Devonport two places which are virtually one town, where, for one reason and one reason only, the rate of pay and classification is made identical. If that is so, why does not the same rule apply to such places as Rochester and Chatham? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will enlighten me upon that matter, because I do feel that it is very much to be deprecated that there should be any favouritism, or apparent favouritism towards one town as compared with another. All ought to be treated upon the same footing. I cannot sit down without referring to some remarks which fell from the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse), in regard to the employment of old soldiers and sailors. In common with the hon. Member on my right I deprecate any disparaging remark about the employment of old servants of the State. I, for one, only wish we could go further than we do at present, and that when we engage our messenger boys we should arrange to enlist them on leaving in the service of their country and hold out the prospect that when their service as a messenger boy is over, instead of being dismissed to start life afresh, they should be drafted into the Army with the full undertaking that if they serve their full time and conduct themselves well and efficiently they would be taken into the postal service as grown men.
  Mr. SEDDON: There are two questions that I think should be inquired into. The first is with reference to the mail drivers. I want to congratulate the present Postmaster-General and the late Postmaster-General for what they have done with reference to this deserving class of servants. I am quite conscious that the power of the Postmaster-General is somewhat limited by the fact that it is contract labour. But even when good has been done evil also has sometimes come out of it. For instance, there was what I consider a particularly hard case in the town of Exeter. The mail drivers there were working under very bad conditions. Their hours were exceptionally long and their wages were exceedingly low. Complaint
  566
  was made to the Post Office. Inquiry was made and on that inquiry an improvement took place. One of the individuals affected happened to have an artificial leg. For years he had worked for the present contractor and the previous contractor. There had not been a single word against his efficiency and there was not a mark against him. But when they were asked to improve the conditions of service and give a slightly increased wage and a reduction of hours, then this unfortunate fellow, with his long record of good service, was informed that his services were no longer required. I think this is a very unfair case, and I would ask the Postmaster-General to use his good offices that this man should not be penalised because an improvement of conditions was effected. With reference to the general question of mail drivers under contract labour, I think that the special Commissioner who has been referred to would do very good service for a useful class of the community if he could extend his inquiries to some of these men in the country districts. I think that the London Members will agree with me that mail drivers have been well treated, comparatively speaking, in the London district, that is, comparing their present with their former condition—but there is a real grievance in many of the country places, and I would ask the Postmaster-General to give a special hint to the officials who make these inquiries to investigate the cases of these men. If this is done, I trust that the result will be beneficial to the mail drivers in the country. With reference to the constituency represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Cathcart Wason), I do not wish to take anything out of his hands, but having visited those remote islands in the very busy season when the herring industry is most active, and when a very large outside population come to the place in the steam drifters or trawlers, I find that amongst those connected with the business there is very strong complaint against the inadequate postal facilities between the mainland and these islands.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: Does the information of the hon. Gentleman come from the Mails Committee, the County Council or from private sources?
  Mr. SEDDON: The information came from the traders who are a main factor in the life of the country, and from the owners and representatives of the ships

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  and from those connected with the industry. I may say, so far as the information conveyed to me is concerned, that the complaint is pretty general, and I trust that inquiry may be made to see whether these remote islands are getting fair play in the matter of postal facilities.
  Captain JESSEL: I am very glad that an hon. Member opposite has drawn attention to the fact that next year, under agreement with the National Telephone Company, their system will be taken over by the Post Office. The hope was expressed that the Post Office would be pleased to give the same facilities as are now afforded by the National Telephone Company. On this point I may mention a matter which occurred recently in London to a friend of mine. A certain telephone was taken, and the service was discontinued on the Saturday at 12 o'clock. My friend went down to the office, and was informed that he could not see any official there, and he could get no redress whatever, because it happened to be on Saturday. He was told that nothing could be done until the following Monday. The incident may interest the House, because it happened that this telephone was laid on to a committee room, and the election day was Saturday. The result was that these unfortunate people could not use this telephone on the very day it was required. I do think that some responsible official should be at one of the exchange offices to put these matters right, and that people should not have to wait from Saturday morning—probably at mid-day—to have communication restored. Another question to which many of my friends on this side, and a great many Members on the other side, have drawn attention, is the difference in the rate of pay among those who are in the same district.
  A suggestion has also been put forward as to the alteration of the postal districts. I think that would be a good thing. It is a good many years since the postal districts in London were made, and considerable objection has been taken to the letters that are fixed to some of the postal districts in London. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to go into the matter, I can assure him that, especially in my own Constituency, there is a certain combination of letters not particularly in favour among the inhabitants of that district, and if there could be some readjustment or rearrangement of that combination it would be an extremely popular
  568
  movement on the part of the Postmaster-General and the Post Office authorities. Reference has been made to various grievances on behalf of the telegraphists, the sorters, and especially those who, I think, may be called the permanently temporary employés. They are all grievances, and very real grievances, on the part of the personnel. All of us who have been through elections are well aware of the fact that at election times we are bombarded with questions which affect personnel. I quite sympathise with those who raise these questions, and they are very important, as most of us know from the Hobhouse Commission. But I do ask the right hon. Gentleman now if he cannot come to some decision on this question which will apply, not only to the Post Office, but to the whole Civil Service? The Board of Trade set an extremely good example, when the right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was President of the Board of Trade, in devising these concilation boards. Speaking for myself as a director of a railway, I can say how very well they work. Why should not some sort of system of that kind be devised in the Post Office or in other great public Departments? One certainly has pressure put on one at election times by public servants, but they have no other way of bringing forward their claims; and it seems to me that the number of complaints by Civil Servants will increase, and we all know it is increasing, if this sort of extraordinary system continues. As my hon. Friend reminded us, some 12,000 men of the National Telephone Company will come into the postal service, and no doubt a readjustment of the staff will take place, and there may then be a great many grievances requiring attention. I believe I am right in saying that there are more Civil servants employed in the Post Office Department than in any other Department of the State, and if the right hon. Gentleman could make a beginning by way of establishing a conciliation board on the same lines as have been adopted by railway companies a great benefit might result. I am sure that sooner or later we shall have something of the kind. Many as have been the benefits conferred by the Postmaster-General during his tenure of office, none would have a more permanent effect than the initiation of some great measure of the kind I suggest. It would be of permanent benefit not only to the service itself, but of permanent advantage to the men employed.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend (Mr. Seddon) for having brought forward the question of the position of traders in Shetland and the Orkney Islands, but I should like to point out to the Postmaster-General, in regard to the matter, that there is a strong local committee which has been specially set up for the purpose of dealing with the subject of the mails. The county council also have taken a very active part in this question, and as far as I know those two very important bodies have made no very strong representation or complaint upon the subject. For many years past the islands had suffered very seriously from lack of postal communication, especially in the winter time, and it is entirely owing to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in office (Mr. Buxton) that we have an improved mail service given to us at a very large extra cost. That has been of an enormous advantage to every inhabitant in those islands, and we are really not at all so badly off as my hon. Friend seems to think. Of all the great Departments of the State there is none that has treated us so well as the Post Office. In one of the large islands where there are 300 or 400 people, for many years past, in fact until the present moment, they have practically had no communication whatsoever with the outside world. It is also due to the action of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in this matter that this island will be brought into touch with the outside world by means of a wireless telegraph station. I wish to express the fervent hope that the right hon. Gentleman will spend a portion of his well-earned holiday in a visit to that particular district. My right hon. Friend is a great traveller in different directions himself, and I can assure him that if he pays it a visit he will receive a cordial welcome. The point to which I wish to call his attention has reference to two great Departments of the State—the Admiralty and the Post Office. The Board of Admiralty for several years past have had a fleet at what is known as Scapa Flow, and I desire to call my hon. Friend's attention to the mail communications between the mainland of Caithness and Orkney. On account of extra railway facilities the old mail route from the mainland was abandoned, but the present service is very unsatisfactory, starting as it does from Thurso and giving us all the worst of tides and weather. If by means of motor in the meantime the mails could
  570
  be conveyed to Gill's Bay from the railway and thence to Scapa there would be a great saving in time and expense. My right hon. Friend if he visits the district will see for himself that the change of the mail route would be of enormous advantage to His Majesty's Fleet stationed there. I am extremely gratified at having had an opportunity of saying a few words in defence of the action of the Department with regard to my own Constituents.
  The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Captain Norton): Perhaps I may be permitted on behalf of my right hon. Friend to deal with the various matters before the Committee. The question of classification has been referred to, and also the question of the cost of living in any particular locality. If the cost of living was made the only basis, then in certain large towns like Birmingham, where living is cheap, the employes would get wages lower than they would in some of the small towns such as Epsom, where it. is dear. The Hobhouse Committee gave very substantial advantages to postal employes as a whole, and if they were unable to do it in every individual instance, it was because such a result was inseparable from the scheme as a whole. I may mention that there has been an increase of wages in no fewer than 4,800 offices, and a diminution of wages in only 750 offices, and that affecting future entrants only. Moreover, the late Postmaster-General dealt with the recommendations of the Hobhouse Committee in the most generous manner. He placed the most favourable interpretation upon the Report of that Committee, and as a result he has secured a very much better scheme and very much better wages for postal employes than they would have enjoyed had he not taken that action upon the report of the Hobhouse Committee. Then, again, classification has been constantly revised. For example, since January last three offices have been placed in another class. Besides these three, four towns, Douglas, Loughborough, Ton-bridge and Tralee are all about to go up into a better class, so that really what hon. Members have been contending for is practically in operation. My hon. Friend the Member for South Islington drew attention to the question of the sale of stamps in books, and suggested that they might be sold in packets from a shilling. He also suggested that they should be sold at face value, and that the cost should

