Commons Sitting of 13 June 1911

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

MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE
The Clerk at the Table (Sir Courtenay Ilbert) informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker from this day's Sitting:—
Whereupon Mr. Emmott, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Enfield Gas Bill [Lords] (King's Consent signified),
Bill read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Halifax Corporation Bill,
Thames Conservancy Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
Winchester Corporation (Electric Supply) Bill [Lords],
As amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Great Yarmouth Port and Haven Bill [Lords],
Read a second time, and committed.
Swansea Gas Bill [Lords],
To be read a second time To-morrow.
Bristol Corporation Bill (by Order),
Chesterfield Gas and Water Board Bill (by Order),
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Clyde Navigation Bill (by Order),
Consideration of Lords Amendments deferred till To-morrow.
Gas Light and Coke Company Bill (by Order),
Metropolitan Electric Supply Company (Acton District) Bill (by Order),
Rhôs-on-Sea Pier Bill (by Order),
West Cheshire Water Bill (by Order),
Wirral Water Bill (by Order),
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Saint Mary, Prestwich, Rectory Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Saint Mary, Radcliffe, Rectory Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.
Inverness Harbour Order Confirmation Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL [Lords].
  Ordered, That Standing Orders 204 and 235 be suspended, and that the Bill be set down for Second Reading on Thursday next.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  British Trade with Russia.
  Mr. FELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to the increase of trade between this.country and Russia, and if, to assist British traders, merchants, and investors, he proposes to appoint additional consuls in Russia and in Siberia, and to instruct the consuls to send over more frequent and more full reports?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, proposals have already been received for strengthening His Majesty's Consular Service in the Russian Empire, and will be considered. The reports it present furnished by His Majesty's Consular Officers in Russia are sufficiently adequate, and are as full and as frequent as is possible in the circumstances. Besides the Annual Trade Reports and the numerous despatches received in the Foreign Office, the substance of which is printed in the Board of Trade Journal, 440 letters were received in the past year by the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the Board of Trade from Consuls in Russia, apart from over 800 letters to firms in the United Kingdom received at the branch for transmission.

  Mission Stations (Congo).
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he is aware that the rights of the Baptist Missionary Society under the Berlin Act to obtain new sites for mission stations on the Congo have not yet been recognised by the Belgian Government, though those of other religious denominations have been recognised; and whether he can state what steps are being taken to protect the missionary society in its work, particularly whether the Foreign Office will give the society what assistance is necessary to enable it to negotiate directly with the native chiefs for what land it requires to build and establish stations?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Minister at Brussels is in communication with the Belgium Government respecting the application of the Baptist Missionary Society for new sites, and has reported that he is hopeful of being able very shortly to settle the question satisfactorily. I have always been ready to assist the Society when necessary in the past by representations to the Belgian Government, and shall continue to do so in the future.

  Alsace and Lorraine (Constitution).
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will procure, for the convenience of hon. Members, a copy of the Home Rule Constitution for Alsace and Lorraine and cause a translation to be placed in the Library?
  Sir E. GREY: Translations of the two recent German laws respecting the constitution of Alsace-Lorraine and the electoral franchise are now in preparation, and shall be given shortly.

  Cavalry Regiments (Foreign Service).
  Sir REGINALD POLE-CAREWasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that, by official figures, out of twenty-seven cavalry regiments, exclusive of the 7th Hussars, eighteen have less foreign service than that regiment, one of which has never yet had a tour of foreign service in time of peace; that out of the remainder, only five, again by official figures, have more than the 7th; that not a single hussar regiment is included amongst that five, and that none of them are detailed for early foreign service; that if the 7th Hussars are sent to India this autumn they will by the end of their tour of duty in that country have com-
  1444
  pleted thirty years' foreign service to nine at home; that there are eleven other hussar regiments besides the 7th; and whether, under the circumstances, he still maintains that to rectify the roster must necessarily be unjust to other regiments?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): I am afraid that some of the figures given by the hon. and gallant Member are not correct. But however this may be, none of his calculations affect the view which the authorities after very full consideration have taken, of the injustice which a re-arrangement of the roster would cause.

  National Insurance Bill.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer in what way it was proposed to secure the co-operation of the industrial insurance companies in the working of the Government insurance scheme; and whether, before associating himself with any particular company, he will institute inquiries as to its methods of business and the treatment of its agents?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): In order to qualify as an approved society an industrial insurance company would have to establish a separate self-governing department which would be precluded from working for a profit, would be competent to administer the benefits provided by the National Insurance and would otherwise conform to the conditions laid down in the Bill. In that event, however, there would be absolutely no interference with the other side of the business, with which the Government would be no more concerned than at present.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether he knows that some of these large industrial insurance companies are proposing to establish—
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I think my hon. Friend had better give notice of that question.
  Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOWasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the following will come within the provisions of Clause 1, Schedule 1, of the National Insurance Bill: women in penitentiaries and other similar charitable institutions who receive no payment but who work in the institution at washing and other things which are a source of profit to the

  1445
  institution, stipendiary curates, clerks, sextons, and other holders of Church offices of a freehold character, and choir boys and organists?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The position of such persons under the Bill must depend upon the precise terms on which they hold their situations, and I fear it would be impossible to make any general pronouncement as to the interpretation of the Bill in such cases.
  Lord BALCARRES: Are those who are mentioned in the question among the "persons mentioned"?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is not a question of the persons at all. It is a question of the terms of the contract, and, as the Noble Lord knows very well, there are several cases under the Employers' Liability Act which turn on substantially the same kind of words.
  Mr. FALLE: If they came within the Clause, would it mean closing these refuges, if the employers have to pay?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman in that suggestion, but, if so, it shows that the existing conditions are not conditions that ought to be encouraged.
  Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOWasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that under the provisions of the National Insurance Bill various hospitals and charitable institutions now supported by voluntary public contributions will be called upon to find additional expenditure necessitated by the insurance of nurses, attendants, and other employés receiving less than £160 per annum, when such nurses, attendants, and employés do not come under the provisions of the First Schedule, Part II. (b), whilst at the same time additional work is being placed upon them by the certain increase of patients consequent on universal medical attendance and the probable withdrawal of public voluntary support consequent on the introduction of such an Act as the National Insurance Bill, he can see his way to assist, from the moneys received under such a Bill, towards the upkeep of such hospitals and charitable institutions?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Member has apparently overlooked Clause 17 of the Bill, which enables approved societies to subscribe to hospitals and
  1446
  other charitable institutions, and I think the position of such institutions is likely, on the whole, to be strengthened rather than prejudiced by the operation of the Bill.
  Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked whether any provision will be made under the National Insurance scheme to assist those persons who are now receiving invalidity benefit through the various friendly societies and trade unions?
  Mr. POLLOCKasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what provision he proposes to make under the National Insurance Bill to continue the sick payment now being paid by friendly societies to permanently sick members, or members whose sickness is of more than one year's standing at the time when the Bill shall come into force, having regard to the terms of Clause 8, Sub-section (1) (c) and (d) and Sub-section (7) (d).
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I fear it would not be consistent with the contributory character of the National Health Insurance to give benefits to persons who do not make the minimum number of contributions prescribed by Clause 8 (7).
  Mr. POLLOCK: Is not the effect of that to take away the present sick payments which are and have been received by numbers of sick persons for a period of something like eighteen months after the Act comes into operation? The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to mix my question up with that of invalidity benefit.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is not the case at all. The hon. and learned Gentleman will find that there is a very large reserve fund in the hands of the friendly societies which will enable them to tide over the interval. A very small proportion of their reserve fund will enable them to do so.
  Mr. POLLOCK: My difficulty is that under Section 55—
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Gentleman may put questions but must not argue.
  Mr. POLLOCK: May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that under Section 55 the scheme has to be one for abolishing, reducing, or altering?
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the Government insurance scheme, account

  1447
  has been taken of the fact that a large proportion of nurses receive medical treatment and attendance without payment; and whether he will make such provision in the Bill as will enable the nurses to retain the benefit of such gratuitous treatment and attendance by permitting such part of the insurance fund as would, but for such provision, be paid out for medical treatment and attendance to be utilised for the benefit of the nurses themselves?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Money not required for the payment of the minimum benefits under the Bill becomes available for the payment of additional benefits.
  Mr. KINGasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how, under the National Insurance Bill, he proposes to meet the difficulty of non-resident members of approved societies, who, while continuing to pay subscriptions to their lodges or courts, are under their rules released from medical fees and benefits when residing outside the local radius of their branches?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: An approved society must undertake to administer the medical benefit provided by the National Health Insurance for any member who is resident in the United Kingdom. It is for the society to make arrangements for such cases.
  Mr. LEES SMITHasked whether the provisions in the National Insurance Bill that approved societies must be absolutely self-governing is to be retained in the case of collecting societies?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The answer is in the affirmative.

  Agriculture (State Expenditure in Foreign Countries).
  Mr. BRIDGEMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much was spent last year out of the Exchequer upon agriculture, and what proportions of that amount were spent in salaries of officials in research and on development, respectively, and how much in the creation of small holdings; and if he can give the total amounts spent by the State on agriculture in France, Germany, and Denmark?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I fear it would hardly be possible to determine accurately among the many categories of national expenditure connected more or less directly with agriculture what items can be classed specifically as expenditure on agriculture.

  Financial Relations (Great Britain and Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has obtained or will obtain an actuarial account of the total amount of excessive taxes taken from Ireland since the Act of Union according to the findings of the majority of British members of the Financial Relations Commission; and, if so, will he state the amount?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: There are no sufficient data in the Report referred to in the question to provide a basis for such a calculation.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Committee investigating Ireland's financial relations for the benefit of the Cabinet will receive any independent Irish evidence, or evidence from any but the same British Treasury officials whose calculations in the Runciman Report had to be abandoned by Parliament when attempting to remedy the financial defects of the Irish Land Act of 1903?
  The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Redmond Barry): As my right hon. Friend has already stated, it is not the case that, only Treasury witnesses will be examined.
  Mr. GINNELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say in what form the witnesses will be examined, and by whom they will be selected?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I am afraid I cannot give any information on that point.

  House of Commons (Members Lobby— Flooding).
  Mr. ASHLEYasked the hon. Member for Southampton, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether he is aware that during the thunderstorm on 31st May water overflowed from the drain in the courtyard by the Members' Entrance into the Lobby and into the Cloak Room; whether this has happened before during heavy rain; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy this inconvenience?
  The TREASURER of the HOUSEHOLD (Mr. Dudley Ward): Although the engines and ejectors are in good working order, the heavy thunderstorm of 31st May put the drains under considerable pressure, and there was some overflowing

  1449
  by the Members' Entrance at a point where this has happened before during heavy rains. The drains of the building are under reconstruction, as opportunities offer; and these alterations will relieve the pressure. Meanwhile, it will be considered, if it is possible by temporary measures, to remedy the inconvenience complained of.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Can the hon. Member say when opportunities offer?
  Mr. DUDLEY WARD: When we have got time to do it—when the House is not in Session.

  Naval Courts.
  Mr. BOWERMANasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he can give any information as to the general powers of the Treasury which authorise the Lords Commissioners to order the refunding of any fine imposed by a naval court on the master of a British ship, seeing that Section 68 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, provides the remedy for a person who may consider himself aggrieved by an order of a naval court?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: I may refer the hon. Member to the Act 22 Vic., cap. 32. The right of appeal given by Section 68 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, to an aggrieved person does not in any way diminish the power of remission possessed by the Crown.
  Mr. BOWERMANasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that Section 68 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, provides the remedy for a person who may consider himself aggrieved by a decision of a naval court; if he can state why the general manager of the Shipping Federation, Limited, was not referred to this section when an application was made for a remission of a portion of the fines imposed by a naval court on the master of the British ship "Earl of Dunmore," for having wilfully and wrongfully left behind at Caleto Coloso four seamen from the same vessel; and if he can state the grounds upon which the Board of Trade made a recommendation to the Treasury for the repayment of a portion of the fines in this case?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Tennant): Section 68 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, does not provide for an appeal against the decision of a Naval Court when such a Court imposes a fine. The fines referred to in that Section are fines
  1450
  imposed by the ship's agreement as regards which a seaman may make complaint to the Court under Section 480 (1) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. The Board of Trade considered very carefully the report of the proceedings of the Court and they came to the conclusion that that part of the Order of the Court which imposed fines for alleged offences under Section 187 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1891, amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

  Army and Navy Estimates.
  Mr. PIKE PEASEasked what has been the gross increase of the combined Army and Navy Estimates since 1904–5, compared with the gross increase of the Civil Service Estimates for the same period, including Supplementary Estimates in boils cases?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The question is not clear, but if "gross increase," means "increase in the gross Estimates," the following are the figures:—

  1904–5.

