Commons Sitting of 3 April 1912

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Port of London Authority Bill (King's Consent signified),
Bill read the third time, and passed.
Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier Bill,
Read the third time, and passed.
London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill,
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday next.
Swansea Corporation Bill,
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday next.
Wirral Railway (Extension of Time) Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Read a second time, and committed.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 to 1909, relating to Ardsley, Bingley, Birstall (Amendment), Bognor, Burnham, Great Harwood, Greetland, Hoyland, Nether, Launceston, and Wimborne and District (Amendment)." Presented by Mr. ROBERTSON; supported by Mr. Sydney Buxton; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.

BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Copy presented of Report of the Advisory Committee on the distribution of Exchequer Grants to Universities and University Colleges in England [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
IRISH LAND COMMISSION (PROCEEDINGS).
Copy presented of Return of Proceedings of the Irish Land Commission during the month of February, 1912 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
CONCILIATION ACT, 1896 (TRADE DISPUTES).
Copy presented of Ninth Report by the Board of Trade of Proceedings under The Conciliaton Act, 1896, for the year, 1911 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 87.]
POLICE (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented of Fifty-fourth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland for the year ended 31st December, 1911 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.
Copy presented of Abstract of Accounts of the University of Glasgow for the year 1910–11 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 88.]
COLONIAL STOCK ACT, 1900.
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 2nd April; Mr. Masterman]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 89.]
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
Copy presented of Annual Report of Proceedings under the Salmon and Fresh-water Acts, etc., for the year, 1911 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  ROYAL NAVY.

    DIRIGIBLE AIRSHIPS.
    Mr. FELLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the present condition of the dirigible airship at Barrow; if it has been repaired and has made any flights; and if he will consider the advisability of purchasing one or more dirigibles of some tested manufacture from Germany, France, or Italy for use with the fleets?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The condition of the airship remains the

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    same as after the mishap which occurred at Barrow. The policy as to the provision of airships is under consideration.
    Mr. FELL: May I take it that the airship is practically abandoned, as it is many months ago since it was put out of condition?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot say that. It remains as it was.
    Mr. KING: How much did this useless airship cost?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of a question as to figures.
    Mr. FELLasked if the attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty has been called to the statement that Germany proposes to construct four more dirigible airships for use with the fleets; and if he now proposes to erect garages or shelters for dirigibles at some suitable place in East Anglia.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My attention has been called to the statement referred to which has appeared in the Press. The policy in regard to airships is at present under consideration.

    BERMUDA (NAVAL BASE)
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked whether, in view of the approaching completion of the Panama Canal, it is proposed to restore the dockyard and naval base at Bermuda to the establishment at which it was maintained prior to the reduction of 1904–5?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The reply is in the negative.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Does that apply also to dockyards?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes; but I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given on the 30th November last to the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford) by the First Lord of the Admiralty, in which he said we were watching all possible contingencies, although advised up to the present that there was no reason to make any change.

    NEW CONSTRUCTION.
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked whether, in view of the fact that the completion of ships has been considerably delayed by labour troubles, the Admiralty will consider the advisability of allowing a longer
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    period than two years for the construction of ships of the new programme, so that they may be certainly completed by the time anticipated?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It is not considered necessary to take any steps at present for allowing an extended period as suggested by the hon. Member.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: In view of the fact that eight very important ships have been considerably delayed quite recently, cannot the right hon. Gentleman make some promise either that the completion of the ships shall be accelerated so that the two years' limit shall be kept, or else that they can be laid down earlier?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not know whether that is a correct statement. I cannot see what good purpose would be served by altering the period between laying down and completion.

    Persia (Payment of Claims).
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, if he will make it a condition in the agreement for the next loan to Persia that the payment of the claims of the British and Indian merchants, amounting now to over £75,000, shall rank with the claim for compensation for the attack on Mr. Smart, the British Consul, and his escort as a first charge on that loan.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): The case of Mr. Smart is most exceptional, the attack having been made on one of His Majesty's Consular Officers proceeding to his post. The Persian Government at once recognised the gravity of the matter and have agreed to settle it as soon as any adequate funds are in hand. As regards other British and Indian claims I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer returned to his question on the 29th February, to which I have nothing to add. I cannot say whether the payment of commercial claims will be one of the objects of the next loan. The first object of any loan must be the restoration of order.

    Cost of Living (Inquiry).
    Mr. FELLasked if the Foreign Secretary has received through the Ambassador at Washington any report or papers referring to an inquiry and Report said to have been made by the Senate of the United States attributing the rise in recent

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    years in the cost of food and the necessaries of life to the greatly increased production of gold and the depreciation in the value of gold; and if such Papers can be presented to the House?
    Sir E. GREY: My attention has been called to a telegram which has appeared in the Press stating that the President of the United States has sent a message to Congress transmitting the first instalment of the information gathered by the Consular Service as to the cost of living. I have not so far received anything from His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington, but have already instructed him to procure a copy of the message if possible.
    Mr. FELL: May I ask whether that is all the right hon. Gentleman has done; and whether there were not, about a year or eight months ago, statements in the Press that a report had been issued by the Senate at Washington. Will the right hon. Gentleman also make inquiry as to that?
    Sir E. GREY: I will look into that, but we have had no official communication on the subject direct.

    Colonial Civil Service.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he is aware that Dr. Lim Boon Keng is a British subject born in the Straits Settlements; that he obtained one of the Queen's scholarships, which took him to Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities, where he graduated; that he sat for some years in the Legislative Council of the Colony; that he was the representative of the Chinese Government at the International Hygiene Conference at Dresden; whether the success of Dr. Lim Boon Keng, together with that of Sir Ho Kai, of Hong Kong, are sufficient evidence of the ability of Chinese to pass examinations, on being satisfied of which he is prepared to admit them to examination for the civil and police forces of these Colonies; and, if these instances are not sufficient, will he state how many instances, or what other kind of evidence, is necessary to satisfy him that British-born Chinese have some chance of passing the competitive examination for the Eastern Cadet service.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): The answer to the first three parts of the question is in the affirmative. As to the fourth I have no informatoin. I do not see that the
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    career of Dr. Lim Boon Keng has any more bearing on the question of the examination for Eastern Cadetships than that of Sir Ho Kai. Isolated cases of distinguished careers do not show that an appreciable number of British-born Chinese have reached the necessary standard for the purpose and have expressed a desire to compete for this examination.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Will the cases be any longer isolated if I give the right hon. Gentleman those of Wu Sien Teh, Sze Tui Chan, Song Ong Siang and will he consider them?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I shall be happy to receive any information my hon. Friend is ready to send to me.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that Mr. G. G. Seth, Deputy Public Prosecutor in the Straits Settlements, is of Armenian descent; whether he is aware that Mr. Basil Joaquim, who is of Armenian descent, being a son of the late Mr. John P. Joaquim, barrister-of-law, of Klumpur and Singapore, has passed his final examination in law and proposes to study for the Indian Civil Service, from which he is not excluded by his race; and and whether, in view of these facts and in order to remove uncertainty, he will now state whether, for the purposes of the new Regulation excluding non-Europeans from the Civil and Police Services of the Straits Settlements and other Colonies, an Armenian is to be considered of pure European descent?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The answer to the first part of the question is, I believe, in the affirmative. Mr. Seth was appointed when there was no restriction. As to the second part of the question, I have no information. I see no reason for giving a ruling until the necessity arises.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Does not the fact that there are already Armenians in the service and that there are Armenians born in the Colony who are preparing to sit at the same examination indicate that the necessity has already arisen for defining his Regulation and stating whether it is intended to exclude Armenians or not?
    Mr. HARCOURT: No, I do not think it does.
    Mr. AMERY: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is no such place in the Malay States as Klumpur?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, I was, but I did not think it my business to inform the House.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the Director of Education for the Straits Settlements, in his Report for 1908, stated that the Queen's scholarships gave the first start to all higher work, that they were the chief inducement to boys to remain at school after passing Standard VII., and that the best local teachers have been boys who have competed for and just failed to get a scholarship; whether he is aware that since the abolition of the scholarships the numbers of scholars who leave school immediately after passing Standard VII. has largely increased; whether he will state who are the educational authorities in the Colony who were in favour of the abolition of the scholarships; and whether the abolition of the scholarships is part of the policy now adopted by the Colonial Office of excluding natives of the Colony from the service of the Crown.
    Mr. HARCOURT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The answer to the second part is also in the affirmative, but the Director of Education is of opinion that the increase is largely due to the ease with which boys with a slight knowledge of English can obtain employment, especially since the development of the rubber industry. The educational authorities referred to were the principals of all the leading schools in the Colony with one exception. The last part of the question misrepresents the policy of the Colonial Office. The exclusion of non-Europeans from the Cadet Service and superior Police appointments is a very different thing from excluding them from the Public Service.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that it will create a very bad impression in the Colony that he should pass a regulation excluding all non-Europeans from the Civil Service, that then he should offer to admit Chinese and Malays provided he is satisfied they have a chance of passing examination, and that then he should abolish the facilities which have existed for generations for training for that examination? Does he not think that that savours of sharp practice?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am not prepared to accuse myself of sharp practice.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    PREPARATION OF SCHEMES.
    Mr. CAUTLEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can see his way to direct or advise the Insurance Commissioners to advance some funds to small friendly societies, either out of the public funds or the future contributions payable under the Act, in respect of their members in order to enable such societies to pay the expenses necessarily incurred in employing actuaries to prepare the schemes rendered obligatory under Section 72 of the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The object of a preparation of a scheme under Section 72 is to protect the interest of existing members of societies as such, and it would therefore be inequitable to impose a charge on the members insured under the Act generally in respect of the cost of such scheme. There is no power under the Act to make payments for the purpose suggested or to allow funds under the Act to be employed temporarily for this purpose.
    Mr. CAUTLEY: Can the hon. Gentleman say where the payment is to come from?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I presume out of the funds standing to the credit of the old members of the society. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would give notice of a further question.
    Mr. CAUTLEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can see his way to direct or advise the Insurance Commissioners to draft a novel skeleton scheme for the use of small societies who are proposing to become approved societies and to form associations under Section 39 of the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The Insurance Commissioners will consider the suggestion of the hon. Member. Small societies do not require to associate under Section 39 before they become approved societies. They can apply for approval at once, and will be able to choose the other small societies with which they desire to associate after approval at any time before the first valuation. The association is only for the purpose of partially pooling surpluses and deficiencies occurring in their business under the Act,

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    and does not involve any form of amalgamation. It will therefore be very simple in character.
    Mr. PETO: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware it is absolutely essential that some definite lead should be given by the Insurance Commissioners. Although this matter may appear very simple, it is not simple to the secretaries of these small loan societies.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: Yes, the Commissioners have the matter in mind and as I have stated will consider the suggestion of the hon. Member.
    Mr. BOOTH: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that several associations have sent out circulars to the local societies offering their help?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: No, Sir, I am not aware of that.

    UNREGISTERED FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.
    Mr. CAUTLEYasked what steps should, in the opinion of the Insurance Commissioners, be taken by unregistered friendly societies, prior to their becoming approved societies, to prevent their existing funds being divided up and dissipated, in view of the fact that Section 72 of the National Insurance Act does not apply to such societies.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The fact that Section 72 does not compel unregistered societies to submit schemes to the Chief Registrar, does not mean that it is desirable, still less that it is necesary, for them to divide up their existing funds. Unregistered societies will be able to use their existing funds to give their members benefits additional to those of the Act, and will in any case require to use them to make provision for their members during the waiting periods laid down in the Act.
    Mr. CAUTLEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he will direct or advise the Insurance Commissioners to issue a circular to the effect that if any society in an association of small friendly societies, formed under Section 39 of the National Insurance Act, has a surplus on the prescribed valuation, only one-third of the surplus earned in respect of its State section, namely, the section doing the insurance under the Act, is liable to make good deficits of other societies of the association, and that any surplus earned in respect of its own section, namely, the section doing its own business as distinct
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    from the insurance under the Act, will be under the absolute control of the society, and that under no circumstances will the existing funds of small societies, when associated, be liable to make good deficits of other societies; and whether there could be included in such circular a statement to the effect that it is only the State sections of small societies, and not the societies themselves, which are associated under Section 39 of the Act.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The Commission are issuing free literature in which the effect of the Act is clearly set forth. Meanwhile it cannot be too clearly stated that the existing funds of a society, whether large or small, remain what they were before, namely, the absolute property of the society and its members, and the operation of the Act cannot divert them or any part of them; and that any surplus earned by a society from its operations outside the Act will also remain the property of the society, and no part of it can be diverted to make good the deficits of other societies.
    Mr. PETO: In view of the fact that the hon. Member says that the funds of the society are exclusively the property of the existing or old members, does he not think it would be unfair to charge on those funds any cost or part of the cost of the preliminary expenses of those societies becoming approved societies and entering into competition with members?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I think the question of how the expense of becoming approved societies should be met, is being considered by the Commissioners in the light of what the hon. Member says on the question.

    PRELIMINARY EXPENSES.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the Health Insurance Commissioners proposed to authorise approved societies under the National Insurance Act to apply any and, if so, what part of their moneys arising under the Act retrospectively in the formation of societies or of county or other associations of societies or otherwise in defraying preliminary expenses.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I hope that it may be found possible to allow societies approved under the National Insurance Act to defray expenses incurred before approval has been obtained in the necessary work of bringing them into existence

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    and obtaining approval. The question is now under the consideration of the Commissioners, who hope to be able to make an announcement very shortly.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Does the same answer apply to county and other associations?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I should not like to answer that without notice.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is in the question.

    Sale of Agricultural Estates.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture, which of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on the position of tenants on the sale of agricultural estates he proposes to incorporate in a Parliamentary Bill; and when he proposes to introduce such legislation.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): I cannot add anything to the answer I gave on this subject to the Noble Lord the Member for the Newton Division of Lancashire on the 28th March.

    King Edward VII. Memorial.
    Mr. MORTONasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether the open space in front of the Royal Mint has been considered as a site for the King Edward VII. Memorial?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: Yes, Sir. I understand from the Chairman of the Memorial Committee that it was considered.

    Patent Medicines.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will now state the names of the Select Committee on Patent Medicines and the terms of the reference to them.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): I understand that the names of the members of the Select Committee and the terms of reference will be placed on the Paper shortly after Easter.
    Mr. LYNCH: Will the right hon. Gentleman take a note that the main thing is to have a Committee that will elucidate the whole question?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir.

    Welsh Disestablishment Bill.
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that certain lands, being part of 1,395 acres enclosed in 1825 in the parish of Llaniestyn, Carnarvonshire, were in the Bishop of Bangor's manor of Edern; and whether, under the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, the public rights over these lands will be restored or whether compensation in respect of them will be given.
    Mr. McKENNA: Considerable powers of enclosure were given at this period under various Acts of Parliament to Bishops, amongst others. The estates of the Bishops have, however, since that date passed over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It would be premature to state what the effect of the Bill will be.

    Case of Mrs. Pankhurst.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Home Secretary whether, in consideration of the grave charges against Mrs. Pankhurst, now in prison serving a term of imprisonment for another offence and the difficulty she must experience in preparing her defence, he will advise His Majesty to grant a remission of the remainder of her sentence and not oppose an application for bail pending her trial, so as to place her in as favourable a position to prepare her defence as her co-defendants, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have advised the remission as from to-morrow of the remainder of the sentence which Mrs. Pankhurst is now serving. It will then be open to her to apply to the magistrate for admission to bail pending her trial, and I understand that no opposition to the granting of bail will be offered by the prosecution.
    Sir GILBERT PARKER: Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to giving reasons for the decision of the Home Department in this case as he gave reasons in a similar case yesterday?
    Mr. McKENNA: I think it would be very undesirable to give reasons without notice.
    Mr. KING: Are not the reasons obvious enough?

    Ardglass Harbour, County Down.
    Captain CRAIGasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether a memorial has reached his Department from the fishermen and other traders in the Royal harbour

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    of Ardglass, county Down, praying that a dredger be sent to deepen the harbour and approach; whether it will be convenient to send it within a reasonable time; whether his attention has been drawn to the marking of the port; and whether he will send an inspector to examine the perches and piers with a view to having them brought up to the modern requirements of a thriving fishing harbour?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: A memorial was received in March, 1910, by the Commissioners of Public Works from the fishermen and traders of Ardglass praying for certain deepening work to be done. About 1,000 tons of dredging was done in April, 1911. No memorial has been received since March, 1910. I am informed that the place is now in better condition than it has been for many years.
    Captain CRAIG: Can the hon. Member hold out any hope of the harbour being kept up to the position in which it is entitled to be kept as a Royal harbour?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I think the proper course for those interested in the harbour to pursue would be to make further application to the Irish Board of Works for further deepening if they wish it to be done.

    Customs and Excise (Easter Leave).
    Mr. TOUCHEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that, owing to shortage of staff, the annual leave minute for officers of the Customs branch of the Customs and Excise service is being withheld, thereby depriving about seventy-five officers of Easter leave; and whether he will cause the staff to be so augmented in the near future as to render unnecessary the extension of the leave period beyond the usual date in October?
    Mr. BARNESasked a question in precisely similar terms.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: Separate leave minutes for the year are issued by the responsible heads of the various ports. If the hon. Members will specify which particular port they have in mind, inquiries shall be made.

    Victoria and Albert Museum.
    Mr. GRANTasked the President of the Board of Education whether it was intended to remove and thereby destroy a quantity of coloured and modelled decoration, done over forty years ago by artists
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    of recognised ability, from the northern or lecture theatre gallery and from the adjoining western staircase in the Victoria and Albert Museum; and, if so, for what practical benefit or purpose was this destructive work to be carried out?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): I have at present no such intention as is suggested in the question.

    Beckwith Street, Birkenhead, Schools.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether he was aware that the building of the Wesleyan school, Beckwith Street, Birkenhead, was condemned some years ago and the school closed in 1908, and that it was now proposed to use this old building as part of Holy Trinity schools, thereby increasing the accommodation of these schools by 165 places; whether the Board were satisfied that this new accommodation was suitable in every way in accordance with the rules of planning enforced by the Board on new schools; and whether the usual three months' notice would be given to enable managers of other schools and any ten ratepayers to appeal, as provided by Section 8 of the Education Act, 1902?
    Mr. PEASE: The Beckwith Street Wesleyan school was closed in 1909. Adverse comments had been made by the Board on its premises but it had not been actually condemned. It is now proposed to make various alterations to these premises and to use them as part of the Holy Trinity school. The plans are still under consideration on details, but appear generally satisfactory. The accommodation for which the Holy Trinity school was recognised up to the 1st April, 1911, was 696. The managers' first scheme involved a 22 per cent. increase on this figure and the Board stated that they would require notices to be published under Section 8 of the Education Act, 1902. Some amendments have, however, been made in the scheme of alterations, with the result that an increase of about 10 per cent. only appears now to be involved and the Board, on the request of the local education authority, have intimated that in these circumstances they will be prepared to waive the publication of notices.
    Mr. KING: Are we to assume that a school which is condemned when carried on by Wesleyans may be opened as a new school on behalf of the Church of England?
    Mr. PEASE: I understand that these buildings have been in the nature of derelict property for some little time, and that they can be converted into quite suitable buildings for the object for which they are now required.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that both the medical officer and the borough engineer condemned them many years ago on grounds that were quite insuperable? Will he inquire of those officers whether those insuperable objections still exist?
    Mr. PEASE: I shall be glad to make inquiry.
    Mr. KING: I will call attention to this very important matter on the Motion for Adjournment.

    Teachers' Superannuation.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Education, whether he was aware that there were many ex-teachers throughout the country who became teachers under the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, 1846–7, and were promised thereunder a pension on retirement after fifteen years' services of two-thirds of their retiring salaries; that this scheme was dropped in 1862 without any provision for payment of compensation to those who entered the teaching profession between 1846 and 1862; and whether those teachers who had retired since 1898 at the age of sixty-five on a smaller pension than that originally promised to them and had since been looking forward to the improved superannuation scheme now about to be introduced, would be allowed to participate in the additional benefits provided by such scheme.
    Mr. PEASE: With reference to the first part of the question, I may perhaps be allowed to remind the hon. Member that a Select Committee of the House of Commons considered in 1872 the effect of the Minutes of 1846 to which he refers, and reported that, in their opinion, the Minutes were not intended to hold out any such promise as is suggested, but that their true construction was that the Committee of Council on Education took power, but did not pledge themselves to grant pensions. With regard to the second part of the question, I must refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on the 27th March last.

    Shops Act, 1911.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Secretary for Scotland when the regulations would be issued to local authorities in Scotland prescribing the method of inquiry to be undertaken under Clause 2 (2) of The Shops Act, 1911, which comes into force on 1st May next; and whether it was intended to issue new regulations to supersede those of 20th February, 1905, and 6th November, 1908?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The issue of regulations under the Shops Act, 1911, has been delayed pending the passing into law of the Bill to consolidate the Shops' Regulation Acts, 1892 to 1911, which received the Royal Assent on 29th ultimo under the title of the Shops Act, 1912, and comes into force on 1st May next. It is intended that regulations shall be issued forthwith under the latter Act which will supersede the regulations referred to by my hon. Friend.