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  be met by receipts from advertisements in the book. We have recently been dealing with this matter, and I find for some reason or other that advertising in these post office books is not found to be popular.
  Mr. WILES: Possibly because so few of them are sold, and you find a difficulty in getting the advertisements.
  Captain NORTON: May I inform my hon. Friend that the contracts are for millions of copies.
  Mr. WILES: For how many years?—a great many years.
  Captain NORTON: We are prepared to meet any advertising agent who will deal generously with us in the matter. As regards Sunday work in the country districts, every effort is being made to reduce it, and whenever an application is made by a local authority, that application meets with the heartiest support of the Department. I may point out that my right hon. Friend the late Postmaster-General made the following statement:—
  "My desire is, as to Sunday labour in the Post Office, that if any district which at present has a Sunday delivery desires it to be discontinued, and the local authorities are prepared to move in the matter. I shall be glad to give instructions accordingly."
  As regards the question of sub-postmasters, my right hon. Friend is quite prepared to reconsider any hard cases among the 3,000 to whom the hon. Member referred; and he will look into it very closely. Then as regards the £190 per year maximum to telegraph operators. I am one of those who speak with great diffidence upon that subject, inasmuch as in former years I brought it forward in this House. The telegraphists were of opinion that there had been some breach of faith in reference to the matter. These men claim they were brought into the service upon the understanding that, provided the performed their work efficiently, they would rise to £190 per year. Owing to classification a small proportion of these men have received benefits, and a certain number of them have got into better positions. I frankly admit, however, that there is a certain number who can never rise to £190 per year maximum. I have used my best efforts with my right hon. Friend to reconsider this question, and it is now under his consideration to see if anything can be done. Then I come to the question of the postal porters. At
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  first sight no doubt it would appear that their case is a very hard one, but when you come to look into the matter more closely it seems that the Hobhouse Committee, who went fully into it, dealt out to these men ample justice. For example, in 1882 their initial wage was 18s., whereas their initial wage at the present time is 25s. But the main point is that whereas these men formerly could seldom rise beyond the position of porter, now, against 1,461 porters, there are 129 head porters with a maximum of 52s. a week; thirty-six foremen porters with a maximum of 48s.; 113 bagmen with a maximum of 45s.; and seven overseers with a maximum of £210 a year. Whereas before 1908 the porters had only from 150 to 170 superior posts open to them—that is to say, their chances were formerly one to nine, whereas at present they have 285 superior posts, and their chances are one to five.
  8.0 P.M.
  When we come to look into the other advantages which these men have I find that they have allowances for good conduct stripes, pensions, uniform, medical attendance, sick leave, and holidays. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is what is given to every other man in the department."] Their initial wage has been increased and their prospects of promotion are greater than they were formerly. The advantages I have mentioned have been valued by actuarial calculation, and are found to amount to £17 18s. 8d. per year, so that formerly while they had £l 15s. 6d. it is now £1 19s. 3½d.. Added to that there is another allowance of Is., so that these men are now in a better position than they were by 7s. per week. The porters employed at railway stations have a further special allowance of 5s. per week. Although it has been said that these men have not been fairly treated by the Hobhouse Committee it will be seen that their position is by no means as bad as is contended.
  The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton), whose impending departure from the House we all much regret, referred to further matters. We have had him from year to year bringing forward postal questions, and I think it is admitted on all hands that he has done much for the postal service. He mentioned the subject of cables. There is a very great difficulty in dealing with the matter of cables because, in the first place, the whole

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  system of telegraphy is in a changing condition. If a State-owned system of cables is to be undertaken it would be necessary to consider the Marconi development and other changes, and there might be considerable difficulty with the self-governing Colonies. There would be practical difficulties in the working and development of the scheme. There would be the question of the adjustment of relations with existing cable companies, almost all of which are British. A Committee has been investigating this matter, and the recommendations are now under the consideration of the Department. The hon. Member also referred to the question of Sunday deliveries and to the sale of postcards at their face value, matters which are receiving the attention of the Postmaster-General. The hon. Member for Hoxton (Dr. Addison) mentioned the question of the mail cart drivers. Our position with reference to this is that we have made every effort to see that the men are paid the proper rate of wages, and I believe that one contract has been terminated, and that in other cases warning has been given to contractors that they must carry out the Fair Wages Clause. Moreover, our inspectors are constantly in touch with the contractors, and endeavour to do all that is possible to see that fair wages are paid in all cases. The question of boards of conciliation has been brought forward. My right hon. Friend has received a large number of deputations from the various organised bodies in the Post Office, and those bodies and the trade unions are not at all of one mind as to boards of conciliation. Speaking for my own part, and considering the success which I maintain the Hobhouse Committee has achieved, I should say it would be much more satisfactory, not only to the men themselves but also to Members of this House, if from time to time, say after a decade of years, a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry dealt with such matters as these.
  The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Bentham) mentioned the taking over of the National Telephone Company. It is definitely settled that the company shall be taken over. As to the question of the Hull municipality it is possible they may be left in the position in which they are if that is the general desire. I give no pledge on the matter which is under consideration of my right hon. Friend. It is quite possible they may be, and, on the other hand, it is quite possible that they may
  574
  not be. The hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Newman) has, I think, been misinformed and mixed up two questions as to inspection. The inspection of the goods is all done by technical men, but the other inspection relates to the wages sheets, and conditions of work. The officer who performs this duty is an expert on these matters and thoroughly understands the whole question of the manufacture of goods. The contractors are carefully supervised, and the wages clause is very rigidly enforced. The hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Bowerman) referred to the question of employing postmen as sorters. It is a very difficult and rather complicated matter. Quite recently my right hon. Friend discussed it with a deputation, and he has given it very careful consideration. It has also been urged that a number of unestablished men in the engineering department should be placed upon the established staff. It would, however, be absolutely impossible with certain classes of labour to place the men on the established staff, because the work which they do is not continuous. At present as many as 62 per cent. of the men on the maintenance staff of that department are on the establishment. The hon. Member for Hornsey (Earl of Ronaldshay) also mentioned the question of the porters and the telegraph clerks, with which I have dealt.
  As regards the cable-room staff and their two allowances of 3s. and 2s. 6d., the question is under consideration, and it is hoped it may be possible to effect some alteration in their conditions. The question raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanarkshire (Mr. Whitehouse) was very fully dealt with by my right hon Friend. The point brought forward by the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Walter Rea) about the National Telephone Company. is a very large one, and I have not the time now to go into it fully. I may say that every effort will be made to secure the undertaking for the public on the very best possible conditions. It will be taken over on tramway terms; there will be no payment for goodwill, and the case will doubtless go to arbitration. The interests of the public will be carefully considered. In reply to the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Forde Ridley), I may say there is no favouritism in the matter of classification. If the adjoining cities of Rochester and Chatham were to form one for local government purposes the difficulty would disappear, but at the present moment, although the cost of living is practically

  575
  the same in both places, the units of work differ very materially. As to cost of living we go simply by the reports of the Board of Trade, which takes the greatest care in framing them. I have now dealt with practically all the matters that have been mentioned, and I hope the Committee will allow us to take the Vote.
  And, it being a Quarter past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  GAS COMPANIES (STANDARD BURNER) (NO. 1)
  BILL [Lords.—By order.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. R. D. HOLT: Some of us who are opposing this Bill have been very much dissatisfied with the method of procedure adopted by the promoters. We felt that the grouping together of different companies in one Bill did not give the opponents a fair opportunity of putting their view before the Committee. I am glad to say, however, as far as I am concerned, that we have been able to come to an arrangement with the promoters under which they are ready to accept an Instruction to the Committee in these terms:—
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they do hear the case of the Promoters, the Liverpool United Gas Company, separately, and do, on the request of any of the Petitioners, consider the expediency of dividing the Bill in order to remove any difficulty that may in their opinion, be proved to exist (by reason of the inclusion of several cases in the Bill) in the submission separately of any of the cases in opposition."
  I could give very excellent reasons to prove that the case of the Liverpool Gas Company is on quite a different footing from the other companies in the Bill, but as the matter has been arranged in the way I have described it is unnecessary for me to take up any longer the time of the House.
  Mr. RYLAND ADKINS: I desire to say, on behalf of the promoters of this Bill, that their object in grouping a considerable number of companies together was merely to save (he time of Parliament and the expenditure of public money. They frankly and promptly accepted the sugges-
  576
  tion that they should form not one Bill but three, and an Instruction to the Committee, which is now on the Paper in the names of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sir D. Goddard) and myself, to consider whether, in any case, there ought or ought not to be separate and special treatment. I fully agree with the further suggestion of the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt). If, under these circumstances, the House is prepared to assent to the Second Reading, and my hon. Friend moves his Instruction, I shall ask leave to move the adjournment of the Debate, in order that an amended Instruction may be moved providing that there shall of necessity be a separate Bill for Liverpool, and that any other place may have separate treatment if they can satisfy the Committee that there are grounds for it. In that form I hope the Instruction will commend itself to the House. I am sure it will be agreed that there are aspects of this highly technical question which are common to a large number of authorities, and in that case one decision may be most economical, and at the same time proper; while, on the other hand, in the case of Liverpool there are exceptional circumstances which I cordially agree justify the suggestion of my hon. Friend. As to any other local authority, if they can satisfy the Committee upstairs that their case is in any way special, the Instruction, if agreed to, will secure that that local authority shall have special treatment. This having been agreed to by the promoters in conference with my hon. Friend and other Members, I hope the House will agree to the Second Reading, in accordance with the almost universal rule of sending to Committees upstairs Bills dealing with technical matters which require an attention which the House would not perhaps be willing or specially adapted to give.
  Colonel SANDYS: I shall be sorry to oppose the Motion, but, although I am glad to hear that special treatment has been accorded to Liverpool, there are other places, notably a borough in my own Constituency, very deeply interested. I understand from them that the more usual proceeding in a case of this kind is that each borough or city interested should promote a separate measure dealing with the question on its merits or should seek to obtain a Provisional Order. The advantage of that procedure is that very often a conference takes place between the petitioners seeking certain advantages, such as the promoters of these Bills, and the cities

