Commons Sitting of 23 March 1911

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Southampton Harbour Bill (King's Consent signified),
Bill read the third time, and passed.
Bristol Corporation Bill (by Order),
Third Reading deferred till To-morrow.
London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
Furness Railway Bill,
Reported, with an Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Blackburn Corporation Water Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Marriages Provisional Order Confirmation Bill,
Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table. Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Marple Urban District Gas Bill,
Chichester Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Weston-super-Mare Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bicester Urban District Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Port of London Authority Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
Manchester and Milford Railway Bill,
Reported, with an Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
London United Tramways Bill,
Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Gas Light and Coke Company Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
NEW MEMBERSWORN.—Michael Augustine Roche, esquire, for County of Louth (North Louth Division).

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.
Address for "Return of the names of every Member returned to serve in the 28th Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, appointed to meet the 13th day of February, 1906, and dissolved the 10th day of January, 1910, specifying the names of the county, city, university, or place for which each Member was returned (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 334, of Session 1908); and for a similar Return for the 29th Parliament appointed to meet the 15th day of February, 1910, and dissolved the 28th day of November, 1910."—[Sir William Bull:]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  German Emperor (Visit to London).
  Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a special invitation will be extended to the Imperial Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, to accompany the German Emperor on his approaching visit to London, with a view to greater expedition in the conclusion of an agreement between Great Britain and Germany on the questions pending between the two countries?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): The German Emperor is coming on a private visit to the King on His Majesty's invitation, and it would not be proper that I should make any other statement about it.

  Baghdad Railway.
  EARL of RONALDSHAYasked if agreements had recently been signed by Turkey sanctioning the construction by Germany of the section of the Baghdad Railway between El Helif and Baghdad and of a branch line from Aleppo to Alexandretta; and, if so, if, in return for this sanction, Germany has given up her claims in connection with the construction of a railway from Baghdad to Basra?
  Sir E. GREY: An agreement between the Turkish Government and the Baghdad Railway Company on this subject was

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  signed on the 21st instant. It provides for the renunciation by the company of the right to build the section of the line from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, and to construct a port at Basra, in favour of a new Turkish company, on condition that no Power except Turkey shall have a share in the new company greater than that of the Baghdad Railway Company, and that the latter shall have the right to demand from the new company or from the Turkish Government compensation on account of the above renunciation. The Baghdad Railway Company are also to construct a port at Alexandretta and to build a branch line from there to Osmanie on the main line, without a kilometric guarantee. The agreement further provides that the Baghdad Railway Company are to content themselves, for the construction of the line as far as Baghdad, with the revenues of which they already have the disposal, that is: the actual surplus of the ceded revenues and of certain tithes.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he had any knowledge of an agreement having been concluded between the Baghdad Railway Company and the Porte assuring the continuation of the line to Baghdad; and if it had been arranged that with regard to the terminal section of the line from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf the Porte should have a free hand, with the reservation that Germany should have equal participation with any other Foreign Power in the construction and control of the line.
  Sir E. GREY: I beg to refer the hon. Member to the reply just returned to the Noble Lord the Member for the Hornsey Division of Middlesex.

  United States and Canada (Tariff Agreement.)
  Mr. REMNANTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what instructions, if any, were given to His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington to invite the Canadian Government to insist on equal concessions being granted by the United States of America to British and Canadian traders in the reciprocal trade arrangement now being made between the United States and Canada; and whether, if no instructions have been given, he would do so at once in view of Mr. Bryce's letter of the 22nd January, 1911, Cd. 5523, in which he states that he received on every oc-
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  casion a frank and cordial response whenever he had reminded the Canadian Ministers that it was right and fitting they should have regard to imperial interests?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to the question is in the negative. It would in any case have been outside the sphere of the duties of His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington to approach the Canadian Government as the hon. Member suggests.
  Mr. REMNANT: Is the right hon. Baronet still determined to wait until this treaty is ratified by both these countries before he attempts to get the advantages which it is admitted on all sides would accrue to British traders who were treated on the same lines as Canadian traders?
  Sir E. GREY: The arrangement is not a treaty, and it will not require any ratification, and the legislation is purely a matter of domestic concern as far as Canada is concerned.
  Mr. REMNANT: Are we to consider that Canada is part of the British Empire?
  Sir E. GREY: I need only refer to the very explicit and loyal declaration of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
  Mr. REMNANT: In view of the unsatisfactory answer, I propose to call attention to this matter on the adjournment of the House.
  The HON. MEMBERfurther asked whether attention had been drawn to the statement made by President Taft in his address to the members of the Southern Commercial Congress at Atlanta, Georgia, on 10th March, in which he said that when the United States Government entered into negotiations for the reciprocity agreement with Canada he instructed the Secretary of State and his Commissioners to offer free trade in everything; whether in the same address Mr. Taft indicated that the present reciprocity agreement was to be regarded as only the beginning of a new relation with their rapidly growing neighbour on the north; whether Mr. Bryce had reported to His Majesty's Government that these proposals have been made and their character; and what instructions, if any, His Majesty's Government have given in respect to that report, in view of Mr. Taft's declaration that the present agreement is only intended as a prelude to complete freedom of trade between the two countries.
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to all the questions is in the negative.

  Declaration of London.
  Mr. HAMILTON BENNasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether in view of the fact that the correspondence between the Foreign Office and various chambers of commerce and other bodies on the subject of the Declaration of London had been published up to a certain point in White Paper Cd. 5418, he would cause the Paper to be reprinted, with the addition of the subsequent correspondence, and laid before both Houses?
  Sir E. GREY: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on the 14th instant to the hon. Member for York, to which I cannot usefully add anything at this stage.

  Canada (Favoured-Nation Treaties).
  Mr. REMNANTasked to what most-favoured-nation treaties is Canada bound in virtue of Imperial treaties to which Canada had no opportunity of adherence or dissent, treaties to which Canada was given power to adhere and did adhere, and treaties from the participation in which Canada was given a power to dissent but did not exercise that power; and whether there are any of these treaties from which Canada may withdraw without the denunciation of such treaties by the Imperial Government?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to the first question is: Treaties with Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Venezuela. These are all treaties concluded before the passing of the British North America Act of 1867. The answer to the second question is that Canada acceded to the treaties with Austria-Hungary and Japan. The Japanese Treaty will terminate on the 17th of July next. To the third question the answer is: the modus vivendi with Spain. The answer to the last question is in the negative.
  Mr. REMNANT: Have the Government received any intimation from the Canadian Ministers of their desire to be relieved from their obligations under any or all of these treaties?
  Sir E. GREY: Not so far as I am aware. In any case it is for the Canadian Government themselves to make their views known.

  Treaty of Washington.
  Mr. POLLOCKasked whether any further effort has been made since the statement made to the House of Commons on 7th May, 1874 (Hansard, Vol. 218, col. 1839), to carry out the stipulation contained in the sixth article of the Treaty of Washington, 1871, to bring to the knowledge of other maritime Powers and to invite them to accede to the three rules contained in the said article?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer is in the negative, and the reasons were given in the Blue Book, United States, No. 2, 1897.
  Mr. POLLOCKasked whether the three rules contained in the sixth article of the Treaty of Washington, 1871, as to the duty of a neutral government are still binding upon this country and the United States of America; and whether the Government of His Majesty and the Government of the United States have yet reached an agreement as to the interpretation to be placed upon these three rules?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the last part, I must again refer to the Blue Book, United States, No. 2, 1897. The Convention signed at The Hague in 1907 for regulating the duty of neutrals in time of maritime war will, when ratified, practically supersede these rules. The United States have ratified this Convention, and it will be ratified by His Majesty the King as soon as the necessary legislation has been passed by Parliament. It is therefore not worth while to raise further discussion concerning the rules, nor is it probable that the United States Government would desire it.
  Mr. POLLOCK: Has it been agreed between the United States Government and the Government of His Majesty that these rules at present binding upon them as neutrals shall be abrogated?
  Sir E. GREY: No, it has not been agreed, and the position is that the United States Government have ratified the Convention, and we have not yet ratified it, but intend to do so. After we have ratified it I think there certainly ought to be an exchange of views between ourselves and the United States Government as to whether the rules are abrogated altogether or not, but at the present moment I think the United States Government having ratified, and we having

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  declared our intention to ratify, the United States Government will certainly say after we have both ratified will be the time for an exchange of views.
  Mr. POLLOCKasked whether His Majesty's Government intend to invite other maritime Powers, or such of them as have not already done so, to accede to these rules coincidently with the Declaration of London?
  Sir E. GREY: The matter is not allied to the Declaration of London, and the answer, as will appear from my reply to the previous question, is in the negative.
  Mr. POLLOCK: Will the right hon. Baronet take steps to secure that a definitive translation of the Declaration of London is prepared in order to avoid the difficulty which he admits arose on the matter of the construction of the three rules which appeared in the Treaty of Washington?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That hardly seems to arise out of the question on the Paper.
  Earl WINTERTON: Does the right hon. Baronet's answer include the Government of His Majesty the Mikado of Japan?
  Sir E. GREY: There has been nothing to bring Japan into the question.
  Earl WINTERTON: Is it not the fact that the right hon. Baronet answered that the other maritime Powers had not acceded to these rules? Does that include the Government of Japan?
  Sir E. GREY: These are rules dating back to 1871 exchanged between ourselves and the United States. They never existed between ourselves and any other Power except the United States.

  Old Age Pensions.
  Mr. DANIEL BOYLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland why the claim for an old age pension of Michael Loftus, Carralavin, in the Ballina pension district, county Mayo, was disallowed on appeal by the Local Government Board; is he aware that the pension officer recommended Loftus to the local pensions committee for a pension of 3s. per week; in view of such recommendation, will he say why the pension was wholly disallowed on appeal; and, if on the grounds of income, on what information was the decision arrived at, and by whom supplied.
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): Two claims by Michael Loftus have come before the Local Government Board. On the first occasion the pension officer recommended a pension of 3s., and the local pension committee awarded 5s., but on appeal the Board disallowed the claim on the ground that the means of Loftus derived from a holding of seventeen acres exceeded the statutory limit. On the second occasion the pension officer recommended no pension, and the committee allowed 3s., but the Board disallowed the claim on the same ground as before. The Board made their estimate of means on the basis of a list of the stock and crops on the farm, concerning which there was no dispute.

  National School Teachers (Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary if he would obtain from the Treasury and submit to the House a statement showing how the estimate of an additional annual expense of £5,000, consequent upon the payment of national teachers' salaries monthly instead of quarterly, is arrived at?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The estimated additional annual expenditure of £5,240 was arrived at after careful inquiry into the necessary additions to the staff of the Commissioners of National Education, the Post Office, and the Audit Office, amounting to £3,430, £1,360, and £450 per annum respectively.
  Captain CRAIG: In view of the grave character of this matter, and the fact that all the teachers are agreed upon it, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it would be possible for him to pay a portion of what is due to each teacher each month, and then at the end of each year to sort up how much was due to them on balance, and so satisfactorily arrange the whole matter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: That suggestion is a little complicated, and I should like to take time to consider it.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary, whether the Commissioners of National Education are in favour of the payment of national school teachers monthly instead of quarterly; whether the twelve assistant clerks (abstractors) for whom provision was made in the Estimates of 1910–11, were appointed; and whether the necessity for these officials exists if the scheme of monthly payments is not to be brought into operation?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education are in favour of the proposed change. The assistant clerks (abstractors) provided for in the Estimates of 1910–11 were appointed, not in connection with the proposed scheme of monthly payments, but in substitution for a number of boy clerks whose services were dispensed with.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Seeing that the Commissioners are in favour of the proposal to pay the National teachers monthly, will the right hon. Gentleman hold out some hope that he will take immediate steps to deal with the matter? This is exciting a great deal of interest.
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am aware of that, but it is unfortunately a fact that once you have begun a wrong system it involves a great deal of money to set it right. I will give the hon. Member full particulars in order to satisfy his own mind upon it. It involves an additional expenditure of £285,000, and I cannot see my way with the Treasury to get it.

  Irish Fisheries (Depredations of Trawlers).
  Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary whether, in view of the fact that the spring mackerel fishing will commence in about a week's time, and that the s.s. "Helga" was unable to protect the whole coast of Ireland from the depredations of steam trawlers fishing outside legal limits, he would arrange to charter two fast-steaming trawlers on a time charter of three months, equipped with a crew of Irish sailors or of Irish Naval Reserve men, in order that the illegal operations of the steam trawlers may be put an end to during the coming season?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The funds at present at the disposal of the Department of Agriculture in Ireland for fisheries would not permit of their carrying out the proposal. With the resources at their command they have succeeded in suppressing illegal trawling to a very great extent, especially since the passing of the Trawling in Prohibited Areas Act.
  Mr. BOLAND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware of the steps which have been taken in Scotland to deal with the matter, and whether we in Ireland cannot have the same protection?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I understand that the amount of protection given in Ireland is
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  more satisfactory than that given in Scotland. I am not in a position to say that I can add to the resources of the Board of Agriculture.
  Mr. WATT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the protection in Scotland is not satisfactory?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have said that it is more satisfactory in Ireland than in Scotland.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have only one cruiser in Ireland, whereas they have three cruisers in Scotland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I really do not think that the complaints in Ireland are very great. I quite admit that if the Board had more money at their disposal they could make it more difficult for the trawlers to act illegally.
  Mr. MALCOLM: Would the right hon. Gentleman communicate with the Admiralty and see if he could arrange with them?
  Mr. BIRRELL: We have been communicating with the Admiralty.

  Irish Fishermen (Equipment).
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether steps will be taken, by way of loan or otherwise, to enable fishermen on the coast of South Kerry to equip their boats with motor engines and to provide fishermen with nets suitable for the herring fishery?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board are prepared to consider applications for loans for the supply of boats, including motor boats, and fishing gear. Recently the Board have agreed to lend money for the purchase of a motor boat for Dingle.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. CONDONasked what are the names of the tenants of the four holdings in respect of which the advances applied for have not been sanctioned on the estate of the Earl of Clonmel, county Tipperary; whether a tenant, named Philip Landy, obtained a holding in Curraghadobbin, in which a new tenancy was created for him since 1901; whether the Estates Commissioners have sanctioned the advance applied for in respect of it; and whether, before doing so, they considered the fact that this tenant has other holdings and the wants of the small holders in the locality?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The names of the tenants on the estate referred to whose applications for advances have been refused by the Estates Commissioners are Margaret Sullivan, Count De La Poer, M. C. O'Meara, and W. P. Hanly. The Commissioners sanctioned the advance of £227 applied for in Philip Landy's agreement to purchase his holding at Curraghdobbin, and the holding has been vested in him. The tenancy in this case was not created since 1901. The reply to the last paragraph of the question is in the affirmative.
  Mr. JOHN ROCHEasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that Sir Henry Grattan Bellew, of Mount Bellew, county Galway, is now prepared to include in the sale of his estate the grazing lands held by Mr. O'Rourke; and whether he will direct the Estates Commissioners to acquire it for the enlargement of uneconomic holdings upon the estate?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Mr. O'Rourke is tenant of the lands referred to, and the Estates Commissioners have no power to distribute them so long as they are so held.
  Mr. SCANLANasked the Chief Secretary if he can state upon what grounds the Estates Commissioners refused to provide a holding on the Verschoyle estate, near Ballina, for Mrs. Rose M'Nulty, who was evicted from this estate in June, 1890; and whether the Commissioners will reconsider the matter with the view of providing a farm for Mrs. M'Nulty?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have nothing to add to the reply to a similar question asked by the hon. Member on the 24th November last.
  Mr. SCANLAN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is able to give any explanation as to why the Estates Commissioners refused to provide a holding on the Verschoyle estate? That is a point which was not considered in the previous reply to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.
  Mr. BIRRELL: The application of this person for reinstatement was in respect of land which was already in the occupation of other tenants, but if other land is obtained in the neighbourhood her case will be inquired into.
  Mr. SCANLANasked the Chief Secretary whether the farm known as Seaford, situated at Carrowbricken, in the parish of Skreen, barony of Tireragh, county Sligo, and owned by Mrs. Crawford and
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  others, had been offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board; and which of these bodies will deal with the purchase negotiations, and when is the purchase likely to be completed?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The estates of Susan Crawford and others, county Sligo, is pending before the Estates Commissioners for sale to the tenants direct under the Irish Land Act, 1903. The lands of Carrowbricken are not included in the proceedings pending before the Estates Commissioners. They have not been offered to the Congested Districts Board, who are willing to negotiate for the purchase. The Board will ask the owners if they are willing to sell.
  Mr. BOLANDasked whether, in connection with the negotiations now on foot for the purchase of holdings in Valentia Island, regard will be had to the claim for reinstatement put forward by Mrs. O'Connor, East Cooil, who was evicted from her holding?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have received an application from Mrs. O'Connor for reinstatement in a holding formerly occupied by her late husband on the estate of the Knight of Kerry. The greater portion of the holding was subsequently taken by her father-in-law, and is at present in the possession of his son; and the Commissioners, after inquiry and consideration, decided to take no action as regards Mrs. O'Connor's application.

  Congested Districts Board (Land Purchase in Donegal).
  Mr. MacNEILLasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that applications have been made some time ago to the Congested Districts Board in reference to the purchase of Mr. Boyton's Inver estate, and the Burton Colquhoun and Bustard estates, including the large grazing ranch of Brenter, in South Donegal; and whether he can give any information, having regard to the anxiety felt in the districts for such purchase, as to the progress of these proceedings, which is a matter of great urgency, in the public interest?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Applications respecting the estates mentioned have been received by the Congested Districts Board. As regards the Boyton and Colquhoun estates the Board have not yet ascertained whether the owners are willing to sell, but further communications will be addressed

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  to them. The Board understand that Mr. Bustard is willing to sell the large untenanted tract known as Brenter, and it is hoped that the maps and forms for the purpose of valuation may soon be lodged. The owner of the Barton estate is willing to negotiate for sale through the Board, and it is understood that the lands are being surveyed and mapped with a view to their inspection and valuation.

  Housing of Working Classes (Ireland).
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that the dwellings of the working classes in towns in Ireland are in many instances disease traps, and that the New Ross Urban District Council passed a resolution pointing to the necessity of giving a more liberal grant than the income arising out of £180,000 provided for by the Housing Act of 1908 in aid of housing urban working classes; and whether the Government will do anything in the direction indicated?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have seen the resolution referred to. I cannot at present hold out any hope of an extension of the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Act, 1908. So far as labourers' cottages are concerned the million to be provided under the Bill now before Parliament will be the limit of the borrowing powers of local authorities. There is no such limit under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts.

  Templemore Evictions (Ireland).
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware of the treatment meted to Mrs. M'Namara, one of the Templemore evicted tenants; is be aware that the Estates Commissioners agreed to give back to Mrs. M'Namara 71 acres 2 roods 20 poles of her farm if her husband, Mr. William M'Namara, would resign all claim to it, and if her brother, Mr. Richard Neill would take it over in trust for her, he guaranteeing payment of the annuity; and whether, as these conditions have all been complied with, can he say why the Estates Commissioners have not carried out their portion of the bargain, and why Mr. Taylor, agent of the property, should be allowed to plough one half the farm and graze the other portion?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The owner has accepted the Estates Commissioners' proposal for the purchase of part of the lands of Tin-nock, and the Commissioners proposed to give some seventy-three acres to Richard Neill as trustee of Mrs. M'Namara, wife
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  of the evicted tenant. The estate has not been reached in order of priority, and the Commissioners cannot carry out their proposed arrangement until they have obtained possession of the lands.

  Callan Union Management.
  Mr. CONDONasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that the guardians of the Callan union have asked the Local Government Board to direct the holding of a sworn inquiry into the management and expenditure of the Callan Union for the two years previous to 30th September, 1909, and also requested the Local Government Board to sanction the payment by them of a chartered accountant to make an investigation; and if he will say why the Local Government Board declines to facilitate the board of guardians in making a full and searching investigation of the cause for the large increase for those years in estimates and expenditure by the officials responsible?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The guardians of the Callan Union have made the requests mentioned by the hon. Member, but the Local Government Board have not declined to facilitate the guardians in the matter. The Board were advised that the cost of employing a chartered accountant as proposed would not be a legal charge on the rates, and they felt bound to inform the guardians accordingly. The Board are still in communication with the guardians as to the scope of the proposed inquiry.

  Crime (Ireland).
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary if he is aware that since 1st March there have been three serious outrages of firing at and wounding in county Clare; and if he will state on what grounds the County Inspector of Clare reported to the Lord Chief Baron at the recent assizes that the condition of affairs in the disturbed area in Clare was steadily improving?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Inspector-General informs me that there have been two cases (not three) of firing at and wounding in county Clare since 1st instant. The County Inspector was justified by the statistics of offences committed since the last assizes in reporting that on the whole there was an improvement in the state of the county. There were twenty-three agrarian offences reported between winter Assizes, 1909, and spring Assizes, 1910, and only four in the corresponding period of this winter.
  Mr. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not a fact that at the assizes the judge with all the information before him, declared that the condition of this county was considerably improved, and was improving, and whether, in view of that, it is fair to call in question the opinion of the judge?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Lord Chief Baron certainly made the observation referred to by the hon. Member.
  Mr. LONSDALE: Did he not also state that the condition of crime in the county was very unsatisfactory?
  The HON. MEMBERfurther asked whether on 12th March, at Bally-harrahan, in the Ruan district, about six miles from Ennis, a farmer named Patrick Ryan was fired at and hit in the right thigh, on the back of the right hand, and on the jaw; and whether anyone has been arrested in connection with this outrage?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The facts are as stated. One arrest has been made.
  Mr. LONSDALEasked the Chief Secretary if his attention has been called to the remarks of Mr. Justice Madden, at the Galway Assizes on Monday, based on the police reports, which showed there had been an increase of eighteen serious offences in one district, and five cases of firing into dwelling-houses, and particularly to the observations of the learned judge with reference to the five cases of sending threatening letters, as being the work of secret societies carrying on operations by means of outrage and intimidation; and whether, having regard to the failure of the police to obtain evidence in these cases owing to intimidation, he will state what action he proposes to take in the matter?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have seen a newspaper report of the charge of the learned judge. Every possible effort is being made by the police to counteract the work of the secret societies in Galway, which have recently been denounced by the Roman Catholic Bishops of the Diocese.

  Development Grant (Wexford Fishermen).
  Sir THOMAS ESMONDEasked the Chief Secretary if he will state what proposals of the Department of Agriculture have been submitted to the Development Grant Commissioners for the improvement
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  of the circumstances of the fishermen in the north of county Wexford?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Department of Agriculture have taken into consideration the circumstances of Wexford as well as those of other districts in submitting proposals which are now under the consideration of the Development Commissioners, and they cannot make any statement regarding particular cases.

  Fethard Harbour, County Wexford.
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary whether he has authorised an announcement that £7,000 has been set aside by the Board of Agriculture for the improvement of Fethard Harbour; and has the Board of Agriculture recommended Fethard to the Development Commissioners with a view to have the necessary improvements carried out, and with what result?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have not authorised any such statement as that referred to in the question. In submitting proposals now under consideration of the Development Commissioners the Department of Agriculture have taken into consideration the circumstances of Fethard as well as those of other districts.

  Train Shooting Outrage (County Londonderry).
  Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked the Chief Secretary, whether he is aware that when passing the village of Upperlands, county of Londonderry, on Friday last, thirty to forty shots were fired from an excursion train returning from Toome, with the members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians Society; that the works of William Clark and Sons and the houses of their workers were riddled with bullets; and that one of their workers, who was on the highway, was injured, and Mr. Clark had a narrow escape; and will he state what action has been taken to bring the authors of the outrage to justice?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Inspector-General informs me that on 17th March, as an excursion train returning from Toomebridge was passing Upperlands several revolver shots were fired from the carriages opposite the works of Messrs. William Clark and Sons. It is not a fact that the works of Messrs. Clark and the houses of their workers were riddled with bullets, but a worker, who was standing in the road some distance away, stated that he had

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  been struck by a bullet. There was no mark of any kind upon him or on his clothes, but a small bullet was picked up off the road at the place. Mr. H. Clark was standing on the public road at the time. The police state that they heard the sound of bullets strike the wall beside them, but were unable to identify any of the persons who fired the shots.
  Captain CRAIG: Did the police make any attempt at the next station where the train stopped to discover who was responsible for firing these shots at innocent people standing on the road?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am not able to say whether the police took that particular step.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman make an effort at once to try to bring to justice these people who were responsible for firing at these innocent people standing on the road?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I am perfectly sure that the police require no intimation from me to do the utmost of their duty to protect the public from these outrages.
  Mr. HUGH BARRIE: Was the district inspector of police actually present on the public highway when this outrage took place?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have given an account of the particulars as described to me.
  Captain CRAIG: Is it a fact that the police authorities take their cue from the weak nature of your administration?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir. That is absolutely untrue in every respect.

  Maheshpur High School (India).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the case of two students of the Maheshpur higher education school in the district of Jessore, who have been banished from the school for two years for the alleged offence of tying coloured threads round the wrists of four or five men during the last Rakhibandhan ceremony; whether the action for which the boys were punished is a custom at these ceremonies; and, in view of the effect such punishment must have on the future prospects of the boys, steps will be taken to inquire into the matter and, if no violence or threats were used, the decree of punishment will be revoked?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The school in question is a private school, aided by a grant from public funds. Some time ago the secretary of the school issued a standing order prohibiting the boys from taking part in such movements as demonstrations against the partition of Bengal. On last partition day two of the boys disobeyed this order. The managing committee of the school resolved that they should be suitably punished, but proposed only a trifling fine of one rupee. The inspector of schools considered this inadequate, and reported the matter to the Director of Public Instruction, who ordered the boys' promotion to be stopped for a year. The statement that they have been banished from the school for two years is therefore incorrect. No appeal against the director's order has been made to the local government, and the Secretary of State does not propose to interfere.

  Police III-Treatment (India).
  Mr. O'GRADYasked the Under-Secretary for India whether he is aware that in the last annual reports of the Inspectors-General of Police of Madras and Bengal, several cases are mentioned in which prisoners have died under torture at the hands of the police; whether he will place copies of the reports in the Library of the House of Commons; and whether the India Office, since the receipt of these reports, have drawn the attention of the Indian Government to these admissions of torture and called for further particulars regarding the circumstances under which the torture was inflicted and the punishment meted out to the officers concerned?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State is aware that in four cases mentioned in these reports subordinate police officers were prosecuted for causing the death of prisoners by ill-treatment. In one case four policemen were sentenced to terms of rigorous imprisonment ranging from three and a half to six years; in two cases the accused were acquitted. In the fourth case a prisoner's arms had been tied tightly with ropes to prevent his escape, no handcuffs being available, with the result that he died of blood poisoning. It was held that there was no intention to torture, but a prosecution was ordered, which was pending at the close of the year to which the Report relates. As all these cases, only one of which appears to have been proved to be a genuine case of torture, have been dealt with judicially, the

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  Secretary of State does not think it necessary to draw the attention of the Government of India to them. Copies of the Reports will be placed in the Library.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Is it a fact that in this last case the inquisition before the magistrate showed other instances of great torture, and that the dying depositions of the man in hospital contradicted the evidence that it was merely tying his hands that caused his death?
  Mr. MONTAGU: It was the opinion of the authorities that there was evidence to justify and to necessitate the prosecution. Pending the result of that prosecution, I prefer to make no further statement.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: In view of the facts now admitted, is the hon. Member prepared to withdraw the accusation made against Mr. Mackarness last year?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I am afraid I can never persuade my hon. Friend to understand that the fact, which has been admitted often before, that cases of torture do occur, does not justify misrepresentations about torture as a practice.
  Mr. BYLES: Is not it time that some drastic steps were taken to put an end to these atrocities?
  Mr. MONTAGU: Very drastic steps are continually being taken, and every effort is and will be made.

  Seditious Meetings Act (India).
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Under Secretary for India whether he can state the particulars in which the new proposed Seditious Meetings Act is more liberal than the expiring Act; whether it is temporary in character; and whether it is to be applied to the whole of British India or only to disturbed areas, and on whose demand?
  Mr. MONTAGU: The Seditious Meetings Bill, as introduced in the Governor-General's Legislative Council, and passed without a Division, differs from the Act now in force in the following respects: First, it provides that the power of a local Government to notify proclaimed areas shall only be exercised with the sanction of the Government of India. Secondly, it omits from the definition of a public meeting the provision that a meeting of more than twenty persons shall be presumed to be a public meeting until the contrary has
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  been proved. Thirdly, it restricts the scope of the Act by omitting the words "or of any political subject" from the Clause requiring notice to be given of meetings held to discuss certain classes of subjects. The effect of this will be that the only meetings of which notices need be given will be those held for the discussion of subjects likely to cause disturbance or public excitement. Fourthly, the notices of such meetings must be sent to the district magistrate instead of the police. The new Act, like the present one, will have operation only in such provinces as the Government of India may notify from time to time. My hon. Friend has no doubt observed the language of the Viceroy to his Legislative Council, on Monday: "I do not intend that the new Act shall be extended to any part of the country until the necessity arises. The contingency, I hope, may never arise."
  Mr. MacNEILL: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me whether the Government of India, in preparing that Act, had before them as a precedent the Piggott perpetual Coercion Act in Ireland?
  Mr. MONTAGU: I cannot say.

  Sind College, India.
  Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the Under Secretary for India whether, with reference to the resignation by Dr. Jackson of his principalship of the Sind College, his attention has been drawn to a pamphlet published by Dr. Jackson, in which it is stated that the resolution of the board which caused him to resign his position was passed on the strength of misrepresentation of facts, which have never been investigated; and whether, having regard to the desirability of improving the character of the education given in the Sind College, he will now cause an inquiry to be instituted into all the circumstances attending Dr. Jackson's resignation?
  Mr. MONTAGU: Dr. Jackson's pamphlet has been brought to the notice of the Secrtary of State. The Sind College is a private institution managed by a board of twenty members, of whom a small minority are necessarily officials of Government. The college is in receipt of a Grant-in-Aid from Government. The Secretary of State is not prepared to reopen the question of Dr. Jackson's resignation, which was voluntary and taken on his own responsibility. The Secretary of State is, however, in communication with

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  the Government of Bombay on the general question of the management of the college.

  Emigrants (Information in Welsh).
  Mr. HINDSasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why no Welsh copies of the information for emigrants are displayed in the post offices of Welsh-speaking districts of Wales; and whether assurances will be given that such notices will in future be supplied, especially in the rural districts?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): I understand that it has not been the practice to translate into Welsh the quarterly posters displayed by the Emigrants' Information Office in post offices in Wales because it was felt that the number of intending emigrants unacquainted with English was not sufficiently large to justify the additional expense. If my hon. Friend can show that this belief is not well founded, I shall be happy to ask the Managing Committee of the Emigrants' Information Office to consider carefully the suggestion that a Welsh translation of the poster should in future be displayed in Wales side by side with the English version.

  Licensing Bill.
  Mr. STAVELEY-HILLasked the Prime Minister whether he has given any pledge that, immediately after the Parliament Bill has become law, he will introduce and pass through the House of Commons a Licensing Bill identical in character with that of the measure which failed to become law in 1908?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): No, Sir; I have given no such pledge, but I have frequently expressed my sense of the urgency of this matter, and I hope that legislation on the lines of the Licensing Bill referred to will follow without undue delay the passing of the Parliament Bill into law.
  Mr. W. PEEL: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that after the passing of the Budget of 1909 a measure on the lines of the Licensing Bill of 1908 is as urgent as it then was?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I think it is still urgent.
  Viscount HELMSLEY: If this Bill is passed will the Government reduce the licences?
  The PRIME MINISTER: That is a hypothetical question.

  Home Rule (Ireland).
  Mr. MALCOLMasked whether the Home Rule proposals of the Government have been practically accepted by the Irish party; whether any such proposals have been communicated to the Nationalist party by him or his colleagues; and, if so, whether the same information will be submitted to Parliament forthwith?
  Captain CRAIGasked whether the general lines of the Government's proposed Home Rule Bill have been divulged to any Member of the Nationalist party?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these questions at the same time. I am not sure that I am bound to reply to these questions, but it may allay the anxieties of the hon. Members if I say that the answer to them is in the negative.
  Captain CRAIG: May I ask the Prime Minister whether, under the circumstances, the hon. Member for East Tyrone (Mr. W. A. Redmond) has sailed on a begging mission under false pretences?

  House of Commons (Late Sittings).
  Mr. LYNCHasked whether, in view of a certain aspect of absurdity in legislating in normal times after midnight, and with the desire of maintaining the reputation of this House abroad and of avoiding scenes produced by the neurasthenia inseparable from the debates of a large Assembly in the small hours of the morning, the Prime Minister will arrange to alter the Standing Orders of the House so that on no occasion, except possibly that of impending war, shall the House sit after eleven o'clock at night?
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the question, may I ask whether, on the occasion of the last all-night sitting, there was any evidence of the occurrence of neurasthenia in the conduct of business by the then Leader of the House?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I was lot here on that occasion, and I have not been able to diagnose the symptoms. With regard to the question on the Paper, I do not think the hon. Gentleman's proposal is a practicable one.

  Lord Howard de Walden versus Lewis.
  Mr. KELLAWAYasked whether the attention of the Government has been called to the verdict in the case of Lord Howard de Walden v. Lewis, and to the speeches of counsel for the defence; whether the plaintiff admitted that at the reversion of the defendent's lease the Howard de Waiden Estate would become the owners of £130,000 of property built by the defendent; and whether the Government consider that persons who receive huge windfalls of this kind are in a position to pay a heavier tax than is at present levied on leasehold reversions?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE (for the Prime Minister): My attention has been drawn to the case mentioned, and to the speeches of counsel therein, especially to those of Sir Edward Carson and Mr. F. E. Smith and their animadversions on the leasehold system. I am not in a position to anticipate any of my right hon. Friend's statements on next year's Budget.
  Captain CRAIG: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the lease in question is a ninety-nine years' lease, and whether the Radical Government expect to be in power on the termination of the lease?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: Certainly; as to the first part of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's question I see no reason to doubt the forecast. In reference to the first part of the question, the counsel to whom I have referred had a good deal to say on the hardships of the existing system.

  His Majesty's Judges and Trade Unions.
  Mr. KERR-SMILEYasked whether the Prime Minister's attention has been directed to a speech made by the Home Secretary on the 14th inst., in which he said on several occasions statements had been made from the Bench reflecting on trade unions in language which was extremely ignorant and out of touch with modern thought, and which had greatly complicated the administration of justice; whether the Home Secretary expressed the opinion of the Government on this occasion; and whether, having regard to the nature of the charge made against judges, who have no opportunity of defending themselves, he will provide Members with an opportunity of discussing it in this House?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I understand that my right hon. Friend was replying as
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  a Minister in the ordinary way to a deputation, and it is obvious that he did not, in the observation referred to, purport to be speaking for the Government. The answer to the third part of the question is in the negative.
  Earl WINTERTON: Having regard to the general accusation made against the learned judges, will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision, after Easter, to give a day?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps the Noble Lord will put the question afterwards.
  Mr. O'GRADY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, apart from the question of opinion, the Home Secretary was merely making a statement of fact?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I would not like to say; that is a matter of opinion.
  Mr. O'GRADY: I can give instances in my own case.

  Parliament Bill.
  Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether the Government intend to adjourn this House for a period of some weeks after the Parliament Bill has passed the Commons and gone to another place?
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Government have not yet had under consideration any adjournment of the House beyond that already announced for the Easter Recess. It would clearly be out of the question to come to any decision at this stage of the Session as to the date or duration of future adjournments.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: Is any change of plan indicated by this grant of two and a half days extra for the Revenue Bill?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.

  Government Contracts (Wages).
  Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked whether, in view of the increased wages paid to unskilled and semi-skilled labourers as the result of the Advisory Board, representing the various Government Departments, the right hon. Gentleman will obtain a Return from those firms at present engaged in shipbuilding and armaments contracts for the Government of the minimum rate of wages paid per hour, and the number of hours worked per normal week, by the unskilled labourers employed by such firms; whether he will consider the practicability of fixing a reasonable living

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  wage for unskilled labourers employed by those firms who secure Government contracts, beginning with shipbuilding and armament firms, until such minimum wage is comparable with that paid at Government dockyards and arsenals; and whether a clause could be inserted in future contracts stating definitely the minimum rate per hour to be paid to such unskilled labourers as are engaged on Government work?
  The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. McKenna): The Admiralty insist on the strict observance of the Fair Wages Clause in all their contracts. I do not understand whether my hon. Friend's suggestion is intended to go beyond the terms of the Fair Wages Clause, and to have no regard to the rate current in any particular district, but if he has any evidence to show that the Fair Wages Clause fails to fulfil its aim in securing that the wages and hours of unskilled labourers employed upon Government contracts are those which in practice prevail amongst good employers in the trade in the district where the work is carried out, I should be glad if he would kindly let me have it, so that I may give the question further consideration.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is it the fact that the result of the Advisory Board's report is to be an increase of the wages of unskilled labour in Government Departments?
  Mr. McKENNA: The report of the Advisory Board is not yet published, and I am unable to give any reply.