    Residue Grant (Scotland).
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Secretary for Scotland, whether, in view of the definite undertaking given by his predecessor in office on 10th November, 1908, to the effect that the residue Grant for Scottish elementary schools would be made up to 6s. per head of the pupils in attendance, he would now state when it was proposed to redeem this promise?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: As there is no prospect at the present time of an increase in the total amount of Treasury Grants to schools in Scotland as compared with the corresponding Grants in England and Ireland the increase of residue Grant referred to would only be obtained by limiting the expenditure upon the maintenance of Intermediate and Secondary schools, bursaries, medical inspection, which form prior charges on the various district funds, and I am not aware that there is any general desire among educational authorities that this course should be taken.
    Mr. BOLAND: In consequence of the unsatisfactory reply, I shall call attention to this matter on the Motion for Adjournment.

    Housing Acts (Loans).
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Local Government Board if he would state the amount of the loans to local authorities in rural areas sanctioned by the Board for building cottages

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    under the Housing Acts for the period from 1900 to 1905, inclusive, and for each of the years from 1906 to]910, inclusive?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): The amounts of the loans sanctioned by the Local Government Board to local authorities in rural areas for the erection of houses under Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, since the year 1890 are as follows:—1890–99, £3,500; 1900–05, £6,800; 1906–10, £37,280; 1911 and the first three months of 1912, £29,688. [See Written Answers this date.]

    Burial Authority (Charges).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, seeing that the powers and duties conferred on him by Section 4 of the Burial Act, 1900, included safeguarding the public from illegal charges being made by burial authorities, he would inquire into the action of the Mossley Borough Council, which had been charging, contrary to Section 3 (4) of the Burial Act, 1900, fees in respect of matters other than services rendered?
    Mr. McKENNA: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. It is a matter for the Courts, and not for any Government Department to determine whether any particular fee charged by a burial authority is legal or not; but I may point out that fees other than for services rendered are not necessarily contrary to Section 3 (4) of the Burial Act, 1900. The proviso to that Section sets out the circumstances in which such fees may be payable.

    Post Office (Engineering Department).
    Mr. MALCOLMasked the Postmaster General whether, pending the finding of the Royal Commission on the methods of entrance and promotion in the Civil Service, he would take steps to ensure that the vacancy for a first-class clerk in the head-quarters office of the engineering department of the Post Office would be filled by the normal method of selection from the second class grade of clerks from within that office?
    The POSTMASTER - GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): This matter is now the subject of inquiry. I will communicate later with the hon. Member.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Postmaster General what delayed the payment to
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    officers in the class of assistant engineers of their normal increments of pay which had fallen due during the past four months; what was the cause of the delay in applying the new scale of pay authorised for the class of assistant engineers by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to take effect on and from the 1st July last; and whether he would give instructions that these arrears of pay be paid without further delay?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The adjustment of the salaries in question has been delayed by technical difficulties arising out of the late revision of the engineering department. I trust it will be possible to complete the matter shortly.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Postmaster-General, whether, in connection with the recent reorganisation of the engineering department of the Post Office, 32 second class engineers who entered the Post Office service from the universities, and whose average length of service was just over two years, ranging from four and a half years to a few weeks, had been assigned to the new class of assistant engineers, an executive position, over the heads of 112 non-university second class engineers of proved executive and technical ability, with average Post Office service of twenty-two years; whether he would give particulars of the qualifications required for the position of an assistant engineer; the tests the university men were subjected to in order to demonstrate their executive ability; and in what respects they were found to be superior to the 112 other second class engineers whom they passed over?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The new class of assistant engineers comprises those officers of the late second class of engineers, numbering 271, who, in the opinion of the engineer-in-chief possess the qualifications required for the new class. This new class consists of 209 officers, among whom 32 were trained at various universities and 177 were not. All the university officers were successful candidates on their entrance to the Post Office service in a competitive technical examination conducted by the Civil Service Commissioners, the standard of which was much higher than that by which the second class engineers entered. Great care was taken in the selection, but of course if it should be found that in any case there was an error of judgment it will be put right.

    Foreign-made Goods.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he would introduce legislation at an early date providing some more adequate restriction upon the fraudulent imitation of British trade marks abroad than the mere addition of the definite indication of the country of origin on the goods when they are imported into this country?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson): The hon. Member is apparently under a misapprehension. The requirement to which he refers, namely, that imported goods bearing British trade marks shall be marked with a definite indication of the country of actual origin has no application to cases where the marks are fraudulent. Goods bearing fraudulent imitations of British trade marks are, under Section 16 of the Merchandise Marks Act, liable to seizure on importation. The regulations of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise provide that owners of marks may register them with the Department, and goods bearing marks resembling those so registered are liable to be detained by the Customs authorities.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he was aware that the marking of foreign-made gun-barrels, under The Gun Barrel Proof Act, 1868, with marks which in every case included either the British crown or lion rampant by the Gunmakers Company and the Guardians of the Birmingham Proof House, was commonly accepted by the Foreign and British public as proof that the barrels were of British make, and that consequently the provisions of that Act were injurious to the manufacturers in this country of genuine British barrels and to the interests of the wage-earning classes; and whether he would take steps to introduce legislation at an early date providing that a distinct and different mark should be placed on foreign-made barrels proved in this country to that placed upon barrels of British manufacture, or, alternatively, if the same mark was used on foreign as on British barrels it should in that case be accompanied with the words "Not British" intertwined?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I propose to communicate with the Proof Houses upon the matters raised in this question.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether, seeing that under the provision of Clause 10 (2) of the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, evidence of the port of shipment was primâ facie evidence of the country where the goods were made, and as it was, as a matter of fact, no evidence whatever, and as the marking of foreign-made goods with a definite indication of the country in which the goods were made was not in all cases beneficial to British trade, he would introduce at an early date legislation providing that foreign-made goods, which marked with any inscription that would be liable to make a purchaser believe that the goods were manufactured within the British Islands should be marked with the words "Not British" intertwined, and in the case of any such goods not made in the British Islands but made within the British Empire that they shall be marked with the words "British Empire Made"; and (2) whether, seeing that in virtue of the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench. Coppen v. Moore (1898), persons could and did sell foreign produce in this country as British produce, and provided no written trade description or marking was given they could not be proceeded against, and consequently the provisions of The Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, Section 2, Subsection (2), were inoperative, he would take steps at an early date to amend the Act by a Bill with a wider title that would be operative?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I understand that the hon. Member has already introduced a Bill for giving effect to the proposals to which he refers. In the circumstances, my right hon. Friend would prefer to express any opinion on these proposals when the Bill is discussed in the House.

    Oudh and Rohilkand Railway.
    Mr. MORTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for India, whether a joint tender which was submitted by British firms for the construction of a bridge for the Oudh and Rohilkand Railway was the lowest sent in; and, if so, why was that joint tender not accepted?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative.

    Portmagee Channel, County Kerry.
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether any further steps

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    have been taken to clear away the rock outside the new addition to the Cahirciveen quay and to mark the two rocks in the waterway of Portmagee Channel?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): I have nothing to add to the reply given to the question on this subject asked by the hon. Member on 11th March.

    Mackerel Fishing at Valentia.
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that about twenty motor boats will be engaged in the spring mackerel fishing at Valentia, and that the majority of these are working on loans supplied by the Congested Districts Board; and whether arrangements will be made for a competent man to be on the spot to effect the necessary repairs, and to give expert advice in the event of temporary breakdowns of the engines?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board are not aware that twenty motor boats are likely to be engaged in the spring mackerel fishing at Valentia. The Board have offered a loan on easy terms for his working outfit to a man competent to undertake motor repairs. Their offer has not yet been accepted.

    Colonels on Half-Fay List (Appointments).
    Colonel HICKMANasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that colonels on the half-pay list commanding Territorial brigades are in receipt of £500 a year consolidated pay, whilst at the same time colonels on the retired list holding similar appointments receive £420 pension or retired pay and also about £180 a year in allowances, making about £600 a year in all; and whether he will consider the advisability of increasing the emoluments of the colonels on half-pay holding these appointments to make the different rates of pay more equal?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): The officers mentioned preferred to remain on the half-pay list at £300 a year rather than to retire, and they receive £200 additional pay for their Territorial duties. This is less than is received by the retired officer, but, on the other hand, these officers have the prospect of further employment.

    Site Value of Land.
    Mr. ROYDSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to Section 25 (2) of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, which provides that, in ascertaining site value of land, the land is to be regarded as divested of any buildings, the valuers have been instructed in ascertaining the site value of an occupation to regard adjoining occupations as divested of buildings as well as the occupation under valuation in accordance with the provisions of the Act; and, if not, whether such site value does not in fact include value attributable to the presence of buildings contrary to the Act?
    Colonel SEELY (for the Chancellor of the Exchequer): Section 25 (2) of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, enacts that, for the purpose of ascertaining the full site value of land, the land is to be deemed to be divested of buildings, etc., but it does not enact that surrounding land is to be similarly divested. The full site value of land does not include value attributable to the presence of buildings on that land.

    Duchy of Lancaster (Pees).
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he has received any complaints as to the fees charged by the steward of the Duchy on surrenders and admittance to copyholds in the manor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, of which the Dukes of Lancaster are lords of the manor; if so, will he see that a scale of fees is drawn up definite in amount and based on ancient usage and custom?
    The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Hobhouse): I have received no complaints as to the fees charged by the steward of the Duchy on surrenders and admittance to copyholds in the Manor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, though my hon. Friend has sent me some papers which show that there is one case of complaint of the non-production of details. The present scale of fees is definite in amount, and has been in force since 1st May, 1894. A copy of it is always available for inspection at the office of the deputy-steward in Hanley.
    Mr. BOOTH: May I ask if the same scale applies to the borough of Pontefract where the same lord of the manor rules?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I am afraid I shall have to have notice of that question; I should imagine it does, but I cannot say for certain.

    Tramway Service (Kingston, Jamaica).
    Mr. AMERYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give any information with regard to the interference of the populace in Kingston, Jamaica, with the running of the electric tramway service in that city; and whether it is a fact that the Colonial authorities have declined to afford the tramway company the police protection necessary to enable it to run its service?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have no official information as to further interference with the tramway since the riot which was reported in the Press at the time. I have asked the Governor by telegraph to report as to any further developments which may have taken place.
    Mr. AMERY: If the facts should turn out to be as suggested in the question, will the right hon. Gentleman represent strongly to the Governor the duty of the Colonial authorities protecting the company in the carryiing out its lawful business?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I think I must be allowed to consider the facts as there conveyed to me. At present I have no information.

  NOTICES OF MOTION.
    INSURANCE ACT.
    Mr. GRANT: I beg to give notice that this day four weeks I will call attention to the administration of the medical benefits under the Insurance Act, and move a Resolution.
    PRIVATE PROPERTY AT SEA.
    Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS: I beg to give notice that this day four weeks I will call attention to the question of the exemption of private property from capture at sea, and move a Resolution.
MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I beg to move, "That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn until Wednesday next, and that, as soon as Government Business is disposed of, Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put."

INTER-IMPERIAL RELATIONS.
Mr. PAGE CROFT: Before the House adjourns I desire to call attention to the question of the total lack of organisation which at present exists in connection with Imperial affairs, and the failure of His Majesty's Government to carry out the proposals which have been so frequently pressed by the Prime Ministers of the Dominions at recent Conferences. At this time when we have seen great internal strife as a result of industrial discontent we want to press with all the vigour we possess upon His Majesty's Government, and upon the public outside, the necessity for a reconsideration of the whole Imperial position, and also to make clear our opinion that we are guilty of great folly in not endeavouring to secure for our workers the great industrial future which the British Empire holds out. We have had six years of incessant party warfare in this country over questions of the greatest magnitude, none of which, it is suggested by their authors, will cure the disease from which the nation is suffering. We have had palliatives in great numbers, but curatives none at all. We have all been thinking too much of party and too little of the State, with the result that we have not dealt with these problems as they really are, and have not got to the roots of this question. In this connection, whilst our family quarrels have been continuing in this country proposals of the greatest value have been made by the Prime Ministers of these Overseas Dominions, and this House will hardly dispute the fact that these proposals have been met with scant courtesy, and with very small consideration by people outside, although they are in every respect questions of the greatest magnitude.
If I refer, firstly, to the first Conference which was held under the auspices of His Majesty's Government I would like to make it clear that in doing so I do not entirely exonerate the Unionist party in the past for not having taken greater steps to bring this question home to the people of this country. I would point out, however, that during the last Unionist Administration a great movement in this direction was made almost impossible by the fact that the Government were engaged in dealing with a great war. In the first Conference which was held under the auspices of the present Government, it will be remembered that the Prime Ministers of the

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Dominions once more unanimously reaffirmed their proposals for mutual preferential trading between the various parts of the Empire. It will be remembered also that they have shown their good faith in this question in that every one of those Dominions have given a preference to the Mother-country. They have carried it further, and are now proposing inter-Imperial Trade Preference between the various Dominions, with the result that in this great system which is being built up the Government of this country alone holds aloof from the policy which we believe would have as great an effect for good to this country as that policy which binds together the diverse and scattered States of America into the great united country that we know to-day, and by which Prince Bismarck knitted together the heterogeneous States of Germany into the mightiest military nation of the world, and the greatest commercial nation upon the Continent.
Because this question was not raised at the last Imperial Conference we need not imagine that the Dominions do not desire to see it brought forward again at the earliest possible occasion, for the Prime Ministers have repeatedly told us that in their opinion it is now the turn of the Mother-country to move in this respect. But they did bring forward proposals at the last Conference which dealt with this question of trade, which, after all, is of vital importance to the whole prosperity of this country They reaffirmed their desire for an All-Red Steamship Route between the Mother-country and the Dominions. Surely by increasing the communication in this manner we shall be diverting to the Dominions a great deal of the trade which at present goes to foreign countries. Yet we find in this important matter in which the Governments of the Dominions were prepared to contribute that His Majesty's Government have done nothing. They have left the position precisely as it was, with the result that if rumour is correct we understand that the Canadian Home Government, together with some private British financiers, are now endeavouring to deal with this question.
Then there was the question of the All Red Cable Route and establishment of a cable system throughout the British Empire in order that the business, diplomatic, and strategic secrets of this country might be kept in British hands instead of passing as they do at the present moment through foreign hands, in the case of cables
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between the Mother-country and the Dominions. Here again we have a question that vitally affects the traders of this country. It is perfectly obvious that in the Dominion of Canada, specially with its vast frontier on the United States, and with the greater telegraphic facilities a great deal of trade must be diverted to the United States which would otherwise come to this country and give employment to our people. The Government have done nothing in this case. We have only had from the Postmaster-General a general statement upon which he thinks he is entitled to congratulate himself, but which we regard as not at all sufficient, namely, that he managed to effect a small reduction of the cable rates, but I think it can also be truly said that he has made it plain that we do not intend in this country to do anything to break down what is practically a monopoly of the whole of the cable lines between this country and the Dominions, and which are in American hands, and which we consider a danger to the business people of this country. Then there is the more delicate question of greater consultation between the Mother-country and the Dominions. I think the last Imperial Conference has made this question one of far greater urgency than ever it was before. There was the question of trade treaties, and the Dominions suggested that in future they will make their own trade treaties. Then there is the question of the Fleet units and Australia's request to make her own Navigation Laws. On all these question I suggest, unless there is some constant and continuous consultation between the Dominion authorities and this country, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the First Lord of the Admiralty might very easily land this country into war. Then again it was plainly expressed by the Australasian delegates at the last Conference that in future they would not approve of the action of His Majesty Government, in a case such as that of the Declaration of London, in deciding upon a policy that affects the Empire as a whole without consultation with the Dominion's representatives. On all these important matters it is essential that there should be some method of closer consultation between the different parts of the Empire.
We shall never get a proper system of Imperial defence until we have a scheme of defence for the British Empire based upon common control, and we should never have a proper alleviation of the

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burdens which fall upon the Mother-country unless the Dominions havesome share in the control of the forces, naval and military, which they are disposed to place at the disposal of the Mother-country. If we bear these imperial problems in mind and turn to our home problems, it is easy to prove they are interdependent. What are the problems which confront this country at the present time above all others? First of all there is the increased cost of living. Secondly, the decline in real wages; and thirdly, permanent unemployment; and fourthly, the burden of armaments to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer devoted so much attention yesterday, and which everybody is agreed is a burden which is indeed difficult for this country to bear. We submit these questions can best be dealt with, and can only be dealt with, by securing to the workers in this country the great industrial future the Empire holds out by linking together by cable and by steamships, the traders of the whole Empire, and by bringing together the manpower of our race for the defence of the common weal. If we take these four problems, I believe I can show very briefly that their consummation is entirely dependent upon Imperial organisation. First with regard to the increased cost of living. I believe nobody will deny that that is really responsible for the recent industrial upheavals in this country amongst organised labour, and we have got to face the fact that unless we do something, food will be very much dearer in the future than it is to-day, unless we can increase the production of foodstuffs in the Empire, and therefore if food largely rises in price, we maintain it is the duty of statesmen to secure greater protection to the foodstuffs within the Empire, and consequently so to organise our business arrangements with our Dominions that the Mother-country may have the first call upon those food supplies in preference to the foreigner. We suggest this can only be dealt with in three ways: by preference, by subsidies, or bounties. Unless some such policy is adopted in the near future there is great fear that food will undoubtedly become dearer, and we believe the only way to keep the food of this country cheap is by opening up the virgin acres of the BritishEmpire—
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to discuss future legislation.
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He must confine himself specially to administration.
Mr. PAGE CROFT: I will turn from that subject, merely reiterating that I believe this question must be dealt with in the interests of the consumers of this country. I turn to the second problem which confronts the people of this country, which is the problem of real wages. Without grave injury to the industries of this country, I maintain you cannot raise wages unless you increase the price of commodities or greatly increase the volume of your trade. We are driven to admit that if we establish a rise in wages in this country we must face far fiercer foreign competition in the future. We have to defend our industry from competition which is the result of a minimum wage and the burdens recently placed upon industry, and we must find scope for greater volume of production, and foreign tariffs only make this possible in the markets of the Mother-country and our Dominions overseas. In that way only can wages be raised, and in that way only can we absorb in our industrial system the unemployment which at the present moment is cutting the whole standard of wages down. We submit, if the House would regard this question in a non-party spirit in the same way as we regard naval questions, there is sufficient potentiality in the British Empire to give employment to the whole of this country, and, in addition, to raise the price of labour throughout the Mother-country.
Since the Dominions gave the preference to this country a marvellous change has come over our trade. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the Dominions at the present moment are saving the situation every year. We find last year Australia, situated twelve or thirteen thousand miles away, with its five millions of people, bought more manufactured goods from this country than Germany, with its sixty-five millions of people across the North Sea. We find that New Zealand, with a population of only one-seventh that of Belgium, bought more manufactured goods from this country than Belgium, and that seven million Canadians gave more wages to the British working man last year than forty-five million Frenchmen twenty-one miles across the English Channel. These facts entirely alter the whole position. In the old days it was a question of considering whether preference to the Colonies would not be a sacrifice. To-day we have to realise that the Dominions are saving the situation for

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labour in this country, and that we owe to the Dominions themselves an enormous increase in wages for our industrial people. If we consider for one moment that in the year 1910 Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Russia, and Switzerland, with 281,000,000 people bought £67,400,000 worth of manufactures in this country, and Australia, South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand, with 13,000,000 people, bought £68,700,000 worth of manufactures from this country, we realise that those 13,000,000 people in our Colonies bought more than the 281,000,000 people in our neighbouring great markets in Europe. Four of our Dominions bought £80,000,000 worth of manufactured produce last year, with a population of 13,000,000 people, and can anyone deny that in thirty years' time that population will have become 52,000,000, and if we keep the comparative position we hold to-day that means that we shall be doing a trade of £320,000,000 annually with those countries, or an increase of £240,000,000 within the next thirty years in our trade, or £120,000,000 extra in wages for the workers of this country, simply by instituting a proper business arrangement with our Colonies and keeping that position for ourselves? The Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission asserted that if £10,000,000 extra could be circulated amongst the unemployed we could cure unemployment. I maintain that with the enormous increase of our trade to which I have alluded we could circulate £120,000,000 extra in wages in this country, and if that is so hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway will realise that this is the one way of permanently insuring the working classes against bad times and securing a greater amount of employment for the people living in our midst.
Our Empire trade employs twice as many men as we have in the mines of this country. It gives twice as much employment as the great army of miners we have recently seen out on strike, and without our Empire trade we should have at least three times as many unemployed as we have at the worst times. With these facts in mind, can there be any further hesitation that it is necessary to insure this vast wage bill for our workers before it is too late, more especially realising that foreign countries have their trade agents swarming over our Dominions trying to secure the trade which we ought to have if we act on business lines?
Mr. SPEAKER: How does the hon. Member propose to alter that state of things except by legislation?
Mr. CROFT: By the trade agent system, Consular agents, closer cable communications, and better emigration organisations, all of which could be carried out under the present system.
Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member means that is his solution, of course he is entitled to proceed; but if he has in the back of his mind, as I rather think he has, Colonial Preference, that is a question which cannot be discussed to-day upon the Motion for Adjournment, because it involves legislation, and we cannot discuss legislation on this occasion.
The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): Will it be in order to discuss a State-owned cable in our Debate to-day, because I think that would involve legislation.
Mr. CROFT: May I ask whether we can discuss the questions raised at the last Conference with which the Government intend to deal?
Mr. SPEAKER: Anything can be discussed which does not require legislation. This is the opportunity for criticising the administration, and if the hon. Member has any fault to find with the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade, or any other office, now is the time; but so far as legislation is concerned that is a question which cannot be discussed now.
Mr. CROFT: I have a great desire to criticise the past action of His Majesty's Government, and I do not intend to sketch out any definite proposals. What I was endeavouring to do was to criticise the inaction of the Government in the past. I will now turn to the question of the burden of armaments. Every single party in this country admits the danger of the burden of armaments continuing at the present rate. Is it unreasonable to hope that it will make a very great difference if we are sympathetic in our treatment of the Colonies in regard to the burden of armaments which exists in this country? Compare the generous policy of our Dominions with regard to trading with this country with what I regard as the selfish policy of the Government in refusing to meet them half way owing to the immutable laws of Cobden, which are mutable with regard to the Insurance Bill and the Minimum Wage Bill, but which are