  577
  or boroughs affected by the clauses of which they disapprove. There is a broad general principle involved. It is extremely difficult for this House to pass any measure applicable to all the circumstances of individual portions of the country, although the general principles of the measure approved on the Second Reading may be in themselves most excellent. Under these circumstances, as a portion of my Constituency takes exception to many technical points in the three Bills of the promoters, notably that their time would be largely wasted in attending the Committee, while all the provisions of the separate Bills relating to the different companies were gone into, I shall certainly oppose the Second Reading, and I would ask the House to allow the usual procedure to go forward under which the parties concerned obtain separate Bills or Provisional Orders.
  Mr. G. R. THORNE: As representing Wolverhampton, I find myself in a somewhat difficult position. The course taken by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt) has come upon me by surprise. I understood that he, in common with others who have petitioned against the Bill, was going to oppose it. The course it is now proposed to take is to me entirely new, and involves considerable difficulty. If the result in the case of Wolverhampton were to be exactly what it already is in the case of Liverpool, I could understand the position. It would be like an individual Bill which would be individually opposed. But other cities and towns, as far as I can understand, are not to have the same privilege as Liverpool. Liverpool is to be treated as a distinct place at once, but other places are to go through the expense of appearing before the Committee, and waiting possibly many days in hearing the various discussions. If that is the case, it means considerable expense to the corporation which I represent. If the result of the proposal were that Wolverhampton had to put forward its case in the same way as if the company promoted an individual Bill, I could not offer the slightest opposition; but if it means that they have first to prove that they have special claims and afterwards to go to the expense of urging those special claims, it seems to me that they have to incur double expense and are placed in a very difficult position indeed. That is the position so far as I can see. At the same time, under these circumstances we, who I think are generally interested in this measure, are placed at a
  578
  very sudden and great disadvantage. Unless the difficulties I have just hinted at are overcome, I myself see no alternative on behalf of the interests which I represent, and according to the views which have been represented to me, but to oppose a Second Reading. Others who are similarly situated to myself, I take it, will be compelled to adopt the same course. What I do not understand is this: Why other towns have not been approached in the same way as Liverpool has been approached. My town petitioned in opposition, and I think under those circumstances we might have been approached just in the same way as Liverpool to see whether it was possible for us to make equal terms. I had no information of anything of the kind. Under these circumstances, therefore—I do not want in the slightest degree to offer a fractious opposition to the Bill, what I do I do purely in the public interests—having been informed and instructed that Wolverhampton objects, I feel, unless I can be satisfied on the point of expense, I am bound in justice to my Constituents to oppose the Second Reading.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member speaks of the interests of Wolverhampton. Wolverhampton is not included in this Bill at all.
  Mr. G. R. THORNE: I beg pardon, Mr. Speaker, I mean the third Bill. I understood the second Bill would raise the point, but I will wait until the third Bill is produced.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not say but what it might be convenient to the House to discuss the three Bills together. Strictly speaking, the interests of Wolverhampton do not arise upon this Bill at all. I think it might be better to take each Bill separately, in default of any agreement to discuss them otherwise.
  Mr. PERCY ILLINGWORTH (Lord of the Treasury): Perhaps I may very shortly inform the House why the Board of Trade thinks that the case of Liverpool should be given preferential treatment, and should be regarded as a case by itself. The subject is a highly technical one. I do not wish to weary the House with much that might be involved in setting forth the position and the many complexities of the position. But Liverpool is differentiated in this case, in so far as their supply is of twenty candle-power. It is the highest supplied by any company or any town in the United Kingdom. The rest of

  579
  the towns, authorities, and gas companies concerned all, I believe, supply gas of a quality of from fourteen to sixteen candle-power. Therefore their circumstances are on all-fours, and it was considered that it might be desirable to group all those cases together. I hold no brief for one side or the other. The Board of Trade in these matters takes up an attitude of benevolent neutrality, but I think it should be said, in justice to the promoters of this Bill, that they did approach in the first instance Mr. Speaker's counsel. They asked him if it would be possible to introduce all these undertakings and companies under the cover of one Bill. He replied that it was perfectly competent for them to do so, but at the same time it would be more agreeable and more easy to group these different cases in separate Bills, and so to introduce them to the House. That has been done, not with any view, intention, or desire to prejudice any local authority, but with the view, which I should have thought the local authority would have shared, of putting all the cases of sixteen candle-power producers, which are on all-fours, together, and so saving expense instead of incurring expense by separate Bills. I do not see that in any way the representatives of the local authorities are in any way prejudiced, because they may, if they so desire, place before the Committee the reasons which may induce the Committee to give them separate treatment. I therefore ask the House, in view of the circumstances of the case, to read this Bill a second time, and let the Instruction go forward to extend the same treatment to the second and third Bills, at the same time accepting the instruction which is down in the name of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich (Sir Daniel Goddard).
  Sir CLEMENT HILL: I understand, Sir, we shall not be in order in referring to No. 2 Bill at the present time; or should we discuss No. 2 Bill?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Better take them separately.
  Mr. H. S. FOSTER: I have been specially requested by the Corporation of Lowestoft to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. In doing so I am desired to voice the view expressed at a conference of the local authorities dealing with all these Bills, not upon the ground of injury to any particular locality, but upon the broad principle that, in the first place,
  580
  forty-three different companies have combined together to come to Parliament in these three Bills. I am asked to point out that these companies are very differently circumstanced, both as regards the conditions of supply and as regards the prices, testing places, methods of testing, standards of illuminating power, and other matters. They have totally different areas of supply, and it is almost impossible—and this is the view of the local authority—for any authority to deal separately in a joint promotion of this character with the various circumstances of the companies supplying within its jurisdiction.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Which of these Bills is the hon. Member dealing with 1 I do not find Lowestoft in any of them.
  Mr. H. S. FOSTER: No, Sir, I am not referring particularly to the interests of Lowestoft. I am referring to the general principle in respect of these Bills, and of the objections which the conference of the local authorities of Lowestoft and other authorities throughout the country have urged. I was referring to the important conference of local authorities of the country, which is opposed to any principle of legislation of this kind. I am endeavouring, Mr. Speaker, to the best of my ability to voice the grounds of their opposition. They point out that any particular local authority, whether interested in these particular Bills or not, is likely to be prejudiced in the future in the case of legislation, whether it be by gas companies, railway companies, or others, who may adopt a similar procedure in promoting Bills in Parliament, if the precedent set by these Bills is allowed to be established.
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: May I inquire what precedent the hon. Gentleman refers to? Is it the grouping?
  Mr. H. S. FOSTER: Yes: that is it exactly. By this Bill, which is only typical of the three before the House, it is undoubtedly the fact that gas companies are seeking new powers from Parliament which they do not possess at present. The main object, so far as this particular combination is concerned, is to enable them to adopt a new form of burner, which will have the effect of reducing the illuminating power and of increasing the cost, notably to the poor, who are much larger users of gas for heating and other purposes than they used to be. I do not think it is seriously

  581
  denied by the promoters that this will be one of the direct effects of this Bill, if granted. They plead, as I understand, that they are limited by Act of Parliament to a maximum limit of dividends—I believe that is the only answer—and that they are bound by Act of Parliament to reduce the cost of gas to the consumer when the maximum dividend is reached; therefore, they say, what the consumer loses in one way by the loss of illuminating power he will regain in another way by the reduced cost of his gas. That is no answer. In the first place, there is no guarantee that the amount which the consumer will continue to pay on a reduced bill will be equivalent to the reduced article that he is consuming at the increased price. And in the second place, of course, we all know there is a limit to dividends beyond which the reduction has to be made. It is quite possible that it is conducive almost to extravagant depreciation, and other charges, which will not go into the pockets of the consumer, and which will increase the cost. This is directly raised by the powers under this Bill. The burner which complies with Section 3 of the London Gas Act is a different one from the one now proposed to be adopted, and I am told the cost of this new burner is something like two guineas, and, therefore, would be beyond the powers certainly of the poor. I am told that in his evidence before the Lords Committee the chief engineer of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board said that the effect upon his company of this Bill would be to increase their annual gas bill by no less than £3,000 or £4,000, and would involve them in a cost not less than £2,000 for adapting their engines used to the new conditions. The circumstances under which this Bill has been brought in and the powers it proposes to give, and the difficulties in which every local authority would be placed if it is to seek a locus standi to appear before the Committee give, I
  venture to hope, sufficient ground as to why this Bill should not get a second reading.
  Mr. J. F. L. BRUNNER: I venture to offer a few remarks upon the principle of these three Bills, for this reason, that I think if the House does not accept the Second Reading they will be stopping progress. The meaning of these three Bills is this. They propose to substitute for an antique instrument the most modern form of testing gas. The hon. Gentleman, who has just spoken, seemed to think that the poor will have to purchase these burners. That is not the case at all; it is the gas companies who have to pay the two guineas for the burners. I think the public has been enabled, by the progress in science, to better the original bargain with the gas companies. By improvements in the gas itself, in fittings, and in burners, the public gets better value from gas of a certain standard than when the bargain was made. Gas is very largely used to-day for heating and for power, and it is less and less used for lighting. In the Metropolitan area, for instance, more than half the gas is used for heating and for power, and therefore gas of the lower standard is just as good for the majority of users as gas of the higher standard. So much has that been acknowledged that Committees upstairs have readily allowed gas companies in this country to lower their standard, and as a matter of fact the Welsbach light, which is practically-universal, is better if used with poor gas than with rich. Therefore this Bill will enable the companies to give cheaper gas, and if that gas is well burned it will be better for the public than the dear gas. I am in no way interested in gas companies, but I hope the House will not insist upon an antiquated instrument instead of a more modern one.
  The House divided: Ayes, 80; Noes, 61.

  Division No. 70.]

  AYES.

  [8.45 P.m.

  Adkins, W. Ryland D.

  Clough, William

  Higham, John Sharp

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Cowan, W. H.

  Hooper, A. G.

  Barnston, H.

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

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Barran, Sir J. (Hawick)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Barton, William

  Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Beale, W. P.

  Elverston, H.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Benn, I. H. (Greenwich)

  Emmott, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Lambert, George

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

  Ferens, T. R.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Brunner, J. F. L.

  Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Forster, Henry William

  Low, Sir F. A. (Norwich)

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

  Lundon, T.

  Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Greig, Colonel J. W.

  M'Callum, John M.

  Cave, George

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  M'Laren, Walter S. B. (Ches., Crewe)

  Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Mason, J. F.

  Millar, J. D.

  Roche, John (Galway, East)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Molteno, Percy Alport

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

  Watt, Henry A.

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton)

  Wheler, Granville C. H.

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

  Norton, Captain Cecil W.

  Sanders, Robert A.

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

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Shorn, Edward

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

  Perkins, Walter F.

  Smith, H. B. (Northampton)

  Young, W. (Perthshire, E.)

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Spicer, Sir Albert

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

  Strauss, A.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Talbot, Lord E.

  Gulland and Mr. Dudley Ward.

  Robinson, S.