  Schools of Tropical Medicine.
  Mr. ALLEN BAKERasked the Secretary for the Colonies whether the London and Liverpool Schools of Tropical Medicine have been instructed to prepare an exhibit for the International Hygiene Exhibition at Dresden; and, if so, what form this exhibit will take?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I understand that there is to be a joint exhibit from the two schools, but I have no information as to the form which the exhibit will take. As the schools are not under the control of His Majesty's Government, there has been no question of giving instructions.
  An HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the wisdom of a large Grant to aid the Liverpool Tropical School, which has saved thousands?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I do not think the question of a Grant arises in regard to exhibits by the school.

  Elizabethville, Katanga (British Consul).
  Mr. WATTasked who is the British Consul at Elizabethville, Katanga; and what was his previous experience in the capacity of Consul?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): Mr. Beak is the British Vice-Consul in the Katanga. He was appointed Acting British Vice-Consul at Stanleyville in 1907, previous to which date he had served under the Colonial Office in Northern Nigeria.
  Mr. WATTasked whether prospecting rights are withheld from all British subjects in Katanga, Congo State, while Belgian subjects are freely granted concessions; and whether the Secretary of State is aware that a feeling exists among British residents there that equal justice between the different nationalities is not meted out; if so, will he inquire into this alleged inequality of treatment?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Mining regulations have now been issued, and I have no evidence that there is discrimination against British subjects.

  Mail Cart Drivers (Rate of Pay).
  Dr. ADDISONasked the Postmaster-General whether in future contracts with mail cart drivers, such as Messrs. M'Namara and Company, of Castle Street, Finsbury, he will insert a condition to the effect that part-time and odd drivers, employed at present at the rate of 5d. and 4½d. per hour, respectively, shall be paid a wage of at least 6d. per hour, having regard to the number of hours during which these men have to be available for duty, and to the other disadvantages attaching to the conditions of their employment; and whether he will require that these men shall be employed by the week and not by the day?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I have already decided that payment for work of at least 6d. an hour for part-time and odd drivers shall be a condition of any future contract for mail cart services in London; but I fear that the exigencies of the service, varying a" they do from day to day, will not admit of my requiring the contractors to employ these men by the week instead of by the

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  day. The contractors are, however, urged to limit such employment as much as possible, and the proportion of casual labour employed is now small.

  Post Office Contracts (Motor Driving).
  Dr. ADDISONasked whether arrangements are being made by the Thames Ironworks Shipbuilding and Engineering Company to give effect to the agreement to provide facilities for learning motor driving, in connection with their forthcoming contract for work for the General Post Office, to those drivers of horse mail vans who are likely to be without employment during the coming summer in consequence of the change of contract, and whose names have been supplied to him by the London Carmen's Trade Union?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The mail cart drivers whose names have been furnished by the London Carmen's Trade Union will be seen by a representative of the Thames Ironworks Shipbuilding and Engineering Company; and the tuition in motor driving of such of these men as are suitable will probably be commenced about the 1st June next, that is about one month before the motor mail contract comes into operation.

  Post Office Lift-Men.
  Dr. ADDISONasked whether, in view of the fact that the lift-men employed at Mount Pleasant by the General Post Office are paid a wage of 24s. a week, he will increase these men's wages, or otherwise make such arrangements whereby they may be able to earn more money; whether the Postmaster-General will provide opportunities for their promotion, and whether, in view of the regular and permanent character of their employment, he will place them upon the established staff?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The lift-men at Mount Pleasant, who are pensioned petty officers of the Navy, are paid at the same rate as other lift-men employed by the Post Office elsewhere in London, namely, 6d. an hour. This rate was fixed so recently as 1908 after careful inquiry, and is considered to be adequate. Such of the lift-men as are qualified by Army and Navy service are eligible in respect of age, height, etc., for establishment are considered after they have rendered three years' service as lift-men for appointment as postmen or porters if they apply for
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  these positions. I do not consider that lift-men, as such, should be placed upon the established staff, as their work, like that of doorkeepers, cleaners, etc., who are also unestablishcd, is not peculiar to the Post Office.

  Telegraph Messenger (Wearing Shamrock).
  Mr. CRUMLEYasked whether the Postmaster-General is aware that the postmaster at Enniskillen on 17th March met a telegraph messenger on his way to deliver a telegram and noticed the boy wearing a shamrock on his cap and stopped him, and in an insulting manner ordered him to take that stuff off his cap and not attempt to wear it again; and will he say if there is any prohibition against the wearing of shamrock on St. Patrick's Day by postal officials; and, if not, whether the postmaster will be reprimanded for his action?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: There is no prohibition against the wearing of shamrock by postal officials on St. Patrick's Day, and it is frequently worn. I have no information as to the incident at Enniskillen to which the hon. Member refers, but I am making inquiry.

  Prestbury Post Office.
  Mr. SYKESasked the designation of the local authority that assented to the closing of the post office at Prestbury for the weekly half-holiday, in what form the assent was given, and on what date it was given?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The clerk to the Prestbury Parish Council, under date of the 1st of February, wrote that the council had unanimously agreed on the previous evening to offer no opposition to the Post Office being closed from 1 p.m. on Wednesdays.
  Mr. SYKES: On 1st February last?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Yes.

  Post Office Home Safes (Contract).
  Mr. CROFTasked—(1) whether a preferential opportunity was given to the C. O. Burns Company for tendering for 100,000 home safes; whether the C. O. Burns Company went into bankruptcy; and whether, contrary to Clause 11 (b), Mr. C. O. Burns has secured the contract under the name of the Fiscus Company; (2) whether, since the bankruptcy of C. O. Burns Company, who had secured the contract for home safes, fresh tenders were

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  asked for or whether the contract was given to Fiscus, Limited, without fresh tenders being invited?
  Mr. NEWMANasked what was the number of home safes for which tenders were originally called; the number of firms that tendered; the date on which the contract was awarded; whether such contract was subsequently amended; and whether, before such alteration was made, the firms originally tendering were afforded the opportunity of tendering afresh on the amended terms?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Tenders were invited by advertisement in a number of newspapers for the supply of home safes in quantities of not less than 5,000 at a time, and the quotation of alternative prices was invited for supplies in excess of 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, and 100,000. Twenty-five firms tendered. The pattern safes were submitted to me, and I was of the opinion, which was shared by all the officers of my Department who were consulted, that that offered by the C. O. Burns Company was one of the very few which were fully suited for the purpose in view. Their lender was considerably lower at every stage than that of any other firm for a satisfactory safe. It was accepted on 15th October. There is no foundation whatever for the suggestion in the questions that any preferential opportunity was given to this firm. In negotiations respecting the details of the contract it was ascertained that if an initial order for 100,000 safes were given the company would make a further slight reduction in the prices they had quoted for that number, and I, of course, accepted that offer. It was agreed at the time that the contract should be executed in the United Kingdom by a British company to be formed by Mr. Burns. The fact that the C. O. Burns Company, of New York, have since gone into liquidation does not affect the execution of the contract by the British company so formed, and I am advised that the provision of Clause 11 (b) in the tender form to which the hon. Member refers does not in any way preclude the course which has been adopted. I see no reason to reopen the matter.
  Mr. CROFT: May I ask whether it is not an absolute fact that the C. O. Burns Company were asked to tender for the safes, and whether, having regard to the fact that the firm went into bankruptcy the contract was continued contrary to the Clause?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The C. O. Burns Company was one of the firms that sent in a tender in reply to the advertisement. They were not specially asked for a tender. The tender of the C. O. Burns Company was accepted on the understanding that it was to be executed by a British Company in this country. There is, therefore, no ground for objection to the Post Office having consented to the tender being executed by such company formed by Mr. C. O. Burns. Although the C. O. Burns Company which originally tendered has since that date gone into liquidation the clause to which the hon. Member refers does not in any way preclude this arrangement.
  Mr. NEWMAN: Is it not the fact that the new company was not registered at Somerset House until a considerable time after the C. O. Burns Company had gone into bankruptcy, and will the right hon. Gentleman consult the "Financial News" as to the date?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I really have no reason for thinking that the British Company, which is formed to carry out the tender, is not fully in a position to carry out its contract.

  Coronation.
  Mr. MILDMAYasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the desirability of providing that upon Coronation Day working hours in post offices and rural sub-offices throughout the Kingdom shall be assimilated to those prevalent on Sundays in order that many employés may not be debarred from taking part in the national rejoicings?
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am now considering the arrangements to be made for the transaction of Post Office work on Coronation Day, and will give due consideration to the hon. Member's suggestion.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked whether it was contemplated to issue an order permitting London workshops employing dressmakers, tailoresses, and milliners to keep the employés at work until 9 p.m.; if so, whether the order would affect girls from fourteen years of age upwards; and whether the decision to issue the order had been arrived at after consultation with the employers concerned?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill): Application has been made to me on

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  behalf of the dressmaking and other trades, in view of the pressure of work which is likely to be occasioned by the Coronation, to allow the period of employment during May and June of this year to run from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., instead of from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., as fixed by the Factory Act. The employers, in order to cope with the extra pressure, desire to work the full number of hours allowed by the Act, and in the special circumstances I have thought it reasonable to allow the temporary con cession asked for. The Order, following the precedent of the existing Order for laundries, will apply to young persons as well as to women. The Order does not in any way extend the hours of work legally permitted under the Act, and at present is issued in draft only.

  Metropolitan Police.
  Mr. TOUCHEasked the Home Secretary whether any steps will be taken to reassure the lower ranks of the Metropolitan police against the fear of consequences for telling the truth, expressed in Police Constable Greave's letter to Mr. Abinger, in the trial of Stinie Morrison, and alleged to have been evidenced by witnesses in the inquiry into the case of Inspector Syme, where it involved superiors in rank, and acknowledged in the judgment of the Disciplinary Board to be existent?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: As I have already stated, I propose to make a special inquiry into the statements made by Constable Greave; but I have no ground for thinking that members of the Metropolitan Police Force generally stand in fear of giving truthful evidence. Certainly nothing has been said by the Discipline Board in ex-Inspector Syme's case to support such a suggestion, and it would, I am sure, be repudiated by the men. I hesitate to believe that the hon. Member would have given publicity to such serious statements without having received substantial primâ facie evidence to justify him. If he has such evidence, it is his duty to place it at the disposal of the Minister responsible.
  Mr. TOUCHEasked if, having regard to the revised general order that there is no appeal from the decision of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and to the explanation that such general order merely defines the position and procedure in respect of disciplinary appeals which have existed without change since the
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  creation of the force, the right hon. Gentleman will state whether the police now have in fact a right to appeal to-the Home Secretary; whether such appeals have been made while he and his predecessor have been in office; if in any such cases the decision of the Commissioner in matters of discipline has been revised on appeal; whether, having regard to the practical difficulties involved in an appeal to a Minister, he will consider the establishment of an independent board of appeal, while reserving his power of revision, so as to give the members of the force a sense of security against the possibility of being made the victims of official tyranny and avoid any occasion for public uncertainty that justice is being done; or, in the alternative, will he institute an inquiry as to whether the establishment of such a board is desirable?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: There is no right of appeal by an officer of the force from the decision of the Commissioner who is vested by statute with full disciplinary powers. So long as the Commissioner is responsible for the efficiency and good conduct of the police, which have at no time been higher than at present, he must be entrusted with full disciplinary power and must, in his discretion, be able to advance in rank or reduce in rank for inefficiency or misconduct, or inflict other suitable punishment. His powers are no greater than those of any private employer. Members of the Force have no right of appeal from the commissioner, but in the case of ex-Inspector Syme the Commissioner himself submitted to my predecessor an appeal by the officer. Lord Gladstone, after full consideration, decided that he could not intervene. No other appeal has been made to me or my predecessor. I have requested the Commissioner to furnish me with statistics and particulars of the working of the various disciplinary courts, which' will enable me to decide whether there should be modification of the system that has worked for so many years with such satisfactory results as regards the efficiency, morale, and conduct of the Force.

  Mine Inspectors.
  Mr. WEBBasked the Home Secretary whether it is necessary that candidates for mining inspectorships should be recommended by Members of Parliament in order to ensure their claims being considered; and, if this be not so, would he inform the House of the nature of the

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  machinery that would be put into motion in the appointment of such inspectors?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I am glad to have this opportunity of saying emphatically that it is not necessary that candidates for mines inspectorships or any Home Office inspectorships should be recommended by Members of Parliament; nor does it in any way advance a candidate's interests to be so recommended unless the recommendation is based on the same kind of personal knowledge of his qualifications for the post as that of a testimonial from any other person. As there is a widespread misapprehension on the point, I am inserting a warning against seeking political or social influence in the printed instructions which are issued to candidates by the Home Office. As regards the latter part of the question, candidates are required to fill in a form of application and forward it with testimonials based on personal knowledge of the candidate to the Private Secretary at the Home Office, from whom copies of the form and all necessary information can be obtained.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is it an open competitive examination?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The conditions are well known.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Is a nomination required to enter the examination, and, if so, who gives it?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It has long been considered the proper practice not to judge entirely by examination, but to have some personal knowledge of the candidates. With those intentions the system of nomination has been in vogue for many years by the Secretary of State, but I cannot undertake myself personally the duty of discriminating between the candidates.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: How is the right hon. Gentleman certain the nominations are fairly and equally distributed?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It is very difficult to know how you make certain of anything in this world, but I am quite certain the desire is to take the best and most suitable candidate, and if I thought there was any chance of any attempt to depart from that on grounds of favour, I should certainly exert my authority against that practice.
  Mr. STUART-WORTLEY: Are we to understand that the nominations are nominations by himself and not by some outside authority?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The nominations are by the Secretary of State, who is to be responsible to Parliament for them, but that does not mean that he necessarily sees every candidate.
  Mr. MacNEILL: Is the hereditary principle taken into consideration?
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman appoint a small committee to consider applications, similar to the committee he appointed in the case of Factory Inspectorships?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think that that is a question that ought to be asked without notice.

  Ex-Inspector Syme.
  Mr. LANSBURYasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that Inspector Syme reported in October, 1909, that he was unable to move his residence from Westminster to Fulham pending the result of his appeal of the 26th August, 1909, against his transfer, and was travelling to and fro at the public expense; whether the Receiver refunded to Inspector Syme the sum of £1 15s. 3d. for travelling expenses so incurred; whether inspectors of the Metropolitan police are permitted to reside three miles from town stations at which they are performing duty, and are they allowed travelling expenses; and will he explain why this claim for travelling expenses was allowed if Inspector Syme's transfer did not involve removal of his residence?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes; Inspector Syme was allowed as a temporary arrangement to remain in his existing residence, and his travelling expenses were paid. The reason was to prevent his transfer, which was not a punishment, from operating to any way to his disadvantage.
  Mr. LANSBURYasked whether Chief Inspector Shervington recommended the transfer of Inspector Syme from Gerald Road to North Fulham in August, 1909; did he give his reasons in a written minute or report dealing with a refused charge; did he allege that the inspector was familiar with subordinates; did he make any reference to supposed friction between the inspector and his superiors; did the inspector have any knowledge of the allegation of familiarity, and was he allowed an opportunity to refute it before he was transferred; did Chief Inspector Shervington admit to the Disciplinary Board that

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  his only reason for alleging familiarity was that the inspector spoke for his subordinates; was it shown in evidence, and un questioned, that one of the two constables, whom the chief inspector alleged the inspector was familiar with, had only been one week at the station and had never been spoken to by Inspector Syme prior to the refused charge; did the Disciplinary Board find that Chief Inspector Shervington had failed to prove the alleged familiarity; and did Inspector Syme at his interview with the Home Secretary explain that he appealed not against his transfer, but against the alleged grounds for his transfer?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have already, in reply to questions, given full information with regard to the circumstances leading to Inspector Syme's dismissal from the Metropolitan Police, and have laid on the Table a copy of the Commissioner's judgment. As the case cannot be reopened, no useful purpose would be served by any further discussion of the details of the case by way of question and answer. The matter can, of course, be fully discussed at the regular opportunity.
  Mr. LANSBURY: May the evidence be put at the disposal of Members to enable them to discuss the matter?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I have already said that I have laid the judgment of the Commissioner, and I do not propose to lay other papers on the subject.

  Poplar Borough Council (By-law).
  Mr. LANSBURYasked the Home Secretary if he has received an application from the Poplar Borough Council for sanction of a new by-law prohibiting chalking and writing on the pavements for purposes of advertising; and if such a by-law has been sanctioned for any other town in the United Kingdom?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: A sealed copy of the by-law referred to by the hon. Member has been forwarded to me by the Poplar Borough Council, as required by Section 23 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882. Similar by-laws for dealing with this nuisance are in force in a large number of towns throughout the country.

  Motor Omnibuses (Splash-Boards).
  Mr. LANSBURYasked the Home Secretary if he is aware that splash-boards for the prevention of mud-splashing are now
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  fixed to the motor-omnibuses plying along one route in the Metropolis; and will ho consider the advisability of issuing through the police a regulation compelling all motor vehicles, and especially motor-omnibuses, to adopt those guards?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware that special devices of this kind are fixed to any motor omnibuses now plying in the Metropolis; but the Commissioner of Police has expressed his willingness to have them tried experimentally; and he has repeatedly told local authorities and others that he is ready to consider the question of compelling motor omnibuses to carry such special mudguards, as soon as an efficient device is submitted to him. None of the mudguards submitted so far have proved satisfactory. I have no power to make any such regulations for motor vehicles generally.

  Police Rest Day (Scotland).
  Mr. WATTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what action he proposed to take in bringing about the one day rest in seven for Scottish policemen, in view of the promise given when the English measure passed into law?
  The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): My hon. Friend's reference appears to be to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department said in this House on 27th April of last year, that he would be very glad to give his support to such a measure if it were put forward and really supported by the mass of Scottish opinion as represented by Scotland's elected representatives. As my hon. Friend, however, is doubtless aware, there has been a development of opposition to the Bill on the part of Scottish police authorities, based partly on its drafting, but mainly upon the increased burden which it would impose on the ratepayers without any corresponding increase in the central contribution to the cost of the police such as the English local grant system provides.
  Mr. REMNANT: Are not the clerical mistakes in the Bill such as could easily be remedied in Committee? And is it not a fact that the opposition to the measure is so small that last night we could have passed the Second Reading had it not been for a single Member? Under these circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Prime Minister whether some short period could not be devoted to pass-

  617
  ing the Bill through Second Reading, seeing that it is supported in all parts of the House?
  Mr. URE: The mistakes in drafting could be remedied in Committee, but they are serious. For instance, the Bill refers to county boroughs, of which there are none in Scotland. In the present state of public opinion in Scotland it is impossible for me to give any undertaking with regard to the Bill.
  Mr. WATT: Are we to understand that the Scottish Office will systematically block the Bill?
  Mr. URE: The Scottish Office have not blocked the Bill.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: Are we to understand that the Government are not officially opposed to the Bill?
  Mr. URE: I spoke of the public opinion of Scotland.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the name of a single Scottish Member who is opposed to the Bill?
  Mr. REMNANT: Are we to understand from what the right hon. Gentleman has said that the Government will not block the Bill?
  Mr. URE: No.

  Engagement of Crews Abroad.
  Mr. O'GRADYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he would inquire into the circumstances under which the captains of the two British steamers "Barnesmore" and "Edenmore" were compelled to have the men they were engaging as crews at the port of Antwerp on 17th March medically examined in a drinking saloon kept by a runner who is in the employ of a shipping master named Johsson; if he would inquire why the men were not given their advance notes at the consular shipping office, in accordance with the circular from the Board of Trade to shipowners recommending this to be done; whether he could state if the owners of the Johnstone boats had been communicated with, the same as other owners; whether he would further inquire as to why the men were charged seven francs, and in the case of the boatswain of one of the vessels, who had been four continuous voyages in the same vessel, why he was compelled to pay ten francs; and whether, in consequence of
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  the reluctance on the part of some ship-owners to abate this nuisance, he would introduce legislation at an early date making it obligatory on the part of masters engaging crews at foreign ports to have the amount of the advance stated on the articles and the notes to be handed to the men themselves by the consular officer at the time of signing?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): I am making inquiries into the several matters referred to in the question, and the result shall be communicated to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

  Railway Servants' Earnings and Cost of Food.
  Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked what were the average weekly earnings of railway servants, as returned to the Board of Trade, in 1899 and 1909 respectively, and the rise in the cost of food, retail, in 1909, as compared with 1899 in London and, if possible, in the provinces?
  Mr. BUXTON: The only figures available relate to the average earnings of all classes of workpeople employed by railway companies in the four principal departments in a particular week of each year. Such figures are not properly comparable with changes in prices, as they are affected by the varying proportions employed in each occupation and at each rate, and also by the amount of short time or overtime worked. The figures and the qualifications affecting them are given in the Annual Reports of the Board of Trade on Changes in Wages and Hours, to which I would refer my hon. Friend. The index number of retail prices of certain articles of food in London was 96.4 in 1899 and 108.2 in 1909. I cannot give corresponding figures for the provinces.

  H.M.S. "Hermione."
  Mr. LEE: May I ask the First Lord of the Admiralty a question of which I have given private notice?
  Mr. MacNEILL: On a point of Order, Sir. I have already communicated to you a question which I wish to ask in reference to the practice of the House. Is it right or proper for an hon. Member to ask, on private notice, a question of which notice has been given in the ordinary way, and thus anticipate the answer and the credit of putting the question. What occurred was this——
  Mr. SPEAKER: Is the hon. Gentleman asking a question or is he making a statement?
  Mr. MacNEILL: I would first ask if it is in order?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Then I will answer the hon. Member. It would not be in order if a question appeared on the Paper for an hon. Member to deliberately anticipate it by giving private notice of a similar question.
  Mr. MacNEILL: In reference to the question put yesterday——[Several HON. MEMBERS: "What question?"] We all know what it is about; it is in reference to Barrow-in-Furness. That question was put down by the hon. Member for the Wells Division of Somerset (Mr. Sandys) on Tuesday; it appeared in the ordinary list of notices on Wednesday, and that hon. Member should have put it. Instead of that, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Arthur Lee) got up and anticipated it by putting a question on private notice. There is no doubt whatever about it——
  Mr. SPEAKER: Is the hon. Gentleman asking me a question, or is he making a speech?
  Mr. MacNEILL: I am asking a question, but I may have too much enlarged. The question is simply whether, having regard to the fact that this question is now on the Notice Paper, the hon. Member for Fareham is entitled to get up and ask it, when it belongs to another Member?
  Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member had spoken to me about it I would have explained the matter to him. The hon. Member for Fareham brought a question to me on Tuesday evening and asked whether I would allow it to be put on Wednesday, it being a matter of urgency. I told him that he could ask it. It was not until after I have given that permission—in fact, until to-day—that I observed that there was a question of the same import standing on the Paper for to-day. The question was put yesterday, and the hon. Member is now asking for an answer to the question then put.
  Mr. LEE: The right hon. Gentleman said yesterday that he had not the information in his possession, and I asked if he would be able to give it to-day. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is the question?"] The question I asked yesterday was whether the attention of the right hon.
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  Gentleman had been called to the exclusion of certain members of the crew of His Majesty's ship "Hermione" from a public entertainment at Barrow-in-Furness, on the sole ground, as alleged in the Press, that they were in uniform. I asked the right hon. Gentleman if he had informed himself on the matter, and, if so, what steps he proposed to take in the matter?
  Mr. SANDYShad given notice of the following question:—To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that a number of men from His Majesty's ship "Hermione," on requesting admittance to a ball and whist drive at Barrow-in-Furness Town Hall on St. Patrick's Day, were informed that they could not enter until they changed from their uniforms into civilian clothes; will he say who were the persons responsible for this entertainment; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent such occurrences in the future?
  Mr. McKENNA: There appears to be some conflict of evidence with regard to the circumstances attending this most regrettable incident. It is beyond question that some members of the ship's company of His Majesty's ship "Hermione" were denied admission to a ball and whist drive held at Barrow last Friday, to which the public were admitted on payment of 1s. The conflict of testimony arises from the question whether the men were excluded because they were in uniform or because they applied to be admitted after the doors had been closed against the public. The circumstances were brought by the commander of the ship to the knowledge of the Mayor of Barrow, who has written a letter which I hope I may be allowed to describe as very proper, and of which the following are the material paragraphs:—
  "I was extremely sorry to note the contents of your letter of the 18th instant. I referred to the matter at the opening of the magistrates' court this morning, and the Chief Constable was instructed to report on what transpired to the bench of magistrates. We will then see whether any offence within the terms of our bye-laws has been committed.
  "I feel very much upset that such an incident should have arisen in Barrow and such a slight passed on any of the men under your command I quite confirm what you state that the men of the 'Hermione' have during their stay in Barrow maintained in the matter of conduct the best traditions of the service."
  I may observe to the House that I have no power to take any action in the matter, but I may express my entire concurrence with the sentiments of the Mayor.
  Mr. SANDYS: Arising out of that answer, may I ask the right hon. Gentle-

  621
  man whether he can answer the second part of the original question, namely: who were the persons responsible for this entertainment?
  Mr. MacNEILL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question of which I have given him private notice? I wish to know whether it is not a fact that this entertainment was held, as it has been from year to year, under the auspices of the Irish Nationalist Association and kindred associations, and whether before the sailors applied for admission the rooms were overcrowded, and admission had been refused to well-known Irish Nationalists? I would like, also, to know if the right hon. Gentleman has not a copy of the full report given to the Mayor of Barrow-in-Furness by the chief constable?
  Mr. McKENNA: As I stated in my original answer, there is a conflict of evidence as to the circumstances of the case, and I am not in a position to make any statement as to the facts. I agree with the mayor that the only course to be taken in these circumstances is to call for a report from the chief constable. As soon as that report reaches me I shall give it to the House.
  Captain CRAIG: Is it not a fact that all such entertainments, balls, and otherwise, got up under the auspices of the United Irish League do not permit officers or men of the Army and Navy to attend?
  Mr. McKENNA: I regret I have no knowledge on that point.
  Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN: May I ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has made any inquiry whatever from the promoters of this particular gathering, and whether he has received any information as to whether these men, who are members of the crew of the "Hermione," had any tickets to permit them to go into the meeting?
  Mr. McKENNA: I have given the House all the information I have upon the subject. As I have stated, there is a conflict of evidence between the statement of the sailors and the statement of the promoters of the gathering. I have no further information.
  Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN: The point I wish to put to the First Lord is, whether he will make inquiries from those who had the entertainment in hand as to what was the character of the proceedings?
  Mr. McKENNA: I do not know that it is my duty to make any inquiries from the promoters of the gathering. The secretary has, I believe, communicated to the Press his view of the case, and upon his letter I have stated to the House that there is a conflict of evidence. I do not think I can go beyond that. The secretary is under no obligation to make a statement to me. All I can do is to take the statement he has made to the public Press.
  Mr. SANDYS——
  Mr. SPEAKER: We will continue this debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: May I ask the Prime Minister if he will give the House the usual statement as to the business of the week?
The PRIME MINISTER: On Friday (to-morrow) we hope to obtain, the remaining Government Clauses of the Revenue Bill. In the event of these being disposed of we do not propose to-morrow to proceed with the new clauses. In view of the condition of the Notice Paper, and the necessity for obtaining the Royal Assent to the Revenue Bill by 31st March, I fear I may on Monday have to make a motion to prevent any mishap to it. If, however, any arrangement is made through the usual channels by which that motion is rendered unnecessary, the main part of Monday's sitting will be given to the further progress of the Revenue Bill; and the remainder to the third reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. If no such arrangement is possible the time available after the Revenue Bill is disposed of will be similarly employed.
Tuesday and Wednesday will in any case be given to the Revenue Bill.
I hope we shall find that Thursday is available for Supply. I will make an announcement of the Friday's business later. As previously stated, on Monday week we shall proceed with the Committee stage of the Parliament Bill.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Two questions arise out of that statement. Do I rightly understand that no business will be taken to-morrow after finishing the Government Clauses of the Revenue Bill?
The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: In the second place, do I understand that it is the intention of the Government to allot only two days to the consideration of the new Clauses of the Revenue Bill in Committee, the Report of the Bill, and the Third Reading of the Bill?
The PRIME MINISTER: If the Motion I have referred to becomes unnecessary, we shall have the whole, or the greater part, of Monday. That will give us three days.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: But there is the Consolidated Fund Bill?
The PRIME MINISTER: That will come on after eleven o'clock.
Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I ask, why is it necessary to pass the Revenue Bill this year before 31st March, when it was not necessary to pass the Finance Bill by the corresponding time last year?
The PRIME MINISTER: That very fact makes it all the more necessary. Might I for the convenience of the House say—I do not think any one misunderstood me—that of course the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill would be first order to-morrow. It is down for that day.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Ordered, "That the proceedings on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill have precedence this day of the business of Supply."—[The Prime Minister.]

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.

  BAGHDAD RAILWAY AND PERSIAN AFFAIRS.
  4.0 P.M.
  EARL of RONALDSHAY: The opportunities which are afforded to hon. Members of this House for discussing great questions of foreign policy are so few and far between that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will I am sure make no complaint when I take this opportunity of laying before him the views which I and some other hon. Friends of mine hold with regard to the Baghdad Railway. I think it is all the more desirable that we should take this opportunity in view of the statement which was made yesterday in another place by Lord Morley. The House will
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  remember that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, speaking upon this question about a fortnight ago, laid stress upon the fact that the railway concession was a German concession in Turkish territory, and that that being so, we, in this country, had no title to interfere with the carrying out of the project, and he suggested that if we desire to safeguard our own interests in that part of the world we should ourselves seek for alternative concessions.
  The situation has been very largely altered since the right hon. Gentleman, made that speech. Speaking in another place yesterday, Lord Morley declared that, "as a result of an arrangement between the Baghdad Railway Company and the Turkish Government, the company had given up their exclusive rights to the construction of the southern end of the line—the section from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf." And he further stated that negotiations were therefore taking place at the present time between our own Government and the Turkish Government with the view, I understand, of ascertaining how far it would be possible for us to co-operate in the railway project. That is an entirely different situation to the situation explained by the right hon. Gentleman a fortnight ago. And in order that we may put before him the attitude which we hold with regard to the general question of our policy in what is known as the middle East, it is necessary I should remind the House very briefly of the policy which this country has now pursued for a great many years in that part of the world, and of the reasons for that policy.
  The keynote of our policy in that part of the world has been the preservation of the independence and integrity of Turkey, Persia and Afghanistan. The attitude which we have always taken up towards the people of these countries has been one of sympathetic solicitude. We have desired to maintain with them relations of neighbourliness and friendship, and while we always have done all that we could to encourage and foster commercial intercourse with them, we have steadily refrained and we shall continue to refrain from embarking upon a policy of aggression against them or of territorial aggrandisement at their expense. There are two main reasons for our adoption of that policy. In the first place we have acknowledged and respected the bonds which exist between the 60,000,000 of our fellow Mahomedan citizens in India and their co-religionists in these countries;

  625
  and in the second place, we have realised that the existence of a chain of strong and independent kingdoms stretching from the confines of Europe on the one side to the Indian frontier on the other side is of vital importance to the security of our Empire. There have always been two possible dangers against which we have had to guard. We have had to guard in the first place against the lodgment of a European Power upon what may be described as the glacis of the Indian fort—that is to say, Afghanistan and Persia; and in the second place we have had to guard against the acquisition by a European Power of such a position in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf as might provide a possible basis of attack upon the flank of our line of communication, not only with India, but Australia and the Far East as well.
  The first of these two possible dangers has been guarded against, so far as it could be guarded against by Treaty, by the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. I say "so far as it can be guarded against by Treaty," because I would not have it supposed that I hold the view that any treaty, convention or agreement ought to relieve us of the obligation of making adequate military preparation to meet any possible attack that might be made upon our Indian Empire. That, I think, would be a very disastrous view to be taken, and it is a view I hope that never will be taken by those responsible for the safety of our Indian Empire. But when we come to the second possible danger to which I have alluded we find our position by no means so secure as it was ten years ago. Ten years ago we declared to the world that it would be impossible for us, from whatever cause, to abandon what we considered to be our rightful position in Persia. Perhaps I may remind the House of the words used in 1902 by the then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs with regard to that particular declaration of policy. He said:—
  "Especially is that true in regard to the Persian Gulf. It is true not only of the Persian Gulf but of the southern provinces of Persia."
  I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take notice of these words:—
  "Of the southern provinces of Persia and those provinces which border on our Indian Empire. Our rights there and our position of ascendancy we cannot abandon."
  Point was given to this declaration by the historical tour of the Persian Gulf, made by Lord Curzon as Viceroy of India, in the following year accompanied by military and naval escorts suitable to the
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  representative of a King-Emperor exercising suzerain rights over the chiefs of the Persian and Arabian littoral. Our policy was again plainly declared by Lord Curzon in his speech on the Indian Budget of 1904, in which he used the following words:—
  "India is like a fortress with the vast moat of the sea on two of her faces and with mountains for her walls on the remainder. But beyond these walls extends a glacis of varying breadth and dimensions We do not want to occupy it, but we cannot afford to see it occupied by our foes. We are quite content to let it remain in the hands of our allies and friends, but if rival and unfriendly influences"——
  And these are the words to which I desire to draw particular attention—
  "creep up to it and lodge themselves right under our walls, we are compelled to intervene, because a danger would thereby grow up that might one day menace our security That is the secret of the whole position in Arabia, Persia and Afghanistan. … And the whole of our policy during the past five years has been directed towards maintaining our predominant influence, and to preventing the expansion of hostile' agencies on this area which I have described."
  And he pointed to the fact that he was referring especially to the country bordering on the Persian Gulf, and he went on to say:—
  "It was for this reason that I visited that old field of British energy and influence in the Persian Gulf."
  I recall these utterances because they contain a clearly defined and frankly expressed policy with regard to the countries whose shores are washed by the waters of the Persian Gulf. But since that time our policy has undergone a considerable amount of modification, and it really is desirable that we should be told to what extent the policy then laid down has been modified. For instance, under the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 we have admitted Russia's claims to a position of equality with ourselves in the whole of the southern provinces of Persia west of Bunder Abbas. That is a very material modification of the policy laid down in 1902 and 1903. Moreover, west of Persia, in Asiatic Turkey, very considerable developments have taken place in the last ten years. It was only during the close of the nineteenth century that the seeds of German ambition were sown on Turkish soil. In 1902 the scheme of the Baghdad Railway was in embryo, and the joint opposition to that scheme of Great Britain and Russia in 1902 and 1903 may be said to have driven it, for the time being at any rate, out of the sphere of practical politics. A great change in the situation has taken place since 1903, and a great change has taken place in the last two or three years, and more especially in the last two or three months.