  1911–12.

  Increase.

  Army (gross estimate)

  33,521,049

  31,086,499

  …

  Navy (gross estimate)

  38,327,838

  46,204,799

  …

  Ordnance Factories (net)

  70,000

  100

  …

  Combined total

  71,918,887

  77,291,398

  5,372,511

  Civil Services(gross estimate) including Supplementaries

  29,787,714

  48,736,821 *

  18,949,107 *

  *Including Old Age Pensions.

  Ships' Crews (Payment During Strikes).
  Mr. BOWERMANasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that it is the practice to embody in a ship's articles of agreement a provision to the effect that should the steamer be detained at any time during the voyage by strikes, lock-outs, or boycotts, the whole of the crew are to be on half-pay, or should a strike be declared at any time whilst loading or discharging, or for thirty consecutive days or more during the voyage, the whole of the crew shall be on half-pay during such time; whether such a condition of service is legal; and, if not, what steps the Board propose to take to protect seafaring people from the operation of such a provision?
  Mr. TENNANT: The clause referred to by my hon. Friend was considered by the Board of Trade some time ago, and they were advised that it was not contrary to law. They have, however, issued instructions that if such a clause is proposed to be adopted by the master and seamen, a superintendent of a, mercantile marine office should explain to the seamen that if adopted its consequences might be such as seriously to reduce the wages due to them.
  Mr. BOWERMAN: Am I to understand that there is one law for masters and another law for seamen?
  Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, not at all.

  Lloyds Underwriters.
  Mr. ELVERSTONasked (1) whether any statement is supplied to him of the number of Lloyds underwriters who are unable to meet their engagements; if so, how many were in this position last year; (2) how many Lloyds underwriters have complied with the requirement laid down in Schedule 8, paragraphs B and C (1) (b), of the Assurance Companies Act, as regards the furnishing to the Board of Trade of a statement showing the extent and character of the business effected by him; and how many Lloyds underwriters, in lieu of complying with paragraphs B (1) (a) and (b), have elected to comply with paragraphs B and C (2) of the schedule and supply to the Board of Trade an auditors' certificate in lieu of a full statement showing the extent and character of the business transacted?
  Mr. TENNANT: No statement is supplied to the President of the Board of Trade of the number of Lloyds underwriters who are unable to meet their engagements. No Lloyds underwriters have elected to comply with the requirement laid down in Schedule 8, paragraphs B and C (1) (b) of the Assurance Companies Act, but 501 underwriters have elected to comply with paragraphs B and C (2) of the Schedule, and have supplied to the, Board of Trade an auditors' certificate duly signed and in the form prescribed by the Board of Trade.

  Motor Car Act (1903).
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, when the Motor Car Act, 1903, was passed, it was definitely stated that the Act would only be in force for two years, would then be followed by further
  1452
  legislation, and therefore no provision was made for removing from motor-driving licences any endorsements for offences under the Act; whether persons are still suffering from having licences endorsed years ago and have no opportunity to remove such endorsements;; and whether he will introduce a short Bill by which deserving motor drivers may have issued fresh licences free from record of a stain long since atoned?
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The point with which it deals will no doubt require consideration when the Motor Car Act, 1903, comes to be amended. I cannot make any announcement of amending legislation at the present time.

  Metropolitan Police (Chief Constable's Staff).
  Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new appointments he has made to the chief constable's staff of the uniform branch of the Metropolitan police; what salary is attached to the offices; and what qualifications the persons appointed to them possess for their duties?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill): When I came to the Home Office there were four chief constables in the uniform branch of the Metropolitan police. I have filled up one vacancy caused by death, and have also appointed one additional chief constable, this appointment being rendered necessary partly by the general growth of work arising from the increased numbers of the force, and specially by the creation of boards to deal with matters of discipline and the licensing of drivers and of motors vehicles. The salary of these posts is £600, rising by annual increments of £25 to £800. The vacancy in question was filled by an officer with a distinguished military career, and the new post by a barrister with the legal training required for his particular duties, both being personally interviewed by the Chief Commissioner.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: That is satisfactory.

  Coronation.
  Mr. WILESasked whether, having regard to the strain which will necessarily be placed upon the Metropolitan police force during the approaching Coronation festivities, he would give instructions that

  1453
  proper facilities shall be made for men who are serving long spells of duty at considerable distances from the nearest police station to have suitable refreshments provided for them, near to the most crowded parts, either by means of movable canteens placed in side streets or by some other convenient method?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: All the men on duty will be supplied with suitable rations, and provision is being made for refreshments being available on the line of the procession; but it is, of course, impossible to say beforehand when or how far it will be practicable to allow the men to leave their posts for the purpose of using these facilities.
  Mr. REMNANT: Is it proposed to make any allowance to these men in the shape of extra pay for the extra work to be performed during the Coronation?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The conditions of service in the Metropolitan police force cover all emergencies and special contingencies of this character.
  Mr. REMNANT: Is it not the fact that on special occasions extra money is given to these men for extra duty, and that it has been done in the past?

  Anti-Gambling Laws (Conviction at Tower Bridge Police Court).
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether the Home Secretary's attention had been called to the case of the boy Joyce, who was fined £10 at the Tower Bridge police-court for a first offence against the anti-gambling laws, and sent to prison for one month as he could not pay; and when he proposes to bring in his Bill intended to stop youths being sent to prison when they cannot pay police-court fines, and so being turned into gaol birds?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir; my attention has been called to the case. The fine was paid by a member of the Visiting Committee of the Prison. As the bookmakers who employ such lads as Joyce are believed to make considerable profits from street betting, it would be useless to impose a small fine in such cases, or to refrain from enforcing the fine by imprisonment when the offender fails to pay. In a Bill now under my consideration it is proposed to empower magistrates to substitute other punishments for imprisonment in default of payment of fines; but I would remind my hon. Friend that, if any effective check is to be put on street-
  1454
  betting and the grave evils that arise from it, the punishment to which those who carry it on render themselves liable must be suffciently severe to be actually deterrent. If offenders were to be exempted from punishment on account of their youth or their previous good character, bookmakers would find it profitable to employ none but boys of good character on this illegal business—a result which I am sure my hon. Friend would deplore as much as anyone.

  Post Office Service (Half-Yearly Examinations).
  Mr. BOWERMANasked the Postmaster-General whether he had received a petition, signed by over two thousand students, praying that the practice of holding half-yearly examinations in connection with the Post Office service may be re-established; and, if so, whether he can see his way to give favourable consideration to such petition?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I have received such a petition, relating to the competitions for girl and women clerkships, and have forwarded it to the Civil Service Commissioners, who are primarily concerned. With respect to the last part of the question I would refer the hon. Member to my answer of the 29th of May on the same subject to the hon. Member for the Hornsey Division of Middlesex.

  Parcels Post Service (North China).
  Mr. GINNELLasked, since parcels post service is available from Peking and Tientsin viâ the Trans-Siberian Railway to England in twelve days, if the Postmaster-General will explain why a similar service is not available by the same route from England to those cities of North China, and parcels have to be transmitted instead viâ Suez, occupying six weeks in transit; and why the quick route, which has been used in both directions by other European countries since it was opened, has not yet been adopted by this country?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The hon. Member has been misinformed as to the time of transit. Parcels forwarded from Tientsin by the Trans-Siberian route reach this country in twenty-three days, not twelve days. The service from China by the route in question has not long been available for parcels. I hope to be able at an early date to institute a parcel post by this route from this country.
  Mr. GINNELL: Is it a fact that official Government correspondence continues to go round by Suez?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No, Sir; I do not think that is the fact.

  Postal Facilities (Isle of Wight).
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked whether in some parts of the Isle of Wight there is only one postal delivery every other day; that this causes inconvenience to farmers and other inhabitants of the island; and whether the Postmaster General will take steps to remedy the present state of affairs?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am aware of the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers, and I have arranged for a more frequent delivery in a number of cases in which such a course appears justified by the correspondence; into some other cases further inquiry is being made.

  Elementary School Accommodation (North Paddington).
  Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has inquired into the causes for the admitted deficiency of elementary school accommodation in North Paddington, especially in the Harrow Road and Bloomfield Street district; whether there has been ever since 1904 in this district a large deficiency of school accommodation; whether he attributes the failure to provide adequate school accommodation to the action of the Paddington Borough Council, which has opposed proposals put forward by the local education authority; and what steps he proposes to take in this matter?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The problem of school accommodation in this area is very complicated and has repeatedly engaged the attention of the Board. The former deficiency of school places was, to some extent, remedied in 1910, and the deficiency which at present exists is largely due to new causes connected in part with the operation of Article 14 of the current Code. Proposals for remedying the present deficiency have recently been under consideration. A review of the several attempts of the Local Education Authority to obtain sites in this area does not support the suggestion that the failure to solve the problem is attributable to the action of the borough council.

  Caherciveen Petty Sessions Clerk.
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Attorney-General for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the facts of the recent election for petty sessions clerk at Caherciveen; and whether steps will be taken to validate the appointment of the candidate who secured the majority of votes at the hour and place publicly notified for the election?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I have been made aware of the facts of the recent election referred to by the hon. Gentleman. It would not be possible to discuss the details in an answer to a question, but on a full consideration I think the whole proceedings were abortive, and there is to be a fresh election.
  Mr. BOLAND: Can the right hon. Gentleman state why the Chairman of the Petty Sessions of Caherciveen deliberately delayed the meeting for twenty-five minutes, though the election could have taken place?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I understand the postponement was merely for a quarter of an hour pending the arrival of a train conveying magistrates to the meeting.
  Mr. BOLAND: Is it not a fact that if the election had been begun at the time appointed it could have been carried out easily.
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: To enable magistrates who were to arrive by train to be present the meeting was postponed for a quarter of an hour.
  Mr. BOLAND: Is it not a fact that the postponement was objected to by the majority of the magistrates on this occasion?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: No; not by the majority; there was an equal number.
  Mr. BOLAND: I will put another question on this subject.

  Arterial Drainage (Ireland).
  Mr. GINNELLasked whether any estimate has been formed of the gross annual loss resulting from the flooding of land in Ireland by the overflow of neglected rivers and the gross cost of a complete system of arterial drainage to prevent that loss; and, if so, will he state the figures to the House and also have them considered in connec-

  1457
  tion with the scheme of full self-government?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: No such estimate has been formed.

  Cattle Driving (Case of Michael Barry, Ballinacarriga).
  Mr. GINNELLasked under what statute one resident magistrate, devoid of legal training, now tries cases of the class in which The Prevention of Crimes (Ireland) Act, 1887, required two resident magistrates, one of least of whom should have had legal training; under what statute are cattle-driving cases withdrawn from the ordinary justices of the district in which they occur; under what statute was Michael Barry, of Ballinacarriga, on the 22nd May last, brought from his own petty sessions district, where he could have got sureties, to Queenstown, thirty miles away, and there tried at 10 o'clock at night and sent to prison by a resident magistrate having no legal training; how many agrarian cases have been withdrawn from the ordinary law and dealt with as aforesaid since 1906; and whether the orders under which this has been done will be submitted to this House?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: The hon. Gentleman refers, I presume, in the first part of the question, to the Criminal Law and Procedure Act, 1887. There is no Statute enabling a single Resident Magistrate to adjudicate upon cases in which two magistrates were required under that Act. In the case referred to, the man Michael Barry was caught by the police in the very act of unlawfully driving a large number of cattle—in or about thirty head—away from their owner's lands, and, refusing to desist, he was arrested by the police and taken before a magistrate to give sureties for his good behaviour. Barry declared that he would go to gaol first, and refused to provide sureties, and, on getting another opportunity in Cork, again declined to do so. The procedure adopted was not taken under any special Statute, and was according to the general ordinary law. No cases have been withdrawn from the ordinary law since 1906.
  Mr. GINNELL: Why was this man brought thirty miles from his home, and taken before a magistrate at ten o'clock at night?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: I suppose he was brought before this magistrate because it was convenient, and the circumstances of the case required it.