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  NOES.

  Adam, Major W. A.

  Hardie, J. Keir

  Radford, George Heynes

  Attenborough, W. A.

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

  Rice, Hon. Walter F.

  Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

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

  Ridley, Samuel Forde

  Barnes, G. N.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

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

  Hill, Sir Clement

  Rowntree. Arnold

  Bentham, G. J.

  Houston, Robert Paterson

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

  Bethell, Sir J. H.

  Hughes, S. L.

  Seddon, J.

  Bird, A.

  Hume-Williams, W. E.

  Shackleton, David James

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Hunter, Sir C. R. (Bath)

  Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  Cameron, Robert

  Jowett, F. W.

  Thomas, J. H. (Derby)

  Chancellor, H. G.

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Leach, Charles

  Tryon, Capt. George Clement

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Lincoln, Ignatius T. T.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Walton, Joseph

  Croft, H. P.

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  Wiles, Thomas

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Mitchell, William Foot

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Edwards, Enoch

  Muspratt, M.

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

  Fell, Arthur

  Nuttall, Harry

  Wing, Thomas

  Foster, H. S. (Suffolk, N.)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Glanville, H. J.

  Pointer, Joseph

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Col.

  Goldman, C. S.

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Sandys and Mr. Fletcher.

  Greenwood, G. G.

  Bill read a second time.

  GAS COMPANIES (STANDARD BURNER) (NO. 2) BILL [Lords.—By order.]
  Order for Second Heading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Sir CLEMENT HILL: The corporation of the borough which I have the honour to represent have already petitioned against this Bill upon the general grounds advanced in the case of No. 1 Bill, and also on special grounds which affect the borough of Shrewsbury. The borough of Shrewsbury work under an Act which was passed in 1901, and Section 29 provides that Sugg's No. 1 burner should be used to test the case. The Bill in question proposes to alter this. The corporation of Shrewsbury object to burner No. 2 because they consider it a disadvantage to the consumers of gas in the borough. The Section also affects the sliding scale, and it is represented that if this is altered to the company's advantage by the adoption of the new burner, the sliding scale should also be altered. It is also considered that no efficient method is provided as to the
  584
  heating value of the gas in the Bill. The Bill proposes to amend Section 27 of the Shrewsbury Gas Act, and provides a standard of purity for the company's gas, and it is argued that this should not be done without the consent and approval of the corporation principally affected. Strong objection is also felt to the general principle of an omnibus Bill for these various gas companies, and they feel it is desirable that each borough should have an opportunity of presenting its own Bill, so that its own particular circumstances and conditions may be brought before the House. On those grounds I oppose the Second Reading.
  Mr. ADKINS: As certain matters having relation to the contents of these Bills have been raised, I should like briefly to put the other side. So far as the borough of Shrewsbury is concerned, the points mentioned by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury can be dealt with in the ordinary way before the Committee upstairs. There is nothing in the grouping of the Bills in the second group to prevent the particular case of Shrewsbury being put before the Committee—a thing which-is done very often in cases of this kind. May I point out what would be the effect if the Second Reading of this group of Bills was rejected? You would have this extra-

  585
  ordinary position, that, whereas these Bills were brought into the other House with a large number of opponents, a very large proportion of them have now withdrawn. The question of dividing was considered by the Committee, and it was held by that Committee, after hearing counsel, that there was no adequate reason for dealing with each Bill separately. The course I suggest by no means precludes the possibility or certainty of dealing with any particular argument. Now, when these Bills come here, we who are anxious to have this business done in a way fair to the local authorities and gas companies, put down an Instruction which would enable those representing the borough of Shrewsbury—if they could show the special interest of that borough was distinct and separate, and ought to have special consideration apart from the general one— to put their case. With reference to what fell from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, I do not think it is an accurate forecast to say that this proposal would impose special expenditure either upon the borough of Shrewsbury or upon Wolverhampton, because, if they think they can prove that their case is really special in essence and distinct from the others, they could conduct their opposition as in a special Bill. If they have a particular point such as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury, it could be dealt with in the ordinary way upstairs. The object of these Bills is not to injure the poor, as was fervently and inaccurately stated by one hon. Member. The object is merely to get an accurate measure of the quality of the gas, and it is in the interests of the community quite as much as in the interests of any company that you should have precision and accuracy in any tests applied to an illuminant like gas. Under the uniform practice of both Houses of Parliament for years past no fresh company or municipality has been allowed to sell gas without the provision of the standard burner. The object of this Bill is to extend universally what Parliament has extended invariably to all new applications. The House will see what is aimed at is not to benefit gas companies at the expense of the public nor to benefit the public at the expense of legitimate and lawful undertakings, but to clear up the matter and see that there should be as good a test in the interests of the public and the undertakers in all parts of the country as there are now in many parts of the country. That is the object, and those are the provisions of the Bill. Special
  586
  circumstances which are special in a high degree can be raised under the Instruction which we shall put on the Paper, and they can be dealt with separately by the Committee. In those circumstances I hope the House will adhere to the conclusion at which it arrives on the first group of Bills, because when you pass from the general principle I cannot think there will be any great difference of opinion. There was a Bill before the last Parliament enabling local authorities to unite in opposition to any Bill in order to save expense of special opposition. There are movements going on in the country to enable public bodies and others to group together for the purpose of a common Bill, and, providing you have the provision that special circumstances shall have special treatment, it is surely in the public interest that a point common to many cases shall be decided upon on one inquiry, and that you should not have a multiplication of cases and the same point decided on many inquiries. The Instruction we have put down and the view taken by the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Illingworth), representing the Board of Trade, will, I hope, satisfy the House that we are endeavouring to pursue that end, to save cost and time where the issue is common, and to allow special treatment where the circumstances are special. The object of this Bill is to make uniform the very best test of gas, so that companies may not waste money nor the public get an article which is improperly tested. Under these circumstances, I hope that all Members of this House, from whatever point of view they approach this question, will see that a Second Beading ought to be given, and that the other questions bristling with technicalities should be decided, as these questions always nave been decided, by a Committee upstairs.
  Sir C. HUNTER: As I represent a constituency very strongly opposed to this Bill, and as they have sent me a petition to oppose it, it is certainly my duty to do so. I have to claim the indulgence of the House on this my first occasion of addressing it, but I am sure that indulgence has only to be asked for to be granted. The objections which the city I represent make are very similar to the objections made by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Sir Clement Hill). It appears to me that, if this Bill becomes law, it would be quite possible for the gas company to reduce their illuminating power by twenty-five per cent., which would be much more to the benefit of the company than to the

  587
  consumer. They also think that, if this Bill passes through Parliament, the cost of the changing the burner should certainly be provided by the gas companies and not by the consumer. The corporation of the city I represent is certainly far and away the largest consumer of gas, paying, as it does, a Bill of something like £4,000 a year. They think, and I think rightly, that if this Bill becomes law the testing machines should be undoubtedly under the control of the municipality, and also that any expense of altering the system should be borne by the gas company. An enormous amount of gas, as the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. H. S. Poster) rightly said, is now used for heating, and it is quite possible the calorific power of the gas might be reduced if this Bill is passed. I therefore beg to oppose the Bill.
  9.0 P.M.
  Sir DANIEL GODDARD: I think there is really a great deal of misconception as to the whole meaning of this Bill. I have listened to the speeches which have been made, and they are really full of inaccuracies. I should like to refer to a remark by the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. H. S. Foster), who seemed to think this was going to be particularly hard on the poor—a more ridiculous theory was never put forth. Supposing the operation of the new test burner is to the advantage of the gas companies, how is that going to be charged upon the consumer? If it can save money it can reduce the price of gas, and surely everybody knows that the course of recent. legislation is to put gas companies on what is known as the sliding scale standard, which means that before they can get the slightest extra profit from any advantages in the course of manufacture they have to give the larger proportion of those profits to the public. Thus, if you reduce the cost of gas by 1d. per 1,000 feet, all that would go to the shareholders by way of extra profit would be ¼ per cent. The whole of the rest would go to the public. Supposing the adoption of this burner does reduce the cost of gas, it really means that by far the greater portion of that saving goes to the consumers of gas. I am speaking with some practical knowledge of this question, and I do not think these facts can possibly be disputed. The hon. Member for Bath (Sir C. Hunter) seemed to think that by the adoption of this Bill the gas company would be able to reduce the illuminating power of the gas by 25 per cent.
  Sir C. HUNTER: I say they might.
  Sir DANIEL GODDARD: It is quite impossible they can do so. I will frankly admit, as an expert who knows something about the use of test burners, that this is an improvement on the old standard, and will give a better illuminating power to gas; but the only saving I have ever heard given is something like an extra candle or a candle and a half illuminating power. The candle power of the gas in an up-to-date city like Bath undoubtedly is will not be less than fifteen, and a reduction of one and a half could never be interpreted as twenty-five per cent. He also has a sort of impression that the cost of the adoption of this test burner will be charged upon the consumer and the public. This is quite a misconception. If you study Acts of Parliament you will find the apparatus for testing gas has to be provided at the cost of the gas company, and, if there is a change in the burner, it is the gas company that has to bear the cost of that burner for the purpose of testing, and not the local authority. The local authority, in fact, will be put to no extra expense in regard to the matter. Might I say a word on the question of the amalgamation of these companies for procuring this change of test burner. It is a general question, as was so admirably put just now. It is a question which has come forward on account of the advance of science, which has shown a better method of constructing the burner than formerly. It was laid down by the Gas Referees that the gas companies were entitled to be tested by a burner which would be the most suitable for obtaining from the gas the greatest amount of light. That is the principle on which we are going, and that is why we are insisting upon having this No. 2 Argand burner. In this very Session of Parliament the companies have come here with Bills to group themselves together for the purpose of getting the use of a common factor. This is not a new precedent. It has been done before, and there have been Bills introduced into Parliament in previous years for the sole purpose of dealing with the impurities in gas. Surely it will be clear, and my hon. Friends who represent the working classes more particularly will see that it is not in the interests of Members of this House to impose legislation which will be of a most costly description. It should be always our aim to reduce the cost of Private Bill legislation. Suppose, instead