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  Germany and Russia have talked over their respective interests in the neighbourhood of the Turko-Persian frontier, more "specially in regard to the matter of railway building; as a result, an understanding, it is assumed, has been come to by those two Powers, and the opposition of Russia has been withdrawn from the German railway scheme. We are face to face with the probability of the Baghdad Railway scheme seeing consummation in a not very far distant future, and if that forecast is correct we are face to face with the probability of German influence becoming paramount in Baghdad and the neighbouring region. I would like to say, parenthetically, that I am not one of those who expect to see German army corps carried across Mesopotamia by the Baghdad Railway; nevertheless, I should regard a railway from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf almost exclusively in the hands of Germany as one of those rival and unfriendly influences against which Lord Curzon, in 1004, said we should be compelled to intervene. I should like to say a word to explain my use of the word "unfriendly" in connection with Germany. Viscount Morley, speaking in the House of Lords last night——
  Mr. PICKERSGILL: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to ask whether it is in order in this House for an hon. Member to refer to Debates which have taken place in the House of Lords?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The rule was and is that Debates in another place should not be refered to in this House. I think the real intention of that rule was that speeches made in another place should not be answered specifically and in detail here. I do not see how you can possibly carry on Debates here without referring occasionally to what has been said in another place.
  Mr. PICKERSGILL: I raise the point because I am anxious to maintain the rights of this House. I think information with regard to Foreign Affairs ought to be given in this House, and not in the House of Lords.
  EARL of RONALDSHAY: It is difficult to discuss this question without referring to the Debates in another place A very important Debate on this question took place in the House of Lords last night, where the official spokesman for the Govern-
  628
  ment made a statement of very great importance. I shall endeavour not to answer that speech more than I can help, but I think it will be permissible to say that Viscount Morley drew attention to the fact that there had been a publicist in this country who suggested that the construction of a railway by Germany in Persia would constitute a serious menace-to us. Have the Government taken the trouble to ascertain where that suggestion originated? I do not think it originated with an Englishman at all. I am under the impression that it originated with a German publicist, whose mission in Germany is to popularise the Baghdad Railway scheme amongst the German people, with a view to securing financial support to the scheme from the German people. My attention has been called to the remarkable utterances of Dr. Rohrbach in the latest edition of his pamphlet, "Die Bagdadbahn," published this year, and this is what he says:—
  "A direct attack upon England across the North Sea is out of the question. It is necessary to discover another combination in order to hit England in a vulnerable spot, and here we come to the point where tin-relationship of Germany to Turkey and the conditions prevailing in Turkey, become of decisive importance for German foreign policy, based as it now is upon watchfulness in the direction of England."
  He says it might very well pay Turkey to co-operate with Germany in some future attack upon Great Britain in Egypt, and these are the words he uses:—
  "Turkey, however, can never dream of recovering Egypt until she is mistress of a developed railway system in Asia Minor and Syria, and until, through the progress of the Anatolian Railway to Baghdad, she is in a position to withstand an attack by England upon Mesopotamia. The Turkish army must be increased and improved, and progress must be made in her economic and financial position. The stronger Turkey grows, the more dangerous does she become to England. Egypt is a prize which for Turkey would he well worth the risk of taking sides with Germany in a war with England. The policy of protecting Turkey which is now pursued by Germany, has no other object but the desire to effect an insurance against the danger of a war with England."
  Those are not the words of a Chauvinistic Englishman, but of a prominent German publicist whose mission is to secure support for the Baghdad Railway from the German people. Under these circumstances we are absolved, I think, from any possible charge of harbouring animosity or hostility against Germany, and we are entitled, and, indeed, we are bound—to do what we can to counteract the advance of German influence, at any rate in those regions where our own interests are of such paramount importance—namely, the regions south of Baghdad. I have always held—and in this I am supported by the vast majority of those who have made a

  629
  careful study of this question—that for political and strategic reasons the task upon which we should concentrate our efforts is that of securing control of any railway which may be built in future from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. But it is impossible, in considering this question to ignore the commercial aspect of it, and I think I shall be able to show that if we consider the commercial, political, and strategic importance of this scheme, we have very good grounds for endeavouring to secure control, not only of the section to Baghdad but also the section from Sadijeh to Khanikin on the Persian frontier.
  The trade in these regions is preponderatingly British. The trade beyond Baghdad is not only preponderatingly British but almost exclusively British. I have the latest available figures for the year 1910, and I find that the total value of the goods imported into Kermanshah, which is the largest trade centre in Western Persia, amount to £1,259,138. Out of that total I find that the value of British and Indian imports amount to £1,075,996, leaving a mere bagatelle of £183,142 for the imports of the whole of the rest of the world put together. If the House will bear in mind those figures they will understand why it was that we criticised somewhat severely the provisions of the Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907, which placed the trade route from Khanikin to Kermanshah in the Russian sphere of influence. The explanation given by Lord Fitzmaurice, who was at that time the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was a rather curious one. Speaking in the House of Lords, on 6th February, 1908, Lord Fitzmuarice said:—
  "Whatever our individual views on this question may be, we all know that there is another Power not Russia, which is taking a great interest in the railway communications in the direction of Baghdad. Undoubtedly, whoever may get a railway concession and execute it to Baghdad will desire to carry it up to the Persian frontier, and if we had interfered so as to prevent the railway beyond falling into Russian hands, then I think, in all probability, we would have gratuitously gone out of our way to bring another Power into the field against us."
  I ventured to point out at the time that to abdicate our own claims to railway construction in that particular district was not the way to prevent the advent of another Power in the field against us. I pointed out myself so long ago as December, 1904, that the great danger we had to face in the future in this connection was the probability of Russia and Germany coming to terms with regard to their interest in railway construction
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  from Baghdad up into Persia, irrespective of the interests of this country. The forecast I made then is obviously being fulfilled at the present time, because Russia and Germany have undoubtedly come to some understanding with regard to a future railway from Baghdad into Persia. I do not say that the understanding is absolutely final, but whether it becomes final or not largely depends upon the attitude which the Foreign Secretary assumes with regard to this question. Undoubtedly some sort of an agreement has been come to, and as a result of it, if it is carried out, we shall see a railway running the whole way from Baghdad to Teheran, the capital of Persia, constructed and exclusively controlled by our two keenest commercial rivals in that part of the world, namely, Germany and Russia. To show how ineffective the policy of His Majesty's Government was, in so far, at any rate, as it was directed to preventing the advent of another Power in Western Persia, I may say quite frankly that I have the very best reasons for supposing that proposals have actually been discussed between Russia and Germany which, if accepted, will invite Germany into Persia itself by giving her a share of the construction and control, not only of the railway from Baghdad to Khanikin but also of the section of the railway East of Khanikin running through Persian territory itself. I hope the Government are fully alive to the effect which such a consummation may have upon our interests both political and commercial. Foreign countries, as we know by experience in the past, are only too ready to take advantage of any lack of foresight upon our part. The Russo-Persian Convention of 1902, which established a Persian Customs Tariff highly favourable to Russian trade, but unfavourable to British trade, comes immediately to one's mind. The erection of the Persian Customs Tariff of 1903 was only made possible by the absurd reliance which we placed upon the most-favoured-nation clause, and as a result of our negligence in not inserting in the Treaty of Paris a clause securing for the Anglo-Persian trade the same specific Customs Duties as were secured to Russo-Persian trade under the Treaty of Turkman Chai. That is a very good example of the advantage which is taken by foreign countries of any negligence, or want of foresight, upon the part of our Government. I hope that example will be borne in mind by the right hon. Gentleman during the

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  negotiations which he is carrying on at the present time with regard to the Baghdad Railway. The right hon. Gentleman, when we suggest the possibility of differential railway rates being imposed to the disadvantage of our trade, always falls back upon Articles 24 and 25 of the cahier des charges. The cahier des charges is a very flimsy guarantee of equal rights and opportunities for our trade, and I am glad to see that does appear to have at last dawned upon His Majesty's Government, because, while the right hon. Gentleman has always pinned his faith on those two articles in the cahier des charges, I notice that Lord Morley last night took a somewhat different view. He said he believed British interests cannot be effectually safeguarded by the plastic stipulations of the cahier des charges. I read that statement with the greatest pleasure, because it did seem to show the Government are beginning to realise that these paper arrangements are not, as a matter of fact, of any great value when it is a question of safeguarding the rights of British commerce as compared with the commerce of commercial rivals.
  The ideal for which I think we ought to work in this matter is that which I have practically outlined. We should endeavour to secure for this country the construction, the management, and the control of any future railway which may be built from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad, and we should endeavour to secure to this country, at any rate, equal powers of construction, management, and control in that section which is to be built from Sadidjeh to Khanikin, on the Persian frontier. I quite realise that ideals are not always attainable, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman not to underrate the strength of the position of this country. Our position, as a matter of fact, is a very strong one. These railway schemes cannot be carried out without money. In 1907 we agreed to allow Turkey to raise her import duties from 8 per cent. ad valorem to 11 per cent. We gave our consent for a period of seven years, so that in the spring of 1914 our consent will again be required if the Turkish import duties are to remain at 11 per cent., instead of reverting once more to 8 per cent. Turkey, far from finding a rate of 11 per cent. sufficient for her needs, is now most anxious to increase the existing rate of 11 per cent. by 4 per cent. to 15 per cent. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear this fact in mind. The trade of the world with Turkey is pre-
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  ponderatingly British. Out of the whole of the imports of foreign goods into Turkey during the last year for which I have figures—I think 1909–30 per cent. represents British goods, the remainder representing the trade of the whole of the rest of the world. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, in any negotiations he may carry on, either with Turkey or Germany, with regard to this question, will make it quite clear to them that we cannot entertain so great a sacrifice to our trade without at any rate securing adequate concessions in return.
  In the second place, it is within our power either to facilitate or to hinder the acquisition of a suitable terminus for the railway. We can, if we are met as we ought to be met, withdraw our opposition to the terminus being set up at Koweit. We can offer or refuse the mail contract of India to the Baghdad Railway Company, a matter of considerable importance in the case of a railway which will run through vast stretches of country which are at present unproductive, and which therefore for many years to come must remain un-remunerative. We can point out to Turkey that we have always declared ourselves ready to build railways for her without demanding from her the heavy financial burdens which have been imposed upon her by the Baghdad Railway Company under the concession of 1903. That, in the main, is, I think, the position which we take up on this side of the House. I speak, at any rate, for myself and one or two of my hon. Friends who have made a special study of questions in that part of the world. It is because Lord Morley made so important a statement last night, suggesting that His Majesty's Government were ready to waive their objections to the terminus of the railway being fixed at Koweit and their objections to a further rise in the Turkish Customs Duties, without at the same time telling us what sort of concessions we were going to get in return, that I have ventured to lay before the right hon. Gentleman the views which we hold, in the hope that he will be able to give us some rather more satisfactory assurance than we have been able to elicit from the Government up to the present time as to the concessions which we are to receive in the event of our acceding to the requests made by Germany and Turkey.
  Mr. DILLON: I have listened with great interest to the powerful and eloquent speech of the Noble Lord as to the British

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  interests, which are undoubtedly considerable, in this matter. I desire to say a few words on behalf of another nation whose interests are equally involved and for whom there are few to speak in this House. I mean the interests of Persia. I want, first of all, to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that it was only on 3rd April, in response to a question in this House, he refused to lay Papers on the Table in addition to the Papers laid two years ago. He then said he did not consider it desirable to lay Papers until the negotiations on the question of the Southern Routes were concluded. Last night, in another place, Lord Morley announced that Papers would be laid. Are we to understand that information, which I must say has in my opinion been very unfairly denied to the House of Commons, is instantly given when a demand is made in the House of Lords by so important a person as Lord Curzon. I really do think the House of Commons has been somewhat scurvily treated in this matter. I beg to remind the right hon. Gentleman that last May I put a similar question to him, and he gave us a conditional promise that before last Session concluded Papers would be laid. Yet no Papers were laid last Session, and, when the matter was revived only a fortnight ago, he stated he did not think it desirable to lay Papers until after the negotiations on the Southern Routes had been settled. Are we to conclude from the statement of Lord Morley that the negotiations with regard to the Southern Routes are closed? That is the first question I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman.
  Last November the British Government suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, addressed to the Persian Government a Note of, I think, the most aggressive and insulting character. It was one of a long series of acts by which this Government has seriously shaken the new Government in Persia, discrediting it in the eyes of its own people, and enormously increasing the task which, God knows, was sufficiently difficult to maintain order in that country and to set up a new Government. That Note was somewhat ambiguous, and, in order to understand its full meaning, one has to read it in the light of subsequent speeches and commentaries made upon it. The Prime Minister, speaking at the Mansion House shortly afterwards, used language which clearly indicated that, if the Persian Government declined to accept this proposal of British Indian officers to
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  maintain order on the Trade Routes, England would insist on sending them. That meant taking possession of the country. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us frankly whether this threat is still hanging over the Government of Persia. Is the Persian Government still to understand that, in the event of refusing to accept the assistance of British Indian officers, the British Government will force these officers upon them? I want to ask how he can reconcile the sending of that Note to the Persian Government and the speeches delivered by the Prime Minister and indeed, sentences in Lord Morley's speech yesterday, with the declarations of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. One of the first articles in that Convention is that both Governments pledge themselves to the maintenance of the independence and integrity of the Persian Empire. The Persian Government, shocked, and, I think, naturally amazed, by the agreement between two rival foreign Powers to divide their country into spheres of influence, addressed a remonstrance and a request I for an explanation to the British Government. The British and Russian Governments instructed their representatives to wait upon the Government of Persia and to state that there was nothing in the Anglo Russian Agreement calculated in any way to interfere with the sovereign rights and independence of the Persian Empire. Furthermore, they used this remarkable language:—
  "The object of the Anglo-Russian Agreement was to bind the two Powers by a mutual agreement not to intervene in the affairs of Persia under the pretext of their own interests."
  Those are very remarkable words, and I remember taking a note of them at the time. Yet, in face of that fact, there has been now for a period of two years a Russian military occupation of the greater part of the northern provinces of Persia, and a threat from the British Government that, if the Persian Government does not restore order within a limited period over the southern trade routes, the British Government will bring in Indian officers and do it themselves. I was amazed to hear the right hon. Gentleman argue on one occasion that the loan, as he phrased it, of British Indian officers to the Persian Government in order to restore order on the southern routes was no interference with the sovereign rights and independence of Persia. If anybody is in doubt upon that, and I do not think anybody can be in doubt, let them read the Note of the Persian Government in reply. It is an admirably

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  drawn Note. The Persian Government immediately addressed a remonstrance last November in reply to the British Note, protesting against this proposal and offer as an infringement, and a gross infringement, of their independence and sovereign rights, and they recalled to the recollection of the British Government the language used both in the Anglo-Russian Convention and in the subsequent communications made by the Ministers of England and Russia to the Persian Government. That is not all the injury that this Government has inflicted on the Persian people. It is a matter of notoriety to any one who has devoted the slightest attention to recent events that the condition of the southern roads in Persia is largely due to the action of the Government in preventing the Persian Government securing the loan which they had negotiated almost up to the point of receiving the money. It is necessary in order to put in operation measures to restore order on the southern roads that they should have this money; but up to this day we have never been able to obtain from the right hon. Gentleman a frank and full statement with reference to the negotiation of the loan. When the Persian Government took charge of that country two years ago they were faced by a condition of financial chaos which made it almost impossible for them to maintain order.
  Sir E. GREY: To which loan is the hon. Gentleman referring?
  Mr. DILLON: I am speaking from information which I have gathered from outside sources. I am giving the Persian view. I do not pretend to be well informed as to the English side, because the right hon. Gentleman has declined to give us any information on this matter. According to my information, the Persians have been obstructed in obtaining their loan. The object, according to their view, is to compel them to accept a joint loan—a divided loan—a loan partly British and partly Russian, but with conditions attached which the Persian Government maintain are inconsistent with the integrity and independence that both England and Russia have declared it to be their wish to preserve. That is the first complaint I desire to make. There are one or two questions I wish to press upon the right hon. Gentleman. First, I want to know whether he intends to lay Papers, and up to what date those Papers will
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  carry us? Secondly, I am anxious to know what is the present situation as regards the question of the Southern roads? Are we to gather from the speech of Lord Morley yesterday that that question is definitely settled. Thirdly, I desire to ask what is the present situation as regards the loan negotiations, and are the Persian Government free to accept a loan negotiated with any Power which may be willing to lend the money without affixing conditions which they consider inconsistent with their integrity?
  There are other points on which I will also ask information. We know that the condition of Persia is one of great disturbance. Unhappily more than one assassination has taken place. Within the last six weeks the Minister for Foreign Affairs was assassinated at Teheran, and the assassins were claimed by the Russian Government as Russian subjects. Can the right hon. Gentleman give me any information as to the grounds on which that claim was made? What will be the nature of the trial of the men, and is there any prospect of their being brought to justice? I believe they were taken red-handed. I think the right hon. Gentleman told me, in reply to a question, that he had no information whatever, and that no information has reached this country. At any rate I have not heard that the assassins in this instance have been brought to justice, or that they have been put on their trial, and I think that such a position of affairs is calculated to make impossible the task of the Persian Government, if when a Persian Minister is assassinated in broad daylight in the streets of Teheran, a foreign Government immediately steps in and claims the assassins as its subjects. If there is to be any delay in dealing out justice in this case it is a scandal, and I claim that we are entitled to any information which the Government may possess.
  Some time ago there appeared in "The Times"—and I do not suppose the House will attribute to "The Times" a desire to give information of an embarrassing and hostile character to the Russian Government—an account of a Cossack attack on a village. I forget its name, but the Cossacks sacked that village, outraged the women, slaughtered the men, and killed a great number of children. I want to ask the Government whether they have any information as to that incident, because one of the things which I have more than once complained of, and I know it is a source of very great irritation and discontent on the part of the Persian Government, is

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  that during the last two years they have been flouted and insulted and belittled before their own people by the representatives of the British and Russian Governments. Now, such incidents as this sacking of a village put the Persian Government in an almost impossible position. Unless there is prompt and full reparation their prestige is weakened, and if they are subjected to microscopical and not too friendly criticism by the representative of foreign Governments, whenever there is a slight disturbance of the public peace, their position is seriously endangered. I ask the right hon. Gentleman in his reply to tell us whether he has any information upon this incident. I am only selecting two cases from a long list of grievances which the Persian Government feel they have. I have given a Russian case. I will now give a British case. On the very day that Parliament rose last November I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman as to a very extraordinary proceeding. It appeared that the Persian Government had allowed to get into arrear for some days or weeks the salary of the ex-Shah, who had been interned in Odessa by the Russian Government, and who had left that place and was travelling about Europe. The condition was that he was to be paid this salary only so long as he lived in Odessa. The Persian Government were informed that, after he left Odessa, he engaged in intrigues of a most dangerous character with a view to upsetting the new Government. They therefore temporarily stopped his allowance, but the British Government actually sent bailiffs into the house of the present Foreign Minister and treated him just as if he had been a bankrupt until the salary was paid. When I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government accepted responsibility for this proceeding, the answer the right hon. Gentleman gave was that he understood it was the custom of the country. I do not believe it is the custom of the country, but, if it should be, it is not for the British Government to uphold so offensive a practice, seeing that it is calculated to degrade the Persian Foreign Minister in the eyes of the people.
  5.0 P.M.
  Persia is obliged to submit to any treatment that England and Russia choose to inflict, and, that being so, the English Government at least ought to show the greatest possible consideration, and not to indulge in these unfriendly and uncivil acts, which are calculated to destroy the Persian Ministry's chances of establishing
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  a really firm Government in that country. It appears to me that the whole policy of the British and Russian Governments in Persia has been marked by an extreme want of wisdom. We have heard a great deal in these Debates about British interests, but I have never heard a single sentence about the interests of the people concerned on the spot. The people of Persia are by no means stupid. The debates that take place in this House are fully reported, and are published in Teheran, and they must have the most unfavourable and embittering effect on the people of Persia. When the revolution took place in Persia two or three years ago England was undoubtedly most popular, and the Persian people looked upon her as sympathetic with a nation struggling to be free. They felt that England desired to aid them in getting rid of a most detestable tyranny. But a change has come over Persian opinions since then, and the Persian people regard England as little worse than the Russians. There is a spirit of hostility to England growing up, and, in my humble opinion, in the interests of England herself it would be much wiser to adopt a course of policy which would secure the sympathy and confidence not only of the people of Persia but of that great wave now passing over the Mahomedan world. Instead of that we have lost the affection of the Persian people. When the revolution broke out in Turkey the Young Turks were devoted to the English people. They believed in the English people, and the whole fabric of German influence in Constantinople was thrown to the ground. But within two years, or I might even say, within one year, that work was absolutely wiped out and undone, and at this moment the English people are thoroughly disliked and mistrusted in Constantinople and Teheran, and it is to Germany that the Young Turks look to for sympathy and support. That policy has had the same effect both in Persia and in Constantinople, and this new movement in favour of liberty and nationality is a movement with which sympathy is felt throughout the entire Moslem world. The Moslem world is bound together just as much as the Christian world, and men travel through India and Afghanistan, through Persia and Turkey and on to Cairo to study international questions there, and a great movement is springing up through out the Moslem world. This is the new spirit, and, believe me, that the policy which has been pursued by Great Britain

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  and her Government in respect of Persia and the Young Turk movement—the new revolutionary movement in Turkey—will yet bring forth most unpleasant fruit in Egypt in regard to the Government of that country.
  Mr. PONSONBY: I wish to make one or two remarks on the subject which has been dealt with by my hon. Friend who has just sat down, and to ask the Foreign Secretary one or two questions. I was very much gratified at seeing in the King's Speech the phrase to the effect that our proposals with regard to Persia in any case would have no other object than to see the authority of the Persian Government restored and trade protected. I sincerely believe that that is the case, but on the other hand we have threatened the Persian Government with the policing of the southern roads should order not be restored, and I would ask, are our commercial interests of such magnitude and of such importance as to justify an act which must be a disregard of Persian nationality and an infringement of the sovereign rights of Persia? I hope to hear from the Foreign Secretary that this threat that we find ourselves obliged to make will in no event be carried out according to the present intention of the Government. With regard to Northern Persia, I fully endorse what has already been said by my hon. Friend who has just sat down. It has been an embarrassment to the Persians in their extremely difficult task of restoring order and good government to have Russian troops situated in Northern Persia. The instance that the hon. Member for Mayo just gave of an outrage which was committed in a village in Northern Persia is not the only one which could be quoted to show the conduct of the Russian troops in that territory. We have agreed with Russia to restore order and to respect the autonomy of Persia, and our object undoubtedly is to do all we can to see that order is restored. But I very much doubt that being the object of our allies, the Russians in Persia. If we ask a country to come and help us to restore good government in a third country we have some right to look into the Government of that particular country, and when we look into the Government of Russia we find that it is the worst governed country, I should say, in Europe, if not in the world at the present time.
  If we look at passages in the newspapers giving us details of what takes place in
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  foreign countries and we see no events of importance chronicled we assume that none are taking place. But that is not so in regard to Russia. Our ignorance of the state of things in Russia arises from the fact that newspapers are not issued there dealing with the facts, and our Press is as ill-informed as we are. It is therefore very difficult to arrive at the truth. But it is well-known at the present time that Russia is suffering from a very bad Government. They are going through a crisis at the present time which means practically an attempt once more to get the power back into the hands of the autocracy. The Russian Government can never in this respect, however, be associated with the Russian people. It in no way represents the Russian people, and we know that outrages of every sort are continually taking place there. Only the other day a batch of administrative exiles were sent to their fate under circumstances of great aggravation, and had to suffer most cruel hardships. We have reports in the newspapers, of floggings in the prisons to such an extent that men have been forced to commit suicide in order to avoid the suffering. We have editors and newspaper men imprisoned. We have no attempt at freedom of speech, or the freedom of the Press, and there is a Duma which is only a travesty of representative Government. It may be said that is no concern of ours, and that is perfectly true. I only referred to it because I say this is the country that we are asking to help us to restore good government in Persia, and it appears to me that it is this alliance with the Russian Government—not with the Russian people, I always wish to make a great distinction between the two—it is this alliance with the Russian Government upon which we seem to have been so blindly determined during the last five or six years that has led us into serious difficulties.
  It is true that none of them have reached a critical stage, but I feel that in regard to this particular incident in Persia we may find ourselves in a very serious dilemma. The object of Russia in Persia is the same object that the Russian Government has in other parts of the world, that is the extension of their territory by the acquisition of further territory. And in this particular instance they want to come down until they get to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. Our presence in Southern Persia is with a view of preventing that, but I cannot say that we are thereby respecting the rights of the Persians con-

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  cerned, and that I think is very serious, because it is a distinct change of the Liberal foreign policy which we have been accustomed to in the past. That foreign policy was a respect of nationalities, the upholding of international justice, the safe-guarding of nationalities and sympathy for them when they are undergoing persecution or are struggling with revolution. The Foreign Secretary, with regard to the case of the Turkish Revolution, was exceedingly sympathetic. I recollect his saying in July, 1908, just as the Revolution was about to break out:—
  "At the present time I can only say this, that our sympathies must be with those who are trying to introduce reform, and I should be the last to prophecy that they will fail. If they succeed they must succeed by their own efforts, but our sympathy is with them."
  When he came to the struggle in Persia he was somehow or other unable to show the same sympathy. For myself, I think that for these Far Eastern countries to adopt our Parliamentary system is a matter about which anyone may be doubtful. I think it is like engrafting upon some tropical plant a growth which has been accustomed to a harder climate. I am doubtful of its success, but at any rate we have taught them to believe that our Western ways are the best ones and that our democratic form of Government is likely to bring the greatest prosperity to them, and of one thing I am perfectly certain, that when they are struggling, and when they are going through the various difficulties they must encounter in reforming their Government, they should have our sympathies and they should not be interfered with, but should be allowed to work out their salvation for themselves. In the case of Persia, however, we have seriously interfered, and I feel rather doubtful as to what eventually the issue will be. The two questions therefore that I would put to the right hon. Gentleman are these: Have the Government finally abandoned the idea of interfering in Persia to the extent of sending British officers to help to maintain order on the southern roads, and, secondly, when will the Russian troops in northern Persia finally clear out of that part of the country and allow the Persians to work out themselves the difficult problem of reforming their Government unaided?
  Colonel YATE: We have listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon), but I cannot help thinking that if he had been more familiar with Persia he might have spoken to us in father a different strain. I do not think, for instance, he would say in that
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  case that we, the English, have lost our popularity in Persia, or that we have forfeited the confidence and affection of the Persian people simply on the strength of statements in the newspapers published at Teheran. If the hon. Gentleman had any acquaintance with all the southern towns or the southern ports, or, indeed, any other part of Persia, he would know that there is great interest felt in this country and a great friendship between the English and the people there. The whole of Persia is not concentrated at Teheran, and the newspapers of that place do not accurately reflect the feelings of the people of Persia, and I must say I should like to express my entire dissent from what he has said about the English Note offering aid to Persia for maintaining the safety and accessibility of the southern roads. The hon. Member (Mr. Dillon) described that Note as of an aggressive and insulting character, and talked as if we had been trying to take possession of the country and were no longer trying to maintain the independence and integrity of Persia. A century ago the names of some of our officers were household words in Persia. Since then we have seen Austrian and Belgian and Russian officers lent to the Persian Government to help them maintain their authority in their own house, and here we have roads, absolutely impassable, where our own officers and others have been killed and wounded, and in offering to lend a few British officers to strengthen the Persian gendarmerie, there is nothing which could possibly be put down as treating the Persian Government in an aggressive or insulting manner. I remember when I was in Baluchistan, some robbers came over the Persian frontier and we drove them out, and we sent troops to help the Persian Governmen to attack them on their side. The Persians co-operated cordially, and that border has been quiet ever since. If we send a few men now to help and strengthen the Persian Government we can do nothing better for Persia, and the hon. Member's remarks, instead of being a help to Persia, will be exactly the converse.
  I should like to join with the Noble Lord (Earl of Ronaldshay) in asking the Secretary of State not to underrate our interests in the question of the Baghdad Railway. We have seen now that Germany has got a new concession for a line from Alexandretta. What has Germany given up in exchange? They have reserved, I understand, the right of equal participation in the line from Baghdad to the Gulf, if it is

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  to be built by any other company. If that other company undertakes to build a line from Baghdad to Busra, will it have equal participation in the branch line from Baghdad to Khanikin? Without that the right of any other company to build a line from Baghdad to Busra is worthless. It is mostly Manchester goods and Indian goods that travel by that route. At the present time we can send a ton of Manchester goods by sea to Busra, worth, say, £100. It is landed at Busra and goes up by river steamers to Baghdad. The goods, if the railway is built, will not have to pay 25s. per ton to go up the river as they do now, but 80s., the extra Customs dues and railway freight in addition amounting in all to about 100s. This shows us how unimportant to us the question of the Baghdad-Busra line is. The only important point of the whole line to us is the question from Baghdad onwards to the Persian frontier and the entry of our goods into Persia. Lord Morley, speaking yesterday of our railway rights in southern Persia, stated that, provided strategic and commercial considerations could be satisfied, His Majesty's Government would not construe their preferential rights in any narrow spirit. That is a statement of great import, though there is a suspicion in it of surrender which one does not like. Russia's measures have always been for her own exclusive benefit, and if anything is done by which our rights are in any way whittled away it will be disastrous to our trade, which is the main trade in the country. I hope that the House may have an opportunity of discussing the proposals which are under consideration before any final consent of the Government is given. I believe there is a precedent for that.
  Mr. BAIRD: I shall do my utmost in anything I say not to embarrass the right hon. Gentleman. It may be presumptuous in me to think anything I can say can embarrass or assist him; but I will not offer my remarks in any spirit of captious criticism, but simply with a view to drawing attention to the importance which a great many people attach to this question of the Baghdad Railway, which is perhaps quite out of proportion to the intrinsic merits of the case, so far as the amount of trade affected is concerned. We are bound, naturally, to depend to a large extent on what we read in the public Press for our information, and I think that the large amount of attention which
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  is being devoted to this question in the Press of Europe at present ought to be a warning to us that it is not a question that can be lightly entered upon, and that other nations realise that this move of Germany's may have far-reaching and important results in the future. The comments of the foreign Press, so far as I have been able to obtain them, have not been on the whole very favourable so far as we are concerned. There has been undoubtedly a note of alarm in the French Press lest Turkey, falling under the influence of Germany, should throw in her lot entirely with Germany in this matter, and that the result might be detrimental to the interests, not only of Great Britain, but of France, which has very considerable interests out there. I take it from that attitude, which is not by any means seldom shown in the French Press, that the French are no less anxious than a great many people are in this country as regards the outcome of the negotiations which are at present pending. The German Press adopts a different line. There is a tone of exultation—and perfectly justifiable exultation—in alluding to the arrangements which have been come to in regard to this railway. But at the same time there is also a note of alarm lest Germany may give up something—that is indeed the exact remark which I saw in the "Taglische Rundschau." The Germans feel that they have a very good bargain, as undoubtedly they have, in getting an outlet to the Mediterranean for their railway, which the late Sultan always refused to give them. Indeed, the late Sultan used the expression that he would not allow them to go within half a day's journey to the coast, which is fifteen miles' camel ride. That has been a very great drawback, and it is not difficult to understand that the Germans should be very pleased indeed to have got this further valuable concession for a branch from Osmanieh to Alexandretta, and it is quite conceivable that they gladly surrender the concession for making the branch railway which is to connect Baghdad with the Persian Gulf in return for that valuable concession.
  I should like to ask to what extent has the German Government given up its right to construct the terminal section of the line which it undoubtedly possessed as far as Turkey could give it. It is difficult to understand from what has appeared in the Press and what has been stated by authoritative persons, whether the German company has definitely abandoned all claims for making that terminal section of the

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  railway on the understanding that that section will be made by a company formed by the Ottoman Government in which German capital shall participate to the same extent as that of any other country, or whether, in the event of the Ottoman Government finding it impossible to form such a company, the present German company will resume their right to build the line. That I think is a very important point, because there are differences of opinion as to whether or not it is desirable for us that there should be a line from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf at all. At any rate, if no line is built, we have still a monopoly of the transit between the Persian Gulf and Baghdad by the British line of steamers which have been running for the past hundred years, and, so far as we are concerned, I take it that meets the requirements of our trade. But it is very desirable that we should obtain a security more efficient than that afforded by Section 24 as regards the non-preferential treatment of merchandise which has been transported along the Khanikin section of the railway. There is another aspect of the question. It is one put forward in the "Neue Freie Presse," a translation of which I find in the "Echo de Paris" of yesterday. It is impossible to get the original documents relating to these things on account of time, but if the "Echo de Paris "correctly represents the view of the "Neue Freie Press," which is a very authoritative paper published in Vienna, it is a matter of some importance. The "Neue Freie Presse "points out that:—
  "in spite of the Convention (the agreement come to between Turkey and Germany) it will be necessary to open negotiations on the subject of the terminus of the line. The Porte declared that the terminus must be Koweit, but whom does Koweit belong to? England and Turkey do not seem to be in agreement on this point. The 'Neue Freie Presse' believes that, if England refuses its consent, the Ottoman Company which is on the point of being formed can finish the line without England's consent."
  I think that emphasises the point which was drawn attention to on the last occasion when this question was under discussion. The hon. Member for Staffordshire rather doubted whether the Government were prepared to take as strong a line, not only as the facts of the case warrant, but as they are expected by the friends and allies on the Continent to take, for the safeguarding of our common interests. I think that is a point on which we may quite justifiably ask the right hon. Baronet to give us a specific declaration, and I hope, in doing so, we are not in any way embarrassing the course of the negotiations. There is doubt in the minds of
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  people in touch with active members of the Diplomatic Service that our prestige in the diplomatic world suffered a considerable rebuff at the time of the upset in the Balkan Peninsula in 1907. I do think that one can fairly say, without any disrespect to the right hon. Gentleman, that it is hoped not only by those who bring up this question to-day, but also by all who are prepared to support him as the Foreign Minister of this country in whatever he may do abroad, that he will find it possible to adopt a stronger line in discussing this matter and in settling the matter than he has seen fit to adopt hitherto. After all, yielding must come to an end one of these days. We cannot go on for ever yielding to Germany, or giving way for that matter to anybody. In view of the interests at stake, the effect on our prestige, and the power of our successful negotiation in future, I venture most respectfully to express the hope that the right hon. Gentleman, when he comes to sup with Germany, will take a longer spoon than he used on the last occasion.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): I think only two questions have been raised—the Baghdad Railway and Persia. With regard to the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down (Mr.' Baird)—as to the tone of which let me say I have no complaint whatever to make—when he says that we yielded about the Baghdad Railway, I ask what have we yielded?
  Mr. BAIRD: I did not say that the right hon. Gentleman had yielded with regard to the Baghdad Railway, but I thought that he had yielded with regard to the Balkan Peninsula, and I hoped that he was not going to do so again.
  Sir E. GREY: We did not yield with regard to the Balkan Peninsula. The attitude we took up was that an international treaty had been altered by the act of one Power, and that we could not recognise that alteration of the treaty until the other treaty Powers were also prepared to recognise it. The treaty Power most deeply interested was Turkey, and we held out against any recognition of the alteration until the other Powers who were parties to the treaty were satisfied. The hon. Member will remember that the time came when the Turkish Government, by an arrangement with the Austro-Hungarian Government, was satisfied, and eventually all the Powers who were parties to the treaty recognised the alteration,

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  and then, but not till then, we said that the conditions were such as to be internationally compatible with the recognition of the alteration of an international treaty. I do not call that a rebuff to our policy in the least.
  With regard to the Baghdad Railway, of course we have done nothing in the nature of yielding at present, because we have nothing, so far as we are concerned, to yield. If we had given way about the customs duties without getting satisfactory terms, no doubt then we should have been yielding. But that is precisely what we have not done. We have kept up to the present moment every lever. Every diplomatic card we hold in our hands we had in our hands when we came into office. I do not want to make a very long speech about the Baghdad Railway this evening for three reasons. First of all, I went over the ground the other day; in the next place Lord Morley went over the ground yesterday in another place; and the third reason is that, so far as I am able to judge the speech I made in the House a little time ago has not made the atmosphere unfavourable to the negotiation of a settlement, and so far as I can judge the pro-liable effect of the speech of Lord Morley elsewhere last night, and let me say also the speech of Lord Curzon are not either of them likely to make the atmosphere unfavourable for negotiation. There is always a certain risk in making speeches that one may say something or that something will not be fully reported, or not reported with the context which may make the atmosphere unfavourable. I specially wish to keep the atmosphere what I may call genial at the present time, because the Turkish Government have made certain proposals to us which they desire should be regarded as confidential, and which indeed in any such circumstances between two Governments must be regarded as confidential at this stage, because it is impossible for any two Governments to carry on negotiations if at the very beginning what passes between them is made public. We know perfectly well as to the Baghdad Railway being a German concession, Germany must be much interested in any arrangements made by Turkey with regard to it, and from the answer I gave in the House this afternoon the House will realise that negotiations have been passing, and that something has been signed between the Turkish Government and the Baghdad
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  Railway Concessionaires. I do not want to comment on what has been signed further than to say that, although it does not give Turkey an absolutely free hand—that is to say, free from all the conditions of the old concession with regard to the railway from Baghdad to the gulf, it does open the question of the continuation of the railway from Baghdad to the gulf, and opens a field of negotiation which was not open so long as the Turkish Government remained bound to the terms of the original concession. What the future of these negotiations may be it is too early to say. I frankly want to see an agreement, because, if an agreement is come to which is satisfactory to Turkey, to ourselves, and to Germany, it will, at any rate, remove one possible cause of political friction. It will be an advantage to have that out of the way. The political friction would be due to the apprehension which exists in public opinion as to the effect which the Baghdad Railway, if carried out under the original concession, might eventually have on the political and strategical interests in the gulf, or on British trade. If an agreement is come to which satisfies public opinion that when the Baghdad Railway is completed British trade is not going to be subjected to differential duties, that, not only in theory, but in practice, it is assured of being able to use the Baghdad Railway and its branches as arteries of trade, and that trade and commerce will be just as open to Britain as to any other country, then one great apprehension and one source of possible friction will be removed. That is one object we have in view.
  Another point is, of course, the political and strategical interest of the Persian Gulf. Lord Lansdowne, in his speech of two years ago as to the Persian Gulf, made a great point that there should be no possible risk of there being in the hands of another Power a fortified position on the Persian Gulf which might be used on the flank of our communications with India. Of course, in any arrangement come to with regard to the Baghdad Railway that must be amply safeguarded, but I do not see that there need be any difficulty in doing so. I believe that an arrangement can be come to on the lines that the Baghdad Railway shall be a purely commercial undertaking. But when the Noble Lord opposite (Lord Ronaldshay) asks me to state exactly what we shall require before we can give our consent to an increase in the Customs Duties which may be essential to the completion of the railway, of course