  Opium Trade (India and China).
  Mr. ASHLEYasked the Prime Minister whether the cost of making good the loss of Indian revenue caused by the extinction of the opium trade between India and China will fall upon the British or Indian taxpayer?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): The extent of the loss from the progressive restriction and eventual extinction of the Indian opium trade with China, and the date of the extinction of the trade, are at present undetermined and depend on contingencies that cannot be accurately foreseen. So far there has been no loss to the revenue owing to the higher prices due to the policy of restriction.
  Mr. ASHLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question on whom the loss falls?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I have answered it. There is no loss at present. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard the second part of my answer.
  Mr. GEORGE LLOYD: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether there is any prospect of any assistance being forthcoming for the smaller native states whose revenues have been affected?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Obviously that is a question of which notice should be given.

  Ballycarbery Castle (Ireland).
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolution passed by the Kerry County Council on 11th May, which was forwarded to the Board of Works; and whether steps will now be taken to preserve Ballycarbery Castle, near Cahirciveen, as an ancient monument?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: The Chief Secretary's attention has been called to the resolution referred to. There is no obligation on the Board of Works to take over monuments of local interest, and the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, and the Irish Land Act, 1903, enable local authorities to undertake the preservation of such buildings, and give them the necessary powers.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether the Congested Districts Board has now been furnished with the maps and documents which

  1459
  will enable them to complete the purchase of the estate of the late Major Mahony, at Dooks, county Kerry?
  Mr. REDMOND BARRY: The Congested Districts Board have not yet been furnished with the maps and documents by the owner of the estate referred to. The agent is again being communicated with on the subject.

  Royal Navy (Assistant Ship Stewards).
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any ships' stewards' assistants have yet been promoted to second-class stewards since this rating has been established?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): Orders are being issued for the advancement of forty-six ships' stewards' assistants to the rating of second ship's stewards; their advancement will take effect as from the 1st April last.

  Junior Naval Officers (Specialisation).
  Lord CHARLES BERESFORDasked why the specialisation of junior naval officers has been postponed for two years?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Officers desirous of qualifying for gunnery or torpedo lieutenant have for many years been required to serve one year at sea as lieutenant, in addition to time as sub-lieutenant, before being selected to specialise. It is considered desirable that this rule should be applied to all naval officers specialising in the future.

  Plural Voting.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if he will kindly state when the Government intend to introduce a Plural Voting Bill?
  The PRIME MINISTER: That is a question also of which notice should be given.

SUPPLY.— [Eleventh Allotted Day.]
Considered in Committee.
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

SUPPLY.— [Eleventh Allotted Day.]
  ARMY ESTIMATES,1911–12.— [PROGRESS.]

    ORDNANCE FACTORIES.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty to defray the Expense of the Ordnance Factories, the cost
    1460
    of the Productions of which will be charged to the Army, Navy, and Indian and Colonial Governments, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st, day of March, 1912."
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £50.
    I am sure that the Financial Secretary to the War Office will not be in the least surprised that I take this the very first opportunity to move the reduction to call attention to the question of wages, more especially as regards the districts of Waltham Abbey and Enfield. The question of the wages of the workers at the Government arsenals was raised last year when the Government obtained the assistance of the Labour party by a promise that they would appoint a Committee to inquire into the question. That promise they fulfilled, and it is as regards the report of the Advisory Committee that I have to speak to-day. I am perfectly certain that my friends of Woolwich and the hon. Member who represents that Division (Mr. Crooks) will not think that the men whose cause I am pleading to-day, the men of Enfield and Waltham Abbey, are the least jealous of the rise that has been given to the men in Woolwich and that has been denied to them. On the contrary, we are delighted that they should have obtained that rise, and what I ask is why that rise has been denied by the Government to the men of Enfield and Waltham Abbey. On 15th March, 1911, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in his statement as to what increases he was going to make, remarked:—
    "That will apply to Woolwich, Pimlico, Deptford and West India Docks."
    "Mr. Hohler: What about Chatham?
    "Mr. Acland: That comes under the Admiralty. I cannot say.
    "Mr. Hohler: At Chatham there is the Ordnance Depot, which comes under the Army.
    "Mr. Acland: It applies to the places I have named, and not to places I have not named."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th March, 1911. col. 2336, vol. xxii.]
    I am under considerable difficulties in arguing the case for the men because I am unable to lay my hands on or to see the report of the Advisory Committee. The Financial Secretary to the War Office, in answer to a question of the hon. Member for Woolwich, asking if the report would be laid on the Table replied:—
    "It will not be laid on the Table, and for this reason—it was presented to us on the strict condition that it should not be published. It contains a considerable amount of information; our conclusions were based on the information which was given, and only given under a pledge of secrecy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th March, 1911, col. 2338, vol. xxii.]

    1461
    I would ask the Committee to remember that that applies, not only to myself, but to all of us, and places us in a very great difficulty, because the Treasury are in full possession of those figures on which they have acted; and we have only the report of the men to go upon. The men themselves at Enfield and Waltham Abbey have issued a pamphlet giving particulars of information taken from returns from eighty per cent. of the employers in the district. Those returns show that the minimum rate of pay for labourers is roughly 7d. per hour. In all the schedules of wages paid by the Co-operative Society, the Enfield District Council, and the Enfield Education Committee, trade union conditions are observed, and the labourers in all cases and in all classes are paid 7d. per hour. The hon. Member for Woolwich interpolated a remark on 15th March, and asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office:—
    "Mr. Crooks: Have you considered that Waltham and Enfield are within the twelve mile radius within which trade union rates are recognised."
    The only answer made to that point by the Financial Secretary was that he was very sorry, but that he could not go behind the advice of the Advisory Committee. We have not seen that report; we are totally ignorant of it, and therefore I am unable to produce the figures which are at the command of the Financial Secretary. The men at Enfield and Waltham Abbey, I am perfectly convinced, and I believe they understood so at the time, proved their case for a rise in wages. They showed clearly that every article of consumption and the cost of provisions on which men live have risen from 1901 to 1910. I am anxious to compress my remarks as much as possible, but these figures are rather important as showing why the men at Enfield and Waltham Abbey think they are entitled, with the other arsenals, to a rise in their wages. Bacon has gone up from 70s. to 84s., American lard from 46s. to 74s., Danish butter (firkins) from 119s. to 136s., Canadian cheese from 55s. to 63s. 6d.; household flour from 24s. to 29s. 9d.; sugar (Tates No. 1 cube) from 16s. 7½d to 23s. 3d., and the other sugar from 13s. 3d. to 19s. 10½d. Those are the principal articles of consumption for a workman and his family, and the figures are hardly likely to be contradicted. They show that the cost of provisions has risen in the districts I have alluded to the same as in Woolwich. I come to the question of rents. It is acknowledged that the rents at Enfield and Waltham Abbey are lower
    1462
    than in the neighbourhood of Woolwich, Deptford and Pimlico. This was explained to the Committee, but it was pointed out that at Woolwich and those other places the tenants were allowed to sublet and therefore they only paid practically half the rent, whereas at Waltham Abbey and Enfield subletting was not allowed, and therefore the men there had to pay the full rent. Therefore when it comes to the question of rent the men in those districts pay very nearly the same as at Woolwich and the other arsenals. Though, I confess, the accommodation is, perhaps, better.
    I have shown by the return of the employers of labour that eighty per cent. in the district pay a higher rate of wages than the minimum rate of 7d. I have alluded to the question of rent, I have shown the increase in the price of provisions, and I would also say that Enfield and Waltham being a wide district, the cost of distribution to the tradesmen is greater. That also probably accounts for a rise in the provisions. The whole of my argument tends to this that the cost of living in those districts that have been cut out of the rise in wages is equal to the cost in these districts where the increase has been granted. Owing to the fact that I am not able to produce the report I am not able to go into the matter as fully as I could wish. I am awaiting with same anxiety the answer of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury upon that point. In order to show that I am in earnest upon this matter I have moved a reduction of £50. There is another point, which is a different point altogether, and one which I have always made my own, and I am particularly anxious about it. I do not wish to claim that I am more anxious than other people about it; but this is a question with which I have been more in contact than other Members, and I therefore feel very deeply upon it. I ask for a minimum wage of 30s. per week for men employed in the danger-houses. My case is so good and so strong that I am not in the least anxious to overstate it. The facts themselves are good enough to go upon. In 1910, when I brought this question forward, an answer was given by the present Lord Haldane, and in that answer he waltzed round the question with an agility, metaphorically speaking, of which he alone is capable, and he proved to his own satisfaction, perhaps, but certainly not to my satisfaction, that the men employed in these danger-houses were never

    1463
    in many cases in any danger at all, and that it was an absurdity to call them danger-houses. He argued on these premises of his own, and went on to argue on no premises at all. At all events, he apparently satisfied the House, because, as he said, he had watched the stirring of the acid with a wooden spoon for about three minutes and had once carried a lignite or cordite stick with him and had left it in change of the unfortunate man who looks after our hats and coats below. He suggested that therefore there was no danger at all in the manufacture of cordite. He further said:—
    "There is nothing dangerous if the regulations are properly observed."—[OFFCIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1910, col. 1323, vol. xiv.]
    Hon. Members know very well that you cannot always have all the regulations properly observed. No machinery is perfect, and the human machinery is full of imperfections, and you can no more prevent acts of carelessness on the part of men employed in these danger-houses, causing risk to themselves and to the men employed in the danger-houses adjoining them than you can stop the sun in its course. That is one reason why I urge that you should give these men a minimum wage of 30s. per week. It is not much to give a man who places his life in danger. It is not very much to give a man whose wife and children are in danger at any time of being left without a breadwinner. Even throwing sentiment aside, I do think the House should agree that the man who takes up that sort of work is, at all events, entitled to a minimum wage of 30s. The then Secretary for War, the present Lord Haldane, said my fallacy was—
    "in thinking that because the work is done in a danger-building, therefore it is dangerous. For instance, the filling of cartridges with nitro-glycerine is work which we do not pay, and rightly refuse to pay, at special rates, although the work is done in buildings with the word 'Danger' on them "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1910, col. 1324, vol. xiv.]
    He omitted to state that there had been an explosion for which no cause could be assigned and no reason has ever been discovered. The action of chemicals is unknown in many cases. The greatest chemists of the day are always discovering new properties in chemicals and new facts with regard to chemistry. In these cases, such as filling cartridges, every precaution is taken, and I agree that we cannot be too careful, but even when all that is done the mere fact of working among these chemicals makes it a dangerous trade, and it ought to be paid as a dan-
    1464
    gerous trade, and the men ought to have the minimum wage which I venture to suggest.
    On the occasion I refer to Lord Haldane proved to his own satisfaction that, although there were some processes which were dangerous, others were perfectly safe; but I ask how could he be sure that the man in the dangerous process was carrying out every instruction which had been given to him; and if he did not carry out all these instructions, would he not distinctly endanger his life and the lives of the men employed in the next building to him? If this work in the danger-houses is so safe and so easy, will the Financial Secretary tell me why many of these men are searched and stripped to the skin before they go to work. I do not complain of these precautions. I think they are right. I think they should take every possible precaution, but my point is that after you have taken every precaution these men are still in danger, not only every day, but every hour of their lives. In one of these particularly safe processes the other day there was a lead floor, and a plumber was employed to do the necessary repairs. The floor was cleansed, and every supervision was exercised and every precaution taken before the plumber went there to do the work, but when he began there was at once an explosion. That shows that no matter what precaution you take there is always danger, and I presume the Noble Lord would not be able to say that the plumber had contravened any of the regulations.
    There are some answers which I expect to be made to this proposal. One will be that this idea of a minimum wage of 30s. for men in danger-houses is, strictly speaking, a heretical and uneconomic doctrine. I confess I am not prepared to argue on those lines. I have been a Member of this House for nineteen years and I have never known a single Session when a doctrine of the sort which is described by some hon. Members as uneconomic and heretical has not been brought forward and passed with acclamation by a majority in this House. Therefore it is rather late in the day to accuse me of being economically unsound because I produce this demand for a minimum wage of 30s. for these men. There is another argument which may be used against me quite fairly. People may say, and hon. Members may say, "Do you pay 30s. per week to every one of your labourers?" I admit frankly that I do not. They may say, "Don't you belong to a