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  of putting these Bills into three groups, every one of the forty-live companies had to come to Parliament for powers. It would be an enormous cost to them individually. Who is going to pay it? A gas company may not care to undertake the expenditure of promoting the Bill. I hope we may get a Second Reading of this Bill. There may be differences of opinion and of circumstances, but by the Instruction which is on the Paper it will be perfectly possible to remove this difficulty. I hope with this instruction in view the Bill will be allowed to go to a Second Reading.
  Mr. H. S. FOSTER: I should not have troubled the House a second time but for the fact that I have been faced with a charge of inaccuracy with reference to my statement that the tendency of this Bill will be to increase the cost of gas to the poor. The opinion of the local authorities which I quoted was that the new burner can be so manipulated in the testing as to introduce a greater or lesser amount of air to the gas, the object being to give less air to the lower-grade gas and more air to the higher-grade gas. My hon. Friend who has just spoken has admitted quite frankly that the effect of testing this burner with the No. 1 Argand has been to give better results. I am told that practically the effect of this burner, as compared with the Argand No. 1, is to show that when the gas is tested it is of better quality, the comparison varying about two candles in fifteen-candle gas, and a considerably more increased ratio in the lower-grade gas. I am told that in the case of Liverpool it would in effect allow a reduction to the extent of six or seven candle-power, and therefore my hon. Friend the Member for Bath was well within the mark in saying the difference may amount to twenty per cent. I am told that the practical effect of adopting this burner would be to enable the gas companies to sell gas of considerably lower value for illuminating, heat, and motor purposes than they are at present allowed to do under their Acts. It is obvious if the companies are to be permitted to supply gas of a lower power than is required by Act of Parliament it will necessitate having a greater number of cubic feet, and therefore the consumer will consume a larger quantity.
  Sir D. GODDARD: Has my hon. Friend read the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Lords on this very Bill, in which it was shown there might be a trifling loss of caloric power?
  Mr. H. S. FOSTER: Unfortunately I have not read the evidence given before the House of Lords Committee. I have stated the source of my information in putting this matter before the House, as supplied by the local authorities. I do not pretend to state this on my own authority to the House, but I am informed from a source upon which I think I can rely that the effect of the use of this burner is to decrease the calorific power in regard to the lower and poorer quality of gas, and the effect of that will be obviously to increase the price of gas to the poor, because they will have to use a larger amount of gas to get the same calorific results.
  Mr. JAMES PARKER: I have just an elementary knowledge of the testing of gas and I do not think that some of the things which have been stated in this Debate on the side of the promoters can be borne out in fact. I oppose this Bill not from any factious opposition, but because I believe that it will be a disadvantage to the very poorest class of the community. If I did not think so I should not go into the Lobby against the Bill. The very poorest class of the community do not buy incandescent burners and they have to be satisfied with the ordinary gas burner, and therefore this measure will be a disadvantage to them. I cannot give a scientific description of the testing of a burner inside the gasworks, but I think I can give some explanation which will be of some little use to Members in making up their minds in regard to this question. If the ordinary burner used is tested inside the gasworks you have a long flame and a glass tube, and the candle-power is judged by the amount of bright flame that you have. It is a well-known fact that in many gasworks, owned both by companies and corporations, the engineer, trying to get the best result he can, endeavours to save as much money as possible in regard to the purification of gas for heating purposes and for the purposes of the poor in regard to heat. I admit it does not make a great amount of difference, but for the purposes of light in the cases where gas is used without incandescent mantles it makes a great deal of difference to the poor if you do not make use of this invention. But there is another difference to my mind which is of equal importance to the poor who burn gas, and who have not the advantage of this invention, and that is that they usually live in the smallest rooms and if the gas is foul and not purified these

  591
  people are breathing much more poisonous air. I contend, therefore, that there is a case which can be made on the other side.
  I admit that it is usual in the case of most Bills that they should be given a Second Beading, but I do not think that this House has been properly informed with regard to this particular Bill. As to the promotion and amalgamation of the Bills, I agree entirely with the promoters, because if anything can be done to decrease the cost of promoting private Bills or to decrease the cost of opposition to them I think it ought to be done. On the other hand, I think there is really a case to be made out—a genuine case on behalf of the poor—and they are going to suffer in this case unless they take advantage of the incandescent burners and of the latest inventions in order to get from bad gas the same illuminating power that they could get without incandescent burners from good gas. That is the position, I think, with regard to these particular Bills. The companies admit that this is going to be an advantage to them, and they say it is all right because the companies cannot have more than a 20 per cent. dividend under the Act of Parliament. Yes, but their capital can go up in value, and we have heard of such things as bonuses in regard to some of the older companies and other advantages which are not represented in dividends. I think these measures a disadvantage to the poor, and if this Bill goes to a Division I shall vote against it.
  Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: If I thought that the passage of this Bill would be a disadvantage to the poor I should certainly vote against it, but as I happen to have some experience in connection with gas, perhaps I may be permitted to explain why I do not believe that this measure would be a disadvantage to them. The first point which the House ought to remember is that which was mentioned by the hon. Member opposite, namely, the existence of the sliding scale in practically every relationship existing throughout the country between the producers and sellers and the consumers of gas. The position is not that before there can be greater profits there must be a lowering of the price of gas, but the sliding scale provides that before a greater distribution of profits—before a greater dividend is possible to any company—the price at which it sells the gas must be lowered. What was the object of that sliding scale,
  592
  and what is the effect of it? It is the indissoluble moulding together of the interest of the producer and the consumer, and the moment the producer by scientific processes or by any other means finds a way of reducing the cost, he is able to sell his gas at, then and then only is he on the high road to making or distributing a greater dividend amongst his shareholders. That is the first point which ought to be remembered in considering this matter. As to the reasons for this particular class of burner that is at the foundation of these Bills, some years ago the illuminant power of gas and its composition was obtained by what is known as the black burner. The gas had to be manufactured of such a composition that its direct ignition would produce direct rays of light in large quantities. Then it was discovered, some twelve or fifteen years ago, that by the use of an intermediate agent called thorium, which is now almost universally used in mantles, light was produced when they are heated to a white heat, and the incandescent state in which they are causes a diffusion of light. So that the House will see that in order to have gas which is best suited for lighting you have to have a diffused light in large quantities through the medium of a thorium mantle. You must therefore have gas which produces not the first effect of a direct illuminant, but the new necessity of heat, and therefore the best illuminant is obtained now by gas which produces the greatest amount of heat, and the old conditions are changed.
  Mr. PARKER: Will the hon. Gentleman state how that gas of the particular heating quality which he speaks of is affected by an ordinary burner?
  Sir F. FLANNERY: Yes, I am coming to that. The effect generally of having gas which of necessity is the production of heat rather than the production of light is that the same quality of gas which is best for producing heat through mantles is best also for producing heat for cooking purposes. Therefore a gas company can now produce gas which is capable of the double use, and which is beneficial to the poor, because it is cheaper, having eliminated from it those constituent parts of direct illumination which used to add to its cost, and so gas can now be produced mainly for the one purpose of heating, and so can be produced cheaper. At Wandsworth gas is down to

  593
  2s. 1d. per 1,000—something like half the price that it was within a very few years— about the time the hon. Gentleman, I think, first came to this House. That is one instance, and there are others. The result, therefore, of this change in the constituent qualities of gas and the method of manufacture has been almost universally among gasworks of considerable size to reduce the cost per 1,000 feet of the gas-itself, and that is one of great benefit, as the enormous extension of cooking by gas-heating stoves proves, to the poor and to the poorest of the poor. Poor people who could not put their names down for quarterly payments in the ordinary way, and who have adopted the penny-in-the-slot system, and get a measured quantity of gas for cooking or for illumination, are benefited beyond comprehension by this system, which has enabled the price of gas to be reduced, and has brought it within the reach of people who a very few years ago could not possibly use it, and had to cook by small quantities of coal and illuminated their evenings by a tallow candle.
  I now come to the point in regard to the flat-flame burner. It follows from what I have said that the increased calorific power of the gas reduces the direct illuminating power of the gas. I admit at once that if you were to pay the same price per cubic foot of gas of modern manufacture you would not get the same amount of illuminant, whether you were a rich person or a poor person, for the money as you would under the old system. But you do not pay the same money per 1,000 cubic feet that you used to pay. I have not the figures, but I am prepared to say that if you compare the illuminating power, even the reduced illuminating power of modern gas burned with the flat-flame burner against the cost of it in money, having regard to the reduced cost per thousand cubic feet, you will find that the poor person is no worse off than before this change took place. That being so, I claim that I have demonstrated that this is a matter, first of all, in which the interest of the consumer and of the producer are indissolubly united. I claim that, secondly, I have proved that for cooking purposes the poor and the poorest of the poor are benefited by the change that has taken place in the system of manufacture—a change which will be assisted and facilitated by the passage of this Bill and the general adoption of these burners. And I claim that, as regards illumination, from the point of view of money expended, the poorest of the poor are no worse off than they were
  594
  before this new system. On these three heads I recommend the passage of the Bill through the House with the utmost confidence.
  Mr. G. R. THORNE: I should not have addressed the House on this Bill had I not been specially referred to, but my hon. Friends have not converted me to their views, though I entirely understand their standpoint. I regret that the way in which these Bills come before the House produces very unsatisfactory results, results which are against the public interest. By opposing this Bill, I am opposing my hon. Friend, who desires, on behalf of the Corporation of Ipswich, to have this Bill. I am very sorry to be placed in that position, but by supporting the Bill he is helping the company to impose on Wolverhampton the particular Bill which the Wolverhampton Corporation does not want. It seems to me, notwithstanding all that has been said, that as a result of this procedure a lower gas will be given to the people. The information given to me from my corporation is exactly of the character of the information that has been given by hon. Gentlemen opposite, as well as by hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, and the result will be that there will be a poorer gas, and that the poorer classes of the population, who will not be able to use this particular burner, will necessarily suffer, and any reduction in the cost will not be sufficient to compensate them. If that be true, it is a very serious objection to this measure.
  If I understood my hon. Friend he said those who were opposing this Bill were opposing scientific progress. I should be very sorry if that were the case. It seems to me that my hon. Friend either goes too far or not far enough. If it is right that this burner should be the standard it ought to be the regular standard all round. It ought to be standardised, not by a Bill produced by private companies in their own interests, but by a general Bill produced in the public interest. When individual corporations, as happen now, are going to be subjected by means of this combined Bill to a standard which is not made general throughout the country it does not seem to me a fair method of procedure. The point I raised hurriedly at the commencement of the discussion has not been answered. It may ease the companies combined together to do it more cheaply; but, so far as my information goes, the opposition is certainly not eased to the individual corporation. If it is carried