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  I can only state in general terms that there are two objects we are endeavouring to attain. The particular demands we may make with regard to control, participation, and so forth, I cannot make public. They are, of course, things to be put forth in the course of the negotiations, and they cannot be judged until the negotiations are concluded. The Noble Lord, I frankly admit, made a most interesting speech on the subject, and spoke, as the House must have felt, from the point of view of general interest in the matter, and without any desire to make party points or political capital. In dealing with the guarantees for British trade he referred to Articles 24 and 25 of the cahier des charges as not giving a sufficient guarantee for British trade. The other day, when I quoted one of the Articles in the House I was told that I had quoted it in a truncated form. I looked at it to see what had been omitted, and found that it was a matter of no importance at all. The part I omitted was that the railway authorities were to have the right in an emergency to impose certain rates before they got the approbation of the Turkish Government. That does not impair the value of the Article. It means that in case of emergency they may impose certain rates, but they have got to get the approbation of the Turkish Government afterwards, and we should be in the position of claiming from the Turkish Government that there should be no differential treatment of us. The Noble Lord said it had at last dawned upon us that these Articles were not in themselves a sufficient guarantee. I thought I made it clear when I first mentioned the matter in the House of Commons that I did not regard them by themselves as an entirely sufficient guarantee. "What I said almost on the first occasion was that they seemed to me as complete as paper guarantees could be, and certainly when I spoke the other day I did not put them forward as being absolutely and completely sufficient to set our minds at rest with regard to any future differential treatment. I do not put them forward so now, but when I am asked as to whether these which are on paper are sufficient and satisfactory, of course, I say my desire is to exact on every occasion when it may be required the fulfilment of these guarantees in what, I believe, their real sense is, that, namely, of absolutely fail-treatment of trade. It is to our interest that these should be as full and complete as possible, and for us to begin in advance before we have had any discussion with
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  the Turkish Government to take the view that these particular Articles as not so express as to be a binding obligation upon the concessionaires not to give any differential treatment, seems to me to be throwing away a perfectly good lever in our hands, and one of which we ought to make the fullest possible use. The concessionaires are bound by these Articles to give fair treatment to the trade of all countries. It is to our interest to put the fullest force and greatest weight upon these which they will bear. I shall maintain, and I shall leave it on record for anyone who succeeds me here, that any differential treatment of British trade is a breach of these Articles, and that these Articles are one of the first things we can bring up if there was any differential treatment of British trade as something that had been broken, and which we had a right to demand should be kept. Negotiations are going to take place and we will do what we can by them or by other arrangements which may be made by having some active share in, at any rate, a portion of the Baghdad Railway which shall in such a sense make us parties that we shall be in a position, not merely to decide that some breach has taken place of these treaty articles, but that we shall be in a position to secure that no breach does take place.
  The Noble Lord said he hoped we would realise that our position is a very strong one because of the Customs Duties. Of course I realise that. I was the first to point it out to the House. The Noble Lord I thought at one time was almost quoting part of a speech I made the other day when I said we were not so helpless in the matter as might be gathered from the speech which preceded it. All that he said about the three per cent. and the four per cent. afterwards I brought to the notice of the House the other day. I did so on purpose that the House might know really what our position in the matter was. I do not think I need go over that ground again. Now I pass to Persia, and I would say on a point that has been raised first of all as to the railways in Southern Persia I have not had time to study closely what passed in another place last night, and, indeed, we have not yet got the OFFICIAL REPORT. We could not have the OFFICIAL REPORT of what passed in another place last night. Therefore, I think it would be inconvenient for me to comment even if it was in order, on the particular statement that was made which we could not have had time to study and with which we may not be quite

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  completely acquainted. With regard to the exclusive rights respecting railways in Southern Persia, it was clearly affirmed last night in reference to the assurance that had been given to previous Governments by the Shah with regard to those railways when we took over the exclusive rights that we are none the less watchful in safeguarding our Treaty interests in Persia; but we feel bound to admit that, as far as purely commercial things are concerned, what we are seeking for in Persia is not exclusive rights. We admit the principle of the open door for trade in certain parts of Persia with regard to treaty rights and so forth. I do not believe we shall have any difficulty in having those regarded and not infringed by other Powers, provided we are quite clear that respect for our strategic interests in any part of Persia is not going to be injurious to the commercial trade of any Power that may have hopes of acquiring property there. That is the construction I would put upon the phrase that we are claiming exclusive rights.
  I must go to the other points that have been raised with regard to Persia. The hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) raised the question of Papers. I must find out what Lord Morley has promised, and, of course, whatever he has promised will be given. I have admitted, I think, on one occasion before at least, that I quite understood it must be the natural desire of the House of Commons, after all that has passed, to have Papers; but I should be anxious in laying Papers to do nothing which is likely to prejudice or make things difficult for the present Government in Persia; and, though I quite admit further Papers must be laid, it must be some little time before the correspondence can be read. Among other things, we have to consult other Governments—the Russian Government, of course—with regard to what passed between us and them. This is the case with every foreign country. Before we lay and publish any communications made to us by any foreign Power we have to consult them beforehand, as they consult us; and that is a thing that takes time. I do not say that negotiations about the southern roads are concluded, but I think they are in a more hopeful state. The hon. Member for Stirling Burghs (Mr. Ponsonby) asked me a question which, at any rate, I think I can answer definitely: Have we finally abandoned any idea of British Indian officers being lent to the Persian Government? I answer "No";
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  we certainly have not abandoned that idea. I think that for the Persian Government to organise a Persian force under British Indian officers lent to it by us would be one of the most effective ways of securing the southern roads. The Persian Government is not averse to the employment of foreign officers for this purpose. It knows that foreign officers can with advantage be employed to organise the force on the southern roads. Certainly, if the Persian Government were willing to choose that particular method of employing British Indian officers in organising a Persian force to protect the roads, it is a way in which we should be very glad to assist them.
  EARL of RONALDSHAY: I am assuming in what the right hon. Gentleman says now that he means that the British officers would be responsible to the Persian Government?
  Sir EDWARD GREY: Yes, they would be in the employment of the Persian Government. But our object in this would have every possible respect to the independence and integrity of Persia, and our sole object is that the southern roads shall be made safe for trade. Hon. Members who criticise me for taking any action about the southern roads have not got, as I have, to answer the complaints from British traders whose trade may be stopped on these roads. Do they really advocate that when complaints come of trade being stopped and when we are unable to point to any prospect of roads being made secure for trade that we should say: "No, we can do nothing in the matter at all?" That is an impossible attitude, and I think what we were bound to do was to press upon the Persian Government such measures as we suggest would be effective in securing order on the southern roads, and I say that the continuance of chaos and insubordination among the tribes there is far more detrimental to the independence of the Persian Government than the loan of foreign officers to organise a Persian force to restore order. We have now said to the Persian Government that if they would take any other method of securing order on the roads than the employment of Indian officers we would not press that upon them, provided they would adopt some other method that was likely to be effective. I think the present idea of the Persian Government is that they should employ foreign officers from some minor Power that would be absolutely neutral,

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  and whose employment could offer no risk of political complication. If order can be restored on the southern roads in that way we have no objection. Our sole object is that order should be restored. But we must keep on pressing the Persian Government to do something or other until order is restored, and if they will not accept the suggestions we make and will not make efforts of their own, it is quite clear that the state of chaos which would continue would be a far worse danger to the integrity of Persia than anything that could result from the loan of British Indian officers.
  The third question which the hon. Member for Mayo put was with regard to the Seligmann loan. I am speaking without reference to any Papers, because I have not had much time to refer to Papers. I did not know until this morning that the question of Persia was going to be raised, and certainly not this point of the loan. But my recollection is with regard to the Seligmann loan we never said a word thereon one way or the other. All I did in the matter was when the time came and I was asked to give support to that particular project of a loan I said that I was not in a position to give actual support, but that I do not think would be fairly construed as having prevented the Persian Government from making a loan. All that can be alleged against us in the way of preventing the Persian Government from making a loan is that we have given the Persian Government to understand some time ago that if they make new loans they must not make new loans against the securities which have been already pledged for previous loans. That is a perfectly natural stipulation, and the Persian Government have known it all through. As regards any securities which were not already pledged for previous loans, there is no interference from us whomever they borrow from if they borrow on securities which are free. As a matter of fact, not only is it untrue that the British and Russian Governments have been preventing the Persian Governments from making loans on their own account through other financiers in order to force upon them a loan to which a political condition would attach, but we agreed some time ago last year that the Anglo-Russian Governments would be prepared, if they were asked, to make a small loan to the Persian Government without political conditions. In the first place, some conditions of a political character were asked for. Later on it was
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  agreed that it might be lent without political conditions attaching, and since that time we have not been attempting to force anything upon them; but the Persian Government have been perfectly free to make loans with private firms and they have had at least one loan on offer for some time under which they could have got money, and which it would have been in their power to conclude whenever the Persian Government had an interest in doing so.
  6.0 P.M.
  The hon. Member for Mayo asked me various questions on which I do not think it is my business to give such a complete answer. He asked me about the assassination which had been committed by certain Russian subjects. If they had been British subjects who had committed the assassinations I would feel bound to give the fullest information to the House, and not only give the fullest information, but get the fullest information. I do not understand that the Persian Government itself has raised any question whatever that the assassins in this case were Russian subjects. That being so, no question having been raised by the Persian Government themselves—I think it is admitted not only that no question was raised, but it is admitted that they were Russian subjects. I do not see how it is possible to raise the question in this House. The hon. Member says the assassins were caught redhanded. As far as I know that is the case; I do not dispute it for a moment. I admit perfectly freely—of course everybody must—that if they were caught redhanded whatever authority claims them of course must be responsible for proceeding so that proper justice is executed. I have no doubt that the Persian Government would have natural cause of complaint if the assassins, having been caught redhanded, had not justice executed upon them. That is a matter between the Persian Government and the Russian Government, and I do not think it is one in which I can be expected or called upon to investigate the facts and provide information. The hon. Member for Mayo asked about certain proceedings which had been taken, and which he said were not very dignified, to secure payment of the salary due to the ex-Shah. He connected that with the question of the supposed intrigues of the deposed Shah in Europe.
  The ex-Shah has always been warned that if he engaged in political intrigues the salary would not be paid. The delay in

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  paying the salary on this occasion, as far as I remember, was not connected at all with the question of political intrigues. The hon. Member for Mayo said certain proceedings were resorted to as to the payment of the salary which were not very dignified, and, he added that I said on one occasion that they were the custom of the country. When I heard of the proceedings I inquired, and I was told that they were the custom of the country, and I believe they are the custom of the country. Therefore I am sure that in Persia they did not bear the complexion which they would bear in this country. I freely admit that when I heard of the custom it did not seem to me to be one which it was desirable to encourage, and I quite agree that it is a custom, so far as I can judge of it, which would be better discontinued. But it is the custom of the country, and there it did not bear the interpretation which in this country would be placed on a proceeding of that kind.
  Mr. DILLON: The Foreign Minister complained bitterly.
  Sir E. GREY: I expect because he knew perfectly well that that particular custom would bear a different interpretation in any country outside Persia. No doubt that complaint was made by him knowing that it would appear very differently elsewhere from what it did in Persia itself. The other point with which I have been asked to deal by the hon. Gentlemen the Member for Stirling Burghs and the hon. Member for Mayo is the question of the Russian troops in Persia. It has been assumed that the presence of the Russian troops in Persia have been a great hindrance and damage to the Nationalist Persian Government. If you go back to the beginning, it will be seen that if it had not been for the presence of the Russian troops at Tabriz the Nationalist party would have been overthrown altogether. It was the coming of the Russian troops to Tabriz to remedy the state of disorder which had been interfering with Russian trade at the time which raised the siege of Tabriz. Tabriz otherwise was on a point of falling, not into the hands of the Nationalist party but into the hands of the Reactionists. But for the Russian troops being present at Tabriz the Reactionary party would have won there, and I do not think the last Shah would ever have been deposed at all. The action of the Russian troops, at any rate, when they first came
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  to Tabriz, was on the Reactionary side; and we have to remember that if the Russian troops had intended to side with the Reactionists it would have been absolutely impossible for the Shah to be deposed or for the Nationalist Government to come into existence at all. Hon. Members say, "Yes, but they remain in Persia long afterwards." It is quite true that they have not been withdrawn from Tabriz, nor from the place called Hamadan. On more than one occasion I have had reports—on one occasion certainly. I remember, from the British Consul some time ago—raying that if the Russian troops were withdrawn there would immediately follow chaos and disorder in those places.
  I do not say that the situation continues as dangerous as it was then, but certainly there have been times when the premature withdrawal of the Russian troops would have led to that state of chaos and disorder which would have been certain to lead to interference again. I am a little surprised that the hon. Member for Mayo and the hon. Member for Stirling Burghs passed without notice the fact that within the last few weeks the Russians have been withdrawn from Kasvin, a place to which the Persian Government attached by far the most importance, because Kasvin is the place most within easy reach of the Persian capital, Teheran. Kasvin was the place where the presence of the Russian troops caused the most political prejudice to the Persian Government, because it was the place which was within easy reach of Teheran, and because the Russian troops were originally sent to Kasvin when there was fear of great disorder in Teheran. I think there are some hon. Members in this House who assume that when the Russian troops went to Kasvin originally they were certainly going on to Teheran afterwards. The Russian troops did not go to Teheran, and they have now been withdrawn from Kasvin. I think the fact of their having been withdrawn from Kasvin, which, I am sure, is recognised by the present Persian Government as an advance towards good relations between the Russian Government and the Persian Government, might, in the stream of criticism which has been poured on these Persian affairs, have received some little recognition, because it is a very important fact. I do not believe for a moment that the Anglo-Russian Agreement has been detrimental to the independence and integrity of Persia. The hon. Member for

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  Stirling Burghs spoke of this Anglo-Russian Agreement as having been detrimental to the independence and integrity of Persia. The chaos in Persia was bound to come under the late and previous Shahs. The Government had been going from bad to worse, and it was becoming so inefficient that chaos in Persia was sure to come.
  Does anybody suppose that if there had been no Anglo-Russian Agreement, and Persia had fallen into a state of chaos, and if there had been still going on at Teheran what Lord Morley, I think, described as the squalid rivalry between Russia and England in Teheran—does anybody suppose that the amount of interference there has been in Persian affairs would have been limited to the amount that has taken place? It is solely the Anglo-Russian Agreement, I believe, which has prevented, during all this time of chaos and difficulty of all kinds in Persia, interference from going further than it has gone. The hon. Member for Stirling Burghs complains of us for having kept in touch with the Russian Government. There is nothing in the Anglo-Russian Agreement to make one Government responsible for anything which the other does. I do not hold that we are responsible for everything that the other does, either we for them or they for us; but undoubtedly it is necessary for the working of that agreement that we should keep in touch generally with regard to Persian affairs, and we have kept in touch. If we had not kept in touch, and if the old squalid rivalry and suspicion and jealousy had been the rule in Teheran, I am quite certain that things would not have gone as smoothly as they have done for Persia. If the hon. Member for Stirling Burghs is prepared to advocate that we should tell Persia that we are prepared to protect her single-handed against all aggression, that at any rate is a definite policy. But is he prepared to say that? I am not prepared to say that. I think that would be an undesirable policy, and an enormous extension of our Imperial obligations. But unless the hon. Member for Stirling Burghs and the hon. Member for Mayo are prepared to say something of that kind, then depend upon it co-operation and good understanding between the neighbours of Persia are absolutely essential to the independence and integrity of Persia, as long as Persia continues in the weak, defenceless, and chaotic state to which she has been brought by the bad Government which existed under the late Shah.
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  There is, of course, a third policy, which is that of abstention altogether from Persian affairs. I do not believe that is a practical policy. Considering our commercial and other interest, I do not think it would be practicable. But even if it were practicable, certainly it would not have helped the Persian Government at all in recent times. I do believe that at the present moment the Government in Persia is making a genuine effort to put its House in order. The Regent has certainly given some exceedingly good advice. He made a speech the other day—I think it appeared in the newspapers in which he pointed out that they must have a stable Government in Persia if any progress was to be made; and if they were to have a stable Government the Medjliss must make up its mind to provide a majority to support the Government. It must settle which Government it wanted, and, having settled the Government it wanted, provide that Government with a majority. Last year one of the great difficulties of the Persian Government, and the reason why it did not conclude loans, amongst other things, was that the Medjliss had not formed a stable majority which would give support and confidence to the Government of the day. If the new departure which the Regent has advocated is to be made, then, I think, there is a chance of Persia progressing. But the Persians surely must realise that to have Parliamentary Government without providing a majority for the Government which has to carry on the affairs of the country leads not to progress, but chaos, and makes things impossible. I am most anxious-that the prospect of improvement which there is since the Regent took office should have every possible chance, and, as far as we are concerned, we will not either by the southern roads or anything else, so long as that Government convinces us that it is doing what is in its power, and has a real intention to do its best, we will not press upon them inconvenient requests, and we will do all we can to encourage signs of improvement, and not to-put difficulties in the way. But the House must remember that the most we can do is small, and that the experiment of Parliamentary Government in Persia does rest upon the Persian doing what they have been advised by the Regent to do, and what every Parliament must do, that is using its Parliament, the Medjliss in Persia not in continually checking, but to give the support and confidence of the majority to the Government of its choice.

  SOUTH WALES COAL STRIKE.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I rise to introduce a different topic to the House. The matter is one arising out of the Metropolitan Police having been sent into the Welsh coalfields during the recent dispute. I do not intend to raise the reasons for the police having been sent nor to discuss the authority by which they were sent. I wish to enter here a word of explanation that if I do not deal with the report issued by the Home Office in a Blue Book entitled, "Collieries Strike Disturbance in South Wales," it is not because there is not matter contained in that report for discussion but because I hope on the more suitable occasion of the Home Office Vote to have that matter brought up. Whatever authority there may have been for having the Metropolitan Police in South Wales or whoever the request may have come from, the police certainly found themselves there, and the innkeepers and others in the Aberdare Valley, where a contingent of the men was allotted, at once began to supply them with rations and sleeping accommodation and other necessaries. Those innkeepers and others did not stop to haggle about who was to be responsible for the payment of their accounts. The magistrates for the district had anticipated that the military would be sent, and they had written making inquiries as to who was to be responsible for the cost of feeding the military. The Home Secretary replied that up to a certain point the county would be responsible and beyond that point the War Office. The innkeepers did not stop to make terms, but at once supplied the men with the necessaries of life, and I hope of comfort. In all probability they were relying upon certain correspondence which had taken place between certain people and the Home Office. I find in the Blue Book, page 4, No. 10, the Home Secretary, in a letter to the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire, said:—
  "Seventy mounted constables and 200 foot constables of the Metropolitan Police will come to Pontypridd by special train, leaving Paddington 4.55 p.m., arriving about 8 p.m. They will carry out your directions under their own officers."
  And then followed the words:—
  "The county will bear the cost."
  I am quite sure that those in whose interests I am speaking took that as an assurance that the indebtedness which the police were about to incur would be met by the county authorities, and they did so on the authority of the Home Secretary. In the Blue Book, page 5, No. 11, there is
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  a further reference to the provision of forage and rations, and there is an even more emphatic reference in the communication No. 31. The reference here is to Aberaman Colliery, to which men had been sent, and the Home Secretary, in a communication, again to the Chief Constable of Glamorganshire, said:—
  "The War Office has been asked to supply rations and forage for the police in the district,"
  thereby clearly implying that he, as Home Secretary, was taking the responsibility for the forage and rations being supplied. On the strength of that the innkeepers and others supplied the Metropolitan Police with rations and lodgings. It now transpires that the Home Secretary or someone else responsible had made a mistake on some of the law in the matter. Those who supplied the police in due course presented their accounts to the county authority, but they were repudiated by that body. They say they are not responsible, but that the Home Office is responsible. Since then I have tried to obtain an assurance from the Home Secretary that, pending the decision of the legal point at issue as to whether the Home Office or the Glamorganshire County Council is finally responsible, that the right hon. Gentleman should authorise the Treasury to make payment of the accounts so as to obviate the inconvenience, and, in some cases to my own personal knowledge, the financial embarrassment which those innkeepers and others are suffering owing to their having supplied the Metropolitan Police with their rations. If those innkeepers had acted as the colliery companies attempted to do, and whose property was being guarded, very likely they would have obtained satisfactory assurances before going on. As the right hon. Gentleman will remember, the Powell Duffryn Company, when the colliery was being guarded, found themselves under the necessity of providing temporary accommodation for the men sent to guard the collieries. After a day or two the company sent what practically amounted to an ultimatum to the Home Office, that unless they had an assurance that all the cost which they were incurring in providing accommodation for the constabulary was at once guaranteed by the Home Office they would turn the men out and leave them to forage for themselves. The innkeepers did not act in that fashion. They assumed when they supplied the constabulary with rations that the Home Secretary would see to it whatever the county council might do, and there had been trouble with the county

  661
  council on a former occasion that they were not going to lose in consequence.
  Yesterday or the day before the Home Secretary informed us that he takes full responsibility for having sent the constabulary into South Wales. That being so, I hope he will also take full responsibility for the payment of the accounts in question. In the end there could be no loss incurred by the Treasury. If the accounts are met now, and if the Glamorganshire County Council is finally held responsible for their payment, then the Treasury will have no difficulty in recovering from the county council. I hope the justice of the case is so apparent that there will not be any difficulty in the Home Office meeting it. The total sum for which accounts have been rendered amounts to £497 18s. I am not to be taken as guaranteeing that all the items contained in the accounts are correct. That would require to be ascertained by the responsible persons before the accounts are paid. But I do claim since these people, who are my constituents, came to the rescue of the Government in finding accommodation for the police sent down and since they acted under what they believed to be the authority of the Home Office in giving credit to the constabulary that the obligation now rests upon the Home Office not only to see that those men are not actual losers by what they have done, but that they should not be called upon to incur either embarrassment or inconvenience. The only way in which that can be done is to have the accounts paid promptly. If the Home Office have made a mistake that is no reason why those men should suffer. All I am asking is that the Treasury should now be authorised to pay such of those accounts as are found due. So that the embarrassment and the inconvenience which I know those people are suffering may be at once remedied.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Churchill): I do not think the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil is right in assuming that the difficulty has arisen because the Home Office has made a mistake. I do not admit that we could have taken any other course than that which we did take.
  Mr. KEIR HARDIE: The mistake to which I was referring was the assumption that the county council was liable for the cost.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: We acted in good faith, and to meet a great emergency we
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  sent our police to aid the local authorities to maintain order. In the same "way police were sent from seven or eight other districts all round to assist in the maintenance of order. The local authority, the county council, are I understand, proposing to pay the expenses of all the other districts, but they propose to resist any charge for the Metropolitan Police, and I presume they reconcile that proceeding in their consciences by the fact that they thought apparently that they could have had the services of as much of the British Army as they might find necessary without any charge upon their rates. And so as the Metropolitan Police were a substitute for soldiers they propose to repudiate the signature of their officer that the county would bear the cost. Those matters have got to be tried in their legal aspect and without prejudice to their hearing on this question, because nobody is dealing with their own money as it is public money, and the question has to be settled according to the regular principles of law. It is quite clear that there are two perfectly separate sets of disputes. There is the dispute as between the Government and the county council, and there is also the dispute as between the individuals who have supplied goods and the persons who ordered them to be supplied. I am considering these two sets of disputes in their legal aspects in view of the opinions which have been and are being expressed by the Law Officers of the Crown, and I have not yet come to a decision which I can announce to Parliament. It may be that one method of asserting the equitable rights, as I consider them, of the central Government in this matter is the bringing of actions by individuals in the district against the parties who actually gave them the order for the goods. That may be a method by which the merits of the case may, apart from any larger action, be decided. But I do not prejudge the case, and I have not yet come to a decision. I agree that that decision ought not to be, and I do not think it will be unreasonably delayed; but having regard to the public interests concerned I must claim the opportunity to look at the complicated legal questions involved from every point of view. The hon. Member asks what is to happen meanwhile to the very poor tradesmen and innkeepers who have supplied goods to comparatively small amounts, which would make no difference whatever to the wealth of the county council or of the Imperial Government, but which, perhaps, are nevertheless

  663
  sufficiently large to expose the tradesmen to actual hardship or pecuniary embarrassment. I am very glad that the hon. Member comes forward on every occasion when he is able to do so as a staunch defender of the rights and interests of property, and nothing on my part shall lead me to fall behind the high standard which he has set. I agree that it would not be a possible position for a Minister to take—that, pending the decision of these grave questions of litigation or the decision whether or not there should be litigation, inviduals who, in good faith, have supplied goods or given value to the police should come to grief. Without prejudicing at all the general question, without in any way admitting that the liability belongs to the Imperial Government and not to the county authorities, I shall be prepared to arrange, as an interim measure, either by way of payment or by way of advance, that the cases of those tradesmen who would be put to some inconvenience by the delay shall be dealt with. I think that this should specially apply to the number of small accounts. They should be cleared out of the way. But I am prepared to consider any hard case of difficulty which may be brought to my notice with a view to securing from the Treasury prompt payment by way either of loan pending a decision or of full payment without prejudice to the ultimate power of recovery by the State. I think that that is the only course that could be taken under the circumstances.
  As I have been called upon to speak again on this subject I would like to make an appeal to the House to consider in the next few weeks the thoroughly unsatisfactory position which, from the point of view of any party, the Imperial Government is in at the present moment, in regard to the question of the expense of military supplied by the central Government in connection with local disputes. At any moment there may arise in any part of the country a dispute calling for the intervention of the military. I agree that the judges of the necessity of that measure must be the people on the spot. I do not say that they are the final judges, but they are the prime judges of that matter. But it is not fair that they should have the decision as to calling in the military without any consideration to restrain unnecessary demands. There is only one proper and effective check upon unnecessary recourse to the military instead of to the police from surrounding districts or to
  664
  other methods of dealing with disorder, and that is the simple but effective check of expense. At the present moment there is actually a premium on calling in the military in any trade dispute, and a heavy drawback on calling in the police from the surrounding districts. That, I am sure, is not a good arrangement from any point of view. It might easily lead to something which all parties would agree ought, if possible, to be avoided. I hope there may be some opportunity in the course of no unreasonable length of time—I will not say more than that—to secure at any rate that soldiers, while they are used by local authorities in any local disorder, shall be paid for at the charge of that authority, and not at the Imperial expense. If that were the case I think that in many cases the police would naturally be used where soldiers are now asked for.

  EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Now that the time of private Members has become so nearly extinct there are naturally many subjects that Members would like to raise on the Consolidated Fund Bill. There are two matters affecting the Board of Education which I wish to bring before the House. The first is the question of pensions for elementary school teachers. A few days ago I asked the President of the Board of Education whether he would be able to take steps to make the system for English teachers conform to the new system which is being brought out by the Scottish Department. He did not give me a very hopeful reply, simply stating that he would consider the matter and that any alteration would require a Bill. I suppose that so long as the Government insist upon taking up most of the time in altering the Constitution such a Bill is not likely to be brought forward very soon. English teachers labour under two or three serious grievances in this matter. In the first place, the pension itself is quite inadequate to the position which the teachers occupy. Secondly, I do not believe the system is financially sound. Thirdly, there is no provision, as far as I am aware, for the widows of teachers who die before reaching the pensionable age, or at any time during their period of service. That is a very serious blot on the English system, but the most serious I think is the difficulty a teacher finds in obtaining a break-down pension—that is, a pension enabling him to retire before the age of sixty-five on account of ill-health. The difficulty is so great that very

  665
  few teachers even attempt to get it, and it is very seldom given unless a teacher can prove such serious illness as to make it quite clear that he ought to have retired long before. I know no more pitiable sight than that of a teacher struggling on in a miserable state of health in order to reach the age of sixty-five and qualify for a full pension. It is very painful to managers who feel that their school is suffering, and yet they do not like to dismiss the teacher a year or two before the pensionable age, knowing that he or she may be unable to get a break-down pension. If they take the view that the position of a teacher should appeal to them most, the children must suffer; whereas on the other hand, if they consider the children first the teacher must suffer. I think that our education would be vastly improved if we could have some system of pensions by which a teacher who wished on grounds of health to retire before the age of sixty-five would be able to do so on a pension diminished in proportion to the number of years between the age of retirement and sixty-five. I believe that these improvements are introduced in the Scottish system, and I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will use his best endeavours with the Prime Minister and the Treasury to secure that before long English teachers may be given the same advantages which we understand the Scottish teachers are shortly to enjoy.
  The second matter to which I wish to refer is a case of what appears to me to be the very grave oppression by the local authority and the Board of Education of the Towyn Church Schools in Wales. It may be said to be an isolated case, but it is important in itself and still more important if it is any indication of the policy animating the Board of Education in these matters. Let me recall the history of this school. There are two schools in Towyn, a church school and a council school. A short time ago the church school was in a flourishing condition, with eighty or so children on the roll. After the year 1906, owing to the appointment of a teacher who later on, for some reason or another, became very unpopular, the number in the school gradually diminished, and at the beginning of last year it had dwindled to an average attendance of nineteen. The managers were not in a position to dismiss the teacher, although they much wished to do so. There came a time, however, when the teacher actually resigned. His resignation was accepted by the managers, but refused by the local education
  666
  authority on the very flimsy excuse that he wanted to leave at a month's notice. A subsequent episode in the history of that teacher was that a summons was taken out against him which in some mysterious way was afterwards withdrawn. It became quite clear to the managers that it was the fixed intention of the local education authority to keep that teacher at the school until he diminished the number of scholars sufficiently to allow them to claim that the school was unnecessary. However, on 17th April of last year the teacher absconded. On the following day the managers, who were very glad to have a chance of getting a new teacher, applied to the local education authority to have one in his place. The local education authority refused. I do not believe they had any legal right whatever to do this. It is merely an instance of the hostility with which they perpetually treated this school. When this request was refused, the clergy of the parish set to work to run the school themselves—the only thing they could do until they could find another teacher. They took the school in hand, did the teaching themselves, and raised the number of scholars. The number immediately began to rise as soon as the former teacher went, proving that the diminution in the number of scholars was due to the teacher. The school began to increase in numbers and to improve. No sooner did that occur than the Board of Education thought fit, on 20th June, to remove it from the grant list. I do not think there is any dispute about the history of the school up to this point. Just about this time we had a debate on the subject in this House. The right hon. Gentleman defended his action in refusing the grant to this school. We, the friends of the school, thought at that time his action was very arbitrary in not taking into consideration the peculiar circumstances of the school. We also thought that he was either very badly informed of the facts, or that he had not chosen to make use of the information which was at his disposal. We were told at that time that some official of the Board had gone down to inquire into the matter, but that his report was informal; and the right hon. Gentleman absolutely refused to tell us what the report of this official was.
  To-day I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question which was not reached:—
  "If the action of the Board as to the removal of Towyn Church School from the Grant List last year, and the refusal of recognition of the same school this year, was taken upon the advice of any official of the Depart-

  667
  ment who had visited the place; and, if so, how many visits were paid to Towyn by such official, and at what date?"
  The right hon. Gentleman gave me an answer which does not seem to me to be very ingenuous. He said that:—
  "The decision of the Board in regard to the Towyn Church School has been taken with full regard to the circumstances of the case, and after full consultation with the officers of the Board, who made themselves familiar by personal visits with all the local circumstances."
  He will not say that he took his action on the advice of his own officials. Therefore we can only assume that the action he took was contrary to their advice, and that that is the reason why he would not lay their reports before us. We thought his action was arbitrary, and was due to bad information or to inattention to the information he had. He made use last year of a somewhat grandiloquent phrase such as occasionally adorns his eloquence in this House. He said to us:—
  "I decline to go outside the law for the Church School Managers of Towyn or anywhere else."
  [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Yes, but he was not asked to go outside the law. It would not have required any trespass of the law to have done what he was asked to do, which was to allow this school to continue on the Grant List in order to see if it could not revive or regain the position from which it had been driven by the action of the local authorities. If he had been better informed on the law which he has to administer he would have known that under Section 9 of the Act of 1902 there is no question of law. It says:—
  "That a school shall not be considered unnecessary if its numbers are more than thirty."
  But it does not say that it shall be considered unnecessary if its numbers are less. Therefore, there is no question of going outside the law in this matter. However, we did think the right hon. Gentleman had some ground for supposing that the sudden rise in the numbers attending the school after the teacher had gone were due to some peculiar circumstances, and might not be more than temporary, and we assumed that that was his reason for refusing the grant. I go so far as to say that that would not be other than a tenable position. He had made it tolerably clear to us that that was his view, and when he was asked, I think it was in reply to a question by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Denbigh Boroughs what the remedy was, he said: "To give notice of an application for
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  'recognition' as a new school," and he added:—
  "It is quite impossible for me to anticipate the decision of the Board on any such proposal."
  He referred the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University to that answer in the Debate which followed in this House. Acting upon that advice, and in the hope that if things remained the same, and the numbers in the school continued to increase to a reasonable figure, the result they desired would be achieved, the managers set to work with a vigour which everyone must commend to bring this school thoroughly up to date, and to do the best they could for it. They spent money on it, and took a great deal of trouble in order that they might be able to qualify for "recognition," as the right hon. Gentleman held out the hope they might do after a period of time.
  What did they do? They got a new head teacher, and a new assistant teacher. They spent £340 on buildings, and in making the school thoroughly efficient according to the requirements of the Board. They spent at the rate of £200 per annum on the upkeep of the school, and the latest figure we have of the numbers of the children on the roll are seventy-six—it was seventy-seven last year—and the average attendance is fifty-seven and fifty-nine. How is it, then, that now, when they have applied for recognition this year, the right hon. Gentleman has refused. There is not a single argument on his side which is different from what it was at the time when he first struck the school off the grant list. If he was not going to change his mind why did he lead us to suppose that there was a chance of the school being recognised? Why did he say-that the Board could not anticipate its decision? What could have been done that these managers have not done to make this school efficient and worthy of recognition? We were told last July that the reason these children were beginning to return to the church school was due to the very serious pressure on the part of, I suppose, the clergy? [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Yet the hon. Member opposite claims that there is such a very large preponderance of Nonconformists in Towyn! Is there not? What a brave lot they must be if they are intimidated by a minority! But was there no pressure, I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merionethshire (Mr. Haydn Jones), brought to bear on the other side in order to induce the children to remain

  669
  at, the council school or to go back to the council school? Apart from the pressure which the hon. Member's friends did exercise in this matter, the very natural fact that the children going to this school were no longer eligible for county scholarships is in itself pressure in the opposite direction to which the hon. Gentleman objects. He is paying a very poor compliment to the people of Towyn if he thinks that pressure on one side or the other is going to make a difference to them in doing whatever they think best for the education and welfare of their children. The argument of pressure is nonsense from people who claim to be in a huge majority. I do not know what their majority is; but at any rate they claim to have a very large majority, and the argument of pressure is absolute drivel.
  What are the arguments and the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman advances for refusing the school this time? The only reasons he could have under Section 9 of the Act of 1902 are that the Board of Eucation, in considering whether a new school is necessary or not, have to consider the economy of the rates, and the wishes of the parents, and the secular education of the district." In respect to the wishes of the parents the matter stands exactly where it did a year ago. I will just take one question which I think is the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's refusal, more, perhaps, than any other, the economy of the rates. What has this economy been? The county council has spent £2,000 on enlargement. If he had not struck this church school off, the accommodation could have been easily found in it. Is there any economy in spending £2,000 that you can get other people out of their pockets to spend for necessary school accommodation? The hon. Gentleman the Member for Merionethshire last year, I remember, spoke as if it was a great economy in teachers. I think that was the argument he set up against the expense of building. I think I am right in interpreting what he said?
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: Yes.
  7.0 P.M.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: But there have to be teachers in whichever school it is. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is according to the code of educational morality in Merionethshire to put seventy-six more children into another school and not add a single teacher to the list? Either he must have a much too great staff in the other school, or else he is going to make the classes very much too big. The
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  wishes of the parents I take to be the most important point in Section 9 of the Act. How has the right hon. Gentleman met that point? The wishes of the parents are obvious and perfectly clear. They would not send their children to this church school if they did not wish to do so owing to the disadvantages which it possesses at present. Their wishes are perfectly plain. Why are they ignored? What did the right hon. Gentleman say last year in the Debate?—
  "Then there comes the very important point, the wishes of the parents. I Bay the parents will not send their children to this school." That is ten times better than to get petitions which can be signed anyhow."
  Does he not think that now? Does he not think that this is "the" very important point? Is not it perfectly clear that if the parents send their children to this school that it is better than any petition? And what did the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merionethshire say upon the subject. He said that the withdrawal by the parents of their children had proved to the local education authority that the schools are necessary. Does not the return of those children at the wishes of their parents prove that the school is necessary now. Hon. Gentlemen cannot have it both ways. They cannot use an argument one minute and repudiate it the next. The question is: Are the wishes of the parents to be considered? Apparently last year they were to be considered, but this year they are not. I for one hold the view that a variety of schools in any district is an advantage to secular education.
  I should like to refer the Government to their own action on the subject of single school areas. Members will remember the "McKenna Grants," as they were called, when a grant of £100,000 was made by the country out of the taxpayers' money to originate new schools in areas where there were only denominational schools, and where the parents of thirty children wished to have an undenominational school, as well as to have a fair share of the Grant for £30,000 which has been spent in Wales, and very properly I think. I think the single school areas create the great evils and difficulties we have in the education question, and I sympathise entirely with the desire that there should be the same opportunity for having denominational and undenominational education. But how can they apply that doctrine when it refers to undenominational education, and not when it refers to denominational education. Suppose in a town there is only a