    1465
    railway company and do they pay a minimum wage?" I do, and I acknowledge that they do not. I make my opponents a present of that. I know it is a fact. But I will ask the House not to allow the fact that I may be unworthy, or if they like to say it, that I am a vote-catcher, or anything of that kind, not to allow, on considerations of that kind, the men for whom I plead to suffer. Do not blame them for any deficiency of mine; I am willing to take care of myself. To accuse me of inconsistency leaves me quite cold. This life is full of inconsistencies; all men, and, not least, Members of Parliament, are equally full of inconsistencies. I ask the House not to think of who it is that pleads for the men, but to think of the men themselves, and not to deny them this request, which is not a favour but simple justice and simple fairness, a minimum wage of 30s. per week in the danger-houses where they are employed.
    In order that this question and the question of the wages of the men in the Enfield and Waltham Abbey districts may be raised, I have moved the reduction. I may be accused of wanting to catch votes, and I would like to say that when I voted against the 30s. minimum wage, as I did in days gone by, I obtained a bigger majority than I do now when I am advocating it. Therefore, nobody can say I am anxious about votes, and that I am bringing these matters forward for that reason. The men at Enfield are also much hurt by a remark made by Lord Haldane when he said that some employers of labour who had been over the factory had remarked that they would not like to take on these men because they had such an easy time of it.
    Mr. CROOKS: He was thinking of the permanent officials.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: Perhaps that may be so, but I think if he had looked at the figures showing the turn-out of rifles, and compared that with the work of private firms he would see that the average was very much in favour of the Government factories. A Birmingham private firm manufactures rifles at a cost of £4 3s. 9d., whereas during the same period the Enfield Small Arms turned out rifles of exactly the same pattern at a cost of £2 18s. 2½d Bayonets, too, show a considerably smaller cost when manufactured in the Government factories than they do when made in private factories. Therefore, I think that that remark of Lord
    1466
    Haldane's cast an undeserved slur upon the men in the factories, and I shall await with some interest, not to say anxiety, the answer of the Financial Secretary on the points I have put before him. I beg to move the reduction that stands in my name in order that the men at Enfield and Waltham may receive the same advantages that their fellow workers in other factories obtain, and also that the men who daily, hourly, every minute, endanger their lives in order that the country may benefit by their work in the danger-houses of the Government factories, may receive at least the minimum wage of 30s. a week.
    Mr. NEWMAN: Having regard to my connection with the district wherein the Enfield Small Arms Factory is situated, I rise to second the Motion so well proposed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. Those of us who were in the last. Parliament—both my hon. and gallant friend and myself were—will remember that the questions of Enfield, Waltham, and Woolwich were fully and prominently before the House. At Enfield we had deputations, debates, and processions. If I had not already learnt the lesson from across St. George's Channel I would have learnt it then; how extremely easy it was to take part in an agitation, to make speeches, to become an agitator, and how extremely difficult it was to get anything done. Last year about this time I had the honour of introducing a deputation to Lord Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, from the Enfield Small Arms Factory. To meet the suggestion of log-rolling, and to disabuse the minds of the Committee of any feeling on that score, let me say that the deputation consisted of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who represented Enfield for twelve years on the Conservative side of the House; the hon. Member who represented the Division on the Liberal side in the 1906–10 Parliament; the third speaker was a local Labour leader, and I was there as introducer. That deputation dwelt n three cardinal points. We were received courteously, spoken softly to, and promised many things, and it is some of those promises I want to test this afternoon. The first point was the "feed and speed" question. That system produced a good deal of discontent and unrest, and I hope and believe that it has been done away with. Then I take the second point—that of a minimum wage. As a result of our appeal to the Government in the last Parliament the question was referred to the Advisory

    1467
    Committee of the Board of Trade, and the men were allowed to state their case. After a year's delay, on March 15th, the Financial Secretary was able to announce the decision. He said that there would he a small rise for Woolwich and Pimlico, and no rise for Enfield or Waltham. He gave reasons for this decision. One of the reasons was, he said, that the Committee found—
    "that there was no justification for an increase at Enfield and Waltham; they found the rate of wages there was quite different in general employment from that which prevailed in the London districts."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th March, 1911, col. 2337.]
    That speech might have given to some the impression that the Financial Secretary was quite ignorant of the geography of his own country. A person unacquainted
    with the circumstances would have imagined from what the Financial Secretary said that the Enfield Small Arms Factory and the works at Waltham were situated somewhere in Arcady; that these places were surrounded by agricultural land, that the labourer there looked after his three acres and a cow, and his pigs, and that his wife attended to the making of honey. Is that the case? The other day I had the honour of taking a very prominent Colonial statesman to the Enfield Factory. We drove in my motor-car, and one of the officials of this House was with us. My visitor said the drive was one of the most impressive he had ever had. Why? We passed through twelve miles of streets, houses flanking us on either side. Enfield is simply part of London. As a matter of fact, if I were inclined to split hairs and be perfectly accurate, I could say that if you drive along the road to Waltham, and pass over a certain small bridge that crosses a stream, and immediately on passing over take a shorter road off the main road, it leads you into the Small Arms Factory. I do, therefore, say that to say that Enfield and Waltham should be treated differently because they are outside the London district is to split hairs. It may be said that this is one of the small questions that are obvious, but we have a broad case. What is it? Our factory has been where it is for seventy years; it was situated far from London at one time, and living may have been cheap then. But the cost of living has altered, has gone up. The great figure man, the Datas on the opposite side, the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Northamptonshire (Mr. Money), not long ago in the "Daily News" said that the
    1468
    cost of living in this country had, in his estimation, increased something like 20 per cent. in the last ten or twelve years. Members of this House have seen the figures pointing out the exact rise in the cost of commodities and goods at Enfield and Waltham. These figures cannot be contradicted. What is the other point that the Financial Secretary made in his speech? It was that the firms in the district did not pay a better minimum wage than we do. I rather suspect that when he comes to reply that he will dwell on the fact that there are a certain number of market gardeners in the district who do not pay wages higher than 23s. or 24s. a week. Enfield district is a great market gardening district. We have there Rochford's. Members in this House may grow grapes by the bunch: they grow them by the ton. Messrs. Rochford may only pay 24s. per week. Let us see what Messrs, Shepherd and Lawrence pay. They pay 23s. each, while Messrs. Rochford pay 24s. As a matter of fact, whether it is right or wrong, that trade draws a number of young foreigners over to these nurseries to pick the brains, and to learn the trade of these great growers. They accept a very small wage, and they come into competition with the native labourer, and, as we all know, the pay amongst market gardeners is not as good as among other branches of trade; but if we look at matters from the broader point of view, and if we take the District Councils and manufacturing industries, we find they pay on an average as high as 27s. a week, and if when we taken into consideration a 50 per cent. rise in the price of food, and compare the average rate of wages paid in other branches of business and of industry, a rise from 23s. to 27s. is not too much to ask. We do not ask, and we know that even Members of the Labour party do not ask a minimum wage of 30s., but we do ask that the workers at Enfield Small Arms Factory should be put upon an equal footing with the workers employed by the District Council and other good employers of labour in the district.
    I cannot think that 23s. is adequate remuneration for the work done. There is a little book of rules issued to every man employed in the factory, and rule 79 says that the Government and the Small Arms Factory are giving a good amount of pay per hour, and require a good amount of work for each hour; that is, of course, a very good rule, but the converse of that rule is equally true, namely, that if the men give a good hour's work they ought to

    1469
    get a good hour's pay. I join with every confidence in asking that Enfield and Waltham should be put on a better footing on the matter of wages. We do not ask for very much; the increased wages would not cost more than £200 a year, and surely it is not too much to ask for that sum of money in order to give these men a proper living wage when we are so ready to vote ourselves £400 a year in the near future. In Enfield there are less men employed now than formerly. In 1906 political fortune cast me by the wayside, but the Financial Secretary to the War Office was in the House. January 1910 saw me back again in this House and the Financial Secretary out of it. Then later that year the hon. Gentleman came back, but the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary did not, but to-day the Financial Secretary and the Under-Secretary are with us, though the Noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War has been translated to another sphere. I have been always reminded of what was called the "Acland" pledge. The Financial Secretary, about 1906 or 1907, addressed a meeting somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Small Arms Factory, and he then stated that the Government were not going to reduce the number of workers below 2,000. People have said to me, "What about the Acland pledge?" Now the hon. Gentleman is here in this House and so am I, and I ask him now, "What about the pledge he then gave?" As a matter of fact, I asked a question some time ago of the Under-Secretary of State for War, and I find the numbers employed in the Small Arms Factory were not 2,000, but 1,848. As a matter of fact, these figures included the building works department and the accounts branch; therefore we are in reality down to something like 1,800 workers, while we have room for double that number.
    I want again to hark back to last year and to refer to a speech of an hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Yorkshire. I heard that speech, and much appreciated it. He pointed out that he had done what I wish more Members of this House would do—namely, that he had gone down to Enfield himself and made inquiries on the spot, and saw how things were. The hon. Member is a business man, and he went into investigations in the factory, and he discovered that while the machinery was there and the superintendents were on the spot, the men to do the work were absent. He found the machinery at Enfield standing idle; dozens of machines
    1470
    were idle, and, as a business man, the hon. Gentleman came to the conclusion that that was a rather unfortunate state of affairs. I recollect being on a deputation to the Noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War, and he pointed out to us that if the factory was to secure contracts, they must tender at lower prices than outside firms. The workers at Enfield are perfectly prepared to meet that. I think they ought to have a preference, but they say no, that they are perfectly prepared to go into competition and tender with other firms. But if they are to tender as against other business firms, and if they are to be brought into competition with them, they ought to be treated on a business footing. We cannot have machinery standing idle and high financial charges; we ought to be making some effort to put matters on a business footing so as to keep the machinery engaged and to produce proper results. I recently read the report of the Hotchkiss Company; the chairman congratulated the meeting on having a good year; but he made it very plain that it was not because the Hotchkiss gun had done so very well, but because the company had turned their attention from the making of guns to the making of motor cars. Their cars had been very largely sold in very many parts of the world, and they were able to pay big dividends, and hoped to pay bigger still as the years went by.
    4.0 P.M.
    The Birmingham Small Arms Factory were competing in the manufacture of rifles; but they could not keep their machinery going all the time in that branch, and so they turned to making bicycles and motor cars, and they had been successful in turning out the best small motor car the world has yet seen. So good were their small cars that they have been absorbed now by what used to be their rival companies. In the memorandum the Noble Viscount issued, introducing the Army Estimates a short while back, he alluded to the very great change he was going to introduce into our Army. He told us he was going to supersede horse traction in the Army Service Corps by motor traction. I wish to make a suggestion to the Financial Secretary. If the Birmingham Small Arms Factory can turn out the most luxurious cars the world can show, surely we at Enfield ought to be able to turn out the best motor lorries. Supposing you were to resolve to shut down the Small Arms Factory and sell it to someone to manufacture other