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immutable in regard to matters affecting our Colonies. Those laws are only considered immutable when we are dealing with our kinsmen across the seas. We have recently had a great warning in this respect from America. The whole world has been at the feet of Canada, and yet the Mother-country has refused to treat with her in regard to some very important questions. With regard to all those great Imperial questions the Government has done nothing, and the Colonial Office alone remains in the same position it was in one hundred years ago. I do not believe that the Secretary of State for the Colonies really desires to remain longer in that position. I really believe that his conservatism in this respect would stagger even the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), because he refuses in any way to meet the changed conditions of the times.
We make this appeal to the Government not only because, as Imperialists, we desire to see some return given to the Dominions for the great trade concessions they have made for us, and for their great gifts of "Dreadnoughts" and Fleet units which they are now building up, but because we feel just as much as hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway the condition of the workers of this country to be going backward instead of forward, and we maintain that the only way we can solve these great social difficulties with which we are confronted in this country is by the organisation of our Imperial forces and by endeavouring to put our whole Imperial policy upon a business footing. For that reason we ask the Government to look differently upon these questions, because we realise the vast increase in trade which has taken place in the last few years, and we believe that by this means alone can we really solve the difficulties which surround us which are agitating our country and blighting the lives of so many thousands of our citizens, and at the same time are keeping the standard of wages low and the price of food high. We ask them to look at it from this point of view, and I believe, if the Government were to take any action on a non-party basis in improving the position with regard to the Empire, they would find that every single Member on these benches would support them to the best of their ability.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: I did not quite understand, Sir, whether you gave
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any reply to the Postmaster-General. I wish to know whether we should be in order in discussing the action of this Government in proposing, for instance, a State-aided cable to Canada, Australia, or any other of the Dominions?
Major ARCHER-SHEE: On a point of Order, I would point out that before the last Imperial Conference it was decided that unless reductions in cable rates were carried out a subsidiary conference should be held. Those who wish to raise the question are simply calling attention to the fact that the Government have not called that subsidiary conference together.
Mr. SPEAKER: That is a point which can be properly discussed now. With regard to a State-aided cable, I am not quite so sure whether legislation would be necessary. I should think an anuual Vote of Supply would cover it, but I do not like at a moment's notice to give any definite answer to that question. It is evident, however, the other matters with regard to proposing tariffs with foreign countries with a view of promoting Imperial Preference cannot be discussed to-day.
Mr. HEWINS: May I ask you, Sir, whether your ruling would prevent our raising the question of the action of the Foreign Office with regard to recent commercial treaties?
Mr. SPEAKER: I should like to hear what particular question the hon. Member wishes to raise.
Major ARCHER-SHEE: I wish to deal with that part of the question raised by my hon. Friend which does not require special legislation, but which refers to the trade between this country and the Crown Colonies, Dependencies, and Protectorates of the Empire, including India, as distinguished from the self-governing Dominions. At the last Imperial Conference it was decided that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire into the trade between the self-governing Dominions and the Mother-country and between all parts of the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, but in the terms of reference there was nothing to show they were to inquire into the trade between the Crown Colonies, Dependencies, and Protectorates and the Mother-country. These parts of the Empire, including India, in 1910 had a total trade of £372,000,000 in exports and imports, and out of that the United Kingdom had only £141,000,000 of that trade. I wish to deal first of all

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with the Crown Colonies, Dependencies, and Protectorates apart from India. These parts of the Empire had a total trade of £175,000,000, and the United Kingdom only had £51,000,000 of that trade. The Mother-country only got 26 per cent. as regards imports; in other words, she only got something like one-quarter of the trade, three-quarters of it going to other parts of the Empire and to foreign countries. In regard to the export trade of those parts of the Empire, the Mother-country only got 33 per cent. It is quite true that other parts of the Empire got a large percentage. This point was raised yesterday in an answer I received from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. J. M. Robertson) who pointed out with regard to the trade of the Straits Settlements that something like £16,000,000 was transhipment of foreign goods, and was not really export trade at all. There was included in that sum of £16,000,000 no less than £8,000,000 of British goods transhipped to foreign countries. Therefore, giving credit for £8,000,000 of British goods for transhipment, there still remains a balance of exports to foreign countries of £24,000,000, as against only £24,000,000 sent to the United Kingdom. We are spending over £1,000,000 in administering those parts of the Empire, and we are also spending over £2,000,000 in the military defence as distinguished from the naval defence of those parts of the Empire, and, in view of that fact, and also in view of the fact that we have at the present time 20,000 soldiers garrisoning the various ports and Protectorates of the Empire, I say that our share of that trade is nothing like adequate.
I suggest this is not a party question. We should look at it entirely from the point of view of existing circumstances, and not from any point of view which involves a change in our fiscal system. These Crown Colonies, Protectorates, and Dependencies have been saddled with the same fiscal system as the Mother-country, and, personally, I believe that to a very large extent is the cause of our not doing more trade with them, but, even under the present system, it would be possible in the case of nearly all those Crown Colonies and Protectorates to give a preference without legislation. Nearly every one of them has a tariff for revenue purposes, and it would be possible to give the Mother-country a preference in that tariff without hurting the feelings of hon. Members opposite who do not like the idea of
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departing from Free Trade. If the Government were to give that preference in the existing revenue tariff, the Mother-country would get a great deal more of their trade than at the present time. An hon. Member asked me what would happen to the revenue of those Crown Colonies and Protectorates. The revenue could be increased on foreign goods and diminished on our goods. That is not a protective policy; it is simply giving a preference to the Mother-country. I would in support of that put forward this view: that our competitors in the Colonies take very good care that we shall not enter their markets on the same footing as the Mother-country. Holland, France, and Germany in every case see that the tariffs in their dependencies and colonies are so framed as to favour the Mother-country rather than foreigners. I suggest that we take a leaf out of their book, and in so doing I am sure we cannot offend against the tenets of Free Trade.
Then, again, we could increase our trade by sending out to the Colonies and Protectorates experts as Trade Commissioners, commercial agents, in the same way as other countries do which are trying to develop their trade in foreign parts. Canada is sending out specially trained men for that purpose. I have in my hand a list of the Trade Commissioners for Canada. There are twenty-seven of them, and they are sent out for the sole purpose of pushing the trade of Canada, and to find out opportunities for increasing it. In addition to that there are Canadian Trade Commissioners in nearly every important market in the world and nearly every self-governing Dominion. They have three in the West Indies and one each in Australasia and South Africa. So much for Canada. Let us turn to America. America, although her border line is next door to Canada, for the sole purpose of pushing American trade in Canada, are doing exactly the same thing. So too is Germany. Why should we, who in this country which prides itself on having such an enormous export and import trade, fall behind other nations in this respect? We have only four or five of these paid Commissioners, one in each of our principal self-governing Dominions. But if we were to develop that service and send our Trade Commissioners to such groups of our Crown Colonies as the West Indies and those in the Pacific, and on the Atlantic,

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the result would be that our trade would enormously increase. It should be the duty of these Trade Commissioners to ascertain the character of foreign competition, to discover new openings for British trade, to assist British firms in finding local agents, to inquire into the question of transportation, to report on the opportunities that exist for the establishment of branch British factories, and to send home for the inspection of British manufacturers samples of goods which are underselling and undercutting the exports of this country.
That is especially the case in India, where an enormous trade is done by foreign countries—much larger than the statistics show—in selling imitations of British goods in the bazaars. If we had Trade Commissioners they could send home these articles, and our manufacturers would no doubt be able to meet that competition. They could also send home information as to the opportunities that exist for procuring in India and other parts of the Empire the raw material necessary for manufactures in this country. The statistics as regards trade in the Crown Colonies are exceedingly misleading, because they are based on the Customs Returns, which only record the countries in which the goods are manufactured. It is probable that 50 per cent. of the goods shipped from British ports are of foreign origin. I would in that connection like to draw attention to the way in which statistics of Indian imports are published at present. Since 1906 our trade with India has drooped from 66 per cent. to 61 per cent. There is no doubt whatever that a very large proportion has been wrongly described as British trade when it should be described as foreign trade, although it is shipped in British bottoms to India. Only last year I put a question to the President of the Board of Trade, and he said that in future the Returns should show the country of origin. But even with these statistics we shall not really be able to discover exactly what the foreign trade of India is, because a very large amount of goods are shipped to this country and landed in London or some other port and are then reshipped to the East. They are shown as British exports when, as a fact, they are foreign exports. In India, in all probability, our trade is not more than 55 per cent. of the whole. That is not a satisfactory condition of affairs. There the total trade is
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£197,000,000 a year, and if that is not a place where we ought to have Trade Commissioners I cannot conceive of any country in the world where we should. It is quite true we have very excellent statistical reports from administrators in every part of India. These administrators are some of the best in the world, but then they have no commercial training. All their lives have been spent in administration, and they cannot be expected to give the manufacturers and merchants of this country all the information which they require. It is absurd to expect it. The only way in which this information can be obtained for this country is by sending specially trained experts to these parts of the Empire in the same way as other nations do. I say we are not doing enough to promote our trade. The first duty of any Government is to promote the trade of the country, and I therefore strongly urge on the Government to try and push the trade of the country along the lines I have indicated.

CABLE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATION.
I want to allude to only one other question—that of a State-owned Atlantic cable. I raised this question in connection with the Imperial Conference last year. At that Conference a resolution was carried to the effect that in the event of the cable rates not being reduced in the near future a conference should be held to consider the question of a State-owned cable. Since then certain reductions of cable rates have been made. They are, of course, a great advance. But they were urged on the Government of this country and the Dominions for many years before they came into force, and as a matter of fact they are very good business indeed from the cable companies point of view.
The trade of the cable companies across the Atlantic since these deferred rates came into force has increased very much. I saw it stated that it was 40 per cent. in America, but I do not know whether that figure is correct. There is no doubt whatever that the trade of these companies has increased. The arguments against a State-owned Atlantic cable, as put forward by the Postmaster-General at the Imperial Conference were, first, that there were thirteen cables across the Atlantic which landed in British territory; secondly, that it would cause a loss of £25,000 a year if such a cable were laid; and thirdly, that this cable would only carry the business of the Pacific

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cable, that is to say, it could not get the business in Canada and the United States, and must go on being a dead loss to this country of £25,000 a year for some time. Since the Imperial Conference the situation has changed, and I propose to point out to the Postmaster-General that some of those arguments are not now valid. In the first place, as regards the loss of £25,000, that was based upon an estimated load of 1,000,000 words a year across the Atlantic. I had figures from the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a question I put the other day, which showed that since last year the Pacific cable has carried something like over 2,000,000 words, instead of the 1,300,000 words which were carried the year before last, so that there has been an increase of something like 800,000 words in the load of the Pacific cable alone. I ventured to point out then, in a supplementary question to the Postmaster-General, that as the Pacific cable business had increased to such a large extent, it must be obvious that the business across the Atlantic in connection with the Pacific cable business must also have increased. He did not agree with that remark at the time; but since then he has also given me the figures of the words which passed over the Pacific cable, which originated on this side of the Atlantic. I find that these total together, both coining to and going from the United Kingdom, 1,133,000. That was for eleven months only. If one adds 110,000, which was the average for eleven months, one finds that the amount of messages originating on this side of the Atlantic was something like 1,250,000, instead of 1,000,000 words. It must be obvious that, if we had a State-owned cable, nearly all those words would pass over the State-owned cable, and not over private cables. I suggest that since the Conference there has been an increase of about 250,000 words in the load over the Atlantic cable.
Another argument was that in Canada there would be no business, as the lines would be land lines through Canada, which were under the control of the telegraph companies, which were allied to the American cable companies across the Atlantic. That is quite true as regards the Canadian Pacific, and I believe the Canadian Northern; but there is the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the Grand Trunk also to a certain extent, which line is not at all bound to the American Telegraph Company or to the Western Union.
I was in Canada the other day, and I took the opportunity of going to the headquarters of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and I made inquiries from Mr. Hayes, the manager, who is at present in this country, and who, I have no doubt, would give the same information to the Postmaster-General. I understand that the Grank Trunk Pacific is not only free from any obligation to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the Western Union, but is free to run a land line right across Canada, and would do so over this State-owned Atlantic cable; and that it is also free to deliver messages in all the main towns of Canada. When I raised the question the hon. Member for East St. Pancras (Mr. Martin) got up and in a supplementary question pointed out to the Postmaster-General that the Grand Trunk Pacific only ran to certain parts of Canada which were sparsely- populated. Although that question was designed to throw cold water on the question I put, the hon. Member could not explain that the Grand Trunk Pacific is going to be amalgamated with the Grand Trunk Railway, and that the whole system will be a complete transcontinental line, right away from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, further, that there are branch lines actually surveyed, and in some cases being constructed, for the great towns in Canada; so that this line is quite ready to collect and deliver these messages, if an Atlantic cable is laid. Therefore, the argument that no business could be lone with the Atlantic cable in Canada is very much vitiated.
I do not wish to argue from a bitter point of view—it is merely a matter of argument—and I venture to put these things forward as a very strong argument for the laying of an Atlantic cable, as a great deal of business can be obtained for that cable in Canada. If a State cable were laid, it is obvious that the rates would be much lower than they are at present. The laying of a Pacific cable resulted in an enormous reduction of rates to Australia; and if a State Atlantic cable were laid, to complete the link between Australia and New Zealand we should have at once a very greatly decreased rate to Canada and the United States. Why should we be afraid of laying a State-owned Atlantic cable from the fear of interfering with private companies? When we consider that since the Imperial Conference last June all the British cables, five in number, went to

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the United States, and that four of the Anglo-American lines have passed under the control or been leased by one American Trust, how are we to know that that American Trust will not in future rearrange its rates to our disadvantage? The right hon. Gentleman will reply to that that there are two different companies in competition across the Atlantic, the Commercial Cable Company and the Western Union. That is quite true; but I am quite certain that the past history of United States business concerns does not give any confidence, to anyone who knows anything about them, to believe in the suggestion that no combination is at all likely to keep up the rates across the Atlantic.
The situation now is this: that the whole of these thirteen cables are in the hands of foreign companies, the Commercial Cable Company and the Western Union. That is a very serious matter indeed. Then we have the fact that New Zealand, Canada, and Australia are all very keen on getting their rates reduced for Press and commercial messages. That should weigh with the Postmaster-General and with the Government, and cause them to reconsider their decision not to lay a State-owned cable. Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that this State-owned cable is not only advocated by New Zealand, and that the suggestion was brought forward by Australia at the Imperial Conference, but it is also backed up by the Empire Press Union, which is supported by the leading editors of journals, on both sides in politics, in nearly every part of the Empire. This is entirely a non-party matter, the consideration of which has been considerably altered by the developments which have taken place since the Imperial Conference. There are so many things in conection with this cable that have altered since the Conference that I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to call this subsidiary conference. I cabled, when I was in Canada, from Toronto to Sir Joseph Ward, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand, telling him what the Postmaster-General of Canada had said, and asking him whether New Zealand was still in favour of the Atlantic cable, and his reply was:—
"New Zealand strongly favours laying State Atlantic cable."
I have since then had confirmation by letter, in which he also says:—
"I am glad to surmise that this matter of a State-owned Atlantic cable is being pushed on."
In view of the fact that all the cables connecting us with the rest of the Empire across the Atlantic are at present owned by foreign companies, that the amount of traffic going over the Pacific cable has increased enormously in the last two years from 1,300,000 words to over 2,000,000 words; that there is a railway company now in course of construction, which will be completed very soon, across Canada, which could take these messages in Canada, and even if that failed that the Railway Commission in Canada has complete control over telegraphs, and, therefore, could also make arrangements that the other companies would be compelled to collect and deliver messages over the State cable; and in view of the fact that it only cost £500,000 to lay this cable, which, after all, is only the price of an unarmoured cruiser, and when one considers that that cost is not to be borne by the Mother-country only, but is to be borne by New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the Mother-country, I say that the cost is ridiculously small, and that the arguments for it are exceedingly strong. I would beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman why the Government have not taken steps to call the subsidiary conference which was promised at the Imperial Conference last year?
Mr. AMERY: I think the hon. Member (Mr. Croft) has done a really useful service in drawing attention to the neglect on the part of the Government of their administrative responsibilities in promoting the organisation of the Empire. I know the Speaker has ruled that we are not to discuss legislative questions to-day, and I fully admit that a discussion of the details or character of a preferential tariff would not be in order, but I submit that the administrative action of the Government in refusing to allow the Imperial Commission which they promised at the last Conference even to inquire into the question does justify us in dealing, at any rate, with the most general aspects of it. After all, while the actual execution of the work of Imperial organisation in detail will involve legislation here and in other parts of the British Empire, our complaint is not the absence or defect of this or that law, but of the general attitude of passivity, reluctance, and inaction on the part of the Government, not only towards the proposals for Preference, but towards any and every proposal which seems calculated to foster and strengthen the unity of the Empire. Let me take, for instance,

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the question of this Commission itself. It was understood that the Commissioners would be appointed immediately after the Conference. The Conference took place many months since. We gather from the Government that nothing is happening, but that they are still waiting for the names of some Commissioners. Apparently they consider it the duty of the Dominions to press forward the Commission, and not their duty to get the matter into working order. Again, on this question of cables, it is clear, not only as regards New Zealand, but as regards Canada, that it is we in this country who are lagging behind, and surely if hon. Gentlemen opposite are so strongly opposed to the one particular method of unifying the Empire which we believe in have they not an even greater responsibility in pressing forward other alternative remedies which are not in conflict with any shibboleth? There was a very important Debate in the House of Commons at Ottawa on 29th February, in which it was clear that both the Opposition, as represented by Mr. Lemieux, the late Postmaster-General, and the Government, as represented by the present Postmaster-General, are in favour of much more active work in connection with the Atlantic cable service than the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Herbert Samuel). May I quote a few words from the speech of the present Postmaster-General, Mr. Pelletier:—
"We desire to trade with the Mother-country, and in order to carry on that trade with facility we must have cable communication at the cheapest cost possible. Of course, the day may come—and the day will come—when the Mother-country will have some kind of reciprocal relations with the Colony."
He added that that was not the business of the Department, but he made it quite clear that he, as well as Mr. Lemieux, was in favour of an active line on this question of the Atlantic cable, and he also made it clear in an extract which he read from the letters of the right hon. Gentleman that it is this country, as represented by the present Government, which is not playing up. He said:—
"I do not wish to say anything in criticism of the Postmaster-General of England, but I am bound to give the facts to the House."
He ended by saying:—
"I repeat my expression of regret at the attitude taken up by Mr. Samuel."
I think we can only in this House repeat our expression of regret. Surely Gentlemen of every shade of thought will admit that, both from the point of view of trade and of strategy, anything which can
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facilitate communication does enormously strengthen trade and strengthens our defensive position. The same applies to cables and to the question of the All-Red Route. That was brought forward five years ago as an alternative and met with a very cool reception from the present Government. During all this time not a single step, as far as we have ever been able to ascertain, has been taken by the Government even to inquire seriously into the advantages and the possibilities of a really fast steamship service between this country and Canada, and between Canada and the Imperial possessions in the Pacific. Surely, while we are withdrawing our Navy more and more from the Pacific and from the Mediterranean and concentrating in home waters, it is all the more urgent that we should be in the most rapid communication with the outlying parts of the Empire and that we should have fast steamers which would serve either for the carriage of troops or which might in emergency act as cruisers for the protection of our mercantile trade. Again, the question of the Suez Canal was brought forward more than once at recent Conferences. The opening of the Panama Canal is going seriously to shift the world's trade, and at our expense, unless we take means to counteract it. We have got a great interest, as a Government, in the Suez Canal. An immense volume of trade going to the rest of the Empire passes through there and is handicapped by heavy tolls. Surely it will not be against the principles of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite to listen to the representations made by the Australasian Colonies on more than one occasion and see if something cannot be done either to reduce or else to repay in part or in whole the Suez Canal dues to British ships.
Again, the whole question of Preference in the Crown Colonies is not a question of legislation at all, but of the administrative action of the Government. It has been suggested by an hon. Member that from the financial point of view it would be unworkable. Is he aware that there are several Crown Colonies at this moment where a preferential system is at work, namely, the Protectorates in South Africa, which have the same preferential system in operation as the self-governing Dominion of the Union? Has he also forgotten the fact that a Commission appointed by this Government have expressed themselves in