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  church school now, and that the parents of thirty children demand an undenominational school, and that these parents have spent, not the taxpayers' money, but their own money and the money of their fellow denominationalists in improving their school and keeping it up without any assistance out of the rates and taxes, would not the Radical papers of Wales beat with chivalry, so characteristic of Wales, and with the admiration they felt for the gallant efforts to resist tyranny which was being imposed upon them. These thirty children and their parents would have a tower of marble erected to them, and every corner of Wales would ring with accounts of the oppression under which they were suffering, and the gallantry with which they were standing up against oppression and spending their time and money in the interests of their consciences.
  What is the position now. Not thirty children, but seventy-six children, want to have a denominational school. They paid for the building, which is now completely up to date, and they are paying for the teachers, yet they are not to be recognised by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education. I regard that as a case of the grossest unfairness. If the "McKenna Grants" were to encourage dual schools it is certainly in the interests of the tax-payers if you can get them built out of private money. But that is not the whole extent of the tyranny from which this school is suffering. There was up to the present time a charity called the Lewis Lloyd Charity, a portion of which amount of £17 went to the managers of this particular church school. What has happened now? I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that this was not originally an education charity at all. It was purely an eleemosynary charity, but under the scheme of the Board of Education it was administered as an educational endowment. The Board of Education at this very moment are complaining bitterly that they are unable to meet the great demands made upon them to make schemes for endowment all over the country. Yet, in spite of this heavy pressure supposed to be going on, and the congestion of work at the Board of Education, they manage to find time to introduce a new scheme this year which has only laid upon the Table to divert the one remaining endowment this unfortunate school has, and to give the proceeds of it to the other school. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman remembers the speech he made a day or two
  672
  ago about the receivers of stolen goods. Perhaps he will explain whether there is any justice in taking away under the scheme of the Board of Education and using the judicial powers of the Board of Education, or political bias, as he is doing in taking away from this school the £17 left to it as an endowment. I have seen the scheme, and the scheme is to give it in scholarships to children under thirteen in elementary schools.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): I shall reply upon that a little later on, and will meet what the hon. Gentleman says upon the point.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman thinks he can meet me. I shall be most grateful if he can show it is satisfactory, but he will not meet our opposition at all if he says these scholarships might be held by children in certified efficient schools. It goes a little way, but it does not do anything like justice. He is taking away money that was enjoyed hitherto by this school and giving it either to certified efficient schools or to elementary schools, which practically mean this school is not to be recognised, and that all the money will go to the council school and the local educational authorities. The only way he can really do justice in this matter, and the only way he can meet the case of the church school is to recognise it now as he ought to have done before. If he will not do that he is making it plain to the world that if thirty Nonconformist children demanded a school the taxpayers would have to build it for them, but if seventy-six Church of England children demand a school and pay for it themselves and built if they are not to be recognised by the Board of Education. If that is their policy I say our hopes of coming to a settlement of the education question will be long deferred.
  There are grievances, and I always admitted them on both sides, and I have always hoped for the time when these grievances could be redressed and justice done all round, but if political bias and animosity and vindictiveness are to be shown by the Education Department then I say good-bye for a long time to any fair hope of settlement. Let the right hon. Gentleman at once take up this question in a spirit of peace. We have heard a great deal about peace, and we are very glad to hear it, but let us have peace in the education world, and let us allow education to go along its way without

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  political bias and platform oratory, and then I doubt not that with a conciliatory spirit and a desire for peace there will be very little difficulty in settling this question which is now treated not so much as a question of education as a political question.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: The only occasion upon which I addressed the House before was in July last when we were discussing the very same question which is before us now. I congratulate the hon. Member opposite on the moderation with which he has presented his case. I find no fault whatever with the way he presented it, but I differ absolutely from the conclusion to which he came, and in order that the House may understand the question thoroughly I also will have to travel over some of the ground I covered in July last. Towyn is a small town of some 1,200 or 1,300 inhabitants. There are two elementary schools, the school in question, and the provided school to which the hon. Member referred. The Church of England school was established about 1717, and for many years it was the only school in the parish. In passing may I state that the hon. Gentleman opposite has fallen into an error quite unconsciously in stating that it enjoys only one charity. If he will refer to the Return of Charities he will find that it enjoys two others, both denominational in character, amounting to £16 12s., in consideration for which twenty-two poor children were educated free of cost. In spite of that endowment and in spite of this school being the only one in the parish, it did not afford the education which the inhabitants of the parish expected of it.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: At what time was that?
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: I am coming to that now. In the Report of 1847 the following description is given of the school. The Report says:—
  "It appears from the statement of the master of the school that no instruction is given in Holy Scripture cither by himself or any other person, the Bible being used only as a handbook for instruction in the art of reading, and the children are not assembled or dismissed with prayer."
  And this is a church school.
  "The Master is fifty-nine years of age, and was formerly a drum-major in the Militia."
  The Report goes on to say:—
  "He has been thirty years a schoolmaster, but was never trained. He speaks English ungrammatically. He is labouring under a painful disorder which the Vicar informed the Commissioner was the reason why he was allowed to remain."
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  The existing building was erected about 1861. There is no trust deed, but in 1879 the Charity Commissioners appointed the vicar and churchwardens and two others as trustees. The inhabitants of the parish were not satisfied with the education given in this church school, and in 1862 a British school was erected, which was transferred to the School Board in 1875. From 1862 there were side by side two competing schools in this small parish. Let us see how they fared. Hon. Members opposite did not see the connection between 1847 and the present day. Let us come a little nearer the present time. In 1900 there were sixty-nine children in average attendance in the Church of England school and 130 in attendance in the provided school. In 1901 there were fifty-eight in attendance in the Church of England and 144 in the provided school. I wish to correct a mistake made by the hon. Gentleman opposite who referred to the appointment of the head teacher in 1906.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: What I said was that the head teacher became unpopular in 1906.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: That teacher was appointed in 1902.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Yes, I know he was.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: The average attendance in that year in the Church of England school was sixty-one, and in the council school 149. I do not want to go into details, but I can give the figures for every intervening year if necessary. In 1906 the average attendance in the Church of England school was forty-four and in the council school 206; in 1908 the attendance was thirty-one in the Church of England school and 236 in the provided school; in 1909 in the church school the attendance was twenty and in the council school 243. The House will observe that the average attendance in the non-provided school fell from sixty-nine in 1900 to twenty in 1909, and during the same period the average attendance in the council school rose from 130 to 243. The parents voluntarily withdrew their children from time to time and transferred them from the non-provided school to the council school. It was not a question of withdrawal all in one day, but they went from time to time. I wish to emphasise one other point. The parents did not withdraw their children on account of the unpopularity of the teacher at all, and I traverse that statement absolutely. They withdrew them simply because they knew that

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  the education given in the council school, where there was a teacher for every standard throughout the school, was better. They knew perfectly well that the children would have a far better education in a school where there was a teacher to every standard than they would be likely to receive in a school where the standards had to be grouped, and where there were only two teachers for the lot.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Why did the local authority not staff the school properly?
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: They kept the same number of teachers as were there when the Church had the absolute control of their own school. Does the hon. Member opposite dispute that?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: No, I do not dispute it; but you must compare the two dates.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must listen without interrupting.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: The head teacher was appointed in 1902. He was no stranger to the managers, because he was the head teacher of a school within the county before he was appointed, and they knew all about him. I wish to observe here that the decrease in the average attendance of the children at this school had commenced before the head teacher was appointed, and it is unfair to that teacher to saddle him with the decrease in the number. The hon. Member referred to a charge of drunkenness against this head teacher, and said that this charge had been made in the year 1907. I was not able at the time to recall the circumstances of this case to mind, but subsequently I made inquiries into the whole business, and what do I find? I have here a letter which distinctly states that the head teacher on the 21st April, 1908, and not in 1907 as was stated, and when the school was closed, was in Dolgelly, in the company of a magistrate and a Noble Lord, the three having started from Towyn together. The two gentlemen accompanying the schoolmaster were members of the same church at Towyn, and were interested in the same school, and if there was drunkenness at all, you would naturally expect them to have informed their own managers of this charge. What do I find? That the chief constable, after making careful inquiries into the charge, found that the Noble Lord
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  I have referred to and the magistrate were quite prepared to come forward and prove that this man was not in the least under the influence of drink.
  The hon. Member opposite charges me with having done something in this matter, but I should like to know what I did. Here is the letter from the chief constable. It was not a question of drunkenness, and it could not have affected the decrease in the numbers which began before 1908, and indeed long before this man was appointed at all. Strange to say, in a letter which the hon. Member for Denbigh Boroughs addressed to "The Times" he said that the managers themselves knew nothing of the charge of drunkenness, and that it was withdrawn. If it is true that the managers knew nothing at all about the charge, how could it affect the attendance of the school children? Another point was made in July last by the hon. Member representing the division. He said at that time that the decrease was largely due to the fact that the local authority had refused to appoint an additional teacher when the number in attendance at the school was forty-four. I am sure the hon. Member does not wish to be unfair; the teacher left on the 31st of December, 1907. The average attendance for that month was 26.3. I put it to the hon. Member, does he maintain that it was the duty of the local authority to appoint an additional teacher with only twenty-six children in the school? If so, where does the economy of the rates come in which the hon. Member and his friends are always preaching whenever an effort is made to provide accommodation for the children? Nearly £5 per head was being spent upon those children, and would the hon. Member like us to spend £6 per head? Would he call that economy?
  I have traced the reduction in attendance down to 1909, and now I come to 1910. On the 17th April the head teacher left without notice, not on account of any charge of drunkenness, but on account of domestic trouble. I daresay the hon. Member knows all about it. The average attendance for the eleven months prior to his departure was only fifteen of those scholars who had attained the age of five years. On the 18th April the representatives of the church called upon the parents of the church children attending the council school and asked them to withdraw their children. An account of this was reported in a church organ. As a result of this the number in the church

  677
  school increased to fifty-one. On the 21st April the local authority appealed to the Board of Education, inviting them to declare the school unnecessary, and on the 16th June the Board of Education complied with their request and declared the school to be unnecessary. Let me say that before the appointed day the Board had requested the managers to erect a classroom. In the year 1904–5 the local education authority had also pressed the managers to erect this classroom. There were fifty in average attendance at the school at the time, and they had the necessary funds in hand. On the 7th February, 1905, the vicar of the parish wrote a letter to the local education authority as follows:
  "In connection with the two suggestions—the proposed new classroom and the alteration of the present lighting—we have made an appeal to the Board of Education, considering the former unnecessary with our present small number of children."
  The hon. Baronet, the Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson) was then at the Board of Education, and he decided, after considering the appeal of the managers, that the classroom should be built. Notwithstanding that the class-room in July of last year remained unbuilt. It is true that it has been built now. In view of the failure of these managers to keep this school in a proper state of repair, in view of the fact that there were only fifteen children in attendance when the appeal was made to the Board of Education—there had only been fifteen in attendance up to the time when these children were withdrawn in one afternoon—could the Board of Education come to any other decision than to declare the school to be unnecessary?
  Let me turn to the other school for a moment. The Board of Education had for some years called upon the local authority to provide additional accommodation at the school. This demand was due to the increasing number, and a desire to regard this school as a practising school for teachers. The moment the local authority appealed to the Board of Education to declare the church school to be unnecessary, we find the managers of that school, as a reason for the continuation of their school on the grant list, urging the Board of Education to continue it because there was not sufficient accommodation at the council school. The moment it was struck off the list of publicly recognised schools they turn round and oppose the local authority when they endeavour to provide the additional school accommoda-
  678
  tion which was required. There is not much consistency in that. Either the school accommodation was necessary or it was not. On the one hand they were opposing the provision of necessary accommodation, and on the other hand they expected their own school to be recognised. The additions to the school have now been completed, and the school will be occupied in a very short time. In order to help the managers to make a case against the additions being made to the council school on the 30th June last they issued a notice asking the Board of Education to agree to recognise their school. I do not think at that time the managers really believed that the Board of Education would sanction the additions to the council school. The additions were sanctioned, and the appeal of the managers for the re-recognition of the school was refused. To-day, I take it, hon. Members opposite are really questioning the propriety of the Board of Education in declining to re-recognise the church school, which has now accommodation for 120.
  The Board of Education, in the determination of a question of this kind, have to have regard to three things. First, the interests of secular education; secondly, the wishes of the parents; and, lastly, the economy of the rates. Let us look at the question of secular education. Does anybody deny that the children will receive far better education in the council school, where there is a teacher for every standard, than in a school where there are only two teachers, and where of necessity they have to group the standards together? I do not think anybody will deny that for one moment. Then, as to the question of the wishes of the parents, the hon. Member, in my opinion, is under a misapprehension as to the number thirty. According to my reading of the Act of 1902, the number thirty only applies to the determining of the question whether an existing school is necessary or not; and it has nothing to do with a new school. The Board of Education have an absolute right to refuse to recognise a new school, even if there are 500 children. I maintain that the only proper way of determining what the wishes of the parents really are is to look at what they did when they had absolute freedom to do just as they liked. They withdrew their children gradually. The hon. Member made reference to certain schools which were recognised and which had only thirty in them. There is all the difference in the world between those schools and this. In this case there are

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  two schools in the district side by side, and church and nonconformist school-children have their choice. We find the church children leaving their own school and coming to the council school. That is quite different from the case of a school in a single-school area.
  Dr. HILLIER: They have come back.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: How did they come back, and how are they kept there? I can say a good deal not only as to how they came back, but also as to how they are kept there. I maintain the wishes of the parents are to be interpreted by what they did when there was no pressure of any kind put upon them. The hon. Member must remember there are more denominations than one in Wales. It is not a question of Nonconformity and the Church of England. I take it he would say that, if the Calvinistic Methodists have thirty children they have a right to claim a school. The Congregationalists and the Wesleyans would have the same right. Let us go one step further. If the Roman Catholics withdrew thirty children they would have the right to claim a school, where would the ratepayers come in then? The hon. Member said there is an average attendance of about fifty, but they are not all Church of England children. He would not, I suppose, count poor Nonconformists who have been induced to withdraw their children from the council school and to send them there. He would not say, I presume, they sent them there in order to have them educated in the principles of the Church of England. There are at least thirteen of that class. There are one or two children who are not resident in the district, and there are, in addition, children whose fathers may be Nonconformist and whose mothers members of the Church of England, or whose mothers may be Nonconformist and whose fathers may be Church of England. Surely the hon. Member would not count those. It is not a question entirely of children of the Church of England being withdrawn.
  I now come to the question of the economy of the rates. The hon. Member has stated that the council school has been enlarged at the cost of about £2,000. I agree, and the charges may be £105 or £110 per annum on the ratepayers in consequence. Does the hon. Member think it would be more economical to carry on the Church of England school? At present they are paying £140 per annum in salaries, and, if the school were taken over
  680
  by the local authority, the first demand would be for extra staff, and the cost of the school would be at least £200 per annum. The hon. Member, in dealing with the question of the Lewis Lloyd Charity forgot one very important point. Lewis Lloyd, in 1691, devised to the Overseers of the Parish of Towyn, and not to any church school—I am quoting the words of the actual will—certain lands
  "to the use of the poor of that part of the parish of Towyn which is called Parcel Isyr Afon, the same to be distributed justly and conscientiously yearly for ever among the said poor without favour or partiality."
  In 1855, there being not sufficient objects of the charity within the said Parcel of Isyr Afon, the trustees considered it desirable, in accordance with the recommendation of the Charity Commissioners, that the income of the charity should be applied in establishing or supporting schools in the parish of Towyn. The then existing schools were the British school at Pennal, the national or church school at Towyn, and a school raised by subscription, but now a church school, at Aberdovey. In 1862 the vicars and churchwardens were appointed trustees, and the income divided in equal parts between the three aforesaid schools,
  "for the education of children of all classes of the said two parishes."
  How can the children "of all classes of the said two parishes "get what they are entitled to if children of the Church of England only are educated at this school? What right has any denominational school to a charity left for the benefit of the parish as a whole? What does the new scheme which the hon. Member charged the Board of Education with being in such a hurry to issue propose? The Board of Education, as a matter of fact, issued this scheme some months ago, long before there was any talk of asking them to declare this school unnecessary. It is not at all a question of trying to hit the school when it is down. The scheme simply proposes that the money left for the poor of Isyr Afon, and which by an order of the Charity Commissioners was to be given to the poor children of the parish indiscriminately and not for any sectarian purposes, should be used for the benefit of the children themselves. There is no hardship inflicted upon anybody, not the slightest. That scheme was drafted by the joint Education Committee of the county of Merioneth and not by the Board of Education. When it was drafted by the joint committee it was not intended to deprive the national school of its benefits, and I

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  believe the Education Committee was doing a genuine service to these children in asking the Board of Education to publish a scheme.
  I am all for educational peace, but not peace at any price. That is the great difference between us. These two schools, which have existed side by side in one small parish, have had equal chances, and children have been withdrawn from the church school and sent to the provided school managed by the local education authority. The hon. Member practically blames the children for going. They went themselves of their own accord, and they came back under pressure and remain under pressure to-day. The hon. Member shakes his head, but I know the parents, I know the children, I know the managers, and I know the whole history of the case, and hon. Gentlemen opposite know nothing at all about it. The only thing they say is that it ought to be run for Church purposes. I am not for Church purposes, and I am not for Nonconformist purposes, I am entirely for educational purposes. I have fought a rather strenuous fight on behalf of education in the county of Merioneth, and I am not ashamed. I hold strong views, but I respect the views of the hon. Member, and I hope he will respect mine. I have always fought for education quite apart from denomination, and I am as conscientious in stating that it is in the interests of the children that this church school should not be recognised as I have been in any public duty I have performed. Has anybody ever found fault with the Biblical syllabus of the council school? If the master was unpopular, why did not the managers make representations to the education authorities. If there was any unpopularity, I believe it was brought about in connection with the church and not in connection with education. I say that in view of the whole facts as I have stated them, and in view of the facts already within the knowledge of the Board of Education, the Board could not have come to any other decision. It would be absolutely unfair to expect the Board, under the circumstances, and having regard to the fact that these children were all on one afternoon brought down from the other school, to reopen this question and to declare this school to be necessary. I am glad the matter has been brought forward a second time to be ventilated, as I am never afraid of discussing a question of this kind in public.
  Sir W. ANSON: I cannot think the hon. Member has established his case as completely and as satisfactorily as in his own estimation he thinks he has done. He took us back to the year 1847, when the school was in a deplorable state, and he seems to have connected that in some way with incapacity on the part of the management of the school. I would rather get nearer to the time when undoubtedly the attendance at the church school had declined. I can perfectly well understand that with a population largely Nonconformist, the tendency was for the council school to grow and for the church school to diminish, but it does not follow that because the attendance at the church school dropped from sixty-nine in 1900 to forty-four in 1906 therefore the wishes of the parents of those forty-four children are to be ignored and the school is to be treated as a decadent school with the local authority awaiting an opportunity to close it. In 1908 a teacher was appointed, and his conduct seems to have brought about the entire collapse of the school.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: He was appointed in 1902.
  Sir W. ANSON: I think this particular teacher was appointed in 1908.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: No; in 1902.
  Sir W. ANSON: At any rate, there was a steady decline in the school which dated from the appointment of that teacher.
  Mr. HAYDN JONES: From before that.
  Sir W. ANSON: The school appears to have had sixty-one children in regular attendance in 1902. In 1909 the attendance had dropped to twenty. The teacher absconded in 1910, and the numbers immediately rose. The school at the present time contains seventy-six children. One must connect the circumstances one with another, and must see that the local authority neglected its plain duty in failing to dismiss a teacher so incompetent to conduct the education of the children. They neglected their plain duty in that respect, and that, no doubt, completely explains why the attendance at the church school dropped to the figure of twenty. Now it has risen to seventy-six, and what pretence can there be for saying that the Board of Education should not recognise, that school? The hon. Gentleman said that in 1905 the Board of Education directed that the buildings should be enlarged, and that that direction was not

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  carried out. I quite admit that the managers did not carry out the instructions which were given when I was at the Board of Education, and that they did not carry them out for five years. But I think there was a very good reason why building operations in church schools all over the country were at a standstill, because for several years after the right hon. Gentleman and his friends came into office every year saw a new Education Bill, by which, in one form or another, the property of the church school was affected, and in these circumstances it was only reasonable that managers of church schools should have been somewhat chary in laying out money on building. I am aware that local authorities in many parts all over the country were generous in their treatment of voluntary schools under these exceptional circumstances. I do not think it can be laid to the charge of these schools, under these uncertain circumstances and in view of the difficulties occasioned by this incompetent teacher and by his disappearance in 1910, that they did not put up the buildings necessary for the school. But in 1910 they were put up. The buildings are now adequate, the attendance is more than adequate, and what reason is there for saying that the school is unnecessary?
  The hon. Member suggests that a certain number of Nonconformist children are driven to this school under pressure. I should like to know what is the nature of the pressure brought to bear on children in a district where the population is predominantly Nonconformist which would induce the parents to transfer their children from the council school to the Church of England school. It seems to me that it is ridiculous to talk about the oppression of Nonconformist children in a population where Nonconformity is predominant, and to tell us that that explains the increase in the attendance at the council school, and gives the Board of Education an adequate reason for declining to recognise the church school. I shall be anxious, when the President of the Board of Education comes to deal with the treatment of this school by the Board, to know how he can explain when you have this school with a large number of children in attendance, fulfilling the demands of the Board of Education by the erection of the necessary buildings and other conditions justifying its recognition, how it is that the Board of Education, relying on the action of the local authorities, are oppressing and doing injustice to a Church of
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  England school. I admit that I have no special knowledge on this subject. My hon. Friends the Members for Oswestry (Mr. Bridgeman), and Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Ormsby-Gore), are able to say more upon it.
  I should like to refer to the discussion which took place on Tuesday last on the circular which was brought to the notice of the President of the Board of Education. The right hon. Gentleman repudiated the action of his inspector. I think the House was somewhat under the impression that this action was only taken when the inspector had retired, and that it was merely a passing thing which did not come to the notice of the President, and which he was entitled to disapprove and repudiate. Looking at the extract from the circular quoted last Tuesday, I should say it was not a passing thing in the matter of policy; it was a circular which was sent out in consequence of a return made to inquiries dating as far back as June, 1908. These were questions addressed to the inspectors, and the inquiries are set out in the appendix to the circular. They show clearly a desire on the part of the Chief Inspector—and I do not blame him for it—to ascertain what was the quality of the inspectors of the local education authorities. The whole tendency of the questions was clearly of a critical character, and it seemed there was an expectation that the inspectors of the local education authorities would not be found to be entirely adequate to the labours they were called upon to discharge. The circular was an expression on the part of the Chief Inspector of his opinion that his anticipations had been fully realised, and that the local authority inspectors were not adequate—at any rate that some were not, although some were.
  I quite admit that the terms of that circular, having regard to the relations which must prevail between the Board of Education and the local authority, and between the inspectors to the Board and the inspectors to the local authorities, were injudicious in a high degree. But I should like to get rid of an impression entertained by many on both sides of this House that we do not think that a liberal education developed to the extent of obtaining a university degree is not a very desirable qualification for an inspector, whether a local authority inspector or a Government inspector. There was a good deal of talk about the democratic character of education. But, after all, democracy and

  685
  education do not seem to stand in very close relationship to one another. The thing is to get the best education you can and to get it from the people best qualified to impart it. I do not know why the Government and the local authorities are at great pains not merely to support old universities, but to create new universities if the possession of a university degree does not carry with it the stamp of a more liberal education than that which is obtained by a person who may have gone through some portion of secondary school education. I should like to say at once I cannot think that a man who has qualified as a teacher in an elementary school is therefore qualified to be an inspector. A person whose education is limited in that way, and who then devotes the rest of his life to the teaching of others is often unconscious of his own limitations, and he is apt to suppose that what he does not know is not knowledge. The university man has always been brought in contact with a wider range of knowledge and is, therefore, more conscious of his own limitations He is aware that he, as well as others, has something to learn. I admit others may have more to learn, but, on the whole, the principle on which the statements in the circular were based commend themselves to any one who is earnestly desirous of seeing the education of the country properly conducted and the inspection of the schools carried out in the best possible manner
  I do not say anything as to the contemptuous tone taken as to the local authorities and their inspectors. This circular was issued by a gentleman who has served the Board of Education for a great many years. He served it with success, distinction, and zeal. I do not think he deserved that complete repudiation which he appears to have had at the hands of the President of the Board he had so long and so loyally served. I do not believe that the service of this country can be successfully conducted if those who carry it on and get apparently little credit for it are liable to be thrown over in the almost contemptuous tone in which the President of the Board of Education threw over the Chief Inspector on Tuesday evening. It would be, to my mind, a bad day for the service of the country if the political chiefs cannot depend on the loyal and zealous services of their subordinates, and if those subordinates cannot in turn trust their political chiefs to stand up for them in the place where they have no opportunity of replying—that is, the House of Commons.
  8.0 P.M.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I regret that the hon. Baronet who has just sat down should have suggested that I referred to Mr. Holmes in the Debate in this House on Tuesday in a contemptuous tone. I am not an authority on tones, but certainly I know what I said, and I have carefully read what I said at the time, and what I repudiated then I have no intention of altering now. I repudiated the expressions in the circular which I said did not convey a fair impression of the true policy of the Board, but I did that without casting aspersions on the character of Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes used in that circular language which, I think, was most unfortunate, and I do greatly regret that the publication of that single circular should have given the impression outside, and very largely to hon. Members, that Mr. Holmes had not served the Board and his country faithfully during the time that he was chief inspector and before. As the hon. Baronet well knows, his services have been of the greatest value to the public elementary teachers of this country who are described in such unfortunate terms in that memorandum, and his services to the public elementary teachers were so well acknowledged by them that on his retirement last year strong phrases of praise were used in regard to Mr. Holmes. I have known Mr. Holmes for some time, and I can say that a man more free from personal snobbishness or swagger I do not know. I think it is true to say he has always been a true friend of the elementary school teachers, and I think it is unjust to him to set against his great services some expressions of opinion in the memorandum which certainly are not a fair crown to a record of which the Board of Education and the Board's staff have been proud. But that is quite a different matter to saying that" the expressions of that memorandum are expressions which I adopted. I never adopted them. I did not see them at the time that they were published, and as I explained they did not and do not express the policy of the Board. On Tuesday I said so and I said so emphatically, and it might be as well that I should explain again that what appeared in this memorandum was an expression of Mr. Holmes' views. I would like to point out that it will be an evil day for education when we prevent the inspectors of the Board from expressing their own views freely, and in discussing their opinions among themselves. Let

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  them express their own views freely. If they did not it would tend to a wooden type of official. What I object to is the expression of their personal views as deciding the policy of the Board. The policy of the Board is arrived at after hearing all of their views thrashed out from time to time. It has been the practice of the Board's inspectors for some years past to meet regularly and in their gatherings to discuss with great freedom the opinions which are held by various officials. The chief inspectors have been the subject of severe criticism at some of those gatherings by their juniors and the juniors have come freely under the castigation of their chiefs. I know of more than one inspector who thoroughly enjoyed an intellectual trouncing he got from his junior in regard to the views he held.

  All that is for the efficiency of the inspectorial staff and for organisation that is not wooden. This circular or memorandum has been declared to give the policy of the Board and to give advice; but it does not give advice. It merely expresses a personal view. Had it not been made public no harm would be done, but I must recognise that now that it has been given the utmost publicity, both in this House and outside, a new situation has been created. I agree with the hon. Baronet that once these expressions have been given wide publicity they must create a certain amount of ill-feeling among elementary school teachers and among officials of local authorities which must lead to misunderstanding and friction. In view of the misunderstandings to which this document may give rise and owing to the fact that the wide publicity which has been given to it is calculated to hurt the feelings of teachers and also the feelings of the officials of the local education authorities, with all of whom the Board are most anxious to work on friendly and most harmonious terms, and as some Members of Parliament here and people outside quite erroneously suppose it conveys an expression of the policy of the Board, I have directed that all copies of the circular which may be in existence shall be called in and they shall be returned by such of the inspectors who have received copies if they are in existence. I cannot do more than that, and in dismissing this subject I must say I do regret that first of all a late Secretary of State and then the Leader of the Opposition should have
  688
  treated so lightly the publication of official documents which are marked "strictly confidential." It is suggested by the Leader of the Opposition that the first publication was not made by the hon. Member for Chelsea, but I have looked up all the newspapers which mention the subject and I find the first mention made in the public Press was a question put by the hon. Member for Chelsea. That is the first time that a reference was made to it in the public Press, and I think anybody who has been at the head of a great office must know that serious harm would be done if an impression should go abroad that a prominent Member of this House sanctioned the view that no harm was done by Civil servants and others in not respecting the confidential nature of "strictly confidential" documents of State Departments.
  It is a necessity of administration that there must be many communications which are not intended for the full light of day, and I would ask the hon. Baronet himself, who said some strong things on this subject on Tuesday, whether he is not of opinion that there are a large number of documents circulating in the Department over which I preside which are not intended for public discussion, and which would lose their value if they were made public, and if he does not recognise that any laxity on the part of the staff in a great Department in respect to the privacy of these documents might lead to very serious harm in so far as it tends to menace freedom of discussion. I have a serious view in regard to the disclosure of official secrets, if this can be called one, and in so far as there is any disclosure in the future of any document the blame will not lie with me but with those who hold laxer views. I pass from that topic, which has caused a certain amount of unnecessary heat, but which I hope will cause no unnecessary harm. I will do my best to make the teachers and the local authorities concerned feel that on the part of the political heads of the Department there is no desire to place them at an unfair disadvantage. If they read an answer that I gave to the hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Sunderland, which they will find in the Votes, they will find a true demonstration of the policy which I have adopted with regard to the appointment of inspectors under the Board, and they will see that the proportion of these appointments from amongst elementary teachers has risen every year since I have

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  had control of the Board. That is the best explanation of my policy I can offer.
  Now I turn to the question of the Towyn school. The Towyn school was taken off the Grant List last year. At that time it was a dwindling school, with a very small school population, and now the proposal is made that the school should come under the Board as a new school. The hon. Member for Merionethshire pointed out quite rightly that the Act of 1902 treats the starting of a new school on an entirely different basis to the taking of a school off the Grant List. For instance, the average attendance of thirty refers purely to schools which are taken off the Grant List.
  When one is considering a new school and considering its necessities one has to take into account, not an average attendance of twenty or thirty or, indeed, any number, but one has to consider three things which are laid down by Section 9 of the Act of 1902. In that case I have to have regard to the necessities of secular instruction in the district, to the wishes of the parents as to the education of their children, and then to the economy of the rates. Not any one of those are excluded in favour of the other two, but all three have to be considered, and that is actually what has happened on the part of the Board of Education with respect to Towyn School. We have considered the wishes of the parents, and I am bound to confess that there appear to be more desire on their part this year than there was last year. The increase has not been much, but there has been an increase. But when I turn to the other two questions I find that the council school has an excellent equipment: it is one of the best in Merionethshire, and it is used for training in respect of the training college at Aberyst-with. Then I understand that very large sums of money have been spent by the local authorities in improving the building, and if that is to be thrown away and one-half or one-third of the school places are empty, it must mean a great loss of money, and these improvements were embarked upon before the Towyn school was taken off the list. They have made this school a thoroughly efficient one, and, as I say, it is a practising school for Aberyst-with University. I turn to the question of education. It is not only the best staffed school and the best constructed in the district, but it must always be a better school than a little school with a very small staff.
  Having considered these three points, I came to the conclusion that the Towyn Church school was an unnecessary school,
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  and I treated it as a new proposal, and declined to recognise it as a necessary school. To that decision I must adhere. Now I come to the question of the Lewis Lloyd Charity. The scheme was published in November, 1909, and the old Church of England school was not removed from the annual grant list till June, 1910, and this was assisted by the charity-I have asked that a scheme should be published, and it has been published. We are prepared to hear objections, and many have been made to it, and any I receive will be considered before any decision is arrived at. The objection as to a certified efficient school has not yet reached me, but I am prepared to consider that point. I in no way wish that any school entitled should be deprived of the benefits of the scheme, and if these steps are taken I shall certainly do all that I can to meet the wishes of the hon. Gentleman and to get over the feeling of hardship which is at present experienced in regard to the Towyn Church of England school. As to any new proposal it was necessary it should be put forward on the merits, and, judging of it in accordance with the Act of 1902, it is impossible for me to say that the school is a necessary school.
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I regret very much that the President of the Board of Education had to reply at this early hour of the evening before we have had time to put quite fully the appeal which we had to make to them on the matter of Towyn Church school.
  And it being a Quarter-past Eight, and there being private business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  NEWCASTLK-UPON-TYNE CORPORATION BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. BOOTH: I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
  This is one of those instances of hastily considered legislation dealing with a great many different questions. It is not my fault if I may have to ask the House to

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  review quite a number of subjects. I do not know that this is the worst instance, but it is a striking instance of the way in which various corporations from time to time endeavour, under the guise of introducing beneficial legislation relating to bridges or sewers, to deal with other matters which ought really to be made the subject of public legislation—matters which do not appertain to the particular town—that is to say, not specially as apart from the rest of the community. For instance, what can Newcastle teach us on the question of insurance? Insurance is a worldwide subject, and yet they endeavour to introduce, by a series of Clauses, legislation upon this matter which, if it is good at all, should apply throughout the country. I think I can convince the House that the Clauses are vicious. It seems to me they will be productive of nothing but harm to the town and to the ratepayer. Whatever construction may be put upon my intervention to-night, my principal consideration is the way in which the population of such a town as Newcastle will be affected by this Bill. It is quite true that Newcastle is like any other town. It has special meetings, and gives notices, and professes to have certain majorities. There is in this a great deal that infringes liberty. There is a putting out of the tyrannical arms of a big public corporation, and there are many sufferers in these various cities and towns by nearly all these great Bills who have no one to speak for them, and who scarcely know how to attend a meeting of citizens and voice a complaint. They suffer in silence. They very often are men in partial revolt against the authorities, and, in my opinion, it is not at all for the public good that these large omnibus Bills should be continually passed while a large number of people feel themselves aggrieved, and have not sufficient means of redress.
  I know I shall be told there are Committees which meet upstairs. If this were a Committee matter I would not have intruded it on the House; but it seems to me that when a corporation brings in a Bill to deal with certain specific objects and then introduces outside things altogether, which if they have a bearing on Newcastle have a bearing on every town and city, that is not a Committee matter. Further, if it be a Committee matter I wish to enter my protest against it being so considered. In that Committee upstairs there appears a
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  Parliamentary Bar. As far as I can make out, it rests upon a fiction. I do not know why there has been such importance given to the Parliamentary Bar, but the consequence is that large vested interests, when they are not touched by a Bill of this kind, can afford to pay counsel large fees, and they do pay them extraordinary large fees, to appear in these committee rooms, but the aggrieved population, which is poor, suffers very often in silence. There will be a very large number of sufferers under such a Bill as this. The Bill contains a great deal of literature. I have gone through it from this standpoint, that I consider this House to be the custodian of the liberties of the people. I do not think the Committees upstairs view their functions in that definite and precise manner, and it seems to me that, when we have a case of aggression, and where large municipalities domineer over private citizens and neighbouring small authorities, the proper place to deal with them is in the House. I am quite aware that with regard to the insurance clauses there have been petitions presented, and that very powerful and influential companies will make their influence felt. My objection is a Second Reading rather than a Committee objection. I object to the whole of this legislation being put in such a Bill. It is out of place. It has no relation or connection with the rest of the Bill. I should like to draw attention to Clauses 49 and 50. This is the first light which is thrown on the attitude of these huge monster corporations, with vast armies of officials, and their endeavours to get as much of the life of the common people within their purview as they possibly can, especially if it increases the importance of their departments and justifies their application for an increase of salary.
  Clauses 49 and 50 deal with the question of a moor, and their object is to change a common into a town park. I believe it would be considerably more healthy and beneficial to the large population in our crowded towns if the free aspect of these open places was preserved, but that does not suit officials. They like railings and rules and by-laws and officers to administer them, and sections to be marked out here and there. [An HON. MEMBER: "Keep off the grass."] Certainly, that is one of their favourite notices. If the corporation of Newcastle had spent more time on the commons of this country they would have produced a much clearer Bill. It would not have been so cumbersome. I wish to draw attention to Clause 57. I am speaking