    1471
    goods. Supposing the company undertook to manufacture goods there, what would they do? They would begin to manufacture motor cars. Here you have a good railway line, an admirable canal, and everything conducive to the making of good and cheap motor cars. I would urge the Under-Secretary for War and the Financial Secretary to the War Office, when they are considering not only the interests of the Small Arms Factory but other factories as well, to remember their own small arms factory first, because it is the greatest stand-by the British Army has in case of emergency. We do not want the skilled hands employed in these factories scattered all over the kingdom.
    Some three months ago I presided at a dinner given to twenty-eight young men from the Small Arms Factory who were going to Western Australia. Some of them told me that their fathers, and in some cases their grandfathers, had been employed at the Small Arms Factory. I ask is it a sensible thing to lose the industry of these men and send them to Australia. Surely it would be better to devise some means of keeping them at home. We shall shortly have to manufacture a new rifle, and I hope that will bring a large accession of work to the Small Arms Factory. Under these circumstances, surly it would be better to keep these young men from going abroad to Western Australia and other foreign lands. Upon the occasion I have referred to I heard the emigration officer say how fortunate Australia ought to consider herself to get such splendid material, and he also said how foolish he thought it was for this country and for our Government to allow these young men to go. I promised on that occasion that upon the first opportunity that occurred to me I would bring this matter before the House. I wish to support the representations which have been made by the hon. and gallant Member for Epping. I feel sure that the few small points I have raised will receive sympathetic attention. I know they are only small matters, but I am sure they will lead to greater efficiency in the Small Arms Factory.
    Mr. CROOKS: I rise to support what has fallen from the hon. Members who have preceded me. Why Enfield and Waltham Abbey should be counted as being outside London in this matter I cannot understand. It is only when men are classed as unskilled that you place them on a separate scale. You already pay the London
    1472
    trade union rates to other skilled workmen at this particular factory, and why do you make an exception in the cases which have been referred to? I can understand you saying to those employed at Enfield and Waltham: "You are outside London, and therefore you come under the country rate of wages." That would be consistent, but there is no consistency whatever in your action. I look with considerable apprehension upon the new departure, which was to be such a great advantage to the workmen—I refer to the Advisory Committee. Who are they and what do they advise? Are there to he more secret dossiers? Are we to have more Holmes' circulars going round? If so, we are against that kind of thing. Has the Government gone behind its own Committee in this matter? I think I am entitled to say that the Committee strongly recommended a larger increase in wages owing to the cost of living and other things than you have already given. I think in this matter we stand upon a pretty firm basis when we know that you already pay trade union rates to the Londoners employed there.
    In a speech which was made on 15th March upon the question of leaving out Enfield and Waltham we were told that it was different employment. You can call anything different employment. The employment of a Cabinet Minister is different to the employment of a private Member. There is a difference between employment in the General Post Office and the Board of Trade. You say: "We take the rates outside, and if the reports show that there has been an increase in the rates outside we shall make the increase." What do you mean by outside? Do you mean places like Devonport, where men are employed at something like 21s. per week? I cannot understand why you want to get behind this Advisory Committee without making public exactly what they say. I think we might have had their findings placed before us. I cannot believe that the War Office will stand aside and refuse to give the information which we are justly and honestly entitled to have. There is no sense of justice in adopting such a course. Parliament stands for justice all round, but we do not always get it. Some time ago the War Office promised that there should be a re-grading of the men above 24s. and 23s. per week, but up to mid-day to-day this had not taken place. When is this matter going to be considered? Are we always going to be referred to the

    1473
    Treasury, who will tell us that they are full of sympathy and some day when the House is in a good temper they may be persuaded to do something. We have heard all about the market value of people. No one ever does get their market value, because if you are strong enough you get too much and if you are weak you get too little.
    I wish to ask a question or two about your minimum establishment. Nothing was ever so serious or so ill-advised as the proposal to reduce the Arsenal to 8,000 men. It is a moral impossibility for you to run the Arsenal with anything like safety with only 8,000 men. Your own officials have advised you that you cannot run the Arsenal efficiently with less than 14,000 men, and under these circumstances why have you reduced the number to 8,000. Nobody has saved anything out of it. You have disbanded a number of practical workmen who had reached the very highest possible standard of efficiency in the manufacture of war material, and when you require them in the future you cannot take such men out of the street as you did a little time ago. You will be told that the reason the number of men at. Enfield is less than 2,000 is because you want to keep it at a standard which will allow you to expand it. You cannot expand the number with new men in a hurry. What was the condition of things before the Boer War? It is well known that but for the extraordinary activity shown by your men you would have been landed in far greater disasters than you were. Your chief superintendent of factories has already told you that you ought not to get the number at the Arsenal below 14,000. What is the use of spending millions on the Army and Navy if the national workshop is depleted below the efficiency point? In this matter you will never be able to compete with the outside contractor. At Woolwich we are burdened with a staff of people against whom I do not wish to say a word, but they are installed there as an ineffective establishment charge. You have to pay for your foremen and managers, and any private individual would tell you that he could not run his concern like you do. A private individual would not have a lot of wasters idling their time away, because he could not afford it. The least number of men you can employ in the arsenal in order to pay the establishment charges is 14,000.
    You have had two or three Committees inquiring into this question. You had the
    1474
    Henderson Committee and you had the Murray Committee. The Henderson Committee reported that there were fifteen shops where less than half the machinery was in use. They drew attention to the increased cost of production by the reduction of output, or, in other words, the wastefulness from the point of view of national economy of keeping site, building and plant idle. They reported that they were—
    "not unmindful of the fact that the Woolwich plant is capable of manufacturing implements of peace,"
    but in view of the enormous extension of work it could advantageously carry out for the Army and the Navy, they held that—
    "it was necessary to look in other directions for work."
    The Committee further came to the conclusion that—
    "We are further of opinion that it will only be by utilising the plant in time of peace that the country can look with any confidence to possess a body of workmen of sufficient number and sufficient training as will make expansion in the time of emergency possible without the risk of failure from an excessive influx of strange and unskilled labour."
    That is the unanimous opinion of the Committee appointed by Lord Haldane, and why has this recommendation not been carried out? No doubt we shall get the same old answer, that there is nobody here to answer this question, and that inquiries will be made. It is wonderful what a number of inquiries are going on at the present moment. We asked questions about this matter, and the Secretary for War replied, "We have to compare prices." Let me compare prices. The trade tendered for a job at £7,964 and the Arsenal at £9,633 12s. It was therefore argued it was so very much cheaper to go to the contractor, but let the House mark this. There was to be added to the price of the trade, for general indirect expenses, no less a sum than £2,417, and, although the contractor's price looked a trifle under £8,000, it was really £10,381, while the Arsenal price, including this general indirect expenditure, worked out at £9,633 12s., showing, in a word, that you put on 50, 60, and even 100 per cent. in the Arsenal for what I call dead charges, which no one else, under any circumstances, could stand, and all the time you expect the men to speed up and to do marvellous things which no mortal man can do. The result is he cannot show up what he ought to-do. I have an extraordinary letter here from two lads who were discharged from the Arsenal. They even wrote to the King to know why they were discharged. I do not know whether they received any reply, but I suppose the letter

    1475
    was sent on to the War Office, and there will be an inquiry into it. That will take a couple of years, or probably we may hear no more about it. If you had gone on in your ordinary way, you might have kept these lads, and they might have been useful to you. I am not sure whether we have a Committee, but, if we have not one, we are going to have one, to inquire what is to become of lads in blind-alley occupations. You are making them yourselves, but I suppose, so long as you keep on the broad lines of big guns, and keep up the Territorials, the rest does not matter.
    I make no apology about vote-catching in bringing these matters before the Committee. How are these people going to be represented unless somebody gets up and speaks for them. We are here to ventilate the grievances of our constituents. I suppose, in a general way, I am a man of peace, but surely, if you go on spending these huge sums—and you are spending millions upon millions more than you ever spent before—the proper place in which to keep some of the expenditure at any rate is your own workshops. You have your own machinery and your own plant, and what ordinary business man would put out work if he could do it at home? It is only when you come to the Government that you find the contractor has complete control. You could do lots of work at the Arsenal you never touch. I go to the War Office, and say, "You have got the plant and men clever beyond description, and you can make gun-mountings here and absorb your extra men." They say, "Of course we can, we can make gun-mountings, that is just the job we can do, but you must go to the Admiralty." I go to the Admiralty, and they say, "Yes, oh, certainly, but we have just placed all our orders. If the War Office will make an application we will consider it." Then I go to the War Office, and they say again, "We can do nothing without the Admiralty." I go back to the Admiralty, and I say, "The War Office says you can." They reply, "Yes, I know, but we have not got the plant; that will be expensive." Is not the intellectuality of the Treasury Bench in passing on to the next question marvellous? Sometimes I envy them. They were educated at the University; I was not. It is marvellous the way they get round us. They will get round us this afternoon. Look how filling it will be to the men of the Arsenal when they know they have been considered. I
    1476
    have been to deputations and the last words you hear are "Good morning, gentlemen, mind the step." I notice the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Seely) shakes his head, so perhaps there is going to be an improvement. Long ago, when the other Government were in power, they told us the same old story. They have a pile at the War Office, and they bring them out when they are wanted. "Your communication has been duly received, and it will be referred to the proper department," which is usually the stokehole.
    This is a very serious thing. Woolwich, when it first sent me to Parliament, had 25,000 men working at the Arsenal. They have now got down to something under 11,000, and it is all the fault of the wretched Labour party—every bit of it. May I seriously plead with the Government. Here, with plant and machinery and with establishment charges running on which the taxpayer must pay, surely it is only reasonable you should keep on the men you may require from time to time. You will remember the conclusions of the Henderson Committee. You need not have discharged a single man if you had acted upon their conclusions. Do you remember the policy of the Murray Committee of permanent officials. This policy has resulted in the charge for establishment and indirect expenditure being in creased from 40–50 per cent. to 100 per cent. and over. I go further, and say that the policy of the minimum number of people to be employed there is against national economy. The Estimates of both the Army and Navy could be considerably reduced by the Ordnance Factories being kept fully employed. The discharges have dispersed the workmen who saw the country through the South African War to the four corners of the world, and the best workmen are now looking askance at the Government. Surely the nation should aim at keeping its own plant fully employed, utilising its machinery and workers in the manufacture of implements of peace when they are not required for munitions of war. Surely the nation should aim at safeguarding the continuity of employment for its own workmen as an example to private employers. Of course, we have no right to go into the thousand and one things that crop up, but we have pointed out over and over again that, if industry was properly organised we could reduce unemployment to a minimum. Yet your own people reduce down and down recklessly and carelessly.

    1477
    Take 30s. a week, if you like, as being your minimum wage, would that remove all fear of trouble and want, even with your insurance scheme carried successfully through the House? No, there still remains behind an everlasting dread of coming to want the common necessaries of life. God knows I have pleaded many times in this House and out of it that if you want good service you must pay good wages. Any contractor will tell you he gets better value for high-paid labour than for low-paid labour. All your great successful contractors will tell you that. Let the Committee mark this—I say it clearly and fearlessly—that the greater proportion of accidents to workmen employed is among the low-paid. You will find your badly paid men are knocked out quicker than the well-paid. The proportion of accidents is greater, and you get less return for your money. You have the pick of the men, and surely, as a model employer, you should pay the best wages. You may say you can get plenty of men for that price. Of course, you will always get plenty of men, worse luck. There are too many men and too few jobs, simply because of the lack of organisation, but, because there are three after a job, that is no reason why you should starve the one who gets it. Surely he is entitled to decent wages and decent subsistence. I assure the Committee, where men are well paid, you get the better return. Men who go to work with the burden of domestic worry round their necks cannot be expected to exercise as much care as men who go out from their homes knowing perfectly well everything there is all right. How would you like this to happen. It does happen, even with your increased wages. When a man goes out on a Friday, very frequently the last words he hears shouted downstairs are: "Bill, don't take all the bread with you, we shall not have any more until you come home." That means they have exhausted this marvellous income which the Government are paying for good service. Just imagine a man waiting all through Friday to be called for his money, thinking how the young'uns at home are getting on and whether the old woman was able to borrow a shilling to get them something to eat. Think of that kind of worry. It is unknown in this House, but it is known all too much among the employés of the Government.
    Sir JOHN ROLLESTON: I should like to offer a few general observations on
    1478
    the Reduction so well moved and so ably seconded. I wish to do so as representing a constituency in which large numbers of workmen employed in the factories at Enfield and Waltham live, and who, through their leaders, have made various requests tome to endeavour to effect the removal of certain grievances of which they complain. The opportunities for the discussion of their grievances in this House are infrequent. We were given to understand a special occasion would be offered, but in that we were disappointed. The Resolution proposed in April last by the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Crooks) appeared to present such an opportunity, but, as the time was largely taken up by an academic, though useful discussion, the grievances of the workmen were crowded cut. If that Resolution had gone to a Division, I should have voted for it in the interests of large numbers of my Constituents who are employed in the manufacture of arms and explosives, the latter, of course, a trade involving risk and danger. These men complain, and rightly complain, that the cost of living has risen and that house rent is as great in the neighbourhood of Waltham and Enfield as in London and Woolwich but notwithstanding this they are denied a rise of wages which has been granted elsewhere. They also complain that they do not receive the minimum wage which is paid in other trades and factories working alongside the Government factories. These complaints are authenticated by figures, but the only figure to which I shall venture to call attention is that referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Epping as to the relative cost of the production of rifles in the Sparkbrook Factory at Birmingham and the Small Arms Factory at Enfield. The cost of rifles at the Birmingham factory was one-third more than that at Enfield. The same comparison held good in regard to bayonets.
    These are remarkable figures, and they tend to show that the cheapness in the case of the Enfield factories is produced at the expense of the workers. We have been told that the Advisory Committee of the Board of Trade has repeatedly listened to these statements, as expressed from time to time by representatives of the workmen. We know that nothing has been done to meet these grievances. I can only hope that the ventilation of this subject in the House this afternoon will cause the Government not only to listen to these complaints, but to find some remedy for them. Why should these men