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favour of such a preferential arrangement as between the West Indies and Canada. Surely we have here a very strong case indeed for blaming this Government—the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench—for administrative neglect towards these great Imperial problems. Our objections are, I venture to submit, brought forward at an opportune time, because we hold, at any rate, on this side of the House—and I think that really our views are shared by many hon. Members on the other side of the House, who do not agree with us generally—that in the long run you can only solve the great problems with which you are faced—the problem of defence, and the problem of social unrest—by some measure for the greater organisation of this Empire.
Let us, after all, consider this question of social unrest with which we have been brought into such close and painful contact during the past few weeks. I do not wish to discuss the particular question of coal mines, but I would say that I do feel some dislike at the way in which the pressure of one powerful organised section of the workers led to agile deference on the part of the House of Commons in the matter of legislation, whereas the question as it affects millions of people outside is still waiting for some action to meet their needs. Here we have in this small country a large population and a total volume of production inadequate to supply that population with a reasonable real wage. I put some questions to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade the other day, and from the replies it is clear that the net output of our industries amounts to just over £700,000,000, and the gross output to £1,700,000,000. Out of that £700,000,000 before the workers receive any remuneration whatever you have to take profits, the cost of management, interest, rent, rates, taxes, depreciation, replacement of machinery, insurance, and advertisement. I tried to ascertain from the hon. Member what proportion of the whole these items might amount to. He was unable to give an answer, but I consulted various business men, and they say that the minimum to cover all these different items would be 20 per cent. on the gross output, that is to say, £352,000,000. Subtract that from £712,000,000, which is the net output, and you have barely £360,000,000 left to furnish wages to 7,000,000 workers—in other words, barely
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an average of £1 a week for the workers of this country. Unless you increase the total production of the country, you cannot increase the real remuneration of the workers, and you cannot really cope with the problem of industrial unrest. I say that, side by side with any efforts made to deal directly with the grievances of the workers, the Government ought to have been more vigilant and active in trying to bring about the business organisation of the Empire, by which alone they can really increase the total production of this country, and thereby the total remuneration given to the workers of this country.
If I may compare the figures I have mentioned with those of the United States, I would point out that there you have among 10,000,000 workers a net output in the same industries of some £1,700,000,000—in other words, you have £170 per head per year as against £100 per head of the workers in this country, and the proportion between these figures is very close to the comparison between the real wages in the two countries, because, after all, real wages and production are the same thing. The workers live on what they produce. I know that hon. Members opposite say that the United States are a new and vast country, and that they have illimitable resources of raw material which we have not got in this crowded old country here; but our answer is, that if the United States are a new and vast country, the British Empire is newer and vaster, and that if we are a crowded and old industrial country here, it is also true that the Eastern States of the American nation, such as Massachusetts and New York, are as old, industrially, as Lancashire or Yorkshire. The reason why the conditions are different there is that the old States on the Atlantic seaboard are part of one great business organisation, so that every new development in the farthest part of the United States, and every new development in the Philippines and Porto Rico, enures to the benefit of those working under those conditions. All we are arguing for, and all we press this Government to do, is as an Administration to consider whether we cannot improve the conditions of the workers of this country by linking up their willing hands to the boundless resources that exist in other parts of the Empire. I know that objections are urged that you would be increasing the cost of living and

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reducing the real wage. There are really two different questions. There is the question of the price to the consumer here, which is of vital importance to us in this country, and the question to the farmer in Canada or Australia, which is not what price the consumer here pays but what profit he gets.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Maclean): It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman is actually trenching on the work to be done by the Commission, and that does not arise on this Debate.
Mr. AMERY: At the beginning Mr. Speaker ruled that any reference to preferential legislation would be out of order, but I understand that he did allow that the question of Colonial Preference in quite general terms could be discussed. We are dealing with the Executive inaction of the Government in not even inquiring into this matter. They have refused to allow Preference with the other parts of the Empire to be inquired into.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: It is quite in order for the hon. Member to deal generally with the question, but the work of the Commission must, of course, be left to the Commission. I must ask the hon. Member to confine his remarks to what was referred to in the early portion of the Debate, namely, the question of administration. Beyond that I cannot allow him to go.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: May I ask your ruling on the point whether it would not be permissible for my hon. Friend or any other Member to refer to the Reference to the Commission and to the subjects which they will be expected to inquire into and discuss?
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I will deal with the point when it arises.
2.0 P.M.
Mr. AMERY: I do not wish to pursue that particular argument, but I think we can say that the general question of the business organisation of the Empire is vitally connected with the question of our social conditions in this country. A particular remedy may or may not involve legislation, and in deference to your ruling I will not touch on particular remedies, but I do think that it ought to be a matter of common agreement on all sides of this House to promote the business organisation of the Empire. To bring together the Empire in trade development in every part is a matter which is of the very first interest to every social reformer, because it
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gives him the groundwork of an efficient production, on which alone the superstructure of further social reform can be based. If an Imperial organisation is of the first interest to social reformers in this country, it is of no less interest to those who are concerned with the great problem of defence. We have listened within the last few days to the Naval Estimates. On every side of the House there was acquiescence, a sombre acquiescence in some parts, as to the absolute necessity of paying these enormous sums for the maintenance of our security and of our trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated only yesterday that even further sums may be required this year. How much further is this going to go on? How much longer are we in this country, with only £700,000,000 net production, to bear Naval and Military Estimates which swell out our Budgets to something like £200,000,000? It is appalling to contemplate a tax of £200,000,000 on a net production of £700,000,000 and a gross production of £1,700,000,000. Yet every side of the House has come to the conclusion that there is no good in protesting against these armaments as long as the general situation of the world is what it is to-day. If we cannot devolve the burdens from our shoulders, cannot we do something to broaden the shoulders which have to bear them? Cannot we call a new world of Empire into being to redress the balance of the old world in which we are being weighed down? Ought we not to welcome every proposal, however much it may conflict with our natural prejudices, which would endeavour to make it easier for the Dominions to help us in bearing this burden of defence? We know that they are willing. We know, on the other hand, that they are still in the stage of development, and that their surplus wealth is limited. We also know that in many ways the full extent of their interest in the Empire has not been brought home to them. Here again surely every measure which brings Canadians into closer contact with Englishmen, makes them understand the requirements of the Empire more, makes them more willing to play a part in the defence of the Empire. Every measure which increases the volume of trade between Canada and England, increases the direct interest of Canada in the sea supremacy of the Empire. Again, every measure, whatever it may be, which increases the volume of goods bought by this country from Canada adds to the population

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and economic resources of Canada and adds to her power of contributing to the defence of the Empire. To these considerations we appeal. We ask you to consider the bearing of Imperial unity upon the narrower problems that we have to confront here at home, and if the Government are not prepared to introduce the legislation which we desire on this side of the House, at any rate we do feel that they might do a great deal more in other directions which they have not done, and might at least in their administrative action show a greater activity, a greater readiness to act, and a greater measure of sympathy for Imperial proposals than they have shown in the past.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Perhaps it would be convenient if at this juncture I said a few words with respect to the specific question affecting my Department which has been raised during the discussion to-day: the question of cable rates with special reference to the advisability of the construction of a State-owned Atlantic cable. The Government, of course, do not differ in any degree from hon. Members who have raised this question as to the importance to the Empire—the political, strategic, and commercial importance of cheap and rapid means of communication. They are indeed quite essential to the maintenance of the unity of the Empire, and to the drawing of its parts closer together. If our Empire had still to rely for its communication upon sailing ships, it is very doubtful whether its unity would have been so long maintained. If it had to rely only on the steamer, its continued existence would have been perhaps difficult. It is the cable which, more than any other one thing perhaps has contributed to the closer Imperial unity which now exists, and in which all parties in this House rejoice. For my part, so sensible have I been of these facts that since I have held the office of Postmaster-General I have been continually at work with a view to securing the reductions in the cable rates, and I am very happy to think that I have been successful in several directions in effecting those reductions. But before I refer to them I might point to the fact, which has not been mentioned in the discussion to-day, that more important than any reductions in the particular rates to the commercial community at large, has been a change which was
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effected at the last International Telegraph Conference. At that conference the use of artificial code words was sanctioned. The result of that has been that a single word sent in code across the cable is now able to contain within itself four, five, six, and sometimes as many as seven or eight ordinary words. The commercial community has derived more advantage from that change than from any reduction in rates, even as great as those that have been suggested here to-day. With regard to rates themselves, I may point out as regards the rates for code traffic that although per word the cost may seem great in effect it is not really at present very expensive. The rate of a shilling a word across the Atlantic is in practice to the commercial community a rate of not, on an average, more than about twopence or threepence per word of plain-language telegrams, and similarly the two shilling code rate to Australia is in practice a rate of perhaps fourpence or sixpence a word for plain-word telegrams. Where the rates press heavily is in respect of plain-language social telegrams, as they are usually called. With regard to them a very large proportion are not of an urgent character; they are communications which cannot wait to be sent as letters, but they are not urgent from the point of view of minutes or even of hours. Therefore I have concentrated my attention on endeavouring to induce the cable company to give reductions in plain-language telegrams which are not of an urgent character, and reductions of very large amounts.
Those efforts, I am happy to say, have been successful. They have not been small reductions as the hon. Member for Christchurch suggested. They have been reductions of 50 per cent., and whereas a year ago it cost 1s. a word to send any kind of telegram, except Press telegrams, across the Atlantic, now any plain-language telegram of a non-urgent character can be sent at 6d. a word. The rates to Australia have been reduced from 3s. to 1s. 6d., and now, throughout the world, this class of telegram can be sent at a reduction of 50 per cent. on the previous rate. Further than that, one of the great groups of American companies has given even larger reductions in respect of telegrams of a certain length which are dispatched at night, and others which are dispatched during the week-end—reductions even exceeding 50 per cent., and these new facilities have been largely

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made between this country and Canada, and between this country and the United States. Similar considerations apply to Press telegrams. Many of them are not of an urgent character, for the reason that delay would not really affect their use; and here, also, I have secured reductions throughout the Empire of 50 per cent. or more in deferred Press rates. The rate to Canada, instead of 5d. is now 2½d.; the rate to Australia and New Zealand, by the Pacific route, instead of 9d. is now 4½d.; and the rate to South Africa, instead of 9d. is now 3½d. It may be said that it is essential that the Press should have their news hot and without any delay of any kind before any part of it is transmitted. That is not the view of the Press itself.
I have been able to obtain figures from the Pacific Cable Board, and I find that during the month of February—the latest figures that I have received—the Press have sent more telegrams to Australia at the deferred rate of 4½d. than were sent at the urgent rate of 9d., so that this facility was used to the extent of nearly 30,000 words during the month, and the ordinary Press telegrams were about 1,000 words fewer. The exact figures are 28,913 words deferred, and 28,095 words ordinary. With a view to improving the strategic communications of the Empire, and also to enable Press rates to be reduced, I have entered into arrangements, as the House is aware, with the Marconi Company for the erection of a chain of wireless stations to connect this country with India, Australia, and New Zealand at a total cost of over half a million pounds, which, we believe, will be of importance from a naval and military point of view, but which will also, we anticipate, enable the rates to be reduced for wireless telegrams, and at the same time will not be unremunerative to the Governments which are partners in this enterprise. It is a plan which will place the British Empire far in advance of any country in the world respecting wireless telegraphy. Hon Members opposite are in favour of a specific which would achieve more than this, and their specific is to construct a State-owned cable between this country and Canada. Let me say, in the first place, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that when I raised a point of Order on this matter, I only did so for the sake of information, and I was in no degree desirous of preventing discussion on the subject. On the contrary, I welcome this opportunity of making to the House a somewhat fuller, though I
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hope still brief statement, than I have been able to do previously in answer to questions. There are two reasons which hon. Members opposite give for their proposal of a particular cable across the Atlantic.
The first is the strategical reason. The hon. Member for Christchurch, who raised this discussion, said that it was a danger to the Empire that our cable should go across the Atlantic and should be in the hands of American companies, and that there was a risk of our strategic secrets, that was his phrase, being made known to other countries through this circumstance. How are our secrets to be made known? Does the hon. Gentleman really imagine that Admiralty telegrams are sent in plain language? Has he got in his mind's eye a telegram from the Admiralty to the commander of the Fleet on some Canadian station, that war is imminent and that the Fleet should concentrate at such-and-such a point? Does he really suppose some employé of the American company will be ale to hand this over to some American newspaper, or to some person who is adverse to our interests?
Major ARCHER-SHEE: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I would call his attention to the fact that no cipher code is a secret at the present time, and that it is known to all leading telegraph experts that practically every single code can be deciphered if the message is of sufficient volume.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: If the message is of sufficient volume. I should be sorry to think that our Admiralty communications which are sent throughout the world in cipher could be deciphered by foreign governments that may be interested in their contents. However that may be, as a matter of fact, all these cables, controlled as they are by foreign companies, land on British territory on the other side of the Atlantic, and if we were engaged in any hostility with a foreign country on the other side of the Atlantic, which, of course, is in the highest degree improbable, there is no doubt that emergency measures would have to be taken for the protection of our communications. But I believe the contingency is so remote that it is not one to which the Government need attach any importance.
Mr. CROFT: I did not wish to insinuate that there was any possibility of war; I was only referring to the undesirability of

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having any strategic secret going to different parts of the Empire, even with the neutrality of the United States. It is not a question of war with the United States.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The hon. Member, I think, spoke, first, as to whether we were at war with some European country, and, secondly, whether the sending of a cipher telegram which could be deciphered by an employé of an American company, who might communicate with the European Power if we were at war. Really such a contingency is so remote that I do not think this House should make any costly provision to meet it. The second reason which is advanced as a ground for laying a State-owned cable across the Atlantic is that it would enable us to reduce the rates. That is, of course, the prime motive for this proposal. In the first place, I adhere to the position which I took up at the Imperial Conference that a State-owned cable across the Atlantic would undoubtedly be run at a loss. The reasons are these: It remains the fact that it could obtain no constant and certain volume of Canadian business, for the reason that the land lines in Canada are not the property of the Canadian companies, but belong to groups of companies which are in close connection and alliance with the cable companies; and if the cable companies were to be subjected to a rate-cutting competition by the State it is certain that the allied companies which controlled the land lines of Canada would not give facilities to the cablegrams which passed across the State-owned cable, and would not assist the Post Office in this country to undercut the companies with which they are in alliance. But the hon. Member says there is one company which is not so tied, the Grand Trunk Lines of Canada, and they have communications with several of the chief towns of Canada. The facilities that would be offered by that company and by the companies with which it is allied would, I am sure, be quite inadequate to furnish a general service throughout the Dominion of Canada. The Post Office of this country could not possibly put itself in the position of offering to the business community of England facilities for communication by a State-owned cable only to certain towns in Canada. We could not put up a notice in the Post Office to the effect that communications could only be sent to those towns in Canada, and that anyone who wished to connect with any other town must go
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to some private company with which we are in competition. That is not a position in which we could place ourselves. The fact remains that we could not get land connections in Canada to such an extent as to secure that we should be able to enter into competition with the other companies in the large volume of Canadian business, nor could we send across from this side any large volume of business, even if we could get those connections, because we have an old standing agreement with the Anglo-American Company, which was entered into by the Government at the time when the telegraphs were taken over by the State, and which provides that all unordered traffic—that is, traffic which is not directed to a particular line—shall be sent by the lines of the Anglo-American Company.
Major ARCHER-SHEEmade an observation which was inaudible.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: That would be a very strong step indeed.
Mr. PETO: Is it to go on for ever?
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I believe there is no specific provision for determining it at any particular date, but it might have to be considered how far it would be legitimate to deprive the company of facilities which they were given years-ago, and which were originally given as an inducement for capitalists to come forward and to lay any Atlantic cable at all in days when the enterprise was exceedingly speculative. The Pacific cable traffic would be assured to such a new company. That traffic would amount to something between a million and a million and a quarter words, while the average loading of the existing Atlantic cables is two and a half million words or upwards. In other words, if the State-owned cable was to rely only on the Pacific cable traffic, it would do half as much business as any of the existing cables, which are loaded only to the extent of half their capacity. The average loading—that is, the average traffic—of the Atlantic cable is two and a half million words per year, while their capacity is somewhere between five and five and a half million. The cost of an Atlantic cable would be about half a million pounds if you laid only one, but these cables are liable to interruption, and if there were interruption in that one Government cable we should have to depend on the kindness and good will of

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the companies with which we were in active competition to carry out traffic during that time. Of course interruptions do occur to all cables from time to time. My advisers assure me on the best estimate they can form, and it is an estimate by no means weighted against the proposal, but what they regard as fair and proper, that the annual cost of the maintenance and working of such a cable, including sinking fund and interest charges, would be about £50,000 per year, and the probable revenue would be about £25,000 per year. That estimate was made a little while ago and perhaps now it might be increased somewhat. Therefore there would most certainly be a loss on this cable, so we estimate, approaching 50 per cent. of the expenditure upon it. In this House we are continually appealed to by hon. Members opposite to limit our State expenditure. Whenever questions of taxation are raised we have urgent appeals for national economy and for the limitation of expenditure generally.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: Unnecessary expenditure.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I know hon. Members may urge that this is necessary State expenditure, but the fact remains that I do not think that during the two years I have been Postmaster-General I have received a single suggestion from any Member of the Opposition side of the House, or indeed from any quarter of the House, which has not involved in greater or less degree an increase of national expenditure, or which has not involved a loss of some economy which I have been trying to effect. Hero, at all events, the Government can see no reason for incurring what they regard as a certain loss in order to achieve results which can be achieved without any risk of loss at all. Perhaps I may be wrong in regard to the period of the Anglo-American Agreement. I am informed it is thought that it may expire in the year 1928. Therefore I am very glad to assure hon. Members that we shall not be bound for all time, but 1928 is far enough away to prevent us acting now with a view to the reductions that may be effected at that time.
The hon. Member for Central Finsbury (Major Archer-Shee) said that we have got now the whole of the Atlantic traffic in the control of two groups of companies, and that, though it was true that those two groups are now engaged in active competition, that at any time they might
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combine, and, having combined, they might rearrange their rates to our disadvantage, to use his own phrase. He has completely left out of account the measure which I have recently taken which secures Government control of cable rates, and which is the greatest advance in this matter, I venture to say, which has been made by any Administration for very many years past. Almost all the landing licences of the Atlantic cable companies have come up for renewal within the last year or two, all of them except that, I think, of the Direct United States Company, which has only one line to the States. I refused to renew any of them except with the insertion of a clause to the effect that the Government here, the Postmaster-General, is to have the right to call on those companies to reduce their rates. The companies are given an appeal to the Railway and Canal Commission to protect them against any unreasonable demand that might be made upon them. The hon. Members who have dealt with this question have made no reference whatever to this most important step, a step which makes it quite impossible for any combination of Atlantic cable companies to raise their rates to the disadvantage of the community. When the combination was effected and when the American group took over the lines of the Anglo-American Company and the United States Company, this matter became one of urgent importance, and I regarded, with a certain measure of equanimity, the possibility of combination between the various interests; because I had secured absolute Government control over rates which would render it quite impossible for any trust to be formed to raise rates against the interests of the commercial community and the rest of the nation.
Mr. PETO: How long do those landing licences run for?
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: They last for varying periods of years, but the control of rates is not at the moment of renewal, but is a continuing control; and at any time during the currency of the licence it may be, if necessary and if found advisable, put into operation. I am not proposing to put this control into immediate operation, in view of the fact that the companies have voluntarily made such very large reductions in their rates quite recently. But after we have had some little time in which the effect of those reductions can be observed the question will