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  about topics so remote from each other because the corporation compels me. It is their idea of the appropriateness of things to group matters of this kind. Clause 57 deals with the recovery of private improvement expenses in the case of chapels and churches which are deserted and are afterwards bought for business purposes. This clause is most unfair to the Nonconformist chapel. It is exceedingly rare that a church changes hands. I speak as a member and an officer of the Church of England, and, therefore, I am not speaking from any personal standpoint. I can see from this clause that grave injustice will be done. As one who has a great deal to do with the administration of local authorities and the enforcement of contributions for private street improvements, I can state that I have known scores of instances where there has been a remission of private street improvement expenses in the case of places of worship. What will happen under this clause? It seems to me that if a man intends to purchase a chapel which is no longer used by the denomination, probably because the congregation has gone to larger premises, he will know that he must become immediately liable for the whole of the private street improvement expenses and five per cent. for interest. It seems to me that that is deliberately putting an obstacle in the way of such a chapel being used for business purposes. I do not know what the answer will be to that. I believe that the ratepayers by such a clause will suffer. Clause 61 takes powers to the corporation to make by-laws. Officials are very fond of clauses whereby they can make by-laws. When they are afraid to put tyrannical provisions into the Bill itself they put in clauses empowering them to make by-laws. This clause enables the corporation to make by-laws in regard to the selling or preparing of fried fish within the city. It seems to me that there is almost unlimited scope for the ingenuity of town officials to make by-laws at considerable expense, for no doubt counsel would be consulted. When they have got a long list of by-laws they will begin their tyrannical assertion, and I think many an innocent shopkeeper in the back streets of Newcastle will regret the passing of this Bill, if it becomes law.
  Clause 64 is also remarkable. One of the first things that delighted me as a boy when I came to London twenty-five years ago, was to see a butcher's boy going along the street with a joint of mutton or beef on a board on his shoulder. I found that he went to the best houses to deliver the
  694
  meat, but what is good enough for the West End of London is not good enough for Newcastle. People work at Newcastle, and so much smoke is produced that they are afraid to send meat in this open way. The corporation have powers to deal with the smoke nuisance. Why is it that the atmosphere there is such a disgrace? It is because they will not enforce their powers to purify the atmosphere. It is the duty of the corporation to see that there is atmosphere fit for the Newcastle population to breathe, but that is, I suppose, the last idea that would percolate through the head of the average corporation official. Clause 72 really seems ridiculous. It provides that they shall appoint and pay inspectors of nuisances. Is it not the ordinary function of a house authority to appoint inspectors of nuisances? The trouble is that these officials when they come to frame by-laws like to take in as much as possible. I remember a distinguished surveyor and valuer in Manchester advising his son that whenever a bill was extra large he should give the person who had to pay plenty of Paper, because he would pay the bill all the more willingly, even if it was for a large amount. The officials at Newcastle want to make this Bill as comprehensive as they can, and they introduce things in respect to which there is no necessity for special legislation. Now I come to an important point dealt with in Clause 100. It provides for the superannuation of officials—a most delightful task I have no doubt for the agents who drew up the Bill. I shall read the words:—
  "It shall be lawful for the corporation from time to time to invest in any of the securities of the corporation all or any moneys for the time being standing to the credit of the Superannuation Fund Account."
  Now I say that that is a vicious principle. It is a principle altogether foreign to the laws relating to limited liability companies. Surely if there are any funds at all in their possession, or any moneys which should be separately invested and quite beyond the fortunes of the corporation itself, they should be those of a superannuation fund. The great insurance companies pride themselves on their large reserves, so as to be able to pay claims when they become due. But this corporation actually propose that they shall be able to invest in any security of the corporation. I do not say that any of the Newcastle councillors intend to do any-

  695
  thing wrong, but the opportunity is here. It is the beginning of a system which exists in the United States and which leads to the great corruption scandals there. The beginning of the trouble in places of America is that people can buy and sell shares by some dodges and tricks in companies in which they are personally interested. If Newcastle Corporation stock was falling in the local market these councillors could go and buy some of that stock to try to give it a local rise. You know that no limited liability company is allowed to invest in its own shares. I have known cases where people connected with companies have tried to do things which the law did not allow, but I have never seen the most unscrupulous of them attempt to defy the well-known principle that they must not buy or sell their own stocks. Powers of the kind asked in this clause are sometimes misused, and, therefore, we should be continually on our guard lest the local authorities of this country should become tainted with the evils which are prevalent not only in the United States, but in the Dominion of Canada. I would warn hon. Friends below the Gangway who have more faith than I have in the Collectivist principle that when mistakes are made through going on wrong lines by persons who are not themselves in sympathy with the Collectivist ideal it only prejudices the movement in the province to which it might more lawfully belong. Of these subsequent Clauses I may refer to 126 for making bylaws with regard to various powers. This gives one of those opportunities so dear to the heart, unfortunately, of the officials of meddlesome action causing irritation. Many a poor man starts in business with a little cart of his own gives it up and becomes disheartened or joins the ranks of the unemployed, or falls in his ideal as a citizen through being badgered and hunted about by the officials of local corporations. And I do hope that Newcastle, if it gets a Clause such as I have named will at any rate administer it in a more humane spirit than has been shown in certain towns that I could name.
  he Insurance Clauses begin at 116 and finish at 121. Apparently the town clerk and the parliamentary agent have issued a miserable jejune document on the subject. It is a matter of the utmost difficulty to find out from this what the discussion to-night is about. I have had to explain to forty or fifty Members of Parliament what it is about because of this
  696
  document. The forty-four insurance companies referred to embrace the tariff offices of this country who are united. The non-tariff offices of this country are not united. The tariff offices are larger and older established and better organised, and no doubt will take very good care of themselves; but when it comes to this contribution to the fire brigade it is a contribution really to the rates at the expense of the town. I believe that those Clauses cannot be read before any impartial Committee. I am not going to discuss them, because the little experience I have had of Committee Rooms upstairs has increased my confidence in those hon. Members who are kind enough to give so much of their time freely to the public in endeavouring to lop off from these Bills their excrescences and delete from them the objectionable attempts of the meddlers. But they go on to say in this document that apart from insurance they are not aware that any other objection is to be taken to the Bill at the present stage. I have made no secret of the fact that I view these Bills more from the standpoint of a champion of liberty and freedom than any other. Hon. Members who have conversed with me know that, and as to the suggestion that I could handle a Bill like this and simply deal with insurance clauses because I have been specially instructed on them, of course, what am I to expect, coming from the quarter it does?
  I feel quite sure that my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-on-Tyne had nothing to do with the issue of such a pamphlet as this. I indicated to both of them that I had points to raise in connection with this Bill. But I have been in a difficulty with regard to the Order Paper in indicating that there were objections. When I studied the Bill and found it so unsatisfactory, there were already on the Notice Paper half-a-dozen notices to move the rejection of the Bill. The consequence was that I could not interfere, and one of the hon. Members opposite from Somerset, who was deeply interested in this question, handed in a notice, and it could not appear. And now I find, even on the day the Bill is coming up, that no proper indication can be given, and I think that days ago it ought to have taken place. The explanation is this: Six hon. Members have put down notices to move the rejection of the Bill and instructions upon the Milk Clauses. They occupy the Notice Paper. I do not know why half a-dozen should always repeat the same thing and

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  then deny to other hon. Members the opportunity——
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): The hon. Member has a notice on the Paper.
  Mr. BOOTH: Yes, because I drew attention to this. My point is that when these people were printing their circular it was not there, because there were six hon. Members who previously took the trouble to come and put down the same Motion. My point is that hon. Members should consider when they are opposing the Bill that there may be other opponents as well as themselves. I find this remarkable statement, by-the-bye, in this document which professes to emanate from the Newcastle-on-Tyne Corporation. I suppose it only emanates from one official. They are able to say in this document, which must have been printed a day or two ago, that the instructions with regard to Milk Supply would all be withdrawn. I submit it was a hardship upon me. They know, and could only have got it from hon. Members concerned that the whole of those instructions relating to milk supply are going to be dealt with in this way. Yet they have crowded the Paper from day to day and prevented the hon. Member for Somerset and myself from bringing our points forward.
  I now draw the attention of the House to a most serious danger contained in these clauses. They provide for an interfering inspection whereby officials of the corporation will be able to find out what every insurance company in Newcastle is doing. That is a most serious thing. It would become the duty of any competent manager in Newcastle to try to get on this corporation, however distasteful it might be to him, in order to have first-hand knowledge of all the insurance business of the city. I would ask hon. Gentlemen to put themselves in the position of having anything to do with a fire insurance company transacting business and knowing that certain officials of the corporation have the right of access to their books, whereby the whole system of conducting their business would be laid bare. The opportunity, therefore, of corruption and interference seem to me to be endless. I cannot understand that any body of men, large or small, could for a single moment tolerate the introduction of a new difficulty of this kind. I have made careful inquiry and certainly no one has ever had this power before. Why is it wanted in Newcastle? What
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  is there particular about Newcastle, except that it is famous for coals?
  It does seem to me that it is really going too far. Clause 120 is bad enough, but Clause 121 is very much worse. I am not concerned to plead the cause of the powerful insurance companies; they can defend themselves; I am on the point of the general public. Under the various proposals of this Bill, if they become law, the officials of the corporation could go into the offices of private companies and take notes of the business, trade profits and losses, and so on, which does seem to me to be a very serious power to confer. All these towns are in touch with each other, and if one succeeds in connection with a Bill of this kind, the news is speedily spread, and each of these towns tries to bring in the biggest Bill, and get the most clauses it can. I submit that these authorities ought to be a little more careful about minding their own business. The excuse that they give for bringing these proposals before the House is that our business is necessarily so congested that they are obliged to come in this way, and get legislation under the guise of a private Bill. That state of things, I say, is a scandal. I do not know what steps could be taken in any rearrangement of the procedure of this House in regard to private Bill legislation, but at any rate, so greatly have these matters been impressed upon me by long experience that I am quite prepared to sit on any Committee to investigate every private Bill, no matter how big the corporation, or whether it has a Lord Mayor or only an ordinary mayor, and if I find any encroachments on the liberties of small authorities or of traders, I shall feel bound to use the forms of the House to oppose such legislation to the very best of my power.
  Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to second the Amendment, and I wish to draw attention to a part of the Bill which has hardly been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. Clauses 74 and 75 propose to confer on the corporation power not only to inspect any dairy, but the supply of milk which is being offered for sale. As a Member representing an agricultural constituency, I wish to say at once that I do not deny the necessity for further legislation to control the sale of milk to the public, but I do say that it is a matter for general legislation and not local legislation. The dairy farmers throughout the country are of opinion that the regulations with regard to milk——
  Mr. HUDSON: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but it may perhaps save time if I inform him that we are prepared to accept the instruction on that point.
  Mr. GOLDSMITH: I am not moving the instruction, but I am raising the question in order to get a definite reply from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board in regard to the question of milk supply. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is his intention to introduce a Bill this year to deal with the question of milk supply. In 1908 the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the Government, said he was ready to bring in a general Bill dealing with the subject of the milk supply, and that he hoped it would be carried through that Session. That was in 1908. We have now arrived at 1911, and although the right hon. Gentleman gave us that promise on several occasions, nothing has been done. I am raising this question mainly as a member of the local legislation committee which deals with these Bills which contain clauses very similar to those in the Newcastle Bill. These have been brought before us in various other ways. In the Ipswich Bill, for instance, we decided to hold over the milk clauses until we had a definite reply from the President of the Local Government Board. I wish to know whether the right hon. Gentleman can give us any definite promise or statement as to whether he is going to introduce general legislation to deal with the question of the milk supply. I shall not follow the hon. Member into the other questions which he raised, but on a great many of them I must say that I entirely agree with them, and that they ought to be thoroughly considered by the Committee upstairs. I must say that I also agree with him that local authorities at the present time are trying to get as many powers as they possibly can; they are vying with each other to get more powers than their neighbours. I trust that although these clauses have been withdrawn from the present Bill the President of the Local Government Board will see his way to make a clear statement on the subject of the milk supply.
  Mr. SHORTT: I admit that this Bill is of very considerable scope, but, as my hon. Friend observed, its provisions are neither ill-considered nor hasty. It is true that they are varying in their scope, but each one of them has been most carefully considered, not only by the town council, but
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  by the ratepayers of Newcastle themselves. In the case of this particular Bill, not only has there been some four or five town's meetings in the centre of the city and at the town hall, but a large number of similar meetings were held in the smaller districts; and there actually has been a ballot taken upon some of the provisions of this Bill. I should think very few Bills have ever come before this House the proposals of which have been more carefully considered than have the provisions of this measure. The hon. Member (Mr. Booth) certainly displayed the very greatest ingenuity in trying to find something which could be used as a whip for corporations in general and for the corporation of Newcastle in particular. The main opposition to this Bill is, I conceive, against the insurance clauses. As my hon. Friend and colleague (Mr. Walter Hudson) has said we have undertaken to withdraw the clauses dealing with milk and with meat. Coming to the question of the insurance clauses, there is no question in this Bill, as my hon. Friend appears to suggest, of the Newcastle Corporation teaching the insurance companies anything at all.
  Mr. BOOTH: They cannot.
  Mr. SHORTT: I daresay they cannot; but there is the question of ensuring that the insurance companies should contribute fairly for the benefit which they receive from the locality. I suggest to the House, with very great confidence, that that is no infringement of the liberty of the subject, which seems so dear to my hon. Friend's heart. He has set out himself, he tells us, as the protector of the poor downtrodden ratepayer from the tyranny of the local corporation. I should think myself that anything which assisted the rates by obtaining a fair contribution from those who get public benefits from the fire brigade would in that way be in itself a great protection to the downtrodden ratepayer. Apart, however, from the question of these insurance clauses, this is no new question. Practically the selfsame clauses have existed in London from the year 1865. It is perfectly true that those clauses were introduced in London by agreement between the great fire insurance companies and the Metropolitan Board of Works; but, none the less, they have been in existence since 1865, and they have worked well, so far as I can ascertain, during the whole of that time. No doubt it is true that exactly the same clauses are not to be found in any other place except in the

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  Metropolis, but there are other places in which clauses founded upon the same principle are in existence. In Liverpool there has been an Act in existence since 1842 which provides that the fire insurance companies have to give an annual contribution towards the fire brigade. The same is in Manchester, and the same, I believe, in Belfast and in Salford. Even in Newcastle itself, although there is no such provision exactly as this, there has been in existence since 1865 a provision which has the same practical result as this; that provision came in in 1865, and in 1870, by an amending Act, it is provided that where the fire brigade is used for the purpose of extinguishing fire every property owner and occupier of property must contribute up to £30 towards the expenses of the fire brigade. That has been consistently collected in Newcastle direct from the insurance companies. It has worked well. The insurance companies have always paid it, and this Bill will only provide a legal basis for that which has been found a convenient practical basis, and which has been voluntarily adopted both by the companies and the corporation.
  9.0 P.M.
  In addition, may I remind my hon. Friend that in 1900 a Commission considered the whole question of fire brigades and reported to this House. It dealt, amongst other things, with this very question of the contribution which ought to be given by the fire insurance companies to the fire brigade funds. That Commission sat, I believe, fifteen times, and heard a very large number of witnesses. According to the Report, they heard witnesses sent by a committee of the fire insurance companies of the United Kingdom, so that those companies had every opportunity for putting forward their case before the Commission. After hearing all their evidence, the Commission reported that, after a careful review of the whole case as it had been placed before them, they had come to the conclusion that all the fire insurance companies should be required by law to bear a certain portion of the expenses connected with fire extinction, which is an obligation already recognised by some of the most important companies. In a summary of recommendations for alteration in the law, they recommended that fire insurance companies should be required to contribute some portion of the expenses connected with fire extinction. My hon. Friend asked why this should be done in
  702
  the case of Newcastle. It is because Newcastle has got its opportunity in the Bill, that is being brought forward to make that, so far as Newcastle is concerned, the law, and which this Committee recommended should be the law. I cannot understand how it can be suggested that because Newcastle happens to have a provision of this description, that that will in any way prevent a general measure, if a general measure is ever brought forward-We were told by my hon. Friend that these insurance companies would suffer some form of inconvenience or danger, or something which would be very difficult quite to follow. But so far as I can follow the objections of my hon. Friend, they are one and all objections which would be raised before the Committee upstairs. I have here a petition presented against the Bill by the forty-four leading insurance-companies who insure property in New-castle-on-Tyne. I understand that there is no objection to their locus, and that they will be able to bring forward anything which they consider necessary in the interests of the fire insurance companies. I think, without exception, and I have followed my Friend as carefully as I could, that every single objection which he has raised on the score of the fire insurance clauses is raised by this petition, and, therefore, will be brought before the Committee.
  Mr. BOOTH: I have not seen it.
  Mr. SHORTT: My hon. Friend is at liberty to look at it; but, so far as I can gather from it, every one of his objections, will be raised before the Committee. I do not know quite what other objection, there is to this Bill going forward. This Bill is of great importance to the people of Newcastle and is a Bill which they very much desire. It deals with many matters of urgent importance and provides for an extension of their powers by conferring facilities for improvements which are of urgent importance to the people of Newcastle. I do urge the House to pass the Bill through its Second Reading, because no possible danger can happen to anyone so far as any objection is concerned which has been raised here to-night. The Committee are perfectly competent to deal, and I have no doubt will deal, with every single objection which is raised before them. They will have those objections raised which have been indicated by my hon. Friend. With regard to the other matters which he raised on the question of putting up a railing round a portion of

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  the moor, his objection is that it will be far better to have large open spaces without those railings. If my hon. Friend knew anything at all about Newcastle he would know perfectly well that it possesses in its town moor as fine an open, unrestricted common as exists in this country. All those matters are dealt with by the Corporation by agreement with the freemen who have rights over that great town moor. Anything which is done under this Bill with regard to that, is done by agreement. With regard to the power to pass bye-laws it is a small matter. It is only for bringing any new innovation into line with that which already exists; it gives power to apply the old bye-laws to any new state of things that may come into existence. The hon. Member twitted the corporation with the bad drafting of their Bill. I am sure the House will not reject it upon that ground. He twitted the corporation be-cause they want to appoint more inspectors of nuisances. If they have not enough surely it is for the protection of the people of Newcastle that more should be appointed. The hon. Member objected to the fact that meat which is carried through the streets of Newcastle for human consumption should be so covered up that it is protected from any danger of contamination. I do not think it is necessary to suggest because of that proposal that the atmosphere or air of Newcastle is any worse than that of London or any other great city. Perhaps I am prejudiced in saying so, but I consider it an excellent atmosphere, so far as big towns are concerned. It will compare favourably with that of the great industrial centres of the country. But even in the purest atmosphere there is contamination in the air. You cannot help it. I should have thought, if protecting the poor ratepayer were really my hon. Friend's object, he would have welcomed the clauses, because they are for the protection of the ratepayer, and are as much desired by him as by the members of the council. Without detaining the House further I will ask that the Bill should be given a Second Reading. It is a measure of great importance to Newcastle. Nothing has been urged against the Bill which is not purely a Committee question or which ought in any way to affect the Second Reading. Therefore, I trust that the Bill will now be read the second time.
  Mr. COURTHOPE: My primary reason for rising is to say to those other agricultural Members who have for some years
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  worked with me in the matter of milk legislation that I am entirely satisfied with the assurances given by the hon. Members for Newcastle, and with their promise to accept my proposed instruction. Therefore, I hope that none of those Members who come down to oppose the Bill will continue their opposition in that respect. The Mover of the rejection of the Bill somewhat severely criticised county Members for putting down a number of instructions. I would suggest that if he wishes to get on the Order Paper of the House notice of the fact that he has discovered the enormities of some private Bill he should discover that fact a little sooner. If he does not find out for a fortnight that a Bill is a bad one it is no use his complaining——
  Mr. BOOTH: I found it out next day.
  Mr. COURTHOPE: Then I am surprised that the hon. Member waited so long before putting his Motion on the Order Paper.
  Mr. BOOTH: I did not. I put it down the next day.
  Mr. COURTHOPE: I accept the hon. Member's correction. I can only say that I did not put mine down the next day. I took nearly a week to consider the matter, and still I find my name second on the list. No one will suggest that the officials of the House would be so unjust to the hon. Member as to exclude his notice in favour of one given in a week later.
  Mr. BOOTH: May I make the matter clear? I discovered it the next day——
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: This is only a matter between hon. Members. It does not affect the Bill.
  Mr. COURTHOPE: I will not pursue it further. I will merely reassure the hon. Member with regard to the fear which he expressed that his voice will ever be a feeble one in the objections which he raises to Private Bill legislation. I wish to repeat what I have said on former occasions that, in opposing the Milk Clauses in Private Bills, we agricultural Members are not animated by any disinclination to submit to sound protective regulations, but we want general instead of piecemeal legislation. It is generally admitted that this is a national matter, and should be dealt with in a general public Bill. I am quite ready to reintroduce my own Bill, which was supported by representatives of the London County Council and other great corporations, but I hope it may not

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  be necessary. I would urge the President of the Local Government Board to push forward Government legislation on the subject. Even though from an agricultural point of view I cannot be expected to like all the details of his Bill so much as the details of a Bill drafted by myself, still from every point of view it must be recognised that this is a matter which should be dealt with by Government legislation, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give some indication that steps will be taken by the Government to deal with the matter in the current year. I would like to pay a tribute to the extremely broad-minded way in which in dealing with this question of milk supply the right hon. Gentleman has faced the very difficult task of finding a method which is satisfactory to the interests both of the producer and of the consumer of this important commodity.
  Mr. ELVERSTON: While I cannot associate myself with all that the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) said against this Bill, I associate myself with what he has said with reference to the insurance clauses. I feel that this House will be taking a retrograde step if it allows any corporation to secure the inclusion of such clauses in an omnibus Bill. This House has laid it down time and again that it is one of the functions of a municipality to provide proper means for the extinction of fire. It is in no way a duty of a fire insurance company to extinguish fires. All that they do is to assess proper rates for insuring against any particular risk, whether the risk is a good or a bad one. That really is the beginning and the end of the function of a fire insurance company. Therefore, I cannot understand to what the hon. Member for Newcastle was referring when he said they ought to contribute for the benefits which they received. He also referred to the fact that Manchester has clauses of this description in some of its Bills. I served for some years as a member of the Manchester Corporation, and am familiar with the clauses affecting that city. I can only say that Manchester has extended its borders time and again, but this House has always refused these powers with reference to the added areas. It is only with reference to the old central area of Manchester that it has these particular powers which Newcastle is now seeking to secure. I have said that it is the duty of fire insurance companies simply to assess the risk. I venture to point out to I he House that if they put upon fire in-
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  surance companies a special part, of the cost of the maintenance of fire brigades they will really be making certain ratepayers, who have sufficient foresight to insure, contribute twice, and an undue proportion of the cost of the maintenance of fire brigades. It is because I feel there is an important principle underlying this particular objection that I venture to raise my voice.
  Mr. HOARE: As a former Chairman of the London Fire Brigade Committee the House will bear with me if I make one or two observations with reference to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman opposite with reference to the insurance clauses in the Bill. Let me say, although the system proposed has been in operation in London, I do not think that, on logical grounds, it can be defended. In the first place, it is the duty of the local authorities to provide the means of fire extinction, and also the means of the preservation of life from fire risks. I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman opposite who has just sat down said when he drew attention to the fact that to compel the insurance offices to make a special contribution is to make those men and women who are shareholders in the insurance offices pay twice over. It is the duty of the local authorities to provide the means of fire extinction, just as it is the duty of the local authorities to provide police, and many other things, that come within their purview. Let me also remind the House' that just as it is the duty of the local authorities to find the means for the extinction of fire, so also it is the duty of fire offices not to put out fires. They simply have to compensate the loss that is incurred by the fire in the case of the policyholders. I think those two points should be clearly remembered by the House.
  I am quite aware that in London—the right hon. Gentleman opposite knows it even better than I do—a system is in force by which the fire offices contribute £35 for every million pounds worth of property insured in the county of London. But that is the result of very special arrangements with the county of London. Up to 1865 the duty of extinguishing fires and of preserving life from fire risks in London was in the hands of certain private or parish fire brigades, or was the duty of the fire insurance offices. As a result chiefly of the great conflagration in Tooley Street in 1861, when no less than £2,000,000 worth of property was destroyed, and when the

  707
  county of London also suffered a great loss in the death of Mr. Braidwood, the superintendent of the fire engine establishment, an arrangement was made with the Metropolitan Board of Works to take over the fire establishments that up till then had been in the hands of the fire offices and certain private societies, to remove the heavy expenditure from their shoulders and to administer it as a public service. The understanding was that the offices in the future should make a contribution of £35 per £1,000,000 worth of property insured in the county of London. So that really the case of London is not a case to quote with Newcastle. It is the result entirely of a special arrangement. So far as I know, Newcastle manages its own fire extinction and its own system of life preservation. Therefore its authorities are not in a position to make a bargain with the fire offices. The two cases do not stand on "all fours" at all. I am in this difficulty: I am not prepared to oppose a Bill that I feel sure has received the very careful consideration of the citizens of Newcastle, and also contains proposals that have been the subject of open criticism. At the same time, I should like some assurance that the minds of the promoters of this Bill are not irrevocably made up, and that they are prepared at any rate to consider in Committee proposals for removing these fire insurance clauses, provided adequate reason can be shown. I believe if the question is carefully gone into, although, as I said, it seems on the face of it not unreasonable to ask the fire insurance companies to contribute to the ever-increasing expense of the local fire brigade, it will, on further consideration, be found that this is a superficial view, and that there is no reason whatever why these clauses should be inserted.
  Mr. HUDSON: After what has fallen from one or two hon. Members I cannot refrain from expressing a few thoughts upon this important Bill. Every effort has been made upon the part of the promoters to meet the objectors. Even my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, could have had Clause 121, which he subjected to such severe criticism, withdrawn. He rejected the offer. If it is the chief objection of the hon. Member that there should be an opportunity of inspecting the accounts of the corporation, that might have been met a week ago, because that was then put before him. It was at his option to
  708
  accept it, and we should have cleared it out of the way. With regard to the broad question upon which this opposition is based, I am aware that my right hon. Friend has travelled all over the ground of the Bill from the beginning to the end. But really his intention was to settle down upon the Fire Insurance Clauses. That was really the bone of his contention. I would ask hon. Members of this House if there is anything unreasonable on the part of the corporation, who are to be the guardians of the interest of the ratepayers, to ask these insurance companies to pay a reasonable quota towards the upkeep of these fire brigades. It is quite true that under the Act of 1865 they took certain powers in order to recover either from the owner or occupier, or it might be the insurance company up to £15, and, later, in 1870, they took up to £30, and it rested upon the ratepayers who paid for the upkeep of the fire brigade also to pay the fire brigade when called out. Yet the whole work of fire extinction is very largely for the benefit of the insurance company. I was interested in the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, but I find in this Report of the Committee of 1900, paragraph 173, the following statement with regard to insurance companies and the question of premium:—
  "The sum of the evidence seems to be that Insurance Companies have discontinued the practice of maintaining their own fire establishment; that they realise the immense gain accruing from the saving of insured property through the efforts of public and voluntary fire brigades, though they make no corresponding return in the form of reduced premium."
  That is a very important matter. Though they are not legally required to contributor in any way to the extension of fire extinction, what happened? In 1865 it is quite true that the fire insurance companies had the stations mentioned, and that at the moment the Metropolitan Board had to buy all the ground and stations, an agreement was come to with the insurance companies to contribute £35 per million, or any part of a million insured, and the fire insurance companies have in consequence reaped an immense benefit from the Metropolitan Board taking over the stations. The Newcastle Corporation merely asks for a corresponding benefit to that which the Metropolitan Board now receives from the insurance company. Surely that is not outrageous. If there is to be a claim against anyone for the extinction of fires, it should be against people who receive the benefit, such as fire insurance companies. I ask hon. Gentlemen who object to that to consider what is to be the alternative.

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  the objection is to hold good that fire insurance companies are not to be contributors towards the corporation who are responsible for the up-keep of the fire brigade, the next thing that must occur—and it is mentioned in this report—is that the corporations must become insurers themselves and enter into competition with the insurance companies. This Bill is largely one for the extension of tramways and the trolley system for the benefit of the great mass of the populace of Newcastle-on-Tyne. I venture to say no Bill ever came before the House after a more searching inquiry. Meetings on behalf of the citizens have been held in the town hall, and a ballot has been taken on the land clauses, and, speaking for my own class, I may say labour meetings have been held all over the constituency in order to decide upon the Bill. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Gateshead should oppose the Bill at this stage. I ask the House to pass the Second Reading and to send it to a Committee upstairs where it can be fully examined into.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I listened with a considerable amount of interest to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, and I must say, if I was a little doubtful before he rose as to the course I should pursue his speech has convinced me that unless the promoters of the Bill agree to withdraw the objectionable clauses it will be my duty to vote against the Second Reading. The argument of the hon. Gentleman was that in London the fire insurance companies contribute £35 per million towards the expenses of the fire brigades, and he asked why, if that is so, should not the Corporation of Newcastle be placed in the same position? There, to my mind, is the absolute weakness of the argument in defence of this clause. Why should not the Corporation of Newcastle be placed in the same position as London? Because origin-ally they were not in the same position as London. Hon. Members opposite apparently will not see the position of London is different because its present position arose out of a bargain made. If you make a bargain you must stand by it whether you lose or profit by it. The Corporation of Newcastle never made a bargain in this matter.
  Mr. HUDSON: They are going to!
  Sir F. BANBURY: That only emphasises my argument. Hon. Gentlemen opposite want to have their cake and eat it. They do not want to enter into a
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  fair bargain. But because somebody else arrives at the conclusion under different circumstances they want to come down and force a similar bargain under quite different circumstances. There can be no bargain unless both parties enter into it. In London the original bargain was voluntary between London and the companies. It was entered into by people both of whom had duties to perform, namely, the insurance companies who had been themselves maintaining the fire brigades and the Metropolitan Board, who desired to-take over the duties of the insurance companies. That does not arise here. If the same position had existed in Newcastle I should vote with the hon. Member opposite. What really has happened is that the Corporation of Newcastle want to shirk their duties and put them on the shoulders of somebody else. An hon. Member opposite the other day made a statement which made a great impression upon me when he talked about people who desired to catch the votes of the many. It is because the insurance companies have not got the vote of the many, and that possibly the corporation have, that this thing is brought forward. It is brought forward not because it is a fair and reasonable bargain, but because it may be advantageous to one section of the community. I also oppose this clause because it is a retrograde clause, and in that I shall have the approval of the President of the Local Government Board, because he and I together are always against anything retrograde, and because anything that is reactionary strikes both of us as bad. Let me justify that position. Originally, many years ago, the insurance companies undertook the duty of extinguishing fires. With the march of modern thought, and the institution of corporations with vast powers, they took over the work which had been done by the insurance companies, and they carried it out badly or well according to the circumstances of the case. Now Newcastle wants to reverse all that, and say the insurance company shall do certain things. What is the consequence of all this? You have no bargains with the insurance companies in Newcastle. The corporation says they must contribute. Is it not fair that if insurance companies have to contribute towards putting out fires they should have something to do with the apparatus which puts out the fires? Hon. Members seem to think that a certain class of people should always contribute and do nothing else, and that they exist to put their hands in their

  711
  pockets to the advantage of hon. Members opposite. The natural consequence of insurance companies contributing money to the expenses of the fire brigade must be that they will demand a voice in the management of the fire brigade. How would the Corporation of Newcastle like that? I am sure they would not like it at all.
  I have a further objection to this Clause. We will assume for the sake of argument that it is right a new departure should be made, and where there has never been an agreement between a corporation and fire insurance companies that the company should contribute towards the extinguishing of fire. If that is so it should be an agreement which applies to all corporations, and it should be done by a measure brought in by the President of the Local Government Board and made the law of the land. It is not right for one corporation in an omnibus Bill to introduce a clause of this sort. There are many reasons why this House should regard with suspicion the attempt on the part of municipalities in what is called an omnibus Bill to introduce all kinds of clauses which the vast majority of hon. Members know nothing about, and which make a very great alteration in the law of the land. I am a very humble Member of this House, but I take a certain interest in its proceedings, and I endeavour—feebly, I am afraid—to get some knowledge of what is going on. I confess that I came down here this afternoon with the idea of taking part in an Irish Bill, which I understand has disappeared. I confess I had not the remotest idea that this clause was in the Bill. Hon. Members will see the enormous size of it. As a protest against this attempt to introduce controversial clauses altering the law of the land in an omnibus Bill of this kind, unless we get an assurance that in Committee this clause will be withdrawn, I am afraid we shall have to divide the House against this measure. I understand that the Milk Clauses have been withdrawn. In the interests of peace I hope the hon. Member opposite will see his way to withdraw this clause.
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): A number of interesting and discursive speeches have been made on a variety of topics this evening, and one of the most ingenious of them is the speech made by the hon. Baronet who has just sat down directed against one of the hon. Members for Newcastle, who did not respond to his
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  invitation. As far as I am concerned there are only one or two topics in this Bill to which I have to refer. The hon. Member for Newcastle who dealt so ably with this measure has rendered any comment by me on many of the clauses entirely unnecessary. I have been asked to express the Government view on the question of milk. I have only to say that in 1909 I introduced a Milk Bill which had for its object the dealing with the question of milk production and distribution in a general way by a general Act rather than by private Bills. I had intended in 1909 to press that forward, but that turned out impossible in consequence of legislation which, in the opinion of the House, had a greater claim upon its time. In 1910 we had an exceptional Session and two elections, and it was impossible, willing though I was, to secure the passing of the Milk Bill.
  I have been asked to give an opinion upon this subject. I may say that I am still hopeful this Session—now that I have been in what I trust may be successful negotiation with those who previously differed from me on the Bills of 1909 and 1910—notwithstanding the exceptional nature of our work for this year, to secure the passing of a general Milk Bill. It is only right at this moment I should say that not quite so much harm has been done as was anticipated by the non-passing of the Milk Bill, because the discussions that took place in 1909 and 1910 in this House and elsewhere has brought home very clearly to the agricultural and milk-producing industries that they must put their house in order, and adapt themselves to the growing requirements of the time with regard to milk supply. During the last four years there has been an extraordinary diminution in infantile mortality. Some people contend that infantile mortality has been largely contributed to by a defective milk supply. Dairymen, farmers, and those connected with the agricultural industry are beginning to see that from the point of view of enlightened self-interest it is wise for them to adapt themselves to producing a cheap, more plentiful, and a more pure milk supply. I trust that by the introduction of a Bill on this subject by agreement of all parties we shall be able to accelerate that very useful object.
  Mr. C. E. PRICE: Will the Bill apply to Scotland?
  Mr. BURNS: I could not assume that Scotsmen would not allow such a beneficent measures to apply to their country. Now

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  I come to the clauses relating to insurance companies.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I have nothing to do with insurance companies.
  Mr. BURNS: I was not referring to the hon. Baronet. I have invariably noticed that in all these matters—and it is to his credit—the hon. Baronet has no connection with any of the companies with which too frequently in many parts of the House he is supposed to have sympathies. I have also noticed the disinterested and public-spirited way in which he criticises all measures, whether promoted by private individuals or by municipal corporations. The other question is whether or not insurance companies shall make a contribution to the fire brigade of the Newcastle Corporation. May I put this to the hon. Baronet? The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), who criticised this clause at greater length than any other Member, paid a great tribute to the sagacity and ability of the Private Bill Committees upstairs, and it seems to me that the consideration of the details of these insurance clauses might really be properly left to the tribunal which has been so highly eulogised. I particularly emphasise that, because the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Elverston), who seemed to know something about insurance, said the House of Commons would not allow Manchester to extend their clauses to the portion added to Manchester some years ago. That is decided proof that the Private Bill Committee upstairs is competent to deal with this particular subject. We know from previous speakers that five or six other towns have either directly or indirectly something like what the Newcastle Corporation is asking for, and it is obviously a matter for a Committee upstairs.
  I do not know that there is anything in the London instance as a precedent to justify action either way. It is a fact that in London the insurance companies pay £35 per million insured towards the cost of the London Fire Brigade. It is also true, and equally anomalous, that in London the Government pay a direct contribution of £10,000 to the London County Council for fire brigade purposes. The insurance companies, not only pay £35 per million towards the maintenance of a fire brigade, but what is even more anomalous still—and I noticed the hon. Member for-Pontefract did not mention it—they incur the responsibility and defray the cost of maintaining a very large and effective
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  salvage corps. We have, therefore, a number of illustrations, some one way and some the other. I look at the matter from the point of view of common-sense. The desire of the Committee upstairs is to deal fairly and equitably with any claim that is reasonably put forward by a great corporation, and I believe there is nothing in any of the clauses of the Newcastle Corporation Bill which cannot be better discussed by a Committee upstairs than by the House of Commons. I respectfully suggest there is no reason for going to a Division on this, and that the Newcastle Bill should go upstairs. I can assure hon. Members that, both with regard to the insurance companies and the other matters which are dealt with by by-laws and regulations in this Bill, they may trust the Committee upstairs to do their work.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed.
  Mr. COURTHOPE: I beg to move, "That it be an instruction to the Committee to strike out Part XII. of the Bill (Milk Supply)."
  Mr. STANIER: I beg leave to second the Motion.
  Question put, and agreed to.