  595
  through I understand that, so far as any individual corporation is concerned, it will have to go before the Committee and try to show that it has special grounds for being exempted from the general Bill; and having done that and gone to all that expense, which will necessarily involve staying there day after day with a number of Bills before the Committee, it will have to go again and show the specific ground on which it opposes the Bill itself. On all these grounds, it seems to me, that this is not a fair way of dealing with a public question. I am looking at it purely, as I understand it, from the point of view of the public interest. When I find a combination of private companies governing by private, methods a public service, my stand is on behalf of the corporation, and in the interest of the public, and if the Motion goes to a Division, I shall be compelled to oppose the Second Reading.
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I believe it is the common practice in this House in the case of such a Bill as this, unless it traverses some accepted principle, to give it a Second Reading. I believe there is still considerable misapprehension as to what is the object of this Bill and the other Bills. Gas companies must have a standard burner, and I may point out that so far back at 1868 it was laid down that the test burner should be the most suitable for obtaining from the gas the greatest amount of light. There are various burners now in use for officially testing the illuminating power of the gas supplied by the various companies under the powers which have been given to them. The object of this Bill and of the other
  Bills is the adoption of the Argand No. 2 burner, which was recently mentioned, and which satisfies the requirements of a test burner. I would like to remind the House that it has been approved by the gas referees appointed by the Board of Trade, and it is generally used as recommended so as to get a uniform standard test for all gas wherever that gas may be produced. This test burner has been in use by the London gas companies since 1905, and it is provided, for in all modern Gas Acts and Orders as a matter of course. It has been prescribed in something over a hundred cases already, and any new gas company which was promoted at the present moment would have this particular burner prescribed for it as a matter of course. Therefore, the Board of Trade point of view is that they desire, in the place of the various test burners now in use, to get the one recommended by their own scientific committee in order to obtain an absolute standard of uniformity of gas in all parts of the country, so that one may be compared against another in the interest of economy, and the usefulness of the article produced. I hope the House will agree to the safeguard the Instruction will give to any authority in the conditions which are laid down. Having this safeguard in mind, I hope the House will give the Bill, according to custom, a Second Reading so that many of the technical details and complexities may be considered and decided by the Committee upstairs.
  Question put, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  The House divided: Ayes, 96; Noes, 56.

  Division No. 80.]

  AYES.

  [9.40 p.m.

  Adkins, W. Ryland D.

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Lambert, George

  Alden, Percy

  Cowan, W. H.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Allen, Charles P.

  Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

  Leach, Charles

  Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

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

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Callum, John M.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Elverston, Harold

  M'Laren, Walter S. B. (dies., Crewe)

  Bar ran, Sir John N. (Hawick B.)

  Emmott, Rt Hon. Alfred

  Mallet, Charles Edward

  Barton, William

  Ferens, Thomas Robinson

  Mason, James F.

  Beale, William Phipson

  Forster, Henry William

  Millar, James Duncan

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

  George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

  Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

  Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Gulland, John William

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Sums. Rt. Hon. John

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Higham, John Sharp

  Muspratt, Max

  Buxton, C. R. (Devon, Mid)

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Norton, Capt. Cecil W.

  Cameron, Robert

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Orde-Powlett, Hon. W G. A.

  Carlile, Edward Hildred

  Hume-Williams, William Ellis

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Cave, George

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Cawley, H. T. (Lanes., Heywood)

  Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Clough, William

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Kerry, Earl of

  Priestley, Sir VV. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Shortt, Edward

  Watt, Henry A.

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

  Soares, Ernest Joseph

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Spicer, Sir Albert

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

  Robinson, S.

  Strauss, Arthur

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Young, William (Perth, East;

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

  Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Valentia, Viscount

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir

  Sanders, Robert A.

  Walton, Joseph

  D. F. Goddard and Sir F. Flannery.

  NOES.

  Adam, Major William A.

  Grant, James Augustus

  Rice, Hon. Walter Fitz-Uryan

  Attenborough, Walter Annis

  Greenwood, Granville George

  Ridley, Samuel Forde

  Barnes, George N.

  Hardie, J. Keir

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

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

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Bentham, George Jackson

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

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

  Bird, Alfred

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Seddon, James A.

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Shackleton, David James

  Brassey, Capt. R. (Oxon, Banbury)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  Chancellor, Henry George

  Hudson, Walter

  Thomas, James Henry (Derby)

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

  Hunter, Sir Chas. Rodk. (Bath)

  Tryon, Captain George Clement

  Croft, Henry Page

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Wadsworth, John

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Lehmann, Rudolf C.

  Wiles, Thomas

  Dunn, Sir W. H. (Southwark, W.)

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Edwards, Enoch

  Lincoln, Ignatius Timothy T.

  Williams, John (Glamorgan)

  Fell, Arthur

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Wing, Thomas

  Fletcher, John Samuel

  Mitchell, William Foot

  Foster, H. S. (Suffolk, N.)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir

  Glanville, Harold James

  Pointer, Joseph

  C. L. Hill and Col. Sandys.

  Goldman, C. S

  Radford, George Heynes

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Sir DANIEL GODDARD: I beg to move, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they do, on the request of any of the petitioners, consider the expediency of dividing the Bill in order to remove any difficulty that may in their opinion be proved to exist (by reason of the inclusion of several cases in the Bill) in the submission separately of any of the cases in opposition."
  The Liverpool Bill not being in this Bill, I think it only fair that if the companies concerned could show that there are circumstances which would make it desirable for them to separate themselves the Committee should have power to do so.
  Mr. RYLAND ADKINSseconded the Motion.

CIVIL SEEVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1910–11.
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
(In the Committee.)

CIVIL SEEVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1910–11.

  POST OFFICE.
  Postponed Proceeding on Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £12,128,256 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which
  598
  will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1911, for the salaries and expenses of the Post Office, including Telegraphs and Telephones."
  Debate resumed.
  Mr. MORTON: I would like to add my contribution to what has been said of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton) and the great services which he has rendered the country during many years in connection with postal reform. We are all in favour of getting a universal penny post. So satisfied are we with what happened with regard to Imperial penny postage that we are all anxious to see this idea carried out, and are not unwilling to pay for it. But what I wish to urge to-night is the desirability of establishing a penny post with France. One of our reasons for pressing forward this matter is that the late Postmaster-General told us we must take one step at a time. One step has been taken since he told us that. We have got the penny post to the United States, and it has been a great success, and has greatly pleased all those who have anything to do in business or otherwise with the United States. The next step we want the Postmaster-General to take is to give us a penny post to France. We are all anxious to have a penny post to the whole Continent, but bearing in mind what we have been told as to taking one step at a time we desire now to press

  599
  the French case. It is an extraordinary thing that letters can be carried long distances of 12,000 miles and upwards for a penny, while for the short distance of twenty or thirty miles 2½d. is charged. That is an extraordinary way of carrying on business, and is an anomaly that no sane man can understand. The Post-master-General says that we cannot afford the reform that I ask for, as it would cost too much money, but I cannot find that the reforms that have been granted in recent years have cost any money at all. The returns of the Post Office show that both the gross and the net receipts have increased since we obtained these reforms, and there is no reason to think that a different result will follow the granting of a penny post to France, Germany, Belgium and Holland. It is stated that we make a profit of nearly £4,000,000 per annum out of the Post Office. We have no business to make a profit out of the Post Office at all. The profits, such as they are, ought to go to improving the service, cheapening the postage, and giving us other facilities, and no doubt in some cases in giving better pay to the employés. It has been mentioned that although there has been no decrease in net profits during the period in which we gave the reforms that have been referred to, yet in the same period we gave an increase of wages amounting to something like £800,000 per annum. If these Post Office officials are not properly paid now I should like to see them properly paid and not overworked, because we are all glad to acknowledge their services in every way that is right and proper.
  Still, while services are properly paid for, we must not forget the public who find the money, and I do not find that they will object to the money being found for an extension of postal facilities either in the shape of a penny post or otherwise. You get your main profit from the City of London and from the big cities. If you consult London you will find that everybody is in favour of the universal penny postage and any other facility you can give for the benefit of business and trade, while at the same time promoting a better feeling among the nations. I trust the new Postmaster-General will inaugurate his years of office—as we hope it may be—by taking a common-sense and proper View of this matter, by looking at the gross receipts and the net profits, and by treating the
  600
  Department as a whole, putting loss in one direction against gain in another. The Finance Minister in the Canadian Parliament, in a speech he made a few months ago about the postal service in the Dominion—where they have long distances to contend with, which is a difficulty that does not exist here—said that the more facilities there were provided the more profit the Department made. No doubt the idea was that the Post Office should be treated not merely as a profit-making business, but for the good of the people all round. There is no doubt also that we still need a good many reforms in the Post Office, as anyone may gather in travelling about the country. I have no doubt that if the Postmaster-General were to increase facilities in the country he would find that the gross receipts would be 20 per cent. more than they are now without having to spend much money to gain that increase.
  10.0 P.M.
  The official mind gets into a groove, and nothing short of an earth-quake will turn it out of it. That is one of the difficulties in the way of reform, and in the way of a universal penny post. I trust, however, that the Postmaster-General will endeavour to do something in the direction I have indicated, because I am sure it would please the whole country, and add greatly to the creation of a better feeling between us and other nations, while at the same time assisting trade. There are one or two other matters to which I wish to call attention —one is the halfpenny postcard. In all other countries you get the postcard for a halfpenny, and I hope after what we have heard to-night the Postmaster-General will at least make that reform, and make it at once. The hon. Member for Canterbury complained about the course adopted by the Post Office in regard to their responsibility for the act3 of Post Office servants. I notice in our Government Departments that they set themselves above the ordinary law, and they tell us that the Crown may do wrong, but that wrong is right as far as they are concerned. After all the Post Office is a great trading concern, and I should like them to show an example to business people by not claiming to be irresponsible for the acts of their servants, but that they should be responsible in the same way as are ordinary business people. There can be nothing more absurd than that a public department should claim the right of the Crown to do wrong. We are rather in a backward condition in the northern