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come up for consideration whether the present rates for Press telegrams and urgent messages should not require to be revised under the powers which are now conferred upon the Postmaster-General in this country.
Let me point out, lastly, what has been the fate of this proposal for a State-owned Atlantic cable on almost every occasion when it has been recently discussed and when the powerful arguments against it have been fairly and adequately stated. The proposal was first made to the Imperial Conference. There was on the agenda paper a specific resolution, in the name of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, asking the Conference to decide in favour of a State-owned Atlantic cable. When the Conference had heard and was fully seized of the risks and disadvantages of this proposal, and was made aware of the alternative steps that might be taken without a State-owned Atlantic cable, the resolution was withdrawn, and a resolution, which I myself moved, and which has been referred to to-day, was substituted for it. That resolution provided that if considerable reductions in Atlantic cable rates were not made, the question should be again considered. What was meant by "considerable reductions"? I stated clearly to the Conference precisely what reductions were contemplated. The report does not refer to the Press telegram reduction, because that, at the time, was confidential. I stated quite clearly to the Conference what were the reductions that I was endeavouring to procure, and it was on my statement, followed by my resolution, the terms of which were based upon my statement, the original resolution was withdrawn. The Conference was fully aware that the considerable reductions referred to in the resolution were the reductions which I was then endeavouring to secure, and which have since, in fact, been effected.
Major ARCHER-SHEE: At the same time is it not the fact that neither Canada nor New Zealand is satisfied with those reductions?
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am happy to think that our Dominion Governments are not yet in such a state of atrophy that they are likely to be satisfied with any reductions, and that in all parts of the Empire, whatever is received, we shall be glad to have more. Neither I nor the
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Colonial Secretary has had any intimation from the Dominions asking us to call the subsidiary conference referred to in the resolution, and, in view of the fact that the reductions contemplated at the time the resolution was moved have been since in fact effected, I am sure that the Dominions are not likely to make any such proposal. The matter was brought up in the Canadian House of Commons on 29th February last. Hon Members opposite have suggested that the Canadian Postmaster-General is in favour of their proposal. He has been quoted as a supporter of their plans and as a critic of my objections. The case is not so. The Canadian Postmaster - General indeed regrets that further reductions than those already made are not yet in contemplation, and very naturally so. Why should he not desire continuous and always increasing reductions in the cable rates? But so far as the State-owned Atlantic cable is concerned, these are his words in the Canadian House of Commons:—
"I do not think it will be necessary to have a State-owned cable. There are many heavy drains on the public Treasury of Canada. In this young country we have to expend a great deal of money to keep pace with the progress of the times, so that if we can dispense with the expenditure on a State-owned cable the money thus saved can very well be applied elsewhere."
So that Mr. Pelletier, the Canadian Postmaster-General, himself has declared that his view is the same as my own, and that a State-owned cable is unnecessary. In view of these circumstances, I do not see how hon. Members opposite can say that we are lagging behind Canada in this matter. Next, a proposal was made a few days ago at a meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of this county, when a resolution calling upon the Government to lay a State-owned cable was proposed for their acceptance. My hon. Friend the Member for the Hawick Burghs (Sir J. Barran) was good enough at my request to attend the Conference and to state the objections to the proposal. The objections in themselves were so cogent, and they were stated by my hon. Friend with such force, that there again the resolution was withdrawn, and the Conference passed no resolution on the lines suggested. In view of all these circumstances, and in view of the fact also that wireless telegraphy is making great progress and has undoubtedly a great future, I think this House would be in the highest degree ill-advised to press upon the Government this large capital expenditure and considerable contingent annual liability,

1213
when the result which we all desire, namely, the reduction of cable rates, has already been in large degree achieved, and can be in future achieved in yet a larger degree by other methods which do not involve this expenditure and these risks.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: While listening to the Postmaster-General, my mind went back to the days when he and I and others were engaged in doing what my hon. Friends have been doing to-day. I could almost hear the echoes of the voices of old Postmaster-Generals in his own. It seems to me that he who has proved himself in some things a very progressive Postmaster - General, is being overwhelmed by the accumulations of the old traditions which have prevented Postmaster-Generals in the past from doing what he and I believed was their duty. The Postmaster's statement and excuse were able, as most of his statements and his excuses are. The Government are past masters in making excuses. They have the ability to make them, and the inclination. But I think the case is not wholly sound regarding a State-owned cable. One reason given was that the Canadian Government would be placed in this difficulty, namely, that not owning the land lines, those land lines might in fact hold up the Government and this country in regard to their State-owned cable. But is it not the case that the Railway Commission of Canada has control of that matter as well as of the railway rates, and that therefore that particular reason falls to the ground. The question is really whether this Government is willing, because of the reasons in favour of it, to establish a State-owned cable, and whether Canada is willing to do the same. Would the Government be willing to establish a State-owned cable if Canada, in connection with New Zealand and Australia, agreed that it was a good thing to do? They did agree it was a good thing to do, and they pressed it on the Government. Why did they withdraw the Resolution? We know perfectly well why.
Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Canada did not propose it.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: But Canada supported it in principle. Why was it withdrawn? Because of the promises made by the Postmaster-General. The right hon. Gentleman made promises and gave pledges, or what were equivalent to pledges. He is satisfied with what has
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been produced. But that the question was-raised in the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada is in itself evidence that the Members of that Parliament are not satisfied. How can they be? The right hon. Gentleman speaks of the enormous reductions that have been made. I am not an authority upon the details of this business, but I will ask the right hon. Gentleman to remember the circular issued by the Empire Press Union in January last, which has no doubt come into his hands, and in which, not the newspapers belonging to the party to which I belong, but the newspapers representing his party, like the "Daily Chronicle," and others, have stated authoritatively that these reductions—I regret if it is so—are not adequate, and do not meet the case. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why it is that an urgent Press message to Australia costs 9d., and that the Pacific Cable Board is given 3d. for carrying it from Montreal to Australian ports, whereas the cable companies of the Atlantic get 5d. for carrying the message 3,000 miles the other representing 10,000 miles?
How can we be quite satisfied with these admirable arrangements, which the right hon. Gentleman, I know, has done his best to secure? That they are satisfactory he must first get evidence to prove from the newspapers of this country and the commercial people of this country, and from the newspapers and the commercial people of Canada. It is for him to get evidence from them, for his statement to-day is not wholly sound. I do not believe it is wholly sound. That Monsieur Pelletier, the Postmaster-General of Canada, said it is not necessary to build this State-aided cable is no reply. He did not say, "I do not believe in it." He said what the right hon. Gentleman was glad to hear him say, that from the evidence at his disposal he thought it was unnecessary now to build that cable, because of other urgent expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman does not wish to build it, I presume, because of the question of expense. He certainly would not consider it inadvisable to have a State-aided cable to keep our strategic secrets on our own wires. He does not oppose it in principle. He judges it from the point of expediency and expenditure. Well, then, will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why in his own Department he gives the Canadian Pacific Railway large sums, as a representative of his Department told me in this House, independent of the postal services

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rendered by that railway, and as the President of the Board of Education said, for Imperial purposes? Why does his own Department, as an established principle, pay money for Imperial purposes and not for direct services rendered? There is 135,000 dollars lost per year to this country—lost on paper—because of the non-establishment of this State-aided cable.
The right hon. Gentleman himself knows that we were told by two late Postmasters-General, in response to deputations which he and I attended, that money would be lost, and that therefore they could not establish cheaper postal rates. His reply and mine was that we ought to do it for Imperial purposes. That is what we are asking for to-day. That a State-aided cable would be a good thing for the Empire is undoubted. That it would not pay at first is very likely, as the reduction of the postage on newspapers did not pay at first—I do not know whether it is paying now. Notwithstanding that the right hon. Gentleman comes to this House and makes his defence on Imperial grounds. He does not wish to burden his Government with the expense of £25,000 per year, which would only be the initial expense, in order to establish a much greater thing, because it would protect the Admiralty and the Government in time of peace and war from the invasion of their secrets by other Governments, besides establishing better commercial communication with our own overseas Dominions. The right hon. Gentleman said that he could not see how it would very much benefit merchants on this side of the Atlantic. What about merchants on the other side? Trade does not always run one way. It runs both ways. Does anyone venture to say that if Canada with the United Kingdom established a State-aided cable, with control of their own land lines, as they could have by having control over their rates, that commerce would not be advantaged by it? You would be able, then, to secure a reduction in rates without this continual—not negotiation alone, but threatening—because I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has used the "big stick" occasionally in regard to these cable rates. It is possible, too, for this House always to abrogate any agreement for national purposes. It is not necessary in the case of the Anglo-American Company's Agreement, because it will, I understand, end in 1928. Meanwhile the right hon. Gentleman has the power in his hands, and would have power if
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that agreement were not going to end in 1928 to denounce it, and to secure better terms for the traders of this country and the traders of the overseas Dominions. I pass from that subject for the moment to another more strictly concerned with the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I do not see on the face of the right hon. Gentleman to-day that look—I will not call it superciliousness—in regard to great trade questions which affect the Empire that I saw last year when I ventured in a very few words to refer to closer trade relations and the proposed preference. The right hon. Gentleman gave the party to which I belong his own views, and did his fellow Members the honour to say that they had "trotted out the old nag for an airing." I could not congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the choice of his epithets on that ocasion or upon the humour that underlay his speech. He has heard to-day, however, the same kind of statement or speech that I would have made in a far more expansive form, and certainly in a form which everyone who listened must commend, because at any rate, whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees or disagrees to the policy which we advocate, he and his colleagues in the Government—
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is trenching upon a subject which has been twice ruled out of order.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: I was not going to pursue the subject, but I believe that the Under-Secretary of the Board of Trade is going to reply upon the question.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: If the Under-Secretary to the Board of Trade dealt with that point he would be out of order.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: Well, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I was only going to say what I did say to lead up to a point upon which I think I shall find that I am inorder—
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member has no need to deal with a subject which is out of order in order to lead up to his point.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: I was going to say nothing further than to give my reasons for having touched upon the point. I was coming to this point—the appointment of the Commission which the Government is about to appoint to inquire into the trade resources of this Empire. And my reason for raising it was the

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answer given to a Member of this House on the other side yesterday by the Colonial Secretary to this effect, that the Reference did not include India or the Crown Colonies. The reason I raise that point is this, that it is an Executive act, and I think it is a mistake if the Government have settled upon that course, because I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman how that Commission can possibly fulfil the duties which will be placed upon its shoulders if there is not, within the scope of its inquiry, not alone the oversea Dominions, which have responsible Government, tout also the Crown Colonies so closely associated to those Dominions. For instance, the Government appointed a Commission to inquire into the trade of the West Indies and Canada. They did not exclude from the terms of Reference of that Commission any fiscal question. That Commission reported, and, in dealing with the resources of the Colonies and the relations of these West Indian Colonies with Canada, they had regard to the fiscal relation. In appointing this Commission it was quite certain that those who represented the oversea Dominions at the last Conference desired that the whole question not only of the resources but of the relations between the different Colonies and their resources, should be raised, because Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in his speech, used these words:—
"By way of illustration, I may say here that our relations in Canada with our brothers in Australia are not as satisfactory as they ought to be. We have been trying to get a mutual preference treatment, but we have not been able to do so; and I strongly hope such a Commission as I have indicated will be able to come to the end which we have not reached up to the present time."
It is quite clear the then Prime Minister of Canada had in his mind that in appointing a Commission this Government should exclude no subject that affected the commercial relations of the Dominions with this country, and, what is just as important, the commercial relations and development of the resources of the oversea Dominions with each other. If we are going to have an inquiry into the resources of the oversea Dominions, we must make inquiry also into the use to be made of these resources and the development of the profit to be got from these resources. How can you have useful judgment or a Report from a Commission appointed which is told it must not make any inquiry into the resources of the different oversea Dominions, have no regard to what use these resources can be put, and how inter-trading among the oversea
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Dominions can be advanced by any executive means of any Government and of all Governments? The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman himself, with his usual ability and suavity, was able to gain his end in that Conference and to secure a resolution, the final words of which I believe would make that Commission absolutely powerless to make any Report of value to this country or to the Empire at large if it was rigidly followed in the letter and was not liberally interpreted in the spirit. Here are the words:—
"And by what means, consistent with the existing policy of each Power, the trade of each Power with the other may be improved and extended?"
If the right hon. Gentleman had said that, having regard to the fiscal independence of each portion of this Empire inquiry might be made by that Commission as to whether between these portions of these Colonies which have similar fiscal policies the Report might be made—if they would make a Report upon the policy of these oversea Dominions that have similar fiscal policies, I should be satisfied, because they cannot deal with that unless they deal with the possibility of our changing our policy and what might be the result if all the oversea Dominions with similar policies were to come to an understanding in the development of their resources with the Mother-country as to closer commercial relations on the principle of preference, which the Government has apparently excluded from its reference to this Commission. That was the point I wished to raise, and I trust the right hon. Gentleman will see from the trend of public events how much fairer it would really be to raise the whole question, and if he is sure of his ground he will not hesitate to do so and make the reference to this Commission so wide as that these questions can be included. Finally, I want to say a word in reference to the question raised by my hon. Friends in regard to the Crown Colonies and Trade Commissioners. I think it is a mistake for the right hon. Gentleman not to encourage the appointment of Trade Commissioners in the Colonies and the appointment of Trade Commissioners from this country to our Colonies. Why should these authorities concerned with great resources and immensely great possibilities, as the previous development of the West Indies show, be excluded from developing their trade with this country by a lack of these facilities which in our larger way we find necessary for the development of our trade with foreign countries. We have

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got to begin somewhere. We ought not to take from the policy of our Crown Colonies a system of advantage which this Government has used in connection with foreign countries and with our oversea Dominions that have responsible governments. I think the somewhat cavalier way in which the right hon. Gentleman treated the question yesterday was hardly in keeping with the traditions of the office he holds, and holds with great dignity, from the period when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham entered upon his duties at the Colonial Office. I think the responsibility and the action he took, when Colonial Secretary, in advising the Crown Colonies to appoint Trade Commissioners on a very similar extent to the appointment of Trade Commissioners by this country to the Colonies, would produce results quite as good as my hon. Friends presented to this House to-day. I hope the Colonial Secretary will realise that I have spoken with perfectly consistent views, because in the years I have been in this House, dating back from a time before he entered it, I have advocated this policy in season and out of season.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): I rise only to deal with two points alluded to in this Debate. We have been excluded by the ruling of the Chair from discussing the question of an Imperial Preference, and I leave all questions of trade organisation to be dealt with by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. There are two points with which I wish to deal. First of all there is the point raised by the hon. Member for South Birmingham, who suggested that I or the Government have done practically nothing to carry out the decisions or the wishes of the Imperial Conference which met last year. That really is not the case. It was said at the time that the Conference had been an inefficient one. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's Hanover Square (Mr. Lyttelton) suggested that there had been what he called an atmosphere of bland inaction. Well, if there was an atmosphere of bland inaction during the Conference there has been an atmosphere of great activity since it closed. We were able to get a unanimous assent to the Declaration of London which was nullified by action elsewhere at a subsequent date. We were able to renew
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and revise the Japanese Treaty with the assent and approval of every one of the Dominions represented, and on many other matters since the Conference closed we have been able to take effective action. A Copyright Bill, an Imperial Act, has been passed, and it is hoped and believed the Dominions will follow suit with a similar action. That action does not lie with us, but we have taken the initial step.
On the matter of patents, New Zealand has already followed the English law in an Act passed since the Conference, and that was one of the matters discussed upon that occasion. One of the Resolutions was an expression of a desire that there should be uniformity in the law of compensation for accidents, and New Zealand and South Australia in consequence of the discussions at the Conference passed Acts on that matter last year. There has also been passed an Australian Seamen's Compensation Act in the autumn of last year. Another Resolution which was the subject of discussion was that of international exhibitions. This is regarded as a matter of great importance by many of the States and many of the Dominions, and they have been asked by the Home Government to nominate representatives to a Conference on this subject. The Appeal Court is another matter in which great interest is felt by Canadians and Australians. We had a very full discussion on this matter, in which the Lord Chancellor and Lord Haldane took part, and at the request of the Dominion representatives we agreed to strengthen the Appeal Court and specially to strengthen the Privy Council by the appointment of two additional Law Lords who had been appointed not for British but for Dominion and Colonial purposes. The Bill was introduced last year, but there was great pressure of time and some objections, and it had to be withdrawn, but it will be reintroduced this year, and I shall make a personal appeal to the House to pass that Bill for the strengthening of the Courts to which the Dominions attach great importance.
3.0 P.M.
At the same time dissatisfaction was expressed by some of the Dominions in regard to the long-standing practice of the Privy Council in which a recommendation is made to His Majesty which does not take the form of a judgment. They were never able to understand the reason for a dissent which one member of the Privy Council may have given in the course of the proceedings. I have arranged for a

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new Order in Council to be issued, almost immediately, as soon as I have settled the actual terms in consultation with the Dominions, giving leave for the publication of the dissenting judgment in all cases applying to the Dominions. Naturalisation was another matter which was discussed at the Imperial Conference upon which we have already drafted a Bill on the recommendations which were then made, and we have sent it out to the Dominions for their consideration. We have received some suggestions, and that Bill will be introduced into the Imperial Parliament this Session. On the question of cheaper cable rates I need not dwell, because that has been explained by my right hon. Friend. I think he also mentioned what has been done in regard to wireless telegraphy. It is a remarkable advance in the eight or nine months since the Conference closed to be able to say that we are now covering three-quarters of the world by an Imperial system of telegraphy. We have a service from London to Egypt, from Egypt to Aden, from Aden to Bombay, from Bombay to Singapore. Northward, in the future, to Hong Kong, and southward, in the almost immediate future, to Australia, which is working its own station. Australia put up a circle of separate wireless telegraphic stations round its own coast to communicate with two stations in New Zealand, from which there will probably be wireless communication to Fiji. We intend to have wireless communication from Aden to some point in the Union of South Africa, possibly Pretoria; and if the resources of science will not allow that to be done, we may decide to make an intermediate at Nairobi.
There was a request made to the Imperial Government at the Conference to assist the Dominions to obtain a revision of some of the treaties made in the old days which include the Dominions of which they themselves would like to be relieved. These negotiations have been going on with several countries for some time, and we have already succeeded in our endeavours to release the Dominions from treaties with Mexico and Sweden. There was another question, that of the mutual enforcement of the judgments of superior Courts and commercial arbitration awards. We are prepared to legislate on that subject in the direction desired by the Dominions. We have asked for the observations of the individual Australian States. There are
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twelve definite and separate actions taken by this Government since the close of the Conference in June only last year which have either been actually carried cut or are in process of being completed now to meet the requirements put forward by the Dominions.

IMPERIAL TRADE COMMISSION.
The last point was one which was put forward by the hon. Baronet opposite in regard to the Commission to inquire into the resources of the Empire. I think the Member for South Birmingham said there has been a discred table delay in the formation and composition of this Commission. I am sorry he should have thought it necessary to use that language, because I think he will see that there has not been any delay on the part of the Imperial Government, but merely a natural and necessary delay on the part of one of two of the Dominions in the selection of their representatives.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: Have the Government appointed their own representative?
Mr. HARCOURT: I was just going to deal in passing with the suggestion of the hon. Baronet that this Commission should be greatly enlarged in its scope. The Commission is the result of a resolution passed by the Conference, and that resolution specifies exactly what it is to do. It is only to inquire into the resources of the self-governing Dominions. The Imperial Conference never intended this should be a world-embracing Commission. I think they were wise, because, if they had made it world-embracing, they would have it continually enduring, whereas we hope to have a valuable Report from it before the next Imperial Conference. The hon. Baronet asked me as to the terms of Reference and the exclusion of the fiscal question. He probably knows from what he has read, and indeed from what I said to him on a previous occasion in this House, that the exclusion of the fiscal question from the terms of Reference was agreed to by the whole Conference. It was quite clear in the discussions at that Conference it would be just as inconvenient and disagreeable to the Dominions to have a Report of that Commission pressing Free Trade upon them as it would be unpleasant to us to have a Report pressing upon us a policy in which we as a Government do not believe. Everybody at that Conference was agreed as to the

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necessity and desirability of the exclusion of the fiscal question from the Commission, and that has formed the basis of the whole Commission and of every invitation which I have issued to individuals to join it.
Sir GILBERT PARKER: Supposing Canada and the West Indies, in giving evidence concerning their products and resources, desired to show that by certain arrangements with each other they could advance the development of those resources and their exchange, would that be the kind of thing that would be excluded from the consideration of the Commission?
Mr. HARCOURT: I think the hon. Baronet is really able to judge from the wording of the Resolution which will practically form the terms of reference. They can suggest any method consistent always with the existing fiscal policy of each part of the Empire, by which the trade of each part of the Empire with one another and with the United Kingdom might be improved and extended. Some complaint has been made of delay in the appointment of this Commission. I have staled it was not my fault I have not been able sooner to make the announcement; in fact, yesterday afternoon I could not have made the announcement, but to-day I am in a position to do so. The final step has been taken, I have made the necessary submission to His Majesty, I have received his consent, and I am able, if the House would like me to do so, to announce the names of the Gentlemen who will form the Commission. There are, as arranged, six members from the United Kingdom and five members from the Dominions, one from each. The members are:—
For the United Kingdom:
The Right Honourable Lord Inchcape of Strathnayer, G.C.M.G., K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E. (to be Chairman of the Commission).
Sir Edgar Vincent, K.C.M.G.
Sir Charles John Owens.
Sir H. Rider Haggard.
Mr. Tom Garnett (of Manchester).
Mr. William Lorimer (of Glasgow).
For the Dominion of Canada:
The Honourable George Eulas Foster, Minister of Trade and Customs.
For the Commonwealth of Australia:
Mr. Donald Campbell, LL.B., formerly a Member of the Legislature of South Australia.
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For the Dominion of New Zealand:The Right Honourable Sir Joseph George Ward, Bart., K.C.M.G., recently Prime Minister of the Dominion.
For the Union of South Africa:
The Honourable Sir David de Villiers Graaff, Bart., Minister of Posts and Telegraphs.
For Newfoundland:
The Honourable Edgar Bowring, Member of the Legislative Council.
With William Arthur Robinson, Esq., of the Colonial Office, to be Secretary to the Commission.
That constitutes a Commission of eleven, in my opinion as strong a Commission as has ever been formed within the Empire for any purpose. It is a Commission from which we have deliberately excluded all Members of the House of Commons, in order to exclude every possible question of party politics. It is a Commission which will be laborious, and whose labours must be long, but I hope they will be concluded in fact, I feel sure they will be concluded—before the next Imperial Conference. I believe it is a Commission in which this House, the country, and the Empire can feel complete confidence that they will carry out, not only with great ability, but with satisfaction to everyone who has the interests of the Empire at heart, the great trusts that have been handed over to them.