SLIGO CORPORATION BILL.
Read a second time, and committed.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Postponed proceeding resumed on Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time." Debate resumed.
Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: When the general discussion was interrupted by Private Business, I was just commencing to make an appeal to the Board of Education. It is curious that two speeches made on the other side of the House in defence of the Board of Education in refusing to restore the Towyn church school to the Grant List consisted, one in an appeal to very ancient history, and the other in an appeal to no history at all. The hon. Member for Merionethshire (Mr. Haydn Jones) raked up a case against the church school in Towyn based, I think, upon maladministration and mis-

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conduct in the year 1847. He said he would establish the connection between what went on in Towyn in 1847 and the state of affairs there at the present day; but I submit he did nothing of the kind. Apparently, he regarded it as a bad school in 1847. It seems to me he has had his eye upon the school all his life, and now that he has got the Board of Education to support him and to remove the school from the Grant List, he has reached the goal of his desire. All this question of history and all those figures retailed at great length by the hon. Member were, as has been said by the President of the Board of Education, decided last year, when this subject was discussed on the salary of the President of the Board. It is interesting to note that in the division upon that question the majority of the Government was the smallest they had during the year.
We raise this question now because the situation to-day and the situation then are different. We were told that the Towyn church school was removed from the Grant List because, although the managers had been warned that unless they carried certain improvements the school would be removed, they had not carried out those improvements. They have now spent the money and carried out the improvements. The other argument brought forward by the President was that the parents of the children in the district did not want it, and he said that was proved by the fact that the children had left the church school and had gone to the council school. What is the new situation? Ever since that day until to-day there has been a large attendance of children at this school, and the parents by their action have shown that they do not want the Towyn church school under other conditions. The hon. Member for Merionethshire talked about pressure being brought to bear upon them, but he did not bring forward a single scrap of evidence to show that the least pressure had ever been exercised by the managers on any of the parents. I think his statement of the case is calculated to foster increased sectarian bitterness. This is a serious question, and I appeal to the Board of Education, if it is not too late to melt its stony heart, to consider this question in its broadest aspect. You have heard how in a small town in Wales there is a strong church feeling among a certain section, just as in many other places there is an equally strong nonconformist feeling.
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What has been the spirit of the policy of the Board of Education in recent years where such a thing exists? Under the Education Act of 1902 the object was to encourage the creation of multiple school areas, and to abolish single school areas. It is difficult, I admit, to strike an exact balance between parents' wishes and the interests of secular education. That is the real difficulty. There is no doubt that in Towyn there is a desire on the part of certain parents to have their children given Church of England teaching in the old Church of England school. We do not deny that. But just let us consider what would be the position if the case were reversed. Consider for one moment if the Towyn church school and the council school had been in reverse positions, and that there had been a large and prosperous church school and a small school in which nonconformist teaching was given. Suppose the Board of Education had come down and said: "In the interests of secular education we will abolish the nonconformist school and put the children in the church school." Think what the outcry would have been in Wales. The Board of Education in this case are meting out treatment to the Towyn Church of England school which they would not dare to mete out to the smallest and humblest Nonconformist school. They evidently think that no stick is too bad with which to beat the Church of England in Wales. That, at any rate, has been their policy. It has been their object to encourage local education authorities to destroy church schools in the interests of secular education. But it must not be forgotten that since last year in connection with the Towyn school both parents and managers have done everything in their power to meet the wishes and requisitions of the Board of Education.
10.0 P.M.
The President of the Board of Education, in his reply, declared that he was within the four corners of the Act of Parliament; that he was considering this question as if it were a new school, and as if nothing had happened there before. Is that within the spirit of the policy or of the letter of the Act of Parliament that he should consider a thing as if nothing had happened before? I would point out that by the Liberal Government's own Board of Education he is not justified in saying that the question of thirty children, and there are more than sixty attending this particular school, does not

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come in. Why, under Section 9 of the regulations dealing with the McKenna Grant, which was given in order to prevent grievances remaining in single school areas and to create multiple school areas, it is provided that on the question of the provision of school "the Board must, inter alia, be satisfied by evidence that the parents of not less than thirty children of school age desire accommodation in a public elementary school provided by the local authority." Thus the question of thirty children, although not within the four corners of the Act of 1902, is within the four corners of the regulations drawn up by the Board of Education under a Liberal Administration. Apparently the policy of the President of the Board of Education is different from that of his predecessor. He says that the thirty children shall not count, and, although sixty children may attend the church school to-day, he declines to consider the question. Reverse the position. Suppose it had been a single school area with the church school. There would have been the McKenna grant, and you would have had a new school put up in order to meet the views of the conscientious Nonconformists. They show every care for the conscientious grievances of Nonconformists; they care nothing for the conscientious grievances of Churchmen. They are making the grievance just as much a grievance as the grievance they are so fond of telling us they are so anxious to remove. Let us understand further what has been the action of the Board of Education with regard to this charity. There has been a charity devoted to this school. The hon. Member for Merionethshire says there have been three charities, and, apparently, because there have been three the Board of Education take one and propose to alienate one. It is done on the same principle as the disendowment of the Church of Wales. They take some endowments and they leave others. I regret that the reply of the President of the Board of Education on this point was most unsatisfactory. He said the charity would not be alienated if the Towyn church school remained a certified efficient school. But why, if that is so, does he refuse the grant. If it is an efficient school, if it has more than thirty children in attendance, I cannot understand on what grounds he refuses to restore the grant to it. We raise this question now because the right hon. Gentleman himself definitely held out to us in the Debate of last year certain hopes. He said on 13th July, in answer to the
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Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil):—
"The Noble Lord asks 'What is the remedy?' … The procedure is perfectly clear; it is within the four corners of the Act of Parliament. I am not going to do anything to subvert the principles of that Act by administration. I would gladly upset it if I could by legislation, but whilst I have been at the Board o Education, I have administered it fairly, and so long as I am there. I will continue to administer it fairly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th July, 1910, col. 453.]
It seemed to me that by what he said there he definitely held out a promise that there would be some hope of our getting the Grant back, and what have the Towyn school managers and the parents done that they are now denied the privilege of being put back on the Grant List. They have carried out the improvement suggested. They have extended their buildings, and they have shown by their action every desire to have their children taught in this school. But the Board of Education say "no we consider it an unnecessary school, and the question of thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty children does not matter. The opinion of the parents does not matter, and it is a question of rates." Religious objection and consciousness scruples they do not agree with, unless they come from their own side of the House. In reference to this question of the rates and economy in regard to them, the President of the Board of Education seemed to imagine that we thought that there was no connection between the expenditure of the ratepayers' money on the enlargement of Towyn School and the deliberate intention of the local education authority and the Board of Education to close Towyn Church School. There is a connection, and a large sum of the ratepayers' money has been expended which ought not to have been spent in enlarging the council school. This money, I say, ought not to have been expended if we were going to continue Towyn Church School. That school is in the centre of the town, and is conveniently situated, whereas the council school is some little distance from the centre of the town, but that apparently is not to be taken into consideration. The one object of the Board of Education is to stifle and kill the church school because it is a church school.
I come to another curious action on the part of the Board of Education. I recently had brought to my notice a scheme dealing with Helen Humphrey's Education Endowment in another parish in the county of Merionethshire. The scheme was recently laid upon the Table of this House, and the names of the parishes are even

719
more difficult to pronounce than possibly the policy of the Board of Education is to defend. Hitherto a Church Sunday school has been carried on in a certain school building at Llanenddwyn, and the right to carry it on has been enjoyed without any interference from the Board of Education and without any action on their part in the past, but now under this new scheme under Clause 19 Sub-section (b) it is provided that the governors "may" permit the school building to be used on Sundays for the purpose of classes for religious instruction under the superintendence of the rector of one of the parishes and on a payment sufficient to defray the expense of such use, provided that such instruction should be given in the Welsh language to the children of Welsh parents and also to the children of other parents who desire the instruction to be so given. There are two points in this. In the first place, the governors "may" permit. Could not the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education have allowed the word "may" to be altered to the word "shall"? The Board does not dispute the right that is existing to conduct Sunday schools in that building, and, in fact, it seems perfectly clear that that was one of the intentions of the founders. I do not say that the governors who are to be appointed at once or who are likely to be appointed, are opposed to these classes, but everybody knows that undoubtedly there are religious differences in Wales and there is feeling between the church and the nonconformist bodies in Wales, and if you had hostile governors at a particular moment of heat, that introduction of the word "may" might prevent the school being used for this purpose of Church of England children receiving Sunday school teaching.
Then another point arises on the proviso that instruction should be given in Welsh. I think it is a proper thing in that district that it should be given in the Welsh language, but here is a most extraordinary thing—that the Government Department comes down to this House on the eve of introducing a Disestablishment Bill to liberate and free the Church people and to allow them to do what they like, and for the privilege of doing it they are going to take everything but 1s. 2d. or 1s 8d. in the pound—here they are in this instance tying the Church of England and the rector down as to the particular
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manner of delivering religious instruction in a particular place. Where do the principles of liberation and freedom come in in a Clause of this kind, and I do ask the House to protest with me against this attempt on the part of the Board of Education to bind the people of this district in this manner under a scheme of this kind. I admit that the original grant of this particular charity was for three purposes—instruction of Welsh, instruction of reading, and instruction of arithmetic. Why should the Welsh language part of this scheme be devoted to religious instruction alone? Why should it not be introduced in regard to the teaching of arithmetic and reading? I point out this matter because I understand that there is a Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Board of Education, dealing with the question of charitable schemes in regard to endowed schools, and it seems to me that at such a moment careful consideration should be given to questions of this sort. Schemes of this kind are properly laid upon the table of this House. It is the only means that people have of having possible grievances redressed and ventilating their views before such schemes become enforceable by law, and I think it is most important that the Board of Education should realise that in regard to schemes like this criticism must be expected, and that criticism is the right of this House. I do not propose to traverse any more ground, but I will say, in conclusion, that I think, in the case of the Towyn church school and similar matters throughout Wales, the Board of Education have acted in such a way as to promote sectarian feeling, and if they continue such a policy, then I say we shall not have educational freedom in Wales, and it will be a cause of trouble and distress to the community as a whole. I shall regret it, as it is a matter of profound regret that in a Christian country this sort of thing should go on under the authority and the shadow of a public department.
Mr. MORRELL: I wish to draw attention to a matter which is of great importance, not merely to rural districts but to the whole of the country, the present administration of the Small Holdings Act and especially the action of the Board of Agriculture. It is not too much to say that this Act, on its passing, brought a new ray of hope to many of the rural districts. I think even those of us who had most earnestly desired the passing of the Act

721
were astonished at the response which it got from men who had been waiting for twenty years in the hope of getting upon the land from which they had so long been shut out. We saw from all sides of the country men coming forward at considerable risk to themselves, risk of loss of home, loss of employment, facing unpopularity and ridicule in order to make their application for land. Within a few weeks of the passing of the Act no fewer than 23,000 men had sent in applications. After sometimes harsh and always severe examination on the part of county councils, over 12,000 were approved as suitable men for the land which they desired. To-day these figures have been increased to 30,000 applicants and 15,000 approved as suitable. There is no doubt, I believe, in the mind of anyone who has studied the subject, as I have tried to do that, if the Act had been worked, as it might have been worked, these figures even now would be very much larger than they are. It is only a part of the demand for land in this country. It represents a few of the people who have been waiting for the opportunity which this Act professes to give them. Not only is the demand remarkable in quantity, but by the admission of everyone it is very remarkable in the quality of the men who come forward. Even the Commissioners themselves report how these men are industrious, sober, excellent men, many of whom have saved up capital, thoroughly well fitted to become successful small holders. That was the position three years ago when the Act was passed. What is the position to-day? Everyone will agree that where there was hope there is now dissatisfaction and discontent. In some parts of the country, no doubt, the Act has worked well, but in most places it has led to disappointment, disillusionment, and dismay. Everywhere men have been forced to give up their homes, they have drifted into the towns, they have gone out to Canada and given up their applications. I think one of the most unfortunate aspects is the way in which these applications, made three years ago, are already beginning to be withdrawn. All kinds of pressure, we know perfectly well, is being brought to bear by farmers and others to induce these men to give up their hope of a small holding. They are already in many cases giving up and retiring in despair.
What made these men come forward as they did three years ago? It was not the idea that they would be left to the tender mercies of the county councils. There is
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no resentment on the part of any of the applicants whom I have met with against the action of the county councils, for the simple reason that they never for a moment expected or believed that the county councils were going out of their way to grant them small holdings. On the contrary I believe in many cases there is considerable surprise at the way in which the county councils have administered the Act which they never asked for, and have undertaken duties which were very often distasteful to them.
What induced the applicants to come forward was that for the first time under this Act, powers were given for the acquisition of land to a central authority. For the first time you had small holdings commissioners established with large powers given to the Board of Agriculture to see to the administration of the Small Holdings Act. Not only that, but Lord Carrington established, and very rightly, a reputation for the interest he had taken in small holdings. These men looked to Lord Carrington and the Board of Agriculture to see them through the endeavours they were making to get on to the land. These men now feel—many of them I know well—that their trust has been misplaced. They believe, and I will show with good reason, that the Board of Agriculture have not fulfilled the hopes to which the Act naturally gave rise. What are the powers of the Board under the Act? The achievements of the Board have been so modest that I believe people do not always realise what the wide, drastic, and extensive powers of the Board really are. Under the Small Holdings Act it is within the scope of the Board not merely to ascertain the demand for land in all the counties—that is a duty they are paid to do, and it is one which, I regret to say, they very imperfectly fulfil in many cases—but, having ascertained the demand they have it in their power to frame schemes for the satisfaction of that demand, to send down those schemes to the county council concerned, and then if within six months the county council fail to carry out the scheme forwarded to them, the Board themselves have power to step in and exercise compulsory powers for the purchase of land to carry out the scheme, to let the land to the applicants, and to see that the demand is satisfied. Not only so, but the Board, under Clause 20 of the Act, have powers acting directly without the intervention of the county council, to go down to any part of the country—though in this case they

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may not buy compulsorily—and purchase land by agreement and let it off for small Holdings, divide it up, adapt it, build houses, and when they have let it off as small holdings to establish credit banks, and generally establish a colony of small holders. It is not too much to say that under these powers it would have been possible for the Board, if the Act had been administered by men who really meant to establish small holdings on a large scale in this country, almost to change the face of rural England. What have they done in that direction? Out of 30,000 applications which they have received there are now 6,000 applicants who are in process of getting land. It is not true to say that 6,000 have been placed on the land, but that number of applicants are included or about to be included in some scheme. Out of 15,000 who have been approved there are 9,000, after a delay of three years, without any prospect of getting the land for which they have applied. Not only so, but I would have the House to notice how these applications are grouped among the counties. It is perfectly true that in some counties the Act, not through the action of the Board of Agriculture, has been enforced in a very satisfactory way. In the two counties of Norfolk and Cambridge no fewer than 1,200 applicants have already been placed on the land. In the eight other counties which come next in order 2,900 have been placed on the land, so that ten counties out of the sixty-three are responsible for two-thirds of the success of this Act. The remaining 2,000 successful applicants are divided among the other fifty-three counties. I will give a few figures of some of the worst counties. In Dorset, out of 382 applicants, 196 have been approved of and forty-four have been placed on the land. In Derby, out of 178 applicants, 112 have been approved of and eight have been placed on the land. In South Peterborough, out of 119 applicants fourteen are being provided for. In East Sussex, out of 208 applicants, nineteen have been provided for. In West Sussex, out of 146 applicants five have been provided for. In Westmoreland, eight have been provided for. In the North Hiding of Yorkshire, out of 299 applicants 146 have been approved of and seven have been placed on the land. You may take county after county like that, and you find not merely a vast majority of applicants still unsatisfied, but practically hardly any attempt made in many cases to carry out this Act. What has the Board
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of Agriculture done? In spite of all the appeals that have been made time after time and year after year by myself and others, there are only two solitary cases in which the Board of Agriculture has attempted to put into force what are called the default powers given in this Act. It is not a question of coercing the county councils, as has sometimes been said. It is simply a question whether the Board of Agriculture should carry out the powers which the local authority does not carry out. Only in two cases have the Board attempted to do that. In the case of South Peterborough and in the case of Bournemouth schemes have actually been begun under this clause. With regard to their other powers, the powers of acting directly and establishing what are called experimental holdings, under which the Board of Agriculture might almost, as I have said, transform rural England, no attempt whatever has been made to take action. The Board of Agriculture in reply to a question put to them to-day, said they have no intention of putting these clauses into force. All the time spent in Committee in passing these clauses, all the hopes that were then raised, are now set aside as if this House had had no intention whatever in the matter. That seems to me a serious state of things. I believe it is one which is bringing enormous discredit upon the Government in rural England. I have heard of many cases in which the Board of Agriculture have delayed schemes brought forward by the most advanced county councils. They have delayed, criticised, and discouraged them. Surrey has not a county council apt to be too advanced, and only the other day I heard that the Board had declined to allow that body to build houses required in rural districts for small holdings which were being established. I have never heard of the Board of Agriculture doing anything to advance the establishment of small holdings by encouraging a backward county council. Time after time appeals have been made to the Board by some individual who felt that he had been badly used by the county council, and all the Department did was to write perfunctory letters, and in no case have I heard of the Board doing anything to remedy an injustice alleged. There are not merely the 9,000 who have been disappointed, but there are individual cases, which I am always reluctant to bring forward—cases of men who have been driven out of their homes and

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lost their employment in consequence of this Act.
I have here a case which occurred in 1908, in what was then my own Constituency, near Oxford. It was the case of a poor man named George Jones, a carrier in a small village, about nine miles from Oxford. He applied for twenty acres of land. There is in the neighbourhood a big farm occupied by one farmer. The agent of the county council went to the farmer and asked for the twenty acres of land. The farmer went to the landlord, in one of whose houses Jones was living. The farmer said to the landlord that he wished to have the house occupied by Jones transferred to his farm, and the landlord agreed. The farmer then went to George Jones, and told him he must give up his claim to the twenty acres of land, or he would turn him out of his house. The farmer not only did so, but he boasted of it. The Conservative newspaper pointed out what had been done to this man. In 1908 I asked a question to bring out the facts, and the answer I got from the President of the Board of Agriculture was that inquiry had been made into the case, and he found that the facts were substantially as stated in the question. There was never any doubt that the man was threatened and that he was finally evicted for no other reasons than that he had applied for the land. What did the Board of Agriculture do? They ordered the land to be inspected, and, finally, they picked out the worst piece of land in the village in substitution for the other. Jones was rightly unwilling to take it, and nothing more has been done. Jones has lost his home in consequence of his application under the Act. He lost his home and very nearly lost his business except for the fact that fortunately he had saved money and he was able to get another cottage which was then vacant. I will take two more cases. One of them is a case to which attention has been drawn in this House this year. It occurred in Wiltshire in a case in which the parish council put in force the provisions of the Act. The parish council had been captured by the Progressives, and I there were something like five working men and four farmers. They applied for ten acres of land, and because they could not get it by agreement they asked for compulsory powers. The Board of Agriculture sent down an Inspector. There was great excitement in the village, where people were very unwilling that this land should be
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taken by the parish council. Objection was got up, headed by the parson of the parish, against the proposal. The inquiry was held, and the Inspector, no doubt on perfectly good grounds, decided that the land was unsuitable, and the request was refused. Within a few months after that the four men who had been particularly concerned with the inquiry received notice to quit. The chairman of the council and the vice-chairman and a man named Joseph Chamberlain, a man of very high reputation, and a man named Henry Williams got those notices. Williams was a first-class Army Reservist who had served his country in the South African War. In the case of the first three no reason was given for the notices which they received. I believe afterwards it was alleged that their cottages were required for other purposes. In the case of Williams, I think the hon. Baronet said the reason was that Williams had taken part in the inquiry, which was thought not desirable by Mr. Snook, Henry William's landlord. I have a question which was put by the hon. Baronet on the subject, and I think the reason was that Mr. Snook objected to Henry Williams's conduct at two meetings, one of them being the inquiry. Three of those four men were turned out of the village because they could not get any other cottages. The fourth man, Williams, is still in the village. In his case the landlord admits that his conduct at the inquiry was partly the reason for which he was turned out of his cottage. I think I am also right in saying that all through the village and the district it is believed, though denied by the landlord, that these ejections took place entirely in consequence of the attempt made by the parish council to get land under the Small Holdings Act. That, at any rate, is my information. What have the Board of Agriculture done in the matter? The matter was brought before them first of all by Mr. Williams, who in July wrote them a letter, to which they sent back a perfunctory answer, saying that they had no power to intervene. The matter was brought before them again by Mr. Massie, who was then Member for that part of Wiltshire. Again they said they would send and inquire, but nothing further was done. For a whole year the matter was allowed to sleep altogether. It was then raised again by my hon. Friends and myself, and further inquiries were made; but they could not get the land required.

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I will give one more case, that of Mr. James Gardiner, of Carnforth, in Lancashire. In that ease an inquiry was held last August. As a result of the inquiry-application was made for six acres of land. The Small Holdings Commissioner went to the man's landlord, who happened to own what the commissioner thought was suitable land, and asked for the six acres. The man had held his cottage for twenty years, and no sort of reason was ever given for the notice to quit which he then received. At an interview which the man had with the agents of the landlord, his wife says that he pleaded with them, told them all his difficulties, and asked if there was anything he could do to obtain relief. He was told that the only thing he could do was to write a letter saying that he would take no land from these people, and that then the agents would try to get back the house. In that case, as in other cases, since the question has been brought forward the landlord has denied that he turned out the man in consequence of his application, but he has never given any other reason for the notice to quit. He has never suggested that the man did not pay his rent. He has never alleged that the man was in any way a bad tenant. From the inquiries I have made—and I have endeavoured to be fair in the matter—I am convinced that the only reason why that man was turned out and left homeless, as he is now, his business threatened and probably ruined, is that he applied for land under the Small Holdings Act. I do not want to say that the Board of Agriculture are directly responsible in these matters. They are not. But I do say they might have done more than they have done to stop this sort of thing going on. If they had carried out the Act with a little more energy and in a more drastic manner than they have hitherto done I believe these cases would never have been heard of. There is no doubt of the disinterested zeal of the President of the Board of Agriculture. All we wish is that he would put more zeal into his subordinates at the Board. There is only one way of getting the Small Holdings Act made a reality. That is by altering the methods of administration of the Board of Agriculture. We have been often told that this is going to be an expensive matter; that the Board cannot afford to spend any more money in appointing Special Commissioners, The Board of Agriculture are able to find plenty of
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money when they want to improve the breed of light horses. I wish they would do something to improve our countryside and the breed of our manhood there. I believe there are tremendous possibilities in this Act. The effect of the Act has increased public opinion enormously in favour of small holdings. We have magnificent material to work upon. We want to see an altogether fresh spirit put into the administration of this Act.
Sir HARRY VERNEY: I desire to ask the House for that indulgence which I know the Members always give to a new Member speaking for the first time. I am reluctant at this late hour to intervene in this Debate, yet I feel that one who represents an agricultural constituency is almost bound to intervene, because, with the possible exception of the Board of Education, there is no Department so closely concerned with our rural districts, and no Act which has ever been passed that has such possibilities for the improvement of our village life. If my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Agriculture had been endowed with the gift of prophecy, and could have told this House that in three years somthing like 6,000 applicants would have received something over 89,000 acres of land, I think hon. Members in all parts of the House would have felt that the Act was well worth passing. But those who have served on county councils know that these' things have only been done by a tremendous struggle. Many of the hon. Gentlemen who sit behind me, I think, feel that with an Act with such possibilities of good, it is a thousand pities that it is not a little bit better. I speak as one of those who has to some extent incurred the wrath of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley as sitting on the Small Holdings Committee of a county council.
I am only anxious to put before the House one or two aspects, from practical experience, of the working of the Small Holdings Act. The hostility to this Act which undoubtedly exists is to some extent on the part of landlords, but it is to a far greater extent on the part of the large tenant farmers. It is these latter that oppose the Act, and the working of it; and, incidentally, I may say the large tenant farmer is a class that is not by any means unrepresented on the ordinary county councils. The reason partly for this hostility is that the large tenant farmer is liable to be turned out of his holding—through no fault of his own, but from

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the needs of the countryside. That is bad enough if it is necessary under the working of the Act, but it is worse if in the course of his leaving one farm he should be put to a large expense; and I think the Board of Agriculture realises this difficulty. The law provides that adequate compensation should be given to the farmer who is turned out of his farm. I would venture respectfully to ask the Board whether they could not put a rather more generous interpretation upon what the law allows them to do? I could mention, from my own experience certain farmers who have been turned out of their farms, and have actually been put to expense besides the objection they have to leaving their farms. I think if we could give a more generous interpretation to the Act a large part of the hostility on the part of the large farmers would be removed.
The second difficulty that meets anyone trying to administer this Act may seem a small one to this House, but not a small one to those who know village life. It is the case where in a small village there is only one applicant for a holding. There is no machinery under the Act—there may be in theory but not in practice—by which that applicant can get land. If the land could be got by voluntary agreement it would be all right, but I think we may take it that voluntary agreement has failed, and if that is so, there is no way of putting into force the compulsory powers of the Act where there is only one applicant, because, very properly, county councils are unwilling to risk the public money of the rates upon one applicant. He may refuse to take the land, he may become bankrupt, or he may die, and the county councils refuse to risk the money of the rates upon one life. In villages very often there may be only one approved applicant; though there would be many willing to take up land once the land was forthcoming. There, possibly, I touch on what is party politics, but party politics do arise. If you take a small village you may find an instance in which the squire who is the owner of the land, the rector and the schoolmaster all belong to one political party—for example, the Independent Labour party—and supposing there should be one Conservative workman who applies for a small holding, it is undoubtedly a fact that the other Conservative workmen wait to see what will be the fate of their brave colleague before they come forward and apply for land themselves. I think that is a matter that comes before every small
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holdings committee; the one applicant does not get the land his colleagues are discouraged, and nothing but the complete reorganisation and the way the Act is administered, taking it altogether out of the hands of the county council because of that kind of thing will meet the difficulty.
There is another case to which I would specially direct the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary which has arisen—a case in my own knowledge, in which the landowner has deliberately divided up her farm into small holdings in order to evade the Act. I shall trouble the House with the facts of the case. It is the case of a lady owning a farm of 274 acres. The correspondence originally began on 31st October, 1908, and the Secretary to the Small Holdings Committee applied, as he always does, to the landowner as to whether she would meet the council in finding land. The landowner refused, and correspondence was carried on in connection with this farm for eighteen months. I may say in passing that that is about the average time the council spend. We on the Small Holdings Committee decided to resort to compulsory powers. After the county council had settled upon this the owner of the farm drew up six separate agreements of less than fifty acres, and so in this way evaded the Act. The farm was held by one tenant previously, and comprised 274 acres, but after it had been settled to obtain compulsory powers it was divided into six separate holdings. Hon. Members may argue that small holdings have been established without an Act of Parliament, but I wish to mention two facts. The first is that the six tenants who now hold that farm are the son and five daughters of the previous tenant. I am given to understand that the management of the farm is now exactly the sane, and it is in exactly the same hands as it was before the division was made into six holdings. I say that is a deliberate evasion of the Act. We on the county council have taken legal advice, and we have been advised that as far as the landowner is concerned she is perfectly within her rights in dividing up the farm in this way. We have also taken the opinion of counsel, and he has confirmed our own legal adviser.
I am not a lawyer, and it is not for me to say whether this action is legal or not, but I do ask the Board of Agriculture to take this matter seriously. If this matter is allowed to slide you, Mr. Speaker, and I could arrange to take a farm and divide

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it into lots of fifty acres, and so evade the Act at any moment. If this kind of thing is legal, then nothing remains but an Amendment of the Act to remedy it; if it is illegal, then I call upon the Board of Agriculture, without any delay to-morrow morning, irrespective of what the county council have done, to go over the head of the county council and take this matter to the courts of law and establish the law one way or the other. I beg of the Board of Agriculture to take up the matter seriously, because if it is allowed to slide we might as well stop our work on the Small Holdings Committee.
There are many more points which I might bring to the notice of the House with regard to the working of the Act, but, I look forward to the day when lengthy speeches in this House will be curtailed to, say, about thirteen minutes. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that it has been my privilege for the last three years to be in a Government office, and I know I shall not be betraying any secrets when I say that whenever a Government office is attacked the brilliant brains in the office assemble together to make up a defence. This is no attack, and so no defence is necessary. I plead with the Parliamentary Secretary to give us a little sympathy to allow a little oil to work into the machinery, so that the Act may work a little more smoothly. It must be quite clear that I am no more able to make phrases and epigrams than the labourers who sent me here, but I know there are a number of men on the countryside with the necessary capital and, what is more important still, with the necessary experience in agricultural work, who ask that this Act, which was passed for them, should be allowed to work, and work smoothly. I believe that the proper administration of this Act does tend to the betterment of the country, which, when all is said and done, is dear to every one of us on whichever side of the House we may sit.
11 P.M.
Mr. SANDERS: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down will allow me to congratulate him on the exceedingly practical and useful speech he has made. It was the practical speech of a practical man. I hope he will forgive my saying—perhaps it was noticeable—that really the only criticism he had to bring against the Board of Agriculture was due not to any fault of the Board, but to a fault of the Act of Parliament. I think that only
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illustrates, if a further illustration were necessary, the outrageous sloppiness with which Liberal Acts of Parliament are apt to be drawn up.
Sir H. VERNEY: My complaint is against the inaction of the Board of Agriculture in not carrying out the Act as it is, and not so much against the Act itself.
Mr. SANDERS: I was referring to the hon. Gentleman's illustration of the lady who divided her farm among her six children. I believe that is perfectly legal. The Board of Agriculture cannot override the Act, and the only way to have prevented that would have been to have altered the Act or to have originally drawn it up in a different way. The hon. Gentleman's speech was a very pleasant change after the lachrymose phrases of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Morrell). Although I am not one who talks a great deal about small holdings, I have done what perhaps is rather more useful; I have done my best to promote them. Ever since the Act came into operation I have been chairman of the small holdings committee of my county council, a county council which has found over 4,000 acres of land for the applicants of small holdings. I want to say, from practical experience, that no people have been more helpful in carrying out this work than the Commissioners of the Board of Agriculture, whom the hon. Gentleman has been attacking. I want to acknowledge the tact with which those gentlemen have carried out what I believe was one of the most difficult duties ever assigned to public officers.
The hon. Gentleman for Burnley stated there had been a good deal of disillusionment among the applicants for small holdings. I think that is quite true. The reason is that the hon. Gentleman and so many of his friends promised what it is quite impossible for this or any other Act of Parliament to bring to pass. When this Act was passed, and after some hon. Gentlemen opposite had been lecturing on the subject about the villages, there were men in the villages who thought they had only to pick out a particular piece of land and say, "that is the bit I want; that is where I am going to keep my cow," and they were going to have it at their own price. There is nothing in the Small Holdings Act, and there could be nothing in any Act of Parliament, that would enable such a state of things to be brought about There were people who led these labourers to believe that such a state of things could be brought about when such a state

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of things was manifestly impossible. There is nothing in the Act to say that the land which is to be supplied to any applicants shall be nearest home, but when you come to go into the question of the applicants you find that practically 80 per cent. of them—in many parishes I should say a great deal more than 80 per cent.—refuse to go more than a mile away from their own home. Of course that enormously increases the difficulty of accommodating these applicants. The attack on the Commissioners is that they have not exercised in a wholesale manner those ultimate compulsory powers which were put in their hands, and that they have not gone behind the backs of the county councils, and exercised compulsory powers, and sent in the bill to the county councils. In refraining from doing that, except in the last resort, I think the Commissioners were very well advised.
I cannot imagine anything that would have set the whole countryside by the ears more than the exercise of such powers would have done. The hon. Member who has just sat down had said that the opposition to this Act comes not only from the landowners, but from the farmers as well. My experience has been that there has been no opposition to the Act on the part of the landowners, but that there has been a good deal of misgiving and a great deal of fear on the part of the farmers that they are going to be turned out of the best part of their farms by the exercise of compulsory powers under this Act. If this fear had been allowed to be substantiated it would have made the acquisition of land for small holdings very much more difficult. I think it stands to reason if this thing is to be made a success—and I believe on both sides of the House we wish it should be so—it will be done very much more easily if we have good feeling towards the Act from all classes than if we start with ill-feeling against it, either from landowners or farmers. The Commissioners of the Board of Agriculture have taken the wiser view. They have seen that if the Act is to be carried out, if it is to be made a blessing and not a curse it must be worked with tact: it must be worked, not by riding rough shod over men, but by trying to conciliate them. It is not my business to defend the Government or Government officials. It is because I dislike to see men attacked when I know that they have been doing their best in a difficult situation that I have ventured to intervene in this Debate and to say a word on their behalf.
Captain GUEST: This is a subject which does not very often come up and I think it is the duty of Members of this House who represent agricultural Constituencies to seize every opportunity to draw the attention of the Board of Agriculture to any bad effects in connection with the working of this Act. The movement is not of modern growth. It has been realised on both sides of the House for many years that the rural population has-been dwindling, and that if something is not done we shall shortly have no agricultural population at all. The Act of 1892 was not very successful. I do not wish to draw a comparison between that and the more recent Act in any party or controversial spirit. I am here to do my utmost to make the Act more successful. But that Act, which was in operation from 1892 to 1908, was very unsuccessful, to judge by the quantity of land which was found. It was a very small amount. I think a little under a thousand acres compared with the three years of this Act with its 80,000 or 90,000 acres. There can be no doubt that the later Act is by far the better of the two. I saw it mentioned in "The Times" a few days ago, on the information of a correspondent, that this Act has reached its climax. I do not think for an instant that is true. Surely it will not be maintained that all the best men have been accommodated.
The fact that there are over 7,000 on the "waiting list" is conclusive that the statement is premature, if not exactly untrue. I consider that the real value of this Act as compared with the previous measure is contained in the one simple word "compulsion." The partners in this business are three. For success it is necessary that these three partners should be considered in their relation one towards another. The partners are the applicant, the county council, and the Board of Agriculture. The applicant, to my mind, is by far the most important, for after all the Act was only brought about to meet his needs. What sort of men are the applicants in most cases? I think you may divide them practically into three classes, two of which do not require any particular assistance from the Board of Agriculture to fight their battles; but the third does require the assistance, and sympathetic assistance, of the Board of Agriculture, or it is quite impossible for this third class to obtain land. There is the townsman, who may have broken down in the industrial competition of town life, or who for one reason or another thinks he would be

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able perhaps to do better for his family and himself, or that it would improve his health, or it may be for the two reasons combined, if he obtained a holding and led an agricultural life. He probably has acquired a small amount of capital, £200 or £300. Although at first sight it would seem as if this man was doomed to failure, it is astonishing how the business methods which he has acquired in his urban occupation stands him in good stead in dealing with a small holding.
Nowadays, with so much intensive culture of a scientific character on small holdings, a great deal of it can be learned from books, and also from papers which are published week by week, supplying information which, if he has any adaptability at all, affords the small holder every chance, more especially if he has a little money, of building up a happy home. The produce dealer is another class you would put in the category—such men as butchers, greengrocers, fruiterers, bakers, dairymen, poulterers—people who keep a shop in the town and supplement their business by cultivating a small holding within a reasonable distance. I have personal experience of cases where this has been done, and where the home has been established on the holding, and the shop merely kept as business premises. These two classes I only mention to draw the attention of the Board of Agriculture to the fact that it is not in their favour that I wish to enlist any particular sympathy or encouragement. The third class, which is really the class for whom the Act was passed, is, I suppose, the agricultural labourer. It is necessary in dealing with him to realise that he again must be divided. There is the older-fashioned agricultural labourer who will probably be quite unable to manage a modern small holding on scientific, up-to-date methods. For him the compulsory powers which the parish council may employ under the Allotments Act of obtaining five acres of land are in most cases sufficient.
The highly-skilled agricultural labourer is quite a different man. In every village community there is a certain number of men who must be considered labourers in agriculture with highly skilled qualifications. There are the farm carpenter, the thatcher, whom farmers will hunt through the country to get when the need comes, and the village blacksmith, who, when they are not employed, as they are not by any means more than a few days
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in the week, would have lots of time and could indulge successfully in a small holding of their own. It is for these men in particular that I wish to enlist the sympathy of the Board. Over and above the demand for land, I believe, deep down in their hearts is a demand for independence. In the village community they are usually fairly prominent. They take an active part in one thing or another, but whatever they do in the direction of making applications for small holdings they become marked men from that day forward. They have to brave the invidious publicity of correspondence, which in small villages is pretty well known and traced whence it comes. They have to allow it to be known amongst their friends and their enemies that they are in close touch with the county council to obtain an alteration in their present circumstances. I really think, in many cases, the delay of the Board and of the county councils in bringing to some successful issue the hopes which have been raised in their breasts is responsible for a great many withdrawals from the number of these applicants on the list to-day.
The second partner is the county council. This is the partner in the business for whom I am most sorry. To start with he was a reluctant partner. I do not think county councils ever solicited that this additional labour should be put upon their shoulders. I also think they are very overworked bodies. It is impossible for us to pay too high a tribute to the work, the whole of which is voluntary, of county councils in so many other and varied departments of administration. From the composition of the councils it will be seen that they are not the most suitable body to deal with the Act. Whether they mean it or not there is bound to be an antagonism of interest. Their composition is necessarily largely of the landowner class. It is supplemented by professional men and large farmers, but whatever else there is in the composition of the small holdings sub-committee there is no one of the applicant class concerned. Some of them have worked hard and have brought about good results, but there are a great many not actively unfriendly councils, but tacitly unfriendly.
It is the unfriendly councils who just administer the letter of the Act and ignore the spirit which brings about the failure of it in so many instances. It is very easy by dilatory attention to business, by many weeks and months passing between two successive steps in the same