    1479
    be called upon to work for a less average wage than is paid to workmen in other trades and factories alongside them? It appears to me neither intelligible nor just. I submit, indeed, that they have a special and peculiar claim for consideration. It is said, and truly so, I think, that arms keep the peace. It is generally accepted by civilisation that the manufacture of arms is in the interests of peace. But whether it be for peace or for war these men are employed in a calling which is necessary for the defence and security of this country, and in which any trade disturbance would be a great calamity. I can only hope, therefore, after the discussion of this afternoon, that these grievances will meet with a remedy at the hands of the Government. The men who use these weapons when they have been produced—and the explosives which make hem effective—hold a very high place in popular favour, and deservedly so, and when, unhappily, war breaks out this is shown by the consideration extended to them from all quarters. They meet not only with encouragement, but they receive much more substantial tokens of the desire to make them feel that their terrible duties call forth the sympathy and the gratitude of their countrymen. Why should not those who contribute their labour for the proper equipment of our fighting forces, especially when their work is attended with danger to life, receive equal consideration? I can only hope that this country will no longer allow itself to he under the reproach of under-paying any of its servants, especially those whose work is essential to its upkeep and safety. I can only say on behalf of those who have the right to call upon me to speak for them in this House that I hope that their complaints may be fully met and promptly remedied.
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Acland): I hope the Committee will not think it any slight if I rise to reply to the points raised by my hon. Friend. I have been more or less connected with this question—with a brief interval—since 1906, and I am practically responsible for these men whose case has been brought before the Committee today. I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I commence what I have to say with a few figures as to the actual wages now being received at Enfield, Waltham, and Woolwich. I think anyone not knowing the figures might have come to the conclusion, after listening to
    1480
    this Debate, that there is a very considerable portion of our men at these places who at the present time are on the 23s. rate. At any rate, it has been spoken of as being quite a common rate, and we have been charged with paying it to a very considerable number of men. But in the case of Enfield I find we are only paying at the present time to twelve time-workers. There are some piece-workers, thirty in number, but their average pay is 32s. per week. There are, however, only twelve men on time-rate who are on the 23s. rate at all, and only two of them are wholly at 23s., the other ten began at 23s. and, of course, will rise. I may quote some more figures. There are only 2¼ per cent. of our men on the 23s. rate; there are less than 1.2 under 24s.; there are 3.07 on the 24s. to 26s. scale; 1.91 on the 26s. to 28s.; and 1.97 on 28s. to 30s. In all there are 10.36 of the 1,800 men below 30s. per week minimum at Enfield. I ought to add this that we are not leaving these wages alone either at Enfield or Waltham. Increases have been made at both places. It is true I stated in the Debate from which quotations have been made that in accordance with the Report of the Advisory Committee the current rates for unskilled workmen in the Enfield and Waltham district differed from those at Pimlico or Woolwich, and, according to that Report, we should not have been justified in making the same increase at Enfield and Waltham as we did at Woolwich.
    I said we had come to the conclusion that it was right to re-estimate the value of the privileges so-called which were given, and that instead of estimating those privileges as being worth 1s. in the £, we were in future only going, as far as the ordnance factories were concerned, to estimate them at 6d. in the £. There is also the question of danger, with which I will deal presently, but we have estimated that not quite in the way suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. In pursuance of the decision as to the value of the privileges, there is no longer a 23s. minimum for anyone either at Enfield or Waltham. The minimum for those few who are on that rate has been made 23s. 6d., and there will be only twelve receiving that rate at Enfield. With regard to Waltham, it is true there is a larger percentage of men than at Enfield on the lower rate. There are only thirty-four men on the 23s. rate, and by the revaluation of privileges they are raised to 23s. 6d., and all the men at

    1481
    23s. 6d. are now to be raised to 24s. Still dealing with wages, and coming to Woolwich, I should like to say this, that not only have we increased the minimum there from 23s. to 24s. for approximately 200 men, but we have also, in accordance with the pledge I gave at an earlier date this year regraded men that were doing any work which is not merely unskilled, or "fetch and carry" work. For instance, 200 men have gone from 23s. to 24s.; fifteen men from 24s. to 24s. 6d.; fifty-six men from 24s. to 25s.; 136 men from 24s. to 25s. 6d., and fifteen men from 24s. 6d. to 25s. 6d. Thus I have carried out the pledge which we gave that the type of labour should be referred to the Advisory Committee in order that they might deal with the prevailing rate for that type of labour, and that we would act in accordance with their report. It now receives an average of 25s. a week, which, with privileges, is an exact compliance with that report.
    Mr. CROOKS: Will you allow me to give particulars of the men who have not been re-garded?
    Mr. ACLAND: I do not say that the re-grading is complete. We had to wait several weeks for a conference with the Admiralty before we could carry it out. The re-grading involved considerable numbers of men and certain men who were on scales of wages have had their scale raised. Thus we have raised the scales of certain writers and messengers. There are other grades that will undoubtedly be affected. I have given the hon. Member for Woolwich examples involving 200 or 300 men where unskilled men have been re-graded because their work involved a certain amount of skill and responsibility, and of others who have had the beginning point of their scale of wages increased. Before I deal with the case of Waltham I should like to say that if there are any figures which any Member of this House would like to have brought to the notice of the Advisory Committee, figures which they think have not hitherto been considered sufficiently, I will pledge myself that they shall be referred to that Committee, and that the Committee shall be asked whether they justify any change in the proposals laid down for a general rate for unskilled labour in those districts. Further than that, I pledge myself to act absolutely in accordance with the Report of the Advisory Committee. It is I admit in one way, and it must be unsatisfactory, that we have not been able to publish the report of this Committee. I quite agree with the
    1482
    right hon. and gallant Gentleman and other hon. Members in regard to that, but there really is a good deal to be said for our position. I certainly very strongly desired that we should be able to publish that report, because had we done so, it would have been impossible for the hon. Member for Woolwich to say what he said that he was justified in asserting that we had gone behind that report and had not not acted up to it. I cannot prove that these statements are untrue, unless I am in a position to put the report in the hands of hon. Members. It is the fact that the report has not been presented to the House, but it is also the fact that in obtaining the figures which went to make up their averages, the Committee were only able to get them under a pledge that in no sort or kind of way should they be published. There may be employers who have no objection to their rates of pay being published, but there are also employers who have the very greatest objection to that course being taken.
    Mr. W. THORNE: That is because they are so exceedingly low.
    Mr. ACLAND: Yes, I cannot deal with that, but if a Government Department makes inquiries as to what the rates are, they have to find out what the low rates are as well as the high rates, and when the persons who pay the low rates say they will only give them on the understanding that they should not be made public and the public department gives that pledge, it is impossible for them to go behind it.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: Were not these figures given by the men?
    Mr. ACLAND: I think they were, but I am not sure of that. I think the figures quoted by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman were laid before the Committee, and if so it makes it stronger that in spite of all those figures being laid before them, the Committee felt compelled to find that far lower rates were as an actual fact being paid than those which we pay.
    Mr. PETO: From the report of a society is appears that a minimum wage of 26s. is paid, and it appears that builders and others are paid 7d. an hour, but you tell us that that is only in the nursery.
    Mr. ACLAND: That is not the case reported to us by this Advisory Committee. But I am not going to quote from their report, because the hon. and gallant Gentleman would at once get up and say I must

    1483
    lay it on the Table. But I can assure the hon. and gallant Member, however, that what I state is the fact. I will, if the hon. Member wishes it, ask the Advisory Committee to reconsider these figures, or to reconsider these figures with other figures which it might be desired to put before them, and I will only say that any of our wages, if not in accordance with these figures, shall be brought into accordance with them. I go on to the question of danger. There are circumstances which make it proper that higher wages should be given, and the danger of the occupation measured by the accidents which occur in it is certainly one of those conditions, but I venture to put this before the Committee: that the only way in which you can judge of the danger of the occupation is by ascertaining the risk, and the only way in which you judge of the risk is by finding out what, as a matter of fact, have been the accidents which have occurred. I cannot recognise the argument that because an occupation would be dangerous if precautions were not taken, therefore the occupation is a dangerous one. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has disarmed me by referring to the fact that he is one of the directors of a great railway company; he told us that he has the dividends to consider, and quite frankly said that we ought not to expect him to be consistent in his two capacities.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I did not say so. I said I did belong to a railway company which did not pay a minimum wage, but because I advanced the argument that these men were worth 30s., I did not wish you to visit that upon the men.
    Mr. ACLAND: I quite accept that, but the point I think it is fair to make is that just as in the gunpowder factory at Waltham, if regulations were not observed and if precautions were not taken, there would be an enormous number of deaths by explosion, so also in the case of railways, there would be far greater loss of life to the men employed in the stations or shunting or as drivers or guards, unless again there also a great number of rules were laid down and a great number of precautions were taken. No one has suggested, however, that the fact that there are occupations in which there are elements of danger which would arise if these elaborate precautions were not taken by the railway companies should, ipso facto, be taken as an argument for increasing the wages of the men. Coming
    1484
    to the figures with a view to ascertaining whether risk is one which ought to be met by an increase of wages, I find that there has recently been published the Report of a Departmental Committee appointed by the Home Office on accidents in factories. From that Report one may obtain fairly detailed figures as to what the extent of those accidents really is, so that we can compare them with the figures which we can ascertain from Waltham and Woolwich in regard to accidents in the danger buildings. These figures I will give to the Committee. The trade which has the highest accident rate is the ship-building trade, with a percentage of 7.67 accidents in a year. That means that a man would have an accident normally in the ship-building trade once in every thirteen years. Then you come to the metal trades, and you find the percentage in metal extraction is 4.81, and in metal foundrying and in making machines, conveyances, and tools 4.21. The figure for railways is rather higher than for metal work and lower than for ship-building, namely 4.72. Then you come clown to working in wood which is 2.56; working in paper which is less, and the lowest of all, and a very safe occupation, is cotton-weaving; cotton-spinning is higher.
    Cotton-weaving is the lowest, and the figure is.97. Taking.97 as being really 1 per cent., that means that in cotton-weaving a man or woman would have an accident once in a hundred years if he or she lip ed so long. Surely one would expect to find that at Waltham, and at Woolwich the figures in the danger buildings would be higher than those which I have given, but at Waltham for seven years past, from 1903–4 to 1909–10, the average for all accidents, including explosions, is 1.08 per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many were fatal?"] I do not know, but I will give the figures as I have them.
    Mr. BARNES: Will the hon. Gentleman give us the percentage in the danger buildings alone?
    Mr. ACLAND: I do not know, I will give the figures as I have them. Waltham is practically altogether a danger factory, or nearly so. If there was a big explosion nearly everybody might be killed.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: No.
    Mr. ACLAND: These figures include the whole of the accidents and all the accidents due to explosions, and I may point out that if you include all the accidents due to explosion the percentage is only