RURAL HOUSING.
Earl WINTERTON: I desire to raise a question connected with the operation of the Housing and Town Planning Act as it affects rural districts. The administration of this Act has rendered the problem of rural housing even more acute than it was before. It has, by dealing with half of the problem, accentuated the evils of the other half. There are two evils connected with housing in rural districts—one is bad houses, and the other is the lack of sufficient houses I think the evil of bad houses in rural districts has been rather exaggerated in the Liberal Press and by others who are more or less pessimists on this question, and I also think the bad effects of insanitary houses in rural districts is not so great as in towns, because you have more space, and you have clean and fresh air. I am far from saying, however, that there are not a great number of houses in rural districts, practically in every village, which are not

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up to the standard of modern requirements. The operation of this Act has been to close throughout England a very large number of houses, and the movement is still going on. There are more houses being closed each day, but as yet comparatively nothing has been done to supply the want of houses by building fresh ones. The President of the Local Government Board, in answer to a question the other day, said that under the Act some 116 cottages had been built, and closing orders had been made in respect of 1,344 cottages in rural districts. He added, that did not mean all those houses were uninhabited. No, it does not, because in some eases the necessary repairs have been carried out. Section 17, Subsection (4) of the Act, however, provides:—
"Where a closing order has become operative, the local authority shall serve notice of the order on every occupying tenant of the dwelling-house in respect of which the notice is made, and within such period as is specified in the notice, not being less than fourteen days after the service of the notice, the order shall be obeyed by him, and he and his family shall cease to inhabit the dwelling-house."
I can say from personal experience that while these houses were being put in a state of habitable repair many families were without any lodgings of any kind; indeed, in some cases they had to seek shelter in the casual wards of the workhouses. It is also a fact that the majority of the houses which have been actually demolished belong to small owners. Whatever views hon. Members may hold on the question of rural housing, it is not necessary to point out that no man can build cottages suitable for labourers at a price which will give him a decent return on his money. I do not think many personal experiences have been given in the course of this Debate, but, in the county of Sussex, I have recently built some cottages, and I have found that the cheapest price at which double cottages can be built is from £220 to £230 per cottage. Where you are building a single cottage it costs more. All the return which is to be got from a cottage is about £5 per year, and in no country will you find anyone who wishes to invest his money in an industry in which he can only get, after including the cost of repairs, about 2¼ per cent. I would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a speech he made outside this House. He said there were rural districts where they are building on economical lines. I should like to know where they are. I believe the figures I have given will be found to be generally applicable to the whole of England; indeed, I
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think the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Norfolk will admit it is more difficult and more expensive to get cottages there even than in the South of England. There is no place where cottages can be built on economical lines in rural districts.
Where are these unfortunate people, who are being dispossessed of their only habitation, going to find shelter? In every village in England at the present time there is a lack of sufficient cottage accommodation, and the operation of the Act, by speeding up the process of closing insanitary cottages, has made the position infinitely worse. It is the duty of the Government to deal with the matter immediately, either by some alteration in administration or in some other way. We are often told of the great attraction which towns have for agricultural labourers, an attraction which makes the difficulty of obtaining labour in country districts very great. My own experience, which is borne out by other hon. Gentlemen, is that, at the present time, emigration from towns is rather decreasing. Village institutes, cinematographs, and other attractions have made life in country districts more bearable, and there is not such a desire to go to the towns to seek brightness as there was in former days. Plenty of labour can now be hired. There is no difficulty in obtaining labour, the difficulty is to find cottages, and it is greater in the case of a man and his wife with a large family. There is nothing which acts as a greater deterrent to the bringing up of large families than the difficulty of obtaining deceit cottage accommodation in rural districts. This question has been made a great deal of by hon. Gentlemen on public platforms in the various constituencies. There is not a rural constituency in which, at the last election, the cottage scandal was not referred to very frequently, and both the "Morning Leader" and the "Daily News" were full of this subject daily We are entitled to ask the Government how they are going to deal with the difficulties which the Housing and Town Planning Act has accentuated. How are they going to deal with the problem generally? They have been in power six years. This is perhaps the most acute and trying of all the evils we have to deal with. It is at the root of many other evils which most vitally affect the future interests of this country. Yet, although the Government have had six years in which to deal with it, they have not touched it. Such matters as the

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Small Holdings Act, and the Allotment Act, and the Housing and Town Planning Act have really only accentuated the difficulty.
There is another point I wish to bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman. I think he has shown great remissness on the question of rural by-laws. By-laws in rural districts are totally unfitted to the circumstances of those districts, and there seems to have been no coherent attempts made to bring them into a uniform state. I believe the right hon. Gentleman did issue a model set of by-laws and building rules, but they have not been very widely followed. I hope he will tell us what he thinks of doing in regard to the question of the Housing and Town Planning Act. I should like, if I may, to quote some figures showing how this Act has operated. In 1910–11 there were 246 houses in rural districts in respect of which closing orders were made, and at that time only about 114 houses were built. Since that period the Housing and Town Planning Act, as regards the closing of houses in rural districts, has been largely speeded up, and many more houses have been closed during the past year. Unless this question is dealt with very promptly, there will be in many rural districts like Essex, a perfectly appalling state of affairs, and many honest respectable men capable of paying rents will be driven into the workhouses because of the impossibility of obtaining accommodation. I do not want to introduce any party prejudice into the question. I know hon. Gentlemen opposite are anxious to see some remedy applied. It is not a landlord's question; it is an economic question, and the authority responsible is the Local Government Board.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The point we want to bring before this House is this: that since the right hon. Gentleman came into power, notwithstanding all that has been said by hon. Members opposite about the need of housing in rural districts, operations have been slowed down in the most remarkable manner. If we take the figures given in answer to a question, put by myself to the right hon. Gentleman, as to the amount of money sanctioned in the way of loans for building purposes under all the Housing Acts in the last twelve years, what do we find? In the first five years, during which the party to which I belong was in power,
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no less a sum than £1,200,000 was sanctioned for building operations by local authorities. That is on the average £240,000 a year. In 1906, the right hon. Gentleman came into power, with his great programme of housing reform. What was the result? In the first five years that he was in office, the amount fell from £1,200,000 to £500,000, in other words, instead of £240,000 a year being sanctioned as loans for building purposes, the amount fell to only £100,000 a year. That means that there has not been the same energy and determination to carry out the Housing Acts under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman as there was when the party which is now in opposition was in power in the five years before. It is quite true that there has been a slight improvement since the year 1909. In 1910 and 1911, the amount rose to about £110,000 a year, and there was a wonderful spur at the beginning of this year, which coincided with the fact that certain Unionist Members have been so audacious as to bring in a Housing Bill. There has been a marvellous improvement since then. No less than £133,000 has been sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman in the first three months of this year.
The "back to the land" movement was really taking on in the country, and there is no doubt that the attractions of the town were dying down. People were going back to the country, but, owing to the entire absence of decent housing accommodation, that most salutary movement has been checked, and the people have been driven back into the towns, where they go to swell the overcrowding in the slums, and make the housing conditions in the towns infinitely worse than before. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman thinks that everything is perfectly all right. His speech the other day was optimistic, and one would have believed that everything was being done by him and his Department to deal with the question. But when we asked him what was done in the rural districts in the year ending 31st March, 1911, the last year for which we have complete figures, what do we find? The total amount of loans sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman for building in rural districts in that year, at a time when rural housing was tremendously needed, at a time when hon. Gentlemen opposite were preaching all over the country about bad cottages, was the paltry sum of £250. You could perhaps build one pair of cottages with that, sum, and

1229
that is all. In the same year, under the Acquisition of Dwellings Act, which is an Act passed by the Unionist party, and which we know has not been a very successful Act, and which the right hon. Gentleman contemptuously termed a "wooden nutmeg"—under that Act loans amounting to £3,000 were sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman. If the Act of 1899 was a wooden nutmeg, the right hon. Gentleman's Act is an empty cocoanut, or something of that sort.
There are one or two other points I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman as showing the ineffective administration of his Department, which has ruined the good intentions and possible good effects of the Housing and Town Planning Acts. Let me put one or two questions to the right hon. Gentleman. The first section of the town planning part of that Act says that the Local Government Board may sanction schemes for town planning. That is the whole object of that Act. The Act has been in operation for over two years. How many schemes for town planning has the right hon. Gentleman sanctioned? I do not know whether he has any figures different from mine; but, according to my information, he has not sanctioned a single one up to the present moment. Let us take another matter. Under Section 55 of the Housing and Town Planning Act—the right hon. Gentleman's own Act—the Local Government Board are to issue general provisions as to the character of housing and town planning schemes, to show what ought to be done, and those regulations are to be included in the town planning scheme. Has the right hon. Gentleman carried out that Section of his own Act? Not at all. According to my information, he has not issued any sets of general provisions up to the present moment. I should like to ask what is the explanation of the omission of his own Department to carry out his own Act in this respect.
But there are not only sins of omission. Let me take the regulations that have been issued. Under the Act, the Local Government Board has the right and the power to issue general regulations. It is to be done by the Local Government Board in England, and in Scotland by the Scottish Office. The regulations issued by the Local Government Board are of such a cumbrous character that local authorities find it almost impossible to carry them out, whereas in Scotland the Scottish Office has issued different regulations, which are far more effective. Let me give an
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example. According to the Local Government Board's regulations, in the case of a town planning scheme being suggested by a local authority and being prepared by them, they have to issue notices to every single person affected. The result is a most cumbrous process that delays the whole proceeding. In Scotland, all they do is to put an advertisement in the paper. Why could not a simple process like that be adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, instead of this highly cumbrous system which has been adopted here, and which I am told has had the effect of absolutely snowing under the Hendon Rural Council, because they find it impossible to ascertain all the people to whom the notices have to be issued, and the whole scheme has been hung up in consequence. What I want to say, in support of my Noble Friend, is this: that what we want is a little less optimism on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in his speech, and a little more practical work in the affairs of his Department. We believe that a little more administrative work put in under his own Act would be far more effective than it is at the present time. We do not bring this forward as a party question. We fully recognise the great evils of housing, both in town and country. We want to see the rather more effective carrying out of the work, and if that is done we shall be perfectly content, and we shall leave the right hon. Gentleman in peace for the rest of his time.
Mr. NOEL BUXTON: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down drew an unfavourable comparison between the action of the present Government and that of the last Government. I should like to remind him that upon one point, that of by-laws, the question was very prominent before this Government came into office, and it was particularly prominent in 1905, and that not much progress was made in that matter by the Administration which preceded this one. The Noble Lord (Earl Winterton) alluded to the question of housing in Norfolk. He spoke of a certain figure which represented the minimum cost of building a house in Sussex, and he alluded to Norfolk. I should like to tell him that he is correct in saying that the question is a very urgent one in Norfolk, but that the figure which can be quoted as the minimum in Sussex is very different from the figure which can be quoted as the minimum in Norfolk. Something more like £175.
Earl WINTERTON: I included wells.
Mr. NOEL BUXTON: I think it is certainly lower in Norfolk. Passing from that, I should like in the most friendly way to appeal to my right hon. Friend to add something to the declaration that he made the other day in the debate that has been alluded to. I am particularly concerned to express the point of view which is felt in many counties, and perhaps particularly in my own county of Norfolk, which is one of the counties where the lowest agricultural wage prevails. There the question has been brought to the front recently, particularly by the cases of the Litcham inquiry and the Edgefield inquiry. I shared the delight with which the House received my right hon. Friend's speech the other night, but it is only my duty to tell him that in the country districts there is a certain feeling that something is needed to be added to the declaration which he then made. There is a certain sense of dissatisfaction, or unsatisfaction, at the rather negative quality of his declaration as it applied to very poor agricultural districts. I should like to recall for a moment the point of view of those districts. What he then said was very impressive and represented that robust admiration for an independent spirit which I, for one, yield to none in admiring in my right hon. Friend, but in those districts the points which he made do not very fully and finally apply. What he said was somewhat cold comfort to the places where a number of people are suffering from very inadequate housing. There we are in a dilemma from which there appears to be no escape, and I should like to sketch the point of view of those places where an inquiry has been held, where housing has been admitted to be wanted, and yet owing to the inability to pay the rate necessitated, there is an absolute standstill. One of those places I know very well, and I wish I could get my right hon. Friend to come with me and see one or two houses there which have been reported upon by one of these inquiries. I could show him a house there where two rooms are occupied by four beds, and the four beds by eleven people, and in that particular family, which is blessed with a large number of boys, no boy has a chance of sharing a bed with less than two other boys, and the beds are placed not where it is most convenient, but where it is extremely inconvenient, because of the number of places at which water comes through the roof. That is not at all untypical of a very large number of houses in Norfolk.
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I could show him another house where a family occupies for sleeping accommodation one room, not more than an attic, with another room, I was going to say, but in reality a mere cupboard, with no window at all, in which a child sleeps. These things are not altogether untypical of a somewhat widespread state of affairs. From the point of view of that village, where there is a general sense that something must be done, we are in an absolute quandary. Here one sees there is a general feeling duly expressed in the demand for inquiry and an inquiry has been held, a report has been made to the district council and the district council has occupied a day or two in debate upon the subject, and there has been a full inquiry into the maximum wage which could possibly be paid, and, finally, there has been on the part of the district council a resolution passed, after much opposition, in favour of building, but with this reservation, that the financial risk involved in the building should not go upon the district rate, but upon the parish rate. That offer was made to the parish council, and very naturally declined, because, although the cost of housing properly falls upon the land of the particular district, and the land is perfectly able to bear the cost of housing and the other costs of living of those who work upon the land, still there are ratepayers in the parish whose business it is not to subsidise in any way the building which is required to supply labour for working upon other properties than those of the ratepayers who object to this rate being levied upon the parish in particular. The result of all this is depopulation. I should like to give one little proof of that, rather a striking proof, and one peculiar to Norfolk, because in Norfolk we have what no other county has in any strength, an Agricultural Labourers' Union, and that union, though it does not, of course, include all the labourers in the county, is still a fairly strong union. It is recorded that in the last year or so no fewer than 300 members of the union itself have migrated from this country—300 members probably of rather more than average activity whom this country could ill afford to lose.
It must be admitted that the case of these low-paid rural districts is not being adequately met by the Housing Act. The social and economic machine does not work in respect to agricultural houses. May I ask my right hon. Friend how many of the councils to which he alluded, in answer to a question, are councils in the

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poorly-paid and purely agricultural districts? Something of a very positive quantity is needed to meet this case, though it is only a small part of the problem. Statistics of what is done in more favoured places do not apply strictly to this small, low-paid agricultural problem. In these county districts there is, in regard to the right hon. Gentleman, an affection and a confidence which I am sure is not rivalled in any other part of the country, and I have frequently had occasion to note the confidence, which I am sure would touch him, which is felt in his ability to deal with the problems of practical social reform which affect them. If there has been criticism of his administration in any section of the community it is certainly not in the low-paid agricultural community, where extreme confidence is felt in his interest in problems which affect that section of the community. It would not be in order to allude to many modes by which perhaps a solution is to be found. There is the question, raised the other day, of a subsidy, and there, of course, there are all the objections of logic and of strict, sound economics; but I do not know whether as the lesser of two evils we may not be driven to a subsidy, to deal with what is an urgent practical question. I must allude to the problem of rating reform, which may be at the bottom of the trouble, and to a proposal which, I believe, to be a very practicable one, that of giving powers to local bodies to provide not buildings but building sites at a reasonable rate, upon which that large number of men who have saved a couple of hundred pounds might very likely build purely as an investment for letting purposes, even to agricultural labourers. That class of man builds somehow very cheaply, and if land were available at a reasonable rate there would be a very great deal more buildings even for the poorer agricultural labourers than there are now. That will be a matter of legislation. Of course, at the bottom of it all is the abnormally low wages paid to labourers. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend can tell me whether he could support the application to agricultural labourers of the principle of the minimum wage. The whole housing problem, and all the difficulties and rearrangements of the economic order, would solve themselves if the wages of farm labourers were adequate, and probably that is the solution which will be required in the end. As a matter of administration I would put in a plea for the rural district councils in the
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lower-paid districts. I ask extremely sympathetic treatment for them, because their difficulties are greater than those of other districts. I hope the President of the Local Government Board with his unrivalled powers will be able to apply himself particularly to the problem of the difficulties of districts which are so poor that the provisions of the Housing Act do not provide for their needs.
The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): No one representing the Local Government Board can complain that these questions have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, but it is rather inconvenient that in matters where one his to defend the operations of a great Department over a wide area of administration one should be somewhat constrained in his reply and his defence, by the exigencies of time, and the desire we all feel to go off on a well deserved holiday. But I must reply to one or two of the points that have been submitted by hon. Members in different quarters of the House. As to the point raised by the Noble Lord (Earl Winterton) he took the line, and it surprised me somewhat, that some of the statements which have been made with regard to the domestic and sanitary condition of rural houses by some of the London newspapers had been grossly exaggerated, and particularly because, if there are density and overcrowding in a rural area, it was mitigated by the fact that there are pleasant environments and plenty of fresh air. I am not in favour of a typhus or typhoid seed plot behind a Virginia creeper in a rural cottage any more than an insanitary dwelling in a London slum. It is our duty to take the other line to the extent that though the environment of the labourer is pleasant, his wages are low, and that he ought, in my judgment, to have adequate compensation in the fact of having a spacious house giving immunity from either contagion or disease. I am very glad that the Noble Lord took that view, not that I agree with it, but because it does show that he does not appreciate the kind of criticism to which my Department has been subjected by newspapers that are very often as silly and sensational as they are stupid in their suggestions. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was the 'Daily News.'"] I will make my observations, and you can apply them where you like. Their statements are as sensational as they are often stupid. I ask the Noble Lord to apply

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that particularly to special papers representing all parties in this House, whose comments are very often as superficial on housing as they are on other economic and political matters. The Noble Lord made an extraordinary statement when he said that the operation of the Housing and Town Planning Act had in itself done a great deal of harm. He ought to have qualified his statement when he said that there had been 1,344 houses against which closing orders had been made. I presume he made the assumption that a number of superficial critics of the housing problem have made, that, because 1,344 closing orders were issued, therefore that number of houses were demolished in the rural areas.
Earl WINTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me—
Mr. BURNS: No, the Noble Lord has made his statement on this matter, and I decline to give way. The fact is that although 1,344 closing orders were made, all the houses except 126 were put into decent and habitable repair. It is not correct to represent that 1,344 houses are in process of demolition. That is a considerable modification of the Noble Lord's statement.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENmade a remark which was inaudible.
Mr. BURNS: The hon. Baronet must do me the courtesy of listening to me with patience, as I listened to him.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I have no desire to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman. I only wish to ask a question to elucidate this matter. We know that the closing orders were issued, and we never said that the houses were being demolished. The point is—were these closing orders made operative, and had the people to leave the cottages? I wish the right hon. Gentleman would reply to that.
Mr. BURNS: I am quite willing to help a lame dog over a stile, and I shall proceed to reply to the hon. Baronet. As I have said, 1,344 closing orders were made, but they were only finally applied to 126 houses. The rest of the houses were made fit and adequate for habitation. Therefore the suggestion that because 1,344 closing orders were made the rural areas were short of that number of houses is
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not speaking according to fact. The Noble Lord wanted to know how it was that in rural districts it was possible for cottages and other houses to be erected and let at economic rents. That requires an answer, and I am willing to give it. In fifteen months nineteen authorities in rural areas have built 153 houses at a cost of £30,208 at economic rents. The hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Norfolk knows that in the parish of Montagu, and also in a rural parish of Happisburgh, economic houses are being erected on economic lines. If the people there are not able to sustain themselves on economic lines my suggestion to the Noble Lord and to Members in all quarters of the House is that they should join in criticising in the proper quarter the low standard of wages paid to agricultural labourers of 13s. to 16s. a week, instead of coming to Parliament for a bonus to landlords, who do not always do their duty, and to farmers, who do not always pay economic wages on which labourers can sustain themselves. I can assure the Noble Lord and his Friends that they will do more good for rural housing in the next twelve months, if they could get the wages raised only 1s. a week, than they will do by supporting a cadging organisation on the part either of farmers or landlords, and by coming to the House of Commons for ninepence a week subsidies for cottages to underpaid labourers in the country to be paid by unskilled labourers and charwomen in our large towns and cities. If the Noble Lord will undertake a peripatetic campaign in a gipsy van with a green door and a brass knocker, I would be pleased to take the chair for him.
Earl WINTERTON: Will you recommend Tariff Reform?
Mr. BURNS: No; but I will take the chair for the Noble Lord at the first meeting that he will hold, say, in the county of Sussex or Dorset or Wilts, and will point out the injustice of asking a man on 14s. or 15s. a week to support a wife and family and pay 2s. 6d. rent out of his miserable wages. So much for economic rents. Now, as regards another point. From the criticisms made, anyone would think that the Government were dealing only under the Housing and Town Planning Act with houses in towns and rural areas, and that that was the only thing that was being done. I am very glad to say that during the last few years the