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scheme to dishearten the applicant, and in many cases force him to withdraw. Not only does the unfriendly council sometimes offer land which I must call infertile—land of a third or fourth class character, while almost the very best land is necessary to make a success of this Act—but they offer it in almost inaccessible positions. There are instances which I could quote where these small holdings have no roads to them, and in some cases where there are roads so bad that they would entail double or treble the haulage power to carry produce backward and forward. Even a large farmer with a large number of horses would find difficulty in this direction, but how much more severe is this burden when thrust upon a small man who has only one horse, even if it is not the case that he has to borrow one from a friend. Distance from the railway station is also a very important matter. The county council may save their face by offering a farm——
Mr. SPEAKER: This is not the opportunity for criticising the action of the county councils in administering the Small Holdings Act. There is nothing for the county councils in the Bill we are now discussing. The hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the action of the Board of Agriculture whose salaries are contained in the money authorised under the Bill.
Captain GUEST: It was only with the object of drawing attention to these matters and offering suggestions as to the way in which the Board of Agriculture could improve the operation of the Act that I diverged slightly from the right direction and dwelt for a moment on the action of the county councils. I would leave that point at once by saying that if they demand fit and suitable men as tenants I think the tenants have a right to demand fit and suitable land for their holdings. I know a case on the border of my Constituency, which is, I think, an accurate and valuable example of some of the foregoing statements and charges. This farm consists of 780 acres. The prices are, I think, of the utmost importance, because a great deal of the value of my argument depends on them. About 19s. per acre was paid before the county council appeared on the scene, but the moment it appeared and made inquiries as to whether or not this farm would be available (it is seven or eight miles away from the nearest station), 24s. 3d. per acre was at once paid by the county council, an increase
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of 5s. 3d. on the original amount. I am not in a position to say why the county council were asked to pay more than the last tenant, but the fact remains the same. Before the small holder can come into his holding the question of how much money the county council are proposing to lay out on adaptations and repairs has to be calculated.
Mr. SPEAKER: Where does the county council come in under this Bill?
Captain GUEST: I regret that I should again have trespassed. It was not intentional in any way. I thought that the bringing of this case to the notice of the Board of Agriculture was valuable, inasmuch as it is one which is demanding the instant attention of the Board. A Commissioner has been promised to go down there, and when I was there a month ago men were imploring me to do my utmost to obtain a visit by the Commissioner. He has not yet been there. It was only with that object I mentioned the case, for without doing so I am quite unable to bring my point home against the Board of Agriculture. Of course, if it is out of order——
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is perfectly in order in that respect as long as he can connect the action or the non-action of the Board of Agriculture with any complaint he has to make. There is no money for the county council in this Bill at all. The object of his attack, the target at which he must aim, must be the hon. Baronet, who is sitting below him.
Captain GUEST: I will endeavour to direct my attention to the hon. Baronet. The case of this farm is one in which the Board of Agriculture will find themselves, I think, before the end of the story, forced to send down Commissioners to put the matter right. The sum of £3,865 was spent on adaptations and repairs, and in that sum, upon which the men had to pay interest at the rate of 6 per cent., added to their rent, was a sum of £480 for making the farmhouse suitable for a gentleman's residence. I have been to the spot and ascertained to my satisfaction that this house could be adapted at a very small cost indeed for at least two, if not three, of the small holding families. That is not the full extent of my charge. The sum of £560 was spent on the erection of a cottage to house one of these men, who, I maintain, could have been accommodated in the farm itself. This brings us up practically to what I think will be proved to

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be a waste of money of over £1,000, all of which has to be added to the rent of the small holders.
Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: In what county is this?
Captain GUEST: In the county of Dorset, Northern Division.
Sir RANDOLF BAKER: Is the hon. Member correct in saying that the small holders have to pay interest on the sums spent on buildings and repairs?
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member can ask that question when he speaks himself.
Captain GUEST: I do not resent the interruption as it enables me to emphasise the fact that the men have got to pay 6 per cent. interest on this sum of £1,000 which has been wasted in the way I have described. In addition, £365 was spent on iron railing. I maintain that that is an extravagance. The Board should look into this matter without further delay. When you think of dividing fields—separating one holding from another with iron railings at 2s. 3d. a yard you see a matter of extravagance which should be looked into at once. But there is more still that requires investigation. The occupants took over the holdings getting on now to two years ago. After being in occupation for a year at a fixed rent upon an agreement which they had all signed the county council land agent was sent round to ask them to give up the old agreements and to sign new ones at increased rents. Naturally, a good many of them, after having lived one year on the property, rather than give up the work they had put in and be disturbed signed the new agreement to stay on under these unfair conditions. But some objected to sign and some refused. It was owing to their action that, a very few days afterwards, the land agent for the county council went round to the holdings and withdrew the notices presented only a few days before. But attached to the notice for an increased payment was a notice to quit, a three months' notice. That is an illegal notice. Under the Act twelve months' notice is necessary, and taking the date these notices were received, instead of three months, June to September, the period should have been twelve months from the following September, or fifteen months. I could not possibly lose the opportunity of bringing a case of this kind to the notice of the Board of Agriculture in
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the hope that it will realise the very grave responsibility upon its shoulders, and that unless it supervises the working of this Act as in the hands of the county councils, we have very little chance of achieving the practical success which it is our object to bring about.
Not only is it necessary for the Board to-direct their attention to controlling county councils in these instances, but I think it is necessary that they should give up the process of delay and vacillation which so often marks their action. In a certain town in my Division an allotment movement has been on foot for nearly three years. There were sixty-four men, and the whole amount required was eight and three-quarter acres of land, but they have not got it yet. They obtained a majority on the council to apply for a compulsory order. It was applied for, the land was visited, and an inspection was made. The moment the compulsory order was in the air, the local landlord, who had refused before, came forward with an offer of two pieces of land other than that applied for. These pieces of land are quite unsuitable for the purposes of the men, and they were offered because of the compulsory order. A wrangle has ensued, and the committee, acting upon the advice of the Board of Agriculture, have communicated with the local estate—the Eldon estate—to see if terms could be arrived at to deal with those two pieces of land which the men did not want. The rent asked was £3. and the notice was three months instead of twelve. That brought about a deadlock between the allotment committee and the Eldon estate.
What has happened is that £2 10s. has been offered by the council and refused by the Eldon estate, and the whole thing is exactly where it was three years ago, except that not only are these sixty-four men who have waited during these three years of vacillation, disappointed and disillusioned, but a great many others who would have been ready to come forward have withdrawn themselves from the movement. I realise the difficulties of the Board of Agriculture, but at the same time I think they have some advantages, and they might make some use of them. To start with, they are impartial in all these transactions. They are removed from the locality, and do not feel the difficulties which surround residents in the midst of one of these scenes. I believe many county councils would welcome further pressure from the Board to help them out of the

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difficulty, and as regards delay I think the House will agree with me that quite enough delay has probably taken place long before the Board of Agriculture are requested to interfere or to take any step. I am glad that the proposal in regard to land banks has been foreshadowed, but I think the applicants must be protected against paying rents which would make it impossible to achieve success. The county councils have shown themselves unbusinesslike and extravagant, and the Board of Agriculture, to improve the working of this Act, should have more Commissioners, be more willing to apply compulsory orders, and to more adequately insist upon the enforcement of the Act.
Sir F. BANBURY: I only wish to answer a statement made by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Morrell). I understood him to say that in a case at South Marston a man named Williams was turned out of his cottage because he had applied for land.
Mr. MORRELL: I said because of his action in connection with this Act.
Sir F. BANBURY: Quite so; he said he was turned out because of his action in connection with this Act. Williams is a workman employed by the Great Western Railway at Swindon, and he lived in a cottage at South Marston, which is six miles from Swindon. There were three or four other men employed also in the Great Western Railway works at Swindon who lived in South Marston. Those men, in conjunction with Williams, asked the parish council to build cottages for them of a certain description and to give them something like a half or three-quarters of an acre of land with the cottage. The question of a small holding never arose and was never demanded by any of these men. The cost of the cottages would have been about £250, irrespective of land.
Mr. MORRELL: They brought an application under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act.
Sir F. BANBURY: It may have been an application under the Act, but not for a small holding. It was for a cottage to be built on land, giving almost three-quarters of an acre each.
Mr. MORRELL: Ten acres was asked for.
Sir F. BANBURY: It was not. It was an application for four or five cottages
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to be built upon, possibly five acres, leaving an acre or less of land for each cottage. The parish council were disposed to acquiesce in the request, but the inhabitants of the village were strongly against it, because they knew that a rent of five or six shillings a week would have to be paid. That might be paid by those three or four men, but it was evident if anything happened to those men that a rent of five or six shillings could not be paid by agricultural labourers who are inhabitants of the parish. I may say also that the Great Western Railway, there being nine hundred empty houses at Swindon, said that in future they would require their men to live in Swindon. Thus the majority of the inhabitants were against the proposal. That being so, the hon. Baronet (Sir E. Strachey) sent down a Commissioner to hold a local inquiry. Everybody on the other side has spoken about the fairness of the Board of Agriculture, and the Commissioner who was sent down held that the application was not justified. Williams occupied a cottage belonging to Mr. Snook. Mr. Snook was clerk to the parish council. He owned eighteen acres of land on which he lived. He was not a Duke or grasping landlord, but owner of eighteen acres of land, and he still is clerk to the parish council. He is also a Nonconformist. There had been a Tariff Reform meeting in the village about this time, and at that meeting Williams had likened the clergyman of the parish to the Devil. Mr. Snook who, although he is a Nonconformist, respected the vicar, and he was so angry at this that he had it in his mind to give notice to Williams to leave his cottage.
Then there came the Board of Agriculture inquiry, at which a Mr. Sansom was told by the Commissioner that if he repeated remarks he had made he would have to leave the room. Williams was twice stopped in his remarks by the Commissioner, and on those two facts Mr. Snook wrote a letter, a copy of which I have not here, though I have got it at home and had it here the other day, in which he said, "In consequence of your behaviour at the last two meetings held in the parish, that was the Tariff Reform meeting"—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"]—I am stating the facts, I do not want to conceal them—"the Tariff Reform meeting and the meeting of the Board of Agriculture, I give you notice to leave your cottage." That was taken up by the Radical party in Swindon, and commented upon by the "Morning

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Leader" and the "Daily News"; in fact, there was a general conception that here was a man who desired a small holding and had been turned out of his cottage by a wicked rich landlord in consequence of his political opinions. Mr. Snook considers himself to be of very enlightened opinions, and does not wish to raise the slightest objection to the opinions of his tenants. He was perfectly aware when he took the cottage that Williams was a Radical, but he rather prides himself on the fact that he lets his cottages to Radicals. There were other reasons besides his disorderly conduct at these meetings for which Williams received notice to quit. He was in arrear with his rent; he did not keep the garden in good order; Mr. Snook had laid out £6 on repairs to the cottage, and Williams did not keep it in good order. These are the facts without any varnish.
Mr. MORRELL: Can the hon. Baronet say anything about the three other evictions which took plate simultaneously?
Sir F. BANBURY: I do not know the facts about the other three people; therefore, I cannot say anything about them. They were never tenants of mine. I know the case of Mr. Snook, because he came to see me about it, thinking he had been unjustly treated. Anyone with an impartial mind must see that it is not the case that this man Williams was turned out of his cottage because he applied for land under the Small Holdings Act. The case only shows how these stories get about, and how they are exaggerated. If it had not been that I happen to own a certain amount of land in that village—I apologise for it—the true facts of the case would never have been brought before the House.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Edward Strachey): My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Morrell), who initiated this Debate, began by making a general attack on the administration of the Act by the Board of Agriculture. Although he said that no one could doubt the zeal of my Noble Friend the President, yet he proceeded to make an indiscriminate attack on the Board. My hon. Friend knows as well as anyone in the House that the President of the Board and nobody else is responsible for the success or failure of this Act. I hope, therefore, he will refrain from attacking the officials of the Board, and reserve his attacks for
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the political heads of the Department, who alone are responsible. It is very unfair to attack Civil servants, who themselves are not in any way responsible for what goes on, and I am sure that my Noble Friend, if he were able to stand at this box, would be the first to say so. My hon. Friend having made a general attack upon the administration of this Act—and, as he seems to think, of its failure—I am forced as shortly as possible to state exactly what has been the working of the Act.
I desire to point out that up to the end of last year—that is, the end of the three years in which the Act had been in force (for practical purposes only really 2½ years, because the first few months were spent in preliminary inquiries by the county councils)—up to the end of 1910 there had been offered nearly 90,000 acres of land acquired, or agreed to be acquired—for small holdings by the county councils. Out of that large number over 53,000 acres had been bought for £1,695,000, and 35,611 acres had actually been leased at a cost of over £44,000 yearly. There has been 65,923 acres let to 4,846 small holders; further—and this is a very important point—that there have been 27 co-operative societies, or small holdings associations, who have sublet 3,454 acres to 490 small holders, members of these associations. Again, there have been over 27,000 acres let by landowners direct to small holders, mainly through the instrumentality of the county councils themselves, because it has often happened that the tenant himself has said that he preferred to take the land direct from the landowner, and so save the very necessary and proper charges of the county council. There has been a further amount of land, which, although it has not been actually allotted, has been acquired by the county councils for the provision of allotments and small holdings for 1,500 applicants.
That is to say, that in three years, up to December 31st of last year, over 9,000 applicants have been provided with small holdings. Fifty-two acres in addition have been sold to seven small holders. It is rather interesting to note that out of the applications made last year by 4,000 applicants only 74 desired to purchase their holding. I think it is generally conceded that at the present time the enormous majority of applicants desire to become occupiers and not the owners of land. The reason for it is that where one man would be able to buy his holding, a

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hundred would be able to rent the land and stock it. Again, a man may die, and land bought might have to be sold at a loss. There is a question of fresh application. During the past year there were over 4,000 applications for land by individuals, and also from seven co-operative associations for a very large acreage. So that we may say that at the end of last year there were 30,886 applications for land, and 34 small holdings associations, whose total applications were for over 500,000 acres. Of these only 17,595 have provisionally been approved of, for over 226,000 acres. That shows at once what a large number of applications made are made by people not suitable, and the county councils have to spend a large amount of time winnowing the grain from the chaff.
At the present moment there are upon the books of the county councils over 8,000 applicants and seven small holding co-operative associations for whom land has not yet been acquired. There are over 9,000 applicants already provided for, showing that more men have been provided for than there are at the present moment names upon the books of the county councils not provided for, and it may very fairly be said that at least half of those have been offered land, but have refused for one reason or another. Undoubtedly there are men who think—and, to my mind, wrongly think—that the county councils should provide them with small holdings in their own particular villages, outside their own cottages. That is simply impossible. When it is a matter of getting small holdings of twenty, or thirty, or forty acres I think applicants for small holdings of that character must be prepared to go where the land can be found, and they have no right to insist that a farm of forty or fifty acres must be provided for them outside their back doors in the parish in which they live. It is impossible in many cases to do so, because the holdings in parishes are small, and there is no land to provide for new ones.
Last year thirty per cent. who were applicants were bonâ fide agricultural labourers. It is often said that applicants are tradesmen who only want accommodation land. I think it is very desirable that real agricultural labourers should become small holders. Although it is a fact that 6,000 acres less were acquired last year than in 1909, that, no doubt, is due to the increasing difficulty of getting land by agreement, and although the county councils have not shrunk, in the great
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majority of cases, from putting the compulsory clauses into operation, I must point out that putting the compulsory powers into force requires a much longer time than taking land by agreement, and therefore when it is necessary to take the land compulsory the amount of land acquired is less. There is a good deal of land now coming into the market, and if the county councils will, as I hope they will, take the opportunty of buying that land at reasonable prices a larger amount of land will be acquired for small holdings in the future. I heard attacks made upon the Board on the ground that the rents are too high. The question of rent is governed entirely upon the principle, and the right principle, that the rent must be such as to prevent any loss to the county councils. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Harcourt) introduced the Bill be stated the rent for the holding must not be a charity rent, but a rent such as would indemnify the county councils and ensure them against loss.
As regards the question of purchase, what are the charges? There is the charge for the repayment of the loan of purchase money. Many of my hon. Friends object to the payment of the loan of purchase money. There is a great deal to be said on both sides. It is optional for the county councils to decide whether the sinking fund should be repayable by the county council or the small holder. I would say to my hon. Friends who sit upon county councils like the hon. Member for South Bucks (Sir H. Verney) that their duty is to bring this matter before the county council and persuade them not to charge any sinking fund. The sinking fund is spread over eighty years, and where the land is purchased at £33 per acre the sinking fund is not more than 1s. 6d. per acre, which is not, after all, a very heavy burden. As regards other charges, in ordinary cases it amounts to 20 per cent., made up as follows: management, 5 per cent.; repairs, 10 per cent.; contingencies, 2½ per cent.; and insurance, 2½ per cent. Many hon. Members in this House who are either fortunate or unfortunate enough to own land will agree with me when I say that management at 5 per cent. and repairs at 10 per cent. cannot be considered excessive.
I wish I was lucky enough to be able to carry on my own estate repairs at 10 per cent. Where there are no buildings, 7 per cent. to 10 per cent. is charged by

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the county councils to include contingencies as well as management. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley has referred to the question of compulsory orders. There is a wrong impression in the House that county councils have shrunk from putting compulsory orders into force. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that in the county of Norfolk compulsory orders have been made in 48 cases of hiring and 7 purchase; in Devon, 34 hiring and 6 purchase; Carmarthen, 30 hiring; and Monmouth, 2 hiring and 10 purchase. The only counties where no compulsory orders have been issued are Chester, Derby, Isle of Ely, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lincolnshire, Rutland, West Suffolk, Westmoreland, North Riding of Yorkshire, Anglesey, Montgomery and Radnorshire; that is 15 out of 63.
Mr. SANDERS: Is Somerset included in that list?
12.0 M.
Sir E. STRACHEY: I think the hon. Member is right. In the case of Somerset, like Chester, they have been able to acquire a large amount of land without compulsory orders. It will be seen that a large majority of the counties have not shrunk from putting compulsory orders into force. I think, therefore, we may say that it is not unsatisfactory that in three years nearly 10,000 persons have been placed on the land as small holders. When hon. Members complain of the large number who have failed to get land, it should be remembered that it is largely owing to the fact that they have been unsuitable in the sense that they have not been able to satisfy the county council that they had sufficient capital or experience or able to pay sufficient rent or else they have not been willing to take any land, except the particular piece of land picked out by themselves. It has been found impossible in some places to obtain land from the sitting tenant if no injustice was done. There has been great difficulty in finding land in some counties where small farms are the rule there. I hope the House will agree that, speaking generally, the President of the Board of Agriculture has done his very utmost to make this Act a success. I was glad to hear every hon. Member who has spoken pay a tribute to the zeal and enthusiasm for the successful working of this Act shown by the President. I can assure the House he is only too anxious to press this Act on in every possible way. Whatever blame or
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praise there is for the working of the Act must rest on the shoulders of the President of the Board of Agriculture and nobody else.
The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Morrell) has referred to the case of Mr. Jones, of South Oxfordshire, who was evicted by a farmer, Mr. Allnut, because he applied for a field of sixteen acres on his farm. The Board inquired into this case and they found the farmer was quite ready to give up the whole or part of an adjoining field of twenty-seven acres. Mr. Jones refused to take this or any part of it, because, he said, it was in a very dirty condition. The Commissioner who went down and inspected the fields said there was nothing to choose between them in their state of cultivation, and he thought they were in an equally dirty condition. He advised Jones that he ought to be ready to accept the whole or a portion of the field of twenty-seven acres at a rent of 23s. per acre, and pointed out that if he was willing to do that, he could at once have possession of any amount of the twenty-seven acres, whereas if it was necessary to take compulsory steps, he would not get any land for at least a year. Mr. Jones, in his discretion, refused to have anything except the sixteen acres. The Board did not see that there was any good reason for putting pressure cither upon the council or the farmer to give up the sixteen acres instead of part of the twenty-seven acres, because they were adjoining fields of exactly the same quality of land and of exactly the same state of cultivation. My hon. Friend raised another case—that of the landlord, Mr. Snook, who gave notice to Mr. Williams. I dealt very fully with that case at Question time. It is greatly to be deprecated that Mr. Snook did give notice to his tenant on account of political considerations. I further said the Board would—and they did—inquire as to the possibility of securing land for Mr. Williams in that district, but he informed the inspector that he would be unable to pay a rent required to insure the parish council against loss. The Board, therefore, was not able to do anything in the matter.
As regards the case of Mr. Gardiner, to which attention has also been drawn by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Morrell), that also has been inquired into by the Commissioner for the district. Mr. Gardiner spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Gillow, and said he had always been a good landlord to him, and when he was

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in arrears with his rent Mrs. Gillow actually paid it for him. I should like to say Mr. Gillow denies that he gave notice to Mr. Gardiner on account of his having made application for a small holding. Here, again, although this was a case in which the Board was anxious to provide a house with five or six acres of land, the man admitted he would be unable to pay the rent it would be necessary to charge. The fact is that this particular district where he lives is a small watering-place near Lancaster and it would be impossible to provide a small holding with a house for less than 7s. 6d. a week, and Gardiner only could pay 2s. 6d.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Dorset (Captain Guest) referred to the case of the Swanage allotments. The facts are, the urban district council obtained a compulsory order for the hiring of the land in 1909, but it was dropped, and in 1910 pressure was put on the council by the Board of Agriculture to take action. The council thereupon made two compulsory orders for hiring land. An inquiry followed last December, and the owner's solicitor offered other land which the Commissioner considered more suitable than that scheduled. It is now hoped that that land will be acquired before next Lady Day, and this will avoid the delay which would ensue if proceedings went on under the compulsory orders. I can assure my hon. Friend, if he is not satisfied with the explanations I have given, I shall be only too happy to go further into the matter with him. With regard to the case at Winterbourne there has been a good deal of difficulty and a heavy expenditure on equipment, and, of course, the county council has to make an extra charge for that. I cannot help thinking that in this case there have been faults on both sides, and some miscarriage on the part of the county council. The latter body complained that some of the small holders were in arrear with their rents. If the answers I have given to my hon. Friend in connection with these cases do not give them satisfaction, I can assure them if there is any desire for further consideration of any of these matters I shall be happy to give it to it.
Sir RANDOLF BAKER: I do not want to carry on this Debate late, but the hon. and gallant Member for East Dorset (Captain Guest) has made an attack by implication upon the action of the County Council of Dorset and its small holdings sub-committee, of which
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I was for a time chairman, and of which I happen to be a member. I think the hon. Member might have let me know that he was going to raise this question in order that somebody might answer the statement which he has made. Of course, I know it is quite impossible to defend the county council upon this occasion, because you, Sir, have already ruled that the action of the county council is not what is really under discussion, but I should just like to say that the Board of Agriculture's Inspector, the benefit of whose advice we had through the whole of this matter, came and went personally once, if not twice, round the farm, and agreed that we were right in doing what we did. I should like to explain why, First of all in regard to the suitability of the land he agreed with me that it was the most suitable good land near to the best markets which we have in our county. In our county there is a certain sandy strip of land which runs along the sea coast and goes near the edge of the good soil. The land in question, in regard to these small holdings, is one of the best parts of the land which runs right up to the edge of this strip of sandy soil. It was for that reason that the inspector thought we should take the farm. Now as to the rent the hon. Member took the figure at the rate which the farmer paid for the farm as a whole and he stated that the total difference was between that and the rent asked. But he entirely forgot the charges which had to be put on in addition to the rent of the land for equipment, management charges, charges for maintenance, and various other things. I venture to point out respectfully to the House that in that respect the Board of Agriculture are not really the body who are most to blame.
Captain GUEST: I said the original rent was 18s. The council paid 24s. to the landlord, and they are charging 37s. for this edge of the sandy soil.
Sir RANDOLF BAKER: But this is good land on one of the best farms in Dorset, and not on sandy soil, as any farmer who knows the county well would be willing to tell the hon. Member. Not knowing that the subject would be raised, I have not here to-night the actual figures, but I could give them perfectly easily to the hon. Member. I do not think he is quite correct in stating what the rent previously paid was, and the rate of rent which he has stated as being paid for some of the land is paid for the whole. But the

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price fixed to the small holder absolutely depends upon the period allowed for the repayment of loans. The Board of Agriculture have not had the fixing of that—that is done by the Local Government Board—and in many cases the cause of the rents being high is owing to the fact that the Local Government Board have fixed an extremely short period for the repayment of these loans. I called the attention of the President of the Local Government Board to this matter, and pointed out that the terms which have been allowed for the repayment of these loans have been ridiculously short, and forces rents up to a degree which will make it impossible for small holders to live. If you get short terms and charge a high rate of interest it is absolutely impossible for a small holder to live. The Local Government Board are responsible, and not the Board of Agriculture. There is a paper which some hon. Members are interested in called the "Land Tax," or some such name. A copy was sent to me a month or so ago, and in it I saw the statement that the Small Holdings Act had broken down altogether.
If you are going to make all these very heavy charges in addition to the rent, and in addition to that you have the fact that agriculture has been doing better and rents have been slightly rising, these men will be unable to pay them. If you give a long period for repayment of loans it will be much better if you can get the county councils to undertake the responsibility when they purchase of paying for the sinking fund themselves out of the rates and obviously the small holder is going to be much better off. But if the loans are to be repaid at very short periods and high interest, unquestionably they will not succeed. It is largely owing to the fact of heavy charges for management and interest that more has not been done. Practically all the county councils in England have been in the same difficulty about getting land, and small holders have been somewhat unreasonable. I have had man after man come to me and say, "I will have that particular piece of land and no other. I have a right to have it." I have had to point out that he had no right to have it. The Board of Agriculture has had to face these difficulties, and in my opinion they have worked one of the most difficult Acts ever put on the Statute book with a great deal of success. Their Commissioners
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have tried their hardest to carry it out well, and I think if hon. Gentlemen opposite had had rather more experience of the practical difficulties of working the Act from the point of view of the county councils and small holdings committees, they would not be so ready to attack what has been done by the committees and the Board of Agriculture.
Captain CLIVE: I believe that if hon. Members opposite spoke from experience they would very much alter their tone. The hon. Member (Mr. Morrell) has never served on a small holdings committee. It is most desirable that he should for two reasons. He would undoubtedly bring to the work a great deal of enthusiasm, which could not but be beneficial to the committee; and, secondly, he would learn something of the limitations of the Act as well as of its possibilities. One of these, which is very often forgotten, is that small holdings must be made to pay. You are not allowed under the Act to take land unless there is a reasonable probability that it can be made to pay. That in itself provides an answer to a great many of the cases that are brought up. The Parliamentary Secretary is on the whole to be congratulated on the statement he has made. A large amount of good work has been done, and this point has been reached—that practically all those applicants who were ready to go anywhere for land have now been satisfied, and those who remain—who are a large class—are deserving of our sympathy. But a much more difficult class to satisfy are those who demand land in a certain district or even a particular piece of land. I think it is rather the fashion to say that the greatest enemies are the large farmers. Among what are termed large farmers there is apparently included any man who has more than fifty acres of land.
Mr. SPEAKER: That is not included in this Bill. I must ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to deal solely with the Board of Agriculture.
Captain CLIVE: I apologise for having gone too far, but the point I was trying to make was this: hon. Members are always ready to urge the Board of Agriculture to apply their compulsory powers, or to send down a commissioner in all sorts of cases where applicants ask for particular plots of land. They apply for particular plots of land which are occupied by large farmers who are unwilling to give them up. The

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large farmers are deserving of a certain amount of sympathy, and I do not think that the compulsory powers of the Board should always be applied in those cases. The large farmers do not occupy their farms merely to earn rent to hand over to the landlord. They hope to earn something for themselves, and if you take ten acres from a farm of 200 acres it is probable that the large farmers' income will be diminished by a twentieth. I ask hon. Members whether they would think it fair to hand over a tenth or a twentieth of their business to some one in the neighbourhood who wishes to engage on a small scale in the same business as themselves. I have ventured to make these remarks in justification of the action, or, as hon. Members opposite would say, the inaction of the Board of Agriculture in not applying their compulsory powers in all those cases. The hon. Member opposite made it a matter of complaint that the Board had only taken the matter into their own hands in two cases. I think they are to be very much congratulated on having restrained themselves to that extent, and not exercised more frequently the powers which it is well known they possess.
The hon. Baronet (Sir E. Strachey) said that county councils were not compelled to charge the tenant rent to cover sinking fund as well as interest on the loan. I suppose he said that after taking the advice of the legal adviser of the Government in the matter, but certainly up to quite recently the county councils have never been under the impression that they have that power. They thought they had to cover the cost to themselves which included sinking fund. Admitting what the hon. Baronet has said is the law, and that they need not charge the tenant sinking fund, I think it still leaves the matter in a very unsatisfactory position, for the reason that the ratepayers at the present day have got to pay their sinking fund out of the rates. If they do not get it back from the tenants, they have to go without it. They have to console themselves with the thought that it will be refunded to their grandchildren in the shape of land which will be freehold property. Would it not be better to charge sinking fund to the tenants and allow them to become, as in Ireland, the owners of the land they cultivate? If you do that you get rid of all these difficulties, and there is no doubt that, as in Ireland so in England, an occupier of land will be far more active and energetic
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in working his land if he owns it and feels that he will get into his own pocket the full benefit of every ounce of energy he puts into the work. That is the Amendment of the Act which hon. Members on this side of the House propose, and when that is brought about we shall have made a great advance in the direction of having a satisfactory body of small holders in the country who own the land they cultivate.
I wish now to refer to another subject of great importance not only in my own Constituency, but m several counties round about. It has been announced that the Government propose on the Government land in the Forest of Dean to establish works for making chemical products from wood. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, in answer to a question which I put to him yesterday, stated rather bluntly that it was the intention of the Government to make a profit out of those Government works, and that the products would be sold to the best advantage at current market prices. That is a startling statement, and an astonishing innovation on any practice that at present prevails. On the one hand it is desirable that a Government Department in charge of Crown property should be allowed to make the best of the property they have to manage. There is also the fact that one of the by-products of this wood distillation is acetate of lime, out of which acetone is made, which is one of the most important articles in the manufacture of cordite. If the right hon. Gentleman can tell me that this factory in the Forest of Dean is going to go a long way towards supplying this country with the acetone which is required for the manufacture of cordite then I am wholly with him to that extent, and I think that it is a most valuable action on the part of the Government. But what I wish to join issues on is this competition with private firms who are engaged in this industry of distilling chemical products from wood. I have a letter from one of these firms which points out that this industry used to be a much more important one than it is now in this country, and in the Forest of Dean there used to be private works which have all except one come to grief owing to foreign competition. But they give a list of some nine different companies in various parts of the country who carry on these chemical works, manufacturing by-products from wood. The importance of it is this—that they one and all of them have their places right out in

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the country, a long way from any town, and in their several districts they offer the only opportunity for work at good wages.
These are some of the few survivors of what was once an important industry, and most of which has been killed by foreign competition. It would be a very serious matter if the remainder of these firms were put an end to by foreign competition, though we know that hon. Members opposite have no sympathy at all with those who suffer by State-aided opposition, such as that which exists at the present moment. Another point is that the works, which are required to carry on this industry, are liable to very rapid depreciation. The iron ovens and the copper pipes, and so on, practically have to be renewed about every ten years. It therefore becomes obvious that depreciation is a very important point in connection with this industry, and the fear is expressed that this industry may be carried on at a loss, which may be concealed, as we know it is possible to conceal a loss,
for a long time by arranging the accounts, and the taxpayer may suffer. I do not think that small private firms should be driven to extinction owing to Government action. I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House will be found ready to support private traders against the danger of State-aided competition. I hope the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, with whom I have fought two keenly contested elections, may on this occasion be found ready to co-operate with me by his voice, and, if possible, by his vote, in defending the interests of an important industry in country districts against what, I think, under the circumstances, is not fair competition from a Government Department.
MASTER of ELIBANK MASTER of ELIBANK rose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."
Question put, "That the Question be now put."
The House divided: Ayes, 133; Noes, 23.

Division No. 76.]

AYES.

[12.35 a.m.

Abraham, William (Dublin)

Hancock, John George

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Acland, Francis Dyke

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

Pointer, Joseph

Allen, A. Acland (Dumbartonshire)

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud)

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

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

Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Radford, George Heynes

Armitage, Robert

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Raffan, Peter Wilson

Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

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

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)

Higham, John Sharpe

Reddy, Michael

Beale, William Phipson

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)

Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

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

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey W. A.

Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

Bentham, George Jackson

Hudson, Walter

Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

Booth, Frederick Handel

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Robinson, Sidney

Brace, William

Hunter, William (Lanark, Govan)

Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

Brunner, John F. L.

Isaacs, Sir Rufus Daniel

Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Scanlan, Thomas

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

Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

Seely, Rt. Hon Colonel

Byles, William Pollard

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Shortt, Edward

Cawley, H. T. (Lancs, Heywood)

Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

Clough, William

King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

Smith, Albert (Lancs, Clitheroe)

Corbett, A. Cameron

Lambert, George (Devon, S. Molton)

Spicer, Sir Albert

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Crickiade)

Strachey, Sir Edward

Cowan, William Henry

Levy, Sir Maurice

Sutton, John E.

Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

Lewis, John Herbert

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

Lyell, Charles Henry

Tennant, Harold John

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

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Toulmin, George

Dawes, James Arthur

Maclean, Donald

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Verney, Sir Harry

Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Wadsworth John

Edwards, A. C. (Glamorgan, E.)

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

Walsh, S. (Lancashire, Ince)

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

M'Laren, W. S. B. (Cheshire, Crewe)

Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

Elverston, Harold

Mathias, Richard

Waring, Walter

Esmonde, Dr. J. (Tipperary, N.)

Millar, James Duncan

Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.

Esslemont, George Birnie

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Webb, Henry

Ferens, Thomas Robinson

Montagu, Hon. E. S.

White, Sir George (Norfolk)

Ffrench, Peter

Mooney, John J.

Whitley, John Henry

Furness, Stephen Wilson

Morgan, George Hay

Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

Gill, Alfred Henry

Morrell, Philip

Williamson, Sir Archibald

Goldstone, Frank

Muldoon, John

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

Greenwood, G. G. (Peterborough)

Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Wood, T. M'Kinnon (Glasgow)

Guest, Major Hon. C. H. (Pembroke)

O'Malley, William

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

Parker, James (Halifax)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Master of Elibank and Mr. Illingworth.

Gulland, John William

Pearce, Robert (Staffordsire, Leek)

Hall, Frederick (Yorks, Normanton)

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

NOES.

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Dixon, Charles Harvey (Boston)

Stanley, Major Hon. George (Preston)

Balcarres, Lord

Doughty, Sir George

Staveley-Hill, Henry

Barlow, Montague (Salford, S.)

Forster, Henry William

Stewart, Gershom

Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

Hillier, Dr. Alfred Peter

Valentia, Viscount

Bennett-Goldney, Francis

Knight, Capt. Eric Ayshford

Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

Boyle, W. Lewis (Norfolk, Mid)

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Cassel, Felix

Pryce-Jones, Col. Edward

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir Randolf Baker and Captain Clive.

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Sanders, Robert Arthur

Cooper, Richard Ashmole

Spear, John Ward

Bill read a second time, and Committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow (Friday).

ADJOURNMENT.—Resolved, "That the House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]
Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen minutes before One o'clock.