  601
  corner of the Island in regard to facilities afforded. The late Postmaster-General, it is true, did a good deal for us in that part of the country during the last four years and I hope that questions which are brought forward in the future will receive the same liberal attention. The Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, told this House that in future from that date they would give a postal delivery to every part of the United Kingdom not less than three times a week. Now there is a number of places where they have only got two deliveries a week, or only one. I call the Postmaster-General's attention to that fact, and I hope the promise which the Prime Minister made will be fulfilled as speedily as possible. Then there is the difficulty with regard to the telegraph service. "We nearly always have to give a guarantee for what is called loss on the service. I admit that the telegraph service is not a paying concern, like the Post Office, but the Prime Minister, in the same speech which he made when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer a few years ago, told us that the Treasury would pay two-thirds of the guarantee. He added except in very special cases.
  In my Constituency there is a district where neither the late nor the present Postmaster-General would agree to the two-thirds guarantee. Surely if any exception ought to be made it should be to scattered communities like those of Sutherlandshire. There are about twenty miles in the district mentioned where they have no means of telegraphing for a doctor, or anything they may want in a hurry. I am sorry to have to mention this matter. I got on very well with the late Postmaster-General, and if I possibly could I would not trouble the House as to this question of telegraphs. It is my duty to my Constituents to mention these matters, and those who do not know Sutherlandshire cannot quite understand why such things are wanted. If they visited the county they would know how pressing are the wants of the people, and how pleased they are to get this little assistance in carrying on their business.
  [Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present]—
  I trust the right hon. Gentleman will take a friendly view of these matters. The late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman told us to colonise our own country, and it is by the postal, telegraph, and other
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  reforms that we can do so, and in that way prevent depopulation. The Assistant Postmaster-General told us that the Post Office was taking over the National Telephone Company at tramway prices. As far as I understand, that is not quite correct, but part of the service will have to take it over as a going concern. I am not so-certain that the taking over is going to be a success. Very possibly we may get from the frying-pan into the fire. I hope and trust we may have a good service, because anybody who has anything to do with business must know that a good telephone service, properly looked after, is of immense use to the public.
  Mr. CARLILE: There is one point to which no reference has been made, and upon which I feel that a word or two might be said, perhaps, with advantage. The Post Office is conducted as a business affair, on business lines, and we have heard from one or two speakers of the great profits which it acquires for the State. In one particular it is singularly wanting in its business-like arrangements, and that is that it is generally known that no valuation of the Post Office property has been made, and yet to any man who has any knowledge of business it must be perfectly clear that unless a valuation of its assets is made from time to time, there can be no proper or reliable calculation as to the depreciation of that property, and therefore the accounts may show a condition of inflated profits which the actual circumstances of the property as a whole do not warrant. That does not apply to other Departments of the State. The property of the War Office or of the Admiralty is valued, and the depreciation charged; but in the case of the Post Office, where one would think that such a practice was pre-eminently necessary, it does not obtain. This is a matter of vital importance, and the present moment is one at which the subject will perforce come under the attention of the Postmaster-General in connection with the acquisition of the undertaking of the National Telephone Company. When that undertaking; is acquired there will be a valuation of the property taken over, and if the right hon. Gentleman would now take the necessary steps to obtain an actual valuation of the Post Office property, when the telephone property is taken over the whole could be grouped together, and careful calculations made as to depreciation. We should then have, not, as we have at present, an unsound

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  balance-sheet in connection with the Post Office, but a sound balance-sheet, in which depreciation would find its place, as it does in any other business concern.
  Mr. BYLES: The Debate, though long, has not been too long, as this is the one annual occasion on which the relations of this great Department of the State and the public can be considered and discussed. The statement of the Postmaster-General about the work of his Department was, it goes without saying, extremely interesting. A less competent Minister than my right hon. Friend could not fail to make the annual statement of the Post Office a fascinating story to whatever audience he addressed, because there is perhaps no Department of the State which touches the people more universally or at more points. My right hon. Friend took what I may call the traditional view of the duties and relations of his Department. He seemed to think that the Post Office was a proper source of State revenue. I cannot agree with that view. I am one of those who hold that the Post Office has no business to make a profit out of those for whom it works. Something like, I suppose, £5,000,000 per annum is obtained from the people who use the services of the Post Office. [An HON. MEMBER: "£3,000,000."] I understood my right hon. Friend to say that the concessions and increased facilities which had been granted by his predecessor, and the increased and improved conditions which had been conceded to 200,000 postal servants, or to many of them, amounted to £1,250,000. I understood him to say that that is about 25 per cent. of the total profit of the year. That makes £5,000,000.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Perhaps I did not make myself quite clear. I said the Post Office surplus had been reduced by £1,000,000. There has been a certain increase in profit owing to the growth of business. Concessions have cost about £1,200,000, but the net reduction of the Post Office surplus has been about £1,000,000. Five years ago the surplus was a little over £4,000,000. Now it is a little over £3,000,000.
  Mr. BYLES: I am extremely glad to find that it has been reduced to £3,000,000, because to that extent the weight of my objection is also reduced. As the right hon. Gentleman has told us, by concessions and increased facilities to the public, and the improved conditions of service of those who work in the Post Office, a
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  million of what had been revenue had been surrendered. But I would like to ask what better could possibly be done with a surplus of profit made by the Department than to extend facilities to the public on the one hand, and on the other to improve the conditions of those who earn the money? It seems to me that that is the proper way to spend it. I hope that the process of reducing the profit, which was so generously begun by my right hon. Friend's most able predecessor, will be continued by him during the time that he is at the head of the Department.
  There is one other aspect of this same point. The right hon. Gentleman had addressed to him by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton) and also by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Sassoon) some powerful arguments in favour of extending penny postage to European countries—to the world indeed, by-and-bye—but, at any rate, at present to our neighbouring country, France. He told us that the cost, the sacrifice which the State would have to make to extend penny postage to Europe—to Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, France, and Germany, which were the countries specially named—would amount to £400,000 per year. He has just told us that even the diminished profit accruing to his Department is £3,000,000 per annum. What is £400,000 of that? What better could be done than with a small portion of the £3,000,000 of money than to extend facilities to the public to correspond with any of the countries of Europe more cheaply. More than that, let me point out that half of that £400,000 would go into the pockets of the people who send letters from this country to the Continent, and the corresponding half would go into the pockets of chose who send letters from the Continent to us.
  There is one other reason why I am strongly in favour of this. Reference was made to the date when Imperial penny postage was established. One of the reasons given for that extension, and one of the advantages obtained by that extension as was admitted and, indeed, vaunted by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, was that it promoted good feeling between us and remote parts of our Empire, and we were told that it tended to draw communities nearer and closer to one another. That is exactly the object we should set before ourselves in endeavouring, by the surrender of this £400,000 of our profit, to increase the concord and the international good feeling

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  between ourselves and other countries of Europe, and to draw them closer to us so that we might make a harmonious federation, or, at all events, that we might tend in the direction of the federation of the European States. What is £400,000 to the House of Commons? Have we not been voting millions and millions away during these last few days? £400,000 is about one-sixth the cost of a "Dreadnought," and we are going to build five "Dreadnoughts" this year. Every shilling of the £400,000 that would be spent in establishing European penny postage would tend to the promotion of good feeling and friendly intercourse and international amity, whereas in the judgment of many of us the spending of six times that amount on one "Dreadnought" and thirty times that amount on five "Dreadnoughts" would have the exactly opposite effect.
  Major ARCHER-SHEE: There is one thing that has not been mentioned in the course of the Debate, and that is as regards the pensionable age of Post Office officials. I think the pensionable age at the Post Office is too high. Neither in the Army, Navy, nor police is it so high, and this is a grievance which is felt by a large number of Post Office employés. Matters such as telegraphists in the central office, postal sorters, and the enlargement of the Metropolitan area are administrative details which should be left to the Department. I think the Postmaster-General is entitled to the support of the House in the administration of his office. The only point I would make in reference to that is that last year the Postmaster-General said he would convey to the Prime Minister the preponderating opinion of the House that a board of arbitration should be appointed, and I hope we shall hear something from the Postmaster-General on that subject. I also wish to allude to the employment of ex-soldiers in the Post Office. We have heard in a great many Debates in this House soldiers alluded to as if they were people ostracised from our national life. Last year there was a good deal of criticism about the employment of ex-soldiers instead of ex-telegraph messengers and district messengers. It seems to me that ex-soldiers, young men of twenty-six and twenty-seven years of age, who had spent the best years of their life in the service of the State had a far greater claim to be employed by the Post Office than telegraph boys or messenger boys. We know how the opposition to the employment of ex-
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  soldiers arises, for it has its origin in the political pressure brought to bear in the constituencies, and it is a sort of reflex wave from the anti-military cant which unfortunately pervades a certain portion of our nation. I strongly urge the Postmaster-General at the commencement of what may be a distinguished period in his career to consider very carefully the claims of ex-soldiers to further consideration at the hands of the State. Another point I wish to bring forward is the fact that ex-soldiers are not allowed to count their former service for pensions. I think men who have served many years in any branch of the service of the State should be allowed to count that portion of their service in any other Civil Service employment they take up afterwards. I hope the Postmaster-General will consider that point very carefully, because nothing tends to promote recruiting and the encouragement of one great service of the State so much as a feeling that they will be treated with justice and impartiality when they retire into civil life.
  Mr. DENMAN: I should not have intervened in this Debate had it not been for a particular observation made by the hon. Member for Canterbury. If the Committee will pardon a junior Member making a personal observation, I would like to say that I share the regret which has been expressed that the speech we heard from the hon. Member for Canterbury to-day is the last speech he will deliver on postal subjects in this House. Those who have worked with the hon. Member feel a very special regard towards him. We do not find ourselves in agreement with a great many of his statements and a great many of his points of view, but we always have for him something of the fundamental and underlying affection we feel for the British weather, for instance. He was almost an integral part of the Post Office. We expected certain points of view from him whenever he spoke, and there were moments when we felt we had to put up our umbrellas to protect ourselves against him; but still, on the whole, we enjoyed the weather he gave us.
  The particular remark to which I refer is one where I am afraid his memory must have played him false. He stated that it was only after he had obtained financial guarantees that he was able to force the Post Office to accept the offer of the United States for the penny postage. The President of the Board of Trade is not here this