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Local Government Board have sanctioned advances of nearly £3,000,000 for the purchase of 140,000 acres under the Small Holdings Act, and that in connection with that Act alone 1,015 cottages, independently of the Housing and Town Planning Act, have been provided in rural areas. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. My suggestion is that what the Housing and Town Planning Act is not doing in some areas the provision of cottages in connection with the Small Holdings Act is doing, and, both combined, do make a contribution of a larger total sum to the provision of cottages in rural areas than hon. Members are inclined to admit. One hon. Member made a great flourish about by-laws. A great deal of nonsense is talked outside this House, and sometimes in the House, about the Local Government Board and by-laws. That is disposed of by this simple statement. The Local Government Board has prepared both rural and urban model by-laws. We have the power, which we exercise on application, of varying those by-laws to adapt them to the peculiar circumstances of the district or county and the class of material available for cottage and house building in all the areas. We have only had one application from one authority at Gateshead to vary the by-laws about which so much display has been made.
4.0 P.M.
Then we come to the very remarkable statement of the hon. Baronet, who really does know better, in following the Noble Lord, and saying that the Housing and Town Planning Act had accentuated overcrowding in towns. The hon. Baronet should know that that is not true. Everybody knows that we have got 500,000 empty houses in the United Kingdom at this moment. The tendency is from the town to the suburb and from the suburb to the country, and from the semi-rural to the rural. That is one of the difficulties that rural areas are now labouring under. If you do get overcrowding in the towns the London County Council and all the great authorities are amply provided with sufficient power to deal with that without even coming to the Local Government Board for any stimulus or suggestion at all. London has 60,000 empty houses, and they are going from the centre to the circumference and from the circumference to the rural area. That is the condition of things which all of us have to face, but it is not true to say that people are coming back to towns and cities, or that the towns and
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cities have grown in volume or in intensity of overcrowding. It is really the other way about.
The hon. Baronet, in referring to the Housing and Town Planning Act, said, so far as I can gather, that there has not been a single application or any scheme sanctioned under the Act. You cannot have a scheme sanctioned unless application has been made. These are the facts. The preparation of fourteen schemes by fourteen municipal authorities has been already sanctioned by the Board. Applications for authority to prepare schemes have been made by three others. Notices have been given by eleven local authorities of other schemes. There are proposals in reference to schemes from twenty-two other local authorities under consideration at this moment, and negotiations are proceeding between the Board and thirty-nine other local authorities. In all there have been either sanctioned by the Board or are in course of development, not the minus quantity that the hon. Member suggests, but no fewer than ninety town planning schemes. If the hon. Member will only go to a greater authority than himself upon this particular subject—namely, Mr. Aldridge—he will find that, speaking the other night in a suburb of London, he said that "the Act had passed the stage of doubt. Mr. John Burns had told them that there were no fewer than sixty authorities"—there are now ninety—"and he knew that there were upwards of 200 authorities contemplating the administration of the Act." So much for the suggestion that not a single scheme had been sanctioned. Then the hon. Baronet, lacking material in other directions, wanted to know why during the recent period under the administration of the party that he belonged to, namely, between 1900 and 1905, there had been £1,238,000 sanctioned for housing schemes. But more than half of that was not for rural areas at all, and was not for small towns, but was for five large cities, such as Liverpool and Manchester.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I did not say that it was for rural areas.
Mr. BURNS: No, but I am supplying the deficiency.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I said building schemes generally. My point was, whether it was for rural or other areas, a great deal more per annum had been sanctioned by the late Government.
Mr. BURNS: The point of to-day's Debate is rural housing, and I want to point out to the hon. Gentleman that he cannot claim that in six years from 1900 to 1905 £1,238,000 was sanctioned, and hide from the House the fact that more than half of that was for great housing schemes in rich cities, and not for houses or cottages in the majority of cases, but for block tenement schemes that I do not like, and that I do my best to discourage on every possible opportunity.
I need not tell the House that from 1906 to 1910, on much smaller schemes, and more on rural housing than previously, £448,000 in loans had been sanctioned by my Department, but better still, in 1911, and in the three months of 1912, £245,000 had been sanctioned in that fifteen months. But as rural housing is being discussed, may I give a practical answer to a question which was asked to-day by the hon. Member for Wilton (Mr. C. Bathurst), in the form of a few simple figures? I am referring exclusively to the rural housing, and from 1890 to 1899 only £3,500 were sanctioned by the late Conservative administration in that ten years. From 1900 to 1905, £6,800; from 1906 to 1910, £37,380; and from 1911 and for the three months of 1912—only fifteen months—I have had the pleasure of sanctioning £29,688, or just half of the amount of the previous twenty-two years. I am glad to say that in the last fifteen months nearly three times as much has been sanctioned as in the first sixteen years of the Housing Act. But that is only for loans to local authorities. Hon. Members must not assume that these comparative figures which I have given of the amounts sanctioned for housing, by way of loans to local authorities, represent the total amount of housing done in rural areas. It frequently happens that when a locality knows that the local authority is going to apply for housing loans, the fact at once stimulates private enterprise which was dormant until the moment the local authority applied. The action of the local authority stimulates rivalry in other directions, and I am glad to say induces good landlords to become better, bad landlords to become good, and shames the worst landlords to become something like decent in comparison with their fellow men.
I believe that the Census figures with regard to rural areas to be submitted by the Registrar-General will prove very satisfactory in regard to the attempt made by
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the Local Government Board to bring pressure to bear upon the rural authorities to prosecute housing schemes. I can assure the House that we are losing no ground; we are making every effort to stimulate the rural authorities to build new cottages, and to put cottages which are not habit able into decent repair; and probably the best piece of work I have ever done at the Local Government Board, and which will never be recorded, is what I have doneby way of personal persuasion of land lords, who are continually seeking advice as to how they can tread the straight butnarrow path that will lead to rural happiness. It is in that direction that a great deal of good can be done. I have satisfaction in knowing that in rural areas the death-rate has dropped, infant mortality has diminished, and the Local Government Board, as the hon. Member for Norfolk kindly said, never stood higherin the estimation of the people of the rural areas than it does now. I have only one other cheering fact to give to the House. I approach this question with the optimism born of hope, and with the knowledge and experience that more is being done in the way of social activity than hon. Members realise. You have no right to approach a housingquestion with the temperament of an undertaker's mute, and that is not the spirit in which anything can be done. Hon. Members will probably want to know what independent authority there is whichconfirms what the Local Government Board is doing, and which I have recorded to-day. There is one body from which there can be no appeal, and that is the Public Works Loans Commissioners. From1890 to 1908 that body sanctioned on the average £30,000 per year for housing loans to companies for working-class houses and to other public utility societies. For the last three years, since the Housing and Town Planning Act has been in operation, the average has jumped from £30,000 per year to £192,000 per year; that is the defence of the activity that is now being shown by the central department and the local authorities that speaks for itself. Let me say, in conclusion, to rural Members that the extent to which I dislike large towns, those monstrous aggregations of men, women, and children in the cities, is the measure of my sympathy with all rural housing schemes, and if by more inspectors and by speeding up—
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Hear, hear.
Mr. BURNS: The hon. Member says "Hear, hear." Does he know that the average number of letters on housing before I took office was less than 2,000 per year, and at present it is over 10,000 per year. That is an indication of the spirit with which we are trying to animate rural authorities, and of the spirit in which we are urging them to do their duty in this regard. I shall be supported in the view that we take as a Local Government Board that the rural housing problem is a serious one in the many ways in which this Government have taken steps in a way that no previous Government ever attempted. All of that would be relatively ineffective unless the landlords and all political parties in this country realise that instead of advocating dear food for men, women, and children, and low wages, the better plan is to raise the wages, and let those wages be good enough to enable the agricultural labourer, out of his higher wages to build without subsidy from the rates or a bonus from the taxes, and live in a house of his own, or for which he pays rent from those higher wages which it is the duty of every one of us to the best of our capacity to secure.

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I desire to bring to the notice of the President of the Board of Education certain matters of administration affecting his Department. In taking this opportunity, I would like to say that I am one of those who feel that the opportunities given in this House for the discussion of what are after all some of the most vital questions that can be discussed, questions of education, are altogether inadequate. That must be my apology for submitting one or two points for the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman now. I desire to ask the President to make some statement with regard to the attitude of his Department towards certain problems affecting particularly secondary education. I need not remind the House that during the past few years there has been a great development in the facilities for secondary education in this country. At that development we all rejoice. But it has taken place without this House having considered the relation of secondary education to other forms of education or the unity of our educational system as a whole. May I give an example of what I mean? Secondary education is much freer, much more open to experiment, much more adventurous, than our system of elementary
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education, because there are not the same restricting and narrowing influences operating upon the former as upon the latter. I invite the President to state whether we shall soon have an opportunity of considering the better relationship that should exist between secondary and elementary education. Are the words "secondary" and "elementary" to stand indefinitely for different kinds of education given to different social grades, or are they to stand for the various kinds of education that are appropriate to the different ages and needs of school children? I suggest that this great problem of the relation of one form of education to another has not yet been the subject of adequate consideration, and that the Board has not yet evolved any satisfactory system for the guidance of education authorities throughout the kingdom. I should like to submit one or two specific points. For many years there has been a movement on the part of masters in secondary schools to get an adequate pension system. That is a desire with which every Member will sympathise. Can the President tell us what kind of progress that movement is making? Is there any deadlock? Is there any reason why the masters in secondary schools should not look forward to the establishment of a satisfactory pension system at a very early date? Further, has the Report of the Consultative Committee upon the whole question of examinations in secondary schools yet been considered by the Board? May we hope at an early date to learn what the policy of the Board is with regard to a report which raises issues of the utmost importance, especially in connection with the great problem of the unity of our educational system to which I have alluded?
Mr. KING: I also wish to apply a little stimulus and suggestion to the Board of Education. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the President will come out of the ordeal as well as his other colleagues have done out of theirs. I called attention by means of a question to a typical case, because the like of it is constantly recurring. I refer to a case where an elementary school finding itself in difficulties, both as regards the size and accommodation that it provides, and the quality of its buildings, seeks to enlarge. There is a case in Birkenhead. In this connection let me say that so far as I have been able to hear about that town, the Birkenhead local education authority

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is one of those which should have a constant supervision and caution of the Board of Education. The Holy Trinity school at Birkenhead required enlargement. Those concerned put forward a proposal to open some old and derelict buildings which were occupied some years ago by the Wesleyans. These Wesleyan schools were not actually condemned by the Board of Education, but the managers were warned again and again, six years running, that if they did not alter or improve them, they would have their Grant taken away. Moreover, the medical officer of health and the borough surveyor of Birkenhead condemned these Wesleyan school buildings; they were eventually, in 1908, closed, and have been derelict ever since.
What is the proposal? The proposal is that these buildings should be taken to form the enlargement of Holy Trinity Schools, though they are 300 yards away at the very least, though there is no common playground between them. When this proposal came before the Board of Education in December the Board very properly said: "These are new school buildings, and there must be a regular statutory notice of three months, and they must be recognised on the basis of the new school." After that the local authority put forward a specious proposal that they were not proposing to have anything like that increase of accommodation which the size of the school warranted, and therefore on that ground apparently, so far as I can make out from the answer given to me by the President, they contend that it might be considered as an old school. I understand from the answer given to me that the Board of Education in a weak moment has given way. This is a typical case, and this sort of thing is going on everywhere. I could quote similar cases. I do most earnestly and respectfully suggest that it is not consistent to condemn a school or to go within an ace of condemning the school as a Wesleyan school, and then allow it to open as a Church of England school. I am told that improvements will be made. Apparently the opinions of the medical officer and the borough surveyor have not been taken. I very much hope we shall get an independent opinion on this matter before the school is allowed to open. If this sort of thing is allowed there is no reason why every church institute or other building of a different character altogether
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from a school building might not be added for the accommodation of the schools and regarded as an addition and not a new school. It may be urged that it is there and is available, and instead of the real actual laws and regulations of the Departments which are applicable to new schools being put in force, as they should be, impartially and rigorously, in the interests of the children in every case, we may have any sort of building used as an addition to a school, and the rules for accommodation, sanitation, and so forth, disregarded. This is, I venture to think, a very important case, and I hope we shall have the personal attention of the President of the Board of Education given to it. One or two remarks upon another matter of the administration of the Board in connection with cases where teachers in voluntary schools are at the present time more and more harassed and harried by their managers. I brought to the attention of the House the case of a teacher, in my own Constituency, who was dismissed for refusing to be secretary to the Conservative committee in the parish.
Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: Question?
Mr. KING: There is no question at all. It is admitted by everybody, and if the Noble Lord gets up and says what I am saying is not true I will give him as strong, denial as the laws of Parliamentary Debate allow. Here is a man sent out of his school on purely political grounds. He had to deal with a board of managers, the chairman of which has been fined in the Police Courts for assaulting one of the teachers in the school. When he was in possession of the key of the school he happened to drop it one day, and it was taken up by the parishioners, who thereupon held the fort for six weeks against the parson of the parish. That is the sort of man allowed to harry elementary teachers in this country.
Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: Will the hon. Gentleman give the name?
Mr. KING: It is the Vicar of Whitchurch, in Somerset, and I will give his name to the Noble Lord privately.
Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: I think the hon. Gentleman ought to give it across the floor of the House when he brings the charge here.
Mr. KING: Another case occurred only the other day in Northamptonshire, where

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a teacher was actually dismissed from her school for attending a Wesleyan chapel. Fortunately the case was taken up by the National Union of Teachers and brought into the Law Courts, and I am pleased to say that the Law Courts have justified her rights and the integrity of her position. What a pass things are coming to when these cases, which might be multiplied, occur without the Board of Education intervening! I know they are in a difficult position, and that their intentions are good, but I want their courage to be equal to their good intentions, and until they try to do their utmost to maintain the liberty and position of teachers, I feel that continued protests will have to be made in this House. I throw out the suggestion that in revising the Code the Board might make it a condition of the Grant that teachers shall be fairly treated, and that if they are not fairly treated the school should be considered as not adequately and properly managed, and in these circumstances the Grant to the school might be reduced or taken away altogether. These are only a few cases which I have put before the House, but I hope I have said enough to show that there is urgent need for the Board of Education to take these matters into their consideraion.
The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): I am aware of the grievances which occur in certain of the schools of this country, but the duty of the Board of Education is limited and our powers are limited with regard to intervention. So long as the education is efficient in these schools we have no legal power to intervene. No doubt the hon. Member has performed a useful duty in drawing attention to cases such as he has referred to, and I believe that public attention is more likely to stop any such scandal than anything else, and it is only by bringing them under the notice of the public that the few managers of this country who may treat their teachers without due regard can be brought to book.
Lord A. THYNNE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any ground for assuming that the facts are as stated by the hon. Member in regard to Whitchurch.
Mr. PEASE: I have had information of a similar character conveyed to me, but
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it is not within my province to interfere so long as the schools are managed efficiently.
Lord A. THYNNE: With regard to Whitchurch, has the right hon. Gentleman any evidence? I have every reason to believe that the statement of the hon. Member for North Somerset is not in accordance with the facts.
Mr. KING: My statement is absolutely in accordance with the facts.
Mr. PEASE: The facts have been stated to me, but I have no power to intervene no matter whether they are true or false.
Lord A. THYNNE: Has the right hon. Gentleman information from an official source?
Mr. PEASE: I have no official information, but I have received information conveyed in newspapers, but whether it is accurate or not, I cannot say. With regard to the particular schools at Birkenhead, the hon. Member seems to think that that school is now being accepted as efficient, which was not condemned, to which exception was taken in the year 1904. I think that was the last date upon which we had a report from that school. That school contained 426 students, 267 in the mixed department and 159 in the infants' department. Our inspector then reported that there was lack of sufficient class-room, that the playground was insufficient, that the ventilation was bad, that the offices were generally unsatisfactory, and the girls' cloak room was badly placed. The school was closed, and other provision was found for the children, but there has not been sufficient accommodation found, and the local education authority has been satisfied with the accommodation which was provided by this Wesleyan school. The premises are no longer going to be utilised for the elder children, but they are going to be used for the infants. That accommodation would provide room for 200 infants, and the architect of the department has reported en the school and stated that he was not satisfied with the main entrance, and has suggested that a corridor should be attached to the entrance, but on investigation we find that this point can be met by another door being made available as a main entrance. In regard to the ventilation that has been remedied, and if an additional room was provided for the children to be

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able to march in and to have their little drills, and especially playing on wet days, he thought the necessary provision would be made. That point has been met, and an unfurnished class-room has been provided. This, with the existing playground, gives adequate space for the playground of these little infants. He finally reports that the school will be adequate. Our inspector has visited the place, and he has also reported that in regard to the accommodation for infants it is excellent. Therefore, I think the hon. Member may take it that whilst this Wesleyan school in 1904 was not suitable for 426 children, it can be and has been made absolutely suitable for 200 infants.
The other point raised in connection with my Department was with reference to secondary schools, and the hon. Member who raised it asked that an opportunity should be given for the consideration of the whole system of secondary and elementary education and of the question of the unity of education. I shall be quite ready to listen to any criticisms that may be made upon my Department in a debate of that kind whenever hon. Members can arrange a day for such a discussion, but I should like to take this opportunity of pointing out that there has been a very great development in connection with secondary education during the last few years. The provision of public secondary schools is not, after all, a statutory duty of our local education authorities. There are about 330 local education authorities in this country, and we have to-day 985 secondary schools receiving public Government Grants. The number of these schools is being rapidly increased. If I may just read over the figures for each year from 1904–5, the House will realise what a steady increase there has been in these non-private venture schools and non-privately owned schools receiving public money. There were 575 in 1904–5, 689 in 1905–6, 769 in 1906–7, 843 in 1907–8, 912 in 1908–9, 950 in 1909–10, 973 in 1910–11, and at the present moment there are 985, so there has been a steady increase, and I do not think we can say the local authorities of this country have really been backward in providing secondary education. Many of these schools have been remodelled and brought very successfully into an organic whole in a scheme of educational provision, and the results so far are very satisfactory. Let me just take one case. There is a population of about one and a
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half million in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and there are only about 15,000 children in the whole of that population who are not within a reasonable distance of a secondary school. I am advised that if I press this matter too much upon local authorities, instead of an advantage being gained, the result may possibly not be so satisfactory. Most of our Local Education Authorities have realised the importance of secondary education. It is not a question, as the hon. Member suggested, of a difference in social scale between elementary and secondary scholars, for we find that, in certain ages, more than half of those now attending secondary schools have come on from elementary schools. Our only regret is that they are not retained in the secondary schools longer than they are. I do not think at the moment we can really press the local education authorities, as a whole, to do more than they are doing in connection with the provision of secondary education.
With regard to the pensions for school teachers, only last week I met a deputation of teachers of a very representative character, who brought forward a plan which they asked the Board of Education to criticise and consider. We had a very friendly discussion, and the next step is that the representatives of the school teachers should prepare a plan and submit it either to the Board of Education or to the Treasury. If they are not prepared to go forward with their plan, it will be left to my Department to approach the Treasury direct. The matter is under consideration. The point is not being lost sight of by me; but, at the present moment, I am not in a position to say what the Government can do. My own feeling is that there is no claim whatsoever on the Government in connection with a majority of the schoolmasters in secondary schools, unless it is in relation to those schools for which Grants are paid out of public money. The hon. Member also asked me what the Board of Education were doing in regard to the report of the Consultative Committee in connection with secondary examinations. That report has only recently been published. We are now considering it in my Department, and I hope, later on in the Session, to be able to state to the House what proposals we shall make to Parliament and to the country with regard to the carrying out of these recommendations. I am not in a position to-day to give a more definite reply on that point.
Mr. BOLAND: I make no apology for asking the House to turn its attention to a matter vitally affecting voluntary schools in Scotland. Perhaps many hon. Members do not remember the case given by Lord Pentland some four years ago under the Scottish Education Act of that year. It was proposed, under Section 15, that out of the residue Grant the voluntary schools in Scotland should share to a definite extent. I ask the Secretary for Scotland today to give me some indication that he proposes to carry out that pledge. The matter is of such importance that I wish to put on record the actual pledge given by Lord Pentland in this House four years ago. It will be found in Vol. 196 of Hansard, 10th November, page 95, as follows:—
"Mr. Sinclair said his statement was that it was impossible for the Government, in accordance with the Scottish system of education, to do anything by wav of preference to the voluntary schools. What he anticipated wits that the voluntary schools and the board schools would be placed in a better position to the extent he bad mentioned. Within the limits he had stilted, not by way of preference, but by way of equal treatment, every school in Scotland would receive, instead of the Aid Grant per head of 4s. at the present time, an Aid Grant, of 6s, per head, which would place them in a considerably more, substantial position to meet the increased charges that would have to be met. He gave that to the House as the nearest approximation they could arrive at at the present time. He would again point out to the critics of the Bill that the sum which would be left of the residue Grant must be subjected to subtraction for national and district charges, and that therefore it was impossible to give more out of that sum than he had stated. However, he would give an undertaking that if the sum he had mentioned was not reached, it should be made up to it."
That was a distinct pledge given by the Secretary for Scotland that, out of the residue Grant of the Scottish Education Fund, a sum of 6s. per head of the pupils in attendance would be given to the voluntary schools. The reason why we laid such stress upon this was, that when the Bill was going through Committee those of us who represented the interests of voluntary schools were continually put off with the statement that out of the residue Grant sufficient would be forthcoming to enable the voluntary schools in Scotland to carry on their educational work efficiently. At the same time we pointed out, and I daresay the fact remains true to-day, that as they started, the voluntary schools in Scotland, certainly the Catholic schools, were receiving less, to the extent of 25s. per head of the school population, than the corresponding children in board schools. To that extent of 25s. per head the children in voluntary schools in Scotland were tit a decided disadvantage. We pointed out that it was necessary, before the residue Grant was absolutely taken, that
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we should get a definite undertaking from the Government that out of that a certain proportion should be granted to voluntary schools. It was necessary, when the Bill came back on Report to this House, to move the recommital of the Bill. I had the pleasure of doing that on Clause 15. We were supported in our claim by no less than three Members sitting on the opposite side—Mr. Alexander Cross, as he then was, Mr. O'Donnell, and the present Member for Inverness Burghs (Mr. J. A. Bryce)—who all supported the claim that voluntary schools should be put in an efficient position. Eventually, as a result of two hours' discussion, the Secretary for Scotland gave the pledge I have just read to the House. Four years have passed. That residue Grant, so far from yielding the voluntary schools the 6s. per head, which we claimed and were promised, has not benefited them to the extent which we required. On the contrary, I am informed that a great number of them are absolutely starved by the failure to grant this 6s. per head. I wish to point out to the Secretary for Scotland that this was a very definite pledge given four years ago, that the position of voluntary schools in Scotland, if steps are not taken immediately to remedy this grievance, is bound to become worse, because, as I understand it, more and more charges are placed upon the Scottish Education Fund, and other charges will be put in in preference to the claims of the voluntary schools. We shall see the residue Grant gradually disappearing until practically nothing will be forthcoming for the voluntary schools. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not a fact that that pledge was definitely given by his predecessor, and whether he proposes to take the necessary steps to carry out that pledge?
The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I am afraid I shall have to trouble the House with a broad and, I hope, very brief outline of the system of educational finance in Scotland, in order adequately to meet the point which has been put before the House by the hon. Gentleman. I need not trouble the House with the major part of that finance, the two millions of money which is given as the Government Grant to Scotch education. It is quite enough to deal with the small part of the Government Grants, amounting to a little over half a million, which make up the Scottish Education fund. That sum is made up partly of the