    1485
    slightly higher than the percentage in cotton weaving, is only about one-fourth of that in metal work, and only one-fourth or a good deal less than in railways, and only one-seventh of the accidents in shipbuilding. I can give the hon. Member who has just asked the question as to accidents from explosives alone the figures as to Woolwich, though I have not them with me in regard to Waltham. In the last four years, which are the only ones for which we have a record of the exact number of men employed in the danger buildings, there have been thirteen accidents through explosions at Woolwich. No one was killed and six men were injured. The percentage of accidents due to explosions in the danger buildings was.2, and that works out in this way, that a man would only have one accident if he worked for 500 years in these danger buildings. This has been shown by these figures to be one of the safest trades that are engaged in in this country, and therefore we cannot possibly give higher wages because of the danger. But I think it may fairly be recognised that in order to produce that safety very particular care has to be taken by special regulations having been made and enforced. The men have to wear flannel shirts, they are not allowed to take matches into the building at all, and there are many other such regulations, and although I entirely deny that higher wages ought to be given because of the danger, yet I do admit that there is some claim for a slight increase in wage owing to the very careful precautions that have to be taken and the very strict conditions under which the men work.
    5.0 P.M.
    Therefore we are going to increase up to 25s. at Woolwich the men employed in the danger building, and up to 24s. the men employed similarly at Waltham, and if the Advisory Committee were again referred to, and in spite of their first report did come to the conclusion that the rates paid for unskilled work are the same at Waltham as they are at Woolwich and Pimlico, then of course the pay given in the danger area at Waltham would be brought up to the higher figures which we have given at Wolwich. The hon. Member (Mr. Newman) referred to the establishment there and to a pledge with regard to the numbers whom we kept. I have no recollection whatever of any pledges of the kind, and I think it is unlikely that any such pledge was given in 1906 or 1907, because I was not Financial Secretary until 1908.
    Mr. N EWMAN: It may have been 1908
    Mr. ACLAND: At any rate, when we come to 1908 a pledge given then would be too late to have any real effect, because the matter had been quite clearly laid down by the Secretary of State era 15th August, 1907, and this is what he says:—
    "The numbers kept would not be allowed to pass the limits laid down in either direction under normal circumstances."
    He guarded himself most clearly by using these words, and it has, unfortunately, in the case of Enfield, though not, I think, either of Woolwich or of Waltham, been necessary for us to go below the limits which were then laid down, which were from 1,900 up to 2,000. The number employed at Enfield now is slightly under 1,800, but there is this to be observed, that we have reached that number not by making discharges, but simply by wastage, by allowing people to go and find other work, those leaving who come to the age of sixty or sixty-five, or whatever age it is that they are allowed to stay on till, or who have died or resigned or anything of that kind, so that we have, although we are below the lower level of the establishment laid clown, avoided inflicting the hardship of dismissing men. There is this also. The hon. Member referred to the very great hardship on the neighbourhood of having less money to be spent in wages in that neighbourhood, and that is a very considerable point. But, although the men have been steadily decreasing at Enfield, the total amount of wages has been fairly steadily increasing. I find the wages paid in 1905–6 amounted to £158,000, but the total wages paid now are £195,000, an increase of nearly £40,000 a year, in spite of this decrease in the number of men employed, which shows not only that we have very considerably increased the minimum wage, but that we have graded men up very considerably in accordance with the skill of the jobs they are called upon to do. The average wage at Enfield has increased in these five years from £1 12s. 9d. a week to £1 19s. 10d., so that, from the point of view either of the average wage or of the amount of wages circulated in the district, although we have had to go below the limit of 1900, which was stated in the first place, yet there is a larger wage per head and a larger amount of wage circulated in the districts than there was before.
    The hon. Member (Mr. Crooks) made several points against me, and I should

    1487
    like to reply to two or three of them. He said: "If you give to a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers the same rate, whether he works at Waltham or Enfield or Woolwich, or anywhere else in the London area, why do you not give the same rate to the unskilled worker?" The answer is very simple, because the Amalgamated Society of Engineers is organised, and the unskilled workmen are not organised. When we employ a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers we give him the wages which actually prevail in the area. If they enforce for their members a 39s. rate we have to give, at any rate, 38s., recognising our privileges at a shilling, and so on. If the wages of unskilled workmen were so organised that it was possible for this committee or any one else to say that, as a matter of fact wages for unskilled work were the same at Waltham and Enfield as they are at Woolwich or Pimlico, then, of course, we could follow exactly the same practice as we have to do in regard to skilled workmen and give exactly the same rates. But after all, when this House asks, as it did last Session, that these matters might be referred to the Advisory Committee in order that, it might report to us what is the local rate prevailing in accordance with the terms of the Fair-Wages Clause, and when we ascertain that the local rate is lower in one place than in another, we cannot go behind that.
    The hon. Member also raised the very important matter of the establishment. He said it would have been far better if he had not reduced Woolwich so low but had kept 12,000 men in the factories there instead of 8,000, and, of course, it would have been better—for Woolwich. But I think if I tell the Committee what the figures are with regard to the distribution of work in our own factories and the outside trade they will see that we have gone as far as we reasonably could in giving a considerable proportion of our work to our own men and making the burden fall on the outside contractor. Generally in these Debates I am backed up on that matter by the representatives of Birmingham or Sheffield, or Bow and Bromley (Mr Lansbury), for instance, who, I am sure, would back me up if he were here, who have contractors who make rifles and other things for us in their division, and who have been far harder hit by the policy of reduction of armaments which we have had to pursue since the war than our own
    1488
    factories have been. Our rule used to be that our own factories got 40 per cent. of the total work we had to give, but last year they got 60 per cent. of the work for the Army, and the outside contractor only got 40 per cent. If we had not adopted that policy of the minimum, if we had gone on with our policy of keeping the proportions the same between our own factories and the outside trade, the number of people employed at Woolwich, instead of being kept at 8,000, would be something between 5,000 and 6,000. I urge, with some hope that the Committee will believe it, that the policy of maintaining a minimum and keeping it as steady as we possibly can at a fixed number, irrespective of what our orders for the year may be, and making the outside trade suffer when anyone has to suffer, is a policy which, at any rate, is good for our factories, bad and difficult though it may be for the contractors outside. After we have, if we are to be safe in the matter of expansion of war material in time of war, to make it worth while for the great outside firms to keep certain plant which may be used for our production when war comes, and I think, in giving 60 per cent. of our work to our own people, we are doing the least that we can reasonably be expected to do in keeping alive the outside firms at all.
    With regard to the overstocking of the factories at Woolwich with foremen and other people at high salaries, there is, of course, something in what the hon. Member says. It is, I am sorry to say, easier to dispense with the ordinary workman, because you know that on emergency the gates will be thronged with men capable of doing the work. It is easier to reduce these men to this minimum than it is to discharge all our foremen and higher officials who get acquainted with the rules and methods of the arsenal, but we have done a good deal in the direction of reducing our foremen to assistant-foremen and assistant-foremen to markers-out to keep pace with the diminution in the work turned out. A good many men who were foremen in the good times of the war are now only assistant-foremen. Some have gone altogether, and some have been reduced from assistant-foremen to lower positions.
    With regard to the employment of boys the hon. Member said several things which I felt rather deeply—that we are expressing sympathy and saying it will be considered, and that a committee shall be set up, and that sort of thing. There is some-

    1489
    thing in it. I cannot and I do not pretend that we are now able in any of our factories, as we ought to be, to absorb all the boys we take on when they come to the age when they no longer ought to have boys' wages. The matter has been very much complicated, of course, by the fact that we have been reducing, and at Enfield, for instance, are still reducing, as much as we possibly can by wastage, and are not able at all to take on fresh people of any kind. That has not been wholly the case at Woolwich, but it has been so at Enfield—so that it has been almost impossible for us to find work for everyone if we are to take on the boys when the boys become men. It has also become complicated very much recently by the necessity of having to absorb into our own factory as many as we possibly could of the men hitherto employed in the torpedo factory which was doing work for the Admiralty. We have been able to absorb 142 men employed in the torpedo factory in the different departments of our factories, and that has undoubtedly made it far more difficult to take in the boys as we ought to do. But there is this to be said, that, if there is any doubt about boys being kept on at all, it is perhaps better to make them go at seventeen, when they will have learnt something but have not yet become incapable of learning anything more, having taught them factory habits and workmen's habits, than to keep them on till twenty-one and discharge them into an employment which is already overstocked.
    Mr. NEWMAN: Does that apply to Enfield as well as to Woolwich?
    Mr. ACLAND: I am not quite sure about that. At Enfield, of course, we have a certain number of trade lads who are in a different category from these boys at Woolwich. They are skilled, and they attend technical classes and so on, for which provision is made with assistance from Government funds, and we look forward, of course, to taking them on in our own service. I think that is the case with the most important class at Enfield, but if there is any other class I will inquire and let the hon. Member know. I can only admit, therefore, with regard to boys that there is still a good deal to do. It is, of course, perfectly right that we should not employ boys in work in which they cannot find employment when they get to the age of manhood. Our task has been difficult by reason of our reductions, and by reason of taking these men from the torpedo fac-
    1490
    tory, and it is also difficult because demands are made upon the arsenal, and it is quite natural that we should take on old soldiers and give then a preference when workmen are to be taken on, and also by this fourth reason, that the demand is naturally made that when men are to be taken on we should try to take back some of the men who have previously been discharged. All these things will pass away in time, and when they have passed away we aim at not employing more boys than we shall have a reasonable probability of absorbing. I can only say, in conclusion, that though things work slowly, perhaps, with regard to the increase of wages and the improvement of conditions in our Government factories, yet there is an undoubted movement. Things have undoubtedly improved. You have for instance, looking back over the past five years, an increase in the absolute minimum wage at Woolwich from 21s. to 23s., and now to 24s. You have, besides this re-grading, which gives the men not only an increase of 1s. a week, but to every one who is doing anything except purely and absolutely unskilled work gives more than an increase of is., so that the average will be 25s. You have, therefore, in five years an increase in wages to 25s. at Woolwich, and you have at Waltham and Enfield other men who in the same period have increased from 21s. to 23s. 6d., or 24s. to 24s. 6d. There is also this re-grading according to the amount of skill possessed, which has been gradually going on. The figures which I have given show that at Enfield, at any rate, there has been a considerable increase in the gross wages paid, in spite of the decrease in the number employed. I cannot say that the wages paid to unskilled men are altogether unsatisfactory. The wages are low for unskilled men—lower than under many of our municipalities. We admit that some of the municipalities pay wages which are a good deal higher than we pay, but we pay well up to the average of the good employers. An increase of 4s. in five years is not so bad. I would give the Committee the assurance that this matter will again be brought before the Advisory Committee if they desire me to do it.
    Mr. STUART-WORTLEY: The Financial Secretary to the War Office referred in the course of his speech to a question than which it is impossible to imagine one more important to this country. I mean the distribution of work for war materials as between Government factories and