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  evening to deal with that particular observation, but I saw a great deal of those negotiations, and I think it is only fair to him that I should again deny what has already been denied publicly—that that is a correct account of the transaction. It was the President of the Board of Trade who initiated the negotiations with the United States for the reduction of the postage, and I do not think it is quite fair to make the statement that such a peculiar form of pressure was put upon him as an hon. Member coming and saying he had financial guarantees.
  Mr. MORTON: But everybody knows the names of the men who offered the guarantees.
  Mr. DENMAN: No conceivable number of names of men who offered guarantees would ever affect the Postmaster-General's decision. The only point of a guarantee is a guarantee which we would accept. It was not accepted, and obviously it could not be accepted. Therefore there was nothing in those guarantees which weighed with the right hon. Gentleman. I desire also to traverse the argument put forward by a number of Members on both sides of the House, who have expressed a very earnest desire for an immediate procedure by the Postmaster-General to reduce the postage rate to France. In the first place, it is impossible, I think we all agree, to reduce the rate to France alone. No matter how distinct the act of amity was towards France, it would obviously toe a hostile act towards those other nations to whom we did not reduce the rate. There is a good deal of confusion with regard to the economic effects of this particular postage. Recollect that there must ever be under present conditions a profitable transaction. We are increasing annually our postal communications with France, and we make a small profit on each letter. If the postage is reduced there will clearly be a loss. Now, who pays that loss? There is that amount less brought into the Exchequer.
  Mr. BYLES: Call it diminished profits.
  Mr. DENMAN: Well, you have a diminished amount of profits to the extent of £400,000. That sum has to be recovered in some way. If you take it out of the general revenue of the country—paid by the taxpayers in general—whose advantage is it? Are we to understand there is a large and enthusiastic correspondence
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  between the working class here and that of France? It is perfectly obvious that those who will chiefly benefit are the commercial and the wealthy classes. I ask the House to realise this, that you are putting a burden on the general taxation of the country merely for the advantage of the commercial and the wealthy classes. The Postmaster-General has referred to the enormous commercial transactions which pass through the Post Office but I doubt if he has ever been confronted with a more difficult task or one involving more trouble to the internal organisation than this. I only hope his term of office may be sufficiently prolonged to bring to an end this very important transaction.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: There are two Committees of the Whole House which deal with matters of finance. The Committee of Supply has to decide what money has to be spent, and the Committee of Ways and Means decides how the money is to be raised. The Committee of Supply, in which we meet to-day, is accustomed to deal with the problems before it with a lordly generosity and in a spirit of easy spending. On the other hand, the Committee of Ways and Means, which is called upon to decide taxation, is disposed to regard these problems with an air of rigid economy. This might seem strange, in view of the fact that the two Committees are really the same body of men on different occasions, but there really is no reason for surprise, because, as a rule, they are different hon. Members who speak with generosity on one occasion to those who speak on another occasion in a spirit of niggardly cheese-paring. I venture to submit to hon. Members that they should invert their accustomed roles, and that my hon. Friends the Member for Sutherlandshire and the Member for Sal-ford, and other hon. Members who have been speaking to-day of the delights of spending, should, instead of speaking on Thursday afternoon in Committee of Supply, attend the Committee of Ways and Means when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is propounding a new scheme of taxation and preach their doctrines there. On the other hand, the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles) and those who speak in favour of economy should attend on Thursdays and support the Minister of the day when he is resisting an increase of expenditure. With regard to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutherlandshire (Mr. Morton), he rebuked me for being less docile and less

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  amenable than my right hon. Friend and predecessor. My lot is hard indeed, because my predecessor was in office four years, and I have been in office four months. During those four years he dealt, I have no doubt, with all the applications of my hon. Friend which were reasonable. During that period my hon. Friend made to my predecessor, let us say, four proposals for telegraph and postal facilities in his district. Three of them were reasonable and well founded, and were immediately met by my predecessor, and the hon. Member was left with his one bad proposal. He puts it before me, and because I take the same view which my predecessor adopted, then he says, "I was able to go to the President of the Board of Trade when he was Postmaster-General, and I got three concessions from him, but when I go to the present occupant of the office I cannot get even one." I am sure the Committee will sympathise with me in the hard duty which is imposed upon me in continuing the resistance of my predecessor to the small proportion of bad cases which my hon. Friend has had to present.
  Mr. MORTON: I do not want to be misunderstood in any way. My complaint was that the right hon. Gentleman had doubled, or nearly doubled, the demand of his predecessor for a particular line.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am not sure but I rather think there was some extension suggested when the case was put forward on the second occasion. I should like to say, with regard to the pledge of the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it was a conditional pledge in regard to the guarantee. I do not say my mind is closed against the proposals of the hon. Member, and since he has been good enough to give me an invitation to visit his constituency to survey myself the route where he desires a telegraphic line to be erected, I shall be very glad if opportunity should offer in the summer to visit that part of the country and acquaint myself with the density of population of the district which he speaks. Then the matter could be looked into.
  There are several other points which have been raised, some of which were answered by anticipation in my opening remarks and others were dealt with by the Assistant Postmaster-General. There are a few points however which have been left over. The hon. Member (Mr. Rea) made one or two criticisms, some of them useful criticisms, of the telephone service which
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  is now given. He complained that there were frequently considerable delay in telephoning telegrams under the new sytem which is now being tried in various districts. These cases, I am sure, must be exceptional, for I am informed that the average time that is occupied between the receipt of a message at the post office and its delivery to the addressee is only four minutes, which of course compares very favourably indeed with the time of delivery required when the message is sent by hand. My hon. Friend complained also that he could get no detailed information from the Post Office as to how the number of calls on his telephone was calculated. He was merely told by the Post Office that an automatic machine was employed, and the automatic machine registered so many calls. I do not see what else the Post Office could say. Obviously, these calls had to be registered by an automatic machine which works on the principle of a meter, and the only information which can be given to the subscriber is that during such and such a period of time the automatic machine has registered so many calls. If the subscriber doubts the accuracy of the record of the meter all he has to do is himself to keep a check account of each call that has been made, either by himself, which may be easy, or by his servants, which may perhaps introduce further elements of difficulty.
  The hon. Member for Westmoreland raised another point which has been dealt with—the question of the use of lifts by postmen who are required to deliver letters at the top of large blocks of buildings. My predecessor, amongst very many measures that he took to promote the comfort and well-being of the staff, took this matter also in hand, and made every effort to induce the owners of these blocks of flats or offices to allow the postmen to be taken up to the top in the lifts and then to walk down delivering their letters on the way. I am glad to say these efforts have met with a very ready response. In the provinces with very rare, perhaps no exceptions, the request from the Postmaster-General has been acceded to. In London gradually, by the use sometimes of arts of persuasion, the owners of these buildings, with the exception of a handful, have all been induced to give these facilities, and I am now taking steps to bring pressure, even more effective than the arts of persuasion, upon the few who still remain recalcitrant and who refuse to the postmen

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  those very reasonable facilities which, I think, on the ground of humanity, any owner of a flat or set of offices ought to be readily willing to grant. The hon. Member (Mr. Seddon) raised the special case of a mail cart driver suffering from an infirmity who had done his work efficiently, but who, when owing to Post Office pressure the conditions of employment in his town were improved, was dismissed by his employer. I will consider whether it is not possible to make representations to the contractor. I have no power to require the employment of any individual, but I will consider whether I cannot make representations to the contractor in question. The hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Carlile) made some criticisms of the finance of the Post Office. He said it is very unsound, that we have no valuation of Post Office property, and that we make no provision in the annual balance-sheet for depreciation; and he was surprised that this matter had not been raised previously in the discussions on the Post Office. The reason for this practice is very simple. The buildings of the Post Office have no capital account. All the buildings have been provided out of revenue. If, m the first instance, you provide buildings out of revenue, and then put by a depreciation fund, you would be paying for the same thing twice over in the yearly accounts. In regard to telegraphs it is different. There was a sum of £10,000,000 paid for the telegraphs when they were taken over from the telegraph companies, and the extensions made shortly afterwards. In respect of the telegraphs there is a capital account, and the original valuation is known. With respect to telephones, similarly there is a capital account, and there is a depreciation fund covering a comparatively short period—a period of about fifteen years—to repay the expenditure of the Post Office capital account for telephones.
  Mr. CARLILE: It is still equally necessary that we should know what property we have in the hands of the Post Office. Although it may have been paid out of revenue at the time of the purchase, that does not affect the importance of having a valuation.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Post Office might, of course, undertake a valuation of its own property in addition to all the other classes of valuations which are now being undertaken by the State, but it would be an exceedingly expensive
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  undertaking to value the enormous plant of the Post Office and the vast buildings in London and all parts of the country, and the outcome of it would be, I think, of very little value, certainly not of such value as to justify the cost caused by the enterprise. The hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Forde Ridley) raised the question of the classification of the offices at Rochester and Chatham for the purposes of the scales of pay under the Hobhouse Committee's Report. As the hon. Member is aware, the scales are based partly on the cost of living, which is practically the same in Rochester and Chatham, and partly on the importance of the offices. Large offices—offices with much work requiring higher officials and a high standard of efficiency—should receive larger rates of pay than smaller offices. It is regulated by the number of units of work. In Rochester it is ISO units, and in Chatham the number is 304. Consequently, under the scheme recommended by the Hobhouse Committee, the Post Office at Rochester falls into one category and the Post Office at Chatham into another. It may be that criticism might justly be levelled against the whole scheme, but I do not wish to enter into that at the present time. But if the scheme, partly based on the units of work, is to prevail, there is reason for differentiation. The towns have a distinctly different character. One of the towns mentioned is a barrack town and the other an agricultural and cathedral town. In the case of Devon-port and Plymouth they are very much of the same type. It only remains for me to thank the Committee very cordially for their criticisms on the Post Office, for criticisms are helpful, and also for their words of appreciation of my Department and the able staff which it comprises, and for the kindly references which have been made to myself.
  And, it being Eleven of the clock, the: Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.
  ADJOURNMENT.—Eesolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Master of Elibank.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Three minutes after Eleven o'clock.