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Local Taxation Grants, which amount to something approaching a quarter of a million, and the General Aid Grant, which was 9s. 7¼d. From that, before it reaches the Scottish Education Fund, 2s. is taken off to increase the fee Grant, which is paid directly to every school, and that leaves the amount that goes into the Scottish Education Fund at 7s. 7¼d. At this time no less an amount than £105,000 was given as a new Grant at the rate of 3s. per scholar in connection with the Scottish Education Act of 1908, and this year there has been added an extra sum of £25,000 for the purpose of superannuation and a sum of £7,500 for the purpose of medical treatment. There are certain first charges which have to be defrayed out of this fund, charges for central institutions, for pensions and for necessitous school districts, and the remainder goes to the Secondary Education Committees. These Secondary Education Committees have statutory power or other power to deal with secondary schools, with bursaries, with Grants for additional staffs in small schools, and with medical inspection. The class of schools for which my hon. Friend speaks, the Catholic schools, are not put to any expense whatever in regard to medical inspection.
These are payments over which the district committees have discretion. I do not think we could interfere in some of that discretion without legislation, but after these payments the residue that remains is dealt with as an addition to the fee Grants, and it is in this point that my hon. Friend is interested. It is obvious that this residue varies between one district and another in accordance with the expenditure on the subjects I have mentioned. A certain number of districts in the last year for which I have the figures, 1910–11, were receiving more than 6s., and others were receiving less. A district might spend all the money on these objects, whereas another district might spend a small sum; but a district which spent half the fee Grant was not necessarily worse off educationally, because it had spent its money on important educational subjects. For instance, supposing a district gave no bursaries there would be more for the fee Grant. The pledge to which the hon. Member refers, given by my predecessor, was not, and could not have been a pledge that any actual sum should be given to an individual school, or that the sum in all the
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districts of Scotland should be the same. Supposing you got an additional Grant from the Treasury, it does not at all follow that you would have an addition to this fee Grant. It would all depend on how the district committees spent their money upon the objects which I have mentioned. There is no necessary connection between the additional Grant from the Treasury and an addition to this fee Grant, and I have no reason whatever to suppose that education authorities in Scotland would agree to what would be necessary to attain a fixed minimum, namely, the giving up of their discretion in regard to these matters. I do not think that we have power to make them do it, and it would be a very serious disadvantage to education in Scotland if we were to attempt anything of the kind, and the disadvantage would not be confined to School Board schools. It would be a disadvantage which would be shared by every class of scholar in Scotland—by the Roman Catholic schools as well as by others. In the Glasgow district, according to the figures of 1910–11, where there is an immense proportion of Catholic-schools, the fee Grant was 9s. and in Edinburgh it was 6s. 5d., but in Dumfries, where I suppose they spend more money on secondary education, it went down to a mere trifle. I think my hon. Friend must not assume for a moment that the Catholic schools did not share the advantage, although it did not come in the particular form of this Grant. But, apart from the general advantage which all classes of scholars in Scotland share, the figures show that there has been very great advantage to the Catholic schools in recent years. Really the heart and substance of my hon. Friend's complaint is that the Catholic schools are being injured, and I think the main point of his charge is as to how the Catholic schools have been disadvantaged since the passing of the Act of 1908.
Mr. BOLAND: I am not making any complaint as regards Glasgow and other places, which have received more than 6s.; but I do say that a pledge was given that there should be a minimum Grant all over Scotland. Where it has been exceeded, so much the better; but where it has fallen down, as in the case of Dumfries, it is only fair that it should be made up to 6s.
5.0 P.M.
Mr. McKINNON WOOD: Does my hon. Friend suggest that the education authority in Dumfries is to spend this money on

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scholarships, bursaries, secondary schools, medical inspection, and so on, and yet have a minimum fee Grant? Are they to eat their cake and have it? It is perfectly impossible to expect a uniform sum or a minimum sum under that system. What are the figures in Scotland in regard to the Catholic schools? In the year 1907–8 voluntary contributions supplied £36,000, and total Grants £156,000. In the year 1908–9, before this Act came into force, the total expenditure had risen to £209,000. The voluntary contributions had also risen to £41,000. That was 19.6 per cent. of the total expenditure. The total Grants had also risen, and were £158,000. That was 75.6 of the total expenditure. But in 1910–11, after the Act came into operation, the total expenditure was £231,000, and the amount of voluntary contributions for Catholic schools had fallen from £41,000 to £32,500. The total Grants had risen from £158,000 to £188,000 in round figures, and represented not 75.6, but 82.2 per cent. The only way you could bring about a uniform fee Grant would be to take away all this from district education committees. You have got the substance of what was promised. You have got a very great addition to the total Grants—an addition of nearly £30,000, and an increased percentage of the State contribution to the Catholic schools, and so I hope that my hon. Friend will remember that the substantial advantage has been with the schools which he so ably represents.

RAILWAY UNREST.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: My apology for delaying the House at this hour is the very grave situation that has arisen and is likely to develop in the railway world. I am going to speak not only aw a Member of this House, but with a full sense of responsibility for the great organisation that I am connected with, of the action that may result unless this House, as represented by the Board of Trade, takes immediate steps to deal with the situation. During the discussion on the Minimum Wage Bill considerable capital was made on the other side of the House of what was termed the breaking of contracts on the part of the men in certain districts. In the case which I am going to submit to the House we allege a breaking of the contract on the part of the railway companies, and at a time when the whole industrial situation was likely to be affected by it. The House will remember that
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there was set up machinery in the railway service to, as far as possible, readjust differences between employers and employés, and while some of us were dissatisfied with that machinery, and a very large majority of the men decided that, rather than accept that machinery, they were prepared at Christmas to have had another railway strike, the efforts of myself and other officers of the organisation were directed to the maintenance of peace; and, in spite of the opposition of the men and the criticisms we were subjected to, and the hostile audiences we had to face from August to Christmas, some of us risked that hostility and risked our own personal popularity in the organisation in order to try if possible to avert a strike. Last Christmas we succeeded in doing so, and, having done so, we were at least justified in coming to this House and saying that we wanted this House, with the Board of Trade, to do its duty, and to see that the other party to this bargain faithfully carried out its obligation.
The history of this case, briefly, is as follows. In the recommendation of the Royal Commission, which was eventually accepted by the railway companies and the representatives of the men, it was set out that if any railway employés were desirous of setting up a scheme of conciliation they themselves had to sign petitions and present them to the railway companies for consideration. Let the House mark the point, that if the men themselves were desirous of accepting the principle of conciliation, that was the line of action they had to take. The Central London Railway men, who up to this case had never had a scheme of conciliation, were anxious for one, and in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission they set about getting their fellow workmen to sign petitions, not for improved conditions of service, but to ask the directors to put into operation the recommendation of the Royal Commission, and as to which the Board of Trade assured us that they would use their influence. Immediately a number of these men began to get petitions signed—and here I would say that so general was the feeling in favour of conciliation that they succeeded in obtaining 80 per cent. of the men's signatures—and the petitions were sent to the railway company, immediately on the receipt of these petitions, signed by 80 per cent. of the men, the general manager sent to the one who was most prominent among them and threatened him. His actual words were

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these: "He did not care a damn for Parliament; he was not going to have any conciliation scheme, and, if this man persisted in his action, then he would have to look out for himself."
This was the statement made by the general manager to one of the men responsible for getting up these petitions. Unfortunately, I have not with me the date of this statement, but it was made since the last settlement, and that would be in February. At all events, the society itself sent to the company the petitions which brought forward this statement of the general manager to which I have just referred. But no action was taken at that stage, and let the House remember that. The general manager did not give effect to his statement at that stage; he simply called the man up and threatened him. But remarkable action followed. A counter petition was encouraged by the management, and the foreman himself obtained signatures to this counter petition. He practically asked the men to say that they did not want a Conciliation Board, after 80 per cent. of them had signed a petition in favour of it; the object being, of course, to play off one section of the men against the other. Incidentally the House should note that if the foreman himself tries to obtain the signature of a man that man is in a very difficult position, and it practically means intimidation. At all events, those were the circumstances prior to the coal strike. When it became known that the strike was inevitable the great trunk lines of this country issued notices to hundreds of thousands of their staffs—the Great Western, the Great Central, and other railway companies. We, as an organisation, recognising the difficulties that might arise by thousands of men being discharged when this coal dispute was taking place, recommended, through the Conciliation Boards to the railway companies, that instead of discharging any man the men would agree to forego their guaranteed week—that is, instead of the railway companies paying a week's wages when there was not a week's work for them, they would suspend that guaranteed week and agree to share the time equally. The result is that during the last five weeks we have had nearly 70,000 men working not more than two or three days per week and in a large number of instances getting no more than a pound per week, but they have cheerfully borne the
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loss so that no man should be dismissed, and so that everyone should share the small time there was for distribution.
It is only fair to point out that the railway companies, as a whole, have acted fairly and honestly in this matter. I have no complaint of the great bulk of the railway companies, because they very readily fell in with our suggestion, and there has been no friction except this one case in a small railway in London. Immediately they find it necessary to curtail their service the Central London decide to dismiss their men. A deputation of the men waited upon the management and said they were prepared to do what every railway in the country were doing, and were prepared to share the time, whatever it was, to save any man from being dismissed, and they pointed out that although they were being dismissed other men were working overtime. Then when the manager said, "No, we have decided to permanently dispense with your services," they said, "On what basis are you going to suspend, for surely we are justified in saying, if you are going to dismiss men, then it is your duty to dispense with the junior men first?" Instead of that, the railway company actually dismissed four of their oldest hands. Four of their oldest motor drivers were sacked and two others of the shop. The astounding thing is that the chairman, vice-chairman, and secretary of the men's union are the first to receive their notice, and the other three who were responsible for the petitioning are sacked with them. The point from which the society look at this matter is that whilst it may be the fact that the railway company at this moment has a surplus of men, we say that they ought to follow the lead of all other railway companies and share the work equally. If they are not prepared to do that, and they insist on dismissing certain men, we suggest that it is only fair to argue that they should dispense first with the junior men.
If, on the other hand, they persist, as they are doing now, in dispensing with the leaders of the men, we will not let this be a sectional fight. Let the House clearly remember that it may be their policy to have a fight on a small line, where perhaps they could substitute all their men by an equal number of unemployed; but the society would be false to every principle it held dear if it allowed these men to be sacrificed in a sectional effort. We believe that a mean advantage has been taken of the present crisis by this railway company

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to get rid of men whom they considered obnoxious because they were society men. I am satisfied that unless it is stopped, unless the Board of Trade can persuade this railway company to see the seriousness of the situation, this fight will not rest with the Central London Company alone. The whole industrial situation at this moment is so serious that it will be deplorable if it is aggravated by some other issue being introduced. I believe that this House, through the Board of Trade, ought to express its opinion in no uncertain way. I recognise that side issues have been introduced. The Board of Trade has already been informed of statements that are untrue. We have personally investigated the case; we are satisfied that it is a good case; we are satisfied that these men have been victimised; and if as a result of drawing public attention to it in this House the Board of Trade's position is strengthened and we can do something to save complicating the present grave industrial situation, I think that will be sufficient justification for my having taken up the time of the House in making this protest.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD Of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson): With regard to the complaint made by my hon. Friend, I have to explain that the Board of Trade have already made investigations into the circumstances, and find that they are not in a position to take any decisive action. The Central London Company was not one of the companies affected by the Conciliation scheme of 1907, so that its employés are not covered by the settlement of last autumn. The case, briefly, is that in August last the motor-drivers and some other servants of the Central London Railway Company went out on strike. It was arranged that they should go back on condition that they signed an undertaking that they would work on a perfectly amicable footing with the other employés of the company, and would not, either by word or action, trespass on the rights or feelings of those employés who did not go out on strike. The case of the railway company is that certain of these men who have been dismissed—four, I think, are affected—have not fulfilled that pledge.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: If that is so, the hon. Gentleman has probably seen a copy of their dismissal. On their dismissal, it says, "You are dismissed in consequence of the coal strike." Therefore, if it was
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for some other reason, does not the hon. Gentleman feel that the Board ought to have that reason stated on the notice?
Mr. ROBERTSON: That is another point. The hon. Member admits that some works—engineering and electrical—that the company had carried on were being curtailed, and that therefore some men had to be dismissed. My hon. Friend's case is that they ought to have selected the junior men instead of men of older standing. I suppose, whenever men might come to be dismissed under those circumstances, they would formally be dismissed on the score of the coal strike, or on the score that employment is being curtailed. The question whether the company ought to have written on the notice that the discharge was for non-fulfilment of the pledge upon which they were received back is another point upon which I should not like to pronounce. I will just give the House, briefly, the company's case—that is to say, the assurance of the company, that those men instead of living on an amicable footing with the other employés frequently used opprobious language to them, such as calling them blacklegs, and so on, and in that way created a bad feeling amongst the staff. The company give that as a reason for selecting these men for dismissal. After that assurance of the company, we cannot very well carry investigations further. As this company's men were not covered by the settlement of last autumn, the Board of Trade have no ground for official interference. We have represented to the company the desirableness, in the interests of labour in general, of not creating any sense of ill-feeling such as ostensibly has arisen from these particular dismissals. Beyond making these representations the Board has really no status for action. I am really unable to give my hon. Friend any further satisfaction than that.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: May I inquire if the Board have this power? In the December settlement to which the Premier himself was a party, it was agreed by the Board of Trade—it is on the minutes of those proceedings—that any company that was not then under the Conciliation scheme, or even objected to come into the scheme, that the Board of Trade would use their influence, and if necessary legislative enactment, to bring them in. The point I want to put is this: we are prepared in this matter to save the situation to agree that the Board of Trade themselves shall appoint anybody to act as arbitrator, We

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are prepared to accept their verdict if the railway company is prepared to do the same. Let the Board of Trade itself judge and arbitrate as between us.
Mr. ROBERTSON: The Suggestion that there ought to have been an arbitrator seems a very fair one. I will lay it before the Board of Trade. As to whether the Board of Trade shall be accepted as arbitrator is another matter. My hon. Friend cannot, of course, expect me to do anything more than make that suggestion, which I shall very gladly do. A little earlier in the Debate, some hon. Members opposite raised a point in regard to trade organisation. I did not reply at the time, because I knew that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, had a point to raise, and as I was entitled to speak only once, I have reserved my remarks, although the hon. Members in question have left the House. Perhaps it is as well I should say a word or two in answer to the criticisms which were made. The appeal I think resolved itself into this: that the Government ought to carry further the trade organisation of the Empire by extending and developing the system of expert trade representatives in different parts of the Empire. Around that suggestion there were thrown out a number of others, though I think all involved questions of preference which you, Sir, ruled we were not entitled to discuss. I have therefore to ignore the greater part of the speeches made by hon. Members, even though they may be disappointed.
On the one point, what I have to say in a few words is that the existing organisation, the system of trade representatives, has worked very efficiently as regards the self-governing Dominions; that as regards India we are in actual communication with the Indian Government with regard to the possibility of the extension of the system there. In the meantime, the Director-General of Commercial Intelligence, Calcutta, acts as the correspondent for India of the Commercial and Intelligence Department of the Board of Trade. By establishing in India some such office as exists in the self-governing Dominions it is quite possible advantage might accrue to trade and commerce. With regard to the further suggestion that we ought to establish representatives with such staffs in the Crown Colonies, the Board of Trade has already replied that it does not see
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any advantage in that course. There already exists, I should say, in all the Crown Colonies and Protectorates officials appointed by the Governments of those Colonies to act as correspondents with the Board of Trade in these matters, and no doubt these are useful and efficient in their way. But when we are asked further to set up this special system of trade representatives in the Crown Colonies which exists in the self-governing Dominions, the answer of the Board of Trade is that what is wanted in these Crown Colonies is not so much the fresh organisation, but some species of organisation for the development of the special trade, which hon. Members opposite declare to be so necessary—that is, the economic resources of those Colonies and Protectorates.
That is not the sort of work that can be done by the kind of trade representatives I speak of. It is a different kind of work altogether. It certainly wants doing, and it may be the Mother-country should assist in the development of these resources, but it could not be usefully done in the way proposed. As a matter of fact, the trade that goes on between the Mother-country and the Crown Colonies is for the most part quite highly organised, and in connection with the investigations made by the Board of Trade we were assured by numbers of private traders that they have already had a system of intelligence much more complete than any which it is supposed the Government could set up. That is the case in the trade of the Mother-country with some of these Crown Colonies, and it is alike with the West Indies. Hon. Members are mistaken in supposing there is a great lack of system of intelligence in that particular direction. What is wanting, as I have said, is a system for the development of the resources of particular districts lately added to the Empire, and that is a matter to be considered on another footing than the suggestions made with regard to the Board of Trade and new representatives under the Board of Trade.
Mr. BOOTH: I wish to ask the hon. Member for Dumfries when we may expect to see the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury in his place; and can he give us any satisfactory assurance as to complete recovery to health?
Mr. GULLAND (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend is now completely recovered and in very good health, and he

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is looking forward with very great pleasure to being in his place when the House resumes.
Mr. HUDSON: My hon. Friend the Secretary to the Board of Trade said that the Central London Company was under no obligation to come within the scheme as Amended and set up in 1911. If they are not liable to come within the scheme I want the Board of Trade to consider the whole question, because it becomes a very serious matter indeed. The scheme of 1907 covered all railway companies as represented through the Railways Association. I am not sure whether it was in 1907 or 1908 that the general manager of this company signed an agreement with me that they would set up a board under the 1907 scheme. If the conciliation which was adopted on the recommendation of the Railway Commission of last year is to be of any value to the railway companies, there must be the necessary pressure put by the Board of Trade to institute those boards upon every line that does not institute a voluntary conciliation board of its own. If not, the whole scheme is gone and we shall have chaos in a very short time. The only way of producing satisfactory working for the next three years is to carry out that arrangement in the spirit and the letter. Are we to be told by the Board of Trade that simply because one or two companies, or a number of them, if you like, were not brought within the working of that scheme of 6th November, 1907, they are at liberty to do as they like now. If so, what was the use of the Commission of last year? No less than 90 per cent. of those men were out on strike in August last, and if it is not a question of settling differences on the application of the men for boards to be set up we ought to know clearly from the Board of Trade what the position is. I hope the hon. Member will bear in mind the fact that the companies entered into an agreement to come within the scheme of 1907. The fact that the Railways Association signed for the whole of the companies is sufficient to show to any company by its own voluntary action with the men they are bound to come within this particular scheme.
Whereupon, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, until Wednesday next.
Adjourned at Twenty-five minutes before Six o'clock.

PETITIONS PRESENTED DURING THE WEEK.
The following Petitions were presented during the week and ordered to lie upon the Table:—

MONDAY.
Public Offices (Sites) Bill—Petition of the Trustees of the National Club, against (praying to be heard by Counsel).
Taxation of Land Values for Local Purposes—Petition from Rotherham, for legislation.
Temperance (Scotland) Bill—Petition from Alloa, in favour.

TUESDAY.
Parliamentary Franchise—Two Petitions from Pwllheli, for extension to women.
Taxation of Land Values for Local Purposes—Petitions for legislation, from Hastings and Tottenham.
Trade Disputes (Pickets)—Petition from Hastings, for alteration of Law.

WEDNESDAY.
Bankruptcy—Petition from Walsall, for legislation.