    1491
    those undertakings which are equipped by private capital, and which provide for the manufacture of the same kind of commodities. I rise for the purpose of reminding the Committee that Woolwich and other constituencies where Government factories exist are not by any means the only constituencies in this country which are interested in the question of the distribution of this particular kind of work. The hon. Gentleman said that, whereas formerly the rule was that the Government factories should get 40 per rent. of the work which was to be done for the Government and that the outside factories should get 60 per cent., that has been changed, so that 60 per cent. goes to the Government factories and 40 per cent. to the private factories. I confess that I forget when that sufficiently alarming new departure was taken. I hope the War Office will not allow themselves to be driven any further in the same direction, because, apart from other reasons, this is a question of profound public importance. It is clear that from military considerations of the highest kind it is absolutely necessary that the Government should have private enterprise in this country to turn to in cases of emergency, that those sources of supply should be varied in their character, and that they should be geographically distributed in different places. Assuming that that is a fundamental necessity, it is obvious that you cannot expect to get private enterprise to come forward and supply your necessities unless you afford some degree of security, without which private capital will not be embarked in enterprises in connection with which the demand must he of a fluctuating kind.
    I remember approaching the War Office on this subject after the period of difficulty through which we passed in the the South African War, and I represented that a previous promise given by the War Office appeared to myself and friends not to have been properly observed. The War Office were then putting up at Woolwich plant which we at Sheffield thought that they should not put up. We were told that we had to come under that new departure, and that the Government could not do away with men necessary to supply a certain minimum quantity of war material. The particular thing to which our representations had reference was a big forging press for the purpose of making the forgings out of which great
    1492
    guns are made. We had to submit to this change of policy, but it was accompanied by the promise that the policy was in future to be that whereas it was clear that the demand for war material must be to some extent of a fluctuating and uncertain kind, it was right iii the interest of having a constant supply of private capital ready to enter the market and to take the risk of putting up gigantic and extensive plants that the ordinary and non-fluctuating demand should primarily and in the first instance go to private traders, and secondly that the emergency and fluctuating demand should be supplied primarily by the Government Departments. There has been the change which the hon. Gentleman indicated in his speech, and I hope that is to be the end of any change we are to hear of in that direction. I wish to remind him and the Committee that just as there are great working classes at Woolwich and Enfield profoundly interested in this great question, there are no4 less important communities living in long rows and streets in other places to whom this very question of the uncertainty of employment is quite as dangerous, quite as significant, and quite as disquieting as it is to many of the workers to whom the hon. Gentleman referred.
    Mr. HOHLER: I desire to say something with respect to the question of the wages paid to labourers. I think I have great reason to complain of the way which I have been treated by the War Office in this matter. Shortly after I entered the House the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) raised the question of the wages paid to those men, and a division was prevented by a promise made on behalf of the Government that they were willing to refer the question of the wages of these men to the Advisory Committee. That promise was accepted, and as the result of that undertaking, which I understood was given in all honour and good faith and that it would be carried out, I thought the proper course was to communicate with Lord Haldane, Secretary of State for War. I wrote to him in March, 1910, with reference to the wages of the men at the ordnance depot, Chatham. These wages, in my judgment, were ridiculously low, and I gave the Secretary for War particulars as to the number of men employed and the wages paid. The worst of them were paid 20s. 6d. a week, out of which they had to pay house rent of 5s. 6d. I said that if he required further informa-

    1493
    tion I should be glad to supply it in relation to an important body of men in my Constituency. That letter was acknowledged on 13th April. I was told that the Secretary of State for War agreed, at any rate, with what I said as to the rate of wages.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have been looking through the Vote, and I cannot find anything about the depot at Chatham in it.
    Mr. HOHLER: That is quite likely, because the Financial Secretary to the War Office some time ago did not appear to know of the depot at Chatham.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That makes it quite clear that it does not come under his Department.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): It comes under another Vote.
    Mr. HOHLER: This is part of the Ordnance Vote. I find that Chatham is not specifically mentioned, but it appears to me that this question can only be raised under the Vote for ordnance factories. This is just the mistake which the Financial Secretary fell into when I raised the point in regard to Chatham. He said it came under the Admiralty. I pointed out that it came under the Army Ordnance Vote. I submit that I am perfectly in order in raising it. This is the only point in the Vote on which I can raise the question. It is as much involved in this Vote as the Arsenal at Woolwich or any of the Army ordnance factories. It is part of that very Vote. Lord Haldane, through his secretary acknowledged the letter I wrote to him, and stated that the question of the wages of the men employed at Chatham was involved. I am entirely in order in calling the attention of the Committee to the matter on this Vote.
    Mr. ACLAND: I would point out to the hon. Member that the wages Of these men come under Vote 8, Subhead A. That is not the Ordnance Factories Vote.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The first thing we have to satisfy ourselves about is whether it is in order to raise the question on this Vote. I am still unable to find anything which has to do with the wages of these men at Chatham. This Vote is for Ordnance Factories, and not for a depot.
    Mr. HOHLER: Under Vote C you have first of all "stores at Chatham depot." Then you have under Vote B the wages of the men.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That certainly would not do to make the question in order. This Vote is for the manufacturing establishments, and not for places where the manufactures are stored or used.
    Mr. HOHLER: I am not sure that they do not manufacture at Chatham.
    Mr. ACLAND: I am.
    Mr. HOHLER: The Financial Secretary knew nothing at all about it. He said that it came under the Admiralty Vote. When did he learn that they do not manufacture at Chatham?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I must ask the hon. Member to pursue his inquiries elsewhere.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I am unable to accept as satisfactory, or half satisfactory, the answer given by the Financial Secretary to the War Office. He never attempted to tell me why the wages in the two localities I have spoken of are not l o be raised in the same way as was done at Woolwich. I have put to him the fact of rent and provisions being the same. What more evidence can he want, and what satisfaction is there in asking me shall he refer those questions to the Advisory Committee again? I do not want him to do that, because he has already told me that the men themselves have placed that before them. Then what result does he expect to ensue from a fresh reference to this Advisory Committee? I ask a specific and plain answer to a plain question: Will the Government or will they not place Enfield and Waltham Abbey on the same footing as Woolwich? Will they or will they not give a minimum of 30s. to the men employed in the danger-house?
    I was astonished when I heard the Financial Secretary say that the reason why they did not pay the unskilled labourers a minimum wage is because they took advantage of his weakness, and that because he was not organised they said: "We shall give you a less wage. Because you are a poor weak, unorganised man and cannot assist yourself, therefore we, the Government, the model employers, who are going to set an example to the rest of the country, shall take advantage of your weakness and your ignorance and refuse to pay you in the same proportion as the

    1495
    skilled labourers." I think that such an argument is unworthy of any Government, and that it is still less worthy of a Government such as is in power at the present time. I am unable to go into questions of.9 or.1 where men's lives are concerned, or to agree with what the Financial Secretary said that Waltham Abbey or the factories where they make these dangerous materials are as safe to work in as a cotton mill. Let him go down and see for himself, and see whether the men who work in these factories are working in the same safe zone as when working in cotton factories. I have not asked a single man to vote with me, but, I am going to take a Division on this point, and I do not think that anybody can say that I am asking too much in demanding that these factories, in the first place, shall be treated in the same way; and, in the second place, that the men who work in daily and hourly danger of their lives should be given a minimum wage of 30s.
    Sir JOHN ROLLESTON: The Financial Secretary to the War Office does not appear to have answered a question addressed to him by myself. Can he explain why the same rifle should cost £4 3s. 9d. in Birmingham and £2 18s. 8d. at Enfield? This is not quite consistent with his statement that the wages at Enfield have been raised by some £40,000 a year. The information which I ask for would be very interesting to the Committee and also outside.
    Mr. ACLAND: With reference to the rates of wages. Last Session the House asked us to refer these matters to a Committee, and if we are to stand on that policy we cannot be asked suddenly to go
    back on the decision which we then came to at the request of the House to fix a rate of wages which would be in accordance with the local rates reported to us privately. There was very considerable pressure last year to refer these matters to a Committee and to make our rates in accordance with the local rates reported to us by that Committee, and when we have done that., as we have, it is, I submit, very difficult to go back on that policy which was deliberately pressed upon us by the House and adopted by the War Office at the request of the House last Session. We have done what the House asked us to do and we cannot go back on that policy at the present time. With regard to the cost of the rifles, I do not know where the hon. Member has obtained his figures, but even if the cost were as different as he says in the two places, still it would be, I think, justifiable in the interests of the country in time of war, not to get all our rifles manufactured in one place. The possibilities of expansion at any one place must be limited, and even if prices vary considerable I maintain it would be justifiable to encourage manufacturers to keep a staff going which they could put in full working order for us if the emergency arose. Of course if the hon. Member will be kind enough to put down the prices I will look into the figures which he gave me, and see whether they are justified or not, and consider it on that basis. But even if the difference in prices were considerable I cannot admit that it would be right to abandon the practice of placing orders with outside persons.
    Question put, "That a sum, not exceeding £50, be granted for the said Service."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 61; Noes, 139.

    Division No. 247.]

    AYES.

    [5.40 p.m.

    Adamson, William

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Pointer, Joseph

    Alden, Percy

    Falle, Bertram Godfray

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Anstruther-Gray, Major William

    Fell, Arthur

    Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

    Ashley, Wilfrid W.

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Forster, Henry William

    Smith, Albert(Lancs., Clitheroe)

    Balcarres, Lord

    Gilmour, Captain John

    Sperar, John Ward

    Barnes, George N.

    Glanville, Harold James

    Stanier, Beville

    Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc. E.)

    Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry)

    Sutton, John E.

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

    Swift, Rigby

    Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

    Hudson, Walter

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Bennett-Goldney, Francis

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

    Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish

    Lansbury, George

    Thomas, J. H. (Derby)

    Bigland, Alfred

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Thomas, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)

    Bowerman, C. W

    Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Bridgman, W. Clive

    Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

    Thynne, Lord Alexander

    Bull, Sir William James

    Middlemore, John Throgmorton

    Wardle, George J.

    Butcher, John George

    Newman, John R. P.

    Weigall, Captain A. G.

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Nield, Herbert

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Copper, Richard Ashmole

    O'Grady, James

    Crooks, William

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Colonel

    Doughty, Sir George

    Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

    Lockwood and Sir J. Rolleston.

    Duke, Henry Edward

    NOES.

    Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

    Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Acland, Francis Dyke

    Greig, Colonel James William

    O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)

    Armitage, Robert

    Griffith, Ellis Jones

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Ashton, Thomas Gair

    Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

    Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M.

    Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

    Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

    Hancock, J. G.

    Pirie, Duncan Vernon

    Banbury, sir Frederick George

    Harmsworth, R. Leicester

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

    Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

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

    Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

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

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Barry, Redmond John (Tyrone, N.)

    Harwood, George

    Radford, George Heynes

    Barton, William

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

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

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

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

    Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    Boland, John Plus

    Higham, John Sharp

    Robinson, Sydney

    Booth, Frederick Handel

    Hinds, John

    Rose, Sir Charles Day

    Brigg, Sir John

    Horne, C. Sylvester (Ipswich)

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

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

    Burke, E. Haviland-

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

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

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Johnson, W.

    Sherwell, Arthur James

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

    Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

    Shortt, Edward

    Byles, William Pollard

    Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

    Cameron, Robert

    Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    Smith H. B. Lees (Northampton)

    Carlile, Edward Hildred

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Spicer, Sir Albert

    Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

    King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Chancellor, Dr. William Allen

    Lambert, George (Devon, S. Molton)

    Summers, James Woolley

    Chapple, Dr. William Allen

    Leach, Charles

    Tennant, Harold John

    Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

    Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

    Logan, John Herbert

    Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Verney, Sir Joseph

    Corbett, A. Cameron

    Maclean, Donald

    Walton, Sir Harry

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

    Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

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

    Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

    Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

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

    Waring, Walter

    Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

    M'Micking, Major Gilbert

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

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

    Marks, George Croydon

    Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

    Dawes, J. A.

    Marshall, Arthur Harold

    Webb, H.

    Dickinson, W. H.

    Menzies, Sir Walter

    White, Sir George (Norfolk)

    Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of

    Mond, Sir Alfred

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Elverston, Harold

    Mooney, John J.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Fenwick, Charles

    Neilson, Francis

    Wood, T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

    Gelder, Sir W. A.

    Nicholson, Charles N.

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

    George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

    Norman, Sir Henry

    Gibson, Sir James Puckering

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

    Ginnell, Laurence

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    Resolution agreed to.

    Resolution to be reported to-morrow (Wednesday); Committee to sit again tomorrow.

SUPPLY [1st June].
  CIVIL SERVICES ESTIMATES, 1911–12.—CLASS II.
  Resolution reported, "That a sum, not exceeding £10,583, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of His Majesty's Secretary for Scotland and Subordinate Office, expenses under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1900, and Expenses under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, including a Grant in A id of the Congested Districts (Scotland) Fund."
SUPPLY [23rd May].
  CIVIL SERVICES ESTIMATES, 1911–12.—CLASS IV.
  Resolution reported, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,053,324, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Expenses of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, including a Grant in Aid of the Teachers' Pension Fund, Ireland."

  CLASS II.
  Resolution reported, "That a sum not exceeding £77,514, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local

  1499
  Government Board in Ireland, including sundry Grants in Aid."
  ADJOURNMENT.—Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Twelve minutes before Six o'clock.